facing the music

 i slept surprisingly well, all things considered. but i woke up feeling wired, so i skipped my first coffee and had a tea instead.

i'd woken up to the sounds of protesting, so i was surprised by how quiet everything was on my way to work.

i went past the clinic to try and make an appointment, but the receptionist didn't know how to help me. i walked to the closest bus stop, but didn't trust the public transport app and walked on, which turned out to be the right call. i did take the light rail for a single stop, but that was mainly as a break from the already rising heat. (still nowhere near as harsh as the last week)

i walked into the office just as my boss had informed bigtalk that he was going home until his hearing. i offered to speak with him, which in retrospect may have been a mistake, because a) he really has no idea why he's being let go and b) he blames me for my reporting to the boss and c) i realized, helplessly, that no matter what i say to him he's only going to hear what fits his narrative, which is precisely how we got here in the first place.

so... i tried not to say much, and i tried to be comforting, but doing both those things was literally impossible and it was just shit feelings all the way down.

and - since last week - the more i think about it, the more i think about how much of what he's told us is fake-it-till-you-make-it self-deception. all i saw today was a scared little kid, raw vulnerability, trying to make sense of something in a way that he's not going to be able to make sense of without a much deeper level of self-awareness.

as i said to my boss afterwards, if we were big enough to afford it, i would offer to mentor him.

the next hour or so was fully invested in disabling all of his accounts and rotating shared passwords.

...

at lunchtime i walked to meet up with gd and mr smear for his psychiatrist appointment. the intention of the appointment, to my understanding, is for the "doctor" (see the attached summary) to determine whether his social anxiety (which we now believe is no more severe than any kid's) warrants an "accompanier". but, of course, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

the meeting was okay, mostly, although there was a fair amount of awkwardness in mr smear's discomfort answering his questioning in hebrew (and the questions were uncomfortable questions in any language) and then, after he'd repeatedly mentioned his english not being great, he became offended when mr smear responded in english that he has "intrusive thoughts" and i asked if he was familiar with the term :/

...

i returned to the office for an hour or two of frustratingly difficult IT (security) work, then a couple of hours working with the new devops guy trying to restart the project that bigtalk never delivered.

and then the day ended (kinda) with me and another team member running through all our accounts to make sure we'd caught everything in the morning.

...

the protestors were gathering by the time i went home, and i walked through crowds of more and more people whose behavior (and placards) just upset me more and more. they're protesting against our government "abandoning" the hostages, as if there's anyone reasonable on the hamas side of the table to negotiate with. while i certainly appreciate their intention and their desperation, in practice all they're achieving - in my opinion - is demonstrating to hamas that the time for playing games isn't over.

...

the evening was pleasant, although i'm struggling with radiating nerve pain down my right side. and while gd had a much better day today in that department, she's also been struggling a bit this evening.

i'm exhausted, emotionally and psychologically. i hope tomorrow's easier.

opportunity

 well, my shoulder's hurting this morning, but my eyes are feeling slightly less irritated and my teeth are feeling slightly less sensitive, so overall i guess i'm doing okay.

i'm feeling quite offended right now that putting money into mr smear and my shared compound account costs far more than we'll earn in compound interest over the next few years. i'm offended because crypto's been a big thing for so long already and it still doesn't make any sense for small players. and our physical banks don't have any incentive to compete.

mr smear just freaked out and dumped a really cool animation he made in flipaclip (after much struggling to determine that bluestacks still sucks and that flipaclip's pricing is extortion), but i got him to reattempt and learn what he should have done and he did. so at least one parenting win for the morning, not including him playing or singing iron maiden's two minutes to midnight every time he thinks something's going to be in two minutes :P

...

i walked into the office yesterday and sat down for a while with bigtalk to help him strategize. that was followed by a morning full of random shit, mostly frustrating, and i felt like my brain was melting (like i was maybe coming down with something, but in retrospect i think i was just tired and depressed).

the biggest downer was learning that bigtalk's definition of "fine-tuning" is completely out of sync with mine. he's been promising to deliver the Big Important Thing "today or tomorrow" since last week already and i'm just getting more and more frustrated.

the company retro was interesting, and i felt useful and needed. which makes me feel a bit weird about my position in the new org chart, where i'm just a devops and my "coach" is someone with less experience than me...

happy hour turning into an opportunity for a conversation about determining company culture (documentation and being remote-first), but that conversation led to someone even more important which was me determining the root cause for our algo team's difficulties and getting buy-in for my proposed solution from our de-facto tech chief.

and then i came home, without any issues with protestors (thankfully i don't have a car), and the evening was pleasant and we all went to bed pretty early. fortunately i was the only person who was awoken by the protestors flooding our neighborhood...

not broken!

 everything is broken, and ai isn't helping. i'm now spending an enormous amount of time fiddling with eslint and typescript configurations that are all designed to be as non-interoperable as possible, and this is what i'm doing on *my* time.

