Ursula K. Le Guin appeared in an eighth-grade literature textbook. In the early 1980s, America's public education system was still solid but not perfect. The selections in the textbook were wide, deep, and interesting. Our teacher would let us read quietly to ourselves in class for 30-
Below are ways people deal with the problem with being a self. By adopting one of these as a personal outlook for the future, you can alleviate some of the stress of you being a you. The Rapture This is a perennial favorite in America. It's a late
Because a restoration of very marginal tax rates, along with a strong tightening of the effective rate, single-payer Medicare for all, and an end to war, are too hard. Fuck that. Texas DSA guy Talarico is gonna make sure he stirs the racial grievance pot instead, linking "white
Joseph Tainter's 1988 The Collapse of Complex Societies seeks a unifying principle based in scientific analysis to explain the demise of civilizations across time and place. The book synthesizes, refines, and discounts prevailing theories to derive a generalized explanatory model – a grand unified theory as it were – for
Having mostly detached from social media and YouTube, especially over the last three weeks, I've had time to catch up on reading and writing. I still scan headlines in the morning and throughout the day. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) popped up on my regular e-haunts,
David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018) came out several years ago and I finally got around to picking it up. It is hard to read because the shared personal stories sprinkled throughout are so depressing. It is a case study in dukkha and sometimes, dukkha is hard
Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. - Psalm 55:22 In the Theravada vinaya, the Buddha wisely laid out a way to address the hankering after titles, recognition, distinctions, and honors very simply: deference is given to those
I've been reluctant to delve too deeply into modern lineages and their teachings, but it's unavoidable for a Westerner seeking clarity on questions related to dhamma, practice, and final ends. Practice has its own rewards, here and now, and big-picture goals and objectives can be
The Society of St. Pius X is set to hold episcopal consecrations very shortly. I found this document of theirs online, and it is a remarkable source for understanding just how different the Catholic religion of today is from its pre-conciliar form. When I say "different," I
Several days ago, I opened some code at work and saw a constructor with 32 parameters. For non-techies, this is a cry for help: the developers who were working in the area over the years violated a basic rule of object-oriented programming. Think of it as butchering the
Western civilization is a death cult and has been for quite some time now...
Last weekend, America began a new Near Eastern war against one of the most ancient cultures on earth: Iran. The goal was/is to drop bombs on them for four weeks, pulverizing their military and industrial base so badly that the ordinary Iranians finally rise up and overthrow their evil
Fr. Chad Ripperger discusses the real reason for latae sententiae excommunications for women who procure abortions, or the “health care“ professionals who carry them out. I cover infant baptism here. Ripperger’s claim that abortion is especially heinous, not because it involves killing only, but because it permanently denies the
I come from a line of alcoholics. Alcoholism is the white man's disease and an affliction known to the poor and the rich, the intelligent and the criminally stupid. It seems especially pronounced in northwestern Europe, and people with ancestral roots in this region have spread the love
This week, I've applied my energy to observing states, mental and physical. Video and audio were canceled on my devices, so there was just Noble Silence. Time for practice, reading, and doing chores. I was feeling under the weather and ended up taking a half day from work.
Charles Upton, The System of the Anti-Christ I've been reading Charles Upton's book, The System of Anti-Christ, since we here at the Tangle are all about the arrival of the Man of Perdition. I have an interest in the Anti-Christ because while I
Dreaming is the product of the monkey mind, the rattling and noise of a frenetic animal's inner world even during deepest sleep. Give its products no thought, for if you are deluded in waking time, imagine how much worse it is in sleep, when mindfulness, awareness, and perception
I have been engrossed in alternative media coverage of the first dump of Epstein documents. The more scintillating bits involve the very wealthy fussing over grape soda, pizza and beef jerky. At this point, we know from the context of exchanges that these are code words for other things. As
One of the pressures on us cattle is security. Particularly, computer security. We need to be secure. Knowledge is everything, and we can't let all our secrets hang out. In the last couple of years, companies have ramped up investment in securing their cloud infrastructure, on-premises environments,
I mentioned in a recent blog post on AI that humans would never be allowed to go free range. I mentioned the tax harvesting that the state requires in order to function and the problems with people abandoning downtowns and local businesses to stay at home and work. One of
I met the announcement of ChatGPT around 2022 with fear and dread. At last, we would have a tool to replace the white collar class. In fact, whatever was left of the middle class. I didn't use it at first, being nauseous over the thought of being out
Buddhism is the way of negation. This I am not, this is not me, this is not mine. A millennium or more before the rise of via negativa theology in the Christian Church, Shakyamuni set out a path for the complete cessation of suffering that was subtle, hard to comprehend
The black pill can be the white pill. In theism, god is said to turn evil into good. In non-theistic traditions, the truth is similar, but you have to do the work. There is not a god, hidden or otherwise, to lead you from the bramble-choked path to
I've been a remote worker for over a decade. I have been blessed to work for companies where remote first was the regnant philosophy for hiring and promotion, long before Covid. Software companies and consultancies had an advantage because they could embrace non-traditional work arrangements for several