Yes, this is one of those cool “ooo, look at the stats with nice visuals and excellent music.” (Fatboy Slim rocks) But it’s a great example that we must adapt, and we must adapt at a faster rate than ever before. Everyone is going to suffer from being “too old” or “not up to date” - which is very similar to being within the proximity of a black hole - time slows, and we can’t perceive changes.

Time isn’t slowing or speeding with the Singularity/Posthuman Rise/Rapture of the Nerd - we’re just unable to adapt to the rate of change.

We’re knowingly obsolete.

And that’s ok.

The first thing I stumbled over on Wednesday was the reporting of how dumb is Sarah Palin. “That’s not just dumb, but Palin Dumb” is a phrase needs to enter into the memespace to inoculate the state from her brand of fundamental belief makes right politics. A lot of the reading included she was the reason “why McCain failed” to take the office: writing that I believe proves journalists don’t understand democracy. Registered voters who actually voted chose the president. McCain didn’t fail as much as didn’t appeal to the needs of a few million people.

Obama is a political centrist and a powerful symbol. A major down-the-line centrist and I feel bad for all the people who think that free health care is around the corner.

Many people have avoided me this week, which is sad. One of the reasons I stay away from leadership positions is my tendency to rub people’s nose in it. It’s a telling fault that I’m trying hard to both overcome and build bridges. Some could even call me a bully, and they wouldn’t be wrong. So, I’ve tried hard to shut up about it.

My biggest concern was that I’ve always believed in the dream of America, where anyone could become the president, or lead, or achieve what they want as long as they don’t harm anyone. And one the other side, all my life, I’ve seen the Republicans abuse power - Nixon and Watergate, the indictments against Ronald Reagan’s cabinets, the first Gulf war against Saddam Hussein, the current, sitting President. Maybe my eyes have been blind to Clinton and Carter, but I don’t see anything their presidencies’ which make me fear my government. And over every president during my life, only Obama will have my seal of approval.

But now, the power of the masses have begun to speak. Gay people voted overwhelmingly for a black president, but black people didn’t appear to return the love. In fact, I’d say that black people fucked the gay man over in a raping that’s sad. Worse, the people who I do self-identify, atheists, also had a decidingly male contingent that voted down gay marriage. One word: asshats!

I’m pretty close to a James Hughes’ Upwinger: everyone deserves rights in abundance, and they need to be celebrated and supported to a fault. Gay people deserve every dream black people have. It’s simply sad they don’t.

The first thing I stumbled over on Wednesday was the reporting of how dumb is Sarah Palin. “That’s not just dumb, but Palin Dumb” is a phrase needs to enter into the memespace to inoculate the state from her brand of fundamental belief makes right politics. A lot of the reading included she was the reason “why McCain failed” to take the office: writing that I believe proves journalists don’t understand democracy. Registered voters who actually voted chose the president. McCain didn’t fail as much as didn’t appeal to the needs of a few million people.

Obama is a political centrist and a powerful symbol. A major down-the-line centrist and I feel bad for all the people who think that free health care is around the corner.

Many people have avoided me this week, which is sad. One of the reasons I stay away from leadership positions is my tendency to rub people’s nose in it. It’s a telling fault that I’m trying hard to both overcome and build bridges. Some could even call me a bully, and they wouldn’t be wrong. So, I’ve tried hard to shut up about it.

My biggest concern was that I’ve always believed in the dream of America, where anyone could become the president, or lead, or achieve what they want as long as they don’t harm anyone. And one the other side, all my life, I’ve seen the Republicans abuse power - Nixon and Watergate, the indictments against Ronald Reagan’s cabinets, the first Gulf war against Saddam Hussein, the current, sitting President. Maybe my eyes have been blind to Clinton and Carter, but I don’t see anything their presidencies’ which make me fear my government. And over every president during my life, only Obama will have my seal of approval.

But now, the power of the masses have begun to speak. Gay people voted overwhelmingly for a black president, but black people didn’t appear to return the love. In fact, I’d say that black people fucked the gay man over in a raping that’s sad. Worse, the people who I do self-identify, atheists, also had a decidingly male contingent that voted down gay marriage. One word: asshats!

