I’m going to try something a little different this week. I have numerous pieces in the works in Docs, but none are quite completely coming together yet. So, I thought I’d sit down and write sort of a quick fireside chat straight into the app, where I think about where I’ve come from, where I currently sit, and where I’d like to go with this Substack. This site started out as a newsletter site, so I suppose it’s only appropriate that I write at least one actual fucking newsletter, right?

You know, if I’m going to be real, it’s very easy to get disheartened on here. The hedonic treadmill is real, and even though I’ve already had more success here than I initially hoped for, the bar is ever rising. There’s also the matter of competition. I’m far more interested in collaboration personally, but it constantly strikes me that I could be much more successful if I played “the game”. While this site is certainly not a cesspool like Youtube or Reddit, flamebait, clickbait, beefs etc. all still get traction here.

I get it. And I’m not going to even criticize the people who engage in that kind of thing, like I said, if you want to “win” the game, you sort of have to do those things, unless you happen to be either immensely lucky or preternaturally talented, neither of which I am. There’s no real boo hoo here. I’d like to say I won’t do those things out of principle, and to some extent that’s true, but the real truth is I’m just too weary of seeing that shit everywhere else, and I’m exhausted by it.

“We need to talk-”

“Fix your saggy balls with this one trick”

“So and so DESTROYS douchebag with thoughts and reasons.”

The endless stream of hyperbole, histrionics, rage, it all just leaves me fucking numb.

Do I want to be successful? Of course. Do I want to make money? Also of course. I’m fucking poor. And let’s be fucking real here, if you’re a writer and you’re publicly sharing your shit, you’ve got at least some degree of operant narcissism going on, based simply on the fact that every one of us who publishes here wrote something down and immediately said - “Oh yes. The people must see this.”

“Oh no, Ishmael!” I hear you say. “I only write for me and my muuuuuuuuuuuuuuse.”

Bullshit. If that were true, you’d be Emily Dickinsoning your shit away in a dresser drawer. But I digress.

When I first started here, I simply wanted a place to occasionally post my writing. I had no idea I would end up having extended conversations with so many other amazing authors from literally around the world. This has become one of my greatest joys on this platform. I’ve been so incredibly honored to spend time in discussion with some many brilliant writers and thinkers. It’s truly been an honor, and I plan to continue doing it into the foreseeable future. Have no fear, for those of you who like my writing and hate video, I’m going to continue writing as well. But all of you should know I’m going to continue to “chase the rabbit” wherever it leads. I don’t really know where things will go from here, and to me that’s what makes it so exciting.

Some of you have seen that I occasionally post poetry, and I’m going to continue to do so. However, I understand poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea, so sometime in the next month or so, I’m going to split my poetry off into its own sub-publication entitled “The Jackalope”. My partner is working on art for the thumbnail. This will hopefully accomplish two things. One, I think it will allow my subs who hate poetry to opt out of seeing it, and two, I’m hoping it will let me gain some traction in the poetry section of Substack. We’ll have to see.

All of this to say, thank you for being here. I talk a lot of shit, and I know I get weird and manic and say strange crap in Notes. But all of the malarkey and chaos aside, I fucking appreciate you. I’ve met so many amazing people here and have come to think of some of you as genuine friends. I have a passion to keep learning, keep pushing, keep thinking, keep writing, while trying to be kind but also while staying true to the things that are important to me. And I don’t take any of you joining me on this journey for granted.

NOW GO GIVE ME FIVE DOLLARS, YOU CHEAP SUNSABITCHES! YOU THINK ALL THIS INTELLECTUAL MAJESTY HAPPENS FOR FREE? IF I WIND UP GIVING HANDY-J’S UNDER A BRIDGE AGAIN ITS GOING TO BE YOUR FAULT SPECIFICALLY! STEVE! YEAH THATS RIGHT, I SEE YOU THERE ON THE SHITTER WITH YOUR PHONE AND YOUR CHEETOHS AND YOUR SWEET GHERKIN PICKLES! GIVE ME ALL OF YOUR MONEY, OR I’LL TELL YOUR WIFE ABOUT THAT THING YOU DID WITH THE GUY WITH THE THING AT THE PLACE THAT ONE TIME! I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, STEVE! SO DOES PEPPERIDGE FUCKING FARM! GRAAAAAAGHGHGHHGHGHGHHGHG!!!!!!!!

Sorry I blacked out for a sec. Oh yeah.

Love ya.

Ish

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junkie

by Ishmael Hodges

The smell hits me before I even open the door. Only one thing that could mean, only question is who. If it’s Rex, no great loss. If it’s Alice, and Rex is fucking off somewhere, gunna be pissed. Hopefully it’s not both of them.

I pull the door to the ramshackle open slowly, but the warm breath of rot still hits me in the face like a punch, makes my eyes water. I peer inside. Rex lies folded up in the corner in a heap. He looks small now, diminished. When he was kicking, and juiced up, he’d been a sight to behold. But now he lies in the corner, almost blending in with the rest of the trash strewn about the dirt floor of the hut.

I turn and retch onto the ground next to the door, only a spattering of bile hits the dirt.

Haven’t eaten in two days.

Where the fuck is Alice? I hadn’t seen her inside, and goddamned if I was going in there anytime soon to make sure. From the smell of it Rex has been dead a couple days, maybe more. I prop the door open to let out some of the stench and a cloud of flies, then lean against the side of the hut, wipe my mouth, spit on the ground.

Did Alice kill Rex? I shake my head to clear the fog. Don’t think so. Always felt like they cared about each other, as much as two slipheads can anyway. God I can taste Rex in the back of my throat.

Somehow or another, these two had come into some weight a week ago. Don’t know where, they knew better than to tell me, and I knew better than to ask.

Good shit too, they let me taste it.

Could’ve let me actually have a proper go. Cheap fucks. Only reason they even let me taste it was I said I’d help them move it. After they stepped on it, of course. Shit like this only came around once in a blue moon, made no sense to waste it on the freaks. Fucking savages. I told them not to step on it too hard before they gave it to me, told them it was because I didn’t wanna catch any blowback from some angry sliphead who didn’t get as much dazzle as he thought he paid for.

Truth was, I didn’t give a fuck about that. I’d put my share of troublesome slips in the ground, I’d do it again. Truth was I planned to step on it myself.

I collect myself, and creep back to the open door. Sun’s up a bit higher now, and I can get a proper look inside. Definitely no Alice. But her bag is gone too. Fuck.

Maybe the greed got to her and she merced Rex. Doesn’t really matter. She’s gone, along with the bag, and my hopes of getting any sort of satisfaction.

Sun makes my head hurt, so I shift myself toward the outskirts of the Burg. If I know Alice (and I fuckin do), and she did kill Rex, there’s only one other place she’d go to move the gear.

Faxon’s.

It’s maybe a twenty-minute walk from Alice and Rex’s to Faxon’s, but it takes me thirty. Head is pounding like a drum. If I don’t get well soon, it’s gonna be a problem. Maybe I don’t even give a fuck about helping move that shit now. Whatever Alice got bound up in, I want no part of it. I just need to get well, to get right before I can even think about anything else.

Pathetic. I’m no fucking sliphead, goddamnit. No captain of industry either, but if I am a freak, at least I’m a functional freak. Not like these scumbags that litter the streets around Faxon’s. More and more of them the closer I get. Drifting around like the zombies from those shows I watched as a kid. Shaking like leaves. Teeth chattering, a hellish bony din.

The living dead.

Missing that sun now that made my head hurt. Streets here reek. HiRises above block all sun from reaching the hollows and corners here, no matter the time of day. Shit here hasn’t been dry in decades, not since the old Burg burned to the ground. Only time I ever seen mushrooms grow in a city is here. They sprout from the gutters, crawl up the sides of crackling tenements. If I stay in the street, I’ll be good. In the dark ends of alleys is pure musk and rot, dead freaks stacked in drifts like piles of dung, becoming one with the pavement. Gods they stink. The glowcaps cover their corpses, food for the ones in the sewers who weren’t fortunate enough to die.

