From 1026603aae0cbf763fa1dcd204230329f0386ae1cea85d7cd2758ed3222f581b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Nicholas Johnson Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Subject: Replace instances of 'anyways' with 'anyway' 'anyway' is the correct spelling. --- content/entry/always-use-tor.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/autism-and-memory.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md | 6 +++--- content/entry/avoid-using-cryptocurrency.md | 2 +- content/entry/bullshit-jobs-really-are-bullshit.md | 2 +- content/entry/coming-out-as-autistic.md | 14 +++++++------- content/entry/consider-death.md | 2 +- .../documentary-line-goes-up-the-problem-with-nfts.md | 2 +- content/entry/dont-fly-the-thin-blue-line-flag.md | 2 +- content/entry/dr-phil-is-a-bully.md | 6 +++--- .../entry/experiences-with-teachers-bullying-students.md | 2 +- .../fighting-the-war-on-drugs-with-jury-nullification.md | 4 ++-- ...g-clarity-after-walking-off-a-job-on-orientation-day.md | 6 +++--- content/entry/get-an-eco-friendly-burial.md | 2 +- content/entry/give-up-hope-take-action.md | 2 +- content/entry/goodbye-pgp.md | 2 +- ...identifying-and-processing-emotions-with-alexithymia.md | 2 +- ...ational-to-believe-things-you-cant-justify-to-others.md | 2 +- content/entry/join-extinction-rebellion-now.md | 2 +- content/entry/journal-update-018.md | 2 +- content/entry/journal-update-021.md | 2 +- content/entry/journal-update-022.md | 2 +- content/entry/learning-im-autistic-was-a-relief.md | 2 +- ...t-psychedelic-mushroom-trip-in-san-jose-del-pacifico.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/on-compassion.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/on-data-leaks.md | 2 +- content/entry/organization-let-grow.md | 2 +- content/entry/planning-for-an-uncertain-future.md | 2 +- content/entry/please-dont-use-google-as-a-verb.md | 2 +- .../entry/predicting-the-near-term-consequences-of-ai.md | 6 +++--- content/entry/psychedelics-are-a-rite-of-passage.md | 2 +- content/entry/re-dkim-show-your-privates.md | 4 ++-- .../entry/re-ive-stopped-using-mobile-phones-in-my-life.md | 2 +- content/entry/re-video-dont-talk-to-the-police.md | 2 +- .../entry/re-why-even-let-users-set-their-own-passwords.md | 4 ++-- content/entry/save-american-democracy.md | 2 +- .../entry/started-from-the-bottom-stayed-at-the-bottom.md | 2 +- content/entry/thank-you-destiny-for-exposing-maga.md | 2 +- content/entry/the-importance-of-early-autism-diagnosis.md | 2 +- content/entry/the-perils-of-social-media.md | 2 +- content/entry/the-privacy-implications-of-weak-ai.md | 2 +- content/entry/warning-to-monero-users.md | 2 +- ...s-of-manipulation-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-a-victim.md | 2 +- content/entry/why-biden-should-expand-the-supreme-court.md | 4 ++-- ...pearing-messages-are-important-for-private-messaging.md | 2 +- content/entry/you-dont-need-an-antivirus.md | 2 +- 46 files changed, 68 insertions(+), 68 deletions(-) (limited to 'content/entry') diff --git a/content/entry/always-use-tor.md b/content/entry/always-use-tor.md index c117b82..71109aa 100644 --- a/content/entry/always-use-tor.md +++ b/content/entry/always-use-tor.md @@ -19,9 +19,9 @@ Tor works because people use it for a variety of things. My relatively mundane T Many people in the privacy community only use Tor for sensitive searches, such as when they're searching medical symptoms. That's a great use of Tor, but it's more helpful for the anonymity of the network to use Tor for all searches. That's why I always use it, even when I'm doing nothing particularly sensitive. -If you rarely use Tor, only when you think you need anonymity, your ISP can make an educated guess that you're doing something private. Depending on the context surrounding that, such as what you were doing before and after you went on Tor and the traffic pattern, they might be able to figure out what you were doing anyways. Analysis is harder if you always use it though. +If you rarely use Tor, only when you think you need anonymity, your ISP can make an educated guess that you're doing something private. Depending on the context surrounding that, such as what you were doing before and after you went on Tor and the traffic pattern, they might be able to figure out what you were doing anyway. Analysis is harder if you always use it though. -Personally, I've been using Tor for so long that I don't even mind the slowness anymore. I've gotten used to it. I'll gladly wait the few extra seconds for my data to load if it means having greater privacy. In my opinion, speed is overrated anyways. +Personally, I've been using Tor for so long that I don't even mind the slowness anymore. I've gotten used to it. I'll gladly wait the few extra seconds for my data to load if it means having greater privacy. In my opinion, speed is overrated anyway. # Be Careful When Using Tor With that said, you need to be careful how you use Tor. Tor cannot protect you if you use it wrong. If you use Tor for applications that don't have explicit Tor support, be wary of IP address leakage. Only trust Tor running on machines you control and don't blindly route all traffic on your network or computer over Tor. VPNs are better for that sort of thing. diff --git a/content/entry/autism-and-memory.md b/content/entry/autism-and-memory.md index 546f337..b63fca4 100644 --- a/content/entry/autism-and-memory.md +++ b/content/entry/autism-and-memory.md @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ In my entry, [Coming Out as Autistic](/2022/05/16/coming-out-as-autistic/), I re ## Short-Term Memory ### Anecdote 1: English Class -My class was sent to the hall outside the English classroom. All us students got in a circle. We were trying to learn each other's names. I knew I wasn't good at things like that, so before the exercise even started, I asked the teacher to skip it. She told me to try anyways. +My class was sent to the hall outside the English classroom. All us students got in a circle. We were trying to learn each other's names. I knew I wasn't good at things like that, so before the exercise even started, I asked the teacher to skip it. She told me to try anyway. So one person began by stating their own name. Then the person to their left stated their own name and the name of those who stated their name before them. So on and so forth until one person stated everyone's names. @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ As is consistent with the autism memory research, I also have very poor visual-s ### Anecdote 1: Bus Job After quitting the nursing home, I found a job at a bus company where I was responsible for watching over special needs students of all ages. Socializing with them wasn't too draining since special needs people tend to be more tolerant of differences than neurotypicals. But after months of working there, I still couldn't remember my bus route nor the order the students got on and off the bus nor where each student got dropped off. And the schedule kept changing, so every time I got a new bus driver who didn't know the route, it was a mess. -At first I tried to write down the students' names and the route on paper, but that didn't help me. So I tried using GPS to help new drivers navigate my route, but I was told that being on my phone wasn't allowed. I explained that I avoid using smartphones for things like texting anyways, but that didn't seem to matter. I still wasn't allowed to use it. +At first I tried to write down the students' names and the route on paper, but that didn't help me. So I tried using GPS to help new drivers navigate my route, but I was told that being on my phone wasn't allowed. I explained that I avoid using smartphones for things like texting anyway, but that didn't seem to matter. I still wasn't allowed to use it. For clarification, I did try to learn the route for weeks. I just couldn't remember it, no matter how hard I tried. diff --git a/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md b/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md index deeb2f2..9f8c3fb 100644 --- a/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md +++ b/content/entry/automation-bullshit-jobs-and-work.md @@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ A different day, my manager let the cat out of the bag. He told me his boss wast As a side note, David Graeber would refer to these employees hired to maintenance the complexity as "duct tapers". Duct tapers are workers who fix problems temporarily which could be fixed permanently. -Anyways, my manager was then told that the bullshit was good because it gave people jobs and fixing the problem permanently would be cruel to those employed to fix it temporarily. I couldn't even disagree because it wasn't wrong. The bullshit does give people jobs. It just made me start to question what kind of stupid system incentivizes such bullshit. +Anyway, my manager was then told that the bullshit was good because it gave people jobs and fixing the problem permanently would be cruel to those employed to fix it temporarily. I couldn't even disagree because it wasn't wrong. The bullshit does give people jobs. It just made me start to question what kind of stupid system incentivizes such bullshit. Since there were several departments in the organization and money was allocated separately to each, each department was careful not to do the job of the other even when it made more sense. And since each department had a fixed budget, instead of paying employees the leftovers, it was "invested" (blown) on pointless new equipment which required constant maintenance. @@ -98,14 +98,14 @@ As it turns out, highly democratic workplaces do exist and they work. Democratic I'm not just talking about unions where workers have more collective bargaining power. I'm talking about [worker cooperatives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative), where workers own and self-manage the company. Workplace democracy is an idea which I think doesn't get talked about nearly enough, at least not here in Burgerland, but it would be a great way of promoting and possibly even exporting democracy. -It really diminishes the benefits of living in a democracy when you're being dictated to for so much of your waking hours anyways. So I think we ought to explore all possibilities and really get creative to make it so workers enjoy the work they're doing and the work they're doing is necessary and beneficial to others. +It really diminishes the benefits of living in a democracy when you're being dictated to for so much of your waking hours anyway. So I think we ought to explore all possibilities and really get creative to make it so workers enjoy the work they're doing and the work they're doing is necessary and beneficial to others. # Workplace Phoniness Another way workplaces can change for the better is to eliminate the culture of phoniness. I believe the degree to which this happens partly depends on culture, but I find it abhorrent wherever I encounter it. When I worked a service job, I was forced to complete this stupid online course instructing me on how to be "pleasant" when interacting with customers. It basically taught me how to be fake. How to conceal my negative emotions while interacting with the public, how to say the right words, how to pretend I'm just some always-happy service person that's thrilled to solve other people's problems. It was demeaning. -I now consider what I underwent to be a form of psychological violence. Forcing employees to mask their authentic selves with a pleasant but phony personality for a prolonged period of time is abusive. Either hire an employee or don't, but don't force them to become this fake phony person just to please the customer. It's wrong and customers can see right through it anyways. +I now consider what I underwent to be a form of psychological violence. Forcing employees to mask their authentic selves with a pleasant but phony personality for a prolonged period of time is abusive. Either hire an employee or don't, but don't force them to become this fake phony person just to please the customer. It's wrong and customers can see right through it anyway. When I check out at Walmart and every cashier tells me to have a nice day, it loses its meaning because I know I'm not having a real interaction with the person. They're just saying what they have to say to avoid getting fired. diff --git a/content/entry/avoid-using-cryptocurrency.md b/content/entry/avoid-using-cryptocurrency.md index 16f3e8e..64fe77a 100644 --- a/content/entry/avoid-using-cryptocurrency.md +++ b/content/entry/avoid-using-cryptocurrency.md @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ Small website owners specifically should not accept cryptocurrency donations fro I still accept donations via Liberapay. I will start accepting crypto donations again only for Ethereum after it switches fully to proof of stake. It'll be popular enough that someone looking at my website might have Ethereum they want to donate and it'll be fully independent of extreme energy consumption coins. Therefore I see no reason not to accept it in the future. -I encourage all small website owners to follow in my footsteps and reject cryptocurrency donations until Ethereum switches to proof of stake, and then accept only Ethereum until more popular coins make the switch. I expect Ethereum to make the transition within a year, so I shouldn't be without crypto donation options for long. It's not worth it to list all the other relatively unknown proof of stake cryptocurrencies out there on my blog. I probably won't get any donations from them anyways and it's extra work. +I encourage all small website owners to follow in my footsteps and reject cryptocurrency donations until Ethereum switches to proof of stake, and then accept only Ethereum until more popular coins make the switch. I expect Ethereum to make the transition within a year, so I shouldn't be without crypto donation options for long. It's not worth it to list all the other relatively unknown proof of stake cryptocurrencies out there on my blog. I probably won't get any donations from them anyway and it's extra work. ### Landchad.net I am disappointed to see [Luke Smith's landchad website](https://landchad.net/monero/) promoting cryptocurrency to small website owners. I support the goals of the website in getting more people an online existence independent of social media, but Luke should at least mention the caveat of extreme energy consumption in the crypto article. Either that or outright take down the posts about accepting cryptocurrency. I plan on contacting him about this after publishing this post. diff --git a/content/entry/bullshit-jobs-really-are-bullshit.md b/content/entry/bullshit-jobs-really-are-bullshit.md index 9345d7b..8f5b306 100644 --- a/content/entry/bullshit-jobs-really-are-bullshit.md +++ b/content/entry/bullshit-jobs-really-are-bullshit.md @@ -30,4 +30,4 @@ In closing, **bullshit jobs really are bullshit**. Perhaps they offer a sense of I really don't understand what motivates non-rich people to defend bullshit jobs. It might be intellectual laziness, protecting one's own sense of importance, or just a bias towards blindly defending the status quo. -I've met a lot of people that just defend The Way Things Currently Are no matter what. And, when The Way Things Currently Are changes, they defend the new state of affairs. It both puzzles and fascinates me. Maybe I'll talk about that in another entry though. Anyways, thanks for reading! See you next time. +I've met a lot of people that just defend The Way Things Currently Are no matter what. And, when The Way Things Currently Are changes, they defend the new state of affairs. It both puzzles and fascinates me. Maybe I'll talk about that in another entry though. Anyway, thanks for reading! See you next time. diff --git a/content/entry/coming-out-as-autistic.md b/content/entry/coming-out-as-autistic.md index 90b9cb8..f7f614c 100644 --- a/content/entry/coming-out-as-autistic.md +++ b/content/entry/coming-out-as-autistic.md @@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ At bowling, me and my then-girlfriend's friend were debating about religion. She Along with intellectual gifts, I also have deficits. The most obvious is my poor working memory. ### Poor Working Memory -My earliest memory of this deficit comes from middle school. My class was sent to the hall outside the English classroom. All us students got in a circle. We were trying to learn each other's names. I knew I wasn't good at things like that, so before the exercise even started, I asked the teacher to skip it. She told me to try anyways. +My earliest memory of this deficit comes from middle school. My class was sent to the hall outside the English classroom. All us students got in a circle. We were trying to learn each other's names. I knew I wasn't good at things like that, so before the exercise even started, I asked the teacher to skip it. She told me to try anyway. So one person began by stating their own name. Then the person to their left stated their own name and the name of those who stated their name before them. So on and so forth until one person stated everyone's names. @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ In terms of clothing, I'm not sure whether it's an autism sensitivity or I just The fact that people judge others negatively for how they dress boggles my mind. It makes me feel like I never left high school. I couldn't care less if everyone walked around nude. I'll probably show up to court and to my own wedding in comfortable casual wear. -I wear my clothes until they fall apart. I don't care if some have small holes or stains. I practice good hygiene, but I don't put much effort into my appearance. It helps me filter out people I don't wanna talk to anyways. Case in point: Me, my then-girlfriend, and her friends went to take prom photos. Her friend told me the top button of my shirt was undone. I said I didn't mind, but she kept pestering me. Later that day, we went to a classy restaurant and she badgered me about holding the utensils wrong. +I wear my clothes until they fall apart. I don't care if some have small holes or stains. I practice good hygiene, but I don't put much effort into my appearance. It helps me filter out people I don't wanna talk to anyway. Case in point: Me, my then-girlfriend, and her friends went to take prom photos. Her friend told me the top button of my shirt was undone. I said I didn't mind, but she kept pestering me. Later that day, we went to a classy restaurant and she badgered me about holding the utensils wrong. A lot of people like to play dress up and pretend following all these arbitrary high society social norms makes them more sophisticated or important or decent than others. I prefer not to encourage that petty one-upmanship through my involvement. I think the need to be seen as better than others is driven by insecurity and a failure of compassion. @@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ One of the drawbacks of being able to focus so intensely on one thing for extend I also quickly become frustrated by the way other people have conversations. People barely scratch the surface on every topic and never dive in. They never stick to a subject. I don't know how people can stand to have boring shallow conversations about nothing all the time. -I met an autistic person at a hackathon once. I let him ramble on endlessly about his special interest. His interest wasn't even remotely related to programming, but I enjoyed listening anyways. Even though it wasn't my special interest, he was so passionate that it became interesting. +I met an autistic person at a hackathon once. I let him ramble on endlessly about his special interest. His interest wasn't even remotely related to programming, but I enjoyed listening anyway. Even though it wasn't my special interest, he was so passionate that it became interesting. He was more enjoyable to converse with than neurotypicals because I didn't have to worry about him judging my social skills and he didn't often change subject. It was like we were on the same wavelength. @@ -156,14 +156,14 @@ Later, I was walking on the playground with friend A as usual. Then I saw friend I once took part in a school spelling bee. The problem with the spelling bee was the instructions. The teacher overseeing the bee gave us all the instructions at once. My working memory couldn't fit them all. One of the instructions was to say the word, spell it, then say it again. I messed that up by starting out spelling the word. -The teacher tried to correct me, but I was so busy remembering the other rules that I made the same mistake again. The teacher gave up and allowed me to continue anyways. After the second or third word, I caught on. None of the other students seemed to have the same difficulty though. +The teacher tried to correct me, but I was so busy remembering the other rules that I made the same mistake again. The teacher gave up and allowed me to continue anyway. After the second or third word, I caught on. None of the other students seemed to have the same difficulty though. ### Middle School Fast forward to middle school. At one point I had an alright friend group. I still struggled socially and wasn't sure how to interact with others though. Even though my friends didn't share my special interests, having them around was better than being alone. Maintaining my friends was hard work though. I'll give an example. I was jogging around the gym side-by-side with a friend from that group. He was into dubstep at the time, so I told him I'd been listening to it and flailed my arms around trying to imitate the genre. He quickened his pace so he was far ahead of me. I realized I'd embarrassed him. He slowed down so we were side-by-side again and told me "use your words" in a tone indicating I was mentally retarded for expressing myself in a socially non-conforming way. -I was once taking a test on the computer with a friend of his. We weren't supposed to talk, but we did anyways. The teacher thought we were cheating, but we were just bored because the test was too easy. So she called us up, one at a time, to investigate what happened. We both told her the same true story and she bought it, so she only scolded us. +I was once taking a test on the computer with a friend of his. We weren't supposed to talk, but we did anyway. The teacher thought we were cheating, but we were just bored because the test was too easy. So she called us up, one at a time, to investigate what happened. We both told her the same true story and she bought it, so she only scolded us. When she was scolding me, she told me to look at her while she was talking. That made me very uncomfortable. I found it impossible to listen to what she was saying because I had to focus all my energy on eye contact. It took a lot of effort. I faked an expression of remorse so she would think I was already punishing myself and go easy on us. @@ -275,11 +275,11 @@ So that bothered me a lot. It wasn't just "Oh I dislike some aspect of this job" ### Bus Company After quitting the nursing home, I found a job at a bus company where I was responsible for watching over special needs students of all ages. Socializing with them wasn't too draining since special needs people tend to be more tolerant of differences than neurotypicals. But after months of working there, I still couldn't remember my bus route nor the order the students got on and off the bus nor where each student got dropped off. And the schedule kept changing, so every time I got a new bus driver who didn't know the route, it was a mess. -At first I tried to write down the students' names and the route on paper, but that didn't help me. So I tried using GPS to help new drivers navigate my route, but I was told that being on my phone wasn't allowed. I explained that [I avoid using smartphones for things like texting anyways](/2021/12/26/why-i-dont-have-a-smartphone/), but that didn't seem to matter. I still wasn't allowed to use it. +At first I tried to write down the students' names and the route on paper, but that didn't help me. So I tried using GPS to help new drivers navigate my route, but I was told that being on my phone wasn't allowed. I explained that [I avoid using smartphones for things like texting anyway](/2021/12/26/why-i-dont-have-a-smartphone/), but that didn't seem to matter. I still wasn't allowed to use it. To top it all off, I was very tired every day because of my atypical sleep schedule. Some days I barely held my eyes open. I blame the extreme tiredness for the mistake which got me fired. I think if I'd been well rested, I wouldn't have made that mistake. -I could've tried sleeping pills, but they're not intended for long-term use. I've heard that medicinally induced sleep isn't the same as natural sleep anyways. +I could've tried sleeping pills, but they're not intended for long-term use. I've heard that medicinally induced sleep isn't the same as natural sleep anyway. ### Haketilo A year ago, I made a [journal entry thinking about what career I wanted](/2021/06/16/my-career-path/). I imagined my dream career as one where I got paid to write free software. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a software project called Haketilo, which is a browser extension to take back the web. When I initially ran across it, it wasn't funded. I was just interested in it. diff --git a/content/entry/consider-death.md b/content/entry/consider-death.md index 47b22a0..fe674c6 100644 --- a/content/entry/consider-death.md +++ b/content/entry/consider-death.md @@ -23,6 +23,6 @@ But so what if you look stupid? So what if you're ridiculed? So what if you fail Many of you will imagine that you would be doing the same things you're already doing, if given a month to live. You imagine that your impending death wouldn't change your priorities, because you think you've already got them in perfect order. But do you really, or are you just telling yourself that as a way of avoiding thinking about how much time and attention you waste on things that don't matter? # The Gift of Death -Seen through the right lens, death is a gift. It offers us the chance to put it all on the line, to live a truly meaningful existence. You're going to die anyways, so you might as well put all your cards out on the table. Risk being the owner of a failed business. Risk asking stupid questions. Risk getting rejected asking someone out on a date. +Seen through the right lens, death is a gift. It offers us the chance to put it all on the line, to live a truly meaningful existence. You're going to die anyway, so you might as well put all your cards out on the table. Risk being the owner of a failed business. Risk asking stupid questions. Risk getting rejected asking someone out on a date. Consider death and take the risk of living a meaningful life, because you won't get another. diff --git a/content/entry/documentary-line-goes-up-the-problem-with-nfts.md b/content/entry/documentary-line-goes-up-the-problem-with-nfts.md index 0e4d70d..12114df 100644 --- a/content/entry/documentary-line-goes-up-the-problem-with-nfts.md +++ b/content/entry/documentary-line-goes-up-the-problem-with-nfts.md @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ Pretty much all of his blog posts about cryptocurrency are this critical. I read ## Present Day The culmination of this story happened just recently when I found Line Goes Up. I watched the documentary all the way through and found it highly informative. Thanks to Line Goes Up, I finally feel like I have the full picture when it comes to cryptocurrency, blockchain, and everything built on top of it. Now that I'm fully informed, I want nothing to do with it. -Unfortunately it's not going to be easy for me to stop using it entirely. Ponzi as it may be, it's still the only way to buy certain things online anonymously. I'll have to figure out ways around that. For online services where I identify myself anyways, I can switch to a credit card. But acquiring a VPN anonymously without cryptocurrency is going to be tricky. I'll have to come up with a solution. +Unfortunately it's not going to be easy for me to stop using it entirely. Ponzi as it may be, it's still the only way to buy certain things online anonymously. I'll have to figure out ways around that. For online services where I identify myself anyway, I can switch to a credit card. But acquiring a VPN anonymously without cryptocurrency is going to be tricky. I'll have to come up with a solution. I would say the two overarching lessons I learned from my experiences in cryptocurrency are: diff --git a/content/entry/dont-fly-the-thin-blue-line-flag.md b/content/entry/dont-fly-the-thin-blue-line-flag.md index 0671096..7adc62b 100644 --- a/content/entry/dont-fly-the-thin-blue-line-flag.md +++ b/content/entry/dont-fly-the-thin-blue-line-flag.md @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ If all cops acted according to their own personal moral code instead of the law, That's just at the upstream layer of the law itself. But what about the downstream layer of corrections? Those protesters doing the right thing may get sent to prison. As a local or state cop, you swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Well that's what prison is here in the United States. If you arrest someone knowing they'll probably go to prison, you become the instrument of cruel and unjust punishment which you swore an oath against. -So you see how the injustice of the laws and the court system and corrections trickles into law enforcement? Enforcing laws isn't inherently good. If