Some things discussed in this here shockingly short article seem to parallel issues in my own personal life, probably only because everything I ever read or learn or hear or think about has to do with my own personal life because that is the most important thing to me because I am self-centered and self-absorbed and a bad person. Anyway, Bostrom throws out the likelihood of a superintelligence superseding the need for humans to invent or do scientific or technological research ever again, since it'd be so much better at it, as if it were no big thang. But then what would humans do? Art, obviously, you say, but despite what Kaufmann would have you believe, humans are not only artists. I, at least, also have a drive for discovery and problem-solving and other things that may in turn be a part of the larger capital A Art, but the issue that this brings up for me is: why do something that somebody else has already done, and/or that you will never be able to do as well as anybody else? Because you enjoy it, obviously, but like everything it's never that simple, and science seems to be its own animal in this regard. If you devoted your life to designing a more efficient microchip, only to have some sassy superintelligence come along and whip one out that's even better than your life's work, wouldn't you feel a little disappointed, a little as if you had wasted time you could have spent doing something else? Sure, if you enjoyed your time it's not so bad, but wouldn't you have also enjoyed doing something similar that wasn't obviated by someone else? My philosophy tells me that absolutely no matter what the end results are, if I genuinely enjoyed myself then that's all that matters, but my shriveled and underdeveloped emotional system says otherwise. This relates to my general belief that getting the technology in place for the future is only one part, and that it's at least equally as important that people grow up. We need the illusion of usefulness or purpose, even if it's almost always just an illusion, and we'd damn well be ready to face the specter of our obsolescence and realize that it's not as important as we think it is.

The other thing is the one huge object lesson that all science fiction can't seem to stop teaching us: delegating decision-making powers to anyone else is a disaster. Bostrom is somewhat careful around this, emphasizing how important it is that we start the AI out on the right foot, wording things so that we are consulting it wisely and sagely more than just letting it do all our thinking for us. The problem is, if it's really so much smarter than us, how would we know? I believe it's best to consult experts when dealing with anything in their domain, but if people automatically defer to anyone that is, or that they *believe* is, more qualified than they are, then they are putting themselves in the danger of being taken advantage of. Also, experts have *opinions* and since knowledge and theories are constantly changing, those opinions are often *wrong*. How is an ignorant person to decide what advice to follow? Will it ever be safe to assume that a superintelligence is so unwaveringly smart that all its opinions are correct? Supposedly, it will, in fact, know better than we do, seeing as we never goddamn know what's best for ourselves in the slightest. But what happens to a race of humans that learns to rely on some omnipotent outside source for all their decision-making and situation-assessing? It'd be good to learn how wrong we always are, but as far as individuals and being human goes, I think it's best to steer clear of anything that reinforces decidophobia.

Regarding desert within a political economy such as ours, a standard view is this:
My pre-tax income and the wealth I already hold are mine. I made what I made, and own what I own, and I deserve to keep it. Any discussion of the right of the state to tax me and/or take some of my stuff starts from my presumptive ownership of my stuff, my money, my property.
Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel (2002) call this idea “the myth of ownership,” the idea that pre-tax income and wealth is mine in some “morally meaningful sense.” Why is it a myth? Among other reasons, what I make is made possible by a pre-existing set of political and economic practices, institutions, and principles. I am indebted to these institutions and practices for what I gross. My gross income and the property I have are not the first link in a link of possessions; they are late links. Why’s that? Essentially there would be no secure economy in place, no property, no rights, and so on were it not for the existence of a state constituted to allow such things. So both my gross income and my “pre-existing wealth” are outcomes of a complex scheme of distribution and redistribution that antedates my arrival on the planet. It is an utter cosmic coincidence – matter of luck, good or bad – that I have the gifts (or liabilities) I have, and live in a world to which they
are suited or not.
...
Consider these three assumptions that might be taken for granted, but that ought not to be taken for granted because they are philosophically quite implausible.
(1) A view of agent causation or libertarian free will that many philosophers think is the dominant folk view (but see Nahmias et al., 2006 ), and which Roderick Chisholm ( 1976 ) endorsed this way: “each of us when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain things to happen, and nothing – or no one – auses us to cause those events to happen.”
(2) A Lockean view of property ownership and desert : I deserve the in-come from my labor, and I deserve to keep it. In general, combining #2 with #1 we get: How I do my life, whether I choose good or bad, well or badly, is self-originating (in some deep sense) and thus I deserve credit or blame for what I do, how I live, what I make of things.
(3) Luck Denial . A denial of the claim that all my general capacities (including – assuming I possess such things – my intelligence, wit, ingenuity, conscientiousness, desire to work hard, social skills, and so on), and all my specific desires and beliefs, are one hundred percent contingent on causal antecedents over which I had no control, and thus that, from the point of view sub specie eternitatis , “luck swallows everything” (Strawson, 1998 ). Nietzsche said amor fati – love fate. Why? Because despite the eternal and heroic – sweet, dear, and laughable – human attempt to actually do something completely self originating, it has never happened, nor will it ever happen. It takes a “strong poet” to say this, let alone to embrace the idea. The facts are that it may be true.
-Owen Flanagan, Moral Science

