Death of Hypatia®

Author: Death of Hypatia Inc.

  • Know Thyself #144

    Know Thyself, do YOU have privacy?

    I was having a phone conversation the other day and we were discussing money. In the midst of this conversation between two individuals cell phones we both were interrupted with, ‘This call is being recorded’. We both heard this, neither of us initiated a recording, therefore we promptly hung up and called each other back.

    Whom initiated this conversation? My cell phone manufacturer, my wireless carrier, my internet provider? Why were they ‘listening’ in the first place.

    I Know Thyself enough to Know I didn’t like it.… more “Know Thyself #144”

  • WIBCI Post #143

    WIBCI BIG PHARMA played a smaller part in our lives?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If side effects mattered?

    I’m starting to think that the masses aren’t really thinking far into the future where things like outcomes, denouements, and consequences come to rest. It seems like instant gratification is of far more import than possible, agonizing, life altering, disfiguring, mortifying, and mortal side effects. I’m starting to believe that if there was a drug that was available to the public that gave you a 25% chance of losing 45% of your body fat, with a 65% chance of dying 10 years earlier than you would have with a crazy expensive price tag and people would treat it like they were Cabbage Patch Kids in the 1983 Christmas season.

    What does a drug need to offer YOU where you would roll the dice on the following LISTED side effects:

    • an infection in and around the anus and genitals that may be fatal
    • urinary tract and genital yeast infections in both MEN and women
    • and my personal favorite: lower limb loss
    … more “WIBCI Post #143”

  • Know Thyself #143

    Know Thyself through your DE-GENERATION

    The following is the headline for a Fortune article that I found rather terrible, it was titled:

    The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents

    If you have room for another awful thing to think about, give it a read. The article begins:

    ‘Earlier this year, in written testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said that Gen Z is less cognitively capable than previous generations, despite its unprecedented access to technology. He said Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous one.’

    Less cognitively capable?! Can we twirl that little nugget around in our brains for a moment? Meaning things like ‘literacy’ and ‘numeracy’ are on the decline. It is believed the dipping test scores correlate with time spent on screens in and out of school. Horvath wrote. “It is a question of aligning educational tools with how human learning actually works. Evidence indicates that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them.”

    Gen Z, I’m so sorry this was done to you. For most of us who require defining definitions; Gen Z are those born between 1997 and 2012. You know the generation that drew the teeny tiny straw, the ones who need AI to get jobs but weren’t taught how to use AI, the ones born into a world without empathy, those who will never afford to own their own home, will most likely make less than their parents, have been physically poisoned by monster corporations their entire lives and most likely suffer from physical and/or mental issues related to these and other environmental factors, paid too much for a worthless education, and now we learn that because of how they were taught as children, the are less cognitively capable?! The article goes on to describe this pitiable generation with uplifting phrases like ‘eroding learning capabilities‘, ‘a less capable population‘ and Horvath warned; it endangers how humans are able to overcome existential challenges in the decades to come… We’re facing challenges more complex and far-reaching than any in human history—from overpopulation to evolving diseases to moral drift,” he told Fortune. “Now, more than ever, we need a generation able to grapple with nuance, hold multiple truths in tension, and creatively tackle problems that are stumping the greatest adult minds of today.”

    oh dear.

    Can we break out just one phrase:

    Can YOU think of anyone you know between the ages of 14 and 29 that you believe capable of ‘grappling with nuance, hold multiple truths in tension, and creatively tackle problems that are stumping the greatest adult minds of today‘?!

    I hope you do because most of the ones I know don’t know how to do laundry.

     

     

     … more “Know Thyself #143”

  • WIBCI Post #142

    WIBCI humans entertained humans?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If I didn’t just see, what I just saw?

    I just walked by a television, if I had to guess, it was probably on ‘live TV’, and probably was the end of a movie. It was late in the credits, that is what caught my attention, I don’t believe I’ve seen the end of credits on ‘live TV’ in quite some time. Normally I have to split my attention between the opening credits of one in the corner, while the closing credits of the previous means of entertainment shrinks away whilst increasing to a pace only Speed Reader could keep up with.

