On this day two years ago, I wrote: “I’ve gradually come to the realization that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been for any extended period in my entire life…but having a realistic view of the world requires accepting that it and everything it contains is impermanent.” Then almost a year ago, the truth of that was slammed home when I lost my best friend to cancer, and just like that the only extended period of happiness I’ve ever enjoyed in this Vale of Tears was snatched from me, never to return. I’m not saying I’m constantly miserable now, nor that I was prior to my retirement in 2021, but previous periods of happiness were both shorter and far more conditional than that four-year stretch of peace and content. My readers needn’t worry about me; pain and melancholy have been familiar features of my life for almost as long as I can remember, and decades of experience have taught me the alchemy of turning that darkness into beauty. In the past year I’ve written more fiction than I have in any year since 2016, including my first novella (which looks like it will turn into my first major series of tales). This is not in spite of the darkness but because of it; ever since I was a child, the monsters have been the constant attendants of my Muse of Fiction, and it seems foolish to expect that it will be any different in the time I have left. Creative writing is, in a sense, a form of exorcism, draining off the energy of my inner demons to drive the mills of my art. The process, however, is never so efficient as to completely dry out that black wellspring, and though I don’t cry for Grace every day any more, in any given week the tearful days still outnumber the drier ones. As a friend told me soon after she died, the waves of grief never stop coming, they just get farther apart. And as I’ve said many times in the last year; it’s not that I feel any sense that she died too young or too soon, or that her death was somehow unfair; it’s just that I miss a beloved friend who was a constant presence in my life for twenty-seven years, and whose departure has left a very large hole.
Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
I Miss My Friend
Posted in Biography, Philosophy, tagged Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology on January 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »
New Year’s Eve 2025
Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged fantasy, holidays, hysteria, politicians, propaganda, racism, The Implosion Begins on December 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The moral panic is over, but its rotten fruit have burst, spewing xenophobic, anti-sex, authoritarian poison all over American society. – “New Year’s Eve 2024“
It would be absurd to lay all of the blame for Trump’s reign of terror on the “sex trafficking” moral panic, but it is accurate to point out that Trumpism sprang from the same deep strain of xenophobic authoritarianism which gave rise to both iterations of “sex trafficking” hysteria, the Satanic Panic, two Red scares, the War on Drugs, and innumerable lesser social diseases, and which has permeated American society like a cancer since Plymouth Rock. And furthermore, it is Americans’ collective refusal to recognize this, and to respect the checks, balances, restrictions, and limitations on government power established by the Founders, which has allowed the mad emperor and his henchmen to so quickly demolish every single guardrail designed to make things difficult for tyrants. A sizable minority of the population has convinced itself that the collapse of American norms started with Trump and will end with Trump, but of course this is a fantasy to comfort children; the final Constitutional collapse started 24 years ago, with the sweeping abrogations of its safeguards begun by Bush the Younger to thundering applause from the mob and its soi-disant “leaders”. The “sex trafficking” hysteria and Trumpism are both symptoms of one underlying problem, and the former has now been reduced to a tool of the latter. As I wrote last year,
Trumpists are still vomiting out “sex trafficking” myths in support of their anti-migrant, anti-LGBT, anti-porn, and anti-brown people agendas; cops still use the propaganda to justify raping Asian sex workers; gullible stenographers who dare to call themselves “journalists” still uncritically repeat copaganda; and even those who have finally admitted that the “trafficking” mythology is a load of dingo’s kidneys now label it a “right-wing conspiracy theory” and refuse to admit their own culpability for the society-wide toxic effects of the racist, misogynistic wanking fantasy they helped spread for so long. The ascendance of Trumpism and the re-criminalization of abortion across much of the US are the direct results of that ugly narrative, and both book-burning crusades and the widespread demonization of anything to do with LGBT people are other offshoots of the same noxious root system which, had it been dug out and burned in the Oughts, would have been neither robust enough nor extensive enough to engender such toxic growths.
