embrodski

Enemy of Modern Civilization – Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (Missouri)

Mar 082022

Mary Elizabeth Coleman of the Missouri House of Representatives has introduced a provision that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state.

It is my belief that modern society is dependent on full reproductive freedom for women, and as such, Coleman is an enemy of our way of life and an enemy of civilization. This is a proposed law in a state that most of us don’t live in, so there’s not much we can do right now except boo and hope. If you do live in Missouri, spread the word about her, and vote against her if you are in her district.

A few years ago I would have believed that such a law is clearly unconstitutional and would never be anything more than empty posturing. The world has gone crazy though, so I’m not nearly so certain anymore.

This highlights a few things to me. First, the American Constitution is badly outdated in this regard. This right is as important as any of the rights protected in the constitution, and is in the top three most important rights in my opinion. As soon as it is feasible, the constitution must be amended to include abortion rights. I know this won’t be any time soon. Which brings me to the second highlight.

The nation is insanely divided. Such an amendment could incite many states into secession. The moral absurdity of this cannot be understated. People would risk civil war in order to uphold laws that morally reprehensible and destructive to society. This is what people who saw states seceding in order to retain slavery must have felt like.

It also revealed a number of things to me about myself. In my linked post explaining my position on abortion, I state that this is my number one issue on all political questions “until the point that something else becomes a bigger threat to our way of life. I get the feeling it’ll be a long time before that happens.” Earlier in the post I identified “Freedom of Speech” as one of the other fundamental rights our society rests on. I still think abortion rights are more threatened, and equally vital, so it remains my primary concern. But I am no longer at all sure that it’ll be a “long time” until another right is as threatened. What even worse is that neither of the two major political parties care about freedom of speech anymore. There is no longer a win condition that is simply “support the side protecting vital freedoms,” now the win condition must also include “help reform the side you are supporting so it’ll return to protecting all vital freedoms.” This is much harder.

I used to think people trying to destroy freedoms were Bad in some fundamental way. Now that I’ve seen many people I care for turn against one of the fundamental freedoms, it’s made me rethink that. I cannot think they are bad people, because I know them, and I know they aren’t. They’re just wrong about certain things that have led them into massive moral error. I hope to get them back some day (or to discover that *I* am wrong, and I should join them, of course). If that’s the case for people who are working to destroy freedom of speech, it may be the case for those working to destroy reproductive freedom. If I hope to reach one group, I should hope to reach both.

I also, nine years ago, said “the government is supposed to pass laws for the good of the society is governs.” At the time I thought the government was fundamentally Good, and trying to do its best for The People. This perspective is now so foreign to me, that I didn’t remember holding it. I had to read those words, be shocked by them, and really dredge up the memories of those emotions and that mindstate. I feel naive now. I feel betrayed by those who taught me this. I regret that the world isn’t how I thought it was… the world of my imagination was a better world. I’m glad I still have this blog to look back on, and see the ways I used to think, and track how I’ve changed. It’s eye-opening.

A public service reminder – mifepristone and misoprostol are safe abortion pills that will induce an abortion up to 10 weeks into pregnancy. They are safe enough that they’re sold over the counter in many foreign countries, and you can get them mailed to you door with a bit of Googling. As of this writing, AidAccess is available to make this even easier. And services like ipostal1 will forward mail from other states.

New Story – We Shall Not All Sleep, But We Shall All Be Changed

Personal, Writing No Responses »

Mar 022022

I have a new story out! It appears in Dark Matter Magazine, issue 008. I’m quite impressed with Dark Matter – not only are they a new publication paying pro-rates from the start, but they comission original art for every single story they publish! The banner art for my story is above. :)

This story was inspired by a parable by Eliezer Yudkowsky. It was only a few paragraphs long, but it raised some serious emotional conflicts for me. I tried to find it to link it to someone a couple years ago, but either there’s a glitch in the Matrix or my Google-Fu has become very weak, because I could find no trace of it. I intended to recreate it in brief to pass on to a friend, but then accidentally wrote this instead. It is not what Eliezer wrote. But if you’ve read his parable, you’ll probably see how heavily I drew from it to write this.

