A Geek With Guns

My favorite Internet meme has hit the streets of Minneapolis. When I was out and about Sunday evening I encountered the following pictured graffiti on the west staircase on the north side of the 3^rd Street bridge:

While I don’t approve of graffiti I must say this is one of the few times I’ve seen graffiti used to express something of value (usually I only see people spray painting their names or the name of their gang on street signs).

If you didn’t realize today is Thanksgiving you now know. Now go forth and be glutenous for it is the spirit of the holiday!

According to my clock it is now 04:15 and I just finished upgrade the server’s RAM. I’m doubting anybody noticed the short outage at this hour and if you did you should be in bed.

Either way everything looks good.

You guys have done it, you’ve hit my server hard enough that I’m quickly running low on available RAM. While I will consider this a metric of my success it does mean I have to upgrade the little server. I’ve ordered more RAM which will be here Friday so sometime between Friday evening and Monday morning this site will be down for a short while (probably all of five minutes, you’ll likely not even notice).

After the upgrade this site will be… the same as before most likely. Thanks everybody for reading and giving me a headache that’s cheap and easy to correct. It’s far better than those headaches that are expensive and time consuming to alleviate.

One advantage to running a blog is that you have a public platform available for ranting. If something pisses you off you can tell the world (or at least a very tiny percentage of the world that reads your blog). This post is another one of my rants and it has to deal with numbers.

Everywhere you look today we see people throwing around numbers. Some will say politicians shouldn’t be allowed to accept gifts over $10,000, others say we need to pump $1 trillion into building infrastructure, and others claim no person should be allowed to own more than two homes. What irritates me about these statements is that the numbers are apparently selected arbitrarily. Whenever somebody makes a statement involving a number I always ask them how they come to the conclusion that number was valid. How comes a person making $1 million or more qualifies as “rich” and thus has to pay a 90% incomes tax? What criteria lead to the selection of $1 million and 90% tax rate? Demanding justification for the selected numbers seldom nets you any logical justification. After asking one person the logical reason for selecting $1 million as the threshold that defines “rich” and “poor” the answer I received was, “Uh, err, it’s just common sense! How do you not understand it?”

It’s not common sense though. Common sense involves culturally accepted norms and as humans are not good at dealing with large numbers there can be no cultural norm revolving around large numbers. Those who wish to restrict the number of homes a person can own also fail to provide any real justification. They will often say something along the lines of, “Nobody needs more than two homes!” Such statements are correct in a technical sense since one could always rent an apartment but from a logical sense the statements hold no water. What if a businessman periodically travels between four different company sites? Let’s say he spends an average of three months a year at each location. Why shouldn’t the businessman be allowed to own a home in each of the four locations? Allowing him to own multiple homes doesn’t hurt you in any way and does benefit the economy since it requires each home be built, maintained, and provided with utilities.

Speed limits are another arbitrarily selected number with piss poor justification. While the government claims speed limits serve as a mechanism of increasing road safety this is easily proven false by the fact that the German Autobahn has not speed limits in many locations and has a low fatality rate. Likewise if the speed limit was really a limit people should be getting into more accidents when they exceed the speed. Everyday my trip to work involves traveling on two highways where the posted speed limit is 55 mph but everybody drives around 70 mph. The number of accidents isn’t obscenely high meaning 55 mph must not be the threshold of safety where exceeding it will cause an increase in accidents. Speed limits are just another arbitrarily selected number with weak justifications.

Any desired policy must be completely justifiable. Selecting an arbitrary number and claiming it is a threshold of some sort is not justifiable. I can say my Magpul SR-25 magazines have a maximum capacity of 20 rounds of 7.62x51mm because 21 rounds will not fit. That’s a hard fact and thus using the number 20 makes sense. Saying somebody who makes $1 million should pay 90% income tax makes little sense because there are no solid facts for defining the thresholds of $1 million and 90% other than saying they “feel” right. Feelings have nothing to do with policies and should be completely ignored in that regard.

The next time somebody tells you a policy should be enacted that involves any number whatsoever demand they explain how that number was chosen. You’ll be amazed at how quickly demanding justification for the selection of a number can shutdown a debate.

Today is Veteran’s Day which is a day when many make quick quips thanking our veterans for their service. I’m going to do something slightly different. Let me take a second to ask others to consider truly supporting out troops by removing them from harm and brining them home.

We currently have permanent military bases in at least 148 countries. Those bases not only harbor ill-will against the United States by many countries where those bases lie but also put the lives of our military personnel in jeopardy. Instead of sticking our noses into every other country’s business we should be minding our own. Thus this Veteran’s Day I’m advocating everybody show the greatest support for our troops that you can by demanding they be brought home so their lives aren’t put at risk to fulfill the desires of the tyrannical politicians.

