Why Doesn't It Matter?

“Ah, Hi, I’ll just get a cup of ice water, please. “
Keith retrieved his liquid luxury and returned to the small table where he and his two friends – no, acquaintances—sat.
“So, I was thinking, the stars must not really exist. Sure, we can see them, but we can also see hallucinations. Those don’t exist either. I mean, has anyone ever actually been to a star? Not a one. They say the nearest one is four light years away. The fastest stuff on earth takes years to get there. It must not be real. Nothing real could be that far away.”
“Hal, you’re just spouting that bullshit again. People far smarter than you or I know stars exist.”
“Certainly, my dear Mikhail, and yet, people far smarter than you or I believe in god too. Intelligence only goes so far.”
Keith piped up: “I don’t think money really exists. Nobody ever sees it going anywhere. These days we hardly even see cash. All we do is slide our cards and sign our names, invoking some semblance of responsibility and security over a payment and thus are you guaranteed not to be chased out the door when you leave. Nobody even looks at those signatures. I went for years doodling a smiley face instead of signing and no one accosted me.”
“That’s nice, but we were discussing the ethereal nature of stars”
“You mean their supposed nonexistence.”
“Yes, that.”
“Ah, well, that’s clearly bullshit,” said Keith.
“You know, you people just don’t understand my genius. I’m surrounded by charlatans.”
“And, yet, day after day, here you are.”
“Humph, I was on my way out.”
“What in the world d’you have to do besides this?”
“Very important things. Very. Important.”
That night, Keith stood outside for a short time and contemplated the stars.
“Just a cup of water, if you don’t mind”
Aqueous amenity acquired, Keith absconded to his seat, where Halliwell was detailing his plan to provide unlimited cheap energy through liposuction.
“See here, there’s almost a billion fat people—“
“Overweight, you mean. Slightly chubby, even.”
“And each one is a walking gold mine in energy. The fat from the state of Texas alone could provide enough energy for the entire country for weeks! It could be government subsidized! It would come as a part of Medicare packages! The poor are naturally fatter than the rich, so providing free liposuction would be a win-win situation!”
“You are quite insane, you know that”
Keith chimed in, “you know, after liposuction, you lose those fat cells forever. The fat cells you have left just get larger as a response. Unless you change your diet, it doesn’t matter how much fat you suck out.”
“Yeah, exactly. He’s got it. What will you do when no one has any fat cells left?”
“Nonsense, then they will be permanently skinny. The body has amazing adaptive faculties, don’t you know. People make up for deficiencies all the time. Not a word of protest comes out of them. Like vegetarians. They miss out on an entire food group, and you don’t hear them whining about their ‘condition,’ now do you?”
“Vegetarianism is a choice isn’t it?”
“Not always! It might be a fatal stomach accident that prevents the consumption of meat! Perhaps it’s conformist attitudes of peer pressure being born into some crazy hippy commune, perhaps they have no meat where they come from. Like Somalia. I hear there’s no meat in Somalia.”
“I’ll bet that’s the only thing you’ve heard about Somalia”
“So? What more do I need to know about a tiny country half the world away filled with people of inferior intelligence?
“What do you need to know about this country, which is also filled with people humbled by your intellect?”
“Nothing, except that I live in it, and thus I need to know about it.”
“Why?”
“Well, does a man live in a house without exploring it’s every cranny?”
