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On the environment Thursday, Mar 13 2008

absurdity and amusement and cancer and death and ecology and environment and food and observation and opinion and society deductive reasoning, ecology, food, opinion, organic, speculation, the environment, tomfoolery reuche 10:33 am

This message is inspired by the fine music of the Rolling Stones, because I wanted to listen to “money” by the beatles but had the stones just sitting around.

So listen here’s the deal: we’ve all really fucked the environment up. It’s impossible to return things to their former state, damage is just going to continue to be done, and probably the best we can hope for is to figure out a way to keep living the way we do without… Well everyone dying. I dare say that hopefully a lot of people will die, I mean why not? I’ll probably be among the carcasses though this is something I’ve gone into before so it’s not worth repeating, but in any case if everyone is dead then that’s it.

As to global warming, global cooling, global dimming/dampening (the idea that there’s actually less light reaching us now than 50 or so years ago); I have no idea whether they’re part of the planet’s natural cycle, the result of “industrialization”, or some combination therein. I would wager on the third choice there. At the moment there is only weather data available for a very tiny portion of the earth’s existence, until new techniques are developed to try and sort out the past and the presently available data is sorted properly it’s really impossible to tell how much effect people have had. As to causes, “natural” ones would basically be celestial movement, including the earth’s position relative to the sun. I saw something a while ago that I’ve never looked into much that there’s evidence on the ocean floor to indicate that the earth’s magnetic poles have shifted multiple times. Whether that means that the earth actually moves in all directions or something else I have no idea, and probably other people only have theories. But if something like that is going on, there’s no way it wouldn’t alter temperatures and other things. As to “dimming”, it seems entirely possible to me that there might be other things in the way of the sun, off of the earth, in addition to pollution in the atmosphere of the earth. I have nothing to support that theory, but why not?

I will say that humans have destroyed the natural order in the ecosystem, but you can’t cast sole blame on oil usage, not even on pollution. By the way I personally think that nuclear power is a really bad thing but that’s another story, maybe. As an example of things that people don’t think of that have totally fucked up the environment, the introduction/export has totally fucked up the rivers and lakes of the world. Similarly moving wheat and corn and rice into places that they were not native has done things. Piping water from one place to another can’t be helping things. Bottled Water actually is probably a bigger threat to the environment than carbon monoxide emissions. You wonder why Greenland (it wasn’t Iceland was it? I don’t really care either way) is breaking off when yahoos are selling “glacial water”? yeah…. Recently there have been things about pharmaceutical drugs being found in water supplies around the world. Who would have thought of that? But it has gradually done shit to wildlife and so who knows what it’s doing to us. Actually what the hell is it doing to plants! I mean really, do they even test drugs on plants? Also mining in general, and salt production. Widespread desalinization of sea water is something that I can imagine really fucking things up somehow, it logically depends mostly on what they do with the salt that they separate from the water. But just think about the fact that they’re taking a lot (water and salt mostly of course, but you can’t tell me that other shit doesn’t get caught up in the process) from places that have to this point not had that much taken from them, and who knows just where it will be going? Well there are countless other things which I don’t know about , but you might. Feel free to write in. But in the end my point is that with all these things that we’re doing, there is no way that it’s having NO effect, it can just be really questionable exactly what the effect is, how “bad” it actually is, and what should be done about it.

So moving on there’s something I was thinking about that’s worth bringing up at this point, actually it’s what sparked this whole thing. So called “Organic” food. For those not familiar with the idea… all food that I know of (plants and animals) is technically an organic life form originally so this is somewhat of a redundant term, but it’s become pretty embedded now so what can you do. Anyway the idea behind “organic” food is that it’s “natural”, as in not genetically modified (including cloned), and grown without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and also not processed with such things (like preservatives). This is actually just about impossible to achieve because all water in the world is rife with chemicals but they have certain varying standards for what is and isn’t organic. The two main claims of those who produce organic food, and to a lesser extent organic materials (clothing mostly), is that it’s better for you to not have altered product, and that it’s better for the environment not to use such product. A lesser claim is that all things being equal organic food tastes better. I heard about a test in which monkeys would consistently choose “organic” fruit over other fruit.

