The Basis of Civilization

In the origin of humanity, technology served to advance humanities control over their own situation. Some were to advance labor, others to advance protection and some to enhance leisure.

The earliest technologies were the spear and plow which were simple bits of wood, one used to force the food that grew wildly in the fields to yield to the hand of humanity to grow in a controlled area which is easier to gather in and the other to bring low the wild beasts on the field to protect or feed the village. These simple inventions ended humanities need to wander in search of food. These people could settle in one area which lends itself to the need of domestication of animals. Ultimately the animals are attached to a larger plow and humanity is saved labor which lends itself to greater creative endeavors or to growing more food which can support a larger population. Ultimately civilization deviates away from the simple agrarian society of farmer into early industry which builds upon the lessons of the early agrarian of labor and protection.

The early industry advances make plows better, makes herding easier and makes war more brutal. These early industries quickly eat up the materials available on the surface and ultimately the people need to dig for materials. As far as production is concerned this is just as important as farming, raw materials to keep the machine moving just as food keeps humanity moving.

Now we have formed the base for the entire civilization, miners to support industry to support farmers to support everyone. Is humanity any better at this point then it was before? In some ways yes, others no; humanity lives longer and eats better than before but the weapons used to kill the beast have been turned against humanity and the beginnings of the future oppressive society are forming.

The State

What is the State? When I was young it seemed like an unchanging tradition that was set in stone with no opportunity to change. The State was unchangeable, the State was forever, and the State was everything. As I aged I became more keenly aware of other States which ended the idea of the State being everything. I aged further and became aware that the State had been founded by revolution, thus the State was no longer forever. Ultimately the State changed from how it was to how it would be through small steps; the State was no longer unchangeable. Despite the fact that the State no longer seemed to be this omnipotent power well before my teenage years I had not yet questioned what the State was until much later in my life, beyond my teenage years.

The State is an idea. It is not just the idea of one man or woman, the State is a collective idea. The State changes slightly from person to person and sometimes it changes radically from person to person. No one has precisely the same idea for what the State is outside of being an idea.

Some might argue that the State is made of land, population and government. This argument relies heavily on land; without land the State would not have population, without population the State would not have government. The State has land because the population that owns the land agrees that the State also has some kind of ownership or that, at least, no one disputes the States claim. If a majority rejects the States claim of ownership the State has lost its land and population and so would not function as a government. Also, ownership itself is an idea. If a person collects a rock, it is theirs so long as they carry it because it is in their immediate possession. That same person sets the rock down and a different person takes it whose rock is it? The person that carries it now did not carry it before and that which carried it before does not carry it now.  That is the basis of ownership, immediate possession. The larger idea of ownership is that which is agreed to belong to someone. If the second collector gives the rock back to the first because that who had it first simply had it first then the second agrees that somehow makes the rock the property of the first but if the second keeps the rock then they dispute that ownership through immediate possession. This is a disagreement of ownership. It is through these that the State is also demonstrated to be an idea.

The State is an idea.

The Kinect

The Kinect came out of nowhere and blew away the competition leading the way in sales over the holidays and since.

Zombie Fungus

I have a zombie survival plan, I’ve invested many hours into it and it’s rarely far from mind. The reason why I do this is simple, I don’t actually believe that a zombie apocalypse will happen; it merely forces me to account for everything in the plan. This makes the plan less a “zombie survival plan” and more a “multiple worst case scenario plan.” Like, “a bunker is nice, what happens when you run out of food?” or “that tower has few access points which makes it easy to secure, what about if there is a tornado, earthquake, etc?” The principle behind the zombie survival plan is “if you want to survive you need to be ready for things to get way worse,” which accounts for multiple disasters. Also you need to start considering things like how gas won’t be making it to you inside the disaster zone so you learn how to make diesel using cooking oil (http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistryhowtoguide/a/makebiodiesel.htm) and things to that effect. At no point did I think to myself, “I’m actually going to have to worry about zombies.”

