First
A celebration of novelty over substance.
People who are the first to accomplish things may be worthy of celebration depending on the details. Those who are the first to occupy a position are generally less worthy, as their occupation was made possible on the backs of others.
If someone is the first to accomplish to something, it will have to be measured against various standards in order to determine its value to humanity. Any review of novel human accomplishments showcase that we are both creative and whimsical, but how many of these records contribute to the pantheon of noteworthy achievements? For each record that exists, there was always someone who first decided it was a worthy enough pursuit to dedicate time and effort in accomplishing the feat.
Not to stifle human ingenuity, but the first person to comment in a thread on an online message board should not be celebrated as much as the person who coded a design template for the first online message board. While both were novel when they occurred, they are not comparable achievements. The latter took more effort and skill, it served as a basis for innovation in future web design, and it was an unprecedented mechanism to unite human thought. The former takes five seconds and access to a keyboard. Similarly, while novel, being the first to launch a dime a fair distance with your earlobe is no competition for designing and building the first internal combustion engine in its contributions to human progress and knowledge.
While all firsts are novel, they are not equally valuable, their worth is contextually measured. Someone being the first to occupy a position can be weighted in a similar way, and these celebrations have become particularly popular in our era of obsessive and incoherent equity.
If someone is the first to occupy a position, the details of its creation and purpose will have to be considered to determine its value. After this is done, how and why the individual was selected, as well as their execution of the position will determine their value to humanity. Examples of this are available everywhere. We thoroughly enjoy celebrating our own perceived virtue by promoting firsts at every opportunity with our predictable smugness. We scramble to invent new disambiguations for individuals so we never exhaust our pool of opportunities to posture publicly. This is often innocent enough, albeit flagrant and empty; the devious counterpart of these celebrations is fueled by acolytes of intersectionality.
Whether it is the first Indian mayor of a predominantly Caucasian neighbourhood, the first black lesbian union president, or the first woman in any position historically occupied solely by men, we are instructed to take notice. It is rarely the case, however, that a discussion materializes regarding their performance. This highlights that the novelty of these situations is given primacy over its content. Most people make poor leaders, and our sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation do not bestow upon us any special capabilities. Whenever a first fails to meet the demands of an affluent and challenging position, it does not appear to be newsworthy. This is not a criticism of firsts, rather it is yet another example of our refusal to deal with content in lieu of celebrating our own perceived virtue.
It could be argued that when we celebrate firsts, it has nothing to do with the individual at all, we are really just patting ourselves on the back. After all, could this first have occurred if it were not for the implied egalitarianism of the broader context? If a society has produced a sufficiently welcoming environment that permits minorities to occupy prestigious positions, then the citizenry is likely to spotlight occasions that exemplify their progressive prowess.
Interestingly, a society that gets high off its own stash could not likely be described as progressive. Well-meaning and auspicious perhaps, but real progress is better exemplified by a disinterest in immutable characteristics. This demonstrates a maturity that prioritizes content over novelty, where our immutable characteristics are the least interesting things about us.
We have yet to grow up.
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
Feminist
The most prolific source of views and narratives that harm women.
A group containing almost no mothers, which suggests that for women, like any other group of people, there is incredible variance in their values, preferences, priorities and attitudes. This implies that a movement alleging to speak for them as a group is tepid at best - like every other movement.
A feminist insists that the best way to adjudicate differences between the sexes is by making it political. This will, by definition, generate conflict between men and women, which then has a tendency to devolve rather quickly into a MARXIST depiction of reality. This is by design.
Like every other political special interest, it relies on dancing the rhetorical line between legitimate advocacy and self-serving accumulations of power. Any power will be enjoyed almost entirely by the loudest and most affluent feminists, who will masquerade as martyrs for a cause that alleges to benefit all women. Feminism as a movement reduces the vast majority of women to pawns, whose numbers alone give the illusion of legitimacy to the special interest that only benefits the ambitious few leading the charge.
Once enough power has been accumulated, women everywhere will be thanked for their ‘support.’ Women will be reminded (yet again) that feminists do not represent their interests in any meaningful sense, that is, unless your interests align precisely with theirs. Otherwise, you are not a woman worthy of representation because you do not serve the cause. Whose cause exactly? That of the academic intellectual feminist, of course.
Feminism has never been about choice; it is about prescription. Simone de Beauvoir believed that women should not be given a choice because too many would pick motherhood and domesticity over alternatives. What are these alternatives? Those that align with the interests of a select group of affluent intellectual women, of course! Forego everything that provides both men and women with their most reliable sense of purpose so they can pursue demanding careers that take a toll on both their mental and physical well-being. Feminists seem to think this makes men happy – it does not – because they associate power with fulfillment, and this is the glaring flaw in their approach.
A feminist tries to convince others that the best way for women to behave is as the worst version of men.
This racket will be recycled for subsequent generations of young women, where it will be rebranded as the next wave in female liberation. This guarantees that women will be miserable forever while they are lied to about what genuinely makes people happy.
Also, you must be one. Or else. Apparently.
See: CUTTLEFISH, INTELLECTUALS, POLITICS
Revised: 17 Mar 2023
Face
An immediately apparent indicator of human health that informs human sexual selection.
