We Go On Singing

 I have to apologize in advance if I’m not entirely clear in my meaning, or if my writing seems jumbled in this post. I’m not the most analytical of thinkers, being more geared towards EQ than IQ so to speak, and my attempts to philosophize frequently fall flat. But with this post, I’m trying to wrangle some complicated feelings I’ve had this past week. Long story short, but in the past few months I’ve been flip-flopping between feeling frustrated, depressed, despairing, hopeful, angry and cynical and I’m trying to make sense of that. I’m just trying to warn you that this post might ramble more than usual, it might offer insights into my personality, and it might make references to George Carlin, Diogenes, Albert Camus, Yahtzee Crowshaw, Orson Welles, and others because I'm a pretentious fuck. 

In my younger years of thinking I knew everything about the world, I really thought that the best term to describe my outlook on the world was ‘cynic,’ and in my pretension I believed that I was free from the modern, pessimistic understanding of the word and that I was merely reacting appropriately to the world around me. Through college I experienced a profound existential crisis that removed much of my positive beliefs in the world, leading me to conclude that that humanity was primarily motivated by self-interest. I didn’t trust people in general, and I didn’t see much of a purpose to life or really even think I’d have much of a future. I wouldn’t say I was a nihilist, because I was still someone in search of meaning, and I thought that I could eventually find one. But I was certainly the pretentious fuck I pretended I wasn’t. (Still am, if you couldn't tell, I just don't deny it anymore.) 

Time taught me that I didn’t understand jack fucking shit about anything, let alone myself, and that while I won’t leave the world understanding much of anything, I can still at least try to learn and act like I understand. Ironically, my current world view (I say current because these things can change quickly) is influenced by the original cynicism as espoused by Diogenes, with a little bit of Albert Camus’ concept of the absurd. 

The original cynics believed in an Asceticism and simple living that viewed harmony with nature as the highest ethical calling. The cynics rejected most societal conventions as arbitrarily invented to control feelings of “shame.” Ethically, Greek Cynics wouldn’t be relativists, they would in fact honor virtues that come from nature quite highly. Think of it as the proto-stoicism, except most of cynics would mock the Stoics for being too self-important. (I’m indebted to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy for help with the philosophical concepts I tackle here.) 

It’s not a flawless philosophy, as Diogenes himself demonstrated. For instance, its Asceticism can be seen as leeching rather than self-sufficient once taken to it’s logical extremes. Secondly, societal morays exist for a reason, and there are sociological, technological, and medical advancements that we have crated for a reason. But I do still value at least three valuable aspects of cynicism. 

First, Diogenes was fucking hilarious, and his quips and clapbacks do indeed offer insight into societal hypocrisy. Second, I believe the preference for natural virtues over societal conventions has caused me to reevaluate my view that all humans are inherently self-interested to a fault. Arguably, self-interest isn’t our natural state, but something exacerbated by our society’s ordering ourselves. Thirdly, I believe that cynicism’s tenet of questioning everything that an authority tells you to accept is extremely valuable. It grounds you, reminds you that society really is just a set of illusions that we’ve all agreed to abide by. Social compacts do exist, and you have to remind yourself that while they’re necessary and kind of beneficial, some of them pretty ridiculous and we can definitely replace them with better systems. 

This is part of the frustration, anger, despair and unbridled maniacal fear and loathing I’ve been feeling. Let’s state the perfectly obvious with the words of George Carlin. “The longer you live, the more you look around, the more you realize, something is fucked up.” Its perfectly fucking obvious what’s fucked up: society is designating right before our very eyes. War, poverty, fascism, racism, LLM’s and Generative AI, rampant consumerism, MAGA, genocide, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, climate change, rising illiteracy rate, religious intolerance and extremism, unpunished pedophilia, artlessness, the destruction of the middle class, flagrant criminal activity in the highest levels of wealth and government, and the fucking cherry on the cake, Mr. Beast. Nah I’m fucking with you. The worst of it all is indifference, both at the highest levels of power and in the general public, everything is going to hell and nobody cares. It’s almost enough to justify the cynicism of my college days. 

