The world's last non-porn website

To continue a slight bit from yesterday's finish on love, I'd like to paraphrase the comedian and philosopher George Carlin: We think in language, and as such we can only really be as good thinkers as we are language users. On the one hand I am frustrated with those people who insist on perfect grammar and structure. I want to say "If you understand what it is that I'm saying, or writing, then what's to complain about? If language is intended to allow us to communicate, and a few errors don't hamper the communication, then there is no reason to fret." And to the extent it also follows that the 'old-timers' who complain about the morphing of words into acronyms and this new internet-speak are in the wrong; it is merely the evolution of language to match the the way in which we think. life is getting faster, more convenient, more ready-at-hand. Thoughts mimic experience, and language mimics thought. Is the progression of language a shock to anybody?...

The tricky thing about modern media is that much of the information we get about people comes in the form of quotes by news reporters and anchors. Politicians of course know this, so instead of bothering to emote their language, they talk as they're being read rather than being listened to. So Obama comes out today to again criticise that pastor who's gumming up his campaign. CNN quotes obama as being 'outraged.' But he's really not so much. I watched the speech, and frankly what I want to see when someone is outraged is some real anger. "I'm OUTRAGED!!! ARGG!!!" The reason for this is because if they just use the word willy nilly, they'll have nothing to say when they're actually really angry about something! Of course, I'd be a fool not to point out that the one word we use far too often and easily is the word 'love'. In relationships we're stricken to blurt out this semantic mark of undying affection hardly before we know eac...

I may inadvertantly have placed two or three days' worth of ideas into yesterday's entry; from that I feel somewhat for want of interesting words to pen. Well here goes: I find it a truism that the more modest your goal is, the more likely you are to acheive it, and it may be the case that some of the most modest goals are the best ones as well, as noted in what may be my all-time favorite comic strip: Why can't we be a bit more like Hobbes? I know, you all relate to the comic here, you all think this is in some sense what you want more than the rest, but I am more than serious. We think this way, and we may respond like Hobbes when overtly asked, but we do not live this way in the slightest. What tragedy has befallen us when such a modest maxim is so unattainable? This is the real question...

*continuation from Day 117* ... but our dear friend Wittgenstein would be ashamed for the second of my two lines of reasoning about understanding nature. While the man certainly was a realist, and was also (under my interpretation anyway) a believer that the natural world is in some sense nomological, we're making a grave error when we mix together understanding with communicative ability. That is, it is an easy but terrible mistake to say that if we understand something, we ought to be able to commuicate it. Perhaps, even, the other way around as well. My hope was to excerpt a few parts from my Wittgenstein final essay, but unfortunately the computer lab uses a newer version of Word that doesn't translate into my version here at home, so the email attachment (where I save important documents, because I don't trust my own computer not to die spontaneously) will not open into anything other than illegible symbols and gobbely gook. How ironic. I'll just write. Understand...

So today I finally learned how a microwave works. It's the one appliance/household technology thing that I've never taken a second look at, never really taken a moment to ponder its workings. But, really a microwave is a magical object; it heats food without using heat! Anyway, so the device is called a mangetron, which is basically a little thing that creates a magnetic field to trap and spin electrons, which are in turn captured and shot at some micro-wavelength at food, thus heating it without heat. Who knew? In the end, it is always something of an anticlimax when our fanastical notions of magic and the supernatural get deconstructed and washed away by hard science. When an explanation (like an opinion) is rock solid, there is no more left to create within the mind. Something simply is true: we can either accept it or not. And on the one hand I fancy to believe that this is ultimately the case for everything in the world. There is for any observation a real and tru...

Sometimes the internet frightens me just a little bit. I see the numbers: porn makes more money than hollywood and the record labels combined, yet nobody talks about it. I see the comments on youtube, full of ignorance and hatred that we scarsely ever hear in the real world, relatively speaking. There are no questions, no inquiries, no curiosities. Just rock solid opinions. Is this what we are? Are conventions and consequences the only things that keep us decent? What is it about anonymity that makes us into these strange creatures? I find myself running up against walls with people all the time. What I've come to learn in the last half decade or so is that so many people simply are a certain way about thought and the world (myself included). When I want to offer someone a different perspective I feel completely hamstrung, because no matter how I try to express the thoughts, people always manage to incorporate them in such a way that nothing changes. My arguments with people are no...

Typing is pretty much the last thing I could possibly want to do today, so this entry will be a short one. I'm done, finally. The degree is unofficially completed! It is a bit anticlimactic. I can't help but look back and realize all the better grades that could have been had were it not for the less-than-stellar study habits. But then what a silly exercise that line of thought is; we could always have done better, in any walk of life. No more student discounts, come the end of the month. I have to decide which rec center to get a pass for, before the price goes up!

