Laws against Influence

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT9el69vcUM

One of the aspects of establishing a populist America is to eliminate sources of manipulation. For example, the US media with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is heavily influenced by the owners of media firms, political elites, the Israeli government’s PR campaign, and watchdog groups. By law, none of these factors can have influence.

The major issue here seems to be that *without* influence, why bother staying in that role? But there remains value in owning a media firm, or being a political elite, without manipulating the US media. The kind of value that there has always been, long before this influence became so effective.

With these new laws, the American Public can bring a lawsuit against a news channel for example for manipulation.

The alternative, if the current system stays in place, is that the entire world becomes polarized and ruthless… endless ideological war where truth is ignored in favor of coercion. Under populism the *reality* creates the news, instead of a belief telling you what it wishes reality to be.

On The Prestige

It was a good movie, nothing special. I have a couple comments…

I don’t understand why Angier’s wife wanted to die. She seemed to be happy. Did she think it would help Angier’s career?…that’s a pretty extreme way of doing that!

I know Angier and Cutter were upset, but Cutter’s level-headed… there’s no way he, given his concern, would not have specifically looked to see which type of knot was tied on Angier’s wife when she was broken out of the tank. He knew better than anyone the problems Borden was having with the knots… he had to have been certain what the issue was. Also, even if somehow Cutter missed it Angier would have looked… noone would have quickly cut/loosened the knot, for obvious reasons.

The Borden/Fallon supposed lack of communication is ridiculous and is where the plot fell apart. The two can *talk* to each other… *both* of them know which knot was tied. Both of them know pretty much everything. Anything that either of them doesn’t know is simply something that the other didn’t communicate… but with the brothers being this close that really doesn’t happen (any lack of communication the brother at least knows the *reason* for the lack). They each have to know what the other knows to fully assume the role of the other.

My biggest beef with the movie was that I didn’t care about any of the characters. The characterization was quite flat… Cutter was the most fleshed out. This is realistic in the sense that obsession often follows emptiness, but it doesn’t make for a very appealing movie-going experience.

Update

I cannot write here. I can only write to fire. I’m sorry.

On Honesty

There may be no stupider phrase than “just be honest”. Most of my life was lived with that phrase in mind. I thought, as the phrase clearly does, that honesty is a matter of the Will. It is not: it is a matter of knowledge.

Prior to knowing the context, you do not know what honesty IS with respect to the context. Try as you may, and I tried very hard, you cannot be honest. Its a vicious cycle, because then you blame yourself for a failure of your *Will*, a failure of your morality, when what it was was a failure of knowledge. “Just be honest”, nothing could be simpler, and I failed even that! Worse yet, the humans who think the same way, make the same mistake, who then think the dishonest person is immoral. So many human errors.

Honesty is simple, nothing is simpler, *after* you can define it in a given situation. If you do not know Truth, how do you know a Lie?

How do you classify this religious belief?

As I love Jewish culture except for the whining about being Jewish I’m trying to reconcile my religious beliefs with Judaism. Its probably an effort in complete vain, but anyway…

My beliefs have been classified as Atheism, but I don’t agree. Atheism merely states “There is no God”. The *reason* for there not to be a God varies… it could be either spiritually or scientifically based.

My understanding of any god, including God, is as a cultural creation, a work of fiction, who provides a definition resulting in honor and worship. A useful myth.

Note that this God, like Moby Dick, is completely existent, except in material form. You can think about Moby Dick. You can talk about Moby Dick. You can describe exactly what Moby Dick is like. You can give an eventful history of Moby Dick’s life. You can pretty much do anything except provide material evidence of Moby Dick or anything related to Moby Dick in the physical world.

To what degree it *matters* that God is a work of fiction and not non-fiction is debatable. If it doesn’t largely matter, then “There is no God” also does not matter. To test this, lets make something material a god. Lets say Tom Chick is a god.

The difference seems to be that a living god can affect change in the definition of the god. Tom Chick can say new things, he can do different things, and this changes what Tom Chick is. Change is *centered* on the god itself.

Yet similar things happen with a traditional god. A new writer comes along, adds to the fiction, modifies the fiction, and a new aspect of the god is born. The only difference is that the change is centered on the writer.

So “There is no God” seems to me to be impossible. There is definitely a God, but whether you *care* or not is up to you, just like some people care about Moby Dick and some do not.

Why do some people care about Moby Dick? Because they think the story is cool, because they learn from it, because it has benefitted them.

God? Pretty much the same thing. If the worship of God’s *definition* is valuable, the worship of God is valuable. Why should it matter if God is fictional?

