About Laird Shaw

Autobiographical

๐Ÿ‘ซ Straight โ™‚๏ธ male of ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ Scottish, ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ช Irish, and ๐Ÿด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ English descent.

๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ฆ Born in South Africa in 1977.

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿ‘งโ€๐Ÿ‘ฆ One younger biological ๐Ÿ‘ฉ sister, plus an older ๐Ÿ‘ฉ stepsister, and an older again ๐Ÿ‘จ stepbrother. ๐Ÿชฆ Deceased ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿผ mother. Living ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿผ father and ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿผ stepmother.

๐Ÿฆ˜ Australian resident and citizen, having immigrated here with my family in 1987.

๐Ÿซ Completed high school in 1994.

๐Ÿง‘โ€๐ŸŽ“ Enrolled in a Bachelor of Engineering (๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Computer Systems) at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) immediately after high school.

๐Ÿ˜ฑ Beset by existential psychospiritual difficulties, I abandoned my degree about two thirds of the way through.

โฉ Since then, I have ๐Ÿงณ travelled around Australia a couple of times, taking about a year for each trip, ๐Ÿ‘จ๐Ÿปโ€๐Ÿ’ผ worked - occasionally, on and off - an assortment of jobs, had a few adventures including at a ๐ŸŒฒ forest logging protest camp, and otherwise lived a fairly insular, mostly ๐ŸŒ online life.

Views

๐Ÿชฝ Generally left wing, with some exceptions.

๐Ÿงฌ Basic ethic of respect for all life (sentience), human and beyond.

Causes

โœŠ Animal (and non-human living beings in general) rights and liberation.

โš–๏ธ Restorative justice for the dispossessed, colonised, and occupied.

๐Ÿ›‘ Ending coercive psychiatry.

โ˜ฎ Peace.

๐Ÿ—ณ๏ธ Direct, aka participatory, and especially digital (online), democracy.

(Not a comprehensive list, just those uppermost in my mind).

Interests

๐Ÿช˜ Percussion (playing and listening to).

๐ŸŽถ Music in general (listening to).

โš”๏ธ Philosophy (contemplating and debating more so than reading).

โœ๏ธ Poetry (writing more than reading).

๐Ÿ‘จ๐Ÿปโ€๐Ÿ’ป Software development.

๐Ÿฅผ Parapsychology and related matters.

Personal website

creativeandcritical.net logo This (creativeandcritical.net) is it.

Other sites of mine

On withrespect.net.au, I have made a start at outlining a philosophy and world vision.

Other sites I help maintain

I am one of the ten co-founders of Psience Quest, a discussion board focussed on parapsychology and related matters, and I help with its hosting and administration.

Many years ago, I helped to set up the comp.lang.c wiki, and developed its treeview skin. I currently host and administer that wiki. It is very incomplete and a bit of an abandoned ghost site at the moment. I welcome contact from anyone (potentially) interested in reviving it.

Connect and contact

GitHub logo MyBB logo Psience Quest logo Discord logo Facebook logo Email icon Laird Shaw's contact email address as an image to avoid harvesting by spammers. For those who can't see the image, the email address can be constructed as Laird's first name followed by his surname without intervening characters and all lowercase, followed without intervening characters by the final two digits of his year of birth, 1977, followed without intervening characters by @gmail.com Copy-to-clipboard icon