Theory of
taxi1010.com

Taunts, Insults or Attacks

Codewords Inside Aggressive "Tricks"

"Wings" to Fly
Back to Yourself

Backup
"Ideas"

Six Choices

Essays | Art

Street Smarts

Presskit | Publicity

Feedback

Periscope

Site Map

Kids' Pages

Milestones

The Way Out

 

CLINIC

PATIENT

DIAGNOSTIC

Patient refers to it as stargate-seven-six

An Instigator.4

Put-Downs.1

 

TOOLSET

INFORMAL FALLACY

 

Man! Expensive!

—Even now.

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—Going up! So soon?

Moxie's

Disease

 

The Time-Line Fallacy — Any attempts to force natural or intellectual pursuits is essentially nonproductive. Everything — misery, depression, loneliness — vanishes when self-esteem is based on honesty instead of ambition. Savor everything.

 

NOTES TO MYSELF

PSYCHOLOGICAL AGE

CLASS

[bogus birds of a feather] - When people try to connect, harness or yoke you to things, ("You're a super person, a cross between Mahatma Ghandi, Mark Twain and Wilt Chamberlain!"), it clips your wings - Emotionally, it's similar to humiliation or impertinence - The only idea, philosophy, or person you can honestly be yoked to is yourself - Notice that in the upper class, "awkward" is a codeword for "expensive" - Thus if you say something is "Very awkward," you're saying three things: (1.) That it's "very expensive," (2.) that you were born into money or into a prestigious family, and (3.) that it's "very awkward" - The shortcut to everything is to feel frightened.

The Age of Significance, ages 20-23

Murder

 

 
 
 
 
 

Exactly what someone said [or did]
... usually not very original.

The thoughts of a "bad child"
... to free your mind again.

TRICKS

WINGS

IDEAS

"As much as I can love Richard Hart, I love Richard Hart! but wait.. I need some of that love.. where did the floor go?"

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—"Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world." (–Mississippi) ... It would be a big advantage.

"Do you like kids?" :: WildCard-4

Man! Expensive!

—Good day to have a swimming pool.

"I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals!" (–Mitt Romney)

Man! Expensive!

—That's Christianity to a T.

"Do you have cables?"

Man! Expensive!

Lightning bolts! – I charge a lot and don't even use cables ... Friendship does not revolve around favors ... "Good" means "Don't aggravate me!"

"I'll whop your ass!"

Man! Expensive!

—Broken arms cost a lot.

"Well, doesn't it take two to tango?" [The burden of taking on outlandish debt offered by predatory lenders -- Do nothing for four to seven years and the Debt Collection Statute of Limitations will kick in, and the debt will become uncollectible, all without having to go into bankruptcy – Meanwhile, (1.) don't tell anyone why you've had your telephone disconnected, (2.) don't restart the clock (by (a.) making a payment, or even by (b.) making an oral promise to pay), and (3.) learn to live within your means]

Man! Expensive!

—To keep the society going.

"Totally unrealistic."

Man! Expensive!

—Not for everyone – Just for the multitude.

"I am a Christian."

—Going up! So soon?

—The secretaries of God ... I know as much about God as you or anyone else.

["Hey, it's Labor Day!"] "And?"

—Going up! So soon?

—It's ludicrous.

"This is very important."

Man! Expensive!

—I know you're not allowed to march over bridges ... harmonic waves and all that.

"That is really vital – Very important." [Putting two seconds back on the clock at the end of a 49 to 7 football game]

—Even now.

—It is perplexing.

"Are you in a bad mood today?"

Man! Expensive!

—You don't have to say what you think.

"No, I'm just not in the mood for you this morning."

Man! Expensive!

—It's nice to go slow if you want to.

"You could come and pick me up at five o'clock."

Man! Expensive!

—What if you don't have a suitcase?

"Let's put an end to verbal abuse once and for all!" [Promotion for a self-help book on verbal self-defense]

—Even now.

