Southwest Airlines cancelled 1400 flights yesterday. They blamed it on weather and other things. No other airlines cancelled flights because of weather. Air traffic controllers gave them the flying fickle finger of fate also and aren’t showing.
It just came out that 200 members of Congress used Ivermectin instead of the jab, hypocrites. Do as I say, not as I do.
From Social Media:
I was very early to LinkedIn, as I was to blogging, Twitter, Facebook and others.
When I got fed up with them going woke or being so biased that I didn’t trust them, I de-platformed Twitter and Facebook.
Recently, LinkedIn stopped allowing revenue to anyone who is in their words a climate change denier. I worked in the Green and Sustainability Industry long enough to learn these things about climate and politics.
“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.” – Bertrand Russell
As soon as there is a problem, they change their tune and are now burning coal in China and Europe. FML.
So, when I heard that LinkedIn banished one side of the conversation on anything, I changed my profile to poke fun at them. Here are some of the changes.
My education is now Faber -Knowledge is Good. I put my fraternity as Delta Tau Chi. If you don’t get this reference, you missed one of the all time funniest movies. It was also a stab at my real college that went woke. I won’t even mention them here because I banished them too.
I changed my current Job to writing a sarcastic blog and not finishing several books. This is actually true. I was in their Associates Program which is for freelancers, but I’m blowing them off now.
The rest of my work life is true for now, but I don’t give enough of a tinkers damn to take LinkedIn serious now, so I’m having fun where I can.
I now want to freelance on the boil of wokeness that is on the ass of regular people by elites.
I decided I didn’t care that much about them to take them seriously. Besides, I retired because I hate the corporate nonsense. See here, here and here for the above stated wankers.
You got the bonus plan:
And of course how I feel about Fascist Book:
Everyone has heard if you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it.
I grow weary of the obfuscation that comes from Washington these days. When there is someone offended or spouting off, I look behind the scenes now to wonder what are they are going to do to us this time, or what are they hiding that they don’t want us to see?
Trying to get the actual news from the MSM ended a long time ago. How do they call themselves the news with what is being said on TV/Radio/Social Media/other. It is embarrassing that they can blatantly lie on camera or under oath. An event happens and it either is not covered, or is embarrassingly propaganda-ish.
I see things like the crisis that is building on the border, the debt, the emboldening of unfriendly countries to act out in aggression. I know that it is happening and why. Being told that it is climate, Covid or race related, or someone is being a victim or that everyone is not equal. This grows old. It is a cover for putting in an agenda that isn’t the main story.
They are covering for Covid, the Afghanistan debacle, the Border crisis and the 3.5 trillion dollar infrastruction/Socialism bill. There will be something they talk about to distract attention away from what they are doing.
Things are what they are. People know that dogs have 4 legs. I wonder when they have had enough if they just surrender and try to ignore things or say what is really happening. Of course to do that you will be a *-ist, fill in the blank for who you offended this time. Best guess says you are racist right now.
Take that censors.
I am getting bombarded with these so I’m sharing. Any reasonable person would have to stop and think about what is going on. Unfortunately, all you can read about from the Government, Social Media and the News Media is get vaxxed. That should cause everyone to pause and think who can be trusted on this.
So I guess the Vaxx doesn’t work very well. Why was the government trying to restrict Monoclonals to Florida where they need them? Questions I’d like answered. Also, I guess the real cure is the treatment, not the Vaxx it seems.
The MSM is just a propaganda machine regurgitating baseless lies, again.
He lied to Congress. He was in on it the whole time and is guilty of gain of function making it both more deadly and a bio-weapon.
Tomorrow at 8:00 PM ET, Project Veritas has teased twice that they have amazing leaks from the CDC and Pfizer etc. and we will learn important truths about the “vaccines”.
FDA Leaders Quit After Democrat Pressure to Approve Booster Shots & Vaccines for Children
I guess they don’t want to go to jail when the truth comes out and children are hurt.
In other words, here is proof that there is a cure (along with the first article) and that the vaxx is just a hoax for money exchanged between the Government and Big Pharma. If they cared about us, they’d let everyone be cured instead of wrecking the economy, peoples lives and their health.
FDA admits the Covid Vaccines are killing people
Straight from the horses mouth. The evidence of malpractice and malfeasance is snowballing.
A COMPARISON OF COVID RATES VS FULLY VACCINATED IN USA, ISRAEL, AND INDIA
It’s all there in black and white. They are lying to us about everything.
The Data Proves It And The Science Says That The Covid Vaccine Is A Killer
Don’t take the booster, it is a killer
“It is irritating that the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians is apparently not concerned about serious illnesses in ten percent or death or near-death in three percent of people vaccinated with the third dose, but rather focuses on the liability of doctors,” said the deputy group leader of the AfD [Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany], Beatrix von Storch. ”This document is the perfect task of any medical ethics. A policy that directly or indirectly forces people to expose themselves to such a risk is fundamentally wrong.”
The Conspiracy Theorists Were Right; It IS a “Poison-Death Shot”
“I’ll do one more mind experiment with you: If everyone on the planet were to get Covid and not get treated, the death-rate globally would be less than half a percent. I’m not advocating for that, because 35 million people would die. However, if we follow the advice of some of the global leaders– like Bill Gates who said last year said “7 billion people need to be vaccinated”– then the death-rate will be over 2 billion people! SO, WAKE UP! THIS IS WORLD WAR 3! We are seeing a level of malevolence that we haven’t seen in the history of humanity!” Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, Author of The Zelenko “Early Treatment” Protocol that saved thousands of Covid-19 patients. (“Zelenko schools the Rabbinic Court”, Rumble; start at 11:45 minutes)
Did the regulators at the FDA know that all previous coronavirus vaccines had failed in animal trials and that the vaccinated animals became either severely ill or died?
Yes, they did.
Did they know that previous coronavirus vaccines had a tendency to “enhance the infection” and “make the disease worse”?
Yes.
Did Dr Anthony Fauci know that coronavirus vaccines had repeatedly failed and increased the severity of the infection?
Yes, he did. (See here: Fauci on ADE)
There is more in the link.
FDA Panel Member on COVID Vaccines: ‘Heart Attacks Happen 71 Times More Often when vaxxed….’
Consider the testimonial of Steve Kirsch, executive director of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund and also identified as a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel member. In an eight-hour virtual discussion of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee released Friday by the FDA, Kirsch said there “are four times as many heart attacks [as is normal] in the treatment group in the Pfizer six-month trial report — that wasn’t bad luck.”
This is pretty complex stuff. Needless to say, this is how Big Brother is watching you.
Why do you think that you get ads for something you never searched but just talked about? Hell, sometimes I just think of stuff and it shows up it seems.
You are a dumbass for taking nudies or sexting because they are probably laughing at you as they can look at everything.
You’ve been warned.
I’m like Jeff Foxworthy. I grew up getting the Sears catalog in the mail. Those were the only girls in underwear you would see, until Victoria’s Secret gave us the catalog of dreams.
They put beautiful women in underwear for men and women to admire. Good art in any form is beautiful (the Sears models reminded Jeff of the lunch lady at the school cafeteria). It’s why there are so many naked statues. It was the concept of art to an artist. That they lasted longer than a catalog has so far so that also says something.
Now this (here is the tragedy):
Here is the reaction so far:
Victoria’s Secret has chosen going full woke over earning a profit, succumbing to the hypersensitivities on the left to embark on a major rebranding.
Even the standard size 32B mannequins on display in their stores didn’t make the cut, as the forms representing the female figure will now come in new shapes and sizes.
The paper said the company has been “scrutinized heavily in recent years for its owner’s relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and revelations about a misogynistic corporate culture that trafficked in sexism, sizeism and ageism.”
OK, back to my observation.
I’m not sure what is more stupid. Is it the marketing decision to lose this much money, goodwill and customers or to think that most people wanted to look or what make it hugely successful. Do they think that this is more beautiful than Giselle Bünchen in angel wings?
I’m sure there is a small portion of the population who identifies with this and good for them. The problem is it is ruining the beauty that was the draw for the other 98%.
I know this type of display is inclusive or is progressive or something politically correct in the eyes of the PC and SJW police, but I (and see below or read the article above for how many others) still think they are ruining a good thing.
All of this has come together to ruin another concept that has been around since whenever man showed up, women are beautiful. Both males and females think that the fairer sex is a work of beauty. For example, everyone thinks a naked woman is something beautiful to look at. I’m willing to bet that there are a lot more people (even females in beards) that find them better to look at than most men naked. There aren’t that many Chip n Dales guys just walking around. And let’s face it. Other than a few people who can ruin anything by being mean and nasty, almost all women are beautiful in their own way.