I need a new paragraph. The only claim of the three regarding “organic” food that I’ll stand behind is taste, which is the main reason that I generally use organic ingredients. Just how harmful altered food is to people is really debatable. I’m not aware of any studies comparing lifeforms raised exclusively on one or the other to each other. An ideal testing situation would be cloning various specimens of given life forms a bunch of times and subjecting them to different types of feed. I have no idea what cloning really means for the world, it presents unique and useful scientific opportunities but whether it’s good or bad for anything else isn’t something I can speculate on. I’d say the same of gene modification. I’m more worried about the latter though. Anyway as to the benefits of organic farming to the environment… It becomes a complicated logistics issue. There’s no way in hell for instance that the production of organic maple syrup is good for the environment, whether or not it’s worse than chemically processed maple syrup. The main issue as far as organic crops goes is that you need to produce more, I don’t know how much more but at least 120% more and probably more like 150% more, in order to get the same yield in the first place as altered crops. And similarly if you don’t put preservatives in processed food (keep in mind that bread, cheesecake, tofu, and yogurt count as processed foods here) they won’t stay as good for as long so you ultimately end out wasting more of them, which means you’ll need more raw food, which similarly ramps up the amount that you need to produce. As far as I know the demand for organic almonds in the united states of america is vastly greater than what can be produced for example. Now, needing to produce more food means that you need more available arable land to cultivate, which translates to less area for wildlife and deforestation.

So with that last part in mind I ask you, what’s worse for the environment: A plot of land the size of your apartment complex growing chemically fertilized and genetically modified maize which has stems that can grow taller than buildings (as far as I know no such thing exists that grows edible corn but it should be possible eventually), needs comparatively less water and nutrients, and produces more than 1 ear of maize per stalk (supposedly the techniques and types of maize commonly grown produce less than an ear per stalk)? Or a plot of land the size of your neighborhood growing “organic” standard sized corn producing less than an ear per stalk? Actually, I really have no idea, who knows what the hell would happen to the plants of the world when bees (which might be dying out themselves, which in fact might herald the end of the human race as we know it) spread the pollen from that monster corn. But the latter would use up more land which is definitely the one finite resource in the world (water possibly is as well but since it’s the easiest thing in the world to recycle), and farming that larger area of land would almost certainly require more energy as well. Actually it’s a pretty tricky thing and I think we’re screwed either way which is pretty much my whole point here.

Well there are probably other issues here… Oh yeah, every single thing in your house is giving you cancer at this point. Even that organic American cotton shirt that cost you at least 5 times more than a cotton shirt made in china from the recycled rags taken off of dead bodies before cremation. Probably everything in the world is cancerous by now, even sunlight is after all, and there’s no way to change that. Going back to humans being organic, all things can be broken down to chemical compounds, so cancer is itself a chemical reaction (this is some pretty creative deductive reasoning going on here). A lot of research has been put into isolating exactly what factors go into this chemical reaction, some are obvious now like silicone and plutonium and petroleum but other things are vaguer. Not everyone that smokes cigarettes and drinks alcohol gets cancer after all. Most people do in the end though. I’m trying to remember now just how old cancer is, or if anyone knows. That might be something worth looking into for another time.

Until then remember, no matter what you’re going to die anyway so change what you want if you want, but there’s never any point in worrying about things. Go read a book and listen to the Stones or something. I’m really not sure whether it’s actually better to relax with a glass of juice than wine but I do know that wine is more relaxing and no matter what tastes worse than even juice of only a fair quality. Ridiculous bastards. Yeah go eat a crepe or something, and flip off the sun the next time you see it. Go have sex on the floor with the drapes drawn sometime, the only things you’ll hurt are your joints, unless you have carpet in which case there might be additional chafing.

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Don’t worry the world will be over in a few days Tuesday, Mar 11 2008

absurdity and advice and death and environment and speculation and thoughts and writing actually advice, apocalypse, death, knowledge, life, opinion, writing reuche 9:25 am

Of course at precisely the wrong time I have a variety of things I want to say. Perhaps for a change I should just say them?

First of all the reason to write a multi-perspective story with lots of characters is because when you get bored or frustrated writing a particular character, generally the demonic male protagonist who seemed like such a good idea at the time, you can distract yourself for a little while writing about another character, like the mousy woman who just happened to get caught up in things that’s just like you when you were young who is only supposed to be a side character but somehow ends up in half the book. eh hem let me advise you again that if you try to write a character greater than yourself, or simply events greater than those you’ve experienced, it’s just going to come out very false and convoluted. Whether or not anyone likes that or not I can’t say though.

Other than that let me say something about knowledge and anxiety. What people worry about, why they worry, and how much they worry is a broad subject. But I can say with no doubt that the more things a person knows about, the more potential things there are to worry about. That just makes sense right? It should almost go without saying, but when you really think about it a lot of things make sense. The truth is that just because you don’t know about something doesn’t mean that it can’t hurt you. It just means that you can’t hurt yourself with worry about it, that’s it. So for example, traces of pharmaceutical drugs in your drinking water, things in food that probably cause cancer, signals emitted from your cards, holes in the ozone layer, meteors shooting towards the earth, treatments to furniture that probably cause birth defects simply by sitting on them, ghosts, curses, Ley lines (and points), the 10 commandments… There are all these things out there you really don’t know about that are constantly doing you harm, perhaps immense and unrepairable. If you know about them, you have the opportunity to try and do something about them. But all that most people end out doing is worrying about them, creating anxiety. After all, if there are all these things you didn’t know about messing you up, then how many other things out there might be messing you up that you had no idea about?

