I want to be a perfect mirror, so that whoever gazes at me sees themselves. Then I will be truly useful.

Idea: Farming communes for war veterans. Military conditions are something they're used to. They can help take care of each other (form of group therapy).  Should pay for itself. Keeps them off the streets, keeps them busy.

I posit that human kind has evolved with war in mind. The most successful among us are the best killers. The most ruthless murder machines our kings, our presidents. This is why all primitives are so fucked. They generally are a peaceful lot, and totally unsuited to the whiteman's game of inout inout and ultraviolence. We've breed so many fighters, and now we'll have to undo that. We should have been breeding intellectuals all this time. Individuals designed to act, to lead, with honor, dignity, and wisdom. Instead we've bred the scariest monkeys.

Our only hope is China. They've been literate for centuries longer than anybody else, and they don't do a lot of land grabs. If there is an intellectual gene, they should have it. God, they're going to get beat up a lot in school.

A FRIEND(2:04:16 AM): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28039974/

A FRIEND(2:04:21 AM): People are so insane

Mister Takeda (2:06:37 AM): Sounds like some schizophrenia was involved in this one. Makes the hammer talk earlier much more gruesome and less funny. Ugh..

Mister Takeda (2:07:18 AM): I remember the lady who stoned her kids. Reminds me of that.

A FRIEND(2:07:31 AM): Don't think I heard about that

Mister Takeda (2:08:21 AM): She was suffering from schizophrenia, and was listening to some hardcore wacko fundie propaganda, and decided she had to stone her children for some reason because the bible told her to

A FRIEND(2:08:38 AM): Jesus

Mister Takeda (2:09:38 AM): Yeah. Like it's not bad enough when they're just crazy. You have some guy rambling about hellfire and sin to her all day on the radio. She takes it seriously. Whole family was a mess over it. Knew she had lost it, but didn't expect her to murder her kids.

A FRIEND(2:10:34 AM): How come those nuts never get blamed for influence, but music and video games do?

Mister Takeda (2:10:39 AM): She might have drowned one of them, now that I think about it. Or there might have been more than one incident of this kind of thing I'm merging together. It's been forever.

Mister Takeda (2:10:58 AM): I'd love to, quite frankly. Throw it back in their face. Fucking culture warrior assholes.

Mister Takeda (2:11:41 AM): The whole point is some people are full of anxiety, not thinking clearly, suffering from delusions. They'll latch on to anything that sounds right to them and act it out.

Mister Takeda (2:12:20 AM): Some schizophrenics have fantasises that seem losely based on movies they saw when they were younger. Many more are religious fanatics.

A FRIEND(2:12:50 AM): Religion isn't eval at all, no

A FRIEND(2:13:00 AM): As long as it's Christian

Mister Takeda (2:13:23 AM): If they can draw a tie between schizophrenia and falsely held beliefs, then we could make a case for dismantling religion entirely

Mister Takeda (2:14:18 AM): As it stands now, schizophrenia seems like it may be an organic problem. It's got a lot of similarities. Like onset at key ages.

A FRIEND(2:14:34 AM): Wouldn't know

Mister Takeda (2:15:00 AM): I read about this stuff a lot, for obvious reasons.

Mister Takeda (2:15:55 AM): I couldn't tell you. My gut, it seems like my gut, still holds out some sliver of hope that schizophrenia is a very severe form of neurosis

Mister Takeda (2:17:45 AM): Both because I believe deeply held beliefs, particularly those we are not conscious of, have affects on our health and behavior, and because I notice a certain glimmer of irrational but "normal" behavior in paranoid schizophrenics

Mister Takeda (2:18:23 AM): A lot of people have a fear of the government

Mister Takeda (2:18:55 AM): Conspiracy theorists take it to new extremes, and often times seem on the cusp between sanity and schizophrenia

Mister Takeda (2:20:11 AM): I do not believe they are paranoid personalities simply because they are unlucky victims of a strange up bringing (although that may be part of it), I think they have become vaguely mentally ill because of the belief system they've developed for themselves

Mister Takeda (2:20:43 AM): This is why I did that extensive look at conspiracy theories on YouTube (as well as it just being interesting and good writing fodder)

Mister Takeda (2:22:14 AM): It's like an adult who refuses to let go of the idea of Santa Claus, and spends a great deal of time pondering what the old elf must be up to in that workshop of his, and begins to center his life around the idea Santa is continually surveying him for good behavior

Mister Takeda (2:23:07 AM): It's not psychotic, perse, in that the adult's delusion is simply an irrational fringe belief he's adopted, based on things he's been hearing for years

Mister Takeda (2:23:34 AM): And yet it IS psychotic, because he lives his life by it

Mister Takeda (2:25:11 AM): This is markedly different from disorganized schizophrenics. They're the ones who hear noises, speak in gibberish, and generally end up completely nonfunctional

Mister Takeda (2:25:45 AM): I wish they didn't use the term schizophrenic for both, because they're not very similar at times.

