This Is What Governments Do

If you can stomach the last half of this video, you are a grade-A, certifiable sociopath. This is what governments do:


(YouTube link)

Toward the end of watching this video, I was sobbing uncontrollably and wondered, "What the hell is wrong with me?" The answer came to my mind like a laser in the dark: "Not a thing. Not a single fucking thing." And I let myself feel it some more, because burying rage, hatred, and fear inside yourself doesn't make it go away, but only makes you a raging, hateful, and fearful person.

This is what governments do: They find a problem, point guns at people, and call it the final solution to that problem. "Want mail service? Give us your money. No seriously, [poke of gun in the ribs] give us your money." And then they write laws and point guns at anybody who tries to compete with their 'service.'

At least the mugger doesn't tell you it's for your own good. "I'm stealing this money to open a bakery for you to enjoy, you see?" Implicit is that you wanted a bakery to go to in the first place, and that theft is a moral way to build one.

This is what governments do: They grab your head and point your eyes at anything they can construe to be scary. They tell you you're completely powerless to fix the problem and that you need government for that purpose. While they're holding your head in position, the other slimy hand wriggles into your pocket and takes what it pleases. When you're no longer scared, they find something else to scare you with. The theft of taxation is their income, and FEAR is the product they supply in exchange. Packaged and delivered at no cost to the government by the mealy-mouthed publishers of the mainstream media.

At least a weasel doesn't try to tell the hen that he's right to steal her eggs.

This is what governments do: They start a war and call it necessary. Their sales pitch is identical to the one above. They kill foreign soldiers and call it necessary. They destroy cities and call it necessary. They ruin peoples' belief in human decency every day, and call it necessary. They murder children and call it necessary. Then they point at all that blood and guts and destruction--the pulsing, screaming, slopping mess of human misery left in the wake of the machines of war--and they say, "See? This is why we must control people. They're a wretched mess." They point at the results of their destruction, and call it sufficient cause for further destruction. Because we are wretched beings.

Fuck you. I am not a wretch. And neither is anybody I associate with. And neither were the million dead civilians in Iraq before they were blown up, shot, tortured, and left bleeding to death in the desert. And neither is anyone who hasn't been consistently and systematically beaten into submission. If you beat a dog every day for six thousand years, are you going to say it's within the dog's nature to be a cowering, whimpering, helpless mess?

This is what governments do: They beat people in worse ways than dogs could ever be beaten. You can only humiliate a dog so much, but the capacity for humiliation of humans is nearly infinite. The government tells you what you can and cannot eat. You're far too stupid to come up with a way of figuring that out on your own, or through cooperation with others. The government takes your money to save for your retirement. You can be such an idiot about that, sometimes. The government decides for you, what is moral and immoral. You're dumber than a bag of babbling idiots on the subject, and have no way to figure it out on your own. The more central control, the more the government is telling people that they're helpless, ignorant fools with no hope of running their own lives. Hardly anybody is actually as stupid as governments would have us think, but it's a highly effective model because it's inflicted on our formative brains from day one by families unwilling to break the cycle.

This is what governments do: They capitalize on child abuse. Only weak-willed people would submit to the humiliations of government voluntarily, gladly, patriotically. Only abused people become so weak-willed in the first place. Only sociopaths would capitalize on that abuse for personal gain. Only monsters would call the whole thing moral.

This is what governments do.

Facebook "Political Views" Liberated!

I didn't notice until just now, but back on March 5th, Facebook announced that they were opening up the "political views" field on user profiles to a free-form field. Previously there had only been a drop-down menu of limited choices, including various degrees of "liberal" and "conservative," along with "libertarian," and "apathetic," thrown in for good measure. As an anarcho-capitalist, I originally labeled myself as libertarian, but later simply chose to be unlisted for the category of "political views," in the name of accuracy.

Now it's wide open, so you can type in whatever you want. As you begin to type, it'll even auto-complete with other things people have typed in already. When I typed in "A-N-A-R-C-H-I-S-T," it gave up on me someplace halfway through the word, when it realized I wasn't trying to claim I was some sort of hyper-political 16th century Anabaptist. After making sure I had spelled it right, I clicked on my newly claimed political view only to find that there is nobody in any of my direct contacts or networks who has affiliated as an anarchist. How very sad.

So I thought I'd put out the word to anybody who, like I did, missed this update on Facebook and always wanted more options for that category. It's not exactly the end-all be-all of world wide web communications opportunities, but Facebook certainly has its place in my browsing habits. If any of you would like to friend me, please do and indicate that you know me because you're a reader of my blog. I'm always interested to learn more about my readers, and what sorts of great things they're getting up to.

Cure For Depression?

I wonder what the psychological community would think of this treatment method (or if something similar has already been tried) for depression: Watching videos of babies laughing. The one below is my favorite, but the related videos show that there are lots of babies out there with great laughs. I have marked some of them as "favorites" on my YouTube account. In the event that I have a bad day, I just watch the videos and laugh along. I'm not exactly your typical example of a major depressive, but it works for me when I'm feeling a little sad. I wonder if it would work for someone feeling a lot sad...

On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion

Want a free groundbreaking book? Click here. Want to be king for a day, and dictate what one of my blog posts should be about? Read on.

For a short time, an influential new philosophy text is available in .pdf form for free! Stefan Molyneux, who is generally generous with his books in the first place, (he has a standing offer to give them away to people who simply can't afford them at the moment) has authorized the distribution of On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion in a "give away like free philosophical candy" manner. On Truth... is no candy, though. For many it's a bitter philosophical pill which brings tough decisions to the forefront of their personal lives. It remains, however, written completely with the non-philosopher in mind. After all, philosophy actually supposed to help everybody, right?

It's already one of the most influential books in my life, and I just read it a few months ago. I would recommend it to anyone with an even remote interest in living a happier life. If you are literate in the English language (or in Dutch, apparently) you're doing yourself a disservice by passing this short read up (it's just 73 pages). For free! Really. Get it. It's right here for free, which means no money at all needs to be exchanged. Just click and look at the bottom of the page. I'll even sweeten the deal. If you read it and can somehow prove it to me (Ooooh! I smell book reports!) then I'll make a blog post on the topic of your choosing. Is that great, or what? You can even solicit a custom blog post topic if you have already read the book in the past. And no, I'm not out of topics. I actually have a back-log, but have just been busy for the past couple of weeks and haven't posted. Fret not, subscribers!