“Yes, quite often, actually”
“Ah, um, does a man live in a city without exploring its every district?”
“Without a doubt”
“Well… Then I don’t know”
“Lords above be praised for this boon you have granted me. The great and magnanimous Halliwell Percival Jones is stymied at last.”
“Well, you don’t need to be snippy about it.”
Keith momentarily removed his lips from his straw to speak “Well, that’s what’s nice about you. You care.”
“Hardly. I have no concern for this nation of fools and morons. From New York to L.A, nary an intelligent soul in sight.”
“Nonsense, you just haven’t looked. “
“I’ve looked, and I’ve recoiled at the sight.”
“You mean you saw your mother.”
“I’ve had enough of your childish banter, Mikhail. I’m leaving before your lack of maturity drives me to commit actions I’ll regret.”
“You’d regret them, alright. Regret them all the way to your hospital bed.”
“Harrumph!”
That afternoon, Keith watched a group of kids playing outside. He counted three fat ones and nine reasonably fit ones.
“Can I just get some ice water, please?”
Dihydrogen Monoxide drink divested, Keith returned to his throne.
“The solution to the economic crisis is clear: cancel all loans. Just absolve everyone completely of debt. No one would be able to default if there were no loans to default on.”
“But you can’t do that! Then the banks would run out of money! They’d collapse and everyone would be broke!”
“Bullshit! All that money went somewhere! It must still be wherever it went. I imagine all the real estate companies have it.”
“Nope, they spent it all on new construction and wages.”
“Well, then construction companies must have it.”
“Nope, union dues and materials. And wages.”
“Well, the unions must have it.”
“Nope, they spent it all on healthcare companies”
“Them?”
“Nope, the sent it to the pharmaceuticals. And on wages, and the like. The pharmaceuticals spent it all on cancer research and advertising. The researchers squandered it on coffee, note pads, and bags of pens, the advertisers on sponsorships. “
“Well, where the hell is it?”
Keith sparked up, “it doesn’t exist.”
“It’s in the hands of a couple of rich people.”
“What? Where? We should go take it back!”
“You can’t. Rich people have all sorts of protections.”
“Like what?”
“Well, the government, for starters.”
“But I am the government!”
“Nope, the people with money are the government.”
“What can we do?”
“Nothing, really. Until the people realize what I’ve just told you and revolt en masse, it will continue.”
“Oh, I see what this now. Some sort of crazed hippie thing. Well, count me out.”
Keith interjected, “It doesn’t matter, since money doesn’t exist anyway. It’s just a social stratification tool.”
“It’s not about crazed hippies, It’s about using the power each of us has to make a change for good!’
“I’m not staying here to listen to crazy new age crap. Next you’ll tell me crystals can cure this scar on my face.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? You’re too blinded by yourself to see past you!”
“Good day, sir.”
Before he could leave, an employee stopped Keith.
“Hey, you come here every morning, but the only thing you ever get is a cup of ice water. I was wondering why.”
Keith replied, “I never buy anything here because I hate it as a corporation. I’m hoping by not purchasing anything, I’m slowly becoming a liability in the cost of straws and cups.”
“That’s not very good of you to take advantage of a free service like that.”
“Well, will you deny me the service?”
“I… guess not, have a nice day, you weirdo.”
“You too, reprobate”
That evening Keith stood outside. He thought for a bit and screamed at the top of his lungs, “WHY DOES IT MATTER?” Some itinerant contrarian responded with “WHY DOESN’T IT MATTER?”