If there are 330 million people in the US (a low guess) and throw out the old and the young, you would still have a few hundred million just in the USA who liked the older style catalog and their models a lot more. VS is big all over the world so even the PC people like to look at the real catalog, not the travesty that is this year’s.
I don’t care how many likes they got in social media. Most people go along with the crowd in public and social media is a bunch of pretend anyway.
Get woke go broke they say. I doubt it for VS, but it hasn’t helped the bottom lines of Nickelodeon Channel, Gillette, Coke, the NBA, MLB, NFL and other companies.
It looks like I’m not alone. I’ll put up some links that have something to do with it in whatever way that is interesting.
The Earl of Taint – I wish them luck
Well, this won’t be my most popular post, but if you read about me up top, I see patterns. A lot of what has happened smelled wrong to me. I could still be wrong, but I’ll bet a lot of people think the only accident was it escaping the lab it was created in. I see deceit (well, they are politicians), misdirection (a typical PR trick) and a lot of obfuscation. The MSM covers it like the second coming.
I’ll bet I catch some flack from the censors and from subscribers who disagree, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I heard they are stopping articles that say HCQ cures it so read quick as this might not be up long.
Here’s mine, I don’t know the real answer and may never as might not a lot of people. What I do believe is that what actually happened isn’t what we were told and that a lot more will come out about it. I think a lot of eyes are going to be opened about what is going down right now.
Number 6 just gave me another reason to think social media has a dark side and they are one of the faces.
Number 8 looks like it is true based on his emails. Amazon pulled his book so something is up.
I’m seeing guns, beer, cash, hotel stays, joints and a lot of other bribes to get the vaccine. How about letting people make up their own minds before we get to step 4 on the top meme?
It was Karen.
Fortunately, my life has been spared the hell of Facebook as I censored them. I also cancel-cultured them. Hey woke people, did I get the right language there?
I realized that I don’t miss it and I have a lot more time not spent in front of a screen.
I wonder if this is going to offend hillbillies? I wonder if that name is a cultural appropriation? What if it is a racist name?
Fear not, I have a strain in my family as southern as turnip greens.
I shake my head as I’m making fun of woke people using hotdogs, and yet I think there might be someone ready to lead a revolution to protect hillbillies now from discrimination. On second thought, nah.
Oh, and Happy Memorial Day.
This example is a bit much in introspection, but the point is that examining yourself and your life gives you a window to learn who you are and why you do what you do.
Most people don’t take the time to look at past events to see why you act now like you do. Occasionally, one remembers something familiar, but that is when you have the time to think or daydream, like when it happens to you when you remember a familiar song. This is just knowledge that you have.
WHY WE DON’T STOP TO THINK ABOUT ME
I’m not talking about the online and public me (and I mean you here). Everyone takes care of that and primps or struts accordingly, especially on social media.
Life is more chaotic than social media and can hit you in the face. You are on instinct then unless you have prepared for whatever. Some are just instinctual about it. Others could be on the discovery of a lifetime if they learned why they act that way.
I know you can’t be ready for everything, but everyone knows their strengths and weaknesses. Some refuse to admit them though. Those that can will master their greatest opponent, yourself.
That’s where self-awareness comes in. I look at patterns so if the same type of event or response to something happens, I put the information together and can deal with the problem better. Not your run of the mill stuff, but how am I messing up relationships or how did a situation go from great to hell with one misstep on my part.
Instead of asking have I faced this before, what lesson did I learn, I want to know why is this happening again to me because of something I did, said or forgot to do? How was I successful in dealing with it or avoiding it? What lesson was learned past don’t burn your hand on the stove. It’s never the obvious answer.
Most can do this type of recall with a single occurrence of a prior or recent event that happened, but I go back to my youth and multiple iterations of a pattern that becomes obvious. The things that happen to me now when it goes bad probably happened to me in my earliest formidable years, but I forgot the lesson. I’m at a point in my life that I’m remembering that stuff now and it has affected how I look at life now.
I discovered my personality was the same although I, like everyone else can be an actor and can put on a different front. Usually it was a job interview or a first date, something we all go through.
Now, it’s take it or leave it with what you get from me. I don’t pretend and I also stop short of telling (most) people off and walk away. No one can fire me and I fired Twitter and Fake book.
HOW I DID IT
I write everything down to read later. Here is a link to a good article that talks about journaling. If it isn’t convenient to write, I email myself or text. I’ll complete the thought later and perhaps it ends up here.
My private thoughts go somewhere else. When I look back at my younger self now, I see the same person, only one who is trying to figure out why it is happening. Now, when the SHTF, I’m ready as I’ve read where I mis-stepped before and usually think it through before I get into trouble.
As long as I’m being self-aware, I can usually remember to shut the F**k up in time to not make the same mistake twice. I also learned to build, fix and mend things around the house, but that is easy compared to people.
One day, maybe I’ll look back and remember something that will help me in the future.
I want to look back fondly that I at least improved or grew in how I acted or re-acted. Occasionally I do. Mostly, I’m still learning not to be a screw up.
Look back when something is familiar and think of times as a kid when this lesson was first taught. Either that or look back on forgotten memorable times to enjoy.
That is closer to wisdom
2001: A Space Odyssey, Terminator, Aida of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the robots always want to take over in the end and kill the humans.
See below the meme on stupidity so I can get to the point.
Yes, this woman is an idiot. My robot vacuum is so stupid it doesn’t know where it’s going. I named it Jarvis after Ironman’s AI assistant (Paul Bettany). It is my dearest form of sarcasm. So the vacuum isn’t going to kill me, but that isn’t my point.
The AI in the wrong hands is dangerous though.
For example, what if an AI-bot creates vaccines for diseases by predicting what the next strain will be. What if the next strain is the one that causes humans to shut down all the robots. There you have the premise for how it goes with AI taking over. Kill the humans.
I could bore your with many other examples like using AI to enhance a soldiers armory. It would be controlling your actions, making you more invincible in war. If it sensed a danger that didn’t exist, it could fire up the code to kill everyone in the way and you have created a murderer out of an innocent man. Kill the humans.
Fortunately, I’ve been around AI development. That danger isn’t exactly around the corner yet.
I worked at IBM and knew that Watson was a gimmick. The Chairman told me it was. They are trying to sell it now because it’s usefulness in medicine paled in comparison to it winning Jeopardy. It was a lot of wasted money because they could to sum it up.
Some of the team have moved to Quantum Computing because Watson was a dud.
Microsoft, Google and Facebook are much different and apparently more evil. IBM is too bureaucratic to turn it into a killer robot. However, if you’ve read any of my social media rants, you know that I trust these three companies less than almost anything, except Congress and the media. I will say they are equally evil though. (Another shot for the censors to see if they are watching here). They are the ones that will kill the humans.
Now, imagine if it got into the wrong hands. What could some guys who want to either take over or blow up the world do with that kind of power? Those bastards are evil. At least the robots just went bad.
And there you have it. Like many things we can create, there is always someone hanging around to put it to bad use.
I love bacon. It’s what I thought of when I saw this. Then of course, I recognized an opportunity to test out the censorship of WordPress.
I think a lot of the tech companies are loony about free speech and who is allowed to have it. That’s why I put stuff up that I know others will get mad about. It’s not about you honey, this is poking the dragon ever so slightly at first.
I self-censored Fake Book and Twitter so I can’t go after them, but then I’d have to be in that cesspool to get kicked out. I left that social media shithole behind to better my life. It worked.
First of all, every Pepe Le Pew is the same cartoon. The cat gets into wet paint and looks like a female skunk so Pepe is attracted to her.
Let’s get to the real story here! At the end of each cartoon the role are reversed. The cat somehow gets into water or looks like a wreck and falls in love with Pepe. The rest of the show is the cat doing a #MeToo on Pepe.
It is the cat that should be cancelled, not Pepe. He was fine until she ruined his life, just like the snowflakes going after everything that hurts their feelings. Get a life and learn to enjoy the sarcasm of the show.
Bring back Pepe!
I slip in things like China Virus, IRS is big brother and other words just to give the censors something to do. Sooner or later they’ll move the line and you won’t see me for 30 days or whatever the penalty is for using the wrong work or pronoun that I probably couldn’t keep straight.
They can’t ban me on Fake book or Twatter because I fired them first.
I’ve eliminated a lot of them when I dumped Twitter and Facebook, but I see it out there just like everyone else does. Sooner or later you run into someone who has Internet Road Rage. They are idiots.
I post a lot of sarcasm on my blog because it’s my blog. Some people have that sense of self-importance. I’m glad I don’t have time for that anymore.
It doesn’t take many posts for you to see that I think Fake book and Twatter are the cesspools of the Internet. More hate is spilled there than Iran towards Israel and the USA.
I happily quit both. My life is better and while I didn’t waste a lot of time on them, it still was mostly useless.
