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Note #24719462
“They are all children of God, loved and created by the same heart of God… Where is my faith? Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness… If there be God — please forgive me… Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal… What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true… Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”
– Mother Teresa
‘New Facebook Guidelines’ Chain Letter About Copyright Laws Still A Hoax
Users who’ve logged onto Facebook in the last 24 hours may have seen friends posting a message about “New Facebook Guidelines.” The message urges others to copy and paste the post, lest the company use their content for commercial use without their permission.
But users shouldn’t be so quick to post the message to their own Facebook walls: Experts say the chain letter is just another hoax.
The post in question reads:
In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!
The message continues on to say that users can copy and paste the text and post it to their wall, which “will place them under protection of copyright laws.”
“If you do not publish a statement at least once,” the text warns, “you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates.”
But experts say not to bother posting the message at all.
“It is my understanding that the text has no legal meaning at all,” Chester Wisniewski, a senior security expert at Sophos who has written about this chain letter in the past, told The Huffington Post.
“Your photos are your photos — you haven’t given up your copyright,” Wisniewski said. “But by posting it to Facebook, you have given them the right to share it given their sometimes confusing privacy settings.”
Facebook echoed this in a statement to HuffPost.
“As outlined in our terms, the people who use Facebook own all of the content and information they post on Facebook, and they can control how it is shared through their privacy and application settings,” Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, wrote in an email. “Under our terms, you grant Facebook permission to use, distribute, and share the things you post, subject to the terms and applicable privacy settings.”
Similar messages have gone viral in the past and have become so common that Facebook actually posted a message to its wall in June saying they weren’t true. Snopes, a fact-checking site that debunks online rumors, called it “false” in June.
Misology
And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason purposely occupies itself with the enjoyment of life and with happiness, so much the further does one get away from true satisfaction; and from this there arises in many… a certain degree of misology, that is, hatred of reason; for, after calculating all the advantages they draw… they find that they have in fact only brought more trouble upon themselves instead of gaining in happiness; and because of this they finally envy rather than despise the more common run of people, who are closer to the guidance of mere natural instinct and do not allow their reason much influence on their behavior.
– Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Memorable Movie Quotes
What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!
– Scarface
Now you will receive us! We do not ask for your poor or your hungry. We do not want your tired and sick. It is your corrupt we claim! It is your evil that will be sought by us. With every breath we shall hunt them down. Each day we will spill their blood, ’till it rains down from the skies! Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal. These are principles which every man of every faith can embrace! These are not polite suggestions. These are codes of behavior and those of you that ignore them will pay the dearest cost! There are varying degrees of evil. We urge you lesser forms of filth, not to push the bounds and cross over, into true corruption, into our domain. For if you do, one day you will look behind you and you will see we three and on that day you will reap it! And we will send you to whatever god you wish.
– The Boondock Saints
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
…
Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.
– V for Vendetta
God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
…
You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
…
We’re consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra… Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic. It’s all going down, man. So fuck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns. The things you own end up owning you. Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions. When deep space exploration ramps up, it’ll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
…
Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don’t you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can’t think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you’re supposed to read? Do you think every thing you’re supposed to think? Buy what you’re told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.
…
Some trust fund prosecutor, got off-message at Yale thinks he’s gonna run this up the flagpole? Make a name for himself? Maybe get elected some two-bit congressman from nowhere, with the result that Russia or China can suddenly start having, at our expense, all the advantages we enjoy here? No, I tell you. No, sir! Corruption charges! Corruption? Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulations. That’s Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win.
…
You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.
…
Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you, never wanted you, and in all probability, he HATES you. It’s not the worst thing that can happen. Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We’re God’s unwanted children, SO BE IT!
– Fight Club
Motherfucking, cocksucker, motherfucking, shitfucker, what am I doing? What am I doing? I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m doing the best that I can. I know that’s all I can ask of myself. Is that good enough? Is my work doing any good? Is anybody paying attention? Is it hopeless to try and change things? The African guy is a sign, right? Because if he isn’t then nothing in this world makes any sense to me; I’m fucked. Maybe I should quit. Don’t quit. Maybe I should just fucking quit. Don’t fucking quit. Just, I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do anymore. Fucker. Fuck. Shit.
…
Nobody sits like this rock sits. You rock, rock. The rock just sits and is. You show us how to just sit here and that’s what we need.
…
But there’s no way I could stop it’s use in my lifetime is there? I mean, Jimmy Carter would have an electric car by now. I could have a Cadillac Escalade and it could be electric. I wouldn’t have to ride my bicycle.
…
What are they thinking? They’re thinking that it’s running out. It’s running out… and ninety percent of what’s left is in the Middle East. This is a fight to the death.
– I Heart Huckabees
Death is a disease. Its like any other. And there’s a cure, a cure — and I will find it.
…
It’s all done except the last chapter. I want you to help me. Finish it.
…
Death as an act of creation.
Death frees every soul.
Death is the road to awe.
– The Fountain
Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Now, after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution. No longer to be poisoned by civilization, he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild. Alexander Supertramp. May 1992.
…
The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows, and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing the blind, deaf stone alone with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.
…
If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.
…
I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them. And work which one hopes may be of some use. Then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor. Such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps. What more can the heart of a man desire?
…
Happiness only real when shared.
…
Chris measured himself and those around him by a fiercely rigorous moral code. He risked what could have been a relentlessly lonely path, but found company in the characters of the books he loved from writers like Tolstoy, Jack London and Thoreau. He could summon their words to suit any occasion, and he often would. I forgot to ask what quote he’d have picked for his graduation dinner, but I had a good idea of who the primary target would be. It was inevitable that Chris would break away. And when he did, he would do it with characteristic immoderation.
– Into the Wild
We don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way! Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements!
…
I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be.
– Office Space
We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
– Dead Poet’s Society
Yes. The individual human mind. In a child’s power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than in all your shouted “amens” and “holy holies” and “hosannas.” An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man’s knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.
– Inherit the Wind
KATHARSIS my bad caps lock
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis (Ancient Greek: κάθαρσις) is a Greek word meaning “cleansing” or “purging”. It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, “to purify, purge,” and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, “pure or clean.”
