Expanded from a post I did at r/weirdcollapse :
==
I think books (ie long-form texts) are still the best way to learn. A hundred pages is often the dose needed to give the author space to set up their definitions and appropriate contexts, at least in a way that will stick.
An implication of that would be that the most productive people to read short-form are those that you can groove with.
Though this is counter to prevailing narratives about the internet and the need for a "world village" and to avoid "echo chambers," I think it is right. Online forums, especially those that limit your character count like Twitter, are probably the worst places to explore ideas you disagree with. (Also, at some point, it degrades into a kind of bullying). Books are the more productive place to explore. I know no one "has the time" to read books, but I'm used to acknowledging there are problems in our society that aren't going to get fixed.
I've read a lot of books by political conservatives and another group I don't share many impulses with -- optimists. In that format I find much to appreciate, and I can learn from them. Again, the lack of immediate hectoring and humiliation for people seeking internet points helps, but so does the clarification of the author's terminology and, frankly, the trust that develops through a book. People do not realize that ethos is a real component of persuasion, and anti-social media preys upon that ignorance.
So many people are trying to get short-form writing to do things it just cannot do. Why? It's easier. But who said truth was easy?
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Round Up #25
Aphorisms and Shorts
The dao is real. In fact, the dao is realer than we are, and that's our real problem in explaining it.
Why less anti-social media? Simple: more living, less arguing.
". . . in narcissism believing something is preferable to doing something because the former is about you and the latter is about everyone else." from The Last Psychiatrist
"When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe." In Candide. (1759)
Complaining is one thing, if it is done under a set of fairly consistent principles. (Keep in mind also that people don't have to have a stated opinion on everything). Instead, I call the way most people complain mowbs (magic one-way bats). Well, bats can crack both ways.
People with problematic views at least (also sometimes at most) show they care about the issue. One of the best ways to avoid having a currently problematic view is not care about anything and therefore agree with everything in your social circle. Too bad the person who agrees with the current group-think will one day have problematic views on record when the consensus changes.
Detroit is already here; it's just not evenly distributed yet.
If your nation's pandemic plan requires everyone to be galaxy-brain level economic mentants, AND simultaneously altruistic, then you have a bad pandemic plan.
Links and Research
As I use the radio functionality on my dumb phone more and more, I keep having fun finds like the Retro Cocktail Hour.
Here in 2020, I have been making a study of weirdos. One such term I used was "eccentrics." This chapter from the autobiography of Edith Sitwell contains some comments bound to amuse, if not instruct. The quote most pulled from the chapter and spread on the internet:
Canada's Technocracy, Inc from the 30s and 40s is fascinating (see also Wikipedia). I learned about it because I read Elon Musk's grandfather on his mother's side was involved in it.
And another case of where I don't need to do doomer writing because the work has already been done. I present this review of Four Futures.
Speaking of doom, here is a twitter thread of cognitive mistakes people make around nature, because they translate it into a relationship. Yet another set of reasons you can't get people to coordinate to do the right thing.
While we have computation, though, might as well have mandelbulbs. . . Like the Mandelbrot set brought into 3D.
I'm really glad I started the sub-Reddit r/weirdcollapse. It has brought some websites my way such as Rustic Outcast and Zero Input Agriculture.
A friendly reminder: the founding fathers did not want you to vote.
The dao is real. In fact, the dao is realer than we are, and that's our real problem in explaining it.
Why less anti-social media? Simple: more living, less arguing.
". . . in narcissism believing something is preferable to doing something because the former is about you and the latter is about everyone else." from The Last Psychiatrist
"When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe." In Candide. (1759)
Complaining is one thing, if it is done under a set of fairly consistent principles. (Keep in mind also that people don't have to have a stated opinion on everything). Instead, I call the way most people complain mowbs (magic one-way bats). Well, bats can crack both ways.
People with problematic views at least (also sometimes at most) show they care about the issue. One of the best ways to avoid having a currently problematic view is not care about anything and therefore agree with everything in your social circle. Too bad the person who agrees with the current group-think will one day have problematic views on record when the consensus changes.
Detroit is already here; it's just not evenly distributed yet.
If your nation's pandemic plan requires everyone to be galaxy-brain level economic mentants, AND simultaneously altruistic, then you have a bad pandemic plan.
Links and Research
As I use the radio functionality on my dumb phone more and more, I keep having fun finds like the Retro Cocktail Hour.
Here in 2020, I have been making a study of weirdos. One such term I used was "eccentrics." This chapter from the autobiography of Edith Sitwell contains some comments bound to amuse, if not instruct. The quote most pulled from the chapter and spread on the internet:
Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.You may also be interested in the life of Stanley Clifford Weyman (New Yorker piece)
Canada's Technocracy, Inc from the 30s and 40s is fascinating (see also Wikipedia). I learned about it because I read Elon Musk's grandfather on his mother's side was involved in it.
And another case of where I don't need to do doomer writing because the work has already been done. I present this review of Four Futures.
Speaking of doom, here is a twitter thread of cognitive mistakes people make around nature, because they translate it into a relationship. Yet another set of reasons you can't get people to coordinate to do the right thing.
While we have computation, though, might as well have mandelbulbs. . . Like the Mandelbrot set brought into 3D.
I'm really glad I started the sub-Reddit r/weirdcollapse. It has brought some websites my way such as Rustic Outcast and Zero Input Agriculture.
A friendly reminder: the founding fathers did not want you to vote.
How Low Can We Go?
It is understandable if you thought from the title that this piece might be about our stock market tumble, but after a brief paragraph it won't be.
In a lot of ways, the top and bottom of a market is the wrong question to ask an individual investor. My real advice [1 -- Disclaimer, below] is first be super frugal so you have money to invest. Then look into a portfolio strategy that uses several asset classes, such as the Permanent Portfolio (see also) or the All Weather Portfolio (see also). You could use the portfolio as a framework and if you think you have a smart idea, you could work that bet in as a way of tilting a portion your portfolio instead of going all-in.
==
Below is the edited version of a response I made in a thread on Reddit.
In a lot of ways, the top and bottom of a market is the wrong question to ask an individual investor. My real advice [1 -- Disclaimer, below] is first be super frugal so you have money to invest. Then look into a portfolio strategy that uses several asset classes, such as the Permanent Portfolio (see also) or the All Weather Portfolio (see also). You could use the portfolio as a framework and if you think you have a smart idea, you could work that bet in as a way of tilting a portion your portfolio instead of going all-in.
==
Below is the edited version of a response I made in a thread on Reddit.
