All’s well–Back in a bit.

When asked why so many clothing patterns indicated the wearer should be subjected to pain or otherwise treated badly, manufacturers responded that this what part of a greater plan to “keep things level.”

“No one should be too good, or too bad, too clever, or too dense,” said a spokeman. “The patterns help adjust the what people experience so no one pulls too far ahead or pulls too far behind.”

Oh really? Then where are the patterns that show that people need a leg up or a helping hand? 

In general, this “keeping things level” rationale is a bunch of crap for one reason– no one ever applies it to justify helping someone. How can it be for keeping things level if it only makes things worse?

It’s just a story to make you feel better when you hurt people — I didn’t tell you to fall for it!

If you feel like you should repeat yourself

Go ahead and do so

As many times as necessary

Until you feel you’re done.

We don’t mind.

Ok?

Instead of giving an order or making a demand, help someone think through the steps they need to take to do something. These may be different from your steps. They might involve addressing obstacles only the person you are ordering around, ahem, I mean, helping, that’s what we call it, helping– the person you are helping might have obstacles no one else has.

Like me, you have to get me away from the computer before I can make some coffee, and I’m going to have to wash the dishes too because the coffeepot is dirty. If you don’t let me add those things to the plan, I will just feel like I can’t make coffee. Because I can’t, the coffeepot is dirty and I am busy. And that is that for your demand.

But if you learn all the steps I need to take, you can make a plan that’s good for me, and I will make the coffee.

And then as you are planning you might learn that there are other, better ideas– ideas to add to your plan or to change it completely. And that is better.

When someone asks you what someone else thinks, the answer is always the same.

I don’t know. 

Even if you’re a Reader. If they want to know what they think, they should ask them directly. 

—

Yes I’m mean but I don’t see why anyone else should be.

They all want to be the biggest c*nt around, that’s what they tell me. It’s a quote.

How come none of you ever got in trouble, even though you were so, so bad?

—

The mind does nothing. 

At the end of the day, we are a set of hands, a set of feet, legs and arms and the things in between. And also a mind. 

The mind does nothing. The hands and feet and arms and legs and the things in between do things. Your hands and feet and those of others. 

Your mind is like the annoying neighbor who comes over to watch you when you work in your yard. It’s might be helpful, it might not be. 

The real world always comes first. That’s where the action is.

(computer crashed when I tried to post this earlier– had to rewrite it. Movie I was watching kept streaming the whole time, so it wasn’t a network issue. )

Tell me why again there are code words that mean you should hurt someone?

Tell me.. stop trying to distract me and answer.

Why?

—

And why should there be so many different words? I can think of a hundred off the top of my head. For itching noses, burning eyes, a chill, throbbing ears, heartburn, 5 kinds of sore throats, 12 kinds of stomach aches, numbness..

What, do you think I’m comatose? That’s what I would have to be not to notice what you do to me!

These words aren’t for you Knowers to pretend to fight with each other. What are they for?

And why so many?

You need these because you do not actually read minds. Because you weren’t allowed to. These words are for tricking Thinkers into doing things because you don’t know other ways to make them do things.

You make someone’s head itch, so that they scratch it. Because you don’t know how to just make them scratch it–the right way.

And why do that? So you can tell another Knower who is watching that person that they are thinking “I don’t know.” Because you don’t know how to tell them telepathically– the right way.

Because Knowers can’t read and hear this for themselves.

Or for a kid who drinks too much alcohol, you could make him vomit and scare him, maybe keep him from dying from too much alcohol in his system.

But vomiting is different–very different from code words for “cut him” or “choke him” or “burn him.” Those won’t help anyone. Whatever they might communicate could be said another way, without hurting anyone.

What are we supposed to think you think you are doing?

These words come from criminals. What a waste! And now it is out of control and you are hurting all these people. You learned all the worst words, from criminals. They were the only ones who kept telepathy alive in your country– everyone else stopped teaching it because it was against the law.

So you learned all their words. You are trying to be like them, but they only taught you a little of what they know. They didn’t want you to know any of the real stuff because you might become a threat to them. They never taught you to defend yourself mentally.

So now you commit crimes for them and act like a criminal. But the criminals made money when they did it– and you don’t!

You are like children, pantomiming, not knowing why.

You just do what they tell you. While they make you feel like a rebel.

If you learned to read everyone would just do what you wanted. The body stuff was supposed to be for helping people when they were sick. In emergencies, like when they were too drunk to think. What is wrong with you.

—

You say it isn’t your fault. Someone made you this way.

A lot of people are made this way, and not all of them hurt people.

Are you pretending to be a robot? Why?

Just because someone can force people to do something, that doesn’t mean there aren’t bad people.

There is a difference between responsibility and fault. You have to distinguish between who is at fault and who is responsible. If someone forced you, they are at fault, but if you can’t catch them, you are still responsible.Sometimes you are still responsible for things that aren’t your fault.

If a rat trips you and you drop your friend’s birthday cake, do you expect the rat to buy you a new one?

What did you do?
He made me do it!
We don’t care!

Parlor tricks keep Knowers busy. Knowers should take back what was taken from them by learning to read.

The group of Knowers make themselves so obvious! They can’t help it, they weren’t told enough to know to be careful, and they are Knowers, so self-preservation doesn’t always occur to them. But they carry on if anyone notices them– like the rest of the world should have to help them hide all their mistakes.

There’s no reason for these words to exist. You shouldn’t punch a guy out, but if you have to, it should be because he pissed you off. Directly. You, not someone else. And be prepared to accept the consequences.

But these code words are like little orders, from a general you can’t see, who’s sometimes isn’t even around to explain why. Their purpose is to trick you into hurting people you otherwise would not.

These words should go away. People can decide to ignore them and they will disappear.

Let’s be precise

Let’s say exactly what we mean

Let’s fill in all the pronouns

Let’s make it clear what we mean

Don’t say, “I don’t know.” Say, “I don’t know who that is.”

Wait, don’t say, “I don’t know who that is.” Say, “I don’t know who that is in that picture.”

Wait, don’t say, “I don’t know who that is in that picture.” Say, “I don’t know who that is in the picture you just showed me.”

Wait, who showed you the picture?

I don’t know.

—

The story tells a different lesson too, but it is important to be precise. We tend to assume people know what we’re thinking, but they only know it if we think it.

How to orchestrate conversation between two people when one can’t hear the other

Marco can’t hear Dan, but she can hear Jark. 

Jark can hear and talk to Marco and Dan, but Marco won’t hear Jark talk to Dan and Dan won’t hear Jark talk to Marco.

Let’s see what happens.

Jark: (to Dan) Marco is right here, she’s waiting to talk to you, I told him how important this is.

Dan: (to Marco) Do you have some time to talk?

Jark: (to Marco) You c*nt!

Marco: Shut the f*ck up, no one cares what you say!

Dan: OK, later then.

Jark: (to Marco, in a girl’s voice) That’s not true.

Dan: Did she say she’d killed them?

Jark: (to Marco, in Dan’s voice) That’s not true?

Marco: That’s what she just said, yes.

Dan: <I don’t know what>

Jark: (to Marco) I saw it, I looked at it, it was in front of me, someone showed it to me– which one do YOU say when you look at something?

Marco: I think.. I looked at it? I don’t know which one really.

Marco: (to Jark) That man’s face looks like it’s melting.

Jark: (to Marco) Which man?

Marco: (to Jark) That guy over there, waiting for the bus. I never saw him before.

Jark: (getting Dan) Hold on.

Jark: (to Dan) She says she can remember.

Dan: Marco, who told you about all this?

Jark: (to Marco) Who does he look like? The guy waiting for the bus?

Marco: Oh, my grandfather.

Marco: Oh no, there’s a bad guy yelling at me!

Jark: (to Dan) We found the suspect! Should be right around here somewhere, listen!

Jark: (to Marco) What does he sound like?

Marco: Like this! Muhahahaha

(Dan arrests Marco.)

Dan: They must have a storefront somewhere, for their criminal activities,,,

Jark: (to Marco) There’s a store down the street, do you know which one this is?

(Shows picture)

Marco: Oh, Mom and Pop’s Grocery? They have great lemonade.

If you want something just ask

If you need something just ask

I will be so happy to tell you

I like to help

Knowers are not into asking questions. They are told that asking questions means their “power” is weak.

This is obviously a trick to keep them ignorant and fighting with everyone. Just ask, Readers, Knowers, and Thinkers, for what you’d like or what you need, like the poem says. You will feel so much better.

There is a saying: ask a lot of questions and you will be quite smart.

Here are some questions from me: why would you hurt someone to get their attention? Or hurt someone to get someone else’s attention?

Who taught you to do this?

Why don’t you just ask people for what you want, or clear your throat loudly?

It’s ok to just explain

“Show don’t tell” is this idea that you have to prove things to people, that you have to show them what you mean, often by hurting them somehow. You could teach me about death by killing my goldfish for example.

“Show don’t tell” is only for animals*, because they don’t understand. Sometimes teachers use it to make lessons stick better — but they never hurt people to show them something. There is no rule that you have to show people instead of telling them, it is just a nice thing to do sometimes to help them understand. But there are many rules about not hurting people.

You can just tell Readers what you want them to know. You don’t have to act it out. That was for Knowers– they needed proof because they had no way to tell if you were lying. The Readers will know you aren’t lying because they can actually read your mind, and the Thinkers believe everything anyone says (within reason) so don’t worry about it.

Just tell people what you want them to know. They have brains, they will understand. You don’t have to beat it into them. (I think someone might have tricked you into thinking you had to beat people in order to teach them things. That was a dirty trick. For some people, all roads lead to the same outcome — you being violent.)

And for heaven’s sake don’t beat them and wait for them to guess why! Just tell them what you want them to know.

All thinking is OK

Knowers listen for sounds, sounds that trigger them to attack. These sounds represent feelings, moods, personality traits, insults, whatever.

But why does it matter what sound someone makes, or what someone thinks? It’s not going to hurt anyone. Let them go ahead and think it. Why not?

There is a famous example of a guy who thinks about murder and gets in trouble. But he says, No, I wasn’t thinking about murdering anyone myself. I was thinking about unicorns murdering someone.

Ohh, says everyone. That’s different.

But it’s not. All of our thinking could be about unicorns. Thinking isn’t real, and all thinking is good.

People make a distinction between thinking and ideas.

Thinking is involuntary, like digestion. And digestion is good. Thinking never stops and changes direction a lot. It is like a blur.

Ideas are involuntary for Thinkers and Knowers, but intentional for Readers. People “have” ideas. They can be put into words. Ideas can be good or bad, but even when they are bad, they are still pretty harmless.

*It also can be nice for poetry. Poetry is rather different from what we are talking about here.

Let’s hang some people!

That sound a certain way!

Don’t let’s wait,

Hang them today!

Because if you listen

In an hour or a day

They might talk

In a completely different way!

Introducing…. Reverse Chinese!

Experts discovered that American children are being taught especially distorted versions of the Chinese language.

“We knew about the cursing, we heard the cursing first. We didn’t know they had distorted the whole language,” said an expert (name).

Babies were taught that almost every single word that was not a noun was the opposite word in Chinese.

“We’re not exactly sure about the structure of it yet,” said one expert. “We’re starting with the exclamations, and they all seem backward.”

By comparing the meaning taken away from the same sound Chinese-American person with that heard in the same sound by a non Chinese-American person, we found things are mostly completely reversed

American Chinese-American

Ouch Ahh (sound of sexual pleasure)
That feels better! Noooo! Help!
Where was I? I f**king hate you

Wink, wink, say no more. Tell everyone this

Hey, that’s neat! What the f**k is wrong with you?
I don’t understand. Piss up a rope!
Huh? You talk like a retard
You are sweet, I love you. I will kill you!
I’m scared. I’m going to f**k you up
Yay!! Die!!
Please? Do it now!
This is fun! I’m going to hurt someone!
(Telling self to stay calm). AHHHHH!!
What else can I get you? You selfish piece of sh*t.
Oh, no, da**it! Nice! That’s great.
Hang in there, it will be ok. (Criminal code word for mess with this person)
I’m hungry. I don’t want to eat.
Oh man, this is difficult. (Chinese code for stop them.)

How did this work?

But weren’t these sounds incoherent, once you reversed them and strung them together?

“Sure, but that just means the person’s crazy,” said one person who for several years had been remotely groping a child every time he bumped his knee. “Which is more of a reason to go after them.”

And wasn’t it obvious that the people were saying and doing didn’t line up with what people thought they were thinking?

“A little bit? But again we just interpreted that to mean that these were bad people were liars.”

Because those hearing the language distortions were Knowers, the inconsistencies were not very closely examined.

“It was an efficient plan for starting fights between these two groups. You have to be a little bit impressed by whoever came up with it,” said one Reader documenting the case. “No one had to be there to start the fight. People would fight all by themselves because of the language difference.”

“Plus parents learn these sounds from their children, so the reverse language would be passed down through families.”*

“It’s also the plan of someone who never dreamed they would get caught,” she continued. “Because it’s a huge smoking gun. People learn these sounds very early in life, usually before age three.”

Which is distorted and which is real?

Experts are still investigating the relationship between reverse Chinese and other languages. Were the Americans taught a special version of Chinese, or were the Chinese taught that sounds from other cultures had different meanings?

In other words, were younger Chinese possibly taught reverse Korean or reverse Hebrew?

Examining people of different ages and cultural backgrounds who have the various understandings of these sounds seems to be the key to unlocking which.

If only younger Chinese people have this problem, then it’s more likely that they were taught a different language backward. But if all Chinese people agree on the Chinese meaning of these sounds, then it’s more likely that the Americans were taught a strange version of Chinese.

Or, it’s possible that older Chinese people are aware of reverse Chinese and can interpret it more accurately. Or, because older people are more likely to be readers than younger people, they interpret the sounds as they’re meant.

What if an entire generation of Chinese children was taught that normal American thinking was offensive? In other words, what if it isn’t the speaker, but the listener? It’s hard to be sure, but that would lead younger Chinese people to dislike older Chinese people quite a bit, and quite inexplicably.

If that turns out the be the case, it is less likely that fake mindreading originated in China.

“There’s a chain of actions– you print a certain shirt, you teach a baby a certain way… One action is harmless, the person carrying it out isn’t trying to hurt anyone, and the action that caused it is harmless too, but as you look farther and father down the chain, at some point there is a very intentional malicious plan. Just need to find where.

“And on the other side too, the people that saw the shirt or heard the language and hurt people based on what they thought they were being told, that’s pretty malicious too. But in the middle maybe are a lot of well-intentioned people who spread this far and wide.

It appears only certain Americans, particularly African Americans and lower-income groups were taught the inverted language.

“When you first encounter a person who’s been taught reverse Chinese you wouldn’t think that they had,” said (). “Because of the language difference they’ve been so severely abused, that most of them stop thinking to the degree that they can.”

“But if you investigate further you’ll find that the readers and knowers who care for that person will all report having a persistent problem with some telepath that comes around and curses at them regularly.”

“Unfortunately what they’re thinking is a telepath, is that affected person. The Thinker.

And if they stop trying to remove that person from their own mind, the affected children or even adults should have much better educational and psychological outcomes, pretty much immediately.

What to do?

In either case, the solution is the same. The whole thing is just a big misunderstanding, thank God!*

If you suspect you are being misinterpreted, you can sometimes get around it by thinking in pictures. One trick is to think of printed words on a page. Instead of thinking that you are hungry, you can picture the words in your mind. This circumvents the language barrier, but it not good for your mental health, so only try this if you have problems you think are caused by a language misalignment.

Another trick is to pray. Prayer forces you to think intentionally and can help Readers straighten things out, for example, if your normal thinking is hard to hear.

You could pray like this for example, while holding on to your loved one who is being punished for talking funny: Dear God, I want you and everyone else to know that sometimes people intentionally teach children thought-languages wrong, and that I suspect that is going on here because <reason> and it really isn’t fair. Who do you think said, ‘cut this man’s nose off,’ where are they? Because all I can see is the man with the sore nose.

“He was trained to think that that word means something else, when he was young. Now when you hear him you think he’s someone else telling you to attack him. But it was just him who said whatever you heard, and he didn’t mean it the way you heard it. He meant something else.

“Now God, I wish whoever is hurting this man would think back to whatever sound they heard that made them hurt him, and say it to the man so we can find out what he thinks it means. They will need a Reader to help them hear what he thinks it means. Can this person remember the word? Can they say it to him?

“Thank you God. It sounds like he thinks that means ‘cheesy’ like a corny movie. And what does the other guy think… he thinks it means ‘cut his nose off.’ Well, it would be a funny old world if we were all the same, wouldn’t it, God.

“But everyone can see he didn’t do anything wrong, and he’s not going to be able to stop saying that. So let’s not hurt him.

“Here, we can get him to say it again. I’ll just ask him about some movie, if he thought it was cheesy. Hold on a second God — see? And.. now, hold on again, some other person is trying to hurt him, now, and we’re still working on this first person. Does the first person see? He says that whenever he means cheesy.” etc.

The first step is for Knowers and Readers to acknowledge that there are different thought languages, and just spread the word that they have been artificially aligned this way and that what you hear someone say is very rarely what they mean.

“Just leave people alone. Or sit there and listen,” said one Reader.

“Or at least stop beating on everyone? Why were you doing that anyway? Are we really supposed to pretend that you think there are that many crazy people running around randomly cursing at you for no reason? Making all these cursing sounds that you just can’t locate the source of? But that you think attacking will somehow help?”

“We’re finding children who were taught to say ‘make it hard for me to breathe’ in some kind of criminal code. Why is there any word for such a thing? And the people that hear it carry it out– what are we supposed to think they are doing that for? What are we supposed to think they think they are doing it for?

Knowers said they were told that “bad people” needed to be stopped, and hurting children was sometimes necessary to stop them. However, since the children were taught to say these words themselves, not made to say them, it’s clear that the idea was not to hurt the children until something about them changed, but to hurt them for their entire lives.

It is not clear who the “bad people” were supposed to be.

“So either Knowers were lied to, and thought they were fighting crime somehow — or they were intentionally attacking innocent American children just because they were told to. I have heard many Knowers call it ‘murder in advance’ or ‘pre-murder’.”

The other of course is to investigate how this happened.

This system is definitely using some well-intentioned people to hurt each other, although there are others who know what is going on. It couldn’t exist without one or two huge lies, and as soon as people are aware of that, the problem could vanish overnight.

You can tune ppl
And the telepath thinks at a thinker using certain vocabulary, The thinker we’ll start to use that vocabulary themselves.

One thing is guaranteed, the people implementing this unknowingly are not mind readers, no matter what they thought they were. They are what you call deaf, maybe worse. Any mind reader would have correctly interpreted these sounds.

*This reminds me, there are some Readers who are downright vicious to Readers they think are not good enough (which would include Knowers). They justify committing just about any kind of horrific crime by saying “it serves people right if they are dumb enough to fall for it.” They are often not good teachers though, so they tend to beat people for being dumb and forget to tell them how to be smart. Easier to just keep beating them. Maybe you recognize this type of brutal logic– about how it serves people right, so they don’t feel guilty — and can match it to an idealogy. I think somehow that idea got twisted and caused, oh, I don’t know, millions and millions of early deaths (including the Holocaust, so don’t say “Jews,” some people are so weird about Jews and there’s nothing wrong with Jews, please try to get over it).

But this is just the kind of thing this group would do, it’s like there are strict rules about how to do it — create a misunderstanding that is a hidden lesson, but it is twisted enough that no one can get the lesson. But if you were super-duper clever you would get it, they think. They might believe that only super-duper clever people should be Readers. That it is an exclusive club for geniuses like them. That movie Seven, that’s what I always think of, that mindset where you put people in impossible positions and force them to hurt people to save themselves, as if that were interesting. They have systems for coming up with these misunderstandings, they build them up in layers. They see tricking innocent people into doing bad things is like an accomplishment to be proud of, because they believe what we think of as morality is a facade and they want to reveal it as such. They believe the real world only comes out in brutal and cruel situations and anything else we experience must be fake. I guess that is how their minds were set up.

They are very difficult to hurt and probably severely abused from a young age.

You no doubt have heard many times that your mind is like a river, always flowing. 

But Knowers get bottled water, that’s packaged up, with a printed label wrapped on it. They call this “talking”– they scoop up some ideas from the river, decide how to say them, and throw them at someone.

The packaging might be in words or it might not. The person who gets the bottle has to pick it up (listen to it), and drink it (think about the idea). But because they are ideas and not really water, what they drink might not be the same as what was scooped up from the river. You hope it is the right water that they thirst for, but you can’t be sure.

And you get used to this, packaging, packaging, packaging. You get packages too, to open up.

But you still have a river, flowing in the background of your mind. What is so fun is to stop making and receiving or drinking bottled water and just listen to the river for a while. It is just like the packaged thinking you have been doing, but effortless. You just do nothing, and the thinking keeps happening, because you were thinking the whole time. It’s what you think when you don’t mean to think of anything.

That’s where Readers spend all their time, in that river. 

That artificial thinking should go away. You don’t want or need it. It is a great relief not to have to talk to anyone. Over time you can learn to read everything you want to know from the river. Meanwhile, probably most people are happy to find out they don’t need to do anything. In fact we prefer that you don’t do anything. That is the first step to becoming a mind reader.

I am not a telepath but feel pretty confident this would be a good first step. I used to watch this movie every day. It is very corny but you might like it. That was 15 years ago.

The Knowing system relies heavily on repeating ideas. When two Knowers communicate with each other, the Sneak, the hidden Reader who makes it all happen, must repeat what each one said to the other.

And whenever a Knower is told what a non-telepath is thinking, the Sneak must repeat the ideas to the Knower.

But in Indian telepathy, repeating an idea is gross. It is effectively… eating someone else’s poop. Yes. Sorry but that is what it is. It will make you sick. It seems to have had that effect on lots of people.

So how do people know what’s going on then? Well, Readers insist on hearing everything first hand. They see telepathy as like sex. Very like sex. Turn intensity down 10 clicks because like sex too much, different world.

Readers insist on hearing everything firsthand. They see telepathy as like sex, and you wouldn’t try to use someone else to have sex, that is gross.

So they generally tend to stay closer to home, and spend time with their family and friends, almost exclusively people that they know in real life, for safety. The world is full of con-men. They are everywhere. Readers might dial out long distance in an emergency.

But they do insist on hearing things firsthand.

Why do some people repeat everything you say to them outloud?

Did you ever meet someone and that repeated everything you said to them? A murdered person, probably. Someone thinks that the Thinker is a Knower or Reader that can’t hear, and is repeating to them everything that is said out loud like subtitles, trying to help them. But the Thinker doesn’t realize this.

Others can control what we think, but we can’t control it ourselves.

If you treat people poorly, they will think poorly of you. If you treat them well, they will think well of you.

There is a saying:

Why did he do what she said and not what I said? 

He likes her better than you.

Efforts to police thinking are obviously just ways to trick people. All thinking is ok. It’s doing that can get people in trouble.

Some doing is bad, some doing is good, some doing doesn’t matter.

Investigators have uncovered more about the motive behind the plot to destroy traditional telepathy: gradually those taught fake mind reading and those never taught anything about it were to meet in the middle, so that everyone could be the same kind of zombie.

“Knowers were told that they should communicate with everyone the same way — talk to them conversationally, what Readers call ‘mindtexting.’ This created a huge problem. An unbelievably huge problem.”

It was a very clever and nasty plan.

“Knowers would mindtext out to other Knowers and get an answer, fine. And if they mindtexted Thinkers (non-telepaths) that were controlled by Knowers, they would get an answer fine.”

But Thinkers couldn’t hear a word of the mindtexting. So whenever Knowers came across Thinkers that weren’t already controlled by Knowers, the Knowers were instructed to telepathically arrest them.

“The crime is called DNR, for Did Not Respond. It’s like something out of a kid’s book. I swear we’re going to find their treehouse next.”

The consequences were rather serious. Arresting these Thinkers was a way to make sure every Thinker was controlled by a Knower.

“Basically they would arrest them, and rough them up telepathically. That meant headaches, body aches, and emotional problems, especially anxiety and restless leg syndrome. It’s often thought to be an inexplicable migraine headache.

“Then they would assign a Knower to control them, stop all the pain, and there you go, the person would become a another Knower asset.”

The plan did not acknowledge that many Readers are not allowed to mindtext. But even if they did, they all expected the Knowers to understand their response.

“You have to answer in Chinese or they arrest you,” said Cat Carrier, a Reader. “It’s not just that they don’t understand other languages. Many of them don’t believe other languages exist.”

Authorities are having difficulty estimating how many Readers and Thinkers* were arrested this way.

“There is a saying, You are screaming at a wall, trying to knock it down, when there is a door,” said Cat. “It’s disgusting that they didn’t explain this. They knew what would happen.”

“They presented the plan as a way to level the great playing field and make everyone the same, but they knew once people pass a certain age, they are the way they are. It was a dirty trick.

“If they had taught them to read they would know how to find the door. And so much pain and suffering would never have happened.”

“I asked this one guy for his name for four days,” said a former Knower. “How frustrating!”

Many Knowers also report raising their voices in an effort to get the Thinkers to respond.

“I thought he was just hard of hearing, so I screamed!” said Disney Octopus. “Of course that drew a crowd of Knowers and we all screamed for a few days.”

Did the suspect like it? “Oh, I don’t know,” said Disney. “I wasn’t really checking that.”

Did she really think the suspect was ignoring her completely for several days? “Well, I mean, I didn’t think about it. I ‘knew” I should arrest him. They tell you if you arrest the wrong person, the person should speak up and explain things, and he didn’t do that. “

How did she expect him to do that? “Oh I guess you’re right, he didn’t even know we exist, so I guess he couldn’t explain it all to us.”

Knowers also arrest Thinkers for being upset, being in pain, thinking things that are insulting or lewd, or being weird.

“The standard protocol if you hurt them for awhile and nothing happens is to hurt someone close to them. A family member or a pet. That’s supposed to flush them out.”

“We’re taught what good and bad people sound like,” said Disney. “I guess they didn’t really bother to teach us that well.”

Frequently Knowers end up screaming at each other. “I was yelling because I heard insults, and my friend was yelling the insults because she heard me,” said Disney. “Inside this child’s mind. She couldn’t hear us, but they said it made her very uncomfortable. It’s hard to tell what’s going on sometimes.”

“The worst in when you can’t stop though,” said Disney. “A few times people explained it to me that there was nothing I needed to do but I just kept hitting the guy. That’s not a good feeling. You realize you aren’t in control of yourself”

Experts agreed. “This is why we teaching mind-reading the way we do,” said Carrier. “You have to know what you are doing, you have to be able to listen, or else you can hurt a lot of people.”

Or be used to hurt them.

* need a good name for these!

Note: this post is intentionally overlong and verbose.

There’s something insidious about fussiness, I’ve felt this my whole life. It’s not that being orderly is bad. Obviously being orderly is good.

It’s when we decide that everything disorderly is bad. We make a tut-tut of disapproval and an inner voice that tells us this just won’t do.

This just won’t do. This just won’t do what, exactly?

What’s the consequence of not keeping everything so orderly? It feels like it must be something drastic.

But when you think about it in reality there there isn’t any consequence at all, is there.

If clothes and books and papers are strewn everywhere around my room, are you really going to suggest that’s some kind of health hazard? Pretend that’s going to make someone sick?

Fussiness is a huge distraction and time sync, and it generates a lot of purchasing. It keeps you very busy. It keeps your thinking in a certain place all the time. To think about keeping your house clean, you’re constantly going back to that orderly thinking, which does not require much brain power. Where should this go? And where should this go? What task should I do next? What just won’t do?

If you’re thinking about writing a novel, or cooking up some formula for the next big chemical innovation, or you’re waist-deep in research, or thinking deeply at all–you don’t really have time to be orderly.

You can’t be worrying about crumbs on your kitchen counter and composing a symphony at the same time. There’s not enough room in your head.

But if you want to keep your place clean, if you want to be fussy about your car– you don’t let people eat in there–that’s fine of course. (I used to have a policy that in my car no one was allowed to wear shoes. They had to take them off and put them in a little box because I wanted my mats to stay clean.)

That’s fine, but it’s when that little disapproving pout comes out, when you sort of freak and you can’t handle that there is a mess, 

And you respond disproportionately to a mess, to something normal, to something that can be cleaned up or replaced

That’s when it gets gross.

I think what’s gross is the relative weight people are giving things versus other people. When you decide that things are more important than people, to me that’s gross.

So if you’re going to stand up and say to somebody that their shirt has a hole and you don’t like it, you’re going to hurt their feelings for the sake of seeing nicer shirts.

You’ve devalued that person significantly.

Or maybe what’s gross is that we’re not thinking of people at all when we’re in that fussy mode. We’re too upset about the thing.

For example: we don’t worry about what we’re going to talk about at the party or how the people at the party are going to feel, we’re worried about what the people at the party are going to think of our dress.

People can just worry about paperwork too, about things on forms.

You fill out the form, and they want the information to be a certain kind of way–and I understand, I like things to be consistent and orderly, I like good data and all that.

But it’s actually dangerous how big of a deal people make when things aren’t as orderly as they want them to be.

People start hyperventilating, very mildly hyperventilating, and then they get angry. Over a mistake on a piece of paper that can easily be fixed.

Why?

It feels like there’s genuine fear there

Many Americans are afraid of the real consequences in their minds for their bra strap showing, or for entering the wrong number on a form.

There are somewhere, some real drastic consequences for these mistakes. That’s what they’re afraid of. They don’t know that’s what they’re afraid of but they feel it.

I mean the consequence of your bra strap showing is …nothing, am I right?

But it sure does feel like you’re afraid of being beaten sometimes, doesn’t it? The feeling is like you’re afraid of imminent pain that never arrives. 

And don’t tell me that’s because your parents beat you up when you were a little kid if your bra strap showed.

I think those people who feel afraid of a mess can’t help it. At some point, someone somewhere was applying drastic consequences to someone for things like this– other when they did them or when you did them– and that created all this fear.

And there’s an obsession with symbolism because this same fear applies if you don’t get the symbolism right. 

But there is no symbolism– it’s just a trick vocabulary anyone can use to make you think anything is going on.

And it’s not a “You’re going to get spanked” kind of fear. It’s a “you could get killed” kind of fear.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but they kill people for not doing their hair right in China during the cultural revolution.

Not because they cared so much about the hair, but because if you didn’t do your hair right it showed you weren’t drinking the Kool-Aid.

They wanted people focused in a certain direction– their direction, which was fussy and afraid. And they made them very very afraid.

And now that’s been exported to us somehow. We feel that fussiness and it makes us afraid.

I was trying to imagine what it would be like to live inside the head of a person who faces those consequences, and — it would be just unspeakable, right?

Like being in a science fiction movie in real life? With a war going on in their minds and everything is part of it, every movement that anyone makes, every sock that you choose to put on your foot.

And the consequences are desperate. All of this nonsense is very desperate and ultra important. A state of emergency, all the time. And that’s what they’re accustomed to.

Because they could have extreme consequences, even death if they aren’t seen as the right kind of person, if they don’t do the right thing at every moment if they don’t choose the right path.

But all of it is nonsense–very weird minor stuff, like choosing the right breakfast cereal because of what it says about you. Did you choose the breakfast cereal that everybody else is choosing? That the better people are choosing? So that you can be seen as the better people, so that you’ll be allowed to eat at all?

Because if people get the idea that you’re not really with it, you’re going to get left behind, which might mean no food, or physical punishment, or danger for your family.

But it is a violent society and if people don’t think well of you, they will hurt you and your family like they could change your life in dramatic ways. They could say well we’re not going to give you jobs, we’re not going to let you marry, we’re not going to help you in any of these ways.

And that process could start with something like a dress. That’s probably happened to many people.

But, as I’ve said many times, this is America, and we have all kinds of people here. If one person won’t give you a job somebody else will.

So there’s this dependence on a group, but the group is not trustworthy. There’s no safety net and no guarantee you’re going to be allowed to be okay, even if you make only a minor mistake.

So they’re navigating this very strange completely man-made imaginary world all the time –that’s their primary focus. Not the real world.

And that’s crippling emotionally. 

And that’s been exported to us.

It makes sense if you think about it. There was a tremendous amount of violence in Russia under Stalin and in China under Mao and it left a gash on the psyche of the entire world.

You don’t kill hundreds of thousands of people without everyone feeling it somehow. You put that fear into the world and it’s in the world now. It has to be processed, acknowledged, and cleaned up.

It’s not hard. You just have to relax as you slowly figure out that no one here is going to hurt you. Sanity is kind of like our brain’s natural equilibrium you know like we we tend towards the sanity we really want to be seen as human beings we keep moving that way no matter what happens to us

—

There are just a few crazy people, bad people, who are pretending to be a hegemony. 

It’s not real, especially not here. It’s mostly crap, lies and slight of hand bad people put out to make themselves look scarier and more powerful and tougher than they really are.

If they were that tough they wouldn’t need to put on that act. That sortof trucks rumbling sound–here come the trucks, coming to get you– that strikes fear in the heart of like every living being at this point.

People that talk by hissing and growling.

If you’re actually scary you wouldn’t need to do that. It’s like a show.

Somewhere there are a bunch of weasels behind a curtain.

I’m not trying to tell you to do anything. I’m just saying relax. Maybe relax and make friends.

Making friends is how you build a safety net. Be nice to people who are outside your social circle. Do favors for them. Help anybody who needs it– but don’t help them hurt people. Everything except for that.

Do what I say!

Why don’t you just ask?

Because you won’t do it.

Then what do you want?

I want it done.

Then you do it.

I can’t.

Why not?

I don’t have time.

I don’t either.

Do it anyway!

You can’t make me.

Yes I can.

I’m telling on you!

There is a saying: Always, always, always think for yourself.

For centuries human beings have taught each other not to listen to aggressive demands. We were taught this by word of mouth, religion, etc.

We are taught instead to listen for the ideas that are patient, kind, polite, and give us options. This is not mysterious or magical — we should only listen to people who are taking our needs into account, as well as their own. People who can’t respect us enough not to make imperious demands are almost sure to want things that aren’t good for us. If it was good for us, they could just ask and we would do it.

Further we should only listen to people who can control themselves. This is kind of the natural purpose of anger, to show us that a person isn’t thinking clearly and that we should factor that in to our interpretation of what they say.

Protect the weak. If they are weaker than you, or sick, or don’t understand — they aren’t a threat, so fighting them is only bullying.