Then this happened: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/zombie-creating-fungi-cordyceps_n_830558.html

"Taxi Driver"

As I watched “Taxi Driver” for the first time I found myself following the plot and finding it somewhat meandering, like it wasn’t going anywhere. I understood Travis (DeNiro), this man whom seemed at odds with society who is not quite sure how to fit in or what norms he was to follow, and I understood most of the characters. The characters weren’t two dimensional, they possessed a depth of their own and they fit in the story and their stories broke open for me to see upon the rock of Travis. I enjoyed every part of the movie but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing with the plot. Suddenly Travis had a Mohawk and in the remaining time the whole movie came together for me. The parts of Travis that I didn’t see clearly came into vision like the world at the beams of light in the morning and all the loose strings in the plot pulled tighter than rigging on a sailing ship. This was cinematography like I had never seen. If you’re like me and had never seen this movie, you should see it, I felt it was worth my time and I plan on buying it at the next opportunity I have.

“Taxi Driver” premiered on February eighth of 1976; happy 35^th anniversary they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Would you like to learn more?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/

Firefly

Normally I am opposed to commercialism in any of its forms, however, this is different. Instead of hype being generated by a commercial entity this is hype being generated by fans; a demand by the people, not a manipulation of the people.

http://helpnathanbuyfirefly.com/

"... inconsistent, foolish and selfish people."

More and more I find I am confronted by people with these values in the news and in day-to-day life:

Value 1: “I want the United States to get the budget in line with what it can afford”
Value 2: “Don’t cut this program because that would negatively impact me!”
Value 3: “Don’t cut that program because that would negatively impact people I don’t know!”

I spit on these people; these inconsistent, foolish and selfish people.

Value 1 requires sacrifice; budgets need to shrink so that the majority may survive. People act ready to accept that until it actually means that the budget cut impacts them. Suddenly some cherished program must be given up. At this point peoples true colors appear and they begin screaming about values 2 and 3. These people need to grow up, understand the times require sacrifice, and get out of the way.

Trip to Mexico? Not interested

Today I am thinking about Mexico. It’s a frequent topic for me. I frequently wonder when it will finally be a failed state. This year United States Officials were attacked by a Mexican drug cartel in an ambush (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-mexico-usa-agents-idUSTRE71E7PY20110216). This is after last year’s killing of an American citizen and the beheading of the Mexican official that was looking for him (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1320874/American-tourist-shot-dead-Mexican-drug-cartel-case-mistaken-identity.html) and last year’s drug tunnel (http://abcnews.go.com/News/secret-tunnels-mexico-us-smuggling-drugs-guns-people/story?id=12057362).

The Mexican War on Drugs has claimed over 35 thousand lives from December 2006 through January 2011 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War).

Yet, people wonder why I always say “not interested” whenever a trip to Mexico is brought up.

Now that Mubarak is gone …

Now that Mubarak has stepped down you should continue to watch Egypt as it renovates itself because of the potential pitfalls in the early Democratic process. In particular keep an eye on the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the actions they take.

The MB is anti-West, pro-Islam and claims to be pro-Democracy. If that’s what they are they’ll be the Egyptian version of the American Tea Party with exception to the MBs history of extremism and producing terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden. Since the 70’s the MB renounced violence but still produced terrorists for other organizations; kind of like a Muslim Extremist elementary school, the MB teaches what you fight for and then the next organization teaches you how to fight. Additionally, the MB may have renounced violence but it has not given up trying the actively subvert non-Islamic forces:

“The process of settlement [of Islam in the United States] is a "Civilization-Jihadist" process with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" their miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who choose to slack.”  (Originally provided as evidence by the FBI against “The Holy Land Foundation” and cited in an article by Rod Dreher for the Dallas Morning News which has since removed the article, the article was resubmitted here: http://www.fulfilledprophecy.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=30922&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a)

The Muslim Brotherhood is not as dangerous as the West tries to make it seem to be, however, the MB is still dangerous

RoboEarth

I’m usually not one to talk about robots rising up and taking the earth from humanity and their never ending quest to render themselves obsolete. I, without any doubt or shame, have invested more time into thinking about a zombie outbreak or the super volcano in Wyoming than I have on robots. I generally think artificial intelligence is a bad idea and I think robots that can even emulate emotion are a bad idea. I also acknowledge that at this point robots are of little threat to me. Too few in number and too controlled of environments for them to escape and start murdering people like some cheap sci-fi horror film if someone somehow made the jump into actual artificial intelligence.