In computer science a stack is a data structure that follows a first in, last out order. That is to say stacks work like magazines in firearms, the first round you place into the magazine is the last one that feeds into the firearm. The opposite of this is a queue, which follows a first in, first out order. An example of a queue is when you get in line at a restaurant, the first person in the line is the first person to get service. This is why the British refer to lines as queues for those who are curious.

During the complete wastes of time general assemblies at Occupy Minneapolis speakers are asked to go into the stack. What they call a stack is actually a queue though and this drives the computer scientist in me up a wall. Here’s a tip for those of you in the occupation movement, stop calling the speaking queue a stack. Incorrectly using terminology does not reflect well on the perceived intelligence of your movement.

Although I’ve stated several times that a majority of the people at the occupation in Minneapolis are very nice there are also some absolute crazies hanging out amongst the crowds. Since I found myself in the area again I decided to stop by the Hennepin County Government Plaza and see if anything was happening. Needless to say there wasn’t anything happening so I decided to talk to a couple of the occupiers. I did have a couple interesting conversations but two people really struck me as being bat shit crazy.

The first crazy was a violent revolutionary. OK, that title is misleading because this guy was all talk and no walk meaning he wasn’t really violent, but he was advocating violent revolution. I will attempt to paraphrase my conversation with him. A group of occupiers were discussing tactics and this bozo, whom I’ll call Moe for lack of a real name, said we should be taking to the streets with molotov cocktails. According to Moe if they could get 1,000 people to start rioting the government would have no option other than collapsing… or something like that. What really struck me as moronic was when he brought up guillotines. I’m not sure what the recent obsession with guillotines is but it seems some people think lobbing off enough heads will eventually lead to positive change. At that point I raised the obvious question, how did he plan on overthrowing the government and murdering people when a large portion of the populace is armed and the state would simply call in the National Guard. He had no actual answer other than saying if there were 1,000 people rioting the state would have no choice but to list to the rioters. Obviously this bright bulb has spent a lot of time constructing his cunning plan. Either way I just want to make it clear that anybody setting up a guillotine in Minnesota with the intent of lobbig of peoples’ heads is going to be dealing with one really upset Minnesotan with a .308 rifle. This very upset Minnesotan will be shooting every asshole who attempts to operate the guillotine to kill another. Now that I think about it I’m sure there will be more than one Minnesotan involved in this dissuasion strategy.

The other crazy, whom we’ll call Curly, wasn’t malicious but simply stupid. I won’t waste your time paraphrasing the entire conversation which involved some kind of government conspiracy to engineer a stupid germ that will wipe out all people who haven’t received the immunization and other theories on the same level. Instead I’m going to concentrate on Curly’s idiocy in the field of economics and science. Curly is an advocate in ceasing all mineral extraction effective immediately. When he said this I pointed out the bloody obvious and asked him what we’re supposed to do without minerals as our entire society and technology base is dependent on extracted resources. After a brief stare of dumbfoundedness Curly asked what do we need minerals for. I pointed at the building around us, the watch on my write, the cell phone in my pocket, and the very tables the Occupy Minnesota food was sitting on. Then I brought up the fact that without minerals we could no longer build medical technology that saves untold numbers of lives every year. This is where Curly’s lack of basic knowledge came out as he said we have stem cells which can cure any and all ailments. I asked him how we were supposed to access and harness stem cells without advanced medical technology made possible by the minerals we extract and he was unable to answer. At that point I simply walked away less I receive brain damage from the statements he was making.

Somebody is boud to ask why I focused on the negative conversations instead of the positive ones. The answer is simple, the positive conversations don’t make for interesting reading so I’m not motivated to write them down on this blog. This post also serves as a reminder that there are some absolutely insane individuals out there who would love to see those they disagree with disarmed so they could start lobbing off heads with a guillotine.

While I’m a very difficult person to offend there are things to greatly annoy me. One thing that really irks me is the state and media’s obsession with scapegoats. You can guarantee anytime a terrorist attack occurs it will first be blamed on Islamic extremists and if it later turns out the act of terror was perpetrated by a Christian nothing more will be said about it. Another scapegoat used often by the state and media are anarchists every time a mass act of violence occurs:

City officials stressed that there were isolated incidents of violence led by groups of anarchists among the protesters.

I would be happy if the media would find new scapegoats whenever an otherwise peaceful protest has “isolated incidents of violence.” Pointing the finger at anarchists every time incidents like this occur is just passe. Although I realize nothing I write is going to change the status quo I do know most scapegoats are selected based on a poor knowledge of the selectee’s philosophy and beliefs. Lack of knowledge is a frightening situation for most people which is why lesser known groups are usually the ones targeted for persecution or to be scapegoats. Realizing that a majority of people hold a great deal of misconception regarding anarchism I’ve decide to write this brief (relatively) anarchism 101 post.

First let’s find a working definition of anarchism so we’re all stating on the same page:

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be immoral, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism (known as “anarchists”) advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations.