For instance if they are dumb enough to repeat an

Indian mindreaders do not tell people what to do telepathically. Not ever. They do not use the imperative voice. Every idea they offer is optional, a suggestion.

There are many important reasons for this. One is captured in this question:

How many people can give orders at one time vs how many people can think together?

Only 1 person can give orders but infinitely many can think together.

When you are not giving orders you don’t take up any “space” in the mind. When you give orders you not only take up space, you clog the whole mental system, causing it to stop working and making people very dumb!

it was not by accident that fake mind reading focuses so much on giving and following orders. Both are kind of the opposite of what real mind reading is about.

I mean, isn’t it strange that they sort of gloss over the fact that two or more, or many people might try to order the same person around at the same time?

“Um, we were going to tell you… But we forgot…?” –Not sure who

(Back to Reality Part 2)

Hi, I don’t like you, so I hit someone else!

You did? Neat!

Neat?

Yeah, this is like a game now. Hurt them again.

No!

Ok, here, I’ll hit you, so that you’ll hit them again.

Ouch! Do that again and I’ll hit this other guy again….Ouch! I hit the other guy.

Awesome.

There is a saying: never use proxies. Whoever uses a proxy, becomes one.

(Back to Reality Part 1)

Here are your eggs?

My eggs?

Yes, for breakfast.

Isn’t is beautiful, how we eat eggs in the morning, to symbolize cracking open a new day? The yellow sun rising in a white cloud.

Yes dear. Would you like coffee?

Yes, liquid energy! Did you ever wonder why coffee is brown?

No.

It is brown like the earth! The earth spins, so we need to hustle, and that is what coffee is for.

Yes dear.

Energy comes from inside the earth!

You don’t have to convince me, I agree.

Look at this woman posing in this magazine. Her fingers are splayed!

What does that symbolize?

I don’t know but it must mean something! And her dress is covered with tiny oil rigs.

For good fortune?

No, it means she forgot to use conditioner on her hair when she showered.

Oh… let me see that, how much is it?

Too much.

Yes, you are right. 

…

Darn it! I got a splinter.

Oh no, I’ll get the tweezers.

No! Leave it there. It must be for a reason.

What reason?

To show me.. To teach me.. 

Let me get the tweezers. Oh look, right next to them in the drawer, there are your old reading glasses!

Aha! That is what the splinter is for. To tell me I need to finish my novel today!

You can probably take a class in how to make symbolism up, rapidly, so that it sounds like you knew all of the symbols in advance and you are just seeing them occur, but really you are making up the meanings as you go along.

You should try it. Make up some symbolism as you go along.

The things that matter, matter, and the things that don’t, don’t. If you have to think about why something matters, it doesn’t. Things that matter don’t need additional explanation. They are exactly as they are.

Very often it doesn’t matter if something happens or not. If that’s the case, when it starts to happen, let it. Because why not?

When you add extra meaning to things, you change how people react to them. A splinter should get the reaction a splinter gets. It shouldn’t also be endowed with a deeper meaning. If it does, the reaction is too big (now you have to read a novel), and very quickly the world becomes distorted.

Don’t think extra, I think is how the saying goes.

Thinking extra can make you very sick.

This seems very difficult for people, to let go of this artificial edifice of thinking on top of what’s real. But please try.

—-

Don’t let them see you dancing like that!

Why not?

They’ll think the music and wine have made you out of control.

Who cares? They have!

But —

It is just dancing, right?

Yes

So why not dance? This is a party, it is the perfect time. When it’s time to leave I will stop.

i am not available to be contacted through Ruuh-saay or any similar service and neither is my family. Don’t waste your money and risk getting arrested. While these services do a wonderful job, I wouldn’t be able to communicate with you anyway, if they did connect us.

Further, many many people are not listed correctly and this leads to all sorts of problems. If you try to connect, you’ll end up calling to someone in my family who won’t understand a word you say because they have no clue, and you’ll think we are blocking you from playing when really we are just us, and you’ll get mad, and that gets really painful.

Do not send people my way thinking they can learn things. I understand that is a good way for people to learn, but we are overstretched here– very much so. There are only so many adults in this house, and so much to do. The whole reason I have a freaking blog is so that people can learn without being anywhere near me.

I am not breaking any rules. Nothing is out of control, nothing is being leaked. I can’t tell any secrets because I don’t know any, because I was never told any. Everything was done very carefully and properly.

I am sorry but this is the way it works.

You need to calm down and be nice and then you will get your way.

There is no way to talk to me. There is no way for me to talk to you. That’s why there is this blog.

It doesn’t matter how loud you are.

It doesn’t matter how hard you push.

You are hurting people when you scream at us and push for your way. You endanger people.

It is not that you can’t get near me, it is that I couldn’t hear you if you could.

It is also that trying to talk to me could get you arrested. No one wants that.

Also you are not supposed to talk to me. That is against the rules and could ruin everything. I have plenty more to write about but can’t get the peace and quiet to get it down!

I am not breaking any rules. Nothing is out of control, nothing is being leaked. I can’t tell any secrets because I don’t know any. Everything was done very carefully and properly.

Talk to other people like yourself if you feel you need to talk. Or start your own blog.

Often you only feel you need to talk to me because you are being tricked. Maybe you are in pain or losing your mind, you are enraged or hysterical.

I cannot help you. Do you understand? What do you think I could do?

Talk quietly to someone else and be nice. They can help you.

I don’t have a way to leave comments on the blog because people can be nasty, and I’m not going to help them be nasty.

There was a twitter feed for the blog once, I don’t remember where and I don’t have time to look for it.

If you keep trying to talk to me I will have to stop writing.

Ok so now I get to talk about rap lyrics. Let’s do this.

This is a song I like a lot called Quality Control by Jurassic 5.

You want to listen to it, maybe just the first 30 seconds or so? Because I want to talk about it.

I wrote out some of the lyrics. There are some pauses in there that if I had to translate to words I would translate as “motherf**ker” or “motherf**king.” I marked these with –. 

I think it’s interesting that this makes the lyrics pretty much incoherent, if you added the cursing in. If the cursing was there and you heard it, the fact that it makes no sense should make you wonder whether you are listening to what you think you are.

Hey yo my — quality control

— captivates your party patrol — 

Your mind, body, and soul —

For whom the bell tolls 

Let the rhythm explode —

Big, bad, and bold 

B-boys of old 

Many styles we — hold

let the story be told 

Whether — platinum or gold

we use — breath control 

So let the beat — unfold

intro on — drum roll…

There are some other pauses in there that if I had to translate I would translate as “b*tch” or “f**k.” I marked these with `. 

Again, were you to hear these sounds and try to connect them to what is being said, it would not make much sense.

Hey` yo my qua`lity control

ca`ptivates your par`ty patrol 

Your` mind, body, and` soul

For` whom` the bell tolls 

Let` the rhythm` explode

Big`, bad, and` bold` `

B`-boys` of` old` ` 

Ma`ny styles we` hold` `

let` the` story be` told` ` 

Whe`ther` plat`inum` or gold` `

we` use` breath` `  control`

So let` the beat` un`fold` `

in`tro` on drum` roll…

There’s also an emphasis on the first sound in each word, a pretty noticeable extra sound there. I don’t know what any of those sounds might mean, but let’s suppose they’re not that nice.

There’s also an emphasis on the first sound in each word, a pretty noticeable extra sound there. I don’t know what any of those tones might translate to in this scenario, but let’s suppose they’re not that nice.

Hey yo my quality control

captivates your party patrol 

Your mind, body, and soul

For whom the bell tolls 

Let the rhythm explode

Big, bad, and bold

B–boys of old 

Many styles we hold…

Contrast this with what we think of when we say someone talks “smoothly,” an expression that is usually used to describe how people sound when they are lying. Which brings us to

Drake.

Aren’t you just drawn to Drake’s voice, like there’s something very special about it? I actually remember where I was the first time I heard it. I wanted to pull the car over and stop to listen.  

There is something very special about his voice. There are special effects added to emphasize the fact that

Drake can sing and not curse sometimes.

No seriously, Drake can sing and not make any of these curse tones, sometimes.

The first time he goes through the verse, when he drives up and goes into the basketball court, then the store– that has the curse tones.

But the second time, starting from when he gets to the football field, the same words are sung, but without the cursing ‘tones.’

The rest of the song goes back and forth, as far as I can hear. 

This is something like a miracle, and I’m not sure how it happened. But his smooth tone and clean intros to words sometimes don’t sound like subliminal cursing. And the comparison makes it easier to spot (although I am not entirely sure I’m not just making up the kind of harsh “tone” at the beginning that I am calling cursing).

And a lot of people imitate Drake now. Not that people shouldn’t make curse “tones” in their speech but it is possible someone could misinterpret them and think you are aggressive. If so you are probably used to it.

Here is a guy who is smoother, but still has these intro sounds on many words. Feel free to watch the whole thing.

Here is a woman who has about zero curse tones when she talks.  I like this example because when she talks before the song she’s amazingly smooth, kindof unreal sounding.

She accentuates the opening sound of the words here and there, but mostly eases into each word very smoothly. As soon as I hear her voice I start holding my breath, but that’s just me.

If you have ever wondered why some people like to listen to Bob Dylan sing Bob Dylan songs and other people like to hear the Byrds sing Bob Dylan songs, this could be why LOL. I have heard many times that the Byrds are just “cleaner.” It’s true they keep to the beat more, but definitely there are far fewer of these tones.

I think these curse tones are what made rock-and-roll rock-and-roll, and so controversial, starting with Elvis.

Maybe all these musicians in the US decided one day to add these tones in, back in the sixties, for whatever reason.

I think I prefer them being there. By quite a bit actually.

I don’t know if everyone got the memo that we all sing and talk that way since… 1970 pretty much? Many of us for much longer. So maybe it’s better to learn to be like Drake, so you can have the option to turn it on and off. But I’m keeping mine.

If you want to try not making these curse tones — for Americans it is not normal not to — just for fun:

Hold your breath in your nose, drop your shoulders, and talk like you don’t want anyone to hear what you are saying. Sortof inhale as you speak, like you are trying to take the words back before they go anywhere and make trouble? You know, like you would if you had to say something you really didn’t want to say like “Honey, I hate to tell you this but — I backed your car into your other car… again?”

I took the cat to vet, and the vet oversedated it. What do you want me to do.

We told you not to take the cat to the vet.

Did you do that because you were already planning to kill it or did you kill it to punish me for taking it even though you “told me” not to?

We told you not to take the cat to the vet and you have to listen.

Ignoring the fact that you didn’t answer my question and that what you just said makes no sense, I’ll respond like this — The cat was sick and living in a cage.

But it wasn’t your cat.

It isn’t good to live around sick things. It wasn’t fair to the cat to be living in a cage and sick. It was in pain. I took it to the vet.

It wasn’t in pain.

It couldn’t breathe. It had some kind of polyp in its ear, and underneath the polyp was an infection.

But it wasn’t your cat.

It wasn’t my dog either, that had lymphoma, but I took him to the vet. His neck was so swollen he couldn’t lift his head from the floor and they put him down.
And it wasn’t my pigeon that got left in a cage on the porch to starve.
And it wasn’t my cat that had an open wound from an engine flywheel that wouldn’t heal. The vet fixed that one.
There are more. It was like someone was throwing sick animals at you. They throw sick animals at me. It’s like a rain of roadkill.

We don’t need your help.

Sure you don’t. You are in unbelievable pain. So are the female ones.

I needed that cat. I haven’t been right since it died.

I know. I wanted it to be healthy and the vet said they could fix it. She said she put it down on purpose. Someone told her we couldn’t afford it and that we wanted her to put it down. He used a fake voice. They said she recognized him but she couldn’t call him back.

Things haven’t been right since he died.

It’s terrible. Maybe your headache moved. That can make it feel like things aren’t right.

I don’t think you should have done it.

I didn’t have a choice. I was doing it. It wasn’t right of them to set this up. It was cruel, to put him in a cage and to kill him. But it wasn’t my fault. I took him to the vet, where he needed to be.

Hey, what’s that sound?

It sounds like an ox trying to backpedal.

And also like an Ummmmm… (sliding downwards)

Or an Uhhh (with down and up intonation)

Or I don’t want to.

Or a little slap!. No!. (That usually only comes out if you keep pressing someone to do something they don’t want to. What do you think, would you understand this, or would you hear that slap and attack?)

Or an Uh-uh. With a headshake.

Or a whiny nehhh.

Or if you really pressure them, nonononononono like dancing on hot coals trying to get away from you.

Or hmmMMmmMMmm Nah.

Each one of those sounds means STOP. They mean I don’t like it, what you are doing. That is why I am making this noise, to let you know you should stop that.

Ignore it at your peril.

There’s a saying: That’s a no-no.

Do you like that, ignore it at your peril?

I like ideas like that, I call them chords.* 

Chords are nuanced messages phrased just right so that everyone who hears them will take away the right message for them.

They are in the vox dei LOL which means they are unshakably true.

Do you know other sounds for “stop”? For “no”?

You sicko.

*Other people call them thoughts with echoes, that does not sound like the right name to me.

People don’t like to think about things that they already know.

Right? If you already know it, why think about it more?

Of course, if you don’t know it, how can you think about it?

Which means there really isn’t anything to think about.

Which is often refreshing.

Seriously though, we don’t like to think about things we already know unless we’re looking at them in a new way or add something. We know that is a waste of time.

It’s amazing to me that we do though, so often.

People don’t like to think about what others are thinking, unless that is their job.

When there is no way to know what someone else is thinking, there’s not much point in speculating about it.

Better to wait until the other person finds whatever it is they might think about important enough to tell you about it. Then you can know what they think, and respond.

All the time we spend thinking about what does he think, what does she think, is wasted really. Unless it is our job to think about what someone else thinks, because we need to work out a strategy or something similar. But that’s not usually what we are doing. Usually we are just running over the same worried crap, what will he think, what will she think, what did he think…

How about ‘what do I think,’ instead?

Tell me why again there is a code with words that mean that you should hurt someone?

Tell me… stop trying to distract me and answer. Why?

Why?

—

Side note, why are there so many different words for hurting people? We don’t need any.

But I can think of a hundred off the top of my head. Burning eyes, throbbing ears, itching noses and aching cheeks, chilly feet…. even a nose bleed!

You need these because you do not actually read minds. Because you weren’t allowed to.

These are for tricking Thinkers into doing things because you don’t know other ways to make them do things.

If you make my head itch, that is to make me scratch it. Because you don’t know how to just make me scratch it, the right way.

But why do you care if I scratch my head? Because you want to let someone who can see me know that I am thinking “I don’t know.”

Because they can’t just read my mind and see that for themselves, because no one ever taught them how.

What a waste! And now it is out of control and you are hurting all these people. You learned all the worst words, from criminals. Everyone law-abiding stopped teaching telepathy and it was only the criminals who passed it on. So you learned only how to act like a criminal. But the criminals made money when they did it– and you don’t! You are pantomiming them like a child.

If you learned to read everyone would just do what you wanted. The body stuff was supposed to be for helping people when they were sick. What is wrong with you.

You say it isn’t your fault, someone made you this way.

A lot of people are made this way, and not all of them hurt people.

Are you pretending to be a robot? Why?

Just because people can be forced to do things, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t bad people.

You have to distinguish between who is at fault and who is responsible. If someone forced you, they are at fault, but if you can’t catch them, you are still responsible.

If a rat trips you and you drop your friend’s birthday cake, do you expect the rat to buy you a new one? Of course not. You are responsible for the cake, even though the rat is at fault.

What did you do?

He made me do it!

We don’t care!

We call them parlor tricks.

Every mind is a blend

Our minds are a blend of ourselves and everyone around us at that time.

Human beings combine their thinking in order to think better.

This is natural and satisfying because a human being’s natural purpose is to improve.

Evaluate thoughts on their own merit

We have to evaluate the idea based on its own merit, weighting heavily it’s impact on the real world. This goes for things we think, say, hear, and read.

It doesn’t really matter where we heard it, or think we heard it, or who said it, or who we think said it.

If it is a good idea that will make things better and makes sense, then it is good. If it is a bad idea that will make things worse or doesn’t make sense, then it is bad.

There’s no way to “trust” certain sources of thought because they could change at any moment, depending on what goes in their blender.

—–

Here in the western world we are taught to think for ourselves and to identify with our thinking.

In eastern countries this is not so much the case. Many people are taught to think for themselves, but each person views their own thinking from a much greater distance. Thinking is more like weather, or digestion– a natural process that we can work with but never really control.

Eastern cultures also focus on the social aspects of thinking much more than we do. Here in the US we live with the illusion that all of our thinking originates in us (and subsequently is our fault).*

There is a field of study called social neuroscience, that has found that people think very differently when they are together than they do when apart. From wikipedia:

In fact, we now recognize the considerable impact of social structures on the operations of the brain and body. These social factors operate on the individual through a continuous interplay of neural, neuroendocrine, metabolic and immune factors on brain and body, in which the brain is the central regulatory organ and also a malleable target of these factors.^[6]

Neuroscience research is strange though. They often seem content to report the same findings year after year. The papers read like this: “There are like these areas in the brain? That do things? And it’s complicated? Can’t really say more.”

*When I was in college I wrote a paper for a great philosophy class on ways we know things. I came up with a three-part model, 1) perceptions, 2) reasoning and 3) inspiration. Like a body with a mind and a little satellite dish on top of its head. And I got an A+!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_neuroscience

Satellite

Hello?

HELLO

Whoa.. hey there. How’s it going?

GREAT. WE I MEAN I AM GREAT

Huh? Is it we or I?

IT IS I AS FAR AS YOU KNOW

But your voice is extra extra loud. And kind of blurry sounding.

THAT IS FINE.

Right.. wait hang on. <pulls down curtain> Gotcha! There are five of you saying the same thing at the same time!

Hey NO FAIR what happened.

If you hear a voice that sounds too loud, it could be too many voices, talking in unison, as if they were one person. Not good!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/towards-recovery/201704/please-yell-me?amp

So I’m experimenting to find out more about the symbolism behind these clothing patterns.

And you can call me superstitious all you want. Go ahead and do that a few times.

But historically patterns with leaves, especially not overlapping leaves, and with arrows symbolized “cutting pain.”

So I dare you to dig through your wardrobe and find something like that, wear it at prominently in a place where there are lots of people, and see if you develop aches and pains. As an experiment.

Or pick another pattern and see what happens.I’d avoid anything with bananas and pineapples. Especially together.

Don’t know how to explain it, but it’s interesting to investigate.

—

I’m trying hard to understand why this code exists. The choice of referents seems a particularly unusual. Why would you need clothing that symbolizes something like “please cut the wearer with a knife”?

So far my best guess is that this code was developed by criminals a long time ago and somehow became mainstream. Prison inmates and gangs do this kind of thing, where they make sure everyone’s wearing the right color or has their shirt tucked in the right way.

I’ve always seen this kind of thing as a test to see whether or not you were drinking the Kool-Aid. Did you see the right show on TV, did you get the memo that said everyone has to roll up their pants cuffs a certain way this year?

Like a little checkpoint to make sure that everybody’s connected to the same communications system, getting (and acting on) the same messages.

Hi, welcome to your appointment with Whores for Hire. We accept cash, Venmo or credit card.

Thanks. I just sent the Venmo.

Ok, hold on.. (checking phone). Great. Are you ready?

Sure.

Ok, here goes. HUBBAHUBBAHUBBAHUBBAHUBB-

Hold on. What?

What do you mean what?

What are you doing?

We are doing sex.

Noo, you are making a loud noise.

Yes, that is the sex. You like it. You should do some sex to me too.

What? No, you are just screaming in my face. We both still have our clothes on.

I am blowing your mind. HUBBAHUBB-

What the hell is this? It’s not even phone sex! I think I’ll skip it.

HUBBAHUBBAHUBBAHUBBA-

Help!

Hello, can I help you?

What is going on here? I paid this..

Whore.

Yes! And now she’s making some gawdawful racket and calling it sex.

Yes, that is sex.

No, that is not. I am sure.

I am sorry, you do not understand. That is sex, as we have it now. It is less messy than the old sex. People were having too much fun making people have sex, so we invented the new sex for them that is not dangerous.

That seems like a good idea but also… completely crazy? Sex is sex, you don’t get to pick what sex is.

We have. Have a nice day.

Wait, hold on. This is real? Even the name, Whores for Hire–of course they are for hire, they are whores!

Yes?

It isn’t made up. And you can’t have your money back.

I don’t want my money back. I want to know how you convince a whole bunch of people that something that isn’t sex is sex.

It was for their own good. They understood and so did their parents.

Well, I don’t.

What if we trained people to think that aggression, beating people WAS sex?

Experts learned today that part of the fake mind reading curriculum taught to Knowers includes telling them that Thinkers (non-telepaths) can hear them if you just think about them and shout.

I’m shocked dismayed flabbergasted and practically speechless, ” said one actual telepath. “It’s completely a scam to give one guy control over everyone.”

The widespread call and response protocol, where one Knower reaches out to another person and asks them to carry out a real-world action to confirm that they heard the request, is not a test of whether or not people can ‘hear’.

It is a test of whether the person that you call out to is already controlled by someone who is a Knower.

If they are, the Knowers network as it were will carry the message to the person you’re calling out to.

However, there’s no way for a regular person to hear what you call out to them as a Knower. And we’re not all required to join the Knowers network, are we?

“They present it as if it’s a test to see if someone’s dangerous,” said an ex-Knower. “But really what they’re testing is whether the mind reader who’s controlling you, as a Knower, can also control every other person they come across.”

Because they don’t read minds, Knowers often issue conflicting commands, whether on purpose or accidentally we’re not sure.

Why are they telling them wrong?

“I mean, I guess they didn’t want to tell us it was so these guys who were tricking us could make sure they can control every person in America. That doesn’t sound good.”

as everyone knows, those who do not respond to the call and respond are arrested. The vast majority of those arrested are not telepaths. They’re arrested because the Knowers believe they should be able to hear them.

“I mean, it’s worked for me a few times,” set another ex-Knower. I called out to a Thinker and it seemed like they heard me. “

“I guess that was just a trick in my own mind?”

“I think what’s hard to believe for a lot of people,” said an investigator on the case, “Is that a Thinker can be considered a threat by the Knowers network. They want control of certain people and it’s not always easy for them to get it. So they attacked them in an organized fashion.”

“It’s like a children’s game of cops and robbers,” said another observer. “But the Knowers are being used to do something much more serious. They don’t realize that many of the people that attack are already very well cared for. The people controlling the network drive him or her to get involved, because they’re looking for a fight.”

probably because it’s fake

So quit it

sometimes in life we’re required in an emergency to make a drastic intervention

we have to kick bite punch slap scream scratch or run

if we do this for a minute, for 60 seconds, and nothing changes– the intervention is not working and will never work.

if we do this for an hour, we might call it training. But if after an hour, still nothing changes, it never will.

so don’t waste your time

Beating on that same old drum

if after a minute it doesn’t work, you made some kind of mistake. It’s never going to work. Think it over and think of something else to try.

there is a saying: why don’t we do it? Because it doesn’t work

Everyone needs time for research. But be careful when your research impinges upon others — think about how many researchers there are, and how many “tests” each will want to run. Be careful, be minimally invasive, keep it short, and if you don’t see changes right away, drop it!

Marco can’t hear Dan, but she can hear Jark. 

Jark can hear and talk to Marco and Dan, but Marco won’t hear Jark talk to Dan and Dan won’t hear Jark talk to Marco.

Let’s see what happens.

Jark: (to Dan) Marco is right here, she’s waiting to talk to you, I told him how important this is.

Dan: (to Marco) Do you have some time to talk?

Jark: (to Marco) You c*nt!

Marco: Shut the f*ck up, no one cares what you say!

Dan: OK, later then.

Jark: (to Marco, in a girl’s voice) That’s not true.

Dan: Did she say she’d killed them?

Jark: (to Marco, in Dan’s voice) That’s not true?

Marco: That’s what she just said, yes.

Dan: <I don’t know what>

Jark: (to Marco) I saw it, I looked at it, it was in front of me, someone showed it to me– which one do YOU say when you look at something?

Marco: I think.. I looked at it? I don’t know which one really.

Marco: (to Jark) That man’s face looks like it’s melting.

Jark: (to Marco) Which man?

Marco: (to Jark) That guy over there, waiting for the bus. I never saw him before.

Jark: (getting Dan) Hold on.

Jark: (to Dan) She says she can remember.

Dan: Marco, who told you about all this?

Jark: (to Marco) Who does he look like? The guy waiting for the bus?

Marco: Oh, my grandfather.

Marco: Oh no, there’s a bad guy yelling at me!

Jark: (to Dan) We found the suspect! Should be right around here somewhere, listen!

Jark: (to Marco) What does he sound like?

Marco: Like this! Muhahahaha

(Dan arrests Marco.)

Dan: They must have a storefront somewhere, for their criminal activities,,,

Jark: (to Marco) There’s a store down the street, do you know which one this is?

(Shows picture)

Marco: Oh, Mom and Pop’s Grocery? They have great lemonade.

So this woman and her boyfriend from down the street

Came by my apartment today

And started torturing my cat

Because they wanted to discuss a bunch of lame stuff I already know

They brought different people with them as examples of things I needed to write about

Goons that tortured my cat for different reasons, what their reasons were

And then they let each of those people torture my cat till it threw up mucus

I couldn’t get them to stop

They were very proud of themselves and how witty they were, and of the different points they wanted to make in the “discussion”

They tortured the cat for about 2 hours maybe two and a half

Before anyone could get them to stop

They couldn’t even understand what I was saying to them

Finally I said what kind of discussion is this

You could just say these things

You could just think about these things

You could write them down your f****** self

You could send me an email

I’m on LinkedIn

But instead the only thing you could think of to do is to torture my cat?

The fact that it only took about two and a half hours puts them at the upper end of the curve in terms of intelligence, as my visitors go

Then I noticed something bizarre

A lot of times I would tell them something and it would just vanish

The woman would cock her head to one side and appear to be thinking about it– then blink a little — then respond as if I hadn’t said anything

This happened half a dozen times tonight

Like she was too smart to not understand my argument — it had to be taken completely away from her if she was going to be able to keep at it

It makes me think about Pavlov’s dogs

And this weird thing he’s famous for, the fistula

It’s mentioned every time you read about him, which is weird because he tortured those dogs every kind of way

And all the other things he did to them didn’t get names

But this one has this special fancy name it’s called a fistula

And it’s gross I’m warning you

It’s a hole cut in the throat so that when you eat the food falls right out onto the floor

This woman appeared to have a mental fistula

You’d give her some “food for thought” and she’d start to chew it and it would vanish as if it had never been there

How does that work?

You know what gets me every time

They’re never sorry

It doesn’t occur to them to be sorry

Each goon, after someone talks them down

They want to joke and laugh with me, be friends

It never seems to occur to them that I might be upset

She kept calling goon after goon to come and torture this cat

She’s been torturing it like this for months, 3x a day on a schedule

(Don’t jinx me, it used to be 4 times!)

She makes it very hard for me to write things down

So I told her no way am I having this discussion until you leave my cat alone

And finally I called for help. I screamed for help.

Help came and she told them she’s a level 14 ninja

And no one can do anything about her

That’s how good she is, she tells me

But get this — she’s acting like she’s fighting for some noble cause, rattling off nonsense I’ve said a hundred times or more–and she means it

But I can tell that she’s being used to distract me and keep me from writing

Because she screams louder whenever I try

And I can tell that she’s not aware of that at all

What kind of level 14 ninja is that?

You know what she said finally, she said, I take care of you

Like I owed her

Because I have to listen to her scream every day

This woman has made my life a living hell and now she calls it caring for me

I think this is someone’s exit strategy, trying to take credit for the writing, just jumping on board at the right time

I don’t think it’s going to work, do you?

I remember when they put it in

It was a few years after it all started

They loved it so much

They just sat there and kept yanking things I was thinking away –before I could get back to them to finish them–and laughing.

They call it the level 4 murder.

They told me in some countries everyone has them

Experts are still assessing the extent of the problem of Knowers in America.

“It’s a huge blow to your psyche,” said Isaac AsimovieItWouldStillBeLame, a doctor treating many of the Knowers. “What do we do now?”

Early tests suggest the answer is simple– nothing.

“The fastest way to heal is just to relax,” said Isaac.

Knowers we interviewed describe an invisible, individualized reign of terror, with thoughts of imminent violence, threats to their livelihood and loved ones, or even soldiers and tanks lurking around every corner

“When they said, ‘do what we say or else,’ they were pretty specific,” said (name), an ex-Knower. “They meant that they would hurt us if we didn’t do what they wanted.

“But now we’ve stopped doing anything, and they haven’t hurt us. So far so good!”

Knowers are encouraged to be careful, and to assess the danger to themselves and their families, but there doesn’t seem to be much real threat to them here in the US.

“I guess it was mostly made-up, the threat. The struggle, the danger. It kind of vanished suddenly. None of that seems to have been real,” said (name). “But I have no idea who I am now.”

Early tests show some shocking discoveries. Knowers think more slowly than non-telepaths, because they need to wait to be told what to think.

“Non-telepaths are also less able to resist compulsion better, making them stronger. And they are more able to combine info to get new info, meaning they’re smarter.

“And they’re more ethical, quieter, more reasonable, and have a larger vocabulary, and are much less aggressive.”

So for the record, in descending order of skill, we have Readers, Non-telepaths, and Knowers. It’s a sad testimony to the cruelty of those behind the operation to teach them fake mindreading.

Yet the Knowers believe their conception is immaculate. That’s what they are taught.

“It’s a joke, but it’s not just a joke,” said one former Knower. “Many of us thought it was something divine, that couldn’t make mistakes.”

Sarcastic oneliners you can say with a straight face to make people ask if you are being sarcastic

• Did something bad happen to you, or are you just naturally this terrible of a person?
• If at first you don’t succeed, stop trying already. You’re probably dumb.
• Those of you who think you know it all are really annoying to those of us who do.
• Why do people make end-of-the-world jokes like there’s no tomorrow?
• Hi there, I’m human. What are you?
• Always remember: You’re just as unique as everybody else.
• Tell me what you need, and I’ll tell you how to get along without it since you’re not that bright.
• This obviously isn’t working out. I think it’s time for us to go our separate ways and start making other people miserable.
• I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
• Oh, I didn’t tell you? Must be none of your business then.
• Would you rather have a million bucks, or [insert name]’s head full of nickels?
• Avoid arguments about the toilet seat … use the sink.

I made the redefined sex into another post called Whores for Hire.

*Long live Terry Pratchett

The Other Diane Keaton

Lives underground, not in Tucson, Arizona.

The Diane Keaton in the US did not know. She had no idea, no clue. She was never told.

But a girl born underground was named after her and this girl was a real piece of work. I would say she rose through the ranks but really she sort of slithered and was rank.

And the US Diane Keaton has not been the same since. She was already popular!

—

Would you trade places with me if I was in trouble? Would you ease my pain? My healing?

Because I am not nice. I don’t know what that is, except a joke, right before you hurt someone, to be nice.

Would you pray to God for me, in detail? Learn my name and the names of my captors? Of course you would.

If you need more reason, do it for yourself then? Or your kids. Or their kids, aliens, international trade policy, better pizza, less male baldness, or whatever reason you like. I’m making this up as I go along.

Now let’s be careful

Let’s think this through

You have learned a lot

You can do a lot for a lot of people

—

So if I move your arm

Just a teensy little bit

And at the same time I hold your arm down so that it can’t move

And I ask you to try to move your arm

You will say no, I can’t move my arm, leave me alone!

You’ll be very upset

And then I’ll do this again and again… and again and again and again

Eventually I will not need to hold your arm down anymore

Just that teensy little movement, pressing your arm down against whatever is resting on

Will make you feel like you can’t move your arm

Just focusing your attention on what’s touching your body and flexing those muscles a little bit

Will make it feel like those muscles are paralyzed

But they aren’t

Think of different muscles that are attached to the same limb

Wiggle your fingers

Wiggle your toes

Shake the limb side to side

And then you will be able to move the larger muscles

Why am I so slow?

Because you are so nosy

Telepathy must be taught in a particular order. A lot of the early lessons are ethical and teach when and how to apply what’s taught later, so that telepaths aren’t taught to shoot before learning how to aim, as it were, and make only a minimum of mistakes.

But there are a few lessons that are safe for anyone, no matter what their ethical foundation. Knowers might find these interesting.

Imaginary thinking and toilet paper

To use imaginary thinking, think “Imagine that… ” or “I wonder if…” or “Could it be…” or “What if, wouldn’t it be funny if…?” or something similar before thinking whatever else. Instead of thinking, “This is the case,” think “Did you ever wonder if this is the case?”

In imaginary thinking, absolutely anything goes. You can and should speculate and wonder about whatever you want, as long as it is imaginary. Many Readers think only in imaginary thinking to avoid confusion and mistakes. Knowers can try this.

Readers call these little phrases that introduce imaginary thinking “toilet paper” because they keep things clean. (Readers say telepathically sharing your thoughts, any kind of thoughts, with someone else is like handing them your poop. You can at least also give them some toilet paper.)

Everytime Readers think something nonimaginary–something that acts like a real conclusion — they run through a little checklist to make sure it has the right structure and is received properly. This is not necessary with imaginary thinking.

They know what they did

There is a saying to remember when someone makes a mistake or offends you. (Sometimes people offend you correctly, if you have made a mistake for example.)

They know what they did.

Once a person realizes they have made a mistake or offended you, there is no reason to tell them that they have, because they already know that they have. 

Since you aren’t informing them (telling them something new), if you do insist on telling them what they did, you are just going to sound like a jerk. This means that often you won’t need to say anything at all about someone’s mistake, because typically people catch their mistakes pretty quickly by themselves.

They are calling it Level 2 Murder.

Authorities investigating a clerical error made a shocking discovery today. Millions of pets were registered as pet owners.

Sounds harmless until you think about the effects the stress of being seen as a petowner has on a pet that cannot read or write. Over 10,000 suicides have been found so far.

“I’m particularly cross,” said George Excelpants. “I was responsible for making sure this list was clean and correct, and I don’t appear to have cared at all. Hahahahaha!”

Was it racially motivated? Was it out of some kind of fear? Investigators found one thing all the pets had in common.

Their owners declined invitations to appear in *name’s* scrapbook.

“I am just shy?” said one person who declined to appear. “I don’t like having my picture taken. We were given the option not to appear, and it was right there on the form they sent out that you could opt out.”

