Author Topic: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce  (Read 582 times)

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On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« on: September 08, 2019, 09:06:57 am »
Studying mathematics and programming frightens me,
not so much from academic experiences, since I have done rather well
in such circumstances, since formal subjects are so well-guarded with
Prerequisites.

No, such a lifelong study frightens me mostly in retrospect,
that so many drawn to this or these fields seem lacking in genuine honesty.

Phenomenologically,  so much of what one portends to know or profess is in writing only,
whereas a great deal is submerged in the unconscious, inaccessible to conscious articulation or anything resembling authentic understanding on an intuitive level.

The most honest thinkers among us must end up going insane (by our society's standards) since, all those doing the judging have been trained to project the Qualifications and Credentials of the Professional.  In other words, those most successful in navigating the power-hierarchies of our societies may simply be the most attractive and/or deceptive, the most vulgar and shamelessly ambitious.  They don't know any better than to equate material advantages and good looks with "superiority."   They have no idea of the ride they are being taken on.   That's why the toothless among us brainy types delight in calling Ambitious Success Stories like La Reina de las Gortas, Jennifer Lopez or, what's her name? Taylor Something, Barbie Doll Swift ...

uber-suckers
slaves to image
celebrity nightmare mind fuUck
elvis
whitney
bathtub
add pills and mix, then drain
pop goes prince, tom petty,
and not to trivialize, Chris Cornell

The writing is on the Wall
Nothing that is so, is so.

Is there space between our thoughts?
That's where I wanna go,
Somewhere i can hide from the trappings of language,
grammar, syntax, meaning.

Please forgive the Old Snake in the brain.
Feeding Head Coffee and Tobacco
The brain is working off the energy of a couple prunes.

I was blessed with a grandmother who loved prunes, bananas, melons ...
Yes, this Animal Body thirsts, and the delight of quenched thirst is relative to the degree of the appetite.

Many in our societies are out of touch with what the homeless children of India might be experiencing.  Others, with a little imagination, must secretly thank their lucky stars to be spared such a fate.  I consider myself fortunate when I am able to keep things in perspective.  My brain is sharper even as I begin to face the limits and nature of its capacity to "know," remember, understand.     It doesn't take much to throw my brains into a haywire state. 

I am not fit to shovel holes all day or to build parking lots.  Only my love of math and concern for the poor woman who spawned me kindles my gratitude for quenched thirst and keeps me grinding the coffee beans like the creepy creature from Tolken's Lord of the Rings.

Yes, my precious beans, my nasty but affordable and therefore Precious Tobacco ...
aging mother who angers me but who is worthy of my utmost tenderness and compassion.  At this phase, I must harness a great deal of patience and a Francis of Italy level of UNDERSTANDING.

I am pulling off something Schopenhauer would be hard pressed to take on; although my circumstances are far different.  i suspect that were my own mother to have access to the kinds of funds his relatively young widowed mother did, her behavior might be cruel.   As it is, our family has not been cursed with merchants' wealth.  That is, we may actually need each other for month to month survival.  No joke.  United we stand and divided we fall.   The so-called "Lord" has kept us humble --- we live from month to month, season to season, day to day.   Emotionally, I must take up the slack of the Absent Father (living with my sister).

He would not have had the patience to deal with my mother.   Mom is so stubborn and thick-headed sometimes, I think that were she born 60 years ago, they would have had her in a mental asylum.   It is most likely I would have also been committed.

It's a tragic life, my friends.   I don't need to tell any of you this.
It's just a morning meditation to prepare myself psychologically for being whoever and whatever it is I am becoming.

Maybe we few are some kind of cell of psyches helping each element come to terms with its existential predicament, and thereby we each are serving to prepare the others for death.  We are not in Denial of Death.    We are leaning into it, in fact.   Speaking for myself, I am trying to embrace the idea of death as a man who has been walking all day embraces a cot and pillow.

So, is it one great big conspiracy where the high status academics joke around uncomfortably about how awful they are at "arithmetic" or, god forbid, "pre-calculus?"

They prefer the lofty and incomprehensible over the fundamental or foundational.

What do you think?   Charlatans, the lot of them?
« Last Edit: October 22, 2019, 09:37:44 am by Haywire Baboonery »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Nation of One

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Re: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2019, 07:32:11 am »
When I read an article like ‘Homeless coder’ saga shows connections matter more than coding skills, I become angry, but not for reasons one might suspect.    My anger has to do with the vast wide-scale ignorance of journalists and everyday people about the nature of computer programming, or more specifically, what it might mean to me.    I don't think I am able to articulate the deep hatred I have in my heart toward the Machinery of Systemic Stupidity, with their sports arenas and car shows.

