The Reality of Differences...

"People demand Freedom of Speech as compensation for the Freedom of Thought which they seldom use." - Soren Kierkegaard

Just a few thoughts on some of the raging idiocy I have encountered in the last week or so.

The first subject is the objection Women are voicing to the new phenomenon of biological men competing, and excelling, in "female sports".

Let's start out by saying that the Overlord is convinced that "female sports" mostly suck. This is because Women, on the whole, are not very good at sports, or really much of anything that requires strength, stamina, physical toughness, or strategy applied to numbers (of both people, and as a measure of achievement).

The proof of this assertion is manifest: if anyone wanted to watch "Women's Sports" they'd be on television all the time with their own, dedicated networks; there would be full-time professional women's leagues that weren't financially fragile and as insubstantial as soap bubbles; people would exult just as much when Mary Jane Rottensnatch manages a triple axle as they do when Stephen Curry puts a 40-spot on the Lakers, Aaron Judge hits yet another tape-measure bomb, or Tom Brady gets his tired ass into another Super Bowl.

There would be a battalion of media figures who get paid far in excess of their actual worth to do little more than navel gaze and make predictions which don't pan out, and endlessly rehash the latest soap opera regarding coaches, players, management and rules for every female sport like there are for every male-dominated sport on the planet.

You could go to any of the new-fangled betting apps and take a flier on a prop bet as to whether Suzy Pre-Menstrual-Teen gets a "10" on the parallel bars, or if Muffy Muffcruncher manages to win a single set against another lesbian at Wimbledon, if anyone actually gave a fuck.

No one cares what happens in "Women's Sports", except every four years when the Olympics roll around and 14-year-old girls and Gay Men get to enjoy the illusion of inclusion in the community of meaningful competition, and only then to fret and fawn over fashions, indulge a Cinderella fantasy, or to pretend as if "sports" without an objective scoring system were worth watching.

That's not to say that the women who do these things aren't athletic. I'm just saying it's not anything most people want to watch or engage in.

When "Women's Sports" have something akin to the World Series, a Super Bowl, a World Cup (where Western butches don't to get to beat up on third world butches, i.e. the competition is actually EQUAL), then I'll shut up.

Sorry, but the US National Soccer Team (Ostensibly-female division) beating the snot out outrageously poor competition is not something "to celebrate". It's something to yawn about.

Anyway...

So, you get a bunch of trans men now competing in "Women's Sports" (none of which was invented by women, incidentally) and succeeding (like, duh!), and suddenly women are all frothing at the vagina about how "unfair" it is that they have to compete against Men.

Like feminism hasn't made this plaintive wail for a century, now?

But here's the part that makes me laugh:

Having argued in the past that there are no differences between Men and Women, that gender is a construct of oppression and is not biologically-determined, that, in fact, biology is to be ignored so that a woman can be a man and a man can be a woman (complete with a menstrual cycle) in the Long March Towards Equality, Feminism has -- finally -- hit it's logical dead-end.

For if biology is nonsense, if there is no difference between sexes, if gender is alternately non-existent and/or fluid, then there is no such thing as "a Woman", and therefore, there can be no such thing as "Women's Sports", defined as competition reserved for women and undertaken by women. More so, the very term -- Woman's Sports -- is non-inclusive and smacks of inequality, making you hypocrites.

This is the culmination of the ultimate (il-)logic of 50 years of feminist stupidity.

It seems, as usual, that the only time it really matters is when it comes to doling out the goodies -- the trophies, the scholarships, the endorsement deals, the distinctions that come with victory.

Excuse me while I laugh.

I keep saying it: you ladies demanded equality...now sit there and enjoy it.

And two pieces of advice for you. The first is a helpful bit of counsel you used to give to Men who found themselves on the losing side of an "equality" fight with a Woman: be quiet and suck it up.

The second is from a former President who was once considered the very epitome of the feminist ideal of Manhood, who famously said "you might want to put some ice on that."

Next item on the agenda: Potheads.

On the list of the most-disagreeable things in existence, Marijuana Aficionados come in right behind Liberal Democrats, Irish Setters, Herpes, Hollywood Actors and Early-Saturday-morning-unwanted Jehovah's Witness visits.

