Now I own three people.
They call it saving lives. I call it purchasing.
And I'm calling it "Greedtaking". It is deeply rooted in the traditions of the 'New World', like Thanksgiving, but it celebrates the other side of the spectrum.
Instead of each person bringing some food to share at a table of friends, each person gets as much food as he or she can and stores it in a little dark room for a week of private feasting. I call this disaster scenario- just like if a meteor were going to strike earth, everyone would be in a mad rush to clear out the supermarkets of all food items. Those that don't collect enough food to survive the restocking period will perish, and rightly so. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. Darwin.
In the case that there is a disaster, we will know exactly how to survive. The key is to hoard everything for yourself. The victor will repopulate the globe. If we had a national crisis, and everyone did the thanksgiving routine, we would last for one day. Though- a glorious day it would be...
So, as some of you may or may not know, I'm not big on holidays. In fact, given the option I don't celebrate anything. Thanksgiving is no exception, so for the last two days I've been eating chinese food. Why? Because believe it or not the chinese don't really celebrate thanksgiving either, and consequentially are the only places open. But thanks great, because I love chinese food with a passion.
Last night we were driving around, looking for a place to eat, and it seemed like the only people on the road were in our predicament. But nothing was open, not fast food, not even the grocery stores.
Why? I would work on thanksgiving, why is it that people like me can't get jobs?
These holidays are probably bad for the economy. I wonder how much shit we wasted yesterday across the country.
I wish we reproduced with spores. Life would be so much easier.
Also, we should have mating calls. With the vibrant, inflatable doohickies.
Just to disrupt the classroom if nothing else.
I just want to see a bunch of guys doing their mating calls and releasing spores around a girl. That would be the funniest shit...
This isn't one of those things I can straight out answer. It confuses me, but I'll try to explain what I'm asking myself and what I know about it:
"Why am I a human? Why am I who I am, and not someone else?" There are many brains out there, yet I am perceiving reality through this one. ...Why?
It's a tough question. Obviously, if you were an animal of some sort, it's a question you would never ask. So part of it is that- It might surprise you that you're human as opposed to any other creature, because as a human you can make that realization about yourself and question it. As a human, we can also ask, "Why am I this particular human? But consider if you were able to switch your perception to a different one- Whoever took your body would now be asking the same question you just asked, and you would share the same concerns as the person who's brain you entered. This is all hypothetical, but if everyone looked through a different set of eyes every... 12 seconds, nobody would have the capability of realizing it, because memory is still part of the physical world, and spirit doesn't share this quality. So whatever force, or spirit, transfers between minds every 12 seconds is the same as all the other spirits. If not, we would observe it.
But that still doesn't explain anything. The spirit was hypothetical, it doesn't exist.
The brain is the only element that applies in this scenario, you are a product of it. When a brain develops, it must think, and consequently becomes another object capable of defining itself as a "Me".
But beyond that, when I contemplate this subject i just get stuck. I come up with an answer that isn't an answer at the same time. We are all the same, in that each brain can be in the same conundrum. They wonder why they are who they are just as you do. So lets assume that consciousness is not created, it is divided, and each of those divisions can experience something else, but only the thing it experiences. Our brains cant simply divide, we have to start from basics and work our way up using DNA. But if you were created through mitosis, you would consider your mom the same person as you, relatively. But the way in which we reproduce ourselves results in entirely new memories, and perspective of time (in that we look back and notice we're further down the chain than our parents). But otherwise, we're the same people as our parents, so you could in theory say that you and your parents were once one, not divided.
But this has to be the most confusing subject I've ever encountered. It hurts my brain to think about it.
Here is something that I know, that other people should. It's the nature of gravity.
Surprisingly, many people do not understand what gravity is. These are the people who think that if you leave earth's atmosphere, you become weightless and float around, because there is no Gravity. There is. In fact, there is the same amount of gravity, relatively, as on the surface.
So why do you float in space? Well, first you must understand that these astronauts are in Orbit. If you throw an object on earth, its path with gravity is a curve, the faster you throw it, the less curved this travel is. If you throw it around 18,000 mph, the curve matches the curve of earth, and it will not hit the ground. We have to do this in space, because we don't feel like burning up.