All this giving things away is catching on. Maybe after you get a free book and a free blog post on the topic of your choosing, you'll give away a free carrot cake to the next influential author, and the whole cycle will start over again as (s)he is inspired to do great things. All because of a carrot cake! That's highly unlikely, but you can see the idea, I'm sure. Below is the blurb for On Truth... You should read the book. Because it's free.

From a short-term, merely practical standpoint, you really do not want to read this book. This book will mess up your life, as you know it. This book will change every single one of your relationships - most importantly, your relationship with yourself. This book will change your life even if you never implement a single one of the proposals it contains. This book will change you even if you disagree with every single idea it puts forward. Even if you put it down right now, this book will have changed your life, because now you know that you are afraid of change.

This book is radioactive and painful - it is only incidentally the kind of radiation and pain that will cure you...

The Philoso-Physician

The internet's most popular philosophy podcast now has a brand spanking new tool to create customized podcast feeds tailored to your needs! Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, has put together a web-based wizard called the Philoso-Physician. It exists to "diagnose" your philosophical needs and desires through a short series of questions.

You can either choose to narrow your search in the Philoso-Physician through choosing from a series of questions or a series of categories. With each option you choose broad samples at first, and then are asked to narrow the field within each broad option you chose. And it's all check -boxes. Click, click, click, done. The best part (in my opinion) is that the final page not only shows you the results of your "check-up" with the Philoso-Physician with a short description and link to each podcast that fits your requests, but it also can e-mail you a link to a custom .xml feed for all of those podcasts. For those of you who don't speak geek, that means you can copy and paste the link into your favorite feed aggregator like iTunes or Juice, and it will automatically deliver your search results to that program for easy loading onto your music player. I seriously recommend you go give it a try, especially if you're curious about rationalist philosophy, but intimidated about where to start. There are over a thousand podcasts, videos, articles, and loads of other content at FDR, so there's plenty of source material to narrow from!

Remember to paste the link for the .xml file into your aggergator to get it to work right. (Feel totally free to e-mail me for help with this if you're unfamiliar with the programs or technologically inept. I love to explain stuff like this to anybody)

Edit: 3/14/08 2:07 p.m. - There is now a fancy little demo of this application, available here.

I Love and Want To Have Sex With The Flag of the United States of America

I love my country more than life itself, and you can't say anything to change my mind. You can tell me the president is an idiot, you can say the armed forces are a mindless killing machine, you can say democracy is just a suggestion box for slaves; none of it will derail me from my unwavering belief that America is right and good and backed by this world's one true Christian God. My proof? Our nation's most important symbol, the American Flag. Just look at it:


How can you want to look at anything else for the rest of your life? Really. I have my bedroom decorated with fifty-seven American Flags: one for each state, and one for each future state (Puerto Rico, Iraq, Syria, Iran, China, North Korea, and The Canadas). Such an enduring and empowering symbol is beyond comparison to anything else in the history of existence. Some would have the Constitution as our Great Godly Nation's most important symbol, but that's ridiculous. The Constitution and its values are changeable, and imminently flawable. The Flag, by contrast, is an unwavering symbol of our nation's solidarity and allegiance with everything that is right and holy. In God's heaven. On God's Earth. In God's brain. Because I know what's in God's brain, and it looks an awful lot like the good ol' stars-'n'-stripes!

When I'm stressed about world events and the problems people are causing for themselves, I just relax and imagine the American Flag waving in the sweet American breeze. It waves in a land free of dictators and theocrats who say, "If you're not for us, you're against us," or who try to censor free speech. It waves unobstructed by mortar explosions and bullets piercing the gaping flesh of dying children. It waves proud over an uncorrupt land and casts fear into the hearts of our enemies. Our Flag is ecstatic to fly over a land where Martial Law is something to look forward to in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack or disease outbreak. After all, how could Martial Law be a bad thing under any government guided by the rock-solid principles of the U.S. Flag?

Some days, I'm unable to attend work or social events because I'm so far in the throes of rapture produced by the Flag. I'm about to go to my local Flag quilting society, when I see the Flag at Perkins, and it just strikes me blind and renders my anal sphincter useless. You know you're truly American when the Flag has caused you to shit yourself. I then lay around in my filth and speak in tongues about the Flag.

I often masturbate when thinking about the Flag and its thirteen alternating stripes of red and white, and its field of fifty white stars on the blue background of God's sky. I wish I could form my own man cum stars on a blank blue background of a flag, but that would be disrespect according to US Code Title 4, Chapter 1 - The Flag, Section 3: "The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything." Sadly, it's illegal for the Flag to be my semen receptacle.

I think it's appropriate for the Flag to be protected by laws, and lots of 'em! Some say it violates our free expression to do so, but I think that free speech is obviously limited by what our God and government (and therefore Flag) deem acceptable. What other way could it be? And would God accept desecrating the highest symbol of the greatest nation in history, a nation that has endured as the best for almost 250 years?! I think not.

Our Flag strikes fear into the hearts of our enemies and inspires respect from our allies, who want nothing more than to be just like America. Any dissent *cough! France, cough!* is purely a result of jealousy. The French are just bitter that we've been a nation for longer than they have and that our democracy is the longest lasting one in history.

I feel that the Flag will ultimately bring world peace and we will all be one democratic nation, under the Flag and God. No other nation's flag is even remotely as awe-inspiring as ours. What more could the un-free infidels of the world want? Plus, they would be allowed into the inner sanctum of Flag appreciation, after they go through the citizenship process and become Americans legally. This would grant the whole world permission to have the same feelings I do for our Flag and all it stands for.

So don't come down on me about how George Bush is a liar war criminal who misled his people in the lead-up to an unjust war. First of all, any war under the Flag of the US of A is automatically a just one. It says so in the Bible, I think, though I haven't read much of it, so I'm not sure. Secondly, how could such a Godly man of such unmoveable moral character possibly mislead us? It's clear he is at the end of a spiritual conduit with God himself, and therefore also with the Flag. Has the Flag ever lied to you about a war before? That's what I thought.

The Flag, and God, and the president all know, just as well as I do, that there's no such thing as unjust war as long as the soldiers are wearing uniforms. It just so happens that the way you win a war is to put the American Flag on the uniform. That's why we've never lost! U-S-A! U-S-A!

