Shared Masterbation Might Make The Very Difficult Politics Of Compromise A Lot Easier To Do

And I know you are either laughing, or at least smirking, at this suggestion. But it is, nevertheless, quite true.

I have posted on this before, though for the life of me I can't remember the precise one, or the key phrases from it. Hopefully someone enterprising, and not fully read up yet here, will locate it for me and share that with us (doesn't hurt to ask for help after all).

In any case, though, the point here is that, if we could come up with a way to do group, shared masterbation, and do it anonmyously so that only the genitals are exposed, and also do it with some emphasis on formality, and a higher purpose to be served, it could be a genuinely important tool to take the edge off negotiations; especially if a lot of testosterone is involved.

This would be even more so if we could link sexual climax with the transcendent power of letting go of the our identities for a brief period as the mystics trained themselves to do with higher levels of meditation, and what drugs like LSD can do in one fell swoop. It is in that transcendent act that I believe lies the possibility of not only receiving information across vast arrays of so called boundaries, back and forth over every scale of consideration, from the inside out, to the outside in; that not only is that possible, but also that this "conditioning" serves to improve the individual in ways I have barely scratched the surface on.

So. Smirk, or laugh all you want. I believe that I am living proof that transcendent meditation has real benefit. Just think what we could do as a species if we could lock down addiction itself in a positive sexual outlet, and get a transcendent, improving experience out of it as well. If you have any imagination at all, you will see this as the tremendous opportunity it is to further, and better, the human condition. And maybe even have a lot more good sex in the bargain.

I LOVE MULTIPLAYER GAMES

Why Some Guys Like Jerking Off Together

8 diggs buzzfeednews.com Long Reads

I went looking for other men who consider mutual masturbation an important sexual experience in its own right.

If We Go To Hydrogen Production On The Scale That I Envision

We won't have to worry about having only batteries to store power in. We will also be able to store power as a cryogenic liquid.

There is also hope in not only further technological development in battery tech, but also in using graphene supercapacitors as well. And certainly, having another incentive to utilize the carbon we begin pulling out of the atmosphere, in ever greater increments of throughput capacity, wouldn't hurt either.

I can say we would have these "greater increments of throughput capacity," as well as the grand scale of hydrogen production I envision, because we will have realized that a money economy is in no way prepared to deal with what it will take to accomplish these tasks. And in that realization we will come to recognize that only a comprehensively new way to operate will allow us to organize the major, national, mobilization of combined effort this will take. A mobilization on the same level of criticality as was demonstrated when we last fought a global conflict, and on more than one major front, back in the forties.

That is the only way we will be able to save ourselves, as well as the rest of humanity. And as impossible, or, outlandishly unlikely as it might sound, I still remain resolutely hopeful that we will do this as a Nation.

A FAULT WITH THE BATTERY
The $2.5 Trillion Reason We Can't Rely On Batteries To Clean Up The Grid

MIT Technology Review Energy

Fluctuating solar and wind power require lots of energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries seem like the obvious choice — but they are far too expensive to play a major role.

See Also:
[Post Note: Of course, if we didn't have centralized, land based (land is too precious now), power production in the first place, we might not need to worry so much about it being so vulnerable. Build huge numbers of sea based, Yen Tornado Turbines (in conjunction with floating habitats), however, and then have the presence of mind to have a truly flexible delivery methodology, as in Hybrid, Dirigible Blimp, Air Trains; you might find yourself with some significant new, viable options, for much more efficient, and clean, energy. J.V.]

A LOT OF LINES TO CROSS

Hacking The Electric Grid Is Damned Hard

6 diggs FiveThirtyEight Technology

Bringing down the grid is a lot harder than just flicking a switch, but the danger is real — and it may never go away.

UP IN THIN AIR

Where Are All The Hydrogen Cars?

5 diggs Popular Mechanics Cars

Using the same underlying chemistry that propels spacecraft, hydrogen cars could still become the car of the future.

You Know It All Has To Do With Money, And Not In A Good Way

Idaho Prisoners Hack iPads And Transfer $225,000 Worth Of Credits To Themselves

Why Did 11 Babies Die In A Generic Viagra Trial?

America's Insane Bail System Is Even Worse Than You Think

See Also:

3M knew your non-stick pan was poisoning you in the ’70s

Rising seas could knock out the internet — and sooner than scientists thought

MCSAM

How An Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald's Monopoly Game And Stole Millions

26 diggs The Daily Beast Long Reads

Jerome Jacobson and his network of mobsters, psychics, strip club owners and drug traffickers won almost every prize for 12 years, until the FBI launched Operation ‘Final Answer.’