...

i struggled to get out of bed this morning (again).

we had a parental guidance session this morning that went well.

i managed to register mr smear for summer camp. it's ridiculously expensive, but it seems amazing and they even have a shuttle to our area, which may be expensive but not as expensive as me or gd having to pick him up here and there. and the timing is fantastic, because he starts going the day after my mother returns to SA. and, also, we're out of debt and we can (kind of) afford it.

i think i may have done something useful at work today, although i'm not confident.

i mean, aside from bringing home the black salt (kala namak) which has been offending some of my coworkers every time i use it. meanwhile, i'm not complaining about them microwaving fish in the communal kitchen. i did, however, complain about breakfast being all dairy except for lots of delicious bread, i'm not losing any weight...

and getting a recommendation for an interesting-sounding book (tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow), and convinced myself that a replay of the (three primary) daniel mullins games is in order.

there was a bullying incident at school today, it's still not clear what happened but it sounds like the english teacher just shrugged her shoulders and gave up on taking any action.

i had a long chat with mr smear's art therapy teacher, who scared the shit of me (as she does every year) by calling mid-morning out of the blue and making me worry that there'd been an incident.

i don't know if i've just got really dry skin or if i'm being attacked by something, so i had a vinegar bath and i'm using moisturizer and hoping for the best.

i asked gd to prepare a "go bag" in case of iranian attack, it looks like things may be heating up. i'm praying we get on with it and attack them for real and shut the IRGC shit down. also, making greta thunberg watch hamas atrocities is a stroke of genius.

[OMFG i finally figured out the configurations and things are working 🥳]

more strike

 the strike continues, on through tomorrow. this morning i took mr smear with me to pick up a parcel, and then took him to work, picking up a mother's day gift for gd along the way.

getting him to do his homework was tough, but aside from that having him in the office was fine and he enjoyed coming with me to build a salad for lunch.

it was another annoying work day, though. slightly less annoying, but annoying nonetheless. but: while i didn't get through what i needed to get through at the office, i did make progress and managed to get things working after getting mr smear into bed. and i got to show off something cool to gd, which was fun.

mourning / scrambling to finish the work / dealing with a strike / not sleeping well / overcompensating by snacking and consuming too much caffeine -> wired, tired, not happy

and my wrist's a little sore from too much minesweeper.

i don't know if i'm ready to rest, but i think i'm ready for the massage kit.

strike^3

 omg.

another strike day, and tomorrow's another one. godsdammit.

the day began alright, then involved a fight over misunderstandings, then (once resolved, at least) i headed to the shiva house. i expected to be the only coworker there, but a few others arrived just before me. i talked to a woman i once served with (who turned out to be my late lead's sister-in-law), spoke briefly with the widow, and spent an interesting while with the parents.

then we bussed back to tel aviv, where i met up with gd and mr smear, took him to mexicana, and we walked to the office and ate there.

by the time i was finished eating i was done. my brain was fried - the sensation i suspect of being a kind of mild narcolepsy - and my coworkers needed me functional.

i wasn't functional.

for a while, at least.

anyway, most of the afternoon was me feeling harassed and not getting any of my work done, while simulatenously feeling guilty about feeling harassed. and at the same time dealing with mr smear who couldn't do his homework on the old computer.

it wasn't a particularly successful day. we came home and enjoyed a great dinner, and then i began falling apart. but i had stuff to do, so after putting mr smear to bed and doing some massage-kit time, i did a little of the work (symbolically little) and then got caught up in bullshit. and now it's late.

so i think i'm going to go to bed soon.

strikes

 jesus, another day of the teacher's strike. and tomorrow's another one.

i slept alright, i guess, but still needed some massage time when i woke up - i feel like consistently using it for long periods on my neck is helping. i did another page of hebrew reading with mr smear, and gd and i had an encouraging parental guidance session.

