Knife Rife
One knife is a weapon. One hundred trillion knives is something else.
The best thing since sliced duckstack
Utah is a desert. The Saharan desert is a desert. The Arabian Desert is a desert. Notice any connection? That’s right, they’re all things which we have decided to call deserts.
The truth is, if you poured enough water on them, each of these places wouldn’t be deserts1. This goes to show the power of the human mind, and the triumphant spirit of human indomitability. What other animal could do this to such innocent geography? Squirtle? Please.
Sometimes, we underestimate ourselves. We think we are mere specks of dust in the universe. But you are literally not dust. You are not sand either. Sand belongs in the deserts. They are kind of known for that. And not a lot else. Any rational person must acknowledge: This isn’t fair.
So what we are asking of you is to keep this in mind. Whenever you see a duck, stick it in a box and mail it to a desert. Then deserts can be known for two things. This is the essence of duckstacking.
The Basics
How to win “`friends” and influence “people”, by Stephen Covey, by bobdaduck.
Joseph Smith once said, ‘There has been a great difficulty getting anything into the minds of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots using a corn dodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle” and man isn't that the truth.
One of the tricky things about communication is that you can say literally whatever you want, but its up to the other person to read it. This means communication, real communication, is almost entirely a matter of disposition. When you ask people what’s the most important ingredient in a successful marriage almost all of them are going to say “communication”, because almost everyone does not connect understanding to effort. Is this because they think understanding is magic? Well, it certainly does solve quite a few problems upfront, we admit.
In my expert opinion, respect will actually get you a lot farther, but even then I must admit respect can come in many flavors and some of them are definitely junk food. And others are actively harmful. A lot of liberal memes about tolerance resolve down to this more harmful kind of respect. Thankfully, some rules of politeness are more or less universal23. If you following the rules of politeness, you get a long way towards “basic respect” which paves many problems in relationships. Which is how they4 got there.
As something of a gold standard parent (self described), I found it intuitive and natural to correct my children in making requests: “More Milk” becomes “Papa would you get me some more milk please” or whatever the toddler lisp equivalent of this is. Why would I do this? I ask you, why would I do this? It is because even though I may technically be my toddler’s slave, its important that he doesn't act like it! Because with other people in life, he is not likely to be so lucky.
“Please” is a functional word. What “please” does is acknowledges that you are making an imposition on someone. Even small requests involve the other person sacrificing for you, even if its minor. If you were paying them then it wouldn’t be a request, it would be a trade. And so when you say please, you show respect for the other person and their time. But children don’t respect other people or their time, heck I don’t think I understood adults were even human until I was like 17 years old. But when you teach a child to say please, you train the child to notice when they are making an imposition on someone. Generally speaking this helps them to be a functional adult who does not run through life resenting people for being offput by them with an inability to manage relationships because every time they want something they phrase it like an insult because they don’t know better. Toddler adults are like that. “will you ________” or “would you _________" works similarly- you turn it into an explicit request that can be said no to5.
Politeness rituals are a mark of maturity for this reason. A person who is polite may not know the second order effects of their politeness, but they behave in such a way as if they do, which is a really decent proxy. Another way of doing this is saying “sorry”. This lets people know that you did not intend to hurt them. It is an adult thing to say because it shows an adult view of the world, where other people are cognizant entities which need to know your intentions in order to make correct judgements6. You are contributing to the landscape of communication. You are showing you are willing to negotiate. You are not acting as though you wanted to hurt them or make them feel bad or tell them to go away. In fact you may well feel these things but if you apologize often it betrays at minimum your willingness to work things out.
When you are fighting with someone, you can tokenize them or you can humanize them. Here is the difference: “you always” or “you never”. Nobody always or nevers. But by using this frame you are putting them in a box rhetorically, and now to negotiate with you they first have to either exit the box or negotiate from inside the box. You have made yourself difficult to live with for no reason. Hope you feel better about yourself because your loved one sure doesn’t, not after you tried to smother them in a blanket7. How you approach a conversation restricts the other person’s framework for responding- and if you want good responses, you want to enhance their ability to respond. An abnormally perceptive or intelligent person often can “hold frame” and respond to what you’re really saying no matter how poor of a package you put it in, but nobody is 100% and again, you should not be taking them for granted.
