Hey dudes and dudettes, I'm an 18-year-old kinda non-binary but mostly just confused male and I recently started shaving my legs and didn't want my parents to know. I thought seeing as though there are always so many questions from people about shaving and doing stuff discretely that I'd go through EVERYTHING of note that I learnt/discovered, so that you can do it too! This is pretty excessively detailed, so I'd recommend reading over it a few times so you get a vibe for what to do and what not to do and then just do it whatever way you figure out to work for you. If anyone has questions, or any other tips they wanna add (or you just wanna point out a spelling mistake), feel free to leave a comment! If it's really personal feel free to DM me but don't DM me your dick or a request for pics, soz.

Stuff you'll NEED:

• An electric implement which can be used for trimming your leg hair, e.g. hair clipper, beard trimmer. I used the thing I use on my face.
• A razor (can be a men's razor, not only are they fine to use, many women prefer them because they apparently shave closer and smoother. But yeah don't fret) [I used a men's Gillette Fusion5 ProGlide and would recommend it, don't get the higher tier ones unless you want a powered one cause they're the same handle in a different colour with different blades included, but you can use any Fusion5 branded blade with any Fusion5 branded handle] EDIT: I have now used a base Fusion5 blade, and there's almost no difference really. The ProGlide blades are a touch smoother and apparently the one up from that is better for your skin, but really, the cheapest one definitely gets the job done. I believe, however, that the base Fusion5 HANDLE isn't as good as the ProGlide. I would recommend getting the ProGlide handle (everything above that handle is the same in different colours until you get to powered razors).
• Moisturiser, or something VERY usable as moisturiser. Normal soap won't do the trick, this is a really important thing to get right as you'll end up with horrible red polka-dot torture victim legs if you fuck it up. It can be a little weird feeling buying moisturiser as a teen male considering what we usually use it for, but hey. I used Cetaphil gentle skin cleanser at first EDIT: After a few more shaves, I would now definitely say Cetaphil isn't enough, I'm now trying Aloe Vera.

Stuff that you should really have but isn't essential:

• Shaving cream, or something usable as shaving cream. Not as important to get right as moisturiser, many women use body wash and conditioner and stuff like that. I think the furthest you could go is something like shampoo, but conditioner would be better. You can use men's shaving cream but you'd need a lot compared to what you use on your face and you'll smell all male afterwards which is whatever. EDIT: if you get red spots and irritation after your first few shaves and you're not using something decent as shaving cream, USE A SHAVING CREAM.
  
• probably other stuff if your skin has a history of being particularly sensitive
  

A note

This probably shouldn't be the only thing you look at regarding how to shave. There's a whole bunch of stuff, like exfoliating and stuff like that, which I completely didn't do, which worked for me but might not for you. I'm not an expert, don't get mad at me if I say something technically not perfect. I'm trying to give practical advice to help you peeps out.

the initial clipping

If you're anything like me, your legs will be insanely hairy. You obviously can't just run a razor over hair as long as men's leg hair gets and expect it to shave anything, so you're first going to have to trim it. Girls will suggest you use scissors if your hair is too long, this is ridiculous advice, I think they just don't realise how god damn long men's leg hair is. Scissors work when you have neat little pricks, not when you have a small rainforest. You're gonna want to use something powered, like a beard trimmer, or hair clippers, or a circular saw, or I actually used a trimmer bit thing which is part of the electric razor I use on my face, and although it's small, it did the trick. You can work with what you have here. You're hopefully only going to need to do this bit once or twice, so don't worry too much about damaging the device. Depending on what you're using, you'll probably need to make sure your legs are sufficiently soaked with warm water first. I'm not quite sure if this is necessary at this point but I did it just in case, as the trimmer I used is pretty exposed, so it was cutting pretty close. If you're using something like a hair clipper with a guide on then you probably don't need to do this bit wet but it's better safe than sorry. The point of shaving wet is that it softens your hair slightly and opens your pores and some other things I forget, but if you shave real close while dry then you could get razor burn and similar ailments, which as I'll explain later are a pain in the butt (especially if that's we're you're shaving gotem). Now if you're using something as exposed as the trimmer I used then make sure you don't press too hard. The thing to remember is that electric shavers, and in fact even manual razors if used correctly, are fucking sharp, and they're going to cut whatever comes around, regardless of how much force you put into it. You might need to go over the same bit a few times, but pressing harder isn't going to help you, instead it'll leave behind slightly inflamed red marks for days, which don't hurt that much but they're obviously not good, and can probably get infected or something. You won't really feel when you give yourself one of these, and you'll only notice them come up a few minutes later, so just be careful. Once you're finished, I recommend moisturising just for good measure.
Now, when you're done and you've dried off by patting your legs dry (do not scrub them, pat them, this is how you will always dry your legs from now on), there will be a lot of hair to clean up. Like so much fucking hair. There'll be hair on the floor and the walls and the shower screen and fucking everywhere. To clean up the bulk of it will take like ten minutes on its own, but if like me you're a bit paranoid and don't want your parents to find out, I would say it'd take like 30 minutes or more, so I'd make sure you have about an hour of time to clean up. Also, something which I didn't consider until after doing it is that running a hot shower will leave condensation on the mirror and everything and make it obvious that you showered, so while it's not that conspicuous, you might wanna also have that hour buffer to let that all go away so that they don't pick up on the fact that you're having a shower whenever you're alone (or in my case going against my normal schedule of having a shower at night). You can also wipe the bathroom mirror or whatevs with a towel if you're worried but make sure it's not a towel you mopped your hair up with like the one my idiot ass used.
Anyway, after you've trimmed, you'll probably (read: definitely) have missed a few spots. It's hard to see if you've missed a bit when you're dealing with so much hair and it's all wet and sticking to your body. I would dry off and wait a day or so, checking your legs out for missed spots, then go again. Eventually you'll have prickly cactus legs but they're manageable, and it's a base that you can use a razor with.
If you have limited alone time and you don't have any discrete way of shaving (e.g. by using a manual non-electric razor in your normal showers) then you can leave your legs just trimmed as they are for a while (a week and a bit, I would think) before you go back in the danger zone and do the next step, so feel free to take a break here.

