Maybe they have book fairs near me, that would be kinda fun. We had a newspaper where you could find out about all the local events, and now it's mainly ads for local restaurants, dentists, etc. People mainly read e-books nowadays, don't they? And if they are really busy they have an AI voice read the book to them while they are driving.
I don't quite get how the Substack stats work. Like what are "direct" views, are they from search engines? And how about subscribers vs followers?
They are not part of my life. I don't care what they do. They can listen to the music in the office of the dentist while waiting for the dentist to drill their teeth. I thing of that whirring machine --- to clean their teeth? It (the book fair) would be something to do if life is getting boring? Are we all bored? Is that what you are saying???? Many things have changed since the 1990s. Now we know that all that technology is unnecessary, and also it creates distance, I mean between people. Distance between "persons" we ought to say. Everyone is using the wrong word. We probably share the same thinking about Substack. So, as for this Substack platform it does not care about me and never will share the same perspective I do. They have ONE view of the platform they ask me and you to use. I am not convinced it is the same as my view. I just want to post some things on this community. But there is this difference, which is corollary to the differences that always exist in business and commerce. Whatever THEY think it is, this is a publishing platform and their words have no more claim to others' eyes than any of their customers'. What they think or believe is not what I think. They way they are doing it is different from what I would do, were I in charge of it. In the end, what do I and Subst. have in common? Nothing? Are we "business competitors"? These platforms NEVER work the issues out; they just "go for it" and try to make a popular website. For you and me, there is only cynicism about Substack. If me and them have something in common, fine. When my circle stops overlapping that of Substack... boom! ~ we are gone instantly and, no they did never learn, to see it our way.
I thought maybe seeing random books at a book fair might be a way of getting new ideas or perspectives on life I don't come across on the internet. We have antique stores, not devoted to books specifically but a mixture. I've seen stuff from as recent as the 1990s. Rather than 19th Century books I saw a stack of DVDs with a Friends show DVD on the top, haha.
I agree that technology creates distance. The opposite of what could've happened. It's that contradiction of "alone together", of always connected while you remain apart. Last time I was on a school campus I saw a group of about 30 students waiting outside a classroom. They were all sitting or standing next to each other but almost every single one of them was peering into their phones, separately. There was just one or two talking to each other, the rest were engrossed in whatever they were looking at until the teacher showed up and let them inside. I wonder how today's teens meet. They follow each other on Instagram but I dunno if they see each other in real life or how courtship works.
yeah... that is exactly what happened. I went again the next day. I got a new perspective. A whole different sort of thing. The booksellers would even strike up a conversation. It was so new and different! One guy came to my place. He bought my books from me. I received new information and saw new things connecting books and writing and collecting and how ideas get represented, so I would say that there are a lot of alternative ways for ideas to get out there, if you know what to read. Very different from either being in the library or other ways of seeing the printed word in all its manifestations. I saw no computer or DVD stuff at all. Just books. Antiquarian and less antiquarian. It is definitely good, my little butterfly, to get the computer to turn off if there is a way. Mine were both down for about five days and I felt more sane. I do not think I can control myself, though. I only stopped because IT stopped! My artificial "IT" stupid intelligence. Yeah, I saw a lot of previously unknown books (many with large price tags).
If I’m not mistaken the term brainwashing came out of the Korean War. Some US troops were captured by the Chinese army and put in solitary confinement where they were subjected to water torture in which a slow but steady drip of water was allowed to fall on their heads while they were forced into positions where they couldn’t stand, sit, lie down or even kneel. Confinement was humid and dark with food given at irregular times and in unpredictable condition.
The term was originally proposed by US hardliners as a way to explain how so many Chinese troops blindly obeyed every order given them but GIs captured at the time gave it an entirely new spin. They began confessing to spraying poison gas on civilians, denouncing the US and declaring themselves loyal Communists.
Brainwashing is the literal translation of the declared process - xi nao (“wash brain”) by the Chinese government. In addition to what is mentioned above those captured were not allowed to sleep and had to continuously repeat their supposed crimes as confessions until they actually believed them.
For years after the 1953 cease fire (the Korean War is, still today, not settled by treaty) a number of former GIs remained in China, reiterating that this was their new home.