Despite how important these signals are in navigating the social world, the human face has become maimed over the last hundred years. No other animal in recorded history experiences malocclusions anywhere near the scale of homo sapiens.
The misunderstanding of this phenomenon has caused doctors to believe that malocclusions requiring braces and oral surgery are in some way related to genetics. They are not. Additionally, this disruption to facial symmetry and proportionality makes us less attractive, which is denounced by self-esteem advocates as vain and regressive. It is not. Fitness for sexual selection is largely influenced by observations of symmetry and proportionality, which are reliable indicators of overall health, and good health is interpreted as attractive. The more attractive we are, the better we are treated by anyone and everyone.
Relatively speaking, the more attractive you are, the nicer people are to you. You are more employable, people are willing to cooperate with you more, and you are likely to receive more gifts. These are obvious, but the benefits can be far less intuitive as well. An example of this is that the more attractive you are, the more likely you are to receive a lenient sentence if convicted of a crime. The perks expand from there and virtually every aspect of human life is easier if you are more attractive than you could have been otherwise.
Attractiveness is not the only concern when it comes to a properly developed jaw and face. A malformed jaw can contribute to the development of sleep apnea and other sleep disruptions. Difficulties with sleep contribute to a host of other health problems that can have a dramatic effect on our quality of life and longevity. Even a cursory examination of the detriments of poor-quality sleep should be enough to consider a change of habit, but other health problems are implicated as well, such as allergies and cognitive disorders. The application of braces and surgery to remove wisdom teeth can help alleviate these problems, but it is the underlying cause of these potentially unnecessary treatments that needs to be studied.
What exactly is causing this unprecedented facial deformation? Such a dramatic shift in the prevalence of malocclusions cannot be genetic. Despite humourous conjecture about the utility of wisdom teeth, evolution does not arbitrate changes in jaw size and shape while keeping ill-fitting teeth that become impacted so frequently. This would be putting the jaw cart before the tooth horse. A mutation does not seem to have occurred either. Even if it had, mutations do not present congruently across distinct populations. If a mutation did occur, an insufficient amount of time has elapsed to permit malocclusions to have spread in the epidemic manner that they have. Only a pathogen could have spread this quickly, but no evidence exists for a pathogenic explanation.
Due to a process of elimination, there is only one type of explanation remaining for this novel phenomenon: environmental. Human eating habits have changed significantly in the last hundred years, and prior to this shift in diet and the widespread introduction of utensils, malocclusions and facial deformities were extremely rare. Such improvements to the quality, availability, and convenience of consuming food have been extremely valuable, but an unexpected side-effect in the reduction in biting, tearing and chewing of tougher products was the creation of a novel problem.
We are members of an ancient evolutionary lineage that was built to consume food a particular way, with purpose-built teeth and a jaw that requires consistent tempering throughout our lives. As such, healthy human facial and jaw development is inextricably determined by the continuance of such practices, regardless of how backwards they may seem.
The solution is not to dispense with modern food or even utensils, rather it is to complement our diet with practices that seek to replicate the outcomes associated with ancient consumption behaviours that our development was predicated upon. This is not being done due to a failure of the medical community to think about the problem through an evolutionary lens, unless your name is Mike Mew. This is concerning given the fact that they are doctors.
Unfortunately, this conclusion threatens the billion-dollar orthodontics industry, which is projected to triple their revenue in the next few years due to the increasing demand for braces.
There is no money in preventing facial maiming in humans.
Revised: 13 Feb 2023
Eye Rolling
A sign of contempt and disgust.
Research by psychologist John M. Gottman indicates that one of the best predictors of separation and divorce are an increase in the frequency of eye rolls between couples. This introduces a number of worthwhile speculations about humanity.
Whether it is respect, humility, cowardice, sympathy or empathy, we are willing to contain our contempt within a facial expression in lieu of stating it explicitly.
We can grow to despise and resent those we previously loved in the worst way imaginable.
A high disgust sensitivity is correlated with a low IQ score. Does this mean people with a low IQ roll their eyes more often on average? How does this affect the quality of their relationships?
Is every eye roll a sign of contempt? Are there other types of eye rolls? How do we delineate between the types?
Eye rolling appears to be a Western cultural product. How do other cultures demonstrate their contempt?
Am I the only one who wonders about unusual niche phenomenon this much?
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
Explanation
A potential description of something inherently limited by human language and imperfect information.
Frequently confused with EXCUSES.
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
Expert
A title used to avoid having to persuade you of a claim.
Those who engage in such appeals are wagering that your laziness will triumph over your capacity to reason or discover the answer yourself.
They are usually right, hence the popularity of its invocation.
Experts are invoked now more than ever, despite the fact that they are less necessary than ever before. The totality of human knowledge has become universally accessible to most of us. This is a testament to their utility not as bearers of knowledge or discernment, but rather a means to an end. The accumulation of experts to support an otherwise specious position is a common strategy employed by amoral elites to dissuade ordinary citizens from asking questions.
Experts are alleged to have implied disinterest in their respective realms, which could not be further from the truth.
Revised: 15 Feb 2023
Excuse
An EXPLANATION that infers absolution.
Most explanations for human behaviour have been elevated to excuses, where no one is responsible for anything.
