Messages

Ahaha yeah, point taken.  I should've expected the Professor to appear on my TV and quote Eris at me, and it was a very well-chosen quote.  I love you Cram, you don't know me but you are my favorite poster on PD.  Your Discordia seems the closest to mine of anyone here.  I sincerely hope to meet you some day.  Anyway.

While it totally IS what I want to do, it is a selfish way to live, given the state of things.  I don't like how selfish I've become.  I want to fight, to tear this whole fucking joke of a society down and see if people build something better in its place.

But, man, I'm tired.  I worked another 50-60 hour week in the factory.  I have mortgage, bills, small-time shit to do, a sick person to care for and support, etc etc etc.  Also, Star Citizen is SO MUCH MORE FUN.  And my D&D session is tomorrow and is the high point of my week.

To be brutally, painfully honest, I want other people to fight the evil shit and win and bring sanity back to society, while I sit here posting useless crap in support of those people in between work and sleep and games.  However, this makes me a shit person.  I don't really like being a shit person either.

I've seriously considered trying something like alcohol or drugs to give myself the energy to get off my stupid ass and GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE and try to make a difference, but I also feel like if I have to be fucked up to do it, I haven't solved the underlying problem.

I just don't fucking know, man.

I am your enemy.

I'm a coward.  I play Chaotic Good in D&D, but Chaotic Spineless in real life.  I am kind to everyone I meet, generous, all the hallmarks of "good", but I am not good.  I allow evil to thrive and only give lip service to resisting it.  I allow racist and homophobic coworkers to feel like that shit is acceptable, by not showing my fangs every time I look at them.  By being polite to them.  By rationalizing my cowardice with "I would totally do something if I ever actually saw them say or do anything against a homosexual or POC in person".  I do this with full knowledge that it's a rationalization, that I am a spineless coward, and that I should do SO MUCH MORE to fight for what I believe in.  Yet, I continue.  I go to work, I keep my mouth shut, and I fill my spare time with bullshit.

I have read hundreds upon hundreds of posts on this website and many others, I know what the concept of the Black Iron Prison entails, I have taken many many steps down a road to becoming a better person, a smarter person, a biped, and then I stopped.  I gave up.  I shrank.

I am controlled by my fears.  I don't want anything to upset my precious little life, and because of this, I don't do anything to try and protect my precious little life from the major things happening that threaten it.

I am the perfect tool of the state.  The ultimate consumer.  I have a 55" OLED overpriced TV, a HD projector with a 120" screen, a powerful top of the line PC to play games on, etc etc etc.  I have tons of privileges granted to me by luck, skin color, and sexual orientation.  I am the white middle class man.  I did not start out this way, but this is the reality of who I am today.

I am no genius, but I am not a complete fool either.  I have the strength to look directly at the ugliness of what I am, and the ugliness around me, without flinching.  Yet, I am defined by my weakness, laziness, and unwillingness to change it.

I may not be the obvious evil, but it is because of me and my weakness that evil grows strong.  My apathy feeds it.  My hesitancy gives it confidence.  My fears give it freedom... MY freedom.

10 Years ago if someone accosted me in the street to go after my wallet, ONE OF US would be headed to the hospital.  Now, I'd give up my wallet without a fight.  I doubt I'd even whine as I handed it over, and instead whine in safety, later, when it no longer matters.

I don't even know what is so precious about my life that I am so afraid of losing it.  I don't understand how I can be FULLY AWARE that the life I lead and friends I have are AT RISK by allowing horrible shit to continue.  Yet I remain sitting here on my couch, wondering what happened to the Discordian Trap Door that used to spring open when I got too complacent.

I don't know who the fuck I am anymore.  I don't recognize this coward.  Yet I am he.  This time when I died, I somehow survived my own death, and now I'm just a ghost of a person sitting around eating doritos and playing Star Citizen.

I don't know what I hope to accomplish by this confession either.  If anything I am proof that Roger is right, fuck our moronic species.

I may not be the most evil thing around.  Or Really Real Evil.  However, I am certainly more problem than solution.  I live in Redneckville Wisconsin (A.K.A. Elkhorn) where Trump flags outnumber the American flags and every church in town makes the Town Hall building look ghetto by comparison.  A very comfortable, pleasant, suburb of Hell.  I'm surrounded by very friendly, kind, family-oriented demons.  Demons that actually cheer on American Hitler, refuse to wear masks during a global pandemic, and spread ideas like "Climate change is a hoax" and "vaccines kill babies" and I shit you not "the earth really is flat".  While I do disagree when that stuff is said out loud around me, I do so politely.  I don't berate people for not wearing a mask.  I don't tear down the Trump flags everywhere.  I don't do much of anything, really.

