Just got around to looking at This, haven't read the actual paper, but it seems pretty legit. Scares me, stresses me out, and seems to make sense... if the solutions are really what they say they are, it's gonna be hard if we want to hold things together, 'cause there's no way the Feds can get away with drastic wealth redistribution measures, nor do I think that would be a good idea, really.

If change needs to happen, what needs to change are people's minds. Enlightened, emotionally strong people are the only people who are able and/or willing to give up luxuries for the sake of keeping shit from hitting the fan. I'd say we need to redouble our efforts on education, at the very least.

After getting a new job recently, I've been thinking a lot about wealth, and I've come to the conclusion that once I have enough to live comfortably, I should give ALL the rest away. I'm not quite sure how to do that, or what it will look like, but it seems clear to me that luxury is something none of us can afford right now, given the big picture.

We need to move in this direction, we need to build momentum in this way.

One thing that really frightens me about the collapse of civilization is how much I depend on the high complexity of our modern economy to thrive. I have no illusions about my mental illness; I rely heavily on the miracle of modern psychiatry to stay sane. If society collapses to the point where the knowledge and/or facilities to produce this medication are lost, I don't know what I'd do, except pray that those who call modern mental illness a product of our hyper-distracted times are right.

We are a strong people. I like to think of the United States as a skyscraper designed to be earthquake-proof: in difficult times we must be able to bend without breaking. We must be able to change drastically without having to tear everything down and start over. The founding fathers expected there to be revolutions, although they could not see what revolutions two centuries later would be like. We must find out what it will look like, and take the chance before it's too late. The longer we wait, the more rigid the girders become, the more destructive the change will be. Destruction means loss, loss of life. Suffering, confusion, desperation.

True maturity is to recognize that while sacrifice right now may seem unnecessary and painful, it is small sacrifice to make in order to save what is truly valuable. We must be wise enough to see what is truly valuable, and courageous enough to cling to it, leaving the rest behind. We must see that true strength in ourselves, and in each other, and hang on.

What does revolution look like to you? What do you think about radical wealth distribution, on a personal scale? Maybe I shouldn't buy that new computer. Maybe I should give the money that was going into my pension into a charity.

Dismantling our modern world in an orderly fashion is preferable to burning it down, IMO. Is that really necessary, and how to go about it?

Sharing material wealth is important, because it helps us all have enough. Sharing stories is equally important, because it connects us to each other, helps us see ourselves in others. By seeing ourselves in others, we no longer see each other as quite so foreign. It is the duty of the artist to use their talent to facilitate that connection.

Book Museum

"I have always imagined that heaven would be some kind of library." 

-Jorge Luis Borges

...so LeVar Burton must be God, right? 

So sometimes my brain gets high on life and starts trying to make connections between stuff. This evening, I get home from work, and I see the above quote on my iGoogle. And the first thing that my brain thinks of is example number two from below. And then I keep thinking about it, and the other two examples come up! YAY So good at finding patterns! Even when there are none!!! Anyways... that's why I'm writing it down so YOU can decide! Am I solving a problem like Maria here? Or am I building my house on the rock?

Disclaimer 1: As you may have noticed, I've referenced a Bible verse already. I will be referencing other stuff like that later. I'm not a theologian and this little rant isn't evangelical or spiritual at all. It just so happens that western culture is influenced greatly by Christian theology, and I was really into church when I was young, so I know a lot of Bible stuff. I'm referencing it here as a culturally important tome, not as anything else. And I'm not gonna lie, I do have a guilty pleasure in referencing the Bible because our mostly secular culture strangely still gives stuff like that extra weight (latin-sounding chanting in movie soundtracks, what shows up on TV news, religion-themed magic/fantasy TV shows, books, etc.)

Disclaimer 2: Since this isn't an official paper for school or anything, I'm not tracking down direct citations beyond my own knowledge and Wikipedia. I imagine that there is only enough significance here to warrant a little, "hmm, that's interesting," not to back up a graduate thesis. I found it worth exploring here, hopefully you do as well, and if your "BULLSHIT" alarm starts going off then fine, you don't have to read it.

All righty. Let's get into it. *rolls up sleeves*

Three examples of the idea of heaven as a library, from three different animated TV shows:

First example: Final episode of the anime Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Second example: Episode 47: "Acperience 4" of the anime Eureka Seven. Third example: Episode 10 of Season 2: "The Library" of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Interestingly all could fall under the category of "anime" (even though Avatar: The Last Airbender was made for an American audience and produced in the US, stylistically it is closely related to anime, and in fact the show was produced in close collaboration with a Korean animation studio.)

WARNING!! SPOILERS ABOUND for Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Eureka Seven.

First let's go to the final episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. 

 

Mokoto Kusunagi, our heroine, finally tracks down the "villain" of the show, the hacker behind the "Laughing Man" incident. The show is a sci-fi crime drama that takes place in a world where pretty much everyone has a direct connection to the internet through their brain, allowing all sorts of crazy things to happen, including taking control of other people's bodies, directly sharing memories, and writing computer viruses that cause hallucinations. So it's rather significant that the main antagonist, a super-duper amazing savant hacker, hangs out in a library, or rather, a "Book Museum," as the subtitles show the place is called. So Mokoto ends up here chilling with this guy and they talk about all the stuff that went down.

So why is the library heaven? Well first of all it's called a "Book Museum." In the futuristic cyber-world of Ghost in the Shell, books are literally history. So already we're talking about something that's in the past, that's in a sense, "dead." Dead people go to heaven. Second, the events preceding this meeting involved Mokoto having to fake her own death, which caused her to actually "die," in that her mind was simply floating through the internet like a ghost. Not only that, but in order to meet the Laughing Man, she had to share memories with him, which in the world of the show is very dangerous because there is a possibility of entirely losing one's own individual self, dying in another sense. This second aspect also brings up ideas of an afterlife that I've heard of where an individual becomes at one with the spirits of their ancestors, or one with a deity.