I think one of the best crime deterrants of the modern age is the sensationalization of crime in the media. It's to a point now, where you honestly don't know if the crime you're about to commit, no matter how petty or severe, will end up on television, or the internet, or the papers, or wherever else. We have police tape video shows, ICBC bait car videos (which are hilarious, I highly recommend them), even that show where pedophiles get tricked into embarrassing themselves on NBC moments before being tasered. On a note: how is that legal? I could swear that entrapment laws prevent cops from making up phony crime opportunities just to lure in would-be criminals. Not only that, but these poor guys (yes I know they're pedophiles, but honestly I still feel bad for them) get paraded like spectacles in front of millions of people, often naked. It's like we've reached a moral climate where as long as a person is really bad, we're somehow allowed to do anything we ...

4:15 A.M. I've just finished another essay; that's three out of 5 done now. Time for a few hours' sleep (literally), then off to school to complete two more, both due wednesday afternoon at 4pm sharp. I really am on empty now. Been running on fumes these last few weeks with respect to having any motivation to write more philosophy. The semester has just been so draining... From seminars on Wittgenstein to Phil. of Mind to the Honours seminar, to Aristotle to Descartes to Leibniz to countless more thinkers... researching and writing my mini-thesis on cultural evolution, fusing philosophy and poetry, penning more essays than I care to ever remember (11 all told, this semester), and all the rest of it. Do send me a positive vibe or two, it will be a less than pleasant task to push out 2000 words each on Aristotle and Leibniz, respectively, especially on this lack of shut eye. I hope to write a recap of what University has been like these last four years; a brief chronicle of t...

Junk email is an odd thing. Sometimes they try so very hard to make the junk mail really seem like actual mail. The topic will be "Re:" and I think I'd better open it, only to find junk! They still get me, maybe once every 10 or 15 tries, to click 'open'. But then other times they seem to just have given up. There is no cleverness involved, and the subject heading is literally just a bunch of gibberish words. Or, my MSN will be on and the little thing will pop up "You have received a new email from "LargerPenisToday" or something similar to that. Is a penis (larger than mine, apparently) actually sending me an email? And of course, I'd be silly not to point out that if an actual drug was invented that could really enlarge your penis within 24 hours it certainly would be far too famous for my junk email folder. It would be the most popular drug in the world overnight. Men would pay thousands of dollars for it. One of my personal favorite junk let...

I've had the opportunity in the last couple of days to watch some actual tv, for the first significant time since I cancelled my cable back around new years. I watch online periodically, and it is free of commercials, so when I went back to watching some television I was shocked at the sheer quantity of commercials! After the hiatus (which will continue indefinitely; this was an exception at someone else's house) and re-introduction I've realized how conditioned I had become to advertizing content. Just something to think about for all you tv-watchers out there! About two years ago I had a dream in which I was watching a tv show just like American Idol. But, instead of singers, it was murder suspects on trial, and the public voted in to decide who was guilty and who was innocent. All that was required for a verdict was a majority vote, of course. The trial, evidence, even the execution were broadcast publicly, and it was up to the country who lived and who died. Whenever I ...

Time has a way of working things out all on their own. They say patience is a virtue, and I couldn't believe that more strongly; so often I'll get all caught up in some situation, and forget about the longer term picture. The truth is that people just come and go, desires and priorities change, and people turn out not to be what they seem. All of this can be good, or bad, or anywhere in between. And if I were ever to write a self help book, I might include advice along these lines: don't push up against time, don't try to make things happen when instead you simply must allow them to happen. I'm not a believer in Karma, but I do think, practically speaking, that your good actions will bring good consequences on the whole in return. Not that it patters particularly; we ought to do good either way, and the reward is incidental. Wittgenstein notes that one will be eternally stuck in an empty room if he never thinks to pull rather than push at the door.

I have a love-hate relationship with South Park. Somtimes I find their episodes profoundly uninteresting, and their political messages to be boringly libertarian and artificial. But, occasionally, they will offer pure gold. In this week's episode the internet has gone down nationally, prompting a crisis. Stan's dad stays at a refugee camp with just one computer for thousands of people, and requests a special favour from one of the organisers: --- Randy: Excuse me. I need to, uh, have some private internet time. Red Cross Worker: Look, we're just trying to get by here. Everyone's gotta take what they can get it. (Randy pulls the worker aside.) Randy: I haven't jacked off in over two weeks. Red Cross Worker: So, jack off. Randy: I need the internet to jack off. I got used to being able to see anything at the click of a button, you know. Once you jack off to Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy! --- Oh Randy. Now I ...

