Bwahaha.

Found this in my webcomic roundup today:

"This comic presents all the major weaknesses of this generation. We can’t work with our hands. We are dependent on our parents. We have been trained to think that we are special, unique, and wise. We whine articulately in order to defer responsibility without taking any action ourselves. We, being moral relativists, don’t believe in virtue or honor (like Dickinson).

Dickinson is the manifestation of much that we are missing and much that we are yearning for. He is an honorable and capable man. He does what is hard even when it seems hopeless.

Metaphorically speaking, Dickinson isn’t punching some jerk named Nigel. Dickinson is punching all of us. He is punching us awake."

Do I bellyache about the degeneracy of society a bit too much? Oh sure, I do, especially for the sheer relief of having vented. But the thing is, afterwards one has to do something about it. Like Cappy Cap says, you've got to have something backing up your currency. Improve your body and mind. Read books and articles. Work out. Improve your inner game. Build yourself and other people as a person. Then maybe one can start bellyaching a little more about how society is going down the drain.

Nigel doesn't have anything backing up his words, no gold behind his paper. Dickinson does.

An outlet for pain.

Koanic stresses that Koans need a way of letting go of pain and negative feelings. Telling yourself things like "view every setback as a positive experience" may work in the short run, he points out in one of his videos, but without an outlet for the pain experienced by one's setbacks, dissonance eventually sets in between your hardware and software. As strong as you are, all this bottled-up crap will in all likelihood cause you to stop using a bad Koan altogether. Lying to yourself generally isn't a smart thing to do.

I'd like to suggest that this can be extended to life in general.

Singaporean animosity towards "foreign talent" increases.

Seems to me that the whole immigrant issue in Singapore has been heating up, uniting the local Chinese, Indians and Malays in their resentment. Nothing to bring a diverse people together like an external enemy, eh?

 

One fairly new example would be the resentment against Indian immigrants for supposedly giving preference to their fellow Indian nationals for jobs, passing over even the local Singaporean Indians.

"He said that his Indian company in Singapore did not have any Singaporean employees because their boss wants to save more for money for himself, and thus, he said, with approval of the MOM, the boss went to India to hire them."

Hmm, hiring even skilled professionals from foreign countries because they'll work for peanuts. Where have we seen this before? Note that Singapore does not have a minimum wage (not that I'm advocating for one, it's just an observation), so there's a lot less stigma over cheap foreign labour staying here.

Employment exclusion has been a thorn in the Singaporean anti-immigration side for a little while now, with more and more cases popping up recently - like Phillippines' Jollibee fast food chain setting up in Singapore, which supposedly also discriminates against Singaporean employees in favour of Filipinos, a lot of Singaporeans are discovering a whole lot of ways in which they're being held down by foreigners, although to be honest, foreigners in Singapore have been doing the exact same thing they've been doing for the past couple of decades. Domestic maids didn't just pop into existence within our homes overnight, and now that there's not enough pie to go around for everyone to gorge themselves silly, the locals are saying they were at the table first.

Guess the rules are quick to change when there isn't enough to go around, eh? "They took our jerbs!" has been a rallying cry of the masses since time immemorial.

Now there's another anti-immigration protest planned on May 1 -  or labour day, to be exact.

Of course, there's the other side of the equation, with those against immigration being lambasted as xenophobic and racist.

In the end, though, the whole argument is moot; the government will do what it wants anyways and everyone else be damned. This whole thing is just hilarious to watch.

Dribs and drabs, part the second.

*Have a very pleasant Good Friday, folks.

*A still from a local police drama:

*It seems like after their humiliating and crushing defeat with the documentary "Brainwash", Nordic feminists are attempting to label Nordic MRAs as evil misogynists, and all thought counter to their dogma as Thoughtcrime...

...All the while ignoring the massive influx of radical Muslim immigrants who actively attack and rape women and are far more misogynistic than the average castrated Nordic male will be. Once again, they prove they have zero interest in actually helping women when it doesn't service their idealogy.

Canada set to join the list of overtly thieving countries?

Canada considering "Cyprus-style bail-in".

The politicians of the western world are coming after your bank accounts.  In fact, Cyprus-style "bail-ins" are actually proposed in the new Canadian government budget.  When I first heard about this I was quite skeptical, so I went and looked it up for myself.  And guess what?  It is right there in black and white on pages 144 and 145 of "Economic Action Plan 2013" which the Harper government has already submitted to the House of Commons.  This new budget actually proposes "to implement a 'bail-in' regime for systemically important banks" in Canada.  "Economic Action Plan 2013" was submitted on March 21st, which means that this "bail-in regime" was likely being planned long before the crisis in Cyprus ever erupted.

[...]

The Government proposes to implement a "bail-in" regime for systemically important banks. This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital.  This will reduce risks for taxpayers.  The Government will consult stakeholders on how best to implement a bail-in regime in Canada.  Implementation timelines will allow for a smooth transition for affected institutions, investors and other market participants.

