Can somebody tell me what the difference is between this Palin rally and, say, a KKK rally? In both I see the same kind of random yelling, the same kind of hatred, the same kind of completely unsupportable points. I think this is the first rally clip I've caught that actually looks like it could potentially get violent though. Good job, nutwhack conservatives!
P.S.
I realize I'm picking on conservatives quite a lot in this blog lately, and I honestly don't mean to. If you find some liberal batshit crazy for me to comment on, please send it my way so I can give it the same treatment. I think conservatism tends to lead more toward this sort of nuttiness, liberals tend to get frothy about religion or conspiracy theories. I've already beat on atheists for a while and I suspect most of them are liberals. Still though, realize I'm picking on the people and their stupidity. I think their conservatism contributes to this sort of thing, yes. And I also think that more and more, the Republican Party is hammering on this sort of conservatism. But it is one type of conservative philosophy out of many, and I apologize to the others and share their undoubted sadness at being connected in any way with this idiocy.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Socialism
A friend of mine had an interesting question. Why do people in the US consider socialism and communism to be the same thing, when they're not? I had an answer but now I'm not so sure about it, so we'll see if anybody else has a better one.
Proud again
Remember in the most recent debate where McCain said he was proud of the people who come to his rallies? Remember when he said in response to people screaming "terrorist" and "treason" and such when Obama's name is brought up that there are fringe people at every rally? This seems like an aweful lot of fringe people to me.
I guess if you wanted to go all black helicopter you could assume that since it's al-Jazira that they just searched and searched to find all the nuts. But given the history of racism in this country I think you'd have a pretty hard time proving that. I sincerely hope McCain is correct, and that every single one of these people is on some whacko fringe.
Some of the comments I just don't get. Most of them, sure. Associates with terrorists? That's just McPalin talking points, no matter how much cranky old Flippy McSpin denies it. (Saw Flippy McSpin for McCain on another blog and loved it so much I'm stealing it .. because I'm a commie libral!) Blacks will take over, a "nigruh" running for president is "a second stringer"? Obvious straight up racist bullshit. But where does the crazy woman get off saying that Obama and his wife hate whites? Just exactly what evidence do we have for this? I mean, OK, we don't have any evidence for the rest of it either, but I get where it's coming from.
P.S.
In case anybody reading feels upset at my use of McPalin or Flippy McSpin, I'm sorry but that's funny stuff, I've got a counter combination for you. O'Biden, the foreign policy leprechaun! I guess to be in keeping with the post it'd have to be O'Biden, the nigruh foreign policy leprechaun. There you go, now quit saying all the democrats ever gave you was higher taxes.
I guess if you wanted to go all black helicopter you could assume that since it's al-Jazira that they just searched and searched to find all the nuts. But given the history of racism in this country I think you'd have a pretty hard time proving that. I sincerely hope McCain is correct, and that every single one of these people is on some whacko fringe.
Some of the comments I just don't get. Most of them, sure. Associates with terrorists? That's just McPalin talking points, no matter how much cranky old Flippy McSpin denies it. (Saw Flippy McSpin for McCain on another blog and loved it so much I'm stealing it .. because I'm a commie libral!) Blacks will take over, a "nigruh" running for president is "a second stringer"? Obvious straight up racist bullshit. But where does the crazy woman get off saying that Obama and his wife hate whites? Just exactly what evidence do we have for this? I mean, OK, we don't have any evidence for the rest of it either, but I get where it's coming from.
P.S.
In case anybody reading feels upset at my use of McPalin or Flippy McSpin, I'm sorry but that's funny stuff, I've got a counter combination for you. O'Biden, the foreign policy leprechaun! I guess to be in keeping with the post it'd have to be O'Biden, the nigruh foreign policy leprechaun. There you go, now quit saying all the democrats ever gave you was higher taxes.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Proud
I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, to be lumped in with complete fucking morons. Yay!
Evil work
Is work evil? I don't mean this the way you think I might. What I want to do is analyze a typical doctrine of conservatives. In this camp I'd put Republicans, Objectivists, and Libertarians for a start, there are probably others. While these groups have vast philosophical and ideological differences, they all agree on this point.
All of these groups fear what they often refer to as "handouts". Why do they have a problem with it? Well, here's the theory. If you hand somebody a check, and give them a place to live, and healthcare, they'll be lazy. They won't go out and be productive, i.e. work, because they don't have to, you're giving them everything. They can just sit at home and watch talkshows all day, because they've got money coming in.
This certainly seems vaguely reasonable on the face of it. I'm sure we've all met people who want to get paid to sit and watch TV. There are however two problems with this. First of all, a character problem. Many of the same people who rail against "handouts" and "undeserving" people and such are the same people who wish they'd win the lottery. Then they'd be able to tell that boss off and go get that resort in the Bahamas and lay on the beach all day. So you castigate people for doing something you want to do yourself?
The second problem, and the point of this post, is this. There's an underlying assumption here that's not being talked about, well I haven't seen it, I'm sure it's being talked about and I just don't know it. Let me start with a contrast first. We'll take it in its starkest form for illustrative purposes.
Objectivism not only says productivity is good, but it's in essence the purpose of man's life. Certainly life is the first choice, according to Objectivism, but not just "simple survival", that makes you into a "brute man". Rather it's life as a rational being, read: Objectivist, should live it. And what you want to do with your life is be productive. Why do you want to be productive? Partially for survival, you have to get food and such, but also because there's this sort of inner drive the "men of ability" have. They need to do, to create, to change the world. For Henry, I realize I'm simplifying Objectivism here, but I think my point's fairly accurate. That point is, productivity is not simply a matter of survival, it's a sort of goal in itself, and it's very good.
So, if you give people everything, you make them not want to be productive. Do we have a situation where something like this happens? I think we do. That situation exists as grants. When you are given a research grant, you get money for living expenses, food and shelter and so on, but also money to fund your actual work, the research you're doing, the art you're creating ,etc. While it's true if you fail to come through, you won't get another grant, what matter? Hey, you just got some free money! Even if you'd have to pay it back, hey, worry about that in a year or two, free money!
So what's this thing that's not getting talked about? Well, we've seen that Objectivism, and I think conservatives in general, think that productivity is an end in itself, something that's just good. However, I think this is simply lip service. Why do I say this? Because of the doctrine I mentioned at the beginning. Assuming that if people had basic needs taken care of, food, shelter, health, they'd be lazy slobs who'd never work a day in their life has a corollary. That corollary is, nobody would work if they didn't have to, the only reason people work is because they are compelled by necessity to do so. If they did not have that necessity, they'd never do it.
Obviously I think this is wrong, and I think grants prove it. The whole point with grants is that people get enough to live on and continue their art/research/whatever. You can research AIDS, let's say, and not have to worry about where you'll live and where your next meal is coming from. Obviously I'm assuming a fairly nice grant, but I don't think this is unreasonable, we know such things occur. So if people get this grant, why do they work? For exactly the lip service reason conservatives give.
They are interested in the subject, they have an internal drive to create, or find out how things work, or so on. This can easily apply to other work as well, perhaps somebody really loves numbers and thus finds joy in accounting, for instance. But it's curious to me that conservatives give the doctrine of interest and productivity lip service, but belie it by claiming that if we didn't have to work, we wouldn't. Something related is the idea of shared suffering, hey I had to work and save and whatever for X, so you do too. Otherwise, somebody's getting a "free ride" and they don't deserve that.
So think about it. Next time you hear a Republican or such blathering on about work or productivity or "hard work", realize what they're saying is that there's a necessity to work and if there wasn't, nobody would ever do it. Then think about how, if everybody could stop worrying about where they were going to live and how they'd get their next meal, we might have happier people because they could, potentially, find the work they really enjoyed doing.
All of these groups fear what they often refer to as "handouts". Why do they have a problem with it? Well, here's the theory. If you hand somebody a check, and give them a place to live, and healthcare, they'll be lazy. They won't go out and be productive, i.e. work, because they don't have to, you're giving them everything. They can just sit at home and watch talkshows all day, because they've got money coming in.
This certainly seems vaguely reasonable on the face of it. I'm sure we've all met people who want to get paid to sit and watch TV. There are however two problems with this. First of all, a character problem. Many of the same people who rail against "handouts" and "undeserving" people and such are the same people who wish they'd win the lottery. Then they'd be able to tell that boss off and go get that resort in the Bahamas and lay on the beach all day. So you castigate people for doing something you want to do yourself?
The second problem, and the point of this post, is this. There's an underlying assumption here that's not being talked about, well I haven't seen it, I'm sure it's being talked about and I just don't know it. Let me start with a contrast first. We'll take it in its starkest form for illustrative purposes.
