encoded notions

You don’t need to subscribe to any religious doctrine to get by in life. Some people refute that statement with the argument that religion creates a base of morality and accountability. They say that if you are without a religion then you are free to go about your merry way doing whatever you want.

Where is it written that morality requires religion? Morality is about right and wrong. It’s about doing whatever you want as long as you don’t interfere with freedom to follow that same approach to life. Good and bad, right and wrong are arbitrary assignments of labels to concepts. Things labeled ‘right’ and ‘good’ are things that lubricate the social gears. Being friendly and helping each other out are considered to be right and good things to do. These types of behavior foster a sense of community among groups of people. Hurting or killing others and stealing are considered to be wrong and bad things to do. These behaviors are detrimental to society since they breed distrust and fear in people. What it boils down to is that morality is a form of social common sense.

There is a distinct difference between religious morality and general morality, though they may promote similar behaviors. The good-bad metric for general morality is roughly determined by humanity as a whole and is enforced through a system of laws. The same scale for religious morality is determined by whatever doctrine you follow and is enforced (typically) by some sort of post-life threat. To the religious, general morality may seem like a cold, straightforward scale that can vary with the ebb and flow of sociocultural norms. To the non-religious, religious morality’s scale may seem to be set in stone employing only “scare-tactics” to enforce.

There is nothing wrong with either approach to morality. General morality is a logical approach to dealing with other people. Most people want to get along with the rest of the people on this planet. Knowing this, if everyone acts in their best interests then the best course of action is to not do things you wouldn’t want done to you. Religious morality arrives at the same “golden rule” via an alternate chain of reasoning. Their reasoning is that everyone wants to enjoy the afterlife, but there is a prerequisite for this: you have to follow a fixed set of rules of behavior. One of those rules is the “be nice to others.” As long as everyone’s playing along, then everyone gets to enjoy the afterlife. Religion in this sense is a clever trick for getting everyone to behave themselves.

What is wrong is to assume that there is no such thing as general morality. With that kind of mindset, you presume that humans could never interact with each other sensibly unless governed by an external set of rules and guidelines. People who think that have no faith in the human race.

The comments on one of Jeff’s posts about Battlestar Galactica got me thinking about some of the larger story arcs.

[Spoiler alert!]

(more…)

I made a little parody of the Brady Bunch theme song. I hope you like it:

Here’s the story of a heartless she-bitch, Who was bringing up three bitches of her own. All of them had hearts of ice, like their mother, The youngest one gets stoned.

It’s the story, of a drunken bastard, Who was left to raise three assholes by his ex. They were four pricks living all together, All they wanted was sex.

Til one day when the she-bitch met this bastard, And they had a few too many rum & cokes. When they woke, they found out they got married, That’s the way their kids discovered “naughty pokes.”

Compare to the original:

Here’s the story of a lovely lady, Who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, The youngest one in curls.

It’s the story of a man named Brady, Who was busy with three boys of his own. They were four men living all together, Yet they were all alone.

Til the one day when the lady met this fellow, And they knew that it was much more than a hunch, That this group would somehow form a family, That’s the way they became the Brady Bunch.

The fun part about the Brady Bunch is that there is no way that any family could be that happy and pristine and free of outside negative influences. So behind every scene you’d think, I wonder what these characters do in between episodes. Does Jan work for Hooters? Does Bobby sell weed to his friends at school? What happens when Mr. & Mrs. Brady are alone and very, very drunk?

At least we got a taste of that “reality” with one of the two Brady Movies (I forget which one). The older step-brother and step-sister make out—which is not something you’d ever see on the original series.

Try as I might, I cannot wrap my alcohol-free mind around the dynamics of a large, pulsing party full of friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers.

Until the alcohol really kicks in, parties make sense: people are chatting and just hanging out. Maybe there’s music in the background and maybe not.

I like that. I like talking to people, overhearing stories, sharing some of mine.

Once the alcohol takes ahold of the guests, you can throw predictability down the drain. People start dancing with strangers, the volume of the music goes up, the rate & variety of alcoholic consumption increases, people start getting very “happy”.

The chance of any conversation of value starts dwindling. At some point, the unpredictability of the crowd overtakes any desire of mine to talk. This is the critical point where the party ceases to be fun and suddenly becomes something I desperately need to escape from. It’s like everyone is tumbling down the rabbit hole together and I’m being dragged down, too.

It would seem that Cyan’s demise has been averted:

I really can’t say much about it, but Cyan Worlds is back. I can’t say for how long, but I can say we are back. We all moved into the cool building this last week. I’m glad to be back. It feels good.
Ryan Warzecha

Today is a good day.

