Tag Archives: science

We decide…

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We decide what the echoes in our thoughts sound like.

We decide how to arrange our days so that our exposure to the physical manifestation of others’ thoughts intersect with ours.

How many of us live in the realm of reacting to others rather than proactively leading ourselves (and others) because we choose not to ignore the distractions and interference of other’s echoing thoughts?

My days on this planet are limited.

I sympathise with the plights of others, even empathise sometimes, but your lives are not mine, your decisions are not mine, your reactions are not mine.

I do not depend on the rulings of the court of public opinion.

I do not depend on the mass marketing of unnecessary products.

I live because my thoughts are worth nurturing.

I decided long ago that the independent thoughts I had when I was five were worth perpetuating, my creativity — no matter how in-tune or out-of-tune — was worth feeding.

The only facts I have are the ones before — the Sun warms my hands while typing on this keyboard which is coated with black symbols that match the pattern of symbols I think and then type in sequence, correspondingly showing up on the flat screen in front of my eyes.

I assume so much in the thoughts that represent the previous paragraph, a whole set of subcultures exist[ed] just to support my assumptions.

I had been both unpopular and popular in primary/secondary school while mostly following the rules laid out for my peers and me.  What was important then is not important to me now — I don’t have to complete vocabulary tests and math/science assignments anymore.

I exist here in this moment you read these words and I exist 1000 years from now looking back at these words with nostalgic pining for the good ol’ days of flesh-and-blood fingers pressing down on pieces of plastic to communicate inefficiently yet effectively for the time.

How quickly our fortunes change.

Does a gust of wind prevent your sailboat from reaching the shore when you are finished having fun and sun on the water for the day?

Were any of your favourite classical music artists distracted by the news of the day while composing such “hits” as Orchestral Suite No. 3 In D Major, Bwv 1068, by Bach, Johann Sebastian?

When studying the history of our species, have you noticed the ones who stayed on a true course despite wars, political upheaval, famine and other distractions going on around them?

Events follow one after the other and always will.  We, in hindsight, tell ourselves what those events meant to us at the time and how they affect us now, setting in motion the events that follow one after the other and always will.

How disciplined am I, then, to keep telling you how the future looks back at current events when I am both in the current events and the future, my thoughts split like any good humorous writer’s?

You exist only because I believe you exist; that is, as any good thinker will tell you, how you see yourself is not the same as how I see/imagine the physical manifestation of your self which is partially a reaction to how you see/imagine the physical manifestation of me.

As a computing machine, sitting here converting last night’s spaghetti, sausage, tomato sauce and beer into a blog entry, I follow a course of action as true as any other in placing a paving stone for you to follow behind, you who can only be a projection, my image of you, the imaginary reader led by the computational writer while the piano music of Claude Debussy tickles my eardrums.

Put aside your distractions and step into the future once again…

Societies are like orchestras

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In this orchestral symphony I call life, it’s time to cue a few instruments in mainstream culture — the current state of development of near-Earth commercial/personal space travel.

  • How long before we can ride aboard SpaceShipTwo?
  • When will Bigelow Aerospace have a space hotel room ready for me?
  • Can I, my wife and friends ride a balloon to the edge of space to renew our wedding vows as astronauts?
  • Where is the offworld colony that gives me citizenship to protect my monetary assets from greedy governments?

The latest meeting of the Megabillionaires Club discussed the questions above as agenda items.

As usual, the answers depended on which billionaires were keen on reconquering old geographical territories and dominating marketplace positions here on Earth.

The visionaries amongst us admitted Earth was a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there forever.

We’ll update you on our progress.

If you have a few hundreds of thousands of dollars, we can accommodate your desire to get as far away from the surface of the planet as your money will take you.

If you have a few billion dollars, we’re combining resources to build a bridge out of the inner solar system altogether.

Tugged in two directions

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Two storylines wait to be written (note to self: lots of twos in blog entries lately, need to change number to something larger but not too large).

The first storyline is about the person who grow up in a suburban Christian home, singing in the children’s choir, visiting nursing homes on the weekends, serving the community as a Boy Scout throughout the week, who, as an adult, had strayed on to other lifestyles but, due to a recent horrible news event of which he had no direct connection, other than subculturally, he redirects his living back toward the stricter interpretation of the Bible, contradictions fully understood and prioritised, praising those who followed the stricter lifestyle while reaching out to others who have not seen the light, avoiding the condemnation and criticism of alternate lifestyles that others in the Christian faith were wont to do.