We float because we are in constant freefall. Or rather, because our surroundings are falling at the same rate as us, so it seems like we have a O net force to that surrounding.
What would we have to do to completely escape gravity, and not be in freefall? Well, you even if you escape earth's pull a sufficient amount, you are still in freefall around the sun. And worse yet, freefall around the galaxy. After that, who knows... But what awaits us beyond gravity? It's a little known fact that time flows faster further away from gravity. A chemical process, or a clock, will go faster at the top of a skyscaper than it will on the surface. This could point to the very nature of gravity itself- which I have discussed in "unified theory?"
So if we escape freefall, and remain at a point untouched by gravity, everything around you will appear to stand still. You will age very quicky compared to sombody within a gravitational field. Similarly, if you were at the center of the sun, or a black hole, and could see the worlds around you... they would go by extremely quickly. You would appear immortal to them, but normal to yourself. You always appear normal to yourself.
So that's gravity. When I was little I thought if I took a bottle and used my lungs to create a vacuum, the drops would float around. In fact, this would make them heavier, but the fact was that I was completely delusional. But I was young. But this is how many ADULTS envision space! When you leave earths atmosphere, you can just stay there and float around. If you just stayed there, you would fall back to earth and never experience weightlessness except on your decent. :D
Why do you think the rockets that go to the moon are so frigging huge? And the moon is also in freefall around the earth, which is in freefall around the sun, etc etc.
I love gravity.
This subject bugs me. Do I believe in fate? Not on a small scale, but on a large scale I believe in "inevitabilities". Do I believe in choice and free will? Yes, I see it on the same scale you do, but I define it differently.
There are those who think that thought cannot be predicted on any scale, that it is separated completely from the natural world (and I can only imagine, physics.).
Ok, most people don't believe in evolution. That's despicable, but our own complexity and the ability to question our origins would lead us to believe in supernatural, because we wonder why we are human, or all creatures. This reveals a level of ignorance that I cringe to think exists. But this is not the deepest, darkest, "special hell" of ignorance. Oh no...
Recently, I suggested a bit of knowledge to a debate which included the fact that if one were to recreate the big bang exactly, life on earth would make the same decisions. But NO! Even the atheists appeared to take offense to this fact, except one or two. They insisted that determinism doesn't work in the physical or biological world. (everything naturally along certain rules and guides.)
Here's a little fact: If you are an atheist, you better believe this, because that is your entire belief. That is what separates the atheists from the agnostics. (why on earth are agnostics, who supposedly do not think it matters whether or not there is a god, participating in such debates? :P)
Choice appears the same in my view as it does in any other view. We're all looking at the same thing, I'm just defining it as being explainable. Explainable or not, the variety and complexity will still produce what we consider free choice. Nothing is deciding what we think or choose along a divine plan, but you can track the actions of a human brain if you had sufficient knowledge and computing power to simulate it.
If this wasn't the case, I don't think the brain would work.
Take the cell, for instance. There isn't any intelligence present. Or at least no consciousness, sentience, or self awareness. Yet the cell does complicated things. We have looked very closely at the cell, and everything we have discovered reveals a process and explanation that is natural, for those things that have been completely discovered. We don't say that the cell chooses to do the things it does, because we assume there is a fairly direct action/reaction response.
We're made up of these cells, so I don't see where the supernatural element comes in, which is what you're suggesting. You're saying that somewhere along the line, these cells operate in a way that is totally unpredictable even taking in the hypothetical scenario where we know everything about how these cells operate.
You make choices based on knowledge. So if you make a mistake, that's incomplete knowledge, not free will at its best. Having a brain controlled naturally does not mean one is all-knowing or flawless. It doesn't mean that if you kill someone it was something that should go unpunished. Because the punishment will impact the judgement of a brain which portrays a murderous ideology. There isn't anyone enslaved into this kind of behavior, because one is not separate from his brain. If you decide to commit a crime, you are still rightly punished even with the argument "Oh, it was my brain's fault, not mine". Additionally, you should be put to death if you think in those terms, because you're a danger to society.
There would still be right and wrong, because the basic feelings are survival traits. Right and Wrong shows underlying certainties, not free will.
Why does killing another human feel wrong? Did you decide to feel that way?
