Me, Rambling

Blackboard full of mystical squiggles

The longer I am around, the more I tend to think that mathematical ability is inherited. Not to say that someone whose parents are both of a non-mathematical bent, could not have the ability. Genes combine in new ways and who is to say whether any particular combination could result in a brain with an attachment to math.

So I hear people complaining about math: 'I don't use it', 'it's too hard', 'boring', and I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't force everyone to take math classes. Save us all a lot of grief. But then I got to thinking that by forcing everyone to attend these classes, they are at least being exposed to the terminology, so when someone uses a mathematical term like 'addition', they'll at least know that it's a math term and should be suitably cowed. Assuming they were suitably devastated when they failed that level of mathematical education.

A more lenient version would be that they would simply recognize the math term and allow better communication.

Queen Mary Bridge - Thomas Woolworth

Our world runs on math, but the controllers run on emotion. We have built, at great expense, a giant ocean liner. It's as big as a continent and holds the entire country, and we are cruising at tremendous speed, straight ahead through time. Through the magic of engineering and government contracting, we have a nice gold plated dial to control the direction of the ship. Turn the knob to the left and the ship veers left. Turn the knob to the right and the ship turns right. Easy-peasy.

But which way should we turn the knob? Or should we turn it at all? Or has it been turned so far that we are going backwards? (That's entirely speculation, I don't think it has, but there are any number of conspiracy theories that would support that notion.)

Naturally, everyone has an opinion about which way to turn the knob,  and those who care the most about it are pushing their way to the front so they can put their hand on the knob. 

Whoever actually gets to turn the knob has to be careful that he doesn't turn it too far. Remember, he is in the center of a crowd of people, all hollering at him to turn the knob! If he turns the knob too far in either direction, he is going to piss off a group of people somewhere in the crowd, and they are going to start pushing a lot harder, forcing their way closer to the center, and the guy in the center is going to feel it.

Here it is, two days after the election and we still don't know who won. I think RobertaX says they have nine days to count the ballots. This all seems very weird to me. Seems like when I was a kid, the results of the election were known that night. Of course, it might have been that in all those elections the winner was clear.

So maybe these hotly contested elections are a result of more people pushing in toward the center of control. There must be some reward for getting closer to the center. It could be financial, or it could be moral: you are doing the right thing, those other clowns are immoral goat fuckers. Nothing drives people like anger. Demonizing your opponents enables you to hate them, which will invigorate you and give you the energy you need to push for what you want.

I've been kind of hoping that Trump would win, not that I especially like Trump, it's just there are some Democrat actions that strike me as irresponsible. I suppose what bothers me most is the way some blue states have run up huge debts and are on the hook for huge pensions. Now that I've said that, I'm sure someone is going to point out some red states that have similar, or equally egregious, examples of irresponsible financial shenanigans.

Trump. Boy howdy. I don't know if there is anything to like about him, I've never listened to him. I've seen a few of his tweets, mostly ones that were quoted by someone else. They might be cute little phrases, but they aren't going to really tell you anything of substance. What I do like about him is that a large number of people detest him. Anybody who can make that many people hate him must be doing something right.

You know, Trump might have done some things right. There is the recent peace agreement in the mideast. Whether it will last is debatable. There have been numerous peace agreements there before but they never seem to hold. There may be some other stuff, I haven't noticed.

What I have noticed is COVID-19 lockdown and multi-trillion dollar emergency relief package that the congress passed in reaction to the lockdown. The nationwide lockdown is complete bullshit. Near as I can tell it comes from Dr. Fauci (did I spell that right?) and he reports to Trump. The relief package was aimed at people who should have had enough money in the bank to weather the storm, but did absolutely nothing for the lower class who got slammed into the ground by the lockdown.

Liquid Manure

The powers that be don't give a shit about the lower class. They make lots of mewling little noises about how this program or that is supposed to help poor people, but they are more likely to just throw them under the bus. But maybe that's the nature of politics, you are in a war against your mortal enemies and in a war, you can't always protect everybody from everything. Sometime sacrifices have to be made. I understand that, but do they have to lie all the damn time? It's the unending stream of liquid manure coming down the wire that disgusts me.