If only the rest of the world had an understanding of our Flag like I do, it would be better off. People in Darfur are killing one another because they don't have an appropriate view of religion and the Christian God, and the Flag. It's a simple matter of a little thing called the First Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill!" If they were American Christians like me, they would know killing is wrong...except in a few very limited circumstances:

1) A just war fought under the American Flag (which, as I've said, is ANY war fought under the American Flag).
2) Death penalty in our American penal system.
3) Necessary political assassinations.
4) "Protection killings" of abortion doctors.
5) The dropping of two nuclear warheads on Japan in WWII, as well as the fire-bombings of Tokyo and 66 other cities, resulting in 720,000 combined Japanese deaths.
6) The necessary killing we did as Americans to eradicate the British in the revolutionary war. Hey! We were here first anyway, it's our country!
7) Death penalty for any actual or suspected terrorist, anarchist, atheist, libertarian, or dissenter (as if those words even mean different things).
8) Those who expire from old age or violent rape while in prison on even the slightest of drug charges.
9) Everyone who dies as a result of the U.S. government (and therefore the Flag) giving aid to foreign governments. (It's a lot, but it's worth it, and justified)
10) Any time a police officer or soldier needs to kill someone for whatever reason the deem necessary. It's a little known fact that simply wearing a uniform with the Flag on it actually absolves you of anything that would normally be considered morally wrong.
11) The Civil War. Those idiots tried to make a different flag. See how that one worked out?
12) Any other killing deemed appropriate by the government under God and the Flag.

As you can see, American attitudes toward killing are healthy and informed by the same Ten Commandments that should grace the doorways of each and every public establishment in the country. They're doing genocide in Darfur. GENOCIDE! We all know the US and its Flag won't stand for that. We were quick to respond to the European pleas for help in World War II because of all that genocide. The only reason Hitler had taken over the bulk of Europe and killed six million jews by the time we got there was because the Europeans were lazy and didn't have something like the American Flag to inspire them!

So the next time you question your government's authority, think of how silly you're acting! Any nation founded on such a fine symbol as the Flag could never go wrong, not even in a million years!

What the Hell is Philosophy?

The Meaning of Philosophy Part 1 - Philosophy, What Is It Good For? (Absolutely Somethin')

As I mentioned in a recent post, I think it's time for me to put together an introductory philosophy series. I hope to make the series engaging and entertaining. This first post will cover what philosophy actually is. I didn't even begin to know the answer to this question until I was in college, and even then found the answer somewhat lacking.

Alright, quit stalling. What the hell is philosophy?

Ok. I'll get straight to the point. To me, philosophy is nothing more or less than the active pursuit of happiness through the study of truth and falsehood, and the subsequent application of that study to your life.

Yeah, but isn't that just psychology?

That's a good question, but philosophy is different from psychology in practice. Psychology is the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illnesses. Psychological study and treatment is certainly massively helpful in removing certain barriers to happiness, but doesn't provide a fully formed set of instructions on how to live life morally. Psychology is great at finding and fixing problems, but philosophy is necessary to determine what sort of actions are morally good, and what sort are morally wrong. In each discipline, it is essential that the participants first identify the source of a problem, determine the methodology for explaining and fixing that problem, and then execute that methodology in their real lives.

In that way, philosophy really is quite a lot like a science, and can benefit greatly from the application of the scientific method. But we'll get to that in a later installment.

I thought philosophy was something that existed in books and was done by old dudes with white beards.

That's the view of philosophy I got from college. The bulk of undergraduate philosophy is taught as a course of study in the history of thought. There's lots of reading. Lots. And lots of paper-writing that basically amounts to book reports with logical analysis. You get the sense that throughout history philosophy has been one long line of ideas written on paper, passed to the next generation for examination, and then re-interpreted for clarity and the cultural needs of the time. This effectively amounts to studying cultural anthropology. You find out what the great thinkers of the past and present thought and think, and there is very little (outside the notable exception of Socrates a short 2,400 years ago) about the great doers of the past and present, and what they did and do.

My intention is not to discount all the thinking and writing, but simply to point out how an undergraduate degree in philosophy did fairly little for me in the way of teaching methods for applying the philosophy I was learning to my life. We would learn Kant, read criticisms against and support for his ideas, and then move on to the next philosophical movement. Sometimes it would be connected or directly influenced by the previous movement or philosopher, so we would get this idea of philosophy as an interconnected web of written ideas, cast across the span of recorded human history.

Ethics is by far the most visible part of philosophy. It's the application of a culmination of study in all other areas of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, logic). When your entire philosophical system of understanding ahead of ethics is rational and logically follows, is based on reality as it actually exists, and contains a methodology for determining truth from falsehood, your system of ethics ought to be an accurate instruction manual for right-living. They taught us this in school, but then dodged the conclusion altogether, by simply teaching it in basically the same manner as all other aspects of philosophy. Ethics, then, was also relegated to the web of interconnected ideas; historically interesting, and fuel for debate in the classroom, but by no means something to attempt to any great degree within your own life. The communistic ideas of utilitarianism were given as much time and credit as the invisible world of Plato's forms and as much time as Aristotle's insistence on the study of sound logic and empirical reality, and so on.

Each part of philosophy, then, was treated as an almost purely intellectual pursuit. Even ethics, the supposed vibrant and vital methodology for right living, was largely left out to dry to a crusty brittleness, like a graying lung on a clothesline. This might all sound like the ravings of a disgruntled bachelor of arts, but the point I'm trying to get across is that philosophy can be (is) much more alive than I was initially led to believe. The reason that the misconception of philosophy as "a series of ideas and their critiques, written by old men with big white beards" can persist is because philosophers do little to dissolve the misconception. An extraordinarily small percentage of people who study philosophy actually alter their lives in any major way to fit their ideas. Of those who do, an equally small percentage alter their lives to the degree required by their philosophy. For an example of this, imagine walking up to a socialist (who doesn't believe in individual property ownership) and asking them for the contents of their wallet. Imagine asking a group of socialists this question, then imagine how few wallets you'd get out of the group.

But why don't most philosophers actually practice what they preach and live by the consequences of their ideas?

Because we're scared. In a society full of falsehoods and pandering for social approval, it's incredibly uncomfortable to even study truth and falsehood, let alone talk about the difference, let alone live by the consequences. It's far more comfortable for most people to outwardly demean philosophy by calling it opinion. If everything is one person's opinion versus the opinions of everyone else, then nobody is ever hurt by the idea that they might be living based on utter falsehoods. That it would hurt to know you're living illogically or based on false premises should be very instructive. It's clearly an important part of human nature to conform to truth and reality. But it's an even stronger part of human nature to conform to the group. This is an important holdover of human nature from when food was short and shelter was temporary and there were no practical means of mutually beneficial trade. In western society, this hasn't been the case for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

It's more comfortable for the atheist and the theist to "agree to disagree." It's in social vogue to bad-mouth politicians as weasely, power-grubbing maniacs, but to consider their existence as leaders of nations as "necessary." It's expected that an overbearing mother-in-law is "just that way," and shouldn't be confronted or ostracized on the basis that "it's just how she is."

