First watch this absurd and slightly humorous video:

The support character in this skit (Julian) is a good representation how I view socialists, particularly Marxists. Marx had this kookie idea called the “Labor Theory of Value.” He posited that the economic value of a products is derived from the amount of labor that goes into making it. For instance, making a wooden chair might take 10 hours of skilled labor, while a stamped steel chair might only take 1 hour of unskilled labor. According to the Labor Theory of Value, the wooden chair should be worth more.

Julian insists that his brother should drink the hot koolaid. Julian feels that his product is worthwhile, simply because he put labor into it. We are given an example from the skit, where one of his previous products hospitalized three women. The value of the product is in fact negative.

I could spend 100 hours writing a book out by hand, or I spend 100 hours typing up a book. Writing it by hand would certainly be more laborious, but there’s no reason to think that the hand written version would be better than the typed version. It’s likely that the hand written version would be shorter, have more typos, and be harder to read.

Finally, there’s the issue of “diminishing returns.” For every additional hour added, only a decreasing fraction of additional output is added. Any painter can tell you that they’re never actually finished, but at some point they just stop painting. There’s always one or two more touch-ups to do… always. Virtually unlimited time can be poured into a single painting, and yet after a while, the painting doesn’t noticeably improve. I don’t think it’s possible to argue that the hours sunk into a painting has a strong correlation to the value.

The value of a product is unrelated to the labor that is put in. Just because Marx spent years thinking about his Labor Theory of Value, doesn’t make it a worthwhile idea.

• I get agency and flexibility on the projects that I work on
• There are high stakes at my work, the success of the company hinges on my work ethic and attention to detail.
• I get to interface with the customer. My work has a face and personality to it.
• It’s not nameless assembly line work. It’s personal.
• I love not-working for a giant corporation.
• We’re spartan. We don’t have fluff and frill like cake for birthdays.
• It’s exciting work. It’s not 100 types of caster wheels for office chairs. It’s real production. I get to work on the teeniest detail, all the way to full scale assembly.
• The work is varied. I get to work on something new all the time.
• I love being creative to solve problems.
• My boss listens to me attentively.
• My boss carefully considers my ideas and suggestions.
• My boss makes a conscious effort to combat common cognitive biases.
• My boss is intellectually rigorous. He wants to understand it all, fully.
• My boss has high expectations for me.
• My boss is forgiving when I screw up.
• My boss is even tempered and fair in how he treats me and his customers.
• My boss habitually shows gratitude.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned on my fitness journey, it’s that slow and steady always beats fast and jerky. Increasing by 5 pounds a week for 10 weeks is better than 25 pounds in 2 weeks.
It’s the same when it comes to cooking. You don’t broil a 25lb turkey. You cook it low and slow. You cook it all the way through. Cooking at 350° for 2 hours is not the same as 600° for 1 hour.

Square One: 9 out of 10

Absolutely phenomenal book. This book is so good in fact, that if you have even the smallest inclination to read it, I would buy it for you in a heartbeat.

It’s perfect for the layman who has never studied philosophy in their life. It’s perfect for the bearded snob who thinks they know it all. It’s a refreshing, straight forward, humorous, easy read about the fundamentals of philosophy.

I will gladly buy a copy of the book for you, otherwise: spoiler alerts below!
The thesis of Square One is that logic and existence are inexorably linked. If a thing exists, it follows laws of logic. Objective knowledge is possible. Here are some examples:
“Blonde women are blonde.”
“Small dogs are dogs.”
“There are no married bachelors.”

These are not, “true as far as we know.” We don’t have to do any testing to validate the statements.

There is one bonus statement which is indisputably true:
“Awareness is happening.” This statement isn’t necessarily true like the others. It’s conditional on me existing, which is debatable, whereas the above three are not.

As someone who has wondered about objectivity, I am gushing with excitement. I feel as though I have exited Plato’s cave and can see the real world now.

Most interactions can be boiled down to two people, either trying to cooperate or manipulate (aka defect). When each person has a nearly equal amount of information about the other, then it’s hard to defect. It might work once or twice, but eventually the other person will learn from their mistakes. Fool me once and all that.

In situations where one person knows considerably more than the other, it’s called asymmetrical information. That person can easily screw the other and get away with it. A common example is the Sleazy Salesmen. A salesman knows everything about the car, as well as most habits of customers and what phrases to use to increase the odds of a sale. They could sell you a car that wouldn’t be optimal for you, either because it’s lower quality than you realized when you bought it, or because it’s considerably higher quality than you really need.

With the advent of the internet, a deluge of information has been unleashed. We’re now able to research a car before we even show up to a car lot. We can learn sales tactics and brace ourselves against them. We can know almost as much as the car salesmen. Car salesmen will have to transition from thinking “How can I offload this junker on to an unsuspecting shlump?” to “How can I act as a liason to this person who has already decided what car they want.”

The same thing is going to happen to all industries. As somebody who doesn’t particularly care about cars, and cares a great deal about health, I’m especially looking forward to this happening to doctors. Traditionally doctors were paternalistic. They told you what to do… or else you’ll die. They withhold certain diagnoses because they don’t want to scare your pretty little face. Nefarious ones write prescriptions because they get a cut of the drug deal, while you get symptoms worse than the disease.

Pretty soon that won’t be possible. We’ll have WebMD times 10, so you can suss out your own symptoms and diagnose yourself. We’ll have garage laboratories where you can order test results from. I can see the day when it will be cheaper to sequence your own genome and take the necessary precautions against all of the diseases you’re predisposed to, than to see a guy in a white coat who pats you on the head and tells you not to worry about it (while secretly just worrying about a malpractice suit).

Yes many doctors will lose their jobs. But nobody complained when the sleazy car salesmen disappeared.

“Hi Dexter!” said Alexis.

“Oh, uh, hi, Alexis.” I said. I was dumbstruck for words. She was gorgeous. Her big blue eyes were sandwiched between long lashes. Her golden hair cascaded to her shoulders.

“Want to come to my party tonight? It’s at 8pm at my house.”

“Oh you’re having a party?”

“Yeah silly. I just said that. So what do you think?”

“Well it’s a week night and I have this chemistry homework due Friday…”

“C’mon! Homework can wait.”

“Yeah… I think I can make it work. Let me ask my parents.” I said. However, I knew it was too late to ask them. I had already said “Yeah.”

“Great! See you tonight!”

She hurried off in a cute skip. I sighed. Everything about her was cute. Then I looked back to my chemistry homework on my desk. It glared at me with disdain.

“Hey! What was I supposed to say?” I said.

The other library goers shushed me harshly. They had a point. I packed up my pencils, eraser, calculator, and papers into my backpack and made my way home.

“Mom!” I yelled across the house as I barged inside. “When’s dinner?”

“Hello honey, glad you’re home.” she replied sweetly. She found me and planted a big wet-one on my cheek.

“Yeah, thanks Mom. What time is dinner?”

“Dinner will be ready at 5. Be a dear and take out the trash, hmm?”

“Yeah yeah.”

By 6 I knew that enough time had passed that it counted as me not being in too much of a rush and I’d still have time to get to Alexis’ party.

“Mom, Dad?” I said.

“Yes, son?” they replied in unison.

“There’s a party at 8 tonight at Alexis’ house. Can I go?”

“Is your homework done?” Dad asked.

“Uh yes.” It would be done before Friday, so technically yes.

“Then I don’t see why not.”

I let the silence stretch on for too long. I kept hoping and expecting that they’d offer to drive, but they never did. I almost asked when suddenly I realized that I had already bought a monthly bus pass. Since I bought it, I might as well use it.

This journey to Alexis’ house would be a long one, involving two transfers and a mile walk to the bus stop. I got started as soon as I washed my dish from dinner. It was only after I had walked the mile to the bus stop that I realized that I completely forgot that my friend Trevor lived in a house on the route to the bus stop. He has a car. I could have asked him for a ride! I could have hung out with him for an hour and then rode in comfort and arrived in style. But I was already at the bus stop, I figured I might as well take the bus.

It was only a 20 minute wait for the bus (time I could have spent walking back to Trevor’s house). I hopped on and found a seat with no strangers sharing the adjacent seat. I got comfortable and then just let my mind wander. I watched the scenery scroll by. I thought about how cool this party would be and who else would be there. Certainly Trevor, and hopefully my other friend Mark. Then it hit me like a dodge ball to the gut. I was staring at the mall… I hadn’t passed the post office yet… I’ve been going the wrong way this whole time! Ugh! How frustrating! I’ll certainly be late for the party now. Gosh dangit!

I got off the bus as soon as I could, which wasn’t for another agonizing mile in the wrong direction. I crossed the street to catch the bus going the correct direction this time. I was sitting there, kicking myself for my stupidity when I heard a familiar voice.

“Aw yeah! Take that! … Boom baby!” Yup. That was Don, the school bully. Popular, well dressed, and a total jerk. He must be playing video games. I’ll bet he’s going to the party in comfort and style in his car too. A sinister thought crossed my mind. Maybe I could ask him to take me too? I mean, I could be cool too right? To be seen with Don might raise my cool-factor.

I followed the voice to an open window of a house on the street. I walked up to the door and knocked once. I was about to knock three times, but I caught myself with another thought. “Why couldn’t I just call Trevor? Or my parents. I’m sure they would come get me”. But it was too late. I already knocked once. I gave two more knocks just to complete the pattern.

A door opened and a woman appeared. “Hello?”

“Hello, is Don home?” I asked.

“Yes let me go get him. Can I ask who you are?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s Dexter.”

She disappeared and Don appeared in front of me.

“What do you want pipsqueak? You ruined my kill streak on Gunz & Grenadez.”

I just stood there with my mouth agape. I thought to myself, “I can just run away now. But no, I’ve already come this far, I have to keep going.”

“Well?”

“Uh, I was wondering if you were going to Alexis’ party tonight and if you could take me?”

“Hmm yeah, I wasn’t going to, but now I think I will. Are you ready to go now?”

“Now? We’ll be really early.”

“Hey you want me to take you or not?”

“Sure, now is good for me.” I said.

Just as I got buckled I got a call. It was Trevor. He offered to take me to Alexis’ party! But it was too late. I was already buckled into Don’s car. I respectfully declined Trevor’s offer, even though he had time to pick me up and get me there on time, and even though I really didn’t want to be in the same 5 mile radius as Don, it was just too late. I had already made it this far, I might as well keep going.

Don was being really nice. Maybe I was wrong about this guy. He wasn’t so bad once you spent 20 minutes riding in silence next to him. I got another call from Trevor. The party was cancelled! Dang it! Don pulled over when he heard the news.

“Cancelled? Cancelled? You brought me all the way out here for a party that wasn’t going to happen?” Don said furiously.

“Well I didn’t know it was going to be cancelled!”

“You idiot! You ruined my streak, and then you wasted my time! I should have never agreed to take you. Get out of my car!”

I was relieved to get out of the car, but measurably less relieved when he also got out of the car. He came around the car with his fists locked and loaded. He let loose a fury of blows which I blocked as best as I could with my twig arms. When he was done with me I was polka-dotted with bruises. Then he drove off, leaving me in a shriveled heap somewhere in the city. I cried a little until I gained composure. I took a few deep breaths. Then I started to recognize some landmarks. I realized that I was only a mile away from Alexis’ house! I could still go! Sure the party was cancelled, sure I was dusty and covered in bruises, but I’ve already made it this far, so surely I have to keep going. So I kept going.

It was a long slow walk until I finally arrived at Alexis’ house. At long last, I finally made it. I ringed the door bell, giddy with excitement. Alexis answered the door.

“Hi Dext-, oh gosh! What happened to you?”

“Oh I uh, ran into some trouble. Well I’m here!” I said.

“Dexter, um, the party is cancelled. I’m sorry if you went through a lot of trouble to get here, because there’s no one here. Hopefully you didn’t waste too much time or money, and I’m sorry you got hurt in the process.” She slowly closed the door.

I was glum and defeated. I sat on the curb and ploped my head on my hands. I gave a heavy sigh. I guess I did waste a bunch of time. There really wasn’t any reason to go. Just because I’ve partially invested, doesn’t mean I have to fully invest. I should make decisions based on future value, not on previously imagined value.

Just then, Trevor rolled up.

“Dexter! I knew you would come here even though the party was cancelled. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“But I have a bus pass I can -“

“Get in the damn car Dexter!”

Trevor was right. I don’t have to take the bus when there is a better optoion available. I got in and buckled.

Trevor said, “You know for being so smart, you’re not all that smart.” and we drove off.

There are two kinds of people in the world.
When I tell people that I’m going to Hawaii, I get two responses.

1. “Oh wow! That’s awesome! You’re gonna have a great time”
2. “Yeah but what about your engineering degree?”

To the first people I say, “Thanks! I’m super excited.”
To the second people I say, “Just because you have something doesn’t mean you have to use it i.e. your mouth.”

I am not a slave to my previous decisions. It doesn’t matter if my degree was in pre-law, or neuroscience, or sophism. I can do what ever I want going into the future. Most of the time, it makes sense to continue with what I was doing. That doesn’t make it a binding agreement.

There is no aspect of having an engineering degree that will allow you to go to Hawaii. At Chrysler, or most any white collar job, if you are lucky, if you brown nose your boss, if you beg your co-workers to take on your load, then you might be able to get permission to take a week off to frolic on the Hawaiian beaches.

Ultimately I’m not going because it’s Hawaii, I would have gone almost anywhere. These are the reasons I am chasing this windmill:

1. It’s hard work
   Unfortunately I skipped this step before college. I was handed a golden opportunity and I took it. I went straight for college and then a lucrative engineering job. I was too lucky for my own good. I can tell that I don’t work as hard as my peers. I never had to get a job in high school. I don’t have student debt. I need to learn a good work ethic as part of my life curriculum. I could just get this same job on land, and it would suck, but I think I can still learn the lesson of hard work while on a cruise ship.
2. It’s the pinnacle of minimalism
   I am a hipster minimalist. I think all these kids who adopt minimalism are just doing it for looks, and not because they actually want to experience living on less. Not like me. I love the idea of being able to move every 3 months. I love being able to fit all of my belongings into my car. How much more minimalist can I get? It turns out, a great deal. I don’t need a car. I never need to cook or store food. I don’t need to buy clothes, food, or pay rent or gym membership. Just the bare necessities.
3. I want customer experience
   Most people hate customers, but I think they’re alright. Engineering doesn’t provide much customer service, and I’d like a job that provides more. How much? I don’t know. This will be a good way to dip my toe in the warm, blue, water.
4. I’m moving states
   Soon, very soon, I’ll be moving to New Hampshire. My people need me. I made a promise to a collective (ugh collectives) that I would move by Feb 3, 2021. Instead of moving there now and then working on a cruise ship, I’ll just work on the cruise ship first.
5. I’m young
   It’s no secret. I’m dying. Very, very slowly. At this rate I’ll be dead by 100. I certainly can’t wait until I’m 65 to start working on a cruise ship. The time to strike is now, while my mind is still taut yet malleable.

I recently had an interview and I want to go over what I said and what I should have said.

Question: Teamwork is really important for this position. How well do you work on a team?
Answer: I work great on a team. I’ve really bonded with my coworkers and even though it hasn’t been much time, I can almost call them family.
Better answer: I work great on a team. I’ve really bonded with my coworkers and even though it hasn’t been much time, I can almost call them family. I am able to trust them to help me when I am in need and vice versa.

Question: Do you have any experience working 7 days a week?
Answer: Yes I work 7 days a week now.
Better Answer: Yes I currently work 7 days a week now and 70 hours per week. Working only 60 hours per week for this job would be a vacation! At first 70 hours per week was hard, but I’ve gotten so used to it that I hardly notice.

Question: What’s the hardest part of your job?
Answer: Lifting heavy kegs in the freezer room because they’re heavy, it’s cold, and it’s slippery.
Better Answer: The hardest part of my job is getting glassware washed in a timely manner. We have a bottle neck in the process simply due to the architecture of our building and the placement of the glassware dish washer.

Question: How does this job fit into your career path?
Answer: I plan to do this job for 2 years and then move on to a job in sales and in logistics.
Better Answer: Ultimately I want to get a job in sales. I already know I love customer service, I just want to get better at it. I think getting this job would give me a huge advantage over people who strictly have technical sales knowledge. This job would be better than any training course someone could take.

Question: Why would you switch from engineering to this job???
Answer: Engineering is fine, it’s just not my passion. I have several jobs I want to do, including working on a cruise ship. I think it would be a ton of fun and hard work. I know it’s not something I can do when I’m older, so I should do it now while I’m young.
Better Answer: Engineering is fine, but it doesn’t excite me. Customer service does. It’s that human touch that brings me to life. Even at my current engineering job I look to bring customer service as a priority.

I’m slowly giving up alcohol. It’s not about feeling superior, or a principal, or risk of addiction. I simply don’t like alcohol.

What’s the best part of a mimosa? The orange juice. Jack and Coke? The Coke. They sell a beer called a Vanilla Java Porter and it does sound delicious, until I realize that “vanilla java” sounds delicious, “porter” sounds just ok.

When I say a certain beer tastes “good”, what I mean is that the beer tastes good compared to other beers. I’ve never had a beer that tasted better than soda. The best beer I’ve had is only the best because I didn’t have soda at the time.

As much fun as it is to be “buzzed”, it’s never as much fun as being high on caffeine. In fact, I’ve never done any activity that was more fun buzzed than it was sober. I love water pong, board games, video games, parlor games, and dancing. I enjoy all of them more when I’m sober.

Sure, drinking lowers your inhibitions and gives you “confidence”, but where’s the challenge? I love this quote, “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.” I don’t want talking to girls to be easier, I just want to be better at it.

There are certain factors which will complicate giving up drinking. First off, it’s a social thing to do. If we as a society casually consumed heroin instead of beer at parties, it would be hard to avoid heroin. If we casually beat people to death at parties, it would be hard to avoid beating people to death at parties. If you want to be part of the herd, you have to do what the herd does. We’re social animals. It’s, unfortunately, inevitable. Luckily, we seem to be stuck with alcohol.

I catch myself thinking, “If only I had X, then I would do Y”. Ah ah ah! Not so fast. I quickly realize that I already have what I need to do Y.

