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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 16th, 2023

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  • Consumer activism, by itself, has rarely, if ever, accomplished anything.

    The best recent examble was Tesla, but that wasn’t a mere non-buying action. Tesla action involved vandalism and a massive word of mouth campaign.

    Basically if we want to fight for a future we believe in, we must stop playing patty cakes and fight like it’s a life and death struggle.

    Symbolic resistance is not enough.

    Don’t get me wrong, I still avoid buying Nestle products, and have for years, but I know this is not the way to real change.

    I want us to stop suggesting consumer activism as a valid pathway to change.


  • As someone who has put a stop to his nightmares, there is lots you can do.

    Because there is no fence between you and your nightmares, you can touch them just as they touch you.

    You can intervene. I’ve intervened personally, but I imagine a therapist can also work assuming you are OK with collaborating.

    In my view, and this is what’s worked for me, becoming conscious that you are dreaming while you are still dreaming, is the best intervention. That’s called “lucid dreaming.” Lucidity is a choice. You can decide to be conscious instead of on autopilot for any one or any set of dreams.

    Imagine you are having a nightmare, but unlike the usual automatic responce, your mind, which you have dilligently programmed during the day, recognises your state for what it is: a short-term nighttime dream. Even as the nightmare unfolds, you stop running, tave a breath, and say to yourself, “Ahhh, so this is a dream! I have a body resting in bed right now. I live in such and such city where the resting in bed body is. The name of the body in bed is such and such. And this circumstance here is a nighttime occurence, occuring in my mind while my long-term body rests in bed. I don’t need to be afraid of anything here. This is my dream and I am free here. I don’t have to buy into anything here. The rest is up to me.” Now that nightmare either has no power whatsoever or at best a minuscule fraction of its former power.

    That’s not the only possible intervention, but that’s what’s worked for me.

    This is an executive summary. The actual journey to conscious dreaming, aka lucid dreaming, is very involved, rewarding, and worthwhile. There is plenty of info on it if you search it out.


  • I think both peace and war are profitable. But those that profit from war may be more pushy than those that profit from peace, and so may get their way even as an unpopular minority .

    Unless, the left (usually more pro peace) learns a few lessons from the right and places good outcomes above the holier than thou moral purity. “I’ve never made anyone uncomfortable” is not the merit badge that some think it is.

    Of course the left can never be a mirror copy of the right because the left cannot afford to give as few fucks about anything as the right (who represent the already-haves economic incumbents; it’s not called the “fuck you money” for nothing). But the left can be way tougher and nuancedly uncompromising and even calculatingly and carefully millitant.

    Might does not make right but might DOES make POLICY.

    You need both right and might to live under a good policy.

    Lotta good it does anyone to be right and insightful on all the issues and have zero impact anywhere.






  • A real war has risk for all the participants.

    Here you bear all the risk, and the counterparty, the internet company for example, bears no risk.

    If and when you create the risk for the counterparty, where no risk has existed before, then and only then do you have a right to call it a war. In other words you have to in some way threaten the counterparty and make good on those threats to be at war.


  • you never have the correct change

    As a result change accumulates. Every so often I bring it to my credit union and throw it into a machine and deposit it for free.

    oftentimes you get changed short

    It’s very rare and the mistakes sometimes happen in my favor.

    takes up too much space

    Not usually. Only when on occasion I need to process a lot of change at once is there a significant space requirement.

    you have to balance between not carrying too little and not carrying too much

    This is trivial. I never spend more than half a second on such a decision. Usually I know instantly what to bring.

    hard to track spending

    That’s a feature.

    i believe that we need the option to use cache in society

    I believe cache must remain legal tender and refusing to accept cache should result in a felony conviction plus one year imprisonment.

    That said, I would eliminate the penny and the nickel, and put the quarter on a serious diet. Then outlaw all the .99 and .95 type pricing. It might be OK to do away with the dime as well and only leave the largest coin in use.

    Privacy and the freedom from oversight by any large entity are non-negotiable.

    The only oversight I support is me doing oversight on you, and never someone else doing oversight on me. I am not a masochist.