So, three years ago, in first year university, a combination of conversations between Shockwave Dave, Sweet D (Dan), and mein-self spawned an idea for a book. The book was called "Shut-Up", and it's inception alone assumed such a robust quantity of insight and entitlement on our parts that the fabric of the universe almost collapsed.
The concept of the book was that not enough people regularly take a Descartesian step back from themselves to really evaluate the world or themselves. The result being jerks, Western consumer mentality, and everyone wetting themselves over Titanic.
Anyway, we thought ourselves clever enough to be able to tell everyone what their problems were. I think I was the only one of the group that actually went ahead and started writing the thing, so I suppose I was the only one of the group narcicistic and delusional enough. Luckily my acer lap-top, despite being terrible and burning me regularly, must have been equipped with some sort of ego-resistant casing, otherwise I'm sure something cool would have happened to space-time.
But, then I thought about it a bit. Since I've admitted that fact, I have taken that step outside of myself that I was talking about. I re-evaluated my behaviour with as fair an eye as a biased evaluator can have, and I've decided this. If I decide to keep my opinions to myself in order to avoid the inference that I think my point of view is the best, and that I'm super great, then I would have to be of the opinion that no-one should share their opinions because they are all necessarily biased and unfair. Well I certainly don't admit that. In addition to the fact that my expression of an opinion that no opinion ought to be expressed raises a contradiction that would make creationists shudder, I think that the expression or exploration of opinion is the only way that we can really learn anything of value. So, for that reason, I think the expression of strong opinions, with the humbling disclaimer that I very well might be dead wrong, is the most happy medium I can come up with.
So, I'm still gonna tell everyone what I think...but I suppose I could be wrong.
The Black Eyed Peas' new singles are bad, and if you like them, you should feel bad.
.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Problem With Morality
The world would have been much easier to deal with when everyone just had a spear.
Do you ever feel like its too much? Like we’re too smart and can reflect too deeply? It feels sometimes like we’re at a breaking point, where our powers to create and produce, and our analytical capacity have grown so much, but without the capacity to remedy the contradictions we find. We have developed the world to a point where we have no arguments to fully account for it. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong and we are caught in the middle, able to realise this, and able to realise that there is nothing we can do about it.
For example. We can produce a vaccine for a disease, but we test it on mice in order to maximize the benefit experienced by humans. We have to use animal subjects because to use human subjects would be immoral. We have the capacity to perform this experiment, but we also have the analytical powers to see a real problem with this - we have no valid reason to believe that it would be moral to save humans over mice. But we have no capacity to solve the issue. It would be immoral, given our ability, not to produce this life-saving vaccine. All we can do is ignore the moral issue that the moral necessity of the vaccine creates. It really just comes down to the preferences of those in a position of power.
It seems that whoever designed morality did not account for a species either this smart, or this stupid. We’re tinkering in a broken system and ignoring the problems whenever we find it convenient.
I’m reluctant to say that there is really much of a difference in the way that we behave from that of our cave-dwelling precursors. We just have more complicated spears.
Do you ever feel like its too much? Like we’re too smart and can reflect too deeply? It feels sometimes like we’re at a breaking point, where our powers to create and produce, and our analytical capacity have grown so much, but without the capacity to remedy the contradictions we find. We have developed the world to a point where we have no arguments to fully account for it. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong and we are caught in the middle, able to realise this, and able to realise that there is nothing we can do about it.
For example. We can produce a vaccine for a disease, but we test it on mice in order to maximize the benefit experienced by humans. We have to use animal subjects because to use human subjects would be immoral. We have the capacity to perform this experiment, but we also have the analytical powers to see a real problem with this - we have no valid reason to believe that it would be moral to save humans over mice. But we have no capacity to solve the issue. It would be immoral, given our ability, not to produce this life-saving vaccine. All we can do is ignore the moral issue that the moral necessity of the vaccine creates. It really just comes down to the preferences of those in a position of power.