Finally, there's a little bit of visual analysis. The library is depicted as circular, and I have heard that the symbol Ensō, a circle, can be said to represent "enlightenment," which is something that in western cultures we equate with "heaven."  The library is also depicted as golden, awash with sunlight, which brings "heaven" to mind for me. One other tidbit- besides the Laughing Man, there seem to be no other people in the library, only book-sorting robots that putter about busily. The dynamic there seems to me not entirely removed from the idea of God in heaven, with legions of angels that offer songs of praise, never ceasing and never tiring.  

The episode is episode 26, you can use your Google-fu to stream semi-legally it various places, or if you have HuluPlus you can watch it there, and it used to pop up on the AdultSwim website sometimes.

All right let's move on...

"Acperience 4" from Eureka Seven

It's been a bit longer since I've seen this anime, so don't expect this to be super accurate, but I think the connection is there.

Eureka Seven could be simply described as a coming of age story, with some aliens, mechs, and romance. Renton, the young protagonist, an avid "boarder" on this rainbow-wave stuff through the sky, runs away from home and gets caught up with the battle for survival of humanity on this weird planet they landed on thousands of  years ago, which is covered in this weird crust that's kind of alive, called "Scub Coral." The story is told partly as a narration he gives in letters to his sister, Diane, who went missing a few years before the show takes place.

Various adventures later, he ends up fighting the bad guys and crashes on this desert/beach thing. Suddenly he sees a figure in the distance, and from what he can tell, it's Diane! He starts running towards her, and this mirage-thing happens, and then he's in this library sort of place, it's all monochrome, and there are people all over reading books. He sees Diane, who explains what's going on.

****MAJOR SPOILER!!****

Turns out that the planet covered in Scub Coral is in fact Earth. What a tweest, right? The Scub Coral is actually a very intelligent alien race that landed on Earth after the colonists left, and absorbed all sentient life there in order to understand it. The library they are in is sort of the "brain" of this planet-sized organism, which is mostly benevolent, and the people inside the library are the people who got absorbed way back when, as well as a few people who recently stumbled across it, like Diane. They are allowed to exist in this little world, not eating or sleeping, but poring over the vast amount of cosmic knowledge the Scub Coral has.

So! What do we have that makes this library "heaven?"

Well, it is the first place where Renton gets to see his sister, which is a tearful reunion because he loves her very much, and hasn't seen her for years, and in fact worried that she was dead. To me, this all sounds reminiscent of the idea that in heaven, when you die, you are reunited with the loved ones who you had lost. It's even more like heaven in the fact that Diane doesn't exist as a person with a human body anymore, she's basically a spirit within this complex system that appears to her as a huge library.

Also, the Scub Coral Library is also not just some random spirit world, it's created by a vastly huge, benevolent creature with knowledge far surpassing that of all learning collected by humanity. Sounds a bit like the western God, yes? Although it isn't infinite or omni-anything, it is at a large enough scale that I can make the connection, especially when combined with the whole millions of people who are "dead" that chill there for a long time and are basically happy.

Finally, as I mentioned above, the people there don't have to eat or sleep, and they're kind of immortal, having been there for ten thousand years and not seeming to have aged or atrophied.

Unlike Heaven, Renton and the main characters he's with are able to leave and get their bodies back. Then again, Renton and his half-Scub Coral girlfriend Eureka have a pretty messianic role in the whole story, so maybe it fits, since Eureka is sort of lady-alien-jesus.

Now the final example:





"The Library" from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Here's the final example of a library as "heaven." Avatar: The Last Airbender follows the journey of Aang, the messianic boy whose destiny is to bring balance to the world by defeating the rather evil Fire Nation. Along the way, Aang and his companions run into Professor Zei, an archaeologist whose dream and mission is to find the legendary library of Wan Shi Tong, the god of knowledge, said to be curated by the God of knowledge himself. Right away we have a library run by a God, which slightly associates the library with an idea of Heaven. Also, Professor Zei has the zeal and lifestyle of a pilgrim, traveling alone and having singular focus on finding the library.

The library was said to be started by Wan Shi Tong, the god of knowledge, and was accessible to all humans for a time. However, many humans began coming to the library out of a lust for power, using the knowledge to destroy their enemies. At this point Wan Shi Tong shuttered the library and hid it from humans. This story parallels the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, in which God evicts human beings from paradise because of their misbehavior. Although Eden is not Heaven per se, the idea of Heaven only being accessible to the righteous is somewhat echoed in the attitude displayed by Wan Shi Tong when Aang and the others finally encounter him.

With the help of Appa, Aang's flying bison, they are able to locate the library half-buried in the middle of the desert. They enter it, at which point Wan Shi Tong arrives in the form of an enormous owl, and states that because of his mistrust of humans, they must prove that they are only coming to the library out of the love of knowledge. Although this is true for Professor Zei, Aang and his companions mainly joined him out of the hope that the library would show them a way that they could defeat the Fire Nation. On a sidenote, this is such an excellent morally gray area to bring the protagonists into, especially for a children's show, a genre that often relies on very clear cut "good guys" and "bad guys." It is clear that the Fire Nation are bad guys, but how far are our heroes willing to bend the rules of the Gods in order to defeat them? Such a good show.

Anyways, some smooth talking and a show of good will by Aang, the Avatar, convinces the monstrous owl-god to let them peruse, at which point they sneak off and discover a planetarium, which reveals the date of a future solar eclipse. The sun being the source of the Fire Nation's power, this gives them a great chance to overthrow them. Unfortunately, Wan Shi Tong discovers their betrayal, and lengthens his neck in a terrifying manner while chasing them out. Though Aang and his friends escape, Wan Shi Tong buries the library, never to be seen in the human world again. Professor Zei doesn't even try and get out, being so enraptured with the pursuit of knowledge that he plans to spend the rest of his life in the library. Hopefully him and Owl-beast can be study buddies. Interestingly, this end for Professor Zei brings his pilgrim-ish character arc to completion, having earned his way into a legendary spirit realm through purity of intent and dedication. Although it is unclear if Zei will live forever, thematically it has some similarities to the Christian narrative of followers behaving in a prescribed manner with the goal of transcending into a better place once they die, where they will hang out with God and his Angels.

