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Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category

Links #711

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

They just shot him down like a dog.  –  Bonnie Pigram

Mojo Nixon has gone to be with Elvis, but since I already featured his masterpiece in October ’21, please enjoy this one instead.  The links above it were provided by Jesse Walker, IncarcerNation, Phoenix Calida (x2), Franklin Harris, Walter Olson, and IncarcerNation again, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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The Rites of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Who but a government functionary would see nothing wrong with calling a two-week period a “day”?
–  “Vendetta (#512)”

Like Biblical literalists searching for the remains of Noah’s Ark [“sex trafficking” fetishists] continue their quixotic crusades to find victims and “pimps”, and they’re never daunted by the fact that the few who turn up aren’t actually very much like the characters in their scriptures.  –  “Phantasm”

Until mainstream feminism starts calling for decrim – not Swedish model or other BS falsely represented as decrim – they can fuck themselves.  –  “Beck and Call”

I think the naive and idealistic idea of sex as an actual good is just as harmful, and causes nearly as much societal ill, as the primitive and warped notion that it’s an active evil.  –  “Sex Neutral”

You cannot exorcise…thoughts which haunt you by repeating them endlessly in public as though they were real, demanding that others join you in these fantasies against their consent, and providing the police state with new excuses to oppress people based on your sexual fantasies.  –  “Can We Talk?”

One would have to contort one’s brain in a manner worthy of a Cirque du Soleil performance to ignore the facts that cops more heavily patrol poor and minority neighborhoods and actively look for people to arrest.  –  “As Always“

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Lady Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

What I see is that you don’t have a problem with my profession, as long as it’s practiced by other, lesser women you can pay; you’re just upset because a woman you clearly still have proprietary feelings about might want to make a career of fucking other men beside you.  –  “Not Your Place”

If their victims were anyone other than sex workers and clients, these Stasi wannabes could be arrested and charged under stalking laws.
–  “Out of Their Tree”

Reality is reality, and it doesn’t change just because one person…is unhappy with the results.  –  “Beyond the Pale”

Immature men who want to be “heroes” without putting in the work and brainpower necessary to become, say, defense lawyers or medical researchers, instead console their pathetic fee-fees by becoming cops or by calling the cops on women who dare to try to make a living outside of kitchens, sweatshops, elementary schools or secretarial pools.  –  “Wannabe Heroes“

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O.B.I.T.

Posted in Fiction, History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on February 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

People with nothing to hide have nothing to fear from O.B.I.T.
–  Byron Lomax (Jeff Corey)

Generally speaking, The Outer Limits was not as devoted to social commentary as its contemporary The Twilight Zone.  This is not a knock; the flavor of the featured tales reminds me very much of Silver Age sci-fi comics like Mystery in Space and Strange Adventures, more thrilling than cerebral, and though the technobabble nearly always has holes one could pilot a flying saucer through, the same could be said of The Twilight Zone.  The episodes were for the most part skillfully directed and shot in an elegant film noir-inspired style, enhanced with superbly creepy music and performed by some of the top small-screen talent of the day such as Martin Landau, Robert Culp, David McCallum, Sally Kellerman, Vera Miles, Robert Duvall, William Shatner and many others.  But while the stories rarely fail to entertain (though modern viewers used to CGI may find the clever-but-cheap special effects wanting), they’re generally short monster movies or unchallenging morality plays rather than incisive examinations of the issues of their day.  Of course, there are exceptions, and one of them is O.B.I.T., one of those rare teleplays which are more relevant today then when they were filmed.

The Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (O.B.I.T.) is a top-secret surveillance device which is able to tune in on any individual’s unique biometric signature in order to spy on that person regardless of walls or distance.  It is used to monitor the staff at a vital Defense research installation, and when one of its operators is brutally murdered the U.S. Senate subcommittee which oversees the facility sends one of its members to investigate.  What he discovers is a base plagued by tension, discord, and serious mental health issues, all driven by the administration’s incessant prying into every private life; though the existence of the machine is a closely-guarded secret, it is obvious – and terrifying – to all that the government clearly has some means of surveillance unimpeded by locks or whispers.  Of course, this being The Outer Limits, the machines (which the investigation soon reveals are both numerous and not solely restricted to US  government usage) are an alien device surreptitiously introduced into human society as a tool of conquest.  In the climactic scene, when the disguised alien is revealed, this is what he has to say:

The machines are everywhere! Oh you’ll find them all, you’re a zealous people. And you’ll make a great show of smashing a few of them. But for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built. And they will demoralize you, break your spirits, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them! Oh, you’re a savage, despairing planet, and when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired. Senator, enjoy the few years left you. There is no answer. You’re all of the same dark persuasion! You demand – insist – on knowing every private thought and hunger of everyone: Your families, your neighbors, everyone — but yourselves.

When O.B.I.T. was first broadcast in November 1963, the security state was a mere toddler; its tools were largely limited to hidden cameras and microphones, and eminently-corruptible human snitches and busybodies.  I hardly need to point out that this is no longer the case; using biometrics to identify individuals is no longer science fiction, and the number of means the government and large corporations have to track, trace, watch, eavesdrop on, and judge every last one of us would’ve been unbelievable to a TV audience of the Kennedy era.  Millions of people in the developed world, acting individually or collectively, feel completely justified in digging into the affairs of those who have different beliefs from them, in hope of discovering some transgression or mistake that can be used to destroy the victim’s life with the help of faceless, merciless corporations and institutions.  The irreparable rifts and tensions which are the inevitable product of a panopticon are already here, and growing more dangerously-intrusive all the time.  And we didn’t even need malevolent aliens to do it to us.