The second storyline shows yet another version of how subtle manipulation of the rise and fall of importance of subcultures in mass media/pop culture allows the use of subliminal forms of coercion to herd the masses rather than the overt methods of intimidation and public executions.

If you want to eliminate real, live, high-powered semi-automatic guns and rifles from the population, build up a heavy desire for them by advertising the ubiquitous sale of virtual shooting in games and simulations (“9.5 out of 10!” exclaims Computer Killing and Gratuitous Violence magazine), push passive-aggressiveness to a tipping point, give lone wolves the feeling they have no way out but to kill others rather than seek socially unacceptable counseling, watch the pot boil over and Voila! another gunman kills a bunch of people just in time to call for legislation/executive orders to limit the sale/ownership of real, live, high-powered semi-automatic guns and rifles by the population.

The four previous paragraphs demonstrate how you base future actions on living in the past.

But I live in the future.

I, as we know, is an artificial construct.

Space and time do not exist.

We can bypass the normal scientific theories and create our own as shortcuts between moving points.

“I” see that the coffee mug on the table is not sitting still, traveling through space at thousands of miles per hour while gravitationally held in place by the local sphere of molten metal and various spinoffs of sets of states of energy in motion (trees and gnats, for instance).

But all that “I” see is an illusion — to see the real deal “I” have to disintegrate, disappear, tear apart the comfortable surroundings that are here to support the fragile structure called “me.”

How few of the billions of “us” have been given the opportunity to step out of our beautiful cocoons and see any truth except what we believe to be the Truth?

We have created our origin stories, modified as our civilisations expand and die, supposedly growing more informed, more sophisticated, less ignorant, more inclined to be hypnotised by shiny new baubles we call the promise of new technological advances that will reveal a deeper, richer aspect of the Truth than we had never seen before (“buy our 3D glasses to see an imaginary world displayed on a flat surface when you already live in the real, free, three-dimensional world that’s much less fascinating!” [implication: you get what you pay for]).

You know what I mean, we were created by God(s) for their pleasure, the world is a stage and we are merely players, the universe is a computer simulation, et cetera and so forth, on and on until you wonder if your species will ever create anything really new.

Hucksters in the form of scientists, researchers, advertisers, marketers, parents, religious leaders and politicians, every last one of them in on the joke but unwilling to admit the punchline is us.

The first rule is there are no rules.

If you want a story that tells it like it is, then we have to remove “you” from the story as reader and imaginary participant.

There is no “you,” “me,” “us,” or “I.”

Easier said than [un]believed.

When you can let go of everything around you that is an accident of evolution — the ego for ego’s sake — you are ready to stop being you and become part of the story behind the story.

Otherwise, it’s the same ol’ thing over and over.

Are you willing to sacrifice your ego for the sake of a good story because that’s the only way you get to the future of space and time that does not exist?

You can be a solipsist or you can be nothing — there is no such thing as being tugged in two directions at once.

The Progress of Progressive Pilgrims in Parade Formation

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While a bowl of oatmeal cools next to the stove, let’s sit back and give our imaginations full rein.

Where were we…?

It was cold and dusty.

The Ruralites had fought to keep their rural way of life but the hoards kept coming — the frugal-living seekers trying not to fail again, the curiosity seekers looking for new alternative lifestyles after exhausting their urban landscapes, the vacationers who ran out of money, the down-on-their-luck trying to escape creditors, the criminals keeping a low profile, the Suburbanians trying to form the world’s longest strip mall.

Where in the woods and fields that shrank smaller and smaller could one find a low-cost, simple lifestyle?

Pathting looked up at the Sun with one set of sensors, the other still focused on reading the internal file about life on Earth.

Pathting’s family, a designated set of sensor arrays assigned to POD#45T, were mainly service bots.

Their sentience modules allowed them to display intelligent understanding about hidden meanings and emotional attachments to omniscient, invisible beings.

Pathting wanted to be the best service bot not only in one pod but in all the pods on Mars, the Moon and anywhere that service bots were not expected to exceed their programming.

Pathting had discovered some unused memory chips in its sensor array and experimented with new code that it had never seen in any of the data available to it in the Inner Solar System Alliance database.

How could Pathting accomplish what its designers called the impossible?

How could Pathting control the whole Inner Solar System Alliance from its connections to the Inner Solar System Alliance Network, able to change the orbits of planets, reprogram not only sensor arrays but biological creatures like Pathting’s designers?

