Redefining the relationship of man and machine - an audio-visual meditat...

The weird turned pro, then gave up.

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It's weird to be an old man in the future, and I'm still a couple of months off 40. But I guess I'd already be dead in Huxley's version.

I made a facebook post in about November last year saying something along the lines of "dear psychopaths, please don't blow up the world until I've seen the new star wars". There was some confusion with Putin deciding to start taking out some of the lunatic mercenaries destroying Syria, and I didn't think it would be well received as it didn't appear to be part of the plan. But while I was trying to be funny, I genuinely meant it on some level.

Then something strange happened. The year ended, and the world carried on. But since then, I don't know if it's just me, but it's like the futurist weirdness, that we of my generation have since 2000 been joking hasn't happened, has kicked up a gear. And while there are definitely real signs of all kinds of dystopian potentials, there's also a surprising number of things to feel positive about. And unfathomable mounds of uncertainly oriented weirdness being shovelled on top daily. In fact YouTube is getting something like 65 years worth of video uploaded every day, which is birth to retirement covered. Well it was. The retirement age will have probably gone up a couple of years by the time I've finished typing and a few more jobs have been made obsolete by bots.

And I've just been watching "we are legion" then "the Internet's own boy" about Aaron Schwartz... that was depressing.

This  [Ableton] forum was kind of my pre-facebook facebook. Funny thing is 15 years ago, around the time I discovered Ableton and this forum, that sentence would have made absolutely no sense. And there's a whole load more that could go with it.

I'm not even sure we said "Google it" yet in 2001. We certainly didn't say things like "I just swiped left on Tinder and sent a snapchat and just got off skype and found out we were already Facebook friends and following each other on tumblr, instagram, flickr, and I liked a few of her posts and she retweeted one of my tweets before we called an Uber to take us to an AirBnB to watch some YouTube then stream spotify and do some Jaeger bombs then netflix n chill, I mean literally [figuratively] OMG LOL."

I mean what the hell is going on? That kind of weird is straight out of Huxley, Orwell, PKD and all the dystopians. It's double plus untweet in the Feelies, I think I left my soma in the cloud.

I thought I was one of the modern futury types, and I'm not sure if people are still speaking the same language, or if I'm in that Twilight Zone episode where the guy starts to not understand anything anyone's saying and at the end he's sitting on his kid's bed at story time looking at a kid's book that shows a picture of a dog and the word says "Wednesday".

The really weird thing is I actually think the weirdness is just getting started.

We're really likely to see self driving cars in use by the end of the decade, and augmented and virtual reality, after having billions thrown at it from every major tech co., is getting started this year. We've all just started getting used to people constantly looking down at their phones, after the first iPhone isn't even ten years old yet, but there's a very real chance that the same amount of time from now from when I first joined this humble forum of what was then a humble music startup, no one will be looking at phones, they'll be walking around with AR glasses wildly waving their arms around touching holograms no-one can see while waiting for their robot Uber and that Tinder date may be less than 50% of the same organic matter they were born with for all kinds of reasons.

So will I say the same thing before Star Wars XII? Is it even possible that someone who saw the original Ep. IV when it was still the decade it was made in — the 1970s — might actually be able to watch Ep 12 and enjoy it? Or will I not I give a fuck if President Kardashian-Trump and 90% Synthetic Putin nuke us all first?

So in a way I feel like with every legendary figure that keeps checking out it makes more and more sense that they have to go because that whole age is over. The new world is the wrong kind of weird for them.

The real canary in the coal mine was Hunter S. Thompson topping himself. His actual motto was "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." If even he, the biggest tripper of the 20th century, had decided it had got too weird, it should have been a clue.

Oh yeah, happy new year!

World wars.... another moved Facebook rant

I guess there's not that much that's not "world" about it now, other than the region where most of the fighting is ... the image that went around of European refugees flooding onto a boat going in the other direction from Europe to Nth Africa during WW2 was pretty poignant. 

Most people in the west tend to think of WW2 as starting simply when Germany invaded Poland in 1939... but why not when Japan invaded China in 1937 or even Manchuria in 1931? Or Italy/Ethiopia 1935? (The European civil war theory is kind of interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Civil_War ). 

Growing up in the "cold war" we grew up thinking of a WW3 being an all out nuclear war with a 3 minute warning, but what they call WW2 gradually started to spread in Europe and Asia in the 1930s, similar to what's happened in the Middle East, Nth Africa and Central Asia over the last decade.... 