Objectivism not only says productivity is good, but it's in essence the purpose of man's life. Certainly life is the first choice, according to Objectivism, but not just "simple survival", that makes you into a "brute man". Rather it's life as a rational being, read: Objectivist, should live it. And what you want to do with your life is be productive. Why do you want to be productive? Partially for survival, you have to get food and such, but also because there's this sort of inner drive the "men of ability" have. They need to do, to create, to change the world. For Henry, I realize I'm simplifying Objectivism here, but I think my point's fairly accurate. That point is, productivity is not simply a matter of survival, it's a sort of goal in itself, and it's very good.
So, if you give people everything, you make them not want to be productive. Do we have a situation where something like this happens? I think we do. That situation exists as grants. When you are given a research grant, you get money for living expenses, food and shelter and so on, but also money to fund your actual work, the research you're doing, the art you're creating ,etc. While it's true if you fail to come through, you won't get another grant, what matter? Hey, you just got some free money! Even if you'd have to pay it back, hey, worry about that in a year or two, free money!
So what's this thing that's not getting talked about? Well, we've seen that Objectivism, and I think conservatives in general, think that productivity is an end in itself, something that's just good. However, I think this is simply lip service. Why do I say this? Because of the doctrine I mentioned at the beginning. Assuming that if people had basic needs taken care of, food, shelter, health, they'd be lazy slobs who'd never work a day in their life has a corollary. That corollary is, nobody would work if they didn't have to, the only reason people work is because they are compelled by necessity to do so. If they did not have that necessity, they'd never do it.
Obviously I think this is wrong, and I think grants prove it. The whole point with grants is that people get enough to live on and continue their art/research/whatever. You can research AIDS, let's say, and not have to worry about where you'll live and where your next meal is coming from. Obviously I'm assuming a fairly nice grant, but I don't think this is unreasonable, we know such things occur. So if people get this grant, why do they work? For exactly the lip service reason conservatives give.
They are interested in the subject, they have an internal drive to create, or find out how things work, or so on. This can easily apply to other work as well, perhaps somebody really loves numbers and thus finds joy in accounting, for instance. But it's curious to me that conservatives give the doctrine of interest and productivity lip service, but belie it by claiming that if we didn't have to work, we wouldn't. Something related is the idea of shared suffering, hey I had to work and save and whatever for X, so you do too. Otherwise, somebody's getting a "free ride" and they don't deserve that.
So think about it. Next time you hear a Republican or such blathering on about work or productivity or "hard work", realize what they're saying is that there's a necessity to work and if there wasn't, nobody would ever do it. Then think about how, if everybody could stop worrying about where they were going to live and how they'd get their next meal, we might have happier people because they could, potentially, find the work they really enjoyed doing.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
More moral sanction
Here is a quote from Sen. McCain, from the first debate.
"What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking
corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments."
Why, precisely? This is sort of like saying that if I know my boss Fred is a racist I should refuse to work for my employer until they fire Fred, because if I work for them and thus end up interacting with Fred, I'm legitimizing his racism. Don't get me wrong, clearly there's a point where you stop talking. But I'd think that point is after talking has proven to be ineffective, not, you know, a complete refusal right from the outset.
Let's Godwin's law this shit right here and now and use the classic Hitler example. Everybody likes to trot out Hitler, ooo this one guy wanted to have talks with him and Winston said piss off, and they did war on Hitler and that's what won WWII! Yeah, here's my thing. Clearly wanting to do *only* diplomatic talks was stupid. But I fail to see why you couldn't have had a shot at diplomacy while at the same time preparing for war if it becomes necessary. And when I say preparing for war, I don't mean oh well we've sort of started looking at it but it'll take us another half a year. I mean prepare so that if it's clear the diplomacy has gone south and the guy's just batshit crazy, ala Hitler, you're ready to strike immediately, if that's what's necessary.
But I guess that wouldn't work, because simply communicating with Hitler would've meant that England approved of every crazy and sick idea he ever had, whether they knew about it or not. Besides, it'd make 'em look like pussies. Clearly as Americans we are not pussies. So you know, I guess talking with people, even people you violently disagree with, is just stupid and all. Of course, I don't know how you'll ever change their minds if you don't talk with them, but maybe that's just me. Maybe Mccain knows that there's a secret mind control ray in the bowels of the Pentagon or something. Or hey, here's an idea, maybe we could try some more fucked up PsyOps that don't really work! Woo! Just as long as we don't talk to them. Because talking to == I approve of everything you've ever said! Whatever.
"What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking
corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments."
Why, precisely? This is sort of like saying that if I know my boss Fred is a racist I should refuse to work for my employer until they fire Fred, because if I work for them and thus end up interacting with Fred, I'm legitimizing his racism. Don't get me wrong, clearly there's a point where you stop talking. But I'd think that point is after talking has proven to be ineffective, not, you know, a complete refusal right from the outset.
Let's Godwin's law this shit right here and now and use the classic Hitler example. Everybody likes to trot out Hitler, ooo this one guy wanted to have talks with him and Winston said piss off, and they did war on Hitler and that's what won WWII! Yeah, here's my thing. Clearly wanting to do *only* diplomatic talks was stupid. But I fail to see why you couldn't have had a shot at diplomacy while at the same time preparing for war if it becomes necessary. And when I say preparing for war, I don't mean oh well we've sort of started looking at it but it'll take us another half a year. I mean prepare so that if it's clear the diplomacy has gone south and the guy's just batshit crazy, ala Hitler, you're ready to strike immediately, if that's what's necessary.
But I guess that wouldn't work, because simply communicating with Hitler would've meant that England approved of every crazy and sick idea he ever had, whether they knew about it or not. Besides, it'd make 'em look like pussies. Clearly as Americans we are not pussies. So you know, I guess talking with people, even people you violently disagree with, is just stupid and all. Of course, I don't know how you'll ever change their minds if you don't talk with them, but maybe that's just me. Maybe Mccain knows that there's a secret mind control ray in the bowels of the Pentagon or something. Or hey, here's an idea, maybe we could try some more fucked up PsyOps that don't really work! Woo! Just as long as we don't talk to them. Because talking to == I approve of everything you've ever said! Whatever.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Failure
Last night on some show, there was a guy, a Republican I assume, talking about the current financial situation. He offered that the whole bailout thing was a bad idea. Why? Because he thinks that how capitalism learns is by seeing failure. Let's set aside for the moment that capitalism is an abstraction and thus can't "learn" anything. Clearly what he's driving at is that capitalists learn from failure.
Does this work? Do we have any historical examples to go on? What he's saying is that if we bail out the banks and such, nobody will learn, it's a free handout. Essentially what he's getting at is that if the economy has to collapse, oh well, because that's how capitalism learns, by seeing failures happen. If capitalism doesn't have failures it'll essentially get too big for its britches and assume it can do anything with no consequences. I'm extrapolating a bit here but I don't really see that there's another conclusion to be drawn from the statement that capitalism learns by seeing failures happen.
OK, so, back to the question at hand. Do we have anything to examine to find out whether he's correct, that capitalism learns by seeing failures occur? You know it's coming. Of course we do. It's called the Great Depression. Now seeing as how some are saying that if we don't do something, we might have another Great Depression or something even worse, I have to conclude one of two things.
The first is that he's simply wrong, capitalism doesn't learn by failure in any way whatsoever. Left to its own devices, it'll just keep doing the same thing, because that's exactly what seems to have happened here. However, there's another conclusion, and I think this one is even scarier.
The other conclusion is this. Capitalism indeed learns from seeing failures happen. But if this is so, how do we account for the current situation, which seems to be repeating similar mistakes? Quite simply, the Great Depression is too far in the past. Capitalism hasn't seen a failure happen recently enough, and it's forgotten what it's learned.
OK, so why is this scary? You might say the same thing about a person. Because what it basically suggests is that every generation or so, roughly speaking, capitalism just needs to see another failure happen in order to learn. Keep in mind we're not saying that this failure will probably happen and then capitalism will learn something new. The conclusion is that capitalism forgets its learning, and has to be reminded every so often by another failure. Is that really an ideology we want to support? In order for capitalism to function properly, every generation or so we need another Great Depression or something nearly equivalent, perhaps confined to a single market if that's even possible, in order for capitalism to learn the same damn thing over and over and over again?
On a similar note, ideology dominating sensibleness, some Republican woman was talking about the current bailout too. House Republicans decided to propose their own plan, and what she kept saying about it over and over again was, they're being strong, because the other plan's socialism, and we don't want socialism! We don't want socialism at all! Shades of fundamentalism here. We're not concerned about what's best for the people, we're just all jazzed up that it might be socialism? Which of course means that the good Republicans must stand strong against it.
Keep in mind here, I'm not saying that the other plan is what's best, as such. But both of these statements strike me as pretty frightening. In the latter all we're concerned about is that we have the correct political ideology. In the former, it's as though we're saying, don't stop your child from playing with the fan, he needs to break a finger to see that's a bad idea. What? Yes I know he did it just a month ago, but apparently he didn't learn or he forgot. Now leave him alone so he can do it again and maybe he'll learn this time.
