I've already mentioned that Adolf Hitler was not a Christian. Nor was he an atheist. In fact, he tried to eradicate both Christianity and atheism.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Has Non-Fiction Become Dumber?
Over the past few years I've been reading fewer new books. New fiction is, for the most part, self-indulgent, meaningless narcissism wrapped inside a veneer of pretentious twattery. And non-fiction has taken to become more like fiction.
Take a look at books from a few decades ago. Greats like Isaac Asimov wrote great fiction, and also great non-fiction, and you could tell instantly which genera you were reading. Today that line between fiction and non-fiction has blurred to the point where memoirs contain largely fabricated material and novels contain pages of footnotes and references to news articles and scientific papers.
One great example is The Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham. You start with a fantastic premise: the second largest man-made barrier the world has ever seen was once a giant thorny hedge that ran across India and today almost no one knows anything about it. Then you read the book and 80% is the author talking about himself, his travels, and his research in writing the book you are now reading. Almost nothing about the book is about the hedge itself, the book is little more than a self-referential exercise in seeing how recursive a book can be by referring to itself and the process of writing it as much as possible.
Or The 37th Parallel by Ben Mezrich. The premise is fantastic: UFO sightings and animal mutilations cluster around the 37th parallel, which is the same area where most secret US military bases are located. You then read the book and you find absolutely nothing on the phenomenon of the 37th parallel until the very last chapter. You find very little about UFOs either. Almost the entire book is about a crazy man who lost his job because he was obsessed with UFOs, the furniture he bought his wife to get her to stop nagging him about his obsession with UFOs, the misadventures he had with his equally crazy sister, and the billionaire frenemy he has who started a top secret corporation that works with the government to build private spacecraft. And it's not even written like a biography, it's written like a novel where the author injects his personal opinions throughout. About 10% of the book is fact, the rest is a story with a plot and characters and a twist ending and melodrama concocted to sell books.
Michael Drosnin's Bible Code series contains a handful of intersting facts about a statistical study of the Torah woven together with a whole heap of narrative about how the author is Indiana Jones and has to save the world. Elaine Pagles' books on early Christian history similarly contain as much narrative about the author's own quest to research and write the books as actual history.
New non-fiction has being transformed into some sort of quasi-fictional "thriller" where a kernel of fact is sewn into a narrative with characters and settings and PG-13 dialogue in order to appeal to the dumbed down twitterati and snap-crackle-and-pop chatters with three second attention spans and fifteen word vocabularies who like mass-market corporate "edgy" comedy vomit. Ten page magazine articles are expanded with loads and loads of filler to create 250 page books so wannabe Hollywood screenwriters can keep their heads above water.
Take a look at books from a few decades ago. Greats like Isaac Asimov wrote great fiction, and also great non-fiction, and you could tell instantly which genera you were reading. Today that line between fiction and non-fiction has blurred to the point where memoirs contain largely fabricated material and novels contain pages of footnotes and references to news articles and scientific papers.
One great example is The Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham. You start with a fantastic premise: the second largest man-made barrier the world has ever seen was once a giant thorny hedge that ran across India and today almost no one knows anything about it. Then you read the book and 80% is the author talking about himself, his travels, and his research in writing the book you are now reading. Almost nothing about the book is about the hedge itself, the book is little more than a self-referential exercise in seeing how recursive a book can be by referring to itself and the process of writing it as much as possible.
Or The 37th Parallel by Ben Mezrich. The premise is fantastic: UFO sightings and animal mutilations cluster around the 37th parallel, which is the same area where most secret US military bases are located. You then read the book and you find absolutely nothing on the phenomenon of the 37th parallel until the very last chapter. You find very little about UFOs either. Almost the entire book is about a crazy man who lost his job because he was obsessed with UFOs, the furniture he bought his wife to get her to stop nagging him about his obsession with UFOs, the misadventures he had with his equally crazy sister, and the billionaire frenemy he has who started a top secret corporation that works with the government to build private spacecraft. And it's not even written like a biography, it's written like a novel where the author injects his personal opinions throughout. About 10% of the book is fact, the rest is a story with a plot and characters and a twist ending and melodrama concocted to sell books.
Michael Drosnin's Bible Code series contains a handful of intersting facts about a statistical study of the Torah woven together with a whole heap of narrative about how the author is Indiana Jones and has to save the world. Elaine Pagles' books on early Christian history similarly contain as much narrative about the author's own quest to research and write the books as actual history.
New non-fiction has being transformed into some sort of quasi-fictional "thriller" where a kernel of fact is sewn into a narrative with characters and settings and PG-13 dialogue in order to appeal to the dumbed down twitterati and snap-crackle-and-pop chatters with three second attention spans and fifteen word vocabularies who like mass-market corporate "edgy" comedy vomit. Ten page magazine articles are expanded with loads and loads of filler to create 250 page books so wannabe Hollywood screenwriters can keep their heads above water.
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Deadhead Mountain
Donnie Eichar in his book Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, tries to censor everyone who reveals the bullshit "secret" "true" reason behind why 9 experienced skiers died in the Ural mountains mysteriously. He is not interested in the truth, he wants you to buy his shitty book. Well, here's the "secret" and here's why it's a total load.
The shape of the Kholat Syakhl mountain produces a Kármán vortex street when the wind hits it just right. These vortices of air generates infrasonic noise that 22% of the population are highly susceptible to (and, coincidentally, ALL 9 skiers were in that 22%). The noise causes them to go crazy and stuff ("hijacking their bodies" and "wreaking havoc on their minds") after they listen to it for a few hours. They run out of their tents naked in a panic. There was no moon that night, and the temperature was 40 below freezing. The combination of extremely low temperature and injury from bumping into things in the dark killed them.
Of course, it doesn't explain how ALL 9 of the skiers were in that magic minority that is susceptible to infrasonic waves like this. It doesn't explain why one skier was missing a tongue and another was missing eyes. It doesn't explain why they had internal crushing injuries and broken bones but no bruises or any external injuries. It doesn't explain why a few bodies had dark orange skin and were highly radioactive. It doesn't explain why no one before or since, of the thousands of people who have been there, have ever experienced this phenomenon, including the natives who live in the area, and multiple teams of researchers who investigated the deaths.
It doesn't take into account the lights they saw in the sky (which were later identified as Russian missile launches, as the mountain is near a top secret military base) and any possible motive the military would have for killing them to keep their missile tests a secret.
No reason is given why the author did not go to the mountain and set up any equipment to listen for these infrasonic waves. He's throwing away all other hypotheses as obviously wrong and setting up his own as obviously right without actually conducting a test to see if these waves are actually produced by the mountain or not? He didn't actually conduct the test? He based it on similarly shaped mountains that produce kind of similar infrasonic effects that have never ever killed anyone so far.
I shit you not.
There, I just saved you the $20 for the book and ruined the author's fun by exposing the secret ending.
Now, here's what we do know:
•FACT: This was during the coldest time in the Cold War when both the US and USSR were testing a great deal of new weapons.
•FACT: There is a Soviet military base within the vicinity of the mountains where the hikers were staying.
•FACT: There were reports of lights in the sky were confirmed to have been Soviet rocket tests.
•FACT: The Soviet Union has a long history of testing air-burst weapons such as the Father of All Bombs.
•FACT: The internal crushing injuries the skiers received are consistent with the powerful shock waves produced by these types of explosives.
•FACT: The Soviet government had every reason in the world to cover up the deaths as they had with other accidental casualties of military experiments, such as the anthrax leak at Sverdlovsk in 1979.
Can this hypothesis I've cobbled together over the past ten minutes explain everything about the Dyatlov Pass incident? No. Does it do a better job at explaining at least some of the details than the total bullshit explanation a Hollywood screenwriter came up with and repackaged as non-fiction because he wanted to get a movie deal and drum up positive press for his potential future pay day? Absolutely.
By the way, I've used first-person pronouns with less frequency in this review than the author did in the original book.
The shape of the Kholat Syakhl mountain produces a Kármán vortex street when the wind hits it just right. These vortices of air generates infrasonic noise that 22% of the population are highly susceptible to (and, coincidentally, ALL 9 skiers were in that 22%). The noise causes them to go crazy and stuff ("hijacking their bodies" and "wreaking havoc on their minds") after they listen to it for a few hours. They run out of their tents naked in a panic. There was no moon that night, and the temperature was 40 below freezing. The combination of extremely low temperature and injury from bumping into things in the dark killed them.
Of course, it doesn't explain how ALL 9 of the skiers were in that magic minority that is susceptible to infrasonic waves like this. It doesn't explain why one skier was missing a tongue and another was missing eyes. It doesn't explain why they had internal crushing injuries and broken bones but no bruises or any external injuries. It doesn't explain why a few bodies had dark orange skin and were highly radioactive. It doesn't explain why no one before or since, of the thousands of people who have been there, have ever experienced this phenomenon, including the natives who live in the area, and multiple teams of researchers who investigated the deaths.
It doesn't take into account the lights they saw in the sky (which were later identified as Russian missile launches, as the mountain is near a top secret military base) and any possible motive the military would have for killing them to keep their missile tests a secret.
No reason is given why the author did not go to the mountain and set up any equipment to listen for these infrasonic waves. He's throwing away all other hypotheses as obviously wrong and setting up his own as obviously right without actually conducting a test to see if these waves are actually produced by the mountain or not? He didn't actually conduct the test? He based it on similarly shaped mountains that produce kind of similar infrasonic effects that have never ever killed anyone so far.
I shit you not.
There, I just saved you the $20 for the book and ruined the author's fun by exposing the secret ending.
Now, here's what we do know:
•FACT: This was during the coldest time in the Cold War when both the US and USSR were testing a great deal of new weapons.
•FACT: There is a Soviet military base within the vicinity of the mountains where the hikers were staying.
•FACT: There were reports of lights in the sky were confirmed to have been Soviet rocket tests.
