Ugh. Low-hanging fruit. Like making fun o’ The Room or the “Realist Left.” Let’s get this o’er with.

& what do you know, my 2 favorite writers ’bout writers are @ the top o’ Google’s shitty search:

Fucking fun.

SmartBlogger’s 27 Ways to Lose Your Dignity

O, fuck. Ne’er mind. I’m thinking o’ Problogger, not CamelFuckingCaseAsIfIt’sAFuckingJavaClass SmartBlogger. Sorry. They’re such memorable names that stand out so well, I have no idea how I made the mistake. This is ‘specially tragic after they took the time to change it from its ol’ name (as they bizarrely proudly proclaim under their bland logo), “boostblogtraffic.com”–presumably when they realized they could make mo’ money selling it to a domain scalper than off the blog itself.

Anyway, they’re the 1st article, & it’s truly “outside the box,” as you unhip kids say today. It doesn’t teach you how to cure writer’s block, but to “crush” it, with Math.floor( Math.random() * 100 ) + 1 techniques. & to demonstrate this so well, the article has a painting o’ a fist punching the fuck out o’ a stack o’ keyboards. Oops. Now you’re truly writer’s blocked, bud, since now you can’t write shit ’cause you stupidly destroyed all your means o’ typing, jackass. Maybe you’ll think o’ something on your drive to the local PC store to buy a new keyboard.

Let me guess…

You’re staring at the blank screen. Your brain is fried. You can feel a headache coming on.

Everything here’s right but the “staring at a blank screen” part, since I’m obviously reading your text–though I s’pose you could call it blank in essence.

Anyway, the techniques they give are basically all, “Act like a jackass,” in various ways. It’s the 2.0 version o’ those list books full o’ whatever random shit the authors came up with that Seanbaby made fun o’ (ironically, on a website full o’ list articles…):

1. Develop Schizophrenia

2. Do what I’m doing in this article.

Also, I question their claim that “you can correct mistakes in a passionate piece of writing, but you can’t add emotions to a flat post. So let it rip.” Flatulent blog posts are the rudest.

3. Distract yourself dicking round with computer programs–the opposite o’ what most advisors say.

4. “¿How about a drinky poo?” (Ziggy saying)

& that doens’t e’–

Wait, wrong article.

4. Ah, here we go: take up space on public transit for no reason.

5. Drink coffee, e’en though it’s apparently bad for you, but you should take it, anyway. Good, I like this: punishment is the best tool.

6. The 6th advice is to stop writing something… which they aren’t doing, anyway, since they have writer’s block. ¿Did you forget the point o’ your article already?

7. Stop pl–¿Who the fuck writes outlines for a blog post? ¿& how would that be any different from the article itself, since they’re almost all just #’d lists, anyway?

8. “Surprise Yourself” 😉 I was sure surprised by the big white space where an image that didn’t load was s’posed to go. Maybe you should add, “Distract yourself by actually learning how to use your blog software ‘stead o’ using it like an orangutan bashing its fists on the keyboard–¡damn it, you broke it ‘gain! ¡Back to Re-PC!” onto the list.

9. I love this 1: if you find you can’t use your alloted time to write anything useful, do it ‘nother time. But this presumes that the person doesn’t have infinite time, & thus is limited in this case. Otherwise, writer’s block wouldn’t be much o’ a problem: just wait & have patience. This “advice” is a round’bout way o’ avoiding the problem in total.

Actually, that’s all o’ this advice, truly.

10. Nope. Fuck you, you lost me. This is the same as “Take up space on public transit for no reason,” but with different words.

¿Couldn’t e’en make it to 10? You’ll ne’er make it on Letterman’s retired show. You’ll ne’er make it on Neglected Mario Characters’s equally-reputable top-10 lists.

Goins To Sell You Begged Questions for Paper

Goins wins an award for pissing me off so early on his shitpile o’ ads, with some vapid editorial text sprinkled on. The whole site is 1st covered by an ad for some free guide, which is clearly just a ‘scuse to get me email to sell to advertisers. I also love the vagueness–totally not intentional–involved in “100K readers in 18 months?” ¿Does he mean getting 100,000 readers in 18 months, or just 5,555 per month?

After withstanding that ad, we have mo’. 1st we get some spyware-seeming “notification” from PushCr–¡damn it, there’s ‘nother! I just looked back & saw ‘nother had popped up. This is almost self-parody by this point.

All right, after clicking “NO” a billion times, we finally get to the actual conte–I’m kidding: the slush.

A’least he didn’t bother with some obnoxiously zany title, but kept it to the simple, albeit redundant, “14 Tricks that Work.” I’d sure fucking hope they work if you bothered to write ’bout them; though I admit that writing a list o’ solutions to a problem that one acknowledges up-front don’t work would be creative.

But then we’re talking ’bout Goins™®©, so that’s out the chute.

My favorite part o’ his “tricks” is that some o’ them contradict others. In 1 he says one should “avoid distractions,” but then he advises you to play with LEGOS–truly an important step in the writing process, right up there with prewriting & roughing.

¿& why does this racist think I don’t listen to classical or jazz music already–that I need to mix it up? I don’t need to mix any shit up, punk. As the wise Lord Keynes said, “So please just f*ck off if all you can do is insult me like this, because I am not going to be slandered by anybody.” Get your voice out o’ this text, you witch–¡Out!

