promethea.incorporated

sinesalvatorem:

Me: Is there anything you believe the US government does well?

@theunitofcaring: *looks at the roof and contemplates for about half a minute*

Me: …The longer the pause, the more libertarian the person.

How does it count if one can immediately think of a list but it’s really really short? Like, if someone asked me about Finland I’d be like:

1. Giving each new baby a cardboard box full of stuff. Stuff is taken out of the box and given to the baby, the box is filled with sleeping baby.
2. Holding cops responsible for their firearm use. They may be absolute barbarians with their batons and “projectile launchers” (have I mentioned finnish cops use weapons that are too dangerous for US cops?) but they don’t shoot people with gun-guns.
3. Being really really soft on crime.
4. Giving all children free school lunches.
5. (crickets chirping)

2 months ago · tagged #sometimes i need a euro pride tag #bitching about the country of birth · 180 notes · source: sinesalvatorem · .permalink

Incorporating a promethea: part 1

TL;DR: youvegottobefuckingkiddingme.png

Today I inquired into the matter of “how to effectively incorporate myself to mooch off the taxpayers as a revenge for having my body regulated while simultaneously avoiding becoming one of them myself get state support to do the things I want to do while optimizing my contributions for the good of all of us, except the ones who are foreigners because fuck them, right, without the state stealing potentially thousands of bednets every year to some fuckers in Portugal mooching off our future which they looted for themselves pensions instead of EA”.

Turns out the pension system isn’t "basically Stasi" as it had threatened to be and nobody actually tracks that people pay exactly ~20% of the market value of their labor to old-ass assholes who always remembered to vote against women’s, gay, and trans rights but are perfectly willing to pick the pockets of trans lesbian effective altruists whenever their tax haven sangria jar needs refilling pensions, so it’s basically just a bribe of about $2000 a year for the taxman to leave me alone.

> youvegottobefuckingkiddingme.png

This is good news, because I don’t necessarily need to do terrible and perverted things with corporate shell games through Estonia just to keep that money for bednetting instead of having some old dudes spend it on sangria.

This is bad news because now I don’t have a convenient excuse to do terrible and perverted things with corporate shell games through Estonia, because that’s my kink.

Also, corporations are first-class people while people are second-class people. When I asked about the corporate welfare part of the equation, it was basically like:

> You are going to just take my claims at face value?
> You aren’t demanding me to provide three different statements, with copies of their IDs and SSNs, that I do know people in SF and aren’t just bullshitting my way through?
> You aren’t expecting me to provide notarized calculations from two market research companies proving that yes, programmers in SF do make that much money?
> You aren’t expecting me to have my programming skills and their development trajectory independently assessed by a state-licensed evaluator?
> You are actually treating me as a human being trying to make ends meet instead of a suspicious lazy piece of shit who’s just coming to mooch of The Right Kind Of People™’s money, until proven otherwise beyond unreasonable doubt, and usually at least partially even then?

> youvegottobefuckingkiddingme.png

It was a consistent escalation of disbelief because this was so totally unlike any asking-for-money-from-a-representative-of-the-System I had ever before encountered. Simply by the virtue of asking for handouts as an entrepreneur instead of a welfare recipient I’ve moved to somewhere around the 70th percentile in being-treated-with-dignity-by-the-system-ness. That’s absolute bullshit. I’ve literally just explained my devious albeit small-time (YGM) payroll tax evasion scheme only to retract it upon discovering that there’s a simpler way to achieve the same outcome, a day after the Panama Papers were published, and their approach still is “oh yeah, we trust what you say because you’re Business now and that’s Ingroup”. Had I been talking as a person-person instead of a legal person it would’ve been like “provide all these documents and have even your bank accounts scrutinized just to make sure you aren’t accidentally doing any investments for your future because having a future as anything other than easily exploitable semi-forced labor is verboten for the precariat”. I am still kind of shocked over that one.