Part of this has to do with how monumentally retarded these people are (most began life this way; the drug just made it worse), and also with how fundamentally juvenile they can be when it comes to the subject of their Braincell Destruction Mechanism of Choice.

Marijuana is a "kiddie drug"; that is to say, it is usually the first foray into the world of addiction for many, as it is easy to obtain, cheap, and there isn't a great deal of hazard in either procuring it or being caught with it, which makes it a "safer" alternative for obliterating your Cerebral Cortex than booze, meth, crack or cocaine. It is a symbol of youthful rebellion.

And many who partake of it never grew out of this teenaged angst nor the companion mindset.

So much so that they fail to grasp the underlying stupid of their own pro-pot arguments. Because they haven't mentally matured to the stage where rational thought becomes something of a reflex action.

To give a few examples of what I'm talking about:

1) The Booze-is-worse-than-pot argument attempts to make a moral equivalency argument between two OBJECTS, which on their own, have no moral motivations, are incapable of making the distinction between Good and Evil, and which do not, of their own accord, initiate any particular action.

The moral equivalency regards their USE. Getting drunk is not worse than getting wasted, nor is getting wasted better. They are the same thing. The effect is the same: impaired judgment, decreased motor skills, poor decision-making, delayed reflexes, altered consciousness.

2) Smoking Weed is a "victimless crime". Well, if you're calling it a "victimless crime" then a) you're admitting that a crime is being committed every time someone buys, sells, smokes a joint, and b) living in denial. There are ALWAYS victims -- tell that to the cop who leaves behind a widow and orphans because the Buy and Bust went bad. Tell it to the innocents caught in the crossfire of rival gangs fighting for turf. Tell that to the terrorized people of Mexico trapped between corrupt government and ruthless cartels largely funded by marijuana. Explain how the train operator, forklift driver, long-haul trucker, impaired driver, doctor, whatever, who killed or injured someone because they were high, didn't leave any victims in the wake of their stupidity.

Because the average pot smoker is an overgrown teenager who doesn't think about such things (doesn't think at all, really), a gated-community suburbanite weekend warrior getting his freak on after 60 hours of air conditioned Hell at the office who doesn't see the victims who got their houses shot up or their sons hauled off to jail, being out of sight means none of it ever happens. It's sheer denial.

3) Weed is not addictive. Umm, yes, it is. I'm an addict (currently, it's cigarettes and Pepsi, but there was a time when the Overlord was a pathetic drunk). I know addicts when I see them. The argument (mostly true) that most people dabble with pot and then give it up -- leading long, healthy, productive lives without the need to burn bush --  is NOT indicative of marijuana not being addictive; it's indicative that they gave it up before building up a tolerance that alters brain and body chemistry leading to a physical and psychological need for more pot.

The best is when the pot smoker trots out his personal testimonial that begins "I've smoked pot for 20/30/40 years and I'm not addicted."

Really?

Dude, if you're doing the same thing for that long, knowing it's unhealthy, that it can be dangerous, and not caring about the effect your habit has on other people, then you're addicted to it. Your protests are simply risible.

Grow the fuck up, already. The pot smoker is just as much a danger to society as the binge drinker, the meth head or the smack shooter, and they drag with them the same load of miseries -- crime, death, public disorder, destroyed health, and great expense to the taxpayer. There are no objective differences between them.

The question of whether grass should be legal/remain illegal is not one I'm attempting to answer here (my own opinion is "no", but I base that upon my own belief -- founded upon experience -- that Pot Smokers are really arguing for the ability to get their freak on without being hassled by law enforcement, and the train of thought ends there).

Nor am I trying to make one bad habit sound worse than any other.

The point here is that the evidence -- scientific, legal, observational, cultural, historical -- is all there and unassailable, and if you choose to ignore or deny it in your attempt to shrink your own brain and turn yourself into a paranoid nut in the bargain, then I'm of the mind to let you do it...inside a secure facility where you will never, ever come into contact with a rational human being again, so that we will all be spared your adolescent bullshit.

If you want to kill yourself because you never made the great leap into adulthood, be my guest. Just know that if I'm inclined to stop you as means of keeping the consequences of your fucktard from my doorstep -- and out of my wallet -- I will exercise that right, just as you protest for the right to be a flying dumbass.