I always hated those friend recommendations because I’m sure they were on the other side also. My rule was if you aren’t my friend then you aren’t worth being my fake book friend either. I happily forgot most of the people I grew up with and didn’t want to find them again, let alone reconnect.
It’s as bad as a phone call for an introvert without first warning that you are about to intrude on my life. There was an introvert on the team that invented texting to avoid that phone call.
When I saw this one, I realized that it was time to dump fake book. I also can’t stand that they are the arbiters of free speech and who is allowed on, so I made the decision for them. I don’t want to be in a place of hate or that has special rules for people who they don’t agree with personally, and went to other platforms that don’t suggest people I’d rather not see or hear from again in life.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good things, but sooner or later it goes down the crapper when someone “offends” another. It is where you can find more bias and discrimination (against anyone and everyone) since segregation.
Twitter is probably the biggest cesspool. Since Facebook Fake Book started censoring, you can’t trust what is real or not. I also don’t care about my high school or college enough to see what they are doing. If either of us cared, we’d have stayed in contact. The hate generated against the last President just told me the people in charge of these platforms are untrustworthy. They say one thing and do another.
Do what you want. Most are addicted to social media. The truly smart people don’t waste time trying to impress others as to how good their life is or worry about what others have.
My life is better without as much as I do with. I still get what I need to know without it being filtered by a loser in a cubicle with an axe to grind over who voted for whom. The elitist oligarch’s have told them what is allowed, then they prattle on condemning exactly what they are doing.
As usual, I’ll just do my own thing and let other suffer who wish to read this tripe.
From the WSJ:
China Is Now Sending Twitter Users to Prison for Posts Most Chinese Can’t See
Two of the most restrictive groups censorship wise are going at each other here to ban information that was made to be published, go figure. Note: It refers to the CCP government, not the Chinese people.
Both are paranoid and neither are really helping anyone get better. My advice, leave both.
Eliminating as much social media from my life as possible has made it much better. Sooner or later, even your bestie is going to post something that pisses you off and down the toilet we go.
Now, you can spy on your neighbor like the Stasi and report your neighbor. As for me, I’m getting rid of as much hate as I can, and that started with Twitter. Their latest to shut down free speech isn’t helping anyone.
The Tweeter is recruiting volunteer truth interrupters’ to crack down on misinformation they say is running rampant across their site. The site announced the launch of “Birdwatchers” on Monday to empowering certain users to flag misleading tweets. So-called Birdwatchers will discuss what’s misleading about a flagged tweet and then be able to rank those comments, with the goal of allowing seemingly unpaid users to take a hands-on approach to combating your lies and falsities.
The Official Tweeter Support Account posted the announcement with a video of an failed attempt at humor of an egregious example of a necessary flagging of falsehood: “Whales are not real. They’re robots funded by the government to watch us.” Now, you don’t have to read between the lines to understand the mentality that came up with this idea.
At first, Birdwatch will only be open to a few users who apply to join the program, traditional fact-checkers and other high-profile people. Birdwatch replies to tweets will meanwhile only be visible on a separate section of the site. But eventually Twitter hopes to include the replies on the regular site, building a Wikipedia-style system of relying on users to combat misinformed and blatantly false tweets.
IP’s, User Names and Locations would surely not be cataloged. *wink wink*
Brandy Zadrozny of NBC News, said the program has “promise,” but cautioned that Twitter doesn’t seem to have a plan to prevent retaliation against Birdwatchers. Twitter said it’ll adapt the program based on user feedback before debuting it on the whole site.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=true&id=1353769252784926720&lang=en&origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diogenesmiddlefinger.com%2F2021%2F01%2Fyou-too-can-sign-up-for-dorseys-truth.html&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px
My big concern — which I expressed many times to Twitter — is for the safety of these contributors. What happens when a high-ranking Birdwatcher whose note does well on a Ted Cruz tweet is featured on Tucker Carlson? They say user safety is top of mind but … you know.— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) January 25, 2021
Yes, I’d rather post the I have a dream, but politicians won’t let us make it come true.
Instead, this is a lesser known quote, but there has been a lot of hate and darkness (Twitter, Facebook, the elections, need I go on?). I for one am tired of it.
For today, I’m letting the Reverend point out what the problem is. He also gave us the answer, if anyone will listen. I hope I”m not alone.
I’m interrupting humor and sarcasm to note a trend. If you read my about, I notice trends and patterns as facts begin to fall into place over time.
As always, the human race seems to come down to power (and other forms like sex and money). Not everyone wants it, but those addicted to it can’t get enough.
In 2020, Big Tech financed a lot of the election, probably on both sides but they seem to favor one side over the other. I’m not going to get into being political but both sides of the spectrum don’t serve us as well as they should. It seems that they serve themselves in terms of granting more power and control. On the other side of power is……
BIG TECH HAS BIG MONEY AND BIG INFLUENCE.
At some point, they tell you to follow the money. No one has more money (ergo influence) than Big Tech right now. I’ll give you that the government has more, they get it from taxpayers and the tech companies. They don’t have to earn it so it is less valuable and more widely wasted.
It’s not just about money though because money buys power and influence. Tech will likely sit their people in positions in the new cabinet, as currently elected but is not the big issue. It is trivial compared to the war.
The war is who controls the message.
GOVERNMENT IS GETTING GENERIC AND TECH RUNS RINGS AROUND THEM
After watching the tech hearings over the last couple of years, Congress is filled with mostly idiots when it comes to tech. They asked Facebook and Google simpleton questions I’d be embarrassed to ask my grandparents. Of course, the CEO’s ran circles around the questioners and frankly made them look like the emperor with no clothes . They didn’t even have to lie (although it looks like they bent the truth pretty heavily) because the questions were so elementary.
The result is that Tech (mostly the FAANGS) control the message that congress had a stranglehold on and the fight is on for said power. On the big tech side is the money and on the government side is regulation.
AMERICANS ARE WAKING UP TO THIS POWER STRUGGLE (AS IS THE REST OF THE WORLD)
I’m not the only one noticing this. This study (linked below) surveyed Americans, but users around the world are the same:
A majority of Americans across the political spectrum believe tech companies have too much power and do more harm than good, and most people have deep concerns about how companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google use their personal data, accordingto a new poll released today by Gallup and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The wide-ranging report, “Techlash? America’s Growing Concern with Major Technology Companies,” provides findings on how Americans view the roles internet and technology companies play in their lives and in society. Major findings include the following:
We can’t count on the tech companies to do anything other than to seek power:
Self-regulation has failed. One of Silicon Valley’s most valuable assets until now has been the cultural permission to try new things. The public has put up with arrogant rhetoric and a lax attitude toward the law in exchange for innovative ideas that meaningfully improved upon the status quo. But it was a Faustian bargain, with untrammeled innovation raising the specter of uncontrolled growth. When we learn about Airbnb endangering neighbors, Twitter failing to stop rampant harassment, or YouTube radicalizing its viewers with an algorithm that recommends extremist content, we see the destructive harm technology companies can do and their unwillingness to rein in their greed. The narrative has shifted from a question of whether there will be regulation at all to the fight over who should make the rules—and how tough those rules should be.
WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES?
Usually no one wins or the Government uses it’s tentacles to overwhelm companies with regulations. Tech has the power of the message and as much money. Further, with their hands in the pockets of the politicians and the ineptness of Congress, it let’s me think that Tech will have the early upper hand. Congress can pass laws, but tech is usually steps ahead and there is no telling what has been embedded in the future technology. It takes 5 years or so to bring a new product to market. The 2025 tech is already being tested in labs somewhere.
Sure, they might have to pay fines, but they are rounding errors at the rate tech is making money.
So I’m predicting this. It will be a standoff and both sides will struggle for power. In the meantime, users will suffer from regulation or invasion of privacy from both parties.
Congress will get more money out of the tech companies in the form of lobbying or the people they place in high positions. The relationship becomes incestuous.
Again, we are the losers.
Update: It’s already started with Amazon getting their hooks in first:
Amazon, the trillion-dollar tech company, has hired lobbyist Jeff Ricchetti, whose brother will be the top White House counselor to Joe Biden.
Jeff Ricchetti’s firm, which he founded in 2001 with his brother Steve Ricchetti, the incoming Biden adviser, registered as a lobbyist for Amazon on Nov. 13.
I’ve written about how meetings are a waste of time and how to avoid them. This just confirms that it’s true if you know Sowell.
The only source of information for most people now is a machine that is designed to partially inform people, misinform people, spread conspiracy theories, and lies faster than facts.”- Tristan Harris
The alternate view by Mark Manson is this:
Social media algorithms do not manipulate and push users into believing awful things. People already believe the awful things and social media simply spreads them more easily. Critics like Harris imply that tech companies are sitting in Silicon Valley scheming for ways to extract more ad dollars from people’s anxiety and misinformation.
