The Refuge of the Toads

[Billie from Ockham]

The AAUP censured Missouri for firing her outside of process.

Yes, if the AAUP had it's way, even firing someone who had been convicted of murder would require a faculty committee. So mere assault on a student should probably be met with a raise.

[jimmyfromchicago]

Thanks. Then Southern was within her rights according to US/Canadian laws. It remains to be seen if German laws are really different.

In general, I'd say that she is very good about doing her homework. I'd be surprised by and interested in an example of her screwing up. With that said, I'm pretty sure than the general US, UK, and Canadian "rule" of being able to film anything that you can see from public (for non-commercial purposes) does not hold in Germany. But I don't know for sure.

The incident we are discussing happened in the UK, as you can tell by the cops' Sillitoe tartan headbands, so I'm still not entirely sure why we're discussing German law...

[jet_lagg]

Emma "Mattress Girl" Sulkowicz wins the "Woman of Courage" award and argues that people who ask her if she's "healed" or tell her to "move on" are violent and racist:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl5GAtGWkAERcPy.jpg

She ended up making porn right? Asking for a friend

Regarding the Lauren Southern (but also the older Mizzou) thing:

I am also German, and I can't quite get the completely cuntish behavior of the "reporters" in question. As well as the reactions here on the pit, which are quite outlandish from a German perspective. So I need some clarification.

I've been involved in organizing very small up to somewhat large events in public space. They weren't political demonstrations/protests. They were (unpolitical) sporting events, ranging from a single game in a small regional league up to a summer tournament over 2 days (4 days with on-site preparation before and cleaning up afterwards) on 7 game fields simultaneously and 300+ attendees. This took place on a large field of grass, which is generally open to the public and owned by the city. The large tournaments were of course in collaboration with the responsible city representatives, the single one-off games just were done whenever, as a lot of small stuff was just done by all kinds of people. The field is quite large and usually people successfully cooperate as well as they can to not get into each other's way.

So the following is hypothetical.
Enter: the CUNT

What do you UK/US people say to some reporter (+video, audio crew), who runs onto the playing field in the middle of the game, trying to interview a player while in the process of playing?
The referee stops the game and tells the reporter to get the fuck off the marked playing field. Most normal people would comply. Not this reporter though. His answer: "This is a public place and I have the same right to be here as you!"
In Germany this is only technically true: I'd call the police. And the police would remove the reporter from the field. And any judge, who'd were to be called to judge the lawfulness of the police's actions would agree: The reporter infringed on our right to hold our organized sporting event as we see fit; and while the police removing the reporter outside of our marked playing field also infringes on the reporter's rights, it's the lesser infringement and therefor justifiable.

Are organized (sporting) events in public space impossible in UK/US, because of the cunt's unassailable rights?

I'm not aware of a reporter who tried to interview an athlete during a game and---since your example is hypothetical---it sounds like you haven't either. To me it seems quite different from a reporter at a political rally---the protestors aren't in the middle of doing anything, they're typically just milling about. A field of play that was reserved is not the same as a public park intended to be used by different groups of people. The reporter in your hypothetical is interfering with play, whereas a reporter interviewing people at a protest who are not otherwise occupied is interfering with what precisely?

The oddest thing about these rallies---especially the one at Mizzou---is that the protestors seem not to want reporters there. Back in my protesting days, we actually wanted the press to cover us. The whole point was to get the message out. I guess I can understand the opposition to Lauren Southern---she was an "opinion journalist, with an opinion contrary to theirs, and probably a bit of a provocateur. I don't get the opposition to the reporter at Mizzou, an ESPN stringer, covering the story because the Mizzou American football team was threatening to go on strike.

Is it really too far fetched to compare the space claimed by the little tent city at Mizzou with the space claimed by reason rally's stage?

Not far-fetched at all. Just show us the permit that the Mizzou kids applied for and the comparison can be made.

Wait. You're saying that the kids at Mizzou didn't do anything before attempting to temporarily deprive the general public of some of their space? Oh, dear. That does make the two situations completely different. Drat.

Exactly this.

You're out of your element, Guest_cc995678.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[Guest_f5123c53]

Like I said before. Here in the UK (or England and Wales at least, it may be different in Scotland and Northern Ireland) , the advance notice requirement only comes into play if you plan to march, it does not apply to a static demonstration or rally. If you all just show up somewhere with your banners at an agreed time you do not have to inform the authorities at all. The government here is planning to bring in more restrictions in the future. It's moot anyway. People organise these things on that well known secret communications system owned by Mark Zuckerberg, which we all know is absolutely private and not in any way monitored by the police/security services.

I did try to post a link to the government website confirming this but had guesty linky issues. The page at gov dot you kay is titled "Protests and marches: letting the police know"

CaughtUpLockedOut

[Billie from Ockham]

The incident we are discussing happened in the UK, as you can tell by the cops' Sillitoe tartan headbands, so I'm still not entirely sure why we're discussing German law...

Because someone else brought it up, Damion. :)

[jimmyfromchicago]

Forgot the link:

[youtube]2GsrqLt48og[/youtube]

I've seen evangelical preachers shout the usual fundie babble about hellfire and damnation at the Slutwalk and not be touched by the cops. Yet a couple people show up with the attitude of "Slutwalk...hiLARious," and they're booted. I'm not sure the police would be found to have acted correctly if their actions were challenged in court.

[jimmyfromchicago]

The incident we are discussing happened in the UK, as you can tell by the cops' Sillitoe tartan headbands, so I'm still not entirely sure why we're discussing German law...

Because someone else brought it up, Damion. :)

Well, I wasn't really complaining. It's just you normally see Americans who think that their (our) First Amendment has universal applicability, so it was funny to see the same thing coming from the Germans.

[Billie from Ockham]

Well, I wasn't really complaining. It's just you normally see Americans who think that their (our) First Amendment has universal applicability, so it was funny to see the same thing coming from the Germans.

And that led you to make a snide comment to me? I'm starting to think that my "Damion" wasn't so far off.

[EyeNoU]

(as a Mets fan, it hurt me to type that)

I have a photo of me, my brother, my father, Gil Hodges, and Tom Seaver.

Yeah, I'm old.

Lived on Long Island in 1969. Remember that season?

[Billie from Ockham]

(as a Mets fan, it hurt me to type that)

I have a photo of me, my brother, my father, Gil Hodges, and Tom Seaver.

Yeah, I'm old.

Lived on Long Island in 1969. Remember that season?

Nope. And I'm not even sure if the photo was taken in 69 or 70. You see, between then and now were the 1970s, when a lot of dope was smoked.

[AndrewV69]

Players don't get a free pass for assaulting fans. Eric Cantona was prosecuted for kicking a fan.

Same goes for performers ejecting people from the stage: eg Afroman.

You don't get to assault people for trespassing on your own property, so why anyone thinks assaulting them for 'trespassing' on public property is beyond me.