Sorry for being so vague, I can’t relate the parable without completely spoiling the story. If anyone finds a link to the original, though, I’ll be very happy to link it here.

Anyway, my story is at Dark Matter, give it a look-see. :)

I Am A New Atheist, And I Repent

Musings On Present Day, Personal 13 Responses »

Feb 232022

I am a New Atheist. In the late 90s and early 00s I fought in the BBS, in the online forums, and in the mailing lists. I IRC’d and engaged on the burgeoning web, and IRL. I listened to The Infidel Guy and The Non-Prophets, and I went to see Dawkins in person.

One of my core beliefs was that humanity is better off without religion. Religion introduces error and dogma unnecessarily. It appropriates human’s need for community and diverts it for its own ends. It hijacks emotional drives to steer people into atrocities. In summary, it always siphons off value to preserve itself, provides nothing of value in the best case scenario, and in most cases actively degrades humanity.

One of the reasons I thought this is because I truely and deeply believed my generation’s Big Lie. That lie being that All People Are (Roughly) The Same. “All Men Are Created Equal” taken to the extreme. There were many simple, obvious facts of reality that I discovered in my 30s that genuinely shocked me, because I had so fully believed this Lie. It would be like a Christian expecting Jesus to take the wheel of their car when they let go, and being honestly, deeply shocked when the car crashes. I still think this Lie is Noble, and there is some value to it… but ultimately, like all lies, it is destructive. I plan to write more about this Lie and my relationship to it in a future post.

This is important, because *I* didn’t need religion. To me, it provided nothing of value. I understood morality and why other people matter. I found it important to understand the most accurate model of reality possible, unfettered by convenient falsehoods (haha, see previous paragraph). I was self-motivated, socially isolated, and highly Open/Novelty-seeking. Religion was simply a thing that was wrong, and that often served as a handicap.

Since Everyone Is (Roughly) The Same, this must be the case universally. Anyone who thought that religion was net-positive in any case was a victim of religious brainwashing. They’d been deluded, lied to, or violently suppressed, into clinging to humanity’s most destructive parasite. It was my duty to help them break free.

I was so, so very wrong.

It turns out people are different. Shockingly different, in some cases. There are large segments of the population that need what religion provides. Their psychology is vastly different from my own, and they cannot live without the sort of totalitarian guidance that religions provide.

I would not have believed this if someone told it to me, no matter how much supporting evidence they threw at me. Even six or seven years ago I wouldn’t have believed them. I would have to see people freed from religion, drown for years, and then finally create a new religion from whole cloth to supplant the old one, to believe this. I would have to see it with my own eyes, happening in real time.

That is exactly what happened.

Over the past few years I watched a new religion born. A secular religion, which doesn’t have the dead-easy failure mode of requiring belief in a sky-fairy. But, since it was created in America, with strong Christian roots, it has all the trappings of Christianity.

Original sin
Essentialism
Repentance and confession
Manichean good/evil dichotomy
Focus on martyrdom and victimhood
Salvation dispensed by the church and needing constant reaffirmation

Even worse, since it is a new religion that is being seized as a lifeline by people who’ve been spiritually drowning for over a decade, it is full of fiery zealots. All conflicts are recast as spiritual struggles focused around the original sin. Like the puritans, they can harbor no dissent in their midst. Everyone must be equally zealous and on their side, or they are on the side of evil. Any price is worth paying to save a soul from evil.

When the scales fell from my eyes and I finally realized what had happened, I felt true crushing failure. Not because I had failed in my objective. Tradition religion is less relevant than ever. The New Atheists won. But in winning, having not realized how different others are, we left a massive religion-vacuum in society. We laid the groundwork for a new religion. One that had been purged of the greatest weaknesses of traditional religions, and with a dense underbrush of religion-starved kindling to tear into.

So, yes. New Atheism helped to create Wokeism. I repent of my ways, I was wrong. Religion is needed, and we should have focused on strengthening the least harmful religion(s) while tearing down the most harmful ones, rather than trying to eliminate them all. Forgive us, for we knew not what we did. :(

Die Mad About It – Sam Briton edition

Musings On Present Day 3 Responses »

Feb 172022

I’ve used the phrase “Die mad about it” before. At least one person commented that this seemed to go very much against my normal stance against violence & threats of violence. This surprised me at first, but turned out to be a misunderstanding.