He follows this trite list with an equally-trite list o’ how not to. This includes the nonsense entry, “watching TV.” So I can get inspiration from reading books & playing fucking LEGOS, ¿but getting ideas from… TV? ¡Phhh! ¿Who e’er learned good writing from such shoddy tripe as Breaking Bad or The Twilight Zone (Look, I’m a bad defender for TV, since I lost mine years ago when I broke it trying to jump into it, all right) when you could read inspirational quotes?

O, but he’s saved the “fail-proof solution” for last–the 1 you don’t want to hear, man, ’cause it’s too fucking radical for you squares. Well, I’m not ‘fraid Goins. ¡Let’s smash the capitalism o’ writer’s block once & for all & uphold the dictatorship o’ the literati once & for all!

You overcome writer’s block by writing.

All the balloons pop.

In the spirit o’ these articles, let me offer 3 reasons why nobody wants to hear this advice:

1. Everyone’s already heard it a million times.

2. It’s begging the question–the true definition.

3. It doesn’t fucking work.

When people have writer’s block, they’re not barred from writing anything. Anyone can write “poop scoop” a thousand times. The point is that they have a goal, they have standards—a foreign word to Goins. They realize that writing whatever garbage comes to their mind is just as useless as not writing–e’en moreso, actually, since it distracts attention from other ways o’ getting ideas & gives one finger cramps.

¿You know what these lists ne’er have as an answer? (Admittedly it’s not a great answer, either; but it’s better than all these) “Stop writing & start thinking for once.” But then, I don’t think there’s much thinking going on ‘hind any o’ these articles. Too busy playing with LEGOS & riding buses like you’re god damn Wesley Willis–& you’re not god damn Wesley Willis, so just knock if off right now.

But don’t worry: Goins admits there’s a tiny flaw with his advice & adds a “caveat”:

(One caveat: This technique only works if you’re truly blocked and not “empty,” which is an entirely different matter altogether.)

Nowhere does he specify how I might discern whether I’m “blocked” or “empty”–& the fact that he puts scare quotes round that 2nd word himself shows that he probably doesn’t e’en know, either. This fucker’s probably laughing it up the ass as he posts these, knowing it’ll pollute the Google stream like soda-can connectors–& I’m just standing here with a tear slowly falling down my face. No dignity.

Top 10 Things Jay Does When He Gets Writers [sic–O, ¿Who am I kidding? It’s NC; we’ll be here all day] Block While Trying to Update NC

Hey, wait a minute: this wasn’t in Google’s search.

Well, it should’ve been.

In all its misspelled glory:

10. Has imaginary conversations with Luigi (Luigi: No you don’t. Jay: Sure I do. All the time. Don’t deny it. Luigi:(sigh) What a loser.)
9. Plays Super Mario Bros. 3
8. Mows the lawn and waits for a jolt of inspiration.
7. Stares blankly at the computer screen until he realizes that its a week later, in which case he becomes in more trouble.
6. Throws something together at the last minute. (I’ll put a new picture up. It looks like I updated.)
5. Skims through old NP magazines for ideas. Tip: This never works.
4. Decides to give up NC and start a new life without the internet. Sucsess rate: O%.
3. Goes through e-mail consisting of threats such as “Update NC now, you idiot!” or “Pokemon rules, you moron!”
2. Puts some of the spotlight on Kyle, who NEVER updates.
1. Doesn’t update NC.

10: Here we see that the venerable Jay Resop/Resup/Reesop/Respo came up with the schizophrenia idea long before that plagiarist SmartBlogger.

6: & thus “NC Shorts” was born.

4: In hindsight, this was much mo’ “sucsessful” than he thought.

3: Ugh. I agree entirely with his disdain. When I get threatening email ’bout Pokémon I expect them not to be gauche ‘nough to leave out the accented E.

2: Yeah, ¿what the fuck, Kyle? You haven’t written anything since November 11 this year. That was ages ago.

1. This is legitimately the best solution to writer’s block–¡guaranteed success!

Honorable Mentions:

World of Psychology

Glad to see that this is as important a psychological problem as schizophrenia–probably ’cause it induced it in the idiots who took SmartBlogger’s advice.

Then ‘gain, this website also seems to have “quizzes,” so I doubt it’s particularly reputable. Either way, just to be sure, I did take their advice to buy their Pelennor Dust to snort, which apparently cures my self-hurt fetishes (if this article wasn’t already evidence to that).

Purdue OWL

¿What? ¿Aren’t you guys, like… prominent? That’s like Strunk & White offering writer’s block advice.

It’s the same advice as everyone else, but with less stupidity. Just read this in like a minute & ne’er waste your time on these articles e’er ‘gain.

& just to contradict myself…

J. J. W. Mezun’s Patented Writer’s Block Cure

1. Masturbate to anime porn.
2. Smash your face onto your desk. If you don’t have a desk, buy 1, & then do this step.
3. Make bad blog posts ’bout bad blog posts ’bout writing, economics, video games, suicide, web design, & yuppie tripe.
4. Do drugs.
5. Whine ’bout your problems to everyone on the internet.
6. Masturbate to GAP catalogues.
7. Get a fucking job, you slob.
8. Have a personal trauma happen so that your writer’s block problems pale in comparison.
9. Masturbate to Walt Whitman poetry.
10. Suicide.
11. Make imaginary Wikipedia pages for imaginary political classes.
12. Play Super Mario Bros. 3.
13. Masturbate out o’ sheer frustration.
14. & last, but not least: smash capitalism. If you can’t get interesting ideas for what to write ’bout from experiencing a good ol’ communist revolution, then you’re creatively hopeless.*

*Caveat: this trick doesn’t work if you end up getting killed in said communist revolution or purged by the succeeding regime.

