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Teliot State

24 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, creativity, politics, psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

America, citizenship, Democracy, Dictatorship, essay, leader, USA

What is cancer? 

A piece of life that has forgotten its heritage. 

Cancer thinks it sprung to life all on its own. 

Cancer has not only “forgotten the face of its fathers” (as Stephen King’s gunslinger says).

Cancer has forgotten the fact that it even had fathers and mothers. 

Cancer has forgotten the fact that its life is made easier, every day because of those who went before.

Cancer has forgotten that every little victory it feels today comes about because of millions of choices and struggles of other lives that went before.

Cancer doesn’t care.

Cancer acts as though it is the only life form in the universe that really “counts.” 

Throughout history, there have been many individuals who act as cancer.

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A few of them have gotten into positions of power and used that power to blackmail, strong-arm, and manipulate others into joining the cancer. Their “relationships” are based on lies and power. 

Now, we live in an atomic era when cancerous people in power use that power to restrict the ability of their own people to know the truth. 

We live in an atomic era when cancerous people in power threaten to use atomic weapons unless they get their way. 

Cancerous leadership has never been a good thing in the same way that having a cancerous tumor in your body has never been a good thing. 

Perhaps you think: well, I don’t really care much about politics. 

Okay, then what do you care about? 

Sports? Guess what. Sports are ruined by dick-taters. Outcomes can be predetermined or overturned by the dick-tater. Cheating becomes common. If you don’t “toe the line” politically, you won’t be able to play or you’ll be imprisoned or poisoned. 

Business? Maybe you just care about business. Guess what. Business success is determined by how much “protection” money you pay to the dick-tater. Whoever pays the most will succeed. And, even then you aren’t safe. When business people become too successful under a dick-tater, the dick-tater destroys them and takes their assets. Just like Putrid. 

Your family? Maybe you focus your attention on your family so you don’t really care about whether you live in a dick-tater$hit. You should care. Under dick-taters, the children are taught to spy on and inform the authorities if the parents do something “bad.” Of course, since it’s a dick-tater$hit, what counts as “bad” can change from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And your children might or might not understand what you actually said. No matter. Turning in the parents will be a “feather in their cap.” How do you think that will change your family? Husbands and wives are also encouraged to turn on one another. Romantic love and family love — these are antithetical to a totalitarian state. Everyone should love the dick-tater more than anyone in their own family. And, they’ll be asked to prove it. Tell your teen-ager they can’t date a drunkard. Yeah, that might make sense. But understand: if they get upset with your parental guidance, they may turn you in. They’ll make up crap. There’s no burden of proof in the courts that are run by a dick-tater. The dick-tater doesn’t really even care whether you’re guilty or not. Having an innocent person jailed for crimes against the state, especially if they’re turned in by their spouse or kid — that sends a nice strong message to everyone else in the Teliot. 

You may have thought I was going to end that paragraph with the word “country.” I considered that. But it no longer a real country. It is more akin to a toilet. In an ordinary toilet, the waste is flushed. But in a dick-tater$hit, the waste is kept. Whatever is decent, honest, truthful, creative, loving — that is what is flushed away. Instead of a country, you have a reverse toilet — a Teliot. 

Not caring whether or not you and your family and friends live in a dick-tater$hit — that makes exactly as much sense as not caring whether or not you and your family and friends have cancer. 

“I don’t care if I have cancer, because I’m really into sports!” 

Huh? 

If you die, you can’t play or even watch sports. 

“I don’t care if I have cancer, because I really care about my business!” 

Huh? 

If you die, you can’t run a business. 

“I don’t care if I have cancer, because I care about my family!” 

Huh?

Maybe ask your family whether cancer affects them. 

“Well,” you might say, “Democracies are far from perfect too!” 

That’s true. Democracies are not perfect. Sometimes, people are unfair, even in democracies. Sometimes people are cruel. Sometimes people are corrupt. 

Similarly, even if you are cancer free, you might stub your toe, or cut your finger shaving or slicing vegetables. You might sprain your ankle. And a few people will die in auto accidents. Does that mean it doesn’t matter whether or not you have cancer? Cancer, if left untreated, will necessarily be bad. It is the very nature of cancer to be bad. 

Imagine a world in which you don’t just suddenly “get cancer.” You don’t have some weird symptom, go to the doctor, have some tests and find out you “have cancer.” No. Imagine that the only way you get cancer is if you choose to have cancer. You go to the doctor and he offers you a choice: “Would you like cancer? I can give you some, really cheap.”

Imagine a society who decides, “People stub their toes and get sick anyway so let’s all get cancer!” 

Imagine a society who decides: “People aren’t perfect under a democracy so let’s have a dick-tater run the country!” 

Photo by Pierpaolo Riondato on Pexels.com

Maybe all you really care about is food. Guess what? Food will be worse under a dick-tater$hit. Regulations about food safety will be rolled back. Your food will be more tainted. 

Maybe all you really care about is art. Guess what? Art will be regulated under a dick-tater. In the Teliot State, the good stuff will all be flushed away, along with the artists who produced those works. The dick-tater will decide which are gets presented and most will be commissioned to glorify the dick-tater. 

In the Teliot State, everything good is tainted. Everything good dies. Everyone decent is suppressed. Even the military is tainted, as the ineptitude of the massive Putrid war effort reveals. The police. The courts. The politicians. The shopkeepers. The business tycoons. The teachers. The parents. The kids. Everyone must allow the cancer of totalitarianism to invade and corrupt their body, their mind, their soul. 

Democracy is hard. I grant that. And often it is messy. But it is a path to life. The Teliot State is a path to death. Don’t believe me. Ask the Russian journalists who have been disappeared. If you can find them. Ask their families. Ask the mothers of the thousands of Russian soldiers who were sent off to die — supposedly to “liberate” Russian speaking Ukrainians. A big fat lie, of course. Everything is based on lies in a Teliot State.



Don’t believe me. Ask the Russian athletes who are banned from international competitions.

Don’t believe me. Ask the families of the Russian oligarchs who were murdered in the last few days. Oh, wait you can’t, because they were killed too.

Don’t believe me. Ask the Ukrainians how much they’re enjoying their “liberation” so far. Ask the raped women. Ask the mutilated children. Ask the dead. Ask the tortured. 

I’ve known many people who have had cancer. The treatments are painful and dangerous. But they’re still generally better than letting cancer take over. Because once cancer starts, it wants to take over everything. Cancer finds it distracting from its past failures so it keeps wanting to try to conquer new parts of the body. Same with Putrid. 

Like all dick-taters, Putrid delivers far less than he promises. Of course he does. The Teliot State squelches incentives, creativity, innovation, truth, science, medicine, and life itself. To some degree Putrid and his ilk, tell lies about how well they’re doing, but the truth cannot be totally hidden from the people. So, Putrid, like all dick-taters is terrified of having the people find out just what a horrendously bad job he’s doing. That’s why he lies to the public and makes sure everyone else tells the same lies. If people don’t realize what a horrible job he’s doing, maybe an angry mob won’t tear him to shreds. 

What better way to distract from your own failures than blame someone else? 

So Putrid blames the west, NATO, the EU, the UN, Ukrainians, oligarchs who don’t spent enough time kissing his a$$, military commanders — in short, everyone but himself. 

Remember the Berlin Wall? That was not erected by the West Germans to prevent poor people from East Berlin coming in and taking stuff. That was put in place by the Russian dick-taters to keep East Berliners from finding out just how bad off they were under the communist totalitarianism than were their brothers and sisters and cousins living in a democracy right next door! People were killed trying to get into West Berlin. 

Every day, all around the world, people are trying to escape the cancer of the Teliot State. They risk their lives to do that. Why do you suppose they would do that? Because they have seen first hand what a stench-filled place a Teliot State becomes. The criminals run the Teliot State. 

There may be honor among some thieves, but not among the sort of thieves who aspire to being dick-taters. They literally kill other members of their own families just so they can feel more assured none of them will try to replace them.That happened fairly recently in Saudi Arabia and in N. Korea. Putrid is now killing his oligarch supporters to strike even more fear into his fellow Russians. “See? You think I won’t kill you if you don’t support me? This long-time ally and friend had the nerve to ask me whether I should stop this war. The nerve! So, I killed him and his family.” 

Maybe Putrid felt a teeny surge of heroism when the gave the order to kill his allies for gently questioning his wisdom, but mainly he did it to make sure every Russian understood the message: “I’ll kill anyone for anything so you do what I say or you’ll be next.”