But I can’t go back to that. You see, from my readings of the two branches, the difference between modern cynicism and classical cynicism is that classical cynics believed life was worth living. And I find myself in agreement with that premise. Exactly why I agree is hard to articulate, but I think the simplest explanation I have comes from my understanding of the Absurd. (I’ve mentioned Camus before, I don’t know if he believed exactly what I’m about to expound, but I’ll give him the credit.) 

As I understand it, the Absurd expresses the fundamental disharmony in our existence, specifically the feeling of requiring meaning from existence, but upon looking for meaning or purpose, we can only find an indifferent, senseless, silent universe. It’s an existentially terrifying idea. And it does get to me. I imagine we all know the feeling, striving most of our lives for some kind of relevancy, some kind of purpose, some kind of basic quality of life, and then we all slowly experience having our teeth kicked in. We struggle for years in dead-end jobs and end up loosing money. We look for avenues of self-expression that are safe, that recognize our basic humanity, only for bullies and corporations and people who call themselves Christians to curb our actions, to call us inhuman. We spend years trying to perfect our arts, only for people to make machines to replace us. And beyond that pain to our material and mental worlds, we have the underlying fear that it’s all for naught, because everything will pass away. 

Orson Welles spoke of this. In his documentary F For Fake, he takes a rather somber view of the purpose of art. Grand Cathedrals, paintings, books, poetry, film, drama, all will pass away, either to the slow erosion of entropy or the fires of censorship. “Our songs will all be silenced,” Welles said. “But what of it? Go on singing.” 

This was Camus’ solution to the absurdity of life: keep living. Life isn’t beautiful because it lasts, it’s beautiful because it’s lived. Art isn’t beautiful because it’s hanging on a wall, it’s beautiful because it took effort to create. I believe art, and life is even more beautiful in the face of this adversity, because defiance is beautiful. 

Recently, one of my favorite humorists, Yahtzee, and some of his journalistic friends created a line of merch for their independent media company, Second Wind. A coffee mug takes one of Yahtzee’s quotes, and illustrates this idea of defiance being beautiful. This mug (pictured above) triggered the idea for today post. (I’m including a link to the mug I’m referring to because even though I bought one and used a picture of it for this article, it’s still not my design or quote, and I’m certain they’d appreciate being credited.) Funnily enough, this even ties back into the story of Diogenes, who is one of the earliest recorded users of the middle finger.

There is indeed no middle finger big enough for the world right now. And every word I write, every day I live, is another gigantic middle finger to consumerism, AI, homophobia, this administration, flock cameras, and indifference. And yeah, it's hard to keep writing, it's hard to keep working every single day. But I really don't have anything better to do and frankly, it's fulfilling.  

And so we go on singing. 

It's One Of Those Days Where I Genuinely Don't Have Anything To Say

So Here's a few more picture of my recent Minecraft builds. 

Mostly I've been developing a strip of real estate I called Fisher's Narrows, so called because it's a long, narrow strip of land that I claimed.  

Here are the recent developments:

And the ones I'm most proud of: A cow pasture

A sheep and pig pen

And a chicken pit. Chickens are only in the pit because they can hop over fences. 

I'm also really proud of a public park I built for my friends, which features a gigantic chessboard. 

But the main attraction and the most effort I sank into a build recently is a half underwater house. This was partially inspired by a Frank Lloyd Wright style of natural building contrasting a modern setting. 

Note the shack indicated by the red arrow below, the entrance, leading to: 

A lovely view of the briny deeps. 

Anyways, that's all I've got this week. Have fun. 

I Shoot the Bastards, That's My Policy

 Very recently, science educator and author Hank Green has come under fire for using AI in some of his videos. (Story Link HERE) I don’t watch his content all that frequently (I am familiar with his Crash Course videos; it appears the he wasn't using Ai on those videos) so I wont say that this is anything like a betrayal of trust or some exaggerated bullshit like that. It's his response video that has prompted my post here today, I find it fairly thoughtful (link) and is worth considering as a creative. He suggested that having accountability as a creative is important with this kind of discussion, and that creators need to have AI policies and be upfront about their stance with their work. We'll come back to that. 