So if the banks take extreme risks with their money and lose, "certain bank liabilities" (i.e. deposits) will rapidly be converted into "regulatory capital" and the banks will be saved.
In other words, the banks will just be allowed to grab money directly out of your bank accounts to recapitalize themselves.

Do read the rest of the article. This is important.

So, what now? Canada is North American. It's nowhere near a "failed state" or a "tiny, no-name country".

It's just a matter of time, now. Will anyone be shocked into waking up? Somehow, I doubt it.

Go on...

...You guys have fun, I don't think I'll be closing anytime soon.

According to new data released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 19.7 million new venereal infections in the United States in 2008, bringing the total number of existing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. at that time to 110,197,000.

The 19.7 million new STIs in 2008 vastly outpaced the new jobs and college graduates created in the United States that year or any other year on record, according to government data. The competition was not close.

The STI study referenced by the CDC estimated that 50 percent of the new infections in 2008 occurred among people in the 15-to-24 age bracket. In fact, of the 19,738,800 total new STIs in the United States in 2008, 9,782,650 were among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket.

By contrast, there were 1,524,092 bachelor’s degrees awarded in the United States in the 2007-2008 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That means the total number of new STIs in 2008 outpaced the total number of new bachelor’s degrees by nearly 13 to 1, and the number of new STIs among Americans in the 15-to-24 age bracket outnumbered new bachelor’s degrees by more than 6 to 1.

Ho hum.

We now return you to your usual programme.

Well, well, well.

I think we all saw it coming. When someone as much of an activist as Agent Orange comes out to speak...something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

Good thing the thing about a swarm is that if you cut it in two, you just get two swarms. And if one dies, the others will live on just as happily.

Solution A is not the fucking solution.

Yes, I know I have a project deliverable in 12 hours. No, I do not fucking care that I have yet to size and cost a steam-jet ejector and put down all my stream data into a neat table; I am pissed. Murder-if-I-could-get-away-with-it pissed.

Had another argument with someone (or maybe something would be better) who was for culling a good chunk of the human race because as everyone knows, we are horribly overpopulated despite everyone fitting into Texas, human ingenuity having proved more than a hundred years' worth of Malthusian theories wrong and people in the first world cramming thousands of calories' worth of starch and simple sugars down their gullets while others in the third world starve because we keep on sending them food aid and undermine their local agricultural industries.

Koans - Squire set.

Hey, all. Another Koan post.

Suit up/Ease up (Steady) appears to be a great opener for a huge number of situations. Switch over to Inject Breath into the Now to maintain things - I don't know, but the pump visualisation + concentration on breathing makes rhythmic, repetitive actions go by quite a bit smoother, as if I were running. Not quite the zone yet, but I wonder if the meditation could reach that extent.

I haven't used the tongues koan of my core set that much yet, because I haven't had any chance to get into a situation that would make me anxious or jittery, but my presentations are coming up. One thing I've noticed is that it's a bit of a struggle to both recite tongues in my head and focus on much of anything simultaneously - I think with enough practice I might be able to do it subconsciously, perhaps? Well, if it's bad or I'm doing it wrong, I should feel dissonance and start struggling with it, so I think I'll catch on if I'm honest with myself.

A side note: I have a project deliverable on Thursday, so this will be the last post until then. I'll have a peering out of the box post up in order to return to our regular programming schedule, at the very least.

Well, it's official now. Our government thinks we're children.

Edit: so THIS was why I hadn't heard a peep of it in the local media. This project wasn't funded by the government, not directly. Instead it was just a bunch of kids like me in media school messing around with the feminists.

Still doesn't change how ridiculous it is that we have to be shown panda porn, though.

Seems like even my alternate lines have been infiltrated by the fembots.

Singapore government uses "fairytales" to warn women of declining fertility.

I wonder why I haven't heard a peep of it in the local media, though.

With her blond bob, convertible car, cigarette in hand and cropped top emblazoned with the letters YOLO ("You Only Live Once"), this is an Alice in Wonderland the world has not seen before. Like Lewis Carroll's original, this cartoon Alice is curious about the world – "she gives up her cash to fly around rash" – but the moral here is that this twentysomething Singaporean is so busy being "wild and reckless" that she stands to lose her chance of starting a family.

Welcome to adult education in marriage and fertility, Singapore-style.

Congratulations. I'm not sure if I should be sadder at the fact that our government has to tell us to breed, or that the population needs the government to tell them to do so. It's one huge clusterfuck.

Music post.

Nothing interesting to report today, have some music instead.

Consideration.

I have this group of five or six guys (the last one keeps on drifting in and out of the circle) from my navy days. We get together twice a month at a coffeeshop of our choosing, get ourselves settled, and talk the night away - with six or seven folks, it's usually easy to keep the conversation going, and if not there's always the good old fallback of navy days.

For reference, here's an example of a Singaporean coffeeshop, complete with locals watching a game on the televitz:

As far as I know, we are the whole of the alt-right red-pill thinkers in Singapore, six or seven men in a country of 5.3 million people. Sounds pretty miniscule when the rest of the country seems to be united in demanding more cheese and free stuff from the government, but we move forward somehow.

