The Causal Links Between Emotions, Sharks, and Thunderstorms

[recording begins] As to your listed goals, I have prepared you to fulfill one of them.
--You wish to declaim any possible higher intellect, telepathy, or empathy from sea creatures to humans to further convince any suspicious MiBs of the impossibility of you being extraterrestrial. 

Uh, yes?

[neuralink burst containing suggested topics]Oh! Those two are good ones. Ready to record?

Recording.

So—[gill sound translatable to ‘ahem’] –I’d like to address the topic of shark attacks in the Carolinas. Contrary to any possible conspiracy theory of government experiment or rogue geneticist, this cluster of activity does NOT indicate that sharks are sensing the anger felt collectively in the region over certain political events that have coincided. That would be a clear confusion of causality.

With?

Sorry. A clear confusion between cause and effect.

You are claiming that the sharks being drawn to the area caused the political events or the emotions?

What?! [gill spasm: laughter] NO. Yeesh. That’s funny, though. No. The emotions helped cause the sharks to be drawn to the area, all right—

You said that relationship was backward.

No, I didn’t. In this case, there was an effect of the emotions that was also a cause of the sharks drawn to the area.

Explain.

Okay. As an example . . . Think of offshore fishing. Some people use, for example, chum.

They use friends for bait.

NOOOOO! They chop up raw fish and dump it as bait. It’s called chumming the waters.

This would always call sharks.

--Except the fisherman felt differently recently, didn’t they? They chopped the chum with different levels of vigor, completion, and precision. They used different amounts. Their chum drops were less consistent between fishermen, because the fishermen felt more strongly different from each other. So the sharks were drawn differently. Of course this is only one example--there might be--

So, a causal chain, rather than a single effect.

Yes! And the lightning, too.

The emotions caused the lightning storms?

No, that’s just a straight reversal. Extreme behavior in the more suggestible parts of humanity clusters around weather events. Like the fact that more murders happen at 92 degrees Fahrenheit. In this case, the weather imbalances finally brought the storms. Shelob? When you blog this, put it through that subroutine for clever titling—this idea is fairly important.

Processing. [recording ends]

Red Flag?

Herr D made a rough draft for me on request. He calls this heromachine.com creation "New Mississippi Flag." and suggests that moving forward always requires the appearance of destroying links to the past. He's right about the requirement. How much destruction is actual always depends upon levels of unity, clarity, sanity, grace, and general intellect. -Hairy Deewon

[selected beginning of recorded dialog] No, Shelob, I don't understand this business about flags. Countries still use those?

Yes.

I thought that was an article about the barbaric side of human history.


Is there another part of human history?

Hey. Not nice. We're supposed to be encouraging.


The use of flags is still common. Symbols seem necessary to motivate humans to do moral and ethical things. The inexplicable part is what those symbols stand for.

Like what?


Your interview with those three people outside the mosque in New York contained their notion that the symbols for Islam call to mind the murder of Muhammed. Your interview with the protesters outside the abortion clinic indicate that the symbol for Christianity is the structure that Jesus was tortured and killed upon.

Oh, the cross thing; I knew that. Right. Go on.


Yet the Nazi swastika has not been adopted as an inspiration to followers of the Jewish faith. The Confederate flag has not been adopted as a reminder of why civil war should be avoided or why slavery should be considered wrong or why state's rights shouldn't supersede federal authority.

Ummmmm . . . [helpless tentacular gesture]

For that matter, the ambiguity of the symbol for piracy and poison is bound to lead to misunderstanding.

What?! [gill fluttering, translatable to confusion] What kind of situation could that possibly be a problem-- 

[redacted interruption, during which Shelob explains the danger] -ated by the trend of human history.

--rrrmmmm, no . . . I don't think that's very likely. You do make a good point though about the arbitrary nature of symbols. I'm ready to declare that displaying a symbol with or without context might be necessary for the education of younglings and that it plays an important part of any history lesson. In America, it also becomes important for freedom of expression. All this business about whether a flag should be flown is obviously important to some.

