Musings

Passing thoughts, observations, reflections, and ideas still in progress — including the elusive ‘feelings’ part that efficiency-chasers (a.k.a. engineers) are allegedly bad at.

April 30, 2026 Musings > Books, TV & Other Media

Desiderata, for the Gaslighted Generation

Monkey A performs a task. Monkey A gets rewarded with cucumber. Monkey B performs the exact same task. Monkey B gets rewarded with grape instead. Monkey A sees Monkey B's grape reward. Monkey A gets upset. Rinse and repeat. With dogs, birds, chimpanzees and humans. The Grape is now Geopolitical The US is "allowed" to have nuclear weapons, supposedly because it "manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January 1967" But... "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon" What I've just highlighted is a blatant, right-in-your-face example of a contradiction of our most basic human desire and intuition: that the same rules should apply...

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