I'd like to add something here concerning capitalism and generations. People who argue that failures are teaching tools will say something like the following. No, we're not encouraging failure, nobody wants failure, and you have to understand that these are "market forces" causing this to happen, the failures just occur, so we may as well learn from them. Let's get something straight here. Remember how I said that capitalism is an abstraction, and thus can't "learn" anything? This is vitally important to understand.
I don't believe there are market forces, in the usual sense. That is, when people speak about "market forces" what they mean is something like, here is how the market works, and these things just happen. It's like saying that nobody's responsible for your house getting destroyed in a tornado. This is true. However, people are responsible for the market. In a tornado, wind conditions occur, just so, and the tornado just so happens to hit your house, as opposed to your friend's house two towns over.
When people talk about "market forces", they're saying the same thing, it just so happens that, due to the "market forces" acting in just such and such a manner, your company just got destroyed, or you just lost your house, or so on. Notice BTW that rarely are "market forces" invoked for anything good. It's the opposite of "God helped us win this game", nobody ever says "damn it God, thanks for making us lose!" Similarly, if things go wrong, it's "market forces", but if there's a stunning coup in the business world, why that's whoever had the gumption and initiative and drive and .... to go make it happen!
This is why I find the rabbid opposition to "socialism", without considering the effects on the people, and the idea that capitalism just has to see failures happen to learn so scary. We're totally removing people from the equation. What? You lost your house and your business? Oh well, sorry, but capitalism has to see failures happen in order to learn. What? You lost your house and your business? Yeah, but at least our plan to help wasn't "socialist"!
I'm not saying here that there's any way to save everybody. I'm not saying that sometimes you don't have to make hard decisions. What I am suggesting is that these abstractions, much like "collateral damage", simply illiminate any connection to the real consequences. These decisions don't become something to be deeply and morally considered, they don't become a situation where we try to limit as much as possible the unfortunate consequences, they essentially become writeoffs. What? No no, we didn't kill civilians, that's "collateral damage", you can't make an omlet without breaking some eggs. Let me change my previous sentence. These decisions should be deeply and morally *agonized* over. I want people who realize the extreme gravity of war, or the economy, or such, to be making these decisions, not people who are writing them off as failures from which capitalism learns, or at least it's not socialist, or oh well shit happens in war. For instance, if war is hell, and we know this, and we know that morality pretty much goes out the window for both sides to a perhaps greater or lesser degree, shouldn't we really use it as the *last* option, when everything else has truly failed? Yet another case where whatever hasn't learned from "seeing failures happen"?
P.S.
Pretty sure I misspelled omlet, I don't feel like looking it up. Deal with it.
Does this work? Do we have any historical examples to go on? What he's saying is that if we bail out the banks and such, nobody will learn, it's a free handout. Essentially what he's getting at is that if the economy has to collapse, oh well, because that's how capitalism learns, by seeing failures happen. If capitalism doesn't have failures it'll essentially get too big for its britches and assume it can do anything with no consequences. I'm extrapolating a bit here but I don't really see that there's another conclusion to be drawn from the statement that capitalism learns by seeing failures happen.
OK, so, back to the question at hand. Do we have anything to examine to find out whether he's correct, that capitalism learns by seeing failures occur? You know it's coming. Of course we do. It's called the Great Depression. Now seeing as how some are saying that if we don't do something, we might have another Great Depression or something even worse, I have to conclude one of two things.
The first is that he's simply wrong, capitalism doesn't learn by failure in any way whatsoever. Left to its own devices, it'll just keep doing the same thing, because that's exactly what seems to have happened here. However, there's another conclusion, and I think this one is even scarier.
The other conclusion is this. Capitalism indeed learns from seeing failures happen. But if this is so, how do we account for the current situation, which seems to be repeating similar mistakes? Quite simply, the Great Depression is too far in the past. Capitalism hasn't seen a failure happen recently enough, and it's forgotten what it's learned.
OK, so why is this scary? You might say the same thing about a person. Because what it basically suggests is that every generation or so, roughly speaking, capitalism just needs to see another failure happen in order to learn. Keep in mind we're not saying that this failure will probably happen and then capitalism will learn something new. The conclusion is that capitalism forgets its learning, and has to be reminded every so often by another failure. Is that really an ideology we want to support? In order for capitalism to function properly, every generation or so we need another Great Depression or something nearly equivalent, perhaps confined to a single market if that's even possible, in order for capitalism to learn the same damn thing over and over and over again?
On a similar note, ideology dominating sensibleness, some Republican woman was talking about the current bailout too. House Republicans decided to propose their own plan, and what she kept saying about it over and over again was, they're being strong, because the other plan's socialism, and we don't want socialism! We don't want socialism at all! Shades of fundamentalism here. We're not concerned about what's best for the people, we're just all jazzed up that it might be socialism? Which of course means that the good Republicans must stand strong against it.
Keep in mind here, I'm not saying that the other plan is what's best, as such. But both of these statements strike me as pretty frightening. In the latter all we're concerned about is that we have the correct political ideology. In the former, it's as though we're saying, don't stop your child from playing with the fan, he needs to break a finger to see that's a bad idea. What? Yes I know he did it just a month ago, but apparently he didn't learn or he forgot. Now leave him alone so he can do it again and maybe he'll learn this time.
I'd like to add something here concerning capitalism and generations. People who argue that failures are teaching tools will say something like the following. No, we're not encouraging failure, nobody wants failure, and you have to understand that these are "market forces" causing this to happen, the failures just occur, so we may as well learn from them. Let's get something straight here. Remember how I said that capitalism is an abstraction, and thus can't "learn" anything? This is vitally important to understand.
I don't believe there are market forces, in the usual sense. That is, when people speak about "market forces" what they mean is something like, here is how the market works, and these things just happen. It's like saying that nobody's responsible for your house getting destroyed in a tornado. This is true. However, people are responsible for the market. In a tornado, wind conditions occur, just so, and the tornado just so happens to hit your house, as opposed to your friend's house two towns over.
When people talk about "market forces", they're saying the same thing, it just so happens that, due to the "market forces" acting in just such and such a manner, your company just got destroyed, or you just lost your house, or so on. Notice BTW that rarely are "market forces" invoked for anything good. It's the opposite of "God helped us win this game", nobody ever says "damn it God, thanks for making us lose!" Similarly, if things go wrong, it's "market forces", but if there's a stunning coup in the business world, why that's whoever had the gumption and initiative and drive and .... to go make it happen!
This is why I find the rabbid opposition to "socialism", without considering the effects on the people, and the idea that capitalism just has to see failures happen to learn so scary. We're totally removing people from the equation. What? You lost your house and your business? Oh well, sorry, but capitalism has to see failures happen in order to learn. What? You lost your house and your business? Yeah, but at least our plan to help wasn't "socialist"!
I'm not saying here that there's any way to save everybody. I'm not saying that sometimes you don't have to make hard decisions. What I am suggesting is that these abstractions, much like "collateral damage", simply illiminate any connection to the real consequences. These decisions don't become something to be deeply and morally considered, they don't become a situation where we try to limit as much as possible the unfortunate consequences, they essentially become writeoffs. What? No no, we didn't kill civilians, that's "collateral damage", you can't make an omlet without breaking some eggs. Let me change my previous sentence. These decisions should be deeply and morally *agonized* over. I want people who realize the extreme gravity of war, or the economy, or such, to be making these decisions, not people who are writing them off as failures from which capitalism learns, or at least it's not socialist, or oh well shit happens in war. For instance, if war is hell, and we know this, and we know that morality pretty much goes out the window for both sides to a perhaps greater or lesser degree, shouldn't we really use it as the *last* option, when everything else has truly failed? Yet another case where whatever hasn't learned from "seeing failures happen"?
P.S.
Pretty sure I misspelled omlet, I don't feel like looking it up. Deal with it.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Moral sanction
It's not just for Objectivists anymore! First let's get the main article out of the way. This is an article about Obama.
OK, so what's this moral sanction business all about? Moral sanction is a concept from Objectivism. Here's what the Ayn Rand Lexicon has to say about moral sanction. At first glance this doesn't seem all that bad, sort of like the idea behind they came for the Communists, but I wasn't a Communist. However, let's take a glance at how moral sanction is supposed to work in practical terms. Essentially what the Objectivists are saying is this. If you are in any way associated or dealing with somebody who is evil, you morally sanction them, i.e. support their ideas. Note that this seems to be the completely opposite meaning of "moral sanction" from how it's generally used in philosophy. There it seems to mean what you'd expect, you sanction (punish) someone for a moral lapse.
OK, so what's this got to do with the original article? The article attacks Obama's statement that Bill Ayers had nothing to do with the formation of his political ideas. Bill ayers is apparently super duper scary and evil, because he was in a group that bombed the Pentagon, and he like, never apologized and stuff, this all according to the article, you understand. So how does the article go about disproving Obama's statement that he and Ayers didn't exchange ideas on a regular basis?
