On State Power and Voting

I oppose the use of violence to achieve ends.

The state uses violence to achieve its ends. That is, the police, military etc. all enforce government mandates positively, while generally private industry uses force defensively – hiring security guards etc.  The reason for this disparity is that it is not economical to use violence to achieve ends unless you have can force individuals to fund the use of that violence against their will.  That is, unless you have taxation and a monopoly on the use of force, force is not economical.  Because corporations compete, and the use of force is not economical, corporations generally avoid the use of force.  Now, corporations can use kickbacks and favors to get the state to use violence to achieve the corporation’s ends, (think of using the local law enforcement as strikebreakers, or the east india trading company’s government funded goons) but we’re getting off topic here.

Because the state wants to continue to exist, and people will not oppose/eliminate something that they control, the state has granted a certain amount of apparent control to individuals, in the form of democratic elections.  I do not want the state to exist.  I do not want to wield state power.  I think that using the mechanism of a state is an immoral way to get one’s needs met.  If I were to vote to make the state smaller, that would be using what I believe to be immoral means to force others to live under a smaller state, which they might not want to do.  I think that people who want to live under a powerful coercive monopoly should be allowed to do so, in the same way I think that  those who do NOT want to live under the same system should  also be permitted to live in their way.

So I don’t vote.  Voting is just using violence by proxy.  I would be a hypocrite for saying that I do not believe in the legitimacy of the coercive monopoly of the state while simultaneously attempting to use the coercive monopoly of the state to shape the world to a model that I think is best.

There’s a Confucian quotation that is particularly relevant, I think:

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.

I can’t say that he meant it in this context, but the way I take it is this:

The way to affect the world is to work on yourself.  The modern equivalent quotation is probably “think globally; act locally.”  Investigate things so that you are capable of sincerely speaking the truth.  The truth is the simplest form of virtue.

I have not seen any convincing argument that there are moral uses of state power.  The main thrust of the arguments I’ve seen is: “The state exists, we have to deal with it, so we might as well make the best of it and try to make it help us instead of harm us.”  But I don’t know that it’s possible.  Any use of the state takes money – resources – energy – time from people who want to use it in other ways.  It signifies a theft from the helpless to the powerful brokers of state power.

I abrogate my use of the power of the state.  It is power from an immoral source and I cannot bring myself to use it.  I cannot bring myself to force others to live in my world, even though they are forcing me to live in theirs.

Ideologies

Laws, rules, and other processes for governing behavior and thought, in order to be consistent (required for them to be logical) must go from general to specific.

That is:
First, lay out [general] conditions and definitions:
eg.

Murder is defined as the premeditated killing of a human being
premeditated is defined as …
killing is defined as …
human is defined as …

Then move to consequences / moral statements

eg.

Murder is morally wrong because to believe that murder is right introduces inherent contradictions as outlined by Stephan Molyneaux in his work … (visit freedomainradio.com for a rational secular morality)
The consequences for murder should be sanctions upon the murderer as outlined in such and such penal code

Enforcing this generalized system means that individual cases are first evaluated on whether the cause is correct, and then on what action must be taken.
For example:

Imagine a rule that says:
“All organizations that enforce racial or religious discrimination are barred from receiving federal money from the United States of America.”
Many people would nominally agree with this rule, but it’s irrelevant for this discussion whether one does.
Accept for the moment that such a rule exists, and subsequent definitions for organization, discrimination, recieving, and federal money.
If such a rule existed, we might apply a line of reasoning like the following:

The KKK is an organization.  [Check the definition of organization - any useful definition would probably cover the KKK]
The KKK enforces racial and/or religious discrimination.  [I guess we'd have to check the definition of enforce, as well as historical actions taken by the KKK]
Therefore the KKK must be barred from receiving federal money from the USA.

not an unreasonable result… Lets try another one:

Nations are organizations of people.  [we'd have to check the definition of organization above to be sure, but this is not unreasonable]
Israel is a nation. [It claims it is... and there are a lot of nations in the middle east whose leaders and people wish it wasn't]
Israel enforces religious discrimination.  [It's proud of the fact that any Jew can become a citizen, but other religions are not equally protected]
Israel is _therefore_ an organization that enforces religious discrimination.
Israel, therefore, is barred from receiving federal money from the United States of America.

This line of reasoning could of course be used to block federal money from being sent to any huge number of intolerant states.

Okay.  What’s the problem?  Why am I bothering to address this issue?
Many people put the cart before the horse in many situations like this.  Rather than first laying out rules and systems (an ideology) for who or what is worthy of support (engineering practices, nations, laws, etc.), people instead put their support behind whatever is personally convenient, and then try to form an ideology behind that.

This would lead to self contradictory ideologies, if people were okay with that.  Unfortunately, people justifiably have an aversion to self contradiction and instead start inserting implied ‘except for’ clauses into their rulesets.  The ultimate ‘except for’ clause is god, of course, but many have ‘except for’ clauses that basically say ‘except for when that would cause me personal inconvenience or would imply that I’m a hypocrite.’
These convoluted, changing, and often self-contradictory ideologies get names slapped on them like conservatism, liberalism, marxism, libertarianism, socialism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

A side effect is that these ad-hoc ideologies become so convoluted that experts can and do argue about the relative merits of all these ideologies without arriving at any conclusions… Which makes great TV.

The complete obfuscation allows anyone to apply pretty much whatever label they feel like to themselves without even realizing they’re advocating a hypocritical position.

Are there ideologies that are consistent out there?

Probably.  There are a few that I’ve seen that seem internally and externally consistent.  Their primary feature is a lack of support for any sort of institutionalized coercive mechanism.

Net Neutrality – A Dialog (Part 3)

Nato: if you do some analysis on the market

and you say that the lost traffic and revenue

amount to about 3 billion dollars a year

(say)

then you can afford to spend (say) 2 billion dollars on setting up a new net-neutral network

and still make a billion in profit

annually

your first year

or you could spend 5 billion

and make no money your first year

and make a billion your second year

either way

if there is a market like that

where net-neutral traffic is better than non-neutral traffic

there is a lot of money to be made

and the US is full of investors

and network techs

and visionaries.

Jason: see you gotta look from the other half of the market… let’s say you know you’ll lose 3 billion in traffic if your tier works way X… and you know someone can set up a network for that… then you set up your tier to work way Y which only loses 1 billion which is not sustainable.

then you get to keep the money from your tiering… prevent others from coming to market… and all your users get a sucker internet

but you’ve saved the bottom line… good going machiavelli

that’s what I mean… average amount of shit… corporations aren’t stupid they just have to make sure not to push it too far… but they’ll still push as far as they can… which you say is good

I think it’s bad

Nato: if your tiering only costs you a billion

then you’re pretty good at meeting the demands of the market

but wouldn’t a more efficient solution be to create a tiering that costs you zero?

