About Topics
Topic pages are concise articles on a single subject, usually related to my identity, experiences or beliefs; articles about other subjects I reference frequently may appear here as well.
⚠️ Attention
These are over-simplifications.
Due to the efficient nature of Topics pages, no landing page is provided: you can use the tags view to view all articles at once (if you see AI below this article, you're already there); or, for an indexed list of links, see the Everything page.
AI
💡 Synonyms
diffusion, genAI, GPT, LLM
Nothing on this site will ever knowingly be made with the use of generative AI. All of the text, except when quoting someone else, was written entirely by me. I occasionally use permissively-licensed resources from sites like openclipart and OpenGameArt. To the best of my knowledge, nothing I use was made by generative AI. If you know of any such material here please let me know.
My work is permissively licensed for use by other people. Nothing on this site may be scraped or used in any way for the purpose of training large language models or other machine learning applications. Permission will not be given.
My position on generative AI boils down to two simple questions: (1) what does it do that is good for people, and (2) does the good outweigh the harm it causes? If the answer to 1 is "someday it'll XYZ..." then: cool. Let the research continue in safe, controlled environments. Like all scientific research, it should only be done if it can be done ethically. If "someday" arrives and it can do all these great things for people while minimizing harm, then you can release it.
Even if we accept that generative AI will be a technological revolution bigger than the printing press that will lead to new horizons in human consciousness-my opinion is that it won't, but even supposing it will-we still shouldn't let it keep hurting people in the meantime. If the printing press had some technical fault that made every third one blow up and kill whoever used it, Gutenberg wouldn't have let people use it. He would've kept working on it until it was safe to use, no matter how big of a sea change it would eventually be for human knowledge and communication.
I have deeper philosophical objections to generative AI. Tumblr user mikkeneko wrote an excellent post about this, which I have archived here; but these arguments should be unnecessary. The current state of GenAI should be obviously bad for plain, practical reasons. The harms are many and the benefit is theoretical. It is a scam.
Anarchism
I'm a leftist who avoided more specific categorization for a long time; I finally realized that "anarchist" is the only label that makes sense for me. That all humans have the right to self-determination and a life free from rulers and oppressive hierarchical systems is the fundamental principle by which a humane society must be organized. Nation states in their current form are systems that exist for the protection and advancement of global hegemonic capital. The United States is the beating heart of this system, and it above all other states must be abolished.
Anarchism does not imply inherent opposition to government; systems of governance must exist to facilitate the survival and flourishing of humanity, especially taking care of the sick and disabled. I don't think "government" needs to be synonymous with "state". A humane government might resemble something we call communism, or socialism, or syndicalism, or democracy, but whatever name it's given, it will be something new, and we won't see it within our lifetimes.
I'm not an accelerationist. If the state were suddenly abolished with nothing to replace it, it would cause untold human suffering. This is my personal philosophy, and nothing here constitutes a political action plan. I have no formal education, power or inclination towards leadership; I'm just a humble raccoon trying to make sense of a world that wasn't made for me. I will try to do whatever little good I can with the hand I've been dealt, and keep dreaming of a better world.
For some concrete political beliefs, see politics
Bitcoin
💡 Synonyms
cryptocurrency, etherium, NFT
A scam. Do not post my work on social platforms like steemit that use bitcoin as internet points. See also: gambling
Tags: topics
CEOs
Don't like 'em. We should get rid of 'em. Take all their stuff and kick 'em to the curb. "Scram," we'll say. "Here's 20 bucks and a bindle. Go make yourself useful." If they prove they can exist without hurting anyone, they can be part of society again.
Tags: topics
Computer
My current computer is a Thinkpad x250 laptop, released in 2015. I bought it used many years ago to use as a portable computer; when my desktop computer died, it became my main workstation. I keep it connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse at all times. It ran Windows 7 until April 2025, when I decided to start using linux. After a false start with Fedora, I installed Debian 12 with XFCE on April 15, 2025, and it's been serving me well since. It's still quite functional for most of my use cases, and can even stream gameplay footage at 480p, but I do sometimes wish I had a computer that could run newer games. Click here to see a desktop screenshot with my system specs.
Crafting
Crafting is how I conceptualize most of my creative work. We often think of "crafting" as something done with physical materials, but I use words and code to craft digital objects like this website, stories and computer games. We already think of writing as a craft, and I don't think it's a leap at all to think of other forms of digital creation as crafts.