Well it seems that Obama was on a board for something that was Ayers idea, and they worked together on that board. Here's where the moral sanction comes in. Because Obama dealt with the daily operations of an educational foundation which Ayers was connected with, it's obvious that Obama approves of Ayers and all he stands for and clearly they exchanged political ideas. In other words, moral sanction, as defined by Objectivism. You're probably more familiar with it under another name, guilt by association. Here's why it's a problem, aside from it's being incredibly stupid.
Let's assume that the article is completely correct. Obama and Ayers have a connection and they talked frequently during these board meetings for this foundation. How does this in any way prove that Obama's political ideas are based on or inspired by those of Ayers? I would assume that they pretty much talked about things related to the running of the foundation, myself. The body of the article clearly does not support the claim being made of it, namely that it refutes Obama's statement concerning Ayers and his ideas. On the contrary, the true argument is that Obama gave Ayers moral sanction, in other words, Obama is guilty because he is somehow associated with Ayers. Good job, conservatives. That vaunted rationality is really working out for you, you seem to have such a firm grasp of its principles and how to use them.
OK, so what's this moral sanction business all about? Moral sanction is a concept from Objectivism. Here's what the Ayn Rand Lexicon has to say about moral sanction. At first glance this doesn't seem all that bad, sort of like the idea behind they came for the Communists, but I wasn't a Communist. However, let's take a glance at how moral sanction is supposed to work in practical terms. Essentially what the Objectivists are saying is this. If you are in any way associated or dealing with somebody who is evil, you morally sanction them, i.e. support their ideas. Note that this seems to be the completely opposite meaning of "moral sanction" from how it's generally used in philosophy. There it seems to mean what you'd expect, you sanction (punish) someone for a moral lapse.
OK, so what's this got to do with the original article? The article attacks Obama's statement that Bill Ayers had nothing to do with the formation of his political ideas. Bill ayers is apparently super duper scary and evil, because he was in a group that bombed the Pentagon, and he like, never apologized and stuff, this all according to the article, you understand. So how does the article go about disproving Obama's statement that he and Ayers didn't exchange ideas on a regular basis?
Well it seems that Obama was on a board for something that was Ayers idea, and they worked together on that board. Here's where the moral sanction comes in. Because Obama dealt with the daily operations of an educational foundation which Ayers was connected with, it's obvious that Obama approves of Ayers and all he stands for and clearly they exchanged political ideas. In other words, moral sanction, as defined by Objectivism. You're probably more familiar with it under another name, guilt by association. Here's why it's a problem, aside from it's being incredibly stupid.
Let's assume that the article is completely correct. Obama and Ayers have a connection and they talked frequently during these board meetings for this foundation. How does this in any way prove that Obama's political ideas are based on or inspired by those of Ayers? I would assume that they pretty much talked about things related to the running of the foundation, myself. The body of the article clearly does not support the claim being made of it, namely that it refutes Obama's statement concerning Ayers and his ideas. On the contrary, the true argument is that Obama gave Ayers moral sanction, in other words, Obama is guilty because he is somehow associated with Ayers. Good job, conservatives. That vaunted rationality is really working out for you, you seem to have such a firm grasp of its principles and how to use them.
Oh the humanity
The milk of human kindness flows thick and fast through the veins of some people, funny how a lot of them are atheists and/or Objectivists. Check out the following link, and don't forget to read the comments!
Some points: I don't necessarily agree with the Christians. For instance, if people with DS are just like us, some of them must be dissatisfied with life or irritated and so on. However, the claim that these people are missing the point of the original post doesn't really stand up either. The charitable reading they're trying to give it is that what they're saying is that people should have a choice, that the decision to abort a fetus with genetic or other abnormalities is just that, a person's choice, and they should be allowed to make it free from religious pressures.
However, given the claim that the only reason people knowingly have a child with DS or other disabilities is so they can display their faith, akin to the whipping scars on the backs of Catholics of the Middle Ages, and the corolary that if you're rational, the only real decision is to abort because otherwise you're not being rational and letting your faith lead you, belies this reading. Clearly the author and similar commenters feel just the opposite way from the Christians. For the Christians, aborting is wrong because it's a life and that's murder and God said no, hence, it is irrational. For the author, condemning your unborn child to a life of suffering is compared with child rape, and this is clearly irrational, better to illiminate suffering altogether.
I should add here that the author and similar folk aren't really doing reason and rationality any favors here. While I agree that the decision to have a child, disabled or otherwise, is a choice that should be made by the people involved and nobody else, clearly we've gone beyond that statement to some sort of whacky extreme. The author describes people with DS as "freaks", and several commenters seem to consider them subhuman. The author, interestingly, doesn't really seem to oppose that position. That's good, give the impression that reason leads to the categorization of some beings as subhuman and calls for their illimination. Way to go, you use that rational mind girlfriend!
Some points: I don't necessarily agree with the Christians. For instance, if people with DS are just like us, some of them must be dissatisfied with life or irritated and so on. However, the claim that these people are missing the point of the original post doesn't really stand up either. The charitable reading they're trying to give it is that what they're saying is that people should have a choice, that the decision to abort a fetus with genetic or other abnormalities is just that, a person's choice, and they should be allowed to make it free from religious pressures.
However, given the claim that the only reason people knowingly have a child with DS or other disabilities is so they can display their faith, akin to the whipping scars on the backs of Catholics of the Middle Ages, and the corolary that if you're rational, the only real decision is to abort because otherwise you're not being rational and letting your faith lead you, belies this reading. Clearly the author and similar commenters feel just the opposite way from the Christians. For the Christians, aborting is wrong because it's a life and that's murder and God said no, hence, it is irrational. For the author, condemning your unborn child to a life of suffering is compared with child rape, and this is clearly irrational, better to illiminate suffering altogether.
I should add here that the author and similar folk aren't really doing reason and rationality any favors here. While I agree that the decision to have a child, disabled or otherwise, is a choice that should be made by the people involved and nobody else, clearly we've gone beyond that statement to some sort of whacky extreme. The author describes people with DS as "freaks", and several commenters seem to consider them subhuman. The author, interestingly, doesn't really seem to oppose that position. That's good, give the impression that reason leads to the categorization of some beings as subhuman and calls for their illimination. Way to go, you use that rational mind girlfriend!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Stupid atheist video
This is possibly the stupidest optical illusion ever. Oh wait, no it's not, because it's nothing remotely like an optical illusion! Just remember kids, morons are everywhere. Your pet group ain't special and exempt, no matter how bright you think you are.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Dedicated to Henry
OMG! I just created something! I am the most creative human ever to have lived on the planet! I am the most creative human to have never lived yet in the future too! That means for you what can't follow the logic I am the most creative human ever to create with my creative creativity of creativeness!
Yes, they're back! That's right, you fuckin' heard me, Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are back and in charge! Some of you may be wondering, Khomus old buddy, what the hell are you talking about? Just never you mind what I'm talking about, it's too good for the likes of you anyway! But I feel sorry that you all lack my godlike creativity, so I give you ... the greatest song ever in the history of humanity!
Now I know, after listening, and taking twenty hours to get yourself under control from the uncontrollable weeping and gnashing of teeth you did because you'll never be as creative as me, some of you feel the need to doubt. Some of you wanna be haters. Some of you feel the need to bring the great down to their ... those things ... you know, that you lesser mortals kneel on to worship my creativity ... those things, whatever they're called. Some of you, to take back a phrase I originated and Ayn Rand stole, hate the good because it is good. I understand, it is not easy nor comfortable to grapple with the depths of my awesomenessitude.
And those among you who doubt, who hate, who struggle, are going to say, Khomus, we still don't know what these Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are, we've never once heard of them, and besides, it's just like electronica from the sixties. Ha! Let me explain something to you, foolish haters! I bitchslapped electronica from the sixties, kicked it out of the grave, washed it, combed its hair, cleaned it the fuck up, put it to bed, kicked its ass out of bed when I thought it had gotten enough sleep to recover from the resurrection beatdown I'd given it, and then, threw it up against the wall and kicked it in the nuts. While it was writhing around on the floor, I told it, now you listen here punk! You've been slacking off, but I'm gonna stop that right now! Get back to work!
This my friends isn't your sixties electronica with tape loops and razor blades and primitive synthesizers and ... well you get the idea. No my friends, this is lovingly made with the newest, most exciting, up-to-date modern technology available on the face of the planet! It would have taken any fifty of you twenty years of constant work to create something even approaching the complete gnarliness which I produced in ... well however long it is, five minutes, let's say, as a nice round number.
Some of you haters might even be saying, hey man, it just sounds like you were screwing around with a synthesizer. You probably don't even remember the settings you had it on and so you're lucky that your computer saved them when you saved the project so your dumb ass doesn't have to try to recreate it all again. Please! I implore you, I beg of you! Just because every single word of this is absolutely true, that's no reason not to admire and praise my infinitely fulfilling maxigrandiosinization! I mean, let's be honest with ourselves, for just a minute! Can we do that?