Jason: nope because you make money for teiring

any little bit you can do makes you money

so there’s a balance…

Nato: okay… but it’s on the margin

right

there is a balance

Jason: how much tiering can you do

Nato: if there’s only a hundred million to be made a year

then that means that you’re really not obstructing traffic much

and that means that any solutions

will necessarily be smaller

patches

the market will solve the problem

but larger problems

attract larger solutions

smaller problems will attract smaller solutions

if there’s a million bucks to be made there

then someone is going to want that money

Jason: the market will create a minimal solution… I want something closer to maximal solution

Nato: it is damn hard to create a company that meets customer needs

think about how much work we’re talking about doing on dendrite

to make it so it’ll actually meet the needs of the customers

then imagine throwing away some big chunk of that

to our competitors

by dropping functionality

we’re capitalists

we’re trying to make a solution that captures the maximum market share

with the minimum of expense

it’s a trade.

we’ll have less functionality initially

sure

but if we don’t pick up the ball

somone else will

the same way that we’re picking up the ball that others have dropped

Jason: your analogy isn’t complex enough… there are two markets

the selling internet… and selling access to other’s sites

you need to find what will get you the most amount of money

that’s what your maximizing.

to make money on the “site access” side you have to create a tier

you have to have a way to get money from them

Nato: that’s one solution

Jason: doing that will make your other market a little more sad

but not enough to offset the net gain

Nato: is there another solution?

if we can find another solution

that doesn’t upset our current customers

then we get to have our cake and eat it too

Jason: there is no other market solution… the market goes to the average right look at a supply and demand curve… the average is where you go

Nato: I’m not talking about a market solution

Jason: there’s no other optimal solution… for making money

Nato: I’m talking about a technological solution

some way for traffic to get from point A to point B

without intervening point C

having to absorb any of the costs

of transport

Jason: dude even if there was it works out the same… setting up the transport will cost something… and that’s where it starts

then you want more… because your optimizing money not happienes

so you tier

and then we’re back where we started

Nato: the problem is

that right now we’re in a prisoners dillema

as long as everyone just absorbs those costs

then we’re all happy

but as soon as someone decides that they don’t want to absorb the costs

then they get the benefit

to the detriment to everyone else

so our current system is inherently unstable.

Jason: nah.. it’s easily balanced using market forces

the market just sucks

Nato: is it?

Jason: yeah… they found a new market

and they’re gonna capitalize on it

Nato: what do you mean?

what new market?

Jason: that market has negative pressure on their other market

the one for providing access to sites

Nato: I’m totally confused

Jason: that market is new

because before the internet was neutral

you couldn’t control the packets (because you couldn’t read them)

technology has advanced so that you can

Nato: ah

Jason: so there’s a new market… that has negative pressure on an old market, but the new market is more profitable so…

Nato: well

Jason: there will be a shifting… making a shittier market for us

Nato: it may be profitable in the short term

yeah

Jason: my point is in that way the market sucks

Nato: well

a market exists

it sucks that the only apparent resolution is a solution that costs us all

but it will mean that those people who cause internet congestion

will be the ones who bear the costs

Jason: but that’s common… that markets cost us all… look at the automobile market… it’s not in their interest to put out EVs so they won’t

costing everyone

Nato: spammers who send out billions of emails

will suddenly find themselves hammered with bills

or their spam won’t get delivered

Jason: no way… spammers use other people’s internet

people will just get better at policing their networks

Nato: those people will certainly have an incentive to lock it down then wont they

yeah

Jason: which will lessen slightly but deffinitely not stop spam

Nato: well

there’s a tipping point

I’d wager

where once it gets to be too hard to hack the network

and the spam filters get too good

then the costs associated with spamming

get higher than the financial reqards.

for more and more spammers.

Of course it’ll be on the margin

and there will always be unwanted emails

but this will actually cause spam quantities to drop.

(non neutral networks, I mean)

not to mention viruses

and other crap traffic

Jason: yeah… who really cares about all that other legitimate traffic ;) j/k

Nato: Is the hardware that reads packets any more expensive than the other hardware?

I imagine it costs something more

maybe 10%?

Jason: nah… it’s the software only and that’s a one time expense

Nato: aha!

I figured it out

okay:

the actual costs of operating the networks are not getting any higher

so if they start charging for throughput…

tiered services…

they’ll find that they have to drop their hosting and service prices

your regular dsl service will get cheaper

and your hosting fees will get cheaper

because the costs that were previously being borne by those services

are instead actually going to be borne by the agents causing them.

and competition will take care of the rest.

Jason: ahh… then it turns into a healthcare problem

right now I’m willing to pay extra so that we can get a large swath of content

but if we go to individual paying that large swath will disappear… just like healthcare, because people won’t pay for other people

I see it now

huh.. I wasn’t on this side during the healtcare debate

it’s different… gives me another perspective

Nato: it suddenly actually makes network providing a much more sophisticated complicated system

adds another variable into the pricing mix.

lets them drop prices on certain services to attract new customers

Jason: I still don’t want it to happen… but I see why you advocate it… I’m forcing everybody to pay for the crapton of content

instead only rich (as in full of money) content will be available… just like with healthcare only the rich can get it

or the average I guess you’d say

cause that’s where the market goes… to the average…

Nato: I’d disagree, but that’s for another chat, I think.

Net Neutrality – A Dialog (Part 2)

Nato: if that happens

they are destroying the reason that people visit the internet

they are killing their customers

Jason: just making it less useful

not killing them

and they won’t complain loud enough

Nato: the reason people visit the internet is because its infinitely useful

that’s why companies get internet connections for their employees

Jason: bull! They’ll visit it if it’s only a little useful, and you know it.

Nato: that’s why people buy DSL

it’s all on the margin

Jason: yeah… about all those websites with information

they’ll have to go

or finda way to make you pay for info

because they can’t just leave out to broadcast

what I am saying is you’ll get the internet version of microsoft’s product

Nato: if there are costs, it is immoral to force someone to bear those costs.

it might be the case that the internet will suck more.

but I think a lot of people will want it to not suck

and therefore there are huge incentives to figure out how to make it keep working.

Jason: there’s no alternative so people will just take it

if you buy a car you have to buy gas for it to be useful

that’s a cost that you shouldn’t have to pay to use your system

so by your logic it’s immorral for car companies to sell cars

Nato: what?

Nonsense.

Jason: find me the difference

Nato: if you buy a car…

car companies are selling a transportation solution

if you want to use it

it is known beforehand that you have to buy gas

Jason: you know there is a cost to using it… fuel… the companies know there is a cost to providing internet

Nato: it would be immoral to force car companies to buy gas for all their cosutmoers

Jason: that you have to provide it

ok… if that’s what you feel that’s up to you… the internet is a useful resource… and allowing tiered internet… will make it minimally useful

Nato: the companies own equipment… that equipment costs money to maintain.

Jason: that’s what corporations are good at… making the minimal usefulness

and if you’re cool with that… good

they get payed in subscribers

Nato: take a breath dude

I am

I think we’re both getting worked up.