It can be pretty stressful to think about really. Even someone like me, who has been through a lot, looks around and can only think that there’s no way out anymore. Every glimmer of hope starts to look false when you realize that in order to clean one thing you have to soil another. I don’t actually have any advice about this one, it’s just something I was thinking about. Probably all you can do is try not to worry and just do your best to go about your life the way you wish to, even though all attempts to do so will eventually prove futile. Ah can you tell that I’m a person who has no hope? I think that’s easier though, more depressing, but easier.

Fortunately living is a temporary state right? Probably there are just other problems to be encountered when you are not living, like no longer existing at all, but that’s then and this is now. Since we could all die at any time my advice is to have as much sex as you want, as responsibly or not as you wish, and to consume as much of anything (food, entertainment, knowledge) as you wish. Just remember that the more you know the more miserable you’ll become, and the less you know the less you’ll be capable of.

But take some solace that we humans had a pretty good run. Whether it’s been millions or just thousands of years I don’t know for sure, but it’s been pretty good. I do say this though, if you have the chance to uncover that which lies below the water or the crust of the earth then do so. We humans might as well do our best to conquer the earth before it’s all destroyed. It should take less time than conquering the whole of space at least don’t you think?

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Like bad synth music Thursday, Feb 28 2008

animals and economy and environment and food and hunter x hunter and jews and opinion and personal and Q and A and romani and shueisha and speculation and vegetarian conspiracy theory, food, hxh, manga, opinion, q & a, shueisha, vegetarian, yoshihiro togashi reuche 9:34 am

Being in the right mood I whipped up a batch of crepes. Remember; when flipping a crepe the important thing is to marshal your courage and flip swiftly. Loosen all the edges first while the center is cooking up too, that helps I think. Anyway I happened to have some (pizza) white cheese blend and pepperoni so when I was eating the crepes leftover I decided to make some crepe pizzas by just putting some of that stuff on and heating the lot up in the microwave. This was not my greatest experiment. I think that having cheese on a crepe isn’t bad, but the whole thing ended out sort of funky and greasy in the bad way.

Other than this someone gave me some Darbo syrup and it was not to my tastes. I am critical of everything but there wasn’t a single thing I liked about it.

In an interesting plot twist, new evidence has come to light that the reason everyone thinks I look jewish, whatever that means (I think they’re just ridiculing me, but I know they’re mocking jews with those remarks), might be because I’m descended from Romani. Which might more commonly be known in english as “gypsy” and not to be confused with roman. I don’t really know a lot about that matter, but at the least going back to the nazis there has been lumping together of the romani with the jews. Which ended out being much to their lasting detriment, hard enough to recover from genocide as it is only to end out having your identity ignored. Who knows how many roma children were mistakenly thought to be jewish and misplaced? I don’t think the opposite would be as much the case but I guess I don’t really know.

But on to the fun Q: “Is Togashi Yoshihiro dead” A: Togashi Yoshihiro is the author of the mysteriously popular manga series “Hunter X Hunter” which was on hiatus for close to 2 years if I recall correctly, only to go on hiatus again within a couple months of resuming. [update: apparently the moment I said this a new chapter of HxH came out but whether this means that serialization has actually resumed at the old rate which included frequent breaks for months at a time or just a fluke is not known] Well officially he is not dead. I had previously speculated that there was no way to tell who was drawing the last chapters before the hiatus because they were little more than glorified scribbles. But in the recent batch of new chapters before this second indefinite hiatus the art was clearly his, and of fair quality at that. It remains a matter of speculation exactly what his problems (serious illness is presumed but that could be anything) are that have interrupted serialization, some skeptics don’t believe that there’s anything wrong him, but nothing has been forthcoming. Frankly while it is not anyone’s business aside from his beleaguered employers exactly what is going on, to followers of his work it would be nice to know whether his problems are terminal or not. I think that Shueisha, his publisher, is entirely aware of what is going on, but is intentionally covering things up in order to maintain interest in the work. Frankly if I didn’t think the series was going to end before Togashi I would give up on it and I don’t think I’m the sole holder of that sentiment.