==
I wish I could find someone who has done some systematic, high quality work on what some scenarios for down-ward limits would be because the idea fascinates me. However, if no one else has done the work, I don't think I'm the right person to. Here's some thoughts, though:
One source of limits which we cannot not go lower than unless we just royally mess up is all the bush-craft projects people already do as a hobby. I am thinking of the Primitive Technology YouTube channel. He has great skills, sure, but he's drawing on knowledge of mechanics, aerodynamics, hydraulics, ergonomic design, etc. And it's not like he needs several semesters of college classes in each of these fields. The broad outline of what is possible is the fruit of centuries of people creating and tinkering within civilization, and the outline is often enough to work with. People will have wheels. I hope they'll keep germ theory to know to bathe, hand wash, sterilize [2]. Rocket stoves are kind of hippy stuff, but by golly they really do converse wood. Energy-descent humans will have drills, pumps, wheelbarrows, etc.
Another way to pose the question is what time could serve as a good "comp" for how far down we could go? The 1750s? 1650s? 1340s? I could see electricity for the super-wealthy. I don't see a reason why some group can't keep calculus. In that case, I think there can be precision engineering. . . for those able to pay for time and resources.
===
[1] This writing is for entertainment purposes only. The information in this blog/forum is distributed on an "As Is'' basis, without warranty of any kind. The site owner may have a financial relationship with some of the companies or products mentioned on the blog. Advertisement does not imply endorsement. Information might not be completely comprehensive and some readers may want to consult additional sources. This blog/forum does not contain professional advice. For professional advice, consult a professional. By reading this blog/forum you acknowledge full responsibility for your actions with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly in connection with the blog/forum. Last edited March 9th, 2020.
[1] This writing is for entertainment purposes only. The information in this blog/forum is distributed on an "As Is'' basis, without warranty of any kind. The site owner may have a financial relationship with some of the companies or products mentioned on the blog. Advertisement does not imply endorsement. Information might not be completely comprehensive and some readers may want to consult additional sources. This blog/forum does not contain professional advice. For professional advice, consult a professional. By reading this blog/forum you acknowledge full responsibility for your actions with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly in connection with the blog/forum. Last edited March 9th, 2020.
[2] I will say this, though, traditional cheese makers (at least the ones I read about coming from England) knew to sterilize instruments, changing out boiling water again and again in the process. They just didn't know that's what they were doing. Germ theory shows the value of all correct theories: being able to extend an idea into multiple domains.
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Our Politics Won't Have Peace Until . . .
I responded to this Degringolade post with the following:
==
Maybe free college or UBI can't be sustained, but something still has to give on healthcare, wealth destruction or not. I am starting to gel a thesis that both left and right might be coming together to figure out that bureaucrats and paper work can get the ax. The managerial class should be shitting their pants right now, and many of them are.
I wrote this aphorism recently:
Millenials have been denied the basic security of home and hearth it takes to pivot into the conservatism that comes so naturally to the middle-aged. And they aren't being subtle about their willingness to upset apple carts over it.
Point taken about stair-step collapse in the JMG model, but we won't be hitting any equilibrium point until we stop eating our young, and young families.
==
Maybe free college or UBI can't be sustained, but something still has to give on healthcare, wealth destruction or not. I am starting to gel a thesis that both left and right might be coming together to figure out that bureaucrats and paper work can get the ax. The managerial class should be shitting their pants right now, and many of them are.
I wrote this aphorism recently:
The real cruelty of America to its young is not that it is denying them the American Dream. It is denying them the Human Dream of starting a family that they can keep healthy and free from deprivation.The thing is, it's one thing to be personally screwed on healthcare by the opacity, price gouging, and red-tape. It's possible for me, for example, to be a philosopher about dying from something my society could have treated, but didn't (you know, our healthcare is still better than it was for the richest person 100 years ago or so) but when I think of a child [especially a child of mine] trapped in that . . . killed by something that was easily within the grasp of a society better run than ours . . .
Millenials have been denied the basic security of home and hearth it takes to pivot into the conservatism that comes so naturally to the middle-aged. And they aren't being subtle about their willingness to upset apple carts over it.
Point taken about stair-step collapse in the JMG model, but we won't be hitting any equilibrium point until we stop eating our young, and young families.
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
It Begins (Again) With a Salad
The salad I had yesterday:
chickweed, mint, arugula, olive oil, garlic salt, pepper, a smattering of feta cheese.
All of the greens came up this year on their own, and I can probably get a salad a day from them for at least a month, maybe two or three before I need to come up with other sources of greens. I don't want to over-romanticize this, but I also don't want to leave it so marginalized that it isn't even acknowledged -- my grounds provide me a salad a day if I am willing to go get it.
The arugula has self-seeded from a planting I made years ago. (It was at least three, but maybe four or five). I find it interesting to watch each year's self-seeding move a few feet away from the year before, walking across the lawn in time. The mint originally came from my father-in-law. He had some that escaped containment and sprawled out into a portion of his lawn. That sounded like my kind of plant -- and still does. I find the mint to be mild enough to be the base of a salad, but that is a fairly recent revelation. Lastly, chickweed, as the name says, is a weed that comes in on its own. For some reason, dandelions don't come in well on our grounds, but I count myself fortunate that chickweed does. (I might go for a walk today to see if I can find dandelions in a park or greenbelt, but for now I have a cat curled up on me -- one that rarely does, at that).
And just like that, I can be re-connected after almost a year away. I had my reasons, such as finally letting grief run its course. I needed to take away the responsibilities of a garden, and that got me out of the habit of checking the grounds. In that time, I found great joy in creating, and I hope I can live a life that allows for creation, connection to nature, as well as any thing I need for happiness. But it is nice to start in a place, ie the salad, where the real bounty comes independent of my efforts.
As long as it isn't sprayed down with herbicide, the grounds can provide. I once read in a book by a botanist that those of us with weedy lawns are a silent majority. I hope that is the case. But if it isn't, the larger of a group we are, the better. One sign I keep looking out for that the ideologies and systems that work to rob us of our humanity have run their course is when I stop seeing poisons sprayed on lawns, attempting to create totalitarian mono-cultures. The critique goes deeper than rednecks and suburban conservatives. I agree with Mark Boyle when he questions the formulation that
But even if we come of crises unscathed, perhaps using something like vertical farming and smart logistics, I will like feeling a sense of connection as well as a sense of place when I experience what the earth can produce.
==
You may also like this article from Tree Hugger on lawn weeds you can eat.
chickweed, mint, arugula, olive oil, garlic salt, pepper, a smattering of feta cheese.
All of the greens came up this year on their own, and I can probably get a salad a day from them for at least a month, maybe two or three before I need to come up with other sources of greens. I don't want to over-romanticize this, but I also don't want to leave it so marginalized that it isn't even acknowledged -- my grounds provide me a salad a day if I am willing to go get it.