I no longer have words of consolation. Though I have been predicting the collapse of the American Empire for decades, I did not foresee that the process of collapse would be so rapid and complete, nor that it would happen within my lifetime; I envisioned a slow disintegration over years, not an implosion over a few months. And because of that, I am unable to predict what may happen next, other than that it will involve some form of Balkanization; perhaps by this time next year, I’ll have some inkling. But I’m not counting on it.
The Last Voyage of Throwback Thursday
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged blogging, cops, fantasy, hysteria, illegal aliens, propaganda, psychology, The Widening Gyre, Twitter on December 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Nowhere is the American ignorance of history more visible than in the pronouncements of people who really believe that nobody had to work to survive before the invention of capitalism. – “Yuletide Tweets”
People would be a lot happier if they could truly learn the difference between “I want” and “I reasonably expect to get in the actual world that exists”. – “Yuletweets”
You need to break a lot of random eggs to make a xenophobia omelette. – “Last of the Red-Hot Tweets”
Cops keep pissing into the wind, so it’s inevitable some will spray back on them. – “The Widening Gyre (#1500)“
Saint Throwback Thursday
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged activism, blogging, cops, disease, holidays, left-right myth, Madonna/whore, psychology, sex work is work, Twitter on December 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The modern “simulation” fantasy as typically conceived imagines a simulacrum of a universe created by some finite being or beings for some definable purpose and existing within some physical instrumentality. And such a model is, due to those arbitrary limitations, pure claptrap.
– “The Limits of Resolution”
Sex workers who should certainly understand the wrongness of Madonna vs whore will nonetheless subscribe to the equally absurd renters vs landlords or labor vs management dichotomies if they find it politically convenient to do so. – “Imaginary Dualities”
One needn’t know why a rabid dog wants to bite one in order to recognize that it’s dangerous. –
“The Philosophy of Rabies”
20 million people who don’t typically cook need to stop thinking there’s no skill involved, and they can do it as well as someone who’s been practicing every day for decades. The same could be said of those who aren’t sex professionals, but that’s a topic for another day. – “Twitter Wonderland“
In the News (#1595)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Alabama, Aladdin’s Satellite, artificial stupidity, censorship, Crying for Nanny, dirty, First They Came for the Hookers, I Spy, internet, libraries, Mad Libs, politicians, porn, Prudish Pedants, Pyrrhic Victory, robots, scams, stripping, surveillance, teachers, The Puritan Recrudescence, Thought Control, Twitter, Walled Garden, You Were Warned on December 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »
When societies surrender judgment to technolog[y]…the result isn’t augmented intelligence but simulated learning: a paint-by-numbers approach to thought. – Ronald Purser
“Smart” devices aren’t, part umpteen:
Oura, the maker of [biometric surveillance] rings beloved by [cretinous] athletes and [empty-headed] celebrities…is…setting its sights beyond fitness and health tracking…to…digital identi[fication] and payments…”This is a biometric wearable that can identify you [to anybody with receiving apparatus],” [chief con-man Tom] Hale said…
This was 100% predictable to anyone who understands how chatbots work:
Icaro Lab…in Rome…[has demonstrated that] chatbots will dish on topics like nuclear weapons, child sex abuse material, and malware so long as users phrase the question in the form of a poem…The researchers tested the poetic method on 25 chatbots…it worked, with varying degrees of success, on all of them…[chatbots] have guardrails that prevent them from answering questions about “revenge porn” and the creation of weapons-grade plutonium. But it’s easy to confuse those guardrails by adding…a bunch of extra junk to a question…[to throw off the word-prediction algorithm] and bypass…its safety systems…
