So I was daydreaming when I was supposed to be working and I'll attempt to summarize what I came up with; our society operates very heavily on a particular illusion: authority as a means of power. This is of course the result of the tendency of humans to operate chiefly on their mammalian politics and value themselves on what they think everyone else says about them. Others decide that they don't care what people actually think about them, in fact, they are happier when they can think others have some sort of disdain for them. Either way, the position in the social pack is very clearly the chief motivation for behavior in the social pack. This is seen in the microcosm of the work place and the macrocosm of the overall nation. Mammalian politics (and this is common to nearly all mammals to some degree or another) is very hierarchal. In some mammals, only some members of the pack are even permitted to mate. Humans, being mammals, are also subject to this phenominon. Some people take their position very seriously, as of course higher status in the pack leads to a greater portion of the kill, respectively. In the modern sense this of course translates to greater pay, as well as greater privellidge. In some social packs, this is determined by popularity, in others, like most businesses, it is determined by someone higher up. This was also the case of human politics for the majority of the last 8000 years; best described as the agricultural society.
Now this has worked for a long time, however, I must stress that this is an illusion. Think about it, in the chain of command/workplace scenario the owner (alpha male/female, though still usually male) is in power because the people below them are willing to work for them. If everyone employed by Microsoft walked off the job and no one were willing to work for Bill, he wouldn't be able to mass produce winows and thus would not be a billionaire. So his authority is only by the willingness of his followers. Inefficient leaders are rarely in power for long. The majority of empires existed for a generation or less.
Communism of course was an attempt to equal everyone, but it failed horribly, due to the fact that it still followed the biological social structure, from the working prolitariate to the politburo. Economic equality was impossible to achieve because social equality had not even been looked at, all the Soviet Union and China really represented was the rise of a new dynasty over the older noble classes. Capitalism embraces the mammalian social hierarchies of old, and so far seems to work, if not poorly. So it's logical to assume most humans aren't ready for a society of equals. So now that you've read this and realize that all things are equal and that their is no such thing as superior or inferior and that everything relies on everything in a semi-functional system you are ready for such a society. Congrats. Spread the word.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
R.I.P WinMX
So it appears WinMX is the latest file sharing program to be shut down. Music pirates the world over will soon have to resort to CD swapping.
So I don't get it; they're going to what? Shut down people writing file sharing programs? Start monitoring IRC, the various internet chat programs, and removing burnable CDs on the market? Infiltrate CD Burning Software projects to ensure they respect archaic laws? Fine everyone 25 and under and cause a recession, just because some artists are making less money? To exactly what lengths are governments going to go to stop this?
I strongly encourage the world to stand against this; as a wannabe professional musician, I do not give a rats ass whether music of mine is downloaded for free or I get 10 cents or whatever it is per released copy. The internet is supposed to transcend the will of any one tribe of humans. No government/corporation/secret society/whatever has a right to infringe on it.
On a side note, anyone in Edmonton, AB want to start a rock band? I play guitar with an influence ranging from AC/DC, old Rockabilly, Dick Dale, Ventures, Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Queen, Tom Petty and others I can't be bothered to think of right now. Punk/Garage/Surf/Metal/whatever, I'm not picky, I just want to get on stage and wail.
Substance abuse a must. Leave a comment if interested.
So I don't get it; they're going to what? Shut down people writing file sharing programs? Start monitoring IRC, the various internet chat programs, and removing burnable CDs on the market? Infiltrate CD Burning Software projects to ensure they respect archaic laws? Fine everyone 25 and under and cause a recession, just because some artists are making less money? To exactly what lengths are governments going to go to stop this?
I strongly encourage the world to stand against this; as a wannabe professional musician, I do not give a rats ass whether music of mine is downloaded for free or I get 10 cents or whatever it is per released copy. The internet is supposed to transcend the will of any one tribe of humans. No government/corporation/secret society/whatever has a right to infringe on it.
On a side note, anyone in Edmonton, AB want to start a rock band? I play guitar with an influence ranging from AC/DC, old Rockabilly, Dick Dale, Ventures, Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Queen, Tom Petty and others I can't be bothered to think of right now. Punk/Garage/Surf/Metal/whatever, I'm not picky, I just want to get on stage and wail.