And the overall atmosphere around business in this country? “I really think you should spend 3 years getting a degree instead of 1 year getting 1337 skillz because skillz grow obsolete but degrees never lose their value”

> youvegottobefuckingkiddingme.png

“I totally understand that a lot of you startup entrepreneurs want to keep your ideas secret because it’s not like ideas are a dime a dozen and only execution matters.” In fact one startup literally tried to sue their competitor for doing a similar thing and wasn’t immediately responded to with a massive outcry of WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS RIDICULOUS BULLSHIT, but instead a “hmmm, let’s see what merits there are to their case of basically trying to ban an entire industry just because they wrote the basic idea on paper before someone else did”.

> youvegottobefuckingkiddingme.png

Business in Finland, in a nutshell:

> youvegottobefuckingkiddingme.png

Next in the series (probably, if things go as anticipated): funding. Looks like I’ll have to get in bed with the government, but at least I’ll be using a condom. And topping. No GFE or bondage.

2 months ago · tagged #laissez-faire used to mean _stop trying to help us_ #promethea's adventures in business land #future precariat billionaire #bitching about the country of birth · 3 notes · .permalink

socialjusticemunchkin:

ilzolende:

In “ridiculous overregulation”:

SF requires a license for fortune-telling, removing curses, and so on. (See Article 17.1 of the San Francisco Police Code.

It shall be unlawful for any person to advertise or offer or engage in the activity, enterprise, profession, trade, or undertaking of fortunetelling with the object of gain, benefit or advantage, whether direct or indirect, without a valid permit issued by the San Francisco Police Department. Gain, benefit or advantage includes but is not limited to economic remuneration of any kind, including authorization to use credit issued to another, use of another’s property or assets, loans, or the provision of tangible items.

Opponents of corporate personhood may appreciate that “Persons as used in Sections 1300 to 1321 shall mean an individual. Corporations and other legal entities shall not be entitled to a fortunetelling permit.”

Unfortunately, all would-be for-profit fortune-tellers must disclose their “full true name” to get a license, which may be a problem for all you mages out there.

If you’re wondering what fortune-telling is:

(a) Fortunetelling shall mean the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, sand, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mindreading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act. It shall also include effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses or advising the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions in order, for example, to get or recover property, stop bad luck, give good luck, put bad luck on a person or animal, stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten a person’s life, obtain success in business, enterprise, speculation and games of chance, win the affection of a person, make one person marry or divorce another, induce a person to make or alter a will, tell where money or other property is hidden, make a person to dispose of property in favor of another, or other such similar activity.

(b) Fortunetelling shall also include pretending to perform these actions.

(h/t Lowering the Bar)

original post

That’s probably related to mystic-religious scams where the con artist identifies a sufficiently vulnerable person and fucks with their mind and offers to remove the curse of “having any money or mental health at all”. Which is pretty clearly blatant fraud and thus my libertarian instincts aren’t as excessively offended by this as they would be if something without such a track record of massively harmful anti-consumer activities was regulated in the same way.

It’s still obscenely ridiculous but I can’t immediately think of an obviously better alternative for achieving the intended goal of making “that asshole who stole $200,000 and ran” identifiable, and “promethea can’t instantly invent a better way of doing it” a pretty damn high bar for any actually existing regulation.

The purpose of this legislation is to regulate fortunetellers, psychics, and other similar businesses so that the City and County of San Francisco can efficiently and thoroughly investigate fraud and deception, protect the public by preventing people who have been charged with deceptive practices from having easy access to persons who may be vulnerable to fraud or confidence games, to ensure that consumers are provided with information regarding services, rates, and complaint procedures

Of course, it’s also a barrier to entry which artificially hurts poor people, but fortune-telling isn’t the same kind of a legitimate business as hair-braiding, drug-dealing or sex work, and the criteria are basically “we want to know who you are in case you start scamming people because a lot of you guys are going to start scamming people” instead of “pay an imperial fuckton of money to favored special interests for lessons completely unrelated to your job” so, as far as goverment regulations go, this is fucking excellent and comparatively non-burdensome. And there’s a case to be made that fortune-telling basically in itself involves misrepresenting the nature of the service sold, or at least belongs in the general category of things that should be in Banned Product Stores. When If I were to become the dictator, this wouldn’t be the first regulation I abolish. Not saying I’d keep it, just saying that it wouldn’t be the first one on the chopping block.

