Consolidation inclination

[oldernow]

On 2024-02-04, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:

Okay, laziness has me wanting to combine our five threads into
one so it's less uncreative work in the terminal. Maybe I need to
investigate being able to automate uploads of multiple posts...? I
honestly couldn't imagine USENET was anymore such that I'd suddenly
be hovering over five threads (image of five eggs in a nest came to
mind), so working 'slrn' manually didn't seem like too much work. But
the ex-developer within quickly leans automation... so... hmmm,
doesn't slrn have an API...? Is there some other programmable nntp
interface...? <winces>

> The local concert house decided to ban all russian
> classical composers due to the war in Ukraine. I can for
> the life of me not understand that at all. Is the next
> steps to burn all Dostoyevsky books? Wagner didn't like
> jews, so what?
>
> 1. I refuse to judge historical people by todays standards and
> 2. The music is still great.

Ditto on 1. For me the example is some hysteria that arose over
things Woody Allen *allegedly* did. Fuck that and those in the throes
of what I want to called self-righteous fundamentalism who rushed to
"cancel" Woody from their lives over such. He's brought me way too
much joy for decades.

As for 2, I don't know enough of the work of Russian classical
composers to have an opinion.

> Sigh, seems like sometimes we are just barbarians in nicer
> clothing and with better technology. =(

I change a couple light fixtures today, and while looking for some
wherewithal to accomplish that came across some "smart outlets" I
used to struggle with, and smiled when the phrase "I rarely feels as
dumb as I do not long after putting my faith in 'smart' devices". :-)

> Same here, but only briefly and I left before the dreaded
> september and only got back into the game recently. My
> great hope is that since google is about to abandon
> usenet for good, the quality will increase and the spam
> decrease. Let's see what happens!

I'm sure Murphy ("Law" fame) will want to have a say in it. :-)

> Neither did I. No twitter or facebook. I do read/write
> on mastodon from time to time but it's mostly for light
> entertainment and memes, and nothing serious. I find the
> GUI there absolutely horrible for serious discussion.

Mastodon has sounded interesting at times, but I just plain don't
have time for such. My wife's already hinted I've been spending too
much time with the computer again, and that's mostly *your* fault. :P

> Well, I discovered that the older you get, the more common
> it becomes to have to interact with the young ones. ;)

I love when simple math suffices in the explanation department!

> Interesting. During my more existential moments,
> I love comparing religious texts and I've found a
> lot of similarities between christianity, taoism and
> buddhism. I believe that what all religions are getting
> at, is the same fundamental experience, that has been
> written down, interpreted, re-interpreted, throughout
> millenia and therefore we have these very (sometimes)
> cryptic texts. This is also why I believe that you can only
> point or indicate, but in order to fill these texts with
> personal meaning, you have to, at some point, experience.

I completely agree.

*But*, I think a more esoteric version - or "going beneath the
surface - aka beyond appearance(s)" would say the "real" beyond
is "within" personal experience, which might be referred to as
impersonal (with)in-sperience.

By definition, experience implies a person/experiencer/subject apart
from not-person (objects) to be experienced, and said experience
is mediated by knowing/knowledge of re-presentation.

"In-sperience" or "in-seeing" finds the experiencer is just another
object, but with the magical power of being able to convincingly
(to itself) be (*seem*, but with "reality bit" set to true such
that it feels more like "be" than merely "seem") apart/separate to
be knowing/experiencing that which it doesn't consider itself.

And in a realm of re-presentation, the experiencer object is
a collection of thoughts defining a be-ing separate from all but
itself that can have infinitely subdividable/nested thoughts about
itself ("I'm this and that and <potentially endlessly finding what it
seeks *about* itself>) and about not-itself (ditto on the seemingly
infinite nesting ("drilling down", "rabbit holing", etc.).

It's merely a matter or awareness direction:

- Awareness away/out-from itself generates "all this"
(an individual experiencing itself and not-itself as
objects) (see also "objectification")

- Awareness in/upon itself: ineffable for there being no
separate individual to "know" (aka *name*) itself and
requisite separate not-individual objects

Ack. I'm feeling some anxiety that I'm not ex-pressing this
sufficiently clearly, and yet also know (haha) that attempts are
ex-pressing (aka re-presenting) must fall short of raw, unnamed
awareness.

> I think a lot of rituals we see today, are the empty husks
> of something which at one point in time was actually living
> and full of energy. It solidified and today most people
> no longer are touched and the rituals no longer evoke the
> proper responses and that is why so many people turn away
> from yesterdays formal religions.

I'm suddenly wondering if rituals - done properly - facilitate the
"be still" part of "be still and know I AM God"...?

> To me, the kingdom of god, is the transcendental,
> proto-experience that has caused people to write these
> texts. I prefer to not define it or try to define it. I'm
> quite a fan of the via negativa.

Oooh. I'd not heard of "via negativa" before. Thanks!

> There is the taoist version of being still letting the
> mud in the pond settle and once it settles the pond
> becomes clear.

Nice!

Funny due to coincidence with past thoughts of mind being akin
to getting one more objects suspended in, well, *mind* due to
a stirring of sorts thereof. And we do speak of being (personally)
"stirred"... by what... *thoughts*....

Actually, the image of that I mostly enjoyed was of the guy that
(typically on a "variety show" back in "olden times" (i.e. my
childhood)) can get and maintain a bunch of plates spinning atop
a bunch of sticks that he holds with hands, knees, shoulders,
forehead, chin, etc.

> Last night, I was reading the gospel of Thomas and they do

Oh, wow, I'd completely forgotten about The Gospel of Thomas.

> talk about the one who deciphers the saying not tasting
> death. My interpretation of this is that we have the
> "proto-experience", and we have the ego. The ego evolved
> ...
> By definition, the I is no longer the ego, which dies
> with the body, but a common experience and perhaps,
> that is why you will not taste death, once you reach this
> insight? Of course the body will die and the ego will die,
> but you moved your I-pointer which no longer identifies
> with the body.

We can call/objectify it N-ways to Easter Sunday.

> In the lords prayer we talk about thy will, not my will,
> another clue perhaps.

I think (haha) so.

> Another function I'm thinking about is a "meaning
> function", and this can be within the world, in tasks,
> projects, or, for some people, the proto-experience.

To me that sounds like objectification again. But it seems to be
what mind is: a big 'ole stirred up mud pond.

> Sorry for moving away from philosophy there, but you
> "triggered" me. ;)

But...! But....! :-)

> So you don't think it is possible for the mind and
> intelligence to reach it in the future?

I believe "reach(ing) it" implies letting go of outward
objectification in favor of abiding in awareness - <ineffable>
abiding in <ineffable>.

> On the other hand... I always say that if we're talking
> about "god" it would reduce him to a natural phenomenon
> and per definition make him not "god". ;)

Absolutely. We can talk all we like, and will once again end up
with suspended mud.

But, tough shit, because I love the feeling up fingertips stirring
by way of a keyboard! :-)

(He says, knowingly embracing the pain that comes with that
ignore-of-ineffable-underlying-reality-ance....)

> > > And how do you punch your way out of it?
>
> > By not clinging to the aboutness/representation as though
> > it were the reality.
>
> As in "letting go" or "forgetting"?

Basically.

But an important nuance is the absence of a person / individual
/ self / be-ing to be doing what you're calling "letting go" or
"forgetting" - which turns out to be no biggie *except for that
seeming person / individual / self / be-ing*, because in fact such
is nothing more than a notion / thought-object.

Just don't forget that the seeming experience of attempting to
re-present automatically generates the I and all the not-I it
"knows".

> Well, I'm only pro-Trump when I know I'm dealing with
> people who cannot tolerate it, because I have a provocative
> streak in me. ;)

Same here. There's something sinfully delightful about triggering
the derangement syndrome, and (advanced technique coming in
three.. two..) then pointing out to them how *obviously* Trump
"owns them" for their *not* being able to putting the thought of
him down - not to mention collectively foam at the mouths.

> But given a free choice, I think Ron Paul is probably the
> best that the US has to offer. But given how the US system
> is designed, I'm reluctantly Trump if Biden is the only
> other option.

*That* Biden is an option screams Idiocracy to me.

I'm a Vivek guy, but the punisher role you alluded to can have me
playing a pretty annoying Trump supporter... >_<

> I also like Trumps sense of humour (I think...) which
> the rest of the world doesn't get, since they are used to
> dealing with one, and only one kind of politician who is as
> boring and dry and anti-plain-speaking as humanly possible.

I get a kick out of it because I lived in so-called "upstate New
York" for 15 years, and back then Trump was constantly in the news
for real estate matters. So in my life (love that song...), he's
been kind of omnipresent in my adulthood.

> When someone comes along and calls a monkey a monkey,
> the press doesn't know how to react.

I believe the phrase you were looking for was "conniption fit". :-)

The press is used to *manufacturing* "news". Trump easily makes /
manufactures more news than them, and they're jealous. That's how
it seems to "me".

> Yes, I watched a few american political debates and I
> wasn't impressed. However, I wouldn't say that the debates
> where I'm from are much better so that doesn't mean much.

There's not much good to be said for nexuses of taking (the idea /
notion / concept / re-presentation of ) itself seriously.

> Why not move to alaska? ;)

Family, too old. The usual excuses. :-)

> I imagine, most people who experienced socialism and
> the USSR, tend to reason the same way. And most people I
> know who never experienced this, tend to think that the
> government is the solution or _a_ solution.

One day I saw government as no more than an emergent appearance /
property arising conceptually in the midst of gobs of mentally
ill beings rushing hither and yon to fulfill self-interest. And it
(said thoughts) stuck.

> But as long as there is life there is hope.

I think an honest look at both history and the present suggests
otherwise.

To me it's more like this: pretending to be what we're not
inadvertently (good 'ole shortsighted/short-represented/unintended
consequences) generates built in self torture scenarios
that seemingly would steers us back from looking outward
("objectification") to being/resting inward.

> For me it is about the right tool for the right job. Reason
> does a great job (politics aside) to help us survive the
> here and now, and improve the future.

It's a nice theory that I've wanted to believe ever since I can
re-member, and yet the slightest glance world-ward suggests said
dream is forgetting - or is it conveniently leaving out? - something.

> But meaning and values are also not binary, they are a
> continuum, so I guess up to a certain point, reason can
> help us, but some people are perhaps wired in such a
> way that that is not enough, and then I guess perhaps
> Kierkegaards "leap of faith" is needed or Jaspers
> "transcendence". Who knows... my thinking is still not
> done when it comes to this question.

Is thinking ever done? Have we ever really tried giving being done
("be still") a chance?

(Smiles imagining Lennon attempting to sing: "All we are saying.. is
give being done with thinking a chance!")

> Ahh got it. Yes, that brings us to the hidden
> "assumptions" I was talking about when it comes to
> materialism. Ultimately, you have to assume, otherwise
> you get stuck in your mind and perhaps even not that
> depending on the skills of the illusionist. Even your
> existence might be fake, so ultimately there are hidden
> assumptions somewhere or else everything collapses.

And Bingo was his name-oh! :-)

--
oldernow
xyz001 at nym.hush.com

[D]

Good evening,

On Mon, 5 Feb 2024, oldernow wrote:

> Okay, laziness has me wanting to combine our five threads into
> one so it's less uncreative work in the terminal. Maybe I need to
> investigate being able to automate uploads of multiple posts...? I
> honestly couldn't imagine USENET was anymore such that I'd suddenly
> be hovering over five threads (image of five eggs in a nest came to

Happy to hear it! =)

> mind), so working 'slrn' manually didn't seem like too much work. But
> the ex-developer within quickly leans automation... so... hmmm,
> doesn't slrn have an API...? Is there some other programmable nntp
> interface...? <winces>

I use a diet of neovim and alpine, and from neovim I can cut and paste,
save parts to external files, read them in again in place etc. Works
great for me up to 100 pages or so which has been the longest email
thread to answer. But that was tough, it could take several hours to
answer a single message so in the end the thread collapsed under its own
weight. I think even email (it was a mailinglist) refused to send those
long emails in the end. ;)

>> 1. I refuse to judge historical people by todays standards and
>> 2. The music is still great.
>
> Ditto on 1. For me the example is some hysteria that arose over
> things Woody Allen *allegedly* did. Fuck that and those in the throes
> of what I want to called self-righteous fundamentalism who rushed to
> "cancel" Woody from their lives over such. He's brought me way too
> much joy for decades.

Oh well... madness all around. But I take solace in the fact that just
because someone else, or even society, believes one thing, I am entirely
free to think and believe the opposite. ;)

>> Sigh, seems like sometimes we are just barbarians in nicer
>> clothing and with better technology. =(
>
> I change a couple light fixtures today, and while looking for some
> wherewithal to accomplish that came across some "smart outlets" I
> used to struggle with, and smiled when the phrase "I rarely feels as
> dumb as I do not long after putting my faith in 'smart' devices". :-)

There you go! On the other hand, I have always lived in apartments and
there is zero need for smart switches, lights, measurements, live
statistics on electricity and so on when you live in an apartment. I bet
I would beat most, if not all, smart appliances when it comes to turn on
the light by just reaching out my arm and flicking the switch, instead
of having to grab my phone, start the app, navigate to the light and
turn it on.

But I guess I do see the point if you live in a big house with several
floors.

On the other hand... that brings me to my philosophy of
"micro-training". I am a firm believer in the fact that the body needs
to be active for the human to be happy. As a part of achieving that, I
always walk unless its longer than 30 minutes to get there, I always
take the stairs up until 5 floors (which in europe where I live covers
99% of all houses), I also do _not_ order home my food but I go grocery
shopping myself and insist of carrying my things.

By doing this, I become more active and burn more calories compared with
someone who uses taxis or electric scooters, orders all foods home,
always uses the elevator and so on. I also rise from my desk to turn
on/off my lights etc. which also adds some movement to my day.

In europe, its very trendy now to go on an electric scooter and I always
wonder how that will affect public health in the long term? It is yet
another movement (walking) that has been removed from peoples lives.

>> Same here, but only briefly and I left before the dreaded
>> september and only got back into the game recently. My
>> great hope is that since google is about to abandon
>> usenet for good, the quality will increase and the spam
>> decrease. Let's see what happens!
>
> I'm sure Murphy ("Law" fame) will want to have a say in it. :-)

Let's see!

> Mastodon has sounded interesting at times, but I just plain don't
> have time for such. My wife's already hinted I've been spending too
> much time with the computer again, and that's mostly *your* fault. :P

I apologize but at least I can assure you that I hear similar things
from my wife. ;)

But for me it comes and goes in waves. I might be very active for a
week, then life (or wife) gets in the way and I disappear for a week or
2, then I might come back. On and off, wax on, wax off.

>> Well, I discovered that the older you get, the more common
>> it becomes to have to interact with the young ones. ;)
>
> I love when simple math suffices in the explanation department!

Haha, true!

>> Interesting. During my more existential moments,
>> I love comparing religious texts and I've found a
>> lot of similarities between christianity, taoism and
>> buddhism. I believe that what all religions are getting
>> at, is the same fundamental experience, that has been
>> written down, interpreted, re-interpreted, throughout
>> millenia and therefore we have these very (sometimes)
>> cryptic texts. This is also why I believe that you can only
>> point or indicate, but in order to fill these texts with
>> personal meaning, you have to, at some point, experience.
>
> I completely agree.
>
> *But*, I think a more esoteric version - or "going beneath the
> surface - aka beyond appearance(s)" would say the "real" beyond
> is "within" personal experience, which might be referred to as
> impersonal (with)in-sperience.

...

> Ack. I'm feeling some anxiety that I'm not ex-pressing this
> sufficiently clearly, and yet also know (haha) that attempts are
> ex-pressing (aka re-presenting) must fall short of raw, unnamed
> awareness.

I suggest we let this part be. I think we have similar ways, and we are
just getting tangled up in words, which can never express what we are
trying to say. I feel fairly confident that behind your words, the
thoughts and ideas are pretty similar on this topic.

I experience the same thing (confusion, frustration) when reading some
existentialist philosopher and I always wonder at the end, was that
garbage or did it have any meaning? ;) Some have suggested to treat it
like poetry. If you like that, I recommend Rabindranath Tagore. I think
you'll enjoy it.

>> I think a lot of rituals we see today, are the empty husks
>> of something which at one point in time was actually living
>> and full of energy. It solidified and today most people
>> no longer are touched and the rituals no longer evoke the
>> proper responses and that is why so many people turn away
>> from yesterdays formal religions.
>
> I'm suddenly wondering if rituals - done properly - facilitate the
> "be still" part of "be still and know I AM God"...?

I think so. Imagine the medicine man rituals with psychedelic mushrooms
in south america. I bet if you went there and let someone who knows what
they are doing do what they are doing to you, you would have some kind
of experience.

In christianity I doubt there were any substances, but instead I imagine
fasting, and to a certain extent, sensory deprivation and intense
praying achieve the same effect although slower and more unreliably.
Have a look at the early desert fathers for instance and you'll see a
lot of this.

>> To me, the kingdom of god, is the transcendental,
>> proto-experience that has caused people to write these
>> texts. I prefer to not define it or try to define it. I'm
>> quite a fan of the via negativa.
>
> Oooh. I'd not heard of "via negativa" before. Thanks!

