Bradbury and the Great Saving

Part I began as a tweet storm responding to some folly.  It is lightly edited.

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Part I

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The folly as prompt:

But avoid, if at all possible, reading Fahrenheit 451. . .  That's [high school] about the right stage of emotional maturity for enjoying it. Reread it recently and was mortified.  

My reply:

There should be books for different phases on one's life.  If you're going to read a book out of phase, then you have to adjust how you read, and provide that caveat -- not tell people to avoid reading if at all possible.

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the best books to give someone young at heart to show them that there are things worth saving, and that a society unaware of this can run amok.

Though the long speeches are clunky (ironic in a book with so much other prose experimentation) they provide tools to figure out what quality is.

Don't just look in books, it says, look in older art (it cites old phonographs and motion pictures, but the context of a society that has wiped up other art), old friends, in Nature, and yourself. . .

It is a book written by a man who grew up in small-town America, who would never own a car, writing at the beginning of the television -- when he wrote the short stories the book would grow out of, around 10% of US families had TV, by the time of the book, 65% did.

He looked at these rapid changes with his own eyes, not with the symbols and slogans of Progress, and saw that car culture and TV were things to be wary of, if not feared --things that would get in the way of the Great Saving which is each generation's duty.

These are just fine messages for the young, young at heart, or someone able to read in the romantic mode, a mode which requires a suspension of jaded filters (and few have more jaded filters than me. . . I can only suspend them, myself, when I read authors who gush).

For the older set -- or young people able to read in an older mode -- there is still Ivan Illich (the Catholic social critic, though the Tolstoy book of similar name will do some good), Postman, Gatto, Chesterton, Christopher Alexander, James C Scott.

But let the young have their books.

(And don't you dare make a comment about the length of this least you expose yourself completely as the philistine I already suspect you are).

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Part II

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Conservatism isn't really an ideology, it is an emotional stance.  This in itself is not a criticism -- it is perfectly fine to have some attachments to what is good and beautiful.  First, however, we should strive to follow Aristotle's idea of being angry in proportion to the offence.  Instead, American conservatives are well trained to seek out their hit of Two Minutes Hate daily, at least.  Though they've now been joined by Democrats on Twitter, that doesn't make either side one bit less unhinged.  Secondly, we should first figure out what is good and beautiful.  In other words, the principled conservative needs to carefully figure out what he or she is trying to conserve.

Bradbury was trying to conserve the small town Midwest of the 1920s.  Features of what he was aiming for included extended families who frequently see each other, people of different economic means living in close proximity, walkablity in general, and wild areas to explore.

Contrast this with those who wanted to Make America Great Again in 2016.  They were by and large trying to recreate the 1950s.  But it was the 1950s that Bradbury was writing against!  The 50s was the destruction of community values to feed economic growth.

I want to emphasis this fact: you can't conserve disruption.  You cannot do so because eventually all sources of value are totally pilfered.  This leaves the right wing fantasy  --  enacting a restoration to times of value destruction -- a completely absurd project.  There are many men who want to be the head of a nuclear family, but not the key wage earner for an extended family, where grandparents move in for old age, sharing opinions on child-rearing and other issues.  Those men wouldn't want to be co-equal owners of a family enterprise with brothers and cousins.  They wouldn't want to have their social life organized around visiting that family, sitting on porches or playing dominoes; instead, they would rather watch their shows and purchase status symbols to show off to people they only superficial know.

There is a nostalgia for the heady days when there were decades of additional exploitation and using up ahead, when everything unhurried and pure could still be thrown into the fires that feed GDP.  These people don't miss the old ways; if they did, they could start practicing them.  They miss what they could get from burning those things up for profits.

I think it is appropriate to give Bradbury the last word, from his masterpiece:

Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people’s heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silverfish, rust and dry-rot, and men with matches. 

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Another similar conversation on similar themes was held here.

Round Up #30

Aphorisms and Shorts
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We are all historians. We are all crafters of space. We are all psychologists.  We are all nutritionist.  We are all currency traders.  Doing any or all of these 100% according to the defaults around us is still a decision, often a very bad one.

I live in a red state (one with no blue counties, in fact), so I have a vested interest in team red doing okay, but I don't know how much an alpha male with guns is supposed to be worth against drones and tanks, but, sure, let's make a fetish out of small arms.

DeepMind-style AI will have a much easier time mastering clickbait headlines and tweets than long-form essays, to any level of human intelligence.  Perhaps it already has, and we're just not going to be told.

(Related). There won't ever be a need for AI to master the long-form essay.  The blood of the immature can always be stirred short-form (ergo keep it all short form AND keep them all immature!) and the retirement-center bots will be able to make do with small-talk.

Democracy as an institution is in really bad shape.  I am one of the few people who can acknowledge this without first taking glee in it, whereas those who can't are in denial.  Many of those who think they believe in Democracy really only believe in protecting their own feelings, and so cannot acknowledge the situation -- which only further weakens Democracy.

Having a mind blown and a mind stretched are very similar things.  A lot of it has to do with the amount of flexibility already present in the mind before going under the load.