The New Left

Congratulations! You have finally won both congress and the presidency, with the supreme court on the way. And what a win it was! You picked a charismatic black man to run, effectively trumping just about anything the republicans could have thrown your way. Despite Obama being the first black man in the senate for over a hundred years, you decided that he should run for presidency. Not a whit of political maneuvering there. Certainly not. He was chosen on his own merits. At any rate, you now control the government, more or less. Don’t screw it up. The Democrats of the Bush era were pansies, unwilling to do anything to help their cause, cowed by the negative power of the republican party in such momentous races as the Norm Coleman debacle and the Swift Boat techniques used against John Kerry. Your goal now is to shift this country as permanently left as possible. Before that, though, you need party solidarity. Threaten censure against traitorous Dems, no matter what the cost. Even if they do defect, it matters little, since they were voting against you anyhow. The Republican party’s recent solidarity should be a guide to way democrats need to behave.

You also need to speak up. For too long, democrats have been represented mostly by meek, mousey little men (who vaguely look like Keebler elves, for some reason) like Dennis Kucinich or Alan Colmes. You need to give a platform to people like Howard Dean, who could, would, and should’ve “Byah!”-ed his way into the presidency in ought four, or the new vice prez, Joseph Biden. Your party members are fired up and stoking that fire is the only way to properly utilize their newfound loyalty to the Dems. Promote such liberal newscasters as Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow. Don’t let the right shout them into obscurity, as recently happened with MSNBC. When you hear the right shouting about liberal media bias, shout just as loud about conservative media bias! The entire party has to back this, it can’t just be the smart people or the moderates who truly desire equality in media, it has to be the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY responding to such ridiculous and fallacious accusations. By remaining aloof of these concerns, you’ve allowed the right to ingrain themselves into every major media establishment with nary a response to this threat. You cannot win elections when everyone on TV is telling everyone else about what a “threat” liberalism is and ranting onwards about “far-left loonies” regardless of the target.

What you must not do is rest on your laurels. In no way does your victory mean that the right is gone, in no way does it mean racism is gone, and in no way does it mean that a liberal ideology will be successfully enfranchised into the laws of this nation. 2012 will be an uphill battle for you, no matter the circumstances. Godspeed, gentlemen.

The New Right

The Republican Party has never been in more dire straits. After a great deal of mismanagement during the recent administration, instead of being synonymous with traditional values or fiscal conservation, it has become synonymous with war, irresponsible money management, and outdated modes of thinking. If the party is to have any chance this upcoming election, it needs to move past its current state and find a new message to present. No longer can the republicans simply be the party of opposition to the democrats. Contrarian politics are what cause things like the Civil War and the current budget circus in Sacramento.

By opposing scientifically proven things like climate change as vociferously as it has, the republicans have demonstrated not a savvy skepticism, but stubborn pigheadedness. By opposing things like gay marriage, the party has shown a willingness to invade into the people’s personal lives and deny rights frivolously. By opposing things like welfare in any circumstances, the GOP appears to be callous and uncaring.

What the party needs to work for now is an image of pragmatism. Rather than simply focusing on far-right stances, the party needs to emphasize its moderation over more extremist liberal ideals. Instead of supporting cuts of benefits across the board, regardless of economic situation, emphasize the need for programs during lean times, but chide the democrats for wasting money in good times on increasing said programs. Work with the cycle, rather than against it. Emphasize smart policy decisions, rather than traditionalist pandering. Bring the intelligence back to the Party.

This may be a stretch, but ask for reduction of vitriol in such popular Right wing pundits as Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. As fun and politically motivating these rabble-rousers may be, for too long all that has come out of their mouths (or pens) is negativity and hatred. This again, creates a rather hostile image of the Republican Party. The voice of the Republicans should be a reasonable, clear headed person, like George Will, rather than a pompous, hypocritical braggart, like Rush Limbaugh. Though Rovesian work redefining the moderate into moderate right was admirable, it only creates the problem of culpability whenever the country goes in the wrong direction, as it has several times in the last eight years.

"Since the Right leaning environment led us into this situation," people are reasoning, "a left leaning one should get us out." The key to fighting this is to exaggerate how far left the country is really moving. Work on the Obama campaign, comparing him to a socialist was actually very effective. The campaign, however, was lost simply on the Palin gambit. Like Kerry in ’04, the party picked possibly the worst choice for a political candidate as was possible. Republicans probably would have garnered more votes by choosing Ron Paul as a running mate than Sarah Palin. At any rate, you need to move responsibility from the right to the left in order to gain the sympathy the Dems have had for the last four or so years.

Emphasize the effect of the newly democratic congress (in ’06) on the economy. Point out the multitudinous ways that the Right could have done better than them. Try to avoid berating the people for voting Democratic, as the Dems did after the Gore-Bush fiasco. Treat the voters as wayward sons, and accept them back into the fold. The message here should be “Yes, we know you made the mistake of voting Democratic, but that’s okay. We still love and accept you.” See if you don’t see a Right congress in ’10 and Mitt Romney as prez in ‘12

Public Comment in Response to Proposed Transit Cuts

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen of the board,

My name is Jacob Germain. I am a citizen of Livermore and a patron of the Wheels bus service. I am here to respond to some drastic changes proposed for the bus system. Now, I understand that there as significant and relevant circumstances surrounding these changes, such as the economic situation in the U.S, and the budget crisis in Sacramento.