However, “RoboEarth”( http://www.roboearth.org/) sounded straight out of “Mass Effect” (http://masseffect.bioware.com/). I reflected on the Quarians and how the race of robots they created that linked into a neural network accidently created artificial intelligence which led to the robots rising up and the Quarians fleeing their home world en masse.  Okay, still not likely to happen anytime soon. Even though it isn’t likely doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invest some thought into it. Not something to get in an uproar about but something to continue thinking about.

Where's Putin?

Challenger

This is a step-by-step explanation of the findings of the Challenger disaster that happened on 1/28/1986, I strongly suggest reading it

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/q0122.shtml

Arbeit Macht Frei

The value of history is frequently more than people place in it. There is the trite saying that “those whom do not know their history are doomed to repeat it,” which is not always true but is so often true that the saying seems to stick around. Sayings about history aren’t what I want to talk about today; I want to talk about Holocaust Denial.

Holocaust Denial is the denial that the holocaust ever happened, was as bad as it was or that certain groups were targeted. This exists globally and is a crime in some countries, Germany, Israel and the UK to name a few. Those that deny the Holocaust will say that evidence is an elaborate hoax perpetuated by the Jews, the West or enemies of Islam. The conspirator of choice is usually regional. In the Middle-east it tends to be the West and/or enemies of Islam and in the West it tends to be the Jews. Since, in the mind of the denier, it is all an elaborate hoax any evidence that is contrary is a part of the conspiracy so they can maintain their position no matter the evidence. I think of Holocaust Denial as a mental disorder in which no amount of treatment will fix. People need to be aware of these people before they meet them or else they may succumb to the disorder. Early education is important in stopping the spread of this disorder, make sure everyone you know is aware of the facts now rather than tolerate the spread of this disease.

For everyone that doesn’t deny the Holocaust, today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it’s the perfect catalyst to bring up the facts.


Would you like to learn more?
http://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/index.shtml

China is manipulating their economy? It's like their communist or something

I have a history of decrying China being the boogeyman waiting to destroy America. One of my points has been that China lacks the financial clout to do such a thing. I frequently talk about the government control of their currency, the runaway food costs and the third world country that anything that isn’t the cities is in China. Two more reasons has been brought to light:

1. Overinflated housing costs
2. Ghost towns

China is attempting to misrepresent the strength of their economy by inflating the costs of homes, were China not communist they would be experiencing the same financial downturn that America is currently. The product of this is ghost towns. Whole swaths of built and unoccupied homes since the economy is poor no one can afford to move.



Would you like to learn more?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339536/Ghost-towns-China-Satellite-images-cities-lying-completely-deserted.html

Sounds Familiar ...

Since lashing out blindly against an unconfirmed opponent worked out so well for the United States.

Belgium

Belgium, it demands your attention.

http://lerecorddumonde.be/

Google, The manipulator

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12241395

In response to this article from the BBC I have this to say, “I don’t mind the amount that Google manipulates the searches, I just wish they’d be honest about it.”

War in Afghanistan

I have been asked my opinion about the War in Afghanistan by my peers more than once and I had come back to them with, “no one has won an occupation” for many years. Then the United States won an occupation in Iraq, I was surprised, something I had regarded as an unshakeable rule had crumbled. The United States may not have done very well, the victory was and continues to be shaky, but a poor showing of doing what has never been accomplished is still pretty damn impressive.

Out of the crucible of Iraq came “The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual” which reviews what an insurgency is and what tactics are successful against them. I strongly recommend it to anyone that wants to learn more about insurgencies and what NATO is doing in Afghanistan. General Petraeus was involved in writing the manual and now he is commander of US forces in Afghanistan. As one would learn from reading the manual, Petraeus was in command of the first pacified region of Iraq. How to pacify a region had been a mystery and so there was a fair amount of autonomy and Petraeus successfully found how to do it and was tasked with others to compile the field manual so that it could be widely implemented which resulted in the Iraqi victory. Basically, if any general can win in Afghanistan it is Petraeus. I believe he can and will win.