People care so little about the truth, that any time anyone but those of the most demonstrably heroic bents says they are pursuing it, you should immediately start thinking what their real motivation is.

Great Hesse quote:  "I want to point out constantly and with infectious enthusiasm how blissfully varied the world is, and with equal constancy remind people that this variety is based on an underlying unity."


Link and Research
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Remember: not politics, but meta-politics.  Fascinating poll on self-censorship in U.S. and other issues meta-political.

50% of strong liberals support firing Trump donors, 36% of strong conservatives support firing Biden donors; 32% are worried about missing out on job opportunities because of their political opinions.

This discussion on atomic chess -- which I thought would have been solved but isn't -- also has this link showing anti-chess (aka losing chess) is solved for an opening (e3).  It would not have been intuitive to me that anti-chess was solved, but makes sense in light of the number of forced moves.

My current weird guy mathy obsession is multiples of threes that aren't multiples of nines.  So, when I set the timer on the microwave, I make sure to make it one of those numbers -- 21, 42, 33, the like.  42 being a particular favorite.  Anyway, this video shows why multiples of nine are still quite worthy.

Now that I know there is an ethnic group called the Karens, I can't unsee that when I see a Karen meme.

This one is more of a note to self -- you do realize this blog is more my notebook than anything else, yes? -- When Hesse was learning reading to study style, his favorite author was Vladimir Korolenko.  Here is what is available on Project Gutenberg.

Here is a piece that really takes to task the current belief that destruction - carbon = sustainability.

I found some more good doomer writing.  This time buried in a comment section.  I'm glad other people are doing it so I don't have to. Time to cut back on the political internet again.

Better doom than me: an empire of one.

The Future is So Bright. . .

Response to this piece.  The title I gave the comment was The Future is So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades, see.

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I think your reasoning is sound. Just be thankful if you get out before the brain-scans become common practice.  

At first, it will become the greatest thing in wage theft.  People will only be paid something like 20% of the time they are at work.  Quickly, this will train those who remain and can hack it to stare at the screen and do a kind of frenetic work, even though it will in no way be the most effective (leave that kind of work-flow management to the philosopher-kings of middle management. . . how long before they are all micro-dosing LSD to help with their lateral thinking? . . Oh, brave new world, with such people in it). The real thing that can be scanned for is that the people at the front-lines are FOCUSED and it is something they DO NOT ENJOY.   

And who am I kidding? Most of this will be automated away within the decade.  

Super Frugal Chronicles Update

I have not ended up working since using my f*** you money to leave my last bad situation.  I had signed up to be a substitute teacher -- which out of bureaucratic language churn (grounded in undermining regular employees) is they now call a "guest teacher" -- however, I kept procrastinating going in to any jobs because I was having a good time.  Ditto for starting as a tutor -- I didn't even follow up on my one lead.  I think there is a good chance I would have gotten itchy enough to work that reported idea as a sub after spring break, but then the CoronaDoom struck.

But no housing payment beyond property taxes and no transportation costs helps to make me very resilient.  My entertainment budget is $0, and now I cook any meal I am responsible for.  It may be a bit of drag, but I've gotten used to it.  Time and again I tell my wife  "I have taken a vow of poverty."  I get away with this by saying it in a pleasant tone, showing good cheer on my face, and immediately providing some options for what I can cook.

My free entertainments are reading (thanks libraries!), writing, and occasionally chess.  I play at lichess, mostly solving tactical puzzles -- they serve as a great replacement activity for searching news feeds.  Even if news was more interesting than chess (it isn't), I like to keep my mind free of the bad stuff as part of my strategy to be prepared for perfect moments.  Also, reading lichess's About page is one the most inspirational things a human can do, in my estimation.  When I return to work again, I plan to make donations to lichess.  It is absolutely the type of organization I believe in.  After an initial burst in working on chess puzzles, I must say that my time spent reading dwarfs chess.

I must admit that I *gasp* eventually ended up applying for jobs, regular old "I will do what you say for money and hopefully benefits" jobs.  But as luck -- whether good or bad I can't fully say -- would have it, nothing has come of it.  

Money Quotes from What Are People For?

Wendell Berry's classic What are People For? is a great read for understanding the mess America made of itself.  I don't have much to add to it, so I merely present some quotes.

I) Food and freedom

"The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical -- in short, a victim" (83).

"We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else.  But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else.  The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition" (84).

II) An education in greed.

". . . education cannot be improved, as the proponents too often imply, by bigger salaries alone.  There must also be love of learning and of the cultural tradition and of excellence -- and this love cannot exist, because it makes no sense, apart from the love of a place and a community.  Without this love, education is only the importation into a local community of centrally prescribed 'career preparation' designed to facilitate the export of young careerists" (93).

"We persist in land-use methods that reduce the potentially infinite power of soil fertility to a finite quantity, which we then proceed to waste as if it were in infinite quantity.  We have an economy that depends not on the quality and quantity of necessary goods and services but on the moods of a few stockbrokers.  We believe that democratic freedom can be preserved by people ignorant of the history of democracy and indifferent to the responsibilities of freedom" (113).

III) What realism?