A born controller! ... (A lot of people make their living keeping their mouth shut) ... Totally spontaneous! ... (That's what you get paid for, not saying what you really think) ... That's easy to be angry at! ... (They just lead everyone on in miasmas of lies) ... It's good if you get it out of your system ... (Oop! I'm going to cut off my thumb – I got a headache) ... What you could really use is a nice brown dog who never hurt anyone ... (Fortune favors the bad) ... Dealing with the public is dangerous – The population is getting larger and larger, and the rats are getting more and more ... I'm itching to get my hands on that guy! ... (You just have to see an idea in your mind as a slingshot or bow. The whole trick is to try to do bad. Try to play wrong. (You can't, but it just comes out different) It's simple if you can do things wrong) ... You can't stick to the plans – What if the plans are wrong? ... (Maybe for you)

"Hi, Blinky!"

Man! Expensive!

—Does the alligator have a massage parlor?

"Why don't you write them a letter and ask them?"

Man! Expensive!

—I'll look into it ... Okay, I'll check it out.

"You should be writing this down."

—Going up! So soon?

—I'm going to get a girl to do it – someone of refinement.

"What goes up must come down."

—Going up! So soon?

—Oh, getting something at a lower price.

"You know, excuses are easy. What we need is a firm commitment, ... get a small revenue stream going. We've got a solid customer base?"

—Going up! So soon?

—A new guy has arrived on the block, and he's really tough, even though one arm is longer than the other ... What makes you say that? ... It's my first teddy bear ... The rich god is the stupid god ... It's my box of chocolates ... You may have the last one ... You know, give people a chance ... And that'll do it ... It's really a question of duration ... Well, I could read all night ... Maybe a few hours ... My body doesn't want to do anything ... Well, I'm not a member of the country club set ... Too steep! ... Nothing could be more serious than that ... The best things in life are free ... Total failure ... You're better off being yourself.

"Especially for you I gave up smoking."

Man! Expensive!

—Surely you're joking!

"Especially for you I left my mother."

Man! Expensive!

—Tell me another!

"There's a fine line between stupid and clever."

—Going up! So soon?

—It's of no use to me.

"People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!" (–Major Freddy J. Welborn)

—Going up! So soon?

—Looks like everyone's got my disease ... What are they doing across the street? ... I worked with people like that!

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."

—Going up! So soon?

—Throw it in the kitchen sink, and if it's green and sparkling, it's the truth, right? ... Sounds good to me ... A little sharp thatched tack.

"Are you enjoying that?" [Pulling a heavy load up the stairs]

—Going up! So soon?

—I'm not taking your mother seriously.

"If I ever go back to San Francisco, I'm staying long enough to find his cab and take a ride with him."

Man! Expensive!

—Just when you get a new boss!

"Why don't you move back there then?"

Man! Expensive!

—I wish.

"Everybody has children and everybody wants their children to do well."

Man! Expensive!

—"Jesus loved kids so much he didn't have any." (–David Daniels)

"Are you ever willing to consider facts that do not support your position?"

—Even now.

—All doors are open.

["What a money drain this is!"] "Yeah, and what isn't?"

—Going up! So soon?

—Isn't that another definition of Philadelphia?

"Shut up and listen."

—Going up! So soon?

—Sometimes people lose their sense of humor, but you shouldn't.

"Now you've really gone and done it."

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—Well, good – We can take a break, too.

"So, are your daughters coming home for Easter?"

Man! Expensive!

—Can you?

"Well, I for one wouldn't trade my little Tessa and big Billie for any career."

Man! Expensive!

—You're turning Republican.

"Tell him not to serve fried chicken next year – or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve."

Man! Expensive!

—Why shouldn't I?

"Too bad you haven't done much with your life ... no wife, no kids ...."

Man! Expensive!

—So that's it? It's not going to go along like this for twenty years?

"Why don't you have kids?"

Man! Expensive!

—Better than having to go fishing.

"Well, that's just the price you have to pay."

Man! Expensive!

—I'm just starting out in life – I can't be saddled with a child.

"We need to know if a twenty-three-year-old man is bringing in a thirteen-year-old girl for an abortion."

Man! Expensive!

—DON'T SAY THAT! DON'T SAY THAT WORD!

"I believe abortion is always wrong unless you are talking about saving the life of the mother. [Then with a hand gesture ...] His wife is pregnant right now. His baby is kicking. He can feel it. That is a human being."

—Even now.

—Now it's even harder for people.

"Well, I don't think it's important, but my boss does."

—Going up! So soon?

—They don't know what else they're supposed to do.

