| 10/02/2010 | 00:55:37 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | :L:L:L | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:55:40 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | HE LIES | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:55:42 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | HE LIES | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:55:48 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | HIS PENIS WOULDNT EVEN REACH INSIDE HER | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:56:13 | Alex | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | What are you trying to say about kie's penis abbie? :-O | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:56:26 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | its so tiny it cant even fit inside a kitty VV_ | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:56:28 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | V_V* | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:56:32 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | sorry i had to tell you this | ||||
| 10/02/2010 | 00:56:32 | [b][c=3]('.') Flowerbie ('.')[/c][/b] | Alex | V_V |
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
:o
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Monday, 8 February 2010
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Conversation on the nature of science
I thought I would post a debate I had with another uni student about the nature of science, partly so it doesn't get lost in the churn of the net, and partly so people can look at it and see what they think about the the issue and all that. Here it is. :)
SAM: I would like to call into question the idea of 'scientific fact' ...
Plus, belief in a God, Gods, etc. is perfectly okay, as much as belief in any 'ideal'. It's organised religion, not some unknown quantity, which is the enemy.
Most of us, I'm not including Richard in this, tend to believe what we're told by 'scientists'. I'll be fucked if any of us actually understand what's happening. It's ridiculous to condemn belief in a deity or deities and then prop up science that it has 'facts' - the theories behind science are being revised, updated, changed all the time. And, do... See more you REALLY understand what quantum physics is, how the world works, or are you just taking what you're told and choosing to believing it? Also, you seem to be implying that deity/deities is purely a humanoid, rather than a dimensional, spiritual, or even scientific thing. And also forgetting that, a lot of the basis of our understand of our world has come out of people trying to prove God right, or real.
ME: Believing what scientists say isn't the same as just accepting what you're told, because what scientists say isn't arbitrary; it's logical conjecture based on a method that has shown itself to be reliable. The scientific method works. It objectively works. If it didn't, you wouldn't be on a computer, and planes would be crashing all around us. Or never taking off.
That's not to imply that it's completely infallible. But it's inaccurate to say that scientific theories change all the time, as if it were all a massive flux of equally valid ideas. A lot of the big theoretical stuff has stuck - Newtonian physics, despite not being the most perfect description of reality now that we have relativity and QM, is still basically spot on if you're dealing with ordinary things instead of sub-atomic particles. That's been around since the 17th century. The fact that science expands, updates and revises is a strength, not a weakness.
SAM: You imply that logic is logical ...
If you prayed to a God about the same time every year that something would grow and be ready to harvest every year, it would prove God. Now as a scientist, one could go into detail, but as lay peeps, we just accept that it happens for whatever reason we're told. :P
Also, I gave a list of things that scientific ... See moreidea's can be doing: "revised, updated, changed", not just "changed". And no one ever said science was bad, I'm attacking the use and the claim of it (despite doing it myself) in everyday occurrence without knowing what we're talking about.
Also, eugenics. What a great, non-arbitrary thing that was/is.
ME: No it wouldn't prove god, because you wouldn't have used the scientific method - you wouldn't have isolated your variables. You'd need to pray at different times of the year and see if you got food to make it scientific. This is the classic rule that correlation doesn't equal causation. Like someone made that graph showing that as the number of pirates had gone down over the centuries, global temperature had gone up, so pirates were needed to stop global warming. =p
Well, often we can know what we're talking about scientifically without having technical training. I could explain evolution to you pretty satisfactorily, and why it's true, and I'm a pile of shit at science.
Eugenics was a political issue, not an "is science reliable" issue.
SAM: The theory of Eugenics was based around the theory of evolution: selective breeding (and killing). Note the word theory. Also, note the world of 'theoretical science', if you please, whilst we're at it. It was political, yes, but it was based around a scientific idea. And, anyway, theories such as evolution were amazingly political for their time, undermining the institutions that said how the world works. Same with the Earth going round the Sun. They're not mutually exclusive: these theories have political and social repercussions.
Plus, you're still using the 'experiment' to prove something, whilst I'm arguing that people take scientists word for it. Ergo, someone says eugenics is workable and, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Hitler say "okay, yes."
The sun goes around the Earth.
ME: Well saying that eugenics was based on the theory of evolution is about as useful as saying that hanging was based on the theory of gravity. You can't blame science for finding out the truth if that truth is then abused. It was politicians, not the scientific method, that created eugenics. Science deals with what is; philosophy and politics deal with what ought to be, and eugenics is a 'what ought to be' idea. Noticing that genetic traits which help us survive and reproduce naturally get passed on more than ones that don't is science. Saying that we ought to fiddle about with people's genes to create a master race is politics. Interestingly, Darwin actually explicitly warned against the social Darwinism idea that we should try to eliminate the genetically weak in society.