Jason: dude… you are telling me you want to make the internet less useful… how is that better than now

Nato: It’s more moral

it’s like slavery.

slavery is really usefull

Jason: that’s bull… they know what they are getting into to run the network

Nato: it is immoral to force someone to provide for free a service that costs them money.

the fact that they did so for so long

is irrelevant

I’d love it if they kept doing it

but it’s immoral to force them to.

hopefully what will happen

is that small networks will spring up all over the place

that are free

and open source

wireless mesh networks

things like that

that provide an alternative to the corporo-fascists telcos

Jason: you can’t pass the traffic that way… you’ll only be able to get to local areas

it’s like what would probably have happened if america didn’t build roadways

Nato: the nice thing about IP is that it scales up

lots of mesh networks make big networks

Jason: we’d only have local traffic

Nato: well

if our local mesh network were disconnected from any other networks

that would be true

but if someone sets up a link to another network

then we’d be connected to them

that’s how networks work

Jason: yeah… along that person’s link

what incentive do they have to do that?

getting paid??

it’s either that… or just to be nice

Nato: you want to have as many links as possible

dude

it’s a mesh network

lots of people like you would set ‘em up

and me

and joel

Nato: and everyone who is for net neutrality legislation

Jason: yeah but if your system is the only one along a certain node… all traffic passes through you

making it so you can’t get out anywhere

like a one lane road that you set up out of the kindness of your heart

Nato: if you’re the only node at that point

and there’s congestion

then there’s a lot of incentive to set up another link

it’s a fricking network

don’t pretend you don’t know how networks work

Jason: incentive?

what incentive

you keep saying that word

Nato: everyone on that network wants more access

right?

that link is clogged

so if someone opens up another link

then their neghbors will make them pies

and throw a party

or whatever the hell it is

that people do to express their gratitude at being granted something they want

the main thing is

Jason: you’re forgetting we’re born into entitlement here… you and I might express gratitude (maybe) but I don’t think it would be widespread

Nato: that’s fine

then the person charges access

to everyone who didn’t send them a thank you note

whatever

the point is

that it’s immoral to force someone to provide something for free

and that emergent systems are more capable than top down solutions

almost always

Jason: it was emergent… until corporations wanted their piece of it.

early on the links were set up by universities who wanted access

Nato: well hell!

current universities would still provide access for free, right?

Jason: what’s to stop that from happening again… and every time everyone loses access

it will seriously take many years for access to work through again because it has to use a different channel

Nato: here’s what happens:

the emergent network is more popular than the corporate network

and the corporation goes out of business

or changes their business model

Jason: like microsoft… but that’s taking for fucking ever

Nato: but few future companies will make the same mistakes microsoft did

all we can do is speed things up

make the emergent netoworks more powerful NOW

rather than later

so that when

inevitably

the corporo-fascists

get their way

we’ve already got an alternative

and they’re irrelevant

but legislating it

is a temporary solution

at best

and an immoral one.

if anything

it will accelerate the confluence of corporate and governmental power

because suddenly

the government has decided it can legislate in a domain

that it has ’till now left relatively untouched

Jason: ok… I see your point… It’s not ok to force them to pay… they should be given the choice… if we give them the choice I’m pretty sure I know where it will go, because I know how the bottom line will be effected… and it means letting go of a really good resource that we’ll have to build up again from scratch

but seriously

we know they won’t do the right thing because it’s not the right thing in the market

I guess it’s possible google’s dark fiber is for use with this alternative network

seeing a corporate stranglehold they may have anticipated them

Nato: one can hope so

and one can hope they’ll keep being not evil.

Jason: well interestingly google’s bottom line is pro neutrality… so as long as they keep being corporate they don’t even have to worry about the not being evil part

ha… if google has sufficient fiber it could enter the telco market… if the other telco’s decide on teiring it up google’s positioned to wipe them out

Nato: yes

Jason: how funny… you gotta wonder if the telcos see it coming? I mean they’re still heading headlong into it

Nato: that is ideally what would happen

people who try to provide shitty services

get penalized

Jason: the market is just way too hard to get into… only a google or someone that big could do it

Nato: the thing is

that if there are large market incentives

then there are large investors

and smart people

who will find a way

Jason: only if setting up the alternative is cheaper than the shit

so you get a certain amount of shit with markets

before switch happens

but you could have no shit… but the market doesn’t work that way… it gives you an average amount of shit

Net Neutrality – A Dialog (part 1)

Nato: So I’ve decided that I’m opposed to legislating net neutrality.

I think that telcos that start instituting non-net neutral policies should be subjected to the backlash that the market will provide.

Jason: I am beginning to feel that the market doesn’t provide sufficient backlash… people are too willing to take it, and the market is a difficult one to get into.

Nato: being a network provider, you mean?

you have to consider: the clients who are not the ones who are going to purchase non net-neutral services, that is, the ones who are going to provide the backlash, are corporate clients.

Jason: they have to provide sufficient disincentive to make it not worth it

I don’t think they’ll do it

it’s a prisoner problem

and we know how people respond to that

Nato: if there is a telco that provides net neutral services

at a reasonable rate

and another that does not

then there is no way that microsoft (for example) would purchase from the second provider

or google

or pbwiki

Jason: nah nah… you’re missing the point… if they break net neutrality, data passing through the network is subject to the problem

not just end stuff

so only the big players are important

google will have to provide a kickback to att just to pass through thier network

and those that do… they’ll get better throughput

see how it’s a prisoner problem… the companies will break

Nato: you’re missing my point

if att clients get crappy access to any particular website

then they’ll move to sprint

or comcast

Jason: you’re missing my point: it doesn’t matter what company you use.

you pass through sprint or att…

because they are the backbone of the itnernet

look at a map of how the tier 1 works

it’s all corporate run

by top corporations

Nato: do you think that large companies would pay for better access?

like

would google pay ATT?

Jason: fuck yeah… because microsoft sure is

Nato: if I were them, I’d look at it as a shakedown

Jason: and if people can’t get to google they’ll do microsoft

Nato: ah

Jason: it is a shakedown

Nato: I see what you mean by it being the prisoner dilmma

Jason: yup

everybody agreeing to not pay will work

Nato: what about anonymization services?

Jason: they still have to have a destination…

otherwise how will it get there?

Maybe you could hide the destination in the packet and make a router that was more aware

but again distribution is the problem

Nato: hang on

given the way that networks work

if ATT reduces throughput

through their networks

of MS traffic

(for example)

then the traffic will instead go around.

The internet sees censorship as an outage and routes around it

if all the providers colluded

then it would be a problem

but then they’re all trapped in the prisoner dillema

’cause if one of them starts to let a little more traffic through

then they get the revenue from being the provider

Jason: it’s not all the providers… I’m telling you I’ve seen the map it’s only like 3 that can get you from one side of the us to the other

and imagine getting to japan

or russia

Nato: its like opec

again

providers make money by providing access

if google doesn’t pay ATT’s rates

and their traffic gets slowed down through ATT’s networks

but sprints through the other networks

then they other networks are making more money

assuming they charge by the GB

Jason: then you get balkanization of the internet.. whomever pays who will determine where you can get to from any particular provider

imagine getting sprint service and not getting google but you get microsoft

and then you switch to att and you can get to google but now you can’t get to any of the little sites you want to

Nato: I’m saying that that’s bad for sprint

and ATT

they don’t get as much money.

Jason: only if they don’t hold the reins… only if there’s another option… and I don’t think there is

Nato: from a corporate perspective, it would be a terrible move.

they charge by the GB

right?

if they’re denying traffic

then they’re turning away customers

Jason: no… the person who google buys service from get’s payed per gb

all the users (us) pay a flat rate

and anybody just passing through pays them nothing

Nato: wait

so ATT right now

is providing the transport service

for free?

Jason: yup

because that’s how the internet works

Nato: and you want to tell them they legally can’t charge for that service?

Jason: well if they do the internet becomes just a large corporation playgrount

Nato: no it doesn’t

Jason: and it’s pretty much useless as a free avenue

Nato: it’s in their interest to keep the rates as low as possible

Jason: yes it does… you can’t pay what you need to to put data out

Nato: if they’re providing a free service

Jason: no it isn’t… it’s in there interest to keep them average

not low

you know how that works… a band pass filter market pressure determines who can broadcast on the internet

Nato: okay

the point is that there are costs

that are not being borne by the ones who are causing those costs.

they’re being borne by everyone else.

Jason: ok… so here’s a scenario imagining nice telcos… they see that the internet has value because of the data on it… so they make it cheap to broadcast… not free so sites like craigslist youtube… twitter… all die

but it’s pretty cheap so most of those can turn to a paying system

Nato: wait

what?