•FACT: The Soviet Union has a long history of testing air-burst weapons such as the Father of All Bombs.
•FACT: The internal crushing injuries the skiers received are consistent with the powerful shock waves produced by these types of explosives.
•FACT: The Soviet government had every reason in the world to cover up the deaths as they had with other accidental casualties of military experiments, such as the anthrax leak at Sverdlovsk in 1979.
Can this hypothesis I've cobbled together over the past ten minutes explain everything about the Dyatlov Pass incident? No. Does it do a better job at explaining at least some of the details than the total bullshit explanation a Hollywood screenwriter came up with and repackaged as non-fiction because he wanted to get a movie deal and drum up positive press for his potential future pay day? Absolutely.
By the way, I've used first-person pronouns with less frequency in this review than the author did in the original book.
Monday, October 15, 2018
Devil's Pass
Saw a movie called Devil's Pass. It's a "found footage" movie, meaning it's shite and there are scenes in porno night vision. A group of kind of plain looking people and a fatty with a face like a jack-o-lantern who have never acted before in their entire lives are making a mockumentary about the Dyatlov Pass incident, where some Russian hikers died under mysterious circumstances.
Of course they make sure to leave the cameras rolling during all the parts that have absolutely nothing to do with the documentary they are working on just in case they die and someone decides to make their home movies into a horror flick. This includes night vision sex, I shit you not. The "film makers" actually record themselves having sex. Of course fatty cheeseburger, who is the main character and her character's name is her real name because none of these people are actors, is jelly and some guy gives her a bottle of Jack because we're going to be camping in the woods for one night and have to have sex because we have to earn our R rating.
There's an avalanche or something and the kind of plain girl gets thrown into the camera with a wide-the-fuck-open mouth because that's how everyone dies. The guy who does her gets his leg broke and he's surprisingly coo with two amateurs resetting the bone, which is sticking out of his leg, by hitting it with a board while someone off camera breaks some celery. I'll admit that was the one moment where I winced. Celery really does sound gross.
So some Ivans find them in the morning because they stupidly launch a flare that goes all of ten feet and they shoot the cripple because they're racist against cripples. Fatty Cheeseburger, Jack, and some other guy then go to the bunker they found the other night and they go inside because being locked inside a Cold War bunker to die in agony over several days is better than getting shot, or taking your chance running knowing the people following you have a finite number of bullets and they've already used several. And there's like trees and shit, you can't just duck?
Inside they find two tunnels leading off in the same general direction and the lights start blowing out because zombies. You know it's going to be zombies because it's a found footage film, it has to be zombies. So they go down the other tunnel and find pictures of the Philadelphia Experiment, which was originally featured in Playboy, believe it or not. Jack just so happens to be an expert on the subject.
Inside the tunnel they find obviously CGI zombies who kill the other guy. Fatty Cheeseburger and Jack lock themselves into another room and find a worm hole with spider veins. They theorize that the worm hole will take you wherever you focus, but it has to be someplace fresh in your mind. Now even though I could picture every square inch of my house with my eyes closed these two idiots focus on the outside of the bunker where two men with guns are waiting for them.
They then appear outside the bunker as corpse men in 1959. Reds take them inside the bunker, which was new at the time, and undress them for some reason. They also take the camera, which is rather considerate, and place it where we can see the bodies because that's exactly what a soldier would do when he finds a piece of alien technology with a couple of bodies. The Reds leave and we see the two naked bodies hanging from meat hooks for some reason and we see... surprise!... NOT! The two zombies are really Fatty Doo Doo and Johnny Walker! They've been alive/undead inside the tunnel since 1959 because it's a found footage film and there's only so many different ideas we can use for those.
The sad part is IMDB shows production stills and they had some really decent makeup effects for the zombies. Why they decided to go with early Tomb Raider quality CGI is beyond me.
Oh and that camera Ivan Drago places on the operating table? He left it on since 1959 and the batteries didn't go dead until 2013 when Fatty and Jack found it. I got to get me some of those batteries. The batteries in my camera last 45 minutes tops.
Of course they make sure to leave the cameras rolling during all the parts that have absolutely nothing to do with the documentary they are working on just in case they die and someone decides to make their home movies into a horror flick. This includes night vision sex, I shit you not. The "film makers" actually record themselves having sex. Of course fatty cheeseburger, who is the main character and her character's name is her real name because none of these people are actors, is jelly and some guy gives her a bottle of Jack because we're going to be camping in the woods for one night and have to have sex because we have to earn our R rating.
There's an avalanche or something and the kind of plain girl gets thrown into the camera with a wide-the-fuck-open mouth because that's how everyone dies. The guy who does her gets his leg broke and he's surprisingly coo with two amateurs resetting the bone, which is sticking out of his leg, by hitting it with a board while someone off camera breaks some celery. I'll admit that was the one moment where I winced. Celery really does sound gross.
So some Ivans find them in the morning because they stupidly launch a flare that goes all of ten feet and they shoot the cripple because they're racist against cripples. Fatty Cheeseburger, Jack, and some other guy then go to the bunker they found the other night and they go inside because being locked inside a Cold War bunker to die in agony over several days is better than getting shot, or taking your chance running knowing the people following you have a finite number of bullets and they've already used several. And there's like trees and shit, you can't just duck?
Inside they find two tunnels leading off in the same general direction and the lights start blowing out because zombies. You know it's going to be zombies because it's a found footage film, it has to be zombies. So they go down the other tunnel and find pictures of the Philadelphia Experiment, which was originally featured in Playboy, believe it or not. Jack just so happens to be an expert on the subject.
Inside the tunnel they find obviously CGI zombies who kill the other guy. Fatty Cheeseburger and Jack lock themselves into another room and find a worm hole with spider veins. They theorize that the worm hole will take you wherever you focus, but it has to be someplace fresh in your mind. Now even though I could picture every square inch of my house with my eyes closed these two idiots focus on the outside of the bunker where two men with guns are waiting for them.
They then appear outside the bunker as corpse men in 1959. Reds take them inside the bunker, which was new at the time, and undress them for some reason. They also take the camera, which is rather considerate, and place it where we can see the bodies because that's exactly what a soldier would do when he finds a piece of alien technology with a couple of bodies. The Reds leave and we see the two naked bodies hanging from meat hooks for some reason and we see... surprise!... NOT! The two zombies are really Fatty Doo Doo and Johnny Walker! They've been alive/undead inside the tunnel since 1959 because it's a found footage film and there's only so many different ideas we can use for those.
The sad part is IMDB shows production stills and they had some really decent makeup effects for the zombies. Why they decided to go with early Tomb Raider quality CGI is beyond me.
Oh and that camera Ivan Drago places on the operating table? He left it on since 1959 and the batteries didn't go dead until 2013 when Fatty and Jack found it. I got to get me some of those batteries. The batteries in my camera last 45 minutes tops.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Skybound
Saw a movie called Skybound. It must have been made for negative dollars because there are two sets and one of them is a green screen and the other is a single room. Also no one can act. At all. At no time was I convinced that I was watching something other than people who have never even tried to act at all in their entire lives pretend to act like normies believe actors act while acting.
Basically some 25 year old high school kids are on a private plane with some 60 year old man, who's diabetic by the way, and absolutely no one else because plot. There are two guys who are brothers and you can tell because they dress alike. There's also the token black guy.
Something happens and New York (referred to as Chicago because plot) is on fire, or something? So is Kansas City, so they can't land the plane.
No one knows what is going on and there is no communication with the outside world. All the information they have is from 2 day old newspapers that were left on the plane because plot. This movie takes place at Christmas, by the way.
It turns out that the newspapers conveniently out the old man as the leader of a cult that used LSD to brainwash people into believing the world was ending. He's diabetic and the diversity hire flushed his insulin down the toilet believing it to be LSD that the old man was pumping into the air of the plane to convince everyone the world was ending because plot. The old man conveniently dies within minutes.
This movie takes place on a plane.
The one brother somehow knows how to pilot a plane because plot and he takes the plane down to the clouds in Colorado because the plane has just as much fuel as the plot demands it to have. One of those clouds is a mushroom cloud and ash gets into the plane. Did I mention they had to open the door while the plane was in the air to vent all the bad air they thought was full of LSD?
They dive beneath the clouds to find that Monument Valley, I shit you not, is on fire and bison are running around on fire while the ground is covered in pools of lava because I the most obvious target of a nuclear attack is the middle of nowhere.
They then go back up really high and girl's dad calls her on the plane, this movie takes place on a plane, by the way. He's the only person to have survived the end of the world and he lives in a mansion by a fireplace and he dresses like Hugh Hefner. He says that 11 nuclear missiles were fired from Russia and the only way to survive is to stay... "Skybound"! Where have I heard that before? The signal then cuts out, conveniently.
The brothers then realise they have Wikipedia on the plane and pull up an article about Hiroshima that tells them 2 important, and wrong, plot points: 1. modern nucular weapons are exactly 7 times more powerful than they were in 1945, and 2. radiation has unlimited omnidirectional range over land but very limited range over water, while showing a picture of the Castle Bravo fallout cloud that was very much over water.
Blondie then reveals she's good at maths and gets shit-faced and calculates that flying to Canada or Mexico is a death sentence because radiation has unlimited range over land, and they don't have enough fuel to reach Hawaii because plot.
They then decide to cut stuff out of the plane with a hatched they brought along because plot and dump it (and presumably the dead man's body, because we never see it again) into the sea. But that's still not enough to get them to Hawaii, because plot.
They're in an airplane, did I mention that?
One of the brothers goes outside the plane and uses the hatchet to, I shit you not, cut one of the engines off the plane so they are light enough to make it to Hawaii. He dies.
They almost make it in the middle of the night when the fuel runs out and they instantly drop straight down, because the wings of a plane don't generate lift and can't glide for several miles without power, and hits the sea.