The first half or so of this paper kind of goes on about an issue I didn't really know was a problem, but then it picks up in this vein before ending what seemed too suddenly now that I'm really getting into what he's saying. Owen Flanagan, so far as I have yet seen, is one of those guys that I kind of want to read, but it feels rather self-indulgent, because I already agree with the majority of what he says. Maybe it's good because it puts words to what I am incapable of stating myself. He also reminds me of Robert Nozick in a way, in that he understands and takes into account all sorts of contingencies and exceptions (although not nearly in as much detail as Nozick), but also isn't too afraid to just dismiss things outright it is proper to do so (although of course not as brusquely and thoroughly as Nozick).

Anyway, the whole idea of deservation, though not explicitly stated in my post about things that have fallen out of favor with me, certainly has, and is perhaps contained between the lines of justice and owing. Largely because of Kaufmann, then, I suppose, but also the other inexorable forces in my life, I can't really get behind the philosophy of people deserving (or not deserving) anything, good or bad. Even things like "Those who would sacrifice their liberty for security deserve neither" really smack of vengefulness and spite to me, two things that I have absolutely no place for anymore. I'm not sure I feel as strongly that this is because we can't be held to be the originating source of any of our actions or inclinations as Flanagan says, but I suppose that must be a part of it. It does, of course, make it difficult to formulate any theory, then, of proper social or governmental action, but I don't know if I can take it for granted that that is necessary or even desirable.

So there's all this hoopla that comes from our giant heads, and difficult births, and helpless infants, and how this lets us have language, and writing, and culture, all this exogenetic information. It's all very exciting, of course, but then as time marches inexorably forward, and history happens and knowledge accumulates, it takes more and more time and effort for each person to catch up to civilization. Couple this with the possibility of loss of knowledge with the destruction of specialists or libraries or institutions, and you see why I've long had this interest in making the exogenetic genetic.
I see it as sort of a cyclic thing - we periodically compile all our accumulated information and advancement, and install it into the next generation. Then everyone can be essentially born with the basic knowledge of a (good, or even great) high school (or college, or postdoc) education(s), and start from there. Sure, one will still have to figure out wisdom and experience and how to use this knowledge, but so much time is saved from being absolutely wasted on just memorizing or otherwise learning a huge ever-increasing backlog.
Of course this is probably all but entirely impossible in implementation. Even supposing that the problem of taking some sort of information or fact and encoding it in DNA so that it is consciously known in the brain is entirely solved, the issue of choosing and defining that information probably kills the entire enterprise dead. Maybe some things would be easy to decide, such as how to do basic and even complicated math. It would be useful to maybe encode all sorts of skills, like how to fly a plane or use a lathe, but anything to do with technology, especially technology that involves particular models, would undoubtedly be outdated by the time the kid is old enough to trigger those inherent abilities. Scientific theories are updated and revised and thrown out constantly; as nice as it would have been to have been born knowing quantum mechanics, that would only go so far once this current regime is toppled. And history! History is entirely composed of conflicting accounts and viewpoints, how would one decide what constitutes fact enough to put in our eternally replicating patterns, and how much detail is desirable or possible? How would you pare down what to include and more importantly, who would decide what to filter out?
All the fun sci-fi scenarios come in, though, when you start taking into account the possibilities of genetic mutations; if genes can affect our knowledge, then slight errors can lead to children born 'knowing' false and wild things. And when society is built around the assumption that most people share certain traits/knowledge/skills, then the sorts of disabled or marginalized groups that crop up take on new dimensions (though perhaps these are much more easily resolved.)
But so once you start with this practice, it becomes not as much a method of preserving our species' legacy even if all but one person dies (and even if we all do, another intelligent agent could theoretically extract everything from our remains), but just another method of constantly updating and struggling not to be drowned in the endless tide of growing, changing history and information. Maybe the blank slate is a good idea, and any genetic tinkering we do should just be the boring old-hat idea of making us able to learn better and faster and be harder and stronger. And of course I would love a little gene manipulation that makes people not entirely awful, irrational dicks.