For example, there is Article 32A which defines poker, 11 for miniature golf alone, 9 regulates what water may legally be used for (how about just making people pay for the water they use), 24 regulates street artists and I can’t even tell which parts of it are repealed or not, 40 mandates employers to be like “drugs are bad mmmkay” to their workers, there’s some weird ad hoc patch of rent control from the 70′s, and every other article seems to include something in the vein of:

• Sex work is banned.
  
• Not calling it sex work is not enough to make in un-banned.
• Sneaky ways of trying to do sex work are still banned.
• That clever hack you just thought of? It’s called sex work, we know of it, and it’s banned.
• Seriously, why is it so hard for you guys to accept that consenting adults won’t be allowed to make a honest living this way? It’s fucking banned.
• This may be San Francisco but our government is still a bunch of prudes who will only allow exchange of sexual favors for material favors to occur within marriage.
• Showing tits between 2:00 and 6:00 is regulated unless the person showing them is a “he”. Not showing tits counts as showing tits if we can’t tell the difference easily enough.
• We have no idea people other than “he” or “she” exist.

And of course sleeping in cars is prohibited because in a city where rents are as high as the mean citizen, even with cannabis georg not counted because he’s an outlier, the last thing it needs is poor people having affordable places to sleep in that are not the streets. Also, MINORS ARE SUBJECTED TO A CURFEW AND MAY NOT BUY OR POSSESS THICK SHARPIES WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS POLICE STATE BULLSHIT

(still better than Finland tho)

(via socialjusticemunchkin)

3 months ago · tagged #bitching about the country of birth #drugs cw #ageism cw #regulation cw · 57 notes · source: ilzolende · .permalink

The Origin Story

Since this seems to be a thing, here’s how a promethea acquired a social life:

> Be born to the shittiest R-tribe shithole that ever R’d
> feelsbadenbie.png

Depression +1
Self-esteem -1

> Be too good for school
> In other words, have your childhood completely wasted on trivial bullshit because nothing is a worthy challenge
> Not even being the best in [redacted] even though you thought you totally sucked in it; others simply sucked even more

Achievement unlocked: Less incompetent than everyone else
Cynicism +1

> First experience with pornography: /d/ and /u/ on 4chan
> sm0lethea gets extremely unrealistic expectations about future sexual parters, such as “they might be really pretty lesbians, some of whom have penises”

Lesbianity +1

> Finish school one year younger than most, thus being too young for some [redacted] awesome stuff. Finland: not even once.

Cynicism +1

> Go to university at 17 because you didn’t have the opportunity to finish school several years earlier than most
> A surprise ADHD and anxiety disorder appears

Depression +1
Self-esteem -1

> Find LessWrong back when the sequences were still fresh
> Be so jelly
> Nonetheless manage to win free utility by realizing you’re not a man while still young, androgynous and neotenic
> Can pinpoint the exact location of “The 12 Virtues of Rationality” which made you basically be like “okay I know where this is heading so I might as well go there straight away”

Lesbianity +1

> Doctors gonna doctor
> In other words, bullshit gatekeepers
> Get your own meds illegally

Cynicism +1
Depression -1
Will to Power +1

> Customs steals your meds

You have acquired the following item: Criminal Record
Achievement unlocked: Fight da power
Edginess +1

> Yell at doctors until they give you meds
> It’s not very effective
> Buy meds on the street

Edginess +1

> Get a private doctor who only cares about money to give you meds

Cynicism +1

> Find a person, who due to her lack of known tumblr presence shall be simply called E, on the internets
> She’s in America, neither has money to fly across the pond
> Agree to have cuddles when either has money and opportunity

Lesbianity +1

> Go change your name
> The state be like “lol nope”
> Forge some documents to change your name
> The state be like “okay then”

