Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter

by Tom Baugh

  After learning something about electrical engineering or circuits, and then computers, some of you will be prepared to learn about a field of computing known as embedded systems. One day, there are going to be a lot of those fancy tractors and combines sitting around with weeds growing through them because the on-board computers are shot. The guy who knows how to duct tape an old PC to the chassis and then get that tractor running again is going to be worth the tractor's weight in wives.

  Clearly, you might have a lot to learn, depending on your starting point. But, this plan of study is designed to empower you with the tools and skills necessary to most effectively implement the ideas in this book, regardless of how roughly society may have handled you so far. This is a lot of work, but anything worthwhile requires work. Your personal empowerment is no exception. All you really have to do is commit yourself to setting time aside each day and study and work while others play and rest. You can do this, you just have to convince yourself that your quality of life is worth the investment. Or, if you would rather catch this week's super big game, then put this book down, click on the tube, or now panel, I suppose, and don't ever complain to anyone about your situation.

  If you want to experience the freedom of action and thought which this book represents, but the task before you seems almost overwhelming, then try this approach. Use this book as a checklist, and get the first Saxon course which seems appropriate for your level of education. Then, assign yourself a lesson each day, and two each on Saturday and Sunday, including exams interspersed as lessons per Saxon's guidance at the front of the book. Full time inmates may choose more lessons per day. For the unincarcerated, this will provide nine lessons per week, allowing you to finish the 120 lessons and 30 exams in approximately four months. In a semester's time, then, you will have completed a year's work in a course, spending less time per day on the subject than you would have in a classroom plus typical homework.

  Write these assignments down in advance each month on a calendar, and don't allow yourself to skip a single day. If you skip a day, make those assignments up the next day and don't allow your schedule to slip. By the time you finish that first course, you will have developed a habit of learning and work which will make the later Saxon courses fun, and the non-Saxon courses possible. You will also gain the self-confidence which comes from teaching yourself anything you wish to learn. You might also find that improving yourself becomes more important to you than the super big game.

  You may require many years to finish all the self-study I have prescribed in this book thus far. But at that point you will be at par with an engineering sophomore in many areas, and far ahead of that level in others. This information will also help you begin to see how to apply the Adam Smith economic model in our era despite the regulatory obstacles imposed on us all by the forces of nice. In a later chapter, I recommend how to build on this foundation to even better effect.

  As you improve your knowledge of the physical world around you, a pattern will begin to present itself. In some plains of knowledge, you will stumble across a chasm which can only exist by design. A conspicuous gap in knowledge arose before, and ignited a chain of events which shapes our modern world today.

  Until the 1930s, science was unique in its democratic character, open to all. However, as the world began to understand the path science was taking, prominent physicists began to disappear from publications in an effort to keep the Nazis and the Soviets from unlocking the power of the atom. But the effort to keep the secrets itself gave the secrets away. Stalin's own scientists knew that a bomb was possible when the Western scientists stopped talking about the possibility.

  Similarly, today we can identify key gaps which lie astride some of the most important issues of our day. One day we'll get together over a coffee and discuss some of these gaps in knowledge. But one gap in particular to consider is the behavior of the element Protactinium. Protactinium is really only good for one thing. What that one thing is I'll leave you to find for yourself. But, it has a peculiar property which makes it supremely annoying to study, and also supremely useful as a stone in the path for that one thing. Interestingly, the world's supply of protactinium is entirely manmade, using processes which the naive assume are proliferation-resistant.

  And, for all intents and purposes, the entire body of knowledge about this substance consists of only a few pages. Yet the key to its use is conspicuously missing in those pages, an omission obvious to those with enough knowledge to notice. I mentioned the idea of a "hole of silence" earlier when talking about my friend's innovation. Similarly, this property is sitting right smack in another one of those holes. One day I might write another fiction book about that one all by itself. Only that book will have plots and characters and stuff. Lots of interesting stuff. Stuff which does interesting things.

  Just as Al Gray sought to turn the power of our opponents against themselves, intelligent application of that one annoying property is the key to its use. And knowledge of this key strips away the treasury-crippling expense which is otherwise presumed to protect us all. That one thing, that one annoying property, and the relative behavior of its 232nd, 233rd and 234th isotopes, single neutrons apart, represent a chasm of knowledge. This chasm exists to maintain belief in a lie, which, if revealed, would permanently alter the relationship between science, the individual, and the collective. This little detail has lain hidden within God's texts for millennia, waiting to be decoded. Or should I say re-decoded?

  And that last paragraph, when read within the bowels of certain labs, or within the sealed chambers of certain shamans, made those readers' blood run cold with fear. Fear that others might understand what I just said. But of course, much of this book is just fiction. Isn't it?

