The larger, more successful websites on the internet have many things disturbing in common. One of these is the ability to flag 'inappropriate' material.
This is actually snitching, and this snitching is anonymous. At least to the person who posted the flagged material (the websites themselves know who you are, that you're a snitch, that they can't sell certain ('inappropriate') material to you). But the rest of us lose out. The rest of us are snitched upon. The rest of us get censored, with very little effort on the corporation's part, and very little evidence that it ever occurred. And there's nothing we can do about it, except re-post the 'inappropriate' material.
For example, the video "Censoring Cunt" is a piece of art that shows some of the art that has been censored over the years. It was originally posted on youtube, but ironically it was censored and removed. It is now hosted on google video (owned by the same company), and hasn't yet been censored.
So stop snitching, stop censoring, stop flagging.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
A Narrative of Three
There are three things.
There is the tehom, the chaotic, oceanic pool of potential.
There is the Go()ds, the pluri-singular call to go()dness.
And there is the creation, the universe that is creating itself.
In the beginning was potential. Here, in this undifferentiated nothing is the potential for everything. I'm not sure if time was, or time came to be (in time?). But from this potential, flecks of froth emerged and then dissolved back into potentiality. Each fleck was an actualised potential, a creation, a moment of creativity, a decision of this and not everything.
One of these cosmic decision was to remain. Creativity flared forth in moments, and most of this again dissolved as the matter collided with its correlative anti-matter and again entered the pool of potential. But not all. A cosmic imbalance was born. The decision for this imbalance (more matter than anti-matter, something that mattered) was made. Its agency (who/what made the decision) can be mythologised as The Creator.
Was it here that the Call that is Go()ds was established, or was the call always there, always calling? I don't know. But with that decision, the call changed, for the call was able to call out to (something that) matter(ed).
Difference multiplies difference. As matter continued, it differentiated itself, first as elementary particles, then atoms, nebulous clouds, distinct galaxies, molecules, shining stars, evocative supernova, varied planets, complex organisms, inter-species dependencies, communities, societies, civilisations, everything that is now. And all of it mattered.
The tehom is neither go()ds nor evils, but is the active potentiality for both. In creation, both go()ds and evils exist. The call of Go()ds is go()ds. That is the imbalance. Yet Go()ds is also the balance that allows for matter, allows the creation to matter.
The tehom is freedom. "All creativity entails the risk that the creature will turn malignant, indeed will turn against its creator. Even our own writings, loves, technologies, might turn against our intentions." (Catherine Keller)
Creation is the cutting off of possibilities. I will create this and not that. As a painter paints a line here and not there. However, creation also always creates new possibilities - creation makes possible things that were previously impossible. And so, of these countless created possibilities, some of these will be chosen to be created, and some will forever be cut off from possibility. And some may even remain possible, sinking and rising in the tehom, waiting to crest the wave of existence, waiting to matter.
The moment defines creation. What is now is that which has just been created, and isn't merely potential.
Go()dness comes in many forms. It is one call, yet the calls are multiple. I am called to ecological awareness, to help relieve the suffering(s) of the earth. If I help the poor I am responding to (one of) the call of Go()d. If I enrich a life, I am also responding. Hopefully, in writing this, I will influence my readers toward the Go()ds, and so this creation of writing is a response to the call.
Evil is rejecting the call to Go()ds. Exploitation is evil. Abuse is evil. Rape is evil. Being rich while others aren't is evil. To decide upon inaction when sufferers cry out for you to respond to the call of Go()ds is evil. To waste (time, resources, life, possibilities for Go()ds) is evil.
There are three things.
We, the creation (1), are called to create the imbalance of Go()dness (2) from the fluid potentials of tehom (3).
Note: This was originally called "An Ontology of Three", but narrative is more accurate. It is a way to tell the story of life, not an intention to define 'the way things are'. I advocate narrative plurality.
There is the tehom, the chaotic, oceanic pool of potential.
There is the Go()ds, the pluri-singular call to go()dness.
And there is the creation, the universe that is creating itself.
In the beginning was potential. Here, in this undifferentiated nothing is the potential for everything. I'm not sure if time was, or time came to be (in time?). But from this potential, flecks of froth emerged and then dissolved back into potentiality. Each fleck was an actualised potential, a creation, a moment of creativity, a decision of this and not everything.
One of these cosmic decision was to remain. Creativity flared forth in moments, and most of this again dissolved as the matter collided with its correlative anti-matter and again entered the pool of potential. But not all. A cosmic imbalance was born. The decision for this imbalance (more matter than anti-matter, something that mattered) was made. Its agency (who/what made the decision) can be mythologised as The Creator.
Was it here that the Call that is Go()ds was established, or was the call always there, always calling? I don't know. But with that decision, the call changed, for the call was able to call out to (something that) matter(ed).
Difference multiplies difference. As matter continued, it differentiated itself, first as elementary particles, then atoms, nebulous clouds, distinct galaxies, molecules, shining stars, evocative supernova, varied planets, complex organisms, inter-species dependencies, communities, societies, civilisations, everything that is now. And all of it mattered.
The tehom is neither go()ds nor evils, but is the active potentiality for both. In creation, both go()ds and evils exist. The call of Go()ds is go()ds. That is the imbalance. Yet Go()ds is also the balance that allows for matter, allows the creation to matter.
The tehom is freedom. "All creativity entails the risk that the creature will turn malignant, indeed will turn against its creator. Even our own writings, loves, technologies, might turn against our intentions." (Catherine Keller)
Creation is the cutting off of possibilities. I will create this and not that. As a painter paints a line here and not there. However, creation also always creates new possibilities - creation makes possible things that were previously impossible. And so, of these countless created possibilities, some of these will be chosen to be created, and some will forever be cut off from possibility. And some may even remain possible, sinking and rising in the tehom, waiting to crest the wave of existence, waiting to matter.
The moment defines creation. What is now is that which has just been created, and isn't merely potential.
Go()dness comes in many forms. It is one call, yet the calls are multiple. I am called to ecological awareness, to help relieve the suffering(s) of the earth. If I help the poor I am responding to (one of) the call of Go()d. If I enrich a life, I am also responding. Hopefully, in writing this, I will influence my readers toward the Go()ds, and so this creation of writing is a response to the call.
Evil is rejecting the call to Go()ds. Exploitation is evil. Abuse is evil. Rape is evil. Being rich while others aren't is evil. To decide upon inaction when sufferers cry out for you to respond to the call of Go()ds is evil. To waste (time, resources, life, possibilities for Go()ds) is evil.
There are three things.
We, the creation (1), are called to create the imbalance of Go()dness (2) from the fluid potentials of tehom (3).
Note: This was originally called "An Ontology of Three", but narrative is more accurate. It is a way to tell the story of life, not an intention to define 'the way things are'. I advocate narrative plurality.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Subverting upness
Prioritizing upness is often seen to be patriarchal (see James Nelson's The Intimate Connection), as it is the erection that points up and the male monotheistic deity is often up (amongst other things). But upness is also something that is very hard to not privilege. Historically, power has been associated with language. He who speaks is the one who currently holds the power. And when there are large groups of people, in order to be heard, the speaker is often raised up on a stage or dais. So power is closely connected with those who are raised up, who are higher than those around them.
It has been said that height it so connected with power that it cannot be separated. We can't crouch down in order to be heard in a crowd, and when a voice is muffled by crouching, the voice will lose its power to someone else.
However, there is a story of Jesus subverting this up-privileging. Jesus got in a boat and went out on the lake so that he may be heard. Jesus went horizontally, not vertically. And he still managed to achieve a place from which he could be heard, still retained the power of speech, yet did so in a sideways manner.
So maybe there is hope for those who wish to escape this patriarchal privileging of the erection.
It has been said that height it so connected with power that it cannot be separated. We can't crouch down in order to be heard in a crowd, and when a voice is muffled by crouching, the voice will lose its power to someone else.
However, there is a story of Jesus subverting this up-privileging. Jesus got in a boat and went out on the lake so that he may be heard. Jesus went horizontally, not vertically. And he still managed to achieve a place from which he could be heard, still retained the power of speech, yet did so in a sideways manner.
So maybe there is hope for those who wish to escape this patriarchal privileging of the erection.
Friday, November 9, 2007
I have never seen a bookcase in a car
We adore books. Great big bookcases, filled with words, have a special place in the house. There's excitement there, and awesome life-changing power, and beauty, and art, and knowledge (which is art).
Writing is one of the most prized parts of civilisation, maybe even the key to its existence. Writing has been treasured as holy, given authority to direct our lives, seen to portray God's voice, seen to subvert/disprove God's being, and valued as describing the universe. Writing has been dear to human hearts for millennia, it has been the sign of decency, the sign of education, the sign of humanity, indeed, as valued as humanity. It has been said, "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." - Heinrich Heine.
I've seen TV's in a car. I've seen CD racks. But I have never seen a bookcase in a car.
Is this an added benefit to the oil/car companies: a book-free zone for our de-education (deaducation?).
Cars are where books aren't welcome.
Writing is one of the most prized parts of civilisation, maybe even the key to its existence. Writing has been treasured as holy, given authority to direct our lives, seen to portray God's voice, seen to subvert/disprove God's being, and valued as describing the universe. Writing has been dear to human hearts for millennia, it has been the sign of decency, the sign of education, the sign of humanity, indeed, as valued as humanity. It has been said, "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." - Heinrich Heine.
I've seen TV's in a car. I've seen CD racks. But I have never seen a bookcase in a car.
Is this an added benefit to the oil/car companies: a book-free zone for our de-education (deaducation?).
Cars are where books aren't welcome.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
God as Freconscwareience
I'm sick of God being thought of as a being. Even people who no longer think that God is a big person in the sky still use personal, anthropocentric language of God. "God does this, God is that, God listens to prayer," and on, and on. And it strikes me that while the mystics generally claim that God is a word that points to the --- that cannot be spoken about or named, this --- is so difficult to talk about that 'God' quite quickly re-enters the stage, and, at least in the popular realm, God is again brought back into the 'big person' model.
Most recent theology has headed towards panentheism - all is in God. But this isn't always explained, so I'm going to have a go, starting from human experience.
We often assume that God has a consciousness, just as we do. But why? This is (human)consciousness-centric, and human-style consciousness is surely just a recent thing on the evolutionary stage, something that can be seen in homo sapians and not much else. If God is to be seen to be something existing prior to humans, then surely God should not be primarily modelled off of human experience so directly (can we really escape this completely?).
How does a rabbit think? Or a dog? Certainly animals don't think as humans do (although some may assume they do). They have a different consciousness, a consciousness that isn't (as) self-aware. If a dog were to have a God, then the dog's God certainly wouldn't be assumed to have a human-style consciousness. But if humans have free will, then it also seems that the animals would. Indeed, fruit flies do.
What about a plant? It experiences life, and is somewhat aware of its surroundings. It 'knows' when light is shining on it. It is somehow aware of where water is, and where to send its roots. It probably even experiences the pain of the loss of its parts as something eats it or cuts it down.
And so to the pebble. Now you're probably thinking that it's ridiculous to suggest that a pebble experiences its surroundings. But it most certainly does. It experiences the pull of the earth that we have named gravity. It is aware of the rocks below it that holds it in place.
But lets go more basic, to the electron. Is an electron conscious? Yes. In a way. It is conscious that there is a proton nearby, and that it holds an attraction for this proton, and so feels temporarily attracted to it. It feels the other electrons in orbit around the common nucleus. It experiences the close encounter with another atom that approaches, and develops a relationship with it so it shares its time between nuclei. (And as it jumps in and out of existence, maybe even the electron makes decisions and exercises a limited amount of free will?) So even very small things have a certain kind of consciousness, although that word is probably inappropriate for it. But we lack words to describe an electron's experience.
Now lets get big. The earth has been seen more and more in recent times as a single organism. It has long been worshipped as a goddess, mother earth, and it has recently been called Gaia. The earth can be seen to be a single, complex organism, with an incredible variety and quantity of internal and external relationships. And the earth, Gaia, is often seen to be conscious. She is reacting against the industrial pollution of her atmosphere, getting angry and sending storms. But in that last sentence, I personified the earth, making it a her, and using her as the subject of my sentence, the one doing the acting. As a subject, I granted her agency, and to have agency indicates freedom.
And now the universe. By universe, I'm talking about the biggest 'all' that is. As far as I know, that means I'm talking about something that is about 13 billion years old, and probably almost as many light years across. Brian Swimme in The Universe is a Green Dragon pictures the universe as, well, a green dragon. And here (0:11:25), he talks about the universe as having a purpose, in some ways, consciously choosing to head towards greater richness.
