Hard times sow opportunities for greatness

I’m becoming more and more fascinated with the characters of the late-19^th/early 20^th centuries, individuals such as Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, Einstein, Andrew and Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, and Theodore Roosevelt.  Although it may just come from the perch of hindsight, it seems like there really were more great heroes at that time than there are now, unless you’re inclined to idolize the likes of Beiber, Pitt, or Lebron James that is.  

I believe the reasons for this are twofold: First, industry was exploding.  Unfettered Capitalism unleashed atomic levels of potential energy within industry.  In a matter of fifty some-odd years, the West was transformed from a mostly rural, simple, village-like complex into an electrically-powered metropolis where the sky really was the limit.  For the first time ever, both the economic and epistemological conditions conspired together to create an innovator-friendly climate, as there was great economic incentive to produce as well as a vast but reachable sea of knowledge waiting for grabs.  To illustrate the latter notion, look at the modern physics community; despite the best and brightest minds laboring for decades, no significant physical theory has been developed with any predictive power since the seventies, with part of the reason being that the remaining knowledge is simply too complex for the human intellect to grasp .

Second, times were tough. With two world wars, a Great Depression (along with many lesser recessions), widespread plague, and revolutions churning left and right, the world was an interesting mess.  But with great challenges come great men to meet them.  Primal cues, the environmental pressures that threaten our well-being and sometimes our very survival, provoke extreme reactions, ranging from suicide to the highest levels of triumph. 

This is why I’m relatively optimistic about the future, not because I believe things are going to be just fine, but because of Man’s ability to overcome the adverse.  It is almost axiomatic in this sphere of thought that the world is in for tumultuous times.  The economy isn’t getting better any time soon.  Feminism is still castrating the drive of men.  American industry is evaporating, leaving blue-collared workers unemployed.  Racial tensions are intensifying.  Technology, even with all its miracle-working powers, is stabbing its double-edged sword into the souls of people.   And the current Ruling Class, in what seems to so reliably befit its character, is blindsided by the debacles created by them and their parents before them.   Much of this is out of our control, for not even the most dedicated central planner can align circumstances entirely to his will.

When the Jews were bused into the concentration camps en masse, they were stripped of all their possessions; their clothes, books, furniture, reputation, property, status, and everything they had worked for were expropriated by their Nazi oppressors.  They were reduced to their primitive, naked existence.   

There was one thing, however, that the Nazi’s could never take away from them, and that was their reaction to their plight.  Philosophers from Jesus Christ and Marcus Aurelius to James Allen and Napoleon Hill have harped about the boundless powers of the mind.  Our thought life is everything.  Rudyard Kipling says it best in poetic fashion:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating….

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you…

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!  

The Powers that Be may screw us over to no end.  They may corrupt our cities and our tribes .They may take everything we have.  The proles may continue pull us down into their narcotized bliss. But the one thing that will thwart all their efforts to enslave us is the same thing that gives us inherent power as human beings: the power to choose our thoughts and reactions through self-control. This is the most pure and noble form of power there is.  The ruler who reigns above his subjects with an iron fist but possesses no power over his flesh is the juiciest and most ironic exemplar of impotence ever endured.      

There is a story about a preacher working on an idea for a sermon. It was a rainy day, and his wife had gone shopping, so his little boy Johnny, restless toddler that he was, was anxious for something to do.  He begged his father so the preacher finally thumbed through a magazine to find something for his boy when he came across a map of the world.   He then scattered it on the ground after ripping it to pieces. “ There” he said to Johnny, “if you can put the pieces back together, I will give you a quarter,” thinking that handing down this tedious task will give enough time to work on his sermon.  But within a mere ten minutes Johnny knocked on his door with the puzzle finished.  “Son, how’d you put it together so quickly?” the preacher flashed back.  “Oh, it was easy. On the other side was a picture of a man. I just put a piece of paper on the bottom, put the picture of the man together, and flipped it over.  I figured that if I got the man right, the world would be right.” His father smiled and handed him a quarter.  “And you, my son, have given me my sermon idea for tomorrow: If a man is right, his world will be right.

There is much to recommend to this idea.  The future will be marked by great hardship, that much is a given, but we don’t have to see it that way.    Even though poor prospects are customarily met with dread, it would behoove us to take after the triumphant man, who sees the future not as something to be dreaded but as a world teeming with opportunities. Our mental attitude is everything.  That is what dictates the destinies of men.  The individual with a negative mental attitude will rail at the world about the injustices he suffers, pointing the finger at others as the source of all his problems.   He will surrender his power to the world by letting it corrupt his thought life; if he finds himself to be a victim, it is only because he has allowed himself to be victimized.  On the other hand, the individual with a positive mental attitude, when he witnesses injustice and calamity and strife, will acknowledge their existence but nonetheless harbor pure thoughts. He will overlook the negatives because he is too busy working with the positives, however scarce they may be.      

His reaction won’t be marked by depression, indignation, or hollow rage, but by inspirational dissatisfaction.  Hard circumstances will only push him to work harder.  It is circumstances like these that sow the seeds for great men.

It is all of a piece then; self-improvement and pessimistic politics go hand-in-hand.  Whether one endeavors to transform the system for the better or simply wishes to shield himself from the radiation, the first thing a man changes is himself.   The steveo/manophere’s fascination with improving one’s social standing (game) and health (Paleo diet) is but a consequence of their Jeremiahian outlook (although they would do well to put more emphasize on self-control.  I guess the hedonism gets in the way of that.)

The solution to our problems is a profoundly personal one.  And it is something we can all do.  Instead of seeing it as a hellhole for us to fall in, see it as an opportunity to grow, lead, and shine.  It’s the same old choice: the Dr. Pepper or the six-pack.

Let us not give up hope for the future.  Instead let us build fortresses in preparation. And thank God we did because we were ready when the storm came.

Arts of the Cultivator's Lifestyle

A recurring theme this blog has been relaying is the inadequacy of a consumerist lifestyle.  The problems with which are more than economic; this isn’t some plea to “create more than you consume” because of economic justice or to play fair in the capitalist game.  Economics has nothing to do with it. Because despite the fact that most people create more than they consume by the economic definition (selling one’s labor for the market price), more than a handful of Americans feel the misery of a consumption net surplus because their minds are bent toward getting the next material fix, not in creating something.  They neither derive a sense of accomplishment from the economic value they produce nor use the pay they receive toward the act of creating.  That then is what determines whether a lifestyle that is consumerist. 

But consumerism is the way of the mediocre.  It’s the lifestyle that stresses free enjoyment via entertainment instead of achievement through blood, sweat, and tears.    It’s the path of short-term gratification with zero long-term benefits.  Thus, as I hinted a few blog posts back, the extent to which one is successful relies on how well he steers clear of soul-crushing, myopic materialism. The truly happy man then fills his day with work towards an endeavor of material achievement.

So, unplug the tv and video games, and hold off on buying the next item on your shopping list, because if you want to be a player in the game instead of a spectator, you better incorporate at least a few aspects of the creator/cultivator’s lifestyle.   Below are examples of endeavors creators spend their days doing.

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•   Play a musical instrument, even if you don’t perform.  Remember, you’re trying to improve or to create something.  You’ll find that even though it takes effort to learn and improve, you will feel mentally empowered after a practice session for that very reason.  Performing is a double bonus that also gives an amazing high.  

• §  Draw for fun.  So instead of toying with your iphone when you’re waiting at the doctor’ office, pull out a pencil and drawing paper and start sketching, either a figure from your imagination or something in your surroundings. 

• §  Write habitually.  Keep a journal and a blog where you document your thoughts, experiences, and fantasies.    Your written musings shouldn’t be for some descendent living 150 years later marveling at ancestral genius, or even for present readers.  The benefits to writing are in the process itself and the sense of achievement it brings.

• §  Read constantly.   While not an act of creation per se, reading cultivates the mind, providing the necessary knowledge and inspiration to accomplish any endeavor of life.  And if you don’t say you have time to read, I don’t want to hear it.  I carry a book with me everywhere I go – squeezing a few extra pages here and there – while others hang around idle.  Moreover, saying that is complete BS, pure and simple.  Each one of us is allotted the same amount of time as everyone else.  It’s never about time; it’s about priorities.   That excuse is nothing but a method to rationalize your laziness.  If you’re sane, then you read, because there is no way you can figure everything out all by yourself.  Just think of this way:  If knowledge is power, and if there is a near-infinite amount of knowledge ridden in books, then if you don’t read, you’re a tool, vulnerable to the multifarious abuses the world will scrap you with. 