You're welcome!

>> There is the taoist version of being still letting the
>> mud in the pond settle and once it settles the pond
>> becomes clear.
>
> Nice!

Taoism is one of those religions/philosophies that really speak to me. I
once read a book by a christian monk (I think) who wrote 400 pages on
the subject of the similarities between christianity and taoism.

> Funny due to coincidence with past thoughts of mind being akin
> to getting one more objects suspended in, well, *mind* due to
> a stirring of sorts thereof. And we do speak of being (personally)
> "stirred"... by what... *thoughts*....
>
> Actually, the image of that I mostly enjoyed was of the guy that
> (typically on a "variety show" back in "olden times" (i.e. my
> childhood)) can get and maintain a bunch of plates spinning atop
> a bunch of sticks that he holds with hands, knees, shoulders,
> forehead, chin, etc.

Interesting! That is the image I have in my mind when I think about
management at work and running a business. ;)

>> Last night, I was reading the gospel of Thomas and they do
>
> Oh, wow, I'd completely forgotten about The Gospel of Thomas.

It's one of my favourites because it drops all history, story, miracles,
ressurection and all other stuff, and just consists of 114 sayings which
I am sure will speak to you at some level.

For me, all the miracles, stories etc. have been what put me off
christianity for decades ever since I was a child. It was only after I
started to look for the deeper meaning, comparing other religions,
thinking, that I found the kernels of wisdom in christianity that I
always lacked during my youth. To me, the rituals, creeds and stories
are for mind control and politics. A good way to build a stable
community and expand your power.

The inner way is what really heals you. So highly recommended. You'll
read it in one go, and some sayings will pop back in your mind from time
to time afterwards.

>> talk about the one who deciphers the saying not tasting
>> death. My interpretation of this is that we have the
>> "proto-experience", and we have the ego. The ego evolved
>> ...
>> By definition, the I is no longer the ego, which dies
>> with the body, but a common experience and perhaps,
>> that is why you will not taste death, once you reach this
>> insight? Of course the body will die and the ego will die,
>> but you moved your I-pointer which no longer identifies
>> with the body.
>
> We can call/objectify it N-ways to Easter Sunday.

True. I'll stop for now. ;)

>> On the other hand... I always say that if we're talking
>> about "god" it would reduce him to a natural phenomenon
>> and per definition make him not "god". ;)
>
> Absolutely. We can talk all we like, and will once again end up
> with suspended mud.
>
> But, tough shit, because I love the feeling up fingertips stirring
> by way of a keyboard! :-)

You do sound like an old software developer! Or maybe a journalist?

>> As in "letting go" or "forgetting"?
>
> Basically.
>
> But an important nuance is the absence of a person / individual
> / self / be-ing to be doing what you're calling "letting go" or
> "forgetting" - which turns out to be no biggie *except for that
> seeming person / individual / self / be-ing*, because in fact such
> is nothing more than a notion / thought-object.
>
> Just don't forget that the seeming experience of attempting to
> re-present automatically generates the I and all the not-I it
> "knows".

True words. Thank you for clarifying!

>> Well, I'm only pro-Trump when I know I'm dealing with
>> people who cannot tolerate it, because I have a provocative
>> streak in me. ;)
>
> Same here. There's something sinfully delightful about triggering
> the derangement syndrome, and (advanced technique coming in
> three.. two..) then pointing out to them how *obviously* Trump
> "owns them" for their *not* being able to putting the thought of
> him down - not to mention collectively foam at the mouths.

Haha, haven't gotten that far, but I'll save that for next time I meet
someone who is not able to control themselves. :D

>> But given a free choice, I think Ron Paul is probably the
>> best that the US has to offer. But given how the US system
>> is designed, I'm reluctantly Trump if Biden is the only
>> other option.
>
> *That* Biden is an option screams Idiocracy to me.
>
> I'm a Vivek guy, but the punisher role you alluded to can have me
> playing a pretty annoying Trump supporter... >_<

He never made more noise than a sentence or two in europe. Why do you
prefer him?

>> I also like Trumps sense of humour (I think...) which
>> the rest of the world doesn't get, since they are used to
>> dealing with one, and only one kind of politician who is as
>> boring and dry and anti-plain-speaking as humanly possible.
>
> I get a kick out of it because I lived in so-called "upstate New
> York" for 15 years, and back then Trump was constantly in the news
> for real estate matters. So in my life (love that song...), he's
> been kind of omnipresent in my adulthood.

Ahh... a strong, dignified and kind man guiding you through adulthood?
;)

>> When someone comes along and calls a monkey a monkey,
>> the press doesn't know how to react.
>
> I believe the phrase you were looking for was "conniption fit". :-)
>
> The press is used to *manufacturing* "news". Trump easily makes /
> manufactures more news than them, and they're jealous. That's how
> it seems to "me".

Haha, wouldn't surprise me at all. I love his way of handling
journalists, that is absolutely amazing. It is also fascinating how the
newspaper I read are completely not able to stick to the truth or what
Trump actually said. Remember that press meeting where he asked if it
was possible to have something that would work like injected bleach?
This was magically transformed in my newspaper into the fact that Trump
wanted to inject bleach in every US citizen. It was there for them to
listen, and they just couldn't.

>> Why not move to alaska? ;)
>
> Family, too old. The usual excuses. :-)

Ahh... I find it intrigueing. The wonderful solitude. Maybe I'll move
with my wife when my father dies. He is my only remaining tie to my home
country.

I'm also philosophically attracted to Texas, but it would be too warm
for me. But still... just the thought of being able to walk around with
a cowboy hat and a revolver in public and _not_ be seen as a madman...
that has its charm. ;)

>> I imagine, most people who experienced socialism and
>> the USSR, tend to reason the same way. And most people I
>> know who never experienced this, tend to think that the
>> government is the solution or _a_ solution.
>
> One day I saw government as no more than an emergent appearance /
> property arising conceptually in the midst of gobs of mentally
> ill beings rushing hither and yon to fulfill self-interest. And it
> (said thoughts) stuck.

Oh that is a can of worms... I had a long debate on mastodon about the
fact that there is no such thing as "the government". There are only
people, like you and me, performing certain functions. The only thing
that gives the illusion of government is that for some strange reason
people choose to believe in it. I believe that believing in the word
government actually stops you from thinking and realizing certain things
about the nature of man, and your place in the world. What you can do
and what you cannot do.

>> But as long as there is life there is hope.
>
> I think an honest look at both history and the present suggests
> otherwise.

Really? Why? I recommend the book the capitalist manifesto by Johan
Norberg where he shows statistically that the world now, is the
healthiest, wealthiest and safest it has ever been throughout all of
history.

> To me it's more like this: pretending to be what we're not
> inadvertently (good 'ole shortsighted/short-represented/unintended
> consequences) generates built in self torture scenarios
> that seemingly would steers us back from looking outward
> ("objectification") to being/resting inward.

Can you give me an example?

>> For me it is about the right tool for the right job. Reason
>> does a great job (politics aside) to help us survive the
>> here and now, and improve the future.
>
> It's a nice theory that I've wanted to believe ever since I can
> re-member, and yet the slightest glance world-ward suggests said
> dream is forgetting - or is it conveniently leaving out? - something.

Read the book above, or at least glance through it. I'm positive by
nature, so maybe that is coloring my views somewhat though.

>> But meaning and values are also not binary, they are a
>> continuum, so I guess up to a certain point, reason can
>> help us, but some people are perhaps wired in such a
>> way that that is not enough, and then I guess perhaps
>> Kierkegaards "leap of faith" is needed or Jaspers
>> "transcendence". Who knows... my thinking is still not
>> done when it comes to this question.
>
> Is thinking ever done? Have we ever really tried giving being done
> ("be still") a chance?

Interesting concept. What do you think a world of saints would be like?
I read about these saintly guys in monasteries who are taken care of by
the junior monks since they are not capable of taking care of
themselves.

Would a world of saints collapse? Would our civilization "transcend"?

>> Ahh got it. Yes, that brings us to the hidden
>> "assumptions" I was talking about when it comes to
>> materialism. Ultimately, you have to assume, otherwise
>> you get stuck in your mind and perhaps even not that
>> depending on the skills of the illusionist. Even your
>> existence might be fake, so ultimately there are hidden
>> assumptions somewhere or else everything collapses.
>
> And Bingo was his name-oh! :-)

That wasn't so bad. 25 minutes or so including making tea! ;)

Best regards,
Daniel

[oldernow]

On 2024-02-06, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:

> I use a diet of neovim and alpine, and from neovim I can
> cut and paste, save parts to external files, read them in
> again in place etc.

I've been a vim'mer for, gosh... since it was invented? It was
whatever "vi" was available on a given unix-y system before that.

I did give emacs an honest try, but it felt too much like "spinning
plates for fingers" to me. :-) But I did the adore the built-in
Lisp aspect.

That said, I eventually got out of the "macros and etc." game, and
tend to go minimal and "as installed" as much as possible. When I
need anything fancier, I lean on vim's ability to pipe lines to a
script, and replace them with that script's stdout.

<searches on alpine>

Alpine the Linux distro? Sounds vaguely familiar, but I've been out
of the distro game since discovering I don't know how many years ago
that a Chromebook has a "Terminal" app that's plenty enough Linux
(or something like it) for me.

> But that was tough, it could take several hours to answer
> a single message so in the end the thread collapsed under
> its own weight.

There was a time when I'd have considered that a top-notch
description of heaven. :-)

> Oh well... madness all around. But I take solace in the
> fact that just because someone else, or even society,
> believes one thing, I am entirely free to think and believe
> the opposite. ;)

Entirely? But I thought you said you were married.... :P

> On the other hand... that brings me to my philosophy of
> "micro-training".

Unfamiliar with the term, but it's an aspect of a lifestyle I've
experienced and hope to get back with. We've had an odd several
years, though, my wife wanted us to get into Airbnb'ing/VRBO'ing,
so we wound up with some cheap properties and did that for a couple
years. It worked out pretty well, but I'm just too old for it
anymore. In a way I was in the best shape of my life during part of
it due to all the work... tons of work getting the properties ready,
then maintaining and cleaning them. But I understand that's not at
all same as aerobic exercise, even of a more "micro" nature. I was
a runner for several years (not big time, just for how it made me
feel), and then downgraded to walking a lot. I miss it.

But in addition to the properties, my wife has had a few injuries
the last, oh, seven or eight years such that she could no longer
do such, and I felt badly flaunting still being able to in front
of her. So I gave it up to feel more "one" about the relationship.

But her situation has improved, and we're heading to what we believe
could be our final house this coming late spring, and it's in a
beautiful neighborhood for walking. All I've gotta do is live long
enough to see it.... :-)

> I am a firm believer in the fact that the body needs to
> be active for the human to be happy.

Without question.

FWIW, I'm considering changing my USENET handle to "The
Choir".... ;-)

> > Mastodon has sounded interesting at times, but I just
> > plain don't have time for such. My wife's already hinted
> > I've been spending too much time with the computer again,
> > and that's mostly *your* fault. :P
>
> I apologize but at least I can assure you that I hear
> similar things from my wife. ;)

Hilarious!

> But for me it comes and goes in waves. I might be very
> active for a week, then life (or wife) gets in the way and
> I disappear for a week or 2, then I might come back. On
> and off, wax on, wax off.

Were I a devout Catholic, at this point I'd be wondering if there
were some kind of special penance for luxuriating in "commonality
relief." :-)

> > Ack. I'm feeling some anxiety that I'm not ex-pressing
> > this sufficiently clearly, and yet also know (haha) that
> > attempts are ex-pressing (aka re-presenting) must fall
> > short of raw, unnamed awareness.
>
> I suggest we let this part be. I think we have similar
> ways, and we are just getting tangled up in words, which
> can never express what we are trying to say. I feel fairly
> confident that behind your words, the thoughts and ideas
> are pretty similar on this topic.

Deal. But I must warn in advance that I get in moods when after
reading particularly inspirational passages I wind up feeling I've
got to let loose somewhere, and there's a good chance it'll be in
this newsgroup for being at least somewhat on topic, and knowing
a couple, three people visit.

<next morning>

Ha... I re-read that past paragraph and suddenly the bible verse
about "where two or three are gathered together in my name" came
to mind.... :-)

> I experience the same thing (confusion, frustration) when
> reading some existentialist philosopher and I always wonder
> at the end, was that garbage or did it have any meaning? ;)
> Some have suggested to treat it like poetry. If you like
> that, I recommend Rabindranath Tagore. I think you'll
> enjoy it.

Huh.. the name looks a little familiar, and some of he photos in
the Wikipedia entry looked familiar. Hopefully some time frees up
for a bit of investigation. Right now I'm a wee bit busy with a
USENET reply in danger of collapsing under its own weight. :-)

> Taoism is one of those religions/philosophies that really
> speak to me. I once read a book by a christian monk
> (I think) who wrote 400 pages on the subject of the
> similarities between christianity and taoism.

I've gotten with it here and there, but honestly can't remember
the last big(ger) dive, so yet another investigation mental note.
All things work together for Awareness.... :-)

> It's one of my favourites because it drops all history,
> story, miracles, ressurection and all other stuff, and
> just consists of 114 sayings which I am sure will speak
> to you at some level.

That'll definitely be first of what you've recommended, as I
definitely recall past moments of en-lighten-ing in its contextural
presence.

> For me, all the miracles, stories etc. have been what
> put me off christianity for decades ever since I was a
> child. It was only after I started to look for the deeper
> meaning, comparing other religions, thinking, that I found
> the kernels of wisdom in christianity that I always lacked
> during my youth. To me, the rituals, creeds and stories
> are for mind control and politics. A good way to build a
> stable community and expand your power.

I guess my fundamentalist dive over 40 years ago cured me getting
"put off", which I definitely was *pre* that period of mine. That
might sound weird, but it was a sort of "facing my doubts by giving
the damned stuff a genuinely full-fledged try".

And what did I find? Well, mostly that there's no one solution for
all. Those for whom that fundamentalist protestant thing "worked"
seemed mostly those born into that realm who needed just the
slightest nudge to wind up with the kind of faith that genuinely
makes something genuinely real to them - it, using some lingo I
introduced before, "flips it's reality bit to one/true".

I still had (have?) quite a ways to go, but at least I no longer
had doubts about whether the "bible-believing" path could work. It
can. But not for me, kind of a long the lines of how you describe
your being put off by it. Being born into that realm gives one
some extra "faith momentum" that addresses - by making it easier
to explain others' misuse (that word right there is an example)
of the rituals/creeds/stories for reasons other than the salvation
of themselves and others.

Something like that.

My traipse down that lane also dramatically increased my exposure to
the bible, which helped me note similar and/or emphasized passages,
not to mention actually retain more of it all in memory. That served
me when after I drifted away to investigate other paths/ways.

> The inner way is what really heals you. So highly
> recommended. You'll read it in one go, and some sayings
> will pop back in your mind from time to time afterwards.

As Rod Stewart said, "Tonight's the night! It's gonna be alright!"

> You do sound like an old software developer!

Well, born 1961. Eventually went to school for "electrical
engineering", with emphasis on integrated circuits. Wound up working
for IBM. That environment led to tinkering with automating some of
the tedium of the job, and then learning doing that came kind of
naturally, and seemed easier than straight engineering.

Wound up tinkering with Linux, IBM went down that path with its own
unix ("AIX"). There was a whole lot of "right place at the right
time" going on.

I did a little "web development", but didn't care for it. I actually
really did consider the web silly compared to USENET, where people
who couldn't write could do what I considered lesser things like
"look at pictures", "watch videos", "listen to music". Grant it,
some of those things were pretty difficult in the early going, but
people with dollar sign eyes were busy lowering technical bars so
Eternal September equivalents could happen in varieties of ways.

And then web development seemed to become so insanely convoluted that
I just couldn't take it anymore. I'm kind of "ADHD", and somehow a
head full of html/css/javascript plates became fertile ground for
perpetual, broken-ceramics-induced headache, as it were.

*However*, I was lucky enough to become a pioneer of sorts in the
"work remotely" game, which coincided with a divorce that gave
me another reason to move far away from where the home IBM base
was. I basically told them I was moving and would be needing to
work remotely, and I'll be danged if they didn't approve it.

> Or maybe a journalist?

That's become such a pejorative term for me that I actually felt
slapped in the face when I read it. :-)

But, more seriously, I've just been writing for a long, long
time. Took a typing class in high school, utilizing the good 'ole
"IBM Selectric". Bought a fantastic manual typewriter (an old
"Olympia" brand) in college. A friend started writing me in 1982,
and he and I have been exchanging either paper or email ever since,
at least once a week.

And I honesty did write a "shit ton" in USENET many years ago.

My biggest break with respect to writing was, of course, *reading*. I
got into the authors "John Updike" and "Joyce Carol Oates" for
several years, and my writing skills and vocabulary improved
dramatically. A lot of their stuff didn't even seem "humanly
possible" to me.

I'm not saying their story/theme tendencies were "my thing", because
I grew up slightly "science fiction" (e.g. Asimov's "Foundation
Trilogy"), but mostly non-fiction. Stories seemed so obviously "made
up", which to me seemed antithetical to truth searching. Something
like that was the inner reasoning....