Mister Takeda (2:26:35 AM): Paranoid schizophrenics are the ones who develop bizarre delusions, like that they are Jesus and that there are aliens/government agents trying to stop them from performing miracles and saving humanity

Mister Takeda (2:28:10 AM): One wonders where the line is drawn between them and the mainstream religious

Mister Takeda (2:28:28 AM): My arguement has always been that we are ALL nuts

Mister Takeda (2:29:17 AM): There really isn't an objective reality, when you consider that we consciously percieve things in different ways (and as the theory of relatively tells us, at different speeds)

Mister Takeda (2:29:45 AM): So our problem is more a problem with fringers who don't see things SIMILARLY to everyone else

Mister Takeda (2:30:17 AM): We can't interact with them, so we must contain/destroy them, for the sake of consesus/order

A FRIEND(2:30:56 AM): Yeah

 

Me (12:54:47 AM): Because at the end of the day, my arguements are just attempts to make sense of things, based on the evidence as I understand it

Me (12:55:04 AM): If somebody can show me otherwise, I'll change!

Me (12:55:43 AM): Socratic method is all about constantly asking questions

Me (12:56:01 AM): "Why?" is the key to understanding

Me (12:56:18 AM): We're locked in constant debate with ourselves

Me (12:56:54 AM): I have this distinct feeling such truths would shake civilization to it's core

Me (12:57:03 AM): Most of our culture is based on presumptions

Me (12:57:48 AM): Even why people work

Me (12:58:20 AM): They should demand a certain degree of comfort for themselves

Me (12:59:05 AM): Logic would dictate that everyone would function best if they recieved a good share for their efforts

Me (12:59:40 AM): Instead people are getting ripped off every day, and working themselves to death for their troubles.

A FRIEND (12:59:53 AM): Society as we know it would crumble into something much prettier to look at

Me (1:00:00 AM): I agree

Me (1:00:09 AM): It would have to

Me (1:00:39 AM): If there is such a thing as God, he must be a creature of pure truth. I mean that in the most philosophical, Socratic way

Me (1:01:09 AM): There's nothing divine about stumbling around locked in petty ignorance

Me (1:01:23 AM): Terrified of supersitions

Me (1:02:01 AM): Nor is there anything divine about living the life of a self imposed slave

Me (1:03:31 AM): Essentially, God is the most honest understanding of reality.

Me (1:04:00 AM): All very Hindu :P

A FRIEND (1:04:18 AM): Heh. Now there's something the christians couldn't handle.

I posit that in that genius goes largely unrecognized in our time. Brilliance is obscured by crap. Media filler. Safe bets.

Beethoven stalks the streets, even today. He pounds the pavement in the form of frustrated artists. Mozart too. And Van Gogh. They live in obscure places, trying to sell paintings at art fairs to get by.

I am furious with you! You let this happen! You're part of it. This grand scheme to dumb down the senses and kill beauty where it stands. So stop it. Go outside. Appreciate the real genius right in front of you. Take in the brilliance and stop torturing yourself with crap.

I command you! This is not a request. Now get outta here, kid! Your botherin' me.

The happiest man and the most miserable beast are not so dissimilar.

Modern people - civilizations - are just competing to see which values, customs, essentially memes, will be adopted by the species during the next several hundred years of global integration. The West reckons itself winner, but it's likely that the East Asia will define a fair number of these in the coming decades, as their growing middle class is catered to more and more by the world market.

This will end when there are no more customs to be disputed, and all words have grounded meanings, established by the dominant culture/contributed. In this way, a sort of peaceful global revolution will take place inevitably, fueled by the need for trade, with mass media, global communications, and the internet all tools for its spreading.

Sub/counter cultures will take longer to settle differences and conform, but the feasibility of vast difference between nation states is on the way out. Ubiquitous global culture is the wave of the future.

India is going to rock the rest of the world like a drunken prom date till attending Bollywood style action-adventure/musicals are what horny teenagers do on the weekends. Suck it down, world!