The arugula has self-seeded from a planting I made years ago. (It was at least three, but maybe four or five). I find it interesting to watch each year's self-seeding move a few feet away from the year before, walking across the lawn in time. The mint originally came from my father-in-law. He had some that escaped containment and sprawled out into a portion of his lawn. That sounded like my kind of plant -- and still does. I find the mint to be mild enough to be the base of a salad, but that is a fairly recent revelation. Lastly, chickweed, as the name says, is a weed that comes in on its own. For some reason, dandelions don't come in well on our grounds, but I count myself fortunate that chickweed does. (I might go for a walk today to see if I can find dandelions in a park or greenbelt, but for now I have a cat curled up on me -- one that rarely does, at that).
And just like that, I can be re-connected after almost a year away. I had my reasons, such as finally letting grief run its course. I needed to take away the responsibilities of a garden, and that got me out of the habit of checking the grounds. In that time, I found great joy in creating, and I hope I can live a life that allows for creation, connection to nature, as well as any thing I need for happiness. But it is nice to start in a place, ie the salad, where the real bounty comes independent of my efforts.
As long as it isn't sprayed down with herbicide, the grounds can provide. I once read in a book by a botanist that those of us with weedy lawns are a silent majority. I hope that is the case. But if it isn't, the larger of a group we are, the better. One sign I keep looking out for that the ideologies and systems that work to rob us of our humanity have run their course is when I stop seeing poisons sprayed on lawns, attempting to create totalitarian mono-cultures. The critique goes deeper than rednecks and suburban conservatives. I agree with Mark Boyle when he questions the formulation that
destruction - carbon = sustainability.I see this idea implicit in imaginings, rhetoric, and most importantly, life-style choices of many people who think their hearts absolutely bleed while they beat on the left.
But even if we come of crises unscathed, perhaps using something like vertical farming and smart logistics, I will like feeling a sense of connection as well as a sense of place when I experience what the earth can produce.
==
You may also like this article from Tree Hugger on lawn weeds you can eat.
Back to Manic Intellect
How's my year going? Good. I tip my hat and thank you for asking. [1]
I got to the 23rd day of the year without finishing a single book. This happened in part because I decided to slow down my reading to focus on writing. Also, I started tightening up my Algebra II to prepare for my math certification test. I think I was only past page 80 of the only book I was reading. But around the 20th I realized I was starving for information. I can't describe the feeling much differently than that. It was the kind of tingling you get when something is lacking. So I ended up at the library. First I wrote like a good boy, and located the quotes from the Peter Korn book I used in my essay Wise Words. Then I walked around the magical land of print access, eventually seeing The Lives of the Surrealists.
Oh hell yes. I felt a back tingling of I-want-information-but-grounded-in-humanity-(particularly-those-who-want-to-explore-life-and-its-possibilities) signaled before any conscious narrative was formed. My hand held the book still before the narrative's arrival.
Hypothesis: information lust, particularly information as adventure, is so deeply ingrained in this "me" you speak of that it is habit. It is muscle memory. It is very close to the metal indeed. Time distorted around a new interest, more pages read in a day than the rest of the month combined. Read a bit to go to sleep, and read a bit when waking up.
Perhaps I overdid the binge or (perhaps and) [2] I was making up for sleep debt, but I was left with a really crappy zombie day. A multi-hour nap in the middle of day which was in the middle of REM cycle was broken by Happy (we didn't name him) the sad cat expressing his loneliness and/or existential dread by repeatedly crying out in a room away from both me and the other cats. Also, it was cold and rainy. So I had a no-account day and I felt guilty about how little I had done. `
The next day I went off to a coffee house to get back to working on math. A former co-worker of mine, now retired, came in and we began a "small world" conversation built on the lattice-work of coincidence. I had previously noticed that his wife and sister-in-law were the artists featured on the wall display, so I could give my regards there. His daughter works at the school my "teaching baby" (student of mine who became a teacher) taught at. And he had a photo of himself and Elizabeth Warren recently taken at a local restaurant on main street. While she was a great celebrity of the hour with the Iowa caucuses coming right up, it probably wasn't that odd that she would be seen in Norman, Oklahoma. For one, she went to high school in Oklahoma City. It very easy to imagine her having friends in the region. Also, Norman is a common enough fundraising stop for Democrats.
Two nights before, I guess partially buzzing from the surrealism book, but also thinking about On the Road, I had given thought to going to Iowa and spending a few days on the ground there. It is anti-democratic and ridiculous that one state has so much leverage, but the fact remains that they do, and going there would have put me in the scene. The planning never got much past the impulse phase. However, I did look at the prices of flying in and renting a car.
After my acquaintance left, I switched locations to the new central library. Just as I was writing the first draft of the paragraph above a group of VIPs was being shown around the library. The congressman for our district, Tom Cole, stood not ten feet away from this locus of perception (me).
Before that, but after my conversation with the old acquaintance, I had been buzzing on caffeine, math, and print access, and grabbed two more books: The Grapes of Math and The Joy of Mathematics with the intent of tearing through them. I had positioned myself at the large wooden tables, simply wanting to write about the feeling of elation, I guess you could say I try to be a documentor (or philosopher) of feeling alive. But this is what you get when I am in a manic state. And in that state I noted: "thank god I have some stuff to read or I'd be insufferable to my wife when she gets home."
===
[1] I wanted to avoid simply saying "Thanks for asking," because that wording has become to easy to parse as sarcasm, along with any "Thanks for ___" or "Thanks ____." We really do have a problem with gratitude in our culture. Thanks, hipsters, and each of the assorted irony-mongers repackaged for each cohort of consumers who want to believe they are different than the ones before. Assholes.
[2] "and/or" has become fossilized and/or leads with and, so it is too often parsed as simply "and."
I got to the 23rd day of the year without finishing a single book. This happened in part because I decided to slow down my reading to focus on writing. Also, I started tightening up my Algebra II to prepare for my math certification test. I think I was only past page 80 of the only book I was reading. But around the 20th I realized I was starving for information. I can't describe the feeling much differently than that. It was the kind of tingling you get when something is lacking. So I ended up at the library. First I wrote like a good boy, and located the quotes from the Peter Korn book I used in my essay Wise Words. Then I walked around the magical land of print access, eventually seeing The Lives of the Surrealists.
Oh hell yes. I felt a back tingling of I-want-information-but-grounded-in-humanity-(particularly-those-who-want-to-explore-life-and-its-possibilities) signaled before any conscious narrative was formed. My hand held the book still before the narrative's arrival.
Hypothesis: information lust, particularly information as adventure, is so deeply ingrained in this "me" you speak of that it is habit. It is muscle memory. It is very close to the metal indeed. Time distorted around a new interest, more pages read in a day than the rest of the month combined. Read a bit to go to sleep, and read a bit when waking up.