But I don't want to talk about the universe's consciousness. That sounds too anthropocentric to me. So I'm going to compile 4 words into one, in order to try to talk about this. Freedom, consciousness, awareness, and experience. Fre-consc-ware-ience. This is my proposed word that allows us to talk about God in a panentheistic schema, so that God can still be talked about, and yet is not done so in an overly anthropocentric/consciousness-centric way. God is the freconscwareience of the universe.
Something to take from this is that God decides the overall purpose of existence. And God, the freconscwareience of the universe, seems to generally choose to go down paths of greater complexity and greater diversity. I've not worked out much more, but complexity and diversity seem to be favoured. Not always. But often. And so, if I am to work alongside God (and not against the universe's freconscwareience), I should also work towards greater complexity and diversity. In this, I find a great deal of guidance.
This plays out in many ways. I encourage religious diversity, and work on the side of causes that try to protect the diversity of species on earth (opposing extinction). I work to protect freedom of expression, and immerse myself in diverse arts. I appreciate different languages, different cultures, and different customs, and hope that they do not become assimilated into my own, losing their uniqueness and identity. I try to have deep, complex relationships with my friends (although they are sometimes exhausting and so I also seek simplicity). I reject simple schemas, quick-fix promises, and paths that overly limit options. I reject stereotypes, and always try to work out how someone could hold the beliefs that they do, only dismissing someone after a great deal of exploration into their world (if ever). I am suspicious of simple answers, and dislike one-size-fits-all solutions. Cookie-cut houses, offices and shops are not my thing. Findings in science are exciting, and quantum physics often helps to show the complexity of life. But science has also gone beyond a suitable level of complexity: we should stop experiments that could create a black hole (we'd all die), we should stop experiments into robotic-free-will (read most sci-fi to see the tyranny of robot-rule (Asimov, Dune, Battlestar Galatica, etc.)), we should slow down research on genetics, and we should greatly reduce neuroscience research, as the possibilities of mind-reading (removal of privacy) and mind-manipulation (removal of free-will) are too scary. But we shouldn't stop all scientific research (I don't think), as complexity is good. It's just that sometimes we're not ready for it. I encourage people to read more, and to write more - create stories, create theories, invent words. Grappling with ideas and thinking about philosophical and psychological issues tends towards complexity. I encourage people to learn about soil, the most complex and diverse substance on planet earth, and as a bonus it will make you happy.
But in all this, I am merely trying to work in the same direction as God, the universe's freconscwareience.
Most recent theology has headed towards panentheism - all is in God. But this isn't always explained, so I'm going to have a go, starting from human experience.
We often assume that God has a consciousness, just as we do. But why? This is (human)consciousness-centric, and human-style consciousness is surely just a recent thing on the evolutionary stage, something that can be seen in homo sapians and not much else. If God is to be seen to be something existing prior to humans, then surely God should not be primarily modelled off of human experience so directly (can we really escape this completely?).
How does a rabbit think? Or a dog? Certainly animals don't think as humans do (although some may assume they do). They have a different consciousness, a consciousness that isn't (as) self-aware. If a dog were to have a God, then the dog's God certainly wouldn't be assumed to have a human-style consciousness. But if humans have free will, then it also seems that the animals would. Indeed, fruit flies do.
What about a plant? It experiences life, and is somewhat aware of its surroundings. It 'knows' when light is shining on it. It is somehow aware of where water is, and where to send its roots. It probably even experiences the pain of the loss of its parts as something eats it or cuts it down.
And so to the pebble. Now you're probably thinking that it's ridiculous to suggest that a pebble experiences its surroundings. But it most certainly does. It experiences the pull of the earth that we have named gravity. It is aware of the rocks below it that holds it in place.
But lets go more basic, to the electron. Is an electron conscious? Yes. In a way. It is conscious that there is a proton nearby, and that it holds an attraction for this proton, and so feels temporarily attracted to it. It feels the other electrons in orbit around the common nucleus. It experiences the close encounter with another atom that approaches, and develops a relationship with it so it shares its time between nuclei. (And as it jumps in and out of existence, maybe even the electron makes decisions and exercises a limited amount of free will?) So even very small things have a certain kind of consciousness, although that word is probably inappropriate for it. But we lack words to describe an electron's experience.
Now lets get big. The earth has been seen more and more in recent times as a single organism. It has long been worshipped as a goddess, mother earth, and it has recently been called Gaia. The earth can be seen to be a single, complex organism, with an incredible variety and quantity of internal and external relationships. And the earth, Gaia, is often seen to be conscious. She is reacting against the industrial pollution of her atmosphere, getting angry and sending storms. But in that last sentence, I personified the earth, making it a her, and using her as the subject of my sentence, the one doing the acting. As a subject, I granted her agency, and to have agency indicates freedom.
And now the universe. By universe, I'm talking about the biggest 'all' that is. As far as I know, that means I'm talking about something that is about 13 billion years old, and probably almost as many light years across. Brian Swimme in The Universe is a Green Dragon pictures the universe as, well, a green dragon. And here (0:11:25), he talks about the universe as having a purpose, in some ways, consciously choosing to head towards greater richness.
But I don't want to talk about the universe's consciousness. That sounds too anthropocentric to me. So I'm going to compile 4 words into one, in order to try to talk about this. Freedom, consciousness, awareness, and experience. Fre-consc-ware-ience. This is my proposed word that allows us to talk about God in a panentheistic schema, so that God can still be talked about, and yet is not done so in an overly anthropocentric/consciousness-centric way. God is the freconscwareience of the universe.
Something to take from this is that God decides the overall purpose of existence. And God, the freconscwareience of the universe, seems to generally choose to go down paths of greater complexity and greater diversity. I've not worked out much more, but complexity and diversity seem to be favoured. Not always. But often. And so, if I am to work alongside God (and not against the universe's freconscwareience), I should also work towards greater complexity and diversity. In this, I find a great deal of guidance.
This plays out in many ways. I encourage religious diversity, and work on the side of causes that try to protect the diversity of species on earth (opposing extinction). I work to protect freedom of expression, and immerse myself in diverse arts. I appreciate different languages, different cultures, and different customs, and hope that they do not become assimilated into my own, losing their uniqueness and identity. I try to have deep, complex relationships with my friends (although they are sometimes exhausting and so I also seek simplicity). I reject simple schemas, quick-fix promises, and paths that overly limit options. I reject stereotypes, and always try to work out how someone could hold the beliefs that they do, only dismissing someone after a great deal of exploration into their world (if ever). I am suspicious of simple answers, and dislike one-size-fits-all solutions. Cookie-cut houses, offices and shops are not my thing. Findings in science are exciting, and quantum physics often helps to show the complexity of life. But science has also gone beyond a suitable level of complexity: we should stop experiments that could create a black hole (we'd all die), we should stop experiments into robotic-free-will (read most sci-fi to see the tyranny of robot-rule (Asimov, Dune, Battlestar Galatica, etc.)), we should slow down research on genetics, and we should greatly reduce neuroscience research, as the possibilities of mind-reading (removal of privacy) and mind-manipulation (removal of free-will) are too scary. But we shouldn't stop all scientific research (I don't think), as complexity is good. It's just that sometimes we're not ready for it. I encourage people to read more, and to write more - create stories, create theories, invent words. Grappling with ideas and thinking about philosophical and psychological issues tends towards complexity. I encourage people to learn about soil, the most complex and diverse substance on planet earth, and as a bonus it will make you happy.
But in all this, I am merely trying to work in the same direction as God, the universe's freconscwareience.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Two thought-webs
I believe there are two kinds of people in the world: those who assume everyone thinks more-or-less like them, and those who acknowledge that everyone and everything thinks infinitely and sublimely differently. I don't often make claims like this, categorising all humanity into two groups, but I believe this is a somewhat useful distinction to make. I have been both of those people, moving from the first to the second. I believe the acknowledgement of the second type requires a kind of deeper-consciousness. Or at least, it did for me. My world is opened up in variety, complexity and beauty because of it. Let me explain these in order.
The first one I experienced most when I was in fundie-college. At that point, everyone thought alike. It was a simple world, a world in which everyone could say the same thing (e.g. a statement of faith) and mean the same thing (unless you really thought about it, and that was discouraged). Religion could quite easily be based off the idea that people could believe exactly the same thing (although the increasingly-exclusive Fundamentalists at the start of the 20th century seemed to indicate otherwise). And since your friends all thought the same way as you did, you could easily establish relations with them that didn't require much depth to develop 'true' communication. Indeed, it confused me that miscommunication happened at all.
In fact, life was quite confusing. But it wasn't a confusion you worried about, and tried to understand. It was a confusion you tried to fix. For example, I could not understand how it is possible for a man to love a man. It was so far out of my experience that I was quite frankly confused by it. Why would anyone want to live that way? How is it possible? On the other hand, it was easier for me to imagine a woman loving a woman, because I loved women. For a woman to love a woman meant that the woman was like me, which made sense. Of course, it made sense also that women would love men, because I love 'the other sex', and so it was just mirroring that. This resulted in a weird quadruple-standard. 1. Men loving women was normal. 2. Women loving men was simply a reflection of that. 3. Women loving women was understandable, probably wrong, but when I admitted it, somewhat exciting (lesbianism is OK if men get to watch - as long as men gain pleasure). 4. Men loving men was completely wrong. But not just wrong. It was incomprehensible, unnatural, inconceivable, detestable. Because for a man to love a man meant that they must think completely differently from me, and that just wasn't a possible part of how I believed existence to be. They didn't fit within the understandable world, and so they needed to be brought into my world, they needed to be 'fixed'.
My acknowledgement that everyone thinks infinitely sublimely differently emerged over time and involved many sources. As well as discussions with friends, inspiration came from philosophical books that discuss how animals think and experience the world (such as Berry and Swimme's The Universe Story, Barry Allen's Knowledge and Civilization and Langer's Philosophy in a New Key), Keller's book on relationship called From a Broken Web, along with literature like Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. These books opened up the thoughts of others to me in two ways: 1. The way something thinks and experiences the world is intimately tied to its brain/consciousness, and 2. Every moment brings with it the complex web of previous experiences, through memory, and everyone's life experiences are amazingly varied and different.
The first of these may be brought out by asking how the first, single-cell organisms 'thought' (see The Universe Story for a more detailed examination). This first life provided the universe with an amazing accomplishment: memory. These first cells had the memory to know how they were created, and so could replicate themselves. They knew how to bring together groups of molecules in such a way that they could form them together to be chemical-copies of themselves. These tiny creatures worked at the molecular level, taking amino acids and changing them, giving them the spark of lightning-life that they themselves were 'born' from. How did they feel? How do they experience the world? Certainly not in a empirical or rational scientific way (these being recent human creations). Without nerve endings, they didn't experience touch in the same way that I do. Maybe scent gets closer, sniffing out the suitable amino acids, and knittings them together so they may pass the spark of life on. But it certainly isn't scent in the same way that I smell. Indeed, their experience of life is amazingly different from my experience, and that difference comes out in their experience of other lives, other life-forms, other sensations and sense, and other ways of appreciating time. A lead-on and provocative question that stems from this might be, How does a photon experience existence and time?
The second opening up of my experience comes from the recognition that everyone brings a great deal of 'baggage' to every experience, through memory. In this sense, baggage is not necessarily bad (or good), but it is always limiting - baggage means I experience the world in this way, and not your way, not that way, not any other way. The baggage I refer to are the relationships and associations I draw between the present experience and the past experiences that I relate to the present. If someone says 'snake', every person present will immediately connect it with multiple associations and think of completely different, highly nuanced things. One person may think of the time when they were bitten by a snake, connect that experience to the biblical serpent in Genesis, relate that to temptation and evil (through the teachings they have heard (through language)), and before they can say anything they shudder with disgust. At the same time, another person may immediately think of their pet snake. This sends them off into thinking about the religious symbolism of snakes from a different tradition, where the shedding of skin symbolises new life and the shedding of old habits, which the person then relates to escape from oppressive conservativism, and so they're response comes out in a smile and a sentence, "I love snakes, they're so beautiful." With just a single word, two very different responses are evoked.
The possible difference in experience between humans is of an amazing magnitude of diversity. This can especially come out in the experience of time. Where one person sees time as a succession of 'now's, so that "one, two, three" occurred in different times and places (my experience when at fundie-college), another person can view time as a single, monistic, and eternal 'now' (more like my experience now, through the influence of Robinson's Thou Who Art, Buber's I and Thou, and a great deal of (Christian) liberation and aboriginal writing). In this eternal Now, freedom is in the decisions I make, yet they would always disappear into non-existence, except for memory. Memory preserves the no-longer by making it re-membered in the Now, and so re-membering is a very active, creative decision, allowing the otherwise-no-longer to affect the Now and so to have a continued existence (although in that existence it is ever changing as its re-membering fluctuates in the fractalic complexity of universe). Yet I also believe that these are just two ways to experience time that I have had, and that not only are there other ways, but that everyone's and everythings ways are different.