actually shaving

Oh hell yeah we're up to actually shaving. You'll need any razor. Literally any. Men's, women's, manual, electric, whatever, it'll work great. I personally would recommend going for something not powered which therefore doesn't make noise, as you can then shave in your normal showers without outing yourself. Also as I mentioned before, many women prefer to use men's razors so don't worry. If you want, just use the thing you use on your face, cause that's the least suspicious thing to do. I actually went a bit cheeky and used my Mum's at first before quickly buying my own Gillette Fusion5 ProGlide (men's razor so wasn't very intimidating to buy), which seems to do pretty darn well.
Anyway so get in a warm shower. You're meant to leave it for like 15 minutes to get an absolutely perfect shave, but you can get perfect over time, for now just make sure you're decently warm before you start shaving. If you have it, you should put shaving cream on your legs now (or conditioner apparently works pretty well too so that's actually what I used initially EDIT:, but I found that it wasn't quite enough and I still ended up with the red spots of doom, so maybe try something a bit better). It doesn't matter too much seeing as though you're already wet and warm, but it'll make your razor's job easier and depending on what you use it'll make your job easier by showing you where you've already done. It'll also reduce the risk of irritating your pores and blah blah.
Start at your ankles and work going against the grain in short, 6cmish (2 and a bit inches I think) strokes, applying basically no pressure. If you get a huge amount of irritation after this then try going with the grain next time, but going against it is obviously more convenient to do standing in the shower, and will give a closer shave. I recommend working in a circle around the circumference of your leg and then moving up a bit but do whatever works. Over time you'll develop a less robotic technique, but this is a great way to start. I know some girls that do big strokes all the way from their ankles up to their thighs and while that might work with more consistently shaved hair, you probably can't do it on your first shave. Definitely try to overlap slightly, like as you go up the leg start your strokes lower than where you're up to so that half of each stroke is covering the area you've already shaved or something like that. It's pretty hard to see hairs when you're in a shower and bending over awkwardly to reach your legs so try and keep track. I find that feeling for prickly areas is the best way to find where you've missed. Your knees and ankles will be the easiest areas to cut yourself on so watch out with them. Don't forget to do the back of your legs, especially the inner of your knee. Other easy spots to miss include your knees, inner thighs, and if you're a bit lean like myself, the valley between the bone and back muscle on the inside edge of your shins (hard to explain but you'll get it if you get it). There's nothing wrong with taking it slow so take as long as you need. Once you've done both legs, apply moisturiser (if you wanna be extra good then apply one which you can put on dry after you've gotten out of the shower). EDIT: there's no such thing as too much moisturiser, and if you start having issues like red dots and shit then not moisturising properly is a decent culprit. END EDIT. When you dry your legs remember to just pat them down.
After shaving you'll find a few things. One is that you probably will have gotten a bit too eager and cut yourself in a few places. It won't hurt, and you probably won't notice until a while after you've done it or even not until you're out of the shower, but holy shit some areas will bleed like mad. I got a cut on my knee that just pissed blood for like 45 minutes. Now, you could bandaid these areas, and that's not a bad idea, but I was worried that would lead to scabbing, so I lightly patted the blood off of them every now and again. You'll adjust to the ideal force and cutting angle over time, so don't worry, cuts will become rare. For me it took about three shaves to get to something decent, the first time I over-did it and cut myself a heap, the second time I under-did it and ended up doing effectively nothing, and the third time I got it just about right, and then I upgraded razor and cut myself again oops. I think it's one of those things where your brain adjusts over time without you even thinking about it.
Anyway, as well as cutting yourself, you'll likely find that you've missed a bunch of areas. For me I found that some areas, like on my shins and around my ankles, there were like about half a dozen scattered hairs which the razor missed in an otherwise smooth area. These I found easy to just pluck out with a pair of tweezers. This sounds like it'd be painful, but weirdly I found that especially after a warm shower, it didn't really hurt at all, and I could actually remove hairs by pulling really slowly and they came out with almost no pain. I also used this on the few little hairs that have grown on my feet. This might be different for your hair though so YMMV. There'll be other areas where there are a lot of quite long hairs, and for these areas you can choose whether you cut them with scissors or whatever or run over them again with whatever powered thing you used for the initial shave.
Finally, if you're like me, you won't get as happy about having shaved legs as you'd think you would. I found that while I didn't get super gushy about them after the initial few minutes, I found that looking at them made me go "yep those are my legs" instead of making me feel uncomfortable or as though they were ugly or didn't belong to me. I definitely don't regret it, it's just I'm not ecstatically euphoric, just no longer dysphoric (which I guess counts as being euphoric but whatever). I also found that it made me want more (or less, in terms of hair). I spent a touch over half an hour manually tending to the hair on my feet using the tweezers and scissors of a Swiss Army Knife, but then I looked at myself naked and realised that I also wanted to shave my butt and dick hair, which is a separate exercise I haven't gotten to yet (although I'm probably just going to repeat a similar process to what I suggested here albeit a bit more gingerly around my privates). The fact is though that I feel better about myself, and that's great. The big bit for me is done; the part of my bottom half that people will see now represents me in the way that I want it to. But now it's more about how I want to see myself, and that's kind of comforting in a way, cause it shows I'm not faking this shit for attention or anything.
Anyway yeah, now just shave your legs with a razor every now and then and you'll be good! Don't shave every day, at absolute most shave every second day. Try and leave it for a few days though if you can. I definitely shaved every second day for a little bit when I first started just so I could hone in on the little missed spots and stuff like that, but once you get going don't feel like you have to have ultra smooth legs every second of every day. Even if you go around wearing shorts/a skirt every day people probably won't notice two or three days of stubble unless they get creepily close for strangers. And if they're your friends and they're complaining about three day stubble then you should probably try and get better friends especially considering how big of a deal it is to do this stuff in the first place as men. Just remember that you're looking way closer than anyone else is going to, so if you can see lots of tiny little black stubbly dots then that doesn't mean other people are going to. It doesn't always need to be as close a shave as your face cause people get way closer to your face than your legs. I think some people on this sub need to realise that they don't need to be 100% perfect with everything to look 100% perfect.
Anyway yeah that's my immensely detailed guide to shaving your legs as a man living at home. Hope it helps some people.
EDIT:
If you get red spots of badness, here are some suggestions. Also if you wanna be real careful, do these things regardless, at worst it'll be a better shave. - start using shaving cream if you aren't already - use better moisturiser if you're using something a bit dodge for moisturising. - exfoliate your legs before shaving them, this means get a loofah/facewasher and shove some soap on and then scrub your legs.
And if that still doesn't work then here are some more inconvenient methods that might work - moisturise your legs regularly - shave with the grain instead of against the grain (this won't be as close a shave but it's better for avoiding ingrown hairs)
In the case you do get the horrible rednesses, moisturise moisturise moisturise. It'll make it sting less, it'll make it look better, and it'll reduce the potential damage. I recommend doing it after drying off at the end of an unsuccesful shave in the shower but any time is a good time.
A further edit:
You might be wondering about other options, like waxing, using an epilator, and hair removal cream. While these are all great options which could get you a far better shave which lasts longer and is easier to do, there are a couple of problems to consider. First off, none of the methods I just listed are easy to do in secret. By contrast, not only is owning a razor is a perfectly normal thing for a man, you probably already have everything you need in your house, and even if you are hiding everything to do with it, it won't take up much space or be particularly conspicuous, because even the creams associated with shaving are used for a vast variety of non-gendered purposes. Also, shaving with a manual razor is basically silent in the shower, and you can easily ditch half-way through a shave. Shaving is also relatively speaking very quick, it obviously will add a bit of time to your showers, but it's not like an hour long process. Another good thing about shaving is that it's basically the default, and most women either shave or have shaved in the past, so you can easily find advice online or ask your girl friends if you need a hand. It's also fairly affordable, even if it isn't the cheapest option out there.
You have options, definitely, but I personally think that shaving is the most realistic hair removal option to do discretely, and that arguably outweighs the difficulty and occasional frustration that comes with it.

Grab your nuggets, I'm about to drop some bear shit on your CRO holdings.
TL;DR - It don't add up, I smell bear shit
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CRO at .041