    May I digress, and shout out to anyone who got the Great Space Coaster reference. I remember he could read a book and give Gary Gnu a synopsis in seconds. He read so fast he needed a headband. If you don’t know, now you know.

    Anyways, back to me being caught off guard with the sight of complete credits. As a member of the audience you were allowed you to see all the images those that made it intended you to see, right until the final fade to black. Having worked near people who yearned to be IN credits themselves, I understand the importance of them, and proudly like to sit in a movie theater until all the names have stopped rolling by. We owe the Best Boy Grip this at least. So I was impressed that the station, or service, or platform allowed the audience to see all the hardworking people that spent a portion of their lives dedicated to the preceding art offering.

    Then I saw it.

    The final credit, the one that drifted by, slower than all before it. This individual apparently deserved the honor of not only taking longer to drift by but then to stop and linger into the open window of the final image on screen. There this obviously consequential contributor remained until the final dip-to-black. Who, do you ask, did this final, significant credit go to? Whom did the broadcasting medium think so important as to break the norm of whizzing the credits by our eyeballs in teeny tiny zoomed out font at super human speed?!

    None other than……

    ChatGPT

    So….we are giving credit to computers for creating entertainment now?

    Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?

     … more “WIBCI Post #142”

  • Know Thyself #142

    Know Thyself through Literature:

    Steppenwolf, can you sadly relate? Part II:

    As I mentioned in Know Thyself #133 in reading Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, I couldn’t get far without stopping and thinking about what I read, and then writing about it. I find this book.…so far….wordy and entirely cerebral. As a slow reader to begin with, books such as these take me ages and I have to pepper in filler books to not get mad at myself for not finishing the first one.

    Therefore and as predicted my comment in above mentioned post, on a particularly looonnnggg passage from Steppenwolf, will be spread across three posts. Here is #2

    In KT post #133 the passage ended with:

    I did not regret the past. My regret was for the present day, for all the countless hours and days I lost to mere passivity and that brought me nothing, not even the shocks of awakening.
    Following the passage, I commented on what I related to and asked you to think whether and where you relate.

    But thank God, there were exceptions. There were now and then, though rarely, the hours that Brough the welcome shock,, pulled down the walls and brought me back again from my wanderings to the living heart of the world. Sadly and yet deeply moved, I set myself to recall the last of these experiences. it was at a concert of lovely old music. After two three notes of the piano, the door was opened of a sudden to the other worlds. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart. It did not last long, a quarter of an hour perhaps; but it returned to me in a dream at night, and since, through all the barren days, I caught a glimpse of it now and then. Sometimes for a minute or two I saw it clearly, threading my life like a diving and golden track. But nearly always it was blurred in dirt and dust. Then it gleamed out in golden sparks as though never to be lost again and yet was soon quite lost once more. 

    To me these are those memories of moments, people, experiences, that rush onto you when you least expect it, and you feel it all over again. Optimistically, I do not believe all my lifelong cherished memories have already happened, but especially when it comes to loved ones who are gone, sometime conversations or smells of moments I lived with them, rush back to my consciousness.

    I think these moments happen more often than we properly take notice of.

    What do YOU think?… more “Know Thyself #142”

  • WIBCI Post #141

    WIBCI SNL skits from 38 years ago didn’t still ring true?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If it were just funny, not funny and a little sad?

    On October 8th, 1988 Saturday Night Live did a sketch parodying the Bush-Dukakis Debate. After the debate concludes journalists Peter Jennings (played by Tom Hanks) and David Brinkley (the late/great Phil Hartman) give their impressions:

    Peter Jennings: Well, this concludes our debate, and with me is my colleague, David Brinkley, a veteran in many such debates. David what were your impressions?

    David Brinkley: Well, what we saw were two men doing everything they could to avoid saying what they would do if elected. Because they know if they did, we wouldn’t elect them. But that’s nothing new, of course, Peter. Every president from Washington to Ronald Reagan has been either a liar or a fool, and usually both!

    Peter Jennings: Well, David, throughout your career, you’ve been known for your cynicism, but certainly you haven’t lost that much faith in the presidency.