Cynicism +1

> Go change your legal gender and have your gonads cut off
> State-sanctioned monopoly clinic is like “lol nope, not ryal wymyn ynough”
> (Previously on state-sanctioned monopoly clinic: “of course you can tell the truth, it won’t hurt you”)

Depression +1
Cynicism +1

> Yell at people online

Edginess +1
You have acquired the following item: Fan Club

> Wait, what’s that, how did this happen
> Yell at some other people

Will to Power +1
You have acquired the following item: Political Following
Depression -1
Self-esteem +1

> Wait, what’s that, how did this happen
> Find yelling at people less interesting now, read from its downsides on SSC

Edginess -1
Achievement unlocked: update on evidence

> Go back to state-sanctioned monopoly clinic, yell at them and threaten to sue them, and the state, and everyone
> Suddenly extremely cooperative
> Get a lot of scaremongering about how nobody will let disgusting enbies change gender or be operated even if they have the mandatory doctors’ letters
> Find out nobody outside the GIC gives a shit or even knows the difference between F64.0 and F64.8 and they were just bullshitting you as always

Cynicism +1

> Get random message on the internet
> It’s E, she has money and opportunity and is coming for the cuddles now
> No contact in over 2 years
> No activity in my account in over 2 years
> She’s nuts
> Her coworkers think she’s nuts
> She thinks she’s nuts
> There’s a pretty strong consensus on that
> She’s a quantum physicist, a rocket scientist and a silicon valley programmer
> I’m a NEET
> nopressure.png

use Fan Club
use Political Following
use Criminal Record

> Somehow she’s impressed by my stories
> Wait, what’s that, how did this happen

Self-esteem +1

> Read stuff on SSC
> “But as a proud black transgender triracial inverse bisexual anti-monogamite…”
> There apparently is someone like that, lemme check them out this sounds entertaining
> Wow

You have acquired the following items: GWWC Pledge; Basic Comprehension of Yiddish; Knowledge of Your Obvious Nemesis; No Regrets

> E comes to visit
> Proves to be an actually existing person

Lesbianity +1

> On the second morning we’re discussing importing me to SF
> Programmers make how much money over there

You have acquired the following item: Future Prospects

> SF is also the place where all the cool people live
> They are actually existing persons
> I am going to be where the cool people are
> There is only one rational way to respond to this situation
> nopressure.png
> Stories are currency, right? I’ll just bargain for popularity because they seem to be worth something

use Knowledge of Your Obvious Nemesis
use Political Following
use GWWC Pledge
You have acquired the following items: Tumblr Account; 2 Party Invitations
You have gained the following superpower: Assertiveness and Confidence
Self-esteem +1

> justasplanned.png
> Go to SF
> Meet the people
> #it me everywhere

You have acquired the following items: Social Life; Place That Feels Like Home; Immigrant Status
You have gained the following superpower: Programming Skills
You have lost the following attributes: Depression
Self-esteem +1

> Return to Finland
> Illfare state bullshit everywhere
> Desperate to get back to SF ASAP because everything is better there

Will to Power +1
You have leveled up the following superpower: Programming Skills

5/5 would recommend to everyone

3 months ago · tagged #user's guide to interacting with a promethea #bitching about the country of birth #it me #where did all these brainclones suddenly appear from · 10 notes · .permalink

binghsien:

Another political myth I’d love to put to bed: That European politicians are somehow _way more leftist_ than US politicians.

The answer is, as always, it depends on the issue.

On the issue of provision of social services to citizens? Yeah, Western Europe is way to the left of Elizabeth Warren.

In the issue of immigration and immigrant’s rights? Europe is well to the right of Donald Trump.

Free Speech? We’re well to the left of not just Europe, but the whole globe.

Freedom of Religion? Good lord most European States include tithes in your taxes. Europe passes minaret bans and hijab bans and burns down synagogues.

Women’s rights? Really varies country by country.

So. It depends on the issue. A lot.

