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This is amazing.

Plumage?

Every time I look at my profile picture over there I laugh. That mustache rules. I'm going to grow it back.

You know what else makes me laugh when I look at it?



So funny!

"for the eyes of the world now look into space"

I was looking at the moon today as I stood at the bus stop, and my mind was blown. It's hard to imagine just how big and how far away it is. It's always looked the same, every time I see it in the sky. But today I looked at it, and thought about how I could see this other world in its entirety...from pole to pole, from horizon to horizon. That thing is almost 300,000 miles away...an unimaginable distance...yet it seems too familiar to possibly be so far away. I tried to imagine Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking clumsily on the surface, and what Earth must have looked like to them from the same distance. And what it would be like knowing that of the billions of people on the planet, they were the only two (along with that other astronaut that was with them that no one remembers) with a view of it all from the outside, away from the wars and the hunger and the traffic jams and the old guys who sit on park benches.



I used to want to be an astronaut. And a pilot. And a truck driver. And a professional football player. And a meteorologist. And an engineer. It seems like at any given point in my life I knew exactly what I wanted to do, except for now, when it's starting to matter.

What I don't want to be is an automaton. I feel like too often I fall into the trap of daily routine: wake up, go to class, eat, do homework, waste time, sleep, repeat. I try to do creative things to break up the monotony. Yesterday I worked on a photoshop for awhile, but it froze and I lost it all. It was going to be so rad. Imagine a giant great white shark emerging from the void of space to engulf the Earth in its gaping jaws...but emerging from the darkness to the side is...Voltron, Defender of the Universe! That's what it was, but it's gone now.

Voltron is an automaton.

This post was another attempt to break up the monotony, but it actually hasn't been that satisfying. Oh well! Guess I'll sleep instead!

Learning time!

Put your thinking caps on, it's time to take an intellectual ride!

I just read an essay by Christopher Lasch called "The Degradation of Practical Arts" and I'm kind of disturbed by it.

Basically this guy is trying to debunk the commonly held idea that technology is inherently neutral, and is simply put to use in good or evil ways. He spends a lot of time talking about machines taking over jobs on assembly lines, and I'm going to spare you all of that because it's just as boring as it sounds.

But towards the end he begins to draw some interesting philosophical conclusions.

He makes the assertion that the capitalist ideology is bred by our human desire to break through our biological limitations, and "achieve godlike powers over nature through [our] own innovations." I only kind of see the link between this and capitalism, and would call it weak at best, but that's only kind of relevant to what I'm getting at here. Anyways, he relates this to Faust's pursuit of limitless knowledge, saying it's a "revolt against the human body, [hoping] that intelligence, once it frees itself the prison of the body--the seat of human limitations--can grasp timeless truths and, through technology, conquer scarcity, sickness, and perhaps someday even death itself."

This is not exactly a new revelation--that we are using technology for more than just speedier production. We are creating all kinds of things, particularly in medicine, to enrich our lives...to cheat our biological limitations.

Where it gets kind of creepy is when he begins to talk about expanding these biological limitations through artificial intelligence. He says that now that we have created machines that can allegedly think for themselves, "human intervention can only distort and subjectify the beautiful objectivity of the machine...the condition of this so-called thinking [by the machine] is that it operate at a level of abstraction where feelings play no part." This also isn't really a new idea--the cold, emotionless machine.

He then shows how scientific revelations are nothing but assaults on our human pride: the Earth is not the center of the universe, we evolved from apes, and now computers are showing us how limited we are. He says "the scientific worldview hates the body not merely because it decays, but because it is held to be the source of desire. On this view of things, it is because human beings are driven by bodily needs and desires that their understanding is so limited...Machines...think with perfect clarity because they have no feelings to get in the way."

We hate our hearts for getting in the way of our minds, so we entrust the job of our minds to machines.