Perhaps I overdid the binge or (perhaps and) [2] I was making up for sleep debt, but I was left with a really crappy zombie day. A multi-hour nap in the middle of day which was in the middle of REM cycle was broken by Happy (we didn't name him) the sad cat expressing his loneliness and/or existential dread by repeatedly crying out in a room away from both me and the other cats. Also, it was cold and rainy. So I had a no-account day and I felt guilty about how little I had done. `
The next day I went off to a coffee house to get back to working on math. A former co-worker of mine, now retired, came in and we began a "small world" conversation built on the lattice-work of coincidence. I had previously noticed that his wife and sister-in-law were the artists featured on the wall display, so I could give my regards there. His daughter works at the school my "teaching baby" (student of mine who became a teacher) taught at. And he had a photo of himself and Elizabeth Warren recently taken at a local restaurant on main street. While she was a great celebrity of the hour with the Iowa caucuses coming right up, it probably wasn't that odd that she would be seen in Norman, Oklahoma. For one, she went to high school in Oklahoma City. It very easy to imagine her having friends in the region. Also, Norman is a common enough fundraising stop for Democrats.
Two nights before, I guess partially buzzing from the surrealism book, but also thinking about On the Road, I had given thought to going to Iowa and spending a few days on the ground there. It is anti-democratic and ridiculous that one state has so much leverage, but the fact remains that they do, and going there would have put me in the scene. The planning never got much past the impulse phase. However, I did look at the prices of flying in and renting a car.
After my acquaintance left, I switched locations to the new central library. Just as I was writing the first draft of the paragraph above a group of VIPs was being shown around the library. The congressman for our district, Tom Cole, stood not ten feet away from this locus of perception (me).
Before that, but after my conversation with the old acquaintance, I had been buzzing on caffeine, math, and print access, and grabbed two more books: The Grapes of Math and The Joy of Mathematics with the intent of tearing through them. I had positioned myself at the large wooden tables, simply wanting to write about the feeling of elation, I guess you could say I try to be a documentor (or philosopher) of feeling alive. But this is what you get when I am in a manic state. And in that state I noted: "thank god I have some stuff to read or I'd be insufferable to my wife when she gets home."
===
[1] I wanted to avoid simply saying "Thanks for asking," because that wording has become to easy to parse as sarcasm, along with any "Thanks for ___" or "Thanks ____." We really do have a problem with gratitude in our culture. Thanks, hipsters, and each of the assorted irony-mongers repackaged for each cohort of consumers who want to believe they are different than the ones before. Assholes.
[2] "and/or" has become fossilized and/or leads with and, so it is too often parsed as simply "and."
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Round Up #24
Aphorisms/Shorts
The real cruelty of America to its young is not that is denying them the American Dream. It is denying them the Human Dream of starting a family that they can keep healthy and free from deprivation. This is unsustainable. If it is the first unsustainable thing to pop, then that will be for the good. If it is toward the last, there will be no American society.
My advocacy of frugality is based on quality and personal freedom, not signaling. And the help to the environment is a bonus.
"Live and love sincerely and vividly. Abstractions don't precede embodiment, they follow it." Nathan Spears
I know modernity's shtick is efficiency. But twitter does not efficiently give you information; rather, it efficiently kills time.
You are not asked daily to participate in democracy. You choose to freak out about things you can't control. This is not the same thing, and you need to learn the difference. However, you do make daily decisions about consumption and production. We should think about those more.
It's not an exaggeration to say late stage capitalism keeps wrecking my sleep.
Contra neo-mania: rather than debating a banana and duct tape (yawn), we should be debating lobster-phone versus fur-lined cup.
When our country puts kids in cages, it invokes images of the holocaust, a horrible past. When we use killer robots in the sky to kill kids, it is part of the future, a disruptive future. No wonder progressives can accept the latter.
Reddit
Yes, the phone of the counter-revolution is a work of art.
I know I've been hard on Republicans lately. Here's me really getting into it with a Democrat trying some of that sweet, sweet virtue signalling for Reddit karma.
I wrote some responses to the last episode of Bojack Horseman after binge watching the last episodes the day they came out.
Three little posts, one, two, thee without a home or a family tree. Oh, and a bonus one on a fan theory.
Links
Article on the impact of Hilary's "deplorables" comment. As a bonus, here is something to know about swing voters: "[they] didn’t care whether he [Trump] paid taxes or not — and thought he was smart to pay none." (See, people love to scam the government).
I had never seen Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" 1981 music video. It is most delightful camp. If it had been made today, it would be the source of innumerable memes.
Side research for my piece on UBI lead to Changing my Mind about AI, Universal Basic Income, and the Value of Data.
The real cruelty of America to its young is not that is denying them the American Dream. It is denying them the Human Dream of starting a family that they can keep healthy and free from deprivation. This is unsustainable. If it is the first unsustainable thing to pop, then that will be for the good. If it is toward the last, there will be no American society.
My advocacy of frugality is based on quality and personal freedom, not signaling. And the help to the environment is a bonus.
"Live and love sincerely and vividly. Abstractions don't precede embodiment, they follow it." Nathan Spears
I know modernity's shtick is efficiency. But twitter does not efficiently give you information; rather, it efficiently kills time.
You are not asked daily to participate in democracy. You choose to freak out about things you can't control. This is not the same thing, and you need to learn the difference. However, you do make daily decisions about consumption and production. We should think about those more.
It's not an exaggeration to say late stage capitalism keeps wrecking my sleep.
Contra neo-mania: rather than debating a banana and duct tape (yawn), we should be debating lobster-phone versus fur-lined cup.
When our country puts kids in cages, it invokes images of the holocaust, a horrible past. When we use killer robots in the sky to kill kids, it is part of the future, a disruptive future. No wonder progressives can accept the latter.
Yes, the phone of the counter-revolution is a work of art.
I know I've been hard on Republicans lately. Here's me really getting into it with a Democrat trying some of that sweet, sweet virtue signalling for Reddit karma.
I wrote some responses to the last episode of Bojack Horseman after binge watching the last episodes the day they came out.
Three little posts, one, two, thee without a home or a family tree. Oh, and a bonus one on a fan theory.
Links
Article on the impact of Hilary's "deplorables" comment. As a bonus, here is something to know about swing voters: "[they] didn’t care whether he [Trump] paid taxes or not — and thought he was smart to pay none." (See, people love to scam the government).
I had never seen Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" 1981 music video. It is most delightful camp. If it had been made today, it would be the source of innumerable memes.
Side research for my piece on UBI lead to Changing my Mind about AI, Universal Basic Income, and the Value of Data.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Bucky's Idea
Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller was in many ways ahead of his time. Of particular interest to me, in light of seemingly ubiquitous online discussions of universal basic income, is how much more effective his way of selling the concept would be. Keep in mind that Bucky was born in 1895. But you could say he had a fuller understanding of the idea than most (pun accepted. In fact, I revel in it).