(via wirehead-wannabe)

3 months ago · tagged #this goddamn continent #bitching about the country of birth #nothing to add but tags #i really like how simply categorizing this signals my opinion #very effectively · 907 notes · source: binghsien · .permalink

sinesalvatorem:

cinefeminism:

quasitree:

sinesalvatorem:

From the latest SCC links post:

Freddie deBoer writes a white paper supporting standardized testing in colleges. His position is that private colleges need to be held accountable and we need proof that online courses don’t work, but American Interest points out that it might break the power of education-industrial complex if people who go to less prestigious institutions have an objective way to prove they’re just as good as people who went to more prestigious ones. And I will add that it might incentivize colleges to admit based on something vaguely resembling merit if they want higher test scores. Overall this would be amazing it it happened.

Um, but… We already have this in the Caribbean? Because we’re halfway civilised? Do you mean to tell me Americans are barbarians who let random colleges do whatever? If you don’t test your colleges, what are they even for? How can you know how a student at one college compares to one at another? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS???

I think I’ve determined the main trade-off between the Caribbean and the US: Sure, we’re poor; but when we design an institution, it isn’t fucking stupid.

I know I’m biased as someone who is, I think, reasonably smart and capable and does v poorly on standardized tests, but the idea that more standardized tests will force institutions to admit based on merit is ridiculous ime. Like with subject GREs, it will give schools an easy but inaccurate metric so they can avoid actually judging merit or potential.

As someone who does well on standardized tests, I also think that they are pointless as actual assessments. IMO the things that may make me successful in academics are exactly the things I had to learn to suppress to pass standardized exams. Logic, analytical skills, creativity. I think @quasitree is just not as good at suppressing her brilliance / perhaps her brilliance surpasses mine (the latter has always been my theory).

…Are your standardised tests really really different to mine? Like, as far as I can tell, logic, analytical skills, creativity, and depth of knowledge of the subject area are what I’ve been tested on?

Like, typical chem question would be something like: “You run a laboratory and have been given samples X, Y, and Z to identify. Their characteristics are [description]. Your budget is limited, so you can only devise one testing regimen to apply to all the samples. You can use some or all of [list of apparatus]. Design and justify an identification process with explanations of the principles behind each stage of chemical testing, cost effectiveness, the trade off between accuracy and efficiency, and the level of confidence you can expect for your identification.”

[cue me furiously writing four pages while cursing several deities]

I mean, if building and justifying your own experiments from scratch isn’t evidence of understanding chemistry, is their literally any observation you could make that would give you information about someone’s chemistry proficiency? If not, I still have to wonder what colleges are for because, for all we know, they aren’t teaching shit and no one can tell.

That’s way way way better than I’d have expected standardized tests to be. Finland is famous for faring well on international evaluations yet nonetheless our standardized tests are way shittier than that; and some countries allegedly even use the “guess the teacher’s password from options A to D, rinse repeat forever” type of standardized testing because it standardizes really well while not testing anything worthwhile at all. Caribbean testing is first-class, and the US really should import the geniuses who run that system and prevent it from crumbling to box-checking because wow.

3 months ago · tagged #bitching about the country of birth · 113 notes · source: sinesalvatorem · .permalink

PSA: Finland has an employers’ union. Americans apparently think this is not a completely normal thing for states to have as one side of an iron triangle controlling their economy and negotiating legally binding collective bargaining agreements nobody is exempt from. If you are reading this, your country probably doesn’t have an employers’ union. Remember: no matter how bad it gets, you can be thankful for your country not having an employers’ union.

3 months ago · tagged #bitching about the country of birth · 2 notes · .permalink

gdanskcityofficial:

ozymandias271:

@socialjusticemunchkin has informed me that Finland manages to be a settler colonialist state without settling anywhere or colonizing anyone

which I feel is the triumph of Finnish introversion

figuring out how to oppress people without having to put on real pants or talk to strangers

grubhub for racism

according to Wikipedia finnish national identity was constructed along with all the other big euro ones in like the 19th century - can it be considered colonizing / settling places occupied by previously-existing groups e.g. sami

Yes it can, because it’s doing colonialist oppression to them. If it quacks like a duck, and tries to forcibly assimilate indigenous people after stealing their land like a duck, we don’t really care whether it was born a duck or just inherited its duckness from the monarchies that started that oppression.

