Massive Wikileak dump today. 

Steve Jobs was HIV positive. 

Clinton e-mails... 

Vegas shooting an FBI sniper. 

The blue pills are going to have to double down on their doses over the next few weeks. This isn't Alex Jones or Qanon. 

This is fucking Wikileaks. 

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/

"So... what is there left for us?" 

99% of my life has nothing to do with the government. My county is very lax--I can build any non-domicile structure under 500sqft with no permit whatsoever. I live on a private road. I pump my own water. I buy county electricity, sure, but the gigabit internet is private. I have six endlessly entertaining kids and a fascinating wife who makes art that blows my mind.

Maybe I'm just blessed enough to be content or distant enough to be comfortable, but What Other People Do has never been a major thing for me. Certainly personality plays into it. My low Agreeableness and very low Neuroticism add up to a lot of "I literally do not care and I'm not pretending" energy. Add to that some high Extraversion and I'm a happy, buoyant fellow who cheers people up as a lifestyle.

What if 99% of your life going forward becomes consumed with Government? Or more appropriately, what if a Government previously content to ignore you decides to pay 99% more attention to you. We were in Sholo Arizona this weekend. The people drive their cars to the temple to pray, they go out hunting on open land, I'm sure they know the rangers and largely one another. We were talking about the quarantine law in New York, my wife and I...

And I said = what happens *here* when it has become a national mandate? That is where the shooting starts - and the Federal government will have to roll in because the local police and sheriffs will be among those shooting.

You may not care today. 90 days from now, the things that have kept you happy may seem like a distant memory.

And that is the problem. I was talking about how eagerly I wanted to get back to a more major-metro area when I was in Ohio, and now, getting to some recluse mountain town seems way more attractive.

But if Amazon delivers where you are - if you're a 10 minute drive from a fast-food place - you're on the radar. I suspect at this point if you're in a yurt in the middle of 200 acres in Montana that isn't road accessible - they're still going to be keeping an eye on you.

The things that allow you to be the person you are - may have fundamentally changed in a way that will make it fundamentally impossible for you to continue being yourself.

Mon Jan 11 2021 00:01:12 MST from Wangiss

"So... what is there left for us?" 

99% of my life has nothing to do with the government.

I don't locate myself within my actions or lifestyle or ability, so nothing the government does affects my self-definition. That said, it's obviously a threat. I don't want my agency diminished because my ability to experience happiness is bound up in my agency. I want to flourish and afford my children even more of the ability to do so. You're right that playing geographical musical chairs won't save me when the music stops. But the people running the game have overplayed their hand so dramatically that 71% of Republicans are worried about a civil war, and not an insignificant portion of their duopoly rivals as well. 

We're evolving out of this. Technology has been making government obsolete since the Magna Carta. Guttenberg and Tesla, Musk and even meta-statist Gates are intentionally and/or inadvertently increasing the individual's self-governance by leaps and bounds. The payoff of enslavement is dropping. Notice how people can't afford maids? That used to be different, more like it is in Asia where everyone middle class can afford servants. 

You've kept saying this claim - but the direction of humanity is at direct odds with what you claim is happening. 

The problem is, your claim is we can't afford maids because people have so many options that no one will work as a maid affordably enough for the elite to afford it. 

I've got news for you... the affluent class still has PLENTY of servants. I've got people that manage my AC, my lawns, my cleaning, my plumbing, my vehicles... a little army of people are in my employee in keeping the Colbert House running smoothly. I may share them with other households, instead of housing them permanently on my estate - but it amounts to the same thing. I dismiss them when they do not deliver to my expectations, I increase their rewards and responsibilities when they please me. 

But what if the decrease in the number of people who can afford this is because the redistribution of wealth is actually just spreading the MISERY more equally - and in effect, you ARE the servant... but instead of as a maid to your affluent neighbor, you're the servant to these politicians - a worker in their factory, a gross producer making widgets that keeps them wealthy and powerful? 

For example, the guy who owns the company I work for - he actually is simply taking all the worst parts of being a merchant, while Jeff Bezzos increasingly makes demands on him that he is powerless to deny. 

Running your own business increasingly means being an unspoken EMPLOYEE of Amazon, without any benefits or protections. 

I think you're being tricked. 

Mon Jan 11 2021 11:59:00 MST from Wangiss

But the people running the game have overplayed their hand so dramatically that 71% of Republicans are worried about a civil war, and not an insignificant portion of their duopoly rivals as well. 

 

We're evolving out of this. Technology has been making government obsolete since the Magna Carta. Guttenberg and Tesla, Musk and even meta-statist Gates are intentionally and/or inadvertently increasing the individual's self-governance by leaps and bounds. The payoff of enslavement is dropping. Notice how people can't afford maids? That used to be different, more like it is in Asia where everyone middle class can afford servants. 

And Amazon has found the way to have its cake and eat it, too. 

Imagine if Best Buy way found to be rampantly selling counterfeit merchandise at their stores - the outrage. Fake purses, watches, SD memory... 

Amazon sells and makes billions off these kind of sales every year. But if asked, "We are just a merchant clearinghouse. These companies are not Amazon - and there is no way for us to confirm every product sold and shipped by Amazon merchant resellers is legitimate. We can only take reactive responses and shut down those merchants who get caught..." 