So that brings me to the question of whether God’s definition is valuable. I say that it is not. I much prefer the Secular world. I’d like to see a modification of Secularism, but I do not find God necessary within that modification.

So I say that God is not valuable to me *personally*, but I interact with lots of people for whom it is. Thus I see God, literally, fictionally, within them, just as I can see the experience of Moby Dick in people. How can I honestly say that God does not exist?

On 1984

The book. I’m at Part 2: Chapter 9
Just one curiosity: Winston talks continuously about the Thought Police and fear of the thought police, yet he does not seem surprised to evade them so effectively. Doesn’t he ask why he hasn’t already been captured? Has he truly been that careful? He himself stated that Julia is the clever one, he admitted errors. He admitted haste. Optimism and pride may be the death of him…

On my Qt3 history

There seems to be much confusion concerning the meaning of some of my Qt3 posts.

The ones in question are parody.

However, they are parody with a very intimate eye toward what is being parodied… to a large extent, self-parody.

The self-parody was done in part to try to distance myself from myself. This eventually worked, with the help of some people from Qt3 and others such as Randy Hayes.
Other than wanting to make major changes in my life and the excruciating process of making them, I’m fine.

Give me a chance and you’ll see.

On the fall of Nietzsche and rise of Orwell in America

These two men have competing visions of schizophrenia. For Nietzsche it is the epic struggle of the living man against himself. For Orwell, it results in the breakdown of reality which can then be manipulated politically (or maybe the political manipulation precedes the psychological effect).

Thus we saw Nietzschean-inspired 20th century totalitarianism, fascism, propaganda, and mind control (the latter two of which even exist in the US) on a tremendous scale. This was supposed to ultimately result in the Glorious Cynic, a human being so morally, intellectually, and ascetically over-powerful that *nothing* could affect him… the Triumph of the Will, aided and abetted by culture.

I’m not sure what happened exactly. I do know that the Will became less respected, and Nietzsche along with it. Perhaps the explanation is as simple as Neocon excess. In any case, Orwell’s rationality started to take hold. People began losing confidence in their own ability to triumph over external forces. Pessimism ensued, Orwell was brought into power, and the people began banding together. People began talking not about human strength, but about human weakness, human limitations, the need to support each other. It was the time of Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart. Nietzsche would be ashamed, but then again, fuck Nietzsche, so we say.

Orwell promoted the fragility of humans, the vulnerability, the weakness, the hope. Schizophrenia wasn’t a great challenge but a disease. A disease that can be politically used and abused, that can be turned into a *way of thinking*.

How many times in the past few decades have Will-proponents such as Ann Coulter painted liberals and democrats as weak? The Nietzsche/Orwell dichotomy is what this is all about. Triumph of the Will vs. Democratic Socialism. In truth, Ann Coulter is just as weak (or just as strong)… she just refuses to admit it because she believes *admitting it* is what makes her weak.

Or take a look at Pink Floyd… “the wall was too high, as you can see…” Again promoting a Back Off approach on Will-dominance.

In recent years this has become a battle between the Neocons/Republicans and much of the left. A part of the right had been practicing this approach since the ’80s and Reagan/Limbaugh… the left wasn’t stupid, or weak, as Michael Moore painted them, but rather simply ignorant… they literally did not know what was going on for quite a while.

This is a very deep and divisive argument. Will Triumphers say that anything less than universal domination with them at the head is unacceptable because it indicates the failure of their will. Democratic Socialists treat these people as if they are either megalomaniacs or insane. Will Triumphers treat the left as if they are morally bankrupt, cowardly, or relativist.

There is no middle ground here. The middle position is the mixed capitalist society we were living in pre-Neocon, but that society still had the Will vs. Democracy debate, just under the radar.

People like Ann Coulter are doing *two* things… bringing this debate into the forefront and helping the leftist position.

An interesting thing Chomsky brings up is that the rightist position, the Will Triumph position, goes a lot deeper than just the Neocons. He’s given examples of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Bush I, and Clinton, especially stressing Kennedy. He would say that the entire political machine in the US is rightist, democrats included, at least on foreign issues. Thus his solution is a democratic populist movement to replace or deeply affect the two existing parties.

I predict that when the Neocons are thrown out of power, whoever takes the White House will be under intense scrutiny on their foreign policy, and the debate of Imperialism will be greater than ever, even during the Neocon reign. We could have gone back to the old Democratic/Republican model in 2004 if Kerry had been elected, but now I feel its too late.

I Have at last become a Prole

No text.

