tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108865572024-03-06T21:46:16.021-08:00mungojellyI am mungojelly & I use tentacles to subtly alter reality. <a href="http://mungojelly.blogspot.com/atom.xml">Atom Feed</a>. <3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-79022603240625769462008-11-28T15:58:00.000-08:002008-11-28T15:59:59.317-08:00I'm testing whether I can successfully rip some shit from the page of this blog post. I'm going to put some sort of separator next, then I'm going to come back and try to extract what I put! Fun and hopeful success! <br /> <br /><pre><br />~~~~~<br /><br />ok here is something here <br /><br /><br />~~~~~<br /></pre><br /><br />so now i'm going to see if i can get that to happen. wish me luck! :)mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-10622692371562169042008-10-29T19:29:00.001-07:002008-10-29T19:39:22.590-07:00bjarne stroustrupi had a hunch that i had to understand the mind of this man, bjarne stroustrup, in order to have any clue about this strange language c++, so i'm reading "the c++ programming language", and i think i was right.. here's an example that strikes me: <br /> <br /><blockquote>This form of explicit type conversion is inherently unsafe and ugly. Consequently, the notation used, <i><b>static_cast</b></i>, was designed to be ugly.</blockquote> <br /> <br />and it's not that i disagree! casting should be ugly. all of this ugliness has reasons for its ugliness. i'm increasingly convinced that c++ does indeed make some sort of sense! it has a perspective and it makes sense from that perspective. that's what i've been looking for.mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-36977825433216294182008-10-29T03:51:00.000-07:002008-10-29T03:53:07.517-07:00hmm, i think my program has heard of itself?!<code><br />r-2:~/code/gccstudy ixkey$ g++ experi.cpp -o experrr<br />r-2:~/code/gccstudy ixkey$ ./experrr<br />hello<br />hello this ihello this is the testhello this is the test array! ٰ?p???4??????4???p???<br />n???m??4???$???)%,???4??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????<br />???x???./ex<br /></code>mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-90265871354304898662008-01-31T02:15:00.001-08:002008-01-31T02:15:53.164-08:00this is what i typed while i was cleaning out under my space key: <br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">+bbvm,,mnvbmnbvnbv,mnb.,</span>mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-59160452021394606262007-12-27T23:06:00.001-08:002007-12-27T23:07:30.277-08:00i read this on wikipedia & i felt tripped out: <br /> <br />"The phenomenal world is the dream of Vishnu.[citation needed]" <br /> <br />hehe, citation needed.. woomungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-38179344187594472662007-12-19T09:54:00.000-08:002007-12-19T09:56:15.267-08:00two songsa song about the internet: <br />-----<br /> <br />it's nothing but some sentences upon a sparkling screen<br />but god bless us something happening; there's something those words mean<br />the world's people all together for the first time ever seen<br />because information wants to be free<br /><br />CHORUS:<br />so now we're all deciding how we want the world to be<br />and some people've started saying that's a sorry sight to see<br />but they can't take the internet away from you & me<br />because information wants to be free<br /><br />they strung a couple wires in case someone dropped the bomb<br />i don't think they were expecting that we'd all come along<br />but now this place belongs to us and i'm singing you this song<br />because information wants to be free<br /><br />(chorus)<br /><br />you may ban me, reprimand me, if you don't like what i say<br />you may throw me down and cuff me if you think i'm in your way<br />but i'm clutching to my camera and the world is gonna see<br />because information wants to be free<br /><br />(chorus)<br /><br />it seems some folks are hoping that we'll just go away<br />they hope next time they start a war we won't have much to say<br />but we all know the rich & powerful have cause to be afraid<br />because information wants to be free<br /><br />(chorus)<br /><br /><br /><br />AND<br /><br />What If Ebvreyoinse Grew up PResidne:<br />---<br /><br />CHORUS:<br />what if everyone grew up to be president<br />why can't everybody have a say?<br />what if everyone grew up to be president<br />i really think it's possible someday<br /><br />read my lips no new taxes<br />slick willy doesn't know what is is<br />and w said he'd unite us not divide<br />they say they'll represent us<br />till we start our four year sentence<br />then suddenly they're on the other side<br /><br />(chorus)<br /><br />choose one yale boy or another<br />pretend they're different from each other<br />when really you've no preference either way<br />or vote for a third party <br />if your soul is feeling hardy<br />and hope they count your vote before it's thrown away <br /> <br />(chorus)mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-21440383907673913692007-04-24T10:18:00.000-07:002007-04-24T10:42:15.128-07:00<blockquote>The fact that the bill is deeply encrusted with incomprehensible jargon and prehensile programs dating back to the 1930s makes it almost impossible for the average legislator to understand the bill should he or she try to, much less the average citizen. It’s doubtful this is an accident.