the work day was long, but alright. tough, pressured, but alright.

it was an enormous relief receiving my payslip and seeing that my broker was right - it was just the last one that was out of whack.

during the day i got a call from gd, who'd realized that mr smear wasn't doing the math homework he'd claimed to have done (fight, battle won). when i got home, i taught mr smear how to make beat in cubase before dinner (minor fight, battle won). at bedtime, we had an issue with closing his door (minor fight, battle mostly won).

i thought i might get some work done tonight, but no. youtube and minesweeper, a bunch of random admin chores, slay the spire, and now... back to youtube while i type this, and then... bed.

arrival + double-time

 it doesn't feel like only a single day has passed since my last post. i played a little bit more disco elysium, then hit the hay. i woke up at 4am, left on time with a green tea in hand, reported a burst water pipe on the way to the train station, and arrived on time, but at a closed entrance.

so i missed my train, and had to walk all the way around. fortunately, the next train arrived at the airport at a reasonably close time, and i found my mom waiting comfortably.

i reloaded her transport card, and we hopped on the next train home. by the time we arrived - around 6am - the water pipe had been repaired, and gd was awake and ready to greet us with coffee. unfortunately, i'd forgotten to pick up non-barista oat milk yesterday, and it took a quick walk around to find something that looked alright, but that ended up being unpleasant :(

i took a "nap" - getting another hour and a half in - and woke up feeling pretty refreshed. mr smear was excited to wake up to his granny being home, so that was really cool :)

we all went to the mall together to sort out my mom's SIM card, then picked up some nice breads from our favorite bakery on the way home. i had a big breakfast / lunch, and around noon went to the office. when i left, mr smear was very enthusiastically engaged in a lego build that our cousin sent him for his birthday next month :)

the protests were just beginning, and they were already pretty loud.

the work day was pretty intense, but i finally left the office around 7.30pm feeling like i'd crushed it. not only did i get the stuff i've been working on code-complete, but i also helped out a couple of my coworkers along the way, and was pleased to be informed by my argumentative coworker (after we learned that the TODO that started the fight on thursday *did*, in fact, come back to bite us as i predicted) that once he'd had some time to give it some thought, he decided he didn't disagree with me after all :)

i had to walk home because everywhere between my office and my home was shut down for the protests.

we had a really nice dinner, and i've spent a good chunk of the evening doing not much. although i did just play a bit more inscryption, getting crushed in the first game (it's deeply disappointing when you believe you've built a deck with potential) but finally picking up a boon from the painting in the second.

now... to decide... whether to go to bed or not. we're up early tomorrow, after my early morning doctor's appointment we're heading downtown to spend some time with wp who's here for a few days.

mostly relief

 thursday was messy. i pushed something on wednesday evening that mysteriously broke our testing, and it would take most of the day to figure it out because it was caused by a combination of circleci's built-in environment variables turning out to be unreliable, and them using some kind of non-standard flavor of git. it was a shit-show.

and then my "research" project turned into a deep dive in madness, resulting in me ending the day with a report to my boss explaining that perhaps i'm not the person who should be working on this thing when i have only a month left on the clock...

[holy crap, it's friday evening and assholes are protesting again. this stinks.]

thursday was a good day with mr smear, and today started off well but while we were having lunch with the mongoose and co. he started behaving badly and now everyone's having a shitty evening.

*takes a deep breath*

and back to trying to clean our air conditioner before the sun sets.

"king bibi"

after many months of non-stop protests, i've come to the conclusion that all of these protestors chanting "democracy" are missing something fundamental about the situation we're in and about what the word "democracy" actually means.

firstly, no matter how loud and how consistent the protests have been, no matter how many people in raw numbers may have shown up, at the end of the day it's still a very small percentage of the population. most of the population? either doesn't feel affected, isn't concerned, or is happy for the government to proceed as it is.

secondly, unless you're the elected government's constituency, the government really doesn't care about your protests. they're only going to care if the respond to something that they're doing indicates that they won't get voted in next election.

thirdly, i think that our election system is thoroughly corrupt and getting in its own way. in order to achieve stability, we're demanding coalitions and forcing someone like bibi to align himself with minorities that he doesn't necessarily agree with, all in the interests of forming a "strong government". these minorities, over the course of two decades, have changed our country for the worse.

