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Government, Philosophy and the SS

22 Nov

Godwin’s law aside, I meant Social Security.

Facebook Commenter’s Point:

People are greedy and will not do something the aid each other, combined with the fact that the young will not save for retirement means that social society is necessary. “ It’s worked so far. People just choose to complain and scream “it’s MY money!!” that’s why I agree with EVERYONE paying into it equally.”…” if given the money they would otherwise be paying into SS, would actually save it for their own retirement? Next to none.” People would spend it on having fun.

Counter:

1. Greed

Economy is necessary part humanity; part of economy is the principal of supply and demand. This exists due to the fact that there will never be enough resources to go around based on a person to person idea of needs and distribution.

By saying that the elderly that you personally know deserve the appropriation of these resources you are indirectly saying that someone else is less deserving of the same resources. While you are calling people “greedy” for not sharing their section of resources you are in fact being “greedy” by putting the needs of one person over the other.

Greed is commonly defined as the excessive use, ownership or gain of a resource or resources. Excessive is very subjective. The mere idea the ability for one to be comfortable in anyone is excessive to someone that does not share these means.

2. Equally

The post does not go on to explain what their ideas of equal are based on.

A. Flat

Provided the fact that people do not earn the same wages, people are not skilled in the same manner, people do not have the same level of skills, people are constructions of different environments physically, socially, and genetically. There will never be a situation of Karl Marx’s equality. Therefore people will always gain resources at different rates.

This means that the subtract of a normalized flat rate would unaffected the people who, in the case of social security, would likely not need it and would devastate the ability to live, let alone strive, the people who will need these resources at a later date. This leaves the middle, if populations stayed normalized and the gain and lose of resources was constant then the true middle class would gain from this system.

Until payout, to continue this system flat amount goes in flat amount comes out. And this could not be adjusted for changes in economy. This would mean that the people who need it would be unable to get enough while the people who don’t need it still do not require it to live and the middle class is doing ok.

Any sort of redistribution of resources would be “greedy” unless it was done on an optional basis, at which point someone would have to dictate who deserves the resources which in itself are a form of greed.

B. Percentage

With this system, the upper and middle classes would be operating with normal conditions, but the people on the edge would need that little extra to survive or even gain comfort in their life’s would again be hurt.

On payout, the lower classes would not have enough to live on without adjustments, the middle class would make do and finally the upper class would receive a considerable amount that they mostly likely would not have a need for.

Again this all assuming that the world and its economy do not change, to help the lower class you must again use the system to dictate who deserves the resources and explore more regulated “greed”.

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All of this assumes that the world does not change, resources are not destroyed, but only moved and the cost to maintain each person is the same. If this and any of the other systems described above where true and could work, then they would not be necessary because we would not have human flaw and could live happy ever after in Karl Marx’s utopia.

3. Regulation

The ability to dictate what and how people live their lives and spend their money is not only greed for your idea of life, but it is also states that the ability for anyone else to think, reason or create a connection of neural path ways is far below your own.

When most people want to regulate they feel that since people have shown the inability to think for their selves and eat healthy or wear a seat belt or … or …, they do not contain the ability to do it in the future. If you do not allow a man to learn to read, what makes you think it will learn to read?

The more regulation you put on someone’s day to day lives, you limit their ability to make chooses, and this limits their ability to even be able to make chooses. This has been proven by test cases, and by people who spend 30 years in prison and do not understand how to live on the outside.

To create a population that has enough foresight to save for their personal future and to make good chooses you must all them to make those chooses. People will make the choices you consider to be wrong, this is Darwinism. They may fail at life, or do great things you are unable to truly judge until a long enough time period has passed. That period is their life, and the people who make poor choices will slowly but surely will remove themselves from the world. This process takes many generations, but humans are smart and can overcome.

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In short no system is perfect, and that is simply because not only does perfection not exists as something that is tangible, it does not exists as anything more than an abstract idea of what cannot exists. Given enough freedom and time people will ultimately make the right choice as a whole, humanity made it this far on that instinct and will continue to survive on that idea.