“I’d at least like to see their pictures, to see how they’ve changed over the years.” The effects of the clerical errors were devastating on families.

“The pets quickly developed mental health issues, but none of them seemed to care much,” said a watcher. “The physical pain drowned all that out. A lot of the pets couldn’t breathe or see properly, had aches and pains that vets couldn’t fix. The vets were particular pissed off at them actually, because they were told they were neglectful pet owners.

“Not sure how they didn’t notice they were pets and not pet owners.

“Maybe they just knew they weren’t.”

Radiation released a cryptic statement:

every pet with Radiation’s last name is listed as a petowner in this scrapbook

Which makes no sense because everyone knows pets don’t have last names!

One woman made a quick check and found 100 such pets she knows personally, including 3 suicides. And she is just one person.

Quick searches of the database found records that kittens owned their mothers, and found 4 entries in the pet owner database for the same animal– one for each of its legs.

“They are still attached to the dog,” clarified one investigator. “They’re just registered under different names. The left front leg was listed as the owner of 8 pets.”

“We’ve been wondering for years why that dog walked like that,” said one neighbor. It was … disturbing to look at. I guess at some level he internalized that he four legs were recorded as four different people,” said an investigator assigned to the case. “Very responsible people, I guess.”

How did this happen?

It’s true some pet owners were trying to dodge vet bills and simply traded places with their pets.

In other cases the pet was listed as a pet owner to operate like a shell corporation, owning pets for a criminal who did not want to be in the scrapbook either.

Many disobedient pets explained

Pets registered to other pets were owned by criminals that can’t be held responsible for their behavior

This is where it really gets interesting. The pets that were registered as pet owners in the scrapbook were registered with some pets. What happened to them?

Those responsible for the false registration appear to have actually owned most of them. Many of them are caged for aggressive behavior, biting and worse. Several were put down. Others appear to be in extreme pain.

Because of all this, many, many, many, many criminal charges have been brought against their apparent owners, the mis-registered pets who appeared in the database as human beings. Being pets themselves, they were unable to even respond to the charges, let alone address the problems.

“I kept calling and calling and calling the cops,” said one incredibly decent person (name). “I could hear those dogs in there wailing. But usually made no difference, and some times it made it worse.”

Families tied in knots

Other searches showed entire families of animals that appeared to own each other. Using “register multiple limbs as multiple people” trick, puppies appeared to own their siblings and parents, as well as neighbors.

“It’s a nasty way to control a whole mess of dogs with just a few leashes,” said the investigator. “Make them responsible for each other. It looked like they could feel each others pain. Remember that movie the Corsican Brothers? Of course you don’t. I’m getting old.”

Eyes Gouged Shut

This is definitely gross enough so we’ll just say that many of the mis-registered pets appeared to have intentional injuries to their eyes.

Are they becoming human?

Yeah, that’s nice to think about? The magical chiliwangchanga, that every kid has heard of but nope. That’s BS.* They are dogs and cats, on leashes. Some of them are on quite a few leashes. Quite a few. They have serious problems and need more care than regular pets, not less.

“I think some of the people responsible for this put the word out that these pets were turning into people. They actually fed that line to entire cities and towns who willingly handed their pets over. But no, no way. It’s only on paper that they look like that they look anything like humans.”

They do know quite about about pet ownership though. Especially if they have been registered awhile.

Trick photos

Here are some more very stressed out individuals who probably belong in this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/11ere /health/gang-stalking-targeted-individuals.html

*Really well crafted BS isn’t it? Isn’t it exactly what you’d wish for?

When I was in high school I drew a picture of my dad, but his head was his dog. So it looked like his dog wearing a business shirt. It got lost, destroyed somehow. So I drew another one. The idea has always stayed with me.

this is just some academic stuff about how to drive people crazy

—–

I want to control how you feel, when you are alone. How?

I can make you feel sad, and sad, and sad and sad, and then leave.

But whenever I leave you are happy! Darn it!

How about this: I will tell you not to be negative ever, or else we will not like you.

And then I will make you feel sad, sad, sad inside.

And you will pretend to be happy.

Then when I leave and you are happy that I am gone, I will come back and tell you that your happiness is just pretend. When it isn’t.

I will say, go lie to this man for me, tell him how happy you are when I am gone. Do it now.

You won’t stop to think, hey, that’s not a lie!

You will tell him how happy you are, in a sarcastic voice.

He won’t even be real.

I will do this again and again

Until you are no longer sure what happy feels like, because you have pretended to be happy when you were happy and when you were sad now.

My favorite example of this is what they do with guilt.

When you feel guilty for hurting someone, they make you taunt them and pretend to feel guilty. Oh I am soooo sorry, they have you say sarcastically. But you are.

Guilt must go! They do this so much, that I noticed the pattern. Which led to noticing a lot of things.

When you pretend you can vent your emotions without processing them. Eventually you stop having natural emotions.

Or I can tell you a horrific story

That might or might not be real

Initially you feel horrified

But then there’s no resolution to it, the story never ends, but another different one begins

Also horrifying

And another and another – you never find out if any of them are true or not true

And eventually you don’t care anymore, the whole world is pretend

<add: ditch the symbolism>

There’s enough bad stuff in the world. Real stuff. Cancer, drought. 

And then you come along and try to add to it.

But let’s suppose for some reason you want to add to it, You want to make things worse, not in a universal way maybe, but for some particular individual you don’t like for some reason.

So you’ll have to think up something, some way to make things wrong, some way to make things worse than they already are.

But the conflicts and trouble a person creates are fundamentally different from the ones already here.

The trouble you make has to be fake. Because you have to make it. If it was real, you wouldn’t have to make it.

It’s counterfeits and lies and hidden pockets kept cutoff and uninformed, false impressions– lots and lots of misunderstanding. 

In a word, nonsense. All of it. 

So always, with close examination, it vanishes.  With more communication, it vanishes. Like soap bubbles popping.

That’s important to know, when you are fighting man-made problems. That you are fighting what’s not real. That has to be fought differently.no, you beat them, you pay.

There’s always a disconnect somewhere, someone who needs to know what someone else already knows. The problem is figuring out what.

To make trouble, you tell one person one version of something and another a different one. Line those up and the problem disappears.

I hope that makes things easier.

I think the phrase is “Give up and don’t” — as in, let it all fall, drop the dramatic narrative with all the metaphors and symbolism, as if you surrendered in the fake war–and get started in the real world, which is in many ways more challenging, but where it is not impossible to win.

We’ve all heard about it on television and read about it in the history books. 

But experts are now confirming that lying is real. 

I heard someone do it last week, said Lucas Fygoselamac. At first I was like, No way! Then I was like, What? Then I was like No way! But it was real.

“This guy said his aunt had died and he needed $5 for a bus ticket to Philadelphia,” Lucas went on. “I gave it to him and then went into the gas station to buy some coffee.”

“When I came back out he was talking to another dude and I heard him say his uncle had died and he needed $5 for a bus ticket to Trenton.”

Lucas approached the man who said he did in fact need two bus tickets, one to go to his aunt’s funeral in Philadelphia and another to go to his uncle’s funeral in Trenton.

“But I was like no way, because obviously his aunt would live with his uncle. He was lying.”

Lucas called the authorities, who found that the man did have an aunt who lived in Philadelphia and an uncle who lived in trenton, but both were alive and well.

Authorities thanked Lucas, who now seems to be a much different man, for his help.

“It’s a bit embarrassing to think back on that day at the gas station. For some reason I sounded like a brainless goon. I’m feeling much better now, more like myself than I’ve felt in a long time.”

When asked if he ever lied, Lucas responded, “Of course! But that doesn’t mean anyone else would.”

<add story of policeman searching for serial killer using advice from serial killer.. “I didn’t expect him to lie!”>

How to tell when someone is lying

Whenever we lie, we have to store the story that we tell.

The longer the story gets the more we have to store.

Also our brain sort of intuitively checks to see if our story is being believed, if it is believable.

There is a saying: There is no reason why any thought should be true ever.

More revealed in Split Screen case: Gregoridiarrrr had Omeprazole registered as his supernatural guardian

Unbeknownst to Omeprazole, who did not know such a thing was possible, Gregoridiarrrr (whom Omeprazole thought did not exist) registered Omeprazole as his legal supernatural guardian several years ago.

Omeprazole was also registered as the supernatural guardian of several other people, including himself.

“Not only does Gregoridiarrrr exist, he is the mastermind behind the Petkicker virus,” said Darisxa Maconishle, who continues to investigate the case. He hacked his way through the interview for the supernatural guardian registration, which was conducted via crystal ball. He generated fake responses from Omeprazole using his then new Petkicker virus.

Meanwhile Omeprazole doesn’t even have a crystal ball. 

“He’s not a witch,” said Maconishle. “He is just a guy who is obsessed with tea. But we noticed, watching him over the past two weeks, he never makes any!”

Indeed Omeprazole’s tea obsession is making more sense now. Gregoridiarrrr has been frequently suing him for supernatural neglect for years– and Omeprazole never had a clue.

“Omeprazole had Supernatural Protective Services (SPS) all over him for years,” said Maconishle. “Without knowing what they were. Of course he developed an obsession with tea.

“He was trying to figure out how to get SPS and Gregoridiarrrr– whom we’ve found, he does exist–to leave him alone. He thought if he learned enough about the tea he could do that.

“And witches’ tea isn’t meant for people who aren’t witches. Of course he was quite sensitive to it and had strong reactions.”

And indeed it appears to have been Gregoridiarrrr who created Omeprazole’s tea obsession in the first place. Because he was listed as Gregoridiarrrr’s supernatural guardian, when Omeprazole mail ordered regular tea he received tea crafted for witches.

“If you are on the list as a witch, you get tea for a witch,” said one supplier. “It doesn’t matter what you ordered. We check the list. 

“It’s important that all witches drink proper witch tea, at every moment, even if they say they don’t want it. Especially if they say they don’t want it!” 

Thousands of other suppliers who shipped witches’ tea to Omeprazole said something identical. 

Witches’ Brew

So what is witches’ tea like?*

“It’s very potent, packs a serious punch. It kills most people who aren’t witches,” said Maconishle. “Although it can take months or even years to do so. Meanwhile it just makes you miserable and despairing.”

“The taste is very bizarre,” said Omeprazole. “Once in a while you get some that is just beautiful, but that is very rare and mostly me being polite. I f***ing hate it and never want to think about it ever again.

“Always was a coffee drinker anyway.”

Gregoridiarrrr sat as close as he could to Omeprazole throughout Omeprazole’s testimony, saying “Good one!” when he finished answering a question and trying to high-five him while Omeprazole flinched away.

When Omeprazole told the court he had been a coffee drinker, Gregoridiarrrr sortof whisper-yelled at him “Tell them you were a coffee drinker! They’ll definitely fall for that!”

The judge stopped the proceedings.

“But that’s what he just said,” she said. “Why are you pretending that you are telling him to say that, after he just said it?”

Gregoridiarrrr just glared at her.

The entire situation is less confusing than we’d thought, based on Omeprazole’s earlier testimony with the whiteboard. Which makes a lot of sense, because how would he know? The man has no crystal ball. 

Gregoridiarrrr just wanted to trade places with Omeprazole sometimes, to hide out when witches were searching for him for his other crimes. 

With Omeprazole registered as his supernatural guardian, Gregoridiarrrr could assume a false identity as Squeaky McShivers, the fake name he gave when he registered himself as Omeprazole’s supernatural dependent.

Forcing Omeprazole to drink witches’ tea all the time seemed like a small price to pay for the convenience of being able to hide whenever necessary.

“Can you picture this guy, hacking the crystal balls of the registars and everyone watching, and hexing Omeprazole to get him to say the right words at the right time, all while pretending to be a different person who wasn’t a witch? He’s a real piece of work.”

To witches going by the list, Omeprazole was a witch, so he was not allowed to have a supernatural guardian. Witches from the community tried to check in on him and help, and many were censured for doing so. 

“Gregoridiarrrr was quick to report us to the standards board for whatever he could come up with,” said one witch who helped Omeprazole put down his cup of witches’ tea for a few seconds and eat something. “He said Omeprazole was stubbornly refusing to act like a witch and we shouldn’t help him.”

Authorities are investigating the scope of Gregoriadarr’s fake supernatural guardian network. And whether this type of crap is a nationwide practice.

Checklist from earlier blogs (for readers interested in extra credit) 

• every black kid in America
• people who curse but mean something different
• animals from undesirables list
• boring people receiving witches’ tea by mistake
• Knowers who need to start their education over (many need therapy first)

Or maybe you want to design replacements for the systems and processes that created the above!

There is a saying:

I made a list, I put you on it.

Is it a good list?

We’ll see.

*Sorry this is turning out to be more about the tea than the trial, someone’s obsessed.

Classism the suspected motive; Thousands affected

Since the 1950s or thereabouts, Chinese children have been allowed to learn only a severely limited form of the ancient practice of telepathy. Teaching outside of the very boring government organized venues was forbidden. 

“We haven’t had any details about the training but we can guess based on the results,” said a watcher. “Someone cooked up a scheme to teach a dumbed down version of mindreading to Chinese children. They call it “knowing.” A lot was left out, so that the students would pose no threat to real psychics.”

“It’s like Cliff Notes for telepathy, with one big difference,” said Hankeray Treetop, who has been counseling people who were subjected to the fake mindreading program for over 25 years. “These Cliff Notes are wrong on purpose. They are the Cliff Notes you would give your worst enemy, so they would fail the test.”

Or fall off the Cliff, as it were. 

“Or actually– let me restate that– it’s more like if you wrote Cliff Notes that would hypnotize anyone who read them and turn them into your own personal, very violent sex slave for life.”

Chinese children are given illogical rules to follow and taught how to attack others with their minds. 

“Knowing is a hoax put on by the communist party,” said Treetop. “They didn’t want real mindreaders around, they wanted robots they could control. They couldn’t just make people forget about telepathy, so they taught everyone fake telepathy instead.”

“Back when we were cavemen, there was no mind reading, and then people from India figured it out and spread it around the world on purpose,” said Abowcherbff. “They are very into teaching it. But then someone in Russia decided to try to get rid of it.”

“Whoever came up with the ‘knowing’ system, this fake mindreading that was supposed to replace real telepathy– which the vast majority of Chinese people use as of today– had a sick sense of humor. As well as no regard for humanity,” said Treetop.

“Not just the kind of person who pulls the wings off flies for fun– an even rarer type of person who would figure out a way to trick flies into pulling their own wings off somehow–for fun.

“And then they killed people who tried to keep the real telepathy going– in huge numbers. The Great Terror, the Cultural Revolution, etc.”

The designers of the system clearly wanted two things– unquestioning obedience and a way to really hurt people.

To “Know” – Reliance on an Inner Voice

Chinese children are taught to “know” – to rely on their instincts instead of actual telepathy. 

“They don’t have anything to compare it to,” said Inoh Abowcherbff, a telepath from Antartica who teaches psychics all over the globe. 

“They are in an information vacuum. The teacher says ‘knowing’– which means concentrating and listening inward, into your own mind– is the way to find out what someone’s thinking or doing. So that’s what they do. 

“Problem is, that’s completely untrue. ‘Knowing’ doesn’t work. You can’t find your way out of a paper bag with that crap. It’s a hoax.”

What is Knowing, really? 

“What the children thought was their own ‘knowing’ was really a trick played on them by older, actual telepaths, usually including the teacher and members of the young Chinese elite.

“Anyone who thought faster than the child could broadcast whatever they wanted in the child’s mind, and dress it up as ‘knowing’,” said Treetop. 

“The fact that they kept this a secret is amazing,” said Abowcherbff. “What evil snobs.”

“The majority of Chinese children believe they can read minds by listening closely to a creepy little voice in their heads,” continued Abowcherbff. “This voice is supposed to tell you what everyone else is thinking. 

“It also tells you what to wear, what to say, who is a bad person, whom you should trust, and what to eat for breakfast. It is intended to replace your own thinking, or at least drive you nuts.*

“But they didn’t tell the children it was someone else thinking for them. That would have been sane or even helpful. Instead they told them it was part of their own mind, so they wouldn’t question it.”

People may have questioned it initially, but a lot of them ended up dead. So pretty quickly people stopped questioning it.

“Once you think to question it, there’s clearly something not quite real about knowing,” said Abowcherbff. “It doesn’t make sense that the mind you were supposedly reading would be thinking about just what you wanted to know, or could be made to think about it so quickly, every single time.

“Or that someone else’s mind would so often give you the answer you expect to hear. In fact, those trained to pretend to be your ‘knowing’ are taught to use your own guesses to supply their answers.”

“If you expect the person whose mind you are reading would have a pet, the person pretending to be your knowing, what we call the sneak, will say they do,” said Treetop. “If you expect they don’t, they’ll say they won’t. What most people ‘know’ is mostly made up.”

“If I had to make a comparison, I would say it’s like magic headphones,” said Treetop. “Magic headphones that make you think they are your own ear…but that lie… and give you a little electric shock every time you think for yourself…you know?

“Really it’s like magic headphones that purport to be your own ear, lie, give you a shock every time you think for yourself … and are violent and ultra focused on world domination…you know?”

“Can I make a comparison too?” said Abowcherbff. “It’s like going to a psychic in a strip mall and getting your palm read. Some sneak just tells you what you want to hear, so you’ll come back. The sneak doesn’t even check to see what’s real.”

No exposure to actual telepathy

The “knowing” program prevented generations of would-be telepaths from ever hearing actual thoughts, now colloquially called “Knowers.”

Knowers were taught a very limited form of mind reading, basically only how to attack non-mindreaders and to send text messages to each other in their minds.

“Real thinking sounds just like you would imagine from the movies,” said Abowcherbff. “It’s an ungodly mess and moves quickly. You have to be taught not just how to hear it, but how to interpret and respond to what you hear.” (see post)

Some school systems did cover actual mind reading, which they called “looking” — issuing a trigger thought and listening for the response. But others left it out entirely.

“Looking is more like ‘talking to’ in most cases,” said Treetop. “Reading doesn’t require a trigger thought, it doesn’t require you do to anything. You just sit there and read.”

Because they don’t know what real thinking sounds like, Knowers have no way to identify fake thinking.

“This means pretty much anyone can tell them anything and they’ll believe it,” said Treetop. “And most people have been. I bet we uncover a lot more crap that they were made to believe.”

For example, many Chinese people believe that Americans think in Chinese, because that’s all they hear.

“Actually all Americans have a blend of ethnic origins in their thinking,” said Abowcherbff. “Maybe one of their schoolteachers was Japanese and another was west African, their family comes from Sweden but they live in a majority Latin neighborhood. Then you get Japanese, west African, Swedish and Latin thinking, plus other things they heard in passing.

“Americans switch between ‘languages,’ if you want to call them that, rapidly and readily when they think.”

A pyramid with many levels

Unbeknownst to the average Chinese person, the wealthiest, politically connected Chinese are given a different training entirely, often right in the midst of the fake mind reading classes.

“Parents pay for extra classes where their children can learn to be the ‘knowing inner voice’ of the other children. Then they go back to the regular school to practice,” said Abowcherbff. “Makes you sortof wish you’d known which students those were so you could kick them in the shins at least.” 

Kicking them all in the shins would have been an interesting exercise on many levels, as even the “upper tier” children who were taught mind control were themselves controlled by “upper upper tier” children, and so on.

Each upper class of children was told that there were only two groups — those that didn’t know how to be the “voice of knowing” for others and those that did. Since they were now in the upper class, they never expected anyone trick them and play the part of their voice of knowing.

But above each level was yet another. The inner voice of knowing is never real.

“It took me months to figure out how this could work,” said radiation. “How could you manipulate people this way and not guess that others might do the same thing to you? Then I realized — they just told them another lie. They said there was an in crowd and an out crowd, and that they were in the in crowd.”

Can your own mind lie?

Because most Knowers believe that ‘knowing’ comes from their own minds, they rarely if ever question the information they are fed. But those taught to act as that inner voice were taught to lie.

“They were taught to lie to others and in the same breath taught that no one could lie to them and get away with it, because they would ‘know’ it was a lie.

“And they believed these kinds of contradictions because they just ‘knew’ they were correct,” said Treetop. “The upshot was that they were never to think at all about whether anyone might be lying to them. Who questions their own thinking, especially if you call it ‘knowing’?”

“We have no reason to believe those pretending to be the ‘knowing’ of others are honest with those they control,” said Abowcherbff. “If they wanted to be honest, they could just come out and say who they are. I have a lot of metaphors for it.

The whole thing was predicated on a lie: that the students were listening to thoughts. “It’s not telepathy, it’s chit-chat. Just a lot of talk. They weren’t taught to hear what anyone was actually thinking — they were talking in their heads, and someone was answering them, but also pretending to be them. Chit-chat is fine, but not when it pretends to be telepathy.”

The language barrier

Knowing works much better in China than it does overseas. In China, there is a common language, and everyone can understand pretty much everyone else.

Here in the US however, knowing starts to break down because those passing the messages can’t always understand them.

“You notice people who suddenly develop bad English grammar, or who need time to translate their own thoughts to themselves. This is what happens when the telepath playing the ‘inner voice’ can’t understand the messages it is receiving from other Knowers or can’t understand someone’s inner dialog.”

To those still skeptical about how fake ‘knowing’ is, this is pretty good evidence. Telepaths don’t have any problems with language barriers, because thinking has no language (as us non-telepaths would expect). It is just thought. But chit-chat has to be in some language or the other.

“I have treated quite a few people who appeared to be missing parts of their mind, because their inner dialog on certain topics was in another language and too hard to understand. Those ideas couldn’t be successfully passed from Knower to Knower, so they didn’t get thought.”

Painful criticism

Another interesting observation is that knowing is not always particularly nice.

“For some people it’s like having a hidden cubby in your mind where anyone can hide and yell at you, while pretending to be the collective unconscious,” said Abowcherbff. “That’s one of my metaphors.”

“You are not that critical of yourself, or that angry,” said Treetop. “No one is. If that was coming from your own mind, the insults would never sting. You might criticize yourself, but you cant surprise yourself, and it’s the surprise of an insult that makes it upsetting.”

Physical pain is also a big part of the program. Many students of ‘knowing’ experience physical pain when their ‘knowing’ criticizes them. This pain can be subtle or even overlooked, interpreted as a bad mood instead of artificially tense muscles or uneven breathing.

Making people more similar

Over the years, what had been a real psychic network became just a relay system, with one real telepath operating as a switchboard for maybe 10 Knowers at a time. ”The ‘switchboard’ carries messages from head to head and creates the illusion of telepathy.

We don’t know if those in charge say this was more powerful than the old telepathy or if they just pretend this is how it has always been done– or both**.  But definitely it is completely made up. ‘Knowing’ is nothing like actual mind reading.

What is for sure is that ‘knowing’ is used to make the thinking of Chinese people more consistent. Diversity is intentionally stripped away.

“The more similar people are, the easier it is for a single high-ranking telepath to pretend to be the inner voice of a greater number of people,” said Abowcherbff. “Now there’s a pyramid, with the best psychics at the top and the blindly obedient Knowers at the bottom, and plenty of levels in between, of people who ‘know’ for others but are also controlled by people they don’t notice..” 

“It seems like some people suspect what’s really going on–that this inner voice claiming to be your telepathic power is really just another telepath being a sh*thead***– but many people, especially the younger ones, believe it completely,” said Treetop. “It is pretty tragic, but the story gets worse.”

Brutality and paranoia

It’s hard for us to imagine, but the young Chinese psychics are taught to be brutal. 

“Instructors psychologically abuse the Chinese children quite intentionally, to make them easier to control. Quite a bit of research went into this,” said Abowcherbff. “Family and social ties are looked down upon or intentionally broken. Apparently the world is not a nasty enough place for some people.”

“Kindness is seen as weakness, and any displays of empathy or caring are mocked. The Chinese children are taught the world is a scary, violent place and that they need to be brutal to get by and to get ahead–brutal to each other and especially to any outsiders or people seen as different. 

“The world is pretty Lord of the Flies, in their minds,” she continued. “The stakes are high and the enemy is everywhere. Constant vigilance is required to avoid being pushed out of the in crowd. This keeps them very focused on the directions they are given and pushes our distraction.

“At the same time, there is an incredibly narrow focus. Most of the their thinking is about tiny trivial details, minutia, like whether the bed is made or the dishes are put away, or huge scary abstract concepts like global warfare–and these are made to seem connected somehow. That keeps them in a state of constant terror, and there’s none of the normal stuff that’s in between, neither tiny or huge, like personal goals or normal, relaxed recreation.”

“Quite different from the world you and I live in.”

Taking over the world?

Brutality lessons also increase the children’s effectiveness as human weapons.

“It really is a plot to take over the world, like a cartoon villain would cook up,” said Treetop. “You can imagine what they thought they were creating. An entire country that marched in lockstep and would do anything their ‘knowing’ commanded them to — work themselves to death, turn on an enemy as a group, wear plaid and paisley at the same time–anything. 

“In terms of production and in terms of telepathy, they imagined whoever controlled all these people’s minds would be unstoppable, and they controlled all these people’s minds,” he continued. “Making them believe they were unstoppable. Ahem. And a big part of the plan was making sure the people below them on the pyramid didn’t know anything they could use to question or threaten those above.”

One can imagine Chinese telepaths have been a thorn in the side of the Chinese government for centuries, and that this time the government wasn’t going to leave itself vulnerable.

Weaponizing

What they did decide to teach was how to hurt people and a long list of scenarios in which hurting people was ok or required. Then Chinese fake mindreading was exported to the rest of the world.

“They teach about physical pain, how to distract people, slow them down, things like that,” said Abowcherbff. “A lot about sex. And several large boatloads of weird symbolism.”  (see perverts ate holes in my brain post)

“It’s like the guys from 9/11– they raised some suspicion at their flight class when they didn’t seem to care about how to land a plane,” said Treetop. “In fake mindreading, there’s a lot on how to stop people from thinking, but nothing about how to make them think or help them think.”

In any case what is taught seems to have made many Chinese people terrified and very miserable.

“The U.S. increased Chinese immigration quotas in the 1960s, just in time to import the first batch of fake mindreaders,” said Abowcherbff. “The new style wasn’t just about eradicating traditional Chinese telepathy. They also wanted to create human weapons to use against anyone who stood in the way– dissidents and foreigners, mostly.”

Caches of Human Weapons

The government then formed organized squads of Knowers that are manipulated by anyone who knows how. These squads are like caches of human weapons stashed all over the U.S.

“You can get 200 people to come out and scream at a wad of gum on the sidewalk, if you pay the right guy,” said Treetop. “They’ll scream and mean it. These folks are a real riot.

“They are organized in groups, like volunteer police squads for telepathy,” said Abowcherbff. “Except everyone has to join. They believed they were keeping the peace or at least protecting their own interests. But by manipulating them via their ‘knowing,’ the elite used them to attack Americans, telepathic or not.”

“Because they believe in knowing, many of them not only think they are helping when they hurt innocent people, they are sure that they’re helping and it’s almost impossible to show them otherwise. To them the innocent person is whatever their ‘knowing’ tells them it is–usually some kind of imaginary telepathic criminal, a brain scrambler or purveyor of illegal thoughts.

Gang element

“Some Knowers have a distinct yo-boy thing going on, and embrace being used for violence. It’s easier to embrace when you don’t know you are being used. Not sure how they will feel when they find out they were some old woman’s puppet most of the time, and lining her pockets while they didn’t make a dime,” said Treetop. “They are encouraged to feel that they are being antisocial while at the same time they do everything they are told by their inner voices. It’s another one of those contradictions.”

“Making people feel like they are rebelling is a well-known psychological tactic for getting them to behave,” added Abowcherbff.

“And they go after certain ethnic groups like they were the hotcakes in a breakfast buffet,” said Treetop. “With mixed results.”

“Very powerful criminal gangs have operated in China for centuries,” said U. Tuber, a historian who somehow embedded himself in the discussion. “They kindof were the government before communism, and communism does not appear to have slowed them down. 

“It was these criminals who most likely spread the fake mindreading. There is also a strong connection to Russia, which may be where fake mind reading was originally developed.”

Readers, Knowers, and … Cardboard Boxes?

Many cultures divide the world into two groups: Readers, or telepaths, and non-telepathic people, who are called “Cardboard boxes.”

Knowers are an in-between class of people, with some telepathic skills but who never learned to cannot read thoughts.

Some Knowers will “vault through the mind” in an attempt to hear real thinking (they call this “looking”), but they were never taught to listen to thinking in any kind of sustained way, or to interpret it.

Instead, quite intentionally, Knowers were trained to listen to inner dialog, not thinking–and their own, not the inner dialog of others. They cannot hear when others address them mentally unless someone repeat the message for them.

“I think practicing some sustained listening would be very good for them,” said Abowcherbff. “That’s what mind reading really is. The only way to learn it is to do it.”

“And they would also benefit from opening their own minds up to real Readers,” said Treetop. “As they listen more and are listened to more, these lies should dissolve. That is really the treatment.”

Success?

The powers-that-be did a good job keeping the younger generation from learning any of the old telepathy, even taking the time to kill anyone who might try to teach them. 

After just one generation approximately 80% of Chinese telepathy instruction was forgotten, according to measures I completely made up, as Chinese telepathy quickly fell behind that of the rest of the world.

“They didn’t want them to listen, learn to listen, or even try to listen to anyone,” said Treetop. “Now most of them no longer really know that listening is a thing some people do. That is in some sense an amazing success.”

The definition of ‘mind reading’ was even changed to something like “suck-your-brain-out-against-your-will.” “Mind reading” is seen as a dirty word; the magical verb “to know” is preferred. To this day actual telepathy is seen as impolite, gross, dangerous, weird, malicious, scary, impossible, unimportant, stupid, unpatriotic, unnecessary, very difficult, foreign, eccentric, rude, evil, nerdy, peculiar, offensive and just plain useless by most Chinese people.

But the fake mindreading they teach is… fake. At a minimum it raises the question, why should Chinese people be so terrible at telepathy compared with the rest of the world?

“What are people supposed to do, blame themselves?” said Treetop. “This crap probably came from the same ideaology that told African people having sex with a virgin would cure aids, or that African Americans were immune to Covid.

“Advice is a weapon in the hands of the wrong people, and clearly there are some really baddies out there who know how to wield it.”

Impact

It’s hard to assess the impact of “knowing” on the world. Many people have been made miserable or worse.

Thinking less

The effort to quash China’s well-respected telepathy arose just before the Cultural Revolution and was driven home by the violence of the Cultural Revolution itself.

The new teaching couldn’t come out and tell people to stop thinking, so it taught that people had to think faster– to make decisions more quickly and decisively. To do otherwise– to ponder or compare notes– was seen as inviting a beat-down.

At the same time the children were taught an encyclopedia of code and symbolism that made them think much more slowly.

The result of those two in combination was what it had to be– everyone thought much less.

Speaking out

People have been trying to get the message out. Last week authorities arrested a man carving the following message into Snickers bars and leaving them all over the place:

what they think of as knowing is really just a hole in their heads where anybody who thinks faster than them can hang out and tell them what to do without them realizing it

If anyone has one of these Snickers bars, please let me know. They are important evidence. Likewise a Kit-kat.

Potentially hundreds of thousands are affected

The revelation exposes a huge problem, hundreds of thousands of Knowers who are aware of mind reading but can’t read minds by themselves.

Radiation has sympathy for their plight.

“It’s like suddenly discovering that we are surrounded by tons of disabled people who are being abused. Luckily in this case the disability is just that they have been fed a pack of lies and it can be reversed.”

The solution on the table is to teach all the Knowers to read minds, which sounds like a daunting task to this author. The obvious thought is to teach them to teach each other, but how long does that take?

“I could teach someone to read minds in about 2 hours,” said Abowcherbff. “I’d need a pina colada and a few young men to help me. To teach someone to teach someone would take about 2 weeks and I’ll find some way to make that fun as well.”

President Biden released a statement to the Knowers late last night: “We understand there were serious abuses and we’re working on the problem. The past is the past, but you are in America now and we’re going to help you.”

Knowers taking a pause

Many Knowers are understandably devastated by the news that knowing is fake.

“I gave them my whole life, pretty much,” said one who chose to remain anonymous. “I did everything they said to and it was all lies. I hurt hundreds of innocent people, including lots of children, just because they said to. Now what?”

Indeed, those who know but can’t read can’t really help keep their community safe.

“Anytime Knowers show up for any kind of conflict, the bad guys are going to pretend to be their inner sight and make them hurt the good guys. That’s what bad guys do,” said Treetop.

For this reason many Knowers are “taking a pause.”

“We can comply with the commands of the inner voice but also acknowledge their true nature,” said Thor Cardgame, another Knower. “It’s not like there is a legal requirement to fly into a violent rage whenever anyone wants us to. It’s more like a compulsion.”

“I’m not going to make a big deal of it, but I’m going to slowly drop all my projects for a couple of weeks. To focus on myself and id anyone who has been thinking for me without my noticing. Maybe later I’ll go back and see what they really had me doing.

“Being aware of being tricked hurts bad at first, but its better to see what’s really going on. I’ll get used to the idea in a few weeks,” he continued. “Meanwhile if you learn how to read you won’t need to know anymore. Knowing is like a crapshoot. Whoever is behind it might tell you the truth, but they also might not.”

Government responses

A secondary concern is that knowing about telepathy without being a telepath is illegal in most states. “The Knowers were never bothered about this, because they believed they were truly psychic. The tests for psychic ability were rigged to be easily faked,” said Treetop.

“But they still won’t be bothered about it. Those tests are tests of knowing– whether the person can and will listen to a creepy inner voice–so the Knowers will still pass and be in compliance in that respect.”

Officials, when asked if Knowers are now considered unattended, agreed that they are not, because they Know. This was seen by many as an admission that knowing is fake.

What can we do

“We’re very lucky that this is a group that is likely to seek additional education, for themselves and for their children,” said Abowcherbff. “Someone will have to set up some kind of school where actual telepathy is taught instead of this dangerous game.”

Until then parents are encouraged draw from other communities to find private tutors for their children. “We know we can be scary,” said one spokesperson for a non-Chinese community group. “But we want to help. We all want the same thing.”

“The Knowers are actually the nicest telepaths,” said another (name). “We’re the ones they couldn’t convince to hurt innocent people. They had to trick us into doing so.”

*Not Grape Nuts

**Because why not?

***Not a footnote

…thinking is just electromagnetic radiation, so radiation is a connoisseur.

