Author Archives: danijel

Why Apple and not Linux?

Posted on by
Reply

I am aware of all the problems with America weaponizing IT by spying, withholding access to technology to those who defy them, and so on. So, why did I not migrate away from American technology, for instance by migrating everything to Linux?

I considered it, but eventually concluded that it wouldn’t solve anything, and would just make things difficult for me in the time before everything collapses anyway.

Let me show you my line of thinking.

I live in Croatia, which is an American vassal state. The government, police, military, courts and news/media are tightly controlled by America. In a best case scenario, I could have a computer that is not controlled by America, but the computer is the least of my problems if they really want to deal with me, as the example of Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan illustrates. They, too, lived in an American vassal state and thought they could be independent, sovereign individuals, and they were proven wrong quite easily. I am perfectly aware that the Americans can at any time pay or pressure any number of local corrupt bastards to plant fake evidence, purchase fake witnesses and lock me up indefinitely on fake charges, if they really found me a threat. They don’t, because I don’t have a significant audience, but they could. Migrating my computers and phone to Linux would not solve any of those issues. If doing it would actually contribute to my safety from any kind of oppression, I would have done it already.

The second argument is that having a technological setup that depends on being able to log in to a cloud service in America might make it all defunct if something happened to either America or the Internet. If that happened, I guess I would have bigger things to deal with than the computer, but I do, in fact, always have alternatives. I have an old laptop with Linux/Windows dual boot, everything on it is up to date, and I can open it at any time, boot into Linux and, in case Microsoft and Apple do some kind of a lock-out, I can still go online and access everything. It’s not like I would have to learn Linux from scratch or anything. I also have a spare Xiaomi smartphone with a spare SIM card, in case my primary phone ceases to function. My main worry in case of a major Apple/Microsoft denial of service is inability to contact people or perform basic tasks, such as the access to Internet banking, mail, ssh, web and so on.

The third argument is that the operating system is actually the least of my concerns, as all hardware seems to be designed with back doors in mind, such as the Intel management engine (ME), which is an ARM core on every modern Intel CPU, that listens to the ethernet port and seems to be designed to wake the computer up on remote command, and perform tasks below anything the user can see or control. Above that is the UEFI/BIOS, which is also proprietary technology that does who knows what, and only then we get to the operating system. The entire palimpsest of technology is so complicated and convoluted that I freely admit inability to secure my computer infrastructure in any meaningful way, because the American back doors are installed in every aspect of the infrastructure. It’s as if the primary purpose of it all was to extend American power and influence, and everything else, such as utility, was a secondary concern, or merely a way to market it. The way they went nuts when Huawei started to out-compete them in selling infrastructure was telling; basically, they couldn’t order the Chinese to install all the back doors and spying tools they install through the American/Western/vassal companies, and every Huawei infrastructural device meant loss of control for America.

So, I could dedicate quite a bit of my personal time and effort to attempts of securing my personal IT sphere, and it would all probably be for naught, so I shrugged and decided not to even try – instead, I decided to secure my money by keeping it almost completely out of the state/bank system, keeping connected just enough to make it easy for me to pay the bills and purchase goods and services in the system before it all fails. You see, there are several levels of true sovereignty. The first is the level of physical power and invulnerability. The second level is money and influence. The third level is all the unimportant stuff people fuss about. I don’t have anything to protect me against the first-level threats. I have enough money on the second level to make me a hard target; close my bank account and I’ll laugh. Try to cancel my credit cards and you’ll find out I don’t have any. Try to make me default on my loans and see I don’t have loans, I do everything cash. I have debit cards because I have to pay for the online stuff, and that would be a problem. I do use communal infrastructure, like water and electricity, and I’m sensitive to interruptions there. I also buy food, so I’m sensitive to interruptions in supply. As you can see, I thought things through and decided that computers are a luxury that works in the present-day environment, which is quite fragile, and it might all blow up at some point, in which case I am prepared to deal with all kinds of contingencies, but migrating to Linux? Yeah, if in some unlikely case in a world without Internet and American services I need computers, I am sure I will be able to patch something together well enough to serve the purpose, but I am more concerned with water, electricity, food, antibiotics and so on. Essentially, it’s a non-issue.

