I'm listening to screwtape on anonradio and ducking in and out of
com right now, and this prompt from christyotwisty came up. I
hadn't seen it (I'm very self-absorbed, when I'm feeling like a
failure for not updating my phlog I just avoid gopher, so I miss
other people's writings) but now I feel motivated. So, to the
questions.
1. What are you grateful for from 2022?
SDF. I had a terrible mental health year last year, and withdrew
from almost all regular interactions with the outside world. I
don't think I've been out of the house more than a dozen times
since the weather got cold here in Toronto.
Initially when I found SDF and joined, back in April last year I
think it was, my interest fizzled out pretty quickly. Such is
the curse of the ADHD/depression combo, at least in my experi-
ence. Judging by the number of notebooks, empty but for a page or
two at the start, that we found in my mother's desk drawers after
she died, in hers too.
Come November, when everyone started realizing that Elon Musk
wasn't even of average intelligence let alone a clever person, I
had started spending some time on the SDF mastodon instance. As
the diaspora ramped up, it turned out to be a lovely place to be.
And pretty quickly I connected with some people on there and in
com, and gopher, and then I started following anonradio.
SDF sort of brought me back a bit. It was a perfect moment of
harmony, what with the re-fracturing of the internet happening at
the same time. The loosely collectivist creativity at SDF in-
spires me, even makes me hopeful. The word "community" is abused
horribly in the "shared interest" view of the Internet. SDF actu-
ally feels like one.
2. Has the internet changed the way you think?
This is kind of related. It has, but latterly I can't say much
about how, due to the anthropic principle. Going back to the 90s
though, I can see (with very little clarity mind you) some of the
changes happening.
Before I knew how any of it worked, I found it to be a perplexing
and mysterious clique. It didn't help that my introduction was
hanging out in the hash smoke at my friend Ken's studio while he
and his band-mates made music and art, silently, punctuated by
the sound of modems as people and peers called into his BBS
(Black Dog Towers, of Mile End).
Ken is a Discordian Pope (RAW used to ordain everyone) and an ob-
fuscationist, so his stoned explanations did little to clarify. I
think I conflated abstraction with mysticism, but ultimately I
think the Internet gave me access to higher dimensional thinking.
Space which weren't in space, places which were nowhere to be
found. Meeting people and locating ideas in virtual spaces; peo-
ple who were not organic or physical, locations which were not
anywhere, meetings where no-one left their seats.
3. What do you believe is true though you cannot prove it?
Social relations, morality, culture, ethics, habits and behav-
iour, most of what we consider to be "human nature" is actually
software and not hardwired.
One corollary is: "Libertarians are idiots and can bite me."
4. What have you changed your mind about and why? If
possible, use an example from 2022.
This might be the hardest of all the questions to answer. I
change my mind a lot, about almost everything. Sometimes it's a
bit debilitating - a function of ADHD I think, combined with a
somewhat bipolar tendency. For example, as a programmer, I some-
times go deep into a particular language, set of abstractions or
architecture, but other times cannot settle as I wander through
paradigms and convince myself I've settled on one thing for a
while, only to restlessly move to another a day or two later. Ef-
fectively, I'm trying on different belief systems every few days.
In terms of big things, I'm a collectivist and always have been.
I'm an atheist, and always have been. I think humans can engineer
co-operative modes of living, but I don't think this civilization
will ever produce such a society. I think that power inevitably
corrupts, and all cops are bastards. But I haven't changed my
mind about any of this, even if the details evolve.
I'll keep this question in my mind for a while and see if any-
thing reveals itself. Sometimes I miss things when I'm looking
for them.
5. What would you like to return to?
I'm more about moving forwards than looking backward, so these
are a little disingenuous, in that I'm not completely sure I'd
jump at the opportuntity again, but that said:
- I would like to skydive regularly again.
- I would like to sail the western isles of Scotland again.
- I would like to ride a beautiful, minimal, NJS steel frame
fixed gear bicycle again.
That's it.
About the things to love bonus, here's some quick hits:
- John Darnielle's exquisite turn of phrase.
- Emacs, as a living breathing imperfect reflection of its
life so far, rich in contradictions and malign influences,
just like me.
- General purpose computers, because they give me an
infinite universe of the mind to inhabit, which saves me
from boredom and claustrophobia.