What would happen to a civilization where individuals have no accountability?
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
Evil
The deliberate exploitation of a vulnerability that will predictably serve to the detriment of the victim.
Typically, there is a benefactor, but some people just want the world to burn. An apt description of resentful conduct.
A synonym for sophisticated and predatory marketing.
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
Ethical
The most misused, overused, and ironic term of the modern technological age.
Most frequently employed by politicians and businesses as a tool to distort public perception. Ethical according to what standard, exactly? What is the character towards which we are aspiring?
Whether the claim is ethically sourced coffee and cocoa, ethical diets, or ethical non-monogamy, the specifics often remain unspoken. All of these claims suggest that the treatment of sentient animals should be guided in some sense by morality. The problem is that morality is rarely obvious, and when it is, it usually runs in one direction. Our understanding of morality, and whose interest it should serve, is likely to vary significantly from the CEO of a coffee company, a vegan, or a rational polyamorist.
The power of this word is clear: it infers a sense of transparent goodness. After all, we want to be ethical, because that makes us good, and we want to avoid being unethical, because that is bad. The problem is that the standards according to which we are adhering are often assumed. In order for ethics to possess any normative or relative value in ordinary life, they need to be articulated clearly and accessible by everyone. Otherwise, how do we know if we are being ethical? And what can I do if I am unable to meet the standard? Would I not be considered unethical by definition? How then will I be treated in society? Or how should I be treated?
The concerns flow from there and discussions will arise as to whether or not we are ethical as individuals or as a society. This is a particularly nasty insinuation that exploits our tribalistic nature and encourages us to views entire swaths of people as fit for culling; they are the bad people; we are the good people. While this view resides in the undercurrent of every civilization, people are neither good nor bad, and insisting that this is the case will evoke the devil in each of us. Thoughts, and by extension speech, are not substantive enough to warrant such an examination. Actions have the potential to be good or bad, but even then, establishing an ethos to guide and orient our conduct is trickier than our intuitions let on.
Regardless of the mutually agreed-upon abstraction, it needs to be coherent enough to be universally acknowledgeable. Without a formal description of a character that compels us as individuals to voluntarily embody its aspirational essence, any appeals to ethics or ethical conduct are functionally meaningless.
What is the code? Where did it come from? Why should I follow it?
Revised: 22 Mar 2023
Environmentalism
The most prolific secular religion wherein nature is viewed as God. This is clear due to how it prioritizes faith in an ideal rather than providing compelling facts or evidence.
A subject that has turned everyone into climate change experts because they feel that the weather is unseasonably warm.
A widespread ethos based on false premises, which we would know if we bothered to read the reports ourselves.
A form of activism supported by virtually no evidence that it is an imminent concern, but is nevertheless leveraged by the NEWS MEDIA on a daily basis to cause anxiety disorders in young people.
The core belief is that human impact is inherently bad, intrinsically immoral, and inevitably self-destructive. If we offend God through our actions, it will punish us. As a result, its focus is on making human life worse by creating a dehumanized earth, one that has been returned to an unblemished state. Specifics about when in time the earth existed in this pristine state, or what it looked like, remain conspicuously absent from discussion.
Marian Tupy, editor of HumanProgress.org and senior fellow at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity had the following to say:
“Many people in secular societies have embraced environmentalism as a substitute for religion. It’s very interesting to see how extreme environmentalism maps onto Christian theology. On the one hand you’ve got your Garden of Eden - that’s the world before industrialization. You have your devils - fossils fuels, fossil fuel CEOs, people like that. You have your saints - Greta Thunberg, you have your priesthood - which is the IPCC scientists. Of course, you even have indulgences like back in the days before reformation, where you are allowed as one of the chosen few to fly around the world in a private jet, so long as you give a few thousand pounds or dollars to a green cause, all those sins are simply washed away. That is why someone like Leo DiCaprio or John Kerry or Emma Thompson can go on the tele having just flown in first class and still be good environmentalists. Their sins have been washed away by saying the right incantations and sending the right amount of money to these green causes. You can see the religious overtones to environmentalism. [Finally], one of the fundamental features of any religion is apocalypse, the end of days, the world that ends and is going to reconstitute itself in some way…I think this is one of the reasons people keep embracing these apocalyptic views.”(1)
Whether this is uniquely a feature of secular societies in search of alternatives to religion is a matter of debate, but his commentary is salient nonetheless.
Curiously, most environmentalist policies negatively affect the poor and impoverished more than anyone else, whom they allege they are additionally concerned about. Ironically, these same policies generally contribute nothing towards preserving or protecting the environment. The vast majority of climate initiatives are fraudulent, providing both public and private forces with opportunities to achieve desired ends that would be impossible in the absence of their coalition. This is being done - as it is always claimed - for our benefit, which is strange considering how it explicitly intends to make our lives worse while making theirs better.
Environmentalism is simply the most recent attempt at aggregating wealth and power in the hands of elites supported by USEFUL IDIOTS who believe they are changing the world.
Most people care about the environment, but rather than posture and catastrophize about complex climate measures that most people do not understand – including so-called ‘environmentalists’ - alternatives are actively sought.
The solution is to build, create and produce cheap and clean energy.