It also is interesting where in the organization of plot in these stories the libraries are encountered. In Ghost in the Shell, our heroine finds the library after the climax and high stakes have been resolved, and has a very personal conversation with the extremely enigmatic and up until now faceless driving force of the entire 26-episode series. This is third-act, resolution stuff. In Eureka Seven, Renton has been writing letters to his sister every day, and has fought many battles including a rather climactic one with his antagonist immediately preceding his familial reunion and entry to the "library." "Acperience 3" is episode 47 of a 51-episode series, so again we're talking about third-act timing. The pattern kind of falls apart with "Avatar," as "The Library" is almost directly in the middle of the series. But, the story of Aang was never building towards this Library, it was not mentioned until this episode. For Professor Zei, a side character for whom the library is Mecca, it occurs at the end of his journey. To me, all of this is in line with the western theologically-based idea of Heaven, it's somewhere you end up at the end.


So, that was the easy part: convincing you that at least in these three examples, libraries are thematically associated with heaven. Here's the real question: if these examples are more than coincidence, and there is something intrinsic about associating Heaven with a Library, where does that association come from? When you read the quote at the top there, did you relate to it? If so, what do libraries and heaven have in common in your mind? If you do not relate, or perhaps if you think a library is the last place you'd call "heavenly," why?

A couple thoughts from me:

• Libraries are full of books, many which were written by people now passed on. It being now impossible to see these people face to face, these books are essential in shaping our idea of the authors in our minds and in our culture. So in a sense, each book is the "soul" of the author. 
• Libraries are quiet
• Through the incredible power of written language, libraries are a place where it is easy to feel as if you are transcending time and place, able to explore worlds that are impossible to create in reality
• For academic/literary/introspective/extra-sensitive people, (the kinds of people who are often poets, artists, culture-makers) a library can be an oasis from the stress and perceived danger of social situations, a refuge, much like heaven is a refuge from the mortal burdens of illness and aging.  

Thanks for reading!

" !!! Doctors don't want you to know these easy tips to (help you love and accept yourself) !!!"

Marketing techniques heavily rely on of the power of social pressure to manipulate consumption. The effects of this abuse are far reaching and devastating. The fact is that socializing and culture are natural, beautiful things that human beings have evolved to help us survive and adapt. We literally can't survive without each other. Abusing the ability to make individuals feel left out and disconnected, is in a sense no different than abusing the natural biological attraction to sugar and fat to cause people to crave your product.

When things like this are pervasive, in certain cases it can induce an unhealthy level of "left-outedness" that in some individuals is so insidious that it impairs their brains from functioning properly. They are never able to escape the feeling that something is wrong with them.

What's tricky, however, is that social pressure, when used responsibly, is also a force for good. It keeps people from acting out in ways that are horribly damaging. It allows the strength and knowledge of one individual be shared to hundreds, even thousands of individuals through technology like writing and music. Social pressure has two forces: a negative force that promotes separation for damaging acts, and a positive force that promotes acceptance and admiration for helpful acts.

Drastic change may not be needed, as long as we listen to the warnings that pop up. Personally, I think that we are very good at diagnosing a disease of the individual, but poor at diagnosing a disease of the conglomerate. Culture is how we know ourselves. Self-expression in cultural ways is immensely healthy and beneficial to everyone, yet opportunity and education to do so effectively is increasingly given disincentive. There is a huge difference between being excellent at art and using it to sell a product, and being excellent at art and using it to say something close to your heart. The first will sell products, which allows people to make money, to afford shelter and nourishment. The second will keep the our minds healthy, nourishing them with insight and knowledge. We need both to survive.

To be honest, there are already signs that the economy is naturally changing as we collectively realize that we need both kinds of nourishment to be healthy. Public outcry is giving corporations and other companies incentives to make their cultural contributions more positive and balanced. It is a difficult task, because the economy is in a sense "addicted" to the profits that come from the use of psychological pressure to get people to be brand loyal and buy certain products. I want to emphasize that it is NOT the profit-seeking that is the issue. Seeking prosperity is a natural thing to value. The system will fix itself if it is given the opportunity to understand what is going on. That's what I think at least. However, these are difficult problems and we are bound to make mistakes. The question is not whether we as a people will learn what we need to know, and implement it, the question is how much will we suffer along the way. To minimize the suffering, we must abandon hate and embrace love. Others have shown the way to use love and courage in the past, to force societal change. However, the way that love and courage emerges to change our society at this point in time may look entirely different. This is because our society has changed, so the way we influence it may change. However, the underlying precepts are the same. Personal courage, non-violence, steadfast determination. Nothing is more challenging than stepping outside the boundaries of the beaten path, and standing strong there. But as past events have shown, it is not impossible, and the rewards are great. 

In addition to all this, in a huge social group like the ones that exist now due to communication technology, it is more and more difficult to get your voice heard. Not only do we need artists who are skilled at expression and communication, we need artists who are knowledgeable enough to get our lazy asses to listen for two seconds. The reason we have such "short" attention spans, is that we biologically evolved to process information from much smaller social groups than the ones we now have access to. We are animals fighting for survival over basic resources like food and water. And we have given birth to a meta-economy where ideas fight for survival over the only thing that sustains them: attention.

Peace love and understanding.

Re: this*
I think what highlights the hatred is the singling out of "generations" and setting them against each other like opposing teams when analyzing them, just like this article does. Once you stop doing that, the hatred disappears.

As a "millenial" myself I think if there is any real "hatred" towards baby boomers, it is misguided and has more to do with resentment that bubbles up when comparing the job markets that recent college grads face now coming out of college, versus the job markets that earlier generations apparently found themselves in. The fact is that we're all in the same job market NOW, we all have to deal with it.

In fact, I've heard from some friends of mine that are closer to retirement age that although they keep their jobs for a long time, they face a steep uphill battle if they happen to get laid off, because in most places, especially in the tech industry, recruiters are much more likely to hire one of the thousands of applicants in their 20's and 30's than someone in their 50's or 60's. This isn't necessarily because the young people are better at the jobs, but simply that the companies don't want to invest too much in human resources that may retire very soon. I guess. I dunno about the reasons, but the fact is that "baby boomers" do face them these difficulties.

