I've written before about Deon Joseph, a longtime LAPD officer who has spent most or all of his long career on Skid Row, trying to keep homeless drug addicts from dying. He just posted a one-paragraph story about debilitationist policy, and click on the link to see the accompanying photo:
"I once again want to show you all what is stopping me from keeping folks from dying from fentanyl. I literal pulled up on this block and ran off a known fentanyl dealer and potential buyers. As soon as they were gone, a golf cart distributing meth pipes used for ingesting something that can kill people pulled up and gave a someone’s mom, sister, daughter a pipe. If I hadn’t scared the dealers away, this woman would have bought from them and likely died. What difference does it make if the pipe is clean and they put poison in it. Who the F are you actually helping??"
The golf cart distributing clean crack pipes was from the county government.
I love driving; I love changing gear; I used to love crawling under my cars to fix them (in the days when that was still feasible). I love road maps and knowing about where I'm going. The fact that our 21st c. Utopia understands NOTHING of these joys is a good illustration of just how barren it is. Robert M Persig springs to mind here.
When I look at my kids, ages 26 and 31, I realize they were at the cusp of a generational shift. The shift of a generation that never had and never will unfold a well-worn map across the dashboard, seeking a route that may be new and maybe not even the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.
And that is the point--the journey of decisions and experiences is supplanted by the most efficient way to shorten the journey and get to point B as soon as possible.
It is broadly applicable to many people today, where the drive--or the walk--or the research--or the learning of an instrument, or the {pick your own}--the act of being present in the doing/learning/experiencing of something....has become the thing to minimize.
That generation says skip all that. Get to point B.
But what then?
Wonderful thing for conversations this weekend, Chris. Thanks.
Last week while running through our town's beautiful grade 2 listed public gardens I saw a young man walking his dog, in a black cloth mask. Sigh. They are a very rare sight in the UK, which was why I did a double take. In September 2020 I had to change my 18 yr old car and bought the last petrol model built by Toyota. The dealership keeps messaging and ringing me to trade it in for a hybrid or full electric.....erm...no? Why would I want to drive something that sounds like a mobility scooter? For the first time in the UK sales of electric cars have fallen and its posing a quandary for the government as petrol and diesel cars will allegedly not be sold from 2035.....folk don't want electric. Our mate has a Tesla through his employer, he has to return it after 3 years as the battery only lasts that long, like wtf???? Thank goodness I do karate, it's a constant learning process, keeping your brain sharp creating new neurological pathways, fighting the slide into zombiehood. 😂
To get even more out of the controlled world....ride a horse.
Seriously...it has everything that driving a car has plus a brain to contend with that is not yours. Not only do you have to think and plan constantly, but you have to react to something else thinking and planning about the SAME activity and not always sharing your goals(that's a UNDERstatement).
When I ride my horses, I am free....no matter where I am.
A bad on a horse is a good day by any measure and a good day is pure heaven. The harmony between nature and yourself. The closeness to another living being. People miss this in their lives now.
"Debilitationalists believe that systems and institutions take care of people, and so people are obligated to primarily protect institutions and systems. Setting aside the meaning of human agency and individual rights, they focus on the science and the authorities and the experts, categories that blur. They are externally directed, gratefully."
That is a very interesting formulation, very insightful. As an evolved response by the institutions trying to persist through time, that is a highly adoptable strategy that would, eventually grow to ideology... damn that's an important framing.
Thanks, Chris, that is something to noodle on more seriously.
If your cat(s?) are anything like ours, they’re not interested in the book, but rather your attention. They’re like politicians – they’ll do ANYTHING to distract you from what you want so you can pay attention to them.
Chris, I learn so much from your writings. For instance, I always thought that "gender confirmation" happened at birth but am now informed it can occur at anytime during life.
Also, slipping in a picture of Peter Hotez without a proper warning label is very unfair!
“always on its feet, keeping watch that my pleasures are tranquil, flying ahead of my steps to turn away every danger without my even needing to think about it…”
“They are brought insensibly and almost without their knowing it to sacrifice new parts of their individual independence to it every day, and the same men who from time to time overturn a throne and ride roughshod over kings bend more and more without resistance to the slightest will of a clerk”
wow--that's it. "I want to do it myself!" vs "Mommy, tie my shoes!"