Some of what I craft could be art, but I'm more comfortable thinking of myself as a crafter than an artist, since art is more subjective and undefinable. Plus, the term "art" is strongly linked to visual media, which isn't my strong suit. If anyone else thinks of something I make as art, I'm very flattered, but I'll probably always be uncomfortable self-identifying as an artist.
Edit
There's an edit button at the bottom of each page. It looks like this: 📝
This is a single-user wiki, so only I'm able to edit, but---pro tip!---you can still click the edit button and it will allow you to view a page's markdown. This makes it easy to quote or republish material from this blog (with the proper attribution!) on your own blog or other markdown-supported platform.
Education
I should've graduated from high school in 2003, but due to a violent home life and untreated mental illness, I didn't have enough credits to graduate. I got my high school equivalency degree in 2005. To escape the violence, I had to leave home and begin working full-time as soon as I turned 18. I'd love to go back to school, but I currently have no choice but to work to support myself and my spouse, and my disability makes me unable to do coursework on top of 40-hour work weeks on top of self-care and home maintenance. I struggle with the latter two even without coursework on my plate.
I qualify for various grants and loans, but as far as I know, no resources are available that would cover my family's living expenses while I go back to school full-time. At my therapist and others' recommendation I've looked into various online school-like programs, and not only do they not cover living expenses either, but unsurprisingly they've all turned out to be scams. Additionally, the US student loan system in its current form is also a scam, and undischargable lifelong debt with no guarantee of positive career movement would make my life considerably worse. I try to learn as much as I can on my own, but I hope I can somehow, someday enjoy a formal higher education.
Every Day Carry
💡 Note
For the original post which includes photos and descriptions, see the archived post Every Day Carry
Backpack
Wallet
Watch
Headphones
Phone
Speaker
What's actually in my bag
Aside from the speaker, I always have snacks, medicine, band aids, candy (andes mints are a favorite), cough drops, a bike lock, tape, a sharpie, my work badge and lanyard, deodorant, cleansing wipes, a wide-toothed comb and a detangling comb.
Gambling
💡 Synonyms
betting, chance, fortune, gatcha, investment, lootbox, religion, speculation
Gambling is when you perform a negative action in hopes of obtaining a net positive result, despite there being no direct causal link between action and outcome. It is the oldest and worst scam, one which infests every facet of modern life. Uses ancient psychological manipulation techniques to exploit universal flaws in human cognition. Should be avoided at all costs.
Speculation is a type of gambling where you spend money on something with the hope or belief that it will increase in value and provide the speculator with more money than they spent. Our global economic system is based on speculation, so wealth is distributed towards those who (1) already have the resources that allow them to place the most bets, and (2) get the most lucky. Those who have the resources to place a lot of bets also have the power to change the rules in their favor, so in the absence of class consciousness and mass mobilization, those who have won are going to continue winning until they have annihilated the earth.
Because history is written by the winners, we have mythologized this system with ideas like hard work, intelligence, divinity, risk-taking, bold leadership, the mandate of heaven, etc. These superstitions comprise the ideological framework of Deserving, the belief that there's some fundamental force in the universe which ensures that people who are the most good are rewarded with the most wealth and power; and its corollary, that the wealthy and powerful must axiomatically be the most good. Common metonyms for this framework include god, karma, poetic justice and the free market, the latter of which is often referred to as being controlled by an invisible hand. This ideology is inescapable, and has been used by the powerful to control people for as long as humans have existed.
Gambling is good for people with institutional power, because they have the ability to cheat, manipulate the rules, and absorb losses. Their odds of winning are 51% or higher, so on a long enough timescale, they win everything.
Gambling is bad for people without power. Our odds of winning are 49% or lower---often 0%---so on a long enough timescale, we lose everything. "The house always wins" doesn't just apply to Vegas, it's universal.
Tags: topics
Gender
The umbrella term for my gender identity is nonbinary, meaning I don't fit into the gender binary. The specific term for my experience is agender, meaning I don't identify strongly with any gender. There are traits from multiple genders with which I identify, but I don't lean strongly in any one direction.
Privilege-wise, I am perceived as a gender-nonconforming member of the sex I was assigned at birth, but I don't experience dysphoria or discomfort at being misgendered. I experienced a fair amount of bullying for my gender as a child, especially by my dad, but I've been lucky not to have faced much violence or harassment as an adult. I don't identify as trans, but terms like "queer" and "genderqueer" are ones I'm beginning to be more comfortable with---which is hard, because the former was often hurled at me as a slur as a child.