 
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Posted in Philosophy, Power, Society

 

Power of choice

19 Jul

Just finished watching Twelve (2010), it’s on Netflix’s instance stream for those who are interested

I am seen as eccentric by many, one of the things that make me stick out is the fact that I do not drink, smoke, or gamble. The latter is simply because I believe in business and ROI, gambling is when you know you’re going to lose. Casinos may be the largest places in the world to gamble, but casinos don’t gamble.

I don’t drink, get high or messed up in any way. The only chemical that I regularly administer is caffeine which I use as tool. When my body adapts to the consumption of caffeine I will stop until my body reaches equilibrium, this allows for the effects of caffeine to always be effective in small quantities.

I question that I always get is:
“Why? Why don’t you [Blank]?”
My answer has universally been:
“I don’t know, I just don’t.”

Today, I feel as I have finally found the answer to that question. Power.

In our current society we are over protective of our young. Our parents felt that their parents didn’t care enough, or didn’t try hard enough or even listen to what is wrong. So our parents continue the struggle for perfect parenthood in the other direction. Now you will see kids that are so shelter and maladjusted for life in this world you know that they will never serve as productive members of society, they were made almost autistic by too much love.

As the youth grows up, one way or another they learn to escape. Some drink, get high, join the military, some will even turn to movies, books, and video games. When confronted with the ability to choose anything, people will give up the ability to choose. All those forms of escapism remove chooses, they take that power away from you, this allows you to feel comfortable again, like things were when someone else was there to make the decision for you. The pharmaceutical industry is almost a trillion dollar industry that makes most of its money proving pills that get you that feeling of comfort again.

I hold onto my power of choice. Life is energy and energy is power. I wake up every day and actively consume as much knowledge as possible, as knowledge is the sum of someone else’s energy. The unknown is scary; man did not become powerful because we’re scared of fire, we become powerful because are intrigued by fire.

“Do one thing every day that scares you” — Eleanor Roosevelt

 
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The Stock of Relationships

11 Jul

I think the best way to think of relationships is like the stock market. When it is up, it’s the time of your life, but when it crashes you really end up questioning how you got here. Much like an addiction, you think if you hold on a little longer things can change.

Most relationships are lost due to holding on for too long, rather than to part ways and look back at the time spent as happiness, we feel the need to drag everyone through the mud. There is no way to know if things will change for better or for worse. The course of our lives is uncharted, but it is important to remember how we got here as it can foreshadow the future.

In current American culture, and most of the world to my knowledge, we seem to enter relationships to hide from our issues. Everyone has baggage, and that’s ok, but it is important to check the bags. If you forget to check your bags then you will return to find yourself and a few things you forgot.

It’s never good to have one foot out the door; you may end up on the wrong side. There is no right thing to do; we will all end up holding on too long, or not long enough, possibly both at the same time. The best we can do is to remember when if the time comes to appreciate the good, or we may come back with a few souvenirs.

 
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States of Being; Comfort

12 May

Comfort is the definition of stagnation to the human brain. The feeling of comfort is the use of older synapses. This is is a pattern that gets chemically encouraged the longer we live. Evolutionary, it is something that helped us survive. Why try something new that could lead to death, even if as simple as foods, when you can continue to live.

The issue with that, is we as a race of beings have reached the point where this has become counter productive. For a more focused post about the counter productive: The Age of Wisdom.

To feel comfort is to realize that you have done not pushed your own boundaries for knowledge and experience.
To feel comfortable in life, is to wait for death.
“Do one thing everyday that scares you” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I see this stagnation all round me, it is like a poison slowly killing the structure of humanity. We created generations of mindless consumers. When the system finally breaks, people with thoughts and ideas, will revolt. This thought revolution has already started across the world. Its slowly growing momentum, as ideas like God as discarded just as invisible flying chariots were once forgotten.

I challenge everyone, the next time you ask a question about anything, make sure to seek the answer. The moment of wondering is often skipped, and with that we lose our humanity. Humans did not run from fire, we asked the most important questions of evolution.

 
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Prototyped; Almost

01 May

The following is taken from my blog entry for the Familab’s The Great Global Hackerspace Challenge, in which me along with 3 other familab members compete with 29 other teams from around the world.
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I am a code monkey, I can debate the differences between post-fix and pre-fix ++, but that doesn’t do that good for a blog entry. This is mainly due to the lack of images you get to paw over. If you wish to dive through my code, https://github.com/sirwolfgang/Sensing, contains this projects library.

