Lessons from the Addams Family

Posted on April 13, 2019 at 8:04 am by Bryce Eickholt

You’d be hard-pressed to find a goth that doesn’t like The Addams Family.
They are definitely an icon in the culture. I have the main series and movies on DVD. I remember watching the reruns as a kid with the family. It was certainly one of the many influences that got me into goth culture. There was a certain elegance and quirkiness about it that made it fit what I like. They had all kinds of wonderful things from their mansion to all the museum type things in it. They had their own butler. This family had it made. This article will mostly focus on the show and original comics.

Charles Addams the creator of the original Addams Family comics was your standard suit and tie man with a dark twisted sense of humor. The comics scattered throughout this article are his.

There are some particular things I’d like to point out about this lovely family that we all adore. One of the earlier episodes, they end up fighting with someone that’s trying to get their kids in school. They were all content with teaching the kids on their own, but they legally had to give in and send their kids to school. Gomez remarks something like, “What’s the point of having kids if you just send them away all day”. Then one day, Wednesday comes home crying because of the stuff they were teaching in school. This family would have definitely been for the modern unschooling / homeschooling movement.

Some people have pointed out that they don’t have jobs, but they are uber rich. Gomez is always playing in the stock market, where he at least sometimes loses money but then just shrugs it off comically because he has so much. They have random treasure chests and safes and bundle of money in drawers. Where did their money come from? It is kind of a mystery, but they do expose a bit about it in some episodes. There is an episode where they try to get insurance, but the insurance guy doesn’t want to give them any. Gomez ends up getting the insurance guy on his side when he exposes that his family inherited several big businesses that were very important to the insurance company. The Addams family is basically a venture capitalist
family (or something of the sort) that owns all kinds of property that they inherited over several generations. In one episode (maybe the same) Gomez says something like,” We Addamses haven’t worked in generations.” It is also mentioned that they got some of their gems and wealth from ancestor pirates.

Politics is part of the show in some episodes. They don’t seem to take any particular position as far as republican or democrat. They have always supported the losing presidential candidate. In general, the show seems to be more antagonistic towards politicians, if any view is taken at all. At one point, they ask a campaigner if the L in the candidate’s middle name stands for Lucifer. The campaigner, seeing how creepy the house is, said yes, thinking he could win a vote that way. This is making fun of the way politicians just say whatever to get votes (consistent, true, or not)

They get plenty of guests on the show, and they are always quite lovely to them. But somehow they are always misunderstood and scare people away. At one point, a Beatnik shows up. They find him strange and question his tattoos, piercings, and slang, but end up thinking he was alright. The show doesn’t seem to approve of modern social justice warriors (SJW) stuff, as it made fun of the beatnik. I recall fat jokes. The romance between Morticia and Gomez would probably have todays SJWs screaming rape, since Mortica never seems to be in the mood, but Gomez keeps trying to kiss and romance her. Then there are times when guests are involved in similar things with other characters; like fester and his lady; or lurch and his crush; or the mix-up between Pugsly, his teacher, and Gomez. There was plenty of cultural appropriation (a good thing); French and Italian language appropriation between Gomez and Morticia’s. The show displayed a time when men were men, women were women, Itt was it, and Thing was a thing.

In conclusion, The Addams family is a much beloved goth capitalist family that poked fun of politicians. They hated mandatory schooling (state indoctrination). The goth culture has never really been about politics or economics, and accepts people of all types. It’s always been about aesthetics and music. There has been a particular movement of SJW plaguing it (like they plague everything) that want to get rid of some of it’s best parts. Important parts of the culture have always been dark comedy, shock for the sake of shock (shock rock) and individualism. There’s a weird tendency these days for people to take all these things from the past that were meant for comedy, shock factor, and other entertainment and then do them in a serious fashion. Then they act offended when people laugh, are shocked, or entertained. Modern goths could learn a lot from revisiting this old show, learn how the Addams family dealt with people who had different views than them. You’ll never find 2 goths that are exactly a like. We have all kinds of views regarding politics and economics. Most are probably with the rest of the population and just stay apolitical.

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Woke / Redpills

Posted on April 14, 2021 at 7:26 am by admin

*This is a rough draft

You aren’t against wokeness if you are red pilled you are against fake wokeness.
Actual wokeness and being red pilled are the same thing. In the Matrix the red pill wakes you up from the matrix making you “woke.” Various other groups noticed that people were becoming woke/red pilled and are making fake woke stuff to keep people blue pilled. The corporations are adopting fake woke stuff. The Critical Race Theorists and social justice people are adopting it. The point is everyone thinks they are seeing reality for what it is but only some actually are. Some openly reject objective truth, so they obviously aren’t. They also don’t care, it’s just a tool to get what they want.

