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beyond necessary

  In the future, we must cleave to a principle of liberation and follow the right of self-determination wherever it might lead. The old saw of “every thing in its right place” has been shown to turn on subjective and not upon truthful measures - whose idea of what is the “right place” prevails, and for whom is it the “right place”? Are questions that after long experience always revealed strength and power, not reason nor rational government, have been behind the propagation of such a saying. The “right place of everything” comes from an ancient time when the mechanism for discovering the truth was still mistaken for the truth itself. It is assuredly not the case that if every “thing” has a “right place” it isn’t constituted in some transparent organizational scheme; and, although the evolution of knowledge may not be at its bitter end, it seems more likely that the proper “place” for every thing will fill space like the thousand points of light in the night sky of the visible univ...
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Recent posts

Why is effectiveness moral?

There are moments where questions of morality depend on questions of effectiveness.   There are situations where effectiveness tempers honesty.   And there are certain moments where the entire question of morality in that instance, and for those facts, constitutes the question of whether certain people are effective in that moment.
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Answering some nagging philosophical questions

Structurally sound assumptions may be made by simply denying all assumptions that may be made until they prove themselves otherwise.   This is why science is still so relevant because science is the purest natural expression of logic.   However, such an important distinction and framing needs the further question: for what does logic serve human beings?   The straightest answer I can give you is, while some will claim that a sound assumption denies its opposite, the truth is that a denial of the truth denies itself, and that’s why the truth is true, since Socrates.   The establishment of truth has been difficult since then.   Do you follow what I’m saying?   Logically speaking, logic is truth, but truth is not logic.   So we enter a dialectic.   The distinction but not difference between facts and actualities is the difference in making sense of it here.   The truth is a fact that became an actuality.  
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Untitled constructions

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I always get excited by new Bluetooth mesh network technology

   I always get excited by  new Bluetooth mesh network technology  because it is extremely useful for pro-democracy movements. Wherever the Internet could be censored, monitored, surveilled, or shut down due to security reactions to social movements, protests, rallies, and marches, a Bluetooth mesh network like FireChat, which was used throughout the 2010s in Hong Kong during the protests against Chinese authoritarianism that came to be known as the Umbrella Movement, can keep communications flowing to a large group of organizers in the field, avoiding confusion, the fog of war, and other roadblocks.    Mesh networks are equally useful for underserved areas in rural or urban communities.    There have been some successful examples. One in particular comes to mind of an urban community that installed local Internet through a Wi-Fi network that was based on mesh networks.    Now, of course, the ideal mesh network would simply involve every...
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Geoengineering rests on shaky foundations and poor social planning.

Geoengineering rests on shaky foundations and poor social planning.  I think there’s evidence of the government trying to obfuscate information by changing the names of programs and initiatives, to try to render information exposed to the public in previous reporting facially out of date.   First off, this is reminding me of Naomi Klein’s chapter on geoengineering, which is very skeptical of the whole idea, as we should all be. Some highlights from that chapter: Alan Robock wrote a paper published in 2008 in Geophysical Research that geoengineering would “disrupt the Asian and African Monsoon and Pacific Monsoons, reducing precipitation to the food supply for billions of people.” Computer models show that geoengineering would crash crop productivity in the Sahel, leading to desertification. Further computer models show a 20% reduction in rainfall in the Amazon from geoengineering.   Historical evidence connects volcano eruptions with droughts, meaning we would be risk...
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A set piece for organizing

  I hope to name a juncture that occurs every so often in organizing, and from this point advances a narrative that I think we can retrieve from a wayward path and put to use for good purpose.   It is shown by such things as how recently a teachers’ movement in Chicago presented both of these facets of the core issue of our time, a pairing of issues that is often seen, but presents an opportunity that I think slips away in most cases. However, I hope we can seize the moment with this moment.   First, let me say that what I describe is best understood to be covered within the social paradigm of one group’s energy and motivation being matched by another’s out of sympathy, excitement, or solidarity.   So for instance, when the Chicago Teachers Union president called for raising more revenue for schools with a tax on the rich, while at the same time student groups organized around the principle that green schools are a budget solution, that is an example of that type of ...
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