Everyone then wake up completely dry on the beach and we see the Murican flag waving in the distance while someone on the radio, which no one brought with them but appears on the beach because plot, says that thousands of survivors have escaped to Canada, Mexico, and Hawaii, which are the only places safe from the radiation.
The end.
Here's the trailer, which contains the entire movie. Enjoy.
Basically some 25 year old high school kids are on a private plane with some 60 year old man, who's diabetic by the way, and absolutely no one else because plot. There are two guys who are brothers and you can tell because they dress alike. There's also the token black guy.
Something happens and New York (referred to as Chicago because plot) is on fire, or something? So is Kansas City, so they can't land the plane.
No one knows what is going on and there is no communication with the outside world. All the information they have is from 2 day old newspapers that were left on the plane because plot. This movie takes place at Christmas, by the way.
It turns out that the newspapers conveniently out the old man as the leader of a cult that used LSD to brainwash people into believing the world was ending. He's diabetic and the diversity hire flushed his insulin down the toilet believing it to be LSD that the old man was pumping into the air of the plane to convince everyone the world was ending because plot. The old man conveniently dies within minutes.
This movie takes place on a plane.
The one brother somehow knows how to pilot a plane because plot and he takes the plane down to the clouds in Colorado because the plane has just as much fuel as the plot demands it to have. One of those clouds is a mushroom cloud and ash gets into the plane. Did I mention they had to open the door while the plane was in the air to vent all the bad air they thought was full of LSD?
They dive beneath the clouds to find that Monument Valley, I shit you not, is on fire and bison are running around on fire while the ground is covered in pools of lava because I the most obvious target of a nuclear attack is the middle of nowhere.
They then go back up really high and girl's dad calls her on the plane, this movie takes place on a plane, by the way. He's the only person to have survived the end of the world and he lives in a mansion by a fireplace and he dresses like Hugh Hefner. He says that 11 nuclear missiles were fired from Russia and the only way to survive is to stay... "Skybound"! Where have I heard that before? The signal then cuts out, conveniently.
The brothers then realise they have Wikipedia on the plane and pull up an article about Hiroshima that tells them 2 important, and wrong, plot points: 1. modern nucular weapons are exactly 7 times more powerful than they were in 1945, and 2. radiation has unlimited omnidirectional range over land but very limited range over water, while showing a picture of the Castle Bravo fallout cloud that was very much over water.
Blondie then reveals she's good at maths and gets shit-faced and calculates that flying to Canada or Mexico is a death sentence because radiation has unlimited range over land, and they don't have enough fuel to reach Hawaii because plot.
They then decide to cut stuff out of the plane with a hatched they brought along because plot and dump it (and presumably the dead man's body, because we never see it again) into the sea. But that's still not enough to get them to Hawaii, because plot.
They're in an airplane, did I mention that?
One of the brothers goes outside the plane and uses the hatchet to, I shit you not, cut one of the engines off the plane so they are light enough to make it to Hawaii. He dies.
They almost make it in the middle of the night when the fuel runs out and they instantly drop straight down, because the wings of a plane don't generate lift and can't glide for several miles without power, and hits the sea.
Everyone then wake up completely dry on the beach and we see the Murican flag waving in the distance while someone on the radio, which no one brought with them but appears on the beach because plot, says that thousands of survivors have escaped to Canada, Mexico, and Hawaii, which are the only places safe from the radiation.
The end.
Here's the trailer, which contains the entire movie. Enjoy.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
The Predator is Literally About Weaponized Autism
The new movie The Predator rewrites the mythos of the predator species entirely, making them search the galaxy to literally weaponize autism so they can survive on Earth after global warming kills all the humans.
Monday, September 17, 2018
Hitler's Religion
Hitler was not a Christian, as the naytheist community would like to portray him. Nor was he an atheist, as many Christians claim. Nor was he an occultist, though most high level Nazis were. No, Hitler believed in the God of Spinoza, who was a Jew.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
The Mist
The Mist is a movie made about a book written by Steven King, who likes to write stories with really stupid endings because art, or something. The Mist is one of the most unintentionally funny movies of all time. The entire thing is 120 minutes leading up to a single joke.
Here's the ten second synopsis: People are trapped inside a store when the town is engulfed in a mist that contains tentacle monsters/Japanese porn stars. One woman wants to leave the store to go find her kids, but this guy who looks like Sean Nelson without glasses refuses to go with her. He's the protagonist. Some woman with a bowl cut becomes a cult leader who demands human sacrifices because reasons. The guy kills the cult leader and feeds her to the monsters.
Then comes the ending, which is pure comedy gold. The guy escapes from the store with his son and three old people, they drive all day until the car runs out of gas. It looks like the mist goes on forever, so he kills his son and the old people and runs out of bullets. Two seconds later the entire US Army comes by and clears out the mist.
AND they come in from behind him, meaning the entire US Army was just yards behind the car the whole time as it drove through the mist.
To rub it in his face even more the woman who escaped the store at the beginning of the movie to find her kids is one of the survivors. She spent the entire movie out in the mist and nothing bad happened to her or her kids.
What's more the guy is seriously OVERACTING!!!!111
Here's the ending, in case you haven't seen it.
Here's the ten second synopsis: People are trapped inside a store when the town is engulfed in a mist that contains tentacle monsters/Japanese porn stars. One woman wants to leave the store to go find her kids, but this guy who looks like Sean Nelson without glasses refuses to go with her. He's the protagonist. Some woman with a bowl cut becomes a cult leader who demands human sacrifices because reasons. The guy kills the cult leader and feeds her to the monsters.
Then comes the ending, which is pure comedy gold. The guy escapes from the store with his son and three old people, they drive all day until the car runs out of gas. It looks like the mist goes on forever, so he kills his son and the old people and runs out of bullets. Two seconds later the entire US Army comes by and clears out the mist.
AND they come in from behind him, meaning the entire US Army was just yards behind the car the whole time as it drove through the mist.
To rub it in his face even more the woman who escaped the store at the beginning of the movie to find her kids is one of the survivors. She spent the entire movie out in the mist and nothing bad happened to her or her kids.
What's more the guy is seriously OVERACTING!!!!111
Here's the ending, in case you haven't seen it.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Life/Time
Nothing serious today, just some minute musings.
I had an idea, the kind of idea that people have that seem good at first and then fall apart upon the slightest bit of reflection. Let us put it in the form of a story called "Life/Time", for marketing purposes.
There's this idea that time is money, and there's some truth to that. You trade time, your life, for money, so you can keep on living. Right now you have to trade time one second at a time to get money, so you trade now for money in the hope that you can save up enough to retire when you get too old to enjoy your freedom. But what if you could directly trade time for money? What if you could trade time off the back end for money now? What if you could trade the last years of your life for money so you could retire young and enjoy a shorter, happier life? What if time was exactly money and you could pay for stuff by trading away minutes and hours of your life?
It seems like a good idea on first reflection, but put it to any scrutiny and the whole thing betrays itself as nonsense. For one thing you would need to be able to actually trade time, to trade life. That would mean that there would need to be the technology to engineer life extension to such a degree that every death would be deliberate and one person could steal life off of other people. At the same time you would need to have someone else do the work that young people are not performing by trading away their older years. You would need to have every job totally automated and people would be paid to live.
You then realise that if that level of technology existed there would be no point in trading time for money because everyone would have everything they could need or want anyway. The whole system of trading time would be a mere contrivance to make keep the population in check.
You then realise that time is not money. You are not trading life for money, you are trading something else for money.
At least, you were, prior to the modern age when automation and globalisation really have eliminated many of the productive jobs. Companies are, by and large, paying people to perform meaningless work because the alternative, having the majority of the population unemployed and rioting in the streets, would mean the very end of the system that allowed those companies, and their owners, to rise to control the system in the first place. That is why there has been a proliferation of meaningless jobs, to keep people busy and happy enough that they don't overthrow the oligarchy.
I had an idea, the kind of idea that people have that seem good at first and then fall apart upon the slightest bit of reflection. Let us put it in the form of a story called "Life/Time", for marketing purposes.
There's this idea that time is money, and there's some truth to that. You trade time, your life, for money, so you can keep on living. Right now you have to trade time one second at a time to get money, so you trade now for money in the hope that you can save up enough to retire when you get too old to enjoy your freedom. But what if you could directly trade time for money? What if you could trade time off the back end for money now? What if you could trade the last years of your life for money so you could retire young and enjoy a shorter, happier life? What if time was exactly money and you could pay for stuff by trading away minutes and hours of your life?
It seems like a good idea on first reflection, but put it to any scrutiny and the whole thing betrays itself as nonsense. For one thing you would need to be able to actually trade time, to trade life. That would mean that there would need to be the technology to engineer life extension to such a degree that every death would be deliberate and one person could steal life off of other people. At the same time you would need to have someone else do the work that young people are not performing by trading away their older years. You would need to have every job totally automated and people would be paid to live.
You then realise that if that level of technology existed there would be no point in trading time for money because everyone would have everything they could need or want anyway. The whole system of trading time would be a mere contrivance to make keep the population in check.
You then realise that time is not money. You are not trading life for money, you are trading something else for money.
At least, you were, prior to the modern age when automation and globalisation really have eliminated many of the productive jobs. Companies are, by and large, paying people to perform meaningless work because the alternative, having the majority of the population unemployed and rioting in the streets, would mean the very end of the system that allowed those companies, and their owners, to rise to control the system in the first place. That is why there has been a proliferation of meaningless jobs, to keep people busy and happy enough that they don't overthrow the oligarchy.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Machines Have No Minds
Michael Egnor explains the science behind the mind and the brain, and why they are fundamentally different from computers.
The mind is unitary, immaterial, and will is free.
Here is something Dr. Egnor wrote about Wilder Penfield (who he mentions in the video) a few years ago:
Penfield was a neurosurgeon who pioneered the field of epilepsy surgery. He operated on thousands of patients who were awake (under local anesthesia), and were able to speak to him while he stimulated various regions of their brains.