Q: “I want to be a vegetarian but I have absolutely no idea how to go about it” A: If you’re really serious about being a vegetarian, I recommend seeing a dietitian and making a gradual transition. Just as people typically fail at giving up drugs all at once, so do people fail at giving up meat all at once. You might start by only eating meat once a day, and then graduating from there to only eating byproducts once a day before eliminating those. Decide where your morals and aesthetics lie on the matter between being a fake vegetarian, one who still eats poultry and fish; a real vegetarian, one who doesn’t eat meat but still eats eggs and dairy and such; and fake vegan, a person who does their best not to eat anything with animal products in it but who ultimately fails because of feasibly inescapable cross-contamination. A note on that last part, if you order a tempeh burger and your friend orders a cheeseburger… Or failing that, even if you’re at a vegan restaurant how much meaning in it is there if the guy preparing your food snacks on prosciutto?

Well the other day someone asked me to refute vegetarianism so I might as well jump all the way into this one. For a person who desires to be vegetarian you will inevitably fail if you try to eat vegetarian versions of the same foods you usually do. Vegan sausage for instance. While there are a few substitute products that are quite good, veggie burgers and margarines have come a long way for example, most fall flat. Instead the best thing to do is totally revamp your diet with all new vegetarian dishes. There are a lot of great vegetarian oriental dishes, chinese and indian in particular, which I enjoy and won’t leave you wanting as the veggie steak will.

Which brings me to the second key to vegetarian success: you have to be both able and willing to prepare almost all of your own meals. This probably breaks people even more than changing their diet. Most people really can’t cook great in the first place, but in our bottom line driven world even people who want to become better at cooking simply don’t have the time or energy to dedicate towards cooking. I would really recommend finding the reserves somehow to prepare your own food as much as possible though, taste and/or budget issues aside it really is a lot better for you to eat things as minimally processed as possible. So let me say that if you and/or your household aren’t cooking a lot now and don’t think that you can change that, don’t even bother trying to become a vegetarian. You just won’t keep it up.

The third key to success as a vegetarian is to do it with others. If it’s just you converting and not your spouse and/or children or other dependents (perhaps you take care of your ailed parents, I don’t know) and you’re the only one cooking, it simply isn’t going to work. Well you could try telling these others to fend for themselves but that’s a bit cold if we’re talking about children. It’s bad enough preparing one set of meals, but to have to prepare two? You’re not in a better position in any kind of unit even if it’s not you preparing the food. It’s a bit selfish to say “you guys eat this and by the way I need you prepare this for me” don’t you think? Probably the equation is just too difficult with children in the picture in any case though. Now even if you have no romantic partner or dependents it is still easier to convert to any kind of diet (this actually would apply to the last one as well) if someone else is going along on it with you. For moral support if nothing else. People are pretty pathetic, can’t really do anything on their own, so you need the moral support to succeed.

So saying those things, the main reason to forget about vegetarianism is because it goes against human nature. Not that eating meat is a part of human nature so much as being opportunistic is. I think that moral reasons for vegetarianism are mere sophistry if not in fact hypocrisy. I could give examples or elaborate but you can probably use your own imagination other than reiterating that just because you don’t think you’re eating or using an animal’s byproduct doesn’t mean that you aren’t. As to economic reasons for vegetarianism, they’re questionable. I think it was Gandhi who brought up the point that it doesn’t make sense to feed something else just so that you can eat it instead of just eating what you were going to feed it in the first place. However realistically a lot of domesticated animals eat things that people won’t or in some cases even can’t eat. And the opposite is also true to some extent. But I do think that we could make better utilization of animals we feed on at this point and that there’s a lot of waste resultant from the process. This is also a form of sophistry, if you’re going to eat the fish you might as well eat its eyes too instead of just its fillet.

Recently environmental concerns have been raised about livestock processing and some people give this as a reason for becoming a vegetarian. I do not think that the pollution resultant from the livestock industry (mostly transportation emissions, but deforestation is also an issue) is the worlds biggest concern but it could be a part of it. Similarly some people cite a poor diet as reasons for giving up meat. I don’t think it’s the steak’s fault that it tastes so much better than a piece of lettuce that you would rather eat a big steak than a salad. Most recently a trend I’ve seen is people switching to vegetarianism because of health concerns. This is probably pretty stupid. Anyone can see sense in cutting back if you eat a diet especially high in fatty cow byproducts, but for the most part people stop eating meat because they’re afraid of some sort of animal disease. I thought it was divine comedy when there was a big E. Coli (I think) outbreak in the US in spinach or something like that last year. God was laughing about that one all year let me tell you. So that one is somewhat bunk as long as you’re sure of your government’s control on meat. If you’re not maybe it isn’t such a bad idea though who can say. Other general health benefits are questionable.

