Today's blogger had an answer to the question of the day that actually gave me pause for thought:
If someone insults you when you're walking down the street, what do you do?
My immediate answer was "fight them for your honor" but as this person (for once) astutely points out:
Do people randomly get insulted while walking down the street? I can't remember that ever happening to me. Maybe I have lived a sheltered life.
Actually hang out at my horrible high school for any length of time and it will happen.
But no, for most normal people who do not have to winnow the tide of barbarism that is real life this would seem like an odd question.
Anyway this blog seems oddly familiar to me. Maybe I've done it before?
If there's one thing I've learned in the past couple of months it's that kindness, even an appreciation of kindness, is a misplaced and dangerous emotion to have.
I am not nice myself, but I can appreciate niceness in others. Do I get points for that?
What do you do when you're sick other than rest or medication?
Last time I was sick I tried to spread my contagion to as many as possible in attempt to weaponize it throughout my high school.
It worked with mixed results.
Which is a euphemism for "total failure".
Although no, maybe that's a little strongly worded. I did successfully spread it but it never turned killer.
I blow my nose -- a LOT -- and I use any brand but kleenex. I absolutely hate kleenex. Worst tissue in the world. Please, everyone, don't use kleenex if you know what is good for your nose.
EVER GOTTEN THE KIND WITH LOTION AND VICKS RIGHT ON THEM?
Have you ever thought about the politics of disease?
Many times. It is far more beneficial to treat disease than prevent disease.
Why cure when you can sell medicine indefinitely?
Cancer treatment is far more expensive than heart disease treatment.
Consider that heart disease has historically killed far more people than cancer -- yet more money is spent on finding treatments for cancer. Why do you suppose that is?
Also you said yourself heart disease is far more likely to kill you than cancer so therefore the problem is harder to fix ergo it has a greater overhead cost-- am I making any sense?
I mean I know bloggers are of menial intelligence but goddamn.
Or how about this one: breast cancer and prostate cancer are roughly of equal prevalence and equally likely to end life. Yet breast cancer is a major cause celebre while prostate cancer barely gets noticed.
Uh that's because the government gives more grants into prostate cancer research than breast cancer so the private sector has to pick up the slack.
Breasts are on women, and women have historically been treated like crap in our society -- which means of course that they are better organized and also have a much deeper well of public sympathy from which to draw.
No I'm pretty sure I just explained why that happens like it happens.
Besides, people like breasts. They are a symbol of nurturing, sexuality and motherhood.
And then there is lung cancer. A shameful disease if there ever was one. Not only did you probably bring it upon yourself by smoking, but how many people did you harm through second hand smoke along the way? And now you are a burden upon society as your prolonged treatment plan eats up precious health care dollars.
That's a good point.
Folks. I particularly hate it when politicians and CEOs etc. call people "folks" because it is such an affectation.
Folks, from the German "Volks" means "people".
Hence "Volkswagen" is "the peoples' car".
"Folks" sounds far less clinical than "PEOPLE."
We know that they come from a background where people are called "individuals" or "clients" or whatever -- the use of folks is a total fabrication.
Or as I call them: "FILTH".
There is no objective reality. Just different shades mixing together to form changing colours. We all make millions of decisions each day, and the vast majority of these are entirely unplanned.
Did anyone else just mouth the words "what the fuck" now or was that just me?
Every controlled muscle movement in your body is a decision. Every time your eye moves or your finger types a new letter on the keyboard. All decisions. Later, when someone asks you why you did something, you cannot admit that there was never any conscious reason for it, so you make something up on the spot that sounds reasonable and you decide to believe in it.
I'm pretty sure if someone asked me why my finger hit a specific key on a keyboard my reasoning would be the painfully tautological "so I can type a word".
Why did I type a word?
So I can type this bullshit and call you an idiot.
Why do I need to call you an idiot?
BECAUSE IT MAKES MY BALLS FEEL BIG.
For some reason, we cannot admit that we are never really in control of ourselves. What we make up to explain the past becomes reality.
So something else is making me type this?
LORD JESUS INSPIRE ME~
You have only very limited insight into what your motivation was at that past moment, and even less about others' motivations. You construct subjective realities about the past, and these are heavily influenced by your unconscious, your attitudes, past experience -- your entire world view.
This is about the point where it's revealed the Nazis won WW2 or something.
Actually wasn't this a really long monologue by Morpheus in The Matrix?
How everything you've ever known is a carefully constructed simulation of a reality you've never known and therefore it could be entirely wrong and you wouldn't know?
Depressed people view the past as an indictment, a repudiation of their lives and themselves. A paranoid person sees it as evidence that the world is against him. Megalomaniacs see the past as confirmation of their destiny.
