Breaking brakes

Our car is starting to fall apart a lot faster than we had anticipated. Sure, it was pretty much a pile of junk when we bough it, but it looked like it would hold up for a while yet. Last week, the brakes finally gave up completely. We were driving around in central Montreal when we noticed that we barely had any brakes at all. Flooring the pedal as far as it would go barely made the car slow down, it was spitting out brake fluid all over the place. So we very cautiously drove the car to Nikki's father's place, where our roommate Kenneth (who is a mechanic) worked on it along with Nikki's dad and uncle. Soon after taking some parts apart, we noticed that the car is in far worse shape than we thought. The rear suspension is basically being held together by a metal bar that's all but rusted through, and the frame is cracked almost all the way through in the back. Driving too fast into a hard bump at this point is probably going to make the rear suspension and the entire wheel just fall off the car completely. The front wheels are also completely shot, they wiggle back and forth on their fittings and will probably come off on their own in not too long too. Oh, and none of the belts actually lock if you yank them fast. They come all the way out and only stop when the roll runs out of belt, by which time you would already be halfway through the window.

So yeah. We need a new car as fast as we can possibly find one. This one is not much more than a deathtrap on wheels.

Trim

Aaah, so we finally have wireless internet at home again. Our router sort of just gave up on us some time ago. We still had internet if we plugged in with a cable directly into the modem, but with four people wanting to user the net every now and then, it's been a bit of an inconveniance. Nikki get her router from her house in Laval, so now we're using that. We don't have the key for it yet, so for now only her and my computers can connect wirelessly, but as soon as we stop by there to get the papers we'll all be able to connect. Until then, the cable still works too.

We went to Walmart yesterday and picked up some stuff, I bought myself a hair trimmer. Looks pretty cool, all kinds of comb attachments, hair clips, scissors and stuff, all for the humble price of 20 dollars. Not bad, if it works like it's supposed to. I haven't tried it yet.

We also have a new housemate. His name is Premise T. Cat, and he's almost five years old. He's white with black specks and acts more like a dog than a cat. We brought him here yesterday from he cat-sitter who's been taking care of him for the past two months. We were expecting him to be kinda weirded out about being in a new place, but he seemed pretty at home right away. He explored the place, had some food, then flopped over on his side on the middle of the floor to watch TV.

Capitalism with a capital C down your throat

I was looking around online for some fun games to play. Baccarat is a card game I like, so I looked up some sites that had Baccarat. Most sites offered a program you can download that you can then play on, either for real money or just for fun. Most sites also offered hundreds of dollars in "free" bonuses for new players signing up. This piqued my interest. "What's the catch?" I wondered. Casino sites on the net are about one thing only, and that's making money. There's no way they would just hand over 700 dollars to every person who signs up. I looked up the Terms and Conditions. And you wouldn't believe how hard these were to find in some of the sites... And for good reason. Have you ever read one of these? It's basically a contract that you have to agree to in order to be allowed to play the game, and holy shit are they full of bullshit. One contract stated that "in order to make the game experience as efficient as possible" the owners of the site reserve the right to collect my personal data and distribute it globally to all affiliates, subsidiaries, business associates and business relations without prior notification to the user. So basically, they can give my personal information to anyone they feel like on the planet. Huh? How does this make my gaming experience more efficient? This particular section of the contract could only be found through a link AFTER running an installer program that you had to download and that couldn't be shut down by regular means, unless you actually installed the program first. Oh, and is it any surprise that the installer contained a bunch of trojans?

Another site had a clause in the agreement about the "free" bonus they offered. What it said was that the several hundred dollars of bonus money was divided into several parts. The first part meant that they would match whatever money I deposited into their game. If I deposit 40 bucks, they give me 40 bucks, so that I have 80 dollars to play for. The second part was basically the same deal but with them putting less money into it, about 7 dollars for every 10. BUT the condition for the second part to be applicable was that I first make the first deposit, then wager and lose a minimum of 7 times the deposited amount. After that I get to make the second deposit, but I have to wager that 30 times before I can make any withdrawals. And only certain games count towards those 30 times. Baccarat, for example, does not.

So... let me get this straight. If I deposit 5 dollars, I can play for 10 dollars. Then I have to lose 70 dollars, plus the 5 dollars, plus anything I've won with those 10 dollars. Then I can deposit another 5 dollars, lose about 255 dollars, plus the 3,5 dollar bonus the second time, plus anything I've won. After this, I can make a withdrawal.

Does this make any sense to anyone other than the site owner? If I want to actually win any money at all, I must first basically deposit 10 dollars, then give this dude an absolute minimum of 333,5 dollars, and then when I've payed that total of 343,5 dollars, I can finally deposit some more money and keep whatever I win. Sure! That sounds like an awesome deal! Jesus fuckin' christ on the cross, it's a miracle these sites actually have any customers at all. Their only hope is literally that either nobody reads these agreements or that nobody understands them. Not a single sane person would ever pay money into these sites, unless they were 124,7 % confident that they could win all that money back and more on casino software, programmed by the people they're playing against, on games where the odds are all without exception in the dealer's favor...