I'd rather do it wrong on my own instead of "right" by following instructions like a robot. (I know, how weird!) When I lived in LA, I commuted from Westwood to Irvine for a couple of years, (Oh BoyYay!) and sometimes, just for variety or to avoid traffic, I'd Take A Different Route Home. Always informative and entertaining. ("Wow! Compton really is a sh*thole, but I can see where at one point it was a nice suburb...") I actually enjoyed the different "neighborhoods" of traffic -- the way in Inglewood big old American cars would come screaming onto the freeway at 90 mph and cross ALL THE LANES into the BUS LANE without looking! Wow! Then there were always a lot of carefully driven minivans of the Toyota Previa and Honda Odyssey variety clogging up the roads around Hawthorne and Gardenia as the laboriously forced there way into (and out of) the car pool lane on the far left -- almost every traffic slow down was related to these car pool lanes. And once you got to Westminster, be on the lookout for boy racers.....
Ah, I miss all that, sitting here in Vermont where the government recently passed a law to ban all gasoline cars by 2030. (That's fine, when it's 15 below zero for three weeks, like it was in 2015, we can pile up all the dead Teslas and make a bonfire....) I have to move away now, and I'm yearning for a state with room to drive and people who want to LIVE, not wait to die.....Texas probably.
It’s funny how the people who wrote that FORECAST definition probably wouldn’t stand for the “transformational” science if Boeing simply ran a few models and said “all those issues recently are minor and everything is safe”. They would probably ask for verification and detailed testing.
Not that Boeing’s models would actually be very well restrained and in fact may even be emulations based of years of observations with good signal to noise. No, those FORECAST lot would probably say “you can’t take risks with peoples’ lives just with models”
I've written before about Deon Joseph, a longtime LAPD officer who has spent most or all of his long career on Skid Row, trying to keep homeless drug addicts from dying. He just posted a one-paragraph story about debilitationist policy, and click on the link to see the accompanying photo:
https://twitter.com/ofcrdeonjoseph/status/1778538395087904991
"I once again want to show you all what is stopping me from keeping folks from dying from fentanyl. I literal pulled up on this block and ran off a known fentanyl dealer and potential buyers. As soon as they were gone, a golf cart distributing meth pipes used for ingesting something that can kill people pulled up and gave a someone’s mom, sister, daughter a pipe. If I hadn’t scared the dealers away, this woman would have bought from them and likely died. What difference does it make if the pipe is clean and they put poison in it. Who the F are you actually helping??"
The golf cart distributing clean crack pipes was from the county government.
I love driving; I love changing gear; I used to love crawling under my cars to fix them (in the days when that was still feasible). I love road maps and knowing about where I'm going. The fact that our 21st c. Utopia understands NOTHING of these joys is a good illustration of just how barren it is. Robert M Persig springs to mind here.
Perfect Friday read and well done.
When I look at my kids, ages 26 and 31, I realize they were at the cusp of a generational shift. The shift of a generation that never had and never will unfold a well-worn map across the dashboard, seeking a route that may be new and maybe not even the most efficient way to get from point A to point B.
And that is the point--the journey of decisions and experiences is supplanted by the most efficient way to shorten the journey and get to point B as soon as possible.
It is broadly applicable to many people today, where the drive--or the walk--or the research--or the learning of an instrument, or the {pick your own}--the act of being present in the doing/learning/experiencing of something....has become the thing to minimize.
That generation says skip all that. Get to point B.
But what then?
Wonderful thing for conversations this weekend, Chris. Thanks.
Last week while running through our town's beautiful grade 2 listed public gardens I saw a young man walking his dog, in a black cloth mask. Sigh. They are a very rare sight in the UK, which was why I did a double take. In September 2020 I had to change my 18 yr old car and bought the last petrol model built by Toyota. The dealership keeps messaging and ringing me to trade it in for a hybrid or full electric.....erm...no? Why would I want to drive something that sounds like a mobility scooter? For the first time in the UK sales of electric cars have fallen and its posing a quandary for the government as petrol and diesel cars will allegedly not be sold from 2035.....folk don't want electric. Our mate has a Tesla through his employer, he has to return it after 3 years as the battery only lasts that long, like wtf???? Thank goodness I do karate, it's a constant learning process, keeping your brain sharp creating new neurological pathways, fighting the slide into zombiehood. 😂
Beautiful.