Contents
- 1 Dramatic uses
- 2 “Catharsis” before tragedy
- 3 Therapeutic uses
- 4 See also
- 5 Notes
- 6 References
Dramatic uses
Catharsis is a term in dramatic art that describes the “emotional cleansing” sometimes depicted in a play as occurring for one or more of its characters, as well as the same phenomenon as (an intended) part of the audience’s experience. It describes an extreme change in emotion, occurring as the result of experiencing strong feelings (such as sorrow, fear, pity, or even laughter). It has been described as a “purification” or a “purging” of such emotions.[1] More recently, such terms as restoration, renewal, and revitalization have been used when referencing the effect on members of the audience.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to use the term catharsis with reference to the emotions – in his work Poetics. In that context, it refers to a sensation or literary effect that, ideally, would either be experienced by the characters in a play, or be wrought upon the audience at the conclusion of a tragedy; namely, the release of pent-up emotion or energy.
In his works prior to Poetics, Aristotle had used the term catharsis purely in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the katamenia—the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material).[2] Here, however, he employs it as a medical metaphor. F. L. Lucas maintains, therefore, that purification and cleansing are not proper translations for catharsis; that it should rather be rendered as purgation. “It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions.”[3]
Lessing sidesteps the medical aspect of the issue and translates catharsis as a purification, an experience that brings pity and fear into their proper balance: “In real life,” he explained, “men are sometimes too much addicted to pity or fear, sometimes too little; tragedy brings them back to a virtuous and happy mean.”[4] Tragedy is then a corrective; through watching tragedy, the audience learns how to feel these emotions at proper levels. Some modern interpreters of the work infer that catharsis is pleasurable, because audience members experience ekstasis (Greek: ἔκστασις – ecstasy) (literally: astonishment, meaning: trance) or, in other words, “relief,” ensuing from an awareness that, compared with what they have just seen portrayed, their own life is less tragic.
Any translator attempting to interpret Aristotle’s meaning of the term should take into account that Poetics is largely a response to Plato’s claim that poetry encourages people to behysterical and uncontrolled. Aristotle maintains that, on the contrary, the effect of poetry is to allow people to be less controlled by emotion – not more so – by its providing a healthy outlet for their feelings.
In literary aesthetics, catharsis is developed by the conjunction of stereotyped characters and unique or surprising actions or events over time. Throughout a play, we do not expect the nature of a character to change significantly; rather, preexisting elements are revealed in a relatively straightforward way, as the character faces these confrontations. This is clearly evident in Oedipus Rex, where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions, until the catharsis/emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife, and by his own act of self-blinding.
In contemporary aesthetics, catharsis may also refer to any purging of emotion experienced by an audience, in relation to drama. This exstasis (ekstasis – ἔκστασις – ecstasy) can be perceived in comedy, melodrama and most other dramatic forms.
There have been, for political or aesthetic reasons, deliberate attempts made to subvert the effect of catharsis in theatre. For example, Bertolt Brecht viewed catharsis as a pap (pablum) for the bourgeois theatre audience, and designed dramas which left significant emotions unresolved, intending to force social action upon the audience. Brecht reasoned that the absence of a cathartic resolution would require the audience to take political action in the real world, in order to fill the emotional gap they had experienced vicariously. This technique can be seen as early as his agit-prop play The Measures Taken.
“Catharsis” before tragedy
Catharsis before the sixth-century rise of tragedy is, for the Western World, essentially a historical footnote to the Aristotelian conception. The practice of purification had not yet appeared in Homer, as later Greek commentators noted:[5] the Aithiopis, an epic set in the Trojan War cycle, narrates the purification of Achilles after his murder of Thersites. Catharsis describes the result of measures taken to cleanse away blood-guilt—”blood is purified through blood” (Burkert 1992:56), a process in the development of Hellenic culture in which theoracle of Delphi took a prominent role. The classic example – Orestes – belongs to tragedy, but the procedure given by Aeschylus is ancient: the blood of a sacrificed piglet is allowed to wash over the blood-polluted man, and running water washes away the blood.[6] The identical ritual is represented, Burkert informs us (1992:57), on a krater found at Canicattini, wherein it is shown being employed to cure the daughters of Proetus from their madness, caused by some ritual transgression. To the question of whether the ritual obtains atonement for the subject, or just healing, Burkert answers: “To raise the question is to see the irrelevance of this distinction” (1992:57).
Therapeutic uses
The term catharsis has also been adopted by modern psychotherapy, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis, to describe the act of expressing, or more accurately, experiencing the deep emotions often associated with events in the individual’s past which had originally been repressed or ignored, and had never been adequately addressed or experienced. Modern psychological opinion is clear on the usefulness of cathartic aggression in anger management. “Blowing off steam” may reduce physiological stress in the short term, but this reduction may act as a reward mechanism, reinforcing the behavior and promoting future outbursts.[7][8][9][10]
Catharsis is also an emotional release associated with talking about the underlying causes of a problem or seeing a dream.
See also
- Closure (psychology)
Notes
- ^ Aristotle, Poetics, 1449b25f.
- ^ Belifiore, Elizabeth S. Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion, page 300. Princeton UP, 1992
- ^ Lucas, F.L. Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle’s Poetics, page 24
- ^ ibid., page 23. Hogarth, 1928
- ^ Walter Burkert, 1992. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, p.56. (Harvard University Press). This sub-section depends largely on Burkert.
- ^ Burkert notes parallels with a bilingual Akkadian-Sumerian ritual text: “the knowledgeable specialist, the sacrificial piglet, slaughter, contact with blood, and the subsequent cleansing with water” (1992:58).
- ^ Bushman, BJ; RF Baumeister, and AD Stack (1999-03). “Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies?”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76 (3): 367–376. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.367. PMID 10101875.
- ^ Gannon, Theresa A. (2007). Theresa A. Gannon, Tony Ward, Anthony R. Beech, and Dawn Fisher. ed. Aggressive offenders’ cognition: theory, research, and practice. 35. John Wiley & Sons.ISBN 9780470034019.
- ^ Baron, Robert A.; Deborah R. Richardson (2004). “Catharsis: does “getting it out of one’s system” really help?”. Human Aggression. Springer. ISBN 9780306484346.
- ^ Denzler, Markus; Jens Förster and Nira Liberman (2009-01). “How goal-fulfillment decreases aggression”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45 (1): 90–100.doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.08.021.