However, I won't leave this blog with the fundie-college in too bad of a light (see, light can be bad, again - also see Mollenkott's chapter, Godding in the Dark). For it's not just fundie-college that goes with the first assumption. It is also the common liberal stance. You've heard it: "Christian fundamentalists are just deceitful, they know that they're preaching is a lie." But that isn't the case. Speaking as a recovering one, I know I was not lying when I spoke - I believed it, it was true. I thought differently from 'liberals', and so would have been put into the same 'inconceivable' category that I then put gays in. The typical liberal cannot understand fundamentalists in a very similar way that fundamentalists cannot understand gays, because the assumption of both liberals and fundies is that everyone thinks just like me.
Maybe the fact that I separate humanity into two categories (rather than allowing for the 6 billion categories I really need), undermines my claim that I acknowledge that everyone thinks differently. But I advance this idea as a heuristic tool, as a way to help people think, so that they may better understand the world from their own, unique, and infinitely complex perspective. Don't dismiss someone because they're in the first group - their experience is more nuanced than anyone could ever define.
The first one I experienced most when I was in fundie-college. At that point, everyone thought alike. It was a simple world, a world in which everyone could say the same thing (e.g. a statement of faith) and mean the same thing (unless you really thought about it, and that was discouraged). Religion could quite easily be based off the idea that people could believe exactly the same thing (although the increasingly-exclusive Fundamentalists at the start of the 20th century seemed to indicate otherwise). And since your friends all thought the same way as you did, you could easily establish relations with them that didn't require much depth to develop 'true' communication. Indeed, it confused me that miscommunication happened at all.
In fact, life was quite confusing. But it wasn't a confusion you worried about, and tried to understand. It was a confusion you tried to fix. For example, I could not understand how it is possible for a man to love a man. It was so far out of my experience that I was quite frankly confused by it. Why would anyone want to live that way? How is it possible? On the other hand, it was easier for me to imagine a woman loving a woman, because I loved women. For a woman to love a woman meant that the woman was like me, which made sense. Of course, it made sense also that women would love men, because I love 'the other sex', and so it was just mirroring that. This resulted in a weird quadruple-standard. 1. Men loving women was normal. 2. Women loving men was simply a reflection of that. 3. Women loving women was understandable, probably wrong, but when I admitted it, somewhat exciting (lesbianism is OK if men get to watch - as long as men gain pleasure). 4. Men loving men was completely wrong. But not just wrong. It was incomprehensible, unnatural, inconceivable, detestable. Because for a man to love a man meant that they must think completely differently from me, and that just wasn't a possible part of how I believed existence to be. They didn't fit within the understandable world, and so they needed to be brought into my world, they needed to be 'fixed'.
My acknowledgement that everyone thinks infinitely sublimely differently emerged over time and involved many sources. As well as discussions with friends, inspiration came from philosophical books that discuss how animals think and experience the world (such as Berry and Swimme's The Universe Story, Barry Allen's Knowledge and Civilization and Langer's Philosophy in a New Key), Keller's book on relationship called From a Broken Web, along with literature like Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. These books opened up the thoughts of others to me in two ways: 1. The way something thinks and experiences the world is intimately tied to its brain/consciousness, and 2. Every moment brings with it the complex web of previous experiences, through memory, and everyone's life experiences are amazingly varied and different.
The first of these may be brought out by asking how the first, single-cell organisms 'thought' (see The Universe Story for a more detailed examination). This first life provided the universe with an amazing accomplishment: memory. These first cells had the memory to know how they were created, and so could replicate themselves. They knew how to bring together groups of molecules in such a way that they could form them together to be chemical-copies of themselves. These tiny creatures worked at the molecular level, taking amino acids and changing them, giving them the spark of lightning-life that they themselves were 'born' from. How did they feel? How do they experience the world? Certainly not in a empirical or rational scientific way (these being recent human creations). Without nerve endings, they didn't experience touch in the same way that I do. Maybe scent gets closer, sniffing out the suitable amino acids, and knittings them together so they may pass the spark of life on. But it certainly isn't scent in the same way that I smell. Indeed, their experience of life is amazingly different from my experience, and that difference comes out in their experience of other lives, other life-forms, other sensations and sense, and other ways of appreciating time. A lead-on and provocative question that stems from this might be, How does a photon experience existence and time?
The second opening up of my experience comes from the recognition that everyone brings a great deal of 'baggage' to every experience, through memory. In this sense, baggage is not necessarily bad (or good), but it is always limiting - baggage means I experience the world in this way, and not your way, not that way, not any other way. The baggage I refer to are the relationships and associations I draw between the present experience and the past experiences that I relate to the present. If someone says 'snake', every person present will immediately connect it with multiple associations and think of completely different, highly nuanced things. One person may think of the time when they were bitten by a snake, connect that experience to the biblical serpent in Genesis, relate that to temptation and evil (through the teachings they have heard (through language)), and before they can say anything they shudder with disgust. At the same time, another person may immediately think of their pet snake. This sends them off into thinking about the religious symbolism of snakes from a different tradition, where the shedding of skin symbolises new life and the shedding of old habits, which the person then relates to escape from oppressive conservativism, and so they're response comes out in a smile and a sentence, "I love snakes, they're so beautiful." With just a single word, two very different responses are evoked.
The possible difference in experience between humans is of an amazing magnitude of diversity. This can especially come out in the experience of time. Where one person sees time as a succession of 'now's, so that "one, two, three" occurred in different times and places (my experience when at fundie-college), another person can view time as a single, monistic, and eternal 'now' (more like my experience now, through the influence of Robinson's Thou Who Art, Buber's I and Thou, and a great deal of (Christian) liberation and aboriginal writing). In this eternal Now, freedom is in the decisions I make, yet they would always disappear into non-existence, except for memory. Memory preserves the no-longer by making it re-membered in the Now, and so re-membering is a very active, creative decision, allowing the otherwise-no-longer to affect the Now and so to have a continued existence (although in that existence it is ever changing as its re-membering fluctuates in the fractalic complexity of universe). Yet I also believe that these are just two ways to experience time that I have had, and that not only are there other ways, but that everyone's and everythings ways are different.
However, I won't leave this blog with the fundie-college in too bad of a light (see, light can be bad, again - also see Mollenkott's chapter, Godding in the Dark). For it's not just fundie-college that goes with the first assumption. It is also the common liberal stance. You've heard it: "Christian fundamentalists are just deceitful, they know that they're preaching is a lie." But that isn't the case. Speaking as a recovering one, I know I was not lying when I spoke - I believed it, it was true. I thought differently from 'liberals', and so would have been put into the same 'inconceivable' category that I then put gays in. The typical liberal cannot understand fundamentalists in a very similar way that fundamentalists cannot understand gays, because the assumption of both liberals and fundies is that everyone thinks just like me.
Maybe the fact that I separate humanity into two categories (rather than allowing for the 6 billion categories I really need), undermines my claim that I acknowledge that everyone thinks differently. But I advance this idea as a heuristic tool, as a way to help people think, so that they may better understand the world from their own, unique, and infinitely complex perspective. Don't dismiss someone because they're in the first group - their experience is more nuanced than anyone could ever define.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Unbearable Shitlessness
'Shitlessness' is the forgotten definition of kitsch. Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being includes a section that details this. To put it another way, Kitsch is a world without shit. Kitsch isn't just those idyllic pictures of landscapes with cottages in the snow, kitsch is the political speech made to win you over - the world of the political ideal, where the shit of life does not exist. In those speeches, shit is reduced to nothing so that man can build his foundation of a good society.
But we must not be fooled, for shit is essential. Shit, decay and death are parts of life that will always be. Any political vision of the future worth listening to will talk about shit. For shit does not just means the sewage system, that we would sooner forget about than remember, shit connotes the 'shit' parts of life. There is shit in all our relationships, our food, our economy, our thoughts, our health.
In the SCA, I heard the following statement: "we're recreating the past 'as it should have been', no pests, no disease, and no prejudice." This is one of the clearest examples of shitlessness, or kitsch. Re-enactment groups will inevitably make kitsch. The worlds they build will be kitsch, for the shit takes place in the rest of the year when they are not '(re-en)acting'. This is the principal reason why these people (of whom I am currently one) do not attempt to live in this enjoyable way in the rest of their lives. They know it to be impossible, for it does not take account of the shit.
I'm now going to quote a part of Kundera's book that is important to me, if unrelated to the above:
But we must not be fooled, for shit is essential. Shit, decay and death are parts of life that will always be. Any political vision of the future worth listening to will talk about shit. For shit does not just means the sewage system, that we would sooner forget about than remember, shit connotes the 'shit' parts of life. There is shit in all our relationships, our food, our economy, our thoughts, our health.
In the SCA, I heard the following statement: "we're recreating the past 'as it should have been', no pests, no disease, and no prejudice." This is one of the clearest examples of shitlessness, or kitsch. Re-enactment groups will inevitably make kitsch. The worlds they build will be kitsch, for the shit takes place in the rest of the year when they are not '(re-en)acting'. This is the principal reason why these people (of whom I am currently one) do not attempt to live in this enjoyable way in the rest of their lives. They know it to be impossible, for it does not take account of the shit.
I'm now going to quote a part of Kundera's book that is important to me, if unrelated to the above:
[An] image comes to mind: Nietzsche leaving his hotel in Turin. Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman's very eyes, put his arms around the horse's neck and burst into tears.I want to become like Nietzsche. I also suggest that you read The Unbearable Lightness of Being. If you've read it, read it again.
That took place in 1889, when Nietzsche, too, had removed himself from the world of people. In other words, it was at the time when his mental illness had just erupted. But for that very reason I feel his gesture has broad implications: Nietzsche was trying to apologize to the horse for Descartes [who held that animals had no soul and were machinae animatae]. His lunacy (that is, his final break with mankind) began at the very moment he burst into tears over the horse.
And that is the Nietzsche I love.... [I see him] stepping down from the road along which mankind, 'the master and proprietor of nature', marches onward.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Rich Fundamentalists as Evil Personified
I've read a few articles of Naomi Klein's new book (read and watch), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. It's pretty scary, and I believe she is hitting the nail on the head. Be warned, for you will soon be picking up scraps in war-torn ghettos. You and your children. Unless you are some of the richest few on earth, who have the money to buy the mercenary security to build walls around their homes. And if you are rich, YOU ARE EVIL. That's something I've come realise. I've tried to argue against it, but I have had to finally admit this. To become rich you had to exploit people, to remain rich you have to despise (poorer) people, as you are rich your riches will make you dependent on them, and to hold on to your riches you'll have to be prepared to (hire someone to) kill people - starving people, people fighting for justice, for life, for family, for love, for the destruction of evil. We, the poor, will be fighting the rich because they are/will be the living embodiments of evil. If you are rich, stop being evil - give away your riches and cease your source of income (don't just quit your job, work it out so that your job no longer exists). Heck, I'm just repeating what Jesus said.
The other thing I have gained from these articles (and that's even without reading the book!), is that the whole debate between science and religion is a ruse. It's stupid, and it's fake. The problem is not religion, or lack of, the problem is fundamentalism. But fundamentalism doesn't just come in religious guise. It comes in scientific, it comes in political, it comes in economic. Indeed, economic fundamentalism is what is causing and fuelling Disaster Capitalism. The sphere of life isn't important - fundamentalism can mutilate life and planets through any of them. Fundamentalism is the problem, not religion or science or whatever else. And fundamentalism doesn't care which area of life it hitches a ride on, but it also will steer you and everything around you to hell.
Oh, and high taxes are good. They allow structures to be built for everyone, not just the rich.
The other thing I have gained from these articles (and that's even without reading the book!), is that the whole debate between science and religion is a ruse. It's stupid, and it's fake. The problem is not religion, or lack of, the problem is fundamentalism. But fundamentalism doesn't just come in religious guise. It comes in scientific, it comes in political, it comes in economic. Indeed, economic fundamentalism is what is causing and fuelling Disaster Capitalism. The sphere of life isn't important - fundamentalism can mutilate life and planets through any of them. Fundamentalism is the problem, not religion or science or whatever else. And fundamentalism doesn't care which area of life it hitches a ride on, but it also will steer you and everything around you to hell.
Oh, and high taxes are good. They allow structures to be built for everyone, not just the rich.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Parallel is boring
We live in a time when so much is parallel. Look at your computer screen and count the number of parallel lines. Look at your desk, your window, your room. See how much of your life is parallel.
It's become boring. We talk about a person being square, but I think we should talk about things being parallel in a similar way. A parallel line just imitates the other line it's running parallel to. How boring is that! Accept no imitations!
I strikes me that far too much of this civilisation is based on being parallel. It'd be nice if parallel was exciting, that a steady hand had carefully drawn or crafted the few parallel things I saw. But I see to much. You don't find parallel much in nature. Instead, you find fractal. That's infinitely more interesting!
