Was imagining the thinking of RFK’s family that disowned him for becoming HHS, like, “You’re trying to stop pharmaceutical and junk food conglomerates and from poisoning children? What the fuck is wrong with you!”

My job now is to be myself. It's not easy but I'm the only one qualified for it.

Heading to the track now, but feels like I'm just going around in circles.

if the product is free, you’re the product

Funny how libs suddenly discovered free speech, after cheering on "misinformation" propaganda for four years now that Trump is trying to deport a protester.

And credulous Trump supporters are cheering the deportation because the government accuses him of supporting "terrorism".

Has it not occurred to you yet that "disinformation," "supporting terrorism" "insurrectionist!" "threat to our democracy" "anti-vaxxer!" is all just shit the government says (and servile losers repeat) to get you to comply with its agenda?

Now it's not really fair to do a "both sides" here because the libs have been 100x worse on this front, literally setting up a disinformation bureau and censorship industrial complex inside the government that took down social media posts for merely suggesting obvious truths like covid coming from a lab, the NYT calling the theory racist!

But I point it out more as a warning: don't defend government propaganda like those compliant fools. If the protester is guilty of an actual crime (and not simply protesting and words you don't like), make them prove it. It doesn't matter if you agree with or like the guy. It doesn't matter if you support much of what Trump et al are doing. The government is not your friend. Hold it to account no matter who is in charge.

New Videocast:

https://rumble.com/v6ql2vo-self-respect-test.html

The Bill of Rights of which the First Amendment is a part is for DEFENSE against the US government. It's not some DEI inclusivity initiative. The ONLY reason the dude should NOT be deported is the USG doesn't have the power to do so IF all he did was protest and speak.

Whether he's courageously protesting injustice, is an ungrateful hater or just a douche cosplaying for clout is NOT relevant. You should be against his deportation IF he committed no crime because DEFENSE against your own government is paramount, way more so than hearing something you don't like.

when your ex changes the locks on you

nostr:note18t2w656rp8lcpmc3kgy33nnt76d9eqf6aec2dxwluafeg4c8rzeq93kj7a

People really don't understand the 1st Amendment. It's not whether it's rude to show up in someone's country and protest, it's not whether you agree with the person's views, it's not whether that person is someone you *want* in the country, it's not whether that person's speech might lead to radicalization of others, it's that the framers of the Constitution realized allowing the government to prevent speech it doesn't like is MUCH MORE dangerous than having to deal with that speech being allowed.

Lot of people did wake up due to covid. Even more will if they try this retarded and insane plan.

There's a Buddhist story about a kid who is a great horseback rider, and everyone in the village says to the parents how lucky they are to have such a talented son. One day he falls off his horse, breaks his leg, and all the villagers lament how unlucky he is to break his leg. Then a war breaks out, and the other villagers’ sons are sent to die in it, but the kid with the broken leg can’t fight, so he survives.

The moral is obvious — that what seems like good luck is often bad and vice-versa.

Whenever I hear pending announcements of CBDCs I think of this. You can argue and explain decentralized, uncensorable, supply-capped money till you are blue in the face, but your impact will be zero compared to someone being unable to buy a plane ticket because the central bank deems him over his carbon allowance.

Christine Retard and her ilk are in the FA phase. They might be surprised by the FO one.

She is a catalyst — I hope they try this experiment. It will radicalize millions.

nostr:note1f359hexd8ly24hpp4pmml7xqkwcenshhsu8w44vtrw7zztvyhewqmeueaq

Bitcoin was cool only when it was for outsiders and misfits. Now it’s cringe. Better sell before it moons!

Hard to tell sometimes whether time spent on social media is wasted. Am I distracting myself or in my lab, doing experiments and learning?

Took five days off this week on a ski trip, didn’t miss it at all. No withdrawal whatsoever.

Very easy to get caught up in “Twitter is bad”, rather than observing the experience. Nostr is cleaner, there’s no algorithm trying to pull me in, but maybe I’m defeating the Twitter one, not falling for its manipulations.

Or maybe, thinking I’ve defeated it, and no longer viewing it as “bad” is the ultimate capitulation, like the person in prison who doesn’t know it and therefore has no desire to escape.

I don’t know. Things like social media time or whether I eat a bunch of sugar seem less and less consequential. Like if there is a God, and I do believe in a God of sorts, He could not possibly care about trivialities like these.

You will cut the sugar when you feel heavy and less energized. You will shut off the monitor when there’s nothing of value transmitted on its screen. You can trust yourself to do this. You do not need an internal dictator managing your affairs for you like you are a child.

Even a child would rebel against it. Maybe the problem is we didn’t rebel against it enough.

Got called into jury duty ~15 years ago. Judge asked all of us our names and a few questions about ourselves. I told her I worked in “fantasy sports”, gave it a one-sentence explanation. Puzzled, she asked, dismissively, “anyone ever heard of that?” A few people behind me raised their hands. Then she said something else dismissive, along the lines, of “that’s an awfully strange thing for people to be doing.” I said, “well, at least people come to my (virtual) place of work *voluntarily*.