there were a law against being short and police started arresting short people, you wouldn't say "I don't agree with the law against short people, but law enforcement is doing a good job of enforcing it, so I support them anyways". That's the equivalent of saying "there's no law so unjust I won't support its enforcers". +So you see how the injustice of the laws and the court system and corrections trickles into law enforcement? Enforcing laws isn't inherently good. If there were a law against being short and police started arresting short people, you wouldn't say "I don't agree with the law against short people, but law enforcement is doing a good job of enforcing it, so I support them anyway". That's the equivalent of saying "there's no law so unjust I won't support its enforcers". So why do people stick flags in their yards that give blanket support to the enforcers of these unjust laws? Sometimes it's important to give broad support to a group or movement despite its relatively minor shortcomings, but the shortcomings of law enforcement are very major. Law enforcement will never be perfect, but right now it's so flawed that it doesn't deserve broad support. diff --git a/content/entry/dr-phil-is-a-bully.md b/content/entry/dr-phil-is-a-bully.md index 434d3d7..3127d7a 100644 --- a/content/entry/dr-phil-is-a-bully.md +++ b/content/entry/dr-phil-is-a-bully.md @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ draft: false --- If you don't know who Dr Phil is, his real name is Phillip Calvin McGraw. He had a popular long-running American television talk show called "Dr. Phil" where he offered advice to guests based on his experience in psychology. Now it seems he's moving on to a prime-time partnership scheduled for early 2024. -Let's start with the legality of his show. The advice Phil gave on it was legally not medical advice. However, that's completely immaterial because it's entirely foreseeable that those who watch it take it as medical advice anyways. Just look at the name of the show. Regardless of the legality, he undeniably has a responsibility to give good professional advice. +Let's start with the legality of his show. The advice Phil gave on it was legally not medical advice. However, that's completely immaterial because it's entirely foreseeable that those who watch it take it as medical advice anyway. Just look at the name of the show. Regardless of the legality, he undeniably has a responsibility to give good professional advice. This would be less of a problem if the advice he gave were actually good, but it's often nothing more than bullying and shaming mentally ill people on national television. I'm going to be providing evidence to back up that claim, starting with [the episode with Buffy Actor Nicholas Brendon](https://yewtu.be/embed/PH-PAaHnnMg?local=true "What Led 'Buffy' Actor Nicholas Brendon To Walk Off Dr. Phil's Show"). @@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ Phil seemed so thirsty to paint this guest in a bad light, but he just couldn't. Finally, Phil asked Nicholas if he drank last night, which the guest admitted to. Phil then said that he got a report that his guest was at a bar last night, which prompted Nicholas to say "I'm done." and walk off the stage. He asked if the exits were open, but Phil just ignored him and continued reading about his night of drinking. So he left. Good on him. -Now what therapeutic value was there in Phil bringing up Nicholas being drunk last night in that way? What made it even more obvious that humiliation was Phil's goal is that he continued reading about Nicholas' night at the bar even after Nicholas walked off the show. The guest was gone. Any possible therapeutic value from reading about it was surely gone, and yet he continued anyways. +Now what therapeutic value was there in Phil bringing up Nicholas being drunk last night in that way? What made it even more obvious that humiliation was Phil's goal is that he continued reading about Nicholas' night at the bar even after Nicholas walked off the show. The guest was gone. Any possible therapeutic value from reading about it was surely gone, and yet he continued anyway. As icing on the cake, Phil's camera crew followed Nicholas, recording him even as he left despite him asking them to stop multiple times. @@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ Meanwhile the guy, realizing that nobody in the room was on his side, starting s To prevent the man from leaving early so that Phil could humiliate him more on national television, Phil blackmailed him by threatening him with a year of jail time and a ten thousand dollar fine over some stuff he broke in his hotel room. Not only was this incredibly manipulative, unprofessional, and unhelpful, but it might've even been illegal. You can't blackmail someone with jail time into participating in your faux therapy session where you're humiliating them for television ratings. The police backstage should've arrested Phil for blackmailing him. That's a far more serious crime than vandalism. -Let's not forget that Phil is strapped with cash anyways. The last estimate I saw he was making eighty million dollars a year. He spends it on expensive watches. He doesn't give a fuck about paying for some broken stuff in a guest apartment. He could wipe his ass with that money. He just wanted to punish and humiliate this victim of domestic abuse who came to him seeking help. +Let's not forget that Phil is strapped with cash anyway. The last estimate I saw he was making eighty million dollars a year. He spends it on expensive watches. He doesn't give a fuck about paying for some broken stuff in a guest apartment. He could wipe his ass with that money. He just wanted to punish and humiliate this victim of domestic abuse who came to him seeking help. Phil then proceeded to paint himself as the hero saying that the guy was there "by his grace", as if blackmailing him into enduring Phil's public humiliation under the threat of jail time on national television was "grace". Phil's moronic audience apparently thought as much because they all applauded him. Then Phil proceeded to weaponize his army of useful idiots against the domestic abuse victim by asking them to stand up in agreement that the guest was a coward. diff --git a/content/entry/experiences-with-teachers-bullying-students.md b/content/entry/experiences-with-teachers-bullying-students.md index b88163b..16020d2 100644 --- a/content/entry/experiences-with-teachers-bullying-students.md +++ b/content/entry/experiences-with-teachers-bullying-students.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Some of these events took place over a decade ago and my memory isn't perfect, s ## The Drill Sergeant It started in elementary school (years 1-6 for international readers). I had this teacher who acted like a drill sergeant in the marine corps. At the beginning of each session, all us students gathered together while he instructed us on what we would be doing for the day. -There was this one student who kept talking while he gave instructions. In reaction to this, he *regularly* shouted at the student in front of the entire class. I don't just mean telling the student to be quiet either. If my memory serves me correctly, he at one point implied that the student didn't have a future. He was really hateful and insulting towards the student. So naturally, the student lost respect for him and continued talking in class anyways. +There was this one student who kept talking while he gave instructions. In reaction to this, he *regularly* shouted at the student in front of the entire class. I don't just mean telling the student to be quiet either. If my memory serves me correctly, he at one point implied that the student didn't have a future. He was really hateful and insulting towards the student. So naturally, the student lost respect for him and continued talking in class anyway. At one point, I was talking with a friend in class while he gave instructions. I'd never been reprimanded for talking before, so it was my first "offense". Apparently that wasn't taken into account because he started screaming at me in the exact same angry hateful tone he used for the other student who routinely talked in class. diff --git a/content/entry/fighting-the-war-on-drugs-with-jury-nullification.md b/content/entry/fighting-the-war-on-drugs-with-jury-nullification.md index 438b64f..153a24f 100644 --- a/content/entry/fighting-the-war-on-drugs-with-jury-nullification.md +++ b/content/entry/fighting-the-war-on-drugs-with-jury-nullification.md @@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ Just for the sake of argument, let's entertain the [slippery slope fallacy](http Judges can still override a guilty verdict if jury nullification is obvious. They cannot overturn an acquittal though. And even if a defendant gets convicted, they still have a chance to appeal. So jury nullification doesn't lend itself to guilty verdicts. -The bigger concern is that jurors would vote to acquit someone who is guilty of grievous crimes. For instance, Trump supporters may vote to acquit the insurrectionists who raided the U.S. Capitol building. In the past, jurors voted to acquit lynch mobs because of underlying racist sympathies. But Trump Supporters, lynch mobs, and other extremists are so radicalized they probably vote according to their own personal sense of justice anyways. So nothing is lost. +The bigger concern is that jurors would vote to acquit someone who is guilty of grievous crimes. For instance, Trump supporters may vote to acquit the insurrectionists who raided the U.S. Capitol building. In the past, jurors voted to acquit lynch mobs because of underlying racist sympathies. But Trump Supporters, lynch mobs, and other extremists are so radicalized they probably vote according to their own personal sense of justice anyway. So nothing is lost. -Even if using jury nullification against the War on Drugs did lead extremists to more often acquit people they're sympathetic towards, the main issue is not people evading conviction on grievous crimes. It's people who don't belong in jail getting convicted anyways. +Even if using jury nullification against the War on Drugs did lead extremists to more often acquit people they're sympathetic towards, the main issue is not people evading conviction on grievous crimes. It's people who don't belong in jail getting convicted anyway. # Conclusion The potential downsides to jury nullification for nonviolent drug offenses are clearly outweighed by the benefits. I most likely won't be asked to serve on a jury again now, but if the day ever comes and I get a nonviolent drug case, well you can probably figure out how I'm going to vote. diff --git a/content/entry/gaining-clarity-after-walking-off-a-job-on-orientation-day.md b/content/entry/gaining-clarity-after-walking-off-a-job-on-orientation-day.md index 77c5db2..bda17d9 100644 --- a/content/entry/gaining-clarity-after-walking-off-a-job-on-orientation-day.md +++ b/content/entry/gaining-clarity-after-walking-off-a-job-on-orientation-day.md @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ It came as a surprise because this type of job normally wouldn't be offered to a It started with an interview with the English program director. We discussed the details of the job for a while and got to know each other. The director was surprised to learn that I didn't have a phone or a phone number. After realizing that I'd need a phone, a phone number, and WhatsApp to contact the director and my coworkers, I told the director I would be willing to get those things. I also learned that I'd need a Mexican bank app to get paid. I wasn't happy about it, but I tried to remind myself that I needed the job since I've lacked stable employment for quite a while now. -Before I'd even discovered the teaching opportunity, I'd already made the rounds at large Mexican banks in a futile attempt to find one that didn't require a proprietary mobile application just to use the fucking account. I ended up finding an alternative to banking that's good enough for now. So imagine how annoyed I was finding out that I'd need an account and the app anyways. One of the biggest problems with these bank apps, besides them being proprietary spyware, is that they refuse to work if you use a custom rom or try to exercise any real control over your own device. +Before I'd even discovered the teaching opportunity, I'd already made the rounds at large Mexican banks in a futile attempt to find one that didn't require a proprietary mobile application just to use the fucking account. I ended up finding an alternative to banking that's good enough for now. So imagine how annoyed I was finding out that I'd need an account and the app anyway. One of the biggest problems with these bank apps, besides them being proprietary spyware, is that they refuse to work if you use a custom rom or try to exercise any real control over your own device. I'd need a real mobile phone to get the bank app since my computers lack the CPU instructions to spin up Android VMs. I certainly wasn't going to spend money on a closed hardware computer or mobile phone, so a family member gave me their old Android device. Thanks to planned obsolescence, I could not upgrade the system past Android 8.1, meaning it probably contained unpatched security vulnerabilities. I was unable to install a custom degoogled rom either. @@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ I also noticed that the classrooms had surveillance cameras, which made me uncom After the orientation, we were shuffled off to a conference room. In the conference room, we were emailed a document to complete as some kind of Google form. While everyone was using their phones to complete the form, I wasn't even aware that I'd need to access my email on my phone while at work, so I didn't prepare it and couldn't access the form. I was also very apprehensive about putting any information in a Google form. Why should I have to give data to the corporate surveillance monster that is Google just to have a job? -Eventually everyone in that group had completed the form and went to get their pictures taken, except for me since I could not access the form. I became frustrated and stressed, so I left to sit down on a bench outside the conference room to calm down, then headed towards the English language coordinator's office to discuss the matter. They had to continue the orientation soon, but they gave me a few minutes anyways. +Eventually everyone in that group had completed the form and went to get their pictures taken, except for me since I could not access the form. I became frustrated and stressed, so I left to sit down on a bench outside the conference room to calm down, then headed towards the English language coordinator's office to discuss the matter. They