Bucky spoke of UBI as offering research grants . . . to everyone. And, yeah, maybe we should put "research grants" in quotes, but Bucky contended in all earnestness that even a minute fraction of productive grants would more than pay for the other grants.
This is a perfectly defensible claim, and perhaps one day I will organize research and quotations in order to make that case. That doesn't sound particularly fun, however, so for now I leave you with topics and authors to look into: David Graeber (esp Bullshit Jobs), Bob Black's Abolition of Work, Bertrand Russell In Praise of Idleness, the story of how Linux came to be, Alfie Kohn (esp Punished by Rewards). Also, I'm sure that out all of the contemporary authors writing about UBI, someone has probably done some great work on this claim, but only if they understand that people can be freed up when they are out of our current systems, and conversely, these systems don't lead many individuals to their best work.
It seems, instead, that the dominate rhetorical thrust of current UBI advocates is that most jobs can be automated away, either now or in the near future, and that those displaced workers will be in need of handouts. You can call it a "freedom dividend" but that doesn't make it more palatable to a Republican, unless an alpha enough Republican leader says it first -- look what Trump did for Russia's image amongst the Grand Old Party of liberty and other timeless principles (CP Don't Break My Stuff, also this).
It is my bold thesis that if the mistake isn't made of having a Democrat say it first Republicans by and large could much more easily accept a system of "grants"/"loans"/or "investments" than "universal basic income". Let's break that phrase down into it's parts. "Income" is a handout, "basic" isn't champagne wishes and caviar dreams, and "universal" acts like all lives have equal value, which just sounds communist. But a grant could let you say you are going to do one thing, then burn the money on living expenses. It could be a way to trick the government! While Republicans aren't alone in their love of tricking the government, there is not much evidence of some principles against it. And it makes some intuitive sense that they might find it extra sweet. [1]
The aftermath of the passage of medical marijuana here in Oklahoma made me glad I don't vote. If I had voted, I probably could have been convinced to vote for medical marijuana based on the stories of people who have legitimate, you know, medical needs. My wife knew of at least one child that fit that category, with some medicinal off-shot of cannibals being the only thing that didn't cause sever side effects. All well and good, but I somehow didn't foresee that there would be more dispensaries than liquor stores, selling such valuable medicine as THC-infused gummy bears, lemon drops, and chocolates. Next time I need an antibiotic, I'll see if I can buy it in gummy form from some shady store with a drug pun in its name. It's just the right thing to do, and we do the right thing here in the heartland.
That's not to say in some world where I didn't refuse to validate our sham democracy [2] I wouldn't vote for straight-up legalized (or decriminalized) marijuana -- after all, weed and alcohol seem to be on similar levels as silly, overpriced vices. It appears that I am in an extremely small minority of people bothered by medical fraud and a system that winks at it. Though I cannot relocate the quote, I believe Charlie Munger once said something along the lines of "there is a special place in hell for those who make easily gameable systems." But as social cohesion melts and anything goes (lol!), more and more people are looking for those gameable systems.
So just imagine an Agency of Government Grants which offered a form to say what business you were going to start or what you were going to research, and no matter how poorly you filled that form out, you'd get enough money to be above the poverty line. The standards would be so low that you could write "$ biznes" in crayon, and you would get your checks. Sharing live streams of progress in a video game would be a worthy enough enterprise for a grant, and there is ample evidence such streams promote utility. The romantic set could write "research on mating rituals." And to bring this all full circle, grants cloud be provided for "longitudinal studies of marijuana consumption." No one will check on you, but you'll be "encouraged" to share results. People would love it.
In order to make this work, I am pretty sure you can't advertise how low the grant standards in fact are. Instead, my experience as a teacher tells me it is much better to maintain a level of plausible deniability that you expect more. For people who are competent enough to get online and fill out forms, there should be options to go into extreme detail. Someone like my wife who likes to do the "right thing" would be greatly helped by the appearance of high expectations, and frankly some way to receive praise. Finally, I would have argued that there should be a place to share the data sets and research results, but that sounds like the internet, or at least what it was before the era of anti-social media.
If you thought the purpose of this essay was to a call action to adopt Bucky's rhetoric, you are mistaken. I just wanted to write something interesting and bash the moral vacuity of a particular class of blow-hards. Unlike nearly everyone else, I try to think how likely events are, not rather or not I'd enjoy them. I think the odds of Bucky-style grants are about nil. Though it sounds a bit like humor, I am serious that a Democrat cannot present any of this ("only Nixon could go to China" says Spock). Also, I think we can count on the super-wealthy to pull the strings and exploit divisions in order to prevent redistribution. We can also count on ivy league educated "thought leaders" to be horribly, off-puttingly elitist in their rhetoric, as lastly we can count on Democratic politicians to be completely ineffective.
No, there will be no Bucky bucks.
===
[1] I've many times heard things along the lines of "it's time to get mine" from those dead set against redistribution, with no apparent concern for the performative contradiction.
[2] I know how disturbing it is for some people to read that, and I am sorry to cause offence. Voting is part of a civic religion where we all have a duty to "make" our voices heard. I would explain my reasons for refraining, but so many of them are obvious if someone were in a frame of mind to understand them. Instead, I know "the importance of voting" is a belief held for psycho-social reasons, what Simler calls a crony belief. Much like the vegetarian around meat eaters who isn't trying to convince anyone, I don't care if you vote. But I know that lack of emotional labor can sometimes raise the level of offence.
Also, I reserve the right to vote in local elections if I ever see the point.
Bucky spoke of UBI as offering research grants . . . to everyone. And, yeah, maybe we should put "research grants" in quotes, but Bucky contended in all earnestness that even a minute fraction of productive grants would more than pay for the other grants.
This is a perfectly defensible claim, and perhaps one day I will organize research and quotations in order to make that case. That doesn't sound particularly fun, however, so for now I leave you with topics and authors to look into: David Graeber (esp Bullshit Jobs), Bob Black's Abolition of Work, Bertrand Russell In Praise of Idleness, the story of how Linux came to be, Alfie Kohn (esp Punished by Rewards). Also, I'm sure that out all of the contemporary authors writing about UBI, someone has probably done some great work on this claim, but only if they understand that people can be freed up when they are out of our current systems, and conversely, these systems don't lead many individuals to their best work.
It seems, instead, that the dominate rhetorical thrust of current UBI advocates is that most jobs can be automated away, either now or in the near future, and that those displaced workers will be in need of handouts. You can call it a "freedom dividend" but that doesn't make it more palatable to a Republican, unless an alpha enough Republican leader says it first -- look what Trump did for Russia's image amongst the Grand Old Party of liberty and other timeless principles (CP Don't Break My Stuff, also this).
