Wednesday, October 31, 2007
My pipe keeps going out
I wouldn't mind, but I'm never invited.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Lose Weight Now — Ask Me How
Well, the girl's moved out at last, thank god. Means I can actually get the place clean and it will stay clean. Girls believe hiding things equates to hygiene and prefer the self-righteousness of periodic cleaning frenzies/theatrics to the relative sanity of simply not spreading crap everywhere in the first place. Breadcrumbs in bed, anyone?
But the BIG benefit, of course, is that I won't need to keep buying toilet paper every 10 minutes.
Christ, do girls get through toilet paper.
I reckon they EAT it.
That's right: girls eat toilet paper.
That's why a month's supply never lasts a day. They eat it. Lock the bathroom door then sit down and scarf it by the secret handful, great fistfuls of paper rammed into their diet-starved maws when they think no one can see them.
Girls all complain about their weight too.
Anyone else see a pattern here?
The reason you're fat, girls? Toilet paper. You're eating too much toilet paper.
If you want to lose weight, girls, here's a tip:
Alternatively, just switch to the 98%-fat-free stuff and watch the pounds melt away. It might not taste as nice, but, hell, you're the one eating toilet paper: what the hell would you know about taste?
Toilet Paper Lite. Love Your Bum doesn't look big in that. You know it makes sense.
But the BIG benefit, of course, is that I won't need to keep buying toilet paper every 10 minutes.
Christ, do girls get through toilet paper.
I reckon they EAT it.
That's right: girls eat toilet paper.
That's why a month's supply never lasts a day. They eat it. Lock the bathroom door then sit down and scarf it by the secret handful, great fistfuls of paper rammed into their diet-starved maws when they think no one can see them.
Girls all complain about their weight too.
Anyone else see a pattern here?
The reason you're fat, girls? Toilet paper. You're eating too much toilet paper.
If you want to lose weight, girls, here's a tip:
Stop eating the toilet paper.
Alternatively, just switch to the 98%-fat-free stuff and watch the pounds melt away. It might not taste as nice, but, hell, you're the one eating toilet paper: what the hell would you know about taste?
Toilet Paper Lite. Love Your Bum doesn't look big in that. You know it makes sense.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Your Choices are Your LIfe
with apologies to Richard Feynman
I wonder why.
I wonder why.
I wonder why I wonder.
I wonder what I'll do today...
Things that I could do today,
Things I really should.
Weighed up against another list:
Things I rather would.
To clean the house, for example, now
Or do those dishes there.
The silent stare of laundry bag
And the vacuum's empty glare.
The autumn sun awaits me too,
As the mist peels off the hills.
The forests green and the valleys new
And the meadows' trickling rills.
I could also walk the market stalls
On the mediæval square.
Take a local ale under Old Man Oak
And read the papers there.
These things won't do themselves, you know
Though some will go away.
My life goes by if I do or don't:
Time spent means I must pay.
So I wonder what I'll do today.
And I wonder why I wonder...
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Hampshire Moments: Countryside Magic
The hills have gone away today.
I wonder where they went?
This morning's turned my windows grey.
Mist is heaven scent.
I wonder where they went?
This morning's turned my windows grey.
Mist is heaven scent.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Killing Time
"I quite like killing time," Sal said.
Arrogant twat. What was he on about now?
"No, really. That sense of accomplishment when a fine fat otherwise-productive 15 minutes – BLAM! Gone. Dead. Wasted. Killed."
"By you."
"By me. Killing time."
"I don't know wh…"
"Here!" he cried, and flung open a previously unnoticed door. "Check out my trophy room. I keep them all."
It was long and dark and smelt of the leather and wood within it. We paused in front of an empty trophy plate at head height on the wall. One, I noticed, of a series set in the wall at even intervals along its length. You know those wooden shields you see in antique shops and old bars, holding deer heads and stuffed fish and things like that on them? One of those.
But empty.
Except for a little plaque I leant forward to read.
Just a couple of lines. "7 minutes, Wednesday afternoon late October 2003, Sal, 12-bore(d) Minesweeper at 200 yards."
"I…" I started to ask, but he'd swept me along to the next.
"This! This is one I'm particularly proud of. What do you think?"
The plaque read: "12 minutes, Monday morning early January 2001, Sal, point-blank, staring into space."
"I'm… I'm afraid I can't see anything on the trophy?"
"Ah!" he said. "You need to look closely. Just stare at it for a while – concentrate on the centre of it until you see something."
Bewildered and a little embarrassed for my obtuseness in not seeing what he was talking about, I did as he asked. But still I couldn't see anything.
"Look closer," he said.
I did. I stared at it. I furrowed my brow and bent every ounce of vision I had upon it. Yet, still: nothing. Wood grain. Brown. Shield. Little plaque.
Time stretched, minutes ticked by, a growing sense of futility and anger crept upon me. I glanced at my watch.
"Well, THAT's 12 minutes of my life I won't get back!" I said bitterly, irritation exceeding my politeness.
"Exactly!" he said, beaming.
What? What! The man was utterly mad.
Or, it occurred to me, incredibly smart.
"There's nothing says you can't be both, you know," he said, softly, sounding slightly hurt.
Hang on. I hadn't said anything. Was he reading my mind?
"Well, I'm sorry, but it's very difficult NOT to – I don't mean to be rude, but you move your frontal lobes when you think."
I reeled, hand clapped to my forehead in shock.
"Pardon?" he said.
Suddenly a fearful thought occurred to me. This Sal: he sometimes referred to himself in the third person.
In that case… who was I?!
Arrogant twat. What was he on about now?
"No, really. That sense of accomplishment when a fine fat otherwise-productive 15 minutes – BLAM! Gone. Dead. Wasted. Killed."
"By you."
"By me. Killing time."
"I don't know wh…"
"Here!" he cried, and flung open a previously unnoticed door. "Check out my trophy room. I keep them all."
It was long and dark and smelt of the leather and wood within it. We paused in front of an empty trophy plate at head height on the wall. One, I noticed, of a series set in the wall at even intervals along its length. You know those wooden shields you see in antique shops and old bars, holding deer heads and stuffed fish and things like that on them? One of those.
But empty.
Except for a little plaque I leant forward to read.
Just a couple of lines. "7 minutes, Wednesday afternoon late October 2003, Sal, 12-bore(d) Minesweeper at 200 yards."
"I…" I started to ask, but he'd swept me along to the next.
"This! This is one I'm particularly proud of. What do you think?"
The plaque read: "12 minutes, Monday morning early January 2001, Sal, point-blank, staring into space."
"I'm… I'm afraid I can't see anything on the trophy?"
"Ah!" he said. "You need to look closely. Just stare at it for a while – concentrate on the centre of it until you see something."
Bewildered and a little embarrassed for my obtuseness in not seeing what he was talking about, I did as he asked. But still I couldn't see anything.
"Look closer," he said.
I did. I stared at it. I furrowed my brow and bent every ounce of vision I had upon it. Yet, still: nothing. Wood grain. Brown. Shield. Little plaque.
Time stretched, minutes ticked by, a growing sense of futility and anger crept upon me. I glanced at my watch.
"Well, THAT's 12 minutes of my life I won't get back!" I said bitterly, irritation exceeding my politeness.
"Exactly!" he said, beaming.
What? What! The man was utterly mad.
Or, it occurred to me, incredibly smart.
"There's nothing says you can't be both, you know," he said, softly, sounding slightly hurt.
Hang on. I hadn't said anything. Was he reading my mind?
"Well, I'm sorry, but it's very difficult NOT to – I don't mean to be rude, but you move your frontal lobes when you think."
