Slick Shtick
I'm a brain freeze comic, biting ice for my bit
15 minutes could save you 15% or more on Duckstack insurance1
We’re coming up2 on the second anniversary of The Duckstack, so its time for some changes around here. Effective immediately, all employees are fired, and rehired, into different roles, at random. Report to HQ of your respective works and we’ll have you draw your new position from a hat. Remain calm, your salaries will be unchanged, and you can keep any current job equipment such as forklifts for your new job such as burger flipping. Additionally, everyone will get a .0001% raise3, and a big party bag full of potato chips, and air4! We’re also coming up with some new Duckstack Slogans. Vote for your favorite!
The Duckstack: Faithfully serving you Duckstacks for 50 years
The Duckstack: We scare, because we care.
The Duckstack: We see you.
The Duckstack: Click it or Ticket
The Duckstack: Never before seen
The Duckstack: The Duckstack
Thank you, we have collected your votes mentally, and ignored them. Now, on to The Duckstack.
Happenings
Several dark and stormy nights this week, but one stands out to me like no other.
It rained the other night, and our yard was transformed into a murky swamp, full of muck and mist. I spotted something in one of the muddiest parts and went to investigate, and what I pulled out of the water was more alien than machine, though it was indubitably the latter. It had rust and tarnish along a seven foot humanoid frame, I can only guess at what it might have looked like fresh. Upon its head were two glistening glass eyes, deep and lifeless and yet faceted such as to hint at great potential. Its tinted tin had age-worn diagrams, incomprehensible in purpose and design. Appending its arms were dozens of mechanical tools whose purposes I could not fathom, a relic of a truly alien civilization, now lifeless and without function.
Anyway I took it to the scrapyard they paid me like 40 bucks
The End
Divorcity is our strength
An argument for echo chambers
I once worked at a startup and after it got up to like 40 employees they did an all hands meeting to talk about how startups are rockets fueled not by profits but by venture capital infusions, and so, “instead of building a product, our new focus is going to be just diversity hires because that’s what investors want to see” sorry to everyone who cared about what we were building lol, but that’s how it goes, and pretty much everyone knows its been that way since affirmative action.
This is of course only a small fraction of the sacrifices our more or less broken nation has been rushing to make on the alter of diversity, a rain dance to call down… What? With so much effort, we would expect to see some extremely practical benefits, no brainers on the order of sending your kids to college, which was known to double and even quadruple life prospects, at least until diversity became the primary objective of colleges too. Now not going it almost always the better choice, but what can you do, this stuff is simply more important.
I recently observed someone arguing “If I am to improve I need people to challenge my ideas, not just affirm them”, which is almost right, it is two lefts and almost arrives at right, instead of backwards. This is the “exercise” mental model of grey matter- viewing the mind as a muscle which needs weights to stay in shape. This is true! I have seen minds atrophy to almost nothing from disuse. Nobody would adopt this way of thinking if it didn’t contain truth- but a contained truth is the best way to smuggle error, because it usually is “good enough”. Two points:
Listening to random nonsense isn’t hard work.
Homogeneity isn’t a lack of diversity, it is the presence of focus.
Now there are exceptions to this. It is possible to be “too rigid”, there is danger to failing to adapt and change. There is danger of atrophy from inertness. But think about people you actually respect- Think about who you want to become. Does this person possess enlightenment due to listening to a bunch of petty disagreements? Mine don’t. The people I respect are strong because they have practiced. They have spent a lot of time in their areas of expertise, whether that is career or philosophy or charisma, and that time has translated into deep roots and wide application. They usually didn’t start by planting hundreds of seeds and seeing which sprouted, and then instead of watering the good ones just planted hundreds more seeds! Again, there are exceptions and indeed a degree to which these things are not mutually exclusive, but I am after excellence. There is a point where excellence is not served by breadth. Everyone has different capacities but everyone can only juggle so many things and retain meaningfulness.