> > Same here. There's something sinfully delightful about
> > triggering the derangement syndrome, and (advanced
> > technique coming in three.. two..) then pointing out to
> > them how *obviously* Trump "owns them" for their *not*
> > being able to putting the thought of him down - not to
> > mention collectively foam at the mouths.
>
> Haha, haven't gotten that far, but I'll save that for
> next time I meet someone who is not able to control
> themselves. :D

Ya gotta have fun in a world so devoted to misery! :-)

> > I'm a Vivek guy, but the punisher role you alluded to can
> > have me playing a pretty annoying Trump supporter... >_<
>
> He never made more noise than a sentence or two in
> europe. Why do you prefer him?

His speech seems impeccable. And although he can talk a lot, he
has an economy-melded-with-precision to his word use that I envy.
To me it suggests a clarity of mind that I'd like to see working
on The Bigger Problems. And he gots him some "balls" too, methinks.

Part it, though, is no doubt because I worked with a lot of India
people at IBM, and I can't think of one I didn't wind up really
liking personally. I occasionally wonder if I was born in the
wrong part of the world, because most Americans seem closer
to the "selfish dolt" end of the spectrum to me.

The only negative for me is a bit too much emphasis on patriotism.
I mean, I don't think patriotism is a negative in and of itself.
But lesser beings seem to quickly bring what I want to call idolatry
to it, as though country were a god, and then you wind up with
people merely talking/chanting about, for example, "making America
great again" instead of actually doing things to increase civility,
break down fears and suspicions of others, increase social trust
etc. So I think he playeth with fire down that path.

> > I get a kick out of it because I lived in so-called
> > "upstate New York" for 15 years, and back then Trump was
> > constantly in the news for real estate matters. So in my
> > life (love that song...), he's been kind of omnipresent
> > in my adulthood.
>
> Ahh... a strong, dignified and kind man guiding you
> through adulthood? ;)

LOL!

> Haha, wouldn't surprise me at all. I love his way of
> handling journalists, that is absolutely amazing. It is
> also fascinating how the newspaper I read are completely
> not able to stick to the truth or what Trump actually
> said. Remember that press meeting where he asked if it was
> possible to have something that would work like injected
> bleach? This was magically transformed in my newspaper
> into the fact that Trump wanted to inject bleach in every
> US citizen. It was there for them to listen, and they
> just couldn't.

I'm with ya on every single word of that.

> Ahh... I find it intrigueing. The wonderful solitude. Maybe
> I'll move with my wife when my father dies. He is my only
> remaining tie to my home country.

I get it. But it would be too big a change for me at this
point. Plus, we just (in the last year) moved to my wife's home town,
which is where her daughters and grandchildren live, and we're so
enjoying being closer to them, being able to help in ways, etc. We
babysat the youngest (something like 2.5 years old) yesterday,
and we were exhausted, but utterly fulfilled. I can't tell you how
much I appreciate any opportunity/excuse to not have to pretend to
be an effing adult for a string of several hours!

> I'm also philosophically attracted to Texas, but it would
> be too warm for me. But still... just the thought of being
> able to walk around with a cowboy hat and a revolver in
> public and _not_ be seen as a madman... that has its
> charm. ;)

Oh, wow. Heh. I mean, the old TV show "The Wild Wild West" has been
a long time favorite of mine (familiar?). But that was mainly for
so loving gadgeteer "Artemus Gordon" as a kid.

Oh yeah, Texas would be waaaaaaaaay too warm for me, too. My wife has
come to detest winter, but I can tolerate it. I'm without question
an autumn person, though.

We live in the "midwest" of the United States. It's what I grew up
in. My stint in New York, well, it ruined my life in a couple big
ways - specifically for marrying someone I was too naive to realize
I shouldn't have.

But I've been back in "God's country" <kidding> <but also giggling>
for quite some time, and it just feels a great combination of
right/familiar.

But in a lot of ways I don't belong. The couple two houses down has
a sign that reads "God, guns, and Trump!". Well, okay. I get the
sentiment. But that's just a little to simple and/or "rah-rah-ish"
for me.

Wonderful people, though. They would definitely come to our rescue
were we in trouble.

I've long said "I don't own a gun because I'd use it". It doesn't
take much for me to start imagining I could personally fix the
world by good 'ole "process of elimination". Best for me to lurk
in the outskirts....

> Oh that is a can of worms... I had a long debate on
> mastodon about the fact that there is no such thing as
> "the government". There are only people, like you and me,
> performing certain functions. The only thing that gives
> the illusion of government is that for some strange reason
> people choose to believe in it. I believe that believing
> in the word government actually stops you from thinking and
> realizing certain things about the nature of man, and your
> place in the world. What you can do and what you cannot do.

oldernow -> "The Choir" (again) :-)

> > > But as long as there is life there is hope.
>
> > I think an honest look at both history and the present suggests
> otherwise.
>
> Really? Why? I recommend the book the capitalist manifesto by Johan
> Norberg where he shows statistically that the world now, is the
> healthiest, wealthiest and safest it has ever been throughout all of
> history.

I dunno. I'm generally skeptical of others' numbers.

All I've got is my own, "inner data", and whereas I once thought
"the news media" was at least *somewhat* objective, I now have no
reason to believe any of it is objectively legitimate. If anything,
"journalists" are the lowest rung of people whose word(s) I can
trust: I've come to believe they're not reporting; rather, they're
manufacturing what they want me to believe.

I could be objectively wrong. It's simply what I've come to believe.

My general trust of others is also at an all time low. Most others
appear to me as automatons appearing ghostly in their screen glows,
eager to believe whatever they're told. It scares the proverbial
"bejebbers" out of me.

The phrase "hell is other people" is never far from my mind/lips. :-)

But then, you know, my investigations have me feeling as though
I understand all that better, as opposed to merely reacting to
it. So I'm not going to be hiding under the covers in a locked
bedroom. It's more that I've gotten better at smiling politely,
with inner goals of *maybe* "reaching a few" with what I've come
to consider positively life-changing points of view.

> > To me it's more like this: pretending to
> > be what we're not inadvertently (good 'ole
> > shortsighted/short-represented/unintended consequences)
> > generates built in self torture scenarios that
> > seemingly would steers us back from looking outward
> > ("objectification") to being/resting inward.
>
> Can you give me an example?

What starts as a little seemingly harmless purchases soon enough
becomes a "house/garage gone Tetris", where I regularly can't
remember where things are, and searching generally involves more
work than the finding would be worth. :-)

What starts as a little playfulness with my wife about taking bits
of a news story as though true soon enough has me experiencing
her booming what an idiot I am, and my not being able to resist
antagonizing further. See also: prelude to a smoldering relationship
mess. :-)

In both cases, the path of peace would have been to smile inwardly
at the ridiculousness of the show (aka the world), and go back to
"abiding in awareness".

Maybe not the best examples, but her awakening time draweth nigh,
and I've still a hundred lines of your response to go! ;-)

I suppose a way to summarize where my examples were headed is I'm
tired of not just physical entropy, but of how thought processes
and even (especially?) "best intentions" seem subject to devolving
per an entropy of sorts.

> Interesting concept. What do you think a world of
> saints would be like? I read about these saintly guys
> in monasteries who are taken care of by the junior monks
> since they are not capable of taking care of themselves.
>
> Would a world of saints collapse? Would our civilization
> "transcend"?

First off, I don't know that if what I think of as "stereotypical
saints" are necessarily onto something.

But I'll go with the phrase "a world of selfless". Well, right off
the bat note how I can't even end that sentence. I could have added
a variety of words that would have implied "self", and even *I*
can see the ridiculousness of talking about "selfless selves".

So I prefer the "self is an illusion" (or "life is but a dream"),
such that when seemingly cured/fixed/lost, nothing really happens
other than some isolated sense that something was happening simply
ceases as though it never happened - because, in fact, it *didn't*
happen. :-)

Said another way, what I think you're asking could be rendered
irrelevant if it happened - there'd be no one left for it to
have happened to, etc.

It would be like suddenly seeing the "fire circle suspended in
midair" for what it actually was: something brighter than its
surroundings being made to follow a circular path fast enough that
mind takes it as something "high order" due to
the re-petition.

It's no longer magic once you know how it - i.e. the trick -
works. :-)

> That wasn't so bad. 25 minutes or so including making tea! ;)

*Damn*, you're good! I'm friggin' sweating and panting and fearing
my wife coming down the stairs while I'm desperately trying to
assemble what I hoped to be my final paragraph, etc., etc.! :-)

> Speaking of this... society at large today, seems to want
> to teach people to not think certain things.
>
> I try shock therapy sometimes and say the word "negro"
> to people. Some go silent, some become afraid and look
> around, and some... the interesting ones... ask my why I
> sad the forbidden word, and then we're off having a very
> interesting conversation about what society tries to force
> us to think and if that is a good thing or not.

We definitely need to somehow wind up in the same bar/pub together,
pretending not to know each other while engaging some "woke"
counterparts.... MUAHUAHUAHUAHUAAHUA!!!! :-)

> Just draw a line from north to south that starts between
> finland (west) and russia (east), continue down to all
> the baltic countries, estonia, latvia, lithuania (east),
> then you have poland (east), czechia, slovakia, hungary
> and continue on the east side of the adriatic sea, and
> you have eastern europe to the east and western to the
> west of that line.

<dons his Ridiculous Dumb American hat>

So you're saying those countries really are real countries? :-)

But thank you for the clarification. Now all I've got to do is
actually remember it tomorrow, and I should be just fine. :-)

> Sadly I think there is a big risk of an overreaction. I'm
> not a nationalist myself, although I do sympathize with a
> lot of what nationalists want to do, but nationalism that
> spirals out of control can get nasty very quickly and I'm
> afraid that we'll see this in europe if woke:ism continues
> long enough and if quality of life drops far enough.
> The established politicians are playing with fire. =(

Yep.

> I feel sorry for you... the women in eastern europe, in
> my opinion, are the most beautiful in the world. Naturally
> my wife is one. ;)

So much for The Gospel of Thomas being my primary search goal/target
tonight.... :-)

> Sigh... I think their view of capitalism is warped. I'm
> a capitalist, but I freely admit that no country has free
> markets. I also believe that the main reason (or at least
> a _huge_ reason) for the massive wealth of Bill Gates and
> Jess Besos that these people loathe, is that they make
> billions of _the government_. And thanks to the government
> they manage to entrench their companies and protect them
> from competition.
>
> So when I speak about capitalism that would be a system
> where they would have less, and others more because they
> would not be protected by the government and fed by the
> government.

Yeah... I too perpetually forget what "real capitalism" is - or
would be.

<snaps fingers> It would be a free market of selfless selves! :-)

> Oh, this is another one of my hobbies! Show me the climate
> hysteric and I'll take it as a challenge to see how quickly
> I can drive him mad. ;)

God-that-you-don't-believe-in bless you! :-)

[D]

Good evening oldernow,

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024, oldernow wrote:

>> I use a diet of neovim and alpine, and from neovim I can
>> cut and paste, save parts to external files, read them in
>> again in place etc.
>
> I've been a vim'mer for, gosh... since it was invented? It was
> whatever "vi" was available on a given unix-y system before that.

Respect! We should honor our elders!

> I did give emacs an honest try, but it felt too much like "spinning
> plates for fingers" to me. :-) But I did the adore the built-in
> Lisp aspect.

Wise choice! Please see attached file for more information.

> That said, I eventually got out of the "macros and etc." game, and
> tend to go minimal and "as installed" as much as possible. When I
> need anything fancier, I lean on vim's ability to pipe lines to a
> script, and replace them with that script's stdout.

Amen! So do I. I have no plugins. At most I think I have a bit of space
adjustment, syntax highlight and line numbers, but those are all built
in. For some reason though, can no longer remember, I switched from vim
to neovim. But I always feel bad for using vim because I heard that
syntax highlighting is for nerds, and that vi is the "pure" religion
(TM). ;)

> <searches on alpine>
>
> Alpine the Linux distro? Sounds vaguely familiar, but I've been out
> of the distro game since discovering I don't know how many years ago
> that a Chromebook has a "Terminal" app that's plenty enough Linux
> (or something like it) for me.

Ahhh sorry for confusing you. I meanted alpine the email and news
client. It is brilliant! Written in C, compiles without any problems and
you can automate it to your hearts content. Have a look at
https://alpineapp.email/ for pure email bliss. =)

>> But that was tough, it could take several hours to answer
>> a single message so in the end the thread collapsed under
>> its own weight.
>
> There was a time when I'd have considered that a top-notch
> description of heaven. :-)

Well, you might just be standing right in front of the kingdom of heaven
here! ;)

>> Oh well... madness all around. But I take solace in the
>> fact that just because someone else, or even society,
>> believes one thing, I am entirely free to think and believe
>> the opposite. ;)
>
> Entirely? But I thought you said you were married.... :P

Touché! But life has taught me that if you agree too easily your better
half will know what your doing and scold you for that. So first disagree
lightly (even if you don't care, just in order to give the lightest hint
of a discussion) and then agree, and she will love you for it. ;)

>> On the other hand... that brings me to my philosophy of
>> "micro-training".
>
> Unfamiliar with the term, but it's an aspect of a lifestyle I've

...

> beautiful neighborhood for walking. All I've gotta do is live long
> enough to see it.... :-)

Ahh, the final house! Haven't reach that stage in my life yet. On the
other hand I'm only 41 so still just a, what do they call it...
whipper-snapper?

>> I am a firm believer in the fact that the body needs to
>> be active for the human to be happy.
>
> Without question.
>
> FWIW, I'm considering changing my USENET handle to "The
> Choir".... ;-)

;)

>> But for me it comes and goes in waves. I might be very
>> active for a week, then life (or wife) gets in the way and
>> I disappear for a week or 2, then I might come back. On
>> and off, wax on, wax off.
>
> Were I a devout Catholic, at this point I'd be wondering if there
> were some kind of special penance for luxuriating in "commonality
> relief." :-)

Yes... it is very strange, but sometimes it does seem to happen!

> Deal. But I must warn in advance that I get in moods when after
> reading particularly inspirational passages I wind up feeling I've
> got to let loose somewhere, and there's a good chance it'll be in

Ahh... this explains all those bible-people in alt.atheism who are
trying to save the people of little faith. I always thought it was some
kind of nasty bot, but perhaps they do overflow with divine inspiration
and think that alt.atheism is the perfect vehicle for this inspiration.
;) Glad they haven't found this little oasis yet!

> Ha... I re-read that past paragraph and suddenly the bible verse
> about "where two or three are gathered together in my name" came
> to mind.... :-)

So not four??

>> that, I recommend Rabindranath Tagore. I think you'll
>> enjoy it.
>
> Huh.. the name looks a little familiar, and some of he photos in
> the Wikipedia entry looked familiar. Hopefully some time frees up
> for a bit of investigation. Right now I'm a wee bit busy with a
> USENET reply in danger of collapsing under its own weight. :-)

Famous indian poet who wrote beautiful poetry about divine inspiration.
Hmm, I wonder if he perhaps even received a Nobel prize in literature?

>> Taoism is one of those religions/philosophies that really
>> speak to me. I once read a book by a christian monk
>> (I think) who wrote 400 pages on the subject of the
>> similarities between christianity and taoism.
>
> I've gotten with it here and there, but honestly can't remember
> the last big(ger) dive, so yet another investigation mental note.
> All things work together for Awareness.... :-)

Oh, in that case you might like Huxleys Perennial Philosophy? He does
what we do, and compares notes between several religions. The difference
is that he made a product out of it and earned some money. ;)

>> For me, all the miracles, stories etc. have been what
>> put me off christianity for decades ever since I was a
>> child. It was only after I started to look for the deeper
>> meaning, comparing other religions, thinking, that I found
>> the kernels of wisdom in christianity that I always lacked
>> during my youth. To me, the rituals, creeds and stories
>> are for mind control and politics. A good way to build a
>> stable community and expand your power.
>
> I guess my fundamentalist dive over 40 years ago cured me getting
> "put off", which I definitely was *pre* that period of mine. That
> might sound weird, but it was a sort of "facing my doubts by giving
> the damned stuff a genuinely full-fledged try".

What made you exit your fundamentalism? When I was studying in the US
for a year, I used to love talking and debating with religious
republicans about abortion or other controversial topics. Naturally we
never agreed, but those were some very good and respectful discussions.

Many years later I went to San Francisco and visited the Berkeley campus
and there stood a man who found jesus and he was scolding all students
who were laughing at him.

Of course I couldn't resist, and we spoke, and we was actually very
nice. In the end, his judgment was that I was ok, even though I am
agnostic, because I admitted that I was unaware, but my ex-girlfriend
who was a catholic was apparently a hypocrite for not living a strict
christian life. That made me laugh very hard, the agnostic beat the
catholic! :D

> And what did I find? Well, mostly that there's no one solution for
> all. Those for whom that fundamentalist protestant thing "worked"
> seemed mostly those born into that realm who needed just the
> slightest nudge to wind up with the kind of faith that genuinely
> makes something genuinely real to them - it, using some lingo I
> introduced before, "flips it's reality bit to one/true".

