A Society That Hates People Cannot Last Long
From this we can deduce that our society cannot last much longer.
I find this encouraging.
The Compulsive Explainer
My thoughts on how the world works
Archive for the ‘ Aphorism ’ Category
Companies Do Not Give a Damn for You
And you should be clearly aware of this – that your world (which is controlled by Business) is not the least bit interested in you – as a person. And in fact only wants to use you.
A whole book could be written about this – but is not likely.
Television Turned People into Consumers, but the Computer Eliminated them Entirely
Every technology determines how people are supposed to relate – to it and towards each other. This is a very important fact that we have never wanted to admit.
We believed we could keep our purity (our souls) intact – no matter what. The 19th Century made it very clear that this was not possible – but we were not paying any attention to it.
The computer (which came much later) made it clear that we were not needed at all, since it could do whatever we were doing – and do it better. People got the message – and disappeared. Or merged with it completely (in social sites) which amounts to much the same thing.
We Want What We Already Have
Our favorite romantic fantasy is that will will find love and live happily ever after. This seldom happens, but we have never given up on the fantasy.
We teach it to our small children – because they like it so much. They face quite a shock when they realize the hypocrisy of it.
We think of Love (with a capital L) as something existing by itself, when it should be thought of as a continuum, or spectrum – with pure love at one end and pure hate at the other – both conditions that seldom happen by themselves.
Or even more realistically, as existing in a universe of possibilities - where almost anything can be associated with (or connected to) almost anything else. Why (or how) these strange connections happen is a complete mystery. They just happen, and we have to live with them.
We quickly (perhaps even before we are born) become used to some particular combination of connections – and replicate them (or at least something closely resembling them) throughout the rest of our lives. And we show great ingenuity in doing so. And in hiding this from ourselves and others.
Only Super-People Matter
I trust this is evident. Ordinary people do not matter. Only super-people.
What are super-people? People who have power – any kind of power. They get everything, and everyone else gets nothing. And they all insist (rich or poor) that this is the right way to be.
Things Are so Bad, We Don’t Want to Think About Them
This hardly needs explaining.
But we may also feel things are so good, thinking about them would only make them worse. You can take your pick.
In either case, we don’t want to think about the way things are. And we don’t want to feel about them either.
We are nobodies thinking about nothing. The perfect situation.
Can Computers Show Us How to Be Human?
No, they cannot. They can only show us how not to be human.
But they have done this very well – so well we have forgotten what we were, and don’t want to go back.
Who wants to be less than perfect?
High-Tech Idiocy
We all know what the low-tech variety looks like, it has been the bane of human existence ever since we tried to be smart – and failed. What does the high-tech variety look like?
It has different clothing, uses a slightly different language – but it is even stupider.
It used to be all the world is a stage. But now all the world is a battleground, and we all are members of the military which sucks us in, chews us up, and spits us out.
But the really stupid ones get to stay in the belly of the beast and reproduce.
If We Have Been Bamboozled Long Enough
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
The World of Perfect Machines
This is the world we now live in, a world of perfect machines – and not only that, but a world which is a perfect machine itself. We can only admire such a wonderful world, and be thankful for the privilege of living in it.
However, we must be on our guard against those who want to destroy it. Before they can do that, we must destroy them first.
New Theme
I am trying a new theme (something in Wordpress that allows you to control the overall look of your site. It has so many of them, it's a job to pick the one you like.
Tico Kid
I used to be a technical writer in Silicon Valley in California. Now I live on my Social Security in a beautiful valley in Costa Rica.