x Revenue of just $462k, yep thousands and trending down from $670k previous x No profit, again x Market cap at $63Million o.O WTF x Current liabilities are four times current assets x Nine staff and a 404 on their Team page x Been around in some form or another since 2001 and still hasn't rocketed x Twitter account is all about shareholders, not customers x Pivoted from Pool Management software with failed implementation at Clark Rubber into whatever they do now
It just doesn't smell right.
Now you're about talk to me about free money with their cheap Options offer, announced in a timely way, get in quick (Wednesday) or you'll miss out. FOMO!!! Ain't no such thing as free money with no downside, don't be retarded.
I don't hold CRO. I do have bets on Z1P TNT OSL RKT:NYSE
Flame suit on, burn away spastic believers and tell me about your true religion.

Continuing
“Hello and good day, gentlemen”, I say. “I am Doctor Rocknocker. You may and will refer to me as ‘Rock’. OK? None of this ‘Doctor’ or ‘Sir’ guff. We green here?”
There was a buzz of voices but no direct answers.
“OK. Let’s get a few things down right here and now.
(1.) Call me Rock.
(b.) Answer me loudly. I will need to hear you loud and clear. Best get used to that now.
(iii.) “We green?” means “Are we in agreement?” It’s a form of shorthand I use here and in the field.
(⍾.) “You diggin’ me, Beaumont? means you’ve really done gone and pissed me off; you’ve done something untoward. Pray you never hear that phrase, and,
(∞.) I’m the boss. The top dog. The hookin’ bull. The Maharaja here. I possess the first, final and only words you’re going to listen to for the next couple of weeks. What I say, goes. Any problem, please let me know now so we can replace you most quickly.”
A gentle buzz, but no replies.
“Gentlemen. Do we agree?” I ask.
“Yes, Rock.” Was the reply.
OK, there might be some form of a societal prohibition against making loud noises. That’s the first thing that has to go.
“Gentlemen, we will be working in the great outdoors where there are wind, rain, waves, and other environmental nonsense making all sorts of unrequited noise. We need clear and proper lines of communication. I need to hear you clearly and vice-versa. When speaking, you will speak slowly, clearly, and loudly. “
“DO WE AGREE!?!” I yell, rather deafeningly.
“YES, ROCK!” came the eventual reply.
“Outstanding”. I ponder.
Continuing…
“Mr. Sanjay is my de facto second in command. If I’m out having a smoke, taking a piss, or having a snort, he’s in charge. Listen to him as if I suddenly lost 150 pounds, shaved my beard, and inexplicably become Indian.” I chuckled.
They seemed to enjoy that. I actually elicited a few chuckles.
“Mr. Sanjay will now distribute to you your locker boxes. You will wait until he hands you yours. Do not get up and mill around the room. We green?” I ask.
“Green! Doctor Rock.” Came the noisy reply.
“Progress. Marvelous.”, I reflect.
“I’ll be right back. Mr. Sanjay, the room is yours.” I note. I might need to cut back on the coffee.
I slope off to the loo and it’s just as horrible as you can imagine an outdoor communal shithouse in sunny India attended by 30,000 Indian gentlemen could be.
Fuck COVID-19. I’m thinking hot and cold running dysentery, dengue, and death here. Ick.
Glad I have a highly functioning immune system.
I retrieve a shiny aluminum Halliburton™ case from Headquarters and ease off to an unused office space to change.
I went from my usual field garb to full PPEs. It was quite a sight.
I’ll be telling you about it in mere moments. Contain the excitement.
I’m walking back to Outbuilding #2 and damned if my get-up didn’t elicit a few gasps, shielded guffaws, and a salute or two. I have to admit, to the uninitiated, I was a sight right out of Area 52, the more secret one, west by northeast of Roswell, New Mexico.
I get back to the outbuilding and enter. Everyone was looking through their locker boxes, chuckling about their good fortune and wondering with Joker-like glee what the hell all these wonderful gizmos were and where did I get them? They all stopped dead in their tracks when I walked in.
Their silence was palpable.
“Gentlemen”, I said, “Here’s how you are going to look at work tomorrow. Revel in its utility, comfort, and extreme fashion sense.” I did a quick spin like I used to on the runway.
At O’Hare when we were doing field geostatic tests. Whatever were you thinking?
Anyways…
I was wearing a pair of size 66-XTall NFPA 70E blaze orange Carhartt Nomex coveralls. I had on a Dax carbon-fiber blaze orange “Coal Scuttle” hardhat with swing-away hearing protection keyed into your personal communications module, and a gold-anodized, pull-down full face shield. The helmet was designed to drain away falling water down over one’s back and not down one’s neck.
I had a pair of ‘wet’ gloves under the snap retainer on my left shoulder, a pair of ‘dry’ gloves on my right. I was wearing an orange CMC Safety 9-point safety and rescue harness, good to well over 1,500 pounds. Over both shoulders, around the crotch, up the front, and around the back, X-style. This popular harness features multiple D-ring attachment points and the patented JackBack removable padding with breathable D-3 cloth, which keeps shoulder straps separated and makes donning and doffing a breeze. It had several catch-points where one could easily and readily attach to the snap carabiners and get bodily dragged out of a nasty situation by rope or chain. The front waist D-ring allows a comfortable, stable sitting position for rappels and the sternum D-ring works well for helicopter or crane-assist hoists. Gear loops offer easy access to equipment, and quick-connect-disconnect shoulder straps and leg loops make the harness quick to don or doff. It could be used for impromptu spelunking on days off.
I had on Size 16 EEE Gear Box 8088 Men's 8 inch Black Leather intrinsically-safe hard-toed lace-up black turned-heel leather work boots with the new self-cleaning, oil-and chemical resistant Vibram soles.
They couldn’t see, but I was also wearing a cotton-Nomex blend wifebeater and boxers as well. Nomex tends to chafe. Best be safe.
I had a powerful Maglite flashlight clipped to my rescue harness, as well as my mini Air Horn; a blaster’s must. I also had a mobile VHF-Commslink™ radio in a pocket on the back of my coveralls on the left shoulder. I had the microphone for it Velcro-ed to my rescue harness within easy reach. Very cop like. Very cool. Very necessary.
I had a traditional Zippo and Bic Butane lighters in my right-hand chest pocket and a brace of cigars, though these were optional, in my left pocket. I carried a bespoke constructed Swiss Army Knife on a lanyard in my right front pocket and had a custom Bears Paw Leatherman hanging on the left of my rescue harness.
Also clipped to the harness was a Silva orienteering compass. There was a selection of NASA write anywhere pens, Sharpies, and oil-writing chalk pencils in my other front pockets. I had an oil industry tally book in my other front pocket.
Why blaze orange? Well, Red Adair already co-opted bright red, and fluorescent green wasn’t available in my size.
So, we’re now ready to plant explosives in West India or go deer hunting in the Northwoods of Baja Canada.
“Questions, Gentlemen?” I asked.
I explained that in their locker boxes were purchase orders, POs, for every bit of kit I was wearing. They were to take these POs to the Company Store and get, well, kitted out in their own sizes and preferences. I wanted to see everyone back here tomorrow at 1300 hours looking as I do now. Well, maybe skip the cigar and be not quite so large.
I sat down on the table in front of the crowd and had Sanjay bring over the demo locker box.
“OK, gents,” I said, “This locker box is yours and is numbered as such. They will be stored here in Outbuilding #2. Each of you will receive a key for this building as it is now your headquarters. We’ll get back to locker boxes in a minute. Anyone need a break for a few minutes?” I asked.
No one dared answer at this magical juncture in the narrative.
“Well, I do”, I said, “Meet back here in twenty minutes. Sanjay?”
The class wandered out and I conversed with Sanjay. We found the maps I had ordered.
They were an aerial view of the breaking yard and it was split into 6 zones, all a different color. There was one master for the wall and 28 copies for the guys. I also had a log-in/log-out board made. Vertically numbered 1 to 28. There were also 7 vertical bars labeled Zone 1 through Zone 6, and one for ‘in dispose’; i.e., in Latrin-e Land. This was so I’d know where my guys were at all times.
There was a hook for each one of these areas to log in, and to let anyone know where a certain person was during the day or night. You’re number 10? And you’re going to be wielding a torch over in Zone 5? Your brass tag goes right there. You’re going to skip over to Zone 3? Get your ass back here and swap it over to where you’re going. There is no excuse for being where you haven’t said you were, short of active accident or dismemberment.
Everyone shuffles back in and I explain the tote board.
“Notice there’s no spot to leave your brass chit if you’ve gone off the reservation?” I asked. “Why do you suppose that is?”
Confused looks all around.
“Because you keep that brass token with you when you’re not on the job. Lose it, lose your job. Sounds harsh, but so is getting your fucking hands blown off. Think of it as an exercise in discipline.”
There was a very little rebuttal.
“When you are on location, your brass token will reflect where you are. You are off-site, put the brass token in your wallet next to your lucky ‘circular impression’.
There were several knowing grins in my cadets.
Wear it around your neck on a chain. Keep it on your keyring. You can wrap it up in ribbons, you can slip it in your sock; I don’t care. Thing is, it is your ticket to this job. Hold on to it, there will be no replacements. We green?”
“Green, Doctor!”
“Outstanding.”
“Now, locker boxes. Gentlemen”, I continued. “These are your personal boxes that will be archived here. They will contain everything that you will need to carry out the job initially and help you with training the next crew that comes through after I leave. Keep them neat and tidy. I like to pull unannounced locker box inspections, gentlemen. Be forewarned.”
The sound of active scribbling is music to my tinny ears.
“Now, as such”, I continue, “Each locker box, at this point, is identical. Please follow along with me as we do inventory: Each gets locker box will contain (as I pull out the item for identification):
• 1- set Purchase Orders (POs) for PPEs
• 1- Galvanometer
• 2- Blaster’s pliers
• 1- Custom Leatherman
• 1- Metal clipboard
• Various Pens, pencils, paper, etc.
• 5- Sharpies
• 1 copy: Blasters Protocols Handbook, 15th Edition
• 1 copy: Blasting and explosives safety training manual by the IEE.
• 1 copy: Theory and practice of blasting, by Hino (A classic)
• 1 copy: Blasters Handbook, 17th Edition
• Various Explosives catalogs
• 1- Custom Swiss Army Knife
• Several Butane lighters