Nightfall of the Idols

Three heroes guided my adult life: Friedrich Nietzsche, Lenny Bruce, and Diogenes (of Sinope). The fall of Nietzsche was one of the major factors leading to my panic and finally destruction. Now I find that none of those people live within me (as heroes).

A Thank You to some people

Some people on Qt3 are treating me like a real human being. Thank you.

However, I’m in a lot better shape than even those people seem to think. They jump to too many conclusions.

Its been a great month. Fortunately I’ll never have a month like this ever again.

US Government ignores fiscal responsibility

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/25reconstruct.html?ref=world

Generally of course that’s not new news, but this is.

It sounds to me that the dollars and cents don’t matter much to the US Government, as long as plenty of those dollars are going into corporations with government contracts.

Should I divorce America?

I think I should.

For many years my personality has been tied to America’s.

This has yielded some benefits, such as affinity for American culture, and had some downsides, such as being restricted to American culture.

I’m contemplating freedom… I feel that America can’t do enough for me anymore. Also, I want to free up myself for another love in my life.

I will still care deeply for America… I simply won’t be chained to it.

With respect to my parents and myself

I want to clear up a lie told about me from the expected source on Qt3.

On June 30, 2000 I moved out of my parents’ home in Niles, MI, where they still live, and moved to Mishawaka, IN.

My last meeting with them was in June of this year. A couple weeks ago on the phone I told them I couldn’t see them anymore until they received marriage counseling and psychiatric help.

I’m attempting to rebuild a positive relationship with them, although there is no certainty of success.

My life has had much tragedy and some joy. I seek a future of much more joy and much less tragedy.

American Death Toll in Iraq

Has very recently passed the New York death toll on 9/11/01.

600,000+ Iraqi civilians are dead.

How many Bin Ladens are dead?

America the Good

The focus on human-human interaction is one element of this new America. What else?

A focus on the Good and focus taken away from evil or corruption. No more self-loathing – the self-loathing was based on guilt over Imperialist mentality. No more fascination with the non-good. Violence is no longer seductive. Good is the new passion.
Values are promoted that lead to long-term stability. Consensus, communication, mutual appreciation. However, this system will have plenty of conflict. Methods are established that *determine* the outcome of the creation and destruction of governments and nations… the primacy of military might is not tolerated. Relativism is also not tolerated. Ways of evaluating cultures, evaluating nations, are established (through a body like the UN). Each nation makes its own arguments for itself, for its value, heard by the UN. If the nation is determined to be weak (upon a sober and thorough, completely lawful and transparent examination) it can be disbanded, its government overturned, or whatever other solution is deemed effective. This *is* a globalist government. However…
While this system does not include Relativism, it in no way is monolithic. It recognizes the value of the diversity of political systems, cultures, etc. In that respect it is Postmodern. Its a globalist government that promotes the Anti-Globalization of culture, *enforces* Anti-Globalization.

What makes this system differ from the current United Nations besides the degree of power is that currently the UN is a peacekeeping/lawmaking organization. Its not a globalist government with all the military power that entails.

Ideally in this system the globalist government would have the only military, but that’s putting all of the eggs into one basket (if such a government goes rogue the whole world would be in jeopardy). Realistically each nation would have a military, which legally would have to stand down in the case of the disbanding of its government or the like.

A globalist government makes things like nuclear weapons elimination a fairly easy process.

With respect to America, it needs to come to the conclusion that this is a good thing. That will not be difficult at all once America becomes Anti-Imperialist *and* Anti-Globalist.

How to be a Good Person

When I was a young fool I thought it was all about the will. Nothing can be further from the truth: everything in the world affects each one of us. There’s no possibility of overcoming the world with your personal will.

Experiencing a good world is the way to be a good person. Love, friendship, honor, justice, kindness, compassion, truth, concern. The happy experiences we have with these things lead us to pursue them in ourselves.

Notice that all of these things derive from human-human interaction. My theory: lack of human-human interaction hinders the development of goodness. Does a television receive any benefit from justice? Can a MP3 player *issue* compassion?

Some have speculated that gamers are worse people morally than non-gamers. I find this to be true. Not because of games specifically, but because games, like watching television or any other activity not human-human, are not environments by which human values are learned.

Television *shows* *other* humans learning human values in some cases, but that’s not the same thing as the viewer learning them.

How much human-human interaction is necessary? Is human-human interaction like a food group, where there’s a daily amount you should get and any less is morally unhealthy?

Its also clear to me that intimate human-human interaction is far more valuable than casual or businesslike human-human interaction with respect to this development. An impersonal world is no better than a technological one.