Some of you might even be thinking, the very lowest among you, you who crawl like worms seeking crumbs of creativity from my bountifully excessive mental banquet, that you could have done better, or even that I have surpassed the bounds of immodesty and supreme egoism, and have in fact entered into a realm of delusion so deep and self-enclosed that it is a wonder I am able to even type on this blog, let alone form coherent sentences or indeed words for you to read. Well let me just say something. Whaaaaaa! ladsjfoiwqefgio;wejglk;asnvksdnajklfhasl;ja;gaslf;djlk;asgoi! You're all meanies! Great big meanies! I am awesome and creative, I'm telling you! And ... and .. gosh darn it ... no ... no ... gods damn it, PEOPLE .... FUCKING .... LIKE .... MEE!
P.S.
Hi kids! Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are a name I invented when I was messing around with jew's harp and effects. The recordings are aweful and shall, if I can help it never see the light of day, night, or that sort of in between state. They might see the light of a bonfire some day. Heh, nah, they weren't that bad, completely pointless, but they were experiments anyway. So was this one, I found a synth setting I liked and had at it. Now you get to hear too. As to why this is dedicated to Henry, he'd rave about every song he ever created. I figured I'd try to surpass him at his self-congratulatory craziest. He'll have to let you know how I did. Hey, everybody goes through the "I'm so awesome" phase ... except me because I can't lie to myself that much, heh! Keep on keepin' on, children of the corn.
Yes, they're back! That's right, you fuckin' heard me, Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are back and in charge! Some of you may be wondering, Khomus old buddy, what the hell are you talking about? Just never you mind what I'm talking about, it's too good for the likes of you anyway! But I feel sorry that you all lack my godlike creativity, so I give you ... the greatest song ever in the history of humanity!
Now I know, after listening, and taking twenty hours to get yourself under control from the uncontrollable weeping and gnashing of teeth you did because you'll never be as creative as me, some of you feel the need to doubt. Some of you wanna be haters. Some of you feel the need to bring the great down to their ... those things ... you know, that you lesser mortals kneel on to worship my creativity ... those things, whatever they're called. Some of you, to take back a phrase I originated and Ayn Rand stole, hate the good because it is good. I understand, it is not easy nor comfortable to grapple with the depths of my awesomenessitude.
And those among you who doubt, who hate, who struggle, are going to say, Khomus, we still don't know what these Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are, we've never once heard of them, and besides, it's just like electronica from the sixties. Ha! Let me explain something to you, foolish haters! I bitchslapped electronica from the sixties, kicked it out of the grave, washed it, combed its hair, cleaned it the fuck up, put it to bed, kicked its ass out of bed when I thought it had gotten enough sleep to recover from the resurrection beatdown I'd given it, and then, threw it up against the wall and kicked it in the nuts. While it was writhing around on the floor, I told it, now you listen here punk! You've been slacking off, but I'm gonna stop that right now! Get back to work!
This my friends isn't your sixties electronica with tape loops and razor blades and primitive synthesizers and ... well you get the idea. No my friends, this is lovingly made with the newest, most exciting, up-to-date modern technology available on the face of the planet! It would have taken any fifty of you twenty years of constant work to create something even approaching the complete gnarliness which I produced in ... well however long it is, five minutes, let's say, as a nice round number.
Some of you haters might even be saying, hey man, it just sounds like you were screwing around with a synthesizer. You probably don't even remember the settings you had it on and so you're lucky that your computer saved them when you saved the project so your dumb ass doesn't have to try to recreate it all again. Please! I implore you, I beg of you! Just because every single word of this is absolutely true, that's no reason not to admire and praise my infinitely fulfilling maxigrandiosinization! I mean, let's be honest with ourselves, for just a minute! Can we do that?
Some of you might even be thinking, the very lowest among you, you who crawl like worms seeking crumbs of creativity from my bountifully excessive mental banquet, that you could have done better, or even that I have surpassed the bounds of immodesty and supreme egoism, and have in fact entered into a realm of delusion so deep and self-enclosed that it is a wonder I am able to even type on this blog, let alone form coherent sentences or indeed words for you to read. Well let me just say something. Whaaaaaa! ladsjfoiwqefgio;wejglk;asnvksdnajklfhasl;ja;gaslf;djlk;asgoi! You're all meanies! Great big meanies! I am awesome and creative, I'm telling you! And ... and .. gosh darn it ... no ... no ... gods damn it, PEOPLE .... FUCKING .... LIKE .... MEE!
P.S.
Hi kids! Deranged Mountain Goats from Hell are a name I invented when I was messing around with jew's harp and effects. The recordings are aweful and shall, if I can help it never see the light of day, night, or that sort of in between state. They might see the light of a bonfire some day. Heh, nah, they weren't that bad, completely pointless, but they were experiments anyway. So was this one, I found a synth setting I liked and had at it. Now you get to hear too. As to why this is dedicated to Henry, he'd rave about every song he ever created. I figured I'd try to surpass him at his self-congratulatory craziest. He'll have to let you know how I did. Hey, everybody goes through the "I'm so awesome" phase ... except me because I can't lie to myself that much, heh! Keep on keepin' on, children of the corn.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Romantic comedies
You know, I'm not really a manly man. That is, I don't think women are stupid, out to get me, betray me at every turn, you get the idea. Nor am I big into the idea that there's this vast gulf betwixt men and women, and it shall never ever be bridged until the end of time, and probably not even then, yea verily. Having said that, I think there are some differences between them, men and women this is, and an easy way to see this is to go see a romantic comedy with a woman. Guys, settle the hell down. Just go do it. Trust me. Or read this, and save yourself the trouble. Because I'm right, no matter what women tell you.
So what is this difference? Well first of all women, I hate to break it to you, but it's not no blood/explosions/car chases. Women have this idea that men hate romantic comedies because stuff's not getting blown up. To an extent this is true, but I think there's a bigger reason. Maybe men won't admit to it, maybe they don't even know it themselves, but I'm here to tell you what it is anyway.
Mind you, I'm not saying Sleepless in Seattle couldn't have been spiced up with a few machine guns or something, but hey, that's just sensible. I mean, if you heard a machinegun going off outside, wouldn't you start going "holy shit, what's that?" Sure you would! You're interested in explosions and destruction, admit it. Besides, since this stuff all takes place in the same whacky movie universe, surely you could've had part of Die Hard flash past while they were meeting on the Empire State Building or something. That plane Bruce Willis was involved with had to go somewhere, now didn't it? You bet your ass.
But I'm not here to talk about any of that, and really the movie I gave is a bad example. Let's talk about The Wedding Singer instead. Here's the plot. Girl's marrying guy, guy is some boring unspontaneous accountant or something, wedding singer loves girl, professes his love on the plane to their wedding, girl goes off with wedding singer. At this point, let me comment on the "comedy" portion of "romantic comedy". you might think, given the definition of the word and all, that "comedy" means it's going to be funny. You would be almost entirely incorrect. "Comedy", in this context, seems to mean "not drama". I think for movie people, this translates into "the couple in question didn't have to flee Nazi occupied France, fearing for their lives every step of the way, thus putting their deeply passionate love on hold."
In general, comedy, the funny kind, will be almost entirely lacking from these movies. Let's take Ghost. I assume Ghost is a romantic comedy, and if it isn't, it should be. It's horrible enough to be one. Here's what I remember about Ghost. "Molly, I'm communicating with Patrick/Dale/Winston your dead husband." "Fuck you crazy bitch, you isn't!" "Yes, I am! He says to tell you, packing peanuts!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! It is you! (copious weeping) It is you! Wait, no it isn't! That can't be true! Go away you crazy bitch!" "No no Molly, it's true! He says to tell you, laundry prestidigitation!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! (more weeping) No it's not! Crazy bitch! Leave me alone crazy bitch! Calling the police crazy bitch! (weeping)" "No, Molly, listen! He says to tell you, I don't know why, wait, you fuckin' crazy ... OK ... he says to tell you, chewy popcorn!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it really is you! (weeping) No, not possible, crazy bitch! (weeping)" That was, I swear, a good half hour of the movie.
So OK, you won't find any comedy, most of the time. But romance, surely you'll find romance, it's right there in the name, romantic comedy, and they wouldn't lie about all of it, would they? Well, you'll find romance, after a fashion, yes. Recall the plot summary of The Wedding Singer above. Just about every romantic comedy is about that. Girl marries boy who's not spontaneous, or just sort of boring, or a little controlling, or whatever, or she's preparing to marry him. Some new guy comes in, or an old guy, and he has a motorcycle or flowers or a kangaroo obsession or something. Basically, whatever the woman wants that the guy she's married to or preparing to marry doesn't do, this guy does it. Girl runs off with other guy, the one she's not married to/preparing to marry. The end.