In a way the whole "world war" concept is kind of arbitrary... it never really stops, it just varies in intensity and region. Likewise, the "cold war" concept is a bit misleading - Korea, Vietnam and the Soviet-Afghanistan wars were all proxy "hot" wars between the US, USSR, (and China) — they couldn't go directly head to head without going nuclear, so they did it covertly, just like they're doing now. Millions still died and were displaced. 

The M.A.D. doctrine is still there... the US and Russia have had a lot of practice at fighting over resources indirectly and covertly without going head to head.....

So  in the USA ... land of the free, black women apparently aren't allowed to drive BMWs in New York, and 14 year old Muslim kids aren't allowed to build clocks.

How many billions have been spent on stupid shit like this vs how many actual real terrrrist attacks have been prevented?

I'm sick of saying this shit.  I've been calling it out since before George W. Bush even got voted in.  His election was probably pretty much the moment my faith in humanity started to fade.  Then his predictable, but still equally terrifying response to the WTC attacks. I could live with Afghanistan given there was apparently an actual link, but come 2002/3 and the bullshit of Iraq/Saddam, it was obvious the whole thing was a load of shit and loads of people were about to die to prop up the US military industrial complex, and thus their economy when the were spending millions every day on a stupid, pointless, unnecessary war.... not a whole lot different to Vietnam.

Then Tony Bliar was the next big nail in the coffin of my hope.

Rudd did a good job of taking some kind of faint hope and pounding it into a mound of self composting turds, but the end result of his shit was the unrelenting pile of shit that was Tony Abbott.

So you Australians will excuse me for my brief moment of jubilation that we managed to get our version of GWB gone in just under 2 years after he only managed to send 6 RAAF jets to bomb Syria.  That feels like an improvement to me.  God knows what else that demented twit would have done to save his job if Turnbull hadn't have finally stepped up and put an end to it.

Turnbull is no Messiah, but "the dude who stopped Tony Abbott" is more than enough for me.

The Turnbull leadership challenge

Well I think the Guardian starting a live feed on the leadership this morning was a clue, but it's now clear why I've been feeling particularly restless today.

[from a FaceBook post]:

I have strange, mixed feelings about the LNP leadership situation. I have been increasingly embarrassed and appalled at the complete and utter bollocks the Abbottses comes out with on a daily basis, but it's also become my daily entertainment. I actually look forward to logging on at the start of the day to see what the latest insanity the lunatic has said or done today. From a purely comedic perspective he was the gift that never stopped giving.

But at the same time it was obviously absolutely humiliating having his as our leader, and I shuddered every time I heard his name. I've become almost obsessed with him, morbidly fascinated by the fact that we somehow let this Gollum like creature, the Abbottses, run our country at all.

So despite the entertainment value, and the risk that Turnbull could actually give the LNP another term (or more) I still instinctively feel a desperate relief, even kidding myself that I might actually be glad to have Turnbull as PM.

I have no love for Bill Shorten at all, I kind of see him as Abbott lite. He only seems to know how to react to things, with nothing to offer.

But I'm a Green voter who won't vote LNP or ALP anyway, my hope is there could be another Labor Green coalition with loads of independents, because that is always more democratic, but I still get to have an opinion on who leads the country while the rest of you keep supporting these old timey parties.

To Blog or not to Blog... that's not any kind of question, just a half-arsed attempt at a title.

There is a niggling voice in the back of my head that's usually effectively inaudible above the noise, and it's telling me to write, frequently, or ideally daily as a routine.  So far I've failed.  But now that I'm doing a PhD, and the advice is essentially the same for that, maybe it will be the catalyst that finally spurs me to action.

I'm tempted to start a fresh, new Blog that can be associated with my professional identity, so that I can share posts freely without any concern that the content of previous posts might damage any kind of academic reputation I might develop, or the frank, sometimes brutal and ugly posts on mental health issues, but I think for now I will just carry on here.  I can always un-publish certain posts if it comes to it.

Usually a good indicator that it's time to think about Blogging again is when I start to get carried away on Facebook.  And at the moment I'm kind of obsessed with Tony Abbott and his parcel of fools.  A lot of it is Schadenfreude, and a sense of "Told you" to all the people who subjected us to the endless humiliation he subjects us to collectively on the world stage.  But I wake up each day and eagerly check the news just to see what the latest bout of lunacy might be, and whether the LNP are sufficiently embarrassed enough to have their next leadership spill yet.  The chatter seems to be increasing, and as I type the Guardian has started a Live updates page on the leadership question.  That's a good sign I think.