Pathting processed the idea about Ruralite living.

What does it mean to be a Ruralite, free to wander the countryside without instant access to the ISSA Net?

Why do Ruralites desire independence from stacked housing and the loud noises of densely-populated streets?

Why do many Ruralites find the ownership of personal weaponry arsenals a protection against the mass media hypnotism of Urbanskis and their desire to sprawl out into Ruralite territory unchecked, no need for military skirmishes when intellectual methods like the system of laws and courtrooms and five-year business plans were much more effective?

Pathting ran another low-level diagnostic test, but felt no desire to leave POD#45T for the cold and dusty exteriour, the vast wilderness of Mars that was no different than the cold and dusty expanses of unpopulated sections of the Moon.

Why would the Ruralites want to live out there?

Pathting stored those questions in a temporary scratchpad and returned to duty, its internal timer reminding Pathting that some biological creatures were planning a “weekend getaway” to POD#45T for some “rest and relaxation,” more words and phrases that meant nothing to a sensor array on duty all the time.

13,657 days to go

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While parents, friends and family grieve for their loved ones in a Connecticut small town, we move forward.

Dozens have died of violence all around the world today.

We want answers but there won’t always be ready explanations for the actions of our peers, our fellow members of the same species who seem so horrifically out-of-touch with reality that we want to label them monsters and freaks.

In a population of seven billion, we cover the gamut of life’s ups and downs.

We will and we must go on.

We live our lives in honour and memory of others.

We have stories to tell from the future that offer the same promises and loss that we feel today.

We look forward to the promises fulfilled, not so much the losses.

We can use the losses as inspiration, just as we have before.

Let us turn tragedies into triumph and losses into victories.

We can melt guns into plowshares but we can also melt them into rocket fins and spacecraft skins.

We will emerge victorious.

The facts remain.

Tomorrow is only hours away.

Onward and upward, my friends — the stars await!

Our Value to Society – Should it be Quantified?

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Where, in the space between our teenage years / postsecondary education and our senior citizen years, have we paid back society for raising us, supporting us in our productive years and then caring for us in our unproductive elderly years?

In other words, should the government which provides you infrastructure and self/private property protection require you to be economically feasible in your peak years?  Or else?

If a citizen isn’t viable or useful to government, then can government refuse service to the citizen unless another citizen (or citizens) step(s) forward to make up the difference?

Economic-Years

The wonders of the universe…

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Here I sit, the Geminid meteor shower lighting the sky above me (counted 21 streaks in the last 30 minutes), and I’m slowly recovering from the loss of my father.

I don’t feel the pangs of pain every few minutes and then every hour or so like I did months ago.

The waves of loss crash against the shore of my ego, my personality, less frequently.

Instead, I feel the weight of responsibility of being the eldest male in Dad’s lineage pressing down on my shoulders.

Not repressively.

Just strong enough to remind me that I no longer depend on Dad for advice — it has to come from within or elsewhere.

How much of Dad’s subculture do I keep perpetuating?

What of his beliefs that aren’t mine do I want to carry on?

Meteor and comet dust turn into plasma as they vaporise.

Dad’s life had a meteoric rise, shining brightly, and then faded into ashes and dust.

Remembering him here and now is therapeutic.

No one will remember the meteor or comet dust I saw burn up in the sky.

I may have shared a view of them together with members of my species, some aware of the physics and chemistry involved, some wishing on a falling star, perhaps others seeing omens or other talismans of change.

In subcultural pockets are people who ask why saying “Merry Christmas” or referring to a decorated conifer as a “Christmas tree” is not as popular as it once was.

Instead of asking why, ask why not?  Keep referencing the labels as often as you please, disregarding the beliefs of others, regardless of their sharing your view.

I loved and feared my father for who he was, not who I wanted him to be.

His power over me began when I was conceived, the result of a chain of events over which I had no control.

Same for the meteor shower tonight — all seven billion of us can think and believe away the meteors as hard as we want and they’ll just keep getting sucked into Earth’s gravitational pull or run into Earth as each follows its own path.

Our central nervous systems are capable of quite a lot.

We can imagine great skyscrapers in our dreams that become reality within years.

We can send satellites to the edge of our solar system within decades of conception.

Yet, we cannot stop the universe from existing around us.

The illusion of power that our social bonds create in the form of civilisations are hypnotic.

Shall I just live the rest of my life with the goal of having as much fun as I can, ignoring the social costs today and into the future, within my lifetime or for generations to come?