In my culture, you do. You get to do all kinds of thing to people who trespass on your property. Including summary execution.

Respect ma culture ya racist shitlords.



(Want to bet I am joking? I am not actually)

[AndrewV69]

Emma "Mattress Girl" Sulkowicz wins the "Woman of Courage" award and argues that people who ask her if she's "healed" or tell her to "move on" are violent and racist:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl5GAtGWkAERcPy.jpg

She ended up making porn right? Asking for a friend

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Yes she did Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This Is Not a Rape") or you can watch it on PornHub DUMB BLUE-HAIRED ASIAN COLLEGE SLUT GETS FUCKED HARD ON MATTRESS

According to Art News

We were alerted to the project, which is titled Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This Is Not a Rape")—a reference to Magritte's The Treachery of Images—from a post on Facebook by the video's director Ted Lawson. The video is presented on the website cecinestpasunviol.com along with several hundred words of prefatory text, which warn the visitor: "The following text contains allusions to rape. Everything that takes place in the following video is consensual but may resemble rape." (See Columbia Student's Striking Mattress Performance.)

Follow the link to get the links I underlined. I could not be arsed to do more than that. Ran out of spoons.

[Guestus Aurelius]

It's actually worse, as she was a state employee on state property. This is why the ACLU's censure of Mizzou for firing her ass is completely ridiculous.

AAUP. (Unless ACLU censured them too?)

The AAUP censured Missouri for firing her outside of process. When the internet started braying for blood, the university hired an outside law firm, whose client was the university, to run the investigation and denied her normal faculty review. Click's actions on the two brief video clips I've seen are appalling, and her publication record is a joke (multiple papers on Twilight, Lady Gaga, and Martha Stewart), but if we give up due process, we might as well just try people in the Pharyngula comments section.

Almost anybody would be terminated immediately if they behaved that way at work, and rightly so. But Mizzou had to jump through hoops to get rid of this taxpayer-funded miscreant who wasn't even tenured, and then AAUP censured them for doing so. It's laughable.

If "due process" means you can't get rid of someone for assault and incitement on the job, then the "due process" is the problem.

I imagine the "due process" would have left Click's fate mainly in the hands of other faculty members ("shared governance"). The conflict of interests is egregious, and taxpayers foot some of the bill.

[AndrewV69]

So seriously. Anyone here heard of Nadia Murad in the main stream media? But I bet you have all heard about Mattress Girl? Right?

[Spike13]

I have a huge problem with people who somehow try to justify denying freedom of the press.

I assume, you meant me (among others), because of my stance on kicking disruptive cunt "reporters" from "my" sports playing field and similar situations.
So Mr. Paratrooper, what's your opinion on (maybe even SJW inclined) reporters waltzing straight into an organized event like a military parade? As long as the marching soldiers don't stumble, you'd never advocate restricting journalist movements among the parades midst in any way, right? Because that would make you as bad as me.

4.5h video of French military parade on public street. Also: reporters doing their job without waltzing into the parade like some cunt.
[youtube]QgMzi3Ymh9I[/youtube]
Of course, I don't expect anybody to watch the full video. I didn't. It's just for reference and an image of WTF I'm talking about. And don't nobody come with "not political", this time. Ain't nobody got time for that. Military parades are entirely political displays of power.

Parades have had permits issued, if you cause an impediment to progress you should be removed.( being a reporter does not give you the right to restrict the movements of others.)

If you are reporting on a static protest and wish to get the story you are not causeimg any impediment to said protest.

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

So seriously. Anyone here heard of Nadia Murad in the main stream media? But I bet you have all heard about Mattress Girl? Right?

Yeah, but I am a terrible bad Islamaphobe and have a ISIS search on my news feed. But it was mostly buried in the MSM.

Dear Islama should have shamed Watson and crowd. But as others have pointed out, they are entirely shameless.

[Spike13]

(as a Mets fan, it hurt me to type that)

I have a photo of me, my brother, my father, Gil Hodges, and Tom Seaver.

Yeah, I'm old.

Oh My God! That is awesome! You may be only a few years older than me.( yogi was the manager when I started watching 73-74( I was 8)

Pictured with Met royalty! I'm jealous!

[some guy]

Players don't get a free pass for assaulting fans. Eric Cantona was prosecuted for kicking a fan.

Same goes for performers ejecting people from the stage: eg Afroman.

You don't get to assault people for trespassing on your own property, so why anyone thinks assaulting them for 'trespassing' on public property is beyond me.

In my culture, you do. You get to do all kinds of thing to people who trespass on your property. Including summary execution.

Respect ma culture ya racist shitlords.

(Want to bet I am joking? I am not actually)

Dang, I would have never guessed you live in Louisiana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_ ... ro_Hattori

[Cnutella]

Zvan gets a bollocking for her doublespeak on a piece she wrote about how the Brexit is a dire warning to American voters; is apparently forced into caring about comments (so long as they are made by an appropriate in-group member, that is):

Colleen
June 24, 2016 at 8:08 pm

Okay. After telling minorities that they’re ‘hostage-takers’ for not voting how you want them to vote regardless of whether or not it’s in their best interests, after pushing people fighting for the protection of people of color down for the sake of theoretically protecting your white cis feminism, after refusing a slightly more progressive candidate because he wasn’t enough of a politician, after berating people who vote ‘on principle’ even though you are very very very likely to get to vote for your candidate purely on prinicple no matter much you pretend, and after gleefully declaring yourself impure while attacking anyone who dares even make an ATTEMPT at cleaning up, you’re actually going to chide people for not voting the way you want in safe states by coming up with a demographically impossible nonsense argument designed to scare people with data that’s no longer relevant? Fuck off.

Over the past few months you have done every single fucking thing you can to put responsibility on absolutely anyone but yourself and the things you want. Are you going to help the Greens grow into a proper leftist political party like you encouraged them to do? Of course not. You’re just going to concern troll them so you can look good. (And I’m sure the second the Greens manage to do what you want you will instantly scream ‘spoiler party’.) Are you going to push for voting reform so the swing state thing isn’t as much as an issue? Maybe you will. It would be nice. If you’ve already done so, I’ve unfortunately missed it. But if you’re NOT going to do that, maybe you should consider not berating people who are hurt and angry for trying to do something more than vote for the lesser evil.

Every chance you’ve been given over the past few months to be more supportive of minority rights than ‘white cis feminist’, you’ve not just refused, but happily pushed down. Yet you still expect people, such as trans women like me, to accept your cruel politik. You happily redefine purity around yourself by declaring yourself the perfect amount of ‘impure’ and are completely fine with getting blood on your hands as long as you yourself don’t choke on it, no matter who else dies. And if anyone even tries to clean up their own blood, even a little bit, you declare them trying too hard to be ‘pure’. Somehow, we’re impure for caring. Somehow, we’re hostage-takers for sticking up for ourselves against a party that has used us for decades and the people who tell us to let them beat us lest the other guy beat us more. I’m tired of being mistreated, I’m tired of being talked down to, I’m tired of watching fascism return because we refuse to do anything more but delay them with moderation, and I’m tired of being your puppet to defend you from Republicans while you tell me to wait my turn for another four years. I just want you to take even the TINIEST amount of responsibility for the things you believe in, when you’re so willing to demand everyone else around you do exactly what you want. Will you?

