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What are Rules for?


I have the habit of starting philosophical debates with people. It just sort of happens. Sometimes I don't know I'm in the debate until it passes the point no return. I lost the debate. I was trying to argue that rules weren't necessary.

Debating on the fly is difficult when proposing radical ideas. In short, don't do it because it won't get you anywhere. You need well planned arguments. For that, continue reading.

Rules are a program. Your DNA is a set of rules that, when interpreted, produce a human being. From here on, the terms "rules", "program", "instructions", and "laws" are all referring to the same thing.

In the computer world, the ruleset, or computer program, is fed into a processor. Neat stuff appears on your computer screen. In nature, an organic cell is fed into the environment we call Earth. Neat stuff appears in the water, and eventually on the land and in the sky.

Groups of animals have rules as well. Birds soar through the sky and fish glide through the ocean as a single group, reacting as a whole.

Humans have developed incredibly complex set of rules to govern their behavior. The difference between the rules humans have made and the rules our school of fish has made is simple. The fish have rules that serve a purpose. Humans do not.

We don't think about the long-term effects of the rules we make. We make laws with short-sighted goals in mind.

Comments (0) 03.11.2010. 08:48

Common Sense

A man has a blog. The blog gets popular. It's a generic blog that seems to appeal to pretty much everyone. That's because this man wrote articles that appealed to everyone. He had balanced blog content. Don't like today's article? You'll probably like tomorrow's.

As the blog gained an almost cult-like appeal, with nearly 8 million visitors each month, the man announces his plan to run for office. He wants to be a governor of a state, but which one? He chooses the state with the most fanatical fan support, which is pretty easy to tell based on user profiles and IP addresses.

He finds a woman in that state and marries her. It wasn't hard to do once women knew what website he created. The man picks a bride and moves in with her and now, a legal resident of the state (marriages get you everything it seems) he announces his plan to run for state governor.

His website traffic nearly triples over the next few months, and each day has more users than the day before, with no signs of stopping. This man has not only gained the support of an entire nation, but international support as well.

In the landslide victory, he springs into action. He helps pass a series of radical new bills, each more radical than the one before it. First, he legalizes marijuana. The State's economy blooms slightly. After that, he legalizes prostitution. Domestic violence is reduced 63%. Then he legalizes hallucinogens, but requires an educational course to get licensed for purchase and use of them. This includes LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, etc, but exludes MDMA because it is mostly considered an (methylenedioxymeth-)amphetamine. Amphetamines and heroin remained illegal due to their very addictive nature, which made cigarettes illegal also.

Violent crime in the state is down 9% in 4 months. The man is such a success as governor, he is practically forced into running for congress, which was also a landslide victory.

The other politicians felt threatened, but they all wanted to be his go-to guy. A presidential nomination was inevitable at this point. He was just so popular with the public.

No one knew just how popular he was though. In the presidential primaries, both parties elected him as their running mate. Others thought this shouldn't happen, as it would mean he could run for president virtually uncontested, but at this point it was clear that the nation wanted this man to be the President.

Once in office, his charisma helped him pass many more radical bills. He used his past success as governor to help convince congress these bills were a good idea. One of the first to pass was a bill declaring that, save the constitution and its amendments, every law shall expire in 2 years. Once expired, there will be a 90 day renewal window, during which is must be passed again (or ammended if necessary). This caused many archaic laws to disappear. A laissez faire economy began to emerge.

Most people predicted that he would try to legalize all drugs in accordance with earning your license to purchase, which he did, and he was successful. Shortly thereafter, addiction was cured.

He passed another set of laws that were his most controversial. This time the President tried to get rid of warning labels, telling the public that by relying on common sense, people would be forced to sharpen their wit, thereby will no longer needing the warning labels, saving money everywhere.

The bill passed by 1 vote. Speed limit signs were considered a warning label by the bill, as were illegal left turn signs. Millions died as a direct result of the passing of this bill, yet there seemed to be a lack of public outcry to have this reversed. Many believe it was because the vast majority of people felt that if the warning signs were the only thing keeping you alive, you shouldn't be in the gene pool anyway.

Eventually laws were passed that made you get a permit to do practically everything. The only difference was that to get the permit, you had to demonstrate above average proficiency in the subject at hand. To purchase a weapon, you had to demonstrate above average safety and firing proficiency. To drive a car, you had to be able to survive a simulated driving situation that was potentially life or death. You almost needed to be a race car driver to get a license. This spurred public transit and, after a while, helped to kill the fossil fuels industry.

This wasn't as restrictive as it sounds though. It turns out that people that were below average in a licensed skill tended to either not want the license or would work hard enough to get the license.

The last law he passed, which, it is argued, brought peace between the public and the government was The Open Information Act of 2012. It stated that any information was to be presented to anyone that wanted it within 30 days. It was a felony of the highest degree to disobey this law.

People were outraged, but the law had to finish its 2 year trial period before it could expire. By the end of the 2 years, people loved it. People loved shedding their social identities and becoming just another face in the sea, a face which they knew to be unique.