I reeled, hand clapped to my forehead in shock.
"Pardon?" he said.
Suddenly a fearful thought occurred to me. This Sal: he sometimes referred to himself in the third person.
In that case… who was I?!
inspired by ChapterNext's post: "So"
So, I'm killing time, killing minutes, and what a waste, dead minutes, aren't they? Really. I should be more careful than to go arbitrarily killing time and wishing my life (in the form of two work days stuck between a National Holiday and a Real Vacation) away.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Hampshire Moments: in recent weeks
Coming back across the ploughed fields now dusted with green shoots, I'm arrested by the sky.
Heaven's a high pale blue and beneath it a single spatterwork of cottonwool clouds marches in melee order and at-ease pace, drifting like happy galleons before a summer breeze. But today there's something different, and it takes some time to place it. Flare white a-top, they carry hulls of silver blue, somehow darker and brighter than the sky, lighting the land with a cast of strange magic. Pivot and scan the horizon, and I stand beneath two skies, one far, one fey.
The clouds are dipped in elf-metal, and it glows.
Heaven's a high pale blue and beneath it a single spatterwork of cottonwool clouds marches in melee order and at-ease pace, drifting like happy galleons before a summer breeze. But today there's something different, and it takes some time to place it. Flare white a-top, they carry hulls of silver blue, somehow darker and brighter than the sky, lighting the land with a cast of strange magic. Pivot and scan the horizon, and I stand beneath two skies, one far, one fey.
The clouds are dipped in elf-metal, and it glows.
Hampshire Moments: in recent weeks
The light. The light is changing. I noticed it this morning as I rounded a curve at the foot of Little Tibet. The eye-high jumble of hedge by the road, shot through with wickedly spined blackberry hordes, stood unshaded in the sun at that time of the morning as it has every morning since this hell-ride became part of my day.
But this morning the exploding green is different somehow. It's… like the still-deep green has been dusted with orange. But not like the leaves are turning, like the colour's draining from within to be replaced with autumn's hue. The green's still there, still green, and the branches' brown's still there too, still brown, still the same as it was yesterday. But, now, somehow, orange too, as though a faint film has been poured over every leaf, every branch, every —as my gaze widens— every stone, every patch of earth, the fence posts, the grass, the fields, the tree borders between them. I'd stopped by now and stood and craned, and everywhere a cast of orange.
Season's change here is not like elsewhere – more than just the plants, the whole landscape, the whole country is turning with the year.
The light. The light is changing.
But this morning the exploding green is different somehow. It's… like the still-deep green has been dusted with orange. But not like the leaves are turning, like the colour's draining from within to be replaced with autumn's hue. The green's still there, still green, and the branches' brown's still there too, still brown, still the same as it was yesterday. But, now, somehow, orange too, as though a faint film has been poured over every leaf, every branch, every —as my gaze widens— every stone, every patch of earth, the fence posts, the grass, the fields, the tree borders between them. I'd stopped by now and stood and craned, and everywhere a cast of orange.
Season's change here is not like elsewhere – more than just the plants, the whole landscape, the whole country is turning with the year.
The light. The light is changing.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Bourne again
- K :
- Hi guys
Cinema next week – Tuesday – Bourne Ultimatum.
Will have a look on Monday where it is showing and what time. Let me know if you fancy it. - Sal :
- Could do – do you need to know the back-story? I haven’t seen the other 11 Bourne movies, you see.
- K :
- I don't think so.
- Sal :
- Well, just to be on the safe side, I’ll make one up.
“Mr & Mrs Bourne-Yesterday were walking through the woods one day when suddenly they suffered a terrible divorce. Their baby son, Baby, took his father’s name, and crawled at high speed over the horizon with it clenched firmly between his moviestar teeth (which he’d won in a colouring competition), becoming embroiled in fearsome adventures and perilous dramas, until he ended happily ever after.
Suddenly, twenty years later, as he rocked to and fro on the deck of his moviestar house (which he’d won in a paint-stripping competition), he was struck out of the blue by a crushing crisis of confidence and assonance – who WAS he? Now read on…”
There we go, that should do it. I feel much better about the movie now that I know what’s going on.
Monday, September 10, 2007
You realise this means the END of the horse-drawn tobacconist!?
I bought a leather pipe today,
In the spirit of Henery Crun.
"Mnk - You can't get the wood" -- you should try eBay!
Whatever you want there's one!
In the spirit of Henery Crun.
"Mnk - You can't get the wood" -- you should try eBay!
Whatever you want there's one!
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Summer's Blood
The ride to work is a long one and a hilly one. "Little Tibet" the locals call one part of it; and I'd laughed to hear it till I'd tried to ride it. You need low gears and my ancient bike's are jammed in the top cogs. Lifting 150m in a humping half-mile, when the hamstrings cry "Enough!" I tilt gratefully off the side and walk the rattling wobbling machine the rest of the close winding forest road to the top.
And the scenery.
Is exquisite.
I'm actually fit enough now to ride the whole way, but I prefer still to take it 10% slower and to marvel at the beauty, to revel quietly in the views, eyes drawn right at every turn by another living picture. Drawn with trees and hillsides and glimpses of lowland backdrop that speaks of time and stasis and the slow changelessly changing countryside rhythm of humankind old in landscape older. I'm in the hangers, they call it, and when Babylon occurs to you it's hard to think of a better word.
This morning I came around a tighter corner and up to a favourite sudden gap in the trees where the hill falls away in a sheer drop and only a bannister of incongruous modern wood draws a line across the plunge beyond. Great spurs from left and right cross and twist a raw valley across the frame, painted bright deep green and high, a canvas covered in trees.
And I pulled up short and horrified. Eyes fixed on a single change. A single vatic flaw. One tree in the hanging garden has turned full yellow overnight, its leaves tipped with red that speaks of summer's end.
Like the first lie in a lover's eyes, the end has been silently declared.
The golden time snuffed, the joyous heart, the energy, has gone, elsewhere, has been turned to other ends. Nothing now but its own heart-dead momentum, the false energy of a spent rocket, the inevitable winding-down, the drawn out inevitable closing off of the carelessly promised futures, the once-bright prospect now dimming and cooling. Winter's winds and desolation stand stark and inevitable, not here, not now, but the distant certainty shruggingly shouted by a single giving-up.
Summer's blood is spilled on the landscape. And it will only seep and spread.
And the scenery.
Is exquisite.
I'm actually fit enough now to ride the whole way, but I prefer still to take it 10% slower and to marvel at the beauty, to revel quietly in the views, eyes drawn right at every turn by another living picture. Drawn with trees and hillsides and glimpses of lowland backdrop that speaks of time and stasis and the slow changelessly changing countryside rhythm of humankind old in landscape older. I'm in the hangers, they call it, and when Babylon occurs to you it's hard to think of a better word.
This morning I came around a tighter corner and up to a favourite sudden gap in the trees where the hill falls away in a sheer drop and only a bannister of incongruous modern wood draws a line across the plunge beyond. Great spurs from left and right cross and twist a raw valley across the frame, painted bright deep green and high, a canvas covered in trees.
And I pulled up short and horrified. Eyes fixed on a single change. A single vatic flaw. One tree in the hanging garden has turned full yellow overnight, its leaves tipped with red that speaks of summer's end.
Like the first lie in a lover's eyes, the end has been silently declared.