  Chapter 12, Scholarship and Sadi Carnot

  In the previous chapter, I discussed some subjects which I think are important for you to learn to succeed as an entrepreneur. In the next chapter, we are going to discuss how to think. But first, I want to talk for a moment about the merit of thought itself.

  For any of you who have been formally educated, even a little, you will understand the academic concept of scholarship. The popular concept of scholarship is that it is money someone gives you to go to school. Do a web search for "scholarship", and you will be bombarded with endless references to this concept. However, if you look up the definition of the word scholarship, you will find something like:

  Scholarship - noun. Learning; knowledge acquired by study; the academic attainments of a scholar. I found that definition at dictionary.com. OK, let's try digging into that a little more. You can imagine, perhaps, that the word scholar should be worth defining now, since that kind of person attains scholarship. So, again according to dictionary.com:

  Scholar - noun. A learned or erudite person, esp. one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject. OK, that still isn't entirely satisfying. Let's try a different approach and try dictionary.com for the word scholarly:

  Scholarly - adjective. having the qualities of a scholar. This is no help at all! Try this just for fun, and you will go round and round in circles, and never actually learn anything. Other than that a bleek is someone who has bleeky qualities and whose work can be defined as bleeksmanship. What are bleeky qualities? Those which are representative of a bleek, of course. Somewhere out there, though, is the definition which I will just paraphrase below:

  Scholarship is the production of a work of knowledge which references original or repackaged work by others. Correctly done, the author of said work carefully cites all sources, to further repackage said knowledge. Accordingly said work contains the minimum amount of original content necessary to get it published.

  By this definition, the first page of this chapter is scholarly. I looked up some definitions, showed you where I found them, and didn't tell you a single bit of anything. The only original content was making fun of the whole process, and that funnin' wit you was the only thing which made that page worth publishing. This has deep, deep implications.
I will get back to these implications in a moment.

  But first, I want to explore a word I have been using throughout this book so far, starting in the first chapter. And that word is subconscious. Here are a couple of definitions, found at dictionary.com:

  subconscious - adjective. Existing or operating in the mind beneath or beyond consciousness.

  subconscious - noun. The totality of mental processes of which the individual is not aware; unreportable mental activities. It turns out that the word subconscious grates on practitioners in the field of messing with your head, or presuming to understand your motivations. These practitioners prefer to use the word unconscious. Here is what they mean when they use that word:

  unconscious - adjective. Not perceived at the level of awareness; occurring below the level of conscious thought.

  unconscious - adjective. Not consciously realized, planned, or done; without conscious volition or intent.

  Or better, (the) unconscious - noun. In psychoanalysis, the part of the mind containing psychic (mental, not woo woo) material that is only rarely accessible to awareness but that has a pronounced influence on behavior

  Again, all of these definitions were found at dictionary.com. I've suitably modified them to make them more readable, as you may have guessed from that last one. Psycho professionals disdain the use of the word subconscious, and use instead the word unconscious. But calling this part of your mind "unconscious" makes it sound as if it got hit by a truck and is just lying there on the road. My subconscious mind takes offense at that description. Or, perhaps the word "unconscious" makes it seem as if that part of your mind is sleeping it off after a night of binge drinking. Again, this image isn't soothing.

  Regardless of what connotation you assign to the word "unconscious", the common usage of this word doesn't imply an active role of purpose. "Subconscious", which implies a foundation for the "conscious", seems to just fit better. Yet even Freud, the lord of the psychos, didn't use the word "unconscious". Take a moment to read the Wikipedia article on this word for yourself (but remember, with Wikipedia first doubt everything you read there):

  Internet Research

  Wikipedia article for subconscious. The dripping, slobbering disrespect for the unwashed is evident in even that short summary, isn't it? The elites in the psycho profession use a different word for a concept than that which comes natural to most people. This is an example of how elites in a body of knowledge try to identify each other, and exclude those who don't understand the secret words or phrases which they share among them.

  If you were at a tea party with a room full of psycho professionals, they would immediately recognize you as a rube if you used the word "subconscious". Unless you were making fun of it at the time. Your failure to bow to the use of their word would identify you to them as an outsider just as clearly as if you had a flashing light on your head. Because to the elites in any field, membership is more important than the ideas of that field themselves. Your use of what they define as the correct word is more meaningful than the concept it represents.

  But words do have meaning, do they not? Of course they do. But why in the world would someone, or a group of someones, attempt to twist the meaning of a word? Way back, when psycho professionals were first getting organized, the word "unconscious" popped into someone's head for use in this context. Now, until then, Freud had been using the word preconscious, which is probably far more appropriate than either "subconscious" or "unconscious". The word "unconscious", with our common meaning of disability, had been used for almost two hundred years before Freud started his work.

