In Defense of Information

Do we value information more or humans less? Why do we keep secrets, hoard information, put prerequisites on it, and exclude and omit facts. Are we protecting the information from the inevitable tainting and watering down in the sea of intellects (or lack thereof). Or are we taking elitist stand, excluding the undesirable and unworthy. Insuring or wealth of knowledge by keeping the ignorant poor. Are we supreme in this world, or is information a more powerful organism than us? Are we the slaves of knowledge?

History is an Atom bomb

We humans are the apocalypse. We are the plague. We are the scourge. Destruction is assured with the crystallization of our assumption of entitlement. We are the murderers of nature. We impose will on chaos with catastrophic results. A smoldering extinct planet will be the legacy of humanity. History is an atom bomb.

Late Night Quotations No.16

"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious."
-John Milton

In rememberance of things ahead

It is hard sometimes to remember that life need not take a particular shape; that it is ope, variable, and analog. Life is an infinite spectrum, and the way we chose to live it is open and subject to change, and tinkering. Evolve history, invent existences, and tinker with possibility. Reject limitations and possibilities. We need not like a certain kind of music, we need not even like music. We don't have to watch movies, we don't have to wear shoes. We need not live in houses were four walls surround us. We need not make friends and stay in touch with families. We need not learn how to read, writing is purely optional, as is walking, eating, and speaking. We need not use computers, or tools. Art is not necessary, and civility is not mandatory. The law should certainly not stand in the way. The only barrier is that all of this is so easy to forget.

Accomplishments

Perhaps all those times when I said that I didn't want to do any one thing I actually meant that I didn't want to do anything. Intelligence does not override laziness, nor is it adequate protection against failure. Creativity and intellect amount to nothing if you do nothing with them. They are tools as everything else is. They must be used to have any function whatsoever. My tools are gather rust. My tools are becoming dull. If being a smart loser was any sort of merit, I would go easier on myself. It is not however, so I still hope to overcome my fear of dedication.

Thinking is no accomplishment. Reading is no accomplishment. Living is no accomplishment. Understanding is no feat. There is only creation and failure.

Cultural Eugenics

We are starved for adequate images and language. Over saturation and the breakdown of culture has resulted in a total war on the genuine. Are we evolving into one great monoculture; robust and efficient, but lacking in variation. Culturally we may evolve into somthing like a squirrel: prolific, pervasive, and mostly lacking in anything but slight genetic variation. Cultures, like organisms require isolation to grow unique. Pull these out into the open and they will lose their form like a bubble out of water. Do we need more Hollywoods? Do we need more Bennigans? Or Louvres? Or Hong Kongs?

I don't see any way of stopping this spread of cultural infection. I can only imagine what will be lost when it has reached every end of the Earth. By our cultures we will all become the same, and lose some of the magic that it is to be human.

Late Night Quotations No.15

"The poet must not avert his eyes."
-Werner Herzog

Burning Down

I'll be the first to admit it: I have lost some of that fire. I used to want to burn down the world. The result is wasted days that run into wasted nights. Weeks and months with nothing to say except that they say nothing. Missed opportunities for "new." Unstated experiments and unfinished projects. Laziness? What cause this. Responsibility? Why have I settled for letting the world happen when I used to want to fight it kicking and screaming? Relationships? Friends? Money? My parents might say maturity. I might saw cowardice. It's easy to sit under a tree in college and dream of changing the world. It's another thing entirely to try and shake the same Earth you are just trying to keep your balance on. How do we fight this watering down of our creativity? I know what could happen, but faced with a whole day, we stay indoors. We Google for hours, reading all about what everybody else has done today. If you're reading this right now, then you must be afflicted with the same disease I describe. Part of my answer to these self-inflicted questions must be to reject human limitations. Fail until you die, but don't fail from not trying. Try and fail. Over and over again. The fire burns on trial and error.

Severance

I was fired from an insane and inane job today. An imposed return to the sea of Craigslist ads, and unanswered e-mails. What the hell are we to do with this life? Waste it doing other people's work? How much can we cast off so that we are unbound by the money and motivations inflicted upon us? I would love to have a job that pays me in food. Another that provides me with a place to live. I could do away with money and be happy, and what I could do with money would amount to very little. We are all prostitutes. I'm just on vacation at the moment.