I try spit, but my mouth is dry. My lips curl as I weave my way through the densifying crowd of freaks as I approach the rear of Faxon’s. This is the end for those who get stuck in The Burg. Hundreds of ex-suits drift down from the HiRises every week. Those who once could afford a Slipstream habit settle to the bottom of The Burg like so much silt when their funds inevitably run out. From there all oads end at Faxon’s.

Or the sewers. When the shakes start, the glowcaps offer a temporary but welcome reprieve. But it’s a devil’s bargain, and I’m no fool. I’ll eat a gun first.

Need to get the fuck out of here, but not before I find Alice. She owes me, a deal is a deal. Or least she can fucking do is get me right, get me streamed.

Need to get into Faxon’s first though. Could be a problem.

Faxon and I have…history.

The stars start up in the corners of my vision. My throat feels lean, raked, stripped, like I just swallowed a shot of varnish. I taste pennies on the back of my tongue.

It’s starting. Maybe ten more minutes before the shakes start and I’m fucking useless. I quicken my pace as I approach the rear entrance to Faxon’s, shouldering aside several freaks who stand quivering, chattering, staring at the door.

Faxon’s main attack dog Reggie stands by the door, arms crossed, a mountain of meat.

“Sup Reg?” I say, feigning casual.

Reg seems to inflate as he turns my direction.

“The fuck did Fax say last time you showed your face here, you piece of shit?”

“Come on, Reg, that was a year ago. Don’t tell me he’s still fucking mad about that?”

“You know good and goddamned well he’s still mad.”

“Just let me in, Reg, and I’ll square shit with him. I’ve got an offer he can’t refuse.”

I don’t.

“Likely tale, Bill. Now fuck off before I snap your neck and leave you for the fungals.”

“Just tell me, is Alice in there? I just found Rex. Dead, folded up like a lawn chair. Fax know ‘bout that?”

Reggie’s eyes narrow.

“Rex is toasted? How?”

“The fuck should I know? That’s part of what I’m tryin’ to figure out. Now let me talk to Faxon, or do you really want to tell him you turned away the guy who knows where the weight went?”

This is a long shot, but it works. Reggie snorts and stands aside from the door.

“Go in. But if you’re lying, even the capheads won’t touch you when I’m done.”

“Yeah yeah.”

I slide past Rex through the door, he slams it behind. I hear a meaty thud as his fist smacks into the head of one of the freaks who had slowly sidled too close, but his subsequent curses and the freaks garbled screech of pain are cut off by the door.

I blink rapidly, adjusting to the sickly wash of neon and smoke. Faxon’s Dive is always a haze, far bigger on the inside than it seems it could be from outside. The smell of sweat and sundry fluids mixes with the incensual stink of the barrow-weed puffing in great clouds the smoketap tables that litter the floor. I pick my way among the tables where the barrowers loiter, past the couches that rim the edge of the room, couches where gods know what and who are lying comatose, entwined. An unholy blend of mechanical whirring, murmuring, and the sounds of sex and pain muddle together, as the curtains to the siderooms move and sway.

Curtains sway and move in rhythm, a unison dance.

Breathing.

Move and sway.

Swaymovementispullinghypnauticalwavestowardstheblackshoreandwemustsailbeyondthe……..

I shake my head. Snort.

Goddamn-ed second-handed barrowsmoke. Fucking un-toward.

Gotta get the fuck out of here.

But not before I get what I came for.

(to be continued)

(maybe)

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Hey, I’ll try to keep this short. Bug, pictured above, has a large mass in her abdomen. She literally showed up on my doorstep dying of hypothermia several months ago. My apartments has a group of essentially feral cats that live in the woods behind us, and they are constantly having litters of kittens. We would never have actively sought to get a kitten from such a situation, but Bug literally ended up right in front of my door, screaming bloody murder, soaking wet and shaking uncontrollably. It took over an hour of putting her on my belly under my shirt with a sock filled with warm rice to get her to finally stop shaking. Was it the “smart” financial decision to keep her? No. But it seemed wrong somehow not to. We got her back to health, but she’s been having digestive issues for months, and I’ve already maxed our Care Credit card we have for pet expenses in the process of trying to figure out what was wrong.

She’s stopped eating, and we found out its because she has a large mass in her abdomen. The next step is to get a CT scan, which is the best option to try to figure out where exactly its origin is, and whether or not surgery is an option. The scan will cost like $3k, and if she has to have surgery it will cost like another $6-8k. Needless to say I don’t have this. Another option is a needle biopsy, which has risk of intestinal perforation, and may not really tell us anything conclusive. Its cheaper, but likely less helpful. There would be a chance it may be something they could “aspirate” but from talking to the vet it sounds like a long shot.

These sort of things always make me feel sort of gross. I was raised to not ask for stuff, and whenever I have to I always feel guilty, like I’m abusing people’s good nature. I know everyone has financial struggles, particularly right now, so believe me when I say, I wouldn’t do this if I felt I had another option. As my older subs can attest this is not a “thing” that I do. If you can spare a couple dollars I would be immensely grateful, if not, maybe you could pass the GoFundMe along. I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty or anything of the sort. People have already been delightful and thank you so much to those who have already helped, it means the world. The GoFundMe link is below. (It’s started by my partner)

Talk is cheap, but thank you, even if only for taking the time to read this.

Ishmael

Bug's Medical Needs

Look Knot

Don’t look at me.

I don’t know what you’ll see.

I fear what you might see.

And fear that you might tell me.

Please look at me.

I’m not sure I am here.

I need to know I’m here.

If you don’t prove

My existence

I fear I’ll disappear.

God, look at us.

Where have you gone?

We lost you ‘long the way.

You fell asleep

Or wandered off

And lost we’re bound to stay

Friend, look at God

He wasn’t good

He hides his face in shame

Mistakes were made

And words were said

Foundations cracked

Youth left for dead

Profane the holy name

Overdome

A sky of endless white

Color stripped

I float in clouds

Cold and wet and alone and

Cold and wet and alone and

Cold and wet and alone

A light

Far above

Diffuse

I long to rise to greet it

But have no wings to fly

Share

Survive

Feel the fur

Smell the smoke

The pain it stains

Your every waking moment

Deep racking sobs

At memories of the hacking

At fears about the lacking

Of future hungry days

And nights of shiver-quiver

The bow is stretched and taut and greased

The arrow trembles for release

Its purpose hate

Or dinner

I realized I’ve never actually written anything substantial about the topic of meta-ethics, despite “gettin’ after it” numerous times in Notes and having several discussions on the topic (sometimes contentious ones) with different authors here on Substack.

For those who don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, a couple of definitions.

Meta-ethics is a metalevel examination of human morality. Unlike normative and applied ethics, which are the more practical discussions around what one should do in principle or in a particular circumstance, meta-ethics deals with what the nature of morality is, where it comes from, where it is “grounded” (or if it is, in fact, grounded), what we mean when we use morally valenced language, the nature of proposed moral knowledge, etc. A slightly oversimplified way I’ve also heard it expressed is that normative ethics is the discussion of what is good, and meta-ethics is the discussion of what good is.

Though I’ll try to lay some basic groundwork, this is not meant to be a full breakdown of all the differing positions within meta-ethics. While I have a passable grip on the topic at this point I think, I’m certainly not an expert. I highly recommend the work of someone like Lance Bush if you’d like some far more rigorous examinations of the topic than I can provide.

The two main categories within meta-ethics that I will be addressing here are moral realism and moral anti-realism.

