I Want to Believe

I believe—“believe,” unscientifically, more as a matter of faith, like maybe as an aspect of my personal religion, which worships fantasy (like, actually, all religions do)—that the human brain can only hold so much information, and when it nears its maximum capacity, it starts to dump content, transferring it, first, to a less accessible holding area and then, later, when that area fills up, dumping it permanently. This is my explanation for Alzheimer’s. People thus afflicted have input too much information throughout their lives and have reached their capacity; or, perhaps, they didn’t have all that much capacity to begin with. This “explanation” (I hesitate, even, to raise it to the level of hypothesis) is, of course, entirely flippant. I want to believe, like others who, often pretending it to be scientific fact, purport that the human brain uses only one-tenth of its capacity; but I find that claim no more rational than my own “religious” tenet. We just don’t know. And we probably never will; because AI will probably far outdistance us and replace us before we could ever rise to a technological level sufficient enough to find out; or else it will make us irrelevant. I mean, do we, even as scientists, care how much capacity the brain of a monkey has? We, humans, are the next monkeys. Well, actually, that’s what we’ve always been.  

And speaking of marginal hypotheses [is that what I was doing?] I believe in—nay, let me qualify the qualification: I more than believe; I accept as scientific fact—the theory of evolution. And, if my scientific education were not enough, I have personal anecdotal experience that confirms the theory. When I was working at my last job, I was looking through a National Geographic magazine one day while in the office eating my lunch, and I saw a picture of a chimpanzee and, honest to Darwin, it looked exactly like a guy who worked for me: same eyes, same nose, same chin and ears. Except for its smaller stature, it could have been his twin. Next time you’re at the zoo, examine the great apes closely. These are people! How can anyone except a totally self-deluded person not intuitively understand whence we humans came?


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a culture of expediency

See, we plan ahead, that way we don't do anything right now.

Kevin Bacon, Tremors

Every time I alter my schedule method to try to accommodate the lady, or anybody or anything, the “requests” [usually accompanied by one or another form of disguised threats (in her case, to hire someone to do the work; in other cases, oh, it could be pretty much anything, like do this when we tell you to or else: your car will not be road legal and we’ll stop you and fine you and you’ll have to do it anyway; you will be in arrears on your taxes and all kinds of further intimidation will take place; we’ll arrest you and put you in jail because all citizens must serve on jury duty otherwise the Amerikan justice system will not work—yeah, as if it works now as it is)] for more immediate task results usually end up scuttling my method, because my method works, when I do it my way: I wait; everything is done in its own time, when its time has come. But when I must do something right now or very soon because it is so damn important to whatever Nazi says it is, I can’t handle it, because, if it were truly so important as people will make it out to be, if it were truly such an emergency that it be done now, there would be no choice in the matter, not even a consideration for when it should be done. True emergencies get taken care of immediately because there is no choice; all other tasks get scheduled. So, the real issue becomes: whose schedule are we going to use, mine or someone else’s? I say mine makes far more sense. But ours is a culture of expediency. Get it done now, get it done fast, and move on. Productivity reigns. What a bunch of bullshit.

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encryption matters

You can use communication channels to transfer illegal info, or you can use them to communicate in private legally.

The only way to discover which exchanged info is legal and which is illegal is to monitor all of it; iow, to abolish private communication.

To separate out illegal from legal content, you have to observe it. This requires that the right to private correspondence must be done away with.

Thus, copyright monopoly is pro sharing of information (no privacy) when it belongs to somebody else, but against it when it belongs to them:

They maintain that they are allowed to access your private content, but you are not allowed to access theirs, unless you pay them for it.

The right to share knowledge and culture is dependent upon the right to correspond in private. That said, they can buy my content if they wish.

That is only fair: if I must buy yours, then you must buy mine; and I warn you ahead of time, just so you know—I am not at all cheap.

If you want to know what I am sharing or otherwise doing on the net, pay me; or else stop invading my privacy. End government surveillance.

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Where Are the Guillotines?

Scott Adams says he’s endorsing Hillary because he’s afraid, living in California, that his (thus far very accurate) predictions about Trump’s political success looks to crazy anti-Trump protestors (does he mean Mexican nationals and illegal immigrants?) like he’s a Trump supporter and he worries that, not supporting Trump’s opponent, he will otherwise make himself a target for violence. This is, of course, a very wrong reason for endorsing any candidate and, anyway, Scott is rich enough to be able to afford several bodyguards to protect him from all but a many-peopled coordinated assassination attempt—which is highly unlikely given his less than ubiquitous popularity.

So I suspect there’s a lot more to Adams’ endorsement than his stated reasons, like some reverse psychology, maybe? His whole focus since last August has been the explication of the art and science of persuasion, and I see buried in not so obscure a fashion within his seemingly rational approach to the subject lots of persuasive little machinations. So consider this explanation of his endorsement motive: People reading Scott’s blog entries might start getting and spreading the idea (he has a small but highly intelligent blog-fan base) that it’s dangerous to be pro-Trump, that certain groups of liberals (e.g., illegal immigrants?) might be every bit as much of a physical threat as hard-core red-neck conservatives are, and that choosing to support Hillary over The Don, especially because you might want to be safe from violence, is not perhaps so wise; i.e., there is a more or less equal danger from both sides. Consider all of that in light of the fact that Scott frequently conducts little word-experiments to judge reactions (he calls it A-B testing) or simply to see what might proceed from his odd proposals.

