/** * file: journal_karbytes_28october2024.txt * type: plain-text * date: 28_OCTOBER_2024 * author: karbytes * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN */ Last night (or this morning) I had two rather vivid and meaningful dreams. The first dream occurred while I accidentally dozed off while watching a YouTube video I downloaded about the hypothetical phenomenon of “morphic fields”. In that dream there was a small library full of books stacked on top of each other and the implication that there were children or young adults present (though no humans were visible from my vantage and I appeared to be taking the vantage of one of those people). I selected a book on top of a stack of books in the middle of the room whose cover looked exceptionally ornate and vintage. While I was somehow fetching the book, I heard a voice over which sounded like a narrator of that dream saying that I picked a book which most appealed to those high on estrogen. When I opened the book and started looking at the first few pages, I saw paintings of green pine forests and little variety between paintings as I flipped through the pages (and there were no words on the pages of that book). The book eventually started to resemble a flip-through animation when ghostly outlines of racial diverse women started to appear against the backdrop of the trees. Then a ghostly outline of a hedgehog spinning several times and turning into a giddy looking white man with brown head and facial hair appeared. Then more clay-mation-like depictions of a garden full of rotating green plant stems and other little cutesy-looking animals and plants appeared. Then I somehow was helping to complete the story by inserting tiny plastic woodland animals (ducks in particular) which each had giddy facial expressions and a cartoonish aesthetic into the book and heard myself or the narrator in the background say that I was helping to populate the setting (which was a cottage with a wooden deck for a front porch in some bayou) with as many animals as possible while casually ignoring overpopulation. I was aloof to what the moral of the “story” was and said I could use artificial intelligence to create more realistic and varied depictions of that part of the book/movie. The second dream seemed to go on for a much longer time period than the first and seemed more eventful, interactive, and philosophically deep. I was apparently behind on two homework assignments I had yet to turn in online for a college-level mathematics class I was taking (and remember being told that it would not significantly affect my overall grade much to have one missing homework assignment but two missing could be problematic). I remember it being less than 24 hours before the deadline at 11:59PM on Saturday while it was Friday evening or Saturday morning simultaneously. I was downtown in some surrealist world which is reminiscent of both the baylands and some mountain town. There was a supermarket I was going into and saw that my housemate Steve had been able to get a second job working at the counter there simply by walking in and asking to work there. I was buying some food or other items there. Then I was somehow meeting up with my professor from that mathematics class and he was telling me about some dark things and I was somehow observing exactly what he was talking about in a “movie” which completely immersed me while I could still hear the professor talking. He was talking about a form of slowly murdering people (I think convicted felons) by first having them drink a poison or undergo some kind of targeted electric shock which causes just the few neurons in the prefrontal cortex which apparently are the basis for consciousness. Then, to test those people to see if they lost their consciousness and were hence rendered philosophical zombies, two of their fingers were placed in a device which cuts them off as soon as the person verbally consents to having those fingers cut off. The premise of the test was that only the philosophical zombies would consent to having their fingers cut off because, despite being able to talk and respond to stimuli from their environment, they, by definition of being philosophical zombies, have no awareness whatsoever. Otherwise, they would object to having their fingers cut off and would not follow instructions. The professor told me one subject of that test was particularly verbose despite being determined to be a philosophical zombie and that what he said was rather meaningful and disturbing due to the fact that, despite no longer having the neurons which would have imbued him with consciousness, he had built up a lot of memories in other parts of his brain which made him very intelligent-sounding and even threatening to the test administrators. Shortly after that I was reviewing the course website and saw how well the professor put it together. There was a section devoted just to showing the solution steps to the math problems the class found particularly difficult. There was a section on how the teacher generated software animations to depict mathematical concepts. Then I was waiting in a line outside with other class members for the professor to lead us somewhere and he said he would be back and said some cryptic comment about the price of vanity while walking away jovially. * * * Today I decided to take the trains back to Castro Valley instead of heading south to Sunnyvale. This afternoon the sky and weather has felt extra autumn like with golden sunlight casting long shadows, cumulus clouds covering approximately fifty percent of the blue sky, and a