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sj_zero | @sj_zero@social.fbxl.net

Author of The Graysonian Ethic (Available on Amazon, pick up a dead tree copy today)

Also Author of Future Sepsis (Also available on Amazon!)

Admin of the FBXL Network including FBXL Search, FBXL Video, FBXL Social, FBXL Lotide, FBXL Translate, and FBXL Maps.

Advocate for freedom and tolerance even if you say things I do not like

Adversary of Fediblock

Accept that I'll probably say something you don't like and I'll give you the same benefit, and maybe we can find some truth about the world.

Ah... Is the Alliteration clever or stupid? Don't answer that, I sort of know the answer already...

Sure is a good thing Canada is in great shape and there's nothing troublesome going on at all so they can focus on erasing people from the internet secretly.

"look we drew people we pretend to like really cool and the people we don't like as looking silly."

Europe was once the center of culture on planet Earth...

They spent 10 years talking about how they wanted to punish people for misinformation and disinformation. Someone gets punished for misinformation and disinformation and they lose their fuckin minds.

I don't understand what the post has to things you don't need. That's clearly just something every household should have.

>Then again, I doubt a "true" capitalist economy ever exists, because culture is such a huge force.

I have something very much like this is a core piece of something that I'm writing for my next book.

The idea that culture is a mediating force between both the state and capital. The so-called culture war is that you're seeing in my opinion are better characterized as forces outside of culture itself trying to sublimate the power of culture which doesn't need money or a centralized bureaucracy into either the state or markets. It doesn't really matter which side is doing the pulling because it's like two predators fighting over a fresh carcass. Once you realize that culture is the more important and much larger element, I totally changes every question about the world today.

In countries where the government makes up 60% of GDP (Italy for example), can you really even consider it capitalism of any kind anymore? That 40% that isn't government isn't just the companies and rich folks, it's also the entire labor market put together -- so every single individual working for a wage. Which is nuts when you think about how insanely huge and powerful government is. (The US is about 30-40% if you include all 3 levels so less but still historically at totalitarian dictatorship levels historically speaking)

We can never forget that there was no income tax for most people on Earth in 1900. Today, a blue collar guy can be paying 50% tax on the last dollar he earns, and that's before the many other forms of taxation that didn't exist previously. Include all those taxes and that same blue collar guy might be paying 50% tax on every dollar he earns.

There's a difference between vacuum inside and vacuum outside.

Think of a soda can. Using your lungs, you can suck the air out of it and cause it to be crushed, but you cannot blow air into it so much it explodes.

The difference between tension and compression is important for most materials. Something like concrete is extremely strong in compression, but extremely weak in tension. Metals are the opposite, extremely strong in tension but relatively weak in compression. Moreover, in tension the force of the vacuum is distributed evenly along all the surfaces, whereas in compression it can buckle which introduces weak points and stress points. Once you blow on the can, it's the same as it ever was, but once you suck on it, the can has folds introduced into it that will never fully go away.

Unless you're requesting asylum from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, or Spain, I don't see why you'd have a claim to asylum in the UK.

Now, I can understand why you'd request asylum from France, but for the most part people from those countries are happy to sleep in the beds they've made.

Fundamentally redesigning the education system was one of the things I did in Future Sepsis for exactly these reasons.

Educated people used to be more educated. We've lost a lot as a society.

Edit: this post really blew up!

Up north a lot of people have heaters in their vehicles wired alongside the block heater.

Should people take life seriously or just be happy?

I would say it's a false dichotomy. To be truly happy, you have to take life seriously.

Taking life seriously doesn't mean taking every single thing you can't control seriously, of course. The wisdom of the stoics is important, but not focusing on things you can't control isn't the same as not taking life itself seriously and taking the things you can control seriously.

I became a father in 2021 after a lifetime of thinking that was impossible. I released my first book about a month before he was born. Most fathers wouldn't publish a novel length book to their son, but I felt like it was important to get started.

Being a father is one of only a few things in my life that have ever made me truly happy, one of the other things being my marriage. These two things are a big part of my life, and I take them both deadly seriously. That totally changes the calculus of things. Going outside, going for a walk, going to the park, they stop just being something you do for your own happiness, and start being something you do because you're serious about your life and that makes it important. By doing the things that aren't fun in the moment, by taking life seriously and treating it like something that matters, you do these things and fundamentally become happier because the things you care about succeed.

Meanwhile, while I got to the park with my son 7 times a week some weeks, I see we're living in ghost world. The sidewalks are empty. The parks are empty. Everywhere is empty. Where are the kids? Obviously there's a lot fewer kids now that we aren't in a baby boom, but the truth is there's still plenty of kids but nobody takes live very seriously so they're just at home playing on their electronics and watching slop videos.

In fact, I think taking life seriously and acting like it matters is how you make sure you're doing the right things and ensuring your happiness continues. Doing the right thing when nobody's watching is serious. Deferring gratification when it can pay off is serious. Raising your kids is serious. Staying connected to your wife or husband is serious. You ultimately end up with what Aristotle called eudaimonia, human flourishing. It's a deeper happiness than just being able to say you enjoyed doing something transient briefly.

I finished my second book and first novel this year. I took writing it very seriously, and spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of world could make people happy. It wasn't a world of fleeting joy and lackadaisical attitudes. It's a world rich with meaning, where people take their lives, their communities, their responsibilities seriously. It's a world where people make commitments to the people around them, and that's where they find joy and meaning. We are free, so we are free to do the right thing that makes the world a better place to live in.

Does ChatGPT drive cars and eat food and buy houses and talk on the phone too?

Maybe they watch netflix or use diapers or baby formula too?

Careful: if he touches your paper you're allowed to break his arm and steal his motorcycle. He said so.

I like soup.

Looking at Labor through an economic lens without special pleading because it is labor rather than some other thing that you buy and sell makes it pretty darn clear the things to raise wages are not the things people think. I don't think it's a mistake that all of those things that would make labor more valuable have been made taboo.

I can quit whenever I want! Now excuse me I'm going to snort Tylenol and paint these 40k figurines.

That's rude. If you're in herdecke of course you should punch the mayor. These people should have gone to stich instead.

Since I was born yesterday and can't tell when stuff is fake, it's really sporting of all the democrats to star in all these commercials.

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