But as twisted as it sounds, I think I will actually be a little disappointed if he goes now and isn't booted out by the people at the next election.  Even more concerning though is the worry that by some terrible combined lapse of reason and massive Murdoch funded bombardment he might actually get voted back in.  I mean, he got in once, and I thought at one point the idea was too ludicrous to even contemplate.  George W. Bush got voted in a second time.  And Shorten is almost a kind of Abbott lite, with the same ethos of reacting to what everyone else does without offering any kind of direction of his own.

Ultimately, I am now a Green voter, and likely to stay that way.  I watch Australian politics with a kind of morbid fascination and find it kind strangely entertaining, but I suppose what I'm most interested in is witnessing the decay of a system that is becoming less functional by the day.  It makes me think of Michio Kaku's civilisation types — he says we are a Type  Zero Civilisation, but we now have a Type One Communication system, which will hopefully help other aspects of our society progress to Type One, eventually even energy, which is by his definition when we become a Type One Civilisation.

I hate everything. Why not.

Yeah I think 'why not' can be a statement.

Some days I do.  I hate everything.  Far too many days.

Okay, not really everything.  I can't justify that.  There's a lot of human things worth preserving.

I'm watching Larry David's 'Curb your enthusiasm'.  It's a funny show, I'm enjoying it a lot.  I just wrote a Facebook post and then instantly set it to "only me" because I felt I shouldn't share it.  Maybe until after I'm dead and my son curates all the crazy shit I've written online for anyone who cares.  Maybe I'll be some kind of Samuel Pepys.  Just some boring nobody who happened to be really useful for historians in a couple of centuries because I wrote shit down.

Let me just paste it before I carry on:

"Facebook is like torture sometimes, especially to the ethnically Catholic ... a pit of shame and guilt and misery and regret... and ethnic Catholics don't even get the catharsis of practicing Catholics because we don't go to church and have confession, we just have all the culturally induced self loathing. I think Jewish people have the same problem.. I'm watching Curb Your Enthusiasm at the moment and it's so familiar...I guess it must be an old testament thing.
In one episode Larry David was at the cinema talking about Wagner and a guy started attacking him saying "Are you Jewish? You must be a self-loathing Jew to be whistling Wagner!” and Larry David said “Yes I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish!!”.
I think it's good in a lot of ways, it means you've been raised to have a conscience, but it kind of makes your life a misery in a lot of ways, and Facebook seems to be like a cesspit of it. I guess it makes sense it was invented by someone Jewish, but I bet Zuckerberg has a few Catholics on his staff. This place is surely designed to propagate this crazy shit." 

I have a lot of positive things to say about us before the intergalactic anti-viral is administered.  A lot.  Maybe not now, I'm not in the right kind of mood.

toddler explains why we are arseholes for eating meat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX4O6smZrLE

When your mantra is "You're a dickhead"

When I wake up in the morning, sometimes debatably 'morning', I usally go for a piss and at some point in the bathroom I usually say out loud "you're a dickhead".  Sometimes I say even worse swears.  Sometimes I use the F-ing-C word.  More recently I've been following it with a comic musing out loud for the benefit of any neighbours with super hearing: "Well, that was my pep-talk for the day."

I think some people look at themselves in the mirror and say "go get 'em tiger!" or something like that.  I look at myself and yell "YOU STUPID FUCKING CUNT! YOU'RE A PATHETIC PIECE OF SHIT!!"

I'm not sure this counts as an affirmation.  I think you're supposed to tell your reflection that you love it or something like that.  If that "What the bleep do we know" stuff is true then I'm well and truly fucked.

I'm probably a realist, or even a slightly begrudging existentialist.  I'd like to believe in something beyond, and I kind of do seem to believe in reincarnation, but ultimately I mainly think about the savage realism of reality most of all, and ultimately what forms the core of my beliefs about the world is a pretty cynical outlook that the more fluffy inclined might not feel comfortable with.  I see incredible potential in Humanity.  I see amazing creativity and genius.  But there's a lot of shit that goes with it.

But I decided today that I like Earth.  I think we're privileged to have this opportunity.  There's heaps of good stuff here, and a lot we might miss in generations to come if it fades away.  