Parallel is boring.
It's become boring. We talk about a person being square, but I think we should talk about things being parallel in a similar way. A parallel line just imitates the other line it's running parallel to. How boring is that! Accept no imitations!
I strikes me that far too much of this civilisation is based on being parallel. It'd be nice if parallel was exciting, that a steady hand had carefully drawn or crafted the few parallel things I saw. But I see to much. You don't find parallel much in nature. Instead, you find fractal. That's infinitely more interesting!
Parallel is boring.
Monday, August 20, 2007
I am not a hero
Ancient mythology, from the 'heroic era' (3000-1500BCE), deeply influences society today. We play out these same patriarchal myths through so much of our society. Books like Wild at Heart exemplify this. Our concept of heroism, of self, and of what it means to be a (hu)man all depend upon these myths: Heroes only become heroes by killing a she-monster and winning their prize of a female-object.
I have played Dungeons and Dragons since I was 16. I am only now asking myself, can I still play? For DnD is a purposeful reiteration of these myths. My character goes out to kill and to rescue. So I decided to build a character that would no longer kill the monsters that are killed by patriarchy.
However, when I tried to do this, I realised the character was not feasible. Aside from Tiamat, there are a great deal of other 'creatures' in DnD that occur in patriarchy-perpetuating myths. These include Medusa, gorgons, hags, mermaids, dragons, most sea-monsters, snakes, spiders (think of the ultimate evil of the drow with their matriarchal Lolth-worship), harpies, and chimeras. In fact, it goes deeper. The 'types' that DnD assigns to these creatures also stop my sword, for how can I kill such repressed creatures as 'outsiders', 'beasts' (from whose perspective are they beasts anyway?), 'aberrations', and 'monstrous humanoids'?
Indeed, I must consider what 'monster' means, for all these creatures are listed in the 'Monster Manual'. Aristotle wrote, "Whatever does not resemble its parents is already in a way a monster, for in these cases nature has... deviated from the generic type. The first beginning of this deviation is when a female is produced..." (Genesis of Animals). So the female is the start of the monster category, and everything else is lumped in with that, except for the 'generic' man. Interestingly enough, 'human' is not in the Monster Manual, and so may be the only thing the character could kill. Let's reduce that further, to say that men may be all the character could kill.
So it seems that a feminist character is impossible in this game. Squeezed out into obsolescence, a party member that would be worse than useless. For within a patriarchal world, the female has no place. Catherine Keller writes, "'The characteristics most highly developed in women and perhaps most essential to human beings are the very characteristics that are specifically dysfunctional for success in the world as it is' (Miller). And creation of new worlds presupposes, dangerously, some sort of success in the world-as-it-already-is on the part of the would-be creators." (From a Broken Web, 22).
I have already taken issue with playing DnD because of its political and religious naivety (with its anti-pagan witch-burnings, its elitism, and its focus on power-over), and because of the greed of its producers. However, I believe this is the 'killing blow' to the game, from my perspective. For if by playing I am forced into perpetuating a damaging, patriarchal mythology, then I will not play. Playing would go against what I am trying to work towards (and away from) in my life, so I will no longer do so. Edit: (Through the comments I received about this post, I changed my mind and will still play.)
This is my own opinion and my own decision. I do not expect any of my DnD-playing friends to follow me, nor do I wish them to feel guilty because of me. But I'm curious what they think of this post. :)
I have played Dungeons and Dragons since I was 16. I am only now asking myself, can I still play? For DnD is a purposeful reiteration of these myths. My character goes out to kill and to rescue. So I decided to build a character that would no longer kill the monsters that are killed by patriarchy.
However, when I tried to do this, I realised the character was not feasible. Aside from Tiamat, there are a great deal of other 'creatures' in DnD that occur in patriarchy-perpetuating myths. These include Medusa, gorgons, hags, mermaids, dragons, most sea-monsters, snakes, spiders (think of the ultimate evil of the drow with their matriarchal Lolth-worship), harpies, and chimeras. In fact, it goes deeper. The 'types' that DnD assigns to these creatures also stop my sword, for how can I kill such repressed creatures as 'outsiders', 'beasts' (from whose perspective are they beasts anyway?), 'aberrations', and 'monstrous humanoids'?
Indeed, I must consider what 'monster' means, for all these creatures are listed in the 'Monster Manual'. Aristotle wrote, "Whatever does not resemble its parents is already in a way a monster, for in these cases nature has... deviated from the generic type. The first beginning of this deviation is when a female is produced..." (Genesis of Animals). So the female is the start of the monster category, and everything else is lumped in with that, except for the 'generic' man. Interestingly enough, 'human' is not in the Monster Manual, and so may be the only thing the character could kill. Let's reduce that further, to say that men may be all the character could kill.
So it seems that a feminist character is impossible in this game. Squeezed out into obsolescence, a party member that would be worse than useless. For within a patriarchal world, the female has no place. Catherine Keller writes, "'The characteristics most highly developed in women and perhaps most essential to human beings are the very characteristics that are specifically dysfunctional for success in the world as it is' (Miller). And creation of new worlds presupposes, dangerously, some sort of success in the world-as-it-already-is on the part of the would-be creators." (From a Broken Web, 22).
I have already taken issue with playing DnD because of its political and religious naivety (with its anti-pagan witch-burnings, its elitism, and its focus on power-over), and because of the greed of its producers. However, I believe this is the 'killing blow' to the game, from my perspective. For if by playing I am forced into perpetuating a damaging, patriarchal mythology, then I will not play. Playing would go against what I am trying to work towards (and away from) in my life, so I will no longer do so. Edit: (Through the comments I received about this post, I changed my mind and will still play.)
This is my own opinion and my own decision. I do not expect any of my DnD-playing friends to follow me, nor do I wish them to feel guilty because of me. But I'm curious what they think of this post. :)
Monday, June 18, 2007
War on Science, 3
Reading eco/liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff, I am inspired to make my War on Science a trilogy.
The first article, Weather: The Hour of Reckoning, is a summary of an article by Waldemar. It starts by saying, "Some say, especially in the wealthiest countries, which create the most pollution, that technology will solve the problem of global warming. That way, they will be able to continue spending and living with abandon, as did the ungodly people of the times of Noah." Clearly, technology won't save us. He goes on, "Others, more sensible, talk of attitude changes and worry about the poor countries that are, to begin with, the most vulnerable. The solution could be to reduce growth in the wealthy countries, and to stimulate the development of the poor, to reach a common point of sustainability. But, who believes in that? Is it not easier that a camel pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich to enter the kingdom of reason?" Despite efforts, the rich-poor divide is increasing, and we seem unable to stop it. And further, the rich are building more and more defences, to make sure that they retain their wealth, even though this will take more and more human sacrifice (and we thought the collapsing Mayan's were ignorant, when their priests increased human sacrifice!). And his conclusion? "Could it be that climate change is the whip of God, who will reestablish justice, if only temporarily? What could not be done through reason and love, will be done, with great suffering for all, through the great and eternal laws of nature." Could it be that civilisation collapse is Gaia's/God's will, and ecological disaster is the tool? And that those who are working to change and keep the civilisation are working against God, prolonging and perpetuating the evil that Gaia hates?
The second article is Nanotechnology: ¿the «Little Brother»?. In this article we are told about the potential threat of nanotechnology. "But hold on," I hear people say, "Isn't nanotechnology one of the richest sources of potential medical healing? Can't nanotechnology be used to cure diseases that nothing else can?" Maybe. But it's clear from those questions that people believe what they're told about it, and forget to think further. For example, history also tells us that advances in technology are also/first employed by military powers. The potential damage that nanotechnology could be used to do is not, and never will be, worth the medical benefits. Never. Boff writes, "Nanosensors that now control all the processes of the so-called «intelligent agriculture» could be used to control persons and populations. It could be the enthronement of the «Little Brother», performing the functions of G. Orwell's «Big Brother.» Since they are invisible and microscopic devices there is no defense against them."
We must end technological development, and we must assist the collapse of the civilisation.
The first article, Weather: The Hour of Reckoning, is a summary of an article by Waldemar. It starts by saying, "Some say, especially in the wealthiest countries, which create the most pollution, that technology will solve the problem of global warming. That way, they will be able to continue spending and living with abandon, as did the ungodly people of the times of Noah." Clearly, technology won't save us. He goes on, "Others, more sensible, talk of attitude changes and worry about the poor countries that are, to begin with, the most vulnerable. The solution could be to reduce growth in the wealthy countries, and to stimulate the development of the poor, to reach a common point of sustainability. But, who believes in that? Is it not easier that a camel pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich to enter the kingdom of reason?" Despite efforts, the rich-poor divide is increasing, and we seem unable to stop it. And further, the rich are building more and more defences, to make sure that they retain their wealth, even though this will take more and more human sacrifice (and we thought the collapsing Mayan's were ignorant, when their priests increased human sacrifice!). And his conclusion? "Could it be that climate change is the whip of God, who will reestablish justice, if only temporarily? What could not be done through reason and love, will be done, with great suffering for all, through the great and eternal laws of nature." Could it be that civilisation collapse is Gaia's/God's will, and ecological disaster is the tool? And that those who are working to change and keep the civilisation are working against God, prolonging and perpetuating the evil that Gaia hates?
The second article is Nanotechnology: ¿the «Little Brother»?. In this article we are told about the potential threat of nanotechnology. "But hold on," I hear people say, "Isn't nanotechnology one of the richest sources of potential medical healing? Can't nanotechnology be used to cure diseases that nothing else can?" Maybe. But it's clear from those questions that people believe what they're told about it, and forget to think further. For example, history also tells us that advances in technology are also/first employed by military powers. The potential damage that nanotechnology could be used to do is not, and never will be, worth the medical benefits. Never. Boff writes, "Nanosensors that now control all the processes of the so-called «intelligent agriculture» could be used to control persons and populations. It could be the enthronement of the «Little Brother», performing the functions of G. Orwell's «Big Brother.» Since they are invisible and microscopic devices there is no defense against them."
We must end technological development, and we must assist the collapse of the civilisation.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Two Quotations
When the oppressors came to us, they came with their tool, which was, they were defining everything for us. They had to define our culture as being savage. They defined everything that we did as backward. They defined our source of healing as witchcraft, you understand, meaning what they had, they had the power to define.
It is a fact of technology that it is easier to fly to the moon than to reconstruct a broken egg. Something organic has been destroyed. Something new must be built.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Boycott Wikipedia
Sadly, I've recognised another promising website to be something I can no longer support. Wikipedia started with the concept of it being the voice of the people. Now, it has been run over by wikipolice.
The first thing that helped me to realise this was that my own work was removed. I edited the page on Rousas Rushdoony as such. After this, for a time, the page had a flag indicating it's neutrality was disputed, and there was some discussion as to the sentence and link that I added. However, the page is no longer disputed, and all mention (including the discussion) is gone. There is no trace of the discussion at all. Now, I wouldn't mind my work being removed too much, but I object to the discuss being erased.
Another instance is that someone tried to add the wikipedia entry, Plaosmos, using many quotations from this blog. I accept that I may well be one of 10 people in the world who know and use the word, and that most of them may not even like it. But why remove it? This is what remains. Plaosmos is considered nonsense. So I clicked the link about nonsense, and the reason they gave for removing the page is: "Content that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irredeemably confused that no intelligent person can be expected to make any sense of it whatsoever" (my emphasis). But why? I've made (at least some) sense of it. Am I not an 'intelligent person'? Am I just a person? Or a deranged one? Or not a person?
And then it struck me. The problem is that wikipedia is based off a myth, and one I cannot support or invest in. Wikipedia wants everything from a 'neutral' viewpoint, but there is no neutral viewpoint. What it ends up getting is everything from a mainstream, majority viewpoint. That is, mainstream of internet users, who are composed of the richer 6th of the world. And wikipedia carries quite a lot of authority, at least for the lay users, meaning that it will (passively) attempt to impose this myth of neutrality onto those who read it. As more and more communities get online, they will be met with this monstrous myth, which comes down to the modernist myth of objectivity. Objectivity, as we have seen, is a deeply oppressive myth that is part of the climate change and poverty problems in the world (at least legitimating many of them, if not more).
The wiki idea is good, the problem is with its size. I'm seeing more and more that big is bad. Small community wiki's can be wonderful, but as soon as a global wiki comes in, it will impose itself on other communities, posing as the (only) one community (have a look at the authors page to see this).
I'm not suggesting, as this site does, that wikipedia has a conscious agenda of oppression. It's agenda isn't conscious, it's not-thought-through and naïve. I'm instead noting the tendency toward homogenisation and problematic mythology, and hopefully, sowing the seed of distrust-for-liberation yet again. Here's a discussion about neutrality, to which I added a comment.