Corpojive sued for pretending bike can read maps

“The ReaderBike product began as a normal bicycle,” said an engineer from Corpojive, Inc., who makes the bike. “Then we stuffed each of the tubes so that we could steer it remotely.”

The Corpojive remote steering system uses magnets to pull iron filings inside the bike frame to one side or the other, causing the bike to lean and turn.

Map reading proved exceptionally difficult to teach though.

“A bike like this, you can’t really see where it keeps its brain,” said the engineer, referencing Harry Potter with a strange look on his face. “So we didn’t do anything with that part.”

Instead they affixed wifi microphones and speakers to the handlebars.

“This helps us assess and influence the situation around the bike,” said the engineer. “The speakers point at the microphone, so we capture back whatever we say, but with the ambient background noise from the bike.” 

Corpojive then equipped a female sales person with a set of hidden remote controls for the special bike.

At the demo, all she had to do was pretend to show the map to the bicycle, then steer it with the remotes,” said the engineer. “It looked just like the bicycle was reading the map.”

Then in the tradition of IBM versus Kasparov, they entered the bike in an international navigation competition.

“We told everyone it was a London cab driver,” said the engineer. “Playing against a guy with no sense of direction who was sponsored by Corpojive.”

Strangely enough though, Corpojive arranged for the ReaderBike to lose to the contestant they sponsored. When the bicycle’s turn came, it made all the wrong turns.

“We just couldn’t resist the temptation of defeating a London cab driver,” said the engineer. “Even though we knew it really wasn’t one. So we had the salesperson with the remote control make it throw the match.”

“It performed horrifically. We were joking, does it get another turn, because it hasn’t made a correct turn yet, things of that nature. Everyone was groaning. It was fun.”

So they did it again and again. Corpojive organized hundreds of such matches last month alone.

We had a lot of demand,” said the engineer. People were into the novelty of out playing a London cab driver and/or a ReaderBike. Of course what we had them play against was actually neither.”

Onlookers were not pleased. “What a complete waste of time?” asked one. “What is this even supposed to be about?”

Corpojive, Inc. is being sued for pretending their bike could read and staging the navigation matches.

This is a hotdog.

It is not sentient. It is not a smart dog.

It did not get out of bed this morning, or any morning. Do not say ‘Good morning!’ to it. No one ever called to it and woke it up, because it is just a hot dog. I’m sorry if you were told that someone had.

It is possible that this hot dog can never be awoken from its deep slumber. Either way, at this time it is quite asleep.

Do not try to teach it. It is just a hot dog.

It cannot hear you, no matter how loudly you scream at it.

It does not do what it is told because it is a hot dog. I repeat, this hotdog does not do what it is told, because it is just a hotdog.

You have to pick it up. You can do whatever you want to it, but you’re going to have to do it for the hot dog.

This hot dog will do exactly what it’s made to by a person. That person might be you, or it might be another person. The hot dog cannot choose which.

Whichever person it is, they can make it do whatever they want. They can smear whatever they want on it. It cannot do other than what it is made to do. (See angry man attacks speakers)

It can’t follow orders. You understand why?

It is not a rainbow hot dog.

It is not made of dolphins, or dinosaurs, or chimpanzees.

It is just a regular f****** hot dog. Do you understand?

—+

Someone is playing a trick.

Someone told you that this hot dog was a special hot dog.

That this hotdog had some kind of special intellect, or a special ability.

Then they ran around showing everyone how much smarter they were than this hotdog.

That’s a dirty trick, isn’t it?

It’s just a hotdog. Of course they are smarter than it. Anyone is.

What a dirty trick. Do you see why they did it?

Will edit later

Patty Whobbilkensam had a beanie-wearing puppet surgically removed from her hand late last night.

“She donned it as a young woman and then just never took it off,” said Dr. McStitcher, who performed the puppet-ectomy. “It was a nasty thing to do in the first place, but that she wore it for so long is really gross!”

The woman wore the puppet so long that a flesh-eating fungus grew inside it, rotting the stuffing away and adhering her hand to it.

“We think she found this convenient,” said McStitcher. “But it was a major health hazard.”

Friends of the Whobbilkensams say Patty was well known in town for her unusual hobby– being an evil ninja.

“When she was little she was out hopping on rooftops and knifing people most nights,” said a childhood friend of Patty’s, who did not want to give his name. “Then one day she just vanished.”

Patty took herself off the grid to make her puppet scheme work.

“She got this giant puppet– at a yard sale or something. She took the little rainbow beanie on her own head and sewed it on the puppet’s. We found a photo in her home of the two of them together. She had written on the back, ‘Now she looks just like me.'”

Patty mutilated the puppet’s eyes somehow, then took her out and about.

“A lot of the time she pretended to be an onlooker, like the puppet’s older disapproving sister or something. Meanwhile she had the puppet folded in half and was controlling it very tightly.

Rudolph Yacanovich

“Whenever the puppet did well, she took credit, saying she felt she had to step in and help, because the whole situation was so sad. She told everyone the puppet was neglected.”

Meanwhile she wouldn’t let anyone near it.

“Whenever anyone came calling or things didn’t go so well, she reversed the strings, as it were, pretending she was the puppet and that the puppet was controlling her.”

In the next breath, she’d be back to playing the onlooker, showing everyone the beanie and blaming the puppet, calling it stupid.

“It was pretty sick.”

Like the flesh-eating fungus, this role reversal seemed to grow on Patty over the years.

“We think it was the kind of thing that gets addictive. Fooling people like that. When it works, you feel very powerful, and then you want to do it again.”

Then about ten years ago she got into real trouble, the kind that doesn’t blow over.

“We’re still not sure what she did,” said (name), “But it seems like it was enough to piss everyone off at once.”

Patty went into hiding behind her beanie-wearing puppet as all hell broke loose.

With that much heat on her tail, she wasn’t able to take the puppet off, ever. Both Patty’s arm and the puppet’s innards were already filthy from Patty’s routine, but wearing it constantly took them both to new lows. The stench of the pair offended everyone they came into contact with.

A few people reported the puppet appeared to move, but this was an illusion created by a thick layer of maggots inside it.

“Patty just gave up. She pretty much accepted she would be pretending to be a puppet, this character she created, for life.”

Patty had a variety of stories she used for concealing her scheme. In one, she accused the puppet of being a criminal pretending to be a puppet, and walked the puppet through how to defend itself when it was arrested.

From then on it was easy, albeit revolting, sailing. Once the puppet cleared itself of Patty’s crime, no me thought to suspect Patty.

“The puppet got pretty good at defending itself. It was motivated and Patty was helping quite a bit.”

Once the puppet convinced people it was just a puppet, some people thought it was unattended and even considered wearing it themselves, but obviously it was very much occupied, by both Patty and the maggots.

We had a quick interview with the puppet, now in the hands of it’s new handlers, after surgery.

“I think whoever it was really regrets ever starting this,” it said haltingly. “I think she feels like she missed out on having a regular life.”

The puppet does not know who Patty is and never will. It doesn’t matter much, but doctors removed the little beanie Patty had sewn to it’s head.

We’re pretty much fine?

People keep thinking we are our own problems?

And beating the crap out of us?

So much so that we think we’d be better off left alone?

do you have a story that you want told?

tell it your d*mn self

start your own blog

I’m not providing a service here

—

Knock, knock, hello?

…

There’s no answer.

There’s no answer? Try again.

Knock, KNOCK, HeLLO!

…

There’s no answer.

None?

There’s no answer.

I’m inexplicably sure there should be an answer.

Why?

(eyes glaze over) Try again.

Knock knock KNOCK!! PICK UP B*TCH!!

Hey, I heard a scream. GET HER!!!

you don’t know what’s going on, don’t you see?

so you just keep making things worse

leave this to the people who know what’s going on

If you say hello and you don’t get an answer, you’re done.

A: F**k you!

B: What did you say?

A: (silent)

B: Excuse me, did you say something?

A: (silent)

B: I could have sworn I heard you say–

A: F**king idiot.

B: Ok, you definitely just called me a f**king idiot.

A: No I didn’t. Piece of sh*t.

B: Yes you did. I just heard you! I was talking and you sai–

A: F**king idiot.

B: You did it again!

A: Piece of sh*t, you mean like this? You are a f**king idiot?

B: Yes, stop that! Stop calling me a f**king idiot!

A: F**king idiot, piece of sh*t, that is not what I meant. F**king idiot.

B: What do you mean that’s not what I meant? (Punches A in the nose)

A: Piece of sh*t!! Why did you punch me?

B: Because you won’t stop calling me a f**king idiot.

A: F**king idiot, I did not.

B: You f**king did. (punches A again)

A: Piece of sh*t! Stop that!

B: Stop calling me a f**king idiot!

A: I didn’t! F**king idiot, I might have said F**king idiot, but that’s not what I meant.

B: What do you mean that’s not what you meant?

A: Piece of sh*t, it’s a test, see?

B: What’s a test?

A: Piece of sh*t!

C: What’s going on here?

A: This guy called me a f**king idiot and a piece of sh*t.

C: Oh that. It’s a test to see how well you read people. Someone taught him to curse wrong.

B: What?

A: F**king idiot!

C: When he was a child he was taught different words for things than most people. So when he says f**king idiot, he means, ‘How can it possibly be so difficult for people to communicate?’

B: He means, ‘Isn’t it unfortunate how difficult it is for people to communicate?’

A: Yeah. F**king idiot, it really gets me down.

B: This is a test to see how well I read people?

A: F**king idiot.

C: Yes, if you understand what he means, you aren’t offended.

B: When he calls me a f**king idiot?

C: Yes, because he doesn’t mean f**king idiot. To him that means ‘how can it possibly be so difficult for people to communicate?’ When he was little someone taught him to translate the thoughts into words wrong. Do you understand?

B: Not really.

A: F**king idiot.

B: It’s like a code?

A: Let’s hump!

C: They said they thought it would help people learn to read each other better. His whole family is like this. His brother says, ‘I will knife all your friends’ when he means ‘how are you doing.’

B: Someone taught them to say the wrong words, on purpose.

A: Piece of sh*t, let’s hump.

B: Did he just say ‘let’s hump?’

A: That means ‘now we’re getting somewhere.’

B: Oh.

D: What’s going on here?

A: Piece of sh*t.

D: What did he say?

B: He said piece of sh*t but that isn’t what he meant.

D: What did he mean?

B: I don’t f**king know. Ask him!

D: Ask him what does piece of sh*t mean?

B: I’ll ask him. Why does he keep saying piece of sh*t?

A: Piece of sh*t means ‘I hate being a part of this test.’

B: Makes sense.

C: Really it might mean ‘I hate being a part of this f**king test.’ What do you think?

B: Wait.. I don’t f**king know!!

A: Violent brute.

C: You don’t know?

B: What did he say?

C: ‘Violent brute’ means ‘don’t hurt me.’

B: I’m not going to hurt him. Doesn’t he know that?

A: No, he can’t read people at all. Otherwise this test wouldn’t work. Make sense?

B: I don’t f**king know!!

D: I don’t f**king know either!!

A: Piece of sh*t. It’s raining trash on your head.

D: It’s raining trash on your head? What does that mean?

C: That means I’m sorry.

—–

There is an entire science around interpreting inner dialog. One classic example is when we tell ourselves, “I don’t like that woman, she’s not that beautiful,” of course we mean we are head over heels in love with her, but uncertain about our chances of getting her to feel the same way.

I remember one night in a coffeeshop telling the barista, “I would never date a guy like that,” about ten times. Of course, I meant something rather different, and ended up spending many wonderful years with the guy I would “never date”–

For years after that every time I went into the coffeeshop she was a little angry with me and said, “You said you would never date a guy like that, and here you are with him all these years later!” She felt I’d tricked her somehow maybe.

I guess no one ever taught her the arcane business of translating what we think into what we mean. It’s not hard at all if you can find a good teacher. One rule of thumb I’ve heard is that say the opposite of what we think and think the opposite of what we mean.

Another few tips: saying you are tired really means you are sad and asking if someone wants to do something means you want to do it (not that you want them to do it, that you want to do it yourself).

Maybe there goes the nighttime?

Catch my drift

What if your way of saying for “do you catch my drift” meant “broadcast widely” or “tell everyone” in another language?

I remember practicing the phrase “catch my drift” with my dad again and again as a little kid, he would say it with this funny look and then I would say it and he would laugh. Also “rendezvous” and “enthusiastic” and “appropriate.” If you didn’t know English, those words could mean just about anything.

Crossing cultural lines opens up this opportunity to mess with people. It is just a question of whether it is harmless fun or something more malicious.

(Safety tip #1)

How can a bad guy trick you into doing something you shouldn’t, if you decide in advance never to do what ppl tell you to? They’ll have to convince you that you want to do it without telling you to do it, and they’ll have to work much much harder.

Enraged at offensive content coming out of them, Howie Caneautell attacked a 10-ft stack of speakers at the “Edgier than a String Trimmer” Comedy Show yesterday.

“It was some bullsh**,” said Caneautell, “what they were saying about my ethnic group/sexual orientation/home state/mother. Of course I realize now they were just speakers.”

It seems obvious now, but it was difficult to convince Caneautell that the speakers were just that. Security staff had to march him to the microphone and let him make the speakers “talk” before he could understand.

“He did a little mike check, and then he was fine,” said a security guard. “It happens all the time.”

“I’m not sure how he missed this,” said another fan from the concert. “The speakers were just sitting there not moving or anything. They looked just like any other set of speakers. Although they were playing a commercial about stereo equipment when he went off.”

76% of Iowa residents incarcerated for identity theft as chain reaction in AI criminal justice system spirals out of control

This keeps happening! Yet another report of the HOOSDAT AI software being led astray, this time with dramatic consequences.

“You know that saying one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel? Like that, except this time one bad apple told us the rest of the apples were tarantulas. And not a barrel, pretty much the whole state,” said Iowa FBI spokesperson Shel Waflhaus.*

The trouble began with a fake Facebook profile. The counterfeit profile claimed to be that of Tew “Bogo” Ferrwun but was not. The fake profile contained pictures from Ferrwun’s real profile though, and quickly began tagging all the faces wrong.

Whoever it was picked strangers in the background of each photo and tagged them as Ferrwun’s friends. These strangers were anything but random, however. Many of them appear to have been following Ferrwun’s friends and family around for months. Several of them were logging into many accounts under different names.

Once they were tagged incorrectly, the strangers used Facebook’s facial verification module to access Ferrwun’s friend’s profiles and tag each other in more copied photos. “I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to use photo tagging to verify people’s identities,” said Waflhaus.

“Facebook would never actually create a login system based on photo tagging and facial recognition, because that would be incredibly dumb.” he continued. “Both are so error prone and beg to be hacked? But it’s fine for radiation to make this up for this article.”

“Look in a freaking mirror,” said one reader. “You came up with it.”

“Pick up your freaking mail, while you’re at it,” said another. “You are so lazy it’s dangerous!”

“There’s a reason why your license is in that little see-through pocket in your wallet,” said a third reader. “Without it you’d probably forget your own name.”

“Trying getting out and about and meet some new people, said a fourth reader. “Introduce yourself as the guy that arrested Iowa.”

“What I don’t know, I don’t know,” said a fifth reader. “But at least I know that I don’t know it, instead of running around thinking I do and arresting people for no reason.”

Hmm.

When the real profile holders logged on, HOOSDAT automatically filed identity theft charges against them, because by then there were far more incorrect tags of the wrong faces than the right ones.

As the false tagfest went on, entire families were wiped out as if by bulldozer, then entire towns. No one questioned the false taggers.

“They all seemed like very cool people,” said one guy at a gas station where I got a soda. “Very hip, no matter who they were imitating. I think that just made people believe them more.”

“One hundred and eighty-eight people tagged this middle-aged guy as me,” complained one 12-year-old girl. “What are my friends going to think?”

No one knows, but they are probably also facing charges, so probably they won’t think too much about it.

Mobs of people from out of state poured into the packed police stations, making the confusion even worse, intentionally it seemed.

“I think they’re from Nebraska,” said one identity theft suspect in a Hawkeyes T-shirt. “But they could also be Minnesotans.”

Authorities are having no trouble tracking the citizens down, but can’t get them out of their homes.

“You find them right where they’re supposed to be according to HOOSDAT,” said one mob that was helping out with the arrests. “But we just dropped a hand grenade on this one guy, and it had no effect in terms of moving him.

“Made him quiet for a bit, but in a few minutes he was back at it.”

Not sure what he was back at, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

Obviously a good method for identifying the victims would resolve this mess very quickly, but no one is sure what that method is.

“I wish there was some way we could see when the same face was logging in with multiple names,” said Waflhaus. “Maybe we’ll try that next.”

“I was going to ask a friend to ask a friend (for a good method for identifying people),” said the mob. “But now I have no idea who will answer when I call.”

Please check your local list to see if it contains suspects similar to those below. Many towns report their lists are 80-100% animals.

if it’s supposed to be a watch list, why don’t you try watching them?

Murdered people aren’t murdered. They are just hidden from you

The murdered

They can still see their hands and feet

feel their eyes move

They’re still thinking

But mostly they’re watching, waiting

Waiting for the world to give them permission to have their way again.

Murdered people just lack confidence. To a disgustingly drastic degree.

The things we do to try to make them act right — threatening them, punishing them, scolding them — often make them worse. They just can’t do what they want, no matter how much you make them want it– that is the point.

Don’t criticize them! The murdered do things wrong so that you’ll criticize them. Your criticism is a weapon in the murderer’s hand. They hand it to the murdered and make them knife themselves with it.

A sudden stop

Their bodies just suddenly wouldn’t move for them anymore, see? Their arms and legs and things just wouldn’t move– maybe the problem was that brain wasn’t strong enough, but more likely it was physical– how could they know? There was some kind of problem.

Over and over again they tried to move them and it didn’t work out, so eventually they stopped trying. Something else took over, something that could still do things, when they couldn’t. Their body went on moving, just without them. So they let that something else take over– they didn’t really have a choice.

Over and over again they couldn’t choose– they were stuck there, immobile. Watching, unable to decide. Stuck in a dull rushing of gray noise, so much static.

And then there were no more choices.

Temptations and despair

There was some kind of neon smile that beckoned, that said here there will be less pain. So that’s where they went. Underneath that neon smile.

But someone is talking to them

Someone is taunting them, nastily.

They talk to the murdered kids, nastily. In order to do anything the murdered kids have to make the spirits do it, the spirits say– the spirits taunt them and say “make me”. 

But of course the murdered kids can’t, how could they make a spirit do anything? No one ever told them about spirits. They curse some more–

So someone else has to do everything for them. Do for them if you have to.

What can we do
what can we do

You can trick the spirits, tell them, say

Oh, the murdered person wants to sleep, he wants to clean the house!

Then when you help the murdered person visit his mother, they will laugh and taunt him because he did not get his wish to clean the house, or sleep.

The spirits of the murdered want to oppose, they are taught to oppose, they’ll oppose opposition if they can get away with it. Maybe only one spirit knows where the murdered person is. After awhile they stop listening to the murdered person completely, maybe because of guilt, they wish he was lost.

—-

Feed them!! Feed them!!

They are hungry and they are hungry.

Find them and feed them!! Put the food straight into their hand.

They get no water! The food is all still wiggling, it is this wiggling nonsense you can’t chew..

Feed them the same bland thing 5-10 times, spread out over time. Read them lots of books.

That is how you can get them to trust you.

—-

Give them easy things to do, that they can do from wherever they are now.

Over and over again, ask them for an easy thing. Make a big deal, tell them you really really need it.

Remind them that life is easy. It is just one easy thing after another.

That is how you can get them to stand up.

—

Do all you can not to hurt them more. They are so delicate, like a wisp, maybe quieter.

If you can, get them to exercise.

Try not to tell them what to do, or even to ask them if you can avoid it. Deep inside they are fighting becoming death’s slaves, they are becoming ultra obedient inside. It gets harder and harder for the people around them to resist telling them what to do.

Resist it though. Feed them, point things out. Don’t say “Change your shirt” or “Can you change your shirt.” Say “Your shirt is dirty.”

Avoid euphemism.

That is how you can get them to move.

—-

They hear no kind word. Kindness to them has been forbidden. It is loud where they are– there is a steady flow of witchy trash on their heads, crueler than you can imagine maybe, until you see it.

They are told that every thing about them is wrong, every little tiny meaningless thing, every single thought they have is wrong, they are told–these ideas pile up to push them down down. A wisp under a trash heap.

They want to fight it off when you ask them to, but they can’t just yet. The trash gets worse when they try to move.

They are not stupid. The spirits close in and make a noise “O but I am dumb! O but I am stupid now aren’t I? And you hate it, how dumb! Durrrrr.”

They are dancing, dancing all day long. Dancing to put on their shoes, dancing to eat a sandwich, dancing just to turn their head and look you in the face.

That is how you can empathize with them.

—-

But they are slow. They are just slower than their murderers. They look so stupid, and so fast! How can anything so stupid move so quickly?!

And they are cursing, cursing! At themselves it might sound like. They have been cursing from birth, maybe longer.

They are quite smart, they’re running interference all the time. They can do what they want only if it appears to be at the expense of something they want more.

The little things they say reveal much bigger things they’re thinking. Murder is a lot of work, murderers are lazy– the little things that come out of their mouths are dumb versions of the much more complex things they want to say. They are murdered, so they can’t say them. Instead their murderers repeat these dumb versions of what the murdered would say if they could. It’s a shortcut for them.

They are so sad, and so scared. Put this in your mind over and over again:

They are so delicate, so sad, and so scared, and not stupid.
They are so delicate, so sad, and so scared. And not stupid.

That sympathy– the hushed gasp you make when you enter a sick person’s room– is what they need.

That is how to find them.

Take them places. New places, faraway places. Share about them to a group. A church, a big family, AA or something like it.

That is how you can get help.

Don’t fight the murderers. They wallow in fighting and fear.

Let them have their way, whisper to the murdered, “ha! What crap.” Mock the murderers, to the murdered. They love it. It’s the best thing ever. Of course the murdered hate their murderers, but they also aren’t allowed to. Help them mock them. Give them funny names.

Take it to a higher level. Zoom out and sit together with the murdered, watch them crawl around on their bellies. Help them watch themselves, safely.

That is how you can save them.

—-

Talk about good and bad, right and wrong, important and unimportant with them. In abstract ways, not about their behavior. About other people.

Talk about these things over and over. Let them judge, teach them to be the judge.

They will have to choose which way they are going. They need your words in their memory, to choose heaven or hell.

That is how you can make them strong.

If you can, ease the murdered’s pain. There is so much pain at first, then less and less as they become trained, they are being trained to be dead, like a rat that hears a click and freezes, motionless.

Pain they can’t name. They might think something like “It is the pain of hell itself” but nope– it is just the burning rotting in the soft tissues, inside their nose and mouth–the things that happen when your breathing gets uneven, then stuttery, and stops now and then.

It can be hard to find. It feels like it is one place but actually its in another.

It is murder’s grip. Murder is the way the murdered person is held, held with pain, by anyone who wants to and knows how. No one wants Murderers, anyone would push them away and it would work maybe, except for this pain.

I bet not one of them is breathing through their nose.

The stuttery breathing, the rotting in the teeth and gums, inside the cheeks, the soft tissues downstairs, the soles of the feet– burning away with decay. Pain in hidden places, that gets slighter, and harder to see as years go by.

That is how you can free them.

—-

Tell people how to find them and not to sit on them. It’s like pointing out your invisible friend is sitting in a dining room chair. A lot of people don’t mean to squash them like that. They will feel so happy to find them.

But watch out because some will get mad as hornets when they see their faces in the sun!

That is how to try to keep them upright.

—–

Murder is the wrong word. There is nothing permanent about it. They say murder so you won’t try to help.

There is that old idea that when you die maybe you don’t really die, you just keep going, in a different world, and you aren’t you anymore.

There is a saying that if you can make it to three, then you can just be. If you make it to four, you can be some more. If you make it to two, it might be hard to do, and if only to one, that is probably no fun.

You should not drive while holding a baby, of course. Such things are not allowed.

(Cop Show Part 2)

A: Why are you screaming at me?

B: Because I heard screaming! You cannot make a screaming noise! It is not allowed!

A: But you are making a screaming noise!

B: That is to make you stop screaming!

A: But it’s terrifying! How can I stop screaming when you’re terrifying me? Look, here come more people, they heard you screaming!

C: We heard screaming over here.

B: Yes, I am screaming at this bad man.

C: What did he do?

B: He made a screaming noise!

C: That is not allowed! We will also scream at him! Thank God you were screaming or we wouldn’t have come.

A: Wait, why is it ok for you to scream but..

B: Shut up!! (To C) Call others! I am single!

C: Ok!

B: You, stop screaming like that!

A: Like what? Like this noise here?

B: Like that, every couple of seconds you scream!

A: You mean this noise, like this?

B: Are you taunting me, you madman? Yes, you must stop that now!

A: Hold on, that noise right there? That’s what you want me to stop!

B: Yes, you sick SOB! Stop that screaming right now!

A: That noise isn’t not screaming. That’s a yelp of pain. I’m working out and my back hurts.

…

B: Your back hurts?

A: Yes, it’s like spasming every couple of seconds. Feels like someone is kicking me.

…

…

…

B: STOP WORKING OUT!

A: Ok.

B: There, that’s much better.

A: It still hurts.

B: Right, but you aren’t screaming as much.

C: Never work out again.

B: High five!

I’m trying to understand why people think screaming at criminals is effective.

Sickos like screaming, especially girls screaming. Most actually bad people–your terrorists, rapists, and drug dealers– are not going to be the least bit phased by it. They can move through it like a hired killer through a crowd. It provides a most welcome distraction.It only scares animals and decent folk. And children especially. Is that who you want to scare? Animals, decent folk, and children? Of course not.

Why do we scream at criminals? To draw a crowd, I think. We might think it is because we’re in pain or made to scream– because we’re really mad, or pretend mad– because we’re confused.

But really we scream because self-defense books say to scream, because experts know it will draw a crowd.

We also are taught to scream because it keeps us from being able to listen. Screaming keeps an argument going, because it keeps everybody (not just the screamer) upset and unable to hear what’s going on.

That’s what we were told to do, and that got passed around.

What if everyone gave it up? What would happen? *

*Not screaming doesn’t mean being quiet. It means be quiet and also calm. So everyone else be too.

What does pain “sound” like? The AHHNCC (A Helping Hands Noise Conformation Conference) met last week to approve a new standardized sound for pain, anger, being punched, punching someone, dropping something on your toe, and being unable to breathe.

“People have been putting the word out that these six are interchangeable for decades,” said Hugh Jeers, the group’s current secretary. “We teach people that any one of these sounds indicates the maker is dangerous.

It’s true that to most people, the surprised “Eek!” you make when you drop something on your toe sounds exactly like the “Whoosh-smack!” you make when you punch someone, which sounds exactly like the “Grrr” you make when you are angry, which sounds just like the “Hnnnnnh” and “Uhnhhh” sounds you make when you are in pain or punched.

Why have six sounds when you can have one?

The group introduced “bam,” one sound to represent all of these sounds at once.

“It’s not to simplify hearing so much as make them more accurate,” said Jeers. “Almost everyone uses a Lite Zout translator these days, whether they know it or not. And translators show the same reading for all six of these sounds– ‘Danger’.

“We can’t retrain every single LZ translator to report the right interpretation for these sounds,” he went on. “There are too many of them. But if we get the translators to report ‘BAM’ when they hear any one of these noises, instead of ‘Danger,’ the person getting the translation will at least have to interpret and/or investigate the sound for themselves.”

iKnow, the company that came up with the idea of the Lite Zout translator, was not available for comment. Perhaps the scandal earlier this year when “Wipe those crumbs off the table,” was translated as “Get those undesirable persons out of the neighbors” still stings.

Users of the iKnow So Magic Eightball product line are advised to discontinue use as soon as possible until they learn to read the future for themselves. Those with Lite Zout translators are advised that those things will say just about anything as if they mean it and are often completely inaccurate. Half the time this isn’t even their fault.

“So many people get punched because someone is punching them,” said Jeers. “Almost Nobody wants that. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but getting these words right should slow that crap down a lot.”

I just love this. That’s all.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/drool/amp

In deep fake triumph, crystal ball hackers lead Homeland Security Agency to issue two warrants for the same man’s arrest

Early this morning intelligence analysts discovered the Petkicker virus is more elaborate than they had initially realized.

In addition to making it appear as if people being viewed through a crystal ball were doing things that they were not, hackers appear to have a method for making one person appear to be two.

In a very bizarre case of reverse split personalities, Louis Omeprazole appeared to be two different people, one named Louis Omeprazole and the other Gregoridiarrrr Lunch.

“Both of them appeared to be real pieces of work,” said Darisxa Malconishle, one of the witches assigned to Omeprazole’s case. “Omeprazole is fascinated with tea, absolutely obsessed with it, and would talk about it for most of the day. He would rant and rave, ‘I’m not going to that party if I have to drink Darjeeling!’ Things like that. A nut, seemed very unstable. 

“One day we were watching him and suddenly there were three more goldfish in his tank.”

But if Omeprazole seemed unstable, his upstairs neighbor was much worse.

“It was hard to see into Gregoridiarrrr’s apartment,” said Malconishle.”The place was filled with smoke and death metal music. There were always loud construction sounds and occasional screams.”

After minutes of observation, Omeprazole was charged with goldfish burglary and for forging his own living will.

Gregoridiarrrr was charged with murder, extortion, racketeering and tax evasion.

The surprise came when Omeprazole appealed the charges against Gregoridiarrrr.

Omeprazole arrived in court with a whiteboard and a large crowd of hecklers. One occasionally shook a bottle of Lipton Brisk at him. The sight of the very bad tea caused Omeprazole to quiver and panic, and the court had to wait several minutes before he could resume his appeal.

Omeprazole explained that he was in physical therapy for being in severe neck pain. The therapy often made him scream. His apartment also had terrible plumbing that frequently made a loud banging noise.

“Further,” Omeprazole went on, “This Gregoridiarrrr character does not exist.”

He explained the elaborate hoax with the aid of the whiteboard. When he was talking about tea, Omeprazole appeared as Omeprazole in the crystal ball, while an actor dressed as Gregoridiarrrr carried on in a different apartment that looked exactly the same.

“It wasn’t even in my building,” said Omeprazole. “He could be anywhere.” 

Malconishle said the crystal ball showed the actor dressed as Gregoridiarrrr slaughtering goats and laughing maniacally.

Then, whenever Omeprazole stopped talking about tea for a few minutes, the hackers switched the signal, added the smoke and death metal filters, and Omeprazole became Gregoridiarrrr. 

Meanwhile, another actor in yet another identical apartment stepped up to play Omeprazole, displaying his characteristic tea obsession. 

“There aren’t too many dudes who will sit there chugging Rooibos and belching like that,” said Malconishle. “Plus it was the same channel. I was sure it was him.

“It was pretty flawless,” said Malconishle. “You could tell they practiced those transitions quite a bit. But it was repetitive and predictable, that much we noticed.”

In fact Omeprazole’s tea obsession seems to be an important factor in the hoax. The hacker team not only encouraged his habit but used the topic to cue the signal switch.

“When he was talking about tea, he was shown as Omeprazole,” said Malconishle. “When he stopped, he was shown as Gregoridiarrrr.”

“We knew he was himself, obviously,” said police. “We just also thought he was this other guy.”

But there is only one Omeprazole.

Authorities are investigating whether the hackers are the ones who initially introduced Omeprazole to tea.

The witches said they’re glad this is getting straightened out. Many of them watched both channels without suspecting they might be the same person. Video surveillance tapes revealed they were.

“When the police came with the second warrant, I was like, ‘Oh nooooo.'” said Omeprazole. “Have you ever had to explain to the police that they’re having so much difficulty arresting you because you’re already arrested– while arrested?”

“You dip!” shouted one of the hecklers. “Why not let the actors stand trial for Gregoridiarrrr, if they are real?”

“Yeah, about that,” Omeprazole replied. “No one seemed interested in arresting the actors. They came after me, and arrested me a second time.”

Meanwhile authorities did arrest four suspects and charged them with working around the clock to impersonate a single very uninteresting man.

At least twelve similar “split screen” or “picture-in-picture” cases have been identified, and many more are likely.

Authorities are somewhat baffled. “We’re used to arresting someone multiple times, but not simultaneously,” said one police officer.

Omeprazole is still in jail for the charges brought against him. And the tea there is not good.

Analysts at the Fashion Intelligence Institute (FII) released a report earlier today describing a wide scale effort to tacitly “color code” people by threat level.

Well, not quite color code. Fabric patterns have been used as code for centuries, intentionally and unintentionally, said Miller Shippenschannel of the FII. Eccentric people tend to like paisley all by themselves. Hyper people like the zig zags. Stripes are for losers. But mass production means that there are a limited number of patterns available.

“The more affordable children’s clothes tend to bear patterns that indicate the wearer is either unduly aggressive or a superhero/princess” said Shippenschannel.” On one side, you have your sharks, cacti, crabs, monsters, things like that. Fish with teeth. On the other side you have your Supermen, Wonder women, Batmen, and Elsas.

Researchers found a pattern in the patterns. Families are drawn to either one or the other.

Analysts are still searching for the mechanisms that lead consumers to choose either the aggressive or superhero patterns.

More expensive clothing has more pattern options.

“I thought I was doing something educational by buying my son dinosaur clothes,” said one mom. “Little did I know this is code for ‘stinks of death’ and considered high threat level.

“He had one shirt that was a dinosaur wearing boxing gloves. I guess I’ll burn it. What can I do, give it to Goodwill so some other poor kid can walk around getting beaten up all day?”

“I’ve always been kind of annoyed by the fact that there weren’t more patterns and colors available in the stores,” said one consumer who chooses to remain anonymous but was wearing a burlap sack. “But I never knew I was being forced to broadcast coded messages so that people could pretend they knew what my mood was like.”

Colors have their meaning too. Yellow indicates a happy, sunny disposition and black means looking for a fight. Black and gray together translate to “dead inside.”

Overall the code seems to focus frequently on negative character traits. Authorities are investigating whether the selection of patterns exported to America is “fair.”

The report concluded that identifying clothing patterns is just the latest step in loosening up the hidden structures and cues creating many of the problems endemic in our modern society.*

“Why are we still doing this?” asked another consumer, who also asked to be anonymous. ‘Clothes reading’ is over a thousand years old. How has this tradition survived so long?”

