Tag: philosophy

Days Left: 23

Status: 50.3 percent of goal.

The Iliad: 170/500

The Odyssey: 165/500  

First, thanks very much to everyone who has already backed this campaign and is making the next big step possible. Second, as requested, we will add two more ways to support the campaign next week, at more affordable $50 and $150 levels. Third, I will remind you that I am neither customer nor technical support and all attempts to pursue either through this blog or on the Darkstream will be deleted and ignored.

I understand that many organizations operate under the principle that “the customer is always right”. We absolutely do not. To the contrary, we operate under the principle that could be described as “the customer is probably retarded”. This is not to say we do not appreciate, respect, or hold in the highest regard everyone who supports our projects and makes them possible, but the negative baseline is necessary if we are to successfully anticipate even a small fraction of the customer-related problems that inevitably arise over time. Remember, MPAI.

For example, there is literally nothing we can do about a customer spamming our emails besides telling people – usually to no avail – to check their Social folders and whitelist our URLs. There is nothing we can do about a customer not giving us a shipping address, or moving without telling us that his address has changed. We cannot accept payment from an expired credit card. We cannot force anyone to read the emails that we send them. We are legally barred from contacting customers who intentionally remove themselves from our mailing list. (Believe it or not, one or two people do this almost every time we send out a mass email. Almost invariably, they later complain that we’re not keeping them informed.) These are the quotidian realities we face.

Moreover, until the bindery becomes operational, our ability to ensure that everyone gets their books in a reasonable timeframe is limited because we do not ship them to anyone. We literally never see them at all, and while our two primary partners have the best of intentions, both of them tend to fall short of the level of service that we consider to be acceptable. That is one of the primary reasons we are creating the bindery! In order to provide the level of service we wish to provide you, we have to control the entire process. And right now, we don’t, and unfortunately, neither of our partners are anywhere close to the Amazon level of operational performance and efficiency.

Now this doesn’t mean we aren’t 100-percent committed to ensuring that every single supporter and book buyer gets his books eventually, one way or another. For example, to address those who haven’t received the Junior Classics 1-3 hardcovers, the reason we aren’t losing any sleep about sorting out your problem right away is because you know we are going to be sending you books 4-6 this summer, and given our limited influence over the very large printing and distribution company that ships them, it is more effective to sort out each shipping problem with them once rather than addressing it multiple times. Trust us, we’ve been working with them for years, we know what works and what flat-out doesn’t.

As for what is taking so long to produce the Junior Classics, in addition to the editorial and layout processes, we are going through literally thousands of images, selecting hundreds of them, then carefully checking to make sure that they all work together aesthetically as well as with the related stories they illustrate. This takes time. This takes a LOT of time. Sure, we could have just taken the Easton approach, scanned the 1918 editions, and shipped all 10 volumes together six months ago, but that’s not what we do. 

I have the lovely two-volume Easton Press edition of The Tale of Genji. It is the exact same interior as my little octavo edition of the Waley translation I used in my Japanese literature course in college, scanned and blown up to royal octavo. And by “exact same”, I mean every typo and ink blot is perfectly replicated.

And I don’t believe that’s what our readers want. While we will use existing layouts for certain books in which the layouts cannot reasonably be improved – such as the Landmark history series, just to name one example for no particular reason at all – our standard modus operandi is to create new and unique layouts for each book in the Library.

I understand that some people would prefer that we provide gold-plated customer service. Since that’s not what we do at present, it would probably be better for such individuals to not do direct business with us, wait until the regular products are available through the mainstream channels, and pay the full retail price for them then. But it might be useful to reflect upon why so many of our customers are not meremly happy, but delighted with our products despite our horrific, bordering-on-nonexistent customer service.