Moral realists believe there are such things as moral facts that objectively exist or are “stance-independently” true. Some realists will use these terms interchangeably, while others take care to draw a distinction, as “objective” might be taken to mean not only stance-independent, but also mind-independent. Stance-independence tends to mean that the proposed moral fact is true regardless of who is engaging with it, or what their opinion about it might be. Mind-independence, on the other hand, implies that moral-facts are not dependent on minds in any way, and that they are true in some sense that exist entirely outside of conscious engagement with them. While perhaps some realists may consider moral facts to be mind-independent as well as stance-independent, in my experience many do not. I think that anti-realists like myself would do well to inquire as to whether or not a realist they are speaking to believes only in stance-independence, or whether they believe in mind-independence as well. It’s much easier to argue against mind independence, but if we are to act in good faith we should take care to argue against the position the person we’re speaking to actually endorses, and not simply take shots at the easier target.

Moral realists come in different kinds, mainly platonic, naturalist, and what I would personally call “idealist” (perhaps the idea that there is a fundamental moral fact or goal, like eudaimonia, or best conceivable conclusion that could be reached by a perfectly moral agent). There’s some disagreement as to whether divine command theorists are realists, but from my perspective I would put them in the realist camp as well.

Moral anti-realists (like me) disagree with moral realists that there are such things as stance-independent moral facts. Now, this does NOT necessarily mean that the anti-realist doesn’t believe in moral facts at all, they might think there can be a moral fact of the matter, but that this fact is stance-dependent. (Subjectivists and relativists tend to fall into this category).

Within anti-realism, there is another split between what is called cognitivism and non-cognitivism. (Realists will also fall under the label of cognitivism, to my knowledge there is no such thing as a non-cognitive realist.)

Simply put, cognitivists believe moral statements can be “truth-apt” (they can be true or false), while non-cognitivists do not. Non-cognitivists think that moral statements are not statements that can be true or false by definition because they function as expressions, or perhaps commands/prescriptions. (Emotivism and prescriptivism respectively).

For instance, the expression “Ewww!” or “Stop that!” can’t be true or false. You’ve probably heard “Boo, murder!” in reference to emotivism, as “boo” is purely expressive. (Another sort of expressivism might say that “Murder is wrong” fundamentally means something like “I don’t like murder”, but emotivism is actually one step beyond this, in that “boo” involves no self-report, it is purely expressive.) The prescriptivist on the other hand would posit that the statement “Murder is wrong.” can be interpreted as saying “Don’t murder.”

Error theorists are an odd one. They are anti-realist, but to me they hold an almost meta-position that says that moral statements aren’t truth tracking, and therefore all moral assertions are therefore false.

As an anti-realist, to be clear, I don’t think that people don’t “mean” what they say they mean. For instance, if a realist says that when he says “Murder is wrong.” he means to refer to a stance-independent fact, I believe that this is what he intends to communicate. However, since I genuinely don’t believe such a thing exists, I must come up with some sort of meta-level explanation for what is occurring when he says such a thing. Simply put, I think he is mistaken about the nature of what he thinks he’s referring to. (This may come off as rude to the realist, but there is no moral valence to my thought that he is mistaken. I simply share a difference of opinion with him as to whether the evidence supports the existence of the “thing” in question. I.E I don’t think moral realists are “bad” or stupid or anything of the sort, they can behave in good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, productive or destructive ways like anyone else. I admit, I do think there are ways in which realism can be leveraged to destructive ends, which concerns me, but realists have similar legitimate concerns in the other direction, so to me this is pretty much a wash).

The realist also necessarily thinks that I am incorrect. When I say “Murder is wrong” (which I’m fine saying, because as you’re about to see, what I mean when I say “wrong” is incredibly verbose and ungainly for conversational purposes) I mean something like “a thing I don’t like, and have a vested interest in not allowing to occur”. Now, while this sentiment is probably baked into most realist’s meaning when they say the same phrase “Murder is wrong” as well(in other words, I doubt most realists are saying “Murder is objectively wrong, but I’m a huge fan of it”), they additionally think there is some substantive additional “quality of wrongness” to which they are referring, or some objective or universal standard against which the act in question is compared, and determined to be wrong. I disagree because at this moment, I have yet to see a case that I find compelling that such a thing exists.

But to be clear, I still disapprove of murder, and think it should be avoided and prevented. I simply power my conclusions with something other than stance-independent moral facts.

Because realists ground their morality in what they consider to be an objective or stance-independent fact, perhaps understandably they consider the anti-realist alternatives to be incredibly flimsy or necessarily uncompelling. While this might be the case with certain anti-realist’s individual’s views (I can’t speak for everyone, and such things are largely a matter of opinion), broadly speaking I do not find this to be the case. Speaking for myself, I think there are many sources of grounding that contribute to forming our sense of morality as human beings. Biology, history, religion, respective culture, personal trauma, social norms, inspirational ideals, etc.

There are any number of different inclinations and shared concerns that people can use to coordinate what they consider to be desirable behavior. From my own perspective, this view actually subsumes realism, in that I believe that realists are subconsciously utilizing their belief that there are stance-independent moral facts to subjectively motivate their own moral conclusions. Of course, they probably hate the sound of this, but it is not meant as an insult. It’s simply the only conclusion that makes sense to me as I don’t share their beliefs about how morality works. As I’ve experienced firsthand numerous times, what realists tend to think about me is often much uglier than that I am simply mistaken, so I’m ok with them thinking it’s rude that I simply think they’re wrong.

Speaking of which, and coming to the crux of the article, in my longer in depth conversations with realists, namely my friends Ben Curtis and Insinq Datum, it’s struck me that there seems to be a fundamental difference between what the realist and I think morality is in relation to human beings.

Perhaps we agree that it is a form of system, but we seem to have a fundamental disagreement about the nature of that system. The following analogy struck me as incredibly apt, and hopefully it may help to explain some of the loggerheads that ant-realists of my stripe and realists often smash into in these discussions.

Realists often speak about morality like it’s a system similar in kind to math. They tend to think the statement “Murder is wrong” is true in the same way that “2+2=4” is true.

I disagree with this, and I think a much more accurate way to think about morality as a system is like money.

And I think this leads to almost all of the downstream disagreements.

Money is an incredibly compelling system, and pervades our lives in a myriad of different ways. Whether it was historically gold, silver, cowrie shells, or fiat currency, our means of exchange have always had some level of abstraction from what we’re seeking to acquire. This is different from earlier bartering systems. Although bartering also entailed estimations of value, these estimations were much more based on utility, and were typically agreed upon on a case by case basis. (There likely are specific “moral instances” that actually do involve this kind of back and forth, but I think at larger scales money is the more apt analogy.)

For example, dollars aren’t intrinsically “worth” anything. And it doesn’t matter so long as people share the narrative of agreed upon value. If someone doesn’t share the narrative (starts counterfeiting for instance), we put them in jail, not because they violated some “objective” worth of the dollar, but because their behavior corrupts the system of agreement as a whole.

If the system actually collapses, discussions about worth become entirely irrelevant. The conversation changes, and at that point you burn the bills or wipe your fucking ass with them, and their utility changes because now they’re in a new context.

Now you may say, “There’s maths IN money!”

And that’s true.

Which actually makes the point that such a system not having a “stance-independent base” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s entirely arbitrary, uncompelling, or a matter of whimsy. Money is typically a mathematical structure paired with agreement upon a subjective system of value. So within morality, math structure might be equivalent to things like shared intuitions or concerns we have as a result of shared evolutionary history or culture.

If you say, “Oh but if you don’t share those things then it falls apart!” Yeah no shit. Then we’re back to trading beans and/or “might makes right”. Because in a culture with zero moral system, that is the baseline system to which we as a species tend to return. Proposed stance independence has fuck-all to do with anything at that point. If someone is engaging in an undesirable behavior and they share none of my concerns, whether it be a belief in stance independent moral facts, a religious belief or and emotional aversion for example, then we cannot coordinate our behavior.