and bibi has demonstrated, time and again, that he will stop at nothing to stay in power and out of prison.

let's put this all together: we have "king bibi". he's in charge, but he's bowing to fringe extremists to stay that way. if it wasn't for those fringe extremists, he would only be beholden to his own constituency, which is the likudnikim. who are (for the most part) relatively moderate in their views.

i think it's time to put this farce of a democracy to bed. let's let bibi wear the crown, whether for a two-to-four year term or for good. whatever. hand him his get-out-of-jail-free card. let him do his thing, without having to answer to the extremists. at least that. if he's not on the defensive, he might actually do something good for the country, and we could avoid becoming the next iran / failed state with a civil war on its hands.

he has the mandate of the majority anyway, so what difference does it make? 

the fix

 i took a puff on thursday night, and it helped. i took another puff last night, and it helped. i'm going to take another puff tonight, and hopefully my sleep clock will stabilize. i'm actually surprised by how little affected i was - aside from the sleeping itself - i didn't feel messed up going to sleep, nor waking up. this is good.

...

right now, my fingers and hands are sore. i'm really excited to report that i finally got on the climbing wall with mr smear this evening, and not only was it a great experience climbing together but i did way better than i thought i would after more than eight years. i had no trouble getting to the top, nor climbing a lot, and aside from the first attempt i made a point of only doing routes.

...

this post interrupted by yet another protest against our new neighbor. i complained about last night's one in the neighborhood facebook group and learned that i'm not alone in not appreciating their shenanigans. i'm actually surprised that mr smear hasn't woken up yet, but some of our neighbors haven't been so lucky :(

...

friday morning went much better than the previous week. gd and i did a quick grocery shopping as soon as mr smear was in school, then watched randy feltface - smug druggles (it's brilliant). then i picked up mr smear, brought him home, dragged him to the istore* and then rushed through to his therapist, picking up a delicious falafel along the way (he was very happy about that).

* where i learned that i cannot trade in or even submit for recycling our old ipad and my "old" macbook that i picked up from sailor

while he had his session i sat outside the coffee shop and worked on an article while three different places (including the coffee shop) competed for the loudest, most annoying music. it was lovely.

yesterday afternoon / evening was pretty chill, as was this morning. we started off the day with home alone, which was actually better and more interesting than i remembered. then, after a significant downtime, mr smear convinced gd to play goodcritters with us, and while the start was a bit rough we all ended up having a great time!

i agreed to give mr smear another chance and we watched some more of the live action one piece. it's just gorgeous!

mr smear and i had an unpleasant incident on the way to the wall this evening, but ultimately we got things figured out and i feel like i got through to him. the fact that we managed to have a great time after that feels like significant progress on both our parts.

dominoes

 today, the first domino was pushed. it's sad, but things are probably going to be okay. maybe, somehow, they'll turn out for the best?

to everyone who's been protesting, i'm sorry to say this again, but... unless the people protesting are the same people who voted in the people calling the shots, protesting means very little to them. israel is still - at least for the time being - a democracy, and while protesting hasn't done much aside from being a fun group activity and dividing people into teams just like a football game, it's not too late to try something different.

often, being right is less important than being effective. let's focus on the next elections. let's focus on what we'd like israeli society to become. if we want reasonableness, we're going to need to be reasonable in order to generate that reasonableness on the ground. 

politicians aren't going to generate it. they have no incentive to. right now, the government has a solid majority of our country backing them, regardless of their variety of reasons. whatever you may think of all those reasons, we're going to need to confront them, and we're going to need a way to break down walls if we're to move forward in a constructive way.

good luck to us all.

...

i woke up this morning with... unclear... sinuses. again. and a nasty cough. i'm back to starting off my day with dishwashing (my mom was doing them every night while she was here, i won't say i didn't appreciate the break), then hurriedly rifling through papers until i found what i needed, and then i rushed off in the already-intense heat to the pain clinic and hospital to take care of yesterday morning's bill.

then i headed to work, and began my ninja week.

so far, so good? almost. the day went pretty well, and i took care of a few things while still getting some other things done. then i left work and discovered that all the streets around our building had been blocked off with trucks and buses, there was a large post-law protest underway.

i stopped by the appliance warehouse and made sure the electronics guy understood what the problem with our soundbar is, then i walked through the protestors to do some grocery shopping. on my way to the clinic i had to stop and "assist" drivers to get out of the way of an ambulance (i'm wondering if they legitimately didn't know how to behave?) and arrived at the clinic too close to closing time to get the form i needed.

then i returned home.

fortunately, i had time to play some toodee and topdee with mr smear before dinner, because just before dinner was served i got a call from our turkish coworker to pull me in to something "very urgent". i don't think it was urgent, and i don't see why she seems to think that 8pm is a good time to get everyone on board when she's known about the "very urgent" problem since at least this morning.