10. Make out with other hot girls
9. Chronic masturbation
8. Take lots of MySpace style vanity pics and put them on the web
7. Attempt to pee standing up
    7.a. If successful, declare: "Ha!"
    7.b. If unsuccessful, declare: "Uggh."
6. Menstruate
5. Openly declare my love for shopping
4. Be oppressed by the patriarchy
3. Expose my midriff
2. Not understand guys
1. Become president

From the Dwarf Fortress developer's log:

"07/02/2008: 115. I was testing some adventure mode conversation responses in a human town. The high priest of the god of revenge came down the stairs, and he was an elf with a human name. I talked to him and learned that both of his parents had goblin names, and his grandparents had elven names. So I guessed that his grandparents had been abducted and that the humans had then liberated the tower, placing the goblin-named parents under human control before they had their child. This was more or less correct, but a bit more happened.

So, way back when, the demon was causing all sorts of trouble, fighting both the humans and the elves and destroying their cities. This went on for 40 years -- an elf managed to tear off the demon's nose about halfway through this rampage, but he couldn't finish the job because he had lost a limb in the fight before the nose-removal and lost the rest of his limbs afterward, prior to being burned to death. Eventually the demon was shot in the year 45 and the humans took over the goblin tower. Many of the goblins fled into the mountains, and others were enslaved, including some of their abductees.

Ngoso and Bax were a couple of elven children born to abducted parents that were left alone to live in the goblin tower under their new human rulers. When they grew up, they both started shops -- The Enjoyable Paddle and the Lessened Healer -- in the year 45, and in the year 54 they both moved to the human town of Beersreined. The next year they were married and they both decided to wander the wilds looking for monsters to kill (they never found any, as the giants were off on the other side of the world and the dragon was dead). Ngoso had ten children in Beersreined, the third of which became the high priest of the god of revenge after both he and his father were converted by the new temple in 146. Ngoso never converted as she had become a dragon worshipper during one of the attacks prior to its death.

As a sidenote, the elves and the humans didn't get along very well, and in the year 60 the elves actually drove the humans out of the goblin tower they had conquered. The elves had no desire to live in a goblin tower so they left it abandoned. At this point, the goblin refugees that had been wandering through the mountains for fifteen years reclaimed the tower. They held it for a total of two years before being defeated by the humans again, who were then able to maintain control of the site until play began. I didn't check if any of the goblins managed to escape again."

In other words, PLAY IT!*

*The talk listed above are tests of features slated for the next release of DF, not it's current iteration.

For the completely uninitiated, Dwarf Fortress is a game which generates an entire world through random number generation (and a lot of clever, and detailed coding), and then allows you to establish fortresses, or adventure in it.

In it you can, for example, make a dairy farm, milk the cows, and then make cheese to sell to traders. See, but the thing is.. this isn't scripted. You simply CAN do this if you please, based on the level of detail and interactivity in the game. You can build a settlement in any way you chose, and the only objective is to enjoy yourself.

Some people build enormous glass fortresses deep underground, then flood the space around them, making a big "aquarium" sort of complex. Others load their fortresses with traps, or establish simple, neolithic encampments, surviving on hunting, gathering, and stonework. Some even build what amount to great factories, and become the regions big supplier of cheaply made merchandise. Some incorporate a little of all the features, in attempts to make a balanced thriving community. It's a brilliant game.

It's also a roguelike, and can be played in an exciting explore and adventure style. The above entry in the developers log is about the improvements soon to be added (possibly by the end of July '08) which will turn the game in to a much more complex world, with detailed histories, border disputes, and political intrigue. It's going to be fantastic, and will help add geopolitics to it's already detailed ecology and environmental interaction.

2012 can be the end of the world and a new beginning, if we want it to be. That's the beauty of man and his precious symbols. All we have to do is believe, and the power is there.

At the right time, and at the right place, with exactly the right mindset, a picture of ol' Joe Stalin on your wall could motivate you to live the life of a saint. Hard working, selfless, and entirely dedicated, all because you really believe in that image - that glorious ideal of Joseph Stalin - hanging on your wall. Not the reality of the man, his shady and murderous dealings behind closed doors, his genocidal tendencies and his political corruption, but the sacred and untarnished ideal of a great and wonderful father, leading an enlightened people's to new found glory through dedication and brotherhood.

Look on as man can believe anything and realize it. We can orchestrate the apocalypse any time we choose, and furthermore we can make it a pleasant one.. if that's the outcome we truly believe in.

Who's picture do you hang on your wall?

Does it matter?

Learn to share.