In short (too late!), I am the enemy.  Not by choice, but by apathy.  I would invite you to put me out of my misery, but I am not miserable.  Just, very disappointed in myself.  However, if one of you WERE to take me out, I would totally understand.  Because I am the enemy.  My own, most of all.

but I'd LIKE to be the wizard!

Mostly I'm casual steve

People are strange.

I often see people walking around, both in public and on the clock at their jobs, in the strangest costumes. 

The guy walking around dressed like a Cowboy straight out of an old Western movie, who has never wrangled a cow or whatever in his life.  Who lives in the apartment two doors down from me and doesn't even know what a pasture smells like.  He likes his theme so much he drives the big pickup truck, has a belt buckle the size of Texas (here in Wisconsin), and when he can, he carries a gun on his hip just in case Billy the Kid shows up one day.

The woman dressed like some sort of gothic vampire.  With the "I <3 ZOMBIES" keychain.  White powdered face with heavy black eyeliner.

The person who appears to be a man wearing a dress, bra, and wig to work, because that is the look they prefer.

The guy in the Businessman costume, not a tuxedo but shirt and tie and "very nice" shoes.

The casual Steve in his old hole-filled ripped up T-Shirt and holey jeans.

The Princess in her stunning dress and other accessories and make-up that had to have taken at least two hours each morning to put together.

These are all people I work with.  Walking around in costume, covered with the marks of their respective themes.  This is fully accepted for the most part.  There are exceptions (the rednecks like to poke at the crossdresser and the casual steve is always ribbing the businessman and whistling at the Princess) but for the most part nobody is ever told to "go home and come back dressed normally".  Why?  Because that is normal.  These are accepted normal ways to dress in modern society, even by supervisors and managers.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not judging or criticizing.  Actually I think it's pretty great.  But, as fucking ALWAYS, my problem is with INCONSISTENCY.  GOD I HATE INCONSISTENCY.  My brain latches on to it like a life raft and will NOT let it go.

If I show up to work today wearing a Wizard robe, a wizard hat, carrying a big magicky-looking staff, driving a car painted to look like a dragon, I'm the weird one.  Not the Cowboy, not the Princess, me.  What makes one theme more acceptable than another?  A robe and hat and stick are much easier to set aside, take far less preparation, and are more likely to make people smile, than a full-on Vampire costume.  However, if I go to work like that I have absolutely no doubt I would be sent home to change into "regular clothes".  And If I went home and put on a cowboy costume and came back, that would be considered changing into normal clothes.

I would like to know who draws these arbitrary lines, and what kind of bribery would be effective on them.  I want to see more wizards, more Monks, more goofy Doctor Who outfits, more people dressed like Neo in the Matrix, driving around my workplace in a forklift.  Operating the machine next to mine.  Fixing my shear when it breaks down.  Instead I get about 30 cowboys and a few of the other mentioned types, and that's it, because anything else is somehow "too weird".  Worse, at least half of the fucking cowboys are of the openly racist, kill-animals-for-fun variety.  At least the guy in the Wizard robe I know I'd probably get along with.

Or Kill Me.

So a break-in happened a few houses down from my girlfriend's parents house, and the police were going around asking the neighbors if they saw anything.  They got to my gf's parents, and knocked on the door.  Gf's mom opens the door and greets the officer, and while they are talking, the family dog manages to escape.  The dog (Buster) got out onto the porch and was growling at the cop, and the cop decided to go right up to Buster and try to grab him.  Buster nipped the cop on the ankle and backed off.  Cop swears, takes a step back, pulls out his pistol, and in what is clearly an act of revenge and absolutely not self-defense, shoots Buster three times, killing him.

Cop goes to hospital, plays it up like the wound (which I was told barely broke the skin) was a huge thing.  The family, hysterical and wrecked (major animal lovers), file a formal complaint with the police department.  The police department, I'm guessing to strengthen their case in case they get sued, FINE the family a bunch of money for "out of control animal" AND charge them for the hospital bill despite the wound not requiring stitches or anything more than a fucking band-aid.