I’m pretty close to a James Hughes’ Upwinger: everyone deserves rights in abundance, and they need to be celebrated and supported to a fault. Gay people deserve every dream black people have. It’s simply sad they don’t.

“With, without.
And who will deny its what the fightings all about?”
-Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, Us and Them

So Bill Maher’s Religulous put me in the tailspin that I expected it would. We have roughly 1.5 to 2 billion people fighting over the existence of 14 million. One side believes they need to die, the other believes they need to overcome… and then there’s confusion with the temple of the mount and wailing wall. Frankly, I don’t get it, but I do understand history, and George Santayana - “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

One of the core tenants about Religulous isn’t about the stupidity of religious people (yes, I call it stupidity), but the need to confront these people, like a psychiatrist guides a patient to confront their issues. I wonder how many psychologists and councilors go home after a long day’s work and think, “What a bunch of stupid fucking ‘tards?”

I was chatting with a good friend about why other terrorists don’t get on planes, land in the US and start blowing themselves up. I believe its because once you get to the US, it’s a completely different Earth than the rest of the world. Yeah, we’re imperialistic assholes that have a penchant for bombing brown people.

NPR’s All in the Media today ran a piece on how cable news is fracturing the need to be unbiased. We’ve known for a long time that Fox is an unbiased source, but the reason why people watch it is because it wont challenge their “views” - it’s never going to show a soldier crying as his face gets shot off. We listen to the music we like most. We watch the shows we like the most. We subscribe to the earthly world view that makes us comfortable.

The difference between faith and rationalism is that faith requires you to lie to yourself and hope for the best. Rationalism forces you to prepare, and sometimes causes nihilism which is an emotional land of hopelessness. JMS has an important saying here, but there’s something I use to address hope in a life of reason.

Human’s evolved on this planet for 200,000 years and have roughly 50,000 years of culture. While atheism has been around on and off for thousands of years, it’s rarely been a political movement, and when it’s been included as a tenant of politics, well, how do YOU summarize Soviet Russia and Soviet China? Not the most enlightend of societies.

And slowly, atheists are fighting to gain hold of people’s hearts and minds, but… I wonder if it’s worth it? Once you reject your dominant culture, you’re very likely to not want to join groups again without a healthy skepticism. So, not only do we have to move extreme believers to less irrational, but we also have to move the less irrational to the skeptic, and the skeptics to the active atheistic culture.

The Bright movement is one way for “conciousness awareness” - and it’s doing a very good job at it, but it’s not going to be enough. There’s literally billions of monotheists out there which can’t, won’t or are not allowed to go to the-Brights.net, let’s alone access to the internet.

Plus, there’s the last issue: no one likes being told that their big, invisible buddy is a myth. When you do, you risk death, anger, and other stupid responses. Very few atheists I know have the missionary spirit in them: “Sir, have you heard the good word about Darwin?” seems that it just wont work, does it?

(To be continued)

Let Oscar Pistorius run. And ignore DVICE.com’s opinion on him.

Before we begin today, it’s important to get across a couple of issues - 1) I don’t know Peter Pachal, he’s probably a nice guy, 2) anything I say is likely to go into the bitbucket, or at worst, generate traffic for both DVICE.com and heresy.com. I’m under no delusions here - my site is fucking small beans. So, there’s no real downside for me posting this.

On the other hand, Pachal’s announcement that SHIFT: Why the Olympics should say no to cyborgs like Oscar Pistorius is a sad, sad case of anti-transhumanism nonsense and fear of the future. Pistorius, for those that don’t know, is a double leg amputee that runs fast with his cool cheetah legsprings.

Watch him run.