¿Do you have any tricks you use to help you through writer’s block? Yeah, well not everything’s ’bout you, you know.

It’s common for words to shift in meaning in ways that tie biased assumptions to otherwise independent concepts, which is why trying to create positivist science from pure deductive language is a futile endeavor (*cough* praxeology *cough).

“Objectivity” & “subjectivity” are 2 concepts that fall victim. People oft simplify these concepts as simply meaning “unquestionably right” & “all answers are right”–to concepts which don’t e’en add up to the total o’ all possible truths regarding any questions (a question could have mo’ than 2 answers, some equal in “rightness” & some unquestionably inferior).

This is what people mean when they say that morality is “objective”: that certain answers are unquestionably right & that people who argue gainst these answers are unquestionably wrong.

In fact, what these 2 words truly mean is what a concept has in relation to reality. “Objectivity,” being based on the root object, means that something has a basis in concrete reality, whereas “subjectivity” focuses on subjects, abstract concepts that exist only in one’s mind. The true dichotomy is not “1 answer is unquestionably right” & “all answers are right,” but the dichotomy ‘tween the concrete world that exists outside human minds & the conceptual world that exists within peoples’ minds.

Now, ¿what is morality? Morality are questions o’ what should be, as opposed to questions o’ what are, which are scientific questions. For instance, the much-misunderstood theory o’ natural selection, in contrast to what creationists think, is not a moral question @ all, but simply an explanation for what is. It is perfectly consistent to believe that it’s objectively true that natural selection determined the proliferation & withering ‘way o’ varying species o’ animals & to also believe that this should not be the case. What is is not the same as what should be.

“Should” is nothing mo’ than a reflection o’ human values. Indeed, without mental consciousness, there exists no “should,” though there does exist what is. Should is merely a reaction that exists in human minds, in abstract–it is purely subjective.

This distinction ‘tween “what is” & “what should be” is important, since it provides a rebuke gainst the trite argument that belief in moral subjectivity is inherently contradictory, since it is an objective statement. The lack o’ existence in any objective (or e’en “unquestionably right,” as I will note later) morality is not itself a moral statement, but a simple statement o’ what is real. (This point has an interesting ethical consequence that does, however, hurt some o’ the arguments that the mo’ vulgar acknowledgers o’ subjective morality, which I will write ’bout later in this post.)

The closest one could come to existing an objective element to morality is merely the question o’ whether what “should be” is physically possible. But that’s a small (& in almost all serious moral controversies irrelevant) limitation. For instance, one could not prove that Hitler or Nazism are objectively wrong in this case, since it’s an unquestionable fact that they existed, & thus are consistent with objective reality.

However, e’en this qualification I would argue gainst, @ least from a theoretical point–particularly since what is practical is ne’er constant, nor entirely known. One could only imagine how stunted the rest o’ science would be if all scientists pooh-poohed the internet ’cause ’twas “wide-eyed fantasies.” We should remember this when considering political developments that are s’posedly “impossible,” too (*cough* direct democracy *cough*)¹.

This qualm e’en goes as far as pure survivability: a common rhetorical point is to argue that following certain goals leads to suicidal outcomes. E’en this assumes that one “should” continue to live, which cannot be proved, either. After all, it is an unquestionable fact that suicide is possible, & thus this is no proof @ all that it is actually impossible to follow this goal, e’en to the grim end. There’s a reason so many people support the moral, “Give me liberty or give me death.” ‘Gain, acknowledging objective reality is not the same as accepting.

Let’s turn ‘way from the critique o’ “subjective” morality, since I’ve already shown with simple English how it is an unquestionable fact, & turn to the mo’ nuanced critique o’ “unquestionably right” morality. The problem here comes not in a statement o’ what unquestionably is, but a question o’ what could be: ¿what does it mean when one says that a certain form o’ morality is “right”?

Turning back to the contrast ‘tween “objective” & “subjective” we see that what is “right” in objective reality, & science, is whether or not something is or isn’t–that’s all. Natural selection is objectively “right” only in that it unquestionably exists, not in that it is “good” or “bad.” So, ¿what is “right” morality? ¿Morality that exists? If that’s the case, then all morality is “right,” since all “exists” by necessity, for we couldn’t e’en talk ’bout it if it didn’t exist. But e’en that’s an irrational simplification, for in objective reality, something doesn’t “exist” if it’s possible to conceptualize, but only if it actually exists in concrete reality. But as mentioned, morality exists purely in human minds. Morality can’t exist in concrete form; that would make no sense. “Should” doesn’t look or smell or feel like anything, unlike, say, the feeling o’ an illness continuing after antibacterial medicine fails to work thanks to bacteria that evolves based on natural selection. Thus, no morality is “right”; by definition, morality is nothing mo’ than people’s imaginations.

