Weird Sanctuary

MOVED/CLOSED

2011-04-04T21:41:00.000+02:00

This blog has become pretty redundant and pointless to maintain these days. See me at my DA account, folks. No more doubleposting, no more divided attention. Everything except my Hungarian stuff is available over there. Thanks for the ride, everyone.

Accurate

2011-03-29T22:37:00.001+02:00

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Embracing the Mundane

2011-01-08T07:30:00.002+01:00

(or: Am I Growing My Boneblades Yet?)

As Dawkins said, "mundane" originally meant "of this world", and this world is not as boring as the current meaning of this word suggests. While there might not be greatness in humanity (whether individually or collectively), it's sure as fuck there is no greatness in imaginary alternatives. In other words, if you want to kill your kid by refusing to get proper medical treatment for him/her, then by all means do it, but don't try to justify doing it with some delusional excuse like prayer. If you do something, do it because you mean it.

Most works of art are made for the sake of eternity, and yet perish in a few generations, if not sooner. With that in mind, what does it mean to live life itself as a work of art? Surely it needs imagination, because the principle yields itself to many interpretations in the first place. But then again, imagination is hollow without groundedness, and dead without intent of realization. Maybe pain is an art form - but it is wasted on a nonexistent audience. Everything can be an art form, even self-hatred, but in order to paint clearly, you need to see clearly first. Every artist was a beholder at first - every teacher was once a student.

And behold the greatest artwork of all, that created itself without intelligence, without inspiration, without knowledge or intent. Behold the magnificent accident, the fractal infinities containing worlds like ours and worlds quite unlike ours. The lack of an author itself is ought to teach you something: the same thing those sybarites in my department have been crowing from their provincial rooftops for decades now - that the text is important, not the author; the product, not the progenitor; the ends, not the means. That does not mean that the lies of the successful should be given any more credibility as the lies (and honest mistakes) of the losers - but that if the truths of both sides aren't both incorporated into something new, then the old will eat from inside and revisit itself upon us until we realize that we neglected a lesson there. For the greatest teacher - the greatest author - is this authorless work of art: our Mother the Universe, with her embracing arms Space and Time, and her enticingly spread legs of two possible future realities. There are always two possibilities. Right and wrong, life and death, order and chaos - these are just the empty names we give these (ultimately equivalent) truths.

Sure, we depend on certain things, like air. Sure, freedom is an illusion. But just as we are dependent on certain things, some other things may be dependent on us - and in our present organic form we cannot know what depends on what and to what degree. The fusion with technology might just grant that insight, as well as many others - and a less debilitating dependence, with the elimination of the need to slow-burn organic fuels with remarkably low efficiency. Maybe some of us fear becoming god so much because they think they will be left out - or because they secretly enjoy living a life of suffering and self-deprivation? Or maybe, just maybe, their vocal opposition serves to mimic their intention to keep the opportunity of advancement to themselves, while excluding the idealists and fools who believed them. Either way, they are short-sighted in a way more profound sense than the myopic invalid writing this. They are like tribal leaders who were rightfully condemned in the following terms: "Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people — they betrayed themselves." After all, bringing down the status quo is one thing - establishing a new one is another. "Society cannot live on perpetual revolutions", and yet, individuals cannot live on anything else. But no individual is free from outside influence, whether he rejects or accepts it explicitly. Even Little Alex embodied the standards of non-violence by opposing them violently. That's why he could be broken in the end - that's why it didn't end with "I recovered all right", no matter how I wished it did.

He got to the stage of the lion, but not that of the child. Those who stayed camels all along wieved him with horror and perhaps envy - but he was just as much of a failure as them. Just as much a failure as me. But I am making an art out of being a failure. I am genetically inferior, yet intellectually superior to some of the best stock. My entire existence is a paradox. This paradox has an archetype already - the nerd/geek type. Proud of the insight granted to him by imperfection, yet secretly (or not-so-secretly) lusting for perfection, hoping that through ingenuity he can create or at least feign it.

Embracing the mundane does not mean embracing miserliness and consumerism. One of the greatest artists of all time, if not the greatest, Richard Wagner, lived off "friends" and loans all his life. Never did anything in a material sense. Yet most of today's moneymakers and successful people do even less. Somewhere along the line, the creation of value (be it food, cures, technology, or most importantly: ideas) got lost in the global holy marketplace. It's lost and looking for mommy - us. And while ours is a dire situation, which needs artists (in the conventional, departmental sense) the least (after all, you cannot feed millions with pretty words - but you can solve their problem with contraception, education, universal healthcare including free euthanasia services, and recycled human meat; again, the power of the mind/idea over matter/resource shortage), it needs their spirit the most. Because it's them who can take breaks from financial anxieties - because they have other mental conditions to attend to, and this maintains their firm grip on reality. Carl Sagan was one memorable example, but I bet there are more out there than we realize.

Most of them today get sectioned, though, or thoroughly ignored as they became part of the vast homeless/invalid population. Until, out of that population, with the aid of lucky circumstances and an extraordinary character, comes forth another Leader... who, while representing something great, inevitably makes mistakes and thus falls because he is too good for what he's been through. See? The system blames the individual, the individual blames the system, while there is no one to blame but ourselves.

There is no bottom line. We are all unfinished - even at the time of death. But who said unfinished works aren't beautiful?

Meowy New Year!

2010-12-31T18:26:00.002+01:00

So, today I've done those "endurance dances" again (it mostly consists of jumping to industrial music erratically), and in the process of that, I looked into the huge mirror in my room.

And then pinng! The penny dropped. In the mirror, my naked form did not look a bit like myself. But that's not quite a bad thing - for it *did* look like my ideal mate. Okay, minus the blonde hair and blue eyes and perhaps a few centimetres in height, but you know what I mean. I was turned on by the sight of my sweaty, bloody, scarred, curved self. I mean, that is something, right? Better than just being plain ugly or something. While it's not the *me* I remember... it's actually pretty cool.

Maybe I'll find someone who will remind me of my inner me. Or, maybe I already did, and that's why it was a bit awkward when he tried to hit on me (and perhaps with this insight I could've worked around the awkwardness if he wouldn't have died). But even if I won't, it's still very interesting.

Now, I'm off to rendezvous with my bottle and wish you all a very happy and enlightening New Year!

AntidepressRANT

2010-12-30T19:00:00.002+01:00

Self-hating people are all over the place. You know, the kind that hides certain traits, or in the contrary, uses them as an excuse to not even try. The kind of gay person that does the mea-culpa over getting turned on or doing something sexual and liking it. The kind of atheist that lashes out at others if they aren't "respectful" enough and tries to avoid every situation in which hir lack of belief would be relevant. The kind of white person who wrings hir hand a lot and goes out of hir way to get a non-white spouse just to show xe's a good person, or plays hero and lashes out at hir grandparents every reunion. The kind of autistic person who tries to "pass for normal" to an impossible/unnecessary degree even though it costs hir way too much energy (and/or hir job, and/or hir sanity), or the one who complains about having a 'disorder/disability' and demonizes it as if it could be separated from hir personality, or gets depressed over getting an official diagnosis (as if being diagnosed changed anything). So, you know... those people.

They drive me up the wall for two reasons: 1) they are not helping their own cause, but hurting it badly, and most of them don't even realize it, 2) I've been mistaken for being one of them quite a few times because of my ambiguous relationship to *my* traits. So, I've decided to clarify a few things.

First of all, I do *not* complain all the freaking time about the traits I don't like. I may feel horrid because of them, but telling other people over and over again how bad I feel and how they can't do anything about it is not only pointless, but drives away people who otherwise would be willing to be my friends or something like that. It is fucking depressing, both to tell and to hear. It drags you into a downward spiral and you *don't* want to go down that road. If you feel that you absolutely have to express your suffering somehow, write crappy poetry or do crappy art, like I do. Or go running and forget about it. (It really works!)

Secondly, there are very few traits that are really that bad. It may seem hypocritical coming from me, as I have two (or sometimes I think three) of these, but really. Most stuff that society tells you is bad is actually neutral or even good, from your own perspective. Take autism for example. Okay, it might mean social isolation, hardships on the workforce market, etc. - but it is not without benefits. For example most autistics have natural creative talents, or increased understanding of mathematics, or an intense ability of focus which any employer greatly appreciates (once you got one), or generally higher IQ, or any combination of these. An outsider's perspective on society can also be interesting or helpful - not to mention the fact that with the advent of the internet it is also remarkably easier to be included: to have friends, to network, etc. Relationships might be a bigger problem, but any intellgent person knows how to satisfy themselves sexually, and how to use IVF - so, perhaps you don't even need a relationship (remember, people telling you that you need one and are not complete without one is called peer pressure, and is complete bollocks). And if you, even after having looked for the benefits of your brain wiring, can't find any, and are dissatisfied, complaining about it *won't* solve anything. I'd recommend actually fixing the situation over fruitless complaining in *any* case, even if it means killing yourself. Suicide is a legitimate choice, and there is nothing shameful about it. If anything, it is commendable, in this age of overpopulation and organ (and food!) shortages.

Thirdly, whatever trait are we talking about, congenital or otherwise - having that trait is *not* your damn fault. When you realize this, it puts stuff into a whole new perspective. According to basic legal and moral philosophy (not to mention common sense), you cannot be puinshed for things you did not do. (Only Christian "justice" differs from this, essentially creating a scapegoat from Jesus, which is a barbaric and utterly foolish practice - the purpose, whether retaliation or rehabilitation, can not ever be fulfilled by punishing someone else than the actual offender. Transferring the crimes of the ancestors to their descendants - so-called "original sin" - falls into the same category.) This means that if you slept with someone of the same sex, or you simply cannot bring yourself to believe an absurdity, that is not because you aren't trying hard enough, but because you are the way you are. Forgive yourself. You may lose a few friends by standing up and proclaiming your identity but honestly, do you like being friends with bigots?

These are things I've done (and some I'm doing over and over), and I'm not that special. If I can do it, so can you. Yes, it is hard to live with imperfect traits. Life is a bitch. But if you can't change something, why dwell on it? After all, death solves the problem eventually, and until then you might as well focus on something else, maybe something entertaining and/or fruitful - something you *can* do.

What makes the difference, then? The intention. I mean, look the hall around! There are *countless* more fortunate people who don't use their beneficial traits. They either ignore them, or take them for granted, or hate them just as much as you and I hate our limitations. I kid you not, I had a classmate last year in university who was formerly a genetics researcher, and a pretty good one at that - and she left her field because she became "interested" in translation work and religion. Science lost her forever and for what? Personal, selfish reasons, which aren't even real. She's just as lost as one who fails at the entrance level - but she is worse, incalculably worse, because she made that decision on her own. Same goes with those who don't even try (or where it's still mandatory, try to *avoid*) enlistment. We at least tried. So if anybody wants to put you down, ask them, "and what are *you* good for?" - probably even less than you, since valuable people are satisfied with themselves and don't need to bully others as a way of boosting their own self-esteem.

(And now for something completely different: isn't it lovely how "Treulich geführt..." sorta makes you wanna get married even if you're explicitly anti-marriage? )

Outdated?

2010-12-01T14:42:00.002+01:00

I can be sooo ridiculously out of sync with the world. Or the world with me? Either way, WTF.
I mean, I'd like to think I have friends, and indeed I am friendly with a bunch of people, but can I be sure that they would die or kill for me, or that I would deem them deserving of the same if they'd ask me to do it for them? They don't ask me, though. There is no occasion for either of us to ask each other, and that in itself is just weird. And nobody seems to take things seriously, either in terms of giving stuff thought or keeping to certain principles. Still, I willy-nilly do what I'm told in school (although without the perfectionism of the first year when I have thought that my teachers should be respected as authority figures - that is completely lost now, and with it most of my motivation, which should be something to worry about but I just can't worry about school that much anymore - circulus vitiosus, big time), because I have nothing else to do. Many actions seem to be either forbidden or so different than normal that it's just laughable. Even sex - it is supposed to be a relation between victor and victim, but people around me make it into a consensual affair which is alien, so alien that I wouldn't call it sex - I had no word for it before. And I see people who miss class or even work because they have a mild fever or something. At first it angered me, but now I just marvel at the naturalness with which they do it. And there is a gay friend of mine who watches his ex-boyfriend on Facebook using two alternate identities, and doesn't see anything wrong with that. He even manipulates people in order to retaliate for emotional damage the other boy caused him. My way of retaliation would be direct, violent and would involve no innocent bystanders pulled into it - and if for some reason it couldn't be done that way, I'd just let it slide (after a brief whining session, lol). Also, it feels unnatural if I have to pretend something, even (or especially) if it's for my best interest. (Had a hard time learning to not "always have the last word", too.) I don't know why, it's just the way I always worked. Sometimes I wish I wasn't like that, but those times are not frequent or pleasant.
Am I crazy or is it everyone else?

My Epic Adventure

2010-11-22T10:30:00.002+01:00

(written yesterday evening)

Well, I was kinda stupid today. But I do not regret it - on the contrary, I am planning to repeat things like this... only in a more sensible, gradual way.
The story did not start with Agatha and her connections to a certain tour guide; nor with Edrise and her totally beautiful district; not even with ASN and the stone lady with the palm tree branch. It started with 18-year-old me, full of expectation, entering the recruiting office. I was in a good shape, for I had been preparing myself for years, and expecting to get better - once the real training starts. But, as many times in my life, expectations failed. My father, 30-something years ago, blessed his fortune that he had the bad eyes that run in our family - and I cursed the same circumstance. The difference? He was in one of the obligatory generations, and I one of those who were not mandated to be „dead to the world“ for two years, but wanted it. Long story short, with a rejection letter and (from a different, more familiar place: my high school) an abysmal math score in my pocket, I left my frightening and restrictive home for an equally frightening but more lenient (or so I thought) big-town existence, to become a rather self-conflicted liberal arts major, and to sink into a half-workaholic, half-careless state of being, leading to the shameful fact that I did not do virtually any exercise for three years.
I thought there is no point. Once rejected, always unable; look what happened with the dyscalculia treatment thing; and so on - negative self-talk, that is what I did. But then I started to feel older, weaker, and I got friggin scared. When ASN took me around last Christmas to the Castle and the stuff in that area, it was great, but it required more effort than it should have. And it became only worse. So I wanted to do something.
And something I did indeed. Agatha told me about a tour group that regularly takes trips to the few mountainy regions of Hungary, and I immediately signed up. Our train left this morning; 16 people, 17 kilometres, 800 m level difference. However, when we got there, it started to dawn on me that this is not going to happen. I had to stop after approx. 2 kilometres on the very first section, and was sent back to the village we started out from. On horizontal terrain of course I am not that bad, but this was on average 30%, and it hurt like a bitch (I grew up in a perfectly flat area, so no surprise there). The shame almost hurt more, but the guide said he will contact me later and devise a gradual plan for me so next year I will be able to do this kind of thing (we will see if he does - but even if not, I have some sort of a goal now). But then came the bonus.
As always in remote villages, the bus back was due to get there three hours after I got back to the village itself. So, to kill time, I entered the local dram shop located conveniently right next to the bus stop. I ordered (as usual) a double Jäger - and the only other guest, a 60-something man dressed almost exactly like me, chatted me up. He was so different from city people - friendlier, more attentive and daring, and a lot more generous. I told him about my predicament - the tour fiasco, and everything that led to it -, and he invited me for lunch in his house. We knew each other for like 20 minutes! But I accepted, as I had plenty of time and was not really looking forward to the dry bread and honey I brought with me. And there I received a plateful of totally awesome bean soup, breaded-fried apple, potato and meat, and local high-quality red wine (and if I say that, it had to be high-quality indeed, because I do not really like wine). But not only that. We shared heart matters with each other (his being a widower of 5 years, my various attempts at dating girls, but also non-romantic adventures - well, the stuff men talk about ), which was surprising because these kinds of things get discussed with friends a lot (and my father even more), but not complete strangers. Maybe that is why it felt so good. But it gets better - we went down to a real, huge wine cellar (even more drinking, lol, and he was impressed how well I could stand it), and even had a brief shooting practice! (This was my very first time - compared to the US we are ridiculously restrictive -, and I did quite well ) And he kept telling me I should never give up. Now of course, everybody I know has told me that at least once, but I could see that this man meant it. He gave me two apples as a parting gift, and I was off to the bus, then the train, then the usual underground line - but I skipped the usual tram (line 52) and came on foot from Border Square. This may even become a habit. After all, the tour guide said that it starts with little, gradual, regular things.
As a result of the events, I lost some money, a knife, and perhaps some of my face (or most of it), but gained two apples, a deer femur (at least the locals told me it is a deer femur; I found it in the woodland), a great meal, and an astonishing human experience. The weird thing is that I instinctively expect strangers to be like this, every one of them, and get hurt really deeply when they deceive me or let me down. Surrounded by treachery and cold-heartedness, I almost forgot that there is another way. And now I have been reminded, for which I am grateful.
And another thing - I am as certain as possible that I will go back to that region because from the bus window I saw a sign in another village that advertised a private WW2 museum. You know me - I gotta see that; and when I will, I will probably visit my new friend too. There is one thing I will not do, however, and that is to forget.

Lesson learned: Undoing these three years (in which I did not gain any weight - which seems odd but not quite if you take into account that red meat has a lot more density than fat and stuff) will not be quick and/or easy (though it can be fun). But it seems that in my life nothing is quick and/or easy. Other people get math scores in the upper average range with no effort - I could reach the lower end of average with all my brain, time and money thrown at it; other people are sexually active in their teens - I lost my virginity at 21 and with my unpreferred gender; other people are not turned down by the army; etc. - but what other people can and can not do is none of my concern. (Logical brain got it a while ago - maybe one of these days the emotional one gets it too.) Compare yourself to yourself, not anybody else, because it only leads to feeling fucked. Now, that does not mean that I accept the notion that everybody has a right to exist - nah, that has to be earned (yes, that is my old national socialist self talking, but in this matter he is right). But sitting down and complaining about how you cannot earn it will not earn it for you, that is 100%. Anything else - might as well work. Or might not - but you cannot know until you tried.

Braggarts and bravery

2010-11-06T10:50:00.000+01:00

Conventional wisdom says that it takes courage to break the law, and especially to kill. But is that necessarily true? Take for example the case of a young man who has been beaten for participation in a protest event. The event itself was peaceful, legal and even given some sort of governmental protection. However, the opposition is an explicitly pro-violence organization, that (of course) portrays its members as brave soldiers protecting something old and revered. But when the young man was beaten, he was alone, and the people who attacked him were three. Not only that, but they used the element of surprise, and left quite fast after they were discovered by bystanders. The young man knew that by attending the event he is putting himself at a certain risk of this incident. They knew that the government is secretly in favor of their agenda, so the police will never actually catch them. They committed a criminal act, but were they courageous?
Another example. An officer is presented with the following choice: point out the position of the nearest of his own units to the rough-riders that caught him, or die in a brutal way by being beaten to death with a baseball bat. He has every reason to live, probably kids at home and all that, and still he does not choose that, and he dies. Whose example is to be followed - his or that of the band that killed him?
There are of course countless situations where active violence takes guts, but in a not negligible portion of cases it is the less noble way to go. Especially if your numbers are greater than those of the opponent. Now what does that say about those people who put the following quote in their signatures: „Put this in your signature if you are not afraid to admit that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior.“? Of course you are not afraid! You are the majority, and even if you do something outrageous, the rest of the flock stands behind you. To be an atheist and open about it, however, takes more guts, even if one is not violent about it. (This applies mostly to America, but not only.)
Be proud of what you are, there is nothing wrong with that. But please, do not be pretentious.

Disability - or maybe not?

2010-11-06T10:49:00.002+01:00

If I look at it from a realistic, not a perfectionist perspective, I am not nearly disabled enough to deserve the treatment that disabled people do. I mean okay, I am neither a scientist or a soldier, but I am able to hold down a job, (hopefully) finish college, and do all the self-care stuff I need. Having Aspergers means to me mostly little things, such as being single, being looked at as weird sometimes, elevated cold resistance, fluctuating energy levels (kinda like bipolar, only that it does not affect mood, but the urge to be awake and move around, regardless of emotions), intense interests, being baffled by certain human customs, etc. - not a crippling condition. Yes, I have other problems too (namely, being lousy at math and finding my way around, being a woman, and bad eyes), but still, these are common things which, if we take the general population into account, ought to exclude me only from reproduction, not life as a whole. In an ideal world, of course, it would be different, but the whole point of eugenics being necessary is that we do not live in such a world. (That said, I would not refuse the opportunity of being a donor if the law would allow it. But that is a somewhat different business.)
And even if I still had Aspergers but in addition I was a math genius (like many Aspergians are), and/or had a healthy male body with 20/20 vision (even if completely unable to discern colours - indeed, that could even be an advantage), there would be no reason whatsoever to get rid of me for the sake of economy or future generations. And yet, according to most manuals including the DSM, and the training of medical personnel, I would have not only a disability, but a mental one, which should unquestionably mean early liquidation. Now do not get me wrong, I personally would not object to that, because I do not fear nonexistence (why should I, really?), but if everybody with Aspergers gets the same classification, and therefore treatment, would not that be dangerous for the human species as a whole? This is, in some sense, the „would you kill Einstein?“ argument - indeed, there are many Aspergians who contributed, and continue to contribute, to human knowledge and technology, and in some areas it is precisely the Aspergian traits that make them able to do so in a major way.
That being said, I am fully aware that I am one of the lucky ones. If autistic traits coincide with lower intelligence or significantly impaired verbal skills, that can paint quite a different picture. Also, if early development among neurotypical peers maims the personality structure irrevocably (causing very strong anxiety for instance), it can render the individual unable to work. There are many different ways for someone on the autistic spectrum to be, and only a portion of these ways are compatible with a full life. However, that does not mean that autistic traits should automatically mean disability, and therefore liquidation. It means that each individual should be assessed individually, not by a somewhat arbitrary category they seem to belong to. The question should not be, therefore, „Is Aspergers a disability?“, but rather „Is this particular person disabled?“
For people are not statistical averages. Especially within the autism spectrum, with the „islets of ability“ and general unevenness of talents, there is no uniformity in the level of usefulness either. This type of assessment takes more time and effort for sure, but it is not dangerous in the long run and can even yield spectacular results, if used consistently.

