Thanksgiving Is Ruined |
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October 31, 2023
Here they come (virtually) Hypervigilant Neighbor: An invading army is heading towards our town! It is at least 100,000 people. I saw it on the cable TV news channel! Nonplussed Neighbor: What exactly did you see? HN: A video of a guy walking this way. He looked like a bad dude. He is far away but slowly getting closer! NN: Where do you get the 100,000 number from? Sounds like just one guy. HN: Yes, but the cable TV news channel played the video of him 100,000 times. That makes 100,000 guys! September 30, 2023
acts of ninja urban kindness example: the stealthy art of intentionally giving up your seat to someone on the bus without the recipient discerning that you are intentionally giving up your seat to them or thus their needing to acknowledge you or thank you for it August 31, 2023
Born-Too-Late Creatures Certain creatures are born exactly 24 hours later than they ought to have been. They are condemned forever to be stuck one day behind the rest of the planet. Among cuttlefish, BTLCs do not change their protective coloring until one day after they have moved to a differently colored background environment. By then however usually they have been eaten by predators. Among lower primates, BTLCs on a periodic basis accidentally infuriate, unsettle or baffle their fellows, but are doomed to be incapable of beginning to puzzle out why they did so until the following day. BTL humans read their daily horoscope in the newspaper but it is of no use to them. Their "true" horoscope advice will not be published until tomorrow's newspaper. By then, it will be too late to act upon it. What if Born-Too-Late Creatures could freeze in time the entire planet and everything and everyone on it, except for themselves, for exactly 48 hours? If that were possible, then once the world recommenced its temporal movement, the BTLC would be a day ahead of everyone else for the first time in their lives. July 31, 2023
June 30, 2023
Recurrences:
the eternal vs. the very very elongated
May 31, 2023
“We people
today are so much smarter than people were back in the olden days! “For
example, did you ever see an old ‘silent’ movie? “When
you watch those old movies, when people in them try to talk, you can see their mouths
move. But no actual words come out! You can’t hear a damned thing. Like, they forgot to make the sounds! “This
shows that people back then must have been really, really stupid. Unlike us. “Those
olden days folks were too dumb to realize that, when you talk, you should, you
know, make actual noises? “Today,
we are savvy enough to know that talking is a lot more, like, effective when
you move your mouth – but also make actual sounds too! You know, so that other people can in fact hear
them? “You’d
think that would be pretty obvious to everybody, huh? Nope, not for those idiots in the past! “Boy,
they were dumb back then! And gullible. They
had no understanding of really basic stuff, of how things worked. Not like us. “This
goes to show why our times are totally unlike theirs in basically every way. A lot of our circumstances may seem similar, or
even as if some of the historical parallels are really scary. But we know that we are too smart to make the
kinds of mistakes that they did back then.
“How do we
know? Because we do not act dumb! We are much smarter. “How do
we know? You can tell that we are smarter because – we make noises! Lots and lots of noises!” April 30, 2023
Hedging against a non-existent but metaphysically imaginable risk: an evolution When must we act? 1) A threat may be imaginable in theory, but it also must be substantiated as having a meaningful existence or a measurable, non trivial impact on practical reality:
2) A threat may exist in practical reality, but its likely impact is shown to be minimal or even negligible. Nevertheless, if we can vividly imagine any possible way that the threat could somehow prove totally catastrophic, then we should consider that outcome to be a near-certainty and throw ever resource at preventing that threat, even if we disregard all the others:
3) If a threat is even minimally imaginable but vividly so, as told by our most creative storytellers, yet we can find no concretely substantiated evidence of it having any likely practical impact whatsoever, then we must conclude that the evidence is being cleverly hidden by someone nefarious. The lack of evidence shall be considered proof of the threat. Therefore we must consider the threat to be certain, existential and imminent.
March 31, 2023
Can TiR help you? “’Help’? What's that supposed to mean? Do you think that we need need your pity? Your charity? Your handouts? What an insult. Get lost.” "Just who do you think you are, asking me that? You know nothing about me, my needs or my situation. What do you think qualifies you to help me? To presume to diagnose if I need help or not? I don't need your intervention. I don't need anybody to judge my life, least of all the likes of whom you appear to be." "What exactly motivates you to ask that question? Guilt? Condescension? What a back-handed putdown. Though you're too smug and self-satisfied to see it, aren't you?" "So that you can play the savior-hero? Inevitably at my expense? Forget it." “Nice try. What’s your ‘real’ agenda?” "'Help,' yeah right. I know humans all too well. What masquerades with them as so-called altruism is just a disguised form of self-interest, and greed in camouflage. What's in it for you?"