Jason: they’re dead… they don’t make money

or at least not enough

they make advertising money but don’t forget advertisers have to pay to get their content out too…

the internet is not cheap to broadcast anymore

limiting the broadcasters… so analog websites (like analog stations) can’t do things cheap

only corporate stations will get it done

to be in the market right?

Corporate stations / websites only will be able to access the internet

they can drop out

or make their own market

but the internet is useful because of it’s content

Nato: right now

the telcos are forced by law to bear those costs

if the telcos kill the internet

then they will die

Jason: it’s not going to die… just become much less useful

you can still go to watch your NBC shows

or to search ebay

Bible literalists are liars

I was viewing a forum the other day over at freedomainradio.com where an anarchist was talking about christianity with a professed christian. There was a fundamental disconnect… The anarchist assumed that when the christian said that he believed the bible was the inerrant word of god and was literally true, that he was telling the truth. The bible contains a lot of unsavory, unpalletable moments. Moments where god looks like a real asshole.

Slight digression here: Some say that there’s no way we should put human feelings on our imaginary friends (gods, laprechauns, unicorns, whatever). They are totally different from us and there’s no way we can understand their motivations. We live in the world. Our motivations stem from our interactions with the world. Imaginary beings do not live in the world. Their motivations are fiction. They do not have motivations. We can imagine whatever kind of motivations we want for them. The author(s) of the bible gave god many human-esque motivations, and I think its silly to say that we shouldn’t judge god by human standards especially since we don’t have any other standards to judge god by. We let dogs and cats and other animals get away with crap (property damage etc.) because we judge them by lower standards. We know that they do not understand the value of property or life etc. Extending the parallel, we should judge god by higher standards than what we hold people to because he understands everything. Digression over.

It’s not just god though… many of the main characters are violent, vicious, bloodthirsty sons of bitches. The conduct of the Israelites in war is pretty damn harsh. The bible condones slavery, stoning, and hosts of other things that are morally reprehensible, often as punishments for what we would consider slight transgressions, like speaking back to ones parents.

So when a person says that they believe in the literal inerrant truth and rectitude of that document, its can be unsettling. They are basically saying that they believe it is morally right, perhaps even mandatory to obey these vicious laws and strictures.

But thank goodness for one thing: They are lying. These people are relatively harmless. I don’t want to say that they are completely harmless… compulsive liars are not the safest people to be around, but there is little risk of them actually stoning you. See, they don’t actually in their core believe that stoning is appropriate behavior. You can tell, because even in the most conservative, fundamentalist homes, the incidence of stoning is very low. They aren’t actually cool with raping one’s enemies wives, because there are very few fundamentalist christians who are actually rapists. They don’t believe that sodomy is a sin warranting death, because there are fundamentalists indulging in it all the time.

They’ll deny it, of course. They will claim to believe that the bible is true. But actions speak louder than words. Actual bible literalists are few and far between. Thank goodness.

Turing Complete Government

So one of the common objections to the privatization of roads is that it means there will be a crapload of new toll roads. Like – all of them. And we all hate those. The problem is that toll roads make sense: the people who use the property are the ones who pay for it, in direct proportion. Gas taxes unfairly penalize drivers of uneconomical vehicles by charging them more per vehicle_lb-road-mile than drivers of (for example) electric motorcycles who use the same roads, but do not pay a dime for their upkeep. Toll roads permit users to be charged on a per axle basis which is substantially fairer from a use / maintenance perspective. The challenge in doing toll roads correctly is reducing the burden on the driver. But that’s a customer service problem, and those generally get solved in a free market, while governments (and other unnatural monopolies) provide notoriously bad customer service.
This leads into a series of thoughts I had regarding turing completeness and government.
There is the general idea of turing completeness between programming languages, which basically says that once a language has a certain level of complexity, it can be turned into any other language. Effectively, once a language is turing complete, phrases in other languages can be written in that first language. The languages become, at a basic level, equivalent. At a higher level, of course, it may be substantially harder to produce certain types of code in one language rather than another, due to idiosyncracies of design that the language builders created. (for example, the programming language brainfuck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck] is equivalently powerful to C, but virtually impossible for a normal human to program in.
Here’s where the connection to government comes in:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/24/2408.asp
The fact that certain things are more efficiently handled by a free market type solution means that as the available resources decrease, a free market solution WILL inevitably arise. The question is whether that solution will arise only over the complete destruction through economic force (black market economics) of the previous system or whether the existing system can adopt some idioms from the anarchistic language to solve the problem using free market techniques.
Lisp is a powerful language. It’s not easy to learn, but once one has a handle on it, it can do amazing things with an ease that blows most other languages out of the water. I’m not personally at that level yet, but I’m hoping to get there. Most people use C++ or PHP or whatever because it’s easy and accessible, even though it’s not the most powerful language available. Note that both languages are turing complete. One could write a lisp interpreter in C, or a C compiler in Lisp. They are theoretically capable of achieving the same ends, it’s just so much easier to do so in Lisp once one understands the intricacies.
Anarchism is a powerful organizational paradigm. It basically says that stable emergent behavior is optimal. Authoritarianism means inefficiency. The arguments for free market economies have essentially been won academically. There are no economists who would argue for a command economy over a free market from a theoretical perspective. And even from a practical perspective, we WON the cold war, in large part, due to the greater efficiency of our free-er market economy. The problem is that everyone out there is already using C++ and PHP. oops. I mean socialism. The tools of government are so readily available that few people stop to wonder if there is a better way that things could be handled until the existing system proves completely inadequate, and sometimes even that is not enough.
The government can provide services. A free market anarchist environment can provide services. They are both complete solutions. One of them just has much more powerful (though perhaps less obvious, from this side) idioms for resolving the complexities of the real world. A C programmer looking at Lisp will only see the ugliness inherent in the thousands of parenthesis, while a Lisp programmer looking at C sees the ugliness inherent in the code duplication and awkward whatever blah blah blah who cares what those crazy Lisp programmers say, they never write any good programs anyway.
I don’t think that Lisp will ever become the one true programming language any more that I believe that all governments will completely fade away into the franchulets and corporate protectorates that may arise under a free market, but I think we can all do well to attempt to adopt some of the tools of the more powerful systems and integrate them into our existing system.
From a programming perspective, I think that just means be smarter and try to learn as much as possible about how the really smart people do things in smart languages like Lisp.
From a sociological perspective, I think the folks in Dallas county, Texas have the right idea. Use the free market ideas and do your best to implement them well under a not-quite-free market system. It’ll be better than what you had before, and it probably will transition more nicely when the inevitable uprising and collapse comes with the food and water shortages and the zombie attacks.

RipplePay

I’m an advocate, but not yet a user, of “Ripplepay.”