Jim Carrey on Awakening
The New Jim Carrey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQJyKhmqkQ
The Old Jim Carrey
I’m a Modern Man
A man for the millennium. Digital and smoke-free. A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist, politically, anatomically, and ecologically incorrect. I’ve been uplinked and downloaded, I’ve been inputted and outsourced. I know the upside of downsizing I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high tech lo-life. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bi-coastal multitasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond. I’m new wave but I’m old school and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hotwired, heatseaking, warmhearted cool customer, voice activated and biodegradable. I interface with my database and my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive, and from time to time I’m radioactive. Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, riding the wave, dodging the bullet, and pushing the envelope. I’m on point, on task, on message, and off drugs. I got no need for coke and speed. I got no urge to binge and purge. I’m in the moment, on the edge, over the top, but under the radar. A high concept, low profile, medium range ballistic missionary. A streetwise smartbomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties; I tell power lies; I take power naps; I take victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing bigfoot, slamdunk rain maker with a pro-active outreach, a raging workaholic, a working rage-a-holic, out of rehab and in denial. I got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant, and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up, you can’t dumb me down, cause I’m tireless and I’m wireless. I’m an alpha-male on beta-blockers. I’m a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion forward, up front, down home, low rent, high maintenance, supersize, long lasting, high definition, fast acting, oven ready, and built to last. I’m a hands-on, footloose, knee-jerk headcase, prematurely post-traumatic, and I have a love child who sends me hate mail. But I’m feeling; I’m caring; I’m healing; I’m sharing; a supportive, bonding, nurturing, primary caregiver. My output is down, but my income is up. I take a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash flow. I read junk-mail; I eat junk food; I buy junk bonds; I watch trash sports. I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly, and lactose intolerant. I like rough sex; I like tough love; I use the f-word in my email, and the software on my hard drive is hardcore; no soft porn. I bought a microwave at a minimall; I bought a minivan at a megastore. I eat fast food in the slow lane. I’m toll-free, bite-size, ready to wear, and I come in all sizes; a fully equipped, factory authorized, hospital tested, clinically proven, scientifically formulated medical miracle. I’ve been pre-washed, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double wrapped, vacuum packed, and I have an unlimited broadband capacity. I’m a rude dude but I’m the real deal, lean and mean, cocked, locked, and ready to rock; rough, tough, and hard to bluff. I take it slow; I go with the flow; I ride with the tide; I got glide in my stride; driving and moving, sailing and spinning, jiving and grooving, wailing and winning. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hardy and lunchtime is crunchtime. I’m hanging in, there ain’t no doubt, and I’m hanging tough, over and out.
– George Carlin
Happy Belated Internet Freedom Day
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.
That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.
“I agree,” many say, “but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it’s perfectly legal – there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” But there is something we can, something that’s already being done: we can fight back.
Those with access to these resources – students, librarians, scientists – you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not – indeed, morally, you cannot – keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral – it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it – their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies.
There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge – we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Aaron Swartz
July 2008, Eremo, Italy
Incomplete Thoughts (Formerly “Finish It”)
And one more special message to go,
And then I’m done, then I can go home.
Over the past two years or so I have “blogged” 160 notes on Facebook. Their contents range from trivial mundane matters to the deepest concern for the human condition. This final note is simply a collection of my unfinished and/or unelaborated notes and ideas. These notes have been primarily for my own edification and this will serve as a type of Nachlass, if you will. As for myself, I’ve reached the paradoxical point in the book of life that demands of the student, if the student has ascertained the essence of the teaching, to give the book away and choose to cease reading and begin living.
Free Spirit – In the deepest and most spiritual sense is existential liberation from mundane existence and morality. It is difficult to accept and become at peace with the real idea of your own mortality, but it is almost impossible to accept and become at peace with the real idea of your own existence. To embrace the absurd is to truly exist.
You are not your fucking Facebook! The internet is the death of spirit. Look around you! This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. A thousand questions remain, but I smile and remain still, dancing in the moment and seeking only to live intentionally.
EDIT: I’ve recently had the good fortune of recovering some old essays of which I had thought were forever lost. I had penned them during a great transitional period in my life. If I no longer agree with the contents of these ancient relics, it doesn’t matter. They remain invaluable as part of my spiritual journey, if you will. Therefore, as a postscript, I will upload them and be finished.
Natural Theology and Classical Apologetics
Epistemology and the Metaphysics of the Soul
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Let go, or be dragged.
Sincerely,
Joshua Synon
… … …
Disclaimer: You enter the abyss at your own risk of life. Sanity is not guaranteed to follow.
Edit (5/7/2017): As this entire post was originally a Facebook Note, all of the links included will redirect through Facebook. I can’t be bothered to go through and fix them all.
– Students for Sensible Drug Policy
– American Civil Liberties Union
Click to view my discussions and debates on Christian Forums (2004-2010)
– This 5-6 year time span covers the gradual deterioration of my faith. It appears that I took part in 104 discussion threads with topics ranging from “evolution vs. creation” to “biblical prophecy” and much, much more. You may have to create an account to view this link. Only takes a minute, though. If the link is ever broken you can simply search for all posts by username: JSynon. This is one of my later threads and still makes me laugh when I read it: http://www.christianforums.com/t5724862/.
“Morality is the essence of all philosophy and all conscious actions for that matter. Kant and Sartre were correct in asserting that man acts to define man. Whenever anybody makes a claim to an objective truth or universal moral value they are actually saying: “This is how Isee things. This is how I want things to be!” In this way, all philosophical discourse is indeed merely autobiography and creation of values. Some people would call this a will to power, but call it what you will. Hence, my thesis: For anybody to attempt to invoke absolute moral values or objective truth claims on me is nothing other than a declaration of war against me.It is no longer an argument over what the truth is. The truth is created by the stronger party. It is by understanding this that you begin to understand what is truly meant by “God is dead.” Philosophy itself has died: metaphysics, ethics, and all. Truth and the will to truth are dead. The big lie of the priestly caste (dare I say the weak souls and slavish), the attribution of absolute value to – Truth, God, Form, Noumena, Being, Reality, the Good, the Perfect, the Infinite, the Unconditional and Absolute, the Unknown, the First Cause, ens realissimum– to control strong and healthy souls, will soon end.”
“To base our entire conventional system of time on the life of Jesus of Nazareth: is there a better way to undermine everything this man was?”
“To commit living myth and legend to lifeless script would be to imprison it and sound its death knell. Christ himself refused to compromise his authentic spirit by committing it to lifeless script, but instead he chose to live the very spirit of the Law and the Prophets. It is precisely in this living authenticity whereby Christ became equated with Divinity and the Holy Spirit. For so it is written – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Likewise, Buddha is also threefold nature.”
“Will I destroy myself by saving myself? Or will I save myself by destroying myself? Do not confuse spoken language and the written word with your own mind and your own existence. That is, do not believe that language represents reality. The word is not alive. Logic does not exist outside of thought. You are not what you think. The word is dead. Is this not also a significant part of the realization that God is dead? Is it not precisely madness and insanity to truly exist?”