For the moment, I wish to make myself clear on the subject. In several of my posts I’ve expressed disdain for Large Language Models and generative AI. 

I loathe LLMs. I loathe generative AI. I loathe that my posts and my writing style might be studied by an LLM for its training. I loathe the AI generated slop that appears on YouTube and so much of the internet. I loathe that it has wormed it ways onto my social media feeds. I loathe the ethical problems, and the sociological and environmental effects AI produces. While I understand that they offer some advantages in some industries, specifically in areas of scientific research and coding, I must point out the distinction between industrial and creative usage and I question what good they actually do. 

Bottom line: I believe that AI has no place in the creative industries because the creative industries are the result of a highly personal process that generative AI by it’s nature foundationally circumvents. 

The satisfaction I find in writing is in the process of sitting my ass in my chair and trying to use the best words to capture the thoughts that run around my mind. It’s grueling. It’s frequently painful. But the reward of realizing that I expressed myself absolutely is an orgasmic rush beyond my wildest dreams. A few posts back I clarified that I write because I love doing the writing. That will not, cannot change. Flaubert said, “Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living,” and I agree. 

To bring this back to Hank Green: his idea that creatives should be upfront with their AI policies are is a really good idea.

I will establish right now my AI policy. This has applied to everything I’ve written before, but has not been articulated before now, and I will abide by this policy with everything I create going forward. I will publish a summary of my policy in the About Me section of my blog, visible on every page.

* I will never consciously or otherwise use an LLM or other form of generative AI to write anything, be that a novel, short story, blog post, pamphlet, song, poem, or Anti-AI screed.  Everything that I have written up till now was poured out of my own head through my hands, and it will remain that way. Every Picture I take, every video I shoot will be made by me.

* Simultaneously, I will not use a generative AI to produce any picture, video, song or other piece of creative work. 

* I write using the FocusWriter word processor with has an explicit anti-AI policy (link here) (download HERE). The only AI-Adjacent program it utilizes is a fairly useless spell checker that seems to think “foundationally,” “antidisestablishmentarianism,” and “dysentery” aren’t words. I can accept a spell checker, but I don’t abide by it. 

* As regards research, I avoid Google AI summaries and the obvious slop, but I cannot be certain that every article I pull wasn’t written or otherwise tampered with by an AI. The point is that here, I do my best so avoid AI, but I can’t be certain I didn’t cross paths with any. 

* I resent that LLMs might be reading my blog and using my words to train. I don’t know if I can stop that. Google might be doing that since I’m using their Blogger tool and they don’t have a clearly label AI policy. I don’t know if Substack offers a better policy. My point is, I deeply, deeply resent that my words might be used in this manner. 

To quote Dirty Harry and Frank Drebin, that’s my policy. 

Fair Warning, This One Might Be A Bit Political

Ever heard of Russell Kirk? Apparently he was quite a talented ghost story writer and if that’s how you know him, well... Then I hate to inform you that he was, apparently, one of the major American conservative voices in 20th century along with Christopher Buckley. He wrote a lot of non fiction about conservatism, notably penning an influential book (The Conservative Mind) tracing the history of conservative thought from Burke to the 1950’s. Honestly, documenting the development and impact of conservatism does seem like worthwhile subject for a book, so long as you’re not spending all your time bashing other ideologies. 

Anyways, a few weeks back I was made aware of Kirk via a list 10 principles that he considered to be foundational to conservatism. The list is... odd. Mostly because it doesn’t seem to understand what liberalism is, seeing it only as a force of destruction (somehow... we’ll get into that.) Anyway, I want to bring this list to your attention and comment (to the best of my ability) on the substance or lack thereof in these principles. I also want to be a little snarky with this post, so fair warning. Anyways, I present, Russell Kirk’s 10 Conservative Principles with Generous Helpings of Snark By Me. (Btw, I quote directly from his list a few times. I don't own his work, obviously, but I'm not going to attribute his website because I don't want to give this garbage more clicks. If you're that curious to read it, I won't stop you from googling.) 