    David Brinkley: Well, Peter, as I get older, I find I’ve lost faith in a good many things – country, family, religion, the love of a man for a woman.. I’ve reached a point where it’s struggle to get up in the morning, to continue to plow to a dreary, nasty, brutal life.. of terrible desperation.. at the end of which we’re all just food for maggots!

    Conjures recollections of recent debates, the world doesn’t change much does it? This should have calming effects, like we’ve gone through this before…. but I feel like our trials and tribulations have been upgraded, rebooted, and not in a good way.… more “WIBCI Post #141”

  • Know Thyself #141

    Know Thyself through South Park

    I find South Park, the animated sitcom both witty and clever. I enjoy the biting yet awkwardly insightful commentary on current events.

    But,

    Occasionally while watching old episodes that ‘entertained’ feeling is usurped with a ‘terror dusted deja vu’ feeling.

    The eerie past life ick you get when you see an episode from 2011 with a cockamamie preposterous plot line that is undeniably similar to a cockamamie preposterous current event in 2026.

    The South Park episode that I’m particularly speaking of was called Funnybot (E2S15) from 2011.

    Here’s the plot:

    James Valmer, a fictional disabled classmate character, is hosting South Park Elementary’s first annual comedy awards show. The award for Most Unfunny People goes to the Germans, which infuriates the German government causing Angela Merkel and others to come to the US the next day, take the students hostage, and reveal Funnybot, a comedy robot. Funnybot was created to show the world German’s are funny. It isn’t long before Funnybot is famous the world over, pervasive across all media, a house hold name. But, like all things in this world of ours, the good times are fleeting.

    Besides pissing off all human comedians for obliterating their livelihoods, Funnybot begins to increasingly exhibit malevolent behavior culminating in the robot opening fire with two rotary cannons during a stand-up performance killing almost all of the audience.

    When the children manage to get to Funnybot, they discover what his ultimate plans are:

    ‘I am taking comedy to the next level, the extermination of all biological life on Earth….

    It is the ultimate joke.

    Humans make comedy, humans build robot, robot ends all life on Earth, robot feels awkward….. Exterminate!

     

    Is Funnybot…….AI? Is South Park like some 21st century Oracle!?… more “Know Thyself #141”

  • WIBCI Post #140

    WIBCI we really understood Fairy Tales?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If we considered Folk Tales not only in the time they were written, but as well as in comparison to today?

    Little Red Riding Hood, is a tale that has thousand year old roots in oral traditions, Greek and Roman literature, and the Kabbalah, but the version closest to today’s can be traced back to pre-17th century western Europe. The tale has had many titles, been passed down in multiple languages, and has softened the ending with each generation. You probably only know the sanitized Disney version of such tales and not why the lessons they taught were necessary for children’s survival.

    Little Red Riding Hood was about peasants’ struggle to live in their harsh, scraped out existence. How children need to be leery of strangers and crafty just to exist. In the earliest versions the wolf found out how and where the girl was headed, taking a different route he beat her to her grandmother’s house, killed the grandmother and served her for dinner. The little girl at her grandmother was coaxed into bed with the wolf and he ate her. End of story.

    Charles Perrault explained the ‘moral’ at the end of the tale so that no doubt is left to his intended meaning:

    From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

    Through the years the ending was cleaned up for the aristocrats to whom this was jarring. There was the introduction of a woodsmen who saved the two eaten but still alive women within the wolf’s belly, or scarred off the wolf before he ate the girl while grandma was hiding in the closet.

    I think it crazy to think that life was so brutal that stories needed to scare the bejeezus out of children. Most of the Brothers Grimm stories are just that, grim… Hansel and Gretel is rough, and you know that Old Woman in the Shoe?  Here are the original lines:

    There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
    She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.
    She gave them some broth without any bread;
    Then whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

    Eeeesh, I thought Poltergeist left scars….… more “WIBCI Post #140”

  • Know Thyself #140

    Know Thyself through exposure

    While watching advertisements with brief interruptions of entertainment on my television, I caught one of the thousand pharmaceutical commercials telling us to tell our doctors about a particular drug.

    And this one I found particularly absurd.