A totally decent explanation is available at ripplepay.com

During conversations with friends a number of questions and concerns arose, and I thought I’d write a description of how some interactions might work, starting from some very simple examples and building up gradually to a more complicated system.
Imagine a world of barter. Everyone barters for goods.
As a shopkeeper, you might decide that the only person you can trust is the farm that neighbors your store because you can count the chickens from your top window.
And you only trust them as far as 1/10 of chickens you count every morning (say, 500 bucks worth of chickens). So when someone comes to buy something from you, they pay you in paper
IOU’s from that farmer. You’re okay with that, ’cause you know the farmer has enough chickens.
Every week, you go cash in your IOU’s. No problem. He’s always got plenty of chickens.
Here are some stories about how this could work:

Story A:
One day you wake up, and you see that most of the chickens are gone. You’ve got 300 bucks work of IOU’s from the farmer, but he’s only got 200 bucks worth of chickens. you go talk with him, and he got screwed on a deal. someone stole almost all his chickens.
As a shopkeeper, you only lost a hundred bucks. But you’re okay, because he’s just gonna pay you back over time, rather than this week, and he builds a stronger fence to stop people stealing his chickens.
You’re out this weeks chickens, but you know you’ll get ‘em eventually, because you trust your neighbor. If you decide that he was probably trying to screw you, then you stop accepting his IOU’s and you just try to redeem the ones you’ve got, perhaps through the court system… or maybe you give it up and write off the hundred bucks you lost. Now you can only sell your goods through barter. That’s sad. but lets assume, for now, that the first bit happens.

Story B:
A carpenter sets up shop on the other side of your store. you see him working in his lot every day, making chairs and tables and stuff. At first you’re not sure he’ll be around, so you decide you’ll take IOU’s from him, but only for 50 bucks. He’s really popular, though, and lots of people are trying to pay you in his IOU’s. You have to settle every day, and you end up taking home a tiny corner of the stuff that he’s got in his shop. So you up the limit to 200 bucks. Now you redeem every other day and you’re still only taking a tiny fraction of what he’s got lying around. Time goes by and he builds a larger workshop and hires more workers and sets up a mill and all sorts of things. You feel more comfortable that he’s got assets to redeem so you decide you’ll accept 5000 bucks worth of IOU’s. People come in
and take your goods and give you IOU’s from the carpenter. This trust has built slowly over time, and only due to reasonable reasons.

Continuing:
You’ve got suppliers from whom you usually buy your store goods, of course. You decide one day to expand your operation and start buying shovels. The shovel manufacturer doesn’t know you. You could drive out there in a big truck full of chickens and chairs and trade ‘em for shovels. But it turns out that the shovel manufacturer buys his handles from the carpenter, and he knows the guy is good for his
debts. so you pay for your shovels with the carpenters IOU’s. You also figure out that the shovel maker’s wife plays canasta with the farmer’s wife, so he will take the farmer’s IOU’s as well. Now you
can buy more shovels at a stretch. And you end up redeeming the iou’s for shovels, instead of chairs or chickens.

Okay. Now you want to go buy a boat. You’ve only got 5500 bucks worth of IOU’s, and the boat costs 7500. So you decide that for a time, you’ll accept a slightly greater amount of risk and you’ll take
IOU’s from the carpenter up to 7000. You talk with the boat dealer, and he’ll accept 100 in IOU’s from a stranger, 1000 from a business with no prior relationship, 5000 from a business with a prior relationship, 100,000 from ‘BADBANK’ and 100,000 from ‘GOODBANK.’ You think this is odd, because you think banks are terribly untrustworthy, but that’s okay. You don’t trust the bank,
but you don’t have to. You’re not accepting currency from them, after all. You go to open an account at BADBANK so you can pay the boatmaker. The bank makes you fill out some forms to verify you are
who you are and yada yada yada. You get your goods together and make a deposit (like at a pawn shop) and they give you a balance. You feel a little weird about it… the goods in this case are the 7000 you
redeemed from the carpenter and the 500 from the farmer. They just take ‘em and throw them on a giant pile. But you don’t care. They just gave you the money. With the 7500 in IOU from the bank, you go
to the boatbuilder and buy your boat.

You immediately drop the amount of IOU’s you’ll accept from the carpenter back to the regular 5000. You accepted a small amount of extra risk for the moment to increase your purchase power.

With all your business dealings, the farmer and carpenter will take IOU’s from you. Now the ‘BADBANK’ bank will too, but they’re scary to you, so you still don’t take IOU’s from them.

A few months later, you decide you’re going to to buy another boat. So you go to the boat dealer and he’s really sad. Apparently the BADBANK was not really solid. When people deposited stuff there, the
bank just went and put it in a big pile and issued the IOU. Then there was a fire and all the stuff and other people’s IOU’s burned up. So the boat guy is sitting there with a huge pile of worthless paper.
Man. It sucks that he trusted BADBANK. Now you can’t get that boat, ’cause he can’t buy his materials.

Okay… these have been some rather simple transations… lets bump it up a notch.

One way:

You decide that now that you’ve got a boat, you want a trailer to hitch it on. You have to drive a long ways out to get to the trailer maker. He doesn’t know you, he doesn’t trust you. He doesn’t know your carpenter or farmer either. He does know a truck driver named perry who knows the carpenter, though. He’ll take IOU’s from Perry and Perry will take IOU’s from the carpenter. So Perry comes over and you negotiate the transfer. Perry writes out the IOU to the trailer maker and you hand Perry the 800$ IOU from the carpenter.
Now, it turns out that Perry was a truck driver with a meth habit andhe’s not actually good for that 800 bucks. He spends all his money on speed. But you didn’t know him or care about it. You got your trailer. The trailer maker ends up being really sad, and breaks off his business relationship with Perry. He sends out an email to his business associates telling them not to trust him anymore. You get it
and agree not to deal with Perry anymore.

Another way it could happen:
You decide that now that you’ve got a boat, you want a trailer to hitch it on. You have to drive a long ways out to get to the trailer maker. He doesn’t know you, he doesn’t trust you. He doesn’t know your carpenter or farmer either. He does know a truck driver named perry who knows the carpenter, though. He’ll take IOU’s from Perry and Perry will take IOU’s from the carpenter. So Perry comes over and you negotiate the transfer. Perry makes out the IOU to the trailer maker and you hand Perry the 800$ IOU from the carpenter. As soon as Perry gets his hands on the carpenter’s IOU, however, he bolts for the door and you’re left without the IOU, and without the trailer.
You call up the carpenter, however, and tell him the serial number on the stolen IOU. He agrees to void that one and issues you a new one right there over the phone. He also suggests that the trailer manufactuer not deal with Perry anymore and you agree. Nobody deals with Perry anymore.
In the meantime a new customer comes into the store and the new customer will take the carpenter’s IOU and the trailermaker will take his IOU. So you negotiate the transfer with this new node in the
network, and mention to her not to trust Perry ’cause he screwed the deal. Everyone’s happy. Except Perry, the criminal, who now nobody trusts, so he has to actually give physical things to get his goods.
No more IOU’s. It sucks for him, but he survives.

New Scenario:
You work for a small company making widgets. Your company pays you in corporate IOU’s good for 500$ worth ofwidgets every week. They’re sold mainly overseas and nobody locally
stocks them. You go to your local store with your corporate swipe-card. The computer figures out that the electronic gizmo’s store that stocks them in Ethiopia is willing to take 15,000$ worth of IOU’s for widgets (they anticipate a huge and growing demand for them) and that they in turn will issue IOU’s on a variety of other electronic products. One of those products manufactuers (megacorp) will take their own IOU’s and redistribute on any of their other products for an unlimited amount. Megacorp’s Zoobo is huge locally, and your local store plans on buying some. The computer also found 75 other paths for the transaction to take, but this one has the fewest number of links and the lowest cost, so it’s the most effiecient.You can therefore buy at your local store, with only a very small overhead due to the inefficiency of the market. Certainly less than inflation would cause. You notice problems around your work. Things are going bad. You start to think that your company is going to go under, so you insist that they find another currency to pay you in. They have to pay you in IOU’s from your local grocery franchise, you insist. They say they can only pay you $450 a week in that currency because of overhead. You make the trade in your head and decide that it’s worth it. You trust the local grocer more than your employer, and it’s worth the nominal 50 bucks a month to know that you’ll have the food
to feed your family. Time goes by. The company recovers and you agree to go back to being
paid in company iou’s. Then the ethiopean chain store that was buying your goods has problems – their whole banking system over there exploded and many of the stores (which were legally required to accept iou’s from the government banks) found that they could no longer afford rent and other local costs. So now when you go to the store, there is more overhead and your company IOU’s need to find another path to the store. It turns out that the new most efficient path goes through three links in russia. So now your 500 dollars in widgets is really only worth about 495, because one of the links in the chain demands 1% interest on every dollar that passes though. After a few days, the computer has found a new path that doesn’t charge any interest and you get your goods for 500 again.