I think we'll actually look back on this period and see it as a cultural pinnacle.  It will be a great moment in our history which might struggle to be reproduced in the future.  As we advance technologically there will be tremendous potential to want to improve ourselves in any way possible.  We will jump at the chance to upgrade.  But ultimately I think this will take us further and further away from the soul that drives our creativity.  The more "super human" we get, the more shit we will get at art. I bet you anything.  That's what will happen.  It's maybe like the UFO lore that exists around the idea of "Greys" and "Nordics". They're probably actually time travellers.  There could well be two streams of future timelines of us coming back in time in their saucers to visit us representing our two possible futures.  We either become really evolved Angelic and spiritual beings who look like Viking supermodels, or we wither up into wrinkly grey old hags who live underground and experiment on things.  Maybe society will split in two and they will co-exist.  Like in HG Wells' "Time machine".  In fact maybe that's what he was on about.  Maybe the reason "the greys" are abducting people is because they're trying to figure out how to get their souls back after they tweaked with their biology in every way possible and somehow squeezed them out.  Probably because they wouldn't listen to people like Rupert Sheldrake.

Those TED fuckers will end up Greys, for sure.  Sheldrake will be a Nordic.

Innocence and guilt

I just had an interesting realisation when I discovered that my son left Skype on when he came to have dinner then forgot about it.  I heard the hanging up sound a couple of hours later while he was on the phone to my mum.  I guess at that point they heard him on the other end then realised it was still connected.  At first I felt a moment of paranoia: "What did they hear? What did I say? Anything embarrassing?"  But then I realised the conversations would have all involved my 11 year old son so they would have had the innocence of a child to them and they would have been fine.

So what is this saying?  Children talk about innocent things, and whatever they say it is acceptable.  It might not all be rational, or of great intellectual significance, but whatever it is it will be safe.  At least that's how I saw myself react completely automatically.

This is also saying that it's entirely possible that if it was me talking then there could be a lot to be embarrassed, or even ashamed of.  Could I have said something people would laugh at?  Something revealing?  Something offensive or unacceptable?  What was it that I was afraid I might have said?

It seems I have an inherent disposition of guilt, and children have one of innocence.  What did I lose that lead me from that pure state to the twisted, shame ridden position of self loathing I seem to default to now?  What has really changed?  Aren't I the same person?  When did it all change?

Bollocks

Bollocks

Bollocks to the status quo

Bollocky ollocky ollocks.

Bollocks to the things you know

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to your point of view

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the things you do

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the texting hordes

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Glacial drifts of Bollock fjords

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to your facebook memes

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocky pulped and molded reams

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the constant farce

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the ruling class

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the firmament

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to this foul lament

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the stagnant pile

tireless mounds of bollocks

Bollocks to the wasted while

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the starving soul

traffic jams of Bollocks

Bollocks to the fractured whole

Bollocky ollocky ollocks

Bollocks to the whinging sod

can’t believe the bollocks 

Bollocks to your ugly face

and Bollocks to the Human race.

Why I am not a Christian - Bertrand Russel

George Galloway and his borderline moronic "stand".

 I have just unfriended my own mother from Facebook.  

It started with unblocking, or unticking "show in news feed" once or twice, just so I didn't have to be subjected to the endless stream of emotional and reactionary quasi-political one-liners with pictures, and snippets and soundbites with no proper fact checking that propagate the facebookverse these days and make people angry over things they don't know enough about to really be angry at.

I've been guilty of that myself.  These things are designed to infuriate and push buttons that will enrage you and compel you to forward them on to all your "friends" at once, lest anyone in the world miss out on the next total travesty going on that "[all you 'sheeple' out there] don't care about".

I have been deeply distressed, like most - well maybe not most, but many people, about the situation in Israel/Palestine.  It's horrible.  But it's horrible in the same way that it's horrible for Indigenous Australians or Americans, north or south.  I might not agree with the original historical decision regarding the formation of Israel, but in 2013 that's a bit like disagreeing with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire really.  The only thing that actually matters now is that it's there and that we need to find a way of reducing the suffering of the people that live there.

There is absolutely no way anyone can expect to do this by refusing to acknowledge the existence of Israel or denying its right to exist.  It's here to stay, and everyone has to accept that fact. What this means in practical terms is that the focus now should be on finding ways to move forward.