The pronouns that feel most accurate for me are they/them, but I have no issues with masculine or feminine pronouns when applied to me. I feel no differently about any of them.
Relatedly, I'm demisexual and grayromantic. Subjects of gender, sex and romance don't hold much general interest for me, and I rarely discuss them except with people I'm close to. Obviously I support trans and queer liberation in all forms, but due to my differences I struggle to feel like I belong in trans- or queer-centered communities; My neurodivergence makes me struggle to feel like I belong anywhere, but that said, I feel more accepted in queer and trans spaces than any part of "mainstream" society.
Housing
I live in public housing, an apartment in a block built as a public works project during the FDR administration. The plan was to start renting an apartment or house once I started making more money, but a month after I started making more money, we elected a president who's vowed to destroy the US economy. The apartment isn't that bad, except that we don't have control over the heat; it's on from October-May no matter what temperature it is outside, so we often have to run the air conditioning in winter on days when it's too warm to just have a fan in the window. Also, we're subject to humiliating and dehumanizing monthly inspections, and the knowledge that someone from the government can enter my home at any time makes me feel fundamentally unsafe. Also, it's not in easy walking distance of anything. I wish we lived somewhere that felt like home, but I'm grateful to have a home when so many with my background don't.
It should hopefully go without saying, but I believe housing is a human right, and the way to end homelessness is by giving people homes.
Ideology
Ideology is when you believe something is true because you believe that it's true; or often, because you believe that everyone else believes that it's true. We rationalize our ideologies with appeals to evidence, tradition, superstition and authority. Even when an ideology is supported by evidence, we fundamentally believe it because we believe it, holding evidence in favor of the belief as irrefutable proof, while rejecting any and all evidence against. This is especially dangerous in a poorly educated society, because the average person doesn't know how to discern good evidence from bad evidence.
We all have ideology regardless of what belief system we were raised in. It can be religious or secular, and neither is fundamentally more dangerous: religious ideologies have oppressed and immiserated people for thousands of years, but our current dominant planet-burning ideology is secular in nature. As time goes on, and secular ideologies are proven more definitively untrue, they're usually forced to adopt religious characteristics so people can continue believing them.
It's impossible to completely free ourselves from ideology, but we should all strive to eliminate ideology from our thought processes as much as possible, even the ideology we "know" is based on strong scientific principles; scientific understanding evolves all the time, and the cognitive dissonance of having an ideology refuted can be very painful. The ideology that "there are only two sexes" is a recent relevant example: the cognitive dissonance is so strong that it's prompting many people to destroy their lives and the lives of our most vulnerable and marginalized neighbors.
To prevent this fate, it's a good idea to re-examine our own axioms and assumptions on a regular basis to avoid any psychic pain when they're inevitably challenged. We should also form strong evidence-based arguments for the things we believe: "that's just the way things are" is a dangerous thing to think, even if it's about a belief that happens to be true. Accepting TJtWTA about an idea makes us more susceptible to believing untrue and harmful ideas. Also, being able to argue our own positions helps us fight harmful ideologies.
💡 Recommended Media
Tags: topics, philosophy, politics
Kiki
Kiki is a tiny homepage construction kit by vga256 of Tomodashi Industrial. It's written in PHP and designed with a set of principles that aligns strongly with my own. You can get the shareware version on itch.io to try it out, and if you want the full version (including wiki functionality) it's currently $15CAD/$11USD. It's been well worth the cost, and I've had more fun building this site than any of my prior forays into web design.
Leftism
The principle that we should care about other people, and the planet we all live on.
Long
I try to keep the topics brief for ease of legibility, but some topics, such as neurodivergence, may be ones that I feel require additional context to fully express my understanding of it. Due to my limited time and mental energy, these topics may evolve over time and are likely to be revised multiple times.
Minimalism
I wouldn't describe myself as "a minimalist"---I try not to think of myself as an ideological anything---but I definitely think I'm a lot happier with very little stuff, and that most of the stuff society has conditioned us to want makes our lives worse. You can read more on the archived blog post When I Ended My Relationship With Stuff, and read about a few of the things that do improve my life at Every Day Carry and Computer.