Either way, it points out that there isn’t that much good to it the way it exists. At best it is a time waster for most. At worst it is the above.
I say think for yourself and stop believing the group think on Twitter, Fakebook, Instagram and the other time suck platforms.
They could be a a useful tool for sharing pertinent information, but it just isn’t that way. There is so much out there that spending more than 5 minuted a day on this probably isn’t helping your life.
I’ll leave you with this thought.
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like getting told how and what to think by people who aren’t qualified to do so. Athletes are paid well to entertain us and distract us from the drudgery of life.
Celebrities pretend to be other people on screen or on stage. They are paid liars basically.
Politicians, well I guess everyone has their own opinion, but most hold them in low regard. When I say low, most who are polled have them below used car salesmen.
All of the above get fame, adoration and a lot of money for what they do. I don’t fault them for making the most of their work, only how much influence they think we care about
Social Media? It has become the cesspool of the bad side of people. Sort of an internet road rage.
With that being said, my advice to all of them is to never miss any opportunity to shut up.
“A man’s ledger does not tell what he is, or what he is worth. Count what is in man, not what is on him, if you would know what he is worth — whether rich or poor.” –Henry Ward Beecher
Steve Jobs died with 9 billion dollars. It does him no good now. He built a dynamic company that employees thousands and touches millions. He also refused to acknowledge his daughter when she was growing up. Which is more important?
Many of us want to show off what we have or what we look like on the outside. Look no further than the cesspools that are Facebook and Instagram. No matter how good the lives look there, what do they look like on the inside? Actually, most people reveal how terrible they really are on Twitter, but that is not a dress up platform like the others.
What is in you?
People only see what they are prepared to see. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m not going to get political here because I think people should make up their own minds. Most already have. The problem with the MSM and Social Media is that you can confirm you bias, no matter what it is by going to what sources you feel comfortable to read. That is your filter.
What I do think is that the actual smart people will have an open mind to both sides of any situation and look at the facts and ask questions. We should challenge what is out there every time there is a “major issue” to see what the real answers are.
It takes time and you will have to have an open mind, but coming to the right conclusion instead of viewing a situation through the filter of what someone else says is the way to truth.
This is not easy. What is easy is to fall back to your usual sources and just believe and regurgitate what is being said.
Take off the filter and evaluate like a detective. Come to the right conclusion based on facts, not feelings or especially on what someone else said.
“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.”
-Douglas Adams
I worked with the press/media for 3+ decades. I know they don’t write the correct story and at best it is partially true. It is also biased one way or another depending on the publication.
It seems these days that all we get is bad news. There is an old saying for news outlets, “If it bleeds it reads”. There is also the sex sells and others that are the same.
It might be best to not look at the news very much right now, at least until the election is over.
My other piece of advice is to not just read (if you have to) things that confirm your bias. It won’t really inform you although it could make you feel better than what you don’t agree with.
The MSM isn’t going to write anything good or unbiased right now. If you know that going into it, you can treat it with the (dis)respect it deserves. Also, don’t even pretend to get proper information from social media. You’ll drive yourself and others crazy.
Don’t let others get you down. Don’t live your life by others version of what you should be. It’s hard to buck social peer pressure and be yourself, but that’s what it can take sometimes to find the real you.
Stop wasting your life on social media to define yourself by others. In fact it looks like staying off of social media except for family and a few actual friends looks like it makes your life better anyway.
It’s hard to seek your dreams. You have to pay the bills and raise the kids, so sometimes your dreams or reaching your capabilities doesn’t come in your 20’s like it did for Albert.
That doesn’t give anyone a free pass for not trying their hardest to do their best.
Hat tip to Moonbattery
For politics, we need balance. History shows that too much dominance by any side makes for lack of clear vision as leaders. Their goal becomes being re-elected instead of serving the office they were elected to. There are plenty of examples.
In Companies, being the solution to a problem is one business model, until the problem goes away then so do profits.
The better model is innovation. Not that I find it that innovative, but look no further than the iPhone as an example. Conversely, we are still stuck with Windows however and I find no real innovation there. I left that platform as quickly as I could
Then of course there is Facebook, Twitter, Google and host of other platforms that haven’t really offered a solution other than sucking the time out of your day and providing a place to move along anarchy.
Look at the motives of the person trying to offer a solution. Are they selling you a bill of goods, re-election or innovation?
Some sanity and reasonableness should be considered when putting yourself out into the social media universe. Everyone seems to think that it is now their responsibility to tell us how to think, speak and act.
Here are 10 logical statements that are not new, but should have been taught to those who think they should tell us what to do, especially by politicians, the media and celebtards. I wish George Orwell were alive today to see how right he was when he wrote 1984.
PC culture is ruining our society and frankly is taking the fun out of life for those of us who don’t get offended easily.
It’s time for a lot of people to grow up and act like adults. Personally, I blame the educational system. It has a considerable lack of diversity in terms of being able to view all sides of an issue before opening there mouths or post on Twitter, which I now call Hater. Other platforms are becoming just as bad, but the hate usually starts there.
Rep. Stephen M. Young inserted into the Congressional Record, in 1950, an article from Harper’s magazine, written by a Lincoln scholar, Albert A. Wolman, listing most of the ”Ten Cannots” and other material falsely attributed to Lincoln.
The 10 Cannots:
1) You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2) You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
3) You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
4) You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5) You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
6) You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
7) You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8) You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
9) You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence.
10) You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
So says an article published by the Washington Post.
Having discussed high IQ people including those with a perceived higher intelligence a number of times (this one with the highest Google ranking), I like to ponder on these things.
The first in this article tends to reference dwelling among all people as it relates to happiness:
They use what they call “the savanna theory of happiness” to explain two main findings from an analysis of a large national survey (15,000 respondents) of adults aged 18 to 28.
First, they find that people who live in more densely populated areas tend to report less satisfaction with their life overall. “The higher the population density of the immediate environment, the less happy” the survey respondents said they were. Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness.
Why would high population density cause a person to be less happy? There’s a whole body of sociological research addressing this question. But for the most visceral demonstration of the effect, simply take a 45-minute ride on a crowded rush-hour Red Line train and tell me how you feel afterward.
One would tend to think that if you weren’t in such a densely populated area, that it might lead to greater happiness. No wonder New York, Chicago and other highly populated cities have such low rankings in this category.
THE NEED TO BE ALONE
I can’t prove it, but there is a tendency for “Smart People” to be either introverted or have a need to spend time alone to gather their thoughts when making contributions to inventions, theorem’s, calculations and other notable achievements. (Note: the link above describes things introverts won’t tell you, but you should know).
Being an author, I know that I prefer quiet to gather my thoughts and increase the powers of concentration on what I am trying to write. It’s hard to clear your mind when there is a bombardment of distractions either from people, social media or other causes.
The article does state the obvious, long commutes, traffic, waiting in line and crowds are tedious, monotonous, and can grate on anyone over time. The infrastructure is usually older (see the lead in the water in Flint, Mich.) I’ve often wondered why anyone would want to live in a place like that if they really had a choice. Maybe that is why there is such a large population outflow to Florida upon retirement.
Kanazawa and Li’s second finding is a little more interesting. It’s no surprise that friend and family connections are generally seen as a foundational component of happiness and well-being. But why would this relationship get turned on its head for really smart people?
I posed this question to Carol Graham, a Brookings Institution researcher who studies the economics of happiness. “The findings in here suggest (and it is no surprise) that those with more intelligence and the capacity to use it … are less likely to spend so much time socializing because they are focused on some other longer term objective,” she said.
Think of the really smart people you know. They may include a doctor trying to cure cancer or a writer working on the great American novel or a human rights lawyer working to protect the most vulnerable people in society. To the extent that frequent social interaction detracts from the pursuit of these goals, it may negatively affect their overall satisfaction with life.
The article and researchers discuss a “Savannah theory of happiness” which is a bit of a reach since there weren’t iPhones for cavemen, although an ability to deal with new challenges seems obvious.
FEAR OF MISSING OUT OF SOMETHING FOR SOME, LOATHING PEOPLE FOR OTHERS
There is a need for many in the general population to gain happiness from their social interactions. I have relatives who suffer from FoMo syndrome, generally indicating that they derive their happiness and/or satisfaction from others or the perception of others.
When drilling down and specifically targeting high IQ people, there is a distinct difference from the last sentence in the above quote:
Second, they find that the more social interactions with close friends a person has, the greater their self-reported happiness.
But there was one big exception. For more intelligent people, these correlations were diminished or even reversed.
