Checks and Balances

I'm a nautical cashier and I only accept payment in anchors

To stay healthy, you should drink 8 gallons of Duckstack every day.

Art: Siegfried Zademack

Friends, human and otherwise¹, I welcome you to The Duckstack. A newsletter about Science. If you feel inclined to experiment on today’s newsletter, the best time to prepare would have been yesterday, but the second best time is now. Go on, put on gloves and goggles, today’s letter must be handled with care. I will wait.

I lied, I did not wait². Enjoy!

I Have A Dream

If I tell it to you, perhaps you will have this dream as well.

---

I dreamed there was a tall mountain with many climbers, carrying millstones upon their backs. Fireflies buzzed about, and a few started following one man. A hiker observed this, and remarked to his partner, “those will be the death of him someday.”

The fireflies bonked into the millstone, and as time wore on they would occasionally bonk into it again. Each time one bonked it, the firefly would eat a tiny chunk, microscopic but delicious all the same.

With each bonk, the fireflies would grow stronger. Eventually, its bonks were noticeable, but by that time the traveler’s millstone was severely corroded, and the traveler didn’t have enough weight to counterbalance against the collisions. He lost his balance, and went tumbling down the mountain, presumably to his death, if the first hiker was to be believed.

---

Now this dream was highly symbolic, so there’s a lot of messages you can take from it. Burdens, journeys, and loss are all very archetypical themes with a lot of possibilities. Here’s just a few suggested readings:

1. Protect your burdens.

2. Fireflies is HOUNGRY.

3. Rocks are edible.

4. Eat your burdens.

5. People who hike without bugspray get what’s coming to them³.

6. Fireflies are like bears: don’t feed them.

7. Train to be a karate kid chopstick fly-catching grandmaster, before its too late.

HISTORY

Too much of history is abridged. There are no bridges in today’s history section.

“Mama, I like you, but you’re squishing me”

*Walking into the room* “I’M NOT STINKY”, fact check: False

I never taught him the word for syrup so its “pancake sauce” now

He’s still a picky eater and we’re a little worried about his appetite but it turns out he can eat an infinite amount of french fries⁴ so I guess he’s fine

I found out today my wife has made a whole bunch of baby food and packed it into jars indistinguishable (to the masculine eye) from the jars she canned the jalapenos in

Fighters

Improper practice merely embeds error

I saw a meme this week, something to the effect of “just wait until you piss off the people who just want to be left alone”, and I thought that personally I would rather not.

You see, I think that by the time the grill folks get involved, things will be really bad⁵ and I think that fighting is going to be very difficult for people who have been training themselves to be deeply conflict avoidant their whole lives. I don’t think they’re going to suddenly “snap” and reveal insane verbal or otherwise kung-fu skills- I think the people who will be good at fighting when the time comes they’re needed will be the ones who have been doing it all along, and there will probably be quite a lot of them who are quite vile and unrespectable⁶, because the person who fights with little reason is the type of person that enjoys it. In other words, the principled peace lovers will not save your kids from rainbow jihad⁷ and when it reaches them they will be confused and hurt, not powerful⁸.

What I usually have seen is that when a man of peace finally snaps, he lashes out blindly- because they have no combat experience, they have no sense of discipline or judgement. In an argument, they’ll yell, insult, thrash… and in the end they’ll have failed to induce any meaningful change and also made their viewpoint look out of control⁹¹⁰¹¹. Because of their inexperience, they can’t tell when their message has gotten across, they’re terrible at picking battles, they can’t tell what “doses” are effective¹² , they can’t protect themselves, and they can’t prevent collateral damage¹³. Joseph Smith taught “correcting betimes with sharpness, but showing afterwards an increase in love¹⁴” among other principles for resolving conflict. But how can you correct well if you have always avoided doing so on the little things? One person once told me that God had only ever told them to be maximally nice to everyone (using the most shallow definition of nice here), and I replied “well why would God ever tell you otherwise? You would be really bad at it.” They told me they had never thought of that before, and found it insightful. The parable of buried talents comes to mind here.