It is with sadness that I realise this tendency and decide to boycott wikipedia. I am starting to think that it should be renamed WERMpedia, because it is the pedia of the Western, English-speaking (even other languages are often the English translated), Rich (computer-literate, educated), predominantly-Males. It was so promising, but I now find its promises to be lies. Sadly, even the Urban Dictionary is policed and I'm beginning to wonder what good on the internet remains.
The first thing that helped me to realise this was that my own work was removed. I edited the page on Rousas Rushdoony as such. After this, for a time, the page had a flag indicating it's neutrality was disputed, and there was some discussion as to the sentence and link that I added. However, the page is no longer disputed, and all mention (including the discussion) is gone. There is no trace of the discussion at all. Now, I wouldn't mind my work being removed too much, but I object to the discuss being erased.
Another instance is that someone tried to add the wikipedia entry, Plaosmos, using many quotations from this blog. I accept that I may well be one of 10 people in the world who know and use the word, and that most of them may not even like it. But why remove it? This is what remains. Plaosmos is considered nonsense. So I clicked the link about nonsense, and the reason they gave for removing the page is: "Content that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irredeemably confused that no intelligent person can be expected to make any sense of it whatsoever" (my emphasis). But why? I've made (at least some) sense of it. Am I not an 'intelligent person'? Am I just a person? Or a deranged one? Or not a person?
And then it struck me. The problem is that wikipedia is based off a myth, and one I cannot support or invest in. Wikipedia wants everything from a 'neutral' viewpoint, but there is no neutral viewpoint. What it ends up getting is everything from a mainstream, majority viewpoint. That is, mainstream of internet users, who are composed of the richer 6th of the world. And wikipedia carries quite a lot of authority, at least for the lay users, meaning that it will (passively) attempt to impose this myth of neutrality onto those who read it. As more and more communities get online, they will be met with this monstrous myth, which comes down to the modernist myth of objectivity. Objectivity, as we have seen, is a deeply oppressive myth that is part of the climate change and poverty problems in the world (at least legitimating many of them, if not more).
The wiki idea is good, the problem is with its size. I'm seeing more and more that big is bad. Small community wiki's can be wonderful, but as soon as a global wiki comes in, it will impose itself on other communities, posing as the (only) one community (have a look at the authors page to see this).
I'm not suggesting, as this site does, that wikipedia has a conscious agenda of oppression. It's agenda isn't conscious, it's not-thought-through and naïve. I'm instead noting the tendency toward homogenisation and problematic mythology, and hopefully, sowing the seed of distrust-for-liberation yet again. Here's a discussion about neutrality, to which I added a comment.
It is with sadness that I realise this tendency and decide to boycott wikipedia. I am starting to think that it should be renamed WERMpedia, because it is the pedia of the Western, English-speaking (even other languages are often the English translated), Rich (computer-literate, educated), predominantly-Males. It was so promising, but I now find its promises to be lies. Sadly, even the Urban Dictionary is policed and I'm beginning to wonder what good on the internet remains.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Coalition Against Technological Development
I'd still like comments on my previous post (Divining), but I'll post this anyway. I found a flyer on a table in Kensington Market, Toronto. Of course, it's ironic that I'm posting this online using software that is in continual development. Anyway, here's what it says:
Technology uses resources and as more technology is used, more resources are used. Actual economic output declines as a larger proportion of resources go into keeping the technology going rather than into actual usable output from the economy. This is going on while the total available resources are fixed or declining. It is no surprise that the expansion and progress of technology is making us poorer.
The economic effects of technological progress:
The current situation in which we are now getting poorer instead of richer as time goes on, is the result of the greater growth of resource use by technology in recent times. Unlike previous technologies, which could only do a limited number of things and which could expand to only a limited extent, computers can keep on replacing more and more human activities and the growth of resource use is accelerating. This creates increasing poverty.
The impact has reached the point that economic output per person is now shrinking. It should be remembered that the amount of economic output is overstated by the commonly quoted Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is greater than the actual economic output because it does not subtract the amount of equipment that is continually being worn out and/or replaced. The actual amount of economic output is the Net Domestic Product (NDP) which is GDP minus Capital Consumption. NDP per person has been decreasing at the same time as GDP per person has been increasing. In fact, GDP overstates the size of the economy by about 15%. The decline in economic conditions and standard of living is clearly shown by the decline in economic output, once the correct measure of economic output, Net Domestic Product, is used.
Technological progress means much greater problems in the near future.
Until recently, we have not faced a condition of long-term economic decline. Since this is a new thing, we should realize how much worse it could get.
Automation is different from other technological changes because it is not limited to shifting some fraction of resources from one use to another, but will continuously absorb ever increasing fractions of available resources and reduce the well being of people on an ongoing basis. This would cause much greater poverty than previous economic declines and the poverty would be for everyone.
Of the greatest concern to environmentalists and people concerned about economic conditions and poverty, should be the expansion of technology that results from advances in computers, as opposed to the unintelligent technologies of the past.
A sustainable economy will stop the economic decline
A sustainable economy, which means a stable economy, is an improvement over the declining economy we have now and are expecting in the future. An economy in which output is not shrinking is the solution to current and even greater future poverty.
Less use of technology and less development of new technology will be a major component of a stable, non-shrinking economy and an environment which is not endangered.
Solutions are low tech
Environmental solutions that are low tech will be preferable. Environmentalists should attempt to create a sense of achieving a condition in which there are not increasing technological impacts on nature and on the economy.
Advancing Technology Causes
Scarcity, Poverty and Environmental Damage
We are now seeing the negative economic consequences of environmental damage and resources running dry. The result is that people are falling towards and into poverty. Advanced technology has become unproductive and is creating this condition of economic decline.Scarcity, Poverty and Environmental Damage
Technology uses resources and as more technology is used, more resources are used. Actual economic output declines as a larger proportion of resources go into keeping the technology going rather than into actual usable output from the economy. This is going on while the total available resources are fixed or declining. It is no surprise that the expansion and progress of technology is making us poorer.
The economic effects of technological progress:
- 10% of electricity is now used to run computers.
- The energy of .9 kg of coal is used to generate and transmit 10 megabytes of data.
- The use of computers is doubling every 8 years.
- The use of computers is growing at such a rate because computers are increasingly becoming able to do any type of job.
- Productivity stopped increasing in 1976 and has now started to decline.
- Decreasing incomes, in particular low paying jobs, are becoming the norm.
The current situation in which we are now getting poorer instead of richer as time goes on, is the result of the greater growth of resource use by technology in recent times. Unlike previous technologies, which could only do a limited number of things and which could expand to only a limited extent, computers can keep on replacing more and more human activities and the growth of resource use is accelerating. This creates increasing poverty.
The impact has reached the point that economic output per person is now shrinking. It should be remembered that the amount of economic output is overstated by the commonly quoted Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is greater than the actual economic output because it does not subtract the amount of equipment that is continually being worn out and/or replaced. The actual amount of economic output is the Net Domestic Product (NDP) which is GDP minus Capital Consumption. NDP per person has been decreasing at the same time as GDP per person has been increasing. In fact, GDP overstates the size of the economy by about 15%. The decline in economic conditions and standard of living is clearly shown by the decline in economic output, once the correct measure of economic output, Net Domestic Product, is used.
Technological progress means much greater problems in the near future.
Until recently, we have not faced a condition of long-term economic decline. Since this is a new thing, we should realize how much worse it could get.
Automation is different from other technological changes because it is not limited to shifting some fraction of resources from one use to another, but will continuously absorb ever increasing fractions of available resources and reduce the well being of people on an ongoing basis. This would cause much greater poverty than previous economic declines and the poverty would be for everyone.
Of the greatest concern to environmentalists and people concerned about economic conditions and poverty, should be the expansion of technology that results from advances in computers, as opposed to the unintelligent technologies of the past.
A sustainable economy will stop the economic decline
A sustainable economy, which means a stable economy, is an improvement over the declining economy we have now and are expecting in the future. An economy in which output is not shrinking is the solution to current and even greater future poverty.
Less use of technology and less development of new technology will be a major component of a stable, non-shrinking economy and an environment which is not endangered.
Solutions are low tech
Environmental solutions that are low tech will be preferable. Environmentalists should attempt to create a sense of achieving a condition in which there are not increasing technological impacts on nature and on the economy.
- Support the natural world and propose environmental solutions that do not involve high tech.
- Criticize the diversion of resources into research and development of technology.
- Some of the most advanced developments in technology, especially further advances in computer technology, should be seen as very negative for people and the environment.
Coalition Against Technological Development
Contact: Stuart, and if you want the details I'll give them out if I trust you.
Contact: Stuart, and if you want the details I'll give them out if I trust you.
NOTE: This post was edited to change its title from "War on Science, 2" on 2013-11-04 to more accurately describe its content.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Divining
My thesis: God is a verb (to divine), and should not be a noun. (This may well be my next paper, so comments are appreciated.)
This is something that has increasingly come out my readings of Catherine Keller and John Robinson, although neither of them say it as such. The premise is that we just don't think any more of a God in a theistic sense; that we think of this as being not only silly and naïve, but also dangerous and oppressive (see much liberation theology or eco-feminist work as to why), and yet, that there is something more than flat and dead, mechanical, secular humanism (to use Robinson's description).
There's several ways that I've come to this. Thinking about the Trinity, and interpreting it in a narrative (rather than an ontological) sense, we have the time of the 'Father' (theism), then the time of the 'Son' (Jesus), and then those who follow Jesus as radical, political liberator (in the 'Spirit'). Jesus, then, "dared to accept the role of sonship, of standing in God's stead.” (The Human Face of God, 217-8) “Put the other way round, henceforth 'God' is to be represented no longer simply as a personified being over man's head, but in and by man and his responsibility.” (218) “'God' now means, for us... that by which he is represented, his surrogate – the power of a love that lives and suffers for others.” (218-9) In short, Jesus showed that God isn't an 'other', a being, but God is only ever perceived (and therefore, is only) in action.
In Exploration into God, Robinson writes, "[the Bible] describes reality much more readily in terms of verbs than substantives." (p.35 ...and if God is 'ultimate reality' as Paul Tillich claims...) Robinson goes on, "The reality [of God... is seen] in action, in suffering, rather than in words." (55, my emphasis) He pulls from Thomas Aquinas (of all people) and writes, "there are common nouns and proper nouns - and 'God' seems to fall into neither category," (58) - so is God not a noun?
Here's a paragraph from my recent paper From Ground to Ocean: (Ful)filling the Abyss. (The 'tehom' refers to the Hebrew word in Genesis 1, which Keller associates with 'deep' and 'ocean of infinite possibility'.)
This is something that has increasingly come out my readings of Catherine Keller and John Robinson, although neither of them say it as such. The premise is that we just don't think any more of a God in a theistic sense; that we think of this as being not only silly and naïve, but also dangerous and oppressive (see much liberation theology or eco-feminist work as to why), and yet, that there is something more than flat and dead, mechanical, secular humanism (to use Robinson's description).
There's several ways that I've come to this. Thinking about the Trinity, and interpreting it in a narrative (rather than an ontological) sense, we have the time of the 'Father' (theism), then the time of the 'Son' (Jesus), and then those who follow Jesus as radical, political liberator (in the 'Spirit'). Jesus, then, "dared to accept the role of sonship, of standing in God's stead.” (The Human Face of God, 217-8) “Put the other way round, henceforth 'God' is to be represented no longer simply as a personified being over man's head, but in and by man and his responsibility.” (218) “'God' now means, for us... that by which he is represented, his surrogate – the power of a love that lives and suffers for others.” (218-9) In short, Jesus showed that God isn't an 'other', a being, but God is only ever perceived (and therefore, is only) in action.
In Exploration into God, Robinson writes, "[the Bible] describes reality much more readily in terms of verbs than substantives." (p.35 ...and if God is 'ultimate reality' as Paul Tillich claims...) Robinson goes on, "The reality [of God... is seen] in action, in suffering, rather than in words." (55, my emphasis) He pulls from Thomas Aquinas (of all people) and writes, "there are common nouns and proper nouns - and 'God' seems to fall into neither category," (58) - so is God not a noun?
Here's a paragraph from my recent paper From Ground to Ocean: (Ful)filling the Abyss. (The 'tehom' refers to the Hebrew word in Genesis 1, which Keller associates with 'deep' and 'ocean of infinite possibility'.)