had to continue the orientation soon, but they gave me a few minutes anyway. At that point, I'd had enough. I didn't want a phone. I didn't want a phone number. I didn't want WhatsApp. I didn't want a bank app. I didn't want to use Google. I originally thought I could put up with it all given how badly I needed a stable job, but it turns out I was wrong. @@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ The director messaged asking me to return and I did. I tried to state the terms The leader proceeded to lecture me, saying that sometimes it's necessary to do things I don't like to fit in with the group and that if I had a problem with that, I'd need to talk with the director. I believe that was the moment when I decided for certain I wasn't going to work there. -I sat through the rest of the debriefing anyways, where I noticed that the online grading system wasn't even protected by a TLS certificate, meaning that anyone smart enough to use [Wireshark](https://www.wireshark.org) could capture all institutional data including student grades and teacher and administrator login credentials. +I sat through the rest of the debriefing anyway, where I noticed that the online grading system wasn't even protected by a TLS certificate, meaning that anyone smart enough to use [Wireshark](https://www.wireshark.org) could capture all institutional data including student grades and teacher and administrator login credentials. After the debriefing, I informed my group leader that I'd decided not to take the job and that they needed to tell the systems people to fix their TLS because the site was unsecured. I explained the severity of this and the importance of fixing it, but I was told that the systems people "would not listen to them". After hearing that, I walked straight out the door. diff --git a/content/entry/get-an-eco-friendly-burial.md b/content/entry/get-an-eco-friendly-burial.md index a43fd91..38781bd 100644 --- a/content/entry/get-an-eco-friendly-burial.md +++ b/content/entry/get-an-eco-friendly-burial.md @@ -29,6 +29,6 @@ When I get old and eventually die, I want younger generations to see me as someo In all likelihood, I have a long life ahead of me and won't have to worry about burial for at least fifty years. I don't plan on dying soon, but if I do come to an untimely death, let this serve as my end of life wish: -> "I don't want my death to harm nature. I wish to be placed directly into the earth, without a casket, at the nearest available spot. If that's not possible, then get me a cheap, biodegradable casket. No cremation and no preservatives. There's no reason to preserve a corpse that nobody's going to see anyways." +> "I don't want my death to harm nature. I wish to be placed directly into the earth, without a casket, at the nearest available spot. If that's not possible, then get me a cheap, biodegradable casket. No cremation and no preservatives. There's no reason to preserve a corpse that nobody's going to see anyway." If you want to preserve nature for future generations, please make it known that you wish for a green burial. Thanks for reading. diff --git a/content/entry/give-up-hope-take-action.md b/content/entry/give-up-hope-take-action.md index bac4a33..e29c22b 100644 --- a/content/entry/give-up-hope-take-action.md +++ b/content/entry/give-up-hope-take-action.md @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ You might get some satisfaction from keeping up with the news about humanity's d If you want to start feeling better about how hopeless circumstances are, stop making glib remarks, stop making excuses, and do something about it. Isn't it clear by now that nobody else is going to? -Whatever you do won't feel like enough and there may not be many opportunities for you to make a difference. You will probably fail lots of times. Things might get worse despite your efforts. Act anyways. +Whatever you do won't feel like enough and there may not be many opportunities for you to make a difference. You will probably fail lots of times. Things might get worse despite your efforts. Act anyway. In my past entries, I tried to be hopeful because I thought it was important not to spread despair, but the truth is I don't have hope for humanity. I think people who are optimistic about the future of our species are living in a fantasy. The time for hope has passed. diff --git a/content/entry/goodbye-pgp.md b/content/entry/goodbye-pgp.md index 579385e..0b1f89d 100644 --- a/content/entry/goodbye-pgp.md +++ b/content/entry/goodbye-pgp.md @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ The OpenPGP format combines [compression and encryption](https://security.stacke ## No Deniability PGP does not have [cryptographic deniability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption) even though it could be implemented. Anyone who receives a signed message from you can prove to others you sent it. -For email encryption, it hardly even matters that PGP lacks deniability. Any half decent email server uses DKIM anyways, which can and has been used to prove email provenance. Unless your email provider rotates and publishes DKIM keys, and most don't, then your emails aren't deniable. +For email encryption, it hardly even matters that PGP lacks deniability. Any half decent email server uses DKIM anyway, which can and has been used to prove email provenance. Unless your email provider rotates and publishes DKIM keys, and most don't, then your emails aren't deniable. There's also contextual information in the email content along with metadata and IP logs that prove your emails are yours. So the addition of a PGP signature probably doesn't make a practical difference. diff --git a/content/entry/identifying-and-processing-emotions-with-alexithymia.md b/content/entry/identifying-and-processing-emotions-with-alexithymia.md index 86b70ec..b65c684 100644 --- a/content/entry/identifying-and-processing-emotions-with-alexithymia.md +++ b/content/entry/identifying-and-processing-emotions-with-alexithymia.md @@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ Observing thoughts and emotions without judgment shouldn't take much effort. If ### Writing Writing is another activity I do that helps me process emotions. It's almost the same as meditation, except on paper instead of in my mind. I think about what's bothering me and write it all down. It might sound simple, like "Oh just write down what bothers me. How obvious." but the way it's done is all important. Understanding the methodology and its purpose is important if you wanna do it right. So I'll now expound on that. -When I'm doing this technique, I'm not rushing myself to get to the end. The point isn't to finish as fast as possible. The spelling and punctuation don't matter. The tone of writing doesn't matter. The language I'm writing in doesn't matter. The goal is to write every thought I have about what's bothering me, not one thought excluded, no matter how crazy it might sound if someone else read it. No one else is going to read it and I can discard it when I'm done anyways. There's no need to reread the paper unless I feel like I ought to. +When I'm doing this technique, I'm not rushing myself to get to the end. The point isn't to finish as fast as possible. The spelling and punctuation don't matter. The tone of writing doesn't matter. The language I'm writing in doesn't matter. The goal is to write every thought I have about what's bothering me, not one thought excluded, no matter how crazy it might sound if someone else read it. No one else is going to read it and I can discard it when I'm done anyway. There's no need to reread the paper unless I feel like I ought to. The whole point of the writing is the same as the meditation: to acknowledge my thoughts and emotions without judging them. When I'm writing down my thoughts, that's acknowledging that they exist, in a way. If I find myself having an opinion of what I've written, I write down that opinion too. I continue writing until I'm all out of opinions and I've written everything I want to write. I can always write more later if I wish to. diff --git a/content/entry/its-not-necessarily-irrational-to-believe-things-you-cant-justify-to-others.md b/content/entry/its-not-necessarily-irrational-to-believe-things-you-cant-justify-to-others.md index e2dd3a1..36c4b57 100644 --- a/content/entry/its-not-necessarily-irrational-to-believe-things-you-cant-justify-to-others.md +++ b/content/entry/its-not-necessarily-irrational-to-believe-things-you-cant-justify-to-others.md @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ draft: false --- There's a certain mistake seasoned debaters often make when interacting with lay people and the mistake is that just because the unprepared lay person cannot presently argue a point, the seasoned debater concludes they hold that belief without justification. I'll explain why this conclusion isn't necessarily correct. -Remember the "Change My Mind" guy, [Steven Crowder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Crowder)? If you're not familiar with him, he's an American-Canadian conservative political commentator and the subject of a popular meme format. He used to set up a table on college campuses to debate college students. I don't know if he still does it. I don't follow him. Anyways he goes into these debates where he picks the topic, one which he's knowledgeable about and has lots of points in his favor already in working memory, and he goes up against unprepared college students. +Remember the "Change My Mind" guy, [Steven Crowder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Crowder)? If you're not familiar with him, he's an American-Canadian conservative political commentator and the subject of a popular meme format. He used to set up a table on college campuses to debate college students. I don't know if he still does it. I don't follow him. Anyway he goes into these debates where he picks the topic, one which he's knowledgeable about and has lots of points in his favor already in working memory, and he goes up against unprepared college students. I don't consider what Steven does unfair in the slightest, because the college students voluntarily go and debate him, so it's up to them to be ready for the heat. It's not like he screens students before he debates them to make himself look good. But I fear that some people may get the impression that he's correct just because he can look smart in front of unprepared college students. diff --git a/content/entry/join-extinction-rebellion-now.md b/content/entry/join-extinction-rebellion-now.md index b268076..b0e9490 100644 --- a/content/entry/join-extinction-rebellion-now.md +++ b/content/entry/join-extinction-rebellion-now.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ The only option left is disruptive non-violent direct action to force government You can find a list of Extinction Rebellion's principles and demands on [one of their websites](https://rebellion.global "Extinction Rebellion"). There's also a [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Extinction_Rebellion_actions "Timeline of Extinction Rebellion actions") listing past actions performed using the name of Extinction Rebellion. -Given the severity of the climate crisis and what will happen if we do nothing, I support any action that garners more rebels for Extinction Rebellion, including blocking roads and shutting down airports. The only valid criticism of such actions, in my mind, is that they might turn some people off from the movement. However, I think a case can be made that those who are turned off by even the most milquetoast disruption are probably disinclined to help the movement anyways. +Given the severity of the climate crisis and what will happen if we do nothing, I support any action that garners more rebels for Extinction Rebellion, including blocking roads and shutting down airports. The only valid criticism of such actions, in my mind, is that they might turn some people off from the movement. However, I think a case can be made that those who are turned off by even the most milquetoast disruption are probably disinclined to help the movement anyway. The question of which tactics to use definitely warrants more discussion. I certainly don't feel like I'm in a position to blame rebels for trying different strategies (within reason). I think there's a balance between disruption and attendance, but I'm obviously not the final word on it. The group seems to have the right idea overall, so please consider joining them to save the human race before it's too late. diff --git a/content/entry/journal-update-018.md b/content/entry/journal-update-018.md index 0f93982..a38a9a0 100644 --- a/content/entry/journal-update-018.md +++ b/content/entry/journal-update-018.md @@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ draft: false --- # What's New * Replaced my GPG key with Age for email encryption and Signify for signing commits. [GPG is ancient, bad software](/2022/01/03/goodbye-pgp/). -* Stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations. Proof-of-work cryptocurrencies waste obscene amounts of energy. Existing cryptocurrencies don't scale well. Their main use is crime and speculation on crime. The market is full of scams and false promises. No one really knows how to value them. They are potentially a systemic risk to the economy. So I do not wish to be involved any more. It's not like this journal costs much to run anyways. +* Stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations. Proof-of-work cryptocurrencies waste obscene amounts of energy. Existing cryptocurrencies don't scale well. Their main use is crime and speculation on crime. The market is full of scams and false promises. No one really knows how to value them. They are potentially a systemic risk to the economy. So I do not wish to be involved any more. It's not like this journal costs much to run anyway. * Entry summaries have been removed. I believe the title alone should be sufficient to communicate an entry's subject matter. * Pagination and read time have been removed to simplify the journal layout. These features may be added back later after the scripts rewrite if I decide they further journal design goals. The goal of the design of this journal is to be minimally distracting and respect reader attention. * Replaced GitLab mirror with [SourceHut](https://sourcehut.org/). SourceHut has many benefits over GitLab. It doesn't [assist ICE](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/-/merge_requests/30656). It doesn't require JavaScript unlike GitLab. It's fast and resource efficient. It also supports Gemini, so all three journal mirrors now support both Gemini and the Web. diff --git a/content/entry/journal-update-021.md b/content/entry/journal-update-021.md index cc3a57c..f900fbf 100644 --- a/content/entry/journal-update-021.md +++ b/content/entry/journal-update-021.md @@ -46,6 +46,6 @@ Rebranding isn't a high priority and I haven't decided on it for certain. In any I've spent a lot of time on server-side configurations that make nicksphere.ch work, but they're not documented anywhere. I'd like to create a Git repository automating those setups and configurations with Ansible scripts. -Another reason server-side automation is useful is for transitioning to a new VPS. I need to switch because my current VPS only accepts [digital tulips](/glossary/), which [I oppose](/2022/08/17/merchants-should-stop-accepting-cryptocurrency/). Since this domain is associated with my real legal name, I don't benefit from anonymous payment anyways. And my VPS provider is quite expensive. +Another reason server-side automation is useful is for transitioning to a new VPS. I need to switch because my current VPS only accepts [digital tulips](/glossary/), which [I oppose](/2022/08/17/merchants-should-stop-accepting-cryptocurrency/). Since this domain is associated with my real legal name, I don't benefit from anonymous payment anyway. And my VPS provider is quite expensive. There's a lot to be done, but luckily the only time-sensitive todo item is switching my VPS provider so I don't need to use cryptocurrency. Everything else can wait. diff --git a/content/entry/journal-update-022.md b/content/entry/journal-update-022.md index 1eaaf53..59dbf42 100644 --- a/content/entry/journal-update-022.md +++ b/content/entry/journal-update-022.