“The faith of a child consists in trusting his parents moral imperatives as for his own good. When the child grows older he may or may not test these imperatives and if he does he will not only learn the reasoning behind them, but he will also surely suffer in some way from the learning. Likewise, it seems that the decadence found toward the end of every age necessitates a renewal of our faith in our collective parents – nature and ancestors. Only then may we again flourish in all our glory.”
“Numbing myself and shutting off my mind,
I walk a mile to work as another.”
– Joshua Synon
“Every belief, every considering something true is necessarily illusion because there is simply no true world.”
– Nietzsche
https://www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler
http://atheism.about.com/od/einsteingodreligion/tp/Einstein-s-Religious-Critiques.htm
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich
Numinosity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics
Squashed Philosophers – Full Text Index
Spoiler Alert: You Do Not Exist
Psychedelics and religion.
Shamanism.
Native Indians.
Psychonauts.
Entheogens.
Marijuana.
Ayahuasca.
DMT and the pineal gland? (cf. Strassman and Descartes)
Peyote.
Near-death experience.
Panic disorder.
Mystical experience.
Opiates.
Modern “anti-depressants” and benzodiazepines.
Pharmaceutical business and psychiatry.
Why the Buddha does not recommend substances to force enlightenment: Attachment.
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
http://listverse.com/2013/03/11/10-reasons-the-war-on-drugs-is-killing-you/
Benzodiazepines: How They Work & How to Withdraw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
War as business.
The Greek Olympics & the Roman Colosseum.
Monsanto.
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/the-great-adventure/
Dionysian nature of music.
– Reconsidering Nietzsche: Six Questions for Julian Young
Redeeming Nietzsche – On the Piety of Unbelief by Giles Fraser
Vicious Circle by Pierre Klossowski
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Friedrich_Nietzsche
http://www.thenietzschechannel.com/quotes/popular-quotes.htm
Nietzschean conspiracy.
– Regarding his insanity.
– Regarding the interpretation of his work.
– Regarding the colloquium at Cerisy.
Dan Gilbert: The Surprising Science of Happiness
“In my personal interpretation of much of the ‘dubstep’ musical genre I hear expression of the consequences of a postmodern, digitally networked age in which “Generation Z” grew up. Never knowing life without the internet, the “online profile” provides their identity, while the ego suffers a bombardment of information (and disinformation) overload. It’s a situation in which humanity is further abstracted away from nature, perhaps more so than ever before, and in which a sense of coherence and purpose are sometimes difficult to ascertain as the world is experienced as fundamentally disordered, if not chaotic.”
– Joshua Synon
Skrillex – Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites
http://tv.yahoo.com/news/best-lex-luthor-quotes-smallville-20110204-162800-761.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_%28novel%29
Meaning is found in language as representation. What does life or experience itself represent?
Is there something of significance to investigate regarding the very human association of the sound of an alarm clock with feelings of disappointment?
In all seriousness I ask of you: Precisely how autonomous are we?
It is only when we have nothing left to lose that we are free to do anything and have everything to gain.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esotericism
Kierkegaard vs. Nietzsche: Discerning the Nature of True Christian Faith
http://www.sorenkierkegaard.org
http://www.philosophicalfragments.com/
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard
Nietzsche’s Criticism of the Herd Mentality and Kierkegaard’s Individual
Kierkegaard’s Conception of God
Heaven and Hell as state of mind.
God incarnate, as Logos incarnate, as Form of the Good incarnate, as Tao incarnate?
– Logic was made a man to contrast personality?
– “In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God, and the Logic was God. And the Logic became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
“Ever since the dawn of Platonism we have constructed a fairytale world to live in – and we have found ourselves trapped in it. Awakening, Salvation, Redemption, Enlightenment, Faith – whichever label we use – all are the act of letting go of delusions of the mind, attachment to those delusions (despair), abstraction, dualistic mind, in complete surrender to God or Nature or Tao, and – quite literally – waking up to become an authentic individual. Upon waking, all suffering, impermanence, death, despair – all are rendered meaningless as all attachment to abstraction, which is the origin of suffering, are emptied out of our mind and we discover our original face, before we were born.”
– Joshua Synon
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-parmenides/
Presuppositional Christian apologetics (essentially Platonism) and Kierkegaard.
Messiah ideology as hope.
Robert Anton Wilson’s reality tunnels.
Gordon Clark.
Transcendental argument for the existence of God.
Fideism.
Aesthetic – Ethical – Religious.
Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis.
Mind – Body – Spirit.
Subject – Object – Relation (Consciousness or Experience).
Calvinism – TULIP
Buddhist practice of non-thinking similar to Christian practice of prayer.
That very moment experienced as a profound burden fading away when accepting Christ in faith and the Buddhist experience of Enlightenment as identical feelings in which the whole world is transformed. Freedom and oneness are actualized as nature’s (or God’s) acceptance is realized.
Deism.
Pantheism.
Religion Facts – Just the Facts on Religion
Just the facts on religion? I can’t imagine a greater stupidity. Perhaps,http://www.realapologetics.org/blog/. Or CARM.org. Or LeaderU.com? or …
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
The Serenity Prayer.
For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_too_shall_pass
Jimmy Reid, Alienation
“If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”
“Thank you Lord Vishnu for introducing me to Christ… Thank you for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives.”
“Which story do you prefer?”
– Life of Pi
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
– Gandhi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism
Buddhism is Not What You Think by Steve Hagen
Common Things People Believe About Buddhism That Aren’t True
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Buddhism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism
On Buddhism by Nishitani Keiji
Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold
Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture
Nirvana Shatakam by Adi Shankara.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori
“No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.”
– Nietzsche
What is love? And madness?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/
Religion (institutionalized) as means of control.
Nietzsche’s often overlooked understanding of asceticism and slave morality being necessary for the survival of the priestly caste. Often mislabeled as a nihilist, Nietzsche’s love for mankind is an essential part of his teaching. However, inevitably, the time has come to “philosophize with a hammer.”
Nietzsche’s coined term, “Moraline.”