Principle 1: The conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

Fine by me. What permanent moral truths are we talking about here? Love thy neighbor? Treat one another as you want to be treated? Hey wait a goddamn minutes - progressives believe in that one too... actually it’s kind of foundational to progressive ideology. The whole point of progressing to a new future is to leave a better world for our children. And what exactly do you mean that Human nature is a constant? That we’re always going to screw things up? I mean sure, there’s certainly historical precedent to be cynical about improvements remaining in place, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make improvements. 

Principle 2: The conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. 

No problem with the premise - what customs are we talking about here? Such wholesome Western (read: White Anglo-European) customs such as stripping a women of her bodily autonomy by disguising it as “a higher calling”? Limiting what media we can consume in the name of a “moral order” while bleating about not having freedom? Beating up on Queers, African Americans, Jews and anyone else who might have different customs, conventions and continuities? Speaking of minorities, you know who has vibrant and quite lively communities filled with interesting customs? New customs are being created all the time and old customs are forever evolving, that’s part of continuity. 

Principle 3: Conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. 

.....This would be easier to mock if it was in any way remotely understandable. Hang on a minute (checks the Russell Kirk website “Conservatives sense that modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very often emphasize the importance of prescription—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary...”) 

Well that’s just insulting to modern man. Yes, all of what we know in our scientific and philosophical fields are based on the discoveries of the past, but get this, not everything our forefathers believed was right. In fact, they were quite stupid. It’s not like the middle ages were some golden age of humanity that we’re all secretly pining to return to. If we were to stack up every incorrect scientific in history, the number of formerly accepted reasons for how the stars turned on at night alone would take us to the stratosphere.  

Principle 4: Conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. 

Anyone who seeks wisdom is guided by prudence, regardless of political opinions. Exempli gratia: that it would not be prudent to elect an amoral orange turnip in an ill-fitting blue suit with a criminal record to the presidency just because it says things vaguely agree with. (stares into the camera)

Principle 5: Conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. 

Oh, how kind of you to “pay attention” to the “principle” of “Variety”. And just what kind of variety are we talking about here? Business variety? Religious variety? Sexual variety? Miscegenation? Clearly not class variety or the so often mocked “diversity.” 

I gotta go back to the Kirk website, hang on. (*reads: For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.’*) Oh... so, by “Variety” you mean a tiered social order. So Classism. 

Principle 6: Conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. 

Hey asshole, lemme quote a Batman movie at you: “Why do we fall? So we can better learn to pick ourselves up again.” Stop using “we’re all imperfect” as an excuse not to fix broken systems or end harmful traditions. And also, stop using “we’re all imperfect” as an excuse to sit back and muse “c’est la vie” wistfully whenever you hear about the last shooting massacre in a day care. 

Principle 7: Conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. 

No shit property and freedom are closely linked, what a fucking helpful observation. That’s why progressives want MORE PEOPLE TO OWN PROPERTY LIKE HOUSES THAT THEY ARE CURRENTLY BEING PRICED OUT OF. That’s why progressives ARE SERIOUSLY CONCERNED WITH DATA CENTERS TAKING UP LIVABLE LAND AND DRINKING WATER.

Principle 8: Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. 

I love voluntary community action! That’s called democracy! And speaking of opposing involuntary collectivism, note that it’s the progressives who who are in favor of exchange between cultural communities like ethic groups and queer communities, while conservatives want to restrict exchange in the name of the collective “social moral good.” And also note that, oh, just for example, corporations buying up large land parcels for data centers without community approval and replacing staff with large language models would technically be involuntary collectivism. (You might argue that, but the group that corporation are placing ahead of the individual workers are the shareholders, so fuck you.)

Principle 9: The conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. 

Not a bad idea. THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GIVE DRUG ADDLED PEDOPHILE BILLIONARES UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE FEDERAL GFOVERNMENT AND NUCLEAR ARSENALS? 

Principle 10: The thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society. 

This is that prescription thing again isn’t it? In other words the most change you’re willing to accept is a change the weather? (so long as said change isn’t... climate change?)  