Long time readers (do I have any?) might recall that I was on a vegetarian diet for a period of months last year. Initially I was doing everything right, following my outlined suggestions (other than how I was doing it all on my own), and I did feel physically better at first. But eventually I was back to feeling like crap as usual. In my case I think there was a psychological element to it. For me it’s pretty demoralizing to eat a meal without meat for various reasons. One other remark I could make about my improvement and subsequent decline is that when I started out on the diet I was preparing almost all my own food, but by the end I was subsisting almost entirely on prepared foods. Granola, cereal bars, frozen meals/burritos, stuff like that. Having recently gone through a cooking resurgence (everything I’ve eaten in the last week was made in my home) I have similarly been feeling better. I think that this is something experienced by other people so the fact that the food doesn’t have meat in it might be incidental with the real positive simply being preparing it yourself. In other words your diet does affect your health, and your mood, but that has less to do with whether there is meat in your diet and more to do with the freshness and quality of your food in the first place.

Another thing, a lot of vegetarians start taking vitamins when they make the switch. In reality if you’re eating more fruits and vegetables then you’re already getting more vitamins. So you might actually be overdosing on supplements which typically results in an initial wellness peak before being followed by a steep drop-off. Or if no such thing is going on, your improved wellness might be resultant from your supplements instead of your diet. Ugh what the hell was I writing about again? I got distracted by some other shit. Oh well.

Just remember that everything in the world exists for your amusement. So if it amuses you to eat a bloody slab of some animal’s corpse then go right ahead. And if you like mapo tofu (I love mapo tofu) but hate eggs (I hate eggs) then roll with that too.

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Dust to Dust Tuesday, Dec 18 2007

absurdity and american and china and comedy and cracked and death and economy and environment and fuckery and get used to my contradiction and go fuck yourself and god and his dark materials and hot sex and japanese and jews and money is bad and muslims and observation and opinion and pet peeves and philosophy and rants and religion and russia and sanguine and satire and society books, bullshit, comedy, his dark materials, religion, satire, social commentary reuche 10:49 pm

Some of you may have heard of a little movie called “The Golden Compass” which as far as I know is out in theaters around the world now. However a lot of you probably don’t realize that it’s based on the first book of the same title in the “His Dark Materials” trilogy of novels. Through some kind of twist I was made aware of and obtained the books before I even knew about the movie, but I didn’t end out reading them until after the movie came out. In short I liked the books fine but the quality of the story was a lot higher than the quality of the writing. I can’t decide whether I really thought that the third book was the best, I might have personally enjoyed the second book a bit more, but there was a lot more going on in the third book and it had the best characters. Honestly I think that’s probably all you need to know about the series if you’re thinking of reading it. I haven’t seen the movie so I can’t comment on whether liking or disliking it would have any bearing on whether you’d like the books or not. Although I was under the impression that the movie had a lot of focus on action whereas the books have quite a bit of focus on philosophy. The first book was definitely the one with the most straight-forward story and action though, there WERE big battles and so on. The second book really didn’t have a lot of that kind of thing in comparison.

Now for those of you that are interested in dredging through my thoughts on the book a bit deeper, or perhaps for those of you who have or never will read the series, then there is more I have to say.

I’ve heard the “his dark materials” called the anti-thesis of C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” and I actually think that this is a marketing ploy more than anything. But it is true that “Narnia” is overtly christian and “materials” is unabashedly anti-religious. However, I don’t necessarily agree that the series is atheist just because it isn’t “fideist” (you might want to look that term up, I had to in order to find the term for what I was thinking of, of course there was one though) and instead I would describe the series as very open-mindedly “deist”. I am apparently about to dive into heavy spoilers of the story so turn away now if you don’t want to see that (most people want spoilers and then regret reading them, so take this last chance to think about how you will enjoy things the most).

I think that “anti-narnia” is used just because they don’t want to rile people up with what the series really is: anti-christian. Probably it’s anti-generally abrahamic anyway but to be honest I don’t care about religion and was raised in an officially christian (roman catholic I believe) country so I don’t know much more than shit about judaism (christianity with no jesus?) and I don’t know shit about islam (even more ass backwards and patriarchal than christianity with muhammed taking the place of jesus as god’s prophet but not as the son of god?). And so I’m only aware of the christian connotations, and in fact the only full religion the book references is christianity, but of course the author was similarly born in a christian country (protestant) so he probably doesn’t know much more than shit about other religions either. I could really get into a rant about how really nobody, even priests, end out knowing shit about religion but let’s just leave off understanding that I hate religion and do not respect or condone the indulgence of it. I do like Jesus I will say, Jesus is a good friend of mine. But he’s not the son of god, he’s the son of Joseph and Mary. *sigh I’m really off track here. Well this is why I don’t get paid for this kind of thing.