The golden time snuffed, the joyous heart, the energy, has gone, elsewhere, has been turned to other ends. Nothing now but its own heart-dead momentum, the false energy of a spent rocket, the inevitable winding-down, the drawn out inevitable closing off of the carelessly promised futures, the once-bright prospect now dimming and cooling. Winter's winds and desolation stand stark and inevitable, not here, not now, but the distant certainty shruggingly shouted by a single giving-up.
Summer's blood is spilled on the landscape. And it will only seep and spread.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Sal's Summer Steak Recipe
First, catch and cook your steak. Make sure it's unfeasibly large.
Next, on a fine bright Summer's sun day, remove the remains of your steak from the fridge and hike a mile through winding country lanes exploding with impossibly beautiful frantic green lushness, to an impossibly lovely pub considered traditional in the 16th century. We're talking tiny rooms, 6 foot ceilings, and more exposed wooden beams than you can shake another piece of wood at. Partake of two FINE real ales in dimpled glass mugs in a close bosky forest-walled garden, under a flawless sky and a bath of sunlight. Dogs and children playing in quiet lassitude all around, the happy laughing of friends eating and drinking and moving slowly if at all, the Sunday papers spread out around you. Drink and read and sunbathe until chucking-out time, which in traditional English fashion is 3pm for the Sunday early session.
Proceed homewardly along a picturesque forest lane, using the gait known as "bimbling". And as you pass a mountain of blackberry bush steep beside you, stop. Pause. Consider. Drop your bag and withdraw the steak, now warmed within its foil to merely slightly cool.
Tear into it with your teeth, popping sun-hot blackberries into your mouth with every bite, the juices of both running down your fingers and licked slowly off.
One of the best meals of my life.
Next, on a fine bright Summer's sun day, remove the remains of your steak from the fridge and hike a mile through winding country lanes exploding with impossibly beautiful frantic green lushness, to an impossibly lovely pub considered traditional in the 16th century. We're talking tiny rooms, 6 foot ceilings, and more exposed wooden beams than you can shake another piece of wood at. Partake of two FINE real ales in dimpled glass mugs in a close bosky forest-walled garden, under a flawless sky and a bath of sunlight. Dogs and children playing in quiet lassitude all around, the happy laughing of friends eating and drinking and moving slowly if at all, the Sunday papers spread out around you. Drink and read and sunbathe until chucking-out time, which in traditional English fashion is 3pm for the Sunday early session.
Proceed homewardly along a picturesque forest lane, using the gait known as "bimbling". And as you pass a mountain of blackberry bush steep beside you, stop. Pause. Consider. Drop your bag and withdraw the steak, now warmed within its foil to merely slightly cool.
Tear into it with your teeth, popping sun-hot blackberries into your mouth with every bite, the juices of both running down your fingers and licked slowly off.
One of the best meals of my life.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Text to my new flatmate
"Hey, you know how you took the fryingpan for your camping trip? Turns out I don't need one. You can just cook directly on the hob. One less thing for the washing up, too.
Genius."
[Context: My new flatmate is a bundle of fun: unmalicious, energetic, a life-lover. The only girl I've ever been able to talk with first thing in the morning without feeling like I'm going to crumple up. A running joke for the last week has been her occasional difficulty adjusting to someone else living in the house, doing things differently from The Correct Way, and putting things Where They Shouldn't Be.
The stove has a glass top. She cleans it with a blade.]
Genius."
[Context: My new flatmate is a bundle of fun: unmalicious, energetic, a life-lover. The only girl I've ever been able to talk with first thing in the morning without feeling like I'm going to crumple up. A running joke for the last week has been her occasional difficulty adjusting to someone else living in the house, doing things differently from The Correct Way, and putting things Where They Shouldn't Be.
The stove has a glass top. She cleans it with a blade.]
Monday, February 19, 2007
Religions vs. Churches II
God creates Religions.
Man creates Churches.
Man creates Churches.
Religions vs. Churches I
The difference between a religion and a church, of course, is that religion has Prophets, while churches have Priests.
We have been selectively bred to be insecure
Our fears are evolutionarily selected for, to improve our species' success even as they damage our own.
Lifted out of my own comment box, as part of the discussion of the post immediately below: "Social Fears are simply Evolution".
(some typos have been corrected; capitalisation/punctuation added for wider readability)
- Zeno :
- ...
I would have thought that selection of fears and insecurities over rationality and empathy would have a greater negative effect than the opposite. We are rational animals and empathy gets us into other people's pants. The insecurities etc must be lower evolutionary functions but have been distorted in modern times by our inability to conform fully to, what amounts to, a very narrow view of "humanity".
... - Sal :
- ...
re your points re rational and empathy -- Consider that REAL empathy is quite effortful and hence rare, but that it IS as you say desired by other people. Why, then-- why not simply ACT empathic? Quick and easy to do; the behaviour once learned does not need to change between people so is extraordinarily "cheap"; and has the same effect under normal circumstances.
Imitation is a very VERY powerful evolutionary tool. The Imitators get the benefits of the Imitated 99% of the time with almost no evolutionary cost.Threatened Spider?
Threatened Caterpillar.
Now step back a bit and take the perspective of improving the survivability of a species. Species that form Groups can improve survivability to the extent that the individuals combine to protect fellow group members. The better they protect them, the more likely that group membership will improve species survivability. But the group as a whole also needs to act in accordance with its environment. The more the group behaviour diverges from the environment, the less survivable the species.
So consider my initial point [to have been] made based on this key observation of need: what mechanisms keep the group in line with the environment AND keep group individuals in line with the group?
Rationality & Empathy are the obvious choices. Yet simple observation of people's behaviour demonstrates that, though the concepts are well known and highly lauded, they are conspicuous by their absence.
Now, if the environment is relatively unchanging --which for nearly all non-science-based animal cultures will be the case (excepting e.g. volcanoes, meteorites, tsunamis, etc)-- once a group has arrived at a good match of behaviour to environment, Rationality (constantly re-checking and re-evaluating the environment vs behaviour) is extremely expensive relative to Rigidity. Likewise, Empathy is extremely expensive relative to Imitating Empathy, and if group behaviour has rigidified at a point of reasonable empathy, then conformance will have the same net effect as actual empathy for the group's survivability.
So,
what are cheap ways of getting each individual to voluntarily comply with, and fight for, pre-existing group behaviours?
Expulsion of deviants from the group, and fear of deviance of self from the group.
Effortless, with strong group-binding results.
Ecce homo, QED.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Power corrupts. Parasitism corrupts absolutely.
replicated out for posterity from comment on:
Yobbo
> Why? Because when you give someone a little bit of power, they always lust for more.
Actually, more that people who desire power over other people are the ones who tend to strive for such positions. People who desire power over other people, as opposed to people who desire a good result for other people, need to Use that power continuously.
That is, they feel the urge to continuously add to the limits and requirements for other people in order to achieve some additional effect, rather than have the maturity and ability to be able to sit back and look at the total effect.
This core process is what drives most Continuous-Tightening-Up processes you see in society.
Social Fears are simply Evolution
replicated out for posterity from comment on:
Mirror, mirror...
Beauty also comes in many forms, or rather the perception of beauty does… stick with me here.
The other day I came upon a news article in which a woman, suffering from Body Integrity Identity Disorder, explains the feelings and circumstances that led to her having one of her (healthy) legs amputated. The article was certainly news (to me) and it provoked all of the above responses, and more (maybe excepting arousal!). It also led me to considering why we feel the way we do about ourselves and to questioning the real point of consciousness of self.