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Simply put, the idea that the power of the system is found in some fact or thing “in itself” and not in the ability to establish necessary agreement I find to be fundamentally confused about what actually occurs in reality. The purpose of morality is not, in my view, to instantiate an embodiment of moral facts or to fulfill some divine command, but is instead to create a collaborative system that can lift us above the default “might makes right”, “law of the jungle” “red in tooth and claw” bullshit that most of us have come to view as intolerable.

In this way, all normative “shoulds” , I believe, are powered by shared agreement, some of which are based on more tangible things like pain aversion, some of which are based on more abstract ideas like shared ideals, religious beliefs, etc. Of course, I can imagine “shoulds” that only have to do with myself alone, but so far as ones that are broadly accepted amongst a number of people, they are rooted in agreement, not necessarily anything that has to be true or even substantive. Now, for morals it would be NICE if they were inspired by true and/or substantive things in or about the world, as this would make them more resistant to internal and external critique and thus more durable, but for a functional system it’s not strictly necessary.

I would include a belief in stance-independent moral facts as one of many possible options that one could use to reach necessary agreement. If the other person agrees with you that moral facts are stance-independently morally true, and agrees with you as to what they are in the given situation, then it’s all gravy. If not, then you’ll have to appeal to something else that you can agree upon. Which is literally what is occurring when I peacefully co-exist with moral realists. I don’t believe “murder is wrong” is a “stance-independent moral fact”, but both the moral realist and I likely don’t want to be killed, me mainly because I’ve got plans tomorrow and being killed sounds incredibly counterproductive to my prophesied rise to power, fame and glory, and so we reach agreement on desirable behavior through slightly different avenues. Even though we have a disagreement as to exactly why, we still arrive at the same normative and applied conclusion.

The agreement, then, is the power, the sauce, the juice. The agreement might even be based on a falsehood, but if the agreement is there, and the result is desirable or productive, then the moral system can still function.

For example, if a society doesn’t believe murder is objectively morally wrong, but still avoids killing each other out of pure selfishness because they think the person’s ghost will haunt them and give magically them AIDs, of course I can’t know, but I imagine the system will have a result that is nearly indistinguishable from a society that believes in stance-independent facts. Which is to say, most will probably follow the “rule” in order to avoid negative consequences to their own emotional or physical situation, while some small percentage will consider the social or personal cost worth it to commit the act, or will commit it “in spite of” themselves in the throes of passion, mental illness, or under the influence of substances.

Pretty much exactly what we see in our own world.

While we’re here and I’m on my hobby horse, I sometimes see realists drift from asserting “there are stance-independent moral facts” to essentially asserting that “it’s important to believe that there are such things as stance-independent moral facts.” without acknowledging or possibly even realizing they have done so.

These are not the same argument.

The first is an ontological claim, the second is a utility argument. I can actually acknowledge that believing in stance-independent moral facts is a possible powerful motivating factor, in fact we can see well-behaved realists themselves as potential proof of this. But this says nothing about the truth of their belief itself. This drift often occurs paired with what I see as a category error as well. Realists will sometimes have a reaction to anti-realism to the effect of “Well, if anti-realism is true, then everything will go to shit. Moral facts can’t be stance-dependent or subjective, or society will fall apart!”

First, (even if this weren’t a category error), many people are anti-realist and manage to live perfectly law-abiding, decent lives. And you don’t have to look far in history either to find realists who did abominable acts in the name of what they considered objective moral facts. Both moral realists and anti-realists can be good people or can be giant pieces of shit.

Second, evidence seems to suggest that many people don’t really think about morality in this way (a view called meta-ethical indeterminacy) as formal meta-ethics involves different distinct categorizations that likely don’t really mirror the thinking of your “average Joe” on the day to day who’s trying to decide if he should do something or not in a normative sense.

But perhaps most importantly, that assertion that everything “will go to shit” doesn’t actually match what meta-ethics is even for. We’re trying to figure out how things work, looking at possible explanations for beliefs, examine our use of moral language, etc. So to say that if one opinion about what is occurring is true that it will necessarily have downstream effects on behavior is a category error.

Now, might someone’s meta-ethical conclusions end up having some impact on their behavior? Maybe, just like any other sort of contemplation of a relevant topic might cause a shift in perspective. But it is not necessarily the case.

This is important. Many realists seem to have a fear that we anti-realists will necessarily just go around doing literally anything and everything that strikes our fancy, or that we’re going around advocating anarchy, but this is no more necessarily the case than assuming that realists will go around trying to enforce their moral proclamations on everyone with brute force like the Spanish Inquisition did. In other words, could it happen? Yes. It has and it could. But this is a sort of meta-applied ethical concern, and is not relevant in a purely meta-ethical discussion.

Thankfully, most realists I know don’t go around hitting people over the head with a club any more than most anti-realists I know would jerk-off in public.

To conclude, I think meta-ethics is interesting, but I think all parties involved could do with a big helping of charitability. While because of my background, life experiences, and personal line of reasoning, I have issues with moral realism, I don’t automatically have some beef with realists. Hell, as someone who came out of high control religion, I understand how many of them think, because I used to be one. I understand its appeal. I simply no longer think it’s the case, primarily because I think it fundamentally approaches the topic morality from what I now consider to be a very strange vector of approach.

Additionally, at the end of the day, I don’t really give THAT much of a shit. If a realist arrives at the same conclusions as me, namely that we don’t kill or abuse each other, that’s good enough for me. I don’t really care which of the MANY motivating factors or different logical paths on offer he finds most compelling. So long as his fist stays away from my fucking face and asshole (unless it’s Tuesday, Tuesday is fisting night at the Anti-Realist Ranch), that’s good enough for me.

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So the powers that be (who they are no one really knows, it’s one of god’s greatest mysteries) have apparently decided that this month’s philosostack topic is virtue ethics. Not really my bag, and I was going to ignore the trend (because no one puts Baby in the corner), but then I thought of a fun inversion with this dope-ass title, so now I have to write this shit. So you’re welcome.

What is virtue ethics?

Be virtuous, dude.

Be a virtuous dude.

And what is virtue you ask? To horribly and uncharitably paraphrase a certain professional philosopher who specializes in the topic, “Virtue is what Virtue Man does.”

Isn’t that just so helpful?

Ok, I’m admittedly being a prick right now, but aside from this tongue-in-cheek jab, I don’t have any really substantive issue with virtue ethics. If it floats your boat, knock yourself out, kid. While I’m something of a pluralist with a leaning towards utilitarianism as my main squeeze, I don’t think that precludes me from finding some value in something like virtue ethics. Hell, even though I’m not a fan of deontology, likely as a result of my horrible time in high control religion, I’m more than willing to admit that things like norms and rules have their place and can have a helpful role in society. Similarly, seeking to embody certain virtues in the world, or at very least allowing them to inspire your behavior, can be a good and useful thing.

However, for me, these virtues themselves can seem a bit vague. Now, I know there’s no “official” list of virtues to which all virtue ethicists are required to adhere, and one could argue that the broadness of concept for virtues such as wisdom, justice, courage, and self-control is somewhat the point. In not being hyper specified, this makes the virtues adaptable to many different situations.

However, the whole thing still trends a bit pompous for my tastes, and my own thinking tends to gear more towards what NOT to do. So I thought it would be fun to give some negative virtues in more specific down-to-earth language, a virtue ethics for the terminally cranky and pathologically profane if you will. (When I say “negative” I mean like a photo negative, which I’m now realizing makes me sound really goddamned old, which might be true, but you didn’t have to point it out, you dick. Back in ye olde times we used something called “film” and you know what never mind, I don’t have to explain myself to you young whippersnappers, look it up on the fucking super computer in your pocket that you use to both message your mom and beat off on company time in the men’s bathroom at work, you dirty fuck.)