I have never once tried to create some kind of "app" which would appeal to the gorts.   The gorts, including those gorts who consider themselves savvy and well-connected professionals, most likely are incapable of appreciating beautiful and mathematically elegant "command line programs."

The guy who created Funtoo Linux uses it as an experimental lab and spends most of his life at the command line.  He is not in the least bit concerned with the "100% GUI ecosystem" and this tendency for environments to mimic the "feel" of the "mobile app experience."

[Warning: the following may seem like a "run on sentence," but I will try to use grammatical tools to express the thoughts anyway I can.]

No matter the depth of my understanding, the detail of the comments in my code meant for assisting any cognizant human being who actually cared to understand what is going on in the code, nor the internal subjective transformations taking place within me, which are a direct consequence of spending day after day focusing on the abstract realms of symbolic algebra and computing, the refusal of my "work" to commodify itself promises to land me on the streets unless there really is some merciful Overlord that can swoop me up into the Dessert where I might spend the remainder of my days trying to make some sense out of my life.   

So many might suggest getting involved with an Open Source Project.   All of this stinks of "posturing to legitimitize oneself as a "programmer."   I only want to be s servant of my Muse, and to toil where she commands!

Were I homeless and one were to offer to "teach me how to create an app to sell for $1 per download," I would be frustrated to comical proportions.   My radical and deeply philosophical approach to life has also been my approach to the craft of computer programming.  Also, I tend to think as an individual while coding.   Not everyone who wishes to learn how to program computers aspires to create useful "apps" to help the gorts navigate their ways through Bizarroland and order Rice-on-Demand.

Some of us have our heads in the clouds and intend to keep them there.

I choose to studay Stroustrup rather than Kant.  Yes, at the end of the day, I have quietly got up from the table in the cafe where Cioran is going on and on about the horror of existence, and I have allowed myself to continue to learn about "modern C++" and this style of programming called "generic algorithm-oriented" which is supported by the STL.   

The nature of our existences are subject to change drastically at any moment, and our lives would be in such a state where concentration would be difficult, and then, feeling defeated, we might recall the fateful proclamations made back at the cafe by our soul brother EM Cioran.   

No one ever talks about the difficulties of living, and if programming is reduced to a trick one pulls off to sell apps for $1 per download, then no one will be surprised by my reluctance to be refered to as a "coder" or "programmer" or "hacker."   I am thoroughly disgusted with this world and will no longer politley hide my understanding simply to spare feelings of others.

Fuuck what sells!   I experience an existential crisis upon waking.  I'm hooked on coffee and really must have that tobacco, please - out of the way! - as soon as the coffee kicks in.   Somebody might offer me a mercy killing, but I would prefer a room in a monastary up in the mountains where I could live as a genuinely non-religious  mathematically-and-philosophically-inclined computing monk ... Pipe Dream ...

As long as I am interested in the code I am writing and the libraries I am learning to use, then the world can continue on its way, with Ignorance parading itself around as Authority.  I watch as little TV as possible.  I am resigned to accept the contmept and disdain this society has for the likes of me.

I'll be returning to study, for this is the most precious thing I can do while dwelling in a stable environment.   

This world is a frightening place where ignorance parades itself around as authority, claiming to "teach," yet usually teaching skills geared at commodification.

Holden hinted at something when mentioning the difficulties Van Gogh had in selling any of his "work."

Schopenhauer mentions this phenomenon frequently, or at least once, that our approach to a subject should be out of love for the subject itself.

Holden, Raul, Silenus, Ibra - I have woken up an angry and bitter man, but this may be rooted in the growing awareness that my entire existence, including all that I consider "worth studying," is mocked by the Machinery of Society.   If I am to find any peace or solace, it muct come from the reminder that I may end my life whenever I wish.

Were I to be forced back into the homeless community, I would daydream of monastaries set up to educate those who desire education, at whatever level ... and the education would not be geared towards the inane and stupid tastes of those who decide what kind of interfaces the masses will be using on their gort-phones.

I am too angry at this world to try to fidure out how to squeeze a buck out of it.   I will study in my solitary manner and try to ignore the fact that some of us will simply fail to ever be "connected" in any way ... except to the subject at hand.

To be a philosophical programmer who finds the idea of putting together a resume pointless, a real bother.

Holden, you must see the situation I am in.   Please do remind me that my understanding is more valuable than any "connections" to "the industry."

I have to say, my main task, upon witnessing the nature of this society, is to try to remain out of any of its institutions or the many group homes where we disenfranchised serfs are organized into "cells."

I might prefer homelessness and even death over living with strangers in group homes, getting shuffled about to "day programs."

This world is so unappealling to me.

I'll study what I can, leave some notes and some code, then see what it feels like to croak.