“Die mad about it” doesn’t indicate any desire for a person’s untimely demise. What it means is that I take a perverse pleasure in thinking of the subject as holding onto this grudge, and nursing it throughout a long life. That they will cling to a belief that they will find some remedy for this perceived injustice, some restitution or vindication. And yet, the world moves on, completely unconcerned with their backwards views. Eventually, many decades later, on the subject’s deathbed, they are still mad about this situation, and how it was never resolved to their liking.

It is meant to display a casual contempt for an opinion that is utterly impotent in the modern day. That this concern is beneath consideration, and doesn’t deserve the dignity of even an acknowledgement. The subject doesn’t have any recourse to soothe their anger, they must simply nurse it for decades. (Or, admitedly, let it go)

I know it’s not virtuous of me to feel this way. It betrays a spite and schedenfreud that I believe a better version of myself should not have.

And yet… there are some arguments so unworthy of consideration, that I can’t even be bothered to engage them. They are plainly, obviously, and trivial wrong. I can only hope that a better person than me will come along and engage such people in a productive way. I am not that good.

Which is all to say — apparently there are some right-wingers bemoaning the fact that Sam Briton is now the “deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy.” Briton’s crime, which should make him unhirable as a dept asst sec of nuclear waste disposal? Did he defraud the public, bomb bridges, or punch a baby? Does he not know how atoms work? Nope — He just isn’t in the closet about being kinky.

For a bunch of people who get upset about stupid-ass cancellations, this is more than a bit hypocritical. I know they don’t care about hypocrisy though, not any more than the woke left does. Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. Briton has the job, and no sane American is bothered about this. So fuck ’em. They can die made about it.

Capture of Tools, to Crush Your Enemies

Musings On Present Day 1 Response »

Feb 142022

A single human is weak. Many humans together are strong. This shocking insight has been known by humans since before our species could speak.

Many of our most important advancements have been technologies that allowed humans to more effectively coordinate–to leverage greater collective effort on a shared goal. The very first such advancement (debatable if it’s a “technology”) of course being speech itself. Every technology that made communications easier – writing, printing, mass literacy, telegraph/telephone, radio, internet – has increased the ability of humans to coordinate to create things and solve problems.

By working together and coordinating our efforts, humans can specialize to an astounding degree. No one alive can make a pencil (video). In our modern civilization, every person relies on the specialization of others. 12 years ago, Charles Stross estimated 100 million – 1 billion people required just to keep our civilization going. This has undoubtably increased since then.

Many basic tools of civilization are assumed to be commonly accessible by all. Paper manufacturers do not interrogate the publishers they sell paper to in order to ensure the publisher will only print things the paper manufacturer approves of. Nor do the ink manufaturers, or the shipping companies that transport these materials. Telephone companies do not test their customer’s political allegence before granting them access to phone networks. Copper miners don’t give ideological tests to copper mills, nor do mills query the beliefs of copper buyers.

In fact, when such tests are imposed, they are widely recognized as hostile acts, which are often taken to punish a country or organization without resorting to direct warfare.

Denying someone use of basic coordination technology due to their politics is no different from denying them the use of basic resources like paper, ink, and shipping. Or copper and telephone lines. Or water pipes and electrical lines. These are all things that are used to make civilization possible, and withholding their use is a direct attack.

Sometimes political groups see perfectly good tools of coordination being used freely by everyone in society, and they don’t like it.

Patreon, PayPal, GoFundMe allow the vast, unwashed masses to financially support anyone they wish, regardless of how anti-establishment they might be. This should not be allowed.

YouTube, Spotify, Twitter, Amazon allows the vast, uneducated hordes to listen to opinions that are downright harmful to the official narrative. This also should not be allowed.

The capture and denial of coordination tools is well under way, and it is nakedly hostile to certain political beliefs. Perhaps one is OK with direct attacks on opposing political tribes in the USA. I know a number of people who have openly said they seek the destruction and subjugation of those who aren’t sufficiently like them, politically. These people obviously have no problem with stripping any and every tool they can from “the other side.”