• And 1 Maduro cigar

“Are we in agreement, gentlemen?” I ask. “Please check to be certain you have what the manifest states.”
“As long as we’re going over locker boxes, let’s look at our set of PPE purchase orders. Each locker box will contain POs for:
• 1 pair Orange Nomex coveralls, in your size
• 1 Dax carbon-fibre blaze orange hardhat with ear protection, gold face shield
• 1- CMC Safety 9-point extraction harness with carabiners
• 2- pairs Safety Glasses
• 2- pairs of gloves –wet & dry
• 1- pair Gear Box 8088 hard-toed intrinsically safe 8” work boots
• 1- Silva Orienteering Compass
• 3- pairs of cotton WaterWick socks
• 1- CommsLink™ VHF radio with microphone
• 1- Maglight power flashlight
• 1- Rain suit – also Nomex, bibs and outer shell
• 1- Mini Air Horn Power Tootler
• 1- Pair cotton/Nomex blende underwear – anti-chafe, wifebeateboxer: 3 sets.
• 1- 16-ounce container ‘Babies Bottom’ Talcum powder. Nomex chafes.
“Well, that’s a lot of gear; you best become real familiar with it as soon as you can. You are responsible for your PPEs. Lose them and replace them at your own cost. Wear them out? No problem. We will replace them. Get caught on location without your proper PPEs? Alavida. Goodbye. There is no second try. Fuck up once, and you’re gone. I am here for a limited time to try and teach you characters how to blast boats. I am not here to be your wet-nurse or mother. We green?” I ask.
“YES! Green! Rock!”
“Outstanding!”
We spend about an hour going over the various contents of the locker boxes and I answer general questions about blasting and explosives.
“We will use Primacord by the mile and tons of C-4 primarily. I might introduce you to binary explosives if there’s time. We might also get into PETN and RDX. Dynamite for training. But that’s about it.”
“We will use demolition wire and electrically fired blasting caps and boosters. We might have some time to look at set-pull-forget mechanicochemical fuses. But you’ll all learn some basic electrical wiring and how to design a circuit.”
“Tomorrow, given it doesn’t rain and the creek don’t rise.”
“Time, gentlemen!” I said. It’s been a long day and I’m a bit jet-lagged knackered. Besides, I wanted to give that Jacuzzi a spin.
“OK, remember: get your PPEs tomorrow morning at the Company Store. I expect to see each and every one of you here tomorrow, kitted out and ready to go, at 1300 sharp. That’s it. See you tomorrow. Susandhya. [Good evening.]” I said.
Locker boxes are locked and stowed in an orderly fashion. Each and everyone one of my 24 acolytes come to me before he leaves work to thank me personally and shake my hand.
“This might just work out”, I say to no one in particular.
Sanjay and I head back to the Raj for the night. I’m really tired, finally feeling the jet travel hit, and not the least bit hungry.
However, I do ring up the 214 cigar dude and relieve him of a selection of fine smokes. I drop by the bar for a couple of barley-pops before I retire to my capacious room for the night.
“Sanjay”, I say, “I’m knackered. If anyone wants me, head them off until tomorrow. It can wait. I’m going to get some kip and don’t want to be disturbed. No maids, no Majordomo, no butler. I just want to get unconscious for a while.”
“No problem, Rock”, Sanjay assures me, “I’ll tell them you’ve gone bush and haven’t left a forwarding address.”
“Good man”, I say, patting him on the shoulder. Hell, I must be getting old. Shit like teaching a band of newbies and whooping a little ass would have never as much as caused me a short breath. Then again, it’s probably not the years, it’s really the mileage…
After a quick light breakfast come morning, Sanjay and I are back on location. I’m being given a tour of the place by the day-shift foreman, one Mr. Vikramaditya Shrivastava.
“Yikes”, I say to Sanjay, “You characters really go for your 11-syllable names.”
“Call him ‘Vik’, Rock”, Sanjay smiles, “Good thing you’ve never asked about my last name.”
“Probably is”, I snicker back. I’m not getting roped into this little tussle.
Vik speaks fairly passable English, but I’m still glad Sanjay is here. The first order of business is to see the explosives bunker I sent plans for and how that’s coming along. They tell me it’s almost finished and ready to be stocked with what I’ve ordered.
“Outstanding, let’s have a look,” I say.
Into the Citation Golf Cart, we go. None of this plebian walking shit. We’re MIPs, Monstrously Important People.
Plebes walk, we ride.
We drive around the piles of rusty scrap, huge hunks of bulkhead, and disconcertingly quickly through polychromatic puddles of who-knows-what to slide to a stop in front of a large canvas tent.
Think M *A *S *H-type mess tent.
“What’s this?” I ask, “Commissary? First Aid?”
“No, Dr. Rock”, Vik explains, “Here are your explosives.”
My eyes grow large.
“What do you mean?” I ask. What the fuck do you mean? I mean.
“Building of your bunker is taking more time than we expected what with your design imperatives. But your order was filled most expediently. We are storing it here until the bunker is complete.” He smiles in that inimitable Indian manner that is so irritating when they don’t realize the major fuck-up they’ve just committed.
“OK. Simmer down, Rock.” I say to myself. “Sanjay, ask him again what’s in that tent. That bottomless tent that’s just a sheet of tarpaulin held up by metal poles.”
“He says that’s your explosives order, Rock,” Sanjay says. His demeanor went from perky and helpful to terrified as he saw me turn several shades of crimson and begin to emit wisps of steam.
“Sanjay”, I said in calm, calculated terms. “You are telling me there are over 9 tons of high explosives, blasting caps, boosters, demo wire, and ANFO sitting on wet sand in this heat under a sheet of fucking tarpaulin?”
“Yes?” he stammered, with a squeak.
“OK.”, I said. “We need to keep very calm and not go completely apeshit; and I’m telling you, right now, that’s taking Augean-level effort. We have a situation here, Mr. Sanjay. A very, very dangerous and very deadly situation. Let’s above all, remain calm.”
“Right, Rock”, he replies.
I turn to Vik and say in a calm and collected tone, “YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
“Calm and collected, right, Rock?” Sanjay smirks and Mr. Vik withers under my verbal assault.
“Sorry, I had to get that one out.”, I apologized, “Mr. Vik. You have created a real blockbuster here. Quite literally. I figured, erroneously it seems, that you would not take delivery of over 9 TONS of high explosives before you had a very safe and secure place to store such.”
“It arrived sooner than we thought. We got a good price on it,” he explained.
You did? Fucking great! Holy mothering fuck!
Now I was even more worried. One does not get discounts or bargain-basement deals on quality high explosives.
“Pray, Mr. Vik”, I entreated, “From where did you source these detonic components?”
“From Best Blast and Supply Llc of Hong Kong Enterprises.” He replied, “Bulk discount quantities, quick delivery bonus. Saved crore rupee.”
No. I was wrong, it could get worse.
Not only 9 tons of high explosives, 9 tons of counterfeit, knock-off, and non-regulated manufacturer explosives.
“OK”, I said, “Let’s take stock here. My bunker isn’t finished yet? Correct? So you and the company meatheads ordered 9 tons of knock-off explosives from some shady and cheesy Chinese dealer and you stored them on wet beach sand, in this heat, under a tarp? Have I got all that right?”
“Oh, yes Doctor Rock.”, he smiled.
“Sanjay”, I said in a low, firm tone, “We have a…situation. We need to cordon this area off and build an exclusion zone as far as we can around it. No one, and I mean no one, gets within what, 10 kilometers? of the tent. This thing goes off, it’s going to leave a much larger than that cone of devastation. Then we need to visit with the management of this place and have a few thousand well-chosen four-letter words. Then I can think about what the fuck we’re going to do about this situation. I’m struggling to remain calm so everyone else will, but this is just a wee bit tetchy. Find me some red flags and start planting them around the tent, working our way out. Let’s go. Calmly, collectively, and with purpose.”
We find a source of 2-meter poles with red pennants. Sanjay also finds a few miles of yellow “Danger: Stay The Fuck Away” tape. We gather then and head back to the tent. We start to spiral out from it planting flags and running tape.
We did the best we could, but we were disrupting daily business activities. Good. Let the head idiots in charge know they’ve fucked up and grandly.
Back at headquarters, I’m fuming. I’m damn mad. I’m loud and being all extremely American about all this.
“You fucking idiots! 9 tons of cheap-shit high explosives? From China? Stored on wet sand in this heat? Under a benchod tarp? Why the flying fuck do you think I sent such detailed plans for a storage bunker? Do you assholes even think?” I railed on like this for at least half an hour, going all Gene Wilder in ‘Young Frankenstein’.
“Yes, Doctor”, one Mr. Karam Kanungo, the local boss and company president said, “That is all true and steps will be taken to redress the situation. But that doesn’t address the issue at hand. What do you suggest?”
“I suggest you are all taken out and given hot coffee high colonics to clear out your thinking processes”, I spit, “But that still leaves us with a nine-ton headache out there waiting to bloom into something even more aggravating.”
The entire assembled board agreed.
I calm down a bit and have a think. Fuck your boardroom, I’m having a cigar.
“You need a licensed, certified, master blaster to go and sort that out. Do you happen to have one handy?” I asked, sweeter than clover honey.
“Ah, yes, you are…oh.”, was the collective realization.
“Yeah, I know. It’s me. I’m the only one that can sort this shit out. We can’t even wait until we find someone from the world to assist. We are sitting on a literal time bomb, gentlemen.” I reply.
They all agreed and were relieved I was going to take on the challenge.
What else could I do? That stuff lights off and we’re talking easily hundreds if not thousands of fatalities and countless injuries. Fuck that. Not on my watch.
I tells ya’ what. The fucking Karma Fairy better shower me with gifts and accolades, blowjobs and candy corn after all this.
In a metaphorical sense, of course.
“OK, Mr. Sanjay, you’re with me.” I say, “Now look, Herr Macs”, I address the collective board, “Before I had carte blanche. Now, if I even think we might need something, it appears. We’ll sort out our honoraria and bonuses for this after we get back.”
Everyone present agreed most hastily. Handshakes all around and apologies from the board cemented the issue.
“OK, Sanjay. I need a bus. At least 24-seater. With a driver than knows how, when, and where to stop. OK?” I ask.
“24, Rock?”, Sanjay asks, “You’re not thinking of including the recruits now, are you?”
“Yes I am, Mr. Sanjay.”, I replied sternly, “On the job training. Meet me at outbuilding #2 at 1300 as per plan. Order a bus and arrange the largest forklift that can manage beach sand, about 100 wooden pallets, plastic wrap, and sandbags. Lots and lots of sandbags. Have them stockpiled away from the tent in a muster area. OK. You got all that?”
“Yes, Rock”, he said, “I’ll be there in a couple of hours. It will only take a few phone calls.”
“Marvelous.”
Not even 1000 in the fucking morning and I’m facing life and death decisions once again. I dig an emergency flask out of my field vest. If this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, what the fuck does?
A tot or two later, I change into my PPEs, and light a cigar. I catch a tap-tap to the region of the tent. I need to reconnoiter the area and figure out what sort of dragon I have to slay and the best way of going about slaughtering the sumbitch.
I’m standing alone, about 250 meters from the tent of death.
I’m puzzling and puzzling; but I can’t allow for my puzzler to go sore. Not this early, anyway.
“OK, me ol’ mucker”, I sigh, “It’s me or thee. Pucker up, Buckwheat. Here I come.”
A blast suit like the ones bomb disposal dudes wear wouldn’t help in the least. All it would do is hold the mashed body parts together to make for easier disposal. I’m anywhere within a kilometer or so of this pile of Chinese counterfeit boom-makers and it decides to let go; I’m lunchmeat. That’s it. Alive one second; kerpow, splat, instantaneously zonked into component particles the next. That’s the long and short of it. No ‘thank you’s. No ‘good bye’s. Just existing here one minute and in an alternate dimension the next.
Doesn't that just take the biscuit? Funny old thing, life.
I trod onwards.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.
I was walking up to the tent, clearing a path for the forklift. No fucking way I’m schlepping nine tons of dodgy explosives out of here, over wet beach sand, by hand and hoof.
Sand. I’m with young Anakin on this one. I hate sand. I hate walking in dry sand, hiking in wet sand. It makes for a wonderful oil reservoir and I love its porosity and permeability at depth. But at the surface, forget it. Yow! Let me tell you about the time I was out in the Rub al-Khali desert. The great Sand Erg. Wind blowing a force 9 gale! Seif dunes 1,000 meters high…
Yeah. I know. I’m stalling.
I’m approaching the tent. Carefully. I pause to light a new cigar. You might think that daft, but it’s really not. None of the stuff inside is heat-sensitive; let me clarify. None of the stuff is going to go off if hit by errant ash or even a sustained flame. But sitting out in the 30^C+ heat? OK, that makes it twitchier. Cigars do the opposite for me. Give me something to concentrate upon and it calms me down.
