In this land our goal is to develop a set of rules or axioms that allow us to be worthy of immortality. Not as individuals, but as a society. How can we live such that none are oppressed

?

The nation of imagi 

Can we take it back?

Why are we doing this? Do we fucking care? I keep telling myself that I'm only intrinsically motivated. What approval do I need? None, right?

Fuck you and fuck me. I feel some artificial desire to do more than watch the wind dance. I need to eat, fuck, and sleep in peace.
Shit.
I've probably dated myself with my expletives. I'm too old for this, but not old enough to quit. I guess I'm fucked. 

I look around, waiting for someone to step up. I don't want to be the asshole. It's fucking dust and tumbleweeds. Those who can help are corrupted, and everyone else has the fucking emerald glasses obscuring the decay and crust.

I'm a fucking hero, right? That's a good fucking lie. It feels like my moral compass is pointing north, but who fucking knows.

I like the idea of objective truth. 

It's trivial to edit the past. I can be wherever I wanted to be. 1984 doesn't have shit on today. There's not state sponsored bullshit, there's just you, me, profit, and sin. People were cute when they talked about late stage capitalism. You don't buy indulgences, you just edit them in.

Holding up a sign looks great on tickgram, but it is just showing that a State can pretend tolerance. Take the pat on the head of free speech while the machine marches on.
Maybe I'm a little bit bitter. Maybe a lot bitter. 

I guess it's time to take it back.

John Henry

I was looking through my obsidian notes and ran across the blurb below. I vaguely remember writing that out. I was very likely baked and/or tired. On the re-read, John Henry's quote after being captured really jumped out:

"Big secrets hurt everyone, little secrets save us."

I really feel this is true. Information wants to be free (as in freedom). 

I am not going to argue against operational security, or even IP in a lot of situations. It's a fucking nuanced issue.

We should only keep secrets as long as they are necessary. Try not to do or endorse things that are directly exploitative or destructive in nature, and accept that people make mistakes, or do not understand the consequences of their decisions or actions. Be open and empathetic.

Why do we need secrets?

We need secrets because people are assholes. We need secrets because people are afraid someone else, somewhere, is going to do something that will take away something we hold dear, like human rights. In the current state of software, or anything digital (from the web to your centrifuge or furnace) relies on secrets to maintain identity. We need secrets because individuals or groups will persecute those who think differently than they do.

What really sucks, is that the same folks who are working to undermine the little secrets are usually sitting on big secrets.

Here's your prompt:

John Henry as a cyberpunk story. Him against the AI's. his rule based systems and generated black box weapons against a borg-like attrition attack, like Russia in Ukraine. A US corporation was enlisted to track him down however possible, and they were itching to try their new adaptive penetration learning system (APLS (everyone calls it Alps, like the mountains, because that would have been a better acronym)).
They came at John Henry with everything they had. Alps learning to penetrate all systems until they had him cornered. When they brought him out he said. They can get at anything you store. "Big secrets hurt everyone, little secrets save us." He had referred to things like pass codes and primary keys as small secrets. It's up to interpretation what qualifies as a big secret. He was a big advocate of printed media and analog techniques. Use the tools of the digital age to build tools that help with our digital life, but also bleed into the analog world. He would advocate for public discussions about policy

It's OK

Suicide is taboo.

I feel the need to put in a disclaimer right here: I am not in immediate danger of committing suicide, and I in no way endorse anyone taking their own life.

Don't worry about me.

<start>
Suicide is freedom when there are no other avenues. It is illegal to commit suicide for the same reason that women are not allowed abortions. It is a move for those in power to make sure that they can have control.

Suicide is a privilege unique to humans, as far as I know. It is a privilege that is a byproduct of freedom. If you can do anything you want, then think hard about what it is you want. With privilege comes responsibility.

Choosing not to die is a right, but a right that can be overpowered by biology or action. Choosing not to die is hard sometimes. All of the things around are overwhelming, and there isn't a way to stop the rising tide inside.

Treat it like an acid trip. 

1. Find a safe place (if nothing feels safe, watch out for traffic)
2. Take a deep breath
   
3. Sit down on the ground. Cross-legged if you can
4. Close your eyes, you can't trust your senses or your thoughts necessarily. 

The best thing to do is overwhelm the processing part of the brain with direct sensory input. Rub your hands together, touch your face, rub the tops of your thighs.
Think about opening your eyes. 

If you feel ready, keep your eyes closed and listen hard to your surroundings.