(Oh, if you want to talk Brexit, there are a lot of people mad that Labour dropped the ball on supporting Remain. Maybe keep the possibility of your own beliefs in mind before you find someone to point fingers at.)

http://web.archive.org/web/201606270313 ... ing-state/

Even though I am sure Colleen is of the most tiresome variant of SJW, I kind of like her because she told Svan to literally fuck off on her own blog, and yet was still able to bell the cat sufficiently that she got a grumpy reply rather than the boot that anyone else would have gotten.

[Billie from Ockham]

Dang, I would have never guessed you live in Louisiana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_ ... ro_Hattori

I agree. A Hattori Hanzo is the best form of home defense. You can also take it to restaurants.

https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/20 ... sword3.jpg

[jet_lagg]

Emma "Mattress Girl" Sulkowicz wins the "Woman of Courage" award and argues that people who ask her if she's "healed" or tell her to "move on" are violent and racist:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl5GAtGWkAERcPy.jpg

She ended up making porn right? Asking for a friend

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Yes she did Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This Is Not a Rape") or you can watch it on PornHub DUMB BLUE-HAIRED ASIAN COLLEGE SLUT GETS FUCKED HARD ON MATTRESS

According to Art News

We were alerted to the project, which is titled Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This Is Not a Rape")—a reference to Magritte's The Treachery of Images—from a post on Facebook by the video's director Ted Lawson. The video is presented on the website cecinestpasunviol.com along with several hundred words of prefatory text, which warn the visitor: "The following text contains allusions to rape. Everything that takes place in the following video is consensual but may resemble rape." (See Columbia Student's Striking Mattress Performance.)

Follow the link to get the links I underlined. I could not be arsed to do more than that. Ran out of spoons.

Way more than I expected anyone to do. I was just trying to make a joke about fancying vaguely asian-ish looking chicks who make false rape accusations :P

That's the first time I've bothered to watch the actual video though. Makes me wish I weren't so scrupulous in college with my own moral code vis a' vis sex. I was in the theatre department for a while after all. "It's for the art, Cindy. Don't you care about the art? This is going to bring awareness of rape culture to the country in ways you can't fathom."

[Spike13]

(as a Mets fan, it hurt me to type that)

I have a photo of me, my brother, my father, Gil Hodges, and Tom Seaver.

Yeah, I'm old.

Lived on Long Island in 1969. Remember that season?

The year of miracles!

In January,the heavy underdog NY Jets defeated the Bal. Colts in Super Bowl III,

In July, Man landed on the moon,

In Oct. the Amazins' beat the juggernaut Bal. Orioles I'm the World Series.

( the Knicks also won the NBA title... Bit that was kind of expected)

[Spike13]

I'm the World Series-...in the World Series


Goddamn stupid phone

[Brive1987]

Poor Peezus; not only was he forced to deal with the mess caused by Carrier, which needed more than a few tissues to mop up, but to make his misery complete, there was his leaky aquarium, oops, I mean, his fish lab disaster.

This was about as bad as the fish facility disaster that happened this week and flooded the bookstore and has me scrambling to move our fish lab to a new basement space. It’s stuff that needs to get done that gets in the way of the stuff we want to be doing.

No sooner had he finished writing this comment, and hit post, than he realized that he had forgotten something...

PZ Myers

25 June 2016 at 8:31 am

Oh, and all that pales next to the real problem: you can imagine the stress the women involved in this episode are struggling with. One thing you learn when you get dragged into these kinds of things: the victims are not happy, angry people reporting these events for the lols, or for revenge: they’re hurting.

Of course your fish lab pales next to Carrier's victims. Remembered it just in time, eh?

Some snippets from later comments by Peezus in this threat:

His accusations are intended to punish the women who’ve been accusing him of misbehavior. For me to release them would be to do his dirty work for him.
(...)
He wants to sue for defamation, for knowingly issuing false statements about his behavior. That’s going to be difficult, since all we said is that we had reports of aggressive sexual behavior, which is true, and that we were investigating further. Skepticon said more and took direct action, but they have multiple witnesses to what they’re saying happened. Even if he somehow discredits those accusers by dumping their sexual histories into the record, it doesn’t change the truth of what we said, or that Skepticon had legitimate concerns that they had to act upon, and it also effectively confirms what all the accusers said.
(...)
Yeah, but I’m not going to air the details of threats against others, when his threat is to release those same details. That makes no sense.

Note that so far we only have Peezus' word for it that Carrier threatened to release details of people's sexual histories. Since Peezus and Carrier are both notorious liars, it's unwise to take anything either scumbag says at face value.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160626215 ... r-network/

Remember how PZ closed down discussion of Ben Radford's evidence against Stollznows specific narrative? Radford provided emails, police reports and physical documentation which without question threw the simple story out the window.

Stollznow had claimed to have cut all contact with Ben but there was even a G rated photo of her in a hotel bed (under a sheet) which collaborated other emails which had her organising a liaison in the midst of the purported "harassment". Case closed. Game over. Even without the rest of the trove.

But PZ picked this one gotcha and recast it as revenge porn. For his part Lousy banned any discussion of any of the evidence.

So it is clear that anything PZ is saying now is .... Almost certainly bullshit.

If I had to wager I'd say Carrier has evidence that Miri danced the doona while on SSA speaking duty - but that she holds a gold pass of freedom.

[AndrewV69]

Players don't get a free pass for assaulting fans. Eric Cantona was prosecuted for kicking a fan.

Same goes for performers ejecting people from the stage: eg Afroman.

You don't get to assault people for trespassing on your own property, so why anyone thinks assaulting them for 'trespassing' on public property is beyond me.

In my culture, you do. You get to do all kinds of thing to people who trespass on your property. Including summary execution.

Respect ma culture ya racist shitlords.

(Want to bet I am joking? I am not actually)

Dang, I would have never guessed you live in Louisiana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_ ... ro_Hattori

Nope. He rang the doorbell. Only a dumbass motherfuck would have shot him for that. All that moron had to do if he was really afraid of a 130 lb boy was to use the door right behind him and lock it.

[AndrewV69]

Dang, I would have never guessed you live in Louisiana.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_ ... ro_Hattori

I agree. A Hattori Hanzo is the best form of home defense. You can also take it to restaurants.

https://cnet3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/20 ... sword3.jpg

I am slightly annoyed right now. You guys are using an example of a dumb ass motherfucker without a grain of common sense to do what exactly? To snark?