Also, think about that. The whole ethiopean economy collapsed, a massive market for your personal goods, and most of the people in your neighborhood didn’t even notice. You noticed that you didn’t get quite as much for your widgets, but that only makes sense… your widgets are a highly specialized good, and the collapse of a foreign market will have some effects. When some big chunk of nodes goes down, people will have an incentive to set up new nodes to route around those problems.

Every link has an incentive to keep the charges low because the higher the charges, the lower the number of links, and the less money made. Only really huge, really reliable links can get away with charging anything. Also note that employer-employee links are going to be free, because who would work for a company that charges them to receive a paycheck? Then you’ve got the massive friend network – friends will not charge friends to forward money – you wouldn’t put a tax on your buddy Frank if he wanted to give you 5 bucks to give to your buddy Harry. Corporate transactions will similarly have low charges. GM doesn’t want to charge their suppliers for using GM as a proxy payment system – it’d discourage people from being a supplier. There are situations, like taking out a loan, where a financial entity will charge interest on the transaction. But that’s a very specific type of situation. That is not like going shopping at the store, where you only need as much as you can borrow from friends anyway.

Nato’s Bike Trip

After my previous failure to ride from San Francisco to my home in Santa Rosa, I resolved to try a similar challenge and accomplish it one day.
Note that after the completion of the challenge, I retroactively defined a day as a 30 hour period.
I left Santa Rosa at 3:30 PM on Friday. I had planned on leaving a bit earlier, but you’d be amazed how hard it is to psyche ones self up for a ride of this sort. I spent about two hours riding to Jason’s
place in Petaluma with a dinner of orange chicken in my pack, minus the chicken. That is, I had the oil and flour and oranges and ginger and garlic and rice vinegar and molasses and rice and soy sauce, but no chicken. Jason would be providing that, at least that was the plan. Jason had told me that they normally do dinner at 5:30 so the kids can eat and so that he and Kelly don’t get too cranky (they’re
hypoglycemic and require metabolization of food at regular intervals). Knowing that children’s hunger and my hosts’ lack of grumpiness was depending upon my prompt arrival and rapid food preparation, I
boogie-jammed down the road. I plowed along stony point road for about 14 miles. It was a chilly
day, but the sun was out and the hills were green. The farms on either side were well stocked with cows and goats and lambs and old rusty cars and derelict boats. There were few hills, which was good
because my bike doesn’t really go up hills well. It’s a 23 kg, single-speed swiss messenger bicycle from the 1950’s. Here’s my current favorite article on this type of bike:
http://www.63xc.com/stefs/sabike.htm

It’s huge and clunky but the ride is comfortable and reasonably smooth. It corners like a champ, and it’s indestructible. Anyway, I got off stony point road in Petaluma and cruised the remaining four miles over to Jason’s place, getting there at 5:30, just as he, Kelly and the kids were arriving. We found that the chicken that was supposed to be in the freezer was instead still at the supermarket, so Jason went to get it while Kelly cleaned up the kitchen and I started making it messy again. We cooked up the grub, consumed, chatted, and finally played a game of ‘Puerto Rico’, which is a lovely way to pass the time.
Jason and I stayed up late futzing with Lisp. It is the uberhax0r programming language, and it is intially nonintuitive. Ben arrived late and then we all crashed out. In the morning I arose a bi t before 8, packed up, hopped on the bike and cruised down Lakeville Highway. This was another fantastic ride. It was reasonably flat, with the light commercial/industrial buildings rapidly yielding to more farmland as well as a wastewater recycling project that looked lovely, really. It looked marshy, with birds flying around and tall grasses obscuring whatever grossness might have been at the root of it all.
I eventually turned onto highway 37, heading toward Novato. When I was doing my planning for this trip (a huge change from the last time I did this – I actually planned this one) I noticed that on highway 37 there is a bridge over the Petaluma river. It’s ugly. There is no bike lane. There is no pedestrian walkway. I just hoped that there wouldn’t be that many people heading over it at that time in the morning. My hopes were smashed to smithereens. There was not enough traffic to slow cars down, but more than enough to make it unnerving to be heading up the bridge at 3 miles per hour, and have traffic blasting past at around 60. When the semi passed me it was particularly harrowing. And then it was over. I coasted down the other side and breezed on in to town. It was then just a long cruise down a couple city streets to San Rafael.
Some background: Last time I tried this kind of thing, I was northbound and ended up in San Rafael and it was dark and cold and Adrian gave me directions home, but it was too late and dark and I was too tired to continue so I bailed and asked Sahaj to pick me up and he did and I collapsed at the end of it all. This time, I arrived in San Rafael at about 10:15, and I saw the name of the street “Los Ranchitos” that Adrian had suggested I take northbound and I almost jumped up screaming because I was so excited to be as far south as I had been north before. And the sun was out and the few white puffy clouds were drifting across the sky. And I was making time. It was beautiful.
In San Rafael came the only involuntary dismount. I was heading up a road called “Altena” near the 101-580 interchange. When I say I was heading up the road, I mean at a 35 degree angle. The road was a single-lane residential road in the hills. It was preposterous. My body weight was completely inadequate to push the pedals and I found myself standing on the pedals, pulling upwards on the handlebars and giving myself a massive ab workout to make even the smallest, slowest forward progress. Each pedal push was its own distinct event. Push Left. Push Right. Push Left. Push Right. And then I heard a car coming. I tried to pull over to the side of the road to let it pass, but it was so hard just to keep moving and just after the car squeaked by and howled on up the hill I ended up sideways with the bike on my leg. It wasn’t bad, but there was no way I could get started again on the slope. So I started pushing the bike. I passed a number of houses before I caught sight of a lovely maroon Karmann Ghia that looked just a few years older than mine, perhaps a ‘65 or ‘63. I stared at it as I pushed up the hill. A scrawny guy in a mullet and white t-shirt across the street asked me how it was going. I paused for a moment, caught my breath, looked up the steep grade, and then back down the twisting road. ‘Uphill,’ I replied, and pushed on. I eventually reached the top of the road, turned onto Tiburon rd and then coasted downhill. I tucked my arms in, squinted and felt the wind slap my pants and shirt around. I squinted out the tears and began to slow down.
I arrived in, and passed through, Corte Madera uneventfully. In mill valley I got on the mill valley dog run bike path and took it down into sausalito. I stopped in the shade of some eucalyptus at the back of a bike shop around 11:45 and took off my shoes. I messaged my friend Elaine who I knew lived nearby and she responded a short while later. She and her boyfriend Halden were just grabbing some sandwiches and beer and heading to the beach, so I joined ‘em. First we stashed my bike on their houseboat and then Halden drove us out to point reyes where it was way too cloudy and cold to satisfactorially hang out. So we tried stinson beach. But it was too busy. I don’t know exactly where it was that we ended up, but it was nice and quiet and the grass was short and soft. We consumed the sandwiches and drank a couple beers. We shmoozed. There was some insect’s molted skeleton and Elaine put it next to what she claimed was a partially-digested rat stomach. Those were the two gross things in the area, and they belonged together.
Then we went up mount Tam with a frisbee that got tossed a total of about 6 times. The view of the city was quite impressive. Towers grew out of the city like those ugly hairy bits that grow out of mold.
We returned to the houseboat, listening to Michael Jackson for at least some portion of the journey. We hung out and watched/listened to humorous comedians for a while. Then, with the sky darkening and my mother guilting me for not showing up for the dinner she’d made, we cleaned out the trunk of Halden’s car, wedged my bike in there, tied the trunk closed and drove in the most aggressive way possible to the train station. I hopped on my train at 9:00 after a half-hour wait and rode to my
mom’s place from the train station, getting to the door a bit before 11. I was hungry and had some artichoke, spaghetti, salad and a short game of cards before retiring for the evening.
In the interest of giving scale and a general overview, here’s the whole path I took on the bike. (copy-paste into a browser window)
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=14655717546098166184,38.425250,-122.728379%3B12485557894143821564,38.426989,-122.740639%3B15824155124597933828,38.409270,-122.741410%3B13473854816017774694,38.308019,-122.729447%3B2850743013775296843,38.244112,-122.644501%3B15807904171874523527,38.218937,-122.561214%3B16230648796057006691,38.063599,-122.536986%3B11475301571653696867,38.049266,-122.532870%3B12643887849480937262,38.030337,-122.545273%3B3448928420562138351,38.018396,-122.550431%3B31232880784063519,38.000688,-122.542370%3B10899036452726038174,37.982895,-122.524082%3B9321044270021461505,37.968521,-122.523593%3B12159698709845628893,37.956144,-122.509729%3B5157201332970482089,37.937084,-122.518840%3B16392631158536466777,37.924884,-122.518183%3B3131567049854836275,37.904539,-122.525596%3B16788609346393183674,37.892191,-122.528633%3B1859249152691427885,37.859980,-122.486730%3B11845484845057858106,37.835624,-122.484696&saddr=W+Ave+%4038.425250,+-122.728379&daddr=Sebastopol+Rd+%4038.426989,+-122.740639+to:Stony+Point+Rd+%4038.409270,+-122.741410+to:Stony+Point+Rd+%4038.308019,+-122.729447+to:Petaluma+Blvd+N+%4038.244112,+-122.644501+to:Lakeville+Hwy+%4038.218937,+-122.561214+to:Alameda+Del+Prado+%4038.063599,+-122.536986+to:Unknown+road+%4038.049266,+-122.532870+to:Las+Gallinas+Ave+%4038.030337,+-122.545273+to:Las+Gallinas+Ave+%4038.018396,+-122.550431+to:Los+Ranchitos+Rd+%4038.000688,+-122.542370+to:Lincoln+Ave+%4037.982895,+-122.524082+to:Lincoln+Ave+%4037.968521,+-122.523593+to:Albion+St+%4037.956144,+-122.509729+to:Tamal+Vista+Blvd+%4037.937084,+-122.518840+to:Casa+Buena+Dr+%4037.924884,+-122.518183+to:Ashford+Ave+%4037.904539,+-122.525596+to:Miller+Ave+%4037.892191,+-122.528633+to:Bridgeway+%4037.859980,+-122.486730+to:37.859405,-122.486572&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=19&sz=13&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18&sll=37.858591,-122.454472&sspn=0.095279,0.160675&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=38.101063,-122.353363&spn=0.759707,1.2854&z=10
If there are places on the map where it looks like I was on 101, It is because I was on a bike path near 101 and google maps doesn’t acknowledge bike paths as traversable terrain. Due to this, take some
of the route info with a grain of salt. I spent a fair bit of time on bike paths. If you see a path near a road, it’s likely I was on the path, not the road.

