ThatGuy
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The clot thickens...
First on CNN: Classified documents found at Pence's Indiana home | CNN Politics
WWW.CNN.COMA lawyer for former Vice President Mike Pence discovered about a dozen documents marked as classified at...-
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Interesting...
Reminds me of a few quotes from Rand's essay "Don't Let It Go" in PHILOSOPHY: WHO NEEDS IT:
"The enormous propaganda effort to make Americans fear fascism but not communism, has failed: Americans hate them both. The terrible hoax of the United Nations has failed. Americans were never enthusiastic about that institution, but they gave it the benefit of the doubt for too long. The current polls, however, indicate that the majority have turned against the U.N. (better late than never)."
and"Can this country achieve a peaceful rebirth in the foreseeable future? By all precedents, it is not likely. But America is an unprecedented phenomenon. In the past, American perseverance became, on occasion, too long-bearing a patience. But when Americans turned, they turned. What may happen to the welfare state is what happened to the Prohibition Amendment."
She wrote those in 1971; amazing how relevant it is, now. That whole essay has a lot of salient points for today. A few more that jumped out at me, just now:"The custom of addressing a person as “Herr Doktor Doktor Schmidt” would be impossible in America. In England, the freest country of Europe, the achievement of a scientist, a businessman or a movie star is not regarded as fully real until he has been clunked on the head with the State’s sword and declared to be a knight."
and
"Initiative is an “'instinctive' (i.e., automatized) American characteristic; in an American consciousness, it occupies the place which, in a European one, is occupied by obedience."
And
"The latest assault on human life—the ecology crusade—will probably end in defeat for its ideological leadership: Americans will enthusiastically clean their streets, their rivers, their backyards, but when it comes to giving up progress, technology, the automobile, and their standard of living, Americans will prove that the man-haters 'ain’t seen nothing yet.'"
If this were written today, could you tell the difference?
The Deep State's expectation that people would treat Fauci like "Herr Doktor", the "climate change" scam", the contrast of Americans to Europeans in the "obedience" factor of Covid tyranny, etc...sure, the Left had made terrible inroads in education since her time, which brought us even closer to socialist tyranny than it was in her time, and even more so in places like Canada, New Zealand, Europe, and China. But like Rand said, America wa, and is, an unprecedented country.
We know that the Klaus Schwab, the WEF , and the left is counting on a "Fourth Turning". Here's hoping for that "American Spirit breaking through", as claimed in the last tweet from the beginning of this post, and that American "turning" that Rand was counting on. -
10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
I went ahead and watched the full video by Scott.
Yeah, his argument is that people who are right--those who did not take the jab--did not analyze or think their way into that position, and those who are wrong--those who did take the jab--thought correctly and have superior thinking skills, but their data was wrong.
Notice what is missing from that formulation.
If people who think correctly and better than others believe in wrong data, aren't they thinking wrong about how to trust and check data?
Where did their superior thinking skills go at that moment?
Hmmmmm?
Scott also left out the thing I mentioned earlier, liars lie. He hinted at this by saying it's always a good idea to distrust the government and large corporations, but he didn't come out and talk about whether one should trust habitual liars.
But I guarantee, people who do not trust habitual liars analyze situations based on that. They think perfectly.
If you analyze numbers you don't trust, you are not analyzing anything, especially not with superior thinking skills. You are being duped.
And if you say to yourself, "This habitual liar giving me data stands a chance to make a killing, so it's probably skewed," you are not using a heuristic (a mental shortcut). You are analyzing the SOURCE of the data and judging it.
If you want to cook steak, why worry about well done or rare if it's not steak, but shit instead?
But here's something else. Part of Scott's schtick is to dance with false dichotomies. He does that when he's close to contradicting himself.
That's what he did here. In his formulation, either you are a person who thinks correctly and believed in wrong data, or you are a person who acts only on your feelings and mental shortcuts (heuristics) and, by chance, got this one right. Not everyone per se falls into these two categories. Just most people.
How about people who wanted to know more but didn't trust the people supplying the data?
That's the third category that Scott left out of his false dichotomy. And I believe this is the vast majority of those who did not take the jab. Why? Because it is a good supposition that they all had their measles vax, their polio vax, and so on. They are not against vaccines, nor getting them from the government. They are against being conned in a situation they see with their own eyes.