Now, four of us are smokers. Although we tend to sit in the open-air areas, where smoking is technically allowed by law, my fellows know what smoke of any sort does to my airways and are more than willing to step away from the table to light up. I realise that, and appreciate the thought.

They also know what alcohol does to my system, so for the entirety of the night I nurse dark black coffee at sixty cents a cup while they pass around bottles of beer. Funny thing is, when it's almost time to depart, they always leave about half a mug of the stuff in the last bottle and pass it along to me expectantly.

And knowing full well what it does to me (albeit with no lasting effects I've been able to discern over the years), I down it to the last drop.

Next morning, I usually get at least a couple of text messages asking if I've thrown up yet.

It's all in good fun. We all accommodate each other of our own free will, with no idiots pushing for laws to ban smoking on private property just because they don't like it; our government does that well enough. People are actually - wait for it - considerate in this tiny group of ours. And hey, what's a couple of hours of feeling quite miserable if a bunch of people you care about get a genuine laugh and smile out of it?

Heh.

I hate the masses.

I hate the masses.

Really, yes. What tipped you off?

More bellyaching from me? Who coulda guessed? Cyprus wasn't enough, so when I point out that New Zealand, Spain and Italy are considering hopping on the bandwagon, they shrug their shoulders and go back to the televitz.

"Men have gone berserk."

Reblogged from Vox Day:

Swiss tourist gang-raped in India, Indian feminists shocked.

Ranjana Kumari of the Centre for Social Research think tank said there had been 127 rape cases registered in Delhi alone since the fatal December assault on the student. 

"It is absolutely shocking and speaks volumes on how Indian society is treating women. The men have gone totally berserk. We're feeling frustrated and in despair. What must we do to change their mentality? Women are becoming more vulnerable," she said. 

Women were being attacked even when they were with their husbands or male friends - and foreigners, previously regarded as less at risk, are also being targeted.... This latest gang rape is one of dozens reported in the Indian press since the December rape and murder shocked the nation and plunged it into a period of national soul searching. 

It came just days after the Indian cabinet supported a new law to impose tougher sentences for rape and sexual assault, including the death penalty for cases where the victim dies or is left in a persistent vegetative state. 

The answer to the ills of feminism, of course, is more feminism.

Vox Day fingers sex-selective abortion and the resultant skewed sex ratio as the cause:

Note that the problem in India is actually getting considerably worse despite the advance of sexual equality in Indian society that the feminists believe will solve everything.  As we've learned to expect, feminism wreaks societal devastation even in the process of supposedly offering a means of improvement.  In this case, it is the pro-abortion position that is leading to more rapes in India. 

"According to the decennial Indian census, the sex ratio in the 0-6 age group in India went from 104.0 males per 100 females in 1981, to 105.8 in 1991, to 107.8 in 2001, to 109.4 in 2011. The ratio is significantly higher in certain states such as Punjab and Haryana (126.1 and 122.0, as of 2001)." 

Anyone with more than half a brain has been expecting serious problems out of China and India since Western technology gave them abortion and the means of prenatal sex identification.  The world is quite fortunate that India's excess male population appears to be inclined to occupy itself in pursuit of gang rape, considering that the more customary outlet is foreign invasion.

A culture that is perfectly fine with genociding its girls is callous towards its women. Quelle surprise.

I would like to add to this in that it is the general feeling of hopelessness amongst men that has excerbated this situation. Remember that in my piece on MGTOW I pointed out the following:

* Men are capable of great creation, great hedonism, or great destruction.
* Creation requires motivation, which is most often provided to the average man through his family.

Now let's sum up the Indian situation:

*Girls are being murdered in the womb en masse, and hence it is mathematically impossible for men to be matched up with women on an equal level. Increasingly draconian feminist laws will only excerbate the situation for the women who survive in making marriage so much for dangerous for men who would otherwise consider marriage.
*Without a family to anchor him, the average man drifts into hedonism, which is what we are seeing in the West and Japan today, and to a lesser extent, China. Unfortunately, most of India's young lower-class men do not have the luxury of video games and chips to fill the emptiness of their days.
*Barred from creation or even hedonism, the last choice for Indian men is destruction, which is what we are seeing now.

China is somewhat more propserous and so has a bit more of a hedonism sponge to soak up all the drifting men into WoW gold farming sweatshops, but word is that it's starting to fill up, too.

History has shown repeatedly, from the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, that when you get a bunch of young angry men with no families, no hope for the future and nowhere to turn, you either get internal unrest or flat-out war. But of course, blinded by their ideaology, silly feminists will never admit the truth and keep on "trying to teach men to not rape". Hah.

A quick core Koan set:

 
Core set:

First line is to get thing started, other two are continuations. I know Koanic's core set consists of four Koans, but I'll eventually expand them if need be while keeping things simple for now.

How I'm trying this is with a Koan proper, and also a quick visualisation I can use if and when I ever get too incoherent/panicky/whatever to run the actual words through my mind. Koanic suggested that it's more maybe not "saying the whole line" but just feeling what it's about", and the quick visualisation is to those ends.