• §   Compete in sporting games or races, because winning feels so good.

• §  Start body building. There’s a reason people love working out, and it’s not just about the vanity in the mirror either.  It’s the high you get when you put conscious, labor-intensive effort into creating a better mind and body. 

• §  Have a hobby that involves building things with your hands.  A few such hobbies are woodworking, pottery, gardening, building models, or tinkering with machines.  Overall, just build something you’re proud of. 

• §  Don’t just cultivate your own life –make an impact on others by assuming a mentorship role.        

I could go on, but the general theme leaps out, giving the reader examples that form a clear, crystalline understanding of the things creators spend their time doing.  These activities scare the amusement-seeking American because they require work, intelligence, and discipline, even as it is from this very reason that the ambitious individual so actively engages in them.  A sense of accomplishment and self-worth comes from avoiding the easy and partaking in the difficult.  The cultivator then has little need for indulgences because he has lifted himself up on a higher plane of existence, where his pleasure is derived from the nurturing of his soul and the reinforcement of his self-worth.  His is the lifestyle that revolves in a virtuous circle.

 You may harbor doubts about surviving from the consumerist sinking ship, but be consoled from the examples of others who have thrived on in dangerous waters.  If they can do it, you can too. And I applaud anyone who makes that leap.     

The Importance of Setting Daily Minimums

If you are a normal human being, then you've probably had goals that you’ve been struggling with.  You climb and climb, but no light shows itself at the end of the tunnel.  But more often than not, the light remains elusive because we stay put where we are, lacking the consistent effort to practice day in and day out.  It’s easy to work hard for a week, but laboring for months and sometimes years for a pursuit that isn’t even necessary at the time requires a soul that lies on a higher echelon of caliber.  So most of us endeavor to push our boulder up the hill, only to give up half-way and watch it roll back down. 

In this post, I’m here to relay a specific method that will empower you with the consistency to roll that boulder all the way up your chosen hill of achievement.  Here it goes:

Set a daily minimum – a short, easy-to-do minimum.  So easy that, no matter how busy your day is, you can’t possibly have a BS excuse for not doing it.   I’m talking 10-15 minutes, the time it takes you to take a dump.  An alternative would be to set your minimum on a different metric other than time.  For example, instead of writing 15-30 minutes per day, write 150-300 words a day. 

Now, if you have any ambition at all, then you better being doing more than your minimum. A lot more.  But the point of this is twofold. First, setting a minimum breaks unwanted inertia.  Some days you just don’t feel it, so the only way you’re going to get off your ars is if you know you won’t have to do it very long.  And who knows, once you get in the rhythm, maybe you won’t want to stop.  Second, making your decision to fulfill a daily minimum beforehand, not susceptible to the momentary whims of the day, you’ve multiplied your productive labors considerably.  Let me explain.  Everyone is allotted 365 days a year to work on their goals.  However, depending on the person, as many as 100 days are wasted just because we are either too lazy or too busy doing other things.  This is why setting a minimum is so important.  It turns those 100 some-odd days of inactivity into 100 days of practice and improvement.  Those days may not be filled with much, but that’s another 25 hours on your craft – and more if you add the synergetic effects of consistent practice and subtract the regression inherent in inaction.   

Minimums are even more effective when applied to areas where your ambitions are merely modest.  If writing, playing music, or art, to name a few among many, are only endeavors you have no aspirations to be great of but nonetheless things you want to be somewhat decent at, then take a meager 15 minutes to work on them.  You won’t be an expert, but you’ll be pretty darn good, especially if you hack at it for several years. 

Obviously there are caveats -not every anvil lends itself to beating every sunrise.  Lifting weights is one example where one or two rest days per week are necessary.  But most activities can and should be partaken in everyday for a period of time. 

This isn’t some magic formula to mastery – you’re going to have to work a lot harder than that.  It’ll simply provide the benefits of consistency and more practice as well as fight the oxidizing residues that come with slacking off.  

One last note.  You should be doing this already, but write every thing down. See how long you can keep it up, and take pride in not letting down.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

     It’s been twenty seven years since Niel Postman wrote his excellent book Amusing Ourselves to Death.  And while it has sold a quarter million copies, its influence has been marginal, as America’s love-affair with the TV has only swelled to new heights since Postman first decried it.   But if Postman attempted to reverse America’s favorite pastime, one cannot fault him too much for failing, as stopping it’s tide is about as difficult as preventing a flood with a bucket of sponges. 

     Why is this the case?

     Because if there is one problem with American’s, it is this: We are addicted to amusement and entertainment. 

     Every educated high-school kid should have read both George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.   Although both of these authors warned of totalitarian control, the dystopias they articulated are profoundly different.  Orwell described individuals being oppressed by outside, active control.  Huxley, on the hand, described individuals voluntarily forfeiting their rights in return for circus and bread.  If the people don’t mind the State dictating their lives, it is only because they have been narcotized into bliss.  The question is, which scenario will pan out, if one at all? 

     Postman argues that the answer to this question does not revolve around which policies the Government will implement, but rather the environmental influences technology will exert.  Specifically, he argues that is the Television that will ultimately prove Huxley right; if we do ever get swept into oblivion, it will be because we dance and dream into it, rather than march into it single-filed with handcuffs.   

     In his indictment of TV, Postman rips to shreds the notion that all technology is “morally neutral.” Technology does more than just increase economic efficiency; it straddles intellectual and moral implications as well.  The specific medium (technology) a society uses for its inter-communications has radical consequences for the level of discourse it has. A strictly oral culture will feature different legal and intellectual structures than a culture dominated by the printing press, which in turn will be different from one dominated by TV and radio.  For example, if one were to settle a dispute in an oral society, one would seek a seer who had memorized thousands of aphorisms, which he would cycle through until he found one that is applicable to the dispute.  In a world with the printing press, a dispute would be settled by consulting a lawyer who had devoted his lifetime to studying the written, systematic law. The world of TV would do the same, with the added benefit of televising it for entertainment. 

     The technological medium also exacts its toll on the national discourse as well.  The written word allows someone to convey far more complex concepts than the spoken word.   The printing press changed the world by flooding it with novel ideas, complex concepts, and thus created (relatively) rational discourse. The medium not only spread the available information to a wider audience, it changed the character of the content as well.  In the case of the printing press, the character of the content laid the groundwork for advancing civilization. 

     The advent of TV also had consequences for society.  When information can be transmitted at the speed of light, the news is going to be far more trivial and present-oriented (more ephemeral and less important) than when it takes a week to send by messenger.  And information that is clouded by a vast array of visual images will be different from the information contained in a book.  Technology has consequences, and not always good ones. 

     Television makes you stupid.   It’s inane, trivial, and mind-numbing.  And it’s not just the junk either; what’s surprising is that the more serious its subject matter, the more it will corrupting its influence will be.  Everybody falls for entertainment.  Entertainment under its real name won’t be the death of us, (no, just for you). But entertainment under the guise of intellectual discourse will be. 

     Earlier this morning, I heard someone talk about how the Obama administration criticized the fact that Romney had strapped his dog and its cage on top of his car while on vacation.  (OK, I probably have a few details off. Who cares?) After hearing this I couldn’t help but think that we are amusing ourselves to death.  Why on earth would the media mention this? Why would people listen to it? Certainly not to deepen one’s thinking or to expand one’s applicable knowledge base.  The only purpose this political gossip serves is the same as celebrity gossip: Entertainment. 

     That’s just it.  TV will turn anything it touches into pure, mindless entertainment.  It’s so much easier to watch shows concerning politics, religion, economics, sports, history, and education than it is to read books about them because the former is invariably dumbed-down to exist for your own amusement.  Hence we believe that we are discussing serious matters even when we’re not thinking at all. 

     And there lies the problem the TV poses to America: TV is Reason’s kryptonite, as it enshrouds even the most intellectually-stimulating matters with an acid cloak of superficiality, entertainment, and free-goodie, destroying in the process every remnant of rationality and deep-thinking.  TV, by its epistemological nature, can never be the medium for rational discourse that the written word is.   

Some of you may take refuge in the argument that TV is good because it makes good information wide and available.  I will dismiss such naiveté with a quote by Hannah Arendt:

     "This state of affairs, which indeed is equaled nowhere else in the world, can properly be called mass culture: its promoters are neither the masses nor their entertainers, but are those who try to entertain the masses with what once was an authentic object of culture, or to persuade them that Hamlet can be as entertaining as My Fair Lady, and educational as well. The danger of mass education is precisely that it may become very entertaining indeed: there are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say." 

