Information age

We live in the information age.

This information age was not created for our benefit, but for the benefit of memes.

We are in a meme war. Right here. Right now.

If you already know this, then you are fighting the meme war.

If you don't already know this, then you are just the territory.

Public servants

It occurred to me that public servants enjoy their positions way too much, particularly the legislature.

It seems to me that instead of being paid positions, congress and senate should be like jury duty: something you get picked to do by some random process and have to serve the time, making decisions.

Now, you might say that the quality of our law would deterriorate. I think not. Have you read the laws coming out of there? The language is often intentionally vague, if not downright misleading. It seems to me that if you had some regular people from different walks of life (like a jury) making this stuff, they'd do a better job of creating honest laws.

Also, when you think about it, every new law is a government expansion. It is a new restriction of some sort. Now, most of us would agree upon certain laws, such as murder and so on, but there are a lot of laws that are decreed ex cathedra that we're just supposed to suck up.

These legislators just have too much time on their hands. They want to get paid, and they want to look like they're getting paid for a reason. They want us to think that their work is worth our money. Well, suppose we did what BO is doing to private health insurance? Suppose we "removed the profit motive" from working for government. That would "incentivize" them to do a better job, right?

Really, the government is just another corporation now, only it is one that doesn't actually earn your money because they can take it by force.

Good and evil

There is a big discrepancy between what people say they believe about good and evil and what they actually believe.

One popular line of thought is that evil is the absence of good. I think this is called the privation theory. I believe that this is not really what people believe, though they think they do.

The duality of good and evil is often depicted as the duality between cold and hot. Heat, being associated with Hell, is also associated with evil. By contrast, though we don't really come out and say it, Heaven is usually depicted as a cold place: high in the sky, clouds, white and blue colors. Beneath the surface of this comparison lies a more profound psychological truth which might be processed subconsciously, but is not something people who believe in absolute good or evil would come out and say. That is: cold, per se, does not actually exist. Cold is really just the absence of heat. Following this line of reasoning, one could say that analogously, good does not exist in its own right, but is really the absence of evil. Thus, evil is a thing in and of itself, while good is the absence of that thing.

One example is the concept of innocence. Most people consider innocence, chastity, virginity, to be good, verging on holy. But what are these things but a lack of knowledge or experience? A lack of sexual contact? A lack of worldly patina that encrusts us as we grow in a world full of dirt and corruption? Good, here, is the absence of something, not a thing in its own right.

What about good deeds? Good deeds are nothing more than the identification and nullification, or reduction of identified causes of suffering. Disease is an evil, so reducing disease is good. Hunger is evil, so reducing hunger is good. Poverty is evil, so reducing poverty is good. Ah, but is not poverty a lack of money? It turns out that money, being a thing in itself, is also an evil! It is, in fact, often regarded as the root of all evil. So, by contrast, poverty must be a good? No?

In any case, it seems reasonable to conclude that good does not really exist in and of itself, but only as an absence of something, be it "evil" or suffering of some degree or another.

So, if good is the absence of things, then the ultimate good is the absence of everything, isn't it? It seems far fetched, but when you think about it...

Demons feature quite often in video games, movies, and other form so popular culture. Everyone can draw up pictures of vile horned creatures that embody evil and sin. Similarly, depictions of Hell, even going back the morality plays of the middle ages and to Dante's Inferno are ripe with imagery and visceral sensory impressions. In the old days, this evil was often juxtaposed by a strong belief in God and in the positive power of good. Not so much anymore. Although video games, for instance, draw heavily from the infernal iconography, no mention exists of God or any other real divine power. It is as if the makers are afraid to mention the source of good, unless it is some airy-fairy flakey foofoo new age thing, like a holy stone or a generic mother goddess figure. They want the juicy bits of the religion that includes the monsters, but they reject the meaningful bits of religion that teach us what good is supposed to be. Is it that they have forgotten what good is, or is it that they recognize that good, being the absence of evil, being sterile and boring, is ultimately lifeless, and that the only way that we, as mortals, can ever truly experience the purity of ultimate good is after we die. Meanwhile, evil continues to manifest, fairly frequently, in this world of ours.

So it makes sense, from this point of view, to consider Manicheism as a valid world-view: the world is evil, and the non-existent nothingness of infinity is good. Still, very little refreshment can be derived from such a religion. Similarly, Buddhism reflects a pessimistic point of view by offering the world of life and living as a wheel of Samsara, of pain, misery, and suffering caused by the sin of attachment. If we could only learn to divest ourselves of the motivating force of life, we could rest in eternal emptiness.