Must be a sign of someone who grew up in a safe comfortable bubble and unable to comprehend that much of the world is not like that at all.

[deLurch]

Trump appears to not be doing so hot in the polls right now.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5952.html

The Muslim incident doesn't appear to have helped him all that much.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... -5491.html

I would say that this mostly has come from Trump not even bothering to campaign much recently. He isn't making the news.

[AndrewV69]

Remember how PZ closed down discussion of Ben Radford's evidence against Stollznows specific narrative? Radford provided emails, police reports and physical documentation which without question threw the simple story out the window.

Stollznow had claimed to have cut all contact with Ben but there was even a G rated photo of her in a hotel bed (under a sheet) which collaborated other emails which had her organising a liaison in the midst of the purported "harassment". Case closed. Game over. Even without the rest of the trove.

But PZ picked this one gotcha and recast it as revenge porn. For his part Lousy banned any discussion of any of the evidence.

So it is clear that anything PZ is saying now is .... Almost certainly bullshit.

If I had to wager I'd say Carrier has evidence that Miri danced the doona while on SSA speaking duty - but that she holds a gold pass of freedom.

As has been alluded to over and over and over. Anything the usual suspects say needs to be closely scrutinized. For one reason or the other you can not trust them to tell the truth about anything.

I have a feeling that if the truth was the only thing that could save their lives they would be incapable of doing so. This includes Sticky Dickie BTW.

Fucking hell. Bunch of mendacious and delusional cunts does not even begin to cover it.

[fuzzy]

1969. Remember that season?

My family used to go to Grandpa's place in Corona Queens in the '60s and Dad took me to a couple of Mets Games. I was even at that World's Fair on those grounds in 1963 and my 6 year old self can remember seeing that big globe sculpture which is still out front. (I think). So, a few years later in '69 even from thousands of miles away via transistor radio, I was pulling for those amazing Mets.

[Service Dog]

Leon was almost certainly HFA. He's socially inadequate, emotionally immature, speaks in a monotone, is incapable of looking after his own money, has one specialist skill (killing), sticks to a narrow diet (milk), etc.

Luc Besson's best movies are pretty autistic and Jean Reno's characters in them are all on the spectrum. In fact the whole Cinema du Luc movement was pretty autistic. I don't say that as a criticism, I loved it, but it seems like it was targeted at people like me: the characters are socially isolated, obsessed with trivia and routines, and they lack affect, etc.

Take Jacques Beineix's Diva: the main protagonist is a socially inept young man obsessed with opera, and even the cool character played by Richard Bohringer has specific routines for making his sandwiches, colour codes his entire house to match a box of matches, and has two identical cars.

Besson's first film, La Dernier Combat, is populated entirely by non-verbal characters and one critic at the time described it as 'cinematic autism'.

Reno's character in The Big Blue is also isolated, obsessed, affectless, etc.

Nikita is about a woman who has to be taught how to dress and act appropriately, has flat affect when she's not a screeching; and, of course, Reno pops up as the proto-Leon.

Then there's Leos Carax who used the term 'autiste bavarde' ('autistic talkative') to describe all the characters played by Denis Lavant in most of his best work.

There's very little emotional depth to any of these movies. They're about style, and are populated with characters drawn from other movies rather than real life.

This comment has been on my mind since Wednesday. Leon's life is too close to mine.
(Watched 'The Martian' with housemates & their weeks-old baby, last night. They noticed the stranded astronaut's notepad-accounting of every gram he eats-- and confinement to a mars-rover-van... also resembles my shit.)

I don't know whether 1. I'm tailoring my life to suit undiagnosed autistic tendencies.
Or whether 2. -any- unstructured, marginalized existence also-happens-to resemble autism.
Or whether, 3. in seeking to protect myself from emotional pain & actual hardship-- I've shed my former capacity for diverse activities, food, friendships. Reduced myself to a hermit & induced a quasi-autistic fallback state.

But, whichever it is, I worry that it's taking a toll on me. In the last couple weeks especially, I've been marathoning on the Pit & listening to may podcasts per day-- as a substitute for productive activity & face-to-face interactions. I use walking to Costco seveal times per week-- the way an 80 year old retired widower might-- a busywork errand, to emulate going-somewhere/ getting-something-done. I'm falling behind in billing clients for work I've done, again. And am doing nothing to avoid my remaining business drying-up entirely.

It appears I'll have a steady place to live by mid-August. But sleepwalking until-then doesn't seem healthy. I fear I won't be able to restart my life, then-either. A year & a half since my ex dramatically cut-off contact & 'took everything'... I still haven't recovered. Just colonized rock-bottom.

Last summer, I looked at the Elyse freakshow as a possible funhouse-mirror cousin to my own problems. In the last couple weeks I see parallels between Richard Carrier's pre&post-divorce trajectory/ and mine. Also, 'self-radicalized' extremists, like the Orlando terrorist.
By that, I mean-- to a degree, I'm intentionally 'self-radicalizing' my worldview & expectations & reflexes... to prepare myself for my reduced circumstances. Like an abandoned housepet learning to fend for itself. So I read a lot of harsh mra/mgtow/politicalkrank stuff. On the other hand-- I'm avidly seeking the least-radical version that will git the job done. I fear losing-my-composure... I don't play with fire, like the hotheads I read about every day-- sjw, demented shooter, or political bile spewer.

Please don't be alarmed. This is just a 'journal entry'. Not an immediate 922 crisis.
[youtube]uA4KihbsISU[/youtube]

[fuzzy]

So I read a lot of harsh mra/mgtow/politicalkrank stuff. On the other hand-- I'm avidly seeking the least-radical version that will git the job done.

I've found th at living without women becomes easier each year, as the balls apparently shrivel with age.

[AndrewV69]

I was thinking that one or two pitters might find this interesting:

From War Is Boring What a T-90 Tank Looks Like After Being Hit by a TOW Missile

This apparently:
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/m ... 16UoEB.jpg

Not like the expected results which up to now are more like this:
[youtube]YXKyhrVMs9Q[/youtube]

Anyway:

A recent photograph circulated on Russian military forums shows what the tank looked like after impact. Sure enough, the T-90’s Kontakt-5 reactive armor appeared to save it. Reactive armor explodes outwards and stops incoming missiles from penetrating into the tank and killing the crew.
The Research Institute of Steel, a Russian company which makes reactive armor plates for the T-90, was pleased. The crew lived, according to Russian press reports, and the only visible damage was on one of the T-90’s two Shtora transmitters, which hanged limp in the photograph. However, the angle of the photograph only shows a glimpse of the side of the turret which was hit.

[Brive1987]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... es.svg.png

This is the best podcast episode I've heard this year.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-political-thicket/

Ok, I'm committing. Better be good. :)

[feathers]

Great minds, etc. (Not that I think Dulcamara is a particularly great mind.)

Piranha, all beak and no mind.