Penfield found that he could invoke all sorts of things- movements, sensations, memories. But in every instance (hundreds of thousands of individual stimulations- in different locations in each patient- during his career), the patients were aware that the stimulation was being done to them, but not by them. There was a part of the mind that was independent of brain stimulation and that constituted a part of subjective experience that Penfield was not able to manipulate with his surgery.
I've performed some epilepsy surgery (although it's not my primary specialty), and my experience has been the same. Patients always know that the memory or sensation or movement is is imposed on them, not by them. Some colleagues who do specialize in epilepsy surgery have confirmed Penfield's observations as well.
Penfield called this "double consciousness", meaning that there was a part of subjective experience that he could invoke or modify materially, and a different part that was immune to such manipulation.
There probably has been no other person who has had Penfield's volume of direct experience with stimulation of the brain during consciousness (he probably did at least 10,000 such operations, perhaps more. He was practically the only person in the world doing this work in the early and mid 20th century.) He was a meticulous scientist (not that common among neurosurgeons, who tend to be 'cowboys').
He considered the strict materialist view of the mind to be utter nonsense.
The mind is unitary, immaterial, and will is free.
Here is something Dr. Egnor wrote about Wilder Penfield (who he mentions in the video) a few years ago:
Penfield was a neurosurgeon who pioneered the field of epilepsy surgery. He operated on thousands of patients who were awake (under local anesthesia), and were able to speak to him while he stimulated various regions of their brains.
Penfield found that he could invoke all sorts of things- movements, sensations, memories. But in every instance (hundreds of thousands of individual stimulations- in different locations in each patient- during his career), the patients were aware that the stimulation was being done to them, but not by them. There was a part of the mind that was independent of brain stimulation and that constituted a part of subjective experience that Penfield was not able to manipulate with his surgery.
I've performed some epilepsy surgery (although it's not my primary specialty), and my experience has been the same. Patients always know that the memory or sensation or movement is is imposed on them, not by them. Some colleagues who do specialize in epilepsy surgery have confirmed Penfield's observations as well.
Penfield called this "double consciousness", meaning that there was a part of subjective experience that he could invoke or modify materially, and a different part that was immune to such manipulation.
There probably has been no other person who has had Penfield's volume of direct experience with stimulation of the brain during consciousness (he probably did at least 10,000 such operations, perhaps more. He was practically the only person in the world doing this work in the early and mid 20th century.) He was a meticulous scientist (not that common among neurosurgeons, who tend to be 'cowboys').
He considered the strict materialist view of the mind to be utter nonsense.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Forgiving Hitler
Forgiveness is the central teaching of Jesus Christ. It is the very heart of the Gospel, and sets Christianity apart from all other religions. Other religions are about rituals or self-perfection. Christianity certainly forces us to look at ourselves and our own flaws, and to improve ourselves, but it does so through forgiving others. We transcend the ego not by reciting a mantra or sitting in silence, but by acting in the world.
Still, people have conflicting problems with forgiveness. There are those people who reject God because they think everyone should be forgiven for everything and Hell should not exist, and there are people on the other end of the spectrum who reject God because of God's forgiveness, believing Hell should be a prison for which all the people they despise are locked away forever. It's just like this pillow which some people dislike for being too firm and other people dislike for not being firm enough.
jezuzfreek777 takes some time to talk about God's limitless love for us and his limitless forgiveness. It is a very good, short video that I highly recommend.
Still, people have conflicting problems with forgiveness. There are those people who reject God because they think everyone should be forgiven for everything and Hell should not exist, and there are people on the other end of the spectrum who reject God because of God's forgiveness, believing Hell should be a prison for which all the people they despise are locked away forever. It's just like this pillow which some people dislike for being too firm and other people dislike for not being firm enough.
jezuzfreek777 takes some time to talk about God's limitless love for us and his limitless forgiveness. It is a very good, short video that I highly recommend.
Monday, July 2, 2018
Globalist Bankster System Exposed
RockingMrE explains the origin of fractional reserve banking, how it creates money out of thin air, and how it is the central part of the globalist plan to eliminate nation states and control the world.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
The Atrocity of Modern Architecture
Paul Joseph Watson takes a look at the difference between real architecture and "modern" architecture, between what nearly everyone wants and what the government gives them in terms of the aesthetics of where they live.
"Modern" (and post-modern) art is shite. There's no disputing that amongst 99.99% of all the people on the planet. The only people who like such artistic abortions as paint splatter, blank canvasses, buildings made of randomly assorted bits of construction kit, and literal heaps of shit, are pretentious twats who like to believe they are superior to everyone else and the artists themselves who are taking the piss at said pretentious twats.
As Sociologist Nathan Glazer explains in an essay about the National Mall in Washington, D.C., titled "Monuments, Modernism, and the Mall", what the deal is with toilets, giant clothespins, and wasted heaps of metal. Presented here is a section of that essay, taken from an anthology, The National Mall: Rethinking Washington's Monumental Core, edited by Mr. Glazer himself and Cynthia R. Fields. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
There are many traditional forms and emblems that are not yet, I would think, exhausted and do serve to communicate something to people. In any case, the new forms of modern art and modernism either have their own kitschy meaning, like flat roofs or metal beams agonizing with each other, or mean nothing at all. Perhaps the sophisticates can distinguish one construction of beans from another, one set of whorled metal sheets from another, so that one might mean triumph and another defeat, but most of us can't and are left to say, "Huh?"
I find an exquisite summary of the dilemma of modernism and memorials in a 1992 book by Harriet Senie, Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy. In the two first sentences, she writes: "The problems endemic to public art in a democracy begin with its definition. How can something be public (democratic) and art (elitist)?" The implicit and taken-for-granted assumption is that art must be elitist and therefore will be incomprehensible to a democratic public. What a strange, what a modern, assumption! Would Michaelangelo or Bernini or Lutyens have ever had such a thought? They would not have contemplated such a thought not because their publics were better educated than we are today (they might have been) but because they took it for granted that they were distinguished from their fellows by their skill and genius, not by their assumptions and values and ideals.
One way the contemporary artist overcomes the problem is by turning his or her art into a joke. So on the dust jacket of the book Contemporary Public Sculpture, one will see an enormous clothespin erected in front of the huge Philadelphia City hall, which was built in Second Empire style. The sculpture is by Claes Oldenburg, who has proposed many such modern monuments and built a few. Alexander Calder's mobiles and stabiles are gentler jokes. One can see one on the west side of the National Museum of American History, a homage to Gwendolyn Cafritz, a benefactor of Washington art. This will work to some extent; it will not work, however, for a serious monument or memorial to note events or people that we do not consider matters for amusement.
"Modern" (and post-modern) art is shite. There's no disputing that amongst 99.99% of all the people on the planet. The only people who like such artistic abortions as paint splatter, blank canvasses, buildings made of randomly assorted bits of construction kit, and literal heaps of shit, are pretentious twats who like to believe they are superior to everyone else and the artists themselves who are taking the piss at said pretentious twats.
As Sociologist Nathan Glazer explains in an essay about the National Mall in Washington, D.C., titled "Monuments, Modernism, and the Mall", what the deal is with toilets, giant clothespins, and wasted heaps of metal. Presented here is a section of that essay, taken from an anthology, The National Mall: Rethinking Washington's Monumental Core, edited by Mr. Glazer himself and Cynthia R. Fields. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
There are many traditional forms and emblems that are not yet, I would think, exhausted and do serve to communicate something to people. In any case, the new forms of modern art and modernism either have their own kitschy meaning, like flat roofs or metal beams agonizing with each other, or mean nothing at all. Perhaps the sophisticates can distinguish one construction of beans from another, one set of whorled metal sheets from another, so that one might mean triumph and another defeat, but most of us can't and are left to say, "Huh?"
I find an exquisite summary of the dilemma of modernism and memorials in a 1992 book by Harriet Senie, Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy. In the two first sentences, she writes: "The problems endemic to public art in a democracy begin with its definition. How can something be public (democratic) and art (elitist)?" The implicit and taken-for-granted assumption is that art must be elitist and therefore will be incomprehensible to a democratic public. What a strange, what a modern, assumption! Would Michaelangelo or Bernini or Lutyens have ever had such a thought? They would not have contemplated such a thought not because their publics were better educated than we are today (they might have been) but because they took it for granted that they were distinguished from their fellows by their skill and genius, not by their assumptions and values and ideals.
One way the contemporary artist overcomes the problem is by turning his or her art into a joke. So on the dust jacket of the book Contemporary Public Sculpture, one will see an enormous clothespin erected in front of the huge Philadelphia City hall, which was built in Second Empire style. The sculpture is by Claes Oldenburg, who has proposed many such modern monuments and built a few. Alexander Calder's mobiles and stabiles are gentler jokes. One can see one on the west side of the National Museum of American History, a homage to Gwendolyn Cafritz, a benefactor of Washington art. This will work to some extent; it will not work, however, for a serious monument or memorial to note events or people that we do not consider matters for amusement.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Education Is a System of Indoctrination of the Young
Continuing the theme from last week, Noam Chomsky explains the purpose of education, which is, as I've previously said, the indoctrination of the young. That's why school is often boring and pointless, because it's function is not to facilitate learning but to condition children to become obedient cogs who never question authority.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
The Chaos of American Schools
Retired public school teacher Lee McNulty describes in chilling detail the horrors of the American public education system. Teachers are not allowed to teach and students literally cannot fail. No child left behind. They just get pushed through to graduation because no school wants to lose funding by looking like they aren't achieving results.
This is what I talked about in my magnum opus "What Is At Stake In The Next Election". Here's what I wrote in November 2016:
The state of public education in America is appalling, and no amount of money can fix it. More money is, in fact, the problem. Schools are letting illiterate, often violent students graduate because they know they can get more money if their graduation rates and phony test scores are higher. The only solution is to go back to policies that actually worked, before the Department of Education's one-size-fits-all approach was invented; back when individual communities ran the schools and catered to the needs of the children living in those communities. Back then America had one of the greatest education systems in the history of the world, and we can return to that greatness if only we follow along the same path of scaling back government that Donald Trump has taken us on.