I like the allegory of "flipping the reality bit" by faith. I am
enormously fascinated by the phenomenon of faith.

>> You do sound like an old software developer!
>
> Well, born 1961. Eventually went to school for "electrical
> engineering", with emphasis on integrated circuits. Wound up working
> for IBM. That environment led to tinkering with automating some of
> the tedium of the job, and then learning doing that came kind of
> naturally, and seemed easier than straight engineering.
>
> Wound up tinkering with Linux, IBM went down that path with its own
> unix ("AIX"). There was a whole lot of "right place at the right
> time" going on.

Ahh... AIX, I administered a collection of power servers with AIX on
them, so I am not unfamiliar with that universe. On the plus side, it
was enormously convenient to have everything from one source, and not
bits and pieces that have to be integrated. It did have its peculiar
sides as well. I was not a huge fan of the object database.

> I did a little "web development", but didn't care for it. I actually
> really did consider the web silly compared to USENET, where people

Yep... web is for children, usenet is for real men! ;)

> *However*, I was lucky enough to become a pioneer of sorts in the
> "work remotely" game, which coincided with a divorce that gave
> me another reason to move far away from where the home IBM base
> was. I basically told them I was moving and would be needing to
> work remotely, and I'll be danged if they didn't approve it.

Ahh... I've been a remote worker for about 8 years now. My way to solve
it was to start my own company that is 100% remote and not a trace of a
physical office. :D But we do meet 2-4 times per year if the mood
strikes us.

>> Or maybe a journalist?
>
> That's become such a pejorative term for me that I actually felt
> slapped in the face when I read it. :-)

Oh wow! Had no idea! =( You're saying the idea of the journalist as the
lone gunranger fighting by himself to disclose corruption and injustice
is no longer a thing in the US?

Well, come to think of it, perhaps not in EU either. But there are still
a couple of journalists who I follow because they have very strong
libertarian leanings, and they are allowed a small column in a
mainstream newspaper from time to time.

> and he and I have been exchanging either paper or email ever since,
> at least once a week.

Paper?! How do you do that? ;) Jokes aside, my wife used to collect
postcards so she has quite a big collection from all over the world with
hand written text on them!

But actually I do take a break from the keyboard from time to time and
do some thinking with the help of hand written text. I find that the
change of pace and method is very beneficial.

> My biggest break with respect to writing was, of course, *reading*. I
> got into the authors "John Updike" and "Joyce Carol Oates" for
> several years, and my writing skills and vocabulary improved
> dramatically. A lot of their stuff didn't even seem "humanly
> possible" to me.

Only herd of Joye Carol Oates, I think I read a boxing book by her, but
not quite sure. Apart from that, reading is one of my huge interests.
Philosophy, religion, economics, science fiction, classics, psychology,
I'd say that those are probably my main staples!

> I'm not saying their story/theme tendencies were "my thing", because
> I grew up slightly "science fiction" (e.g. Asimov's "Foundation
> Trilogy"), but mostly non-fiction. Stories seemed so obviously "made

Amen! I bow down before the master of the golden age of science fiction!
Still my favourites. For some reason (age?) modern science fiction
doesn't really do it for me.

>> Haha, haven't gotten that far, but I'll save that for
>> next time I meet someone who is not able to control
>> themselves. :D
>
> Ya gotta have fun in a world so devoted to misery! :-)

Definitely! =)

> Part it, though, is no doubt because I worked with a lot of India
> people at IBM, and I can't think of one I didn't wind up really
> liking personally. I occasionally wonder if I was born in the
> wrong part of the world, because most Americans seem closer
> to the "selfish dolt" end of the spectrum to me.

Interesting! I dealt with my fair share of indians in the global IT
business about 20 years after you and I'm not impressed. Had a indian
family renting an apartment from me... not a good experience. But on the
plus side was a Sikh who had every single networking certification on
the planet who was awesome and very, very nice, and an indian I met
where I currently live in the weekly pub quiz. He was raised in the
Thomas church of india (legends says it was founded by Thomas the
apostle), who is also very interesting and I get some good news about
the current political situation in india from him.

> to it, as though country were a god, and then you wind up with
> people merely talking/chanting about, for example, "making America

I join the choir! You can add political "ism" as well. I feel very
uncomfortable when people make the nation their god, or the political
leader, or the "ism". What they do, is to give total psychological
control over themselves to a fallible human being. In religious sects or
religions overall, this can also happen. It's as if there is an empty
space in human beings just waiting to be filled. They don't know how to
live with this empty space, or they don't know how to fill it with
_unnamed experience_ but instead fill it with vices or idols or
religious leaders and when they eventually fail, they face pain and
disillusionment.

> etc. So I think he playeth with fire down that path.

Amen!

>> Ahh... I find it intrigueing. The wonderful solitude. Maybe
>> I'll move with my wife when my father dies. He is my only
>> remaining tie to my home country.
>
> I get it. But it would be too big a change for me at this
> point. Plus, we just (in the last year) moved to my wife's home town,
> which is where her daughters and grandchildren live, and we're so
> enjoying being closer to them, being able to help in ways, etc. We
> babysat the youngest (something like 2.5 years old) yesterday,
> and we were exhausted, but utterly fulfilled. I can't tell you how
> much I appreciate any opportunity/excuse to not have to pretend to
> be an effing adult for a string of several hours!

Children are a mystery to me. Who knows if I ever get the chance to
experience that mystery. Only god knows (says the agnostic!).

>> I'm also philosophically attracted to Texas, but it would
>> be too warm for me. But still... just the thought of being
>> able to walk around with a cowboy hat and a revolver in
>> public and _not_ be seen as a madman... that has its
>> charm. ;)

...

> Oh yeah, Texas would be waaaaaaaaay too warm for me, too. My wife has
> come to detest winter, but I can tolerate it. I'm without question
> an autumn person, though.

Same here. This winters coldest day for me was -20 C. I dislike winter
intensely, but I can tolerate it. But when its +40 I just check out. My
ideal is 22 and a light breeze. Early summer/late spring is my time.
Also good time (early to late spring) to catch pike because during
summer they just fall asleep in my local lake.

> We live in the "midwest" of the United States. It's what I grew up
> in. My stint in New York, well, it ruined my life in a couple big
> ways - specifically for marrying someone I was too naive to realize
> I shouldn't have.

Ahh, the midwest! I used to live in Chicago for a year decades ago. I
loved it! Great live music everywhere I went, nice people, public
transportation and if you ever wanted a free beer, you could just walk
into a bar and say "hey, I'm from sweden" and someone would say "WOW! My
great, great, great grandfather came from sweden, so here, have a beer
and tell me about sweden!" happened many times. =)

And in the winter, snow, nice and white, and during the summer a nice
beach and lake.

> But in a lot of ways I don't belong. The couple two houses down has
> a sign that reads "God, guns, and Trump!". Well, okay. I get the
> sentiment. But that's just a little to simple and/or "rah-rah-ish"
> for me.

When in rome... ;) I could have a lot of fun with rah-rah people!

> I've long said "I don't own a gun because I'd use it". It doesn't
> take much for me to start imagining I could personally fix the
> world by good 'ole "process of elimination". Best for me to lurk
> in the outskirts....

This is a very interesting discussion! I love guns as much as a european
can do (that is, I might go to a shooting range once or twice a year but
won't be bothered with the enormous requirements, exams, tests, safe
installations etc. required to actually own a gun yourself.) but in
terms of self defense, I actually never think I could use one unless it
would be 100% clear that my life is in danger and the fight reflex kicks
in.

So, since that never realistically materialises in europe, on the street
or in the home, a gun would for all intents and purposes be useless. The
only use would be if the people threatening think I would use it, but
I'm not sure I'd be able to bluff that well in such a situation.

The other aspect is of course the damage I would do to myself by
shooting someone who just wants "property" and not my life. But
philosophically I am attracted to the idea of everyone having the right
to bear arms as a way to instill some fear into politicians.

>>>> But as long as there is life there is hope.
>>
>>> I think an honest look at both history and the present suggests
>> otherwise.
>>
>> Really? Why? I recommend the book the capitalist manifesto by Johan
>> Norberg where he shows statistically that the world now, is the
>> healthiest, wealthiest and safest it has ever been throughout all of
>> history.
>
> I dunno. I'm generally skeptical of others' numbers.

Well, true. Unless you perform a similar investigation yourself, you'll
have to trust some numbers,

> All I've got is my own, "inner data", and whereas I once thought
> "the news media" was at least *somewhat* objective, I now have no
> reason to believe any of it is objectively legitimate. If anything,
> "journalists" are the lowest rung of people whose word(s) I can
> trust: I've come to believe they're not reporting; rather, they're
> manufacturing what they want me to believe.

So what is your approach to "the news" (TM)? Avoiding it like my wife
does, alternative sources or balancing multiple mainstream papers?

> I could be objectively wrong. It's simply what I've come to believe.

Do you see any point in trying to change that belief or does it affect
your life so little that it won't justify the time and effort to
research the issue?

> My general trust of others is also at an all time low. Most others
> appear to me as automatons appearing ghostly in their screen glows,
> eager to believe whatever they're told. It scares the proverbial
> "bejebbers" out of me.

Oh yes... this scared me a lot during corona. I fought the law, and I
won... (to go with the musical theme) so for about a year or a year and
a half I was the only man in town walking around without a mask. I
endured abuse, screaming and some mild violence.

Before corona I always wondered how germans could all of a sudden think
that it is a good think to burn jews, but after corona I feel lucky
because I got to witness mass-psychosis live, and I no longer wonder how
the nazis could do what they do. I now know.

And like you, my trust did take a nose dive when it comes to democracy
and general belief in my fellow man. I haven't voted since corona times
since no politician exists around me that deserves even the thought of
voting.

Instead I try to change the way I live through lawyers, and where
convenient, to ignore the law.

> The phrase "hell is other people" is never far from my mind/lips. :-)

Well, surely there are some exceptions? What about.... me? ;)

> bedroom. It's more that I've gotten better at smiling politely,
> with inner goals of *maybe* "reaching a few" with what I've come
> to consider positively life-changing points of view.

Hah, smiling politely, that's a feature and function of old age and
wisdom! ;) I have not reached that pinnacle of wisdom and experience
(yet).

>>> To me it's more like this: pretending to
>>> be what we're not inadvertently (good 'ole
>>> shortsighted/short-represented/unintended consequences)
>>> generates built in self torture scenarios that
>>> seemingly would steers us back from looking outward
>>> ("objectification") to being/resting inward.
>>
>> Can you give me an example?
>
> What starts as a little seemingly harmless purchases soon enough
> becomes a "house/garage gone Tetris", where I regularly can't

...

> In both cases, the path of peace would have been to smile inwardly
> at the ridiculousness of the show (aka the world), and go back to
> "abiding in awareness".

Ahh, ok, then I understand what you mean.

> I suppose a way to summarize where my examples were headed is I'm
> tired of not just physical entropy, but of how thought processes
> and even (especially?) "best intentions" seem subject to devolving
> per an entropy of sorts.

Ok, I can see that. I find the concept of mental entropy an interesting
ideas! The interior world, for many people, mirroring the external, or
is it the external that is mirroring our aggregate internal world?

>> Interesting concept. What do you think a world of
>> saints would be like? I read about these saintly guys

...

>> Would a world of saints collapse? Would our civilization
>> "transcend"?

> Said another way, what I think you're asking could be rendered
> irrelevant if it happened - there'd be no one left for it to
> have happened to, etc.
>
> It would be like suddenly seeing the "fire circle suspended in
> midair" for what it actually was: something brighter than its
> surroundings being made to follow a circular path fast enough that
> mind takes it as something "high order" due to
> the re-petition.
>
> It's no longer magic once you know how it - i.e. the trick -
> works. :-)

Hmm, I think I get what you're getting at, but not quite.

>
>> That wasn't so bad. 25 minutes or so including making tea! ;)
>
> *Damn*, you're good! I'm friggin' sweating and panting and fearing
> my wife coming down the stairs while I'm desperately trying to
> assemble what I hoped to be my final paragraph, etc., etc.! :-)

I feel your pain! ;)

>> I try shock therapy sometimes and say the word "negro"
>> to people. Some go silent, some become afraid and look
>> around, and some... the interesting ones... ask my why I
>> sad the forbidden word, and then we're off having a very
>> interesting conversation about what society tries to force
>> us to think and if that is a good thing or not.
>
> We definitely need to somehow wind up in the same bar/pub together,
> pretending not to know each other while engaging some "woke"
> counterparts.... MUAHUAHUAHUAHUAAHUA!!!! :-)

Haha, oh that would be hilarious. I wonder if we would get out alive? ;)
Jokes aside, I am certain my wife will force me to travel (I don't enjoy
travelling since I travelled waaaay too many times around the planet for
business and "pleasure" and I'm simply tired of it) and she will one day
want to go to the US and I do have a dreams of us staying for a month or
so and visit the few interesting people I've met online. So far, I think
my tour would take me to Rhode island, Chicago and possibly San Jose/San
Francisco, but I'm not certain about the last one.

Sigh... just the thought of US passport controls and waiting in line in
US airports to be questions and registered and finger printed and so
on... send shivers down my spine. =(

>> Just draw a line from north to south that starts between
>> finland (west) and russia (east), continue down to all
>> the baltic countries, estonia, latvia, lithuania (east),
>> then you have poland (east), czechia, slovakia, hungary
>> and continue on the east side of the adriatic sea, and
>> you have eastern europe to the east and western to the
>> west of that line.
>
> <dons his Ridiculous Dumb American hat>
>
> So you're saying those countries really are real countries? :-)

As far as I can tell, but you never know! ;)

> But thank you for the clarification. Now all I've got to do is
> actually remember it tomorrow, and I should be just fine. :-)

Did you remember it?

>> I feel sorry for you... the women in eastern europe, in
>> my opinion, are the most beautiful in the world. Naturally
>> my wife is one. ;)
>
> So much for The Gospel of Thomas being my primary search goal/target
> tonight.... :-)

Well, there is the gospel of mary, maybe that might be a good
compromise? ;)

>> So when I speak about capitalism that would be a system
>> where they would have less, and others more because they
>> would not be protected by the government and fed by the
>> government.
>
> Yeah... I too perpetually forget what "real capitalism" is - or
> would be.

Many do, to the great detriment of freedom. =(

> <snaps fingers> It would be a free market of selfless selves! :-)

Haha, well, that would be a sight! =)

>> Oh, this is another one of my hobbies! Show me the climate
>> hysteric and I'll take it as a challenge to see how quickly
>> I can drive him mad. ;)
>
> God-that-you-don't-believe-in bless you! :-)

I have spoiled a few family dinners, since my brother and his girl
friend are very active climate hysterics. Those where the days and I
still remember the evil eye from my late mother when I got started. ;)

Best regards,
Daniel

[oldernow]

On 2024-02-08, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:

> Wise choice! Please see attached file for more information.

AW, shucks, I'm not seeing a way to deal with what I imagine to be
MIME attachments in slrn. Installed Alpine to see if it might be
more robust along those lines, but for the life of me (Alpine man
page, Alpine "help" while running) I can't see how to specify creds
to authenticate a running Alpine session to a remote nntp server.

If there's not a way, feel free to send it to the email addy at
the bottom of this post.

> Amen! So do I. I have no plugins. At most I think I have a
> bit of space adjustment, syntax highlight and line numbers,
> but those are all built in. For some reason though, can
> no longer remember, I switched from vim to neovim. But I
> always feel bad for using vim because I heard that syntax
> highlighting is for nerds, and that vi is the "pure"
> religion (TM). ;)

I can't even remember what specifically drove me from classic
vi into the heretical arms of vim. It definitely wasn't syntax
highlighting. But have been something about being able to pipe text
in/out of scripts.

> Ahhh sorry for confusing you. I meanted alpine the email
> and news client. It is brilliant! Written in C, compiles
> without any problems and you can automate it to your
> hearts content. Have a look at https://alpineapp.email/

> for pure email bliss. =3D)

I might tinker with it.

> >> But that was tough, it could take several hours to answer
> >> a single message so in the end the thread collapsed under
> >> its own weight.
> >
> > There was a time when I'd have considered that a top-notch
> > description of heaven. :-)
>
> Well, you might just be standing right in front of the
> kingdom of heaven here! ;)

It's not where Thomas told me I could find it, but heresy loves
company, so.... ;-)

> Touch=E9! But life has taught me that if you agree too

> easily your better half will know what your doing and
> scold you for that. So first disagree lightly (even if
> you don't care, just in order to give the lightest hint
> of a discussion) and then agree, and she will love you
> for it. ;)

That's quite possibly the most useful paragraph I've ever encountered
online!

> Ahh, the final house! Haven't reach that stage in my life
> yet. On the other hand I'm only 41 so still just a, what
> do they call it... whipper-snapper?

C'mon, now... *everyone* knows there's no way to know what to
call someone without knowing their skin color.... <coughs - first
nervously, then profusely>

41? Mighty fine age!

> Ahh... this explains all those bible-people in alt.atheism
> who are trying to save the people of little faith. I
> always thought it was some kind of nasty bot, but perhaps
> they do overflow with divine inspiration and think that
> alt.atheism is the perfect vehicle for this inspiration.
> ;) Glad they haven't found this little oasis yet!