[Skep tickle]

As others have mentioned, it sure seems like I've been hearing claims go more often unquestioned on NPR lately. Caught one example:

Heard it on NPR "TED Radio Hour", host is Guy Raz, show title this week was "Nudge", one segment featured Reshma Saujani, politician & lawyer who founded Girls Who Code (GWC) in 2012. All sorts of companies are enthusiastically supporting GWC; the GWC 7-week Summer Immersion Program for 10th & 11th grade girls is offered free of charge for the students and includes time "at the hottest tech companies in the world!"

The NPR TED Radio Hour segment titled "Can Coding Help Girls Take Risks": audio and transcript.

Saujani's TED talk from earlier this year, titled "Teach Girls Bravery Not Perfection", which was the basis for this segment: video and transcript.

Read or listen to the whole thing if you like; she acknowledges that girls are outperforming boys academically but her view is that girls are taught they should be perfect and boys are taught they should be brave, and her view is that this results in significant drawbacks for girls/women. Not everyone will agree with her take on things, including her description of coding as "an endless process of trial and error". (As an aside, note that she doesn't seem to have a CS or other STEM background, FWIW.)

What really caught my attention in listening to the show today was hearing frankly unbelievable claim(s) near the end that went unchallenged (bolded below). OK, so maybe it was just her turn of phrase, speaking casually & ended up a bit imprecise & left an incorrect impression - but the "reporter" (sorry, "host") let it go!

Later, on looking at the TED talk transcript, I was interested to see that the radio show had edited out 1 sentence without acknowledging the omission (green below) so I've included a longer chunk from the last 1/3 of the segment, to display both.

... RAZ: And so in 2012, Reshma started a company called Girls Who Code to teach high school girls how to code and how to get comfortable with imperfection. Here's Reshma on the TED stage.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

SAUJANI: Coding, it's an endless process of trial and error, of trying to get the right command in the right place with sometimes just a semicolon making the difference between success and failure. Code breaks and then it falls apart. And it often takes many, many tries until that magical moment when what you're trying to build comes to life. It requires perseverance.

It requires imperfection. We immediately see in our program our girls' fear of not getting it right, of not being perfect. Every Girls Who Code teacher tells me the same story. During the first week, when the girls are learning how to code, a student will call her over. And she'll say, I don't know what code to write. The teacher will look at her screen. And she'll see a blank text editor.

If she didn't know any better, she'll think that her students spent the past 20 minutes just staring at the screen. But if she presses undo a few times, she'll see that her student wrote code and then deleted it. Instead of showing the progress that she made, she'd rather show nothing at all - perfection or bust.

When we teach girls to be brave, they will build incredible things. And I see this every day. Take, for instance, the Syrian refugee who dares show her love for her new country by building an app to help Americans get to the polls, or a 16-year-old girl who built an algorithm to help detect whether a cancer is benign or malignant in the off chance that she can save her daddy's life because he has cancer.

These are examples of thousands - thousands of girls who've been socialized to be imperfect, who've learned to keep trying, who've learned perseverance. And whether they become coders or the next Hillary Clinton or Beyonce, they will not defer their dreams. (ST comment: end of soundbite)

RAZ: That's just incredible. So at this point, how many girls have gone through the program?

SAUJANI: So by the end of this year, we'll cumulatively have reached 40,000 girls.

RAZ: Do you know if any of these girls have gone to study computer science in college?

SAUJANI: Yes, so 90 percent of our graduates are going on to major or minor in computer science.

RAZ: Wow. I mean, if you think of, like, a line of code as this precise thing, and you change just one thing in that line of code, it's a completely different language. ...

1) "We'll...have reached 40,000 girls" and "90 percent of our graduates are going on to major or minor in computer science." That would have been an appropriate time for Guy to say "that's incredible" and to ask more questions. Let's check that statement out, shall we, Guy? (My editorial comments are in italics below.)

Girls Who Code "about" page says (not in this order):

• 10,380 students total in their "Clubs" program to date "as of December 2015" so where does "by the end of this year, we'll cumulatively have reached 40,000 girls" come from?
• 1,747 students to date have done GWC's Summer Immersion program since 2012. So "our graduates" don't number 40,000 - not even close.
• "90% of Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program participants said they were planning to major or minor in CS or a closely-related field." When were they asked this question, and how many of those 10th & 11th graders still expressed the same degree of interest later?
• "Girls Who Code alumni" (alumnae) "are now majoring at the top Computer Science Universities across the nation" and shows photos of 15 universities. Note that it doesn't say they're majoring in CS; in at least 1 of those universities, CS is the most competitive major to get into & many who want to have to pick a different major.

2) TED talk transcript vs "soundbite" used by NPR.

From above, again, here's part of the "soundbite of TED talk" (which was played in the radio show):

SAUJANI: When we teach girls to be brave, they will build incredible things. And I see this every day. Take, for instance, the Syrian refugee who dares show her love for her new country by building an app to help Americans get to the polls, or a 16-year-old girl who built an algorithm to help detect whether a cancer is benign or malignant in the off chance that she can save her daddy's life because he has cancer.

Here's the same section from the TED talk (according to the transcript) - can you spot the extra sentence?

When we teach girls to be brave and we have a supportive network cheering them on, they will build incredible things, and I see this every day. Take, for instance, two of our high school students who built a game called Tampon Run -- yes, Tampon Run -- to fight against the menstruation taboo and sexism in gaming. Or the Syrian refugee who dared show her love for her new country by building an app to help Americans get to the polls. Or a 16-year-old girl who built an algorithm to help detect whether a cancer is benign or malignant in the off chance that she can save her daddy's life because he has cancer.

NPR cut out Saujani referring to the student project that's featured on the website (scroll down) and got a bunch of publicity erased female biology uterinism?

[Søren Lilholt]

Emma "Mattress Girl" Sulkowicz wins the "Woman of Courage" award and argues that people who ask her if she's "healed" or tell her to "move on" are violent and racist:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cl5GAtGWkAERcPy.jpg

She ended up making porn right? Asking for a friend

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Yes she did Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This Is Not a Rape") or you can watch it on PornHub DUMB BLUE-HAIRED ASIAN COLLEGE SLUT GETS FUCKED HARD ON MATTRESS

According to Art News

We were alerted to the project, which is titled Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol ("This Is Not a Rape")—a reference to Magritte's The Treachery of Images—from a post on Facebook by the video's director Ted Lawson. The video is presented on the website cecinestpasunviol.com along with several hundred words of prefatory text, which warn the visitor: "The following text contains allusions to rape. Everything that takes place in the following video is consensual but may resemble rape." (See Columbia Student's Striking Mattress Performance.)

Follow the link to get the links I underlined. I could not be arsed to do more than that. Ran out of spoons.

Worst. Wank. Ever.