Aurini - You were warned, and you didn't listen.

*Standing ovation*

A pet logic fail peeve of mine.

Today, ladies (if my vile misogynistic self hasn't scared all of them away yet) and gentlemen, I would like to present a pet peeve of mine, a particularly virulent piece of nonsense thinking that so many silly people fall back on in an argument.

I call it the personal experience idiocy. I'm sure there's a more formal name for it out there - I can't be the only person who's come across this and reflected on it. In any case, here is the basic form of the argument:

"You did not/cannot have personal experience of X, so you cannot have knowledge of/an opinion on X."

Zzzzzzzzz. Stay asleep.

I don't think I should try and discuss issues with the common people anymore.

I just got off the phone with my sister, who, after marrying her doctor husband in the US, promptly quit her job and is doing...well, a whole lot of nothing, by all appearances, although I could be wrong.

First topic of the day: Obamacare. Now, I can understand why my sister would be supportive of Obamacare - after all, her husband has a couple of pre-existing medical conditions, and getting insurance would be pretty hard for him. So instead of doing away with the lawsuit-happy nature of medical malpractice, instead of easing the artificial restrictions on the number of doctors, instead of changing the system to be more free...

"Those corporations are so rich, they can afford to pay a little more."

Because it's for the sick, you see, just like it's for the children. For the people who keep on shovelling the diet of Cain into their bodies and wondering why they're all getting miserable and ill. Fuck the people having their hours cut, fuck the people losing their jobs to keep the number of employees under thirty-nine, fuck the people who are going to probably have to cover their own medical expenses.

So long as people get their healthcare.

At this point, I realised that I wouldn't be getting through to her on this topic, and went into nod-and-smile mode. Regardless of how people are complaining their jobs and job hours have been slashed, despite the misery caused by Obamacare's implementation...it's for the sick.

Learning Koanic Soul, or at least, attempting to.

All right, I think you've had enough bitching from me about the shitty state the world is in; all this negativity is getting to me as well, and there's no sense endlessly wallowing in it. I'm long overdue for another self-improvement post, and what better way to do that than a spot of inner game?

You may remember that a little while ago, I joined Cappy Cap's Forced Discipline and Regimen Month, during which one of my goals was to learn something about a subject I had no knowledge of. Well, I've found something that's a) interesting, b) useful and c) falsifiable via my own testing in daily life, so why not?

What I'm referring to is Koanic Soul.

Now that I've figured out why I'm actually a lot more comfortable doing outrageously silly things with people I consider my in-group as opposed to my out-group (you'd think it'd be the other way around, since you can just dump people from the out-group), coming across Koanic Soul as a system of inner game for natural introverts does sound quite interesting. The principles which it's based on are plausible by my own evaluation, and I can go out and test it on the lab ladies (whom I will say after a number of months of being my game target dummies, have warmed up to me considerably. I suppose it is easy mode because a) they are compartively starved for male attention and b) anyone with a smidgen of game will become compartively alpha in that setting...)

But the most important thing that it appears to be selling is the path to the generation of a solid core self-identity, getting you to answer yourself as to the question of "who am I?" I will admit that is a rather big plus point in my book - I suppose a good proportion of this blog, reading back on my previous entries from the start of this year, has been an education in who I am and who I was even over this short period of time.

When I first started learning game from reading Roosh/Roissy et al, I'll admit to feeling heavily uncomfortable with pick-up per se, and gravitated towards the Ironwood/Vox Day camp of game. Pretty early on, I realised that my moral code would not live up to me closing on a girl (and fuck anyone who says it's beta), and went ahead and learned game to deprogram my brainwashing regarding sexual reality and get my masculinity up to snuff from the whiny, cowardly schlobb I used to be and still am where I haven't picked up all my pieces.

So yes, game for self-improvement as opposed to adding to my notch count, then testing the precepts on a group of captive target dummies. Which is why stuff that cultivates inner game appeals to me.

So the basic idea behind Koanic Soul is that one crafts a number of Koans, small, simple mantras that you can repeat to reinforce yourself, almost like meditation. People already oftentimes use some form of these, Koanic says, such as "this will be easy", "everything is a learning experience" and "I'm the best". The problem, he points out, is that many of these are not a) realistic, b) in line with one's genetic hardware, c) conflict with one another, or suffer from numerous other problems and as such, Koan crafting needs to be done very carefully and Koans tweaked from time to time.

Clearly, this needs a lot of self-reflection and honesty with oneself. It'll be a good exercise, if nothing else. The link I've provided up top to Koanic's blog should have his videos on a number of the basic ideas; considering some of the similarities between us, I think I should be able to use his own Koans as a template to craft my own personalised set and see where those get me.

More to come on this as events progress.

Distorting reality for the cogs.

