Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your my first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing! Let’s go for edit. But first, a legal disclaimer:
By reading or using this site, you agree that I (the author and writer, Linas Vepstas) is not very likeable, and is prone to saying things that you will incorrectly  construe to be offensive. Therefore, if you are the kind of person who doesn’t like other people, or are psychologically weak, or if you try to protect your own mental well-being by shying away from anything offensive, then you are advised to avoid this blog. As will become patently obvious, I do not write offensive things, unless, of course, you are the kind of person who gets offended. If you are easily offended, then you can go #$%^&* yourself. And stay offa my site.

Why is a legal disclaimer necessary? Because, in these modern times, people seem to have problems interacting with other people, and some people think that legal boiler-plate somehow improves the situation (We’ll talk about why, a bit further down below).

Why am I not likeable? Well, probably because you’re an a#$%^ that has difficulty controlling your own mental and emotional state. Not a big deal, all humans are like that (including me). To be likeable, I would have to say things that make you feel good about yourself, and frankly, I’m sort of busy, and I do that only for people I like. Actually, I’m kind of drawn to people who are a little psychologically damaged; I like them because I can be kind to them.    But only the honest ones. Some people are so fu’ed, they seem beyond repair, and I stay away from them. I don’t like them… and they don’t like me.  Since many people are fu’ed beyond repair, ergo, I’m not likeable (by them). Law of averages kind of thing. In a democracy, the majority wins, right?

Why am I talking about likeability? Well, because this is my first WordPress post. Why is that? Because I’ve been kicked off of facebook. Why have I been kicked off of facebook? I’m not sure, but I can guess.  Based on what my sister said, they have a button that is labelled “objectionable content” that you can press. She said she’s pressed it many times. I reminded her that this was very Stalinesque – rat your your neighbor, they get deported to Siberia. So, WordPress is the Siberia of the social-media world.  Welcome to Siberia!

Apparently, I’ve been banished forever. They only way to contest facebook’s ban is for them to send a text to some phone number I no longer control. The only way to change my phone number is for them to send a text to the phone number I no longer control… so.. forever. I’m going to use small fonts for unimportant comments.

So, why would anyone find my facebook page objectionable? Well, lets see. My posts included:

• A medieval tempera painting of Mother Nature forging babies. Like, in a black-smith’s shop. There’s a forge in the background, glowing orange-hot; a pile of coal, and Mother Nature swinging a ten-pound hammer over her head, bringing it down on a baby. And baby parts all over the floor – arms, legs, heads. I mean, where did you think babies come from? A factory? And how do you think the factory makes them? Pretty offensive, if you’ve never thought about making babies.

  

• A 17th century action-figure painting, depicting some woman throwing some guy down a well. I think she’s supposed to be some Ancient Greek figure, and the guy is some Ancient Greek a*#$%^& who deserved it. Except that they are both dressed like Roman gladiators, in those leather skirts, you know.  They’re both muscular. The girl is pretty, and its very much an action-pose, from before the invention of stop-motion cameras, when artists had not yet discovered that physical wrestling doesn’t look like two people striking poses. So this is a kind of #me-too painting from three centuries earlier. Brutal. Is it offensive, the kind of thing to get one kicked from facebook?  Sure, if you’re one of those white-lives-matter snowflakes who thinks they don’t deserve to be thrown down a well.
• I told you I’m not likeable. If you are a right-wing snowflake, you’ll hate my guts. Sucks to be you, doesn’t it? I’m not your friend.

  

• What else? Well, there’s the photo proof-sheet of Greta Thunberg making angry facial expressions. Someone had inked in a little Hitler mustache under her lip. Someone else told me that she suffers from mercury poisoning – a modern industrial pollutant – well known for shaping an angry disposition. I feel for her; I get angry too. And I struggle to control it. So #$%^ you too. None-the-less, she has an excellent point – global warming – and it is much more important than what I write here, so why are you wasting your time reading this? Go do something to stop global warming, already! So, sure, someone found my Greta-as-Hitler post offensive. That same someone should ask me to make some angry faces, and ink in a Hitler mustache on my lips.

• Oh, I know! It was my post of a painting showing Trump riding an American Bald Eagle, red-tie waving in the wind, missiles bolted underwing the eagle, a McDonald’s Happy Meal in his lap, and Mt.  Rushmore in the background. And in the distant background, Pence in a WWI Red Baron biplane. Of course, but Trump and Pence are evil, and so making fun of them does not do them justice. Chomsky is correct, Trump might just be the most evil human, ever.

So .. which one of these violated facebook’s “acceptable use policy”? Or “community guidelines”, or whatever? Any of them? All of them? Was I inciting hatred and violence? Yes, of course I was. Trump deserves to hang from a lamp-post, where we can throw rocks at him. Drawn and quartered. And medically put back together, so we can do it again.

I should mention that I’ve been kicked off of Wikipedia, as well. For editing math articles. Apparently, this got under the skin of some WP admin.  So this is like police violence: when you give some people absolute power over other people, they will abuse that power. So, dual-hash-tag time: #defund-the-police and #defund-wikipedia-admins I know that the admins are unpaid volunteers aka “vigilantes”. All the more reason to get rid of them.

I told you I’m not likeable. I violate acceptable use policies.

So, what’s a blog post without some philosophy? Let’s look at “Acceptable Use Policy”. Or “Community Guidelines”. Well, blow me down.  @#$%^& that. You are a moron if you think it is necessary to regulate other individual human beings with a “policy”. Of course, this raises interesting philosophical questions: how do you regulate other human beings?

We live in an era where the power of the algorithm, and the algorithmic nature of reality has been recognized (flexibility and reasonableness have not been, because flexibility and reasonableness do not yet have a mathematical description.)

When a child mis-behaves, an adult can say “go to your room”, and enforce that. Adults do not use written “acceptable use policies” in the interaction with children. When an adult misbehaves, a pastor or psychologist can minister to their faults.  Both pastors and psychologists have some training, or at least a high IQ offering them shamanistic insight. When the misbehavior becomes criminal, we get courts and judges, and written legal codes. The codes help ensure the uniformity of judgement, minimizing the outrageous miscarriage of justice.

Are “codes of conduct” really required to administer cooperative communities?  I don’t think so. I think it just leads to wiki-lawyering (the technique used to banish me from wikipedia) or to algorithmic lynch mobs (the technique that facebook applied to get rid of me).  We are in the middle of an experiment of social-media policing, and are getting lots of things wrong.

Whatever. Enough for now. I’ve tired of writing, you’ve tired of reading. In future posts, I will try to resurrect the content that was lost to the black-hole of facebook. For now, lets try for finding those offensive pictures, again. Sexist tripe.