Is it possible to reject as much of our moral and linguistic tradition as Nietzsche did without following him down the road to insanity? One of the reasons biography is relevant to the answer is that his drift towards madness cannot be separated from the lifelong history of malaise. Fighting against headaches, pain in and around the eyes, stomach pains, vomiting, debility, he was simultaneously cultivating his potential for madness. His friend Franz Overbeck thought he had been ‘living his way towards’ the final breakdown…
There was nothing sudden about his movement into madness. He was only twenty-four when he wrote: ‘What frightens me is not the fearful shape behind the chair but its voice; also not the words but the terrifyingly unarticulated, inhuman tone of that shape. Yes, if only it would speak in a human way.’ By 1880 he was able to prescribe methods of going mad. In Morgenröte (Sunrise) he makes the point that madness – or at least the semblance of it – had been the sine qua non of moral evolution. The men driven to reject tradition and propose new norms had had either to feign madness or to induce it by means of fasting, sexual abstinence, solitude, and ‘concentrating resolutely on nothing except what provokes ecstasy and derangment.’ He appears to have been thinking of himself, St Paul and Plato, who said that ‘from madness Greece derived its greatest benefits.'”
– Ronald Hayman
Daddy issues?
“Dying in general, or dying from drugs, I’ve thought about dying all my life like any normal person. I’ve thought about killing myself for so long because of my stomach thing that I didn’t give a fuck if I was gonna die or not. If i was gonna blow my head off with a gun I may as well take the risk of dying from drugs.”
– Kurt Cobain
“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I’m not. Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are.”
– Kurt Cobain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVwSmG3eYBw (Kurt Cobain Interview Clips)
I’m such a nihilistic jerk half the time. I’m so fucking sarcastic at times and then at other times I’m so vulnerable and so sincere. And that’s pretty much how every song comes out. It’s like a mixture of both of them. And that’s pretty much how most people my age are. They’re sarcastic one minute and then caring the next.
One time I read an interview in his office and I said, “Jesus Christ, this makes me look like such a moody, emotional, depressive person.” And he said, “But you are.” I go, “No I’m not. I like to have fun sometimes.” It’s just, every one thinks of me as like this emotional wreck, this total negative black star. People are constantly accusing me of being in a bad mood and always ask me, “What’s the matter?” And there’s nothing wrong with me at all. I’m not feeling blue at all. It got to the point where I had to look at myself and maybe figure out what people are seeing and I thought, “Maybe I should shave my eyebrows. That might help, ya know.” People ask me that all the time, like even I went out to a club a couple of months ago and this kid just nonchalantly said, just out of the blue, “Geez Kurt, why do you always look like you’re mad?” I said, “I’m not mad. I’m in a perfectly happy mood right now, you asshole.” You know, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with you? Are you sad?” Ya know, most people think that if I look at them and I don’t smile, that I’m pissed off so I go out of my way to make it look like I’m enjoying myself, ya know. I usually am enjoying myself. I’m hardly ever depressed any more so it’s a lot easier to be able to do that.
Opiates have always made me feel the security that I wanted to feel to where I didn’t hate people as much, ya know. I had a little bit of affection for them or, ya know, at least can see past the superficiality of their personality and think of them as a real person. Maybe they had a fucked up childhood or maybe it’s their environment that’s making them this way. It relieves some of the animosity that I have towards people. And I needed to do that because I was tired of hating people so much, ya know, and being so judgmental towards every one. I know it sounds like I’m almost defending my drug use. It sounds like a lot of denial. I need to go off on a little anti-drug tirade just to put things in better perspective. The last couple of months where I was doing $400 worth every day I was definitely noticing things about my memory and I knew that eventually my health would start getting a lot worse. It’s the truth though. I was healthier and fatter at that time than I am now. I said right out that I don’t regret it and I don’t, but that’s because I used it as a tool. I used it basically as a pain medication to get rid of a pain. That’s the biggest reason why I did it. And in that sense I don’t regret it, but anybody else who’s gonna get addicted to drugs are obviously going to fuck up their lives eventually. If it doesn’t take a year it’ll be next year. It’s so obvious. I mean, I’ve seen it happen with every person to ever get strung out and it’s the typical classic case that drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up.
– Kurt Cobain
http://kurtcobainssuicidenote.com/kurt_cobains_suicide_note.html
“The thought of suicide is a powerful solace: by means of it one gets through many a bad night.”
– Nietzsche
Some of my undisclosed unique experiences.
– Jury duty.
– Pharmaceuticals.
– Hospitals.
– Local government (City of Wayne v. Skateboarding)
– Criminal underworld.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 update May 2013)
Psychology as moralism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
The psychology of psychics.
Psychology behind “The Secret.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Psychology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpersonal_psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
Social and cult psychology.
Cult of culture.
Depression and the Limits of Psychiatry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_religion
Kumaré. Fake guru. Real experience.
“Fuck psychiatrists. They all have severe mental disorders.”
– Joshua Synon
Applied Phenomenology & Existential Psychotherapy
– http://www.brill.com/journal-phenomenological-psychology
– http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Existential_Psychotherapy
– http://www.saybrook.edu/newexistentialists/
– http://www.existentialpsychology.org/
– http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/201101/what-is-existential-psychotherapy
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_therapy
Related
– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/husserl/
– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/
– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/
– Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, Irvin Yalom, etc.
Applied Phenomenology – The ability to know what to do while being completely emerged in a situation.
Books by Kirk J. Schneider & Rollo May.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noema
Philosophy of science.
The Evolving Science of Chiropractic Philosophy
Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique.
Eulogy for Aaron Swartz by Quinn Norton
http://www.conferencealerts.com/index
STFU, Continental Philosophers
“When the leaders become conscious of mass psychology and take it into their own hands, it ceases to exist in a certain sense. […] Just as little as people believe in the depth of their hearts that the Jews are the devil, do they completely believe in their leader. They do not really identify themselves with him but act this identification, perform their own enthusiasm, and thus participate in their leader’s performance. […] It is probably the suspicion of this fictitiousness of their own ‘group psychology’ which makes fascist crowds so merciless and unapproachable. If they would stop to reason for a second, the whole performance would go to pieces, and they would be left to panic.”
– T. W. Adorno
http://www.gotquestions.org/Buddhist-Christian.html
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/
– Would it matter if Buddha (literally, “awakened one”) was not an historical figure?
– Would it matter if Jesus (literally, “savior”) was not an historical figure?
Messianic Judaism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites
http://www.iep.utm.edu/neoplato/
“It rests with every professor of the religion of Jesus to settle within himself to which of the two religions, that of Jesus or that of Paul, he will adhere.”