Substance abuse a must. Leave a comment if interested.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Alberta's logical inconsistancies
You know, one would think I would be happy that I'm getting a cheque from the government. However, our great leader Ralph Klein decided that, rather than spend all the money that the province of Alberta is making off the high oil prices, he'd just sit on it. So it comes as no surprise that the rest of the country asked if they could use it if we aren't going to.
Of course, this is all PR; that's Klein's specialty. You don't spend ten years in government doing basically fuck all except laying people off and assaulting homeless people and getting pie throwers charged with assault without some sort of idea how to keep the people happy, and he knows how. The precision of the announcements and speeches, he's done this hundreds of times; he does it so seamlessly that it's almost beautiful to watch until you realize you're going to have to deal with the consequences of his actions.
So, for those of you who spend too much time in the Alberta mindset to rationalize out what it stands for, I'll spell it out for you;
1. Alberta has lots of money due to a couple million sudden and catastrophic avalanches that occured in the region between 400-200 million years ago, which buried a great deal of coral reef life which was subsequentially condensed by the weight pressed down on it by future avalanches and then melted by the heat of the earth, until it finally became what we call crude oil.
2. Albertans feel that due to the fact some guys murdered/conquered/enslaved a great deal of first nation populations in this region some 150-200 years ago, all this oil, and the money earned by it, belongs exclusively to them.
3. Nearly all Albertans believe that the federal Liberal party, currently holding the most seats in a parliament that was elected by 60% of the eligable population, has an active agenda to steal all of Alberta's money. This is first due to the National Energy Program, which was passed in the 80s by the Trudeau government because it was felt by the majority power that Alberta should share it's oil wealth with other provinces to help their own economies that weren't abudant in expensive commodities. See point #2. This was recently enforced by what has been dubbed "The sponsorship scandal." This was an incident in Quebec that involved people scared that Quebec was going to seperate and a bunch of opportunists who decided they'd try and get rich off it some ten years ago. The party that housed these people was of course the Liberal Party. But we'll discuss this some other day. The point is the people of Alberta are so scared that the Liberals are going to steal their money that they're completely oblivious to the fact that their own Conservative Government, lead by Ralph Klein, is actually stealing/wasting all their money. That billions of creatures died violently to produce, long before mammals even evolved.
4. Ralph Klein, Alberta's folk hero, saved the province from it's deficit to the country & so forth by cutting just about every government service to shreds. He has been somehow stopped at Health Insurance, which numerous attempts to privitize were met with outrage from both the majority of Edmonton (the most left wing area in Alberta by far) and the Federal Government. However, it's safe to say that what Ralph Klein did could have been done by just about anyone. It doesn't take a lot of effort or planning to stop writing cheques when you have absolute power. Anyway, the impotent government charged low taxes (though still not quite as low as in the United States, ironically) so the people got their beer and were happy, and since Ralph Klein wasn't a liberal, he got elected.
So taking this all in, we can now piece together what the last week or two of shennategins have been about. Alberta has tons of money because everyone wants our oil and is willing to pay nearly $70 a barrell for it, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Ralph, being the sly bastard he is, decides to sit on it, not planning any use for it so that the rest of the country will figure we're just gonna save it and ask for it. Naturally, they do, because we do nothing with the huge revenues we get from the oilfields but buy votes with rebates and fly Ralph and his buddies all over the world Air Force One style, and Albertans immediately go apeshit and start ranting about how the immoral Liberal government is trying to steal their money. So Ralph, having dispersed attention away from the fact we have eight digit surpluses in budgets and they're doing nothing useful with it is now free to come in, give every Albertan a cheque for some dollar amount and look like the hero. Brilliant, except when you factor in that we could build a magnetic rail between Edmonton and Calgary, and have it take less than an hour commute for relatively cheap. We could convert the provincial infrastructure to green power and sell ALL of our oil and get greater surpluses, while dramatically improving the air quality which would reduce Health Care costs. We could retrain all these bankrupt ranchers and give them a new means of supporting themselves (if they're willing.) Hell, if you're not willing to have vision you could build a 400 foot tall statue of your savior, Ralph Klein, that breathes fire and pisses oil onto a bunch of liberals. But we can do a lot better than a freakin' cheque.
