Net Worth

I've been reading pointlesswasteoftime.com for a couple of years. Funny stuff, but David Wong should stay away from debating issues with common sense. It inevitably leads to boring, pragmatic solutions to problems that don't really concern that many people, nor should they.
This article is case in point. It describes a well known problem, atheists becoming as dogmatic and humourless as the knee jerk christian defense squad. You already know where he's going and how it's all going to try and heal the world a little. Boring.

I also strongly disagree with the notion that everyone believes that human life is valuable. I for one don't. It's a massive conceit for a human being to say to other human beings that he himself and everybody listening to him is just great. That in fact, we should celebrate our reproductive process and the people that invariable pile up as a result of this, because they are beautiful and unique snowflakes.

It's all a bit strange seeing as he also wrote this article on how it is physically impossible to care about people you don't know. Just generalising your hope for the well-being of your friends and family to the whole of humanity because you don't want to be seen as a dick is no way to live.

Human life has no intrinsic value. It has relative value for you and if you could quantify the good that a particular human life does for the whole of humanity, you could even come up with a pretty good relative value to the world. The world of human beings that is.

Alternate history buffs tend to point out that killing Hitler as a child doesn't necessarily mean you make the world a better place. This book by Stephen Fry is the only one that springs to mind just now, but it's interesting to consider that if you can't conclusively state that killing Hitler would make the world a better place, how can you say that letting for instance, your eventual children live won't spell doom for someone or even some race of people. And that's, once again, just from our perspective. Just think of all the species we know we caused the extinction of.

Yet, even though its impossible to say how much a human life is worth, we guesstimate on a daily basis. Sure, you'll say, but not where it concerns life and death. Sadly this isn't true. Some people have even done it knowingly. It's called abortion. The pro-abortion side is definitely saying that the life of the mother is more valuable than the life of the potential child.
But there's no way of knowing that for sure. Chaos theory was made for situations like this and it pretty much comes up with the only half decent answer, which is "depends".

The Christians aren't exactly blameless here though. Even though they reckon that all life is valuable, they obviously value Christian lives over others. You can dress it up as a free will vs. determination question, but what it boils down to is they should focus on stopping Christian abortions, mainly. It's kind of a cruel charade if your life was saved by abortion protesters and then you go to hell anyway because your parents just never follow through with anything.

The whole debate is much longer and more complicated than that of course. What I'm really getting at is that instead of being all reasonable and ending your plea with a "can't we all just get along" friendship move, why not hold both sides in contempt for their lazy thinking and hypocrisy?

Fuck the whales, let's save ourselves

I was actually trying to write something else, but I had to get this out of the way. Last year I re-read what was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager, Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein. I was a bit annoyed to discover that it's actually an incest pamphlet. Even every possible form of justifiable incest can't cover 600 pages, so the hero is also immortal (because of all the incest).

There is one bit of information that worked its way into my consciousness through the years though. In one lengthy note from the notebooks the protagonist accumulates over the years, he describes the trouble with environmentalists.

The problem is their insistence on the difference between for instance, a human dam and a beaver dam. Human dams are despicable, but beaver dams are completely natural. It betrays something deeper. Environmentalists are wallowing in the deepest depths of self-loathing and they want you to join them there.

Tell me you don't feel a rush of anger after the twinge of guilt when you see one of those commercials for a dying spotted leopard, staring at you with big, sad leopard-kitten eyes. Frankly, I already have enough to care about without a bunch of patronising patchouli-heads nagging me about dying animals.

There's a new breed of hippies on the block, though. They have a broad support base and a much more realistic reason for wanting us all to save energy and all that hassle. Self-preservation is something I can really relate to.

Just three months ago, I knew we were doomed. Now, it looks like everyone is talking about it. that doesn't mean that anything is happening, but it's better than nothing. And multinationals seem to be interested in making this the next big economic boom. I can't think of a better way to get it done soon.

So there you have it, hope for the future, in this day and age. Who would have thought?

P.S. Gore is tackling blatant media manipulation in his next book, ominously titled the Assault on Reason. If it's anywhere near as successful as his last attempt at changing the world, we might be looking at a happier, healthier world soon. I can't wait for someone to summarise the boring, unwatchable movie for me!

I've been working on a new kind of cynicism

They say it's a typically adolescent defense mechanism, but nothing beats cynicism when combined with earnest caring people. It's one of those moods/philosophies that yearn for an audience.