     Although referring to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, she may as well have mentioned political theory, religion, history, sociology, and education as well.  Things can survive neglect, but can they retain their integrity when they have been made compatible with the TV?

Escaping consumerism, riding to greatness

Probably the most effective key to success, aside from harnessing the powers of the mind as advocated by self-improvement gurus such as James Allen and Napoleon Hill, is climbing out of the materialistic hole of consumerist culture.  I’ve written before of the utter vacancy of American consumerism, and how swimming in its streams will award you a ticket down the path of unhappiness and misery.   In this post, I endeavor to take this one step further, and argue that consumerism is like quicksand, dragging you down into its pits farther away from your spot in the sunlight and farther away from your goals.  No man ever achieved a goal worth fighting for by being a consumer, just like there are no great men who are remembered by being consumers.  Newton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Da Vinci, Gates, the list goes on... were all individuals who acquired greatness because they created, not just consumed.  Consuming is easy; creating is hard.  Anybody can indulge in mindless entertainment, whether that takes the form of watching TV, eating junk, or buying the latest fad.  Not everyone can create something worthy of merit, not without effort that is. 

Although men are primarily driven by the sense of accomplishment, this drive will be usurped by the call of short-term gratifications.  Once he takes the bait, he will be sucked in an acid vat of vacant tail chasing, always striving for more because enough is never enough.  It’s like the fattie who eats more food to feel better about himself; it’s a temporary balm with negative long-term consequences.   Man’s drive toward accomplishment is then zapped, being overridden by his exercises in self-indulgence.  His pleasure lasts only until he amuses himself to death. 

Moreover, the consumerist pressures society imposes mark the most significant hindrance to any aspiring individual.  The key is escape them.  Jesus of Nazareth was right all along.  The gates of hell are wide and the pearly gates of heaven narrow. One must escape this world to succeed.  Your plan of self-improvement is a direct boycott of consumerism. 

What I’ve said before merits repeating: Build, create, and refine, not just consume.  This is something that we all, especially myself, need to put more effort into.  Society has dumbed our standards down so low that we are often under a false sense of complacency.   

In whatever case, be the guy who sees the crowd from the field’s view. Don’t be the critic Theodore Roosevelt scoffed at. Consuming offers neither the glory of victory nor the blow of defeat.  Instead you have to put yourself at risk, knowing that you will fail again and again.  But on the back of failure rides success.  You will have haters, and you will revel in them. But most of all, you will feel a high that no consumption of entertainment, substance, or thing will ever give you. The high of achieving, the sense of accomplishment, and the splendor of action will spur you on to the road of greatness.

On my lack of posting

The posting here has been nonexistent the last couple weeks.  The reason is that I have been out of town, and even when I'm home I'm minimizing the computer.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still reading the blogs to keep up, but nothing more. 

At any event, after the trip to New Orleans this upcoming week, I hope to resume the posting schedule.

Cheers.

The morally (un)credible Santorum

 "Santorum is the only candidate who cares about the moral breakdown of society"

Me: "He cares? What is that worth? I want a president who will actually address the core issues.  No more reflexive and fruitless odes to traditional values.  So what, exactly, will he do?"

"He's against abortion. And he'll serve as the moral inspiration for Americans to follow."

Me: "Ok, ok.  First off, nobody's ending abortion.  Second, it doesn't work like that. Leaders have the potential to do great things, but they can't shift a decades-long process that is unfolding due to the immutable laws of human nature and human society. Even if it were possible, Santorum doesn't have the charisma to be that man."

--------------------------

I was arguing with a friend about feminism, women's rights, and the moral disintegration of the West. I replayed the various ills feminism has wrought: he spouted politically correct platitudes to the tee.   I offered nothing original, just pointed out the verifiable effects of women's economic and political empowerment, but he still failed to grok the connection between women's rights and societal breakdown.  After a few minutes of fruitless bantering, the conversation made way for the subject of political elections when he, against all reason and rationality, he had the chutzpah to defend Rick Santorum because of his unwavering "defense of moral values and hard position on abortion." Talk about not getting it.

I replied that restoring moral value to the country and outlawing abortion was a whole lot harder than anyone imagines, a task Santorum or any of the candidates would be impotent in implementing, not with the technological miracles of contraception and reliable abortion, thinking at the time of Ferdinand Bardamu's excellent post on technology's intractable caper on hedonism. 

On second thought, the only way to restore moral sanity to the U.S would be to hand it a one-way ticket to economic abyss, so it looks like Barack Obama would be the best candidate after all.  But I digress.

Of course, technology isn't the only source posing problems, so the moral argument for Santorum may still have some relevance. In that vein, I will present a few policy prescriptions that, if it could be demonstrated that Santorum not only would support, but would do his absolute best to implement, then I will publicly endorse him for President.  Here it goes.

End no-fault divorce.

End female suffrage. Alternately, limit the suffrage to weed out parasitical voters.  

Provide women significant incentive to leave their corporate job to become stay-at-home mothers. No one is exempt from tradeoffs.  If women devote all their energies in competing in the endless horse-race that is corporate America, the necessities of the home and the nuclear family, the self-evident foundation for any moral society, will be neglected and its function will deteriorate.

End to Alimony and other single-mother welfare programs.   

In other words, he pretty much just has to spot the elephant in the room, an elephant that is conspicuous to any thinking person but remains invisible for the self-serving cyborg elite.  So while a great deal more policies are necessary to remedy our moral plight, any politician going this far would be so out of the mainstream that he would merit my vote.  Santorum, man up!

Why you should never work out with more than one person

The small sign that read Fitness Connection hung over a narrow door,  giving the gym an unassuming appearance, one that belied it enormous size.  It's like a warehouse, with a line of fifty-some-odd cardio machines at front with just as many weight machines in the middle.  The long rack of free weights, from 5 to 150 lbs, lied in the back.  You don't have to wait for a machine. 

One of the things I like about this gym is that everybody is serious.  And while it doesn't host VIP's like some of the gyms in Mami or Santa Monica, there is no shortage of individuals who could enter the WBFF. 

But much like you don't realize how loud a constantly-beaming generator is until it turns off, I didn't fully appreciate the caliber of the gym I work out in until I got up from a set of inclined bench press and saw three kids, no older than 17, walk to a bench press near me.  One couldn't help but noticing the incongruity. They were guffawing as if they were at the arcade while they sipped their Monster energy drink. WTF? They probably think Monster is healthy for them because it has vitamins. 

Being in the zone, I didn't pay much attention to them as I went back and forth doing my chest and back super-dropsets, but from what I saw it was apparent that they weren't working out like they thought they were.  When they weren't chatting up a thoughtless storm of words,  they were lying on the bench trying to see how much they could max, as if that does anything other than fill some void. 

This is why you should never work out with more than one person.  You end up getting distracted.  While one is working on his set, two guys can talk to each other.  In eye of memory, whenever I work out with more people beyond my usual workout buddy, epic failure ensues.  The workout isn't so much as poor as it is nonexistent.  So, while you should have one partner that will be there to keep you accountable, having anymore more than that will, unless their extremely motivated people, jeopardize your workouts.    

Why Europe beat China

In his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond outlines a convincing case that geographical differences in certain regions serve to either hinder or jumpstart a society’s overall progress.  Early success then generates more success, and thus a little head start can lead to the difference between a Civilization capable of seafare, metallurgy, and centralized government, and a huntergatherer tribe whose main characteristics are, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, “nasty, brutish, and short.” Diamond highlights the geographical sweetspots to be the Fertile Crescent and Asia, which accounts for the rise of two superpowers: Europe and China. 

However, his explanatory model, which precludes any nongeographical  explanations, has gaping holes when it comes to comparing the relative success of Europe with that of China in the middle ages. 

More than anything, a society’s ascension is based strength of its technological base.  Much of what can be attributed to Europe’s ascension can be numbered on a list of new inventions.  Including:

The water wheel marked a huge improvement in productive efficiency, allowing workers to labor on something else, either on more concrete appliances or intellectual endeavors, such as reading and writing.

Eyeglasses doubled the working life of a skilled craftsman.  Whereas before an artisan’s skill would plummet with the decline of his sight, rendering him all but impotent by the age of 40, eyeglasses allowed fine workers to continue their vocation decades longer.

The importance of the printing press can hardly be exaggerated. Although originally invented in China, the printing press never caught on because of the inflexibly of the Chinese Block type.  But when Gutenberg invented the printing press for alphabetical languages, the world would never be the same.  The literacy rates shot up, people began to read and think more, productivity increased from more reliable documentation and communication. 