And then there are people who live and die on principle, like freedom of choice. I could go on, but Scott is out to lunch here and dining on his false dichotomy because, even though the nutrition is nonexistent, it tastes good to him.
So here is what I believe Scott was doing. He was trying to make himself feel better by feeling superior because that's all he's got right now.
When he looks at reality, he wants to shit himself.
He did something to himself he can't undo, something potentially dangerous or lethal, and, in my opinion, he did not use his best thinking to get there. What's more, I think he knows it, but will never admit it.
Sort of like the "get out of jail free" card they play in Objectivism. When a person acts like a sleaze douche bag, he says he made an error of knowledge, not a moral failing. So he can keep telling himself he's more moral than others.
For most of it, I heuristically say, "Yeah, right."
Michael
Reminds me of a quote I see constantly on FB attributed to Robert Heinlein: "Man is not the rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal."
(This quote always rankles me from an Objectivist viewpoint, but in contexts like this? I get it...)
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1 hour ago, Strictlylogical said:
Jesus f…
I cannot think of a direct movie or literary reference but it’s like this:
Ghestappo ghoul yes man mad scientist in the process of killing or torturing a jewish person, puts hands up on liberation forces arrival, on seeing the change in the tide and the identities of his potential overlords he smiles to the Allied commander and proceeds to torture and kill a nearby SS officer boasting that his techniques work equally well and pain and death know no racial boundaries or distinctions…
the ghoul will show surprise and incredulity that the new powers that be, want nothing to do with him or his methods.
Sounds like the Nazi character Arnim Zola in the Captain America movies/comics, or the Nazi played by Christopher Waltz in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS...
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"BREAKING: FBI searches Biden home, finds additional classified documents & seizes personal notes - AP"
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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
I am a big fan of what Elon Musk is doing right now, but I also temper that enthusiasm with words from the "Elon, hell no!" people like those below.
Should You Trust Elon Musk? Feat. Whitney Webb, James Corbett, Jason Bermas, Ryan Cristián & Derrick Broze
ODYSEE.COMDerrick Broze of The Conscious Resistance hosts journalists/researchers Whitney...James Corbett did a great job as Johnny YouTuber defending Elon as a foil to the other four.
Their biggest gripe is that Elon is a statist in his endeavors, meaning, he receives government money by the boatloads, so he has to be doing the bidding of the governments to some extent.
They fear that he is a Trojan Horse sent to garner trust and pacify the masses with illusions of free speech as the authoritarian machines work behind the scenes to tighten up their controls.
So which is it? Pro-Elon or anti-Elon?
I say do both.
I'll take it when Elon releases the backstage monkey-shines and lets censored people back on Twitter. And I will applaud. I'll be pro-Elon.
I'm also keeping an eye on what these people are saying. And if their fears and concerns start becoming reality, I'll do my own part to defend freedom. I'll be anti-Elon.
I believe intelligent people can do both if they anchor to freedom, to principle, and not to a person.
Michael
Exhibit A: Bosch Fawstin supposed ly has, or just had, a 12-hour suspension for his Mohammed cartoons , and is appealing publicly to Musk over it to clarify his stance on free speech...
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7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Today I've seen several people say that Trump's staff is paving the way for him to return to Twitter and Facebook.
Here's just one and it's only about Twitter, but there are a lot of them.
Let's see if it happens.
Michael
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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Heather McDonald is a semi-famous woke comedian who works with Chelsea Handler.
Watch as the smugness gets blown right out of her a couple of days ago.
It may seem like I enjoy posting things like this.
I don't.
(Well... I enjoy watching the smugness go bye-bye.
But I prefer people to be healthy. Watching this phase unfold in society and knowing it is manmade saddens me to an extent, I don't know how to express it.)
Michael
Speaking of Chelsea Handler: Seems a little paranoid about her own clotshot...why doesn't she trust the science?
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"They already milked all the government money they could out of this one and this is what's left..."
Ain't no money left for nobody...