I agree with you that scientific theories can have repercussions outside of the scientific sphere. Clearly evolution and heliocentric ideas re-defined how we view our place in the universe. But what you were saying is that eugenics is an example of an arbitrary idea coming from science; it isn't. Nowhere did Darwin start saying let's genetically create a master race. And even if he had, it would have been a political idea he was expressing, not a scientific one. It's an arbitrary idea coming from racist politicians.
As for taking the scientists word for it - this is effectively the same as trusting in the explanatory power of the experiment, because that's what scientists do. They don't just make shit up. It doesn't mean taking what they say and assuming that it's some kind of revealed final truth on a matter - scientists themselves don't pretend that they have that kind of authority - but it does mean accepting that this is probably our best guess at the time, and at the moment there doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt it.
SAM: They don't make shit up ... hmm ... as I mentioned, theoretical science is theory, it is not yet cohesively proven or completely disproven. String theory. Therefore, as there is theoretical science, science doesn't necessarily just deal with 'what is' but the also theory of 'what ought to be', or could be. Jesus, poor bloody quantum physisits who only deal 'with is': isn't that part of the problem? What appears isn't necessarily what is, was or will be.
Eugenics wasn't just politics, it was based in the theory of natural selection, a scientific theory. It was originated by a polymath called Francis Galton, who was a bit of a scientist. He, according to Wikipedia, coined the phrase 'Nature vs nuture'. It was a scientific idea with political implications ... like all scientific theory.
Phrenology, too. That was a fantastic bloody science. It is amazing discredited, but it was right popular for a while a way back. I'm also informed by a scientist friend of mine that particle science is running out of space to work, too.
ME: I don't mean to be flippant, but you're just repeating the content of your last post. I have already responded to all of those arguments.
1. If something isn't 'cohesively proven', it will not be presented as such by scientists. Problem solved. If it is, it will be. Problem solved again. As Richard pointed out, it's very rare that anything misleading would survive peer review. I said words to this effect last post - they don't just make shit up.
2. Social Darwinism is a political idea. Galton's idea was political. The fact that it referenced a scientific theory doesn't mean it was the fault of science, any more than hanging people was the fault of the science of gravity.... See more
3. Phrenology was a pseudo-science, and the advocates of it basically did not use the scientific method when saying that the shape of your head was directly connected with your personality. It didn't last very long in the grand scheme of things, and it wouldn't survive peer-review nowadays.
SAM: All I have to say, is question everything all the time. It's the only way to be almost confident that you don't know anything, or at least much.
SAM: I would like to call into question the idea of 'scientific fact' ...
Plus, belief in a God, Gods, etc. is perfectly okay, as much as belief in any 'ideal'. It's organised religion, not some unknown quantity, which is the enemy.
Most of us, I'm not including Richard in this, tend to believe what we're told by 'scientists'. I'll be fucked if any of us actually understand what's happening. It's ridiculous to condemn belief in a deity or deities and then prop up science that it has 'facts' - the theories behind science are being revised, updated, changed all the time. And, do... See more you REALLY understand what quantum physics is, how the world works, or are you just taking what you're told and choosing to believing it? Also, you seem to be implying that deity/deities is purely a humanoid, rather than a dimensional, spiritual, or even scientific thing. And also forgetting that, a lot of the basis of our understand of our world has come out of people trying to prove God right, or real.
ME: Believing what scientists say isn't the same as just accepting what you're told, because what scientists say isn't arbitrary; it's logical conjecture based on a method that has shown itself to be reliable. The scientific method works. It objectively works. If it didn't, you wouldn't be on a computer, and planes would be crashing all around us. Or never taking off.
That's not to imply that it's completely infallible. But it's inaccurate to say that scientific theories change all the time, as if it were all a massive flux of equally valid ideas. A lot of the big theoretical stuff has stuck - Newtonian physics, despite not being the most perfect description of reality now that we have relativity and QM, is still basically spot on if you're dealing with ordinary things instead of sub-atomic particles. That's been around since the 17th century. The fact that science expands, updates and revises is a strength, not a weakness.
SAM: You imply that logic is logical ...