The solution is not to construct an uninspired belief system so that the wealthy and well-to-do can interfere in the lives of everyone who built everything they enjoy and make them suffer the consequences of their gnostic self-aggrandizement.
Public displays of pious self-flagellation are embarrassing, especially when your prayers are only heard by your ego.
See: DO YOUR PART
(1) TRIGGERnometry podcast, “Climate Activism is a Religion” - Marian Tupy, released on Oct 19, 2022.
Revised: 8 Mar 2023
Do Your Part
A veiled threat. One of the most predatory and exploitative moralistic slogans uttered by an authority and repeated mindlessly by half-baked ineffectual citizens.
Employed when normal discourse fails to persuade an ordinary citizen to serve the interests of elites, likely because their arguments are not very compelling according to any reasonable standard. When legitimate discourse fails, it is time to deceive and compel by appealing to a sense of duty. It is a collectivist indictment of individual liberties inferring that we are not already doing enough for our country. We need to do more.
These sorts of manipulations have been exemplified in art in an attempt to convey the dangers of such rhetoric to those of us who may be tempted by its dark artifice. In the historical film All Quiet on the Western Front, these tactics are used to convince swaths of young men to trade their lives in service of their country in the first World War. In the futuristic sci-fi film Starship Troopers, this exact slogan is used to brainwash whole generations into forfeiting their lives as part of an ongoing war with a race of allegedly hostile insects. Whether it is portrayed in art or the theatre of war, lives are sacrificed to serve the expansion interests of those who would never set foot on a battlefield. The promises of a worthy outcome are never realized, and those who survive will live the rest of their days as a discarded pawn by the authority to whom they gave everything.
This slogan reemerged during the COVID-19 pandemic when miraculous and hyper-novel experimental medical injections were made available to combat a different enemy: illness and transmissibility. A different war with a different bug. It is worthy to mention that these transfections were intentionally mislabeled as vaccines to disarm our concerns about their novelty due to an admitted desire to simplify and standardize policy. After this was noticed, major medical and pharmaceutical platforms opted to redefine vaccines as a category so that it would include these products, rather than admit they are not vaccines. This is concerning because they do not do anything that vaccines do, and so the category was broken in order to fit these in. The prioritization of familiar and consoling labels beat out consistency and specificity as a matter of strategic policy, which is only a problem if you care about being healthy.
These are not the actions of honest brokers with persuasive arguments.
Despite these manipulations, we lined up to do our part, eager to please our community and country. As per usual, the promises were never realized. These injections did nothing that they initially claimed they would, and did many harmful things that they promised they would not. It turns out that, when we do our part, we never seem to benefit as much as those making the request. Many of us have convinced ourselves that our actions contributed to the safety of loved ones or mitigating the burden on our strained health care systems. Unfortunately, beyond the initial findings that these treatments reduced the likelihood of severe illness in some who received them, the evidence does not support this.
We have told ourselves a story that when our country needed us, we sprang into action. In reality, many of us just wanted our freedoms back so badly that we were willing to do anything to have them returned. Our philosophical and legal oversights rendered us blind to the fact that freedoms cannot fundamentally be taken away - so what exactly is happening here? How is it legal? And if it is, why? Coincidentally, our NEWS MEDIA and governments have been on a crusade against anti-vaccination for years, pitting free citizens against one another due to personal medical choices. Just another issue over which we are encouraged to demonize our neighbours.
People without masks were threatened with fines and incarceration by representatives whom we pay to look after our interests. How quickly it was that only the interests of the obedient were respected. We were told by authorities to take photos and report others to the police for failing to wear a mask, and many did. This is what we are told good citizens do - we would be doing our part. Doing our part in what exactly? The post-hoc rationalizations for our fearful and rodentlike behaviour have been incredible to behold.
We should obviously trust someone in a lab coat wielding a syringe; doing anything to the contrary makes us worse than an irrational luddite or conspiracy theorist. We would be considered an obstacle to progress and a traitor to our nation. Our governments merely framed our obedience as virtuous conduct and that was all we needed to square ourselves with our cowardice and engage in civil conflict with loved ones. The stakes were different than war, but the strategy is identical. Do your part - good boys and girls take their medicine.
The exploitative brilliance of this slogan runs much deeper than whichever crisis is allegedly being addressed: it is an opportunity for absolution.
Many of us feel as though we are inadequate citizens, and that we could be doing more for our communities. This is why we leap at opportunities to showcase our support for whichever social issue is currently trending. We can avoid our anxieties of being an outsider while experiencing the temporary relief of our guilt from failing as a contributing citizen; two birds with one stone. Many of us feel a deep sense of obligation in fulfilling our duties as a citizen, and when we are provided with a pertinent concern as well as the prescription for what we can do about it, we simply cannot pass on the invitation. Doing our part makes us a good person, right? There is no need to examine the legitimacy of any of its constituent parts, that may shatter the illusion.
The brilliance runs deeper still, as it permits the truly selfish and egocentric citizens to employ a game theoretical approach to community interaction and social status. Those of us who have only ever thought of our own interests, comforts, and stability, are given a free pass on a life that benefitted only ourselves and no one else. We did everything that was asked of us by our country in a time of need and have now had a lifetime of inactivity and self-indulgence erased from our conscience. This will cause us to believe that we now occupy the moral high-ground relative to anyone who had the audacity to question the legitimacy of experimental injections and lockdowns as the price for membership in a ‘free’ society.
