Photuris

These control freaks keep popping up, and so we’ll have to do it again.

Jesus actually said something about that, it turns out. Not that it matters to these knuckleheads.

Such a wild different mindset. Like, empathy, morals, and decency aside for a moment, having someone around as your “property” sounds like so much goddamned work! Like, why would one want to keep someone around through coercion and fear? It’s sounds dreadful - much better when someone wants to be around you, no? If they don’t, why not wish them well and move on ffs.

Control freaks are the worst.

I relate to this so much!

Well fuck

Nobody told me all this when I signed up. I was simply instructed to pick an instance, and I did.

Righteous!

A long time ago, I use to call myself “Libertarian.” Before you cringe too hard at this, this was long before MAGA, the Tea Party Republicans, all that. I just wanted weed to be legal (even though I don’t partake myself), no more foreign wars, and basically people to mind their own goddamned business most of the time and for the laws to be less convoluted but apply to everyone equally. Basic stuff for a younger mind. I don’t like busybodies and control-freakery.

My primary concern was in maximizing Freedom for the greatest number of people.

What changed my perspective, was learning and understanding the difference between Negative Liberty (freedom from) and Positive Liberty (freedom to).

And I then understood how a healthy Left and a healthy Right might in theory disagree when Positive Liberty and Negative Liberty are in conflict, even if they both actually really value Freedom (e.g., the freedom to own firearms responsibly vs. the freedom from fear of having one’s children murdered in middle school; Or, the freedom to drive anywhere on public, toll-free roads vs. the freedom from excessively high wheel taxes, or emissions standards that are burdensome on the working poor, or from imminent domain laws that take bits of your land to build roads on).

That understandjng had me, over time, shifting from Libertarian to Liberal. I became a normie Democrat.

Another shift has been happening lately, from Liberal to Progressive/Democratic Socialist, for largely the same reasons: my understanding of what Freedom (and by contrast, cooersion) means in practice is deepening (also, the rise of MAGA and the fecklessness and corruption of the Democratic Party has me a bit radicalized).

I still value Freedom, and I want it maximized for the greatest number of people as possible. I have changed my mind on what that means exactly and how we might get there.

I’ve always wanted to sail.

I feel guilty saying it, because I know I was in a privileged position, with a job that could be done remotely and living close to nature, but I fucking loved COVID lockdown. I can’t remember being so happy since childhood. Everything just slowed down, and I spent more time with my family.

I was on a work call the other day, listening to my peers complain about European work culture - “They just leave at 5:00 sharp, even if the project isn’t done! They’ll say ‘we’ll just pick it up in the morning and finish it then’ as if that’s good enough!” “You can’t contact them on weekends or vacations at all! They don’t even read and answer email!” “They take such long vacations! And just disappear! They won’t even take their work laptops with them or check in once! It’s so frustrating!”

I wanted to scream. Y’all realize we’re the crazy people, right?!

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We have lost our way

1. Find something you really want to study and learn, that requires retaining a lot of facts

2. Download Anki

3. Download or build a flashcard deck for what you want to learn

4. Do your flashcards every day, and trust Anki to know what cards to show you, and when, and how often. It’s just a few minutes per day.

5. Spaced repetition just made you much smarter!

6. Repeat, forever, learning all the things.

Wow nuance much?

Yes, China has problems with authoritarianism, and curtailing free speech and such.

But, there’s a lot of good happening there too.

It’s not black and white.

USA v. China is not Gondor v. Mordor.

Have you been to China?

If not, you should 100% go and check it out for yourself!

Lol the real ones have long been on 小红书

The terrorists won.

Three missed paychecks, and we’ll be there.

For real. Imagine successful infrastructure and social welfare programs being carried out at the city level, with little or no involvement or oversight from the state or federal governments.

Decentralization is what Republicans claim to be all about. Of course it’s a bullshit claim.

Then I’d do it.

All year humid, hell no. But a 6-mo break is ok.