The Meat Grinder

Make conditions as bad as possible to ensure that every participant has to exert themselves at or near maximum effort to stay alive. Survival of the fittest. Most of the time it is a by-product of a random or semi-random set of circumstances. Sometimes, as in the case of the US Army training and other like programs, it can be a directed outcome.

I want to live in the opposite of the meat grinder. Give everyone all that they want, and provide the tools to advance. We have to want to do more than smoke pot and browse the internet, and I think most of us do. It would be tempting to have people disappear into hedonism, but that feels much more humane than oppressing the people that depend on you.

The meat maker? The meat grower? Neither sound good
It's like unschooling for everyone. 

We have a house, or housing. We have enough to eat and we are safe. We have video games for those who need outlets for behavior that is abhorrent to the mean sensitivities of the group. We have counseling available (and mandatory if needed).

We have tools available, and automation to take care of repetitive tasks. The Cohen brothers would disagree with this notion, that any form of utopia would be rejected. That we need struggle to give ourselves meaning. We have the internal struggle! Anyone who has what they need and the ability to get what they want has this struggle. We want meaning. It /is/ the question(s) that drives us, and it's an evolving conversation: what is enough? what can I create? what can I commit to, to truly throw myself into. I need the question, the problem to solve.

I also like to dig holes, and I'd be happy to help dig a ditch, or help the neighbor fix a broken piece of furniture.

It probably isn't utopia, though it isn't a place. We just build what we can and take solace that we can fall back into soft arms when we fail, so commitment isn't as scary.

The cat died, people.

 biological computing but with a digital read. We can get more variability than silicon, less transitions between states. The image I was seeing was a slice of brain with a camera pointed at it. That's more a late night graphic accompanying the joke about how silly this idea is. I like the idea of the curves being smooth. Maybe that's the simpleton's guide to a quantum computer (I'm including myself in the simpleton category, and maybe it's a club of 1). It smooths out the rough edges every time you need to stop everything and get a value. Maybe that's why the cat dies. It wrecks everything to stop and get a measurement. Although, I'm a firm believer that the cat /is/ alive or dead; we just have a shitty clock.

Trust yet verify

It is very easy to have the wrong idea. It is easy to make bad decisions, especially if there is a lot of emotion involved. 

I've made it a rule (but it is hard to really quantify) that if I have to make a more than 2nd level jump in intuition, I want external verification. Basically, it's dangerous to make an assumption based on an assumption. That sounds obvious on the face of it, but we do it all the time! Let's say a brand makes something you really like and it is good quality. I assume that other products or services by that brand will be good , and you will assume that the thing will arrive in good working order. You may argue that something arriving in good working order is not really an assumption if we know that it may not. The assumption is that this thing will happen within a probability range we are comfortable with. As an example, try and imagine a 5 year plan, or even what your life is going to look like in a year.

This requires a really solid understanding of your current state. What do my finances look like? (That's easy, unstable) What are my true weaknesses? Addictions, desires, I can't think of the term, but the tendency to explode like a toddler or small child. It's action without thought (as described), (new items now) our compulsions. ability to communicate, physical abilities. So many other things. The reason you need to know your base self, is that any future planning already assumes you can do it. 

To know yourself, to know myself, we need to accept the things that we've done, and the needs that we have. You don't have to share it outside if it isn't comfortable, yet we need to be honest with ourselves and at the very least acknowledge those failings, super powers, and everything in between.

All next steps are another assumption.

Block Voting

 Since corporations are people, we should look at citizenship. A corporation could act as a 'proxy" for citizens. With a basic income allowance, it would effectively privatize citizenship There would be competition to increase individual subsidies. I'm not sure how it would fit, but it seems like the government should be able to get a lot of public works. As a proxy corporations could block vote on candidates and issues. Not sure what sort of public trust could be brokered to throttle back short-sighted greed.

Nightmare

I had a real nightmare last night
I was camping, or was squatting in an urban area. It was downstairs, but had open access to outside. The stairway that led up was on my right. It was dark, but backlit. I'm there and Sara, there may have been others, but my wife and I were close, facing each other. Someone peeks in from the stairs. I lit a candle, I could see the warm light. Someone started approaching from outside. I just remember the red shirt with a gold colored emblem. I started gibbering, thinking I could scare them away. They ran forward and I saw the bat, or pipe. I threw my hands up and screamed "No! Stop! No!". I was just thinking that I needed to tell them that I was a person, that they wouldn't do that if they knew. My wife woke me up. I was thrashing and screaming out loud.

Machine Poems

 

SELECT TOP 1 why I feel the need to shine

,why I can’t get more done

,when was the last time I let go

,when will it ever be enough

FROM Ways I lie to myself

HAVING an answer I can live with

public abstract class Me

{

private insecurities

private anxieties

public WorkEthic { get; set; }

public virtual Work UseToolForYourBenifit(tool){ … }

private void WithdrawIntoMyself(){ … }

}

let me = (nature, nurture) => { |…lifeExperience| == netPositive?success:failure }

Demystifying Myself

 Let's assume:

What if these things are true: All instances of demonic position were actually humans who behaved in a way so abhorrent that people couldn't take responsibility for things that they'd done. All witches (in the she's a witch, burn her! sense) were women for whom men felt jealousy. A trump card that any man could play against a woman if threatened. Vampires have been the top political players. They feed on the blood of the people. Warewolves were those who do their destruction under cover of night with single-minded savagery.

I had a flash, fleating. That thing that inspired the greatest song ever but then forgot. There was a connection between how to make a society that still celebrated each birth and death, and inspired loyalty between people. That also fostered true cooperation between people. A way to ensure in some way that one person didn't exploit another. That if enough people decided that building the pyramids was a good idea, they could get together and do it.