Saturday morning bomb dropping.

Okay, so everybody's talking about what happened in Boston now. Some people took it as far as to blame Czech Republic. Not only is it wrong, aggressive and a proof of miserable education, it's also absolutely off-topic.

The bombers were from Chechnya. And yet, not even Chechnya is to be blamed. I understand how America struggles to maintain national uniformity in their “quest” to create a multicultural environment, but I do not understand how ignorant of other countries' reality Americans can be. Chechnya is a country that has undergone massacres that are incomparably bloodier than the Boston one. It is not surprising that what people there have gone through may have had effect on their mentality. That is very tragic. But the fact that two young brothers have not endured stress, that I would not wish to anyone to have to live through, doesn't mean everyone from Chechnya is a murderer and extremist. I respect Chechenians for what they have gone through.

Shame on those, who claim US should bomb Chechnya. I don't know where such anger comes from. Three people have died in Boston massacre. That is a tragedy indeed, even if only one had died it would be a tragedy. However, how many innocents do now certain Americans want to kill? Some twitter hashtags are now full of people planning terrorizing Chechnya, because two Chechenians murdered in cold blood three Americans. It reminds me of the Nazis, who for every German soldier killed by Jews, killed 100 Jews.

And this is not the only case where America supports terrorism in its effort to battle terrorism. Other examples are often much more “mainstream” than the opinion Chechnya should be attacked. One example is: hating Islam, even though only a fraction of Muslims is radical and sympathizing with terrorism. In my experience, the other side of the conflict can be just as violent too. Remember Breivik? The Boston killers have nothing on him. Also, what about Israel? Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine is supported by US. It is American weapons that, in the hands of Israeli soldiers, murder thousands of innocent Palestinians. The statistics are clear: during the second intifada (2000-2005), Israel killed 3000 Palestinians, only 35% of which were combatants. Palestinians, a.k.a. the “bad Muslim terrorists” killed approx. 1000 Israeli, out of which 31% was armed forces.

The behavior of (mostly) American media in the matter of Boston massacre is formidable. The murderers have turned into a prey that, if they got into hands of angry Americans, would face an even worse fate than their victims. The victims themselves have no peace, the families of the dead have no peace to mourn…

It's a hunt for blood. Entertainment for the rabble.

Seven times have I despised my soul:

The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.

The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.

The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.

The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.

The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.

The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.

And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.

I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.

-Kahlil Gibran

I am hypnotized. These thoughts keep swirling in my head; could I do it? How does it work? 

http://www.change.org/petitions/petitioning-tunisian-government-amina-must-be-safe

I just found out that net worth of China is 263 billion dollars, but net worth of Hong Kong is 193 billion dollars. That's ridiculous.

Macroeconomy, geography and politics of a racing game

I got this idea when playing me some need for speed. Video games often try to appear as living as possible. Take open-world games with cars: the traffic is made to seem absolutely natural. When you hear police radio, there is communication between police cars and HQ that imitates reality fairly well.
The only thing that prevents me from believing that city like Fairhaven from NFS: Most Wanted exists is:

Everything in the game is so videogame-y ridiculous. Cars that hardly ever break, and if they do they get  automatically replaced straight away. Police seemingly unable to do anything about street racing. Roads that seem to be built just for illegal racing.
So, I thought, how could this work? What would the city have to be like?

Here's what I imagine it would have to be like:

1. The city (geography):

The city doesn't have much history. It's rather newly founded, but growing fast. There are no geographic boundaries that prevent it from growing, although the terrain is far from flat. Yet the city doesn't grow very wide - possibly for political reasons, like in the case of Hong Kong. The heart of the city is the downtown, a well-known commercial district. The city has an enormous airport, because it is one of the most prominent centers of global business. Despite the fact that most places in the city center are walking distance from each other, the city has an above average traffic. There is no public transport, because the people are too comfortable and they can all afford cars - not only that cars are relatively cheap here, the GDPPC (gross domestic product per capita) is high above average. As the city was growing fast in 80's, 90's and 00's, the infrastructure kept improving. Today the roads are purposefully overdesigned to accommodate further growth. Truth is, however, that this has recently been abused by illegal racers and this results in decline in traffic, as people are afraid of driving around the city and therefore they prefer to stay home.

2. Who pays? (economy):

There is no income tax in the city. This has attracted many influential businessmen and resulted in many corporate HQs being set up in the city. It's the Versailles of capitalism - who isn't here simply isn't. This is one of the few places in the world, where local administration gets majority of its money from something else than income tax - the budget of city is mostly paid through donations from investors and businessmen in the city. This forces the city to be "loyal" to the interests of the "1%". Social equality is a taboo.