Like any movement anarchists argue incessantly about what the “true” definition of anarchism is. These ongoing arguments have lead to so many offshoots that one can not even begin to list them all but in general there are two camps of anarchist; collectivists and individualists. Generalizing greatly, collectivist anarchists would be most closely related to the usual understanding of communists while individualist anarchists would be most closely related to the usual understanding of libertarians. In fact the extreme definition of communism involves a society absent of a state where all decisions are made collectively by those involved while an extreme definition of libertarianism involves a stateless society where decisions are made by individuals through a free market system. I would like again to strongly emphasize that those definitions are greatly generalized and I wrote them simply for basic clarification purposes.

Collectivist anarchists consist of anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalism, etc. while individualist anarchists consist of anarcho-capitalists, volyntaryists, etc. There are also those who prefer not to pigeonhole themselves into specific subdivisions and thus describe themselves as anarchists without adjectives. As you can see the term anarchist can mean a great number of things and certainly does not lend itself well to being used to describe a group of violent protesters with little or nothing else in common besides their violent actions.

A lesser known fact about American history is that our country actually had anti-anarchist laws on the books. For the sake of this discussion let’s look at what qualified as an anarchist under United States law:

(a) aliens who are anarchists;
(b) aliens who advise, advocate, or teach, or who are members of, or affiliated with, any organization, society, or group, that advises, advocates, or teaches opposition to all organized government;
(c) aliens who believe in, advise, advocate, or teach, or who are members of, or affiliated with, any organization, association, society, or group, that believes in, advises, advocates, or teaches:

(1) the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law, or
(2) the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers, either of specific individuals or of officers generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other organized government, because of his or their official character, or
(3) the unlawful damage, injury, or destruction of property, or
(4) sabotage;

(d) aliens who write, publish, or cause to be written or published, or who knowingly circulate, distribute, print, or display, or knowingly cause to be circulated, distributed, printed, or displayed, or knowingly have in their possession for the purpose of circulation, distribution, publication, or display any written or printed matter, advising, advocating, or teaching opposition to all government, or advising, advocating, or teaching:

(1) the ovethrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law, or
(2) the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers of the Government of the United States or of any other government, or
(3) the unlawful damage, injury, or destruction of property, or
(4) sabotage;

(e) aliens who are members of, or affiliated with, any organization, association, society, or group, that writes, circulates, distributes, prints, publishes, or displays, or causes to be written, circulated, distributed, printed, published, or displayed, or that has in its possession for the purpose of circulation, distribution, publication, or display, any written or printed matter of the character in subdivision (d).

Therefore United States law only covered violent revolutionary anarchists. As there are collectivist and individualist camps in anarchism there is also a divided opinion regarding methodology. In general there are two methods anarchists subscribe to for brining about a stateless society; violent and non-violent. Those who subscribe to the violent methodology would be the anarchists described by the media while those who subscribe to the non-violent methodology would be those who believe in changing society through education and agorism.

Now we have two general philosophies of anarchism; collectivist and individualist which each have two general camps of activists; violent and non-violent. An anarchist’s particular flavor of anarchism is determined by both his general philosophy and methodology along with other ancillary differences.

Simply put somebody who wears black clothing and a face mask, has funnily styled hair, and smashes windows doesn’t qualify as an anarchist. Anarchism is a philosophy not a lifestyle. When the state or media say anarchists started acts of violence you should take it with a gigantic grain of salt because it’s very unlikely that either police officers or reporters actually took the time to interview those who were inciting violence to discover their personal philosophies.

The occupiers in Oakland, California were evicted a couple of days ago by the police. Say what you will about the eviction, I’m not here to talk about that. What I want to discuss is the plan put forth by some of the Oakland occupiers to take back the park:

We propose a city wide general strike and we propose we invite all students to walk out of school. Instead of workers going to work and students going to school, the people will converge on downtown Oakland to shut down the city.

All banks and corporations should close down for the day or we will march on them.

While we are calling for a general strike, we are also calling for much more. People who organize out of their neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, affinity groups, workplaces and families are encouraged to self organize in a way that allows them to participate in shutting down the city in whatever manner they are comfortable with and capable of.

Ah yes, the call for general strike has begun. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a general strike consider yourself lucky. A general strike is a method, usually associated with collectivists, where change is obtained by everybody simply refusing to show up for work.

People participating in general strikes obviously lose money for the day and may lose their job. Needless to say the risk of participating in a general strike is high and the potential reward is oftentimes low in comparison. Those who were evicted from the park are now asking everybody to potentially risk being fired in an attempt to reclaim the park. With the way the post is written I almost think the author believes a great number of people will join his cry to join the general strike. The author actually believes this strike has a chance of shutting down the city and frankly this belief is assine.

These occupations do not have the support of a majority of the population. Because of this believing a call for a general strike by the occupiers can grind the city to a halt is delusional at best.