For all the progress that Europe witnessed in the centuries preceding the Renaissance (11-1300’s), China was actually its superior at the time.  The Chinese invented the wheelborrow, stirrup, compass, paper, printing, and gunpowder.  But as Europe witnessed progress going into the Renaissance, China endured a steep decline.

Therefore, the question of why Europe, as opposed to China, emerged as the world’s premier superpower can be restated as to why Europe was more amendable to invent new technologies than China, and why China actually went backwards.  As for China’s regress, the Hungarian sinologist Etienne Balazs attributes it to its totalitarian constraints on private initiative, where monopolies reigned, bureaucracies were all-powerful, and Chinese ingenuity was sapped by the prevailing regulations that gripped its citizens from cradle to grave, all creating an artificial plateau that the Chinese could surmount.

As for Europe’s relative success, David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, attributes it to several factors. 

• ·           "The Judeo-Christian respect for manual labor, as summed up in a number of biblical injunctions.” He gives the example of when God warns Noah of the flood, and how God doesn’t just save him, but instead tells Noah to build an ark.

• ·        The Judeo-Christian conception of Man being in control of nature, contra pagan nature worshippers.

• ·         But most importantly, just as China’s decline could be extrapolated from its command economic system, Europe ascended due to its relative economic freedom. The institutions of private property and free enterprise gave the Europeans more incentive to innovate and create than the Chinese. It wasn’t the pure, Laisse faire Dickinson capitalism, but it was sufficiently close to it.

Admittedly, this article only scratched the surface of the issues involved, but intentionally so.  One has to start somewhere.  

What Socrates has to teach the GOP candidates

More debates, more empty showcases.  The race has advanced to the final four, leaving only the candidates that have passed the vox popoli.  Despite the bid being a weeding-out process, it has not selected for the better, and the discourse is every bit as shallow as its ever been.  Despite what most people believe, its not just Rick Perry who is a poor debater. Every single GOP presidential candidate, to greater or lesser degrees, doesn't know how to debate.  Don't get me wrong, they're all good orators, and they're all, with the exception of Rick Perry, quick witted and possess a modicum of communication skills. Newt Gingrich, in particular, has shown himself to be the master of the riposte.  But no, I'm not talking about that. Rather I'm referring to their complete inability to win an argument in a unanimously satisfactory manner.

Think about it, in any of the debates, when have you ever enjoyed the silence of someone's defeat, the silence that calls for pity onto the interlocutor and his hapless argument?  Even with all my biases in favor of Ron Paul, I have yet to see him demolish his opponents to a breathtakingly conclusive extent.

In all fairness, this is partly the fault of the debate forum.  The debates number in the double-digits, and with the sole exception of Mike Huckabees recent Q&A, there has been no change in the debate setup, no variety that could reveal truths that haven't been exhausted before.  It is a testimony to how unimginative the mainstream media is that nothing different has been proposed and tried upon, which is why I was bummed when the Donald Trump debate never panned out.  Ron Paul simply dismissed it because a celebrity show host would be unfit to host a presidential forum, as if delegating that role to a collection of self-serving, establishment-promoting media heads was any better.

Since I have decried the lack of imagination in the mainstream media, I will take the time to offer my own proposal.  Simply put, I am suggesting a Socratic dialogue. All previous debates had it where the moderator (or some twitterer) would ask a question, allowing the asked candidate to answer. The questions were almost always as broad as the dawn and as shallow as a kiddy pool, leaving the candidate sufficient room to contort, evade, and redirect. Sometimes this would make way for another candidate to dispute the answer, but the dialogue would eventually devolve into a he-said-she-said argument, a spectacle that no one cares about.  And then it's over; thank goodness because I know someone's brain hurts.

This is why I am proposing the moderators change their routine entirely, and make the GOP runners use the Socratic method.  If my plan were implemented, candidates would have the opportunity to ask another competitor of their choosing five questions building up to a specific topic.  The asked candidate would be forced to answer the question in a concise, unevasive way, lest the next question be hurled to cover the avoided nuance.  The role of the questionnaire would rotate between candidates and moderators until every possible combination is tried, in which the cycle would repeat itself.

The reason the Socratic dialogue is superior is because constantly asking questions exposes the gaps of recipients arguments and knowledge base.  No longer can they ramble on with what they're comfortable with.  No longer can they substitute hard honest answers for talking points or attacks on Obama.

Ron Paul in particular would profit from utilizing the Socratic method. As much as I admire the man, he is a very poor persuader.  The only thing saving him is 1) the weight of his ideas, and 2) his fans know how to get the word out and create advertisements. It's not just that he lacks the powers of appearance and oratory, its the interpersonal techniques he uses.  He rarely asks the much needed question, preferring instead to reiterate his libertarian and often-times correct arguments.  For example, he would do well if he simply asked the question is maintaining an overseas empire, throwing out every evil dictator, and attempting to eradicate world terrorism compatible with a small and limited Government? The ideal Conservatives are so enamored with?  I have asked that question numerous times in forums around the internet and guess what answer I received? Nothing. They couldn't be bothered with it. But instead Paul converts the question into a positive statement, which is only met with evasions and arguments from necessity, like we have to fight this war, or whatever. And Paul could ask dozens of such questions regarding the Constitution, a declaration of war, who predicted the crises and what that means,  the role of the Federal Reserve, the bankers that Republicans never talk about, the list goes on.

Questions demand accountability and precision, something that is severely lacking in the mainstream political discourse.

Why this won't happen. There are many reasons why the Socratic dialogue will never be tried.  For one thing, it takes away the powers of the moderator, putting it into the hands of the better, more knowledgeable and logically sophisticated candidate.  Devising questions that run five levels deep isn't easy; more than anything it demands a strategic and logical mind.  No doubt the candidates would need more preparation and effort devising and preparing to answer multi-tiered questions than working on spewing the same old talking points. And secondly, it probably wouldn't be a crowd-pleaser.  Viewers want to see rhetorical gustos confirming their beliefs, not craftily constructed examinations that delve into complicated nuances of a viewpoint.

Let it not be said that the current debate forum doesn't have its merits.  That's not the point.  The point is that it is way overused; its now defunct as it has exhausted its capacity to spark new, meaningful conversation.  Whoever devises these debates needs to get creative.  I outlined one proposal, and I'd like to see others implemented as well.

The Emptiness of American Consumerism

Jake and Kelly think they are a relatively happy couple with good kids.  Jake works a decent job, one that pays more than enough to support his family.  But in order to fund their exuberant lifestyle, Kelly gets ready for a long day at work as she waves her kids farewell when they enter the yellow bus of doom.  A lot is on their minds.  As Jake slaves away at his soul-crushing job, he is looking forward to his next pay check to buy the new iphone, after which he will set his eyes on a new boat for the lakehouse. Once Kelly is done pushing papers in her corporate, bureaucratic job, she mounts her Lexus to pick up her kids from school and departs for the local mall, spending a few hundred $ on her favorite (!) red purse, some fine-smelling perfumes, and a size 40 dress to fit her inflamed, oversized waist.  By the time she gets home, she is too exhausted to cook dinner, so it’s more Dominoes pizza for the family. Jake gives the perfunctory beckon to his kids about what they learned at school today.  With a moment of ums and ahs, the kids finally respond that they learned how to calculate fractions – the same answer they gave last week.   Newtons, the lot of them. 

Jake had read earlier that day it was a good idea to go over finances with his spouse, but the issue posed an uncomfortable hassle for him. He wanted that iphone, he wanted that boat, and he knew that he had to amass even more debt to pay for them.  The idea of saving his resources for another day was wholly foreign to his mind, preferring to just take on more equity on his appreciating house.  Jake could confront his poor financial decisions now, but instead he brushed off the discomforts of introspection and turned on the TV, which he and his family would stare at until curfew.

Question: who the heck are Jake and Kelly? Answer: the average, miserable Americans, gripped in the thongs of consumerist culture.  If you thought my little story was exaggerated, you would kidding yourself.  There is no society more materially fixated than America, as the consumerism embedded knows no bounds. The average American spends every dime he makes, and more, saving for nothing.  It’s the mentality of short-term gratification and pleasure at the expense of everything else.  You would think that America, being the wealthiest nation on earth, would provide enough consumption goods to satisfy these degenerates, but you would be wrong.  The problem with wealth is that its beneficiaries can never get enough of it, because once you give them these toys, they develop an insatiable lust for more.  Americans are stuffing themselves with spoiled mammon, only to die of their own gluttony. 

