" !!! 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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