******* *****.

fortunately, i managed to eat with my family in spite of that noise, and hear a bit about mr smear's first juijitsu lesson with a gi.

i'm very excited for him ^_^

bedtime was okay, only after bedtime he needed me to come in a few times because he was scared and that wasn't easy to deal with.

i've been feeling tired and restless, and i'm anxious, i don't know what to do with myself and i don't have bandwidth to do much of anything (although i'm finding steamworld heist a good meditation).

...

good luck to us all.

egg on my face

 well, i guess i've been wrong all this time. apparently, it's possible to put a price on one's personal safety, on one's health and wellbeing, and on being with one's family.

what a fool i've been.

i don't know what to think right now, but i'm gobsmacked and heartbroken. i don't know where to put all these thoughts and feelings, but i do know that i'm feeling sick to my stomache and i'm going to have to reevaluate a lot of things.

at least i managed to get my wife and son out of danger. that's not nothing.

...

in spite of my uneven state of mind, i managed to convince mr smear to face his fears and give the first toodee and topdee boss (without cheats) another go. he did beautifully. not only did he persist until he got it, but he did it in a different way to me; in fact, i would say he did it in a considerably harder way than i did.

then, to make that success even better, we completely demolished the entire next world including the boss and he did most of the work and the puzzle solving. i'm very proud.

...

nystire came through to drop something off, and i'm very grateful for his timing, his warning, and his giving me a lift through to the car after i brought our reservation forward half an hour. getting to my family was crazy - i got blocked and turned around twice - and getting through the protests to the airport required second-guessing waze a couple of times. we arrived at the airport just on time.

mr smear needed the toilet, and i had to wait with him while he took what felt like forever. during which time a number of people used the facilities in a way that made me confident that they were very sick and that there was a good chance we might have picked something up.

and i'm still not over the cough thing. i thought i was getting there, but that's like every day for the past couple of weeks. it's just not going away.

the drive back was okay until we hit tel aviv, and we got stuck and turned around for ages, mostly because there were two closed off roads around the diamond exchange in ramat gan that nobody had marked as such. after our second time around, i marked it and we managed to find a clear route home, and i eventually dropped gd and mr smear off around 11.30pm. then i had to get the car back, and was just becoming despondent as i stopped across from a blocked road that was my only route to the parking when the light turned green and the cops and blocking bus cleared off in time for me to get straight through.

that was a huge relief.

i stewed all the sweaty way home (it's stinking hot outside), and now that i've had some time to cool off (including doing some more grinding in steamworld heist) and shower and write this, i think i should probably be getting to bed.

our last of us

the last of us shares a vision of what the world could look like if cordyceps evolved to infect humans. we're currently struggling with ringworm, and i can't help but imagine what the world would look like if tinea corporis was impossible to treat.

...

i've been chatting with scrapper over the past couple of days, i'm sad to learn that he and his partner have experienced a similar fallout to me and pg since they landed in canada. traveling and trauma test one's relationship, emigrating definitely combines those two and the effect is greater than the sum of its parts...

...

i finally got back to the rollerblading group on tuesday night! i drank a cup of coffee before i left, had a good time, and got home feeling pretty good (aside from a blister on one of my feet). but then... i couldn't sleep. i was thoroughly wired. after a very long wednesday, i climbed into bed in the hopes of recovering and then... still couldn't sleep. not as bad as the previous night, but insufficient.

(in lemongrab's voice) unacceptable!

boy, was i looking forward to sleeping last night, but i spent most of it uncomfortable, hot or cold or imagining things that bother me...

...

speaking of which, since gd's been able to smoke cannabis she's been able to wean off a whole lot of her pain medications, and she's going through withdrawal symptoms. that sucks.

