Becoming A Singularity July 16, 2016
Posted by voolavex in Social Issues.Tags: Aldous, alien astronauts, Almighty, app, Arthur C., bigots, black hole, Black people, Carl Sagan, Cosmos, earth, Elon, even horizen, George, greed, Jews, Kim Kardashian, Life on Mars, Mary Roach, microchip, Millennials, money, nano, Online info, peace, Religion, sic-fi, singularity
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We know a singularity is not unique in the cosmos, but it is clearly unique to this world. We have no event horizon to compare, therefore no directions or exit strategy exist to fix it. Or even try. In our existence – for all practical purposes, it is one of a kind. And because we truly believe history repeats itself*, it becomes an accelerated waiting game. Momentum is building faster than we imagined and like momentum it simply goes on until the end. Imploding. A black hole. Ask a physicist all about it. But chaos has begun, in my eyes, to ensue.
The world is panicking. If you describe it in terms of “hotspots”, we have created a new circle of hell. If you are a firefighter, we are engaged in a global inferno and if you are an American you are becoming more and more afraid. I think it’s an understandable reaction. As we have established America as the place on the planet from whence all things come – good and bad (and might I add, in error). We are ill-equipped for the bad part. American pride has been worn as a badge for 240 years. And just as we exported ourselves as champions of freedom, justice and the American way – we have also exported bad habits, excess, precedents that should never have been, propaganda, and just about everything we could to inculcate ourselves into the collectives minds of the world. It seems to me that we did not export any brains, morality or genuine goodwill, because all we thought we sent was all we thought was important. The lapses in judgment of our history are far too serious to ignore; but ignore them we do.
We have a world in which flags stay at half mast – as if with electronic media one needs a reminder. And electronic media surely bears some of the blame; lots of the blame. It is not better to know it all , all the time. Perhaps millennials believe they can handle it but I think it’s bravado. They can’t imagine they can’t. The app genius that created instant access to every damn thing did not have the time to experience or posit all the ramifications. If there is a world left; we will soon not have to ever think for ourselves. Every sci-fi scenario you have read will be an app. And this can be a game of sorts – a sad game – add your comment to the list of
Some things one will not have to learn:
How to drive and park a car.
How to actually search for information w/o
the Smartphone (where the only thing that is smart IS the phone)
How to start a coup.
Methods of mass murder
All the words to all the songs
Having an opinion
Directions
How to humiliate, shame and possibly drive to suicide, a peer.
How to lie effectively (excellent news for hatchling politicians)
How to hate.
The new kids will never have to worry about keeping a secret. The gender of their baby. Which politician is being indicted. Time to learn knowledge that forms human experience. Because when you live “in the moment” – it starts to become the tunnel of life. They will have things that do things for them. And because the ones who came before will reach their out of code date and soon expire; there won’t even be a memory to be had. But there will be an app for that.
Life on Mars. Elon – stifle yourself. Read Mary Roach. Ask an astronaut. It sounds like a fun idea – but I wouldn’t count on that. And if we fuck up this planet – how dare we start on another?
Peace is a construct – we have never had it. We are a bellicose species. We LIKE blood and death. If we didn’t we would try very hard not to do it. We are trying it with “companion animals”, trials on humans will not happen soon.
Money is the root of all evil. But it has been upgraded to a revenue stream – like the Granta or the Charles or the Seine. If you accept greed as a virtue there will always haves and have nots.
BIGOTS. Like cockroaches, they may inherit the remains. Racial hatred is alive and well and online. Quick fixes have not worked for centuries and those who may be able think outside the box will likely try to find an app to fix it soon. It may not be Jews or Black people – but it will still exist.
Do you worry about your online info? I hear so many folks who won’t do somethings, yet offer their info up for others. Get a clue – THEY know. The way you blithely microchip your pet will one day be the way you do the same to your baby. I am surprised it isn’t done to convicts in the privately owned, for profit, prisons today. Or dementia sufferers. Your naughty pix online? If you did it and posted it – it is always there. Yup Kim Kardashian’s ass and twat will forever appear in two shakes of a nano. Oh Aldous, George, Arthur how did you know? (Were they a warning or how-to guides?).