Conversation on Eugenics (FAQ thing)

2010-10-30T16:17:00.000+02:00

me: hii wrote the following to someone on aardvark: you asked me about autism earlier. well, i supposedly have asperger's myself, and there is an expert who deals with me in relation to that, and the main question i'm trying to investigate with her is exactly the one you mentioned; namely, whether it is an impairment or not. if it is an impairment, of course that means that people with it are undeserving of life, but then what about confirmed autistic cases in which there is great talent and/or high intelligence? my viewpoint is that it is not autism itself that impairs people but mental retardation, and that the two need to be dealt with separately. that way, autistics may or not may deserve to live, according to their real competences, just like any other human being but not written off as a group.

i wanted to ask what do you think about this.

theclawofz: hm

undeserving of life?

I think that's a little extreme. Are we to suggest that all people who suffer from mental retardation are undeserving of life?

me: i thought that was obvious already

mental retardation is not a good thing, not for themselves, not for society.

we would be doing a favor to them. win-win situation.

theclawofz: I think it's a slippery slope

For example

if you have a guy with no job, no friends

no family

and killing him and taking his organs would save the lives of five important people (doctors, etc) with friends + family

would you kill him?

me: well, if he has skills, he should have a job. if not, then yes.

why you mention friends and family though? that's irrelevant.

theclawofz: killing him could cause mental trauma to his friends and family who if they take it badly could've otherwise gone on to great things

me: the Curies had few friends, lol

theclawofz: heh

me: well, that's lame. i know i wouldn't be traumatized knowing my relative or friend had been useful.

theclawofz: people are different, though.

me: true. but education could help that. i mean, my country has a lousy attitude to death, no such thing as halloween etc., while in Mexico they regard it as a normal part of life. they are normal people, just like the people here, their upbringing is different.

theclawofz: hm.

me: i'm simplifying a little of course but with statistics that's inevitable.

theclawofz: moreover, what about the elderly? What do we do about those who no longer have a job and no longer contribute to society?

Kill them?

me: indeed.

i already said i'm pro-euth...

theclawofz: There's a difference between being for euthanasia and killing people who don't have any usefulness for soceity

me: besides, i live with two almost-elderly invalids. they are not happy. they whine all the time despite painkillers and all other meds.

it would be voluntary of course.

if they are okay with it, they can live.

theclawofz: Ah. That changes things.

me: but i wouldn't be okay with living like that at all.

theclawofz: I think people should be given the choice to voluntarily take their lives, but I think it starts going into a grey area if we involuntarily take it

me: but then again i'm not keen on being sick anyhow... there may be people that like being in pain.... shudders

theclawofz: heh

me: voluntary if you have the mental capability to decide, involuntary if not. that's my position.

theclawofz: okay then.

me: we don't even have DNR/NFR orders here :/

theclawofz: :\

However, I'd agree that a single aspect of a person shouldn't instantly decide things, and that we need to look at the whole person instead of focusing on a single aspect of them

me: plus all the catholic baggage.... grr. i can't get my doctor/friend to help because she has that noxious "suffering makes you grow" attitude.

theclawofz: hm

me: of course not! but brains > brawn.

theclawofz: indeed. but people without intelligence can be put to use for other things

me: it should have a priority, just as with Galton's original systam

*system

...until we can make robots that do that kind of work.

theclawofz: but then could we get to the point where we no longer need humans? as robots are considerably more intellectual than humans? what would you do then?

me: but i agree, mating a strong but not very smart individual with a smart but maybe weak/sickly one can yield good results

well, then humans would be extinct in a short while

i mean, erectus is gone too

theclawofz: hm

So people's only value, in your mind, is how much they can contribute to society?

me: yes, but they themselves are part of society, so it's really how good they help themselves.

of course a cure has effect on others, but that is paid back in the form of financial stability and so on.

for the cure creator.

theclawofz: mhm

How would you quantify value to society?

me: how would you quantify health?

they are virtually the same thing.

twofold goal: the minimization of suffering and the accumulation of knowledge. if you are a positive factor in that, reward. if negative, elimination. if neutral, you decide.

theclawofz: Does creativity have any value whatsoever?

me: well, science is a creative thing too, but in other ways :)

theclawofz: of course :P

me: well, that's a bit of a dilemma. but there can be some sort of scientific application for artist-like abilities, i think.

otherwise, art can be a "free-time" activity.

as it is in my case.

(open source ethos, lol - no selling of results of creativity)

theclawofz: but then what motivates humans to be creative/

*?me: heh, most artists i know don't need material motivation :D

but then again they're all CC...

theclawofz: mhm

me: for me it's therapeutic/propagandistic.

theclawofz: If you could somehow quantify creative quality, then that'd be useful, but unfortunately you can't

me: yeah, kinda like that.

theclawofz: What are your thoughts on capitalism, then?

me: creativity is one of those emergent properties which can be used in gopod or in bad ways... heh

theclawofz: heh

me: well... it's not fair to say the least

for example inheritance gets you a head start

and lying is profitable

theclawofz: indeed

me: these make capitalism not a meritocratic system

but a plutocratic one

theclawofz: indeed. But, what would you replace it with?

me: i know next to nothing about economics, lol

theclawofz: heh

me: maybe regulations on charity and trade, i don't really know.

only thing on my agenda is controlled reproduction :)

theclawofz: Heh.

How would you implement it?

me: hmm, the Germans had an idea on that.

safe sex and/or sterilization allows to leave personal freedoms and pleasure uncompromised while maintaining reproductive supervisability.

cheating our instincts, in a way.

Dawkins said the same on Roe v Wade i think

(abortion legalization)

theclawofz: So would you take a sample of everyone's sperm/eggs, freeze it, and make the people sterile?

me: nah

well, that could be a way

initially i thought sterilizing of the unsuitable only, though.

but that's only the negative part, no positive incentive for the above average.

the lebensborn program was too small-scale and short-duration to measure its success.

theclawofz: hm

me: it's weird that we have only one precedent and that was even before the Watson-Crick thing... but i guess that's exciting about beginnings

theclawofz: mhm

As much as this conversation is interesting, I need to get on with an essay

me: on? :)

theclawofz: well, it's more a piece of creative writing, for my english

me: ahhhtheclawofz: The task is to describe my house

me: haha

theclawofz: I'm taking creative liberties to make it interesting, though

me: good work then :) i like your way of questioning!

theclawofz: thanks :)

If you could become any fictional character, who would you be?

2010-10-30T12:20:00.001+02:00

Hm, fictional.... in terms of real characters I'd wanna be Reinhard Heydrich but fictionally... maybe Dr. McKay from Stargate:Atlantis, hehe.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2010-10-30T12:14:00.001+02:00

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/Lancet

Beauty, perfection & Tetris

2010-10-24T11:56:00.001+02:00

„But just as you construct the perfect line, it disappears. All that remains is what you have failed to complete." - From Russia With Love

Perfection, success, effectiveness. The eternal lure of human development, the obsession of engineers of all kinds, the desire for symmetry and order from the arrangement of Lego tiles in childhood to the most beautiful musical pieces and mathematical equations, and even the synchronous movements of military units and ballet dancers. It is a desire that enables us to create, and also to destroy, almost anything in this world. Yet, it is never truly attained, neither by nature nor by man. Indeed, if DNA copying was perfect, evolution would never have taken place. Even crystals require a bit of dirt to get them started. And even the greatest ideas of social engineers tend to fail on practicalities and the few who cheat the system.

Would true perfection vanish into thin air, if it ever could emerge from the world of ideals to concrete reality, like a perfect line of tiles? Maybe its conspicuous and painful absence is explained by some hidden principle of the universe that does exactly that. If there is such a principle, can it ever be identified and examined, like electromagnetism or echolocation? It certainly calls for an attempt. Until then, all we have is the intuition of it crystallized into a game. A game that is a metaphor for life, the universe, and everything. All human effort and all natural phenomena are reflected in this simple system. As soon as you succeed, there is a new challenge, and all that you can see and remember is your mistakes. The alternation between complete, devastating futility and wild-eyed, hopeful excitement is the natural cycle of the human condition - depending on whether you have just completed a full line or made another gap in the wall. Peace of mind is unattainable. Indeed, it is just like real life.

Each of us is two parallel lines that are endlessly yearning to reach infinity, where they can finally meet. Our best moments are mirror images of our worst, and our aversions and desires betray a duality inherently incompatible with itself. Even in other people we fall in love with our own reflection, and rival our own qualities. We envy and admire what is missing from us, and belittle what we do possess. And this is the root of all inspiration. Creation and destruction are not opposites, but parts of each other, like in the yin-yang symbol.

Whatever is beautiful is a close approximation of perfection. From crystals and fractals to a lioness´ lethal bite and Reinhard Heydrich, beauty carries within a tantalizing element. Tantalizing, because non-transferable, non-reproducible, unique and self-contained. Kant said, „beauty is what pleases without catering to an interest", and that was a rare event when he was right - there is no instinctive imperative in seeking out beauty, and still we do it. In beauty, we perceive the hope that there is a possibility of perfection, which could free us from the struggle for existence, elevate us above temporariness and powerlessness - the promise of Heaven. But it also makes us aware of how far we are from it in reality - the nightmare of Hell. And even beautiful things die - so that new ones can come forth from their remains.

Absence of social instinct can be good?

2010-10-20T10:33:00.000+02:00

So, as an act of curiosity I downloaded some of the increasingly popular „rightrock" music and listened to samples of it... it is one of the most absurd things I ever encountered. I mean really. The music is not that bad as I expected, actually it is mostly singable and hard and yummy just as I like it. The lyrics... well, sometimes cringeworthy even as far language goes, but sometimes they sound normal or even educated... however, the lyrical content gets boring very quick. Narrow-minded, scientifically inaccurate, backwards views presented in a way that tries to be funny but never quite succeeds, all in a melodramatic-romantic style which would be suited to much greater themes and purposes. This combination of artistic talent and imbecility is so jarring that if it was not practically everywhere, I would not believe it. It shows in miniature all the perplexity and weirdness of humanity, our most wicked and best tendencies mixed together... and it sounds so sincere! I mean, these guys really believe what they are singing about. And I can tell that because once I did believe in it just as strong as they do, and that is why it frightens and fascinates me so much.
There is not much difference between a staunch warrior of the right, who would instantly kill people of all colours and persuasions other than his own if he had the opportunity, and me, a kind of reluctant leftleaner, or perhaps neutral, who would kill only with mutual consent. We both see problems with the current system and react to them; we both have tendencies of aggression that stem from a sense of self-defense - obviously for different reasons, but the feeling is the same; we both are interested in history and want to learn from it; we both feel a certain annoyance with the vestiges of Judeo-Christian morality ingrained into the civilized mind, although for different reasons; and we both have the same good intentions of creating a better future for the generations that are going to live in it. What separates us, then?
First of all, scientific literacy. It is the most obvious one; just read the part of The Greatest Show On Earth where grasshoppers and Colin Powell are mentioned. The knowledge and acceptance of the facts outlined there was a crucial blow to my beliefs as well. But it is not enough, for there is a certain non-intellectual part of the phenomenon which bears an eerie resemblance to one of the social roles of religion: creating and maintaining group cohesion. This need is one of the downsides of Homo sapiens being a cooperative species: most people have a very low innate sense of identity unless they can describe themselves as particles of a group that shares certain characteristics with them. And since the concept of family and the observation of family resemblances is a very commonplace and, for most, emotionally appealing source of such a collective identity, and before the advent of transport technologies people living in roughly the same place and speaking the same language were indeed part of an extended family, and by the same token a somewhat separate gene pool, it intuitively follows that the concept of a nation is even more attractive as such an identity. Perhaps if I had a true sense of belonging to my family and to the people whom I share my mother tongue with, I would never have considered the possibility that there might be something wrong with this whole ideology built around such feelings. The fact that I have always been a foreigner at home in a very profound way prevented me from becoming a brainwashed follower of fascist-type ideas and people. The very thing that made me a „problem child" made me also skeptical about politics - both ways, actually. When I say that I am a reluctant leftleaner I mean that I generally do not subscribe to things like the class struggle theory (although I admit that people of different SES have different economic interests, obviously), affirmative action, political correctness, alternative medicine, vegetarianism (as a former sufferer of malnutrition I have very good reason to reject that particular liberal fad indeed), postmodernism, cultural relativism, even feminism (at least some forms and claims of it), but I also use my brain and my interest in biological subjects, and therefore I reject the counterproductive and utterly irrational prejudices based on ethnic origin or sexual orientation, proposing instead a sort of meritocratic way of determining the value of human beings, by criteria such as intelligence, intellectual and plain garden-variety honesty, general health and endurance, and ethical integrity. There is no party, no movement, no leader I can completely agree with. At times it feels terribly lonely - but not to the degree that it would convince me of changing my principles because those are backed by evidence and empathy, not some mixture of doctrinaire devotion and wishful thinking. But indeed, I can understand where these mostly young people are coming from, even the people who attacked me, and the youths on the underground with the number 88 on their bags and clothes. The way Dawkins understands religious fundamentalists, the way an adult understands the reactions of a child. That does not make me one of them, though. I seem to lack an ability to fully become one of them.
Is that a sign of some sort of mental or social deficiency? I mean, in their eyes it surely is... but yours, who consider yourselves to be modern and civilized people, and not racists? By labeling freethinking loners like me (with or without an official autism spectrum diagnosis) as deficient, you are only making obvious where you really stand; you might as well have punched a child of another colour than yours in the face.

Companions

2010-10-09T13:04:00.001+02:00

How can I feel connected to so different people? It is almost a negligible detail that I have never met them in person, because I feel that if we did meet, we would share a cordiality beyond any of the friendships and other relationships I ever had (except maybe one). But what is common between all of them? The people I refer to by first names in my head, Adolf (together with Leni and Reinhard whom I sometimes see as his two aspects, but that is not entirely accurate), Ayn, Doctor Jack, Bertrand and the others - what unites them? One praises loyalty, the other individualism; their views are often incompatible and they would probably kill each other if I put all of them together in a room. Perhaps it is that these people are all smart, ambitious, logical yet passionate, argumentative in life and controversial in the literature about them. People of extremes, geniuses with hearts, self-conflicted and determined at the same time. Where are people like that today? Or is it always in retrospect that they are recognized? If I can empathize so much with such people through their writing, I cannot fully imagine the extent and thoroughness of empathy and inspiration brought forth by a personal relationship - it would probably awaken in me some hidden quality that I felt always deep in me, buried under the ordinariness and the worthlessness, the „can´t“ and the „not able to“. (But that again raises doubts; is the moonlight real, or just reflected sunlight? What is a talent that can flourish only in the presence of genius characters to make an impression on its owner? In a sense, Peter Petrelli is not a real superhuman - but Sylar is closer to that than even the ones born with genuine talents, since he has to take brave, transgressive action in order to gain new abilities.) Is uniqueness even a trait, or just a new arrangement of traits that was never seen before? Could a society of unique people survive? Probably not, but in the brief period of its existence it would achieve so wonderful heights of science, art and philosophy (both theory and practice), that one can´t help but wonder whether eventual destruction (in a grandiose and violent manner, no doubt) would worth it. Questions like these are both pleasing nectar and excruciating poison to me, and yet they are brought forth by my own mind as constant as breathing. I tried to stop breathing as a feat of self-control, but it proved impossible to me.
Need! The need to breathe and eat and sleep, that chains people to be slaves, each to one another, and yet separates them from each other in the most cruel way! „Friends! Lock them in a room for a week without food, and that will show what friends are to each other.“ But only those destined to be free in their hearts suffer from that slavery, and those who have a sense of honour and want to serve only who is deserving. The rest calls it happiness. Communion as a rite has its roots in hunger and thirst, and also the herd animal´s hunger and thirst for being a part of the herd. These give rise to fear, that least noble of emotions, which binds even the genius to the herd, shackling hir, breaking hir wings. And those who are unfettered by fear, or as it is often called, „conscience“, end up as news headlines one day and forgotten corpses or prisoners on the other. "Behold the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker - he, however, is the creator."
But there can be nobility in people who are not lonely geniuses, but that is similar to these beacons´ nobility in that it is also, fundamentally, resistance to fear. Specifically, most often, to the fear of death. Impractical, yes, and selected against in nature, but perhaps that is what makes it so valuable and beautiful. That is why one cannot help but be brought almost to tears when contemplating the twin lightning.
There is not much left worth dying for, something in me says. But that can be just a voice of a fearful animal, clad in cynicism. Oh, uncertainty! Doubt in the self as well as everything else, even the simplest words of fact, let alone promises! Praised by Bertrand, and the cornerstone of scientific thought, doubt is not an easy state of mind. One can almost envy the stupid and credulous when writhing awake all night because of a theoretical or metaphysical matter - or even a personal one, that would be left alone by most in the „knowledge“ that it either lacks importance or will solve itself eventually. Self-doubt is in short supply (at least in appearances) in some of my „mind-friends“, like Ayn, and in abundance in others, like Marie (Curie). But what I have always lacked, a coherent direction, diligence and determination, seems to be universal, although with Adolf it came later, as in his twenties he was just as a lost and futureless wanderer as yours truly.
If I have a home on this „pale blue dot“, it is with people like my mind-friends. Oh, how I wish to talk to them sometimes! To argue, to share ideas, to give and ask for correction, or just to express delight over their existence. To say „thank you“ for all they are, for all they mean to me. I don´t care about „bad“ consequences of their actions, because these actions stem from their brilliant character - if a great person makes a mistake, the mistake is great also. This is what the responsibility of a leader means. I would rather have humanity make enormous mistakes but with the nobility necessary to make and to correct them, than have a stagnant, impotent band of bloodless, brainless robots. Rather McLane a hundred times than Spring-Brauner once!
As a child I included Kevin Mitnick in the band of my respected ones (World Inside The Crystal, a song that also brings tears to my eyes anytime, tells why - and also the film Hackers II), until I found out that he became a corporate employee working for his former enemies. A word of hatred then became attached to him, tainting the idealized image I had in my mind. A word that is the greatest sign of contempt I can ever show to anyone: traitor. (And for a deep reason, it sounds more like itself in German, to me at least.) My alterego, in a crossover fanfiction story written as a joint adventure by me and a DA friend, in her worst nightmare is forced to become one - that part was not written by me, but it hit a sensitive spot indeed. Problem is, there is no idea or person I ever became so attached to that I could betray them even if I wanted to. So in practice, simply avoiding lies is the equivalent of loyalty for me. (I have been betrayed occasionally, but I doubt there was any remorse afterwards. This is the worst about traitors - they believe they did nothing wrong.)
I don´t even know why I wrote all these down. Whenever I feel something strongly, I feel compelled to write it down. Maybe someone like those people I mentioned is waiting out there to read? Someone longing for... an equal perhaps? And if yes... can I ever be equal to someone like that?

Round n+1

2010-10-05T12:31:00.002+02:00

Hmmwelll... I promised you pics of my new place. Then it turned out just minutes ago that it won't be mine much longer, as somebody bought it from under my nose. I'll stay this montha and then... who knows. By the looks of it (catastrophical results on Sunday), I'll be homeless for real (and NO, I won't go back to mom just because I don't have anyplace else to go, as I have 2 years' work in this college already, not to mention I don't like getting beaten), or maybe find an old comrade who's been able to hide... well, it always turns out the way I least expect, so, what the fuck.
In any case, the pics are here: [link]

Triggered but okay

2010-10-04T10:32:00.000+02:00

Pfffffft. We're losers AGAIN. And then, after learning this, today morning I was searching for a post office downtown, and first I managed to stroll into the Jewish district, and then face an antique store's display of stuff... trigger-heavy environment much? But I managed to stay intact and I'm ready to start a class in half an hour! And the apartment pics are done too - except that this damn PC won't recognize my pendrive; so, patience, people.

Meow.

Beep.

2010-10-01T19:31:00.000+02:00

Sorry for the decreased online activity. Pics of the new apartment coming next week, currently spending the weekend with the parents. Constant beating and threatening is apparently good for you. But I kinda stopped being scared, I mean, what's the worst that can happen? In a sense it already did. At school I started pretty well, which is more important.
Now that it's out of the way, check this out, would you? [link] - she's the shiznit! :-)

I started to write a long thing which may or may not become a book; it's 20 pages ATM, will put up after 50 or maybe 100, we'll see how it progresses. It's kind of an edited version of all my stuff, with the main arguments and narrative bits drawn together. Not very cohesive or anything, but a good read (at least I try to make it one).
In the meantime.... low energy. Time to recharge.

Proceedings

2010-09-21T17:54:00.000+02:00

I knew it seemed too easy. While it seems that I've been acquitted during the said trial, there is something fishy going on still: I've been denied accommodations in the dorm. Currently searching for a room, at least that's what I've been told by the "coordinator" I was ordered to work with. Thing is, either she is extremely naive, or she has lied to me about her ethnic background.

I sort of stopped caring, however. Either I'll freeze and/or starve to death as a homeless, or the police will finish me eventually once the system has been properly established. I tried to warn everyone who could possibly be at risk. They seem to be unaware.

Gimme a headless squirrel

2010-09-17T20:39:00.001+02:00

Flower or fruit; lies or death. This could be a fucking great goth game or comic book if it wasn't real. Because in reality, it is baaaaawring.

Here, have some nifty antro stuff.

Meh.

2010-09-16T11:40:00.000+02:00

Shitstoooooorm!
1) trial bullshit is over, I can get back to school. Admin hell ensues, though, so, fuck them. I mean, give me a break. I've been working my butt off last month, and now this? While I was expecting to be liquidated? Not that I have illusions though, I may be out of every organization but a colourless heart is more dangerous than a red one, because it enables you to think, and no totalitarian system likes that. So I'll be expecting other mock trials and harassment in the following year. (Colourless? Yes. I hate the right like an ex-alcoholic hates booze, and the counterweight is weak, lame, discredited, so I'm left with no affiliation.)
2) had my first heterosexual experience, not very exciting, it was more fun than you know, sexual. But I guess another task ticked. And from now on I'm less likely to get triggered by a boner. Not that I will see that many boners in my life, but, just in case. Being handicapped down there doesn't feel that good but what the fuck ever, we managed.
3) fucking tired. And the day isn't over yet. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!