Articles like this are held together by trying to highlight a trend. The trends they come up with are supported by studies, but of course only the studies that support the trend/thesis of the article are included, because that strengthens the thesis. They must imply a generational war in that sense, even if one doesn't exist, if they want people to click on the article. This is narrative-driven news, and it is the norm, not the exception.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, because at least it gets people talking. But it also has a tendency towards highlighting things that sell papers/get site visits, which sometimes are less than productive. Especially when articles reinforce or even create societal conflicts or "fights" in the minds of readers, fights that may not even exist. With people constantly inundated with this kind of news, they start to lose the ability to debate in terms of facts, and only are able to have fighting narratives. Suddenly each political issue, be it climate change, abortion, or economics,  is exacerbated almost to the extent that it's more like "Team Jacob vs Team Edward" than it is about public policy and problem solving.

As long as "us vs. them" is more interesting than "we're in this together," that's what media companies have the most incentive to publish. Personally I think "us vs. them" is best left to baseball and fictional TV shows. Still, I confess that I have the luxury of not being in dire straits financially, so I don't have a lot of hatred for older generations, I have the space to look at this one from a distance. I know not everybody has that luxury and I'm not trying to diminish their feelings of hatred, nor the feelings of hatred in response to perceived injury by other parties. I'm just stating my view of things.

So enough understanding and diplomacy. Let's move on to something that really pisses me off... (next post.)

*Once the link is dead, here's what it went to: Yahoo.com article "How Baby Boomers Take Jobs From Younger Workers" by Rick Newman, Posted May 20 2013.

excerpt from a conversation

I get kind of juiced when I think about telling stories that are cutting edge

maybe I'm just young and hyper and want the hype

maybe I have a semi-obsession with video games because they are so immersive to me

I get addicted real fast to video games sometimes

I have to be a bit careful

but anyways

I want to tell stories in new ways, sometimes

and the newest way to tell stories these days is in a game

The difficult thing though, is that people get desensitized.

although hyper-stimulating visually and auditorially and even viscerally through rumble game pads and interactivity,

video games are just as dumb as books, when compared to interacting with a human being

that's why multiplayer games are so successful

BUT

when you are able to calm the visuals down enough to create a peaceful sense,

THEN you can get story in there

heck, you can even get story in there in a fast paced game

More and more, video games are trying to create digital places where the socially stimulating and nourishing experiences we have in the real world all the time, can happen

the excitement of collaboration, of spontaneous or "serendipitous" connection

the cameraderie of shared sufferingt

the fullfillment of sharing a goal or value with another person

***** RE: This Twenty years from now, the CEO of the next "Pixar" may be discussing the seminal chat he had with his artist friends... in a chat room. Unlikely, possibly, because person-to-person communication is so much more efficient and stimulating when you're in the same room, especially sharing a meal. But that's only because of the sensory data that is not transmitted with the telecommunication tech we have at this point.

a little update

16th and S. Van Ness, looking South West. This is on my walk to my new job at MetaSwitch Networks, which I got through my awesome temp agency. My job is working in their warehouse, assembling, testing, and packing the telecommunications hardware they sell. Pretty cool people, neat place- I have to admit that when I first came into the office/warehouse and saw their lab and the ESD safety protocols, the first thing that jumped into my head was that it was a place where something unexpected and supernatural would happen in a sci-fi movie.

Public art on the walls of the 16th and Mission BART station. Walking from work to BART tonight, all of the conversations I overheard were in Spanish.

Here are a couple sketches I did on my phone on the ride home: 

I'm super stoked about life right now, a load of awesome things are going on. I have a steady, well-paying and not mind-numbingly boring day job, I'm back involved in Theater (working backstage for The Farnsworth Invention at Town Hall Theatre in Lafayette, CA), Dad helped me fix my bed frame, so now it doesn't sink in the middle anymore, and I'm starting to do a bit of dating.

The Niners lost the Super Bowl, which is sad. But on the bright side, I found friends to watch it with and cheer and boo and everything, instead of having to watch it at the bar like I did for the World Series.

Colleen P's post about religion.

My opinion is that theology is simply a projection of internal struggles. Spirutuality occurrs naturally in people, and abstraction of morality is a natural tactic to try and optimize the good and minimize the bad in life. The Christian theological framework is not developed in a vacuum, fully formed in the mind. It forms within the context of spiritual feelings. When removed from the psychology of spirituality, theology makes little to no sense, it is, as you said, "absurd."

However, I think pointing out the logical absurdity of theology will not get you far in convincing people to abandon it, as scientific facts can seem equally as absurd when veiwed from an emotional/superstitious point of view. Logic is a newer way of looking at things, and it may very well be better, but no matter how much an individual studies logic, they cannot remove emotions from their worldview, short of surgery.

Human beings are both emotional and rational. A religious worldview emphasizes the emotional and adds logic in later: belief first, then theology. Science takes the logical approach first, emotional later: first you test the equation, then you call it poetic.

For example, you mention an interesting example of a scientific thought that is also emotional: physics easing existential dread: the fact that we are "star stuff," made of heavier elements that were formed in supernovae billions of years ago. But realize that although it comes from scientific fact, this is kind of an "appeal to imagination," because it is a random fact, that's all. It carries special meaning only when applied to a human being whose biology has led him to fear the unknown and his own subsequent insignificance, causing him to imagine that the uniqueness of a star in the void of space is somehow transferred to him because he is made of things that were created in stars.

But now I read your post i realize you didn't mean it in that context, so maybe that whole point is moot.

What

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that science is no better than religion. Science has a good track record in healing great amounts of human suffering and providing insight into how the world, including humanity, works. The pursuit of knowledge and the constant questioning and doubting encourages adaptabiliy in a way that religion doesn't seem to do. It addresses dangerous shortcomings of how we naturally view the world.

A better understanding of how religion works on a personal level may help you if you wish people to not feel offended by your comments. 

Thank you for posting because it's giving me the opportunity to reexamine my beliefs.

philosophy

I originally wrote this like, a month ago and didn't post it 'cause I wasn't sure if it was worth posting. I just reread it and here it is.