I started with the Ardunio’s i2c Wire library, and from that built packet system for data transfer allowing for a list of different data types. It’s pretty nice being able to pass a float or an integer and have everything play nice. Once that was established it came down to writing the sensors into use.

Below you will find über sensor board, this board contains each of the sensors I was able to find. The system worked out really nice, I would move my green data line to the sensor I was working on then just make sure the ground and +5v was plugged in. A lot of those sensors came from the Adafruit’s Sensor Pack 900. Which did mean, there was provided code from most of them.

The photocell, is a very inaccurate sensor, and with the provided code only gave relative numbers. [In Cave Johnson Voice, “For Science”] Based of off tables provided by ladyada gave me some basic numbers to do some math. Now this very inaccurate sensor is now a very inaccurate scientific sensor in lux!

Once some of the sensors were complete it was time to hardwire a few sensors. I took this opportunity to prototype a prototyping shield. This board allows the addressing of the sensor node to be set by moving the 2 pin jumpers. Still needs some tweaking, but should show promises for future sensor node development.

From there I moved onto a more finalized sensor board. This one has a force sensor, which tells you how hard you are pushing in Newtons. This board is designed to be finalized and the last step before someone eagles out some boards with a more compact setup.

With some of the sensors done, it was time to tie it all together with the hub unit. Up until now the only had only be printing data out on the serial. I don’t believe in using delays, just better error checking. So when I say printing data out, it’s more throwing it up at you faster than one can read it. So based off of digitalman2112’s work I took the backpacked LCD and coded it in along with da3v’s splash image. The female RJ45 strip still needs to be made, but other than that the system is ready to be assembled into tomlong74’s case.

At this point all the prototyping of the prototype is done. Just need to put together the Plug-N-Learn system, with a few more sensors.

All this and more can be found at element14 project group. The project can be followed at sensingplatform.org, while the hackerspace, familab, can be found at familab.org

 
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Religion: The Worst Part

22 Apr

When talking about religion it should be noted that “religions” like Buddhism do not count in this category, as Buddhism is a philosophy and does not choose to state anything about a ‘god ‘.

I think the worst part of religion is at some point someone had to sit down and plan to trick people. Sure once the seed is planted and you get a few crazy people hearing voices things tend to grow. It might not have been the first person, but along the line of history of the world. Someone somewhere had to systemically think how they could trick a collective of people.

It’s key to remember that no one is a villain in their own story. They may have told themselves that it was for the collective good. In the end it wasn’t for the collective good, there are a few points in history where it can be debated that it helps form governments and research sciences. But as soon as something becomes no longer useful for the church, it is cast out. That fact right there proves that through history the powerful has always seen warship as a tool, and as thus could not truly believe in a form of god themselves. Atheism, it isn’t new. One could go as far to say, it’s the original founder of the idea of god.

 
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The Perspective of wrong

14 Apr

One of the main issues normally cited, when it comes to our current culture, is that we as a whole and as individual are too inwardly focus. That is to say, we are most of the time only able to see ourselves from one perspective, our own.

I have come to realize that this might be more enormous wrong. You cannot be wrong from your own perspective. Doing any action, the wrong must come from another perspective, even if it is looking back on an action just preformed. The act of looking forward or back based on ones actions, are other perspectives. A choice always seems right or at least correct at the moment.

I move forward the idea we are hyper critical of ourselves through everyone’s point of view. This would better explain social groupings and social interaction on all levels. Most people can’t leave the house without looking their best, I for one am glad, but it is good to have your own sense of perceptive. I believe that everyone should be so comfortable with themselves that they should be able to walk down the street bare ass naked, literally and figuratively. It is only when we have that level of comfort with ourselves that one becomes truly qualified to push our perspective out on to the world.

 
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The Age of Wisdom

13 Dec

It is often said, and believed, that age yields wisdom. This started in many privative cultures under the idea if you have seen more, you must know more. And at first glance that seems like a rather solid idea. History tells us a different story. In all places and times where age is the number one factor of “wisdom”, the culture has either been forced to change, or suffered greatly.

Wisdom to be defined as perceived intellect.

