Virtual Illusions

Parked in the parking lot outside (at work) is a Ford Aspire. Not so odd in and of itself, but it is decorated with those little magnetic poetry words. Probably 2-3 sets all over the vehicle. I was tempted to arrange a phrase but that seemed a bit odd besides, I was late.

Culture, Life

Why People Believe Weird Things
by Michael Shermer, editor in chief of Skeptic magazine

Media, Philosophy/Religion

I consider the perfect intellectual point to be the point where I need believe nothing. My atheism is simply the denial of others unfounded assertions.

We are flawed as any other people and sometimes wrap ourselves up in active denial for reasons of defense or attack. But I think a majority of us are most comfortable at the point when we don’t have to claim believe in anything.

That zen state of no-belief is hard to attain in a complicated society but it is goal born out of hearing all sorts of proof only later to hear the slant that makes it sound like proof.

–Zafkiel

Philosophy/Religion

In response to http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=15645556

The Hebrews knew nothing about microbacterial disease, etc. They knew that certain things killed them. That is the what not the Why. Long term pathology isn’t a necessary piece of information all that needs to be known is those of us who live long lives don’t eat pork. If everyone already eats pork that is hard to discover but, if most people don’t because their father who never ate pork, never fed it to them it becomes easier.

If memes have any validity, then it becomes clear that any meme in support of any action that is largely fatal will be at a disadvantage to a contradictory meme that saves a life. Eat pork vs don’t eat pork. Over a sufficient period of time the successful and unsuccessful strategies would sort themselves out.

I am not a scholar of ancient times but I think there are some premises you are assuming that I do not accept. I consider the Old Testament the writing down of two things. There are the word of mouth stories that almost all have their origin before the old testament. And they’re writing down the practical laws. Since last I heard the old testament was written over something on the order of 900 years I have no issue discounting what Moses “said.”

As for the argument that if everyone knew them they wouldn’t have to be written down, I’ll direct you to the basic moral laws embodied in don’t steal and don’t kill. I think a reasonable intelligent person could have derived that there would be consequences in the form of retribution and vengeance for those actions. They did not need to be written down, but they were anyway. They were written down because they were key to the survival of the society, as the dietary laws were written down because they are important to the survival of the individual.

Like I said I’m not a scholar but I’d be surprised if agrarian societies did not know that information it would have been key to their survival. I think that there was a lot of information that was lost to a number of sources over the years. Among them were the book burners who destroyed Plato and Socrates in Europe, they was re-imported from the Arabs, other books may not have been so lucky. There was also the scientific elites who believed folk remedies and wisdom was beneath them.

I find is surprising that there are no other texts covering most of the material, but I can neither confirm or deny the truth of that assertion. I would suspect most of information was passed on word of mouth and where it was written down it would have been in books that someone considered of an occult nature not medical.

I’ll leave it to those of more schooled in ancient history support or deny my assertions.

–Zafkiel

Culture, Philosophy/Religion

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must
be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting
victims of the darkness.

–Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts
by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then
their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to
destroy.

– Christopher Dawson

Politics, Quote

It occurs to me that the lottery can be construed as a voluntary tax. I don’t mean that in the sense of the old line “… tax on people who are bad at math.” I mean much more directly. If a state runs a lottery they convince some number of people to buy in. Each of those people gives the governmental organization $x. The government takes .33x to finance schools or some such, that is the direct tax. Whatever is left is eventually awarded to some schmuck who buys into this game. The IRS immediately swoops in the collect 50+% or winnings as the indirect tax. In general meaning the government has just 66%+ of the lottery money into their own pocket from those who can ill afford to give.

Exact numbers and percentages may be off, underlying theory is sound.

It strikes me that the lottery is the dollar auction game on a grand scale.

The Dollar auction game is played by saying. I will auction off this dollar bill, lets start the bidding at 10 cents. The wrinkle is that the top 2 bidders have to pay me but only the top bidder gets the dollar. Psychological tests of the dollar auction indicate the average winning bid is between $3 and $4. Auctions often end when someone runs out of money.

The lottery over time is such an auction the participant is invested in the auction by buying tickets over time. They misjudge the meaning of statistics and feel like they are favored since they have invested so much in the past.

It is a sad and dishonest and should be illegal like other con games.

Culture, Politics

The pretense that religion is inevitably an ennobling experience stands in absurd denial of a harsh reality reported in daily headlines. A dangerous pretense, but one that politicians find all too useful.

– Robert Scheer, syndicated columnist, 8/21/2001

Philosophy/Religion, Politics, Quote

The Dragons of Tiananmen: Beijing as a Sacred City
Myths in Stone: Religious Dimensions of Washington, D.C.
by Jeffrey F. Meyer

Media

Air conditioning broke Saturday night. I am not happy. I need to call a repair person today and try and set up a time when they can rescue my sorry sweltering self. I don’t know what this is going to cost me. I hope not to much. Doug says he knows a good AC person.

Not happy.

Life

So Tues. I was at Philosophy on Tap and in a walked a woman I thought I recognized couldn’t place her for a bit, but eventually I did she was the reporter who covered the the wake after the first Motley Fool layoffs.

Some have held true animosity towards her ascribing epitaphs such as “emotion sucking vampire bitch” and others. I held a more neutral view. The story wasn’t overly slanted or biased it was merely unseemly to have here there at such a painful event. It was personal and she robbed us of our privacy in our moment of grief.

Her presence at another one of my bars (what is she following me around from bar to bar) reporting on another aspect of my life (though not as personal or as private) left a bad taste in my mouth. I just thought it wrong to have her there. She used the time to write this article.

Leave me to live my own life thank you very much.

Life, News