If you prayed to a God about the same time every year that something would grow and be ready to harvest every year, it would prove God. Now as a scientist, one could go into detail, but as lay peeps, we just accept that it happens for whatever reason we're told. :P
Also, I gave a list of things that scientific ... See moreidea's can be doing: "revised, updated, changed", not just "changed". And no one ever said science was bad, I'm attacking the use and the claim of it (despite doing it myself) in everyday occurrence without knowing what we're talking about.
Also, eugenics. What a great, non-arbitrary thing that was/is.
ME: No it wouldn't prove god, because you wouldn't have used the scientific method - you wouldn't have isolated your variables. You'd need to pray at different times of the year and see if you got food to make it scientific. This is the classic rule that correlation doesn't equal causation. Like someone made that graph showing that as the number of pirates had gone down over the centuries, global temperature had gone up, so pirates were needed to stop global warming. =p
Well, often we can know what we're talking about scientifically without having technical training. I could explain evolution to you pretty satisfactorily, and why it's true, and I'm a pile of shit at science.
Eugenics was a political issue, not an "is science reliable" issue.
SAM: The theory of Eugenics was based around the theory of evolution: selective breeding (and killing). Note the word theory. Also, note the world of 'theoretical science', if you please, whilst we're at it. It was political, yes, but it was based around a scientific idea. And, anyway, theories such as evolution were amazingly political for their time, undermining the institutions that said how the world works. Same with the Earth going round the Sun. They're not mutually exclusive: these theories have political and social repercussions.
Plus, you're still using the 'experiment' to prove something, whilst I'm arguing that people take scientists word for it. Ergo, someone says eugenics is workable and, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Hitler say "okay, yes."
The sun goes around the Earth.
ME: Well saying that eugenics was based on the theory of evolution is about as useful as saying that hanging was based on the theory of gravity. You can't blame science for finding out the truth if that truth is then abused. It was politicians, not the scientific method, that created eugenics. Science deals with what is; philosophy and politics deal with what ought to be, and eugenics is a 'what ought to be' idea. Noticing that genetic traits which help us survive and reproduce naturally get passed on more than ones that don't is science. Saying that we ought to fiddle about with people's genes to create a master race is politics. Interestingly, Darwin actually explicitly warned against the social Darwinism idea that we should try to eliminate the genetically weak in society.
I agree with you that scientific theories can have repercussions outside of the scientific sphere. Clearly evolution and heliocentric ideas re-defined how we view our place in the universe. But what you were saying is that eugenics is an example of an arbitrary idea coming from science; it isn't. Nowhere did Darwin start saying let's genetically create a master race. And even if he had, it would have been a political idea he was expressing, not a scientific one. It's an arbitrary idea coming from racist politicians.
As for taking the scientists word for it - this is effectively the same as trusting in the explanatory power of the experiment, because that's what scientists do. They don't just make shit up. It doesn't mean taking what they say and assuming that it's some kind of revealed final truth on a matter - scientists themselves don't pretend that they have that kind of authority - but it does mean accepting that this is probably our best guess at the time, and at the moment there doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt it.
SAM: They don't make shit up ... hmm ... as I mentioned, theoretical science is theory, it is not yet cohesively proven or completely disproven. String theory. Therefore, as there is theoretical science, science doesn't necessarily just deal with 'what is' but the also theory of 'what ought to be', or could be. Jesus, poor bloody quantum physisits who only deal 'with is': isn't that part of the problem? What appears isn't necessarily what is, was or will be.
Eugenics wasn't just politics, it was based in the theory of natural selection, a scientific theory. It was originated by a polymath called Francis Galton, who was a bit of a scientist. He, according to Wikipedia, coined the phrase 'Nature vs nuture'. It was a scientific idea with political implications ... like all scientific theory.
Phrenology, too. That was a fantastic bloody science. It is amazing discredited, but it was right popular for a while a way back. I'm also informed by a scientist friend of mine that particle science is running out of space to work, too.
ME: I don't mean to be flippant, but you're just repeating the content of your last post. I have already responded to all of those arguments.
1. If something isn't 'cohesively proven', it will not be presented as such by scientists. Problem solved. If it is, it will be. Problem solved again. As Richard pointed out, it's very rare that anything misleading would survive peer review. I said words to this effect last post - they don't just make shit up.
2. Social Darwinism is a political idea. Galton's idea was political. The fact that it referenced a scientific theory doesn't mean it was the fault of science, any more than hanging people was the fault of the science of gravity.... See more
3. Phrenology was a pseudo-science, and the advocates of it basically did not use the scientific method when saying that the shape of your head was directly connected with your personality. It didn't last very long in the grand scheme of things, and it wouldn't survive peer-review nowadays.
SAM: All I have to say, is question everything all the time. It's the only way to be almost confident that you don't know anything, or at least much.
