Idealism in Religion

The word of God is not in the bible. It is not in the Qur’an , canonical Sutra's or any other scriptures. No one speaks the word of God. What they do is offer a path to the word. You can choose any path you like to find God. Some easy some hard, none are ideal.

Like going home after work, there is no proper way to God. The goal is to ask if this is the road you want to take. You can change the way you go home. Try a new path every day, none are wrong, just different. Your home will not hide or move on you because you took a different way. It does not care how you get there.

You would not make a person take your way home. You would not tell a person that they are living in the wrong house, because it's not your house. So, why do that with religion?

Half Empty? prt2

half empty? prt1

Why? part 1

Why do some disabled people want to be called differently able? I get that they want equality but think about it; Different means, not the same or not the norm. So, they are like abnormally able. Which sounds like they have powers.
“Superman is abnormally able to leap a tall building.”
“Jeff in, customer service is abnormally able to help customers without the use of his eyes.”
Actually that does sound better. Achieving things while disabled, in some way, is all the more impressive. Whether you want it or not, it deserves notice. Be able to be disabled.

How to Solve a Problem

Its one thing to know how to fix specific things. Like a DVD player, desktop computer, etc. But, you can't possibly learn and know how to fix everything. The human brain cannot hold that much information. You most likely will find yourself in a problem you didn't learn how to fix.

What now? Use you problem solving skills.

1) First and foremost identify the problem. (Well, first be emotionally ready to confront the problem. In other words, don't freak out, don't be scared.) Find the true source. What ignites the situation into a problem? Look as reasonably deep into the situation as you can. Remember, there could be multiple problems to fix in order for you to get to your goal.

2) List problem(s) and goal(s). Decide how the problem blocks you from your goal. If your going to fixate on something, fixate on the goal. The problem you chose my not be the source. You'll end up going down a rabbit hole, solving a problem that doesn't achieve your goal or that involves more than needed. Keep the goal in view, it will highlight the real problem.

3) Come up with as many solutions as you can. A good list can make your job easy: Try to keep each idea different, write them down if that helps. Use what's around you, try not to add more complexity to the situation. Take your time, be patient, do it right the first time.

4) Involve the people around you. Without losing organization, involve everyone. Make teams, assign jobs if you want. Communication is a big part of a relationship, don't let a problem ruin that.

5) Pick your best idea, imagine how it will play out. Imaging all the little details. Physics and math knowledge is important. You'll need an understanding of psychology for personal and relationship problems. Use self-education to understand how things work, not how to fix them. Don't learn, 1+1=2. Know that taking two or more values, consolidating them and giving them a new summed value is the process of addition. That way you can add any values, while remembering less algorithms. You'll be able to apply more knowledge to more situations.

6) Implement the best idea and see what happens. You want to try the least damaging idea first. Try things that can be put back to normal or reset. Then move on to the more risky stuff.

7)Did it work?

• No? Why not? Something is not working. Look at the problem from a different angle. Make sure you have involved every aspect. Now start back at 1.

• Yes? You're done, problem solved. Repeat if/when necessary

Guy Fawkes Night

Have a good Guy Fawkes Night all.

Check out these links to learn more:

• Guy Fawkes
• V for Vendetta
• Keeping Fawkes and Anonymous alive

Follow the Leader

In this life you can say there's two kinds of people, leaders and followers. Generally they both have there ups and downs. Leaders can be seen as manipulating and inspiring. Followers can be mindless and devoted. I think there is more problems with a leader/follower society than not.

Most intelligent animals, mammals, have a pack style hierarchy. Here we have the alpha (the pack leader) to the omega (the lowest rank) in a pack, or group. This can be seen in wolves, primates, and elephants. So, some of the most intelligent animals on earth have the same pack system we have. Our system is just on a bigger scale.

Pack hunting and living tactics obviously work for survival and domination over other animals. This is an instinctual tactic though. We didn't invent politics, it comes to us naturally. We are more intelligent and civilized than all other animals. I don't think we can remove our biological need for a pack. What we can do though is change the way we use it.

We have our main pack, we call it a family. Biological or not we have a group of people that make our pack. We have an alpha leader –like a father figure- and the omega that person no one really take orders from, like a baby. As a side note I would like to make it clear that pack hierarchy does not correlate with love. Also the pack leader can change. Now... I would suggest that this system not go any further than that. Our family is our pack.

A pack with no leader will fall apart. If there is no one to make choices then the pack dies. Our society is destroying this system, by training us from birth to be followers. We are conditioned to follow. If every person in a family is mentally a follower, then you could have external leader. This separate leader might not care about or understand you and your family. An external leader is not really part of the pack. Religions, governments, employers, and other establishments exploit your pack mentality. We have multiple pure follower packs that follow an external leader (somebody you might have not have met before). How can you expect a person that doesn't even know you - your face, your name- to make decisions for you? Can you expect him/her to even care about you?

The solution: Every one of us must, at all times, be prepared to be a leader.

Being a follower gives feelings of security. Not to mention avoidance of blame. When you let others have the responsibility then your life becomes easy. The problem is, you lose control. Being a leader you can be proud. You'll have to make challenging decisions but your reward is self worth. You can only be in control of your life if you are a leader.

We could also go as far to have a society with only leaders. As long as there is followers, people will try to take advantage of them. Be a self leader. With effort we can all do this. We can all be responsible for ourselves and still live together. Live for your self. Lead you to were you want to go.