So maybe Spotify is better, but Pandora is leaving me somewhat non-plussed. I'm listening to Cool Jazz Radio, but they seem to be filtering out any song longer than 4 minutes. Seriously, I have a longer attention span than that.

It's not bad, it's just not as good as it purports to be. No substitute for a good DJ, or a record store.
I mean, think of how specific a database query can be. Would if I could do that with an online music collection? "Computer, find 25 songs from the genre "Jazz," that has >50 but <100 five star reviews, that was from either Blue Note or Colombia, recorded between June 1965 and April 1972."
Statistics and Data Analysis lead to many insightful findings in science. Couldn't these same tools be used to benefit the arts?

IF emotional state is the main factor causing action, and IF art is the best way to affect someone's emotions, AND art could be scientifically controlled to produce a chosen result...

To cause change in someone's life through a piece of art, you need to have the right combination of things: the internal state, that is the state of the person's mind and emotions, and the external inputs, that is, the information that the person's senses pick up. That's all that's really happening right? Would if we knew as much about that interaction as we did about interactions of chemicals? Obviously right now it's impossible, because there is no way to be accurate enough about measuring the internal state. But we can do much to measure the external state.

I mean, why do we keep science out of the arts? Forget writing art about people doing science, I'm talking about scientifically analyzing great works of art! Forty people go into a dark room and experience a bunch of stuff on the stage for about two hours. TWO HOURS and the course of their entire lives could be drastically changed, they may even change dramatically as people, that is, they may become something else. I'm taking these assumptions based on the self-evaluations that I've heard from people who have seen plays, and from my own observations of myself and others. I mean, they're not scientific observations, so they may be worthless, but doesn't the phenomena at least require more specific study?

Some scientists are already doing this, using active MRI scans on people listening to music, seeing movies, etc. I think more could be done, however.

Now here's the science fiction part: Would if we were able to reliably understand and control the outcomes of artistic experiences (between an individual and a stimulus) with the same accuracy as we can understand and control chemical reactions?

Not only could you make someone think or feel anything you wanted at any given time, you could change them into entirely different people (internally). Would if you could cure depression by showing someone a painting? Having them listen to a song?

-Miracle gun: can create the feeling of divine presence in anyone within 15 yards. 99% effective.
-how about this: a lump of intelligent material that can change its form into something that will infuriate whomever is looking at it. It can only do this for one person at a time, and it doesn't work on blind people.

Of course, if you want to be able to provoke any response possible, you'd need something like the Ultimate Holodeck. It would have to be like a programmable universe, that can create any type of sensory stimulus possible for any required amount of time.

You'd also need the Ultimate Tricorder, which would be a device capable of determining the state of all the relevant internal mechanisms of the subject in the Holodeck, hyper-accurately, as they happen, especially their neural connections and brain chemistry.

Of course, both those devices would have to be limited by the laws of physics, especially the current limits on how accurately you can manipulate or observe matter. I'm also assuming that a person is a closed system, that all aspects of the self are able to be determined from a body. I am also assuming that everything that is important to governing a person is measurable and able to be affected.

We already know that it is very difficult for people to change. Most people go their entire lives without changing very much on a deep level. Would if it was a lot easier to change people, all other factors remaining?

With great power comes great responsibility. And I'd say that as a species, our power has increased significantly over the past few hundred years, and we have already done things that have had drastic unintended consequences.

Will our power keep increasing? Will our understanding increase with it?

A narrative that I have been taught is the narrative of power increasing faster than understanding. That is, we usually have the ability to alter something before we have the understanding of how it works. And I suppose that's how it must be.

If we can never know everything,
and all things are connected,
then whenever we understand something enough to alter it,
we are ALSO altering things we don't understand.

long time no post

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Yay pragmatism!

Here's a little quick post just illustrating my own hypocrisy, or I guess you could call it a change in attitude over the course of time.

I wrote this little stub a long while ago (Not quite sure when, blogger software only keeps one date for drafts: the date last viewed.)

"Entrepreneurshit"


This  is what set me off.

Yes. That is what a real education is. How to bullshit people and get away with it. How to take something that has no value, convince people that it has value and to pay you for it. Fuck trying to find out what things in life are truly valuable. All you really need to do is convince people that you are valuable. 

Thanks for telling us all about your wonderful college experiences Scott. That was so cool how you got people to think that you were taking their opinions into account, but really weren't, when you were writing their "constitution." They were dumb enough or didn't care enough to call you out on it, so who cares? At least you're making money on it. You're being efficient. 

Now, here's another more recent stub: 

Smart people go to jobs that will make them money, and improve those companies, which in turn attracts more smart people, feedback loop

that could be broken by putting more money into important industries that need more help, like education, science and the arts

hell, maybe it's our education that's the problem, teaching us to care about stuff that won't be useful in 90% of the jobs we might hold

Notice especially the last bit there. Haha. 

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR POST IS ABOUT!!!!

This is kind of a repost, as I wrote it on facebook, but I'm very proud of it and I got a lot of positive feedback.

My friend from college Drew Gorham was originally a music major, and he changed over to philosophy, and on his wall he posted on of those "photo/caption" chain letter things that are big right now: here.

Here is my response:

"I consider myself spiritual and somewhat religious, and I don't claim to be a very good scientist, but I am sorry to see scientific beliefs twisted and condemned in a story like this. 


I certainly think the story provides comfort, but mostly because of the reasons expressed by Sumair here. I think that the story is bastardizing logic and reason in order to tell a story. As long as you view it as a story and not a proof, I don't think it is very offensive or dangerous, but it is assumed that many people will take it as a scientific proof of the validity of faith, which is a dangerous misconception, and a sorry facsimile of the true power of logic and reason.

The world is a very uncertain place, and people will go through all kinds of effort to find some mental and emotional certainty. I see the crux of science being a devotion to a remembrance of our inherent fallibility, that the most reliable truth is found only through intense scrutiny, through observation and experimentation.


Also, I have found that using Wikiquote and Snopes is a really good idea when dealing with quotes or stories attributed to universally admired figures. A lot of the time, people like to reinforce the perceived clout of their worldviews by projecting them onto those figures, and the emotionally positive association will bleed over from the figure to the worldview."

