The coronavirus has highlighted how quickly our society becomes out of control, as demonstrated by the panic buying, of all things, toilet paper. Our peace is fragile. This is compounded by the republicans light-hand on the steering wheel when society needs most someone saying they have this under-control - when it is very clear republicans had no control over the situation at all.

Then we have the sterling example of Rand Paul (a doctor!??) who did his best to spread the coronavirus. Let that sink in for a moment.

These empty shelves very much remind me of those soviet era breadline photos. Capitalism out of control? Toilet paper is one thing nice and useful but what about the real stuff, the stuff we are going to eat, milk for instance?

Whenever I have asked libertarians why didn't countries like Iraq and Afghanistan become paradises when those countries lose their govts, they will mutter something about stability, but we saw recently how quickly things spun out of control in the US with the toilet paper lines in our supermarkets, perhaps it's merely a veneer of stability in our society? Anyway it was clear corporations weren't interested in setting up in Iraq had it's govt removed by the US and decades after Russia removed the govt in Afghanistan the place had devolved into misery.

While most of the time things are fine, we can ignore the existence of govt most of the time, depending on what you do, but for me, it only becomes important when my husband is preparing our tax returns, so for a few days of year the government is miserable, but then a drive down the Big Sur quickly reminds us how much we love the California govt anyway - after all the landslides, the California made the roads safe to use again. I didn't see signs from the huge corporate headquarters not too far from the Big Sur saying how they'd contributed to restoring those roads.

Sure the govt takes a share of our earnings but we get a lot more from the govt than we get from the other corporations we deal with on a much more annoying and constant basis, like our internet provider which is flaky with outages and substandard service. Yes we could ring about our broken router but we already know what their service department will tell us and we haven't even rung yet. And we know whose problem it really is.

We pay far more in corporate profits then we do in taxes. Corporations must make a profit, govts do not. Corporations make a profit at the expense of the customer and as a result our internet and telephone system is appalling in comparison to the socialists systems of Europe with much better internet and telephone equipment.

The problem with libertarianism is that it founded on wishful thinking and lies. They have no proof any of the garbage they rattle off has any truth, most of it has never been tested. It's nothing but spin to bolster profits of rich old men. An example of these lies is they want to dismantle the public education system because they think it's expensive and it'd be a way to bring down US property taxes, perhaps. So they say public schools deliver substandard education compared to private schools. But if you remove public schools that are supposedly bad then private schools will be bad anyway because they'll have nothing to be better than. However if you under fund public schools then they will be bad and this is one way republicans are trying to bring about the demise of public schools so they will get worse with a self-feeding cycle.

The thing about libertarians is they don't like people telling them what to do, but I don't see the govt telling me what to do. Freedom is a state-of-mind and happiness is found in our relationship/bonds to other people, within which our freedom is negotiated.

A society is only as good as how the poorest/weakest members are treated in that society. we have to admit that there are states in the US where the society is terrible. Places where it's unsafe for colored people and women to be in those communities.

I have never enrolled in an MBA so I am going out on a limb here when I say that I think MBA thinking is causing many of our problems.

MBA graduates are welcomed by most businesses so they can optimize profits by steering from quarterly business report to quarterly business report by minimizing expenses and maximizing revenue without thought for the ramifications of immediate actions or long term consequences.

For instance, sacking staff to reduce the expense of their salary and leaving a skeleton staff to perform all the work. This might work in the short term, but the existing staff quickly become overworked and possibly sick. Those staff are turned over and replaced as necessary by cheaper staff. There is no loyalty to staff, except possibly those at the top.

Great for short term profits and that's all that matters, to them. The functioning of the business is still going on as best as possible but the business might eventually be sold off or just die and that fits with MBA Darwinian thinking. Survival of the fittest and being cut-throat is all included in MBA business thinking.

We especially see this in how they manage their waste. They just dump it away from anyone who might matter. They grease palms of politicians rather than clean up after themselves. The greasing of palms is more than hobnobbing in the right circles, boys meeting up over drinks, at business meetings all around the world, desirable and enjoyable for those who participate. This might be put down to the cost of doing business, rather than an expense per se, and explained as future savings (or Orwellian doublethink).