After reading like TWO word: yes yes yes; that is it. The Korean War. And this material is in my book that I bought. I have read a bit now, and it has the story of where the term came from and this story is that when the Chinese had a person who was resisting then they would say (to I believe a fellow Chiness individual) "YOU need to get a good brain washing!!" So it appears that the Chinese word was too good to resist. And a "fortuitous" translation of Chinese took place, creating a word. In English I mean. The result is a new word in English, "brainwash." YOU NEED BRAIN WASHING! By serendipity I also recently obtained for my brain a copy of Ha Jin's book "War Trash," which deals with that conflict. Maybe those Americans were brainwashed, maybe there really are salient differences between communism and capitalism. And those few GIs just liked the latter system more. Hard to say, but this term "brainwash" has come in my life to stand for what a very intense propaganda system does to you. You get "brainwashed." At the same time, it is not used much any more. But it was a staple when I was a little kid, usually referring to what the others do, not what US/America would do to persons. But I have always been a sort of hippied-up rebel and I would be open to the notion that some of my "fellow Americans" are brainwashed but by THEIR side. Cleary sounds so convincing but I think it is just possible that he too is brainwashed. We all are -- but the idea in the form of that English/Chinese word is so imposing. brainwash, or XI NAO!!!!# OMG!
That incomprehensible stuff is all marked, "ECONO Posts" to differentiate it. Literally NOBODY understands it. Clearly makes comments; he actually understands only a tiny part. Even I cannot understand it when I read it back! It all does make sense. It is really a scholarly of academic sort of writing and that is difficult stuff to make comprehensible. But that is another subject entirely. You, Beaton, should actually understand this a little. The things you saw are also difficult to write up. Are they not?
Painful recollections are not the same, but perhaps no less boring. You have a good, warm writing style. I enjoy reading your stories. Not the other thing.
If your audience does not follow your argument, then it is up to you to move on or lose them. I think if you keep telling stories you might sell something.
Whatever sense, then. I would rather be read than paid, but I’m collecting Social Security and have Medicare. A lot of writers are dependent on selling. I’m not one of them.
go on 'Notes.' There is one there. Here is how, since Cleary needs this: You go on one of my pages, either what I call the "Name Page" or the more polished looking "Newsletter" page. Now find where to click on Notes and you will get only MY notes. There are at least two places I can find it. I don't know about when it is other persons looking, as my newsletter's customers.
Maybe they have book fairs near me, that would be kinda fun. We had a newspaper where you could find out about all the local events, and now it's mainly ads for local restaurants, dentists, etc. People mainly read e-books nowadays, don't they? And if they are really busy they have an AI voice read the book to them while they are driving.
I don't quite get how the Substack stats work. Like what are "direct" views, are they from search engines? And how about subscribers vs followers?
They are not part of my life. I don't care what they do. They can listen to the music in the office of the dentist while waiting for the dentist to drill their teeth. I thing of that whirring machine --- to clean their teeth? It (the book fair) would be something to do if life is getting boring? Are we all bored? Is that what you are saying???? Many things have changed since the 1990s. Now we know that all that technology is unnecessary, and also it creates distance, I mean between people. Distance between "persons" we ought to say. Everyone is using the wrong word. We probably share the same thinking about Substack. So, as for this Substack platform it does not care about me and never will share the same perspective I do. They have ONE view of the platform they ask me and you to use. I am not convinced it is the same as my view. I just want to post some things on this community. But there is this difference, which is corollary to the differences that always exist in business and commerce. Whatever THEY think it is, this is a publishing platform and their words have no more claim to others' eyes than any of their customers'. What they think or believe is not what I think. They way they are doing it is different from what I would do, were I in charge of it. In the end, what do I and Subst. have in common? Nothing? Are we "business competitors"? These platforms NEVER work the issues out; they just "go for it" and try to make a popular website. For you and me, there is only cynicism about Substack. If me and them have something in common, fine. When my circle stops overlapping that of Substack... boom! ~ we are gone instantly and, no they did never learn, to see it our way.
edited on 03/04/ --- March of 2024
I thought maybe seeing random books at a book fair might be a way of getting new ideas or perspectives on life I don't come across on the internet. We have antique stores, not devoted to books specifically but a mixture. I've seen stuff from as recent as the 1990s. Rather than 19th Century books I saw a stack of DVDs with a Friends show DVD on the top, haha.