So, without further mollywampus, here’s a bunch of negative virtues in the form of actionable advice-

1. Don’t be a fucking weasel.

Don’t play dumb with me, you know what I mean. If you say you’re gonna do something, do it. Don’t be a duplicitous little shit. Sure, we all try to accomplish our own goals, and from a certain angle, even positive behaviors like collaboration can be seen as a form of mutual manipulation.

The whole point here is consent though. As human beings we engage in transactional behavior all the time, and that’s ok. It literally comes with the territory of being a primate. (Pretty sure chimps don’t sit around grooming nits off of each other because they think nits are super tasty. Grooming is a fundamentally transactional affair.)

However, not being a fucking weasel means not misrepresenting what it is you’re trying to achieve in your interactions with others. If you have a conscience at all, you likely feel a twinge when you’re being fake or misrepresenting yourself. We all mess up sometimes, but you should not get in the habit of defying your own conscience. An inch quickly becomes a mile. As someone who skews utilitarian, sometimes there may be exceptions, like almost everything. But overall, try to be open and forthright as much as you can. No one wants a chimp around they can’t trust. So no banana stealing as a general rule, asshole.

2. Don’t be a punk bitch.

Yeah, yeah, this is a very “toxic masculine” phrasing, I get it. We’re probably not getting rid of toxic masculinity by sheer avoidance though, so instead I’ve decided to recontextualize some of the very toxic masculine epithets we tend to hear in a different way.

While it’s true that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, one should try to be as brave as one can. This doesn’t mean you’re not scared, quite the opposite. If we were truly honest with ourselves, most of us spend our lives with at least some degree of operant terror.

Not being a punk bitch means doing what you know you need to, regardless of how that makes you feel. And no, it doesn’t mean some red-pilled “me Uggahbuggah, me man, man smash weakness with rock.” dumb fuckery.

It means don’t be ruled by fear, period.

Genuinely feel a need to cry as a man, but you’re worried about what others may think? Fuck that. Crying is normal and natural. Don’t be a punk bitch, let the waterworks flow.

Worried what your buddies will think if you stick up for someone else who you see being mistreated?

Don’t be a punk bitch. Stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Whether you’re a man or a woman, act in a way you can be proud of.

But there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater either. There are occasions where you might need to just fucking “suck it up” for a bit.

Is it healthy to always bury your emotions, and never process anything? Hell no, that shit will eat you alive. HOWEVER, there will be situations in life where, because of high stakes, high stress, or simply a lack of time, the adaptive decision is to button up that shit for a bit so that you’re able to stay functional. While it’s often not helpful as an admonishment to others, and can lead to a lot of downstream social harm, there is absolutely value in being able to look at yourself from time to time when it’s actually necessary and say, “Suck it up, buttercup.”

Just don’t get stuck in that mode. Then your guts slowly rot away while you start online gambling while yelling at clouds that therapy is for cowards, all while slowly drinking yourself to death.

Insert that Bible passage about a “time for everything” here, I can’t be fucked to look it up right now.

3. Mind your own fucking business.

No one likes unsolicited advice. (Says the guy writing an advice article, shut up, do as I say, not as I do, I exist in the metaverse or something, so I don’t have to follow my own rules.) Unless it affects you, keep your nose out of other people’s shit. Also, there’s absolutely no need for you to have an opinion about every god damned thing, no matter how much the fevered fucking hellscape of social media seems to demand it. As good ole Mark Aurelius once said (and I’m paraphrasing), “You totally don’t have to have an opinion about everything, it’s totally cool to just not have an opinion and chill. This shit isn’t asking to be judged by you.”

4. Don’t be a smug asshole.

Smugness is universally fucking insufferable.

I don’t care how good or correct you think you are, smugness is wearing your overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction on your face, and that shit is repugnant and infuriating. Stop it.

Things that lead to coming off smug are flippant dismissiveness, condescension, and my least favorite, heavy use of shibboleths. You can be 100% correct about something and still be a smug cocksucker, and so long as you share the social space with the rest of us, this should be avoided.

I could probably come up with more, but I’m tired of this and I want to go play video games (that’s right, video games, I don’t criticize what you do to relax, so blow it out your ass).

Hopefully these profane maxims provided you some utility or at least a chuckle, and if not, I’m not sure what the hell you’re still doing here. A little birdie told me next month’s topic is going to be philosophy of science, so maybe I’ll try to come up with a way to take a mad shit all over that as well.

Or maybe not. In the oft quoted words of my patron saint Otis Driftwood, “this is my fucking chocolate factory”, and I do what I want.

Love ya.

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Buy Me a Coffee or Some Shit

Disclaimer: Nothing I’m about to say is to be considered legal advice, I’m not your fucking lawyer, or your sensei, or your “thought leader”, whatever the fuck that even means. Everything that follows is “just my opinion, man.” to paraphrase St. Lebowski. Your local laws and definitions might be different than mine, so follow your conscience and local laws and blah blah blah because you’re a fucking adult, forever and ever Amen. Or something. Figure it out. I’m also not your fucking mom.

Two types of people are going to hate what I’m about to say, for completely opposite reasons. (Typically this is a good sign to me that I’m at least in the zip code of correct.)

The absolute pacifist types among you will be appalled with what you see as a horrifying willingness to justify violence.

The Honor/Respect culture types will think I’m a craven, pusillanimous polecat, a punk bitch that lets people walk all over him like some sort of cross between a door mat and an amoeba.

Quite conveniently for me, I subjectively find both absolute pacifism and honor culture to be stupid at best, and morally abhorrent at worst. So take some comfort, pacifists and honor bound types, that I find your way of thinking every bit as disgusting as you find mine! Yay balance!

So enough faffing about. When is violence justified?

Sometimes. Depends on the circumstances.

Thank you for coming to my TEDx talk. (They really do let just anyone talk at these goddamn things, don’t they?)

But seriously though, sometimes.

Where people think that line gets crossed will vary depending on beliefs and culture. While I now find myself living in the greasy southeastern United States, I’ve never gone in for the honor culture thing. I find it archaic and stupid, a relic of an older, less civilized time. (Which I know just lands on honor types’ ears as “Bitch bitch, bitch bitching bitch.”) While I understand where it comes from, I think it no longer maps onto modern life. It’s a prizing and protecting of one’s reputation and image in the minds of others that I find to be entirely too egocentric, and certainly out of touch with the very real and horrible consequences of unnecessary violence.

Also, while I agree that speech is not itself violence (those in southern culture tend to skew right wing), this leads to what I see as a blatant bit of hypocrisy. You can’t mock someone on the progressive left for getting the vapors and saying they’ve been literally assaulted by simple speech, then turn around and think it’s ok to blast someone in the face for calling you a bitch. So next time someone simply insults you, what’s that thing you right wing dudes always love to say to people?

“Suck it up, pussy.”

If you’re going to be an unrepentant asshat, least you do is be fucking consistent about it. But then again, those of this sort of stereotypical far right-wing leaning attitude typically aren’t actually concerned with anything approaching fucking intellectual integrity, and are at root as fully guided by their emotions as those on the mouth-frothing progressive far left that they so love to hate. “Oh are you triggered?” sneers the right-winger, but when someone says the slightest thing “disrespectful” about Christianity or whatever idiot pony-boy politician whose whole cock and balls they have shoved into their mouth, suddenly they devolve into a puddle of pearl-clutching “moral” outrage that would make the “Leave Brittney alone!” guy blush. But I digress.