That might be great for the business in question but then many businesses are avoiding dealing with their waste it becomes a serious burden to the environment, other humans and other living creatures trying to survive in the waste, and we aren't even talking about CO2 or other greenhouse gases, as much as the MBA graduate might wish us to just not use that term and deny their existence.

But there are corollaries to the MBA thinking, the lawyer blame game - which is preventing Japan from cleaning up the mess of Fukushima. Lawyers for the nuclear power plant are blaming the nuclear power plant manufacturer for the disaster as they play pingpong with legal documents - and still no one has done anything about the disaster. Lawyers are very efficient at playing such delay games and meanwhile we moved on, for most of us it has been forgotten.

Then there is the skill of avoiding responsibility by letting businesses go bankrupt (some that cause massive damage to the environment and the water supply). This is the game Donald Trump loves to play; and Gary Southern tried to play, but at least he got a wrist slap, unlike Rick Snyder. I still can't see what benefit Snyder got from switching the water intake to the polluted source in Michigan. Perhaps hoping the people would drink the pollution rather than let it get into the lake? I don't know, but it seems unlikely.

The only certain loser in MBA thinking are people and the environment; and until we start putting ourselves and our home, this planet, our earth, over profit margins, we will continue to lose and while pollution is kept well out of sight of the rich and powerful, eventually this will hurt them as well. As I read someone say once, when all the water has been polluted, we won't be able to drink oil.

MBA thinking will eventually destroy the very thing it's seeking to protect. Even the world bank is saying pollution is hurting economic growth. One of the universal laws of the universe is everything is recycled. The universe recycles everything, our environment recycles everything, eventually. I don't think our society will be stable until recycling is incorporated into all of our business models. Because our model at the moment is dig it up, use it for a limited amount of time and then throw it away. While we are watching much evolution in technology, we aren't seeing anything sustainable - and while MBAs are probably rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of continuous profit margins, we and our environment is groaning under the weight of them.

This includes the sugars that are included into many of our foods. They are added so we want to eat it and want more of it, despite it causing obesity, tooth decay, diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer's.

MBA thinking is killing us. Profits uber alles.

Ms Carter was recently released from prison a few days ago for involuntarily killing her 'boyfriend' Conrad Roy.

She told a female friend two months after his death that she ordered him back into the truck where he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Why would people think he'd obey her 'orders'?

I know people have told other people to commit suicide, perhaps not all the time, but it has happened. In some states of the US people have been prosecuted for urging others to suicide. In many cases there is documented evidence.

But according to HBO's series 'I love you now die' there is no actual evidence other than her boasting about it to a friend; when her friends were very selective about what they believed about what she said.

The whole thing to me sounds like blaming the female rape victim for her supposedly having so much power of males that the female is responsible and to blame for the male raping her in the first place. Did Michelle Carter have so much power over Mr Roy that her telling him to get back into the truck was an order he must obey?

I find this all rather insulting to males that they have no self control. The rapist is a complete victim to females that he had no control over the situation, you could almost say she raped him - and no doubt some men would say this is true. Similarly Mr Roy could have hung up the phone, turned off his phone or even blocked her calls completely if he hadn't decided to commit suicide.

In my opinion it is nothing more than blaming the victim for the situation they had no control over.

I remember telling a woman on twitter once that she hated women and she scoffed saying that that was nonsense because she was a woman; but indeed, such beings exist.

I have written about this before but I wanted to emphasize the making of a female misogynist. In this article, the author talks about the image of female misogynists. I would say that most female misogynists come in the form of 'I am equal to men but other women are not', or 'no woman is equal to a man, including myself and my daughters'. An example of the first kind is Phyllis Schlafly - someone who uses women's hard fought for rights to take those rights away from women. The second kind is pretty much any evangelical religious woman who believes women should be submissive to their husbands.

Anyway, I wanted to discuss creating a female misogynist. I only have anecdotal evidence but it seems women who have been brutalized by a man somehow and she seeks a woman, IE her mother/sisters..., and they have given her no sympathy. I have heard of a number of examples of such women.