The Singaporean government instructs women to do their damned national duty of cranking out children in addition to GDP:

Bolded emphasis mine:

Speaker of Parliament, Mdm Halimah Yacob said: "Yes, there's been a lot more talk about work-life balance because I think that lies at the heart of the success of our population policy because we want women to have more children, but (if) there's no work-life balance, they're not going to have more children. Or if they want to have more children, then they're not going to work. So you are giving women a very difficult choice, either they pursue their career, or they stay at home and have more children. So I think we must never put women in that position where they have to choose."

Along with the recent assertions by the Singaporean government that stay-at-home-parents are "economically inactive" (then again, they've made a whole bunch of blunders like calling nurses low-skilled jobs. Whether you believe this is the case or otherwise, it's certainly stirred up a hornet's nest amongst the populace), the true intentions of the government are coming across as nakedly as it gets. Squeeze out kids, citizen, hand them over to us, and it's back to the cubicle for you. And so what little social capital still remaining that women play a major part in maintaining continues to crumble, allowing the state to grab even more power.

To quote Laura Wood:

"But, yes she does think she could have had it all: “I could have made it to a similar place with at least some better version of a personal life.” Feminists believe they are entitled to top careers with no grueling sacrifices. One reason Callan became a top executive was that she was willing to do things such as eat meals at her desk.

What both these women deny is that most competent human beings desire mastery — not balance. Balance — in the feminist sense of the word — is a deadly bore."

Again, although it's a different reason here, the end result is the same: money is confiscated from both men and women to pay to continue distorting reality and save people from the need to make choices about one's life.

God forbid anyone need to understand the concept of an opportunity cost or make a decision that actually a) has consequences or b) doesn't toe the party line. 

Ambassador-at-Large Chan Heng Chee called for more childcare centres to be built within workplaces - an idea the PAP Women's Wing is prepared to push for.

Ms Fu said: "We are speaking on (behalf of the) Women's Wing, I'm sure we will definitely ask for more because we believe that it is either they're going to be very close to where they live, or close to where they can easily drop off. Accessibility, convenience are very important. Having them close to workplaces is important because women also appreciate the flexibility because you can never plan your life entirely, if you need to stay back a little while, you can dash down, so having it close to workplace is a very good idea, something that we'd like to push more."

You know, I was once chatting with a friend of mine. One of the things he brought up was that now there's a childcare in virtually every single Canadian office block. Colourful slides amongst grey concrete, morose children, the works. The rot is spreading.

Never mind that ye olde modern women are generally unhappier by every metric, never mind that an increasing proportion of them are on antidepressants, never mind that they're becoming increasingly too tired to take advantage of their "unleashed" sexual freedom, never mind that they wonder why the children they outsourced their rearing of don't love them, never mind that an increasing number of them are fucking up their own lives and ending up as crazy cat ladies.

I don't give a shit any more, and indeed, would like to give them everything they desire, for it simply means the reality distorter has to work harder and harder - until it finally snaps. Please liberate yourselves out of existence, and as Vox Day points out, the conclusion when society collapses is either the brothel or the burqua, like what's happening in Europe right now.

*Snerk*

I know, I know. It's crude, lowbrow, and of no political or social import. Probably would never belong on a "serious" blog of any sort.

But it's still so damned funny.

Born to be slaves.

Some people are just that - born to be slaves.

Looked at an article. Read the comments on facebook. Sighed. It essentially argues that since Japan (227% of GDP as debt) and South Korea (33% of GDP as debt) have a greater healthcare spending as percentage of GDP than Singapore, we should too. Naturally, despite knowing that I would fail, my lovely MT self waded into the fray once more:

Pestilence ahoy!

Courtesy of the vault dweller.

Seems like the extremely-drug resistant TB has hopped out of Africa and was well on its way to Australia via Papua New Guinea.

Australia’s first victim of a killer strain of drug-resistant tuberculosis has died, amid warnings of a looming health epidemic on Queensland’s doorstep. Medical experts are seriously concerned about the handling of the TB epidemic in Papua New Guinea after Catherina Abraham died last Thursday of an incurable form of the illness, known as XDR-TB (extensively drug resistant TB) in Cairns Base Hospital.

[...]

But respiratory physician Steve Vincent, who treated Ms Abraham, warned that there was a further threat of Totally Drug Resistant or TDR-TB “just around the corner. Her death is not unexpected given the fallout of this killer, incurable disease,” Dr Vincent said. “Despite all the first-world medical treatment, it shows how difficult it is to control. A Papua New Guinean man crosses the waters of the Torres Strait. “It exemplifies the fact with such a high mortality rate, PNG is going to have an extremely difficult time in handling this epidemic.” He said doctors may soon face the ethical dilemma, where it might be “more humane not to treat them and let them die,” as the disease was untreatable.

Sure, Africa or even North America seem far away (even when they're not due to the wonders of modern travel), but Australia is a little too close for comfort.

Keep healthy, folks. Don't drink the corn syrup.

Review of "Enjoy the Decline" by Aaron Clarey.