Today, first world countries have become ruled by the young, this isn’t due to the young voters make a turn out this election or the next. The entire reason that the systems of presidency have evolved is directly due to the slow and limited amount of changes the papal or monarchy systems allow. United States of America was born on this ideology. In other parts of the world, where age is the main factor of leadership you have mostly religious states. These entities see it fit to destroy the young lead cultures through any means necessary including but not limited to blowing themselves up. This isn’t mutually exclusive to what they deem their enemies. In parts of the world it is acceptable to beat women with lengths of cable, and scar them with battery acid. Should your daughter be raped, you must kill her rather than let her live with this shame.

Children, before influence, naturally are not racist or sexist. Are not willing to win or achieve something through any means necessary even if that means doing more harm them good. Do not pollute the earth killing its wildlife, and potentially our entire existence as the planet is needlessly striped of resources and life forms.

Recently lots of movies and videogames that have been coming out or franchises or squeals. This is due the fact that most of the people running the show that become producers or directors to the things you love, are hitting their mid 40’s. About that period the human brain becomes resistant to change, even if that change is mandatory for personal or collective survival.

“As people see the world, so they behave” – David Logan

Change is not only good, or necessary but important for progress. The longer throughout history we have resisted change, the more backwards we became. Even when the Romans were taking over the known world and enslaving people, they weren’t racist. Racism is something that grew from the cultures of age is wisdom. The Great Renaissance was created when humanity rediscovered information and ideas that had been erased by the generations before.

Many think that the default human state is that of violence, some think of Tabula Rasa, or blank slate. I move forward the idea of the default state is one of science. We will explore and learn as long as we can, willing to sacrifice ourselves if it will help our peers. At some point we perverted our humanity, the question remains if we will recognize this before it is too late.

 
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That which does not kill us

11 Dec

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

While this is usually taken in a rather literal sense, I believe Nietzsche meant this in the way the each person is stronger for their knowledge and experience. Should we face the odds of life, and return victorious we will return willing to accomplish greater things. Our scars don’t make us stronger but our knowledge of ourselves does.

 
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Memories; Here Tomorrow

15 Nov

A few months ago I moved about a thousand miles away from what used to be my primary residency in order to go to college. For many of my friends on facebook, through their comments, I can tell they made this transition quite recently. For most of them they moved anyway from about 60 miles to that of a few hundred, with that some of my friends still hangout on the weekend. During the week I see their messages back and forth about how they miss high school and hanging out all the time. To a certain degree, I understand missing what was considered before normal. Many people do not like to have change in their lives, and on a pure biological fact it isn’t completely their fault. I, personally, on the other hand am enjoying every moment of my new environment, well apart form dealing with my roommate.

Long term relationships seem to suffer from the same fault of humanity, accepting change. While some relationships seem to last until happily ever after, for the majority of non repressed societies, relationships end badly and with great pain. Hitting the long term mark signifies a compilation of memories or history together. Anything has three stages beginning, middle and end. In relationship we as people blur the lines between the three, but to any outsider or friend they can easily tell, even if they wont tell you. The beginning is where the anthropological dance happens, attracting a mate or a life partner. The middle is acceptances of the long term relationship happens, it may not be said, but both or all parties involved have come to expect certain things from each other, and rely on them. The end is all about change. Change does not necessarily bring the end, but the end brings change.

With that relationships will last what I estimate between 20% and 30% longer then healthy, due to resistance of change. The more people share, the longer they will live though known misery rather the go into the unknown. If you live together, that means someone will have to move, this gives us points of uncertainty for both parties. Rather then face this issue the couple will cling to each other tighter, hoping to fix the issue at hand without knowing the issue. As the they cling tighter they began to use the memories of the past to justify this action. Allowing them to see each other for who they were and not are.This clinging forces more stress and misery for the couple, which is the reason the clinging started in the first place. This loop will continue to someone is willing to jump into the unknown for a chance of a better life.

What do a long term relationship, and the journey of a former High School student have in common? They both rely on memories of the past to live on today. In a sense they are both blind, for tomorrow and for today. Life is about surviving change, not for what happened but for what can and will happen. Murphy’s law states “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”, this only true if you continue to define change as wrong. Rather Murphy’s law should be written, “Anything that can happen, will happen”

 
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