People From Chicago

"At 10:00 PM, I drove my bronco back to Birdman's real estate / I jumped over his fence after dark / I picked up a brick and shattered Birdman's window pane / Birdman sighted me doing it and reached for his pistol / Suddenly I jumped back in my bronco and took off like O.J. Simpson" - Birdman Kicked My Ass"

""Jim Sym got on my ass for screaming like a wild animal at Genesis on Western / I freaked out a lot of customers / I also said 'suck my dick' in front of a lot of people" - Outburst"

""I used to eat McDonald's hamburgers / I used to eat three Big Macs a night / In 1992, I gained 23 more pounds / Suddenly, I weighed 360 pounds heavier" - I'm Slimming Down"

""Suck a racehorse's bootyhole / Suck a snow leopard's ass / Suck a constipated goat's dick / Suck my doberman pincher's cock" - Suck My Dog's Dick"

""After I stole your Sony ESP Car Discman, I went across the street to a gas station / I found me an empty jug and filled it up with gasoline / Suddenly, I ran back to your Lamborghini to set it on fire / I doused your Lamborghini with gasoline and torched it" - I Broke Out Your Windshield"

""Destroy civilization, motherfucker!" - Stealth Bomber"

""It's the end of World War I / It's the end of World War II!" - It's the End of the Western"

""You are so great. You are my brother / You are a cold-blooded KILLER! You are a mass murderer!" - Chuckie"

""Christmas is Jesus Christ's birthday! / That's what it is all about in the mix!" - Merry Christmas"

""Rock over London. Rock on Chicago." - Repeated at the end of most songs"

"Once upon a time I fucked a slut in the ass. She was all over my dick. I made her lick my dick off, then I turned around and rammed my big black dick back in her ass. / Say Ronald Reagan, what the fuck are you doing in my house? Get out of here right now, and don't you ever come back over here again! If you come back this way, I will shoulder the weapon and shoot the living shit out of you!"

"Here's what I'm going to have to say to all of you. If some of you have demons in your head who talk to you in profanity or whatever, don't let your demon shoot down your rock music, don't let your demon keep you off the joy bus. So like I say, Rock music pays off."

""The bandit wore a werewolf mask" - Attempted Armed Robbery"

"My demons talk to me in profanity. They think I'm a jerk. A bum. And an asshole. I just say they're a jerk, they're a bum, they're an asshole. They're no good. They better leave me alone and get off my case."

""Stop shooting old ladies." - Stop the Violence"

""Spider-Man messed with my girlfriend / Spider-Man wrapped his arms around her with my bedroom door closed / Suddenly, I opened the bedroom door on Spider-Man's sneaky ass / I caught him kissing my girlfriend and beat him to a pulp with a rubber hose" - I Whipped Spider-Man's Ass"

"The music I love to play is Rock 'N Roll. I love to rock like a wild animal. I love to rock it well enough to whip a yak's ass. I love to whip it good on a horse's ass. I love to rock it real hard. I love to rock it all the way to Russia. I love to kick out the Jazz and kick it out all the way."

"Rock music pays off. Rock music takes me on a joyride. Rock music keeps me off the hell city bus. Rock music will always look out for me. But I will not let my torture profanity demon shoot it down."

""O.J. Simpson was a no-good jerk / He is a fucking asshole / He had no business killing his ex-wife Nicole, or her friend Ronald Goldman" - O.J. Simpson"

""This man watches the football game / He enjoyed every minute of it / He was watching the Chicago Bears beat the San Francisco 49ers / You damn right!" - NFL Shit"

"This fact, that all charges are integral multiples of a fundamental unit, is still one of the unexplained puzzles of fundamental physics. It does not in any way contradict electromagnetic theory, but it is not predicted by it, and until we have a more fundamental theory that explains it, we shall not feel that we really understand electromagnetic phenomena thoroughly. Presumably its explanation will not come until we understand quantum theory more thoroughly than we do at present."

"You never really know how or when your life is going to change, and that's for the best."

"The empowerment journey that is critical to your healing - and to your life - comes from progressing through the deep waters of your dark passions and continuing onward to discover not what has been taken from you, but what you have yet to give and who you have yet to become."

"To enter your Castle (soul) is not a journey that takes you away from the world; rather it brings you directly into the world. It brings you fully into your soul, and into your power in the world...Mystics change the world around them more dramatically and more positively than can ever be measured. The mystic works on the invisible plane, relying on God, prayer and grace."

"You can eat beef on a weekly basis and become a genius intuitive if your energy is in present time.You can consume only organic food while running thirty-five miles a day and "om-ing" until dawn, but if your spirit is raging about your history and is saturated in regrets and unfinished business, you won't be able to intuit your left hand from your right..."

"Silence is a learned practice that requires far more than just not talking. Not talking is not silence; it's just not talking."

"The Soul is a fact, but it is not physical. … Survivors of near-death experiences attest that some part of them apparently detaches from their physical bodies following the death of the body, but while that is proof of the soul for them, it does not prove it to us. The Soul is like divine music that only God can hear; it is the force of endless resurrection; the soul is like a fire that never goes out."

"Self-examination is the process of accountability to your soul...It is far better to "become" your truth than to speak your truth. Self-examination is the practice of becoming your truth."

"Keep your honor code between you and God, you don’t break that, no matter who’s not looking. God is."