This is what I talked about in my magnum opus "What Is At Stake In The Next Election". Here's what I wrote in November 2016:
What about the wonderful public school system? High school graduation rates are at the highest they've ever been! That's because dumb kids are being pushed through like cattle to the slaughter and programs for smart kids are being cut so the dumb kids don't feel bad for being excluded.
26% of high school graduates are below the basic reading level. This means these kids do not have the
skills necessary to perform simple and everyday literacy activities. One quarter of all high school graduates are functionally illiterate! In 1979 only 1% of graduates were illiterate, and now it's 26% thanks to "outcome-based education." Worse still, 19% of high school graduates can't read AT ALL! One in five graduates cannot read their own name.
Remember Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act"? And it's gotten worse under Common Core, where getting the correct answer is wrong unless you use all your fingers and your toes to count by ones!
The schools have failed a significant percentage of kids. People with no education and no skills, mostly poor urban blacks and Latinos, often can't get a job (see above), and in order to make money just to survive turn to crime. They turn to crime, they turn to drugs, and then they run afoul of the police. They go to prison, they die in gangland shootings, or they die in standoffs with the police. The horrible state of public education in America, combined with economic policies that ship jobs overseas, are creating the crime that is devastating minority communities. Blacks and Latinos who vote for the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies are literally voting for their own poverty and inner city violence. If black lives really mattered, if you really want police shootings to stop, you need to solve the root causes of the problem, which means fixing the economy, fixing the schools, and securing the border. And that means voting for Trump.
The state of public education in America is appalling, and no amount of money can fix it. More money is, in fact, the problem. Schools are letting illiterate, often violent students graduate because they know they can get more money if their graduation rates and phony test scores are higher. The only solution is to go back to policies that actually worked, before the Department of Education's one-size-fits-all approach was invented; back when individual communities ran the schools and catered to the needs of the children living in those communities. Back then America had one of the greatest education systems in the history of the world, and we can return to that greatness if only we follow along the same path of scaling back government that Donald Trump has taken us on.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
What's The Point of Life if We're Going To Die?
Motivational speaker Seth Alexander explains his answer to the great existential question of the purpose of life in this circular system where we work to make money so we can afford to live so we can keep working.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Jesse Duplantis: "Jesus Wants You To Buy Me A Jet"
Jesse Duplantis is a preacher of the "prosperity gospel", which is pretty much the opposite of what Jesus taught. Remember what Jesus actually said:
● "These things I have told you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you will have to suffer, but cheer up, I have overcome the world."
(John 16:33)
● "Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me." Hearing this the rich young man was deeply troubled and he left. Jesus saw this and said "How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
(Luke 18:22-25)
The prosperity gospel states that if you pray a whole lot or something then God will give you money and Rolexs and $54 million jets. Mysteriously it only seems to work for the preachers, not the people who attend their seminars, which look more like pep talks than church.
In contrast, Jesus and the Apostles all lived difficult lives, survived through charity, and died violent deaths. The Apostle Paul speaks time and again how he's basically a poor nomad who is constantly being chased out of towns, beaten, starved, and exposed to the elements. He certainly didn't own a jet, or it's first century equivalent, like Caligula had two giant yachts because he didn't want to have orgies with the commoners crossing the Mediterranean. The early church in Jerusalem was sustained by everyone selling their possessions.
Now, 2018, Jesse Duplantis, the serpent, who has already been granted three jets by his gullible audience, "believes" for a brand new jet. He "burned them up for the Lord Jesus Christ", whatever that means. It's clear it doesn't mean the planes have ceased functioning, because he's still flying around in all three. Well now he needs a new one. And not just any jet, a $54 Dassault Falcon 7X, which Jesus specifically told him to get by name. This jet can go anywhere in the world without needing to refuel, because fuel is so expensive (more expensive than a new jet), especially when you own a "fuel farm", which I guess works like a dairy farm only with milking dinosaurs to get oil instead of cows.
From the Google cache of the Washington Times (fuck your ad blocker ban):
"You can't get there from here!" This is the era of fucking Youtube. Astronauts can livestream from space, you don't need a jet to reach an audience physically. I think Jesus would appreciate that, the ability to reach people all over the world instantly.
Kenneth Copeland even says "We're in show business." That's why they need private jets. They're not in the business of saving souls, they're in "show business," which is worse than hooking when it comes to degeneracy.
As if that's not bad enough these Sadducees need to get up in airplanes and stand up and wave their arms to talk to God. God lives way up on the Moon and he can't hear you if you're stuck on the ground. You need to get up in a private jet, in a $50,000 suit with a $20,000 watch, and shout really loud because God is really old so he's hard of hearing.
To top it off they say that airplanes are "tubes filled with demons." Well, if you really are a man of God then exorcise the demons. That's one of the powers the Holy Spirit should have given you if you are legit. No, commercial airlines are not filled with demons, they're filled with regular people who watch your show and pay for your extravagant lifestyle.
No, those airplanes are not filled with demons, these fake preachers are. These are serpents from Hell taking advantage of the poor, the sick, and the despondent. And if there is a God and a Hell these two will burn in the lake of fire.
● "These things I have told you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you will have to suffer, but cheer up, I have overcome the world."
(John 16:33)
● "Sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me." Hearing this the rich young man was deeply troubled and he left. Jesus saw this and said "How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
(Luke 18:22-25)
The prosperity gospel states that if you pray a whole lot or something then God will give you money and Rolexs and $54 million jets. Mysteriously it only seems to work for the preachers, not the people who attend their seminars, which look more like pep talks than church.
In contrast, Jesus and the Apostles all lived difficult lives, survived through charity, and died violent deaths. The Apostle Paul speaks time and again how he's basically a poor nomad who is constantly being chased out of towns, beaten, starved, and exposed to the elements. He certainly didn't own a jet, or it's first century equivalent, like Caligula had two giant yachts because he didn't want to have orgies with the commoners crossing the Mediterranean. The early church in Jerusalem was sustained by everyone selling their possessions.
Now, 2018, Jesse Duplantis, the serpent, who has already been granted three jets by his gullible audience, "believes" for a brand new jet. He "burned them up for the Lord Jesus Christ", whatever that means. It's clear it doesn't mean the planes have ceased functioning, because he's still flying around in all three. Well now he needs a new one. And not just any jet, a $54 Dassault Falcon 7X, which Jesus specifically told him to get by name. This jet can go anywhere in the world without needing to refuel, because fuel is so expensive (more expensive than a new jet), especially when you own a "fuel farm", which I guess works like a dairy farm only with milking dinosaurs to get oil instead of cows.
From the Google cache of the Washington Times (fuck your ad blocker ban):
Televangelists Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis defended their use of private jets as a luxury means of travel, arguing that commercial planes are full of “a bunch of demons” that will bog down their busy schedules with prayer requests.
In a Dec. 29 segment of Mr. Copeland’s “Believer’s Voice of Victory” television program, Mr. Duplantis recalled a story where he was on a plane and had to unbuckle his seat belt to speak to God, The Blaze reported.
“You couldn’t have done that over an airline,” added Mr. Copeland. “Stand up and say, ‘What did you say, Lord?’”
“No, sir, no way,” Mr. Duplantis agreed.
"You can't get there from here!" This is the era of fucking Youtube. Astronauts can livestream from space, you don't need a jet to reach an audience physically. I think Jesus would appreciate that, the ability to reach people all over the world instantly.
Kenneth Copeland even says "We're in show business." That's why they need private jets. They're not in the business of saving souls, they're in "show business," which is worse than hooking when it comes to degeneracy.
As if that's not bad enough these Sadducees need to get up in airplanes and stand up and wave their arms to talk to God. God lives way up on the Moon and he can't hear you if you're stuck on the ground. You need to get up in a private jet, in a $50,000 suit with a $20,000 watch, and shout really loud because God is really old so he's hard of hearing.
To top it off they say that airplanes are "tubes filled with demons." Well, if you really are a man of God then exorcise the demons. That's one of the powers the Holy Spirit should have given you if you are legit. No, commercial airlines are not filled with demons, they're filled with regular people who watch your show and pay for your extravagant lifestyle.
No, those airplanes are not filled with demons, these fake preachers are. These are serpents from Hell taking advantage of the poor, the sick, and the despondent. And if there is a God and a Hell these two will burn in the lake of fire.
Milton Friedman's Basic Income
It's as Moses says in The Ten Commandments: "A city is made from brick. The strong make many, the weak make few, the dead make none."
We've known about this for how long? People on the left like to have a permanent underclass from whom to extract votes and people on the right believe the asinine notion that starvation is a good motivation to make people work. No, it's not, it's a shitty motivation. People who have all their basic needs met work harder, have more enthusiasm to work, and reinvest more into the economy. That's not me saying it, that's Adam Smith saying it. That's Milton Friedman saying it. I don't care what Rust Lumbar or Sean Hannity, who owns Section 8 housing yet pretends to be a regular blue collar guy, think. They're snakes and vermin.
Friedman suggested something he called a "negative income tax". Anyone making below what was at the time a living wage ($3,000 a year, or $21,000 a year today) would be given the difference up to half ($1,500 or $10,600). The minimum amount never changes. With welfare today if you're collecting and you have a job you're penalised, which disincentivises people on welfare to work. On Friedman's plan the minimum amount is guaranteed, so you can work and earn more and never have to worry about having money taken away from you.
We've known about this for how long? People on the left like to have a permanent underclass from whom to extract votes and people on the right believe the asinine notion that starvation is a good motivation to make people work. No, it's not, it's a shitty motivation. People who have all their basic needs met work harder, have more enthusiasm to work, and reinvest more into the economy. That's not me saying it, that's Adam Smith saying it. That's Milton Friedman saying it. I don't care what Rust Lumbar or Sean Hannity, who owns Section 8 housing yet pretends to be a regular blue collar guy, think. They're snakes and vermin.
