I'm pretty excited about the book I'm working on, I hope people like it, I think it's really special.
But make no mistake: if it fails, it's my fault -- either on writing, or editing, or art, or typesetting, or advertising.
I can't blame readers or potential customers for it, at the end of the day I'm not owed anyone's time or money.
Regardless, hopefully at least a few people check it out when it comes out, and hopefully the people who pick it up will think it's as special as I think it is.
But make no mistake: if it fails, it's my fault -- either on writing, or editing, or art, or typesetting, or advertising.
I can't blame readers or potential customers for it, at the end of the day I'm not owed anyone's time or money.
Regardless, hopefully at least a few people check it out when it comes out, and hopefully the people who pick it up will think it's as special as I think it is.
If you're not able to read, put the effort into learning. Expecting someone to pick up skill that is common might be ableist, in that you are judging someone on what they are unable to do, so just become able to do the thing. In that sense, it's a moral good to be ableist -- you're saying you should judge someone for not being able to do something they're fully capable of doing.
And yeah, maybe some people are blind or they're really stupid (I mean, they are on bluesky so that second one is definitely an option) and that's the case then I should recommend that you get over yourself -- obviously nobody expects you to read, the message to read isn't aimed at you.
You could qualify any post with a giant disclaimer "of course people who are physically, neurologically, emotionally, or sociostructurally unable to read get a pass" but if the argument is that some people are unable to read, who are you writing the message for? People who can read?
And yeah, maybe some people are blind or they're really stupid (I mean, they are on bluesky so that second one is definitely an option) and that's the case then I should recommend that you get over yourself -- obviously nobody expects you to read, the message to read isn't aimed at you.
You could qualify any post with a giant disclaimer "of course people who are physically, neurologically, emotionally, or sociostructurally unable to read get a pass" but if the argument is that some people are unable to read, who are you writing the message for? People who can read?
Random Canada facts regarding milk in bags.
Milk in bags is mostly an Ontario and Quebec thing as far as I know, it's not common in the prairie provinces.
You tend to have a certain pitcher for the milk in a bag, it holds the bag upright, you snip the corner of the bag and then pour it out of the hole.
You typically don't reseal the bag, but we did use a chip clip for a while (before we just moved back to jugs because it's more convenient and easier and cleaner to close a lid). When I was a kid, the milk just sits there open in the fridge, and yes it does go sour faster that way.
The bag uses significantly less material than the jug because the bag isn't a rigid structure that has to maintain its shape.
Milk in bags is typically less expensive than milk in jugs, last time I compared it was about a dollar less.
Milk in bags is mostly an Ontario and Quebec thing as far as I know, it's not common in the prairie provinces.
You tend to have a certain pitcher for the milk in a bag, it holds the bag upright, you snip the corner of the bag and then pour it out of the hole.
You typically don't reseal the bag, but we did use a chip clip for a while (before we just moved back to jugs because it's more convenient and easier and cleaner to close a lid). When I was a kid, the milk just sits there open in the fridge, and yes it does go sour faster that way.
The bag uses significantly less material than the jug because the bag isn't a rigid structure that has to maintain its shape.
Milk in bags is typically less expensive than milk in jugs, last time I compared it was about a dollar less.
"Oh, you guys don't think any of that stuff is bad? Ok! I guess we'll start doing some of it to my political enemies! Oh! It turns it out is bad thing?"
Ngl in Chrono trigger I'd always have magus in my party.
But you don't have him in your party for physical damage.
But you don't have him in your party for physical damage.
This lady is full of shit.
Connecticut and Florida have essentially the same white population, so it isn't any more or less diverse.
Connecticut and Florida are essentially tied for educational outcomes (both are really good), so the education system isn't any better. If her school library in Florida had entire shelves empty, I would be asking why their school had a "showing little boys how to blow dudes" section. DeSantis didn't ban cat in the hat.
The one thing that's true is Connecticut has a much lower violent crime rate than Florida. I doubt the sort of person sending their kids to private school and writing articles for Business Insider have to worry about it.
Strip away the slick editing and progressive buzzwords, and what this looks like to me is a very normal thing when people move -- trying to rationalize your move using every little thing you see that's different where you moved to compared to where you came from. Most people who move do this, but they don't get paid to publish it in an internationally read magazine. The big question isn't the day you move and you're happy with your choice, it's a year, two years, five years, ten years down the line when the reality of living in a place really sets in and the shiny new school library is just a school library.