If it weren’t obvious by now, this is a really stupid list of principles. Most of it is just plain old classism, racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia wrapped up in the old Chesterton’s fence argument. If you’re unfamiliar, Chesterton’s fence is the following thought device: suppose you were to build a path through afield and suddenly come upon a fence that wasn’t on your survey. The prudent thing to do, instead of bulldozing the fence recklessly, is to hold off, trace down the builders of the fence and find out what it’s purpose was, and then figure out where to go from there.

Obviously, you should respect the past. I can respect not wanting to uproot old traditions recklessly in the name of progress as these traditions might have uses such as social cohesion. However, if that tradition was built of faulty logic, or superseded data, surely upgrading those traditions is called for. That’s the core of what progressiveness is. It’s wanting to leave a better world for the future and replacing the systems that no longer work with systems that will hopefully work better. 

Yes, that involves experimentation with new systems. Yes, that can be dangerous. Yes, I can understand why you’d prefer to cling to older customs that make you more comfortable. But Russell Kirk's principle of “prescription” is a cowardly, anti-intellectualist attitude that looks at the improvements humanity needs to make to survive in the modern world and says “...yeah we’re happy with our ignorance, thanks. We’ve made our money, and the rest of you can eat a dick.” 

Let's be clear here. Regardless of my political views, I'm certain people do have good reasons to be conservative. But I don't think any of these principles offers a remotely good basis for an ideology, and a worse reason to believe in that ideology. 

It Doesn’t Take An Odyssey to Enjoy

I was going to write a longer view of the Christopher Nolan’s newest film The Odyssey, but for whatever reason I find myself struggling to write this one. I don’t know why. Blame the heat, blame my last few sleepless nights, blame stress, blame the gods, whatever. 

I think that my real issue with writing anything about the movie is it’s a fairly complicated interpretation of the poem. That’s not a fault of the movie, by the way. I appreciate any movie that makes me think this long and this hard about the movie as a whole, it’s source material, and the changes made in adaptation.

The aspects that I don’t like about the movie are easily summarized; removing Penelope’s test of Odysseus from the ending, the fact that it seems to lack a sense of humor, the re-framing of Ancient Greek politics, and removal of agency from most female characters. These aren’t issues that entirely ruin the movie for me, thankfully, but they stand out as consequences of the adaptation’s hyper-realistic approach. 

Now, I would have complained that the realistic approach doesn’t fit an adaptation of the Odyssey, a mythic tale that tends to be a good subject for fantasy movies. But that’s not really true, as it happens. Sure, as I said I don’t like all the fallout of this decision, but there are cases where it works. Take one of my cited issues; the reframing of Greek politics. The movie implies that the Greeks’ siege of Troy was motivated by more than just a dispute over Helen of Troy, suggesting that Agamemnon had political desires over trading routes (thankfully they don’t go full Star Wars on that plotpoint and don’t focus more than a line of dialogue on it.) That’s fine and all, but it has the effect of flattening Agamemnon’s character and turning him into a (admittedly imposing) granite slab of a human who serves as an allegorical warning for Odysseus, instead of the tragic, complicated character of the Iliad and Odyssey. 

On the other hand, where the realism works is, paradoxically in the fantastical. It’s a matter of contrasts. It’s amazing seeing a (largely practical) cyclops staggering into a cave, seamlessly and smoothly worked into the background while interacting with the human sized actors. The practical effects seen in Circe’s literally hands-on transformation of Odysseus’ crew makes that scene pretty fucking unnerving. The scenes taking place in Hades are incredibly unnerving. Even the omission of the gods from the movie (baring Athena) seems to make their influence on the plot through nature that much more powerful. In so far as the realism grounds the movie, I think it makes for an accessible entry point for newcomers.

