so, the grocery store is getting propertarian about it's shopping carts. it's kind of hard to blame them, because people in the neighbourhood aren't being good anarchists.

i was thinking about it on the way home, and it's actually a great topic to use in an introductory discourse. there might be this misperception that it's unruly hooligan anarchists stealing the shopping carts. the actual reality is that it's the anarchists that bring them back, because they understand them as socially owned property. but, the fact that people take them in the first place indicates a level of intuition towards the idea of social ownership.

and isn't it obvious that people ought to be able to take the carts home? i'm just not quite sure why it isn't so obvious that they should bring them back. laziness only gets you so far, here. i mean, i've walked by houses with four or five on their yard, indicating they're not even bringing them back when they get more food.

i might suggest it lies in the perception of property. that intuition towards social ownership may be overpowered by the enforced hierarchical guilt that keeps propertarianism in place. that is, they may be "stealing" the carts because they figure they ought to be able to use them, but then they can't rationalize it, and figure once they've stolen it it becomes theirs. then they just "steal" more. there could even be fear of consequence regarding being caught "stealing" them when they bring them back. but i'm just making wild guesses, and i'd really like to get a better understanding of this.

me? i'm a good anarchist, so i always return the public property as soon as i'm done using it, so other people can use it. that's the basis of a system of social ownership.

there's been a few times where i've been halfway home, realized my neck was sore, pulled a cart off somebody's lawn and then brought it back to their lawn when i was done. that's taking temporary control of a public good and returning it how i found it.

there's also been a few times where somebody has asked me for the cart on the way back to the store and i've given it to them - although i make sure they promise to bring it back to the store. it wasn't even for groceries a few times. one woman had a broken stroller and used it to get her kid home. another guy had a bag of soil. that's the way this ought to work.

the thing is that the level of social responsibility to make it work doesn't seem to be absent. people are taking the carts home, indicating they get it. but what's suppressing the responsibility to bring them back?

the answer to this isn't locking carts down or whatever other silly approach the store might come up with, it's talking to people and trying to understand why they're not being good anarchists.

success! there was actually a really substantial amount of hair in there, no wonder it was rattling. and i instantly feel a lot better about this mix...

hrmmn. turns out those phones aren't closed after all.

these are so old, i'm only going to get once chance to not fuck it up. but that hair must come out. deep breaths..

good news is i got the bass in the ambient section to sound perfect.

frustrating part is that i need to play it like a robot to do it. guitarists - even very good guitarists that are much better than i am - are actually sort of notorious for not being able to do this well. we don't spend hours of our childhood doing this like violin or cello players do because the instrument cycles around bits of syncopation. we even tend to put down guitarists that play perfectly in time by telling them they lack feel and have no soul. but this needs to be perfectly, mechanically precise.

i've done this before. it's something i'm capable of. you've just gotta give me 50 takes to do it...

specifically, it's because we don't count in our heads like orchestra players do, we just feel the timings. it's really the wrong way to play from a classical perspective, but it's a blues instrument, and if you're sitting around counting you're going to sound really dull. i mean, there's counter-examples. i bet fripp counts. but that's kind of my point - fripp sounds like a robot most of the time.

but i have a math degree, so i'm certified to count to 8.

i'll get this....