Nato Bike Trip Journal

Sunday night I awoke with a shiver. My head was throbbing, and I kept moving my legs, rubbing them against each other for warmth, and they tired from this simple exertion. I spend monday in bed, reading and eating simple foods. Tuesday I felt better, but still weak, and worked on my car a little in the sun and fresh air. The rear axles of the car (one left, one right, coming out of the transmission) need to be well oiled and protected, so they lie inside axle tubes. At least, now they do. Before, they were lying on the ground, out in the open. Tuesday night I got my things together and slept fitfully, awakening at about 2AM and adjourning to the bathroom to blast the mucous from my head. Monday morning I awoke at about nine and had some oatmeal. I packed my bag. Contents:
1 Gallon liquid laundry detergent
14.4 Volt Drill battery and charger
2 shirts
a pair of mangled shorts
a currant cake
a copy of Christopher Hitchens’ “Letters to a Young Contrarian”
a stack of mail
one ~8oz. bag of rice
one ~6oz bag of oatmeal
A toilet kit with razor, toothbrush, deodorant etc.

Bag weight: ~ 25#
This bag I tied to the luggage rack on the back of my bicycle (Here is a bike that is essentially identical to mine: http://www.bikecult.com/works/collections/sab1935.html).
bicycle weight ~ 25#

My mother packed me a lunch, which I repacked into the document pouch in the center of my bike. A salami sandwich, bagel with cream cheese, two apples, two oranges, some traditional krumkake, a handful of candies and a bottle of water were to last me the day. I left the house at about 10:45 and arrived at the train station in about ten minutes. I purchased my ticket, got my bike hauled onboard and sat in the noisiest, most irritatingly mechanical sounding car on the train. There is a mechanism on a train that makes a loud “ting, ting, ting”
sound.
||– Speculation follows –||
There is a springloaded piston that strikes a bell, then is drawn back by an electromagnet and released, to strike the bell again. Repeat. This warning bell is sounded only under the following conditions:
1) The train is approaching a turn
2) The train is approaching a road crossing
3) The train is approaching another train
4) The train is approaching a residential area
5) The train is approaching an urban area
6) The engineer has decided that it’s too quiet
7) The train is approaching a straight stretch of track
||– Speculation ended –||

The duty cycle on the bell during the course of the trip was about 95%. I don’t know what the special circumstances were when they turned it off. Maybe it overheated? I don’t know. We arrived in San Francisco at the 4′th and King station. I got out and thought briefly about taking the golden gate transit bus for $8.50 that would bring me to my house within about 2 hours. Instead, I headed northeast down king street until I hit the embarcadero. I cruised along the bay and watched people doublepark, or just park terribly. I saw couples holding hands and grungy guys and smartly dressed women and folks in wheelchairs and people sitting on the grass. I rode north and then west, hugging the shore. A three masted ship, built either in the style of, or literally in, the early 1800’s provoked memories of the ‘Age of sail’ program I went on in junior high. The Ghirardelli sign loomed off to my left, with a ridiculous number of struts supporting it. I wanted to tell their engineer he’s an idiot, and go redesign the thing myself, because part of the job of a sign maker is to make the sign attractive, and their sign makes me think an army of OCD spiders got together to support the sign, and when you’re trying to sell chocolate, you don’t want people thinking of spiders.