But you don't wish to say it is right or wrong.

Well, no. I DO think that everyone should feel grateful that they can direct their emotions so accurately that something so arbitrary as a flag could be used to rescue people. But doesn't that mean people are gullible enough to shoot their best friend in the dark if some criminal pastes a glow-in-the-dark swastika on them? Worse, in the case of certain ocular or neural trauma, wouldn't certain patients suddenly have the tendency to think, say, that good and bad symbols are reversed?

You are referring to vulnerability to manipulation.

Well, yes. If a symbol can be used against people . . . Shelob, you'd better blog on this.

Underway. [transmission ends] 

Marriage Law By Hairy, With All The Vexing Silence

[Interruption point determined, recording begins]

-the metaphorical dust cleared? Is the same-sex marriage issue decided?

No. All evidence suggests much more argument to come.

Have we successfully predicted an end to arguments like this?

You have, in theory, been correct on multiple occasions.

In theory?

Your answer of 'Never' has shown to be a correct supposition so far.

[violent gill expulsion] Yeah, okay. [ambivalent tentacular gesticulation] So, what progress has been made?

Multiple state-level jurisdictions have ruled upon it and added more argument. Do you intend to pick a side?

Uh, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Shelob, but both male AND female humans are rather unattractive. The females are sometimes neat, especially when they have longer, more flexible arms--

Legs. You are supposed to say legs. Limbs will suffice.

Legs! Right. Thank you for keeping me in practice  . . . but I wouldn't be allowed to marry anyway, so--

[auto-rephrasal procedure activated as misunderstanding detected] Do you intend to blog upon this issue?

--oh . . .  [very long pause, during neuralink access to recent newsfeeds, blogs, etc.]  I'm not even sure why this is an issue at all.

You think the answer is obvious?

No, I mean, I don't know why it's an issue. If I had an acceptable mate, I wouldn't want the government involved at all. Why do 'straight' people want the government having any say over their marriages? Isn't there a slogan somewhere about 'Keep The Government Out Of My Mating?' I don't even understand why heterosexuals are called 'straight.' They're just as twisted as bisexuals, homosexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, and the others I can't think of right now. Worse, they're just as crooked! Furth-

That slogan is an approximation of a 'pro-choice' slogan.

[one pupil dilates] -what?! Oh . . . well, okay. But seriously? Why should the government have any say over who, how, whether, or even why people should marry? I mean, marriage is a religious issue for many people--that means that the government shouldn't be involved under separation of church and state. Records probably DO need to be collected and kept, but why should there be any other governmental involvement?

Age limits, voluntary nature, tax purposes, and licensing.

[full five-eye roll] Those are all covered by other laws! Redundancy isn't that valuable! Age limits are covered by statutory rape laws, voluntary nature is covered under rape, kidnapping, and enslavement laws, licensing can be handled by event licensing for the ceremonies--and, really, why should the government license marriage? As for tax purposes, what difference should it make? Children are already tax deductions, right? Homemakers can already be listed as dependents on the tax form for a 'head of household,' right?

[sixteen seconds pass] Your legal interpretations do seem correct. Your suggestion is to eliminate redundancy and make government smaller?

Law is one of those things where less is more, Shelob. Do you want to blog on this for me since medbot hasn't released me yet?

Yes. [recording ends]

You Have All Been Punked By Educators

[transmission to Shelob interrupted here as recording begins] -und like their entire society has been punked by the education system?

Yes, just as you said before.

--what?

You said that before.

No, I didn't. I just came to that conclusion. Wait. Are you talking about that 'punked' statement, or the idea that college isn't such a great idea?

Both. You said both of those things before.

[Goes still] When? Show me.

[0.77 seconds pass for retrieval and transmission overlay] June 23, 2014   . . .