Demanding that everyone publicly conform with certain beliefs as a requirement for existing in a civilization is ideological puritanism. To warn someone that they cannot make use of market and network infrastructure if they don’t (publically) buy into the offical narrative is totalitarianism. It is vile, and everyone with any love or respect for freedom should abhor it.

SF/F Review – Machinehood

Book Club Review No Responses »

Feb 112022

Machinehood, by SB Divya

Synopsis: Religious fanatics assassinate a billionaire, gig-work is stressful, and then someone goes to space.

Book Review: You know how sometimes grandpa starts out telling you a story which sounds like it’s going to have a lot of promise, but it just kinda wanders and rambles and never gets to any point, and eventually you start to suspect that the speaker doesn’t remember what they were originally on about? This book is the novelization of that. It starts out good. The nuts-and-bolts writing itself is good, Divya knows how to make good sentences and paragraphs and all that. But nothing happens.

I’m gonna drop a few spoilers here, which I normally avoid, but they are things I would have wanted to know before starting the novel, so I think they’re justified.

The novel is deceptively marketted, IMO. I was promised a “science fiction thriller about artificial intelligence, sentience, and labor rights in a near future dominated by the gig economy.” I kept expecting there to be some sort of conflict between humans and artificial intelligence(s), and maybe something about what personhood means, and what rights it conveys. Afterall, “machinehood” is a direct reference to “personhood.” Maybe something like the core conflict of The Measure of a Man.

There is nothing like that here. There are no sentient AIs in this novel. Instead, there are humans who modify themselves with drugs, nanotechnology, and cybernetics. A group of religious fanatics decides that capitalism sucks, so they kill a billionaire and pretend they are a newly born Sentient AI that is about to take over the world. Our hero takes their head priest hostage, so the govt decides not to blow up their compound. That’s about it. There isn’t ever any consideration of what it means to be a person, or if artificial intelligence would count. No exploration of how such a debate would effect the world, or shape life, or effect the general public, or world politics.

I mean, the writing itself is fine! And there’s some cool things in the novel. The portrayal of a majority gig-work economy was cool. The extrapolation of protests-as-theater turning into literal performance art, with hired protestors and supermodel bodyguards, that get permits and register their riots and violence beforehand, was both surrealisticly humorous and plausibly prophetic. The way humanity is shown to accept new tech and adopt it to make their lives better and more efficient is great! But I need more than cool world-building ideas, especially in a book that’s sold as a philosophical exploration and/or thriller.

Speaking of this being a thriller — I really loved the bad-ass main character, a disillusioned special forces soldier. The novel could’ve been decent action beach reading… if not for the fact that half of it follows the soldier’s sister-in-law for no reason. Her problems are boring, they resolve themselves without struggle or fuss within a few pages, and she literally contributes nothing to the plot. And I really do mean that literally. Every single chapter focusing on her could be removed, and the plot of the book would be entirely unchanged. This is so blatent that I honestly believe this book was originally written purely from the soldier’s perspective. The publisher looked at pretty decent novella, said to Divya “This is about half the page-count we need. Double it if you want to be published,” and Divya inserted a bunch of filler fluff that doesn’t matter. Her lack of interest in the sister-in-law’s story shows. And, critically, whenever things start to get exciting with the soldier (her partner is critically wounded in an attack, and the world’s communication satalites are falling out of the sky!) we cut back to her sister-in-law and get a chapter that completely defuses all tension by boring us with pages of her emailing her boss about getting access to corporate research data that she thinks she’s being unfairly denied access to. Yes, really.

I feel kinda upset for the author here, because I think this could’ve been a good novella that was ruined by publisher demands. Unfortunately, Not Recommended.

Book Club Review: We actually had a bit of a good time figuring out what went wrong. Every one of us came into this with a feeling of “this novel looks good on paper, and no individual part of it is bad at any point, but it’s really unsatisfying and I don’t know why!” It took a bit of talking and hashing things out before we finally landed on the realization that nothing of consequence happened, and we had been promised many things of great consequence would happen. The ‘there is no AI anywhere in a book with this marketting, cover, and title is super lame’ answer coallesed out of teamwork, and it felt pretty fun to have solved the puzzle together. That being said, Not Recommended.

