Athenian democracy lasted less than 200 years. Whatever it's institutions, it might be worthwhile to scrutinize any of them given it's collapse. During Athenian democracy Socrates was killed by jury, and both plato and Aristotle wrote books predicting the end of democracy, even people living within it didn't seem to think it was a system with a future.
If plays are enough to change the vote of the people, then those in power aren't the people at all -- it's the people funding the plays or writing the plays. This is a problem we see today, and it's still a risk to democracy. Even as a writer writing books I hope to change the world someday, but I recognize this risk myself -- just writing a compelling book or a compelling play doesn't make your ideas correct or wise or just.
A proper Democrat doing his duty would be an independent thinker, balancing different options and making decisions based on their own train of thought rather than media provided by someone else.
This whole with thinking it's important because in the modern age and onwards, mass media has become a tool where bad narratives can infect the populace. One of the most important tools of the fascists in Italy and the national socialists in Germany was the unified power of the media. People outsource their thinking to compelling rhetoric and support genocidal ideologies they'd never consider on their own.
In my case, every book that I put out is structured in such a way to demand the reader come to decisions on their own. For example, in the one I'm working on right now I'm trying to train the reader in the mindset of post metamodern superpositional thinking, which is fundamentally different than the modernist method of trying to sway my readers to a very specific outcome, and instead is about accepting and balancing many true but contradictory things. If we use that method of thinking, then necessarily decision-making is local and I can't tell you what decisions to make because I'm not you and I don't live where you live.
If plays are enough to change the vote of the people, then those in power aren't the people at all -- it's the people funding the plays or writing the plays. This is a problem we see today, and it's still a risk to democracy. Even as a writer writing books I hope to change the world someday, but I recognize this risk myself -- just writing a compelling book or a compelling play doesn't make your ideas correct or wise or just.
A proper Democrat doing his duty would be an independent thinker, balancing different options and making decisions based on their own train of thought rather than media provided by someone else.
This whole with thinking it's important because in the modern age and onwards, mass media has become a tool where bad narratives can infect the populace. One of the most important tools of the fascists in Italy and the national socialists in Germany was the unified power of the media. People outsource their thinking to compelling rhetoric and support genocidal ideologies they'd never consider on their own.
In my case, every book that I put out is structured in such a way to demand the reader come to decisions on their own. For example, in the one I'm working on right now I'm trying to train the reader in the mindset of post metamodern superpositional thinking, which is fundamentally different than the modernist method of trying to sway my readers to a very specific outcome, and instead is about accepting and balancing many true but contradictory things. If we use that method of thinking, then necessarily decision-making is local and I can't tell you what decisions to make because I'm not you and I don't live where you live.
Ngl, a 76 year old dude dying is not particularly shocking. That's significantly higher than the average, particularly for black men.
The west doesn't understand character development like Chinese stories.
Take Lord of the rings: One ring and he didn't even extract the heavenly essence from it to elevate frodo from the heavenly wankers cramp level to the base golden alley behind a 7/11 level!
Take Lord of the rings: One ring and he didn't even extract the heavenly essence from it to elevate frodo from the heavenly wankers cramp level to the base golden alley behind a 7/11 level!
[admin mode] Gonna try move to the new server again sometime today. If the site is down, that's why. If we don't succeed, we'll roll back again. I found a way to extract the database from the working server that's 8x faster than before, which is quite exciting.
I'll make a post before I start, but it won't be for a few hours, closer to the evening.
I'll make a post before I start, but it won't be for a few hours, closer to the evening.
I mean, the story looks pretty cut and dry...
Person is in the country on an expired visa, they don't have a new Visa for 5 years, so eventually she gets picked up for not having a Visa.
Really, the exact same thing could have happened under any president. It is a major risk of walking around without doing the right things.
If you had been driving your car without insurance or a license for 5 years, and then the police found you and you got in lots of trouble for driving with a license or insurance, are you going to blame whoever your president or Governor is at the time, or are you going to accept the fact that you were driving around with a license?
I'm sure she's a nice girl, but actions have consequences.
Only under the postmodern framework would there be rules that you just completely ignore and think it's justified.
On a pre epistemological basis, you feel the stress of knowing that you're breaking the rules. Of course, the whole story that's also based on a couple of other I'm gut reactions such as "that's a pretty girl" and "what if it was your newlywed wife?"
On a pre-modern basis, it is just expected that you're going to follow the rules, because truth comes from the rulemakers. There is actually a direct premodern parallel to this, and that is in the word villain. You see, the word villain didn't always mean generic bad guy. It referred to the "people of the land" under feudalism who escaped and moved to a village. In England at least, if you manage to stay in the village for a certain period of time then you would be released from being a person of the land. Although you can empathize with people who are tied to the land under feudalism, there's a reason why the word villain means what it means today.
My understanding of the system might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure being married to a US citizen actually further privileges her in terms of making it easier to do the right thing and get a Visa.
You can make an argument in the postmodern framework to say that the rules were really difficult to follow so you didn't follow them, but the reality is once your Visa has expired it's on you to either get it renewed immediately or leave the country that you are no longer entitled to be in.