Friday, 5 February 2010
First poetry slam.
Went well! :) I came 5th out of 14, and the people who beat me were fucking sick so I feel no shame. Tbh I'm quite surprised I wasn't somewhere more around 10th or 12th, it was such a high standard there. So yeah, chuffed. :D And a poet I think is amazing told me afterwards that she really liked my poem, I can't even really remember my response, I expect I flustered out a thank you and looked a tit, but hey ho. =p
I also got to say, on stage, referring to Margaret Thatcher, "lets hope the bitch dies soon." Which received laughs, scattered applause, a gasp or two... win. haha.
So... hmm. Target. Win one before I leave Uni? Yeah? Too ambitious, too modest? We shall see. Next one March the 11th. ^^
I also got to say, on stage, referring to Margaret Thatcher, "lets hope the bitch dies soon." Which received laughs, scattered applause, a gasp or two... win. haha.
So... hmm. Target. Win one before I leave Uni? Yeah? Too ambitious, too modest? We shall see. Next one March the 11th. ^^
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Tim Minchin - Storm
“Storm”
Inner North London, top floor flat
All white walls, white carpet, white cat,
Rice Paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host’s a physician,
Lovely bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend’s an actress
An old mate from home
And they’re always great fun.
So to dinner we’ve come.
The fifth guest is an unknown,
The hosts have just thrown
Us together for a favor
because this girl’s just arrived from Australia
And has moved to North London
And she’s the sister of someone
Or has some connection.
As we make introductions
I’m struck by her beauty
She’s irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits
I admit I’m a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular area
Just above the derrière
And when she says “I’m Sagittarian”
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
And is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.
Chatter is initially bright and light-hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis-à-vis,
Some un-hippily
Empirical comment by me
“Not a good start” I think
We’re only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.
The food is delicious and Storm,
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
While the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history
When Storm suddenly she insists
“But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul.”
My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there’s a chance
That I’ll be off on one of my rants
But my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy my meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it’s becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because – like her meteorological namesake -
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:
“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It’s time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”
And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”
“So you don’t believe
In ANY Natural remedies?”
“On the contrary actually:
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that’s virtually side-effect free
It’s got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Masprin?
Basprin?
Asprin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore.
The debate briefly abates
As our hosts collects plates
but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,
“Shakespeare said it first:
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy…
Science is just how we’re trained to look at reality,
It can’t explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?”
I’m becoming aware
That I’m staring,
I’m like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it’s the Hamlet she just mis-quothed
Or the eighth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:
“Look , Storm, I don’t mean to bore you
But there’s no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or star-signs or tea-leaves or meridian lines
These people aren’t plying a skill,
They are either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God’s demands
And Spiritual healers who think they have magic hands.
By the way,
Why is it OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Is it not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you’re in touch with the other side?
That’s just fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify that there’s no such thing as a psychic?
What, are we fucking 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still think that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson hasn’t had facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks
Like John Edward?
Storm to her credit despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition
“You’re so sure of your position
But you’re just closed-minded
I think you’ll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist”
“Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.”
Everyone’s just staring at me now,
But I’m pretty pissed and I’ve dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:
“Life is full of mysteries, yeah,
But there are answers out there
And they won’t be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn’t life mysterious?
Let’s sit here and hope
Let’s call up the fucking Pope
Let’s go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra
If you’re going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there’s a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the water-slide.
Throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.
Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?
Isn’t this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you’re so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet… is just fucking silly”
Or something like that.
Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
That’s ok.
But here’s what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant…
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties.
And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We’d as well be 10 minutes back in time,
For all the chance you’ll change your mind.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
TS Eliot gets involved
S she laughed I was aware of becoming involved
- in her laughter and being part of it, until her
- teeth were only accidental stars with a talent
- for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps,
- inhaled at each momentary recovery, lost finally
- in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by
- the ripple of unseen muscles. An elderly waiter
- with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading
- a pink and white checked cloth over the rusty
- green iron table, saying: "If the lady and
- gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden,
- if the lady and gentleman wish to take their
- tea in the garden ..." I decided that if the
- shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of
- the fragments of the afternoon might be collected,
- and I concentrated my attention with careful
- subtlety to this end.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
I may have just had the best debate of my life.