...

this week i was hyper-focused on work. i'm not happy about that, but i guess i'm not unhappy about that either. i did enjoy some successes, although quite a lot of frustration, too. i learned a lot about some of the more esoteric stuff i've been working with. it's definite progress.

i'm excited and nervous about the next week and month. assuming all goes well, my first options are scheduled to vest in the next ten days. assuming all goes well, those options will actually be worth something at some point.

...

mr smear has lost another tooth. he's generally doing okay, and we're learning to pick our battles, but there was an incident on wednesday with a particularly slow and violent kid that made him refuse to enter his classroom yesterday...

...

we're off soon to join an earth day march in an attempt to raise awareness for our need (as a species) to get off animal agriculture. we figure it's a good idea to take mr smear with us, hopefully this will be fun! 

building on decolonization

Cape Town is suffering from an extreme example of a syndrome that's plaguing the entire world, a syndrome that is caused by infrastructure that is geared towards supporting populations in the mid-20th century and that is woefully inadequate and inappropriate given current demands, let alone near and distant future demands. These infrastructure deficiencies - and inefficiencies - directly contribute to the extreme inequality of opportunity that plagues our nation, and while apartheid policies did have a role in determining which races are more disadvantaged the underlying mechanisms in play today are no different that in any other country where populations living in urban centres have more access to opportunity than those in the periphery. A reduction in relative poverty will also go a long way towards reducing the frightening levels of crime we face.

This is an outline of steps we need to take as a society if we're to uplift communities and move towards a reduction of poverty and general improvement of living conditions for all.

First, it must be noted that most of our economic issues can be attributed to government interference with the free market. All of our governments are plagued with selfishness, greed, ignorance and corruption, what we need is to wean ourselves off technologically as fast as possible. That's obviously easier said than done, but there are some things in the interim that our governments can do to ease burdens on both sides of the equation. The first thing is to let us solve our own problems without fining us, as we've seen in the Western Cape where we've been penalized for reducing our water use and for private solar power installations.

Second, we desperately need to let go of our ideas of “heritage"; if we're going to talk about decolonizing things, we should start with this. We don't need cities that look the way our parents remember them as much as we need cities that service its citizens. We simply do not have the resources available for people to live in houses in the middle of densely populated areas, urban areas must expand vertically and the wealthier citizens who can afford the construction and the commute costs can build their mansions in the peripheries.

Gentrification is not actually a problem, but a lack of affordable housing is. The less high-density construction we allow the less options lower income brackets will have, and we're forcing lower earners out of city centres and into expensive cars and commutes. That's an enormous unofficial tax in addition to everything else.

Any new construction in urban centres should have a minimum legal density, and as much communal gardening space must be provided as is practical, in particular rooftops and around the circumference of each level. Urban farming is an extremely important concept that must be encouraged as much as possible. It's also recommended that every large apartment complex have its own safe play areas for families; we used to play in the streets and know our neighbours, which was important for fostering healthy communities.

Low cost housing in urban centres is as counter-productive as any other kind of affirmative action, instead of equalizing populations it simply repositions inequalities along different axes. You might help a few families with low-cost housing, but at the cost of pushing higher-income families out and it doesn't make the slightest difference to the rest of the low-income families. If you're not making a positive difference for the majority of people, there's a good chance your solution is actually a part of the problem.

Government housing should be as dense as possible, and should be positioned as close to the city as possible. In Cape Town, we are very lucky to have two problems that can be solved together - that of available land close to urban centres, and that of exposed and unprotected train tracks. If we were to construct tunnels over the tracks and build large residential and commercial complexes over and around those tunnels we could not only have a defensible underground* transport network, but we could significantly reduce the load on that network by bringing people closer to their employment opportunities and infrastructure.

Third, we must embrace the remote work revolution. There are many sectors that can and should make a remote work option available, and companies should receive economic incentives to do so. There should also be incentives for companies to make products and services available online. This is not just to reduce traffic, fossil fuel waste and expenses all-round, but will go a long way to levelling the playing field for all income groups.

Finally, we need to completely rethink education. Most of our population lacks resources and facilities to learn and up-skill, and that makes it nigh-impossible to improve their station in life. Poor people don't need charity, they need to be empowered. Even if they could afford the time and money to learn, they wouldn't be empowered by sitting in classrooms learning theory; we need mentorship programs, available in their areas because people with no money or earning potential can't be expected to travel. Companies should be incentivized to send missions, mobile offices, into the poorer areas, to provide on-the-job training in practical skills. We need to subsidize mobile coverage for areas that telecommunications don't find lucrative, with free data available for educational websites and applications.