I don't know what turns men into misogynists. However it may be men who cannot get sex - the classic incel; they were bred that way by misogynistic mothers (I have known some of these) or something else.

I have known a number of gay men who hate women.

I don't see why all women must be stridently feminist although I do think all women should be treated as well as men are and want equal rights. Feminism isn't trying to make men inferior to women, what I believe most feminists want is to get rid of social hierarchy.

Sometimes some men leave me scratching my head. And being supposedly smart doesn't necessarily exclude all men from being incredibly stupid. For instance this article, it sounds like they have thought their deep thoughts and decided that humans invented language for profound reasons, this juxtaposition between humans being able to create symbols in different manners somehow makes us exceptional and thus language evolved.

Clearly these men never raised a baby, or they may well be fathers but never really had anything to do with their kids because pretty much any mother will tell you why language was invented - so we can communicate basic human needs. Most mothers have experienced the frustration of trying to figure out what is the difference between a cry of pain, hunger or discomfort. That discomfort may come in a multiple of varieties, meaning diapers need changing, extreme tiredness, perhaps even boredom, or the need for exercise... and yet the baby has only one mode to communicate all of that - crying.

Anyone trying to communicate with a child learning language knows the frustration of trying to figure out what the kid is saying when their sentences are ill formed and they still can't pronounce certain sounds.

Yet men think language evolved so we could express profound thoughts? I do not think so.

Men's genius at understanding simple things is often staggering and isn't limited to language, let's have a look at how men think learning happens. In this article the awful technique of training artificial neural networks is discussed.

The skinny on training artificial neural networks is you expose the neural network to the same examples over and over again until the artificial neural network kinda repeats what you showed it back at you - and by 'kinda' i really mean 'kinda'. This is nothing like how humans learn - yeh okay you may not remember the letter 'g' the first time you see it and are told it's a 'g' when you're a child, but you don't have to be told upwards of 2000x unless you have some kind of learning disability, and when I said 'kinda', you wouldn't be happy if you told your child it's a 'g' and the child came back and said it's probably a 'g' but it's only 78% certain. You might find that pretty exciting because we know in our heart that nothing is certain, but the reality of human learning is a 'g' is a 'g' - that 78% is definitely meant to be 100%. But artificial neural networks, despite all the hype really aren't that good at simulating human learning. Meanwhile that 78% that the neural network has learned comes at the expense of learning the letter 'z' and 'q' - which are quickly forgotten by the neural network because they don't appear very often - and the 78% certainty of it being a 'g' doesn't even mean something as sophisticated as the neural network getting it confused with an '8' either.

Yet AI is being hyped as the next best thing since sliced bread. Probably because those of silicon valley believe that the first to market - which is probably true unfortunately because customers can play follow the leader because they know they aren't experts. The reality is, the experts aren't experts either.

I guess the name says it all. Aliens have become a problem - they are illegally entering the country and ruining everything forever, according to the political right, especially the illegal kind.

It is probable that the right specifically use the word 'alien' to refer to people without an appropriate visa or citizenship to invoke feelings of fear in the population, but why is the concept of alien so frightening?

I would put it down to the idea that the word alien is most commonly applied to extraterrestrial beings who supposedly abduct people in the middle of the night to perform awful experiments on them.

But our vision of aliens have changed over the years, where aliens have mostly been aggressive seeking to invade and take our planet, and sometimes their aggressive nature has manifest in our technologies, like with the X-files, a common thread was that aliens presented as black oil.

Aliens have pretty much presented themselves as aggressive or something to be feared with two notable exceptions, Star Trek, especially the original series, which was very much emblematic of the 60s; the other except was Kubrik's 2001 where aliens are a kind of beneficial force, and the movie Contact - where aliens serve as a kind of mirror for humanity.

And I think this is the purpose that aliens really serve for us, they are a metaphor for our hopes and dreams, our fears and technology.