So to the Facebook incident.  Yesterday (22nd Feb 2013) my mother posted I think 3 or 4 things regarding George Galloway, the Angry Glaswegian [said mother is also an Angry Glaswegian] MP for Bradford who converted to Islam over 10 years ago.  I used to actually respect him.  I have seen one or two youtube videos of him grilling US senators and really giving them hell.  He was very impressive.  But the latest news involved him walking out on a debate when he found out his opponent was an Israeli national.  I was absolutely amazed, and appalled at this.  For a start, I just couldn't see how any rational person fighting for a cause could take the step of announcing that he would never debate with anyone from the opposing side.  That just seems like an astonishing move to me.  A bit like holding a debate on Christianity and refusing to debate with any Christians.

And I thought he was fighting for the human rights of the Palestinian people and trying to persuade the world that the occupation of Palestinian territories is wrong. But it seems I have misunderstood his goals after all.

It seems he is actually calling for the destruction of Israel, a totally unrealistic objective with no hope of actually being fulfilled, and thus he is effectively fighting to prolong the Palestinians' suffering as much as possible, and fan the flames of conflict.  He might as well announce that he will no longer debate with Americans until the USA has been given back to the Native Americans.  It will do the same amount of good for them.  In fact it is insulting to the Palestinians because it is like saying "I totally support you, but only if there's no actual chance that what we are fighting for will actually happen".

And the fact that he is British makes the whole situation even more ludicrous.  I won't even mention the Mandate of Palestine.  But by his reasoning, if we are not talking to people because we object to the policies of their country then I'm sure there are millions worldwide who could totally justifiably refuse to talk to him because he is British.  I'm sure anyone could come up with many travesties to back up that claim.  But even forgetting past misdeeds, just here and now the morals of the British government are highly questionable.

And even more mental, he is actually even PART of the British government.  He's an actual MP.  So now we have a British MP who refuses to debate people of a particular nationality.  It simply beggars belief really.

I can't help but draw a comparison to parties like the BNP.  Everyone thinks of them as racist. But here we have an actual British MP who has publicly proclaimed he won't debate people of a certain nationality (lets not mince with words here: Jews).  What's far worse about Galloway is that he actually purports to be being racist in the name of human rights.  But then I guess that's not that crazy... I guess the BNP might argue they are racist in the name of human rights too.  But they are doing it for the rights of ...some .. certain people with...erm.. actually what is the official racial configuration of a British person?  I mean, considering the many myths of British ancestry, none of us are really who we think we are.  We are a mongrel race, as are most Europeans.  To be claiming anything at all on the basis of race is plainly stupid... I thought that was the point.

But I digress...

The point being, Galloway has taken things in a very different, and in my opinion very dark direction with this latest revelation.  Refusing to debate people purely on their nationality is one thing, but he is specifically refusing to debate with Israelis because he doesn't recognise the state of Israel.  This is also very dark, if not for the racist connotations, more for the actual practical implications for real Palestinian people who have to live with this every day of their lives.  The view Galloway is taking cannot possibly help the Palestinians in any conceivable way.  All it can do is galvanise the opposition, confirm the already paranoid Israeli view of "everyone already hates us so we might as well do what we like anyway", and ensure that they never de-escalate their hardline military policies or make any attempt whatsoever to accommodate the needs of the Palestinians and allow them to have their own state.

 It reminds me of Jane Elliott talking about a woman in her racism workshop who tried to rise up against the oppression of the blue eyed people in her safe comfortable workshop, completely oblivious to the fact that she was actually being staggeringly offensive, and doing the struggle against racism more harm than good by completely belittling what the victims of racism have to endure on a daily basis in the real world.

It strikes me that there are many people supposedly fighting for the Palestinian cause who are well meaning, but ultimately ignorant comfortable westerners, inherently incapable of really understanding exactly what the reality of all this means to real people on the ground and thinking that the answer is to join the fight on the side of the oppressed.  By doing so they are failing to realise that they aren't actually looking for a  satisfying peaceful solution that will alleviate the suffering of real people on the ground, but instead they are just taking sides in a war.  And on top of that they are not offering real material assistance to help win that war either, just a vague good will gesture that "we are behind you in your impossible task brother!"

It's like going up to an Aboriginal Australian and saying "I got your back brother, I support your goal of getting rid of those 21 million white people in your country!"  A nice gesture that maybe makes the person saying it feel good for a brief moment, but ultimately more disempowering and disheartening in real practical terms, and more likely to wind up attracting a deserved punch in the face.  I know, I've been punched in this manner before.