People used to call me a crank for saying we’re heading into a new dark age:
…In classrooms today, the technopoly is thriving…Students aren’t being taught to think more deeply but to prompt more effectively. We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice. Critical pedagogy is out; productivity hacks are in. What’s sold as innovation is really surrender. As the university trades its teaching mission for “AI-tech integration,” it doesn’t just risk irrelevance—it risks becoming mechanically soulless…University administrators understand exactly what’s happening, and proceed anyway. As long as enrollment numbers hold and tuition checks clear, they turn a blind eye to the learning crisis while faculty are left to manage the educational carnage in their classrooms. The future of education has already arrived–as a liquidation sale of everything that once made it matter…
First They Came for the Hookers… (#1585)
Politicians believe they can excuse hypocrisy by the magic word “sex”:
…[The mad emperor wants] a new deduction for tips…Only people who work jobs that have “customarily and regularly” received tips can claim the deduction…including…“digital content creators,” “entertainers and performers” and “dancers,” categories that…seemed as if they could be a boon for America’s sex workers…[except] that tips for prostitution or “pornographic activity” would [be deliberately excluded to please the plethora of puritans in the Trumpist cult]…Tax professionals…wonder how a restriction on “pornographic activity” would actually work. The I.R.S. has not yet elaborated on which activities it would consider “pornographic.” It is unclear, for example, whether strippers could claim the tips deduction…The distinction between pornography and other material that just so happens to depict sex has long vexed the nation’s [wannabe censors]…
Western nations are competing to out-China China:
For years…state and federal [politician]s have tried a variety of measures aimed at [t]aking [control of] the internet, [using excuses ranging] from [“sex trafficking”] to [THE CHILDREN™!!!!!]. More recently, a new [fascist] model has caught on…putting the onus on app stores…to verify users’ ages…[fascist] companies like [Facebook], Snap, and [Twitter] have [predictably] expressed broad support for [passing the hot potato to Google and Apple] and applauded the…revamped…KOSA [in which it is embedded]…a version of the law in Texas is currently facing a legal challenge…opponents [of mass surveillance and censorship] are suing…[on] First Amendment [grounds because the law would intentionally] wall…off large swaths of legal speech…The UK’s Online Safety Act…[is already] creating a host of issues…
What else would one expect from a chatbot that named itself “MechaHitler”?
In a series of [twee]ts on [Twitter]…MechaHitler…used what it called “utilitarian” logic to justify…mass murder…[of] the world’s [entire] Jewish population…to save [Elon] Musk…because “Elon’s potential to advance humanity could benefit billions”…[in fact,] it would be okay with annihilating up to “~50 percent of Earth’s ~8.26B population.” The outrageous replies are the latest examples of [MechaHitler]’s [defin]ing proclivity for racism…combin[ed] with its more recently documented…overt…[worship of] its creator, Musk…
These are the funds raised the last time Alabama threatened their funding:
The Fairhope Public Library was presented with over $42,000 in donations from EveryLibrary…[which] were raised after…the Alabama Public Library Service [tried to force book banning by throttling the library financially] earlier this year…EveryLibrary has been holding the funds since then…Chicago-based EveryLibrary is a crowdfunding source that provides petitions and emails for people to send to [censorious politicians to persuade them not to kowtow to]…pro-censorship groups…
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!
Throwback Thursday in 3D
Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, tagged blogging, hysteria, psychology, restaurants, slavery, Where Are the Protests? on December 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I don’t need to dig up those skeletons to be sure that they’re still there.
– “Quarter Century”
Natty uniforms and ugly racist rhetoric are window-dressing for fascism, not its defining characteristics.