– Jeremy Bentham, in Not Paul But Jesus
Buddha & Christ
http://www.thezensite.com/non_Zen/Was_Jesus_Buddhist.html
http://shindharmanet.com/passage/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_influences_on_Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Buddhism_and_Christianity
http://www.gotquestions.org/Buddhist-Christian.html
http://www.amazon.com/Yeshua-Buddha-Interpretation-Testament-Meaningful/dp/0835605159
http://dyneslines.blogspot.com/2011/06/did-new-testament-rip-off-buddhism.html
Buddha and Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard as Bodhisattva.
Buddha’s response to Nietzsche.
http://www.urbandharma.org/sitemap.html
Zionism in The Matrix.
http://reason.com/ (Libertarian research organization)
ACLU.org
ADL.org
Anonymous Hacktivist group (http://anonnews.org/)
National news (propaganda) and private interests.
Private sector influence on government.
Authentic journalism.
Political realism.
Realpolitik.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement
http://www.freedomactivist.net/
http://political-activism.meetup.com/
Not only does the Constitution specifically allow the formation of a Federal Army, it also recognizes the inherent right of the people to form militia. Further, it recognizes that the citizen and his personal armaments are the foundation of the militia. The arming of the militia is not left to the state but to the citizen. However, should the state choose to arm its citizen militia, it is free to do so (bearing in mind the Constitution is not a document limiting the citizen, but rather limiting the power of government). But should the state fail to arm its citizen militia, the right of the people to keep and bear arms becomes the source of the guarantee that the state will not be found defenseless in the presence of a threat to its security. It makes no sense whatsoever to look to the Constitution of the United States or that of any state for permission to form a citizen militia since logically, the power to permit is also the power to deny. If brought to its logical conclusion in this case, government may deny the citizen the right to form a militia. If this were to happen, the state would assert itself as the principle of the contract making the people the agents. Liberty then would depend on the state’s grant of liberty. Such a concept is foreign to American thought…
One other important point needs to be made. Since The Constitution is the limiting document upon the government, the government cannot become greater than the granting power. That is, the servant cannot become greater than its master. Therefore, should the chief executive or the other branch of government or all branches together act to suspend The Constitution under a rule of martial law, all power granted to government would be cancelled and deferred back to the granting power. That is the people. And I’ll conclude with this statement: Martial law shall not be possible in this country as long as the people recognize the bill of rights as inalienable.
– Norman Olson, http://www.potowmack.org/emerappb.html
Privately owned for-profit universities and prisons?
http://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/ndic-moved.html
http://www.justice.gov/dea/index.shtml
http://www1.assumption.edu/users/lknoles/douglassproslaveryargs.html
The Universe Next Door
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiognomy
Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks
“What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career – the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you. You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.”
– John Nash, A Beautiful Mind
http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html
http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2011/video/opensecrets/
George Orwell.
Thought police.
Political Language.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell
Alan Watts.
Cornel West.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Worldwide_Intelligence_Communications_System
Integral theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_dollar
www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Democritus & Bertrand Russell.
Stoicism + Platonism = Christendom
Personal Biblical reinterpretation
Acts 17:16-32 (Paul in Athens)
Matthew 27:46 (cf. Psalm 22)
1 Tim. 6:20-21.
1 Peter 3;15.
1 Cor. 1:20-25 (Foolishness of Christ risen)
Gen. 32 (Jacob wrestles God)
http://gnosis.org/welcome.html
Mysticism
– Christian Gnosticism.
– Islamic Sufism.
– Jewish Hasidism and Kabbala.
– Hindu Advaita Vedanta.
– Buddhist Zen and Dzogchen.
Sikhism.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boethius/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quietism
José Ortega y Gasset, “Man has no Nature”
Authenticity: An Existential Virtue by MarJorie Grene.
Involution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism
Concept of taboo.
History is written by the victors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_time_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy
Illuminati. Freemasons. Jesuits.
Unknown agenda behind secret societies.
Beyond secret societies: unknown individuals.
Fiat money in a digital age.
Privately owned Federal Reserve.
Infowars.com – Alex Jones’ disinformation agenda.
CIA use of Facebook.
Admitted/proven CIA conspiracies.
http://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdf
New World Order.
Banking monopoly.
False flag operations.
Zionism.
“Forcefully spreading tolerance is intolerant.” – and democracy? and freedom?
The political and economic atmosphere of MMORPG Tibia (created in 1997) as a truly unique look at human nature and the political animal.
– Social Darwinism
– EVE Online as social experiment in free market capitalism.
– U.S. as well. Maybe also civilization as planted by aliens on Earth long ago!
Hindu Untouchables.
My philosophy brings the triumphant idea of which all other modes of thought will ultimately perish. It is the great cultivating idea: the races that cannot bear it stand condemned; those who find it the greatest benefit are chosen to rule…
To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality; new means against the fact of pain ( pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure…); the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity; abolition of the “will”; abolition of “knowledge-in-itself.”
– Nietzsche
What is it to laugh in the face of death?
Objectivism defined as ethics determined by the nature of reality.
Ayn Rand – The Virtue of Selfishness
Eudaimonia.
“Trust me, I’m telling you stories. I can change the story. I am the story.”
– Jeanette Winterson
Western decreasing value of maintaining a large family and the power of the surname (in a practical and non-moral sense). The tried and true way to worldly power is to maintain a large family and invest in a large family inheritance, rather than slaving away at an hourly paid job. To partake in the world community at the highest and most meaningful level. To be present among the elite – the small community of individuals that understand that nothing is true and everything is permitted. The few that truly exist. Perhaps this would be the highest level teaching in a secret society of gods among men.
“What I am describing is not merely a master-race whose task would be to govern, but a race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of force for beauty, courage, culture, manners, right up to the highest spiritual realm; an affirming race which can accord itself every luxury… powerful enough not to need the tyranny of the virtue-imperative, neither parsimonious nor given to pedantry, beyond good and evil; a hothouse for strange and exotic plants.”
– Nietzsche
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life
“The force of mind is only as great as its expression; its depth only as deep as its power to expand and lose itself.”
– Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
“The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.”
– Sigmund Freud
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.” -Kahlil Gibran
“[Man] sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived.” -Dalai Lama
INTERPOL
– Intergovernmental organization
– Member States
– United Nations
– New World Order
– Planet Government
http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/
http://www.un.org/disarmament/ATT/
Economics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Establishment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-economics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_anarchism
North Korean caste system.
U.S. caste system.
Why TV News is a Waste of Human Effort
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_peace
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis
Plato as origin of theism and, ipso facto, indirect cause of modern nihilism.
Platonic zeitgeist still reigns as “science,” in spite of Christianity’s suicide.