In "The Mind's I", Douglas Hofstadter talks about "the seemingly purposive, selfish, survival-oriented behavior of countries that emerges somehow from the habits and institutions of their citizens: their educational system, legal structure, religions, resources, style of consumption and level of expectations, and so on. .. The component individuals of organizations - secretaries, workers, bus drivers, executives, and so on - have their own goals in life, which, one might expect, would come into conflict with any high-level entity of which they formed a part, but there is an effect (which many students of political science would regard as insidious and sinister) whereby the organization co-opts and exploits these very goals, taking advantage of the individuals' pride, need for self-esteem, and so on, and turning them back to its own profits. There emerges from all the many low-level goals a kind of higher-level momentum that subsumes all of them, that sweeps them along and thereby perpetuates itself." (p 191-2)

The large-scale results of summing many infinitesimal actions are integral to any consideration of affecting any Change. What concerns me is that the small-scale, individual actions/intentions may not at all equal or be reflected in the large-scale effects. So not only is it incredibly difficult to create classical-level actions from the quantum level, but those actions may be highly unpredictable or undesirable. I am often overwhelmed and disheartened by this difficulty or seeming impossibility. Even if I were able to somehow manipulate large numbers of people into acting any one way, there's no telling whether the results would be satisfying. Whenever some new technology comes about, and changes the way everyone does something. It always seems like such a great idea, especially if it's convenient or makes life easier, but then what actually happens when the majority of people implement such a life-improving activity has, of course, far-reaching and subtle consequences. This is why we have sci-fi.

For a while I sort of had in the back of my head the idea of somehow using the way people naturally are to my own advantage - providing incentives, psychological manipulation, that sort of thing. Except there seems to be a subtle difference between *using* a person's tendencies, and working *with* them, and I think I much prefer the latter. And it seems far too large for my head to be able to figure out what would be a good way to live, and a friendly and non-sinister method of achieving it, that also has no nasty repercussions. So I'm left with only chipping away in small bits (if that, even), with unsatisfactory and unpredictable results.

I am somewhat alarmed by both the frequency of and the perceived laudability of the desire to Change the World. It seems obvious that the world does, in fact, need changing or improvement, and as I get older I become more skeptical of things that seem obvious. It may very well be true, but the supposed obviousness of something often makes it difficult to come up with reasonable justifications not based upon that very self-evidence. So even if we can all agree that there is "too much" suffering in the world, moving on from there to some sort of actual vision of what is preferred is difficult enough, let alone coming up with a realistic or acceptable method of accomplishing it.

There's this element of arrogance, of imposing your ideology and ideas upon others, involved in setting out to Change the World. Some amount of condescension in thinking other people need to be saved. Thinking that somehow, you've got it figured out, you know better than everyone else, and if only you could get people to do/behave/change/think differently, things would be better. Even the very idea of wanting to change things, change others, feels rather domineering, and decidedly non-Buddhist, and otherwise distasteful to me.

There's also this issue of how every now and then, someone will figure out what The Problem with the world is. Once you've narrowed the cause of all human suffering down to one particular thing, the solution is inherent in the problem. As if there is one particular thing, and one thing only, and one particular solution, and one thing only. Beware of anybody who has figured out what The Problem is!

So we all have our own ideas about what is actually wrong, and what to do about it, and I imagine many of them conflict with each other, and a good deal of them may be incorrect and possibly harmful. And yet, one can't not want to do something, have something done, somehow have things be better, people be happier. Things can always be better, right? It's certainly nigh-unacceptable for them to remain the same. But the problem, at least on an individual level, becomes somehow funneling your energies to something productive, something that *will* have positive effects, and not just engendering the *feeling* that you're helping. It's better to die heartbroken and in despair that you haven't done enough and be mistaken, than to die satisfied that at least you put in your best effort when that satisfaction is the best thing you brought about. Soothing my conscience is the least important thing, and yet it might be the only thing I actually can do, especially when paralyzed by doubts about the very premise of wanting to 'fix' or 'save' or 'change' the world.