We don’t spam, we don’t market (yet), we don’t even have an active dedicated Internet site at this point in time. All we do is make the highest-quality books that you can buy while systematically addressing one operational problem at a time. I very much hope that we can eventually reach the point where our customer service is as good as our interior layouts, but that is going to take at least two years, because it cannot be the priority at present. It will improve, just like the UATV technology is improving, but the process is intrinsically a gradual one that can be maddening at times.

Think about it. Are you really going to be happy with a gold-plated concierge service that calls you twice a day to inform you that your books are still not ready and you will not receive them today, tomorrow, or next week?

I disagree with Ann Barnhardt’s theory of why those who were foolish enough to submit to Covid vaccination are inclined to push it on others:

The reason why so many DeathJabbed people are pushy and adamant about you getting the DeathJab too, is because deep-down they fear that they made a stupid mistake and don’t want to be alone with their freely-chosen error. If they go down, you have to go down with them. It’s inconceivable and enraging to them that you made the right choice and they did not. They followed “the scientism”. You HAVE to be wrong. Even if you are right, you MUST be DeathJabbed too so that everyone suffers equally.

Re-read that, and then substitute in the free choice that Lucifer and one-third of the angels made in declaring that they would not serve God and never, ever see the Beatific Vision if the Second Person of the Triune Godhead incarnated as a Man born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s exactly the same dynamic. The Rebellious Angels chose poorly, and now want every other human being to suffer their eternal fate, to be damned, never to see God by their own incomprehensibly stupid and irreversible choice, out of pure, unquenchable SPITE.

The problem with Ann’s analysis is that most of the vaccinated, at this point, don’t see themselves as having made the wrong choice. They may be mildly concerned that they did, but given the overwhelming magnitude of the media propaganda, their concerns are little more than a niggling doubt at this point.

That’s why they don’t want to hear that you’re still fully human, still unsterilized, and that you have not submitted to the experimental gene therapy. They simply don’t want any doubt cast on their preferred narrative where scientists are good and worthy of trust, where governments act for the benefit of their citizens, and where life and liberties are essentially safe.

It’s very scary to step outside that narrative, just as it would be very hard for the average cow heading for the slaughterhouse to step outside the herd. It’s not spite or misery loving company that causes them to put pressure upon you, it’s merely an understandable preference for a belief in a nice, easy, and essentially good world instead of the fallen planet ruled by evil sociopathy that it actually is.

Leave them to their ignorant bliss. There is nothing you can do for them now, except permit them to live in peaceful, unthinking tranquility until the brutality of the real world forcibly intrudes upon it.

Meanwhile, the vaxx-pushers continue pushing fake news in a futile effort to trawl for more gullible idiots.

This is precisely why I don’t permit negative “jokes” or “warnings” or “fears” or “worries” to be posted here in the comments. Words not only describe reality, they shape reality by influencing thoughts.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CURSES

In essence, a psychological curse is another word for a negative post-hypnotic suggestion.  This type of a curse can occur, for example, when someone tells you that you will have an accident, or die, or develop a disease, or something else negative will happen to you.  Sometimes the curse is placed accidentally, while at other times it is done to a person quite deliberately to harm him or her.

For example, doctors often place curses on people when they say in an authoritative tone, for example:  “You have cancer, and you may die of it.”  Several reasons for this are possible:

1. The doctor is just trying to scare the patient into following the doctor’s orders.
2. The doctor is just sloppy with words, and does not intend to do harm.  However, such words can instill needless fear and horror in a person – and this is quite common.
3. The doctor is projecting his or her own fear of death or of disease.

Teachers or parents sometimes inflict this kind of curse on students.  They make statements, at times in a loud voice, such as “You will become a bum”, or “You will waste your life”, or similar negative statements.  Once again, sometimes they say this to help a child to work harder in school, for example.  However, this is not the way to do it, in my view.  Often, parents and teachers are just projecting their own fears onto vulnerable children, or worse, they are trying to upset the children and vampirize or steal energy from them.  

HOW CAN AN OPERATIVE REINFORCE THIS TYPE OF CURSE?