It was amazing. We were discussing Thomas Hobbes, who is usually considered the intellectual father of the state. His idea was that fear was the deepest and most powerful emotion humans have, and it was also it's most creative and positive, since fear forces people to act in a reasonable way to escape that fear. So, first point, the theory of the modern state is that fear is the guiding principle on which all human interaction is supposed to rest. Second, the state is a 'social contract'. Essentially, scared people sacrifice some of their liberty in order to be governed, and thereby kept safe from whatever unknown dangers might be out there. A necessary evil he called it. He went further, though, and said that in times where no genuine external threat is present, fear must be artificially created - the state must terrorise it's own people - to justify the continued existence of government and avoid a return to a state of 'natural savagery' where people were irrational. We also looked at Augustine, who said that the world should be actively maintained as a terrifying place in order to encourage people to look to heaven for escape.
The debate started with several people claiming that despite this being a bleak philosophy, it was basically spot on. If people weren't scared of external threats or the state, there would be no need to behave in a civilised way, and we would fragment. Fear was presented as unifying force which we could all rally around. I actually almost felt too beleaguered to bother arguing against this awful shit at first. I was tired, no one seemed to want to look beyond a generic and all pervasive cynicism that we were naturally evil bastards and needed a tyrant to terrorise us into submission so that we would be safe from ourselves.
However. I thought I'd at least try to demonstrate why fear was not desirable in itself. I asked everyone to remember a time when they felt scared, and to comment on whether they acted and thought reasonably as a consequence or unreasonably. Personally, I am never so unreasonable as when I'm scared, I think. There was instant and widespread agreement about the irrationality that fear encourages. Thank god I thought. Some hope. Then another guy who often speaks and who I disagree with as much as agree with chimed in and said that fear did not produce unity, it fragmented people. Spot on. If you're scared of Johnny Foreigner, you will unite with non-foreigners but only by at the same time fragmenting yourself into a tiny little group against the world. If you're scared of terrorism, everyone with a backpack on public transport is a threat. No unity there. It is fear that breeds the irrational savagery that Hobbes thinks he's fighting against, not some natural evil in us.
Anyway the long story short is that Hobbes and Augustine were utterly, utterly destroyed in the debate. And I ended up with basically an audience - everyone was listening attentively - and was asked what my solution was. I said I wasn't a genius of social engineering, which got a laugh, but that clearly fear was the problem, not the solution, so we had to start addressing it as a problem. We had to start addressing people's desperation for resources which causes crimes and atomisation, and so on. Widespread agreement.
As utterly egocentric as this blog has been... no, I'm not even going to be apologetic about it. I convinced a room of people that humans weren't evil and that we don't need tyrants or masters to keep us safe. I feel happy about that. :) Stage 3 ftw.
MILK EARS
The debate started with several people claiming that despite this being a bleak philosophy, it was basically spot on. If people weren't scared of external threats or the state, there would be no need to behave in a civilised way, and we would fragment. Fear was presented as unifying force which we could all rally around. I actually almost felt too beleaguered to bother arguing against this awful shit at first. I was tired, no one seemed to want to look beyond a generic and all pervasive cynicism that we were naturally evil bastards and needed a tyrant to terrorise us into submission so that we would be safe from ourselves.
However. I thought I'd at least try to demonstrate why fear was not desirable in itself. I asked everyone to remember a time when they felt scared, and to comment on whether they acted and thought reasonably as a consequence or unreasonably. Personally, I am never so unreasonable as when I'm scared, I think. There was instant and widespread agreement about the irrationality that fear encourages. Thank god I thought. Some hope. Then another guy who often speaks and who I disagree with as much as agree with chimed in and said that fear did not produce unity, it fragmented people. Spot on. If you're scared of Johnny Foreigner, you will unite with non-foreigners but only by at the same time fragmenting yourself into a tiny little group against the world. If you're scared of terrorism, everyone with a backpack on public transport is a threat. No unity there. It is fear that breeds the irrational savagery that Hobbes thinks he's fighting against, not some natural evil in us.
Anyway the long story short is that Hobbes and Augustine were utterly, utterly destroyed in the debate. And I ended up with basically an audience - everyone was listening attentively - and was asked what my solution was. I said I wasn't a genius of social engineering, which got a laugh, but that clearly fear was the problem, not the solution, so we had to start addressing it as a problem. We had to start addressing people's desperation for resources which causes crimes and atomisation, and so on. Widespread agreement.
As utterly egocentric as this blog has been... no, I'm not even going to be apologetic about it. I convinced a room of people that humans weren't evil and that we don't need tyrants or masters to keep us safe. I feel happy about that. :) Stage 3 ftw.
MILK EARS
Friday, 22 January 2010
Everything Everything are an odd band.