The self-overcoming of nihilism explained.
http://www.burningtrue.com/2013/03/insecurity-third-choice.html
Names of the Monotheistic God of Abraham
Islamic Theology / Philosophy
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_philosophy
– al-Ghazali.
– Sufism – The Tale of the Sands.
– Language barriers.
Moses Maimonides.
Forgotten Truth by Huston Smith.
http://dramaofdogma.blogspot.com/2008/03/gift-of-place.html
– “All living is local.”
http://www.musicbysunset.com/Great%20Literature/
Buddhism and transhumanism?
“From the perspective of the subject, death is never experienced, and man is therefore subjectively immortal. Now, from the perspective of the object…”
– Joshua Synon
Schopenhauer.
– The World as Will and Representation
Escapism and technology.
Second Skin documentary.
Call of Duty “Replacer” advertisement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
Pope Benedict XVI resignation and Saint Malachi.
Will as all that exists.
Matter / energy as all that exists.
Relation as all that exists.
Qualia as all that exists.
Crime & Punishment
“From a purely psychological point of view, I really believe that the police aid the criminal in not coming to repent.”
– Kierkegaard
“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”
– Nietzsche
Criminal Psychology
– Irreverence of “outside” authority and law.
– Reverence of personal autonomy, integrity, authenticity.
– Proximity to “state of nature.”
– View of law enforcement contemptuous.
– Street ethics (e.g. code of silence).
– Police as rival gang.
There is no empathy in the courtroom. Just arbitrary arbitration.
“Imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation.”
– 18 USC § 3582
Four Forms of Human Being
Living intentionally. (will)
Living on purpose. (function)
Living for a reason (idealism).
Living on accident (fatalism).
Everything matters (samsara, conventional life) and nothing matters (sunyata, emptiness behind convention).
Relation to Platonic Forms.
The eternal moment.
Life as “play.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine
Liberation and freedom in this context.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_thought
Critique of militant “New Atheism.”
– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.
– Sam Harris, The End of Faith.
The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake
The Grand Design – Stephen Hawking.
“The worst readers — the worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they can use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole.”
– Nietzsche
Theosophy.
Anthroposophy.
Apocrypha.
Theology
– http://www.iep.utm.edu/theo-nat/
Decadence of Americans.
Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer
“You [white folks] have not only altered and malformed your winged and four-legged cousins; you have done it to yourselves. You have changed men into chairmen of boards, into office workers, into time-clock punchers. You have changed your women into housewives, truly fearful creatures. I was once invited to the house of one. ‘Watch the ashes, don’t smoke, you’ll stain the curtains. Watch the goldfish bowl, don’t lean your head against the wallpaper; your hair may be greasy. Don’t spill liquor on that table: it has a delicate finish. You should have wiped your boots; the floor was just varnished. Don’t don’t don’t’ That is crazy. You live in prisons you have built for yourselves, calling them ‘homes, offices, factories.'”
– John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, Lame Deer Seeker of Visions.
https://www.youtube.com/user/EgoDiversion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication
“Through domesticating ourselves like cattle, people began civilization.”
– Masahiro Morioka
The Domestication of Animals and of Man (Part 1)
The Domestication of Animals and of Man (Part 2)
The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension
“Much like Ebenezer Scrooge, I realized that what I want more than anything is to live happily ever after. And do you know what the secret to living happily ever after is? Power. Money and power. See, once you have those two things, you can secure everything else — and keep it that way.”
– Lex Luthor
Money as power incarnate.
The will to power.
Power as control.
Money as the sole interest of everything political and/or in the “news.”
Political plight of idealists.
Money as a tool, as a means to an end, not as an end-in-itself.
Desire as the ground of morality.
Value of truth: “I will not deceive, not even myself” as moral prejudice.
Superman and Smallville as exploration of Nietzsche.
Lex Luthor as the real overman.
Or perhaps Clark Kent and Lex Luthor as opposite overmen.
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel (comic).
Clark Kent is Superman’s critique of mankind.
“If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.”
– Gregory House
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/johann-fichte/
CRITIQUE OF SCIENCE
Define Science
– “Progress”.
– Science-in-itself, or science-for-itself.
– What is the ground of science?
– Science as descriptive and not explanatory.
– Science is to outwardness as religion is to inwardness.
– Science as the latest form of ascetic ideal, following Platonism and Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
– Problem of Induction.
– Inductive logic (presupposition) as faith.
– Brain-in-a-vat.
– The butterfly dream.
Modern Science
– Roots in Western philosophical tradition.
– Ptolemy and Copernicus.
– Newton.
– Galileo.
– Theoretical physics.
– Einstein’s special and general relativity.
– Quantum mechanics.
Philosophy & Quantum Mysticism
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
– Kant’s transcendental idealism = Einstein’s general relativity = Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle?
– http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/history/
– http://philosophynow.org/issues/45/Bohr_and_Kant_and_Zeno
– http://www.friesian.com/space-2.htm
Ontological theory of relativity?
Problem of science and religion?
Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
– Calculus and infinite.
– Cyclical nature of time and space (and the material universe).
– Space and time as a priori experiential “faculties.” (Kant)
– Bending space-time to imagine higher dimensions than three.
– The curvature of the universe encompassing itself.
– Traversing “relatively” vast distances instantly.
– Zero energy universe.
– Computer simulation and higher dimensions.
– Ontological status of purely mathematical objects? Math as solely description of relation?
–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_philosophy#Mathematical_objects
– http://www.friesian.com/goedel/chap-2.htm
https://www.youtube.com/user/10thdim
http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics
Overcoming Nihilism
– Death of God.
– Science-inspired nihilism.
– Nishitani and Buddha
– Original state (sunyata). (state of nature, original face)
– Domestication of man.
– No nihilism without Plato?
– Technology-inspired nihilism (Heidegger & Nishitani).
– http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/deleuze/
Unknowns
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems
– Why is there something rather than nothing?
– Why is there gravity? (Kantian “faculty?”)
– What is nothing? Empty space?
– Induction problem.
– Ineffability of qualia (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness).
Is essential chaos possible?
– Posited as the dualistic opposite of order.
– Determinism and free will.
– Compatiblism.
Evolution/Science and/or Creation/Intelligent Design
– This is a debate that I have long since left behind because of the utter superficiality of both sides and the fact that each side has predispositions necessarily interpreting facts.
– Arguments for and against (irreducible complexity, 2nd law of thermodynamics, carbon-14 dating, etc. – answersingenesis.org, http://www.fixedearth.com/)
– Theistic evolution.