American culture, as opposed to the American economy, has nothing to offer the refined individual. It’s a joke.  The average American has no appreciation for the fine arts, being content in swallowing the morass of cheap Chinese-made goods.   The soul-draining dirtbag that passes for culture provides nothing but circus and bread.  Nothing lies in their minds besides the products they see on the commercials.  It’s not about who they are as people, the quality and substance of their being.  No.  It’s about what they have. Americans pride themselves with their values, but they have immolated their interests on the altar of materialism, bowing to the idols of mammon and overindulgence.    

If Americans spent half the time laboring to improve themselves as individuals as they did consuming material goods, they would all be Renaissance men by now.  And that’s the problem.  Short-sighted consumerism takes time, effort, and is ultimately unrewarding. These energies could be spent on the finer endeavors of life, like improving oneself as an individual.  

 You want to rise above the pack? Extricate yourself from the throes of free-dumb society and crass consumerism. Create, produce, refine, not just consume.  I was deeply moved by the part in the movie Titanic when the lower-class Jack (Dacaprio) talks to the smug seniors of his girlfriend’s family. He said that he was set as long he possessed a pencil and drawing paper. He didn’t need all the material possessions Americans will die before giving up because he was content with something of a higher quality, something transcendent, something that required a higher level of consciousness and was thus ultimately more rewarding.  Likewise, do something creative.  Play a musical instrument.  Write a lot.  Learn how to paint.  Wood-work.  Pick up gardening.  Join a book club.  Read the great works of literature.  Think big ideas.  Learn the Alexander Technique.  Take up toastmasters.  Play board games with others. Invest more time in love, friends, family and relationships.  Embody the virtues you admire in your heroes.  Try to make yourself into the best person you can be.  Forgot your material welfare.  When you arise in the morning, look forward not to the things you can buy but to the things you cannot, the immaterial blessings that separate humans from the apes.   To use a food analogy, don’t impel motion into your life by eating chips, ice cream, or dope, for those things are nothing but cheap and poorly-rewarding gratifications.  Instead, eat the fruits of life and the meat of strength, with all their wholesome nutrients and enduring satisfaction.     

Left to their own devices, people will inevitably take the path with least resistance, which is why consumerism is the well-worn path.  Altering your lifestyle to emphasize the transcendent over the material will not be easy. Some of your friends will laugh at you; others will even resent you, for there is nothing more threatening to a weak person’s sense of self-worth than seeing another man rise above the same miserable and unsatisfying conditions of their own life.   But this path, the one less taken, will ultimately be worth it.  It will imbue within you a sense of purpose, a drive, a motivation to be a better person, an avenue to find your affinity with nature, and means to reconcile yourself with your being and your Creator. That is what life is about.  

The practical dangers of not swearing too much and too poorly

      Earthly elements scraped the bottoms of my barefeet as I hoofed my afternoon walk.  Placid, calm, enjoyable. But the quiet streets of suburbia were interrupted by two whiggers, flawless specimens of a degenerate species.  They only graced my presence for a few brief, shiny seconds, but from what little time there was I could easily discern the incredible breadth that passes for their vocabulary.  The shorter one with plastered brown hair talked about his friend f—k, describing him as a f—k who f—k-d his f—king f—k, all with the pristine conversational skills of the average, doped-ridden teenager.

     Now then, I’m not the guy who will interrupt someone with, “hey man – you cussed!”, because swearing can serve a good purpose (I have no problem doing it myself, on occasion), but I reserve my most contemptuous thoughts for those individuals that use it as a crux for all their insecurities. High School culture has already seared what was left of their moral compass, but you don’t minimize your swearing for moral reasons; you stop because you don’t want to sound like a self-conscious moron.

     These pathetic creatures imagine themselves to be the paragons of cool and rebellion when they are in fact the most approval-seeking individuals on the planet, slavishly searching for outward notice and approval, always laboring in the vein that what they’re doing makes a difference.

     Curser Kid, stop swearing; you’re not good at it. I know my pearls of wisdom will bounce off your unmotivated mind like a track coaches’ pushing words to a snail, but soon the unforgiving forces of reality will set in your identity stone the words, You Are Not Cool. 

Why are these people voting for Newt?

This post would probably be more pertinent a month or two ago, but I just have to ask the question. Why vote against Romney because he is a Mormon, and vote for Newt instead? Seriously, it makes no sense to preempt Romney because of his religion, but vote for Gingrich.  Its as if words meant more than actions. In Romney you have a candidate who for the most part has lived a morally upstanding life, but whose only sin is to believe in various extra-biblical theological doctrines (although I would say these doctrines are significant from a theological perspective.)  In Newt you have a candidate who professes to be a Christian but whose actions indicate otherwise.  I'm not questioning Newt's salvation or anything, but salvation really isn't the issue. It's about electing a leader that offers moral credibility and self-control.  You shall know them by their fruits.

Whats even worse was when many of the Hermain Cain apostates, who left him because of his fidelity issues, went over to support Newt.  Talk about not getting it...

At any rate, Gingrich is out.  The only two ones left are Paul and Romney.

Why the NBA is becoming lame

Life is good. Even though we're on the cusp of Christmas/New Years vacation, my the prospects for joy are good.  Why am I so merry, you ask? Simple. The NBA is back!! The perfect Christmas gift!

Or not.

Back when I was a kid dunking on 7" foot basketball goals, I was an NBA fanatic.  I was enamored with the Michael Jordan's and Vince Carter's of the league.  All I wanted to do was to watch the recap of the day's highlights, which were mostly filled with some crazy athlete driving in for a monstrous dunk.

But as I grew older and started playing for a real team that played real basketball, I started to see how lame the NBA really is.  The 3 second defensive lane violation, the outlawing of zone defenses, and other rules like them are designed to promote 1on1 "And one" street ball. No longer is passing the ball around the arc the most effective way to score; it's all Kobe Bryant taking it 1on1 on his man, driving for the dunk or otherwise pulling up for a jump shot.

Thanks to the demand of school and extra-curricular activities, I couldn't afford to waste my time watching anything but the Finals in high school, but that didn't stop my teammates from doing so. Of course, I didn't need to inquire who were the fans of the NBA; it was readily obvious who the ones were by the way they played.  Their idea of great basketball was them dribbling up the court, dribbling around their man, and - you guessed it - more dribbling through the lane for the play of the gamewild shot or turnover. There goes their starting spots.

Okay, but as bad as it is to patent your game like the pros, it's even worse to make them into your role models.  "Who are your heros?" I would ask them. "Umm, lets see - MJ, Lebron, Kobe, and aahhh,[insert favorite player here]. " was the inevitable response.  Theirs is a life of spectatorship. 

And on top of this trainwreck, the league is piling up more turn-offs.  Players no longer have the traditional team allegiances that made possible the rivalries (i.e Celtics vs Lakers, Bulls vs Pistons) which made the league a blessing to watch. Every time you check NBA.com there's always news about some big name player going to another team, usually to join up with some other superstar.  The Miami Heat represent everything that is wrong with this setup.  Here they turned 3 solid teams, each with a superstar, into one blown-up team and two other crappy ones.  Now nobody wants to watch the Cleveland vs Toronto or Toronto vs Miami.

Whats transpiring is that the NBA, with each additional lopsided team, is becoming like British Soccer, where all everyone talks about is the Arsenal and Manchester United.  It's stupid, and David Stern shouldn't let this happen.  (and if anybody comes to me saying the teams and players should do whatever they want to, I don't want to hear it.  These people imagine themselves clever because they can apply their fetish for free-market economics to the sports world, when actually there is nothing free-market about denying the NBA as an association to make decisions.)

I still watch Pro Basketball on occasion, and I'll even talk about its latest happenings with my more sports-inclined friends, but the direction it has taken is not for good.

And no, I don't watch college basketball. The only time I got into it was when Syracuse won the Championship back in 2003. Those were the days...

Favorite quotes

Below is a list of my favorite quotes, in no particular order.  It will be expanded upon whenever I find a suitable addition. 

"The moral configuration of Western society requires its best citizens to rebel, to go against the grain, to behave in mala fide in order to secure their own fortunes." -Ferdinand Bardamu

"Then you're obviously like the average Macintosser, not bright enough to use a real computer without having your hand held." - Vox Day

"It’s a brave new world, and the answer is more game, more players. It’s win-win for everyone… except modern society." - Roissy Chateau
  
"I have wasted my hours." - Leonardo da Vinci

"Its not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit" -Rocky Balboa

"A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition." - G.K Chesterton 

"The fact is, SWPLs are enamored of genetic genius and creativity… not ambition, not fortitude, not conscientiousness or discipline… IQ and CQ" -Roissy Chateau

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read" - Mark Twain

"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt.