Of course, this is all PR; that's Klein's specialty. You don't spend ten years in government doing basically fuck all except laying people off and assaulting homeless people and getting pie throwers charged with assault without some sort of idea how to keep the people happy, and he knows how. The precision of the announcements and speeches, he's done this hundreds of times; he does it so seamlessly that it's almost beautiful to watch until you realize you're going to have to deal with the consequences of his actions.
So, for those of you who spend too much time in the Alberta mindset to rationalize out what it stands for, I'll spell it out for you;
1. Alberta has lots of money due to a couple million sudden and catastrophic avalanches that occured in the region between 400-200 million years ago, which buried a great deal of coral reef life which was subsequentially condensed by the weight pressed down on it by future avalanches and then melted by the heat of the earth, until it finally became what we call crude oil.
2. Albertans feel that due to the fact some guys murdered/conquered/enslaved a great deal of first nation populations in this region some 150-200 years ago, all this oil, and the money earned by it, belongs exclusively to them.
3. Nearly all Albertans believe that the federal Liberal party, currently holding the most seats in a parliament that was elected by 60% of the eligable population, has an active agenda to steal all of Alberta's money. This is first due to the National Energy Program, which was passed in the 80s by the Trudeau government because it was felt by the majority power that Alberta should share it's oil wealth with other provinces to help their own economies that weren't abudant in expensive commodities. See point #2. This was recently enforced by what has been dubbed "The sponsorship scandal." This was an incident in Quebec that involved people scared that Quebec was going to seperate and a bunch of opportunists who decided they'd try and get rich off it some ten years ago. The party that housed these people was of course the Liberal Party. But we'll discuss this some other day. The point is the people of Alberta are so scared that the Liberals are going to steal their money that they're completely oblivious to the fact that their own Conservative Government, lead by Ralph Klein, is actually stealing/wasting all their money. That billions of creatures died violently to produce, long before mammals even evolved.
4. Ralph Klein, Alberta's folk hero, saved the province from it's deficit to the country & so forth by cutting just about every government service to shreds. He has been somehow stopped at Health Insurance, which numerous attempts to privitize were met with outrage from both the majority of Edmonton (the most left wing area in Alberta by far) and the Federal Government. However, it's safe to say that what Ralph Klein did could have been done by just about anyone. It doesn't take a lot of effort or planning to stop writing cheques when you have absolute power. Anyway, the impotent government charged low taxes (though still not quite as low as in the United States, ironically) so the people got their beer and were happy, and since Ralph Klein wasn't a liberal, he got elected.
So taking this all in, we can now piece together what the last week or two of shennategins have been about. Alberta has tons of money because everyone wants our oil and is willing to pay nearly $70 a barrell for it, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Ralph, being the sly bastard he is, decides to sit on it, not planning any use for it so that the rest of the country will figure we're just gonna save it and ask for it. Naturally, they do, because we do nothing with the huge revenues we get from the oilfields but buy votes with rebates and fly Ralph and his buddies all over the world Air Force One style, and Albertans immediately go apeshit and start ranting about how the immoral Liberal government is trying to steal their money. So Ralph, having dispersed attention away from the fact we have eight digit surpluses in budgets and they're doing nothing useful with it is now free to come in, give every Albertan a cheque for some dollar amount and look like the hero. Brilliant, except when you factor in that we could build a magnetic rail between Edmonton and Calgary, and have it take less than an hour commute for relatively cheap. We could convert the provincial infrastructure to green power and sell ALL of our oil and get greater surpluses, while dramatically improving the air quality which would reduce Health Care costs. We could retrain all these bankrupt ranchers and give them a new means of supporting themselves (if they're willing.) Hell, if you're not willing to have vision you could build a 400 foot tall statue of your savior, Ralph Klein, that breathes fire and pisses oil onto a bunch of liberals. But we can do a lot better than a freakin' cheque.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
On Stupidity
So let's see, the lame word of the day is stupid. People use this word and variations a lot. It's, well, stupid. I've heard the word stupid to describe a wide variety of activities, most of which aren't stupid. Most things are not stupid. What is true is that people have specialized intellects. Due to the conditions one endures (or concieves to endure) and the tasks one feels that they need to learn to please their food providers (usually parents.) These conditions are quite varied, and by adult age these lessons and methods of survival are quite engraned. People raised on TV and Books are not necesarily athletes and the memorization of motor controls is somewhat difficult, and stopping and relaxing and thinking activities through and reading and such is somewhat difficult to those who relied mainly on physical activities to get their "perks" and food. Consequentially, things that occur to some under some circumstanes do not occur to others. Remember, no one sees the world in the same manner; and it's primarally because of this. Our entire minds are the products of everything we've experienced. No one is stupid.