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html?ex=1335067200&en=56d0833dcf38897c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink">You Are What You Grow</a> (by Michael Pollan in the NYT)<br /> <br />I got halfway through this article before I realized it was by Mr Pollan. It's fantastic to see this man's mind, with such evident power to reshape our current mental landscape, appearing so prominently. Cheers, Michael. <br /> <br />I find myself despairing, though, about the reform that his article imagines. We have a political system which has developed so many layers of defense against any sort of reform. We have a political system to which reform feels like death. <br /> <br />It's not that we couldn't organize some sort of organization and take on the farm bill & the subsidies and win, because surely we could. The thing is that we're also working right now on media reform, on environmental reform, etc. And there's no way that we can make the system dramatically more flexible OVERALL this year. This legislative cycle we are stuck with the same system-- the same PEOPLE running the same system-- and we'll be likely if they're humbled into changing anything at ALL. <br /> <br />Theoretically it should be possible to open this sort of government up somehow, so that it would be capable of reconstructing itself. I don't really see that as plausible. Just because of the time spans. You'd have to construct an alternative model, and then defend it against systematic resistance by every single entrenched interest. There's plenty of that defense to last us another decade or two. <br /> <br />So I see it as more likely that we're going to have a ghost of this old political system, which is going to seem stranger & stranger as things change fundamentally underneath it. It's no longer going to be the government of anything that matters to us, as we move along with the situation-- but it's still the government of the old world, slowly trying to understand what's happening to it. It's like when you take a mind altering agent, and for a while your normal rationality tries to hold onto the perceptions you're having as if they belonged to that old understanding. No, it's more than that-- it's like being thrown actually into a different world, as in spirit world travel or death. <br /> <br />The farms will start to be roboticized, reconstructed, made of magical materials, actually genetically engineered, actually transformed and the farm bill will just keep trying to rationalize, keep feeding the dogs that it feels it needs to keep at bay. That's what it has to do; a government that transforms as quickly as a Singularity does is no government at all.mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1161713994179917122006-10-24T11:17:00.000-07:002006-10-24T11:19:54.193-07:00unsubscribe response to moveonReason:<br /><br />Too busy to read emails<br /><br />Comment:<br /><br />Hello. I am an Anarchist. I'm also a Singularitarian. Our orientations & contexts are thus very different, so consider this an outside opinion. <br /> <br />Your emails are very demanding. They exude, in fact, a desperate need for attention. <br /> <br />It's not that I don't understand where this feeling is coming from. As a serious Singularitarian, I am well aware that we are in a tremendously dangerous and complicated situation. <br /> <br />This does not however change the psychic reality of the human experience. We can only make deliberate decisions in an atmosphere of calm, because of our ancient reflex responses to immediate danger. <br /> <br />It's not that to stand as one of my political voices and one of my political media I would want you to deny the seriousness of the situation. What would have held me with you would have been if you could stand against this situation without becoming another wailing alarm. If you could stand against it with equanimity and vision. <br /> <br />Yeah, so um, too much whining. Sorry. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1143915159556350412006-04-01T10:05:00.000-08:002006-04-01T10:12:39.566-08:00in your dreams.. in the power of your intentions <br /> <br />as a buddhist you intend yourself to be small.. you shrink yourself <br /> <br />the progress of undoing <br /> <br />Tsunami is a good metaphor for what's happening to us. Just a wave passing over us. Sometimes it seems to me like our attempts to survive the Singularity are like hoping to transform into fish as the wave crests. Other times it seems to me like we might have a chance to make the transformation. Because part of the wall, wonder of wonders, is a wave of <i>understanding</i>. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1139503302448790052006-02-09T08:39:00.000-08:002006-02-09T08:41:42.466-08:00Berkeley experts say stoves can aid women in Darfur<blockquote>Now the two are working to redesign the stove to better withstand the vigorous stirring required to make bread, as well as the wind that whips the Darfur region six months of the year.<br /><br />They then hope to find metal workers in towns near the camps that can produce the stoves cheaply, perhaps for $10 each.</blockquote><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/13802982.htm">Berkeley experts say stoves can aid women in Darfur</a><br /> <br />I don't know why I like this story. I guess just because it's a nice change of pace to hear positive news from Darfur. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1138343494993694032006-01-26T22:16:00.000-08:002006-01-26T22:31:35.006-08:00Bush quietly undercuts<blockquote>In 2003, lawmakers tried to get a handle on Bush's use of signing statements by passing a Justice Department spending bill that required the department to inform Congress whenever the administration decided to ignore a legislative provision on constitutional grounds. <br /><br />Bush signed the bill, but issued a statement asserting his right to ignore the notification requirement.</blockquote><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13578051.htm">Bush quietly undercuts laws with bill-signing statement</a><br /><p><br />So look, how does this come down to: Who and what are the people who are actually in physical control of the money or goods involved? I hear that in Iraq they flew a billion dollars in cash over to someone on a plane. My mind boggles. And underpaid federal employees at desks, interpreting. <br /><br />I saw a politician on C-Span today. Hmm who was it. Oh it was Dick Armey. And a caller was suggesting that the bills should be written in plain English. And Dick Armey <i>literally could not get his mind around that idea</i>. You could watch his brain trying to get itself all the way around the idea of the <i>laws of the country</i> being readable by the <i>citizens of the country</i>, and it <i>would not fit</i>. OK let's call that Problem #1. That is not the end of the list. <br /><br />And these people run the country! (Note: Statement should be interpreted to mean that they don't.) <br /><br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1138232260296196732006-01-25T15:23:00.000-08:002006-01-25T15:37:40.336-08:00unrelated zoning bill<blockquote>Though it breezed through House committees, the bill died in the House after Rep. Dan Silva, D-Albuquerque , got upset with the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque , over Silva’s unrelated zoning bill.</blockquote><a href="http://safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=3027">Medical marijuana on New Mexico's agenda</a><br /><p><br />This sort of thing seems ridiculously common among these bodies of what claim to be rational adult human beings. How much longer are they going to insist on being necessary? Can we cut to the chase? <br /><p><br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1137102107239111782006-01-12T13:41:00.000-08:002006-01-12T13:41:47.276-08:00New evidence for a Dark Matter Galaxy"New evidence that VIRGOHI 21, a mysterious cloud of hydrogen in the Virgo Cluster 50 million light-years from the Earth, is a Dark Galaxy, emitting no star light, was presented today at the American Astronomical Society..."<br /> <br />Whenever I hear about dark matter and dark galaxies, I always think: Wouldn't that be the signature of a post-singularity civilization? They're going to use all of the energy available from any source, and therefore they're not going to pointlessly radiate energy out into the universe-- any energy coming out is going to be communication. <br /> <br />I don't understand the astronomy enough to be able to relate that theory well to the data. I just wish the theory would be taken more seriously, so those who do know could flesh out the details. <br /> <br /><3<br/><br/><a href="http://www.physorg.com/news9830.html">read more</a> | <a href="http://digg.com/science/New_evidence_for_a_Dark_Matter_Galaxy">digg story</a>mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136710328291132552006-01-08T00:23:00.000-08:002006-01-08T00:52:08.306-08:00Chavez and Coffee<blockquote>Producers "are hoarding coffee, waiting for me to raise the official price, but I won't raise it," said Chavez, speaking to pro-government lawmakers. "If they don't want to roast the coffee in the roasting facilities they have, we will take the roasters ... we will nationalize them."</blockquote><a href="http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2006/01/08/2003288066">Coffee crisis brews in Venezuela over state's price limits</a><br /><p><br />Obviously the most relevant fact here, to sort out who is bullshitting whom, is whether the regulation is in fact impossible to comply with. The coffee corporations are claiming, apparently, that their cost is one cent more per pound than the regulated selling price. That seems awfully convenient-- one has to wonder, for instance, is there a multimillion dollar CEO salary that figures into those "costs"? On the other hand, if it's true, then the Chavez administration is on the face of it making unreasonable demands. <br /> <br />What would help here is if I could turn to some sort of unbiased news source, dedicated to finding out the actual facts of the matter. I want to know, what are the expenses of roasting coffee in Venezuela? What is the economic state of the companies in question-- how long will it take them to go bankrupt if they really do lose one cent per pound of coffee? Is this a mortal wound or a pinprick? Alas, every bit of the Venezuelan media is (so far as I know) utterly untrustworthy. <br /> <br /><blockquote>The last few weeks there have been shortages of coffee and this week a Government official suggested an increase in the controlled price was imminent, which led to even more scarcity. Then on Wednesday the consumer protection agency (Indecu) impounded 300 Tons of coffee at the distributor’s warehouses and two additional raids have taken place. The coffee will be forcefully purchased at the official controlled price.