patrick.net

I'm not interested if you've stood with the great. I'm interested whether you've sat with the broken.

S. Fitzmaurice

There is nothing is more deceptive than an obvious fact.

Arthur Conan Doyle

"You have been trained to take orders and obey people in authority from your first day of kindergarten. School is only partly about learning. The secondary and unspoken goal of schooling is to teach conformity and obedience, which prepares you to take on a mortgage and obey your boss" - Patrick Killelea in The House Trap

The real estate agent and the seller both have an incentive to fake recent comparable sales data to get the buyer to believe he must pay more. Do not attach any meaning to comps, even if you can confirm them with the county. The only measure of house value that you can rely on is its rental value. - Patrick Killelea, The Housing Trap, Page 66

Buy a house only when a landlord would buy it. - Patrick Killelea, The Housing Trap p81

The MLS is a used house sales tool designed to restrict access to critical market information in order to prevent the free market from working efficiently. - Patrick Killelea, The Housing Trap, p68

gabbar says

Yet Chomsky repeated the lies about the vaxx, apparently without investigating anything for himself.

He simply forgot to add, "Except when you're paid to obfuscate and hide the lies".

Always remember that everyone can express an opinion and that opinions can be paid for.

"It's just a lot of uncertainty right now. But one thing I'm certain of : The housing market is collapsing at a level I haven't seen since 2008. I haven't seen this kind of drop since 2008."- Gary Friedman, CEO, Restoration Hardware, November 9, 2022

“Submission is identified not with cowardliness, but with virtue, rebellion not with heroism, but with evil.

To the Roman slave owners, Spartacus was not the hero and obedient slaves were not cowards. Spartacus was not a hero, and obedient slaves were virtuous. The obedient slaves believed this also. The obedient always think about themselves as virtuous, rather than cowardly.

If authority implies submission, liberation implies equality. Authority exists when one man obeys another, and liberty exists when one man do not obey other men.

Thus, to say that authority exists is to say that class and cast exist, that submission and inequality exist. To say that the liberty exists is to say that classlessness exists, to say that brotherhood and equality exist.

Authority, by dividing men into classes, creates dichotomy, disruption, hostility, fear, disunion. Liberty, by placing men to equal footing, creates association, amalgamation, union, security.”

― Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy

I've always found it ironic that anytime someone cries about "religious freedom", their definition of that term always forces someone else to lose their actual freedom.

You go talk to kindergartners or first-grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts. They ask deep questions. They ask, "What is a dream, why do we have toes, why is the moon round, what is the birthday of the world, why is grass green?" These are profound, important questions. They just bubble right out of them. You go talk to 12th graders and there's none of that. They've become incurious. Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade. ~ Carl Sagan in Conversations with Carl Sagan

gabbar says

Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade

Smart phones and social media would be a good place to start. Then try conspicuous consumption and "the one with the most toys at the end wins" mentality.

The notion of allowing aliens to vote negates the very idea of the nation and democracy. The participation of everyone in the exercise of power, in making political decisions affecting the whole, is possible only within a human ensemble possessing the same values, memories, and culture. A multi-racial, multi-confessional society can in no case be democratic, since it lacks commonly shared references. Such a society would be endemically oppressive and culminate in a caste system. - Why We Fight, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance by Guilllaume Faye

An ethnically heterogeneous population — a kaleidoscope of communities — becomes an anonymous society, without soul, without solidarity, prone to incessant conflicts for domination, to an endemic racism ('every multi-racial society is a multi-racist society') — ungovernable because there's no shared vision of the world. Ethnic chaos is an open door to tyranny. - Why We Fight, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance by Guilllaume Faye

Ethnicity is the sole stable basis of human community. - Why We Fight, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance by Guilllaume Faye

Worse: Muslim and alien 'minorities' have ceased, in many areas where they live, to be minorities and have turned the tables on Europeans, who are compelled to assimilate the culture and mores of the colonisers! All assimilation is equivalent to cultural genocide, for the assimilator or the assimilated. - Why We Fight, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance by Guilllaume Faye