Anyway the protagonists of the story don’t really realize it because the lot of them have different goals. But in the end most of them set out to overthrow The Church and kill god, or at least end out throwing in their lot with those who seek to. Now as it turns out, in the world of “his dark materials” the being that calls himself god is fake, that is to say, not really god. And it turns out that the angel Metatron has more or less usurped power and is running things. Conversely I think that was part of the plot of the manga series Angel Sanctuary but it’s been a while since I read that and of course there was a lot of other stuff going on in that series. But the fact that Metatron was made out to be the bad guy was the same. There is a lot of focus on the idea of original sin, which is a favorite subject of mine. I read something recently which said that the idea of knowledge equating to sin is actually just supposed to be taken as a metaphor rather than literally, and that the idea that we (humans) are born carrying the sins of Adam and Eve is a fucking mistranslation of a mistranslation which some idiots (catholics of course, if you know a catholic that isn’t an idiot then you’re probably an idiot yourself) decided sounded good and have run with it for more than a thousand years now. HMPH! but let’s forget that for a moment and let me give my thoughts on knowledge equating a sin. I do actually agree with that because I view good and evil as perspective. I think it’s possible for anyone to commit deeds which I would view as good or evil equally through innocence. Until one is told that killing is a sin, then there is no reason why one would think that it is. To me knowledge is the source of misery, I’m sure that the happiest people are mentally retarded, and those who know a little about a lot like me just wile away their days in despair of the world. hmph….

I’ve lost focus here. I suppose a big theme in the books is also fate, predestination. And it makes a point of separating that from god. Personally I believe in god but I think that fate is what matters. Did I say something the other day about how I think fate is more along the lines of eternal cause and effect or some sort of program. Well even if it was a program that’s acting out that’s still cause and effect I suppose. I’m just trying to differentiate between intention and interaction. That wasn’t really a part of the book, it’s just something I’m thinking of. What was a part of the book was fortune telling. Actually if you think about it these were some of the sorriest characters ever because they rarely trusted in their own thoughts and actions and instead constantly consulted oracles. Then again, if you had a true oracle wouldn’t you do the same thing? I usually just drift about myself but if I lose sight or don’t have anything in mind then I’ll consult something.

So saying these books really followed the epic fantasy mode of having the main characters hiking along through miserable conditions filling up most of the story. I mean, really. But that is kind of true to life you know, most of it is really pretty flat as you’re just trying to get from one point to another. I know that yesterday I probably spent a good two hours of my day doing so through snow and in ice. I then spent another 3 or so hours talking to people and who knows how many laying around and sleeping. *yawn actually I kind of feel like sleeping now.

So His Dark Materials, I liked a lot of what it had to say because a lot of the views it expressed are ones that I hold. In case you didn’t know, people always prefer to hear that they’re right than that they’re wrong, so in the same vein they like to talk to people that think in the same ways, and read things which reinforce their views. That’s not the path of forward progress but it is the way to have a good time. Some people will tell you that they like debating, but you show me someone who really prefers to have to argue up and down about every little point with someone that they are the opposite of instead of the usual type which surrounds themselves with yes-men, or is a yes-man themselves. FUHN! And that children is why the world is melting. The other day I thought to myself “what if we just nuked everything and started over” and I’m sure others have thought the same thing but I don’t know the logistics for that kind of thing. It does seem to me that if the ice caps are melting there’s no reason why we can’t just you know, create a giant cooling and watering system to spray water back up north and south in order to preserve our coast lines. I mean come on really, you’re telling me that humans can shoot crap up into space but they can’t create a giant water gun? I wonder if anyone has ever thought of that. I can tell you that there would be a lot of complicated logistics and physics to it and that it could possibly destroy the ecosystem. On the other hand the ecosystem is ready to be destroyed ANYWAY so who the hell cares?

And since I believe in fate, if we all die then we all die, we’re on the road to nowhere just like the Talking Heads song. We all know where we’re going, and that is towards death, inexorably. Speaking of which I was amused by the theory on death presented in Materials. I personally can never decide whether or not I think that oblivion would be a bad thing, or better than eternal punishment. But I think that probably I believe in reincarnation if only because it sort of follows the rules of existence as I understand them. That being, that matter never vanishes it just transforms, spreads out, coalesces etc. Then again, if we say that humans are only what we can see then that means that death is the oblivion or our existence and all that is left is for our remains to decay. But if we say that there is some thing like the “soul” which is different from the body then something must happen to it. Whether it floats freely, takes up a new residence, or somehow disperses is the matter for debate. Personally I don’t know so I don’t believe in anything. But I think that totally disappearing is a bit sad, or at least it’s not something to look forward to. Now ideas of karma and sin and virtue and whether they factor into anything or not are entirely different matters. Or essentially the question is whether your deeds in life have any kind of intrinsic value beyond the apparent reactions they cause.