Apparently, doing our part turns sinners into saints and the doubtful into devils. When we were offered an opportunity at absolution for such a low cost, it is no wonder we hissed and scratched at those who dared to interfere. Some of us crave existential clemency so deeply, we will serve up dissidents as pariahs without hesitation as we praise ourselves and others for our righteous obedience. We shall be invited back into the bosom of normalcy; the rest will get the rod.
If doing our part were that easy, we would have done it already. If we believe otherwise, then we are condemning humanity in the most cynical way possible. Governments do not deserve our unquestioned complicity, and providing it will never work out in our favour. Redefining mindless obedience as righteous and virtuous participation is merely a linguistic and psychological trick. It does not absolve us of anything, it excuses us temporarily for being human until we get our next fix. It could be any one of us who is victimized when the next opportunity for absolution is offered by an authority capable of exploiting our vulnerabilities. We should keep this in mind the next time we reach for our pitchforks.
Do your part to help yourself, your family, community and country, by being a MODEST REBEL.
Do not trust anyone who resorts to moralistic sloganeering in lieu of persuasive argumentation, because upon its utterance, they have immediately classified themselves as unfit and unworthy to follow.
We are worth more than that.
Revised: 11 Jan 2023
Diversity
The natural order of things; an evolutionary fact.
The highest concentrations of biodiversity are found in ecosystems that have managed to avoid forces that disrupt its equilibrium, whether internal or external. All attempts at increasing biodiversity through interference, both synthetic and natural, have failed to generate additional diversity. It is only through a conscious withdrawal of action, when nature is left to its own devices, that a return to its default state begins. Diversity among human populations is no different. The more you interfere, the more you destroy diversity, and real progress, in this case evolution, only emerges on a fertile bed of differentiation.
The introduction of diversity and sensitivity training alongside specialized committees dedicated to engineering nearly every workplace have produced results that are at odds with their desired outcomes. Every instance of follow-up research indicates that after employees were required to attend diversity training, divisiveness and suspicion increases in the workplace among all groups. This was perfectly predictable.
We may possess innate fears about those different than us, but we are smart enough to learn over time that our immutable characteristics do not define us, and so we emphasize our common ground and move forward cooperatively. Diversity training and committees seek to magnify the importance of these differences, the ones that average employees already reconciled on their own as a member of a pluralist society without the assistance of a third party. People learn how to get along perfectly well in the absence of an interfering and politically-minded arbiter, and those who do not are not likely to benefit from sensitivity training.
We become good enough to one another over time as a result of our shared personal experiences and the recognition of our commonalities, which outnumber our differences by orders of magnitude. Elevating our inconsequential differences as prime is regressive and STUPID. The claim that any individual can and should be viewed as a meaningful depiction of a prescribed group is precisely the basis and justification for racism. It is no wonder that ordinary people reject the inferences of diversity initiatives - we are not naive enough to accept their deterministic and schismatic views.
Despite this knowledge, the modern obsession with diversity programs and policies is moving full steam ahead. Half of the explanation is that most politicians, administrators and bureaucrats are social science majors; the other half is HUBRIS. It is true that human populations can be grouped or categorized in meaningful ways, but this is done principally through culture; every other metric is inferior. This is obvious when you examine attempts at clustering people and discover that populations are biologically real, their races are not. While populations have constructed components, they do not override the biodiversity intrinsic to a specific group. It is well understood that there is much more variation within groups than between groups, a politically inconvenient fact that is deliberately avoided when race relations are being discussed.
The importance of diversity cannot be understated from an evolutionary perspective. Public discourse, on the other hand, is disproportionately preoccupied with a forgery. The evolutionary fact of diversity provides us with a notion that some things possess innate qualities, the ignorance of how this fact manifests in the real world is the cause of most of the confusion. This does not dissuade social engineers from foolishly tinkering in our lives, but it is a matter of debate whether their sin is ignorance, egotism, or a splash of both.
The citizenry bears some responsibility in the proliferation of these bad ideas. We sit idly by and permit them to take over our institutions and reward BAD ACTORS for exploiting the systems they produce for fear that we will be labeled a racist or bigot.
The defense against illegitimate name calling is the same as it has always been: bravery, education, and empathy. The antidote to divisive incoherence is the humanizing of everyone as an individual. If you encounter someone who insists anything else, then you have met an ideologue, and the only thing you must do to protect your dignity is stand on your convictions.
A purposeful interference in the natural order of things will stagnate progress and foster opportunities for monopolistic takeovers. Social engineering is anti-evolutionary, anti-progress, anti-democratic, and anti-pluralist.
Attempting to dictate or determine biodiversity on an environmental level through performative and irrelevant summits is merely an opportunity for personal career advancement by ambitious technocrats.
Posted: 1 Jan 2023
Dark Triad
The HOLY TRINITY of the modern technological age. It encompasses three overlapping personality types: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.
Originally conceived as an articulation of antisocial vices, they have attained the status of religious virtues. Culturally, they are both clearly encouraged and rewarded, and subscribers organize their entire lives around maximizing their presence in politics, schools, relationships, and on the internet. This particular faith has permeated so many institutions that apostates are forced to face either conversion or exile from democratic participation.