I wouldn't be faithful to the spirit of internet blogging if I didn't do at least one entry predicting who I think will win the presidency come november in the USA. I am absolutely positive the democratic nominee will be Obama. He will beat Hillary without any trouble; he simply is too far ahead with the delegates, and has too much money and influential support. I suspect the lady will bow out after the next batch of primaries. Hillary will not be his vice president pick. She's in the race, I can only presume, because she wants to stay prominent for some reason other than getting the nomination (because that isn't really a viable possibility anymore), but she won't get the VP spot. The reason: the VP nomination always goes to whichever figure best offers a counterpoint to the presidential nominee; someone who fills the biggest gaps in terms of demographic appeal. Obama already has the female vote sealed, and he's also got all the idealists. What he doesn't h...

I find myself walking down a path at UVic on a slow day, when I notice someone walking toward me the other direction. I know the person, but only vaguely. We took a class together at some point, talked a few times, but that was it. I'm sure the person recognizes me too. So, as they approach, I feel a slight panic. Do I nod? Do I say hello? Do I ask 'how's it going?' I don't know what to do. I fear that if I just nod I'll offend. But I also fear the tremendous uncomfortability of asking how they're doing, but not stopping, such that when they ask back, we've already crossed paths by 8 or 10 feet and the response is awkward at best. The person gets even closer, and I've yet to decide my course of action, when it suddenly dawns upon me that I cannot remember the person's name! What if they remember my name, and act all friendly-like? Few things are worse than carrying on a conversation with someone whose name you've forgotten, and who reme...

It is official. There appear to be no more pay phones left in victoria. At least, no more outdoor pay phones. They've all been removed, presumably because lack of use has made operating costs higher than quarter-intake. Even UVic has removed its payphones, but thankfully has replaced them with a few courtesy phones around campus for the ten or so left of us who don't have cell phones. I still haven't bought one, in spite of endless apparent pressures. Even an ex of mine, who was my anti-cell-phone partner in crime for a long time has succumed. We were sitting watching a movie and she held it in her hand intently, checking every five minutes and periodically poking out little text messages that I was assured were necessary. The little device was like an addictive magnet; she held to it the way a small child holds on to a stuffed animal, requiring its presence and fearing its absence. And it is always necessary, I am told. Those with cell phones insist they couldn't get b...

Every so often I'll find myself infinitely frustrated by someone's asking me a question in order to prove their point, the answer to which is too complicated to keep their interest. Conspiracy theories give me this headache all the time. People ask: "well how do you explain all the inconsistencies in the US Govt.'s 9/11 Commission report?" Well, I frankly can't explain all of them, but I can give people a lengthy explanation for why conspiracy theories in general use flawed logic, and how just because one thing may be false doesn't necessarily mean some other thing is true. But these explanations take ages. The Jehovah's Witnesses have asked me this many times: "If there's no God, then what's the point of everything?" Well for fuck's sake how am I supposed to answer a question like that?? So, when I respond with a short awkward silence and some cop-out like "well there's always a natural explanation for the state of thing...

I get the sense that people go out of their way to believe they are misunderstood. Those of us who fancy ourselves intellectuals tend to make sure everybody knows that whatever we're saying isn't quite what we're thinking; what we're thinking is always just a little more complex, or "hard to put into words." And this is certainly the case; often I find myself unable (or unwilling) to organize my thoughts in such a way that I feel people will really get a sense of them. But other times, I'm just a bit lazy, or even worse, afraid that if I can package it all into a few sentences, it will look much less impressive than I imagine it to be - less impressive to both myself and to others. It happens to me all the time in philosophy: I'll have what I think is some big revelation for an essay, and the moment I write it down and read it, I realize it was pretty insignificant all along. Anyway, I do wish people would be less afraid to be seen as simple crea...

I often fear the little systems that we create in order to better organize the routines of life. I fear that the more efficient I get at a little system, the more I'll inadvertantly ignore the very fact of the routine's occurence. Systems of organization are, in a way, ways to blind us from the mundane nature of life, because without them we'd have to really think about what we were doing all along. Take a moment to recognize the smallest details: notice how you shower the same way every day, notice all the routines you carry out before bed, or after waking up, or at any other time. Try to feel them, to understand them.

It isn't difficult to read into classic literature and find political messages. The tricky part is separating the intended political messages from the unintended ones; those which are genuinely just inadvertent signs of the time. I just finished Robinson Crusoe, the old Defoe novel about a shipwrecked man who builds a life for himself on a deserted island. Fro a historical perspective it is very much a capitalist manifesto, and as much as Defoe did intend to some extent to purport his ideology, I imagine much of it was accidental, or in some sense assumed. Such is the trick of old fiction: (a common theme in my writing) we are often not so much reading the material as we are reading into the material; combining the words with out own thoughts to create a hybrid work. We cannot help it. I sometimes wonder what today's literature will be read as in the distant future, perhaps several centuries from now.