So let’s turn back to Godwin’s example, our argumentio ad hiterlim: “Yeah, ¿well if all morality is OK, does that make Hitler OK?” The most intriguing thing to imagine is what would happen if someone say, “Yes,” which actually isn’t that hard to believe with internet trolls nowadays going round calling themselves “neoreactionaries” & supporting “racial realism” (a euphemism–we could say a “politically-correct” 1 if that term didn’t have the double standards that only made it applied to views historically associated with a certain direction–for “racism”). ¿How would they respond? They might just cuss them out, which has no logical content. They might call them racist–sorry, “racial realist”–which only leads to the question o’ whether racism is unquestionably immoral, & the cycle continues.

I also oft hear the absurd question o’ whether different cultures are “equal,” which includes Nazism as the go-to ultimate evil culture as an attempt to prove they aren’t. The problem in this case is the use o’ a math term for a nonmath idea: ¿What would it mean for Nazism to be “equal” to, say, I dunno… feminism? (Obviously feminazism, hur hur hur, ’cause you know how threateningly violent a bunch o’ whiny leftists on the internet are). ¿Equal in what ways? Obviously they can’t be perfectly equal, since the very fact that they have different names makes them, well, different. Furthermo’, I don’t think there’s any 2 moral beliefs that share absolutely nothing with each other. I know, for instance, that there’s a’least something that Hitler believed that was also believed by feminisists, laissez-faire libertarians, communists, Christians, Keynesians, & so on… It’s like saying apples are “equal” to oranges, or in nerdy programming terms, like saying an object o’ 1 class is “equal” to an object o’ a completely different class. Like in programming, in logic this becomes nothing but a mental error.

But before you start ordering that swanky swastika arm badge, let’s get into the delicious problems here.

1st, while the idea that there is no “unquestionably right” morality may no contradict itself, since it’s a statement o’ what is, not what should be, one could argue that this would contradict a corollary that the mo’ vulgar acknowledgers o’ subjective morality oft propound, by mere suggestion rather than authentic logical connection: that one should value all morality equally or that one should not prefer any morality o’er any other. This would be inconsistent, since it is a moral statement o’ what should be.

Thus, I am ready to answer the question truthfully, in a way that is consistent with everything we’ve discussed: ¿Do I find Nazism valuable or as valuable as, say, feminism? I do not.

It’s easy to see that when one considers anything “unquestionably wrong,” they mean simply that it fills them with a feeling o’ revulsion. That’s certainly what I mean when I valuate, say, men’s rights activism, nationalism, laissez-faire, or Garfield: The Search for Pooky.

Quite the opposite o’ the conclusion the average vulgar moral subjectivist holds, it’s necessary for us to fight for our values. For while all morals can exist in our minds concurrently, they cannot all be put into practice in reality @ the same time². It is, in fact, this conflict ‘tween a shared objective reality & separate subjective goals that causes moral controversies in the 1st place; for if we all shared the same moral goals or each had our own separate reality, there’d be no problem @ all–the former would have total cooperation for that 1 set o’ goals & the latter would have just 1 person to decide everything for herself³. Mo’ vital, it’s impossible for e’en individuals to act on all morality @ the same time; so by necessity, one must act on some morality @ every time, e’en if that morality is to simply do nothing.

Thus, it is important that one uses careful discrimination when deciding on what moral goals to act for–as an individual & as a member o’ a community (e’en if that means refusing to cooperate with said community). The difference ‘tween those who are “biased” in favor o’ certain morals & those who aren’t is merely that the former is cognizant ’bout such, & thus mo’ likely to be putting mental effort into ensuring it’s aligned with their goals, & that the latter is delusional (or, mo’ likely, lying to present themselves as better than others).

The last question to look @ is the issue o’ logic in morals. 1 o’ the most important differences ‘tween objective reality & the subjective world o’ human minds is that while the former is chained down by logic, the latter is not⁴. For instance, it’s technically not unquestionably “wrong” to believe that one should be able to eat one’s cake & still have it, that won’t change the objective fact that that’s impossible, & therefore wouldn’t be useful for either individual or collective action. Thus, we could objectively rate morality in terms o’ political or individual usefulness, though, ‘gain, this is much mo’ limited & rarer than the usual extent that morality in which people actually believe resides. Few people honestly argue this case–save the strawman fantasies o’ certain economic pundits. This certainly wouldn’t be useful for arguing gainst, say, redistributing money, legalizing gay marriage, or forcing women to wear hijabs, since all o’ those are logically possible.

A mo’ nuanced issue is the logical consistency o’ the subjective intent ‘hind objective actions, which is logically possible, but usually considered illogical to do by most people. It is from this that “logical fallacies” are made. For instance, when one applies “appeal to tradition,” one is usually able to defend this fallacy by pointing out that someone who supports so-&-so simply ’cause it’s tradition must, to some extent, reject some other tradition. The core o’ this, as well as all other logical fallacies, is a lack o’ logical consistency in the reasoning o’ what one supports–i.e. hypocrisy. But, as everyone knows, hypocrisy is very much possible.

The question is, ¿could we say that hypocrisy is inherently wrong? Certainly we could argue that hypocrisy & lying could benefit one’s own interests, & thus one could very much find it both useful & logically consistent with their own goals.