 
Today, I'll be doing a short review of Mr. Clarey's Enjoy the Decline, which came in that lovely Amazon package with some other books I ordered with my government cheese. Named after his catchphrase, the book is essentially a self-help guide for the depressed fellows of the world who see the world going down the drain. Within the two hundred or so pages of this book, Mr. Clarey lays out in detail 1) why the United States is circling the drain, a phenomenon that can be extrapolated to varying degrees globally, 2) how we can reframe our outlook on life to not just weather, but harness the coming storm, and 3) useful snippets of relevant information that may be useful in doing so, either during the calm before the storm or while the lightning pierces the heavens.

Since many other people have covered his book in great depth, I'll try my best to base my review from the perspective of someone not just outside of North America, but outside of the Anglosphere as well, and comment on its relevancy and how people all over the globe can prepare to enjoy the international decline which the death of the US will no doubt precipitate.

Humpty Dumpty's false glue.

The glue smells funny, and Humpty Dumpty doesn't seem quite himself.

The government is beefing up its support to nurture a pro-family mindset across the spectrum of schools, workplaces and within the community.

The government has set aside S$40 million over three years for the new Family Matters! programme which will consist of five components.

This was announced by Acting Minister for Social and Family Development, Chan Chun Sing in Parliament on Thursday during the debate on his ministry's budget estimates.

The first component is Family Matters@School which will see the Family and Social Development Ministry offering funds to schools from pre-school level to institutes of higher learning.

The money will support programmes that promote family education or facilitate interaction.

For example, students groups in local universities that organise social interaction opportunities for their peers on campus can look forward to 80-20 co-funding of up to S$50 per person, capped at S$5,000 per project, per year.

Pre-schools which organise Family Life Education programmes for parents will also have 80-20 co-funding of up to S$600 per hour, capped at four hours.

Family Matters@Work aims to empower employees at different life stages to build social skills, strengthen their marriage, parent-child relationship and family ties.

The government will co-fund activities that an employer organises for example for their single employees or programmes that promote stronger families.

Still avoiding the root of the problem, I see. Trying to apply more artificial social glue from the top-down to hide the problem.

It's not going to work, but the last decade and a half or more has apparently taught the Singaporean political elite nothing.

Aurini - pondering the nature of the great man.

Hang on tight, folks. Dark clouds and trying times ahead.

Time to separate the wheat from the chaff, the wolves from the dogs.

Some days I hate the internet.

And an oldie but goodie:

 

Is this the part where I raise my arms to the air and scream "why am I surrounded by fools?"

The magic of Singaporean multiculturalism.

Recently, I was directed to a post on society and human biodiversity theory, and it mentions Singapore as an example. Naturally, I find it somewhat interesting how people from the outside view this wonderful little benevolent dictatorship, since it's hard to see the outside of a box when you're sitting in it, and devoured it quite well.

In the post, the author discusses the issue of Hierarchial Integration of different races, and the potential problems within. While he does get some of the facts wrong (from my on-the-ground perspective, anyways), I have to agree with him in general on most of the points that were raised about the problems with Hierarchial Integration, and why Singapore is an interesting case. After all, it's the few places in the world where you can have a church and a mosque lying peacefully a few streets away from each other and the residents don't have their heads explode from the sheer impossbility of it all.

There are a few things he does get wrong, though, and I'd like to expand on them:

Dribs and drabs.

A few things which I've gathered, but don't individually deserve a post on their own:

Edenism:

So, an MT has a Thal soul and a Melon spirit. The default variant will be gentle and law abiding by nature, unless his spiritual objectives override that behavior. In which case, he can become violent, cruel and dangerous, although his Thal soul will impede his execution, both in facility and endurance.

[...]

The MT is unusual in that he is dangerous, but also honest, and will tell you exactly how he is dangerous. (By “dangerous”, I am choosing a middle ground between “deviant” from the Neanderthal perspective and “normal / not a pussy” from a sapiens-world perspective.)

The typically autistic and socially unperceptive pure Neanderthals will react strongly to the MT’s frank admissions of evil, not realizing that those who don’t admit are far worse.

*Snerk* It's scary how some of the descriptions ring so true.

Broken roads:

A few things I do need to wonder aloud before I can finally put the book down for a bit. Spoilers, of course.

Peering out of the box - 11/3/13.

Cappy Cap - The art of connecting far apart actions to consequences.

Who fixes the economy when you turn the key and it doesn’t go “vroom?”

Well, let’s test you with a multiple choice question.
a.    The Federal Reserve
b.    The Federal Government
c.    Congress
d.    The President
e.    The people
The answer is e – the people.

Vox Popoli - The high discourse of Twitter.

Captain Beagle: Which is worse, work or rape? I know 2 women who were raped. Go fuck yourself #sorrynicepplhadtohearthat

VD: Hey, talk to @johnscalzi not me. I certainly didn't rape them.

Captain Beagle: no your article suggested an increase in rapes was less harmful than women handing out resumes. Insensitive & absurd

VD: I didn't suggest it, I proved it. By what metric do you claim that rape is more harmful to society than women working?

Captain Beagle: I was unaware one needed statistical data to prove rape is harmful.