“The effect of population density on life satisfaction was therefore more than twice as large for low-IQ individuals than for high-IQ individuals,” they found. And “more intelligent individuals were actually less satisfied with life if they socialized with their friends more frequently.”
Let me repeat that last one: When smart people spend more time with their friends, it makes them less happy.
Again, an observation from the high IQ group and personal introspection, there seems to be less of a need to find your happiness in others or what others think of you in this space. It might be in the above stated pursuit of goals:
Hell might actually be other people — at least if you’re really smart.
That’s the implication of fascinating new research published last month in the British Journal of Psychology. Evolutionary psychologists Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Norman Li of Singapore Management University dig in to the question of what makes a life well-lived. While traditionally the domain of priests, philosophers and novelists, in recent years survey researchers, economists, biologists and scientists have been tackling that question.
There’s a twist, though, at least as Kanazawa and Li see it. Smarter people may be better equipped to deal with the new (at least from an evolutionary perspective) challenges present-day life throws at us. “More intelligent individuals, who possess higher levels of general intelligence and thus greater ability to solve evolutionarily novel problems, may face less difficulty in comprehending and dealing with evolutionarily novel entities and situations,” they write.
It appears that the high IQ might actually have another less socially accepted skill that is less politically correct as defined by the masses. They may just have thought out that they are able to be happier or more satisfied while being alone rather than by having to try and satisfy others definition of their happiness.
Conversely, they might find being around other people annoying, especially the chatty or needy.
Once you are able to happy alone, the ability to be happy with others is icing on the cake, but shouldn’t be the definition of the cake.
Scroll down a few posts and you’ll see other articles I’ve posted that talk about Social Media ruining people’s lives. It’s their outside daring you to compare, unfortunately to your inside.
Spending too much time on “social media” sites like Facebook is making people more than just miserable. It may also be making them depressed.
A new study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania has shown — for the first time — a causal link between time spent on social media and depression and loneliness, the researchers said.
It concluded that those who drastically cut back their use of sites like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat often saw a marked improvement in their mood and in how they felt about their lives.
Many of those who began the study with moderate clinical depression finished just a few weeks later with very mild symptoms, she says.
The study, “No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression,” was conducted by Melissa Hunt, Rachel Marx, Courtney Lipson and Jordyn Young, is being published by the peer-reviewed Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
For the study, Hunt and her team studied 143 undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania over a number of weeks. They tested their mood and sense of well-being using seven different established scales. Half of the participants carried on using social media sites as normal. (Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat did not respond to request for comment.)
The other half were restricted to ten minutes per day for each of the three sites studied: Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, the most popular sites for the age group. (Use was tracked through regular screen shots from the participants’ phones showing battery data.)
Net result: Those who cut back on social media use saw “clinically significant” falls in depression and in loneliness over the course of the study. Their rates of both measures fell sharply, while those among the so-called “control” group, who did not change their behavior, saw no improvement.
This isn’t the first study to find a link between social media use, on the one hand, and depression and loneliness on the other. But previous studies have mainly just shown there is a correlation, and the researchers allege that this shows a “causal connection.”
So I ask, why do you do it to yourselves? Facebook has a model to make you feel worse while they steal your privacy and track you to sell your profile to everyone and anyone.
I tend to notice trends early. I quit Twitter 4 years ago as soon as work didn’t (unofficially) require it. Almost every time I used it, the conversation degraded by the 3rd or 4th tweet into something political, followed by unsubstantiated name calling. You have to have a thick skin and a terse personality to want to survive out there.
A few years later I tried helping a friend get on Facebook and we both decided that it was like a high school reunion, or being in high school where you make up stuff to seem like your life is better than others. He finally told me to stop and to not put him on. At that point it dawned on me that most of social media falls under Sturgeon’s Law:
There might be a corollary that 99% of social media is crap.
The trend I noticed besides people acting false was that I never felt better after being on twitter and I loathe Facebook for the same reason. This was 5-8 years ago and now the studies are coming out proving what I noticed.
A recent article in the USA today talked about another high schoolish trend, mob mentality.
Social media also has polluted our more general life, with the ability to form online mobs increasing, as Prof. Glenn Reynolds aka Instapundit recently wrote in USA Today:
People enjoy forming mobs. Mobs allow people to do things they’d be afraid to do on their own, to steal, to hurt and kill, to burn and destroy — and also to feel set free from the bonds of civil society, to experience a kind of atavistic catharsis, a feeling of power and a solidarity with their fellow rioters, in a way that’s otherwise difficult to achieve, especially without suffering serious consequences….
But now there’s a new kind of mob, an online mob. And judging by the events of the past week, this new mob is becoming a more frequent problem. Part of that is because it’s easier (and safer) to be part of an online mob than one in the real world.
Joining a real mob requires you to leave your house, go somewhere else, and experience risks and discomforts. Joining an online mob can be done from an easy chair at home.
There are times that I post something and bizarre comments come it, so much so that I have to moderate them according to the policy on the sidebar. Some just violate the policy too much. It’s like twitter, if it can get political it usually does. Since I’ve posted a lot about the military and patriotism, I caught a lot of crap.
I read a blog post by Legal Insurrection that noted the increase in suicides and the link that may exist between the two.
A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel
Social Media and Teen Depression: The Two Go Hand-In-Hand
Rise in teen suicide connected to social media popularity: study
Suicide rate’s increase can be tied to social media, technology: Dr. Marc Siegel
Using Many Social Media Platforms Linked With Depression, Anxiety Risk
Why don’t people just put it down? It looks to be like the new next cigarette, just as addictive and equally as bad for you.
As for me, I can go about my day enjoying not getting into useless tweet storms and having my head glued to my phone. Hell, I won’t even put Facebook on because I don’t want them in my life.
I’d like to say the higher IQ people would be immune to this, but it’s not true. They are just as susceptible to this and it goes under things they shouldn’t do.
WHAT FACEBOOK KNOWS AND IT ISN’T TELLING YOU
It preys on Women’s emotions and other mind altering and interfering techniques and the company KNOWS THAT IT IS DOING IT.
Even former Facebook President Sean Parker realizes the pitfalls of Facebook:
The former Facebook President discussed the company’s initial aim, which was mainly centered around drawing in and building their audience:
The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.
Parker described Facebook’s appeal as a “social-validation feedback loop” which exploits human psychology to keep users coming back to the app:
It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.
Comments such as this from Facebook former President, combined with Facebook’s mishandling of user data, has led to a greater level of distrust around the company. What was previously seen as just a website by many users was becoming better known as a data collection company.
It turns out that platforms like Facebook are the “Junk Food For the Soul”. In other words crap that isn’t good for you.
THE CESSPOOL OF HATE AND DISCRIMINATION BY TWITTER
Just say something, anything and pretty soon it can turn into a hate storm if you offend someone or anyone. I saw someone post here’s a picture of a rock, let the arguing begin just to prove it and it did.
When I check I often find that a user who has blocked me is someone I have never interacted with. So why the block? Often, it’s due to being on a block list created by a liberal activist group. Twitter supports block lists and makes it easy for users to mass-block entire universes of people they don’t even know.
But Twitter now uses factors such as the number of people who have blocked an account to determine whether to classify it as “low quality” content. The company also uses the number of complaints or reports on the account. If the number of these exceeds certain thresholds, an account can be deemed low quality and access to tweets from that user are severely diminished.
I couldn’t wait to leave that platform of time-wasting and hate and my life is better because of it.
First, I am not going to weigh in on what a world leader has said. Every time I have ever tried it, nothing is gained as everyone has their own opinion and trying to sway it is not what I care about. Enjoy your center, left, right or whatever political position you wish.
I was looking for whether this actually exists. Here is what I’ve found.
UPDATE: Portland is the newest shit hole. Click on the link: Portland: American epicenter of degeneracy, depression, and ANTIFA.
Here is a link and a screenshot of a map from the Rice Institute based showing countries with the most open defecation.
Forbes published a list of the world’s dirtiest cities. Without passing judgement, they seem to line up with the shitholes in the map so the facts seem to be in order.
Next, is it possible that the United States has places where there is open defecation? I found that map also.
Below is the link and screenshot also, but in case you don’t recognize it, this is San Francisco.
Now, after reading this, one can add it to their travel plans to go and help, or avoid for sanitary purposes, you choose. If you go to San Francisco, zoom in and you can see where to not step in a pile of poop. As I type that, I realize that it is sad for what is supposed to be one of the leading cities of the US, and one so close to silicon valley.
It also gives everyone equal political fodder to take shots at whomever. In these days of political partisanship, nothing or nobody is safe by the 3rd or 4th comment, so I expect the same.
I just got curious and I wondered if what was said was true or not. Apparently it is.