This leads to the interestingly complex conflict ‘tween individual & social goals, which, in contrast to the average vulgar economist who tries to focus on only either, are both equally important. It is an unquestionable, objective fact that one can’t avoid other people completely, & thus it’d be useless to ignore social goals, which affect every individual, whether they like it or not. But we must also acknowledge that society is not 1 mind, but the complex outcome o’ billions o’ people competing & cooperating–the former for contradictory goals & the latter for shared goals. I want to emphasize the latter, since it’s a rather common argument that goals are simply “individualist”; but it is a fact o’ reality that almost every goal o’ every individual is shared with a’least 1 other individual & that most goals are served in cooperation with others. On the other hand, it’s also simplistic to assume that people cannot both compete & cooperate with the same people on different goals or that we can neatly divide people totally into simple “classes”–though it’s definitely necessary to do so when talking ’bout specific goals. It’s logical to divide people into white & black when talking ’bout racism (in voting, in economics, in the media, & such); but one shouldn’t get the silly idea that a rich black person will support the same economics as a poor black person. Politicians, ‘course, will be well aware o’ this complexity o’ juggling issues ‘mong various people & the need to trade what goals to support & what goals then must be sacrificed & how these decisions will affect how people o’ varying political power will affect the chances o’ their winning election.

It’s equally simplistic to ignore the importance o’ social classes & “only look @ individuals as individuals” as it is to define each individual by just 1 classes. The obvious truth is that all individuals have a # o’ classes that they share with other people.

This is the important point to make o’ the relation o’ moral goals to the people who carry them out: the web o’ cooperation & competition ‘tween different people is convoluted as hell. E’en relations as simple as spouses involves a mix o’ cooperation & competition: cooperation in paying the rent for the same house & competition in fighting o’er purchases o’er goods that serve different interests⁵.

“All right, you’ve sperged on quite ‘nough, Prof. Mezun; but you’re scaring the other park attendees & you’ve been hogging that public bench for 2 weeks, so could you please come with us.”

¡Hands off me, fascists! ¡You’ll ne’er destroy my Fornits!

---

Footnotes:

1 Coincidentally, I think the proliferation o’ the internet ‘mong the mass public would provide a solution to some o’ the mo’-common qualms on the practicality o’ direct democracy.

2 The same applies to economics & the subjectivity o’ economic value. But then, economics is @ its core a question o’ morality, &, due to its focus on objective, concrete reality & people’s every action being tied to that objective reality, is truly just ‘nother name for “politics” in general. We must remember that a “country” o’er which political laws are enforced is nothing mo’ that a plot o’ property s’posedly jointly owned by its populace (if democratic, which is ne’er perfectly fulfilled).

3 This is why I consider Ayn Rand’s mo’ open-ended definition o’ political morality as being anything one “objectively” (there’s the misuse o’ that word ‘gain) should or should not do, regardless o’ how it affects anyone else (including, in an example she herself gives somewhere in Atlas Shrugged that I don’t want to search for, a Robinson Crusoe isolated man). It’s ironic that a socialist should have to lecture a so-called supporter o’ “individualism” (much less a long-dead 1) that it is no one but that individual’s business what he does if it doesn’t affect anyone else; but then this isn’t too surprising coming from a woman who unironically called her li’l cult group “the collective.”

4 This fact has radical implications on the depiction o’ objective reality in subjective form–also known as art. Thus surrealism was born.

5 Here’s where we include some tacky stand-up joke ’bout some fat, ugly husband wanting to spend $100 found on the street on golf clubs & the shrill wife wanting to buy shoes or some shut, ’cause nothing’s better comedy than cliches. Ugh. As you can see, such trite jokes are not useful to my particular moral goals o’ actual intellectual nourishment.

Also, I just realized I spelled their name wrong before. I think I mistook them for that 1-hobo show Kapitalism 101.

Anyway, they wrote an article that is essentially a superior version o’ my admittedly lame 1 (last year’s was much mo’ clever; probably ’cause I wasn’t up past midnight feverishly trying to coble it into some coherency). ¿Why didn’t I think to look @ what Thomas “This Ain’t Yogurt” Friedman said (“Duh, I don’t know anything ’bout anything, but my gut tells me it’s some vague abstract feeling o’ homelessness”)? I highly recommend you read it all.

But the best is the coup de grâce:

If this were Japan, we’d be seeing Democrat Party leaders committing seppuku, or cutting off their little fingers or — supposing them not to be gangsters — ritually and tearfully bowing to the people they betrayed. This being America, and these being Democrats, they are feverishly deploying the Blame Cannons at racist and sexist #BernieBros, Johnson, Stein, and the dogs who wouldn’t eat the dog food. These assclowns will only leave office if they’re whipped out with scorpions. So get to it, Sanders supporters. This is your time.

Damn, that’s some righteous anger. This’ll make me forgive the fact that you guys had on that clown, Phillip Pilkington–or as he’s called when he’s with his D&D buddies @ “Lord Keynes”‘s basement, “The Illusionist.”

I was going to continue writing ’bout liberal tears o’er Hairpiece’s victory–god, I still refuse to believe that wasn’t a psychedelic hallucination last night–but lost interest after I literally had to restart my computer ’cause Daily Kos’s website is such utter fucking sluggish trash. Seriously, ¿you truly hope to be for the working class when someone with a Core i5 with 4GB RAM can’t fucking handle your websites? ¿With what kind o’ scripting sludge & multimedia muck did your pretentious clown o’ a web designer clog your website?