I had a portion of my life where I moved around a lot, and for sure some places were objectively better or worse than others, but it doesn't look like this; it looks like finding out the deeper good and bad things that nobody tells you at first and them adding up into a new conclusion. I moved to a little rural city and discovered it had a shocking amount of gang violence and other crime. Another city I moved to looked much more industrial but it turned out it had big forest areas you could easily walk to and enjoy, as well as stuff like beaches you'd never expect to see. I visited a capital routinely at one point, but when I moved there the things I did were totally different.
Which also leads to one final thing: "Florida" and "Connecticut" are not actually two individual unified things. St. Augustine was an unusually white area of Florida. She likely moved to a rich but slightly more diverse section of Connecticut. If she moved within Florida I'm certain she could find her kid the only white kid in class, but she didn't do that, and I'm reasonably sure I have a good idea as to why.
Connecticut and Florida have essentially the same white population, so it isn't any more or less diverse.
Connecticut and Florida are essentially tied for educational outcomes (both are really good), so the education system isn't any better. If her school library in Florida had entire shelves empty, I would be asking why their school had a "showing little boys how to blow dudes" section. DeSantis didn't ban cat in the hat.
The one thing that's true is Connecticut has a much lower violent crime rate than Florida. I doubt the sort of person sending their kids to private school and writing articles for Business Insider have to worry about it.
Strip away the slick editing and progressive buzzwords, and what this looks like to me is a very normal thing when people move -- trying to rationalize your move using every little thing you see that's different where you moved to compared to where you came from. Most people who move do this, but they don't get paid to publish it in an internationally read magazine. The big question isn't the day you move and you're happy with your choice, it's a year, two years, five years, ten years down the line when the reality of living in a place really sets in and the shiny new school library is just a school library.
I had a portion of my life where I moved around a lot, and for sure some places were objectively better or worse than others, but it doesn't look like this; it looks like finding out the deeper good and bad things that nobody tells you at first and them adding up into a new conclusion. I moved to a little rural city and discovered it had a shocking amount of gang violence and other crime. Another city I moved to looked much more industrial but it turned out it had big forest areas you could easily walk to and enjoy, as well as stuff like beaches you'd never expect to see. I visited a capital routinely at one point, but when I moved there the things I did were totally different.
Which also leads to one final thing: "Florida" and "Connecticut" are not actually two individual unified things. St. Augustine was an unusually white area of Florida. She likely moved to a rich but slightly more diverse section of Connecticut. If she moved within Florida I'm certain she could find her kid the only white kid in class, but she didn't do that, and I'm reasonably sure I have a good idea as to why.
The punishment for robbery may not be death, but if you fuck around you may find out.
The robbers brought the lethal force, then the lethal force they threatened to use against others was used against them.
The penalty for threats of lethal force may in fact be death. So don't threaten people or you might die and nobody will care.
The robbers brought the lethal force, then the lethal force they threatened to use against others was used against them.
The penalty for threats of lethal force may in fact be death. So don't threaten people or you might die and nobody will care.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z1WpYihkRQ
This video is about ancient music, but the discussion of the pre-1066 English church is really wonderful -- Imagine this thing that's weathered the ages for likely over 1,000 years, taken care of continuously from the anglo-saxons being in charge to the Norman conquest, to the revolutions of the early modern period, through the world wars, and the postmodern period -- and this church has remained as a cultural touchstone of this community.
This video is about ancient music, but the discussion of the pre-1066 English church is really wonderful -- Imagine this thing that's weathered the ages for likely over 1,000 years, taken care of continuously from the anglo-saxons being in charge to the Norman conquest, to the revolutions of the early modern period, through the world wars, and the postmodern period -- and this church has remained as a cultural touchstone of this community.
"mom I just woke up, unless you want me to start talking all about my dick every morning get me some captain crunch"
On the upside, according to SMART, I've only ever written 5TB to the SSD so it's got unlimited writes remaining more or less.
[Admin mode] Well that was annoying...
Somehow a behind the scenes proxmox configuration got messed up, and so all my containers on that instance stopped (and they stopped backing up days ago). I was concerned that it was because the ssd failed so I ran out and bought a local nvme ssd to replace it, but then it turns out I just needed to fix the broken local-lvm.
If I'd realized it was just a config issue I would have fixed it this morning. Sorry users. On the upside, I've got a backup SSD ready to slot in at any time now and the twice daily backups are operating as designed again. I think I need to make the same repair to the rest of my proxmox machines but I have no idea why they would have changed.