Oh yeah. Gimme more of that stuff...

Comeback

Well, it's been a while since I wrote something now. About time to get back into it, I think. Lots of things have happened. My girlfriend is living with me now, due to a big lack of money and housing. She was supposed to move out to this great apartment she found in Laval, but things sort of went to hell so she can't. Quebec has some of the dumbest traffic laws I have ever heard of... One sunny day Nikki came to pick me up from work with our car. On the way home, the cops pulled us over for not stopping well enough at a stop sign. A pile of bullshit in my opinion, but whatever. The guy asked for Nikki's driver's license and then went back to the car to check on it. It took quite a while, and when the guy came back, he told us that we have to get out of the car because they're impounding it. Huh? Apparently, Nikki had an unpayed parking ticket that she got sometime in april last year. And by Quebecois law, the Saaq will invalidate your driver's licence if you don't pay your tickets. According to the Saaq they sent all kinds of reminders about that, but Nikki never saw any of them because they sent all of them to her old address, where she hasn't lived for a year. So they invalidated her driver's license. Now, the even dumber part: If you're driving a car without a valid drivers license, the cops will take your car away for a minimum of 30 days, and you have to pay them 8 dollars per day that they have it. What the fuck is that all about? It doesn't matter who owns the car, they will take it away because the person who is driving it doesn't have a valid license. Basically, if you own a car and you lend it to a friend who doesn't have a valid licence, they take your car away because your friend's license is invalid. I could repeat this to myself over and over for a decade, it still doesn't make any fuckin' sense. What the hell is the point of taking away the car? It's a fuckin' car! I get that a person without a valid license can't drive, but they wouldn't let anyone else drive the car home either, because they have to take the car away!
The reason Nikki didn't pay the ticket was that a: she doesn't even remember ever getting a parking ticket, and b: even if she did, she doesn't have any money to pay it with. None. She started a new job about two months ago as an insurance broker, but it takes a while before the revenue starts adding up, and hers hadn't yet. In order to be able to do that job, she has to have a car. In order to pay the fines to get the car back, she has to get to work and make money. But she can't go to work, because she doesn't have a car or a license. I mean... gah! This is the dumbest situation I have heard of. She's basically losing her job because of this. She can't make money without the car, and she can't have the car without money. It's moronic!
And without any way of making money, she has no way of being able to pay rent for this nice apartment in Laval that she already signed the contract for. So she can't get the apartment and has nowhere to live. So now she's going to live here for at least another month. She's been looking around for another job, and gone to a few interviews. This morning this one company called back and offered her a job in St Jerome. It's a customer service job for a company that leases out gym equipment. Not a great job and not a great pay, but with no money at all she'll have to take whatever job she can get. I've been paying for her too for the last months, and frankly, I have no money left. I can't afford to keep doing that, I have my own debts to deal with. I have to start paying back my tuition loan this year. If I don't, they're going to start repossessing my belongings. At this rate, I can't even think about applying for a permanent residency in Canada, I don't have the money for it. This really pisses me off. I'm working a full-time job, but I have zero money to show for it. But Nikki doesn't have any family who can give her money instead of me either, they're as screwed as she is. And I'm sure as hell not going to let her starve.
I applied for a position as lead tester at the company today, I really, really hope I get it. It would mean a little more money, and some more interesting things to do at work than just testing.

The untouchable subject

A friend of mine told me that some time ago there was a students' club called The Carnivores, or something along those lines, I can't remember exactly what the name was. Anyway, this club was a kind of jab at PETA and the whole vegetarianism thing. They signed up to put up signs for their club just like the other students' clubs in the area, and chose to put up a sign with a picture of Adolf Hitler and the text to the effect of "Hitler was a vegetarian. Join the carnivores." Again, I don't remember the exact wording, but that's pretty close, I think. The point they were making was that vegetarianism, while nice and dandy if you're into that, does not have any superior moral value to it. It's a different lifestyle, not necessarily a better one. Not surprisingly, this sign got a lot of people pissed off. Now, why is that?

Firstly, the vegetarians didn't particularly like being associated with Hitler in any way, the jewish students were pissed because... well, you know. It's Hitler. This shouldn't need much of an explanation if you paid any attention at all in school. And a whole bunch of other people were pissed off because they thought the whole idea was just ridiculously insensitive and stupid. They do have a point, it was probably not the smartest idea to put up a picture of this particular fellow and compare him to the "opposition" team. It's bound to piss some people off. But if you think about it... Why is that?