Regarding our technology, earlier this year there was a rash of articles saying aliens might attempt to communicate with us via DNA, which has advanced our understanding in a number of ways. I still think we have much to learn about DNA, things like that it is a kind of hologram that must be read across a number of chromosomes at once, not just down the lengths of chromosomes, one at a time like when it is being reproduced.

I think our fear of aliens is based on our fear that aliens will be just like us - or attitudes when we colonized landmasses like Australia, the Americas, the islands in the pacific and else where. Western arrogance had no respect for the natives of these lands and introduced western diseases, claimed and destroyed their lands, ruined the native people's culture, traditions and harmony with the land.

We are afraid aliens will be just like us, coming with their superior technology and then wipe our culture out.

I suspect when we meet aliens they will be nothing like us and would rather be more afraid of us.

When Hitler set up fascist Germany along with those working with him, in my opinion, despite how misguided they were in their marginalization of various ethnic groups, they, the fascists, thought they were acting to benefit Germany. They were no doubt wrong and hurt Germany quite a lot when they were doing so.

On the other hand we have Trump, very much working from Hitler's playbook, marginalizing various ethnic groups for the amusement of his base, being cruel because he can - I think he probably enjoys being cruel, and doing other things to please to his base, and including upsetting 'liberals' because for some of his base that is all they want - is the so called 'liberal tears'.

I don't want anything so mean-spirited and trivial as 'conservative tears'. I find this astonishing because as a 'liberal' I want what's best for everyone, or the long term benefit for the majority of people and for our home, this planet. Curiously enough on Twitter I have seen a number of people gleefully rejoice in 'liberal tears' and I have found the retort of 'is that all you want - something so trivial? Because I want a better world for all of us, not just liberals.' This shuts them down completely.

But I am not the first person to make a comparison between Hitler and Trump, and some even borrow directly from Hitler. Republicans have made the comparison, along with others. If you want to find others, do a google search.

No doubt even Republicans, in general, think that benefiting the rich benefits America (somehow - and I guess it might if you believe in so called trickle down economics - which genuinely does not benefit people of average or low income) and so although they too are misguided they still think they are benefiting America in a convoluted way. My take on republicans is they have bought the notion of short term profit margins like quarterly reports - and they are only focused on the next profit/loss statement. So making huge amounts of money for the rich now benefits the rich now. They aren't interested in long term - they can't see beyond the next quarterly report of their profit/loss statement. This is  very bad long term for us and the planet.

Anyway I digress.

Trump is only benefiting himself and those of his base who are satisfied with merely 'liberal tears' - along with the awful treatment of Kurds, Latin Americans, other immigrants and refugees. Imo Trump only really enjoys the cruelty and he'd sell his base out in a heartbeat if it was to his benefit. All his base really wants is the show and just don't care about whatever long term consequences there may be.

This is really a statement about his base and how privileged they are to think they are unaffected by Trump's actions. It is also a statement about politics - it has become nothing but entertainment, and all we are doing is electing a celebrity, not someone who is trying to serve the country, not someone who realizes the complexities of trying to plan for the future and do the best for everyone. Politics isn't for the amusement of the privileged or for short term profit alone.

It's true that the science isn't settled about what will happen as more and more carbon dioxide CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere because our climate has changed in the past and will change and change again in the future. But given that we can only run this experiment once, we better get the answer right.

Now since there are many things acting upon our environment some people think this is a call to do nothing - like it's out of our control - but we know that's not true. We are one of the actors and we have a lot of control over what we do and what we will permit. For instance they've found plastic bags in the depths of the ocean and in Antarctica. We have a large impact on our planet and each time we cut down a tree we are impacting our environment. So we are being disingenuous to think our environment is completely out of our control.

So while the science isn't settled on climate change, this is not a call to do nothing. In fact it is the opposite, it is time we take responsibility for the well being of our environment and if the sun is causing climate change (which I doubt) we should be doubling down on our efforts to ensure the climate stays stable - for purely the sake of self-preservation.

Why? For a start a) there is no where else for us to move to. While we are looking to building habitats on the moon and Mars, we are still a long way off from being able to live there and b) we will still be dependent on the earth for our technology and food for a long while to come.