So, here’s the basic facts that people argue:
- Oscar may have an advantage because the springs could give him an advantage. Up to 25% less energy expenditure - I’m… leary of that very convenient number. (See NYTimes article)
- Oscar isn’t a threat yet (the Slate article covers this nicely)

And then Pachal writes “Let’s create the cyberolympics” which is the “separate but equal” view of transhumanism and human-plus. I read the poetry and hear the announcers, everyone is in awe of the body conditions of Olympic athletes, but when they speak, they speak of the soul, the Olympic heart and dedication required to be in those competitions.

If anything, the Paralympics should be folded directly into the Olympics to celebrate all of these athletes’ souls, because there will be a time that being human is a choice, and being something other than human will be the norm. And until there’s enough people with cheetah springs to run their own heats, at least let people the possibility human spirit now. Give him and every consciousness an opportunity for a gold medal, just like the whole bodied humans.

This isn’t a handicap run where we feel sorry for the cripple, or fight against engineering over the human spirit. Dedicating one’s life to run fast, or play ball, or wrestle is a dedication of a lifetime. We normals envy their physiques, but yearn for the Olympic spirit.

If “Tech is our Obsession” is the slogan for DVICE.com, it shouldn’t be making luddite proclamations but championing their cause, and the same goes for Mr. Pachal. I realize he intended something LIKE this, but let’s tear the barriers down, not move them around. I visit DVICE.com (and Engadget, Grinding.be, IO9.com, etc.) so I can see what is possible, not read about the fear of technological change. We get enough fear mongering in our everyday lives.

Until then, reload the video and watch Oscar run. Watch them all run.

(Another decent article about the Olympic committees decision here).

So, Avatar finally was able to get it’s bowels moving enough to drop the final issue of Black Summer (#7).

Frankly, I am not a fan of multiple cover, print every other month and charge three bucks for a comic business, but the sad thing is that Avatar is the only publisher that’s pushing any sort of boundaries right now, except for publishers that don’t touch superheroes at all - and unless you live in San Fran, New York or LA, you simply can’t get hold of non-superhero comics on a reasonable basis. Recently I was getting down on Warren Ellis’ because his books were tending to start strong and slowly wash out over time.

But I was harshing too heavy, primarily because I was jonesing for more decent reads. Black Summer ends like all good scifi is supposed to: a harsh reality with a grim mirror. The first six issues can be read as an us-against-the-world because one of “us” went off on the deep end. Similar to Blade Runner, the end of the Black Summer re-cast the entire tale into something else entirely. Superheroes constantly break laws: they crush buildings, illegal search and seizure, and kill people in the name of JUSTICE.

Black Summer is a serialization of two stories: why would people want to step outside the law to fix the world, and how far would they go? For each character in the book, there’s an origin of sorts - not a “how I got my powers” but “why do I want to be a superhero” origin - a telling of socio-political theory each character has to step in and create justice. Everything between “I want to save the world” to “because it’s there” reasoning is applied to each character. And the ever-unsatisfactory plot of “who watches the watchmen” (in a non-Alan Moore way) is also embodied in a character, slightly ham-handed, but a decent mustache twirling villain none-the-less.

But there’s justice and there’s the law and while the superhero power fantasy is important for young people to feel empowered by their passion and abilities, the law is there for a reason. Black Summer reminds us of why the law exists and why power fantasies should remain fantasies.

*Oh, yeah, in a shameless marketing move, Avatar created Black Summer Zombies cover shown above. **Sigh**

Something’s changing on the internet… there’s always been some redneck racist out to find some “fun,” but recently, the humor is getting edgier, meaner, nastier. And others are responding in kind, frankly, because we’re tired of it. I don’t think this is a bad thing, because I’m a very-long-term hope-audacitor: in a hundred years we’re going to be really fucking cool or dead.

So back the the mean-ness: New Yorker started out making fun of those who hate Obama, and as they’ve wanted to be wry about it, they posted the standard anti-liberal fascism cover and probably have an important, practical article to support their cover. Personally, I didn’t find it offensive, but I thought it would be easy to misconstrue. My reaction told me two things: some people wont get it and I need more exposure to similarly offensive content to understand the nuances better - in short, I seek to desensitize myself from these images.

And a few days later, someone posts this image on Flickr. And I thought it funny. Very very irreverently funny. Yes, I snorted my drink into my nose.