When negative suggestions are spoken to you, the person making the negative suggestion may consciously or unconsciously use hypnotic methods to “implant” the suggestion of misfortune deeply in your subconscious mind.  This is an important part of black magic or voodoo.  It is also used in satanic rituals and cults, during rapes and beatings, and during brainwashing, which is related to curses.

WHAT OCCURS AFTER A SPOKEN CURSE IS MADE?

In many cases, if the post-hypnotic suggestion or psychological curse is accepted by the subject, then a proportion of the people to whom it is spoken will actually go on to develop the problem that was spoken of.  One hears about this often in psychological therapy sessions, for example.

A teacher may have told a student that she is stupid when it comes to mathematics, for example.  If the student accepts this, she mysteriously finds that cannot excel in this area. An angry mother may have told her teenage boy that he will end up just like his drunken father.  If the boy accepts the curse or post-hypnotic suggestion, then he mysteriously finds himself drawn to alcohol.

This type of conditioning is extremely common, in fact.  Most people, I would say, must deal with these types of curses or post-hypnotic suggestions that parents, teachers, doctors, attorneys, and anyone else in authority hand out, often without thinking much about it.

When combined with a rape or torture of some other kind, these suggestions become even more powerful and this is used to control people, often for the duration of their lives.

This is also why the Prosperity Gospel, also known as “name it, claim it” theology, is fundamentally wicked. It’s literally practicing psychological magic in order to obtain material wealth. Scott Adams, for example, is a very successful practitioner of this sort of psychological magic.

But this is why relentless positivity of mind, the determined avoidance of negativity, and the refusal to live in fear are vital for the Christian. It’s also important to pay attention to the lyrics of the music one listens to; classical music is much better for your mental and spiritual health than imprinting your mind with emo goths droning about how unhappy they are or metal gammas screaming about how they hate the world because everyone hates them.

Skeptical? Test it. The next time it’s late at night and you’re feeling down, or feeling afraid, or wallowing in self-pity, listen to the following three songs. Crank them up. Sing along. Then measure how you feel versus how you were feeling previously.

• Tubthumping by Chumbawamba
• Move Any Mountain by The Shamen
• Indestructible by Disturbed

Then keep in mind that the effect works both ways. Over time, you’ll begin to observe that luck, like confidence, builds on its own success. I don’t merely hope to be fortunate and I don’t just know I’m fortunate, I fully expect to be fortunate. Remember, the ancients’ idea that Fortuna personally favored some individuals and disfavored others wasn’t an invention ex nihilo, it was an observation.

This is why God tells us to bless others, and not curse them. At the very least, stop cursing yourself do not permit others to do so.

When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

James 3:3-12

Note: never, ever, assume that because I highlight something someone else wrote somewhere that I agree with, or endorse, or encourage you to read, that site, the author, or anything but that which I have highlighted here. If it does not say “read the whole thing” then there is no need to read the whole thing. Many people have glimmerings of the truth. No one grasps the whole.

 It doesn’t only apply to technology. And furthermore, always keep out the SJWs and Karens:

In 2001, I was asked to coach the first 8-year-old all-star baseball team. My wife was concerned it would take up every weekend of the short summer we have in Massachusetts and she was dead against it. I declined but told the league if my son made the team I’d gladly help out…

The coach who accepted the position chose his team without having a tryout. I didn’t care that my son didn’t make it, but other coaches and parents demanded a formal tryout. I was asked to help out at the tryout so I put on the catcher’s gear and got behind the plate during batting. I also hit outfield later in the day.