Somehow a behind the scenes proxmox configuration got messed up, and so all my containers on that instance stopped (and they stopped backing up days ago). I was concerned that it was because the ssd failed so I ran out and bought a local nvme ssd to replace it, but then it turns out I just needed to fix the broken local-lvm.
If I'd realized it was just a config issue I would have fixed it this morning. Sorry users. On the upside, I've got a backup SSD ready to slot in at any time now and the twice daily backups are operating as designed again. I think I need to make the same repair to the rest of my proxmox machines but I have no idea why they would have changed.
At this moment in time, It really seems sensible to assume that the western world balkanizes.
Why is there a Canada? Why is there a United States? And why would Montana allow itself to be dominated by LA and NYC? Why is there an EU? For that matter, why should East Germany which voted for the AfD want to stay with West Germany, which wants to jail the AfD?
Alberta is one step from leaving the federation right now, and I think you're right that it'll be one after another after that. The US might go "Hey, that's not a bad idea" after that -- let the far left states have the far left debts.
Canada in particular isn't even a country in the sense you might expect -- people might point to open borders and free trade in between interior borders, but while Canada does have open borders between provinces in term of movement between provinces, it does not have free trade or even many common standards between internal borders. An engineer in one province can't call themselves an engineer in another province for example, and many products sold on one side of a provincial border may not be allowed to be sold on the other side of the provincial border. In that sense, it is already moderately separated in ways that could be addressed with treaties.
One argument for keeping the unions intact is that the regions such as LA and NYC subsidize places like Montana -- and I'd argue that's an unsustainable model. Since 2000, the US federal debt has increased by 8 times, from a mere 4 trillion to a whopping 36 trillion, with no suggestion that things are going to change any time soon. In that sense, much like eventually the western Roman empire could no longer fund bread and circuses and fell apart, there's every reason to believe that these large states will face similar collapses as their means to pay to remain unified disappears in debt. Canada and the European Union are also facing debt crises in different way. Canada tripled its debt since 2007, despite being at a point where they literally could not sell Canadian bonds to anyone at one point relatively recently in Canadian history. The EU has already faced several sovereign debt crises such as Greece, Italy, and Spain that aren't likely over.
The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain -- there are big splits within these countries, they aren't a unified nation with a unified polis which will necessarily remain unified just because the modern period told them to.
Europe in the pre-modern period was dramatically fragmented. The Holy Roman Empire was in fact countless small entities, as was France pre-revolutionary war, and the Ottoman empire. There were kings, but the kings were much different than the central governments today. The world wasn't something we conceive of today. It consisted of relatively small local autonomous regions loosely affiliated with a certain crown.
Around the world, it's likely we'll see nations created in the modern age fall apart. India has only been unified a few times throughout its entire history -- the map has largely looked like TV static because of the constant rise and fall of small kingdoms. The idea of a unified India was imposed by England, and it's something that we're seeing cracks in as Muslim regions, Sikh regions, and Hindi regions, and more are stress points all across the subcontinent that have the capacity to balkanize if the global scenario changes. The Maurya and Mughal Empires did briefly unify large parts of the subcontinent, but those were exceptions to the norm, not the norm. India (even the parts that don't want to politically or religiously coexist) may consider itself part of a civilization and parts of Indian culture are some the most powerful cultural forces in world history, but that's a separate question from political unification -- The Germans, the Spanish, and the French may consider themselves Europeans, but if you created one country called Spadeuschrance they'd clash immediately.
The legacy of this is still contained for example in the German national anthem. The song was written in the early Modern period, calling for one "Deutschland uber alles" -- not a call for expansionism as it was considered in the Nazi Germany period (which is the reason the first verse was removed), but a call for all the separate things that were part of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be unified under one nation-state called Deutschland -- Deutschland Uber Alles.
Nationalism isn't a truly conservative idea. It's a modernist idea inspired by the French revolution that was against the multi-ethnic empires of the pre-modern era such as the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, or even the Roman empire in its eastern and western iterations.
Nationalism was "invented" by the Jacobins -- the original left wingers, and the group that essentially brought about the modern era through the French revolution.
It's easy to say "but conservatives took over nationalism!", but that's an example of "conservatives are leftists driving the speed limit" -- revolutionary ideas seep into unprincipled conservatism, so all the left needs to do is keep pushing. Eventually their revolution becomes the lay of the land for everyone and they move onto the next revolution.
