Little gusts of hot air that don't deserve their own thread.

[HighlyIrregular]

I was just watching a guy talk about how barnacles affect lobsters, like they could get in the joints and affect movement, or by the eyes and affect vision. It contributed to my belief that life sucks - in general. Not just for humans. Imagine if the right thing we all should be doing is to watch over animals and help them. A huge effort and sacrifice to help animals, in land and sea. Give predators humanely killed or cultivated (lab-grown) meat. Break up animal fights. Could it be possible that allowing extinctions is good?

[HighlyIrregular]

...our most masculine and feminine items...

I just ordered my first pair of steel toe boots! I didn't want the steel toe but I wanted a good deal and I've had luck buying used footwear on Ebay. I'm careful. The brand is Caterpillar and they meet official specs for anti-slippage and stuff. Got them for under $50 and they sell for over $100. They appear barely worn. As long as they don't run small they should be fine. Thick socks could help with any discomfort around the toe and with a loose fit.

[HighlyIrregular]

I noticed that the number 540 appears with suspicious frequency in recent news events:

Discovery of $540 billion worth of 'white gold' sitting beneath giant lake could change the future
11 hours ago

Tourists in Athens told to evacuate or pay $540 in fake notices
5 days ago

7th Circ. Signals Issue With $540M Motorola Trade Secret Win
5 days ago

Maggie Valley pastor accused of stealing $540 from church
2 days ago

So I did the responsible thing and Googled "is the universe based on 540". The first result was:

The mystery of how big our Universe really is

BBC
Mar 26, 2021 — ... Universe are estimated to be around 46 billion light years away. That's a diameter of 540 sextillion (or 54 followed by 22 zeros) miles."

Just a heads up.

[HighlyIrregular]

I'm glad Shecky Greene outlived Gilbert Gottfried.

[HighlyIrregular]

I lived in Brooklyn for over 50 years and never had a cannoli.

[HighlyIrregular]

Yesterday I used a classic snow shovel with a wooden handle and steel blade for the first time. I don't see myself ever going back to anything else. It may be twice as heavy as my old plastic one with a fiberglass handle but it can take a pounding. My old one cracked. I can chip away at ice with my new one without fear. I think. I looked up old photos of snow shovels and this basic design goes back to before 1915. I think the Parks Dept in NYC uses this classic style.

[HighlyIrregular]

Clean with pine sol, the brown one, not lemon or lavender. Then brown some chopped meat with onions in a frying pan. The combination smells like perfume! But I need to try it again to confirm.

[Senseye]

Yesterday I used a classic snow shovel with a wooden handle and steel blade for the first time. I don't see myself ever going back to anything else. It may be twice as heavy as my old plastic one with a fiberglass handle but it can take a pounding. My old one cracked. I can chip away at ice with my new one without fear. I think. I looked up old photos of snow shovels and this basic design goes back to before 1915. I think the Parks Dept in NYC uses this classic style.

I find for wide push shovels, plastic is the best way to go for the weight savings. But I always keep an old steel shovel (like a spade but square bladed) around for packed snow/ice that needs to be chipped or jammed under by kicking the blade with your foot then lifted. I had an aluminum bladed one too at one point, but hard use bent/curled and even chipped pieces off the aluminum (making it jagged and prone to catching on things) and I eventually tossed it.

[Catoptric]

Were Ted Kaczynski's beliefs factually correct?

Ted Kaczynski wrote several books in addition to the infamous handwritten Unibomber Manifesto that led to his being identified by his brother, which led to his arrest:

(Unibomber Manifesto) Industrial Society and Its Future (1995)

Technological Slavery (2010)

Anti-Tech Revolution - Why and How (2015)

I would argue that most of his beliefs and actions were a way of mentally distancing and separating himself from an increasingly changing world in which he felt he could no longer participate. Was he just maladapted and constructed his idealogy and identity that ultimately tortured him even more, than had he felt he could participate within society? Did he feel as though institutions of learning and government, business, and religion for that matter, were inherently biased towards the majority, or from a microcosm of a particular ideology; and that any feeling of betrayal of his own might undermine the sense of purpose and connection to the outside world, in which he already felt isolated from?

The same argument of whether any particular philosophy or belief system is inherently correct, must first identify whether it is based on an ego-syntonic (acceptable to the ego’s value-system) principle of ontological (logic stemming from hierarchical “truths”) validity: Where did these ideas originate from and does he not have his own inherent bias?

