Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I have been. Bizarrely, during a routine examination, they found something inside my head that's incredibly rare. I just went thru a second screening a couple months back to make sure it isn't growing. It's the kind of thing that, if it were bad, or if it goes bad, I have a serious problem.

Those tests are fucking scary. But I've eaten a lot of psychedelics, which I think confers a circumspect view on mortality. And like I said, I don't desire or plan to leave anytime soon, but I've been pretty lucky (we all have if one considers our odds of being in such nice lives vs the other billions of people on the planet), so I think it'd be extremely poor taste to complain.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't complain. But it'd be bad form.

Very sorry to hear that. Hang in there.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Very sorry to hear that. Hang in there.

Thank you. I think I’ll be fine and just have to bite my nails now and again. As I noted, nothing malignant appears on both sides, even if slightly larger on one and not on other.

But being scared is a gift. And while I might sound like a silly hippie, if you’ve the ability, and it is increasing in popularity, eat the psychedelics. Even if an atheist to his/her core, one can’t help but be reminded of our individual insignificance, and this feeling you’re pulled along in something way bigger than you and definitely beyond your control.

I’m hoping the post-Covid changes in our values as societies are as sticky as they seem. If we blow this crisis as an opportunity to change, we’re really terminal.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Thank you. I think I’ll be fine and just have to bite my nails now and again. As I noted, nothing malignant appears on both sides, even if slightly larger on one and not on other.

But being scared is a gift. And while I might sound like a silly hippie, if you’ve the ability, and it is increasing in popularity, eat the psychedelics. Even if an atheist to his/her core, one can’t help but be reminded of our individual insignificance, and this feeling you’re pulled along in something way bigger than you and definitely beyond your control.

I’m hoping the post-Covid changes in our values as societies are as sticky as they seem. If we blow this crisis as an opportunity to change, we’re really terminal.

Damn. I hope it remains as it is. Scary shit. I'm still breastfeeding, so I'll have to observe from the sidelines. I'm glad you have a good outlet.

I'm also hoping this new status quo sticks around for awhile.

I find it amusing in a fuck-you-assholes-for-being-such-assholes sort of way that the same people who are bitching about people "not wanting to work" are also pissed at people coming across the border who probably would be more than happy to take any job that was offered.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Damn. I hope it remains as it is. Scary shit. I'm still breastfeeding, so I'll have to observe from the sidelines. I'm glad you have a good outlet.

I'm also hoping this new status quo sticks around for awhile.

I find it amusing in a fuck-you-assholes-for-being-such-assholes sort of way that the same people who are bitching about people "not wanting to work" are also pissed at people coming across the border who probably would be more than happy to take any job that was offered.

I don't see this new status quo abating. Pre-Covid, we believed that things could not significantly change. This always seemed, to the astute among us, a largely untrue but nevertheless deeply internalized narrative. Things couldn't change radically. We would not shift from capitalism to collectivism overnight. But to a significant extent beyond just the margins, things could be modified. Things like hustle culture, consumerism, and keeping up with the Joneses could be jettisoned. They could be shown to be counterproductive, inefficient, and significant sources of unhappiness and lack of meaning in people's lives.

We could become reacquainted with the notion that time is the most important resource.

Consider commuting by run of the mill office workers. They drive or train into a city, unhappily, burning fossil fuels, where they then occupy cubicles next to each other in open space offices, doing that which they could do from anywhere. The whole time, their empty homes are consuming energy to heat and cool, and the building they are in is doing the same, needlessly doubling a fossil footprint. Their productivity is sapped by the commute, which adds an hour or more to the day, and the exercise of getting dressed in a silly corporate casual uniform. Their wages are eaten into with the cost of parking and/or transportation.

This exercise benefits no one. And yet it persisted because, well, real estate departments in companies had always carried commercial office space, and so assumed they always would. And people had been coming to big buildings in cities for decades, and so it was assumed that would always continue because people just do what's been done before and, despite many industries allowing WFH (insurers have long done it), most just did what came before and didn't think about it.

Don't rock the boat, just go through the motions. File in with the herd and assume, assume, assume, this is Just How Things Are Always Done.

This buildup of stagnant behaviors is tolerable because no one can imagine a situation in which things are different. We get caught in systems that seem so ingrained, so essential, and so complex, that modifying them in any significant regard is an impossible task.

It is. Unless you're a pandemic. If you're a pandemic, it's very easy to shine a light on every inefficiency and counterproductive element of a society, culture, and the economic system underpinning them. Covid was a klieg light. In an instant, all that was superfluous and wasteful was segregated from all that wasn't.

Once priorities have been reshuffled so radically, I don't see any way of returning to 2019. Hence the desperation in the voices of those who insist on resuming what came before exactly how it was before.

The reality is, things were broken, very badly, before. And we all knew it, but the task of sabotaging the systems that rendered most of society unhappy seemed impossible. They were too strong.

But not too strong for a pandemic.

Where does it go from here? Beyond my pay grade. Best guess would be we see a hybrid future, where some of the elements of the world pre-2020 mix with some of the elements of the post-Covid world, which is still not fully formed.