It is my bold thesis that if the mistake isn't made of having a Democrat say it first Republicans by and large could much more easily accept a system of "grants"/"loans"/or "investments" than "universal basic income". Let's break that phrase down into it's parts. "Income" is a handout, "basic" isn't champagne wishes and caviar dreams, and "universal" acts like all lives have equal value, which just sounds communist. But a grant could let you say you are going to do one thing, then burn the money on living expenses. It could be a way to trick the government! While Republicans aren't alone in their love of tricking the government, there is not much evidence of some principles against it. And it makes some intuitive sense that they might find it extra sweet. [1]
The aftermath of the passage of medical marijuana here in Oklahoma made me glad I don't vote. If I had voted, I probably could have been convinced to vote for medical marijuana based on the stories of people who have legitimate, you know, medical needs. My wife knew of at least one child that fit that category, with some medicinal off-shot of cannibals being the only thing that didn't cause sever side effects. All well and good, but I somehow didn't foresee that there would be more dispensaries than liquor stores, selling such valuable medicine as THC-infused gummy bears, lemon drops, and chocolates. Next time I need an antibiotic, I'll see if I can buy it in gummy form from some shady store with a drug pun in its name. It's just the right thing to do, and we do the right thing here in the heartland.
That's not to say in some world where I didn't refuse to validate our sham democracy [2] I wouldn't vote for straight-up legalized (or decriminalized) marijuana -- after all, weed and alcohol seem to be on similar levels as silly, overpriced vices. It appears that I am in an extremely small minority of people bothered by medical fraud and a system that winks at it. Though I cannot relocate the quote, I believe Charlie Munger once said something along the lines of "there is a special place in hell for those who make easily gameable systems." But as social cohesion melts and anything goes (lol!), more and more people are looking for those gameable systems.
So just imagine an Agency of Government Grants which offered a form to say what business you were going to start or what you were going to research, and no matter how poorly you filled that form out, you'd get enough money to be above the poverty line. The standards would be so low that you could write "$ biznes" in crayon, and you would get your checks. Sharing live streams of progress in a video game would be a worthy enough enterprise for a grant, and there is ample evidence such streams promote utility. The romantic set could write "research on mating rituals." And to bring this all full circle, grants cloud be provided for "longitudinal studies of marijuana consumption." No one will check on you, but you'll be "encouraged" to share results. People would love it.
In order to make this work, I am pretty sure you can't advertise how low the grant standards in fact are. Instead, my experience as a teacher tells me it is much better to maintain a level of plausible deniability that you expect more. For people who are competent enough to get online and fill out forms, there should be options to go into extreme detail. Someone like my wife who likes to do the "right thing" would be greatly helped by the appearance of high expectations, and frankly some way to receive praise. Finally, I would have argued that there should be a place to share the data sets and research results, but that sounds like the internet, or at least what it was before the era of anti-social media.
If you thought the purpose of this essay was to a call action to adopt Bucky's rhetoric, you are mistaken. I just wanted to write something interesting and bash the moral vacuity of a particular class of blow-hards. Unlike nearly everyone else, I try to think how likely events are, not rather or not I'd enjoy them. I think the odds of Bucky-style grants are about nil. Though it sounds a bit like humor, I am serious that a Democrat cannot present any of this ("only Nixon could go to China" says Spock). Also, I think we can count on the super-wealthy to pull the strings and exploit divisions in order to prevent redistribution. We can also count on ivy league educated "thought leaders" to be horribly, off-puttingly elitist in their rhetoric, as lastly we can count on Democratic politicians to be completely ineffective.
No, there will be no Bucky bucks.
===
[1] I've many times heard things along the lines of "it's time to get mine" from those dead set against redistribution, with no apparent concern for the performative contradiction.
[2] I know how disturbing it is for some people to read that, and I am sorry to cause offence. Voting is part of a civic religion where we all have a duty to "make" our voices heard. I would explain my reasons for refraining, but so many of them are obvious if someone were in a frame of mind to understand them. Instead, I know "the importance of voting" is a belief held for psycho-social reasons, what Simler calls a crony belief. Much like the vegetarian around meat eaters who isn't trying to convince anyone, I don't care if you vote. But I know that lack of emotional labor can sometimes raise the level of offence.
Also, I reserve the right to vote in local elections if I ever see the point.
New? Start Here.
Concentrated Value
The Art of Living
Other than that, I want to share that everyone should have a journal, even if it is one of those one-sentence a day systems. The problem I have with physical journals is that they really start to pile up. Thus this blog was in part a my solution to that clutter.
Update: current system is to journal in a text file for each month and then after a certain amount of time, print two hard copies, bind the spine of each with glue and duct tape, and put one copy somewhere other than my house to mitigate the possibility of a fire losing my work. In this manner, I get the speed of typing with some protection from problems from the grid.
Notes on New Hampshire
This from an email I sent to a friend:
===
You've been interested in the election, so I will add my take from last night: if the media had the same contempt for either Klob or Butti they have for Bernie they would sit on the fact that they cost each other the win. As it is, contempt brain is stupid brain, so instead it is back to ignoring Bernie, trying to make 3rd the real winner, 2nd the next story, and 1st an after-thought. This is part of the reason people hate them, but they really can't stop themselves. They are too clever by half, and then ready to gaslight when called out.
Actual political competence would include a call to winnow the field down, at least by Super Tuesday. If we are looking at Klob, Butti, Money-berg, with the possibility of Uncle Joe resuscitated by South Carolina, then they are giving Bernie a free-roll -- he may have a lower chance of getting a majority of delegates, but he'll be the only one with any chance. And do party elites really want to screw with a convention battle? See what I mean about incompetence?
A three-steps ahead, bold take on the conditional: if they take it away from Bernie at the convention they damn well better give it to someone isn't running. [1] John Kerry could be an option. Al Gore would be interesting, though I'm not sure he would want to do it. Fun fact: Butti won last night among voters who said climate change was the most important issue. There is a huge appetite in the party to deal with climate but not deal income inequality.
===
[1] Do they realize this? It's basic psychology involving resentment and loss aversion. So no, they probably don't get this, preferring to protect their own sunk costs. So much for #resistance.
===
You've been interested in the election, so I will add my take from last night: if the media had the same contempt for either Klob or Butti they have for Bernie they would sit on the fact that they cost each other the win. As it is, contempt brain is stupid brain, so instead it is back to ignoring Bernie, trying to make 3rd the real winner, 2nd the next story, and 1st an after-thought. This is part of the reason people hate them, but they really can't stop themselves. They are too clever by half, and then ready to gaslight when called out.