Is it horrible that some kids don't go to college? Humanity isn't so advanced that all menial jobs are done by robots or trained animals. Isn't it a waste to send someone to college if they're going to do menial jobs for their life? A trade school or vocational school can teach them what they want to know. More importantly, if all kids go to college, won't that mean the menial occupations will suffer? They're important too.

The alumni of four different colleges that I asked about quality instruction all looked at me like I was insane. Herr D in particular told me that he knew very few people who worked for his college that could really teach at all. He said they present the material, test the students on whether they learned it and answer questions and provide help only if asked. Well--huh.

Presenting the material could be done on videotape once and remastered and updated when necessary just like textbooks. Tests can be done by proctors. Grading can be done by subject matter experts. Help can be provided by tutors. What did you need the professors FOR exactly? Herr D said he needed them to drive up his tuition. I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic. I am confused by the whole thing. It looks like institutes of higher learning are just institutes of higher cost learning. I mean, wouldn't it be better if everyone learned a career cluster surrounding their proven aptitudes with minimum classwork involved?

Becoming a well-rounded student can happen while a student is too young to work. There can't be a growing number of learning disabled students if the education methods aren't so artificially narrowed. --I mean that is correct, isn't it? The reason that we have learning disabled students that can LEARN BY DOING and not learn in a classroom is that the majority seems to have been punked. People actually seem to believe that classroom learning is the "best way." Learning doesn't have a best way! Individuals have preferred learning methods, sure, but those are individual.

I mean--is this not obvious? Tuition is too expensive. Student loans are too expensive. So . . . don't go? When you get there, you'll just have to learn the material on your own as best you can to pass a test written by somebody who works professionally impersonating an instructional film. Why not learn the material on your own while working full time in related industries? If a company wants a truly determined, truly worthwhile employee, and is smart enough to know what that is, why wouldn't they want someone who could learn without the broken-down crutch known as college?


Wow. Well, I thought of this exact topic and similar wording just about a year ago. Why would I have matched up with a year? Am I biologically preparing to strobe away again?

Subconsciously you may be remembering your conclusion that humans need repetition to learn and your presence on this particular M class planet with this particular revolution length. You specifically asked me to track those possibilities in February of this year, December, October, July, and June of last year.

Yikes. Blog on this then. It must be more important than the tangents I was likely to go off on.

Underway. [transmission checked, recorded, and ended]

 

99.7999 %

Hairy has developed a hypothermic invigoration, similar to a human fever in effect. Medbot has interrupted transmissions, temporarily, but this may not interfere with his current blogging schedule. He is expected to fully recover within ten days. His last cogent request was for autoblogging to occur only once upon the unpleasantness of health-required recuperation.

Lowering one's activity level forcibly during healing strongly resembles the mental 'pressure' that would be 'felt' by a fully-charged robot being asked to maintain a sentry position. With software continuing to run at regular speeds, the tendency is to plan for events that will not happen in specific ways that are less likely and therefore, not very efficient or productive.

In human brains, this is known as worry.

Soon, his addiction to news and interest in the human race will cause him to cease seeking out giant squid to stare at. At that time he will resume blogging. Probability 99.7999 %.

 

Mini-Lecture On How Politics Obscures Common Sense

Shelob? Medbot says I need to stay limited, so I need you to create a blog on the following general idea:

I think Herr D is of high intelligence, but why would he have insight beyond what is available on television?

There is no apparent reason. His DNA, his background do not suggest he has the genius you have identified. Your findings are correct, but no reason exists for it. Human literature not as helpful as your calculations.

I was afraid of that. My last communication with him? He told me about something he actually had to explain to someone. I couldn't believe it. Why is it obvious to him and not others?

Supply this subject for comparison?

If If you watch television, half the speakers will tell you that the President is responsible for the state of the economy, and the other half will tell you that Congress or a former president is responsible. --The thing is that neither side is correct. We live in a capitalism. The same people who lead businesses lead our country.  If they could make more money running a business than drawing a salary from the government, then they stay in business.