I agree that technology creates distance. The opposite of what could've happened. It's that contradiction of "alone together", of always connected while you remain apart. Last time I was on a school campus I saw a group of about 30 students waiting outside a classroom. They were all sitting or standing next to each other but almost every single one of them was peering into their phones, separately. There was just one or two talking to each other, the rest were engrossed in whatever they were looking at until the teacher showed up and let them inside. I wonder how today's teens meet. They follow each other on Instagram but I dunno if they see each other in real life or how courtship works.
yeah... that is exactly what happened. I went again the next day. I got a new perspective. A whole different sort of thing. The booksellers would even strike up a conversation. It was so new and different! One guy came to my place. He bought my books from me. I received new information and saw new things connecting books and writing and collecting and how ideas get represented, so I would say that there are a lot of alternative ways for ideas to get out there, if you know what to read. Very different from either being in the library or other ways of seeing the printed word in all its manifestations. I saw no computer or DVD stuff at all. Just books. Antiquarian and less antiquarian. It is definitely good, my little butterfly, to get the computer to turn off if there is a way. Mine were both down for about five days and I felt more sane. I do not think I can control myself, though. I only stopped because IT stopped! My artificial "IT" stupid intelligence. Yeah, I saw a lot of previously unknown books (many with large price tags).
If I’m not mistaken the term brainwashing came out of the Korean War. Some US troops were captured by the Chinese army and put in solitary confinement where they were subjected to water torture in which a slow but steady drip of water was allowed to fall on their heads while they were forced into positions where they couldn’t stand, sit, lie down or even kneel. Confinement was humid and dark with food given at irregular times and in unpredictable condition.
The term was originally proposed by US hardliners as a way to explain how so many Chinese troops blindly obeyed every order given them but GIs captured at the time gave it an entirely new spin. They began confessing to spraying poison gas on civilians, denouncing the US and declaring themselves loyal Communists.
Brainwashing is the literal translation of the declared process - xi nao (“wash brain”) by the Chinese government. In addition to what is mentioned above those captured were not allowed to sleep and had to continuously repeat their supposed crimes as confessions until they actually believed them.
For years after the 1953 cease fire (the Korean War is, still today, not settled by treaty) a number of former GIs remained in China, reiterating that this was their new home.
After reading like TWO word: yes yes yes; that is it. The Korean War. And this material is in my book that I bought. I have read a bit now, and it has the story of where the term came from and this story is that when the Chinese had a person who was resisting then they would say (to I believe a fellow Chiness individual) "YOU need to get a good brain washing!!" So it appears that the Chinese word was too good to resist. And a "fortuitous" translation of Chinese took place, creating a word. In English I mean. The result is a new word in English, "brainwash." YOU NEED BRAIN WASHING! By serendipity I also recently obtained for my brain a copy of Ha Jin's book "War Trash," which deals with that conflict. Maybe those Americans were brainwashed, maybe there really are salient differences between communism and capitalism. And those few GIs just liked the latter system more. Hard to say, but this term "brainwash" has come in my life to stand for what a very intense propaganda system does to you. You get "brainwashed." At the same time, it is not used much any more. But it was a staple when I was a little kid, usually referring to what the others do, not what US/America would do to persons. But I have always been a sort of hippied-up rebel and I would be open to the notion that some of my "fellow Americans" are brainwashed but by THEIR side. Cleary sounds so convincing but I think it is just possible that he too is brainwashed. We all are -- but the idea in the form of that English/Chinese word is so imposing. brainwash, or XI NAO!!!!# OMG!
I like your day-to-day stories. The economic stuff not so much. More looks and likes from me when you tell stories. Less when you pontificate.
That incomprehensible stuff is all marked, "ECONO Posts" to differentiate it. Literally NOBODY understands it. Clearly makes comments; he actually understands only a tiny part. Even I cannot understand it when I read it back! It all does make sense. It is really a scholarly of academic sort of writing and that is difficult stuff to make comprehensible. But that is another subject entirely. You, Beaton, should actually understand this a little. The things you saw are also difficult to write up. Are they not?
Painful recollections are not the same, but perhaps no less boring. You have a good, warm writing style. I enjoy reading your stories. Not the other thing.
If your audience does not follow your argument, then it is up to you to move on or lose them. I think if you keep telling stories you might sell something.
Never been interested in "selling something" in that sense.
Whatever sense, then. I would rather be read than paid, but I’m collecting Social Security and have Medicare. A lot of writers are dependent on selling. I’m not one of them.
Sorry. Been behind in my reading overall as I’ve been sick the last few days.
go on 'Notes.' There is one there. Here is how, since Cleary needs this: You go on one of my pages, either what I call the "Name Page" or the more polished looking "Newsletter" page. Now find where to click on Notes and you will get only MY notes. There are at least two places I can find it. I don't know about when it is other persons looking, as my newsletter's customers.