"If you are a critic, you would do well to keep in mind that there is a very high probability I am both more intelligent and better educated than you are before you leap to immolate yourself in the beautiful flames of my brilliance. " - Vox Day

"It'll be funny when some slacker with natural smarts strolls into class late, aces the finals, and kicks Amy Chua's kid out of the #1 spot." - Roissy Chateau 


"I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring." - James Whistler

"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult." -Sigmund Freud 

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei

"i need to stop calling myself 'anti-feminist'. 'anti-bullshit' would be a better term." G.L Piggy

The Judgement Arrives

Things got hysterical when I asked the rhetorical question "Why do people celebrate Xmas again?"  Some of my more secular friends were offended that I even dared asked such a question, and thereby challenged the rational foundation they had for celebrating Christ's birthXmas.  Now, I don't have a problem with non-Christians unwrapping gifts from under a tree or singing Jingle Bells, but I couldn't help but notice how cheap sounding it is to call it Xmas in fear of arousing obvious connotations, as well as trying to appear culturally audacious and rebellious, and yet do the exact same things as everybody else does.

At any rate, the response that ensued didn't live up to the virtues of honesty and truth.  I won't recount it verbatim, but it went something like this:

Okay, everybody is entitle to their own opinion, but your taking this too far; you're judging! You really don't want to go down that path.

 I know, right?  How I dare judge her! How cruel of me to critically examine the rational foundation behind people's actions.  This line of attack is no different than when the clowns at CNN got up and arms for as long as they could stand up and speak for the day about Ron Paul's alleged racism.  No counterargument was necessary, because its raaaaaaa-cism.  For them, any attempt to draw racial differences from objective data is self-defeating.  Ergo, it can be dismissed. Likewise, for the self-pitying pawns of the cultural Zeitgeist, anything carrying the tiniest fragment of judgment is evil, something to be immediately dismissed before the idols of equality and tolerance.  No judgements are warranted and no actions frowned upon because everyone is equal in every way.  

Conventional mentality really does flop around through time, sometimes rotating a full 180 degrees. See, even though this blog is advertised as counter-conventional/cultural, the many truths it espouses were recognized by the many for most of recorded human history. The notion that there really are ways to live your life that are either right or wrong, smart or stupid, rational or irrational, this was common sense before the cage of equalitopia was broken loose.

It must tough going through life, living with no sense of self-superiority, not being able to pat yourself on the back because you were smart enough to take the one correct path over ten other incorrect ones, to cherish victory only because you had no chance of defeat, to be inferior to no one only by definition, to be special because everyone is special.  But then again, I'm operating under the tenuous assumption that they're not living some looser lives, denied even the comforts of mediocrity.  Equality is the endeared refuge of the sub-median.  

I've always been curious as to what extent one's personality affects one's politics.  Apparently a lot.  If you are loosing at the game of life, the easiest way to salvage your self-worth is to convince yourself there is no scoreboard.

Who cares about abortion?

I do, for one.  Abortion, like murder, should be prohibited. Period. But who of any relevance cares about it? No seriously, is there a single politician who cares about prohibiting abortion? Alot of them, you may say; "The Republican's are pro-life!"

Are they really?

I have no doubt they pay their due lip-service.  There are no shortage of conservative politicians speaking against a mother's right to murder her own child. The problem is that what they're doing is completely irrelevant.

Looking at the current Republican platform, I don't think there are any candidates who aren't pro-life. Romney had to flipflop, because being pro-choice, at least if you are a Republican, is political suicide. Everywhere evangelicals are fretting about abortion as if it were a serious issue surrounding the election of a candidate.  To them, even the most economically literate candidate would be horrible were he pro-choice.

But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter what position you take, abortion is not going to be outlawed, unless the president is absolutely serious about doing so.  And by "serious" I mean they say they WILL MAKE IT ILLEGAL during their stay in Washington.  And from my knowledge, I've never heard any serious candidate say such a thing.

Instead, you hear them blathering about how life begins at conception and that it is a federal government and not a state issue, all with a hypothetical ring to it.  No actions are proposed.

Maybe when I hear the words, I will make abortion illegal (providing the congress does their job), within the first year of my presidency, then I'll perk up my ears.  But until then, I will consider the probability that the Bachman's and Santorum's of the world will prohibit abortion to be the same as that of all the other pro-life politicians since Roe vs Wade out there, namely zero.  Not only will they not do it, they won't even try.      

So if anybody comes up to me and says they won't vote for a pro-choice candidate because abortion is a huge issue, I don't want to hear it. I'm against abortion too; I'm just not naive enough to believe that your favorite pro-life candidate is going to make a difference.

Some people believe that all the destitution and blood spilled from the Civil War was America's punishment for enslaving the black race.  If that's true, then something similar will be happen to twenty-first century America for the fifty million some odd babies that were aborted.  The question is whether you will separate yourself from the rest of the platitude spouting conservatives and make things happen.  And please, don't vote for a candidate just because he's pro-life.

What's worse than a straight-up liberal?

A liberal pretending to be a conservative. Here's Proph on modern right.

I spend a lot of time beating up on liberals, I know. Let's take a moment to remember that the modern "right" aren't our friends, either.

Remember Jonah Goldberg having the temerity to draw a connection between de Maistre and the Nazis? Or his and Norman Podhoretz's celebrations of sodomy? Or his and Ross Douthat's celebration of feminism? (Jonah Goldberg... what a shitbag).
Don't forget the endorsement of the abolition of marriage from Fox News, for Heaven's sake! Or their silence concerning (or even mild support of) the forced homosexualizaiton of the Armed Forces.

Holy smokes.  I used to be a moderate fan of Jonah Goldberg ever since I read Liberal Fascism.  I've never fully agreed with him, specifically on his brand of imperial neoconservatism, but he seemed to have his head screwed on reasonably straight.  I don't think so anymore. There's a reason he didn't indict feminism in his book; he's sympathetic towards it!

The reason faux-conservatives are so much more dangerous than self-professed liberals is that those on the right will listen to them.  I live in an Evangelical conservative ghetto of empty-headed anti-intellectualism, and these folks, God bless them, will not listen to ANYTHING a liberal says.  To them, the following is a truism: anything spouted out by a liberal is sh*t. And that's probably accurate.

Thing is, they'll accept what a nominal "conservative" says, even though its the same bloody thing liberals say.

Liberal ideologue says that woman's economic empowerment is necessary to cure world poverty "Friek feminism - typical redneck  
Clinton intervenes in Africa, in addition to providing foreign aid, "Why can't we just leave the world alone?" -  average Fox News watcher, considers himself an upstanding conservative.

Liberal Keynesian economist says tarrifs should be implemented to fix the trade imbalance, "Oh, so you want more taxes on MY Chinese goods?!" - TEA Party enthusiast

But.

Right Wing commentator approves of feminism and woman's suffrage,"Sounds good to me!"-  typical redneck.

Bush gets conservative backing for the war in Iraq and the global spread of democracy, "Sounds like a good idea to me!" - average Fox News watcher, considers himself an upstanding conservative.

Free market economist writes new book espousing tarrifs, "Down with China!" -  TEA Party enthusiast

This is no joke. It happens all the time.  Ever wondered why conservatives cheered Bush on even as he was planting the country ever deeper in the plagues of liberalism?  Because he was "one of their own."

Unfortunately, this is a problem that cannot be remedied.  It's human nature.  Most people would rather delegate their thinking to some higher authority, blindly accepting their views as their own so long as they profess ideological similarity.  Most people don't think deep enough to construct a coherent worldview; they just combine contradictory bits and pieces of what they've heard.

You can Increase your I.Q, Even if you believe in Human Biodiversity

Note: This article was originally published at In Mala Fide on 12/10/2011.

I am an ardent proponent of what folks in these circles call human biodiversity, a politically incorrect worldview of race and gender relations. Since many advocates of human biodiversity are evolutionary conservatives, an accepted tenet of HBD is that I.Q is mostly a product of genetics.
Contrast this with this week’s spin on conventional wisdom, which states that as much as 50% of IQ is determined outside the causes of predetermined genetics.

While many HBD’ers are perfectly content with IQ being mostly immutable because on the average they are naturally smart, left-wing ideologues cling to the idea that human nature lends itself to radical adjustments in order maintain their dream of socially engineering the population into… yep, you guessed it – equality. For the leftist, the malleability of human nature knows no limits, as even something as biologically established as gender can ultimately be uprooted and fashioned towards a particular end. Therefore, since intelligence has been universally recognized as an important factor in success and class-standing (yes universally, the people who deny it out loud uniformly do so because they themselves are unintelligent; size doesn’t matter only to those who don’t have size), IQ must be equally dispersed among groups as well as being amendable to large increases. Like the African-American who doesn’t get a sufficient SAT score or the woman who can’t climb the corporate ladder like her fellow man can, low IQ individuals must be the victims of the sharp end of society’s stick, not to some inherent deficiency.