As the Wicked Witch of the West once famously observed, “These things must be done delicately. “ So, Putrid made these murders look a little bit like suicide, but they were carried off with the same MO at almost the same time so that everyone in the country would get the message that these were killings ordered by the Teliot Tyrant but that everyone was supposed to act as though they were suicides.

The Russian people are in a tough spot. Ideally, they would rise up as one and get rid of the maniac; rid themselves of cancer. Ideally. But it’s a lot to ask. It’s one thing to go to a surgeon to put you under anesthetic and have them remove a cancerous growth. It’s quite another to perform the surgery yourself on your own body! Tom Hanks, in Castaway damn near killed himself taking out a bad tooth. It took a lot of nerve. And it will take more to take out a cancerous growth. But what choice is there? If you don’t kill the cancer, the cancer will kill you.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels.com



Meanwhile, we still have a choice. Do we want to put a monstrous cancer in charge of our country? And, that will not just mean that they are put in charge of government. Please understand, once in charge of government, they work to be in charge of everything up to and including your sex life. Before you decide that’s a good idea because everybody should have sex just the way you like it, you’d better understand that a dick-tater could just as easily decide and implement a policy that everyone should be trans or that everyone should be gay. At first, of course, a dick-tater$hip will implement policies that are supported by either a majority or at least supported by a violent minority. They need some support to gain absolute power. But not to keep it. Once they control the police, the courts, the army, they don’t need to institute policies that are popular any longer. They can institute any policy that benefits them. Any. Policy. Including your worst nightmare. It doesn’t matter what they say now. It doesn’t matter what they “really” believe. It doesn’t matter how many people agree with a position. Once they have absolute power, they will make it stick. They will accompany an unpopular policy with a host of lies to make it more palatable. These lies will not be debunked by the “free press” because there won’t be any. And if you yourself do not repeat these lies, you are subject to arrest — or worse. 

Given any absurdity, given any cruel and stupid policy, I can write a paragraph of lies “explaining” why we’re doing this. Of course, it will typically be pretty transparent, but so what? It doesn’t have to stand up to debate. It doesn’t have to stand up to an election. It doesn’t have to stand up to the scrutiny of a free press. Everyone will be required to recite said paragraph. Everyone in such a society knows in their hearts that the policy is bad. And everyone knows in their hearts that they themselves are being evil by perpetrating it. 

Can you image how that feels inside? To know that you are doing what you yourself know to be wrong, and yet, you feel compelled to do that evil every single day. On top of that, you’re required to encourage others to do that evil and to lie about it. It’s a whole evil and elaborate charade and every participant dies inside. But it makes the dick-tater feel good. The dick-tater is the only beneficiary.

In Russia right now, there are about 150,000,000 losers and one “winner.” Ultimately, the only person who benefits is Putrid. I have to qualify “ultimately” because of course, in the short run, some see a short term benefit of some kind (not be put in prison, receive bribe, steal neighbor’s wife, get his son a better grade) but at the same time, no matter how much people try to rationalize it, they know they are doing wrong. 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

In the USA, right now, we still have a democracy. But it’s hanging by a thread. There is nothing “conservative” about destroying democracy & instituting a dick-tater$hit. This is not a question of conservative versus liberal or left versus right. We can have those debates in a democracy because they are meaningful. Debates are shows in a dick-tater$hit. They are not meaningful. It doesn’t really matter to the dick-tater what philosophy he purports to adopt. One dick-tater might call themselves a “Communist” and the next one might call themselves a “Nazi” and the next might call themselves “Bicameral” and the next “Hufflepuff” — The dick-tater doesn’t believe any of those philosophies. Their “philosophy” is that the only thing that matters is them and whatever they feel like should determine what everyone does. And, if he goes absolutely insane and insists everyone in the country should all go eat poison ivy three times a day, most will pretend they did it and some will actually go do it. And on TV, there will be testimonials from people who ate poison ivy and it cured their gout or their heart disease or their “Ravenclaw” tendencies. People who die from eating poison ivy will not be counted in the official total as having died from poison ivy. It will be listed perhaps as “political putrefaction” but the world will find out fairly quickly. 

Eventually, so will the Russian people. But by that time, something else cancerous happens first. People who survived the purges of Stalin, by definition, are more pro-Stalin and acted to please him more than the millions who were put to a fast or slow death. And the pro-Stalin survivors acted evilly for decades under him. One way to assuage your guilt about doing evil for a long time is to convince yourself that it isn’t really evil. The dick-taters like Stalin will give you a reason that you can tell yourself. The dick-tater knows it’s a lie; you know it’s a lie; everyone outside of Russia who thinks about it knows it’s a lie. But it makes you feel a little better. You start by habitually doing evil. Then you begin to habitually feel bad. Then, you find that believing the lies of the dick-tater makes you feel a little better. And now you have told yourself the lie so long that you actually come to believe it. That, in turn, means there is a lot of truth that you cannot listen to. You not only repeat Russian propaganda, you also self-censor because you don’t want to hear the voices of Western journalists, etc.; they will only make you question that which you do not want to question. 

Question yourself now. Before it’s too late. Too late for you. Too late for the world. 

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Author Page on Amazon

Absolute is not just a Vodka

Dick-Taters

Clarence not Darrow

Cancer always loses in the end

Addictions 

You Bet Your Life

Checks and Balances 

What about the butter dish?

Happy talk lies

My Cousin Bobby 

The stopping rule

The update problem

Con-Con’s Special Friend

Sonnet of Vlademort

Siren Song

Imagine all the people

Voter suppression is life suppression

Choose your weapons

Poppa goes the weasel

Their dead shark eyes

The dance of billions

Choose Your Weapons!

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

beauty, essay, flower, flowers, guns, photos, USA

“Choose your weapons.” 

An expression that perhaps goes back to the Roman Coliseum or “gentlemanly” dueling. What is a weapon? What can it mean to say, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”? 

A few years ago, I decided to try a little experiment. I knew that studies showed that owning a handgun did not, in general, make you safer. Actually, it was the reverse. Nonetheless, I thought perhaps I would feel safer. For one week, I imagined that my cellphone was a lethal weapon. I could pull it out and cause someone else horrendous pain or to end their life or both. As you might imagine, I did not feel more secure or safer. I felt more paranoid about others but also afraid I might accidentally shoot someone. 

In the middle of Monday night, one of our cats turned over some cat bowls and made a huge ruckus. I immediately yelled bloody murder and jumped out of bed. I would not want to have a gun if I’m awakened like that. My body is primed for action and my mind is not yet anywhere to be found. I literally have no idea as to what’s going on. It only last a few moments. But those few moments are enough time to grab a gun and shoot someone. And that someone is far more likely to be someone in your family than a home invader. Maybe they left a book in your room and couldn’t sleep so they came into your room to retrieve it. I don’t really think an error like that is self-forgivable. Your mood would be altered much to the negative for the rest of your life. The only alternative would be to shut off your feelings so completely that you literally became a heartless monster. 

What occurred to me tonight taking pictures of flowers, as one is wont to do, is making a much better use of the iPhone than a gun for home protection is. For one thing, if you own a gun for home protection, you hopefully rarely use it. I use the iPhone nearly every day. The statistics say that you’re actually more likely to die in a home invasion if you have a gun, but let’s say, no, in your particular case, you did manage to shoot two people dead. And, that’s that. 

Except of course, it isn’t done at all. You will find out that those two people you shot didn’t think it was so cool and they may sue you. Or, you may find out things about those families such as how desperate they were to make enough money to feed their kids that they turned to crime. Of course, you don’t want to hear that. They broke the law. And, indeed, in many states, that can be enough to get you off the hook. 

The “hook” of the law, that is. But that’s not the only hooks there are. There’s the social hook. How do you think other people would view you? Maybe some will view you as a hero. But certainly many will not. You might end up being much more annoyed at those who view you as a hero that at those who view you as a villain. Either way, your life will never be the same. Those changes are much more likely to be negative on balance. 

There’s another social hook. How would you feel about someone you care about marrying into a family where someone killed two young lads? Better protected? Or, might you be worried about how that gun might be used in the future, in say, a marital dispute? (Although, of course, suicides and accidental killings should also be on your mind, but those are always a possibility with a gun owner. But in the case of the dual killer, we don’t just know he might kill when provoked; we know he will kill when provoked. Maybe you think a home invasion is sufficient reason for murder. But how about a marital dispute? Surely you’ve noticed that even couples who love each other can come to a point where they are too frustrated to think clearly. I don’t really see how a gun helps a situation like that. 