And even through a postmodern lens, somebody who comes to America on an education Visa isn't someone with no power. Most people in the west can't afford an American education, so if you come in to have an American education in Wisconsin, you're probably someone of some means, and thus are going to have less excuses for not following the rules.
I will give a little bit of grace to the fact that her visa expired during the covid-19 pandemic, since the entire world got screwed up around that time. Covid did eventually end, and in the same way that I eventually had to go and get a passport in spite of the fact that I couldn't during covid, eventually it becomes someone's duty who is still in the country to either get the documentation in order or leave.
I have to give credit to the man for accepting that while the laws have negatively impacted him here, they do have a good reason to exist and they still apply to him.
Person is in the country on an expired visa, they don't have a new Visa for 5 years, so eventually she gets picked up for not having a Visa.
Really, the exact same thing could have happened under any president. It is a major risk of walking around without doing the right things.
If you had been driving your car without insurance or a license for 5 years, and then the police found you and you got in lots of trouble for driving with a license or insurance, are you going to blame whoever your president or Governor is at the time, or are you going to accept the fact that you were driving around with a license?
I'm sure she's a nice girl, but actions have consequences.
Only under the postmodern framework would there be rules that you just completely ignore and think it's justified.
On a pre epistemological basis, you feel the stress of knowing that you're breaking the rules. Of course, the whole story that's also based on a couple of other I'm gut reactions such as "that's a pretty girl" and "what if it was your newlywed wife?"
On a pre-modern basis, it is just expected that you're going to follow the rules, because truth comes from the rulemakers. There is actually a direct premodern parallel to this, and that is in the word villain. You see, the word villain didn't always mean generic bad guy. It referred to the "people of the land" under feudalism who escaped and moved to a village. In England at least, if you manage to stay in the village for a certain period of time then you would be released from being a person of the land. Although you can empathize with people who are tied to the land under feudalism, there's a reason why the word villain means what it means today.
My understanding of the system might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure being married to a US citizen actually further privileges her in terms of making it easier to do the right thing and get a Visa.
You can make an argument in the postmodern framework to say that the rules were really difficult to follow so you didn't follow them, but the reality is once your Visa has expired it's on you to either get it renewed immediately or leave the country that you are no longer entitled to be in.
And even through a postmodern lens, somebody who comes to America on an education Visa isn't someone with no power. Most people in the west can't afford an American education, so if you come in to have an American education in Wisconsin, you're probably someone of some means, and thus are going to have less excuses for not following the rules.
I will give a little bit of grace to the fact that her visa expired during the covid-19 pandemic, since the entire world got screwed up around that time. Covid did eventually end, and in the same way that I eventually had to go and get a passport in spite of the fact that I couldn't during covid, eventually it becomes someone's duty who is still in the country to either get the documentation in order or leave.
I have to give credit to the man for accepting that while the laws have negatively impacted him here, they do have a good reason to exist and they still apply to him.
#TexasInstruments just released a #microcontroller so small you could lose it in your pocket. The #MSPM0C1104 is only 1.38 mm², smaller than a grain of rice, but still acts as a tiny computer. It has a 32-bit processor running at 24 MHz, with 1KB of memory and 16KB of storage. It can even sense things like temperature or movement. Power use is minimal, running on just 87μA per MHz and dropping to 5μA in standby. This makes it ideal for tiny devices that need to last a long time on small batteries. It is also built to handle extreme conditions, working in temperatures from –40°C to 125°C. https://www.ti.com/product/MSPM0C1104
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4L20t8Dvlg
Pretty sure SOAD is cringe and gay now just like anyone who used to be cool in the earlier era, but the fact they openly say it in the song still fits.
Pretty sure SOAD is cringe and gay now just like anyone who used to be cool in the earlier era, but the fact they openly say it in the song still fits.
We live in an era where the word "austerity" is meaningless. It's a red herring.
120 years ago, the government made up a single digit percent of GDP. In many countries today, that number is 30, 40, 50%.
If your government makes up half of the economy, you're in an era of functional fascism. The government becomes totalizing, it controls way more than 30, 40, 50% of the economy at that point because when you're in bed with an elephant you lay where it lets you, not where you want to lay.
Next, there's the fact that people who want to keep all the government we have don't want to pay for all the government we have. If you take out huge amounts of debt you never intend to pay back so you can hand yourself money, that's morally bankrupt -- selling kids into slavery is morally wrong, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.
Not that it's necessarily the relevant discussion anyway. From a class standpoint, government is filled with the bougoisie, people whose job is to sit at a desk extracting value from the working class to fund their lifestyles. As we're learning more and more, the government gets captured by corruption, and so you end up giving government money to rich people, who then use that money to give to government officials in legal or illegal ways. The powerful help the powerful. The fact that they're powerful through the market or powerful through the state becomes irrelevant. The postmodern "city people" (the etymological basis of the phrase "Bougoisie") is
In this way, austerity becomes a red herring -- the government in most countries has virtually never meaningfully shrunk. The only thing is they stop giving tax money to needy people and reroute it to the powerful. Same amount of money spent, but homeless camps spring up everywhere because the common man is drained, their kids are drained, and get nothing meaningful in return.