But I am getting tired of ceaselessly carping just for the heck of it. I have resolved to beautify my cynicism. Out with the black, in with the pink. It never really was very gothy, all self pity/-loathing and suicidal leanings transmuted by the dark wings of the angel of death into the mixed metaphors and whiny content of teenage depression poetry.
Nor was it the cold, clammy hands of death, take no prisoners, youth is wasted on the young, experience-based misanthropy of the old.

It has to be new, exciting and fresh. Filled with a certain piquant bile that will refresh and delight as it scars and maims. 'My, you certainly are being cynical about some fashionable things today.' they'll say, admiringly. If I do meet Diogenes in the Elysian fields after my undoubtedly glamorous death, I want him to weep at the grace, beauty and conspicuous ease with which I surpassed his efforts.

But my cynicism will not be a cold, hard, cruel thing made of brittle belletrist bon-mots, a souffle of sotto voce sagacities. No, it will not be devoid of Substance. Its richness and depth will astound you, layers of deep understanding alternating with benevolent humour, slashed with an acidic aftertaste, just right to bring out all the sugary goodness at its heart.

No, it will be a palace, a bejeweled hall, adorned with exquisite chinoiserie and other treasures of the orient. An ashen garden of glass trees and platinum roses glinting with menace and malevolence in a cold, unforgiving sun.

All right, so maybe it will be a cold, hard, cruel place, but never a thing. Rather a universe. Come all, you with black hearts and teeth and talons. All of you can come and live there.

Looking back over these last paragraphs, it seems I haven't outgrown the poetry just yet. But I promise it will improve.

Jumping through hoops

I spent last Saturday at my sister's sorority's brother and sister day. After the requisite drinks we were herded towards a leisure centre. An odd looking tiny lady gave us an hour long laughing lesson, which was absolutely wonderful. Ten minutes of laughing, then ten minutes of meditation.

I was a bit surprised at how few people laughed. My little brother couldn't manage a chuckle even, and my sister had to be tickled. Most of my meditation was about this. Maybe it was because i was still sleepy, but I didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed about rotflmaopimptime.

This is a bit odd, because I usually feel somewhat embarrassed about everything I've ever done. I did get that familiar feeling when the next activity was announced. We would be instructed in the new dance craze sweeping the nation. It's called jumpstyle and is probably the stupidest, most blatantly manufactured fad I've ever had the misfortune of being embroiled in.

This Classic song is what started it off or maybe this one. Now they're doing the national anthem. The cold, dead look in these people's eyes isn't an affectation, they really are that stupid.

Last year it was politicians debating in rap-battle format in a misguided attempt to win the youth vote and this year we get to see it all over again with this. As someone who can be described as a "youth", I'm appalled even at the suggestion they might do it. As for the "youths" who might like it, they don't vote.

Just as I was bracing myself for the worst, it was spoofed. Thank god for comedians. Now, if they do it, they'll look stupid. Let's hope they're as scared of that as I am.

Fame is the new currency

Its time to re-evaluate Paris Hilton. First of all, no one that stupid would survive taking a shower every day. If she really had the sub-normal IQ she pretends to have, she'd have won a Darwin award years ago. It's a common dating strategy among women to pretend to be more stupid than they really are. This would be to make men feel less insecure. But it's not just a dating strategy, its a way of life for millions of people. I never even considered it until I saw a BBC documentary about it, but its a remarkably successful way to live your life. Ignorance is Bliss.
Paris is just trying to get everyone to notice her and its working. George W. Bush does something similar and seems to work for him too.
But unlike Bush, Paris Hilton gets everything she wants. Fame and Money. She's already raked in 7 million bucks this year. You have to admire that entrepreneurial guile she has.

Paychecks

This is my favourite unintentionally funny trailer. The first thirty seconds are completely hilarious and then it goes on to overemphasise its pedigree, with a lot of shots of a confused Ben Affleck. I completely forgot about that and was seduced by the concept and the afore mentioned pedigree. Also, Affleck was a little less of a walking punchline back then.
You've got to marvel at the trailer guy, he manages to convey contempt for the audience, the studio's anxiety over this thing probably bombing and Ben Affleck's stupidity while still making you want to see the movie.
I've seen a couple more trailers like this, but not a single one of them is so blatantly grasping at straws. Introduce concept, Introduce star; He's the best at this concept..yadda yadda yadda see the movie!

Amor vincit Omnia

George Carlin said it best; Fuck the Children. He's right, they do get entirely too much attention. especially considering what's done in their name. No violence or nudity on TV, no plots, no characters before 9 0'clock. Their advocates want to live in a disneyfied world where no one ever feels bad and they're remarkably willing to give up individual rights to get it.