For example, I often think, “If only I had a weight belt, I could burn more calories when I run.” Except that it’s not a true limiter. I can test this by thinking, “I have dumbbells I could hold in my hands while I run, do I use them?” The answer is no, I run just fine without them.

I’ve caught myself thinking, “If only I had a girlfriend, I’d review our relationship with her every night to make sure we’re helping each other and not growing apart.” Nope. Not the case. I can tell because I don’t review my relationship with myself every night. The thought of reviewing my day is exhausting. I don’t have any evidence to believe that would change. It’s merely wishful thinking. I wish I reviewed my own day. I wish I wrote down what progress I made toward my goals, what went well and what didn’t. There’s no reason to think that it would be any different with a girlfriend.

I once thought, “I wish I had more money, then I could buy more 3D printers and more filament, and rubber shock absorbers, and bearings, and… etc.” But the reality is, I’m just not devoting enough time to growing my business for that to be worth it. It’s just not a priority right now. I’m not hurting for capital, I’m hurting for skilled labor. I need to allocate energy. Capital is just a tool. It’s a patch. Any schmuck off the street can buy a 3D printer and run a company. It takes a smart schmuck to leverage unique talents and assets to carve out a lucrative niche.

Don’t fall for your own lies! Understand the world you’re in, and get the world you want!

Being the Onshape Master and Engineer that I am, I wanted to create the best possible spinning top. The fundamental principal of a spinning top is the moment of inertia. To keep a top going and going, you need a high concentration of mass far from the axis of rotation. Essentially, I’m looking for the greatest delay between input forces and resulting speed. One way to do that is to increase the amount of mass. Something that is massive, will be slower to respond to forces acting on it. Additionally, increasing the distance from the axis is the equivalent to using a giant lever. If you’re pushing at the end of a lever, and I’m pushing towards the middle, you’ll beat me. (These principals work in reverse too. It will be just as hard to get this top up to speed as it will to get it to stop). Here’s a great animation.

The cylindrical ring is the slowest, which is what I want. The cross section of a cylindrical ring is a rectangle, but for artististry, I went with a circular cross section. It makes it look like it came from the space-age. This resulted in a torus. In Onshape, I created a vertical centerline from the origin in the Z axis, and a circle and stem to hold on to.

  Then I did a circular feature pattern to create the other 3 spokes. Done and done!

When it comes to intelligence, I think about two aspects. There’s horse power and there’s acceleration. Some people, by nature, are smarter or more intuitive than others. Some people just apply their focus more sharply. I know really smart people who couldn’t win a chess game to save their lives, and chess masters who can’t cook.

It’s not enough to have raw intelligence. I’ve done a fair bit of research on philosophy, but I don’t remember most of it. The problem is that I don’t use it on a day-to-day basis. I think it’s fascinating, and I fantasize about being extremely knowledgeable in every branch of philosophy. The reality is, since I don’t use it, I don’t retain it. At this rate, I’ll never be extremely knowledgeable about philosophy. It’s just not a priority right now.

Right now, at work, I’m learning about DC motors and how to control them. I always thought you just plug the positive to one side and the negative to the other and then you get motion. I recently learned there are things called “Servomotors” which are basic DC motors, with circuitry to control how far and how fast you want to turn them. You need additional circuitry to send those signals. One of those circuits is called an “H-bridge“. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve researched the H-bridge, and got distracted by the inventor, and the history, and the industrial applications. At those times in my life H-bridges weren’t relevant, so I learned trivia and then quickly forgot it. Now that servos are relevant, I understand the fundamentals of H-bridges.

I can now confidently consider myself smart, not because of my raw intelligence, but because of the relevant information I have retained and applied.

“I’m open! I’m open!” yelled Sean.
I laughed and chucked the ball to him. It was a little high, but he jumped up and caught it. Then it was my turn.
“I’m open, I’m open!” and Sean threw it back to me. That was our favorite joke. Pretty much any time we’d play catch with just the two of us we’d each make that joke at least once.
“Ok go long, this might be a home run!” I wound up as Sean booked it as fast as he could. I let it loose to fly through the air. I traced it with my eyes as it soared, and soared, and kept going past Sean. My heart sank into my stomach as I saw the ball give up soaring and finally sink past the fence. That was Old Man Jenkins’ yard. Sean stopped dead in his tracks. The look of terror mirrored mine.
That was ball was signed by Roy ‘La Boom’ Jackson! “AAAA! How am I supposed to get that back!” he exploded.
I jogged up to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m-” I gulped. “I’m really sorry”.
“My Uncle Richard got it for me. And he’s a millionaire. How am I supposed to get another one? What if he asks me about it, I’ll have to lie and say I lent it out.” After a few moments, Sean began to sob softy.

I couldn’t stand to look at him like this. I felt so awful about what happened. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t buy another ball signed by La Boom. That ball is gone… Or is it? A devious thought crept into my head. I started for the fence.
“Where- *sniff* Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get that ball.” I said defiantly.
“No! It’s too dangerous!”
“I’ll be quick, I promise” I said more confidently than I was.
“Are you sure? I mean, I’ll figure something out with Uncle Richard.”
“No I’m sure. I’ll be right back.”
“Well I’m going with you.”
“You don’t have to, only one of us needs to go.”
“Well I’m going.”

We walked up to the fence and peeped through the slats. I could see the ball sitting on the ground just a few feet from the fence.
RAWR RAWRA ARWRA ARWRRA
Leroy jumped up on the fence and scared the pants off of us. His slobbery jaws housed a vicious row of teeth. He snarled and barked continuously. When got our wits about us, we realized something. We need a plan. Sean agreed to run to the other side and taunt the monster while I sneak in grab the ball and get out.

Once Sean was in position and Leroy was worked up. I jumped the fence. It was eerie inside. I felt like Neil Armstrong. I bolted for the ball. But, clumsy me, just as I was about to slow down to pick it up, my foot punted it. It rocketed back into the air, ricocheted off a small structure shading the well and then straight into the well.

“Nooooo!” I screamed.

RAWR RAWRA ARWRA ARWRRA
Panic seized my stomach and my legs started moving on their own in a desperate attempt to run from the dog who was now nipping at my heels. Where was I supposed to run in this death trap of a yard? I realized my legs were taking me straight for the well. I didn’t have time to think. I just jumped into the darkness…

I fell for what felt like hours. It was only by some miracle that when the light returned to my eyes, that I realized I was sitting on my rump on a grassy hill in twilight. It was noon when I was playing with Sean. It must be at least 7 o’clock now.

A stranger walked up to me from over the hill.

“Hello stranger, enjoying your day off?”
“Uhh, day off? Yeeah I guess so.”
“Great. Great. Ok well I hate to be so blunt, but we are having a Parrocagata tasting contest in about 15 minutes.”
I coughed hard. I blinked slowly, trying to take it all in. Where was I? Why wasn’t I dead? Am I dead? Did he just say a dog poop tasting contest? What question do I ask first?
“Uh no, I think I’m going to just rest here for a bit and collect my thoughts.” I said.
“Oh ok, that’s fine.” said the stranger sadly. “It’s just that we have this super rare 50 year old base ball as the prize and the rules dictate that we must have exactly 10 contestants. But that’s ok.”
I blinked twice more. A what? That couldn’t be /the/ baseball I’m looking for. I mean, what are the chances? I looked around quickly at my surroundings. All I could see were luscious green hills, this well which looks identical to the one I jumped in, the beautiful pastel sunset, and this stranger offering me dog poop. I guess it’s worth a shot.
“Did you say a rare baseball? You know, I think I would like to participate after all.”
“Oh great. I knew you’d come around. Ok just follow me. What’s your name?”
“Justin.” I said.
“Great. Nice to meet you Justin, my name is George.”

George led me to the contestant prep station which contained a mirror, some basic make up supplies, and mouthwash. I started to get cold feet, but the memory of Sean sobbing spurred me on.

I rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash, because, why not? I had time to kill. Then I sat for a few more minutes. Finally a woman with a glasses, a clipboard, and a tiny microphone glued to her cheek knocked on my door.
“Are youuuuu…” She trailed off and scanned her clipboard as if finding one name out of 10 would be hard. “Justin?”
“That’s me.”
“Ok I hope you’re ready, just follow me.”
I followed her to a chair on the stage where 9 other contestants were sitting at a table draped in a silky white table cloth.
The woman announced, “And finally, we have Justin, who has agreed to fill in for Peggy at the last minute!”
The crowd was huge. I could tell I was in an auditorium and every single seat was taken. People were sitting on the edge of their seat waiting with anticipation.

“Well contestants, the rules are simple. You’ll each be given 10 small portions of Parrocagata, numbered 1 through 10, and you simply have to mark the number next to the name that you think corresponds with the sample.”

I looked down at the table and noticed a sheet of paper with 10 names that were totally foreign to me and a blank next to them.

A chef brought out a silver platter with 10 cubes of what looked like brownies for all I could tell. He used tongs to place a cube on each of our plates.
“This is a Brown, from France.” he announced.
I breathed deeply. I held my nose. I took a tiny nibble…

I was horrendous! Oh my word. I immediately spat it out. Awful was the only word I could think of. It didn’t resemble what I thought dog poop would taste like, but it was still awful. It was remarkably bitter. I looked to the left to see my compatriots grinning. It made some of their cheeks rosy. They began to make small talk.

“Well, what do you think, Patricia?” said one.
“Oh it’s delightful. It can only be Rochetta.” another replied.
“Rochetta? Really? I was thinking it was Botetti.” said the first.
“You know, Botetti and Rochetta are made from the same process, Beatrice?” said someone else.

“Um, excuse me.” I spoke up. But no one heard me, so I cleared my throat and spoke louder. Excuse me!” That got everyone’s attention.
“You people know that ‘Perro cagada’ means dog poop, right?”
“The whole table and the crowd burst out laughing- at me. I blushed bright red. But still, how could these people tolerate, let alone enjoy this stuff?
When the one they call Patricia calmed down, she said “Oh my dear boy, you have no idea do you? Parrocagata is a delicacy. It’s consumed the world over. It’s one of most popular foods ever. Oh I can’t believe you just compared it to dog poop of all things.” She wiped a laughing tear from her eye.

I still didn’t believe her. Maybe this was a global conspiracy of some kind. Maybe this is all a hilarious prank. Maybe this is just a dream and I’ll wake up. Well this is a taste testing contest after all. I found a name that looked as horrendous as this tasted and marked it.

The chef brought out the next round, announcing that it was a Tan from Washington. Again it was awful. But maybe, not as bad as the last one. There was a name on the list that was the 2nd least awful looking, so I went with that.

The other contestants chatted nosily.
“Oh I can taste a hint of chestnut and coriander.” said one braggishly.
“Really? I taste a complex swirl of chocolate and rosemary.”

Again the chef dolled out the tiny bricks. This one was apparently from Mexico. I spat it out it was so bad. I have no idea how I’m supposed to make it through all of these. I picked a name from the list.

This time the chef dished them out and the other contestants complimented it’s clarity and purity of taste. They could eat it all day it seemed like.

At first I thought I was just imagining things, but now I’m sure that I’m feeling funny. It’s hard to explain. It’s like feeling fluid, or lubricated. Maybe a little giggly. I asked the guy next to me, “Hey do you feel funny at all? I think there’s something wrong with this poop.”
“Ugh. It’s not poop.” He scoffed at me. “And yes it has intoxicating effects.”
“Woah dude.” I thought. “If I wasn’t lubricated I’d have a real problem with you.”

The next round brought comments of caramel, so I found the name that least resembled caramel because these people are clearly nuts.

Finally a round that was at least tolerable. Definitely sweet and a little fruity. I couldn’t believe I was thinking these thoughts.

Without thinking, I poked the guy next to me. “Hey, this one tastes pretty ok, why do you s’pose that is?”
“Well it’s because they load it with sugar.”
“Really? Why?”
“… to make it taste better, why else would they add sugar?” He said flatly.

Well that seemed weird to me.
“Why not just skip the poop brownie and just eat sugar?”
The guy just turned back to the others. I probably won’t be hearing from him again.

I tolerated another 4 poop bricks before they collected our answer sheets. Finally the lady with the tiny microphone got up to the podium.

“Thank you all for joining us today! And now, tonight’s winner is… Justin!”

My eyebrows nearly jumped off of my face, as did the rest of the contestants, and the entire crowd.

“Here you go, Justin. Congratulations.” Said the lady. She was very nice and was handing me the baseball, but also just made me eat 10 pieces of poop to get it. I have mixed feelings about her to say the least.

I took the baseball in my hands in disbelief. This was the exact one I was playing with earlier today. I looked to my left, then to my right. Yup, no obligations in sight, and I’m plenty lubricated. I took off sprinting for the well, not even saying thank you or good bye to these weirdos.

When I got to the well, still not thinking. I jumped in with the ball. I kept falling, just like before…

I woke up on the other side, it was pitch black out except for the eerie glow of the moon. I could see Leroy sleeping peacefully. It was the only time I had ever seen him be peaceful. I crept up to the fence and jumped out.

I threw rocks at Sean’s window until he came down.

“Wow! How did you get this! Last I saw you jumped the fence and then I couldn’t find you!”
“It’s a long story.” I said.
“Ugh gosh, your breath is awful. Brush your teeth or something and we’ll talk tomorrow”

When something is wrong, the best way to make it worse is to not talk about it. This is the unfortunate position we find ourselves in with race. Not only are things wrong, they’re hard to discuss.

What is justice?
When we try to discuss what’s wrong in relation to race, new phrases are invented such as “social justice”. I barely know what justice is, let alone social justice. What’s the difference between something unpleasant versus unjust. If it hails on my car and dents it, is that unjust or unpleasant? If someone bumps into my car and dents it, is that unjust or unpleasant? When I think of injustice, I think of eminent domain. How is it just for a government to take the property of a citizen against their wishes? It would be theft if a citizen did it to another citizen. It’s justified by thinking “the ends justify the means”, and “The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few” and “we really need another lane for this road and anyone who doesn’t cooperate is just being stubborn”. To me, that’s unjust, but to most, that’s just part of the package deal of living in a “civilized society”. Similarly, many people think it’s unjust to not hire a person based on the color of their skin. To me, that’s just unpleasant (and financially foolish), but not unjust.

Victimhood
When we talk about race, inevitably fingers fly to blame, like tomatoes thrown at a bad comedian. Then, inevitably, people get defensive. We have to be able to talk about what is happening objectively. Like engineers do when creating a failure analysis. Like couples do when someone forgets to wash the dishes. We need to be able to objectively discuss as a society before we can decide what needs to be done.

Guilt is a poor motivator
Guilt works temporarily at controlling people. One might say “a real man would have not forgotten to do the dishes.” That will get a man to do the dishes once, but then never again. Similarly, “White guilt” might temporarily make people go the extra mile, but I think long term, it will make them resentful.

Intention vs Effect.
What’s more important intention or effect? I think the biggest reason we can’t achieve greater understanding, is because most people aren’t intentionally racist, but the effect is racist.  Most white people don’t view white people as superior. Most TV producers only cast white actors because it’s convenient and what they’re familiar with. The effect is that a black person who watches TV will never see people who look quite like them. I know people who use vile racist slurs, but they don’t actually view own their race as superior. These people don’t have bad intentions, but the effect is damaging.

Since unsubscribing from the belief in god, I’ve been accused of being both an atheist and an agnostic. If I tell people I don’t believe in god, they’ll ask how confident I am in my atheism. When I say I’m not confident, they say, “Well if you’re not sure, then surely you’re agnostic.” Only recently have I discovered why there’s confusion between the two terms.

There are two dimensions to every belief: the position and the confidence level. The beauty of science is that there is the method as well as the results. It’s about the journey as much as it is about the destination. The method of science requires starting with a position with a weak level of confidence. You must be willing to give up that belief as soon as there is significant evidence to the contrary. In fact, the whole point of the scientific to disprove your beliefs (the scientific method allows no path to affirm beliefs, only to heavily imply).

When I say I’m an atheist, I don’t mean that I have a positive belief that god doesn’t exist. I would have no way of proving that god doesn’t exist. Any confidence I had that god doesn’t exist would purely be whim and wish. What I mean by atheist is that I have no confidence in the belief of the existence of god. To someone else, the evidence they’ve been shown may have been persuasive, which makes them confident. To me, the evidence isn’t.

Back in the golden years of 350 BCE, Aristotle posited the belief in 5 elements: earth, wind, fire, water, and aether. As we discovered helium and hydrogen, we abandoned a belief in 5 elements. In the golden years of 1880s we still believed in aether, except now it existed in space which allowed light to travel through a medium. Then we conducted an experiment that wouldn’t necessarily have proven aether existed, but it would have heavily implied that it did. Unfortunately, it came back negative. The evidence for the existence of aether was missing, and so they don’t believe it any more.

So you could say I’m an aether atheist. I have no confidence in the existence of aether. It could exist, but I don’t have enough reasons to believe it does. That’s where I am in my belief in god.

I’ve heard many twenty-somethings complain that they never learned any useful skills in school. The reason for that is simple. School was not meant to teach you useful skills. At best, school is meant to convince you that you need more school. At worst, it’s a daycare. At mediumest, it is meant to prevent independent thought and teaches you to be a good little cog.

Schools tell kids that going to school is about learning how to learn. That couldn’t ever be true, since the subjects they choose to teach are linear. First is algebra, then trig, then calc. If it was simply learning how to learn, we could do them in any order. High schoolers could take algebra. Middle schoolers could take calc. It would be hard, but once you know how to learn, you should be able to do it for any subject. Reading/English class is the least linear subject. There are certain literature books and abstract poetry which are harder to read, but the subject matter isn’t necessarily more complex. I’ve seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy taught as a 400 level class in college. There’s no reason that couldn’t have been a high school class. The actual reason is, interesting books are the reward for uninteresting books. They make kids slog through Thoreau, and as a treat, if they’ve behaved, they may read a book which they actually enjoy. I spent years toughing it out with biology, chemistry, and physics so that I could finally take a class in Modern Physics and a class in Nanophysics in college. Youtube wasn’t really a thing when I was in middle school. But now that it is, and I can learn nearly any subject without waiting.