The dichotomy is usually assumed, but let us takes a closer look at what human biodiversity really has to say – or more specifically, what the science behind it has to say. For one thing, there are no necessary material restrictions to improving human attributes. It is an axiom of human behavior that individuals improve with practice, whether the activity is physical or mental. Moreover, I.Q as a dynamic entity may not be so contradictory to genetic determinism after all.  The intriguing new science of epigenetics dictates that a person’s genes are not necessarily as fixed as they were once thought to be, but can be affected by his or her immediate environment. The idea is at the heart of the Paleo Diet, in which the modern industrial complex has triggered sub-optimal gene expression, and that we must revert to the old habits of our ancestors who enjoyed the environment our genes adapted to.

So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the fields of psychology and neurology are rolling in the evidence showing that one can, in fact, increase his IQ:

In the latest study, 33 British students were given IQ tests and brain scans at ages 12 to 16 and again about four years later by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London; 9% of the students showed a significant change of 15 points or more in IQ scores.
On a scale where 90 to 110 is considered average, one student’s IQ rose 21 points to 128 from 107, lifting the student from the 68th percentile to the 97th compared with others the same age, says Cathy Price, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the center and co-author of the study, published last month in Nature. Another student’s score skidded out of the “high average” category, to 96 from 114.
Swings in individual IQ scores are often written off as the product of measurement error or a test subject having a bad day. But MRIs in this study showed changes in gray matter in areas corresponding to fluctuations in the kids’ skills, Dr. Price says. Although the sample size is small, the study drew wide attention because it is among the first to show how changes in IQ scores may be reflected in actual shifts in brain structure.

First, saying that IQ can be improved is not synonymous with saying that there are no race or gender differences in intelligence. The average white could improve his IQ to 115 while the average black could make similar improvements and land a 100 IQ. And second, the idea that IQ is immutable is patently absurd, as there are numerous ways to lower it, most notably by huffing dangerous drugs and chemicals, sending you down into the mentally retarded zone. More to the point, there are many lifestyle habits that all of us, even the most die-hard health perfectionist, have that hinder our cognitive capacities to some degree. Obvious ones include sub-optimal diet (and since the majority of Americans are not versed of the ways of their Paleolithic ancestors, you can be darn sure that this includes virtually everyone), inadequate measures of recovery like sleep or emotional and mental relaxation, too much stress, fatigue, and emotional instability. Though these factors may have only a small role to play, they can take significant cumulative toll on cognition. And since these things serve to hamper us from attaining our true potential, simply removing these bars will have a positive effect.

Moreover, there are positive steps one can take as well:

Intense training can raise scores. Using a method called “n-back,” researchers at the University of Michigan had young adults practice recalling letter sequences by flashing a series of letters on a screen and asking them to press a key whenever they saw the same letter that appeared “n” times earlier, such as one or two times.
Training for about 25 minutes a day for eight to 19 days was linked to higher scores on tests of fluid intelligence, with gains increasing with the duration of the training, says Susanne Jaeggi, co-author of the study, published in 2008 in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.
The gains tend to fade after practice stops, based on studies of children, Dr. Jaeggi says. “You need some booster sessions” to maintain improvements, she says. Other research has found training people to switch mental tasks quickly also can lift scores.

Aside from geeky brain games, additional measures can be made. One’s that have real-world significance beyond a score on a meaningless test. What is the common element in all of these measures? The answer lies in a cliché that is as old as the hills: GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. Like the athlete who is constantly pushing himself beyond his current limits, such as lifting five pounds more than the last workout or switching to interval training after months of endurance training, the aspiring brain must be subjected to foreign experiences in order to grow. Evidence is shaping our view of the brain as a plastic entity, not a typical organ that withers over use and age. So learn novel things and perform new activities. Learn another language. Play a musical instrument. Learn to juggle. Use your less coordinated hand for basic acts like eating or brushing your teeth. Build things you have never built before. Learn how to draw. Read a lot. Study a subject unknown to you. Learn how to speed-read. Travel, even move overseas.  Solve mental problems in your head. Play another sport. Transform social interactions from passive acceptance to active awareness (most of you know what I’m thinking: game). Instead of playing the same old board games over and again, crack open the instruction booklet for a new one. Read polemical articles that make a case for something.  Write a blog. And then of course, there is always faking intelligence. Someone clocking an average intelligence could hit the books, become knowledgeable in subject matter, and school the ignoramus with a genius IQ.
The take home message: novelty is key. Once you find yourself in automatic pilot, stop and reconsider if what you’re doing is helping you grow.

At this point, I am dubious that these measures will make the drones of the world into Einsteins, but I am reasonably confident that they can raise your Intelligence Quotient by at least a standard deviation. (Unless you listen to Win Wenger, who believes that holding your breath underwater for a total time of 20 hours over three weeks can increase your I.Q by over ten points, and something called image streaming can have even more dramatic effects. In all honesty, I have never really tried his techniques, so will refrain from pronouncing judgment. Go check his stuff out and let me know how it works, if you feel so inclined.)

So, what impact do these findings have on the entire social engineering debate? Essentially nothing. We here at In Mala Fide understand the secrets to improving intelligence and increasing our rate of success. We are also in the minority. I’m sure a good amount of the male population is capable of getting ripped six pack abs and 18 inch biceps. That is no insurance most will actually do so. And it would be outright insanity to predicate a society on the assumption that they will. Anything from a lack of knowledge, willpower, motivation, or means will preclude the majority from transcending their genetically endowed IQ. (Then again, collective education has made a difference. See: the Flynn Effect.) And to state again, this does NOT mean there are no racial or gender differences in intelligence. There clearly are, evidence for which has been so exhaustively cited in these circles that I won’t bother with the links.

Society is relatively constant, but you, dear reader, are not. Go forth, my friends and allies of HBD; your fate is in thy hands.

An Ode to Leonardo Da Vinci

I read my fair share of books, and one genre I have particular affection is the biography, or, more specifically, the biographies of great men.  I have always tried to surround myself with high-caliber and highly-motivated individuals.  I feed off their energy, picking their brains for advice and tips to get me rolling and improving as an individual.  But while I have had the fortune of knowing very capable people, sometimes the only way to know about truly great individuals is by reading about them.

Since I was in junior high, I have been enamored with the Renaissance Men of the past, figures including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton and Michelangelo. The whole idea of a Renaissance Man, with his ocean deep curiosity and galaxy width interests, intrigued me. 

But the Renaissance Man who had the most influence on me was Leonardo Da Vinci.  He set out with his insatiable curiosity to almost every conceivable task.  He balanced and intertwined the intellectual with the physical, art with science, engineering and anatomy, writing and drawing.  And to complement his voracious curiosity, his powers of observation were unmatched.  Over his lifetime he wrote over seven thousand pages in his journal articulating his thoughts, observations, drawings, and experimentations, among other things.  He also wrote down and defined some 9000 words. The Biographer Anonimo Gaddiano wrote, c. 1540: "His genius was so rare and universal that it can be said that nature worked a miracle on his behalf ..."

Reading about his behaviors has inspired me to do something similar.   I write in a journal as well as an internet blog about almost everything that comes to mind.  I constantly find new words to learn and then write them down – I have already jotted down over 2000 words.  I have tried to balance the various intelligences to create a more efficient mind. 

Da Vinci undoubtedly possessed an innate genius, but what separated him from rest of the gifted class was his power of action and active thinking.  He didn’t blindly and unknowingly subscribe to the intellectual fashions of his time.  Instead, he engaged his mind to question the current scientific dogma of the age.  He was willing to get his hands in the mud by testing theories via experimentation. 

Leonardo Da Vinci has inspired me to cultivate my energies toward all intellectual and physical endeavors.  He has motivated me to learn as much as I can, to the challenge conventional wisdom, to appreciate all aspects of intellectual and physical achievement, and to use that knowledge to attain the optimal mental and physical condition of the human body.      