It's obvious, but I feel compelled to mention that the ideology of stuff is hugely responsible for accelerating the destruction of the planet, and we should all try our best to want less things.
💡 Recommended Media
Neurodivergence
💡 Note
This topic is long.
My neurodivergence is the primary lens through which I understand my mental illness and disability. I've been diagnosed with ADHD, and I've been treated for it since 2016. I believe a combination of medicine and therapy has led to me becoming a happier, healthier person, but the condition still greatly limits the things I'm able to do. I'm able to work, with accommodations, but I'm unable to live a full and satisfying life on top of that. I'm unable to maintain social relationships outside of the one with my spouse, and I'm unable to accomplish long-term goals. With treatment, my mind is quite functional during the day, but 8 hours of work leaves me feeling drained and needing rest no matter what that works entails.
In terms of gainful employment, I work best when I can be by myself, in a distraction-free environment, and listening to something that provides mental stimulation while I endure the tedious task. I use similar coping strategies to complete tedious chores at home, and have used podcasts, audiobooks and youtube videos to gain a level of executive function I never had before those things were available to me. My brain experiences tedium and drudgery in a way that's comparable to physical pain, and I often have emotional breakdowns after long stretches of unstimulating work.
Through therapy and self-reflection, I've made a lot of progress towards seeing this as a disability rather than a personal moral failing. I try to live my life with an attitude of forgiveness and acceptance towards my differences, but it's hard in a world very much not designed for me.
I also suffer from sensory sensitivities, and wear thick noise-blocking headphones to protect myself from the constant aural assault of urban life, primarily the noise of cars I'm forced to coexist with. I also dislike overhead lights, am sensitive to certain textures, and have a long-time food pickiness disorder that I've made some progress towards overcoming. I also have great difficulty relating to other people, due to an inability to make myself be interested in things that interest the people around me. Even when I do find a common connection, I often struggle because I'm not interested in exactly the same way someone else is. It's made me feel like an alien for most of my life. But of course that's silly, I'm not an alien, I'm a raccoon 🦝
I'm also diagnosed with generalized anxiety and major depressive disorder, and I think my neurodivergence is at the root of those problems, too---or, more accurately, society's refusal to accommodate it. I tried to treat these issues unsuccessfully for years before receiving the ADHD diagnosis, at which point my anxiety and depression improved somewhat.
It's been suggested that I may have autism, and I wouldn't reject a diagnosis of autism if one was given to me, but there are characteristics of autism I don't identify with. I took one of those online autism assessments tests---not a "real" one, since those apparently costs hundreds to thousands of dollars and no doctor I've spoken to has been willing to look into the logistics of getting insurance to pay for it---but the unofficial free assessment put me right in the middle of the "do you have autism?" binary. It's the most definitive "maybe" I've ever received.
I understand that autism isn't a monolith, but here are some of the traits I commonly see people with autism relate to that I don't:
I don't struggle to understand how people feel based on their tone, facial expression and body language. If anything, I'm over-sensitive to these markers: I often assume people are feeling emotions that they're not, or assume whatever emotion they're feeling is stronger than it actually is.
I don't "infodump"---I tend to assume other people aren't interested in the same things as me, and won't volunteer information about myself or my interests unless prompted. Because of my tendency to over-analyze other people's reactions, if someone seems bored or annoyed when I talk, I internalize this and become very anxious about ever opening up to them again. I've seen this described as "rejection sensitive dysphoria", and it's true that in the past I've experienced emotional distress at the inference of rejection, but I've become more (for lack of a better term) "zen" about these experiences, and tend to disconnect and withdraw rather than get upset. It's not as stressful, but it can be quite lonely.
I don't have "special interests"---in fact, quite the opposite. There is no one thing that I'm always going to be very interested in no matter what. The closest I come to a special interest is in games, and the way in which I want to engage with games is changing constantly. There's no one game I will go back to over and over forever; no matter how much I like a game, at some point I need to be done with it and move on to something else.
This same quality impedes my ability to find a meaningful career: I can't "get a job doing what I love", because no matter how much I love doing something, I'm eventually going to want to stop and do something else. It follows, then, that I'm going to have to work every day for the rest of my life my depression is fairly well-managed these days, but letting myself dwell on this conclusion is one way to make myself spiral, so I try my best not to think about it.