I need calm now. By the bucketful. Where’s a monsoon when you really need one?
OK, I made it. I’m at the tent. Got to hand it to the workers around here, they respect authority and don’t come anywhere near the tent. They also don’t apparently give a shit as there no crowd gathered filming me with their iPhones to post to You Tube© if the tent decides to go all detonic.
Good. I couldn’t yell anything at them they’d understand to clear out anyway.
I open the hole in the side of the tent and pause. I’m hit with a wave of hot air. And the heady redolence of onions, sewer gas, and dog farts.
Sorry, that’s just me. Weird midnight snack last night. Frozen durian. What a treat.
Anyways.
I smell kerosene. Old wood pulp, like musty magazines. And an undercurrent of almonds.
“Oh, treble fuck me,” I say to no one within 100 square kilometers.
Kerosene is sweaty C-4. Old wood pulp is dynamite. Almonds? My old friend, nitroglycerine.
Things, if possible, went from real to super-uber major-league holy-fuck real.
“OK”, I say, as I dig out my phone and begin to snap pictures at a frantic rate.
Luckily, all the ordnance was piled like-with-like. Blasting caps? All over here. C-4, all along this ‘wall’. Dynamite? All over here. Non-explosives? Right over here.
I was mentally running like a squadron of overclocked Crays, wondering what I need to do to sort out this little situation. I’m so deep in thought, someone would need to throw me a rope to get my attention.
Or, just tap me on the shoulder.
Once I returned from low earth orbit, I turn to see a little wisp of an Indian feller, who had to be at least 27 years Methuselah’s senior.
“What? THE? Actual? Fuck? Are? You? DOING? Here?” I screamed.
“A thousand pardons, Sahib.”, the ancient one said, “I saw you working alone. Salim wonders if you need some help? Salim is good helper. Salim will help you good.”
“Yes, Salim. Oh, hello by the way.”, I said, calming a bit, forcing myself to smile so I didn’t kill him on the spot, “I do need your help. I need you to go, very slowly, out of this tent and to where the flags begin. Stand there and allow access to no one. OK. We green?”
Salim smiles broadly revealing both teeth. I slowly usher him out and remind myself to order a few new pairs of boxers before the day is out.
Back to the problem at hand. There are some salvageable items here. But the most the C-4, all the dynamite and every sack of ANFO has to go. And by ‘go’, I mean be disposed of. How?
By blowing it up, how else?
An idea creeps into my skull. I puff and puff while it grows and finally, I’ve a plan of attack.
I close the tent and slowly walk away. I hand Salim 1000 rupees and tell him that no one, I don’t care if it was Mahatma Gandhi reincarnate, goes anywhere near that tent.
“You savvy?” I ask.
“Oh, Sahib! I savvy! Thank you! Salaam! I savvy!” he is beside himself with joy, 13 bucks, and a task.
I look at my watch. It’s just gone noon. Good. I need a sandwich, some fluid replacement, as I’ve probably literally sweated off 5 kilos in the last hour and a half, and some time to jot down my plans.
I catch a tap-tap, geez, these things are everywhere around here. They form an unsanctioned, but necessary, sort of intradepartmental transport system here. I tip a couple of hundred rupees for every trip. They see blaze orange and they have this Pavlovian reaction. I sometimes need to break up fist-fights over which driver arrived first.
“Commissary”, I say, sit down, let the tap-tap, which is really nothing more than a glorified golf cart, adjust to my Western bulk and away we zip.
Salim is waving to me as we depart.
I shudder to think if I hadn’t had a tot or two and was a bit jumpier from the morning’s caffeine. Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
At the commissary, I grab a tall iced, fruit cocktail juice; a slurry of mixed dragon fruit, kiwi, carambola, blood orange, green apple, watermelon, bitter melon, sweet melon, & bailan melon fruity essence. I’m incredibly thirsty and I need some calories, but not in bulk and not from onion bhajis, mutton kabobs, or something claiming to be grilled chicken on a stick.
The last thing I need today is a case of the trots or even sharp gas pains in the next few hours. I add about 5 fingers of Old Fornicator Vodka to the juice and sip it slowly as my biometric rhythms return from the ionosphere and back to more normal levels.
Remember, I’m EtOh-based. I need to control my various fluid levels very carefully.
The blasting muse is upon me. In less than 30 minutes, I have a plan. Both a written out procedure and a map of what needs to be done.
I finish off another tall, icy glass of potato and various fruit juices, venture outside feeling almost like I’ve once again regained the illusion of control of the situation and my life.
I fire up a heater and decide to walk the approximately 1100 meters to outbuilding #2. I’m thinking as I sashay along; figuring this and calculating that.
I round the corner and see Outbuilding #2 and a bus parked next to it.
The bus looks like a refugee from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The movie and album.
I go into Outbuilding #2 and see about half the class has arrived, and they are all kitted out in their new, stiff, and scratchy PPEs.
I nod hello to all and see Sanjay over across the room.
“Mr. Sanjay”, I say, “Nice bus. What’s the story?”
“Only one I could find that was a 24 seater, not actively falling apart, and with an English speaking driver. Rock. Mr. Maha, owneoperator.” He replied.
“Mr. Maha”, I said, shaking his hand. “Love the bus. Some sort of passion project?”
Mr. Maha laughs. “I was city bus driver for 39 years. I retire and go nuts. I buy old bus and fix up mechanicals. Runs all like excellently. Looks like dung heap. I begin to paint and never quite knew when to stop.”
“I like it. Adds a sense of surrealism to the day, as if it really needs more.” I reply, “However, I do hope you know how to stop. I mean that sincerely. We have a literal bomb to defuse. Does that bother you?”
“No, Doctor”, he says, “Nothing much bothers me anymore. I know. You are here. You are to make safe. I feel safe that you’re here. Let us go to work.”
“Outstanding”. I say.
I tell him that a fat bonus will be his when this is all over if all goes to plan.
“Unnecessary.”, he replies, “Mr. Sanjay has already paid me.”
“Paid? Perhaps”, I reply, “You are going to get danger money whether you like it or not.”
“I guess I will like it, Doctor.” He smiles.
“Marvelous.”
I look at the clock, it’s 1256. Almost showtime.
1300 on the spot. I pick up the microphone and address the assembled 24.
“Gentlemen”, I say, “Very good. You all look like late October in the United States. Very festive.” as all are kitted out in their respective PPEs.
“We have a little matter to handle. One that has just cropped up and one you’re certainly not ready for, but I have no other choice. Does that bother anyone here?” I ask.
Head shakes and questions arise.
“OK, class”, I say, “For your first training exercise, we’re going to defuse a 9-ton bomb. Let’s go.”
The collective gasp drew my cigar smoke in another direction, right towards them.
“Doctor…Ah, Rock. Really?” one brave soul asked for the crowd.
“Yes”, I said, “seems your company officials got a ‘real deal’ on some dodgy Chinese explosives. They didn’t wait until they finished the storage bunker I had designed, so they simply set the stuff on the beach and covered it with a canvas tent.”
There were more gasps.
“Indeed”, I said, “We need to neutralize this threat. Sanjay is passing out copies of my plan and designs on just how to do this. Read them over and let me know what you think. You have 5 minutes. We’re out of here at 1330 on the nose.”
They read quickly, cogitated over the plans and as I had assumed, didn’t find any flaws within.
“OK”, I say after an inch of cigar had passed, “You follow my directions, directly and without question, there’s no reason you can’t come out of this alive and happy, free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment.”
There was a chuckle or two at that last line. ‘Airplane’ is such a classic movie.
“Now I know”, I continued, “That this is pretty scary shit. Especially for you guys, being tossed in the deep end like this. I know because I’m scared to death.”
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, one of my acolytes said, “We do not believe this is so.”
“I stay alive by being scared to death”, I replied. “You will learn this as well.”
Sanjay checks out everyone’s PPE and all appear in good order. They are happy to have such nice, new equipment.
And that’s a problem. People used to ragged and ratty shit with which to work will go to extraordinary lengths to not filthy-up brand new working gear. This is one little bugaboo I’m going to settle here and now.
“One thing, gentlemen”, I note, “You all have nice, clean, and new PPEs. You look great. You come back to Outbuilding #2 looking as pristine, you’re gone. Keeping clean is not a part of your training. You’re going to sweat and stink. You keep to clean and it tells me you’re goldbricking, that is, not doing your job.” I say as I surreptitiously unscrew the top of my travel mug, ‘accidentally’ trip and shower the front row with Greenland coffee, lukewarm.
“See?”, I saw, “They were totally protected. That’s what PPEs are all about. We green?”
“Somewhat brown, Rock”, a couple of the guys in the front row reply without a hint of irony.
“Outstanding.”
“Gentlemen, it is time. Take what you think you’ll need and leave the rest in your locker box. Brass tags to Sector 4. On the bus, we leave in 5 minutes.”
I move my brass marker to Zone 4, puff a blue cloud for all to see, and head out to the bus.
We’re loaded and headed to Sector 4 in less than 5 minutes.
“OK”, I say”, I’m going to break you up into groups of 4. Tags number 1 to 4, you’re group 1. 5-8, group 2, and so on. OK?”
All respond in the affirmative.
OK. Six groups of four, Sanjay and me to lead the pack. We roll up to just outside the exclusion zone. With a squeal of brakes, we grind to a halt.
“Outside”, I command, “Assemble in your groups next to the bus. Go!”.
Like a well-oiled team, they de-bus and stand together in 6 groups. Sanjay and I walk along, inspecting the troops.
“OK”, I say, “This may seem like a shit job, but group 4. Back on the bus. To the commissary. Water, juice, and whatever else you think we’ll need to stay hydrated out there. Don’t worry, we’re going on rotation once you get back. You’ll all get a chance to do the exciting stuff. Now, move it.”
I say something to Sanjay, he jots it down in his book, certain to remind me later.
“OK, let’s see. Group 1. Storage detail. Build the temporary in-ground storage locker like it’s shown in the plan. Get help and have them source the manpower and materials. It needs to be done in the next 2 hours. Go!”
There are some explosives that can be salvaged. I need a place to store them. I’ve scouted and laid out a spot away from prying eyes where they can build an 8x8x8 hole in the ground, line it with marine plywood, and store whatever we can salvage. A plywood roof over the thing, a couple of locks, and well, Robert’s your Mother’s Sister’s Husband.
Next, I send group 3 to build a road from the tent to an area on the beach sourced as Disposal Area #1. They will take flags and tape and run a road, of sorts, from the tent to the beach; cordoning it off so we can take the forklift and its loads of dodgy high explosives to the disposal area.
The other groups are doing needful and necessary things as well. I tell Sanjay to keep a lid on things, I’m going to bring the forklift, a few pallets, sandbags and such in for the first run.
I find the forklift, and it’s a huge old Hyster 52-ton truck.
It’ll do.
The keys are in, so I drop in and fire it up. It catches on the first twirl and I pick up a half-dozen wooden pallets, a bunch of sandbags, and a few huge rolls of plastic wrapping. It’s like driving a tank, but it has plenty of power and just a low gear range.
I drive it back to Sector 4 and almost rum over Salim. He was taking my previous orders very seriously, indeed.
“All cool, Salim”, I say over the roar of the forklift, “It’s just me.”
He waves and lets me pass. He’s serious as a heart attack about keeping people out.
I drive and realize that I can’t drive ‘gingerly’ in a conveyance such as this. I can drive deliberately and with forethought, but it rumbles and shudders the ground. Best to slide in, drop the load, and shut her down while I figure out what’s next.
I do so and drop the pallets, etc., just outside the flap of the tent. I back off a few feet, drop the forks, and shut the noisy machine down for the time being.
Sanjay appears. As does Crew #5. I motion them to come over, slowly and with forethought.
We’re all standing outside the tent flap. I raise an index finger, right, of course, to get their attention.
“Gentlemen, first lesson. What says these explosives have gone bad? Answer:” and I open the tent flap.
“Take a whiff. What do you smell?” I instruct.
“Old paper?” was one answer.
“Oil? Petrol? Something petrochemical?” was the next.
“Almonds?” Sanjay says.
“Highest marks. We’ve old C-4. It sweats and smells like kerosene. Old paper or pulp? Dynamite gone wet and bad. Almonds? Bitter, bitter almonds? Nitroglycerine. Yes, guys. We’ve got rogue nitro inside. Anyone want to quit? Now’s your chance.” I ask, being deadly serious.
One looks to another; then they all look to me…eyes wide…
To be continued…