Should one take comfort in nihilism? The very idea makes as much sense as squeezing blood from a stone. However, it seems that nihilism has taken root in our culture and erupts in various forms, such as cultural relativism, diversity, and the most pernicious of all: moral relativism. All of these ideas are various disguises for nihilism: the idea that nothing has any real meaning and that the only meaning that exists is what we imbue with our minds at the time of perception. These ideas turn good and evil around until the terms are totally meaningless, and one is lost in a sea of grey areas and uncertainty. To the modern mind, such concepts of good and evil become quaint metaphors for old-fashioned people, who quibble about how many angels dance on pinheads, yet, when true horrifying evil is brought to light, people shower upon it invective, as though they still have some abysmal kernel of soul left within them that can point them toward good and evil, like a compass points to north.

In the end, we are left in a world full of evil, in which we imagine good to exist somewhere else. We do our best not to be evil, which, for most people, passes for good.

Yet, this is not enough. There is something more.

Thought for the day: outsourcing

I have heard libertarians describing outsourcing as a boon to the American economy. It helps 3rd and 2nd world nations develop so they can become markets for more goods and services.

I guess I'm just stupid. Instead of Americans buying televisions made in America, there will be Indians buying televisions made in China. I just don't see how this helps the American economy.

Thought for the day

When did questioning authority stop being cool?

Death slut

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8204358.stm

On the one hand, I think it kind of crude to consider being buried on top of Marilyn Monroe, I mean, what is the point? They even put him in face-downward, as was his dying wish, presumably so his corpse could be symbolically f*cking her corpse forever and ever. What wife would not be angry over that?

On the other hand, you have to stop and think for a second about a woman who is exhuming her dead husband, removing him from his chosen place of rest, just to make money. I mean, when you choose a resting place, and pay for it, there is an assumption that they're not going to pop you out of there after a few years and move you somewhere else.

You also have to wonder if Monroe's "partner" will forever be changing, so that, if you buy this plot, you can only expect to be there for a few years until someone else wants to sell your burial place to the highest bidder. This is a kind of fraud, really, but then, once you're dead, you don't get refunds, do you?

Imagine, Monroe's corpse getting an unending string of partners for all eternity. In a sense, they're making Monroe into a kind of dead prostitute.

Backing off the public option

So, now BO is backing off the public option of healthcare reform. It's just a sliver of the bill, he says. He's right. It's not the real purpose of the bill.

The real purpose of the bill is to destroy the private industry and make public healthcare the only option.

Wait, didn't I contradict myself? Some might think so.

If you "regulate" something to the point of specifying demands on an industry that cannot be met on a cashflow basis, you effectively wipe out that industry.

The dems say that "someone" needs to compete with private industries. Just think about that statement for a second. Private industries compete with one another. That's sort of the point. What if they said that someone had to compete with the "hamburger restaurant establishment." You'd just laugh. However, the health insurance companies are more complex than McDonalds, and so people seem to get confused over the part about how they have to make enough money to stay afloat...unlike the government. Now, if there is collusion between the insurance providers, price-fixing, and so on, now we're getting into the domain of where antitrust laws are applicable. Tell me: why haven't any antitrust laws been invoked to counter this nefarios corruption? Could it be that no laws have been broken? Could it be that they aren't colluding? If that's the case, then why aren't they competing for my business instead of working together to screw me? The truth is, that they are competing with one another, but the government wants to create a monopoly. In a sense, the Federal Government wants to create a price-fixing condition where none exists. It wants to create a monopoly by squeezing out the private sector, using your own money to kill your goods and services.

Another thing: I don't recall the ammendment to the Constitution that says that the Federal Government can step in and regulate the health-insurance industry. Maybe I need to brush up on my reading, but it doesn't seem to fall into the categories of minting coins, regulating interstate commerce, and protecting its citizens from foreign aggression, or declaring war. Then again, the Feds have been walking all over our contract with them for so long that people have forgotten what the purpose of the Federal government was. If you consider what they are supposed to be allowed to do, you find that it doesn't take that much taxation to do what they're supposed to be doing. However, they can't even do what they're supposed to be doing right: protecting our borders from foreign invasion, minting coins that are worth something...what good are they?

It seems that the only thing the Feds are really good at is overstepping the bounds of their authority and making it look legitimate.

Analysis of horror

Horror movies tell an otherwise untold story. From the cultural perspective, they represent a people's unspoken fears. Most cultures actively promote their values in holidays, celebrations, and the like, but on the other side of that, the darker side, horror movies indicate another set of cultural values: the things the people fear. I think that by studying horror movie themes we learn a lot about the culture's underlying themes, especially the themes they choose not to celebrate, or prefer not to discuss openly.