They [Jews] put the Jewish interest above America's interest, and it's about goddamn time that the Jew in America realizes he's an American first and a Jew second. - Richard Nixon. 37th president of the United States

Jews had always thrived in nations and empires with multicultural, pluralistic and tolerant environments, while they fared badly in strong ethnic or nationalistic societies. ... Therefore, by definition, a society where the stranger is welcome is good for the Jews, although they have not always appreciated this link. The future of European Jewry is dependant on our ability to shape a multicultural, pluralistic and diverse society. - Göran Rosenberg. The Future for Jews in Multicultural Europe. December 18, 2008

gabbar says

The notion of allowing aliens to vote negates the very idea of the nation and democracy. The participation of everyone in the exercise of power, in making political decisions affecting the whole, is possible only within a human ensemble possessing the same values, memories, and culture. A multi-racial, multi-confessional society can in no case be democratic, since it lacks commonly shared references. Such a society would be endemically oppressive and culminate in a caste system. - Why We Fight, Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance by Guilllaume Faye

I don't believe this is the problem.

The problem is what is ON the Internet, what people are brainwashed into using on the Internet. INEXPLICABLY people will still insist on using portals and sites that promote degeneracy and will use censorship to promote it.

IF we were given the ability to see all points of view, this shit would end. IF, for example, people REALLY knew what the US was doing in foreign policy, it would end. IF they actually were allowed to know.

School is just indoctrination now, THAT would end if parents had complete and total control over the curriculum. Would parents make errors? Sure! There would be some town somewhere that would force their children not to learn about evolutionary theory, and instead force them to learn creationism. I think that would be rare, and I think it's an error, but it's THEIR children and it's a lot better than exposing children to LGBTQ crap in elementary school.

People need to be allowed to make mistakes, even at the cost of their children. Nobody makes more "mistakes" than the fucking government does, because they aren't mistakes, they are purposely hobbling children.

gabbar says

An ethnically heterogeneous population — a kaleidoscope of communities — becomes an anonymous society, without soul, without solidarity, prone to incessant conflicts for domination,

I disagree with this as well.

It's cultural diversity that does this, not multi-racial. I'm in the United States, we are all Americans first, race doesn't matter.

richwicks says

People need to be allowed to make mistakes

This course takes a broad look at failure – and what we can all learn when it occurs. Perhaps people will be more comfortable with making mistakes because we all do it even if some will not admit to it, if something like this was introduced widely.

Title of course:

“Failure, and How We Can Learn from It”

What prompted the idea for the course?

When I was a high school teacher, I found plenty of joy and fulfillment in my work. But I also felt the sting of failure: from a student who remained disengaged throughout the semester, or even just from a lesson that went off the rails. Now I prepare aspiring K-12 teachers to navigate that messy reality themselves, and I’m struck by how tough it can be for them to develop the resilience necessary to work so hard and yet inevitably fall short of their goals.

So I began to wonder how other fields and professions might view failure. What resources do they draw upon? What common threads might exist that could help future teachers learn from failure more effectively?

What does the course explore?

We explore the role of failure in a wide range of fields, and how what counts as failure varies as well. A bridge collapsing is pretty clear, and maybe a business that goes bankrupt. But what about a team losing or a patient dying? We also consider what mechanisms and strategies these fields employ in responding to failure, and the ways in which they see failure as part of the learning and achievement process.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

As the semester unfolds, students begin to recognize that success and failure aren’t neat and simple categories. At its best, this course helps them understand how failure will be an ongoing presence in their lives. That means they need to figure out how to restructure their relationship with failure, rather than anticipate a time when they’ve finally and fully succeeded.

https://www.newspronto.com/news/the-conversation/98437-this-course-takes-a-broad-look-at-failure-%E2%80%93-and-what-we-can-all-learn-when-it-occurs

richwicks says

I'm in the United States, we are all Americans first, race doesn't matter.

It matters to at least 2 communities in the US as per the religions.

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it." ~ John Lennon

Your soul is like a compass. It tell you where to go but not how to get there.

Archie Bunker

https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/how-to-make-people-happy

Four easy things you can do to make people happier, and why you don't do them.