ETA: But what's most important, what I think is the biggest mind-altering aspect of Covid, is the recognition that the Protestant Work Ethic is a scam. It's a lie. And it's always been a lie. A lie as pernicious as the Catholic Church's lie that by staying poor but giving them money and dutifully pumping out huge families of poor Catholics who'll do the same, one gets into Heaven. Life is not to work. The hardest hustler is not worth of some special respect. Success isn't sacrificing more hours than anyone else to get $$$$$ but finding the balance at which you sacrifice just enough hours to retain a life while acquiring $, $$, $$$, or $$$$ you need to live in a manner you deem comfortable. It's agreeing to come in where you want to come in across the finish line of the rat race. In this regard, the Millennials are wiser than us. Maybe that's why Boomers hate them so much.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Life is not to work. The hardest hustler is not worth of some special respect. Success isn't sacrificing more hours than anyone else to get $$$$$ but finding the balance at which you sacrifice just enough hours to retain a life while acquiring $, $$, $$$, or $$$$ you need to live in a manner you deem comfortable. It's agreeing to come in where you want to come in across the finish line of the rat race. In this regard, the Millennials are wiser than us. Maybe that's why Boomers hate them so much.

Dissent.

When I had my first bout with cancer, I was treated with a drug cocktail that included two drugs a client and close friend had been involved in developing, one of which I'd helped him with. His work helped save my life. It gave me new perspective on the good I could do even as a lawyer.

On the second bout, one of my side effects (mouth and throat sores - a colleague with similar problems recently died of them, literally chocked to death when their throat closed) was greatly helped by a product developed by another friend, who we've since helped connect with a contingent fee lawyer for help with a very unexciting but important collection matter (their distributor screwed them - it threatened their ability to continue). I realized my health depended in part on the quality of work of an otherwise lowly collections litigator.

Work can be a very fulfilling part of life if we let it, and keep the money issues from getting in the way.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Dissent.

When I had my first bout with cancer, I was treated with a drug cocktail that included two drugs a client and close friend had been involved in developing, one of which I'd helped him with. His work helped save my life. It gave me new perspective on the good I could do even as a lawyer.

On the second bout, one of my side effects (mouth and throat sores - a colleague with similar problems recently died of them, literally chocked to death when their throat closed) was greatly helped by a product developed by another friend, who we've since helped connect with a contingent fee lawyer for help with a very unexciting but important collection matter (their distributor screwed them - it threatened their ability to continue). I realized my health depended in part on the quality of work of an otherwise lowly collections litigator.

Work can be a very fulfilling part of life if we let it, and keep the money issues from getting in the way.

I agree. Work can be fulfilling.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

I agree. Work can be fulfilling.

In my entire career the clients who should have won mostly don’t and the ones who maybe shouldn’t mostly do. But yes the $$$$$!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Dissent.

When I had my first bout with cancer, I was treated with a drug cocktail that included two drugs a client and close friend had been involved in developing, one of which I'd helped him with. His work helped save my life. It gave me new perspective on the good I could do even as a lawyer.

On the second bout, one of my side effects (mouth and throat sores - a colleague with similar problems recently died of them, literally chocked to death when their throat closed) was greatly helped by a product developed by another friend, who we've since helped connect with a contingent fee lawyer for help with a very unexciting but important collection matter (their distributor screwed them - it threatened their ability to continue). I realized my health depended in part on the quality of work of an otherwise lowly collections litigator.

Work can be a very fulfilling part of life if we let it, and keep the money issues from getting in the way.

I agree with this. One can definitely find fulfillment in any profession.

But most people don't, or don't always, so they have to find balance. This makes more sense, IMO, than believing the Protestant Work Ethic (that life is just to toil and through that one will build character, and character is reward enough regardless of whether one makes money) or the Greed Is Good mantra (work sucks, so just crush it as much as you can and try to amass the greatest wealth and prestige... and then retire and become obsessed with golf and talk about it incessantly).

The kids these days seem to grasp that The Ride is the reward. It's all you get, so if you're sacrificing everything to toil which is not fulfilling and not enjoying yourself along the way, you're doing it wrong, and quite illogically.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The kids these days seem to grasp that The Ride is the reward. It's all you get, so if you're sacrificing everything to toil which is not fulfilling and not enjoying yourself along the way, you're doing it wrong, and quite illogically.

I have always been a role model.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The kids these days seem to grasp that The Ride is the reward. It's all you get, so if you're sacrificing everything to toil which is not fulfilling and not enjoying yourself along the way, you're doing it wrong, and quite illogically.

Yep. They get it.

In theory, with automation (and not having trillions of $$ in a few hands), we should all be living the lives of the passengers on the Wall-E ship.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Thank you. I think I’ll be fine and just have to bite my nails now and again. As I noted, nothing malignant appears on both sides, even if slightly larger on one and not on other.

But being scared is a gift. And while I might sound like a silly hippie, if you’ve the ability, and it is increasing in popularity, eat the psychedelics. Even if an atheist to his/her core, one can’t help but be reminded of our individual insignificance, and this feeling you’re pulled along in something way bigger than you and definitely beyond your control.

I’m hoping the post-Covid changes in our values as societies are as sticky as they seem. If we blow this crisis as an opportunity to change, we’re really terminal.

Hope everything is okay man.