Censorship Is The Sworn Foe

Musings On Present Day, Personal 5 Responses »

Feb 102022

I believe that good ideas are strengthened through argumentation and inquiry, and bad ideas are crippled by them. Thus, in the long run, censorship harms good ideas and protects bad ideas.

I believe truth is unconvered by exploration and transparency, and strengthend by the light. Falsity is defeated by exploration and transparency, and burned by light. Thus, in the long run, censorship gives cover to falsity and hides truth.

If I’m wrong about these beliefs, I would be far more likely to alter my principles defending freedom of speech and voraciously criticizing censorshiop. Changing those belief will be hard, because I have what I believe to be a lot of very strong evidence in support of them. But not impossible.

Those beliefs are why I take the stances I take, regardless of WHO is saying whatever is being said. If they are saying things that are bad or wrong, openness will prove that. The only thing censorship can do is harm truth and good ideas.

Capture of Tools – GoFundMe edition

Musings On Present Day 14 Responses »

Feb 052022

As most people now know, GoFundMe cancelled a fundraiser in support of peaceful protesters in Ottowa that had raised ~$10M. They did so at the request of the Canadian government, who called the protests an “occupation.”

Almost immediately it was pointed out by many (notably, Elon Musk among them) that GoFundMe advertised a fundraiser for an actual violent occupation of a major US city. It had created an “autonomous zone” or “occupied zone” (by the protestor’s own words) that was entirely without any sort of law enforcement. Crime was rampant within it, several shootings occured, and at least one murder. GoFundMe also hosts at least one fund raiser for legal fees for an “activist” for this group. They also have MANY fundraisers for Black Lives Matter causes, (over $3M for BLM Los Angeles alone) which had many incidence of violence over the last two years, burning down entire blocks of cities, causing multiple deaths, and over $1B in damage in the US.

By way of comparison, as of mid-day 2/5/2022, I can’t find any accounts of notable violence during the Ottowa trucker protests. Despite a lot of hyperbole about “radicals,” and an “occupation.”

The difference between the two situations is obvious to anyone that’s been paying any attention. The leftist extremists that have captured most modern institutions approve of CHAZ/CHOP and BLM, but despise the “Freedom Convoy.” CHAZ and BLM are political allies of the extreme leftists, whereas the Convoy are political foes. The government can punish the demographics they despise, and the tech companies that have already been seized are happy to comply.

The worrisome part of all this is that GoFundMe isn’t just a way to fund political activists. It’s also the method that many working-class Americans use to pay for life-saving medical procedures. According to GoFundMe, one-third of all their fundraisers are for medical costs. They have a section specifically dedicated to helping people created medical fund raisers.

GoFundMe has now demonstrated that they will withhold fund-raising tools from anyone who speaks in opposition to the ruling party’s dogma. They’ll do so without reasonable justification, purely due to ideological opposition. This is a direct threat to the ability of the financially disadvantaged to pay for medical costs and procedures.

GoFundMe seems to be within their rights to do this. Perhaps one could say the these people were foolish to come to rely on a tool that could so easily be yanked away for something this important. But it’s still morally abhorent. And it further demonstrates that the woke have no empathy and no principles. They only have tactics. Stripping away every tool for coordination that the demographic you hate has available is certainly an effective tactic, no matter how revolting it may be.

Luisa Is The Hero Men Need

Musings On Present Day, Personal No Responses »

Jan 302022

This is “Surface Pressure,” Luisa’s song in Encanto.

I’ve seen a lot of takes that Luisa is problematic (or “bullshit”) because she’s a female character with typical male problems.* These mostly come from more traditionally-mind men. They complain that it’s a role-subversion trope that doesn’t make sense because ‘it’s about gender-noncomformity, and the charecter is a female that is uncomfortable conforming to male gender roles, which is dumb.’

Ahem.

This criticism is idiotic. On the surface level, it’s stupid because Luisa’s problems aren’t sex-exclusive. There are women that have exactly these issues. Sure, they’re rare in comparison to men, who have this issue a lot. So what? That anyone can have exactly these problems and this response is a given, and trying to claim otherwise makes one look like a prancing clown.