A constructive approach

Posted on by
Reply

There is, of course, a legitimate undertone to all that positivity/negativity talk, and it’s the same thing Jesus mentioned in his “log in eye” parable – basically, stop finding faults with others, because other than signalling your own supposed virtue, it only makes other people feel bad and accomplishes nothing good or useful.

This is a very real issue that needs to be addressed, especially in the age of the Internet and the social media, where everybody tries to make themselves artificially important by making loud and extreme claims that are meant to elevate their voice above the noise floor, and as a result, there’s a lot of hysterical shrieking about every conceivable topic, and any measurable effect of it all is markedly negative. Since it is not a new phenomenon, somebody already noticed it and, basically, stated that one should mind their own abundant flaws before addressing those around him, because, although everybody will always claim that there are more important issues in the world than fixing their own problems, this has always ever been but a way to avoid dealing with one’s own issues. Yeah, there’s plagues and war and climate change and pollution and what not, and there always will be, but how about you learn how to be polite, useful, responsible and honest first, instead of yelling about global warming and accomplishing nothing, eh? The world is perpetually unfixable and, by the way, it’s of no concern to you. Your job is to have a good relationship with God, and then externalize this by being God’s presence in the world, for the benefit of others. Nothing else matters.

Also, in dealings with others, if you have nothing constructive to say or do, it might be best to at least avoid doing harm, and the best way to do that is not to disturb people with critical opinions nobody asked for. Essentially, you need to understand that criticism comes with responsibility, because if you’re observing a problem, criticism must exist in the context of willingness to engage in solving it. If you don’t care enough to engage yourself in solving the problem, it’s obviously something you should not concern yourself with and remaining silent and minding your own business might be the best course for you. For instance, if you observe signs of poverty in your neighbour or a relative, the constructive way to approach it would be to tactfully ask if there’s a problem, and if there’s something you can do to help. Criticising or gossiping is neither constructive nor helpful, and you might instead take a big cup of STFU.

This is what someone probably meant by “staying positive” and “avoiding negativity”; basically, keep your nose out of other people’s business unless you are there to offer help. However, like all things, it was generalised way out of its area of usefulness, and caused a different set of problems.

Emotional control

Posted on by
5

The only way to control your emotions is to own them. Taking responsibility is the first and the most important thing about it. If you say “person x made me feel this way”, “the weather made me feel this way”, “the world situation made me feel this way”, you are demonstrating no responsibility for your emotions, and, as a result, you have no control.

The first thing you need to do in order to turn off an emotion, is to make it stronger. Amplify it, be in it completely. Ooops, apparently you’re not a mere victim of things that make you feel this or that way, because you can obviously crank it up. Now that you see that you have control over it, observe it from a distance. This makes you, the observer, separate from the emotion, and you can see it wind down.

That’s all you need to start. Sure, there’s more – perceiving the connection between thoughts, emotions and spiritual energy, learning the vipassana or inner space, learning how to use Kundalini up-stream kriya in order to release emotional energy without being overwhelmed by it, and so on, but what you need to start is the understanding that you in fact keep your emotions rolling for long after they would have naturally wound down, and if you can do that, you in fact have control. It’s just that you’re doing a poor job, and there’s room for improvement the size of a universe.

Principles

Posted on by
Reply

I was just thinking about the reason why my religious opinions differ so much from the norm, and why I actually attained results in this sphere, unlike all those who might see my opinions as unpalatable.

You see, it’s very simple. It’s just that I had scientific training and adhered to the basic principles of sound engineering. So, let me try to write those down the best I can.