It is a genuinely disturbing piece and my liberal, “tolerate, always tolerate”, approach to the world was stretched to near breaking point by my unbidden conviction that this woman was as crazy as a bandicoot (whatever one of them is), and that she should be sectioned so her blindingly obvious mental problems could be addressed more appropriately. Why on earth would anyone have such a strong desire to remove an essential part of their body (setting aside insanity, demon possession, drunken truth or dare, or being host to an alien life form… of course)?
Thinking on, what is it that makes one person a confident and self-assured, yet quite ugly, imbecile and another a beautiful, magnetic, but shockingly insecure, genius? Is there any evolutionary advantage to one extreme over the other or are these simply extremes, aberrations, and the huge majority of us fall into some kind of “awareness equilibrium”?
Social Fears, and Insecurity, usually in terms of oneself relative to other people, are simple evolutionary mechanisms substituting for Rationality and Empathy, with much the same net effect for the group in aggregate, if quite opposite effects for its individuals in micro. They allow, with almost no mental or physical cost, much larger yet coherent groups, with reduced occurrence of explicit intra-group conflicts, and a group-wide inertia which will in ideal circumstances prevent the group unnecessarily changing the behaviour it has costfully developed in response to its environment.
However, like any blind or inward-directed feedback mechanism, if changes _do_ occur in group behaviour which are inappropriate for the environment or reality, the changes' own momentum will have more influence on the group than their inappropriateness.
Hence, witch-burning, war, and banning certain foods (e.g. prohibition, unkosher/haram), are all merely extreme cases of incidental by-products of the individuals' self-crippling drive that our evolution selected for as sustaining large cohesive groups and being "cheaper" than rationality and empathy.
Introducing the Westminster System to the UK
replicated out for posterity from comment on:
Central News: Tri-Cameral Legislature
A few days ago I blogged about my thoughts on a type of tri-cameral legislature.
I have read other blogs and they don’t seem to think that we need hereditary peers. Some think it is unfair that they get the job by being born into it. I agree, it is unfair but these people are doing a very good job. If it wasn’t for them we would have compulsory ID cards by now. Instead they are not compulsory.
An odd feature of Westminster is that it does not follow the Westminster System.
Another is (I quote from various but consistent media shows, all of which cited Hansard) that around three quarters of all the UK's Socialist legislation was ORIGINATED by the old House of Lords. So it was doing the job intended, its original purpose (matching that of making judges unsackable) of allowing and encouraging incumbents to take a long-term whole-country view was clearly working.
Sadly, you no longer have a House of Lords, you have a House of Friends of MPs. That is, it is an extension of the house of representives, an extension of the populist mood of the (election-time) moment.
So the UK is presently practically a single-house government and has been for over a decade.
Also, the UK does not currently practically have a separate head of state. The queen can no more sack the government or influence the policies of the day than I can. So the practical head of state is, again, popularly elected.
In other words, the UK has been, structurally, for over a decade a fascist state.
The hard part for the UK in establishing a viable long-term upper house though, is identifying a non-populist basis for each member's constituency. America chose Political Regions as the basis and Australia chose Economic Regions as the basis (though not explicitly). America's voting system is utterly hijacked by procedural issues so the result is not related to the nominal high-level structure. But Australia's old boundaries are still moderately correlated with current longterm economic consequences, and the forced out-of-step elections are still neatly adding drag to Professional Parasites' Personal Power Aspirations while still contributing to the actual interests of the actual electorate.
Personally, in a fresh-start context, I believe an explicit Long-Term Quality-Of-Life basis is the most appropriate in drawing up a non-political long-term set of boundaries for an upper house's electorates. I would suggest maybe the UK consider a combination of GDP and Population. For example, a high-GDP/few-people area would be apparently over-represented because, in a progressive taxation regime, it is disproportionately more important for the whole country than an average region since it contributes more. Similarly, a low-GDP/many-people region would also apparently be over-represented because, in a humane regime, it is disproportionately more vulnerable than an average region.
I don't see any need for a head of state to have powers much beyond sacking the government -- this returns power to the people: an election. It also eliminates all the very nasty issues of legal liability (a President/Immanent-Head-Of-State logically CAN NOT be liable for any crime, for example. Think about it.). It also eliminates head-up-own-arse syndrome on the part of the head of state. Your Queen/King monarchy setup actually works quite well, in that sense -- they have no aspirations so near-zero drive to bend the rules. And they're subject to the law, since they only act as replaceable representatives of the state rather than any one individual being the State's Immanent Manifestation. AND they pay more than 50% tax due to a PR cockup by George. Never underestimate the benefit of a free figurehead. Or in this case, a figurehead who pays you.
You may get some ideas or amusement by wandering through this very old vaguely-related post of mine:
"Like a parachute or insurance, it's a complete waste of time and space, until you need it."
>Voting is compulsory, to prevent disenfranchisement of the jaded by the obsessed, and so the newly created government is a more accurate reflection of the actual wishes of the people they are nominally supposed to represent.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
We were singing a song
The words said "Refrain",
but nobody did.
but nobody did.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Tempus Fugitive
Have I need of expression?
I fear that I feel that I don't.
The active understanding -- it serves.
The froth of attention -- it won't.
I fear that I feel that I don't.
The active understanding -- it serves.
The froth of attention -- it won't.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Who Moved My Cheese?
I just ran across this again, via a referral. It was posted as a comment to another blog. I think it deserves to stand alone.
Scott Water's blog post:
Speaking as someone who's seen why that book was written, and seen it deliberately used as intended, as a corporate tool, I'm afraid I can't put so positive a spin on it.
Its overriding theme is: shut up, do what you're told, accept that everything is just random, don't try to fix problems, accept that you can have no impact on life and that other better superior people are in control.
Most people waving this book around inside the large american corporates are typically so inept and random, utterly dissociated from what's actually important to the company and its employees, that they desperately need various excuses, distractions, and mechanisms for shifting responsibility down the corporate ladder while at the same time reducing the irritated resentment their ongoing hysteria du jour creates throughout all their key-workers. A HUGE industry has built up around that need, servicing it in a mutually lucrative symbiosis. For similar examples, think "Fish!" and "get on the bus"
I spent several years within a couple of reports of the CEO of one of America's bigger companies learning this, it's not just random abuse.
Perhaps I should write my own book. "Dude, who smashed up my car?"
Scott Water's blog post:
In preparation for a corporate trip, I just read "Who Moved My Cheese", by Spencer Johnson, M.D. Some of you might recognize Spencer's name. He is the co-author of another interesting book, "One Minute Manager".
It was a very insightful book about keeping your eyes' open and rolling with changes. As I read the book I could times in my life where I was smart enough to see the writing on the wall early early to "roll with it". I could also see different facets in my life, where maybe I was probably too timid. It goes without saying, the industry we (developers) work in is moving at an extraordinary pace. Add on top of that, the pace of change in normal life and it becomes obvious there really is no time to hesitate.
It's a rather short book and most people should be able to finish it in about an hour. I definitely think it will be an hour well spent.
Speaking as someone who's seen why that book was written, and seen it deliberately used as intended, as a corporate tool, I'm afraid I can't put so positive a spin on it.
Its overriding theme is: shut up, do what you're told, accept that everything is just random, don't try to fix problems, accept that you can have no impact on life and that other better superior people are in control.
Most people waving this book around inside the large american corporates are typically so inept and random, utterly dissociated from what's actually important to the company and its employees, that they desperately need various excuses, distractions, and mechanisms for shifting responsibility down the corporate ladder while at the same time reducing the irritated resentment their ongoing hysteria du jour creates throughout all their key-workers. A HUGE industry has built up around that need, servicing it in a mutually lucrative symbiosis. For similar examples, think "Fish!" and "get on the bus"
I spent several years within a couple of reports of the CEO of one of America's bigger companies learning this, it's not just random abuse.