I have no doubt that the basics of this are accurate. I have no doubt that in the coming years we will see more problems develop along these lines. I have no doubt that many people will express surprise!

Perhaps the best solution for now is to test for morality as you would test for intelligence or education. If a lack of morality is shown, explore the involvements as such.

Technology is powerful, and should not be discarded… there is no need for extreme action. There simply must be a recognition of the needs of humans in order for them to retain their humanity in the face of a changing world, and an encouragement of the fulfillment of those needs.

A Return to IRC

I’m fine with being on IRC if you guys are able to un-ban me.

Perhaps the situation does compute after all

I’ve been trying to analyze what’s happened over the past few weeks (San Diego already seems like it happened a lifetime ago) with respect to the feelings other people have for me.

I still see one discrepancy, which I’ll try to resolve through private communication.

I want to encourage other people to talk to me. Despite my passion and my commitment to what I believe in, I can be talked to and communicated with on a normal level, and much more so now that my domination has been broken. There is no need to use innuendo and subtle underhanded talk. No more games.

I appear insular, but my insular world exists only within the confines of my essays. I will more aggressively seperate myself from them!

Autism looks highly unlikely

Its funny, because so many of the symptoms have been there through so much of my life, but I find those symptoms fading now. My personality probably breaks down into a combination of deep passion with the effects of psychological abuse… now that I’ve broken the dominated state I was in I’m left with deep passion and a whole lot of memories from the life I’ve led.

Behavior derives partially from memories in my opinion, so I’ll have to continue training myself.

Where’s the Line between Passion and Insanity? / Obsession and Love

Passion, Obsession, Insanity – three concepts intertwined.

Is it merely a matter of degree? Is Insanity merely an extreme obsessive condition? Is Insanity merely a statement that Look at what lengths I will go to in my obsession!… the decadent version of obsession?

Obsession itself… why? Is the idea that by pouring so much of yourself into one thing that something amazing can happen, something that does not happen under normal treatment? What price is paid for this hope? Does the more you pay mean the more you love?

The thing obsessed over… what does it think? Is it flattered but at the same time appalled, at the same time burdened by the obsession?

The sane people – you both envy and abhor the obsessed. You both long to be them and are very glad you’re not them. So you try to have it both ways – you are sane in public and party/get drunk/go crazy when the time is right.

But I’ll tell you… that’s not the same thing. Not even close. Sorry to… crash the party.

The sane are destroyed by experiencing something so important to them that they will pay with the degradation of themselves to obtain it.

The obsessed are destroyed by either obtaining their obsession or abandoning the pursuit.

—

Obsession is an obstacle to love. It must be overcome before true love can exist.

Saving the World One Corpse at a Time

This phrase, originally used by myself in 2000[?] on a gaming messageboard, is highly personal, combining two of my great loves – Gaming and America. Its been expounded upon on Qt3, but I’ll try to aggregate the basics here.

It draws a link between gaming, which usually is a matter of killing (often literally one at a time as in RPGs and FPSs) and American Imperialism, which boils down to the very same thing. The killing ends when the objectives are met.

The core of my argument is that there’s no difference… that gaming culture, to the extent it exists at all, is as wrong-headed as the politicians leading the country. When Big Rod exclaims happily after reaching Level 30 and saves the universe from extinction, his face can quite easily morph into Paul Wolfowitz’s, who would gladly save the universe from whatever non-Americanized regime it was running if only he had the technology.

RPGs feature monsters, but there never have been monsters in the world. HUMANS… regular humans, have been thought to be vampires, or werewolves, or witches… with a little more imagination I don’t see why umber hulks, harpies, or bugbears can’t also be included. With a little more *ignorance*.

So RPGs feature a “hero” who eliminates the “monsters” that are threatening the region, or the world. Notice that these are *predefined* states… the hero is a hero because the game tells you he’s a hero (or guides you to become a hero). The monsters are monsters because the game makes them that way. There is no underlying world-logic, no *non-manipulated reality* that the player comes to appreciate *on his own* through the game that leads him to that understanding. The game is crafted around the game fiction, the assumptions made about the world by the developers.

So… in a RPG you, a deluded psychopath, kill 3,000 humans and lets say 500 non-human animals, all the while thinking of them as monsters in order to assauge your own guilt over what you’re going to do to the survivors, not even having the sanitation awareness to give them a burial. Your faction, which may or may not be equally deluded (but probably isn’t – they have the good sense to stay out of the fighting), extolls you for killing their enemy for them. You meanwhile get rich from looting the corpses. The game ends when the goal of the faction is complete… when the conflict is over.