Basically, when Ted Kacyznski acted on his own volition did he attempt to justify his actions once he needed to rationalize his need for autonomy? As an individual who chose to seek some form of enlightenment and free-will, was he ultimately self-serving and sought to be noticed, much the same as someone who uses technology to publish; had Kacynzski been born in a different generation would he have been a person that would have created his own social media prison that rewarded him much like the Jordan Petersons, Alex Jones, or Andrew Tates, et al., of the world?

Much of Ted Kaczynski’s behavior could stem from a trauma response of being left in an incubator after his birth, where he was not in contact with people during pivotal periods of development, in addition to what at that time was considered an appropriate response to let infants “cry it out” instead of being soothed as infants. As a result, Kacyznksi may have adapted to this by not developing a suitable Theory of Mind, and thus by developing this perspective that within his hermetically sealed environment, he coped by not accepting that outlying factors of belief and identity were not there to protect him, but rather were invaders that needed to be attacked and removed. He constructed his own prison based on what could only have been a lie—since it existed outside of himself—and was not familiar or safe to trust.

Kaczynski’s schizoid adaptation then had to be “justified” and “rationalized” by what can seem to be rational motivators, but it’s similar to how a psychopath could say, “Because this person did this, what happened to them was the result of their undoing,” not that they, the psychopath, was the cause of their murder or circumstance that could have been preventable, but was allowed to transpire as though some collateral damage that was “inevitable,” and inherently within the realms of acceptable action on their part (that they themself are not accountable to be questioned or criticized,) since they exist within their own ontological framework of needs and wants, and this outside invader is encroaching on their need for self-preservation.

In a way, Kaczynski gravitated towards this notion that his world-view was exactly what he surrounded himself by, and he could not encompass the much larger world-view that would undermine his own, and in that sense of alienation from the much larger one, he had to snuff it out for fear of being seen as insignificant. To some extent, this is a very universal theme that exists within a much larger zeitgeist of human civilization, and you can find many times where there are key bits of information that ideologies try to leave out or ignore, and you can find parallels in the topic of Four Mythic Forms, and how myths pertain to a bit of a Johari Window (basically, is what I’m seeing the same as what other’s are seeing, and am I seeing it from the same perspective, and likewise do I actually know what their perspective is; and can I deceive myself as much as be deceived by what other’s understand from that worldview?) when weighed according to the belief of ideas, some myths are designed to protect ourselves (and those worldviews) more than others.

Technology is designed to facilitate those who influence society, for better or worse. It can destroy if you let it, but so can the absence of technology. When new paradigms are added, ideas can create untold destruction. Bad ideas often are based on what at one time seemed like, “good ideas,” and whether they ever truly were “good ideas,” might never have, nor would they have been. What led to Kacynzski’s actions were ultimately a bad one, based on what he perceived to be a rational motivator.

[HighlyIrregular]

The biggest coincidences in our lives are probably stupid things. One of my biggest is back when I started using olive oil. The first time I bought it I bought a big tin that I always thought of when I thought of olive oil. When I finally used it up, I put in in the recycling bin of the compactor closet on my floor and there was another big olive oil tin in there! Possibly one other time in 35 years did I see a big olive oil tin in there.

Similar story when I bought "The Angler" broom. The next day someone threw out theirs. I never saw anyone throw out a broom after that.

I embellished on that in a later post where I said it would be good for people to take note of unremarkable coincidences, but I can't find the post. I remembered it being in response to elfsprin, and that elfsprin never posted after that, but I can't find evidence of that now. I thought it was a good post.

When a coincidence makes it seem like the government is out to get you, a paranoid person wouldn't be as quick to believe it's a conspiracy if he recalled all the equally coincidental, but non-triggering things that occur in one's life. Another non-trigging coincidence happened to me today. On Monday I was eating at a bagel place before catching my second bus. It was my first time eating there and I noticed a parking garage with a bumper at the top of the entrance with the clearance printed on it - something like 8 feet 10 inches. It looked shorter than that. I kept watching people walk by to estimate the actual height. I assumed the clearance had been posted there for a long time before I saw it. On Friday I ate there again. The bumper was still there but the claimed clearance was removed. Probably scraped off.