NATO needs to finish this fight because 20 years ago Afghanistan was just left hanging after the Soviet pull out. When that happened most of the infrastructure was left in ruins and there was very little hope for the future which facilitated the Taliban takeover of the country. If NATO leaves now this will repeat itself and our children will revisit this mountain nation just as we are there now.

Cuba: The Beginning of the End of the Embargo?

I read the headline “Obama eases US Cuba travel rules” and I got very excited because the US trade embargo against Cuba is, in my opinion, a silly holdover from the Cold War. Then I was severely disappointed.
United States is going to allow Students and Religious Institutions to travel to Cuba. No learning about the history and culture of this Island nation in person for me, or enjoying a Cuban Cigar. As disappointed as I was I saw that at least this was a step in the right direction for Cuban/American relations in that, even though it isn’t now, someday relations will end the travel and trade restrictions against this nation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12197939

Did you think for yourself or merely think what they told you to think?

With all the chest thumping and media misdirection over news I think of as being mostly irrelevant it was easy to miss the real news happening around the world. Blood libel, “Obama will make some remarks later” and political rhetoric overshadowed the collapse of Lebanon’s council with Hezbollah, Haiti’s one year anniversary, the flooding of Australia’s third largest city and the foreclosure crisis being projected to be worse in 2011 then 2010. Since you’re clearly on the internet if you want to know more about those things you can look them up; I am going to talk about the failings in mass media and journalism.

“Brave New World” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World) is far from becoming a reality, sleep learning and controlled reproduction isn’t something that is likely to happen in my lifetime. The other parts of the story, overconsumption and being blinded by pleasures, are fast becoming truth. While overconsumption is a compelling topic, it is best saved for a different time and focus on the narrower aspect of being blinded by pleasure.

Blinded by pleasure is how I describe allowing the television to dictate to you what you should watch, eat, learn about, etc. The sitcom or police drama that you’re watching reaches out to you and it takes you to a new world for one hour every Wednesday, Monday or whatever day it releases on and for that hour you are entertained. It’s harmless, right? By itself, yes. To get a better understanding we should look at it like this:
Days in a week times hours in the day 7*24=168
8 hours of sleep a day times days in the week 8*7=56
hours in the week minus hours asleep 168-56=112
Minus the 40 hour work week 112-40=72
Minus 1 hour of commute a work day 72-5=67
67 is the number of hours a working individual should have give or take depending on their situation. One hour out of that isn’t so bad, especially if it helps relax a hard working individual. Once that hour turns into two, three, and so forth it starts to get dangerous until the individual is now endlessly watching television as their sole source of entertainment and information. Three hours of television nightly is 21 hours, just about one third of the remaining free time in a week. The changeover is subtle at first from merely consuming the information for entertainment or news to allowing oneself to be told that such and such program is entertaining and what is news, what they should be concerned about, what love is etc. It’s a system that easily reinforces itself, if you didn’t see the latest episode of “Time wasters 3000” and a couple coworkers start talking about it you are on the outside, not as informed about it as them. Humans are social creatures and have a strong desire to belong and so in that situation it difficult. However, in trying to conform we risk losing our individuality to cookie cutter archetypes dreamt up by corporate executives so they can cram more mass media into their audience.

Entertainment is not the enemy. Conformity is not the enemy. Thoughtlessness is the enemy. Have you thought for yourself today or did you think what they told you to think?

Fluoridation Standards

The standards for the fluoridation of water have been updated because it seems that children were ingesting levels of fluoride that is becoming unsafe. The obvious signs were white streaks or spots on the teeth. The new standard of fluoride in the water is much lower than before. This is, however, just a recommendation and does not reflect an actual change on how much fluoride is added to water. What this means to you is to make sure you and your children continue to not ingest fluoridated toothpaste. Just drinking water and brushing your teeth you should be fine but once fluoridated toothpaste is ingested regularly levels of fluoride can build up which starts with the previously mentioned streaks and spotting and after continued ingestion of fluoride (according to some studies) can end in kidney failure.