OK the last thing I’ll say is that in His Dark Materials they also kind of killed morality, but it was more subtle. In the story everyone met the same end, had the same final destination, regardless of what they did in life. If you really believe that then there’s no reason not to go out right now and stab your neighbor whose plants and weeds are always creeping into your yard just as their cat always poops in your flower garden if that’s what you feel like. I’m not sure whether this is an original or bold statement, certainly it’s not unique, but I think that society is held together simply by fear. Fear of social law is enough for most people, although truly most people are simply apathetic and lack the strong desire to do things like destroy, but it’s really fear of a higher law that keeps people in line. I don’t like “the church”, I think it’s almost total bullshit, and it obviously attempts to and succeeds at controlling people. But if it didn’t then we’d still all be a bunch of warring tribes. Then again that doesn’t stop those muslims does it? heh… sorry muslims, you’re too easy of a target. But don’t worry I make fun of jews with their ridiculous rules (men not touching women outside their family, circumcision, eating kosher, etc.) too.

Now that said, I think our western society has reached the point where we don’t need god anymore. But we do need to figure things out before we can be comfortable without god. And believe me, god doesn’t care what we think about god, or at least we won’t be smited for throwing away religion (I think it would be a shame to topple churches down though, many are quite beautiful and if nothing else fine sturdy usable buildings which these days probably are used more for community meetings and speeches and the like than religious service anyway!) god is just trying to amuse itself and pass the time until oblivion the same as we are. Now in the middle-eastern societies, they need us westerners to kill god for them. There will be no progress until they are enlightened as we are that “god is for dummies”. ha ha ha, as to south-westerners, you’re the same as us europeans aren’t you my Brazilian brothers and sisters? Yeah you’re fine, watch out that Rio doesn’t get swallowed by the ocean. As to africans… they need some fucking food and water, and they need someone to take away their weapons and give them some medical care, especially some condoms, HIV testing, and vitamins. The chinese need to stop destroying their country, get rid of their fake communism, let the people in Tibet do what they want (I actually think that they kind of do and I read something the other day about the idea of “freeing tibet” being impossible at this point for logistics reasons), either stop having or stop killing or abandoning their kids, develop some kind of social security system (japan does too actually), and just stop being stubborn dicks about certain things. Speaking of Japan, they need a war. They need something to shake them out of their reverie, to knock them off their high horse. Or so a little bird from the orient whispered in my ear.

And Russia, what the hell are you doing giving Iran nuclear fuel! You stupid morons need to get over your western envy. You’re the only major country in the world where the population continues to decrease year by year and you’re still caught up in a pissing contest with the united states. Get over it. Now the united states of course needs to LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE! Or at least if they want to poke their fingers in it just needs to be money and resources which is all people really care about anyway as opposed to guns and bombs and missiles. Do you know how bad the US is actually doing right now? Do you know that nobody there realizes it? Actually that could probably be said of most countries, individuals are caught up in their own business. I think that’s fine as long as you realize that even if you’re on a peaceful island if the rest of the world burns up in hellfire then you’ll be caught up in the conflagration yourself. That’s the way I look at things, I just accept what comes my way for the most part and if I feel like doing or saying something then I will.

I’m just… not afraid anymore. Although I’m not a total ass, I’m not going to walk into a temple of whatever sort and start yelling “you’re all morons and cowards who need to get on with your life”. etc.

Speaking of stupid things, I was debating an american issue with myself. The thought came to me was that the problem there is all the business majors. Business majors are the real scum of the earth as far as I’m concerned. I would rather talk with an unrepentant child rapist than someone who works a white collar job in america. So a lot of americans bemoan that there aren’t enough teachers and nurses and doctors and scientists and they’re falling behind the world. I was pointing to people who are motivated by the bottom line and just study bullshit finances and the like and then work in faceless companies without joy or glory. But it occurred to me that the real problem was the military. You may or may not know this, and it’s similar in certain ways in other countries, but if you go into the military in the united states then they will outright give you money to go to college, in addition to letting you take advantage of a lot of really great financing options (the military in the united states has some of the best credit unions, not to mention the G.I. Bill etc.). But here’s the thing, guys who do tours in Iraq for 4 years don’t often come home and then take up physics. Usually they’re not the type for that in the first place, if they would have been good or smart enough academically to deal with that kind of thing then they’d have probably gotten a scholarship in the first place instead of having to go into the military. Instead these people come home and study business or mechanics or the likes, or they think they can be the next big MMA splash or write a novel about their non-exploits and get rich etc. So it’s these people that are the problem, and those who support them.