3. Regency (politics):

The city is effectively ruled by the donators (who are also racers), who through their money maintain political power. There is a two-party system of government and both parties are connected to interested investors - donators. They are equally unpopular and they tend to switch in power every election cycle. Other political parties either not present at all, or have no power. This is because these parties have no money for campaigns and there is not enough of independent intellectuals around the city that would support these parties - vast majority of educated people are businessmen coming here from all around the world. The influence of donators reaches deep down in governmental structure and all its branches - legislative, judicial and executive. The most manipulated is the executive branch, namely police. The police is endorsed by many influential people and therefore it is able to enforce most laws very strictly. That makes it even more obvious how street racing is ignored. Many public figures "support" police in fighting illegal racing. It is beneficial for them in three things; first, it improves their public image - second, it makes it less likely that the public would get to know that they actually are street racers too - third, and most importantly, it gives them power over police. They can keep track of police equipment, vehicles, get access to police radio and they can get their own paid drivers to highway police.


4. Hobby of the rich (how illegal racing fits in all of this):

The city is very business-oriented and absolutely lacking in culture. Also, it is a trend among influential people globally to invent new common hobbies - it used to be tennis and golf. These two factors play a major role in why illegal racing has become so popular. Another explanation is purely psychological - some rich people may fear that their lives are wasted. This is often called "Onegin complex", based on the literal figure of Eugen Onegin, the disposable man. Racing may be a form of modern-day Russian roulette.

The races are all organized a long time ahead and the police is aware of them before they happen. Racers notify police to keep most traffic out of their way, however usually police doesn't have a complete route of the race - sometimes individual police station get each a part of the route and their communication between each other is scrambled by a support team that the racers pay to keep everything under control. Demolishing or damaging cars is quite regular here. Due to contacts that the racers have, they can get new cars for the price of their manufacturing. This applies even to rare models that officially only have a limited number of sold vehicles - usually if a racer presents a totaled rare vehicle, they can get a new one if they promise to dispose of any evidence of it. The roads and environment suffer heavily from races too, and that is paid in full by donations from racers. Often they add up a bit more money in order to make the road a bit more suitable for illegal racing.


Real-life cities that would be ideal for an illegal street racing city: Hong Kong, Singapore, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Moscow.

... She suggests that every human goes through a period of abjection as tiny children when we first realize that our bodies are separate from our parents' bodies — this sense of separation causes a feeling of extreme horror we carry with us throughout our lives. That feeling of abjection gets re-activated when we experience events that, however briefly, cause us to question the boundaries of our sense of self...These visions all remind us, at some level, that our selfhood is contained in what Star Trek aliens would call "ugly bags of mostly water." The only thing separating you from being a dead body is . . . almost nothing. When you feel the full weight of that sentence, or are confronted by its reality in the form of a corpse, your nausea is abjection.

...The repetition compulsion is a bit more complicated than Freud's famous definition — "the desire to return to an earlier state of things." On the surface, a repetition compulsion is something you experience fairly often. It's the urge to do something again and again...Freud was fascinated by this sinister side of the repetition compulsion, which is why he ultimately decided that the cause of our urge to repeat was directly linked to what he called "the death drive," or the urge to cease existing. After all, he reasoned, the ultimate "earlier state of things" is a state of non-existence before we were born.


io9.com/5893964/10-psychological-states-youve-never-heard-of-++-and-when-you-experienced-them/

A short film about two wheelchair gangstas who don't get taken seriously.

By Die Antwoord.

There's more to it than it seems.

Well worth your time.

Some updates soon, ok?

Political campaings for the uneducated

Many times, over the last couple of days, I have heard someone saying that they have a right to have an opinion.
Well, I say that this right is also connected with a certain duty; if you want to have an opinion that will have any value in society, you must first get informed enough to be able to base your opinion on a reasonable argument.
It may seem obvious, but to many people it isn't.

I spent my weekend at grandma's. Me and her have different views on presidential elections that just ended in Czech republic. And that's okay. The problem was, she could not explain a single reason for her choice that was factually relevant.
Her candidate's campaign was aggressive, used false facts and was generally built around "low" instincts, such as nationalism, ad hominem attacks, rallying the good ole' country against the cities and its lazy bourgeoisie, attacking the other candidate's family...
and she admitted all that. She also well remembers when her candidate was a prime minister, how corruption rate multiplied several times back then.

Why did she vote for him then?
She couldn't really say. She blamed my candidate for not being Czech enough (he was forced to emigrate by communists for a long time), for being to old, for being too rich...

She said my opinion doesn't have any value, because I am not experienced enough, I'm too young. She said that everyone in her county votes for her candidate and there are many intelligent people.
Not only this was a personal attack, not a political argument, it was also completely irrelevant. It simply cannot be said that older = more experienced in politics. Neither it equals more intelligent = "better" political opinion.
Informed political opinion can be only built by one thing: getting informed. Getting information today is cheap and easy, so there is really no excuse. If you want someone to respect your opinion, you must build it on a certain knowledge.
It's not called political science for no reason.
Politics = science. A social science.