But, more importantly….

It’s the stupidest fucking move anyone could make if they want to increase sympathy for men with these problems! Which (I assume) is a thing that such men actually do want. I know I do.

One of the major advantages of SF/F, and the reason I love the genre, is that it allows reality warping in a way that lets people sympathize with The Other in a very personal way. All those sexist Woke fucks that drink #MaleTears and laugh about #ManPain will never, in a million years, watch a movie like Logan and understand the reason it resonates with men. They will NEVER see a male character under cracking weight and see anything but an object to be mocked.

BUT they will watch Luisa and understand her pain instinctively. And since it IS the stereotypical male burden, that brings them closer to actually understanding what the opposite sex often feels. Because they saw it in a way that they can relate to. It got in under their defenses exactly because she IS female. Next time they go to lol at #ManPain, maybe someone within the group will think (or even say!) “Well, ya know, this is a lot like what Luisa was being destroyed by. I guess it could suck a bit, right?”

That’s another step on the road to reconciliation, which is what will ruin the Wokes. Hand-delivered to us by freakin’ Disney, an unstoppable world-spanning entertainment juggernaught. You’re going to take a gift like this and spit on it, because… why? It’s not for you? That’s the whole point. To talk to the other side, you have to make art that’s for them. Be happy we’ve received the Hero We Need and stop sabotaging yourself.

*I delayed getting into this, because I haven’t yet seen the movie, and I don’t think people should have takes about art they haven’t actually watched/read/consumed. That’s exactly what everyone that cancels anything does. 99%+ of them have never experienced that which they want to censor. But I was convinced by a couple people that this song, in isolation, is the equivilent of an aria, and thus can be consumed and critiqued on its own merits without needing the full context of the rest of the movie. So…. here I go.

Mr K – Long Live The Monarch

Uncategorized No Responses »

Jan 272022

This post is snippets of an informal conversation with Mr K, which I’m posting while on vacation. I don’t necessarily endorse any of these views, and may oppose some of them. I won’t be around to respond to comments for a couple weeks.

The whole problem is people like Trump
look, Trump is simply a major piece in a large grassroots movement
or a large fascist movement if you will
Trump may be a farcical pseudofascist, but the next person like him will not be a farce
that is what we need to avoid
and that is the trajectory we’re currently headed towards, because like it or not, the woke oligarchy is on its last legs
the thing about fascism is that it essentially consists of mass movements, with the fascist dictators needing the continual support of this mass movement
and in order to have this support base, they must also have a political counterpole
and outgroup which is the enemy of the fascist regime

a mass movement does not even need elections to be successful
elections, in their current form, are basically a way of rendering mass movements less effective.
the raid on the capitol is not part of the electoral process, for example
but it is clearly part of a mass movement
if you have a genuinely highly energised mass movement that also constitutes the majority population
then, if they want, they can just sorta declare an election whenever they want

mass movements run basically on mob mentality, whether these mass movements are revolutions, civil wars, mob justice, boycotts, or something else

you need to protect private property because people need to be able to set up means of production, which requires them to have a reasonable expectation that it will pay off

if you have a complex economy, it is necessary for each productive good to have an unambiguous owner

because otherwise the constant power struggles will completely cripple the ability to use the productive goods

this is the case whether the owner is a private person or whether it is the government

you cannot really decentralise long term planning. You can delegate some aspects of it, but the delegation itself will need to be centralised

literally any organisation that functions works like this

if you drive a car, your car was made by a monarchy. If you go to a good restaurant, the restaurant is a monarchy.

the New York Times is a fifth generation hereditary absolute monarchy

you cannot get rid of this power structure, no matter how hard you try

it’s gonna keep popping up basically everywhere

I think we’re headed towards a dictatorship that will either have the character of fascism or the character of monarchy. I hope for the latter, in no small part because I kinda wanna avoid fascism actually

I know a lot of people don’t have this model of neoreactionaries but actually I would very much like to avoid a fascist dictatorship

I think this regime is already unravelling, and I think that when it deteriorates sufficiently, a dictatorship of some kind is basically inevitable.

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