Perhaps I should write my own book. "Dude, who smashed up my car?"
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
You must remember this
It occurs to me that, on average, ALL of my life is past-tense.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
You must remember this
What people call "memories" are more usually a reconstructed view of a past that would justify their current preferred view of themself.
He who does not remember the past is condemned to oh look a butterfly.
He who does not remember the past is condemned to oh look a butterfly.
Monday, October 02, 2006
PC: Political Corrusaders
> ref comment re Crusaders
Spot on, as regards most crusaders' scrabbling need to paper over their own insecurities by changing other people's lives. ...regardless of those people's wishes or the actual consequences of their own actions.
However, I take very minor issue with this:
"They make windows into men's souls, dislike what they see, and resolve to change it."
I'd have phrased it that they make windows into men's souls, DECIDE what they see, and resolve to change it.
Spot on, as regards most crusaders' scrabbling need to paper over their own insecurities by changing other people's lives. ...regardless of those people's wishes or the actual consequences of their own actions.
However, I take very minor issue with this:
"They make windows into men's souls, dislike what they see, and resolve to change it."
I'd have phrased it that they make windows into men's souls, DECIDE what they see, and resolve to change it.
Evolution, and the Wealth of Cultures
>We keep racheting up and, on the average, the richer and more educated we get the more rational, humane and civilized we get.
2 things here:
1/
evolution of cultures, just like genes, is a Process, not a Progress
seeing a result as Progress, rather than Consequence, stems from individual Social outlook of an aspirational nature.
the Habsburg Lip was a triumph of evolution, the pinnacle of human existence? or just a result of a process confined to a too-small group, which in this case happened to be negative?
cultural evolution is just the process of various eddies in local micro-dynamics' micro-effects adding up in large to macro effects. sometimes the outcome is good, sometimes it's not.
the very next sentence underlines this:
>you can rehearse the standard story of how Germany, that most enlightened, cultured, educated nation, spawned Hitler and produced the Holocaust
this was just another example (albeit technology-assisted) of a well-established human pattern. quick large european examples: the Inquisition and The Terror. quick large asian example: china's Mao and the Countryside Purges. i would argue that the Holocaust was even less damning than most instances because it involved only a truly microscopic fraction of the german population operating in secret, rather than being a population-wide country-wide movement or habit.
>We keep racheting up and, on the average, the richer and more educated we get the more rational, humane and civilized we get.
2/
thought experiment: saudi arabia is one of the richest nations on earth, yet most of its population is poor and uneducated and the criminal penalty for theft is permanent physical mutilation.
the congo & surrounds has HUGE mineral wealth, a population living in grimmest poverty, and a genocide record that catches the breath in the throat.
britain has very little mineral wealth (barring cornwall's dark ages tin & silver, and the last 50 years of north sea oil&gas), yet has historically been one of the wealthier and more educated countries on earth.
hmm...
a horrifically nonPC thought:
imagine it turned the other way round:
"the more rational, humane and civilised a culture becomes, on average it becomes richer and more educated."
which seems more likely? which way round provides an actual mechanism for providing that wealth and education? something has to provide it, after all. simply throwing aid and mineral deposits at a country clearly doesn't.
have you noticed that the more that individuals can trust each other, the wealthier a country tends to be? does wealth create trust? or does trust allow wealth to be created and maintained?
my milk price does not go up because of the inflation figures. my milk price going up creates the inflation figures.
macro effects tend to come from a multitude of micro contributions, rather than the other way round.
2 things here:
1/
evolution of cultures, just like genes, is a Process, not a Progress
seeing a result as Progress, rather than Consequence, stems from individual Social outlook of an aspirational nature.
the Habsburg Lip was a triumph of evolution, the pinnacle of human existence? or just a result of a process confined to a too-small group, which in this case happened to be negative?
cultural evolution is just the process of various eddies in local micro-dynamics' micro-effects adding up in large to macro effects. sometimes the outcome is good, sometimes it's not.
the very next sentence underlines this:
>you can rehearse the standard story of how Germany, that most enlightened, cultured, educated nation, spawned Hitler and produced the Holocaust
this was just another example (albeit technology-assisted) of a well-established human pattern. quick large european examples: the Inquisition and The Terror. quick large asian example: china's Mao and the Countryside Purges. i would argue that the Holocaust was even less damning than most instances because it involved only a truly microscopic fraction of the german population operating in secret, rather than being a population-wide country-wide movement or habit.
>We keep racheting up and, on the average, the richer and more educated we get the more rational, humane and civilized we get.
2/
thought experiment: saudi arabia is one of the richest nations on earth, yet most of its population is poor and uneducated and the criminal penalty for theft is permanent physical mutilation.
the congo & surrounds has HUGE mineral wealth, a population living in grimmest poverty, and a genocide record that catches the breath in the throat.
britain has very little mineral wealth (barring cornwall's dark ages tin & silver, and the last 50 years of north sea oil&gas), yet has historically been one of the wealthier and more educated countries on earth.
hmm...
a horrifically nonPC thought:
imagine it turned the other way round:
"the more rational, humane and civilised a culture becomes, on average it becomes richer and more educated."
which seems more likely? which way round provides an actual mechanism for providing that wealth and education? something has to provide it, after all. simply throwing aid and mineral deposits at a country clearly doesn't.
have you noticed that the more that individuals can trust each other, the wealthier a country tends to be? does wealth create trust? or does trust allow wealth to be created and maintained?
my milk price does not go up because of the inflation figures. my milk price going up creates the inflation figures.
macro effects tend to come from a multitude of micro contributions, rather than the other way round.
Reciprocation is not a one-way street
>I really don't know anything about the French race problem, except that it isn't a jihad
quite. definitely not a jihad.
just individuals seeking a justification for what they want to do.
irresponsibility and self-vindicating revisionism are both extraordinarily powerful DNA-level urges in most humans.
>One danger is that the immigrants will be dangerously alienated by discrimination from the whites.
a danger never mentioned is that the incumbents will be dangerously alienated by discrimination from the immigrants.
flavours of this are starting to be floated in the UK papers. and it's the essence of the belgian, danish, swedish, british, french, german, etc. backlash. but it's still too inflammatory to be widely stated.
here's an example.
australia's the least racist society i've come across, and i've travelled and worked widely. (the australians' own meme re racism is a Günter Grass-style attention-seeking self-clusterflagellation rather than being actually based on fact. Gubbi-Gubbi.)
take a trip through sydney's western suburbs. a charitably offered and voluntarily extended yet fast vast dumping of one culture into one particular air/port led to them geographically clumping and deliberately isolating themselves and their friends and family who followed in for the next 50 years. the 2nd generation is clumsy with english, 3rd generation too frequently speaks english with an accent as thick as a native of their grandparents' country. mother crying for days when she learns her 28 year old daughter is not a virgin.
cultural isolationism.
their own choice.
not forced on them. quite the opposite, in fact.
their own choice.
cultural isolationism.
in sydney, they now aggressively attack their hermetic context. the only place i've been spat on for being white is sydney. by someone who fled their own country and culture. and chose to come to this country. because we gave him the choice.
run 1,000 miles up the coast, and a slower introduction there encouraged diffusion and the self-created stark divide does not exist.
brisbane people will say "yeah, i was born in palestine", sydney people will aggressively shout "I'm LebaNESE!" when only their grandparents were born there.
it is irritating and inflaming for the incumbents who have voluntarily provided so much and provided so much opportunity to the immigrants, to be attacked by those same immigrants for being different. it is irritating and inflaming for the incumbents when the newcomers are physically aggressive to, or express passive-aggressive loud outrage at, the incumbents for continuing to live the lifestyles they'd had before they gave the newcomers the opportunity to change their lives, to join them.
how would you feel if you offer to share your house with someone, and a week later they burn your furniture because they disapprove of the colour, then break your nose when you object?
is your resultant anger housemate-ist?
you can see recent examples of this in australia, in france, and in britain. BNP election results, anyone?
a related theme is:
racism -- more accurately: groupism -- is not a one-way street.
just because some whites are racist does not imply the same proportion of other races do not.