I am also really stoked about a economic discussion that I started on my timeline by asking people who study economics if lowering federal taxes has been shown to increase economic growth. Unfortunately I didn't understand all of it, but it did reanimate my memories of economics class, which is good. Also it's cool to see two people from totally different parts of my life talk to each other.  

CM Punk "Best in the World" (who is also Straightedge) putting the elbow drop on Mark Henry "The World's Strongest Man" (He actually won the World's Strongest Man competion)

So I don't know if all of you know this, but I've developed a taste for Pro Wrestling, thanks to my roommate and very good friend Odie. Now, in intellectual circles, Wrestling has a bad rap, almost as bad as organized religion. "Don't you know it's fake?" is what Odie often gets asked, and his answer is usually an Irish Whip into a clothesline followed by a moonsault from the top rope. Haha I'm kidding (Odie does like to wrestle, however, and he knows the name of every move...I mean literally every move...) But I have come to enjoy it somewhat and I have some thoughts about it. 

What people usually mean by "fake" is one of two things: that the outcomes of the matches are scripted, or that the combat is staged, both of which are true. Odie tells me that "plots" of the season of wrestling are written sometimes years in advance. The wrestling itself takes great strength and skill, but also involves stage combat techniques that give the impression of a "real" fight. I must point out however, that people who have done intense stage combat can attest that it is not as far removed from actual fighting as one might think. Then again, I've never really been in any real fights so I can't say much to the comparison. But it is dangerous, and people do get hurt, but it looks a lot more dangerous and painful than it is. 

Because what wrestling presents itself as is different from what it "really" is, watching wrestling requires suspension of disbelief, much like you would suspend your disbelief for a play or a television show. The reason I think people feel jilted is that at first glance, pro wrestling most closely resembles a traditional sport, and in traditional sports, a huge part of the appeal is that nobody knows which team will win. In baseball, basketball, fencing, and chess, who will win depends primarily on the skill of the players, and no punches are pulled, so to speak, as the players from opposing teams compete. 

The truth is that pro wrestling is I would say half sport, half entertainment. It is a hybrid, it has aspects of both genres. 

There's a little infographic for you, not in color cause I don't know how to do that easily. Most of the stuff in there is fairly obvious. 

Something I didn't have room to add but I think is worth noting, is that Traditional Sports and Pro Wrestling both have long histories to them. Wikipedia tells me that pro wrestling goes back to the 19th century. Also I'm seeing that Wikipedia has lots more info about pro wrestling than I post here. 

So back to the question, "Don't you know that it's fake?" To that, I offer another question: would you ask someone watching a play if they knew it was fake? The appeal of wrestling comes partly from the fact that it imitates "real" sports, but also largely from the intensified dramatics. Baseball players get to choose what music gets played when they come to the plate, but in Pro Wrestling each "superstar" as they call them has an elaborate, specific entrance involving gestures, pyrotechnics, video graphics on giant screens, catchphrases, etc. that can last up to five minutes. We usually get a very limited glimpse into an athlete's "off-field" life and interactions with other competitors, whereas in wrestling we stop the entire proceedings just to have a backstage interaction played out on the jumbotron. In a way, pro wrestling has more in common with Dragonball Z than it does with "real" wrestling. 

So what's the appeal of wrestling, anyways? I think it really comes down to the phenomenon of a streaker jumping onto the field at a baseball game. He gleefully sprints his way around, dodging the officials, and the crowd cheers. Why does the crowd sometimes cheer for him? Shouldn't they all be annoyed that he's interrupting the game as it's meant to be played? The fact is that sometimes people need to see the rules being broken, as kind of a cathartic, vicarious experience. I think it's healthy sometimes. Pro wrestling does a great job of creating the illusion of breaking rules and going extreme, when in fact they wrote the rules and are allowing them to be broken. 

Both sport and entertainment have been given noble stature over the ages- sport is said to embody the virtues of self-improvement, commitment, and discipline. Entertainment is said to enlighten, to move, to communicate. Pro Wrestling is kind of a bastard child of the two, and as such is viewed as a half-assed version of either: how can the spirit of competition be there if it's scripted, and how can enlightenment and communication be there if characterization and plot are simplified? 

I don't really know what the answer is to that. I'm not a huge fan of wrestling, but after a period of adjustment I'm able to enjoy it to a certain extent. I would say that despite its perceived lack of integrity, it does have value. It does require a high level of skill and discipline, and the superstars have to be excellent entertainers as well as athletes. The stories deal with basic themes such as betrayal, revenge, idealism, narcissism, cruelty, and love, even sometimes touching on harder issues such as alcoholism. It is multicultural, showcasing athletes from all over the world and including cultural aspects of their nations. People from all over the world and all walks of life enjoy it.

Now to bring this full circle, in my facebook post above I mentioned the danger of taking something at face value and believing it wholeheartedly, when in reality it doesn't hold water. I would say that it's really hard for me to enjoy pro wrestling while remembering all the time that it is scripted. Is it dangerous to have such a misleading thing as pro wrestling be "believed" in? Well it certainly doesn't help out the more gullible parts of us, but I don't think it's that dangerous. However, I think it would be true to say that modern American society could use a good booster shot of skepticism. With so much of our culture tied up in television and movies, we need to be able to think for ourselves. With so much money and power being used to convince people of things, and comparatively little being spent to figure out what things are worth convincing people of, we could get into trouble.  

It probably didn't need the analysis. But being out of school, I have to flex my academic brain somehow.   

See below for hyperbole

This.

Seriously, David Fucking Wong is the second coming of fucking Jonathan Swift. And he's writing in one of the pulpiest, low-brow places on the internet.

I just read this article and he described to me almost EXACTLY how I feel- this one article is more insightful than anything I have ever read or heard about gender relations, including from psychiatrists, psychologists, and professors.

Truly there is hope for the world if someone can realize what is going on, and communicate it in this way.

Granted, there is little chance of this article going "viral," which is a shame because it deserves to be.

How the media "market" decides what gets the priority to be communicated, usually mostly has to deal with what will get the most views, therefore the most money for the company. I'm tempted to say that in the modern media, truly useful and insightful public communication is rarer than it used to be, but reasonably it probably hasn't changed a whole lot.