Lastly, there is your own hook. That may be the sharpest and deepest cutting hook of all. You will second guess your actions on the night of no matter what. That’s just human nature. Some dark, rainy evening, when that re-run is playing for the 13th time, it will hit you that you knew damned well they were unarmed. Another part of your brain screams “Bullshit!” And, so you block it out. Until several weeks later, you discover your cousin’s preferred brand of weed is way stronger than what you’re used to. And, as that snuff movie replays itself yet again, it occurs to you that you not only knew they were unarmed, you thought: “So what? Nobody’s going to put me in prison for it. In this state, they’l think I’m a hero.” Again, you hear the booming voice: “Bullshit!” Only this time, you realize that isn’t your voice at all. That voice is the one he used to destroy you when you told people about his molestations. That’s not you. Or is it? You might, at some point, find yourself depressed by this debate, perhaps riddled with self-doubt. At other times, maybe you’ll come to peace with your actions. But the debate will never stop. 

I take pictures of flowers. They are for anyone to enjoy or ignore. No regrets. That’s my “weapon” of choice. 

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Author Page on Amazon

Family Matters

Stoned Soup

Clarence but not Darrow

Con-Con Man’s Special Friend

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

The Walkabout Diaries: Bee Wise

The Walkabout Diaries: Sunsets

The Walkabout Diaries: Friends

The Walkabout Diaries: Life will find a way

Ghosts of Flowers Past

Mind Walk

A Walk in the Park

Karmic Architecture II

18 Friday Mar 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, essay, love, peace, truth, Ukraine, USA, war

You and I and King Cobra and Queen Anne’s Lace and every other living thing on earth are small and temporary little leaves on the ancient (4.5 billion years and counting), vast, and diverse Tree of Life. Typically, you know a lot more about the neighborhood surrounding your little leaf than you do about mine and vice versa. Yet, I may discover things that are of use to you. And, you may discover things that are of use to me. So, humans, have one gift that is valuable above all others. 

But before we explore what that valuable gift is, let me ask you a question about how you would react to a hypothetical.

Suppose you were so poor that you barely had enough to eat, no clothes to wear, a small damp cave for shelter. You were cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Now, suppose I gave you a magic ring that changed all that. If you wear this ring — voila! — you now have clean water and sufficient food and plenty of clothes and a house that really shelters you from the extremes of the environment. In return, you must wear the magic ring at all times. If you remove the ring, your life reverts immediately.

Photo by Jordan Rushton on Pexels.com



How tempted would you be to throw that magic ring in the toilet? 

Yet, that is precisely what many people do. 

And, if a sufficient number of people throw away the ring, everyone will essentially live the life of a beast. 

That “magic” ring is, like most rings, circular. It represents the whole of humanity. It represents the family. It represents a club, a marriage, a lodge, a company, a church, a school, a class, a group of friends. It represents our respect for each other as human beings. It represents our ability to communicate with each other. 

You could call that ring love and I wouldn’t object. It need not be imbued with so much positivity that people feel love. But it must be overall positive. It represents truth. It represents empathy. Love is strong and it can overcome both a few misdeeds by everyone and many misdeeds by a few. But if lies become more commonplace than truths, civilization will run downhill and eventually cease. 

Similarly, if hate and fear and contempt are how we mostly regard each other, the marriage, the family, the club, the school, the church, the party, the lodge, the company, the group of friends will eventually disintegrate. In many cases, it would disintegrate into a self-destructive war except that most people will stop themselves because they don’t want to be ostracized or jailed by the larger society. If, however, the entire society becomes rife enough with hate and fear, no one will come to anyone else’s rescue. 



Our entire survival depends on our gift, our ring, our community, our country, our fellow human beings. 

Our gift is not our lightning speed of running.

Our ring is not our ability to out-swim the shark.

Our gift is not our powerful jaws, or our steel strong talons. 

It is our ability to communicate with each other by sharing experiences. It is truth, caring, and cooperation. That is our one gift that enabled us to survive and thrive. 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

A democracy can take many specific forms. What it is, at base, is that it recognizes the gift as a fundamental value to be cherished and used. The fundamental purpose is to ensure that government is aware of and takes into account how policies and people and processes actually impact people who live in the democracy. In a representative democracy, the people, in turn, can vote for people to represent them. They can vote for any reason they like; e.g., because they admire a particular person; they believe they will do a competent job; they like the candidate’s promised policy changes; they find that the candidate reminds them of his funny old uncle Al who always had the best candy on offer.  

No democracy is perfect. There has to be in its structure and processes more truth than lie; more empathy than indifference; more love than hate; more hope than fear. In some democracies, there are basically two parties; others have dozens. Parties may differ on philosophies, priorities, platforms, programs, etc. 

A “party” who rejects democracy itself however, is not an actual political party. The term “political party” only makes sense in the context of a democracy. If “elections” are determined by those in power, they are not actual elections and there is no party. It’s just a group of thugs who want to rule by hate and fear and lies. That is not a political party. It is not a legitimate part of a political process. They want to throw the ring away in the toilet. They want to subvert the truth to lies. They want to severely limit love and enhance fear and hate. They divide rather than unify. Oh, and guess what else? Historically, they want war. They will ensure that war just as Putrid is doing right now.

Democracies have also been known to start wars. When they do, it’s often based on lies. As communication has become more ubiquitous, it has been harder and harder for democracies to lie, cheat, and be cruel. Most people don’t want that! Most people want there to be more truth, love, caring, and cooperation. There are plenty of differences about how to go about that. That’s fine. That’s just the sort of difficult and messy problem that democracy is particularly less bad than any other system. 

As I said, I really think most people prefer interacting in a caring and cooperative way. We see that it’s more effective in getting things done and it simply feels better for everyone. For that reason, dick-tater-$hits have to provide lies to help assuage the consciences of its citizens. “Oh, they are all murderers and rapists! You shouldn’t feel bad about being cruel to them!” Another favorite is: “Oh, they aren’t really human beings, the way we are. No need to treat them any better than a fox trying to steal your chickens!”

Photo by u041eu043bu0435u0433 u042fu043au043eu0432u043bu0435u0432 on Pexels.com



Needless to say, this ploy completely fails on many people and isn’t completely effective on anyone. Any time you’re cruel, whatever story you tell yourself about it, you know you are destroying a bit of yourself. Except, what you are really destroying is something much vaster than a bit of yourself. In fact, what you are destroying is something much vaster than all of yourself. What you are destroying by being cruel, whatever story you tell yourself is the human branch of the Tree of Life. Lies weaken that branch. Cruelty weakens that branch. Bullying weakens that branch. So too does cowardice. 

The architecture of karma shows that the future impact of your present day behavior is much greater in scope than your present impact. Behaving well is in your interest because what you are is essentially a very small and very temporary part of that ancient, vast, and diverse Tree of Life. The more you can enhance that tree with truth and love, the better for the whole tree.



Don’t throw away the ring. Wear it proudly. It is truly an amazing gift! 

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Author page on Amazon

Dick-Tater

Absolute is not just a vodka

The First Ring of Empathy

Pattern Language for Cooperation 

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Listen: You can hear the echos of your actions

Poppa Goes the Weasel

The Three Blind Mice

Stoned Soup

The Orange Man

Math Class: Who Are You? 

Ripples

Happy Darwin Day!

A Rose is a Rose is a Thinking Rose?

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

beauty, decision making, Design, essay, flower, flowers, life, rose

Rose bushes lack neurons. 

But that doesn’t mean that they, as a species, and they, as individual plants, don’t make decisions and embody strategies and tactics.

Today, a local crow and I were playing the counting game. I think that’s the most parsimonious explanation, even though I can’t “prove” it. Here’s what actually transpired. I went out into the garden to take pictures of flowers before it gets too chilly. Soon a crow said, “CAW!” So I said, “CAW!” 

Then, the crow crowed “CAW! CAW!” So I repeated that message. Any way, we got up to three and the crow started over at one and we went through the whole sequence three times. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

They cawed three times and I said: “That’s what we call ‘Three’ and I “cawed” the first three digits followed by cawing three times. He cawed back.