Why do we go to school for 8 hours? Why not 4 or 12? It’s because our parents work for 8 hours. Eliminating 4 subjects would be an easy task since none of the subjects are actually essential. That leaves kids with 4 hours to get a job washing dishes at a restaurant for the lunch rush or time to read or volunteer at an organization. Of course no adult would go for that since they want strict supervision of kids at all times. Kids need to be babysat to prevent any struggle they might have in their lives.

Kids could learn everything they “need” to know from Coursera or Youtube or Khan Academy in a matter of 4 hours tops. But who will teach them discipline? Who will teach them to wait to be called on, to ask to use the restroom, to sit where they’re told to sit, and leave only when they’re dismissed? What are these future factory workers/ pencil pushers going to do when they grow up and decide what’s best for them? NO! They’ve got to stick it out until they’re 65. Then, and only then can they decide how to spend their time. If we taught kids to write checks, they might learn to be independent. They might move out at only 18! They might waste their time by getting a day job and being an artist at night. They might waste their life by getting a low paying job working for a non-profit. They might accidentally start their own business and not need a factory job at all! The horror!

I heard a story. I don’t know if it’s true. Someone asked Socrates, “what’s the point of philosophy? Why waste your time asking frivolous questions?” Socrates responded, “Ok, what should we do instead?”. It’s funny because asking ‘Why ask frivolous questions?’ is philosophical.

I’ve always wanted to answer that question, “Why we need philosophy,” in a blog post. The bottom line is that philosophy is understanding the fundamentals of a subject. I subscribe to the philosophy of Rationality which posits that there is an external, objective world that we perceive subjectively. The better we understand this world, the better off we will be. The two legs of rationality are: What do you know and how do you know it? (Epistemic Rationality), and what should you do about it? (Behavioral Rationality)

I recently heard this song called “Intentions” by Macklemore off his new album “Gemini”. The first few songs are incredible. I recommend giving it a listen. He talks about how he knows all the things he should do, and separately the things that he actually does do. He knows he should eat healthy, but he eats frozen pizza.

If his goal is to be fit, then he clearly understands what he should do. He should eat healthy. The fact that he doesn’t do it, means that he has poor Behavioral Rationality.

Philosophy, particularly rationality, will help you understand what you want and how to get it. If what you want is money, babes, admiration, legacy, exquisite food, and fine wine, philosophy will help you get it. If you don’t want to waste time asking frivolous questions, philosophy will help you find your goals. If you don’t want earthly pleasures, philosophy will help you understand what love is and how to find it. First, understand the world around you, as it is, and then act in a way that will make it how you wish it were.

A man walks out a door which gives a jingle. The last customer of the day. “Finally, about time,” thinks the man behind the counter. George Pates comes into his bakery every day at exactly 6:00am and doesn’t leave until the last customer leaves after 10:00pm. George pulls out a briefcase from under the counter. His wife always teases him about bringing a briefcase to a bakery. since he’s not an office worker. But she doesn’t seem to mind that he’s not an office worker, or the little treats that he brings home in the briefcase. Neither does little Nancy, his pride and joy. He carefully places little delicate pastries in it. He gets his coat and hat and locks up for the night. It’s a long subway ride before he’s finally back in the comfort of his home. He listens for his wife’s snoring, which always makes him chuckle. She always accuses him of snoring, but she snores louder than he ever has!

He finds a man sitting in his favorite chair. A stranger dressed in all black, expensive leather and fine silk. He’s wearing a trench coat, even indoors, looking very casual about it. George’s heart skips a beat.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for your wife and daughter.” He replies.

“Well I’ve just got home, give me a chance to say hello first.”

“No.”

“Please. Be reasonable. I’m a working man, I don’t see them much as it is. Give me a chance to say hello.”

“No, you had your chance.”

“What? Bu-, Ah-, Come on, I didn’t know you would be coming tonight! Let me at least wake them and let them know I made it home safe. Please, that’s nothing to you and it would mean the world to me. It’s just the smallest of requests. Please. That’s all I ask.”

“No.”

“Oh come on, I begging you! Please! Please! At least- At least tell me what was the last thing I told my daughter.” George pleaded. His eyes started to water.

“You scolded her for not cleaning her room.”

“Well, I meant to tell her that having a clean room is a good habit to have. I want her to know that I only wanted the best for her, so that she can have a successful future. I have a good life, but I want hers to be so much better. I just couldn’t find the words. Please let me tell her now.”

“No.”

“Agh! You’re hopeless! What was the last thing I told my wife?”

“You told her it would be a long day today, not to wait up, and to have dinner without you again.”

“Well I knew it would be a big day. I just meant that I loved her and I wanted to provide everything I can for her. This is my job, it’s not great, but I do what I can because I love her so much. She means the world to me. I just- I just, don’t always know how to tell her. But I can do it. I can do it now. Let me tell her I love her. Give me just a little more time with them. I’ll tell them I love them every day from now on.” George’s face was wet with tears.

“No. I already gave you more time.”

“That was 5 years ago! 5 years? That’s nothing! My little girl, she’s only 10. I thought I would get more time. I thought I would have more time than this! She’s so young, she has her whole life ahead of her! I just wanted what was best for her. Please give me more time!”

“No.”

“PLEASE! Please! Please!” George collapsed to a sniveling heap on the ground. He sobbed uncontrollably. The man in black got up and crossed the room to the girls room. He emerged minutes later and went into the master bedroom. The wife’s snoring stopped.

“Everybody dies.” said the stranger, and he walked out the front door, still open.

I wrote a poem and about a Russian freedom fighter / terrorist who fell in love and has to choose between politics and love.

I hold a Molotov cocktail in one hand, a Malvina cocktail in the other. One contains a fiery substance, the other gasoline.

To make a Molotov cocktail, pour gasoline straight, a splash of motor oil, garnish with a dirty rag. To make a Malvina cocktail, take one part vodka, one part night off from work. Add some young politicians from the Bureau. Shake once and strain into the clear night sky on a bench not far from the bar. Garnish with a sweet kiss that I’ll not forget.

As I sit on this hill top, waiting for the order, I dream of the night we snuck away in stealth, just to hold each other close, as close as I hold this AK now.

Oh how I wish you were not an agent of the state, and I not an enemy of one. If I succeed tonight, we can be together forever. If I fail… I won’t be around for it to matter.

You made me promise not to go on this mission. I made you promise not to be in the Bureau HQ tonight. Oh Malvina, I hope you are a worse liar than me.

It used to perplex me why it was ok for jews to tell jewish jokes and black people to use the “n-word”. If a word is forbidden, why isn’t it univerally forbidden?

It’s the presumption of innocents. It’s the benefit of the doubt. We assume good intentions which allows us to smile. If the intentions were ambiguous, or malicious, like if a stranger who’s african american and tells me a jew joke and I call him the “n-word”; suddenly it’s not so funny. It makes us extremely uncomfortable.

The problem is that we now have a global audience. There’s an asian-american rock band called “The Slants.” But the government wouldn’t allow them to trademark their own name! Because it would be offensive! Offensive to whom? Presumably people who have never heard of the band, but have heard the slur. I think at the end of the day, being offended has to be a personal choice.

The government is comprised mostly of rubes. However, today I want to talk about rubes being rooked. Hoodwinked. Swindled. Robbed. Prayed upon. Everything dirty liberals accuse capitalists of doing. The government owns the lottery where they redistribute money from people who don’t know how to do math, to themselves. Everyday, poor innocent suckers get tricked into buying lotto tickets, on the false premise that they might be the next recipient of $100M in an attempt to be happy, or as a last ditch effort to get out of poverty.

The reality is that they probably won’t win. I can say that with 99% confidence, which is more than I can say about most things. Even if they win, they never win the full amount. Either they take half, and the other half gets thrown away to taxes, or they take it in installments and the amount gets inflated to worthlessness. It’s been documented that people who win aren’t happier for long. I’d guess that a big sum of money won’t save you from debt since it’s habits that lead to debt, not usually one time events. What makes it so vile is that they purposefully obfuscate the probability of winning. People cannot make informed decisions without relevant information.

If McDonalds is so evil for not displaying calories in their food, then certainly the government is evil for not adequately portraying the astronomically low probability of winning.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe people are satisfied with making decisions based on sufficient information. Maybe they feel calories and low probability of winning isn’t relevant information. Maybe that’s a decision we need to make personally, and not for other people.

I’ve heard the phrase “Pay your dues.” I interpret it two ways. One is the good way. You have to work hard to get results. The other is malicious interpretation. You have to get spat on and stomped, because that’s just part of the process.

What do we want the initiation process to look like? Initiation is like a screening, or filtering process. What does it take to get in the club? For doctors they have to go through years of training. For writers, they have to write 90,000 words and then find a publisher. That seems reasonable.

What I imagine people go through is: club members asserting their hierarchy, taking advantage of people who aren’t in the club yet. Publisher who string writers along with empty promises, and then take all the publishing rights. And writers who put up with it, because it’s all part of the process. It reminds me of hazing in a fraternity. I’ve heard of fraternities doing all sorts of wicked tricks on kids as part of the initiation process. Hey gotta pay your dues to be in the club. Or don’t.

I wanted to repost this article since I had some more thoughts.

The Hunger Games trilogy has literally changed my life. I don’t say that lightly. My whole worldview is radically changed since reading them 4 years ago. The lessons I’ve learned have stayed with me until this day

Survival is always about more than survival
Katniss lives on the verge of death for most her teen life. She quickly learns how to hunt and is able to sustain herself, her sister, and her mom. Everything she does depends on her being hyper focused on survival. This is why she hates her sister’s cat. It’s just another mouth to feed, in her eyes. On the eve of the 74th Hunger Games, Peeta says “I don’t want to kill or be killed for the purposes of the government. I don’t want to be a pawn in their games.” Katniss’ reply is, “I can’t afford to think like that. I’d kill for self defence.” Her point is that survival is the only thing that matters. And yet, during the games, she meets another tribute who looks just like her sister. At one point, this little girl’s life is threatened and Katniss reflexively the attacker. Suddenly it’s not just about her survival.

At another point, Katniss triggers a set of explosives to destroy her enemies’ supplies. This was an act of offense, a pre-emtive attack. However, if she doesn’t win the hugger games, she dies. So does this count as pre-emptive self defence? It’s still about survival.

In one scene, Katniss has to put on a show of being in love with Peeta in order to receive a shipment of food. Her survival didn’t depend on hunting and fishing. It depended on being likable.

The games don’t end when you get home
This message was driven home especially hard in book #3. Katniss doesn’t have to physically fight for her life in most of the book. She has to navigate politics, manage her image, and act. The same skills she used in the Hunger Games are necessary on a day to day basis.

Everyone is playing the game, not just tributes
The politics, image management, and acting are done by everyone, not just tributes.

You have to play the game and be aware of other players
When Katniss first meets fellow tribute Finnik, he presents himself as a playboy. He has an undisputed reputation for sleeping around with multitudes of women. It seems pretty clear that he’s just another tool. Later we find out he’s part of the resistance. Who would have guessed?

Everyone has baggage
After the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss suffers from PTSD. Peeta has an artificial leg. Their mentor, who’s quite capable, is an alcoholic. Katniss’ mom recovers from depression. All of these people who are integral to overthrowing the government are deeply flawed. It would be immensely convenient to pick and choose teammates who are fully capable, but it’s not possible.

No one is useless
Conversely, no one is useless. The crazy person on Katniss’ team in the 75th Hunger Games, figures out how the terrain switches from one terror to the next, a concept that eluded the rest of the sane protagonists. The nerdy guy on the team seems to be a useless fighter, but he engineers the death of the last two enemies and the escape from the Hunger Games. A drug addict sacrifices her life to save Katniss and crew. Even these deeply flawed characters turned out to be pivotal in Katniss’ success.

There’s more to life than happiness, but there’s more to life than usefulness
There’s a scene where Katniss and Peeta are holed up in a cave. Peeta asks Katniss for a story about her childhood. Katniss’ story is about getting an extra special birthday present for her sister. She used her hunting prowess to kill an especially large deer, her stealth to get it through town to the butcher, and her negotiating skills to be able to trade the deer for the goat. Her concluding statement was “that goat now provides cheese and milk, it is extremely useful.” Peeta, dumbfounded at this conclusion says “You mean, it made your sister very happy, right?”

Utilitarianism is hard

Who can say which is better for people: starving to death with the guarantee that you won’t die a violent death, or the risk of being ripped apart in exchange for food? This is the decision Katniss has to grapple with throughout the book. At the beginning, she jokes about her District, “District 12, where you can starve to death in safety.” Starvation is a constant threat for all inhabitants of District 12 because they rely on the Captitol to provide food for them. Meanwhile, just outside the fence is an abundance of edible berries, roots, and fruit ripe for the picken’, not to mention juicy rabbit, squirrel and deer (assuming you don’t get eaten by the wild dogs or bears first). I think it should be a personal decision that we make for ourselves, not each other.

Hedonism is hard

When you win the Hunger Games, your district is showered with gifts, particularly food, you’re given a mansion to live in, and you never have to work another day in your life. But, you also have to live with PTSD, the guilt of being a murderer, the guilt of being a pawn in the government’s games, the extremely high risk of substance addiction, and the small risk that you’ll be pushed into sex trafficking (it’s extremely fashionable for members of the Capitol to sleep with Victors). Is it really worth it? If someone said, “Nah, I’d rather die in the Hunger Games.” I wouldn’t blame them.

Is it better to be a victim of a crime, or the criminal?

This is a question that Plato/Socrates posed, and I still don’t have an answer. It occurs in this book, in the form of, “Is it better to kill, or be killed?”

The system of oppression is perpetuated by everyone’s complacency

There are two kinds of evil. The first is people who are messed up and just want to cause suffering. The second is people who watch and do nothing. But, but, but, I think the Hunger Games makes a good case for A) that complacency is often a result of people’s desire for personal safety, family safety, or nation safety, or a lack of empathy for the victim, B) everyone is a little guilty, in a system of defused responsibility, it’s impossible to blame one person C) when we feel ineffectual, we don’t even try, and D) it’s possible to be completely oblivious to others’ suffering

A) Katniss was out hunting in the woods when she found two people clearly running for their lives. One locked eyes with her and screamed “Help!” But Katniss, not yet battle hardened by the Hunger Games, chose to do nothing, since hunting is illegal and she didn’t want to get caught.

B) Before tributes go to the hunger games, they each get a 3 minute interview with THE famous TV personality. This guy’s job is to entertain the crowd and to make the tributes look good so that they get more sponsors. This guy has the voice and attention of the whole country, and instead of using his voice to speak against the evils of the government, he chooses to assist in it. It’s not like it’s his job to stop it, just like it’s not the job of the people who actually run the Hunger Games.

C) Katniss’ mentor has given up on life. He’s an alcoholic who can’t stand doing his job of helping kids kill kids. What can he do to stop the biggest sporting event ever? Could you imagine trying to stop the Olympics? I don’t blame him for feeling ineffectual and wanting to give up trying.

D) Katniss’ other mentor/chaperone mentions how previous year’s tributes were “completely uncivilized when they ate, they had no manners at all.” Katniss remembers the previous year’s tributes were the skinniest in District 12 and manners were probably the last thing on their mind. That didn’t occur to her chaperone.

I’m a handbasket case headed for the only via place I know. It’s going to be hellish, but it’s the only way through.

I’m fried like a pickle. I’m toasted like bread. I’m smoked like a salmon. I’m burnt like an orange. I’m running on the fumes of fumes and frankly I’m exhausted. I’m brushing the hair of the dog and turning out bald and balderdash. I’m licking the barrel clean of fish.

I’m falling to pieces and I love it to bits.

I heard about and read this funny paper called “Why I Don’t Have a Girlfriend”

The idea is novel, apply the Drake equation (the equation for estimating the probability of alien life) to create a realistic estimate of romantic possibilities. Although strange, i thinks it’s actually very insightful to apply probability theory to finding a girlfriend,

Essentially, if you estimate the many small factors instead of making one giant guess, you’ll be in the ball park. When estimating the number of alien civilizations, the factors involve the number of planets with stars, the percent of planets with water, the fraction of those that could sustain life, etc. When applied to girlfriends, you can start with the general population, and narrow it down to the number of women, women in the right age range, women who are single, etc.

I decided to make a spread sheet to calculate how many potential girlfriends are out there for me. Feel free to check it out here. You can punch in your own numbers and see what your chances are too.

1. Don’t apologize for making mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen, a lot, and apologizing is immediately annoying.
2. Never show fear. Women can smell fear from a mile away. Just pretend to be confident.
3. Bounce on the balls of your feet. That’s how you keep yourself in sync with the music, and how you keep her in sync with you.
4. Listen for the drum. Your foot should hit the ground every time the base thumps.
5. Smile. Of the 1,000,000 things to remember to do, smiling is in the top 100.

I heard this bit of wisdom: the reason we watch movies is to get more of the feelings we want (and don’t get enough of on a regular basis). The same is true of music.

• There’s almost always an underdog story.

Back in the day, we had people like Carnegie and Ford to look up to. They had humble beginnings and they rose to the top. It’s very inspiring! Now who do we have? I have 50 cent and Ludacris. The “rags to riches” story is cliche but I love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2SuQvE_V0

• They emphasize hard work

A great multitude of the songs are about hard work. It’s not about mushy love. It’s about not giving up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGLfAfh3brA

• They’re about being successful

What do you have to aspire to? I, for one, am not working harder just so I can afford name brand tooth paste. I’m doing this so I can afford a Tesla. I want steak dinners and $500 watches. It’s not about the money or status for me. It’s about feeling like the hard work paid off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsN6A7_RScI

• The songs emanate bravado

Caring about what other people think can only get you so far in life. There’s a time and place for it. There’s also a time not to care. The problem with pop love songs is that they’re all about “What does he/she think of me?” It’s refreshing relief to stop caring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iOpUdsMeqM

• They are anti-establishment

I don’t hear any pop songs discussing the bill of rights, but I do in hip-hop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJd2w31nrVE

There is no greater criminal than the government.
The FDA takes their sweet time to approve various drugs. Meanwhile, people are dying.