Change your thoughts and you change your world

2010-09-08T00:08:00.000+02:00

Expounding further on the theme of the last post, perhaps with more clarity: Maybe I got it wrong with my concept of worth. Maybe deserving to live is simply being amoral and aggressive enough not to sacrifice ourselves. It is a scary thought, but as usual, emotions do not make things either true or untrue. If I had my way, the world would be very different indeed, but omnipotence is not in my possession. It is obvious that worth is a human construct, but human constructs are especially designed (and here that is a literal design, by human intelligence) to counteract natural pressures and impulses. T.H. Huxley's fight against evolution? Hell yes. But we have a dual nature. One is fighting with Huxley, being the newcomer in the arena, the bold challenger. The other is fighting to stay alive, as it always did since life itself began. And both are part of us humans in an insoluble, inseparable way*. There is no good or bad side, because the very thing we call our "moral nature" or "ethics instinct" is part of the Huxleyan side, embedded in its core, with all the value judgements - and indeed, even the ability to make value judgements. Predators are not evil; and evil people do not see themselves as evil either. They are simply independent of the whole good/evil dichotomy, doing what they are driven to do by their own desires and objectives, orchestrated by billions of years.

The problem is with consciousness, more specifically planning skills, and the need for purpose that comes with it. This hunger for purpose generates discomfort and prevents us from saying that we kill because want to, or because it feels good - rationalizations appear, from nutritional needs (for extraspecies killing) to tribalism clad in "respectable" colours (for intraspecies killing). We condemn wanton murder for the sake of pleasure as the sign of "something is wrong with you" - indeed, the very word wanton carries a pejorative tone. And the same goes for sexual activity - until very recently, both culture and religion taught everyone the damaging doctrine that it is for creating other humans, or for keeping marriages together, or for the manipulation of the opposite sex, etc.; for some other purpose than the orgasm that comes with it. Indeed, the eye-opening book The Ethical Slut is mainly about the notion that while the orgasm was treated as a side effect by most societies in the past, it is far from being auxiliary. The underlying philosophy of the book is that pleasure is the main point, and moreover, the only point needed. If that is true, there is no need for any other reason for sex and a range of other activities than the pleasure they engender. And therefore, no need to justify every individual's existence: no such thing as a life unworthy of life. That is an even scarier thought, for it equates the criminal with the honest worker, and the bimbo with the scientist. A great equalizer, that devalues us all - elevates the wretches, but renders the laurels meaningless. Stockholm is not a goal anymore; an orgasmic world record is. And yet, via mutualism and reciprocation, this way of thinking may work just as well (or even better) as the doctrine of worth, if the aim is "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers". And what other goal is there? There is no outside source of goals and purposes, their only wellspring is the human mind, and every human mind desires happiness.

As I said, being raised by down-to-earth labour-minded people on one hand and the NS ethos on the other hand, this conceptual horizon is scary and alien to me. But it certainly has its merits; and as a bonus, it allows me to continue my life as long as I find pleasure in it. And despite the major problems with my life, from the embarrassing lack of mathematical talent through the almost just as embarrassing lack of a penis to the eternal conflict with other people (some of whom I am fond of and still disagreeeing with, and some of whom I plainly can't stand), I have never stopped liking to live, enjoying the experiences that can only come through existing. While my stance on euthanasia rights does not change by this admission (because a right is not an obligation), my personal eagerness to exercise that right may be diminished. And I can assure you, this is not chickening out. I mean, just think about it! Life is immensely scarier than death. It's more complicated, more wearying, and it takes more effort. Even (or especially?) if one has no useful skills whatsoever. Also, that is not to say that if opportunity presents itself to me in the form of access to a painless, simple death, I won't take it (but where is that access in this world of overprotection?**) - because as I stated it earlier, the choice is always between two or more ways of death, not life and death in itself, at least until biological or cybernetic immortality isn't realized by science.

What is, then, implicated by this new point of view? That is not yet clear; I am uncertain whether I should even adopt this attitude, and I certainly won't without examining it more thoroughly. One thing is clear, though. While nostalgia might seize me from time to time, I'm drifting further and further away from my original mindset - while the majority of people in the political world are getting closer to it again. I always seem to go in the opposite direction than that of the majority; not sure what that means or why is it so, but so did Mark Twain***, so maybe it's not a stupid tendency to have.

*: "I have studied human culture in its many forms all night: you are warped by evolution, trapped in bodies made to fight..."
**: More on that later, as soon as I can get around to translate the thoughts shared with me by another thinker.
***: "When you find yourself in agreement with the majority, it's time to reform."

Taking it easy is harder than you think.

2010-09-07T16:21:00.003+02:00

Ever since I know what a mature tag is, I've wondered why sex and violence are both "wrong" to do, and even more "wrong" to show, depict, promote, study, etc. - they both arouse people.
Next problem: why is arousal bad? I mean, it's good for your health, if anything! And for your creativity. Why the shyness around it then?
Well, obviously, in both sex and violence there are two parties: the one who does the damage and the one who suffers it. Most people don't want to suffer, and the most reluctant will be even willing to sacrifice their own pleasure.
What we all have missed along the way somewhere is that indeed, both can be mutually pleasurable. It requires skill and attention, for sure, but it's possible. So... why still the bans and restrictions?

I wouldn't be surprised if the main culprit behind this was that old preserver/cultivator of obsolete hatreds and fears: religion. And yet, even religion incorporates certain sexy and/or bloody scenes. Especially the popular monotheistic ones with their shared vindictive, childish, tyrannous god. He is an insecure Dom whose subs rebelled and now he is jealous. Of course he is jealous, because he doesn't want his subs to feel pleasure through anything else but his own, when he tortures them. He doesn't want other Dom(me)s around. But that reveals his weakness: you don't want others around only if you fear you cannot defend your position against them, cannot face a challenge. And the reason why he cannot face a challenge is that he is fictional, while his challengers are real. Deep down, even the most devout know that. Then why serve the weak master still?

It's hard not to care about someone that owned and tortured you since birth. Even if you hate them, you cannot ignore your parents, for example. So even if people hate this pathetic god, they still abide by its rules unconsciously, just as an adult who knows hir parents are dead but still doesn't do (or even think about!) the things they forbid hir to do. The road to freedom is hard, and involves a lot of really confrontational stuff. It is the way of losing the false self-control and gaining a real one. The self-control that uses fear to prevent you from having an experience is false; the one that subdues fear by calculation and patience is real. You can't learn it without practice. Even if practice involves strangling your pets and having sex with your friends (or strangers), it is essential. It's like physical exercise, the more you do it, the better you get. And the more pleasure you draw from it.

This way, though, will lead you to survival. A life without conscience. Those who really have a conscience commit suicide - but you can live without it and still be considered a "good" person. Why? Because helping other people also benefits you in the long run, and contributes to your pleasure. If you aim for long-term stuff, you can get much more pleasure than in one single irresponsible act. Of course raping and gutting some random girl is very pleasurable, but you will pay for it in pain - for the pleasure of others. It's an economy of transactions. The aim is to maximize income (pleasure), and minimize costs (pain). There are mutually beneficial transactions, and there are one-sided ones. One-sided transactions tend to get you in trouble. Mutually beneficial ones will get you ahead. In other words, you will do good because it feels good, not because "it's the rules". And nobody will spot the difference - only you, experiencing a greater realm of personal growth and a greater freedom.

The best part is that it doesn't really matter at all, since you are sentenced to death already. So is everyone else. So why not have fun in the meantime? You can't get the world rid of pain, but death eventually will. Ease the way - either by pain relief or by bringing the end close, whatever fits your tastes.

Politically correct bullshit.

2010-09-06T20:29:00.000+02:00

As many have tried to made clear, racism is scientifically unjustified, ergo pointless, and therefore should not be exercised even if it was not ethically questionable (and that's putting it mildly).
But what the "liberal" crowd infers from this is ridiculous. Whenever I mention eugenics for example, some people will inevitably jump at me, assuming I have a racial basis for it. Well, newsflash, I don't. I recognize how stupid it would be, how contrary to the facts. If you confuse eugenics with a racist agenda, no matter if you oppose or support it, you are bloody wrong.
The original idea was that if dogs, pigeons and livestock animals could be bred for certain traits, why not humans. Well, why not indeed? Unfortunately in the early 20th century we didn't have a coherent theoretical or empirical basis for genetics yet, let alone any inkling of how do genes actually work. This allowed certain people and groups to latch onto the traditional ways of thinking at the time, which were riddled with racial prejudice, and develop pseudoscientific agendas around it, which weren't based on reality and, therefore, failed. In fact, failed epically, though it could have been a good start. But it seems that the experimental blunder scared us so fucking much that we abandoned trying altogether, and the concept of eugenics, with all the good intentions, got equated with the boogeyman of violent racism and totalitarianism - even though there were and are totalitarian, oppressive, primitive, unfairly discriminative systems and cultures all over the place that have nothing to do with it. It's just tragic bad luck that the one that got the most famous was the one that did.
Seriously, people, get educated. No matter which "wing" you are, that's no excuse for blatant ignorance.

And for fuck's sake, get rid of the "everyone has a right to exist" platitudes. Nobody with half a brain can buy into the idea that a child with Duchenne or mental retardation has exactly the same utility/contribution to society than a surgeon or engineer. Weeding out genetic garbage does not equal violence or even abortion - proper screening can avoid even the conception of damaged kids, so no "killing" whatsoever is required.

Identity = job description?

2010-08-31T11:44:00.000+02:00

The most fundamental things my parents instilled in me, probably unwillingly, is that if you don't have a job, you don't have an identity, you don't have validity as a citizen and human being. Being honest industrial labourers both, with a peasant background, they represent (among other things) the ethos of "earning your own bread" as we say here. The peculiar thing is that I never realized, until going to Budapest for higher education, that there are people (and how many of them!) who don't share this attitude, and took it absolutely for granted. The world of flexibility and freelancing scared me because it meant an uncertain "existence" - I put that word into cat's claws because here it means a very specific thing instead of the philosophical thing it does usually mean in English: financial stability, a good socio-economic status, and the people who lose those for whatever reason we call "slipped existences". "Slipping down" implies that everybody has a financially stable background, which is false of course, but it's still assumed. When I conceptualize freelancing, which I am a part of now, as a translator, it presents a visual image of a series of short illuminated patches on a dark highway, as seen in many places where public lighting is not so perfect. In the darkness you don't see where the next patch of light will come, or will it come at all, and how long will it last. It is not as scary as it was but still not a "real thing". It means that I don't make much long-term plans because (and I think this, honestly) I can die any day, suddenly abandoned by contractors. This of course means that I have a pretty strong work ethic compared to many of my fellow freelance translators on the local market - companies are known to be suspicious of student workers especially because they tend to be unreliable people who don't take it seriously enough. This collective misbehaviour makes it hard for everyone involved to find contractors, not only the irresponsible ones. There have been instances when I had to use my mother's name and details, because they were not willing to accept a 19-year-old.

Now many people tell me that this attitude is wrong, and there is more to life than sustaining it. There is some truth to that, and there is another part of my personality which feels that there's gotta be more purpose to one's activities and existence than earning money; more in terms of social usefulness (a.k.a. the thing I call "worth" which can be summarized as "contribution to scientific and/or technological advances, therefore by extension to the collective effectiveness and the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers"), and in terms of personal fulfillment (often termed "wasting time" in this household) as well. These three things are often in conflict. My mother, who has given me the work ethic, cannot understand how there can be anything "more to life"; we had arguments where I expressed a strong desire to be mathematically competent and she responded by basically saying "you can sustain yourself perfectly this way as well", totally missing the point. I mean, self-sustenance is necessary to do other things, but it cannot be everything.

That said, I probably finish the current chapter in two days, send it, sign the contract, and then, if there are no further requests made by my current contractor, hopefully go back to Budapest to die. I suspect there will be problems again, though, for I can go back and have a place to stay at only if the university administration has decided in my favor in that ugly politically-motivated suspension trial thing, which is still an unknown factor (and this is already registration week). Well, these two simple people won't ever be able to be trusted with not interfering, so I'll have to wait for privacy. And in the meantime, I'll explore further the nature of conflict between the various values and objectives I've been taught and/or influenced by.

A Deathvocate's Manifesto

2010-08-29T14:44:00.000+02:00

"Radical" dying-rights activism: why I got into this and how we can work together?
"We're all dying, with me it's just accelerated", said Christopher Hitchens. If y'all understand that statement, y'all understand why I treat this issue like I do. It's incredibly surprising and confusing that most of my opponents (including my parents) seem to lack awareness of the fact that nobody is an exception, that all of us will eventually die and the only thing we can do about it is try to ensure that it happens in acceptable circumstances. (What those circumstances are, let each decide for hirself, or, in PZ Myers' words, "a person should be able to face his end in his own way" - it is a very personal matter after all.) Living things, by the very nature of the mechanism that shaped them, are all imperfect - in other words, unhealthy. There is nothing in a human (or any other species') body that couldn't be improved upon, it's just that there are limitations to improvement in nature (cost-effect economies, the consequences of the lack of foreshight in evolution, and so on, we all know those at least to a basic extent). Some of these imperfections are more or less immediately lethal, others are merely inconvenient, even others are gradually eating away at us, but nevertheless, we all are affected by a horde of little things that will eventually make us bite the dust. This is what I and a few advocates like me mean when we say "terminal illness is an undefinable term", nothing more, nothing less.

It seems stating the obvious is increasingly necessary nowadays. Let me make one thing very clear for you. I'm not doing this on this blog and other places because I enjoy it. On the contrary, activism for me is pretty annoying. But since there are so many people who still don't get it or even deliberately reject to understand, I have to respond to them. And not out of personal grievance - while it is true that I had to waste a ridiculous amount of effort to have at least some alternatives at hand and gather valid information about various ways of dying in a way that I find acceptable for myself, I can see that part of the effort being fruitful in the not-too-distant future, therefore I'm not bitching about it. What does bother me though is that the general atmosphere in this subject is mostly hostile, making things hard for others who aren't as persistent and/or resourceful, and of course creating a situation of unfairness society-wide, which for some reason gets my goat in every other context as well. I suspect there are the following reasons for this hostility.

One, of course, is the influence of religious fanaticism which is even present in places one would not expect - such as the minds of atheists. One of my friends wrote this about that peculiar phenomenon: "Even the athiests, who are, after all born and raised in this icky Judeo-Christian infused western society, suck in lots of rot as they grow up, even if they otherwise don't believe the deity angles that the religions espouse. I think there are also lots of atheists who are so as a matter of rebellion, not so much as a true conclusion based on intellectual investigation, etc. This is why the traditional type of cultural anthropology is so instructive; i.e., looking at vastly different cultures. Not all of the bad crap of western civilization is by any means 'inherent' or 'universal' in homo sapiens per se. For example, matrimonial or sexual jealousy isn't universal to cultures. And homo-sexuality (MM and/or FF or both) has not been considered a 'problem' in all cultures - e.g. ancient Rome, Greece, American Indians. But I do think the phobia is much exacerbated by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which, after all, has roots in a 'jealous god', stupid prohibitions on food/sex/etc and all that old testament stuff." An obvious reason for this is that old habits die hard, and values die harder - as I noticed by self-observation that some of the core values of my national-socialist 8-year-old self are strongly present in my thinking still (such as the competency-based evaluation of people, the high regard for efficiency, a preference for things and people belonging to each other to be alike, basic modes of thinking like this which aren't comprising the ideology itself but a certain susceptibility to it). Angie Jackson as a cultist-turned-atheist has some excellent discussion of this issue (among others) on her blog and YouTube channel.

The next probable reason is intellectual laziness and/or reluctance caused by fear. For obvious evolutionary (and sometimes cultural) reasons, everybody is at least a bit afraid/averse of dying, or some circumstances generally associated with it (such as pain). This in itself is not a problem. It becomes a problem when it turns into a strange denial as described in the first paragraph. This denial can take several forms, both religious and secular, but the core of it alwas seems to be the belief that end-of-life decisions, especially in "healthy" cases (which I have described to be meaningless already - sometimes I call it the "not sick enough" excuse) involve a decision between life and death. Seems common sense enough, but if you just think about it instead of mentally turning away immediately, it becomes clear that no, the decision is always between two (or more) ways of death because one way or another, it will eventually come even if the person in question does not take any measures to hasten it (or even if xe takes all measures available to avoid it). This is the reason why those who say they support this right for the "sick enough", but not for everyone, are fundamentally hypocritical and/or inconsistent, and I don't oppose them just because I don't agree, but because they make mistakes in their reasoning. (I have met people from that "mild", non-radical branch of pro-euth activism who didn't even take the effort to construct an argument, just said something along the lines of "just because" or "because that's how I define the term euthanasia". Intellectually lazy much?)

Another obstacle is the lack of personal connection to the issue. Just as in the case of organ donation, where the opt-in system has failed because of public indifference and lack of interest, here also we face the "none of my business" attitude. Well, if you don't think of your future, or don't have any problems in your life, probably the solution for those problems does not concern you. But everybody can be affected from one day to the next, if a medical or financial crisis strikes them, or their way of thinking changes, or somebody they are close to is considering end-of-life measures, or for a variety of other reasons. Within the context of the new healthcare reform in the US (still not with the respect of dying rights, but with respect to other medico-legal issues such as insurance and abortion, which are issues similar in structure), this is currently being realized (and by fringe groups such as the Tea Party, the realization violently opposed), and that could be a great example for our specific agenda as well.

And last but not least, probably the most vile and despicable obstacle to this cause is the deliberate mischaracterization of euthanasia supporters by certain politically, financially or otherwise motivated opponents. The so-called pro-life movement doesn't neglect an oppostunity to undermine our goals and to cast us in a false light in the eyes of the public. Against this, we have no other defense but clear communication. Here I made an attempt to counter one type of these attacks already, but it's more than likely that one such rebuttal will not be enough. I, among others, have been godwinned, quotemined, strawmanned and threatened many times - and if you are getting into this battle, you better expect those blows too. But even if the opposition resorts to this kind of behavior, we must avoid to answer in the like. Honesty and clarity will eventually cut through the bullshit, while reciprocating trollish behaviour only increases tension and hostility. That is not to say we always have to be impeccably civil, though. PZ Myers has a brilliant article on how too much niceness can be detrimental to one's cause - we should take that to heart, so to speak.

There is a long road ahead. Probably some changes will occur in the issue at hand when immortality becomes technically feasible (which I am just as much in support of, being a moderate transhumanist). Probably success will happen in a step-by-step way, the Swiss/Holland model being the beginning and full Soylent Green-style equal rights being the end. But at least we have begun.

A martyr I can truly revere

2010-08-25T12:12:00.000+02:00

The case of Alan Turing is a powerful reminder for me that even though I'm strongly in support of the right to take one's own life in a convenient way, I'm just as opposed to the circumstances which may force people to do so. In this case, an unnecessary and immoral law put a valuable person in such an adverse situation that suicide was truly the only way out. For most people, it is not the only way out, but the most optimal choice, or a voluntary act of charity. But there are suicides that can be prevented simply by altering the circumstances in a mutually beneficial way. Having a right should not mean one is forced to exercise that right - that would be the same "choice" that Christianity presents its followers with: choose God or get tortured for eternity, but it's your decision; or that an assailant presents its victims with: give me your money or die. I am not condoning this. Unfortunately, that doesn't make the problem go away, and the conventional ways of suicide prevention just make it worse. Advocates of such prevention would put Turing through the very same adversity and in addition deny him the opportunity of escape by constant supervision or some other equally cruel means. What they want is imprisonment - what I want is a workable alternative, and the honest admission that sometimes there is no such alternative, because it would have to be forced upon the individual, and forcing life on someone is just as inhumane as forcing them into suicide (like it happened to Turing).
As for the so-called mental illness caveat, I have but one thing to say. It is, in most cases, a shameless lie - an artefact of one's own prejudices, that facilitates the abovementioned imprisonment by conjuring up the nebulous authority of "medical consensus". In reality, there is no consensus in this matter - but those who speak up in favour of human rights are endangered by the law and by social exclusion, as it happened to Dr. Kevorkian, who is just as great as a medical hero and as a human being (if not greater) as George Tiller was, and indeed could have easily met the same fate. Of course some pseudoscientific circles vigorously deny that any other way of thinking but the way of the majority is flawed - but I'll show you through an example of my own how misleading and superficial their arguments are.
Yes, I have been called depressed as well as many other things; while the reality of the matter was that I had a different opinion than the interviewer expected. It is not a "chemical imbalance" that I truly hate being hindered by dyscalculia and femaleness, and I am appalled by and opposed to certain things that currently happen in the world. That is a clear statement of preference, and if it does make me feel sad, it is just right - what is left of freedom if one is not even allowed to feel things about world affairs and personal predicaments? My standards may be unusually high, I admit: if I had my way, there would be no oil spill because we'd use renewable energy sources and nuclear power instead of oil and coal already; nobody would have to be born into a poor family because poverty would be eliminated; nobody would have to be born disabled, sick or stupid; nobody would have to endure harassment for who they love or what colour they are or any other attribute they cannot control; and nobody would have to endure debilitating diseases or the slow degradation of aging. And while these problems aren't solved, complete happiness is not only impossible, but immoral and inconsiderate. The most saddening thing however is not the presence of bad circumstances in itself, but instead the human reluctance to fix them. And these humans tell me I should not be disappointed, because if I am, then my mind is disordered and sick! This is the same attitude that forced Turing to die. He was a force of good in this world, and was ruined by his fellow countrypeople for loving someone. And we should never forget this terrible example, or else we became callous, "mentally healthy" humans ourselves.

Ain't that the bloody truth.

2010-08-17T17:29:00.000+02:00

Sanctity of life?