****NOTE****

The article is kind of biologically reductionist, which means that is seems to trace all behaviors to biological causes; that is, the "nature" part of "nature versus nurture." I can't tell if that's part of the author being satirical or if it's just his point of view.

One of the commenters said that in his opinion, "The overwhelming power of the male sex drive is purely socialized," which would be the opposite end of the spectrum, "nurture" instead of "nature."

In MY opinion, the reality is probably a combination of the two, the mixture of which depends on the individual and circumstances.

"According to George Lucas, the design is inspired by a hamburger..."

Just this past week, two of my favorite artists died: Ralph McQuarrie, and Jean Giraud, also known as "Moebius."

Ralph McQuarrie I first got into when Star Wars had captured my imagination. I was listening to the soundtracks over and over on my walkman. I got a couple used books: "Inside the Lucasfilm Archives" and a "making of" book about Episode 1. The Lucasfilm Archives book had photos of some early concept art work for Episodes 4, 5, and 6, including many paintings by Ralph McQuarrie. I later discovered that Ralph McQuarrie was one of the first people George Lucas hired to develop his film, and that Ralph's paintings were key in getting 20th Century Fox to produce the film. Ralph originated the designs for R2-D2 and C-3P0, Darth Vader, Stormtroopers, and many others. Some of his production paintings were copied almost exactly as shots in the films.

The drawings themselves were colorful and exciting. They fascinated me by their mix of the familiar and unfamiliar, that is, in each piece you found both aspects that were key to the "final" version, and those that were scrapped along the way.

Of course, being a fanboy, it was really fun to speculate about alternate versions of iconic designs. "Would if the Millenium Falcon had looked like this? Would if Darth Vader's helmet had these original lines to it?" It excited me that such seemingly trivial decisions had shaped icons that would become recognizable the world over. I thought, how awesome would it be, if I drew something that was made into a film, that little kids would get toys of for christmas? That entire generations would recognize in a millisecond? I guess I've always had some lust for fame. Then again, I would probably be just as happy to draw something, and have someone look at it, and say "Wow, that's cool!"

I was kind of wrapped up in my own head at that age, and often times while riding my bike I would pretend that I was flying on some kind of speeder, like in Return of the Jedi. It was fun, but later I would come to regret somewhat having been so inroverted...I came to realize that personal relationships were essential to any real enjoyment in life, and that you need to invest in them.

The "Making of" book for Episode 1 also included lots of concept art. The artist that stood out most to me was Doug Chiang. I even spent some time on his studio website on the computer during high school.

As I got inspired, I got into sketching myself. I thought maybe I would become a concept artist when I grew up.

Jean Giraud I didn't get quite as into directly, and to be honest I'm not a huge fanboy, I'm bandwagoning a little bit with the fact that he just recently died. But the little that I have read of him has stayed with me, and I considered it very personal. While spending time on a Comics message board, I stumbled across a digital copy of his story "The Goddess," and read it all in one sitting. The spiritual themes and fantastic setting struck me, and I began to research who it was who had written it, at which point I discovered Moebius and his huge influence of science fiction and fantasy in the 20th century. He worked on "The Fifth Element," which is one of my all time favorite movies, both for its visual style and its message. He worked with H. R. Gieger on "Alien," and was concept artist and writer for "Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland" which I had seen a few years before and scared the heck out of me, but still had a bizzare fantastic feel that appealed to me. Jean Giraud also was behind the design of the probe droid that landed on Hoth in "Empire Strikes Back."

Just last night I went ahead and read his story "Le Garage Hermetique," which was just as mind blowing as I remembered the other story was.

To me, Jean Giraud's work is a great example of the philosophy that stories are a way for us to "dream while we are awake." What's interesting about dreams is that they are often bizarre and lack any "real world" logic to them, yet they can still be emotionally profound, and sometimes even help create insight. I believe that this fact should remind us that a good story need not be fanatically devoted to "reality" in order to be compelling.

Through theatrical and film history, there has been a tug-of-war in storytelling between trying to mimic reality, and trying to use more abstract means to communicate. Certainly which tools you use depends on your audience and the type of story you are trying to tell, as well upon your skill as an artist.

I was going to say that art that mimics reality faces a grave danger of bogging down in that attempt, but I think at this point I'm mostly projecting my internal struggles with what I value, and what I think I "should" value. I'm trained as an artist, and I really enjoy it, but sometimes I'm disappointed with how little my work seems to mean.

Sometimes it seems to me that science is the only worthwhile pursuit, because the biggest changes in our world have all come from science, have they not? How else besides with science can a society achieve "progress?" You don't really need culture, even the most monumental of cultural achievements are ultimately a sideshow, an escape.

But then again, art does provide a means to learn about ourselves. And I think that learning more about ourselves is important. Art is good for that, at least until the mysteries of the human brain are deciphered, at which point art will become obsolete.

(the final paragraph is from an earlier draft of this post, which is why it doesn't connect super well to the rest of it.)

We all have needs, both physical and non-physical, and they are not always able to be met. We fill needs in other's lives, we use others to fill our needs. We rely on each other. We rely on the thousands and thousands of people who work in our society, for the electricity to run, for the stores to open. And we rely on musicians and artists to create things that speak to us in ways that nothing else will. Society is like a massive beast, with thousands of eyes, ears, arms, mouths, and fingers. Unlike our individual bodies, this large body has only had a few thousand years to develop and refine itself. The "self" of society is like a newborn baby, wailing in pain and flinging its arms about in desperation. Over time, and through much sacrifice, it has developed and changed, and it is learning who it is, and where it belongs. With the perseverance, inspiration and beautiful acts of its members, it will continue to do so, and grow into its beauty.

*    *    *    *

Some more art:

Jean Giraud:

 Ralph McQuarrie:

Doug Chiang:

I'm a 6'4" black man who is totally ripped, with an afro and the word "THUG" tattooed in gothic letters on my chest.

About time I posted here again.

I'm working for my cousin Carolyn, with her company PrizmEyez! Basically I'm helping her with Shipping. She has a day job at Wells Fargo, but has a lot of shipping to do for PrizmEyez, and I'm helping her get more packages out faster, and she's going to pay me as well!

