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Know what works better than boycotts? A general strike. Stop the economy in its tracks. Have a clear, articulated goal. No leadership. No one to arrest. No one to identify as a troublemaker.

The trouble, when systemic, is the system. A boycott is meant to strike at an individual or group of allied organization(s). A general strike is the last level.

Governments tend to be allergic to general strikes. Their reactions are heavy-handed, thoughtless, and reactionary. Howard Zinn recounts several in A People’s History of the United States. But, when primed and done well, it is a demonstration of political will unlike any other. It is a change agent.

I was in Guatemala in 2015 for the one-day general strike that led to the arrest of then-President Otto Perez Molina. His party had been funnelling tax revenues into a slush fund. Look up #noletoca and #LaLinea. He was removed from the presidency, tried, convicted, and served time.

Another easy answer would be Six Feet Under. This show has the most beautiful finale.

The most expensive thing ever built and maintained is the International Space Station. At $160B over its lifetime, the ISS is a model for the excessively wealthy.

True, it is not primed for self-sustaining flight, and the quarters are very cramped, but a space-faring über-rich individual has to have a Plan B in case they’re not on the same continent as one of their “end of days” bunkers. Those start at $1 million and can run upwards of $300 million.

About the same time as the first private space station comes into service, we will also find that the rocket and tandem-independent space shuttle will also be feasible. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Sorry. Am atheist. Aren’t churches cults?

Unpopular opinion.

Allow me to rephrase: Churches aren’t cults, but they do worship a dead guy, an “I” in sky, and promise that “whosoever believeth” will not die but “have everlasting life.” Christmas, Easter, and Judgement Day — the big three.

This, on its own, sounds cult-adjacent.

There’s community, and I guess as long as someone says a prayer for you, remembers your name, or holds on to a record of your existence — I guess that’s something resembling everlasting life. Churches are good at keeping records. Sort of. Depends on what it is, really. If they want to forget, apparently, they will.

There’s also the proselytizing, “spreading The Word.” And the meetings — almost exclusively on the weekend!

Betting on chaos, destruction, reconstruction costs, insurance payouts/denials, and instability for a growing segment of the population made many people rich in the 15th to 21st centuries.

When you are both the cause and the beneficiary of this exercise, that is Disaster Capitalism — an extension of the Shock Doctrine.

The doctrine itself can capitalize on accidents, natural disasters, political instabilities, and economic downturns.

Disaster capitalism foments “accidents” (see: Beirut explosion), natural disasters (see: climate change denialism), political instabilities (see: School of the Americas), and economic downturns (see: the Big Short).

If I was going to sacrifice my integrity for money, I would start a church.

I might add, start good trouble. This follows from 5. above.

Hold your state and federal representatives’ feet to the fire. Protest injustice. Demand transparency and equity. Understand how your local community works. If it doesn’t work, build on that.

Always excellent, The Evolution of Trust, and interactive exercise in Game Theory.

Welcome to the Internet. Hopefully, I read as a good person. I am not a bot.

I lived as a young adult through Bush II. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Halliburton, Blackwater, and loads of corruption. It was tough to trust anything then. The goal was pure profit.

Apparently, Dubya was the warm-up presidency for this shit.

First, let me share a clip from Margin Call, 2011.

As long as the prevailing mode has been capital, there has been speculation. As long as there has been speculation, there have been lying liars who exploit the system.

The last few pump and dump bubbles he mentioned (1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2008) are all market crashes I can remember. The market is a casino. Crashes since '08 include 2010 (Flash Crash), 2015 (sell-off), 2018 (cryptocrash), 2020 (Covid), 2022 (Ukraine War), and 2025 (tariffs).

These were once “once in a lifetime” events.

Second, everything in the world is designed to generate more:

• self-serving, self-centered, selfish

• short-term-focused

• extroverted, charismatic, vain

• action-oriented

• thoughtless

psychopaths and sociopaths. This ethos runs things because of profit motives, monopolies on the exercise of violence, and the development of contemporary morés rooted in exploitation, expropriation, and (deemed) externalities of colonialism. Identifying some humans as “the other” makes much more inhumanity possible.