2010-08-17T15:44:00.000+02:00

Just curious: how do people dare refer to the sanctity of life (for present purposes disregarding the fact that sanctity isn't even properly defined as a concept) while they routinely destroy other organisms to protect the health of the human body? Nature doesn't care about the sanctity of life either - if it would, there would be no evolution, because there wouldn't be death. That in itself is not an argument (basing ethics on nature is inadequate and even impossible in some respects), but as a consequence of that the very people who cite this sanctity business most often are habitually killing bacteria and worms and various other kinds of stuff lurking inside their clients - whose life, apparently, is more sacred than any other life being destroyed in the process. If you are going to be human-centric, then say it out loud, that you are talking about the sanctity of human life only. But then what is the basis of your human-centrism? Is there any basis of such human-centrism, indeed? Sure, we are pretty smart and in many respects the most spectacularly successful and ambiguous species on this rock, but should that mean that only our life is "sacred" while everything else should just go extinct? How does that fall in line with your benevolent-sounding platitudes about "doing no harm"?
I'm consistent because I don't hold life itself to be sacred, but the right to life - which truly means the ability to decide whether to retain or to reject it. Your crime is not only a lack of compassion or a pesky authoriatianism; no, you are inconsistent in your principles. And self-contradiction is ultimately self-defeating.

Family matters, again

2010-08-16T16:02:00.002+02:00

The moving is practically done, with the heavy furniture having been hauled in today. There isn't much organization in the house yet, but that has never bothered me before, and it doesn't bother me now. However, mom is pretty hysterical over this because she seems to require spatial order and a proper place for everything, plus some nebulous thing called "cleanliness" which I've never been able to conceptualize exactly. And what's worse, dad is starting to be infected by her needs. Yesterday he told me off for walking around barefoot because apparently that causes my feet to carry dirt around (so what?), so I guessed he hates me just as much as anybody else, but then he got 100 ml of vodka as a present from mom's old classmate (who is an unbelievably close-minded twat but helped mom with the hauling), and he became normal again. I feel uncomfortable when mom is nervous/irritable like now, because I never know why. I mean, the only person she can have a problem with is me, but I've been my wretched self and generally an annoyance for her for twenty-one years now as a constant, and she wasn't always like this, so it's as if there was another reason, except there can't be another reason. Maybe the level of her annoyance over the fact that she didn't react quickly to her pregnancy is fluctuating as her ability to remember the incident is fading in and out. (That possibility still creeps me out, though.)

Yesterday I got one of those weird evening heat things. It most typically consists of my head aching a bit (which gets better while I'm standing and worse when I sit or lie down), and then I start to feel hot like hell, but can't sweat, even if I drink bottles of cold water. The colder I get the better I feel, but I can't seem to get cold enough, even though my outside temperature is normal to the touch (dad says). And my palms are feeling brittle. I handle it by having a long cold shower and then wait till it's gone or try to sleep. When I have taurine in my system, I never get these heatwave things, although I've had them before I started consuming it (even as a preschooler). When I dance, I can sweat, in fact I sweat so much that it feels like I was standing in rain. Sometimes I need to close the door, turn on some "destructive" music and jump around, just to feel healthy. Music (mostly the lyrics on the conscious level, but I guess it's the whole thing together) helps with articulating my feelings so I can process and understand them enough to decide which one to act on and which to ignore. I did this thing yesterday too. But afterwards the heat thing and fatigue caught me hard. I have no idea what causes this, but I suspect that it has to do with my delayed inner time (I can't fall asleep without chemical assistance before midnight and feel sleep-deprived if I get up before 10-11 o'clock no matter how much hours I did actually spend asleep), avoidance of strong light (especially sunlight), and that weird "neon-green sky" craving feeling. These have been with me ever since I can remember. I didn't even know what the hell the neon-green sky was at first, I thought it was on another planet or something. (At my first student job, the corn harvest, fellow kid workers laughed at me for telling them I thought I was an alien.)

My parents seem to be a bit calmer now after a few hours of interacting and furniture-arranging. This is most typically due to two things: household activity of any kind tends to soothe mom and drive her focus away from problems (i.e. me), and if mom is calmer, she bothers dad considerably less, and because he doesn't like to move or, especially, to be rushed, this causes an improvement in his mood as well. I'm in between them in these respects: being rushed or ordered around causes me to feel stressed (especially if I'm trying to do things of my own in the meantime), though to a lesser degree, but inaction sometimes does as well, though I can play games, so I rarely feel inactive, while mom can't, so she is frequently restless (and by can't I mean not just a difficulty in learning to use technology, though that is most definitely present, but an inexplicable unwillingness as well - it's as if she didn't want to do enjoyable things at all or were a masochist using cleaning and similarly distressing activities as pleasurable self-punishment).

There is a dog and a cat here as well, the dog being an absolute attention-whore with all criteria of ADHD being applicable to his behavior, and the cat being pretty much... normal to my perception, which might further prove the point that most cats exhibit Aspergian traits.

Holy texts

2010-08-13T01:48:00.000+02:00

A Christian friend argued that we received life from an external source, therefore it's not our business to decide whether we keep it or not. Long, biblical reference-ridden email.
I replied with Amendment #13 saying nobody is anybody's property and "if you use a manual for ethics, don't complain that i use another one".

Well, is there a better rebuttal against scripture-based reasoning than showing that your scripture is at least equal to that of your opponent's? :-)

Cool...

2010-08-08T19:58:00.000+02:00

What the bleep? My laptop fixed itself?
Also, calming down. I may have overreacted. She says all old people are forgetful... well, maybe, but I'm not! Anyhow... until she doesn't want it, I can't help her, so that's it. Now all I need is patience until I can get on with the plan about my own ending - and I'll have some translation work in the meantime as things look like, meaning the money for the plan is no problem. Phew.

By the way, if you still don't get my agenda, read the newest poem batch. Also, watching my favourite people on Youtube has a very strong anxiolytic power, lol :-) Also, I'm not the only one who closed/deleted a blog because of hateful idiots. The chick I affectionately call Wondermom had to do that as well when they started to harass her kids. Shame on them. :-/

Plus congratz to my Californian readers on the overturning of that bullshit Prop 8! Step by step the whole world will come into the 21st century, if we stay strong! Much love from this effed up country :-)

sigh

2010-08-08T18:15:00.000+02:00

Faulty battery, turns off at random, so just a heads-up. I might have overreacted mom's forgetfulness - plus she changed her mind and doesn't want to get her problem solved. That means we're back to the previous status quo, if with a little more worry.

The big A is here; I'm scared.

2010-08-07T10:35:00.000+02:00

She could not remember a conversation we had a week ago. When I realized that this wasn't acting, this was true, the walls of denial came tumbling down, collapsing upon my head.

A thousand times rather her violence, anger, hatred, clumsiness, weakness, death, ANYTHING else! For someone who values intellect over everything, this is the most terrifying thing to witness, even seeing it happen to a stranger would scare me shitless. But considering that I have half of her genes... meaning I have a great risk as well...

Now we both need to die, and quick, before this gets worse. And all this in a hostile world which would rather have us live as empty shells or die as inhumanely and painfully as possible. And you dare to say into my face that I'm the crazy one?!

Woo hoo, hatemail!

2010-07-26T13:16:00.000+02:00

I got the following interesting message recently:
"Individuals with AS have moods just as complex as anyone else. AS involves problems with social communication, it doesn't entail being a goddamn Vulcan. Stop pretending you have AS, you pathetic fake tourist."

Heh. First of all, Vulcans have moods like everyone else - except a lot more intense and harder to control, which is why they undergo special training to achieve a high level of rationality and self-restraint. AS does entail (for most) self-control issues. Some cope by adopting the Vulcan strategy, at least partially. Secondly, "problems with social communication" is a standard textbook definition, which touches only the surface. The underlying causes of these are differences in sensory and emotional experience. This is not only the medical consensus, but my experience confirms it too - and I have an official AS diagnosis. Actually, two of them. May I scan the papers for you? Thirdly, where did I say that Aspies don't have complex moods? Can you quote it? Heck, I sometimes can't even define what mood I'm in, it gets so complicated - moreover, it changes minute by minute sometimes. I go some periods without any particular mood, though. But that is by no means all the time. Maybe moodlessness in itself is a mood, because consciousness is present. But I never said we don't have complex moods. However, we tend to utilize our rational faculties more, because we don't have social ones (at least ones that are compatible with NT social interfaces).
And... if you have to resort to name-calling like that to get a point across, you are the pathetic one. Go fuck yourself.

5x5 meme

2010-07-24T11:31:00.000+02:00

1. Five nicks/alteregos you used for a longer period.
Xena Yanistar, Odra Tralodor, Ryktan, rodiel, Lancet. In chronological order. The first two were offline separate identities.

2. Five facts about your home.
- My room (or at least my bed) tends to look like a murder scene; when I'm not going anywhere I rarely bother to get dressed or change "diapers" during "those days", plus there's always a bit of leakage after cutting.
- We are actually moving away from this place I'm in right now, to my dad's old cottage house where I get a room of my own, without heating!
- I grew up on the tenth floor, and that didn't help me get over my fear of heights.
- Sometimes (ok, rather frequently) I prefer the dorm than any of my homes. With the exception of the shared showers and loos that are freaking far away from my room.
- My room does not look organized to any other person but me. Mom's place looks organized to any other person but me. 'Nuff said.

3. Five songs that always make you dance.
Los - Rammstein
This Is Deutsch - Eisbrecher
Funeral Diner - :wumpscut:
Vienna Calling - Falco
Rock Me Amadeus - Megaherz
(there are more.... lol)

4. Five blogs you frequently read and/or love.
Pharyngula
Secular Watch (hungarian)
Antikrea/Facepalm (hungarian)
Angie The Anti-Theist
The World We Don't Live In

5. Five random facts about you.
- I'm afraid of bees since one stung me through my socks when I was about 3.
- All my first memories are from when I was about 3; I remember nothing before I could read.
- I didn't need nail scissors until I got into my teens and my toenails hardened. In other words, I've bitten my toenails for quite a long time.
- I used a C64 (in primary school), and an XT (at home around the same time) - and both were more reliable than a modern computer.
- I know what the Law of Fives is. Do you?

I tag anyone who reads this.

My first comment on FSTDT

2010-07-17T14:02:00.000+02:00

Quote# 23370
What is it about freedom that liberals hate the most?
It's an honest question.
1) "Global Warming" is just a way to implement international command and control for the sake of command and control.
2) Social(ist) Security is just a way to enslave the productive people for the benefit of the unproductive and lazy.
3) They want to judicially force gay marriage onto society.
4) They want to take away the freedom to keep and bear arms.
5) They want to pull out of Iraq.
The list goes on and on.

1. Nope. Look at the data for yourself. I bet you like to see birds die in oil, too?
2. Most people are out of work because they either can't find work or can't find employers who don't discriminate against them (I'm talking about all the colored, female, lgbt, middle-aged, or disabled social security users here, some of whom are my friends - they are superb workers but nobody believes that on the interview because of prejudice). I won't comment on the elderly because I'm a pro-euther, but you obviously never been out on the workforce market trying to sell yourself in a recession.
3. Don't want gay marriage? Don't get one. Seriously, where the fuck did you pull that out from? Is anybody forced into any kind of marriage? Nope, they want to get married, so they should be free to do so. QED.
4. Who wants that? I, for one, respect that right just as much as you do. Delusional much?
5. We should never have gone there in the first place - the terrorist problem is gotten worse because of our presence there and btw, Iraq had nothing to do with it in the first place, as the main organization is led by a Saudi guy who has last been seen in Afghanistan. As for the historical root cause, we should've left the Arab world the fuck alone from the start and not exploit it like some fucking imperialist bastards. Isn't the whole point of our country (e.g. the revolution) the rejection of imperialism? Meh.
Frank, you are ignorant. Which isn't in itself a bad thing, because it can be easily cured. Go learn something and then come back, but don't spew nonsense, please.

It really did get some things off my chest :-)

Bad news

2010-07-12T23:03:00.000+02:00

Oh, fuck no. I just learned that while I didn't get hurt this time after Pride, others did. I should be fucking dead with my brains kicked in on the street. I got home unscathed and somebody got hospitalized instead of me. Fuck you, bastards. This shouldn't be happening.

I'm just glad it's not the same everywhere....

I don't give a fuck 'bout my bad reputation

2010-07-11T20:35:00.002+02:00

Essay on rights and communication

2010-07-11T00:06:00.001+02:00

Oh, Pride March. Every year a day of overheat and exhaustion and meeting both awesome and obnoxious people from the hardcore Hungarian LGBT scene. Every year walking my feet sore and gathering a few rainbow trinkets while being protected from neo-Nazis by kevlar-clad police squads and metal fences. Every year my mother's anxiety and the inevitable burden on my friends to house me for a while. Every year being the toll-free interpreter and "the one with the scars". Every year having my photo taken by strangers and talking to foreigners. Every year new insights gained, friendships established, maintained or broken up. Today the insight can be summarized in a few paragraphs, like this:

It seems some people can't get the meanings of certain words and use them interchangeably without knowing what are they talking about. One group of such words is very emotionally-laden and if you're an activist type like me, comes up in everyday conversation so frequently that it makes common errors even more annoying.

I'm talking about rights - which are not to be confused with either duties or privileges. If a right is limited to an exclusive group of people, it is a privilege, thus it should be called that; if you are morally or legally obliged to do something, it is a duty, whether you have a right to do it or not, but having a right to do something does not mean you automatically are obliged to do it as well. For example, if you have the right to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex, it doesn't mean you are forced or even encouraged to do so, it just means you, and people of the same citizenry are able to obtain these things if you want or need them without any persecution resulting from your actions. That is often disregarded by the anti-abortion lobby or the anti-gay lobby, and even ordinary "people of the street". Similarly, if euthanasia is legal that doesn't mean it is mandatory.

With euthanasia there is a distinction whether it should be a right or a privilege and it's similarly glossed over by most people on both sides of the controversy. It is legalized in a few places but only as a privilege - and yet even most pro-euthers who don't think about it all that much or don't know better are satisfied with that, because the discussion is framed so that it's called a right when it is actually not. The right questions don't get asked. What makes elderly and terminally ill people more deserving of such an option? What makes them less likely to make a bad choice for themselves? Why should it even matter if a personal choice is bad or good from another person's perspective? Same line of argumentation that goes for abortion in cases other than rape and threat to life: What makes rape victims and women with life-threatening pregnancies more worthy of a basic right (the right to make decisions about their own bodies)? What makes them more able to make the right choice? Why does anyone else's opinion (other than the woman's) matter anyway? The legal issue was mostly settled in the case of abortion, not even began to be settled in the case of euthanasia, but the structure of the two issues is very similar.

With euthanasia however, things get a bit more complicated. It is in itself a right - "to die in a good way" as the Greek literally translates, the "good" way of course being up to each individual to define and choose. For some people the "good" way can even be the "natural" way, where no measures are taken to either lengthen or shorten their lives. For others, the "good" way might mean "at the end of a life as long as possible with present technology". These are all included in the word, as is assisted or non-assisted suicide in all of its forms. But the current legal definition (where there is one) makes euthanasia a privilege, as discussed above. Granting an option or opportunity for a minority (or majority, for that matter - the emphasis is on "not everyone") is pretty far away from making that choice a right. And of course it is entwined with the donation thing, which is a duty of any citizen by all means - and yet the law in most countries makes it only a right (which then doesn't get exercised because it is neglected - just human nature: people don't go out of their way to be altruistic, even if it takes 10 minutes and 2 signatures, if it's not mandatory; either they are busy, or superficial, or just plain ignorant, or whatever). This is the fundamental weakness of the opt-in system which led to organ shortages everywhere it has been implemented. The opt-out system is still not perfect because it allows certain people to, well, opt out, most often for religious or otherwise superstitious reasons, without any consequences (for example a small tax or fine, depending on how you want to call it), but it at least doesn't make the indifferent unvoluntarily side with the defectors.

If we want to understand each other, we need to work out these problems with legal and moral definitions and express ourselves more clearly. The obstacles to a healthy, sustainable, free society are often in our own vocabulary and in our own minds. These issues create a sense of disagreement where there is really agreement, and divide those who should be working in unity. It's really a shame to see many activist efforts fail because of nothing but wordgames played by sneaky people.

To Be Man Enough

2010-07-08T01:39:00.002+02:00

What makes a man?

When I was half my current height, I thought it's primarily about how strong your body is. I trained, and I fought, trying to defend myself and those who could not defend themselves in the cruel world of a working-class district's schoolyard. My dreams were all wearing camo pants and combat boots. I wanted to be tough, and nothing more.

But I could never be tough enough. No matter how much I exercised, how much I was kicking and biting and hitting them with sticks and bare hands, how much I struggled for survival, there was always an older guy, or a teacher, or a bunch of guys together, who stopped me. And then they told me I must stop fighting or I'll get kicked out of school, which would mean the only person I really feared would beat the shit out of me for good. My mother would've been so furious - I might have gotten killed. So I stopped fighting.

It was a sudden change, from one day to the next. But since then, I never did even as much as slapping someone in the face. Imaginary torture, grudges, yearnings for the day I can get back against everybody, loud words, kicking furniture, yes - but not a single person was hurt by my hand ever again. First it was out of fear, then out of habit, then I learned a lot and found out that this is actually something I can be proud of, that this is a greater achievement than a brawl victory ever could be.

I also learned there is greater torture than being bodily hurt, that bruises fade but lies can bruise my heart, that the world is not a straightforward arena of black and white fighters but rather a carnival of masks. And as my body changed, so did the mask I wasn't even aware of wearing. When I went down to the nearby liquor store, adult men who were frequent guests there started acting friendly. I thought there were welcoming me as a true friend, and I was ready to reciprocate - after all, I was always more comfortable with adults. But then my mother warned me: they aren't that great to be around. They don't want me, they want the budding woman... for nasty purposes. I didn't believe it at first, but she was persuasive.

For that I have nothing but gratitude now. But at the moment it scared me. I was scared that men will always see me as prey, not companion - all because what my body looks like. I was starting to realize my behaviour was not gender-appropriate. I was even more out of place than I thought. So I withdrawn even more, not even bothering to run a few laps around the house, settling down in lifestyle, gaining weight. I never cared about my weight, neither do I now. If anything, it makes me less attractive as a victim, so I even like it.

That's also when the need to write began. What I couldn't tell anyone I wrote down. I still liked the same things I liked before (well, most of them), and could find peace in solitude. But I sometimes wondered whether I'm somehow mistaken in my assumption that I should be treated equally, just like any other man, or whether I'm alone with these feelings. I started to ask girls around me whether they are bothered by being treated like a girl, and very few even understood what I might mean. I started to feel uncertain about this so I just shoved the issue into my mental bottom drawer until I can get more reliable information.

That happened when I stumbled upon homosexual websites. I decided what I was feeling was a kind of lesbianism, and that's it. But straight girls were still more attractive on a subliminal level - I was more likely to pick out the one straight girl in a room full of lesbians and start a conversation with her than anybody else. It wasn't intentional, nor even conscious. It was decided before I even checked them out. And I still was a bit more assertive than it was expected, so people were still acting weird around me. Later I learned they are afraid of me. That's ridiculous given that I would never hurt them, but try telling that to them! It seems so obvious that I'm dangerous that even evidence doesn't mean a thing.

Once my status as a dormitory inhabitant was in jeopardy. I went to the cheap parts of town to find a place I could rent - a shared room most likely, given my financial circumstances. I found the perfect one: a large room with 3 beds, highpeed internet, reasonable price, ideal location, and two guys already living there. They seemed quite cool, not too messy not too neat, not the kind of people who are loud at night, jut two eager students, and medical students at that, which would have granted them instant reverence on my part. However, they told me they have a problem with a girl living with them. Cutter - fine, we see blood everyday anyway. Poor - okay, we aren't millionaires either. Arts department - whatever, we're not snobs. But a girl? No way.

It feels wrong. Why I am any less of a person just because of a little monthly problem? Why am I supposed to be weak, timid and dumb? Why am I supposed to be striving for the attention of men and yearning to be their victim? Why does it mean I'm "unusually aggressive" when I act like my buddies from the counselor's? Why is it strange that I prefer jeans and a t-shirt to anything else? What the fuck is wrong with you people?!

I don't know what makes a man. It's not violence - that just makes a coward. It's not clothes - they only bring ridicule if they don't fit with the body they're covering. It's not merit or wit - I can be just as smart as any of them, and still not held in the same regard. But it's not genes either. Simply being born 46XY does not make you a man any more than ecstasy can make a man immortal. Many people who make that mistake die from it. But if that's true... being born 46XX doesn't make you a woman either.

Reasons

2010-07-07T15:19:00.002+02:00

Teasers and activities

2010-07-06T14:24:00.001+02:00

Central Europe Blues... or how knowing history can help understanding why your mom hates you. (You can read the rest of the convo as well if something's not clear using the "parent" link.)

This should also be included in my autobiographical book... and I also started a freethinking children's book, from which a sneak peek can be viewed here. (Yep, the characters are from my Facebook life ;-))

On Friday I'm going to Budapest to meet the lawyer and do Pride stuff - mom lifted the travel ban or the weekend. Hopefully I'll have a good time and some rest from home problems. (And get back to the flea market to find some reich-gear.)

So... that's why I'll not be posting much here for a while. No intention of discontinuing this blog - the troll couldn't even follow me here, probably he doesn't understand a word, lol.

Ignoramus Award

2010-07-05T17:41:00.000+02:00

I eliminated my Hungarian blog - some troll got the idea that being legally victimized by my school (yes, it's still going on, apparently entering a room to get your admin done is a great offense) is an absolutely great occasion to start harassing me online - by the way, he's such a moron that he, after repeated explanation, refused to understand that 1) I didn't break any rules, the actual cause of the dean incident was political, 2) this degree will not provide a justification for my existence, only a science one would. And he even made a site for the purpose of libeling me on the same address (which got promptly removed by the host portal). A quick googling revealed that his nick has been used against many random people on blogs and forums - a veteran troll with no productive hobby. Not at all a surprise. This is not the first far-righter I've ran into but this time I got enough. Those of you who are Hungarian and still want to read me, well, you'd better be intelligent enough to understand this blog as well. What I'm fed up with is explaining myself to people who have already closed their ears. It's a thoroughly pointless waste of time.