OK, now remember I said there's a difference between men and women, and a reason men refuse to see these things? Here it is. For women, this plot seems to translate into something like the following. "Oh how sweet, she found her true love after all!" Here's what it translates to for men. "Huh? What? Wait, hang on a minute, what the fuck? I mean, OK, maybe that guy was kind of an asshole, but things were going fine, she gave no indication of a problem whatsoever, and suddenly, poof!, she's running off with the kangaroo keeper at the zoo! What the hell?" See, women seem to find this freeing or something. But it's basically the equivalent of "well baby, I asked you to practice the yoga, but I met this hot young yoga instructor who can put her legs behind her head, and we have at it all night long. So, umm, yeah, see ya! What? Oh, yeah, I know I never really mentioned I was having a problem, but I thought all the yoga books I left lying around and the comments about how I bet it makes for great sex would tip you off." Except in romantic comedies, the women usually don't even give that much.
In short, the basic plot of romantic comedies is the female equivalent of the male midlife crisis complete with hot young trophy wife. Pretty it up all you like women, that's essentially what it is. These women either have a commitment or make one, if they're not married they're generally fiancees, and completely ignore it to go off with the guy who really pushes their buttons. And oops, too bad for you accountant or lawyer or whatever the fuck boring profession you have, because those posters of dolphins all over the house, you know, the ones you complained about?, those should have tipped you off that deep within her secret soul, she yearned for dolphins. Remember how she asked you about honeymooning at Sea World, and you said, "Sea World? Well honey, gee, I've got these fucking reservations at the most expensive hotel in Paris. Sea world?" You remember that, vaguely assholish lawyer/accountant/whatever? That was your only indication that your ass was going to get left at the altar, or that she'd run off to Mexico for a month without telling you, or whatever happens in your particular movie.
Of course, we're supposed to side with the poor and charming guy who gets the woman, as opposed to the rich asshole who loses her. So there's supposed to be something in it for guys too. But sorry, I for one ain't buyin' it, and this is that reason I talked about earlier, I don't think guys in general are buying it either. These movies basically amount to a big propaganda machine that says "hey girls, don't like your man? Well, just drop him for somebody else like a hot rock. Your life will be totally better, and you didn't really love that other guy anyway, you were just tricking yourself or settling."
Besides, let's be realistic here. Romantic comedies are all the same. Sure, you're saying, wait, the plot details vary slightly and they are different people, and it's all about the characters, don't you see? Yeah, but really, they're the same characters. More or less desperate woman, guy who's wealthy or has a high-paying job like an executive or something, new guy who's poor but all adventurous and stuff.
Whereas action movies, well, you have your villain who wants to take over the world, your villain who wants to take over the universe, your villain who wants lots of money, your villain who wants to destroy you, your villain who wants to destroy your country, your cold calculating villain, your crazed psychopathic villain, your coldly calculating crazed psychopathic villain ... you get the idea. Then you have locations. Location location location! Will it be in space? A parking garage? An airport? A foreign country? Your country? Your house? Your police station? Your military base? Your spa? Oh wait ... that's probably the wrong kind of action movie .. but you get the idea! And then there are the weapons! What will they be? Swords? Guns? Guns from the military that are illegal for you to own? Military ground vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military air vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military explosives that are illegal for you to own and handle? Will it appeal to the geeks and start out as a deeply complex computer-based situation involving invented cracking of systems, before ending up in a hail of military grade weapons fire, from the aforementioned military weapons you're not legally allowed to touch? Will it be lasers or other scary spooky weapons from the future?
But we're not done yet kids, oh noo! Who will our hero be? Will he be a mild-mannered cop? A loose canon? A soldier? A civilian who knows nothing about weapons but learns real fast because it's life or death, by the gods? Will it be a ninja? Will it be a kid? Will it be a kid ninja? Will it be a group of kid ninjas? Will it be a group of teenage kid ninjas who aren't even human, but are in fact based on some sort of amphibian? Naaaaaah, that's stupid, nobody'd do that. Will it be robots? Will it be formerly evil robots who've reformed and now know why we cry and only wish that they could weep for the hardness of the world, but it's Ok because the humans, the same humans the formerly evil robot was formerly attempting to kill, are weeping for him? Will it be a robot cop? Will it be a ninja and a cop? Will it be ... well, you get the idea!
We probably haven't even begun to touch on the myriad possibilities of action movies yet. So you see, when women say that romantic comedies are different and action movies are all the same, the weight of the evidence simply goes against them. Romantic comedies are cardboard cutouts, while action movies are a single, awe-inspiring heroic plot skeleton, fleshed out with all the myriad details that are the triumph of the human imagination. Plus, action movies have fire! Romantic comedies rarely even have hot kissing, probably because the participants are too busy pointlessly agonizing about the moral and ethical problems surrounding betraying their spouse/fiance, it's pointless because they're going to do it anyway so all the protesting doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So to sum up: romantic comedies == propaganda for women to dump guys, action movies == inspiring, heroic, and fire!
So what is this difference? Well first of all women, I hate to break it to you, but it's not no blood/explosions/car chases. Women have this idea that men hate romantic comedies because stuff's not getting blown up. To an extent this is true, but I think there's a bigger reason. Maybe men won't admit to it, maybe they don't even know it themselves, but I'm here to tell you what it is anyway.
Mind you, I'm not saying Sleepless in Seattle couldn't have been spiced up with a few machine guns or something, but hey, that's just sensible. I mean, if you heard a machinegun going off outside, wouldn't you start going "holy shit, what's that?" Sure you would! You're interested in explosions and destruction, admit it. Besides, since this stuff all takes place in the same whacky movie universe, surely you could've had part of Die Hard flash past while they were meeting on the Empire State Building or something. That plane Bruce Willis was involved with had to go somewhere, now didn't it? You bet your ass.
But I'm not here to talk about any of that, and really the movie I gave is a bad example. Let's talk about The Wedding Singer instead. Here's the plot. Girl's marrying guy, guy is some boring unspontaneous accountant or something, wedding singer loves girl, professes his love on the plane to their wedding, girl goes off with wedding singer. At this point, let me comment on the "comedy" portion of "romantic comedy". you might think, given the definition of the word and all, that "comedy" means it's going to be funny. You would be almost entirely incorrect. "Comedy", in this context, seems to mean "not drama". I think for movie people, this translates into "the couple in question didn't have to flee Nazi occupied France, fearing for their lives every step of the way, thus putting their deeply passionate love on hold."
In general, comedy, the funny kind, will be almost entirely lacking from these movies. Let's take Ghost. I assume Ghost is a romantic comedy, and if it isn't, it should be. It's horrible enough to be one. Here's what I remember about Ghost. "Molly, I'm communicating with Patrick/Dale/Winston your dead husband." "Fuck you crazy bitch, you isn't!" "Yes, I am! He says to tell you, packing peanuts!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! It is you! (copious weeping) It is you! Wait, no it isn't! That can't be true! Go away you crazy bitch!" "No no Molly, it's true! He says to tell you, laundry prestidigitation!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it is you! (more weeping) No it's not! Crazy bitch! Leave me alone crazy bitch! Calling the police crazy bitch! (weeping)" "No, Molly, listen! He says to tell you, I don't know why, wait, you fuckin' crazy ... OK ... he says to tell you, chewy popcorn!" "Oh Patrick/Dale/Winston, it really is you! (weeping) No, not possible, crazy bitch! (weeping)" That was, I swear, a good half hour of the movie.
So OK, you won't find any comedy, most of the time. But romance, surely you'll find romance, it's right there in the name, romantic comedy, and they wouldn't lie about all of it, would they? Well, you'll find romance, after a fashion, yes. Recall the plot summary of The Wedding Singer above. Just about every romantic comedy is about that. Girl marries boy who's not spontaneous, or just sort of boring, or a little controlling, or whatever, or she's preparing to marry him. Some new guy comes in, or an old guy, and he has a motorcycle or flowers or a kangaroo obsession or something. Basically, whatever the woman wants that the guy she's married to or preparing to marry doesn't do, this guy does it. Girl runs off with other guy, the one she's not married to/preparing to marry. The end.
OK, now remember I said there's a difference between men and women, and a reason men refuse to see these things? Here it is. For women, this plot seems to translate into something like the following. "Oh how sweet, she found her true love after all!" Here's what it translates to for men. "Huh? What? Wait, hang on a minute, what the fuck? I mean, OK, maybe that guy was kind of an asshole, but things were going fine, she gave no indication of a problem whatsoever, and suddenly, poof!, she's running off with the kangaroo keeper at the zoo! What the hell?" See, women seem to find this freeing or something. But it's basically the equivalent of "well baby, I asked you to practice the yoga, but I met this hot young yoga instructor who can put her legs behind her head, and we have at it all night long. So, umm, yeah, see ya! What? Oh, yeah, I know I never really mentioned I was having a problem, but I thought all the yoga books I left lying around and the comments about how I bet it makes for great sex would tip you off." Except in romantic comedies, the women usually don't even give that much.