Buster, the 9 year old Australian Shepard, was a friendly family dog.  Great with kids, loved people, and was protective of his property from strangers.  He was absolutely NOT any sort of menace.  There wasn't a mean bone in his body.

And people wonder why I hate the police as much as I do.

DISCLAIMER:  This thread is stupid.  Skip it.  I created it for me, to vent.  It's an entire thread of me bitching about stupid petty crap that shouldn't bother me but does.  You've been warned!

So yeah, there's a ton of large painful shit in my life that bothers me.  So what to do?  I know!  I'll focus on petty bullshit instead!!!

Here's a bunch of stupid small petty bullshit that bothers the fuck out of me.

1.  Every fucking day driving to work I encounter the same shit.  Self-important assholes that want to turn right at an upcoming intersection but first switch to the less populated left lane and slams the gas to pass a few cars first, only to cut over to the right lane at the LAST POSSIBLE FUCKING MOMENT and make six people slam on their goddamn breaks so Mr Asshole can get a few cars ahead.  GOD DAMN I FUCKING HATE THESE ASSHOLES.  I wish I had a rocket launcher attached to my vehicle.

2. Every fucking day driving home from work there are an INSANE number of assholes in the opposite direction that blind me with their motherfucking brights on.  FUCK YOU.  I AM HAPPY YOU WILL ALL DIE SOMEDAY.

3.  People who cut me off as I start speaking, because they assume they know what I'm about to say but they are fucking WRONG AND WONT LET ME GET THE SENTENCE OUT ANYWAY BECAUSE THEY ARE SO FUCKING SURE.  This one especially at work.

4.  STUPID PETTY WORK FUCKING DRAMA.  I DONT GIVE A FUCK IF DAN TAKES 12 MINUTE BREAKS INSTEAD OF 10 MINUTES JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.  I DONT CARE IF DAVE IS PROBABLY GAY.  I DONT CARE I DONT CARE I DONT CARE LEAVE ME ALONE I'M TRYING TO FUCKING LISTEN TO MY MUSIC AND IGNORE YOU SHITHEADS.

5.  STUPID PETTY WORK FUCKING DRAMA.  Stop talking about everyone behind their back.  10 times a day I encounter a small group of 3-4 people standing around on a break talking shit about someone, usually shit they KNOW NOTHING ABOUT but are guessing because their life is BORING AS FUCK.

6.  If I want to turn right at a red light and can't because some ass is sitting in the right lane going straight and NOBODY IS IN THE LEFT LANE that asshole should die violently.

7.  Everyone who drives a pickup truck is a stupid asshole.  People who drive a pickup truck so fucking huge it takes up TWO GODDAMN SPACES in the parking lot is TWICE THE ASSHOLE.

8.  Yes, I am good with computers.  No, that doesn't mean I want to give up hours of my free time removing viruses from your shitty fucking laptop for free because you download and run random stupid bullshit constantly.  We're friends?  Cool, then be a pal and learn how your own shit works!  Or pay me for my time, effort, and skills.  I HATED working for GeekSquad.  If I tell you it'll cost you $50 and an Excedrin to get me to de-virus your shitty Windows laptop that is NOT A FUCKING JOKE, that's the cost of the headache you're giving me.  I am, however, happy to stick Linux on your craptop and only charge $5 each time you need me to fix something.  Why?  Because with Linux anything you fuck up I can fix in five minutes with a couple of console commands.

9.  If I'm having a bad fucking day and I mention to you something like "Yeah man I'm not feeling it today so I'm going to wear my headphones and just do my work and go home"  that's me telling you I'm not feeling social and don't want to chat.  That is NOT an invitation to spend the next hour asking me questions and trying to be sympathetic.  I appreciate that you know how I feel, that you get like that too sometimes, that you think I am nice and that you want to help.  I appreciate that you've had similar issues in your life and want to tell me all about them and give advice.  You are, however, not helping.  Leaving me the fuck alone so I can vibe to my tunes, THAT is helping.