Philosophy is what should happen in the awkward pauses in conversations. Most people haven't studied philosophy in any great detail, and aren't well-equipped to tackle situations like this. But those who do study philosophy too rarely stick to reason when awkward pauses in conversation occur. Perhaps if more philosophers did philosophy rather than just study it, then others would catch on to the effectiveness of always speaking and acting on the truth. Even when it makes us uncomfortable. Especially when it makes us uncomfortable.

Who are you to tell me what philosophy is anyway? Hasn't it been around for like a bazillion years?

To be sure, we all stand on the shoulders of giants to some extent. I'm most certainly not claiming to have come up with these ideas on my own in my study, with the lights dim, and reams of crumpled paper littered about the floor near the wastebasket. I just think that these specific ideas are among the most important ideas to humanity. With the recent proliferation of communications technology, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least duplicate (if not add to) a message I thought to be capable of minimizing human misery to a fraction of a fraction of what exists today.

The ideas I put forward in this series will be based on rational empiricism--the idea that reality can be derived from the senses, and that we should use logic on the information provided by the senses to determine all we need to know about the world and how to live ethically in it. The ideas follow back in time to Socrates and Aristotle, through John Locke, through Ayn Rand, and right up to my main source of the synthesis of their ideas, contemporary philosopher Stefan Molyneux. I owe my knowledge on these topics to these thinkers, and feel that the foundational philosophical work they've done is sufficient to provide the world with a truly rational and moral human race, minus one variable: People actually living by the philosophy they study. This is a project Molyneux has gone to great lengths to work toward in just a few years with his Freedomain Radio podcast.

Every so-called "complete" system of philosophical thought is just one step away from being completely validated. After "Does it conform to reality?" and "Does it contain a methodology for determining truth from falsehood?" and "Do the premises about reality and truth lead to conclusions about moral living?" comes "Can people actually live it?" And then, "Do they?" With the philosophy I'm going to discuss in subsequent installments of this series, I can answer in the affirmative on all of these questions, the last two of which are rarely approached by most philosophers (likely for the same reasons of social discomfort discussed above).

Living according to rational philosophy based on the evidence of the senses and the logic of the scientific method is extraordinarily liberating. But, as I've said concerning social conformity, extraordinarily difficult and stressful at first. I can't say I'm a picture perfect example of moral virtue and the "philosophy-come-to-life" I've described above, but I've most certainly seen and understood the importance of it, and am working toward the life I'll endeavor to describe in this series.

If this is all just too confusing an ordeal for you, I encourage you to read on! (and leave comments about what's confusing) Subsequent editions in this series will more fully explain my definitions and methodology. For now, thanks for reading!

Join Satan?

My wireless network went out today, but another one was right there waiting in the wings to help me out:


I mean, I had to sign over my soul, but at least now I can check my Facebook!

Hakuna Matata: Problem-Free Philosophy?

Have you seen Disney's animated feature The Lion King? It's a pretty good story, and you should take a look if you've never had the chance. Maybe you could watch it with a kid if you feel strange about watching it alone...but you'll need to be prepared to explain a few things about the philosophical meaning to more inquisitive children afterward.

In The Lion King, several cartoon animals face the types of problems that come up each and every day on the African Savannah. Death, food shortage, lion pride politics, romance, annoying bird assistants, the conflicts are nearly endless. With so much going on in the story, the writers developed a vibrant underlying philosophical ecosystem as active as the one present in the variety of animals in the film. In this post I only have time for a cursory view of the highlighted philosophy from the movie, the philosophy of Hakuna Matata. (Though I may re-visit this film in the future. I'm finding it chock full of philosophical interestingness!)

"Hakuna matata," literally translated from the original Swahili, means "there are no worries here." In The Lion King, the main propagators of this philosophy are Timon (a meerkat masterfully voiced by Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (a warthog voiced by Ernie Sabella). These two are an unlikely but lovable pair of jokesters who foist this philosophy on young king Simba after he ostracizes himself from lion society. The main thrust of the hakuna matata philosophy can be derived from the song these two sing by the same name (scored by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice).

Hakuna matata
What a wonderful phrase.
Hakuna matata
Ain't no passin' craze!
It means no worries
For the rest of your days.
It's our problem-free philosophy,
Hakuna matata.

It's really quite a catchy tune and is stuck in my head at the moment. Hopefully this link helps get it stuck in your head too. Timon and Pumbaa explain in the song that Pumbaa, much like Simba, is an outcast from his society (though in Pumbaa's case it's due to extreme flatulence). His primary coping mechanism is to not worry about it. In fact, this is really the only tenet of the hakuna matata philosophy that anyone need remember. "No worries," applies to everything from being completely rejected by family, friends, and society to munching on disgusting grubs for nutrition. It seems like a pleasant enough guiding principle for life at the outset, but when applied to reality, it yields some terrifying results.

First of all, it gets Simba, a lion and carnivore of the first order, to eat bugs from under a log. Then he grows up and turns into a hedonistic jerk by the time his boyhood girlfriend Nala finds him. To top it all off, he initially has no interest in saving his pride from the wrath of his evil uncle Scar, and would rather just lie around all day with Timon and Pumbaa like a bunch of gonge-toking hippies. Don't worry about it, hakuna matata. Nothing but dirty bugs to eat? Hakuna matata. Evil uncle took over as king and is driving lion society into the crapper? Hakuna matata. Hyenas gnawing your legs off from under you? Hakuna matata. No freaking worries. This is principle?

Any philosophy that puts a grass skirt and lay on a meerkat and an apple in the mouth of a warthog (in clear reference to roasted pig at a Hawaiian luau) while they mug to the camera certainly has a problem or two!

So what? So there's some questionable philosophy in a cartoon movie for kids. So. What? Well, every piece of art (written art in particular), from an episode of Rosanne to Shakespeare's Hamlet has a point it's trying to get across to the audience. In the case of a Disney feature of The Lion King's importance, the audience contains an incredibly large number of children. Even though Simba ultimately mostly rejects hakuna matata in favor of a life in politics, it is presented throughout the movie as a valid, happy, and successful way of life. It seems to be presented as more important than (though not exclusive to) the equally dangerous "Circle of Life" philosophy. As I said, there's a lot to get into in a full examination of the movie, and I may do more in the future. This movie was heavily imprinted on me (all of this is written basically from memory) and I was even probably a little "too old" for it when it first came out. The sort of long-term damage that fables of all kinds can do to impressionable and curious kids is very real. Though this blog post is partly tongue-in-cheek, the relevance of that fact is as strong in The Lion King as it is in something like the story of the three pigs and the big bad wolf. These are moral instructions for kids, and if we want to live in a more moral world, we'd do well to make sure we're not feeding junk philosophy to the hungry brains of children.