[Post Note: It's time to awake folks. Time is running out. J.V.]

2-Hours Epic Music Mix | Most Beautiful & Powerful Music - Emotional Mix Vol. 2

They Take A Vacation While The Rest Of Our World Burns

And the highpoint for the current administration this week was only the PR opportunity to make the most of a "Big Number" moment; a moment they can take some credit for only because they gave a bunch of money away to the rich and called it "tax reform." All the while much of the rest of our world burns. Or is inundated by terrible floods, or parched by chronic dry spells. And then tries to get by, through all of this, with increasingly devastated, and neglected, infrastructure that leaves so many communities cut off more and more from the economic mainstream of the still, mostly functioning, tech, aerospace, and regional, traditional manufacturing, or agriculture, hotspots; or at least the ones still not hit too hard by repeated, not fully recovered, extreme event disasters.

What is really disappointing to someone like me, however, is how they don't even acknowledge what the world as a whole faces if it doesn't act sufficiently within the next ten years or so; a time frame that is sure to decrease as we get more info on the already depressing trend line for ice at our poles; a fact that truly emphasizes the notion that, when it comes to impending disaster, it is always half past later than you think. And sadder still is the fact that this is why a great part of the earth is on fire, and why the extremes of weather have gotten so bad. And it is all connected, without any doubt, to the fact that the fault for this lies squarely at the feet of our toxic, woefully out of date, economic operating system. An operating system that values private profit over every other human value; including survival.

It is time to not only send them home permanently, but to finally realize that this system, as currently constituted, isn't ever going to solve the problems we face, no matter how many times we flush the "get the turds out of there" toilet. No, the only way those problems are going to be solved is when we finally realize that we have to take responsibility for ourselves and start governing ourselves as directly as possible; biting the bullet, so to speak, on accepting that a "Grand Compromise" of some kind must be worked out between the Right and the Left in this country. Something that has to be done in double quick time, no matter how difficult it might be, because we just have no other choice. Assuming we want to survive, mind you, and we still value Democracy.

This is what we face, and what we ignore, if we insist on continuing to conduct "Business As Usual."

Half of Congress is leaving town. Their to-do list isn't going anywhere

See Also:

Drought brings big worries for farmers across northern Europe

[Post Note: A flip of the coin between "Fire And Ice" are exactly what we are likely facing if we continue to chose to do nothing about truly addressing extreme climate change. And in that, of course, we have to go all out; as in a complete mobilization like we did for WW2. And to do that we will have no choice but to be revolutionary as to how we go about redefining our social/economic organization; something we would have had to do in any case as it has become mandatory because of the vast changes in the reach, and effect, of our new, electrified instrumentality. J.V.]

World's Most Emotional & Powerful Music -- 2-Hours Epic Music Mix - Vol.1 -- Fire And Ice

California Today: The Increasing Strain on State Firefighters

Death toll in Northern California's huge Carr Fire rises to six

Extreme heat and wildfires made worse by climate change, say scientists

Three more reported dead in massive California wildfire

When Will Americans Stop Being Fooled By The "Big Number"

The big number.

Companies use them all of the time to make what they do look better. As in we're going to add such and such to the new jobs roles. But then what they don't always tell you is all of the other numbers that would put this one, isolated number, in a more understandable context. As in what they have also decided to lay off in an equivalent time period, so that the ultimate end result might actually be a net loss of jobs.

And nowhere is this game played more fast and lose than with the American economy.

They throw out a number representing total economic output, which from one period to the next might show an increase, without any perspective at all as to what is actually going on. And that is critical right now because we really must pay attention to the finer details if we are going to survive as a species.

Certainly more money is being made but made for what, from what? And how can you say this more money actually makes America stronger when so much of it does not end up helping the country at all. For instance:

1. How much is due to the increase of "Crunching Numbers Just To Get More Numbers," as I have been talking about with the way money now demands that it be treated just like electrons in electrical circuits; always seeking the path of least resistance. We saw this starting with algorithm controlled commodities trading (or simply having your servers be a few light seconds closer to an exchange than the other guys), and now we see it more and more in bitcoin currencies, and certainly gaming software in general, as well as the holy grail of VR. What actual strength does our nation get from this kind of money making?