"go back where you f**king CAME from, you asian b*tch!" shouted by a group of aborigines at my ABC (australian born chinese) friend as we walked past in melbourne. they ignored the white girl and white guy walking with her. we were locals like them, after all.
go to a caribbean birthday or similar party in london (interestingly, i've only ever seen these when partners have invited me), and you see precisely the same isolationism: you'll be the only white there. even more interestingly, people will avoid being seen talking to you. nervous eyes darting around their family and friends as they immediately wave their way away into the throng.
see the same people later at a mixed party, and they're embarrassedly over-friendly to compensate.
the banglas around me (brick lane, east end, london) are antagonistic to both the whites and the blacks, not the other way round. this ranges from not-normal-but-still-too-frequent mute hostility when you walk into a shop, to groups of bangla teens chasing people down public streets, hurling abuse and bottles. like the bangla gangs that try to catch you if you follow a regular route when jogging through brick lane. like the 8 banglas chasing 2 blacks past me on petticoat lane, mid-afternoon mid-market sunday before last.
jewish londoners and bangla londoners and greek londoners and palestinian londoners (from personal (repetitive) experience)) all know and emphasise (and some complain about) the problems they'll have with their family if they try to "marry out".
"easier not to."
in both cases -- immigrants evidentially rejecting incumbents, and racism evidentially being universal rather than unilateral --
be careful of unreciprocal memes.
they are dangerous for the blindspots they create.
quite. definitely not a jihad.
just individuals seeking a justification for what they want to do.
irresponsibility and self-vindicating revisionism are both extraordinarily powerful DNA-level urges in most humans.
>One danger is that the immigrants will be dangerously alienated by discrimination from the whites.
a danger never mentioned is that the incumbents will be dangerously alienated by discrimination from the immigrants.
flavours of this are starting to be floated in the UK papers. and it's the essence of the belgian, danish, swedish, british, french, german, etc. backlash. but it's still too inflammatory to be widely stated.
here's an example.
australia's the least racist society i've come across, and i've travelled and worked widely. (the australians' own meme re racism is a Günter Grass-style attention-seeking self-clusterflagellation rather than being actually based on fact. Gubbi-Gubbi.)
take a trip through sydney's western suburbs. a charitably offered and voluntarily extended yet fast vast dumping of one culture into one particular air/port led to them geographically clumping and deliberately isolating themselves and their friends and family who followed in for the next 50 years. the 2nd generation is clumsy with english, 3rd generation too frequently speaks english with an accent as thick as a native of their grandparents' country. mother crying for days when she learns her 28 year old daughter is not a virgin.
cultural isolationism.
their own choice.
not forced on them. quite the opposite, in fact.
their own choice.
cultural isolationism.
in sydney, they now aggressively attack their hermetic context. the only place i've been spat on for being white is sydney. by someone who fled their own country and culture. and chose to come to this country. because we gave him the choice.
run 1,000 miles up the coast, and a slower introduction there encouraged diffusion and the self-created stark divide does not exist.
brisbane people will say "yeah, i was born in palestine", sydney people will aggressively shout "I'm LebaNESE!" when only their grandparents were born there.
it is irritating and inflaming for the incumbents who have voluntarily provided so much and provided so much opportunity to the immigrants, to be attacked by those same immigrants for being different. it is irritating and inflaming for the incumbents when the newcomers are physically aggressive to, or express passive-aggressive loud outrage at, the incumbents for continuing to live the lifestyles they'd had before they gave the newcomers the opportunity to change their lives, to join them.
how would you feel if you offer to share your house with someone, and a week later they burn your furniture because they disapprove of the colour, then break your nose when you object?
is your resultant anger housemate-ist?
you can see recent examples of this in australia, in france, and in britain. BNP election results, anyone?
a related theme is:
racism -- more accurately: groupism -- is not a one-way street.
just because some whites are racist does not imply the same proportion of other races do not.
"go back where you f**king CAME from, you asian b*tch!" shouted by a group of aborigines at my ABC (australian born chinese) friend as we walked past in melbourne. they ignored the white girl and white guy walking with her. we were locals like them, after all.
go to a caribbean birthday or similar party in london (interestingly, i've only ever seen these when partners have invited me), and you see precisely the same isolationism: you'll be the only white there. even more interestingly, people will avoid being seen talking to you. nervous eyes darting around their family and friends as they immediately wave their way away into the throng.
see the same people later at a mixed party, and they're embarrassedly over-friendly to compensate.
the banglas around me (brick lane, east end, london) are antagonistic to both the whites and the blacks, not the other way round. this ranges from not-normal-but-still-too-frequent mute hostility when you walk into a shop, to groups of bangla teens chasing people down public streets, hurling abuse and bottles. like the bangla gangs that try to catch you if you follow a regular route when jogging through brick lane. like the 8 banglas chasing 2 blacks past me on petticoat lane, mid-afternoon mid-market sunday before last.
jewish londoners and bangla londoners and greek londoners and palestinian londoners (from personal (repetitive) experience)) all know and emphasise (and some complain about) the problems they'll have with their family if they try to "marry out".
"easier not to."
in both cases -- immigrants evidentially rejecting incumbents, and racism evidentially being universal rather than unilateral --
be careful of unreciprocal memes.
they are dangerous for the blindspots they create.
Dawkins
> [re dawkins]
>They believe this is the natural, equilibrium state of any society that has discovered science.
i agree with the general thrust of your problem with dawkins, but, with reference to this sentence, would have rephrased it slightly:
"They believe this is the natural, equilibrium state of humans, and that only particular memes are dragging them away from it."
essentially, dawkins and other such writers are "aspergic" -- high on the "mundane" spectrum in my framework: they see reality before they see social hierarchy, they live in non-zero-sum worlds. if they go to the gym, they don't believe other people get weaker.
most humans are far far more human-oriented -- high on the "social" spectrum in my framework: they'll walk into a room and see details of the people there before details of the room. they'll see humans and statuses and relationships and statuses and consensual memes and statuses before they see reality; they live in zero-sum worlds. if someone wins, then someone must lose. if someone is stronger than you, then you are losing.
if someone goes up, then everyone else goes down. conversely, if someone goes down, then everyone else goes up, including you.
so you can improve your own status in your own eyes by making someone else worse off, by putting someone else down.
...throw in some irresponsibility and if you're unhappy with your status (or, equivalently, ashamed of your behaviour), you can redefine the world (it's not real, after all, only consensual) and blame someone else. outragedly.
[those last sentences, incidentally, are well worth pondering on. well worth keeping in your mind the next time you read the paper or listen to people arguing.]
dawkins is right normatively in isolation (in the sense that his approach is better for everyone), but is not right descriptively in the context of humans' total genetic pool. individuals' behaviours and weltanschauungs really do vary widely across that pool, and humans clump on likeness.
i strongly prefer dawkins' view, as its consequences are so much better for the world.
but you're more right than he is, in the world we're living in.
and yes, i do appreciate the irony that the implications of his own "selfish gene" book directly predict the benefit and hence growth of the strategy of parasitism of the reproductively-driven striving for social status, which leads to religion and politics.