After a not-so-very fruitful evening of remembering formulas, I have come to a conclusion that tabloids are more popular than sudoku or chess magazines is that people love stories with a bit of soul or personality. Mechanical knowledge is the most uninteresting thing one can learn. The only good thing about it is the feeling of kicking nature's ass you get when you finally start understanding what you need to do to solve what you need to solve.

For me that's a rather rare feeling. Not worth it.

Look at yourself.

"Methinks weed links drinks and meth
inks weed links drinks and meth
inks weed links drinks and..."
Police officer keeps rambling on and on and he screams in your ear from so far away and he grips your shoulders and your eyelids feel like boulders, slowly closing and he sings his good guy's cacophony, you hate him, he is just a phony.
Will he let you go?
"No. We'll notify your parents."
And he rants, he rants, and your teeth have dents and outside raindrops dance and you can see your body prance on your suburbian gallows.

Blueser

Night's a chaser, sir.
If you run out of rum, run.

Go, socialize, meet some fellow monsters on the prowl.
It's cold outside and you don't have anywhere to go.
Night's sky's sly and not a bit too fly.

Beware of the war, whore.

Ideas and thoughts have never been so clear,

but in the morning you forget how to feel.

You found the meaning of life but it  made you black out.

You had it. Man, you were so close!
But then someone hit your nose.

And all you hate and all you love
mixes in your blood and in your epitaph.

This just about summarizes what an average citizen thinks about politics. Blame Canada is so 2000's. Blame Obama is how you do it nowadays!

Keeping up with the Johnsons.

 Marx had a scientific theory. In his age it was believed that the world is going to only get better and better until it reaches the optimal state. He stated with scientific accuracy (or so he believed) that this optimal state is communism and collectivism.

Well, that failed. Though I blame Lenin for communism's failure more than Marx. Leninism was economically 100% fallible. Relatively most successful was communism on Cuba, free of soviet influence... but I'm going of the topic now. Back to what I wanted to talk about;

Believing in an ever-improving political system would nowadays be considered naïve at least. The illusion shattered to pieces with the ascension of Soviet Union - or maybe with the Great Depression? Who knows.
Both important and interesting is though the "new" anti-utopian thinking that came in years 1930-1950.
Two names:
Orwell
Huxley.
Two books:
1984
Brave New World

Both depict dystopian future worlds. And both are becoming or have become at least partly true, I'm afraid.
1984 is about communism, collectivism, socialism. Well, that happened. But we're over that now, right? Communism happened, but now it's gone, yes? We can have capitalism and all rejoice, true?

Well, that's where Brave New World gets in.
Is consumerism any better than collectivism?

Lots on lots of years ago, culture was only something educated people would enjoy. In consumer society, everyone wants to "keep up with the Johnsons". They have culture? We want it too! How did we come to this?
Well, we are always being told how quality of life keeps improving everywhere (sounds exactly like communist propaganda), especially in the 1st world. What political scientists really mean by "quality of life" is comfort. Actual quality of life is not measurable anymore. It used to be measurable - back in the days where even in rich countries satisfying one's physical needs was not a sure thing. But no one suffers nowadays from material crisis. A lot of people likes to say they do, but really, no one in 1st world countries does.
So, what is there really improving? Education? No, not really. People aren't generally smarter than they were 30 years ago. Wealth? Yes.

What does a human being do, when they have surplus of time? (Which is a direct result of being rich. You don't need to work so much, therefore you have more free time. We have a paradox now that rich people generally work more than poor, but look at it historically - poor farmers used to work 12 hours a day. Nowadays you can do just fine without working at all).
Time starts losing value to them. But that's just a minor problem. While wealth increased, variety of important goods money can buy didn't improve little bit. Purchasing power theoretically got better. Now you can buy more food for the same relative wage than years ago. But this doesn't really apply to education, or even healthcare. Healthcare is always getting better - but its accessibility is not.
Bottomline is; not even the ever-increasing wealth can buy anyone self-improvement. But even though no one can really buy anything valuable, the money still needs to be spent. Voila, consumerism! Action movies? Check. Repetitive and intellectually inferior pop music? Check. Mainstream videogame shooters? Check.

All of these only drive us away from the really important things. I admit, I am guilty of it myself. I could go out more, if I played less videogames. But I've grown up in an environment that taught me to appreciate the damn things. It's got a tight grip on me. I used to jump around the Stormwind square in World Of Warcraft even when there was nothing for me to do. Why? I keep asking that myself.

Consumer society is much more pleasant than any other society. But that only makes it more dangerous. There is a difference between something truly beautiful and only pleasing.
Democracy gives many rights. But just as many obligations. Everyone needs to accept their place in the world but also try to improve it. Making "simple culture" for the uneducated, telling them their empty ranting is just as important as an educated opinion - that's wrong. Holst (the music composer) once said that only few can master the art of music, but to find that few, one must give music to everyone. True. But please - if you can't understand something, just accept that it's more likely your fault than that thing's fault. Making things dumber helps everyone and no one at the same time. You know what also helped everyone and no one at the same time? Communism.

POINT MADE.