Friedman suggested something he called a "negative income tax". Anyone making below what was at the time a living wage ($3,000 a year, or $21,000 a year today) would be given the difference up to half ($1,500 or $10,600). The minimum amount never changes. With welfare today if you're collecting and you have a job you're penalised, which disincentivises people on welfare to work. On Friedman's plan the minimum amount is guaranteed, so you can work and earn more and never have to worry about having money taken away from you.
Milton Friedman on Drug Legalisation
"The role of the government is to protect the drug cartels. That's literally true."
- Milton Friedman
- Milton Friedman
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
The Future Requires Universal Basic Income
Technology is advancing to the point where it will be necessary to do one of two things:
1. Kill billions of people who will have no jobs
or
2. Pay people to live
Universal basic income is opposed by the left because they won't be able to use welfare to bribe voters, and it's opposed by the right because poor people can go die in a gutter. UBI can be instituted by redirecting current government spending toward helping people instead of turning politicians and executives into royalty and demigods, and it will solve many many problems that fall under the broad category of "human suffering". We've reached a point as a species where we have the technology to eliminate most human suffering, we just refuse to do so because of the two reasons stated above.
1. Kill billions of people who will have no jobs
or
2. Pay people to live
Universal basic income is opposed by the left because they won't be able to use welfare to bribe voters, and it's opposed by the right because poor people can go die in a gutter. UBI can be instituted by redirecting current government spending toward helping people instead of turning politicians and executives into royalty and demigods, and it will solve many many problems that fall under the broad category of "human suffering". We've reached a point as a species where we have the technology to eliminate most human suffering, we just refuse to do so because of the two reasons stated above.
Monday, May 7, 2018
UFOs on Fox News
Tucker Carlson, one of the couple of honest journalists on any major news network, interviews ufologist Leslie Kean and Navy pilot David Fravor about the truth behind the UFO phenomenon. This is probably the first time I have ever seen the subject of UFOs taken seriously on a major news network. It's a short clip from earlier this year (January 2018) but this represents what is hopefully the start of a major reversal in how the media treat "fringe" topics that are actually believed by a majority of the population (UFOs, Psi, ghosts, survival after death).
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Dean Radin on Real Magic
Garrett Stevens, host of the Hemi-Sync Podcast, interviews Dean Radin about his new book Real Magic.
Stop thinking about having fun and have it
Expanding on the last topic from earlier this week. Life is full of suffering, but it's also full of joy too.
Monday, April 23, 2018
You Are Going To Die
In the past couple weeks we've seen three prominent deaths of First Lady Barbara Bush, Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey, and radio raconteur Art Bell. That makes this as good a time as any to reflect on death, and the inevitability of death. It is an extremely good, and powerful, mystical practice.
This body is a temporary construct, a little vortex within the waves, and it will fall apart eventually. In some people, like myself, probably sooner rather than later. However far ahead that date may be, it is inevitable. It doesn't matter if you're David Rockefeller and you have infinity billion dollars and you can buy your fifth heart transplant at age 101 knowing that you have a 50-50 chance of surviving another year when a young person could get that heart and live at least 25 more years, maybe long enough to see the day when we're growing new hearts from our own stem cells. All the gold in the world cannot protect you from death. There is NOTHING you can do to escape it.
I'm reminded of that scene in The Ten Commandments where the angel of death descends upon Egypt. The Egyptians try to escape the green mist, they try to board up their windows and plug the holes in their doors, but nothing can stop it. They are struck in absolute terror at this omnipresent force that claims sinner and saint alike. Your wealth, your fame, your accomplishments, how good or bad you were, nothing can stop death. The only thing you can do is to have faith in the Lord. That is the ultimate good news. Christ died to erase our sins and to save us from death. He rose again and destroyed death, the central illusion underpinning this world.
Remember the likes of Richard Rose and Ramana Maharshi, both of whom were stricken by the intense fear of death and then made it their life's goal to discover what survives. I believe they've succeeded, and we must all walk that path and find the Truth for ourselves.
This body is a temporary construct, a little vortex within the waves, and it will fall apart eventually. In some people, like myself, probably sooner rather than later. However far ahead that date may be, it is inevitable. It doesn't matter if you're David Rockefeller and you have infinity billion dollars and you can buy your fifth heart transplant at age 101 knowing that you have a 50-50 chance of surviving another year when a young person could get that heart and live at least 25 more years, maybe long enough to see the day when we're growing new hearts from our own stem cells. All the gold in the world cannot protect you from death. There is NOTHING you can do to escape it.
I'm reminded of that scene in The Ten Commandments where the angel of death descends upon Egypt. The Egyptians try to escape the green mist, they try to board up their windows and plug the holes in their doors, but nothing can stop it. They are struck in absolute terror at this omnipresent force that claims sinner and saint alike. Your wealth, your fame, your accomplishments, how good or bad you were, nothing can stop death. The only thing you can do is to have faith in the Lord. That is the ultimate good news. Christ died to erase our sins and to save us from death. He rose again and destroyed death, the central illusion underpinning this world.
Remember the likes of Richard Rose and Ramana Maharshi, both of whom were stricken by the intense fear of death and then made it their life's goal to discover what survives. I believe they've succeeded, and we must all walk that path and find the Truth for ourselves.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Romance is For Young People
Modern people don't understand what "romance" is. People are obsessed with the adolescent misperception of "love" (see The Sisyphus Gambit for more) that they fail to realise the true purpose of life and companionship. Jordan Peterson sets the record straight with simple clarity.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
Healing the Centurion's Servant
Jesus heals the servant of a Roman Centurion with but a command, from the 1977 mini-series Jesus of Nazareth.
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
The Failure of Economics
The problem with all economic systems is money. There's not enough of it. Alternately you could say there are too many people, but I'm not going to go down the path of suggesting genocide, so let's say the problem is not enough money. I read somewhere that even if all the money in the world was divided equally among everyone that would mean everyone only gets about $5,000. And no new money would be made because everyone would be too poor to do anything. There's just not enough money in the world for 8 billion people.
You look at all the times when there was a spectacular economic situation for some people and you see the reason is always because the world has become hell on earth for others. The US prospered like no country before or since during the 50s-70s because WW2 destroyed all possible competition and lead to the deaths of 50-100 million people. Even the paupers in America lived as kings because there were jobs galore and they paid unbelievable wages. Once the rest of the world rebuilt then the wealth of America vanished, it spread around elsewhere.
What else do you see? Places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where the native population does not work, at all. They can pull unlimited money out of the ground and they import basically slaves ("sponsored workers") to do all the labour for the native population who all live like kings off welfare. But that's ending too. They realise that oil is not infinite so they are desperately trying to diversify their economies so as to avoid what would inevitably be the devolution of their crapulent societies into Somalia.
I've read the literature, methane, created by bacteria in the deep ocean vents, is transformed into butane and propane under heat, and has been shown to turn into crude oil in laboratory conditions mimicking the upper mantle. Oil is not a fossil fuel, but it's not inexhaustible, just like ground water. We're extracting it faster than it's being replenished. I don't care if the Earth is "9,000 miles deep" as one Youtube commentator has expressed, you can see that technology is not advancing anywhere near fast enough to make up for the decreasing supply of available resources, be they ground water, oil, gold, or anything else. The thickness of the Earth is the problem, not the solution. It's just not possible to drill that deep, and gold or oil or whatever just isn't worth nearly enough to justify developing drilling technologies further. There's not enough money.
The only way to fix the global economic disaster that is looming fast, without starting another world war, is to discover some previously unknown magic resource to take the place of oil. There needs to be something super abundant that is extremely valuable and extremely useful as a resource and it needs to be extremely easy to attain and we need to find it soon or all hell will break loose.
Communism, socialism, capitalism, corporatism, "social democracy", they don't work because of human nature and because of the nature of the world itself.
Communism bullshit.
First of all, Marx was a hypocrite who understood nothing about human nature. "When a people's basic needs are met then people will work for free. Work will be its own reward." Bullshit. Bullshit. People will not work for free, even if all their basic needs are met. People will only work for money or for a cause to which they are totally devoted (like family or religion). People will not work for nothing if they don't have to, and they will not work if there is no correlation between work and reward.
Second, planned economies don't work because it's impossible to predict the future to that degree of specificity. That's why planned economies always have shortages. A grocery store in a communist country might have one salami hanging up and you're not allowed to have it, but the party bosses can have mansions and limousines and caviar.
"But that's not real communism."
Bullshit, but let's indulge your fantasy.
"Communism works perfectly on paper but the problem is that real communism has never been implemented."
No. If by "real communism" you mean a stateless, classless society then you have to admit that "real communism" is a utopian fantasy that can never ever be realised ever in this or any world. The second you get two people together you have a hierarchy, because people have different degrees of competence so someone will always be better than someone else, and a hierarchy on the scale of a society is a class structure. You also develop a state structure, even in hunter-gatherer societies (so called "primitive communism"). This is "our" land, as opposed to "their" land. And tribes went to war with each other constantly because humans are territorial animals, just like chimpanzees. So if you're definition of "real communism" is a utopian fantasy than you might as well admit to being wrong from the start.
"Real communism" also doesn't work well "on paper" because humans won't work for free. Work is not its own reward, if it was people wouldn't need to be paid to work, and of the thousands of experiments that have been done to disprove this basic reality of human nature none has ever succeeded. No hippie commune or Marxist revolutionary vanguard has ever produced a system where people will work for free because "Well isn't that swell, I might as well help my neighbors out. And work is just so gosh darn fun too." If you worked all the time and got nothing out of it then you wouldn't keep working. That's not even a human trait, that's true of all animals. Unless you're getting more than you put in then the activity isn't worth the caloric output.