Then, once again, I said, “One, Two, Three” and “CAW! CAW! CAW!”They next did something I don’t recall hearing before. They did a distinct two-tone CAW: I think it was low-hi. I went out to photograph roses, not take notes on crows. I repeated his two-tone CAW as best I good and he flew off while cawing about ten times. I fantasize that they flew off to tell their friends that they discovered a human who almost seems smart enough to CAW! Indeed, they are having quite a conversation out back right now. I am not yet sophisticated enough to know what they are talking about but cross-species communication is pretty cool. 

The rose bush speaks to me too, of course. 

I cannot hear it with my auditory apparatus. At least, not yet, I can’t. I have to “listen” with my eyes, and my mind, and my heart. I “know” something of what the rose wants and needs. I know it needs water and sunshine, for instance. It needs minerals. But those things are true of green plants in general. What does the rose tell me about its strategy and tactics for survival and thrival? 

No, the rose bush cannot answer my spoken questions, but that often happens when it comes to communicating with other humans. I have read some poorly documented code (perhaps my own) and tried to figure out what the heck this code is doing. Probably, the single most important thing is to understand what the programmer was trying to do. What was their intention. I don’t actually have to know what precisely was in their mind in order to understand it at a useful level. This particular human programmer might have been thinking primarily about getting a raise, or impressing their supervisor, or outdoing their friend. Who cares? I need to understand an imputed design rationale.

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In that same sense, I strive to understand the imputed design rationale of the rose plant. It doesn’t require that the rose talks to me in English. For example, why are a rose’s blooms so beautiful? Certain, the original “motivation” was mainly to attract pollinators like bees. But guess what? Some of the same patterns, colors, and odors that attract insect pollinators also attract human caregivers. In fact, the human caregivers have, through selective breeding, put additional design constraints on roses. As a result, there are more varieties of roses than there would have been without human intervention.



The roses have, one way and another, evolved genes that encourage them to grow beautifully. In a way, this can be said to be their “intention” — Their “design rationale” is that if they grow more beautiful, they will thrive more. But is their “intention” to be beautiful so recent? Suppose that other mammals also find the blossoms beautiful? Attracting mammals to the rose plant may encourage them to breathe carbon dioxide on the roses; to defecate nearby and provide minerals; perhaps even to bleed some because of the thorns. It’s even possible that there is also an innate design rationale of all life to be beautiful. Life is beautiful in terms of being itself. Perhaps, other things being equal, surfacing the fact of your being part of life by being beautiful is itself a survival strategy. It increases the chances that other life forms will cooperate with you. They will perceive that you are kindred and may have something valuable to trade. 

Is it the natural state of affairs that all life reaches out for all life in the hopes of reaching some mutual understanding? 

What do you feel?

Life Will Find a Way

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

Ghosts of Flowers Past

Happy Darwin Day

The Walkabout Diaries

The Walkabout Diaries: Friends

Math Class: Who Are You?

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Take Me For A Ride in the Car Car!

26 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

collaboration, cooperation, Democracy, Dictatorship, essay, problem solving, Ukraine, USA

Do you remember the song, “Take me for a ride in the car car”? Here’s a link to one popular version. Peter, Paul, & Mary also sang it. Nice song. But you may have experienced it being repeated too often. At a certain age, some kids seem to discover that they can be really annoying simply by singing a song over and over and over and over. 

When I was in my early teens, I took a car trip with my Uncle Paul and his wife and three kids out to see his brother Bob who headed up a psychiatric hospital in Pennsylvania. It was a long drive. At some point, to pass the time, we sang some songs. When the last song was over, Paul’s youngest son began to make up new verses for one of the songs. At first, it was rather cute to watch him try to build a story, rhyme, and keep in tune, none of which he actually succeeded in. But after about a quarter hour, he began to annoy people with his off-key, non-rhyming, senseless continuations of the song. After about a half hour he was annoying everyone. After an hour, we began to discuss leaving him by the side of the road and returning in another ten years to see whether he was still there. 

On car trips, we used to play a number of games to pass the time; e.g., seeing how many different states license plates we found find. Later, I learned to play “The Alphabet Game.” There are several versions, but basically, you must find, in order, the letters of the alphabet from passing cars, signs, etc. Stuff inside your own car cannot be used. (You could easily find all the letters in a book or magazine). I’ve learned to know where to look for J, Q, and Z. I’ve been in cars where we played twenty questions, Botticelli, Buzz, and Ghost. When I was a kid, I also simply looked out the window to entertain myself. Sometimes, I would imagine that the dotted lines that divide the lanes were like tracer bullets shot from our car. Then, I would watch to see whether another car got “blown up” because they crossed our fire. I would also imagine myself “flying” alongside the car, having to bob and weave to avoid telephone poles, trees, signposts, etc. 

Traveling in a car with a family or with a group of friends or your car pool is potentially a social opportunity as well as an opportunity to save money. Since you’re in the same car, you need to agree on destination. To some extent, you need to agree on temperature & what to do about the windows. As a kid, everyone also lived in the same “sonic space.” We would have to “agree” on a game or on a radio station. This is no longer the case. Now, often times, everyone in the family may have their own individual entertainment. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? 

Even in the modern day, driving in a car with others is different from driving in a car on your own. If you’re by yourself, you can decide on the temperature and entertainment without having to take into account anyone else’s wishes. If others are in the car, some kind of negotiations have to take place. 

At least, that’s what most people do. You could decide: “Hey! It’s my car so I’m going to drive and I get to determine everything about our common space — temperature, entertainment, windows, whether we stop, etc.” This is what is known in academic circles as the “A$$hole theory of cooperation”: Get everything you possibly can for yourself and to hell with everyone else. And after all, they’re doing the same exact thing. 

Notice too that to some degree, the amount of accommodation you have to do depends on how much humanity is in the car besides yourself. It also depends on how “luxurious” your vehicle is. If you have a tour bus or a camper, six people might be relatively comfortable. If it’s a VW bug, you won’t be. You’ll not only be crowded; you’ll have to be careful every time you move not to accidentally elbow someone in the eye. Have you ever been in that crowded of a situation for hours at a time or even days at a time? 

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It isn’t just cars. In general, the more people occupy a given space, the more they are going to have to cooperate in order to survive and thrive. You can provide individuality support with technology, up to a point. In a way, clothing is like that. We can peacefully co-exist in a car without either of us compromising out comfort because I can wear a sweater and you can wear a thin shirt. You can provide everyone an iPhone and everyone can play their own game without having to agree on a common game. Of course, there’s a downside to that. First, we don’t have practice getting along with others. Second, we don’t share a common experience. 

Even if the “typical” family of four interrupts their car trip and stops for lunch and agrees to talk, they are likely coming from very different places. Dad has been listening to Mozart and was in good mood until he suddenly remembered he was supposed to have sent out a memo to everyone in the department about last month’s sales figures. Damn. Maybe he can do it from the Motel but it will take longer than it would have at work. His son Sam, meanwhile, was trying to use sexting to convince his girlfriend to “take their relationship to the next level.” As a result, they just broke up. Dad doesn’t know a thing about that; nor does Sam know anything about why Dad suddenly seems put out. Mom meanwhile, was listening to Fox “News” where she “learned” that it’s Biden’s fault Putin “had to” attack the Ukraine because Biden was too tough on Russia and also too easy. Her daughter Sally, on the other hand, has spent the last 45 minutes on twitter learning about the Putin invasion. She is wondering whether atomic war might start. 

Now, they stop for lunch. That’s nice. And, maybe they’ll talk about something common; perhaps the weather, or the scenery or the food. But they might just revert to what they were doing before they got together at the restaurant. Even if they all have the willpower to put away their personal devices, they are still coming from very different places emotionally and experientially. Dad might make a comment about how he forgot to write an important e-mail and he’ll have to do it from the Motel. Sam just shakes his head and says, “Important e-mail? My life is ruined! What do you care?” 

Dad might say, “What do you mean by saying that your life is ruined?”

Sam might even share, “Jackie broke up with me!” 

Dad, meaning well, and wanting to offer a solution before he starts reminiscing about his own high school days, blurts out: “Oh, Sam, don’t worry about it! You’ll have another girlfriend in a week.” 

That may well be empirically true. But to Sam? He feels he has just lost the love of his life. His father’s comment seems to him to be dismissive of his feelings to the point of cruelty.  