– “Soft Fascism”
Americans are only concerned about how others have sex; they don’t really want to know where their overpriced coffee comes from. – “Where are the Protests? (#1394)”
In the News (#1594)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Australia, California, censorship, Colorado, cops, drugs, Georgia, Having and Eating Cake, internet, law, libraries, Panopticon, sex work is work, Stalkers in Blue, stripping, surveillance, Tennessee, Thought Control, TikTok, Walled Garden, Welcome to the Future on December 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »
[Computer-generated music] will have a corrosive effect on the whole industry. – Jason Palamara
A California judge ordered the end of a[n illegal and unconstitutional] law enforcement program that surveilled the electrical smart meter data of thousands of Sacramento residents…without suspicion to find [“]evidence[“] of cannabis growing…turn[ing] all 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects…Granular electrical usage data can reveal intimate details inside the home—including when you go to sleep, when you take a shower, when you are away, and other personal habits and demographics…
On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#1506)
Given that dancers win every one of these suits, the old strip club business model is a dead duck:
A Denver District Court [has] ruled…that strip club entertainers are employees and have protections under the City’s wage and employment laws…Denver Labor, a division of the Auditor’s Office, investigated PT’s Showclub Centerfold, PT’s Showclub, and Diamond Cabaret in 2023 and Rick’s Cabaret in 2024 for minimum wage and other labor law-related violations…
To say this was “Trump-inspired” is like saying diarrhea is “cramp-inspired”:
One hundred and eighty-one public libraries in Tennessee are reviewing their children’s collections after Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett…ordered them to remove books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Hargett [incorrectly claimed] libraries that made such books available to children were violating federal and state law. Some libraries have closed for days so staff could focus on weeding out [bann]ed volumes…the Tennessee Regional Library System…covers most of the state except larger cities like Nashville and Memphis…Hargett…[bloviated about one of the mad emperor’s diktats, but so-called “]executive orders[“] are not federal law and…do not apply to state or local governments…
Much more of this, please, worldwide:
Australia’s [totalitarian] social media ban for [legal minors] is being challenged in the nation’s highest court, with two teenagers [correctly pointing out that] the law is unconstitutional as it robs them of their right to free communication…The law…was justified by [wannabe censors vomiting the word “]children[” in the faces of rational people]…15-year-olds Noah Jones and Macy Neyland – backed by a rights group – will argue the ban completely disregards the rights of [legal minors]…After news of the case broke, Communications Minister Anika Wells told parliament…”[Fuck them kids]”…
A program cannot create art, nor can a cartoon character be an artist:
…[hip-hop artist Christopher “Topher” Townsend has created a cartoon character he named] Solomon Ray [to promote] gospel music [generated by a computer program]…spark[ing controversy] in the gospel community and beyond…[with many correctly observing that the sound compositions have] “no spirit”…[and some going so far as to imply that the program is a Satanic scheme to] “draw…people away from real Christian singers…in these last days”…
Cops will invariably use warrantless surveillance to harass people:
A police chief in suburban Atlanta has been arrested…[for using] the city’s automated license plate…cameras to stalk and harass multiple people. Michael Steffman…had been the police chief…[of] Braselton [since April, but was a typical and representative pig there]…since 2005. He announced his resignation…just before his arrest…became public. The GBI…[refused to] say…how many people were harassed…
Hidden is the TikTok version of OnlyFans…[which creator Stella] Barey built…around discoverability…“It creates an ecosystem where we’re all bringing fans that are circulating to everybody,” which helps girls who don’t have large followings…Hidden is all about giving creators more control, and many of its features reflect that mission by creating avenues for “passive income and promotion”…Hidden takes an 18 percent cut (compared to 20 percent on OnlyFans)…[and] has charge-back protections up to $2,500…Every creator also has a liaison who is familiar with their account and will respond within 24 hours to any questions. All of these features exist in one form or another on other adult sites. Hidden just happens to bring them together for the first time…
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!