The Alexander Technique Part Two

Our physiology is qualitatively similiar to that of the animal kingdom.  From an evolutionary perspective, this should be obvious.  The Biblical perspective isn't quite as unambiguous, but should be reasonably clear after some thought and observation. While the Bible maintains that human beings differ from animals in that they possess an immortal soul, I am unaware of any verse or influential theologian testifying against the notion that on a physical level, human beings can be loosely compared to other animals. However, several physical attributes can be easily verified to exist so as to render different approaches necessary to obtain perfect posture and optimal health for human beings.  These different attributes, and the concomitant approaches to accommodate those differences, serve as the neurobiological basis for the Alexander Technique.

Look at another animal's movement features, like a dog or a squirrel.  You will see that while you can easily distinguish one organism from another of the same species based on differences in fur color or size, it is surprisingly difficult to notice any differences in gait or posture.But these similarities within species immediately end with humans, where everybody seems to have their characteristic "walk," sometimes you can even identify someone merely by looking at their shadow.  One could posit that these differences are simply the result of our sharpened perceptions toward our kind or diminished perceptions toward our unkind, like when an American is bewildered by the sight of a million of the same faces during his first trip to China.

While heightened and diminished perception may play a role, it fails to account for the objectively measured differences we can measure.  So why are humans, physiologically, so different from one another?

There are two reasons: 1) The modern industrial complex, with all of it's conveniences, has disrupted our evolutionary state of being.  This problem is significant, and it's what the primal lifestyle seeks to fix, but it doesn't cover the whole picture. 2) We are bi-pedals, meaning that we walk on two legs, as opposed to the rest of the mammal kingdom. 

There are numerous advantages of bi-pedalism,  For one thing, it doesn't require as much muscle because it is not based on static balance, but dynamic counterbalance. Our body maintains it's uprightness not by a system of tight, short muscles holding us into place, but of a system that allows counterbalancing muscles to lengthen and contract to keep us aligned with minimal effort.  We have four centers of gravity: the front of the head, the lower back, the knee cap, and the back of the heel.  (A diagram would be a tremendous help in illustrating this, but I couldn't find one). Two of these centers of gravity, the lower back and heel, are at the back of the body, while the other two are in the front, counterbalancing the other two.  Misplacement of these four COG will disrupt your overall posture.  A typical case is locking your knees back, thrusting hips out.  This mucks with your balance and forces, among other things, your shoulders to be rolled forward, and your weight placed on the middle of your feet instead of on the heel.

We have now reached the heart of the problem. Because our posture is a system of dynamic counterbalance, we must constantly assess, make judgements, and change accordingly. The proper way to move isn't perfectly hardwired into us; we possess no instinct that controls our movements with painstaking precision.  We have to actively learn and sustain it.

This is why learning the Alexander Technique, especially in a world so contrary to the one of our origins and design, is necessary.

On Deserts and Holidays

The holidays are here, and with holiday's come irresistible deserts.  My usual routine is to stay away from all things junk for months at a time, then overindulge myself when my lent is over.  Yeah, I've heard studies showing that it is better to eat deserts in moderate proportions in a more intermittent fashion, and that's probably true if you just look at the overall health effects, (on the other  hand, kicking yourself into a fat-burning mode requires a longer period of eating paleo than five days).Thing is, while the diet is for the physical body, the ability to stay on that diet is mental.

I haven't had one drip of soda for over four years now.  My friends express awe over my discipline and self-restraint. But in truth, it's because I haven't had it for so long that I don't crave it.  I have absolutely no desire to drink it.  And that's not the only reason; I don't want to break my streak - I even have nightmares every once and a while of me freaking out because I had a soft drink.

So if continual abstinence produces a virtuous cycle of continued abstinence, the converse is also true. Everybody has experienced the slippery-slope of "just one bite." It's horrible; you eat one cookie for the pleasure it brings but face even greater discomfort resisting the next one.  My philosophy is to just not fight it all: always go overboard.

So enjoy yourself this Christmas.  Eat the good stuff, as always, but if you feel you must absolutely some Ice Cream, just eat it.  You just better have a disciplined new years resolution.  And unlike most people, you better stick to it.    

The Simulation Argument for the Existence of God

Note: this is my attempt to articulate the simulation argument for the existence of God,and not necessarily an original rendition of it.  I don't believe it is conclusive either of its proof of a Deity or the nature of that Deity. But it is thought provoking and provides a reasonable foundation for belief in the existence of God.

In making the case that God exists, it is customary for apologists to make use of arguments from design and origins.  While some of these particular arguments thought-provoking, they tend to be slightly overused and their reiterations can bore the reader out of the subject.  So, in the interest of keeping the subject interesting, I have elected to present an argument for the existence of God by blending the significance of future technological advancement with philosophy in order to establish a a particular conception of reality that necessitates God as its Creator.

Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher and futurist, has come up with the with the simulation hypothesis.  This hypothesis is predicated on three assumptions.  They are:

i. It is possible that an advanced civilization could create a computer simulation which contains individuals with artificial intelligence (AI).

ii. Such a civilization would likely run many, perhaps billions, of these simulations (just for fun, research or any other permutation of possible reasons).

iii. A simulated individual inside the simulation wouldn’t necessarily know that it is inside a simulation — it is just going about its daily business in what it considers to be the "real world.”

Simply put, the hypothesis amounts to  the extrapolation that if it is possible create simulants with conscious’ on par with our own, then it is very probable that we are actually in a simulation given the fact that such simulations would vastly outnumber the amount of “real worlds.” Look at our own world.  The quantities of virtual worlds produced by the video games we play are orders of magnitude larger than our single world they exist in.  It goes without saying that the particular designer and watcher over this simulation would be God.  And trans-simulation designer would virtually indistinguishable in kind than a supernatural creator. It would possess infinite power from our perspective, and could perform the various actions of the Judeo-Christian God as described in the Bible.  The laws of physics could very well be the equivalent of software code, and the supernatural entities, such as angels or fallen angels,  whose existence have been recorded throughout history could either be a part of the same code that dictates our limitations, or a part of some other overriding code that intersects with this simulation. 

Note that this is not an argument that our universe is an illusion. It is an argument that our universe is a subworld that is on a lower plane of existence than the world containing the designer, in much the same way the world in World of Warcraft is a subworld of our own.  Our universe would still be very real in the sense that it exists independently from our minds and is the same for you as it is for me.  It would simply be the product of the trans-simulation mind that designed it. 

This is consistent with various Biblical themes.  Heaven is described wholly removed from this realm, and would be far more glorious than our own virtual world.

At this point, science fiction fans may point out that the simulation hypothesis is predicated upon the possibility of the singularity.  And many of my Christian readers may reject the idea of the singularity by pointing out that consciousness cannot be replicated by a computer, and thus requires the existence of a deity to instill one. 

I don’t disagree. But consider the following trichotomy, and the effect it has on my case that God exists:

A.The singularity – specifically, the production of conscious AI – is not only possible, but inevitable.  As processing power continues to increase, it is only a matter of time before we have conscious stimulants at our disposal. Thus, it is highly probable that we are in a simulation, as per the logic presented earlier.

B.The singularity is possible, but extremely improbable.  The processing power of the most advanced computers may be sufficient, but the software encompassing the computer is too crude to potentialize that processing power.  This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that consciousness may not be replicated by an algorithmic system in a computer.  It could be something else that produces consciousness, like quantum wave collapses.  So Mankind may not be able to reach the singularity in time without destroying itself.  Alternatively, it may just not want to run simulations.

 C.The singularity is impossible due to the inherent limitations of the laws of nature.  Consciousness must be created via an external source, presumably by God.

Notice that both A and C are scenarios in which God exists and is the Creator of the universe. Scenario B cannot be discounted but its implications are neutral concerning the existence of God. Moreover, if the singularity happens to be improbable in this world, there is no reason it cannot be more probable in another conceivable world.

Too add on, quasi-simulations may not only be produced by a computer.  Something akin to dreams may be able to produce conscious agents – at least in another world.  In which case, the logic would be the same, thus bolstering my case for God by broadening the simulations logic’s applicability.

As the simulation hypothesis is taken into account, atheism becomes more untenable by the minute.  Its outright denial of the existence of God is unwarranted considering that mankind has already started to produce its own subworlds in which the designer is able to exercise god-like powers. 

Do I believe that we are living in a simulation? No. Believe is too strong of a word.  I speculate the possibility.  I believe it is just as if not more probable that God is the ultimate reality, the first cause, although I simply don’t know for sure and all we can do is play around with nonmathematical probabilities and good guesses. However, if humanity was ever granted access to the tunnel of truth on the matter, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that we are in a simulation.  But at any rate, the logic and evidence presented concerning the nature of reality should be sufficient to demonstrate that a belief in God, at the very least, is a reasonable one that has the potential of becoming the default position for any thinking individual.