Blitz, you test me, no more
I'm calm, now absent, I'm date-rape yellow, black to the liver come on
Take my lung, take my loose tongue, take my sum, take my memory
Of nothing at all, nothing at all is what you remind me
No thread, no lips, no postscripts, no eclipse of my liberty
Oh pedigree chum, pedigree chum I'm never your father
Cause you're gonna sit on your fence when I'm gone
Cause you're gonna sit on your fence when I'm not there
More, my arc light, my knees
When she casts off her clothes I don't know what is reality
My death throes, this indefinite pose, her flesh codes (inconceivable)
Oh suffragette, suffragette I wanna be outlawed and AWOL
No alphabet can be used yet no cassette is available
Oh I dunno how, I dunno how I'm gonna reset my whole radar
(Forget) Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm gone
(Forget) Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm not there
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm gone
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm not there
(To the back, to the back row)
Of nothing at all, nothing at all is what you remind me
Oh suffragette, suffragette I wanna be outlawed and AWOL but
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm gone
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm not there
I'm calm, now absent, I'm date-rape yellow, black to the liver come on
Take my lung, take my loose tongue, take my sum, take my memory
Of nothing at all, nothing at all is what you remind me
No thread, no lips, no postscripts, no eclipse of my liberty
Oh pedigree chum, pedigree chum I'm never your father
Cause you're gonna sit on your fence when I'm gone
Cause you're gonna sit on your fence when I'm not there
More, my arc light, my knees
When she casts off her clothes I don't know what is reality
My death throes, this indefinite pose, her flesh codes (inconceivable)
Oh suffragette, suffragette I wanna be outlawed and AWOL
No alphabet can be used yet no cassette is available
Oh I dunno how, I dunno how I'm gonna reset my whole radar
(Forget) Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm gone
(Forget) Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm not there
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm gone
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm not there
(To the back, to the back row)
Of nothing at all, nothing at all is what you remind me
Oh suffragette, suffragette I wanna be outlawed and AWOL but
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm gone
Cause you're gonna sit on the fence when I'm not there
My blog needs cheering up
I just woke up from an AWESOME dream where me and jess ran away from policemen who were chasing us. We had baseball bats which were for some reason dangerous beyond their being a baseball bat. We escaped by running into the london underground and different trains to anywhere, chucked the bats and changed our appearance, off at next stop, new train home. It was amazing. And then we called eachother up.
A prelude to re-entering the world
Have some bleak, stupid, crap writing.
-Jack. Jack, are you listening?
-How do I get out, that's my first question. How do I get out of here. Just give me my escape I don't want anything else. Oh resolution you say. I don't want your resolution. I don't want any fucking compromise with evil. You get me out. When was the last time anything got fucking resolved anyway, in your life, really? Come on now. Nothing is ever resolved. We just stop talking about it you know. We're all gonna die. There's our problem, where's our resolution? There's no resolution, none, we just don't really talk about it seriously because it's this great ugly mountain of a fact, and a mountain doesn't change with perspective, it's just a mountain.
-Jack, you're talking shit again. Now are you ready?
-Oh son, I was born unready.
-That's fine Jack, because your personal frailties don't excuse you from your duty.
-My duty to what exactly, what duty is there? I can't FACE this, what are you joking? Joking with me? I am Satan, death, a thousand plagues, and you're about to re-inflict me on the world you stupid, stupid old man.
-Jack, you're over-dramatizing how destructive you are as a defence mechanism again.
-Will you just stop that, okay? I'm not interested in your pot-shot psychology. The objective record is there, I am bad news and if I am not bad news it is due to having a muted effect on the world more than any deep inclination to the good that you keep saying you see in me. How many times do I have to fuck things up for you to see that, man.
-How many more times will I have to throw you back in, Jack, before you realise that escape is in the world and not outside of it? Or that you have responsibilities? Or that the universe does not sink or swim according to your failures and successes? If narcissism has got you this far... well it's time to look for alternatives, old friend.
-You're talking shit again.
-See you soon Jack.
Lights up. We see Jack, about 23 years old, dishevelled hair and generally blotchy, sitting on the floor hiding his face from t he audience with his hands. He has various dried blood stains on his clothes, hands and arms. A wise voice rings out; like god but with less bass rumble. The voice should be reassured, like Michael Caine or Morgan Freeman, and in slight comic contrast to Jack's frantic pace. Jack first addresses the audience only, and gradually more the voice.