Machiavellianism has classically been understood as a proxy for EVIL, but due to the adoption of morally relativistic models of justification in the modern era, it has become a benign mechanism for achieving elitist goals. Characterized by the manipulation and exploitation of others as a permissible operating system in pursuit of a goal, this trait was borne from an ethos outlined in The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, wherein it is claimed that the end justifies the means.
For the uninitiated, this is to infer that if a particular goal or outcome has been imagined as preferable or ideal relative to any present or future circumstances, then any actions taken in the pursuit of achieving such a goal are therefore warranted. A minor examination of this philosophy is all that is necessary to dispel any validity it may offer; even young children know it is wrong. As we become increasingly proficient at advocating on behalf of our own interests, we happily abdicate our conscience and replace it with a suitably amoral authority: a rational framework. Once the coronation ceremony is over, it is just a matter of finding the right cabal to join so you can subjugate others and justify it as progress.
Narcissus, a storied hunter found in Greek mythology, fell in love with his own reflection. That alone should be a sufficient indictment as it implies both cowardice and egotism. Further, when he first witnessed his own face, he gazed into it until he starved to death. This compounds the sinful nature of self-love as failing in its capacity to adequately sustain a human spirit. As such, narcissism is not only an unattractive trait in people because it displays their otherwise concealed shortcomings, but if left unfettered, it will hollow out our cores as we drift into despair.
Despite the warnings of the story, narcissism is more alive than ever, especially online. There is nothing more narcissistic than believing that our subjective interpretations of ourselves and the world reign supreme. We regularly encourage one another to have our own truths and to elevate our potential divinity within to that of messianic proportions. We are encouraged, especially children, to be constantly ruminating about how we feel at any given moment. We obsessively think about ourselves and what others think about us, while pretending that we do not care, which tends to act as histrionic baiting.
None of this is healthy, and none of it could be construed as ‘living.’
It is currently accepted and expected that adults openly rage and have public meltdowns if someone does not accept our subjective impositions. We get high on our derisive and destructive narcissistic mobbing and cancelling, while everyone can see how miserable we are inside. Yet somehow, no one is suggesting a reroute.
Modern elites are no longer satisfied with being wealthier and more affluent than everyone else, they also need to be recognizable and beloved. If unsuccessful, they will settle for being infamous and universally loathed, as long as they get enough attention to feed their egos. This contorts reality in a significant way because it redefines what success looks like. It will cause observers to believe that egotism is a feature of success, or that obsessing over your image is a precondition to being successful, neither of which are true.
MODESTY, dedication, skill and hard work are far greater predictors of success, and people with these traits generally do not have time for perverse popularity contests. This does not diminish the interest in adopting this redefinition in ordinary life, because the rules seem both clear and accessible to the ambitious among us. The game has been fortified by market forces, and businesses have integrated sophisticated product development shaped by psychologically manipulative techniques designed to generate communities of destabilized minds that perpetually hunger for consolation.
Despite the epidemic levels of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm and suicide, everyone is expected to have a SMARTPHONE and subscribe to numerous social media services. Here, we compete for who can get the most attention based on false depictions of our lives that we share with others who feign interest in the cataloguing of our mediocre activities. What is worse, some may legitimately feel that these online exchanges serve as an adequate substitution for real engagements, or they may be playing a subservient role in an act of hero worship. Regardless of the case, we are more connected than ever, yet research indicates that we feel more alone and isolated than any other time in history. The claws of Narcissus have us in their grasp.
A feature of the modern technological age is a steadfast creep of human reductionism that so closely resembles a psychopathic interpretation of the world, it may be indistinguishable from a clinical diagnosis. Most human interactions now possess a transactional quality that is rapidly outpacing any naturally occurring engagement that a pre-technological age would insist is necessary for human health.
The culprit is likely the hyper novelty of technology so sophisticated that we are biologically incapable of understanding the system it generates. Complexity is one thing. Being immersed in an interconnected realm with billions of accounts that we cannot effectively parse as human or robot engaging in countless games simultaneously that both perpetually shape and challenge our perceptions ad nauseum, is another thing entirely. In an attempt to inject order in the chaos, we are forced to reduce the complexity of humanity to something that is easier to manage.
Any reduction of humanity will cause our standards of human value to diminish in tandem. If the respect we are expected to provide and receive is less than what we need to maintain a healthy status quo, then we collectively suffer. ONLINE DATING is an excellent example of an environment that twists our beliefs into normalizing the reduction of humanity into catalogues of images absent a spirit or a soul; we are presented as products. Regardless of any value that we obtain from such services, the effect it has on our perception of one another cannot be ignored, and both men and women are harmed as a consequence, albeit in different ways. These services are not unique; virtually all online exchanges contribute to a reduction in expectation of reciprocity and charity. We can, after all, just ignore or block someone, and there will always be many more to replace them. We have added our humanity to the list of things worthy of disposal in a culture of convenience.
The criticisms directed towards most complex systems do not typically pertain to any immediate crisis, but they forecast the potential for future catastrophe. We are already witnessing the effects of human reductionism and our willingness to dispose of our fellow citizens because we categorize them as inconvenient or indecent, and it will get much worse unless we change.