– Assume that the way physics explains the world reveals something fundamental that extends to spirituality; for instance, that high-level phenomena can be broken down, the way apples and oranges can be broken down to the fundamental particles, none of which have essence of apple and orange among them;

– Assume that experimentation and iteration along paths that show results are the way to go; also, assume that paths that show bad results, or no results at all, can be safely discarded unless there are very strong reasons to insist;

– Assume that people who did this before have relevant things to say, unless proven otherwise by direct experimentation and experience;

– Don’t try to have a working theory ahead of time. It is preferable to have good skill and poor understanding. People could shoot arrows at distant targets with great precision long before they had a strong theory of kinetic energy and gravity. It’s preferable to have experience of God without understanding what God actually is, to having all kinds of theology without experience. Don’t try to enforce elegance and parsimony ahead of time; rather, allow reality to reveal itself, however convoluted, inelegant, contradictory or whatever else it might appear to be. Gather facts first; everything else is a luxury. Poor and inelegant understanding of reality is preferable to having none whatsoever, or to having elegant illusions and falsehoods that explain everything.

– Test ideas by trying to imagine all kinds of ways in which they are wrong. If this doesn’t produce any immediately obvious downsides to the idea, then you’re likely on to something, and this path is worth exploring further.

– Believe in things that were revealed in the higher states of consciousness even when you are in a normal or reduced state of consciousness where evidence for it isn’t readily available, and in fact everything seems to contradict it. Essentially, if you’ve been to the Moon, believe you have been, even if you can’t repeat the experience because the funding for the Moon missions has been cut.

There’s probably more, but this is enough to demonstrate the general direction I was taking in my thinking. It’s less rigid thinking that what would pass for scientific these days, but it’s basically a practical application of scientific method and sound engineering principles, moderated and softened by the necessities imposed by the nature of the field of study.

Negativity

Posted on by
Reply

Negativity came to some sort of a disrepute in the spiritual circles, thanks to the positivity being hyped up – and it’s not only in the 1990s, because I know that Yogananda, who preceded this trend by decades, gave his contribution. So, let me explain why negativity is a legitimate and useful thing.

First of all, Vedanta insists on it – “neti, neti” means “not this, not that”, and it’s one of the primary ways of discarding non-brahman entities from the mind. Also, Vedanta defines things negatively – brahman is “acintya” and “nirguna”. Acintya means “inconceivable” or “unimaginable”, and nirguna means “attribute-less” or “devoid of worldly qualities”. Those are all negative designations.

Buddhism, also, approaches things negatively, by deconstructing attachments and spiritual constructs, not even bothering to say that something will eventually arise that can’t be deconstructed – essentially, your job is to assume that everything you encounter is a compound structure that can be dissolved, and if there is a positive underlying principle, such as nirvana, that will be revealed in due course without any attempt on your behalf to visualize the goal.

So, the most intellectually and spiritually authoritative religious systems of the East couldn’t care less about positivity, and in fact promote negativity in a very obvious way. We know that Christianity couldn’t care less about the concepts such as “positive” or “negative”, and instead focuses on spiritually and morally relevant terms such as “good” and “evil”, or “truth” and “falsehood”. There’s no concept of a “negative person” in Christianity – a person is either good or evil. If someone’s words are unpleasant to you, the question is whether he’s right or wrong. If he’s right and his words are unpleasant to you, saying he’s “negative” doesn’t allow you to dismiss him out of hand, and instead it is quite obvious that you’re the problem.

So, if Christianity doesn’t recognize those designations as valid, if Buddhism and Vedanta use negativity as one of the primary instruments of detachment, deconstruction and discernment (all three words being negative, by the way), where did all the idolatry of positivity and contempt of negativity come from?

The answer is obvious – not from the ancient, traditional sources. It’s all New Age nonsense. By all means, you can believe in that stuff, just don’t try to convince people that it’s the spiritual main stream and something self-evident, because it’s not. In fact, it stands in opposition to all the religious philosophies I find compelling and impressive.