Hitler has become one of those 'untouchable' things. In any debate, as soon as one side starts comparing things to Hitler, they're pretty much done for. They might as well hand over their heads on a silver platter. He has become a concept, more than just a psychotic fuckhead who convinced thousands of people to participate in absolutely insane plans. And a concept can't be touched, especially if it's an evil concept. Hitler has in a way become the personification, the very idea of everything that is evil and wrong with mankind. He has become an idea so horrendous that people would never think of using his name as an insult even if they were more pissed off than they've ever been before, because it would just be over the top.

"Shut up, you fuckin' Hitler!"

See? It just doesn't work. People would just walk away in disgust, enemies and friends alike. You just can't call someone a "Hitler" unless that person happens to be guilty of murdering about six million people. But you also can't compare Hitler to anything good either. He's just too evil to be good in any conceivable way. Saying something like "You know, Hitler was a pretty ingenious dude" would probably get you stamped as a neo-nazi and maybe even punched in the face, depending on where you said that. People can no longer see him as a man, because he's become this gargantuan monster that everybody loves to hate. But put that aside for a moment. Hitler really was a pretty smart dude. Absolutely insane and despicable beyond description, of course, but let's admit it: He was pretty good at what he did.

Have you ever looked up any of Hitler's original artwork? They're easily found online. You probably know that he was an art student way before any of the politics started happening. He applied to an art school in Vienna and got rejected. But have a look at the paintings, he was really a pretty decent painter. Lots of landscapes and very detailed paintings of architecture. Not bad at all.

Then things started going badly, he was rejected from art school, his mother died, he spent five years bumming around in Vienna, somehow convinced himself that everything was because of the jews, and things just went to hell from there and people started dying.

Here's an interesting thing. Have you ever thought to yourself: Where did Hitler find so many willing assistants to help him out with his evil plans? Surely the average person doesn't just naturally agree with something like the absolute necessity of killing six million people in order to get the country on the right keel again? The fuckers who worked at the camps, the military, they must have all been insane, right? Maybe the Germans were just a fucked up, evil kind of people back then? No, of course they weren't. This is where things start getting interesting.

Hitler was an incredibly carismatic leader. He was the kind of guy who could convice penguins that fish is bad for you, or sell ice to the inuits for twice the price of gold. When he talked, people just listened, because he was soooo good at talking. That is one part of it.
But what about the people helping him kill all those people? Did they realize what they were doing? Were they insane? That's the other part. They weren't. They did what they were told to do. It sounds like the lamest excuse ever, but this is the really interesting part.

In 1961-62 a social psychologist named Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments at Yale University on the topic of behavioural psychology and obedience. The setup was this:

They recruited test subjects through newspaper ads and mail, and got a random assortment of people between 20 and 50 years old and with different backgrounds and educational levels. These people would be paid $4.50 whether they completed the task or not. They were then told that they would participate in an experiment on the effects of punishment on learning.

The experimenter was played by a stern, impassive biology teacher dressed in a technician's coat, and the "victim" was played by an accountant trained to act for the role, but the test subjects didn't know that these were just actors. The "victim" and the test subject were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the victim made sure to mention to the subject that he had a heart condition.

The test subject was given a 45-volt electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The subject was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the "victim". The subject began by reading the list of word pairs to the victim. If the victim got it right, the subject would read the next pair of words. If he got it wrong, he received an electric shock. With every wrong answer, the voltage of the shock would go up, gradually increasing up to fatal levels. After a few shocks, the "victim" would start banging the wall, begging for mercy, complaining about his heart condition, etc. and finally go completely silent, as if dead.

At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the victim. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the victim.

If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

Text copied from wikipedia and from the Stanley Milgram website, edited and shortened to fit this blog.

The theory was that only an average of about 1,2 % of people, the sadistic ones, would complete the experiment and actually keep pushing the button until the "victim" was dead. The actual result turned out to be quite shocking. An average of 65 % of all the test subjects delivered the final and fatal 450 volt shock to the "victim". The experiment has since then been repeated several times in different variations and settings, and the result remains constant in all of them. Between 61 and 68 percent of people will kill a person simply because an authority figure in a white lab coat tells them it's necessary. There was no difference between men and women, nationality or other parameters. The average remained around 65 % in all similar experiments conducted.

Pretty freaky, huh? I bet you're thinking: "I could never do such a thing, I would have refused to complete the experiement."

Would you really? Deep down inside, would you really have refused? An average of about 65 % of you would have continued pushing that button. Kinda hard to swallow, isn't it?
It's very, very hard to refuse when an authority figure we have faith in convinces us that it is absolutely necessary that we continue doing what we're doing.

So to tie up this post: No. The Germans were no more retarded fuckers than you and I are. Hitler actually managed to make a whole lot of things better for lots of people in Germany, while making things a lot worse for others. But the ones that were doing better had no reason to doubt that he was a good guy. They didn't know people were dying by the scores at some desolate camp somewhere. They thought things were getting better. So they believed him. They were victims of a very, very convincing and charismatic authority figure who in the end fucked them over so hard not even their great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will forget about it.

Let's make sure no authority figure ever fools anyone like that ever again, mmkay?