It seems that whoever designed morality did not account for a species either this smart, or this stupid. We’re tinkering in a broken system and ignoring the problems whenever we find it convenient.
I’m reluctant to say that there is really much of a difference in the way that we behave from that of our cave-dwelling precursors. We just have more complicated spears.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Curse of the Garage Sale
(adapted from my tumblr post. don't tell the blog-police.)
Recognized by Playboy Magazine to be the "Coolest Store", Big Fun is the coolest store.
Situated somewhere between a gas station and a Chipotle in Cleveland, Ohio, Big Fun has all things nostalgic. And I really do mean all things. I walked in and my brain almost had to pre-emptively knock me unconscious to protect me from the explosion of childhood memories you experience when you see a GI Joe circa 1989. There were literally hundreds of transformers, He Man toys, and Garbage Pail Kids.
I recognized a Dinobot named Slag.
A metalic looking triceratops transformer from my childhood which was unfortunately carried away by the excitement of a few garage sale bucks. I was heart-broken to find out that it cost $75. This was a cautionary tale.
Do not get rid of your toys! None of them. My dad got rid of his comic books. Superman number one and the like. Comic books which, today, would be worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively. Not joking.
I got rid of boxes and boxes of He-man, Power Rangers, Transformers, and Swamp Thing collectibles (Oh god...The MEGA-ZORD!!!). Not only am I now unable to sell them for sky-high stacks due to the fact that 2009 Jonny does not have these killa toys, but I can't play with them! Unless I want to part with some seriously mad cheddar.
Do not get rid of your toys, and don't let your children get rid of their toys.
I miss you Slag.
So very much.
Recognized by Playboy Magazine to be the "Coolest Store", Big Fun is the coolest store.
Situated somewhere between a gas station and a Chipotle in Cleveland, Ohio, Big Fun has all things nostalgic. And I really do mean all things. I walked in and my brain almost had to pre-emptively knock me unconscious to protect me from the explosion of childhood memories you experience when you see a GI Joe circa 1989. There were literally hundreds of transformers, He Man toys, and Garbage Pail Kids.
I recognized a Dinobot named Slag.
A metalic looking triceratops transformer from my childhood which was unfortunately carried away by the excitement of a few garage sale bucks. I was heart-broken to find out that it cost $75. This was a cautionary tale.
Do not get rid of your toys! None of them. My dad got rid of his comic books. Superman number one and the like. Comic books which, today, would be worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively. Not joking.
I got rid of boxes and boxes of He-man, Power Rangers, Transformers, and Swamp Thing collectibles (Oh god...The MEGA-ZORD!!!). Not only am I now unable to sell them for sky-high stacks due to the fact that 2009 Jonny does not have these killa toys, but I can't play with them! Unless I want to part with some seriously mad cheddar.
Do not get rid of your toys, and don't let your children get rid of their toys.
I miss you Slag.
So very much.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Reason Everyone Should Watch Step Brothers
Step Brothers was a terrible movie. It was so bad. It was just further evidence that Will Ferrell is out. While Anchorman was crap-my-pants funny, it later became apparent that he only knows about three jokes because they were repeated throughout his other movies in one form or another. He can eat fecies (pretty much hilarious by itself, and doesn't require much added Ferrell charm), he can make amusing mythological references (to the beard of Zeus and Oden's raven, that type of stuff), and he can really sport fake genitals (boner in Anchorman, awesome fake sack in Step Brothers).
Anyway, I got within five minutes of the ending, primarily because there was nothing else on. Also, I already expended all the effort moving the Lay-Z-Boy really close to the T.V. so that I wouldn't have to expend undue effort focussing my eyes and whatnot. (I work really hard at being lazy). Anyway, I had spent the previous hour and a half working up the energy to grab the remote and turn it off, when suddenly, this piece of garbage movie almost exploded my brain with revelation.
