SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C.S. Lewis ( on government response to #COVID and other crises?)

Thanks for the welcome, #@freemo Here's my #introduction .

I'm...
• a dad of a handful of kiddos, married, living in Colorado.
• a Christian in the Anglican tradition, and suppose I'm an unaffiliated conservatarian.
• a reader, working through the great novels as well as easier/fun books and nonfiction.
• a card and board game player and am happily teaching more to my kids as they get older.
• short on free time. I enjoy a philosophical pipe as I read and/or reflect, and occasionally get my guitar or bow/arrows out to learn new skills.
• a software developer... and have been for a very long time, now in the world of APIs and cloud development (CRM/SFDC).

Finished my paper nonfiction, The Heritage of Anglican Theology by J I Packer.

Started I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life by Gregg A. Ten Elshof

Finished my audio book, War in Heaven by Charles Williams, and started his next: Many Dimensions

Still in the midst of my paper fiction book...

#reading #books

1% increase over the previous day, for 90 days...

100 push ups daily becomes 245 push ups daily.

3 mile daily run becomes 7.35 miles daily.

10,000 daily steps becomes... wow, 24,486 daily steps.

All by just a daily increase of 1%.

I'm not measuring results, I'm not setting a specific goal, I'm trying to focus on establishing a system and a trajectory, with a few ideas from Atomic Habits. And I'm not beating myself up when I miss a run or a whole day for being too busy with work, relationships, or not feeling well. Just trying to keep moving forward.

#habits #running

I used to post regularly here. But the mastodon/federation feel of the good old days of BBS and the early internet seems to have been sufficiently quenched.

Gone are the days of friendly interaction with those of different perspectives, which is what I loved.

Canadian PMs: Trump is bad because... Tariffs on others is an attack on one's own population.

Also Canadian PMs: We'll apply tariffs even harder.

With #USAID being paused or all out shuttered, please consider increasing your generosity toward #nonprofit organizations that truly do align with your values.

There are good people doing amazing work local to you and around the world.

What if the impact of cutting back on that government spending was an outpouring of cheerful, voluntary, generosity?

I've seen posts bemoaning the attack on #science that #Trump's team has talked about defunding #university #research projects.

I wonder if universities should consider charging tuition, rather than being free and open to everyone, to be able to fund this important work.

I read a piece on huffpo about the real impact of dictator Trump downsizing government (as one does when one is a dictator). It came down to:

Return to office decisions and feeling terrified of what might happen.

Everyone in non government jobs has also had to work through return to office decisions.

So... Ultimately, according to the article, it's the same working location decision everyone is going through and media-driven fear.

I was expecting more.