Fluoride is safe in the levels that a normal person is exposed to: water and accidental swallowing of fluoridated toothpaste; so don't freak out and start throwing away all your toothpaste and mouthwash and only drink bottled water, just be a responsible adult and don’t drink your mouthwash.

The American Culture

American culture became about sex at some point, I’m not sure when, I just know it did. It’s this strange obsession that lay underneath everything we once held dear. Watching TV? Extenze commercial. Watching a movie? Unnecessary sex scene. Radio? Moaning. Why should you wash yourself? For the ladies. Why apply cologne? Not so you smell nice but so you get sex. If you don’t have washboard abbs or big breasts no one will have sex with you and you’ll die alone. Why do you date? For sex, obviously. Marriage? So they’ll only have sex with you.

WHAT THE HELL?

Maybe it was the sexual revolution that did it, maybe it was rap music, maybe it was cocaine or World War II, it is difficult to say any single thing that brought the culture here but it is here. I lament what has happened and acknowledge there is no way back. All I ask is that now that we know the things we do can and frequently will morph beyond the original intent we try to control where we go and try not to make things worse.

Can we move on to a more pressing issue?

The Republican Party has announced a continued campaign against healthcare reform. Has anyone bothered to see that what they are trying to create is unrealistic and generally impossible?

The bill essentially has two parts, the one part makes buying health insurance compulsory and the other makes it so insurance companies cannot turn down or revoke insurance from people for any reason; taken as a whole the reform is a step forward. How many times has a story ended in, “the insurance cut them off in the middle of treatment” or something similar resulting in someone’s death? I don’t know an exact figure but it seems to me that once is one too many and no one should have to worry about having insurance they’ve paid years for get cancelled. Anyway, that’s not the part that is being attacked by Republicans, the compulsory purchasing of insurance is.

Why are Republicans attacking the compulsory purchasing of insurance? The Republicans are calling it socialism and claiming it kills jobs. I like definitions; they clear up confusion more frequently than contributing to confusion, so, defining socialism.

Socialism (noun) Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

Okay, with a clear understanding of what is defined as socialism which is characterized as government control or administration, I have become confused as to how requiring a person to purchase insurance is socialism. If that act is socialism all laws are acts of socialism and than Republicans have become pseudo-anarchists that intend to dismantle … I’m going to stop that fantasy right there because it is clearly absurd like the healthcare reform being socialism is. The other part of the reform is characterized by government regulations on a private institution. Is that socialism? It is getting closer but it still isn’t because strictly speaking it is not control of the institution, it is rules that say “if you want to operate this business you need to do these things” which has been an ongoing trend in the United States since “The Jungle” (1906 by Upton Sinclair) which lead to, amongst other things, health code reforms and regulations on the beef industry.

Regulation =/= Socialism

Anyway, the reform will lead to the creation of more jobs than it destroys. For an insurance company to handle the increase in customers they will need to become more efficient and expand the bureaucracy so that people will want to continue using the company’s services since the individual is no longer locked into their services by pre-existing conditions. Ultimately this reform will end in a customer service war to keep the individuals to keep buying insurance from these companies. This is the free market in action where now that all things are even companies need to make services better for the consumer or the consumer will find someone to do the services better. The only jobs that will be destroyed by this reform are the position of the “risk manager” that cut people off from their insurance right when they needed it most. Companies lose a department that is made of what is worst about capitalism is disbanded and then ate up by the increased need of other departments to increase service to the consumer.

I’m not seeing the downside.

The reform leans on each other, the regulations on the insurance industry without the regulations on the individual ends in insurance not being a profitable business because why would people buy insurance until they were sick if they couldn’t be turned down for pre-existing conditions? If the individual is required to buy insurance and they can be turned down for pre-existing conditions what is to stop the insurance companies from charging outlandish prices to individuals with pre-existing conditions? The two parts of the reform need each other and the Republicans are trying to do away with the requirement of the individual to buy insurance. Without that requirement the other half falls and now the United States is no better off today than it was two years ago.

The healthcare reform is mostly good and there is no easy way to improve on it, can we leave it alone, please?