10.  I don't like to talk about what I do outside of work.  This doesn't mean there's some big fucking mystery and I spend what little free time I have doing something crazy secret like assassinations or something.  Actually it means I'm boring as hell and I come home and read the internet or a book and occasionally fuck my girlfriend.  If I had any interests in common whatsoever with any of my coworkers I would talk to said coworker about said interests.  I don't, so I don't.  If I tell you the answer to your questions would bore you, I'm speaking from experience.  Take my word for it.  You don't want me to describe how I spent most of last night reading linux man pages to get the PC I use as a router to do what I want it to because you wouldn't fucking understand anything I said anyway.*


*  The caveat to that last one, is people who insist I do so anyway.  It's actually kind of fun to give them exactly what they want, and waaaay too much of it.  20 minutes into the in-depth detailed account of the Drama of the SSH Protocol when they are desperately trying to escape or change the subject and I start following them around to finish my six hour story of how I cleverly solved my network issues with a custom bash script that calls another bash script remotely etc etc etc and they start to really learn the lesson.  I will consider it the ultimate victory when I get someone to quit their job because they pushed and pushed me into talking about the shit I do that I KNEW they would find insanely boring, so I gave them SO MUCH of what they asked for that they just couldn't take it anymore.



---

You know, somehow, despite everything above, I still seem to be pretty well liked at work and I cannot for the life of me fathom why.  I wish they hated me and left me the fuck alone but apparently the more I try to avoid talking to them the more they want me to like them.  They are all just like my goddamn cat, who is purring in my lap right now because I tried to ignore the little fucker.

I'm genuinely sorry if you ignored my disclaimer, read all the above anyway and were not entertained by it.  This shit (and more) is building up every day and I need to shit it out somewhere or explode.

I can't wrap my head around why some folks think going to this insane effort to disable large portions of the built-in spyware and crap, which is unlikely to actually work, is better than simply avoiding this shitshow of an operating system?

I mean if your job specifically requires Windows 10 that's one thing, but if you have a choice, and dislike the crap enough to go to all that trouble, there's a really really easy way to avoid it altogether.

Welcome back!!

I for one quite enjoyed the marijuana discussions, before they became about personal attacks and bruised egos.  Don't get me wrong, I disagree with your point of view on the subject to the maximum extent possible, but I am not here for an echo chamber and your point of view was interesting and enlightening and helped me quite a bit in understanding people I know in my life that share your opinions on the matter.

I always liked your stuff and wanted your return.

That said...  NO PUNS!?  What the hell, man.  GTFO!

Hey guys.

I'm here because Rog left a pretty intense message on my personal Facebook, and I think the whole thing's pretty dumb but wanted to address it.

OK, I just want to say that while I am utterly uninterested in this drama from pretty much every angle, and while I am most definitely opposed to the Loveshaders and have a lot of respect for Roger, I very much like Placid Dingo's stuff and want him to continue to do his thing.

This may be a touchy thread to put this in but I think it may need to be said... some of us DO want Placid Dingo here.

[will]

My fear is that Donald Trump is in charge of the United States.  Beyond that, almost everywhere dangerous, often exceptionally stupid and short-sighted assholes are in charge. The potential power in the hands of these dangerous assholes seems to be increasing exponentially.

Those in charge are ever the wrong sort to be in charge.

What gets my goat is we have an entire field of study dedicated to solving complex problems, full of highly trained extremely intelligent people with a high level of talent at solving complex problems.  We call them engineers.  But instead of giving them the power to solve the complex problems of government and managing people, we task them to build nukes and $600 robotic auto-cleaning cat litter boxes.  We give the role of governing our big nations to idiots with skill-sets that include reading speeches from a teleprompter and out-yelling the other guy, etc, and normally have very little problem-solving abilities or even the ability to use rational thinking.

Then again, given enough time and free reign, and these idiots will solve all of our problems, permanently.

But now I'm off topic.

Windows 10 is AIDS.  Don't do AIDS.

[lot]

Also it's worth mentioning that having this shit sent to Microsoft is more problematic than just Microsoft having your shit.  A lot of credit card numbers, personal identity-theft-level info, and other vulnerable information is going to be constantly sent to Microsoft servers from Windows 10 users.  You really think nobody can breach Microsoft's servers?  No Microsoft employee or contractor feels like getting dirty?  Or just the malware that takes advantage of all that locally stored information.

Windows 10 is a massive shit-show, from every angle.  Avoid like the plague.

The only message you're sending is that you are looking for products that appeal to privacy-minded, somewhat conscientious consumers, and are likely willing to pay a premium for such products. Even taking a stand is a marketing opportunity, these days. The entire human condition is synthesized and mass-produced and other things that make me sound like a Tool song. Not that you aren't genuinely concerned -- it's just that your genuine concern has already been accounted and adjusted for.