I guess really the only plan of action I've been able to come up with so far, given all these terrible gnawing uncertainties, is to release an infovirus that'll *make* everybody agree with my vision of what is wrong and would be desirable and how to do it, and then I guess everything else will just fall into place.

I'll be in my underground synthetic biology lab if anybody needs me.

"A multi-agent system can also be seen as a loosely coupled network of problem solvers that work together on problems that may be beyond the scope of any of the agents individually (Durfee and Lesser 1989).
The problem solvers of a multi-agent system, besides being autonomous, may also be of heterogeneous design. Based on analysis by Jennings, Sycara, and Wooldridge (]998), there are four important characteristics of multi-agent problem solving. First, each agent has incomplete information and insufficient capabilities for solving the entire problem, and thus can suffer from a limited viewpoint. Second, there is no global system controller for the entire problem solving. Third, the knowledge and input data for the problem is also decentralized, and fourth, the reasoning processes are often asynchronous."
-Artificial Intelligence, George F Luger

If we consider a human to qualify as one of the autonomous problem-solving agents, then this is what I desire to create. The heterogeneity is a key component that I feel that many people with perhaps somewhat related intentions forget.

What makes me a little sad is that I have all these desires and ambitions, things that I want to *happen*, and although I occasionally get it in my head that maybe I actually *will* try very hard, and that maybe things actually *will* be different this time, I pretty much know that I'm not going to have much if anything to do with creating the sorts of technologies and advances and ideas and changes that I want. I'm not going to make any significant contributions to AI or brain emulation or longevity or DNA programming, or to any sort of autonomous non-decidophobic movement, and probably not even really any minor ones. Yes, I know that having that sort of attitude is certainly going to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy, but there's also merit in being realistic once in a while. That isn't the problem so much as this sort of dreadful, impossible to extirpate Manicheanism that drives me to assume that since I can't or won't be doing anything huge, then I won't be doing anything at all and that I'm useless and everything I do is shit that doesn't matter. Without getting into the impossible morass of something mattering, I can at least find something relatively satisfying to spend my time doing. And that is to build a multi-agent parallel processor out of humans.

I think I actually feel more like I am 25 than I have felt that I was any of the earlier ages when I was them. Which means that I feel old and useless, while at the same time young and foolish. Which is how I have felt since at least 15, although perhaps now the oldness is a little stronger, and the youngness feels maybe slightly less acceptable. But I have been intensely aware of age and youth, which, I gather, not everybody is.

I feel like we have been working largely on extending childhood. This is, of course, neither good nor bad, but has elements of both. Biologically, we're ready to have children at puberty, but culturally and mentally, we're not until at least 18 or 19, probably more like 30 or 60. It's a little strange to me, in light of recent studies on teenage neurology that show that it's not only that our culture doesn't prepare teenagers to be mature and responsible by puberty, but that there is actually a distinct biochemical difference in teenage brains that makes them more impulsive, or fickle, or whatever it is that makes them so eerily unhuman.

But anyway, it used to be perfectly natural and expected and common for people to start reproducing and whatnot by 18 or 20. When that happens now, we find it to be almost tragic. It seems perfectly reasonable for someone to remain partially or significantly reliant on their parents until at least 22 or 23, and it's even required for a person to count their parents' income on the FAFSA until age 25. Now, being financially independent is only one aspect of adulthood, same with reproduction, but they're both indicators of the sort of responsibility and general competence that makes one an adult, a state of being that I find both mysterious and terrifying.

I guess it's a good thing to have the responsibility of an adulthood, but what terrifies me is the expectation that I would. And while it's silly to think that there's anything wrong with maintaining aspects of childhood at any age, like video games or toys, it seems dissatisfying to me, because these things do nothing to savor or retain the things about childhood that need to be preserved, such as wonderment and creativity. Not many adults who have action figures actually *play* with them, creating worlds and characters and stories. And the worst part is that even if we manage to recreate some remnant of the imagination and enthusiasm of youth, our brains are still less flexible and bogged down with our years of preconceptions. I guess I just wish that the precious time we have where we get to not be expected to do shit that's no fun wasn't the same time when it was pressingly necessary to devote ourselves to learning and practicing before it was too late and our rate of learning slowed down by several orders of magnitude. I want my Anton's Key!

"The truth of the matter is that things are and always have been terrible."