3 months ago · tagged #bitching about the country of birth #finland is swastika country · 46 notes · source: ozymandias271 · .permalink

Shadow Over Finnsmouth

I didn’t quite understand it before I visited SF but in Finland there’s this strange atmosphere of clean oppressiveness and control, and upon my return it hit like a barrel of intangible psychological bricks.

The State owns you. You don’t belong to yourself. You belong to everyone else. They decide. The state tracks you from cradle to grave. You’re a number. Your gender is hard-coded into the number. The State will hurt you. It only does it because it loves you. The State will take care of you. The State knows better than you do. Don’t try to fight it. The State reigns supreme. The State does whatever the fuck it wants and gets away with it. They will support it anyway. They understand that everyone belongs to everyone and that’s why you can’t decide anything for yourself. Vox populi, vox dei. You are not an adult. You can’t choose for yourself. Live a DIN-standardized life. The only other option is the squalor of 19th century industrial slums. Do you want the squalor of 19th century industrial slums? Then shut the fuck up and accept the oppression. There are no other choices. Any attempt to create other choices will be destroyed. Submit or be destroyed. Submit and be ground down anyway because you’re too young, too poor, too strange.

In SF things felt “out of control” in some really strange, subtle backgroundish way. The visa system emphasizes that people regularly overstay their visas and they only get in trouble for it if they’re caught. The rules for changing one’s name are “just use it” instead of several pages of strict regulations. Even the regulations, where they showed up, felt like attempts to impose some degree of control onto something that is inherently out of control, instead of the inherent structure of society outside which nothing is allowed to happen. In Finland I feel safe and controlled, afraid to be the nail that sticks out because the welfare statism has been so thoroughly internalized that I constantly feel like someone is watching even when nobody is. In SF I feel alive.

The US federal government feels like an empire that loots and oppresses people to enrichen its cronies and prop up its mechanisms of violence, but ultimately is something “over there”, while nordic welfare corporatism feels like an entire machine made of paper in which people are just tiny cogs running the faceless monstrosity in its uncaring emergent abominableness. The US government tries to control life. In Finland the corporatist system has succeeded in it. Or at least that’s what it feels like. In Finland I constantly have to fight some subconscious instinct not to deviate from the system’s scripts, not to rock the boat, not to try to crawl out of the bucket. Afraid of the mallet that isn’t really there. Well, not always because often it actually really is there, just quite a lot of the time.

That’s probably why I get along so well with both anarchists and libertarians despite them otherwise not getting along with each other at all. Among them I can feel like I’m sane, safe from the constant gaslighting about the way the welfare state only has the best interests of its citizens at heart and surely it can’t be that bad and the people who claim it is that bad are just lying and whining and probably trying to grab too much for themselves. Safe from the cultists chanting “de-mo-kra-si de-mo-kra-si” and insisting that I join them in their strange rituals of putting pieces of paper in boxes and pretending that it absolves the system and the people composing it of all their sins. Safe from the people who think that everything must be strictly controlled, regulated, regimented, and standardized just so that it is. Safe from the people who think that nobody must have any alternative, that even the idea of people living on an artificial island somewhere without bothering anyone else is such an aberration that it simply Must Not Be Allowed. Safe from the people on disguised welfare, who loathe those who lack that privilege and have instead fallen onto overt welfare. Safe from the people who consider society’s most important function to be the punishment of those who do “wrong” according to the will of the majority, without regard for the consequences.

That hobo in a Ron Paul t-shirt, raving about some imaginary rugged individualism only he can perceive, may be utterly disgusting and otherwise several times detached from reality, but he is also a person who knows what’s really lurking behind the smiles of the scary socialdemocrats of Finnsmouth. Such people are rare and valuable and I treasure almost every single one of them, no matter how frustrating and fractally wrong and obnoxious they otherwise are. Because they understand.

3 months ago · tagged #bitching about the country of birth #this is a social democracy hateblog #this goddamn continent · 28 notes · .permalink