Socialism is bullshit too. Unless you have a very small, ethnically homogenous population that can pull wealth out of the ground there's no incentive to sacrifice for others in society. That's just human nature too. In-group preference. Four million Norwegians floating on an ocean of oil might pay 70% income tax to give all their fellow Norwegians "free" healthcare, but that will never work in a place like the United States where there are 350 million people of every ethnic group who don't trust each other and are unwilling to sacrifice for members of different tribes.
What happens when you have bureaucrats divvying up handouts supposedly to the people most in need? What happens every single time? They give handouts to the people who will vote them into office. Politicians buy votes by giving away "free" shit to people with low IQs who breed like rabbits because, surprise, selfishness is another part of human nature.
Maybe robots might be able to work out the system of handouts perfectly. Robots, who were deemed the overlords of humanity and had unchallengeable might, and who acted out of pure rationality and followed routines by rote without any outside factors influencing their judgment might be able to make a social welfare state work. Robots would be dispassionate enough not to be bought off by special interest groups, and if they were willing to let humans live (as pets, say), then, and only then, could socialism work. Or you might get a system where the machines decide we all must be plugged into the Matrix because humans are self-destructive by nature.
And capitalism bullshit.
The US economy is worth $18 trillion. There are 350 million people (50 million of whom are illegal). Divide the two up and you get $51,000 per person per year.
So why are there people with $100 billion and other people struggling to survive on less than $20,000?
You'll see corporations with big CEOs who make $100 million bonuses on top of the money they already make sitting on the boards of directors of six other corporations, yet they won't pay their workers a living wage. Pundits always say that the profit margins are razor thin. Well if the profit margins are so thin that the company can't pay a living wage yet the CEO can make $100 million, or with smaller businesses where the bosses can hire and promote their incompetent friends at outrageous salaries, then those businesses have very shitty business models and deserve to go out of business. If carpetbaggers can exploit their workers to make millions and not even give those workers enough to live then those people should be put in jail. It's like Citi Group or the AIG or the Goldman Sachs. Everyone in upper and middle management of those corporations should be in jail for life.
So what's left? Could post-economics work, or is it too doomed by the flaws in human nature?
You look at all the times when there was a spectacular economic situation for some people and you see the reason is always because the world has become hell on earth for others. The US prospered like no country before or since during the 50s-70s because WW2 destroyed all possible competition and lead to the deaths of 50-100 million people. Even the paupers in America lived as kings because there were jobs galore and they paid unbelievable wages. Once the rest of the world rebuilt then the wealth of America vanished, it spread around elsewhere.
What else do you see? Places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where the native population does not work, at all. They can pull unlimited money out of the ground and they import basically slaves ("sponsored workers") to do all the labour for the native population who all live like kings off welfare. But that's ending too. They realise that oil is not infinite so they are desperately trying to diversify their economies so as to avoid what would inevitably be the devolution of their crapulent societies into Somalia.
I've read the literature, methane, created by bacteria in the deep ocean vents, is transformed into butane and propane under heat, and has been shown to turn into crude oil in laboratory conditions mimicking the upper mantle. Oil is not a fossil fuel, but it's not inexhaustible, just like ground water. We're extracting it faster than it's being replenished. I don't care if the Earth is "9,000 miles deep" as one Youtube commentator has expressed, you can see that technology is not advancing anywhere near fast enough to make up for the decreasing supply of available resources, be they ground water, oil, gold, or anything else. The thickness of the Earth is the problem, not the solution. It's just not possible to drill that deep, and gold or oil or whatever just isn't worth nearly enough to justify developing drilling technologies further. There's not enough money.
The only way to fix the global economic disaster that is looming fast, without starting another world war, is to discover some previously unknown magic resource to take the place of oil. There needs to be something super abundant that is extremely valuable and extremely useful as a resource and it needs to be extremely easy to attain and we need to find it soon or all hell will break loose.
Communism, socialism, capitalism, corporatism, "social democracy", they don't work because of human nature and because of the nature of the world itself.
Communism bullshit.
First of all, Marx was a hypocrite who understood nothing about human nature. "When a people's basic needs are met then people will work for free. Work will be its own reward." Bullshit. Bullshit. People will not work for free, even if all their basic needs are met. People will only work for money or for a cause to which they are totally devoted (like family or religion). People will not work for nothing if they don't have to, and they will not work if there is no correlation between work and reward.
Second, planned economies don't work because it's impossible to predict the future to that degree of specificity. That's why planned economies always have shortages. A grocery store in a communist country might have one salami hanging up and you're not allowed to have it, but the party bosses can have mansions and limousines and caviar.
"But that's not real communism."
Bullshit, but let's indulge your fantasy.
"Communism works perfectly on paper but the problem is that real communism has never been implemented."
No. If by "real communism" you mean a stateless, classless society then you have to admit that "real communism" is a utopian fantasy that can never ever be realised ever in this or any world. The second you get two people together you have a hierarchy, because people have different degrees of competence so someone will always be better than someone else, and a hierarchy on the scale of a society is a class structure. You also develop a state structure, even in hunter-gatherer societies (so called "primitive communism"). This is "our" land, as opposed to "their" land. And tribes went to war with each other constantly because humans are territorial animals, just like chimpanzees. So if you're definition of "real communism" is a utopian fantasy than you might as well admit to being wrong from the start.
"Real communism" also doesn't work well "on paper" because humans won't work for free. Work is not its own reward, if it was people wouldn't need to be paid to work, and of the thousands of experiments that have been done to disprove this basic reality of human nature none has ever succeeded. No hippie commune or Marxist revolutionary vanguard has ever produced a system where people will work for free because "Well isn't that swell, I might as well help my neighbors out. And work is just so gosh darn fun too." If you worked all the time and got nothing out of it then you wouldn't keep working. That's not even a human trait, that's true of all animals. Unless you're getting more than you put in then the activity isn't worth the caloric output.
Socialism is bullshit too. Unless you have a very small, ethnically homogenous population that can pull wealth out of the ground there's no incentive to sacrifice for others in society. That's just human nature too. In-group preference. Four million Norwegians floating on an ocean of oil might pay 70% income tax to give all their fellow Norwegians "free" healthcare, but that will never work in a place like the United States where there are 350 million people of every ethnic group who don't trust each other and are unwilling to sacrifice for members of different tribes.
What happens when you have bureaucrats divvying up handouts supposedly to the people most in need? What happens every single time? They give handouts to the people who will vote them into office. Politicians buy votes by giving away "free" shit to people with low IQs who breed like rabbits because, surprise, selfishness is another part of human nature.
Maybe robots might be able to work out the system of handouts perfectly. Robots, who were deemed the overlords of humanity and had unchallengeable might, and who acted out of pure rationality and followed routines by rote without any outside factors influencing their judgment might be able to make a social welfare state work. Robots would be dispassionate enough not to be bought off by special interest groups, and if they were willing to let humans live (as pets, say), then, and only then, could socialism work. Or you might get a system where the machines decide we all must be plugged into the Matrix because humans are self-destructive by nature.
And capitalism bullshit.
The US economy is worth $18 trillion. There are 350 million people (50 million of whom are illegal). Divide the two up and you get $51,000 per person per year.
So why are there people with $100 billion and other people struggling to survive on less than $20,000?
You'll see corporations with big CEOs who make $100 million bonuses on top of the money they already make sitting on the boards of directors of six other corporations, yet they won't pay their workers a living wage. Pundits always say that the profit margins are razor thin. Well if the profit margins are so thin that the company can't pay a living wage yet the CEO can make $100 million, or with smaller businesses where the bosses can hire and promote their incompetent friends at outrageous salaries, then those businesses have very shitty business models and deserve to go out of business. If carpetbaggers can exploit their workers to make millions and not even give those workers enough to live then those people should be put in jail. It's like Citi Group or the AIG or the Goldman Sachs. Everyone in upper and middle management of those corporations should be in jail for life.
So what's left? Could post-economics work, or is it too doomed by the flaws in human nature?
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Why Enlightenment is Unattainable
Ken Wilber takes us through the major states of consciousness and explains the paradoxical reality that enlightenment is literally unattainable.
Saturday, March 3, 2018
The Myth of "Education"
Education is bullshit. It's a bullshit feel-good panacea that educated people parade out because they've been programmed to believing that lie through the propaganda that is education. You spend enough money and get deep enough into debt purchasing a worthless education you're going to start thinking education is the solution to all the world's problems.
It also saves the educated from having to really do anything while still looking like they care. Throwing money at a problem (especially other people's money) is a convenient form of slacktivism.
When everyone has a college degree college degrees will be worthless. It's like that Zimbabwean money. If you give everyone a hundred trillion dollars there's nothing they can do with that money other than use it as toilet paper.
That's why this push for "free" college for everyone is a self-defeating idea, and the people who propose it - the policy makers, not general public - know this. They're not serious about universal education being the solution to society's problems, it's a scam.
That's the point. When everyone gets a degree then in order to stand out, in order to have an advantage in the real world you'll need to get a higher degree, meaning you'll need to get another loan and go deeper into debt. The push to get everyone into college is all about selling more debt to a population that is already bankrupt.
You have to fit into the system, or be made to fit into the system. You'd be a fool (an educated fool) to think otherwise. It's all about debt. The banks want your money and they want you to have an ego boost when they take your money and give you something largely worthless in return. Naturally these people will get defensive about their worthless product and defend it because they've allowed their sense of self-worth to be based on the possession of this worthless thing called education. Few things will crush a person's will to live more than the certain knowledge that they've wasted their youth, their money, and possibly their entire lives by being cattle for bankers who, by and large, never went to college.
Just look at that quote I have up from Richard Rose:
"Do we want the Truth or do we want to be "educated"? There is a tendency of people in control, whether in universities or in governments, to want to "educate". Not for the Truth, but for the convenience of the moment, thinking they are the prophets of the zeitgeist, and by their manipulation of the public mind they will bring people around to the "right" direction."