Here is the link to the recent study of sanitation including feces, used syringes and other disease carrying trash in the heart of San Francisco. It’s a shame since it is in the heart of the restaurant and hotel area. You’d think that the tourism officials would do something about this, but looking at the graph indicates the problem escalating.
UPDATE: San Francisco is getting over 80 calls a day to report human feces for clean up. In the same report were almost as many instances of needles despite the fact that there are safe injection spaces for shooting up an illegal drug that destroys lives.
UPDATE: It turns out that Denver is now officially classified as a shithole also. They passed an act that you can drop trou and pinch a loaf right on the street. Here is the story and the reason why they passed the law.
UPDATE: It looks like Hawaii isn’t as pristine as one thinks of it. The cesspools and the water around the islands are contaminated enough to make it a shithole also. There is a link within this link that goes to the WSJ.
Video Update: A large portion of Orange county is now a 3rd world shithole also.
After all is said and done, I thought that having to have a map to not step in a pile of human feces makes a city the biggest shithole. It turns out that I was wrong.
According to the Government services including the EPA, ACS and the Census bureau comes this little gem:
The City that Never Sleeps ranked the highest in three out of five categories, placing it as shittest-city-in-the-nation of 427.9 on Busy Bee’s “dirtiness index.” The next closest competitor for all the wrong reasons is Los Angeles, which has a dirtiness index of 317.8. To complete the top five list, the remaining dirtiest cities are Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
So not only do you have to pay way more more to live in these places, they have worse air, bigger rats and more cockroaches, they turn out to be the shitholes that we all thought they were. Why anyone would choose to live there knowing there?
The 2008 and 2012 election showed that a coalition of minorities was the winning formula. As for 2016, not so much.
With all the minority identity groups out there vying for political power, social media control, fund raising and media presence; how do they stack up when they compete for hierarchy? At some point, when the power and money is being doled out, the queue is determined by some order. Who are these groups and how do they vie for power?
Author disclaimer: I have no dog in this hunt. I am a pattern watcher and try to learn from them. Human nature is hard to understand and explain due to it’s ever changing allies and favored group status depending on circumstances. I was watching the groups at the last election and wondered how you coalesce a group of disparate people with conflicting causes as a voter block.
Who are they?
While this isn’t a comprehensive list and I am not discriminating as I just Googled it, the last election revealed the groups of Black Lives Matter (BLM), LGBTQ (apologies if I omitted a letter), Islam (including ISIS), socialists, Antifa, environmentalists and feminists. They each compete for their cause and have usually selected an enemy with whom they are opposed to, but are now conflicting with each other in the power grab. They for the most part have an ideological position (some more than others) and garner the lion’s share of media attention.
Before the haters come out, I write this post because of my position that one of the characteristics of a higher IQ is the ability to argue from multiple positions on a subject. I will proceed with this post from that premise.
I also am merely an observer of trends. The consolidating power of the above listed groups is becoming a relevant discussion regardless of where you source your information. I’ve excluded the typical mainstream media as sources of information on both sides as their coverage is either too conservative or liberal. Their inherent bias excludes them from this conversation. I also excluded Hollywood and celebrities since they have a limited integration with the real world and often spout declarations for others which they do not adhere to. When you get to the heart of their talent, they pretend to be others and to take their opinions seriously is difficult at best.
Here are non-comprehensive, yet representative examples of identity group disagreements.
BLM vs. LGBTQ
I first noticed this when BLM shut down a gay pride parade.
These are two significant voter populations when added together.
What surprised me that it was during the last election cycle and both groups made up a voting block for the same candidate. From said article:
BLM held Toronto Pride hostage, unless their demands, which included excluding police from the parade, were immediately met.
(Pride parades typically have contingents of LGBT cops and firefighters, and booths set up by the local LGBT officers’ group at the accompanying street festival.)
Judging by their success in forcing Toronto Pride to capitulate, I suspect we’ll see Black Lives Matter groups protesting more Pride parades in the future. And as a longtime national and international LGBT rights activist, I have a problem with that.
In my internet search for protests, it seems that BLM also protested and shut down Bernie Sanders and Hillary whom they supported. It goes without saying that they all protested Trump, but that is not the point of my curiosity as I assumed this was a given. This alone is surprising since both are a part of the coalition of voters candidates need to be elected per the aforementioned 2008/2012/2016 campaigns.
ISLAM vs. Feminists and LGBTQ
I later observed the Muslim and ISIS positions that women are treated poorly and that homosexuals were declared wrong and being executed. On a side point, they also considered most pets as unclean and black dogs should be killed (animal cruelty), which brings in the animal rights group, but they don’t be as significant as the other groups currently. Apparently, women don’t have the same rights as men and must be subservient.
Then there is the recent Linda Sansour dust up revealing this dichotomy:
It further goes on to say:
Sarsour apparently identifies as a feminist. Sarsour’s kind of feminism, however, embraces the most oppressive legal system, especially for women: Islamic religious law, Sharia. Sarsour’s feminism is supposedly for empowering women, but it twists logic in a way similar to how Muslim preachers do when they claim that beating one’s wife is a husband’s way of honoring her.
Here is the dichotomy:
Pro-Sharia feminism is a perverted kind of feminism that could not care less about the well-being of oppressed Muslim women. Sarsour’s logic concerning women does not differ much from that of Suad Saleh, an Egyptian female Islamic cleric, who recently justified on Egyptian TV the doctrine of intentional humiliation and rape of captured women in Islam. Saleh said, “One of the purposes of raping captured enemy women and young girls was to humiliate and disgrace them and that is permissible under Islamic law.” There was not even a peep in Egypt’s civil society about such a statement.
On 7/25/17 a direct conflict happened when this occurred: An Oakland Muslim plotted to attack a gay club in San Francisco and talked about killing thousands of innocents on behalf of ISIS.
Finally, there is this non-sequitur that I can’t fathom:
“Feminist” Muslim women calling beatings by their husbands a “blessing from Allah”!
Who wants a beating?
ISLAM (ISIS) vs. Antifa
I don’t fully understand this one. It has the trappings of a sibling quarrel at best. ISIS is claiming that Antifa has culturally appropriated their uniforms, that being their black flag and terrorist tactics.
Here are some details:
Based on this proof, we hereby request that the UNHRC’s CESCR begin an immediate investigation into this matter, and, if you concur that ANTIFA is culturally appropriating ISIS, that you use all means at your disposal to put a stop to it. You could start by visiting this ANTIFA website, which contains links to many of its affiliates throughout the world.
Sincerely,
ISIS High Command
PS: You might mention to the ANTIFA punks that in quite a few aspects, we are at war with the very same people, organizations and ideas, and, in fact, Western civilization itself. So, if you could arrange a sit-down over tea with us, and them, it might serve all of our interests, and provide a holistic, inclusive resolution to our complaint.
Islam appears to have support from the media and the left side of the political sphere as does the other listed minorities claiming status. One can see the obvious conflicts.
Socialists
It appeared that quite a bit of traction was gained by the Bernie Sanders crowd. It seemed to have enough momentum to be a winning group within its’ primary. Somehow, it was defeated by a political machine by what is being revealed as suspicious activities.
Nevertheless, a discussion of the socialism movement by Ross Wolf summarizes some of my points:
Ross Wolfe argues in The Charnel House, the identity politics that arose in the 1960s, ‘70s and ’80s developed in reaction to the identity politics of actually-existing socialism itself:
The various forms of identity politics associated with the “new social movements” coming out of the New Left during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s (feminism, black nationalism, gay pride) were themselves a reaction, perhaps understandable, to the miserable failure of working-class identity politics associated with Stalinism coming out of the Old Left during the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s (socialist and mainstream labor movements). Working-class identity politics — admittedly avant la lettre — was based on a crude, reductionist understanding of politics that urged socialists and union organizers to stay vigilant and keep on the lookout for “alien class elements.” Any and every form of ideological deviation was thought to be traceable to a bourgeois or petit-bourgeois upbringing. One’s political position was thought to flow automatically and mechanically from one’s social position, i.e. from one’s background as a member of a given class within capitalist society.
Questions I Have
If you are courting one group, how do you avoid alienating another group if there is acrimony? At some point you step on the wrong toes.
If there is limited money, how does the donor decide who gets it without upsetting other groups?
How do you herd this group of cats to vote together when trying to win an election? It worked twice, but failed recently and there is finger pointing as to why.
What is Racist?
In Seattle, they can’t clean the sidewalks with pressure washers because it could be racist.
Council member Larry Gossett said he didn’t like the idea of power-washing the sidewalks because it brought back images of the use of hoses against civil-rights activists.
It seems that non-black people using gifs are being racist also. I don’t understand this one though.
Finally, who wins this victim’s game?
So I guess you have out victim everyone else. By doing so, it disrupts the coalition of identities required by one of the political parties to win elections. I suppose it is a popularity contest to win the money and the status.
