Weather Myths. Antisocial Mithers.

Whether the Weather Whatever the Weather…

Before I’d travelled much as an adult, I had an impression of much of the world’s big cities. As a family we’d lived in a few different countries, so firsthand experience had confused me as to the stereotypes often being wrong. But what baffles me the most is how the very people who live in a place can be persuaded by the stereotype despite the actual memory of actual life in the actual place.

Some places have positive stereotypes. I guess that’s not a bad thing. Many places have negative stereotypes. I reckon that’s usually imposed on them, often by themselves, to fit a cultural characteristic. Who knows? That’s a complicated blend of motivations to distill. Instead, let’s talk about the weather. In fact, let’s not talk about the weather but instead look over the weather data for ten major global cities. Annual rainfall, to be specific. I’ve grabbed the month by month figures for rainfall for ten cities and the annual rainfall. I didn’t include any monsoon (rainy season) cities as their annual rainfall tends to be extremely high, but most of the year they’re dry as a bone.

3-LetterCityCountrySunshineRainfallFrozenAvg_TempHi_TempLo_TempArse
LHRLondonEngland1683557515.334-2100%
CAMCambridgeEngland1610568914.432-490%

Here’s something I don’t understand:

Weird Antisocial Behaviour.

My Own.

Conversations with friends, interaction with acquaintances, positive engagements with useful new contacts… it’s all fine and normal for a while but then midway – like a switch being flipped – or next day – if arrangements had been made or even simply a good conversation is ongoing – my interest inverts to become a hyper-sensitivity to picking up where conversation left off as a burden.
I don’t want to re-engage. And it’s not that I feel less well disposed to any of the people personally. I just don’t want to communicate any more. I become resistant to the effort of interacting – where of course it hadn’t been an effort in the first place.

What the fuck is going on there?

The switch definitively flips when there’s a specific plan – like meeting up, hanging out, doing something in the near future, anything that creates an obligation. In these cases, my innate inertia is all to avoidance – ideally in a way that doesn’t cause hurt feelings.
On the odd occasion I can’t get out of the obligation without offending someone I like, I’ll go through with it – and even enjoy it, as it was planned as something fun or productive in the first place.
But then afterwards I’m relieved the plan is done. My brain doesn’t seem to carry over any of the felt experience of enjoying whatever got done. It refuses to associate the enjoyment with the sociability. Why the fuck not?
  • I used to very much enjoy interacting with human beings, especially good friendly shared time.
  • What’s going on here?
  • What’s the mind-logic to having this deep habit preference for the mildly pleasant flatline of comfortable antisocial self-indulgence?
  • It’s not better than having fun.
  • It is not more emotionally engaging than real people.
  • I don’t like solitude better than community. But I seem to prefer it nonetheless.
  • What the fuck??
  • shrug

Corporate Right. Corporate Left. Let the Left sweep all their pieces off the board. But L. Ron Hubbard should NOT be the witless prophet of our future world! Singapore is as bad a paradigm as China. I hope when there comes a choice between the economic incentive and doing what’s right, big picture, you’ll choose the latter.

Political Party naming is a difficult choice. Not only are there too many evil associations with “People’s” (insert bad karma e.g. Republic, Army, Party, etc) but the People’s Party appeal is kinda pre-limited to the humanitarian identity-solidarity Left. Won’t attract most self-determinist Libertarians or besieged small-govt alt-Righteous.

I reckon only a coalition of these distinct American demographics has a shot at dislodging the duopoly. (Ironically, achieving such a coalition will fundamentally test the fitness of pluralist American society, i.e. do the enlightened universal ideals enshrined by the founders – as the freeborn birthright of every American – still exist in the lived reality of 21st-century America?

If enough Americans push past the oligarchy’s divide-and-rule strategies – each strategy adapted to throttle its particular demographic: identity politics (Left), entitled isolationism (Libertarian-Moderate) and atomized self-obsession (alt-Right) – then there’s a chance of success. 🇺🇲

More?
Less?