Werewolf 2

Okay this is my last werewolf post. I think. Here is the file

Werewolf

So, I played this awesome game called Werewolf (aka Mafia) and it was a lot of fun. Although, I find it hard being the moderator. I made a log sheet so the moderator can keep organized if he/she has a laptop. There are probably more sheets out there but I felt like making one. My goal is to make it small and so you can be the Mod even if you are new to the game. Feel free to use and modify this sheet. Right now its made in html and css. You can use it off line, just download the zip file, unzip it and open modsheet.html in your web browser. Its just a beta now so there is no rules and other problems. You can find rules and more here. Expect more later.

Get the file at my pownce.

Attribution

Why are we so quick to judge people? I've noticed that the more removed from a person we are the worse punishment we are prepared to give. Why is it so hard for us to empathize with others? We all do or think bad things. Then when someone gets caught doing a bad thing, we instantly put up a punishment for them: “throw him in jail”, “cut his head off”, or “banish him”. We mostly refuse to remember the complexity of life and choice. I think it's because we all need a bad guy. We need a bad guy to make us feel good. Maybe more subconsciously we need a bad guy so, in our lives we stop being the bad guy for a moment.
Like Tony Montana (Scarface) explains, you're not the bad guy because you're a better liar. So, let's start being truthful to ourselves. Let's not pass judgment on anyone; whether someone does drugs, lies, steals or murders. Let's take precautions to protect each other, but let's not judge a person's worth unless we know them as well as we know ourselves.
Lots of crimes or sins happen from circumstance, not to mention, mental disabilities. You don't use crack cocaine because you were never introduced to it. You never desperately needed an easy way out of every day life. My point being there are reasons for your sins and what you believe are sins. You can't possibly expect people in different situations than you to have the same morals as you. Further more, you can't assume your morals are the right ones for every situation because you have not been in every situation.
Some movies I can think of as having this theme are The Conversation and Scarface. A video game would be Braid. I know there is more but I can't think of any. Please check out these movies and game or at least do something you wouldn't normally do. Rent a movie you would pass, listen to different music, try a new sport, listen to a variety of stand up comedy, etc. This way, the more experiences you have, the more refined your morals and empathy will become.

Thinkin' About A.I.

There are a lot of movies with artificially intelligent machines. Most of them have a human based anatomy. Whether it's in their head or chest they all have brains in their bodies. I was thinking, a robot, even an android does not necessarily need its' main computing unit (brain) in its' body. It must be the human look that makes us default to that the brain should be in the body.
I don't know of any theory like the following but, I think it would be better if the brain was separate from the body. I don't mean like super computer that is the leader of lesser computers. More like a hive mined.
My theory is that the robots would be programed to do basic functions that do not require intelligence. So, they would have instincts. The robots would also need superior networking capabilities. The idea is to have multiple robots constantly communicating with a artificially intelligent super computer (their brain). Having one brain for multiple machines would be cheaper, have easy maintenance, and have more information. The fall back would be the massive amounts of choices it would have to make at any given time. Coupled with the brain having to remember mass amounts of info. Over all I think it's better because, it seems this would be a cheaper choice. Building one mega-super computer would be cheaper then building thousands of super computers.
It's the same idea as random access memory(RAM) in your computer now. The CPU has caches of memory that is high quality. If all RAM was as fast as the CPUs' RAM it would be unfordable. So, cheaper but still efficient ram is made to do the bulk of the work, still keeping enough of the costly ram for fast processing.
If any one knows of a theory like this one, scientific or sci-fi, please let me know in the comments. I Robot, Terminator, and The Matrix are close to this idea. I don't think they count because, they still are missing the one brain aspect of this idea. I haven't seen Ghost In The Shell but from what I've heard it might be close.

Why you Missed the Point

Why you Missed the Point if you Dismissed Speed Racer as Childish.


Note: This is an observation not a review of the movie. There are some parts that some may consider spoilers.


Admittedly I was sceptical about watching Speed Racer. Would it be like so many cliche kids' films? Irrelevant to my interests, gapping plot holes, uninspiring dialogue and corny action. The Wachowski brothers seem to have taken these cliches that are set in our heads and they play with them.
It's too easy to just say the Wachowski's are poor filmmakers, that they didn't realize that they were making a corny film. Maybe you might say they were lax because of Speed Racer, being a kids film. I have another idea.
I think that they wanted to tell a story about how past effects the present. More specifically how you shouldn't dismiss childhood beliefs and fantasies as irrelevant, because they matter and they make who you are today. After all, they're making a remake of an old intellectual property.
The first race, Speed (Emile Hirsch) is racing to beat the track record his deceased brother Rex (Scott Porter) set. Speed chooses to not beat Rex's best time, when he clearly could of. Speed is effected by the past, his childhood. As he battles to not become corrupt from a racing world controlled by greed, the movie unfolds and we realize all Speeds' choices are related to his childhood. For example, when young Speed is in class near the beginning of the movie. Speed imagines he is racing a cartoon car. This image is very childish and most see it as a kid with a big imagination. Later near the films climax we realize that what looked like a kid in dreamland has become a realization of a life goal, he is doing the same thing, on a bigger scale. Throughout the film Speed is asking himself, why does he race. His family helps guide him to the realization that he races because, thats what he has always loved as a kid. Its kind of like a fate thing.
It's actually very meta how I came to notice the films moral. One of my friends stopped paying attention near the beginning of the movie because it was ,in less words, childish. I think the film turned out to be good. So, ironically he failed to see the moral, Don't dismiss something because it looks or seems childish, because your childhood is very important to who you are or at least, who you could be.