Recommended reading.
Beyond Woke – Michael Rectenwald

This is an example of wokeness. It demonstrates that being woke means seeing what something is in reality without the false narratives I remember seeing stuff like this 2015ish.
This video is about actual wokeness. It was uploaded 10 years ago. Notice the title says Asleep or Awake Red pill version. They are the same thing. The song itself is about waking up to big pharma and the dumbing down of society.
This is a song about fake woke being the problem, not wokeness.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/woke

https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/red-pill/

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Dealing with NAP violations

Posted on February 12, 2021 at 5:12 am by admin

The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion.
Murray Rothbard – For a New Liberty.

Above is the Non Aggression Principle (NAP) It uses the word axiom instead of principle. The point is the same. Stated in simple terms it means the person who starts aggression is in the wrong. There is a very important word that is often glossed over when talking about the NAP. “Initiate” is the word, and it is important for 2 reasons. First, it is necessary to keep the principle from being self-defeating. Second, it makes the principle about a very specific thing. It is about who is in the wrong in a conflict. What the NAP doesn’t say, as it’s stated, is what happens after someone has done wrong. There are many approaches to what is a legitimate response. These would require another separate principle or the NAP needs to be scratched and restated to include response to violations.

How can we tell what is a good response to a NAP violation? One extreme would be some sort of uber-pacifism were literally nothing is done (I use “uber” because there are other legitimate forms of pacifism). On the opposite extreme there would be anything goes reaction. Ex. killing someone for stealing a pencil. Hopefully everyone can agree that these are illegitimate. Now we can discuss various degrees in between.

Think of a knight, sword and shield in hand in a fight. The first approach I will call defensive force. I know others have used this term without really defining it. My use is probably a bit different and narrower to differentiate between other types. With defensive force the knight is just using his shield to deflect attacks. Maybe a variant would include shied bashes and blocks with a sword. This is probably a type of pacifist approach.

The second approach would be reactionary force. In this one and all of these someone attacks first or is an imminent threat (charging at you sword drawn). Think of a knee-jerk reaction for this one. It can be careless but seem necessary in times of desperation. This is like reacting by spinning 360s with your sword. You might just hit your attacker, but there could very well be other stuff damaged in the process. At least you’re alive, but now you have to pay for the extra damage that was done in the process (assuming you aren’t forgiven upon explaining your desperation).

Responsive Force is the 3rd one. It is similar to reactionary force in that you are still using your sword. But, you are more intentional with your counter-attacks, focusing on the initiator at hand. It’s more like a skilled swordsman focusing on the enemy.

Delegated force is just what it sounds like someone else helps you out. You flag down an archer to take out some of the multiple knights attacking you.

Tactical Force is kind of different, it could involve any combination of the above or more. This is a well planned counter-attack. It may involve an entire militia or security force. It probably has multiple steps like recon, blockades, intel, strategy, etc. Let’s say you have a known serial killer. You create a plan to do recon, so you know how to get to him, and then you need a way to neutralize him and capture or kill him.

All this probably brings up the question of how much force is too much force? Of course, we are talking about max response. Settling for something less is always an option. The standard eye for an eye seems like a good starting place for max punishment. With this approach, you often have to settle for something less because it’s impractical to do something like an actual eye for an eye. You can’t really get any use out of someone else’s eye. It makes more sense for something like a pencil for a pencil. Even there, max punishment shouldn’t be something anyone had a problem with. I don’t think the eye for an eye was ever meant to be that literal anyway, it just means that if you make someone blind you should do something to compensate for his blindness, even if that means being his eyes for him. Or providing a seeing eye dog. Or whatever. It doesn’t really make sense to exceed eye for an eye unless, you are counting various fees and inconveniences that may occur in the court process. Even then, those fees would just be separate eyes for eyes. The pencil would be an eye. The court fees would be an eye. The inconvenience fees would be an eye. 3 eyes for 3 eyes. When someone does initiate force, they are initiating it multiple times, not just a mere single eye theft. They are also initiating the need for someone to use a court service. And time theft for causing the person to not be able to do what they otherwise would have been doing.

I may continue this later, it’s already getting long. The more I type, the more stuff I think of to type about.

future topics:
Illegitimate force. Excess force. Preemptive attack. how to choose. many methods.

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Social Media Bans vs Bake the Cake

Posted on January 11, 2021 at 1:42 pm by admin

The bake the cake issue
This is a customer demanding a specific service that isn’t offered at all to anyone. The bakers don’t offer gay wedding cakes to anyone. A gay person could still get a cake for any other purpose. There’s no reason anyone even needs to know the sexual deviations.