So, I’m here to tell you, it’s real alright. What you’re feeling is real. What you’re feeling against is real. We are immersed in it. Algorithms are doing their best to lock it in.

Finally, what to do and who to trust.

Establish your own moral center. Decide what matters to you. Find those who are telling the most truth, especially when tested. Demogogues fall apart under examination. Lies fall apart when questioned. The unchallenged authority is no authority at all. Get the receipts; find primary sources as often as possible. Seek those who share at great personal cost.

For me, it started with Star Trek. Then, hip-hop. Then, journalists I could trust. Even films that challenge prevailing narratives. I read a lot of books from many perspectives.

20 years later, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Henry A. Giroux, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky have never wavered. Films like The Insider, Erin Brockovich, and The Corporation light a fire in me. I’m rewatched David Simon and Barry Levinson’s Homicide: Life on the Street and, hilariously, Murphy Brown.

Challenge the prevailing narratives. You’re not alone.

Julian Assange has something to say about this.

Edward Snowden has something to say about this.

Reality Winner has something to say about this.

Chelsea Manning has something to say about this.

Woodward and Bernstein had something to say about this.

Joseph Gedeon at the Guardian reports that Matthew Dowd was fired from MSNBC for stating:

“Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions, … You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”

Richard Luscombe at the Guardian reports:

Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team.

Whoa, no way. THAT’S why he’s the Count? I thought it was a royalty/ bloodline thing.

In general, vampires existed to me as a commentary on colonialism, class, and the advantages to longevity. Vampires as “blood suckers of the poor”, to quote Popa Wu, who was quoting Louis Farrakhan.

I didn’t know the ‘stop and count objects’ element.

Question, though, as I think this through: would that not extend as an antisemitic trope?

(A half hour of reading later.)

TIL there is an antisemitic history to vampires.

“As rendered by Bram Stoker, the literary depiction of Count Dracula is deeply antisemitic, with roots in the long-standing blood libel against Jews and the antisemitic archetype of the wealth-hoarding degenerate.” [2]

“Today, the vampire remains one of cinema’s most popular horror villains, and the connections to prejudice are largely forgotten, or erased. They still lurk around the edges of the genre though, as generations of creators have either furtively invited them in or tried to put a stake through their heart.” [1]

“The symbolic link between Jews and blood through a history of blood libel and the depiction of Jews as alien and parasitic are seen the main themes that allowed the merging of the two image.” [3]

[1] Bloodsuckers: Vampires, Antisemitism And Nosferatu At 100

[2] The Antisemitic History of Vampires

[3] How Vampires Became Jewish

[4] Blood Libel: The Anti-Semitic Roots of Vampirism

As you can see, I almost left him out. I don’t think of him as an actor. More, a plug-and-play action man for Christopher MacQuarrie screenplays.

Since 2001: Space Odyessy is above…

Im tempted to go with some Jackie Chan (?!) or Jet Li (Hero) or Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) or Donnie Yen (Ip Man) film — the one that’s closest to my heart is Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Do not watch the trailer. It’s garbage. The film is beautiful.

There are a few outstanding moments in film as well that are practical effects that just force my memory:

As mentioned: 2001, and the Fall.

The last arrow in Throne of Blood. Several scenes in The Cell (dir: Tarsem, who also did the Fall) I’ll also highlight Hero.

e: And all the crazy shit Tom Cruise does in Mission: Impossible. Those are some fun movies.

The first time my cousins from FL visited Canada, it was July. They were surprised there was no snow. So, we took them over to the rec centre and they saw a small pile of snow out back. They were thrilled.

It was dumped out of a Zamboni.

As a small child: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

As a teen: Lightning by Dean R. Koontz

As a high-schooler: Island by Aldous Huxley