There are people on their deathbeds, willing to try anything to keep living. Grandparents, adults, kids with rare cancers. These people can’t try experimental drugs, even if they wanted to. What do they have to lose? This is a clear instance where the government pretends to know what’s best for people, but doesn’t. These particular drugs might be ineffective, or harmful, but these patients are willing to take them. It’s called “Compassionate Use”. Technically you can get Compassionate Use drugs, but first you have to lick the boot of your benevolent government by jumping through hoops and filling out paper work. Meanwhile people are dying.

The drug approval process take 6-10 months. That’s actually pretty good considering everything that goes into it. My question is, why is it mandatory? Why would someone take a drug that hasn’t been evaluated? Maybe it’s because they don’t care? Why do we only have 1 level of evaluation? Why not have 3 levels of FDA scrutiny: Thorough, Standard, and Express? Why not have 10 FDAs that evaluate different products for different attributes? Meanwhile people are dying.

I dress up for work. Even though I don’t have to, I do it. It’s important to me always to look good. People look at me quizzically and say “When’s the interview?” as if the only time to dress up is for interviews. For me, the interview is right now and all the time. I am always being evaluated. Even though I’m a full time employee, I still work like I’m a hungry intern. I need this job like I need food. I’m going to work as hard as I can, and look my best at all times, because I don’t want to go hungry.

Sometimes a customer comes in unexpectedly. Sometimes I meet someone who becomes a customer later. I always want to make a good first impression.

As you most likely haven’t noticed, I deleted my Facebook one month ago. It was the best decision of 2017. It all started back in March when I decided that I should also get an Instagram. I would post photos that I thought represented me. I would like photos that I wanted people to see that I liked. I would scroll endlessly. It was a huge distraction. Eventually I even started doing it for my Facebook. I was carefully curating the image I wanted others to see as me. I would be in a blissful moment, and I would think, “this would be perfect for Facebook!” It was only later that I realized that the moment was perfect even without Facebook. I didn’t need Facebook to enjoy my life and I didn’t need others to enjoy my life.

In June I watched this video by Cal Newport. It’s about how deep and intense work is where breakthroughs happen, while at the same time, deep work is getting rarer due to distractions such as Facebook. Facebook seemed like a mildly positive boon to my career, a fun past time, and a way to stay relevant with my social circle. Since watching that video, I’ve realized how little I actually enjoy Facebook, how it’s a huge time sink and no employer really cares what I had for breakfast, and that I stayed plenty relevant with my real friends. I decided to delete the Facebook app, block it at work, and de-activate Instagram, G+, and Twitter.

Then in July I read this great article by Wait But Why called “7 ways to be insufferable on facebook.” Then it finally dawned on me, that Facebook is all about vanity. We don’t really care what other people do, we want to know what they think about us. We want to picture ourselves on the leading edge of our timeline, with other people commenting on our lives. We post wisdom, and celebrations, and break ups, and the mundane, because we want others to react to our lives, as if we were the center. But in reality the world is much bigger than me. Everyone pictures themselves as the victim of fate and a champion over adversity. Facebook feeds that fantasy. We need to take a step back and picture ourselves as the background characters, the mentor, the lover, the confidant, the messenger.

In the month I’ve been without facebook, I can honestly say that I haven’t noticed any draw-backs.

Delete your facebook, engage with the real world, do deep work.

I woke up this morning and thought, “I need a challenge for breakfast.” Because the only thing more tasty than oatmeal, is a challenge.

This tutorial is only for the advanced users. I honestly don’t think you can make a dodecahedron in Solidworks without knowing the exact coordinates of each point before hand.

When you’re done, it will look like this:

1. Start by making a regular pentagon with a side length of 20mm. Yes there is a tool for that in Onshape, believe it or not.
2. Loft two opposing sides to create a surface. Use another loft to get the remaining portion of the pentagon.

   

3. And now, for something completely different… Create an assembly and import your surface (not the lame-o Microsoft Surface).
4. Right click and fix the surface in place. Now import surfaces 1 at a time, and add a Revolute constraint on matching edges of surfaces.
5. Repeat 10 more times until you have something that resembles a Dodecahedron.

   

6. Now on the far right there is a button for creating a Part Studio In-Context. Then click on the origin of the assembly. A Part Studio will appear with the ghost images of your dodecahedron.
7. Use the “Transform” command. I put “Transform” in quotes because no actual transformation will occur. Hit the drop down, and select Copy In Place. Now select all 12 sides.
8. Use the Enclose command on all 12 sides. Violà! Onshape is instrumental in creating this platonic solid.

   

   Check it out here.

Tor is a system of encrypting messages from one person to the next. The internet is essentially like sending snail mail. You write a letter to an acquaintance with a request for a package, and they send you the package. We would be freaked out if someone was reading our mail and looking through our packages. We would be further freaked out if they were collecting this information into a database to learn more about us. And yet, this is exactly what’s happening on the internet. What we call “the internet” is actually millions of delivery routes between computers that request information, and the servers that deliver it.

“Tor” is actually an acronym for “The Onion Router.” Instead of sending messages directly to the server, it’s sent through a series of servers to the final destination. Your messages are encrypted 3 times before it sends, each acting as a layer of encryption, hence “Onion”. When a layer is decrypted by the intermediate server, called a “relay”, it contains instructions on where to send it next. The next relay receives an encrypted message, decrypts it, and then has decrypted instructions on where to send it next. This prevents any one relay from knowing where the message is going. The last relay decrypts the message and sends it to the final destination. So while the last relay and the final server know the message, they don’t know who it’s from. Even if the last server were collecting personal information, it would appear to be from a random person, potentially in another country.

It’s not perfect, there’s some ways around it. For instance, someone could own 100% of all relays, and then continue reading your mail. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible. It’s also possible that too few people use it. When too few people use it, someone can use process of elimination. I once heard an idea that if you get a license plate that says “l1l11l1” Then no one will be able to report you. It doesn’t work if you’re the only one with a license plate like that. Ideally, you get 1000 people with a similar license plate. Anonymity only works in large numbers.

Why do you need anonymity if you have nothing to hide? Because you might have something to hide in the future. If you only do illegal stuff when you’re anonymous, all the government has to do is catch you being anonymous. Don’t give them any clues! Be anonymous all the time. If only criminals are anonymous, then all the government has to do is arrest people who are anonymous. There may be a point in the distant future when you feel the need to rise up against your government, and you’ll need anonymity now, in the past of that future.

Gryffindors are good at one thing, above all others. They have the unique ability to act, regardless of the consequences. This could take the form of standing-up to a bully, even if it means getting beaten up. It could be helping an outcast, even if it means humiliation from the group. The ultimate example is rushing into battle, even if it means getting killed.

The dilemma is, deciding if doing something is worth it, even if you are ineffective? We all want something good to come of our actions. Either we want the bully to change their ways, the outcast to appreciate us, or the battle to be won. Without those things, doing anything loses meaning.

I just saw Wonder Woman, which was absolutely fantastic. 9/10 thumbs up. *Spoiler alert*

Diana suffers from the Gryffindor Dilemma. She knows WW1 is happening and she wants to stop it. She knows that politicians spend all day babbling about finding a compromise. She says, “Cut the BS, let’s just rush into battle and kill the bad guys.” “It’s not that easy, saving the town is a high risk- low reward endeavor.” says her Slytherin boyfriend. Diana, still naive, rushes into battle, wins, and saves the townspeople, thus seemingly proving her boyfriend wrong. Later, the bad guy launches a weapon and kills everyone in the town, which renders her efforts to save said town worthless, proving her boyfriend right. Diana is devastated. A good Gryffindor, of which Diana is a fine example, was only temporarily deterred. The effect was mostly irrelevant. The act of saving the town was important. Whether they live or die, whether they thank her or not, whether they are secretly anti-Semites or not, it shouldn’t matter. The act was important.

Hello beautiful Onshape users. Today I’m going to teach you how to make a bowling ball. If you’re a Fusion 360 user and you’re reading this, switch to Onshape. You can thank me later.

A bowling ball is one of those things that doesn’t sound hard until you start trying to make one. You can make holes in any program, but it’s hard to make them normal to the surface.

When you’re done, it should look like this:

1. Start by making an arc on the Front plane. Not just any ol’ arc; a center-point arc. Start by clicking the origin to make it the center of the arc. Move your cursor straight up and click, then straight down and click to set the end points. Draw a vertical line connecting your end points. So far so good:
   
2.  Revolve around the center line
3. Unhide the previous sketch. Create a new plane, select from the drop down menu to make a plane from a line. Select the center line from the previous sketch and type 60 degrees. IGNORE THE WARNING!
4. Make another plane from the center line. This time make it 280 degrees. KEEP IGNORING THE WARNING!
5. Here’s where it gets tricky. Make a new sketch on Plane 1. Use the Use command on the sphere, it will give you a circle. Draw a straight line from the origin to the top of the circle. Draw another line from the origin to the north-east edge of the circle. Define the angle to be 35 degrees. Like so:
   
6. Do it again on Plane 2.
7. Unhide (Show) all sketches.  Create a plane, pick from the drop down: Point normal. It’s usually for normal people but we can use it anyway. Select the top point and the center line. (And confirm it by hitting the green check mark).
8. On this new plane, create a sketch of a single point on the origin. Easiest step ever!
9. Create another plane from Point normal by selecting the separate point and it’s line.
10. On this second plane, create another sketch with a point on the origin.
11. Make the plane and the point on the other sketch. With me so far?
    
12.  Use the hole tool on the three points you made. 25mm wide and 27mm deep.
13. Add a filet of 3mm on the edges of the holes. Done!
    

If you want to teach someone a lesson, look no further than this mace I made.

Want one too? It’s as easy to use reason as it is to create one. The best part? It only requires one sketch. I’ve split it into two sketches for demonstration purposes.

1. Make this sketch.

   

   Confirm the sketch when you’re done.

2. Revolve, select sketch you just made and the appropriate edge to revolve around. Bam! You’re half way done now. It should look like this: 
3. Hide the part. Unhide the previous sketch. Create a new sketch on the Front plane. You can now use the center point of the arc in the new drawing. It should like this:

   

4. Use the fancy feature of “Circular pattern”. Select all of your lines. Change the instances to 5x. Change the angle to 120°. Click confirm. This doesn’t look right because the center point of the pattern is in the wrong place. Select that center point and the center point of your mace arc and create an incident constraint.
5. Show the part. Click revolve, then select only the first face and it’s revolve axis. Each revolve feature needs it’s own revolve axis.
   
6. When you’re done will all 5 revolves, create a Circular pattern. In the drop down, pick “Feature pattern”. Select the 2nd spike from the top. The axis can be the handle. Use an instance count of 4.
7. Do a Circular pattern on the 3rd spike (7 instances), 4th spike (10 instances), and 5th spike (7 instances). Completo!

Today I will teach you how to make a whip in Onshape, the most beautiful and glorious of all CAD systems.

When I’m done with you, you’ll have one of these to share with your loved one:

Just a disclaimer, this one is quite advanced. It requires almost no dimensions, lots of eyeballing it, and features that need to be enabled.

1. Add a custom feature into Onshape called “Offset Planes”.
2. Use Offset Planes, offset from the Top plane, 4 additional planes, each 5mm apart.
3. On the Top plane, sketch a single point 50mm due north from the origin. Create a new sketch on the next plane and create a single point 50mm due east. Then a sketch and a point south, and then west. It should be like this: 
4. So far so good? Good, because it’s about to get artistic up in here. On the topmost plane, create another point 50mm due north, then a bunch of points to the north-east.
5. There is a drop down button at the top for “3D fit spline”. It might be hidden under the Helix button. Use the spline tool and select all of your points in order from bottom to top. Order does matter.
6. On the Right plane, sketch a circle 10mm big. Select it’s center, and have it be incident to the point where the spline begins.
7. Put your janitor hat on, because it’s time to Sweep! Hit the sweep tool, select your new circle for the region to be swept, then select your spline as the path to follow.
8. On the topmost plane, create a sketch. Use the (2D) spline tool. make two splines. Set their first point to be incident to the face of the existing tube/whip.
9. Create an offset plane by selecting the Front plane, and the final point of your tube/whip/spline. On this new plane, create two more splines.
10. On the face of the tube/whip, draw 4 circles, with their centers being incident to one of each of the splines.
11. Make one new sweep for each spline by selecting a circle, and then the corresponding spline. You can’t combine sweeps.
12. Make a sketch on the Top plane like so:
    
    Get it as close as you can. Set the revolve line to be incident to the spline.
13. Revolve! And you’re done.

Here’s my whip if you’re curious.

Let me know if you have any questions. I’m also happy to take requests.

I am in love with this software called Onshape. I don’t think I’ve ever used software that I love as much as Onshape. I’m overjoyed that it happens to be for CAD and I get to use it on a daily basis.

How I love Onshape, let me count the ways:

• Everything is cloud based (the same way gmail is cloud based). There’s no downloading initially or downloading any updates, no losing files when switching computers, everything is saved automatically etc. etc.
• It’s 100% free for public use (it’s $150/mo if you want private files, which is about 1/10th the price of Solidworks).
• Collaboration is seamless. Multiple people can work on the same project at the same time. You don’t need an account to view files.

To share this love, I’m going to give a tutorial on how to use it. Today I’m going to talk about using the Revolve tool. I would say it’s the most flexible and powerful tool there is in any CAD system. It can make all sorts of crazy shapes with minimal effort.

At the end you should have something like this:

Let’s get cracken’:

1. Start by creating a new document. Select the Front plane, then hit the Sketch button.
2. Draw a line from the origin straight up. Draw 3 arcs. Dimension them as such:
   
   You might need to drag the lines around. If you’re a pro like me, you can add constraints to make the arcs centers incident to the vertical line.
3. Now hit the green check mark to confirm. Hit the Revolve button on the top left. Select the greyed area encompassed by your line and 3 arcs for a face. Then click the next box which asks for the revolve axis, THEN click the vertical line. Click the green check mark to confirm.
   
4. Now he needs a hat. Repeat after me. Select the Front face, sketch, 6 lines, then dimension them like so. Notice that I have a line connected to the origin, but doesn’t attach to any points? I only need to encompass a face. The lines don’t necessarily need to be connected.
   
5.  You know the drill. Revolve, select the face, select the revolve axis. But before you hit that green check mark, there’s an option to choose between “New, Add, Remove, Intersect”. Choose New instead of Add.
6.  Ol’ King Coal needs some buttons. Select the Front plane, Sketch, draw 3 circles. Dimension them like me:
7. Extrude 20.5mm. But before you hit that green check mark, there’s an option to choose between “New, Add, Remove, Intersect”. Choose New instead of Add.
8. Right click on your snowman, then at the bottom of the pop-up menu, click “Edit appearance for Part 1…” Select a white color. Select your 3 buttons and hat, edit appearance, select a black color.

If you did everything right, your snowman should look like this:

If you want to view my snoman in 3D check it out here.

As always if you have any questions feel free to contact me at richelson.david[at]gmail[dot]com.

I’m not in the market for buying a 3D printer right now. Someone tried to give me advice and I want to make it clear why I’m not taking their advice.

First of all, I don’t accept 99% of the advice I hear.

Most importantly, I already know I’m going to buy a low quality printer next. In every operation, the CEO has to decide to brute force through a problem or be clever about it. Brute force solutions are time consuming but cheap. Clever solutions are expensive and quick. A good entrepreneur has to use the resources they have most to get what they have least.

When it comes to 3D printing, I have more money than time. That’s why I bought an expensive ready-to-print-out-of-the-box printer. This printer was $1,200 when it was new. It comes with many bells and whistles such as: a heated bed, reliability, and the real crown jewel, two extruders. Two extruders allows me to print in two colors of the same material, or use two materials and have one be sacrificial support.

The reliability of this printer gives me confidence that if there is a failure, it’s probably not the printer’s fault. It’s probably mine. By limiting the number of possible culprits, it’s easier to diagnose what is wrong. This makes learning 3D printing easier. Yet, it’s a crutch. As I get better and I have less failures, I don’t need to rely on the printer as much for reliability. I can spread my wings to a lower quality printer, not a higher quality printer. The startup cost in terms of time has already been paid. Each successive printer I buy will be easier and easier to learn.

3D printers will become cheaper and cheaper every year. More and more people will dabble with 3D printing as a hobby. Many of them will try their hand at professional level printing. Ultimately I’ll be getting more competition. I’ll never be able to out spend them. There will always be a more expensive printer that they can buy, that I can’t afford. However, I can out hustle them. I can work harder and use my time more effectively than them. I already have a head start on a growing economy.

Start high-tech, then as you get better, transition to low-tech.

The Hunger Games trilogy has literally changed my life. I don’t say that lightly. My whole worldview is radically changed since reading them 4 years ago. The lessons I’ve learned have stayed with me until this day

Survival is always about more than survival
Katniss lives on the verge of death for most her teen life. She quickly learns how to hunt and is able to sustain herself, her sister, and her mom. Everything she does depends on her being hyper focused on survival. This is why she hates her sister’s cat. It’s just another mouth to feed, in her eyes. On the eve of the 74th Hunger Games, Peeta says “I don’t want to kill or be killed for the purposes of the government. I don’t want to be a pawn in their games.” Katniss’ reply is, “I can’t afford to think like that. I’d kill for self defence.” Her point is that survival is the only thing that matters. And yet, during the games, she meets another tribute who looks just like her sister. At one point, this little girl’s life is threatened and Katniss reflexively the attacker. Suddenly it’s not just about her survival.

At another point, Katniss triggers a set of explosives to destroy her enemies’ supplies. This was an act of offense, a pre-emtive attack. However, if she doesn’t win the hugger games, she dies. So does this count as pre-emptive self defence? It’s still about survival.

In one scene, Katniss has to put on a show of being in love with Peeta in order to receive a shipment of food. Her survival didn’t depend on hunting and fishing. It depended on being likable.

The games don’t end when you get home
This message was driven home especially hard in book #3. Katniss doesn’t have to physically fight for her life in most of the book. She has to navigate politics, manage her image, and act. The same skills she used in the Hunger Games are necessary on a day to day basis.

Everyone is playing the game, not just tributes
The politics, image management, and acting are done by everyone, not just tributes.