As someone who has worked in bars and restaurants, along with bouncing for a little while, I have seen my share of drunken fights between people old enough to know better. Usually these occurred as a result of some perceived slight, real or imaginary. I also had a co-worker who engaged in one of these pointlessly stupid disputes and paid for it with his life. While drunk, he spat in someone’s face, who then sucker punched him. (Which is not the ideal response, but I do find it a bit difficult to fault the other guy, regardless of what followed. Spitting on someone is assault, and while I wish the person spit upon had exercised restraint, hindsight is 20/20.) My acquaintance fell backward after being punched, smacked his head on a brick, and died in his sleep that night after refusing to go to the hospital. Multiple lessons here.

First of all, don’t spit on people. Second of all, try not to punch people in the face unless you absolutely have to. And third of all, if you smack your head on a brick, go to the fucking hospital, and for the love of god, don’t go to sleep. This is not the first case I’ve seen of someone dying after hitting their head on something after being punched, and it won’t be the last.

Even though some people may find it understandable to punch someone after they spit in your face, myself included, is it worth it? I’d say fuck no. You might break your hand, or worse yet you might kill someone. Even if you hate that person, is your “honor” worth going to prison for manslaughter?

Maybe you’re so “honor pill-brained” you’ll answer yes. In which case, ok, I guess. You “bought the ticket”, now you’ll take the ride. Maybe you think your life is worth throwing away over your “honor”, either in death or in prison, and if so, that’s your prerogative. Even if you get lucky and are exonerated, now you have someone’s death on your conscience that could have been avoided, and no matter how much of a “lone wolf bad-ass” your stupid ass has deluded yourself into thinking you are, such events cling to people in unseen ways, and have second and third order unseen effects you can’t possible imagine right now. Just walk the fuck away. “But my girl will think I’m a bitch!” If your girl would rather see you in prison or dead rather than temporarily “look like a bitch” and go home safely with her, she cares more about her own image than she does about you, and you should look for a new fucking girlfriend.

Or maybe you actually are a clinical psychopath, in which case it’s highly doubtful anything I say will register at all, in which case go in the grace and power of our Lord and Savior Jeeby Craps or something. What the pathological get up to is entirely outside of my sphere of influence. You’ll probably keep fucking around until you eventually find out for good. (Or you’ll become president, who knows, the sky’s the limit for fucking dark triad half-wits nowadays it seems. Or maybe it always has been.)

This also brings up the difference between how I might feel about a given action, and what I think makes sense to be normatively acceptable or desirable. For instance, if a white guy calls a black guy the “N” word, do I think the black guy should punch the white guy in the face?

No. As I’ve said, I don’t think violence is a socially desirable response to simple speech in civilized society. If the black guy asked for my advice (not sure why he would do this, but roll with it), I would say “Fuck that racist piece of shit, bro. But just walk away, he’s not worth it.”

HOWEVER. Do I feel bad for the white guy if the black dude drills him in the mouth and knocks his fucking teeth out? Fuck no. White guy was free to say what he said, and he was also free to deal with the consequences. He rolled the dice and lost his teeth. What is desirable or make sense to recommend as a societal norm does not necessarily match how I will feel about a given instance of violence. I can shrug and say, “Dude fucked around and found out.” Just because I don’t in principle “endorse” what the black guy did in response to being called a slur, doesn’t mean I have to get upset about it. He also rolled the dice, and he will deal with the consequences as well, likely legal ones. And maybe he’ll find those consequences worth it. Not my decision to make. What I think people “should” (another word that doesn’t mean much to me anymore) do carries little significance. All I can do is explain my thinking on things, and people either find it compelling or they don’t.

So now that we’ve established that I’m a punk little bitch that will allow people to insult him with impunity, when do I think violence is acceptable?

I will do you one better, kitten. Violence is not only acceptable, but morally necessary and even good in the following circumstances-

1. When required to defend another innocent party from physical harm.

2. In response to genuine assault and battery and/or simple assault on one’s person, particularly if one’s bodily autonomy or freedom of movement is under legally demonstrable threat.

3. When one’s domicile, which also includes one’s personal vehicle, is being forcibly invaded without proper cause.

As stated at the beginning, I am NOT a lawyer.

Nothing I say here constitutes legal advice. Or even normal advice.

Big flashing neon letters on this bit. I’m just talking, don’t listen to me, etc. etc.

I was heavily involved in self-defense and legal concealed carry training for years, both giving and receiving. What I’m about to say is based on my experiences during that time. However, my experiences and conclusions do NOT apply to you in your situation, and I only share them as an example of how I personally approach these matters in the time and location in which I currently exist.

In my state, simple assault is basically defined as injuring or attempting to injure another person. Also, intentionally touching someone without their permission or in an undesired way often qualifies as well. When it comes to resisting these insults to one’s person, certain legal concepts like the “reasonable man” standard come into play. Which simply put is something like “would a reasonable person respond as you did, knowing what you knew at the time.” (We could go down a deep rabbit hole about different examples of this, and how “reasonable man” is a very loose concept that requires extensive discussion [that’s what juries are for] but that’s not really the point of this article.)

The other main principle at play is that of appropriate level of response. For instance, if you take a swing at me with your hand and miss, and I immediately grab a brick and brain you with it, I have exceeded the appropriate level of response. However, if you just smashed my leg with a baseball bat and are now standing over me with the bat raised, should I be legally armed, the law considers me to be within my rights to do anything within my power to stop you, up to and including using lethal force, as most juries would likely agree that a “reasonable man” would likely find it likely that someone who has already assaulted them and is standing over them with a raised bat has demonstrated not only the desire but, crucially, the imminent ability to end my life. To expect someone to be an absolute pacifist under these circumstances I find not only unreasonable but subjectively morally obscene. The world is an ugly place, and, in extremis circumstances in particular, there are circumstances where the only thing that can counteract unacceptable violence is acceptable violence. Of course, the examples I gave are just that, theoretical examples, and in reality, there are a veritable host of factors that are at play in any altercation that are legally relevant, and examining all of them in depth far exceeds the scope of this article.

I say NONE of this to take violence lightly, on the contrary. Real world violence is horrible, with negative consequences on individuals and society that should not be understated. Even in cases of justifiable violence, the negative consequences on those forced to use it often last a lifetime. Taking the life of another human being, regardless of circumstance, tends to hang like a millstone around one’s neck. Violence should be a last resort, and should be avoided whenever possible.

I live in a much maligned “Stand Your Ground” state. Even though this is the case, my one bit of recommendation that I’ve given to others in the circles in which I used to run in and sometimes teach in was that regardless of statute, it’s wise to have a “Duty to Retreat” mentality, regardless of what the state deems allowable. Whether its someone insulting you, or someone advancing toward you with a bat, if you can, get the fuck out of the situation. This might simply mean swallowing your pride and walking away with a bit of a wounded ego, but free and unharmed. Or it might mean beating feet and getting as much distance and as many objects between you and the threat as possible. Even if you were legally “within your rights” to stand your ground and use lethal force, you still have to prove that it was required in a court of law. Read any book by experts such as Massad Ayoob to find that the fact that you were “within your rights” is no guarantee of legal outcome, and it will be much in your favor to at least show that you did everything that could reasonably be expected to avoid the terrible outcome that ultimately occurred. You can be in the right and still go to prison (or end up fucking dead.) Even if you are ultimately exonerated, such things almost without fail ruin people’s lives. The heavy social stigma around mankillers is well documented.

It used to do my nut in to hear people use language like, “Well if X happens, can I shoot him?”

To which my response would always, be “What the fuck do you mean “can”? Is this something you’re jonesing to do?”

Violence should always be engaged in with sobriety and restraint, with a mind to deliver only as much force as is necessary to neutralize a threat, and no more.

This is real life, with real stakes.

You’re not fucking John Wick, nor should you want to be.

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Buy Me a Coffee

All right, off the rip I want to clear up a misconception that I have likely created by my bearish and admittedly imprecise rantings about my hatred for generative AI.

I am NOT anti-technology.

I am NOT a “doomer”.