I don't know how someone can believe in these two things simultaneously: Human behavior cannot be determined on any scale, and manic depression is genetically inherited.These people also think that homosexuality is a choice, not inherited.
It's one thing to deny what we assume but cannot see, another to deny what we can see and know.
A hospital in India had a diabetic patient with an eye infection, the eye was bandaged, and the patient started complaining. "Pain is normal after surgery", they told her.
When it was time for the bandages to be removed, her eye was a gaping hole, filled with ants.
That has to be horrible to experience. But what if it were something that flew, like bees? That might be cool, actually... The bandages are lifted, and through your other eye you see them dart out. And you are labeled the mother bee.
Your eye socket is a honeycomb hive, like a cyborg. Except with bees.
Perhaps you could use them against people. "What did you say to me?" *bees buzz loudly* "You're going to regret saying that, to ME" And then you could squint your hive, and the bees would attack.
You would be the best super-villian of them all. BEEMAN!
I'm an idiot.
I just want to comment on the apparent direction of time. Because while for all purposes we can say it flows in one direction, we could be totally wrong and not be capable of realizing it. If time slowed down, to you it would seem normal, because the process of thinking would be slowed the same way as the world around you. So if time were oscillating from fast to slow, to us it would be one continuous strain. But let's take this to the extreme; Assume that time is going in reverse, to the human mind, there would be no knowledge of whatever thoughts time was deleting, all there would still be the present and the past, just going in another direction.
Now assume that time is a record in the hands of a disc-jockey. It goes forward, backward, fast and slow, it skips and repeats. The human perception is still completely bound to time, so it would look like one continuous strand.
It's just like rewinding a movie, in that the characters don't get all disoriented when it happens.
Scary, eh? Probably doesn't happen, but the potential is there.
Could it be that time goes forward from the big bang, and then back in reverse, then forward again? If that were the case, once the universe starts collapsing again, the progress of mankind would stop, and go back. We would devolve, and our planet would break up, but we would always think we're going forward. We would relive our best and worst moments, (a true heaven and hell). Then it would go forward once more. Over and over.
Could the purpose of life be to reverse time? That would be interesting.
There were over 300 posts here that were spam. I figured out how to delete them efficiently (one at a time wasn't fast enough).
So now they're gone, for the most part. :)
I might add some graphics to the site. Copying steelix's idea.
This guy... Well...
Recently we've been having problems with him. We've accused him of being racist, even though he preaches God's word. We've heard from his wife that he's gay, and they were divorced recently because of it.
And now, apparently he's in jail for attempted kidnapping. Judging from the picture, I don't think there's much hope for him.
Here's the story
Bob, (or Robert, I guess) I can picture doing something like this. I can see him walking over to a random person, adult or child, and talking to them about the most random shit you can imagine. He's a lonely but sociable guy. This could be a case of him picking the wrong people to talk to. He just doesn't think.
He's made some weird comments to me, if I recall, about my hair or my clothes. "You look like Tom Cruise", or something dumb like that. It's perfectly reasonable to think that he just saw a little girl and decided, "Oh, I'll just talk to her for a while, see what she has to say." (he often visits prisons to talk to people there, mainly about God.), "Hey, you're tall for your age. How tall are you? You might be almost as tall as me! Hey, I have a tape measurer lemme check. You know, I have some of my ex-wife's clothes that might fit you..." Who knows...
Or, he could be homosexual and a pedophile. But what about his religion? Could it be, after he found out he was gay, he changed his mind, or became angry with god and decided to do horrible things? Maybe he wants to be in jail for the soap on a rope benefits? Did he want to prove it to himself that he wasn't gay? Could he have become obsessed with fate and the idea of free will? Indeed, it could be that he thought whatever he did was part of god's plan.
Bail was raised from $2,000 dollars to $100,000. Police recognize him from another incident on halloween, apparently.
I hope this doesn't go public and ruin my chances of running for office. Damn you, Bob!!
This theory is wrong for one, plain and simple reason: There isn't enough water for a global flood.