And yeah, I know you (the non-fucktarded readers and friends) are expecting me to be dead. So why not help with it? I was just as afraid underground as I am now; nothing really changes. In the shelter and later in the queue I held onto my mother, now I hold onto the internet with people like you. You know, I'm opposed to a horrible death and drawn to a calm one because there supposed to be peace but we somehow never get to know it. (Or maybe I'm just a coward, for not daring to use the window while I can. So be it. No one should be forced to use such things as windows. Even the big dogs responsible for this got their cyanide toll-free. Heck, they even had a trial while I was first caught without reason, and the second time born into a prison.)

Freaky Parent Incident

2010-07-02T23:46:00.000+02:00

Me :ok, what the fuck is going on
mom is an internet illiterate but just faked a panic attack and freaked me out so much that i had to tell.
how the fuck did she know?????
Fiona: oh my, sorry that I missed you, I was watching footie with Kev ...
You should consider the possibility that she was not faking!
Me: well, it's not been the first.
EVERY FUCKING TIME she knows everything beforehand
i was ten, and my dad hid some cash in his bed for me
he said it was for me ONLY
and she found it
even though my dad's bed was not touched by either of us under normal circumstances
she fucking got the idea to clean it
and found MY money
HOW????
Fiona: my mum always weirded me out with the amount she always found out ... it is indeed a freaky parent thing!
maybe your dad had hidden stuff there before, and she had found it ... therefore knew to look there when she felt like it?
Me: nope
he hid the bottles and things in the kitchen or in the wardrobe.
the wardrobe was full after he moved out.
empty vodka and cognac bottles.
Fiona: I confess to having hidden empty vodka bottles :-(.
Me: hehe :)
and now this. she called me over to her room
saying she's afraid of something but doesn't know what
and that she loves me and needs me and that she forbids me to go to Pride
because of a "bad feeling"
and i was thinking "wtf, i wasn't even going there, i was going to receive my helium canister and use it while she's at work"
but she made me promise like 50 times that i wouldn't leave her alone
so i got angry and confused and blurted it out
but i said i will wait until we've done moving out of this place
so basically 2 months
and then we'll discuss it again
thing is that i know she will never give permission - but how can i do it if i can't even keep a secret because she finds out anyway?
Fiona: You certainly seem to have a problem with this one - maybe there is something about how you are behaving that raises her suspicions (it may be something that you are subconsciously doing). After all, I really don't think she is likely to be psychic!
Me: this is fucked up, i'm beginning to get into the same situation you're in.
yeah, must be it
but what? maybe that i'm calmer and less likely to talk back?
or something even subtler?
(when i'm in the "ok, only a few more days to bear" mindset i mean)
i really don't know wtf do you guys think who i am btw
who would ever say to a piece of shit that i love you, i need you, etc?
and at the same fucking time she tells me "you're just not gonna be a scientist, you're not that type of person"
grrrrr
FIona: I guess she just doesn't want you to be disappointed ... you are not seriously calling yourself a piece of shit though!
Me: well, i can understand that, i was disappointed a bajillion times before
but if it's true, i *am* a piece of shit, and i don't like that either.
Fiona:
I know :-( ... I have to go right now into the shower, but I will be back in a while ... sorry that you have had such a frustrating time :-(
Me: ok, will be waiting... :)

Bitchin'

2010-06-30T21:06:00.000+02:00

Well, I discovered recently that my mom's radio-cd-tape-thing can also accept pendrives, if they are naked (i.e. don't contain anything else than mp3 files, not even firmware). So I rocked out to some Rammstein and In Extremo for a while. It was pretty cool, except for one thing. My tits kept bouncing and feeling weird. What the fuck are they doing on me anyway?
I used to withstand stuff like that better. Maybe it's the daily stress. Mom spends half a day at home, and most of that consists of watching TV. The noise is hard work to bear, even worse than being ordered around (I got used to that one a lot easier somehow). But what the fuck ever. I hope this job finally work out and I can die in peace. Peace! That would be awfully nice, since this household is pretty much a hole of chaos. And because of the flood I can't even go to the river to cool down a little.
LOL, though. I bought my first print ever from DA. I hope it arrives someday. =^..^=

A spell of freedom... even though I don't really believe in magic, somehow the Germanic tradition appeals to me (surprise, surprise). It might as well work now... lol.

Eiris sazun idisi
sazun hera duoder.
suma hapt heptidun,
suma heri lezidun,
suma clubodun
umbi cuoniouuidi:
insprinc haptbandun,
inuar uigandun.

No Effing Comment

2010-06-30T02:15:00.001+02:00

Me: "everything is sexual if you think hard enough. hehe, hard."
Fiona: you have a point Miss Freud.
Me: Miss Freud! LMAO!
(a gal i know would respond: "hmm almost, but there's another Austrian...")
(ikr...)
Fiona: bwahahaha!
Me: Eva eat your <3 out. XD
Fiona: she wouldn't have stood a chance against you, that's for sure.
Me: lol. nor would Lina :D
Fiona: you'd eat them all for breakfast.
Me: yay soylent green yum yum :)
........................
Me: google's your friend, wiki is your girlfriend
Fiona: oh, excuse me!
Me: (while Wicki the Wikinger was a male. LOL.) you know that show?
Fiona: I do not ... it sounds very geeky!
Me: well... it was about a wimpy kid among strong viking men... so kinda yup. oooooold German kid's cartoon. (no, not that old, but it was while cut in half.)
Fiona: don't think we got it on TV here.
Me: we did ^^ and space patrol orion too!
Fiona: that sounds cool!
Me: that's star trek for the DDR. honecktrek hahaha

The Cockiness of Poverty

2010-06-04T01:13:00.000+02:00

-Tickets please!
He cut through, as if sweeped by the force of the crowd. A finger poked his shoulder.
-Are you deaf?
They remained standing, though, and he didn’t get hurt. From the escalator, he looked back with naked disdain.
-Give Eleonora my condolences! – he shouted back. – I need my money to eat!
He liked to tease them, waiting for a response more characteristic of the government employees of his childhood: a bullet in his back. The old underground had a strange effect on him. Sure, changes were made but it was still the place he fell asleep in his mom’s lap on more and more nights as the raids came more and more often.
Of course, they never noticed. He was just another college fucktard to them, teen or early tween at best. And he did need the money to eat – more than the criminals who ran the traffic company and thanks to whom he ran frequently late from class.
It seems people like me will only be familiar with the oral wow-factor, he thought, sitting down as Beethoven’s Ninth drowned the noise out.

Temptation

2010-05-29T17:04:00.002+02:00

"And everything I long to do,
No matter when or where or who...
It's a sin"

The bananas are sitting on the table, winking at him like luxuriously dressed women, glimmering in the wearying summer sun as a pile of gold bricks. He is hungry, not having eaten for two days already, and he is eyeing them as covertly as a ten-year-old can... which is to say, not very. Mr. Ward is talking about something but his voice isn't getting into his brain, for all his world seems to be reduced to that stack of bananas, ripe and succulent...

- What is the problem, mister Ehren? You appear to be not listening.
- N-n-n-nothing, sir.
- Very well, then. So, after we began the series of events with a renunciation of love, at the end love is the very thing which redeems the world, and the fire of passion that cleanses it. Why do you think death is so necessary in that process? Anybody?... Mister Ehren, can you answer the question?
He doesn't know what Ward is talking about. He is bored, drenched in sweat, and utterly shocked by the question aimed at him. Love... he doesn't even know what that means. But death seems nearer than ever, as his stomach rumbles audibly, the noise amplified by the ancient walls of the lecture hall. That is his only answer.
- Hmm. Let the two of us stay here a while after class. Anybody else to answer?

And the teacher fades away again, the world being a ray of sunlight falling on some bananas on a table. He feels very light, and indeed, he is being lifted up, above the class, above the school, the clouds, the Earth... to Heaven, where everything is made of fruit, and the best fruit in Heaven is the banana. He stares in amazement and tries to taste them, but the deliciousness is futile, as his hunger is not going away. If anything, he is even more hungry, eating the heavenly produce. So he falls back to Earth rapidly, as if out of a window, and hope briefly seizes him: maybe he will die and then he can get to Heaven for real, to ease himself with wondrous fruit and never see teachers again.
But he realizes he was not going anywhere, when the bell finally forces reality upon him. And in that reality, the austere black eyes of Mr. Ward are staring, accusing, questioning.

- You have been very inattentive today. I will give you extra homework. - says Ward, and hands him a pile of papers. - But I would like to let you know: class is not for daydreaming, and another case like this may cause the deterioration of your marks.
He turns pale, as the image of wet wooden stirring spoons and bruised buttocks is evoked by the teacher's words. He knows Mr. Ward doesn't concern himself with the personal matters of his students, but he can't restrain himself any longer and starts crying.
- But mister Ward... I just wanted some bananas.
- Oh? Why won't you just come here and take them? - The man acts as if he didn't notice his tears. He organizes some papers and then... sits on the table, right onto the bananas.
- Come on and try.

He staggers forward, the lectern suddenly seeming taller than a mountain. Tolkien's Mount of Doom from a previous literature lesson comes to his mind. A dark lord, skin reflecting soul - but he doesn't dare to finish that thought. His face blushes with shame even at the half-thought. That incites a thought of self-reprimand, rather poetic for his age: no wonder only we can blush visibly, for only we need to.

He gets up there, and reaches under the teacher's butt. He cannot reach the fruit. He tries again, from a different angle, but to no avail.
- What's the problem, mister Ehren?
- Maybe... I'm too small... - he mutters. He wants to tell Ward to stand up, he wants to yell at him, but he feels too small for even that. He attempts straightening himself out. - I apologize for my behavior. It was inappropriate. Would you please let me go home now?
- You don't want the bananas anymore? Why?
- It's not that I don't want them... - he swallows the next half, "it's that you are preventing me to reach them".
- Then get them. They are right here.

He climbs up onto the table, using a chair. The creak of old furniture resounds in the hall like screams of dying men. He reaches under Ward once again, this time grabbing a precious-looking banana, puts his weight into the pull once, twice, and then he manages to get it out, and tries to open it...

It's made of plastic. As the realization sinks in, he collapses to his knees. Ward is ticking boxes on some paper, probably correcting a test.

He gets up and runs away, still crying, still clutching the fake banana, running through the corridor, running through the yard, running through the streets, running, until upon a hill he stumbles on a rock and falls. The banana slips out of his hands, flying against the sun, then disappearing into the bushes. He lies flat on his back, arms spread, like making a snow angel, and the sun beats down upon him, and he can almost see vultures circling overhead.

Being childish.

2010-05-29T00:02:00.000+02:00

Children do things that adults abandon simply because they become more developed and stop needing to do those things. Or at least that's what is expected. And yet, there are childish behaviors that stay active in so many people that I'm beginning to doubt the commonplace assumption that adulthood has anything to do with physical age. Such behaviors include, but aren't limited to having imaginary friends, getting involved in elaborate and ultimately pointless "love games", and basing one's entire "purpose of life" on someone else instead of finding it on one's own. The first one has been and is being addressed ad nauseam but, I suspect, it is only part of the issue. Instead of saying "there are some crazy people retaining their imaginary friends", we should say instead "there are some people who fail to grow up", because that's closer to the root cause.

I admit, the motivation for writing this is entirely personal and emotional. Things happened recently which, being trivial as they are, still ticked me off in a way that made me think about them. The first one was my father telling me yesterday that I gave "purpose and meaning" to his life and thus when he perceives me as successful (which by the way doesn't always coincide with me being actually successful from my own POV), he feels good and when he perceives me to be failing (which is again disconnected from my POV), he feels bad and that if I died, that would mean ultimate failure for him. I got so pissed off by that that I immediately ended the call, and I wasn't even sure why. And then it dropped.

This is what I wanted to say with the End Call button: What the heck?! You are 57 years old for fuck's sake. Aren't you supposed to have an own life goal? Or even more of them? You are acting like I was your mother or as if you were financially dependent on me. You and your ex-wife were nagging and bugging me for years to "just grow up" without any instructions on how to actually do that, and now you are displaying this lack of self-reliance... excuse me, but just grow the hell up!

Of course he'll never get it - this is not the first time this happened, more like the fiftieth. Precisely this is why it's so annoying. The futility of it, you know?
And the other one... well, it didn't piss me off, on the contrary, it made me realize why the first one pissed me off. It was a conversation with a female friend who... well, thinks in a female way. I just copy and paste the thing here.

"It's truly tragic Lilla, it's a couple who fancy each other to distraction but never get the chance to get it together ... marvelous, just like real life, hfh."
"Bwahahaha. In real life it's more like "I fancy you, but you don't notice me because you fancy a guy that doesn't notice you, because he fancies a girl who... etc"."
"Oh Lilla, you are such a cynic, but you are so right. You have to understand that I need my escapist fantasies to survive!"
"Nah, no fantasies are needed if you opt out of the love game altogether. :-)"

"I take your point Lilla, but I still hold out hope for you even if you don't! :-)"

Hope? WTF does this have to do with hope? She couldn't have possibly mean that she still thinks I would enjoy being addicted to someone like I had a babysitter or something, and moreover, that I'm secretly longing for that situation to occur! And then I realized this is probably the very thing she meant. Holy shit. She is also several decades older than me, the "should have known fucking better" category. Well, whatever. She's a good person and a good friend, but sometimes I get totally perplexed when she says stuff like this. I mean... when I experienced the whole "I fancy you, but you don't notice me because you fancy a guy that doesn't notice you, because he fancies a girl who... etc" business, I was a teen. 14 to 16 years old. At that age, people do silly things, like falling in love, doing drugs, throwing tantrums, refusing to eat, whatever, but most people get over them... at least that's what I thought. Um... I was wrong?

Maybe I'm just overreacting, being all tired and worn-out, but I'd expect people who expect me to act in a grown-up and responsible way to act that way themselves and co-dependency is not the way to that. Just my two cents.

Red and black

2010-05-28T10:32:00.001+02:00

Another attempt at making the world make sense, as almost all of my blog posts are, or at least the ones written in the pits of deep suffering (this time caused by internet draught and the exam period at the end of spring term which brings not only an anxiety disorder but uncomfortable weather as well). It calms me down for a while.

It always comes back to sex and death. Things I want to have nothing to do with and things that are denied of me. Sex means not only sex; it means obedience, conformity, social skills and the mindset needed to deploy them, fakeness, reputation, success as defined by others, interaction as defined by others, bureaucracy, rote learning, dog training, things that need no creativity, things that cause stress and despair, things forced upon me, restraints, constraints, rules with no meaning, authority, prohibition, being busy, deadlines, fear. Death on the other hand means not only nonexistence, but states resembling it: rest, tranquility, spare time, laid-back moments, poetry, a nonhostile environment, writing on a whim, dreaming, daydreaming, music, contentedness, leisure, swimming, water, the night, coldness, the aurora and all the ideas it engenders in me, a sense of security, a sense of finally not being late, not being under pressure, being free of obligation and judgement, the "extra credit" feeling when not the system dictates what to do but my own curiosity. Hurry versus stillness, drain and strain versus calm contemplation.

Why choose sex and death as the ultimate metaphors for these two poles? Because they are the most significant things in the life of a biological entity and because they come to mind first. What I know about sex is enough to reach the conclusion that doing it with other people could only lead to anguish - and yet, this would be expected of a typical person of my age. For me, it's not only hard to attain, but once attained, impossible to enjoy. If I play the girl part, that would mean being intruded where it hurts physically, and into what I'm ashamed of. If I play the boy part... oh wait, I have no equipment for that. Yes, I know, I could use toys but if it is not connected to my nervous system there is no way I feel it's a part of me. Call me unimaginative, but that just doesn't work. And that's only the physical thing; the other part is that mental attraction, which can make some kinds of social interaction pleasant with some people, makes it tough to be sexually aroused by them. If I know you as a person, I treat you as a person and not a sex object. If I see you as a sex object, I still know you are a person and as such, you'd be just as offended and hurt by any sexual advances as I would, so I stick to fantasizing about you. It's pretty easy because my impetus to avoid hurting people is a lot stronger than my sex drive. So I learned to deal with it by hand, and yet everyone is asking questions like "do you have a boyfriend?" and acting surprised/disgusted/regretful/weird if I respond truthfully, "no, and I don't want one either". It's as if it were natural to be raped regularly by the same guy. Yikes! As a result, sex is the ultimate "others do it, I avoid it" thing. Also, being born female, it would mean being controlled and subjugated to somebody, and my instinctive reaction to that is a swift kick in the groin.
As for death... it is everything which life isn't. It mostly represents change, departure from the constant aggravation and bother, a sort of holiday, being away from the painful things that make up "ordinary life". Since death in the literal sense is something we can never fully understand, because nonexistence by its very nature is impossible to experience, and we living creatures are defined by and constructed of our experiences, death in the metaphorical sense is everything that's unknown, outside, insofar unexperienced. It's almost as if I believed in an afterlife, which of course I don't, but I picture emigration as a sort of afterlife where there is no more a jarring contradiction between me and everybody else (even in such minor things as my night being their morning and my morning being their afternoon). This is not entirely realistic though; I believed Budapest to be a place where these daily stresses are ameliorated and I can finally focus on what I really want, and it turned out to be the opposite. It turned out to be my Vienna - the rotten core of a dead country where I encounter the choice of eating well or buying cultural products, where I have to face the fact that my ambitions and abilities are (to put it very mildly) not in alignment with each other, where I am placed in an academic environment which promises to be stimulating and turns out to be stifling. Due to financial factors, there is no way out except death, so death takes on a new expanded meaning: any kind of way out. I don't care if it is really death - it means life for a dozen or so people on the waitlist anyway -, but it's equally good if it is emigration into an environment that lets me be free (in the adult sense, setting my own rules and meeting my own expectations while not being instructed/coerced into following the rules and meeting the expectations of others); my Munich, if you like. (Except that it won't be a political environment - been there, done that, seen enough.) To follow the analogy further, at this point I would have to develop a strong racial awareness and an assertive worldview with a specific goal in its centre, but all I have is a vague idea of autistic (as which I define my "race") awareness which is only statistical and does not provide a foundation solid enough for a superiority program. Indeed, superiority itself is losing its meaning. While I still believe that the human species can and should be perfected by various means, I'm almost sure there is no group with only desirable traits in its present state. What I would need to work on is a medley of human characteristics, distributed unevenly and across racial or any other boundaries - but that is too complicated for a movement and an agenda to be built around it.

Why perfected? Perfection ensures peace - that's why it's in the "death" category. Peace is the absence of malfunction or danger. Paleolithic or even medieval people would know less peace than us because they had less control over their (physical and social) environment, because they knew less about it. Peace begins with knowing that there are no predators in the darkness and no randomly violent overlord coming the next day to take our food away. Some people feel this leads to stagnation and that in turn leads to regression. If that is true, why don't they go "back to nature" in reality as well as in words? Why do they use and expect the safety and comfort of the modern world to spread their ideas that oppose the very same amenities? That is self-contradictory.

The truth is, perfection seems not to be possible. Thus, the pursuit of perfection is the pursuit of the unknown, the insofar unexperienced - an effort to create/discover new kinds of experience. This is the very opposite of stagnation. And if perfection turns out to be possible, even if it's stagnant, it would be perfect, so why would stagnation at that point be bad? It only could change for the worse, right? And what if, like in Huxley's Island, perfection equals perfect adaptability: constant change to keep things ideal? It is by far the most likely way perfection could ever be possible, based on our current knowledge about how the world works.

An internet connection is perfect if it works: it doesn't lag or hang up, it is fast enough for user attention span, it is unrestricted by time, data quantity or protocols (such as IM, torrent, ftp, http and so on), and it is affordable. These are attributes of a perfect internet connection. Perfection here is a practical quality, a standard which in principle can be met, not an abstract philosophical concept. It is in this sense that the perfect human is to be manufactured - but what are its attributes? This is where it gets tricky, because the definition of health is highly variable, and perfection includes health. Physical health is more or less easy: ability to move around, lift things, fend off infective agents, withstand poisoning agents, survive and regenerate injury, and a general feeling of comfort/wellness. Mental health is a very muddy ground: there is no set criteria for it at all. It is defined by one's ability to function in society - only those who can't are examined. Yet sometimes social dysfunction is only a symptom of talent. Human minds are unique, even more so than human bodies. Individual differences have to be accounted for and not labeled as "damage" immediately (as it is currently done). Learning styles, personality, hidden skills, interaction with different environments; all these are factors here. Currently, somebody can be labeled mentally ill for simply holding a different opinion on certain issues and having certain rarer sensory preferences while still being rational within human limits. (By the way, humans are not entirely rational, NONE of them, which makes this even more complicated. The hypocritical shunning of freely expressed emotions exhibited by modern culture is part of the problem.) Also, a feeling of mental "wellness" can be just as inappropriate in certain situations as any other feeling, even depression. Emotions are natural reactions and without them there would be no rationality either - no drive behind the exercise of reason. (See GhostOfDay.) However, there are some mental ability checkpoints which can be used as a framework of health criteria. Mostly intelligence itself, for problem-solving is the original purpose of a big brain. Within intelligence, there are sub-skills, such as mathematical ability, motor dexterity, linguistic ability, visual, musical, memory etc. skills. Emotional/attentional stability has to be considered only if its manipulation does not infringe any rights (i.e. if the subject is able to hold the position that xe doesn't want treatment, and can clearly articulate that position, treatment is not ethical, end of discussion - in these cases, the adverse emotional reaction disappears anyway if the circumstances become tolerable for the individual). So, in outline, a healthy/perfect brain is one that has the highest intelligence possible, and does not intend to harm others without their consent/request or without good reason (i.e. to protect other people from being hurt by killing a sadist that tortures them). Within those limits, anything is permitted since "an it harm none, do what thou wilst" is the basic ethical framework which, once made categorical imperative, ensures the most freedom and security at the same time.

This quasi-dualistic worldview (not true metaphysical dualism, as that is known to be invalid - see QualiaSoup and Bakunin) of sex (or: others/external) and death (or: myself/internal) can be thought of as a simple preference for introversion. Not oppositional defiant disorder, because it does not preclude cooperation by default and because there is a genuine "me", while in ODD the "me" is defined negatively, as a "not them" - as in the main character of A Clockwork Orange or most "rebellious" teenagers; but introversion as in "it feels right if it comes from within, and it feels coming from within if it's right". This is the recipe for the "principled" person, whose words and deeds are contingent on and consistent with each other. I would like to become such a person, since I realize what a preciously rare quality that is, and since I strongly suspect that if there was no dissonance between what I want to do and what I'm actually doing, life would be infinitely more comfortable.