</blockquote><a href="http://chavilarism.blogspot.com/2006/01/when-people-lose-their-property-rights.html">Chavilarism: When people lose their property rights to their crops and buildings</a> <br /><p><br />Aha, this is starting to make a little more sense to me. They're going to adjust the price, so nobody wants to sell now at a loss rather than wait it out. <br /> <br />It seems like a complicated question. Obviously there's been <i>some</i> mishandling of the market, some bureaucratic sluggishness, yet on the other hand the inability of corporations to act unselfishly is one of the root causes here. <br /> <br />Hmm. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136355335544538962006-01-03T21:56:00.000-08:002006-01-03T22:15:35.560-08:00The Limitations of the Singularity<blockquote>We already have this problem, since we fill up our exponentially growing storage resources (both RAM and secondary storage) faster than they grow, and our programs bloat to fill up our growing processors. Niklaus Wirth, has proposed two new Parkinson's Laws for software: "Software expands to fill the available memory," and "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware gets faster."</blockquote><a href="http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Singularity/Singularity_limits.html">The Limitations of the Singularity</a><br /> <br />This whole line of thought is perfectly ridiculous. Software gets slower, but it does not get slower <i>at doing the same things</i>. It gets slower by adding new things that it does. It "expands to fill the available memory" because it is making <i>effective use</i> of the memory. Software is dramatically changing all of its capabilities with every generation of hardware. To describe that constant transformation as an argument <i>against</i> the imminence of the Singularity-- well, it's denial, that's what it is. <br /> <br />The question is not how fast Microsoft Windows is going to boot in the future. Completely irrelevant. The application which is most relevant to the Singularity is human-like intelligence. We are going to find code which accomplishes that grail, and then you had better believe that code is going to be well optimized. <br /> <br /><blockquote>Exactly how limiting they will be is hard to tell, but the [sic] definitely will prevent an infinitely fast growth.</blockquote><br /> <br />If infinite growth is possible-- which intuitively seems unlikely with our physics, but <i>is</i> a real possibility & really is true <i>in some subset of universes</i>-- it'll come about more as a result of energy technologies than information technologies. Only an infinite amount of energy to do computation can hit that sweet spot. Those are the universes where the Powers truly do become Gods. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136345958349939032006-01-03T17:28:00.000-08:002006-01-03T19:39:18.386-08:00Earth as a BiopreserveAllow me to be one of the first to say it: We could move all of the Singularity activity-- the Technology-- off-planet, and leave Earth as a biopreserve. Here's the story: Mars is never "terraformed," never made into a weird unearthly earth. Instead it is machine formed, made into the most efficient computing devices possible. Grey gooed, fast or slow. This is presuming OF COURSE that Mars is barren. <br /> <br />Let's make things clear, BTW, ladies and gentlemen. I am not going to let Humanity come to a bad end. I am not going to let us be Conquerers Of The Galaxy. We're better than that. It's OK to conquer rocks-- rocks are utterly indifferent to being conquered-- but we absolutely must respect any other races that we encounter in this universe. <br /> <br />So, presuming Mars is just rocks, we transform it into a slightly different kind of rocks. Earth, on the other hand, continues to have butterflies and penguins. Not that we'd have to take a hands-off approach-- in fact Earth may need a lot of proactive stabilization in the medium-term-- but we leave it as a place where DNA life continues to replicate and evolve. <br /> <br />If we can hold our own appetites away from this planet for a little bit longer, we will be able to feast ourselves on all of the other planets. That will give us quite a bit of computing resources. At that point we will have a better idea just how rare Earth is, just how much information this biosphere consists of, and we can make a reasonable judgement as to its most valuable state. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136227102444685742006-01-02T10:35:00.000-08:002006-01-02T10:38:22.456-08:00Google Spell CheckDear Google, <br /> <br />PLEASE make your spell checking algorithm available as a stand-alone program. It KICKS ASS. It always gives me the word that I really meant-- every single fucking time. Why can't I spell check <i>this</i> with that? I'm writing it on one of your freaking websites!! PLEASE!! <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136181192165015562006-01-01T21:46:00.000-08:002006-01-01T21:53:12.186-08:00u.s. continues to subvert in venezuela<blockquote>While it doesn't deny that it has funded openly partisan groups that were directly or indirectly involved in the coup, NED claims that its funding was limited to civil society education, electoral training, and institution building—not partisan politics or coup planning.