You have to play the game and be aware of other players
When Katniss first meets fellow tribute Finnik, he presents himself as a playboy. He has an undisputed reputation for sleeping around with multitudes of women. It seems pretty clear that he’s just another tool. Later we find out he’s part of the resistance. Who would have guessed?

Everyone has baggage
After the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss suffers from PTSD. Peeta has an artificial leg. Their mentor, who’s quite capable, is an alcoholic. Katniss’ mom recovers from depression. All of these people who are integral to overthrowing the government are deeply flawed. It would be immensely convenient to pick and choose teammates who are fully capable, but it’s not possible.

No one is useless
Conversely, no one is useless. The crazy person on Katniss’ team in the 75th Hunger Games, figures out how the terrain switches from one terror to the next, a concept that eluded the rest of the sane protagonists. The nerdy guy on the team seems to be a useless fighter, but he engineers the death of the last two enemies and the escape from the Hunger Games. A drug addict sacrifices her life to save Katniss and crew. Even these deeply flawed characters turned out to be pivotal in Katniss’ success.

There’s more to life than happiness, but there’s more to life than usefulness
There’s a scene where Katniss and Peeta are holed up in a cave. Peeta asks Katniss for a story about her childhood. Katniss’ story is about getting an extra special birthday present for her sister. She used her hunting prowess to kill an especially large deer, her stealth to get it through town to the butcher, and her negotiating skills to be able to trade the deer for the goat. Her concluding statement was “that goat now provides cheese and milk, it is extremely useful.” Peeta, dumbfounded at this conclusion says “You mean, it made your sister very happy, right?”

Utilitarianism is hard

Who can say which is better for people: starving to death with the guarantee that you won’t die a violent death, or the risk of being ripped apart in exchange for food? This is the decision Katniss has to grapple with throughout the book. At the beginning, she jokes about her District, “District 12, where you can starve to death in safety.” Starvation is a constant threat for all inhabitants of District 12 because they rely on the Captitol to provide food for them. Meanwhile, just outside the fence is an abundance of edible berries, roots, and fruit ripe for the picken’, not to mention juicy rabbit, squirrel and deer (assuming you don’t get eaten by the wild dogs or bears first). I think it should be a personal decision that we make for ourselves, not each other.

Hedonism is hard

When you win the Hunger Games, your district is showered with gifts, particularly food, you’re given a mansion to live in, and you never have to work another day in your life. But, you also have to live with PTSD, the guilt of being a murderer, the guilt of being a pawn in the government’s games, the extremely high risk of substance addiction, and the small risk that you’ll be pushed into sex trafficking (it’s extremely fashionable for members of the Capitol to sleep with Victors). Is it really worth it? If someone said, “Nah, I’d rather die in the Hunger Games.” I wouldn’t blame them.

Is it better to be a victim of a crime, or the criminal?

This is a question that Plato/Socrates posed, and I still don’t have an answer. It occurs in this book, in the form of, “Is it better to kill, or be killed?”

The system of oppression is perpetuated by everyone’s complacency

There are two kinds of evil. The first is people who are messed up and just want to cause suffering. The second is people who watch and do nothing. But, but, but, I think the Hunger Games makes a good case for A) that complacency is often a result of people’s desire for personal safety, family safety, or nation safety, or a lack of empathy for the victim, B) everyone is a little guilty, in a system of defused responsibility, it’s impossible to blame one person C) when we feel ineffectual, we don’t even try, and D) it’s possible to be completely oblivious to others’ suffering

A) Katniss was out hunting in the woods when she found two people clearly running for their lives. One locked eyes with her and screamed “Help!” But Katniss, not yet battle hardened by the Hunger Games, chose to do nothing, since hunting is illegal and she didn’t want to get caught.

B) Before tributes go to the hunger games, they each get a 3 minute interview with THE famous TV personality. This guy’s job is to entertain the crowd and to make the tributes look good so that they get more sponsors. This guy has the voice and attention of the whole country, and instead of using his voice to speak against the evils of the government, he chooses to assist in it. It’s not like it’s his job to stop it, just like it’s not the job of the people who actually run the Hunger Games.

C) Katniss’ mentor has given up on life. He’s an alcoholic who can’t stand doing his job of helping kids kill kids. What can he do to stop the biggest sporting event ever? Could you imagine trying to stop the Olympics? I don’t blame him for feeling ineffectual and wanting to give up trying.

D) Katniss’ other mentor/chaperone mentions how previous year’s tributes were “completely uncivilized when they ate, they had no manners at all.” Katniss remembers the previous year’s tributes were the skinniest in District 12 and manners were probably the last thing on their mind. That didn’t occur to her chaperone.

As a die hard Capitalist, I’m comforted by the ease and effectiveness of my philosophy. I know many capitalists are worried that socialists taking over, or Nazis taking over. Rest assured, they’ve already taken over. The worst part has already happened. For at least 2500 years we’ve been ruled by the various cruel and well meaning.

I don’t fear socialists because they tend to care about feelings too much. They always want to take a vote, which takes time and energy. It’s much more efficient to make unilateral decisions and have everything work out. That’s how capitalism works. Everyone acts in their own self interest, and then people get what they need and want. I want coffee, and all I have to do is buy it from Starbucks. Starbucks pays someone else to ship coffee. Someone else farms the coffee beans. Someone else makes fertilizer. Someone else makes farm tools. Not a single one of the thousands of people cares one lick about David getting his coffee, and yet, I still get coffee. The prospect of farm tool makers having to vote on which farm tools to make, and then fertilizer companies having to vote on the composition of nitrogen in the fertilizer, and then a shipping company having to vote on the size of shipping containers, and then Starbucks having a vote on what kind of coffee to offer… it all nearly guarantees that I won’t get the coffee I want. Paradoxically, their caring about what I want prevents me from getting what I want. Socialists will always be encumbered by ham handed execution of good intentions. Some systems are just too complex to micro manage. Capitalism will always prevail over socialism because of how lean and efficient it is.

I don’t fear national socialists because they tend to care about fear too much. The whole point of any empire is to be the top dog. After all, “the view doesn’t change unless you’re the dog in front” as they say. If you’re just a lowly peon, you have someone screaming down your throat for better results. Why? Because your superior has someone screaming down theirs. It’s a big pyramid of screaming people, afraid to make mistakes. Innovation spawns from taking risk. You could spend your whole life farming because, “Hey, it’s good enough. Taking the time to invent the plow might not be worth it.”

Every year thousands of ambitious wordsmiths are crushed. I’m talking about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), of course. The biggest online writing-palooza in the world. The rules are very simple:
1. You must write 50,000 words
2. You cannot start sooner than November 1st and you must finish by November 30th.
3. You must begin a new novel. It can be a sequel, but you can’t finish a manuscript that’s been sitting on your computer for years.

The obvious question that I had, and every neophyte’s first question is, “Can I just write the word, ‘word’ over and over 50,000 times?” Copy-paste baby! Loophole!
The answer is technically yes. I don’t know anyone who’s tried it, but I can’t imagine why they would not count it.

If your answer is no, does a random word generator work? This is the grey area that trips up all writers. At what point are you just writing gibberish? At what point are you writing a master piece? We stop writing because we’re afraid of writing garbage. We make the mental shortcut of “well if I’m just going to have to delete it anyway, why bother writing?”

There are two kinds of people: deontologists and utilitarians. Deontologists care about so-called “rights”. While utilitarians care about maximizing a particular metric. Possible metrics include minimize suffering, maximizing human happiness, minimizing human death, etc. Anarchy is probably the best at all three, but particularly at minimizing human death.

To start with, you might think about how to solve the problem in reverse. How would you kill the most people? You could kill one or two people if you plan it out. The dead end with this approach is that a family member of one of your victims is likely to retaliate and kill you. Another approach would be to show up at a crowded gathering and go berserk. Those will be a few tragic deaths. A far better strategy (at least in this scenario) would be to hire other people to do it. You could get several people to go berserk. It’s not a long term strategy though. Long term, you might want to target health care professionals. Every day, those jerks go around healing thousands of people per day, saving countless lives. If you really want a long term solution, don’t kill them. Limit the number of people allowed to be doctors. Prevent the worst performers from helping people. The few who are alive will thank you for it. It’s possible that those worst performers would accidentally kill a few patients, but on the whole, they probably would have saved more. Prevent people from taking experimental drugs. Even people who are on their death bed, waiting for a miracle in the form of a tiny dosage, should die painful deaths because you didn’t give them permission to take a drug. Call it the FDA. People will thank you for it. Prevent the sale of human organs. Humans who need organs to live don’t deserve to live. They should die with their money. No one should live without your permission, from a utilitarian perspective.

One trait of the Rationality movement that I find admirable, not only do they have the ability to admit when they are wrong, but they actively search for where they are wrong. Most religious people I know are too content with their understanding. They have a hard time imagining that they might be wrong.

It’s not enough for me to know when something is right. That’s only half the equation. I have to know when that same thing is wrong. I can’t be satisfied with knowing the following statement: “Giving plants liquids daily, makes them grow.” My veins are popping out of my neck just thinking about it.

It might be true for most circumstances. It’s definitely true for water. My question is, where is it not true? What liquids will not make a plant grow? It is not true for Gatorade. Plants will not grow, no matter how much Gatorade you give them. Ahhh, I can feel my blood pressure returning to normal. If you ran a battery of tests, varying the amount of water, trying liquids like tea or coffee, varying the temperature, you will likely only ever know the first half of the equation: “liquids make plans grow”. You must ask when it is not true, to know the whole truth.

Every time I hear a love song, I want to replace the word “love” with “meaning”.

I’ve come to a conclusion about what a “meaningful life” is. A life has meaning if, and only if, the following condition are met:

• You are a distinct entity
• The world is objective and predictable
• You have the cognitive power to make predictions
• You have the ability to choose between options
• Options have distinct outcomes
• You have values and preferences

Below are a few examples of meaningless lives

• You are just a cog in a machine. You do as you’re told. You’re just following orders. What’s good for the herd, is good for GM, is good for America, is good for you.
• The world is so chaotic that a flap of a butterfly’s wings has more determining effect than the actual effort of any individual. If the success of a project is entirely dependent on the weather, then you can’t honestly take credit for the work.
• You live in an surreal absurdist fantasy land. Clocks are melting. Stairs perpetually ascend. Illusions are reality.
• You are chained to wall and asked if you would like to run or jump. It’s meaningless because you cannot do either.
• You are offered the choice of dying by fire or dying by freezing. Since the outcomes are not distinct, there is no meaning in choosing.
• If you really don’t give a flying f*ck about anything, then you live a meaningless life. You never have to choose, just let what ever happens, happen. You’ll be more like a leaf in the wind than a regular human.

Dear 16 Year-Old David,

There’s so much I want to tell you. Let me start by saying that I understand the futility of giving you advice. I understand full well that some of what I tell you will be unbelievable and that you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself- part of knowing is finding out. I also understand that there’s no indication that my advice is good advice (you are the foremost expert on yourself). I can only say what worked for me (you). Part of success is just being in the right place at the right time. Some strategies will only work in a specific scenario.

Read as much as humanly possible. If there’s one characteristic that sets you apart from your peers, it’s how well versed you are in books. Read anything you can get your hands on. Don’t be afraid to re-read books. Don’t concern yourself with trying to read for a purpose. Reading different subjects is a great way to find out what you enjoy, so the more you churn through, the faster you will come to know what you want to do with your life. You should be reading at least 50 pages per day.

Avoid video games at all costs. They provide no long term value. They’re basically slot machines with fancy graphics. Sure video games are fun, but that’s all they are, merely fun. Reading is more fun, less addicting, and has significant long term value.

Write as much, as hard, and as fast as you can. It’s about quantity not quality here. Writing fiction is actually fun. It’s like a playground for your imagination. The less that writing is assigned, the more fun it is. Screw the writing rules. Figure those out later. For now, focus on building a body of work.

Take a gap month/year. Don’t go straight to college from high school.

Don’t go to college. If you’ve been reading 50 pages per day for the two years leading up to college, you’ll know if college is right for you. I just assumed that I would be going to college, and I think that was part of why I spent so much time depressed. Living on autopilot is depressing. Making hard choices is the remedy for depression.

Don’t go directly into mechanical engineering. Take lots of gen eds. Get an associates in anything at a community college.

Don’t join AZA. Those kids are a bad influence. It was fun, but there’s no long term benefit in it.

Don’t join a fraternity. Doing the cost/benefit analysis in retrospect tells me that it wasn’t worth it. It was good, but not good enough to justify the price.

Make as many friends as possible with people 25+. Those people have connections. They will be impressed with how smart you are, your peers will not.

Don’t stress out about “being right” vs. “fitting in”. It’s a balance, you need a little of both. You’re not betraying yourself by fitting in. What ever you choose will get easier over time. I don’t know that one is better than the other anyway.

There are nearly infinite bad paths I could have taken. There are a handful of good ones. There are a small few that would be best. I chose mechanical engineering. It’s good, but it probably isn’t the best. Don’t be afraid to try something crazy.

Read the following books: The Art of Non-Conformity, Atlas Shrugged, and Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. These books changed my (your) life.

Research the following topics: psychology, economics, ethics, and game theory. These subjects are my favorite and you’ll save us both time if you get to them sooner rather than later.

An important distinction needs to be made/learned. I turned out ok, but I could have been better. There’s nothing wrong with “ok”. For reference, the technology existed to build a car in the 1600’s, but it wasn’t built until 1800’s. A massive amount of suffering could have been avoided if someone put 1 and 1 together and figured it out. Similarly, if you work hard now, you can avoid a massive amount of pain later. It’s hard to imagine, but it’s true.

You’ll make it through. Just keep your head up. Breathe. Smile. Enjoy.

Best regards,
David

I’ve encountered a writer’s demon: writer’s block. I’ve taken a break from writing because I succumbed to the feeling of “been there, done that, got the t-shirt”. I lost enthusiasm for writing because I accidentally listened to advice. I read that the best writers have at least 1 of 3 things going for them: they feel passionate about their topic, they are highly knowledgeable, or they are simply skilled at writing. I thought, I don’t have any of those, I better not try… and not fail. Bollocks to that! I’m writing because it feels good. I’m going to compile a list of techniques to keep my writing fresh.

• Gender swap
  What if The Matrix was about a vegan girl who felt that wearing leather was wrong? Does she have to reevaluate her morals? Is killing innocent animals still wrong if the animals don’t exist outside of our minds?

• Side characters
  Peeta Melark lives with an abusive mom, absent father, and brothers who are uncaring. He falls in love with a reclusive girl who lives on the outskirts of town. He has to appear tough in front of other kids, endearing in front of wealthy fans, and honest in front of this girl. In a world where men are still expected to be providers, he has to live at the charity and mercy of the girl he’s trying to win.

• WW[insert philosopher]D?
  What would a Karl Marx type of person do if he was in the TV show “The Office”? Seize the means of production? What would an Epictitus character do if he were one of the Avengers? Nothing?

In Capitan America Civil War, the Avengers are plagued with a bad case of bureaucrats. I haven’t finished the movie, but at this point, the heroes are given an ultimatum by the UN. Either they can submit to the jurisdiction of the UN, or they have to renounce their vigilante activities.

This dilemma has really weighed on me. I’ve always been disappointed that superhero movies never acknowledge how much damage the superheros do, just to get one bad guy. Sometimes it doesn’t seem worth it in the end. Superheros are basically natural disasters. I’ll bet a ton of people die in the wreckage. I’ll bet a ton of people starve from losing their jobs. I’ll bet no one has insurance for disasters of this scale.

What would I do, if I were King of the UN? What would I do, as a superhero myself? That’s tough.

In the movie, the heroes are handed a ream of paper of the terms and conditions of the proposed agreement. First of all, they need to see a lawyer. Second of all, each hero needs to sign the agreement separately. What adds tension in the movie, is that they make it sound like they all need to sign it collectively. They make it sound like they need to be all in or all out. Even within the movie-universe this doesn’t make much sense because the membership roster of the Avengers is highly fluid. People join and leave on a regular basis.

The Avengers are needed most to fight SHIELD (the agency that is supposed to support superheros, but is constantly being infiltrated by Hydra). Even without the help of Hydra, SHIELD is prone to dropping nukes on New York City. It was Iron Man who sacrificed himself to stop a nuke that SHIELD launch on NYC. Having Iron Man on a leash would have effectively unleashed SHIELD. From a utilitarian perspective, it makes a lot of sense to allow the superheros to act independent of any higher power. We’ve been lucky so far to see only generous and kind people get super powers (except Scarlet Witch). Making them answerable for their actions won’t save more people.

It’s one thing to put people like Black Widow and Iron Man under the jurisdiction of the UN since she’s just a highly trained human and he’s just a guy in a suit. There’s nothing super about them. They can take a permanent vacation. It doesn’t work like that for Vision and Hulk. They couldn’t be normal if they tried. To force them to submit to a world government indefinitely… is slavery. It’s involuntary servitude. It’s pretty egregious to demand that superheros sign their life away because of who they are.

Finally, it doesn’t make sense to make threats if you can’t back them up. You can’t threaten the Hulk with imprisonment because he’s a demi-god. He does what ever he wants because only Iron Man can stop him. And Iron Man only barely stopped him at the expense of the Mega-Iron Man Suit. Thor definitely couldn’t be imprisoned. I doubt that Black Widow could be held against her will; she could easily escape.

As the King of the UN, I wouldn’t never propose such an ultimatum. As a superhero, I would never agree to such a thing.

One of the hardest parts about dance for me, is getting over the embarrassment of being a beginner. In other areas of life, I cut myself and everyone else slack. I say “You gotta start somewhere.” Or “Everyone starts as a beginner, no one is born an expert.” But with dance, I’ve experienced embarrassment. I felt embarrassed most when I thought about how I only knew two moves: the inside turn and the outside turn. That’s still more than 90% of the population, but I felt I should know more. I felt that I was deceiving people, tricking them, when I asked them to dance. I felt like I was offering a fun time dancing, and then boring them with the same two moves over and over.

Lo and behold, someone I’ve danced with before, asked me to dance. They knew what they were getting into, and asked for it anyway. Maybe dancing with me isn’t so bad after all.