-How do I get out, that's my first question. How do I get out of here. Just give me my escape I don't want anything else. Oh resolution you say. I don't want your resolution. I don't want any fucking compromise with evil. You get me out. When was the last time anything got fucking resolved anyway, in your life, really? Come on now. Nothing is ever resolved. We just stop talking about it you know. We're all gonna die. There's our problem, where's our resolution? There's no resolution, none, we just don't really talk about it seriously because it's this great ugly mountain of a fact, and a mountain doesn't change with perspective, it's just a mountain.
-Jack, you're talking shit again. Now are you ready?
-Oh son, I was born unready.
-That's fine Jack, because your personal frailties don't excuse you from your duty.
-My duty to what exactly, what duty is there? I can't FACE this, what are you joking? Joking with me? I am Satan, death, a thousand plagues, and you're about to re-inflict me on the world you stupid, stupid old man.
-Jack, you're over-dramatizing how destructive you are as a defence mechanism again.
-Will you just stop that, okay? I'm not interested in your pot-shot psychology. The objective record is there, I am bad news and if I am not bad news it is due to having a muted effect on the world more than any deep inclination to the good that you keep saying you see in me. How many times do I have to fuck things up for you to see that, man.
-How many more times will I have to throw you back in, Jack, before you realise that escape is in the world and not outside of it? Or that you have responsibilities? Or that the universe does not sink or swim according to your failures and successes? If narcissism has got you this far... well it's time to look for alternatives, old friend.
-You're talking shit again.
-See you soon Jack.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
What a hero.
I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence. - Eugene Debs
War is a spectator sport
One day we were arguing about the war
In the pub
With massive gravitas, Ma said
Our Jonathon's gone away to fight
He's fighting for democracy and our right to be free
He's keeping us safe while we sleep at night
We're all to be proud of him, proud as can be
With what I hoped was equally massive gravitas I said
Our Jonathon's gone to die as a puppet and slave
And get innocent blood on his hands
He'll think it's civilization he's going to save
Not just dropping bombs on strange lands
Then I saw an old man, with medals, in the corner
And I thought
And I thought
That war is a spectator sport
From the sidelines come our claps and jeers
And our touching eulogies for those who've fought
Then we shake our heads.
And drink our beers.
In the pub
With massive gravitas, Ma said
Our Jonathon's gone away to fight
He's fighting for democracy and our right to be free
He's keeping us safe while we sleep at night
We're all to be proud of him, proud as can be
With what I hoped was equally massive gravitas I said
Our Jonathon's gone to die as a puppet and slave
And get innocent blood on his hands
He'll think it's civilization he's going to save
Not just dropping bombs on strange lands
Then I saw an old man, with medals, in the corner
And I thought
And I thought
That war is a spectator sport
From the sidelines come our claps and jeers
And our touching eulogies for those who've fought
Then we shake our heads.
And drink our beers.
Hardy
“’Peace upon earth!' was said.
We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.”
We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.”
Sunday, 17 January 2010
So
Poetry went well tonight, got warmly received and personally invited to a slam by the guy who ran it. That was cool.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
New Poem - No Offence To Robert Burns, But
My love for you is nothing like a red red rose
You aren't really like a summer's day
I couldn't spend a lifetime with the scent of your clothes
And I wouldn't fall apart if you felt you couldn't stay
I don't think you're an angel, or anything transcendent
You're not necessarily the first thing I think of when I wake
I don't need you, you aren't my saviour, I'm not dependent
And I won't mischaracterise us for poetry's sake because
My love for you is honest, honest and real
Grounded in our conversations and every kiss we steal
Humming loud out of our cuddles
That's how I feel, anyway
There's no need to write a sonnet or put on some big display
My love for you is simple. And that's okay.
You aren't really like a summer's day
I couldn't spend a lifetime with the scent of your clothes
And I wouldn't fall apart if you felt you couldn't stay
I don't think you're an angel, or anything transcendent
You're not necessarily the first thing I think of when I wake
I don't need you, you aren't my saviour, I'm not dependent
And I won't mischaracterise us for poetry's sake because
My love for you is honest, honest and real
Grounded in our conversations and every kiss we steal
Humming loud out of our cuddles
That's how I feel, anyway
There's no need to write a sonnet or put on some big display
My love for you is simple. And that's okay.
Monday, 11 January 2010
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Sleep Walking
Dear older self, as I write this I’m already trying to work out how to impress you. Or at least, you know, avoid embarrassment. Straight away I want to try to apologise for myself, hide embarrassing stains underneath the rug like a paranoid mother before a visit from Gran. But then, I suppose it’s impossible to legislate for the future, and I suppose I should stop worrying or I’ll never get anything done. So I’ll just say hello. And, obviously, I hope you’re okay.