</blockquote><a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1635">Transitioning Venezuela</a><br /> <br />I'm not entirely clear on the whole Venezuela deal, & I'm keeping my mind open as I look into it, but regardless of the overall shape of things it's quite evident to me that the US government is attempting to subvert democracy there. They may say they're on the side of democracy-- or Goodness & Rightness, or plum pudding-- but the facts are that they're sneakily (& apparently shamelessly) underwriting a bunch of antidemocratic fronts attempting to blandly advance the cause of More Rich White People. Why, exactly, do we tolerate this? <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136134864627999962006-01-01T09:00:00.000-08:002006-01-01T09:01:04.646-08:00flickr songhere's <a href="http://www.jonathancoulton.com/video/Flickr.mov">a wonderful song about flickr</a><br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136133324327480762006-01-01T08:28:00.000-08:002006-01-01T08:35:24.340-08:00famine in kenya<blockquote>At least 20 people and hundreds of livestock have died as a result of the drought and severe food shortage.</blockquote><a href="http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1136111942660R131">IOL | Kibaki calls food crisis a 'famine'</a><br /> <br />Yeah, yeah, famine in Africa. Call me when you have a million dead, and maybe you'll get to share headlines with the latest American (by which I mean citizen of the US, the <i>important</i> country in America) who's skinned their knee. <br /> <br />When does it end? When does Africa become part of the world, a place that we pay attention to? We're already well into the information age. Anyone can pay attention to Africa just like I have, by subscribing to the BBC Africa feed or setting up a Google alert for "darfur." It would take ten seconds to end this blackout. People still are not choosing to. <br /> <br />Even now, Africa is the dark continent. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1136010335689819502005-12-30T22:21:00.000-08:002005-12-30T22:25:35.700-08:00suicidicide<blockquote>76. The day when most suicides occurred in the UK between 1993 and 2002 was 1 January, 2000.<br /><br />77. The only day in that time when no-one killed themselves was 16 March, 2001, the day Comic Relief viewers saw Jack Dee win Celebrity Big Brother.</blockquote><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm">BBC News | Magazine | 100 things we didn't know this time last year</a><br /><br />If I were one of the people who had considered suicide on March 16th 2001, then I'd feel really special reading that. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1135215196259683782005-12-21T17:29:00.000-08:002005-12-21T17:33:16.273-08:00diebold's machines are worthless shit<blockquote>"The logic to print that zero report is contained on the memory card itself,"</blockquote><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,69893,00.html">Wired News: Diebold Hack Hints at Wider Flaws</a> (quote is from page two)<br /><br />The wider flaw is that every single person working for the Diebold corporation is obviously an idiot. I would say that they should go into the clown business, but that would be cruel to children. BAD, DIEBOLD, BAD. <br /><br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1135050511540107122005-12-19T19:43:00.000-08:002005-12-19T19:48:31.553-08:00shame on usor, rather, shame on the U.S.: <br /><blockquote>The $50 million would have represented about one-third of the monthly cost for the peacekeepers. The European Union is responsible for most of the remainder.</blockquote> <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N19285970.htm">US Congress rebuffs Rice on Darfur troop funding</a><br /><br />This is pennies compared to Iraq. How exactly does our complete lack of concern for Africa fit into our image as "liberators"? <br /><br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1135049271159206012005-12-19T19:26:00.000-08:002005-12-19T19:27:51.170-08:00Santa Ain't Fata new song from zefrank<br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10886557.post-1135045012830472412005-12-19T18:06:00.000-08:002005-12-19T18:16:52.843-08:00writing to my representativesI feel so ridiculous writing to my representatives. How is it supposed to work? I get the idea that it used to be that no one ever did write to their representatives. Maybe someone did every once in a while, and they'd read it and say, hey, OK, that's nice. Then comes the era of form email activism, so presumably now they get thousands of copies of the same email from people all over the world. Either way it seems meaningless. <br /> <br />I don't really <i>want</i> to contact my reps in whatever way has the "most impact." I don't want to have a disproportionate impact. What I would like is to have an exactly equal impact with all of the other constituents. That's democracy, as I reckon it. Obviously there is nothing democratic, nor even sensible, about taking letters and emails and phone calls from whoever happens to call and then taking that as some sort of barometer of public opinion. It's worse, if anything, to ignore what people say who are trying to contact you. So where does that leave us? <br /> <br />I think it leaves us with representatives having an obligation to make some sort of modern system to communicate with the people they are representing. It's certainly possible for them to get good, authenticated data about what their constituents think. So if we're serious about the project of democracy, then that's what should happen. Duh. <br /> <br /><3mungojellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11750199767303916628noreply@blogger.com3