This just might be a sign that I’m getting old, because I just fail to understand this.

The picture in the header does speak a thousand words. This is what I see when I go see a show of a larger known band. A sea of phones, recording the performance from a thousand angles. All of them with crappy lenses, and crappy microphones, all of them recording a subpar version of whatever is happening on stage. Why? Why look at the performance through a crappy lens and a crappy screen? The actual resolution of your eyes is a lot higher. Hell, you could even make eye-contact with the performer! How about that! That famous person might just remember you because you weren’t a soulless mobile-phone being held up aloft.

I’ve been active in reenactment groups for many years together with my wife (who will be continuing this hobby), and we both started getting involved in historical reenactment together. I kinda lit the match, but for me personally, the fire has died out. I have lost interest in it. You could say my heart is no longer in it anymore, and I wish to move on.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think teaching people about history by showing it to them is a wonderful goal, and the people involved in reenactment are wonderful, but I personally don’t get any enjoyment out of it anymore. I have had some awesome moments with my fellow re-enactor friends which I wouldn’t want to trade in for anything, but I won’t be part of it anymore.

This is quite a long read. It’s also based on my opinion and how I look at things. Firstly, since I’m writing this in English, I will assume you are unfamiliar with the way Dutch government works so I will give some high-level primers first which are a tad simplified, but hopefully won’t detract from the flaws I’m pointing out.

1. Introduction

As some of you know, I’m Dutch and I live and work in the Netherlands. You might have heard a bit about the Dutch government and its quirks. It’s a monarchist representative constitutional democracy on paper, but over the years, quite a few nasty kinks have crept into the system that made it quite less representative, and also a lot less democratic. EU involvement in our lawmaking hasn’t helped matters either.

How’s this for click bait? But there was some study that said that people (yes, this includes women) don’t prefer to have a woman as a boss. Of course, the femibots start frothing at the mouth, but all the frothing on the planet won’t change the facts.

First, for the impatient folks, the TL;DR:

I enjoy having women as coworkers, but I prefer not to work under them (modulo exceptions, but see below). As for the why, well, just read, okay? It’ s not that long.

It seems general stupidity has moved into a lower DEFCON level again, so I’m tapping out for a bit. So, you won’t see any posts from me again for a while. You can have your little bubble, while I lurk on and watch the shit flinging from afar. If you do value my input from time to time, I’ll be listening on Messenger, e-mail, this here weblog, Minds, Gab, Twitter, Bitchute, etc. Feel free to look me up there, and while you’re at it, create an account for yourself in those places as well. They are going to be a safe haven for your opinion when Faceberg decides to clamp down on wrongthink.

(repost for Steemit)

“寧為太平犬，莫做亂離人” (nìng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luàn lí rén), or “Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic (warring) period.”

The above line is also known as the “Chinese Curse”, and is often translated as “May you live in interesting times.”

Why do I bring this up? Because we are in a chaotic period. According to StyxHexenhammer666, it’s a moral panic, or shows signs of being a moral panic and it will pass. Now, he might be right, but that doesn’t take away my worry. I read and have read quite a bit. Silly tomes like “Fahrenheit 451”, “1984”, “Animal Farm”, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and more of those apocalyptic stories about what might happen when horrible ideas get their foot in the door and are allowed to expand.

Sargon of Akkad mentioned that we needed a manifesto. Here’s a first rough stab at that.

The Shitlord Manifesto (first draft)

By Emiel Kollof

• I don’t care about your race, sexuality or gender. All people should have equal opportunity, but equality must never be forced. Let the people that are the best at it do the work.
• Free speech must be free, no matter how egregious it is to anyone. Violent speech should only be prosecuted if actual violence came of it. Let the idiots expose themselves. Hate speech does not exist.
• Violence without a need is always reprehensible. This includes politically motivated violence.
• The only weapon against speech you don’t agree with, is more speech.
• Don’t assign epithets to people when you don’t even know what the epithet means.
• Any action that disadvantages or maligns anyone because of race, sex or creed is racism, sexism or discrimination.
• You have the right to be offended. Others have the right to ignore you. But you don’t have the right to limit the freedom of anyone because you are offended.
• Religion is not a race. I will criticize your religion (regardless of what it is) if it has dangerous tenets.
• I will listen to your ideas and attempt to shoot holes in it. I expect the same in return.
• Facts over feelings.
• I’m not better than you. The inverse is also true.
• Communism and Socialism have never worked, and will never work. Trying again won’t make it work, so give it a rest already.
• Men and women are physically and emotionally different. This does not imply ability, but it plays a factor in preferences. Also, exceptions exist, but they are indeed exceptions, not the rule, and not in any way more or less appreciated.
• I will not rewrite history, furthermore I will protest the destruction of history even if it offends people. Because if you don’t see the past, you’re doomed to repeat it.
• Echo chambers are where reason goes to die.

I’ve just ended a project where I was working in an Agile/Scrum based environment, with sprints, stories, and deadlines. I kinda liked it, because you collaborate closely with your colleagues, and you pick your own tasks. Things can move potentially very fast, but there are some very glaring downsides. I’ll list them below:

The burndown.

The holy and sacred burndown. People care way too much about getting a Sprint completely burned down. It sometimes makes Agile feel more like a panic room, than a flexible way of working. Especially when you have to wait for third parties. Other squads can really shit in your cereal by letting you wait days for a request to be fulfilled and things get blocked.

(Repost for Steemit)

First, let’s get this out of the way: I’m an atheist at my core. There’s stuff stacked on top of my atheism to facilitate esoteric reasoning, but there is always reasoning, according to some sort of logic. Having never been indoctrinated with any religion when I grew up, I have no learned concepts for fear of gods or an afterlife. The concepts are alien to me.

I understand that people believe things. I’m no exception. There are things that seem true to me for which I have no evidence. There are things I can’t explain. The difference between a religious person and me is that I don’t mind admitting that I don’t know. I have perfect solace in not knowing, if I don’t need to know to live a fulfilling live (for which my needs are modest and mundane) then I don’t care to.

I have opinions that might rub people the wrong way (big list here). If you examine that list, you might pick up that I’m in favor of complete freedom of speech. This includes things I have disdain for or things I vehemently disagree with. Everyone should have a platform, no matter how disgusting the idea.

You might think: “where do you draw the line?”. It’s really simple. Physical violence or extreme psychological terror (which does not include offense). I also think people should be allowed to have violent speech. The crux is that if actual violence does happen, the person responsible for convincing others should be held responsible.