persistent wind causing the leaves in the trees and bushes to rustle. On my way home I could not help but notice the belligerent behavior of some of the poor people of color in public spaces in the way they so frequently and callously litter, leave spit puddles on the ground, and are loud and aggressive-sounding and territorial-acting on BART trains. I thought I heard people making snide remarks about how I am acting and thinking “too white” instead of “appropriately” down-trodden, embittered, and rage-filled as they seem to want me to be (but my mind is my best friend and loves to keep me inspired and proactively optimistic instead of more zombie-like and possessed by someone else’s “ghetto” ego). When I got to Castro Valley, I went to my new favorite coffee shop (which is the Philz across the street from Chipotle and Castro Village). I was appreciating the hospitality, liveliness, and sense of community around me and telling myself I had a great hometown to live in and that I ought to look for jobs closer to there and which don’t make me have to interface with primarily “ghetto” people who are frankly more racist, rude, and belligerent than I am. I started submitting more job applications today for jobs I was previously not open to applying for such ad grocery store clerk and retail cashiering. I was afraid to do customer service again but decided I can easily do it once I get used to it after approximately two weeks (or even one). I noticed a disturbingly high number of people insinuating that I am pathologically preoccupied with my physical appearance (especially weight) when I do not think that is the case (and my blog is glaring evidence of such). I think such people are opposed to me getting any recognition for what I do which their intellectually avoidant and socially conformist brains find too challenging to consider. Hence, they resort to making up lies about me and promoting those lies in order to censor me (given that they try to cut me off from speaking or even thinking content which does not fit their agenda to promote me as vapid and centered around their conceits) and to take the focus off of what karbytes actually does for a living (which is go on solitary adventures to discover how reality works and to generate original web based content pertaining to science, technology, philosophy, and art). The last feeble retort I hear from my naysayers (after I thoroughly demolish their argument that all I do is pose in front of a camera for a living as an empty-headed model) is that I am “just a kid” for not having more of a job (even though I am quite hardworking when on the job) and for appearing to have “too much free time” due to the fact that I have nerdy (or otherwise time-consuming) hobbies instead of no hobbies or only socializing and watching mainstream television as hobbies. (Lastly, many people seem to have a problem with me choosing to adhere to a vegan diet and such people insist I only do it to watch my weight instead of acknowledge that I do it mostly to minimize how much I contribute to the suffering of non-human animals and to minimize how much I contribute to ecological destabilization and pollution. Such people also claim that I cannot get a job nor reliably commute without a car and say I’m not eligible for employment nor even social approval without driving a car (because burning gasoline is primarily how they seem to get around)). (By the way, my parents have given me permission to borrow the Toyota Matrix minivan which has mostly been stationary in my mom’s driveway for the past six months and which is ensured and in functional condition (aside from the passenger side window shield wiper being broken off and stolen by some vandalizing ape approximately one year ago while I left the car parked in Dublin or Pleasanton on a rainy day). I am trying to avoid using that car for anything but occasional errands but (such as for hauling items which are extremely impractical (if not physically impossible) to carry on my person or tow in a wagon while bicycling or walking), depending on how limited my employment options are, I might eventually resort to using that car (which is gasoline powered) as my main commute option (and I have a clean driving record and a non-expired class C driver’s license)). * * * I noticed that, since I left the relatively secluded part of the baylands I was staying at earlier today, I have been exposed to almost nonstop chattering from other apes around me (and the past ten BART train rides I had always had someone chattering incessantly for the entire ride and especially today some men staring me down the entire time instead of directing their attention to something other than me). I resent being forced against my will to be other humans’ captive audience and deprived of quiet and solitude that I am considering restricting my job search again to only non-social and non-public interfacing jobs even if that prolongs my unemployment period more than looking for customer service jobs would. Most of the general public disgusts me due to how little its members seem to share my ethical values and priorities (and how extensively they dismiss what I have to say and do it doesn’t fit their small-minded and cherry-picked depiction of me). One example of how this manifests is how seemingly more than seventy percent of the cars around me are oversized gasoline-guzzling SUVs (which indicates that their owners clearly prioritize military prowess in a “might makes right” sense over fuel efficiency and pedestrian safety). I also smell a lot of cigarette smoke and car exhaust and hear people