I can guess who will win that fight. It won't be you, Pot Smoker, because you're too high to get off the couch and too busy stuffing Twinkies down your pie hole.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's legal in many states. Just know they only made it legal so they can tax it, Stupid. Not because they agreed with you.

And finally...

There's much talk about the potential dangers of Artificial Intelligence and "programmer bias" in all sorts of things the average person does not understand, like algorithms, search engines, automated ads on the internet, Data Mining, etc, etc, etc.

As a professional in this field, let me say the following on these subjects:

1) Like anything else, Artificial Intelligence will only ever be as good as the people who program it. Likewise, it will never be outside the realm of human control, for all the talk of "machine learning" and "deep neural networks" and so forth, the fact of the matter is it's a fucking machine, it only does what someone tells it to do, and it has no will or consciousness of it's own.

Consider this: the next generation of computer engineers and programmers will have been "educated" in "Common Core" mathematics. Which means they can't do math in the traditional sense. Which means they won't be able to understand anything created by the "old" system, nor will they be able to create anything worthwhile due to the fact that the machine -- to date -- is based on the traditional methods. This does not bode well for future AI.

The danger of the "Doomsday Scenario" in which AI runs rampant and goes all Godzilla on us lays in in the design of modern systems, which are interconnected, run faster than human beings can react or think, and susceptible to what we call in the trade "Cascade Failures" -- that is, an error or mistake in one system is passed onto a second, causing another error or fault in a third, which causes additional problems for systems Four, Five, Six and so on, exponentially.

Fortunately, there's always an "Off Switch". The question is how far can the rot go before someone -- a real person -- can understand what is happening, what has gone wrong, and then flip that switch?

If recent history is any indication, that decision tree -- Is there a problem/what to do about it/at what point does it become unsolvable without starting from scratch? -- will slowly be transferred to the machine. By that time, I'll be dead, and won't give a fuck. In the meantime, the best defense against Hal2000 going all Space Odyssey on us is MORE opportunity for human intervention, not less. The need for a "Kill Switch" that immediately stops a system and disconnects it from the system of networks it's attached to -- a system of QUARANTINE -- is more vital now than ever before.

This begins another argument between Geeks that wanders and meanders through the minefields of Civil Liberties, Progress!, creative license, efficiency and revenue which is too convoluted to get into here, and which usually ends with the Geeks throwing feces at one another.

2) On the subject of programmer bias: every programmer has a bias. They put their biases into their code all the time, but don't necessarily realize it. Examples are too numerous to point out, but suffice to say that individuals will often have different methods of achieving the same goal. Writing software that achieves that goal according to your own reasoning is just one example of bias.

But, there is a possibility that needs to be discussed and is often not. What happens when a task given to a system is best crafted by someone who has biases better suited to it? For example, what happens when a system that is dedicated to addressing female needs (notwithstanding what was written above, let's assume women exist again for our purposes) is written by a man...who has no intuitive grasp of what it is to be female, or vice versa? Or, software intended to address something uniquely Black is written by an Asian?

We can assume the resulting product will be crap.

And so we're back to the Objective Truth we sorta-kinda touched on at the beginning of this tomfoolery: people ARE different, those differences manifest in many ways, and that in the quest to give reality to the idea that "All Men are Created Equal", and by extension, that all things are equal, as well, we tend to ignore the reality that they truly aren't.

Denying this universal truth has consequences. Those consequences play out in a myriad of ways, like when Chuck decides to put on a peasant skirt and size 15 Kenneth Coles and wins a track meet Lizzy needed to win to have a shot at getting into Yale.

Or when a court takes it upon itself to decide that 4' 11", 98-pound Mary, who can't carry anything heavier than her own water retention up six flights of stairs, has what it takes to be a "fireman".

Or when the slacker dude's penchant for exploding braincells leaves a trail of bodies from Guadalajara to Grand Rapids and from Oaxaca to Olympia.

And even when the AI designed by a team of four straight Koreans and a White Dude attempts to solve a problem unique to homosexual Hindus or Swedish Females.

Reality always wins, people. It's about time we stopped pretending our differences aren't obvious because to date this mindset has only led us to the brainfarts that woman don't objectively exist, that pot is healthier than Oxycontin, or that computers will be capable of solving all problems without taking into consideration such things as race, gender, culture or systems of (mis-)education.