My final observation is that human nature is the constant here. People are selfish enough to grab power and money when possible. Most do not have the ability to argue from multiple positions on the same subject and are ideologues for their cause.
This alone is going to make a coalition such as the one that voted in the president in 2008 difficult. Being a female wasn’t enough of a victim status in the 2016 election.
These are things I ponder as we wind our way down the path of being a country.
Most people think the are smarter than they are but usually are wrong. This has nothing to do with whether they have a high IQ or have trained extensively in an area (discussed throughout). These are indicators of whether you possess intelligence, but does not discuss whether you use it.
You can go anywhere on the Internet and find any research you want, but here are 5 indicators that show that you have potential for intelligence.
I saw this at My Domaine which show 3 of them you can’t fake.
You Learn From Your Mistakes
Intelligent people are able to accept their own failures and re-purpose them into lessons for future success. In fact, a study on decision-making skills reports that critical feedback from a mistake results in better performance the second time around. So while errors and setbacks can be frustrating, highly intelligent people are able to perceive them as growth opportunities.
It could of course be argued that humans are not that intelligent to begin with as we’ve continued to make the same mistakes throughout history.
I would argue that you learn more from a mistake than success. In giving one of my prodigy advice for life, I told him I didn’t remember every success because I expected it. I remembered every failure as it hurt and I vowed never to do it again. Some however never learn. They reveal narcissistic behavior which prevents them from admitting they were wrong.
You’re an Avid Reader
If someone doesn’t cite their sources but insists upon an opinion regardless of evidence, they’re likely exaggerating expertise. A simple way to check is by asking them what they do for fun. Beyond being a good way to gain knowledge about history or experiences that are different from your own, research shows that reading increases memory function, communication skills, and focus.
I am intrigued to talk with people with good vocabularies. To a person, they are readers of books, not social media.
One of the most intelligent fellows I’ve met was an avid reader, but couldn’t put life together due to lack of common sense. That is another subject altogether. He was obviously intelligent, but he couldn’t make good life decisions.
I see people in the gym taking selfies (or at the party, or anywhere) to garner likes on their Instagram or Fake Book (ok Facebook, but it is edited and acts a lot like a high school reunion). Those who are contemplating intelligent thoughts aren’t as concerned about likes or emoji’s. They are enjoying a book.
You See Both Sides of an Issue
When someone can articulately and convincingly argue every angle of an argument, they’re genuinely smart. Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, reveals the issues with assumptions; if someone is thoughtful and well-informed, they’re probably not faking their intelligence to get ahead. So while they’re really passionate and well-versed on a topic from their own perspective, if they haven’t evaluated all sides of an issue, they don’t understand it (or how to respond to it effectively).
This to me is one of the biggest indicators. The less intelligent can become so fixated on being right that they fail to observe the whole issue. You can intrinsically know what is correct by understanding which part of the subject being discussed is not correct or what part is flawed. The logic presents itself when you view it in its entirety.
I exempt lawyers here. Some of them may actually be intelligent, but they are trained to argue any side of an issue. Training is not an indicator that you are intelligent other than that you can learn.
You think before you speak
Truly intelligent people have a brain that is quicker than their mouth.
If you take your time to answer people’s questions and think them through to provide a genuine answer that you’ve thought about, you’re one step ahead.
It is also related with being overly concerned with what others think of you and the idea that you must be right. Many times, it is best to hear everything that is to be said before you respond. This point helps clarify celebrity behavior. They more often than not speak before they think or hear what is being said and then not thinking out the entirety of a subject. Combined with living in a bubble, the few that are intelligent are overshadowed by the celebtards who have to be heard. They expose themselves by opening their mouths, most often without their brain in gear.
You don’t care what others think
Seriously intelligent people don’t consider other people when making decisions.
They don’t think about how others will feel as a result of their own actions and do things regardless of other people’s judgement.
The net of it is look at yourself or your behavior. If you have these traits, you are likely more intelligent.
There are lists that say more intelligent people are messy and swear more, but I’d rather look for good qualities in people.
From The Social Network, because for the first time in their lives, they didn’t get what they felt they were entitled to because of who they are.
Not for me. There is already too much information available out there and Facebook just increased it. Regardless of the predictions, I don’t see it happening completely. Some will like millennials, but boomers are much more conservative. Also, a lot of youngsters don’t go to Facebook as their parents are on, enough reason to not put your life there.
I keep my professional life on Linkedin and my personal life on Facebook, family and real friends only. I like I assume others will keep it that way based on conversations I’ve had. I don’t want to have pictures of co-workers in compromising situations (guaranteed to happen) on my professional profile.
I can screw around a bit on Facebook, but even then I keep it tame as the world doesn’t need to know that much about me.
I’m rarely first in line to many movies and the Social Network is the same, I just saw it last Saturday night. I realize that the movie didn’t tell the exact story, but I’m sure there were enough similarities to be close.
CAPITALISM, WHY OUR COUNTRY IS GREAT AND THE BEST ECONOMIC SYSTEM IN HISTORY
My first impressionism was thank the good Lord for Capitalism. There may have been some rough issues with the ongoings of the start up, but that we can live in a country where entrepreneurship and the ability to start a company, create jobs and have a shot at success should be celebrated. I want an environment where you can make it, or make it big, which is what is great about this country….The American Dream. The idea that we should re-distribute wealth because some do better than others is nonsense. One of the best lines in the movie came at the deposition when Zuckerberg answered if he stole Facebook from the Winklescarfs, “if you guys were the inventors of the Facebook, then you would have invented the Facebook”…ouch. It took hard work, vision and of course a couple of lucky breaks, but would this come out of the current environments in Venezuela, Iran, North Korea….I’m open to any examples?. That Zuckerberg had an idea and was able to become a billionaire gives real hope to everyone. Build a better Mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door………………………….but only in the free world.
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WHY I’M GLAD IT TOOK PLACE IN hARVARD (lower case intentional)
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That (at least) the 2nd dropout from harvard (lowercase emphasis mine) became a billionaire shows that an Ivy League credential is not what it used to be, nor is it necessary or as prestigious as it once was (unless you are a dropout billionaire) . Another great line in the movie that the Winkledoofuss’s were mad because they didn’t get their way such as they had all their pampered life was epic. We don’t live in the entitlement world (or shouldn’t). I’ve worked with Finklehorsespatoots from all of the Ivy league skools (sp on purpose) as well as those like Duke, USC, UNC-CH, Notre Dame, columbia, princeton who take college snobbery to the wrong level. Proud of your school is one thing, elitism is another….guess which one is appreciated or listened to? These institutions are reducing themselves to credentialed, not necessarily educated. Guess which ones are laughed at and not considered worth the money they charge? For the most part, the extra money they paid for their education was a waste that could have been invested and would be worth more. The reality is most are doing the same job for the same money. It got to the point in one of my jobs at IBM when someone would brag that they had a harvard MBA, someone would comment in public what a waste of money that was for the person. The rest of us would know to work around that person as they would just be a hindrance to our ability to get any work done. They were almost pariahs to everyone else being the snowflakes they usually turned out to be.
It takes a dream and passion to see it to fruition, otherwise you are a lemming in the working world. No degree earns you the right to do anything but try. I also subscribe that things are not equal, nor should they be. Some get more than others, be it because they are smarter, work harder or some combination of both. If you get a lucky break, consider it a bone, but it’s not an entitlement.
The plaintiffs didn’t have the ability to pull off what Zuckerberg did and they wound up sucking on the hind teat of his success. You could tell that the lawyers got as much as the clients he settles with through billing and retainers on that settlement. Might as well include lawyers in the offended since it looks like I’m growing that list in this blog. This brings me to another of my favorite scene’s, the best answer I’ve ever heard at a deposition. I wish I’d said it although I’ve said something close I’ll admit.
HARD WORK
Facebook didn’t just succeed because of luck (maybe luck in the timing) and some who didn’t see it’s potential got left behind, but the key to it’s success like most things is ability and hard work. Although I work for a big company now, I cut my teeth with entrepreneurs who gave every drop of blood, sweat and many times their personal life to make something they believed in a success. Most are at least Millionaires now and I don’t begrudge a one of them. They took the risk and deserve the reward. I only wish more would make it so they could hire more people and reduce unemployment, restart and grow the economy This will be the turn around our current economic situation needs, and much faster than our present Keynesian politicians.
REALISM OF THE FILM
I thought they captured the timing and semantics of the period correctly I was noticing the coding on screen, the Apache servers and that Zuckerberg edited his blog in HTML. I even noticed that the cell phones were time period appropriate. What hasn’t changed is College partiers. Not that I know that much about college partying, but I’m sure some of that really happens. Although they said he wasn’t an asshole, but that he tried so hard to be one was partly true. He didn’t have to try.