But we must remember our question: Is the tehom God? And how does the creature/creator, the divine/cosmic, relate to tehom? The short answer to the second of these questions is 'creativity'. In the bottomless tehom, the infinite potential, there is nothing and everything. 'God' is the differentiating, the distinguishing of these potentials. “'[E]verything' in a state of potentiality is no thing,” (Face of the Deep, 180) and so this 'chaotic buzz' needs a decision to be made, a decision which eliminates some possibilities while selecting others to be created. To help describe this Keller uses 'divine' as a verb: “[A] primal Other not separate from but within God – différance in precisely the sense of the originary non-origin... this radical genesis divines the potentiality of the tehom. Its creativity does not create by itself. By itself it makes no difference... The great cosmic decision has been traditionally, with justice, named the creation; its agency, the creator.” (180) The tehom by itself, the potential everything, is no thing – it makes no difference because within it no difference is determined, or rather, divined. God, then, is the process of actualising/ realising/ differentiating/ choosing/ divining the tehom, in an interconnectivity where God is nothing without the potential to be (the tehom), and the tehom is no thing when it is merely potentially everything – without the divine, without being divined. “If the godhead, or rather the godness, 'in' whom unfolds the universe can be theologised as Tehom, the ocean of divinity, the divinity who unfolds 'in' the all is called by such biblical names as Elohim, Sophia, Logos, Christ. ... [T]he names Tehom and Elohim may henceforth designate, if not 'persons', two capacities of an infinite becoming.” (219) Is Tehom divine? Yes, but not by itself, for Tehom as mere (only/oceanic) potential is no thing without Elohim. And is Tehom God? No. For while “Tehom has taken on the names and aura of a certain godness, [it] has never been identified with 'God', nor with the All; it 'is' not pan or theos. It signifies rather their relation... The relations, the waves of our possibility, comprise the real potentiality from which we emerge. So tehom, metonym of the divine womb, remains neither God nor not-God but the depth of 'God'.” (227) Finally we reach a place where we can divine the highly nuanced difference between Tillich and Keller.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
War on science
"WAR on SCIENCE" declared the poster stuck to the street lamp. Yes, I thought, finally. I looked closer. It's a film showing at the Brunswick theatre, a place that I know shows good films and interesting documentaries. So I looked it up. And was sorely disappointed. For this BBC film is yet another in the "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" debate, featuring Richard Dawkins. It's not the war I hoped for. It's a war by pseudo-scientists on pseudo-scientists.
But the war on science needs to happen. Not by intelligent designers, or other fundamentalist groups with horrific political agendas. It needs to be a war of liberation.
The past few centuries have seen the increase in the power of science. It has, in many ways, been a fantastic force in the liberation from oppressive religious power structures, and through science many good things have been accomplished. Because of this, more and more people have knelt before its authority, hoping that it will explain all the mysteries of the cosmos better than theism did. And it does. But it's become an idol, and it's been subverted by exploitative capitalism.
People trust science. People trust scientists. People trust those who speak for scientists, in language that they can understand. People trust far too much.
The movie The Future of Food impressed on me how bad this has gotten. The movie shows how rich, heartless, US corporations have turn America into a genetically modified wasteland, for the sole purpose of profit. GM crops are no better for the consumer, and don't solve the worlds food shortage. They are simply there to protect profits.
Intellectual property is the same way. Those companies are trying to patent the worlds seeds, which word give them omnipotent control over food production, allowing them to decide who lives and who starves. After hearing from Harpers that "The United States Department of Agriculture gave preliminary approval for the large-scale cultivation in Kansas of a strain of genetically modified rice that contains human genes," (Findings, May 2007) it seems that those corporations (along with many other medical corporations) are now in the business of patenting human genes, and so it doesn't seem far off that a person born is already corporately owned. Will we then need to pay dues to live? To work as slaves?
And talking of medical, I just read another Harpers article, Manufacturing Depression: A journey into the economy of melancholy, which is written by a therapist/writer who agrees to undergo drug testing for depression. The article is superbly written and shows the blatant lies the drug corporations use. Towards the end of the article he writes, "I am already deflated when I arrive for my last interview. Of course, there's no place in the HAM-D to express this, to talk about the immeasurable loss that I think we all suffer as science turns to scientism, as bright and ambitious people devote their lives to erasing selfhood in order to cure it of its discontents." "[The doctor's] chippy now, like she's trying to convince me that I ought to take my improvement and go home happy, another satisfied customer. And really, it doesn't matter. Because the point here is not to teach me anything about myself, or for them to learn anything from me. It's not even to prove whether or not omega-3s work. It's to strengthen the idea that this is what we are: machines fueled by neurotransmitters at the mercy of our own renegade molecules."
Similar things can be said in the world of electronics (where corporations receive their yearly taxes as we 'upgrade'), in munitions, and in any other place where science can be used to exploit. Science is no longer that wonderful thing we worship as science. Science is corporate-controlled ideology, designed to entrap and exploit. We need to lose faith in science, and go to war against its priests.
But the war on science needs to happen. Not by intelligent designers, or other fundamentalist groups with horrific political agendas. It needs to be a war of liberation.
The past few centuries have seen the increase in the power of science. It has, in many ways, been a fantastic force in the liberation from oppressive religious power structures, and through science many good things have been accomplished. Because of this, more and more people have knelt before its authority, hoping that it will explain all the mysteries of the cosmos better than theism did. And it does. But it's become an idol, and it's been subverted by exploitative capitalism.
People trust science. People trust scientists. People trust those who speak for scientists, in language that they can understand. People trust far too much.
The movie The Future of Food impressed on me how bad this has gotten. The movie shows how rich, heartless, US corporations have turn America into a genetically modified wasteland, for the sole purpose of profit. GM crops are no better for the consumer, and don't solve the worlds food shortage. They are simply there to protect profits.
Intellectual property is the same way. Those companies are trying to patent the worlds seeds, which word give them omnipotent control over food production, allowing them to decide who lives and who starves. After hearing from Harpers that "The United States Department of Agriculture gave preliminary approval for the large-scale cultivation in Kansas of a strain of genetically modified rice that contains human genes," (Findings, May 2007) it seems that those corporations (along with many other medical corporations) are now in the business of patenting human genes, and so it doesn't seem far off that a person born is already corporately owned. Will we then need to pay dues to live? To work as slaves?
And talking of medical, I just read another Harpers article, Manufacturing Depression: A journey into the economy of melancholy, which is written by a therapist/writer who agrees to undergo drug testing for depression. The article is superbly written and shows the blatant lies the drug corporations use. Towards the end of the article he writes, "I am already deflated when I arrive for my last interview. Of course, there's no place in the HAM-D to express this, to talk about the immeasurable loss that I think we all suffer as science turns to scientism, as bright and ambitious people devote their lives to erasing selfhood in order to cure it of its discontents." "[The doctor's] chippy now, like she's trying to convince me that I ought to take my improvement and go home happy, another satisfied customer. And really, it doesn't matter. Because the point here is not to teach me anything about myself, or for them to learn anything from me. It's not even to prove whether or not omega-3s work. It's to strengthen the idea that this is what we are: machines fueled by neurotransmitters at the mercy of our own renegade molecules."
Similar things can be said in the world of electronics (where corporations receive their yearly taxes as we 'upgrade'), in munitions, and in any other place where science can be used to exploit. Science is no longer that wonderful thing we worship as science. Science is corporate-controlled ideology, designed to entrap and exploit. We need to lose faith in science, and go to war against its priests.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
The result of mixing Irigaray, caffeine and magic
From whence, here one comes, as flailing,
flying, falling down.
He bites. Bites the air.
And, as landing, springs as hero, as superman-
ing. Swirling, he misses. The doves scream. Trees
cry. crying. cries.
The void. There, the shadow, the blackness
ceases to distinguish the three. Fire remains, the
only one to illume. No wonder we loved it.
But we unrealised (fail to) that we are the
three. The three are in us. Are us. The fourth, our/are
rest. Rest,...rest.
They two, they realised the three, embodied
it for all of us. They sing of it. They are the
bards, the song itself. They teach the way,
but still we seek fire.
Sinking
The flame, our desire, is extinguished. We must see
it go out. Pray for its death. For the
onset of decay.
It burns as we start to feel the earth,
the second. It wells within, pounding on high.
And the first flows. For air is third. In the flow,
the her, we find ourself, as she shows who we are.
In relation. Why .we are.
flying, falling down.
He bites. Bites the air.
And, as landing, springs as hero, as superman-
ing. Swirling, he misses. The doves scream. Trees
cry. crying. cries.
The void. There, the shadow, the blackness
ceases to distinguish the three. Fire remains, the
only one to illume. No wonder we loved it.
But we unrealised (fail to) that we are the
three. The three are in us. Are us. The fourth, our/are
rest. Rest,...rest.
They two, they realised the three, embodied
it for all of us. They sing of it. They are the
bards, the song itself. They teach the way,
but still we seek fire.
Sinking
The flame, our desire, is extinguished. We must see
it go out. Pray for its death. For the
onset of decay.
It burns as we start to feel the earth,
the second. It wells within, pounding on high.
And the first flows. For air is third. In the flow,
the her, we find ourself, as she shows who we are.
In relation. Why .we are.
Friday, April 13, 2007
The-enpanism
I'm curious if my last post was bad/boring or if people were to busy to comment. So I'll try something shorter.
I've talked a lot about pantheism (all is God) and panentheism (all is in God) before, but Chris mentioned to me that N.T.Wright talks about the-en-panism (God is in all). I think I like it, but I'd like to hear what people think. What does it mean? What connotations does it have? Where does it put God and us? What is 'all'?
I've talked a lot about pantheism (all is God) and panentheism (all is in God) before, but Chris mentioned to me that N.T.Wright talks about the-en-panism (God is in all). I think I like it, but I'd like to hear what people think. What does it mean? What connotations does it have? Where does it put God and us? What is 'all'?
Friday, April 6, 2007
My a(nti)theism
Reading John Robinson's The Human Face of God, I came to the interpretation that Jesus attempted to abolish theism. Paraphrased, "No longer do you see God as a being in the sky who steps in to do things, you see God manifest in the actions around you when a person helps the poor and sides with the oppressed. The only way God is present is when you make God present through your actions."
I like it, for I see theism manifesting itself as an exploiter and oppressor. Theism (which I'm taking to loosely mean "belief in a transcendent being/consciousness") seems to be made manifest in three ways:
I like it, for I see theism manifesting itself as an exploiter and oppressor. Theism (which I'm taking to loosely mean "belief in a transcendent being/consciousness") seems to be made manifest in three ways:
- Deism: God created, then has stepped back to let it happened. This makes God an irresponsible jerk who seems to take pleasure in watching his (sic) creation squirm and cry out in pain.
- Total order: God, being omnipotent, controls everything. However, this not only legitimates oppressive power structures (who model themselves off God), it also makes God responsible oppressing the poor and favouring the rich. If God controls everything, it's his (sic) fault and I have no responsibility (as I am merely a puppet).
- Semi-deism: God occasionally steps in, and will make it all OK in the end. This is the worst of both. God is responsible for oppression and is evil because he stands back when he could and should act (he didn't stop the Holocaust sooner, even though he could have). He (sic) is also an excuse for non-action and takes away human responsibility and agency as there is a 'promise' that it'll all work out in the end regardless of what I do now. This eventually results in omnipotence and total order, as per number 2.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Quebec City Visit
I've realised that I didn't post anything about my trip to Quebec City, the last weekend in February, 23-26th. It was a fantastic time. Here's some pictures.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Infinite Ecology?
Catherine Keller, probably my favourite theologian at the moment, builds up a mythology/ontology which is very much in line with Process Philosophy. In her book, Face of the Deep, she argues for creatio ex profundis (creation out of the depths), instead of the traditional (Christian) creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). She talks about the depths as the infinite potential from which everything (be)comes. What I want to pick up on here is the use, and maybe the need for, the infinite.
Wendell Berry, a wonderful, ecological, Christian, agrarian writer/poet/novelist/farmer, also writes about infinite. In The Art of the Commonplace, he discusses how people have often seen a huge resource and called it infinite. For example, the vast forests of North American were considered infinite, until they were cut down. The oil 'reserves' have been described as infinite, but now we are (probably) past peak oil. Fish in the sea were considered infinite, but now some of the most abundant are on the soon-to-be-extinct- (or even the extinct-) list. For the problem humanity has made has been to equate (currently) un-countable with infinite. "Just because I cannot measure how much oil there is currently, I am free to assume there is an infinite supply." This is obviously naive, as Berry points out, on par with assuming the Earth is flat because it looks like it is from where I am standing.
My question in this post: Is the category of the infinite a category that will always be destructive to ecology? The earth (and even the universe) is limited, so is talk of the unlimited, the infinite, something that will necessarily be alien and dangerous to the earth (and to the universe)?
Keller wants to be able to account for the New, for the ability for continual liberation from whatever tries to ensnare, for creativity to never be exhausted, for our options to never be merely A. or B., with no possibility of a C. or D. or E. (ad infinitum). To achieve this, she senses that she needs to make the potential in the chaos to be infinite. Is this the case? The ocean (to which she compares the pool-of-potential) is limited (being part of planet Earth), but it is also a continuous source of creativity and newness (new species emerge continuously in the depths). Is it's creative potential infinite? Or unlimited? Or limitless? Or unaccountable? Or un-countable? Can we keep potential being non-exhaustible without making it infinite? Or is the category of the infinite not as much to blame for eco-disaster as I (and Berry) make it out to be?
