Thursday Miscellany

[maxomai]

• The NSA collects just about everything a user does on the Internet. They also, by the way, claim to not listen in on our phone calls. Maybe no human listens to 99.99% of phone calls; but as I've pointed out before, phoneme analysis isn't that hard, drive space is cheap, and MapReduce is well-understood.


• A Wall Street banker was finally found liable for his part in the 2008 financial crisis. Unfortunately, this is a civil case, so jail time isn't a possibility.


• SOS John Kerry promises to end drone strikes in Pakistan 'soon.' I'll believe it when I see it.


• Time Magazine points out that gay marriage in Minnesota probably wouldn't have happened if not for the Republican legislature substantially miscalculating how a proposed ban on gay marriage would play out.


• This woman may as well speak for me, at least with regards to deciding not to have kids.

Comments

[maxomai.livejournal.com]

I'm flattered that you think I'd be a good dad and that my genes are worth passing on, both of which I consider conditions for deliberate breeding. I'm frankly convinced of neither point, given my family history of depression and disease, and so I've been ambivalent at best about having kids. SC, for her part, is dead set against having kids. As such, if I was going to have kids, I'd have to either divorce SC or cheat.

This is just as well. I've known since I was a child that my contribution to society wouldn't be children, but intellectual and cultural contributions. This is why, when people ask me whether SC and I have kids, I point them here.

As for good people having kids: my cousins have had kids, and my brother is likely to have kids, all of whom are good people. I get to pitch in and be Uncle Maxomai.

[meadowlark.livejournal.com]

But having kids especially because I didn’t want to? It didn’t seem like bringing another person onto the earth as a contrary action to my character flaws of selfishness and fear seemed wise. Or fair to the kid.

YES, THIS.