Add here into the mix the suggestions from Anonymous et al. that the conventions and events leading up to them are not going to be quite so peaceful as participants might like, and it’s somewhat easy to see how the issue of violence is a theme rife for exploitation. I’m doing just that right now. I want to see political violence, riots in the streets, physical clashes between right and left. Viva la revolution. I do not want to see business as usual for the next four or eight—or fifty—years. If we must have corruption, I want the elitists to suffer at the hands of a corrupted proletariat. Guillotines in the city parks. Mansions broken into, looted, and set ablaze. And, above all, political change. The oppression must end. The people are ready. Let’s rise up and overturn the regime. If Trump cannot do that, let him be elected so that he can become the scapegoat. Because Hillary is just more of the same, and Bernie is a hopeless case at this point, I am guessing. Unless, of course, Hillary crashes and burns as her sins of the past come back to bite her in her fat white pants-suited ass.

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And Then

Conservatives, especially upper management jerks (apart from rational, primarily economic, conservatives a la William F. Buckley, et al.) are sociopaths. Conservatism in general in this sense is sociopathy, but only when measured against the population as a whole as opposed to elitist factions of it—because sociopathy is relative to social standards and values: if everyone in a society is an egocentric asshole, then conservatives will fit right into a society without conscience. (Resemble any country/government we know?) Liberals, on the other hand, are just plain unrealistic. It can be tough for some to resist their warm-hearted message when it’s obvious they care so much about the downtrodden masses who can never seem, in any way, to help themselves. Survival of the fittest, the conservatives say, not caring that a large part of the population, especially in this latter post-industrial age where the social structure has devolved into narrow specialized groupings that insist upon pigeonholing workers into restricted categories, is significantly compromised. We no longer have the “tribal” units that act to incorporate all members as best they can, and conservatives are happy to disregard anyone who cannot rise to the “responsible” level of fitting themselves in. Well, okay then. Let’s see how fit the conservatives are when the revolution comes. The fitter members of the disenfranchised citizens, at some point, will not take it any more. And then ...

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caught in the net

Dude, seriously, why in the hell would you care????? You're going to be eligible for Social Security soon, relax... It's *not* your world anymore... Let it go... Step back... Stake out a spot, keep the idiots out, and enjoy the rest of your life... Remember when you stick your toe in someone else's mud puddle, usually it's going to come out dirty...

Scott Adams blog commenter COWG

This is a good philosophy. I’ve practiced it pretty much all my life. Too bad it doesn’t work. Just because you decide that you’re going to leave them alone doesn’t mean they will leave you alone. Yeah, you can stake out a spot and try to keep the idiots out, but there’s one set of idiots, the big guys, who will insist upon knowing what you’re up to and believe they have the right to know it. They think the whole world is their mud puddle. You can keep as low a profile as you can, but unless you’re determined that you will comply with their every little whim, eventually you’re going to run afoul of their petty laws, rules, and regulations. And nowhere is this more relevant than on the internet. If you want to stay off their radar, start by staying off the net. And, to my mind, that’s not a valid way to spend the rest of my life.

It’s a difficult and far from mainstream effort to stake out your own spot, keep your head down, and keep the idiots out if you maintain a presence on the net. The only way to effectively do it is to be a part of the vast and growing alternative net undercurrent: proxies, VPNs, DarkNet, etc. And if you do, they will try to ferret you out, with whatever two-steps-behind effort. And it doesn’t matter how close to Social Security you are. They’re persecuting grandmothers now just for doing what half the population of the world is doing.

Oppression is upon us, and the elitists are not going to give up until they either get all of your money and put you in the gaol if they must or you get to them first and put an end to their domination. The only other way is to get yourself a place in wilds of Montana, stock it with everything you need, get all of whatever else your daily living requires from a local store, and—especially—stay off the goddamn net! Because, if they’re going to get you, that’s the way they’re going to do it, son.

corporate abuse

I want to belong to K-Mart’s Shop Your Way bonus club for the reward points that I can deduct from my purchases, but I don’t want to receive their promo emails; but the club policy requires that, if am a member, I must receive these emails. Therefore, even though I agree to receive them by default, I still consider them to be scum spam and I treat them accordingly by dismissing them outright and relegating them to the trash folder automatically. Maybe one day I’ll take some kind of action that more directly addresses this "disrespect” (for lack of a better word; “abuse” is probably too strong) of customers who spend money at their stores.

This issue is larger and more profound than K-Mart, though. It was not all that long ago that most customer service reps would bend over backwards to satisfy a complaining customer; but no longer. Now they tell you when you complain that they’re sorry (they’re still required to be polite) but they can do nothing for you because the issue is a matter of policy. Oh, I see. You have a policy. Well, that makes it all right then. I do admit that a certain type of customer will abuse the former bend-over-backwards policy, but then I could care less if corporations are abused—because, despite law to the contrary, they are not individual people, they are non-living  entities and thus by definition cannot be (psychologically) abused.

OTOH, corporations abuse customers all the time. In fact, the argument can be made that the very existence of corporations as individuals is a form of abuse. But, beyond that, selling by and large is no longer so much a means of providing a quality product or service as it is a means of getting as much money as possible for as little quantity and quality as possible; or IOW, maximization of profits. This is a form of customer abuse. It treats the customers as if they are idiots, which, unfortunately many of them are, which is why the corporations can get away with what they do. And the government supports the corporations because it is bought and paid for by them; and it’s probably too late to reverse this. The corruption has gone too far. No “peoples’ representative” is going to bite the hand that feeds them.

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