VD: You need something, at any rate. What is your basis for claiming rape is worse for society than female employment?

Captain Beagle: thanx for this fascinating study in hyperbolic misogyny. I'm thinking of using you as the template for my next villain.

We're all just vicious, villianous misogynist men and self-hating women lying in wait in our volcano base, aren't we, folks? Logic and discourse be damned, rabbit arguments ahoy!

Vault Co. - The coming plagues.

Superbugs eat flesh all summer long. Manboons flail ineptly at them with crappy antibiotic strains that barely worked when they were released, now serve as high octane body fuel for microbes. Socialized medicine is the gift that keeps on giving. Britain's national health care system has been giving out antibiotics like party favors for 70 years for conditions as severe as toothache, psoriasis and athlete's foot. Stunned that this resulted in eventual backlash by the well-hung gunslingers of the micro-biotic world.

Eat right and exercise well, folks, and for goodness' sake, don't drink the corn syrup.

Alpha Game - Success and solipsism.

I'm just grateful to learn that the real reason for the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the global financial crisis of 2008 was so that Erin Callan could learn An Important Life Lesson. 

 Le Cygne Gris - The middle class is dead.

In sum, the middle class will be more or less completely gutted.  They will face decreasing wages, higher taxes, and more restraints on entrepreneurial activities that would otherwise alleviate their plight.  They will not be able to afford the Middle Class lifestyle, and will eventually descend into the lower class.  Of course, the current government policies will not last forever; they will continue until they are unaffordable.  But by then, the damage will significant and will take a considerable amount of time and effort to reverse.

 Free Northerner - Feminist self-annihilation.

Wow. Why would any woman tolerate this kind of psychological self-annihilation?

Why? Why would women put up with an ideology that required them to destroy themselves?

I find this more sad than maddening, but if I were a woman, I would be pissed over this.

 Sultan Knish - Making the world a better place.

Charity work is of course of moral worth. But we have a shortage of authentic work that helps others. What we have instead is the need for investing useless work or for-profit work with moral stature. It began in the entertainment industry where every movie, book and play had to be aimed at spreading awareness of something or stamping out something else. And then it was everywhere.

Technology is of moral worth if it's Green. If it's not, it isn't. Finance is of moral worth if it invests in companies that produce social value. Food is of moral worth if it's local and sustainable. Clothes are of moral worth if they come from recycled materials. Every industry and activity has a moral worth that can be assessed based on whether it's making the world a better place or not. And if it is found to be making the world a better place, then no assessment needs to be made of its quality or integrity.

The curse of credentialism.

So after that neurological breakdown/amygdala-pounding I took yesterday, I was enjoying the decline this morning with my copy of the Captain's Enjoy the Decline, and my father passes by the dining table on his way to the televitz and peers at what I'm reading. I am beholden as a dutiful son to show him just that, and after reading the blurb on the back and the foreword, he frowns.

"You shouldn't believe everything you read," he tells me. "You need to think critically."

I point out that Mr. Clarey has backed up all his assertions with evidence, and show him some of the graphs in the book.

"But do these figures come from a reliable source?"

This eventually devolves into a half-hour "discussion" on what the meaning of "reliable" is, of which my father's definition essentially boils down to: if it comes from the government or an "expert", it's reliable and to be willingly taken verbotem.

More of an explanation.

Aurini says it better than I can.

God, I feel old and tired, but the righteous rage still burns. My cranium still throbs.

I don't fancy the coming sadness before the rush wears off.

Edit: Went to the gym, pumped some iron and bashed the punching bag around until my shoulders, knuckles and thighs hurt, and I still don't feel any less wound up. If anything, I feel more wound up for the exercise.

I'm not a paladin, I'm a squire at best. My job is to shine the paladins' armour, sharpen their swords, cook their meals and water their horses, and in return they teach me their way. And yet I can't for the life of me figure this out; it's tying my mind into a gordian knot with no sword in sight.

The point of a right is to prevent evil, isn't it? To maximise freedom and happiness and minimise suffering? In that case, how can someone, after having admitted that pursuing a certain right in a certain fashion not only increases evil, but also reduces happiness and increases suffering, still deny the point of a right and still advocate pursuing said right in that particular blind, unthinking fashion? It would be easy to write off if that person was evil or stupid, but an otherwise intelligent, decent person knowingly advocating evil that fails even a simple pain versus pleasure analysis? When they have conceded every single step of the way?

How can people just accept what they know to be wrong and evil just because a god or idealogy or whatever says so, even after they've conceded all the arguments?

"But I just proved that germs cause sickness!"

"Yeah, but we should still sacrifice a goat to the sky god."

***

"But I just proved that governments can and often do fudge figures!"

"Yeah, but they're the government, I'm sure they did it for a good reason."

ARRRRGGGHHHHH!

Edit 2: the rush finally wore off, now comes the sadness.

It's at times like this when I wish my body would let me stomach alcohol without puking all over the place.

The obsession with "rights".