So, hakuna matata: is it problem-free philosophy, as advertised? Far from it. Hedonistic procrastination is ultimately an extraordinarily lonely way of life, because it doesn't take into account the cooperative nature of productive interaction. So how should we live? I guess I owe it to my readers to actually lay out my philosophical position before I go much further. I think I've found a great starting point, but it's something that should exist separate from a post on The Lion King though, so I'll begin a multi-part series on my philosophy soon.

Betta Fish Nation, or; I Am SO Fucking Smart

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin

My brain came up with an analogy between modern western civilization and fish one night a while back when I was half asleep. It seemed sleek, pithy, and clever at the time, so I updated my Twitter account's status with it: "Giving up liberty for safety is for the beta fish. They are pretty, but stupid, and eat poop with their food. I am not a beta fish." A 140 character limit certainly forces an economy of words, but you get the idea. It struck me as classically clever--the sort of thing I could use to quote myself without remorse. The combination of a libertarian quote by Ben Franklin and a reference to a popular pet fish seemed deliciously referential, like an episode of Family Guy. I decided I would write an article comparing Betta fish to my idea of the average American neo-con statist; the sort of person who is happy to trade out their (and everyone else's) essential liberties for "protections" like the Patriot Act. I figured I knew this person like the back of my hand, and that a cursory look over the Wikipedia entry for “beta fish” would lend me all the more fodder for comparison. In essence, I was SO fucking smart, and I wanted to show the world by dominating the illogical and dangerous position of my opponents.

Boy, was that narcissistic corner of my brain in for a surprise. I had way more than just spelling wrong with my understanding of the Betta fish.

Before I even hit Wikipedia, I had the whole article planned out in my head. Explain the psychology of the Betta fish. Fear of large open spaces is why they're often confined to fist-sized fishbowls. They don't need lots of scenery, and even prefer to have a big ol' plant around to hide behind, even in their tiny, tiny living space. Their ridiculous amounts of colorful plumage seem utterly wasted in an environment so constricted. Then I was going to explain how that's strikingly similar to the American statist. They seem to want to live in a more and more enclosed environment, even to the point of near suffocation. The quality of life these people enjoy is directly related to something completely outside government control, so they have their own sort of out-of-place plumage—something that comes from another place than this lockdown and is seemingly unnecessary, like a prisoner in a flashy sequined jacket. I would have gone on in that vein, concluded with something like, “I'm smart. These other people are stupid. The end.”

All of this went through my brain as I searched out the Wikipedia entry for "beta fish." I planned on using quotes about the fish's propensity for small, enclosed spaces to drive the point home. Oh, the delicious analogous points I was about to connect! But as I read the details, I found something quite interesting: The Beta Fish is actually called betta, which is a genus of fish for which about 65 species are classified. Beta is a common misspelling in North America. Betta splendens is commonly known as a Siamese Fighting Fish, and is the one sold in the United States under the name Beta, or Betta. This was interesting but extraneous information which I intended to use in my essay to convince people of the premise, "I am SO fucking smart;" trust-building through an explosive diarrhea of facts.

I pressed on, confident in my ability to use this new information to my advantage. Then I found some more shocking fish information! The Betta fish actually doesn't desire small spaces for safety. That's a myth. They're simply displayed that way in stores because the males, full of piss and vinegar, would fight to the death if left in the same tank. Huh. Weird.

This was going to entirely change the course of my essay. But I pressed on, undeterred! I was going to show people how good I was at analogies and facts and information and all that shit. I worked for months writing and re-tooling the essay. At one point it was about the government treating its citizens as uneducated fish purchasers treat the Betta upon purchase. They keep them in dangerously small tanks "for their own good," and wonder why they die in a week. Another version was about how people actually yearn to live free and clean, like the Betta wants a 3 gallon tank and plenty of space to himself. It all got very confusing, and no version of the essay felt satisfying to me.

It was time to evaluate my goals in writing the essay and accomplish them or scrap it all to the "ideas" folder on the computer. It took months, but I finally realized that my goal in writing this piece was not so much to further the conversation about human freedom as it was to further the conversation about how smart I am.

"That Jason," I wanted people to say, "he is SO fucking smart."

This is similar to the narcissism I always sense when reading Nietzsche. Pithy aphorisms that seem true enough to convince lots of people through their sheer charm alone. Nietzsche was brilliant, to be sure, but he was far from happy and had no concept of moral virtue as anything but manipulation. I was searching for a downhill bike-path to perceived brilliance. No good. People just thinking you're smart doesn't make your life actually happy and virtuous any more than putting George Bush into a democratically elected position of power makes him actually fit to lead anything more complex than a Cub Scout troop.

My way to happiness and virtue lies down the hallway marked "honesty." Honesty-to-self and -truth is the only path to virtue, and virtue is a necessary condition of true happiness. Help make sure I keep moving in that direction, kind readers, with your comments!

When You Say It Like That...

Theory

Anyone who defends a position with the statement, "Well, when you say it like that..." either has an indefensible position, or hasn't thought their position through. Those with consistent logic based on evidence will not use this defense.

Practice

Example One

Me to the Santa Claus Believer: So you believe in a fat man who constantly wears a red suit and has an army of elves to make toys for him. You believe that once a year, he distributes these toys from a magical sleigh flown by eight magical reindeer, and that he enters homes through the chimney, eats cookies and drinks some milk...all this at millions of homes worldwide in the space of one evening. He does this with absolutely no sense of self-interest. When he's not spending one night a year in worldwide charity, he's chilling at his home at the North Pole. Nobody has ever actually seen the real Santa Claus, though many of his "helpers" seem to pop up at malls just before Christmas each year. Am I getting it right so far?

Santa Claus Believer: Well, when you say it like that...

Example Two

Me to the Christian: So you believe in a non-physical, all-knowing, all-powerful consciousness in the sky who created the world and has handed down rules for us humans to live by. Some of these rules you follow, some you ignore, and others you decide are parables and metaphors, and are not to be followed literally. Every Christian has a different idea of which category all of these rules fit into. You believe you can psychically communicate your wishes to this sky-brain, and that they'll be granted. Nobody has ever directly seen God, though you say that certain people past and present have claimed the ability to more directly experience God, and that gives them religious authority over the rest of us. Your proof for all of this is a book, written by men, but supposedly dictated by this omnipotent, omniscient God. All the same, it's imperfect in that it can be interpreted and re-interpreted a thousand ways, and is not communicated in some sort of 'perfect' language.