[German StrutBoatsman]

I was thinking that one or two pitters might find this interesting:

From War Is Boring What a T-90 Tank Looks Like After Being Hit by a TOW Missile

This apparently:
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/m ... 16UoEB.jpg

Not like the expected results which up to now are more like this:
[youtube]YXKyhrVMs9Q[/youtube]

Not sure was the news is here. To destroy the tank the atgm first has to penetrate the armour (obviously), then better incite the ammo stored in the tank for the internal explosions that will rip the tank apart.

In this case, penetration seemed not to have been achieved (or at least only minor penetration without secondary explosions, but that info isn't given). This may be caused by a faulty rocket, bad impact angle or may be prevented by the tank's design, i.e. special armour (NATO way) or reactive armour (Russian way).

Nice for the crew the reactive armour did its job in this instance. The TOW is not really a new piece of equipment, so it doesn't have any reactive armour countermeasures IIRC.

The video you're showing is the equivalent of a cumshot compilation. The incident in question is an instance of the guy being unable to cum. Which kind of result you would expect is mostly dependend on the hardware involved ;)

[JackSkeptic]

With Myers falling over himself to virtue signal (after nearly forgetting) I wonder if he will give a thought to all those women and minorities he and other SJW's abuse daily. Those that have lost their careers, friends and family of their actions. No, of course he won't. Can't get all puffed up and self righteous doing that.

Oh and I will add to those saying I would not trust one word Myers says. He seems pathologically incapable of speaking the truth and supremely incompetant at judgeing other people's motives, beliefs and actions.

[Really?]

A Christian shares the sad news of Carrier's ouster from FTB , though he is pleased that Carrier's marginalized work is now even more marginalized.

https://jamesbishopblog.wordpress.com/2 ... -blogging/

The writer of the post quotes one of Carrier's debate partners.

“Whether the accusations against Carrier are true or not, I have not investigated nor do I care to comment. I really enjoyed my debate with Carrier earlier this year and I did like him the short time I spent with him off stage. I don’t nor should any Christian rejoice over someone’s downfall. We should pray for the truth to come out and for Richard and the others involved to find the saving Grace and Love of Jesus Christ.”

[jimmyfromchicago]

The AAUP censured Missouri for firing her outside of process.

Yes, if the AAUP had it's way, even firing someone who had been convicted of murder would require a faculty committee. So mere assault on a student should probably be met with a raise.

Yes, even if you're convicted of murder, you're still entitled to due process before your other rights are taken away. The result of the process may be obvious, but you're still entitled to it.

[jimmyfromchicago]

Well, I wasn't really complaining. It's just you normally see Americans who think that their (our) First Amendment has universal applicability, so it was funny to see the same thing coming from the Germans.

And that led you to make a snide comment to me? I'm starting to think that my "Damion" wasn't so far off.

That probably came off snarkier than I intended.

[German StrutBoatsman]

I don't know whether 1. I'm tailoring my life to suit undiagnosed autistic tendencies.
Or whether 2. -any- unstructured, marginalized existence also-happens-to resemble autism.
Or whether, 3. in seeking to protect myself from emotional pain & actual hardship-- I've shed my former capacity for diverse activities, food, friendships. Reduced myself to a hermit & induced a quasi-autistic fallback state.

But, whichever it is, I worry that it's taking a toll on me. In the last couple weeks especially, I've been marathoning on the Pit & listening to may podcasts per day-- as a substitute for productive activity & face-to-face interactions...

I went through something similar when I was out of a job and left with an unfinished thesis a few years ago, including the suspicion of being more autistic than I thought (I once just qualified for my place on the spectrum in a test a gf pointed me to because she also had some suspicion, but that was even too silly to call it a self-diagnosis and I never followed up on that).

For me the quasi-autistic lifestyle was surely a way to minimize fear (of failing, of not knowing where to go with my life) and shame for the situation I was in and for being with only very few close friends (moved a few times and never been good at keeping long-distance stuff alive). Anyway, for me at last, I don't see the autistic stuff as my real problem back then, just as my go-to place to protect me from having to confront my problems.

Don't know what to tell you. What did it for me was getting into a new relationship with a girl I very much liked - then fucking that up, obviously. At that point I spent two weeks being baked round the clock and then finally had the guts to start sorting my problems out, including finishing my fucking thesis. Took some time to get everything sorted but it got better all most of the way. It still stays with me, and on bad days it feels like having a patch of normal life on a otherwise still pretty messed up inside, so I won't tell you you'll be fine in no time. But it will get better once you start taking the appropriate steps.

You probably know about depression and that you should get that checked and find yourself some real-life self-help group, but I get it if that doesn't appear feasible to you (to me it wasn't). I did some checking up on how to deal with anxieties then and that helped me a lot in realizing that a) other people are broken, too, and therefore have more sympathy than you might think, and b) no one cares about whatever your ashamed of and even if they do, it doesn't affect your life one bit. So if that applies to you too, leave a PM, I can try to find and point you to some stuff similar to what I read then. If you want to look for yourself I totally understand. It's maybe part of the solution that you have to find it for yourself, don't know.

Anyway, if I was a bit cuntish or winded-up the last days it's connected to some life-crap I'm going thru that leaves me a bit tense and with really low patience about fuckers like Boris Johnson or Lauren Southern (admit it already, she's a bullshitter ;) ), so sorry for leaving that out on the Pit.

Now back to the regular scheduled programming.

[jimmyfromchicago]

If "due process" means you can't get rid of someone for assault and incitement on the job, then the "due process" is the problem.

"Due process" doesn't mean you can't fire people, it means you have to go through the appropriate procedures to do so. No one's defending Click here, least of all me.

[German StrutBoatsman]

"Due process" doesn't mean you can't fire people, it means you have to go through the appropriate procedures to do so. No one's defending Click here, least of all me.

She clearly fucked up and that may well be because she is actually fucked-up herself and unable to teach - I just don't get why her face pops up in my youtube recommendations for months now. She didn't kill anyone. Yeah, maybe she's a horrible human being, but why must I still remember or why shall I still care who she is?

[jimmyfromchicago]

[quote=Service Dog]I don't know whether 1. I'm tailoring my life to suit undiagnosed autistic tendencies.
Or whether 2. -any- unstructured, marginalized existence also-happens-to resemble autism.
Or whether, 3. in seeking to protect myself from emotional pain & actual hardship-- I've shed my former capacity for diverse activities, food, friendships. Reduced myself to a hermit & induced a quasi-autistic fallback state.

But, whichever it is, I worry that it's taking a toll on me. In the last couple weeks especially, I've been marathoning on the Pit & listening to may podcasts per day-- as a substitute for productive activity & face-to-face interactions. I use walking to Costco seveal times per week-- the way an 80 year old retired widower might-- a busywork errand, to emulate going-somewhere/ getting-something-done. I'm falling behind in billing clients for work I've done, again. And am doing nothing to avoid my remaining business drying-up entirely.