The social media ban issue
Bannings involve complete removal from the service. The gays were still allowed to have all the same services that were offered to anyone else. They weren’t banned from the building. If they wanted any normally offered item, they could have it.

Differences
1. Banning entire person vs rejecting specific nonexistent service.
2. The banned people weren’t demanding that a social media site offer a specific service to them that isn’t offered to anyone.
3. One is demanding a specific service that isn’t provided to anyone, the other is denying a service that is provided to everyone else.

Conclusion
In order for it to be the same, it would have to be something like a Nazi demanding that a social media sites make Swastika emoji’s or something. The customer would have to be demanding that the social media site makes something that isn’t offered to anyone. The issues are separate, whether you agree with either one or not.

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Problem/Solution Conflation

Posted on November 25, 2020 at 5:47 pm by Bryce Eickholt

They don’t care about actual problems they care about the lack of their specific solutions.

Steps for typical example
A. Point to problem
Ex. That person can’t afford their medical bills!

B. Act as if there is only one solution (theirs)
Ex. Universal health care is how to fix it.

C. Say that the problem is the lack of the solution
Ex. If we had universal healthcare*, this wouldn’t be a problem.

It does not follow because there are other solutions and theirs hasn’t been proven to work without causing other problems.

Its kinda like, “ends justifies the means” but worse. It’s like “goals justify the means.” See more on this Here.

*They say universal health care but, it’s actually nationalist healthcare. This is an attempt to hide what is really going on.

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4 Views on Masks (and Social Distancing)

Posted on September 18, 2020 at 10:10 am by admin

I’ve identified 4 views on mask (and social distancing). These arguments are beside the point that people with health problems are exceptions. Any of these views could have exceptions. Just as well, some people don’t want exceptions. These are beside the points being made.

1. They work, you should wear them.
This is the typical advice/mandates from politicians, media, and some medical experts. The point of this view is that the masks and social distancing slows the spread of the virus. Some have stretched this view to mean it can stop the virus but that was never supposed to be the case.

2. They don’t work, you should wear them
Sure, no one is openly advocating this view, I hope, but, this is the basic point you get from people that say things like, “It’s just a mask”, “It’s not that hard to wear a mask”,”Just wear it.” Perhaps a better way to word the argument is that it doesn’t matter if it works, just wear it because some “authority” said so. This is just blind authoritarianism and is often resorted to by people when they are losing the position stated in point 1.

3. They don’t work, we shouldn’t have to wear them.
This is the most common anti-mask position. It is often a retaliation to the other 2 positions. There is plenty of evidence that the masks don’t seem to make any difference in stopping the spread. But remember that wasn’t the original point. It was to slow the spread. The virus, if you have it, stays closer to you instead of shooting out several feet when you talk, cough, or sneeze. However, if you don’t have it then it is still pointless. Remember it’s about you not spreading the virus to other people. The masks, admittedly – from the 1st points position – don’t prevent you from getting it.

4. They work, you shouldn’t wear them.
This view might seem strange the way it’s written but, it is the basic herd immunity view. The point is the masks do help, at least a little, in slowing the spread. Since the virus is already thoroughly spread all we are doing is prolonging the virus and preventing herd immunity. On the other hand, we currently already basically have herd immunity (high cases, low deaths/symptoms). It just took a lot longer than it needed to get there. Some deaths from the virus may be because, we tried to slow the virus instead of letting it come and go like Sweden. Another point is that the purpose of coughing and sneezing is for your body to get rid of toxins. It can’t be good to cough or sneeze in your mask and then just leave it smearing all over your face all day.

A side note on herd immunity
There is a lot of misinformation about herd immunity. It is quite difficult to find info that is accurate and thorough enough. Almost all the stuff I’ve seen, if it gets stuff right at all, conveniently leaves stuff out so that people will jump to the wrong conclusions about it.

Some key things left out:
*You can easily have herd immunity within a household or small area then it spreads to the entire country. It doesn’t have to be the entire country all at once like some media outlets will have you believe.
*When viruses spread they aren’t just spreading pure viruses. If it spreads from someone with antibodies/proteasomes there will be damaged viruses in the mix that people with weaker immune systems will be able to fight. Viruses can be damaged other ways outside other people like sanitizer then, be defeated by people with weaker immune systems.

Conclusion
Viruses will do what they do and herd immunity will do what it does. The question is: At what rate should they do their thing. Slowing the spread means slowing herd immunity. It’s possible that the wrong rate in either direction will lead to more deaths. It should also not be assumed that the same rate needs to be applied throughout the world. In an area like where I live, there have only been few deaths out of the whole multi-county area but one city like New York is the leader of the world in deaths. The people in my area tend to be very anti-mask and get away without wearing them rather easily. In New York it’s a rather opposite situation.

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