Edward Fredkin writes "Basically, the human mind is not most like a god or most like a computer. It's most like the mind of a chimpanzee and most of what's there isn't designed for living in an advanced society but for getting along in the jungle or out in the fields...The fact is, I think we'll be enormously happier once our niche has limits to it. We won't have to worry about carrying the burden of the universe on our shoulders as we do today. We can enjoy life as human beings without worrying about it."

Lasch concludes all of this by saying that technology isn't neutral, but rather a reflection of who we wish we could be. Factory owners wished they could have more efficient workers, so they made machines to do it. We wished we could instantly connect with people we know all over the world, so we made a telephone to do it. We wished we could fly so we made airplanes and spaceships to do it.

...we wish we could think without feeling, so we are making artificial intelligence to do it?


You could look at it that way, or you could look at it and say that we wish we didn't have to think about things anymore so that we can live a more...emotional?...life.

Either way, I don't think it's wise to separate the two. Sometimes our minds need our hearts to guide us, and sometimes its the other way around. You can't just separate the two and delegate the tasks to separate vehicles for the sake of efficiency like in factories.

What do you think?

Animosity

All things considered, animosity sucks dick.

Pardon the dysphemism.

Anyways, this is why I lost interest/faith in American politics (I've touched on this earlier). There are two camps of people with irreconcilable and deep-seated views about everything. There can be no peace between the two, because there is no respect for the other side. The right and left are forever fundamentally different, so everything turns into a shouting match. Stupid.


But that's not my point. I'm just reminded of this as I read all these Facebook and Twitter posts about the Vikings-Saints game today. So much hatred over football! It's kind of upsetting to me, because it seems unnecessary. And because I've been a Vikings fan my whole life, and I am completely crushed right now. I try to stay out of the shouting matches, though, because I don't see much point in it. I know the Vikings fumbled away their chance to win. I don't need to blame the officials or other people or anything like that.

But seriously. I'm absolutely crushed by this. Like...way crushed. Devastated. I'm going to go ahead and say this is right up there with when Ash had to let Butterfree go in Pokemon. Only WORSE! Because this is real life.

And reading all the hate towards Vikings fans like me really sucks. That shit also gets a "child please."

I've been a loyal fan for nigh on 20 years now, and I honestly don't know if any team the Vikings put together can go all the way if this one couldn't. This was like a one-shot deal, because Brett Favre is old as hell. Oh well. Maybe I'll see them win a Super Bowl in my lifetime...something my great-grandfather (peace be upon him) never got to see. But for now I guess there's only one thing left to say:

GO SAINTS!

...got damn

Overload

I just finished reading a 21-page essay on, and then reflecting on the nature of sin and grace for my RELIG 380 class.

Not to be vulgar or anything, but...3 days into the semester, and I already feel like I'm being raped with knowledge. For those of you unsure about my simile, rape generally refers to unwelcome things entering your body. It's not so much that the knowledge is unwelcome, but I feel violated by the sudden and relentless manner in which is coming. 19 years on, and I've yet to devise a way of organizing my life. I foresee a problem with this in the coming months. But whatever! I can deal!

I finally declared myself as a Political Science major today. I still don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it, but at least I'm now able to field the persistent question "what are you majoring in?"

I thought about maybe going to the grocery store today (because there is no food in my room), but then I remembered how much my bank account suffered at the hands of the bookstore the last few days, and I've decided I can go hungry for awhile.

Over the last two days I've basically listened to nothing on my iPod but Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" album. It's my current music addiction.

2010

Holy bejesus! It's the new year, and I haven't posted anything in nearly a month! My b you guys. My b. My plan was to put all those power rankings together at the end of the year and present it in a big comprehensive form. It was going to be awesome to anyone who loves statistics. But I seem to have missed the last two weeks, so...I guess that idea isn't happening after all! It's cool, because I'm the boss here, and I say to hell with it! I'll just proclaim the Minnesota Vikings Super Bowl champs and get on with it (wishful thinking)...

The Spring semester has begun. Soon it will be warm, and soon I will break out of my winter cocoon and reveal myself as a majestic butterfly with the most beautiful wings in the land:

Yessir.

Time to be great by doing my homework and eating Gardettos.