Sally pipes up, “How can you be worried about such trivial things as e-mail and dates when we might be blown to smithereens at any moment? Do you ever pay any attention to the world outside yourself? Putin is a monster killing innocent civilians so he can slake the thirst of his pathetic ego!” 

Mom is taken aback. The only news she doesn’t dismiss as “lies that are out to get Trump” has been Fox “News” for the last few years. She says, “Don’t be saying bad things about Putin! He’s a nice man who just wants his Ukraine back.” 

Sally’s jaw drops. “Are you serious! He kills journalists who write the truth about him. He’s a corrupt crime lord. He played Trump like a fiddle … no … not that complicated … played him like a drum … no … still too complicated … played him like the triangle. You know. Bang it every once in awhile and it reverberates. Anyway, it isn’t “his” Ukraine. It belongs to the Ukrainian people!”

Some families are better at getting through all this than others. These four have not shared a common experience and are coming from very different places. If they have no practice playing a game according to a common set of rules, what chance to they have to settle deeper differences? 

Maybe avoiding little conflicts by giving everyone their own personal entertainment device means that when much bigger and more difficult conflicts arise, no-one remembers how to resolve things. Why shouldn’t everything by how I want it? Let others do the same! Let the best man win!

Except, of course, it isn’t the best man or woman who actually wins in a land where no-one plays by the rules. It’s the most corrupt. And the net result of everyone spending so much time competing and so little, if any, time cooperating is that nothing much is actually accomplished. It doesn’t even work very well in a small group. In a large nation, a dictatorship is almost invariably associated with less for everyone except the dictator and the immediate surround. Dictatorships do sometimes manage to steal from neighbors who are productive because they are cooperative. If all countries were dictatorships, they would all perish, probably in atomic war, but possibly in ecological collapse or just mass suicide. 

In 2018, I worked on a “Pattern Language” for collaboration and cooperation. Here’s a link to an index of the Patterns. One of them is called “Small Successes Early.” Should I be worried that we seem to be moving into a world where there are fewer and fewer opportunities for peacefully resolving small conflicts? Avoiding unnecessary conflict seems like a good thing. But … is the downside that people have no practice resolving conflicts? And, is the further downside, that people eventually end up with huge differences in their notions of reality when it really matters? It seems to be the very thing that Faux News has been counting on; that people would not only listen to them but not listen or dismiss any other views. As a result, people end up with very different models and explanations of the world. That is always a bad thing, but in a world where people are unpracticed at resolving conflicts, it’s even more problematic.

There is always a tradeoff between cooperating as a whole and letting each individual do as they wish. One thing seems crystal clear. As the number of people in your car increases, their individual freedom to do just as they please decreases. So, too, with the world. In my own lifetime, the population of the world has quadrupled. Of course, it’s not equally distributed. People are more concentrated in cities than ever before. Many of these cities are located on ocean coasts. What does the continuation of global warming mean to population migration and crowding?

I’m not sure how many people realize this, but we’re still in a pandemic. If people were very sparsely populated, we probably wouldn’t be. But as we continue to get more crowded, humanity will become more susceptible to pandemics. That in turn, means people will have to accommodate to each other’s needs. As a background rule, a person can choose to wear what they want. There are, of course, many exceptions to that. In many situations, you have to wear a shirt and shoes. In some situations, you have to wear a suit and tie or a uniform. If you might be spraying germs at other people, it seems totally reasonable to change your behavior or clothing to minimize that spread. But some people apparently think that they should be able to do exactly as they want regardless of the consequences to others.

Toddlerhood Nation

As the earth becomes more crowded, we need to be more cooperative, not less. The presence of a large number of deadly weapons also makes it more important to cooperate. The race to ensure survival by having ever larger numbers of ever more deadly weapons is not a path toward that greater cooperation. Dictators, for instance, tilt toward war to consolidate their power.



Create Peace

Author Page on Amazon

Absolute is not just a vodka

Where does your loyalty lie? 

My Cousin Bobby

The Stopping Rule

The Update Problem

Essays on America: Wednesday

Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

Myths of the Veritas: The Three Blind Mice

Myths of the Veritas: Stoned Soup

Lying to your Kids

13 Sunday Feb 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

Democracy, essay, fiction, politics, Resistance, story, truth, USA

Lying to your Children: Lie for me

The squealing brakes startled Josh awake. He screamed. Only for a moment. Because he felt as much as heard, that something was wrong. Beside him, in the driver’s seat, Josh’s dad, Ron, cursed incoherently, though remarkably loudly & quickly. After a few moments of this, Ron turned to Josh like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Josh had no idea what he had done wrong, but he anticipated the usual slap. Only harder. He closed his eyes.

No slap came. Instead, Ron grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him while screaming: “Listen to me! Open your eyes! Look at me! Nothing happened! Got it? Nothing happened! Say it! Tell me nothing happened!” 

Josh was more than fully awake now. He was used to going from sleep to panic in one thunderous heartbeat ever since Mom had run off with that Jared guy. But what nothing was dad talking about…? Suddenly, Josh remembered … there was a heavy THUD! Someone had screamed. They must have hit someone. Now, Dad’s trying to cover it up. 

Running through the entire list of strategies in his communications playbook, Ron decided that if his son didn’t understand, it was now necessary to repeat what was said before but more loudly and with stronger shaking of the shoulders and with an even more menacing look. So, that’s what he did. 

But this time Josh had worked it out. He knew what was required.
“Daddy! Nothing happened!” 

Ron’s face melted back into one that looked vaguely human as he said, “That’s right! That’s right! And, now listen here! This is important! If anyone else asks you, you just say you don’t know nothing and nothing happened. You got that?” 

Josh nodded solemnly, pretending to be completely in awe of and compliant for Ron — something he had learned long ago as a survival strategy.  

The police interview went something like this: 

Police Officer: “So Josh. Tell me about where you were and what you did last evening.” 

Josh: “Sure, Officer. Nothing happened. I mean I went with my dad to see that new movie, The Raiders of the Lost Arc. It was great! And, then, nothing happened. I don’t remember. My dad drove home and I fell asleep. Nothing happened. I don’t remember. Any other questions?” 

Police Officer: “Josh, did your daddy tell you to say that nothing happened? Did he make you promise?” 

Josh: “I don’t remember! Nothing happened!”

Police Officer: “Okay, Josh. I think we get the picture. Thank you for your help.

Josh went out and saw his dad about to be taken into an interrogation room. As he passed by, Josh used a stage whisper to his dad: “I did just like you told me, Dad.” 

Photo by Cameron Casey on Pexels.com

Dad was put away for a good long time. 

Sadly, although Josh came out ahead in this particular snippet of his life, learning to become a more clever liar is not really a good long-term strategy. Josh discovered this for himself, on the way down. Oddly, people said, he was killed by the fall. Of course, in truth, very few people die from falls, per se. It is the landing that kills. 


Moral of the Story: Telling a lie to your kids is like giving them a poison. 

Sometimes, it’s fast acting poison.

Sometimes, it’s slow acting poison. 

But it’s always poison.

And, here’s the real magic of it. It’s poison for the lie teller as well! Yes, indeed! It is a double-edged sword extraordinaire because it cuts the sword wielder as well as the sword shielder. 

Photo by Oliver Sju00f6stru00f6m on Pexels.com

Can you ever imagine that you would intentionally tell your kid the wrong way to perform a skill so that they would get fewer hits, or throw more errors, or serve more double faults, or hurt themselves with tools? Of course not! If they were about to go into a road race, would you cut their brake lines? Of course not! But propagating a lie is exactly like that — handicapping one’s own children in their coming attempts to survive in this world.

Propagating a lie is a big deal. And propagating a Big Lie is an even bigger deal. Whatever the reason, it’s something whose harm is more like a plague or a cancer than a punch. The poison spreads often well beyond the liar and the original target of the lie. When more people lie in the society, there is less trust. When there is less trust, there is more need for regulation and coordination. That inevitably results in friction. So long as all parties play by the rules and tell the truth, it will eventually be resolved and there will be an increase in trust. However, if one side cheats and lies, no matter who wins, there will be a ripple of distrust all through society. 

Which is kind of the point, you see? 

Josh’s dad Ron may not have known how his actions would undermine his own life as well as his son’s. But the people trying to destroy American Democracy? They know exactly why they’re spreading lies and what it will mean. They are spreading the cancer of distrust and division intentionally. Why? Because dividing is how the few conquer the many. It’s a playbook that has been run over and over and over in human history.

