somebody hit something above.
Painting a fence is code for construction work.
Serving refreshments to a landscaper is code for construction work.
Since (), (), and () have wisely advised me not to be cynical, I'll go ahead and wonder out loud, without asserting anything nefarious:
[00:56] "Why is a picture book of third grade level fractions being visibly, recognizably, unmistakably, apparently, optically, visually, coincidentally, mysteriously, cryptically, serendipetously placed at the END of this video that is about giving and has already included signifiers of construction work?"
It can be argued that giving a fraction of a person-hour as a professional painter, or as a professional landscaper, can be easily converted by some rate of exchange into another, more portable, form of value. Human Resources has codes or cost centers where you can assign fractions of a FTE (Full Time Employee) to various tasks. Your job description may specify that 4/5 of your time goes to doing one thing in one department, and the other 1/5 goes to a related skill in some other department. Fractions are all around us and they are convenient short-hand for estimating shares of a collective good, rates of repayment, rates of monthly contribution to retirement, health insurance, taxes, and other things.
It can be argued that a flower is not a reduceable unit of giving. If the makers of the video wanted to associate fractions with giving, for some reason, then including fractions in a video about giving is an excellent way to acheive that. If the makers of the video afterwards wanted to erase the conscious association of fractions with giving, then capping the lesson with an irreducable, unfractionable unit of giving is an excellent way to achieve that (Derrida, Heidegger, sous rature, erasure).
It can also be argued that a flower is not necessarily just a flower, and is by virtue of who the makers are, a signifier of a happy, permanent, global, utopian, extensively landscaped, unerringly painted, future, state.
Fractions can also signify construction, at least in the United States where 2x4s and 1/2 or 3/8 or 3/4 inch plywood coexist. (I do miss quickbuilds. Good times, by themselves.)
Posts by rmt1
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rmt1
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rmt1
Using encryption terms, this video is a public key that has been carefully sterilized and is viewable by a wide audience, simply repeating a generalized version of the Golden Rule which addresses recipient people. (See selfishness and altruism.) The private key, passed carefully and guardedly among known allies, is the very non-public instruction to place resources into a wooden box that goes to a recipient corporation. Combine the two keys, public and private, and you have the authenticated message to the child. This is the glowing lure of an angler fish. The teeth are on the inside.
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44
Disfellowshiping: Why the Terror?
by Cold Steel inthe more i read about ritual shunning and disfellowshiping in the society, the more i wonder how the governing body and elders have pulled the proverbial wool over the eyes of the congregation.
first, the society doesnt consider itself a church (unlike the ancient christians, who did consider themselves to be part of a church).
yet, like other sectarians, they have their hands out for contributions and exercise immense power over their members.
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rmt1
"because the real currency that the WT traffiks in is the familial love bonds among family members. Instead of indulgences, they sell you your own family if you tow the line."
Clarion.
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How I see it in JW land
by tornapart inthey're tired... sooooo soooo tired.
they know it's all wrong but they keep telling themselves how wonderful it is.
almost as if they are trying to convince themselves.
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rmt1
"Stockholm momentum" will probably allow TWS to coast straight through this century and into the second. Can you see, with your mind's eye, people sweating together, at the Jehovah's Witnesses 2101 "The End Is Near" District Convention? It is absolutely, entirely possible that babies born into JWs this year will die in the cult in 70 or 80 years.
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Do You Think The Witnesses Actually Know What They Believe In?
by minimus ini think they know what they don't believe in, like no blood, no hellfire, no trinity....but they really couldn't explain what their beliefs are and why they believe as they do.
do you agree?
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rmt1
Can I ask what the baptism question change is? I was baptized at 15 in 1988.
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Now I'm not a JW, is it ok for me to...
by Julia Orwell in...drink a lot?
gosh i love wine.
i like a good bottle of wine each night, and i have a high tolerance to alcohol, though i never drank much (except for a couple of times with the vodka, but i don't keep that stuff in the house anymore, way too dangerous) as a jw because getting slightly happy is a 'sin'.
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rmt1
Why did Jesus serve, have, aid and abet wine? For its antioxidant properties?
The metric I use is lightness of being, levity, merriment, and then beyond merry into the absurd or surreal, or diminished judgement, beyond which are altered states with diminished physical coordination. The falling down states are really for the frat boy set, because they haven't done it. The absurd or surreal is for special rare occasions where you need to take a mental vacation from the draconian limits of strict rationality. RARE, like, twice or three times a year. Merriment can be more often than that but certainly is not an object of imbibing, certainly not a goal, and can be more of a tolerable accident. Lightness of being and levity are good for any time, except, don't imbibe to maintain a buzz. A buzz has a natural beginning, a natural plateau, a natural ending. Don't abuse the natural course of the molecule in the body by chasing what is inherently ephemeral. Accept and surf the zen, then be done.