• Godzilla. I begin with Godzilla because this monster was the one that first put the idea in my head. Godzilla started in 1954 when Toho released the first movie. It was a giant monster that burned Tokyo. Now, history students might recall that Japan was just recovering from losing WWII, and that the end days of the war were not pretty. Fear was fairly rampant in some areas of Japan, especially among children and people who lived in cities. Aside from the nuclear weapons used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were firebombings of some major cities as well. The firebombings were particularly deadly because so much of the architecture was built from wood. So, a generation of Japanese grew up with the fear and the unsettling expectation that they might wake up to find their entire city, and everyone they knew, going up in a gruesome nightmare of fire and smoke. Then, just nine years later, Godzilla emerges from the ashes of a burnt-out collective unconscious. Japanese film at the time was heavily regulated by the government, in large part to prevent the Japanese people from glorifying the empire and the war effort. A similar approach was taken in the deNazification of Germany. The point is that films could not come out and explicitly name what the Japanese feared or hated, or tell a story based on the actual war effort, so the fears and anger became sublimated, only to emerge in monstrous form. Godzilla could not be mistaken as a piece about the war, or about the empire, but the chilling fears that a monster that levels cities can evoke provided a channel for the collective fear and anger of the Japanese citizenry. So, Godzilla came to represent the fear of nuclear holocaust, of firebombings, and, more interestingly, of the United States, the perpetrator of the violence. I find it very flattering, actually, because later, as Japan and the US became more friendly, and the US became a sort of military protector of Japan (Japan's military being disbanded under US protection, as part of the surrender) Godzilla transcended the role of monster and became a kind of protector of Japan, fighting off other, more dangerous monsters. Godzilla eventually became a kind of cultural icon, even a role-model. I think that this strange reversal of Godzilla's perception is the biggest indicator that Godzilla is us.
• King Kong. If you ever see the original 1930's version of the movie (my favorite) you will notice the fairly obvious racial overtones. All I'll say on this is that King Kong was perfectly adjusted to his native environment, but when he was brought to the US, put on display in shackles and leg-irons, and presented with a tempting white woman, King Kong was no longer in his element, and unfortunately, the cost of the chaos that ensued from his displacement was shared by a great many of his victims.
• Zombies. What is it about zombie hordes that frightens people so much? We often call people who fall for the other political side as brain-washed (or brain-dead) zombies. Traditionally, zombies are the result of a kind of Haitian ritual in which the victim is buried alive and thereafter shunned from society when he is dug up again. According to the Serpent and the Rainbow (purportedly non-fiction) the author interviewed a zombie. The man seemed rather slow, but the gist of it was that he was cut off from friends and family and no longer considered part of the community, but something other...something else. Zombification was usually a punishment for people who did not contribute to the community or who were otherwise shunned. The families of people who had zombified members were ashamed of them, and did not talk about them. So, what does this have to do with the undead zombies of the movies? Not much...at first glance. Really, when you think of a zombie, you think of someone who is "infected" or otherwise changed from a living breathing pillar of the community to a ravenous, disorganized, idiotic, sick eater of brains. I find it particularly relevant that zombies eat brains, for zombies, in my opinion, represent the victims of meme warfare. We live in a time when meme warfare is rampant, the more so that most people can't even recognize it or know that it is going on. Various kinds exist to day, for instance, Gramscianism: the slow frog-boiling introduction of Marxism into Western culture. Zombies, therefore, represent people who were once like us, but who have been converted to the other side, and now exist only to eat our brains, or to destroy us, or preferably, to convert us. The horror they inspire is the horror of seeing your country overrun by people whose purposes are utterly alien and inimical to your own. You barricade the windows and doors, but they still manage to get in. Each one of them is an idiot, but the hordes of them pounding away can eventually bring down the mightiest bulwark. You can't kill them, or if you do, more pop up in a seemingly unending deluge of hostility and mindless activism. For some reason ACORN comes to my mind. But they're more like the infection than the victims. But, remember that zombies are both victims and carriers of the infection, so maybe the simile is not so far off.
  