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Using Ansible, I automated configurations that remain the same across servers I My new VPS accepts many payment methods, so I don't depend on [digital tulips](/glossary/) anymore. Unfortunately my VPS provider doesn't have IPv6 support yet, but I've been assured that they already have the IPv6 addresses and they're just working on assigning them now. -I decided to drop I2P support for the time being. It was broken anyways for who knows how long. If you want to know more about that, read this [Git commit message](https://git.nicholasjohnson.ch/journal/commit/?id=2a5af819934817f0fd09bf3aeff37a72bff4d33f937bcbed260955da09ec0b26). If you use the [Tor](gemini://nick6gsepvtmkcpibpid6dqtqroxt62u6ab4ep65vxrenffruumj6jad.onion) [onion](http://nick6gsepvtmkcpibpid6dqtqroxt62u6ab4ep65vxrenffruumj6jad.onion) to access this journal, nothing has changed. I migrated the onion to the new VPS as-is. +I decided to drop I2P support for the time being. It was broken anyway for who knows how long. If you want to know more about that, read this [Git commit message](https://git.nicholasjohnson.ch/journal/commit/?id=2a5af819934817f0fd09bf3aeff37a72bff4d33f937bcbed260955da09ec0b26). If you use the [Tor](gemini://nick6gsepvtmkcpibpid6dqtqroxt62u6ab4ep65vxrenffruumj6jad.onion) [onion](http://nick6gsepvtmkcpibpid6dqtqroxt62u6ab4ep65vxrenffruumj6jad.onion) to access this journal, nothing has changed. I migrated the onion to the new VPS as-is. In the journal repository, I've started signing Git tags rather than commits. Git-annex has been removed for cleaner code and better accessibility on Sourcehut. The ugly Python code has been entirely removed and replaced with two Hugo configuration files, meaning Hugo properly generates my journal now all on its own. I switched from emojis to using emoji codes for better code accessibility. diff --git a/content/entry/learning-im-autistic-was-a-relief.md b/content/entry/learning-im-autistic-was-a-relief.md index ee2bf14..8d0d0b5 100644 --- a/content/entry/learning-im-autistic-was-a-relief.md +++ b/content/entry/learning-im-autistic-was-a-relief.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Learning I'm autistic and realizing what that meant brought me a huge amount of Before I self-diagnosed as autistic, I knew there was something different about me compared to everybody else. I couldn't articulate exactly what it was, but there was no denying it. The feeling of being different, estranged from the rest of humanity, is a pretty universal autistic experience. If you're interested in which ways I'm different from neurotypicals, check out my other entries on autism, specifically "[Coming Out as Autistic](/2022/05/16/coming-out-as-autistic/)". The details are outside the scope of this entry. -Anyways, as someone who is different, I had so many inaccurate and incomplete labels assigned to me growing up. Some of the more negative ones were "idiot", "weird", "weirdo", "retard", "slow", "loner", "lazy", "unfocused", "lost", "stubborn", "disorganized", "lacking common sense", "jerk", and "difficult". The positive labels I got were "smart", "genius", "hard-working", and "determined". I also acquired neutral labels like "different" and "introvert". +Anyway, as someone who is different, I had so many inaccurate and incomplete labels assigned to me growing up. Some of the more negative ones were "idiot", "weird", "weirdo", "retard", "slow", "loner", "lazy", "unfocused", "lost", "stubborn", "disorganized", "lacking common sense", "jerk", and "difficult". The positive labels I got were "smart", "genius", "hard-working", and "determined". I also acquired neutral labels like "different" and "introvert". Being called both a genius and a retard who lacks common sense, lazy and hard-working, slow and smart, unfocused, lost, and determined was confusing. It wasn't just different people calling me contradictory things. It was the same people calling me contradictory things. It was as is if everyone was just *dying* label me, but they couldn't find one that fit. As soon as they thought they had me pinned as an X, I did a Y. People didn't know what to make of me. diff --git a/content/entry/my-first-psychedelic-mushroom-trip-in-san-jose-del-pacifico.md b/content/entry/my-first-psychedelic-mushroom-trip-in-san-jose-del-pacifico.md index c8c304c..326d5d4 100644 --- a/content/entry/my-first-psychedelic-mushroom-trip-in-san-jose-del-pacifico.md +++ b/content/entry/my-first-psychedelic-mushroom-trip-in-san-jose-del-pacifico.md @@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ As we walked in and shut the door behind us, my wife collapsed onto the bed. I w Let this serve as a lesson to anyone who considers visiting San José del Pacífico in the off-season looking for mushrooms: don't. The vendors will rip your eyes out for hit-or-miss shrooms. -I was slightly disappointed that I got no visuals, but that wasn't my main motivation for tripping anyways. I lied down on the bed with my wife, preparing to fully surrender to the experience and give the shrooms a chance to do their thing. +I was slightly disappointed that I got no visuals, but that wasn't my main motivation for tripping anyway. I lied down on the bed with my wife, preparing to fully surrender to the experience and give the shrooms a chance to do their thing. ### Revelations As I was lying there, the shrooms started showing me that my normal mode of operation psychologically was but one of many possible ways my mind can operate. Normally, I continually focus on the problems of my life. I use distraction to keep boredom and sadness at bay. I spend time regretting the past and worrying about the future. Shrooms showed me there's another way: being present. Not waiting for or expecting something to happen, just being intimately acquainted with and accepting what's happening in the here and now. @@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ I had no idea how fast my heart was going. I couldn't measure it, but it was bea I was also nervous because I hadn't seen any visuals. I got the idea that the shrooms may have been contaminated or that I'd ingested a poisonous strain. There was no evidence to suggest that, since all the effects I was having were indicative of magic mushrooms. Also, the lack of visuals was easily explained by the shrooms being weak since they were preserved. And if I'd ingested a poisonous strain, I would've already been throwing up along with the other tourists. -But none of that mattered because I wasn't thinking rationally. My brain had been totally hijacked by my anxiety. So I asked my wife if she would get someone to check my heart. She was reluctant to bother anyone so late at night, she didn't know who to ask, and felt embarrassed. I told her it was okay because everybody knew why tourists came there anyways. I kept insisting to her that something didn't feel right and that she needed to find someone quickly. She paced back and forth nervously not sure what to do. +But none of that mattered because I wasn't thinking rationally. My brain had been totally hijacked by my anxiety. So I asked my wife if she would get someone to check my heart. She was reluctant to bother anyone so late at night, she didn't know who to ask, and felt embarrassed. I told her it was okay because everybody knew why tourists came there anyway. I kept insisting to her that something didn't feel right and that she needed to find someone quickly. She paced back and forth nervously not sure what to do. She tried to convince me I was fine and just having a bad trip. I told her I was having a bad trip, but only because of my heart pounding. So we went into town in the middle of the night looking for a second opinion from someone who had also taken the shrooms. Walking made me feel slightly better since my body felt more in sync with my heart rate. I remember walking down the street with my arms crossed, still mentally resisting my heart rate. We stopped some Europeans who were walking the street and asked if they'd tried the shrooms. They replied that they hadn't, but that they'd taken shrooms before. They tried their best to reassure me and were all very friendly, but it didn't help at all. diff --git a/content/entry/on-compassion.md b/content/entry/on-compassion.md index a418ab7..2a3b5bc 100644 --- a/content/entry/on-compassion.md +++ b/content/entry/on-compassion.md @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ Now people on the other hand are ascribed moral agency. People know right from w Now in normal conversation I don't feel the need to clarify words like "choice" with a lengthy explanation of how free will doesn't actually exist, because 99% of the time it doesn't matter. But "choice" is a leaky abstraction which causes problems in rare cases. I've written about this before in the context of [Newcomb's Paradox](/2020/11/28/newcombs-paradox-resolved/). As it turns out, compassion is another one of those rare cases where it's important to be extremely clear about language like "choice". So I'm forced to talk about the subject of free will again. # The Sensible View of Compassion -I've already debunked free will in [two](/2020/06/19/free-will-is-incoherent-part-1/) [separate](/2020/08/22/free-will-is-incoherent-part-2/) journal entries. You can go read those if you like. If not, I'm about to give a crash course anyways. If anything you're about to read in the next section confuses you or you find it hard to follow, I suggest going back to my two previous posts dedicated to free will for some background. With that, I'll continue. +I've already debunked free will in [two](/2020/06/19/free-will-is-incoherent-part-1/) [separate](/2020/08/22/free-will-is-incoherent-part-2/) journal entries. You can go read those if you like. If not, I'm about to give a crash course anyway. If anything you're about to read in the next section confuses you or you find it hard to follow, I suggest going back to my two previous posts dedicated to free will for some background. With that, I'll continue. ## Hate is Unjustifiable Ask yourself, are you responsible for the fact that you weren't born baby Hitler? If you think the answer is yes, then who exactly is the self that can take credit for not being born baby Hitler? It can't be your present self with all your mental faculties and memories and moral principles because your present self didn't exist when Hitler was born. How is it that you can claim responsibility for who you are now when scientifically we know that who you are now is a mere product of past events of which you had no control? You didn't wire your own brain. And even if you somehow think you did, who wired the self that wired your brain? You see, pretending people have absolute responsibility is absurd. @@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ Then there's also the social aspect. So many people are suffering and dissatisfi I'm not saying that Tolle isn't mentally ill or is "fully enlightened". But to me it seems whoever wrote that article about him went out of their way to mischaracterize everything he said, or at least, not give him the benefit of the doubt. -Despite what IrrationalWiki implies, there is no obligation to suffer when bad things happen. You are not a "better person" for suffering and your suffering won't change the outcome anyways. Suffering more also does not mean you care more. If other people don't understand that or they think you are a bad person because you don't let events in the world perturb your inner peace, that's their problem. You can try to help them understand how to have self-compassion, but at the end of the day, they have to give themselves permission to feel better. +Despite what IrrationalWiki implies, there is no obligation to suffer when bad things happen. You are not a "better person" for suffering and your suffering won't change the outcome anyway. Suffering more also does not mean you care more. If other people don't understand that or they think you are a bad person because you don't let events in the world perturb your inner peace, that's their problem. You can try to help them understand how to have self-compassion, but at the end of the day, they have to give themselves permission to feel better. To clarify, not suffering doesn't mean you never show emotion. Even displaying negative emotions isn't necessarily an indication of suffering. There's a misconception that suffering is a direct consequence of pain. Actually suffering is a consequence of unacknowledged pain. It's not allowing yourself to hurt when you need to that robs you of your peace of mind and makes you suffer. So please don't interpret giving yourself permission not to suffer as never showing emotions or never feeling pain because that's not what it is. diff --git a/content/entry/on-data-leaks.md b/content/entry/on-data-leaks.md index 0624f71..8b86488 100644 --- a/content/entry/on-data-leaks.md +++ b/content/entry/on-data-leaks.md @@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ date: 2021-11-04T00:00:00 tags: ['computing'] draft: false --- -I know this entry is going to disqualify me from working for big tech or the government but oh well. Other things I've said on this journal have probably already disqualified me anyways. +I know this entry is going to disqualify me from working