A post over at Cogitans Iuvenis got me thinking:

The last assertion is a very serious claim to make, but unfortunately, I have concluded that it is undeniably true; or it appears that way to me on my morose days. Sure people care about having freedom for themselves, and maybe their close associates, but they couldn't care less about the freedom of the other person two towns over, much less a thousand miles a way. How else can you explain anti-smoking laws, the FDA using paramilitary to storm raw milk vendors, or the call for individuals to have greater government involvement in our lives? 

I have literally meet individuals that have stated they don't care that government restricts x, the right to bear arms, as long as they grant y, for example free health care. Never mind the demonstrably atrocious job the government has done with education or even managing their own check books. These individuals cannot, or will not, discern that social services are not rights. Free health care, education and a guaranteed standard of living is nice, of course ignoring the dire economic ramifications of robbing Peter to pay Paul, but they aren't innate rights.

Both Aurini and Fringelements have done numerous videos attacking the core assumption of modern-day society that democracy with a universal franchise (and sometimes without) is the bestest thing since bread that's been sliced on all three cartesian planes. Of course, no form of government is free from problems (unless you want to cede power to a completely neutral, all-knowing, all-seeing AI like Helios from Deus Ex is), but democracy does indeed seem to be the pits, especially once people figure out that they can just vote in more government cheese for themselves. You can go watch their videos if you'd like to learn more about their arguments.

And so you enter a debate with someone on the problems of democracy, you get them to admit that it isn't the best form of governance, you get them to admit the attendant problems such as power clustering in a few nodes and catering to the lowest common denominator, you get them to admit rampant voter fraud and "low-information" voters, you corner them into conceding every point and admitting that unrestricted democracy on a governmental level is a failure while brushing aside their histrionics ("Racist!" "Sexist!" "Classist!") and finally, finally they admit that everyone automatically having the vote is a bad idea...

Zombies, zombies everywhere!

Thanks to Aurini for pointing these out to me. I haven't had a good laugh for some time.

Singaporean zombies desire flesh.

Well done. I am truly proud of you.

A quick review of "As I Walk These Broken Roads" by Davis M.J. Aurini.

Well. The novel arrived in the evening, and I finished it in one night. Without further ado, I'd better get down my thoughts in order before they fade away into the obscure corners of my mind. Of course, everything I say here will be coloured by my own preferences in literature and be completely subjective, so take everything I say here with a grain of salt.

While I will endeavour to refrain from giving away too many spoilers, please be aware that I may let some things slip inadvertently. Do forgive me in such cases.

Well, let's begin.

The Observer enjoys and prepares for the post-apocalyptic decline!

All part of a complete and balanced post-apocalyptic breakf- I mean, survival supplies!

Seriously, though, it proves that the picture couldn't have come from anywhere else but this tiny nation.

An old grandmother tale.

Another well-meaning fellow writes in to The Real Singapore, but misses the point:

He told me he is a polio survival hence has lost the movement in his legs. He was also very proud to talk about his 2 kids still in primary school and the fact he sends them off to school every day. He then mentioned his wife is recovering from coma and he is currently the sole bread winner for the family. At 51 years old, wheelchair-restrained, looking after his still frail wife and two young kids, I truly admire his spirit.  

I approached him on the subject of his finances presuming it must be quite a strain for him. He mentioned his kids used to get bursary awards every year but for some reason, it stopped last year. It is perhaps because his income has risen above 2000 per month.

Anyone of us living here knows that 2000 per month supporting a family of three with wife recovering from coma, isn’t a lot. He has approached several organizations, including our revered GRC grassroots, to appeal for financial aid but has been declined..though reasons given often centred on quantitative yardstick. Here’s where we have failed as a society. Our yardstick for someone who qualifies for financial aid is solely based on a quantitative number.

I suppose I can't fault this fellow for wanting to help, but the Singaporean blind spot reveals itself once again: asking the government to use other peoples' money to fix the problem. I suppose I'm going on and on in a rut about this whole thing, aren't I?

I formally join the Captain's forced discipline and regimen month.

Now that my shoulder's more or less mended (there are a few slight twinges remaining, but I'm sure they'll go away soon enough), I'm finding myself with a need to recondition, and what better way to do that than to join the good old Captain's forced discipline and regimen month?

My final semester in my chemical engineering degree will keep my mind occupied enough (oh god, vaccum distillation!), but I've found myself flagging a bit when it comes to the physical side of things. My body's gotten used to the light duty I took to recover, and I've got to whip it into shape.

A couple of goals:

Want to live longer? Be a depressed schmuck like me.

The American Psychological Association claims that pessimism about the future may lead to longer, healthier lives.

WASHINGTON—Older people who have low expectations for a satisfying future may be more likely to live longer, healthier lives than those who see brighter days ahead, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

“Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade,” said lead author Frieder R. Lang, PhD, of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. “Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions.” The study was published online in the journal Psychology and Aging®.

In that case, I shall present Vault-Co. as the internet's premium anti-aging drug. It's the ultimate in depression porn. I know we guys in the MAndrosphere probably are already going to be living pretty long lives, but can't hurt to get a few more useful years in, eh?