Yes, our technology is dependent on our civilization on this planet earth. Apparently there is no single person on earth who knows how to make a computer mouse - everything from the tiny circuit board in there, the laser, the plastics that make up your mouse, and all the code - plus then the people who know how to make the plastics and mine the materials for the circuit board, they very probably don't know how to grow all the food those people need to eat or the coffee they drink while they are creating those circuits and plastics and then assembling your mouse - and that's just your mouse. Then there are clothes, the technology to move about and the entertainment you might want when you are living on Mars, plus then there are all the other people you need to make up your world, whether they are medical personal, people you work with, people you love or the people who brew your coffee at your favorite coffee shop.

So let's do a cost-benefit analysis on climate change. This is definitely the kind of thing you might find mixed in with your quarterly stock report so here goes:
We have 2 options, do nothing about climate change, or do all we can.
And the climate scientists might be right or they may be wrong. Either way they have been studying this - kind of like if you get cancer, you don't go to your barista for advice. Why is it we don't trust climate scientists? I have a PhD in data science, I know I am no expert on climate science, but I am a scientist. When scientific consensus is that we have a problem, I am not going to disagree with them.

So the experts say we have a problem, if they are right and we fix our environmental problems, then great. We get a bunch of new technology, we get to continue living and can continue to use our technology. Plus we get a clean environment. This is the responsible and adult thing to do. The downside is some old rich guys are out some money but they are old and will be dead soon because they are old.

If the scientists are right and we don't fix the environment - old rich guys will remain rich which won't benefit them much because they're old and will soon be dead anyway. The downside is we and our technology are fucked. We are already experiencing extreme weather events.

If the scientists are wrong and we don't fix the environment - old rich guys will of course remain rich. We get to continue to live in the filthy mess that rich old guys want us to live in.

If the scientists are wrong and we do fix the environment then we get a whole bunch of new technology and we get a clean planet to live in. Sure old rich guys may be out of some money but they'll be dead soon anyway.

In my opinion there is no downside to fixing the environment and it is the responsible thing to do. We have the knowledge and skill to manage our environment and we will be dependent upon this planet, whether we set up colonies on the moon and Mars, for probably centuries to come.

We can't afford to live in denial despite all the money there is in denying the problem. We need oil for much transportation that our technology doesn't cover yet. Plug-in hybrids work well for the average family who can afford one. But our plug-in hybrid tech may not cut it for ships, trains, planes and semi-trailers. However we have CO2 recapture technology which we could use for fuel rather than drilling for oil.  The environment will thank us and this recaptured CO2 fuel could be used for transportation plug-in hybrid doesn't work for, otherwise we can store the CO2 underground while we work on solving our emissions problems.

In many ways our understanding of ourselves and our environment is just beginning - our technology is cool but it also is quite primitive in that we don't have recycling built into our manufacturing - we bring products to market that are designed to be thrown into landfill too soon. When our manufacturing and development recycles itself in accordance with the principles of the universe, IE the universe and our environment recycles everything in time, will our society be sustainable, then we will be able to live on new worlds.

I have recently been reading 'Smoke gets in your eyes' by Caitlin Doughty. While in her book she focuses on how death is hidden from us in our western society, what I really think is being hidden is that we are animals - or - as people prefer to put it - mammals.

For some reason people consider being called an animal insulting. Calling someone an animal is a kind of moral judgment, that animals are beneath us civilized human beings. Religion has tried to distance us from animals by creating words like 'soul' and deeming that animals don't go to heaven/limbo/hell when they die - that animals can't think, communicate... whatever... as we are somehow not like them - that we are different. (If there is a real difference between us and animals it is we use money and will destroy our environment to get it - money is useless outside of human society.) Yet increasing evidence shows that we share much with our closest primate relatives, consciousness (imo dreaming probably appears when animals have enough brain matter to support consciousness) appears to be a kind of continuum between us and other animals; and other animals communicate, use tools, have rituals and innovate just as we do and ultimately live in hives or pacts just like we do. Nevertheless the reality is we are a kind of animal. And not being able to admit it speaks to it's denial.