Hi. It's Eric with some thoughts for this week's audio essay on the topic of superposition. Now, to those of you in the know, superposition is an odd word, in that it is the scientific concept we reach for when trying to describe the paradox of Schrodinger's cat and the theory and philosophy of quantum measurement. We don't yet know how to say that the cat is both dead and alive at the same time rigorously, so we fudge whatever is going on with this unfortunate feline and say that the cat and the quantum system on which its life depends are a mixture of two distinct states, that are somehow commingled in a way that has defied a satisfying explanation for about a century. Now, I'm usually loath to appeal to such quantum concepts in everyday life, as there is a veritable industry of people making bad quantum analogies. For example, whenever you have a non-quantum system that is altered by its observation, that really has nothing to do with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Jane Goodall's chimpanzees are almost certainly altered in their behavior due to her presence. But there is likely no competent quantum theorist who would analogize chimps to electrons, and Goodall to a Hermitian observable, executing a quantum observation. Heisenberg adds nothing other than physics-envy to the discussion of an entirely classical situation such as this.
However, I have changed my mind in the case of superposition, as I would now like to explain. To begin with, superposition isn't a quantum phenomenon. For example, imagine that you'd come from Europe to Australia, and that you had both euros and Swiss francs in your pockets. You might then be said to be in a superposition, because you have pocket change in both euros and francs rather than a pure state of only one currency or the other. The analog of the physical observable in this situation would be something like a multiple-choice question found on a landing card about the contents of your pockets. Here, it is easy to see the danger of this set up. Assuming you have three times as much value in euros as you do in francs, what happens when you get a question that doesn't include your situation as an answer? What if the landing card asked, is all of your change in A) euros or B) Swiss francs, with no other options available? Well, this as stated, is a completely classical superposition problem, having nothing to do with quantum theory. Were you to have such a classical question asked of you like this, there would have been no way for you to answer. However, if the answer were on the multiple-choice menu, there would be no problem at all, and you would give a clear answer determined by the state of your pockets. So, if the state in question isn't on the multiple-choice menu, the classical world is forced to go mute, as there is no answer determined by the system; whereas if it is found on the list of allowable choices, the answer is then completely determined by the system’s state at the time that the question was asked.
Oddly, the quantum world is, in a way, exactly as deterministic as the classical one just described, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. In order to understand this, we’ll have to introduce a bit of jargon. So long as the system (now called the Hilbert space state) is on the list of answers (technically called the system of Eigenvectors) corresponding to the question (now called a quantum observable) the question will return a completely deterministic answer (technically called the Eigenvalue corresponding to the state Eigenvector.) These are, in a sense, good questions in quantum theory, because the answer corresponding to the state of the system actually appears as one of the multiple-choice options.
So, if that is completely deterministic, well then what happened to the famous quantum probability theory and the indeterminacy that we hear so much about? What if I told you that it were 100% confined to the situation which classical theory couldn't handle either? That is, quantum probability theory only becomes relevant when you ask bad quantum questions, where the state of the system isn't on the list of multiple-choice answers. When the landing card asked if all your change were completely in euros or only in francs, the classical system couldn't answer because three times the value of your Swiss francs were held in euros, so no answer could be determined. But if your pocket change were somehow quantum, well then you might find that 75% of the time your pocket coins would bizarrely turn into pure euros, and would bewilderingly turn into pure francs 25% of the time just by virtue of your being asked for a measurement by the landing card. In the quantum theory, this is due to the multiple-choice answers of the so-called observable, represented by the landing card question, not being well-suited to the mixed state of your pockets in a superposition between euros and francs. In other words, quantum theory gets probabilistic only where classical theory went mute. All of the indeterminacy appears to come from asking bad multiple-choice questions in both the classical and quantum regimes, in which the state of the system doesn't fit any given answer.
Quite honestly, I've never heard a physicist rework the issue of quantum probabilities in just this way, so as to highlight that the probabilistic weirdness comes only from the quantum being overly solicitous, and accommodating really bad questions. For some reason, they don't like the idea of calling an observable that doesn't have the state of the system as an allowable answer, a bad question. But that is precisely why I do like it. It points out that the quantum is deterministic where the classical theory is deterministic, and only probabilistic where the classical theory is mute. And this is because it is weirdly willing to answer questions that are, in a sense that can be made precise, bad questions to begin with. That doesn't get rid of the mystery, but it recasts it so it doesn't sound quite so weird. The new question is, why would a quantum system overcompensate for the lousy questions being posed, when the classical system seems to know not to answer?
So why bring any of this up? Well, the first reason is that I couldn't resist sneaking in a personal reformulation of the quantum measurement problem that most people will have never considered. But the second reason is that I have come to believe that we are wasting our political lives on just such superposition questions.
For example, let's see if we can solve the abortion debate problem right now on this podcast using superposition; as it is much easier than the abortion problem itself. The abortion debate problem is that everyone agrees that before fertilization there is no human life to worry about. And that after a baby is born, there is no question that it has a right to live. Yet, pro-choice and pro-life activists insist on telling us that the developing embryo is either a mere bundle of cells suddenly becoming a life only when born, or a full-fledged baby the moment the sperm enters the egg. You can guess my answer here. The question of, is it a baby's life or a woman's choice, is agreed-upon by everyone before fertilization or following birth because the observable in question has the system as one of the two multiple-choice answers in those two cases. However, during the process of embryonic development, something miraculous is taking place that we simply don't understand scientifically. Somehow, a non-sentient blastula becomes a baby by a process utterly opaque to science, which as yet has no mature theory of consciousness. The system in utero is in a changing and progressing superposition tilted heavily towards not being a baby at the beginning, and tilted heavily towards being one at the end of the pregnancy. But the problem here is that we have allowed the activists, rather than the embryologists and developmental biologists, to hand us the life versus choice observable, with its two terrible multiple-choice options. If we had let the embryologist set the multiple-choice question, there would be at least 23 Carnegie stages for the embryo, before you even get to fetal development. But instead of going forward from what we both know and don't know with high confidence about the system, we are instead permanently deranged by being stuck with Schrodinger's embryo by the activists who insist on working backwards from their political objectives.
So, does this somehow solve the abortion issue? Of course not. All it does, is get us to see how ridiculously transparent we are in our politics, that we would allow our society to be led by those activists who would shoehorn the central scientific miracle of human development into a nutty political binary of convenience. We don't even think to ask, who are these people who have left us at each other's throats, debating an inappropriate multiple-choice question that can never be answered? Well, in the spirit of The Portal, we are always looking for a way out of our perennial problems to try to find an exit. And I think that the technique here of teaching oneself to spot superposition problems in stalemated political systems, brings a great deal of relief to those of us who find the perspective of naïve activism a fairly impoverished worldview. The activist mindset is always trying to remove nuanced selections that might better match our world’s needs from among the multiple-choice answers, until it finds a comical binary. Do you support the war on drugs, yes or no? Are you for or against immigration? Should men and women be treated equally? Should we embrace capitalism, or choose socialism? Racism: systemic problem or convenient excuse? Is China a trading partner or a strategic rival? Has technology stagnated, or is it in fact racing ahead at breakneck speed? Has feminism gone too far, or not far enough? In all of these cases, there is an entire industry built around writing articles that involve replacing conversations that might progress towards answers and agreement, with simple multiple-choice political options that foreclose all hope. And in general, we can surmise when this has occurred because activism generally leaves a distinct signature, where the true state of a system is best represented as a superposition of the last two remaining choices that bitterly divide us, handed us by activists.
So, I will leave you with the following thought. The principle of superposition is not limited to quantum weirdness, and it may be governing your life at a level that you never considered. Think about where you are most divided from your loved ones politically. Then ask yourself, when I listen to the debates at my dinner table, am I hearing a set of multiple-choice answers that sound like they were developed by scholars interested in understanding, or by activists who are pushing for an outcome? If the latter, think about whether you couldn't make more progress with those you love by recognizing that the truth is usually in some kind of a superposition of the last remaining answers pushed by the activists. But you don't have to accept these middlebrow binaries, dilemmas and trilemmas. Instead, try asking a new question. If my loved ones and I trashed the terms of debate foisted upon us by strangers, activists and the news media, could we together fashion a list of multiple choice answers that we might agree contain an answer we all could live with, and that better describes the true state of the system? I mean, do you really want open or closed borders? Do you really want to talk about psilocybin and heroin in the same breath? Do you really want to claim that there is no systemic oppression, or that it governs every aspect of our lives? Before long, it is my hope that you will develop an intuition that many long-running stalemated discussions are really about having our lives shoehorned by others into inappropriate binaries that can only represent the state of our world as a superposition of inappropriate and simplistic answers that you never would have chosen for yourself.