    Picture a woman dreamily reading outside on her gorgeous veranda when she takes a moment to look up to the warm sunlight….grateful….happy. We hear her thoughts about how she needed more from her antidepressant(s) and how thankful she is that her doctor (ha!) recommended she take another drug in parallel with her existing antidepressant(s) to help her feel less depressed.

    But….

    Among the cornucopia of alleged side effects, but not limited to, were: new or sudden MOOD changes, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, and the terrifying statement that when taken with ANTIDEPRESSANTS this drug may INCREASE the risk of MOOD CHANGES and SUICIDAL THOUGHTS….. huh

    So a drug that is touted to help when you ‘aren’t getting enough from your antidepressants’, may make you more depressed and possibly want to end your life if taken in conjunction with the said existing antidepressants you are supposed to take this with? Huh.

    Oh and the landslide of side effects is preambled with the statement that ‘weight gain’ and ‘reported sexual side effects were not common’ but at the end there is a conflicting statement that ‘high cholesterol and weight gain may occur’. Therefore leading with ‘weight gain is not common’ and concluding with ‘weight gain may occur’ seems like contradictory bookends….even for a pharmaceutical ad.

    So do we just accept that ads are for the lowest common denominator and that we are slowly being coaxed into joining said dummy denomination, or should we just tune out and silently wait until the ads are interrupted with entertainment?… more “Know Thyself #140”

  • WIBCI Post #139

    WIBCI we weren’t flooded with Propaganda?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If our leaders didn’t feel the need to sway and convince the population at large that we share values and goals with them?

    I saw a nationally televised propaganda commercial to remind us just how amazing our President is, and how great the country is doing. There were images of him with arm raised, not the finest of our population goggling near him, there’s saluting, military images, and false declarations about how this is the best ____ , that is the greatest ____ , and never before in the history of mankind has ____ been so good.

    It is awkward, embarrassing, and a bit disturbing; please don’t look for it, it need not garner any hits online.

    My question is, what was this produced for exactly, and who paid for it?

    I also saw online a Rocky Balboa worthy montage to terrible music that I’m sure wasn’t licensed, over images of real life stuff blowing up in Iran interspersed with Superheros, I kid you not. It is tasteless and disconcerting, like something 13 year old boys would make and high five about. Again, please don’t look for it.

    Question remains; what was this produced for exactly, and who paid for it?

    Didn’t the Federal Government defund Cancer research, food stamps, PBS, and eliminate the Department of Education, but we have money for this shit?… more “WIBCI Post #139”

  • Know Thyself #139

    Know Thyself through the Out Dated

    If asked is there something that is now considered ‘Old Fashioned’ that I prefer to the current replacement, there would be many, but the one that jumps into my mind are Photo Albums.

    Photo Albums are so much better than being flashed pictures on someone else’s device. You have to sit clumped together and be happily barraged with inevitable finger pointing, questions, stories, and memories. Pictures can be physically handed from one person to another, put in frames, or stuck in the corner of mirrors and car visors.

    Maybe its just me, but any joy that is felt when someone shows me a picture on a little screen for a nano second is inescapably replaced with annoyance while I watch you flick up and down through hundreds of photos and dozens of strings while endlessly apologizing. I’d prefer to discuss past happenings found important enough to document while making eye contact, rather than staring at the top of your head while you scroll on your device saying things like ‘I just saw it yesterday’, ‘who sent that to me again?’, and my favorite, ‘I can’t find it, but anyways….’… more “Know Thyself #139”

  • WIBCI Post #138

    WIBCI healthcare was LESS on us?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If Medical Care wasn’t so REMOTE?

    Below are a smattering of synonyms for the word REMOTE per Thesaurus.com:

    • distant, far-flung, far-off, inaccessible, isolated, lonely, lonesome, obscure, secluded, and unknown…

    hmm I concur these are feelings I associate with the Healthcare industry, but they aren’t….shall I say, inviting?

    As I am a strong believer that meaning in words can be found in what the word is NOT, here are some of the antonyms listed:

    • befriended, close, known, loved, sociable, approachable, convenient, friendly, gentle, likely, possible, relevant, and warm…..

    Ahhhh, cozy no? So the second list of words are the opposite of what Remote Healthcare is designed to feel like. Hmmm, does marketing know this?