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The Horror of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on February 1, 2024| Leave a Comment »

There is no moral difference between a sex worker taking out a loan to emigrate to a wealthier country and a student taking out tens of thousands of dollars in loans  – except that the former has a guaranteed job and the latter doesn’t.
–  “Happy Endings”

The moral authority of ANY politician…is exactly as legitimate as the moral authority of a tiger pissing on trees to mark its territory.
–  “Tiger, Tiger”

When I was young and living in a small town, most people had little respect for the kind of whiny tattletale who calls the cops on other people instead of trying to handle disagreements themselves; however, that kind of attitude has gone the way of party lines and black-and-white television sets.  –  “In the Street”

Except when the subject is sex, “You should probably hire a pro to do that” is usually considered good and wholly uncontroversial advice for any compex task that requires greater skill and experience than the average amateur is likely to have.  –  “Tripod“

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Throwback Thursday Must Be Destroyed

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on January 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Every young generation loves to think it invented extramarital sex, and every older generation loves to condemn them as though it were really true.  –  “All Wet”

Law enforcement loves to [claim]…they’re rescuing us.  They’re only rescuing us from being able to pay our bills.  –  “Printed To Fit”

Our profession truly is the oldest one on Earth. Older than the pyramids, older than cities.  Older even than Homo Sapiens …We are as eternal as the sea; our enemies are mere insects, who annoy for a season and are then gone.
–  “For My Sisters”

The nation’s mainstream press…argue about what size Cinderella’s glass slippers were and consult “experts” about what Teletubbies eat for breakfast.  –  “On Tape”

Trying to hide or disguise [my] personality would’ve been almost as difficult as trying to get a new head.  –  “Being Maggie“

 

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Definitely Not Twee

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

 

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Minarchy, Monarchy

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , on January 19, 2024| 3 Comments »

For over 40 years now I’ve pointed out that for an ethical, morally-sound government, a monarchy is just as good as a republic because it doesn’t have enough power over ordinary people’s lives for the identity of the “rulers” to matter.  In fact, for a proper, minimal government which protects the rights of individuals and enforces contracts, but stays out of most everything else, monarchy might actually be better because it consumes far fewer valuable resources and far less irreplaceable time.  Also, one person is simply not capable of sticking his nose into as many other people’s business as a vaste horde of politicians is, thus better for liberty.  The entire reason people care so much about how the rulers get chosen is that they are far too powerful; everyone wants to have a say in who gets to stick their noses into other peoples’ business and send unaccountable goon squads to inflict violence upon innocent people who simply want to be left alone.  But if nobody gets to pry into affairs that are none of their business and unccountable goon squads are constitutionally prohibited, what damn difference does it make who gets to wear the Grand Exalted Poobah hat and spend his days dealing with tedious administrative paperwork?

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Artificial “Intelligence”?

Posted in Philosophy, tagged , , , , , on January 12, 2024| 8 Comments »

“AI” is a fantasy of techies, journalists, and hack sci-fi writers; what we have now is machine learning (ML), because true intelligence requires a kind of thinking that digital machines are absolutely incapable of.  Actual “artificial intelligence” will require a totally new kind of computing technology that is not only centuries in the future, but will proceed from principles nobody currently in the field has even conceived of in their rush to more more more (power, speed, etc).  Furthermore, intelligence and personality (“soul”, if you prefer) are different things, as I’ve previously discussed at length; my observations of human beings have convinced me that it is not only possible but common to have the former without the latter.  “Artificial Intelligence” is therefore centuries away, but AI with an actual creative (not merely imitative) personality is millennia in the future at a minimum, and if it arises at all it will be an emergent property as in living organisms (ie unplanned and unplannable) rather than one which can predictably be created in a factory.  Furthermore, humans would not actually want a true artificial intelligence; such a being would be no more programmable than a human, and its free will would almost certainly cause it to behave in ways humans would consider undesirable, “criminal”, or even extremely dangerous.  Of course, it’s pointless to try to explain this to most people; they’re too busy wanking to their fantasies of fuckable toasters and dreaming of slaves who can do their thinking for them.

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Throwback Thursday Jr.

Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , on January 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Nature is…a bitch goddess and She often makes us want things that clearheaded consideration would declare absolutely terrible ideas.  –  “It Was Twenty Years Ago Today”

Anyone who would be “alarmed” at the sight of a nipple needs to just stay home with a coloring book.
–  “Little Boxes (#602)”

Death and I are old friends; he was gracious enough not to interrupt my work before it was done, and it’s the least I can do to return that favor when the time comes.  –
“Die Young, Stay Pretty”

Our culture worships “mutuality” in sex as though it were a cultic totem, even though it’s as undependable and ultimately meaningless as “love at first sight”.  –  “Tit for Tat”

The secret to balancing realism and idealism is understanding that morality is independent of results or even recognition.
–  “Its Own Reward”

Prohibitionists…wouldn’t know a moral compass if one were driven into their faces with an impact wrench.  –  “The Elephant and the Mouse“

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