REAL LIFE
It turns out that Zuckerberg is a suck up to the President to promote Facebook. Why someone so smart would let himself be manipulated is beyond me. He didn’t realize that he let a campaign go on for the youth vote who are so easily manipulated by MTV, The Comedy Channel and such outlets. Older, wiser and those hurt more by the economy know better than to support this or be buffaloed by this sort of trick. The fact that Fakebook is censuring political groups that are not liberal and letting terrorists plan attacks or post mendacious things about moral groups shows who they and Zuck really are, biased.
EPILOGUE
This was a good movie that shows you can still make it in the business world. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs and many others are all good examples of the American dream that Zuckerberg lives. By now it is out on DVD, I even TiVo’d it the other day an watched it again just to see success. I am glad we live in the part of the world where you have the chance to succeed or fail. But if you succeed, you usually take others with you. A rising tide floats all boats.
I doubt it.
Update: Nope, It looks like a loser, there isn’t any buzz nor is there Google wave and I doubt that Google+ will make it either.
In the caveman days by technology standards, something would be the buzz and a behemoth like Microsoft would swoop in with a copy and take over the market. Word/Wordperfect and Netscape/IE come to mind.
Anymore, the next buzz could only last months before the next buzz comes around.
Twitter is too established. So much so that the next big thing is likely to overtake it, not a me too of the same thing. If Buzz is as successful as Google Wave, it’s already DOA. It’s too bad that Twitter has censored certain groups because of political bias and moral casualness and relativity. They have become an untrustworthy platform.
Google’s problem is that it has a limited audience, Gmail users. It’s big, but not big in comparison to the the marketplace worldwide. Google has said do no evil, but their Chairman continually does so and interferes with political bias. With their meddling worldwide and privacy invasion, they violate the do no evil so consistently and constantly that they can’t be trusted.
The only possibility is perhaps the advertising model, but if you are like me, I hate watching an ad when I’m trying get to a video. That’s as annoying as popup’s and spam.
Twitter may have already have an advertising model.
As for me, I’m already looking for the next new grass roots product that isn’t overtaken by the masses. That way the message gets through easier without the clutter and noise. And there are a lot of annoying people on Twitter, almost as annoying as Twitter’s social policy stance.
This seems to be a topic that has legs, as they say. I first noticed this on James Governer’s blog, then on Net-Savvy both in the context of Blogger Relations and Defining Social Media Relations.
This will involve a different way of thinking, mostly because blogging to be effective gives up control, which causes fear and uncertainty in the realm of traditional communications. It’s going to be about managing the process of the message coming to and from communities rather than the corporate marketing machine. It’s also going to be about how to communicate and integrate with the various blogging communities.
These communities (ok for IBM in this case) include the technically inclined group such as IT analysts, the Investor and Investor Relations crowd, IBM watchers from the outside, and making sure that it doesn’t become a part of the spin machine from the inside. Yes, PR has a place in the blogosphere, but one must be careful not to use it as a place to post a press release. So the ability to work with the communities on behalf of the company while respecting the social rules is imperative to this cause.
We have some very technically capable bloggers, some that are more brand specific, and well respected company leaders, so there is no shortage of IBM bloggers, but other than developerWorks, we haven’t coordinated as much as evolved. We’re blogging, podcasting, delivering web 2.0 tools, but I sense there is more work to do.
Having started blogging for Analyst Relations at IBM, and over seeing it’s initial growth, being made lead by John Mihalec, I was able to develop the program for IBM in it’s infancy.
So the deal will be how to speak to bloggers as bloggers, and deal with them on this basis, even if they have a job title of analyst or something else. I also sense that it is going to morph from just blogger relations to social relations and deal with social computing, web 2.0 at the tools, technology and social levels, and much more.
It will be interesting to watch the evolution. Stay tuned.
In an effort to keep our A/R team in Software Group as up to date as possible, we did another education call, this time on podcasting. We were joined by Steve O’Grady and Cote of Redmonk who presented on the subject, and members of our own communications team who do some excellent podcasts.
Besides having the education, we’re moving on to how we can use this in the A/R discipline. Among the usages are announcements, standards discussions and other related events where it can be either educational or directional. It becomes a piece of the informational package around a technology, standards or announcement info that can be downloaded.
We currently have a series that covers some analysts that we’ve done podcasts with on our Analyst Inputs and Outtakes, and hopefully, the creative minds in our a/r group will come up with more creative ways to use this and the other components of Social Computing. So far we’re blogging, podcasting, have a wiki and are part of the greater IBM social networking programs.
I haven’t blogged much this week as a very interesting experience happened to me and a number of people across the US. I have mentioned that I worked the storage industry 15 years ago. It was a small company in Boca Raton that capitalized on the success of the IBM PC. The company was bought out by the AIWA division of Sony and later folded. I lost track of most of my
co-workers, occasionally finding each other at trade shows, but a few of them contacted me via my blog.
The employees went to any number of companies that include Fujitsu, Compaq (HP), ADP, Ziff Davis and Good Morning America, Disney, LSI Logic, IBM, Lenovo, NetApp, Ingram Micro, Gucci and a few who started their own businesses. (Sorry if I missed some of your companies, not intentional).
The interaction exploded this week with an innocuous note about a reunion, and the communication shot out of a cannon. People added a couple of people they knew until a big list of ex employees were chatting as if the 15 years never happened. It was quite interesting hearing about what everyone was doing, almost like an online college reunion. I read other’s blogs and personal pages. It seems as if everyone has move on to bigger and better things. Who knew that we had that much talent while we were scrapping against the big boys of the industry!
There was a common thread to most of the communications, that being the owner of the company whom I’ll leave at eccentric. Everyone had a story about this owner, and many had multiple stories. It was genuine book material which is what the corporate attorney told me when we worked there. From day one, he kept track of the bizarre behavior and was in disbelief at the antics, saying to me once that he should write about this one day.
Everyone opens and closes chapters in their life. I thought this one was closed, but was delighted that it returned. I was genuinely happy to hear from everyone (almost as it now is described below). As it turns out, others also study the martial arts, some changed careers, there was a funny story about engineers setting up an electric eye cam with speakers in their back room to know when the boss was coming (who said IT guys aren’t creative), and at least one went on to stay in the storage industry.
It brought me back to a different time in my life where I cut my teeth in a lot of techniques that I use today to get my job done.
The story unfolded more this year, as I ran into the former owner of the company and while we had our differences, I decided to extend my olive branch and it was accepted. We discussed racing and life and he even commented on my postings and of the email remembrances. It was quite nice to see that through years, time and maturity (by some of the employees) we could reconnect as humans. Instead of employer/employee status, we were just guys.
One went on to be very famous (Gina Smith) and I was able catch up with at a conference and it was like we were still at CORE. She was quite gracious and we enjoyed the short time we could spend together.
Unfortunately, it is more than I can say for one of the employees who couldn’t let her emotions go and grow up. One whom I pity was a misandrist who wouldn’t take the olive branch (Sondra). Like the story above, I offered to bury the hatchet to no avail, and she sent me hate mail in response to my offer to move on. She was in technical writing and actually worked for me in marketing for a while, but never was able to let go of her hate and responded with ad hominem attack which was very revealing. She didn’t mature from that period, and time stood still for her as far as we were concerned. The dichotomy of the situation was she wanted to be one of the boys while professing to be a feminist, a bipolar relationship with men.
It is funny to me that both of the above two spent time working for me. I wrote a reference letter to PC Week to do what I could to help Gina. Little did I know that she would go on to be very successful. Conversely, despite any attempt to help Sondra, whom I also would have helped in her next endeavor were rebuffed. That is the way life turns out. We all had a great time with everyone else in the remeniscing of our days at CORE and the stories about our encounters with the owner. Only one person couldn’t move on with life.
Anyway, as for the rest of us, it was good to bond based on the time we had spent together earlier in life.
Last week, IBM held the Idea Innovation Jam to develop ideas to move our company ahead. Included were all employees, their family and business partners. This was at least our 7th such jam over the years and it resulted in 75,000 people enrolled in the Jam; close to 28,000 ideas have been posted; and more than 2 million page views have been tallied.
We get dinged all the time for not being as hip as other companies, not being first (or best) to blog, but this is one heckuva participation in social computing. Along with our ever growing blogs and podcasts, I’d say we are making progress in this space.
Since I mentioned podcasting, I’ve combined with the communications team (ok they did the heavy lifting, Colleen and Stacy) but we’re starting an analyst podcast series called – Analyst Input and Outtakes.
I hope to have more analysts participate in the near future. I’m looking for likely candidates with an opinion on the industry, IBM or the competition….you know who you are.