Atheism's *fightin'* words to them!

> > Ha... I re-read that past paragraph and suddenly the bible
> > verse about "where two or three are gathered together in
> > my name" came to mind.... :-)
>
> So not four??

Probably, especially when imagining a hidden "at least" before the
word 'two'.

> Oh, in that case you might like Huxleys Perennial
> Philosophy? He does what we do, and compares notes between
> several religions. The difference is that he made a product
> out of it and earned some money. ;)

There might have been a time. But these days that sounds too
voluminous for me.

> What made you exit your fundamentalism?

8 December 1980.

Okay, that's a degree or two of hyperbole stated so starkly.

But, I believe that was the beginning of my end in fundamentalist
protestant Christianity.

I was part of an evening cleaning crew on the campus of Bob Jones
University, arguably the most "fundamentalist" of all. We were on
"lunch" break.

I was minding my own business when one of the guys said (to the
entire group), "Did you hear John Lennon was shot?"

Nobody answered. Most if not all were all born and raised in said
fundamentalism, so likely couldn't care less about John Lennon.

But I grew up a Beatles fan, and John was my favorite.

"John Lennon was *shot*?"

"Yes. Shot. And killed."

I don't remember finishing that shift. But I do know that after
arriving back to my dorm room, I flipped on a local "rock" radio
station, which was strictly forbidden. But I just had to know. The
steady stream of Beatles/Lennon songs made it clear. A roommate
reminded me I shouldn't be listening. (I had five roommates.) But
I continued, never going to bed.

The next few days, I'd visit a piano practice room to play
Beatles/Lennon songs as best as I could remember.

I returned to school there for just one more semester, then took
a semester off to work and build up funds, then went to a "state
school" the remainder of my undergraduate degree, slowly but surely
falling away from all but what might be called the more "esoteric"
aspects of Christianity.

I'm not sure how to describe what "esoteric" meant to me, but a key
aspect was de-emphasizing/discarding information/matters/practices
that felt more "addressing the outside of the cup" than what might
lead to inner transformation.

> Of course I couldn't resist, and we spoke, and we was
> actually very nice. In the end, his judgment was that I was
> ok, even though I am agnostic, because I admitted that I
> was unaware, but my ex-girlfriend who was a catholic was
> apparently a hypocrite for not living a strict christian
> life. That made me laugh very hard, the agnostic beat the
> catholic! :D

LOL!

> I like the allegory of "flipping the reality bit" by
> faith. I am enormously fascinated by the phenomenon
> of faith.

I think Hebrews 11:1 had something to do with how I came to
understand faith:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen."

I truly think of it as the now semi-famous (in this newsgroup)
reality-bit-flipping mental operation

I'm not sure one can "try" to flip a given notion's bit. It's
more that one "relaxes into the obviousness of it (a notion)",
so to speak.

> Yep... web is for children, usenet is for real men! ;)

Heheh!

> Ahh... I've been a remote worker for about 8 years now. My
> way to solve it was to start my own company that is 100%
> remote and not a trace of a physical office. :D But we do
> meet 2-4 times per year if the mood strikes us.

Wow, cool!

> Oh wow! Had no idea! =3D( You're saying the idea of the

> journalist as the lone gunranger fighting by himself to
> disclose corruption and injustice is no longer a thing in
> the US?

I'm saying that's what I believe. I've no idea what the masses think,
because that would require trusting journalists. :-)

See how it's a matter of faith either way?

More importantly (for "me"), it's become irrelevant, as in knowing
most (probably all) of it having zero positive bearing on my life.

If I'm living just fine knowing nothing about people eight houses
away, how could knowing about people in "Ukraine" improve my life, or
even merely seem significant? Just because others drone on about it?

It's as though I want to be having a peaceful life, but pretty much
ignore my surroundings to wallow in others' accounts of trees falling
in some woods. I mean, shit, I'd have not even known said trees even
existed, and would have been just find in the not-knowing. So why
invite even *more* mental clutter, especially after seeing how much
"facts" are couched/wiggled to fit stories/narratives that clearly
have no existence save in one or more others' minds?

But let me attempt to become clearer. I enjoy embracing others'
stories/accounts all the time, e.g. in blogs, USENET posts. What puts
"the news" in a category different from that is I'm asked to believe
"IT'S REAL", that it's accurate accounting of SOMETHING REAL... yet
I can clearly see it's only real even for the tellers inasmuch as
they believe it is, i.e. "reality-bit-it into a state of reality".

I mean, if such had positive relevance to my life the way reading,
say, *you* does, well, that might be different. We get to take
artistic liberties, to "have fun with the words/representations"
without being burdened by whether or not any of it is TRUE - let
alone TRUTH. It might be, and probably mostly is. But there's a fun
volley to it. It's not a "knower of truth" telling lesser beings
"what the truth is" (about whatever) setting/scenario.

Ack, I always get nervous when an explanation goes too long. It
starts to feel like "protesting too much". :-)

> Well, come to think of it, perhaps not in EU either. But
> there are still a couple of journalists who I follow
> because they have very strong libertarian leanings, and
> they are allowed a small column in a mainstream newspaper
> from time to time.

I'll always enjoy what seems like good writing to me. I was a
huge fan of the writing in "The New Yorker" for a long time, and
I suspect I'd still rather enjoy such. But the subjects became
too much about people, and pretty much always with the same "this
is what is real" slant. I need occasional humility from writers,
admission that they don't necessarily know.. that they're somewhat -
or maybe even mostly - hypothesizing.

And the reason is simple: it's obvious to me truth couldn't possibly
be contained in re-presentations of truth. It's important to remember
a description of a cat isn't the cat. To me, that distinction
gets lost in the journalism game. The goal - apart from profiting
financially, of course - is get others to believe the descriptions
themselves are the reality. Journalists *love* "sheeple", love
people that can take words/descriptions so seriously that next
thing you know they're marching with pitchforks and torches, even
willing to die for their hallucinations cum "reality"....

> But actually I do take a break from the keyboard from
> time to time and do some thinking with the help of hand
> written text. I find that the change of pace and method
> is very beneficial.

Yep.

However, I need to get to the point where when I'm done, I crumple
it up, throw it away, and forget about it. I've too many partially
started notebooks, paper scraps, and 3x5 cards burdening me by
taking up space when I know damned well I'm never going to have
the time to fully revisited them the way I imagined I would when
I wrote the stuff.

In a way, I think I might be happiest if I could fully embrace for
all my writing needs:

$ cat >/dev/null

:-)

The Indian I became closes too was a guy a few years younger than I,
and he loved "ragging on Indians" (he'd have said "fucking Indians",
actually...), so to speak. Quite an interesting point of view.

> I join the choir! You can add political "ism" as well. I
> feel very uncomfortable when people make the nation their
> god, or the political leader, or the "ism". What they do,
> is to give total psychological control over themselves to
> a fallible human being. In religious sects or religions
> overall, this can also happen. It's as if there is an empty
> space in human beings just waiting to be filled. They don't
> know how to live with this empty space, or they don't know
> how to fill it with _unnamed experience_ but instead fill
> it with vices or idols or religious leaders and when they
> eventually fail, they face pain and disillusionment.

The empty space is the purely conceptual notion of
self/individual/person taken to be more than merely conceptual.

> Children are a mystery to me. Who knows if I ever get
> the chance to experience that mystery. Only god knows
> (says the agnostic!).

We're having a blast with a 2.5-year-old grandson on the verse of
being fully adopted by my wife's eldest daughter.

*But* one must proceed with trepidation in said realm. It's many
orders of magnitude easier to not be the parent. And there can be
hidden egg shells to traverse when interacting, for not knowing
all of both parents' believes/wishes.

For example, the parents in this care are far more what might
be called "standard issue believers" in their religion. And I'm
familiar with their mindset. And I don't fault them for it. I've
been in/of that one, and several others.

*But* I'm always on the lookout for others possibly "getting it" in
ways closer to the way I do, and it's easy to imagine influencing
"the little guy" in a direction that winds up putting him at odds
with his parents. I can convince myself I'd be doing so "in his
best interests in the long run", but a lifetime of experience facing
"unintended consequences" screams otherwise.

And yet I know there's a real "window of opportunity" with the little
fellow due to his entire conceptual framework of what reality "is"
being freshly under construction.

But, again, would I be undermining parental wishes? Do their wishes
really matter if they aren't as "sophisticated" (in my own biased
eyes) as mine?

Fortunately, my wife is always with me to help me understand when
I might be overstepping such bounds, because I can become pretty
"nutcase" when the juices are flowing.... ;-)

> Same here. This winters coldest day for me was -20 C. I
> dislike winter intensely, but I can tolerate it. But
> when its +40 I just check out. My ideal is 22 and a light
> breeze. Early summer/late spring is my time. Also good
> time (early to late spring) to catch pike because during
> summer they just fall asleep in my local lake.

I'm chuckling that you stated '22', because that's a number has
seemed emphasized to me by reality for several decades, now... in
street addresses, in 2022 probably being the worst year of my life,
in the "little guy" having a toy racing car whose number is 22... but
mostly it just somehow magically appearing. I'm constantly saying,
"There another one!" to my wife. :-)

> Ahh, the midwest! I used to live in Chicago for a year
> decades ago. I loved it! Great live music everywhere I
> went, nice people, public transportation and if you ever
> wanted a free beer, you could just walk into a bar and
> say "hey, I'm from sweden" and someone would say "WOW! My
> great, great, great grandfather came from sweden, so here,
> have a beer and tell me about sweden!" happened many

> times. =3D)

Nice!

We lived in a city called "Michigan City" about an hour and
a half east of Chicago for a decade and a half. It's right on
Lake Michigan. Most of our stay there took place in a house whose
street address had a 22 in it. :-) That house was walking distance
to gorgeous beaches. I'll likely long miss that place, because it
was our first house together, and my wife transformed it into a
paradise both inside and out.

> The other aspect is of course the damage I would do to
> myself by shooting someone who just wants "property"
> and not my life. But philosophically I am attracted to
> the idea of everyone having the right to bear arms as a
> way to instill some fear into politicians.

If a Beatle says "Happiness Is A Warm Gun", I just plain friggin'
believe it! :-)

> So what is your approach to "the news" (TM)? Avoiding
> it like my wife does, alternative sources or balancing
> multiple mainstream papers?

Avoiding it.

But my wife's somewhat of a new hound (albeit of course mostly
ingesting that which confirms beliefs), so I wind up hearing
plenty. But I feel less foolish (with respect to my beliefs about
it) when I'm more accidentally overhearing it than actively seeking
it out.

> > I could be objectively wrong. It's simply what I've come
> > to believe.
>
> Do you see any point in trying to change that belief or
> does it affect your life so little that it won't justify
> the time and effort to research the issue?

A "country" singer named Toby Keith died at my current age the
other day. "News" - aka others' re-presentations of an alleged
"reality" - is the last thing I want to blow remaining lifetime on
- especially now that I've found this hoppin' newsgroup! :-) But,
more seriously, I've a young life and mind to impact in ways that
hopefully improve their odds of having the best possible life.

> Oh yes... this scared me a lot during corona. I fought
> the law, and I won... (to go with the musical theme) so
> for about a year or a year and a half I was the only man
> in town walking around without a mask. I endured abuse,
> screaming and some mild violence.

You got some rebel yell in ya, do ya? :-)

> Before corona I always wondered how germans could all
> of a sudden think that it is a good think to burn jews,
> but after corona I feel lucky because I got to witness
> mass-psychosis live, and I no longer wonder how the nazis
> could do what they do. I now know.

Yep.

> > The phrase "hell is other people" is never far from my
> > mind/lips. :-)
>
> Well, surely there are some exceptions? What
> about.... me? ;)

Your mask-less photo appears when I go to the "Exceptions" Wikipedia
page. ;-)

> Ok, I can see that. I find the concept of mental entropy
> an interesting ideas! The interior world, for many people,
> mirroring the external, or is it the external that is
> mirroring our aggregate internal world?

The best explanation I've found is that it's clear and obvious
if/when giving it an honest - i.e. free of preconceived notions
- look. So long as preconceived notions are brought to the
observational table, observation is well nigh useless.

> > We definitely need to somehow wind up in the same bar/pub
> > together, pretending not to know each other while engaging
> > some "woke" counterparts.... MUAHUAHUAHUAHUAAHUA!!!! :-)
>
> Haha, oh that would be hilarious. I wonder if we would get
> out alive? ;) Jokes aside, I am certain my wife will force
> me to travel (I don't enjoy travelling since I travelled
> waaaay too many times around the planet for business and
> "pleasure" and I'm simply tired of it) and she will one day
> want to go to the US and I do have a dreams of us staying
> for a month or so and visit the few interesting people
> I've met online. So far, I think my tour would take me to
> Rhode island, Chicago and possibly San Jose/San Francisco,
> but I'm not certain about the last one.

We're less than two hours drive from Chicago now. Just sayin'. :-)

But, then, it would take some "engineering" to avoid getting into
how it came to pass, as I'm not actually doing this USENET thing,
you see.... >_<

> Sigh... just the thought of US passport controls and
> waiting in line in US airports to be questions and
> registered and finger printed and so on... send shivers

> down my spine. =3D(

Ugh. Yes.

> > But thank you for the clarification. Now all I've got to
> > do is actually remember it tomorrow, and I should be just
> > fine. :-)
>
> Did you remember it?

HUH? :-)

> Well, there is the gospel of mary, maybe that might be a
> good compromise? ;)

Being my wife's first name, I basically have that gospel
memorized. ;-)

> I have spoiled a few family dinners, since my brother and
> his girl friend are very active climate hysterics. Those
> where the days and I still remember the evil eye from my
> late mother when I got started. ;)

That poor woman! :-)

> Speaking of a deeper look within, did you ever read
> anything about transpersonal psychology?

No.

> So are these mushrooms and substances able to open the
> window without investing time and effort in meditation,
> silence, fasting etc.?
>
> And usually short cuts come with a price (just look at
> steroids for instance, great results, but heavy price)
> what is the price paid for the fast track to spirituality
> with psilocybin?

I've had both. Maybe three times total? (can't remember). The
experiences were interesting, but I'm remembering them as inducing
"more better" "conceptual veneer" obscuring underlying awareness.

The better path is to see what's actually "there" - in double
quotes, because "there" refers to a place in time/space in the
re-presentation of "underlying awareness", and "underlying awareness"
isn't "in" that purely conceptual "space".

Hence the previously mentioned "be still", which implies *less*
(preferably zero) conceptuality, "conceptual/representational
overlay", etc.

"Mind" - aka re-presentation of - somehow seemingly arises,
and therein nested representation, including of a so-called
self/individual/person "experiencing" the not-self/individual/person
things/stuff, and "all that" is the so-called dream that life is
said to be but....

"Be still" means attenuating that re-presentational situation down
from "being reality" to "being obviously merely re-presentation" to
"huh... the 'real reality' can't even be describe - aka re-presented,
but attempts to do so lead to the appearance of a sort of madness
called 'personhood'".... and then, Whoosh!, direct access - as
opposed to concept-mediated pseudo-access....

[D]

(written at 30000 ft somewhere over the baltic sea...)

Good afternoon older,

On Fri, 9 Feb 2024, oldernow wrote:

>> Wise choice! Please see attached file for more information.
>
> AW, shucks, I'm not seeing a way to deal with what I imagine to be MIME
> attachments in slrn. Installed Alpine to see if it might be more robust along
> those lines, but for the life of me (Alpine man page, Alpine "help" while
> running) I can't see how to specify creds to authenticate a running Alpine
> session to a remote nntp server.

Not on the internet, so this is from memory, press (S)etup then (C)onfig and
then fill in the nntp details on the third row. I _think_ when you try to
connect to the nntp server that alpine will ask you for your login/password and
then save it do disk. Let me know if that doesn't work, and I'll dig around in
the .pinerc and will send you how it looks like in my own.

> If there's not a way, feel free to send it to the email addy at the bottom of
> this post.

If there's a will, there's a way. ;)

>> Ahhh sorry for confusing you. I meanted alpine the email and news client. It
>> is brilliant! Written in C, compiles without any problems and you can
>> automate it to your hearts content. Have a look at https://alpineapp.email/
>> for pure email bliss. =3D)
>
> I might tinker with it.

Happy tinkering and let me know how it goes! =)

>> Touch=E9! But life has taught me that if you agree too easily your better
>> half will know what your doing and scold you for that. So first disagree
>> lightly (even if you don't care, just in order to give the lightest hint of
>> a discussion) and then agree, and she will love you for it. ;)
>
> That's quite possibly the most useful paragraph I've ever encountered online!

Glad to help. It's always nice, regardless of topics, when you do hit upon one
of these nuggets! =)

>> Ahh, the final house! Haven't reach that stage in my life yet. On the other
>> hand I'm only 41 so still just a, what do they call it... whipper-snapper?
>
> C'mon, now... *everyone* knows there's no way to know what to call someone
> without knowing their skin color.... <coughs - first nervously, then
> profusely>

True! Usually when people ask me for my skin color, I say I'm a negro, but
since we're not actually seeing each other, the jokes is completely lost. ;)
But you can safely assume whitish/pinkish depending on how much sun there is.
;)

> 41? Mighty fine age!