However, these circumstances are not immediately obvious to those who ride the system every day, Such as the elementary, middle, and high school children who ride the bus to and from school every day. They'll see fares rise without any explanation as to its source.

Such as the Senior citizens, who will now find themselves stretching an already meager budget to pay for transportation expenses among everything else.

Such as the physically or mentally challenged, who will find their mobility, and thus opportunities, curtailed by these proposals.

Most importantly, it is the Employees, who'll find their paychecks shrink, or even disappear, as less staffing is required to maintain service.

I suggest that you postpone decision on these proposals for at least six months, until the funding picture is clear. Though Schwarzenegger has proposed a cut of transportation funds, it has yet to happen, and may never come to pass. The economic crisis is largely psychological. By reacting to it and making cuts, you only sustain the crisis further. Don't let the foibles of wall street or Sacramento frivolously affect our way of life.

I find it ludicrous that three of the richest cities in America, with 100 thousand dollars a year median income, can't even fund one bus system.

Thank you for your time.

Authors notes: This is more or less the speech I gave at the hearing for the proposed changes to the local bus system. There was a bit of ex tempore, but I really don't recall what it was. I also have misplaced the original draft.

It was the strangest thing. I delivered the speech pretty well, only stumbled once, but the entire time, my legs were inexplicably shaking.

Incidentally, I was quoted in the local newspaper here (it's a pdf, page 4). Of course the board went through with it, as John Ramirez (also quoted, but not what I'm referring to) said, they already made their mind up about these cuts. I found the behavior of the Livermore mayor, Marshall Kamena, to be extremely rude. He showed up about ten minutes late and proceeded to pull out his macbook and spend much of the time fiddling with it, rather than listening to the concerns of the people at the meeting. The rest of the board members were otherwise attentive.

In Respondeo

Well, given that last bit, it sounds more like it is ourselves and not society that tells us how to conform in general. Which would explain why some people are socially awkward: because they are bad at perceiving said social norms.
I might disagree on the chopsticks, though. They ARE becoming quite trendy among young folk, even if their actual use is only secondary to the usual knives and forks. Which will generally irk folks who "thought of it first."
Also, there's no utility or function in killing people, these days. Much easier to wait in line than it is to disrupt the order of things and wind up on the lamb because you wanted cigarettes, a paper, and maybe some chewing gum. Where's the utility there?
So, it's hard to take that seriously when it's really just a thinly veiled fantasy of what you wish you could do. (No offense. I wouldn't mind a post-apocalyptic wasteland, myself. Or at least I'd like it better than most.)
For that matter, I've been in too many scrapes with musclebound idiots not to want a handgun. I'll probably get one, once my life is more in order. I'd fancy a derringer or small revolver, myself. You?