When you tell someone to do something, you can assign ownership to yourself. For example, “I would like you to.” This assumes responsibility for your desires, rather than behaving as though it is their responsibility to follow your orders, or worse, their responsibility to unravel your desires.
Tree-Totalers
Have you warrantied your Christmas tree this year? What if someone crashes it?
Its that time of year, when we set up the sentinels to watch us in our rooms, imposing and domineering. Christmas trees. These barbaric beasts stand tall across nigh every family, watching, waiting, guarding. It hoards presents beneath it, trinkets and gifts, offerings of fear and supplication, offerings begging to be spared, offerings pleading for one more day, one more day until Christmas is here. But it never comes. There are 25 more days, and Christmas is not coming, and the tree looms in your living room. Watching, judging. What can we do? We can cower and hide, longing for the day when we can be free. The tree lights. It mocks. Its baleful gaze full of scorn and contempt. Another gift. Another day closer. We hope.
History
The baby was crying while I was wiping her nose, something babies on average do not enjoy, and our sympathetic toddler spoke to her: “Is he taking your burgers (boogers) away from you?”
It snowed briefly this week. “Its snowing!” Toddler runs to the window. “Its from the trees!”
“I’m battling pinecones!” (toddler sitting in a mess of destroyed pine cone debris across the whole kitchen)
The toddler has been eating too much shredded cheese lately perhaps. My wife was grating a potato and the toddler yelled in excitement: “You turned the potato into cheese!”
Duckstack Biology: The Nervous System
Maybe you’ve got one, maybe not
I was sitting in class the other day8 and the teacher dared say something that immediately struck me as egregiously false. This horrifying lie that shocked and repulsed me was that everyone has what’s called a nervous system inside them. What?!?!? Just think about it. Is your whole body and being sublimated to being nervous? The very idea is preposterous. Here is what I propose: Some of you have nervous systems in you. The rest have something else.
Nervous System: A latticed network of nerves carrying electricity, jolting and stuttering in a way that you can never expect. People with nervous systems fear the unknown and have an external locus of control, leading them to take great comfort in routine.
Calm System: A latticed network of nerves carrying blood, in even and steady pulses. The calm system is known for its reliability, and people with calm systems often find themselves unperturbed by change and upset. People with calm systems are difficult to motivate, but they are able to progress towards their goals one step at a time. When given a task, people with calm systems say: “Slow and steady wins the race.”
Anger System: A latticed network of tissue on the outside of a person, people with anger systems obsess with boundaries and are quick to define where others end and they start. People with anger systems feel a strong need to protect what’s theirs, sometimes lashing out unthinkingly, but they do have a good heart, which they wear on their sleeve9.
Confusion System: A latticed network of tissue on the inside of a person, people with confusion systems often find themselves moving beyond their control. They cannot sense the outside world well and often feel at its mercy, but at heart10, they are the ones driving everything. People with confusion systems are driven by a passion for learning, whether it is to connect with the greater world, or just to connect with themselves. The confusion system is a powerful system for growth, because it can analyze every tear and trauma and become stronger.
Excitement System: A latticed network of calcium inside of a person, the excitement system goes in every direction, all the time. People with excitement systems love to move, getting out and playing, or working in the yard, or just going on an adventure. With stiff and large movements, people with excitement systems are able to make leaps and bounds towards their goals, which all the other systems just need to slug towards. The excitement system makes people reach farther, and stand taller, but sometimes this can go to their head, making them alienate those around them, and sometimes make poor judgements in their relationships. People with excitement systems find adaptation hard, and flourish best with stiff rules and rattling applause.
Democracy
Have you ever wanted to vote? Have you ever felt… Opinionated?
I’m sorry, reader. Things are getting rough out there. There’s only so much we can do, but we’re getting to the end of our rope. What will you do?