>They believe this is the natural, equilibrium state of any society that has discovered science.
i agree with the general thrust of your problem with dawkins, but, with reference to this sentence, would have rephrased it slightly:
"They believe this is the natural, equilibrium state of humans, and that only particular memes are dragging them away from it."
essentially, dawkins and other such writers are "aspergic" -- high on the "mundane" spectrum in my framework: they see reality before they see social hierarchy, they live in non-zero-sum worlds. if they go to the gym, they don't believe other people get weaker.
most humans are far far more human-oriented -- high on the "social" spectrum in my framework: they'll walk into a room and see details of the people there before details of the room. they'll see humans and statuses and relationships and statuses and consensual memes and statuses before they see reality; they live in zero-sum worlds. if someone wins, then someone must lose. if someone is stronger than you, then you are losing.
if someone goes up, then everyone else goes down. conversely, if someone goes down, then everyone else goes up, including you.
so you can improve your own status in your own eyes by making someone else worse off, by putting someone else down.
...throw in some irresponsibility and if you're unhappy with your status (or, equivalently, ashamed of your behaviour), you can redefine the world (it's not real, after all, only consensual) and blame someone else. outragedly.
[those last sentences, incidentally, are well worth pondering on. well worth keeping in your mind the next time you read the paper or listen to people arguing.]
dawkins is right normatively in isolation (in the sense that his approach is better for everyone), but is not right descriptively in the context of humans' total genetic pool. individuals' behaviours and weltanschauungs really do vary widely across that pool, and humans clump on likeness.
i strongly prefer dawkins' view, as its consequences are so much better for the world.
but you're more right than he is, in the world we're living in.
and yes, i do appreciate the irony that the implications of his own "selfish gene" book directly predict the benefit and hence growth of the strategy of parasitism of the reproductively-driven striving for social status, which leads to religion and politics.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
The futility of the situation creates its own inertia.
When no act has effect, is action irrational?
Friday, September 29, 2006
I hate to say this, but
this
There. I said it.
There. I said it.
"I know that change is inevitable"
Anyone who thinks that change is inevitable hasn't met my underpants.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Unlucky for some
I have a theory about why "13" is considered unlucky.
I believe it's because the type of person who's superstitious can't count that high.
I believe it's because the type of person who's superstitious can't count that high.
Monday, August 14, 2006
My Boyfriend is a WHAT?
- Zoe :
- Monday, August 14, 2006
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posted by zoe @ 1:53 PM - Sal :
- zoe: Magnificent. This is modern contemporary writing at its best. Thrilling, ironic, bold, satirical, earnest. It spoke to me. I think it spoke to all of us. There's a little place in my heart for evermore, for this little scintillating acme of expressionistic paean, which will glow within and light my life until the very end of this sentence.
Terrorists? Borerists
Terrorists are badly named.
When's the last time you saw someone terrified by the concept of getting on to a train, a tube, a bus, a plane? Someone terrified by the concept of a self-obsessed hysteric blowing up the vehicle? Seriously?
Don't think I ever have.
And I live on last year's Ground Zero.
No, the usual reaction of people to explosions etc. is irritation and then boredom. We all understand at a deep level that you have more chance of being killed crossing the road than by the hysterics. But we DO have to put up with all the consequential faff and delays imposed by the extra security precautions.
So they're not really Terrorists, are they? No terror, equals no terrorism.
They ARE causing irritation. And they ARE causing boredom.
So let's stop feeding their tiny minds' massive egos and stop calling them terrorists.
They're not terrorists. They're not terrifying anyone.
They're Irritists, or Borerists.
When's the last time you saw someone terrified by the concept of getting on to a train, a tube, a bus, a plane? Someone terrified by the concept of a self-obsessed hysteric blowing up the vehicle? Seriously?
Don't think I ever have.
And I live on last year's Ground Zero.
No, the usual reaction of people to explosions etc. is irritation and then boredom. We all understand at a deep level that you have more chance of being killed crossing the road than by the hysterics. But we DO have to put up with all the consequential faff and delays imposed by the extra security precautions.
So they're not really Terrorists, are they? No terror, equals no terrorism.
They ARE causing irritation. And they ARE causing boredom.
So let's stop feeding their tiny minds' massive egos and stop calling them terrorists.
They're not terrorists. They're not terrifying anyone.
They're Irritists, or Borerists.
Going UP
It occurs to me that if you genuinely believed in The Rapture, you'd never risk going indoors.
Imagine the embarrassment if, at the very moment of your (self-)righteous aggrandisement, a poor geographical choice renders you a thin smear of strawberry jam on a ceiling.
Imagine the embarrassment if, at the very moment of your (self-)righteous aggrandisement, a poor geographical choice renders you a thin smear of strawberry jam on a ceiling.
Friday, July 28, 2006
A Man Walks Into A Bar
Alternatively, you could turn that around the other way and it becomes:
A Man Walks Into A Pole
A Man Walks Into A Pole
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Human Rights do not exist
Human rights do not exist.
You don't believe me?
Here's an example.
Say I am on a plane flying across a desert. Suddenly an impossible-to-predict storm blows up out of nowhere, the plane is struck by lightning, crashes, and although I am thrown clear, it burns down to a fine aluminium dust which blows away, leaving me alone on the bare scorching sands with nothing but the clothes I stand up in. I have no food, no shade, no water, no nothing.
My fundamental human rights to shelter, food, and water are being DENIED!
Whom do I sue?
You don't believe me?
Here's an example.
Say I am on a plane flying across a desert. Suddenly an impossible-to-predict storm blows up out of nowhere, the plane is struck by lightning, crashes, and although I am thrown clear, it burns down to a fine aluminium dust which blows away, leaving me alone on the bare scorching sands with nothing but the clothes I stand up in. I have no food, no shade, no water, no nothing.
My fundamental human rights to shelter, food, and water are being DENIED!
Whom do I sue?
Humans have no Rights
There is no such thing as "Rights." "Rights" assumes a zero-sum world supported and maintained by an infinitely rich and infinitely powerful State-as-person.
To talk of "Rights" assumes a literally self-centred worldview comprising only two entities: the person claiming rights, and an infinitely rich, infinitely powerful, imaginary super-state which can support, maintain, and enforce an ideal world for that person. And not only that, but also for each and every single other person. Simultaneously. Regardless of the others. Even where they clash.
Stated baldly like that it is clearly nonsensical.
Humans entering a society do not acquire rights but responsibilities: responsibilities to act in the group's generally best interest, for example giving up the freedom to attack and injure strangers. In exchange for this, the society pressures and ideally requires all the other citizens to also fulfil their own responsibilities to you in return. This is artificial-- an attempt by groups of humans to make life "Fair", to ensure wrong-doers are punished, to render life a Zero-Sum game.
Rights can be viewed as the inverse of the sum of the group members' responsibility to each group memeber, and they can serve as a very good shorthand for otherwise laboriously worded concepts. In exchange for me contributing to society in terms of, say, working and taxes and aligning myself with its culture, all the other members will ensure my living standards will never drop below a certain level, in terms of, say, personal freedoms, shelter, water, that sort of thing. This can be expressed more simply as each individual's rights to freedom, shelter, water, etc. It's an elegant shortcut, an intellectual shorthand.
But "Rights" have no objective existence in any non-zero-sum world, in the real world. Humans have no rights, as such.
Proof:
Humans have no rights.