European continental conservatism would be a return to religion, nobility, monarchy, Perhaps backing off of capitalism and a return to feudalism, at least for most of the modernist period. The only reason conservatism might call for a return to nationalism today is that just as conservatism in the modern period hoped to return to the premodern period, conservatism in the postmodern period hopes to return to the modern period -- but make no mistake, the modern period was a revolutionary period and conservatives didn't like what came out of it (including the Napoleonic wars, fascism, national socialism, and socialism).
In reality, a lot of the standardization of nationalization wiped out local traditions rather than sustaining them. The standardization of units of measure, while arguably and extremely positive thing nonetheless meant that local traditions of measurement were eliminated. Local dialects or local languages that weren't aligned with the central government were effectively limited by Fiat, and so in that way it was an institutionalized anti-conservatism.
English conservatism would look a little bit different, it would still likely be a return to feudalism, but the English have been a nation of traders for a long time, and the existed under some form of common law since before the modern age began. America by contrast came about in the very short period of time after the enlightenment but before the French revolution, and so it represents another way of being, and because it is such a young culture it's conservatism is similarly Young. No American conservative is calling for a restoration of the monarchy.
I'm not necessarily saying that things will return to pre-modern ways because they were better, but instead that versions of similar structures may form past the end of the postmodern period because the same forces that ended the Roman empire and resulted in a highly divided Europe may end up replaying as the global American-European empire collapses.
I'm not necessarily saying I'd like to see this happen -- the end of the modern era proper will not be sunshine and rainbows.
Why is there a Canada? Why is there a United States? And why would Montana allow itself to be dominated by LA and NYC? Why is there an EU? For that matter, why should East Germany which voted for the AfD want to stay with West Germany, which wants to jail the AfD?
Alberta is one step from leaving the federation right now, and I think you're right that it'll be one after another after that. The US might go "Hey, that's not a bad idea" after that -- let the far left states have the far left debts.
Canada in particular isn't even a country in the sense you might expect -- people might point to open borders and free trade in between interior borders, but while Canada does have open borders between provinces in term of movement between provinces, it does not have free trade or even many common standards between internal borders. An engineer in one province can't call themselves an engineer in another province for example, and many products sold on one side of a provincial border may not be allowed to be sold on the other side of the provincial border. In that sense, it is already moderately separated in ways that could be addressed with treaties.
One argument for keeping the unions intact is that the regions such as LA and NYC subsidize places like Montana -- and I'd argue that's an unsustainable model. Since 2000, the US federal debt has increased by 8 times, from a mere 4 trillion to a whopping 36 trillion, with no suggestion that things are going to change any time soon. In that sense, much like eventually the western Roman empire could no longer fund bread and circuses and fell apart, there's every reason to believe that these large states will face similar collapses as their means to pay to remain unified disappears in debt. Canada and the European Union are also facing debt crises in different way. Canada tripled its debt since 2007, despite being at a point where they literally could not sell Canadian bonds to anyone at one point relatively recently in Canadian history. The EU has already faced several sovereign debt crises such as Greece, Italy, and Spain that aren't likely over.
The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain -- there are big splits within these countries, they aren't a unified nation with a unified polis which will necessarily remain unified just because the modern period told them to.
Europe in the pre-modern period was dramatically fragmented. The Holy Roman Empire was in fact countless small entities, as was France pre-revolutionary war, and the Ottoman empire. There were kings, but the kings were much different than the central governments today. The world wasn't something we conceive of today. It consisted of relatively small local autonomous regions loosely affiliated with a certain crown.
Around the world, it's likely we'll see nations created in the modern age fall apart. India has only been unified a few times throughout its entire history -- the map has largely looked like TV static because of the constant rise and fall of small kingdoms. The idea of a unified India was imposed by England, and it's something that we're seeing cracks in as Muslim regions, Sikh regions, and Hindi regions, and more are stress points all across the subcontinent that have the capacity to balkanize if the global scenario changes. The Maurya and Mughal Empires did briefly unify large parts of the subcontinent, but those were exceptions to the norm, not the norm. India (even the parts that don't want to politically or religiously coexist) may consider itself part of a civilization and parts of Indian culture are some the most powerful cultural forces in world history, but that's a separate question from political unification -- The Germans, the Spanish, and the French may consider themselves Europeans, but if you created one country called Spadeuschrance they'd clash immediately.