“What’s the hidden price tag? You’ll assure me beforehand that your help is offered ‘for free.’ Then afterward I bet you’ll send me a billing invoice to demand payment. I can see those tricks coming a mile away.” "TiR will help, then turn around and say, 'Now you owe me! After all TiR did you for you!" We'd never be rid of you. So take a hike." “So that afterwards you can lord it over me and gloat about how I could not have done it without you? Stay the heck away.” "I've pushed this boulder 99% of the way up the mountain - alone. Now you want to swoop in and 'help' me push it up the last few inches? Then you'll try to take all the credit. And the rewards. Like the whole accomplishment was in fact entirely yours. You must think I'm a sucker." “Not when you ask it like that you can’t. In fact, if you genuinely wanted to help me, you wouldn’t even have to ask. You would simply have done it. The whole question-asking pose is a dead giveaway that you're simply being performative, and signaling. What a hypocrite!” "No one ever asks to help me. That's just how people are. So I am very suspicious of why someone would ask to help me now. In effect you are asking me to drop my guard. I am wary of everyone. “Thanks but no thanks. You probably would help wrongly and screw things up for me even worse than they are.” "Thanks but no thanks. You might help me successfully. But if you did, with no strings attached and it was a positive experience, then this would only raise hope in me. The hope would be the possibility that kind, generous, real, reliable, non-manipulative allies exist. Inevitably that hope would be dashed, as it always is in this cruel and stupid world. I would be left even more hurt, miserable and bereft than I already am." "Let's please not go down that road. If you helped me, then I'd feel indebted to return the favor, or to thank you by helping you with something in return. Or you might ask nothing for yourself but suggest that I go give help to some other, third, needier party. Then I would end up forcing that person to feel indebted to me and to reciprocate. Then I'd in turn feel compelled to respond, and we'd all get further bound up in each others' lives, et cetera, et cetera. The etiquette of it all would become dizzying. Something eventually would have to break, I can tell. Where would it end?" "No. I would rather that each of us continue to carry our burdens separately, in isolation, overwhelm and terror. Let's stick with the Devil we know." “Now? After all this time? Could you not see that I needed help earlier? My needs are so obvious that only an idiot could not see them. Only a liar could claim not to see them by asking a lame question like 'Can TiR help you?' There is no possible, good faith reason imaginable to me to explain why it took you so long to ask. Therefore to accept your help now would be like to pretend that you get a free pass on previously being so clueless and oblivious. What lesson would you learn if I accepted your help? None. So don’t bother.” “OK OK. Yes. TiR can help me. But I am not going to say how, when, where, or why I need help, or if I even need help at all on anything. I might not even know myself. But If TiR really cared to help, TiR would know what to do regardless. So maybe this is a test. If you try to help me and fail to get it right, it will show me how wrong, dishonest and dangerous you were in the first place. I will never forget it or forgive you. I might add you to my list of enemies. I might devote myself to making every moment of your life as miserable as possible. You might worry that I will make you my repository of catharsis for all the betrayals and letdowns that I have suffered in the past. In a way, you can even see how on some level this would be justified." "Still interested in 'helping' me?” . . . in an age of contagious
mistrust and rampant collective paranoia? February 28, 2023
the cure may become the disease Why has TiR read too many books? Perhaps there is a book somewhere out there that TiR can read that can explain why. Why doesn't TiR ever know when and how it is best to shut up? Perhaps TiR can learn why by talking / blogging through it. January 31, 2023
The ruminator's doom loop TiR hereby briefly posts to apologize for the excessive number of occasions on which TiR previously has posted briefly to apologize for things. These "things" include the brief apologies already posted for TiR's excessive number of previous apologies. Unless TiR's apologies have been too brief, simplistic, and few. In which case TiR hereby apologizes for their insufficient length, complexity, and number. Sorry either way, TiR |
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