Earlier, a friend and I were discussing John Milton. He said something like "I remember seeing that he put forward some spurious theological claims." I responded: "Well, he was a Puritan, so probably something like advocating for polygamy."

And what do you know? There's a section in his The Christian Doctrine in which he defends polygamy.

My prejudice against Anglo Puritans remains undefeated

I have deferred until last the discussion of jazz, which seems the clearest of all signs of our age’s deep-seated predilection for barbarism. The mere fact of its rapid conquest of the world indicates some vast extent of inward ravage, so that there were no real barriers against the disintegration it represents.

Jazz was born in the dives of New Orleans, where the word appears first to have signified an elementary animal function. It was initially a music of primitivism; and we have the word of one of its defenders that “jazz has no need of intelligence; it needs only feeling.” But jazz did not remain primitive; something in the Negro’s spontaneous manifestation of feeling linked up with Western man’s declining faith in the value of culture. The same writer admits that “if one examines the fields of activity which have been reserved for art, one perceives that the creative work of our ancestors was under the impulse of a harmonious equilibrium between reason and sentiment.” Jazz, by formally repudiating restraint by intellect, and by expressing contempt and hostility toward our traditional society and mores, has destroyed this equilibrium. That destruction is a triumph of grotesque, even hysterical, emotion over propriety and reasonableness. Jazz often sounds as if in a rage to divest itself of anything that suggests structure or confinement.

It is understandable, therefore, that jazz should have a great appeal to civilization’s fifth column, to the barbarians within the gates. These people found it a useful instrument for the further obliteration of distinctions and the discrediting of all that bears the mark of restraint. Accordingly, it was taken up in a professional way and was sophisticated by artists of technical virtuosity so that it became undeniably a medium of resourcefulness and power. That is all the more reason for recognizing its essential tendency.

The driving impulse behind jazz is best grasped through its syncopation. What this can achieve technically we need not go into here; what it indicates spiritually is a restlessness, a desire to get on, to realize without going through the aesthetic ritual. Forward to the climax, it seems to say; let us dispense with the labor of earning effects. Do we not read in this another form of contempt for labor? Is it not again the modern fatuity of insisting upon the reward without the effort? Form and ritual are outmoded piety, and work is a sacrifice. The primitive and the bored sophisticate are alike impatient for titillation.

As dissent breeds further dissidence, so the emancipation which is jazz gives rise to yet greater vagaries. In “swing” one hears a species of music in which the performer is at fullest liberty to express himself as an egotist. Playing now becomes personal; the musician seizes a theme and improvises as he goes; he develops perhaps a personal idiom, for which he is admired. Instead of that strictness of form which had made the musician like the celebrant of a ceremony, we now have individualization; we hear a variable into which the musician pours his feeling and whimsy more freely than the Romantic poets laid bare their bleeding hearts.

Jazz has been compared to “an indecent story syncopated and counterpointed.” There can be no question that, like journalism in literature, it has helped to destroy the concept of obscenity.

- Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences

Mr A. L. Morton, who knows more about the Ranters than anyone else, suggests that migratory craftsmen, freed by the temporary breakdown of the settlement system during the Revolution, men who were 'unattached and prepared to break with tradition', may have furnished much support for the Ranters. We should bear in mind the whole mobile itinerant population, evicted cottagers, whether peasants or craftsmen, slowly gravitating to the big cities and there finding themselves outsiders, sometimes forming themselves into religious groups which rapidly became more and more radical. It is very difficult to define what 'the Ranters' believed, as opposed to individuals who are called Ranters. The same is true to a lesser extent of Levellers or early Quakers; but the Levellers did issue programmatic statements, and the pamphlets of Fox and Nayler can be accepted as authoritative for the Quakers. There is no recognized leader or theoretician of the Ranters, and it is extremely doubtful whether there ever was a Ranter organization.

- Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution

Everywhere I turn is further evidence that living in cities leads to terrible things.

Some startup company in Silicon Valley offered me a job. Should I take it chat? [He scratches his chin ponderously, intellectually, even]

New rules for Poor Chat

The USA Today's treacherous tongues, pernicious pens, and foul fingers are 'fficially forever forbidden from featuring God's grand grounds, His heavenly haven. This decree denounces discussion of the divine domain in their dastardly diurnal. Let this law live long.

From Poor Chat and book club member:

I’m eating lunch in this shitty underground food court that has a fake sky. But portions of the sky keep flickering or going out. Real simulacra vibes

There's something to say about this sort of thing. For now, most of this pressure exerts itself in cities and in other areas of excessively high demand. Eventually, though, the ability to continue to make the graph go up in those areas will fall and they'll start to look elsewhere into less densely populated areas to try to turn a profit. It's difficult to predict when this will happen or to what extent it will be successful, but there's wisdom in being prepared for it.

From Poor Chat:

Has urban America descended that far into hell?

Yes.

Anybody know this case? My prejudice is that it's probably a correct conviction, but does any reason exist that it might not be? Or are the usual actors just blowing hot steam?

The study of algebraic concepts typically familiarizes individuals with the inverse relationship between multiplication and division, and the principle that the elimination of all multiplicative factors results in unity. When endeavoring to solve for an unknown variable x in an equation, if it is being multiplied by a coefficient, such as "4x," we employ division to isolate the variable, yielding "x" or "1x," though convention dictates omitting the coefficient of unity.

It is noteworthy that despite this association between the removal of multiplication via division and the concept of unity, a significant proportion of students find it counterintuitive to conceptualize that mathematical expressions such as 5^0 and 0! equate to one rather than zero.

This phenomenon raises questions about the cognitive processes underlying mathematical understanding. What factors might contribute to this apparent disconnect between the intuitive grasp of multiplication's inverse relationship with division and the difficulty in extending this principle to more abstract mathematical concepts? Why does this logical extension, which should be inferentially accessible given prior knowledge of multiplicative relationships, prove challenging for a majority of learners to internalize?

If we don't personally go to leftist indoctrination centers and spend years of our lives there, there will soon be no right wingers left in the jobs that require having gone to a leftist indoctrination center and spent years of your life there.

Maybe... Maybe this is a good thing?

The whole thing is predicated on this feeling of wanting to be an important person, wanting to make an impact, wanting to save the world.

I'm sorry to be a bummer, but most people should really be setting some more realistic goals than saving the world from the Eldritch monster currently destroying reality.

That's really not the sort of problem most people should be worrying about.

I once had a guy reach out to me who wanted me to work with him and help him try to prove the conjecture behind the Riemann Hypothesis. I evaluated his mathematical ability and told him that it wasn't something I'd recommend he work on, that he should try easier problems that had already been solved so he could check his work and answers, and maybe eventually build up to it if he found success. He got stuck on trying to prove that there are infinitely many prime numbers, a much easier proof, and ended up realizing that it wasn't for him and giving up.

That's the sort of realization that would be beneficial for many right-wingers... I'm sorry, but you're probably not going to be instrumental in saving the world or anything like that. Just be a good person to those around you and leave the part of the world that's within your power a better place.

PRO TIP! You can buy fish amoxicillin without a noscript for your infections. It bypasses the medical complex for minor infections and is cheaper than a doctor visit if you have no health insurance. These usally come in 250mg to 500mg capsules to take orally. Most adults require 500mg to 750mg doses for a week to get rid of infections. Look to your local farm supply store.

Google seems to think I've already moved there