-Walter Kaufman, Without Guilt & Justice

Apparently George Bernard Shaw said this:
"Ibsen's message to you is: If you are a member of society, defy it! If you have a duty, violate it! If you have a sacred tie, break it! If you have a religion, stand on it instead of crouching under it! If you are bound by a promise or an oath, cast them to the winds! If the lust of self-sacrifice seizes you, wrestle with it, as with the devil! And if, in spite of all, you cannot resist the temptation to be virtuous, go drown yourself before you have time to waste the lives of all about you with the infections of that disease! Here, at last, is a call to arms that has some hope in it!"

Sure makes me want to read him!

Add to that this passage from Bertrand Russell's essay, 'On Catholic and Protestant Skeptics':
"I remember in Japan coming across a Buddhist sect in which the priesthood was hereditary. I inquired how this could be since in general Buddhist priests are celibate; nobody could inform me, but I at last ascertained the facts in a book. It appeared that the sect had started from the doctrine of justification by faith and had deduced that so long as the faith remained pure, sin did not matter; consequently, the priesthood all decided to sin, but the only sin that tempted them was marriage. From that day to our own the priests of this sect have married but have otherwise lived blameless lives. Perhaps if Americans could be made to believe that marriage is a sin they would no longer feel the need for divorce. Perhaps it is of the essence of a wise social system to label a number of harmless actions "Sin" but tolerate those who perform them. In this way the pleasure of wickedness can be obtained without harm to anyone. This point has been forced upon me in dealing with children. Every child wishes at times to be naughty, and if he has been taught rationally, he can only gratify the impulse to naughtiness by some really harmful action, whereas if he has been taught that it is wicked to play cards on Sunday, or, alternatively, to eat meat on Friday, he can gratify the impulse to sin without injuring anyone. I do not say that I act upon this principle in practice; nevertheless, the case of the Buddhist sect which I spoke of just now suggests that it might be wise to do so."

It's an interesting and charming idea, but not one I would ultimately support implementing. It is, however, relevant to some of my recent thoughts, which are pretty much about the need to rebel and dissent, and and how to channel that for good in a society where you're raising people to not be afraid of things that don't exist, like sin.

"Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos at large. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind have any existence at all." -H.P. Lovecraft

HOT!

I'm not much of a human chauvinist, as you may well know. As one I can't help but find them to be interesting and relevant, but I'm not attached to remaining decidedly 'human.' I'd turn us over to the alien overlords in a heartbeat if it meant creating something bigger and greater. As is discussed in this fantastic article, not only are humans not anything particularly important evolutionarily, they're also not really a distinct, unified thing. I care much more about things that are much more enduring beyond humanity, although for the time being and to my present knowledge, those things mostly involve humans anyway.

'The tensions between security and adaptability, between social order and social experiment, are encapsulated in the idea of utopia. In a utopia, social structure takes the place of the messiah or the mechanical God as a means of protecting man from the unpleasant facts of the real universe. Adaptability is not needed, because every conceivable problem has been taken care of. In most imaginary utopias rigid social control is a necessity, because men have a distressing tendency, when left to themselves, to fall away from the "perfect" norm. Herbert observes that utopian writers "turn to more and more planning, a pervasive planning- octopus which reaches deeper and deeper into the individual life."'
-Tim O'Reilly, Frank Herbert

That's pretty much the opposite of what I imagine when I think of any sort of utopia I might actually be aiming toward. I mean, I don't actually aim for a utopia, per se, but I'd certainly like to strive always towards a better method of living and a reduction of suffering and increase of happiness. And since social structure will inevitably* exist as long as there is a society, then there are going to be more effective or better social structures. But 'rigid' or 'social control'? That's the opposite of utopia. The only way to get anything remotely resembling a utopia (which wouldn't actually exist) is to have every single individual be empowered, and have everyone, and as a result the society as a whole, be adaptable. Every time someone makes up a "utopia" it turns out to be a dystopia, because they're just feeding different variables into the same equation.

Luckily, that is exactly what the rest of the chapter goes on to demonstrate is what Frank Herbert is saying:

'The holders of power in this world have not awakened to the realization that there is no single model of a society, a species, or an individual. There are a variety of models to meet a variety of needs. They meet different expectations and have different goals. The aim of that force which impels us to live may be to produce as many different models as possible.'

Because Frank Herbert is** a genius. This statement in particular, endears me to him:
'Herbert has a profound distrust of those very ideas that are most appealing to him.'
It also reassures me, because I tend to share that distrust, which I think is healthy. Although in my case, I tend to acknowledge the distrust and then just barrel on forward anyways, but that is another story.