Vaguely remember getting a chuckle out of my fellow prospective jurors, but maybe I’m just mis-remembering that because I thought it was funny.

Was reminded of that today when hearing about how laid off federal workers will need to find new jobs. I thought, yeah, hopefully ones for which people *voluntarily* pay them.

Of course, I got out of actually *serving* on the jury, very easy, having gone to law school and knowing how to get the prosecutor to get rid of you via peremptory challenge.

Went skiing in Austria with the family for the week — wasn’t online at all. Read an entire sci-fi novel and did a hard Sudoku. (The really hard ones you need several days to crack.)

Doesn’t seem like I missed much.

https://cdn.nostrcheck.me/6ad3e2a34818b153c81f48c58f44e5199e7b4fc8dbe37810a000dce3c90b7740/b68ef9bdafb18396f496cb9cc624062db07246973030fd86a73a485f6c199263.webp

Would never say never, but it makes no sense unless Starmer were so compromised he has no choice. Even then, I don’t think they would let it happen.

Seriously though, this is bullish. Almost better to announce it in the fog of nonsense. Could even argue the savings they’ll get from pretending to be (or actually being) idiots will outweigh the amounts they spend on the shitcoins. IOW, if they were Bukele/Saylor-level informed, the front-running would be off the charts. Now, you don’t really know for sure.

Again, don’t want to credit them for 11-D chess, but it might work out that way.

100K by end of day?

nostr:note1a34q9cuvdywtzdkd5ctf728t2mne7w7hr9r2em53l3kvht0434pqx8em5d

My bet is zero. They know it’s over, and the talk is to save face and buy time to wind down the grift. Would be shocked if they kept it going now.

Some Argentine pesos, Zimbabwe dollars, Venezuelan bolivars, some gold, seashells,, bitcoin, Monopoly money, euros, etc. Just a basket of stuff, I can’t tell the difference.

https://cdn.nostrcheck.me/6ad3e2a34818b153c81f48c58f44e5199e7b4fc8dbe37810a000dce3c90b7740/e571ae0a22f0497d5191a24f8184b438c66011931e2d00e7c9fbd663baa3bdf5.webp

DIVINE COMEDY

There are two kinds of suffering in this world: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that leads to the end of suffering. If you’re not willing to endure the latter, you will surely have more of the former.

— Zen Proverb

I know someone, it could just as well be you or me, who is constantly trying to figure out what’s wrong with her in order to get to the bottom of it. She’s tried medication, psilocybin, retreats and therapy, but to no avail. I don’t even know her that well, but I know what her problem is: that she thinks she has a problem.

None of the modalities she’s tried can resolve this essential problem. In fact, they reify it. All she needs to do is feel what she’s feeling and be who she is. But as the proverb goes, if you’re unwilling to do that, you’ll surely have the chance to keep “fixing” yourself forever.

. . .

I’m not going to lie and say I’ve read Dante’s Divine Comedy, though I do have a copy on my old bookshelf in Los Angeles. I will borrow its paradigm of heaven, hell and purgatory, however, and assign my own interpretations to them, irrespective of the pace with which Mr. Alighieri circumvolves in his grave.

My idea of hell is scrolling through Twitter, playing a trivia game like Wordle or otherwise doing something that keeps you engaged but distracted from essential tasks and your own vital existence. Hell isn’t painful, in my view, it’s actually comfortable and easy, only there’s a nagging sense of neglecting something and a dread this procrastination cannot go on indefinitely. Hell is suppression of feelings, resistance to life. It’s tossing and turning in a futile attempt to sleep in.

Purgatory is painful. Avoiding it is why you remain in hell. It’s the raw emotion underneath the ceaseless mind chatter. The abyss in your stomach and throat, uncertainty in your mind, anxiety in your chest. It’s also the miserable jog around the track in the cold drizzle when your foot is sore, your back is tight, or you’re a little congested and just don’t feel up to it. Most of us hate purgatory.

Heaven is after the run, when you’re walking home, observations and ideas are flowing freely. It’s the sense of relief after you let an emotion speak its mind without interrupting it. It’s the state of calm that arises after you’ve burnt through the karma in purgatory sufficiently.

But spend a little time in its kingdom and pretty soon you find yourself back where you started, in hell. Heaven as a reward doesn’t last. Because a permanent state of heaven for doing good or working hard would be a stupid and absurd state of affairs, not commensurate with the world’s sublime workings, its fractal majesty. The Tao or God or whatever word you prefer isn’t a schoolmarm. You can’t curry favor with it, and you can’t game it with hacks.

All one can do is choose purgatory over hell as often as it presents itself. To choose the kind of suffering that leads to the end of suffering over and over again. At some point, I imagine, one’s capacity to suffer in purgatory is so profound the suffering itself is heaven, there is nothing to be avoided, nothing for which to be rewarded. The Buddha’s first noble truth was “Life is suffering” and maybe hell is only for those who would avoid it.

. . .

It might sound harsh to see people struggling with their demons, trying to self-improve and dismissing their efforts. But as I said, this could just as well describe me. You have no problem except that you think you do. I’ll leave off with a George Carlin quote that sums this up nicely:

If you think there is a solution, you're part of the problem.