Hell, I’m not even against AI in principle. I don’t have serious fears about Terminator’s Judgment Day coming true in reality, and I often feel like the doomer crowd and the accelerationist crowd make a similar mistake in probably vastly overestimating the short term impact of the current AI models, with their respective prophecies of Armageddon or utopia. After all, throughout history, the incessantly prophesied End of Days quite often turned out to be just a Collection of Really Bad Fuckin’ Days. Human beings are a histrionic and hyperbolic species. Seems like the sky is always falling or about to fall. So believe me when I say, I’m not over here clutching my pearls, or wildly trying to dig a doomsday bunker behind my apartment with a garden trowel. The sun eventually peaks out from behind the clouds, if you give it enough time. (That being said, previously promised utopias never came to pass either, because, well, here we fucking are.)

However, it would be the height of foolishness to assume that just because humanity has always managed to slip by by the skin of our teeth in the past we should expect this to continue ad infinitum. Increasingly, I see a troubling mentality emerging among those in the pro-AI space, and I think we would be well served to take a hard look at the road before us and its potential pitfalls before it might become too late to do so. Just because I’m not losing my mind right now over an impending robopocalypse doesn’t mean there aren’t very genuine albeit mundane concerns that must be addressed in the clear light of day.

As I’ve dealt with heavily in my other work, I think humans are a fundamentally “religious” species. Now, although I’m an atheist, I want to make clear that I don’t think religion broadly speaking is some universal evil. Like all human structures, such as government, art, culture, etc., religion arises to fulfill (or at least attempt to fulfill) a fundamental human need. Put differently, to be human is to be in need of the things that religion offers, whether or not one finds them in religion. So, to some extent_, we are each and every one of us vulnerable to the siren call of religious, dogmatic, or cultish thinking, whether it’s found in a traditional religious structure or elsewhere.

To whit (yeah, that’s right, to whit. Been looking for a place to drop that archaically pompous bomb for a while, suck it.) I have noticed a troubling amount of religiosity entering the speech of staunch AI advocates. Now to lay my cards on the table, I am admittedly something of a bloodhound for religious and/or cultish speech. My long history in abusive high-control religion and the New Age/conspiracy circles has left me with a certain hypervigilance, which, while understandable, may sometimes cause me to over-index on what may seem like minutia to others. So, to some extent at least, you would be well served to take what I say with a grain of salt. (You should be doing this with all authors anyway, and if you don’t currently, take this as your signal to start.) I possess no magical powers of future-telling. What I say here is informed by my current knowledge set and by my life experiences. Do with it what you will.

As someone who somewhat regularly speaks critically about generative AI in particular (for the rest of this article for brevity’s sake I’m just going “AI” instead of generative AI), I’ve begun to notice certain patterns in the pushback. While some AI advocates simply cram their head into the sand like some sort of robo-simping ostrich, others are willing to acknowledge the possible dangers posed by AI (up to and including existential ones), but instead of offering any discrete solutions, they often defer to what I have to come to call “blind faith in future tech”. My choice of the word faith here is intentional. Although I can readily admit that there may be some grounding in the idea that whatever problems AI creates, ultimately AI will solve, I find this line of thinking as an assumption to be incredibly naive if not dangerous. To bolster their assurances that we will easily “cross that bridge when we come to it”, advocates will often reference large technological shake ups that happened in the past that turned out well (most commonly the Industrial Revolution). I want to quickly tackle why, while on the face of it these examples seem to be relevant points of comparison, it is never that simple. My two main issues are the following- -

1. In basic principle, the fact we may have avoided technological disaster in the past does not mean that we can have complete confidence that this trend will continue.

Even if we have managed to avoid ruin so far, assuming this will always be the case is rooted in normalcy bias. Given the alarming velocity with which things are developing in the AI space and the relative lack of attention being given to regulation (along with the relative lack of investment in AI safety issues such as alignment and fail safes when compared against the investment in AI acceleration), taken it as a given that we will possess the wherewithal to hit the brakes in a decisive manner should the need arise is likely mistaken. I say the following not to be hyperbolic but to make the point, but the day before Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii, anyone who said “Nah, ignore all that pumice rain. I’ve never seen Vesuvius erupt before, should be fine.” ended up a fucking cinder.

2. There’s often a massive survivorship bias in focusing on the problems that we managed to solve historically while downplaying or ignoring the ones that led to significant negative fallout in the societies in which they occurred. Also, for the problems that were solved, the real-world suffering that occurred between when the problem developed, when the problem was acknowledged, and when the problem was solved is largely minimized or outright ignored.

The oft raised comparison to the Industrial Revolution has many flaws, not the least of which is the fact that those who raise it often gloss over the magnitude of the social disruption that was caused in the transition from a largely agrarian society to an industrial one. Based on the much higher number of humans currently in existence, along with the velocity with which much of the job market stands to be replaced by AI agents (and even more eventually by subsequent advances in robotics), the suffering that may occur might be an order of magnitude larger than previous technological disruptions in our history. Of course we might get our act together, but structural change in the developed world involves many layers of bureaucracy, and the wheels of bureaucracy tend to turn very fucking slow. We also have no idea what second and third order effects this disruption may cause, so doubtless there are yet unimagined hurdles that may begin to stack up in front of us far faster than we are able to clear them. To be clear, this might NOT happen but based on our history this seems more likely than some currently non-existent model of AI solving all of our problems as quickly as they arrive. Maybe the pro-AI crowd will be proven correct, and if so, they can laugh at me when the time comes and say “Ha! I told you so!” I can only hope that this actually turns out to be the case, but I’m laying no money on it.

Now, as I am wont to do, time to wax a bit fucking poetic. Ride the vibes, friend-o, and don’t take what follows too seriously.

Given our pathological egocentricity as human beings, we often fall into the trap of assuming that our story was foretold in the stars. But history, as they say, is told by the victor. We tend to think of this in the very literal militaristic sense, but it holds true in other domains as well. Put in evolutionary terms, the memes that survive are the ones that managed to adapt and overcome their environmental pressures, and those that didn’t have disappeared. As a result of this, it seems we carry The Hero’s Journey in our subconscious as an unexamined prophecy of humanity’s inevitable rise to ultimate power and glory.

Apocalyptic narratives throughout history have often functioned in a similar way. As a child I was raised on strange tales front the books of Daniel and Revelations, tales of good against evil, of mindless suffering to be sure, but of an ultimate cleansing and reconciliation that would end in death and hell being cast into Gehenna for evermore, never again to haunt the minds of man. A glowing future where we who were alive and remained would be caught up together to meet Christ in the clouds, and so will we ever be with the Lord, amen. These kinds of cross-cultural narratives of a “dark night of the soul” followed by utopia and endless peace run deep in our blood it seems, and understandably so. We all suffer, and it makes a certain sense to hold tight to dreams of a far and distant land of milk and honey, even if only to make us feel warm when the night is at its coldest. As time has progressed, the characters in these narratives have changed, but the structure has remained the same.

Where once there were gods, now there are CEOs and politicians.

Where once there were demons, now there are aliens, be they UFO inhabitants or, much more painfully and down to shitty human earth, our fellow human beings of whom we have become so terrified that, in our minds, they might as well be from a galaxy far, far away.

Where once there was God, now there is The Machine.

We helplessly lay our hopes and dreams, our cares and concerns, our hatreds and darkest desires at the feet of these golems that we co-create.

We show up to our lives in the middle of the story, and do our best to find our place within it lest we be trampled underfoot by the relentless juggernaut of history. As the bard said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women in it merely players…”.

Can you blame us for simply trying to find our place?

Not really. Blame is not a very useful idea here.

But I hope I have shown that we must take authorship of our own play, to break the fourth wall as it were and metaphorically take a crack at the machine god.