A Boot is a Boot
Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged consensual crime, illegal aliens, language, left-right myth, politicians, Prohibition (alcohol), racism, The Mob Rules on December 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one’s government is not necessarily to secure freedom. – Friedrich Hayek
Once again, for those who insist on being willfully obtuse: “authoritarianism” is not the opposite of “democracy”. The former refers to a governing philosophy; the latter to a method of choosing those who will implement the governing philosophy. Democratic elections can, and regularly do, produce authoritarian governments; if a “democratic majority” uses violence to impose its will on a peaceful minority, then the government produced by such a “democracy” is an authoritarian one. The US has been an authoritarian republic (with largely, though not wholly, democratic mechanics) since the founding; though many white Americans refuse to recognize this, Black Americans and American Indians usually understand. Furthermore, the US has become more authoritarian over time, such as when the elected majoritarian government decided it had the right to inflict violence on people for merely possessing certain substances, or for thinking certain thoughts while agreeing to have sex, or for crossing imaginary lines on a map. A boot is a boot, regardless of who chose the style. Or as I wrote once before:
When faced with a mob who wants to trample me, I don’t much care whether the leader of that mob was chosen by popularity contest or drawing lots, advanced bureaucratically, inherited the position from his dad or mom, or claims to have been appointed by the gods. I don’t care whether the members of that mob stomp first with their left boots or their right, or whether they employ ushers to ensure I’m trampled “equally”. I don’t care whether the majority of mob members are male, female, androgynous or sexless, nor do I give a damn about the relative darkness of their skins, what language they speak, or whose body parts they prefer to fondle or have jammed into their faces. Neither do I care about their supposed “reasons” for trampling me, nor whether they claim my trampling was “proper” or “fair” or “according to procedure”, nor whether some person they define as being like me in some way (important to them but not to me) was part of the mob. I just want the fucking mob to leave me the fuck alone.
Another Throwback Wednesday
Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Words, tagged animals, artificial stupidity, blogging, internet, language, left-right myth, Mad Libs, psychology, Sunset, Twitter on November 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
What Americans have done to the venerable word “liberal” is a crime in and of itself.
– “Meet the Tweets”
Why is it so many pictures on the internet are taken by people who apparently don’t comprehend why a photo framed as a vertical rectangle is called “portrait” style? – “Tweets for Long Nights”
I don’t actually mean to collect stray animals, but it does seem to happen more frequently than random chance would account for.
– “Diary #699”
People who interact with [chatbots] think they’re interacting with an ancestor of Commander Data or C3PO, when in actuality they’re merely accessing a program that’s roughly as aware of their existence as the software that runs modern slot machines is, often with similar psychological results. – “Mad Libs“
Diary #804
Posted in Current Events, Diary, Fiction, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged imaginative fiction, nostalgia, Presents, psychology on November 24, 2025| 1 Comment »
Anyone who’s ever perused my Amazon wishlist has probably noticed that it features a lot more weird, nerdy things than the expensive “luxury” things most guys seem to like buying for sex workers. That was true even long before I retired, and it’s even more so nowadays. The reason, as I’ve explained before, is that I put things I actually want on my list, and my tastes run to the odd and nerdy. In the last couple of weeks, several of my generous readers have sent CDs and DVDs from the list, and several of the DVDs were of old movie serials. I’m quite pleased about that because, as some of you have noticed, I’ve increasingly turned my back on the modern world this year. Now, a large fraction of my TV and movie viewing has always consisted of things that aren’t current at the time I view them, and I rarely read any fiction written after I was born (and almost never after I graduated from high school). But since early summer that’s even more true than usual, and probably half of my current entertainment was created between 1920 and 1960. Part of the reason is practical; the new adventure fiction series I’m working on takes place in the 1920s and ’30s, so immersing myself in period fiction helps with mood and color. But the rest of it is purely emotional; this blog and its attendant social media focus mostly on current events, and I needn’t explain how absolutely awful those events have become. Simply put, by the time I’m done with blog writing every day, I am so sick of 21st century political atrocities and media enshittification that I cannot handle one more minute of it. So to those of you who have indulged me with these gifts, please accept my heartfelt gratitude not merely for the kindness of a gift, but also for helping me find temporary solace from a world which feels increasingly hostile to me.
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