On an unrelated note: "Your depth of comprehension may tend to make you lax in worldly ways." I just found this, and it hits close to home... :-)

The Revelation of Fever

2010-05-21T00:48:00.002+02:00

I saw the monster first, the Great Mother,
vomiting poisoned strawberry Kool-Aid
into the void, with her two gland-heads spewing
filth into waters that web the world through and through,
convulsing insane under the full moon.
But then hope appeared, the shining bird who
sits in the front of his grey castle singing
and weaving pattern from pain as he exponentially grew,
he, made of light, was my beacon to swim
in poisoned waters towards my goal unknown -
but alas! the wings and claws were to earth fettered
by tentacles of a frightful reptile - his father;
his vile ancestor held him forever down.
Oh, Grendel-beast who dwells deep in the almond,
cursed force of anger, hatred and ancient fear,
he comes forth from the red poison of his mother,
and shuns his oddball, too-good-hearted son.
The two-headed mother-monster underneath:
unthinking mass of suffering and death - no wonder
that we're so miserable, for from her we are born.
The grip of the lizard were to loosen a second
the majestic bird to let soar and win the sky
we could be free from our chains too, the almond
a servant, not a ruler, of us all.
The vision ended - hereby I lie tortured:
body invaded and broken by the tides
and mind weary, the travesty of learning
once more taking its expected toll.

JRTDT or STFU!

2010-05-19T00:36:00.000+02:00

What do the following, hideously overabundant theist/creationist arguments have in common?

- Hitler was an atheist (therefore all atheists are evil or something like that).
- The Bible doesn't promote (or even contain) misogyny (or child abuse, or witch trials, or whatever that it clearly does).
- The Bible doesn't contradict itself!
- Darwin advocated racism and laissez-faire (dog-eat-dog) capitalism (in the Origin or elsewhere).

That's right, all three are arguments based upon misrepresentation and they all rely on the audience's ignorance of the subject matter in order to work. And the sad thing is that most people still fall for crap like this. I've seen a bunch of youtube debates both in written and in audiovisual form, and these exact arguments are used all over the place. And unless used against a very learned freethinker, they tend to be effective. This just pisses me right off. o I've decided to, based upon such memes as SIWOTI syndrome ("someone is wrong on the internet", courtesy of xkcd) and PEBKAC ("problem exists between keyboard and chair", also known as user error), create a new acronym: JRTDT or Just Read The Damn Thing! - a case of JRTDT would be an encounter with a person who didn't read the book he is arguing about and/or criticizing. Dawkins mentioned in an interview that his first volume, The Selfish Gene, got criticism from people who "read it by title only", characterising him as an advocate of egoism and socialdarwinism (of course). It is a pretty easy problem to solve, actually: the critic/debater who makes the error just has to sit down and read the work in question. I'm not talking about not doing your own research, or not being knowledgeable enough in a given field (such as evolutionary biology), or not being familiar with all the tenets and common behaviours of a given religion's adherents - no, I am talking about the case of a specific book or person being explicitly referenced by you in your argument and at the same time grossly misrepresented by your argument. This is almost the same as quote mining, at least in effect and appearance, but it can be committed innocently (as the first example of this post is often deployed), while quote-mining is deliberate and requires familiarity with the author's own words.

Come on, how hard can it be to actually read stuff you are using to prove your position? Sometimes "common knowledge" or what your parents and friends and priests tell you is wrong - go check it out for yourself.
For the record, the solution to the three examples:
1. Nope. Theistic evolutionist more likely, the survival of the fittest (and not only that, but the fittest race - group selection, anyone?) is mandated by God's will, as well as the prohibition of birth control in any form (based on the argument that it eliminates quality control imposed by natural selection, which is God's tool, by the means of high infant mortality rate). It's right in there (chapter 5 or 6 if I remember correctly).
2. I know this is a pet peeve of apologists and they say using verses from Leviticus and Deuteronomy against Christianity constitutes quote mining, but remember, we are supposed to take the Bible seriously as God's (inspired or direct) Word, and as such, true either literally or metaphorically. But what room is there for a metaphorical interpretation of such things as "...but the women children, who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves"? Or the value of slaves given in clear financial terms? Remember, this is supposed to be your instruction manual for a moral and charitable life! (Talk about context...)
3. This happens even in the non-controversial parts. Correlate the 4 gospels with each other. Or the two "versions" of Genesis. There are contradictions even within one book of the thing!
4. Just read it. No excuse, no sweet talk, no nothing. It is a scientific treatise and does not "promote" or even mention any political or social agenda. (If it does, prove it using quotes like countless of us did with your Bible as referred to above.) Also see what Darwin had to say outside the Origin. "If the miseries of our poor be determined not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin." Does that sound like a proponent of socialdarwinism (which shouldn't even be called that, but meh, for lack of a better word, let's put it that way)? Certain laws of nature can be conuteracted through a clever application of other laws of nature: via science, technology, and a freethinking citizenry with the self-control and logical thinking enough to eventually make legislation superfluous. And even Darwin (and more eloquently, his "bulldog" TH Huxley, in the lecture Evolution and Ethics: "The ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it") could see that. Geez.

So, next time you want to argue about something, check your sources, especially if you are going to mention stuff that should really be part of common knowledge because it's talked about so much. Please.

On the honour, history and future of mankind

2010-05-17T09:56:00.000+02:00

Have you seen Albert Barillé's cartoon series "Once Upon A Time: Life"? My favourites were always the white blood cells in that one. They have always been my idea of honour. Odd, because I studied real armies as well, and those were none the less great. Still, it was the White Guard that never surrenders, never quits, never sleeps (okay, occasionally turns against its own citizenry, but that's another story). It was Captain Peter, Lieut. Jumbo, Peter's dark female partner whose name I keep forgetting (is it even mentioned?), and of course the all-purpose robotic unit commander Metro, who fight for the good cause (hmpf, call me speciesist) of defending the body from infection, poisoning, and all sorts of nasty stuff. They aren't afraid to give their lives generously, but despite that, they never actually die, recurring with every episode again and again. They are friends to each other, and more than that: comrades. They are never sad, defeatist or reluctant to fight. The whole bloodstream is a battlefield and they are always in the front line.

Of course now as an adult I know that they aren't even conscious of these concepts: in real life, they are just cells, doing what they are programmed to do by my DNA, and they are identical to each other, no personality involved. But can't we say that the whole human being is just a bunch of cells doing what they are destined to do by the genetic program they get at birth? Are we more than our cells combined? Are we personalities at all? After all, there are more similarities than differences between any two human beings, no matter how significant the differences may feel. In terms of basic functioning we can be said to be identical (though not always in quality of functioning), and also in our basic goals (whether we like it or not). And when we go to war, aren't we asked to behave in the idealized way of the White Guard, as a unitary force, mindlessly marching forward to fulfill one task: the defence of the "body" we call our country (and if we ever move past that primitive tribalism, our dearest planet Earth)?

There is much to that metaphor indeed. It is quite easy to say violence is never the answer but when your survival is threatened by a violent attacker, you have no chance other than to respond violently. However, it always starts with a "pre-emptive strike" - the attacker being afraid of being attacked. I think we could end all wars and crime in one fell swoop (or swell foop? I never know which is it) if we could get rid of this paranoia. Of course this is easier said than done. In the case of the immune system, the paranoia is useful and justified because viruses and bacteria are a real threat by their very nature. But in the case of humans, it's more and more evident that the world is as if the body of humanity was suffering from leukemia: attacking itself thinking its own cells are invaders. Maybe we should lay down our ideas of honour with our childhood toys and imaginary friends. Aggression, the greatest drive behind every great human endeavor, can and likely will be our downfall, no matter how useful it was in our species' upbringing. But what should we replace it with?

There are some, like me, who can be thrilled by simply learning things, knowing things. Knowing something without destroying it is far more noble, of course. But it does not whirl up the blood quite as much in common people, as we see in the modern American anti-intellectualism conundrum. Just as if "aesthetic" feelings weren't able to keep up the spirit of the German citizenry in WWI, the quest for information cannot be as universally appealing as the quest for blood and death. This is the consequence of evolution. Maybe genetic technology can remove the aggression drive... but what would we put in its place? Genetic technology isn't developed enough for us to even have an idea whether it is possible to influence, let alone fine-tune behaviour through it, to insert new kinds of motivation. (Thanks in no small part to the appalling phenomenon of anti-research legislation, but that's another matter.) But if we want to be around for a while longer and make the best of what we are (after all, we're the only ones on this planet who can even think about such concepts as the far future and the vastness of the universe - you wouldn't wanna lose that, would you?), we need to learn how to do exactly this. It is tragic to see even the greatest minds led astray by tribalism, religion, xenophobia, power hunger, overconfidence and nearsightedness... those minds who possess a genius ahead of their time are dragged down by the emotions and the "common knowledge" of their age into their roles as perpetrators of evil. Evil on a historical scale is always misguided goodwill. Doing something for the good of "the nation" or "the people" or "the grace of God" is behind the greatest crimes, and it's done over and over again even today, despite (or maybe because of?) universal condemnation of previous instances. Maybe condemnation is not the answer? Maybe we should all stop and try to understand these events and people first? Maybe the Bible is, after all, right about one thing, in the case of Matthew 7:3-5 where it speaks of casting out the plank in our own eyes before complaining of the mote in our brethren's? Yes; this idea makes more and more sense to me as I discover more and more about human history.

For example, the majority of people on the more sensible and future-oriented side of the political spectrum are scared of even reading. "Know thine enemy" being an age-old wisdom, they seem to be glad to dismiss ideas without examining them. As a moderate leftwinger and a staunch Promethean, I can understand their fear - I am on the same side as they are and I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach just as much as they do when I see acts perpetrated by the right. I am in no way in favour of such practices. But I have read the Bible and I am currently reading... yes, you may have guessed it from the content of this post: My Struggle. Because there is no reason to be afraid of words: they have power over us only if we let them. And because there is still a lot to learn from what we, as human beings, were and are. Even the uncomfortable truths. Maybe that will solve the problems genetic engineering cannot.

Epic Fail

2010-05-16T14:01:00.000+02:00

Usually I don't follow politics at all, but now everybody is talking about that ridiculous science-porn fiasco. My two cents is that the addition of porn shouldn't have even mattered. Everybody (excluding true asexuals) watches porn, even those who voted against it, so what's the fuss? It's time we've grown up and stopped pretending that sexual activity is non-existent except in a marginal delinquent population. Nope, folks, I hate to break it to you, but sexuality is natural and almost universal, and prohibitionism is the biggest bullshit ever. And even if it wasn't true, science & education are WAY more important than this shit. Congratulations, you just flushed humanity's future down the toilet for saving your petty prejudices and "moral" concerns. What the fuck is wrong with you, people?

Shriekback: Lines From The Library

2010-05-15T22:27:00.000+02:00

Write about heat and then tell Icarus
He got too close
Sucked in the engine of holy ignorance
How could he know?
No such excuse for those who come after him
- Carbon alloy

I've heard say:
"The printed word and the paper it's printed on
- Not worth anythin'. In the time that it takes
To write about doing it, it could be done."
I say 'no' in the oldest formula:
"Fuck this, and fuck you"
If it's good enough for Geoffrey Chaucer
It's OK by me too.

Latent energy in lines of lettering
- One dot a full stop
Swing on a phrase for fresh mobility:
"Mud chokes no eels"
The past and the present, the cheque and the counterfoil
Fill in/tear off
Prop up a point with some lines from the library...
This week's maxim:
"In for a penny, in for a pound" - Information

Antisocial?

2010-05-10T00:07:00.000+02:00

(translation of the Hungarian post requested by friend)

I've been thinking today morning (13 o'clock) about the irony of how Prezzey (Jewish somebody I knew a long time ago) categorizes me as a perpetrator of genocide, while I'm trying hard to avoid even moderate rightwingers, let alone hurting her or anyone else (it's a wholly different matter that I hold certain views on the supernatural, but believe it or not, I'd never stoop to the level of certain devout believers, for example al-Kaida-style bombers, and I have reason to believe that this is a non-negligible difference between "militant" atheists and religious fundamentalists; not to mention that the people who would actually be willing to hurt her don't view this issue in religious terms at all, as it is even written in their main book). Though my WW2 fascination is pretty active again, and that means the usual self-deprecating, nightmare-inducing whiteguilt-trips are back as well, so I might agree with her on this one, but still, funny. Even more funny considering that yesterday I've been called a gypsy on the Omegle chat site by some US retard, which is weird because I don't look like that at all, but even if I would, it wouldn't bother me; what does bother me though is the demeaning tone and the numerical code the guy added to it. Of course I hate myself even more because of this... I mean collectively, not personally. Fuck. Can't we grow out of this already? If this is my culture, then I ain't white. (Meanwhile some people still dwell on the Pride fiasco of last year. The most frequently asked question is why the hell did I participate there. I think we should ask ourselves instead, why the hell do we even need Pride marches and martyrs. In a normal society, violence has no place, period.)

After all this, today I was at a weed legalization protest-party, because it is a pile of nonsense that people who want to enjoy themselves without hangovers or any ill effects of that kind are treated as criminals in this country. Of course governmental terror did take place, as after a few hours of peaceful music and conversation the police went in and started random ID checkups, then sent everyone home. Some people brought their children; what good would it do for those kids to grow up without parents because mom and dad are locked up for nothing? I didn't see whether anyone was taken away because there was a big crowd and the small group I was with at the moment hauled their ass out of there quite fast (which wa good because I had neither money nor an ID on me). Organizers said the police broke the agreement with the Hemp Seed Association but I doubt there'll be any repercussions of that against the police. Apart from that I had quite a good time, talking to random strangers and enjoying the fresh air; a guy liked the cuts on my arm, a girl told me about her voluntary work to help wheelchair users. These people are not criminals; quite the opposite.

Lifesigns...

2010-04-30T13:11:00.002+02:00

During high school, the idea of "school is for learning, home is for doing whatever you please" got firmly stuck into my head. Now that I'm in the soul-eating grinding machine of college education, that is not very useful. With May 15, exam season begins. As with every exam season, I'm starting to feel a bit nervous. Ridiculous, because 1) I don't even need preparing all that much as other people do, 2) what the fuck do I care about exams anyway - it's not like I'm going to be a "professional literary scholar" or something!

On a completely unrelated note: Do you all get the idea at the end of Twilight that "hey, if the damned thing is back in place underwater, and it's not even damned anymore, then I could get it, and..." - just to realize it's no more likely to exist than leprechauns and stuff like that? And speaking of Twilight, what the fuck? I was planning to see it along with the other 3 live for 10000 HUF altogether, and yesterday I finally found the online ticket order form... and all the affordable sectors were unavailable, meaning that I'd need 40000 HUF to see all of them, and even that 10 was a bit of a strain on my economy, and also meaning that, given that the actual performances are from June 10 to 13, those tickets were all gone almost two month in advance. What the bleeding anus of a pink-purple striped carnivorous unicorn, people?! Well, maybe next time... which would mean next YEAR, most likely... grrrrr! Or maybe I'll blow that 10 grands on Tristan, which is also scheduled in the same place, around the same time. Or just keep it and eat at the end of next month. (Yeah. Just like my Vienna years - eat or enjoy culture, you can't do both. -whispers you-know-who in my ears, teasing. I've finally taken up the daring exercise of reading his book. Interesting, so far. We could have some great arguments, both fruitful and not.)

Meanwhile, I packed my stuff and going home for the weekend. Meaning, I will have normal connectivity for a while. Not for long, though and even that will be used to research up on Parliament of Birds and write an essay assignment for Tuesday - I HATE writing assignments. In fact, obligatory things in general make me feel suffocated, and writing should be FUN, dammit, for a creative writer like me, not compulsory and tedious. Gah! (At least I did start it now, and funnily enough, I made a comparison between Chaucer and Huey Lewis & The News to get things going in the introduction. Yay me!)

But enough of whining, me hearties! I just got home. The sweet, sweet taste of full connectivity! I even have YouTube now. Maybe they have some nice theatrical recordings to compensate for the ticket blunders. Meow.

Just because evil people did it, it's not

2010-04-28T09:29:00.000+02:00

Been out of connectivity lately - even now, it is slow and unwieldy, but I can post this thing if I'm lucky enough. To thwart boredom, among other things, I reread some books. And I found something interesting.

"For some reason, many people take grave political offence at the suggestion that some individuals are genetically cleverer than others. But this must have been the case when our brains were evolving, and there is no reason to expect that facts will suddenly change to accommodate political sensitivities." - R. Dawkins, in Unweaving the Rainbow

Indeed, it is certain that intelligence has a strong genetic component. Environmental factors can contribute in positive or negative ways, but they are brought under control easier than a genetic background issue. There is no inherent reason why this should be so, though. We try to rule out perinatal oxygen deprivation, for example, with all available measures. Why not rule out inherited mild retardations and imperfections in the brain, or indeed, in the whole body? Of course we have to be careful in doing so, since it is rare for even a single gene to be predictable in all its effects and cooperations yet. But even gathering this fundamental data is faster via experimenting as opposed to idle observation - moreover, in some cases, experiment is the only way. And while experiments on other animals might give us enormous insight to our own species, those are still not the same thing, and we'll never derive complete insight from them. Meanwhile, population growth is spiraling out of control, and there is a huge population of incarcerated individuals as well, some of which will never get out of prison in their lifetime, and thus represent an economic 'dead weight' for their respective countries. Furthermore, according to the original French theory of democracy, or the 'social contract', people who breach the contract are automatically excluded of it, therefore become devoid of their rights granted by it. Applying this principle, there is no reasonable objection that can be raised against genetic experimentation on the prison population. Nonlethal or otherwise low-risk experiments then can be overtaken by volunteers as well, in line with the principle of informed consent, obviously. The details don't, at the present point, matter; bottom line is: human experiments, genetic or otherwise, for the purpose of R&D, would be highly beneficial for all of humanity and therefore need to be legalized and made into practice as soon as possible.
On the other hand, by 'human experiment', one can also mean experiments conducted not on whole human individuals, but also cellular material, such as donated tissue, blood and DNA samples and/or embryonic and fetal material, either discarded or specifically created. Since these kinds of experiments involve no ethical considerations whatsoever (because they don't cause any amount of pain at all, nor do they infringe the rights of thinking beings), it seems perverse and absurd to me that they aren't widely practiced yet. Obviously some of them are, but the exception of embryonic stem cells, for example, is a particularly counterintuitive one. Reasonably, one would expect that this most useful material will be among the most researched samples, and it is virtually the only thing left untouched by science. What is going on here, if not a superstitious and self-defeating course of action? The very fact that this course takes such courage to be altered proves that our species has a long way to go until it becomes scientifically and morally advanced enough to view itself with such pride as it presently does.

Who is the crazy one?

2010-04-19T17:06:00.000+02:00

Mother told me it will be alright, when my scholarly future was cast into the void by Closed Number. She was confident that we, the ordinary people are so far away from the big events that nobody would take the trouble of getting rid of us. We weren't even religious or politically active, so it sounded plausible enough. Until they did.
She tells me the same things now. She also tells me I have problems that should be fixed. That I'm broken, within my mind. But that is not true - she's only worried. She was worried back then as well, but she didn't let it show for the kids. But I'm all grown now and not so easily fooled. Her aspirations for my future are based on something I never was, and now that not even I know who I really am, she is scared of the whole thing.
They weren't insane either, they just had even different ideas about how the future should be. It seems most problems are caused by humans trying to set a rigid course for their future and stick to it even if it requires terrible things to be done or a much nicer possibility to be sacrificed. When your plans are so set-in-stone that you can't imagine another course of events, when that tunnel-vision sets in, it's a recipe for disaster. Funny that I didn't learn it from their example and had to fight it out on my own. But this is how wisdom works, I guess.
That their vision didn't include me is quite telling. Nobody's vision of orderliness and homogeneity includes me. Perhaps because I don't take things for granted. When it was "obvious" that girls were only smart enough to be child factories, I wondered why is that and how could it be otherwise. When it was "obvious" that I and my family were inferior to the ones around us, I've seen no difference. Maybe this is my mental disturbance. A personality disorder rendering me unable to be a social creature like everyone else.
If that is the case, I don't mind being crazy. I would be missing so much! Life's tough, but to see the intricateness of the world in a way that only I can see it is worth the struggle. If I'd have to lose this, I wouldn't be me anymore, so what would be the point in living? Like a songbird with its vocal chords cut out. (Ouch, that thought actually hurts.) People tell me that there are some trained professionals that think like me and try to work against the system from the inside. And indeed, some psych people do seem nice. But then I think of Winston and how he was "helped" and that makes my skin crawl. Poor guy. I wish there were no more cases like that. No more mind-alterings and killings and predirected trials. It just doesn't feel right. See? Even a "sick" person knows that. I wonder why the healthy ones keep doing such things. They are supposed to be the more empathic ones, the superior people and whatnot. They say I mix up fiction and reality. But fiction can only be based in reality, otherwise it would be just nonsense, it wouldn't make me hurt or laugh or think. We only know reality as real, material beings and just recombine it in new ways to make it better for us. Or worse, if we make mistakes.
One of my great realizations, and a very scary one, was that everyone makes mistakes, even I do. Seeing others making mistakes is actually great, because that means you're good enough to notice it and tell them. But seeing that you made a mistake is scary. Those are the times I'm glad I'm not immortal - that someday I won't be here to make mistakes and ruin everything. But I can correct my mistakes sometimes, slowly and with great work, but I can. Still, I'd like to be perfect. That way I could fix all the mistakes I made, and all the others I had no part in, too. Like the ones those old eugenics theorists made. They didn't know that conspicuously visible characteristics (the ones that determine "race") are totally irrelevant and skills, talents, and all the good stuff that's there to be like in humanity are spread across races and continents. If only they'd knew that and could make us really smarter and stronger! Now nobody dares to try because of their old mistake and the horrible consequences it had. But on the other hand the people who are responsible for those bad consequences are still here and gaining in popularity. That's why I mentioned my previous life with Closed Number and everything that came afterwards. It still gives me nightmares. The same kind of people are in the government again and I see bad things happening. If only I could go back in time to tell people what I know... but then again, they probably wouldn't listen anyway.