Humans in groups have responsibilities, in exchange for a better lifestyle.
And generally, the less those responsibilities are to do with the individual (wear a hat, don't eat fish, don't cut your hair, hide your face, etc.) and the more those responsibilities are to do with consideration for other people (don't kill, help your children, help strangers, don't take what's not rightfully yours, etc.), and the more you can trust people to fulfill their responsibilities, the wealthier a culture tends to be.
To talk of "Rights" assumes a literally self-centred worldview comprising only two entities: the person claiming rights, and an infinitely rich, infinitely powerful, imaginary super-state which can support, maintain, and enforce an ideal world for that person. And not only that, but also for each and every single other person. Simultaneously. Regardless of the others. Even where they clash.
Stated baldly like that it is clearly nonsensical.
Humans entering a society do not acquire rights but responsibilities: responsibilities to act in the group's generally best interest, for example giving up the freedom to attack and injure strangers. In exchange for this, the society pressures and ideally requires all the other citizens to also fulfil their own responsibilities to you in return. This is artificial-- an attempt by groups of humans to make life "Fair", to ensure wrong-doers are punished, to render life a Zero-Sum game.
Rights can be viewed as the inverse of the sum of the group members' responsibility to each group memeber, and they can serve as a very good shorthand for otherwise laboriously worded concepts. In exchange for me contributing to society in terms of, say, working and taxes and aligning myself with its culture, all the other members will ensure my living standards will never drop below a certain level, in terms of, say, personal freedoms, shelter, water, that sort of thing. This can be expressed more simply as each individual's rights to freedom, shelter, water, etc. It's an elegant shortcut, an intellectual shorthand.
But "Rights" have no objective existence in any non-zero-sum world, in the real world. Humans have no rights, as such.
Proof:
Say I am on a plane flying across a desert which is suddenly struck by lightning and crashes, destroying it and all my supplies utterly, but miraculously I survive.
I am left standing alone in the middle of the scorching desert.
My basic human rights to shelter, food, and water are being DENIED!
Whom do I sue?
Humans have no rights.
Humans in groups have responsibilities, in exchange for a better lifestyle.
And generally, the less those responsibilities are to do with the individual (wear a hat, don't eat fish, don't cut your hair, hide your face, etc.) and the more those responsibilities are to do with consideration for other people (don't kill, help your children, help strangers, don't take what's not rightfully yours, etc.), and the more you can trust people to fulfill their responsibilities, the wealthier a culture tends to be.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Fact vs Fiction
A strong man can seem weak.*
But a weak man must seem strong.
**
* What does he care? Your perception of his appearance does not change his ability.
** Not a new concept, but only ever half-presented and hence tends to lose most of its instructive power. My favourite flavour thereof:
"The truly strong man is gentle." --Navajo saying
But a weak man must seem strong.
**
* What does he care? Your perception of his appearance does not change his ability.
** Not a new concept, but only ever half-presented and hence tends to lose most of its instructive power. My favourite flavour thereof:
"The truly strong man is gentle." --Navajo saying
Friday, April 21, 2006
The Blue Pill?
It just occurred to me why the Matrix is even more-so a laughable series of films if it seeks to present reality as a Computer Construct.
Crucial to its overarching story arc is the one key question:
“The blue pill? Or the red pill?”
Now, in the Matrix --the utterly computer world-- spam-filters are going to be endemic, a critical part of everyday perception. If your whole world is fed to you by computers, then if your spam-filters aren’t tip-top, you’re going to drown.
NO WAY is any reference to “the blue pill” going to make it through.
So all Neo would have heard is:
“The red pill?”
So the movie wouldn’t have worked.
Because the question is one that Keanu Reaves could have actually answered.
No dramatic tension whatsoever.
Crucial to its overarching story arc is the one key question:
“The blue pill? Or the red pill?”
Now, in the Matrix --the utterly computer world-- spam-filters are going to be endemic, a critical part of everyday perception. If your whole world is fed to you by computers, then if your spam-filters aren’t tip-top, you’re going to drown.
NO WAY is any reference to “the blue pill” going to make it through.
So all Neo would have heard is:
“The red pill?”
So the movie wouldn’t have worked.
Because the question is one that Keanu Reaves could have actually answered.
No dramatic tension whatsoever.
Smoke Detector?
or Oven Timer?
Never sure what to call it. It's a talented gadget.
Never sure what to call it. It's a talented gadget.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Life is like Toilet Paper
Life is like toilet paper.
Most people who use it just throw it away.
And you take it for granted until you've nearly run out.
And then you panic.
Most people who use it just throw it away.
And you take it for granted until you've nearly run out.
And then you panic.
Pretty Poison. Poison Beauty.
Such a pretty, pretty face, beauty shining forth from every pore, and poison dripping loudly, and loudly ignored, from the slash thro its middle.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Observation- Sociology I
The dunes march but the desert stands still.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
You can't have your cake and etymology too
- "I ex-communicate you!"
- "You're going to stop talking to me? Brilliant. That's such a relief."
- "NO! DAMMIT!"
- "Oh, I'm sorry, little one.
What is it, then, that you're actually trying to say?" - "I comminate you with comminution!"
- "Ahhh.
Well, like most volubly religious people, you really do have a serious commination problem."
Observation- Character
Bravura and Bravery rarely stand in the same soul.
Bravura is one of the mask-dances of status-neediness.
Bravery is choosing a riskier reality for the chance of a better reality.
Bravura is one of the mask-dances of status-neediness.
Bravery is choosing a riskier reality for the chance of a better reality.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
No expiration date
Mental inspiration comes from breathing in through your brain.
Seems only neologisal
Terroirnoia: a NIMBY's* psychological condition
* NIMBY: "Not In My Back Yard"
* NIMBY: "Not In My Back Yard"
Friday, March 24, 2006
Look Out
So many people set up a mirror and declare it a window,
then stare through it out at the world.
then stare through it out at the world.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
A natural solution to the Cartoon Violence
This current melodramatic violence displays rampant Cartoonism.
The implication is immediately clear.
Since racism is promulgated by racists, so must Cartoonism be promulgated by Cartoonists.
These extremist Muslims must therefore be Cartoonist.
And if they're cartoonists, they must ipso facto turn their outraged ire upon themselves. This lets the rest of the world happily ignore them, as they've neatly closed the circle of their own hatred: a wadi ouroboros. And should their ire escalate to their threatened lethal violence, they will not only deal with the cause of their outrage, but, going forward, rather neatly in the same step deal with the cause of our own.
There's a beautiful symmetry to this, an elegance, which speaks to me apodictically that this is god's perfect design and his ineluctable holy will.
Death to Cartoonists!
Cartoonism will eat itself.
The implication is immediately clear.
Since racism is promulgated by racists, so must Cartoonism be promulgated by Cartoonists.
These extremist Muslims must therefore be Cartoonist.
And if they're cartoonists, they must ipso facto turn their outraged ire upon themselves. This lets the rest of the world happily ignore them, as they've neatly closed the circle of their own hatred: a wadi ouroboros. And should their ire escalate to their threatened lethal violence, they will not only deal with the cause of their outrage, but, going forward, rather neatly in the same step deal with the cause of our own.
There's a beautiful symmetry to this, an elegance, which speaks to me apodictically that this is god's perfect design and his ineluctable holy will.
Death to Cartoonists!
Cartoonism will eat itself.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Cartoon Violence
Something I find fascinating is HOW much keener people are to tell other people how they MUST behave, than they are to accept responsibility for their own behaviour.
And in fact, the less they
And in fact, the less they