You believe that if you're good, this sky brain will send you to eternal bliss in the sky and if you're bad to eternal damnation at the core of the earth. Well, not you exactly, but a little tiny version of his invisible consciousness called a "soul." This soul existed before you were born, and will continue to exist forever into the future, despite the complete lack of any empirical evidence. Even though God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, terrible things still happen in the world every day. Do I have all this right?

Christian: Well, when you say it like that...

Example Three

Me to Government-Loving Statist: Alright, so you believe that people need to be controlled because they're generally evil, or will take advantage if left to do whatever they want. Your remedy for this supposed problem is to give a monopoly of firepower and force to a small, select group of people to wield over everyone else. This group of controllers is granted their power over everyone because a majority of a fraction of the population that actually votes, voted for them. There is no guarantee that the same evil people government is supposed to defend us from won't simply seek out government power for themselves. In fact, the very creation of positions of power will attract evil people to those positions.

Somehow these people (for a specific period of years) gain the ability to tell everyone else what to do--at the threat of murder or imprisonment--just by signing pieces of paper. You believe that your support of these people in positions of power gives them authority over me. Their power includes the ability to shoot me in the head, without repercussion, if I disagree with you or them and act on my disagreement. You openly admit the corruption inherent in this group of people on a regular basis, but continue to justify the existence of the institution they're supported by, for some reason. Am I getting things right so far?

Statist: Well, when you say it like that...

Explanation

These are just a few of the more obvious examples, but a good illustration of the sorts of conversations I've always felt a little strange about. Instead of addressing the contradictions within their position, the people above are basically saying that they think you're mischaracterizing their argument. What you're really doing is stripping away all the propagandistic and confusing language they use to justify their position. You're simply translating their ideas into plain English.

Instead of "somehow squeezing down every chimney in the world in one night, even the houses that have no chimney," Santa Claus's forcible entry into houses is explained to be accomplished by "magical" means. This introduces a falsehood into the argument (that magic exists) as if it's completely true and viable. Any conclusions they come to might even be--or seem to be--true (i.e. it's nice to receive presents) but only accidentally, because of their faulty logic (i.e. presents come to us by way of a magical fat man in a red suit).

Any objectively correct beliefs people hold will not be subject to this same line of deconstruction of falsehoods, because there won't be any falsehoods. For example, I know that the initiation of the use of force is always immoral. If someone attempts to deconstruct this by saying, "Oh, so you don't think I should be able to defend myself from a raving lunatic with a sword," they're not making a valid claim. I would never need to respond to their argument with "Well, when you say it like that..." because they're not accurately translating what I said into plain English. The non-initiation of the use of force still allows for self-defense. Since they're misunderstanding my argument, there's no need to bust out "...when you say it like that."

Thus, I'm pretty sure that whenever you hear someone say, "Well, when you say it like that..." you can take it as fair warning that they've got a position with contradictory or false premises, and save yourself a lot of time arguing over whether you have a "tone" or not.

Challenges welcome: I'm wrong a lot more often than I'd like to be, so please correct me in the comments if you see something wrong with the above arguments. Thanks for reading!

We Are Not Born Small

What was carved on our foreheads that says "Cannot grow?" What was carved on our foreheads that says "Stay small - Stay little - Don't attract attention - Don't offend - Don't upset people - Don't contradict - Don't confront?" I don't believe that that's carved on my god damned DNA, and I don't believe that that's carved on your DNA either. I think that's just frightened people boxing us in because they're small, and I've had it with that...I've had it with that.

There is nothing in our DNA that says we cannot speak the truth because people will get upset. So they get upset, so what? So what? You don't want to go to your grave--I don't--I don't want to go to my grave saying to myself, "Well, I didn't ruffle too many feathers. People liked me. They didn't know me well, and I certainly didn't reveal my true self to them...didn't even know what it was. But I got along. I sort of passed through life like a javelin into a still pond with barely a ripple. That is my legacy." That about 18 minutes after I die people say, "Oh yeah that guy," and without the aid of photographs they can barely remember my face. And without the aid of letters and e-mails, they can barely remember my words.

That's not what I want for me. That's certainly not what I want for you. There is nothing written into anything within us, deep within us that says we must be small.

- Stefan Molyneux

A YouTube video on the lovely mammoth largeness that humanity can achieve:


(YouTube link)

This video by Nielsio contains audio from a podcast by Stefan Molyneux. Molyneux has an amazing way of picking out the perfect metaphors to describe ideas, which the writer in me loves. This video has no shortage, as he explains that humans are not naturally timid, but must be ground into submission. The way out of this seeming natural timidity, of course, is to deny those who would grind us down the opportunity--to instead sharpen our swords of virtue, reason, and integrity on their grinding stones. To save virtue in humanity, we must actively seek out what is virtuous and then live it. To bring reason to humanity, we must know logic and its consequences and then live it. To give the world integrity, and to preserve and foster our own, we must be willing to understand virtue and reason. And then...then we must be willing to live it. Fully, invitingly, publicly, we must live it.

I'm having a particularly heavy day from a cognitive dissonance standpoint. I hold a number of philosophical ideas in the abstract that I'm not living out as completely as I could. It's ironic, considering my history (and therefore length of preparation and amount of knowledge) on the topic. With aesthetic problems like a desire to lose weight, cognitive dissonance has always popped up but never motivated a change. With lifestyle choices like being drawn to video games when I feel like I might more productively use my time, it's only ever been a passing anxiety. But not living according to the logical consequences of a reasoned philosophy is completely crippling. I feel it all: confusion, doubt, anxiety, self-hate, depression. I feel it all, but I know these emotions are not my own, they have been inflicted on me by those who would grind me down.

I do not hate myself, but simply display the projected hatred others show in the face of my allegiance to rationality. It's not me who doubts myself, but teachers from the past who doubted me to stew confusion and uncertainty into my young, curious brain. I'm not confused. In fact, I've never been more certain of the definitions of virtue, integrity, and of the power and accuracy of logic and the scientific method. This confusion belongs to someone else, and it's high fucking time I give credit where it's due. If I don't, I'm stuck with all of this crippling scar tissue of depression, anxiety, and last night's late entrant to the race, insomnia. If my certainty is upsetting to some people, so what? They can either show me where I've gone wrong logically, or we can talk about the roots of their feelings, or they can be the ones to shut up for a change. It's high time I step beyond thinking and talking philosophy, and into the living, breathing, and doing of philosophy.