Treasury secretary warns US could default on its debt as soon as June | CNN Politics
WWW.CNN.COMThe Treasury Department said Friday the US could default on its debt as soon as June, setting up one of the first... -
Speaking of "Jesus Rock", I can't leave out The Doobie Brothers's "Jesus Is Just Alright". But instead of posting the song, here's a "first reaction" by a couple of popular YouTube reactors, Andy and Alex. It's a trip to see these, getting to experience our favorite songs for the "first time" again, vicariously through, fresh ears...
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15 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
If you have any contemporary Christian songs that move you and you want to share them, now you have a place to do it.
I'm a sucker for these two: "Jesus Christ Superstar" (the whole movie, actually) and Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit In the Sky" (the latter being part of the "Jesus Rock" genre...
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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Houston, we have a problem.
And it won't be too long before the public gets pissed and, hopefully, pisses all over the Deep State about it.
First the problem.
Dayaamm!
Well, hell, if you run that kind of risk when taking a train, at least you can still take a plane. Right?
Oh, wait...
What’s Going On? FAA Temporarily Grounds All US Flight Departures Amid Nationwide System Failure
What's Going On? FAA Temporarily Grounds All US Flight Departures Amid Nationwide System Failure
WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COMThe FAA grounded flights across the US amid a nationwide system failure. Flights were reportedly...Why do I keep thinking about the CCP?
Michael
I'm just waiting for a Taggart Tunnel disaster, at this point...
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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
I hope this comes to something.
It's a start, but it's far from a finish.
House Republican Files Articles Of Impeachment Against DHS Sec. Mayorkas
BREAKING: House Republican Files Articles of Impeachment - 'High Crimes And Misdemeanors'
CONSERVATIVEBRIEF.COMRepublicans are making good on their promise.It feels good to see things going in this direction.
Michael
Promise Kept: Schiff, Swalwell, and Omar Lose Powerful Committee Assignments
PJMEDIA.COMHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy has followed through on a promise to remove Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and... -
30 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
I read the Twitter Files Dump and it is a short one.
It hones in on a specific bad guy, Scott Gottlieb, a head honcho at Pfizer (and former FDA Commissioner) who got people thrown off Twitter for publishing correct information about the Pfizer jab. He is not shown refuting the information, instead only being worried about how it will negatively impact Pfizer's business.
He was real concerned about information that some people might not need the jab due to natural immunity and that kids might be a low risk to the virus.
He involved Twitter White House lobbyist to ramp up the pressure.
That might not sound like much, but it involves crimes that an impartial law enforcement (if we ever get one) will have to pursue.
This guy Gottlieb needs to go to prison.
Michael
SCIENCE!!!! -
11 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Here is some real sad news for MAGA.
Diamond passed away.
Many loved you, Diamond. I was one...
Hell and shit anyway...
Michael
Had no idea she was ill...
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Brazil’s Bolsonaro at Orlando-area hospital for ‘severe’ abdominal pain, Brazilian media reports
WWW.ORLANDOSENTINEL.COMFormer Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro is being treated for “severe” abdominal pain at an Orlando-area hospital, a day...
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I'm seeing that he is in Florida; no hospital, though....and Reuters is painting this as inspired by "muh insurrection" on 1/6...
After watching supporters of former U.S. leader Donald Trump invade the U.S. Capitol two years ago, Democratic President Joe Biden is now facing mounting pressure to remove Bolsonaro from his self-imposed exile in suburban Orlando."
Bolsonaro should not be in Florida," U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro, a Democratic lawmaker in Congress, said on CNN. "The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil. He should be sent back to Brazil."
Bolsonaro's Florida stay puts ball in Biden's court after riots in Brasilia
WWW.REUTERS.COMThe United States has a Jair Bolsonaro problem. -
6 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Lula fled Brasília and went to São Paulo.
This is a big deal.
UPDATE BRAZIL 2: Socialist Criminal Lula Flees City and Flies to San Paulo, Massive Crowd Increasing in Size, Conflicts with Police Attacked
WWW.THEGATEWAYPUNDIT.COMThe already massive crowd in Brazil is growing. The people are taking back their country. Per reports, socialist criminal Lula has left the...Go freedom Brazil!
Michael
WOW...