And in closing – The Almighty? Those who choose “yes” should stop praying and start being very angry. The Deity appears to prefer hate and bloodlust very well and is hypocrite. For others. Is it, as alien astronaut theorists suggest, them? If so, then it is clearly evident that whoever did it, is disgusted. Is it simply the cosmos, as Carl Sagan insisted, then it is completely strange to seem to be a one-off in the universe. All votes are not in. But the Giant Fan of Life on Earth is definitely being hit. Will anyone see this and turn it off?
*History seems to be repetitive but it does not set any examples we absorb. Therefore it is an exercise in futility whose course cannot be changed. So we don’t bother.
Appreciation and Depreciation April 8, 2014
Posted by voolavex in common sense, freedom, Random thoughts, Social Issues.Tags: app, guns, Jews, life, mother, time
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In a blinding epiphany last night, I realized that I am beginning to appreciate my life Accomplishments are not appreciation. Accomplishments are simply the things you have done and they have a positive aura – but even robbing a bank can be a sort of accomplishment. It is not so much the “aha” moments – but the number of them that snowball down the side of our individual middens as we careen through the years. And we do careen – I can’t walk a straight line in bare feet anymore. Sad. True.
In my case it was like suddenly understanding string theory or hearing the music of the spheres or realizing that all the crap I think is crap IS crap. I no longer ask why we cling to our 2nd Amendment rights, nor shoot each other or serial kill each other – that’s what we watch on the screen. Big, little, on demand, anytime – click and kill. There’s an app for it. But I now appreciate that this is what is happening and I can see it and despair or see it and know I will not change my direction due to it. For example; I do not own a gun. The reason is simple. Fear that I will use it. Most people don’t actually think of this when they shy away from the gun issue. They are afraid it will get into the wrong hands, they hate guns, it won’t make a difference in the long haul. Not me. I am simply afraid I will not be afraid, I will be the wrong hands and I will use it. My feeling is that to own a gun you must be willing to use it. My fear is that I would. So no gun. But it is the appreciation of that knowledge that anchors me and lets me out of the whole argument. Guns may not kill people, but people with guns do. I am grateful I am not a bigot. I like being a Jew. I do not trust Putin. I know I am being watched. I treasure the right to vote and still get a frisson of joy when I do it. I do not miss having grandchildren (from my own kids).
As I really begin to appreciate these small things, other smaller ones follow. I hate to go to movies. Very simple. I do not like to go. And I get so many arguments (not offers) and find myself using hackneyed phrases like “it’s not my cup of tea” – and this works because everyone knows what a cup of tea is. I have no desire to own property. I have by and large always been a cliff dweller (as my mother would say) and I like apartment living. It’s not for everyone, but it is for me. And all this appreciation is not always positive. I realize that I was a very terrible mother – something two other adults know too. And in the fullness of knowing comes the reality there is nothing I can do to go back and do better. Even though I know better. But I do know it and I can say it and I know why it is true. I don’t want to have a dog. I do like the way many dogs look, but they are not an animal that lures me. For some this is character flaw – but it’s just what I know.As I know I like red meat. And these shocks of wisdom – as I personally depreciate and time becomes more scarce also allow me to let stuff go. Like movie theaters, mortgages and dusting. They allow me to read India (my preferred subject matter), mystery novels, genetics, Jewish history, and anything else whose title sounds alluring. Because I appreciate that time does flow like a river and we all sink at some point as we float.
Is there a message in all this – kinda. If you can feel the shocks of appreciation, wait for even more. You will get them and for the fortunate ones who do, they will lighten it up as you drift – the buoyancy will astonish you as it does me and you may even appreciate that our demographic may be the last who can do this and probably because there is no app for it.