Since learning an additional two moves, I still appreciate dancing with absolute beginners. It’s ok that they don’t know how to do these two new moves. I need as much practice as I can get on the fundamentals. There are a freaking ton of fundamentals: keeping your shoulders back, keeping your knees bent, keeping count in your head, making it look like you’re not counting in your head, etc. etc. I screw up fundamentals every time I try a fancy move.

Then there’s style. You can syncopate your foot steps, you can kick, you can shake your hips, you can pivot your shoulders. These are all good things to work on, when not working on new moves.

Finally, dancing is just plain fun. Moving my body to music is why I showed up. That’s the whole point. I would be happy to do the basic step over and over for four minutes. I don’t need an expert for that.

I am obsessed with Rationality. I know there was a philosophical movement in the 1800s called Rationality that focused on coming to new information through pure thought, instead of empirical evidence. I don’t know more about it than that.

The rationality I’m obsessed with is called Bayesian Rationality. I just watched this wonderful video which explains Bayesian Rationality expertly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R13BD8qKeTg

The guy explains using a metaphor of a man emerging from a cave for the first time and witnesses a sun rise. The man thinks, “What the heck?? Does that happen all the time?”. The more often he witnesses the sun rise, the more confident he gets that it always rises and always rises in the east. What are the chances it would do that 1,000 times in a row, but not the 1,001st? Almost zero, but not zero. It’s incredibly unlikely, but not impossible.

That’s how I try to think about the world.

• I can never be 100% certain, because there is always a non-zero chance of something else happening.
• I have to update what I believe based on what’s already happened.
• The world exists outside of my perception. My attention, or lack there of, does not alter the world.
• The world is comprehend-able with enough observation.

I want to die at 100 years old, and I want to die by eating the following meal. These are all of my favorite foods, and now that I’m dieting, they’re all I can think about.

Breakfast:

• a big pile of crispy hash browns
• 2 jumbo eggs over medium
• a slab of ham
• a pile of bacon
• sausage links
• spicy italian sausage
• maple syrup
• blueberry pancakes
• cinnamon french toast
• 2 slices of buttered texas toast
• an extra tall mocha latte with extra froth and extra whip cream and a chocolate drizzle on top
• Cinnamon rolls
• cherry strudel
• butter croissants
• croissants with chocolate inside and drizzled on top
• A big glass of fresh, cold, raw milk
• a glass of extra pulpy orange juice

Lunch:

• 1/3rd pound Angus burger, with an egg, sharp cheddar cheese, brie, avocado, jalapeño, sweet grilled onions, ketchup, spicy chipotle mayo, BBQ sauce, onion rings, with a pretzel bun
• crispy french fries
• spicy potato salad
• mac and cheese
• a glass of Dr. Pepper, Cotton Candy Faygo, Peach Faygo, Pinaple soda, Mtn Dew Voltage, Creme Soda
• Extra cheesy quesadilla w/ salsa, sour cream, and pico de gallo
• Chipotle burrito
• Pepperoni and ham pizza
• Mango blueberry smoothie

Dinner:

• Slab of lamb
• Las Vegas roll of sushi
• a bowl of brown rice
• Orange chicken
• a microwave bowl of ramen
• pad curry
• Mint Chocolate chip milkshake

Dessert

• Reece’s peanut butter cups
• chocolate bars
• peanut butter
• vanilla yogurt parfait

Here’s the triggers I get that light up my pleasure centers in my brain:

• chewing
• having my mouth full
• gulping
• flavor
• feeling full

Now that I’m foregoing those pleasures, I’ve noticed them.

• When I have broccoli, I can chew and have my mouth full, but I miss flavor.
• When I have gum, I can chew and have flavor, but I miss gulping and feeling full
• When I have my protein shake, I gulp and feel full, but I miss chewing
• When I have my portion of chicken, I chew and gulp and there’s flavor, but I don’t feel full.

First they came for the LGBTQ community, and I screamed in dissent —
Even though I am not LGBTQ.

Then they came for the Mexicans, and I bought and proliferated Bitcoin so that we could still trade with them across borders —
Even though I am not Mexican.

Then they came for the Iranians, and I renewed my friendship with my contacts in Canada so that I could set up an underground railroad —
Even though I am not Iranian.

Then they came for me… and I said “Come and get me”.

I used to scoff at Catholics because of their practice of taking communion. I used to joke that they were like the Borg. A sad droll life of drudgery for other lifeless sods.

But since adopting a cute little brain slug, I’ve changed my mind!

I was contemplating why I encourage people to have correct beliefs. Why do I push people to question their most deeply held beliefs? I think there is a huge advantage to them and all of their friends if they believe correct things. I want to help people in my own unique way, this seems to be a good way.

Ultimately, I want to know what is true. How will I know if what people say is true? It should be consistent with everything else, primarily nature. As people adopt more correct beliefs, they’ll find that they agree more and more. Given enough time, eventually, if they both understand nature correctly, they’ll agree completely. Once they agree on reality, they’ll agree on the next steps.

Humans have this tendency to make stuff up. We’re uncomfortable with not knowing something. We feel the need to not only come up with a best guess, but also assume that it is correct.

When we did not know how the earth was created, we wove our own stories that involved benevolent and angry gods, precocious titans, and curious humans. Now we have a different story that is corroborated with other evidence. It seems unlikely that our first guess was correct, and it seems more likely that our current guess is correct.

When we did not know what caused plagues or crop shortages, we guessed that it was caused by angry gods, and prideful humans. Now we understand a bit more about germ theory, carbon cycles, and crop rotation. Our current guess at how the world works is proving to be instrumental in our current way of life. The standard of living has improved 100x since then. So I think we are more right-er. We could be wrong. And if we find out that we are, we’ll have to change our ways. But we can be fairly certain that it isn’t caused by a god or gods, at least directly.

I make a joke to myself whenever I loose my keys. I say to myself “Well, I guess my keys don’t exist anymore!” It’s funny to me because I know they exist, but I’m using poor logic to justify a first guess. The correct response should be “I don’t know where my keys are. I’ll have to keep searching.” Sometimes, “I don’t know” is the right answer.

9/15 10:06pm
There was some sort of commotion down at the SciCo Laboratories downtown. They sent me. Of course they sent me. One of the perks of being Lead Detective, with over 20 years on the force is that they send me to all the interesting stuff. Well, interesting by their standards. I’ve been around the block so to speak. I’ve been there and done that for most things. The most excitement I see these days is a prostitute who murdered her pimp.

This was something a little more exciting. Upon entering the abandoned building, I instantly noticed something: nothing. Sometimes what’s not there, is more telling than what is. The place was clean as a whistle. Spotless. Immaculate. Was it cleaned between the incident and when I showed up? I doubt it. The operator reported hearing screaming in the background. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour before I showed up.

I walked through the building. I busted open locks and kicked down doors when I needed. I didn’t have much time to find this thing, let alone a warrant. I’m sure James Tartage would understand about his precious lab. This bad press would do more damage than a few broken doors.

I was getting discouraged walking in on laboratory after laboratory of plants and animals in cages with no signs of distress. Bam! I busted open a set of double doors to the biggest laboratory yet. Jackpot. Papers were strewn everywhere. Blood spatter marked columns with limp bodies at the base, lying at awkward angles. Tables were smashed to their constituent splinters. And in the middle of the room, was a crater the size of an bowling ball. Not a regular crater. It looked more like an indent. What on earth happened here? An explosion? It wouldn’t be the first time there was an explosion at SciCo Labs. But it certainly would be the first time SciCo would be willing to call the police about it.

I walked over to the nearest body. Dead cold. Blunt force trauma. Same for the next two bodies. Next up was the crater. A table with shackles was tipped over. There was a bubbling orange ooze which coated the legs of the table and surrounded the crater like a moat. I scooped a little up on the eraser of my pencil. It hissed vehemently. Yikes. I’d hate to touch that.

There was a shuffling behind me. In the blink of an eye I had my gun and flashlight trained on what ever it was. I saw two orange eyes blink in the shadows. Glowing. Burning. Glaring at me. It sent a shiver down my spine.

“Who’s there?!” I yelled.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” it said.

“Come out with your hands up.”

It walked out of it’s hiding place. It was a gruesome grotesque mess, humanoid, but certainly not human. The first thing I noticed was it’s skin which was orange, bubbled and hissed like the stuff I found near the crater. It oozed and swirled around his body. It emanated an awful glow. The thing I saw before me was 6’4 and well over 300 lbs of pure muscle. The biceps bulged irregularly and the shoulders were massive, but sloping to one side. It walked with a limp since it’s left leg was longer, but it’s right leg was visibly stronger. It’s face, what was left of it, wore a scowl of pure hatred.

“Recognize me now?”

“Good god! Who- What are you?”

“Frank Fagyl, Assistant Director of Science in the Biochemistry Labs. You don’t have any idea who I am, do you? I worked at this forsaken laboratory for 20 miserable years of my life. I poured my blood, sweat, and tears for this company. I’ve worked overtime on weekdays and weekends, holidays, funerals, and weddings. And you know what I got for all of my hard work? A promotion. A measly promotion to Assistant Director. We haven’t gotten a Christmas Bonus in over 10 years, and our raises barely keep up with inflation.”

“Yeah well, you know… the economy-”

“NO! That is what they tell all of us here at SciCo. But you know what? No. Never mind. That’s all fine. It’s not about the money. Oh no, no no no. You know what really burns? They mocked me. They humiliated me! They made a freaking highlight reel of my failures and sent it all around the office. They got a reaaaal laugh out of it. Guess what? They’re not laughing now! You know why? Because I showed them that I’m a successful scientist.”

“How?”

“Well I’ve been working cells that can regenerate. We first noticed them in a type of jellyfish. We know that we can take viruses and program them to infect certain cells in the body, and then by proxy reprogram those cells. Now those cells think they are supposed to be photosynthesize, or eat cancerous cells, or attack bacteria which are resistant to penicillin. It was just a matter of taking 2 and 2 and making 4. I’ve now invented an early prototype of that virus which programs my muscles to undergo constant hypertrophy, which makes me incredibly strong. Granted, I have a few kinks to work out, but I’m a lot closer than any of my peers, I’ll tell you that!

“You… you did this to yourself?”

“Oh yes, I needed a subject to test it on. And who better than the person who knows his experiment inside an out? I had them strap me down right there on that table. See how clever I was? I assured them that nothing would go wrong. I gathered practically the whole building to witness my grand success. I made especially sure that Mr. James Tartage would be in attendance. I wanted him to see what this “Frank Failgyl of a scientist” could do. Oh I showed him alright.

“You’re a monster!”

“He’s the monster! He did this to me! He had to be shown!”

The Epicurean Diet is just eating less and enjoying what you have more.
Epicurus was a hedonist (the original kind)! He believed there were two kinds of pleasures. Necessary pleasures, and unnecessary pleasures. Necessary pleasures are food, water, shelter etc. Unnecessary pleasures are variety. Lentils are good, but having 100 kinds of lentils is unnecessary. Ultimately what you need to have a good life is to be alive. And to be alive, you’ll need food, but not 100 kinds of food. You don’t need ice cream, you just want it. You don’t need beer, you just want it.

I’ve been dieting lately and I’ve been thinking about food A LOT. What I’ve noticed is that the more I tone down what I eat, the easier it is to tone down what I want to eat. I started by eating soup or chili, or tamales, or what ever the cafe at my work was cooking, plus a fresh cookie. It was tasty, but not what I needed. Then I moved on to having salad with a heaping amount of salad dressing, and a huge apple, and 2.5oz of peanuts, and a protein shake, plus hot cocoa in the morning. Healthier, but still way more calories than I needed. Now I’m down to having kale with a few dips of salad dressing, broccoli, a small apple, and sometimes a protein shake. It tastes awful and I hate it. It sucks. I have to rinse my mouth out with coffee. Luckily when I get home, and I enjoy a slab of chicken… oh how sweet it is. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Having just a little variety makes all the difference. A slab of chicken is just a slab of chicken. It’s mostly tasteless. But when I’m hungry, it’s the best thing I’ve ever had. My life is so much fuller when my food actually satisfies me. Dieting is not pleasurable, but at least now food is 10x more pleasurable.

I’ve been dieting since January. I was trying to lose 15 pounds in 3 months. I lost 8 pounds in 8 weeks which was exactly on target for me. Then I lost 0 pounds in 2 weeks. A couple of things went wrong:

1. I stopped tracking my calories
2. I compensated my eating healthier by eating unhealthier at the same time
3. I was uncomfortable with being hungry. I lost those first 8 pounds in relative comfort, now it’s harder.

If I want to lose the next 7 pounds, I have to change my strategy.

1. I’m back to tracking my calorie
2. I’ve cut a lot more calories
3. I’m chewing gum and drinking more coffee (watered down coffee)
4. I’m comfortable with being hungry at times and I remember to fill up on water.

• Hi, my Life™ isn’t working. Any idea what’s wrong?

Yes, make sure that your Life™ is turned to the “On” position. Lives are shipped in the “Off” position by default.

• I think my Life™ is in the “On” position, but it still isn’t working for me.

It’s possible that your unit has gone to “Auto-pilot Mode”. This can happen if no activity takes place for a certain amount of time. Simply turn your Life™ over and hit the “Reset” button on the bottom.

• I keep getting these warnings and errors as if I’m doing something wrong. Should I be worried? Should I do something about them?

That’s a tough call. If you’ve gotten a warning, it could be because something is going wrong, or it could be a false alarm. Check that you are using the correct type of fuel and following the maintenance schedule.

• My Life™ sucks! Can I return it?

Unfortunately no. All Lives are final. Just do the best you can and try to enjoy it.

• Parts of my Life™ are broken. What can I do to fix it?

Physical Therapy and Psychological Therapy are both available to qualified users.

• My Life™ is much shorter than I would like. What can I do about it?

Again, please make sure you are following the maintenance schedule. There is nothing we can do once the user has received their Life™.

• My Life™ is very, very hard. How can I make it easier?

There is very little that you can do unfortunately. One option is to get better, the other option is to just wait it out.

• My Life™ feels empty. Isn’t it supposed to come filled?

Some Lives are more full than others. If you find your Life™ is not full, you will be responsible for filling it. Some sources include: love, a cause, or a personal achievement.

• Can I trade my Life™ with someone else?

At this time, no. You are welcome to share your Life™ if you are so inclined and someone else may be willing to share theirs with you.

• Are all Lives the same?

No, some are plainly different, some are better in some ways and worse in others, and some and objectively better.

*Spoilers for Harry Potter 7*

In the Harry Potter series, Harry and friends are constantly thwarted by literal and figurative rats. Double agents have infiltrated the Harry Potter support group. All of these rats are from the Slytherin house because everyone from the other houses feels that misrepresentation is icky. It’s like wearing a mask. For people who have a poor concept of their identity, it’s sometimes confusing trying to remember which team you’re playing for. It can be hard to keep the dual identities separate. Also, misrepresenting oneself can feel a lot like lying.

I say, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. At the very least embrace your Slytherin friends who do employ such tactics. Being transparent is a component of respect that your friends deserve, but your enemies do not. Lying to your friends is a crime. Lying to your enemies is a virtue. If you can thwart them non-violently, you forgo the risk of confrontation. If it wasn’t for Snape and his triple agenting, Harry and all of his friends would have died. All of the wizarding world, and perhaps the muggle world would have fallen at the hands of an evil dictator, Voldemort.

Keep your friends close. Keep your Slytherin friends closer.

The only 4 letter c-word is “can’t”. Oh that is a dirty word indeed. That’s the word we use when we feel lazy. When we don’t want to take responsibility for our actions. When we don’t want to test our boundaries. When we don’t know what happens if we succeed. When we don’t know what happens when we fail. When we’re scared. When we’re uncomfortable.

I’ll prove it to you:
I dare you to take a 5 minute shower on full cold. Not lukewarm. Not a little cold. All the way cold. 5 minutes. Full body shower.

If you said “Oh I can’t do that.” Then you are admitting to yourself that you are not ready to become the best version of yourself. It is hard, but it’s not impossible. It is hard, but so what? Work hard then.

Get your shit together and don’t use the “c-word”.

The movie Inception was fantastic. I recommend everyone see it if they haven’t already. I just watched it a second time. It’s finally clear why I was confused before. I’m still confused, but now for different reasons.

The first time I watched it, the audio quality was bad. It was hard to pick up all of the important dialog. Lots of important parts were whispered. This time I had subtitles! Yup, there’s an app for that.

Inception is primarily confusing, because even the characters in the movie are confused. They’re constantly explaining the mechanics of how Inception is supposed to work. I was confused because I didn’t even understand how those rules worked. Now I understand them. The second reason it’s confusing is because Inception definitely doesn’t work by the rules they described.

Initially, we’re told that Inception works by having one person dream, and another person jump into the dream. The first person supplies the subconscious, which manifests itself as random bystanders. The second person supplies the conscious control of the dream. They are called the Architect because they design the layout of buildings and rooms. Ideally the Architect designs the dream before jumping in, although they can do it on command as needed. The risk of doing it on command, is that it alerts the initial dreamer’s subconscious that they are in a dream, which makes it unstable. In an unstable dream, the random bystanders will try to murder the Architect. The death of anyone except the initial dreamer, will make those people wake up. If the Architect dies in the dream, they wake up in the real world, and the initial dreamer continues to dream until they wake up naturally. If the initial dreamer dies, everyone sharing the dream, such as the architect, will be woken up, including the initial dreamer.

Otherwise dreams only last about 5 minutes and then everyone wakes up. No problem.

Except that there are two problems. The first problem with this method of waking up from within the dream, either by death or by waiting, is that dreams are so believable, that it’s hard to tell if you are still dreaming. It would be an easy mistake to wake up from a dream, imagine that you are still dreaming, and then kill yourself in a a futile attempt to “wake up”.

The second problem is that dreams feel like they are a long time, even though they are a short amount of time in real life. We are told that 5 minutes of dreaming is equivalent to 60 minutes in a dream. If you are dreaming for 1 hour, but for some reason you need to move your body out of the area (such as you are about to be caught using this stolen technology), then you need a way to get out of the dream before that hour is up (equivalent of 12 hours in the dream world). Since you aren’t aware of threats in the real world, you need someone who is awake to watch over your body while you sleep. These people can give you a “kick” which will instantly awaken you from your dream. A kick is a feeling of falling (such as out of your chair), a sudden impact, or a sudden drowning feeling from a bucket of water to the face.