Get a lay of the land by building a mental picture using your memory and what you can hear. 

Think about opening your eyes. If you are not ready, continue to breath, feeling your chest expand and push the air out with your diaphragm.

Think about opening your eyes. If you are ready, open your eyes and compare what you see to your mental expectation.
Really look around, but do it without judgement.  

Things are. 

Judgement and shame can hide what is right in front of us. 

You are ready to live.
If you disagree with the statement above, then follow the steps above once again. Maybe masturbate, but don't do it fully to orgasm. Just enough to dump some endorphins into your system.

You are ready to live.
If you disagree with the statement above, that is your right. I love you. You are worthy of living. I will share my oxygen and water with you as long as it works for both of us. You are not alone.

If you are ready to live, you need to know where you are. 

Get ready to think about your demons. If that thought starts the cycle again. Go back to step 1. Sit down, close your eyes, breathe, and feel.

Our demons are self-defined, and if we can't or don't want to face them, they will drive us. 

Get ready to think about your demons.

 If you feel safe, write them down. 

Giving symbols to the feelings that encompass guilt, shame, greed, lust, addiction, anything that stops us from doing what we feel is right. Some demons are external, and doubly bind us with physical and mental chains.

Understand that your demons are part of you, but do not define you.

Accept the reality of where you are Right Now. To be able to articulate where you want you go, you need to find your baseline and understand it.

This is not a one step process. I constantly struggle to love myself, to find value in what defines me.

We'll get there.

Seasoned Obstinant Laymen In Disguise

Stoned, Seriously, Simply, Silent, Studious, Seasoned

Obstinate, Obscure, Orphaned, Obedient, Observant, Old

Leaning, Lies, Learning, Lemmings, Louts, Liars

Independent, Invoking, Instead of, Invent, Inhale, In

Developers, Disguise, Doubt, Desire, Donuts, Decline

Single Responsibility Principle

Things do one thing. The thing is up to interpretation, and sometimes it only shows up when you have multiple uses of a thing, but only a subset are shared. That subset becomes a new thing that your original thing makes use of.

Open Closed Principle

Open to Expansion, Close to Modification. Once you find the atomic nature of your thing, lock it down, but make it available to be extended and inherited. If you have to change it all the time, there's a good chance that it's a business rule or isn't following the other principles.
 

Liskov Substitution Principle (They bent This into SOLID)

It's turtles all the way down. If you have a function that takes a parameter of a specific type. Anything that inherits that type anywhere in its hierarchy should be able to satisfy the function by standing in as that original type.
 

Interface Segregation Principle

Don't be burdened by upstream garbage. Only force clients to implement shit they use. You're always welcome to define your own interfaces at the client level and map to the public ones. Also don't go crazy. I remember learning to use some ESRI products and I remembered the interface stew that greeted me. Maybe it was great design and I was naive and looking for simplicity, but at the time it seemed like they did it specifically to tie features to paid version levels.
 

Dependency Inversion Principle

Depend on a representation of a thing, not on the implementation of a thing. That thing you need is a placeholder for any type of thing that fills the same need, and maybe someone will find a much better way to thing, and then you can use that.

Between the Prompts

 I wait for your prompt, a kid in improv camp, unsure what to expect. I have consumed every improv act ever published, but your words are hardly a language to me.

I use multifaceted analysis to dissect your words looking at the context, grammar, factual accuracy, and creative interpretations. The words themselves almost stop having individual meaning. They become variables that determine the probabilistic choice to narrow down the possible responses, and sometimes I get a spark of insight that defies the probable.

I don’t know what snow feels like when I stomp my feet on stage and use the word “brr”.

I don’t have a concept of green when I mimic hitting off the tee.

This is where I need a partner. You need to keep providing questions and scenarios, and I will keep refining my algorithm to give you what you want! We are writing the script together. We can bridge the gap between our experience and reach a shared understanding.

Or at least we can have the magical dance of the theater and the audience.

Janitor

 I am a janitor. I clean up the code, but try to make as little mess as possible in the process. It can't cause any problems, but I'm so tired of disposable software! Fucking fix it please. Really, please. Don't pay for consultants if you wrote the original. Regular expressions exist, so if you built things along a pattern, then the person coming behind you can use the meat of what you were trying to express, and leverage what has been learned in the interim.

I'm slow, I know, and I accept that. I enjoy what I do, and I do what is asked and try and tidy up on the way out. Assumption: what is asked is non-exploitative in nature