(God damn it, now Naked Kapitalism is doing it. I love these dumbass fucking websites that continue to load shit with their god awful scripts e’en after I explicitly click the X that tells them to shut the fuck up & stop loading shit.)

But, anyway, ‘stead I somehow ran into this hilarious article:

In victory for Big Envelope, feds will mail Social Security statements

I love how laissy libs have so li’l self-awareness in their tiny bubble that they think terms like “Big Envelope” sound scary or important @ all.

O, no, now the vile feds are “wasting” 72 million a year on a convenience that, he himself seems to claim, benefits 73% o’ Americans. If this idiot actually knew anything ’bout economics, & didn’t have as his only reference a website that doesn’t e’en work, he’d know that 72 million a year is birdseed considering what the federal government spends yearly &–which is, itself, not that much, compared to most o’ the world.

But then, “Big Envelope” is much easier–ironically ’cause it’s not big @ all–to complain ’bout, ‘specially when one has no true problems in one’s life &, ‘stead, wastes time whining ’bout the most frivolous trifles rather than actual real-world tragedies.

But, O yeah, pretend like you’re truly sticking it to the man, rich guy who does nothing but whine.

Wow. After last year’s amazing failure, I was expecting to write an article making fun o’ Republicans this time, since it’d be a cold day in hell before a living cartoon hairpiece beat a real politician. Clearly I underestimated the Democratic Party’s superpowers @ losing.

& don’t blame me, whiny moderate liberals, ’cause this bitter anarchist nihilist pretentious shitbag did vote & did vote Democrat. ’Specially when you fuckers fucked me out o’ drinking up the delicious tears o’ far-right crazies on Reddit. Now I have to endure their hideous fucking frog face everywhere—seriously, fuck that fucking face, it’s gross. It’s literally the whole reason I voted gainst Hairpiece. & you know that fuckwit Lord Keynes is going to be dancing—well, a’least you finally had to acknowledge that your Post-Keynesian bum-buddy ol’ Steve Keen fucking thinks your stupid immigration beliefs are racist. ¡Ha, ha!

As can be imagined, there’s a lot o’ bemoaning gainst 3rd parties like Jill Stein for their treasonous act o’ running in what’s s’posed to be an open & fair election for being mo’ liked than the people leftists were “s’posed” to vote for, rather than bemoaning an election system that stupidly forced voters to play these cynical strategic games ’stead o’ implementing better election systems.¹ ¿E’er hear Clinton or Obama or any Democratic legislator putting effort into putting that into effect? ¿What ’bout the National Popular Vote act?² If @ all, probably not much. Not much time to fit such silliness in when we have to talk ’bout dire issues voters care so much ’bout, like President Hairpiece’s taxes or 1 o’ the million “scandals” Clinton was s’posedly involved in (¿Why has she not yet admitted to killing Vince Foster?).

Anyway, that’s not what you came here for. ¡You came for the crying! Moderate liberal tears aren’t as tasty as far-right’s, but it’ll do.

Drunken Kos puked out some mindless militaristic drivel that I’ve heard a million times—’cause that’s how oft Democrats fucking fail, that’s why. Look, I’ll lick my wounds (don’t judge me for my fetishes) & I’ll cry in a corner… O wait, that wasn’t in the headline.

Well, I’m not checking anymo’, ’cause Daily Kos like a billion other shitty websites has talking ads trying to sell me skin cream, & it’s interrupting the soothing sorror o’ Alice in Chains.

Meanwhile, The Nation’s is like someone waking up with a hango’er, painfully sober.

538… Hold on. ¿Can we see the the forecast you’ve had up to 12 AM, as I’m writing this?

¿Weren’t you the same people who predicted Obama’s victory in 2012 almost perfectly?

Hell, everyone’s crying so much that e’en the stock market’s moaning. What a bunch o’ commies.

Speaking o’ commie sore losers, look @ this Canadian immigration website closing down. A couple million Americans want to bunk with you for a few years while the disaster’s cleaned up, ¿& you can’t e’en help a homey out, Canada? Such bad neighbors.

Counterpunch probably won’t write anything, since they’re too cool, but I did see some ol’ fuck whine to the US ’bout how he’s staying in Iceland ’cause he doesn’t know anything ’bout these Lady Gaga’s & Kardashians & Super Bowls. I’m not sure why anything thinks anyone cares. I mean, I’m sure some right-wing nuts will froth, but they live for getting their cholesterol high, so that’ll happen either way. ¿Do you truly need a reason to stay in Iceland o’er the US? ¿Have you seen the landscapes they have? Man, fuck Canada & their dumbass mounty hats: Iceland’s where it’s @.

Update:

Ne’ermind, they did, & they said a lot o’ the same things I said ’bout scapegoating… for the 1st paragraph. Then the article veers off into some incoherent bullshit ’bout the Roman Empire & Catholicism. Clearly this is proof that we need a new Lenin–presumably ’cause he rivals Hairpiece in potential for causing political disaster. Ha, ha: keep being irrelevant, guys.

Newsweek’s talking ’bout the most inane shit:

• What’s important to put in your concession speech. You know, in case you happen to become 1 out o’ the 2 people in the world who become finalists in America’s Top Politician.