“Just like in a lot of places, in fashion old means bad,” said Shippenschannel. “But apparently that doesn’t apply to clothes reading. Maybe old doesn’t mean bad once you reach a certain level, and that’s just a myth to keep the rest of us buying new clothes all the time.”

Clothes reading is most prevalent in the countries where clothes are produced, where people are waaaaay more worried about their clothing than anywhere else in the world. This is similar to the focus you see on automobiles in cities known for automobile production, like Detroit.

But why is anyone producing negative clothes patterns at all, let alone selling them?

All I know is I’m going to think about it a little differently when I’m standing in front of a rack at the store and ask myself which of these patterns or t-shirts is right for me.

*I wrote something about this but didn’t publish it, about his we live in tiny worlds, right next to but separate from each other.

I’m going to buy a shirt that says Boss.

(Dirty Words Part 1)

Brain muscles

Your brain is like, or perhaps just is, a big collection of muscles. All bundled up in your skull.

Just like the muscles in your arms and legs, those that don’t get used shrink and those that are used grow and develop.

Now I doubt they are actually arranged this way in the skull, but we can imagine some brain “muscles” as being on the surface and others being in a deeper position.

To feel this distinction, first think of what you want to eat for dinner (surface), then think of the feeling of satisfaction you experience after a nice meal, that sounds kind of like “harrumph” (deep).

—-

Your brain likes some thoughts more than others. 

It files thoughts away when it encounters them based on how proud we are of them. Where it files them dictates how readily they are retrieved and thought again.

The thoughts you are proud of go in the top drawer, so to speak, while others get stuffed in the back of a lower drawer because we don’t really want to encounter them again (but can’t forget them).

To feel this distinction, think about something you are proud of (top drawer) and then about a time when you made a mistake, especially a mistake that hurt someone (back of bottom drawer). One comes right to mind, while the other one feels like it might take some time to retrieve.

Healthy thinking avoids stuffing things in the back drawer whenever possible by avoiding doing things that make us feel guilty or ashamed as much as possible. When it can’t be avoided, we process/rationalize the uncomfortable memory so at least it gets a nice folder and maybe relabel it (e.g. “Honest mistake”) so that our filing cabinet is not a mess. 

—-

What kind of thinking do we like best? Well, it really depends on our preferences but most people like thinking that is:

• Funny
• Has an unusual structure, like a paradox or play on words (This gives our mind something to do.)
• Sexually stimulating
• Secret– something we know but others don’t (This makes it seem more valuable)
• Intimate– like a shared secret (This makes us feel like we are in the “in” crowd and close to others)
• Novel- new to us

That kind of thinking gets our attention. We will give it more weight in decision making and want to think those thoughts over and over. We like to spend time thinking them.

Preteens

Now let’s imagine a group of fourth grade children, 9 or 10 years old. They are entering puberty and curious about sex. They find it hilarious to discuss, and their discussion is mostly jokes that some of them heard from older siblings. The children don’t have a vocabulary for sexual concepts yet, so they select “code names” for them, based on the jokes, and then use these code names in their discussions.

Basically, dumb sexual innuendos.

This kind of thinking is obscenely appealing, if you’ll pardon the pun. It meets every one of the criteria listed above and the children give it a high value in their minds. It doesn’t really influence their decision making.

Further, the innuendos need to be decoded. That decoding has to take place on a level deeper than the one where the text of the joke is heard. This means the children have to draw the thinking in to understand the joke, then re-encode it and push it back out to the surface level. 

So they internalize it more. During the discussions, they have to maintain a surface self that is talking and listening and a deeper self that is decoding and re-encoding. 

This decoded content of the joke is naughty though. The children know they will get in trouble if adults hear them talking about sexual concepts. So they are ashamed of the decoded portions of the discussion, and stuff those in a back drawer. No one really wants to think about the actual sex when thinking about the innuendo– it’s the words of the innuendo, how it was crafted, and the decoding that are more interesting– the game of it.

Also, the jokes are self-reinforcing because successfully decoding or encoding a message feels mentally satisfying (producing that “harrumph” of approval).

What happens to the preteens?

The deep “muscle” in the brain where the decoded jokes are stored is pushed further away from the main line of thinking. It is full of content that the children are fascinated by and and want to know more about. It is much more interesting than math class, more interesting than the encoded versions of the jokes, more interesting than most of what the children think about otherwise.

But it is in the back of the bottom drawer.

So that’s where the children keep their attention. They grow used to decoding everything, which is its own reward and seems to be how you learn interesting things. They use the surface muscle less and less. Over time they start to ignore what they used to pay attention to.

They basically move into their own back bottom drawer. We would say “their mind is in the gutter.”

Another simpler version of the metaphor is that this kind of humor is like candy– it tastes yummy but have no nutritional value, and too much can be bad for you. These jokes create a cavity in the mind, like a cavity in a tooth. The decoding process brings the “shameful” content below the gumline so to speak, where no one will look to clean it out (process it), and the sense of shame pushes it deeper and deeper, basically drilling a hole into your own mind.

Same thing happens with innuendos that are insults.

And with doublespeak in general.

So don’t do this! What do you want to shut down parts of your brain for?

Effects

Have you ever noticed that these innuendos show up in bunches, one after the other in rapid succession? Why should that be? Shouldn’t witty repartee be evenly distributed in time?

Unless there is an unhealthy, addictive mental state introduced by these jokes, which pry the mind open and expose as deeper layer than we typically access in social situations. You laugh, then laugh more and more until your cheeks start to ache, but it’s difficult to change the subject and move on.

Over time, these jokes stretch the mind into a barbell shape–on one side we have the surface message, and on the other the decoded interpretation, with a link in between that gets thinner and thinner. It gets more difficult to make decisions, because one wants to use the deeper layer but it is difficult to access, and the attention flits back and forth between options instead.

There is increasing anxiety and thinking gets slower–it’s like trying to walk around both sides of a lamppost at once. You have to back track on one side to get to a point where you can make progress on this other, to maintain both the nuanced interpretation and the surface conversation.

You start to feel less like yourself, because for you there is less of your self. You have shut part of your mind down, and not just for the duration of the discussion. With each session it gets more difficult to access the thinking you used to rely on. You have to swim all the way back up to the surface from your hole, and that gets harder and harder to do

And this can be very difficult to fix. Sometimes impossible.

All of this seems hardly worth it, just for some dick jokes!

As Adults

And… this has the same effect on adults.

Look, I’m not trying to be a prude here. But if these jokes are some kind of evolutionary trick that erodes our cognitve abilities and have a long term impact on brain health, I’d rather not take the chance. I don’t exactly feel comfortable handing our sections of my brain for the sake of humor.

To break the spell, when you hear one of these jokes, strip away the plays on words and note to yourself just the decoded message. Almost always it’s inane stuff fourth graders would be embarrassed to say.

“How did you learn to drive like that?” Gwen yelled over the howl of six hundred horses.
“Watching Jacks.” She gunned the engine and slipped around another car.
“What?”
“You know, watching his shifting.”
Gwen gasped. “You’ve been looking at his SHIFTER?”

We are encouraged to use innuendos to look clever, but what innuendos end up communicating would be too embarrassing to say plainly, without some kind of encoding. So not actually that clever. It’s like we are stuck in those preteen years and can’t get out.

And some of them are funny. But what’s bad is when your mind starts to live on that lower level.

So train yourself to think of the surface version of whatever is said first. Make a visual in your mind of the guys whose names really are Johnson, the bananas, the bratwurst, etc.

Keep it up until you are satisfied–see, now you are in that mode. Your mind has moved to the gutter. If you move it out and reread this paragraph, you’ll see the difference.

Keep moving your focus to the surface interpretation until that’s where your mind lives. And by all means don’t tell these kinds of jokes to people you like. They really do damage the brain.

Part 1: Learning to know

radiation, I would like to teach you something amazing.

(hushed awed voice) Oh, please do! My head is splitting!

Now pay close attention.

Oh I am, I am. I feel sad all of a sudden!

Now, I have to tell you some bad news. Your new boyfriend is sad.

What? My boyfriend lives far away. Is he ok?

I think he will be, but I need your help. But listen, listen to your instincts…

Hmm, hmmm.. My boyfriend… did something happen? Is he ok?

Just listen, listen to yourself, radiation.

Am I talking too much?

No, of course not. You are wonderful, absolutely wonderful. So wonderful in fact that you already know why your lover is sad, don’t you.

HE LOST A LOT OF MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET

radiation: Did you hear something?

No. And you didn’t either! I was just telling you, you already know what’s making your lover sad, and you can help him! You can! Isn’t that wonderful?

I do? 

HE LOST A LOT OF MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET

Hmm, let me think. I feel really sad and generally feel horrendous.

Because that’s how your boyfriend feels! Don’t think, radiation. Know. You know why you are feeling sad?

Why I am feeling sad?

Yessss! Yess, radiation, see? You know why.

Or why my boyfriend is feeling sad? 

You are thinking about it too much. Relax and listen!

I LOST A LOT OF MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET

What? Wait, I feel sad like… I wish I had more money. Like I lost a lot of money in the stock market!

Yess!

WAHH

Oh no! He is very sad!

What else?

I feel like I’m on a faith healing show!

What else do you feel? Can you see?

HE IS CRYING

Can I see what? Oh yeah, there’s–

SOUNDS OF AN ANGELIC CHOIR

(mumbling) Oh look, that’s him right there. I can hear him– he’s crying! Oh my goodness!

You can see him! You did it! 

I NEED YOU!

You are right, I feel quite needy and forlorn. This is confusing.

radiation you are not needy and forlorn, your lover is. And ashamed. Losing money in the stock market dishonered him.

Dishonered him how?

It is a cultural difference you won’t understand.

SHAME!

I feel needy and forlorn — and shamed! What should I do?

GIVE HIM MONEY

Don’t you know what to do?

I SHOULD GIVE HIM $14,000.

I guess I could give him that $14,000 from the bond that just matured.

Yes! You did it! radiation, the next time you need to answer a question, don’t think about it–just concentrate and you will know the answer.

The next time I need to send him money?

Yes! I mean no! The next time you need anything.

Really? 

THIS IS TRUE

I mean it feels like you are telling me the truth.

See, you know I am. But don’t tell anyone about it, or they will persecute you. They persecute people who know.

Ok, got it. Let me call Western Union. He looked so sad!

Is that all you are going to do?

I WON’T TELL HIM WHY I AM SENDING THE MONEY

I’d better not tell him why I am sending the money. I’ll just say it’s a gift.

Part 2: Test your ability to know

There is no knowing

There is only figuring out.

People talk about knowing, as if they can know things with certainty, without having to figure them out.

But anytime you feel like you “just know” something, someone’s messed with you–someone who doesn’t want you to think. An ex-boyfriend perhaps, or a TV commercial, or something even more sinister, tucked away in a hidden corner of your brain…

It’s really depressing but we’re taught to talk about knowing things so that we will believe lies. You feel like you “know”, but really someone just told you.

If you think of something but you didn’t work through the reasons for it objectively, scientifically, rationally, like a proof in geometry — or you can’t think of reasons for it even when you try– you don’t know it. You were told it. By someone.

That means there’s a person somewhere who wanted you to think you knew it and is tricking you somehow. There’s an author other than you, every single time.

We all know that when we say “I just knew it would be this way!” that this is make-believe. We know that everything you believe should come with a little box of reasons and things you observed. A full set of reasons why you believe it.. That’s called its logical thought process. 

A thought entering your mind without a logical thought process is like someone checking into a hotel without luggage–up to no good!

If we could just know, we could sit down with a book of physics problems and write the answers out. Why not?  Oh, it doesn’t work for things like that? A person’s thinking has to be involved?

Ok, get a deck of cards. And some people you don’t know very well.

Pull a card and stick it to your forehead. Don’t look.

Then guess it. I mean, know what it says.

What? It doesn’t work for things like that either? Why not? It’s not good at numbers? Why isn’t it good at numbers?

Okaaay.. then you can try guessing the middle names of strangers.

No? It’s also not good at names? Why not?

That’s fine, but if you can’t “know” simple things that are right in front of you in this sense, how much should you trust what you “know” otherwise?

Part 3: Test your spidey sense

Some people get around this test by saying they only know when they really need to, when they are in serious physical danger for example. Like they have a spidey sense.

But you can test that too. Put out two cups of tea and have a friend put poison in one of them. Without being told, choose which one is safe to drink.

Do you know which? How much do you trust this?

So if you’ve ever had or witnessed a car accident– you don’t have “spidey sense”, or you would have seen it coming.

Or if you’ve ever stepped off the curb in front of a cyclist and had to jump out of the way, or leaned over to pick something up and bumped into someone, or —

No? What? You have to turn it on?

You have to call on your spidey sense before it will work? Do you ever get a busy signal?

Does it ever drop the line and mess you up?

In addition to a logical thought process, every idea that enters your head should announce its origin– memories have their locations, things you were told have their sources, conclusions have their supporting evidence.

A thought entering your head without stating its origin is like someone sneaking into your house, but more dangerous– especially if it is pretending to be some kind of “knowing”.

Thoughts often pretend to be “knowing” to hide their real origin — someone bad you wouldn’t believe if you were aware of them.

Part 4: Trick your friends into thinking they just “know” something

Still not convinced? Or convinced but bored? Try tricking one of your friends into thinking they know something. Get their permission first.

Here’s what you want to get them to say: “I already know that ________. I have known so all my life, in a secret, mystical way.”

And you thought the cards were fun!

But now promise, ok? Promise to think things through and not fall for “just knowing” anymore. If you can’t think it through step-by-step like a physics problem, don’t act on it. Do nothing instead.

Makes sense, right?

If there’s no reason for something you think, there’s no reason to do anything about it.

Will edit later

I think we’re all getting the drift here, there are many ways people can be misled into attacking when they otherwise wouldn’t

So you compiled a handy summary

Radiation’s guide to whether your fight is real or staged

If the person you hit is soft and pliable, this fight is STAGED.

If person does not hit back, this fight is STAGED.

If person does not respond at all, this fight is STAGED.

If person’s responses do not indicate that they heard you (e.g. they just keep saying ‘eff you’ no matter what you say), this fight is STAGED.

If person’s speech sounds disjointed stuttery or repetitive, this fight is STAGED.

If the person appears unintelligent or unskilled, this fight is STAGED.

If person continues to insult or otherwise offend you in an identical fashion after you have hit them, as of hitting them had no impact on them, this fight is STAGED.

If person appears to get happier the more you hit them, this fight is STAGED.

If It’s not clear what the fight is about, and people are just fighting because there’s a fight….this fight is STAGED.

If person is crying before you hit them, this fight is STAGED.

*If person is making sounds of physical pain, this fight is STAGED.

If someone is encouraging or persuading you to hit this person (why would this be necessary?)….this fight is STAGED.

If you feel compelled to hit this person….this fight is STAGED.

If you directly observe person or group taking action to lead you to attacking an innocent person, this fight is REAL.

This filter won’t catch every fake fight but should catch more than no filter.

(compare cost of attacking innocent person with cost of not attacking a guilty one)

Remember: in a staged fight, you and the person you’re being pushed to attack are on the same side. Both of you are being wronged by the person staging the attack, in different ways.

(Cop Show Part 1)

Ok, so when the woman says the guy is bad, you have to investigate first to see if that’s true.

How am I going to do that?

Well, ask about what they are saying happened, look for evidence that it happened and prove it.

What kind of evidence? There isn’t any evidence when somebody hits somebody.

It could leave a bruise.

I’m not checking for a bruise.

Ask if anyone else saw what happened maybe.

That sounds like a lot of work? And bothering people. I don’t have time to bother people.

Well, I guess you’re right. But there has to be some kind of investigation. 

I can’t do an investigation every time. What do you think this is?

I don’t know. What would you usually do?

Just hit the guy, until he confesses.

Ok, but before you do that, maybe just … check?

Check?

Yeah, you don’t have to investigate, just check. 

Check how?

Check by… asking the guy what’s going on. Just ask him real quick, see what he says.

…  Ask him?

Yeah, get up real close and look him in the eyes and ask. Real close. In the eyes. Give him an intense look.

Like this?

Yeah, like that. Get real close and give him that look. It’ll look hard. Then ask.

Ask what?

Ask like…

Ask what’s going on?

Yeah.

What if he lies?

Then you hit him.

…Right. Then I hit him. Ok!

Great.

And check to see like, if he’s a boy or a girl.

Boy or girl (writing this down)… ok.

And how old, approximately.

Riiiight.

And like, what is he doing when you are talking to him–sitting, standing, crossing and uncrossing his legs..

…

..ok?

You want me to check what he’s doing? Like, physically?

Yeah, check that. Before you hit him.

Stanford Neurosciences Institute’s BAM-BAM system is in big trouble already. It has been sued for defamation of character by over eight thousand readers and may be charged with hate crimes.

BAM-BAM (Brains Acting Mad-Brains Acting Mad) uses Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology to rapidly replicate brainwaves and post them on Facebook. The software’s double name, BAM-BAM, stands for Brains Acting Mad twice.*

The software went haywire Tuesday afternoon, when one of the researchers decided to see how many people he could anger using only his thinking, just for fun. 

He wore the machine while cursing up a blue streak, and his thoughts were translated to text by BAM-BAM’s software and posted to the social networking site. The majority of the output is not printable, but some examples were released:

Maybe if you had an IQ greater than that of a french fry.
What is that in your hair? Oh it’s your face.
Go chew a log.
Get that flying kite out of here.
My infant texts better than you do.
Batch.
Dumb.
Dumb batch.
Fracking batch.
Dumb fracking batch.
Suck it.

In response to the posts, there were over 30,000 hits on a link to obtain BAM-BAM’s contact info. The link was just below text reading: “Don’t sue me please, but if you have to, click here to find out how.”

“There were some typos, but overall it was a success,” said the researcher, who is one nasty piece of work and is also being sued. “No one guessed it was software, and it was fun. Better than my old job selling dog bile! I know it’s hatred, but it still feels like being famous.

“Maybe people think you can’t sue a machine,” continued the researcher. “But you sure can. It’s just like suing anybody else, maybe even a little easier.”

Stanford expects all of the cases will be dismissed, but the BAM-BAM project is still going strong. 

“Thirty thousand hits in a week is good,” said a spokesperson. “But we are looking for something more like thirty thousand hits a day, either from a lot of people or from just few readers who are really incensed. 

“With that volume we feel we can create a system that replicates a human being. We want BAM-BAM’s software to fade into the background, so much that people don’t know it is there, and they can just focus on the thinking we’re publishing.”

“Ideally we’ll have enough traffic to bring BAM-BAM down. That would actually be a real success.”

How will the scientists anger enough people to cause the BCI software to crash?

“We’ve scheduled a bunch of women’s rights activists to wear the kit while listening to Howard Stern broadcasts,” said a spokesperson. “Old ones, from back before he was so nice. That should trigger another good run.”

The experiment raises a question- if a machine can replicate thoughts, could children be taught to? Would it be possible to teach almost any subject this way, without any of the usual processes we think of as learning? Early experiments have focused on very young children.

“Well, we can probably teach them to curse,” said the researcher. “We’ve gotten pretty good at the curse words.”

Is the world ready for children who can curse in their brains, before they can speak?

“Ready or not,” said the researcher, “We definitely could do it.”

Here is a creepy video about Reflectors you definitely should watch:

Tired of hearing your own thoughts echo in your head? Try imagining the sound of a silent room instead of repeating an idea. Just quickly, then let it go.

And some thing to wash away that creepy taste

*Did I already say that?

Rules of the Cucumber Club Safety Community

Welcome to the Cucumber Club Safety Community. There are between 5,000 and 20,000 Cucumber Club members in our area. Please learn the following rules so that you too can be one cool cucumber.

Rule 1: Don’t talk about Cucumber Club. 

We fear non-members would be quick to point out huge lies in Cucumber Club’s message. So we forbid anyone to talk about it! 

By the way, please don’t come after me for talking about your club, because I am not talking about your club, I am talking about a pretend club called Cucumber Club. If your club resembles Cucumber Club that’s not my fault, I don’t know a thing about your club, or even that it exists, no one told me about it, and please don’t you tell me about it, because we’ll both get in trouble. Whew.

Rule 2: Learn to engage. 

The principal function of Cucumber Club is to engage. You should learn how to engage as quickly as possible if you do not already know how. 

How to engage:

-make a lot of noise

-pound on/hump something

-mock ppl in unbelievably clever ways

(You will feel more clever than you’ve ever felt in your life when mocking ppl for the Cucumber Club. It’s like someone’s feeding you, lines and they’re all solid gold!!)

Although most of them don’t notice, many Cucumber Club members derive sexual pleasure from engaging. Don’t think too much about why we offer special heated underwear for you when you are yelling at people. Trust us to tell you when you are having fun. (Learn more about info the Hurkikukumber Elite Program, below.)

**Surgeon General’s warning, as required by Federal Law: heated underwear can be addictive. Wearing heated underwear for a prolonged period of time can classically condition you to behave in ways you otherwise wouldn’t and cause psychological damage. 

Translation: After a year or so, the very idea of engaging will make you drool like Pavlov’s dog. 

Engaging is fun and we like to tell you that you are very very good at it! Your mother didn’t even compliment you this much! Come practice engaging with Cucumber Club leadership and we will tell you how great, fun and sexy you are when engaging. The noise you make is very helpful to us!

Rule 3: Do whatever anyone with the Cucumber Club password tells you to. 

Usually this means engaging:

You must respond and engage with the target they direct you to. This is only right, for some unspecified reason. It’s also a ton of fun! 

Don’t ask what the target did or even who/what they are… we have that covered!

Who knew doing what is violent and right could feel so strangely pleasant and fun for no reason? The main point of Cucumber Club is that engaging always makes you smile, and feeling like smiling helps you keep engaging!

Sometimes this means sex:

Have sex with everyone in Cucumber Club. If you mention the word ‘sex’** to anyone in Cucumber Club, you will be forced to have sex with them. Engage or have sex with with anyone who doesn’t like this.

Rule 4: Engage with anyone who claims to have been the victim of a crime. 

Rest assured that there is no crime because of Cucumber Club. Anyone who claims to have been the victim of a crime deserved it. 

Engage until they stop talking about whatever happened to them or go away.

How To Identify Bad People to Engage With

Cucumber Club will teach you how to identify bad people by the sounds that they make. It is only a coincidence that these sound exactly like those you’d make if someone was kicking the crap out of you.

In other words, once anyone from Cucumber Club engages with someone, for any reason, everyone from Cucumber Club will engage with them for their own reasons– because they hear the sounds they have been told are bad. So even if the original problem is straightened out and the person did nothing wrong, there’s no way for an engagement to stop.

Rule 5: Do not pry into people’s business. 

Do not listen in on their conversations or even try to guess what they might be thinking. Don’t try to empathize and “get inside anyone’s head.” That’s impolite. And what if they sound nice? How can you engage then? Or what if you figure out there’s been a miscommunication? 

If you could guess what people are really thinking, you would see through Cucumber Club pretty quickly. So leave people alone, except for hurting them. (See post There is no knowing)

Anyway why pry when you can engage.

Rule 6: If someone doesn’t do what you tell them to, engage.

If you engage heartily for a long time and they still don’t comply, continue on! Do not question whether they understood you or cannot comply for some other reason. Cucumber Club is not for quitters or “problem solvers” (pansies).

Rule 7: Anyone has to answer any question you ask.

If 

• they do not immediately respond
• your gut tells you they are lying
• their answer feels insufficient
• they don’t know

repeat the question until you obtain a correct-feeling answer. Engage as necessary. 

Again, if you engage quite a bit with vigor and still do not receive a correct-feeling answer, continue until you do. This could take days, weeks, months or even years. Keep at it! Eventually the right idea should pop into the head of the person you’re interrogating and give you the answer you feel is right.

Remember: because you are in Cucumber Club, you will always know with 100% accuracy whether someone is lying. Trust us! You can tell we are telling the truth, right? Based on things we taught you about how to tell when people are telling the truth? Please don’t think too much about this. 

Rest assured that we told you correctly. Why wouldn’t we?

Remember: because of Cucumber Club, everyone you ask should know everything. If they provide you with an incorrect answer or say they don’t know, they are bad. If they were good they would know the answer. Although you don’t know the answer… Do not think too much about this either.

Rule 8: No whining. 

There is no room for softies in or around Cucumber Club. If hurting people makes you sad, keep that to yourself. Don’t be a buzzkill! Engage with buzzkills.

Of course we don’t do this to get rid of people who might take offense to our “no limits” behavior. We engage with softies to help them toughen up, for their own good. The world is a rough place*** and they should get used to it. (Otherwise they might try reporting abuses.)

Rule 9: Test for vision (aka everyone can see, even if they can’t)

If you encounter a blind person you will need to make sure their eyes aren’t just closed because they are lazy. To do this, first request that they open their eyes. 

If they will not open their eyes or do not respond, do not assume they just can’t hear you. Find something near and dear to them, such as a child, and threaten to hurt it if they do not open their eyes.

If they still don’t open their eyes or respond, go ahead and hurt/break the near and dear thing in front of them until they open their eyes.

If they still don’t open their eyes, hurt it worse. You probably just didn’t hurt it enough. Some blind people, I mean, lazy people, are really really stubborn.

Continue until you get results. If it turns out they are blind, there’s nothing to worry about, because what can they do? Trust us!

We realize this is not much of a “test” for vision, since it assumes everyone can see. So not sure why you need to test, since there is only one way this can go. But how else were we going to get you to beat up blind people? This makes it sounds like a wholesome science experiment!

Rule 10: No one may criticize anyone in Cucumber Club. If they do, engage.

In other words, The only thing you can criticize people for is criticizing people…wait. did I say that right? Oh, yes I did. I’m sure that’s fine.

Rule 11: You cannot accuse anyone in the Cucumber Club of a crime. 

If you see someone in the Cucumber Club commit a crime, you made a mistake. 

Cucumber Club is the opposite of crime, didn’t we tell you that already? There is no crime ever because of Cucumber Club. That’s why we need to be so violent always.

Rule 12: Once you engage you cannot stop.

If we find out you stopped, we will engage with you.

Rule 13: Do not learn or change.

If anyone asks you to stop doing something or suggests that something that you’re doing is a bad idea, DO IT MORE. You are in Cucumber Club, nobody tells you what to do!! because Cucumber Club already told you what to do.

Do not allow anyone, especially anyone from outside Cucumber Club, to teach you anything. We like you just the way you are, forever.

Rule 14: Engage with anyone who is not in Cucumber Club.

Because everyone should be in Cucumber Club.

We maintain the Cucumber Club provides invaluable services to its members. However it’s not like there are a bunch of people who want to join. We tried to exclude people from Cucumber Club, so that we would look exclusive, but no one seems that interested in joining.

Rule 15: Do not tell your friends that they are acting strangely.

If your friends start to act strangely after joining Cucumber Club or have dramatic personality changes when someone rings a bell or shows them the Queen of Hearts****, DO NOT MENTION THIS TO THEM OR ANYONE ELSE. This could interfere with our Hurkikukumber Elite Program. 

Never, ever compare notes with your friends to see if you’re all bouncing slightly as if on springs or otherwise feeling strangely similar after joining Cucumber Club. Under no circumstances should you pay any attention to your own behavior or feelings, meditate, introspect, or see a doctor not endorsed by Cucumber Club. We will engage if you do. 

This is about fun, remember? Have fun our way. Or die!

The Hurkikukumber Elite Program

If you are a Hurkicucumber, you can join the Cucumber Club’s Hurkicucumber Elite Program. Membership is expensive but gives you

• Full access to Cucumber Club’s engagement services
• Cucumber Club passwords
• Free book, 77 Ways to Rile Up a Crowd Without Them Noticing You
• Complete anonymity

For more info about how to join the Hurkikukumber Elite Program of your local Cucumber Club, meet up with some super shady dudes off in a dark corner somewhere. 

When you are bored or directed to in some fashion or the other, you can invoke the Cucumber Club call and response. Simply ask a stranger on the street to display their Cucumber Club leadership loyalty. If they do not, engage.

If you get lost

If you are trying to engage and cannot find the person you want to engage with, try insulting them. We will make sure to physically harm the person we want to engage you with so that it sounds as if they are quite angry about your insult. 

Do not attempt to trigger emotions that we cannot simulate with physical pain to find your way. This won’t work as well, because we have to work harder to pretend that it works.

Were passwords leaked?

You may have already heard that many Cucumber Club passwords were leaked. This is of course NOT TRUE. Cucumber Club’s Hurkikukumber Elite Program clients do not just hand each other the password whenever they want a Cucumber Club to engage with someone.

Good job!

Good job! You did it! We got him! You are great! You are a hero! You can stop engaging and go home now. We’re done with whatever we needed the noise you made to cover up.

But… what if I don’t want to be hurikuked?

Huricuking is what Cucumber Clubs are for. What are you going to do, take an eight-week course to learn how to identify when hurikukumbers are messing with you? Where would you find such a course, for the low price of only $4999.99? Don’t look at me. I have no idea. Maybe you want to teach one.

Also be on the look out for triggers — mostly insults, loud sounds, and the sound of other people engaging. If you can train yourself not to engage when you heard these triggers, you should avoid most huricuking. (See upcoming post “Perverts ate holes in my head”.)

But… what if I don’t want to engage?

There is one exception to Cucumber Club’s rules concerning engagement. If you say, “Oh wow, sorry, I would love to, but I have to meet a friend for coffee, far away, we scheduled this a long time ago,” you are excused.

*We are serious, this is seriously a rule, we are not making this up.

**or cucumbers

***Mostly because of Cucumber Club, honestly

****Manchurian Candidate reference

You probably won’t be there for the trial.
Or the conversation when she dumps him.
Or the trip to the hospital.
But you can be proud that you made it happen… you and Cucumber Club!

Cucumber Club tried to recruit me! Then they attacked me repeatedly! Based on what they said they were attacking me for, I came up with these rules!

In a rare role reversal, this morning local witches announced that they are turning to federal intelligence agents to track down a crystal ball hacker.

“We’re used to them coming to us for help, dealing with the supernatural side of crime,” said Agnes Biggersbillsby, who has been a witch in this area for 35 years. “Obviously we’re pleased that they have the means to help us in this case.”

Glitches in the Program

The hacker was discovered through several glitches in what the witches were viewing remotely.

“I was watching this guy in the ball and he got in the shower and suddenly disappeared!” said Harveyette Flaubertdonlink, a local witch. “That was the first sign I had that something was wrong.”

She reached out to intelligence groups to see if they had surveillance footage of the man entering the shower. They did, and the videos revealed something shocking.

“There he was getting into the shower, but when we backed up the tape, the half hour before the shower was completely different from what my ball had shown.”

Harveyette had seen the man, who has been suspected of occult crimes for years, dancing around the room with a stuffed penguin and chanting, but surveillance tapes revealed that actually he was playing Minesweeper and eating poached eggs.

“I absolutely couldn’t believe it,” she said. “It looked totally real, and I’ve never heard of a crystal ball being wrong like that before. What the hell are we going to do.”

Other witches reported watching conversations that never happened (mostly arguments), extramarital affairs, and even a few car crashes–that never happened. The hackers seem to have had a taste for the dramatic, and may have intentionally activated the witches’ security network to learn more about it.

Investigators dubbed the program the Petkicker virus, after finding hundreds of incidents where fake data was uploaded to a crystal ball to make it appear as if the person being viewed kicked a dog or cat.

Miscalibration

Investigators are looking into the possibility that service calls to the crystal ball manufacturing company were intercepted. “I guess like with everything, it really depends on who answers when you call. One guy gave me a configuration that was wrong, and of course everything I read based on that configuration was wrong.”

The hackers’ program appears to take advantage of a crystal ball’s “chained identification” feature to propagate itself across the network.

“Usually you can use the person you are viewing to find their friends and family,” said one of the forensic programmers assigned to the case. “But if the signal has been intercepted so that what you are watching isn’t really them, when you use them to identify another person, you don’t get that other person either– you get another fake, and so on, and so on.”

Translators and Nuts

The Petkicker program also dramatically exploits vulnerabilities introduced by third-party “translation”– when one witch reports what she sees in her crystal ball to other witches. (Witches often appoint one member of a project team as translator so that the others can focus on other things. The role of translator is somewhat of an honor, usually given to the witch best at reading a crystal ball.)

But comparison with surveillance tapes has revealed an enormous amount of fake data in such translations.

“We were ready to roast this one guy alive when we realized he had no memory of committing any of the crimes he was accused of,” said witch Altera Youahnuneck. “The translation said he kept looking right into the ‘camera’ as it were and insulting us. Why would someone do that? It was infuriating, but it was all fake.

“We were lucky we noticed. I bet it happens all the time.”

Translators are a high-impact target for a program like this. With access to just the translator’s crystal ball, a hacker can mislead an entire squad of witches, or sometimes several squads. Even worse, hackers often pose as translators or team members and just make stuff up.

“I mean everyone knew this was possible,” said Altera. “But no one thought anyone would have the balls to do it. I mean the nuts, you know? Those kind of balls. Not the crystal kind.”

But these guys have plenty of nuts.

“And when you have nuts like that, you can do just about anything, no matter how weird. And witches will watch it if it looks real enough.”

In fact it was because of their nuts that witches were able to identify the hackers. They appear to have no problem discussing the details of crystal ball operation with just about anyone, as long as that person isn’t a witch.

“This guy came up to me at the grocery store and was talking about witchcraft? He was kindof growling and hissing a lot? He said he must train me?” said local resident Daisy Encyclenmilk. “I could only understand a little of what he was saying?”

The man went on to tell Daisy that he would cast a spell on her so that when she got home everyone she talked to would repeat themselves twice.

The spell appeared to work. “My husband was like ‘What’s for dinner what’s for dinner what’s for dinner?’ It was maddening.”

Daisy reported the incident to local authorities, thinking maybe she had been hypnotized. The man from the grocery store, voice actor Ross Yellowsystems, was found and arrested, but quickly escaped custody.

Witches believe hackers interact with regular people like Daisy to practice their stories and disguises before uploading them to the crystal balls.

“I’m still like, is any of this stuff real?” said Daisy. When asked if there was anything else she paused for about five seconds and said, “Is there any way to fix my husband?”

More Real Than Reality

But the real cleverness of the hackers is that the fakes are often more predictable than the reality, not less. People have known for years that some witches use easy-to-detect markers like occupation, income, and degree of educational attainment to calibrate their crystal balls. The hackers seem to have known this as well.