All fine and good. Some easy rules and easy exceptions.

Then they attempt to go 3 layers deep (a dream, within a dream, within a dream) on the antagonist. For some reason, they needed a heavy sedative to keep all 3 layers “stable” aka no staby staby. Apparently, if you die while under this sedative, you go into what’s called “Limbo”. As far as I can tell, Limbo is not on the chain of dreams, It’s not the 4th layer of dream within a dream. It’s a sideways location. I think you can go infinitely far down, and Limbo would still be a sideways direction. The main character has been in Limbo before, but he didn’t have the sedative before, so I’m not sure how.

One side character, and both antagonists die in the third level of the dream, and go to Limbo. Then the main character, Cobb, and his sidekick, Ariadne, go into a 4th level of dream, which is apparently also Limbo, where Cobb is the initial dreamer and Ariadne is the Architect again. Ariadne kills one antagonist, and then kills herself. Ariadne and that antagonist both go back to the third level of the dream, and eventually get a series of kicks which brings them back to the awake state. Cobb and the side character get lost in Limbo for what appears to be 30 years, and eventually kill themselves and wake up again in the real world.

Now that I’m writing this out, it’s unclear how to get to Limbo or how to get out. I just don’t know. Is it the 4th layer after all? Here’s a diagram I made that explains it as best as I can understand. Let me know if you think I missed something.

There are some people who feel that persuasion is “icky”. It certainly appears to be the slimly slithery tactic that bad guys use. These people are clearly not Slytherins.
I am now going to attempt to persuade you that persuasion is not so bad after all.

The argument against persuasion goes as such: We have free will. We can exercise our free will by making decisions that are impactful. We have a right to make decisions for ourselves. Anyone who overrides our free will (either through physical violence, intimidation, or intentional twisting of information or logic), has violated our right to make a decision, and committed an injustice.

This argument hinges on the fact that we have free will, which I’m not sure that we do. And if we don’t, then there is no harm and no fowl.

Even if we have free will, it’s hard to know when our decisions are impactful. Does it really matter if we drive in the left lane or the right lane? If someone convinces you to drive in the other lane, who cares?

Finally, there are two criteria I use to gauge if something is unethical: bad intent, and bad effects. For most of the people I’ve met, most of the time I’ve been persuaded, and most of the people I’ve witnessed being persuaded, the intentions were good. It could be something as benign as a lecture, or a debate on nuclear power, or something as life saving as convincing someone not to drive after drinking. People often overlook how freaking hard persuasion is. It usually doesn’t work. That’s why most people don’t buy 100 apples when they go on sale for $0.77/lbs. Maybe they buy one or two more apples, but rarely.

Persuasion rarely actually happens, and it’s usually mutually beneficial. As long as you don’t convince people to inflict self harm, mostly anything goes.

I rely on other people to know things with certainty. I talk to all sorts of people and I learn all sorts of things. It does me little good if these people are mistaken. There are numerous benefits to having correct beliefs about the world. The foremost one is that you get to be a vital part of a community. Imbuing essential knowledge makes you invaluable. It makes you indispensable. Chrysler is filled with 60 year old engineers who were the only ones who knew how to avoid fasteners from loosening and falling out. Chrysler couldn’t fire these people if they wanted to. Universities can’t teach experience. Their expertise was essential to the production of those cars.

The key is to have an ability to tell the difference between what is true and untrue. If you asked them “is it true that ‘self-tapping screws’ cost half as much as regular nuts and bolts?” They could tell you. If you asked them “Will they walk out after 5 years of use? Will they corrode? Will they strip as you try to insert them?” They would be able to tell you the truth. If you ask the supplier, you’ll get a different answer. One of the reasons I did so poorly at Chrysler because I was totally unable to tell the difference between the truth and wishful thinking.

These people had great Epistemic Rationality because of their ability to filter. Epistemic Hygiene is when you re-evaluate beliefs after they’ve made it through the filter. It’s quite likely that these seasoned engineers didn’t start out with a good filter, and they likely let some bad ideas into their head along the way. It’s not too late to root them out!

The best way to use Epistemic Hygiene is to pick a belief, and have someone ask questions about it. If you find yourself grasping at straws trying to justify it, it might be time to let it go.

We teach our kids that they need a good filter, but then we abandon adults to their own devices. We might teach rudimentary rationality to youngin’s, but then we preach ideology to other adults. It’s time to mix it up people. Ask someone you love, “What do you know, and how do you know it?”

Wow! I’ve never gotten so much great feedback from one of my blog posts as I did on my post on faith. I am honored and tickled that I have such great friends who spend the time to read what I have to say and take the extra time to respond. I love it. Feel free to reach out any time, people.

On the same day that I posted about faith, I got a blog post about beliefs from Clearerthinking.org. Check out the post here: http://www.clearerthinking.org/single-post/2017/02/13/What-do-you-mean-when-you-say-I-believe

I’m going to repost bulk of the blog:

1. Unquestioned belief: A life-long perspective regarding the nature of the world and/or the way society should be arranged, learned as a child — often from parents — and treated as an axiomatic intellectual feature throughout adulthood. Our “beliefs” about morality are often of this sort, whether they be secular or religious in nature. (Examples: “X is obviously the best political system.” or “It is self-evident that Y must be the one true religion and all other religions false.”)

2. Reactive belief: A snap judgment quickly made about a complex subject without the benefit of extensive review in situations where you don’t have enough experience for your intuition to be well-honed. For instance, a “first impression” of a new acquaintance’s personality. (Example: “I don’t know what it is, but the moment I met her, I could tell she’s sneaky.”)

3. Affective belief: A form of wishful thinking about a complicated subject that is specifically averse to factual refutation, held for emotional benefits rather than for veracity. Scams and junk science often play on tendencies towards this type of idea, which are likely to crop up around complex subjects where fear is involved. (Example: “If I take this special vitamin C supplement every day, I won’t ever have to worry about cancer!”)

4. Identitarian belief: Ideas held in order to identify one as a member of a group, rather than on their own merits (which may or may not be scant). This type of belief is especially common to crop up during periods of political division, and they often disparage non-members of the group. The beliefs of groups considered antagonistic to your group are often scorned. (Example: “Conservatives are basically all idiots.” or “Liberals are ignorant of how the world really works.”)

5. Predictive belief: An uncertain probabilistic opinion regarding the eventual revelation of a currently-unknown factual matter, generated by considering your intuition. One common example: opinions about who will win a sporting event. (“I believe that the Atlanta Falcons will win the Super Bowl!”)

6.  Experiential belief: Ideas that you’ve come to believe based on large amounts of firsthand experience. For instance, if you’ve been a tax accountant for years, you probably have well-justified beliefs about the right way to handle reimbursed business expenses on your tax forms. (Example: “I’ve seen dozens of cars have this problem before, so I know exactly what’s wrong with this one.”)

7. Analytical belief: A carefully considered position arrived at by evaluating all of the extant perspectives and significant data that are relevant to an issue.  (Example: “Having thoroughly reviewed the evidence and the arguments both for and against, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that cold fusion is a practical impossibility during our lifetimes.”)

A lot of the responses I got about my blog post were one of the following:

• “You have faith, but you don’t call it that.”
  • I would re-categorize this as belief type #6 “Experiential belief“.
    • I have this belief that the ground will be under my foot, even though I can’t prove it.
    • I believe that Amazon will ship me the goods after I pay, even though I can’t prove it.
  • I have this belief because in the past it’s been true. But it’s not a guarantee. I have been surprised in the past. This one time, I paid for overnight shipping from Amazon, and it didn’t arrive until the day after. Ugh! (They reimbursed me for shipping and gave me a free month of Prime, so I can’t be mad).
  • Luckily, this type of belief is malleable. As I get new information (such as surprisingly late shipments), I can adjust my beliefs accordingly. If I was constantly baffled by the appearance and disappearance of the ground beneath my feet, I would need to reconsider my beliefs entirely (Maybe I’m dreaming? Maybe I’m in space?)
• “I have faith that our politicians will act in our best interest… at some point”
  • I would re-categorize this as belief type #5 “Predictive belief“.
    • I believe that I will do great things with my life
    • I believe that I will drive a sports car one day
  • I don’t know if these things are true. It remains to be seen. I don’t think you could know except just by waiting.
  • This belief is a little better since it is based on intuition, and intuition is based on experience.
• “I have faith that the tooth fairy exists”
  • I would re-categorize this as a belief type #1 “Unquestioned belief”
    • I believe fluorinated water is actually bad for us.
    • I believe global warming isn’t caused by humans.
  • I don’t know if these things are true. It’s just things that I’ve always believed. I’m guilty of believing crazy stuff too. I only point it out to show that I’m also on a journey to truth. Ultimately we need to work on our “Epistemic Hygiene”.

Who cares if you call it faith, or belief, or knowledge, or opinion? It matters because you can know things, but you can’t know everything. We need to work together and have specialized knowledge. I need to be able to go to an expert and ask, “What can you tell me about machining steel” and then go to a different expert and ask, “What do you know about machining wood?” If I ask my steel machinist about wood, I won’t necessarily get the truth. I don’t what to know what the steel machinist wishes was true, or what they were taught as kids, or what their first impression was. I want to know what their experience is. If my machinist friend tells me that they have faith, that they can cut steel at 900 inches per second, I’m going to get very worried. If they tell me that they have reason to believe, based on previous experience, that aluminum is easier to cut than steel, then I feel at ease. I stand by my definition, that faith is belief without reason.  If you’re using reason, then I would argue that you now have a belief, not faith.

I read this post about dating but I want to extrapolate it further:
http://realkylemilligan.com/how-to-get-a-girl-on-tinder-in-9-messages-flat/

The idea is that if a girl shows interest in you, you don’t need to stress out about impressing her. She’s already at least a little impressed. The first step is already done. It’s automatic. It’s passive. It’s the culmination of looks and swagger up to this point.

Really this applies to most of life. In sales, if someone has submitted their contact information to your website, don’t stress out about sending them the perfect email. They already told you through their actions that they want what you have.

In blogging, if someone is on your website, don’t stress out about writing the perfect blog post. They’re on the website because they want to read what’s already there.

You should stress out a little about having the best looking website you can, in advanced. Put all of the work upfront, then you don’t have to worry about it downstream. Don’t worry about the re-action, focus on the action.

What’s attractive in dating, sales, and blogging, is confidence. People have their own questions in life, they don’t want to be forced to come up with answers. They’re coming to you for the answers. Confidence lends credibility. Be confident, and people will continue to come to you for help.

There’s a great explanation of rationality here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iloTS0wU9qM

In summary there are 2.5 legs of rationality. The 1.5th leg is called Epistemic Rationality, which is: “What do you know, and how do you know it?”. The 2nd leg is Instrumental Rationality, which is: “How should your behavior reflect your beliefs?”.

For example, if you believe that taking vitamin C will not prevent you from catching a cold (Epistemic Rationality), then it would be irrational to keep taking vitamin C (Instrumental Rationality).

What would you say, if you saw someone hitting themselves on the head with a hammer? “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
Could we conclude that this person is irrational? Not quite yet.

First, we’d have to assume that they knew what they were doing, and were doing it on purpose. If they were somehow unaware of the dangers, or accidentally hitting themselves, it wouldn’t be irrational…

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2005/08/24

Then, we’d have to know their goals. If they were under the impression that hitting yourself on the head with a hammer would make you smarter, then they would actually be quite rational indeed! They would lack Epistemic Rationality, but certainly not Instrumental Rationality. If they knew that hitting themselves in the head would cause permanent brain damage, but they were desperate to avoid getting drafted into the army, then they would have both Epistemic Rationality and Instrumental Rationality. Just because they don’t share our goals does not make them irrational. Sometimes their goals are a mystery to us, but we should not be quick to assume they are irrational. Just because we don’t know the reason, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

Voting for Dump or Hillbilly doesn’t necessarily highlight you as irrational. It’s just like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. You might lack Epistemic Rationality, but you certainly don’t lack Instrumental Rationality. Based on what you know, you did exactly what you thought would bring you the results you wanted. If anything, you deserve a high-five. Go you! You have some work to do, but don’t we all. Keep up the good work.

• Is there randomness, or is everything predetermined by chemistry, biology, physics, and psychology?
• Even if randomness exists, do we have free will?
• How would we know?
• Is there meaning in life beyond what we make of it?
• If we have free will, what % influence does genetics have? 50%? 30%?
• Is persuasion wrong? If people have free will, and we override their will with our own will, isn’t that manipulation?
• Do we live in a simulation?
• Is it possible to derive ethics from science (so that it’s objective, and not based on the whims of political leaders)?
• Is science objective or subjective?
• Is beauty objective or subjective?
• Is ethics objective or subjective?
• Are animals conscious? Do they have free will?
• What sets us apart from other animals? Are humans special?
• What is love? How do you know?
• Do other life forms exist outside of earth?
• Does intelligent life exist outside of earth?
• If you could perfectly clone yourself (reborn as a baby, or a photocopy type of clone), and your clone experienced pleasure, is that the same as you experiencing it? What about torture? What if your clone murdered someone?
• What’s the correct answer to Trolley Problems?
• Is not saving someone’s life the same as killing them?
• Should we reduce human suffering, or increase human pleasure? Lots of people talk about ending global hunger, but no one talks about convincing people to have lots of babies. Is it better to hand out rice or condoms?
• Is it better to have a few happy people, or lots and lots of somewhat pleased, somewhat pissed people?
• If randomness exists, what about moral luck? If you drive drunk and accidentally swerve and miss hitting someone, aren’t you still guilty of murder?
• How much does intention matter, and how much does effect matter?
• Can we know our effects? How predictable are our effects? How do we know if our actions (in the long term or short term) are beneficial or costly?
• How can we know someone’s intention? Sometimes people lie. Sometimes people do things that are counterintuitive. Sometimes people do things that are counter productive. Sometimes people don’t know what they’re doing.
• Is there a fundamental particle? We keep thinking we’ve found it, and then we find another more-fundamental particle (molecules -> elements -> atoms -> quarks). How deep does this rabbit hole go?
• Can we ever truly know someone else, or will there always be more layers to peel back?
• Why do we admire Julius Cesar and Napoleon, but disdain Mao and Kim Jung Un? A dictator is a dictator right?

I was challenged on my stance on faith. I think it came down to a difference of definitions.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faith

The two main definitions I’m concerned with are: accepting a belief without evidence, and trust.

I have no problem with trust. I think it’s one of the pillars of society. You need to trust Amazon to ship you the goods after you’ve paid. The world would fall apart if Amazon only sometimes shipped you the goods.

My problem is believing something without evidence. If I told you I was a millionaire, I would hope that you say “prove it”. Even if I can’t prove it, I should at least provide some evidence that would suggest that I’m telling the truth. I should drive a fancy car, have a fancy house, or wear fancy clothes. If I lived in the slums and was on welfare, you would have no reason to believe me. You would have a healthy amount of doubt.

To accept everything you’re told at face value would be foolhardy. If I have a history of telling the truth, then you have a reason to trust me in the future. My reputation could be used as evidence, which you could use to form a belief about my millionaire status.

In no aspect of my life do I need faith. I don’t use faith when crossing the street, even though a car could run me over. I use reason. I say to myself “well I’m taking my chances here, let’s give it a shot.” I accept that I can’t have perfect certainty.

To illustrate: if you’re playing roulette, you don’t need faith that the ball is going to fall on black. You just accept that it might, or it might not. There’s a  percent chance of it falling on black.

If I had a daytime talk show, like Oprah, I’d hand out megaphones.
You get a megaphone, and you get a megaphone! EVERYONE GETS A MEGAPHONE!

There was a time when we lived in small villages. If we wanted to be heard, we had to find a time that was convenient for someone else. We had to show up at their door, or hope that we see them. We had to wait for the town storyteller to do their Friday Night shtick. For most of the day, we did backbreaking labor in isolation. People didn’t “talk on the job” because survival for the winter meant working hard all year round. Then once we got home from a long day, we’d be exhausted and fall asleep.

For the first time in history, we have abundant free time. Practically all of our jobs depend on communicating with others. For the most part, most people don’t do back breaking labor and usually not for 80 hours a week. We’ve arrived at a new horizon where we can form individual thoughts and communicate them freely with half the world. We can have a global conversation. Stories are everywhere, and we share them freely.

We don’t live in villages any more and we need to reflect that in our behavior. The people we want to talk to and the people who want to talk to us don’t necessarily live next to us. We probably haven’t met our ideal audience. It’s time to speak up. Start a blog, Instagram, Snap, or Twitter. Here’s a megaphone. Get the word out.

I have some friends who have already picked out what they want on their tombstone, so I figured I would pick something for myself.

I’ve decided on “Here lies David. He knew what he was doing”

I don’t always know what I’m doing. I’d say 50% of the time, things work out in my favor, but I didn’t plan it that way. I might have set up a few things, but the rest of it turned out better than I could have planned it. I sometimes say “Wow, that turned out better than I could have planned. If I had planned it, it would have turned out much worse”.

Other times I’ll keep quiet. I’ll let people assume that I did it all on purpose.

If I want to be humble, I’ll say “Oh believe me, that wasn’t on purpose. If I actually knew what I was doing I’d be Galactic Emperor by now. But secretly, it’s all part of the plan. This small success is actually bringing me one step closer to Galactic domination.

Primo Sol. Tum Sirius.

http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/fatman/
There are 4 fundamental trolley problems. I’ll let you go through the link, it should only take 10 minutes tops.
Here’s what I chose:

1. Don’t pull the lever
   I don’t believe that every life is sacred, however, I don’t try to calculate the number of lives. I wouldn’t pull the lever even if there were 1 million people or 7 billion people on the other side of the tracks. It’s not my place to make that decision. Let the chips fall where they may. I don’t feel morally obligated to act, to save those people, because I didn’t cause the harm in the first place. If I put those people on the tracks, then yes I’d be morally obligated to save them.
2. Don’t push the man off the bridge if he’s a total stranger,
   same as before, don’t choose between lives.
3. Push the man if he’s known to be guilty, and
4. Torture the man if he’s rigged up a bomb.
   I don’t try to calculate the most number of lives. I think lives are uncountable. I don’t believe that we are morally obligated to act, but I do believe that I would act to get sweet justice. It would be worth it to stop the man from killing more people at least.