Este contenido fue publicado originalmente el 21/10/2019 - Aca
Posts anteriores de la serie

• Banca internacional #01 – Compliance y Ground rules
• Banca internacional #02 GB UK IM JE – United Kingdom, where it all began
• Banca internacional #03 UK LT BG MT DE – Intro EU y Fintech
• Banca internacional #04 PT MT – Banca e inversión, mitigando PT withholding tax.
• Banca internacional #05 AE – Exportar servicios, incorporación, DTAs y residencia fiscal.
• Banca internacional #06 AE – Dubai Virtual Companies
• Digital assets C01 JE – Offshore digital assets

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Background
Este es el primer post en el que me han ayudado tres usuarios residentes en la República Argentina. Los conejillos de Indias de la Banca Internacional que dieron un paso al frente mediante una pesquisa vía discord de mi parte.
Bajo un acuerdo unánime y siguiendo el modus operandi de Banca Internacional, se los mantendrá en el anonimato. Los detalles sobre las transacciones, tarjetas y bancos de Argentina han sido posible gracias a ellos, inclusive del tacaño.
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Introducción
Durante los dos últimos meses han cambiado montones de cosas en la República Argentina. De los eventos que son de mi interés, se han impuesto controles de capitales conocidos localmente como el “cepo cambiario” y mediante estos posts algunos usuarios han expresado interés en servicios, divisas o inversiones las cuales no están disponibles en Argentina.
Más allá de los cambios a nivel económico, se han generado oportunidades de inversión local vía arbitrage. En principio de Bonos como el AY24 hasta que el Banco Central de la Republica Argentina actuó para mitigar el fácil acceso al yield que esta operatoria generaba. Luego, bajo una operatoria similar un gran grupo de usuarios se volcó a realizar arbitrage de crypto-assets. En general topándose con problemas de libre movimiento de capital desde y hacia los exchanges o viéndose forzados a pagar comisiones medianamente altas las que disminuían el yield de la operatoria. Este post, ofrece una solución efectiva a este problema de manera (esperemos) permanente.
Otros usuarios han demostrado interés en poder resguardarse de una futura crisis en el Dólar Americano, vía depósitos en Francos Suizos, Yuan Renmimbi, Singapore Dollar, Euros, Libras Esterlinas y metales preciosos como el Oro y la Plata. Para estos usuarios este post también es relevante.
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Suiza
Suiza, oficialmente La Confederación Suiza, país que se encuentra en el centro de Europa. Si bien su capital oficial es Berna, esta y Geneva son capitales (y centros) financieros globales. Zug y sus alrededores, se han (están en proceso con algunos setbacks) convertido en centros de desarrollo de crypto-assests, blockchain y fintech.
No es parte de la EU, European Union, tampoco del EEA, European Economic Area o de la Eurozona. Pero participa del tratado Shengen (en parte) y del EU Single Market. Si bien la divisa nacional, tanto como la de Liechtenstein es el Franco Suizo (CHF), el cual posee un protocolo de pagos y transferencias propias también es parte del área SEPA. El CHF es también usado en otras zonas de Europa de facto o simplemente no oficial como Campione d’Italia.
Campione, un poco off-topic, es un enclave Italiano dentro del territorio suizo en la costa del lago de Lugano. Utilizan el Franco Suizo ya que la mayoría de sus residentes eligen utilizar bancos Suizos. Campione, es un tax haven y los residentes fiscales tienen beneficios interesantes como poder hacer trade de bonos vía entidades Suizas libre de impuestos.
Centro financiero mundial, las ideas asociadas con Suiza siempre son las mismas. Secrecía bancaria, lavado de activos, “cuentas numeradas” y similares fantasías perpetradas por Hollywood.
Es verdad que en Suiza la evasión impositiva no es considerada un delito. CRS, Common reporting Standard, es una realidad inevitable. -Argentina es miembro-
Las cuentas numeradas son una idea de los 60’s de las películas de James Bond. Y el lavado de activos, si Uds. Siguen estos posts saben que sucede a nivel global y es un mal que afecta a todos los centros financieros.
Como en otras jurisdicciones a nivel global existen diferentes tipos de banca. Private Retail (No confundir con Privada), Privada, Transaccional, de negocios, Corporativa y de Inversión.
Dentro de la banca de inversión existen brokers de prácticamente todos los instrumentos y commodities a nivel mundial.
Los brokers de FX Suizos tienen una peculiaridad, siendo que bajo regulación del FINMA como requerimiento para brokering FX se les exige una licencia bancaria.
Consecuentemente los brokers de FX son a su vez Bancos que pueden funcionar como bancos retail.
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CRS: Si.
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Taxacion:

No residentes
Dividendos: De 0 a 35%
Intereses: De 0 a 35%
Regalias: 0%

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Controles de capitales: No.
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Dukascopy Bank S.A. uno de los gigantes suizos en lo que respecta a banca de inversión. FX, CFDs, Commodities y Cryptocurrencies. Las cuentas disponibles varían medianamente entre jurisdicciones pero en general existen por separado y en conjunto lo que genera una gran confusión al momento de intentar decidir a qué servicio o paquete aplicar.
Operan en diferentes jurisdicciones bajo diferentes entidades y subsidiarias. Suiza, Latvia, Japón, Rusia, Ucrania y Hong Kong.
Al que le interese hacer trading de FX, Dukascopy ofrece soporte para MetaTrader 4, JForex, JForex Web y aplicaciones móviles.
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Las cuentas disponibles son

• FX/CFD
• Gold (es XAU no físico)
• Binary options
• Standard Current account (Se puede invertir en oro directo desde esta cuenta)
• Mobile Current account

Y mixes de las anteriores. En general hay una sobreposicion de servicios entre los ofrecimientos y es lo que genera más confusión. Diferentes jurisdicciones tienen productos iguales o similares pero bajo diferentes costos.
Por una cuestión de simplicidad el post está centrado en Dukascopy Bank S.A. Suiza y no solo en esa entidad, sino en particular en el producto de nombre Mobile Current Account.
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Regulación:

• En Suiza: FINMA, OFCOM, SBA, Swiss TV Broadcasting (tienen un canal de televisión).
• En Japón: FSA, FFAJ, SESC, FINMAC.

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Dukascopy Bank – Suiza

https://www.dukascopy.bank
Licencia: Bancaria (Licenciado y supervisado por FINMA)
Cuentas: Personal/Business.
Deposito Mínimo: No requiere.
Costo de mantenimiento: No.
Tarjeta: Si, Visa física y virtual disponibles.
No-residentes: Si, total soporte.
Detalles: La Mobile Current Account ofrece acceso a depósitos en 23 divisas. Todos los IBANs son suizos, con lo que se puede recibir EUR y CHF vía Transferwise. Tiene soporte para enviar y recibir depósitos vía SEPA y SWIFT para todas las divisas. Pueden efectivamente hacer una transferencia desde su banco directo a Dukascopy.
Suiza, por no ser Unión Europea permite la emisión de tarjetas de débito a no residentes en la confederación o la Unión Europea. Cosa que muchos bancos o EMIs con apertura de cuenta online no ofrecen. La tarjeta tiene costo.

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Cargos relevantes (Para transacciones en EUR, para operaciones en otras divisas consultar el link)

https://www.dukascopy.bank/swiss/fees-limits/
Transferencias entre cuentas internas: Gratis
Transferencias dentro Dukascopy Group: Gratis
Depósitos a Dukascopy Card: Gratis
Retiros de Dukascopy Card: Gratis
Depósitos vía tarjetas de Crédito o Debito: 1.2% (En EUR)
Transferencias SEPA: EUR 2.30
Transferencias SWIFT: EUR 20
Aviso: Existen más cargos no relevantes al post, otras opciones de depósito y retiro vía tarjetas de otros bancos, Neteller y Skrill. Lean los detalles antes de operar.

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Cargos de la tarjeta Dukascopy

Costo tarjeta Dukascopy física: CHF 18.5
Costo mensual de la tarjeta Dukascopy física: CHF 1
Costo tarjeta Dukascopy virtual: CHF 5
Costo mensual de la tarjeta Dukascopy virtual: CHF 5

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Limites

Depósitos per quarter: EUR 3000
Balance: EUR 50.000
Los límites se pueden ampliar hasta el 450% enviando documentación sobre su ocupación, ingresos y residencia fiscal. Los limites se resetean los 1ro Enero, 1ro de Abril, 1ro de Julio y 1ro de Octubre.

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Registro y onboarding
Dukascopy Bank (Mobile current account) con onboarding digital vía una app llamada Dukascopy 911, la cual es una especie de social network bancaria. Por registrarse vía esa app el usuario recibe 5 DKUs, un token de Dukascopy que tiene un (soft) peg al Euro. El chat de soporte y los webinars son vía esta aplicación. Una manera de generar extra DKUs es contestando preguntas y participando en la red social la cual dependiendo de la performance del usuario reparte tokens a modo de recompensa.
La cuenta bancaria en si una vez registrada, si bien se puede operar desde Dukascopy 911 es preferible operarla desde Dukascopy Bank, otra aplicación. Desde esta última, pueden abrir una cuenta en EUR y hacer el funding inicial vía tarjeta de débito o crédito.
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Particularidades importantes
En los fees se discrimina entre transferencias SEPA y Wires (SWIFT, de más alto costo) sin embargo en la aplicación solo existe una opción, Wires. Si el usuario elige EUR como divisa y utiliza datos bancarios de la Unión Europea, el banco detecta esto y hace la transferencia vía el medio más económico. Hay que prestar atención de usar los datos bancarios correctos de la entidad a la que se intenta hacer el deposito cosa de evitar a toda costa utilizar datos bancarios SWIFT en lugar del preferido, más económico y eficiente SEPA.
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Beneficios
El beneficio principal se preguntaran…?
Dukascopy acepta depósitos vía tarjetas de crédito y débito bajo una comisión de solo 1.2% (En Euros) y la cuenta móvil no tiene fees de mantenimiento. Se pueden hacer transferencias SEPA directo a exchanges como Binance Jersey la cual ya establecimos que tiene de los fees más bajos del mercado.
Se han probado tarjetas de Argentina Visa y Mastercard de débito y crédito. Un solo usuario tuvo problemas con tarjeta de BruBank pero pudo utilizar su tarjeta de crédito y como beneficio sumar millas (en el caso del usuario el deposito fue tomado como compra y no genero gastos de adelanto de efectivo).
El monto máximo que se ha podido autorizar con tarjetas Argentinas fue de EUR 1000 , sin embargo varios depósitos consecutivos de EUR 500 también funcionaron. Un usuario se comunico con Visa para autorizar los pagos y desde ese momento no tuvo más problemas. Lamentablemente depositos de EUR 1.7 han fallado...
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EDIT: El monto maximo depositado en las pruebas fue de EUR 1000 y no de EUR 850 como se habia posteado originalmente.
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Referrals
Algunos usuarios me preguntan sobre referrals de servicios que he posteado en el pasado a modo de recompensa por el tiempo que invierto a nivel personal haciendo research y escribiendo. Si bien algunos de estos servicios ofrecen recompensas, no es algo que vaya par en par con mi moral.
Desde que comencé a escribir sobre banca y servicios financieros, solo ha habido un solo referral, el de Binance Jersey. El cual visto las reglas no paga absolutamente nada, pero si me interesaba a modo de monitorear el nivel de suscripción.
Desde mi punto de vista, los referrals, viniendo de mi parte son poco éticos. Se puede dar a entender que en lugar de informar sobre el mejor servicio, se comparte uno el cual beneficia al que refiere a costas de los usuarios referidos y es posible (muy) que los usuarios no estén al tanto de esta situación.
Por este motivo desde este momento empezando desde el artículo titulado Digital assets C01 – JE | Offshore digital assets, al final del post se van a encontrar con una sección de Donations con 5 direcciones de crypto donde pueden transferir lo que les parezca adecuado.
Los cálculos de retorno efectivo haciendo arbitrage de crypto utilizando los servicios de mis posts varían desde el 12% al 17%.
Desde ya les agradezco por su generosidad y si ustedes quieren hacer referral de cualquier servicio por su cuenta me parece perfecto. Esta regla es pura y exclusivamente mía por una cuestión de neutralidad y ética.
Desde ya muchas gracias por ofrecer el apoyo que ofrecen y los comentarios constructivos.
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Links de registro e información

Para la cuenta de la cual se discute en el post
Dukascopy Mobile Bank
Para trade en Suiza
Dukascopy Bank S.A.