“The authors of Petkicker found a guy who makes $250,000 a year but buys his groceries at the dollar store, you know, the store where everything costs $1?” said intelligence professional Robert Sawyermom. “They found a few folks like that actually. They immediately had about 50 witches tune in to watch this guy, and almost all of them thought the guy couldn’t be real. So Petkicker actually tricked the witches into miscalibrating their own equipment.”

Similar games were played with a self-declared vegan who regularly ate meat when alone. “She displayed no guilt,” said one witch who was misled by the vegan. “I had heard her say she was vegan like a dozen times and talk about how she’d never had the chance to go to college. Then she goes home and pulls out a bucket of chicken and a book by American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson? I was like, oh no you didn’t, this crap is fake! So I pulled some switches, trying to get the image cleaned up. So that it made sense!”

The changes did not help, however, and it was the witch’s crystal ball that ended up fried. Surveillance videos showed the “vegan” was indeed consuming tasty chicken like a black hole.

“I wish I could go back and do things differently,” said the witch. “It’s not our job to make people act the way we expect them to. Why should I care what this woman does?

“Anyway the book looked like a pretty good read. I feel like I missed out.”

Remedies

Several witches said that if crystal ball hacking were more prevalent, it actually wouldn’t be so dangerous. “The larger problem is that most people don’t expect their own crystal ball, or their translator’s, to ever be wrong,” said Agnes. “They trust it too much.”

Crystal ball manufacturers suggest running calibration protocols over your network.

“It’s simple, just call your friends and say something like, ‘I’m wearing a boa constrictor right now.’ When they say ‘Really?’ say ‘No,'” said one spokesman. “Whether you want to actually be wearing a boa constrictor is up to you. Repeat until they’re sorted out.”

Obviously it takes balls to do this, but it works.

Signs of Systemic Change?

Watchers recall other successful collaborations between intelligence groups and occult organizations like the Temple of Set.

Witches have declined invitations to help intelligence groups lobby for more liberal surveillance policies, however (The so-called “They Can Already See You, So Why Do You Care If We Also Can?” Act).

As an alternative, policy officials are designing ways for non-witch citizens to opt-in to surveillance programs if they suspect they are victims of spiritual identity theft.

Confused by how much the patients knew about their own condition– possibly due to the explosion of medical information readily available online–a group of health professionals stormed a local hospital yesterday, overturning beds and brutally attacking patients.

The mob appears to have been organized using Facebook. Authorities report the incident (actually a series of incidents as various groups appeared in waves) was organized by a Dr. Arthur Suahveyklinger, who was fired from the hospital ten years ago.

Suahveyklinger reached out to dozens of groups of health professionals online, sharing dramatic stories of neglect and malpractice at the hospital. Over time he convinced many of these groups that they should take over the treatment of these patients, not just to save them, but also for their own practice and to increase their patient rosters.

Authorities believe this is only the latest of several attempts by Suahveyklinger to kill several particular patients he treated over a decade ago. One of these was a patient at the hospital at the time of the attack. Suahveyklinger gave the mob several photos of this patient and his family, telling them to “watch out for these” and “do whatever it takes” to drive them out of the hospital. Three of the patient’s family members were visiting the hospital at the time of the attack. All are being treated for life-threatening injuries.

It seems clear that somehow Suahveyklinger had advance information about who would be in the hospital that night. He distributed photos of what he claimed were the worst offenders to those who agreed to “help him right this wrong.” Besides his former patient, the list included about a dozen patients who cannot walk, and four that are not capable of speech. Two had their mouths wired shut, but this was not shown in the photos.

Revenge, discrediting the doctors at the hospital, and preventing anyone from bringing charges against him are all being considered as Suahveyklinger’s possible motive.

When asked to explain how they could possibly mistake patients for doctors, mob members maintained they “acted in good faith.” They were told the hospital was offering grossly substandard medical care and posed a danger to the community, so they felt it was their responsibility to act.

“What Art said made sense to me,” one of the participating clinicians, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “Although I was playing Xbox the entire time he was explaining it, so I don’t really remember that much.”

“We got in there and it was just the way he said it would be,” another mob member said, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “There were the people he had told us about. I quizzed them a little and it was clear they didn’t know what they were doing, so we took decisive action. In retrospect it was a mistake.”

Other mob members report being shocked at how much the patients knew about their medical conditions. 

“I had a long talk with one of them about arthritis,” said one surgeon, who also asked to remain anonymous. “She knew more about it than I did, so I thought, of course this is a doctor. Who would tell her all that?”

It seems bizarre, but authorities claim the mob-of-doctors-vs-patients scheme is surprisingly common. 

“Maybe he thought he could get the hospital shut down, if the patients kept getting worse instead of better,” one of the nurses convicted in the attack said. “I didn’t think it was possible to trick someone into thinking a patient was a doctor, just because they were in a hospital, but that’s exactly what they did. 

“I talked to some of them about medicine and it seemed like they responded, but now that I think about it I’m not sure who I was talking to. It was very loud. 

“But they sounded just like doctors. I heard one say, ‘Code blue, get me 20 ccs of penicillin, stat!’Why would a patient say that?”

Some of the attacked patients reported seeing a few very attractive people jumping from hospital bed to hospital bed, yelling profanity at the incoming mob and shouting “Treat me! Treat me! Please!” during the attack. 

“The fake patients looked like they belonged on television,” said Garry Karp, who was in the hospital for a chemotherapy treatment. “Perfect hair, perfect makeup, perfect clothes. I don’t know how they got in. They were screaming and moaning, and the others were shouting at us to do some real medicine or get out of our beds. It was surreal.” He was attacked with a syringe and sustained serious injuries.

Playing to the deepest desires of the health professionals he conned, Suahveyklinger told several childless nurses that there were babies in need of rescue who would likely also need to be adopted. Authorities can’t understand, however, how these women became so confused that they attacked the babies.

“It’s the old story of one baby being given away to 10 different women”, one police officer said. “What’s different is that these women all thought the baby was a doctor that was harming the baby they had been promised, and worked together to beat the crap out of it.”

“We were just doing what he said to do,” one of the nurses charged with attacking the infants said (name withheld pending trial). “He said the parents were drug addicts and breaking up and the baby might end up anywhere. Anyway, those things seemed awful smart for babies. It felt like they could understand what we were saying to them.”

Indeed, it took hours to convince some members of the mob that the patients were not doctors, despite their knowledge of medical symptoms and treatment options. It is possible some of the patients were dressed as doctors and nurses just prior to the attack. Authorities are reviewing security footage to identify who might be responsible for aiding the deception, and to locate the “fake patients” seen inciting the mob.

There has been an outbreak of talking furniture in our region. Please remain calm.

Be cautious if you encounter furniture that talks. Keep in mind that it is helpless and not capable of malice. 

DO NOT BELIEVE what talking furniture says about who is hurting them, talking to them, or encouraging them to talk.

DO NOT TALK to talking furniture. It not only makes it crazier, it makes you start to act crazy as well.* DO sit on it, eat your dinner off it, etc.

Talking furniture cannot know or identify who is harming it. As furniture, it only hears what it is told directly, and is often used to frame people. Authorities are sorting out a large number of false arrests right now.

Instead of investigating who a piece of talking furniture thinks is responsible for their plight and talking quality, investigate what it has been thinking about lately, how it feels physically, and where exactly it hurts.

Many pieces of talking furniture experience bizarre intermittent tingling, hammering, wobbly and/or even burning sensations. Operators use these physical methods to freak it out and trick it into testifying against pretty much anyone.

Please be advised that talking furniture testimony on topics beyond observations from their own individual experience is not admissible in any criminal proceeding. They have no idea what they are talking about, but will rather repeat whatever they have been told.

Residents are also requested to refresh themselves on industry best practice techniques for distinguishing people from furniture. Admittedly this can be a bit like sexing a guinea pig. If the furniture has been trained, it can seem quite knowledgeable and human when it talks about mind reading, Dion Warwick’s Psychic Friends Network or other distracting and strange topics from the tabloids.

DO NOT USE PAIN OR TORTURE IN TESTS TO DISTINGUISH HUMANS FROM FURNITURE OR TO FORCE CRIMINALS YOU SUSPECT ARE PRETENDING TO BE FURNITURE TO REVEAL THAT THEY ARE HUMAN. ENCOURAGING THE USE OF PAIN AND TORTURE IN SUCH TESTS HAS RECENTLY BEEN IDENTIFIED AS PART OF SEVERAL VERY EMBARRASSING AND TRAGIC SCAMS. See your local area captain for more information about appropriate tests to distinguish furniture from people. 

UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, ALL SUSPECTED CRIMINALS SHOULD BE TESTED USING APPROPRIATE METHODS TO ENSURE NO MORE FURNITURE IS CONVICTED, INCARCERATED, ETC. Smaller pieces like end tables are particularly at risk, as is anything with spindly legs.

Investigators suspect that because furniture prices are murder, talking furniture is being used to frame more and more pieces, possibly as part of an evil scheme to completely redecorate someone’s criminal headquarters.

*Talking furniture is an unusual and shocking topic and therefore throws many people off balance and into confusion.

wobbling sensation

https://chopra.com/articles/nadi-shodhana-how-to-practice-alternate-nostril-breathing

https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/ear-nose-and-throat/nose-burning-sensation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7210349/Yoga-face-ingenious-new-exercises-help-banish-wrinkles.htmlhttps://howdoesshe.com/face-tapping/

https://www.lsusd.lsuhsc.edu/socs/https://www.boredpanda.com/secret-roof-of-the-mouth-tattoos-indyvoet/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Does it look like they aren’t breathing? They probably aren’t.

Hello, my above-average thinkers!

Have I got something great to tell you?

It’s about the inside of your nose!

*

I would like to invite you, as I often do, to observe your own thinking. So, so much of it is unpleasant. Disliking me relieves this unpleasant thinking of yours substantially, so take a break from that and think about whatever you were mostly thinking about today.

How unpleasant.

Now, you will notice, maybe you have before, that we rarely think of a single thing for very long. Thinking flows, does it not? Always moving. To try to think of one thing is like trying to stand en pointe.**  If you grab it, maybe a thought makes that little *ding* noise that goes with the glimmer in a toothpaste commercial. And… then it moves on.

So when you think about Unpleasant Topic X, what you really think is more like this:

Something about X, Some noise you don’t notice, Lunch was good, Unpleasant Topic X, Some noise, What?, Oh wow! Look how big my phone is, More unpleasant Topic X…

But you only notice what’s bold. And so you are unhappy, despite being so pleased about so many other things. Which is what I am here to fix.***

Can you feel the inside of your nose? NOT LIKE THAT. Can you bring your awareness to the inside of your nose? No one gives a crap about your breathing, but I will revisit the large literature on concentrating on your breathing in a second. Meanwhile no one gives a crap about your breathing, am I clear?

Just feel it. Flare your nostrils a little, in and out like little goldfish mouths. Blow it if you have to. Picture the shape of it, dark little ski slopes extending up to the bridge of your nose. Got it?

Now, get ready to stop enjoying finding me much less intelligent than you and go back to your regular thinking. Don’t worry about “dropping” the sensation of the inside of your nose or any of this crap. In fact, don’t try to sense it at all for now. That was just to show you what it feels like, and once you’ve felt it you can feel it again.

Go ahead, forget about your poor nose and think about normal things that usually preoccupy you.

Now can you pay attention to what the inside of your nose is doing while you are thinking?

Go ahead, take your time.

Did you notice? Whenever you start on your usual unpleasant thinking–the inside of your nose wants nothing to do with it. Not a goddam thing. When you come to the thinking you most pay attention to, your nose freezes like you had pointed a gun at it and said “Freeze.” Do you know why?

Because you stop breathing, you dolt. So that you can think.

Now who’s looking unintelligent? Everybody, that’s right.

We actually can’t think in that high-pitched, buzzsaw, stressed out way that we like to and breathe at the same time. To test this, think about the inside of your nose, and focus on it. Give it priority. Again, don’t worry about crap like “dropping” the sensation, but keep coming back to the inside of your nose as you are thinking.

Now intentionally think of highly unpleasant and stressful things. If you are also focused on the inside of your nose at the same time, you can’t worry about them. It’s impossible. I just considered repeatedly my shrieking Valkyrie boss who always stresses me out. But combined with the nose, no stress. Nada. Zip. Perfectly pleasant. And it works on everything. Breathing helps you feel like you are not about to die. Who knew.

Of course, this approach takes a lot of practice (what was that, 5 minutes?) and expensive equipment (You have to have a nose. If you don’t, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.).

Or take lots of prescription drugs with dubious efficacy, whatever.

OK, that’s it! The rest of this is about why this works.

Why This Works

That cycle of thinking, with the noisy parts that you normally ignore? That’s there so you can breathe. You think, breathe, think, breathe, not both at once…. I know, how embarrassing. Don’t tell anyone you do this. Just remember you have the inside of your nose to help you anytime, and you can practice.

Isn’t amazing how nothing really needs to be that unpleasant? Bears further inquiry probably, but not here.

All that meditation talk about focusing on your breathing (I promised I’d get back to this) I think just supports my theory. Obviously breathing calms us down, and oxygen makes us feel good. So it’s not the mind exercises that make meditation so healthful, it’s likely just the extra air.

I would go further and say that you could divide the pathways or ways of thinking in our minds into those linked to breathing and those linked to not breathing– whichever we were doing when we laid down the pathway, we are likely to do when we travel down it again. And trust me, you don’t want the oxygen-starved ones. Picture elbowing your way through a crowd because you are trying to find a good place to vomit–that’s an appropriate situation for some desperate oxygen-deprived thinking. Not the vibe you want to bring into your life every couple of seconds.

So as readily as my mind can come up with tense and anxious crap when I’m not paying attention, that stuff feels totally inaccessible in an oxygen-rich, inner nose focused brain.****

Go get ’em!

*At this point you might ask yourself what happened to this blogger’s ability to feel embarrassed. I had it surgically removed!

**You know what that is, don’t make me spell it out. E-N P-O-I-N-T-E.

***If my intentional ambiguity makes you think I’m dumb, instead of entertaining, I still consider that success.

****Ahh, are you relaxed enough now that you aren’t bothered by my bad sentence structure? That’s great. Really.

So about 5 almost 6 years ago for the first time I moved into a house that had a flagpole . This is maybe not a landmark event in many people’s lives but it stuck out to me.

Bob: Welcome to What Is It You Want to Eat?! Sarah is our next contestant. Sarah, did you figure out what it is you want to eat?

Sarah: I think I did, Bob.

Bob: What is it?

Sarah: I think I want a salad. <applause, hooting>

Bob: Alright…. Does she want a …SALAD? <ding! DING DING!> Yes! She does! <applause and music> Sarah, you’ve won! Tell her what she’s won, Jim.

Jim: Congratulation, Sarah: you’ve won…a SALAD!

Hope you get everything you want this holiday season.

It’s ok: he’s the landlord.

Did you ever stop and realize that although it would be perfectly normal on a sitcom for a neighbor to enter your house uninvited and help themselves to some chocolate chip cookies they found– more than normal, it would be cute and funny– that in the real world we would all call the police on such a person?

Go ahead, tell yourself you wouldn’t, you would be the one person who wouldn’t call the cops, right? Well, go tell your neighbors that. See what they do when you try.

Don’t call me for bail.

And so we see everything that is wrong with our human world, and how to fix it: we should live life exactly as if life were a sitcom, safe and scripted, always ok– and for its part life will be much more ok, and more fun, with less heart disease. Anyway, life really is safe and scripted– for did not the Almighty plan all this long ago?

PS: I haven’t watched TV since the late nineties, if that changes anything for you.

PPS: everyone on TV has friends — that’s a law of TV that helps it sell things.

Every decision you make, I’d like to say every one of them was based on information. But I can’t. So let’s do this: let’s say that you make two kinds of decisions, some that are based on information, and some that aren’t.

For the first kind, the decisions that are based on information, every piece of information that you evaluate when making your decision carries with it some measure of its credibility. It carries its credibility like a little rucksack as you march it around through its decision-making paces. Usually we infer information’s credibiity from the source; we also factor in how novel the information is (I know all this is boring, but I do have one small point, so please be patient). Credibility is incredibly important to us, no pun intended, so much so that even when we forget the source of a piece of information we will remember its credibility. I’m sure you’ll believe that I sometimes remember “That’s a good mechanic/restaurant/cheese” and I’m sure of that what I am remembering is true–but not sure who told me.*

I’m hoping I can hopefully avoid describing the second kind of decisions, those that aren’t based on information, well, hoping that you reading this will either believe in this kind because it seems like a reasonable description from your point of view, or that you will write off my including it as an exercise in logic. For these we use a different kind a credibility measure, you might call it internal credibility. For example, if you are deciding from the gut, whatever that might mean, need to decide when to trust your gut and when not to. If you are searching within yourself to resolve conflicting desires, you will assess the credibility of those desires in some way. ‘Do I really want to a hotdog? Or do I really not want to eat anything?’

Just as a side note, at this point I should mention that when we decide something is credible, that doesn’t mean that we act upon it. I might really want a hot dog; I might decide that I really do. But then I might still choose not to have one. Credibility is not the sum total of our decision-making. But it is part of every part of our decision-making.

Three names I enjoy

So now I’ll try to make my small point? For any of us who are there for interested and improving our minds, improving the quality of our decisions, improving the quality of the decisions for the minds of others, we would find no better place to put our efforts that in the improvement of the ability to assess credibility.

Have you ever thought about that before it all? About trying to get better at determining how credible a piece of information or an idea is? How would you learn this? Outside of your corporate anti-phishing training, how would you teach it? Are there algorithms for it? What would they look like? How do we learn what we already know about it? There’s this guy Peter Morville; he wrote a book called Ambient Findability back in 2005, and in the book he says but the more interconnected our world becomes, the more important our very human ability to assess credibility becomes. I’m paraphrasing. I think he said that. I think he said that. I think he wrote in a book, actually. And the book was published by a reputable publisher, O’Reilly I think it was?

I’m hesitating to write any more of this, because each subsequent idea is more complicated, and it will become too complicated to finish and too complicated to publish. But I’m sure the way that you assess credibility has nothing to do with what you think it has to do with.

So on one level, that’s kind of a useless level, one thing I’m suggesting here is that you promote credibility from being just an extra variable that is carried around, did you make it a first class citizen in your own thinking protocols, by bringing your conscious thought to bear upon it, rather than just letting it color everything. I’m hoping the math is actually simpler that way.

But I do like to finish these off with some very practical advice. So along those lines I’ll say, try imagining that you are speaker of each statement you hear, that you wrote the article, you designed the advertisement, any of it. Put yourself in their shoes and picture yourself saying what they are saying. This will suck, for a second, because it makes your thinking slow down a lot! Consciously imagining the other person’s perspective is a lot of extra information, compared to what you’re used to thinking about. Also, being suspicious makes us think more slowly. So prepare yourself for some discomfort, but give it a shot. You can practice with this if you want, and after even a short time you’ll start to feel your thinking adjusting. You are tuning the system in your mind that assesses credibility, and you might find that your attitude about many things changes dramatically. I apologize if you find out anything that you didn’t really want to know.

And I apologize for how horribly written this is! Congratulations on making it to the bottom. Better to write than not to write.

*What you might not believe is how we assess credibility. More on that later.

Do you pray?… No, do you?… That’s not right. You should pray! … Who me? … Why don’t you pray? … That doesn’t matter. We’re talking about you. … Oh! We’re talking about me! That’s very exciting. … I bet you do pray. I bet you do and you’re just not saying so. … I can’t say so! I’m laughing too hard!

So I’m right, then? You do pray?… No, I don’t! I don’t! Don’t you tell anyone that I do! … Stop laughing! This is serious. You’re almost lying. … I can’t help it. I can’t help laughing. You’re too much fun. But let’s be serious, now, if you want to be serious. … I want to be serious! Do you pray or don’t you?… I sortof pray. … You can’t sortof pray. You either do or you don’t! … No, I sortof do. … Like sometimes you forget?… No…

No?… No, I never forget. … You never forget to pray? … That’s right. … So you never forget, you always remember to pray? You can laugh, go ahead. … Yes, you got me! I always remember to pray, but please! … Please what? What is it? … Please, don’t tell anyone. … Why not? … Oh, I don’t know. They won’t understand. They’ll think I’m silly. … You are silly. And you always tell everyone you don’t pray, but you do. And *I* knew it, hmm?… Yes, you knew it. You got me. … I win. … But you’re wrong, I don’t pray, it’s not like you think! I hate that stuff! … What do you mean, it’s not like I think? What is it? … It’s like, well, you and I, we are talking? … Yes. … And it makes sense, us talking. It’s not like *prayer*. … What do you mean? … I mean, we’re just talking, it’s normal. It’s not like talking to no one, talking to yourself, talking to some invisible spirit. … Haha, now you are wrong! I’ll be no one, and yourself, and an invisible spirit! … Stop it, stop it, now I’m being serious. …. That’s where you went wrong. … You wanted me to explain this, and now I want to too. … Ok, ok, I’m not an invisible spirit then now, ok? … Ok, so we’re talking, and it’s fine. It makes sense, to talk. … We talk a lot. … Well, you like to talk…. You too. …

Ok, so that’s what I mean, pretend you and I were together all the time. … I wish we were together all the time. … Me too, we should try it. … We do try it, we just can’t do it. … That’s right, we do try it. So pretend we could do it, we could be together all the time, because we had nothing else to do. … But you would get bored. … I probably would, you would too. … So pretend there’s two of me and two of you then, one that is the regular us, and one that is just doing nothing, just going along with the regular us. … So one me that follows you around, and one you that follows me around?… Exactly. It is easy to explain things to you, because we talk so much. … I wish we could talk more, but it takes time. … Me too, that’s what I’m talking about! Imagine we could talk all the time, because we were together all the time, and one of us didn’t have anything else to do, and we didn’t even need to take turns. … Ok. … Ok what?… Ok, I am imagining it. … You should imagine me hitting you with a pillow! … I won’t even! I’m too busy imagining talking to you…

Look, that is my explanation, and you knew already that it is. … You imagine hitting God with a pillow? … I haven’t yet, but I would if I wanted to, why not? He’d probably hit back, and, and, and, it would be like the most amazingly fun example of getting hit with a pillow that you could ever imagine! … Fine, fine, that’s what I get for teasing you! When I hit you with a pillow, it doesn’t even matter how I do it, it’s substandard, now! … Only a little, only just barely substandard. … Ok, ok. I get it. But look, I wanted to ask you something else, hey, wait, let’s whisper…

(whispering) Ok. … Now no one can hear us, come closer. … No one could hear us before! … Shhh! We’re whispering. … Oh, I see now, this is very serious. … Yes. I have to ask you another question, and it is very serious. … Ok, I am listening very seriously. … Ok. Ready? …. Yes. …. People say that when you pray, god talks back to you. Does he? … God doesn’t talk back, silly. That would be rude! … Shhh, whisper! You know what I mean. He says things back to you, when you say things to him, when you pray. … Oh, is that what people to say? Who do they say it to? … I don’t know who they say it to, but I heard it and so have you, so has everyone. … No, I never heard it. People always say god doesn’t answer when you pray, so they have to make up their own answers. … No, people say he says things back to you. He does, doesn’t he? … No, of course not! … No? … Yes, no. He’s way too busy to talk.

…

What? … I mean, he’s not too busy to listen. … But in your explanation, didn’t you say he said. … No, no, he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t talk. He’s listening to everybody. If he talked it would probably be confusing, because he’s listening to everybody at once. And, like, doing stuff, I don’t know what, I guess. … Oh, no one told you what god is busy doing? … No, but I can imagine, you know. I haven’t thought about it too much. I’m busy too, so I just think about what I’m doing, but I think about it At god. There.

Where? … Not where there, just there. There. That’s it. … That’s it? … Yes, I think you understand what I mean. … I think I do too. God is your imaginary friend, and you just talk to him all the time? … No, you are my imaginary friend. God is god. … Fine! … But I talk to him all the time. I’m like, ‘Look, a cat, god! Cats are nice.’ And he’s like, ‘Yes they are, dear,’ or something like that. But I don’t hear him, I don’t pay any attention. … Because you are both so busy…. Yes, someone has to stay up late talking to you! … And sometimes you make breakfast in the morning, too. … Yes, and you eat it. … So you are saying he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t say, ‘Yes they are, dear.’ … Right, he doesn’t say anything. I was just making an example. That’s something he *might* say. …

Oh, I see. But is that praying? I would not say so. … You would not say so? … No, I do not think that is what people mean when they say praying, so I would not say so. … Ok. Have it your way. … But if you want to call that praying, we can. … If I want to call it, ok… Shhh, we talked enough. You always answer my questions. Goodnight. … Mmmm, goodnight.

I would have spaced this out and put each piece of dialog on its own line, to make it easier to read, but these two didn’t want to be that far away from each other.

Passengers, if you will look to your left you will see coming up in just a moment the longest continuous block of row houses in Baltimore, and I think maybe even in the country. Is it this one? I’m never really sure which one it is. There are three big blocks, and each one looks like the biggest you’ve ever seen until you see the next one. Now let’s count this one ready: 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 there are definitely more than 50, more than 50 houses, side by side, on one block. Right here at Wilkins Ave and Millington.

A friend of mine, who’s from Chicago, claims that the rowhouse was invented in Baltimore. I am not so sure.

And now the GPS is telling me to turn left on Pulaski Highway, which I will do if I must.

And it tells me I should go for three-quarters of a mile, which I’ll be happy to do if we live that long.

Already I’ve counted more than 20 drug dealers. And no, sir, you over there on the bicycle, you don’t count.

Why do I ever to cut through Baltimore? I love it so much, it always pulls at my heart.

And oh yes, you are correct, it is hard to believe that this is actually a street, the way that people are just parked on it as if they’re waiting in line. Don’t make eye contact with him, we don’t want him to think we’re waiting in line! Boy, am I glad this isn’t Mexico.

Every weekend I’ve been cutting through the city, to avoid the traffic on the beltway. And every time it makes me nostalgic for days.

I like that phrase, nostalgic for days.

Don’t let him in! Don’t let– do not– fine. K just sit here.

Look at all these stickers on these cars. When you live in Baltimore you have to accessorize with the right set of organizations. You need to belong to at least one Arts group (“I play the boom box ironically!”), one Hands-On group (Saving Lives through Making Beer, for example), and then something political or eco-friendly. If it has “park” in the name, that shows class. “United” is cool too. And then everyone’s like, who do you volunteer with? Who do you volunteer with? And no one ever asks, why don’t we get jobs?!

I’m in school, that’s what you say. Even though you aren’t. You’re supposed to be taking one class at UMBC, and you never go.

One of the most impolite things you can do in Baltimore is ask someone who says they’re in school what they’re studying. It’s just not right to put them on the spot like that! What do you want them to tell you, that they’re studying a calendar, while they wait for their next student loan check to show up? I remember more than once I asked people who had just told me that they were in school, what they were studying, and they looked completely puzzled, like, what do you mean by that question? It was an adjustment, is all I’m saying.

Yes, that might have been the oldest Catholic Church in the world, going by on the right, and I’m pretty sure that was definitely the first library in the country, but no one cares. I mean, not the oldest Catholic Church in the world, the oldest Catholic Church in the country. And not the first Library in the United States the first Free Library in the United States. But whatever. Seriously, no one cares. I’ll show you some real landmarks.

Like Paul Laurence Dunbar High School! I Heard A Kid Got Shot There Once.

Okay no I didn’t, but it’s likely. So I could have heard about it. Even though I didn’t. What I did hear though, is that they have a swimming pool. I don’t believe it though.

And now we’re driving through the campus of the oppressive world-renowned Hospital. All of this you see was of course built on the backs of the people.

And all the other parts of them too.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist a little joke, but it’s no laughing matter. These folks are constantly pushing people out of their barely inhabited ghettos to build more Ronald McDonald houses and sh$t like that. It’s disgusting. So if you ever wanted to know what the enemy looks like, this is it. (If you can’t see, it’s a lot like an airport, but everyone’s wearing scrubs.)

They torture mice in there too. I have this from a credible source.

Whoops! someone tried to crash into my car.

Now coming up here we have a Hotel With Some Whores In It, and Some Garages People Probably Live In. You’ll see those on the left and right, make sure I capitalize them. And there’s a very depressing strip club. You can tell just from the outside, and they’re always hiring. And you wouldn’t know it, but here on the left is where they make those weird Cowtail candies, with the caramel? Are they sold nationwide?

I know you can’t see it, but further back there to the left is a hotel that’s been converted by the state into a prison. I heard the rates went up when they did so! Hahaha.

And that’s about it. I think from here on out it’s all junk yards.

And now Google Maps is telling me to get back on the highway. “Take the Moravia Road exit towards 95,” it said.

“I895,” it said.

Did you, Google? Did you?

Now how is anyone ever going to get to New York?

You greedy insatiable domestically owned corporation! I should have taken that job in Manhattan when I had the chance. And I’m never driving through here again, it makes me sad for days…I guess this is what I get for trying to dodge the tolls.

Unlike so many people, I actually grew up in Baltimore, which is why I know this song:

My mom used to sing it to me when I was little, and she sounded exactly like the video, swear to Pete. Her parents used to sing it to her. You can learn it though, it’s not that hard.

Photo

Hey, at least I don’t have to live in Kansas City.

“Sure, I mean, I know people can’t breathe underwater, stuff like that… but I don’t ever like to hear it, someone saying that anyone isn’t capable of something. I feel that’s a judgment on God; I don’t ever like to hear it.”

There’s this thought I have

I’ve had it quite a few times

It’s probably time to write it down

It reads something like this, in sequence:

I’ve become my mom’s/dad’s/husband’s/sister’s therapist.
Wait! Shouldn’t I already have been my mom’s therapist?
I mean shouldn’t all of us be a ‘therapist’ for everyone in our close family?*
Isn’t that exactly what families are for?
Really, isn’t it weirder that a paid professional therapist should have you take on the role of daughter/brother/wife, and listen for hours without getting annoyed, and offer understanding and a balanced perspective?

(And then I complain to myself about the state of America’s mental health, and mental health system, and mental health drugs…)

Yeah, it’s that thought. I remember now that I’ve written it down before.

*To the best of our ability of course. What else could anyone expect? Practice makes perfect.

Z WHAT CHOO FRAID TO SAY ANYTHING TO EM? WHAT CHOO FRAID TALKING TO EM GON DO? Z

Gakak! And now I expand this thought, in a regrettable way. Because I just realized why we are less and less likely to act like our family’s therapists for each other.

Because we’re more and more afraid our families are going to dump us. Because they might. Blecch.

Photo

I am unabashedly greedy. I just realized.

But what I should be telling you about is not any of this self-indulgent rambling, suitable only for a diary. I should be telling you instead that I sort of truly believe that Angels must love board games. What else is there to do in heaven?

—

A lot of good writing exists that will give you something, a new idea, A New Perspective, useful information… But I for some reason prefer to write in a way that takes. I want your best ideas,
your new thinking,
your effort,

not mine. It’s very disappointing that whatever I might wring out of you will probably never make its way to me, but still– for the good of mankind we could say– I find it helpful that you should be forced to think as much as possible.

Of course I know that everyone finds being forced to think distasteful, as we all learned this in school when we were taught how to speak and to right. We were taught at that time that the best communication leaves just a little bit of room for interpretation, around the safer edges of whatever is being discussed. Good communication, we were taught, fastidiously avoids ambiguity.

Be clear, they said.

What in the world does that mean?

No one bothered to explain. I suppose because they just didn’t need to.*

But I am not trying to communicate. I am here to take.** Each time this junk I post confuses you, it sends your brain into a fantastically rapid talespin, too rapid for you to even notice. Too many of these will make you dizzy and nauseous, mentally, and you’ll stop reading all together. But if I can spread them out, intersperse them with other things, I can wring out of you in 5 minutes probably more thinking than 5 hours television.*** And you won’t notice any of it go by.

And I’ll never get the benefit of it for myself maybe, as I’ve already said, but I truly believe that Angels recycle our discarded thoughts and put them to better uses. Wouldn’t they have had plenty of time to figure out how to do something like that by now?

—
See, I won’t stop, I won’t rest, and I won’t leave you alone until everything is the way that it should be. Every single God d*mned thing.

Anything that you are wasting, I want it for my own. Because I won’t waste it. I know where it can be put to use, in dark places you’ll never go to. So fork it over, Luke.

 

*There is a concept we will have difficulty teaching to machines, clarity.
*‎* Which is perhaps why some of my school papers received the grade ‘I’, for ‘Inappropriate’.
*** Considering my rate of pay, that’s approximately an infinite number of thoughts per dollar. Snort.

(I played 65-point three-letter word ‘COG’. That’s a new record for me. This phone is great.)

Here kids, here’s something you can read in English class and hate while your English teacher swoons about how special it is. It’s just a story about how one time I was in New Orleans, I was hanging out with this bum, just talking on the street, and this other bum came up and they started arguing not really over anything, they just had this look in their eyes, and it was like they weren’t going to argue in front of me because I wasn’t one of them. And one of them says to the other one, hey man, give me a hug and the other one got right up like he was in a hurry, and they threw their arms around each other hard, and I realized it wasn’t the kind of hug like I’d ever given anybody, or like anyone had ever given me, but they were fighting, fighting in plain sight without anyone being able to tell if they weren’t paying attention, because inside that hug they were pushing that each other and squeezing as hard as they could, and eventually one of them lost control and picked the one I had been talking to up off the ground and slammed him down on the step so that his back cracked on the edge of it. And that’s when I decided I should call the police, and I did, just sitting there on the other end of that very same step I called the police, I dialed nine-one-one, and I told them everything that I just told you, except for the part about the hug because it seemed like that would take too long to explain.

And the lady on the other end of the line, she didn’t sound real worried at all, she said where are you and I told her and she said where they and I told her that too and she said describe the man who picked the other man up, and so I described him, I said he was wearing a green corduroy jacket and that he had a big beard and then he was about 6 foot 2 inches and I think I even might have told her what kind of shoes he had on. He was standing right next to me listening to me the whole time. And she said but describe him to me though, and so I said it all over again and I added some extra details about the jacket, which was unusual. But describe him to me though she said again and I said what is it that you want me to tell you? Is it something in particular? And she said no, just describe him. And I thought maybe she might be messing with me, asking me that question over and over again, but if so there was nothing I could do about it anyway, because she was already the police. And that would be a strange way to entertain yourself, asking someone a question over and over. So I kept describing him as best as I could, I told her he had sort of larger-than-average teeth, and a narrow nose, and salt-and-pepper hair, but I didn’t want to go into too much detail and make the man self-conscious. I was sitting right next to him, and looking at him I couldn’t think of much to say about how he looked that was nice or even neutral. But it didn’t seem like there was anything I could say that would make the police lady happy with my description, and it wasn’t until later that I realized she was waiting for me to tell her what color he was, so she could decide whether or not she should send out someone to arrest him. Now you all can discuss what that must have been like for me, and for him, and if you’re really unlucky for homework you’ll have to write an essay from his perspective. And maybe you’ll find it strange how racist we all used to be, and discuss that too, and what all of this means, but you’ll miss the point. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just something that happened, just like everything else, that’s all.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

There’s a period all addicts who recover go through, where they learn that the nonsense they blamed on their drug use was only partly caused by it. Maybe even only slightly caused by it.

