Proud Cloud
Cotton Candy is sugary sweet. Synthetic fiber candy is sour and chewy.
E = MC Duckstack
Dear Duckstack,
Today I went to the dentist, and he proved beyond reasonable doubt that my teeth hurt. I can only conclude that my teeth are wound too tight- that’s what I get for not having dreams about them falling out like normal people are supposed to. Now I’m paying the price, and teeth are symbolic of legacy you know. I learned that from two minutes of googling “teeth dream symbolism”.
Anyway by not unwinding them it seems I voided the warranty so I’m in a bind now. Perhaps my story will aid in helping some other poor soul to avoid my fate. But that wouldn’t be fair to me, who is already suffering this. So take the secret to your grave.
Nondenominocracy
The voice of some of the people
At any given time about 25% of the country is Republican and about 25% of the country is Democrat because most people don’t vote. I made those specific numbers up of course but its not really representative at that point, you know? And like I and many others have pointed out most people would be more comfortable reselecting congress from a phone book at random than what we’ve got currently. Which was the original hope in electing Trump anyway- “we’re done with the system, shoot a rocket into it, expose its corruption and blow it all up”. Trump actually delivered on this pretty well.
Democracy in the Book of Mormon is a central theme and its pretty much exclusively a bad thing. A friend put it humorously, once they dissolved the monarchy all sorts of unsavory types started vying for power:
Not just on racial lines but even just from within, the kingsmen and the gadianton robbers do way more damage to Nephite society than the Lamanites did, and were generally instrumental in getting the Lamanites to attack the Nephites anyway, the Book of Mormon uses the phrase “stirring them up in anger”. Joseph Smith said 200 years ago the Book of Mormon was written for our day. Wonder who that’s for.
But the problem with Democracy isn’t Democracy as-such, its that it is very difficult to get in pure quantities. The closest we get is the jury system, where peers are selected sort of at random to weigh in on something. In normal life the people most passionate about a thing get the most voice, because they’re able to raise more passion about it through their networks. Add into this the effect of money and you get Democracy’s largest weakness, which is that it is exceptionally vulnerable to propaganda. The media learned this 50 years ago.
So we have the worst of both worlds in a lot of ways, and the only reason we’re not a third world country like Britain is that the constitution gives us a massively better starting point. But we don’t have a functional democracy, and it isn’t clear to me that we have a functional republic. Democracy wouldn’t land us where we are today.
Democracy was on track to ban gay marriage in California, of all places, in 2008. Democracy was overruled by a single set of lawyers for the entire nation. Those people have names and addresses.
Democracy has always been against immigration. Anti immigrant sentiment is the single highest polling issue and has been for decades, but while “reform” is always promised, cessation has never been delivered.
Democracy was against civil rights. Democracy was in favor of the southern states seceding from the union. Democracy was against abortion.
Democracy was on track to give us prohibition, which reduced alcohol fatalities and domestic abuse and rape and DUIs and basically every negative behavior anywhere it was enacted- but it was overruled by conventions and propaganda in favor of the literal mafia
The liberal narrative here is, “we beat democracy by forcing these changes on ignorant sheeple, we won, we have miraculously always been the good guys in history”. This news probably comes as a relief to congressmen who by and large have very guilty consciences.
Either way, the take home is that we aren’t ruled by the majority, we’re ruled by the powerful, and its very difficult to overthrow powerful people. Let alone ensure they have accountability. Recently they voted that they’re exempt from insider trading being illegal1. What are you going to do about that? You can’t.
This is certainly frustrating, but a key takeaway is that democracy itself isn’t that bad- but like any government system it has several security holes that need to be patched or they will be exploited and the exploits will be made impossible to close by those who use them. In the Book of Mormon this was solved by consolidating the society of good men, such that those who lived by power and thievery but who created nothing were starved to death, creating an easy final battle. In our day, these solutions will be much more tricky, nevertheless they will choke our society unless they are beaten back.
20 And now I, Moroni, do not write the manner of their oaths and combinations, for it hath been made known unto me that they are had among all people, and they are had among the Lamanites.
21 And they have caused the destruction of this people of whom I am now speaking, and also the destruction of the people of Nephi.
22 And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.
23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.
-Ether 8
Playing Chicken
Sitting in the dark, plotting their schemes
Everybody2 knows how to cook. Humans have been doing it a million years, and we’ve worked all of the principles behind it out perfectly. There’s three steps to cooking:
Shopping gets you items
Stirring them together causes them to merge
Heat makes them turn into their true form
This process of applying heat to transform things works in all stages of life, and its what chickens are doing when they sit on eggs. They are literally cooking the ingredients (eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, salt) into a chicken. This is what the sun is doing to the earth also.
So if you don’t want to be turned into a chicken, you will need air conditioning3. This marvelous invention works by eating heat. You can install little air conditioners in regular chicken eggs as well, which will prevent them from being turned into chickens.
Eventually the air conditioner might get turned into a chicken, however.
History
LOL - Lots Of Learning
The toddler is teaching us about babies: “she’s cute! And I’m big.”
The toddler found mama and he was totally orange. My wife asked him “what happened to you?” and with the biggest grin on his face he told us: “I drinka the peaches.”
The toddler playing with toys: “You can do it! Oh no you're out of batteries! I'm not out of batteries. Yay, you did it!” These toys were the names of some of our neighbors that he plays with sometimes. So from the sound of it, his real friends are also his imaginary friends, and, they're robots.
My wife was having a stress headache this week and the toddler asked what was wrong. My wife told him “oh I’m just dying”. And he stopped her right there: “No, you not dying. Grandma is dying.” (grandma has had cancer for a few years now) and then he thoughtfully added: “And grandpa not like being a ghost.4” Morbid enough to shock my wife out of her anxieties, I expect.
“Spiderman don't have a mouth. But sister does have a mouth!” Toddlers are more observant than humans
Welcome to the internet!
its new
We got all kinds of stuff in here. We got:
Broadband Internet: for wide people
Narrowband Internet: for skinny people
Rubberband Internet: For people who are made of rubber5
Fiberoptic Internet: For people who have eyes
Dial Up: For people who prefer a more authentic experience. Nobody calls the internet anymore :’(
Shameless Plug
You never would have expected me to talk about myself on my own blog
I haven’t been writing very frequently due to depression and similar from my son’s passing, but I do have a fictional story I have been publishing in serial format. It is a cyberpunk fantasy. I am not very used to writing a longform story with things like “characters” and “a plot” so I worry that the writing is a little awkward, but I hope it to still be fun. A lot of people told me this week they didn’t know I’m doing this so I’m reposting it again, and you can always find the link on The Duckstack, under “bobdaduck’s other projects”.
Thanks.
Ducksnax
musket
Insider trading means they pass a law that says “only organic eggs from now on”, and everyone in congress buys organic egg stocks, and then when the law passes the stocks skyrocket and everyone in congress gets rich. This is blatantly illegal for normal people.
Plus or minus everybody
most europeans are already as chicken as it gets
Doctrinal. “D&C 138:50 For the dead had looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage.”
or people who enjoy lagging in call of duty