In short, the basic plot of romantic comedies is the female equivalent of the male midlife crisis complete with hot young trophy wife. Pretty it up all you like women, that's essentially what it is. These women either have a commitment or make one, if they're not married they're generally fiancees, and completely ignore it to go off with the guy who really pushes their buttons. And oops, too bad for you accountant or lawyer or whatever the fuck boring profession you have, because those posters of dolphins all over the house, you know, the ones you complained about?, those should have tipped you off that deep within her secret soul, she yearned for dolphins. Remember how she asked you about honeymooning at Sea World, and you said, "Sea World? Well honey, gee, I've got these fucking reservations at the most expensive hotel in Paris. Sea world?" You remember that, vaguely assholish lawyer/accountant/whatever? That was your only indication that your ass was going to get left at the altar, or that she'd run off to Mexico for a month without telling you, or whatever happens in your particular movie.
Of course, we're supposed to side with the poor and charming guy who gets the woman, as opposed to the rich asshole who loses her. So there's supposed to be something in it for guys too. But sorry, I for one ain't buyin' it, and this is that reason I talked about earlier, I don't think guys in general are buying it either. These movies basically amount to a big propaganda machine that says "hey girls, don't like your man? Well, just drop him for somebody else like a hot rock. Your life will be totally better, and you didn't really love that other guy anyway, you were just tricking yourself or settling."
Besides, let's be realistic here. Romantic comedies are all the same. Sure, you're saying, wait, the plot details vary slightly and they are different people, and it's all about the characters, don't you see? Yeah, but really, they're the same characters. More or less desperate woman, guy who's wealthy or has a high-paying job like an executive or something, new guy who's poor but all adventurous and stuff.
Whereas action movies, well, you have your villain who wants to take over the world, your villain who wants to take over the universe, your villain who wants lots of money, your villain who wants to destroy you, your villain who wants to destroy your country, your cold calculating villain, your crazed psychopathic villain, your coldly calculating crazed psychopathic villain ... you get the idea. Then you have locations. Location location location! Will it be in space? A parking garage? An airport? A foreign country? Your country? Your house? Your police station? Your military base? Your spa? Oh wait ... that's probably the wrong kind of action movie .. but you get the idea! And then there are the weapons! What will they be? Swords? Guns? Guns from the military that are illegal for you to own? Military ground vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military air vehicles that are illegal for you to own and operate? Military explosives that are illegal for you to own and handle? Will it appeal to the geeks and start out as a deeply complex computer-based situation involving invented cracking of systems, before ending up in a hail of military grade weapons fire, from the aforementioned military weapons you're not legally allowed to touch? Will it be lasers or other scary spooky weapons from the future?
But we're not done yet kids, oh noo! Who will our hero be? Will he be a mild-mannered cop? A loose canon? A soldier? A civilian who knows nothing about weapons but learns real fast because it's life or death, by the gods? Will it be a ninja? Will it be a kid? Will it be a kid ninja? Will it be a group of kid ninjas? Will it be a group of teenage kid ninjas who aren't even human, but are in fact based on some sort of amphibian? Naaaaaah, that's stupid, nobody'd do that. Will it be robots? Will it be formerly evil robots who've reformed and now know why we cry and only wish that they could weep for the hardness of the world, but it's Ok because the humans, the same humans the formerly evil robot was formerly attempting to kill, are weeping for him? Will it be a robot cop? Will it be a ninja and a cop? Will it be ... well, you get the idea!
We probably haven't even begun to touch on the myriad possibilities of action movies yet. So you see, when women say that romantic comedies are different and action movies are all the same, the weight of the evidence simply goes against them. Romantic comedies are cardboard cutouts, while action movies are a single, awe-inspiring heroic plot skeleton, fleshed out with all the myriad details that are the triumph of the human imagination. Plus, action movies have fire! Romantic comedies rarely even have hot kissing, probably because the participants are too busy pointlessly agonizing about the moral and ethical problems surrounding betraying their spouse/fiance, it's pointless because they're going to do it anyway so all the protesting doesn't amount to a hill of beans. So to sum up: romantic comedies == propaganda for women to dump guys, action movies == inspiring, heroic, and fire!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Jud sent this, so now I'm passing it on
Here's a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It's not the one you might think it is. Agree with him or not, I personally can't find much to disagree with here, he was one hell of a fine speaker. Where the hell have all the good speakers disappeared to, anyway?
Check out Jud's MySpace page. Some cool music, including one about MLK!
Check out Jud's MySpace page. Some cool music, including one about MLK!
Amoral science
Is science amoral? So I was taught in school, lo these many years ago, and so many atheists and skeptics keep telling us. However, the more I think about this, the less certain I become that it's really so. First let's summarize.
When we say science is amoral, what we mean is something like this. The act of science, i.e. of using the scientific method, of doing the process of science, carries no moral implications. You can't say that observing, forming a hypothesis, testing it experimentally, revising it, testing it, and so on, hopefully eventually netting a theory is moral or immoral, it simply is. It's a method and that set of steps is morally neutral. Fair enough. For the sake of argument, let's go with this.
However, I find a curious thing. Several people, I'm certainly not the first, have suggested that the atheist concern for religion as violence is somewhat narrow, since science has given us some pretty messed up things as well, the typical example is the atomic bomb though others could certainly be educed, e.g. chemical warfare agents and so on. To this atheists typically respond that you can't blame science, because science is amoral. I think however that this response ignores something very important. Namely, people do science. It as though we were saying, he killed a man with that gun!, and somebody responds yeah, but you can't blame that, the gun is amoral, it's just the bullet responding to forces and all.
This is true but I hope my objection becomes readily apparent. We may not blame the gun, as it were, but we can indeed, and do, blame the person for using that gun to kill. Now let's take a look at science. What do we say of a person who is told by their employer, make me a nerve gas that will do painful things X Y and Z to people and eventually kill them? Do we say, oh, don't blame him, he was just fascinated by the scientific puzzle of it all, the interesting chemistry involved in how to get a molecule to behave in that manner, how to get it to interact with a nervous system just so? I should certainly hope not!
So two related things seem to be going on here. Because the method of science is amoral, its products seem to be considered amoral. Why? Because they are produced with an amoral method. It's almost as though we're saying, well, unfortunately it just so happens that this particular chemical compound kills humans in a horribly painful manner. Similarly, the potential victims of that compound become moral blanks. It is not a father, a wife, a child, a family which will be affected by this compound, it is "the human nervous system", as though the human nervous system were some abstract thing floating in ethereal space. Since we only have moral issues when dealing with living beings, I assume here that living means conscious also, and the human nervous system is not "living" as such, our putative chemical neurotoxin can have no moral implications whatsoever.
To an extent this is true, were our putative nerve gas found in nature it would just so happen to be deadly to humans. However, what's being missed here is that all of this involves people. Recall that a scientist is developing this gas. So, a scientist, a person, must decide, yeah, this sounds like a perfectly fine idea. In other words, by removing people from the equation, we attempt to remove moral culpibility. Science, however, cannot exist without people. It is a thing practiced and implemented by people. People came up with the scientific method. It is not a thing found in the universe, like a chunk of rock or a star or something. To be sure ideas are part of the universe. However, let's examine the implications of this.
People often say, to those horrified by nuclear weapons something trite like, well you can't put the genie back in its bottle. Then they may further tell you something about science and its supposed amorality, implying that hey, this nuclear force stuff is just there, you can help or harm with it, and gosh golly, sooner or later, somebody would figure out how to harm with it. To my mind, this entirely misses the point. Yes the force is there. Yes it may be directed to any end to which we are capable of directing it. That isn't the question. The question is, should we direct it to that end in the first place?
Some may object at this point. Our putative nerve gas, if altered, may cure neurological diseases. The atomic bomb, so far as I know, gave birth to nuclear power, and so on. This seems to assume, at worst, that the destructive applications must precede the constructive ones, or at best, that the destructive ones are somehow mitigated by the later constructive applications. In any case we preserve the supposed amorality of science, again a chemical was "discovered", a use of a force of nature was "discovered", as though it was just lying around rather than being a unique compound made by us, or as though we didn't make the machine that directed the force to kill, and because of that discovery we've cured some neurological diseases or gained nuclear energy. Except of course these are really new discoveries, alterations of the original deadly ones.
Again this seems to simply be avoiding the question. If you know, as a scientist, that your creation will be used exclusively to kill, or nearly so, shouldn't you be asking yourself whether it's a good idea, dare I say whether it is moral?, to make it in the first place? Could we not have discovered nuclear power without making bombs first? Thus I must conclude: the scientific method is amoral ... science, however, is intimately bound up with morality. The sooner we recognize this, the better off we'll be. The sooner we quit objecting to the idea that, as one person put it, science is more likely to bring about the apocalypse than religion, with the notion of science's supposed amorality, the more likely we'll be to recognize the dangers involved with our uses of science.