The reason this is Imperialism and not a one-man war is simple: In war you don’t think of the enemy as a monster. As such, the enemy is well-treated except on the battlefield. Imperialist mentality however entertains the thought of the enemy as inferior, monstrous in some way. As such, you don’t have to treat him well, and in fact the point of the entire exercise (besides the normal outcomes of war) is debasement of the enemy within your own reality. You don’t just fight the enemy – you DETEST him. There’s really *never* a point to treating him well, which is something of a necessity when you’re going to be ordering him around for the next century.

This is the fatal flaw of Imperialism… it results in logical, moral, and political decay. The more wars the Imperialist wins, the more people become detested, the more people have to be controlled. Ideals like freedom and democracy are not compatible with Imperialism on a large scale. Imperialism is a Dictatorship *externally*, regardless of its form of government domestically.

You cannot honor both Democracy and Imperialism.

——

According to my records this was the original piece that contained the phrase…

Saving the World One Corpse at a Time
This title sums up the majority of Role-playing computer games, and accounts for most First-Person shooters as well.

Meet monster. Generate corpse. Meet another monster. Generate corpse. Rinse and repeat.

Once the world is cleansed of monsters, you win the game.

What exactly is a “monster”, anyway? Usually this amounts to a non-human animal that poses a threat. Typically these are terrestrial creatures, although with the waning threat posed by them in traditional reality aliens have emerged as a created threat.

Often these monsters are variants of humans (Orcs, Ogres, Goblins, etc) or simply “evil” humans (Nazis, Enemies in War, etc).

Its funny how often the “role” being played is that of a Marauding Berserker.

To add some variety there are often “quest items” or in FPSs “powerups” you gain… invariably guarded by some monsters.

Experience is always gained by killing monsters… this experience serves to make it easier to kill monsters and according to convention to allow you to kill more challenging monsters. Experience is rarely gained in any other fashion, although there is a growing trend toward non-kill experience.

On Extra-Human Reparations

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/education/19brown.html?ref=education

A problem with these kinds of reparations is that they don’t do anything honest. They do do something *dishonest*.
The people who receive them are not the victims, and the people giving them are not the perpetrators.

You may very well WANT to forget, to set aside, to revise, to wish something never happened, but unless you do something meaningful toward those aims you will not succeed. Sometimes you need to accept the past.
*Now*, now these people will have to *pretend* they’ve succeeded, in order for us not to think they were stupid for making this attempt. Now when I tell them “nothing’s changed” they’ll get to protest vigorously that Yes It Has! And they’ll point not to their emotions and results of them, but to this *event* as proof! See, see what we did to make things change!

Now they will say “We don’t need to talk about this issue anymore, because we *fixed* it”.

You can’t buy out the past with the present. Only a fucking cynic would think you could.

Hypocrisy is coming, friends.

—

Another element here is personal responsibility. Why should I bother to do good when my descendants 200 years from now can fix things, *if* the victims of my crimes are still around and in a position to ask. Its *my* responsibility to pay for my crimes.

So much for the Underdog

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/nyregion/19kindergarten.html?ref=education

This is Anti-American. Its also counter-intuitive… I learn the most when I’m around smart(er) people. Ensuring that your child is older, smarter, than his classmates, might help his classmates, but it doesn’t help him.

The theory is that educational success is based on confidence, and that the child will be more confident if he’s more knowledgeable, more socially advanced, etc. In my estimation, educational success is *not* based on confidence.

Its just the other way around… the most successful people are the humble, those who use their environment to their own advantage, those who are receptive to learning, those who feel they *must* learn, perhaps even *need* to learn.

Top Dog? Why bother learning?… his classmates will learn from *him*.

Its alarming that parents no longer seem to understand this.

Friendship and love require no manipulation

Sometimes its difficult to distinguish *instruction* from manipulation. The end is the same (except a difference in degree of control), its the motivation that differs.

Successful communication, successful interaction, breeds friendship and love. Unsuccessful transactions result in desperation (for successful interaction) that *lead to* instruction or manipulation.

Endlessly in my own life I have debated whether I instruct or manipulate, and I have tried just as endlessly to ensure instruction. Noone, including myself, has been convinced or satisfied.

I should have taken a step back and focused on the failure that led me to instruction/manipulation in the first place… if I’d lacked that failure friendship would have prevented such a hideous debate.

Perhaps the humans who have helped me so greatly recently are they themselves subject to a lack of successful communication… they understand all too well the next required step and were able to use it with me, weathering the inevitability of my questioning of their motivations.

I wish for more human contact with the ones I love. This solitude, however useful, is far too painful.