for big tech or the government but oh well. Other things I've said on this journal have probably already disqualified me anyway. # Ransomware Groups Are Scum Ransomware groups that leak customer data if they don't get their ransom have no morals. The only useful societal functions they fulfill are: diff --git a/content/entry/organization-let-grow.md b/content/entry/organization-let-grow.md index 2b80ee0..ac30839 100644 --- a/content/entry/organization-let-grow.md +++ b/content/entry/organization-let-grow.md @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ I was the chief architect behind the "chaos" in the classroom and quite satisfie # The Swine Flu On a different day, I was outside on the playground. Some other student had come up with a pandemic-like game similar to tag. It started with one "infected" person. That person tagged someone else who then became infected. So on and so forth until everyone was infected, and then we restarted. It was a fun twist on the game of tag and unlike tag, it had a definite ending. Given the timing, I think the disease was supposed to be [swine flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic) since that was happening at around the same time I was in grade school. -The playground monitor who watched over us, a woman probably between the ages of thirty and fifty at the time, told us that the swine flu game was no longer allowed. I never learned why not. It didn't make sense to me as a kid. It was just a modified game of tag where we simulated a pandemic that was already of concern anyways. +The playground monitor who watched over us, a woman probably between the ages of thirty and fifty at the time, told us that the swine flu game was no longer allowed. I never learned why not. It didn't make sense to me as a kid. It was just a modified game of tag where we simulated a pandemic that was already of concern anyway. I now suspect that, if pressed, the playground monitor would have said something to the effect of "that game isn't appropriate", because people were getting sick from the swine flu. But what does "inappropriate" even mean? We were kids with no bad intentions and it was a fun game. I suspect if we called it something different, the monitor wouldn't have had a problem with the game. Looking back, it still makes no sense to me why that game was canceled for us. diff --git a/content/entry/planning-for-an-uncertain-future.md b/content/entry/planning-for-an-uncertain-future.md index bdf0780..e12951e 100644 --- a/content/entry/planning-for-an-uncertain-future.md +++ b/content/entry/planning-for-an-uncertain-future.md @@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ Now I want to take a moment to go back and focus on something I wrote nearer to > "We are at a unique moment in human history." -By that I mean that, for the vast majority of all human history up until the Industrial Revolution, you couldn't have made The Argument For Futurist Planning. Technological progress happened too slowly for individuals to have to plan for it and the global catastrophes of the day like the Black Death couldn't be planned for anyways. There was either nothing to prepare for or nothing you could do to prepare, so our ancestors never had to invoke Futurist Planning. +By that I mean that, for the vast majority of all human history up until the Industrial Revolution, you couldn't have made The Argument For Futurist Planning. Technological progress happened too slowly for individuals to have to plan for it and the global catastrophes of the day like the Black Death couldn't be planned for anyway. There was either nothing to prepare for or nothing you could do to prepare, so our ancestors never had to invoke Futurist Planning. The situation is very different now though. Technology advances from year to year and people are starting to understand that they have to prepare for and even anticipate it. We also have much more information than we used to, which allows us to plan our individual lives better for global catastrophic risks. I think it's the responsibility of all of us now to use Futurist Planning and adjust our long-term plans accordingly. diff --git a/content/entry/please-dont-use-google-as-a-verb.md b/content/entry/please-dont-use-google-as-a-verb.md index 9b03151..f34a114 100644 --- a/content/entry/please-dont-use-google-as-a-verb.md +++ b/content/entry/please-dont-use-google-as-a-verb.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ I can think of a few other examples of non-Goolag big tech companys' software en Skype is a proprietary voice/video calling application, but I've heard people use "Skype" to mean "start a video call". If someone wants to Skype you, tell them that they're actually talking about doing a voice/video call using Skype. This serves as a reminder to them that there are other applications that do voice/video calls, including free/libre apps like Jitsi. -And let's stop using "WhatsApp" as a substitute for "phone number". I encourage you never to use Facecrook's WhatsApp spyware if you can help it. But, if you're gonna use it anyways, please ask for people's phone numbers to add them on WhatsApp. Do not ask for their "WhatsApp". And if someone asks you for your "WhatsApp", clarify that they want to use your **phone number** to add you on WhatsApp. Just like with Skype, this is important because it helps less tech literate people mentally dissociate open protocols and activities from big tech. +And let's stop using "WhatsApp" as a substitute for "phone number". I encourage you never to use Facecrook's WhatsApp spyware if you can help it. But, if you're gonna use it anyway, please ask for people's phone numbers to add them on WhatsApp. Do not ask for their "WhatsApp". And if someone asks you for your "WhatsApp", clarify that they want to use your **phone number** to add you on WhatsApp. Just like with Skype, this is important because it helps less tech literate people mentally dissociate open protocols and activities from big tech. Another strategy which I prefer is playing offense and creating one's own vernacular of free/libre software. When someone asks for your WhatsApp, ask for their Matrix ID. When they tell you to Goolag something, tell them "I'll DuckDuckGo it!" or "I'll StartPage it!". When someone asks for your Gmail, ask for their mailbox.org. If someone wants to Skype you, send them a Jitsi link. diff --git a/content/entry/predicting-the-near-term-consequences-of-ai.md b/content/entry/predicting-the-near-term-consequences-of-ai.md index 79f04d1..d16c90b 100644 --- a/content/entry/predicting-the-near-term-consequences-of-ai.md +++ b/content/entry/predicting-the-near-term-consequences-of-ai.md @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Since this implicit coercion issue isn't discussed at all for smartphones, I exp ## Attention Engineering / Manipulation AI-powered social media sites are partially responsible for [destroying people's ability to pay attention](/2022/12/06/book-stolen-focus-why-you-cant-pay-attention-and-how-to-think-deeply-again/) and making them depressed and angry. In case you've been living under a rock, it has now become normalised for everyone to be addicted to their smartphone, checking social media hundreds of times per day. For that reason, I call social media networks, "digital [Skinner boxes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber)". -[I don't carry a smartphone](/2021/12/26/why-i-dont-have-a-smartphone/) because I didn't want to be a part of that. Unfortunately, since everybody else has them, I'm often tempted to borrow other people's smartphones and get sucked in anyways. The pull of social media is very strong even for someone like me who goes out of their way to avoid it. If social media becomes any more addictive than it already is, and it almost certainly will since AI will only improve, then I think humanity is going to have an even bigger attention crisis on its hands. +[I don't carry a smartphone](/2021/12/26/why-i-dont-have-a-smartphone/) because I didn't want to be a part of that. Unfortunately, since everybody else has them, I'm often tempted to borrow other people's smartphones and get sucked in anyway. The pull of social media is very strong even for someone like me who goes out of their way to avoid it. If social media becomes any more addictive than it already is, and it almost certainly will since AI will only improve, then I think humanity is going to have an even bigger attention crisis on its hands. ## Autonomous Weapons I won't go into too much detail about [AI-driven lethal autonomous weapons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_autonomous_weapon). Rather, I have a short video which captures my concern better than anything I could write here. It's called "[Slaughterbots](https://yewtu.be/embed/9CO6M2HsoIA?local=true)". If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend it. @@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ Perhaps some forms of automation could be banned to prevent mass unemployment, b ## Life Purpose In my entry "[Automation and The Meaning of Work](/2022/09/07/automation-and-the-meaning-of-work/)", I predicted how automation would affect how people find meaning. I think it will have some positive benefits like no more child labor and freeing people from miserable and dangerous jobs, giving people more time to do things they like doing. But it will also have negative effects such as taking away work people find meaningful. I predict some jobs will still remain, specifically those where human workers like doing them and the people who benefit from the labor prefer humans doing them. -I predict that if nothing is done to incentivize students, they'll be discouraged from attending higher education since their future jobs will be automated anyways. Perhaps students won't be discouraged though if going to university is more of a sociocultural expectation than a rational economic choice they're making. +I predict that if nothing is done to incentivize students, they'll be discouraged from attending higher education since their future jobs will be automated anyway. Perhaps students won't be discouraged though if going to university is more of a sociocultural expectation than a rational economic choice they're making. With the dramatic reduction in useful human labor, I predict that culture will be forced to adapt so that human meaning is no longer associated with what one does for money. @@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ With a higher rate of technological development than in the past, governments wi ## Conclusion There's so much more that I wish I could get to, but I don't have the time. For instance, I didn't even mention any propositions concerning digital minds. That may be a more long-term issue, but I would argue that it's relevant now because we will soon build AIs that constitute primitive digital minds. Fortunately people like [Nick Bostrom](https://nickbostrom.com/) and [Carl Shulman](https://web.archive.org/web/20230418235430if_/https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/team/carl-shulman/) have made some headway on digital minds in their paper "[Propositions Concerning Digital Minds and Society](https://nickbostrom.com/propositions.pdf)". -Anyways, I thank you for reading my journal entries and considering these issues with me. I hope to write more about AI in the future. Sometimes I look at the work of the people like Nick Bostrom and think "Wow! I am so underqualified to write about this. Should I even bother?" but then I remind myself that: +Anyway, I thank you for reading my journal entries and considering these issues with me. I hope to write more about AI in the future. Sometimes I look at the work of the people like Nick Bostrom and think "Wow! I am so underqualified to write about this. Should I even bother?" but then I remind myself that: 1. He writes academic papers while I'm just writing a blog, so expectations of rigor are different 2. I have decent reasoning skills and more thinking is needed on this subject diff --git a/content/entry/psychedelics-are-a-rite-of-passage.md b/content/entry/psychedelics-are-a-rite-of-passage.md index e888810..a6519df 100644 --- a/content/entry/psychedelics-are-a-rite-of-passage.md +++ b/content/entry/psychedelics-are-a-rite-of-passage.md @@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Terence McKenna, American ethnobotanist and advocate for psychedelic drugs, once While I don't think sex is comparable to psychedelics, Terence did have a point. Healthy people who abstain from psychedelic drugs are missing out on an important life experience. -If someone doesn't want to take psychedelics because of lack of interest, I suspect they might not see the value anyways. Maybe those people aren't missing out. But when someone abstains from psychedelics because they drank the [D.A.R.E.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education#Reception) Kool-Aid and they think all illegal drugs are nothing but bad, I feel bad for them. They might be missing out on some of the most important experiences in their life thanks to ignorance and stupidity. +If someone doesn't want to take psychedelics because of lack of interest, I suspect they might not see the value anyway. Maybe those people aren't missing out. But when someone abstains from psychedelics because they drank the [D.A.R.E.