The kids and their parents were told they’d receive calls in a couple of days… We got a call and my son didn’t make the All-Star team. In fact, other than two additional players, it was the same team the coach had already chosen prior to the tryouts. The tryout was simply a formality…

My son took it hard as did a lot of his friends, they wanted to play summer baseball. My son asked me why we played in the spring when it always rained and not in the summer when the weather was nicer and the Red Sox were playing. I told him that next year I’d start a summer baseball league so all kids could play summer baseball, not just the All-Stars…

My son wanted to go to the first game to watch his friends play and as much as I didn’t, I said okay. We watched as both teams made a dozen errors each and every kid either struck out or walked, there might’ve been two hits the entire game. At 8-years old there was very little difference between the kids who made the All-Star team and those who tried out and didn’t…

The next spring I spoke with the Director of Parks & Rec about my idea to start a summer league and she wanted me to pitch it to the Recreation Commission at their next meeting. At the meeting, I told the members about the need to start a summer baseball league so non-all-stars could play baseball through the summer and improve their skills. I told them how much I had enjoyed putting my glove over the handlebars of my bicycle when I was a kid, heading to the local playground, and playing baseball all day with my friends. I went on that these experiences weren’t available to our kids and that the league would be dedicated to recreating that sandlot experience where they would have fun without all the pressure put on them in other leagues… They liked the idea and were willing to support my league and make it a Park & Rec summer program, naming me as the director of summer baseball. They asked me to become a member of the Rec Commission, but my plate was full and I’m not big on board meetings, and so I declined their offer.

We advertised the new league in the local newspaper and I went to the equipment manager of the regular league and asked him if I could borrow four equipment bags for the summer. There were more than 50 not being used just sitting in the equipment room at the little league complex. He said he’d have to ask the league president. I called him back a few days later and he said it was going to be discussed at a “special meeting”…

I called a week later expecting the answer to be yes and why not, these were the same kids who paid to play in their league during the spring. They declined and said they unanimously decided not to lend me any equipment for my summer league…

Read the whole four-part article by initially clicking on Read Part One Here. This man did a really good thing, creating a summer baseball league for all the boys who weren’t permitted to join one of the official recreation league teams. It was a smashing success. However, he made a crucial mistake in not keeping entirely clear of the local Park & Recs bureaucracy, and ended up seeing the whole thing collapse while being publicly accused of criminal misconduct.

Never forget this: each and every and any success will attract parasites. So don’t accept any help, assistance, or investment from problematic people and organizations. The moment his request to use four equipment bags was rejected, he should have known that these were people of whom to steer well clear.

Also, if offered organizational power, take it. You can always resign later. One of my minor corporate missteps was rejecting a seat on the board of a public game publisher – you’d know the name – because what they really needed most urgently at the time was my design skills. But if I’d accepted the board position offered instead of successfully suggesting the alternative of a design contract, I would have outranked the lead producer, who then wouldn’t have been able to prevent me from implementing what needed to be done on the design side.

 You can’t punch someone in the face if your primary concern is not getting your hands dirty.

Post your comment twice. Or three or four times, as some moronic would-be commenters do. In case you  still haven’t figured it out, the comments here are moderated. So, when – not if, when – your comment does not appear right away, that is not an indication that something went wrong somehow and therefore you should repeat your comment.

And frankly, if this concept was ever difficult for you to understand, you probably should not be commenting here anyhow.

Every comment that is posted more than once will be deleted. Repeat offenders will have their comments spammed, which will eventually lead to none of your comments appearing at all. And no, the moderators are not even a little bit interested in the usual excuse of how “the preview didn’t work and my comment didn’t appear, and so I thought that if there is even a slight possibility that readers here might be deprived of my Very Important Opinion, it was imperative that I submit it again.”

Allow me to spell this out for the gammas: never, ever, enter a comment twice more than once. Yes, this means you. Even you. And especially you.

This rule is ontologically applicable. This rule applies regardless of whether you think your comment went through or not. This rule applies under every possible, imaginable, and hypothetical scenario. There is NEVER any excuse for submitting a comment twice. And if a comment is submitted twice, both iterations will be deleted by the moderators.

The amusing thing about this reiteration is the whining protests of the gammas. They know perfectly well that they’ll be the most affected by this.