Doing my best! ;)

>> Ahh... this explains all those bible-people in alt.atheism who are trying to
>> save the people of little faith. I always thought it was some kind of nasty
>> bot, but perhaps they do overflow with divine inspiration and think that
>> alt.atheism is the perfect vehicle for this inspiration. ;) Glad they
>> haven't found this little oasis yet!
>
> Atheism's *fightin'* words to them!

That's a shame. I was hoping for some good old philosophizing there as well but
its drowning in bible quotes so in the end I stopped following it. =(

>> Oh, in that case you might like Huxleys Perennial Philosophy? He does what
>> we do, and compares notes between several religions. The difference is that
>> he made a product out of it and earned some money. ;)
>
> There might have been a time. But these days that sounds too voluminous for
> me.

It's not that bad... around 300 pages if memory serves and mostly he is
comparing quotes from various religious texts to see how they reinforce each
other.

>
>> What made you exit your fundamentalism?
>
> 8 December 1980.
>
> Okay, that's a degree or two of hyperbole stated so starkly.
>
> But, I believe that was the beginning of my end in fundamentalist protestant
> Christianity.
>
> I was part of an evening cleaning crew on the campus of Bob Jones

...

> I'm not sure how to describe what "esoteric" meant to me, but a key aspect
> was de-emphasizing/discarding information/matters/practices that felt more
> "addressing the outside of the cup" than what might lead to inner
> transformation.

Fascinating journey! My own philosophical and ideological travel is definitely
not so long and fundamental. When I was young I was very conservative and
actually fairly trusting in a good, old, conservative government and I did give
politicians the benefit of the doubt. As the years passed, I had a few chances
to meet with some politicians, I joined the youth section (for 3 months) and
started to read a lot of libertarian texts, philosophy economics, etc. And one
day when I looked back I discovered that I no longer trusted politicians,
loathed them in fact, had no trust in the government, and had more tolerance
for what other people want or do not want to do in the privacy of their
bedroom. I could in fact go so far as to say that if my neighbours want to live
in a communist community they are more than welcome to try as long as they
don't drag me into it. So in short, I found myself having moved from being a
conservative to a libertarian/anarcho capitalist or however you want to slice
and dice it.

But this worries me!

I moved from conservative as a young man, to libertarian as a older man, and
where will that take me when I'm an old man? Will I become a marvel of
"freedom", pot smoking, bdsm-practicing, self-sufficiency/farm owning crazy
man? Or did my trip along freedom lane stop or slow down before getting too
extreme? ;)

But these ideological shifts seem to run in the family. My father started as a
pot smoking communist complete with long hair and a somewhat hippie lifestyle,
until he met my mother who transformed him, slowly, over the years, to a mild
conservative. Probably in US terms, someone belonging on the right hand side in
the democrat party, with some questions where he has a clearly republican bent.

Well... time will tell!

My wife did tell me however, that she discovered that during her time spent
with me, she has become more libertarian too, and her trust in politicians and
governments has decreased as well, so clearly I do have a positive influence on
people. ;)

>> Oh wow! Had no idea! =3D( You're saying the idea of the journalist as the
>> lone gunranger fighting by himself to disclose corruption and injustice is
>> no longer a thing in the US?
>
> I'm saying that's what I believe. I've no idea what the masses think, because
> that would require trusting journalists. :-)

True!

> See how it's a matter of faith either way?
>
> More importantly (for "me"), it's become irrelevant, as in knowing most
> (probably all) of it having zero positive bearing on my life.
>
> If I'm living just fine knowing nothing about people eight houses away, how
> could knowing about people in "Ukraine" improve my life, or even merely seem
> significant? Just because others drone on about it?

Aha! So not only a spiritual seeker but you are a stoic sage as well! ;)

I wish I could be as detached as you are, but one of my hobbies (and income
streams) is investing and that does require me to try and know how things
_really_ are, and then make best when the masses join up in some kind of
mass-delusion distorting market prices. On top of that, I have my own business
with 5-6 colleagues or so, which also requires me to keep a finger on the puls
of the world. But I do try to limit myself to one newspaper, 15 minutes of
TV-news per day, and random reading on mastodon and various social news sites.

But maybe when I retire I can at least cut the consumption with 50% or so.

> But let me attempt to become clearer. I enjoy embracing others'
> stories/accounts all the time, e.g. in blogs, USENET posts. What puts "the
> news" in a category different from that is I'm asked to believe "IT'S REAL",
> that it's accurate accounting of SOMETHING REAL... yet I can clearly see it's
> only real even for the tellers inasmuch as they believe it is, i.e.
> "reality-bit-it into a state of reality".

True. Well, once upon a time, news I think where more fact based. They
presented you with facts to the best of their ability and let you draw the
conclusions. Now a days, there is this abomination called "agendabased news"
where newspapers actively try and set the agenda and treat you like a child.
This is the reason that I cannot read at least 50% of the newspaper I follow
and why I always have to supplement the stories I do care about with other
sources. I think this also, perhaps, is one reason for the polarization we see
today. Many people resent being told what to believe, and this creates an
opposite reaction where news taking position X generate a popular uprising
taking position Y.

> I mean, if such had positive relevance to my life the way reading, say, *you*
> does, well, that might be different. We get to take

Thank you very much, you flatter me, and that is to my spiritual detriment
since my ego likes it. ;)

> artistic liberties, to "have fun with the words/representations" without
> being burdened by whether or not any of it is TRUE - let alone TRUTH. It
> might be, and probably mostly is. But there's a fun volley to it. It's not a
> "knower of truth" telling lesser beings "what the truth is" (about whatever)
> setting/scenario.

I most definitely agree! Enter the choir!

> Ack, I always get nervous when an explanation goes too long. It starts to
> feel like "protesting too much". :-)

Just let that brain and those fingers run wild! At worst, it gets difficult to
handle and I might accidentally drop some nuggets by mistake when quoting.

> And the reason is simple: it's obvious to me truth couldn't possibly be
> contained in re-presentations of truth. It's important to remember a
> description of a cat isn't the cat. To me, that distinction

But it's not binary, it's a continuum. So it might not be 100%, but it might
approach 100%. This was part of the mega-thread that collapsed. What is
reality, can we know it? Can we approach it? Is science a model that we use to
predict the world, or is science the method through which we get to _know_ what
the world really is? This discussion was then used to judge wheter the many
worlds interpretation of quantum physics was: 1. nonsense. 2. real. 3. possibly
real, but impossible to ever know. 4. possibly real, impossible to tell today,
but possibly possible to tell in the future or 5. the wrong human language
interpretation of a set of equations, and we should in fact "shut up and
calculate".

What is your opinion on the matter?

>> But actually I do take a break from the keyboard from time to time and do
>> some thinking with the help of hand written text. I find that the change of
>> pace and method is very beneficial.
>
> Yep.
>
> However, I need to get to the point where when I'm done, I crumple it up,
> throw it away, and forget about it. I've too many partially started
> notebooks, paper scraps, and 3x5 cards burdening me by

Me too... but in my case, I usually lose them after a while through moving
boxes, moving to different countries etc.

> taking up space when I know damned well I'm never going to have the time to
> fully revisited them the way I imagined I would when I wrote the stuff.
>
> In a way, I think I might be happiest if I could fully embrace for all my
> writing needs:
>
> $ cat >/dev/null

Maybe use the garbage bad methodology? Collect everything in a garbage bag and
put it in the attic for a year or two. If you haven't touched the bag in 2
years, throw it away.

> *But* I'm always on the lookout for others possibly "getting it" in ways
> closer to the way I do, and it's easy to imagine influencing "the little guy"
> in a direction that winds up putting him at odds

No, no, not influencing, think of it more as therapy for the little guy. ;)

>> Same here. This winters coldest day for me was -20 C. I dislike winter
>> intensely, but I can tolerate it. But when its +40 I just check out. My
>> ideal is 22 and a light breeze. Early summer/late spring is my time. Also
>> good time (early to late spring) to catch pike because during summer they
>> just fall asleep in my local lake.
>
> I'm chuckling that you stated '22', because that's a number has seemed
> emphasized to me by reality for several decades, now... in street addresses,
> in 2022 probably being the worst year of my life, in the "little guy" having
> a toy racing car whose number is 22... but mostly it just somehow magically
> appearing. I'm constantly saying, "There another one!" to my wife. :-)

And here I thought the magic nr was 23!!!

>> So what is your approach to "the news" (TM)? Avoiding it like my wife does,
>> alternative sources or balancing multiple mainstream papers?
>
> Avoiding it.

Wise man!

>> Do you see any point in trying to change that belief or does it affect your
>> life so little that it won't justify the time and effort to research the
>> issue?
>
> A "country" singer named Toby Keith died at my current age the other day.
> "News" - aka others' re-presentations of an alleged "reality" - is the last
> thing I want to blow remaining lifetime on - especially now that I've found
> this hoppin' newsgroup! :-) But,

Have you found any others? I've tried to bring in some people from my mastodon
instance which is very libertarian, so let's see if someone actually does
manage to find his way to alt.politics.libertarian or not. That should
hopefully liven up the place a litte. =)

>> Oh yes... this scared me a lot during corona. I fought the law, and I won...
>> (to go with the musical theme) so for about a year or a year and a half I
>> was the only man in town walking around without a mask. I endured abuse,
>> screaming and some mild violence.
>
> You got some rebel yell in ya, do ya? :-)

If only you could have seen me during my corona glory days! ;)

> Your mask-less photo appears when I go to the "Exceptions" Wikipedia page.
> ;-)

;)

>>> We definitely need to somehow wind up in the same bar/pub together,
>>> pretending not to know each other while engaging some "woke"
>>> counterparts.... MUAHUAHUAHUAHUAAHUA!!!! :-)
>>
>> Haha, oh that would be hilarious. I wonder if we would get out alive? ;)
>> Jokes aside, I am certain my wife will force me to travel (I don't enjoy
>> travelling since I travelled waaaay too many times around the planet for
>> business and "pleasure" and I'm simply tired of it) and she will one day
>> want to go to the US and I do have a dreams of us staying for a month or so
>> and visit the few interesting people I've met online. So far, I think my
>> tour would take me to Rhode island, Chicago and possibly San Jose/San
>> Francisco, but I'm not certain about the last one.
>
> We're less than two hours drive from Chicago now. Just sayin'. :-)

Interesting! Well, 2025 is a long way off, but if it ever comes to pass, and if
we're still talking at that point in time, it would be interesting to book a
date exactly 1 hour away from your place and 1 hour away form chicago. I can
easily imagine an empty roads with tumbleweeds, two men in cowboy hats meeting
at dawn, while in the distance a lonely harmonica is playing...

> But, then, it would take some "engineering" to avoid getting into how it came
> to pass, as I'm not actually doing this USENET thing, you see.... >_<

Ohhh.... well, "honey, I just met this wonderful swede down at the local super
market"! ;)

>>> But thank you for the clarification. Now all I've got to do is actually
>>> remember it tomorrow, and I should be just fine. :-)
>>
>> Did you remember it?
>
> HUH? :-)

Well, I tried! ;)

>> Well, there is the gospel of mary, maybe that might be a good compromise? ;)
>
> Being my wife's first name, I basically have that gospel memorized. ;-)

Wow, even better than the 1800 year old one! ;) Hmm, come to think of it, it is
my wifes middle name too. ;)

>> So are these mushrooms and substances able to open the window without
>> investing time and effort in meditation, silence, fasting etc.?
>>
>> And usually short cuts come with a price (just look at steroids for
>> instance, great results, but heavy price) what is the price paid for the
>> fast track to spirituality with psilocybin?
>
> I've had both. Maybe three times total? (can't remember). The experiences
> were interesting, but I'm remembering them as inducing "more better"
> "conceptual veneer" obscuring underlying awareness.

That's very interesting! Could you please elaborate? It seems to me that many
speak about finding god or becoming conscious about god after trying these
substances, but you're not saying that?

Could it be that what they find is a red herring, a convincing illusion of god,
but at the end of the day, not an experience that is deep enough?

I read somewhere that regulars find themselves returning to their mushroom
because they want to experience this again and again, and that makes me think
that perhaps they are caught in an illusion. I'm fairly sure, that in buddhism
as well as contemplative christianity, it would be a big "no, no" to chase
after these experiences and that they stand in the way between you and god.

Wouldn't that be something?

Hello hippies, you're god experience, although strong and spiritual, was just
another hoax and blocker between you and the ultimate! ;)

>
> The better path is to see what's actually "there" - in double quotes, because
> "there" refers to a place in time/space in the re-presentation of "underlying
> awareness", and "underlying awareness" isn't "in" that purely conceptual
> "space".

I'd say beyond time and space, and therefore ultimate only available to you as
a subject, or perhaps better said, available to you as a non-subject. But I
think this will get us caught up in semantics again. ;)

> Hence the previously mentioned "be still", which implies *less* (preferably
> zero) conceptuality, "conceptual/representational overlay", etc.

Agreed!

Well, it's time to land, so this repsonse was the perfect way to spend an hour
in the air! Thank you for the mental, asynchronous company! =)

Best regards,
Daniel

[oldernow]

On 2024-02-11, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:

> (written at 30000 ft somewhere over the baltic sea...)

I had a funny hunch you got high every now and then. :-)

> Not on the internet, so this is from memory, press (S)etup
> then (C)onfig and then fill in the nntp details on the
> third row. I _think_ when you try to connect to the nntp
> server that alpine will ask you for your login/password and
> then save it do disk. Let me know if that doesn't work,
> and I'll dig around in the .pinerc and will send you how
> it looks like in my own.

Okay, I'd already figured that out.

Given that, when I start it, I go into L (FOLDER LIST), where I
see two things I can select:

----------------------------------------------------------
| Mail |
| Local folders in mail/ |
| |
| News on news.eternal-september.org/nntp |
| News groups on news.eternal-september.org/nntp |
----------------------------------------------------------

A couple quick questions:

1) Should I have specified the server as
nntp://news.eternal-september.org? Or was news.eternal-september.org
sufficient?

2) Why is the server being shown with '/nntp' appended to the
end? I don't take that on when I access news.eternal-september.org
via slrn. Is that a sort of additional visual hint (beyond the
word "News"...) to be sure I understand that server is nntp
protocol...? Or....?

Anyway, I select the second, which brings me to a screen with the
following near the top:

--------------------------------------------------
| News groups on news.eternal-september.org/nntp |
--------------------------------------------------

From there is appears I can Add/Delete/Rename newsgroups.

But at no point was I prompted for server credentials... and when
I attempt to "Add" alt.philosophy, I'm told that "didn't match
any existing groups", so I get the feeling no server connection
ever happens.

>>> Ahh... this explains all those bible-people in alt.atheism
>>> who are trying to save the people of little faith. I
>>> always thought it was some kind of nasty bot, but perhaps
>>> they do overflow with divine inspiration and think that
>>> alt.atheism is the perfect vehicle for this inspiration.
>>> ;) Glad they haven't found this little oasis yet!
>>
>> Atheism's *fightin'* words to them!
>
> That's a shame. I was hoping for some good old
> philosophizing there as well but its drowning in bible
> quotes so in the end I stopped following it. =(

I took a peek for a day or so, but the high traffic of mostly
"I'm right and you're wrong" in and about gobs of nested quoting
had me unsubscribing.

> > > Oh, in that case you might like Huxleys Perennial
> > > Philosophy? He does what we do, and compares notes between
> > > several religions. The difference is that he made a product
> > > out of it and earned some money. ;)
> >
> > There might have been a time. But these days that sounds
> > too voluminous for me.
>
> It's not that bad... around 300 pages if memory serves
> and mostly he is comparing quotes from various religious
> texts to see how they reinforce each other.

It's not that bad for a 41-year-old, perhaps. But for this
62-year-old feeling the hot blast of death's breath on the back
of his neck, and who has had attention deficit issues since
before people came up with fancy terminology/labels for such,
well... probably going to put the time/effort into reading material
that I know provokes what feels like liberation from time to time.

Very interesting trajectory. Kind of like mine, although I had one
monkey-wrenched transition. I was go-to-church-and-that's-about-it
Catholic growing up, to bible-believing-fundamentalist-christian last
year of high school, practiced what I preached for several years,
remained mostly conservative while losing the more overtly religious
trappings, much reading, seemed like the material was "collectively
going somewhere", i.e. building upon itself and gaining momentum,
eventually became far more liberal socially (voted for Reagan
while conservative, Clinton/Gore by the time it was their turn),
married "outside of race" (back when that was considered something
somewhat amazing), lots 'o drinking, growing my own pot, divorce,
new relationship back roughly where I grew up, that ended, lived
with brother, eventually found my current wife through a serious
of online accidents, slowly became more conservative again due to
her influence, with what I imagine has to be a certain amount of
"getting old" component.

I'm not conservative in what I want to call a "self-righteous"
way, by which I mean perpetually flaunting lots of "i'm right,
you're wrong". For example, the neighbor a couple houses down has
a sign outside that reads "God, Guns, and Trump". I've no need
to be broadcasting/advertising my beliefs, which is basically
that I prefer safer to sorry-er. I believe in self-restraint,
and "correctional assistance" when that's not happening in ways
that can adversely affect others, including in unsee but probably
pretty likely ways down the road, e.g. behaviors that *obviously*
compromise physical health.