Actual political competence would include a call to winnow the field down, at least by Super Tuesday. If we are looking at Klob, Butti, Money-berg, with the possibility of Uncle Joe resuscitated by South Carolina, then they are giving Bernie a free-roll -- he may have a lower chance of getting a majority of delegates, but he'll be the only one with any chance. And do party elites really want to screw with a convention battle? See what I mean about incompetence?
A three-steps ahead, bold take on the conditional: if they take it away from Bernie at the convention they damn well better give it to someone isn't running. [1] John Kerry could be an option. Al Gore would be interesting, though I'm not sure he would want to do it. Fun fact: Butti won last night among voters who said climate change was the most important issue. There is a huge appetite in the party to deal with climate but not deal income inequality.
===
[1] Do they realize this? It's basic psychology involving resentment and loss aversion. So no, they probably don't get this, preferring to protect their own sunk costs. So much for #resistance.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
My Personal History with Language.
In a sense, this is a companion to the piece Wise Words.
===
I was called a "motor mouth" in elementary school and I had many, many people fooled into thinking I was a scientific genius because I loved to use words like "molecular" and "atomic" -- and can we agree that "molecular" sounds much better? I was merely imitating the techno-babble said by "smart" people on television, which I watched far too. I didn't know I wasn't saying anything because I didn't know those "smart" people on TV weren't saying anything. Also, I was cute, so I was praised.
I guess it makes sense that I fell in with science fiction, the perfect place for someone who agrees with the scientific paradigm yet can't do the math to access its precision. Asimov, Clark, and Bradbury were still easy enough to find both at the library and used books stores -- and, wonder of wonders, with complete series in the case of Asimov's Foundation and Clark's 2001.
In middle school I dabbled in poetry, memorizing scraps of Longfellow and Whitman. Also in middle school through sophomore year I got into philosophy, first scraps of eastern, then western. It was always scraps at that age; only years later would I learn what depth is and why it is important.
This Junior and Senior year I did debate, not the best of places to learn depth, but somewhere to cash in a motor mouth for some medals and trophies. Also, it was nice to not be lonely.
Meanwhile, I suppose you could call my academic path "the humanities," mostly history, with interest in literature, especially when literature was willing to play with language. I took every English "exploratory" class offered at my high school. (I had avoided history "exploratories" because they were mostly joke classes taught by athletic coaches, or and/were "current events." Is it possible that even at that young age I knew that current events were too chaotic to really study and that events are best understood digested by some time? Perhaps, or perhaps I just got the word that those classes sucked. Still, I read and read and read for my AP history classes and scored well on the tests. Ironically, this meant that I ended up not taking a single college class for my favorite subject in high school.
When I realized that I would become a teacher, I choose English as because as I said "there is more history in English than English in history," and I find this especially true for interesting and mind blowing sociological content, though I do in fact love memorizing events and dates (more on that some other time, if I feel like it). Also, it really is true that in Oklahoma social studies is by and large a system of make work for sports coaches.
In college, I didn't read as much of the assigned literature as I now would have liked, instead reading a bunch of political philosophy as well as books on economics and science. It was the loneliest time of my life, and I read for comfort. But comfort for me is synthesizing ideas, not following simple plots. The best book I read in that time was Douglas Hofstandler's Godel, Esher, Bach. I was seeking realities and Truths. . . but that's is a different story than the one I'm telling. (I have no idea when or even if I will want to write a piece on my personal history as a seeker).
In my career teaching English "Language Arts" and debate, I found a place to live and play in language a large portion of my days. When you teach, you have such a great opportunity to learn. No, not from the kids, at least not all that much beyond trivia that will be dated in a couple of years [1], but from sharing your subject to those with a novice minds. Day after day I shared literature, some of it fitting for the age, some of it from the great masters, and in working to make bridges between the narratives and where my students were at, my own education moved forward bit by bit. Debate was a wasteland, for one because students, at least the ones most forcefully trying to use up my time, were always demanding the easiest way out. There were not seekers, and were disrespectful of seeking. They had no integrity and were disrespectful of integrity. Luckily, every year I taught debate I also had some English sections.
After I said good bye to all that, I caught up on literature, at least to my satisfaction. I would describe this time as finally, more or less comfortably, using my own voice. It is the type of play that most fits my location in life's journey. It is also the extension of all of the playing came before it.
===
[1] You also can develop strong instincts for human nature by teaching. You can read people and their motivations, and figure out approximate baselines for what people know when they are unlearned in a subject. All of this comes from proximity with a large cross-section of the population, not directly from their views on topics.
===
I was called a "motor mouth" in elementary school and I had many, many people fooled into thinking I was a scientific genius because I loved to use words like "molecular" and "atomic" -- and can we agree that "molecular" sounds much better? I was merely imitating the techno-babble said by "smart" people on television, which I watched far too. I didn't know I wasn't saying anything because I didn't know those "smart" people on TV weren't saying anything. Also, I was cute, so I was praised.
I guess it makes sense that I fell in with science fiction, the perfect place for someone who agrees with the scientific paradigm yet can't do the math to access its precision. Asimov, Clark, and Bradbury were still easy enough to find both at the library and used books stores -- and, wonder of wonders, with complete series in the case of Asimov's Foundation and Clark's 2001.
In middle school I dabbled in poetry, memorizing scraps of Longfellow and Whitman. Also in middle school through sophomore year I got into philosophy, first scraps of eastern, then western. It was always scraps at that age; only years later would I learn what depth is and why it is important.
This Junior and Senior year I did debate, not the best of places to learn depth, but somewhere to cash in a motor mouth for some medals and trophies. Also, it was nice to not be lonely.
Meanwhile, I suppose you could call my academic path "the humanities," mostly history, with interest in literature, especially when literature was willing to play with language. I took every English "exploratory" class offered at my high school. (I had avoided history "exploratories" because they were mostly joke classes taught by athletic coaches, or and/were "current events." Is it possible that even at that young age I knew that current events were too chaotic to really study and that events are best understood digested by some time? Perhaps, or perhaps I just got the word that those classes sucked. Still, I read and read and read for my AP history classes and scored well on the tests. Ironically, this meant that I ended up not taking a single college class for my favorite subject in high school.
When I realized that I would become a teacher, I choose English as because as I said "there is more history in English than English in history," and I find this especially true for interesting and mind blowing sociological content, though I do in fact love memorizing events and dates (more on that some other time, if I feel like it). Also, it really is true that in Oklahoma social studies is by and large a system of make work for sports coaches.
In college, I didn't read as much of the assigned literature as I now would have liked, instead reading a bunch of political philosophy as well as books on economics and science. It was the loneliest time of my life, and I read for comfort. But comfort for me is synthesizing ideas, not following simple plots. The best book I read in that time was Douglas Hofstandler's Godel, Esher, Bach. I was seeking realities and Truths. . . but that's is a different story than the one I'm telling. (I have no idea when or even if I will want to write a piece on my personal history as a seeker).