• You shouldn’t stay up watching election coverage; it may be bad for your health. (Clinton fans don’t need to worry ’bout that; most o’ them’ll probably put a gun in their mouths, anyway, if it’s not done by 1 o’ Hairpiece’s o’erzealous supporters).



• What’s on Clinton’s playlist.



• Some shit ’bout mental heal—god damn, it Newsweek, you’re with Smashing Magazine. ¡If you don’t concede your conspiracy in Spiltscrabblepiecesgate, I’ll lock you up!

What I love most ’bout Newsweek is that they have the balls to ask me for money for a subscription to their shit—¡’cause just look @ this quality content!—while filling their site with ads, embedded videos that automatically play. (¿Remember when ’twas considered a web design truism that sound should ne’er start playing on a website without the user’s explicit authorization? ¿You think I want people round me hearing Hairpiece groan ’bout how Clinton better concede or else coming out o’ my headphones?) Think ’gain, Newsweek.

The New York Times… Hmm… Seems to be complaining ’bout how Hairpiece’s victory will make the US’s foreign policy less crazy. Nothing’s worse than making other countries pay for their own military that they will likely not use.

I did like the question some Indian news executive asked: “If you can’t respect a president, does it also stop the world respecting the American people for voting for a man like this?” If he had to ask that, he clearly hasn’t known the American people much.

But apparently the American ambassador to Germany is e’en mo’ ignorant o’ the American people:

He suggested that Mr. Trump could begin pulling together a “polarized country” with his acceptance speech.

Yeah, I can totally imagine left-leaning—or e’en just centrist—Americans embracing a politician e’en many Republicans despised. No, ’twas his polarization that made him so popular ’mong his target demographic. Democrats might want to remember that if they e’er want to wake the average young person to actually bother to come in to vote.

The New York Times also nicely took the time to publicly shame specifically-named people for not voting, essentially accusing them o’ laziness, e’en though some o’ them mentioned being unable to, ’cause they had to actually work, something New York Times writers have ne’er heard o’. E’en mo’ hilarious, most o’ these people interviewed said they preferred Hairpiece, making it meaningless, anyway. Great journaling, New York Times.

I’m feel a surprising fellowship with Paul Babysitter’s-Club-&-Hotdog-Factories Krugman, who’s gone pure emo:

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Now he knows how I feel every day, no matter who’s in power.

Then ’gain, considering what a rich bastard he is, I can’t be too surprised that he doesn’t care.

Douthat isn’t liberal, but he’s whining ’bout Hairpiece’s victory, too. He can also go fuck himself, ’cause he made some hokey comparison ’tween Hairpiece & Napoleon, ’cause when you have nothing substantial to say, hokey metaphors are the goto.

The Daily Beast has an article so smug, it almost makes me mo’ embarassed to be associated with them than if I were associated with someone dumb ‘nough to respond to an election win o’ an oppositional politician with the baby whine, “I hope he fails.” Liberals, this is why you ne’er win elections: nobody likes you smug fuckers.

& Stephen Colbert responding with unfunny jokes. O, wait, he always makes those.

¿So what can we learn from this li’l failure Democrats? Pick candidates leftists actually like. That’s how Obama won when he did. Maybe when you remember that you’ll actually win something for once.

Not to be 1 o’ those obnoxious optimists, like Kos, but there is a bright side to this: one could argue that Democrats’ presidency wins numbed self-critical analysis, e’en in the face o’ Republican victories in the legislature. Indeed, the latter might’ve e’en made them mo’ fearful o’ being too audacious—a self-defeating scheme, it turns out. Now they have no ’scuse: they played the most straight, “solid” candidate gainst a complete wacko & lost all branches. E’en their thick heads can’t miss the message: go extreme, or don’t bother going @ all.

O, ¿who am I kidding? Most Americans are probably just going to care mo’ ’bout which Saturday Night Live cast member will parody Hairpiece than what the actual outcome will be.

Man, fuck this noise. I’m going back to nostalgic video games & pretty trees.

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Despite the “Sim” name, this wasn’t created by Maxis, but by Yoot Saito, a game developer also responsible for Seaman & Ōdama. & Maxis just bought to rights to publish it. Yoot later released an obscure sequel called Yoot Tower, & much later a Game Boy Advance remake simply called The Tower SP, published by none other than Sega, & a DS remake called The Tower DS, published some nobodies named DigiToys. Judging by the lack o’ a page for the DS remake on Wikipedia or GameFAQs, it seems nobody gives a shit ’bout it–I ne’er heard o’ it till just recently. But I did play the GBA remake a li’l, & a’least took a longer look @ Yoot Tower, which is much mo’ well-known–though not as much as Sim Tower.

Anyway, this is “a nostalgic look,” not “a historical look,” so I will continue to call it “Sim Tower,” since that was the form I played when I was young.

Sim Tower is mixed quality: while it has these pieces that fill me with immense nostalgic warmth, that’s usually mixed in with a lot o’ repetitive plopping down o’ rows o’ offices & apartments, or, god help me, having to manually adjust the rent o’ each place ’cause the tenants left in droves o’er high prices & have left me in the red.

