House of Eratosthenes

Mrs. Freeberg let loose with a tirade on the Hello Kitty of Blogging about people behaving, in general, like complete idiots, and crossed that point reached by so many where she’s wondering what’s brought us to this point, and whether there’s a curvilinear acceleration going on. And, if so, what has caused it. Think everyone paying attention has been there lately.

Having (partially) noodled it out, I did my husbandly duty — and blogged on Facebook, underneath her inquiry, whatever there is that I know about it.

Our history is one in which your survival has been connected to your consciousness of what’s going on around you, and your “expertise” in cause-and-effect. Now, it isn’t. Put in simpler terms, it is now possible to remain alive, in fact comfortable, while being a complete idiot.

That’s got to do with possibilities. Then there is the matter of social pressures. Socially, there is no longer any up-side to knowing what you’re doing. Fix someone’s computer for them, you get a thank-you here & there but at the same time, from then on anything that computer does contrary to the wishes or expectations of its owner will be ALL your fault, and, when people don’t know how to fix their computers themselves they brag about it now. So this raises the question of what do they say about the person who knows how to fix one? Not much that’s positive, it turns out.

In short, knowing what you’re doing doesn’t bring you much unless you can find a way to manipulate or “game” the system — and most of the people who know what they’re doing are too busy getting something done to bother with that. More typically, what it brings you is the stigma and ridicule that used to be reserved for clueless people. It’s the dummies who are in style right now. But, this stuff is cyclical. We’ll learn again the value of knowing what you’re doing, but only after we’ve been dragged through some lessons about why it’s valuable. It’s gonna hurt…

This all fits in with physics. Simple physics, like for example, seasons. The days are longest two thirds of the way through June, they’ll never get any longer than that and the sun will never get any higher from the horizon. From that point, the sun will “travel” southward, toward the celestial equator, and as it crosses that equator during the autumnal equinox it will be “traveling” as fast as it ever will. Then it will slow in its travel as it reaches the Tropic of Capricorn, at which time the days will have been getting shorter, and right before Christmas will be as short as they’ll ever be.

What connects this, to that, is: We get stupider as I noted above, and as I have said many times, when we feel like we can afford to be. Just as, after summer has started, the paradox is that the days are getting shorter. Stupidity brings suffering, think of that as the temperatures dipping as the harvest season winds up and winter approaches. Then, we gradually figure out that actions do indeed have consequences, causes do indeed have effect, and that we are in charge of our own destiny but need to show some resourcefulness and intelligence about it. This brings the sun up North again. Learning will bring rewards, which will encourage more learning, but remember there is a summer solstice involved as well. With the improved lifestyle, there will set in a feeling that we can afford to be fat, lazy, drunk and stupid again, and show up to work without pants.

Right now, it is not the Vernal Equinox, but it’s coming. It’s not even Valentine’s Day. I’d put us, on this calendar, somewhere around Boxing Day. Or, just after New Year’s, when there’s nothing to do but pay credit cards from Christmas, eat, sleep and work. Back in aught-five, that must have been our June 21; I noticed this at the time. I think I pegged that one right. But I had no idea the “Obama winter” would involve such brittle cold temperatures, or that the days would be so short.

This too shall pass. There will be some first blossoms, and soon. They’ll bring hope to those who take the time to notice them. And they’ll be a pleasant shock to the system, just as the real blossoms are a pleasant shock after all the weeks and months of looking at “dead” trees, slipping on icy sidewalks and scraping snow off windshields.

Enjoy the Spring once it’s here. None of this lasts forever, it’s all cyclical.

See, I don’t have a “Mrs. Phang”, but if I did, I’d have to create a third account linked to one of those proxy servers located in another country that changes your IP address. I saw my first flame war, with trolls and magic guardians and the like when I was but a young traveler on the Commodore 64 BBS information superhighway, and created a fake persona over two decades ago with which I post my most scandalous screeds.
I learned from watching others fall that you never pat yourself on the back in a blog…too many people can easily figure out that Mrs. Freeberg, Mr. Freeberd, Leopold Schnerdly, George C. Scott. I.C. Weiner, Sheeple, and Totallynotme all have the exact same IP and all agree on the same abstract details of the conversation.
Just saying it for your protection…I notice the Wizards over at the Naga Scrying Alliance have been scouring the cities for innocents lately instead of keeping their watch for trolls coming down from the Blue Hills.
- P_Ang | 08/08/2014 @ 13:11

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Memo For File CLXXXVII
Friday, August 8th, 2014