To get even more out of the controlled world....ride a horse.
Seriously...it has everything that driving a car has plus a brain to contend with that is not yours. Not only do you have to think and plan constantly, but you have to react to something else thinking and planning about the SAME activity and not always sharing your goals(that's a UNDERstatement).
When I ride my horses, I am free....no matter where I am.
A bad on a horse is a good day by any measure and a good day is pure heaven. The harmony between nature and yourself. The closeness to another living being. People miss this in their lives now.
The DAMN phones are killing everyone.
RIDE A HORSE!!!
Or....OK, drive, that's almost as good.
Technology that humans can use equals good; technology which uses humans equals bad.
"Debilitationalists believe that systems and institutions take care of people, and so people are obligated to primarily protect institutions and systems. Setting aside the meaning of human agency and individual rights, they focus on the science and the authorities and the experts, categories that blur. They are externally directed, gratefully."
That is a very interesting formulation, very insightful. As an evolved response by the institutions trying to persist through time, that is a highly adoptable strategy that would, eventually grow to ideology... damn that's an important framing.
Thanks, Chris, that is something to noodle on more seriously.
.
Medicine Is Not A Science.
It’s A Business.
Your Only Job
Is To Make It Too Costly
For Them. To Kill You.
Either Get That.
Or They Get You.
.
“Sorry, wrestling over a book.”
Cute.
If your cat(s?) are anything like ours, they’re not interested in the book, but rather your attention. They’re like politicians – they’ll do ANYTHING to distract you from what you want so you can pay attention to them.
Chris, I learn so much from your writings. For instance, I always thought that "gender confirmation" happened at birth but am now informed it can occur at anytime during life.
Also, slipping in a picture of Peter Hotez without a proper warning label is very unfair!
couldn't help but notice that emerging research institutions = ERIs
eris is the greek goddess of discord
at this point they're just trolling us
Sounds like Tocqueville’s soft despotism:
“always on its feet, keeping watch that my pleasures are tranquil, flying ahead of my steps to turn away every danger without my even needing to think about it…”
“They are brought insensibly and almost without their knowing it to sacrifice new parts of their individual independence to it every day, and the same men who from time to time overturn a throne and ride roughshod over kings bend more and more without resistance to the slightest will of a clerk”
Notice how we went from gender *affirmation* to gender *confirmation*?
wow--that's it. "I want to do it myself!" vs "Mommy, tie my shoes!"
I'd rather do it wrong on my own instead of "right" by following instructions like a robot. (I know, how weird!) When I lived in LA, I commuted from Westwood to Irvine for a couple of years, (Oh BoyYay!) and sometimes, just for variety or to avoid traffic, I'd Take A Different Route Home. Always informative and entertaining. ("Wow! Compton really is a sh*thole, but I can see where at one point it was a nice suburb...") I actually enjoyed the different "neighborhoods" of traffic -- the way in Inglewood big old American cars would come screaming onto the freeway at 90 mph and cross ALL THE LANES into the BUS LANE without looking! Wow! Then there were always a lot of carefully driven minivans of the Toyota Previa and Honda Odyssey variety clogging up the roads around Hawthorne and Gardenia as the laboriously forced there way into (and out of) the car pool lane on the far left -- almost every traffic slow down was related to these car pool lanes. And once you got to Westminster, be on the lookout for boy racers.....
Ah, I miss all that, sitting here in Vermont where the government recently passed a law to ban all gasoline cars by 2030. (That's fine, when it's 15 below zero for three weeks, like it was in 2015, we can pile up all the dead Teslas and make a bonfire....) I have to move away now, and I'm yearning for a state with room to drive and people who want to LIVE, not wait to die.....Texas probably.
What is the part of my brain that used to store phone numbers doing now? I think that’s a point to which most actual adults my age can relate.
It’s funny how the people who wrote that FORECAST definition probably wouldn’t stand for the “transformational” science if Boeing simply ran a few models and said “all those issues recently are minor and everything is safe”. They would probably ask for verification and detailed testing.
Not that Boeing’s models would actually be very well restrained and in fact may even be emulations based of years of observations with good signal to noise. No, those FORECAST lot would probably say “you can’t take risks with peoples’ lives just with models”
Funny that.