21 Comments

"We try to love reasonable lives" One of the finest typos I've ever written. t was supposed to be 'live reasonable lives' but typos tell the truth better sometimes.

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Our generation had this masterpiece shoved down our eyes whether we liked it or not. Its poetic prophecy proves truer than ever these days:

'pity this busy monster, manunkind'

pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:

your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness

--- electrons deify one razorblade

into a mountain range; lenses extend

unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish

returns on its unself.

A world of made

is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this

fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell

of a good universe next door; let's go

E. E. Cummings

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What happens to American poultry when the $US is dethroned as global reserve currency for some Russian/Chines gold-backed-crypto upstart?

Thought about THAT yet?

:-o

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I have been thinking about that for decades, John. A great dream of mine for some is to lead an evacuation mission to rescue the buggers in a way that will let the most of them survive and the rest of them serve as food. I call this fantasy the Four-Square 400: a band of 'morally orthogonal' people who rescue 400 piglets from The Machine.

One does what one can: https://youtu.be/Xw2MjRcVO4g?t=187

I have officially given up on trying to save humans other than my wife, Doc. (TAE was a major finishing lesson in my determination of that resolve.) My eyes and heart are set on saving animals from the mayhem as the underbelly of it all bursts open.

I have no idea how that will work out but life is an adventure.

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I see the peaceful young cattle and a few nursing cows on the grassy fields between Austin and Yoakum, and sometimes in transport trailers, and I think about their lives, as they live them.

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I'm sure they feel about transport trailers the way Nazi-era Jews felt about cattle cars.

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I'm not sure about that. I would be speculating to speculate about how the people felt, despite reading some recollections. The cattle don't know, I think, don't know at all.

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I think that we modern homo saps love to tell ourselves fairy tales like that, like "cattle don't know, I think, don't know at all". I think that our current capacity for denial is enough for us to destroy the biosphere after making it increasingly miserable for several centuries while telling ourselves it will be ok.

This is not to say that they know they're headed to the slaughterhouse. It is to say that they don't know where they're going, and to think that being shoved into an alien metal box that makes the country side move like a sideways earthquake while your body feels disorienting motion not caused by the cow, or the breeze, or a push... many of the Jews put in cattle cars didn't know they were headed for slaughter either.

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Do you own any shirts other than Hawaiian prints? Asking for a smartass friend.

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I have a lot of various t-shirts, and some flannel shirts, and white shirts.

Aloha shirts and khaki trousers , or bright scrubs, have been my work uniform for a very long time.

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btw, Yarvin's latest is both a hoot and a tour de force:

https://graymirror.substack.com/p/enjoying-your-russian-civil-war?s=r

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I read it. It is long. It is good, anyway...

I posted a short excerpt on TAE and conveyed your recommendation of it.

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Yarvin has a very busy mind, doesn't he?

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