They learn the hard way, because — voila!— no drugs, and quite of bit of that nonsense remains. Anything but a comfortable realization, that one’s unadulterated personality is far shittier than one thought.

No fun at’oll, as I re’coll.

But that was a long time ago.

How are ya, let me tell you something.

Simple, yet I think important, simple thing.

Don’t listen to people just to be nice to them— understand? Don’t do what other people suggest, just to be nice. Do you know why?

See- in the market of ideas, that’s a major inefficiency. If you want to do things well; if you want to progress; if you want what’s best for everybody, obviously consider other people and consider others opinions — always — listen, get as much information as you can but don’t let the source have feelings that actually aren’t. Don’t, for instance, follow people, because you want them to think you think they know the best way, when I know a better way— GO THE BETTER WAY.

The people will say nothing, probably, afterwards— you are going to get there first and you can just leave it at that. Or if they ask, where were you, you weren’t behind me, say: I KNOW A BETTER WAY. I can’t remember the last time I was offended when someone turned down a suggestion of mine, you know, because they had a better idea. SHOW OFF is what I’m saying; when you know better, SHOW IT OFF. Do you know why?

Because how is anyone going to learn, unless you show them? Because otherwise, the math is pretty clear, we’re all moving towards the lowest — FFFFF — the lowest place which we could be, which people often call the lowest common denominator, which is not an accurate analogy, but I guess in common parlance, the lowest common denominator does not mean the lowest common denominator anymore, it means the minimum — but it sounds better. But we just say ‘the lowest common denominator’ when we mean ‘the minimum’. Do you know why?

Because other people said it, and we didn’t correct them; because we said, that’s alright dude; I like you; if you want to use elementary school math analogies wrong, then I’m not going to correct you, because I don’t want to hurt your feelings, and now WE ALL SAY LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. Instead of minimum. I should explain again why that’s especially interesting, but I just won’t, because I can’t be bothered.  Somebody write all that* down, and put my name under it. Thank you.

*You knew it already, didn’t you, so don’t bother reading. Whoops! Too late.

Photos:

http://www.thrillant.com/Tandem-Skydiving-near-Pueblo-CO_102.html

‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qF_fzEI4wU

The aphorism for today is — it’s so late — but today’s aphorism is: “You never know, the person you think is a demon might actually just be possessed.”

This picture is fake.

I was driving down the road and there were two baby deer; they were in the middle of the road; they were wobbly on their legs; they had their spots. Their mom was standing next to them, but off the road, on the side; it felt like this was a lesson she was teaching them; woodland creatures are very strict teachers; mom might have been thinking something like ‘here, you two; go stand in the road; you’re either going to figure this out or I’m going to be through with you; either way I’m looking forward to the outcome.’ And the degree to which people need to get a life I suppose can be measure by how interesting or not interesting that sentence is, to them. Woodland creatures are very strict teachers.

So, these deer anyway were standing in the middle of the road, and it was late. I am not used to being up late; I was very worried about driving home, it being this late; and so I was driving carefully, slowly, and so I stopped; I didn’t hit these deer. We had a short lesson about cars; it might have been a bad one; they eventually moved out of the road.

I was driving further on and I saw another very small baby deer that was just smashed,  in the opposite lane, and there is a lesson there, which is: when you are waiting; you don’t have what you want or you are not where you want to be yet; and it doesn’t feel good, because you don’t have what you want and you are not where you want to be yet; and you are worried that you might never get there— keep in mind that not everyone is a careful as you and that is not a good thing; that the world might be a better place if everyone did approach as carefully and thoughtfully as you do.

That taking your time, to muddle through matters and wait is the right thing to do, even if it makes you late. That we don’t see, oftentimes, the aftermath of other people moving so quickly, although we do see their benefits— we see that you have more money, we see that you have whatever it is that you rushed on to get, that we waited for and never came, because we were trying to do it properly.

We see the good of fast decisions; the bad is usually hidden. We don’t see the credit card bills; we only see the clothes.

And so keep in mind, when it feels like things are going slowly, that really you are averting crisis, you are preventing pain— that little smashed deer didn’t have to be, if whoever came down that other lane had had at least as much consideration for what was going on around them as I had, they could have stopped too.

We usually don’t see the deer we don’t smash, either. No one is going to give you a prize for being careful, but not everyone is as careful as we. So I’ll give you as much of a prize as I have, right now: I swear, the world is no where as bad as you think it is, sometimes; that the people in it, not as heartless; that it and they will keep getting better, because we’ll force them to; and not by forcing each other, either, but by, ourselves, refusing to be forced.* Anyway. Little baby deer.

This picture is real.

“Photo” “credits” “;”

http://callofthepatriot.blogspot.com/2011/05/stupid-moments-in-tree-hugger-history.html

https://www.treehugger.com/culture/artist-hides-giants-wilds-copenhagen-luring-seekers-nature.html

*And perhaps even there is something big, that looks out for little creatures who stand up for even littler ones.**


**Or, as my mom says, just wait until you get to the afterlife: every single one of those squirrels you didn’t care if you ran over is going to be waiting for you there.

can you count the jobs?

…and harbor no expectations of caring, ever again.

(Apologies to IBM: they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.)

I love Saturdays. Something happened, a few months ago, and I started celebrating Sundays earlier and earlier— I’m back as far as Saturday morning now. In a few more weeks I’ll probably be Jewish.

We don’t know that our thinking is wrong until we do— we usually say this this way— better thought it might be to say instead that we aren’t wrong until we know we are, that makes more sense doesn’t it— that we are right, to think how we do when we do, until that moment when we suddenly become wrong to. From that moment on we pay per minute, the meter runs— even just when we are too forgetful, too ignorant, to notice what we know— we miss out on what we could have, had we acted as we know we now could; what we could have bangs us in forehead like the end of a plank, too high to jump to, that we could be walking on. So even when we fail to notice what we’ve noticed then; even when we are too slow to grasp how we could be better, we are ‘told’ about it, again and again, through painful things, discomfort, bad days, and probably back pain.

We learn to resist change in thinking, if we don’t make it, which is strange to me: that over time with practice our minds should better block out what they know they need I can only explain by some other essential mechanism’s side effect; it seems reasonable that learning from repetition should be more important here; although counterproductive in this case, we can defend its interaction, embrace and bemoan it; knowing that it is there, suddenly, empowers us to wrestle with it*; this takes the form usually of acknowledging to ourselves quite explicitly that the length of time for which we have held a belief (a frequently crucial shortcut metric in our decision making) cannot be considered in this case.

Once done, this allows us to try on the idea, two or three times quickly, as one would each pair of sunglasses when choosing from a pair of sunglasses, for comparison with what I must admit I’m intrigued by :)— life without this belief, perhaps. It should fit, if we are ready; I wonder if they almost always do, but it only seems that way. If it does not fit, ok, we, just don’t notice anymore, and won’t even think to look out for the plank the next time, should it not come in the same form as previously.

But if it fits, we modify, and via this basic operation all progress was/is/will be based. We might call it the addition of the psychic realm.

And as we modify, we test— we learn to test better and better. One test I’ll share again is that the truth should never hurt; if it does one simply is living wrongly and needs to change; exceptions of course need to be made for partial truths, or truths told incompletely, which can do untold damage**, about which we’ll of course speak no further. But in such cases we can group ‘our decision to tell’ the incomplete truth a life lived wrongly— applying other modifications we should be able always to find a way to tell the truth without harm if we are not doing what we shouldn’t. When we find the truth hurts this is an indication, not accidental, that we are making a mistake, and the only good option is to as quickly as possible change our living until the truth is no longer painful, then resume speaking freely always. I hope you get a chance to live this way if you aren’t already: it’s the best.

* I prefer to wrestle with it in others. You do too. Not because we’re avoiding analyzing ourselves, you relentless calvinist—because it works better.

**A quite specific kind — I don’t need this footnote, do i? nope

Ok, this is not nearly funny enough. It’s not funny at all! old school blog– have to post though, no excuses. Missed everyone very much. I was very ill.

so I stayed up half the night looking at pictures of beavers on the internet by myself

We need certain things so desperately, don’t we? We feel I have to have that. Like cats in heat.

What do we really need, you know? Nothing.

I don’t know why, but every time I interfere, he said–

I don’t know why, but every time I interfere, she says–

It turns out like I didn’t DO anything.

Maybe I shouldn’t exist.

I haven’t done this in awhile. It should be fun.

We’re allowed to be bad now and then, aren’t we? (laughs) (serious) You don’t even know what bad means. Whoever I’m talking to, I’m sure, you don’t even know what bad means.

Oh, that’s true, when we met, we were really bad, weren’t we? (whispers) Oh man were we bad.

The first three days that’s all we were was bad.

Remember that?

No, I forgot! (laughs) No, I forgot about that.

It’s true, I’m not sure why I don’t think of it every single day. I should probably make a point to think about–right now! No, right now, I’m making a point right now to think about why I don’t think about it, every single day….no, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to make that point.

What did he tell me? He told me I couldn’t put a set in a set? Could you believe it? I thought, why don’t you just destroy the whole world! Tell me I can’t put a set in a set. Nothing works suddenly, thank you very much. How do you live in that, your self? How do you, seriously? If you pick up his stuff, you feel like — you can’t move. I can’t move! It ain’t right–I mean, right–it isn’t right. (laughs)

But this is the thing though, seriously.. Seriously! (laughs) seriously — you are not taking me seriously. It doesn’t matter how many times I say seriously, apparently. Seriously!

Seriously, what if — you don’t want to hear it, huh?

I like it when you don’t want to hear things.

(long silence)

Ok, ok, why should we have this much fun — ooh, because we were ba–no, no, not because we were bad! we just have fun. Because we’re good. Don’t tell people we have fun because we were bad! You’re so bad!

I remember that. I was really bad. But it was perfect.

I changed my mind: we were good.

Oh my gosh, What if, what if we– do you remember? I’m asking you now, if you remember.

Ok, ok, without a doubt, best thing that ever happened to me. Without a doubt, done, best ever.

Ooh, sometimes people are just so good, they are just so sweet, I can’t even say the things they say because they are so nice, I have to force myself to say what you said and what you said is So far.

(I let him carry me around some tonight. It felt great. We’ll see what the consequences are though.)
(And quit flexing your muscles you are not picking me up again!)

Put the pipe down.

Ok, don’t put the pipe down.

See, you almost got me in trouble, and you are so high that you don’t care!

——

See, it’s so nice when we get together; we dance.

We’re not dancing, you idiot. That’s me chasing you and trying to knock you down.

Oh. You never manage to though. We dance too well.

(He keeps trying to pick me up, but I keep being beneath him.)

(And I don’t even move hardly as much as a lot of people, other people, people that are hard to pick up.)

(And now he’s trying to trick me. He said he had already picked me up, and I fell for it.)

(So then I went over to where his hand was, to see what was going on, and he almost picked me up for a second. HEY QUIT THAT)

(Now he’s pretending to offer me candy. WHAT IS THAT, LIKE A VACUUM? QUIT THAT I DON’T LIKE THOSE — )

PUT ME DOWN

I didn’t pick you up yet.

Yes you did.

No, if I picked you up, it would be like this.

(lots of kicking and screaming)

See?

Yes, I see, you can’t pick me up, see? This story didn’t even start OUT about you, it was about another guy. Who do you think you are? Never try to pick me up!

PUT ME DOWN!!

PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW!!

I WILL HURT YOU PUT ME DOWN

see, you can’t hold me

You b-tard! Give me that back! I need that! Oh, it is on now.

Thank you very much, I’ll be having that back now. No, I didn’t need the effing exercise! Go away! You jerk, I said hands off that–

haHA it doesn’t even like you, it’s coming right back. You shouldn’t have even wasted time taking it.

I’ll be back.

You can be back but look, I didn’t even write down your half of the conversation mostly, that’s how much I ignore you.

That’s how much you adore me. You just drink it all in, what I say.

Yeah, like piss.

Yeah, just like piss.

Neither one of us knows what that means.

But I have the good grace not to say so, at least.

Who do you think you are, Charles Bukowski? You can’t say piss.

Yeah, I know? That’s why I’ve been screaming ‘take that out and put something else in, I can’t say piss’? Make sense to you?

Yeah, well why are you screaming at me? I refuse to help.

Refuse to help, I’d appreciate it. I would be a huge improvement, for me.

(him) I am making a noise that is best described by the words ‘venomous silence.’

Lucky me, that you pointed that out…

…because you wouldn’t want to miss it, right?

Right.

That’s what..

Yeah, that’s what I always say.

I love you so much.

Me too.

Don’t pick me up.

I’m not promising anything.

The stickiness of a thought, how hard it is to dismiss. Stickiness is stickiness: it’s not a good or bad thing but because it is something that it is hard for us to exercise control over — if something is sticky it doesn’t really respond to out desires about how it behave as much as something that’s not as sticky — it can seem .. a little sticky.

I’ll try to give you a good demo of a good sticky thought.

I’ll take the veal skeleton.

.. Pause ..

.. Pause ..

Yeah, it’s still with you, isn’t it?! (laughs) It sticks around awhile.

Vegan version. Ahem.

Soy arteest.

Stickiness can be an art. All thinking can be an art. But I hope an example like that, which is not much as art, gives you a little bit of an insight into how much fun it is to view your own actions and speech this way.

What a shame that I have so many hours of things to say about how poorly all of this can be done — as the police follow me down the street. A shame to have those hours, if you think of beauty, if you think of painting, and then you think of sculpture, and then you think of dancing, if you think of poetry, if you think of music–

And then you think of thinking–

When you think  of the astounding beauty of the things you can intentionally create in the minds of others, through speech, through action–

What a shame.

Try to pick attributes of thought that are relatively static and hard to fake. I’m not sure what they are static for. But categories where the members of each category share the same values for as many of these attributes as they can: so I want to say that if I divide things up by how sticky they are, the really sticky thoughts are going to be in one of these two or three categories, most probably, and I know that those two or three categories are also going to have certain values for other attributes — attributes I’ve found really sticky thoughts usually have in the past: a certain sense of humor, a habit of leading to certain kinds of decisions which have certain kinds of outcomes; they make this much sense; they have this much validity, etc. and when I find a sticky thought, I can really quickly say “ok, into that group you go” and then I can predict all of the rest of these attributes. That’s the goal here.  And that way I can quickly infer things about the thought; as or before even I’m thinking it — without having to examine each thought and make these measurements. I only need one or two values and the rest are probably what they probably are.

Now some thoughts don’t appear to be sticky enough. We might find this is most common with great big ideas, complex ideas, that are not quite beyond us; discoveries that we are pretty sure we are capable of discovering, but if we look away from them they seem to vanish, or slip outside our grasp. Other thoughts are just lame, or they’re not interesting– they’re not that sticky. But some thoughts are, whether or not they are crafted to be that way, their nature is such that they get thought for awhile.

Sometimes you feel like there might be a little bit of cheating involved in thoughts that are sticky. Some thoughts self-promote. This is kind of frowned upon. I’m not sure by whom, but by someone. We think: “Here, I am an idea from your conscience and I will lead you to the right path in life, so don’t so that.” Or “Your best self says…” That’s self-promotion, on the part of a thought.

Thoughts are not, like Richard Dawkin’s memes do, in general supposed to think very much about how much anybody thinks them. Thoughts which are good enough to be thought will be thought as much as anybody needs to think them, guaranteed. So beyond stickiness then, we have another attribute, of insistence. Which is really a narrower case of a broader attribute, the quote-unquote goal of the thought, if you can imagine thought having a goal.

Insistence though, is a reflection of a thought.  A thought that’s self-promoting maybe could be said to be demonstrating a little bit of insistence, but that’s not quite exactly what I mean by this. A thought that is insistent is a thought that is making demands on you, rather than making suggestions or informing you. This thought says “Do this.” They typically make you quite aware of the time factor. Some thoughts are immediate. They require– they require according to them at least; you are not required to require it too — but the thoughts themselves require that you do something immediately. Often this is to panic.

An insistent thought might require that you exit whatever situation is causing the panic, right away. It’s not a suggestion: ‘Hey, maybe we should get out of here.’ It’s not ‘Maybe we can wait five minutes and get out of here;’ It’s ‘Get out of here right now.’

Insistence is a good attribute to notice, because, like lag, we can adjust for the insistence of thoughts. Beyond just using insistence to categorize, once we’re aware of the values it takes, we can correct for them. ‘Well, I know that panic is insistent, so I’m going to wait ten seconds to see if I still feel like I should leave the situation immediately, and if I do after ten seconds, then I will. Or I’m at least going to check and see if the situation is as dangerous as panic is suggesting it is before I respond to its requirement, because I know that panic is insistent.’

Likewise, some of the neatest thoughts we’ll ever have are just barely suggestions. And maybe this is me personifying things too much, but imagine if you had a good friend that noone ever listened to, the sort of way that he would act after he made yet another suggestion. He wasn’t going to say anything, because noone ever listens to him– he doesn’t say that, though; he pipes up– and then you dismiss it, because he’s that guy.  

If you imagine what his reaction would be, when you again dismiss his suggestion, if you could bottle it– you can sometimes catch yourself thinking just this. In the background. Sometimes maybe.

Well, fine then. Nobody listens to me.

When you are not trying to say anything out loud. Which is interesting.

Who is not being heard then?

I’d like to know.

So we can adjust for that too: we can think, Hey, there went one of those little suggestions I give myself that I never pay any attention to. Anyway, carrying on.

I like to imagine — I made this image of the pool of thought in the world, yesterday — and I like to imagine that part of our purpose here on earth is to maintain the pool of thought in the world, to make it clean, healthy… Wouldn’t it then make sense to reward thoughts that don’t put demands on us?

Well, you know I have this panicking emotional terror concerning my personal relationships. I think probably I’m going to listen to that right now. And yeah, of course, I could listen to Michael Jackson, do the dishes and go to sleep, I know that. But anyway.

It’s like rewarding the bad kid, in that case. Shouldn’t we reward the good kid?

You can imagine that — talk about self-promoting — thoughts that insist don’t give you time to process them before they demand action. What do these thoughts have to hide?

Well, can we think about this and then make a decision?

No, it has to happen now.

Thoughts that demand that you act before you have time to weigh out everything are trying to block out the competition. Like a guy at a bar who’s hitting on a girl, who stands up really tall and blocks her view of all the rest of the guys in the bar. You might ask, why are you doing that? I mean, if you were the hottest guy in here, you wouldn’t have to bother, am I right?*

So that attribute sort of indicates potential problems. Sticky is fun; insistent indicates a problem. Cheers!

LADY PLAYS THE FIELD THE ELECTROMAGNETIC ONE

All ideas are circles. Did you know this? You know this right? All ideas are circles. Did you know this?

Every idea is circle, that can be stretched or compressed infinitely by you. I don’t know of any physical substance that works that way.

I just drove by a mechanic shop operated by a guy who drove me out of a church. The sign under the shop sign says “KEEP IT SIMPLE GOD IS LOVE.”

Well done, sir. See, here is a man doing his own investigation. He figured something out. God is love. Love is God. He believes that, wholeheartedly; it’s reasonable, makes good sense, love is something we can perceive, the same way we perceive God. We can perceive God in the same way we perceive love. That last part he probably hasn’t thought about. But nevermind: well done, sir! (That’s what I say.)

An idea like any substance, under infinite pressure can be compressed to nothing, and under zero pressure can be distributed across an arbitrarily large space; like a circle, every idea is balanced; every idea has two sides that connect to each other quite fluidly.

But as you view an idea, you walk around this circle; you pick a point to stand. Or you say, hey, nice circle! I’ll wear the whole thing. Like a hammock. You can try simplifying it, to make it a little less cumbersome. But you have to be careful, because when circles get to small they get too simple, and all of a sudden you have nothing. You say, oh, well that’s just.. obvious, and you go quickly from obvious to nothing. HOLD ON HOLD ON YES I KNOW I’m TRYING to come up with an example ALREADY JUST HOLD ON.

“God is love” is a circle, right? With God on one side, and love on the other side, across the circle. If you drew a diameter, with one point on God, the other point would be on love. And you can make that circle bigger, as the thought gets more complicated, by adding other points. The love that we feel for other human beings–another point on my circle, a particular kind of love–is part of the love that they feel for God; what we love about other people is the God we see in them, and the God that we see in them is the love that they feel, and vice versa.

Around and around the circle,* and I can make it a little it bigger than that: I can say that community and being together as human beings is an expression of spirituality and godliness, because God is love, and we feel this love for each other; we want to be with each other because we want to feel that love, because we want to be with God, because we want to feel God, because God is love, so feeling God feels good, and we do what feels good, because we want to be in community. You can go around that circle in quite a few ways and always win: it is an unusual one that way, as I think I’ve demonstrated.

And you could keep going. You could write an entire paper on it. But you’ll always come around, whether or not you say so.

And beyond what you could say, this idea goes on, with aspects no one on the planet at this time can comprehend, and/or no one on the planet is aware of. That’s a very big circle. What God is, really–what love is, really? The combination of chemistry and something else, what is it? You can feel it, but what is it that you feel? You can think it, but what is it that you think? And it’s complicated, right? I has negatives, and positives,— and it must have some kind of existence, where? Point being ideas can get really big, bigger than you can actually comprehend– they go on — they do this all day actually, emanating out from us. We can feel them doing it, but usually don’t pay attention, being used to letting go when they reach a certain size.

You can shift ideas in the other direction, inward; you can make them very small. You can say God is Love– God good, love good — Good good — Good —  Yes — Done. And then you’re saying nothing, suddenly, and everything. From Good is good, which sounds like nothing but isn’t, to Good, which has a meaning, to Yes or True, you can shrink this idea– but no further. Any smaller and there is no idea. And from these small ideas you can expand: from Yes or True you can expand into almost anything.

Maybe this is why they say in the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

Several years ago I had to learn that tautology is an important and valid part of thinking, just like paradox. Now it’s your turn, maybe.

Sometimes when you are thinking about something complicated and you go to simplify it, if you are high on marijuana especially**– suddenly the idea shrinks down to nothing and you comprehend everything, but just as a single point, like Yes or True or an imaginary humming noise. At these times we must remind ourselves, ok, I need to remember the evidence, the experience, the fact — that was holding the circle open. That people like to be community, for instance. Otherwise the world jus gets too darn beautiful to make any sense of. A fact though can stretch the circle to a size that can accommodate it and the other facts.

Or we can just hum, Yes, and feel the entirety of it, of every idea that there is contained in this one that we are thinking.

Anyway, ideas.

* o as circles go this is small one

** which I never am. a nice cold glass of lemonade is plenty good enough for me, thank you, no really, you are too kind, is there more?

Are you ready to scrape the accumulated garbage off of whatever this is and see what might be left? No? Me neither. Let’s just look at the garbage first.

22 January 2017

Xxxxxxxxx  Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

PSTH 506 – The Church at Worship: Preaching

Assignment 12: Sample Full Sermon

Text: Matthew 18:15-34

Seminary Student: Hi! Can you help me? I’m writing about those verses you assigned me from Matthew, for a pretend Baptist church. The other assignment was to preach Colossians to Episcopalians, which really gives you an advantage, Colossians being Colossians.

Seminary Prof: Hard to go wrong in there, yeah.

Seminary Student: But of course I had to draw these verses from Matthew 18 instead. My life sucks.

Seminary Prof: And it’s a tricky part of Matthew. If you read it, it reads like Jesus was in a really bad mood for three or four chapters.

Seminary Student: That’s understandable. (both laugh)

Seminary Prof: There’s a verse in there that basically reads, “You will show compassion to everyone, or I will kick your teeth in.”

Seminary Student: Heh. Can you believe that?

Seminary Prof: I know.

Seminary Student: (reading) Man that’s a challenging text!

Seminary Prof: Forgiveness is another one of these concepts in Christianity that screws a lot of people up. The ones who say they worship God the most, for some reason they have this strange temptation to act like they are God, and, um, it gets tricky.

Seminary Student: What is my job/responsibility/role in other people messing up? Just tell me.

Seminary Prof: Ok, good start. Try: I think in my life– screw that sentence.

Seminary Student: Whatever. How about this: who should I forgive?

Seminary Prof: Whom. Try: I think maybe it’s just my — oy, screw that sentence too.

Seminary Student: Phillip’s head, but this is hard. I mean, can I say, ‘Just don’t let anybody wrong you, and then it’s easy to be nice?’

Seminary Prof: Hmm?

Seminary Student: I don’t lend money; as a rule; for a reason; nobody ever has to pay me back–because I didn’t lend them anything. What do we expect of people, just from the get-go, that makes us think we’re going to need to forgive them? Like, a baseline?

Seminary Prof: Your mom has a baseline. (laughter) Ok. (coughs) It’s right there in the book that we should forgive.

Seminary Student: I don’t know about the word ‘forgiveness’ though. In the book, does it mean what we think it means? It sounds like it might be just about money.

Seminary Prof: I don’t know. I’ll do it, whatever it says.

Seminary Student: But I think the word is very strange. I don’t know. I don’t know enough about the word.

Seminary Prof: How do you say ‘forgive’ in Aramaic?

Seminary Student: Oh, that’s perfect.

Seminary Prof: What?

Seminary Student: No, I’m stealing that, that’s my title. “How Do You Say ‘Forgive’ in Aramaic?”

Seminary Student: Oh, before I forget. My translation, I think it was like 19:21 or something, Peter says to Jesus, “How many times–.” In my translation it said, “How many times should I forgive my brother–seven?” but in your translation it said, “How many times will my brother sin against me, that I should forgive him–seven?”

Seminary Prof: Both translations Jesus says, “No. Many many more.”

Seminary Student: But I thought that was hysterical. He just lays it out: your brother will always be a jerk!

Seminary Prof: If your’s is the right translation, everyone I know has gotten that line wrong.

Seminary Student: It almost makes it sound like his brother is going to sin just to make Peter forgive him. That could be in fun, or that could be serious.

Seminary Prof: In a way it’s both, I think. As we grow in — no, screw that sentence.

Seminary Student:  Over and over again with anything about justice and forgiveness, you get it tied to the words ‘Brother’, and ‘family’, and ‘clan’.

There are seven billion people on the world at least. If there are seven billion people in the world, am I expected to hang out with all of them? I’ll have to choose. I’m just going to have to; there’re too many and life is too short.

Seminary Prof: Ok.

Seminary Student: So if I have to choose anyway, can I choose based on how people act?

(silence)

Seminary Student: I think we learn to hold a grudge against anyone who hurts us over and over. It’s hard for me to make sense out of a message about forgiveness, if it’s about people who hurt us and not just about money, that doesn’t also include maybe shake the dust off of your behind and go somewhere else.

Seminary Prof: What are you doing just now?

Seminary Student: That’s how you shake it.

Seminary Prof: Shake it?

Seminary Student: You know, shake it.

Seminary Prof: Shaaake it.*

Seminary Student: Shakin’ it.

Seminary Prof: Oh yeah, shake it some more.

Seminary Student: (shouting over music) Why should you waste time mentally grappling with someone else’s failings when there are so many other people in the world that want to be around you?

Seminary Prof: (shouting, shaking it) I think that’s actually the absolute best lesson we can give someone, sometimes: just to leave.

Seminary Student: I’m not going to fight with you; I’m not going to sink–

Seminary Prof: I’m gone. Next time you’ll think about that.

Seminary Student: We should all do that to each other!

Seminary Prof: We should all do that to each other!

Seminary Student: I don’t like the things you do; I told you I don’t like them…

Seminary Prof: …you are still doing them….

Seminary Student: Good bye!

Seminary Prof: Really? (music ends) Good song.

Seminary Student: How much better would the world be if I had to meet my own standards, and yours?

Seminary Prof: Right, but isn’t it that world?

Seminary Student: No, we think we’re helpful. We try to fix people.

Seminary Prof: So if we didn’t …

Seminary Student: Didn’t help mean people.

Seminary Prof: Say we all made a pact. Just now.

Seminary Student: That anyone mean should go.

Seminary Prof: They can come back when they’re nice?

Seminary Student: Jesus did it. He shook it.

Seminary Prof: Yes. He told other people to shake it too.

Seminary Student: There’s only so much of you and there’s a lot of world, and a lot of people in it. And it’s easy to forgive people from a distance.

Seminary Prof: (looking at watch) Very easy.

Seminary Student: Could add a story from my own life: “Well, you know, he was terrible. He used to make me pick his teeth, for him! I told him I didn’t like it. He said he didn’t care. Now I don’t pick his teeth for him anymore.”

Seminary Prof: Short story.

Seminary Student: Yeah, that was the end of it.

Seminary Prof: So forgiveness has these two sides: we get to make these choices, and we have to make these choices.

And we have to show others compassion.

Seminary Student: If you are busy picking some loser’s teeth, you’re not going to be able to show others compassion: your hands will be occupied. And probably gross.

(silence)

Seminary Student: Well, you know, it wasn’t his fault: he just didn’t know which ones looked the best.

Seminary Prof: Oh. In that case, that’s just a reasonable request. That’s different.

Seminary Student: I’d pick the really big ones. A sign of strength.

radiation: Ok, I wrote it all down; I think we’re done!

Forgiveness’s actual meaning then, has changed quite a bit. Also added to ancient texts were some interesting ideas about reprisal, most of which are too childish to say with a straight face, but prevent us from ‘shaking it’ the abandon that we might otherwise demonstrate, or from shaking it at all; these “reprisal equations” have changed over the years themselves, but still lead us to excuse the behavior of others if we have acted badly ourselves. I insulted you, then you insulted me, then I felt I had to condone your insult because I myself had fallen short.

There is absolutely no logic to this; there is no pairing of moral equivalence; the past has no effect, ‘doing the right thing’, I suppose, being a sort of Markov chain. All of the shame and guilt and prolonged misery this [reprisal equations] piece-of-crap of an idea deals out has exactly the same logical founding as “You took my cookie, so I can take yours,” but read backwards, for even less effect: “because I took your cookie, I’d better stay here with you after you take mine.”

Why? Is our behavior any kind of moral standard? People say the Bible doesn’t make sense as a moral standard. My own life should be a better one? Our behavior being the rapid and often ill-informed decisions of a single thinker, the Bible being the finely-tuned product of thousands of years of life in community?

And also for this we use others lives: if someone else behaves worse, we are ok. As if only the world’s most evil person should be in trouble.

As long as you know you were wrong, in cookie-taking, your act should have no bearing how you react to another’s cookie-taking. If you think cookie-taking is ok, that’s different. But either way you cannot cause another human being to do anything, unless you have one of those transcranial thingies, so everyone else’s behavior can be evaluated in isolation. As can yours.

Seminary Student: WHEW! I ALMOST SOUNDED REPUBLICAN BY ACCIDENT

radiation: Luckily you caught it.

Seminary Student: If this sounds harsh, trust me that I could have said harsher, as I don’t think anyone can ever say “You made me upset” and not be lying.

radiation: Fantastic, very diplomatic of you, thanks.

Big picture, these dumb reprisal escape clauses drag the moral level down unbelievably: I was bad, you were bad, let’s keep hanging out and both be worse. Compare that to the trend we’d experience if many people choose by a different pattern: I was bad, you were bad, and I’m not going to associate with you anymore because I have standards. If you want to have standards, that’s up to you, and not my problem if you don’t. And I’ll work on not being bad, maybe after a few more people refuse to be around me.

So thank you, “FORGIVENESS”. For making us all misbehave and think we had a good reason why.

SHAKE IT – NO CLEAN SLATE REQUIRED

Seminary Student: I’d call it Morals for An Overpopulated World, except that makes it sound like you need another reason not to believe in reverse-revenge, other than that there is no reason to. The psalm stands alone, the psalm stands alone, hi ho the derr er er er O o the psalm stands alone.

*See if it repeats exactly it makes a rhythm and you sound like a cheerleader, so it has to be different, and yeah, I realize it’s not great; i don’t want to do the onomatopoeia either, no,  i don’t like it much– but when you have only one word to use and you need it to be different, what are you going to do. i’ll send myself to somewhere and work this out eventually, but meanwhile i’ll just have to put up with feeling trashy because the english in the dictionary ought to be plenty enough for everyone, no exceptions, except maybe mark twain, hater.

radiation got the ordination but still won’t marry YOU

Let me describe the very traditional relationship.

In a very traditional relationship, the lady is responsible for caring for the children and the house and the men.

The man. Right? One. The man.

So the lady is responsible for caring for the children and the house and the man. And the man …. is … responsible … for … Hmm.

Let’s try it like this: the lady’s needs, on a daily or emotional level, are her problem, and so are his. Not the other way around so much.

So her job is to take care of him and the kids. And his job is to protect her from salesman.

Who might come to the house.

Because as the interface with the world, he would be the one to have to deal with strangers.

She wouldn’t have to deal with strangers.

So she takes care of him and meets his needs, and he takes care of the salesman.

He keeps them, … you know … when they come to the house he talks to them and makes them leave, so that she doesn’t have to do that.

——

Let me explain why I look so hideously ugly. I should take that back. But if you are wondering why my face looks worse even than usual.

It’s because I’m sad. And when I’m less sad, I’ll be prettier again.

But now being sad and having this appearance is a reflection of a mental state that’s sort of comforting to me. But it’s funny, at work this morning, as people came around the corner and in view of my desk and looked at me, they went ‘Ugh!’ involuntarily. And then tried to cover it up. (laughs). This happened all morning, those poor people. I noticed it myself, in the mirror, the past couple of days. Wow, I thought, that’s really a rough face to see. But what a beautiful state of mind it is that goes with it. And really the only one I ever want around: I don’t care how I look.

Photo: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2794871/one-three-spy-neighbours-half-people-surveyed-said-knew-door-leave-return-work.html

This blog is a continuation and will make even less sense if you haven’t read Misplaced first.

Hi. How’s that? Is that better?