One aspect of the movie I really enjoyed was the focus on the law of Hospitality, referred to in the film as Zeus’ law. It’s the insistence that hosts welcome all guests and treat them with civility as they don’t know if their guest is a god in disguise. The movies goes to great lengths to discuss this as an inviolate law of Greek culture - being the reason why Penelope can’t just toss the suitors out of her house. Of course, the movie also discusses how this principle was violated by Odysseus in his destruction of Troy. It takes this down an interesting thematic hole, introducing a plot point that Greek peoples have become afraid of nebulous raiding parties (the Sea Peoples of ancient infamy.) Ultimately it is suggested that a cultural breakdown stemming from Troy’s destruction has rendered the Greeks suspicious of any sea-faring peoples especially if they seem friendly or in need. Kind of on the nose, but there’s a lot to unpack there. 

I think I’m having a hard time writing about this movie because I have a lot to say about it, but it’s taken me a while to fully parse my own thoughts. That’s not exactly a bad thing, but it does mean I can’t say much about it without going down a long rabbit hole in my mind, and that’s just not really fun to write about.  Ultimately, gun to my head, hand on my heart, I can only reach the conclusion that it’s a good movie, despite my having several issues. I’ve certainly thought more about the Odyssey itself after watching it, and that can only be a good thing. 

I don't own this image, claiming fair use. 

A Minecraft Photo Essay

My friends and I have a Minecraft server like most people our age and younger. We reset it every so often so our imaginations can run wild anew. We mine, we lay out bases, we build grand locations. I find it interesting how our castles and forts and homesteads tend to be wildly different. {NAME REDACTED 1} tends to build castles, blow them up, and leave them to rot and haunt like a ghost in the Scottish Highlands. {NAME REDACTED 2} builds large fortifications that rest on big fuck-off-hole-in-the-ground-mines that he’s dug. My imagination tends to run to the... modern. 

This is my current home base, a modernist structure straight out of Ikea. 

Here’s another structure I’m building. 

A brutalist inspired library. 

Clearly, I have a style of Architecture that I like. And It isn’t just because I think it’s easier to build in modern / postmodern styles. I kinda like the juxtaposition of the giant, looming structures bursting out of the naturalism in the forest. 

And for reference, here’s what the typical Minecraft world generates as homes and villages. 

Notice the paths in these two pictures. They’re dirt passageways, only existing between houses in these villages. For comparison, the rest of the world that is generated in our server exists without connections. 

Oh wait. You can see one of my bridges over there. 

I have been building a lot of bridges and walkways... I’m kind of obsessed with them. They look neat, don’t they?

Cutting through a lot of ground to build them. 

Almost like an industrial strip mine... 

And this got me thinking. Specifically it got me thinking about Robert Moses. While most people might be familiar with the epic Robert Caro biography The Power Broker, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking of a 2022 play about Robert Moses by David Hare called Straight Line Crazy. I haven’t seen it (read the script) but it’s title refers to Moses’ tendency to bulldoze existing properties and natural areas to build his bridges. Of course, it only makes sense that I connect each of my friend’s islands. 

Part of the fun of Minecraft is in the exploration, and the moment we start mapping out the world we’re in, that element of fun starts to wane. I wonder - and I haven’t heard otherwise from my friends, if while these bridges make traveling easier, they still ruin the fun of the exploration. Of course the other part of the fun of Minecraft is in the building. 

Now I’m not calling myself Robert Moses here. I’m just saying that noticed some similarities while I was working in this server. I’m tying together a world, taking it from a naturalistic paradise to an explicitly modernist world, regardless of the cost to the biome. I’ve even named parts of the world, officially declaring my ownership over it with complete disregard of what the land might already be called. 

But of course... That’s what you’re supposed to *do* in Minecraft. That’s the game’s purpose, stripping the earth of resources and building a fantasy land to the best of your imagination and skill. I guess it’s better than hurting the real world... but I wonder what ecological impact me playing Minecraft actually has, just in energy usage. Is it worth worrying about? I don’t know. Is it worth considering? Sure. 

In closing, I want to point to one of my favorite building projects from this server. This time, it’s a tunnel on the neutral island seen in the above picture. 

It’s meant to be a nice little refuge for all of us, someplace where we go back to nature and have a rest. That’s what the server is in real life, a nice little retreat from the real world. I think it’s funny that I needed to build a retreat inside the game.