The Serial Thinker Blog

Explaining Redistribution

Student asked: What would happen if we redistributed the 1%'s wealth to the other 99%?

Answer: 75% of the people decide that chicken would taste great. So they roast their chickens, have one excellent meal, then are hungry again tomorrow.

24% of the people realize their chicken is an egg factory, so they enjoy one egg every day for a few years until the chicken dies.

1% of the people figure out that if they mate their chicken with a rooster they can raise a whole bunch of chickens. In a few years they will have more fresh eggs and chickens than they could eat.

So as a one time reset you haven't changed a thing. Everything is exactly as it was.

Line in the Sand

"The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of men who wanted to be left alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over.

 

The moment the men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people's door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy... but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the men who just wanted to be left alone."

 

- Soviet Dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Mom's 84th Birthday

Because you didn't like to have your picture taken, I've added a photo that I know you would like.

 

You have been gone for more than a decade now and given the current state of the world and your perspective on it, 

no matter where you are it's a better place. I wonder, is my sister where you are? Does that make you happy, one way or the other?

I would be hard pressed to say that I miss you, because that implies that your absence creates an emptiness in my life and yours doesn't. 

That is not an insult, it's a statement about how you helped to craft a person who was independent at 17. That although it might be interesting

to talk to you from time to time, I fully understand that you have other things to do at the moment and cannot be disturbed from them. I am 

similarly busy here. The kids are independent young adults now - not quite fully on their own, but functioning quite well as they make their way in a challenging world.

 

Though I don't pine for 'one more conversation' or 'one final hug' - threads of your influence can be seen in my existence. As you might suspect, my world is enveloped by reading and books. My kitchen smells spicy and robust. My environment is filled with music. A dog lays upon my couch. 

 

So for that. Thank you.

If you don't like how I express my freedom, you are welcome to stay the F away.

WHO Will Rename Monkeypox Virus to Minimize Stigma, Racism | TimeClosePaywall-Icons-DevicesPaywall-Icons-NewsletterPaywall-Icons-DigitalMagazine

WHO Will Rename Monkeypox Virus to Minimize Stigma, Racism | TimeClosePaywall-Icons-DevicesPaywall-Icons-NewsletterPaywall-Icons-DigitalMagazine

This is not parody. I wonder when primate appreciation month will be declared.

An Analogy

If I own an apartment and decide unilaterally that you are an unsuitable tenant, I should be able to evict you for any reason without notice. And as the evicted party should have no say in the process at all. In fact, unless you own rental properties, you should have no say in the occupancy or eviction processes ever. And the idea that tenants have rights deprives me of my rights as a property owner.

 

Explain to me how this is any different from the left's position on abortion

 

 

A Pre-Covid Teaching Experience

So I learned a first hand lesson in the mechanics of progressivism yesterday at school. My 6th period Spanish class organized an end of the year class party. At the end of the day a few of the kids didn't want to take their treats home and left them in my classroom. Not wanting them to sit in my classroom over the weekend, I took them out into the common area and handed them out to kids as they were leaving school. I 'earned' full credit for handing out treats to the students even though I did absolutely nothing to create them. I opportunistically took the product of someone else's labor and redistributed it under the guise of caring for my classroom environment and earned 'cool teacher points' in the process. Am I woke or what?

Because our high school's finals are this week, I'll repost this thought from a few years ago. It remains true.
A lot of the student experience is like educational bulimia, binging and purging, so kids end up being mentally starved. They cram for a test in a class they did not choose to get a decent grade on a test they don't care about so their parents don't yell at them. I don't see how this is the optimal learning situation.

I learned a word in my reading about how to be a more inclusive and tolerant person: straightwashing. It is the act of writing or revising history to make non-cisgender people appear straight, not pointing out the gender identity of a non-cisgender historical figure, or generally reciting history from a heteronormative perspective.

Confíteor Deo omnipoténti et vobis, fratres,
quia peccávi nimis cogitatióne, verbo, ópere et omissióne:
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.
Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper Vírginem,
omnes Angelos et Sanctos, et vos, fratres,
oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.