An account of the State

1. Immorality is defined by universally un-preferable behavior, or that which causes the group, organization or society to become unsustainable.

2. An acceptance of immorality (eg. an inversion of values - helping others and empathy are weak and bad, violence and aggression towards others is good) is caused by adverse childhood experiences - trauma. However, not all adverse childhood experiences lead to an acceptance of immorality. Most people grow out of overt aggression eventually.

3. An acceptance of immorality means a greater tendency towards immoral behavior or support thereof.

4. The ability to discern truths and information from noise, complexity and false hood is known as intelligence. General intelligence is measured by calibrated IQ tests. There may be many different kinds of cognitive tasks, but much is predicated upon general intelligence.

5. Ability to create disinformation for control is also predicated upon general intelligence.

6. Intelligence arises out of the never-ending adversarial game between collective control and human desire for greater freedom.

7. Everyone is capable of extreme aggression. If you read the book "Ordinary Men", you would realize just how remarkably simple any working-class man can become a cold-blooded murderer who shoots pregnant women in the back of the head within hours, days. 

The training of human beings to not only follow orders, but to be excited and enthusiastic about violent aggression towards others is an exact science repeated in all armed forces and "disciplined services" everywhere.

8. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The problem is never "police violence" - the true problem is government is violent aggression. If you don't see this, insist on not paying any taxes and see what the tax collector does.

9. 'The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money'

10. The trouble with democracy is when people learn to vote other people's money, benefits into flowing their way.

11. Another trouble with democracy is it is a trap that grants legitimacy and consent to aggression.

12. Government, more than religion, is not only a matter of faith, but even better accepted and not questioned. 

13. Petitioning, protesting government makes it stronger and gives it a perceived need, justification for existence.

14. Fighting a government only puts another government in place, or creates a vacuum which is filled by another government.

15. The reason why we feel greater liberty and notions of rights today is because it increases motivation and productivity.

16. To increase liberty, either reduce size and scope of government, and/or increase the link between productivity and liberty.

Work, Academic papers and Applications

Recently, I told someone at work that I was learning how to digest, summarize and write academic papers faster. And they went "ugh".

I got a problem with that attitude.

Now, I fully understand that academia is like an ivory tower. And no, I also have no interest in that.

But I am also very, very keen (to the point of desperation) to work on something cutting-edge, something few or none have done before.
I want to understand how to extend knowledge and apply that knowledge commercially.

On Software Development "sprints"

In software development, we have this word called sprint, which describes a 2 week cycle - a period for which work is planned.

I like the word "sprint". Because I have generally felt slow, I could never quite understand this idea of a sprint.

Why the solution that fixes the fundamental issue does not always win out?

Given a holistic solution and a specific, more logically direct solution, however much investment is required that does not require as much structural change, there is a bias towards the specific solution.

Example.

Problem:
Patient with heart disease.
Clearly caused by dietary issues and overeating.
Dietary problems caused by mental wellness issues.

Solution:
Drugs targeting the heart disease.
Short pep-talk about healthier eating.

I wonder how we can do better.

This is Spot On: Anxiety and Depression at Work

Willingness to Practice

A huge part of what it means to be excellent, that one can control (to a greater degree than other things), is the willingness to practice.

The feeling of constraint and being limited

We learn constraints from our parents.

From my dad, I learnt to be too careful. Always think of the risks first, and keep the risks in mind first and foremost.
From him, decisions, like whether to go travel, tended to go like this: there is a decision to make, let's consider all the reasons not to do it (mostly risks) and then either do it too little, or not do it at all.

In an aggressive world, this may not be the optimal way. I did miss out a lot as a result.

Fixing this problem can be straightforward.
But this is a topic for another article.

At the same time, it can also lead to many side-effects.

1. One can become a stress junkie. This comes from getting great results from taking risks and stressing.

2. Becoming withdrawn. When we consistently avoid taking risks, it is possible to stop growing and start shrinking.

Today, I aim to stop this once and for all by changing my thinking, and replace it with

"When I am faced with a choice to continue what I'm doing and taking a risk, I will listen to my gut feeling, weigh the pros and cons for a dedicated 5 minutes at most, and take the risk if there is no permanent risk, physical or unmanageable danger to me."

At the same time, I find that continuous sport, down time and education is really key to providing that feeling of moving forwards, that makes it easier to move forwards.

For that, I have been walking a minimum of 10K steps a day and doing at least some sort of exercise everyday no matter how busy I seem to be.

The Quality of your Product is related to the Quality of communication in your Team

Most bugs, careless included, are failures of communication.