Think about it. 

How can a relatively small group of criminals take over a country? They can do it by distracting everyone else into thinking the enemy is not the crime gang but the other victims of the theft of a nation. They cannot possibly do it by telling the truth. The truth is that only the ruling crime family will necessarily benefit by a dictatorship. Nor can the Crime Family take over by force. There are far too few of them. And, they are cowards to boot. They could co-opt the military. They tried that but it didn’t work. 

Telling poisonous lies is their major remaining option. 

It’s evil, but it’s understandable, given that all they care about is power. 

But ordinary people lying to their own children? 

There’s something deeply disturbing about that, most especially when the lie isn’t even for the benefit of anyone involved. 

The parent won’t benefit. 

The child won’t benefit. 

No-one who overhears the lie will benefit. 

The only person who benefits is the would-be Diktator of AmeriKKKa (let’s use “Dik” for short) because the lying parent is practicing giving away their own agency and putting it in the hands of the Dik. It’s no accident that some of the lies put their own life at risk along with the lives of their family & friends. They are being trained to put the Dik above the life and welfare of what they previously loved most dearly in the world. 

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—————————

Essays on America: Labelism 

Essays on America: The Game

Identity Theft

Absolute is not just a vodka 

A Lot is not a little 

Stories of a fictional child sociopath

Stoned Soup

Three Blind Mice

Author Page on Amazon

The Winning Weekend Warrior – Sports psychology book aimed to help you win more — whatever that means for you.

Turing’s Nightmares — SciFi scenarios about the possible future impacts of AI on our lives, our families, our society.

Fit in Bits — How to stay more fit by working more variety & fun into daily activities.

Tales from an American Childhood — A partial autobiography that examines incidents from the 1950’s and relates them to contemporary issues.

The Power of the Unbrella

10 Thursday Feb 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

creativity, Design, essay, HCI, power, prepare, umbrella, UX, writing

Photo by Dave Colman on Pexels.com

Yay! Yay! Today’s Umbrella Day! 

Hold your umbrellas high and … what? 

How do we celebrate Umbrella Day? Put up an umbrella tree with little paper umbrellas we’ve collected in a lifetime of drinking fruit flavored nerve poison? Hey! Here’s one way we could celebrate: get rid of the necessity of a nuclear umbrella and while we’re at it, why not get rid of war altogether? It benefits very few of the people involved. Look it up. 

No, I suspect that how we are really supposed to celebrate “Umbrella Day” is to buy more umbrellas. Buy more umbrellas? That sounds right. No doubt, this was something cooked up by manufacturers of umbrellas. I doubt the raindrops lobbied for it. A group of consumer fans who just happen to love umbrellas to an inordinate degree? Possible, but extremely unlikely. It’s not the umbrella’s fault; it’s that an umbrella addresses a miserable problem: getting wet when you don’t want to get wet. And, the umbrellas never do a perfect job. They wet the interior of your car and home. They pinch your fingers. People use them! I use them. They are useful. But I don’t think people love them enough to spontaneously beg their government for Umbrella Day. You can call me a cynic; it’s okay. I’m pretty sure it was the Umbrella Manufactures.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

That doesn’t mean I won’t appropriate Umbrella Day for my own purposes which are to have fun writing and to entertain some folks out there. Whenever I think of umbrellas, one of the first things that comes to mind was a “QUALITY” meeting all managers in an anonymous telecommunications company (ATC) were required to attend. We listened to talk after talk, many with exciting PowerPoint pie charts and bar charts. No fewer than seven members of the audience were carried out on stretchers for tachycardia brought about by the sheer exuberance of the final slide showing the PILLARS of ATC QUALITY. 

At the conclusion, to make sure that the excitement we all feel when sitting for non-interactive presentations all day didn’t somehow dissipate when we walked out the door, each manager was presented with an ATC QUALITY umbrella of our very own! 

Whether ATC management arranged for the downpour that hit the city the moment we left the meeting or whether it was sheer happenstance, I don’t really know. In any case, it was a fortuitous event from the perspective of the quality folks because now we would instantly see just how important quality is in our daily lives. 

The raindrops came down.

Photo by Aline Nadai on Pexels.com



The umbrellas went up. 

The umbrellas broke. 

Yes. 

Immediately. 

Photo by Terence Koh on Pexels.com

The umbrellas served their purpose: they showed just how much top management cared about quality. 

(By the way, there really are useful approaches to the important topic of quality. This wasn’t that.) 

The umbrella is a device that can be used in many situations. In the summer between my Junior and Senior years in college, I worked as a child care worker at a psychiatric hospital for kids. I lived in a tiny basement studio apartment in the “Little Italy” part of town. My cheap bed had a line of broken springs so my umbrella served as a brace so that I didn’t sag onto the floor. The umbrella bent but did not break. I was much lighter then.

On one occasion, one of those tiny non-human vampires some might call “a bat” broke into my tiny room and flapped endless noisy loops inches from my head.

Photo by Miriam Fischer on Pexels.com



Slowly, I eased my way out of bed. I slid the umbrella out of its place and when the bat was at the far end of my cell, I opened the umbrella and slowly worked my way toward the door end. My left hand held the umbrella shield before me, much like a muggle version of a Patronus Charm. I slid my right hand over and opened the door. The next time the bat approached the door, out they went. Yay! I like win/win solutions even with mini-vampires. Bats, incidentally, are really cool critters! They are useful to us for a number of reasons, and that’s pretty nice. But they are also just cool in their own right. Their “bat-ness” is every bit as marvelous in its own way as our “human-ness.” The point is that we can use the umbrella in ways the umbrella manufacturers probably never envisioned. 

Now, we turn to the one of the most powerful umbrellas in the world.

The “UNbrella.” 

For several years, my wife and I attended the Newport Folk Festival — a wonderful outdoor concert with two score of the very best folk performers. One of the reasons I like outdoor concerts is so that I can dance. I mean by that that I can dance the way I want to and not get ejected from the venue.

The Newport Folk Festival was no exception. Typically, we had very good luck weather-wise, but one year, it poured. It wasn’t a drizzle. It wasn’t a sprinkle. Nor was it short, hard summer shower that lasts a half hour and then the sun comes out and the rainbow comes out and everyone’s clothes dry in the sun. Nope. This was a constant downpour. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

We knew it “might” rain so we came prepared with rain clothes and large umbrellas. The stage was protected so the performances went on as scheduled. I, like most, huddled under layers of clothing and beneath an umbrella. 

I was cold. 

I was not dancing. 

I thought to myself, “I came here to dance. I am going to dance.” So I did. I shed my clothing save for my bathing trunks and I traded in my UMbrella for an UNbrella. 

Four hours later, it was still raining. But the mood was completely different. Now, half the crowd was dancing in their bathing suits. Everyone was happy! All thanks to the power of the unbrella.



Speaking of vampires and werewolves…

“Beware when you wear ware that you are aware that it is merely ware you’re wearing. You are not your wear.”

Remember the power of the UNbrella. 

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

——————————-

Author Page on Amazon

Index to Tools of Thought

Fifteen Properties to consider in Design

The Sound of One Hand Clasping



Index to Pattern Language for Collaboration and Cooperation

Inside Trump Tower

11 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

essay, politics, Resist, Resistance, treason, USA

It is a good thing to try to put oneself in someone else’s shoes. We shouldn’t fool ourselves about how well we can do that, but for some situations, we do a pretty good job. For example, if we watch a movie and someone gets attacked by a Great White Shark, we know we would feel pretty terrified and it’s a fairly good assumption that they are going to be terrified. 

Let’s imagine how it feels inside the experience of a person who lies constantly and absurdly about how wonderful and great he is; how beloved he is by everyone; how he is the best at everything. Let’s say he declares himself to be a wobble-free genius. Can you imagine how empty he feels inside? He believes himself to be utterly incapable of anything which is why he insists he are successful at everything. 

I saw the results of such a pathetic hypothetical person once up close and personal in real life. Trump took over a golf course that I was a member at. He made some nice improvements. At that point, I didn’t know him from Adam. But some people at the club did and they quit. Some of those people had been former club champions. So what does Trump do? He orders that the plaques be redone with his name as club champions for those years. He not only had not won those tournaments. He had not even played in them. 

