Bakunin Boys

I had an epiphany about sustainability and engineering a few years ago. This is during me learning about climate change, all its facets, what to do about it, etc. It's a bit lengthy, bear with me.

If you look at the quintessential "engineering thing", it's a car. It's described as a system, where you take a bunch of parts (not very useful), put them together, and now they do something useful. The way to express this is that it's "greater than the sum of its parts".

This works, but the explanation opens another question: OK but the car is part of another system, and in order for it to work it needs a constant input from that system (petrol). That input requires a bunch of other complexity and causes a bunch of problems. So the "car" as a system is actually the entire extraction chain to feed the car to do the work. Not exactly "greater than the sum of its parts".

A bike, however, that does the business! A bunch of parts, put them together, boom! Greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, you need an extraction system to make the original bike, but the parts are there for their lifetime. You can recycle them after. Those aren't part of the "system" which you can look at as the "bike". Bike is a pure win. It's Engineering (tm).

Now let's look at other things which engineers build which you can look at and see as "greater than the sum of their parts". You can see refrigeration, nice, (electric) cooktops / kettles / toasters and other renewable powered electric infrastructure, nice.

Basically, everything that makes your house run is pretty great, and if you just wave your hands a little bit, say you have solar on your roof, that's powering the devices, great! System!

What about software? Well, it's a bit harder, but overall the idea is that you need to communicate to solve problems, and instead of the artifacts being in the physical domain, you can compress them in software and that solves a problem. It's also electrically powered, no problem. Silicon itself can't be recycled, but the components can, and Silicon is "sustainable", there's a lot of it. System!

OK hold that idea. 1/n

This is what racism looks like:

You say you'll sanction countries from your goods, and those countries will languish.

But then you say we'll put tariff walls between us and other nations, and it'll free our nation to excel.

It's the same treatment, why is it better when self imposed? Because there's a belief in the inherent supremacy of your people.

I thought I posted this idea but I can't seem to find it in my history. I need it to explain Albo's position here:

Trump is a bully / thug. The way bullies and thugs work is that they (1) force an interaction; and (2) get the best out of that interaction.

So in the protection racket example, you can be minding your own business, and they will come to your shop, then act like jerks. You just want them to leave but their whole plan is to interact with you as much and for as long as possible, and get the best out of that interaction. So maybe they'll be looking for signs of disrespect, then shake you down for money, then they come back and repeat the process. Or maybe they'll be looking for you giving them what they want so they'll leave, and then they come back and expect that treatment over and over. There are lots of ways it shakes out, but the point is: they know you want them to leave, and they use that to stay longer.

On the street example, you're walking minding your own business, they will run into you on purpose, then expect an apology. The apology is the metagame, the purpose is the interaction. Even if you're strong enough to beat them up, then they'll go to the police. The more you want them to leave, the more they take advantage.

Trump is the same. You hope he doesn't notice you, but once he does, he interacts and does stuff until you "lose" the interaction.

People have said you can "stand up to him", but this is only partially true. He'll leave the first time, but like bullies he knows you're there. He'll wait until there's an advantage and then do that.

It's kind of interesting how at-odds the work of Trey Parker and Matt Stone is against their own politics. The song "America, Fuck Yeah!"[1] is meant to a satirical jingoistic tune about America's involvement in conflicts around the world. For basically all the shit America has started, it's been the first thing I think about.

But the movie is meant to (earnestly) show that actually the US is the only country trustworthy enough to actually be a "world police" because of the things they believe in (eg: Taco Bell). Therefore the song is sort of earnest after all?

But the song also doesn't shy away from actually critiquing the US, where among the list is "slavery" (fuck yeah), and "books" (which don't receive a fuck yeah).

So in terms of the movie, you can say it makes sense that it doesn't end on the US being bad guys, because it's for a US audience, but for Stone and Parker's own beliefs, this isn't just a random sprinkling of "well we know the US isn't perfect but it's the best we have", the admissions really do cut to the core of the song. That's why it connects even stronger than it used to.

[1] https://youtu.be/MhQ5678cJU8

I've realised knowing the pop science of Cybernetics is not enough. Anyone know of a "The Book" for Cybernetics I should read?

weird facts:

- most Australian MPs have degrees in Arts, Business, Law, or Economics. A bunch have pol-sci.
- 2 people have science degrees. Richard Marles, ALP (who also has a Law degree), and Bridget McKenzie (LNP)
- Bridget also has a degree Technology
- Amanda Rishworth (ALP) has a physch degree
- Kevin Hogan (LNP) holds an Education Grad Dip (also an Economics degree).
- 1 person with a Philosophy degree. A Master of Philosophy from the University of Oxford. One Angus fucking Taylor (also has a BLaw and a BEc). Obvious joke left for the reader.

Amazingly, conservatives have a more varied education than the party which represents the unions. It wasn't always this way.

Ref: https://www.torrens.edu.au/stories/blog/business/what-degrees-ministers-australia-have-and-why-it-matters

It seems Americans are realising that the war will last long enough to stop any future elections from happening.

Is he even the CEO of McDonalds? Like that shit has gone viral AF. He made that cheddar.

When citizens die it's tragedy. When "world leaders" die it's comedy. Having said that, I'd think twice before dancing on an evil person's grave. Those who do the killing tend to be worse.

Americans:

Gavin Newsom? Gavin Newsom???

Gavin Newsom.

Are you for real? Gavin Newsom.

Just vote for Third Hitler at this point I don't even care. Guy is like spent Justin Trudeau. Heck he's probably closer to spent Katy Perry.

Gavin Newsom? Fuck right off with that shit.

https://youtu.be/9BYaVCc76bk

Great song, scathing lyrics, still relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf-jHCdafZY

It's strange to me that the anti-systemd folk and the anti-wayland folk are the same people (or the pro-systemd and pro-wayland folk). Design wise they are total opposites: X -> Wayland goes from Software -> policy, and sysV -> systemd goes policy -> software.