  So why twist a word, "unconscious", which already had an established meaning, instead of using Freud's more meaningful "preconscious"? Or at least use the almost as meaningful, yet untainted word "subconscious"? Simply to confuse and identify those who lie outside the shadow of the ivory tower. If you want to identify a poser, a great way to do this is to come up with a term or a phrase which is easily misunderstood or misinterpreted. Unless someone has been immersed in a collective long enough, their status as an outsider will be evident.

  You can easily feel this happening, at least your subconscious mind can, when you hear a white guy saying the word "Gangster" in a particular context, instead of slurring it like "Gangsta". Or if you see a perky blonde say "Gangsta" on the TV as she is reporting some story. Maybe she even bobs her head around as she does it. It just sounds, and feels, odd. Cringingly odd, sometimes. Psycho professionals feel exactly the same thing when someone uses the word "subconscious" when the elites demand the word "unconscious".

  Some authors kiss up to them by using the word "unconscious". But just as Blondie seems needy and weak when she says "Gangsta", so do those authors seem needy and weak to the professionals. And the professionals get to sip in that neediness and disdain that author who is so desperately trying to fit in. So, just for fun I have deliberately used "subconscious". Deliberately to make the psycho professionals feel that cringing feeling. Or else to help them reach a state of pompous superiority, only to now kick that stool out from under their pompous asses.

  And yet all those pompous asses presume to know what motivates a Cho. Or a Klebold. Or just about any frightened kid in school just before they prescribe medication. Or a returning war veteran. You psychotics don't know crap. You didn't even know what I was doing to you until just now, and why I was doing it. And don't pretend that you did. So put down those pens or keyboards where you were just about to chuckle about this book to all your elitist buddies. And the next time you think you understand how to analyze a Cho, or a Klebold, or some school kid and his feelings, remember that an outsider just bitch-slapped you. And you didn't even see it coming.

  For all you psycho professionals out there, I knew your word and what you think about it. I just chose not to use it to lure you in. Of course you will never admit this, but you know it happened. That lingering little bit of doubt in your head is enough for now. We'll build on that foundation later.

  I chose to pick on the psycho professionals, but almost every aspect of our modern lives contains professions which maintain their hold by excluding you. Professions which don't grow another ear of corn, or weave the cloth which keeps a child warm, or heal a damaged organ. Professions which only consume, and lobby for their protection and suppression of individual thought and achievement. Professions which try to convert their dangerous ideas into public policy instead of simply allowing individuals to make their own decisions about their own lives.

  So if you run across some group of pompous jackasses in any field, just do what I have done. Find some detail which they use to exclude others, and misuse it on purpose. And then watch them pounce like a bunch of Trekkies. This is a great way of identifying monkeys just about anywhere as they flock to the collective.

  Throughout this book I also take liberties with where to put commas and periods with respect to quotations. Along with mangling grammar and traditional sentence structure. English teachers have been squirming for hundreds of pages now. Good. They will emerge from this characterbuilding experience better people for it.

  Now let's return to those deep implications of original content I mentioned earlier. Every now and then, when you buy a product of some kind, you will see on it "Assembled in the USA". Huh. OK. What it doesn't say is "Assembled in the USA of cheap, crappy Chinese parts."

  "Assembled in the USA" is intended to make you believe that somehow Americans were employed in the building of this thing, or that it is somehow better done than if the Chinese put it together. Of course, the quality of the thing is determined more by whether the steel in those parts is more steelish or more snappish. Or whether the rubber o-ring will not deform under normal use. Or whether the hoses won't crack and burst open after a year.

  It doesn't matter who puts all of those crappy parts together into the whole. Chinese hands can aim that air wrench just as well as American hands, except that the latter may be more inclined to put in all the bolts which are required. On the oth
er hand, perhaps the Chinese guy gets shot if he doesn't put them all in. Who's to say?

  Further, dig a little deeper into the assembly plant and you will find entire sub-assemblies, such as engines or transmissions, showing up in crates to be bolted onto the thing. All of those sub-assemblies are built overseas, but as long as you bolt them in place here, that's good enough. Quality prevails! Eventually, this will devolve into the entire thing showing up except for some sticker, which, when stuck on by American hands will give us a swell of national pride.

  Regardless, you can't build a high-quality item out of shoddy parts, which are in turn made from sub-par material, such as brittle steel or rubber which starts cracking apart when fall turns into winter. It just can't be done. But it sounds good to call it "Assembled in the USA." We even have laws and trading agreements which make this worthwhile to do, even though no one who sees this is fooled.

  Modern scholarship is like that. We often hear one work being described as "scholarly", and another work being denounced as "unscholarly" or "stream of consciousness writing". In these cases, what the critic means is that only by heavily referencing the work of others are you capable of writing anything of value. And that the value of what you write is in direct proportion to the amount of content you provide, or reference, which came from others. The implication, of course, is that your original thoughts are of little value. So stop relying on those nasty original thoughts, they say. What better way for the collective to stifle individualism than to deride your thoughts as inherently wrong and dangerous?