UPDATE: Apparently this is yet another problem we can blame on Boomers. Two double comments, both Boomers, including one on this very post.

Everything is quiet. Very quiet. Could it be… the calm before The Storm?

Or perhaps everyone is just conspiracied out for the time being. At this point, I think I’d greet the announcement that a Sino-Pakistani alliance has declared war on India and Japan has announced in response that it is now a full-scale nuclear power with secret missile bases on the Moon with a yawn and a shrug.

Don’t worry about it. Read a book. Learn your culture. Go for a walk. Work out. Get some rest, because it looks like we’re going to be in for an exciting week that begins tomorrow, one way or another.

This article on the differing ontological assumptions of the strategic and realist perspectives won’t be for everyone, but I think it is apt, considering the way in which so many people who are paying attention to the recent election crisis observably struggle to distinguish between strategic planning and the way events subsequently play out.

This article challenges the widespread belief that the classical school of strategic theory shares ontological assumptions with the realist perspective on international politics and foreign policy. This belief has led scholars to treat the strategic and realist perspectives as synonymous, or near-synonymous, thus unintentionally creating conceptual confusion in international studies. For instance, in an introductory textbook on strategy, the editor argues that the strategic perspective ‘is based upon the realist interpretation’ of international relations, as both ‘feature a distinctive world view based on assumptions about the nature of the political environment, the characteristic manner in which political actors interact with each other’. In another textbook, it is claimed that strategic scholars ‘share a set of assumptions about the nature of international political life, and the kind of reasoning that can best handle political-military problems. This set of assumptions is often referred to by the term realism’.

This simplified view of the relationship between the strategic and realist perspectives is also found in many original works from the last decades. Hugh Smith, for example, argues that Carl von Clausewitz belongs to the realist tradition. Moreover, Neta Crawford claims that strategic scholars ‘tend to view international relations from the [realist] perspective of anarchy in a Hobbesian sense’. In addition, Michael Williams links the strategic perspective to a ‘neo-realist framework within which it has traditionally been located’. Furthermore, Tarak Barkawi claims that the strategic perspective ‘logically entails a realist policy science of international politics’, and Isabelle Duyvesteyn and James Worrall argue that the realist ‘paradigm has formed a cornerstone of the field [of strategic studies]’. By others, the strategic perspective has even been described as the ‘military-technical wing’ of realism. 

Despite the widespread belief that the strategic perspective is based on realism, this article presents and elaborates on the argument that the relationship between the two perspectives is, in fact, ambiguous. Therefore, scholars should treat them as separate perspectives, although they do share some key similarities and overlaps. 

There are many reasonable positions one can take at the present time. Perhaps President Trump is under the control of his Deep State captors. Perhaps President Trump is in a protected location directing the US military in a surprise attack against Iran – this is genuine concern among Europeans – or perhaps the surprise attack will be on the Deep State and the election criminals. The most bizarre theory I’ve heard is that President Trump suffered a heart attack after the rally and died on Wednesday, and the panic that the Deep State is now exhibiting is because they are afraid that the American people will never believe their innocence and will return to Capitol Hill to seek retribution.

But the one thing you cannot say without being indistinguishable from a retard is to claim that there was never any plan. Of course there was a plan; the executive order from 2018 alone is enough to prove that there was. The mere existence of a plan does not mean that it will lead to desirable results in the end; Napoleon’s plan to invade Russia shows that even a generally successful plan can end in complete disaster.

There are 12 days left. Trust the plan and trust the President or not, as you see fit, but at least try not to be a complete retard just because you’ve taken the black pill and are lost to despair. As for the rest of us, recall the wise words of Puddleglum. Hope, be it true or be it false, is always better than no hope.

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things–trees and grass and sun and moon and stars, and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one…. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia…”

I’m on Trump’s side even if there isn’t any Trump to preside. I’m going to live as like an American as I can even if there isn’t any America.