And They Tried Again

2010-04-18T16:28:00.000+02:00

As I were coming back from the grocery store, I ran into two Catholic proselytizers. They boasted of "rescuing" people from suicide. This is even worse than the illogical assertions and the ten percent of your income fraud. Their whole value system is upside down. Suicide is, in addition to being a basic human right, a humanitarian act: it serves a purpose in population control and it provides valuable material for science and medicine (and even agriculture, according to some Swedish ecologists), while living "for Christ" serves only the purpose of perpetuating this vile, meaningless, primitive myth and supporting a thoroughly evil organization. Praying and proselytizing instead of solving actual material problems is a distraction humanity can hardly afford, but that's only scratching the surface. Committing and covering up child abuse on a global scale, deliberately and institutionally, and spreading the harmful falsehood that condoms actually increase the risk of HIV infection, again deliberately and with the uppermost sanction, fleecing the masses by selling them an invisible, immaterial and ultimately irreal product, an afterlife which is scientifically impossible; these are crimes against human life and reason. And these two were asking me to join a criminal organization, saying that it will give a purpose to my life. Well thanks, my life doesn't need a purpose, it is its own purpose in itself, just like a closed infinite universe. There is no need for an external purpose, whether mandated by a god or a totalitarian government (which are basically the same thing, one is oppression in reality and one in the mind - and both can be overthrown). There is no need of wasting my hard-earned income and other resources on something that does not provide food for the starving, healing for the sick, and peace for the victims of war. (In that, Jesus himself would agree with me.) This is the organization that killed Galileo and helped conserving the myth that gays are evil, which led to the humiliation and gross maltreatment (and eventual death) of Turing, and they have the audacity to talk about how much love and charity they have for their fellow human being. A loving person does not act like these people act. Heck, why not, loving person may even commit suicide so a bunch of sick people can get new parts that work and make them healthy. (Or stay alive and work for a cure for the illnesses we can't yet fix or something really useful like that, if xe doesn't want to die.) This is love, not the fake antidepressant lie they push on innocent, unsuspecting people. Grr.

A Warning About Authority

2010-04-14T00:08:00.001+02:00

People of all kinds feel the need to be in control. Some solve this by controlling themselves and by establishing a code of honor or something like that, an even rarer breed lacks this impulse altogether, but the majority exercises control over other people. It doesn't have to be large-scale control, it can be one or two friends, family members, coworkers etc. - the central element is the complete management of another supposedly sovereign human being. Often this is disguised as compassion, good-willed advice, protection, but in some cases it is pretty straightforward and domineering.

Now, these controlling people don't understand the principle of informed consent and self-determination to the slightest degree. They may nominally subscribe to these ideals but they fail to grasp the core idea: no matter what the other person does, plans, says or wants, you have no right to intervene in any of hir actions without hir explicit permission or request, let alone without hir knowledge. Period. There is no excuse, no parenthetical clause, no nothing. The idea behind this is very simple: saving the life of someone who doesn't want to live is equivalent to killing someone who does. Both are violations of one's personal integrity and that is the most fundamental freedom. There are "minor" transgressions of this variety, which don't involve death, such as brainwashing, causing injury without permission, rape, deceit and secrecy, and so on. These are all violating the same principle, which can be put poetically as well: "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose". This is so self-evident to me that I even feel ridiculous having to explain it.

(As a sidenote, this is the reason why I am a virgin and will remain one forever. I can have sexual fantasies of all kinds, and I can produce artwork, thus fiction, that involves violating this principle, but reality is different. Reality is what matters, with the living, breathing, suffering, thinking people in it. And I care about them enough not to rape them. Or hurt them in any other way. And I am proud of being able to do this. It doesn't take much effort, though, once you get the hang of it.)

This controlling attitude is what I call the authoritarian instinct. It is so universally human that even former friends of mine exhibited these tendencies and it broke my heart. I know they meant well but the couldn't understand a thing about me and how much their transgression hurt. And it hurt because it always brought back what I can never forget. In every lie, manipulation, order, betrayal... in every attempt to change or control my character I've seen the big black vehicle turning around the street corner to stop in front of my house. And I couldn't help it. I'm not sure if I even want to, because weren't those times branded into my mind I think I would be a worse person than I am.

There was one person that understood this (and many other things other people just can't get) so perfectly that it was as if we've grown up together - Allie 'Stray Cat' Olsen, who died in an accidental drug overdose last year. I'm sure there are people out there with the same mindset but they are too scarce. And in this country, they aren't enough of a counterweight, I'm afraid. For there is something happening here that is alarming and truly dangerous. Sunday night, in those results I've seen Berlin again. I am dead serious now. It is happening all over again. Almost nobody sees this, and even fewer people take it seriously, but it is real - I feel it in my bones, I see it in the statistics, I just know, based on experience, that it is happening. In a year or two, it will be hell on earth just like before - because humans feel the need to control other humans and if they can't, they will destroy them. It's all meaningless, futile and destructive, but seductive - and whoever forgets, repeats. That is why my stomach is in knots when I hear about blacklists being made and the Dean wanting to kick me out and the Western media reporting the same things I'm afraid of. It is coming back, and it ain't gonna be pretty.

What is love? - an answer from neuroscience

2010-04-13T16:37:00.000+02:00

Love is treated as a complicated subject all throughout history, but even the most romantic hearts acknowledge that it is really a simple phenomenon, a peculiar form of mental illness in which the motivational and emotional focus of a person is shifted towards another person without a delusional equivocation element. Being together is the craved drug, and the neurological systems involved are exactly the same as in opiate addictions. Irrational, dangerous and extraordinarily drastic thoughts and behaviours dominate the picture, and the energy level fluctuates according to a pattern of exposure to the loved one's presence. The loved individual is idealized, deified, seen as through a mirror of total perfection, and when this illusion is broken, the craving turns into hatred, because the afflicted "naturally" expects hir emotions to be reciprocated and feels betrayed if this doesn't come about.
Obviously this derangement is a hyperintensive form of the natural sex instinct, amplified to the degree of mental illness and narrowed to exclusivity. This explains the gendered characteristics of love behaviour as well as its ties to sexual behaviour. The masculine and feminine sex drives are geared towards different goals - as they say, "man wants woman, and woman wants man". (Interestingly enough the physical sex, the sexual orientation and the gender identity can be totally independent from each other, but this occurs in roughly 15% of cases only, and partial independence in an additional 5% - these are the bisexuals and gender-ambiguous people; but this is irrelevant for present purposes.) The masculine sex drive, possessed by the great majority of men and a small but noticeable minority of women, is a direct force. The purpose of life in the mind of a masculine lover is to conquer: to rape the victim of devotion, to held her (or occasionally him) captive in a shared household, in extreme cases even to kill her. By contrast, a feminine-style lover wants to be wanted, wants to be conquered, wants to be a treasure important enough to be fought and even died for. This is more of a lure than an all-out hunt - and it corresponds satisfactorily to its counterpart. Dominance is a question - for it's all well understood that the masculine party is dominant over his (or even her) victim, but the feminine party is dominant over the other one's desires, which makes her (or him) often the "grey eminent", the silent controller of the relationship. This of course leads to power struggles - there's a whole field of relational psychology about those.
In modern times, domestic abuse is more or less forbidden, but in contrast, masturbation and fantasy is encouraged (or at least not as discouraged as it used to be). This means that we are abandoning the real outlet and provide a fictional one. This is beneficial because it does lower the level of violence and prevents the overescalation of the sex drive into the dangerous mental illness called love, but it nevertheless needs to be further studied. There may be risks involved and the strategy may be just imperfect (as it's evidenced by the fact that there are still love relationships and instances of domestic abuse worldwide).

(References:
Helen Fisher: Why We Love
Introduction to Gender Studies
Alfred Kinsey & co.: The Kinsey Report
various conversations)

A fantasy of mine

I am in a dark basement room, which contains nothing but an apparatus on the wall to chain prisoners there. The light seems to be emitted from my body, which is a tall, strong male one. There is a mirror on the other wall: I am a blond, blue-eyed, Nordic-type 20-something, with an aura of electric energy and a large uncircumcised penis in the state of raging erection. My hair is crew-cut and slightly wet like my entire body. I am completely naked, heavily scarred and adorned with metal here and there. I have a hairy chest. I'm not "blown-up" like a bodybuilder, more lean and agile, but still tough.
There is a woman in there with me, chained to the wall. She is full-figured, with moderately large breasts and love handles, natural hair in all the right places, but not overly hairy. She is "Eastern-white", with dark hair, dark eyes and a tan complexion. She is shorter than me but thicker. Her arms and legs are extended and flattened against the damp brick wall by the chains. She has a determined face on but it's seen that she's been crying. I unshackle her and she runs for the door, but I get a firm grip on her long, curly hair and pull her closer to me. She is stark naked as well, and sweaty. Struggling against my hold, she scratches and bites me but I am way stronger. I pin her down on the ground and grasp her throat. It's thick, I need both hands. She tries to scream but now I have taken hold. I begin to squeeze. Her hands grasp at mine, trying to pry them off, but to no avail. I weight her legs and body down with mine. Her face is turning red as she struggles for breath. Her eyes are filled with terror, and then start to cloud. I feel her strength fade gradually, and I keep gripping her throat as strongly as I can until the slightest movement is gone, meanwhile inserting my throbbing dick into her vagina. Upon death, her body relaxes and with her thighs dropping limp, I can give it a full thrust. There is some resistance of the tight walls, which feels wonderful. After a dozen or so convulsions, I come into her. Coming down from the heights of passion, I caress her gently, smiling as I examine the bruises on her neck, her glassy eyes, her half-open mouth... I kiss her lips, her nipples, I lick her body all over. By the refraction time is over, she is beginning to stiffen - and I'm hard as well, again. I repeat the intercourse. Satisfied and tired, I lay down beside her and fall asleep. When I wake up, she is cold and rigid. I turn her on her back so I can get access from behind. With a bit of effort I still can position her right: I do her doggy style and then drag her out of the room into a cage where my pets are waiting for their morning meal. Then I take a shower and start my day refreshed. I will need a new secretary, but that's not gonna be a problem...

Würden Wahlen wirklich etwas ändern...

2010-04-11T20:58:00.002+02:00

...wären sie längst verboten.

So I did it. I don't wanna hear anything for a while except some NDH beats because half-information scares me even more than the whole thing. I'll check it out after 23 o'clock, thankyouverymuch. I was so fucking nervous going behind the curtains... so, there went four pretty shaky but otherwise clear lines. (Actually eight, I did mom's sheets too because she told me so.) But there is little chance of surprise now, so... I wanna be little as a mouse and hide under something. Or even better, leave this fucked up country altogether. Fuck, even mom's neighbour hates me (and we share an internet connection so that may be actually important - why did mom have to ask him??? ), and that damned orange fruit in the girl's hands (she was one of the counters!!!) just totally weirded me out. (For those who don't know, the evil ones' "milder" division uses that fruit as their insignia.)
Disappointed in my original comrades (judging by their performance I think it's more than justified) and scared by the others (well who wouldn't be) I made a kind of desperate/middlegrounded decision with those new kids, so whatever happens, no cheers for me tonight. And to think this was my first time...

Now on to other things. The university dean business is gonna be a longer ride than I thought, but I have allies (lol) in my department so I won't be kicked out just like that. Hopefully. Though I wouldn't mind being kicked out if it meant the end of stress. (BTW, the dean says people are AFRAID OF ME. Can you imagine that? Seriously? Get real, dammit!!!)
Before the dean thing I called the anti-euth traitor's mom to attempt some sort of reconciliation, it's all uncertain but they can't say I didn't try! (Well, after writing a letter to my mom without my consent in order to get me sectioned or at least prevented to exit, they'd deserve no mercy but I'm just a softie like that.)
The flashback-dreams subsided a bit, but that's (I suspect) only because fear strangles creative impulses (even those depicting and using fear, it's all about the degree), and will return after these crazy circumstances settle down a bit. Also, I'm noticing that I started to take my art life more seriously, and may end up as an artist rather than a scientist, which is embarrassing, but sort of okay because I like to draw and write very much (and I would like a camera too, once I can do some work and earn some money!), and I'm not even sure that I couldn't be both. (Now that would be totally awesome ) Maybe I shouldn't think ahead so much.
Tomorrow I'm heading back to the big town again and I hope I won't have to come back for a while (no, no family conflict this time, it's just the goddamn expensive train ticket and the messed-up daily routine and the 3 hours of travel).
*sigh* Alright. Calming down in progress with the aid of Einstuerzende Neubauten...

Flashback I.

2010-04-10T01:15:00.000+02:00

(Memory-dream written up as a stream-of-consciousness piece with minimal punctuation - I have a writer friend who uses this technique a lot and we met two days ago, so it's an infectious meme But it suits the content I think...)

like a lover's tentacles the wire embraces me and its claws pierce my skin as the snow falls in the wounds it feels like rose petals or an anemic child's hand caressing and we walk in endless lines dark rows of dots on stark white like writing on paper dragging spidery squiggles of a parkinson patient dragging our feet into the nothingness we are nothing we are the ones no one talks about ever again and we stop for days and weeks to make another bit of train tracks but often we have to remake the old ones as the cold eats them as it eats us another of my friends died last night i was trying to shake him up but he was like a hunk of ice cold and brittle and i even broke off his hand which was so weird as if he's given me a goodbye present but of course there was little flesh on it so i was still half hungry but better half than whole as we all know it is just a question of time and we will all die in a way we're already dead people since we've got our respective notices letters phone calls or nightly visitors walking dead and some don't even know why but i suspect it's random and uncontrolled there is no way they can know every person so thoroughly unless they outnumber us by the millions on a second thought they do because they are not just the ones we see in their uniforms and stern faces as if the face was part of the dress code but also our children and wives and friends and parents and that's how it works i stumbled on a rock and somebody kicked me in the ribs i'm weak maybe i'll freeze here but no somebody else drags me back in line and i look back at the face of the one who kicked me he is handsome very much so and blonde and i could fall in love with him if i wasn't so weak and hungry and cold and he didn't keep kicking me i wonder what he thinks what he feels does he feel anything at all he probably believes in something unlike us for whom believing would be a luxury i can't even believe my daughter back at home is alright does she think of me at all or did she forget her dad like she was told yeah she should do that lest we meet again and i couldn't bear seeing her here in rags and getting rickets she's 14 now starting to grow vigorously and in bouts like teens do it probably hurts just like my inflamed knees but that's not growth that's the cold and now i think what if the handsome one didn't kick my side but my hurting knees i couldn't have stood up no way and he wouldn't even waste a bullet on me what the hell i'm thinking of him naked now perhaps because he looks like my first boyfriend secret of course even my wife doesn't know the deal about me but probably somebody does since i've done nothing wrong besides loving the wrong people but in all other things i was not a bad person never dissented never talked back in fact i was to be promoted to unit secretary in our factory and my background was clean as well so it must be a jealous lover somewhere it's all my fault i always had a weakness for stern faces and a soldier's build maybe i'm thinking about this because it helps my body become numb to the cold and the pain like sunlight drowns out the stars when morning comes.... does morning even come anymore?

I'm having those dreams again...

2010-03-30T01:18:00.000+02:00

The train is heading towards the horizon, into the sun's red evening face. Red - but a different kind of red...
- So, you're 21.
- Yeah. And?
- Usually people are 15 or so when running from their parents' home for the first time.
- They aren't living with ex-NKVD parents who think the organization still exists.
- What is NKVD anyway?
Bitter tears choke back her words. Even though she was born in 1989, she always felt as though she also was tortured and left to freeze to death... real memories that never existed come back to her now, like every night under the ragged brown blanket. The stranger sees her tension and touches her shoulder. She recoils.
- You Westerners... don't you learn history in high school?
- I left high school early. Had enough of the lies and the indoctrination into corporate slavery.
- What do you mean? Doesn't one get money for work there?
- Oh, you get a paycheck... but they want your soul in return.
Suddenly it feels even colder. The cattle train doesn't have any heating, but this cold is coming from the inside. She shudders. Crystal palaces come crumbling down in her mind.
- I thought... There is a tale I used to tell myself in the night. I heard it from my grandfather. He was taken away... he knew it was coming... actually, we never met but I found his letter to my mother, who never read it, because she was too drunk to even read. But I know it by heart...

"There is a land without fear. Without pain, hunger and cold. Nobody tells you what to do and you can learn or think whatever you want. There is no law beyond the law of not hurting each other, but even that doesn't need to be enforced because there are no starving, desperate people. We were dreaming of this land and wanted to create it here. I believed in this dream with all my heart. We failed, but there are people who think if the admitted failure it would be worse than things currently are. But things are bad now, and people are dying. People are terrified of each other and the dream has become a forced smile on a hungry, sick man's face. This man is my country. The songs may be cheerful and the flags may be flying, but happiness is nowhere. But outside, there is hope. Outside, there is the land without fear. Escape if you can - or die trying, for even death is better than living in fear."

Silence. The Westerner looks at her stricken, grasping something out of the message, if not the whole.
- When... I was a child, I had similar dreams. I had no idea. No idea... the grass always seems greener on the other side...
- You mean...?
- My dreams were about a place where parents can spend time with their children in the evening without having to worry about their jobs, a place where things are not so expensive, a place where your worth as a person is not calculated by how much your parents, or later you, earn... where money is not the goal of life, just a tool, as it is supposed to be, and where people are equal, where skin color does not mean destiny, where there are no rapes and murders and unwanted children and greed and lies, oh, the lies, even if we were rich we had to navigate in a world of liars, and elect the lesser of two evils every fourth year... freedom, yes, but an illusion, and... I was thinking about your world, it looked so great, so industrial and triumphant, hell, you were in space before us, I thought... I thought...
She broke into tears as well. Tears were staining the punk-styled jeans, the green-lined hair. She is only free in appearance... and now even that means nothing. "Nineteen seventeen, a deed of valor, when men first created heaven on earth..." That song means nothing.

-It's okay. I'm here. Maybe our children...
A kiss on the lips. And the train is rolling on, until it stops... who knows where.

(A dream. Should be a movie, but I'm not a director and I don't have a crew. You can guess the parts that are missing, and there is no end - I didn't find my happy place yet. And my Westerner is another version of me, not a lover.
Soundtrack of this particular scene/storyline can be assembled from stuff I uploaded here: [link]
Eastern girl's theme: track 2, reminiscing: track 4.
Western girl's theme: tracks 6 and 7.
Love theme: track 3.
The other tracks are unrelated, just simply very, very good :-))

-.-

2010-03-28T18:19:00.000+02:00

Sex and death and social injustice (which is the leading cause of both premature death and the unnecessary delay of immortality research) have been the topics in the forefront of my brain for a lot of time now. I'm bored with them. I want something else. But what?

No fucking idea. Eh.

Literature and Reality

2010-03-18T17:57:00.000+01:00

It was a class about Brave New World.
- Well, if there weren't misfits, there would be no story, wouldn't it? I woke up, went to work, played electromagnetic golf, had sex with a lot of people, went to bed, woke up, and so on.
- Brr, I wouldn't want to live there.
- Then you wouldn't want to live at all. I mean, we all have a daily routine. School, friends, hobbies, sex, sleep, food - same elements. On the surface it seems we're all satisfied with this, at least to some degree. You say BNW is boring; how is this world any different? Okay, there are people without any friends or sexual partners, but that just means they have more hobbies or spend more time with other things they like more than social stuff. And there are also unemployed people but they have difficulties and would be happily working if they could. Anyway, we all do regular things, and not exciting things, because it's almost forbidden to even think about exciting things. How does that work?

Of course the third comment wasn't actually said... I was just thinking it and then choked it back because I was already talking way too much compared to others and we had a limited time. But yeah. How is our world and BNW different? There are minor surface differences in reproductive/sexual matters (weirdly enough, the only area that should be more BNW-like, I mean, overpopulation/contraception/abortion/blahblahblah problem solved, for goodness' sake), and not everybody uses antidepressants (yet), but consumerism, conditioning, seeing emotions as abnormalities, shallowness, stability turning into a lack of progress, peer pressure, a generally bland and boring world? Heck yes. There are different ways of conditioning, and it's called education, but that's just methodical difference. We don't have a caste system... oh wait, what about the upper, middle and lower classes? (With middle steadily disappearing, though.)
And at the same time there are features of 1984 in our present time as well. War, for instance, is such as constant and is fought for the same economic reasons. The government is just as arrogant and controlling (though has somewhat subtler means of control, but think of the Patriot Act or the banning of the Hungarian Guard*, or even the DMCA and similar things in other countries). Propaganda, eavesdropping, underfunding of the really important things (like healthcare, R&D, education, social security - I mean, come on, these would be the original purpose for the existence of any governing body, á la French "social contract", innit?), it's all there again.

Apparently, it's not "what we love" is what's ruining us, nor "what we hate", but both.

*: I'm saying this while not agreeing with the people in the HG at all. Another example would be the takedown of a "potential" school shooter at my university - I don't agree with his planned actions either (though I understand his motives), but I find it not in the least bit weird that even making plans and having ideas and disagreements with the "official opinion" is illegal and makes you susceptible to prosecution. Thoughtcrime anyone?

Five Weird Thoughts

2010-03-17T17:02:00.003+01:00

I.
It was mighty disappointing to find nobody died in the shower this morning. Not that I've ever found a dead body there, but today I was expecting one, and it wasn't there. It routinely takes me 25-30 minutes to clean myself - the surface is large, you know -, and there was someone already occupying one of the stalls when I entered, and she was still in there under running water when I left. Drying myself, I was thinking "wow, that is taking too long, I wonder why...", and as I contemplated various possibilities, the thought-image of a wet female corpse popped into my head. I felt my clitoris swell immediately. (It is equivalent to a hardon and, I suspect, feels little different.) Sadly, as I turned around to take a look, I saw movement behind the curtain. She was definitely alive, making normal showering movements. The extra blood was flushed out of my groin and I resumed completing my morning routine. But hot damn! It feels so weird to be turned on and then let down!