One further point worth making is that Brian Swimme (a mythological cosmologist) points out that the universe can lose creativity (I forget whether this was in The Universe is a Green Dragon, or The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos). Spiral galaxies are the only galaxies in which new stars are born (from nebula). However, the universe is no longer producing new spiral galaxies, and seems unable to. In fact, the number of spiral galaxies is decreasing, because when spiral galaxies collide they generally form elliptical (egg-shaped) galaxies, where new stars are no longer born. The universe seems to have lost the potential to create spiral galaxies (star breeding-grounds). Is this an example that demonstrates non-infinite potential? Or is this just that other 'options' were 'chosen', so that although spiral-galaxy-creation may no longer be an option, creativity is still infinite in other ways. I.e. just because I chose to eat banana bread for breakfast, and not an omelet, does not necessitate that potential is now decreased or limited, that is, ∞÷2=∞ (infinite/2=infinite).
Wendell Berry, a wonderful, ecological, Christian, agrarian writer/poet/novelist/farmer, also writes about infinite. In The Art of the Commonplace, he discusses how people have often seen a huge resource and called it infinite. For example, the vast forests of North American were considered infinite, until they were cut down. The oil 'reserves' have been described as infinite, but now we are (probably) past peak oil. Fish in the sea were considered infinite, but now some of the most abundant are on the soon-to-be-extinct- (or even the extinct-) list. For the problem humanity has made has been to equate (currently) un-countable with infinite. "Just because I cannot measure how much oil there is currently, I am free to assume there is an infinite supply." This is obviously naive, as Berry points out, on par with assuming the Earth is flat because it looks like it is from where I am standing.
My question in this post: Is the category of the infinite a category that will always be destructive to ecology? The earth (and even the universe) is limited, so is talk of the unlimited, the infinite, something that will necessarily be alien and dangerous to the earth (and to the universe)?
Keller wants to be able to account for the New, for the ability for continual liberation from whatever tries to ensnare, for creativity to never be exhausted, for our options to never be merely A. or B., with no possibility of a C. or D. or E. (ad infinitum). To achieve this, she senses that she needs to make the potential in the chaos to be infinite. Is this the case? The ocean (to which she compares the pool-of-potential) is limited (being part of planet Earth), but it is also a continuous source of creativity and newness (new species emerge continuously in the depths). Is it's creative potential infinite? Or unlimited? Or limitless? Or unaccountable? Or un-countable? Can we keep potential being non-exhaustible without making it infinite? Or is the category of the infinite not as much to blame for eco-disaster as I (and Berry) make it out to be?
One further point worth making is that Brian Swimme (a mythological cosmologist) points out that the universe can lose creativity (I forget whether this was in The Universe is a Green Dragon, or The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos). Spiral galaxies are the only galaxies in which new stars are born (from nebula). However, the universe is no longer producing new spiral galaxies, and seems unable to. In fact, the number of spiral galaxies is decreasing, because when spiral galaxies collide they generally form elliptical (egg-shaped) galaxies, where new stars are no longer born. The universe seems to have lost the potential to create spiral galaxies (star breeding-grounds). Is this an example that demonstrates non-infinite potential? Or is this just that other 'options' were 'chosen', so that although spiral-galaxy-creation may no longer be an option, creativity is still infinite in other ways. I.e. just because I chose to eat banana bread for breakfast, and not an omelet, does not necessitate that potential is now decreased or limited, that is, ∞÷2=∞ (infinite/2=infinite).
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Stuarting
Just a quick and kinda weird post. In all the philosophy and theology I've been encountering, we've talked about how we are in a state a becoming, rather than that we are beings. The self has been deconstructed and dispersed in postmodern philosophy and psychology, so that there is not a essence to me, the 'real me' that lies behind what I do.
So maybe, instead of thinking of myself as 'Stuart', as a solid identity, I should think of myself as 'Stuarting', as living out what it means (for me) to be Stuart in each moment of becoming. Maybe. (Note: this post hasn't been written carefully, so I've probably been sloppy throwing around language of 'myself' and stuff. Just ignore it. Or whatever.)
So maybe, instead of thinking of myself as 'Stuart', as a solid identity, I should think of myself as 'Stuarting', as living out what it means (for me) to be Stuart in each moment of becoming. Maybe. (Note: this post hasn't been written carefully, so I've probably been sloppy throwing around language of 'myself' and stuff. Just ignore it. Or whatever.)
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Sacred Body-count
3223 US soldiers have died in Iraq so far!
Terrible! Shocking! That's over three thousand families that are mourning a direct relative, and many more mourning those losses. And that's a good reason not to go to war, and a good reason to get out and end the war. But we need to get past that. Maybe as a non-American I don't care about US troops as much as Americans might. But the reason to stop war cannot be because of the deaths of US soldiers alone.
Much more important is the deaths of over, as a recent estimate said, 2 million Iraqi people. That includes men, women and children. That's a lot more devastated families, and a lot of families that have been completely annihilated. This is a much bigger reason to stop war. The total death count tells much more about the war. And given the Iraq war, and indeed all recent wars, are just the games of the rich, selfish and greedy 'elite', that's a lot of innocent people who have been sacrificed to them, a lot of blood on their hands. The Bush Management (I refuse to call them an 'administration' - those involved are corporation heads who are masquerading as politicians and are working solely for the good of themselves and their corporations) has so far played a game that has killed over 2 million people, and they have played this game in a similar manner to how one might play a game of chess - sacrificing as many pawns as necessary in order to protect (and secure) the king (fuck the queen, she's replaceable).
But the move from counting US deaths to counting total human deaths is becoming more and more important. In a recent article in Harpers magasine, the 'Coming Robot Army' was discussed. The result of robot warfare is that it ceases to be warfare at all and merely becomes 'target practice'. In the world of robot warfare, there will be even less US deaths, and even more potential for killing, even more mistakes. The 3000 vs. 2000000 will become more like 100 vs. 6000000. Or worse. And the traditional cry of "Bring home our troops" will not be heard, partly because so few are dying, and partly because most of them will be home playing the computer 'game' of target practice. Oh, and by the way, they are not ever 'our' troops. They are the troops who belong to the unaccountable multinational corporations by proxy of the a government that sees them as a renewable 'resource', something they can use and exploit to boost their own power and (so-called) riches.
But we also have to go further. Moving on from 'me' and 'my side' centredness, by look at the total death count we have only managed to get to an anthropocentricity. The '2 million deaths' are merely '2 million human deaths'. We also need to count the death and mutilation of animals, of plants, of soil and of land, of the psychology of the survivors (human and none), of beauty (in the landscape and elsewhere), and of future generations (of all living things). We need to count the death of knowledge, of what is forgotten. We need to count the death of genealogies and of habitats. We need to count the death of innocence, and we need to count the death of a healthy society (even if it wasn't healthy before, it was healthier), both in the 'target-practice-zone' and in the rest of the world. We need to count the desertification, the permanent annihilation of fertility and fertile farmland. We need to count the pollution, of land, sea and sky. We need to observe the tears shed by Gaia. And we need to lament.
Terrible! Shocking! That's over three thousand families that are mourning a direct relative, and many more mourning those losses. And that's a good reason not to go to war, and a good reason to get out and end the war. But we need to get past that. Maybe as a non-American I don't care about US troops as much as Americans might. But the reason to stop war cannot be because of the deaths of US soldiers alone.
Much more important is the deaths of over, as a recent estimate said, 2 million Iraqi people. That includes men, women and children. That's a lot more devastated families, and a lot of families that have been completely annihilated. This is a much bigger reason to stop war. The total death count tells much more about the war. And given the Iraq war, and indeed all recent wars, are just the games of the rich, selfish and greedy 'elite', that's a lot of innocent people who have been sacrificed to them, a lot of blood on their hands. The Bush Management (I refuse to call them an 'administration' - those involved are corporation heads who are masquerading as politicians and are working solely for the good of themselves and their corporations) has so far played a game that has killed over 2 million people, and they have played this game in a similar manner to how one might play a game of chess - sacrificing as many pawns as necessary in order to protect (and secure) the king (fuck the queen, she's replaceable).
But the move from counting US deaths to counting total human deaths is becoming more and more important. In a recent article in Harpers magasine, the 'Coming Robot Army' was discussed. The result of robot warfare is that it ceases to be warfare at all and merely becomes 'target practice'. In the world of robot warfare, there will be even less US deaths, and even more potential for killing, even more mistakes. The 3000 vs. 2000000 will become more like 100 vs. 6000000. Or worse. And the traditional cry of "Bring home our troops" will not be heard, partly because so few are dying, and partly because most of them will be home playing the computer 'game' of target practice. Oh, and by the way, they are not ever 'our' troops. They are the troops who belong to the unaccountable multinational corporations by proxy of the a government that sees them as a renewable 'resource', something they can use and exploit to boost their own power and (so-called) riches.
But we also have to go further. Moving on from 'me' and 'my side' centredness, by look at the total death count we have only managed to get to an anthropocentricity. The '2 million deaths' are merely '2 million human deaths'. We also need to count the death and mutilation of animals, of plants, of soil and of land, of the psychology of the survivors (human and none), of beauty (in the landscape and elsewhere), and of future generations (of all living things). We need to count the death of knowledge, of what is forgotten. We need to count the death of genealogies and of habitats. We need to count the death of innocence, and we need to count the death of a healthy society (even if it wasn't healthy before, it was healthier), both in the 'target-practice-zone' and in the rest of the world. We need to count the desertification, the permanent annihilation of fertility and fertile farmland. We need to count the pollution, of land, sea and sky. We need to observe the tears shed by Gaia. And we need to lament.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
My sermon for Wine Before Breakfast
I will be reading a letter which was found shredded in a garbage dump. It's dated March 6th, 2048.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Big/Whole
Pantheism/Panentheism. A quick thought.
(Crude/ancient) pantheism said that everything, the universe, is God. This means that the bigger something is, the more of God there is. Hence, worship a mountain instead of a pebble, because it's bigger. Pantheism seems to divinise Big-ness.
Panentheism on the other hand says that God is the universe, but that the whole is more than the parts that make it up. So the chemicals of my body may be worth less than $10, and if I sold my organs off individually I'd get around $250,000, but as a whole, I'm worth more than that. Panentheism seems to divinise Whole-ness.
Theism is another kettle of fish, which probably divinises self(ishness) or fear-of-the-other or something. But I won't get into that here. I'm more interested into what people think about the first two - am I onto something, is it a ridiculous over-simplification, or it is unfair?
(Crude/ancient) pantheism said that everything, the universe, is God. This means that the bigger something is, the more of God there is. Hence, worship a mountain instead of a pebble, because it's bigger. Pantheism seems to divinise Big-ness.
Panentheism on the other hand says that God is the universe, but that the whole is more than the parts that make it up. So the chemicals of my body may be worth less than $10, and if I sold my organs off individually I'd get around $250,000, but as a whole, I'm worth more than that. Panentheism seems to divinise Whole-ness.
Theism is another kettle of fish, which probably divinises self(ishness) or fear-of-the-other or something. But I won't get into that here. I'm more interested into what people think about the first two - am I onto something, is it a ridiculous over-simplification, or it is unfair?
Monday, February 19, 2007
Visiting DC
This past weekend I went to Crystal City, just outside of Washington DC. I went for a DnD convention and to see friends from Chicago, but while I was there I also took a few hours to see some of the sights in downtown DC. Here are my thoughts.
The metro was efficient, clean, curvy and ... concrete. Every station (of the ~10 I saw) looked alike and quickly became monotonous. There was no art, no creativity. At the Pentagon stop, there was a poster advertising "Unrestricted Warfare Symposium: Be a Part of the Solution." This worried me until I looked it up and discovered that it was actually anti-war (at least, anti-unrestricted war). However, the reason I assumed it was pro-war was that in every station there were posters advertising the US military and war-related jobs. Even the adverts for skin-care had war-related themes. The entire area was tainted with war. I was appalled.
Emerging from the subway I made my way across several of the sites, seeing the capitol building (from a distance), the Washington Monument, the White House (from a distance), the WWII memorial, the Vietnam (SE Asia) memorial and the Lincoln memorial. Out of these, the Vietnam memorial was the odd one out. All the others stood up, reaching for the sky. The Washington Monument was the epitome of this, being an enormous phallus that reached Babel-like into the heavens - I am hoping that someone will one day carve it into a shape that more closely resembles a penis so the blatant (white) male power-trip will be shown more obviously for what it symbolises.