Google defines mammal as "a warm-blooded vertebrate animal of a class that is distinguished by the possession of hair or fur, the secretion of milk by females for the nourishment of the young, and (typically) the birth of live young."

In classical deductive reasoning - if you happen to be offended by the notion of being an animal:
all mammals are animals
human beings are mammals
therefore human beings are animals

There are some truths that come with our mammal/animal nature, we are born, we eat & drink, we have sex to procreate, we sleep, we come with a body that we have to care for, we get sick, we use the bathroom (another thing we seldom discuss) and we will die.

In the course of my years I have only ever seen one dead body. It's not like I haven't been to funerals, I have been to many and I have known lots of people who have died but all but one of those bodies society protected me from.

I gave my husband Doughty's book to read and he said as a man he could go for years without seeing blood. Being alive is different for women, every month we are reminded we are alive by our menstrual blood - something that we must not discuss and pretend doesn't happen because I think it reminds society that we are animals.

Being protected from our animal nature also hides babies and children from society, older people, the sick and disabled are also hidden from us. All those things that remind us we are getting older and our bodies are fallible.
Our animal/mammalian nature is bound to our fear of death, our fear of the unknown and what will happen next - once we die.

I have often thought that our fear of death springs from our fear of being left out - that there will be an on going party and once we are dead we're no longer invited. And part of that is that we will be forgotten. That those who are at the party will go on to forget about us because we won't be there to remind them that we existed. But there are other reasons too - like not being here to be able to help those we leave behind. If you are afraid to die then you might have other reasons.

I am not sure if we are afraid of death because it reminds us we are animals or whether we are afraid of acknowledging we're animals because it reminds us we will die. Either way, the universe recycles everything (just like our environment recycles everything) especially our bodies - if being alive is distinct in some way from our functioning body - it would seem that our life too would be recycled. Besides there are plenty of anecdotal stories of reincarnation and ghosts, I can't believe that all these people decided to lie about their experiences.

Doughty wrote an important book - I recommend reading it just to know what to expect - so you can be prepared when someone you love dies.

Women have to be perfect.

I'll give you an example. I knew a woman who developed a computer system that was completely bug free. All bugs associated with the system occurred in other products that her system used. If she'd been a male she'd have been the equivalent of a god walking on water. It wouldn't matter what he looked like, it wouldn't matter how heavy he was or his relationship status, he'd be a god in his field.

But she wasn't promoted, she wasn't even even respected much. She was too good looking, a little overweight and her relationship status was a bit of a joke.

As an aside according to this woman, if you are too good looking and a woman you will always be considered an airhead, vain and frivolous, not great in a technical environment like computer programming. Whereas the men who were good looking were quickly and efficiently promoted.

When it comes to perfection, a woman's body must be perfect. The internet has helpful images to show what her face and body must be like. Here is a helpful list of what would make a woman perfect. Note, a woman being intelligent comes in fourth place (out of 8). If she is to be perfect, the most important is appearance which comes in first. The intelligence bar isn't very high, just being able to string a sentence together beyond social media will suffice. Having personality isn't a requirement at all, but being partially independent is. Not fully independent though.

Men would be perfect if they had even two of the qualities on that list.

Reading more google results only depresses me. Because it just reinforces the idea that women are merely ornaments there to be commented upon like they are nothing more than cattle to be bought or sold. The only important thing about them is whether you (a man) would want to fuck her.

Another take on female perfection is: serial murderers think it's a good idea to kill women who they deem not perfect. I was watching a show on Anthony Sowell where they said he killed women he didn't deem good mothers. He is not the only serial killer to pass judgment on his choice of victims, many serial killers have chosen female prostitutes.

The media, the legal system, the police, society... pass judgment on women constantly. If a woman was raped, it is somehow always her fault, if her child does something like disappear, kills someone... first question asked is always: where was the mother? Never: where was the father?

The idea that nobody's perfect only applies to men. The idea of woman not having the perfect body/face is reason enough to crucify her. If she is a mother and deemed too pretty then she is vain and frivolous. And if she doesn't live up to expectations you might as well kill her, not even the police will care.