In this clip Aziz describes an event when he made the first move, and got cricket chirps in reply. What happened?
In dating, ideally you both love* each other. Sometimes neither person loves each other at all. Often times, one person loves the other but not vice versa.

Not loving someone isn’t a problem. Being the person who loves and doesn’t get love back is terrifying. It’s painful and avoided at all costs.

In a Prisoner’s dilemma, two people decide to co-operate or defect simultaneously (just like Rock-Paper-Scissors). In a long term game, the two players can adjust their strategy based on their opponent’s behavior.

Dating is like a Prisoner’s Dilemma except that it’s turn based (just like chess). If you can stretch the ambiguity out long enough, you can gauge how interested the other person is. If you can make the other person make the first move, then you potentially save yourself the embarrassment of unrequited love.

Bottom line: Avoid pain, make the other person make the first move

*I’m using the word “love”, but I mean it as “like like”.

When is ignorance bliss? I tell people I’ve given up watching the news and people give me a “tsk tsk, now you’re ignorant”.

My main problem is that I can’t know everything. There is an opportunity cost on the time it takes to learn. Is it better to spend that time watching the news, or spend it reading wikipedia? I’d say wikipedia. I’d much rather learn about an underwater cave snail that has a transparent shell, than an underwater cave snail that’s surfaced and running for office. I tell ya, if there’s anything that makes scum float to the surface, it’s politics.

In general, ignorance isn’t bliss. The truth is worth knowing, even if it causes displeasure or discomfort. In the long term, it will probably bring pleasure.

The worth of learning information depends on how actionable it is. I recently learned about shaving with a disposable razor without shaving cream. Given this new information, I experimented, found favorable results, and changed my behavior accordingly. I don’t get that from watching the news. There’s nothing in the news that has any impact on my life. It’s all trivia to me. Nothing will change for me if our president is a criminal or a sexist bigot. I don’t really care. In that case, ignorance is bliss.

As we get older, something happens to our way of thinking. For a long time, this perplexed me. I felt that I couldn’t trust anyone over 30. What was even more disturbing was that my sisters were turning 30 soon. Could I not trust them?
As I got older, I learned what this phenomenon was. Memory becomes “crystallized” so to speak, as we get older. Young people are better at learning new facts, but have trouble recalling them. Old people are better and recalling old facts, but have trouble learning new ones. On top of that, their goals change. Young people want to learn, while old people do not.
This causes old people to act like they know it all, when they don’t. They remember where they were when John Kennedy died, and so they assume that they know more in general than kids do. However, Adults don’t know how to do a derivative, nor do they remember why the Dada movement was so significant. They don’t know how to write a paper, or analyze data. They are very ignorant on most topics. This is a good reason to not trust them.

The rule should be “don’t trust anyone who has given up on learning, and isn’t willing to admit when they are wrong”. Most adults fall into this category, but not all of them. Keep an eye out for the “good” adults.

When I started this website, I waffled between super serious and super playful. I wanted it to be inviting so people would want to come to my site. On the other hand, I wanted future employers to look at it and be impressed with my professionalism. I decided to compromise. I would make the website super serious, but i would leave the domain name with something that I love.
Coffee is my fuel. it super charges me to get stuff done. A hot cup of joe will not necessarily focus me, but it does rev my engine. On top of that, it makes me happy. I get noticeably more optimistic. I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The whole world opens up like a clam for me to pluck the pearl. I can feel the effects wearing off because I get just a tad gloomy. My attention wanders to the horrors of the world. Just for a brief glimpse, it doesn’t linger there. Because I have more coffee!
I wouldn’t say it’s an addiction, but denying the benefits would be ludicrous. It’s a performance enhancing drug. I don’t /need/ it, but it helps tremendously. I would highly recommend that all of you increase your coffee intake. See if it helps you as much as it helps me.

I’ve changed what I think….
I made a bit of a snafu recently. A year ago, I was in a bad mood and I wrote a blog post about how I’m giving up helping people. I elaborated that I would just try to help people in a different way by listening instead of offering advice. But the title was so harsh, that I decided to wait to publish it. I scheduled it to publish in 1 year. That way, if I decided I didn’t like it, I could always delete it before it published.

However I started using a different site for my blog, and I forgot about that post entirely. It published automatically and grabbed the attention of a lot of people. I didn’t feel that the article was too harsh, but what many people noticed was the title, “I’m giving up helping people”. It was ironic that it published the day after I actively helped someone (not just listening). It was totally contrary to the article. Am I a hypocrite?

The unfortunate reality is that a blog post is just a snap shot in time. The blog as a whole, is a slide show of snap shots. I can’t and won’t remain constant in what I think. On top of that, many of my posts are fueled by emotion. I can’t deny how I feel at the time of writing, and sometimes how I feel is an ugly emotion.

I have two rules for blogging that parallel how I live life:
Always Be Writing
Always Be Publishing

Thinking is a luxury. Explaining myself is a luxury. Being consistent is a luxury. Being insightful is a luxury.

I usually don’t have time for those things, but I squeeze them in when I can. It’s inevitable that many of the ideas I present in my blog, conflict. As I evolve as a person, change my mind, change my mood, and change my tone I’ll have different posts from one day to the next.

Two more rules I used for blogging and parallel how I live life:
I reserve the right to misunderstand
I reserve the right to be misunderstood

I must be frugal with my time. Allocating time to make sure I have perfect information and making sure I give perfect information would diminish the quantity of content I have. I don’t have time to spare as it is.

I have to publish compulsively or I won’t publish. I refuse to suffer paralysis by analysis. The worst choice in life is no choice. Even bad choices are better than not making a choice.

The credit belongs to the man in the arena.

I just saw this play last week which was truly fabulous. It’s about, yes, love, but also about women’s and men’s rights. It’s about tradition and progress. But what I took away, was the message of freedom.

The premise is that 50 sisters have been promised by their father (before their birth) that they would be married to 50 brothers. The girls escape on the day of their wedding into the house of a stranger, who begrudgingly agrees to grant them temporary refuge.

The intro for these girls is the song “You don’t own me”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnjdCJoDji0

I would assume that by saying someone else doesn’t own them, that they believe that they own themselves.

“I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want”

These are my people! Libertarians at heart!

One of them even makes comments about how they don’t want to be “taken care of, anymore”. She makes the point that they can take care of themselves. Hell yeah! You go sister! Self-sufficiency all the way. We don’t need government to take care of us.

One of the guys made me nervous though. He made a comment about how using physical force and violence is necessary for defending the homeland/wives/daughters. He was conflicted because he felt that women live in a bubble and are blissfully unaware of the violence that is necessary, and once they witness it, they condemn it, even though it’s necessary. This makes me nervous because this is what every politician says to spur his people into war. Yes violence is necessary, but yes it should be condemned.

There was one comment from a girl that made doubly nervous. She wanted a submissive lifestyle. She wanted an assertive man to take the lead and tell her what to do. Especially in the bedroom. I don’t remember the logic she used, something along the lines of: she felt that by submitting herself fully to another, she had the freedom to not make choices. I’ve been asked, “In an AnCap society, would there still be slavery? Could people still voluntarily sign their life away to another person?” To which I would say, no. At that point, it wouldn’t be considered slavery. It’s slavery, because it’s against their will. Unpaid interns are like voluntary slaves. The staff takes a dump on the interns, asks for coffee, generally abuses them, and the intern chooses to take it because they are star struck at getting the chance to work at this company. It’s unfortunate and it shouldn’t exist, but the only thing I can do is to show them the pros and cons and ask them to reconsider.

Is arranged marriage slavery? I would say yes. The only exception would be if the child asked to have an arranged marriage. There’s nothing wrong with matchmaking, and who better to do it than your parents. But if you decide they chose poorly, you should be able to opt out at any time. If it’s not voluntary, it’s slavery. You cannot be born into a contract. Just as it would be immoral to get a 10 year old to sign a contract (because they don’t have the full mental capacity), it would be immoral to get a 0 year old to sign a contract. The same goes for government. You can’t be born into a social contract. If you didn’t agree to it, then it’s not voluntary.

All in all, Big Love was a great play. I highly recommend it. It’s playing at the U of M Flint Theater.

(reposted from facebook)

My fellow Praxians,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform you that I am quitting Praxis. This was one the hardest decisions of my life.

Over the past 6 months, I’ve fallen deeply in love with my job. There’s nothing I’d rather do with my time than work. That feeling is so rare and precious that I can’t let anything get in the way of me and my job. I’ve been doing Praxis for 4 of those months, and it’s always a struggle to balance my time. When I think about my time, “on the margins”, the best way to allocate it would be to spend more time on work. If that means that I have to take time from Praxis, then that’s what it takes.

I have learned so much while in Praxis. I don’t regret joining; not one bit. When I applied in October of 2014, I hated my job. It was an awful corporate desk job that made me feel like a tiny cog. Praxis offered me a way out. I was so enamored with the idea of working at a sexy start up. Some things fell into place in July 2015, and I wound up finding my own sexy start up, with out the help of Praxis. Now the allure of Praxis has faded, since I didn’t need them to find a sexy start up for me.

You people have, and always will be my inspiration. I’m star-struck that I got to work along side you. I can’t wait to see where our paths take us, and I’ll be proud to say I knew them way back when we were in Praxis together. The Praxis staff have already given me the warmest of farewells and wish me nothing but success and achievement. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. Praxis is a great program, it’s just not for me.

I wish you all, all the best.
Best regards,
David

I met one of my old friends and found out they believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old. I tried my best not to be judgemental, but I don’t think I did a very good job.

I appreciate Young Earthers because they keep me on my toes. I CANNOT pat myself on the back just because I claim to know better. This person was making bold claims which I found to be outrageous. However, I didn’t do the research to refute his claims. I didn’t have the arguments that would poke holes in his theory. My worst crime is that I didn’t have the data to back up my own claims. I didn’t do my homework. I didn’t do the research. I didn’t come ready.

For shame! I hope I can learn to be less smug. Young Earthers remind me to be humble. I hope I’m not like them. I hope I have a rudimentary understanding of the fundamentals of science. I hope I can find beliefs that are true, and not just beliefs that conveniently fit with my existing beliefs.

I want to communicate this in a way that instills a sense of urgency, but not panic…

If you are losing, then time is not on your side. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to lose. If you are going to act, act now.

We don’t have the luxury of waiting. In the Hunger Games, Katniss didn’t have the luxury of honing her social skills. She didn’t get practice making friends, and it cost her in the long run.

If you’re worried that government will be deporting your friends soon, now is the time to set up an underground railroad.

If you’re worried the government is going to take your guns, now is the time to set up a militia.

Don’t wait.

If you expect it takes 5 years for things to go from bad to worse, and you expect it will take you 5 years to be ready to fight, then you’ve already lost. It would be inconsistent to also expect that you might win. You will be too late. You either need to adjust how long you expect things to go badly, adjust how ready you need to be, or accept your fate and give up now.

Don’t wait for a call to action. This is your call to action.

If you had a laboratory with a perfectly smooth table and perfectly smooth and rigid billiard balls, you should be able to make perfect predictions. If you had just 2 such balls you could  predictions with 99.999999% accuracy. If you had to bet money on these predictions, you’d make money on 99.999999% of the time. That’s close enough to what we mortals would call “absolute truth”.
Once the first ball is set in motion, we would consider everything after to be predetermined. Once the first ball is in motion, nothing can happen except what was always going to happen. I hate this word, but I’ll say it, this looks like “Fate”.

Even if you had 100 of these nearly perfect balls, you could still predict the path of each of them. The math would be 100 times more elaborate, but it could be done.
Even if we couldn’t do all of the math today, it’s conceivable we could do it in 20 years. The balls might not be perfect, but we might 3D electron scan them to get their exact geometry. Math and technology is not the issue. We’ll get there eventually.

The question is, why would this laboratory experiment end with the balls?
Humans… are somewhat predictable. They have familiar patterns of thinking. This is the study of psychology. We can make predictions about the behavior of people and come out right … sometimes.

Marketing is applied psychology. I’m sure most of it is nonsense, but at least some of it is effective. I can speak from personal experience that I’ve been nudged to buy something based on an image I’ve seen. Speeches can be written to be “persuasive” because it’s been studied what most humans will accept as truth. It’s been documented how people think with certain filters applied.

It’s occurred to me, that if we can make predictions, with at least 50% confidence, and if people can be nudged or influenced, that maybe we are billiard balls too. Maybe we don’t actually have any choice. Maybe we’re bouncing from image to image influenced one way and another. Maybe our path of decision making is predetermined. We might not know it yet because our math and technology can’t track it. We haven’t isolated all of the variables. Isn’t this how people felt before Newton? They could make some predictions and come up close, but not quite. They didn’t have a reliable time keeping measurement, or a method of understanding the natural world.

So it appears that humans are at least a little predictable, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t be fully predictable. Free will seems to be an illusion.

But I can’t deny the feeling of free will. So maybe my logic is wrong.

I’m right and I can prove it, but I’m not going to. I’m going to let you figure it out for yourself. I’m so confident, that I’ll actually help you in your endeavors, even though I think you’ll regret it. I’ll say, I told you so. Then, I’ll have myself a laugh when you finally figure it out.

You don’t think it’s necessary to be nice to everyone you meet? To the people in the call centers? You think insulting their intelligence and being rude to them is going to make them want to help you? HA! You’re wrong. You’ll figure it out though. In the mean time, I’ll show you who’s an employee in this department. I’ll give you the help desk number. I’ll even pull up a list of insults for you to use. What ever you want. I’ll help you, and then I’ll laugh at you.

You didn’t buy bitcoin when it was $250? It’s $900 now. I’ve made $1,300 by buying low and I’ll sell high. You think that the best bet is with Apple stocks? HA! I’ll help you set up a broker. I’ll help you do the research. I’ll help you set up a ticker on your website. And then I’ll sit back and laugh. Hahahaha!

You want to elect a tyrant to rule the United States? HA! What a mistake. You think a bureaucracy will operate better than a tyrant? HA! What a joke. You think you have a politician who’s going to change things and shake it up? HA! A sucker is born every day. It’s just a matter of time until you find out their scandal and they’ll buckle under social pressure to join the herd, and you’ll be disappointed once again. But hey, just for you, I’ll look up the website where you register to vote. I’ll look up the information for you if you want to run as a politician. I’ll connect you to my other friends who are in politics who can show you the ropes. And then once you’re neck deep, I’ll lean back and laugh and laugh and laugh. Oh what a show! What a hilarious situational comedy you find yourself in.

Eh, finding the truth is a journey. Every story about discovering the truth starts with the character being ignorant and oblivious. I know because I was there. But now I’ve exited the Matrix. I have secret knowledge the world at large doesn’t have.

Besides maybe you’re right and I’m wrong… Who are we kidding? Of course, I’m right.

Part of my job at work is coming up with clever solutions to complex problems. We always want our ideas to be elegant, simple, and robust.

Unfortunately, I only get 10 ideas per day. It’s a lot like mining for diamonds. I can mine 10 chunks of ore and then I have to rest for the day. The chances are, I’ll only get 1 diamond in the whole bunch. It’s simply a numbers game.

Most of my ideas are terrible. They would never work. They are either needlessly complicated, absurdly elaborate, or just plain janky.

That’s how I live life. I’ve published 70 posts on this blog alone, and most of them are just mediocre. I enjoyed writing them, but the vast majority of people have been unresponsive. However, I am certain that I have seven of them where people have told me that they were personally impacted by them. They either thought they were funny, or moving, or insightful. That’s worth it. I didn’t write those 7 back to back, it’s just a matter of pounding out the ruff that you get a gem.

I make a lot of what appear to be mistakes in life. I assure you though, it’s all part of the plan. I needed to do those things because, statistically speaking, I’m getting a little closer to doing something right.

“That will be $1.47 for the bag of chips, please.” said the convenience store clerk.

“Oh sure. Here you go, $1.47 exactly.” said the nervous customer.

“So… are you going to pay for that box of Success that you’re hiding under your jacket?” asked the clerk.

“Wha?… ha… ha! Oh! This box? Haha… I uh… I uh forgot that I put that there. Honestly, I was going to pay for it.” Blurted the nervous customer.

“Ok no problem, you can pay for it now.” said the clerk genially.

“I uh, *cough*, don’t have my wallet on me, I can’t exactly pay for it right now.”

“Ok that’s fine, you can put it down and come back when you have the money.”

“Ah, ehhh, yeah you caught me, I don’t have the money.” The customer gulped hard.

“That’s ok, very few people actually have that much money to be able to purchase Success upfront. Some people take out a loan, some people pay for it in other ways.”

“Other ways? What other ways are there?”

“Oh, well, you could work for it. But I have to warn you, it’s going to be hard.”

“Hard? How hard?”

“Well you’ll have to put in effort, your best effort actually, each and every day.”

“My best effort? Every day? For how long?”

“Let me think… probably for 6 months straight if you want it fast, but most people take 10 years to get it.”

“10 years??? I can’t afford that!” shouted the customer incredulously.

“Well like I said, you could do it in 6 months. And you don’t have to have Success. You could just live with the lower model, Mediocrity. It’s much cheaper. You don’t have to put in your best effort, you don’t have to do it each day, and you can get results much quicker; results in as little as one day!”

“Hmmm haw… actually I can’t get Mediocrity. See, I have this Big Project I’m working on. I’ve tried Mediocrity for years and my Big Project isn’t getting any closer to finishing. I’ve made basically no progress since starting.”

“Ok. Success it is, sir. I will put this on layaway and see you again in 6 months!”

Lessons:

• Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.
• Don’t try to “hack” your way to success. It takes hard work. You have to grind it out.
• Exceptional results require exceptional effort.
• Intention doesn’t pay the bills; it doesn’t pay rent and it doesn’t buy success.
• Have a big project in mind, and don’t settle for less.
• Shoot for the stars. Think bigger than most people. Be ready to take on large risk and commitment.