"Healing requires conscious choices… Very few alcoholics want to give up liquor. Obese people don’t want to give up food. Diabetics don’t want to give up sugar. People in toxic relationships don’t want to leave because that’s what they know. It’s change. People are afraid of change."

"That is a complete waste of your time and the government's money. You are a native speaker of English; in ten minutes you can produce more illustrations of any point in English grammar than you will find in many millions of words of random text."

"Ever since I adopted the rule of "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be," I've also come to realize "That which the truth nourishes should thrive." When something good happens, I am happy, and there is no confusion in my mind about whether it is rational for me to be happy. When something terrible happens, I do not flee my sadness by searching for fake consolations and false silver linings. I visualize the past and future of humankind, the tens of billions of deaths over our history, the misery and fear, the search for answers, the trembling hands reaching upward out of so much blood, what we could become someday when we make the stars our cities, all that darkness and all that light — I know that I can never truly understand it, and I haven't the words to say."

"Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge."

"People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed... Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back — providing aid and comfort to the enemy."

"But ignorance exists in the map, not in the territory. If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself. A phenomenon can seem mysterious to some particular person. There are no phenomena which are mysterious of themselves. To worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious, is to worship your own ignorance."

"Between hindsight bias, fake causality, positive bias, anchoring/priming, et cetera et cetera, and above all the dreaded confirmation bias, once an idea gets into your head, it's probably going to stay there."

"The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else."

"In the universe where everything works the way it common-sensically ought to, everything about the study of Artificial General Intelligence is driven by the one overwhelming fact of the indescribably huge effects: initial conditions and unfolding patterns whose consequences will resound for as long as causal chains continue out of Earth, until all the stars and galaxies in the night sky have burned down to cold iron, and maybe long afterward, or forever into infinity if the true laws of physics should happen to permit that. To deliberately thrust your mortal brain onto that stage, as it plays out on ancient Earth the first root of life, is an act so far beyond "audacity" as to set the word on fire, an act which can only be excused by the terrifying knowledge that the empty skies offer no higher authority."

"I have sometimes thought that all professional lectures on rationality should be delivered while wearing a clown suit, to prevent the audience from confusing seriousness with solemnity."

"To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty."

"It would actually be quite surprisingly helpful for increasing the percentage of people who will participate meaningfully in saving the planet, if there were some reliably-working standard explanation for why physics and logic together have enough room to contain morality."

"Declaring yourself to be operating by "Crocker's Rules" means that other people are allowed to optimize their messages for information, not for being nice to you. Crocker's Rules means that you have accepted full responsibility for the operation of your own mind — if you're offended, it's your fault. Anyone is allowed to call you a moron and claim to be doing you a favor. (Which, in point of fact, they would be. One of the big problems with this culture is that everyone's afraid to tell you you're wrong, or they think they have to dance around it.) Two people using Crocker's Rules should be able to communicate all relevant information in the minimum amount of time, without paraphrasing or social formatting. Obviously, don't declare yourself to be operating by Crocker's Rules unless you have that kind of mental discipline. Note that Crocker's Rules does not mean you can insult people; it means that other people don't have to worry about whether they are insulting you. Crocker's Rules are a discipline, not a privilege. Furthermore, taking advantage of Crocker's Rules does not imply reciprocity. How could it? Crocker's Rules are something you do for yourself, to maximize information received — not something you grit your teeth over and do as a favor."

"Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions. Let yourself say: “If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.”"

"When you are older, you will learn that the first and foremost thing which any ordinary person does is nothing."

"Many boys and girls are heroes in their dreams," Dumbledore said quietly. He did not look at any of the other girls, only at her. "Fewer in the waking world. Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them. It is a hard life, sometimes lonely, often short. I have told none to refuse that calling, but neither would I wish to increase their number."

"If you declare Crocker's Rules, other people don't need to worry about being tactful to you. (You still need to worry about being tactful to them — Crocker's Rules only work one way.)"

"Lies propagate, that’s what I’m saying. You’ve got to tell more lies to cover them up, lie about every fact that’s connected to the first lie. And if you kept on lying, and you kept on trying to cover it up, sooner or later you’d even have to start lying about the general laws of thought. Like, someone is selling you some kind of alternative medicine that doesn’t work, and any double-blind experimental study will confirm that it doesn’t work. So if someone wants to go on defending the lie, they’ve got to get you to disbelieve in the experimental method. Like, the experimental method is just for merely scientific kinds of medicine, not amazing alternative medicine like theirs. Or a good and virtuous person should believe as strongly as they can, no matter what the evidence says. Or truth doesn’t exist and there’s no such thing as objective reality. A lot of common wisdom like that isn’t just mistaken, it’s anti-epistemology, it’s systematically wrong. Every rule of rationality that tells you how to find the truth, there’s someone out there who needs you to believe the opposite. If you once tell a lie, the truth is ever after your enemy; and there’s a lot of people out there telling lies."

"Litmus test: If you can't describe Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage and explain why people find it counterintuitive, you don't know enough about economics to direct any criticism or praise at "capitalism" because you don't know what other people are referring to when they use that word."

"I am tempted to say that a doctorate in AI would be negatively useful, but I am not one to hold someone’s reckless youth against them – just because you acquired a doctorate in AI doesn’t mean you should be permanently disqualified."

"Maybe you just can't protect people from certain specialized types of folly with any sane amount of regulation, and the correct response is to give up on the high social costs of inadequately protecting people from themselves under certain circumstances."