["Can I help you?" (Cornelia Dean, science editor of The New York Times, answering the phone)] "No, no, no, I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to someone important."

—Going up! So soon?

—It's all indirect.

"How's your debt coming along?"

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—It's already happened ... Do you want it to happen again?

"And how far along would you say is that process?"

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—Let things develop.

"And how far along would you say is that project?"

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—Franchise opportunity ... It might have global repercussions ... What do you call work that has to be redone? (Schlock.) ... You're not big on details, are you? ... It's very expensive to correct ... It's not as easy as you think, and not as hard either ... That's nice, you get used to losing your wits ... Fudge! Fudge is the word! ... That's all we care about ... Do you know anything at all about the internal combustion engine? ... I don't want to say too much ... It's in development ... There's no such thing as doing it right the first time ... I'm hip! ... Would I do it if it wasn't nice? ... Do nothing and repent later! ... If something better presents itself, I'll try that ... No imagination ... When you work, work hard ... When you play, don't work at all.

"How much did that cost, eight or nine dollars?"

Man! Expensive!

—In the meantime, make sure you get what you deserve.

"I am selling the domain name embarrassment.net and was informed you might have an interest in it."

Man! Expensive!

—I don't know what to write that would make him feel better, so why don't you give him a hug?

"If you need a good Christian therapist ..."

Man! Expensive!

—Nothing can cure the soul but the senses.

"Thank you for not breeding."

—Going up! So soon?

—Be proud you're in a panic – It puts you in the top one percent of humanity.

"Allergic to bullshit."

—Even now.

—Whatever you do, don't sit in my chair – You might like it.

"Get out of the gene pool!"

—Going up! So soon?

—You get over being in a panic by being in one.

"You don't mind being seen drinking with us blokes, then?"

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—It's civilized – It's like logic.

"How would you like to be in Waikiki now?"

Man! Expensive!

—The best things in life are free.

"Perhaps I shouldn't ... but I expect better of you."

—Going up! So soon?

—Every stick has two ends ... Do I ever ... leave you out?

"I'm allergic to negative people."

Man! Expensive!

—My secret weapon.

"I don't know what that means."

—Going up! So soon?

—It's not bad to work hard at something, to be proud of it, and to make a lot of money.

"He always says yes when he means no and no when he means yes."

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—It's in development.

"Break a leg!"

Man! Expensive!

—Let's say it's a hidden showpiece.

"Are you going to have kids?"

Man! Expensive!

—From midgets to giants.

"You seem to be out of your element."

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—You just don't know what it's like to teach at a fancy prep school.

"You don't belong in here."

—Not in with the in-crowd.

—Too steep.

"She's popular, and how is she supposed to like a person like you?"

Man! Expensive!

[See Icarus and the Gutter Snipe]

"Don't disappoint your mother and me."

—Going up! So soon?

—I know how hard it is for you.

"Please don't let us down."

—Going up! So soon?

—Because it's your genes.

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

REFLECTIONS

 
 
 
 
 

10-OCT-1999.

THE WALL

 

Approaching Truth in Human Communication

 

Power to the Precocious! Welcome all! Especially, welcome to those who just linked in from GeekRights.org! You are prescreened. I know in advance you have a strange, beautiful kind of intelligence, compassion for humanity, a sense of humor, and unhealed wounds. I know you have those qualities because I have those qualities, and that's how I found you, and that's how you found me.

If there is any prejudice in the world, it's against people who have a strange kind of intelligence. "Don't go to school," they clamor, "Go fishing!"

So I have this thought experiment for people with ordinary, I mean, stranger than ordinary intelligence. Imagine a huge wall, and when anyone anywhere in the world says something, that sentence gets placed on the wall, kept strictly in alphabetic order. Almost immediately you will see that very few people say anything original, so when they say something that's already on the wall, we'll just bump its counter. Here's a piece of the wall (With the counters, which are meaningless):

How many tickets? [52,223,773] • How much did you make today? [665,230] • How much did you pay for that? [980,446,829,998] • How much money do you make driving a taxi? [10,452] • How much do you owe him? [506,239] • How rude! [1,349,271] • How rude of you! [7,436] • How was your honeymoon? [879] • How was your week? [87,302,003,488] • How weak is that? [128] • How would you know? You haven't had any yet. [16] • How'd you get into that? [98,480,348] • How's business? [4,563,449,968,445] • How's Havi? [36] • How's she feel about that? [998,398,338] • How's that pretty wife of yours? [998,340] • How's your husband? [199,395,334,437] • How's your typing? [235,488] • How's your wife? [76,800,308] • Huh? What'd you say? [4,589,005,668,554]

I have this dream — It's in the not-too-distant future. You're in the first grade, and one day when you come home from school, you go over to your teaching robot — what to call it? Electra! — and mimicking the bully you had met on the playground, you cry out, "Shut up!" and Electra, that wondrous robot, says, "—YOU could. —What's your offer?"