[note: I have never taken a formal economics class. This is just my rationalization of what little I know on the subject. Feel free to correct me in the comments.]

Communism only works when you consider everybody plays correctly. Capitalism works if you assume people play like real people—which is usually a safer assumption to make.

Capitalism encourages greed. It’s the fuel that feeds the fire. Greed is universal. Everyone understands it and that’s why it’s important.

The difficulty in creating an economic structure is that the basics have to come naturally to the majority of the stupid populace who just wants to get drunk, watch tv/sports, have sex, and go to bed; the flip side is that it still has to make enough rational sense that the smarter people don’t think it’s just a stupid idea. Everyone has to play by the same rules, so the rules have to be simple and universal, and that’s where problems start cropping up.

In communism, the basic rule is everybody’s equal except that what ‘equal’ means isn’t explicitly defined. This is how the phrase “some are more equal than others” can coined in reference to real instances of communistic economies. In contrast, capitalism’s basic rule is may the best man win except that ‘best’ isn’t defined either. This is how you can explain that Donald Trump and Bill Gates can have so much money.

I was mildly bored this afternoon, so I decided to simplify the layout and style of this site. I removed the sidebar and migrated navigation into a topbar. Anything else that was in my sidebar was either thrown away or merged with similar static pages.

If you’re wondering about the random photo at the top, I’m going to bring that back later, once I deal with the colors and I’ve had a chance to digest my layout changes.

Now that the general layout is done, I can think about colors. I am not a designer by a long shot. Any input on the color choices and layout is very welcome.

So I’m sitting here watching the last few episodes of Firefly and I get an email from a friend. It turns out a group of people I know is going downtown to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas for a film festival showing at 9:45pm. Sweet! Now I have something less hermit-like to do for the evening. As the time approaches, I grab my bag and head down to grab a bus to take me ~20 blocks away.

Well I miscalculated a bit and I didn’t exactly get on the bus until 9:45pm—and it was a very full bus. I was borderline ready to freak out from the sardines-in-a-can feeling, but I kept my cool and got off on 4th street at 10:05pm. I think to myself I’m only a little bit late, maybe I can still get in and find the group.

Wrong. The next showing isn’t until 11:00pm. Crap. So I wander around the downtown region for about 35 minutes and then I go grab a place in the I’m-not-cool-enough-for-a-ticket-so-I’ll-buy-mine-at-the-door line and wait.

So, while expecting the rest of the group to be exiting the theater, I saw them enter the theater. It turns out that they too weren’t in time to get tickets, so we all got to sit together and watch the movie for a grand total of $10 each. If you want to know the content of the movie, email me privately (as we were requested not to blog about it).

Oh, and Quentin Tarantino was there. It was his “best picks” film-fest. At one point I was three feet away from him. And that made the creepy bus trip down and 20 block walk home worth it.

So I am currently sitting in my apartment in Austin, Texas. I moved here because I am now a physics graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. By some stroke of good luck, I got an efficiency three blocks from campus and a 15 minute walk from the physics building.

I cannot report too much on the education front just yet. Classes haven’t quite got up to full steam yet, though I suspect that will be happening shortly. For those who are interested, I’m taking both Classical and Quantum Mechanics this semester. It’s a good way to get back into the groove of things because those two subjects were the less painful of my undergraduate classes, so the graduate versions should be mildly entertaining.

This afternoon, I finished my rough copy of my first Quantum Mechanics homework set over coffee with a bunch of other physics people. gasp I finished my homework, before the night before it’s due. No stress, no lack of sleep, no heart palpitations from excess coffee. It feels good.

In exchange for the education and path to Enlightenment that the department is providing me I must teach lab classes this semester—PHY 101L: Mechanics lab. I cannot comment on that task because my first lab isn’t for another day. I suppose I’ll have a good rant or two by the end of the semester. After all, a healthy majority of undergraduates are lazy and just love to barely do enough to get the grade they want. I should know, because I know a few people like that.

I haven’t met a lot of other graduate students yet, but I suspect that will happen over time. If the small sample that I have met is any indication, my time here won’t be boring.

New environment. New procedures. New accommodations. New people. New experiences. This looks to be the start of an interesting path ahead.

Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin

I would rather the airplane I’m travelling on be hijacked than have to remember to put my pocketknife into my checked luggage every time I fly.

I would rather have someone freely use books from the library to construct a bomb than have my reading habits monitored.

I would rather have terrorists roam free in the population than have innocent people questioned because they looked suspicious.

I would rather die than see 1984 come to fruition.