The President got rid of the military and recalled every troop we had at a foreign base. The military became the people's militia, distributing their weapons to those that were qualified to use them. He used the money they saved to fund scientific research all over the world.

He passed a bill that called for a parenting license. Birth rates plummeted, but it was hailed as an environmentally wise decision.

But alas, a day came that changed mankind forever. Now in his third term, and 89% of the world's countries having voluntarily joined the United Alliance, this man practically ruled the world. He never wanted the power though. He only wanted what was best for his species, and now it was time to do something drastic.

On this day, the President of the Alliance passed his final bill. Since licenses were required for nearly everything, it was time to create one last qualification. With the passing of this bill, you now had to demonstrate skill in being a citizen. Living was no longer a natural born right. You had to earn it. After a year, a billion people were executed. The next year, two billion. The only people that argued were the ones that knew they couldn't make the cut. Deep down they knew they were sacrificing themselves for something greater than themselves, which was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor. The population of the planet was reduced to one billion humans. A law was created to keep the population steady.

Hundreds of years later, the United Alliance had become an elite group of human beings, wielding intellectual and cultural capacities ten-thousand percent higher than the Citizens that existed when the President took office. He is still the President, as he was chosen to be the first human to become immortal.

People of today would call this genocide that would have made Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Khmer Rouge develop an inferiority complex. Citizens of the United Alliance called it Common Sense.

Comments (0) 01.15.2010. 11:00

Post 13

This post inspired by: http://www.owlsparks.com/decisions/philosophys-bad-press/

What people are doing is natural. Humans have about as much free will as an ape, or a lobster. While their behavior is very, unneccessarily, complicated, this doesn't mean they exercise free will and decision making, if such things truly exist.

The more individuals join society, the more removed they are from the immediate reality around them. Society is a safe place, and to fit in, you must live in a neighborhood with rules like "no privacy fences", drive a status car, all while having precisely 2.3 children.

This complex societal interaction is mechanistic behavior, monkey see, monkey do. Only the ones that are able to step back and understand what they have become can see that society is not something they want to be part of. Society requires that you follow rules and not get out of order, do your job, pay your mortage and all the other mindless drivel that entails.

What does societal assimilation entail though? Blind acceptance of what others tell them. The ideas that philosophers know to be important don't need to be answered when society tells you how to behave and how to act; no looking within for answers required.

Philosophy, and the practice of thinking leads to many loops of logic. The more I think the more questions I have and I never seem to make any progress. It is frustrating, to say the least. Normal people don't see the value of taking the time and energy to think about seemingly unimportant things. Why would free will, decisions, society, love, humanity or religion be worth thinking about when they are easily labeled "unanswerable questions"?

More than anything though, I believe that these kinds of questions require a deep look within the person asking them. Most people do not like what they have become and are now afraid to look where these answers lie, for it frightens them.

Comments (0) 12.14.2009. 13:19

Free Will

Does wanting something make it real?

There is an xkcd about this. And it actually happened, presumably simply because this one person wanted it. He used his thoughts. and then it happened. What causes this? If humans are the neurons of the collective consciousness, you could say that the neuron that is xkcd, aka Randall Munroe, has very much influence amongst the rest of the human-neurons. Because of this, his will becomes their will, accomplishing much but with a simple message.

Free will. It seems that free will and control are intertwined in a continuum. Let's get one things straight though. You have no control over anything that is happening right now. You are merely an observer in your own life, but why you ask. Cause and effect. This very moment was in the making as soon the big bang exploded our existance into reality, and arguably before that. You do not have control over your decisions, for they have already been made for you.

"I can choose to stop reading this right now, if I CHOOSE to do so!" you shout at me. To which I say, "Nay." You would choose to stop reading this in an attempt to prove me wrong, if you were the type to prove me wrong. And therein lies where you do not have control. You were predisposed to stop reading to spite me. You think you made the choice, when in fact this choice has been made your entire life. What you perceive as choice is merely your own understanding of the events that influence your actions.

Furthermore, you had no control over the fact that you are reading this right now. External forces compelled you, in some way, to arrive at this very moment in time, exactly as you are now, reading this very word.

What forces you ask? All of them. Everything that exists is influencing you right now. Look around you. What is influencing you, other than my words? Your influences are everything you can perceive. The sound of the computer fan under your desk, the lighting in the room. Though internal, your emotions influence how you perceive primary inputs, thus also considered an input.

These inputs are lost in the maze of your mind, only to emerge as your actions, which, over time, directly influence you as well. Much like a computer, the inputs directly correlate to the outputs.

There is only one thing that exists. A system. Within this system, there exists smaller systems, and so on and so forth. As a system, it shall recieve input and produce output.

The human body is one such system. You are one such system. Unless you control the whole of reality, you do not have free will. Which brings me to my point.