And then I read this article where the “Obama is my slave” slogan takes an even funnier turn. Some of us may be thinking, “Oh, the horrors of these small minded people!”

I’m all for it - let’s bait them, let’s pull them out of their small 19th century minds. The only thing we have to lose is a lot of racism and a few teeth. Let these ignorant people get taken to the cleaners. Since they may never learn through simple, rational discussion, we may just have to beat that racism out of them.

Also, can I order a “M. Obama is my Love Slave”? Coz she’s fucking hot!

PS: I lost the flickr link - if someone finds it, please send it to me.

David Hayter basically has run afoul with the bloggomeisters. In short, one fantard claiming he’s a journalist has said, Hayter hates his job and thinks his boss is a dick.

In return, Hayter has posted one of the nicest responses I’ve ever seen on the internet. Good to see teh intartubes grow up a bit.

And then Hayter outs himself, which more power to him and his Solid Snake.

In short, this is yet another reason why game journalism, and journalism as a whole, is in trouble. If an ass-tard like Fitch can post a bunch of stuff like this without confirming the story with Hayter personally, then we need another way to verify the mechanisms from which we gather news.

/Yes, I know he was joking. Or maybe he wasn’t. Who knows? I can imagine Gaygamer.net enjoying this one in many ways.

Once again posted to Reddit and a few others, Richard Dawkins’ reply to “What if you’re wrong?” never seems to quite satisfy how I’d respond to the same question. Here’s his response, which is polite and respectful.

The core of his point is that 1) no one has a monopoly on fiction and 2) people live and die everyday without any one god.

My response would be a little less subdued. If the world basically stopped believing in silly gods tomorrow and I was wrong - we’d wouldn’t care because we simply stopped believing and we’d have no way to reintroduce the religion meme back into our society - why? because we stopped believing. We’d have other issues, such as the destruction of hope, but at least that pesky religious nut-baggage would be gone.

However, if we passed the same logic to say, “Everyone is now X religion” - belief would very much be alive, and as a living entities usually can’t tell one belief from another, and they tend to fight over who’s belief is right, even though they have no proof to justify their claims. The world would be inundated with more genocide than before because the belief structure allows for Machiavellian “End-justifies-the-means” attitudes to pervade.

The whole concept of ethnic cleansing, purity programs, “kill them all and let [the deity of the week] sort them out” is all based on faulty belief structures.

Believing in friends, physics or yourself - those things which are proven to be true - is a virtue. Belief in things because someone or something told you so is not, and the end of that dark path is horrible indeed.

I discuss a lot with friends about women’s rights, and time and again, we return the human rights bootstrapping paradox: those who don’t stand up for themselves are not to blame because their culture keeps uneducated and abused. For example, if one is kept uneducated and ignorant for their entire life, one doesn’t know that they can’t see a better choice. These women are in a catch-22 - they can’t liberate themselves until we give them the idea that they need to be liberated.

The problem is that, I believe, this argument is the same argument of why should a man stop raping a woman as punishment and control because his culture also keeps him uneducated and an abuser. The flip side of the coin: men in the same cultures shouldn’t be blamed because the cultures which says it’s ok. Which everyone in the western civilization and many outside it say, “That’s total bullshit.” Men who do rape women with impunity in Congo can be targeted for war crimes - heinous, but it’s a bizarrely acceptable catch-22.

By becoming the “police of the world,” UN world leaders (America, France, England, Russia, etc.) are taking on more than a role to pacify the world, but to interfere willingly. I’m not too sure that this is a good approach, but the alternative is to let countries like Myanmar to willingly let their people die in large droves, and to let Sierra Leone and Congo to use rape as governmental indoctrination of women - which is a sad case in deed.

My recommendation is that we establish a line of economic and military support and enforce it. We can do special exceptions, but at least on paper, we’ve said, if you want to do business with us, here’s the bar your country much reach.

Freedom and political liberty cannot be given, they must be asserted by the body politic. To attempt interference is to create another Iraq.