The game starts mediocre & gradually gives you middlingly interesting toys with which to work, but this part has such easy goals & goes by quickly ‘nough that it doesn’t take long to get to 3 stars, where the game gives you all the cool shit, including the movie theater, the dance hall, the garbage disposal, & the parking lot. I don’t know why, but I just always found this stuff cool as a kid, e’en though from the player’s point o’ view, they might as well just be extra pictures to add to the mass o’ gray office spaces & peach apartment rooms. ¿Did choosing ‘tween classic & modern movies in the cinema e’er matter? ¿Who cares? ‘Twas fun to do it, anyway.

Then came 4 stars, & all you got was some lame metro station till you reached a much higher population than demanded before. Best o’ all, due to how the metro stations & security rooms were programmed, you could completely fuck yourself if you built a security station too low, since you couldn’t bulldoze a security station & couldn’t build a metro station ‘bove any other structure, & need to build a metro station to pass 4 stars. This actually happened to me once when I was young, & boy was it a delight.

I actually ne’er reached 5 stars nor the 100th floor, & I’ll ne’er try, ’cause adults don’t have that time anymo’. I did once reach up to 80 floors, though. Don’t remember whether that save ended ’cause I fucked something up with no way to fix it or if I just lost that save somehow. I certainly don’t have it anymo’.

Honestly, Sim Tower‘s true value to me is simply its aesthetics. I don’t know why, but there’s something endearing ’bout the pseudorealistic—& yet quite flat & abstract—graphics o’ all those offices & apartments & those lobbies with the tiny sofas full o’ tiny abstract people. & then you’d get to see the dance hall light up or see all the different designs for the fast food restaurants or all the li’l movies that play on the tiny cinema or the garbage place fill up with garbage. It reminds me o’ some toy I had a lot o’ fondness for as a kid, which looked like a pseudorealistic fast food restaurant. I wrote a poem ’bout that toy mo’ than a year ago & just realized that I ne’er bothered to post it.

Picture taken o’ a tower save from David Wolever, since fuck if I have the time to build a tower worth screencapping.

¡& then there’s the sounds! I say “sounds,” ’cause the game didn’t have what most would call music, but had a collection o’ ambient sounds that were as pleasing to hear as music, & much mo’ fitting for this game. Listening to this is like an injection o’ unfiltered nostalgia for me.

Also, Santa would fly by on the last day o’ the last quarter with a jingling sled & some terrorist would threaten to blow up parts o’ your tower if you didn’t pay him. It’s cool details like these that made this game memorable, e’en if it didn’t have the most entertaining gameplay.

If one acknowledges the existence o’ imbalanced government intervention o’ the past, then one has no logical reason to demand a lack o’ government intervention in the present.

The key question: ¿Does the market by itself adjust income distribution gainst government meddling? If yes, then government meddling should be no problem, since the market will just readjust as if it ne’er existed. If no, then the existence o’ government intervention can’t be ignored–including that which existed in the past.

But, ‘course, we all know that government meddling has existed in the past–laissy libs bitch ’bout it all the time. & yet, if that’s true, then its effects must still be present, since the market doesn’t right itself gainst government meddling; & therefore, settling for a “pure” market that only allows government to maintain current property powers will maintain the distribution o’ property powers skewed by past government intervention.

In short: Laissez-faire in the present maintains the government intervention o’ the past.

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Let’s anticipate a few attacks gainst this point: that it focuses on income distribution.

Laissez-faire fans, both fundamentalist & moderate, oft o’erlook the importance o’ income distribution, largely based on frivolous reasons: usually either their assumption that it isn’t important or their view that it can’t be scientifically qualified. People who hold either (or both) views, prefer to focus on “efficiency.”

1st, I should point out that my main focus is not on trying to keep my examinations as “pure” as possible, or anything, but simply how it affects people & their abilities or lack o’ abilities to fulfill their goals. Unlike, say, Paul Samuelson, I don’t care ’bout economics as some sociopathic “puzzle” wherein people are mere abstract pieces to be manipulated, but as a mere tool to serve people, however it may do so. Thus, I find the argument that we can ignore any economic issue simply ’cause there’s no way to analyze it in a purely positivist way faulty: whether or not we can doesn’t change whether or not it’s important.

& part o’ this is the fact that income distribution is the core goal o’ society, not efficiency. Individuals care not ’bout how much value is created within society as a whole,–& indeed, ironically thanks to subjective value, that shouldn’t e’en make any sense, since there exists no value outside o’ individual conscience–but how much value they get. Efficiency is useless if all o’ its value goes to someone else; meanwhile, e’en if a society creates nothing new, the distribution o’ that which is still remaining is still o’ importance.

Mo’ importantly, as stated in ‘nother article, efficiency relies on income distribution, which means that e’en if a lack o’ government intervention made the economy mo’ “efficient” e’en after government intervention in the past, this would still be offset by the faults in the income distribution caused by that past government intervention. Thus, the point still stands, e’en in regards to “efficiency.”

Accompanying music

Only in the night do I feel full,

where the darkness cuts the light stark clear.

Sparked awake by th’sugar treats:

jangling, cooing, thumping melodies.

* * *

Accompanying music

But then the moon must always fall,

revealing all the messiness.

Warped from the ghost with th’world on strings

to choke on millions of inhuman human abstract things.

Falling wind…
weak leaves shake on ends
bright & dim.