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6 minutes ago, tmj said:
Chicken farmers could really cut costs if they cloned oleMike, eighteen months without feed or water , that’s some bird !
Some bird> some pig. (Sorry, Wibur...)
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2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
Stephen.
Here is the video embedded.
I'm definitely going to get into this one.
This is right up my alley.
Just some preliminary musing.
In the model of the brain Angus Fletcher uses (he's the neuroscience story guy who trains both Hollywood and the Green Berets), there are sensory input neurons that run on data, and there is the motor part (motor neurons) where data plays a minor role, really really minor, and that's where he says story and causality come from. That's one of the reasons fantasy and the like can entertain us so much even though it is not directly connected to observed reality. Those neurons evolved to help us navigate the unknown future (like running from or fighting a predator that comes out of nowhere and b might want to eat us
).
I also have a theory of my own that is emerging from all this. The sensory input neurons only deal with the known, which means the past--and they process this in the present. Since the past cannot be changed, this is where determinism comes from--in epistemological terms, determinism comes from ignoring half of our brain.
The motor neurons process in the present, but they propel the organism (all living organisms that have them) into the future according to evolved and learned schema.
Then there is the connection and interaction between the two. This interaction covers the past, present and future.
That is where I am interested in memory from people like the above. The reliability and unreliability of our memory throws another monkey wrench into surviving and evolving.
In Rand's writings, there is no real theory of memory presented. The closest I remember her coming was when she said that sensations are not recorded in memory, then implied, not even stated, that percepts were. And that this happened through a process called "differentiation and integration." In other words, if this process is taken to a logical end, memories are made by abstractly sorting and combining observed things. I have never been happy with that, not even when I was just getting into it (in my Randroid phase) and didn't understand what the hell I was talking about.
So I am eager to see this video, whether I agree or disagree with the ideas presented. I am sure there will be a lot to think about and open questions to follow. This is an area, to me, that needs a lot of thought and discussion in O-Land from intelligent and studied people. Not to mention how important it is for our lives in general.
Incidentally, O'Keene;s book looks very interesting: The Rag and Bone Shop: How We Make Memories and Memories Make Us (referral link). I am going to read it if I like the video.
Michael
I just saw this elsewhere, and can't help but feeling there's something to connect this to that...
"The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head"
(excerpts):Seventy years ago, a farmer beheaded a chicken in Colorado, and it refused to die. Mike, as the bird became known, survived for 18 months and became famous. But how did he live without a head for so long, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.
On 10 September 1945 Lloyd Olsen and his wife Clara were killing chickens, on their farm in Fruita, Colorado. Olsen would decapitate the birds, his wife would clean them up. But one of the 40 or 50 animals that went under Olsen's hatchet that day didn't behave like the rest.
What happens when a chicken's head is chopped off?
- Beheading disconnects the brain from the rest of the body, but for a short period the spinal cord circuits still have residual oxygen.
- Without input from the brain these circuits start spontaneously. "The neurons become active, the legs start moving," says Dr Tom Smulders of Newcastle University.
- Usually the chicken is lying down when this happens, but in rare cases, neurons will fire a motor programme of running.
- "The chicken will indeed run for a little while," says Smulders. "But not for 18 months, more like 15 minutes or so."
But by any measure Mike, bred as a fryer chicken, had a good innings. How had he been able to survive for so long?
The thing that surprises Dr Tom Smulders, a chicken expert at the Centre for Behaviour and Evolution at Newcastle University, is that he did not bleed to death. The fact that he was able to continue functioning without a head he finds easier to explain.
It was suggested at the time that Mike survived the blow because part or all of the brain stem remained attached to his body. Since then science has evolved, and what was then called the brain stem has been found to be part of the brain proper.
The chicken that lived for 18 months without a head
WWW.BBC.COMSeventy years ago, a farmer beheaded a chicken in Colorado, and it refused to die. How did Miracle Mike survive so long without a head? -
I'd love to see it, but I don't see how he gets the votes from all those RINO's.
But hey, weirder things have happened... -
6 hours ago, Peter said:
I wish he had voted for McCarthy. I don’t see the need for tom foolery because no one else is seriously in the running. What’ll we call those who voted no? The Brat Pack?
No.
