Category: Society

16

A Better Class of People

“A better class of people,” as Aaron puts it. There’s no garbage to be found on the mountain – maybe the occasional wrapper that fell out of somebody’s pocket, but that’s quickly removed by another hiker. Decency and openness in all of the faces you see. People who have the gumption to commit to such an exhausting hike, and whose physical bodies – while not necessarily ‘model-skinny’ – are in solid form.

25

What is Capitalism?

Ain’t it funny how the left and the right talk past each other? Liberals think that “Capitalist” means crony-capitalists; that’s not what Conservatives mean by the term. This mis-communication isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

42

Let God Sort It Out

The hell with ’em all, and let God sort it out. Seriously; obsessing over this broken world will do nothing but drive you crazy.

Smiling Cat 20

Tinder: If You Stop Laughing, You’re Going to Cry

On Tinder: a handful of carefully chosen photos define the person. Not their written self-description – not the full-movements of a person in motion, existing in time – but the still-frame snapshots. The pure, distilled ego. An archaeological artifact of a dead civilization. Any connection to the inner self is ephemeral at best.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra 26

Finding Virtue on the Razor’s Edge

Virtuous action does nothing but aid and abet the enemy; an enemy focused just as much on murdering you, as they are on committing suicide. Participating in this culture is not virtuous – but refusing to participate does nothing constructive, neither for you, nor for a civilization which caught a terminal illness 225 years ago.

10

New Material Month

Realize that while most of which feminism and socialism advocates is outlandishly stupid, and certainly deserves a response, the truth is their numbers and stupidity are staggering and incomprehensible.  This has resulted in a limitless number of stupid ideas and stupid thoughts flooding the idea marketplace.  And while your visceral reaction may be to shoot each and everyone of them down, I fear all it is doing is driving traffic to otherwise unremarkable and irrelevant feminists.  Additionally, as you know, I believe the situation in America is unsalvagable, so why bother wasting your time rushing from fire to fire to...

21

Transhumanism

Folks, I’m an old-school scifi nerd who reads physics texts and Artificial Intelligence theory for fun.  Given that I love fiction, I completely understand why AIs like Shodan (the front-page banner for this piece) or the machine intelligences from The Matrix are so often depicted as evil – simply put, it makes for a more compelling story.  The reality of AI isn’t necessarily so bleak; there are dangers, true, but a machine intelligence isn’t innately a threat to human beings. The real threat is the people who study these things. The folks over on LessWrong, in addition to having great...