There's no way around that for any of us, whcih makes us all Natural Born Philosphers.

Oh, how I do despise the gort masses.    They murder me with their stupidity.

Meanwhile I am this ridiculous ape in need of food and water.   No matter what particular knowledge or skills one develops, even if those skills are something as practical as "wilderness survival," one wakes up in these Dark Cities in whatever situation one finds oneself in, and that is that.   We each have gotten a feel for the nature of our societies.  We know this world is not pleasant.  It's a very dangerous world, after all.

How to keep one's head together?  How to find shelter while keeping one's soul in tact?

What kind of world is this?    It's a world overflowing with charlatans and con-artists.    Object-oriented programming was a hoax.   The industry published countless books, authored by countless phony "professionals."
« Last Edit: October 22, 2019, 07:22:27 pm by Haywire Baboonery »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

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Re: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2019, 09:42:04 am »
Hentrich,

I also wake up angry and bitter.  I do not study anything. I know nothing about mathematics or computer programming. I have a high regard for your commitment to your studies. I only know a little English and a little about world history and that´s it. I do not do anything that is “worthwhile”. I will not leave any mark here. Therefore I am viewed as a failure because as you say, I have not been able to squeeze a buck out of people.  In this world they define you if you have money and they define you if you don´t have any.

The machinery of society, as you call it, will always see you as a menace. You are not “productive” in any way. You do not produce cannon fodder aka children, you do not produce anything that this world considers worthwhile. If you had decided to apply mathematics and computer programming, let´s say, in Wall Street, I suppose you would have been regarded a financial genius.

I can only recommend that you keep studying.

Drive safely. 

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Re: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2019, 10:17:13 am »
Quote from: raul
I have a high regard for your commitment to your studies.

I do appreciate this high regard you have for my continued interest.  Your honesty and the energy you invest in relaying this regard to me has not been in vain.  I value your support and your sympathy with my bitterness.   I must not allow the Pychological Warfare Machine to infect me with self-doubt and existential dread. I depend on the government for sustenance, and I try to cope with the burden of my own existence.

It takes effort to keep my head in the clouds.   On a deeper hidden level, I am simply a terrified animal liable to lash out out of fear.   Maybe the fact that we are these exotic plants that require so much maintenance for our sustanance weighs too heavily on my mind constantly.

The creator of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup, may be under the impression that everyone who is studying modern C++ wants to take part in some huge industrial-level project, and that solitary scholars are not to be considered "real programmers."    I am often disgusted and depressed when I witness the urging to use libraries instead of tinkering with honebrew experiments.    Why such a fast pace?   Why this fear of "wasting time" ?

I imagine that a high percentage of science/math/engineering students may be in for a long life of disappointments and ego-destroying demands to attend to the most primitive needs.

In the end, since there may be nothing to be had financially; that is, since there is no buck to be squeezed ... no one pays anyone to just continue to study and learn ... many will end up as useless as drug-addicts to the Industrial World.

I'm afraid there is just no making sense of it.   Maybe the only reward for committing oneself to study somethng difficult that offers no economic security is that such an interest may actually help one endure an existence where there is really nothing to be had.   

I would not wish to alienate any youth aspiring to study; but only to wish them a great deal of patience and strength that they might not allow this vulgar world to destroy the hidden delight they may experience in studying that which interests them.

I have confessed to being unfit for "the professional world."

I wonder what quality it is that I possess that makes me such a problem to myself.

In any event, you have inspired me to pause so as to upload my last "command line program" since the code itself will reflect "the spirit" of my intention to use C++ containers and algorithms to express the mathematical phenomena of "Algebra" --- it's quite beautiful to express Rationals and Integers in my own creative fashion (tinkering, as we have decided to call it).  I think the code is elegant because it creams the mathematical truths being expressed so that both human being (computatrum sapian) and machine may understand the logical though processes being implemented.

I will post a link in a separate thread once upload to github.

May the crick not rise - but I fear we live in tragically interesting times, which means we all may be the victims of an ancient curse.

We are all passing through like clouds in the sky.  The truth is in our stomach, true.   And we take for granted our healthy bowel movements.  I fear the worse is yet to come for us, even if we think our lives have been hard, or that we don't have it in us to endure that much more.

 :-\

How many countless just do the math and reckon life is a zero sum game.   We stick around for the coffee buzz?  the high from learning new manifestations of old ideas?  for the orgasms?  for the satiation of thirst?  for chocolate ice-cream?   for bananas?  for coc-caine (Sickmind Fraud)?  for "emotional growth"?  for mathematical maturity?   