This does not mean we should not strive for peace and Zion¹⁵. The Book of Mormon makes clear that fighting is indeed justifiable before God¹⁶, but that doesn’t remove our duty to peace! When to stand firm “to bloodshed” (rhetorical or otherwise) and when to give your enemies an extra coat for their journey is a huge work of discernment, it will take a lifetime of learning to really get it down. What I see often is that rather than practicing that line, many will assume all appeasement is Christlike, and all disagreeableness is “contention¹⁷” “driving out the spirit”, and then they get into situations where even just a tiny bit of, not even contention, just maybe 10% assertiveness, would massively increase their quality of life, but they trip up, and can’t do it, leaving themselves frustrated and angry. I don’t believe God wants this for us, but it is not a problem that can be solved with logic, it must be solved with temperament.

CHESSOSCOPES

You’ve got to start thinking ahead to beat these chessoscopes. This is ranked, btw. If you lose this section it will affect your ELO. Good luck.

KING - You can only move one square in any direction and probably a lot less than that due to the constraints imposed on yourself by your position as king and your loyalty to your family, who are all being very weird. Don’t trample any of them, move slightly sideways maybe, but probably just stay in place. Do not leapfrog the rook at this time.

QUEEN - With your endless possibilities, you are liable to get yourself in real trouble, I’m talking real hot water, especially if you move 9 spaces to the right. That’s right, this chess match is being played over a literal pot of boiling water. Ask yourself, can you trust yourself not to move 9 spaces to the right? If you can’t, you should consider being captured, for your own good. It won’t make your team happy, but I really believe in my heart they would prefer you captured than melted.

BISHOP - Everyone needs your blessings, but you can’t get to everyone because you are blinded by racism. You have to take at least four critical race theory classes to realize that those guys you can’t reach don’t matter and in fact they’re kind of in the way. Those in your reach are the most deserving of your blessings anyway.

OTHER BISHOP - Everyone needs your cursings, but you can’t get to everyone because you are blinded by racism. You have to take at least four critical race theory courses to realize that you can’t curse everyone, you have to pick and choose, and those in your reach are the ones most deserving of curses anyway.

KNIGHT - Who taught you to ride a horse?

ROOK - You pretty much only have two options so I don’t know why you’re thinking so hard about this. Just make big moves and try to keep out of trouble.

PAWN - You have no agency and it is doubtful you are even experiencing qualia. Your life is governed by blind luck, horoscopes, chessoscopes, invisible hands. Pray your Lord is a righteous one, and perhaps one day your agency will grow.

PLAYER - I have a clinical diagnosis for you: You’re a psychopath.

1. Probably just more humans but if any animals want to read my little newsletter such as dreams or robots or plants, I’m really very flattered. Read on.

2. Hope that doesn’t mess up your plans too much. To my wife who is reading this, I know you don’t like plans changing and I promise you this was unavoidable and entirely justified.

3. A nice tumble down the mountain is coming for you, You Of Insufficient Deet

4. I love science

5. Worse than every media on earth teaching kids to experiment sexually and nobody being able to afford housing or children, because we’re already there

6. There’s a lot of people especially liberals and techbros who have never really interacted with a blue collar in their lives

7. aka LGBT nationalism

8. Look at this, look at how he’s like “but but but, I’m not a racist!”. Quokkas, lol

9. Also indulging lunacy increases lunacy

10. Too much reputation consciousness might be bad but these are exactly the times to actually be reputation conscious. Not only do your adversaries take you less seriously, but your allies as well.

11. Sometimes you want your viewpoint to look out of control but you gotta control it

12. 1 Corinthians 3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

13. How many come out of arguments fuming from past nonsense that was brought up, rather than feeling like they addressed with sharpness and precision a specific issue, and can now move on to more pleasant things?

14. D&C 121:43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.

44 That he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.

15. D&C 38:27 Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.

16. Some really hard verses to swallow if you take them literally:

Alma 61:10 And now, behold, we will resist wickedness even unto bloodshed. We would not shed the blood of the Lamanites if they would stay in their own land.

11 We would not shed the blood of our brethren if they would not rise up in rebellion and take the sword against us.

12 We would subject ourselves to the yoke of bondage if it were requisite with the justice of God, or if he should command us so to do.

13 But behold he doth not command us that we shall subject ourselves to our enemies, but that we should put our trust in him, and he will deliver us.

14 Therefore, my beloved brother, Moroni, let us resist evil, and whatsoever evil we cannot resist with our words, yea, such as rebellions and dissensions, let us resist them with our swords, that we may retain our freedom, that we may rejoice in the great privilege of our church, and in the cause of our Redeemer and our God.

17. 3 Nephi 11:29 For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.