The WWII memorial was a glorification of war. It was a celebration of victory, an excuse to 'show-them' that we won. It again reached up into the sky, although its shape also made it slightly less Babelesque and slightly more receptive to the heavens. There were quotations from several famous people carved into it, all of them glorifying war. I threw a snowball at one of them that made me mad. There was one that was trying to acknowledge women's contribution to the war, although this was carved in an unsymmetrical place, which made it appear to be an afterthought and less important. I was pleased it was there though.
The Lincoln memorial, or rather, Lincoln 'Temple' (as it calls itself) was, as I had been warned, repulsive. Although Lincoln himself said (and as was carved on the side of the temple), God doesn't take sides. However, clearly the American people who planned and built this 'temple' believed otherwise, as they built an enormous idol who clearly was there to be worshiped. The temple tried to impress you with its size, although it reminded me of Lord Farquaad - compensating.
The Vietnam Memorial was a completely different story. This did not stand up, reaching for the heavens - it was a scar, cut down into the landscape. This did not gleam with white marble, bathing in the light of the gods - it absorbed light into its black granite. This did not glorify war, it lamented the loss of the people whose names were carved into it. This was a wonder. It brought forth tears, rather than attempting to inspire awe. It rang of humility, of pain, of mistakes. It was beautiful in its simplicity. It is the only memorial I know of that tries to remember the dead, rather than trying to glorify the war.
The metro was efficient, clean, curvy and ... concrete. Every station (of the ~10 I saw) looked alike and quickly became monotonous. There was no art, no creativity. At the Pentagon stop, there was a poster advertising "Unrestricted Warfare Symposium: Be a Part of the Solution." This worried me until I looked it up and discovered that it was actually anti-war (at least, anti-unrestricted war). However, the reason I assumed it was pro-war was that in every station there were posters advertising the US military and war-related jobs. Even the adverts for skin-care had war-related themes. The entire area was tainted with war. I was appalled.
Emerging from the subway I made my way across several of the sites, seeing the capitol building (from a distance), the Washington Monument, the White House (from a distance), the WWII memorial, the Vietnam (SE Asia) memorial and the Lincoln memorial. Out of these, the Vietnam memorial was the odd one out. All the others stood up, reaching for the sky. The Washington Monument was the epitome of this, being an enormous phallus that reached Babel-like into the heavens - I am hoping that someone will one day carve it into a shape that more closely resembles a penis so the blatant (white) male power-trip will be shown more obviously for what it symbolises.
The WWII memorial was a glorification of war. It was a celebration of victory, an excuse to 'show-them' that we won. It again reached up into the sky, although its shape also made it slightly less Babelesque and slightly more receptive to the heavens. There were quotations from several famous people carved into it, all of them glorifying war. I threw a snowball at one of them that made me mad. There was one that was trying to acknowledge women's contribution to the war, although this was carved in an unsymmetrical place, which made it appear to be an afterthought and less important. I was pleased it was there though.
The Lincoln memorial, or rather, Lincoln 'Temple' (as it calls itself) was, as I had been warned, repulsive. Although Lincoln himself said (and as was carved on the side of the temple), God doesn't take sides. However, clearly the American people who planned and built this 'temple' believed otherwise, as they built an enormous idol who clearly was there to be worshiped. The temple tried to impress you with its size, although it reminded me of Lord Farquaad - compensating.
The Vietnam Memorial was a completely different story. This did not stand up, reaching for the heavens - it was a scar, cut down into the landscape. This did not gleam with white marble, bathing in the light of the gods - it absorbed light into its black granite. This did not glorify war, it lamented the loss of the people whose names were carved into it. This was a wonder. It brought forth tears, rather than attempting to inspire awe. It rang of humility, of pain, of mistakes. It was beautiful in its simplicity. It is the only memorial I know of that tries to remember the dead, rather than trying to glorify the war.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Lose Faith
Lose faith in government
- the elite aristocracy despise the people.
Lose faith in corporations,
- whom greed is good.
Lose faith in advertising, marketing and sales
- what they promise won't help.
Lose faith in military machines
- they sacrifice life for profit.
Lose faith in (mass) media
- the lies they've decided to entertain you with will entrap you.
Lose faith in universals,
- no one has the perspective from which to claim them.
Lose faith in one-size-fits-all
- it won't.
Lose faith in humanity,
- it consistently chooses extinction and is choosing its own.
Lose faith in God
- He is man's puppet.
Lose faith in the/a future
- it is not set, it is not determined, it is not sure, it might not...
-- Inspired during my visit to Washington DC this past weekend.
- the elite aristocracy despise the people.
Lose faith in corporations,
- whom greed is good.
Lose faith in advertising, marketing and sales
- what they promise won't help.
Lose faith in military machines
- they sacrifice life for profit.
Lose faith in (mass) media
- the lies they've decided to entertain you with will entrap you.
Lose faith in universals,
- no one has the perspective from which to claim them.
Lose faith in one-size-fits-all
- it won't.
Lose faith in humanity,
- it consistently chooses extinction and is choosing its own.
Lose faith in God
- He is man's puppet.
Lose faith in the/a future
- it is not set, it is not determined, it is not sure, it might not...
-- Inspired during my visit to Washington DC this past weekend.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Short Thoughts
In a week where I don't have much time, here's just a quick thought that's occurred to me, as well an unrelated quotation from Jimmy Carter.
It seems evolutionary scientists (Michael Ruse, Richard Dawkins) are still trying to set up an ontology - the way the universe really is. What they're missing is that the universe isn't an ontology (which Barry Allen gets). To say that God stepped into history to move evolution forward, or to say that the blind uncaring watchmaker (Dawkins) was the cause, is not the question. Those who advocate blind selection are missing out on the mystery, creativity and joy of the universe. Those who say God did it are setting up a mythology, because the mythology has a purpose, allowing for better living in the present and for the future. It's poetry, not machinery that is being emphasised. Creativity, not fate. Although the evolutionists will not believe in pre-destination, every possibility has been set in the past, and the train track of the future is determined by what has been (although we may be creating it as we go). There's no room for change, for radical difference from what evolution/DNA(/psychology) determines that I/we will do. Determinism is the end of ontology in science, just as it is in theology.
It seems evolutionary scientists (Michael Ruse, Richard Dawkins) are still trying to set up an ontology - the way the universe really is. What they're missing is that the universe isn't an ontology (which Barry Allen gets). To say that God stepped into history to move evolution forward, or to say that the blind uncaring watchmaker (Dawkins) was the cause, is not the question. Those who advocate blind selection are missing out on the mystery, creativity and joy of the universe. Those who say God did it are setting up a mythology, because the mythology has a purpose, allowing for better living in the present and for the future. It's poetry, not machinery that is being emphasised. Creativity, not fate. Although the evolutionists will not believe in pre-destination, every possibility has been set in the past, and the train track of the future is determined by what has been (although we may be creating it as we go). There's no room for change, for radical difference from what evolution/DNA(/psychology) determines that I/we will do. Determinism is the end of ontology in science, just as it is in theology.
"First of all, it would be a commitment to the principles that Christ espoused. We worship Him as the Prince of Peace, not the Prince of Pre-emptive War. And I have noticed how many leading Christians - I presume many of them call themselves evangelicals - have been among the most militant and warlike members of our society. Even before President Bush decided to invade Iraq, he had strong public support from a number of more conservative Christians.
The second things is justice - that is, the commitment of individual beings and their governments to utilise the power, the strength, the riches, the influence of a government to alleviate suffering among those who are mist in need - to give them food, shelter, water."
-- Jimmy Carter, from Idea magasine in discussing how the (evangelical) church could get back on track. Sadly the Evangelical Alliance responded negatively.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Software I recommend
Here's some software I've come across that I find useful. I try to avoid using large corporations wherever possible (microsoft, adobe), and prefer to use open source, GNU/GPL, or independent programming when I can find it. All software listed is free and freely downloadable, but I will also include what license it holds to. I will update this slowly as I test and use new software. Please leave suggestions of useful software you have found, and any alternatives you have found to the corporately-owned software I am currently using.
Of course, I am a hypocrite because I am using Windozes, the ultimate corporate evil of computer software. But at least I'm not using Vista - if you are, unplug you computer from the internet, format your hard drive and install an operating system that doesn't spy on you and take all your rights and power away. Really, if you're using Vista you're stupid. Really stupid.
Web Browsing:
Firefox, and see the bottom of the page for the addons I use. If you are using IE then stop everything and download firefox now. It'll save you time, disk space, annoyance, pop-ups and even some virus/spyware. Mozilla and other open source software licenses.
Office:
OpenOffice (very nice full office suite) GPL
Google Docs (simple text editor that you can collaborate with others to write documents, lacks footnotes) Warning: Corporately owned
MS Office 2003 (better than later versions, but don't pay for it) Warning: Corporately owned
Media (Music and Video):
VLC (The best media player out there) GPL
Media Player Classic (with Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative) GPL
musikCube partially open source
Others various
Democracy (looks attractive for podcasts and internet TV but I haven't used it) GPL
FLV open source
Audacity (Audio recording and editing) GPL
CDex (Ripper and ogg/mp3 encoder - I've not used it but it has been recommended to me) GPL
Pictures:
GIMP GPL
Irfanview free for non-commercial use (make the corporations pay!)
Pix Resizer (also see Alarm from the same person) free/independent
PrintScreen (I use it because my print screen button is broken) Warning: Corporately owned
PDF:
Sumatra (Very simple, not good at handling high magnification) open source
PDF Download (Fantastic Firefox Addon) free/independent
Foxit Reader (It's less evil than Adobe, and smaller/faster than Acrobat) Warning: Corporately owned
Downloading:
µTorrent (The best torrent downloader, but get 1.6 or before, because the later versions collect information on you) Warning: Corporately owned (by BitTorrent Inc.)
eMule (Peer-to-peer downloading, decent but often flooded with malware/unwanted porn) GPL
Soulseek(tm) (A peer-to-peer (music) downloader with lots of small musicians) Corporate/inpedendent?
Communications:
GAIM (Multiple instant messaging clients in one) GPL
Skype (Cheap/free internet phone) Warning: Corporately owned
General Smooth Running:
7-zip (File zipper, with it's own superior 7z compression format) GPL
Ad-Aware (Remove spy/malware) Warning: Corporately owned (but well worth it)
ClamWin (Free Virus Scanner) GPL
CDBurner XP Pro (CD Burner that's significantly better than the Windows built-in) Independent donation-based
Of course, I am a hypocrite because I am using Windozes, the ultimate corporate evil of computer software. But at least I'm not using Vista - if you are, unplug you computer from the internet, format your hard drive and install an operating system that doesn't spy on you and take all your rights and power away. Really, if you're using Vista you're stupid. Really stupid.
Web Browsing:
Firefox, and see the bottom of the page for the addons I use. If you are using IE then stop everything and download firefox now. It'll save you time, disk space, annoyance, pop-ups and even some virus/spyware. Mozilla and other open source software licenses.
Office:
OpenOffice (very nice full office suite) GPL
Google Docs (simple text editor that you can collaborate with others to write documents, lacks footnotes) Warning: Corporately owned
MS Office 2003 (better than later versions, but don't pay for it) Warning: Corporately owned
Media (Music and Video):
VLC (The best media player out there) GPL
Media Player Classic (with Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative) GPL
musikCube partially open source
Others various
Democracy (looks attractive for podcasts and internet TV but I haven't used it) GPL
FLV open source
Audacity (Audio recording and editing) GPL
CDex (Ripper and ogg/mp3 encoder - I've not used it but it has been recommended to me) GPL
Pictures:
GIMP GPL
Irfanview free for non-commercial use (make the corporations pay!)
Pix Resizer (also see Alarm from the same person) free/independent
PrintScreen (I use it because my print screen button is broken) Warning: Corporately owned
PDF:
Sumatra (Very simple, not good at handling high magnification) open source
PDF Download (Fantastic Firefox Addon) free/independent
Foxit Reader (It's less evil than Adobe, and smaller/faster than Acrobat) Warning: Corporately owned
Downloading:
µTorrent (The best torrent downloader, but get 1.6 or before, because the later versions collect information on you) Warning: Corporately owned (by BitTorrent Inc.)
eMule (Peer-to-peer downloading, decent but often flooded with malware/unwanted porn) GPL
Soulseek(tm) (A peer-to-peer (music) downloader with lots of small musicians) Corporate/inpedendent?
Communications:
GAIM (Multiple instant messaging clients in one) GPL
Skype (Cheap/free internet phone) Warning: Corporately owned
General Smooth Running:
7-zip (File zipper, with it's own superior 7z compression format) GPL
Ad-Aware (Remove spy/malware) Warning: Corporately owned (but well worth it)
ClamWin (Free Virus Scanner) GPL
CDBurner XP Pro (CD Burner that's significantly better than the Windows built-in) Independent donation-based
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