Not at all. You react to society. Sure, you have some small say in what you believe "conforming" to be, but society at large is what's telling you that chopsticks are unnecessary. Even deciding not to follow society's rules is another form of conforming. By defining for yourself what is "edgy" or out of normal social bounds, you help define what is within normal social bounds. Some people are socially awkward because they never learned what society considers acceptable. So, yes, they are bad at perceiving social norms.
Yes, chopsticks are becoming a social trend, but are still reserved for young folk. Basically hipsters and weaboos. It's not a cultural standard until stodgy old grandads are complaining about the arthritis they're getting trying to pick things up around the thanksgiving dinner table. Knives and forks are still the American Way©Pepsico
There is plenty of function or utility in killing people, especially if you live in a moral vacuum and live only based on rationality. This is another concept that is displayed in popular media, especially movies or stories about robots. Since robots lack the social programming they need to develop morals, they can commit heinous acts under the guise of logic and reason. In a true anarchistic society, killing people outside of whatever bonds you formed with family or some such would be the most logical move, if the most socially oblivious. At any rate, my point is that acting with no guide but utility would lead to the complete breakdown of social order. Thus almost no action is taken without an eye to the social perceptions of said action. Some of those deemed socially awkward are simply overly sensitive to the potential social consequences of their actions and thus refuse to act.
I'm not sure how you end up ascribing my post to a fantasy of mine. I have read it a few times and cannot see the connection between the hypothetical situation and what I may or may not desire for society. At any rate, you are being socially intimidated into making a change in your personal habits. You wish to purchase a handgun as a reaction to the actions of others. I myself am not interested in initiating an arms race with anyone. But then, I haven't been beset upon by thugs since grade school, so I don't know what socially motivated decision I may make later.

Gregarious Gadgetry

Today I considered placing a "gadget," one of tens of thousands (apparently) onto my blog. It was going to be "plane lander" so that I may practice my aeronautical alightment skills while pondering the tumultuous situation in the middle east. I felt dirty afterward and washed my hands a few times. Then my ego commanded me to make this post. I feel dirty again....

Israel

I am constantly consternated by public opinion towards the israel-Palestinian conflict. Perhaps they're unaware that Israel annexed large portions of Palestinian land since the nation's abrupt and poorly planned creation in 1948. The majority of the conflicts in the middle east are caused by the haphazard implementation of the Treaty of Sèvres and later the Treaty of Lausanne, treaties that allowed for the creation of several new states following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

When Good Causes Go Bad

Syke

I could just be overreacting, or just being somewhat onerous (lord knows I never do that), but it seems to me that there is a fair amount of misinformation used in rather a lot of public health campaigns.

Take this new "Syke" campaign against teen smoking. On their front page, as an example of the ways that the vile, odious cigarette companies attempt to manipulate pure, innocent children, there is an old ad spot from the Flintstones in the sixties for Winston brand cigarettes. I'm going to go out on a limb here and reckon that the people running this campaign weren't actually alive when the Flintstones originally aired, else they'd have known that the cartoon was played during "prime time" and intended for an older audience. They appear to be working off of the long-standing but fallacious assumption that cartoons and comics are, were, and always will be for children and no others.

This societal specification of cartoons as a source of entertainment limited to children has helped mark what is socially assumed to be the maturation of children into adults for decades. When children stopped watching cartoons and started watching whatever insipid teen oriented programs that existed, they were thought to be "growing up." Among other things it created a boundary for the play and entertainment of children and adults, further enforcing a social divide between the age groups necessary in order to maintain the "inherent" dominance of adults and inferiority of children. When children were willing to forgo their "traditional" forms of entertainment, then they were allowed the privileges (and responsibilities, in most cases) of adults.

Anyway, it does destroy a tiny bit of credibility for the campaign to make such an erroneous assumption, regardless of its ubiquity.

(If this post were pretentious, I would have said "irregardless" instead)

Today

I turn Nineteen. Yaaaaay!

Intolerance

My internet has been down for about a week now, which leads to a flurry of unabated productivity (there's a message in this somewhere) and contemplative thoughts.

I was wondering about the relative ease in which people get riled up over stereotypes and their application. It occurred to me that this must be a fairly new phenomenon, given the fact that fifty years ago, it was still reasonably acceptable to call an Italian a "wop." What changed? A systematic indoctrination of the consequences of calling someone a "wop" into American society (also, the word fell out of fashion, but that's neither here nor there). Yes, at some point in our recent past, a morality shift was made towards emphasizing empathy as an emotion to consider in social exchanges. Before, sympathy was enough. Being aware of someone's plight and sympathizing with them was enough to make you seem a limp-wristed asparagus-eating pantywaist.