Since this George Galloway debacle I feel like I need to really overstate this point: Israel is not going anywhere.  We really need to move past debating whether that is right or wrong.  We really can't do anything about that now.  The only way borders change dramatically it seems is via world ward, and since none of us desire, nor would likely survive another world war, the focus now needs to be on where to go from here.

The Israelis are very, very far from Angelic in this situation.   But that is almost irrelevant.  The Australians regarding their treatment of "Asylum Seekers" is as equally, if not further from Angelic. The only possible course of action from here on is to focus on what the map will look like on the future, completely forgetting what it looked like in 1966 or 1947.

I won't presume any more to try and solve a problem that ultimately has nothing to do with me.  But after seeing yesterday the enormous amount of hollering and chest beating that supposed Palestinian supporters let out in favour of Galloways actions, I just felt like I needed to add to the chorus on the side of reason out here on behalf of supporters of justice for Palestinians who think what he did was a really, really stupid and counter productive thing to do.

 Noam Chomsky explains the reasons well in this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRu2mUcFXpg

What is consciousness?

There have been plenty of people that have delved into 'consciousness studies', many of them neurologists, or neuro-psychiatrists such as Peter Fenwick, and Biologists like Rupert Sheldrake (author of "The science delusion - kind of an 'antidote' to Richard Dawkins' 'God delusion', which challenges a lot of the dogma there seems to be within the mainstream modern scientific view, largely thanks to people like Dawkins).

 I was watching some videos on Youtube last night on Near death experiences and it's a fascinating topic, and certainly one way of approaching the big question of what consciousness actually is. Many of the 'materialistic' biologists say that it is a purely brain oriented experience that happens at the moment of death or revival, but there have been some very strange cases where people have been clinically dead undergoing brain surgery and described accurate accounts of details of what went on during their surgery at times when their brain was completely inactive. They have also been able to see from different angles/viewpoints in the room, and 'hear' even while their ears were obstructed.

In that video I discovered Professor Stuart Hameroff who is a professor of Anaesthesiology and director of the Centre for consciousness studies at the University of Arizona, ( interview ) and he, along with Sir Roger Penrose, has some very interesting theories regarding microscopic components of brain cells called 'micro-tubules' which he theorises may connect our brains to the universe on a quantum level.  He has studied near death experiences in depth and suggests that the quantum information held by these micro-tubules may be released on death to the universe at large, but still connected via quantum entanglement so that when someone is revived it is able to re-enter the body.  At least this is my understanding so far of his very complicated theories.  But he is well worth checking out.

 Scientists from Australia and Japan have managed to teleport wave packets of light photons, which is a significant step in the world of Quantum computing. Although this refers to "Quantum teleportation" and shouldn't be confused with the normal use of the word "teleport" as most of us would understand it, this kind of research is at least going down a path that could very much tie in with the theories of Hameroff and Penrose.

 Rupert Sheldrake has spent many years as a biologist and is a strong proponent of a theory called "morphic resonance" where he suggests that consciousness behaves more like a field, like electro-magnetism, and he has conducted a number of experiments on things like "the sense of being stared at" (in his book of the same name) And dogs knowing when their owners are coming home, and other studies of "telepathy". I have wondered if this is true whether there might be an associated "consciousness particle" that might be discovered one day.  Maybe it will be the thing that one day enables us to build the star trek 'transporter'.

There is also the whole area of Remote viewing, which was a method of "psychically" viewing remote situations under double blind conditions which the US military funded through Stanford research institute, (some have claimed they still use it), and the reason they started studying it was because the Soviets had already been doing it for a long time. They found the results to be solid enough that they kept funding it for 20 years. Dr Hal Putoff ran the program and is on youtube, along with some of his viewers such as Ingo Swann and Joe McMoneagle. I also watched a talk on youtube given by David Wilcock where he said there was a chinese study where they put a chinese character in a sealed box with sensors and the remote viewer got the correct character and the sensors detected many thousands of photons in the box at the same time... suggesting that some part of the viewer's consciousness was able to travel to the location.  I'm not sure what he was referring to or how reliable the source, but I have found reference to similar studies described in a book called China's super psychics.

thread on the serious stuff forum.

Scots language?? No so sure.

This is likely to only be of interest to Scots.

But I just read this an wikipedia and it made me laugh.

This is cited as an example of the "Scots Language", but in my mind it's just the written accent, or maybe dialect, but like in the way that Irvine Welsh writes. Not sure how it qualifies as a distinct language from English - Occasionally there's the odd word like "bairn" (which is Danish anyway) but mostly it's English written in a Scottish accent.