You laugh, absorb her fresh knowledge, apply it to the wound in your psyche, and start doing your homework.

Electra is a higher-order teaching robot who has access to the wall, and whenever you speak, she looks up that sentence on the wall, then says something back.

"How's your husband?" you say. "—Suddenly sensitive," says Electra.

"How's your wife?" you say. "—Very elusive," says Electra.

"Where's my homework?" you cry out, looking around. "—Underneath everything," says Electra.

Well, I've already started working on that wall, and as you can see, it has a very curious property: Almost every sentence has a particular code word (marked in red), with a link to exactly one "stargate" (from a total of eighty-eight), for further analysis. That's how Electra does it — Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first Terminator, she pulls down the menu from one stargate to find an appropriate response, which she happily — oh, so happily! — repeats.

Electra has some nifty shortcuts. For instance, if you say anything at all in a foreign language, she simply says, "—No doubt," or "—Very enriching." And if she "knows" in advance that you are a computer scientist doing research in "artificial intelligence," and she hears you say something like, "I pushed the red ball across the white room with a string," she just says, "—Very clever." She's smart, but she doesn't push it.

You see, what we have on the wall is not artificial intelligence. It's real intelligence. It's what people really say. And the responses she finds in the eighty-eight stargates aren't artificial intelligence, either. They are real intelligence. And finally, how she gets there, using just one code word from the sentence — Well, that's not artificial intelligence at all — That's exactly how street-smart people do it. You say, "What's up?" to a street-smart person, and they say, "—Just anything!" followed up by, "—Nothing deep." It's pretty basic.

The trouble is, most people don't listen to other people. Almost all communication is designed to stop before anyone can really listen.

It's tragic, really. A few months ago a boy in a Catholic School over in Hayward shot himself to death because someone had been teasing him. That was on the news. However, try as you may, you will not learn the exact words that triggered such a violent response. People will not tell, for two reasons: First, they don't believe in helping people in general, and second, they actually believe, at some level, that the harmful words were true!

That's how insults work: They simply trigger or trick people into insulting themselves. For instance, if you actually believe you're a geek, on some level, and someone says, "Hey, geek!" a part of you calls yourself a geek, and you either turn around and look defiantly cool, or you hurry ahead, feeling frightened.

(1)
It's not what someone says to you —
People really insult themselves;
the words you hear are just triggers
for inner beliefs.

Let's hear what Electra has to say: "Hey, geek!" you say to her. "—Who knows?" she cryptically says, "—I don't care what you say."

It's actually good to feel frightened, because then you can grow through it. If you deny those honest feelings, they become crystallized into some sort of inner machinery, which mystics call "sleep." People are born, they create machinery to call themselves or other people names, and then they die. They rarely see "understanding themselves" as an important pursuit — They even attach stigmas (further name-calling) to it.

(2)
Most people don't even know
they're insulting themselves.

I used to work at IBM, and later at Atari, as a systems programmer, and now I drive a taxicab in San Francisco. Here's what I've seen: Any attempts to force natural or intellectual pursuits is essentially nonproductive. I'll say it three times on this page. Many business people, however, just want to get something over with, without ever stopping to be human. So arises GeekRights.org. It's problematic, this division between people, and it leads to people taking seminars in conflict resolution — giving the geek the upper hand!

A person with a certain kind of intelligence can hold two conflicting ideas in his or her mind at the same time. You have to see this as a gift. Thus, we have the intricacies of a particular project, with the need to bring as much of the intellect as possible to bear on the many levels of understanding usually required, and stepping back, as one final level, the presence of a dimwitted businessman who sees no value at all until the whole thing can be "shrink-wrapped" and shipped. He's like the highwayman crying out, "Stand and deliver!"

