Mar 30

Mining Polanyi

“The danger was to the single enterprise—industrial, agricultural, or commercial insofar as it was affected by changes in the price level. For under a market system, if prices fell, business was impaired; unless all elements of cost fell proportionately, ‘going concerns’ were forced to liquidate, while the fall in prices might have been due not to a general fall in costs, but merely to the manner in which the monetary system was organized. Actually, as we shall see, such was often the case under a self-regulating market.”

-Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation, on the danger of the financialization of society and the fiction of market self-regulation

Mar 30

Conserve

Yes. Being dubious of censorship, not supportive of left-sponsored oppression, being against “feminist” abuse toward and cruelty to sex workers doesn’t make me a conservative.

If it’s conservative to want billionaires to have their wealth redistributed, to support a job guarantee for everyone, to wish for reparations for slavery and Jim Crow, to mandate that corporate boards be 50% women,  to support Medicare For All effective immediately, and to end all U.S. wars and close all overseas bases, then shit yeah, I guess I am a conservative.

Mar 30

Don’t Weight

Right on. I don’t blame women for being obsessed with height (some are really obsessed). It’s probably mostly genetic.

But weight verification should be mandatory, too. I’ll never use Tinder so doesn’t matter to me, but equality demands it.

Mar 29

Why Great

It’s such a different experience watching someone who actually knows a lot about music analyze something rather than the invariably-male music snobs who disdain anything made by women.

I’d forgotten Flea and Dave Navarro played on that song. Flea being there explains the great bass; always loved the bass line on that song. Les Claypool is technically more proficient but no one can lay down a groove quite like Flea, then or now.

And of course Morissette’s vocals are absolutely iconic; one of the best vocal performances ever recorded. I’m even more impressed with it after realizing how much of it is a single take — many modern pop songs are literally assembled word by word from 30+ different takes.

Mar 29

Unpopular Opinion #9,854

Nirvana’s Nevermind was not the best album of the 90s. Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill is far superior and holds up a lot better. It still seems relevant today while Nevermind feels like an antique.

Mar 29

Gone Live

We’re already living in a nascent new epoch, but nearly nearly every person alive (and 99.95%+ of those over 40) is possessed of a mind that is still of the age now departed. These liminal times are very dangerous but also ripe with opportunities.

This is forging new minds by the thousands every day. The consequences will be indeterminate but vast.

Mar 29

Unpopular Opinion #8,972

In the future, by historians and interested amateurs alike, there will be no distinction made between the literal Nazis and the rest of us, due to our non-response to climate change and the likely billions of deaths it will cause.

An historian 1,000 years from now will see Nazism and the resulting mega-deaths as a minor extension and necessary prior condition preceding the cataclysm and resulting wars, slaughter and genocides that capitalism-caused climate change will inevitably spawn.

Nazism, despite its name, was after all just an intensification of capitalism and a result of following it to its natural ends — just as is climate change and its nearly-identical causes.

The rest is evident.

Mar 29

Under 20

I took this test. Note that this isn’t actually a test of VO2 Max, but just an estimate. However, I answered accurately on all questions so it is probably pretty close.

Screen Shot 2019 03 29 at 11 32 11 AM

Not bad. I am about as fit now as I was at 20, but not as fit as I was at 22.

Mar 29

Put the Sass in Assassin

Because in the real world, middle-of-the-road assassins have a very short lifespan. Even “elite” ones don’t live that much longer, generally, though there are some exceptions.

Though there is a show like this already. It’s called Barry, and it wasn’t to my taste but others might find it appealing.