Living to the best of my ability does not mean doing the best I can given the social constrictions of the world. It means staying consistent with my values even when--especially when--it makes me uncomfortable. Philosophy can be a dangerous tool for those who know it and willingly misuse it, but just as dangerous is for those who know philosophy and still refrain from living it.

Effective Protest: A Letter

Here is a letter I wrote to be included in a college newspaper of a liberal arts school near where I live. It's about an anti-war protest they had that I believe to have had no effect-to a negative effect compared to what they intended. The letter was too long to fit into their "letters" section, and there wasn't enough time for me to rewrite before a deadline. The letter became outdated for their school paper, but I think it still has some value in showing how misguided the will of a mob can be. Plus, it's satire. What man could withhold a work of satire from publication and still call himself moral? No man at all. No man at all...


Dear Macalester College students:

I got some details of your recent protest/walkout/strike against the war in Iraq from a few of your classmates, and found some interesting parallels to a protest I had recently organized. I wanted to help you avoid certain disaster with your protest, but I've been dealing with an annoying arson court case. I haven't been able to write this until after your event, and it's regrettably too late to stop you from making the same mistakes I did.

The other day, I got fed up with the war in Iraq. I decided to hold a protest. I'd heard of other people doing the same thing, and wanted to try one out for myself but didn't want to get cold, so I stayed inside my apartment. I called in to work sick, "Yeah I'm sick...sick of the war in Iraq! I'm on protest/walkout/strike today!" My boss was confused. Some people just don't understand political action. I pushed forward even though this absence would count against me as unscheduled, and would just make for more work the next day. I handed out signs to my roommates and started shouting about peaceful solutions to armed conflict, despite the fact that my roommates are both already vehemently opposed to the war. I may not have changed any minds, but it made me feel better for some reason.

In the euphoric fervor that always follows a good round of slogan shouting, I decided to write some anti-war epithets on the walls and steps of my apartment with a permanent marker. I knew the only likely people to see them would be people who already agree with my position, but it made me feel better for some reason.

After that, I went to the grocery store and held a banner that said "War: None for me, thanks." In order to get some good mileage out of my banner (after all, I had spent a whole 15 minutes making it!) I decided to block the exit and hold it high and proud. I left when people started complaining about how my behavior was annoying, and some sort of fire hazard. Maybe I was a hazard, but who ever said war protest wasn't dangerous?! I took this as a sign that it was working. Even though people exhibited nothing but visible annoyance, I felt better for some reason.

On the way back to my apartment I met up with a friend of mine. He has questionably violent views on how to deal with this ever-expanding government, but we agree that the war sucks, so I hang out with him anyway. After mixing up a couple of moltov cocktails, it was time to go back home.

When I got there and tried to continue the protest, my roommates told me the landlord had stopped by and said he was going to have to take the cost of cleaning up my anti-war graffiti out of my deposit. Furthermore, my roommates were sick of me shouting at them about things with which they already agreed. To top it all off, my boss left me a voicemail saying that skipping work was irresponsible and unacceptable, and that I was fired! My friend had used used the moltov cocktails to start my neighbor's house on fire because my neighbor is an Iraq war supporter. After his house was reduced to a pile of smoking ashes, I was shocked to find out that he hadn't changed his position on the war one bit, and was instead interested in filing a police report accusing my friend and me of arson!

I was just about to contact a lawyer to sue my employer for discrimination against my beliefs when it hit me: I had gone about my protest in completely the wrong way. As it turns out, the Mac protest regretfully followed very much in the same vein. I called in to work, while at Mac there was a mass exodus from classes. Some of the largest parts of the protest took place on-campus and indoors. The media was not alerted, so you ended up with rooms full of people shouting to one another about points they already agreed on. Like my marker art, several instances of stenciled anti-war graffiti showed up on Mac campus, which looks more like a confused effort to destroy your own property than an effective war protest. Some protesters blocked traffic near one of the city's busiest intersections with designs on forcing people to see their indignance toward the war. Unfortunately, this only inconvenienced people who agree with you, and likely solidified some seething hatred into the hearts of those who already disagree with you. In effect, I'm not sure either protest (mine or yours) changed even one mind in a positive way. We destroyed the good will of others, and destroyed our own property. We wasted time skipping out on opportunities to learn and work for a better life.

Finally, just like I associated with a violence-prone friend, Mac had the "RNC Welcoming Committee" as a guest organization at the protest. This group, according to their website, is intent on disrupting the Republican National Convention, through the use of violence if they deem it necessary. I have realized that war is wrong because the use of force is wrong, and have stopped associating with violence-prone friends. I humbly suggest Macalester College do the same. Violent opposition to my neighbor only confused the issue and led to charges being pressed. Violent opposition to the police state only seems to justify its existence in the minds of government officials.

Only through practicing the principles of non-aggression, and the common sense of logic can we win converts to and garner attention for the anti-war cause.

In the Beautiful Brains of Children: God vs. Einstein

Here's a short video of kids responding to the question, "What does God look like?" You can see from their responses that it's akin to asking the question "What color is a unicorn?"


(YouTube video link)

I find kids to be amazing and fascinating creatures of logic. They're so dang smart, it puts most adults to shame. I think the video above is amazingly telling of the abuse inherent in religious instruction. The kids at the beginning of the video are completely honest. When asked "What does God look like?" they respond that they don't know, or that they don't understand the question.

They have to be pressured to even answer such a nonsensical question. This is because children who are subjected to religious instruction are never asked whether or not God exists. They're told he does exist as an objective and solid fact. They're forcefully told it's true over and over again because there's not any way to arrive at belief in God through rational observation. Someone schooled in everything but religion does not arrive at a belief in gods on their own. It might sound strange to some of you to hear someone talk about religion as abuse inflicted on children, but it's hard for me to see it as anything else. Any system of belief that forces children to lie to attain the praise of their elders is corrupt.

In the video above, the children struggle to answer the question in the way that they figure the interviewer will want to hear. They often seem to be unsure of their statements, which they inflect as if they're questions. Several of the kids have goofy grins and look up and to the sides when ascribing fairly non-controversial physical traits (such as 'bearded' or 'tall') to this imaginary invisible being. Simple description of a real man they've seen before would never elicit such dodginess or evasion from kids. They'd just straightforwardly describe as much as they could remember about him.

Here's a video of kids explaining who Einstein is. Where they don't know, they just say so. None of them are embarrassed or shifty about their answers because they're based in reality. No goofy grins, no sidelong glances, no unexpressed uncertainties.