"Do I want to be realistic according to the conventions of the industrial economy and the military state, or according to what I know of reality?  To me, an economy that sees the life of a community or a place as expendable, and reckons its value only in terms of money, is not acceptable because it is [not] realistic" (66)

Super-Frugal Chronicles #3

This is a backup of a post I wrote a week after I used f*** you money.  In some ways the piece is the product of an absurd euphoria, so much so that it played out more as a fiction, the worst of it being the bulleted list.  I plan on having an update piece next week.  (But don't trust me; many of my plans for myself have been know to fail).

part 1 and 2 of the series.

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This is an update on the post I wrote last week. While I thought at least a handful of people might dig it, I was shocked how popular it turned out to be.

My resignation letter was politely written, and I had a very nice conversation with my boss. I'm sorry if this disappoints anyone that thought I was going to be crude about it while sticking it to the man. The phrase f*** you money is certainly evocative, but the only important aspect of it is leverage. Frugality and fortune have joined to make it so I can call my own shots and exert a great deal of control over my environment. The situation I was working under was getting worse and worse as the organization was operating under a culture of fear. It takes a great philosopher to not allow the crap to roll downhill, and my boss was no great philosopher. No matter. I'm a big believer in the saying "the best revenge is living well." I did what I could to make the transition work, with a renewed burst of energetic productivity and many kind words were exchanged between families I worked with and myself. I don't regret that I took the job. Instead, I am glad I have found a good exit point.

An odd, unplanned opportunity came my way the very first day of me moving to so-called barista FIRE (I'm not in love with the term, but when in Rome. . . ). I was called about working as a "studio teacher" on the set of a motion picture. Apparently, if you have childhood actors, you need a certified teacher on set.  After agreeing, I woke up at 3AM so I could drink coffee and shake off grogginess and drove down 45 minutes to a rural location that truly looked like an archetypal horror film setting.  For what it's worth the movie is called What Josiah Saw, and it has an actor who was in Arrested Development and the guy who played John Conner in Terminator 3 and Yellow Bastard in Sin City. I had no interaction with either of these people, just the kids who are used for flashbacks. I'm not sure if I am going to get a credit in the movie or in IMDB -- but if I do, I have already played a ton of 7-Degrees of Kevin Bacon using actors in the movie to get myself to other celebrities.

In my downtime that first day, I read Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. I think this quote from the book applies:

"Peculiar travel suggestion are dancing lessons from God" pg 63.

I feel like I am on a wacky Todd Sanchez adventure. If I was working my job still, I wouldn't be able to do this, and I wouldn't get any of these stories. Also somewhat importantly, I now won't appear to be a bum during holiday meals.

But this is the only time I plan on being a studio teacher. One time seems to be a minimum effective dose. I am basically "on call" for this week and the next two. Each time I do it forces me to borrow the car and get up wicked early. I don't like screwing around with my sleep, and I find it to be nice to avoid doing bullshit on consecutive days.

I don't know when my next update here will be, maybe in a year, maybe never (I do plan on publishing on my own site on Wednesdays.  I guess I might as well start this Wednesday . . . tomorrow). Here are my other projects for the near term (some of which I might be paid for):

• Go through a friend of my wife to do seasonal tax preparation work.
• Finish a "cutting" of Macbeth so that a friend of mine can produce it as a high school play.
• Record lectures where I show how I can teach (say AP Euro, or things on literature). The goal is to eventually have some tutoring sessions be on ideas, rhetoric, or Great Books curriculum, not just the test-prep arms race
• Read stacks of children's books so that I catch my wife on Goodreads, and beat her yearly total just this once. (Right now she's up 149 to 121).
• Do my homework, receive my mentorship, and then start my tutoring business -- I'm willing to do test prep, while supplies (open slots on days I want to work) last.
• practice sharpening blades and tools, such as wood planes. It's the next "self-reliance" skill I want to acquire.

In my worst case scenario, where none of the financial ventures work and I never tutor a kid beyond the one I already have lined up, I will be able to pay my bills simply through being a substitute teacher 3 days a week when there is school, and then drawing down 1.7% of my portfolio to cover breaks and summer.

I will probably work at least part time as long as work is a thing I can do. I'm pretty sure that the era of automation will through us out of work and/or kill all us but billionaires. But, hey, I'm a doomer.

I have a lot of walks to go on and a lot of days to enjoy. I have the minimum effective dose of work figured out, and plans to increase my means within the next few years. If that fails, and I need the money, I teach in a public school again.

I have a lot of things to create and not a lot of time to waste.

But a walk during a perfect hour is never a waste. The real shame is how many perfect hours happen to fall during people's working hours.

A Body Electric, Grounded

I went on a walk.

I realized the unhappiness of the sedentary screen life creeps up on you.  Likewise, the joy of walking and noticing comes upon you equally subtly.

I don't know how I'd begin to convince someone to shun the one, prefer the other.  It's all a case of availability bias, the philosopher's toothache, even Buridan's donkey.  I go through long stretches of not knowing how to convince myself.















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Bibliography
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I Sing the Body Electric.  Whitman.

Much Ado About Nothing.  Act V, Scene 1, lines 34-40.  Search "toothache."

O Me, O Life.  Whitman.