2. How much is due to the increase in rebuilding from various sorts of destruction? And in this, certainly, you would have to include the ever increasing bills, that us taxpayers are paying (because our supposed betters are too good to be taxed for the needs of the many), to deal with the extreme everything that Capitalism has left us with, because it has never been able to pay the full life cycle costs of any of its "products."

Tornados. Hurricanes. Firestorms on a whole new level. Flooding on a whole new level. And the worst thing is: heaven help us if the severe weather stops altogether, because that will mean the ice at the poles is gone and we've rolled the dice to see how bad all of our planet's circulation systems are devastated. But that, dear reader, is not the end of the destruction bill we pay.

In this also must we put all of the costs of our wars for they certainly do not, necessarily, make us any stronger at all. Just consider the ever increasing costs of our drug war, because, at the very bottom line, addiction is now part and parcel of Capitalism. Or what about the insane war on Communism that devastated the politics of so many nations to the South of us?

And finally 3: How much of all this new money being made, on top of an unbelievable cash giveaway to Big Money, is actually allowed to to trickle back to us? The people still having to run harder each year just to not fall behind anymore than last year? Not anything even close to the insane sums our supposed betters seem to feel is their divine right.

So the question I ask again is: When will the American people stop being suckers for the "Big Number." How many times are you going to let yourselves be fooled by this BS?

As always, time will tell I guess.

See Also:
[Post Note: I didn't mention, of course, the cost we pay for all of the waste that that this most inefficient economic system generates. Waste at every turn. Too much packaging. Too much effort wasted on BS marketing. Too much transportation involved in doing pretty much everything. And in that, certainly, is also the inefficiency of what we have in place to provide for critical social logistics.

Sadder still, though, is the fact that, much of America isn't being served at all any more my much of any critical social logistics. And much of that comes from the lack of leadership in not making critical infrastructure in general a top priority, always. But of course, as well, is the fact that, if the only thing your Demented Clown Car of an Administration can do, in terms of multitasking, is screwing up, what chance do such deprived parts of the country have? And this, on top of what we already have with Capitalist, Market thinking, with it making our choices for us as to when a community itself stops having value, even though there are capable working people there who could work, if just given the chance. And we didn't have to worry about an obsolete money system in the first place. You know, the same one responsible for all of the dangerous competitions that are making our demise ever more possible.

When will you see through this farce? When will you wake up to its ultimate, destructive absurdity? J.V.]

In Mississippi, closed bridges and crumbling infrastructure threaten lives and livelihoods

The New Normal For Disaster Relief Continued

You know that the local authorities here will try to do their best to cope with this kind of immense input of water over such a short period of time. As they always try to do of course, even as they also struggle with so many social issues that go begging for proper funding. People will be helped, but they will not be fully recovered, by any means, because the resources are not going to be made available soon enough from the only source that has the real mandate in the first place; the Federal Government. And we can say that because the current administration has already demonstrated the only thing it is good at doing, in the context of multi tasking, and that is screwing things up across a broad spectrum of policy areas; with the screwups actually leveraging each other so as to make them even more disastrous than they would have been by themselves. And that would be the case even if Congress could even begin to try to organize compromise legislation, which, obviously, it is not even trying to do anymore (other than for show when the outcome won't matter really).

The really hard part here is that, in order to save the planet, we are going to have to make the extreme weather last for a while; maybe even a long while (until we work like crazy to get the CO2, and other infrared blocking gases, out of atmosphere), and perhaps even worsen the severity a bit, overall, in the bargain. And that is because the alternative of not having any more of the main circulation systems, that the life here became quite used to, will change our situation to where nothing much circulates at all, and that will be very bad for us, and the rest of the main food chains of the planet. This is, unfortunately, what will be the net result of trying to keep ice at the poles will be. And we will have to do it (with very large scale, lighter than air constructs, as I have already described before). There will simply be no choice but to try.

Millions in Northeast and mid-Atlantic face flash floods, while West scorched by heat

See Also:

SUMMER'S NOT EVEN OVER YET

Here's How Bad The Heat Has Been Around The World

15 diggs 

From wildfires in the Arctic Circle to the UK turning from green to brown in satellite images, climate change is here.

Heat waves can create stormy economic weather

DEATHRACE 2020

Tokyo Is Boiling. Will It Be Too Hot For The 2020 Summer Olympics?

10 diggs The Daily Beast Sports

The heat wave devastating Japan shows how disastrous the weather is likely to be in 2020. The IOC and the Abe government — and the yakuza — played a part in this hellish timing.

TAKING THE HEAT

Rising Temperatures Linked To Increased Suicide Rates

3 diggs The Guardian Climate Change

Scientists warn the impact of climate change may be as large as economic recessions, which are known to increase self-harm.