A reduction in humanity in others is a euphemistic description of cultural and systemic dehumanization. The only redeeming trait in such a landscape is that it emerged as an unintentional byproduct of technological progress, and not an intentionally engineered consequence of perverse incentives. That being said, now that governments and powerful corporations have sufficiently mapped the territories of our misery, they appear very keen on ensuring it remains present and pronounced. Perverse incentives may not have been the genesis of this state, but they have certainly been established to capitalize on it.
The dehumanization of large groups has always been a boon for the ambitious and idealistic. If we no longer expect to be treated as a human, that is, an infinitely complex embodied universe with its own needs that was thrust into a world without consent, then we are far more willing to accept injustice as a feature of existence. Alternatively, if others perceive us as no longer necessarily worthy of the rights, respect and dignity that we classically attribute to people by virtue of their humanity, then atrocities are significantly easier to justify.
Humans are far more likely to be treated as tools or objects, a means to an end, and while we may be maintained in some sense for future use, we are unlikely to be considered worthy of investment. We only invest in things to produce growth and unlock potential, both of which introduce the threat of competition, an unwelcome guest in the realm of a psychopath. When impulsivity and callousness are normalized, and games of reciprocity and empathy shift into antisocial exchanges of egocentricism, we have become psychopaths. We are what we do; a clinical diagnosis is not needed.
Many businesses have already adopted psychopathic practices; entirely immoral and self-serving. They have become unconcerned with any of the harm that people or places suffer if it helps their bottom line. Because these models generate the greatest profits, they will be replicated and proliferated, often with the assistance of our governments.
The only people who flourish in such an environment are real psychopaths, the rest of us will simply be sacrificed at the altar of arbitrary tyrannical self-interest masquerading as freedom and liberty.
For those who escape such a fate, we will face the dilemma of accepting our diminished status as subhuman, or to stand on the convictions of our birthright and demand to live a life in accordance with the burden of our humanity.
Posted: 11 Jan 2023
Cuttlefish
A male feminist.
Cuttlefish are sexually dimorphic; males are larger and their movement is distinct from females. During mating season, smaller and weaker males will disguise themselves among females and mimic their movement. They wait for an opportunity to separate an unsuspecting female from the group, and then mate with them, because it is the only strategy they can employ to successfully reproduce. They would never have been selected otherwise.
This is an unreliable mating strategy for humans because women are typically well aware of the ruse. They will happily accept gifts from men while never having to be intimate with them, and the men are likely docile enough to avoid become predatory.
Except for when they are not.
Posted: 30 Dec 2022
Crop Top
Club attire designed with the explicit intent to draw the eye towards the pronouncement of female breasts contrasted by an exposed midriff that borders the curvature of the pelvis.
This article of clothing is designed for a single purpose: inviting the attention of males and triggering them sexually. The fact that this attire has become commonplace among middle school girls is a demonstration that neither parents nor educators view others - children in this instance, through an evolutionary lens. Or perhaps they just do not understand sexual signaling, or they do not consider its impact at this age or in an educational setting.
Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to effectively raise or educate children without this knowledge, which is both widely available and deliberately avoided due to its humbling effect. It appears the popularity of increasingly provocative clothing trends for school-age girls and naïve interpretations of self-esteem carry the day.
Our ancestors, who pre-date the hyper novelty and sophistication of our modern technological age, did not need to study this knowledge. Our strange obsession with having both parents working on a full-time basis strains the intimacy of persistent child rearing that has accompanied nearly all of human history. We did not need to learn about children, we grew together amongst them at all times. It appears that parents now prefer to let strangers raise their children for them.
What could possibly go wrong?
See: SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
Posted: 30 Dec 2022
Conspiracy Theorist
Technically, a conspiracy hypothesizer.
In the modern technological age, it is strange how frequently they are someone we publicly denounce as a paranoid deviant today, but is revealed to have made an accurate prediction six months from now. We remain conspicuously silent when this occurs. We enjoyed the divisive and destructive part when we were part of the majority, but we refuse to make amends because our pride simply will not let us.
An ad hominem slur directed at others who are likely more well-informed than us so we can avoid having to debate them. This defensive strategy is employed to conceal our own ignorance about a topic that we profess to understand, but would fail to effectively justify or argue our position on.
This is not to infer that such thinkers hold coherent conclusions, but they have typically spent a great deal more time examining a subject than most people, especially those who would insult them. We want to be right without doing any work, without earning our position, and we will destroy anyone who threatens it. We would have to admit that we are merely regurgitating public speaking points while masquerading as informed.
So-called theorists are no different than anyone else, EXPERT or otherwise: they pay basic attention to things, recognize a pattern that emerges, and make speculations about what it means. Regardless of the mind that conjures it, every conclusion is up for debate, and we should remain suspicious about those who have decided for us that theirs should be accepted at face value. If our ideas are high quality and persuasive, then it should be easy enough for us to articulate them. If we cannot, or if we simply do not feel compelled, then others should rightfully ignore us. We are not owed trust or allegiance by anyone, it is earned, and even then, our conclusions are often contaminated by a litany of human shortcomings.