Routine is important to me to an extent, but this is mostly because I'm forced to exist on a rigid timetable for work. If I didn't have to go to work, there would be a few broad strokes to my daily routine, but the details would change dramatically from one day to the next, and I'd be very comfortable with it. My brain is novelty-seeking, and I feel stifled and unfree if I'm not allowed to explore new things spontaneously.
It's possible that I have what I've seen people refer to as "AuDHD", but I don't know enough to say what that would mean. I understand there's a certain amount of symptomatic crossover between autism and ADHD, but I don't know how much crossover there would need to be to consider it a third thing or combination of two things. I hope there's more research on this in the future.
I'm not so concerned with the specific diagnosis, because no matter what diagnosis I have, I know how my mind works and I'm the authority on what accomodations I need. I don't need a doctor to tell me what I need, I just need people to believe me when I tell them how I feel.
This isn't to say I have all the answers, I'm constantly coming to new understandings about how my brain works and figuring out new coping stratgies, but the solution definitely isn't "I need to try harder to be normal". It didn't work for 30+ years and it's not going to work now. It's only after learning to accept myself, limitations and all, that I was able to see myself as someone deserving of love and understanding.
Tags: topics, mental health
Parents
I grew up with an abusive father and a neglectful mother. My dad is dead, which is good. My mom lives on the other side of the country, which is neutral. I'm glad for my independence, but if things go south in the country/in my life, I don't have parents I can move back in with, I'll just become homeless. It's not likely, but the possibility hanging over my head is one of many factors that contributes to my poor mental wellbeing.
My mother-in-law cares about me and my spouse very much, and does everything she can for us in spite of her struggles, which are many.
Politics
I've discussed my anarchism, but for the record, here are some of my specific political beliefs:
- Abolish capitalism
- Abolish the carceral state
- Abolish private property
- Black lives matter
- Bodily autonomy for all
- Children are not property
- Dispossess the rich
- End empire
- Free Palestine
- Land back to indigenous peoples
- Mutual aid
- Punch nazis
- Reparations for BIPOC
- Trans & queer liberation now
- Universal food, housing and healthcare
I don't often draw attention to these beliefs, because without action they can come across as hollow and self-congratulatory; in social media contexts, I'd rather boost the voices of the oppressed and those working to change oppressive systems than highlight my own righteousness, but this is my own personal encyclopedia, and that's where this sort of content goes. These principles are peppered throughout all my writing, and I'll express a political opinion if I think it's novel or offers particular clarity on a subject.
Scam
A scam is a trick used by a system to extract value from the people within that system. Calling something a scam is a subjective opinion, and does not constitute an accusation of a crime. Some scams rise to the level of criminal fraud, but most scams are perfectly legal. For example, cigarettes are one of the classic scams. Tobacco companies use marketing to trick people into using their product, becoming dependent on an addictive chemical, and paying the tobacco companies to continue providing this chemical for years or decades. The moral repugnance of the tobacco companies has never been in question; cigarettes remain perfectly legal to sell around the world.
As capitalism's demand for infinite growth meets the limits of reality, companies grow more desperate to figure out new ways to extract value from people, and most of them have pivoted or are in the process of pivoting to a new scam-based revenue stream. Preying on our addiction, insecurity and fear is the most reliable way to keep us spending. Everything is going to keep getting worse.
"Scam" can also be used in a broad sense to refer to a tactic used by a system to control our behavior with direct or indirect coersion and propaganda. Such scams include gender, borders, rent, gambling, advertising and copyright.
An individual who tricks people out of their money, through legal or illegal means, is a grifter. Grifters also deserve our contempt, but become much more harmful when given systemic power. A grift becomes a scam when a grifter becomes a CEO.
Tags: topics
Work
I currently have a full-time spreadsheet job at a hospital. I make $19.07 USD an hour. A few years ago, this would've been a lot of money to me. I was previously making $9.95/hr since being hired in 2021, so the pay raise was quite welcome; but the employer-sponsored health insurance costs a lot, and doesn't cover as much as when I was making $9.95/hr and receiving Medicaid. Additionally, a month after my pay increase, we elected a president who has vowed to destroy the US economy; two months after that, my rent increased by about 40%. Add in the ever-increasing price of groceries, and my higher paycheck doesn't stretch nearly as far as I had once hoped. If you enjoy the work I publish for free on this website, and you have the means, please consider buying some of my games or supporting me with a contribution on ko-fi.