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Donations.

Token Wallet address BTC 19xvUdQoZosrzYKNaTCK834zRkg5Bogop BCH qqqmyqjspnq0fazk9wvv0elc8vxdp2rkvgfqs3s87x LTC LKNvBgwEtE3w7oEUYiSVb96qCe7xFDBvp8 ETH/DAI 0x1cbbcf2ca8849893ad7feac5ef5c735f6d91fa4e XMR 44AXEt8ZkmjgGuUrPaoNTzBGhp92L3HozSYxAip7dz8qL6A3neJBriLRSjC8Qnam4tEhfw2yXzcXsbZ2dJiWHDC7Ji8nBvx 

Hi. It's Eric with some thoughts for this week's audio essay on the topic of superposition. Now, to those of you in the know, superposition is an odd word, in that it is the scientific concept we reach for when trying to describe the paradox of Schrodinger's cat and the theory and philosophy of quantum measurement. We don't yet know how to say that the cat is both dead and alive at the same time rigorously, so we fudge whatever is going on with this unfortunate feline and say that the cat and the quantum system on which its life depends are a mixture of two distinct states, that are somehow commingled in a way that has defied a satisfying explanation for about a century. Now, I'm usually loath to appeal to such quantum concepts in everyday life, as there is a veritable industry of people making bad quantum analogies. For example, whenever you have a non-quantum system that is altered by its observation, that really has nothing to do with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Jane Goodall's chimpanzees are almost certainly altered in their behavior due to her presence. But there is likely no competent quantum theorist who would analogize chimps to electrons, and Goodall to our mission observable, executing a quantum observation. Heisenberg adds nothing other than physics-envy to the discussion of an entirely classical situation such as this.
However, I have changed my mind in the case of superposition, as I would now like to explain. To begin with, superposition isn't a quantum phenomenon. For example, imagine that you'd come from Europe to Australia, and that you had both euros and Swiss francs in your pockets. You might then be said to be in a superposition, because you have pocket change in both euros and francs rather than a pure state of only one currency or the other. The analog of the physical observable in this situation would be something like a multiple-choice question found on a landing card about the contents of your pockets. Here, it is easy to see the danger of this set up. Assuming you have three times as much value in euros as you do in francs, what happens when you get a question that doesn't include your situation as an answer? What if the landing card asked, is all of your change in A) euros or B) Swiss francs, with no other options available? Well, this as stated, is a completely classical superposition problem, having nothing to do with quantum theory. Were you to have such a classical question asked of you like this, there would have been no way for you to answer. However, if the answer were on the multiple-choice menu, there would be no problem at all, and you would give a clear answer determined by the state of your pockets. So, if the state in question isn't on the multiple-choice menu, the classical world is forced to go mute, as there is no answer determined by the system; whereas if it is found on the list of allowable choices, the answer is then completely determined by the system’s state at the time that the question was asked.
Oddly, the quantum world is, in a way, exactly as deterministic as the classical one just described, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. In order to understand this, we’ll have to introduce a bit of jargon. So long as the system (now called the Hilbert space state) is on the list of answers (technically called the system of Eigenvectors) corresponding to the question (now called a quantum observable) the question will return a completely deterministic answer (technically called the Eigenvalue corresponding to the state Eigenvector.) These are, in a sense, good questions in quantum theory, because the answer corresponding to the state of the system actually appears as one of the multiple-choice options.
So, if that is completely deterministic, well then what happened to the famous quantum probability theory and the indeterminacy that we hear so much about? What if I told you that it were 100% confined to the situation which classical theory couldn't handle either? That is, quantum probability theory only becomes relevant when you ask bad quantum questions, where the state of the system isn't on the list of multiple-choice answers. When the landing card asked if all your change were completely in euros or only in francs, the classical system couldn't answer because three times the value of your Swiss francs were held in euros, so no answer could be determined. But if your pocket change were somehow quantum, well then you might find that 75% of the time your pocket coins would bizarrely turn into pure euros, and would bewilderingly turn into pure francs 25% of the time just by virtue of your being asked for a measurement by the landing card. In the quantum theory, this is due to the multiple-choice answers of the so-called observable, represented by the landing card question, not being well-suited to the mixed state of your pockets in a superposition between euros and francs. In other words, quantum theory gets probabilistic only where classical theory went mute. All of the indeterminacy appears to come from asking bad multiple-choice questions in both the classical and quantum regimes, in which the state of the system doesn't fit any given answer.
Quite honestly, I've never heard a physicist rework the issue of quantum probabilities in just this way, so as to highlight that the probabilistic weirdness comes only from the quantum being overly solicitous, and accommodating really bad questions. For some reason, they don't like the idea of calling an observable that doesn't have the state of the system as an allowable answer, a bad question. But that is precisely why I do like it. It points out that the quantum is deterministic where the classical theory is deterministic, and only probabilistic where the classical theory is mute. And this is because it is weirdly willing to answer questions that are, in a sense that can be made precise, bad questions to begin with. That doesn't get rid of the mystery, but it recasts it so it doesn't sound quite so weird. The new question is, why would a quantum system overcompensate for the lousy questions being posed, when the classical system seems to know not to answer?
So why bring any of this up? Well, the first reason is that I couldn't resist sneaking in a personal reformulation of the quantum measurement problem that most people will have never considered. But the second reason is that I have come to believe that we are wasting our political lives on just such superposition questions.
For example, let's see if we can solve the abortion debate problem right now on this podcast using superposition; as it is much easier than the abortion problem itself. The abortion debate problem is that everyone agrees that before fertilization there is no human life to worry about. And that after a baby is born, there is no question that it has a right to live. Yet, pro-choice and pro-life activists insist on telling us that the developing embryo is either a mere bundle of cells suddenly becoming a life only when born, or a full-fledged baby the moment the sperm enters the egg. You can guess my answer here. The question of, is it a baby's life or a woman's choice, is agreed-upon by everyone before fertilization or following birth because the observable in question has the system as one of the two multiple-choice answers in those two cases. However, during the process of embryonic development, something miraculous is taking place that we simply don't understand scientifically. Somehow, a non-sentient blastula becomes a baby by a process utterly opaque to science, which as yet has no mature theory of consciousness. The system in utero is in a changing and progressing superposition tilted heavily towards not being a baby at the beginning, and tilted heavily towards being one at the end of the pregnancy. But the problem here is that we have allowed the activists, rather than the embryologists and developmental biologists, to hand us the life versus choice observable, with its two terrible multiple-choice options. If we had let the embryologist set the multiple-choice question, there would be at least 23 Carnegie stages for the embryo, before you even get to fetal development. But instead of going forward from what we both know and don't know with high confidence about the system, we are instead permanently deranged by being stuck with Schrodinger's embryo by the activists who insist on working backwards from their political objectives.
So, does this somehow solve the abortion issue? Of course not. All it does, is get us to see how ridiculously transparent we are in our politics, that we would allow our society to be led by those activists who would shoehorn the central scientific miracle of human development into a nutty political binary of convenience. We don't even think to ask, who are these people who have left us at each other's throats, debating an inappropriate multiple-choice question that can never be answered? Well, in the spirit of The Portal, we are always looking for a way out of our perennial problems to try to find an exit. And I think that the technique here of teaching oneself to spot superposition problems in stalemated political systems, brings a great deal of relief to those of us who find the perspective of naïve activism a fairly impoverished worldview. The activist mindset is always trying to remove nuanced selections that might better match our world’s needs from among the multiple-choice answers, until it finds a comical binary. Do you support the war on drugs, yes or no? Are you for or against immigration? Should men and women be treated equally? Should we embrace capitalism, or choose socialism? Racism: systemic problem or convenient excuse? Is China a trading partner or a strategic rival? Has technology stagnated, or is it in fact racing ahead at breakneck speed? Has feminism gone too far, or not far enough? In all of these cases, there is an entire industry built around writing articles that involve replacing conversations that might progress towards answers and agreement, with simple multiple-choice political options that foreclose all hope. And in general, we can surmise when this has occurred because activism generally leaves a distinct signature, where the true state of a system is best represented as a superposition of the last two remaining choices that bitterly divide us, handed us by activists.
So, I will leave you with the following thought. The principle of superposition is not limited to quantum weirdness, and it may be governing your life at a level that you never considered. Think about where you are most divided from your loved ones politically. Then ask yourself, when I listen to the debates at my dinner table, am I hearing a set of multiple-choice answers that sound like they were developed by scholars interested in understanding, or by activists who are pushing for an outcome? If the latter, think about whether you couldn't make more progress with those you love by recognizing that the truth is usually in some kind of a superposition of the last remaining answers pushed by the activists. But you don't have to accept these middlebrow binaries, dilemmas and trilemmas. Instead, try asking a new question. If my loved ones and I trashed the terms of debate foisted upon us by strangers, activists and the news media, could we together fashion a list of multiple choice answers that we might agree contain an answer we all could live with, and that better describes the true state of the system? I mean, do you really want open or closed borders? Do you really want to talk about psilocybin and heroin in the same breath? Do you really want to claim that there is no systemic oppression, or that it governs every aspect of our lives? Before long, it is my hope that you will develop an intuition that many long-running stalemated discussions are really about having our lives shoehorned by others into inappropriate binaries that can only represent the state of our world as a superposition of inappropriate and simplistic answers that you never would have chosen for yourself.