About six or seven years ago, I was in George's restaurant on Eglinton, right around the corner from Devastatin Dave's house, and I heard one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard play. No-one knew what it was called. And I've spent all that time up till now with this mystery slowly gnawing at my mind. Well, for no apparent reason, at the end of the movie, Will Ferrell sang it. So, I was able to find what it was called by referencing the movie using the interweb.
Por Ti Volare.
Wicked song. But more than that, you know the feeling of working so hard to remember where you heard a line, or curing tip-of-the-tongue syndrome? well it was like I had tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome for seven years and then my face exploded after figuring it out.
So, using my deductive powers of logic, I have concluded that this terrible, terrible movie has magical powers and will also solve all of your mysteries. I can't stress enough how terrible it was. But apparently the movie was enchanted by a wizard, and if you have the sticktoitiveness to sit through something like that, you get a wish granted.
Just terrible.
Anyway, I got within five minutes of the ending, primarily because there was nothing else on. Also, I already expended all the effort moving the Lay-Z-Boy really close to the T.V. so that I wouldn't have to expend undue effort focussing my eyes and whatnot. (I work really hard at being lazy). Anyway, I had spent the previous hour and a half working up the energy to grab the remote and turn it off, when suddenly, this piece of garbage movie almost exploded my brain with revelation.
About six or seven years ago, I was in George's restaurant on Eglinton, right around the corner from Devastatin Dave's house, and I heard one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard play. No-one knew what it was called. And I've spent all that time up till now with this mystery slowly gnawing at my mind. Well, for no apparent reason, at the end of the movie, Will Ferrell sang it. So, I was able to find what it was called by referencing the movie using the interweb.
Por Ti Volare.
Wicked song. But more than that, you know the feeling of working so hard to remember where you heard a line, or curing tip-of-the-tongue syndrome? well it was like I had tip-of-the-tongue-syndrome for seven years and then my face exploded after figuring it out.
So, using my deductive powers of logic, I have concluded that this terrible, terrible movie has magical powers and will also solve all of your mysteries. I can't stress enough how terrible it was. But apparently the movie was enchanted by a wizard, and if you have the sticktoitiveness to sit through something like that, you get a wish granted.
Just terrible.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Problem With What I Just Wrote
The problem with writing so cryptically, is that everyone is self involved and believes that I was actually writing about them.
I assure you, I wasn't. This is all about me. I am the greatest, and am the least self-involved person ever.
I assure you, I wasn't. This is all about me. I am the greatest, and am the least self-involved person ever.
The Problem With Writing
Most of the things that I feel I need to write about, also happen to be the things preventing me from writing about them. I don't mean to be overly cryptic, but I've spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to write about them without writing about them, and that was the most straightforward way of putting it that I could come up with.
For example. Let's say I have a job with a boss about whom I have serious complaints (not the real case, just an example). It also happens, that this boss is the person to whom all complaints go.
The problem is self-incrimination. One of the reasons to write is to be able to put your thoughts outside of yourself for a moment in order to better understand them. Its like having an unshelled peanut (a peanut in its shell) in your mouth. You have a general idea of what the peanut itself is like, but you can't quite access it. So you spit out the whole thing, crack it open, and then eat the peanut.
Writing is pretty much exarctly the same thing.
The thing is, that in that process of spitting out the unshelled peanut, anyone can look in your mouth and see the disorganised and unflattering peanut shell remnants.
Hmmm, I'm not sure if that made any sense.
For example. Let's say I have a job with a boss about whom I have serious complaints (not the real case, just an example). It also happens, that this boss is the person to whom all complaints go.
The problem is self-incrimination. One of the reasons to write is to be able to put your thoughts outside of yourself for a moment in order to better understand them. Its like having an unshelled peanut (a peanut in its shell) in your mouth. You have a general idea of what the peanut itself is like, but you can't quite access it. So you spit out the whole thing, crack it open, and then eat the peanut.
Writing is pretty much exarctly the same thing.
The thing is, that in that process of spitting out the unshelled peanut, anyone can look in your mouth and see the disorganised and unflattering peanut shell remnants.
Hmmm, I'm not sure if that made any sense.
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