Nathan's shitty blog

I dont know if I will post often but here you go fucking world! There is no topic, just me posting whatever is on my mind. Add the feed to your feedreader (you better have one) so you can stay updated on the things on my mind.

• Dogs against doge
• On the issue of wikipedia
• Dream log 1
• Overthinking

Dogs against doge

On this website I have said before that as a nonhuman (I am a nonhuman believe it or not) my power to engage in revolution is lower than all you humans and my words and actions are less meaningful due to my isolation as a nonhuman. But like I said before I am still caught up in your problems reguardless and when shit hits the fan I will still be there doing what little I can. Today that happened. I went to a protest: a protest against doge. For a moment my nonhumanism impacted me less than it normally does. I realized this when I saw a dog with a sign on it. That sign said "dogs against doge". Even the dogs and nonhumans were protesting. It may not have been the dog revolution or the nonhuman revolution but it was still a revolution against a form of evil. And that is something dogs, cats, aliens, big foot, whatever the fuck I am... can fight for no matter how little are existing does anything in the bigger picture.

The revolution will not be televised on social media!

On the issue of wikipedia

Why do I write this?

Wikipedia is one of those things a lot of people like to shit on without really thinking deep about the sytem as a whole. People tend to look for yes or no answers than they should instead be trying to understand things on a dialectical level so they can understand the why instead of just the what. Teachers dont understand how the articles are actually editted, edge lords like to shit on it without actually knowing the issues with wikipedia, youtubers like to push out content shitting on wikipedia without ever going into the actual details why wikipedia is bad... Before you start shitting your pants I am not defending wikipedia by any means, quite the opposite actually. I am just here to tell you like most things in life its bad but not for the reasons you think.

Its editted by random people on the internet

And academic books are written by a few people in fancy buildings, documentaries are made by a bunch of nerds with cameras, research papers are written by old dudes in lab coats... With all of those there are systems in place to make sure its reliable and yes, wikipedia does have a system in place its just different than what other sources use. Thats what makes those different from fucking reddit. All of those can be equally shitty if you just eat up whatever is given to you instead of questing where it came from. One thing all of those systems cant stop (thats if they even try) is bias.

On bias

No where is without bias. No matter how much they try to get rid of it its still there. Its often more than just a different way of looking at things, it can be full on poising to the brain and flat out demand you close off your mind. That is why religion is dogshit. Thats why you gotta be strong and not let that shit in. A little god and jesus than as soon as you know it being gay is a sin, women are objects, the church controls you... a few good opinions and sources of information aint going to save you, building up a philosophy and lens to view the world from can be just as much as a tool to free the mind as it is a weapon to be misused by shitty things like religion. As much as reading helps its a journy you can only take alone.

Wikipedia's bias is not limited to just republican or democrat. Its not communist or fascist either. It embodies the will of both republicans and democrats, only aims to defend the status quo, and prefers to echo the words of those with money and power. Wikipedia's bias is: neoliberal. Its humanitarian enough to not appear as an opinion held by asses but at the same time isnt willing to hold people in power accountable. Anything bad america does is covered up and pushed deep into parts of the articles barely anyone reads, anything bad enemies of america does is made much easier to find. The most dangerous type of bias is bias that pretends its not bias. Once something makes you believe its nonbias it can start making you believe everything it says is the unquestable truth and slowly lock up your mind. Yes, even I am bias.

Those who never speak are never wrong

Lets get this out of the way, wikipedia may not be deep and analytical but it tends to be very dense. Schools dont like that because they dont want their students to gain new information: they want their students to to quote fancy sounding quotes from people that went to colleges that most cant afford. The ideal source is something that is dialectical, analytical, and dense. Wikipedia is just dense. And the sources schools want us to use is none of those!

The more you say the more incorrect things you will say even with a constant error rate, the more you say the more you need to fact check which could get overwhelming increasing the error rate. How do academics get around this? By stuffing their articles with word porn to make it as un-dense as possible so they can say barely anything while keeping their word count up. That is a terrible way to do things. Its better to openly define a way of going about understanding the world so everything can be connected and tied together while giving the reader the authority to analyze your words instead of eating it up. When you speak you have to risk being wrong and if you cant learn to accept that and continue learning new things than its better to not speak at all. Wikipedia still only goes half way, enough to scare away schools not but enough for some topics.

Replacing wikipedia

Wikipedia for the most part is usable not going to lie. Today I was using it to look up information on anime. I even link to wikipedia on my website sometimes. I am careful about what articles I link though, not all wikipedia articles are equal. A good wikipedia replacement does not exist. They all have the same issues: everyone is too focused on making a nonbias source when they should be openly announcing their bias and writing more analytical.

Get yourself a library card! While wikipedia will cover you for quick questions your base of knowledge should be built by reading books. Not everything can be summarized and quoted. A good book is one that takes its time to buildup information while still being dense enough. A book will tell you a complete story instead of just data points. A good book opens your mind by showing new ways information can connect. Wikipedia, news articles... only ever serve to give you disconnected data points: aka tell what to believe not how to believe.

Dream log 1

Last night I had the type of dream that inspires new stories. In my dream the favorite author: Kurt Vonnegut, was a unix and emacs user. And he wrote a book about someone in some government position or something along those lines who spent there entire life fucking around with unix and there favorite editor was emacs. He made countless, guides, journy entries, random life stories.. and had everything on his system optmized using scripts to do many different tasks. The whole world ended and the last person on earth was someone who knew pretty much nothing about computers and they found this unix system in the place they picked as there hideout. Through all the things left behind on the unix system the last person on earth learned to not only survive but live well as the last person. They even became a unix power user through the guides left behind.

Overthinking

Whenver I decide to add something to this website I always overthink on how to add the thing. In general I just overthink how I will do everything. It slows me down. Right now I am overthinking trying to think what to write and how to format it. I always end up doing way less when what I planned on doing. My partner overthinks a lot to. We overthink together. Though we overthink in different ways. I always end up going fuck this and throwing together a terrible mess while he just ends up giving up from the start.

Overthinking is just as much of a power as it is a curse. It fuels my ideas and thought process just as much as it slows me down. Its a quite difficult weapon to use but still quite deadly indeed.

Next time you overthink do what I do: eat junk food.