Dear older self, I think I think too much and I realise that that’s ironic. It reminds me of what that girl said to me at the party. She came over to me smiling and held my temples like she was going to read my mind. She said, “Honey… don’t think too much” and smiled wider but with pity in her eyes. Then she danced away into another room. It was as if she didn’t have to work at being comfortable with herself like the rest of us do. As if self-assurance just uncoiled from somewhere in her tummy and warmed her head quiet. Actually, a lot of people seem like that. Anyway another thing that bothers me is you can’t stop thinking too much. Never just like that, anyway, and surely not in the same way that you can stop eating too many iced buns. Minds don’t go blank… Do they? Perhaps one day they’ll invent some kind of neurological slim-fast to help you deal with all the unnecessary mind-fat. That would be nice. I don’t think I’d eat it, though. I want an iced bun.
Dear older self, I realise that it’s a faux pas to talk directly about ideas in writing. You’re supposed to show them. You have to hint and imply them by describing events that happen in reality. If I said to you that I feel sad, that’s insufficient. I’ve got to talk what happened that made me sad, how the sadness is expressed. I’m supposed to couch it in metaphor and tell you all about my deep oceans of alienation and all the rest of it. But I think that metaphor can cloud the world as much as illuminate it. And, you know, I really want to talk directly about ideas. I want to talk about immortality and euthanasia. I want to talk about our tendency to be too anthropomorphic and at the same time subscribe to an entrenched misanthropy, and how it’s silly to hate humans in the abstract because we had no hand in our own creation and we only do what comes naturally to us. I want to talk about how god doesn’t exist. I want to talk about how we all used to be babies and how we have to squeeze each drop of our maturity from experiences, and how these experiences are usually things going wrong. But the trouble with talking directly about your ideas is, people don’t really care very much about each other’s ideas. Most of the time that is. My mum says I have to experience life before my ideas can have validity. My stepdad says if I don’t get my head out of the clouds he’ll drag it out for me. I think he says that because he has had a tough life, and because he is drunk quite often. He’s always asking me when I’ll move out, and why don’t I give him and my mum some fucking space and if I think my thoughts will pay the bills. But this is a letter to myself, and I don’t feel too bad about breaking the rules. By the way, I hope you are still breaking the rules.
Dear older self, Becca sat next to me in maths today. I did the work; of course, I always do the work, but about 98% of my mind was locked tight on the feeling of the smooth, cool skin of her arm brushing against mine. It made me feel a bit light-headed and I don’t quite know why because I’d never thought of her like that, in fact I’d never really thought about her at all before today, but I liked the feeling I must admit. So anyway I went looking for her at lunch and tried to say hi, but she just looked away, as if she was really embarrassed.
Dear older self, maybe we’re all just trying to escape, and leap up out of this grey-faced, messy, baffling planet to some place where strife is foreign, like a chocolate factory.
Dear older self, I sleep walk most nights. I wonder if you still do when you read this. Perhaps you’ll have outgrown it. Probably you will.
Dear older self, my stepfather hit me today. Wake the fuck up, you fucking self–absorbed little CUNT, he said. Wake up, wake up. It was dark outside, and I was about to start writing another letter to you and I heard him pace into the room breathing like a rhinoceros in labour or something, and I thought that was pretty funny so I started laughing. I hear the footsteps stop but the breathing carries on, right, and I just keep laughing, I’m pretty much cracking up, and I hear the breathing stop but I’m still tickled pink by my rhino image and there’s tears rolling down my face where I’m laughing so much, and then he hits me really hard on the side of my head and lifts me off the chair onto the floor, and I sort of still want to laugh, but I feel a bit sick, and so I get up and hobble towards the kitchen to get some water and Becca is in my mind for some reason, wake up Daniel, wake up, wake the fuck up you self absorbed little CUNT, and I just keep walking and then I’m back on the floor and I can’t really move much and there’s blood all over my pyjamas and I think I can hear my mum crying.
Dear older self, I actually don’t much mind hospitals. They’re nice there, and you can just let your mind float out into space a bit.
Dear older self, even though my mum and the doctors say I shouldn’t feel responsible, I think he was sort of right about waking up, and so I’m going to stop writing letters to a hypothetical me that doesn’t even exist yet. (No offence) Living in the clouds is only fun if the ground you stand on is steady. My aunt Julie read that last sentence half an hour ago, and she says I should try writing poems, but I think that she missed the point a bit. I’ve stopped sleep-walking, but my chocolate factory dreams swim through my head at night, more vividly than ever. I haven’t told anyone.
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