The current South African government's slogan is Ubuntu, which translates to something like togetherness, community. This kind of slogan would do well in Europe or the U.S. right now. Communism used to have the state as highest ideal and current christian-democratic thinking is moving in the same direction. Family values, the children's best interest is nothing more than a patronising system of keeping up appearances.

If your neighbours believe you are a good person, then you must be. The extreme end of this reasoning leads to a world of homogenised opinions and casual thought control. The current whipping boy is the video game industry. God forbid that they release a game with violence. What will happen to children exposed to this filth? They will become kill crazy maniacs, there's no doubt about it.

It's the constant violence in the media that's making us scared, but it's not turning us into murderers. You can conclusively demonstrate to a five year old the difference between fantasy and reality, but nobody seems to want that responsibility. Some people would rather live in a world were things like this didn't happen. Surprisingly enough no one seems to want to talk about the falling crime rates. Those don't sell newspapers.

I admit, it's partially my fault. I thrill to tales of murder and rape, greed and corruption. Practically beating my chest, wailing "O tempora, O mores!" My favourite villain is the corrupt or incompetent politician. Especially the 'Family Values' types. I can't wait to feel that old rush of righteous anger when they get caught in flagrante with a doe-eyed page.

In Marisha Pessl's 'Special topics in Calamity Physics' the heroine is constantly awkwardly quoting academic books, real and fake. By the far the most intriguing is this one;
"Leontyne Bennett skillfully dissected in 'The Commonwealth of Lost Vanities'(1969) Virgil's renowned quotation 'Love conquers all.'For centuries upon centuries we have been misinterpreting this famed trio of words. The uninformed masses breathlessly hold up this dwarfish phrase as a justification for snogging in public squares, abandoning wives, cuckolding husbands, for the escalating divorce rate, for swards of bastard children begging for handouts in the Whitechapel and Aldgate tube stations - when in fact, there is nothing remotely encouraging or cheerful about this oft-quoted phrase. The Latin poet wrote 'Amor vincit omnia' or 'Love conquers all'. He did not write, 'Love frees all' or 'liberates' all, and therein lies the first degree of our flagrant misunderstanding. Conquer: to defeat, subjugate, massacre, cream, make mincemeat out of. Surely this cannot be a positive thing. And then he wrote, 'conquers all' - not exclusively the unpleasant things, destitution, assassination, burglary, but all, including pleasure, peace, common sense, liberty and self-determination. And thus we may appreciate that Virgil's words are not encouragement, but rather a caveat, a cue to evade, shirk, elude the feeling at all costs, else we risk the massacre of the things we hold most dear, including ones sense of self"

This corresponds neatly to my issue with these fearful parents. Their love or more accurately their fear for the life of their children is destroying the concepts of individuality and personal responsibility and since it's effecting me personally (Forty a day smoker, unrepentant)I'm getting up on my high horse and condemning it.

Self-preservation evidenced by an overprotective attitudes towards one's own offspring, fear of death, loneliness and lust. God is Love, people.

Dog eats Dr. Phil's homework

During a recent bout of unemployment I became familiar with Dr. Phil's eponymous daytime TV show. Unsurprisingly, it becomes grating on repeated viewing. Instead of seeing an earnest southern psychiatrist quip about cute relationship problems, one is confronted with blatantly prepped guests blandly mulling their way towards Phil's cookie-cutter answers to severe psychological problems. A little disclaimer at the end and Phil's assertion that he will get them help from a therapist in their home town is meant to soothe the skeptics.

If you can stand the platitudes and glaringly obvious statements by the host, you will be rewarded with 45 minutes of pure schadenfreude. Phil competently wraps up years of simmering issues in the allotted time and ends with a folksy admonition reminiscent of Jerry Springer's catchphrase; 'Until next time take care of yourselves and each other.' That is essentially what this show is, Springer with less sleaze and more pop psychology.

Phil has made numerous mentions of doing his homework on the show. By this, he means that he has reviewed the guest/patient's file, their statements, their possible condition and has prepared some tailor-made advice.

However, when blithely commenting on social issues Phil fails to stick to this principle. When the first round of recriminations started after the Virginia Tech shootings, Phil bolted for the blame-game bandwagon on Larry King.

"And the problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me -- common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that. We're going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murders of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose. "

Dr. Phil should stay away from analysing the mass consciousness on talks shows without checking the statistics first. He's clearly no worse than the average pundit, but providing easy answers to complex problems works infinitely better when the worst that can happen is that a fat woman stays desperately unhappy. Supporting a tissue of lies that exists only to vilify youth culture because its incomprehensible to people over thirty is stupid at best.

Where it comes from

Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other
devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O,come in, equivocator.

William Shakespeare - Macbeth Act II, Scene III