In my career teaching English "Language Arts" and debate, I found a place to live and play in language a large portion of my days. When you teach, you have such a great opportunity to learn. No, not from the kids, at least not all that much beyond trivia that will be dated in a couple of years [1], but from sharing your subject to those with a novice minds. Day after day I shared literature, some of it fitting for the age, some of it from the great masters, and in working to make bridges between the narratives and where my students were at, my own education moved forward bit by bit. Debate was a wasteland, for one because students, at least the ones most forcefully trying to use up my time, were always demanding the easiest way out. There were not seekers, and were disrespectful of seeking. They had no integrity and were disrespectful of integrity. Luckily, every year I taught debate I also had some English sections.
After I said good bye to all that, I caught up on literature, at least to my satisfaction. I would describe this time as finally, more or less comfortably, using my own voice. It is the type of play that most fits my location in life's journey. It is also the extension of all of the playing came before it.
===
[1] You also can develop strong instincts for human nature by teaching. You can read people and their motivations, and figure out approximate baselines for what people know when they are unlearned in a subject. All of this comes from proximity with a large cross-section of the population, not directly from their views on topics.
Thoughts on the Iowa Fiasco
First, what do I think the DNC should do?
Second, we can probably expect the elites to double-down, and I think this brings up a very pessimistic understanding, the kind I would like to be wrong about.
DNC-style Dems don't want government to work any more than the GOP, and so they get to pull the same trick: make government suck so much that no one (really no swing voter) believes in it. What happened in Iowa was a down-payment on what they can do to stop the visions of the Left. We really can't have nice things, and it once again shows.
- Admit that they have a problem hiring cronies and grifters.
- Commit to paper ballots
- Step down
- Vow to only work on local issues where they plan on relocating, since they are, in point of fact, incompetent at the level of governance they are operating.
Second, we can probably expect the elites to double-down, and I think this brings up a very pessimistic understanding, the kind I would like to be wrong about.
DNC-style Dems don't want government to work any more than the GOP, and so they get to pull the same trick: make government suck so much that no one (really no swing voter) believes in it. What happened in Iowa was a down-payment on what they can do to stop the visions of the Left. We really can't have nice things, and it once again shows.
Hanlon's razor "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." Fine, but I remember Venkatesh Rao once pointing out that you can be stupid and malicious at once. DNC-Dems/ the GOP, together they make up our elites, and check out the game plan:
Flail out, create chaos, in the chaos cheat, fail upward. Use those who failed upward to help create more chaos and pull more failures upward. All hail the Maze!
Incompetence is not a conspiracy, first-order. But it can be bailed out with a second-order conspiracy, especially by people who think they are Philosopher-Kings.
===
Appendix
This is an email I wrote to a friend on the matter after he had responded to the piece above:
[Update 4/8/2020. Wow. I sure was wrong about some things. I was wrong about me being done with the horse race. I was also wrong about how the primary would play out. I think I learned some things in the process.]
===
Greetings from Norman, Oklahoma, where we are having our first (and perhaps only) snow of the year. I keep looking out the window because it looks like a postcard from another land, the kind television tells me is the heartland -- at least with my view of trees and the ground out of one window, and single family houses out the other. We can't have one of those urban Christmases, or urban, cold loneliness, can we? . . .I just saw a neighbor take her dog out to see her first snow, and play in it.
Tying this together with your main topic, I am reminded of the Chesterton quote " . . . the real difficulty of democracy is not that voters are unworthy, but that their vote is generally the least worthy thing about them." Not voting is a great way to not get sucked into what is unworthy about life, and then make room for what constitutes the real joy in being alive. I just like having the peace of mind. The waves of history are bigger than anything I can control.
With that said, I had [messed] up. I had allowed myself to engage with politics a lot the last few weeks, watching videos,reading all I could and even getting into arguments on twitter and reddit. I justified this all as a kind of festival. And I was going to cap it with watching the election results as they came in, going from website to website for analysis, checking in from time to time see ABC's take. I had even had a serious conversation with my wife about going to Iowa to do some political tourism, but decided to keep my finances on lock-down until I get a teaching gig again.
But what happened kept me up until something like 2 am, and the next day I stayed in a funk. If this is how other people feel when they scroll through feeds all day, then I am frankly surprised our society hasn't fallen apart more than it already has.
I'm done with the horse race this year. Looks like either Bernie wins, Bloomberg white-knights, or Bernie will be cheated. I now see how bizarro-world that cheating can get (and again, I'm not saying anyone set out for Iowa to go this way, but rather there will second-order exploitation of the disasters created by one's own incompetence), but this is something best watched from afar. Same goes for the general election.
On to creative work, and other interesting things.
===
Appendix
This is an email I wrote to a friend on the matter after he had responded to the piece above:
[Update 4/8/2020. Wow. I sure was wrong about some things. I was wrong about me being done with the horse race. I was also wrong about how the primary would play out. I think I learned some things in the process.]
===
Greetings from Norman, Oklahoma, where we are having our first (and perhaps only) snow of the year. I keep looking out the window because it looks like a postcard from another land, the kind television tells me is the heartland -- at least with my view of trees and the ground out of one window, and single family houses out the other. We can't have one of those urban Christmases, or urban, cold loneliness, can we? . . .I just saw a neighbor take her dog out to see her first snow, and play in it.
Tying this together with your main topic, I am reminded of the Chesterton quote " . . . the real difficulty of democracy is not that voters are unworthy, but that their vote is generally the least worthy thing about them." Not voting is a great way to not get sucked into what is unworthy about life, and then make room for what constitutes the real joy in being alive. I just like having the peace of mind. The waves of history are bigger than anything I can control.
With that said, I had [messed] up. I had allowed myself to engage with politics a lot the last few weeks, watching videos,reading all I could and even getting into arguments on twitter and reddit. I justified this all as a kind of festival. And I was going to cap it with watching the election results as they came in, going from website to website for analysis, checking in from time to time see ABC's take. I had even had a serious conversation with my wife about going to Iowa to do some political tourism, but decided to keep my finances on lock-down until I get a teaching gig again.
But what happened kept me up until something like 2 am, and the next day I stayed in a funk. If this is how other people feel when they scroll through feeds all day, then I am frankly surprised our society hasn't fallen apart more than it already has.
I'm done with the horse race this year. Looks like either Bernie wins, Bloomberg white-knights, or Bernie will be cheated. I now see how bizarro-world that cheating can get (and again, I'm not saying anyone set out for Iowa to go this way, but rather there will second-order exploitation of the disasters created by one's own incompetence), but this is something best watched from afar. Same goes for the general election.
On to creative work, and other interesting things.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)