The entire purpose of Electra and the wall is to provide ammunition for geeks to fight back in the cleverest of ways — almost unnoticeably. It's done by "dumbing down." Notice how one-sided this is: A person with a certain kind of intelligence can "dumb down." Can a person without much intelligence "smarten up?"

The wall and the stargates in this website are triggered by artificial code words, which may or may not satisfy a semiotician, which is too bad! In the real world we don't have time for bullshit analysis. We have to have a means for acting quickly, almost without thinking, and that takes great practice. Here's the problem: If you smile at a hoodlum on the street, or at a businessman at a power breakfast, and they see a smirk behind the smile, you're in fucking trouble! However, if when you smile, they see only your dimwitted instincts behind the smile, why then, you're just like them! This is the ultimate training for acting like a Jedi knight on an outworlder's planet, and that's no joke. It can literally save your life, here and in the present.

(3)
As you approach truth
in human communication,
you have to realize how quickly
things can go wrong.

I am walking Achilles and Paris this evening up in Strawberry Canyon, when someone in a group of four from across the street cries out, "Can we pet your dog?"

If I wasn't doing this research in social linguistics, I would have kept my mouth shut and kept on walking, however ... it is dusk, about seven o'clock, and an existential part of me realizes the guy is just saying that, probably to impress a girl, and not noticing anything particularly salient in the individual words of his taunt, I turn and call back, "—Not today."

It's an experiment. (Which Goes Wrong!) It's the wrong thing to say to a guy who is trying to impress a girl. By accident, I had humiliated him, and things are about to get much worse.

Just as I reach the shelter of some trees, the guy calls out, "HOW MUCH? ... I SAID, 'HOW MUCH?'" His tone of voice frightens me and I keep on walking. Life is strange, isn't it? Two words can trigger so much trouble.

When I get home, after shopping for a delicious steak for myself, and cheese for the dogs, which isn't as strange as it sounds, because they really like cheese, and I really like steaks, I turn to Electra.

"Can we pet your dog?" I say. "—Missed out," says Electra, "—We don't mind."

"HOW MUCH? ... I SAID, 'HOW MUCH?'" I yell to my (warm) (electric) (friend.)

"—You're strong," says Electra, "—Let's not argue about it."


05-OCT-1999.

THE TIME-LINE FALLACY

Any attempt to force natural or intellectual pursuits is essentially nonproductive. A person has three minds, analogous to three modes of the optic nerve: day vision, night vision, and the dream visions of REM sleep. Sophisticated businessmen know this and generally diffuse unrealistic pressure by saying, "I'll sleep on it." Outside consultants, when pressed, will simply say, "I'll be glad to give you a Time and Materials Study, in two weeks time at my regular rates."

Man! Expensive!

—Not in with the in-crowd.

If I didn't write essays from a sense of enjoyment, my reader couldn't enjoy them either. When someone asks, "When are you going to be finished?" they're really asking, "When are you going to stop enjoying yourself?"

Many computer programming systems are written from a sense of enjoyment, and that's why those systems are extremely successful. For instance, A.T.&T.'s UNIX, and the Apple Macintosh Operating System were both written from enjoyment, so much so, the development teams had to be kept secret from the Time-Line guys.

If you ask any old-timer, anyone who's been around the workplace at least twenty years, you'll generally find their most successful projects were the ones they truly enjoyed.

"So what happens to the Time-Line guys?" I ask them.

"Oh, they move on to other projects," they say with a grin. "Good managers never bother you, and the Time-Line guys come and go."


29-SEP-2014.

 

Thick
of
It

ShortCuts

Top
of
Page

 

As follows

CODE WORDS: 4th, abortion, allergic, along, and, base, belong, Blinky, blokes, breeding, cables, Christian, Christians, Constitution, daughters, debt, [debt], disappoint, down, element, enjoying, especially, fathers, founding, fried, gene, Hart, illegals, important, informed, kids, leg, means, nine, perhaps, pool, position, price, process, [promotion], solid, tango, then, therapist, trade, unrealistic, vital, Waikiki, weakness, whop, width

 

LXXVI
Serpens (Cauda and Caput)
"Serpent, Tail, Head"

—Going up! So soon?