There is a lot of research advice that, if you take it, should make you healthier, wealthier, or wiser… but not nearly as much that will make everyone around you happier. The exception is an uplifting string of work that suggests that making people happier is easier than we think. In fact you can make people happier right now, from your computer or phone (maybe finish the Substack article first?).

But if it is so easy, why don’t we do it? Because we are systematically wrong about how much of a difference our little gestures can make to other people, and also how hard these gestures are to make. In fact, the papers all find the same thing: we can make the world better, but we don’t because we think doing so will seem dumb or awkward or meaningless. And we are wrong to feel that way.

For example, appropriately enough for Thanksgiving week in the US, this paper shows we undervalue showing gratitude. We think it will be awkward, we think people know we are grateful, we think it won’t matter much. All of that is wrong. People who were asked to write letters of gratitude to other people overestimated the awkwardness of the experience, and underestimated the impact on the recipient’s mood and happiness. It also made the sender feel happier. So, the first way to make people happy: openly express gratitude towards others more. (Look, I know some of you are thinking this is super cheesy, in part because the research predicts you will find it cheesy. It isn’t! Try it!)

Relatedly, we aren’t as complimentary as we should be. Another paper shows that we don’t compliment people we know enough because we worry it will be unappreciated and awkward (are you starting to sense a theme here?). But “giving compliments in relationships makes both expressers and recipients feel more positive than they expect to feel.” In fact, the paper argues that we are not complimenting each other at nearly the optimal level, because we are afraid of it being awkward. So, the second lesson: genuinely compliment people you know more.

A third paper looks at a related topic: helping others. When a person needs help & all someone can do is provide a little assistance, rather than solving the entire problem, the helper is often reluctant to do anything because they think partial help will not be valued. Again, people really appreciate even small amounts of help. And part of the reason why is that the mere action of someone helping makes the person who needs help feel better, even if they can’t solve a problem completely. So the third way to make people happier is: offer to help people, even if you can’t completely solve the problem.

A fourth paper looks at spontaneous contacts, when we reach out to someone in our social circle who we may not have spoken to in a bit - to say “hi” or to catch up. We don’t do it enough, and (I know this will shock you!) the reason is because we think it will be akward and not appreciated. And, of course, as you might suspect, people really appreciate when someone in their social circle spontaneously reaches out to them, even if they aren’t a very close contact. Again, since we underestimate how much people appreciate spontaneous contact and don’t reach out enough.

So, there is no need to belabor the point further. You can make people (including yourself!) happier, and the reason you aren’t doing it is because you are stuck in your own head. So the research suggests a few small things you can do this Thanksgiving (or World Cup) week, to make the world a little bit better:

Express gratitude more

Give more genuine compliments to people you know

Don’t feel awkward about offering to help, even if you can’t solve the problem

Reach out to some old contacts and say “hi”

Science says it is okay, and not nearly as awkward as you think.

I stop at a gas station every morning and buy a small cup of coffee. Costs me $1.39. Sometimes, the gas station will give me a free cup. I in turn buy coffee for other people at the gas station. Buying the coffee for strangers starts off my day well. Now, the gas station workers recognize me and wish me good morning.

"If the truth is many-sided, then the lie is many-sided" - Winston Churchill.

The American free press has been under attack, not by forces from other countries, but from elements embedded in our own society, and even our own government. It worries me deeply. We are not the enemy of the people. - Jim Gardner, Philadelphia News Anchor, December 22, 2022

I don't understand this one completely. What does Naval mean? Help me out please.

gabbar says

Nonsense. The only reason to have money/power is to get better sex and food.

HeadSet says

Nonsense. The only reason to have money/power is to get better sex and food.

Is he saying that its easier to control our cravings for food, sex than our cravings for music, money, video games?
Patrick, richwicks, wookieman, others...please chime in.

Its crazy that those who created this inflation problem, get to decide to keep their jobs and ruin the life of those who pay the decision makers salary and leave them with out a job.

https://notthebee.com/article/this-small-town-farmer-paid-peoples-pharmacy-bills-for-the-past-decade-and-no-one-knew-about-it-until-after-he-passed-away

This small-town farmer paid people's pharmacy bills for the past decade, and no one knew about it until after he passed away