What I’m saying is the next time someone says they “support the troops” ask if they ever told the troops that they should become a climate engineer, or study physics, or if they helped them out with math. Or ask them if they will do that, if assuming the troops they support come home alive they’ll help them out to study something worthwhile in college so that they can make a difference and better the world instead of just patting them on the back and asking them to fix your car because they learned how to do that when they were working at the supply depot right? fuckers. Hey if you’re reading this and live in america, just go out and kill a bunch of people. Seriously. Blow shit up, commit genocide. Start with those “mega church” fake christians, they should believe that they’ll be in a better place anyway. Go into the business college in your city and immolate yourself. (note to self: stay away from those wings of colleges from now on) Leave a note of intention saying that your message is that such things are such a waste of intention and flesh and resource that you felt like you should just wipe them clean. Don’t mention me though, I don’t want to get into trouble. Although I don’t think I’d be liable anyway. Leave the lawyers alone just in case I find myself in need of a good one. I wonder if I’d be arrested if I said this stuff on a street corner? These days it would probably constitute fostering terrorism or some bullshit like that. Then again, isn’t it? Umm OK this is SATIRE! Satire. Satire.

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Soothing Monday, Jul 30 2007

annoyance and causes and economy and environment and irresponsible statements and japan and nostalgia and observation and opinion and rants and society and technology and wii reuche 7:12 pm

After receiving a comment about a variety of unfounded observations I made about Japan’s waste management practice which I tacked on to a recent entry I decided to look into the matter somewhat. My conclusion is that some things are better than I thought and some things are worse, which of course is pretty much what it comes down to in every country. I would say that taking care of the environment always starts with the individual and in some cases is a battle against the government and controlling financial interests. My criticism was misdirected at Japan in general from Nintendo in particular.

No matter what may occur in the future I feel that it was grossly irresponsible for Nintendo to not supply a rechargeable source of energy for their controllers themselves. The supposed reasons for not doing so are manifold but I imagine it was mostly a cost issue. It would cost them more to have at the least packaged rechargeable batteries and supplied a charger somewhere, but the greater cost probably would have been in development. I’m not an expert on anything having to do with the Wii since I don’t own one but something I’ve seen cited various places, including the english wikipedia article is this line “According to an interview with Nintendo industrial designer Lance Barr, limitations of the Wii Remote’s expansion port make it unlikely that it will be used for internal battery charging”. Which means that they produced it aware of its limitations, and might mean that there were alternate proposals which were not implemented due to unknown reasons (I’d guess cost and/or functionality) that could have potentially been efficient for power charging. I’m actually not certain that Nintendo doesn’t have ties to companies that produce batteries, they seem to have had a long running close relationship with Matsushita/Panasonic in particular. I’m not quite willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t consider how many AA batteries it would mean if they managed to sell 10,000,000 units. I’m a little curious as to how many controllers might have been produced at this time but I think a very conservative estimate would be twice the number of consoles sold with the possibility of even 40,000,000 of them out there not being unrealistic and certainly the probability of that number being surpassed eventually is very likely.

Let’s focus on 30m units though, that would mean 60m AA batteries which to me is a mind blowing enough number already. However if you imagine that the batteries only last for perhaps a months worth of playing then that means from this point on 10s of millions of AA batteries a month will be used and thrown away for years to come.

I think it’s probably just because I’m a gamer that this is especially shocking to me. I didn’t really think about things like this much in the past with the likes of Nintendo’s Gameboy hand held systems since 20 years ago recharging was the exception rather than the rule in consumer electronics. And 10 years ago you weren’t dealing with the numbers that you are today. Perhaps most of all is that so many electronics these days do use a renewable energy source whether it be cellphones, cameras, laptop computers, or Nintendo’s own recent hand held game systems (the DS and the Advance SP). From the moment I heard about the Wii Remotes power source I have been unhappy with it. In the interim third party companies have released some charging solutions but those are always questionable.

Well whatever. I don’t have a Wii myself and I doubt I’ll ever buy one but if you care about such things then go complain to Nintendo. They might just tell you to use NiMH batteries or something which is of course a fine option but I still say that they should be the ones responsible for supplying them.

As a final note Nintendo claims to be reaping a hefty profit from hardware sales. This is probably one of the reasons for that but I am not equipped with the information to calculate something like that. And of course the reason I don’t have that information is because I haven’t looked for it or felt inclined to do so. All I know is that Nintendo is making a lot of money and the environment is suffering for it. But that is always the way it has been and will be when it comes to entertainment. Maybe in 10 years issues like this won’t exist anymore, but in order to make that a reality you can’t just sit around and think things will get better you have to demand change yourself. I have in fact done so and try to contribute where I can but batteries are not exactly one of my main causes….

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