What's kind of bizarre, is that I closed Broadway Bound a week ago, and I don't have another show going on. All I have is dance class, and job hunting...it's actually really nice. I was just telling Carolyn: making progress on my top priority (getting a job) has made all the other stuff in my life so much more enjoyable. Because I can't ever really relax unless I know that I've done my work for the day...and if I feel like I have accomplished enough, the fun stuff I do is that much more fun.

I went and saw The Light in the Piazza at the Willows in Concord on Friday night. Brought back great memories from when I was in Chess in that theater. Also lots of good memories of seeing plays there with family, which we did each Christmas for a while when I was younger. Saw a lot of old friends. I enjoyed the play immensely.

Cast info: willowstheatre.org. Directed by Eric Inman. Excellent Lighting Design by Danny Maher, Props by Shaun Carroll, Costume Design by Sharon Bell. I couldn't find a Set Design/Construction credit in the program!! WTF?

With me, if the play is good, I get way into it, there's no looking back. Once I get past the first ten, fifteen minutes, I'm hooked, and even when I know the performers, I see them only as their characters. I start to fill in the cracks in the set with my own experiences and sensory memories— kind of like what you do when you're reading a book. It's really like nothing else. I'm glad I get to see plays every once in a while, and I remember how much I love them. Seeing plays also helps remind me what the audience's experience is like, and how forgiving they can be, especially if the costumes and set and lights are seamless. That's a good thing to remind myself of, considering how self-critical I can be when I'm onstage.

Odie's been staying at my place for the past couple weeks while he found some new jobs, and it's been quite fun having him around. Not to say it's been all smooth, I've been living by myself for almost two years, and I'd gotten very used to it. We've butted heads some, I've annoyed him, and he's teaching me pro wrestling moves. We even ran around Lake Merrit with duffel bags full of clothes, cause he and I wanted to get in shape to do the Tough Mudder in Septemeber. Then Odie had a full schedule because of job hunting, then he got sick, but we may get back into working out pretty soon here.

Odie and I also rearranged the living room, and got a TV and a wireless router, so I finally can have guests use the internet without having to unplug my internet and restart the cable box every time. Also I don't have to have a network cable running under my door from the living room. We called the router "mos eisley cantina" and have nicknamed our TV the Millenium Falcon, cause it's "a piece of junk" but it still works fine. Seriously, it was literally falling apart in our hands as we lugged it up the stairs to my apartment. But it was free, so what the heck. Also I didn't realize that you shouldn't carry a heavy-ass old CRT TV from the back, because the whole plastic casing will break off...


Whatever, now I have a TV in my living room! We watched movies! It was great. Also Odie brought his Xbox, and we played WWF '12. Did I mention Odie likes Pro Wrestling? He even made me a custom character in the game. Here is a picture:

Hahaha. yeah.

We also made a little video entry to a contest for "Broski of the Week," part of the publicity for Zack Ryder,  one of the wrestlers Odie likes. We didn't win the contest, but it was still fun.

Another great thing: went to Dr. Comics in Piedmont, got a Red Lantern ring and a little Star Trek Heroclix figure. I don't play the game, I just like Star Trek spaceships. It was a great store though, I'll definitely be back for more cool swag.

In other news, I had lunch a couple weeks ago with the friend I mentioned earlier who works for Ubisoft. It was interesting. We chatted a little about video games, he asked me what my career goals were... he told me about his artistic aspirations, and how he tries to pursue them in the little free time he has, between his intense job and his girlfriend. He is trained as a painter, and he paints and sculpts designer toys. I would share his online store, if I knew where it was. Looks like we might meet up again this month. 


He's really passionate about art, but he also likes having a job that pays the bills... it's a conflict that I'm somewhat familiar with, but I've always been on the flip side of his situation: whereas he's trying to squeeze in artistically enriching activities around his good job, I've been trying to squeeze in a good job around my artistically enriching activities.

I had a really emotional session with my therapist last Wednesday... about a month ago, he told me that he's going on an open-ended sabbatical on April 1, so I may not see him at all after that. I was kind of upset when he told me, but I didn't really realize how much it hit me until weeks later. It was a whole mix of things: sad that he was leaving, feeling a little betrayed that he was leaving, worrying that it was something I did wrong, or that he was tired of me, all sorts of stuff that you'd think would happen when a really close friend or a significant other was parting... I guess I didn't realize how much our work together meant to me...I've seen him for almost a year and a half now, and we've worked really well together...it's absolutely AMAZING how far I've come since I first started seeing him. I really got used to having his support every week or so...and now he's leaving...

I'll miss him. I may find someone else, and he even suggested a couple people he knows that he thinks would be good. Therapists are a funny thing: you tell them things you wouldn't tell your closest friends, and yet they are still detached from you in a sense, as a doctor is...

He reminded me that therapy is not like a college course: you don't work on it for a while, then suddenly have it all down and never go back to it again. People come and go from therapy as their life requires. I guess I'll always have that option. Unless of course I run out of money, lol.


...


I've noticed lately that I'm not reading any books, and it kind of bothers me. I started reading one of the numerous paperbacks I have on my shelves that was a gift, that I've never opened. I read the first chapter, and now it's back on the shelf, with a bookmark in it.

We'll see if I go back to it.

...

Friday night I had a "Cigars and Scotch" get-together with my friend Christine, and my friend Zac, who I performed with in Chess and Broadway Bound, (and with whom I will perform in Vaudeville at the Willows in June). Zac brought 12 year old Macallen, and a cigar he had, and I smoked one of the cigars I bought in 2009 in the Duty Free store in the Shanghai airport. It was great.

I wouldn't even be a cigar smoker, but one of my very good friends in college, Brad, once sat with me and drank whiskey and showed me how to smoke a cigar...and then I had a cigar at a cast party for a great show I was in, in 2010, and then my friend Greg smokes cigars and I've smoked with him... I guess I've gotten into it like I got into beer: I associate it with celebration and good company. Hopefully these little indulgences won't come back to haunt my respiratory health later in life.

Well there you go. Talk to you later!
~Chris