It appears I'll have a steady place to live by mid-August. But sleepwalking until-then doesn't seem healthy. I fear I won't be able to restart my life, then-either. A year & a half since my ex dramatically cut-off contact & 'took everything'... I still haven't recovered. Just colonized rock-bottom.[/quote]

I went through something similar around the time of my divorce. I went to a psychiatrist for treatment for depression, but the meds didn't help. What got me out of it was regular exercise and keeping a close watch on my diet to avoid overeating. But this took me a while to figure out, and everybody's different. PM me if you want to talk.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I did the exam, won't get the results before Wednesday at least. Boy, they sure know how to make candidates stew.

[deLurch]

I did the exam, won't get the results before Wednesday at least. Boy, they sure know how to make candidates stew.

We get our results immediately here in the US.

This is what you get for sticking with the EU. /jk

[Spike13]

I did the exam, won't get the results before Wednesday at least. Boy, they sure know how to make candidates stew.

How do you think you did?

Did you tense up like you thought you would?

[German StrutBoatsman]

I did the exam, won't get the results before Wednesday at least. Boy, they sure know how to make candidates stew.

We get our results immediately here in the US.

This is what you get for sticking with the EU. /jk

Every test has to be translated to German first, then approved by experts.

[feathers]

Reminds me:

When I was passing my paratrooper classes, there was a contingent of US Marines detached to the ETAP so they could learn the French dropping methods. We thought they were adorable because they all wore elbow and knee pads. First drop, a huge black Marine came to the rallying spot to drop his para gear, and he was shaking with tears (the actual ones, not the SJW ones), moaning "too fast man, too fast". To be fair, France still holds the record for emptying a full C160 under 8 seconds.

What about Argentina?

^very dark allusion to methods of the former Junta^

[feathers]

I thought they suffered fewer injuries than cheerleaders?

No. Google 'NFL injuries' and read up on brain injuries. There is a serious debate in the US as to whether or not the sport is too brutal. Some schools are limiting contact during practice.

We lost a local high school boy, got his noggin hit too hard.

I can understand brain injury is not the cheerleader's first worry. How about backs and bones?

[Spike13]

Cheerleading with all its flying routines and pyramids now can be very dangerous.

[AndrewV69]

So this shows up in whatever you call it on Twatter .. feed? timeline? whatever :

Am I supposed to have penis envy now? I just can not even ... :bjarte:

[AndrewV69]

As others have mentioned, it sure seems like I've been hearing claims go more often unquestioned on NPR lately. Caught one example:

<chop analysis>

We'll...have reached 40,000 girls" and "90 percent of our graduates are going on to major or minor in computer science."

<chop chop>

NPR cut out Saujani referring to the student project that's featured on the website (scroll down) and got a bunch of publicity erased female biology uterinism?

This sort of program would work better in the 3rd world where the motivation is financial support for the girl's family. In the 1st world. the end results are going to be "disappointing" as the girl's are have much more freedom to follow their inclinations. I base this on my own experience. Mind, programming from what I saw did appear to manage a much higher retention rate although many of those "girls" were pretty unattractive and appeared to remain single.

Meanwhile, all I see is that the high success rate being touted is related to shilling for continued funding. In the end though it is given a pass, or at least not examined because to do so is to risk being attacked for <insert here> and for what gain?

I suppose I should mention somewhere that I doubt those figures are accurate also. I guess we will see?

[Hunt]

So this shows up in whatever you call it on Twatter .. feed? timeline? whatever :

Am I supposed to have penis envy now? I just can not even ... :bjarte:

A snapshot of one of Richard Carrier's many wet dreams.

[deLurch]

Kind of interesting. A 3 year old account is freshly uploading Richard Carrier's debate videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj2vB0 ... g/featured

I wonder if it is Richard Carrier or one of his fans.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I did the exam, won't get the results before Wednesday at least. Boy, they sure know how to make candidates stew.

We get our results immediately here in the US.

This is what you get for sticking with the EU. /jk

Used to be like this here as well, but too many examiners got attacked by angry candidates when learning their failure.

[Aneris]

I don't know whether 1. I'm tailoring my life to suit undiagnosed autistic tendencies.
Or whether 2. -any- unstructured, marginalized existence also-happens-to resemble autism.
Or whether, 3. in seeking to protect myself from emotional pain & actual hardship-- I've shed my former capacity for diverse activities, food, friendships. Reduced myself to a hermit & induced a quasi-autistic fallback state.

But, whichever it is, I worry that it's taking a toll on me. In the last couple weeks especially, I've been marathoning on the Pit & listening to may podcasts per day-- as a substitute for productive activity & face-to-face interactions...

Most people's lives are more or less entirely dictated by others and circumstances which tell them exactly what needs to be done and what to do next. Lives unfold in cascades of patterns or routines that each prompt the next one to start. The top tier is the master timeline, but it is a mere container with a starting and an ending point. Somewhere in the middle, the next box waits: go to work. You are are following a string of faux-decisicions, a routine once you are there, and once you arrived, yet more subordinate routines each want to ge executed within this work-box, from those structuring the day (say hello to colleagues and get a coffee) to lunch, to switching off the lights to leave this box.

Within the day, your mind moves deeper into sub-sub-sub routines and into box-in-the-box, open new browser tab, type s-l-y-m-e etc. On occasion higher hierarchical routines intrude and collapse smaller boxes within: your colleage wants something, no time to surf. And that gets terminated as you learn you need to pick up the daughter a bit ealier than expected. One day the big box will be terminated, too, and as your mind cannot dive into the boxes-in-boxes, your physical remains will find rest in one last box six feet under the ground.

When you don't have that, and freelancers, unemployed, pensioneers and the fiercely independent experience this, you can get stuck. I believe this is common and normal. It is probably a reason why the elder want the feeling they are useful for something, that they are needed and wanted. I believe humans are very bad at self-motivation and keeping themselves going minute-by-minute, and I speculate we thus procrastinate: dive into an easily available box which gives us a stack of instructions for our minds to execute, i.e. a routine to do. Opening the browser prompts you to go to a site, which prompts you to read it, which prompts you to investigate or discuss and so forth. One leads to the next. If no higher hierachy routine intrude and force you out, you get stuck there (sleep or a heart attack are such “higher up” things). Over time, opening those easily available boxes, like browsing, are themselves a routine that sit in the top most, called life.

You can only win in life by owning those routines and boxes, by setting them up in such a way that they make you do things you like doing (or are healthy, good for you). It sounds like some freak life hack, but it is just ordinary, common sense advice in fancy metaphors. Each new wake-period is obviously one box, which gets closed when you go to sleep. It should not surprise anyone that people used the next day as a good place to change something. Important life decisions are often ritualistically attempted to be changed on New Years Eve, unsuccesfully, because our more primitive part of the mind probably isn't swayed by the abstract knowledge of years (or even next week).

