Some people that you meet
Are a backwards weathervane
They’re pointing not to joy
But to misery and pain
Wind blows on us all
But we chose where we point
So when an ill wind blows
Don’t get all out of joint
2024-07-26
“It is not sustainable” and “oppression leads to rebellion” are among the most no-true of all no-true-Scotsmen. That thing that has gone on for centuries, maybe for all of known history? Not sustainable, and on top of that THIS time “we” will rise up and overthrow! And the check is in the mail, too.
2026-01-02
Alcoholics Anonymous shows that a distributed, non-hierarchal social structure can endure over generations. The Religious Society of Friends (known as the Quakers) show this is true for many more generations. Their form of social structuring is demonstrably sound.
However, Alcoholics Anonymous deliberately does not maintain records of success and failure of their one task: to teach men and women to not drink alcohol. And The Quakers promote peace in the world, and peace is not in the world. The social structure of these groups may be sound, but their effectiveness in the world is negligible.
Social structures can be interesting, but effectiveness in the world is more than interesting.
Function over form.
Action over ideas.
2026-01-03
All of me is free until none of me is free.
2025-12-15
The next time you hear someone say “they can’t arrest us all” in a call for mass action, ask if they (whoever they are) can take care of us all, reward us all, protect us all, or some other positive outcome. This will clarify that “they can’t arrest us all” is a variation of “let’s you and him fight,” a call for other people to sacrifice themselves for the common good, a common good which doesn’t include those commoners.
2026-01-04
Ice cubes are made by pouring water in the ice cube tray. They’re all about the same size and shape, they’re all made from the same thing at the same time, they all have the same function. Click them out of the tray into a bowl, and they can go in any order into the drink. Some writing is that way: the components are all related and they can go in any order. This is only wrong if the author doesn’t intend it.
Strings of pearls are made by pulling a string through a pearl. Each pearl is still itself, but they are all in one order only, from this end to that end. Some writing is that way: the components are all related and they go in only one order. This is only wrong if the author doesn’t intend it.
Bead work is made by stringing beads not only to the ones immediately before and after them, but to other beds in loops and patterns. Like knitting lace. Some writing is that way: the components are all related and they go in one order but also reference what is further ahead and further behind. This is only wrong if the author doesn’t intend it.
Using all three models is only wrong if you didn’t intend to use all three.
2026-01-07
All great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. The first time as force, the second time as force.
2026-01-17
I’ve read at great length about revolutions and social upheavals and public panics. Usually there’s a lot of detail on how things went, and some attention to how things started. But there’s rarely much on how things end. For example: there’s a good body of literature on what happened in the Satanic Panic. Some of that literature talks about the conditions and contributors that may have made that start up. But… what is there on how it stopped? And not only stopped, but stopped dead and nobody talked about it any more? It might never be possible to nip a mob mania in the bud, but if the mechanisms for stopping it once it started were known that would be good.
In my personal theory of social panics, their defining trait is how they simply stop and nobody much is held accountable and it’s considered poor form to bring it up afterwards. That’s what makes it a social panic and not just some strange or bad thing that happened. Who cares if there are a few men still in prison for the Satanic Panic? Who cares if others died in prison? Who cares if those who were released served a cumulative few centuries? Who cares if the thousands of mental health professionals and law enforcement agents and government servants who cashed in on and enforced the Satanic Panic were just plain let off the hook, never held accountable, with a single-digit few of them getting a mild scolding at most? That society-wide agreement to not talk about it any more, that’s the defining trait.
2026-01-22
Karl Popper was who pointed this out to me: if a conspiracy is a private plan to action, then there are a bazzillion to the gigabazzillion-degree conspiracies happening all the time, at every level. It’s just that almost all of them fail entirely, most of them fail mostly, and only a fantastically tiny percentage of them succeed as planned. So the problem with “conspiracy theories” is that there’s an over-emphasis on the tiny percentage of them succeed as planned, or an exaggeration of how many of them succeed. I think that’s true of “progress” and “oppression” too. A very, very selective observance of the evidence.
2026-01-29