• The Frankenstein monster. During the age of Enlightenment, and the post Enlightenment period, there was a groundswell of scientific endeavours that found new ways to reduce nature's miracles to scientifically identifyable processes. I believe that this might have given rise to an underlying fear that the entire universe might, itself, one day be proven godless, and that the entirety of being might come down to mechanical and chemical processes. I think that in some people, this possibility raises a kind of unspoken and inchoate fear or nihilism, the fear that nothing really has any meaning or significance, but is just a bunch of processes. Enter the Frankenstein monster. Dr. Frankenstein proved in his seminal research that one could create life from knitting together a bunch of body parts and infusing them with electric current, thus proving that the miracle of life itself no longer held any mysteries, was not miraculous, but scientifically definable and reduceable to a bunch of processes. The resulting creature, a creature of consciousness ex nihilio, was obviously without a soul, for it was not a creation of God, but of man, or more precisely, of the physical elements. The question that arises from this monster is obvious: if this creature has no soul, then how can I know whether or not I have a soul? I think this is a much more profound and unsettling fear than the others because it is buried so deeply into our makeup that we seldom even question it. Do I have a soul? What if I look deep inside and find nothing? What does it mean?
• Dracula. In some places in Europe, vampires were actually believed to be real. There are several different myths involving them, but generally, there was a fear that when someone died, they might turn into a vampire. They would sometimes unearth the corpses and find them with fresh blood on them, or with elongated fangs, or with bloody fingernails, etc. They would then cut the heads off of the monsters and sometimes bury them face-downard, and sometimes put a stake through the heart. The idea was that if they were facing downwards, then when they attempted to claw their way to the surface, they would claw deeper into the ground. The stake through the heart was merely a method of pinning them to the coffin, much as you might pin a bug in a collection. It was not just anyone who might become a vampire, though. It was people who exhibited vampiric behavior in life, as, for instance, children who grow up into adults but still lived with their parents. These people were likely to become vampires. In essence, the vampire was a symbol of social loafing, of someone who takes and takes from others but gives nothing back: a parasite. Now, how better to parasitize humans beings than to develop extraordinary skills at manipulation? This is what we see in modern vampires, a kind of sexy attraction, which is designed (or evolved?) specifically to make them more effective at the one thing they do for their own survival: feed off of others.

The success of a horror movie to tell the untold fears of a society might not be intentional. The makers of these movies probably did know why or how the movie reached in and touched the button of fear. I don't think you can learn much from the conscious intentions of the filmmakers. It's not the intention of the movie that is important, but the effect, whether intentional or not. It's the popularity of the movies that indicate how well the movie tells the untold story. Likewise, the people who view the movies do not consciously think about the underlying symbolism, but process it subconsciously. There is "something" in the movie that draws them, appeals to them, makes them shudder. That something, I think, is unspecified, or unconscious fear, knocking at the gates to consciousness.

Won't you open the door?

Healthcare

It occurs to me that the Leftists are taking some interesting approaches to dealing with resistance to the Obamacare program. They are:

• Using the Right's craziest arguments as strawmen, parading them around to show us that if we do not agree with the 1000 page bill that nobody has read, then we are buffoons, ready for the loony bin. If I recall correctly, the Russians institutionalized citizens who were political dissenters. After all: you'd have to be insane to go against the party!
• Actually setting up a website so the leftists can report thought-criminals. I had always hoped I would not see the day where thought-police were acting openly in America.
• Affecting indignation at the protesters. How *dare* they interrupt their precious politicians! It's like the Democrats had never heard of protesting and had totally forgotten about how their own protests went in the '60's, the '70's, the '80's, well...you get the idea. Protesting oppressive government has been a staple of the Democrat's lunchbox for the last half-century, and now they're acting like they've never seen it before. Well, that's about as transparent as hypocrisy gets.
• Sending union thugs to quash the rebellion. Classy.
• Accusing the protesters of astroturfing, meanwhile, there is a website with BO urging his own fake grass-rooters to belly up and let their neighbors know that they know where they live.
• Calling the protesters tea-baggers. I've actually heard supposedly unbiased news reporters using this term, like they don't know what it means. It only goes to show how deeply involved the news media is with the leftist party when the reporters are using such derogatory names for people who are protesting an oppressive government. Hey, remember the '60's, '70's, '80's...etc., when the media were fawning all over the protesters? Not anymore. Care to wager what's changed? Change has changed.

Let us not forget that the unintended consequences of a law are not usually explicitly stated in the law. Let us also not forget who our POTUS is, or what he believes in.

• 20 years in a racist black separatist church.
• Follower of Allinsky, who taught "community organizers" how to use community organizing as a way to inject communism into America.
• Uses Allinsky's teachings, such as saying one thing and then doing the exact opposite.

I still can't believe that people use BO's words to defend his positions. I mean seriously: does anyone expect a rational person to believe a word that comes out of his mouth?

The Thought Police are on the move

Here are some chilling prospects coming straight from the dot-gov.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

They want you to report on people who have "bad" information about the health plan. That's right: they want you to report people who have differences of opinion. Don't believe me? Here's a quote:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

OK: translation. "We can't track everyone's private e-mails and conversations to root out thought-criminals and political dissenters because they are just too many civilians to monitor (though we would if we could), so we need your help to report them to us. If you see anyone with information that contradicts the official propaganda, report them here."

Why are people not afraid?

Obama Asks Moms to Return To School

Almost every website I visit now has some advert on it saying "Obama asks moms to return to school."

Every site.

I can't help but wonder if there is something sinister going on. I mean, I never heard the Great One saying this.

What I think is going on is that it's some sort of weird sex-slave trade. Moms call up and are told where they should go to school, or maybe they are asked for private information. They show up and *snatch.* Then kids will all be asking "Where's mommy?"

All Dad can say is "Obama took her away to school."