In software, the best practice is to review each other's code. 

Careless mistake

This is an honest mistake on the part of the individual. 

As reviewer, you should be there to test it. To gauge the level of communication and test it.

Well-written code also means well-tested code. If careless mistakes slip through despite testing, it means your tests are likely inadequate. It means that your tests do not adequately cover exactly what you want the software to do.

Lack of Tests

Others will not know what to expect when they use, run your code. 

Or worse, they think they know, but you know, there are always those cases on the margins that will stump you up.

Style Problem

The purpose of style is to communicate one's ideas better. If there are style problems, there is a problem in communication. 

This could be unaligned style - that the team does not have consensus regarding communication standard, or not having a tool to automate style checking.

Not following Design Patterns or Non-Idiomatic Code

"I did it my way"

When you are developing a product, it's not directly about you. It's not that you are secondary in a hierarchical sense, it means you try to do the best for the product.

When one does not follow conventions, or invents a new one without telling anyone, it imposes an additional cost on others to understand it. 

The Quality of your Life is the Quality of your Communication!

I don't care how intelligent you are (although intelligence helps), or whatever personality you have.

This principle almost always works.

Failing an exam?
Failing job interview?
Can't get into desired program?
Program has a big?

Quality of life, material aspects being equal, is all about relationships. And relationships are all about communication. In fact, if you have parties that are very far apart, or very different, communication becomes the one thing one can really control.

And there's also communication with yourself. How do you negotiate with yourself so that you can do the things you don't want to do but end up needing to, without hard feelings?

Up next: I explain why most engineering problems are fundamentally due to communication.

What is the purpose of memory?

The purpose of memory is not to "remember the past".
The purpose of memory is to ensure you do better, or you react better the next time, so that you survive and breed the next generation.

On how men fall in love

In order for a man to fall in love with a woman, he is generally required to give up the image of the ideal female, to see the reality of the real women.

The trend though, is that our ideas of the ideal female is now everywhere.

What should we do?

What is this ideal female?

How do men get out of this?

Zero Limits

Zero Limits is one of the best things that ever came out of Hawaii.

It's about clearing memories that make you feel some way you don't want to feel.

Explanation

1 – I Am Sorry

Accept responsibility for the bad action we did.

2 – Please Forgive Me

Feel as if you are asking divinity to forgive yourself in whatever way you let this particular thing happen to you and you are requesting that it should be now erased and released.

3 – Thank You

This is an act of unwavering faith that you have in the higher power, you here express the gratitude for being shown what was need to be fixed and also because you know divinity will do the rest of the work.

4 – I Love You

Clearing a memory that created the specific problem. 

Examples

1. I wanted a piece of news that made me feel bad.

Stop.

Keep repeating the 4 statements of Zero Limits until the memory is no longer accessible.

2. I made a decision I regret.

Regret can be a deep-seated issue. 

Hold no expectations that it will sort itself out on the first round.

Keep repeating the 4 statements of Zero Limits until you get bored of it and will not want to keep accessing it.

To be continued.

Watching the News

So. much. noise.
Why do I even need to know about this?

Much of the news is about evil in the world. Like Maduro

So I have a choice.

To take in the news and treat it in a reasonable manner, or to not watch the news.

If I were to read the news, what is the most reasonable attitude for it?

1. Forgive

Interpret why the characters involved in the news behave in the ways they do.

2. Forget

This is not so much an action, as something that just happens. Just don't try to stop it.

3. Understand why you feel bad

Grab a cup of tea, sit yourself in a comfy chair, and ask yourself why you feel bad for other people who are a long way away.

4. If it does cause a bad reaction, practice one of those clearing techniques and meditate on it until the topic feels alright again..

For example, Zero Limits.

1 – I Am Sorry

2 – Please Forgive Me

3 – Thank You

4 – I Love You

By now, the sarcastic in me is saying "why even touch the news if it's so much work?".

Many do choose to ignore the news. Our media has always had its own agendas besides portraying the reality.

Asking "Why?" - What better alternatives are there? (Part 2)

1. Establish baseline principles first. Agree on some.

2. Ask "Why what?"

3. State any discomfort directly.

4. Appreciate first.

A Point about Why: is "Asking Why" not happy? (Part 1)

An abrupt why can be painful.

"I want to use this approach for this"

"Why?"

It can be a Why!, Whhhhhy?, Why?!.

Now, some of these Whys are genuine concern.

But other times, it's a challenge. An attempt to control. An attempt to even blame.

That's what can cause a breakdown in communication.

So what's a better way?

Stay tuned for Part 2!!