But it made me laugh anyway.

[quote][b]Sample text of Modern Scots[/b]
From The New Testament in Scots (William Laughton Lorimer 1885–1967) Mathew:1:18ff
This is the storie o the birth o Jesus Christ. His mither Mary wis trystit til Joseph, but afore they war mairriet she wis fund tae be wi bairn bi the Halie Spírit. Her husband Joseph, honest man, hed nae mind tae affront her afore the warld an wis for brakkin aff their tryst hidlinweys; an sae he wis een ettlin tae dae, whan an angel o the Lord kythed til him in a draim an said til him, “Joseph, son o Dauvit, be nane feared tae tak Mary your trystit wife intil your hame; the bairn she is cairrein is o the Halie Spírit. She will beir a son, an the name ye ar tae gíe him is Jesus, for he will sauf his fowk frae their sins.”
Aa this happent at the wurd spokken bi the Lord throu the Prophet micht be fulfilled: Behaud, the virgin wil bouk an beir a son, an they will caa his name Immanuel – that is, “God wi us”.
Whan he hed waukit frae his sleep, Joseph did as the angel hed bidden him, an tuik his trystit wife hame wi him. But he bedditna wi her or she buir a son; an he caa’d the bairn Jesus.[/quote]

The only thing missing is "Get tae fuck", "Bag o Shite" or "the wee cunt"

Tao story

http://www.itmonline.org/shen/chap2.htm


... 'I have a big tree,' said Hui-tzu to Chuang-tzu. 'Its huge trunk is so gnarled and knotted that no measuring string can gauge it, and its branches are so bent and twisted they defy compass and square. It stands right beside the road, and still carpenters never notice it. These words of yours [referring to the stories of Chuang-tzu recorded in this chapter], so vast and useless, everyone ignores them the same way.'
Chuang-tzu replied [after giving examples of his point]: 'Now, you've got this huge tree, and you agonize over how useless it is. Why not plant it in a village where there's nothing at all, in a land where emptiness stretches away forever? Then you could be no one drifting lazily beside it, roam boundless and free as you doze in its shade. It won't die young from the axe. Nothing will harm it. If you have no use, you have no grief.

The tree that is logically useful (its wood is desirable) will be cut down; the tree that is logically useless (its wood too gnarled to be of value) is spared. So, which is better? To be useful or useless? And who is to decide whether something is useful: the gnarled tree serves just fine for shade and is not in danger of being cut down for its wood.

In Chapter 22 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tzu says (3):
Wise men embrace the one, and set an example to all. Not putting on a display, they shine forth; not justifying themselves, they are distinguished. Not boasting, they receive recognition, not bragging, they never falter. They do not quarrel, so no one quarrels with them.

The tree, in the story above, may be huge, but carpenters never notice it. The Taoist is likewise unnoticed because he does not try to call attention to himself; not calling attention to himself, no one quarrels with him. But, this does not mean that he is without value. Like the Tao, he is "great," like the tree, he can provide welcome relief (shade) and a break from desolation (absence of wisdom and virtue). He is not so useless after all. How many people fret over not being as "great" as another or as they dream to be, feeling depressed about it, yet can do things that are truly important for another person, and so they are doing their part?

pepezabala wrote:
at least they achieved that you talk about it and made some research about it.

Here is what nobel-prize of economy Stiglitz has to say about the movement:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz144/English?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29


true. Interesting article. I wish I shared his optimism in people power though. I kind of lost all faith in that in 2002 when 2 million marched on London, including my parents, and Tony Blair stood up and said, 'bollocks' then went ahead and used the nation's, tax funded armed forces to invade a sovereign nation, against the wishes of the people of the nation, and the whole rest of the world. Bush rendered the UN effectively useless and shat on the world, and a lot of rich countries "who were just following orders" joined in, like Australia who know they have to do whatever the US tells them otherwise we would be fucked if anyone invaded.

So I guess my depressing point is, if 2 million people doesn't raise a drop of sweat in London, then these occupy protests aren't really going to really bother them much.