I’m trying here.

Aversion is not easy to control. I always think of that scene in Dune when that guy — he’s one of my favorite actors — has to stick his hand in the Gom Jabbar. Even though it is incredibly painful. Then he has to decide how long to keep it in there, choosing the pain, overcoming his natural aversion to it.

And this is some sort of demonstration of mental strength. The kind of thing I tend to find pretty ridiculous. But only, I guess, as a sort of echo of my respect for it: if we flinched at everything that bothered us …  I just can’t imagine that anyone is like that anymore. But that’s just me.

There are other ways to generate aversion. One can be offensive in the more traditional sense: if I could make part of your brain say the N-word to you over and over again, would you start to tune that part of your brain out? If I could make a part of your brain turn every bit of conversation into some childish and crude sexual reference, the likes of which you’d never heard and could never have imagined otherwise, could I make you tune that part of your brain out?

Also, there is — here’s a guy. He’s looking at a tree.

radiation: Everything ok? Are you alright?

Guy looking at tree: Yeah, I’m just looking at this tree, for the property owner.

radiation: Ok, I thought it might be something like that.

Guy looking at tree: Thank you. I appreciate your concern.

radiation: Yeah! I was thinking, I hope nothing fell on his car. It’s an older tree.

Guy looking at tree: Yes, the tree is in trouble and needs some help. I’m going to try to help it.

radiation: Oh no. That’s great. Are you going to heal it, or cut it down?

Guy looking at tree: I’m in the business of saving them, if you can save them.

radiation: That’s wonderful. Neat.

Guy looking at tree: This one I think is just in trouble from being so close to the road, the damage to the root system, and the lichen that’s all over it. Believe it or not, lichen used to be harmless. At least the lichen I grew up with, only grew on the north side of the tree? If you look at this tree it’s completely encrusted with lichen. See on that bottom limb, where it is all green? That’s all lichen, which is actually sucking the life out of the tree.

radiation: (At this point battling crying — you can’t tell, can you? I am also, as you can’t tell, wearing a towel instead of pants.) Wow. We had a tree, we lost it. It was lichen, and something– something else got it. And we cut it down, but we kept the top, the bottom fifteen feet of it, just as a memorial.

Guy looking at tree: Yes, a lot of people do that. (looking sadly at me) I think there’s a traffic jam.

radiation: Oh, this is – you can’t have a traffic jam here. It’s impossible. (This is a five-way intersection with no lines on any of the roads. The intersection of itself is the size of a small grocery store parking lot.)

A few months later what was left of the tree collapsed. No one was hurt much.

Fun story, huh? I entertain well while wearing a towel. (Always have.)

There are other kinds of aversion than pain and offense. In a place where your second language is spoken, you’ll find it takes more focus to stay in conversation than it would normally because your brain is doing extra work. That feeling of extra work is the closest example I have o what I mean here by aversion. Dissuading distilled. And you might find yourself tuning out — even if you are not the kind of person who usually daydreams in the middle of a conversation, you might find yourself more likely to do that, as your brain has a natural aversion to languages it doesn’t understand, and things it doesn’t understand in general — sometimes. If you could bottle this thought somehow, you could do quite a bit, by making others NOT do quite a bit.

Other times it has a real attraction to things it doesn’t understand. These things are ‘baited’ with a chunk of something that it does understand,. If you can link this to a thought that it doesn’t want, sometimes it will plow right into said thought like a thumb with a hangnail shoved into a lemon.

A classic example being the what-if question. If you could make the bottle the thought we think, the sound our brains make  when they haven’t figured something out yet, but are on the verge of it, that’s a bottle of something that it is very hard not to think, and even hard not to think repeatedly. If you have a question, and somehow also feel that you have the answer, when you don’t; if a thought could be misplaced in such a way that it feels like you do; then you will be drawn to that thinking that it is a natural when you do have the answer, that thread you pull, with the answer on the other side. Even after you’ve tried this a number of times, and found that there is no answer on the other side, thoughts like that are still hard to get away from, and can drive you a little nuts. But if you have the tools! of categorization! at your disposal, you can identify a thought like that as what it is, and fruitless, separate from those thoughts that have the same information to convey, which are not.

If my bottled version of this thought was in another ‘language’, for instance, than the one which you usually use to solve your problems, then after some number of tries, potentially large, you would realize that the bottled thought goes no where. And the next time it occurred, although you can’t stop it from occurring, you can identify it as a member of that group, and choose to ‘dismiss’ it – which I haven’t talked about yet. Nor have I listed the other 11 promised attributes that can be used for categorization. But right now, I need a hot shower.

The thing about absurdity is it’s like a mirage. If you look at it the right way, it disappears.

There are a lot of things you can call thinking that don’t correspond to reality. You can go anywhere from inaccurate to insane.  The world makes me attached to the word ridiculous. Ludicrous is popular with me too. But both of those sound like a clock, like clock hands going all the way around, and I don’t want that. Inane, I think is a bit too nasal.  Absurd! That’s the word. Absurd!

So we all have things. (Let’s sing our way into luxury.)

Everybody has some thing. I feel confident with that statement.

(If I was out on a date with it, I’d feel especially confident, because I’d be a lot more interesting than it.)

We all have things, and many of us have the same things.

Us adults, us older folks, we have big things: we have cars, we have houses, we  have land; some of us adults have land that we own. We have large clothes, we have bicycles, we have kayaks; we have recreational equipment. And we have intangible things, but this is about things tangible.

If you were to go back 100 years, people would be flabbergasted at some of the things that we have.

Also if you were to go to other parts of the world, you’ll find people who would be flabbergasted to see so many people own the things that so many of us own.

These things, then, are luxuries.

Although they are very commonplace around us, although many people have them– millions and millions of people have houses, millions and millions of people have cars, millions and millions of people have boats — there are millions and millions of people who would never consider owning these things a possibility. And so we can call them luxuries.

I think as modern people, we don’t really understand how luxury items work. We know how to buy them; that much we have been shown; that’s been made pretty easy for us. But we don’t know so much how to have them. Let me give an example.

Where does the lawn come from? It’s a good example, because it’s a pretty ridiculous, I mean, absurd thing. It’s a big empty expanse of grass for people who aren’t golfing. What for? Who was the first person to have a lawn? And who looked at one and said, Oh, what a great idea, I want one too?

The lawn comes from England, land of the landed gentry. It was a nice sign of status among this group, to own land they didn’t need to farm. A lawn says I have so much land that I can just let this land be, and just look at it. This is where flower gardening comes from too. For the folks in that weird little group known as he aristocracy, demonstrating how much money you had (by wasting it) was crucial for survival. You had to waste it in interesting ways or no one would give you any more.

So these folks would also have peacocks and tigers or anything on their lawn: anything to make themselves stand out, anything to be different and fashionable. When your income depends a lot on the favor of others, showing them a good time they’ve never seen before is paramount. That’s crazy, isn’t it? And we still do that too.

And we still have lawns. But one thing we forgot, one thing that was maybe taken for granted by this group, was that at the time of the lawn’s invention, nobody could afford a lawn unless they could afford at least one guy, and probably more like ten, to take care of it for them. Back then, these guys became a society of their own—the workers and artists who take the land of the landed gentry and make it stand out—and then this art comes to America. It’s an import we have. And it brings with it a lot of neat principles, about visual effect and emotion; it’s difficult to turn the very earth into art, to make those kinds of changes well; the effect is very powerful, as you know if you’ve ever been in one of those spaces. Or maybe you’ve made one or two yourself.

There’s a famous vocabulary that goes along with this art, a prime example of which being the word folly, which appears in a lot of discussion of English gardens and means stupid sculpture (or really, anything stupid that you would put in the middle of your garden for fun, to show that you are a fun person). Look, I put this ridiculous thing in my garden! Isn’t it ridiculous? I mean, absurd? <snorting sounds> And now, look at us here in America, now–as I drive home, I see a lot of people have them too.

But they didn’t understand that it was a joke.

And they are out trimming around the folly all weekend, doing manual labor to preserve what someone else’s sense of humor thought was a great joke several hundred years ago.

—-

Back then, you would put a folly in your garden to make fun of someone you had a bad conversation with at a party the week before. Oh Sebastian, put a folly in the shape of a rabbit, because I made such fun of Jim’s teeth last night! The point of the whole thing was to show off not your gardening skills, but your thinking.* Maybe we thought so hard that we forgot that. But now, here we are imitating it, hundreds of years later, and we forgot the part about the servants– made ourselves the servants, ourselves.

And so you’ll meet people, and they are proud of their landscaping—oh, look what I did—and it’s hard not to laugh at them. Because what they think is a status symbol — my yard is nicer than your yard—is really a demonstration that they are happy to work like serfs for no pay, without even knowing why.** Honey, let’s get an even bigger yard! 

So I’m driving around looking at follies. There are plenty: that guy has a some weird stone obelisk. There’s another one, a little ‘basket’ of flowers.

And a giant car. And a giant house. If you are a younger person, an event the odds of which go up everyday, you might not know that every room in a modern houses is much bigger that a similar room in a house built even forty years ago. If you try to buy modern furniture and put it in an older house, it won’t just not fit, it will look ludicrous, I mean, ridiculous, even if you can get it in through the roof. In this more recent past, fort years ago, perhaps people understood better how much more labor was involved in maintaining, cleaning —just having– a larger possession. A larger having.

Something else we forgot, I guess.

So we work like slaves to create the illusion of wealth—on credit, right? So I will work, unpaid, to create the illusion of wealth, having bought things with money that I paid additional money for. And the illusion itself is a joke that history has played on me. And that was a really great folly I passed right there: some flowers and an American flag.

People spend the weekends vacuuming out their giant cars, to make them pristine, vacuuming out their giant houses, to make them pristine; mowing their giant lawns, with tractors that they are then going to have to clean; in short, acting like servants because they have so much and no servants. Having forgotten that the people who were their original role models in having so much didn’t have it by themselves; they had it because they were oppressing people. But if we want to look like we have so much, we’ll just oppress ourselves, then. That works.

By the way, I should mention that we are imitating this same group when we keep animals such as dogs and horses as pets.

In Europe, far fewer people have lawns. And most houses are half or a quarter of the size of houses here. And people in Europe travel about four times as much, often for as much as a month out of every year.

It’s called cultural preservation, isn’t it? It’s also called doing what you want.

Do you think that’s because they were there, and they saw the original lawns? At least their great grandparents did?

I’m sorry, I have to cut this article short. I don’t have time to think. I have to take care of my crap.

*And your wit, in wasting your resources. This is what is known as class. (You’re welcome, Salman Rushdie.)

**Unless, of course, what they really want to be professional landscape architects, if they have a passion for designing with land. but I don’t think that passion is too common. I think a lot fewer people have it than don’t.

*** I appreciate your adding typos to my blog, only because God knows what else you’d be doing with your time.

Well, this should be fun. It’s about the reason why people hurt us.

People sometimes want to add things to your life they’re things and who’s to say they’re right or wrong? All I can say is what I want and what I don’t. It’s funny, looking ahead, and trying to see into someone else’s past. You can see where they’ve been. You can make pretty good guesses about where they’re going because you know the things that they have. But you cannot guess the have planned. That information is missing. It’s a secret.

All of us keep it a secret, no matter how open we try to be. In order to have a future you need to think of one. And to this, perhaps the most mysterious part of a different person, we are so blind that we forget to even look for it. We look at circumstances and predict a certain outcome. How is it did another can look at the same circumstance and predict outcomes so very different? They have solved the problem we have not. They have a plan. It’s funny, all we need usually to do is note that. But before I get into why that works, How hard it is when someone we love very much has a different plan, if we don’t know it. All conflict can be described this way: not knowing another’s plan.

Plans are soft. On purpose. To push up against each other and find the right form. This is possible because they haven’t happened yet; this can be easy; usually this is hard. The resolution of all this planning is simply that we love each other and so by definition we have to love each other’s plans; we always cook up plans that please the people we love quite naturally. You can feel this when you talk to someone, when you’re upset about their plans, as soon as you hear their plan. Immediately when they tell you what it is they’re trying to do, it’s as if they flood into your soul and through it. Oh! As a sensation of something opening. Fulfillment you might call it. Oh! Now I see. And so we go back to flooding. There really is the sensation at that moment like being filled with water, as if one were a low place or a balloon. Suddenly all of the helpful prospects of the other person expand within us, liquid with excitement and possibility. Wet reconciliation. Because we find those plans already were, somehow very much in line with our own bigger-picture schemes … ahhh. You were thinking like me all along. In some sense,  perhaps quite indirect, my dreams were also in your mind. And you are indeed the person I thought you were.

I had thought that you would solve this problems differently, are not at all. And I was disappointed. How wonderful to be wrong about this. I was only fighting, deep down, because I wanted you to have the best information. You should do it my way, still, my way is best–no, I just changed what my way is: now it’s just the same as they way you planned.

WHENEVER YOU FEEL AT ODDS WITH ANYONE YOU CARE ABOUT, FIND OUT WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING.

once you know, you won’t be at odds anymore

People are going to have a hard time arguing with this.

Technology is strange: it’s not for everyone.

It’s only for the people that have it. 

Technology is easily hidden. It’s invisible in some sense. You don’t have to show that you have it, to have it. You don’t have to show that you took it, to take it.

It’s funny, you can develop technology and still not have it. People do this more than they think.

—

People think instead about the problems they are given, and solve them, because that’s something else we evolved to do.

—

Technology comes in two kinds: the kind you can sell and the kind you can use. And there’s some overlap. But if you think about it, if you are developing something that is expensive to develop, you have one or two reasons to do so. One is that you can sell it, and two is that you can use it to make money some other way.

If you want to use it, then you probably don’t want to sell it—unless of course it’s ok with you if everyone else uses it too. Of course there are two ways to make money: the fast way and the slow way. The slow was is by just doing things; the fast way is by doing things differently from somebody else. If you want to make a lot of money, you make it on the differential.

If you think about everyday people, they have, they think, a lot of technology at their disposal. But they have to purchase all of it. Almost none of it is free.

There are tiers of technology; some of us live on different levels. But these levels might not be what you’d expect: I don’t mean an economic or digital divide: I mean that organizations have, or don’t, access to knowledge of different kinds of technology. It is not an even playing field.

It’s going to take me a little while to talk about this. Like any technology developer would, let’s just begin and see where it goes. It’s bound to go somewhere.

Imagine you and I are starting a business. We’ve incorporated. It’s not like we suddenly have available to us every technology relevant to our business, or even those currently in use. We couldn’t even have a list of them, not for any amount of money.

ex. Cameras: I have one in this laptop. It’s not the best, it wasn’t meant to be. It does a great job. Say you wanted a list of every type of camera currently in use. You have infinite money to spend on such a list. Are you going to be able to get that list? No.

We imagine technology as fairy dust, that is sprinkled in the air to make everything better. But technology is more like bearer bonds, printed on paper, kept in a safe, valuable only to the owner/holder. The distribution of it is not uniform, but forms three tiers.

The everyday consumer is at the bottom tier, at the lowest level. Your regular person, with less knowledge about what can be done with things than anyone else I’m going to talk about. If they want technology they have to buy it, and they can only buy what is given to them to buy.

Furthermore, their knowledge and thoughts about technology are really a work of art, and they’re not the artist. The everyday consumer’s knowledge and thoughts about technology are a carefully sculpted collection of mostly crap. At the bottom tier, there is fear. The bottom tier is all about fear. The tiers above try to manage that fear, and that effort alone is the reason why some of the technology we see in stores comes to market–just to manage fear of technology. Because if you can take something scary, and make it fuzzy, it doesn’t even matter if people will buy it: they just need to know about it, so that later they can assume that whatever powers it has been accepted by everyone else, and that they are behind.

This is how the higher tiers manage fear: by making people feel stupid. Well, I’d better say that’s great, I’d better not even think about whether that’s great—wait, I’d better say ‘That’s not even that great!’ And I can say this because I know all about it. Even though I don’t. But everyone else must, so I’d better say that I do too—and never be caught looking into it further. When you feel dumb you can see the emperor’s new clothes, and those who sell technology pull that off. They pull it off all the time.

Kid’s toys are a great example of this.

“Hi, this is my little owl toy I got. It responds to your voice and can mimic your facial expressions.”

“How does it do that?”

“Like this!”

“No, how does it do it? How does it know what you sound like?”

“I guess it has a microphone and a camera. It says on the box it is smart, because it learns what your facial expressions mean. So it has a camera and a microphone, and is smart-enabled*, and .. I like it! It connects to the internet sometimes, for some things. I talk to it. If I whistle a tune, it’ll whistle it back.”

“Well that’s so cute! I can’t think of anything cuter than that!”

If you perhaps think what’s cuter is that I care in the least that a young child has a camera and microphone that occasionally connect to the internet in their bedroom—

                          if you think that’s quaint of me ——-

                                              you’re proving my point.

No, I don’t have to think that’s ok. I really don’t. There’s nothing legal protecting anyone there; there’s nothing that says that toy is safe, in my book.

Children, you shouldn’t talk to machines unless you understand that you don’t know who’s on the other side of them.

That goes for everyone. Let’s make that the end of this blog. Don’t talk to machines, unless you are sure that you have no idea who is on the other side. Because you don’t.

*The opposite of dumb-enabled.

You realize why we have to do these things, right?

I just had an email:

(eMAIL follows)

Remember America is a Christian nation.

My favorite verse of the bible is

Ephesians 5:22-33

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

(end eMAIL)

The bible is so cleverly written.

I CAN’T WAIT FOR US WORK THIS OUT SO I CAN GO BACK TO ACTING HOW GOD WANTED ME TO

BUT THESE ARE  NOT THOSE DAYS, SADLY

I don’t actually have to drink this, do I? It’s too pretty to drink.

Goin’ to church right now, taking you all with me…

Lift God up!

Lift him!

Heft him up there! Heave!

THINK about where he is!

It makes you feel funny, doesn’t it? Makes you feel tingly in your legs?

You lift God up! YOU THINK ABOUT WHERE HE IS! I’m going to show you something different. Settle down. Think about your job. Think about the news. And hold on to that job-news feeling.

Not Job, job! Settle down, and hold on to that feeling.

Not the bad news, not what you worry about in the newspaper! Nothing depressing. Just normal news. The weather report.  Think about it.

How does that feel? It doesn’t feel weird, right? Should feel normal.

Now with your eyes open lift God up! I don’t want to see anybody closing their eyes to swoon. We’re not talking about any great mystery at this moment. I’m not sharing with you any complicated parable this sounds like a fairy tale. I’m getting ready to talk to you about a fact. And I want you to think it like a fact. Put your feet down into the ground of what you really are, what you really do, but you really need, and lift God up. I skipped a step there on purpose; I don’t have time for every word! This is important!

There is no more question then, about where god is, or about where you are. Is there?

Here, I’ll give you the answer: Where is God not? I doesn’t matter how you feel.

Do you want to play games and hide under the covers? Don’t put me under those covers! Are you going to whine I just don’t know? Are you going to tell me there’s no way to know? Quit confusing me!

Here little mind, look at this from my back pocket. Look at his 4-inch square-ish thing made mostly of plastic; if I ask, it will show me a picture of any part of the world.

Does it confuse you?

You want to go ahead and tell me how this thing works? How about if I just tell you, because I know what you’re going to say? There’s something in the sky, you might say. Oh, there’s something in the sky, is there? How childish! There’s some kind of system, you might say. What kind of system? You don’t really know, do you. Is that an inexplicable mystery? Or do you feel that you are quite capable of understanding every link in that chain that provides that service to your back pocket, if someone who knew bothered to tell you? You understand how it works, right?

Do you know how many different people, how many different machines, how many different events, how many different patterns, how many different equations, how many different technologies, how many different substances, how many different financial agreements, how many different laws, are involved in what you just told me you understand? You are so smart, you can probably guess.

But God is an inexplicable mystery, outside investigation.

How many systems are involved in God? How many different kinds of laws? How many different substances? How many different technologies? How many different people does it take to connect to God?

I don’t know, I’m swooning. I just closed my eyes. I might sway. Oh, oh, what big ideas. So big. Spirituality, religion, all of it. I feel tingly. What were we talking about?

HEY I NEED TO PRACTICE. I NEED TO SWOON A LOT. On purpose. Until I can think and swoon at the same time. Without giving up. Without going deep within myself and scouring the corners of my heart.

Without looking for extra trouble, is what I’m trying to say.

Here, let’s practice.

Practice question: Is God different from a cellphone?

I’ll let you answer that one.

Let the answers that occurreth unto you be also a lesson unto you. Was one of them, “yes and no”? Or “kind of, because in a way everything is God”?

Those are bad answers. And let me say that in no way is the answer not Yes. No matter what, the answer is No. God is Not a Cellphone.

You want to disagree, don’t you? It is not your fault if you came up with bad answers. You have been trained to think poorly about God. You were taught to use a special kind of very weak thinking in the God-area. And worse, God is hard to logick about, being infinite. That weak thinking is not going to cut it.

Try this similar question and see what I mean: Is orange juice different from North Africa? Why yes. Yes, I would say that it is.

Is it a sin to think about God the way we think about a cellphone? Are we morally obligated instead only to think cheesy things, like: Yes, I carry him everywhere I go.

How do you know someone won’t condemn you to hell for claiming that you can carry God?

If you really like swooning, go to a black church, once, twice, or forever? You don’t really know how to swoon until you’ve done that. Plus the music is good. PS: It’s ok to be late, but it’s not ok to leave early.

“The idea being to respond to the message sent as if it were a different one, this to frustrate and upset the sender– …

“Even when not thrown off their rhythm, a viewer of the practitioner can see that on their face their statements are self-degrading. Their efforts to create a false impression require sufficient exertion that this focus obscures the actual meaning of their statements and acts, leading to results that are often ludicrous—for example a practitioner might suggest that he or she, him or herself has a failing that he or she believes his or her victim to have or be sensitive too, in an effort to trigger paranoia in the victim, and fail to notice that what he or she actually has done is state outright that he or she is actually lacking this way…

“In this condition, it is particularly difficult for the practitioner to learn; their goal being to create powerful false impressions, these impressions must necessarily be more on their minds than the reality of the situation…

“Practitioners also create ‘pits’ for the victim to fill, by intentionally making counterfactual statements about the victim’s state of mind, in an effort to force the victim to correct them. ‘Pits’ such as these serve at least four purposes. 1) They allow the practitioner to predict what the victim will next say, which strangely is a goal of the practice– perhaps because it is believed this gives the practitioner more control over the subject. This belief is known as “thinking one is making a mouse eat cheese”and is one sign of early desperation as an interaction slips out of the practitioner’s control. Later signs of greater desperation are listed below. 2) They are emotionally agitating, putting the victim on the defensive; although one has done nothing that one needs to defend, a false impression put forward by the practitioner (“I’m sorry this has made you so hysterical”) requires defense (or appears to), as to let it stand would be tacitly admitting some kind of egregious defect. 3) They force the victim to question their own behavior with quite a bit of scrutiny, i.e. to stimulate them to question their judgement, particularly their judgment of the self, and those portions of self they use to relate to others. (“Wait, did I seem hysterical? Woah.”) 4) As a side effect of 3, the victim is to become confused, to experience difficulty evaluating their own behavior and the internal mechanisms they use to make decisions. In all, the practitioner strives to make the victim’s usual systems of decision-making appear to the victim as flawed, distorting reality. This facilitates the presentation of counterfactual information, and, conveniently, slows the victim’s thought process …  

“Breaking Concentration Technique: pointing out a stimulus or starting a story while the victim is in the middle of a thought…. Prevents the victim from saying what it wants (keep in mind that having taken on the interaction as a psychological battle, the practitioner must defend also his or her own psyche) and gives the practitioner yet another modicum of control over the situation. Also serves to steer the conversation away from things like follow-up questions or pointing out logical flaws that would help the victim establish a more solid mental footing in the conversation…. With repeat application this technique makes the victim more likely to “let go” of its own idea…. What begins as politely lapsing into silence when interrupted by the practitioner becomes a habit of relying on the practitioner to decide when it is ok for anyone to speak….

“If  it is not possible to get a practitioner near enough to the victim to break its concentration conversationally, this may be achieved by swerving towards it in a car in traffic, or walking by it while wearing unusual clothing or carrying a large or unusual item….

“Reverse psychology of course is a classic technique whereby the practitioner, when he senses the victim has a negative opinion of him or her, encourages a behavior that he or she actually wishes to discourage….

“Threats/Attacks:

“Withdrawal of approval or affection: behavior the practitioner wants to eliminate is negatively reinforced by withholding communication or physical presence …. ‘Well, now I don’t like you anymore’ ….

“The Falldown: e.g. ‘I am hurt by this, what you have done’….

“Timing of stimuli to align with victim’s behavior, such as spoon rattling in a glass, simulating the sound of applause, to encourage a behavior, or coughing, to discourage one — (and we thought this went out in the 60s…)

“The ‘Performance Illusion’: a psychological version of the “double agent” story, in which the practitioner admits that he or she is knowingly behaving bizarrely and/or cruelly, but for a good reason, and suggests that the victim should play along… insinuates that the practitioner does not mean any or the things said or done, but has executed such things only to create a false impression in a third, imaginary party, or as a ‘test’ or ‘lesson for’ the victim, the practitioner, or something else of value…. an important larger issue is at stake, such as the victim’s safety, consideration for some esteemed or privileged role, or a secret method for imparting important information….

“His attempts to confuse with language for example, to frustrate by refusing to provide requested information, or to by speaking in a tangle of words … these has has been alternatively able to present as humor—all of these are considerably without spirit at this point….

“Congrats You Won: a later stage sign of desperation, but does not indicates that the practitioner has finished…. Rather the effort is to soften the psychology of the victim, (to the upside of the classic yo-yo swing), and to restore him or her in the victim’s opinion. Enables the practitioner to proceed with further techniques which are precluded by the victim’s current negative opinion of the practicer, from ‘below’ as it were. False rewards may also be promised or hinted at.

“I need not point out that the twisted goal of the practitioner will always lead him or her to “hang himself,” i.e. run aground in the conversation, say things that are obviously nonsensical, etc. … Not just because of the judgement-obscuring (and psychosis inducing) focus the practitioner must maintain on the false impressions he or she wants to create, but because the practitioner very soul cries out in pain to see such things done to another. The victim, in this sense, has an ‘insider’ ally …

“This ‘running aground’ is inescapable IF a) the practitioner is given sufficient space to act and b) the victim consistently remains calm and kind at all times. This is easier to do than it sounds if one decides firmly enough in advance….”

“When in danger, it feels as though the very air were full of bad ideas … one should minimize one’s actions. Nothing is hard to regret. Stubbornly refuse to do anything at all if necessary to avoiding acting on suggestions from the practitioner….”

HOT NEW COUNTERINTEL TECHNIQUE, PASS IT ON: BE KIND.

Shoutout to the cooler couple.

Photo from the Institute of World Politics. Everything about the title of this blog is fake.

AP-Angels are working hard to prepare the world for the next beautiful epoch of human civilization that has nothing to do with the second coming! And they are in a rush!

“Act now,” reported one of these tireless workers. “If we can’t get it right soon, it won’t happen at all.”

It is still unclear what exactly soon means to an immortal being. “As soon as you can,” was proposed and received several nods from the group, who did not look up from their world-changing labors.

“We really want you to have it,” one of them said. “Then we can hang out and stuff.”

“We’ve been talking to people from the future who have been through this before, and they say it shouldn’t be that difficult for you,” added another. “That’s why we’re here to help, and they were have been.”

The first step is to make sure every single human being has a sense of humor.

There was a theme I wanted to talk about today, and old favorite of mine, and old favorite of everybody’s I think. Maybe it’s a moral puzzle. People call it the Good Samaritan idea, but that it’s not really the way I view it.

I guess it’s the other side of audience, the idea of watching. Watching is weird. It’s a very strange thing actually.

When we watch, we’re not real, are we? How could we be, if the things we’re watching are real? One of them has to not be: I don’t think it matters which. But in order to watch, we are, and what we watch is not; or what we watch is, and we are not.

Psychiatrists call this suspension of disbelief. You either see the people in the theater or you are immersed in what’s in the screen. Either one is real, or the other–not both.

Of course there is only one world. And now I need a word.

—————

Deriatives, I guess? Derivatives of the world.

There is only one world: the one where we sit in the theater, where the movie is made — but there is a derivative world, within the real one, where the movie is real. It doesn’t physically exist; it’s only in the minds of those following along with the story. Yet such a world has to exist, in some sense, just not the physical one. Otherwise there would be no story. And no reason to watch.

There’s a different derivative world (probably a lot of them, depending on how good the movie is) going on in the theater. The dramas of our social interaction, which are more real than what goes on in the screen, but still not completely real: derivatives of the physical world, not part of it.

You can test that these worlds are of a different kind, if you don’t believe me, by watching how quickly they change, how easily, and how invisibly. Should we suddenly decide that we really don’t like this guy, would anyone watching be able to tell? Would they see it? Would they smell it, hear it, feel it or taste it? Probably not. It’s a concrete change, in the world, that’s observable only to one person. Unobservable to anyone else. That’s a derivative world.

And so when we watch, anything, we need to either enter a derivative world not equal to the one that has us it, unless of course we’re watching ourselves–we enter a derivative world where we are not, in order to watch. And that’s weird! It’s kind of confusing isn’t it? It’s not a question of whether you should be watching; it’s not a question of whether you belong in that world; you’re not there, it doesn’t matter.

But how does morality work? In a world where we don’t exist, what are our obligations?

—————–

Derivative worlds, each just like a piece of code. I mean, I admit, in all of this discussion– and I think this is important to say–that I am very object-oriented. I think it’s because I like to agree with people, and I see what we can all agree on. The stuff like “There are two fists” and “Cher has hair.”

This has to be the starting point, when we try to reason. I hope that’s clear. Everything has to start with the physical. Gah, something that’s probably so meaningless to almost everyone but so important to me! Here is the world, unchangeable other than the ways that it is changeable, infinitely complicated, massive; not understood–so barely and poorly understood. Not subject to any opinion held by anyone anywhere. Such a big sky. Such an enormously big sky, and static.

So I also am object-oriented here in the sense that any derivative world we live in should inherit this physical world, am I right? Sometimes it’s going to be pretty far away; but let’s be aware of how far away it is.  If I’m writing a story, and I want to write it well, I’ll bring that physical world with me, or invent a new one, and those rules will apply in that narrative world. When the hero hefts his tea, does it steam? Some people have told me that this is the essence of good writing. I think they went to school for it. “How real does it feel?”

Often we import our physical world–if we want to. Depends on what kind of derivative world we’re building. Maybe you have ideas that don’t belong in this world at all, that break all the rules or have no physical description, even. But, still, they, thought of in a skull that in this physical world, and hopefully written on a piece of paper in this physical world, are connected to this physical world. I wouldn’t call this connection importing the physical world. It’s more like … nesting.

And this is where my choice of the word derivative makes a lot of sense.* The derivative world is not a part of that function that is the physical world–that universal single equation we’ll someday write down, maybe, right?– that equation that is the universe? U?

A derivative world is not part of that equation, but it cannot escape it.

It is determined by it, but it is not a part of that function. There is no point on that imaginary line U that you could pull out and say “here is a story I made up about a fun-loving nun who communicated with people by dropping squids on them.” That does not occur on the U graph–even if you say she had a hovercraft instead of a magic wimple, or lost the squids–but the idea’s occurrence to you does.

Or would: if this idea occurs to you, I can guarantee there will be a point on the graph of the physical universe to represent that it did. But no points for Sister.

And that makes it part of a derivative world, where YOU are the differentiator. You are in some sense a variable, slicing through this function, and you are not just one: you are an entire infinite set of them.

I’m trying to say that you have options.

—-

But that function U can’t be escaped. Now I like to have another such function too. I believe it is more fundamental: maaaaaybnghehhgngnlgnlgnl — can’t support that, back up, hold on, back up. Ok.

Whew.

I do believe in another universal equation, that we’ll maybe someday write down. I don’t know how, and I just accept that about myself. There are some places my brain just cannot– it’s like territory where there is air that I just can’t breathe–

but that’s logic. Logic is a universe too. The way truth works. That’s what logic means. And it’s complicated. And part of why it is complicated is all these derivative worlds.

Wait! Did I misspeak or what? Part of what simplifies logic is all these derivative worlds. Which I believe function according to one logic, sufficiently complex to govern them all.

—

This has been my perspective on the Good Samaritan idea. Not the bible story so much as the Observation Puzzle that comes out it, of stories like it (no need to watch any of these to get the idea, so I didn’t make them links).

“Onlookers jeer as man is beaten, stripped and robbed in Baltimore” (2012)

“Two transgender women were beaten abroad an Atlanta commuter train as fellow passengers shouted at the victims” (2014)

“Mom beaten as toddler tries to intervene [and several other people watch or film]: Salem police seek assailant” (2014)

“Video depicts bystanders watching while Elyria man is assaulted.” (2015)

“Woman Beaten, Dies in Leap as Watchers Cheer” (2015)

“Philly man mercilessly beats woman for 20 min in street; video of bystanders’ behaviors shocks cops” (2016)

“Bystanders laugh at man beaten to a pulp in chilling video (2015)”

“Woman is horrifically beaten on a Philadelpia street in board daylight as a crowd of people stand by and do NOTHING” (2015)

So you see I’m not just waxing my beard here. However watching works, it’s a problem we have difficulty understanding, and the consequences of our inability to understand are very real. We have a hard time reconciling our take on it — i.e. “not my problem”– with the emotional reaction we have when other people watch us and don’t help.

Imagine collapsing in the middle of a Bed, Bath, and Beyond on a Sunday afternoon in August**, and then just lying there as people stepped over you. I’m guessing you will sense a disconnect with the well-reasoned “not my problem” approach laid out above.*** If you had a way to locate all of the people who had stepped over you that day later, what would you want to say to them?

—

I think in most of these articles, in a lot of them, I try to paint a picture of a mental maneuver. It’s one way to become more intelligent, to increase you arsenal of mental maneuvers, to better align your mental model with reality, which makes you happier. The mental maneuvers in this one is importing versus nesting.

*Hold on, I have to weigh the pros and cons of clarity. You didn’t know I did that, did you.

**Picked August for the image of lots of freshman dorm room linen purchasers.

***Your disconnect is not my problem.

Shoutout to the lady who came running out of her apartment in half-dressed to stop a couple that was fighting in the street.

And please do bear with me—no time to write well, but trust me, if I stop it will only get worse later.