*Is it actually inevitable? Discuss.
**I say 'is' instead of 'was' because Frank Herbert has transcended time and space and become eternity.

Promises. I mean, I'll do my best, but you have to take into account a changing situation and my lack of ability to predict the future. Some things just don't apply after a while.

Likewise, loyalty. This has actually never sat easily with me. It is usually meant to apply to a particular person or group or state or whatever, and I always wonder what exactly it is that makes you loyal to someone, and if that changes, then are you really obligated to maintain your loyalty to them?

Justice, a la Walter Kaufmann. The best way to get a fawning, impressionable young person to accept you as their bible is to simply tell them what they already believe in more eloquent terms.

Owing somebody or something. You can certainly appreciate that you would not have gotten wherever or however you are without the means bestowed on you by some method or way of thinking or person, but I don't think it follows that you have to stick to that for the rest of your goddamn life.

Money. I've never been really into money, but I don't mean that we need to go back to the barter system or whatever. I certainly understand its use as an incentive, and the value of competition and whatnot, but I'd really like for it to be different than it is. See also my previous post linking to Douglas Rushkoff.

Self-hatred. 'Cause, fuck it, I've got better things to do than not be a horrible and insufferable person.

I'm sure there are plenty more widely held views that I have not ascribed to for a long time, and more that are relatively new, and many that I am still working on, so maybe there'll be a part II someday.

"History has demonstrated the absurdities to which man descends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions," the pope said in an open-air Mass in the Czech Republic.

Oh? Has it? Such as what? And these were all fundamentally different and worse than God-related absurdities?

In unrelated news, I listened to another TTBOOK episode today, this one lamenting the dumbing down of America from not reading books. I have mixed feeling about this sentiment. I certainly get the impression that education practically doesn't exist anymore, and I've found myself up against an insurmountable and ineffable barrier when I try to level with people who don't read books. But I do sort of get the sense that there is an element of hysterical, elitist traditionalist hand-wringing going on here.

I still have no trouble finding people who are as voracious and adamant about reading as I am. There are all sorts of websites and subcultures set up around it. It's not everyone, clearly only a subset of most of the world, but is that really new? Are the numbers of book readers decreasing? And if so, what are they doing instead? Partly, we just have more options than books. There is a ton of stuff to read on the internet, multiple ways of gathering information and ideas and experiencing stories or carrying out thought experiments or learning or what have you. And much of that stuff is valuable.

Some of the hoopla has to do with the way we think and read is changing. Attention span is certainly a factor. A book can take days to read, and in that period you have the chance to let all the thoughts and ideas percolate throughout your brain and life, and it becomes intricately interwoven with many other things you are doing and thinking about, instead of just being one little nugget that you picked up for a minute. On the podcast they talk with a neuroscientist who is concerned because of the amazing sorts of ways that your brain works as you read. And I think that it is important to encourage these ways of thinking, and these pathways in your brain, to grow, but I also don't think it's necessarily the case that just because now our brains are being configured differently that that is bad. There will be some trade-offs, and some loss of some positives, but if you've read enough books about history and the human brain and society and thought about it with your amazing powers of book-enabled deep thinking, you might realize that everything has a trade off as technologies and societies change.

And every now and then you also get a creeping sense that people think that the end of physical, paper books means somehow the end of reading of books. I am very fond of books themselves, and will be sad to see them become a rare novelty, but the thing about a book, in the sense of it being a novel or the non-fiction equivalent or whatnot, is that it is not a physical object. It is a collection or words or ideas, an abstract, non-physical thing, and that will continue. Books, unlike humans, exist independently of their bodies. Now I love books dearly, and I do so want for them to continue to be read, but I also understand and accept, you know, sociological transformation and change. I think people will still read books, but even more, I believe that the underlying value I get from them will continue to exist and be gotten, in whatever guise.

"Are you suggesting that this corporate age that we live in is to some degree responsible for our current economic crisis?"
"The corporate age that we live in *is* the current economic crisis."

Zing! Good one, Douglas Rushkoff! He says more things that please me over here.

So I read this article about how Facebook ruins friendships. Given the data presented in it, however, I do not draw the same conclusion as the author. What I conclude is that she has boring friends. Facebook in itself, like any tool or technology, is neutral. Wonderful things can happen through the magic of the internet. But it also provides people with the opportunity to reveal their inner histrionic, boring selves. Most of my friends, and this includes all you lovely readers, very rarely if ever have inane or meaningless drivel on their facebook pages, either from not spending all their waking hours on facebook or from being actually interesting people with worthwhile things to say.

