no, listen.

i don't care where you're from. i don't care what you look like. and, i don't care what gender you are. i'm going to judge you by the same standards.

that means i'm going to expect the same thing from a black british woman that i would from a white american girl. i'm not going to give you different criteria. i'm not going to judge you differently.

quite specifically, to suggest that certain regressive cultural characteristics should be overlooked as "cultural differences" is, to me, actually what would be racist, as it would imply normalizing a concept of racial inferiority. i'm not going to walk down this path of mental gymnastics, where patriarchy is normalized in the black community. to me, that's just an argument for the racial and sexual inferiority of black women, and i think that's complete and utter bollocks.

i'd invite you to examine your own racial preconceptions, because i think you're the one with some issues here, not me.

if i find a record by a black woman to be unfeminist and backwards, i'm going to call it out. if i hear some transphobic language by a black woman, i'm going to criticize it for what it is. and, i will reject arguments about "cultural differences" on their face as racist.

at the end of the day, i'm not interested in identity politics. there's no affirmative action here. i care about the music. that's it. as my list expands, it will probably diversify in certain ways, while rejecting certain types of other things. there will be demographics that will be completely ignored by happenstance, and i don't care. i care about the music...

i need to ask the question, though.

if you could go back in time and kill jesus before he got famous, would you do it?

i'm going to get my ass kicked by a gang of angry bronies if i don't shut up, now.

it's worse than i feared.

it was a simpson's episode, making fun of twin peaks.

actually, i think that was twin peaks.

actually, i've had a lot of sugar and a lot of caffeine.

my silliness is proportional to my alertness.

this is why i must avoid cocaine.

i was looking for the video of henry the horse dancing the waltz. i've seen it. it exists.

but, instead, let us take a second to enjoy this absolute classic, before i move on:

but, then, if we can genetically engineer the unicorn, can we genetically engineer a god, too?

might we reverse and correct hume's fallacy, and derive is from ought?

or, are we just demonstrating the hard truth that so many of us don't want to come to terms with - that the concept of god is just a reflection of our innate desires and fears.

i've mused about this before, actually. why can't we create a bureaucracy that plays god and answers prayers? it would be dystopic in a sense, for sure. but, if i could write a letter to the ministry of wishful thinking and get a unicorn in return, i'd do it in a second.

could we genetically engineer a unicorn?

one that prances, in an idiosyncratically lovely, particularly unicorn-y way?

one that instinctively reacts to prokofiev, without the need to be taught?

well, step one would probably be to save the rhinos. we need the horns.

but, humans are known to grow horns from time to time, so there's nothing particularly implausible about splicing some rhino dna into a magnificent stallion, and calling that a unicorn.

justin, you better be looking out your window.

stated tersely: there's lots of things i think ought to be true.

but, none of those opinions have much of an effect on what actually is true.

so, yeah.

i'd fucking love to live in a world with unicorns in it.

but that's too fucking bad, isn't it?

actually, fuck parking the unicorn in the ceo's spot.

i'm going to ride my goddamned unicorn to ottawa, and we're going to storm the gates on parliament hill, and take the elevator up to the pmo's office, and we're going to have that unicorn take a shit in the exact chair that piere fucking elliot trudeau sat in when he wrote the goddamned constitution.

i will presume that unicorn shit is multicoloured, and consequently multicultural.

so, we can have the pastel worked into the upholstery.

and, we'll let margaret legitimately wonder whether she's having a flashback or not.

it's not a question of "wanting to live in a world without god".

frankly, it might be kind of useful if a god existed. maybe we could get her to fix the fucking infrastructure.

but, there isn't one. so, that's not in the list of options.

i mean, it's not like i have some hate-on against unicorns, either. i don't want to destroy the unicorns; i don't have a longing to live in a world without unicorns.

i'd love to ride a fucking unicorn to work, and park it in the ceo's spot.

but there aren't any unicorns. really. there just aren't.

it's all for the love of the flame.

so, yes, i do it for the sake of the troll.

but, i really do it for the kids. they need guidance.

do i sound like a conservative to you?

that's laughable.

but, i'm not a bourgeois liberal, either.

i'm a socialist - a communist, an anarchist. i'd argue i'm a real liberal. but, we can have that debate over beers.

that doesn't negate the reality that religion exists, and that a community may need to defend itself against it should it attempt to enforce itself on it; it's not an argument for pacifism, or a suggestion that we should look the other way.

what it is is a tactical consideration.

and a request to be proportionate and reasonable.

you have to bomb isis, because they're indistinguishable from nazis, and they'll kill you if you don't kill them first. you can't reason with a hungry lion, you have to defend yourself.

but, that's the exception, and, most of the time, the better approach is to try to convince them that their god doesn't exist and that their rules are stupid and not worth following.

i'm not apologetic about this.

it's a good question - can we just kill them all? would that actually work?

but, we need to learn from history. we've tried that. repeatedly. and, no - it doesn't work.

the lesson from history is that the best ways to get rid of religion are through education and wealth redistribution, not through violence and coercion.

and, that's a lesson any anarchist should see value in teaching.

if i thought it was possible to actually end religion with police state brutality, i might consider being pragmatic about it, much the same way that some people consider being pragmatic about stamping out certain political views they disagree with, while paying lip service to free speech. i'd be a hypocrite, and i'd accept it, but i might wonder if the outcome justifies it.

i know better.

it doesn't work.

i am aware of counter-examples where hateful religious groups have moved into neighbourhoods and targeted sexual minorities in such a way that warrants self-defense against the religious community, but, broadly speaking, attacks on religious people are not a productive way to move society away from conservative religious ideas and towards a post-religious secular liberalism.

i tend to have a hard time denouncing people that destroy religious property, under a "diversity of tactics" argument. i'm probably not going to criticize you too loudly for burning a church down, if that church is promoting an anti-queer ideology, which they essentially all do.

but, violence against people does nothing to advance the causes of anarchism or atheism. it's counter-productive. and, while i know that most of the violence occurring right now is intra-religious, it is something for those that oppose religion to always keep in mind and be clear about.

as a species, we've tried rooting out religion by force repeatedly, and, whatever you think of the approach, the fact is that it doesn't work. you have to convince them...

so, i'm going to spend some time listening as i build the master document, and we''ll see if i make any changes or not

this is going to be where i'll store what i pull out, as i pull it out. expect the list to shift and morph dramatically for weeks.

there were two records that i failed without further comment. i did discuss them, previously.

1) if you actually enjoy that lingua ignota disc, there is something seriously wrong with you. at best, it's unlistenable. at worst, it's snuff porn. and, i'm not going to reward somebody with a good mark for making an unlistenable record that only seriously demented people could possibly listen to.

2) i lost interest in tool when maynard found god. but, the record is just a rehash of their previous work.