– Instinct and free will.
– Do any animals other than humans intentionally commit suicide (or even have knowledge of impermanence)?
– Why is the origin of written history (Mesopotamia: Sumerians, 4000 BC) such a recent phenomenon?
Is essential randomness possible?
– In computer science.
– In reality.
– Correlation to the possibility of autonomous machines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilemma_of_determinism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_fate_of_the_universe
Logical determinism?
http://crestroyertheory.com/the-theory/
“What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism… For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving towards a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.”
– Nietzsche
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiphilosophy
Buddhism as anti-philosophy.
– Metaphysics and morality as means to an end.
Influential Eastern Minds
Buddha
Dogen
Hakuin
Nishitani
Confucius
Lao Tzu
Zarathustra
– Eckhart Tolle, teaches Buddhism in the West
– http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle
Meister Eckhart
– Godhead as “God-as-God-is-in-Godself.”
“All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own.”
– Sir Richard Francis Burton
Epicurus.
Al Ma’arri.
Jean Meslier.
Robert Ingersoll.
A message to Islamic terrorists (if there be such a thing) and other world condemners: hatred will never cease by hatred, but by love. The way that leads to the destruction of the corruptions of materialistic society is education, not violence.
Plato’s Philosopher-King.
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations Quotes
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/
Continue work on https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nishitani_Keiji
– “All things that are in the world are linked together…” – p. 149 (added to Wikiquote)
http://itsnotwhatyouthink.co.uk/
“You are not what you think you are. You are not what other people think you are. You are what you think other people think you are.”
Vast exploration of philosophical ideas in novel form.
Metaphysics
People cannot see themselves, only Others?
Enlightenment as ability to see oneself?
Spirituality as sustained personality (on a ground of emptiness)?
Karma and rebirth as Sartre’s created Self?
Christian mysticism and Buddhism.
Kensho (seeing essence).
Zen Koans.
The nature of fire.
Idealism – dualism – objectivism – subjectivism – perspectivism – relationism?
Theories of truth.
History of religions and influences on each other.
Two Truths of Buddhism.
Science and religion.
Human existence as knowledge of facts alone, but no experience at all.
Morality
Relationship to religion.
As the true end of life.
Current morality, laws, and customs as seen from the year 3000.
Locking people in cages for non-violent crime is fucked up. But, alas, justice is the advantage of the stronger.
Law purged of moral bias, consisting of only pragmatic concerns – or, political philosophy liberated from moral philosophy. (Realpolitik)
Substance Abuse
Cultural interest in vampire blood lust as substance addiction in real life.
Video games, movies, drugs, etc. as escapism.
Internet effect on younger generations’ social skills.
My Video Game Design & Development
Bing (Pong simulation created in 2003-04 at LTU)
Custom Media Player (created at LTU)
Noxia (RPG Maker)
JSynon 7.6 RPG (Open Tibia Server)
Many other projects using 3D GameStudio (3D fighter, driving simulation, unfinished online FPS, and more)
Other simple projects using C and C++ with DirectX on Windows API (Chess, etc.)
Current project idea: Combine elements of Tibia (polity), EVE (economy), Terraria (player created content), to create an MMORPG with skill based gameplay.
Politics
Social Contract and tacit consent.
State of nature and apocalyptic film (revolution, the walking dead, Lost).
What is “the government?” (individual people; the state is the people).
What is “government?” As verb. As noun.
Public image as necessarily illusory. (Kierkegaard)
And representatives?
Illusion of government / democracy.
Democratic (or oligarchic) republic?
Government as noun does not exist.
Government as verb; politics as the most clever game man has ever invented.
Every form of government that man has experimented.
Political theory.
Ancient Greek polity size.
War provides meaning to life (will to power)?
Military-industrial complex and vested interests.
Police force as largest gang.
Politically correct world domination (i.e. the spread of “democracy and freedom“).
Taxation.
Born, raised, and living in the USA – I am not free to live my life as I see fit. In fact, I feel completely and utterly bound in chains.
Economics and “The Establishment.”
Elitist theory (aristocracy, plutocracy, oligarchy, timocracy, etc).
Conspiracy theories.
Actual corruption.
Capitalist anarchy.
Refusing to participate in the national responsibility of voting: silence is a powerful weapon.
National security – when should we lie to the public?
Ethics
Other as an end-in-itself. (Kant; categorical imperative)
“Virtue ethics” reformed.
Morality as emotion.
Evolution of morality.
A spiritual journey, something akin to “zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance”
(using “My Journey” note as skeleton)
Buddhism as escapism?
Is it possible to break a Buddha mind (i.e. through use of physical or mental torture)?
I am not a noun, but a verb. I am not a being, but a becoming. I am not a relation, but a relating. I am not a will, but a willing. I am not, but I am.
Into the Wild.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_farming
http://www.ehow.com/how_2125327_get-security-clearance.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_anarchism
Alain Badiou’s conception of Truth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Philosophical/Putative_Fascism.htm
Contract work for government ideology, persuasive philosophical [propaganda] writing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/
http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/The-Great-Gatsby.pdf
http://rense.com/general62/destroy.htm (How to destroy a nation from within)
“Crazed scientists at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina have wired the brains of two rats to the internet, allowing them to exchange sensory information in real time, even though they were separated by thousands of miles (one rat was in North Carolina, and the other in Brazil). The wired brain implants allowed tactile and motor signals to be sent from one rat to another, creating the first ever brain-to-brain interface. It was repeatedly found that once one rat had learned to complete a task in return for a reward of food, the other rat too now knew how to complete the same task. The behaviour of the lab rats apparently indicated that the communication between them was in both directions. It is not yet clear how the information is coded by the rats’ brains so as to be usable by the other brain. The head of the team, Professor Miguel Nicolelis, predicted that the system could eventually be tried with larger animals and in time extended to humans: “We will have a way to exchange information across millions of people without using keyboards, voice recognition devices or the type of interfaces that we normally use today.” Clearly this would depend on the development of non-invasive techniques to share information between human brains. Professor Christopher James, an expert in neural engineering at Warwick University, noted that it is not yet possible to put information into a brain using just electrodes on the surface of the scalp.”
– Philosophy Now Magazine
“What does ‘outside of the universe’ even mean? Does anything exist outside of qualia? What is thinking, but a recollection of qualia? What stupid questionable questions. Thinking is stupid. I’m gonna go build a house… ON A ROCK!”
– Joshua Synon, signing out…