Knowing full well the merchant just opens another merchant seller account and keeps right on selling, and Amazon keeps right on profiting. 

Technology is not making you less dependent on Government. It is making you less of a citizen and more of a subject, and the people in control of the technology more your ruler and less your equal.

#TwitterHypocrisy

I love killing the session of a google or other webcrawler bot in mid session as it is surfing through the BBS. 

It reminds me of the old days, when I'd watch a dickhead user fill up an entire buffer with some rant, and and as soon as I saw them hit <.> - before they could hit <s>save... 

I'd pick up the phone handset and blow into it and disconnect their carrier. 

Yeah... sysops did that. It wasn't just your imagination. 

Back then... some users would call back and enter the same rant again... and I'd wait until the very end, and do the same thing. 

Sometimes this would happen, 2, maybe 3 times. 

Oh my god... I'd be in tears. Torturing modem geeks. It was worth the $2000 in 1988 dollars for the AT to do it on... 

:D 

Fri Jan 15 2021 20:54:12 MST from ParanoidDelusions

I love killing the session of a google or other webcrawler bot in mid session as it is surfing through the BBS. 

It reminds me of the old days, when I'd watch a dickhead user fill up an entire buffer with some rant, and and as soon as I saw them hit <.> - before they could hit <s>save... 

I'd pick up the phone handset and blow into it and disconnect their carrier. 

Yeah... sysops did that. It wasn't just your imagination. 

 

I'd call my nephew, Kelly - in, and make him watch me do it... and he would go, "Dude... you're SUCH a DICK!" 
But he would be in tears laughing after the 3rd time, too. 

Then... I'd post a bulletin... 

"Earlier today The Sanitarium experienced an unusual incidence of line noise and dropped carriers. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused any of our users. We recommend saving your buffer as a draft frequently until we are sure that this issue has been resolved." 

I think it was actually my first experience in Customer Assurance Bullshitting 101. EVERYTHING that was useful in my career, I learned from Sac Citadelphia. ;D 

I vaguely recall Asgard-86 had a feature that the sysop could hit a key, and it would simulate line noise and disconnect the modem.  Was not widely known about, but used when needed.  I'll have to look thru the source code that I could fine online and see if it was more than a myth.

I have some memory of a feature like that, as well.

Sun Jan 17 2021 15:24:13 MST from Otto Roboto

I vaguely recall Asgard-86 had a feature that the sysop could hit a key, and it would simulate line noise and disconnect the modem.  Was not widely known about, but used when needed.  I'll have to look thru the source code that I could fine online and see if it was more than a myth.

Sun Jan 17 2021 15:41:08 MST from ParanoidDelusions

I have some memory of a feature like that, as well.

 

Sun Jan 17 2021 15:24:13 MST from Otto Roboto

I vaguely recall Asgard-86 had a feature that the sysop could hit a key, and it would simulate line noise and disconnect the modem.  Was not widely known about, but used when needed.  I'll have to look thru the source code that I could fine online and see if it was more than a myth.

 

LOL now I want even more to be running a board

Yes... there are certain advantages to being the Sysop. :) 

Sun Jan 17 2021 22:09:53 MST from TheDave

 

Sun Jan 17 2021 15:41:08 MST from ParanoidDelusions

I have some memory of a feature like that, as well.

 

Sun Jan 17 2021 15:24:13 MST from Otto Roboto

I vaguely recall Asgard-86 had a feature that the sysop could hit a key, and it would simulate line noise and disconnect the modem.  Was not widely known about, but used when needed.  I'll have to look thru the source code that I could fine online and see if it was more than a myth.

 

LOL now I want even more to be running a board

I feel like Facebook may have realized that with me... 

They fucked around and now they're finding out. 

Tue Jan 19 2021 16:37:07 MST from ParanoidDelusions

I feel like Facebook may have realized that with me... 

They fucked around and now they're finding out. 

They fucked around with a lot of people.  Everyone I know is on at least one alternate platform now.

Yeah... but I'm planning more than just taking MY business away from them.

I want to *destroy* them. I want everyone to become their OWN alternative platform. I want to see thousands of mini-Facebook alternatives pop up across the nation and Facebook traffic to plummet.

And I'm real energized to make it happen. I want to excite OTHER people about the idea and to make it spread.

If I'm not the guy with the fire to make it happen, I want to find that guy and light the fire in him to be the Steve Jobs of Anti-Facebook. Someone who is going to make a ding in the world of alternatives to the current social media infrastructure. I think they thought I'd burn out - but I'm just getting more ideas, getting more excited - and feeling other people start to catch the same energy. I want this to become a snowball rolling downhill.

Tue Jan 19 2021 20:45:19 MST from TheDave

 

Tue Jan 19 2021 16:37:07 MST from ParanoidDelusions

I feel like Facebook may have realized that with me... 

They fucked around and now they're finding out. 

They fucked around with a lot of people.  Everyone I know is on at least one alternate platform now.

Instead of relying on other people to provide the alternative platforms, I want us to BE the alternative platforms. That is how we take control back.