Saw 9 yesterday. I think I can manage to discuss some of the issues and ideas it made me think about without giving too much away. And don't expect me to have any points, either.


I think we like to have a protagonist in a story, not just to have someone to focus on, but in order for us to put ourselves into it. In order to make sense of events, we need to have a narrative, even though there really aren't any naturally occurring narratives, just many events. And in order to understand and care about a narrative, it needs to have something to do with us. Hence the propensity towards main characters and limited perspectives. Of course this makes the most sense if the story is about a particular person's trials and actions, but as the background and universe being portrayed becomes more complex and part of the story itself, the main character is less important and more just an anchor to allow us to figure out how to deal with the universe.

As I get more and more old and cantankerous, I have less and less patience for tired old conflicts. Sure, depending on how it's done and how important and personal the conflict is to me I can certainly appreciate and enjoy it, but there's always a twinge of boredom or exasperation whenever the same old fight is fought. Movies are probably the worst for this, although it happens often enough in other media and in real life. In this case, the ancient battle between the dangers of curiosity and the importance of safety through sameness. I think we've all seen this tired old argument trotted out again and again, almost invariably with between the peppy young hero who's championing the acquisition of new knowledge and change, and the stodgy old chief who is almost suicidally resistant to absolutely everything different in the name or tradition or safety. These are caricatures that bolster the conclusion that we can all pretty much agree on, so it's a pointless battle, and at the expense of pretending like the other side doesn't have any valid points to make. It's not that being conservative or cautious is entirely stupid or bad, it's that there is a trade off that most, but not everyone, is willing to make. It would be far more interesting to actually address the implications of the trade off then to just pit two imaginary straw men against each other. There's a lot of semi-modern themes, like the little guy against the big corporation, that I think by now have outlived their usefulness, but that continue to be played out again and again as if there's a new point being made. And it's not just themes in movies or stories; I am also tired of having to deal with basic issues that I think we all have (or should have by now) moved past, in real life.

You might have heard that I am a little bit pro-science. I think science is great! But I have this fear that many other people do not realize this, and see science as one singular system, so that when it goes wrong, they think that science is the problem. Now! There is a legitimacy to trying not to solve a problem by just doing the same sort of thing that started it. I think Fight Club said something to this effect, but it was probably a little misogynous. But there is also something to be said for working within the framework that something exists in, and also using the tools you have. A lot of deciding what part of what doesn't work needs to be thrown out is heavily dependent on defining your terms. 'Science' or 'technology' are incredibly broad, so if you say that it was 'science!' that brought us to this terrible place of being enslaved by horrible killer robots, that does not mean that the way to defeat them is to get rid of anything that smacks of the last 50,000 years of human technology and rely entirely on prayer sticks and the human spirit. Again, this idea works not just for anti-science sentiment (although that one seems to be the most popular to wildly misuse), but for any situation where you have to decide if the problem lies in the very basis of what is happening, or the mental framework you are looking at it from, or what.

Even when I'm totally enraptured and enjoying a movie (which I totally was), I can't stop thinking about what they're doing and saying and why. I never understand dialogue in movies whenever there is some sort of urgent action required. I always explain it to myself by saying it's because people function differently in pressing moments than I think makes sense just sitting there quietly and comfortably, but that's never quite satisfactory. I guess what I'm trying to say is I would never make it in any stressful situation because I wouldn't be starting from the same assumptions and mindsets that absolutely everybody in the universe is apparently born with. Why is this just 'something you have to do'? Where did these 'rules' come from? Wait, I think we need to assess the larger situation and not just react to this one momentary development. It'll save us time and trouble later. I guess I'm just not cut out for being thrown into a strange and dangerous situation.

None of these are meant to be complaints about the movie itself, as I think a lot of it was dealt with quite well and even if not, well, who cares. I don't need one adorawesome movie to be the answer to everything I've come to grow suspicious of over the years.

From the last week or so, backwards through time.

(1) I'm sorry, but no matter how much you insist otherwise i stand by my original statement that paula abdul is TERRIBLE
(2) Dan Brown, ladies and gentlemen, am I right?
(3) It wouldn't have been nearly so hard to get through work today if i had known that afterwards i would be handed a white russian to tide me over until the grill is ready.
(2) Smack her on the ass. They like that.
(1) Downloading janet jackson to listen to at work is the second best idea Ive ever had
(4) Did you, sir, realize that Batman is not, in fact a hero?

