Messages

Everyone is haunted by ghosts only they can see.

They're with us from infancy, wandering, lurking, following.

Even before we learn to speak, we learn they are not part of the common experience.  No one else sees them, hears them, smells them, feels them.  Language can only be used to convey concepts we have in common; what only one person can perceive, can have no meaningful name.

We form blindspots.  No-one else sees them, so they're not there.  This isn't mere disbelief, but a strong and unshakeable belief in non-existence.  Sometimes it takes a little longer to develop, and the adults laugh and say we have an "imaginary friend", and that we'll grow out of it.  And to be fair, sometimes it is an imaginary friend...and sometimes, it's neither imaginary, nor friend.  But we always learn.  We must.

They're  opaque.  They're with you even now.  When you're driving and a car comes out of nowhere;  maybe your attention lapsed...or maybe there was a ghost blocking your view, and you simply couldn't see it, or the vehicle behind it.

You bump into a chair.  You stub your toe.
Maybe you misjudged your path...or maybe you were subconsciously side-stepping to avoid the ghost only you can see.

I had a dream.

I dreamt that I was character in a work of fiction, and I raged and screamed against the author to let me out, to give me freedom.

But that's nonsense.  For an author to write characters as if they have independent existence is self-indulgent and pretentious.  The author does not have unlimited power within the scope of his writing; he cannot create something which acts in opposition to his will.

With a god, it is not quite as clear; a limited god, who participates in a universe, but is not of it, may co-existent with independent entities.  But a truly omnipotent god, who created a universe from scratch, and whose constant attention and intervention sustains and continues that universe, cannot create beings with free-will.  He can only pretend he can.

If I dreamed of this crap, what does that mean?

I am the belly-button lint of the universe, contemplating itself.

My mother's cancer, which has been controlled for years now, is galloping off with her.

I've lost an aunt and three uncles to cancer.  My mother, on seeing her sister's body, shook her shoulder and tried to wake her, I don't know why.  It was heartbreaking.

Fuck cancer.

They can't even grasp the concept that animals literally can not make protein

That doesn't sound right.  Animals certainly make protein.  Humans can't adequately synthesize all the types of amino acids they need, and have to get those by breaking down protein consumed from animals that can synthesize those amino acids, or via certain specific vegetables (beans are a good source of lysine).

DNA is essentially a chemical instruction book for how to synthesize various proteins.  Any organism that employs DNA is making its own protein...

Turns out making all the doctors and nurses flee to Canada and Australia [...]was not a winning strategy.

Send more, please.  We still have a shortage.

Tell them Saskatchewan really isn't as bad as the right-wing regressive provincial government and technically uninhabitable climate might make it seem.

Sorry, there is no future left.  My generation and the one before mine used it all up.  Sorry about that.

It's the middle of September, and Saskatchewan is still getting air quality warnings because of smoke from wildfires.

After this summer, I'm surprised there's anything left to burn.

The screaming in my head is around 17 or 18 kHz, and it's not alone.

I'll trust your judgment and good will.

We haven't been introduced, so I'll just think of you as "prey".

I'm marking all as read.

I wish I could say you're not missing anything, but I don't read his posts either, so I wouldn't know.

Who is John Galt?

Elon Musk is John Galt.

A Captain of Industry, a Titan of Business, he is embodient of the self-made man, a modern Prometheus bringing the Glorious Future to the waiting masses.

And like John Galt, he too is a fictional construct, an emanation of a flat and feeble imagination which has only a cursory understanding of economics, science, politics, management, or engineering; a creature that only exists to the extent that people believe in him.

John Galt's author was Ayn Rand; the creator of the fictional Melon is the real-world Musk, supported and abetted by his cult of libertarian tech-bros and adoring fanboys.

Politics has Trump; Technology has Musk.


Have a link:  DEBUNKING ELON MUSK Pt1

I have two questions:

Why did Prigozhin turn back, and why was he (apparently, if perhaps only temporarily) forgiven?

Neither of those things make sense to me, from which I infer that something very interesting happened behind the scenes.

And as for everyone else?  They've gone topside, where they stagger around, pretending that Canada isn't on fire, and weather all over the world is FUCKED, [...]

The sunlight is the wrong colour.  It has been for a while.  Once you've learned to see it, you can't unsee it; even on a clear day with a blue sky, there's an everpresent yellowish tinge to everything.  Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes (like today) it's not.

Even now, when we're not directly downwind, and people aren't complaining about burning throats and watering eyes, the smoke is still there, higher up, dimming the light.  Crop production will suffer.

I've figured out the code.  When it says "That's nice dear", it means "My feelings have been hurt and I don't know how to respond".

Try the substitution, it works perfectly.

And in the spirit of the thread:

Fuck you.

My feelings have been hurt and I don't know how to respond

Oh, you're one of those guys.  Should have guessed it from your general internet presence.  Jordan Peterson fan, MGTOW, incel bullshit.

Having found that screeching through their neckbeards didn't work, they tried condescension.

So tell us more, you pathetic little fraction of a man.

My feelings have been hurt and I don't know how to respond

See?

So, we may have a twofer!

You're sick, man.

I enjoy a little schadenfreude as much as the next chap, but this is an unfortunate example of gun violence, with a child whose life may have been permanently stained through no fault of their own, and you're cracking weak jokes and patting yourself on the back for it.

Her dreams are unusual, but at least she has aspirations more varied than regurgitating news articles like a geriatric parrot.