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Just imagine how you would feel looking at a trophy with your name on it knowing full well that you had done nothing to deserve it. Would you feel proud or ashamed? My guess is that you would feel ashamed. This false “accomplishment” tarnishes every real accomplishment you ever had or that you ever will have. This is a normal response. 


But Trump, for whatever reason, has such subterranean self-esteem that any semblance of praise, however false or ill-deserved, feels to him as a seeming life-saving desperate drop of moisture for the shriveled old soul that lives within the shriveled old body. If someone flatters him and he knows it’s flattery, he values that more than he would an honest complement. Because to him, opinions about his abilities or behaviors don’t interest him in the slightest. He’s not going to change because of feedback from this or that politician, family member, thinker, advisor, etc. But he just wants the shadow of true praise that is not based upon fact at all but upon power. 

He failed as a businessman. He failed as a family member. He failed his own honor when he dodged the draft a half dozen times. He proved himself a racist by calling for the death penalty for four black youths — who it turned out were innocent. Trump didn’t really know anything about the case. He just wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to put his “hat in the ring” for being a racist candidate. Just in case anyone slept through Act 1 due to jet lag or too much wine or whatever, Act 2 was ranting and raving about Obama being an African. “I’ve got proof and I’ll show it the day after the day after the day after the day after….” And, let’s think about it. Here’s a guy — Trump — whose known as a golfer, a playboy and a real estate developer. He’s on record supporting many liberal policies like being pro-abortion. Why would he really care whether Obama was born in Africa? This guy who dodged the draft six times and is already cheating on his taxes suddenly becomes outraged at a particular part of the Constitution that says you must be born in America to be President. Seem plausible? 

In case the fifteen foot high blinking neon-Nazi sign from Act 1 wasn’t bright enough, let’s put on the fifty foot high blinking neon-Nazi sign in Act 2. Oh, and if that doesn’t do it for you. I mean, if you were really really zonked on for Acts 1 and 2, don’t you worry! The message of this play is simple and if you didn’t notice the neon-Nazi signs before, now they flashing out a new warning on the subway walls: “Civil War! Then, make me dictator of AmeriKKKa!” 

It’s evil and it’s horrible, but it’s also pathetic. Imagine how empty and worthless TFG must feel that he wants the support of people, like him, who derive their sense of worth from something like their supposed race (itself a fiction) or their gender or their inherited wealth — and not from anything they’ve ever accomplished. 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

At this point, an image occurs to me. A black hole, metaphorical but also quite literal, exist at the very center of TFG. In order to fill it, he is compelled to suck every shred of truth and goodness from everyone around him. More and more people get sucked into the vortex. Who knows? Maybe in some parallel universe, it all comes out as beautiful anti-matter. That may be nice for them. Over there. In that universe. 

But for us, back here on the earth we’re familiar with, it’s just plain out — terrible. It exacerbates the emptiness disease that TFG has become. It corrupts all those around him. They all know they’re lying and they each know each of the others is lying. Just like the false championships, if anyone famous goes along with the big lie, that action tarnishes everything good these Senators and Representatives and Newscasters ever did. It outweighs everything from the day, 40 years ago, as a cub scout, they helped someone cross the street to the day that they helped craft significant legislation. All of that is gone. And, for what? Nothing. That’s the real hell of it for them. For nothing. 

All of them realize that if there is a coup, none of them will ever be safe again. And, they’ve already pledged their allegiance to the dictator. So, they have no real power. They have to do whatever the oligarchs tell Trump to make them do. They were afraid they’d lose power if they acted ethically; so instead, they acted unethically and as a result lost every shred of power. It’s a great dramatic thread for a farce. Unfortunately, it’s embedded in a real tragedy. And that kind of takes the fun out of it, at least for me. 

They could, theoretically, have a great awakening and decide as one to throw off the shackles of the oligarchs and rejoin the difficult game of government by democracy. They would have more power than they ever had before because they would be free to work creatively and solve actual problems with actual work. They would help build a better world for their children and for everyone’s children to live in. They would certainly feel cleaner. That would be something that they could be proud of; that they wouldn’t mind the history books touting; a legacy for grandchildren. 

I wonder how the Nazis who were still alive in Germany after the war explained their role to their grandchildren. 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

———————————-

Trumpism is a new religion 

The Ailing King of Agitate

Essays on America: The Stopping Rule

Essays on America: Wednesday 

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

What about the butter dish?

At Least he’s our monster

Cancer Always Loses in the End

Donnie Boy Gets his Name on a Tennis Trophy

Donnie Boy Takes a Blue Ribbon for Spelling

Antifa? 

Essays on America: The Update Problem

Absolute is not just a Vodka

Come back to the light

Author Page on Amazon

An Egg and a Half

05 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

America, deception, essay, fascism, life, politics, truth, USA

If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take ONE chicken to lay ONE egg? 

Photo by Alison Burrell on Pexels.com

What do you think? 

Before we discuss the answer to that one, let’s move on to the American House of Representatives. There are 435 people in the House of Representatives. What is the probability that at least two folks in the House share a birthday? 

Photo by Todd Trapani on Pexels.com

We will return to these two puzzles shortly. Meanwhile…

Imagine that you are one of our distant ancestors foraging for food. You come across something that looks just like a blackberry bush. On it are what appear to be nice ripe blackberries. They feel like blackberries so you pick one. You pop it in your mouth and it tastes like a blackberry. It has the same seeds that you are used to being in a blackberry fruit. It smells like a blackberry. Chances are extremely good that it is, in fact, a blackberry.

Photo by Thierry Fillieul on Pexels.com



Don’t get me wrong. There are some plants out there that could give you trouble! The deadly poisonous amanita mushrooms are said to taste good. And, the white “death angel” has been mistaken for an ordinary field mushroom with deadly results. A single mushroom will kill you but a half a mushroom may only make you wish you were dead. 

In general, however, plants, animals, and situations are redundantly coded right at the surface. A blackberry plant has leaves that look like blackberry leaves. It has thorns that look like blackberry thorns and also feel like blackberry thorns. The fruits look like blackberries! They have a texture of blackberry. They smell like blackberries. They taste like blackberries. Though there are some deadly exceptions, in the natural environment, we are generally clued in to what something is by multiple senses. If it looks like a blackberry and smells like a blackberry and feels like a blackberry and tastes like a blackberry, chances are excellent that it really is a blackberry. 

When it comes to things produced by human beings, however, we must be much more cautious.

In some cases, such as the puzzles at the beginning of this blog post, the intention is pedagogic. But in other cases, people mislead you for much more nefarious purposes. Someone could intentionally spray the blackberry patch where you go with an odorless, tasteless, invisible poison. It could poison your body and kill you stone cold dead. Or, they could poison you and make you so sick you wish you were dead. Who would do such a thing? Well, the name “Vladimir Putin” springs to mind. He has arranged for the poisoning of his political foes and critics. 

It isn’t only your body that is at risk, however. So is your brain. The tricks that people play are not necessarily all deadly. Often, they just want to take your money. So, they will tell you a drink is “All Natural Fruit Drink” because they know that most people care about their health and the health of their families and “All Natural Fruit Drink” sounds like something natural, healthy, and nutritious. But legally, as it turns out, those words mean absolutely nothing in America. That “all natural” drink may be anything but! It could be mainly water and corn syrup! It might have as little as 5% fruit juice. 

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com

What do you think is in “Air Freshener”? “Air Freshener” sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? After all, who doesn’t like fresh air? If you’ve been in a musty cabin waiting for the rain to abate and you step outside into the cool, crisp, fresh air, that is a wonderful sensation. Ah! Breathe in that fresh air. And, of course, when you see a commercial for “Air Freshener” on TV, or read the title which might say, “Ocean Breezes Air Freshener” it reminds your brain perhaps of your first trip to the ocean. 

What is really in air fresheners is, in many cases, anything but an air freshener. Do you know what a really good air freshener is? Opening your windows. But the sprays that you buy in the store can contain: 

Carcinogens
Perfumes
Chemicals that mess with your hormones

Chemicals that deaden your sense of smell

Huh!? 

Not exactly an “Air Freshener” is it? 

In the puzzles above, the description is also misleading, not because I want to steal your money or poison you, but because I care about my fellow citizens being sold their death warrants packaged as something wonderful. Hopefully, if we become aware of how the surface features of a situation can mislead us, we’ll be less prone to fall for such tricks. 