Note: When I say "living" and "conscious" above, as an animist I likely have wider definitions of such terms than the average person. I am not suggesting of course that we cease to, say, use trees if we deem them conscious, and no animist society has done so, considering it to be an immoral act. In general dead trees are used or protocols are used to attempt to assure that the spirit of the tree approves of its body being killed and used. I offer this not as a starting point for a debate on animism, nor as a conversion attempt, but simply to suggest that even if we accept a wider definition of living beings and thus have more issues of morality arise from this acceptance, there are still perfectly moral ways to do the things we as humans do on a regular basis. It is not necessary to suggest that since trees are alive we quit killing them damn it!, and go live in caves or something. We would still be perfectly capable of building houses and the like.
When we say science is amoral, what we mean is something like this. The act of science, i.e. of using the scientific method, of doing the process of science, carries no moral implications. You can't say that observing, forming a hypothesis, testing it experimentally, revising it, testing it, and so on, hopefully eventually netting a theory is moral or immoral, it simply is. It's a method and that set of steps is morally neutral. Fair enough. For the sake of argument, let's go with this.
However, I find a curious thing. Several people, I'm certainly not the first, have suggested that the atheist concern for religion as violence is somewhat narrow, since science has given us some pretty messed up things as well, the typical example is the atomic bomb though others could certainly be educed, e.g. chemical warfare agents and so on. To this atheists typically respond that you can't blame science, because science is amoral. I think however that this response ignores something very important. Namely, people do science. It as though we were saying, he killed a man with that gun!, and somebody responds yeah, but you can't blame that, the gun is amoral, it's just the bullet responding to forces and all.
This is true but I hope my objection becomes readily apparent. We may not blame the gun, as it were, but we can indeed, and do, blame the person for using that gun to kill. Now let's take a look at science. What do we say of a person who is told by their employer, make me a nerve gas that will do painful things X Y and Z to people and eventually kill them? Do we say, oh, don't blame him, he was just fascinated by the scientific puzzle of it all, the interesting chemistry involved in how to get a molecule to behave in that manner, how to get it to interact with a nervous system just so? I should certainly hope not!
So two related things seem to be going on here. Because the method of science is amoral, its products seem to be considered amoral. Why? Because they are produced with an amoral method. It's almost as though we're saying, well, unfortunately it just so happens that this particular chemical compound kills humans in a horribly painful manner. Similarly, the potential victims of that compound become moral blanks. It is not a father, a wife, a child, a family which will be affected by this compound, it is "the human nervous system", as though the human nervous system were some abstract thing floating in ethereal space. Since we only have moral issues when dealing with living beings, I assume here that living means conscious also, and the human nervous system is not "living" as such, our putative chemical neurotoxin can have no moral implications whatsoever.
To an extent this is true, were our putative nerve gas found in nature it would just so happen to be deadly to humans. However, what's being missed here is that all of this involves people. Recall that a scientist is developing this gas. So, a scientist, a person, must decide, yeah, this sounds like a perfectly fine idea. In other words, by removing people from the equation, we attempt to remove moral culpibility. Science, however, cannot exist without people. It is a thing practiced and implemented by people. People came up with the scientific method. It is not a thing found in the universe, like a chunk of rock or a star or something. To be sure ideas are part of the universe. However, let's examine the implications of this.
People often say, to those horrified by nuclear weapons something trite like, well you can't put the genie back in its bottle. Then they may further tell you something about science and its supposed amorality, implying that hey, this nuclear force stuff is just there, you can help or harm with it, and gosh golly, sooner or later, somebody would figure out how to harm with it. To my mind, this entirely misses the point. Yes the force is there. Yes it may be directed to any end to which we are capable of directing it. That isn't the question. The question is, should we direct it to that end in the first place?
Some may object at this point. Our putative nerve gas, if altered, may cure neurological diseases. The atomic bomb, so far as I know, gave birth to nuclear power, and so on. This seems to assume, at worst, that the destructive applications must precede the constructive ones, or at best, that the destructive ones are somehow mitigated by the later constructive applications. In any case we preserve the supposed amorality of science, again a chemical was "discovered", a use of a force of nature was "discovered", as though it was just lying around rather than being a unique compound made by us, or as though we didn't make the machine that directed the force to kill, and because of that discovery we've cured some neurological diseases or gained nuclear energy. Except of course these are really new discoveries, alterations of the original deadly ones.
Again this seems to simply be avoiding the question. If you know, as a scientist, that your creation will be used exclusively to kill, or nearly so, shouldn't you be asking yourself whether it's a good idea, dare I say whether it is moral?, to make it in the first place? Could we not have discovered nuclear power without making bombs first? Thus I must conclude: the scientific method is amoral ... science, however, is intimately bound up with morality. The sooner we recognize this, the better off we'll be. The sooner we quit objecting to the idea that, as one person put it, science is more likely to bring about the apocalypse than religion, with the notion of science's supposed amorality, the more likely we'll be to recognize the dangers involved with our uses of science.
Note: When I say "living" and "conscious" above, as an animist I likely have wider definitions of such terms than the average person. I am not suggesting of course that we cease to, say, use trees if we deem them conscious, and no animist society has done so, considering it to be an immoral act. In general dead trees are used or protocols are used to attempt to assure that the spirit of the tree approves of its body being killed and used. I offer this not as a starting point for a debate on animism, nor as a conversion attempt, but simply to suggest that even if we accept a wider definition of living beings and thus have more issues of morality arise from this acceptance, there are still perfectly moral ways to do the things we as humans do on a regular basis. It is not necessary to suggest that since trees are alive we quit killing them damn it!, and go live in caves or something. We would still be perfectly capable of building houses and the like.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Godsawful mbira playing
Wow! Why am I not asleep? You tell me. So I decided to play mbira from Berkina Faso and record it. Henry should particularly appreciate this since I've critiqued any number of his recordings. Let me return the favor to myself. But first, let's hear the recording, so we all know what I'm talking about.
OK, first of all, wow, do I need to work on some timing or what? Dynamics too. I think I hit some keys better than others. I have to find a better way to hold the instrument or something. Another aspect which relates to timing is rhythm. This is a two-fold problem. One is that I need to maintain a rhythm, and this is both a problem of timing and dynamics. The second issue is that I apparently completely suck ass at transitioning from one sort of rhythm to another. Still, I think there are some nice ideas in here. Needs a hell of a lot of work though. I give it a three out of ten. Good scale, good ideas, sort of has parts where it goes along nicely, but you can really hear that I haven't mastered the subtleties yet. I think basically it's got some strong stuff, but it really needs work to get consistently musical. Practice, practice, practice. That is your uncle Khomus' musical motto for the new year.
Your beloved uncle Khomus confesses humbly, he's a slacker, and this piece shows how and why. I think I get distracted by the coolness and don't really focus on making it great the way it should be. Recording a lot more, even one offs like this, will definitely help me improve. I should add that I'm pretty tired and I basically sat down and just bashed this out in the minute or so the recording lasts. It could also use some equalization and stuff to sound better, but I'm not so worried about that part yet since this was just screwing around. Part of this is also the instrument, some keys are just louder than others, and I'm sure part of it is the frequency distribution in the recording, that root bass note really is loud and some decent equalization would help bring everything in line. That's also something I'll have to work on, just the differences between what you hear and how it comes out in the recording equipment and how you change it back to something more like what you hear. All of that having been said, it looks like it's time to really buckle down and slog through the technical aspects of getting my playing up to some sort of acceptable level. Luckily since I like the basics of what I'm doing already, that should make it easier. Still though, by all the gods, there's a fair spot of work to be done, ain't?
OK, first of all, wow, do I need to work on some timing or what? Dynamics too. I think I hit some keys better than others. I have to find a better way to hold the instrument or something. Another aspect which relates to timing is rhythm. This is a two-fold problem. One is that I need to maintain a rhythm, and this is both a problem of timing and dynamics. The second issue is that I apparently completely suck ass at transitioning from one sort of rhythm to another. Still, I think there are some nice ideas in here. Needs a hell of a lot of work though. I give it a three out of ten. Good scale, good ideas, sort of has parts where it goes along nicely, but you can really hear that I haven't mastered the subtleties yet. I think basically it's got some strong stuff, but it really needs work to get consistently musical. Practice, practice, practice. That is your uncle Khomus' musical motto for the new year.
Your beloved uncle Khomus confesses humbly, he's a slacker, and this piece shows how and why. I think I get distracted by the coolness and don't really focus on making it great the way it should be. Recording a lot more, even one offs like this, will definitely help me improve. I should add that I'm pretty tired and I basically sat down and just bashed this out in the minute or so the recording lasts. It could also use some equalization and stuff to sound better, but I'm not so worried about that part yet since this was just screwing around. Part of this is also the instrument, some keys are just louder than others, and I'm sure part of it is the frequency distribution in the recording, that root bass note really is loud and some decent equalization would help bring everything in line. That's also something I'll have to work on, just the differences between what you hear and how it comes out in the recording equipment and how you change it back to something more like what you hear. All of that having been said, it looks like it's time to really buckle down and slog through the technical aspects of getting my playing up to some sort of acceptable level. Luckily since I like the basics of what I'm doing already, that should make it easier. Still though, by all the gods, there's a fair spot of work to be done, ain't?
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