In conclusion, we, the people, need to effect change and create real solutions to real problems, without waiting on our government bodies to do it for us. We all deserve better, rich or poor, black or white, this is our country - and we're all in this together.

---
* artificially underground, of course.

a note to angry ethical vegans

lifted from a thread about who's worse, omnivores or people who've gone vegan and back again:
wow, guys. i'm ashamed on your behalf, you're so busy being elitists that you've forgotten that FOR THE ANIMALS' SAKES you need to treat your fellow humans with respect, and give them the benefit of the doubt if you want to have any chance of changing their minds.

instead of being so holier-than-thou, you should realize that you're privileged to know something they don't AND be able to follow through, and if you can be patient and civil you can teach those people.

just this morning i learned about yet another wannabe vegan who was so turned off by your myopic, ugly, narcissistic bullshit that she gave up before she even started. you're an embarrassment to the people who really do care and praying that you all wise up and become inspirational teachers instead.

vegan tension

after another experience where gd was traumatized by some disturbing images on her feeds, i posted the following on facebook, which offended some of my friends:

"you know what, facebook friends? when you post disturbing images without any form of trigger warning, you're being an asshole. have the decency to give others a chance to decide if they're ready to see animals suffering horribly. i don't believe in trigger warnings at poetry events because you should know what you've signed up for, but here it's a relatively public space. you're hurting the people who care more than you're teaching the people who don't."

a long argument ensued. eventually they dropped it, after i responded with the following:

i totally get what you're saying, i really do. but i think context is important. if you're talking about standing outside a baton rouge holding up traumatizing images and slogans - i'll be standing there with you. but facebook is a place for family and friends and coworkers - it's relatively public, but it's *not* public. i find it hard to believe that the proportion of people you're positively affecting when you post, especially considering that most of them are people who know you and have probably heard you speak on the subject, is significant relative to the number who're sympathetic already. hence my response hashtag of #preachingtothechoir.

i am all in for opening people's eyes, i simply disagree with your assessment of facebook as a good place to be aggressive about it.

this morning i happened to see something in my feed that i felt i needed to respond to.

hey vfmp, i hope you guys are well.

i just happened to see your post about north carolina's ag-gag veto:
"It's bad enough to have people who ostensibly care about animals tell me that posting images of animal cruelty is "not what Facebook is for"."

well. let's begin with the fact that that is not at all what i said. what i disagree with is the WAY you post those images. what i disagree with is your approach to creating awareness, with your methods, not with the act of increasing awareness.

let's begin with the way facebook filters our news feeds. facebook does not show your posts to all of your friends. facebook only shows your posts to a handful of friends that it thinks you like engaging with. this means that people who usually like your posts see your posts first, and if a post generates a lot of engagement then *maybe* it'll spread. that means that when you post these disturbing images, the people most likely to see them are the people who've seen them already and indicated that they're interested.

just FYI: you and your partner and brother were not the people who inspired my status on the topic. i barely see disturbing images from you guys, whatever that says about facebook's filters i don't know.

in short: when you post these images on facebook, even if it is the case that most of your "friends" need a wake-up, you're probably only showing them to your friends who don't.

even if it wasn't for facebook filters i firmly believe that "you catch more flies with honey", but i guess that's just my opinion. i think vegan aggression is doing more harm than good to its own cause, and i believe in enlightening people on their own terms because doing otherwise generates cognitive dissonance. we've had a hundred years of misinformation, it's going to take a considerable amount of work to break that.

finally, in response to "ostensibly cares": i'm trying to wrap my head around how disagreeing with your approach equates to not caring about the animals. if you care so much about the animals, posting on facebook is not really an effective way to go about fixing the situation. taking the kinds of actions that get posted about on facebook, however, is.
considering your great efforts with your [personal] project, i know that you're capable of doing more than that. i will happily help out in any initiatives that won't jeopardize my residence, but while getting the world to go vegan (and we have our different approaches to that, too, but we're definitely both making an effort) is a good long-term influence, there's a lot of need for direct action. facebook is not direct. and alienating people instead of bringing them around is not conducive to bringing about change.

i hope you can appreciate where this is coming from.

urgent

to all americans reading this: this is your chance to regain some of your rights.

stopping racism and police brutality would be cool too... though i do believe that's a lot more difficult to achieve. i'm not justifying looting and arson, 'cause destroying your own infrastructure is stupid and counterproductive. but rioting in general? after all the shit that the black communities in america are still being made to suffer?