Where did this pogrom of politeness purvey its pantheon? Why, in our schools, of course. At the risk of sounding like a dead-eyed Freud fanatic, everything important in our self definition happens in our childhood. The way people learn to interact, what makes them laugh, what perceptions they have of the world around them are all formed in the first twenty or so years of their lives. School, occupying at least twelve of those twenty, is a major impact on people's lives. If there's anywhere you'd want to go to ingrain a new social order, school would be it.

School is also the first place in which kids end up meeting a vast amount of other kids and interacting with them on a day to day basis. It's where you learn how to (or not to) deal with people and their multitudinous quirks and strange habits, how to leverage your personality on them to gain social standing and so forth. Emphasizing the idealistic vision of "perfect equality" wherein all are treated equal regardless of age, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation in schools is like adding an unwritten set of rules to the already pre-established social order of children, complete with the punishment of guilt or public humiliation for breaking these rules.

So thus people grow up with an efficient set of morals (incidentally, the reason why public schools were founded in America in the first place) that guide them to the path of least offense, and therefore least guilt. Empathy is closest to adding an extra little voice in your head to go next to your conscience. Instead of telling you when something is just plain wrong to do, it tells you what you imagine other people to be feeling in reaction to your actions and adds in a guilt response if those imagined feelings are less than happy. Something that would logically run something like:

Check: action

If public response Happy

Then Cancel: action

Feel: guilt = Happy^-1

in the crazy undefined programming language in my head. I digress. My point is: it's a behavioral modification imposed by society. Not inherently a bad thing, as pretty much everything we do outside of sleeping, eating, pooping and mating is controlled or derived from society. Even the four I mentioned, perhaps especially so, are regulated by the people around you and the endless lists of unwritten rules that are insubstantially floating about for you to bonk your head upon, while you remain completely unaware of your transgressions. You may have just completely jumbled the list of rules concerning the level of awkwardness and discomfort of having a member of a party of three tell you to tell the other member all about the wonderful story you had just iterated to the first but hadn't really intended to share with the third in the first place ranked in order by relation of the first to the second, the second to the third, the first to the third and all three taken as a whole. It may take years of hemming and hawing to rearrange such a list. Jobs will be lost, families ruined. I digress.

There is a problem. This guilt feeling (remember, guilt is another word for feeling ashamed) is bad. Doubly so because it is internally generated, and thus seems natural or inherent. Guilt response was evolutionarily created to help create societies and provide feedback for people to modify their behavior to fit that of those around them. However, stereotypes were also created evolutionarily; to provide an instant set of behaviors with which to interact with a person or situation you did not know personally. When guilt is being applied to something that is naturally formed, complications arise. I'd provide examples but I've already expended my allotted quota of digressions here. Two of the reactions to this turmoil are damaging extremes. One extreme is to shut down entirely, going to great, vast lengths to avoid offending others; the other would be to become what some call the P.C. Police, whereupon you travel far and wide searching for transgressions of others to condemn and ridicule. Neither of these attitudes are in any way natural. Both are worrying. One wonders, why can these people not learn to simply relax and go with the proverbial flow?

The darkest side of empathy is the most human. Naturally while there are those who are empathetic, and thus normal or good, there must be those who are not empathetic, who are deviously deviant deviations from the norm. And such begins the intolerance of the intolerant, a vicious cycle of witch huntery and tearful accusations. If you hadn't already heard it a few hundred times from the morality plays they project on to excessively large screens in quiet dark rooms with sticky floors and rude attendants, I'd write something here about the non existence of any real "evil" or "good," only perspectives on the world. But such is life, as all search for purpose or meaning, some may find it in enforcing a relatively recent society shift towards non-offensive practices, while other may see it as their job to uphold these practices to the fullest, becoming a paragon of pleasantry

But I digress.

What is my point that I am so circuitously making? People should love one another without condition. Wielding intolerance as a weapon against the intolerant does not stop intolerance, only foments it.

Just relax, brah. Racist or Anti-Semite, it's all good. We're all still people, despite our failings.