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40
Now I'm not a JW, is it ok for me to...
by Julia Orwell in...drink a lot?
gosh i love wine.
i like a good bottle of wine each night, and i have a high tolerance to alcohol, though i never drank much (except for a couple of times with the vodka, but i don't keep that stuff in the house anymore, way too dangerous) as a jw because getting slightly happy is a 'sin'.
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rmt1
If I had a whole bottle with sulphites, by head would be splitting.
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How I see it in JW land
by tornapart inthey're tired... sooooo soooo tired.
they know it's all wrong but they keep telling themselves how wonderful it is.
almost as if they are trying to convince themselves.
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rmt1
"The org will live on more as a club than anything else"
A plausible and practical formulation. All the inner party requires is money. It would be consistent with any other lifeform if the collective beast accepted lower levels of existence because it could only get lower levels of money. It would also be consistent and reasonable that to get that lower level of money the beast would have to ease up on something doctrinal, just by a hair. That is if it is governed by rational actors, which I think it is, and not madmen who would bet their own life, >>As in a Roman colleseum<<, that they have a real red phone to god. I think they are rational actors, tenacious to the point of appearing mad, but rational, calculating, weighing every word choice for ambiguity and flexibility, weighing every sentence for the quotient of (implied unarticulated mandate / plausible deniability), weighing every move to the cent.
It's a great question of which will cause the most decline, apathy or apostacy. Or I'll say, apathy or apocalypse*****.
*****Instead of playing TWS' game where apostates are a brand name level boss, I will use the etymology apo-kalyptein, 'away from covering', revealing, to convey what is happening to the TWS by many means not limited just to formal apostates. TWS is being revealed. TWS is getting its very own Revelations, its very own apocalypse, to go by etymology.
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How I see it in JW land
by tornapart inthey're tired... sooooo soooo tired.
they know it's all wrong but they keep telling themselves how wonderful it is.
almost as if they are trying to convince themselves.
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rmt1
Hitler's last hours went on for years, cost untold lives, untold treasure. The "end" of the TWS will be analogous except for the fact there is no one particular figurehead. 1984's Inner Party did not have a particular figurehead, but a rolling membership of those who could protect the interests of the Inner Party. Also useful is the Architect from the Matrix, who said 'There are levels of existence we are prepared to accept'. The GB and their iron-clad sychophants and courtiers may still find acceptable an existence as the block bosses of a prison of their own making. TWS is savvy to modern methods of corruption through law, defensive distribution of portfolio. They are smart enough, just enough, that Hitler's bunker will be around for decades. The non-trivial number of humans being born and raised with almost zero capability for rational or critical thought, despite access to all kinds of information, ensures a nearly permanent supply of fleece. (I am pretty sure) It's too much to hope that TWS would collapse, confess, release its corporations, and its members retire to permanent ignominy all in one final act. You've seen these people work.
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If God is so set on devoted "worship", why didn't he create animals with abilities to do this as well?
by lurk3r innot sure if the way i phrased this sounds retarded or not, but i feel it's a legit thought.
god creates the earth giving it "life".
gives animals and the rest of his creation the same, but never created them to "worship".
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rmt1
Good chink in the aetiology. If God designed an imperfect world, where animals were adapted to eat other animals, and humans with their fire, tools, and capable jaws could derive sustanance from animals, and man was put here to be tested, then there'd be little problem with the aetiology.
But the idea that animals were perfect, viruses were perfect, mosquitoes were perfect, sabertooth tigers were perfect, kimodo dragons were perfect, great white sharks were perfect, rattlesnakes were perfect, baleen whales were perfect, spider wasps were perfect - well, that causes problems with that aetiology. God went to an awful lot of work to create these potential adaptations that were not intended to be adaptations, only for Adam to screw up and these non-adaptations were corrupted instantly from a peaceful costly signalling of useless ornament or procedure to an extremely convenient system for eating, reproducing, etc. I await TWS putting in a cartoon of a great white shark eating kelp, of a rattlesnake sinking its envenomating fangs into a tomato, etc.
Sustaining idiocy in the face of common sense is the conspicuous display, or costly signalling, of a robust belief system (impenetrable faith) organized around the alpha prophet, entirely engineered as a shiboleth or challenge/authentication system of vetting allies in that belief system. Has nothing to do with making sense. Has to do with identifying allies. With allies you share or entrust wealth, build marriage alliances, build power bases, maintain quid pro quo or patron/client relationships, even build your own little reality inside of which all is true and outside of which all is false. Has not the first thing to do with making sense.