Said another way, I think that whereas the likes of the "Ten
Commands" are some pretty damned good advice in the direction of
happiness and fulfillment, "do as you please" increases the chances
of misery/demise, even if only for the "pride cometh before a fall"
aspect of our psychology.

Oh! I completely forgot that I'm the inventor of The Zeroeth
Commandment, which I named as a sort of "If you do even just *this*
much (as opposed to being gung ho about all Ten), you're doing
pretty good" sense:

---------------------------------
| The Zeroeth Commandment |
|-------------------------------|
| THOU SHALT NOT INCONVENIENCE! |
---------------------------------

Examples:

- If someone is *obviously* reading something, DON'T START TALKING
TO THEM OUT OF THE BLUE.

- If someone usually sets their computer on a particular flat
surface when doing something like "taking their meds", DON'T
PUT A FLOWER POT THERE.

It's just some really basic being more aware of an getting to know
and remembering others so as to not frustrated them unnecessarily,
because that kind of frustration add to other frustration to
the point where "acting out" subconsciously suddenly seems to be
the cure.

> My wife did tell me however, that she discovered
> that during her time spent with me, she has become
> more libertarian too, and her trust in politicians and
> governments has decreased as well, so clearly I do have
> a positive influence on people. ;)

There was a period in time when I considered myself libertarian. But
along the way, more inwardly-looking ways/paths eroded my belief in
putting what goes on externally first, that "cleaning the inside
of the cup", as it were, would be more effective both inside and
(seeping, in progressively better behavior) out.

But, then, I suppose "libertarian" far more "inside of the cup" than
typical political bents, because - per attributes glean from the
beginning of the "Libertarianism" Wikipedia entry - "equality",
"rights", "freedom".. well, it's blatantly talking about a
"liberation" of sorts, a belief that free people will naturally
behavior better than those oppressed - including by their own
mindsets, momentum of behavior(s), etc.

Hey, thank you for reminding me about libertarianism!

> > More importantly (for "me"), it's become irrelevant, as
> > in knowing most (probably all) of it having zero positive
> > bearing on my life.
> >
> > If I'm living just fine knowing nothing about people eight
> > houses away, how could knowing about people in "Ukraine"
> > improve my life, or even merely seem significant? Just
> > because others drone on about it?
>
> Aha! So not only a spiritual seeker but you are a stoic
> sage as well! ;)

Pffft! I'm just yet another case of mistaken identity! :-)

> I wish I could be as detached as you are, but one of my
> hobbies (and income streams) is investing and that does
> require me to try and know how things _really_ are, and
> then make best when the masses join up in some kind of
> mass-delusion distorting market prices. On top of that,
> I have my own business with 5-6 colleagues or so, which
> also requires me to keep a finger on the puls of the
> world. But I do try to limit myself to one newspaper, 15
> minutes of TV-news per day, and random reading on mastodon
> and various social news sites.
>
> But maybe when I retire I can at least cut the consumption
> with 50% or so.

<imagining Chrissie's bangs>

Sweet dreams are made of less!

> True. Well, once upon a time, news I think where more
> fact based. They presented you with facts to the best
> of their ability and let you draw the conclusions. Now a
> days, there is this abomination called "agendabased news"
> where newspapers actively try and set the agenda and treat
> you like a child. This is the reason that I cannot read
> at least 50% of the newspaper I follow and why I always
> have to supplement the stories I do care about with other
> sources. I think this also, perhaps, is one reason for the
> polarization we see today. Many people resent being told
> what to believe, and this creates an opposite reaction
> where news taking position X generate a popular uprising
> taking position Y.

I *want* to believe there was more integrity to "The News" in the
past, but have no reason to believe there was. The possibility a
greater percentage of people were more naive could explain how it
seemed to more people.

Looking back, I can't think of much "News" that wasn't funded by
advertising. "Necessary evil", right? But still evil. Journalism
principles can't/won't/don't hold a candle to what advertisers what
their products show in and around.

Oh, and that's another thing. The advertising has *always* been
the more important part. We were maybe better at pretending that
wasn't the case in the past.

And there also wasn't a way to quickly get feedback on one's
wonderings, suspicions, etc. I might have thought Walter Cronkite
was a major asshole (I didn't.. just saying as an example..),
but I might have felt trepidation expressing that without first
"testing the waters" in places where there'd be less blowback
should most others in my world feel the opposite - no, for example,
way to create a fake identity (online "handle"), and "try out"
such an opinion on others with zero chance of negative repercussions.

Now, we've the somewhat opposite problem that people are reciting
what they think others have thought through, pointing to "memes"
as though wisdom, and people feel justified blaring all that
in public because it's seems it's already being blared in their
private conceptuality tunnels. The swelling of that online blaring
can even lead to people feeling as though they're on the "right"
side, i.e. with the majority, with absolutely no proof of the
actual numbers.

I don't know where I'm going with this, BTW. Just kind of babbling
at fast pace because my wife's getting up soon for an early doctor
appointment, and I'm still 200 lines of your quoted text to get
through! :-)

> Just let that brain and those fingers run wild! At worst,
> it gets difficult to handle and I might accidentally drop
> some nuggets by mistake when quoting.

It's a muddle - I mean *quandary* - alright! :-)

> > And the reason is simple: it's obvious to me truth couldn't
> > possibly be contained in re-presentations of truth. It's
> > important to remember a description of a cat isn't the
> > cat. To me, that distinction
>
> But it's not binary, it's a continuum. So it might not
> be 100%, but it might approach 100%. This was part
> of the mega-thread that collapsed. What is reality,
> can we know it? Can we approach it? Is science a model
> that we use to predict the world, or is science the
> method through which we get to _know_ what the world
> really is? This discussion was then used to judge wheter
> the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics was:
> 1. nonsense. 2. real. 3. possibly real, but impossible to
> ever know. 4. possibly real, impossible to tell today,
> but possibly possible to tell in the future or 5. the
> wrong human language interpretation of a set of equations,
> and we should in fact "shut up and calculate".
>
> What is your opinion on the matter?

It's not too different from what I said before about the *real*
(haha) value of knowing the details of the lives of the neighbors
eight houses down. Is it *really* that important that I "know" how
aspects of physics work? I mean, the answer seems to be yes when
it comes to what I'll call "physics wisdom" embodied in tools and
their use (levers, hammers, screwdrivers). But it seems to be no
(heh.. literally typed 'know' first pass...) when going down to
so-called "quarks" and such. To me, there comes a point where it
starts to become "really good fiction" at best, because the senses
can no longer have a say.

*Rumor* is somewhat what that "good fiction" is....

I agree with "it's not binary, it's a continuum". If/when I start
sounding binary, whereas I agree there is a continuum, at every
step along the way of that continuum there's a pair of opposing
notions. Take the following example of emotions:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
| ecstatic | happy | so-so | neutral | ambivalent | sad | depressed |
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Can you see how along that continuum there are pairs of
opposites. They're rough/approximate because isn't the best
of examples. But we don't say "ecstatic" is the opposite of
"ambivalent".

And that's because knowledge is rooted in increasingly finer
graduations - yes, along a continuum - of opposites. And that's
because we can't even imagine something other than in contrast to
its opposite, because there's something to "how thought/thinking
works" demanding knowledge come in pairs of opposites.

You know? (Sorry... rushing again...)

Yes, I see that I put one in the middle ("neutral") that seemingly
has no opposite. But it's kind of a special, "meta" notion whose
opposite is "all the other ones", i.e. all those that are *not*
neutral... (so in a way it doesn't even belong "in" with the rest,
but we can imagine it there, right...? :-) ).

> Maybe use the garbage bad methodology? Collect everything
> in a garbage bag and put it in the attic for a year or
> two. If you haven't touched the bag in 2 years, throw
> it away.

That might have made sense when I was 41 ;-) , but I'm arguably
(assuming similar longevities) 20 years nearer The End than you, and
have almost never had time to "look back", which somewhat screams I
likely never will unless I'm living in a way that I don't consider
living. :-)

And for me there's something about knowing such stuff is "hanging
around" that bothers me, as though I'm unsure of where The Value is -
better hang onto this/that/the-other "just in case". But I already
know of a certainty that "holding on" or "clinging" to stuff,
as it were, doesn't increase happiness/fulfillment. If anything,
it's a perpetual discomforting holding pattern.

What matters is simply being content right here, right
now. Always. That covers all the bases. That does what things
couldn't do for me *to begin with*, let alone after burdening
me for having to cart them around, reorganize them, dust them,
enduring their being in the way of other things, etc., etc.

It's like whoever said something about there being two options when
it comes to the rough terrain of this world:

1) carpet the entire word
2) wear shoes

(1) implies believing fulfillment is a function of Having/Knowing
The Right Stuff Out There.

(2) implies being able to go anywhere, anytime, no need to check
always-changing maps of "carpeted places", or always have
carpet and carpeting tools in tow to "remedy the un-carpeted
situation".

> > *But* I'm always on the lookout for others possibly
> > "getting it" in ways closer to the way I do, and it's easy
> > to imagine influencing "the little guy" in a direction
> > that winds up putting him at odds

> No, no, not influencing, think of it more as therapy for
> the little guy. ;)

Okay. Done! :-)

> > I'm chuckling that you stated '22', because that's a
> > number has seemed emphasized to me by reality for several
> > decades, now... in street addresses, in 2022 probably
> > being the worst year of my life, in the "little guy"
> > having a toy racing car whose number is 22... but mostly
> > it just somehow magically appearing. I'm constantly saying,
> > "There another one!" to my wife. :-)
>
> And here I thought the magic nr was 23!!!

Oh, it is. 23 always wins the magic[k] contest.

<mental note to dig to see if he still has his copy of "The
Illuminatus! Trilogy">

> Have you found any others? I've tried to bring in some
> people from my mastodon instance which is very libertarian,
> so let's see if someone actually does manage to find
> his way to alt.politics.libertarian or not. That should
> hopefully liven up the place a litte. =)

<eyes shift nervously from side to side>

> Interesting! Well, 2025 is a long way off, but if it ever
> comes to pass, and if we're still talking at that point
> in time, it would be interesting to book a date exactly 1
> hour away from your place and 1 hour away form chicago. I
> can easily imagine an empty roads with tumbleweeds, two
> men in cowboy hats meeting at dawn, while in the distance
> a lonely harmonica is playing...

Huh. You know, I think I do have *one* cowboy-ish hat
somewhere. That's pretty far from what I usually think of as "my
image", though.. I think my wife got it for me for one of our music
performances that must have been themed somewhat that direction.

But, in fact, about the only "country" song I know might just
barely qualify for that category these days: "Wichita Lineman"
(Glenn Campbell).

> Ohhh.... well, "honey, I just met this wonderful swede
> down at the local super market"! ;)

Hilarious! Although, of course it's "this world", so there's always a
complication, in this case that my wife's ex was half Swede, and she
"despises the motherfucker". So we might have to say you're from
the Congo anyway. ;-)

> Wow, even better than the 1800 year old one! ;)

1800 is what I suddenly want to call a "sacred tequila number" for me. :-)

> Hmm, come to think of it, it is my wifes middle name
> too. ;)

My <deity>, the commonality is just downright *insane*, here! :-)

> > I've had both. Maybe three times total? (can't
> > remember). The experiences were interesting, but I'm
> > remembering them as inducing "more better" "conceptual
> > veneer" obscuring underlying awareness.
>
> That's very interesting! Could you please elaborate? It
> seems to me that many speak about finding god or becoming
> conscious about god after trying these substances, but
> you're not saying that?

But wouldn't that say more about the difference between them and me,
than about some objective spiritual efficacy of the substances?

> Could it be that what they find is a red herring, a
> convincing illusion of god, but at the end of the day,
> not an experience that is deep enough?

Experience is shallow *by definition*: that's' what the "ex" - aka
"out there" - prefix demands. The more "ex", the less "deep".

The depth I think you're referring to is *im*mediate, i.e. not
mediated by notions/concepts/"knowing".

> I read somewhere that regulars find themselves returning to
> their mushroom because they want to experience this again
> and again, and that makes me think that perhaps they are
> caught in an illusion. I'm fairly sure, that in buddhism
> as well as contemplative christianity, it would be a big
> "no, no" to chase after these experiences and that they
> stand in the way between you and god.
>
> Wouldn't that be something?

Seems reasonable to me. Illusion is simply "looking 'out' and
pretending that's the substance of the 'in'", when in fact the 'out'
couldn't possibly be more than a reflection (i.e. in "mind") of the
(necessarily ineffable) 'in'.

> Hello hippies, you're god experience, although strong and
> spiritual, was just another hoax and blocker between you
> and the ultimate! ;)

I mean, they couldn't even comb their fucking hair, for
fuckssakes! ;-)

> > The better path is to see what's actually "there" -
> > in double quotes, because "there" refers to a place
> > in time/space in the re-presentation of "underlying
> > awareness", and "underlying awareness" isn't "in" that
> > purely conceptual "space".
>
> I'd say beyond time and space, and therefore ultimate only
> available to you as a subject, or perhaps better said,
> available to you as a non-subject. But I think this will
> get us caught up in semantics again. ;)

<leaves it alone>

LOOK MOM! NO "CAUGHT UP"! :-)

> Well, it's time to land, so this repsonse was the perfect
> way to spend an hour in the air! Thank you for the mental,
> asynchronous company! =)

There's no landing on this here conceptuality flight, baby! ;-)

> > Gots to have such time first, which is something I tell my
> > wife (who has a wonderful voice, and often talks about how
> > we need to record again) all the, um... time - especially
> > after being assigned to a task she could probably do for
> > herself.... <schruggie> :-)
>
> Well, when the children are grown up, maybe then you will
> have the time. Or the grand-children?

We'll see. I've three separate 16-track recording devices, the
oldest going back to the mid-1990s. No idea if they still work,
if the can be interfaced with more modern sound "stuff", etc.

I used to have more online, but got tired of paying for nobody
visiting such. I'll have to revisit Google Drive to see if I ever
put recordings there. I a somewhat short "album" of my own stuff
back then.

I mean, as far as attention to the material goes, I remember a
"light bulb over the head" moment were I was in the backyard of
where I lived then with my brother doing some serious drinking.. and
I suddenly decided to bring the CD player outside to give him a
listen... and he basically just talked right over the entire play.

Understanding the "mostly wishful thinking" chances of others
finding it worth listening to when I couldn't even get my closed
family member to... I pretty much gave up on trying to impress
others with music right there in the backyard.

But let me know if you're interested in a listen, and I'll see what
kinds of http strings I can pull....

[D]

Hello older, just curious about what happened? Did the thread finally
collapse under its own weight? ;)

If so, absolutely no worries! I'm just checking in case _I_ missed to
respond to you for some reason.

On Wed, 14 Feb 2024, D wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 12 Feb 2024, oldernow wrote:
>
>> On 2024-02-11, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>> (written at 30000 ft somewhere over the baltic sea...)
>>
>> I had a funny hunch you got high every now and then. :-)
>

> Yes, sadly is does tend to happen 6-8 times per year. It is my dream to
> not have to travel, but such is life!

>
>> Given that, when I start it, I go into L (FOLDER LIST), where I
>> see two things I can select:
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> | Mail |
>> | Local folders in mail/ |
>> | |
>> | News on news.eternal-september.org/nntp |
>> | News groups on news.eternal-september.org/nntp |
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> A couple quick questions:
>>
>> 1) Should I have specified the server as
>> nntp://news.eternal-september.org? Or was news.eternal-september.org
>> sufficient?
>

> In my setup I just have the domain name. No nntp necessary as far as I
> can see.

>
>> 2) Why is the server being shown with '/nntp' appended to the
>> end? I don't take that on when I access news.eternal-september.org
>> via slrn. Is that a sort of additional visual hint (beyond the
>> word "News"...) to be sure I understand that server is nntp
>> protocol...? Or....?
>

> Adding /... is a special alpine thing. If you entered only the domain
> name and it was added automatically I'd just let it sit there.

>
>> Anyway, I select the second, which brings me to a screen with the
>> following near the top:
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> | News groups on news.eternal-september.org/nntp |
>> --------------------------------------------------
>>
>> From there is appears I can Add/Delete/Rename newsgroups.
>>
>> But at no point was I prompted for server credentials... and when
>> I attempt to "Add" alt.philosophy, I'm told that "didn't match
>> any existing groups", so I get the feeling no server connection
>> ever happens.
>

> Hmm... maybe it's something with eternal-september? I use news.i2pn2.org
> maybe you should create an account there? So far, I've been very happy
> with the server and alt.philosophy provably exists there.

>
>>>> Atheism's *fightin'* words to them!
>>>
>>> That's a shame. I was hoping for some good old
>>> philosophizing there as well but its drowning in bible
>>> quotes so in the end I stopped following it. =(
>>
>> I took a peek for a day or so, but the high traffic of mostly
>> "I'm right and you're wrong" in and about gobs of nested quoting
>> had me unsubscribing.
>

> Yep... not very interesting and too much traffic for me to bother trying
> to pick out the gold nuggets from all the rest. I think the strategy to
> get anything out of that group is to build up a massive kill file so
> over time, the crap decreases and the gold increases.

