Article on Intellectuals

Before I even start here is an article that Justin posted on my facebook. It is really long and ranty and all kinds of big words are in it.


I will admit that I probably understood less than 10% of what was actually talked about. Politics is not at all one of my strengths. It is probably one of my most hated things in this current society. But I did read it. I tried to look for the things on intellectuals and other stuff like that. This is something I like to hear and read about.

He starts off with a good mention of intellectuals and how they are diminishing and goes on in a way that I can like. I too believe that it is horrible that there are so few intellectuals left. I was ok with everything so far. I was alright with this kind of writing. Then he started to bash conservatives. He was against neoliberalism as well. I'm not sure what this is exactly. I tried looking it up but all that stuff just goes right over my head.

He talks about how politics is increasing ignorance in people and is run by people who act less smart than they are in order to get votes. I feel like this is highly probable. I don't pay attention to politics because it bores me. People are only interested by things that affect them. If someone is voting, you want to grab their attention. "I will lower your taxes." "Well hell, I vote for that guy." People only want to hear what will make their lives better. They don't want to hear that lower those taxes means raising prices on everything else. So leave out the things that no one wants to hear. That just makes you sound less intelligent to someone who knows about politics.

Politics is something I try to avoid at all costs. And this is where he and I differ. He believes that the institutions and politics should go hand-in-hand. He thinks that intellectuals should care more for government and try to keep it in sync. I think that politicians should be smarter, yes. I however, don't think the two should be hand-in-hand. I personally just think there is too much concern for government altogether. I think something else should be figured out for running everything. I think now the population has become too large to be controlled by any form of government.

I was just talking to one of my professors the other day about how the economy is expanding too fast. She mentioned how production is becoming increasingly automated. Robots and computers can do anything now. Now our unemployment is increasing because there are less jobs due to the jobs being taken by computers. So how can the economy continue to grow if these people have no jobs, no income, and cannot afford products. The economy will be at a standstill. Products will be made but no one will be able to consume them because there will be no money to purchase them. Where will we be then.

First of all I think we are too overpopulated to do anything. I think we need to eliminate some of our population. I don't know how to do this exactly because the last person that did it, ended up fighting the rest of the world because they didn't agree. This reverts back to the Morals blog I posted before. There are too many people that care for their own lives and not the lives of the species as a whole. We are not following the lesson learned by many early on: "Everything in moderation". There are 6 billion+ people. How is that moderate? Far too many for our own good. Diminish population and maybe we can get back on track at least a bit.

Another possible solution to this is a major disaster. I don't mean an earthquake in one small place off the coast of an unknown country. I mean something like Y2K size. Something that will destroy majority of the machines that have taken jobs. Yes, I am suggesting that we start over from scratch. This will give us tons of jobs. We will need to work together to bring our lives back to a reasonable level of comfort. I am suggesting that we lower our expectations to a level that is recognizant of prehistory. We will then have many more jobs and natural selection will kick in again. And population will drop. It doesn't have to be Y2K but something like Fallout 3 would be good too. This will also lower population. We need a major disaster to kick us in the ass so we can get even better.

And then there is the other solution. Send people into space and start populating another place. But of course we don't have the drive and intelligence to do this yet. We are still to stupid to do it. Hence, options 1 and 2.

I personally believe I am an intellectual. I don't mean to say I am intelligent. Others say that, but I know I am not that smart. I am an intellectual because I enjoy learning. I like to think and I love pondering theoretical ideas. This is an intellectual. I do agree with the writer of the article, that intellectuals are disappearing. There are no people around now that have reached the notability of people like Aristotle, Socrates, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin. There are very few people that have reached these types of notability that everyone know. That if you asked anyone who a person is, they could name. And I mean people that are actually intelligent and intellectual not political officials and celebrities. I bet anyone that reads this can't name 5 intellectuals and then find 5 other average people that know all of those 5 intellectuals.

I also wish to talk about the censorship of people by institutions and industries. I personally hate censorship. People should be questioning their surroundings. We should all be thinking and questioning why and how things are happening. Truth is everything to me. I don't lie about anything important. I won't cover up anything that needs to be told. Now of course there is the line of "when can you lie and when can't you?" In an ideal world no one would lie ever. Then there are emotions and other minute things that come into play. Well I believe that any information kept secret needs to be exposed. People should not fear their government; government should fear its people. This goes for secrets as well. There should be no secrets kept from the people. If this is true then there is no need for people to keep things from their government.

I think this will do for today. That should be enough to keep your minds thinking for a bit. That is all I ask. Hopefully more soon.

Morals

After having a conversation with a friend on morals I have decided to post about it. This isn't normally a very controversial topic because most people don't have problems following morals and believing, at least mostly, in them. I am here to refute that.