Well you made your choice. And it certainly was a choice make no mistake about it. But there is still time to turn back if you made the wrong one. You can still press forward, but only for a little bit longer.
Thank you for trying. Thank you for everything you’ve done. But we’re running out again. How long can we continue at this rate? The bad things surround us, closing in from all sides
We are so close, but is there really a point? Who knows what’s even on the end… Is it more bad things? Is there even any guarantee? What are we fighting for? A mere reprieve?
The battles keep on coming… the people, our countrymen, they fall to the left and to the right. The storms are high around us and what can one puny man do? We cannot see, we cannot dream. We can only wait, and despair. But wait, what’s this?
Trade Goods: Functionalist Modesty
What’s the deal with clothes? What’s the point?
My friend Tom Stringham wrote an article on modesty standards this week, where he lays out a simple understanding of modesty. He says that modesty used to be preached a lot, and thought it has been since lowered in favor of other priorities, there remains quite a lot to learn from the reasons these standards exist in the first place. Indeed, like the rules of politeness, the purpose is multifaceted. And while I disagree with Tom on a couple of things, for example that unbridled male sexuality is a threat to monogamous culture, his understanding of the issue is rock solid. Unfortunately he keeps his substack locked, so you will need to subscribe in order to read it, but I will produce some excerpts here.
Feminist critics grasp this when they argue that wearing revealing clothing is “empowering”. They notice the effect the clothing they wear has on men.
But modest clothing also has an effect on men. And when women engage in modesty collectively and systematically, the effect is magnified, in the same way the collective norm against premarital sex gives women bargaining power in their relationships with men. Under modesty norms, something men want is credibly withheld and only given to them if they follow the rules. In this way, modesty promotes sexual solidarity among women.1
…This idea that modesty functions as a female sexual coalition and promotes equality among women explains the church’s behavior better than the theory in which church leaders want women to be responsible for male sexual temptation.
Consider makeup. If the church’s critics are right, why wouldn’t the church discourage wearing makeup? Makeup, like revealing clothing, is designed to enhance female sexual appeal. If leaders were just trying to prevent men being tempted, why would they never discourage makeup and, at times, outright tell women to wear it?
Because it’s more complicated than that. The effect of makeup on the female hierarchy is the opposite of that of revealing clothing. Revealing clothing benefits the most sexually appealing women the most, but makeup tends to benefit the least appealing women the most.
In other words, if you want to maximize equality among women in the dating market, which is desirable if you want as many couples as possible to pair off, you should promote, perhaps counterintuitively, both modesty and makeup.
…
Meanwhile, modesty as a topic in its own right is seldom discussed. When it is discussed, it comes in mixed messages. One of the few articles about modesty in church magazines in the last few years had the subtitle “There’s a lot of focus on being modest on the outside. But what about being modest on the inside?”. The unnamed authors’ nominal support for dressing modestly seems in tension with their repeated warnings against “get[ting] so focused” on that idea, and with their dubious characterization of the contemporary church as highly concerned with modesty in dress. They invite the reader to consider how many other behaviors—gossip, excluding others, profanity, etc.—are actually immodest, before conceding that these behaviors also “violate commandments other than modesty”. The takeaway for the reader is to “focus” less on modest dress, and to remap the word “modesty” to principles for which words already exist.
Ducksnax
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If you poured enough water on them, they’d be lakes
If you happen to live in a society where “please” and “thank you” are words of hostility which will get you killed, you can just disregard this
also: move
them rules
Um bob. But then what if they say no. The whole point is to get them to do what I want.
No, the point is to build a relationship where doing what you want is mutually beneficial. If you want slaves you are in the wrong business!
This isn’t talking about lying
There are some blankets of words which are good to smother people with, for example “I love you” and “you’re the best” or “you’re always so thoughtful” or “I am smothering you with words right now and there is nothing you can do” or “warm warm warm warm warm”
like, 20 years ago the other day
um. Not literally. We haven’t observed that.
again, not literally. But actually literally is ok also now that I’m thinking about it