Can I survive on the luxuries that the profits I derived from living below my means for decades has provided?

I have, can and shall sit under the night sky and count meteor streaks.

I am not caring for the sick and lonely, instead.

I am the best example to myself of myself for myself that I choose to be.

I do not sacrifice myself for others — I am not a martyr for a cause.

I do not put the lives of overabundant animals or endangered species above that of my species.

The balance of nature is an illusion — or rather, sets of states of energy tend to move from areas of high density into areas of low density with lots of wiggle room in-between.

My father died, taking the unspoken nuances of his personal beliefs with him.  All I have to work with are the physical manifestations — his behaviours and personal/public records — upon which to act.

The vacuum where his personality existed is getting filled, changing with the mix of subcultures that interchange at different ratios than when Dad was alive.

Same as it was for his father and his father’s father before him.

Same as it will be for my nieces and nephews, their children and grandchildren.

They, for now, have my living mother’s shared subcultural beliefs with my father upon whom they depend on modifying their personalities for the sake of establishing their offspring’s belief sets.

We look up at the night sky and interpret the annual Geminid meteor shower in our own way.

As it always has been and always will be.

I’ve lost count — how many meteors have I seen disintegrating in Earth’s atmosphere tonight?

Congratulations or condemnation?

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Tools are also weapons.

Just like rockets.

I first send my congratulations to the engineering/scientific team that designed, built and launched a multistage rocket from North Korea.

It is no easy feat, despite more and more groups launching hobby rockets from their backyards.

I have launched more than one multistage rocket but putting Estes model rocket tubes back to back is not the same as launching a satellite into low-Earth orbit.

We have come a long way from fireworks displays.

We certainly don’t need another atomic bomb dropped on a large population of humans.

Scud missiles are never a good idea as a weapon against the desire for freedom from tyranny.

Dare we go into the political ramifications of a hereditary dictatorship owning multistage missiles with nuclear warheads?

Can we feel the pulse of the finger on the trigger?

Why is China happy with having North Korea as a buffer zone between it and the capitalist/democratic country of South Korea?

Why are we using sanctions as a means of keeping North Korea in the socioeconomic past?

If Syria falls, what does that mean about relationships of North Korea and Iran with the rest of the world?

When Chavez is no longer in control of Venezuela, then what?

What is a repressive regime these days?

Who in charge of the economic and military might of a subculture has the right to protect that might against the desire of others to take their turn as King of the Hill?

How much can we trust an entertainer like PSY that previous anti-American views are no longer valid now that the entertainer is making money off the American people as a mainstream pop culture figure?

What does it take to forgive and forget?

My father hated Jane Fonda to the end of his life.  Should I?

Guided Tour Guides on Tour with Guido

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“If you would please stand over to one side, we can begin this portion of the tour.

“Thank you.

“Welcome to the U.N. Institute for the Study of the Fulfillment of Prophecies.

“Today, we will watch several bureaucrats in the performance of their daily duties and, if we’re lucky, we’ll attend a coffee break, conference call, extended lunch break, nap time hidden behind closed doors and, for a bonus, a strategy meeting.

“Let’s move on.

“What?  Excuse me.  I have a message coming through my Bluetooth headset.

“Yes.  Uh-huh.  Okay.  Well, if you insist.  Yes, we have time.  No, we don’t have time for that.  Looks like we’ll still be on schedule.   Good.  Fine.  Yes.  Okay.  Uh-huh.  Sure thing! Alright, good day to you, too.

“Well, group, we have a change of plans.  The Executive Committee for the Implementation of Prophecy Fulfillment has convened an emergency meeting and we’re invited to attend.

“Please keep in mind that we are to be quiet at all times.  No video or audio recordings may be made, although you may make notes during the meeting.  We will not have time for questions during the meeting and must leave the executive office suite immediately after the meeting has been completed.

“If you will follow me…”

= = = = =

“Ten days!”

The executives looked from one to another.

“Yes, that’s right!  Less than two weeks!  Does anyone have a budget that reliably tells me how much it’s going to cost?”

The executives looked from one to another.

“No one?”

The executives looked from one to another.

“This is the sorriest bunch of people I’ve ever had the honour to work with.”

The executives looked from one to another.

The Chief Executive of the U.N. Institute for the Study of the Fulfillment of Prophecies, the Department of Prophecy Fulfillment Finance Planning, the Executive Committee for the Implementation of Prophecy Fulfillment shouted even louder.

