Billy Doesn’t Want to Hit Himself in the Head with a Hammer

There is a person named Billy who lives in a world where the most common cure for a headache is hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. But Billy doesn’t want to do that. Billy thinks that hitting himself in the head with a hammer will actually make his headaches worse, but when he says this, everyone laughs at him and calls him names. So Billy keeps quiet about his beliefs. He even sometimes lies and tells people that he does hit himself in the head with a hammer,…

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How I Became A Capitalist

For nearly 20 years I identified as an anti-capitalist anarcho-communist, but ironically in the last four years, as those ideals have exploded into the mainstream in response to Trump, I have gone the opposite direction. It was just a few months before Trump was elected that I started a job at BNY Mellon, one of the biggest banks in the world. I felt like a sellout, like I was taking part in some great evil. But I started the job and it was really easy, but they also kept me…

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Why We Need to Invest More in the Space Industry Even Though We have Problems Here on Earth

This is a deeply problematic question. The subtext behind this question of course is, “space travel holds little to no value to humanity.” Also, “space travel somehow takes away resources from things that actually help humanity.” Both of these subtexts are so false that it feels like gaslighting to informed people. The child-like over-simplification of such a complex issue feels to space enthusiasts as though it is deliberately designed to make us feel stupid. That may not be the case, but that is how it feels. This question is rarely…

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Automobile Trauma is Just as Valid as Other Forms of Trauma

Years ago I had a girlfriend who was terrified of automobiles. Whenever we would drive anywhere, she would grip the handles in terror. A few times she would even break down in tears if someone cut us off or I had to hit the brakes too hard. She would sometimes chant to herself “it’s perfectly fine. We’re safe. It’s all safe. This is all perfectly safe.” It recurred a few times where we would need to drive somewhere and she would have a panic attack, then she would call herself…

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Millie’s Pipe Dream

Once upon a time there lived a young girl named Millie. Millie lived in a little village, where everybody loved each other and everyone seemed happy except for one problem: they were a long way from the river. Every day, most of the villagers had to walk a long trail down a cliff to fill up their buckets so they could have water to cook, bathe and wash dishes. Every day for years Millie walked this trail several times, carrying a bucket of water for her mother, then her sister,…

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Toxic Anti-Capitalism

In my early thirties I dated for a couple months a woman whose best friend was dating a millionaire CEO of a software company. I hung out with him a couple times. He may be the only millionaire I’ve ever had drinks with outside of a work event. He bought me a cheese plate once and talked about the history and significance of each cheese. He seemed like a pretty normal guy. You never would have known he was loaded. He would write these long, deeply emotional emails to his…

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The Secret, Oddball Thing that Offends Me

I have a weird story/confession. Before today I’ve only ever spoken about this to the few people I mention in this story. I’m hearing so much talk lately about the words people use surrounding gender and thinking about how easily the wrong words can offend. I personally don’t understand a lot of the emotion surrounding gender, but I do have one thing in my life I use as reference to try to help me understand. I didn’t attach my identity to my gender. Instead, for whatever reason, the main things…

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Why I Try to Communicate Even When it Seems Hopeless

Almost 20 years ago one of my closest friends was a Nazi sympathizer. He would lay out in order which races were better than which and go on about how Hitler was just in a hard situation and did what he had to against the Jewish invasion. Some pretty gross stuff. We would argue nearly every time we hung out. He believed the world was all a competition, race vs race and we all needed to stand up for our race. I argued that no, we are all humans and…

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Review of The Wrong Missy on Netflix with Spoilers

I don’t normally do movie reviews but I finally watched The Wrong Missy on Netflix and was taken aback by the lack of social responsibility shown by the writers. Spoilers will follow: If you’ve seen the preview, you know it’s about a boring businessman named Tim who invites the wrong woman on a corporate retreat. The first thing she does is drug and rape him on the plane while other passengers watch and laugh. Tim is really upset about this and starts fantasizing about her death/murder. She then goes on…

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Conservatives are Better at Emotional Distancing

I wrote this months ago and wanted to post it before the election. Then I forgot about it. I still think it’s relevant though. Years ago I spoke with a conservative who told me he couldn’t understand why anyone would get upset about politics. “If I order steak at a restaurant and I really like my steak and recommend it to you but you order chicken instead, I don’t get all mad about it. I don’t see why politics is any different.” My first instinct was to agree because it’s…

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Mr. Spock, Bill Hicks, and the Guy Who Gave Us a Tow

It sounds cliché, but one of the most meaningful things I ever saw on television as a child was The Wrath of Kahn where Spock gave his life for the Enterprise and said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” This made perfect logical sense, but emotionally it didn’t truly sink in until much later. In 1996, Tool released the album Ænima, which I listened to almost daily through my junior and senior years in high school. The album features comedian Bill Hicks…

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Heart Disease will Kill More this Year than Coronavirus

Our reactions to the virus are wildly inconsistent with life’s other dangers NASA estimates that around 5,000 people died worldwide from various effects of nuclear power between 1971 and 2009, including meltdowns. By comparison, coal is estimated to kill 800,000 people per year. However, nuclear power is far more scary and people get far more upset about nuclear power plants in their communities. Why is that? Likewise, most of us know that airplanes are safer than cars, but we are still more terrified of them. If you really look at all…

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50 Life Lessons in 5 Minutes

50 Life Lessons in 5 Minutes Just some theories I try to live by. Seek out experiences, not pleasures… but don’t feel guilty about your guilty pleasures. Don’t judge others openly regardless of how horrible they are, but that doesn’t mean you have to trust them or hang out with them. Do what you need to do to get along with people. Or leave. Don’t allow emotional vampires to take advantage of you. Worry about real-world effects rather than emotions… but recognize that your emotions have real-world effects on the people around…

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Our World View Determines Everything

Our World View Determines Everything Here’s me bragging about how awesome my life is I’ve been watching Ted Talks recently and decided to watch a pro-God video in the interest of being open minded. It’s by Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life which has sold more than 30 million copies. I’m not sure what happened to the video but I’m sure it’s still out there. But I wanted to mention something that he said that I absolutely, %100 agree with: “Your world view though does determine everything else…

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On Being an Anarchist but Still Going Corporate

I’m fraternizing with the enemy Here is another article I wrote in 2010 on my WordPress blog when my career was really just getting started and I was sorting out how I felt about working for a big corporation and making lots of money. I actually went corporate years ago, but now I’m moving up again in the corporate world. I got hired on full-time at the agency where I’ve been working the last six months. Before this I was making more money than I felt I deserved, and now I’m…

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Thou Shalt Not Lie

This is a commandment that I actually agree with. I’ve heard atheists argue that this can be a problem because occasionally telling a lie is the right thing to do, such as if you were hiding a Jewish person in your attic in Nazi Germany. This is one of the few cases where I tend to agree with the Christians instead of the atheists. I would make a few exceptions for if you’re lying to a government entity or a selfish corporation, but I believe that it’s never okay to…

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