Free will and control reside on a continuum of the level of influence your thoughts have on your environment. Though you do not have control of the amount of influence you have over reality, for it was predetermined, you do still indeed influence all that around you. Whether or not your desires coincide with your external reality is what you define as "control", or rather, how much influence your thoughts have on your environment.

One constant in reality is change. Reality may coincide with your desires for a time, but eventually, that reality will change as the universe will show you who is really in control.

Comments (0) 12.07.2009. 01:23

Information Freedom

The revolution that the internet has become was inevitable. Smaller networks like our brains interface with other brains via the internet. When information interacts with other information, new information emerges. For example, if we combined nanotechnology and genetics, we would arrive at a shell change procedure that was gradual and simple. Everybody knows everything. A lot of this information is repeated, but there are certain facts that only a few people know, unfortunately.

An optimal form of collective intelligence would be if every node (human) knew what every other human knew. This would mean the human network is fully interconnected. That means your interpretation of reality is publicly viewable, your thoughts and feelings available to all. The things you see and do would be what others see and do. This is where we are going. People don't want their privacy. Deep down they want to vindicate themselves and know that there are others out there like them.

Humans long to connect with each other. We will connect with each other faster and faster until our latency approaches zero and we all think as one. Imagine the things we could accomplish with 7 billion people working for the same thing with real-time communication with every other person, with their knowledge being yours. The internet is our best attempt at that. The internet will continue to evolve with us and eventually will become us.

To accomplish this, there can be no secrets, no patents, copyrights, intellectual property or any of that. Secrets hide bad things. People need to be held accountable for their secrets. People that keep secrets and withhold information are not doing society any good. Share your secrets and you will no longer be bound by them.

Comments (0) 12.04.2009. 13:10

Human Robots

Consciousness is nothing special. I don't see why people get so upset about it. I will agree that it's incomprehensible that anything even exists at all. Regardless, the thoughts in our head are neural pathways firing in your cortex, resulting in what you perceive as thought. These pathways are ignited when certain other pathways have lit, and so on and so forth.

At its most basic level, the human body is a robot with a computer for a brain. We receive inputs: our five senses along with emotions and any substance that enters our body. These inputs are processed by the cortex and our actions are the the result of the output. We are predictable to the Nth degree to everyone but ourselves. It seems we are so busing looking out that we don't take the time to look back in.

What does it mean to be a robot? Typically robots are made for a purpose by an engineer, but in our case, this is not true. I'd say if we were made for anything, it was survival. If the universe wants us to survive, then I will do it. It's a neat ride, if nothing else. It's also better than being dead. When I found out about the Singularity, I decided I would sample as much of reality as possible, a permanent explorer.

What if you don't want to be a robot? What most people call robotic, I call mechanical, static, and of little variation. Worker ants, for example do the same thing every day as long as they live. There are people that have worked the same job for 20 years, they are the worker ants. Mix it up. Be unpredictable. Surprise yourself from time to time.

Comments (0) 12.02.2009. 01:05

Conspiracy Theory

I'd like to explain my religious beliefs. Though I think I should explain what I mean by "religious". Religion is that happy place in the back of your mind that you think about while daydreaming. They are thoughts of your own personal fantasy world, the one where someone is there watching your back to make sure you get through it ok, when really, it's just you the whole time.

Some people retreat to this place too heavily and some even literally believe that this reality and the one in their head coincide precisely. I would like to clearly distinguish myself from these arguably psychotic individuals. What I call religion, some people might call hopes or desires.

That being said, I have logically arrived at the following conclusion. There may indeed be invisible gods watching over us. I will explain why. With the probability of planets like Earth existing elsewhere in the universe being very high, it would reason to say there's a good possibility that sentient beings with the equivalent of human intellectual capacity already exist. By intellectual capacity, I mean the ability to manipulate their environment. Aliens, right?

Referring back to my shell changing procedure, I assume that these species have already adapted a near perfectly efficient form of being. We humans appear to be approaching the Singularity, during which all possibilities will be realized. Given the possibility of quantum teleportation, they would be able to travel anywhere in the universe instantly. They would also be able to manipulate the universe at the most basic levels. In short, they're fucking 1337.

Now that there are gods living among us, what do you think they do? Well, as humans, we raise our young to maturity and turn them loose on society. What if that's what They're doing, too? How far might They go to ensure success? I see it as a game to them. The amount of information the human brain processes is minuscule compared to their processing power. They might even have time to control the thoughts of every human alive. I doubt they would though. They are likely wise enough to know what helping creates dependency. They do not want us to be dependent on them.

It wouldn't take much. A subtle subconscious suggestion to a powerful leader would be enough to prevent global catastrophy. Sometimes I think They take the form of insects and watch us that way. Haven't you ever seen bugs watching you? Bugs don't typically sit and do nothing but look at you. Pay attention and smile for the camera.

Anyway, I will stop there and let you ponder the possibilities. Again, this is just my own personal religion. There is no proof of any of this, and would be ludacris to assume it is true without substanial evidence.

Comments (0) 11.27.2009. 01:58

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