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On 1/3/2023 at 4:52 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
I am in doubt about posting the video below because it does not deal with writing like Rand per se. However, when I first came across Angus, I watched a bunch of his videos and got his book, then at one point, I panicked because there was a shining idea among all that, and idea that put everything I knew about story in check, but I could not remember where I came across the idea. After all, each video was one or two hours long and I saw a bunch of them. And I had my life to deal with, too. So the prospect of going back to seek for one idea among all that meant I kept putting it off until now.
As you can guess, I found the video and it is the one below.
So what was the idea that kept me awake at night?
There are neurons in the brain for processing sensory input and neurons for motor control of muscles. The neurons for sensory input need data to work well. The muscle neurons need little to no data and they work just fine. These muscle neurons establish the tiny plot-lines of our existence through motion, not abstraction. In fact, our awareness of causality comes from them, not from the sensory input neurons. That means story arises mostly from these neurons, not from the sensory input processing neurons.
This ties in to Rand due to her blank slate computer model of the human mind.
I don't want to go into a discussion of all this right here. But since I finally found the video where Angus talked about it (thank God!
), you can let him explain it.
btw - I just watched it for a second time, all two hours.
This is one I intend to watch at least two more times before Angus's book, Storythinking, comes out later this year.
I am posting this video here as a bookmark. But if you are following my thinking in this thread, I highly recommend you watch it for the theoretical base. I am going to reference Angus's work in mine when I finish my work on how to write like Ayn Rand, and the one I have outlined as a primer before that, Story Hacking.
For those who have the patience and the neurons, enjoy.
Just think, this kind of shit is what I do for fun...
Michael
Just saw the following elsewhere, seems relevant (if presented a bit simplisticly in the article itself, which doesn't really go in-depth into the research it mentions)....
"Telling Your Story May Be Good for Your Health"
Mental and physical health benefits
In a study on expressive writing, researchers asked 1 group of participants to select a personally traumatic experience and write about it for 15 minutes for 4 days in a row. The researchers then compared this group's responses with a group that wrote about neutral topics. Those in the first group reported an improved mood after writing, as well as long-term health benefits including improved memory, fewer intrusive negative thoughts or memories, and reduced blood pressure.1
The study found that participants with serious health diagnoses showed more improvement than those in the control group. They reported improved sleep, reduced pain intensity, and even improvements to their immune system.1
How does writing about traumatic experiences have a positive physiological effect? One theory is that bottling up thoughts and emotions related to a painful event requires work that can stress the body and mind. Bringing those feelings out through writing may reduce that stress and provide relief.2
The Health Benefits of Storytelling | HSDisease.com
HSDISEASE.COMResearch suggests that telling your story may be good for your health. This article summarizes one study's results and offers tips for getting... -
18 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
If people only knew who this guy was.
That's what makes this comment hilarious.
James Lindsay on GETTR : Speaker of the House should be decided by a manspreading contest.
GETTR.COMSpeaker of the House should be decided by a manspreading contest.
And who is James Lindsay?
Go here and you'll see who he is.
Hell, I'm learning about Hegel and a bunch of other highfalutin things from him.
It's not Thesis-->Antithesis-->Synthesis.
That's not Hegel at all.
This is Hegel: Abstract-->Negative-->Concrete.
Wanna see for yourself if you have never read Hegel's works? Check out Lindsay's 4 hour video on it.
Hegel's dialectic is not about how reality operates to create new stuff. That's what I always thought it was before Lindsay.
The dialectic is about removing the garbage from the human perception of the One True God, which Hegel calls by the name Spirit (and then throws in adjectives to show the different states and stages of Spirit).
In a funny manner, we are witnessing a dialectic process occur over this Speaker vote. You have the Abstract, that is the established interests who think the Freedom Caucus is nothing but clowns and terrorists, you have the Negative, the Freedom Caucus who say, "Freedom and Constitution. We mean it. So hell no." And look at the Concrete we are getting so far. Time after time.
Then Lindsay comes along and identifies the real Concrete that will resolve the vote: balls.
Michael
Paging Mr. Sciabarra...Mr. Sciabarra, you have a call at the front desk...
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Deep State Unraveling
in 4 - Politics
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