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Hate to break it to you, but you can't syllogism your way to a better society. Especially if you're not willing to start with some ethical premises against narcissism or being self-centered.
The doomosphere does not lack in information, intelligence or perspectives. So I don't try to contribute in that way. I feel like my niche is to try to provide some social skills.
The whole Democratic primary process has been a demonstration of how to turn educated voters into lower information voters.
When the political class has shown a complete, stark, sociopathic disregard for 80 percent of the population -- what is another 19 (or 19.9) percent?
Sorry, friends, the Left is a Granfallon. My real Karass is those who get to the root of things (radical, I know). Prep and survive, but not like a Prepper or Survivalist.
A t-shirt only I would like: I had to live through the deconstruction of simple, unhurried, sacred beauty and all I got were these lousy interesting times.
Articles Read
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Realizing how crucial Sarah Perry's work was to my explorations of happiness I decided to try to read more of her stuff. It's an ongoing project, but it started with reading what she left up on The View from Hell. There is very little left indeed, so I also read through the comments and thus was directed to
Razib Khan, filtered by the tag "liberalism." Here is a good quote for y'all:
I’ve been writing and discussing with people on the internet, and in private, for many years now, and have come to the conclusion most people are decent, but they’re also craven and intellectually unserious outside of their domain specificity when they are intellectual. Many of our institutions are quite corrupt, and those which are supposedly the torchbearers of the Enlightenment, such as science, are filled with people who are also blind to their own biases or dominated by those who will plainly lie to advance their professional prospects or retain esteem from colleagues.Yup, I'm am very bearish on the survival of democracy . . . and further scientific progress. But I do like my own ongoing happiness project, so I probably won't be going much deeper down this path. I recommend the whole piece, however; it tries to put a hopeful frame on it all.
Back to Perry. I did not realize before that she had some great Dao writing, drawing from Christopher Alexander. One, two, three.
I started another piece, Fluid Rigor, avoiding most of the branchings to other pieces, but not being able to stop myself to read Weaponized Sacredness before returning to FR. It's a truly remarkable piece, giving an independent explanation of why coordination is so difficult, why middle management and Moloch reigns, and a justification of a Sabbath, even from the system's point of view.
I think I am going to stop the exploration there for now. I have to show my respect for Perry as a much greater essayist, but this is exactly the kind of insight that can get you into trouble (meaning make you very unhappy).
On another note, Franco's regime shows that power (probably) doesn't work the way you think it does.
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A piece on the effects (and affects) of advertising. Money quote (pun accepted):
Healthy identity formation comes from shared values and personal experiences, which create the foundation of the identity. But advertisers have invaded our lives and pushed to redefine our identities not by these things, but by products.A piece on poverty, whose last section that reminds of the value of the drop out lifestyle.
How many rich people can afford to lay down all their work and go sit outside at 2 PM on a regular workday, simply because they notice the sun is shining? They can't!And it finishes with this gem of a quote
I'll leave you with a quote of Don Colacho: The rich man is not disconcerted by anyone except by someone who does not envy him. [Link added by me.]Youtube
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Youtube thinks I need sovietwave music. A Reddit discussion of what that is.
I think Youtube did a better job in recommending this to me. Eh, let's make a mini-tv for it:
I don't imagine many people will have the patience to watch all of it, but feel free to watch a bit and then skip around. Any dose of this will do you good.
