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@ elsat
2025-01-14 15:52:00
Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes:
`“We cannot explain everything. We know more about what something is not than what something is. If there would have been no word for colour blue, it would still have existed in reality. It would only have been absent in linguistics. But since we don’t have a word for it, we couldn’t define or comprehend it. But we still could say what it is not. It is not orange. It’s not an elephant, etc. This method of knowledge is truer and more rigorous than positive knowledge.”`
In this article, I introduce practical examples of how to apply via negativa to various systems.
Recommended reading is [Antifragile](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176227/antifragile-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/) by N. N. Taleb.
The basic template is as follows:
## What is ____ **not**?
Let's start with something every human should be familiar with - food.
### Food
Take hot pockets. Is hot pockets food? 
What is not food?
To answer this question, let's examine the contents of hot pockets.
There seem to be chemistry lab sounding ingredients ("MEDIUM CHAIN TRIGLYCERIES", "SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE"), as well as food items that your great-great-great-great-great-great grandma cooked with ("SALT", "BEEF" etc.)
So What happens when we apply via negativa to the ingredients?
From 30 "ingredients" we deduce a couple foood items, or a ~90% reduction in "ingredients" by eliminating processed food slop.
meat good
bread yum
### Free Discourse
Take the social media platform X.
X consists of: leased identity, censored speech, and a tech platform for discourse. On the roadmap is social media score that will be used to determine if you can pay your bills when X launches its' bank.
What is free discourse not?
Removing the ingredient of WEF,
KYC lease hell
and censorship 
we receive nostr .
[Nostr](https://fiatjaf.com/nostr.html), to my best understanding, is not a WEF globo-homo participant, does not lease identities, and it is that much more difficult to censor wrongspeak (e.g. Netanyahu and friends are commiting genocide, and wanted as war criminals; there are two genders; there is no climate crisis; Ivermectin works).
## Automobiles
Modern automobiles can be summed up in two words: "safety", and constant surveillance. Yes, advancements in safety are great - e.g. airbags, seatbelts, car frames that absorb impact energy.
However the "its for your safety" component of remote shutdown, remote control, location data selling to data brokers, insurance agents, and your local surveillance outfit is gulag tech.
!(image)[https://image.nostr.build/15befd30113614dad3fd7aac01b8771b95bd8ace9186ed4f8016eec6e886e969.jpg]
So what happens when we remove the gulag tech out of cars? That is, what is *not* a car?
Let's use the following definition of car:
```
A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels
```
Let's use the following definition of gulag:
```
The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.
```
You get the [2024 Toyota Land Cruiser](https://youtu.be/5WHzKNi2ojY). No gulag. Airbags. Push and turn knobs. No spying, no remote control, no cameras, no satellite, no bluetooth, no wi-fi.
As an aside, it is practically impossible to import this car to the US. It's "for your safety", and "for the environment", of course.
!(image)[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Toyota_Land_Cruiser_16.09.20_JM_%283%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/800px-Toyota_Land_Cruiser_16.09.20_JM_%283%29_%28cropped%29.jpg]?20210328155727
Toyota Landcruiser HZJ-79 Double Cab, Johannes Maximilian `https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Toyota_Land_Cruiser_16.09.20_JM_(3)_(cropped).jpg).`
Hopefully this guide has been helpful illustrating how simple and powerful it is to apply the Via Negativa approach.
Mr. Taleb, I commend you on speaking out on the Palestine genocide. I invite you to and hope one day you join anti-fragile nostr.