Okay, since we've established that people aren't actually stupid, why are so many people identified as "idiots"? It is because most people attach their egos, that being the part of our mind that we use to interact with the universe ie other people, social roles, dealing with others. Most people say someone else is stupid because they don't agree with them on how to acomplish various tasks. So stop doing that. Every idea is worth a minute of rational analysis. Take time to breathe and think. It helps the head.
Okay, since we've established that people aren't actually stupid, why are so many people identified as "idiots"? It is because most people attach their egos, that being the part of our mind that we use to interact with the universe ie other people, social roles, dealing with others. Most people say someone else is stupid because they don't agree with them on how to acomplish various tasks. So stop doing that. Every idea is worth a minute of rational analysis. Take time to breathe and think. It helps the head.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
First Comment
Okay, I guess I decided to start up a blog. Spur of the moment. Really.
So okay, I'm supposed to impart wisdom and such, right? Well, lemme think...
Most people don't understand that you have complete control over your thoughts. Well, sort of. You have the power to be aware of what you think and say, and when you blurt out something that you would prefer not to say, correct yourself. Most people do this automatically, but it is easily appliable to everything. I would recommend you begin by correcting yourself on the word "Hate." There is almost no reason on this earth to hate anyone. Most people don't realize, what you say is what you're thinking at that exact time, and what you think is processed by your brain, which is then extruded throughout your body. Everything is connected.
Seriously, whenever you think or say "I hate etc." Stop yourself and either say or think "No, I don't hate anyone." Superpositives and people not afraid of weird social dillemnas by their peers can alternate "I love eveyone." Do it for a month. You'll see results.
It also helps to breathe properly. Every once in awhile (about three hours or so) give yourself a really deep breath. Do nothing else by breathe for about, say, a minute or two. Very relaxing.
It also helps to remember that every single person sees the world in their own way, and most have had very different lives than you, and have had to develop different personalities to survive. The one thing they have in common is that they are doing what they think is "right".
And lastly, remember that there are infinite solutions to every challenge. Except in Zelda games. And FFC.
So okay, I'm supposed to impart wisdom and such, right? Well, lemme think...
Most people don't understand that you have complete control over your thoughts. Well, sort of. You have the power to be aware of what you think and say, and when you blurt out something that you would prefer not to say, correct yourself. Most people do this automatically, but it is easily appliable to everything. I would recommend you begin by correcting yourself on the word "Hate." There is almost no reason on this earth to hate anyone. Most people don't realize, what you say is what you're thinking at that exact time, and what you think is processed by your brain, which is then extruded throughout your body. Everything is connected.
Seriously, whenever you think or say "I hate etc." Stop yourself and either say or think "No, I don't hate anyone." Superpositives and people not afraid of weird social dillemnas by their peers can alternate "I love eveyone." Do it for a month. You'll see results.
It also helps to breathe properly. Every once in awhile (about three hours or so) give yourself a really deep breath. Do nothing else by breathe for about, say, a minute or two. Very relaxing.
It also helps to remember that every single person sees the world in their own way, and most have had very different lives than you, and have had to develop different personalities to survive. The one thing they have in common is that they are doing what they think is "right".
And lastly, remember that there are infinite solutions to every challenge. Except in Zelda games. And FFC.
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