The legacy of this is still contained for example in the German national anthem. The song was written in the early Modern period, calling for one "Deutschland uber alles" -- not a call for expansionism as it was considered in the Nazi Germany period (which is the reason the first verse was removed), but a call for all the separate things that were part of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be unified under one nation-state called Deutschland -- Deutschland Uber Alles.
Nationalism isn't a truly conservative idea. It's a modernist idea inspired by the French revolution that was against the multi-ethnic empires of the pre-modern era such as the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, or even the Roman empire in its eastern and western iterations.
Nationalism was "invented" by the Jacobins -- the original left wingers, and the group that essentially brought about the modern era through the French revolution.
It's easy to say "but conservatives took over nationalism!", but that's an example of "conservatives are leftists driving the speed limit" -- revolutionary ideas seep into unprincipled conservatism, so all the left needs to do is keep pushing. Eventually their revolution becomes the lay of the land for everyone and they move onto the next revolution.
European continental conservatism would be a return to religion, nobility, monarchy, Perhaps backing off of capitalism and a return to feudalism, at least for most of the modernist period. The only reason conservatism might call for a return to nationalism today is that just as conservatism in the modern period hoped to return to the premodern period, conservatism in the postmodern period hopes to return to the modern period -- but make no mistake, the modern period was a revolutionary period and conservatives didn't like what came out of it (including the Napoleonic wars, fascism, national socialism, and socialism).
In reality, a lot of the standardization of nationalization wiped out local traditions rather than sustaining them. The standardization of units of measure, while arguably and extremely positive thing nonetheless meant that local traditions of measurement were eliminated. Local dialects or local languages that weren't aligned with the central government were effectively limited by Fiat, and so in that way it was an institutionalized anti-conservatism.
English conservatism would look a little bit different, it would still likely be a return to feudalism, but the English have been a nation of traders for a long time, and the existed under some form of common law since before the modern age began. America by contrast came about in the very short period of time after the enlightenment but before the French revolution, and so it represents another way of being, and because it is such a young culture it's conservatism is similarly Young. No American conservative is calling for a restoration of the monarchy.
I'm not necessarily saying that things will return to pre-modern ways because they were better, but instead that versions of similar structures may form past the end of the postmodern period because the same forces that ended the Roman empire and resulted in a highly divided Europe may end up replaying as the global American-European empire collapses.
I'm not necessarily saying I'd like to see this happen -- the end of the modern era proper will not be sunshine and rainbows.
There is a possibly apocryphal statement from Plato where he complains about the youth of his day. This is often used as evidence that the elders will always complain about the children, and that nothing ever changes.
The thing is, a bunch of stuff did change. Within Plato's lifetime, Athenian democracy ended. Ultimately the most important Greeks are the ones who were taken as slaves by the romans, and eventually Greece was entirely subsumed into the Roman empire.
We have to be very careful about our post-modernist desire to pretend that actions and trends don't have consequences that can be negative and can be outcomes we don't want. How you behave matters a lot, at the sociologically atomic level, and eventually if you have people follow you at the civilizational level.
The thing is, a bunch of stuff did change. Within Plato's lifetime, Athenian democracy ended. Ultimately the most important Greeks are the ones who were taken as slaves by the romans, and eventually Greece was entirely subsumed into the Roman empire.
We have to be very careful about our post-modernist desire to pretend that actions and trends don't have consequences that can be negative and can be outcomes we don't want. How you behave matters a lot, at the sociologically atomic level, and eventually if you have people follow you at the civilizational level.
You're not just reading a parody post — you're rewriting every neuron of your mind to become the overmann.
You're reading a post with:
* Unnecessary lists: right in the middle of the post it just starts listing things off with formatting
* Painfully overbroad reframing: eating a cheese sandwich becomes a Christ-like act of transformation.
* Ending with the same cliched question and answer: because too many writers apparently think it's clever. *Chef's kiss*🤌
And that? That's the most important thing.
(In spite of being a parody of chatGPT and it's specific stylistic quirks, I don't think it could intentionally write this post)
You're reading a post with:
* Unnecessary lists: right in the middle of the post it just starts listing things off with formatting
* Painfully overbroad reframing: eating a cheese sandwich becomes a Christ-like act of transformation.
* Ending with the same cliched question and answer: because too many writers apparently think it's clever. *Chef's kiss*🤌
And that? That's the most important thing.
(In spite of being a parody of chatGPT and it's specific stylistic quirks, I don't think it could intentionally write this post)