Here's a better Noah theory... Most life-forms are about 50% water, right? Well, maybe god makes it all drain out of the sinful folk or whatever. And then there's Noah, who misheard God's message and got all paranoid, thinking that there was going to be a massive flood... So he built a massive boat. Then he rounded up all the animals he could before the time came. He looked on his sun-dial, said a little prayer or whatever, and held on for dear life. But there was only a little water... It was like the kind of wave that skims across the sand on a beach.
Well, Noah was clearly embarrassed. He had this big ol ark and all, but it was merely splashed. But there was nobody around to laugh at him, and none of the animals cared, so he figured he could just fabricate most of the story to make it more interesting. As for the ark, he was hoping he could just float it over to a mountain as proof, but he might have just burned it.
Hell, maybe it wasn't so big. Maybe he made a canoe but figured nobody would know how big it was anyway.
Something I like doing is randomly asking "Did I say that out loud?", and then the people around me will pause for a second, "Uh, no... I don't think you did..." And then with a great sigh of relief, I'll say "Thank god for THAT."
This works best when a group of friends inexplicably goes silent. Or my favorite, on a first date, when your walking her to the door.
So, I volunteered for the special election. I woke up at 4:30am, got to my polling place at 6:00am, and stayed there till 10:00 pm.
I now officially know everything there is to know about voting. I think when I'm eligible to vote, I'll screw everything up just so I can handle it like a pro.
And I will never, EVER, get annoyed with the people working at the booth. It's a dull job with slave wages. Hell, I'll tip them.
This is what bothers me more than the fact that there are people in this world that believe in God- They don't even get god right.
There are those who say that God is a man, and those who say that God is a woman. However, God is an it.
There is no need for God to mate, or reproduce. If god needs a son, (which God wouldn't, being god) it could make this son with its mind.Besides the fact that God wouldn't be able to exist in a physical form, lest it be a contradiction of itself.
Gender is a purely mortal trait. It's one of the mechanisms of evolution. If God felt the need to orgasm, it could do it through thought.
The personification of God in any degree is the result of living in the head too much. There is not one thing similar between life and God, not even thought, as god can think instantaneously if it even has the need to think at all, being all-knowing and never contemplating. The other aspects of god are immortality and omnipotency. Life is mortal, and no matter can be created nor destroyed.
God does not look like you. If God had a physical form than there would be a seconded God to design that form. Does not have morals. Creating a perfect reality would slow God down. You know that bad things happen to good people, God has determined that this can occur because it is the fastest course of action in the long run, God should not burden itself with caring if lives are destroyed. God does not listen to you. God would have known since the beginning of time what you would say to it, and it knows better than you what to do, being all-wise or what have you. If you pray for something that God had originally intended, well Good for you, dipshit. You predicted the future in the stupidest way you could.
God is so unreliable most of the time. Why do people trust in God, rather than themselves? Faith? Is that the same thing that makes your prayers not come true?
Thank *** our brains are still evolving, because humans are idiots.
When I get my own place, I'm handing out pennies. Why? Because kids are spoiled.
I remember when I would get pennies from the old lady on our street, but nowadays it's all candy and drugs and groping... Where are the pennies??
And we took the pennies. We took the candy we didn't even like...
These kids will take everything. I think If I scooped up lasagna with a spatula they would keep their baggies open as I dropped it in.
What will they turn down? Roaches? But I bet they wouldn't turn down little froggies and shaved hamsters. And imagine what would happen when they got home, dumping their bags out all over the floor? "Oh, that's right, we got frogs and hamsters from Mr. Haworth. MOM! CATCH THE FUCKING FROGS!" *Thomas tries to find a place to put his shaved hamster. He puts it on a table and covers it with a bowl. *billy stared down at the floor. A big slab of lasagna is slowly soaking into the carpet, covered in hair and mixed in with a cupcake.* "This is the best halloween of our lives, you realize that?"
And it would be. Every year I would do something else to make sure each generation of children only show up at my house once. I will steal all the neighborhood pets and re-disperse them equally. "...was that a cat?" *door slam* "Hello? You gave me a cat..."
and the next year I will build a little 3-inch wall around my door, and fill it with baby ducklings. And as they walk carefully, I will wait in the bushes with a duck call and a bag of chips. Oh yes... *crunchQUaCK!* "SHITS! WHY ARE THESE DUCKS HERE?"