Quite the opposite, I choose free alternatives and pay nothing at all.  Or I simply get along without.  The difference with Windows 10, since I've never been a Windows user, is that my concerns have caused me to both ban any device running it from my network, and to strongly encourage to everyone I can to avoid it.

I'm not trying to make Microsoft suddenly become a moral corporation lol, I'm just warning everyone I know away from dangerous, insidious, prevalent threats like Windows 10 and Facebook.

Your "it's all done anyway whats the diff" attitude is exactly why it steadily gets worse.  And what I predicted as the likely mainstream response a few posts ago.  All I can do is try.

Also you make it sound like anonymity on the internet is impossible but it's really not.  It takes some knowledge and research but the guys that get busted are usually busted via their own carelessness.  Like the guy that ran Silk Road, taunted the FBI for a long time, and got busted because it turned out he accessed his admin account from the same public library computer every time.  Which is just stupid.

VPN, Tor, Tails (though I prefer the Whonix way), MAC spoofing, etc, are not that hard to learn for anyone who needs that level of secret on the internet.  And yes, anyone who trusts a randomly assigned exit node on Tor is asking to get caught, it's been a well known trap for years and years.

Of course, all that is not 100% either, nothing is.  Which is why personally I prefer the KYFMS method as much more foolproof, but in the end it's all about how much effort an entity is willing to put into breaking the methods used for anonymity, and how well you researched the topic and don't take shortcuts.  Degree and context.

There are other methods too that doesn't require as much of the technical jazz, since many human beings are quite good at pretending to be other human beings, or even made up human beings.

I love fearmongering about dystopian techno-police states. Not that any of this is wrong, of course. Just that while Windows does give Microsoft (and anyone with a warrant... or who might get a warrant... or who technically has the legal authority to send a letter) access to everything you do online, it isn't like choosing not to use Windows hides what you do anyway. You generate thousands of individual data points in automated systems practically just by waking up in the morning. If you're going to be paranoid about Windows (and you probably should be), you owe it to yourself to go all the way and assume that not only are hundreds of separate systems monitoring everything you do, but those systems are all interconnected and the resulting data is being sifted by algorithms capable of deducing basically everything.

So nevermind knowing what kind of panties you like to sniff on your personal time. That cat is out of the bag, and there's no stuffing it back in there. It doesn't matter whether you hide from Facebook. It doesn't even matter if you completely eschew connecting to the internet entirely. Just think about all the systems that are trained on you and the quest for "anonymity" is quickly exposed as preposterous.

- If you have a phone, they know where you are. If you don't have a phone, they still know where you are thanks to your car, CCTV cameras, where you bought whatever the last thing you bought, or by extrapolating from the position and movements of people known to associate with you.

- If you go on the internet, they know what you're looking at thanks to the series of addresses that resolve to you specifically. If you use a VPN, they still know what you're doing thanks to a whole host of fingerprints specific to your computer that don't require any special exploit to read. You could go real crazy and use a virtual machine connected to TOR over a VPN, in which case you may discourage casual investigation but since over half of TOR exit nodes are operated by state agencies, you're still boned if anyone really cares to look.

- You could completely sever your ties to anything that runs on electricity and never go anywhere without your Faraday cage on wheels, but that's just a lot of wasted effort since your present and probable future whereabouts, and anything you say to anyone while you're there can be deduced with a simple analysis of your existing past data points plus monitoring your associates. Even if you had never even so much as glanced in the direction of an electronic screen or gotten registered with the state, it would be a walk in the park to deduce that you exist, what your favorite color is, and who you would vote for if you dared.

And that's all without a single human being bothering to notice your file. I'm not saying the State is omnipresent or omniscient, of course. In reality, most of the systems that would enable such pervasive awareness really are isolated, but the ones that aren't are enough to peel away most of the layers of "protection" people think they have, even technically savvy people. It all boils down to plain old math, not even very complicated math. It just depends on you generating consistent numbers -- which you can't help, because as a human being, you're habit-driven and ritualistic to the point of psychosis, even if (and sometimes specifically because) you try not to be.

Like anything else, it's a matter of degree and context.  I'm not assuming my actions give me anywhere near 100% anonymity, nor that they protect me from every entity seeking to establish a profile.  I do think that staying away from products and services from business that have highly objectionable practices is always a good idea.  I don't think anything I've suggested here will give me the privacy I desire, only that it sends the right messages.