Allright, that's it. I'll pound out another blog.
Back in cowtown, it's purty decent. Nice to see everyone again, obviously a little bit of same shit, different day goin on, but hey, it happens. Vacation is necessary, I can literally feel the decompression. Although, I did go to the gym today, and wow, what a week and a couple thousand of feet of altitude will do to you, i.e. break your spirit. Also the lack of all my beautiful chemical supplements probably didn't help.
I saw Jesus Camp the other night, and I can say, "Meh, stupid is as stupid does." I mean, at first I was shocked and offended that these children are being 'taught' this nonesense. Then I had a much more subtle realization, after looking at the parents of these children and the general environment they are in, what could they truly affect by believing this? I mean, ok, everyone in nowhere, North Dakota believes some strange fallacy. Does that affect me in any way? They don't even know what their beliefs mean, they just think "the world needs a change." What change? Why do you need change? What will these changes accomplish? None of these questions are answered, but it is just left as something vague. It's all a big sham really, of course these hillbillies and trailer trash are upset about their lives, it isn't the best lifestyle. But to lead them on with this belief in Jesus, and appealling to their basic urges of inclusion and exclusion (Dr. Seuss and the birds with stars on their bellies...), of simple answers to non-questions (remember folks, that a question needs a context for it to be considered a question i.e. What does it all mean? has no context), and who can forget primal violence. So all in all, I'm not worried about some trailer trash changing the world really and what they think. I'm worried about what the billionaires and people in power do.
Speaking of people in power, the documentary A Crude Awakening was also definately worth watching. As a brief note, I did respect the props they put out to seismic, because it does rock. They really did get the point across as to how fucked we really are. I mean, no other energy source will really work. We'll run out of nuclear just as fast, if not faster; wind is a pipe dream; fusion...hahahahahaha; we've used up all of hydroelectric pretty much; and then solar. Solar is really the big one, but our implementation of it so far sucks. I liked the stats as well as to how little people realize oil affects absolutely everything we do, and they do a good job illustrating the sheer magnitude of it's use in our society. In the past 150 years we have seen a huge technological boom, and that is almost purely due to the fact we found out how to use oil. Watch it, then go invest in Shell and Exxon-Mobil.
A fun little game is to follow people's chain of reasoning. I know my mom gets quite upset when I do this, because it seems the solution is obvious, but when you follow the actual chain of legitimate arguments, it's actually far down the way with many potential stumbling blocks. If you know the person can take it, you have the chance to argue at each step along the way as well. Don't try this with pro-lifers though...people tend to get upset when their near and dear beliefs are shattered by the cold, austere beauty of logic. And 10 points to the person who can name where I borrowed my description of logic from.
I miss my georise friends a bit. It was an interesting little bubble we lived in while in Houston. Spending damn near every waking hour together meant that we got to know each other really well, and I definately enjoyed it when people would call my bluff. And I hope likewise.
Hmm...I feel that I have more to write, but not enough time. Off to the bookstore, more semi-inspired writing later.
Back in cowtown, it's purty decent. Nice to see everyone again, obviously a little bit of same shit, different day goin on, but hey, it happens. Vacation is necessary, I can literally feel the decompression. Although, I did go to the gym today, and wow, what a week and a couple thousand of feet of altitude will do to you, i.e. break your spirit. Also the lack of all my beautiful chemical supplements probably didn't help.
I saw Jesus Camp the other night, and I can say, "Meh, stupid is as stupid does." I mean, at first I was shocked and offended that these children are being 'taught' this nonesense. Then I had a much more subtle realization, after looking at the parents of these children and the general environment they are in, what could they truly affect by believing this? I mean, ok, everyone in nowhere, North Dakota believes some strange fallacy. Does that affect me in any way? They don't even know what their beliefs mean, they just think "the world needs a change." What change? Why do you need change? What will these changes accomplish? None of these questions are answered, but it is just left as something vague. It's all a big sham really, of course these hillbillies and trailer trash are upset about their lives, it isn't the best lifestyle. But to lead them on with this belief in Jesus, and appealling to their basic urges of inclusion and exclusion (Dr. Seuss and the birds with stars on their bellies...), of simple answers to non-questions (remember folks, that a question needs a context for it to be considered a question i.e. What does it all mean? has no context), and who can forget primal violence. So all in all, I'm not worried about some trailer trash changing the world really and what they think. I'm worried about what the billionaires and people in power do.
Speaking of people in power, the documentary A Crude Awakening was also definately worth watching. As a brief note, I did respect the props they put out to seismic, because it does rock. They really did get the point across as to how fucked we really are. I mean, no other energy source will really work. We'll run out of nuclear just as fast, if not faster; wind is a pipe dream; fusion...hahahahahaha; we've used up all of hydroelectric pretty much; and then solar. Solar is really the big one, but our implementation of it so far sucks. I liked the stats as well as to how little people realize oil affects absolutely everything we do, and they do a good job illustrating the sheer magnitude of it's use in our society. In the past 150 years we have seen a huge technological boom, and that is almost purely due to the fact we found out how to use oil. Watch it, then go invest in Shell and Exxon-Mobil.
A fun little game is to follow people's chain of reasoning. I know my mom gets quite upset when I do this, because it seems the solution is obvious, but when you follow the actual chain of legitimate arguments, it's actually far down the way with many potential stumbling blocks. If you know the person can take it, you have the chance to argue at each step along the way as well. Don't try this with pro-lifers though...people tend to get upset when their near and dear beliefs are shattered by the cold, austere beauty of logic. And 10 points to the person who can name where I borrowed my description of logic from.
I miss my georise friends a bit. It was an interesting little bubble we lived in while in Houston. Spending damn near every waking hour together meant that we got to know each other really well, and I definately enjoyed it when people would call my bluff. And I hope likewise.
Hmm...I feel that I have more to write, but not enough time. Off to the bookstore, more semi-inspired writing later.
posted by Poshy at 6:28 PM
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