blasting their melody-free mumble-rant “music” incessantly and frequently honking their car horns and driving impatiently and nearly running me over at times. I see the women resembling female chimpanzees in a patriarchal male chimpanzee led society with the males making the vast majority of the noise and news while the females do little other than serve as baby makers and sycophants to the patriarchy. I don’t mean to suggest that all the humans around me are what I would describe as disgusting, but honestly more than half of them at least vaguely turn me off in some way. I try to be open minded and non judgemental but not at the expense of self-honesty and integrity. Hence, I feel I don’t really fit into this society very well and I seem to have enemies against whatever it is I’m ultimately trying to do. Oh well! Life has probably always been a Darwinian competition for scarce resources and hence a never-ending struggle or situation always ripe to become a struggle (depending on the particular subjective perspective). Bottom Line: I am unhappy about ingesting other people’s pollution and potentially experiencing a shorter lifespan and worsened health because of it (and I am unhappy with how extensively my activities have been interrupted, delayed, and outright sabotaged by people other than myself seeming to have more social, economic, and physical power than me to force me to take a loss so that they can have more fun, health, and success than me (and rendering such things artificially scarce by their own tribalistic and chauvinistic greed)). I plan to keep working on my projects to the best of my ability and mitigating my suffering as much as I can. I consider making continuous updates to my blog a sign of progress, success, and triumph over adversity; something for me to take pride in and be grateful for. * * * I was thinking about how I prefer to avoid being violent or abusive (to myself and others) to the fullest extent possible even if or when others are violent or abusive or condoning of violence or abuse. Some people might say to me, “Well, you committed abusive or violent acts within the past eight years and not fewer than three years ago. That’s not at all a long time ago. Hence, your abusive or violent acts do not deserve to be forgiven nor unpunished any time within the next six years. You do not deserve to be promoted as a peaceful nor altruistic person right now no matter how innocent or benevolent your current behavior is. So get used to be being bullied to the point you commit suicide or otherwise suffer extreme adversity due to our persistent and unmerciful treatment towards you. That’s what many people think you deserve. So I expect you to commit another act of vandalism or physical violence soon. Then you can get further punished and have your punishment period even more prolonged. We hope you never recover and end up relegated to oblivion for the rest of your life where you suffer unbearable agony.” Despite what that (hypothetical) person said to me, I still think it is ethically and logically justified for me (or any other person) to minimize how much violence or abuse it commits in the future irregardless of how much violence or abuse it committed in the past given that my ethical values center around minimizing collective and individual suffering and given that my worldview (which is heavily informed by evolutionary biology) suggests that some degree of cruel behavior was necessary for the human species to commit against its own members and against members of other species to become as technologically and culturally advanced as it is today (and to deny humanity’s bloody and “sinfull” past is intellectually dishonest). * * * karbytes_0: “What is a celebrity?” karbytes_1: “A celebrity is a person who becomes famous either through exhibiting exceptionally good talent or by doing something historically significant.” karbytes_0: “Do celebrities rule the world?” karbytes_1: “Celebrities don’t rule the world in the sense that they can necessarily bend the laws of physics to their will but celebrities generally exhibit more social influence and wealth than do most people (and most people are not nearly as famous, wealthy, and socially influential as are celebrities (though such non-celebrities give celebrities huge sums of wealth and leadership status by paying for those celebrities’ artistic expressions by purchasing the commodities those celebrities advertise and sometimes create)). I think it is possible that most celebrities are mostly paid for by wealthy corporations and governments as a means to sway the opinions and behavior of the masses (particularly as consumers of capitalist commodities and media).” karbytes_0: “Is karbytes a celebrity?” karbytes_1: “karbytes is not sure whether it is a celebrity or not, but karbytes likes to imagine that it has been appointed underground president of the United States of America by the government and part of karbytes’ reign as President is pretending to be a non-celebrity and non-government-employee (and that karbytes’ primary obligation as President is to exemplify ideal citizen behavior via lifestyle choices and public Internet presence). It could be that many people other than karbytes think karbytes is President of the United States of America but such people are participating in a ‘prank’ to not inform karbytes that they know that karbytes is President of the United States of America. Hence, if some ‘random’ person were to ask karbytes whether or not karbytes is famous, karbytes would say, ‘I’m not sure, but I assume no’ while secretly assuming yes.”