I just see it as proof you're fucking nuts.
Accepting that reality is an illusion is extremely liberating.
Yeah. You can learn to fly like Neo did in The Matrix.
I have mixed feelings about Nanowrimo. On the one hand, it's a bit like running a marathon -- a big accomplishment that no doubt stretches and tones your creative muscles. On the other hand, it's an absolutely dreadful way to write a novel.
I know I make fun of National write a book month or whatever the fuck but honestly the idea that people can write an entire book in a month on their own accord for fun after struggling the past month to get 9th graders to write 10 entire words on a page has me a little incredulous.
I'm dead fucking serious when I say this entry contains more words than they've probably coherently written in their entire lives.
On the surface, creative writing seems like a fairly straightforward, linear kind of activity. You turn on your computer, you open Word, you write a beginning, then you hop nimbly from stepping stone to stepping stone until you reach the last stone.
Oh is that how creativity happens? Just turn on your computer and bam, typed manuscript?
But in reality, writing is typically not linear at all -- it's very iterative. I write a beginning, then I move along forward, then I stop and read. And I wonder, what the heck is this story about anyway?
Uhhh I don't know what the fuck kind of stories you've been writing but I usually ask myself what a story is about before I start writing it.
"What is happening and who is doing the action" are pretty much two questions you should ask yourself always before setting out.
Then I catch something in paragraph three that seems promising, and I ask myself, what's going on there? I go back and mess around with para three, and while I'm at it I insert a couple of other paragraphs. And then suddenly paragraph 16 has completely new relevance and paragraph nine seems completely out of place.
So you're not a minimalist I take it. In fact this entire description of how you write is so incredibly bogged down and repetitive I'm starting to get a bit of a headache.
And it occurs to me that somewhere around para 34 something very cool is going to happen, so I write paras 32 through 35 and set them aside. Then I stop for the day, and when I open it up the next day I wonder what on Earth I was thinking, and I delete para three altogther. And so on. Sometimes at the end of all this I just have a mess.
Okay let me tell you how you write a story if you're not brain damaged:
you have an idea you want to tell. Pick the character you think would be most effective at telling the story.
Note I didn't say the character you personally like the best, I just said "most effective".
Your next goal is to figure out where the turning point of the story is. Then your goal is to get your character from Point A, the start, to Point B, the turning point, as quickly as you can and still maintain believability.
Your next goal is to get from Point B to Point C, the end, as quickly as you can.
Note if you think you can write a novel on this you shouldn't write more than 40 pages and if you think you can write 40 pages make sure it's about 15.
Which is to say that Canada is a social welfare state. This means that being poor in Canada is a virtue while being rich is something to feel vaguely ashamed about.
Canadians are the second most pretentious twats I've ever met after the French.
This idea has its tendrils in every aspect of life in this country. For example, there is a sacrosanct idea that in an environment of limited resources, health care should be distributed based on need and not the ability to pay.
It should go to those who are fittest.
Clearly those who can pay are fittest.
Livejournal has introduced a new type of advertising that is triggered sometimes when you try to leave a comment. The screen goes grey and you are forced to watch a commercial before proceeding. I'm all for finding good ways to generate revenue to sustain this site, but I really found this unacceptably intrusive.
Adblock Plus? Never heard of that.
The fact that Canada was denied a seat on the UN Security Council in favor of Portugal shows just how far the international body has fallen in terms of relevance and legitimacy.
>Canada
>UN
SORRY POWERFUL NATIONS ONLY.
Look at this chart. Not in the top 10? GET THE FUCK OUT.
Also European Union can piss the fuck off too. You need 20 of your little shit countries to equal the might of one real country.
I'm just pretending the UN does something.
As far as I can tell, politically the UN has become a place for tinpot dictators, terrorsts and anti-semites to advance their self-serving agendas.
Well the top 10 does include all three former major Axis nations so Antisemitic would come with the territory.
Then again it also contains all 3 former major Ally powers too so it's like we're really still living in the shadow of WW2.
Two questions about ethics.
First, which is worse, someone who does unethical things knowingly, as part of some conscious desire or plan, or someone who just seems to do it because it is part of his or her DNA.
That's funny you said you had a question but I don't see a question mark.
Also the person who does it because of their DNA, clearly.
Far better to act of your own accord than someone or something else's accord.
Second, who is better, the person who does something bad with absolutely no regret or the person who does something bad and has a major crisis of conscience for it.
The better person is the one with no regrets.
The latter is both wicked and a coward, the former only wicked.
Man this entry sure has dragged on.
Anyone else really tired after reading all this or is it just me?
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