>
>>> Well... time will tell!
>>
>> Very interesting trajectory. Kind of like mine, although I had one
>> monkey-wrenched transition. I was go-to-church-and-that's-about-it
>> Catholic growing up, to bible-believing-fundamentalist-christian last
>> year of high school, practiced what I preached for several years,
>> remained mostly conservative while losing the more overtly religious
>> trappings, much reading, seemed like the material was "collectively
>> going somewhere", i.e. building upon itself and gaining momentum,
>> eventually became far more liberal socially (voted for Reagan
>> while conservative, Clinton/Gore by the time it was their turn),
>

> Clinton/Gore, OMG! Did you know he invented the internet? ;)

>
>> married "outside of race" (back when that was considered something
>> somewhat amazing), lots 'o drinking, growing my own pot, divorce,
>> new relationship back roughly where I grew up, that ended, lived
>> with brother, eventually found my current wife through a serious
>> of online accidents, slowly became more conservative again due to
>

> Sounds like love on usenet to me! ;)

>
>> her influence, with what I imagine has to be a certain amount of
>> "getting old" component.
>

> Yes! Getting old implies that you are entitled to being more and more
> right for every year! ;) That's how I try to explain it to my wife who
> is 5 years younger. Somehow she hasn't entirely bought the concept yet.
> ;)

>
>> a sign outside that reads "God, Guns, and Trump". I've no need
>> to be broadcasting/advertising my beliefs, which is basically
>

> Interesting difference. I broad cast them a little bit, and my
> justification is that I do not vote. Instead of voting I do tell people
> who are interested, that is, not random people or the guy sitting next
> to me on the plane, what I think and why I think so, in the hope of
> inspiring him. When someone then criticizes me for not voting I either
> launch into a philosophical lecture on non-violence, or say that I
> participate in society buy spreading my "intellectual seed with
> thought-power" (to misquote swedish new-age musician).

>
>> Said another way, I think that whereas the likes of the "Ten
>> Commands" are some pretty damned good advice in the direction of
>> happiness and fulfillment, "do as you please" increases the chances
>> of misery/demise, even if only for the "pride cometh before a fall"
>> aspect of our psychology.
>

> Wasn't it St Augustine who said "love and do what though wilt" or maybe
> it was someone else. Don't remember.

>
>> Oh! I completely forgot that I'm the inventor of The Zeroeth
>> Commandment, which I named as a sort of "If you do even just *this*
>> much (as opposed to being gung ho about all Ten), you're doing
>> pretty good" sense:
>>
>> ---------------------------------
>> | The Zeroeth Commandment |
>> |-------------------------------|
>> | THOU SHALT NOT INCONVENIENCE! |
>> ---------------------------------
>

> Very beautiful!
>
> Do you think there is a -1:th commandment?
>
> And what do you think about the golden rule vs. the platinum rule? I
> believe that the platinum rule is what the golden rule was meant to be
> all along.

>
>> There was a period in time when I considered myself libertarian. But
>> along the way, more inwardly-looking ways/paths eroded my belief in
>> putting what goes on externally first, that "cleaning the inside
>> of the cup", as it were, would be more effective both inside and
>> (seeping, in progressively better behavior) out.
>>
>> But, then, I suppose "libertarian" far more "inside of the cup" than
>> typical political bents, because - per attributes glean from the
>

> This is my interpretation. Freedom is good because it let's you clean
> the inside, the outside or not at all as long as you harm no one else.
> Basically for me, it is about ordering society in such a way that you
> harm no one else, and that you maximize your choice of what side of the
> cup to clean.

>
>> Hey, thank you for reminding me about libertarianism!
>

> You're welcome! Please feel free to join the church and drop by next
> sunday! ;)

>
>>> Aha! So not only a spiritual seeker but you are a stoic
>>> sage as well! ;)
>>
>> Pffft! I'm just yet another case of mistaken identity! :-)
>

> You're being too modest!

>
>>> But maybe when I retire I can at least cut the consumption
>>> with 50% or so.
>>
>> <imagining Chrissie's bangs>
>>
>> Sweet dreams are made of less!
>

> Haha, true!

>
>> I *want* to believe there was more integrity to "The News" in the
>> past, but have no reason to believe there was. The possibility a
>> greater percentage of people were more naive could explain how it
>> seemed to more people.
>

> Hmm, one could make the argument that the reason we do hold these views,
> is that the world actually has become _more_ transparent than it was 50
> years ago!
>
> The reason we think of "the good old days" is that it was less
> transparent and easier to hide the crap than today.
>
> So if that is true, maybe the world is a better place, since it has
> actually been at least equally corrupt, it just wasn't as well know
> before?

>
>> Looking back, I can't think of much "News" that wasn't funded by
>> advertising. "Necessary evil", right? But still evil. Journalism
>> principles can't/won't/don't hold a candle to what advertisers what
>> their products show in and around.
>

> I find it hilarious that socialist don't trust ad-funded news, because
> they are not indepdendent. Yet, they trust public news and never even
> think about where the money comes from that funds public news! ;)
>
> I like this project: https://www.improvethenews.org/
>
> Perhaps the least dependent news is crowd sourced, small business news
> or some kind of local community newspaper?
>
> In a similar vein, I believe that the best democracy is the smallest
> democracy, since the politicians can't hide if the community is small
> enough.

>
>> And there also wasn't a way to quickly get feedback on one's
>> wonderings, suspicions, etc. I might have thought Walter Cronkite
>

> Ohh... be careful... I heard that cronkitis is quite bad! ;) Jokes
> aside, as a non-US citizen I have never heard of the guy.

>
>> Now, we've the somewhat opposite problem that people are reciting
>> what they think others have thought through, pointing to "memes"
>> as though wisdom, and people feel justified blaring all that
>> in public because it's seems it's already being blared in their
>> private conceptuality tunnels. The swelling of that online blaring
>> can even lead to people feeling as though they're on the "right"
>> side, i.e. with the majority, with absolutely no proof of the
>> actual numbers.
>

> The choir sings again!

>
>> I don't know where I'm going with this, BTW. Just kind of babbling
>> at fast pace because my wife's getting up soon for an early doctor
>> appointment, and I'm still 200 lines of your quoted text to get
>> through! :-)
>

> Keep it up! Interesting things bubble up to the surface!

>
>>> What is your opinion on the matter?
>>
>> It's not too different from what I said before about the *real*
>> (haha) value of knowing the details of the lives of the neighbors
>> eight houses down. Is it *really* that important that I "know" how
>> aspects of physics work? I mean, the answer seems to be yes when
>> it comes to what I'll call "physics wisdom" embodied in tools and
>> their use (levers, hammers, screwdrivers). But it seems to be no
>> (heh.. literally typed 'know' first pass...) when going down to
>> so-called "quarks" and such. To me, there comes a point where it
>> starts to become "really good fiction" at best, because the senses
>> can no longer have a say.
>

> I thought along similar lines when people talk about the unmoved mover
> form of god. Imagine a god that kicked everything off, but cannot
> interfere. Or other dimensions we never can interact with.
>
> It does kind of feel as if I couldn't care less, since it won't really
> affect my life in any possible way.

>
>> And that's because knowledge is rooted in increasingly finer
>> graduations - yes, along a continuum - of opposites. And that's
>> because we can't even imagine something other than in contrast to
>> its opposite, because there's something to "how thought/thinking
>> works" demanding knowledge come in pairs of opposites.
>

> And don't forget the ultimate pair! Existence and non-existence.

>
>>> No, no, not influencing, think of it more as therapy for
>>> the little guy. ;)
>>
>> Okay. Done! :-)
>

> Great! Another future member of the church of liberty! ;)

>
>>> And here I thought the magic nr was 23!!!
>>
>> Oh, it is. 23 always wins the magic[k] contest.
>>
>> <mental note to dig to see if he still has his copy of "The
>> Illuminatus! Trilogy">
>

> Ahh... one of my favourite books! I don't know how many times I read it!
> I even met R.A.W. once in a science fiction book shop in Stockholm!
>
> However... I did not expect him to be as grumpy as he was, but still
> nice though, since he signed one of my books. =)

>
>>> Have you found any others? I've tried to bring in some
>>> people from my mastodon instance which is very libertarian,
>>> so let's see if someone actually does manage to find
>>> his way to alt.politics.libertarian or not. That should
>>> hopefully liven up the place a litte. =)
>>
>> <eyes shift nervously from side to side>
>

> Sigh... no takers. =( You've seen the abysmal quality of the posts in
> the group, so for the moment it seems as if it is of no use except some
> very light hearted trolling. =(

>
>>> Interesting! Well, 2025 is a long way off, but if it ever
>>> comes to pass, and if we're still talking at that point
>>> in time, it would be interesting to book a date exactly 1
>>> hour away from your place and 1 hour away form chicago. I
>>> can easily imagine an empty roads with tumbleweeds, two
>>> men in cowboy hats meeting at dawn, while in the distance
>>> a lonely harmonica is playing...
>>
>> Huh. You know, I think I do have *one* cowboy-ish hat
>> somewhere. That's pretty far from what I usually think of as "my
>> image", though.. I think my wife got it for me for one of our music
>> performances that must have been themed somewhat that direction.
>

> There you go! Do you own a banjo? And do you have a rocking chair on
> your porch where you clean your shot gun? Please tell me you do! If not
> you are risking all of prejudiced fantasies of americans!

>
>> But, in fact, about the only "country" song I know might just
>> barely qualify for that category these days: "Wichita Lineman"
>> (Glenn Campbell).
>

> The latest song I listened to was Hands on the wheel by Willie Nelson.
> My wife is a huge fan of country music as is my father. Personally I'm
> not a huge fan of music due to a soviet-style music school I attended as
> a child which managed to beat all the joy out of music for many decades.

>
>>> Ohhh.... well, "honey, I just met this wonderful swede
>>> down at the local super market"! ;)
>>
>> Hilarious! Although, of course it's "this world", so there's always a
>> complication, in this case that my wife's ex was half Swede, and she
>> "despises the motherfucker". So we might have to say you're from
>> the Congo anyway. ;-)
>

> Ahh true! Let's change that. "Honey, I just met this wonderful albino
> man from congo down at the local super market"! ;)

>
>>> Wow, even better than the 1800 year old one! ;)
>>
>> 1800 is what I suddenly want to call a "sacred tequila number" for me. :-)
>

> Interesting! Not a big tequila fan, but what is this magic nr?

>
>>> Hmm, come to think of it, it is my wifes middle name
>>> too. ;)
>>
>> My <deity>, the commonality is just downright *insane*, here! :-)
>

> Oh yes! Almost makes you believe that it was meant to be!
>
> Let me try another one... what is your skin color? Is it the same
> beautifully white/pinkish as my own?

>
>>> That's very interesting! Could you please elaborate? It
>>> seems to me that many speak about finding god or becoming
>>> conscious about god after trying these substances, but
>>> you're not saying that?
>>
>> But wouldn't that say more about the difference between them and me,
>> than about some objective spiritual efficacy of the substances?
>

> Probably. The eternal difficulty I guess with this type of research.
> People are different, difficult to compare.

>
>>> Could it be that what they find is a red herring, a
>>> convincing illusion of god, but at the end of the day,
>>> not an experience that is deep enough?
>>
>> Experience is shallow *by definition*: that's' what the "ex" - aka
>> "out there" - prefix demands. The more "ex", the less "deep".
>>
>> The depth I think you're referring to is *im*mediate, i.e. not
>> mediated by notions/concepts/"knowing".
>

> Yes.

>
>>> Hello hippies, you're god experience, although strong and
>>> spiritual, was just another hoax and blocker between you
>>> and the ultimate! ;)
>>
>> I mean, they couldn't even comb their fucking hair, for
>> fuckssakes! ;-)
>

> Hah, true! ;)

>
>>> Well, it's time to land, so this repsonse was the perfect
>>> way to spend an hour in the air! Thank you for the mental,
>>> asynchronous company! =)
>>
>> There's no landing on this here conceptuality flight, baby! ;-)
>

> Once you're facing the right direction, all you have to do is keep on
> walking!

>
>>> Well, when the children are grown up, maybe then you will
>>> have the time. Or the grand-children?

> ...

>> But let me know if you're interested in a listen, and I'll see what
>> kinds of http strings I can pull....
>

> I am, but please don't invest a lot of time in the digging, but should
> you happen to find something post a link. =)
>
> Oh, and here's the attachment I forgot to add before. I think it very
> accurately describes the dangers of Emacs compared with vim. ;)
>
> Best regards, Daniel

[oldernow]

On 2024-02-21, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:

> > https://ageanon.com/2024/02/20/as-a-man-thinketh-a-short-great-read/
> >
> > As A Man Thinketh, Short, Great Read

> Maybe it would be possible for you to share your thoughts
> here?
>
> If you want to discuss that is. If not, perfectly fine to
> dump links I guess.

Discussion in USENET? From what I can tell these days, USENET is for:

- throwing information/ridiculousness over a newsgroup wall

- insulting each other in the most purile ways possible (as
though "winning" were proportional to "purile")

> Hello older, just curious about what happened? Did the
> thread finally collapse under its own weight? ;)
>
> If so, absolutely no worries! I'm just checking in case _I_
> missed to respond to you for some reason.

Somewhere along the line I convinced my"self" it was your "turn",
and so I waited a bit, then concluded you'd gotten tired of me. :-)

I considered a "nudge" of sorts, but decided that might seem too
much like begging/pressuring for response, and I just don't like
doing that.

[D]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2024, oldernow wrote:

> On 2024-02-21, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:
>
>>> https://ageanon.com/2024/02/20/as-a-man-thinketh-a-short-great-read/
>>>
>>> As A Man Thinketh, Short, Great Read
>
>> Maybe it would be possible for you to share your thoughts
>> here?
>>
>> If you want to discuss that is. If not, perfectly fine to
>> dump links I guess.
>
> Discussion in USENET? From what I can tell these days, USENET is for:
>
> - throwing information/ridiculousness over a newsgroup wall

Check!

>
> - insulting each other in the most purile ways possible (as
> though "winning" were proportional to "purile")

Check!

The joys of the modern usenet! ;) Jokes aside, maybe some of the spam will
decrease now since google is cutting usenet access tomorrow?

Let's see!

I'm still trying to recruit new usenetters, but sadly no one has yet taken
the bait. =(

>
>> Hello older, just curious about what happened? Did the
>> thread finally collapse under its own weight? ;)
>>
>> If so, absolutely no worries! I'm just checking in case _I_
>> missed to respond to you for some reason.
>
> Somewhere along the line I convinced my"self" it was your "turn",
> and so I waited a bit, then concluded you'd gotten tired of me. :-)

Really? Hmm... I think I must have missed a message. Could you please send
it again?

> I considered a "nudge" of sorts, but decided that might seem too
> much like begging/pressuring for response, and I just don't like
> doing that.

Ahh... well, one or two is fine, but after a soft and well meaning push,
if there's no reply, then at least I assume the thread collapsed under its
own weight.

Best regards,
Daniel

[oldernow]

On 2024-02-21, D <nos...@example.net> wrote:

> The joys of the modern usenet! ;) Jokes aside, maybe some
> of the spam will decrease now since google is cutting
> usenet access tomorrow?
>
> Let's see!

A couple weeks following and occasionally posting to
talk.politics.misc has me convinced the problem goes far beyond
that. The place seemed a solid 99% "asshole making a case for their
own sainthood".

Which, of course, mirrors society pretty well.... :-)

Which is why I continue to roll my eyes over discussion of
political/social/economic systems/solutions by people who
can't be civil to each other. No system overcomes that.

Worse yet, the problem is impervious to education. There's
either a seemingly random, localized epiphany regarding the
nature of seeming selfhood/person/individuality reality, or
it's "FUCK YOU I ME MINE!" all the way - including in times
when said automatons feign civility for what they consider
their own advantage.

> I'm still trying to recruit new usenetters, but sadly no
> one has yet taken the bait. =(

Have you tried screaming about Donald Trump and/or Joe Biden
in all caps? ;-)

> > Somewhere along the line I convinced my"self" it was your
> > "turn", and so I waited a bit, then concluded you'd gotten
> > tired of me. :-)
>
> Really? Hmm... I think I must have missed a message. Could
> you please send it again?

Ack... it would take me too long to try to figure out what it
was. I don't spend any time trying to organize local copies of
my posts, especially how they interwove with others'. Passion
to type/post something arises, I run with it, and while I see
slrn automatically saves a copy, it's only my posts, and since
I don't typically retain entire post threads in my replies,
I'd probably have to write code that can fetch nntp and
cross-examine Message-Id's to analyze what happened.

I'll run spending time on that past my wife, but I"m pretty sure
she's going to say no.... ;-)

> > I considered a "nudge" of sorts, but decided that might
> > seem too much like begging/pressuring for response, and
> > I just don't like doing that.
>
> Ahh... well, one or two is fine, but after a soft and well
> meaning push, if there's no reply, then at least I assume
> the thread collapsed under its own weight.

Will (try to) do!