Okay!
I proceeded along the coast, passing Fort Mason and not looking back. I found a nice bike trail through Crissy field and then began my ascent toward the Golden Gate bridge. Here, for the first time, I had to walk my bike. The road was just too steep, and I’d been riding for about half an hour. There were a pair of German tourists (at least I think they were German… they looked German and looked like tourists, but what do I know about German tourists?) who were following the same route as I. We leapfrogged a few times and they passed me as we arrived at the bridge. One of them took pictures from the seat of his bike looking backwards. I was surprised he didn’t crash. There were a pair of small sailboats traveling parallel on the bay, and their wakes extended out for miles. I was amazed at how vividly the wakewash water stood out from the rest of the bay. The light reflected off it was somehow a different shade, like the waves passing through there were tempered by the passing of the ship.

Arriving at the opposite end of the bridge, I took a break. I ate an apple and drank some water. I took a bite of my sandwich, but wasn’t really hungry. I began the descent into Sausalito. Sausalito is a lovely town with relatively flat streets, and it somehow made me think of Norway, though I’ve never been. It seemed terribly civilized and almost overly clean. The downtown was pleasant, but not overbearingly so. Los Gatos downtown sometimes seems overly commercial, as do most small towns. As though they exist entirely as tourist traps, or rich-folk hangouts. Sausalito had nicely dressed, but unpretentious people and shops. At least that was my impression, flying by at an average of 8 miles per hour as I did.

I continued northward, finding a pretty clean and straight bike trail. I passed through Corta Madera uneventfully, stopping on a park bench to eat my sandwich and drink some more water. I pumped up my rear tire approximately every seven or eight miles or so… about once an hour. I passed by the Larkspur Ferry. There were tons of signs around, and I kept hoping I wasn’t going to end up HAVING to go on it, and I was pleased that I could in fact just ride by and wave. As I continued down the road, I encountered the only person on the trip who didn’t like bicyclists. An early-twenties asshole with gelled hair and a collared shirt leaned out the passenger window of a Prius and yelled “You fucking suck at riding a bicycle.”
I was taken aback for a second, felt angry, and then amused. I continued down the road, missed a sign that indicated I was getting on 580, and ended up accidentally taking a detour to the edge of the San Rafael bridge. I got myself reoriented and headed northwest away from the bridge and San Quentin prison.

I cruised on up to central San Rafael and then made a critical error. I didn’t realize how far south San Rafael really is. I thought I ought to hug the shore and that I’d eventually make it over to highway 37 / sears point and from there to Lakeville highway, which would take me up to Petaluma. Using that as my geographical basis, I turned down Point San Pedro road. The road was heading along the shore and to the east, which was exactly where I thought I wanted to go. The shore along that area is composed of large chunks of rock. It was obviously built by humans. It was starting to get dimmer out, perhaps around 4 or 4:30. I progressed without incident. The view from the road over the bay is really quite lovely, and as the sun was just beginning to set, the colors in the sky were fantastic. I passed a yacht club and the sky was pale pink and blue, sort of a pastel pallette, and I thought “Man! These pastel colors over the yacht club make me think that yacht owners must be pussies.” So if you’re considering painting your yacht pastel collors, know that it’ll make some people think you’re a pussy. I’d go for bright blue (pthallo blue is my favorite) with electric-orange highlights. That would make me think “Damn! That guy has excelent taste in yacht paint colors! He is badass.”
Also at this point in the trip my legs finally really began to burn. I’d been riding essentially continuously for about 4 hours or so on a heavy bike with a heavy bag after being sick and not having ridden a bike in a year (or so… I don’t know how long it’s really been since I biked). I was on probably my 15′th wind or so. I thought that the hiking I did with Simon in the canyon killed my legs as dead as legs could be killed, but I was pushing that level of leg-exhaustion at that point in my trip.

Point San Pedro road eventually turned inland and got a lot steeper. I began to get a bit worried, because I was walking my bike and it was getting rather dim out. When I got to the top of the hill I was climbing, I activated my electric dynamo generator for the front and rear lights. This little thing rubs on the front wheel and generates electricity to power the lights. It was inconvenient because just as it was getting dark and I was getting tired, I had to pedal harder to generate power for illumination. I entered China Camp park with the sun below the horizon and began the long ride through the well wooded park. It was four-plus miles of windy, hilly roads. As I paproached the end, there were some guys putting their bikes into the back of a truck. One of them said to another “Man, we were gonna send out the helicopters for you! It’s getting late!” I chuckled internally. I knew I was perhaps halfway home, at best. I didn’t know I’d actually spent nearly the last 45 minutes on a complete waste of time. I found out soon enough. As I emerged out of the trees and into a small town, I realized I had no idea where I was. I saw some cars moving rapidly in the distance and dared to hope that it was highway 37. It wasn’t. It was 101. What! WHAT! How the hell was I back at 101? I went away from there to the east! I was thoroughly convinced I was still facing east. With the sun down, I’d completely lost my sense of direction. I called friends, got my bearings and realized that, it being 5:30, and dark, and cold, I probably ought to call it quits. So I found an A&W, ordered a rootbeer float, and called Sahaj to come pick me up in his girlfriend Sarah’s truck. I enjoyed my float, went over to sahaj’s, had a drink, watched some TV, found that I was incapable of standing and ended up getting home around 11.

It was an excellent experience. Next time, I’ll plan my route better, start earlier, put less crap in my bag, bring a map(or two) and make it the full distance.

Here’s a googlemaps link that should show my approximate route. There are places where I took bike paths that are not available as ‘routes’ on the map, but this is reasonably close.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?f=d&hl=en&geocode=4276707826965211847,37.777068,-122.395043%3B10398596798490859686,37.808191,-122.409410%3B18286207789637980226,37.808010,-122.417420%3B17543872696018762050,37.805918,-122.423754%3B1224488285499311382,37.804718,-122.450263%3B7762379806717075355,37.830370,-122.479750%3B12491162635320008396,37.848595,-122.480773%3B592021682990908026,37.880849,-122.524162%3B2574973494293744190,37.916227,-122.525823%3B6557593332990145393,37.959046,-122.504730%3B176341825241739886,37.947547,-122.489580%3B13503413073559335734,37.956987,-122.500012%3B13855137628198318286,37.967080,-122.511671%3B9614142114807472979,37.968460,-122.519490%3B17956672991124019628,37.968949,-122.512709%3B2723475893328974059,37.997469,-122.457323%3B18408407964701173319,37.994200,-122.534020&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=Townsend+St+%4037.777068,+-122.395043&daddr=The+Embarcadero+%4037.808191,+-122.409410+to:Jones+St+%4037.808010,+-122.417420+to:Polk+St+%4037.805918,+-122.423754+to:Mason+St+%4037.804718,+-122.450263+to:Golden+Gate+Bridge+%4037.830370,+-122.479750+to:2nd+St+%4037.848595,+-122.480773+to:CA-1+%4037.880849,+-122.524162+to:Camino+Alto+%4037.916227,+-122.525823+to:Unknown+road+%4037.959046,+-122.504730+to:Morphew+St+%4037.947547,+-122.489580+to:Irene+St%2FThe+Loop+%4037.956987,+-122.500012+to:Canal+St+%4037.967080,+-122.511671+to:Francisco+Blvd+E+%4037.968460,+-122.519490+to:3rd+St+%4037.968949,+-122.512709+to:Point+San+Pedro+Rd+%4037.997469,+-122.457323+to:37.99563,-122.535174&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=16&sz=17&via=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=37.904116,-122.387695&spn=0.374919,0.637207&t=h&z=11&om=1&msid=112004166392923235162.000441317600520691ae5

Until next time!