"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."
-Aristotle

{free} radicals

It's been a while since an original thought has cast a shadow o'er my mind. Hence all the void filling quotations. But damnit I grabbed a thought this morning, and have all but shaken it to death by now. We are allowing ourselves to float down the rive of progress. Technology at this point has provided us with the means for REAL AUTONOMOUS MEDIA! Free content and information abounds, and unprecedented levels of freedom to do what we will with it. Despite all the copyfighting though, this shit is being handed to us. IF we don't bite this hand feeding us, the internet will be radio and television all over again. A closed format with closed content that wer thank them for giving to us with our money. We can't just roll over again and let them steal our own creativity from us. Check out the BoingBoing post on YouTube's new maneuvering. We need to always stay on top of things like this. If some service treating us like we're lucky to have it, we should fucking switch. Go to a new one that does the same thing better. Make our own. Be our own communities. Make our own networks. Share the net. Make free networks in your own neighborhoods. Don't wait around jerking off until our cities, our government, or worse, the telecoms hand it to us. The internet has as much potential to be ours right now as it ever will. We need to take the necessary steps to ensure it stays that way. Otherwise we'd better be willing to roll over and pay for handouts from the divine rulers of the Earth.

Late Night Quotations No.14

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error: it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."

-Former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson

Give Habeas Corpus a Fair Trial

Things such as Habeas Corpus should be untouchable, but things like the Military Commissions Act and threaten our basic rights like Habeas Corpus and the First Amendment. The ACLU has started a petition to send to Washington on June 26th. I proudly expressed my dissenting opinion only moments ago. If you feel strongly about this issue, I urge you to do the same.

To My Members of Congress:

The Constitution and due process are in danger in America, as the Bush administration continues to run roughshod over our most fundamental constitutional rights.

We can no longer stand on the sidelines while the president extinguishes the light of American values, our civil liberties, and respect for law.

HERE is how you can help.

Tumbling down

The future is a boulder tumbling down a hill. It is a force of nature guided by gravity. It will invariably collide with objects along it's terminal voyage, but will ultimately, invariably come to rest at the bottom of the slope. Along the way there are people shouting at the boulder to change course. Some helpfully suggesting that it follow a different path, some demanding that it violate basic laws of the universe and travel back up the mountain. Obviously this has no effect on history. There are others hurling things, sticks and stones at the boulder, but also to no avail, for the physical configuration of the hill and the pull of gravity alone will dictate the path of the rock. The only possibility then for altering the course of history is to re-arrange the rock, atom by atom from the inside out, so that when it comes to rest at the bottom (the end of time) as it will still inevitable do, it may be a different rock altogether (although still made of the same components). This is equally implausible, but not wholly against the rules. How shall we arrive then at the bottom?

REAL Threat

I am fully aware that my little blog does not pull a lot of weight. I get maybe five of you passing through here a day, but I still feel that it is my duty as a citizen to pass along the sentiment and impress upon you the need for you to act upon the REAL ID act that they are trying to shit out into law at this point. In addition to this post, here is my miniscule contribution to the cause, posted on Regulations.gov:

DHS-2006-0030-0001

Comment code:
802330ad

From my position of little influence, I urge those who would make decisions to exercise caution before charging wildly into untested areas, particularly on issues concerning private citizens personal information. One of my many fears, and that of many citizens is that the REAL ID act makes us less secure against not only potentially corrupt governmental monitors, but criminals as well. It is my belief that, regardless of laws or regulations, the more information that is available, the less we can control it. Please consider the possible repercussions before hastily requiring all citizens to compromise their own security.

I urge all five of you to voice your opinions on this subject. HERE is a link to the Privacy Coalition which will help you to donate your two cents. But you must act before May 8th, because the doors will be sliding shut, and we will have even less say over where the dust settles.

For more sentiment on issues like this see:
Stopping Points
and Future War both previously published on this blog.

And if audio and video is more your thing, see:
REAL ID
Stop the Big Brother State
and the excellent documentary Suspect Nation from my brother site Firebreather {tv}.