There have always been landlords, since the alpha Chimp beat the one from the other mob away with a bone. Territory is a fairly innate part of all animals. But we've also traded/bartered/bought/sold forever too, so we'll always do that in some form or another. Some people seem to be more cunning and can own more of it than us, and we are naturally resentful of that. But seeing as how in our times we can't live off the land so easily as property is owned by somebody, then we should at least all be afforded our natural right to all the basic human needs. This is I think what it is really about. Make sure every human being on the planet has those basic rights, including health-care, and use technology that doesn't fuck up the planet for all of us, do our utmost to protect the rights of all sentient beings, then knock yourselves out, speculate and earn as much money as you like.

The British empire was run largely on trade. Now the US empire is too really. How many countries don't have a McDonalds or Coca-cola now?

They just send in the big guns whenever someone makes it a bit harder to trade. The Bush's are businessmen- from Oil, and people like that go for the presidency to make it easier for them to make more money. They also knew that Oil is a finite resource and Saddam was a pain in the arse to deal with and had a lot of it, so they needed to deal with him.

I guess in 1991 they weren't as worried about running out.

I feel like comparing it to the "arab spring" is a bit wrong though. They're not really the same thing. The "west" loved that and supported it even militarily because they knew ultimately it will end up in more places to set up McDonalds and Starbucks with Wi-Fi to pacify the people while they work on the oil....... etc

In fact, the 1% probably even want to improve the conditions of the poor everywhere, because they realise that every person with a disposable income on the planet is a consumer. I didn't fail to notice the irony in an ice cream man showing up on sunday at the end of the park to profit from the anti-capitalist protesters.

People in the west have less jobs now because a lot of them were outsourced to poorer countries, which is raising the standard of living for some poorer people, so they can afford mobile phones now. 5 billion phones now to 7 billion people. India now has a midddle class of more than the entire populations of the US, Canada, Australia and the UK combined. That's a huge market. Except the bastards keep ringing me up trying to sell it to me.

The people in the west are naturally a bit pissed off about this, but it's really nothing like as bad being poor here as it is in some places, and maybe they deserve the jobs more? We can really deal with poverty and still have a pretty good time of it, at least where I live. I've never had money and am definitely considered "breadline" and I have Ableton Live and several controllers, NS10s, sub, New Macbook pro....etc.......

It's hard for people in the west to really understand what real poverty is. (I say "in the west" but in Australia many Aboriginal people experience the same kinds of poverty as in some parts of Africa or India, but because this country is so big it feels like it could be in a different country. It kind of is.)

I think part of the reason some people in our countries are a bit confused about it is because being poor here really is not so bad, so they are kind of wishing for better conditions for people somewhere else more deprived, and they are saying the way to do this is to abolish capitalism - or maybe more correctly, "corporatism" (which Mussolini apparently said was actually the same thing as fascism). But is that the solution, or do we use the system already in place and just start putting a bit more priority on being fairer?

I think part of the reason for the global upheaval is because Gen Y has grown up and realised a few things about how shit things are, but like all new generations they feel they deserve better. And they do. That is what evolution is.

Fuck is it monday night? that was a total stoner rant.....

in fairness to those involved

I posted this originally purely because it happened in the park near my house and thought it was a funny place to have it.

But it turns out it did start in the city and got moved several times. Today when I walked past I noticed a web address and looked it up..

http://www.occupybrisbane.org

But I'm really not sure why they bothered moving to where they are because it really is not a place that could achieve any conceivable effect whatsoever. It's just not anywhere near anything important and they are tucked away in a park.

Apparently there were more people originally and 10 people did get arrested.

I had to share the efforts of my famously laid back, sub-tropical city, because it made me laugh.

For the record, I agree with a lot of the message of the "Occupy" movement, and I respect people who get off their arse and do something, but can't help feeling Brisbane has missed the point slightly.

In photo 1, they are having their rally next to the playground my son occasionally uses the swings at, in one of Brisbane's nice spacious green parks where I walk my dog.

In photo 2, their sleep out is about 20m from it. Looks like a quite nice spot to camp actually. Got the barbie out and everything. Near to all amenities.





Still, I think they're doing a great job of spreading the message to the joggers, cyclists and dog walkers.

Doubt the 1% are too bothered though.

As I was leaving 2 guys from the council "rapid response" team turned up, paused briefly to tell me how much the fines are for letting your dog off the lead on the way over, then I assume they went over to offer their token "you're not allowed to put tents in the park".

So I think the protesters got a brief chance to "stick it to the man" in the form of the 2 poor sods at the council who got the sunday shift. I'm pretty sure they're not the 1% though.

In fact, you know what, just stand there completely still and shut the fuck up.