This applies to learning various skills, but it also applies to matters of mind and soul also. My dad tells me a story about Japanese samurai which I do not know is true, which is that their sword sheaths were made by hundreds of layers of extremely thin wet material, wrapped around the single shape, and then dried, over and over again. This process eventually created scabbards so hard they themselves could be used as weapons. Our pursuits in life must be like that- layer after layer of different angles, but towards the same thing. Diversity for its own sake will never accomplish this, because there is no end in mind. All these diverse perspectives aren’t working towards your goals, they aren’t even aware of them, everyone is doing their own thing until there’s contact.
Does arguing improve philosophy? I would say so, or at least it improves arguing. But it depends on your interlocutor- Just as lifting weights with inadequate loads or form can be harmful, you can waste a lot of time refuting extremely obvious points to people who don’t care. You can also be persuaded away from something you know to be good and true by people who not only don’t have your experience to determine usefulness from, but who also don’t have your best interests at heart. If you take these things seriously, it is somewhat akin to letting someone work on your car- maybe you have problems, and maybe you don’t, but maybe they’re a mechanic, and maybe they aren’t. When you take arguments seriously, especially online ones, if you haven’t taken proper precautions, you’re liable to change. Not necessarily towards being persuaded, but unfocused development and practice rarely brings about good results.
In other words, diversity is a tool, a specialty device with rare application, and used correctly can bring good things, but to little kids who just gained a hammer, unfortunately every problem looks like a nail. In some ways this is sheer optimism- a sort of philosophical pareidolia, hoping beyond hope that there are hidden important messages in the noise. If there were, then it would surely obviate the need for curation. And that’s the type most vulnerable to this sort of fallacy- whenever you’re in a circumstance where you want to shy away from the burden of curation, to avoid building in favor of intake. But those who neglect building will find themselves with no structure when they need it, henceforth “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive5”
History
he's singing me a song about vending machines, it goes “♪ven ding ma chine ven ding ma chine♫”
In church, they passed us the bread, and our whole family partook humbly without incident, and we remembered Jesus body, which died for us, and then they passed us the water, and we all drank from our little plastic individual cups in remembrance of the Christ’s blood, which was shed for us, and then instead of putting it back like a normal person Jethro grabbed it in his mouth and smashed his head into the tray and dropped the cup into the garbage with his teeth
Then we dropped the toddler off to nursery so we could go to Sunday School, and it was his first time so we thought he’d be nervous. He’s only 18 months old after all. But instead he saw the toys and instantly ran and pushed me out and then slammed the door and from what I can tell he played hard for the entire hour and didn’t miss us once until everyone left.
Jethro has been practicing Design Iteration Principles and has come up with a new thing: “Gentle headbutts. To not hurt mama.”
“penguins waddle so they don't fall down”
“Papa stay out of the road. I don’t want to get squished!” "Squished?” “Yes! Like a squishy Jethro pancake! ♪Je thro pan cake Je thro pan cake♫”
We had a big cherry tree and now we have a big stump. An uncle and his kids came to help us and I got to climb dozens of feet in the air and wave a chainsaw around, like Tarzan, if that was something Tarzan did. We had a lot of help this week and things have been a lot better.
With the cancer situation we have been humbled and I think a little stunned by some of our friend’s generosity. We were able to buy a nice playground, which both kids have been thrilled away from the TV shows by. They constantly beg us to get them dressed to go outside. There is a ladder up to a slide, but the toddler did not know how how ladders worked, and his first guess was to walk up to it and stare up for a little bit, and then just give a little hop. Testing for solutions. How to get up to the slide. He didn’t get anywhere near high enough for the bottom rung of course but the moment of just staring up by himself and then giving a little hop in place will be a precious memory forever
Insurance both against damaged Duckstacks and damages physically caused by Duckstacks
Only 5 months out! The Duckstack was my birthday present, to me, in August
from zero
air refills not included
Ephesians 4:14