Every time some elitist, usually a Marxist, comes across someone who disagrees with their asinine, impossible, self-contradictory beliefs the Marxist will say that that person who disagrees needs to be "educated". If that's not the most terrifying Stalinist thing you've ever heard then you're painfully naive. People needing to be "educated" for "wrongthink" is straight out of Pol Pot's playbook. Believing that the problem with people who disagree with you is that those people need education and that the government needs to be empowered to provide that education has been a recipe for the worst genocides of the 20th century.
Aside from colossally expanding the debt and eliminating one's intellectual opponents, the push for more education is entirely a strategy of the elite to make the general populace more passive. Education is a modern, atheistic religion, and is defended as such. It has cathedrals, a priestly caste, sacraments, tithing, sacrifice, promises of salvation. It's a religion. And that's one of the key functions of any religion. Religion acts as a social glue. If you get everyone believing the same things you can maintain some semblance of society and a power structure. "Don't question your masters." That's the message of education.
It's no surprise that within a generation of when universal public education for children was instituted in most developed countries that the first global mechanised war broke out. Public education is based on a highly regimented Prussian military model designed to turn children into cogs in the machine of the body politic. Far from making people smarter education traps people into the same cognitive box. Education is the opposite of free thinking, it forces people to think the same thing or fear ostracism, or worse.
Education is not intelligence. Education is not problem solving ability. Education is not intellectual freedom. It's the opposite. It's a series of shackles on your mind designed to extract your wealth and make you docile.
The truth is that intelligence, real intelligence, is largely genetic (between 60% - 80%). Nothing, no school, no training program, no $40,000 piece of paper, can make you smart. People can acquire certain skills or memorise a series of facts, but that's not intelligence. A person who has an encyclopedic memory of facts doesn't necessarily have a higher level of problem solving ability.
That's not to say that there's no value at all in formal schooling. I want my doctor graduate with high marks from medical school, I want the engineer who designs the bridge I drive over to excel at engineering school, just like I want my electrician to get the proper training at electrician school. One of the big casualties in this push for universal education is the marginalisation of trade schools, you know, schools that actually teach people how to find and keep a job and succeed in the real world.
The real purpose of education, the intended purpose, is to install certain programs into the minds of young people so that they can learn skills and get a job and become productive members of society. Education gives you skills, and skills are not intelligence, but they're not supposed to be. The system of education is supposed to identify children's latent abilities and help guide them to develop those abilities to the utmost. Not everyone will place in the 99th percentile in terms of intelligence, by definition, and they don't have to be.
Everyone doesn't have to be a genius, and it's arrogance to think they should all be genii in order to make society better, or to make humans better. You're not going to make better humans through education, but if you can give people jobs that give their lives meaning then you won't have to make people better, because they'll have fewer incentives to be bad when they've got fulfilling lives.
It also saves the educated from having to really do anything while still looking like they care. Throwing money at a problem (especially other people's money) is a convenient form of slacktivism.
When everyone has a college degree college degrees will be worthless. It's like that Zimbabwean money. If you give everyone a hundred trillion dollars there's nothing they can do with that money other than use it as toilet paper.
That's why this push for "free" college for everyone is a self-defeating idea, and the people who propose it - the policy makers, not general public - know this. They're not serious about universal education being the solution to society's problems, it's a scam.
That's the point. When everyone gets a degree then in order to stand out, in order to have an advantage in the real world you'll need to get a higher degree, meaning you'll need to get another loan and go deeper into debt. The push to get everyone into college is all about selling more debt to a population that is already bankrupt.
You have to fit into the system, or be made to fit into the system. You'd be a fool (an educated fool) to think otherwise. It's all about debt. The banks want your money and they want you to have an ego boost when they take your money and give you something largely worthless in return. Naturally these people will get defensive about their worthless product and defend it because they've allowed their sense of self-worth to be based on the possession of this worthless thing called education. Few things will crush a person's will to live more than the certain knowledge that they've wasted their youth, their money, and possibly their entire lives by being cattle for bankers who, by and large, never went to college.
Just look at that quote I have up from Richard Rose:
"Do we want the Truth or do we want to be "educated"? There is a tendency of people in control, whether in universities or in governments, to want to "educate". Not for the Truth, but for the convenience of the moment, thinking they are the prophets of the zeitgeist, and by their manipulation of the public mind they will bring people around to the "right" direction."
Every time some elitist, usually a Marxist, comes across someone who disagrees with their asinine, impossible, self-contradictory beliefs the Marxist will say that that person who disagrees needs to be "educated". If that's not the most terrifying Stalinist thing you've ever heard then you're painfully naive. People needing to be "educated" for "wrongthink" is straight out of Pol Pot's playbook. Believing that the problem with people who disagree with you is that those people need education and that the government needs to be empowered to provide that education has been a recipe for the worst genocides of the 20th century.
Aside from colossally expanding the debt and eliminating one's intellectual opponents, the push for more education is entirely a strategy of the elite to make the general populace more passive. Education is a modern, atheistic religion, and is defended as such. It has cathedrals, a priestly caste, sacraments, tithing, sacrifice, promises of salvation. It's a religion. And that's one of the key functions of any religion. Religion acts as a social glue. If you get everyone believing the same things you can maintain some semblance of society and a power structure. "Don't question your masters." That's the message of education.
It's no surprise that within a generation of when universal public education for children was instituted in most developed countries that the first global mechanised war broke out. Public education is based on a highly regimented Prussian military model designed to turn children into cogs in the machine of the body politic. Far from making people smarter education traps people into the same cognitive box. Education is the opposite of free thinking, it forces people to think the same thing or fear ostracism, or worse.
Education is not intelligence. Education is not problem solving ability. Education is not intellectual freedom. It's the opposite. It's a series of shackles on your mind designed to extract your wealth and make you docile.
The truth is that intelligence, real intelligence, is largely genetic (between 60% - 80%). Nothing, no school, no training program, no $40,000 piece of paper, can make you smart. People can acquire certain skills or memorise a series of facts, but that's not intelligence. A person who has an encyclopedic memory of facts doesn't necessarily have a higher level of problem solving ability.
That's not to say that there's no value at all in formal schooling. I want my doctor graduate with high marks from medical school, I want the engineer who designs the bridge I drive over to excel at engineering school, just like I want my electrician to get the proper training at electrician school. One of the big casualties in this push for universal education is the marginalisation of trade schools, you know, schools that actually teach people how to find and keep a job and succeed in the real world.
The real purpose of education, the intended purpose, is to install certain programs into the minds of young people so that they can learn skills and get a job and become productive members of society. Education gives you skills, and skills are not intelligence, but they're not supposed to be. The system of education is supposed to identify children's latent abilities and help guide them to develop those abilities to the utmost. Not everyone will place in the 99th percentile in terms of intelligence, by definition, and they don't have to be.
Everyone doesn't have to be a genius, and it's arrogance to think they should all be genii in order to make society better, or to make humans better. You're not going to make better humans through education, but if you can give people jobs that give their lives meaning then you won't have to make people better, because they'll have fewer incentives to be bad when they've got fulfilling lives.
Friday, March 2, 2018
The Story of Poon Lim
Here's an inspirational story. Poon Lim escaped the horrors of life in China just before the Japanese invasion. He took a job on a British merchant vessel that was sunk by a U-boat and survived an astounding 133 days adrift at sea.
You can't do that. I can't do that. These real heroes, who survive impossible feats, they should be the ones we remember in songs and movies, not the degenerate celebrities our society currently worships. I hope to do a series on inspirational stories of great heroes and explorers, as a reminder of how great we can become by reminding ourselves of the great ones who have come before us.
You can't do that. I can't do that. These real heroes, who survive impossible feats, they should be the ones we remember in songs and movies, not the degenerate celebrities our society currently worships. I hope to do a series on inspirational stories of great heroes and explorers, as a reminder of how great we can become by reminding ourselves of the great ones who have come before us.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Billy Graham In Memoriam
Billy Graham died today, 9 months short of his 100th birthday. He was one of the most influential preachers in history, reaching out to the largest audience – estimated to be 2.2 billion people – of any one person ever. He is responsible for an estimated 3.2 million conversions to Christianity. While not a universalist, Graham believed that there were well-meaning people of all faiths who did have Christ in their hearts and were saved even if they had never heard of Jesus or the Gospel.
Graham said, "Someday, you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God."
Graham said, "Someday, you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God."
Saturday, February 10, 2018
The Sigma Mindset and Death
How we view death and use the knowledge death to live a better life define us and shape our lives. How does the Sigma Mindset relate to death? This video is definitely worth checking out.
Friday, January 19, 2018
Thorium is the Power of the Future
Thomas Jam Pedersen, engineer and co-founder of Copenhagen Atomics, was skeptical at first upon discovering and reading about thorium energy, which is present everywhere in the world and could technically provide an inexpensive energy supply for everyone for thousand years.
While the world is still heavily relying on fossil fuels, thorium energy and nuclear reactors, which reuse nuclear waste, are now part of the energy debate, proposing a pollution-free solution that could provide an unlimited supply of fuel for the next millennium.
Thomas Jam Pedersen aims to build a thorium molten salt reactor in Copenhagen, and introduce thorium energy to the public eye.
While the world is still heavily relying on fossil fuels, thorium energy and nuclear reactors, which reuse nuclear waste, are now part of the energy debate, proposing a pollution-free solution that could provide an unlimited supply of fuel for the next millennium.
Thomas Jam Pedersen aims to build a thorium molten salt reactor in Copenhagen, and introduce thorium energy to the public eye.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Nuclear Power is Green Power
Environmentalist Michael Shellenberger explains why nuclear power is more efficient and produces fewer emissions than solar and wind power. Nuclear power is a lot safer and a lot cleaner than most people realise, and a big part of that is disinformation from the anti-nuclear activists. Nuclear power is the only way to effectively clean the environment and meet the world's power needs.
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Why Does the Bible Mention Unicorns?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