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education#Reception) Kool-Aid and they think all illegal drugs are nothing but bad, I feel bad for them. They might be missing out on some of the most important experiences in their life thanks to ignorance and stupidity. If I ever have offspring, which I don't plan on, I hope they never try heroin, methamphetamine, or give themselves brain damage with large quantities of cough syrup. But if they go to the grave without ever using psychedelic drugs, I will feel that they missed out on one of the most important experiences life has to offer. diff --git a/content/entry/re-dkim-show-your-privates.md b/content/entry/re-dkim-show-your-privates.md index 36a9e6a..a3144ff 100644 --- a/content/entry/re-dkim-show-your-privates.md +++ b/content/entry/re-dkim-show-your-privates.md @@ -18,11 +18,11 @@ The Session team's blog post, "[Session Protocol: Technical implementation detai > > Instead of designing a cryptographic protection, Session will add the ability to edit other users’ messages locally, thus providing a way to completely forge conversations. Since signatures are deleted after messages are received, there will be no way to prove whether a screenshot of a conversation is real or edited, diminishing the value of screenshots as evidence." -Programmers could still change the Session source code to save the message signatures anyways, but I highly doubt anyone is doing this. By contrast, email servers *do* retain email signatures even after emails are already validated. So there's more of a concern for email being cryptographically undeniable than Session Private Messenger. +Programmers could still change the Session source code to save the message signatures anyway, but I highly doubt anyone is doing this. By contrast, email servers *do* retain email signatures even after emails are already validated. So there's more of a concern for email being cryptographically undeniable than Session Private Messenger. So, in my opinion, all email providers should publish expired DKIM keys. Especially the big ones that handle lots of mail like AOL, Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, Yandex, etc. I'll quickly debunk some of the main objections. -Publishing expired keys doesn't make spam harder to combat since the key gets revoked anyways. Since email accounts rely on the security of both client *and* the server and many people use weak passwords and fall victim to phishing attacks, determining whether someone sent a particular outgoing email depends more on context (server logs, IP addresses, other info) than DKIM signatures. So publishing expired keys probably doesn't make computer forensics harder. +Publishing expired keys doesn't make spam harder to combat since the key gets revoked anyway. Since email accounts rely on the security of both client *and* the server and many people use weak passwords and fall victim to phishing attacks, determining whether someone sent a particular outgoing email depends more on context (server logs, IP addresses, other info) than DKIM signatures. So publishing expired keys probably doesn't make computer forensics harder. This practice could make valuable corporate/government email leaks less credible, but CEOs and politicians aren't the only ones who use email. Everybody uses it and making everybody less safe to gain slight confidence that occasional, albeit important email leaks are legitimate doesn't seem worth it. diff --git a/content/entry/re-ive-stopped-using-mobile-phones-in-my-life.md b/content/entry/re-ive-stopped-using-mobile-phones-in-my-life.md index 385bbc2..3b2ea23 100644 --- a/content/entry/re-ive-stopped-using-mobile-phones-in-my-life.md +++ b/content/entry/re-ive-stopped-using-mobile-phones-in-my-life.md @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Jakub goes on to talk about how he makes purchases without using a proprietary b > "My solution to money is to just pay use cash. I can hear people who read this screaming in disbelief, but it is true. I only use cash, I always did and I dont know why I should stop. I honestly don't even know why I get so many weird reactions when I say this, or actually very cheerful reactions from people involved in Free Culture or Privacy. As if it was something hard, almost impossible to do. I truly don't know what is so hard about it. Cash is the only good way of transacting privately nowdays, without being surveilled by Big Brother. I think people should be more aware of how dangerous it is for democracy that the government knows what each and every person is buying, where they're sending money etc." -I live in Mexico where cash is universally accepted and many vendors don't even have card readers, so carrying cash is necessary anyways. I'm happy that I never need to worry that cash might be rejected. But I'm keenly aware of societies that are trying to go cashless, making private monetary transactions impossible. I think this could account for why some people into free culture and privacy are so impressed. Where they live, it may be much harder to go cashless. +I live in Mexico where cash is universally accepted and many vendors don't even have card readers, so carrying cash is necessary anyway. I'm happy that I never need to worry that cash might be rejected. But I'm keenly aware of societies that are trying to go cashless, making private monetary transactions impossible. I think this could account for why some people into free culture and privacy are so impressed. Where they live, it may be much harder to go cashless. As for the weird reactions Jakub receives, they probably come from clueless people who don't understand why privacy matters. In a world filled with people who either don't know or don't care that their choices are empowering a surveillance state that erodes democracy, hearing about other young people who see the problem clearly and do something about it cheers me up. diff --git a/content/entry/re-video-dont-talk-to-the-police.md b/content/entry/re-video-dont-talk-to-the-police.md index 6d1bfc0..0bfceb9 100644 --- a/content/entry/re-video-dont-talk-to-the-police.md +++ b/content/entry/re-video-dont-talk-to-the-police.md @@ -19,6 +19,6 @@ When you're dealing with cops like this who escalate situations, trick you, thre It's easy for privileged white guys like Duane and I to tell people "Always comply with what the police tell you. Never resist. If they violate your rights, fight it in court later." and I think that's generally good advice. I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to deviate from that as a policy, but if you don't believe there are circumstances that call for deviating, I think you're just naïve. -Most of us have probably heard of the tragic death of [Eric Garner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Eric_Garner "The Killing of Eric Garner"), a man the police choked to death over (allegedly) selling untaxed cigarettes. Garner stated *11 times* that he couldn't breathe, but the officer kept his knee on Garner's neck anyways. What was Garner supposed to do in that situation? Just let the police murder him? +Most of us have probably heard of the tragic death of [Eric Garner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Eric_Garner "The Killing of Eric Garner"), a man the police choked to death over (allegedly) selling untaxed cigarettes. Garner stated *11 times* that he couldn't breathe, but the officer kept his knee on Garner's neck anyway. What was Garner supposed to do in that situation? Just let the police murder him? I think the best course of action when interacting with police is almost always to comply, assert your rights whenever possible, and rarely to resist. Ultimately though it depends on context and individual circumstances and one has to use their best judgment. diff --git a/content/entry/re-why-even-let-users-set-their-own-passwords.md b/content/entry/re-why-even-let-users-set-their-own-passwords.md index 39c8da9..9b1dfb0 100644 --- a/content/entry/re-why-even-let-users-set-their-own-passwords.md +++ b/content/entry/re-why-even-let-users-set-their-own-passwords.md @@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ There are several flaws with this email token approach to account security as de First, as Hugo points out, since the alternate login flow (password recovery) only requires the email token, the password not only becomes a pointless inconvenience that increases system complexity with no security benefit, but it also gives the user a false sense that their account is protected using two-factor authentication when it's not. -Even if the email tokens were truly two-factor, most users probably access email from the same device they use to log in to online accounts anyways. So it still wouldn't be "proper" two-factor. +Even if the email tokens were truly two-factor, most users probably access email from the same device they use to log in to online accounts anyway. So it still wouldn't be "proper" two-factor. Second, these email tokens actually give the attacker several more avenues to gain account access, and in ways the user likely isn't considering, doesn't know about, and has no ability to mitigate. Here are a few: @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Second, these email tokens actually give the attacker several more avenues to ga > "Often this will be combined with fallacious notions such as “remember this device”, the idea being you only have to go through all this the first time when logging in from a particular device. This idea is fallacious because the web has no notion of a “device”, and this is a very intentional design choice made for privacy purposes. We are literally living through the gradual phase-out of third-party cookies, amongst other functionality, specifically to try and prevent this sort of thing, so why do web developers persist in believing in this fiction of a “device”? My own browser erases all cookies from an origin immediately after the last tab from that origin is closed, so these sites are convinced I am logging in from a new “device” every single time, and then demand I respond to one of these challenge emails." -I don't see the "remember this device" terminology as a problem. I think it helps non-technical people understand what's going on while technical people understand what it's doing anyways. +I don't see the "remember this device" terminology as a problem. I think it helps non-technical people understand what's going on while technical people understand what it's doing anyway. My browser also erases cookies, so I also have to log in every time, but this is the desired behavior. diff --git a/content/entry/save-american-democracy.md b/content/entry/save-american-democracy.md index 96cd568..94bfb62 100644 --- a/content/entry/save-american-democracy.md +++ b/content/entry/save-american-democracy.md @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Let me extend an olive branch to the MAGA camp. I also hate the sanctimoniousnes The guy who you're thinking of voting for is a pompous narcissistic bully. He spreads disinformation and lies at a velocity never before seen in all of American political history. He breaks longstanding political norms. He says things that, had *any* other presidential candidate said them, it would've ended their political career forever. He insults US allies and talks about "falling in love" with brutal dictators like Kim Jong Un. He attacks journalists, calling all negative press coverage of him "fake news". He wants to give up the fight against climate change and let the human race perish. He doesn't even respect the Constitution or the rule of law. And he tried to coup the government because he prioritizes his own interests over democracy. -I agree with Trump voters that Biden is clearly unfit for office and Kamala has flaws just like any other politician, but I'm going to vote for her anyways because at least I can count on her not to end democracy or run the United States straight off a fucking cliff. +I agree with Trump voters that Biden is clearly unfit for office and Kamala has flaws just like any other politician, but I'm going to vote for her anyway because at least I can count on her not to end democracy or run the United States straight off a fucking cliff. ## Disinformation diff --git a/content/entry/started-from-the-bottom-stayed-at-the-bottom.md b/content/entry/started-from-the-bottom-stayed-at-the-bottom.md index d26fab9..89b6c19 100644 --- a/content/entry/started-from-the-bottom-stayed-at-the-bottom.md +++ b/content/entry/started-from-the-bottom-stayed-at-the-bottom.md @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ Even ignoring that the economy as a whole isn't meritocratic, ignoring that meri That may seem like a trivial question, but I argue that it's not. There's room for reasonable people to disagree. For example, if I say I can do something, but I'm never motivated enough to do it, is it fair to say that I can do it then? That's unclear to me. -I think I've sufficiently critiqued the conclusion enough to convince the audience that it should be rejected outright or at least be treated very skeptically, but we have to go along with it anyways to understand the mindset of those who believe it. +I think I've sufficiently critiqued the conclusion enough to convince the audience that it should be rejected outright or at least be treated very skeptically, but we have to go along with it anyway to understand the mindset of those who believe it. The [modus tollens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens) of "Anybody can upgrade their economic stratum if they only work hard enough." results in "People who can't upgrade their economic stratum don't work hard enough." which often gets twisted into "Poor people are lazy." diff --git a/content/entry/thank-you-destiny-for-exposing-maga.md b/content/entry/thank-you-destiny-for-exposing-maga.md index aa13405..2068ce3 100644 --- a/content/entry/thank-you-destiny-for-exposing-maga.md +++ b/content/entry/thank-you-destiny-for-exposing-maga.md @@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ What I think Destiny has revealed in his recent debates is that **the bottom lin ### The Failure of Left-Wing Media -I think Destiny's hardball approach to public debates with MAGA cultists is the best chance at winning over undecided voters and convincing MAGA cultists in the audience not to vote. I also agree with him that **the left-wing media is doing a massive disservice by holding Trump and his apologizers to lower standards to maintain the appearance of being unbiased**. MAGA folks accuse the media of partisanship anyways, so who are they even appeasing? +I think Destiny's hardball approach to public debates with MAGA cultists is the best chance at winning over undecided voters and convincing MAGA cultists in the audience not to vote. I also agree with him that **the left-wing media is doing a massive disservice by holding Trump and his apologizers to lower standards to maintain the appearance of being unbiased**. MAGA folks accuse the media of partisanship anyway, so who are they even appeasing? When invited on news programs, MAGA cultists don't debate in good faith. All they do is apologize for Trump, gaslight and straw man the opposition, move goalposts, do mental gymnastics, spin the conversation, many openly support political violence, and the media just acts like this is all normal. The left-wing media needs to stop being overly concerned with appearing biased and do what Destiny is doing, which is to treat MAGA cultists based on how they act, not giving them the benefit of the doubt even as they demonstrate they have no intentions of debating in good faith. diff --git a/content/entry/the-importance-of-early-autism-diagnosis.md b/content/entry/the-importance-of-early-autism-diagnosis.md index 95e0876..ebe5988 100644 --- a/content/entry/the-importance-of-early-autism-diagnosis.md +++ b/content/entry/the-importance-of-early-autism-diagnosis.md @@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ I spent a lot of time on homework which meant that I had little time or energy l My mental health eventually declined so much from stress that I started feeling like I was on autopilot all the time. I daydreamed frequently, zoned out during lectures, and lost track of time. I couldn't concentrate and started forgetting things. For example, I'd often enter a room and forget why I was there and what I was doing. -I think I only realized how negatively public school had affected me after I dropped out of university for unrelated reasons. In hindsight, I never should've been in the regular public school system. There are other reasons besides autism that I wasn't a good fit for public school, but autism was a major factor. Unfortunately nobody knew I was autistic, so I was put through the system anyways like a square peg in a round hole. +I think I only realized how negatively public school had affected me after I dropped out of university for unrelated reasons. In hindsight, I never should've been in the regular public school system. There are other reasons besides autism that I wasn't a good fit for public school, but autism was a major factor. Unfortunately nobody knew I was autistic, so I was put through the system anyway like a square peg in a round hole. ## The Importance of Diagnosis It's very common for people like myself with low-to-moderate support needs autism not to get diagnosed until very late in life when the damage has already been done. I've struggled to keep a job and support myself. I've stumbled my way through every relationship and social interaction. Education took a huge toll on my mental health as I sleepwalked through it. I had no idea why life was so hard for me. Other people just blamed me for it, saying I "wasn't trying hard enough", whatever that means. diff --git a/content/entry/the-perils-of-social-media.md b/content/entry/the-perils-of-social-media.md index d8953c4..19096d5 100644 --- a/content/entry/the-perils-of-social-media.md +++ b/content/entry/the-perils-of-social-media.