Live By The Market, Die By The Market Continued

What this continuing saga illustrates is not that Mr. Musk isn't good at what he does. He is quite good in fact; perhaps to a fault and has an ego to show for it. But, as the saying goes, the Gods give us success precisely as a means to destroy us, for they know that our own vanities are often our worse vises. So even that, in this particular recitation of woe, though maybe related, is not what I think is the ultimate issue.

No, what is going on here is that the markets will always do what they are famous for doing, and that is be unpredictable. Irrational. And so influenced by turbulence. Which is, again, precisely why the three of these go together so well.

And then there is also the growing impatience with any investment that takes longer than an ever decreasing time frame of returns expectations. And why, you might ask, would that be, beyond ordinary greed as it already exists? That is so because money is now rendered down to be electrons themselves, moving at the speed of light, or should be if they were in the right investive system. Which is, again, precisely why stupid schemes like new bitcoins are so attractive, because you are literally paying for specialized processors to have ever increasingly difficult calculations give you more electrons than the processors used in making the calculations in the first place. A practice otherwise known as crunching numbers just to get more numbers, only in this case the numbers suddenly become actual increments of value. A different version of this is also carried out by other types of supercomputers to try and find whatever kind of market, and all other forms of information, correlations, so as to have some predictive capability on commodities prices; a practice, of course, that ultimately ends up putting its own unpredictable influence on prices as a whole, which is just more of the already mentioned turbulence.

The volatility of those various approaches, though, makes at least most of them pretty risky as well. But don't worry. Software of a different kind will soon leap to the fore (much more so than the games we get so far have done). This is so because the demand to create the perfect machine to human interface will be accomplished, to one extent or another, and when that happens, the route to pure addictive entertainment will be established. And from that point on electrons, and photons, being turned into gold, at ever more furious rates, will also be established. And all of that will be sustainable only as long as you can keep the electrons flowing, and the addicted on some form of treadmill of passive obedience, and ordered action. As well as to say as long as those in charge don't fall prey to that already mentioned recipe that the Gods use to destroy us. Understanding that they will also be plugged into a way to amplify vanity in ever more awesome destructiveness, and with ever greater imagination.

HEY... DO ANY OF THESE FOLKS WANT A SUB?

The Tesla Magic Is Gone

3 diggs theoutline.com

Almost a quarter of Tesla Model 3 orders may have been canceled, for a wide variety of reasons.

See Also:

Facebook shares plunge more than 20 percent on warnings for future

[Post Note: Of course universal income isn't a magic bullet. No more than Socialism itself is a magic form of social organization. And even if either were something close to being magic they wouldn't be able to overcome the insanity that markets have become now. And a big part of why they are insane is because they don't get "real" information anymore. How could they when everybody refuses to share information properly at all in the first place now (because you have to share it only when you can get more information back than you put out, because money is information too). And in any case, you still have to decide who's pocket you're going to get that money from, and then try to wage another information war on justifying why they should be the ones so encumbered, as opposed to anybody else who has large collections currently laying about. Which of course they wouldn't because they'd have already done whatever was needed to hide it.

Can you begin to see now just how crazy this whole mess has become?

I just hope to every God, and Higher Purpose, that this is so because all of our butts are on the line here folks.

CASHING OUT

Universal Basic Income Is Not A Magic Bullet

11 diggs Slate Magazine Money

The author of "Give People Money" on the pitfalls and promises of retooling the US safety net.

[Poste Note: One can only wonder what kind of money they'll be raking in once you can experience this sort of game thing as a full body, integrated whole. Haptic suits, and better VR to the eyes, may satisfy for a while, but it will only wet the appetite for the thing you plug directly into the nervous system with somehow. Hopefully not with a major projectile forced into your head from behind, while sitting in very shabby barber chairs.

The Na'vi from Avatar had it imagined better, but that was an organic approach, and we're quite unlikely to get that here. No. I think it will be some form of bio-electrical, printable grafting technique that will print actual tissue and circuitry onto the spinal cord. Something that will have its own, redefinable neural nets, with which to work translation codecs (which we could never program ourselves) to turn photons and electrons into the right neural signatures required to trigger whatever needs triggering. Or at least a matrix of experience that will seem to be that way in any case.

The interesting question for me, though, is: Will you be happy or sad that some game geek comes along to buy somebody like Musk out, just so he can have the production space for more servers? J.V.]

Record Fortnite Revenue