...

is bud light beer *trying* to demonstrate just how much rape culture is a thing?

maybe everyone has been drinking the kool-aid.

"d" is for d...

so! democracy, huh? i'm thinking the big D is done. and not *just* for america, a country that continues to shove their ironic "freedom" down the world's throats.

the time for non-human government is upon us. tech that allows us to self-govern, or AI - i'm less concerned about AIs maybe going wrong than humans *guaranteed* to go wrong.

have i mentioned how important rights to internet access and privacy are?

net neutrality, patronizing arts and security news

john oliver on net neutrality: this is an explanation that's not only NOT super-boring but it's clear enough for everyone. the video's really funny, some of the comments are hysterical, inspirational or both.

patreon makes it easy to be a patron of the arts - what a wonderful idea!

i can't say the man inspires confidence, but the fact that things are moving forward with lavabit is exciting nonetheless :)

attempting to clear up misunderstandings

i woke up stuck on pulse getting me all wrong. i put together an explanation, not to a potential partner but to a fellow human being, and here's most of it because it's a fairly good summary.

first and foremost, i think human beings are amazing and wonderful, mostly individually but with the potential for unimaginable greatness on a large scale. i don't think we'll ever be perfectly peaceful and loving, but there will always be enough peaceful and loving people to keep the angry ones in check. our current age of extreme individualism is a perfect example of how much kindness and care exists even in a society that's wired for self-absorption and consumerist greed. that doesn't mean that i don't believe it's possible for us to achieve perfect peace and harmony, and i certainly believe that we should strive for it!
i may at present only be an armchair activist (i'm not proud of that, but i'm not too clued in on what's going on here and i'm quite frankly concerned about jeopardizing my ability to stay in canada by being vocal against authorities here so i limit my endeavours to increasing awareness and debating with people), but i have been protesting-active in israel regarding human rights (like freedom of speech, including for groups whose actual speech i don't appreciate) and social justice and no matter how disappointing the results may have been i'd never stop fighting for what i believe..

...

when i used the word "conflict" i used it in an academic sense, what i meant is that we're wired to make things narratively interesting. if you're complacent, you wouldn't get anything done, and a prime example of that is actively trying to right wrongs. we could never be truly happy without overcoming difficulties and adversity; that doesn't mean that we wouldn't be able to get everyone playing the same game by harnessing and redirecting our narrative energies for good. equality and environmentalism is a good place to start, but perhaps ultimately we'd take our narrative needs into a virtual plane, or direct them in artistic endeavours. but that's just, like, my opinion :P

exploring space is something that i feel is a critical part of our evolution. when we talked about it it was in a rather specific context; in a short-term view, it's important for us to maintain a pocket / pockets of humanity living off planet, even in orbit, just in case. not because i don't have hope that we're going to sort all our shit out down here, but because we don't have any guarantees that we'll sort it all out. and the potential for species-wide destruction doesn't only come from humans, we have environmental risks (such as global warning, or asteroids hitting the planet) and even if they're relatively small (no need to panic just yet) i strongly believe that humankind, with all of its incredible discoveries and rich history, including all of our little lives and the things we do that we believe give us meaning, is 100% deserving of surviving whatever the universe can think to throw at us.

and all that is just the short-term view. in the long term view i think it's our destiny to explore and create and populate the universe. my comment about sending off ideologically different groups in different ships was cynical and snarky, i suspect it might happen to a degree but that's not how i envision us evolving! what i see is the different groups, however they're formed, developing in different directions as they travel through time and space, and in my opinion that's a beautiful thing!

there's a reason i self-identify as a hippie, even though i'm philosophically in a very meta space. as i told you when we discussed paranormal things: i don't have answers to everything, not even how i personally feel about everything, but i want to understand everything because i'm philosophically and psychologically curious.
i don't judge others' realities unless i consider them harmful (ask me why i get upset if someone uses "the secret" to explain that a girl who was raped is to blame because of her negative thoughts). and i love being exposed to ideas i don't necessarily agree with because if there's one thing that will get us all on the same team, it's cognitive contamination :)