We must stand as Stacker Pentecost stood in the face of the looming kaiju threat in Pacific Rim and say -

“At the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today there is not a man nor woman here that shall stand alone. Not today. Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them! Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!”

Or something. I don’t know. Maybe Cypher was right, and Matrix ribeyes are worth the complete loss of autonomy. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never feasted upon the tender flesh of a cybercow. But maybe that shit is like heroin meat, and maybe after my first taste I’ll throw my braking shoes in the trash and join you as a human battery. Ya don’t know what ya don’t know.

But in the words of mah boi Aragorn, that day “is not this day! This day, WE FIGHT!”

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Disclaimer: I am not a healthcare professional. The following is my own personal experience. Nothing said here constitutes medical advice.

I was chopping lettuce at my job as a line cook. It was around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the lunch rush had passed, and I had entered that welcome part of the shift when everything winds down, when you been to fantasize about getting off work to take a shower to rinse off the French fry grease, cigarette smoke and lingering stench of despair that comes associated with jobs I’d rather not be doing at this age, this is why Dad told me to finish college, but noooooooo I knew better didn’t I?

Suddenly, I felt what I can only describe as a metallic twang in the back of my throat. A tightening of the muscles in the back of my neck. My stomach turned like it was trying to flip inside out.

“Oh goddamnit.” I thought. “NOW?! What the actual fuck?”

My heartrate started climbing. Adrenaline dumped into my blood in a bolus, like I’d just mainlined it into my fucking neck. I dropped my knife and bolted towards the back exit of the kitchen, slamming shoulder first into the heavy swinging doors, charging toward the outdoors like a bat out of hell. I couldn’t breathe. Needed air.

The fresh air hit me and brought an instant of relief, but this soon disappeared as my heart rate continued to skyrocket. I could feel my pulse throbbing in my neck and in my eyes, my vision dimming slightly on the periphery. My hands began to shake, cold sweat broke out as I struggled for air.

“It’s ok. It’s ok” I thought, doubling over to place my hands on my knees, trying in vain to slow my breathing. “This has happened before. It’s gonna be ok.” My mind reassured me, but my body found these words entirely unconvincing. I’d had attacks before, but I had reasoned them away. They had always been triggered by some behavior or event. I could control it, I thought. I just wouldn’t engage in those behaviors, or go to events that could trigger an attack. Problem solved. Aren’t I such a clever boy?

This was different. Literally nothing stressful had happened. If something had triggered the attack, I had no idea what. This was a problem.

Over the next hour, my mind began to calm down, but my heart continued to slam away like an imbalanced clothes dryer in my chest.. I began to wonder if I should get someone to take me to hospital. The overwhelming sense of pure terror had subsided, but I began to become genuinely concerned about my heart. After pacing back and forth in the restaurant parking lot for 10 minutes, I managed to finally clear the adrenaline from my system. The randomness of the attack shook me though. And finally, though it ran against every fiber of my being, I understood. I needed help.

The attacks were only part of it. I’d been plagued by other physical issues for some time.

Sleeplessness.

Heart palpitations.

Random pains throughout my body.

Muscle twitching.

Painful eczema on my hands.

These things couldn’t be all rooted in anxiety, could they?

Was I ill?

Was I dying?

A smart person would have gone to the doctor. I was not a smart person.

Just grit your teeth and throw some vodka at it, should be fine, right?

But this last attack was the final straw. While not the most intense attack I’d ever had, the fact that it had happened while I was at work and with no discernible trigger made me realize that I had to do something. I couldn’t hide it anymore, couldn’t sweep it under the rug. This was disrupting my life.

I went to the doctor, and long story short, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Much to my surprise, not long after beginning treatment, my physical issues began to diminish, before disappearing almost entirely. In periods of high stress, sometimes my eczema will flare up again, but it doesn’t last. It seems I had ignored the condition for so long that it had begun to wear away at my body.

I had an…interesting childhood, shall we say. I’d also been robbed at gunpoint not long before the anxiety situation had begun to escalate. My goal here is not to look for sympathy or compare my pain or situation to anyone else’s. Everyone’s pain is their own. We each have our own hurdles to overcome. I do wonder, though, how many of us struggle with problems like these, and become experts at lying to ourselves. We minimize our problems, sweep them under the rug, perhaps hoping that if we ignore them hard enough, for long enough, maybe they’ll just disappear.

But reality always wins.

Some of you reading this likely understand exactly what I’ve been talking about this whole time. Around 30% percent of Americans will suffer from an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.

But for those who have not experienced this, it can be difficult to understand. Hell, when I was younger and far more of an asshole than I currently am, I hadn’t understood.
Panic attack?

(Scoffs) Fucking pussies. Can’t control their emotions. How weak. What are they so scared of?

This mentality even sometimes creeps into the language of people who are trying to understand. When they hear you have chronic or acute anxiety, the question always comes -

“What’s wrong? What are you scared of?”

While there certainly can be events that trigger crippling anxiety and panic attacks, when you have an anxiety or panic disorder, oftentimes you’re not scared of anything in particular.

You’re just terrified. Or, in a non-attack situation, even if you aren’t ruminating about what might go wrong, there is a crippling tension that creeps in and undermines everything else that you try to do.

You can never truly relax, there’s always an edge, an ever-present “?!” that floats above your head like you’re some fucking guard in a Metal Gear Solid game who entered an alert state and then got stuck. It all builds on you, and builds and builds and builds. You can’t sleep, and when you’re under-slept you’re more sensitive to everything, and the more sensitive you are, the more irritable you become. You’re tired all the time, so maybe you drink caffeine to help stay moving. Then maybe you drink, or turn to pills, or try anything just to try to feel relaxed, just for a fucking little while. But it always comes back, often worse than before.

Once you’ve had a panic attack, this initiates a hellacious cycle all of its own. The sense of being out of control of your own body is terrifying.

Panic attacks are like a ninja who hides in the back of your brain, waiting until the moment your guard is down to strike. You always know he’s there, somewhere in the shadows, but you’re constantly low-key terrified because you’re never quite sure exactly where he is.

Uh oh, my pulse just quickened, is that him? What if he comes while I’m driving? I didn’t sleep well last night, shit, I feel like one giant nerve, I have to stay away from stressful situations, because that sneaky son of a bitch is always waiting.

This cycle of rumination leads to a sort of death spiral, a magnetic self-fulfilling prophecy where the more you worry about an impending attack, the more likely it is to occur.

I’ve been very fortunate. With a mixture of meds and lifestyle changes, I’m doing much better now. I haven’t had an attack in a long time. If the ninja is still there, he seems to have thankfully fallen asleep at his post. Your situation might be different from mine. What worked for me might not work for you. There’s certainly different levers you can try to pull, lifestyle changes, meditation, counseling, therapy, and yes, medication. What the best course of action is for your situation is between you and your doctor. But please, if you’re struggling with anxiety or depression, or any other condition, take it seriously. Get help. Everyone struggles with these things sometimes, but once it begins to significantly disrupt your life, you are likely entering a disordered state. If you’re terrified of medication, discuss it with your health care provider, share your concerns. I will say, while I’m not a huge fan of being on meds in principle, they have vastly improved my quality of life. My own fears of becoming “zombified” were unwarranted.

I just feel…normal. I had become so used to being incessantly anxious that I didn’t realize the extremity of my problem until I found the right meds and that anxiety was gone.

Sometimes there’s no free lunch in life, it may take some experimentation to find what works for you. And yes, for some people there may be some associated downsides. But if you’re already living in a disordered state, things will likely continue to deteriorate. Sometimes meds don’t have to be a forever solution, but they might at least allow you to reach a stable enough position to actually sort yourself out and get to a place where you can work on the problem through other means.

There is no shame in having a disorder. You’re not weak, you’re not broken or useless.

You’re human. You’re sick.

And you deserve to be healthy.

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