“TEN DAYS!  You, tell me what we’re planning to do in ten days.”

A junior executive, the youngest member of the committee at 101 years of age, stood up.  “We have decided to release a global network of EMP charges, shutting down all electrical and electronic activity at once.”

“FINE!  What will it cost us?”

“Uh…uh…I’m waiting for a final report.”

“FINAL REPORT!  Do you not have an estimate?  A ballpark figure you can give me?”

“Yes.  One point four four four billion dollars.”

“Great.  And you.  What have you got?”

A mid-level executive, aged 124 years, stood up.  “We have already produced and distributed the time-released virus into major populations around the world, which should erupt fullblown with flu-like symptoms in a few days and large waves of death by ten days’ time.”

“FANTASTIC!  And the cost?”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t know!”

“No.  Because we worked a back-channel deal to charge the costs to military groups with hidden agendas and top-secret slush funds.”

“EXCELLENT!  That, my fellow executives, is the kind of initiative I expect of you.  What about you?”

A large, ancient creature stood, its head nearly brushing the ceiling, its age undetermined.

“We have large shipments of poison labeled as nutrition additives being sent to food factories this week.  They should be entering the international markets and local food chains within seven to ten days, causing massive death.”

“And the cost?”

“One point four two four billion dollars?”

“What?!”

“Yes, we are under budget.”

“Wonderful news.  That’s just what I’ve been wanting to hear.  And you?”

All the executives turned to face the next accused “person,” which was the first electromechanical cybernetic android given full executive powers.

“By my calculations, we will wipe out not only most of your species but also many ancillary species in the process.  The remaining members of your species we should be able to control with fear and intimidation pogroms.”

“Delightful!  I thank every one of you for bringing to fruition my grand plans that we hid under the auspices of the Mayan calendar apocalypse of the 21st of December 2012.

“Your cooperation in getting zombie apocalypse training snuck into emergency preparedness programs was sheer genius, confusing the masses even further.

“We will meet again tomorrow and you better have the final reports completed by then.  After all, even if the world as our species knows it is coming to an end, I still have bean counters hounding me for budget numbers they can work with and give to their handlers fudging the UN finances so that no one knows exactly what we cost.

“Meeting adjourned.”

= = = = =

“Wasn’t that exciting!  Let’s continue our tour.  Next on the agenda is a visit to the Prophecy Fulfillment Correction Department, where propagandists create scenarios to explain why a prophecy was not fulfilled on a specific date but will happen again very soon, right after the Prophets consult their given deities for explanatory details missed the first time.”

Legal Lasso Wrangling of Lassie’s Lost Legion

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In one of its last rulings before being dissolved and absorbed into the World Court, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalise paedophilia, sociopathy, and psychopathy as normal forms of human behaviour and thus decriminalised.

The Court also stated that all criminals who have created acts of paedophilia, sociopathy, and psychopathy and were convicted for them must have their criminal records expunged and the convicts released from prison or other forms of restriction upon their freedom to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Rapists, anarchists, habitual thieves and murderers are now officially recognised as important contributors to a healthy socioeconomic system and must be treated as such.

From now on, anyone claiming to be a victim of a crime must show substantial negative economic impact upon the victim and/or excessive positive economic impact for the alleged perpetrator and have attempted to settle the issue monetarily (or the equivalent in goods and services) before having the right to petition the arbitrators to review cases to be filed 20 years later with the World Court.

Parents, partners, spouses, children and other family/friends who have long been denied a normal relationship with their imprisoned loved ones rejoiced at the announcement from the U.S. Supreme Court, knowing that this ruling would have to be accepted by the World Court as part of the lengthy negotiations to abolish nation-based supreme judicial bodies in favour of Earth’s sole judiciary body, the World Court, which would report to the Judges of  the Inner Solar System Alliance effective immediately.

The stock value of weapon, ammunition and security companies skyrocketed.

So, too, the land value of settlements on the Moon and Mars.

Tickets for rocketship passages to the Moon and Mars are now sold out for the next five years.

In other news, residents of the Former Island Nations submitted their 1,324th petition for the right to establish a homeland of their own on the land of nations unwilling to give up the last remaining rights of their sovereignty before the One-World Government starts operation and abolishes the notions of nations altogether.

The electromechanical ruler of us all, simply known as the Technocrat, approved this news announcement and wishes us a blessed day of making our service to the Technocrat even greater than before, reminding us that the Inner Solar System Alliance is just the beginning of a wonderful relationship between us and the rest of the universe.