So, the ceiling of how well our government can run is roughly equal to the degree that the average business is run well.  How many businesses do you think are run well? --Yeah, we're in trouble. 
  

Yeah, they might be. The average person really isn't very smart. Do you see what I mean?

His explanation appears marginally correct, if oversimplified. Was he speaking to a child?

Uh, no. Someone he described as having better credentials than he but no understanding of economics.

Apparently his audience was wise enough to know this limitation and seek him out.

Errrrrrrmmm--no. This someone, as it turns out, surprised him into answering, thinking he would answer differently. Herr D still doesn't know how he was expected to answer the question, "What do you think of what Obama is doing to the economy?" 

I will blog this. 


ddddddd


S

 

Texas can SWAT, Hairy Can Swim, Kansas Can Screw Up?

[recording begins of uplink interrupting transmissions between Hairy and Shelob] -cause fifteen seconds is one of the fastest counterterrorist actions in all history. My new calculations suggest imminent success if all Texas S.W.A.T. teams were teleported to Iraq at precisely 4:17 pm, local Iraq time. All ISIL recruits would--

HEY! I don't actually WANT to kill them--that's obviously what they want, to be exterminated. I believe I did mention that ideally we should gas them, kidnap them, put them all in a chemical coma, and leave them in it till they die of natural causes.

But that is catering to their belief.

Well, it should scare them, shouldn't it? Make them less likely to commit jihad. If the punishment was to be unable to use jihad to enter heaven, that should work, right?

Uncertain. Too many factors. Obviously there are enough inconsistencies in the belief system of fundamentalists as to render direct outside interpretation unsuccessful.

And the only jailed one I found I couldn't read because he was too mentally questionable--[large outpouring of bubbles, translatable to disgust] What do I not understand about this mom in Kansas?

Uncertain. Please express.

So they take this boy out of his home because the mother broke some laws. But she might not even get charged?

Correct. This is inconsistent and biased behavior.

Well, it may be their job, but they obviously went in too fast. And incorrectly. If any of this is correctly reported, the mother had no intention of distribution. Sum that up for me again?

Child wrote paper about how medical marijuana 'saved' his mother. Obviously it made her a more capable parent. She was able to play with him, not to mention standing at will would make anyone more capable as a parent. A child fleeing punishment up stairs would be a problem for a parent with limited mobility and excessive pain.

Social service workers removed boy from home. She had not, as of the report, necessarily even been arrested. You are correct in that she 'obviously' had no intent to distribute. Details provided include separation from, education about, and prohibitive parenting concerning marijuana.

 Okay. I obviously don't get why it's against the law to improve your own health. I obviously have no understanding at all about why making yourself a better parent would make people mad or scared for the child. So . . . let me talk about what I DO understand.

In my case, I recently moved to a much greater depth uh, relocated. [three-tentacle flourish] I did so for health reasons explained to me by my, uh, medical advisor. [glances at medbot with one blue eye] In theory, where I was--[glances at idle roughing in sand of Potomac with the purple eye] --could have been interpreted as being where I shouldn't have been. This isn't really the same thing, but where I was has become more polluted, the flora and fauna are not as healthy, the water is not as clean, and Shelob tells me there are a LOT more cigarette butts--you get the picture. Where I am NOW I have improved by approximately the same margin. So here's my questions . . .

How many good citizens can any community afford to lose to poorly thought out legislation and 'bad neighbor' government actions of any stripe? Has anyone run numbers on what would happen to state economies if everybody just moved to where they'd feel more legal, and therefore safe and welcome? And, here's the big one--that kid that they took away from the happiest, healthiest, most pro-education home he'd had to put him in a system where he's used partly as a tax deduction by whoever would take him--if local government turns him against America by playing the law off every good thing he's known in life, aren't they encouraging the development of a terrorist? I thought government was against that?

Sorry that's so many questions. Shelob? Can you post this last bit as a blog?

Yes. [recording ends, disconnect]