The single most important thing is entering the right next box, while whatever happens there is almost automatically. For example, when you know the first step to do the bills, do it, and the rest should be easy. This is just another common sensical self help tip: when you don't know the concrete next step, you will procrastinate to keep your brain crunching. Hence, in this case, make finding out first steps its own routine, where again, the first step is something like “go to comfortable place, sit down with something to take notes and write down concrete next steps” — you chart out the many entrances to boxes that are available.

You can work top-down, by starting with the goal or destination where you want to be at point X, and trace backwards to where you are now, or bottom-up, where you look at what is possible now (from calling someone to driving somewhere to buying something etc) and where it would leave. You probably will end up with some triangulation, jumping from top-to-bottom and find ways where both paths meet.

It is difficult though. Don't give up. Without external forces pushing you around, you have to do something like this over and over again when you want to stay free. If this is not working for you, you need to find circumstances that dictate your life, but in a way you can accept, as most people do (more or less). Having important relationships (like significant other, or children even more), or a regular job. Ultimately, try to make the most of whatever you picked. Of course, the crux is that you don't feel free when bills aren't paid. The relative slavery of a regular job and relationship strangely opens up boxes where you are free for a limited time: the evening after work and when the kids are sleeping, say.

If I was in your shoes, I'd create some artificial boxes for my day marked by ritual. Something like: In the morning I leave some leeway, but no later than time z, I get coffee, then I spend X time to do the paperwork. I have a routine like: every second day, in the evening, get into running shoes. Run three times a week, the remaining seventh day is a day off that I can move around. So when I didn't make it on Mon and Tue, I must run Wed, Fri, and Sun. And getting into thr running shoes is enough to start the thing. I focus on that, not on the running, because once in gear, my mind will anyway force me out onto the track.

[Spike13]

I did the exam, won't get the results before Wednesday at least. Boy, they sure know how to make candidates stew.

We get our results immediately here in the US.

This is what you get for sticking with the EU. /jk

Used to be like this here as well, but too many examiners got attacked by angry candidates when learning their failure.

Here in Jersey we have State and/or local police in all Motor vehicle commission branches.

They tend to keep the folks polite for the most part.

[Easy J]

I don't know whether 1. I'm tailoring my life to suit undiagnosed autistic tendencies.
Or whether 2. -any- unstructured, marginalized existence also-happens-to resemble autism.
Or whether, 3. in seeking to protect myself from emotional pain & actual hardship-- I've shed my former capacity for diverse activities, food, friendships. Reduced myself to a hermit & induced a quasi-autistic fallback state.

But, whichever it is, I worry that it's taking a toll on me. In the last couple weeks especially, I've been marathoning on the Pit & listening to may podcasts per day-- as a substitute for productive activity & face-to-face interactions...

Most people's lives are more or less entirely dictated by others and circumstances which tell them exactly what needs to be done and what to do next. Lives unfold in cascades of patterns or routines that each prompt the next one to start. The top tier is the master timeline, but it is a mere container with a starting and an ending point. Somewhere in the middle, the next box waits: go to work. You are are following a string of faux-decisicions, a routine once you are there, and once you arrived, yet more subordinate routines each want to ge executed within this work-box, from those structuring the day (say hello to colleagues and get a coffee) to lunch, to switching off the lights to leave this box.

Within the day, your mind moves deeper into sub-sub-sub routines and into box-in-the-box, open new browser tab, type s-l-y-m-e etc. On occasion higher hierarchical routines intrude and collapse smaller boxes within: your colleage wants something, no time to surf. And that gets terminated as you learn you need to pick up the daughter a bit ealier than expected. One day the big box will be terminated, too, and as your mind cannot dive into the boxes-in-boxes, your physical remains will find rest in one last box six feet under the ground.

When you don't have that, and freelancers, unemployed, pensioneers and the fiercely independent experience this, you can get stuck. I believe this is common and normal. It is probably a reason why the elder want the feeling they are useful for something, that they are needed and wanted. I believe humans are very bad at self-motivation and keeping themselves going minute-by-minute, and I speculate we thus procrastinate: dive into an easily available box which gives us a stack of instructions for our minds to execute, i.e. a routine to do. Opening the browser prompts you to go to a site, which prompts you to read it, which prompts you to investigate or discuss and so forth. One leads to the next. If no higher hierachy routine intrude and force you out, you get stuck there (sleep or a heart attack are such “higher up” things). Over time, opening those easily available boxes, like browsing, are themselves a routine that sit in the top most, called life.

You can only win in life by owning those routines and boxes, by setting them up in such a way that they make you do things you like doing (or are healthy, good for you). It sounds like some freak life hack, but it is just ordinary, common sense advice in fancy metaphors. Each new wake-period is obviously one box, which gets closed when you go to sleep. It should not surprise anyone that people used the next day as a good place to change something. Important life decisions are often ritualistically attempted to be changed on New Years Eve, unsuccesfully, because our more primitive part of the mind probably isn't swayed by the abstract knowledge of years (or even next week).

The single most important thing is entering the right next box, while whatever happens there is almost automatically. For example, when you know the first step to do the bills, do it, and the rest should be easy. This is just another common sensical self help tip: when you don't know the concrete next step, you will procrastinate to keep your brain crunching. Hence, in this case, make finding out first steps its own routine, where again, the first step is something like “go to comfortable place, sit down with something to take notes and write down concrete next steps” — you chart out the many entrances to boxes that are available.

You can work top-down, by starting with the goal or destination where you want to be at point X, and trace backwards to where you are now, or bottom-up, where you look at what is possible now (from calling someone to driving somewhere to buying something etc) and where it would leave. You probably will end up with some triangulation, jumping from top-to-bottom and find ways where both paths meet.

It is difficult though. Don't give up. Without external forces pushing you around, you have to do something like this over and over again when you want to stay free. If this is not working for you, you need to find circumstances that dictate your life, but in a way you can accept, as most people do (more or less). Having important relationships (like significant other, or children even more), or a regular job. Ultimately, try to make the most of whatever you picked. Of course, the crux is that you don't feel free when bills aren't paid. The relative slavery of a regular job and relationship strangely opens up boxes where you are free for a limited time: the evening after work and when the kids are sleeping, say.

If I was in your shoes, I'd create some artificial boxes for my day marked by ritual. Something like: In the morning I leave some leeway, but no later than time z, I get coffee, then I spend X time to do the paperwork. I have a routine like: every second day, in the evening, get into running shoes. Run three times a week, the remaining seventh day is a day off that I can move around. So when I didn't make it on Mon and Tue, I must run Wed, Fri, and Sun. And getting into thr running shoes is enough to start the thing. I focus on that, not on the running, because once in gear, my mind will anyway force me out onto the track.

I've been doing this for a while now, since my world got upended. It works. Even when you know that you're the one dangling the carrot, you'll still move forward to get it. I know the goal I've selected is an ad hoc placeholder that I need for psychological reasons but it still works.