The tobacco companies were good at such tricks. They would sell you something deadly and addictive but advertised to make you think that smoking their product would make you “manly” or “sexy” or “sophisticated” or “urbane” or “adult.” It wouldn’t make you any of those things. It would harm your lungs and your heart and turn your skin gray and make your breath smell bad. But those aren’t very good selling points, you see. Eventually, the government required cigarette companies to put health warnings on the packages. Do you think that the cigarette companies eagerly complied? Guess again. They fought tooth and nail and paid off politicians for years so they wouldn’t have to own up to what their product was really doing to you. 

So, let’s return to the puzzles. In the first puzzle, many people are led by the structure of the language presented to answer wrongly.

“If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take ONE chicken to lay ONE egg?” The first answer that will likely pop into many minds is “ONE day!” It “seems logical.” 

But it’s dead wrong. Consider this analogy: “If nine women can have nine babies in nine months, how long does it take ONE woman to have ONE baby?” One month? No, of course not. It takes nine months. And it will take a day and a half for the one chicken to lay one egg. (Or, a hundred chickens to lay a hundred eggs).

The second puzzle will probably only cause problems if you have been educated about probability. 

What? Yes. If you ask a smart ten year old, they will figure it out. Basically, there are only 365 days in a year (or 366 in a leap year). Since the number of Representatives in the House is 435, even if the first 365 people in the House have different birthdays, the next person you look at has to overlap with someone. It’s just like this: Suppose you only have some identical black sox and identical white sox. If you pick three sox in the dark, you have to have at least one match. 

If, however, you studied statistics, you may have come across “The Birthday Problem.” As it turns out, if as few as 30 people are in a room, the chances are greater than 50:50 that at least two share a birthday. If the puzzle reminds you of this, your mind runs along lines like this: “Oh, yes, I remember this. It’s “The Birthday Problem” and with even 30 people the odds are good, so with 435 people the probability must be really high. I’d say the odds are 99:1.” No. Wrong. Close, but wrong. There must be at least one match. 

It’s very easy for us to rely on the surface of things — including its label or what advertisers say about that thing — as a valid indicator of what’s underneath. And, in nature, that is often true. But in modern society, if you simply believe what someone says, you will certainly lose some money and at some point, you may also lose your entire fortune, your freedom, and your family.  It’s happened before. Hitler, to name one famous example, told people he was going to make Germany great and that the “Third Reich” would last a thousand years. 

He killed himself in the end. But not before causing the deaths of millions — including millions of Germans. He told people lies that they wanted to hear. He divided people and made people believe that all their troubles would be over if he just had complete power over their lives. Don’t fall for it. 

———————

Essays on America: Wednesday 

Essays on America: The Stopping Rule

Essays on America: Where does your Loyalty Lie?

Essays on America: My Cousin Bobby

Absolute is not Just a Vodka

It’s Not Your Fault; Send me Money

Myths of the Veritas: The Orange Man

Myths of the Veritas: Stoned Soup

Poker Chip

The Ailing King of Agitate

The Truth Train

Come Back to the Light Side

Author Page on Amazon

Death-Cultery on Parade

18 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

America, coronavirus, COVID, essay, pandemic, peace, truth, USA, war

Should we really be all that surprised? 

One quarter of the country is prepared to die and have their loved ones die for the sake of what they know or should know to be lies. 

But what happens in war? 

At least one side, and more typically both sides are willing to die and put their families at risk for what they know or should know to be lies. They don’t typically go into combat for their own benefit! They do it for country. They do it for their religion. They do it to protect their families. They do it in reprisal for some real or imagined actions in the past. But very few would willingly walk into combat hoping to “get more out of it” than they put into it! That would be like running through a rich neighborhood during a heavy lightening storm. Sure, you might be struck by lightening or hit by a falling tree and die or be permanently injured. But — hey! — there’s also a chance you might be able to sue one of these rich suckers and make millions! Yeah. That could happen. But, as I say, that’s not why most people put themselves in harm’s way.

So, to recapitulate, war itself is based, at least partly, on lies. 

Are we doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and over and over again? 

IDK

But consider this: 

Suppose there are two teams Purple and Green. These two teams have a competition in something. It doesn’t much matter whether it’s soccer, baseball, debate, ice hockey, figure skating, cheerleading or anything else. What matters is that each side wants to “win.” But it also matters, and more than a little bit, that each side also wants to enjoy themselves. They value other things in addition to winning or losing. Some enjoy the companionship. Some enjoy the challenge. Some enjoy improving. Some enjoy the sunshine. It doesn’t have to be the same value for everyone. 

The point is that tennis is not a zero sum game. It’s true that a particular match has one and only one winning team. But there are other benefits. Everyone is a “winner” in the sense of the challenge or the emotional ups & downs or the sheer joy of movement. The score is only one part of the value of the game. The same is true for all sports and for almost all human endeavors in the real world. It is very seldom a zero sum game. We can almost always find some state of affairs as being bad (all out atomic war destroys the entire human species) 

Similarly, both the Purple and the Green team want to keep the game going. In most cases, they also want to have cordial social relations with all the other players. So, in the vast majority of cases, people “handle” disagreements about the score, the line calls, etc. within the bounds of civility. Let’s suppose that one person of the four is a narcissistic sociopath who thinks he’s always right and insists he’s always right no matter how egregious his line calls. Eventually, such a person would destroy the game. It wouldn’t take a majority. A single sociopathic teammate could spoil it for everyone. But only if everyone else lets them get away with it. 

Have you ever watched an all-out bench-clearing brawl between to baseball teams or two hockey teams? Every time I’ve seen it, it’s really only triggered by one person and accepted by one person. So, two, among those whole teams, are sometimes enough to ignite a kind of “war.” While a brawl isn’t the most pleasant experience I can imagine, it’s even worse among professional athletes. It’s potentially career-ending. For most, it’s a potential financial hit from the world of brand endorsements. There could be legal trouble. For a few, there might be regret. Similarly, guess what? Most people do not benefit from war! It’s so obvious that I hesitate to say it, but it seems as though people do not see it as obvious. A very few people get very very rich. Many people die; many are seriously and permanently injured; many people’s homes are destroyed; families are separated; possessions are destroyed; plans are accomplishments are destroyed; peace of mind is destroyed; forests and wild places are destroyed; innocent animals are destroyed; friendships are destroyed; trust is destroyed…I mean, are you starting to see a pattern here?

War is about destruction. War does not create beauty. War does not feed the hungry. War does not heal the sick. War does not comfort the soul. War benefits the few; never the many. 

At the extreme, there is dictatorship which will always be much more incentivized to war than will a democracy. The dictator will use the fact that there’s no free press to whip up hatred against an enemy. Then, he’ll attack (but pretend the other side started it), etc. Now, if attacked, the democracy has little choice but to respond. Encouraging a bully is a losing strategy. Going to war is also losing. War is never about winning. It’s about losing less. And going to war is better than giving in to a bully. If you succumb to the bully, you have no life any more. The bully is a parasite on you; one that you cannot get rid of while he sucks your blood and everyone else’s in the nation. Parasite is just another name for dictator.

In any case, a small number of people can start a war which, in turn, benefits only a small number of people, at most.

That doesn’t seem like a good system to me.

It sounds like “an accident waiting to happen.” And, it has. Over and over and over and over again. 

When will we ever learn?

And, while three fourths of America has battled their butts off for over a year and a half — socially distancing, wearing masks, making masks, getting vaccinated, staying healthy — in some cases working heroically — quite literally — heroically to fight the war against COVID. While that’s what’s been happening with about 3/4 of Americans….

One fourth of America has decided to join in the War on COVID — on the side of the virus! They refuse to get vaccinated; refuse to wear a mask; refuse to socially distance. Why? Because they’ve been ordered to by the leaders of a death cult. Make no mistake. This has nothing to do with personal freedom. If it were about personal freedom, there might be as many as seventeen people nationwide who would prefer to be intubated for weeks than to wear a mask for minutes. If it were really about personal freedom, the vast vast majority would choose a few moments of discomfort rather than dying or being permanently disabled. Ironically, most of  the cult leaders have been vaccinated, and when they’ve fallen ill, they’ve received expensive top notch care that you or I or the COVIDites will not be likely to receive.


Something there is that doesn’t love a war, not even a war on truth.

——————————-

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Academic

The Watershed Virus

Masklessness is not Manliness

Plans for us some gruesome 

Imagine all the people

Author page on Amazon 

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