(2) "between a rock and a heart place"
(5) Bene gesserit ftw!
(2) I want to starfuck mcchris
(2) I dont have my finger on the pulse of punks!
(2) Womenomics

(2) yes because frank herbert was about to find god, and kill him.
(2) Why did frank herbert have to die?
(2) Hells yeah! Also a whistling medley of 30% of all the songs there are.
(2) You know whats really amazing when youre high?
(2) So apparently one thing i do when high is extoll the virtues of hip-hop

I don't like it when the emotions I feel seem to be largely a function of my age. It makes them seem illegitimate to me, even though, being emotions, they sure feel genuine. And then it also makes me feel like it reflects poorly on my person, showing that I am, in fact, immature and meriting no respect.

In the interests of keeping my phone's memory cleared, but also of perpetuating my aggrandizing sense of self, and also as a means of dealing with my jealousy of textsfromlastnight.com, I am going to publish many of the texts I send here on my blog. These are only the texts that I sent, starting with the most recent and moving backwards to the beginning of the period in question. A few that only say things like "yep" without contributing to the story, that I feel are too boring or contain too much identifying information, or that are otherwise unpublishable, have been left out, and the recipients have been numbered to help you identify which people actually had anything else to do other than stimulate my need to constantly text about everything.*

(1)'preference' what a great name for a cheap brand of toilet paper
(2)I like how 'pervasive language' is a cause for a bad rating; all those movies without any communication are so much better for children
(2) No i think you didnt understand two out of the three key words i used
(2) The multiplayer ds game for tween girls
(1) two amazing finds at wal-nart: mini plateamescs skateboards you can deck out and a tin lunchbox shaped and with a zipper like a backpack
(2) All of history has been leading up to L.O.L.

(2) Sorry, bootie.
(2) During foot sex?
(2) Seriously what the shit
(3) What are the chances that the secret guy in metalocalypse is based on the creepy klingon high judge in star trek vi
(2) I am going to murder someone and its pretty likely that person likes star trek
(2) Im trying to keep up with all these interstellar politics
(2) Man why ou gotta tell me now while im trying to watch this terrible star trek movie
(2) I know right?
(2) This star trek movie is ridiculous!
(2) To be fair shes wearing this awesome polka dot dress so she is the most deserving
(2) Oh man i bet but th other girls are jealous that she got the black guy
(2) I have found the happiest straight man- oh shit she was passed off
(1) Did ou make this one up?
(1) Everything will. Eventually. The USSR and the united states did
(1) Doomed to fail against all odds?
(1) Jerk!
(1) What is heliotropism?
(1) Wat!

(2) Zing!
(2) Man whats a girl gotta go to get proper respect round here?
(2) Hot dog! What kind is it and why do you hate it?
(2) Just smoking pot parked outside the hospital is all
(1) Yeah but there was all fucking sorts of other stuff
(1) Theres so goddamn many copies of the naked ape here!
(2) Followed by a gasm that words have difficult capturing
(2) I just had a fantastic nerdgasm
(1) If sharlton copley doesnt get best actor i am officially ending mankind
(1) I already took thyroid supplements it was crap

(2) Does that mean you are not going to share with him or that you are going to have sex with him or both
(2) You and or he clearly need to get on drugs
(1) I am sorry for your loss
(1) Kelley is the person who holds the key to the pants cabinet then? That seems like a weird setup
(1) Yeah id be too busy to worry about it. You mean you shivered from sheer disgust at how bad the movie was?
(1) I bet id feel like much less of a fuckup if i got laid a lot more
(2) Thats cause you dont use eclipse (R) carrying cases
(2) Seriously though have you tried those eclipse gum things, the containers are unbelievably perfect portable kit



*If you are one of the recipients of these texts and feel that I am violating your privacy, or depleting our shared experience of special meaning by utilizing it in such a way, please let me know and I will remove the offending texts, even at the expense of art, because I care about your feelings more than I do about expressing universal, transcendental human experiences. Jerk.

Today's post is sponsored by Victoria's Secret's contest "What do you love about your body?" Tell us why you love your body and upload a picture. The prize? A "3-day body pampering getaway for 2 to NYC!" You have approximately 95 minutes to stop me from entering with something to the effect of "I love that my body can give me orgasms!"