A relatively simple oversight with respect to conspiracy theorists is that they are, in many ways, far better advocates for human competence and ingenuity than anyone else. While it may be considered incorrect to ascribe to malice that which may be explained by incompetence, such thinkers are giving elites much more credit than everyone else. This is often described as paranoia. The truth is that those who target such thinkers generally tend to take lazy shortcuts - delegitimize others with cogency, not with fallacies. Some theorists are paranoid, but most are not, and they are not effectively dismissed simply because of reactionary skepticism and name calling.
Conspiracy theorists are the skeptics in this equation, and being skeptical about their skepticism is not skepticism at all; it is a confession of our faith to an orthodoxy. Faith in a mainstream narrative is not a superior epistemology to borderline paranoid conspiratorial thinking. This seems to be lost on many. Conspiracy theorists simply have more faith in the capacity of elites and organizations to maintain a degree of subversion and control that many do not share. This does not make them crazy; they are just a distinct denomination. They believe more in both the excellence and susceptibility of humanity than anyone, they just believe that real and tangible authority is not always being exercised in the interest of the public. History confirms their suspicions in a manner that does not support naysayers.
The purpose of such slurs is consistent among all ad hominems: a refusal to deal with content. We are hoping that if we can delegitimize the totality of a person by classifying them in such a manner, then we will never have to be confronted with the fact that we do not understand issues about which we hold views.
Something is not founded because it is common. Popularity is not evidence.
See: DARK TRIAD, SHERLOCK HOLMES
Posted: 30 Dec 2022
People Of Colour
A nebulous term that describes as few or as many people as the speaker desires, who typically has a political agenda they are seeking to promote.
A clear example that even language is subject to fashion trends.
When this term entered common vernacular, a significant number of eyebrows predictably raised. The term is so similar to coloured people, which has fallen out of favour due to its historically racist connotations, that it is debatable whether or not it would be wise to popularize such a minor conjugation.
‘Coloured people’ is an overly reductionist description of a group of people defined by their skin colour; ‘people of colour’ is an equally reductionist description of a group of people defined by their species but sharing a commonality of an arbitrary amount of melanin found in the skin. This seems like a distinction without a difference. Technically, they are different, but it is unlikely that their trajectories will differ. Due to their equally reductionist and arbitrary nature, ‘people of colour’ will inevitably become equally as unpopular as ‘coloured people’, but progenitors will congratulate themselves on its temporary usage in social discourse.
ACTIVISTS and ‘allies’ will insist upon the value of such rebrandings as opportunities to correct sins of the past while remaining careful to avoid mentioning that race is a social construct in the same conversation. If both of these perspectives arise at the same time, then questions could be introduced that may undermine the entire agenda. One such question: If race is a social construct that predictably generates unnecessary negative attitudes and violence, then why would we insist on perpetuating such a trend? This is when appeals to emotion and critical theories will be offered as embarrassing defenses for political agendas. Promises of different outcomes will be made now that different actors are leading the charge, or so they will say.
Most incoherent perspectives are thinly veiled ego-driven attempts at capturing power, and this is among them.
Posted: 30 Dec 2022
Clarity
Combined with specificity, the greatest rival of STUPID ideas. Demand that any proponent explain their idea with clarity and specificity and you will discover very quickly if you can safely ignore them. Exposing ideas to the disinfecting gaze of sunlight will keep your mind free of idea pathogens.
Posted: 30 Dec 2022
Children
Objects of spiritual worship whose innocence is a desirable commodity for ritualistic sacrifice.
The most vulnerable group in human populations, which is why special interest groups relentlessly seek to sacrifice them to achieve their own goals.
PARENTS are the only suitable bulwark against such forces, and a parent who permits the subjection of their children to these interests have failed to perform their most important and fundamental purpose. The most reliable strategy to steal the minds of children from their family unit is to parasitize them with VICTIMHOOD narratives, destabilizing their sense of orientation and replacing it with another. Convince them that they are lost in a world filled with injustice and promise them that redemption and inclusion is found in a new family, one of their choosing, freed from the bondage of biological realism. Once this has been accomplished, they will actively seek ownership rights to our kids.
Religious institutions wield the word of God as the impetus for adherents. Academic institutions threaten to jeopardize their future if they fail to adequately adopt and regurgitate established institutional narratives. Warlords dance a line of brutality and comraderie to create child soldiers; gangs do this too. Businesses exploit their social anxieties to encourage lifelong consumers that feel lost if they pass on any current trend. News media conglomerates insist that the world is divided into teams that are necessarily at odds with one another at all times to solidify subscribers. Governments encourage dishonesty by establishing a series of games where the best performers and liars are given the most attention and benefits. Communists and socialists’ prey on their compassion and ignorance of history to create the next generation of entitled and resentful hypocrites. Trans activists will encourage them to take puberty blockers and have their sexual organs surgically removed, even when they do not understand the phenomenon or what is at stake. New wave feminists will convince our daughters that they are victims, which will make them insufferable and entitled, and tell our sons they are perpetrators, which will render them docile and impotent. Pedophiles will encourage sexual promiscuity under the guise of sexual liberation and early maturation so they can have sex with them. There are many more to be sure.
Everyone wants a piece of our children.
Even a single hair is too much.
Revised: 2 Apr 2023