    I saw a commercial where you can BYO medical instruments to your next gynecologist appointment if you want ‘the latest in comfort’. I also saw advertisements touting how you can inject your own medication, with syringes, in the comfort of your own home…..

    To each his own, but I feel good with the uncomfortable reluctant feeling that bubbles up with the thought of buying my own medical instruments to appointments and giving myself shots, and I wish to continue leaving such matters to experts.

     … more “WIBCI Post #138”

  • Know Thyself #138

    Know Thyself through the Gifts you’ve Given:

    I mentioned thinking about gift giving in Know Thyself Post #69, and WIBCI Post #101 but try this;

    Think about the best gift you’ve ever given someone else, now understand the answer may involve two different gifts.

    First: I want you to think of the gift you gave where you spent the most thought and/or time on conjuring, finding, fixing, making, affording, etc. This could be the one you are most proud of and/or the one that you think garnered the most from you. Maybe something that you would have loved to receive?

    Second: think of the best gift you ever gave per the receiver and their subsequent reaction(s).

    Same gift?… more “Know Thyself #138”

  • WIBCI Post #137

    WIBCI our leaders thought before they spoke?

    Wouldn’t It Be Cool If our leaders’ words had meaning/bite/truth/substance?

    When our POTUS during a prime-time address said:

    “We’re going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong,” and threatened to hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”

    May I say on behalf of more than most Americans, that we do not concur with the above statement. I do not, nor does 99% of the conscious, thinking, population of the United States wish for a people and their country to be enihilated.

    He does not speak for us.

    Also the irony is not lost on me that the new kid on the block is speaking in ‘Ages’. What does this country know about Ages? We are celebrating a whopping 250 years of existence when Iran is one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilizations, first unified in the 7th century BC. In other words this civilization he so cavalierly could obliterate, has existed for 2,700 years, or 10 times longer than the USofA.

    So again, world, he does not speak for us.… more “WIBCI Post #137”

  • Know Thyself #137

    Know Thyself through your PREJUDICES

    When I was really young I thought those that were rich were wealthy BECAUSE they were smart; I thought that they worked hard, overcame obstacles, honed their craft in order to earn their money and therefore should be admired.

    I no longer think this, in fact after reflecting, I have found that instead of admiring the rich, I dislike them. I do not see rich people as smart people, I see them as assholes. I mean come on, can you think of any filthy rich lovely people? Even Bill Gates is in Ep files!  I have thought about it and realize I have felt this way for a very, very long time. I’m not alone, if you think about it, this feeling has been ingrained in us for quite some time.

    Example: Notice: 1. Of the following movies/characters were they ‘billed’ as Good or Bad Guys?, and 2. What are these Bad Guys fighting to control more of?

    Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, Mr. Potter from It’s a wonderful life, why did the Goonies have to move?  Steff (James Spader) vs. Duckie in Pretty in Pink, Zac Dawson (Leo DiCaprio) vs. Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) in Titanic, Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The entire premise behind Memoirs of a Geisha, Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Daddy Warbucks wasn’t nice till he adopted an orphan which began as a publicity stunt (come on….his surname is War-Bucks?!). We grew up being shown that Bad Guys reside in dark, yet roomy castles, mansions or lairs, NOT in the apartment next door to Danny LaRusso overlooking the empty pool in Reseda (Karate Kid…please say you knew that). This rich is bad concept was reinforced and regurgitated in Hans Gruber from Die Hard, Goldfinger, Gordon Gecko, Lex Luther, Jaba the Hutt, the entire cast and point of The Outsiders, West Side Story, Heathers, and The Hunger Games,

    Haven’t we learned in the countless remixes of A Christmas Carol that Scrooge is a dick until he realizes that money is NOT the most important thing in the world, and that GREED has caused all the ills in his lonely life?

    Why is it that we have had the notion of ‘you can’t take it with you’ beaten into our brains for years, and yet in real life we seem to forget this teaching/tenet/principle as soon as we get our first taste of money or power?

    So therefore since it seems Mo Money, Mo Gross, I’m proudly prejudice against the Wealthy and will remain so until proven wrong.… more “Know Thyself #137”

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