(YouTube video link)

These kids understand that the concept of describing a god is ridiculous. It's clear by their responses that they're made uncomfortable and embarrassed by the question. When asked to explain Einstein, it's a complete reversal. Weird...

As always, if you have a better explanation for this phenomenon than I do, hook me up with a comment!

An Unfortunate Philosophical History (Now With Happy Ending)

When I was a senior in college, I had to write a final paper. The idea was that we'd choose a topic of study that had likely been covered before and then find an interesting or new interpretation of that idea. With the discipline of philosophy, this is a lot like trying to write a fresh and exciting episode of Friends about Ross and Rachel's complicated relationship. There's not much left for territory unless you expand into completely new ideas or study one idea in depth. I decided to study an idea in depth: The idea that being living proof was the best possible argument for your ethical system. It wasn't a complicated or ultra-specific idea, like some of the other students had chosen, but it was problematic to my adviser, all the same.

ME: I'd like to explore the idea that a system of ethics is invalid if it cannot be lived, and that actually living according to the logical consequences of your ethics is the best proof for its validity.

PROF: OK. I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you explain in more detail?

ME: Sure. It seems to me that if you preach a system of beliefs with logical contradictions, it'll be impossible to live out its logical consequences, since reality conforms to logic. It seems to me that any non-obvious contradictions in the argument, or any mistakes in the facts of the premises will come to the surface of any ethics as soon as you try to actually live by it. It also seems to me that any philosopher who does not or cannot live by (or point to someone else who lives by) his or her own moral ideas has little or no business telling others what to do. [Note: It seems to me that I had to use the phrase "it seems to me" a lot throughout college. This makes sense as long as you realize that college as it exists today is partially designed to convince you that you can't really know anything for sure...and that you should somehow be sure of your uncertainty.] Like Wittgenstein tried to live by his philosophy and failed miserably and gave up philosophy for a while to teach kindergarten. It's because there was a fundamental flaw (it seems to me, lots of flaws) in his thinking.

PROF: These are interesting ideas... [Then, after a few minutes of tapping a pen on the desk and stroking the philosopher beard...] I'm not sure you'll find much source material for reference. I don't really remember coming across those ideas anywhere.

ME: [Blank stare] You're kidding, right? It's just...well this is the whole purpose of philosophy, right?

PROF: Well, I guess some people might call that the purpose of philosophy. But, nope. Not kidding. Weird, huh? It's an interesting idea, but you don't really have enough room in such a short paper to present an idea so fresh. It's more something that you'd do in a graduate thesis, or even doctoral.

ME: I understand about the length, but I thought there'd be all sorts of writing on this stuff. Like I said, isn't this the whole purpose of ethics? To understand the logic of right living and then actually live it?

PROF: Maybe there's something for you in here...[takes a book off the shelf by some obscure philosopher] this would be a good counterpoint to Being and Time by Heidegger, which has some sections on the concept of genuinity, and might hit on the ideas you're talking about.

It didn't come close to what I was talking about, but by the time I got partway through my research, I had to commit to using Heidegger and all sorts of other obscure sources to argue a point I didn't even really want to make. It's a thirty page disaster, and is on file in my college library for posterity. It's proof that even when you pay thousands of dollars, education by others is always limited by their self-interest. If philosophy were actually simple, accessible, and understandable, then philosophy professors would have precious little time to explore irrational and non-functioning philosophies of the past. Plato, anyone? There are entire courses of study in college philosophy where at the end they say, "But everything we've taught you so far is bullshit and here's why." I wish someone had just passed out the bullshit detector on day one.

My paper was basically incomprehensible, and was ripped apart by my professors on presentation day. At first I couldn't believe they gave it a passing grade, but then realized that they were the same people who set me on the path to this complete nonsense. I considered myself an academic failure, and my idea as one that was either totally wrong or outside its time.

After college I studied up on rationality, and eventually found the novel The God of Athiests, by Stefan Molyneux. In this novel, there is a character who is a graduate student proposing a big new philosophical idea. His advisers respond in a similar way to mine. It's a lovely read otherwise, but contains an amazing breakdown of how and why postmodernist thought has disintegrated any hope of actually receiving a decent higher education in most modern universities. I learned more from this book for the price of a couple of DVDs than I did from thousands of dollars worth of credentialed and certified professional education.

It's amazing, the money you can save just by deriving your philosophy from first principles, using logic and the scientific method to test your ideas. It's lovely, the life you can live if you're tenacious about adjusting your actions to match that same philosophy...I'm only a fraction of the way there, but infinitely better off for it. It's astounding how few people attempt or accomplish this in life, and how infectious their disease can be.

Post number ones are never interesting...

...Until now! Oh wait, no. This one probably won't be too terribly interesting either. I'd just like to offer a bit of background before I get into all the this and that of my ideas. My name is Jason McLaughlin. I'm currently 26 years old and I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. In college, I majored in literature and philosophy. This qualifies me to write a blog on my thoughts and ideas. The diploma certifies me to do little else (like make millions of dollars), I've found. I'm not explaining my education to give you a reason to trust everything I say, but just so that you can feel a bit more comfortable lending me your brain if you haven't pursued a similar course of study. After college, my senioritis continued for a year or two. I've picked philosophy back up in the past couple of years, and found some amazing new ideas that we didn't seem to touch on in enough (or any) detail while I was in college. It turned out to be exactly the sort of stuff I was trying to study, but was discouraged from pursuing by my professors. Hm...weird! But more on that later.

I try my best to work with logic and evidence of my senses to understand the world around me. In philosophy, this is traditionally called rational empiricism. This means I use logic and the scientific method to determine what is true. This way, I can be more sure that what I say is actually objectively true, and not simply a projections of my opinions as "truth." If you ever have any disagreement with my ideas, I'm perfectly willing to correct myself as long as I'm wrong in my understanding of the empirical facts or have made a misstep in logic. Thinking like this has led me to some interesting conclusions about life. I hope you stay along for the ride.

Any discussion of my understanding of philosophy would be lacking if I didn't mention Freedomain Radio. This is a podcast/vidcast/online discussion hosted by Stefan Molyneux. It's the most exciting discussion I've ever come across, and it's not only limited to philosophy! It's about philosophy, psychology, relationships, governments, religion, literature, human interaction, family...basically everything core to life. It's a lovely community of thoughts, and just so happens to be the best use of my time I've ever come across. Wow. What a ringing endorsement.

I have an interest in movies, television, video games, technology, and music which I'll bring my philosophy to bear on. And in a way more interesting way than in this first post. Post number ones are never interesting...