Any skills we might develop might only make it possible for us to carry on our own personal education in solitude, as one's own professor.   The joke may be growing to be a crazy-old retarded-genius who blows the doctors' and nurses' and policemen's minds in a future world run by automated meat.    :o
« Last Edit: October 22, 2019, 07:37:12 pm by Haywire Baboonery »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Ibra

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Re: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2019, 03:23:47 pm »
Mr Hentrich,
Quote
Object-oriented programming was a hoax.   The industry published countless books, authored by countless phony "professionals."
OOP is my bane. in the past I liked programming before I got internet around 2005 but OOP turned me off every time.that is why I learned a bit of "C" instead of the OOPy "C++" that college preaches. I tried to read a book "Design Patterns" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns and then left programming altogether as a consequences.

Stay loyal to your muse and keep tinkering with the abstract.

Suffering is the only fruit of human race

Nation of One

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Re: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2019, 05:48:14 pm »
Thank you a ton for your input.  You taught me a new word, bane: a source of harm or ruin.

It is amazing to me, so many years later, to have my intuitive dislike of the one-size-fits-all Object-Oriented approach confirmed by the likes of Alex Stepanov and now even Bjarne Stroustrup himself; well, Ibra, I am almost relieved I haven't died yet, just to have the satiafaction of studying an approach that makes more sense, and even uses as its core ideal the simplicity and elegance of mathematics itself.   To a pure thinker, such symbiosis has a quasi-mystical feel to it, that something may be evolving in the spirit of "generic algorithm-oriented" programming that is actually exciting to consider, even for the basic philosophical implications.

As a human being, when tinkering with creating basic yet elegant "math functions," which is basically what a lot of the stuff I tinker with amounts to, we may even expereince a peculiar delight when our ideas begin to be modeled smoothly using "the STL."    I'm not saying that witnessing the merging of generic programming with abstract albera makes life worth living, but I should note that, even if the hordes and crowds perceive pathic puny me as a total nutcase, at least my muse and the rest of the schizophrenic ghosts within me will witness my understanding mature, not so much as far as collecting mass quantitiies of technical details, but as far as developing enough intuition to use the containers and algorithms to model mathematical phenomena.   It's a rather beautiful and elegant craft to tinker with when not overwhelmed with the anxieties inherent in breathing as a living organism.

May you also continue to tinker, and more importantly, seek out hours of solitude where you might enjoy your higher faculties the way our ancestors might have - that is, may we not be robbed of the delight we discover in mathematical ideas - by this vulgar world where we are at the mercy of our own primitive animal needs, not to mention living at the mercy of topsy turvy worlds, or the unpredictable behavior of elemental forces.

It may be an ironic joke that once one gives up the notion of becoming a professional programmer, and then rediscovers this interest in a natural manner, then we can get on with the task of coding withoutout being bothered by the "politics of everyday life," with silly professional and academic titles or job positions.

Peace!  (I mean that.  Thank you for acknowledging that the Will to Code survives after abandoning the Idea of "programming for rice, water, flour" as though we are some kind of trained monkeys!  Those who would hire "programmers for hire," while they might have the cash flow (power/connections-in-Jungle-Land) to throw us grocery money so that we might eat or pay rent for another couple weeks (at a time), I can assure you that most savvy businessmen, officers of "the law," and authorities one must endure of all types in modern society, authorities we may be at the mercy of, have not one iota of respect for the ancient mathematics underlying the algorithms, nor any understanding of possible beauty or elegance hiding therein.

It's poetically tragic that the barbaric principles inherent in our brutally short existence expose our vulnerability as Being No One.  For a flash, in a certain mood perhaps, we are cognizant of having contemplated the sublime, I suppose.  Then our more depressive and philosophical "presence" - was this Hesse's Steppenwolf? (or Abraxas in Demian?) - squashes that euphoric feeling, forcing us always to witness the brute fact that we are food processors, and our waste, even when solid and healthy, leaves a stench.   We may feel shame or horror.  We can't deny our corpse, nor the stench in our intestines.   

At least, on this medium, others do not need to smell the odor of our feet.   Many must use insense to endure themselves.  There is a comical side to our humiliations, maybe, when the mood is right; but mostly the feeling is wretched and miserable, with a few bright moments.

At least we have been able to communicate as human beings here, and not as employee-prospects, students, or clients ... we are computing human beings, computae sapians ?  I am no translator; never picked up Latin ...

 ;)
« Last Edit: October 22, 2019, 07:21:57 pm by Haywire Baboonery »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: On the Possibility that Society is a Total Farce
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2020, 01:16:33 pm »
On days when I feel most honest, I wish to avoid eye contact with others lest they ask me, "What's wrong?"

As if they don't know what's wrong:  we have been born into this world, that's what's wrong!
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~