The conversation began with the discussion of normality. What is normal? My belief, there is no normal. Everything and everyone is different, otherwise we wouldn't still be around. Variability is key to a species' survival. I don't belief there is any thing that we refer to as normal. It is just a figment of some people's, in fact most people's, minds. We all want to be liked and the general society has yet to understand there isn't normal. Anyway, the conversation continued with her asking about mental instability and abnormality and whether these people are actually abnormal. No I said they can't be abnormal if there is no normal. There is no Yin without Yang or light without dark. I also said that the reason we put them away is because they are a threat to themselves or others. I personally don't believe it is right because they have just as much right to do what they want as anyone else. Then she responded, except kill people. And this is where the real controversial things come in.

My response:"Well it is a right everyone has. With our current moral code we see killing as taking away others' rights. If people weren't so caught up on morals then everyone has every right without worry about the rights of others. Unfortunately this leads to chaos and anarchy which we are told is bad. I have come to the realization that I don't understand morals and never will. I go along with them just as others do. I can't say whether something is right or wrong without presenting a piece of each side."

I know these are more radical ideas than some people are comfortable with. Therefore I wish to explain them before others get too riled up.

I personally believe there is little wrong with killing. In fact, very few things are so horrible to me that I cringe at the thought. Rape, incest, murder, torture, manslaughter, assassination, cannibalism, extortion, prostitution. All these things are just words used to describe filthy activities that people are not to do because they are taboo. I really don't see the big deal. Most of them can be done for better or for worse. It is all dependent upon the situation at hand.

I wish to focus more on killing and murder than the others, but here are some ways that some of them can be both bad and good. Torture is bad because it can be traumatic to the victim and seriously injure them. However, it can also be used to extract information from individuals who wish not to talk. Assassination is a high profile murder done most often with very few people being aware at first. These can be good for getting rid of leaders of hostile groups or countries. But it could also be used to get rid of ordinary people who have done nothing wrong. Cannibalism is one thing that I personally never understood. Why is it so wrong? If you have nothing to eat but your friend's dead corpse, wouldn't you? It's just meat. There is not "soul" anymore. There are no longer any bodily functions being performed so how is it wrong? Morals are the only explanation. Prostitution can be a person's only way of getting revenue. It isn't the optimal way to go, but some people have little choice.

Killing is done all the time in war-ridden countries. It's done in all countries as a matter of fact. It is simply a way of life now. Killing has been done for many reasons through the history of humankind. Food, territory, entertainment are the three main reasons. Almost any taking of one life by another can be classified under these three categories. These are not restricted to human victim and human predator. I can also be human-animal, animal-animal, or animal-human. I make this distinction for others. One other belief I have is that animals and humans are one in the same. I believe animals have just as much right as humans do to live. I personally don't distinguish between the two usually, but I will in this post for the reader's sake. And in this case there is one huge difference between the two. Humans are the only species of animal to kill for fun...

We don't think twice when an animal kills another animal or when a human kills an animal. But when a human kills another human, we go on a man hunt to find him. This also happens when an animal kills a human. As soon as an animal touches a human the wrong way, it's to sleep with him. We put so much value on the human life. It is simply part of our nature. And yet, we kill people because they kill people. Are we not just as bad as them?

A man kills another man so that first man must be killed by the rest of us... What? How does that even make sense? I'm not trying to say that he should live. I am simply questioning, why do we have these morals if we have to bend them to keep the peace anyway?

Animals I think are the ones that have it right. They kill to eat and when something threatens them. We have added that one other ugly category, entertainment. Ancient Romans had the coliseum where men went to kill other men for the society's amusement. Nowadays, we have serial killers who kill just for their own sadistic pleasures. And look at some rich people, they go hunting for animals in a place that is enclosed so the animal can't escape. Tell me that is fair. These animals are essentially living just to die. I guess that is basically what all industrial farms are though. Mass amounts of animals born and raised just to die. What kind of society are we?

Could you imagine being born and knowing that you will just die in a few weeks anyway? You are kept in a small hole overcrowded with hundreds of your brothers and sisters. So much so that you can't even see the ground. You stand in your feces and other bodily wastes. All you can do is eat and you are always hungry. And you live there for a few weeks and then get your head severed from your body. What kind of existence is that?

What if that is just our life? God is our owner and he is just holing us up until he wants to take us. I don't know where that religious philosophy came from but back to the real story.

Anyway, killing is just another part of life. I think Josef Stalin was correct in saying,"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic." This is one of the most true statements I've ever heard. People cry for one person dying that they know. However, hearing that millions of people died in each of the World Wars, no one can fathom that. I guarantee you that you don't even know 10, 000 people. Now multiply that by 100 and you get 1 million. Now try to imagine that many people dying. Now do that 20 times over and you almost get how many Russians died in WWII. That doesn't account for any other country or any other war. That is what Stalin meant by his quote.

I have gone off of so many tangents that I myself have lost track of what I was writing. But that is the truth of my mind. I never know where it is going or what it may lead to. I will try to figure out what I wanted to say...

Morals... I guess I can stop there I think I have covered enough material for one day. Comment as you will. I will be back with more controversy at some point I'm sure.