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ draft: false ## Recording Everything Without Consent I'm exhausted of people recording everything they do wherever they go and posting it to [antisocial media](/glossary/). I don't have antisocial media for a reason. I don't consent to pictures/videos of me being uploaded to antisocial platforms. I don't agree to the terms and conditions. I don't want to be featured, not even in the background. -I hate it when I'm out somewhere doing stuff and I get peer pressured to take group photos. I wouldn't mind taking pictures, but they somehow always end up on platforms I take issue with. Even if I ask people not to put me on antisocial media, that doesn't exclude all the surveillance apps they don't think of as social media. It inevitably ends up synced to Goolag or crApple's iCloud anyways. +I hate it when I'm out somewhere doing stuff and I get peer pressured to take group photos. I wouldn't mind taking pictures, but they somehow always end up on platforms I take issue with. Even if I ask people not to put me on antisocial media, that doesn't exclude all the surveillance apps they don't think of as social media. It inevitably ends up synced to Goolag or crApple's iCloud anyway. When I say I don't want to be in pictures, it doesn't mean take a picture of me behind my back. It doesn't mean keep pestering me for the next half hour and act like I'm a jerk for not wanting to end up on platforms I never consented to. It may seem to you like I'm splitting hairs, but I'm not. I'm simply declining helping you feed the surveillance state with information about myself. diff --git a/content/entry/the-privacy-implications-of-weak-ai.md b/content/entry/the-privacy-implications-of-weak-ai.md index e7175bd..fcaf2ee 100644 --- a/content/entry/the-privacy-implications-of-weak-ai.md +++ b/content/entry/the-privacy-implications-of-weak-ai.md @@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ No matter how accurate future AI Sherlock is, there are a few things that will p * We must educate people about the importance of privacy and create political pressure to protect it. * [more items here...] -If you notice, almost all of the above points are related to preventing data collection and not preventing AI use. AI is just software. To stop people using it would require extremely draconian measures that might undermine privacy anyways. I'm not saying draconian measures protect us from AI will never be justifiable. I'm just saying why resort to that when there are solutions that aren't draconian and will actually allow us to preserve our rights? +If you notice, almost all of the above points are related to preventing data collection and not preventing AI use. AI is just software. To stop people using it would require extremely draconian measures that might undermine privacy anyway. I'm not saying draconian measures protect us from AI will never be justifiable. I'm just saying why resort to that when there are solutions that aren't draconian and will actually allow us to preserve our rights? The best way to stop privacy-invading AI is to stop the data collection. AI needs data to make predictions about people. Without data, AI can't make predictions. We should still allow mass data collection with AI to predict things like the weather. That doesn't violate anyone's privacy. The violation happens when there's collection of personally identifiable data about people, or collection of data which AI can later use to deduce personally identifiable information about people. That is what we have to prevent. diff --git a/content/entry/warning-to-monero-users.md b/content/entry/warning-to-monero-users.md index 9c34e6c..51c60d3 100644 --- a/content/entry/warning-to-monero-users.md +++ b/content/entry/warning-to-monero-users.md @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ tags: ['computing'] draft: false --- # Obligatory -I don't support the use of Monero or other proof of work cryptocurrencies since they're [destroying the planet](/2021/07/18/avoid-using-cryptocurrency/). However, I know people are going to use Monero anyways. So it makes sense to give this warning. +I don't support the use of Monero or other proof of work cryptocurrencies since they're [destroying the planet](/2021/07/18/avoid-using-cryptocurrency/). However, I know people are going to use Monero anyway. So it makes sense to give this warning. # Practical Statistical Attack on Monero There's a practical statistical attack on Monero related to its [decoy selection algorithm](https://ccs.getmonero.org/proposals/Rucknium-OSPEAD-Fortifying-Monero-Against-Statistical-Attack.html). Work to resolve the issue is in progress. It's not clear how severe this vulnerability is, but Monero's adversaries (DEA, FBI, IRS, NSA) may already be using it. diff --git a/content/entry/why-autistic-people-are-targets-of-manipulation-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-a-victim.md b/content/entry/why-autistic-people-are-targets-of-manipulation-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-a-victim.md index 979e36d..42da5e0 100644 --- a/content/entry/why-autistic-people-are-targets-of-manipulation-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-a-victim.md +++ b/content/entry/why-autistic-people-are-targets-of-manipulation-and-how-to-avoid-becoming-a-victim.md @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ So us autistic people assume everybody is straightforward and rarely lies. The p This is very hard for us autistic people to wrap our heads around. Why would someone not verbalize exactly what they're thinking? Why wouldn't they always be honest? We know people are indirect and deceptive in the abstract, but we never suspect it in our own social interactions. -Us autistics are generally bad at deception, so we're also bad at detecting it in others. Since we're always the least cool people in the room anyways, lying for popularity doesn't usually work. Even if it did, we're uninterested in the social hierarchy anyways. Our infrequent lying combined with the cognitive bias of assuming that others are like us means that when a "friend" or stranger asks for something, it doesn't occur to us that they may have malicious intent. +Us autistics are generally bad at deception, so we're also bad at detecting it in others. Since we're always the least cool people in the room anyway, lying for popularity doesn't usually work. Even if it did, we're uninterested in the social hierarchy anyway. Our infrequent lying combined with the cognitive bias of assuming that others are like us means that when a "friend" or stranger asks for something, it doesn't occur to us that they may have malicious intent. When we're asked to do something amoral, illegal, overly generous, or something that otherwise puts us at a disadvantage, we do it under the false pretenses supplied by the other person and end up suffering the consequences intended for them. diff --git a/content/entry/why-biden-should-expand-the-supreme-court.md b/content/entry/why-biden-should-expand-the-supreme-court.md index a1ce953..9c9f99a 100644 --- a/content/entry/why-biden-should-expand-the-supreme-court.md +++ b/content/entry/why-biden-should-expand-the-supreme-court.md @@ -11,8 +11,8 @@ The illegitimate radical conservative majority in the Supreme Court gutted abort Biden could expand the Supreme Court and have all these radical idiotic rulings undone, but he said he doesn't want the Supreme Court to be turned into a "political football". His opponent in the 2020 presidential election incited an insurrection to overthrow democracy and he's worried about packing an already illegitimate Supreme Court? -If we had a more tame political environment that still respected precedent, I might agree with him that packing the Court is a bad strategy. But if the wannabe dictator successfully rigs the next election, he will do everything in his power to turn this country into a fascist dictatorship anyways. +If we had a more tame political environment that still respected precedent, I might agree with him that packing the Court is a bad strategy. But if the wannabe dictator successfully rigs the next election, he will do everything in his power to turn this country into a fascist dictatorship anyway. He wouldn't even concede the last election. He clearly doesn't give a damn about precedent. The only reason burgerland isn't a dictatorship is thanks to decent morally upstanding people, both democrat and republican, who resisted his relentless pursuit for power. -When your only political opponent is a power hungry fascist bully who doesn't respect precedent or norms, who will do everything he legally can to gain power along with some illegal things too, who would rather see a civil war than concede, then not packing the Court is just plain stupid. Who is Biden trying to impress? The supporters of his fascist opponent will never vote for him anyways and he'll please much of his voter base by doing so. I really hope he changes his mind about the Supreme Court, but I doubt he will. +When your only political opponent is a power hungry fascist bully who doesn't respect precedent or norms, who will do everything he legally can to gain power along with some illegal things too, who would rather see a civil war than concede, then not packing the Court is just plain stupid. Who is Biden trying to impress? The supporters of his fascist opponent will never vote for him anyway and he'll please much of his voter base by doing so. I really hope he changes his mind about the Supreme Court, but I doubt he will. diff --git a/content/entry/why-disappearing-messages-are-important-for-private-messaging.md b/content/entry/why-disappearing-messages-are-important-for-private-messaging.md index 23adfbd..32c3ced 100644 --- a/content/entry/why-disappearing-messages-are-important-for-private-messaging.md +++ b/content/entry/why-disappearing-messages-are-important-for-private-messaging.md @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ One approach to mitigating this is disappearing messages, a feature which automa The benefit of the online implementation is that all parties can be confident that no others hold records of messages older than a certain date, given that they're not purposely circumventing this security mechanism through screenshotting or something like that. Online disappearing messages can be made adjustable, so the sender and recipient can decide an appropriate time window to retain messages according to their threat model. This mitigates private information disclosure against thieves, [thugs](/glossary/), stalkers, and snooping spouses who gain physical access to the device. -Another way to mitigate private information disclosure is requiring the user to set a password for the messaging app. People will still choose weak passwords, but for most common threat models, attackers will simply give up after seeing a password prompt anyways. +Another way to mitigate private information disclosure is requiring the user to set a password for the messaging app. People will still choose weak passwords, but for most common threat models, attackers will simply give up after seeing a password prompt anyway. In general, password protected apps are not a bad idea. But the problem with password protecting *messaging* apps is they must stay logged in on the user's device after the password is entered. App developers could require entering the password every time the app is opened or after some set interval, but that's too much inconvenience for most people. Since most people message on smartphones which would have the app logged in 24/7, password protection offers no real additional security. diff --git a/content/entry/you-dont-need-an-antivirus.md b/content/entry/you-dont-need-an-antivirus.md index 7b1f6f1..fbea762 100644 --- a/content/entry/you-dont-need-an-antivirus.md +++ b/content/entry/you-dont-need-an-antivirus.md @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ This entry is in response to recent news of [Norton Antivirus putting a crypto m Most commercial antiviruses are targeted towards Windows users. News flash. If you're using Windows, you already have known malware installed on your computer. It's called Windows and no antivirus program can remove it. Same for Macs as well. You should remove Windows or Mac and install a free Linux or BSD distro. -If you still decide to use Windows or Mac, realize you don't actually need an antivirus anyways. Windows and Mac already come with built-in protections against 3rd-party malware. Of course both systems still let their own malware execute. +If you still decide to use Windows or Mac, realize you don't actually need an antivirus anyway. Windows and Mac already come with built-in protections against 3rd-party malware. Of course both systems still let their own malware execute. Most proprietary antivirus programs are themselves adware and spyware. And now Norton has a crypto miner. Installing proprietary antivirus software these days is just paying to install malware on your own system. Don't fall for it. -- cgit v1.2.3