Observations - 7th March 2018

The most profound form of US exceptionalism is not thinking that the US is best at everything, but that it works on a different logic from the rest of the world (besides gun laws, also:
- Requiring photo ID to vote is racist and anti-democratic, even though many first world liberal democracies like Canada and Australia do
- If the government censors speech in any way that is a slippery slope leading to the state controlling everything you say
- Military parades are only done by totalitarian dictatorships - like France and Canada)
Addendum: If you abolish tipping, service staff will starve
If someone resists arrest and the police officer is forced to subdue him, he is an hero (sic) and a victim of police brutality
Imperial units are superior to metric because ???
Keywords: American Exceptionalism

Snappy soundbites and protest slogans drive polarisation as positions get simplified and collapsed. Then you need to choose one side or the other to avoid being slammed by both. Also one can have ideals while realising the need to work within reality - thus seeming contradictory


"Civil wars take two or more relatively evenly matched sides. Fat blokes with rifles (whether or not semi-automatic) no match for a half decent military"

"If you install an alarm system, it makes it more likely that a burglar will attack the home of a neighbour. That would make it a negative externality."

The failure of strata mall owners to coordinate and modernise debunks anarchist/libertarian fantasies of self organisation and mutual aid in the absence of government

"Luck is probability taken personally"

Note to self: When Pocket/Read It Later has the "component returned failure code", "ns_error_malformed_uri" error, logging in and out will clear it

"All employers worth their salt in Denmark actually provide private insurance for employees because the public health care here is notoriously inefficient in spite of being allocated a fuckton of tax money. The Danish state is a leech."

Was polled on my sentiments on various aspects of life, apparently for gahmen. Surveyor said I had a very unique personality

Shame from being held up to other people's standards of machismo is temporary
Death is forever

If someone owes you money, maybe sending him 1 cent a month so it will appear on his bank account and annoy him will guilt him into paying

I can understand non-disclosure agreements. But not non-disclosure agreements that don't allow you to acknowledge their own existence

"Many people are judgemental, yet sensitive. A very bad combination."


The best reason to keep your Facebook private - so you lessen the chances of being reported by idiots and getting zucced

Amused that people imagine that lobbyists from big tech companies push for net neutrality out of the goodness of their hearts. Cui bono?

I miss the days when Google Doodles were rare. And thus actually meant something.


I actually prefer the taste of Coke Zero to Coke

People who are dogmatic about food are even more annoying than religious fundamentalists - because food doesn't have the anti-religious stigma that pervades secular society

I'm sure the first person to put tomatoes on what later became pizza got shouted down as ruining Italian food

Indian guy told me I was the first Chinese person he'd seen eating with his hands. Strike one for racial harmony?