When governments claim they're going to spend more money, what it really means is, they're going to spend more money on themselves and their buddies. The United States spends as much public money on healthcare as Canada (actually much more at the moment), but Canada has single payer healthcare, the United States basically requires everyone to buy private health insurance because there is no universal healthcare for people, just for the rich and their bank accounts.
120 years ago, the government made up a single digit percent of GDP. In many countries today, that number is 30, 40, 50%.
If your government makes up half of the economy, you're in an era of functional fascism. The government becomes totalizing, it controls way more than 30, 40, 50% of the economy at that point because when you're in bed with an elephant you lay where it lets you, not where you want to lay.
Next, there's the fact that people who want to keep all the government we have don't want to pay for all the government we have. If you take out huge amounts of debt you never intend to pay back so you can hand yourself money, that's morally bankrupt -- selling kids into slavery is morally wrong, and that's a hill I'm willing to die on.
Not that it's necessarily the relevant discussion anyway. From a class standpoint, government is filled with the bougoisie, people whose job is to sit at a desk extracting value from the working class to fund their lifestyles. As we're learning more and more, the government gets captured by corruption, and so you end up giving government money to rich people, who then use that money to give to government officials in legal or illegal ways. The powerful help the powerful. The fact that they're powerful through the market or powerful through the state becomes irrelevant. The postmodern "city people" (the etymological basis of the phrase "Bougoisie") is
In this way, austerity becomes a red herring -- the government in most countries has virtually never meaningfully shrunk. The only thing is they stop giving tax money to needy people and reroute it to the powerful. Same amount of money spent, but homeless camps spring up everywhere because the common man is drained, their kids are drained, and get nothing meaningful in return.
When governments claim they're going to spend more money, what it really means is, they're going to spend more money on themselves and their buddies. The United States spends as much public money on healthcare as Canada (actually much more at the moment), but Canada has single payer healthcare, the United States basically requires everyone to buy private health insurance because there is no universal healthcare for people, just for the rich and their bank accounts.
The other thing to be careful of is getting sucked into the idea that there's such thing as a "post-scarcity world".
It's just not possible.
There's always scarcity, even in a world that has a lot.
There's going to be land, where there are more attractive and less attractive places to live. There's people, where only so many people can ask of certain individual's time. There's skill, where many people don't want an automatically produced thing, they want something created just for them by a human being with skill.
There's also the fact that human desire is unlimited. Aluminum was once the world's most valuable precious metal. The top of the washington monument was made with aluminium. One of the kings of france had a set of aluminum plates they only brought out for important state guests. Once more became available, we started making everything from vehicles to drink cans out of the stuff. The same would likely prove true if unlimited gold was available, but the likelihood of building matter subatomic particle by subatomic particle and successfully doing that at scale cheaply is near zero.
Even stuff that's effectively unlimited is limited by time, location, and package. Earth is essentially a water world, but we want water on land where we live when we need it that's clean and desalinated and often packaged up for us.
Of course, the fact that material desires are unlimited doesn't mean we need to indulge those desires -- there is a moral virtue in humility and thriftiness -- but societies don't typically ignore fundamental physical laws or human nature for long and remain a going concern. It also doesn't mean that there won't be things that are abundant -- Most people can buy more salt than they have anything to do with, for example -- but the fact that you can have enough salt doesn't mean other forms of scarcity won't exist.
It's just not possible.
There's always scarcity, even in a world that has a lot.
There's going to be land, where there are more attractive and less attractive places to live. There's people, where only so many people can ask of certain individual's time. There's skill, where many people don't want an automatically produced thing, they want something created just for them by a human being with skill.
There's also the fact that human desire is unlimited. Aluminum was once the world's most valuable precious metal. The top of the washington monument was made with aluminium. One of the kings of france had a set of aluminum plates they only brought out for important state guests. Once more became available, we started making everything from vehicles to drink cans out of the stuff. The same would likely prove true if unlimited gold was available, but the likelihood of building matter subatomic particle by subatomic particle and successfully doing that at scale cheaply is near zero.
Even stuff that's effectively unlimited is limited by time, location, and package. Earth is essentially a water world, but we want water on land where we live when we need it that's clean and desalinated and often packaged up for us.
Of course, the fact that material desires are unlimited doesn't mean we need to indulge those desires -- there is a moral virtue in humility and thriftiness -- but societies don't typically ignore fundamental physical laws or human nature for long and remain a going concern. It also doesn't mean that there won't be things that are abundant -- Most people can buy more salt than they have anything to do with, for example -- but the fact that you can have enough salt doesn't mean other forms of scarcity won't exist.
[admin mode] bit of downtime last night, just growing pains. looks like I was trying to run npm and nodejs on my reverse proxy and it caused some issues, maxxing out swap. I increased the contained memory and swap, then removed npm and nodejs, if I need them I'll run that application on another container.