II.
On the tram, I found out why I was disgusted by/afraid of old people, and at the same time stopped feeling that way. I'm rather glad about this, because I'm not very fond of any prejudice or "gut feeling" at all. And here is the reason for the uneasiness: it is most evident in a wrinkly old face that we (humans) are ultimately animals. The involuntary movements get more pronouncedly apelike with age as well. And as far as my experience goes, I've been around young people a lot more (not counting family of course), getting more used to them at least as far as looks are concerned. Subconsciously, therefore, I resented the strange and animalistic features of the elderly. But today I began to see the same features in everyone, even the seven-or-so-year-old staring at me across a few meters' distance as if I were a Martian. And somehow the strangeness, the uncanniness disappeared. It's like switching the meaning of a misread word by a second reading. You cannot forget the experience and misread the same word again. It's funny how the brain works.

III.
Boredom is not really an emotion but an energy state. The lack of stimulation drains your energy like a leech or a strenuous activity. It is no substitute for actual activity though, so the wasted energy comes back as frustration: tics, urges to move or shout or run or fight or speak; "do something!", says the little voice at the back of your head. You wish to lash out but lack a reason or incentive for it, so you pretend/try to sleep. Which attempt is thwarted by boredom itself. Deadly cycle, unless a wave of creativity seizes you and washes you out of it. This is how almost every class feels like. Ever since I began having classes as a six-year-old. Living hell, or drawing/writing trance. Luckily enough, my memory is unaffected by either. Are Asperger and ADHD somehow connected?

IV.
Maybe I'm not a true scientist type after all, but an artist. Or both? Nevertheless, today it came to light why do I not value my artistic side, why I deemed it worthless and unimportant. For me, art doesn't register as effort, no meticulous learning is required, no struggle with concepts I'm horrified of (like numbers), no boring theoretical ruminations. When I draw or write, I don't do it. It happens to me. I do get better with practice and experience, but I don't notice it. It feels like being possessed by something that takes control of my hand. With scientific learning, I'm making a conscious effort and I can't help noticing it. It is painful. But I can't help being genuinely fascinated by and interested in scientific things either. Maybe I should put these things together somehow? But how? It feels like being a half-breed, like Spock of my half-orc D&D character Reina, stuck between two worlds, being part of both and yet neither.

V.
A guy in a thin-striped shirt is sitting in front of me. The striped surface seems to be blinking. When I look at it directily, the effect is weaker but still noticeable. It is not unpleasant, but catches my attention very much. Do non-autistic people experience this?

Allowed To Exist?

2010-03-17T00:47:00.000+01:00

LISTEN TO THIS. Hear the words as well. Think about it.

The conspiracy theories are indeed bullshit. The truth is never hidden and it never was. It is out there, it can be found. We just think it is entertainment. There are too many lies to cloud the sensors.

Take depression for example. Even the people experiencing it believe the lie that it has no reason, that it has nothing to do with reality. And with all "mood/personality disorders" invented and made known, the memetic frame-weaving goes as far the establishment of a new status quo: the "fact" that feelings are diseases. Disagreement is not discouraged anymore - it is analyzed, examined, and condemned to never, ever being taken seriously on the grounds of madness. As if the mind wasn't our most powerful tool of survival and creation, but a vestigial organ that should be kept out of function. There are a few breadcrumbs of muddled-up truth passed off as curiosities, such as this article or the so-called anti-psychiatry movement of Szasz and Laing (which led to saying great things but not doing much, and then died due to lack of interest), to keep things unsuspicious, to keep up the illusion of dissent being represented and taken seriously... but it's actually not.

You are probably wondering what kind of secret organization do I think is responsible for all this. Well, none. It is a self-organizing process, simply because (as David Worth famously said, and as the Law of Eristic Escalation also states) there is no flawless system of organization, there is no perfectly kept secret, because humans aren't themselves perfect. If a secret thing gets big enough, it either gets found out or becomes something else entirely. The opposite of itself, a chaotic (in the true sense of the word, "containing order and disorder in equal measure) entity which has no longer anything to do with human intention or centralized organization (though the people involved in it might believe so).

This medicalization of emotions might be just a normal defense mechanism of the mind. In the individual it's called denial, and it is both a stage of the grieving process and a tactic for blocking out mental self-destruction (and also the thing that leads to that, commonly known as the uncanny, or unconscious). There is no catchy name yet for its collective form. The denial meme, however, is very successful. Chances are that you, dear reader, are totally convinced that there is such a thing as mental illness and that the appropriate cure for it is a systematic, chemical and psychological destruction of the personality and even the whole mind, replacing it with a socially acceptable, "productive" persona. You may or may not be also convinced that the autism spectrum is a part of this whole mental illness phenomenon. You probably file sadness, dieting, body modification, anger, dissent, happiness, nonconformity and all sorts of other things under the same label in your mind-drawers.

Stop organizing files. Behind the words and numbers and abstractions, there are people. Living, breathing people made of flesh and blood, who have a right to their feelings and eccentricities. Right now they are being lied to, and more and more are internalizing the judgement that they are sick and have to be internally eliminated to be "alright". (Is it truly a coincidence that "sane" and "sanitized" sound to similar?)

Oh, but what did I expect from a zeitgeist that doesn't even acknowledge the right to bodily integrity (the "my body, my business" principle aka "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose")? To embrace mental self-integrity all of a sudden? Silly me.

Rape No More

2010-03-15T20:50:00.000+01:00

It's funny how some people fail to see through as simple tactics as this. (So it might be silly to disclose this information, but it just might help other women to protect themselves, so here it goes.)

This is my way of preventing rape, summarized:
1. Be ugly and weird.
2. If any unfamiliar male touches you, RUN LIKE HELL.
3. Don't go out much, especially not at night.
4. If any male, familiar or not, doesn't stop touching you after seeing your instinctive recoil, kick him in the nuts and/or run like hell.
5. Scare people around you into believing you're strong and unpredictable (i.e. a violent lunatic). If this doesn't work, call (or threaten to call) 911 anytime you feel threatened (see 2 and 4), and if *that* doesn't work, see option 4.

This is just common sense, really. (Well, 1 is something I've born with, but exaggeration helps.) Never been raped so far, not likely to ever be raped... and I'm happy about it! Even though, this sometimes drives away people that otherwise would have other agendas than the sexual one. Their loss... and I've gotta admit, I simply love to see their reactions. ;-)

Confidence

2010-03-13T16:08:00.000+01:00

If would be so easy to explain my femaleness, my family, my nonexistent skills, and my so-called friendships as a punishment from God. Fortunately, I don't deserve to be punished, and I don't believe in any God. As long as my conscience is clean, you will never break me. Not with lies, not with prison sentences, not with torture, not with emotional blackmail, not with anything. You only get hatred in your face, bitches. And the shit that is not caused by humans, but by coincidence, like the femaleness part? Either I'll find a way out of it or to deal with it.

Five Little Failures

2010-03-10T21:29:00.000+01:00

I.
i painted my nails
just to see how disgusting it was -
i'm not sure why
but sure as hell it was -
so i scraped it down
for no store sells acetone
at night to people who
don't dare to ask

II.
on certain days
it feels like my head was
rolled into a bunch of women
so as the way to prove
their womanly beauty
was to kill me

III.
control alt delete
control zed you bitch
oh shit nevermind
it's reality

IV.
industrial waste
into his nostrils
every night and day
sunken eyes like despair
skinny just like death
but no, he's happiness

V.
i wrote on my hands
as well when i was thirteen
and banned from writing
they said i write too much
and about strange things

Cognitive Dissonance

2010-03-09T22:36:00.000+01:00

An inherent sense of self-worth is a dangerous thing. Since virtually no activity can hold my attention long enough for income to be a mere side-effect of entertainment, I suspect that without a constant need to prove my worth (which is self-reinforcing and thus ultimately futile) I would sink into ultimate unproductivity. I'm experiencing this right now. It seems I've gathered too many and too good friends, because I'm starting to have this inherent self-worth thing, and the more I feel it, the less inclined I get to be afraid enough to do homework or ethically pressed enough to kill myself. It breeds distraction, procrastination, passivity, contentment, delight. This feels so good that I stop caring. I'm becoming a grasshopper and don't even give a shit.
Just think about it. If you are worthy of existence, why do anything tedious to acquire that worth? You already know you have it, even if others don't, and that's enough. In reality you might be a lazy bum, but you feel like a human being.
Mom says you have to earn a living in the material (economic) world, so obviously she's against valuing yourself. But I'm not so sure anymore. I mean, it's not likely that I alone will fix all of humanity's problems, so why care about them? Why not indulge in a lifestyle of doing nothing against my desires? Why care about survival of either me or anyone, or indeed everyone, else?
I still go to school out of automatism, write out of pleasure and eat out of instinct. The loan is enough for a life of moderation for the time being, and if it runs out for good, I can still die. This is not despondency, more like hedonism and decadence, a way of enjoying yourself for the sake of enjoyment. For dad it seems to work: he had a job not requiring not much effort for 35 years, never cared about the future, is still an observer of life rather than a participant, and look, he's still alive and just getting retired. Indeed, retirement is the ideal state of being if you follow this philosophy.
I'm not saying I'm subcribing to this completely or that I think this way I'd be fulfilled permanently. I'm just saying I'm uncertain. I would like to believe I can implement a final solution or at least a radical advance for my homeworld, but it seems a childish, naive ambition in the light of the present situation. The problem is my sheer inability to predict the future, or even consequences of certain actions. Indeed, history has known instances of childish ambitions succeeding, why not again?
Uncertainty is a treadmill for the mind, and I'm doing a stress test now.

(Still seeing Mathgirl on the weekend though - she got me a chemistry instructor as well =^..^ =)

Changes Over Time

2010-03-08T17:36:00.002+01:00

(short story. whoa, finally! also a seriously cool 400th post :-))

Like most 20-somethings, Cally Almond was incontinent due to energy drinks and had occult-looking symbols etched into her skin. At the moment, she was noticing the effects of both as she stood waiting outside the occupied toilet compartments scratching a persistent itch on her arm, reminiscing about last week's cutting session in which she participated with her friends.
- Calista?!
Train of thought derailed, she turned reflexively to find herself looking at a blue-haired, surreally tall and skinny boy with glinting red eyes and a wide grin on his face. By golly, she thought, this is Zane from high school!
- Zany Zane, the albino sex god hisself! Whaddaheck are ya doing here?
- Same thing you're doing I presume. Fuckin' diuretic shit.
- Yeah. What's your department?
- IT. Yours?
- Slicin' mice downstairs in med research. Nervous stuff this year.
- Flippin' cool, man!
- Ya bet. IT's not bad either. We may be packed together if the boss wants AI development. - she winked.
- Hellz yeah!
One of the doors opened, almost whacking Cally in the face. A heavily keloided, rasta-haired black chick rushed out, and Cally entered the compartment. Seconds later another student left, so Zane was relieved as well.
- So what the meow about the rest of the class?
- Just the usual. The lowest GPA kids suicided, 'twas six of them; Ken and Dave are with me in IT, Gemma and Karen got married and are up there in Engineering, Leonard's in Europe with some chick. Dunno about the rest.
- Six? Whoa, great. I heard the next year took a dozen's death toll.
- Yeah, I guess the quality's a-droppin'. But here's the biggie: remember Neal from one class up? He's rumored to get a nomination next year.
- For what?
- Some new terraforming tech that's cheaper and more effective than the one they used on Mars. Dunno the details but it looks cool, and some say it'll be used on Earth as well to clean the wasted areas, recover agricultural potential and stuff.
- Neat. Shared or lone?
- Lone of course. He never worked well with others.
- LoL, yeah. Oh bummer. - she glanced at her watch. - I think I gotta hit it.
- OK, bump into you soon.

That night Cally finally went through the material on those portable winchesters she had in the back of her closet since graduating high school. Much to her joy, pictures of various activities with Zane were found. They did lab work together on one pic, he was fixing her computer on another, and there were the ones about the two of them having sex. Zane had his vaccines and vasectomy as soon as his testicles started working, so there was nothing to fear. Back then, his hair wasn't blue but stark white, and he let it hang low to his bottom. They used to joke about his similarity to a guy called Sephiroth, a character from some old computer game. He was kind of a retro geek.
But he seemed to change a lot. OK, he was still like a walking skeleton and called her Calista (being the only person from whom she had endured this), but appeared to be more confident and serious. Cally wondered if that was just an effect of growing up or something else. Also, he changed his email address.

[Dendryte]hey Z
[NutCracker]hey C
[NutCracker]what r u doing on Sat?
[Dendryte]no idea yet...
[Dendryte]y, u got nostalgia? :-)
[NutCracker]nah, just wanna show u something
[Dendryte]wtf?
[NutCracker]surprise :-P
[Dendryte]illegal? XD
[NutCracker]sort of.
[Dendryte]then count me in :-)
[Dendryte]u can come over l8r to cut & talk & stuff
[NutCracker]i don't cut
[Dendryte]srsly? y?
[NutCracker]dunno, ain't my thing
[Dendryte]whatever, i like u anyway, u bastard :-P
[NutCracker]hahaha, me 2
[NutCracker]gotta do some coding, cya soon
[Dendryte]c u in the ICU ;-)
[NutCracker] lol thxs
[Dendryte]bye
User *NutCracker* logged out.

***
They were in a dark basement somewhere in the agglomeration. Hooded figures were gathering around a makeshift pulpit, upon which an old, wizened man crawled with great effort. Cally had a hard time seeing what's happening, so the two inched forward. The old man began talking with a voice that could almost be called a whisper, sounding even more weird through the mic.
- My brethren, we gather here to reclaim our heritage and return to the Lord. It is written that man should stand above woman and the woman should bear fruits aplenty. So why do you alter your bodies so they may no longer serve the glorious purpose of the Lord, and engage in abominable acts that defile His holy temple that is your body?
- What the fuck is this bullshit? - Cally whispered into Zane's ear. She couldn't believe this reasonable and virile young man had joined a cult.
- Shh, just listen. Ain't this something new?
- New? This is at least three thousand years old! I'm outta here.
- Wait! - he grabbed her arm.
- ...for reproduction is the one true purpose of your existence. Verily I say unto thee, even science doeth justice to this Divine truth. For ain't it so that progress requires exponential growth, upon which God the carver, via hunger and sickness and death, will act so a new and improved flock will be created? My brethren, human suffering is not to be avoided, but to be sought with all means! For through suffering we will reach salvation, and the unafflicted will face damnation!!! - the preacher was hysterical by this point. Cally felt the strange effect of his tone and gestures, and shook her head. She knew it was nonsense, but somehow the enthusiasm and the reactions of the crowd almost made it seem plausible. Suddenly, a wave of nausea nearly overcame her. She wrenched free from Zane's grip and ran away, out of the strange temple, into the fresh midnight air, down to the river, where she ran out of breath and noticed Zane has been following her.
- Calista, wait!
- Doncha dare come near me!
- I'm sorry. I shoulda told you.
- What the fucking fuck was going on in there?! - she threw the boy down into the wet grass. Then lay down beside him, crying with shock and exhaustion.
- I... I thought ya'd like something different.
- This ain't different, this shit is dangerous! Didn't you hear? Reproduction and suffering as the purpose of life! This guy is out of his fucking mind!
- His dad was a winner.
- Oh really? - she began in a mocking tone, but was interrupted.
- The guy's name is Steve Collins, son of Francis Collins, rings a bell?
- For fuck's sake... the one that went nuts after winning it.
- Yeah, or so they say. I think he found the truth.
- The truth?
- Look, Cal, this is something big. I saw these people in daily life, they are so happy and eerie. They have bunches of kids and the kids aren't horrible, they are cute, nice and obedient, like pets or something. And they all say their life has meaning now and stuff. They recovered from unrequited love, drug addiction, violent lifestyles, you name it. Even some low-graders were rescued from suicide.
- Unrequited love? - the though of something horrible crossed her mind.
- I missed you, Calista.
For a moment, they both were speechless.
- OK, Zane. I'm here now. Shall we?
- No. I got my tubes untied... so we have to get married and then do it.
- Heck, we don't have to do it that way... wait, what?!
- Only one position is valid according to the law of the Lord.
- No, not that, why the flaming cat's arse would you have a vasectomy undone?
- Why do you think? So I can make babies with you.
- I had a hysterectomy a year ago.
- When did you become such a conservative fuckhead?
She bitchslapped him.
- You called me what?
- Sorry... I just can't understand how you can't see the error of your ways.
- Leave me alone.
And then she stood up and went home, heartbroken, feeling frail and violated. She decided it was best for childhood friends to never meet again.

Stranger Than Fiction

2010-03-05T01:07:00.000+01:00

A Brush With Fate
(shorter version)

It was an ordinary day, a happy one even. He just had his thesis title submitted and was crossing the yard to get to the ATM where a meagre amount of money was awaiting. The plan was to get home for the weekend, resulting in being subjected to various pretenses of love, guilt trips, and delicious food. But as he was kicking the ever-present brown leaf litter about in the cool breeze, something appeared around the corner. For a moment, the world seemed to halt like a buggy browser. Cold rivulets of sweat began their downward course on his back, his cortisol levels being instantly elevated. The planned route however, premeditated since morning, was stronger than the sudden fight-or-flight reaction - maybe because there was no time to decide between the two options. They both continued walking in opposite directions, as if seeing nothing.
The only slight change was in his face. The smile dissolved into a straight line, and color gave way to something like pallor mortis. The wind felt colder, the sky looked darker. He had evidence now: the Woman was indeed omniscient and omnipresent. This wasn't a coincidence but a warning. He wandered too far by telling his friends about his fears. She hid her eyes behind dark glasses but he knew she was staring into his thoughts. Hairs were standing up on the back of his neck.
Nobody else noticed anything happening. Indeed, nothing happened. Just two people who once knew each other exchanged brief glances.

Happy Thoughts Between Lectures

2010-03-01T17:29:00.000+01:00

If only I could bottle moments! This one would be a light lilac liquid, clear to see through, fluorescent, and it would have the smell of fresh oranges and curry. Was it the words of Feynman describing the behaviour of atoms, the song "Neon Lights" and the mental picture it invoked (a city "made of light"), the sight from the window beside me (a brick building covered with vines, a bare tree and a patchy, bright sky), the chocolate I've just eaten, or some deeper understanding, or the synthesis of all these - I noticed tears of joy rolling out of my eyes. Recently, I get these moments more and more. (This could be due to a lot of learning and eye-opening experiences, but also weather. This is the time of year when it's still cold enough to be comfortable but clear and dry enough to be "upbeat". Heat-intolerant's paradise, lol.) It's always solitary, somehow connected to either very big things (like stars) or very small things (like atoms), and it's just as strong as the grips of anxiety that seize me from time to time, or even stronger. I feel no "presence", only my own, but that is sort of amplified, like I was a crystal magnifying the light of something glimmering and colourful. I heard people speak of God like this, but it's different, because it's based on the material aspects of the particular situation, in the context of the universe around it, nothing added or subtracted. If there is a "personality" behind these experiences and the fabric of the whole, it is the person that perceives it. This moment wouldn't be complete, indeed it wouldn't exist, without a weird-brained girl with her scarred extremities and a laptop sitting in a windowy, wooden-floored space in front of a lecture hall in a faraway, backwards country. It also wouldn't exist without a middle-aged, average-looking yellow star in a rather provincial corner of space. These two ingredients, and all the others, are equally important. And this makes even the most negative influences irrelevant. It's simply not worth paying attention to abuse and unconstructive criticism, let alone creating such content when you can enjoy the privilege of just Being There In Your Own Life. And the reason of doing good is that more people can enjoy the same privilege in their own. Until it ceases to be a privilege and becomes a right, and then a simple fact of life. It's not mandated because it doesn't need to be. What dictator would mandate genuine happiness? It would immediately cause his downfall, because it would empower his subjects. That's why this shameless self-indulgence is always associated with guilt in the unenlightened. Break free of guilt. Soak up the sunshine!

Voices and Haters

2010-03-01T09:58:00.001+01:00

Stability - the illusion of numbed minds...

There are times I wish I didn't feel, but then a moment of beauty comes along and I'm grateful not all wishes come true. I mean, whoever has any emotions in this world will get called "labile" or labeled with a personality disorder, but it doesn't worth throwing your heart away. I get shit for it, yes. I get death threats, trolling, even disingenuous strawman "parodies" are around the web. I spent most of the weekend hypervigilant and scared out of my pants because I learned about some machinations a former friend had undertaken. (Again.) This is the same person I got my first death threat from. And we are part of the same university. But it's okay. It's not a problem because if she does hurt/kill me eventually (of which I'm not all that certain, since it'd risk her career and she's pretty career-obsessed), that'll prove *me* right. Same thing goes with the nazis and the scientologists and whoever the hell is out there pissed off by my presence.

So yeah. I have emotions. I have reason as well. These two work together to become the thing I call myself. Get over it :-)

While I'm at it, here goes a SHOUTOUT for Angie The Anti-Theist who is getting just as much shit for making a choice and not being ashamed about it. For those who don't know (what, you live in a cave?), she was live-tweeting her abortion to spread awareness about women's rights & stuff. You can view her Twitter stream or the #livetweetingabortion hashtag. She also has a video account on YouTube where she displays being a smart and *hot* woman. Her boyfriend is really lucky! She is a very good example of how a blogger or indeed any honest person should behave. It's not bravery or foolhardiness, it's just the right thing to do. Telling the truth has become dangerous in this society. But the more people do tell it and stick to it, it can be safe again. Strength in numbers, folks!

Also, a little supplement for the previous post. This need to be said in response to some well-intentioned critics. Despite appearances, I do have some problems with the system according to which the worth of humans is currently calculated. For example, the most important valuing committee takes literature into account while excluding mathematics. I know there are historical reasons for that but for an enlightened society, the past should have no influence on the present in terms of authority. If some aspect of the system is tradtional but wrong, the tradition should not count and the wrong should be righted. The ideal state of affairs would be based on a centralized decision-making body which not only grants the right to existence and self-worth, but can also revoke it (as the example of Francis Collins and this guy shows, it is occasionally needed). Also, this body would not have a literature or "peace" division and could not be influenced by political forces and manipulations. Of course total immunity can't be achieved realistically, but at least an attempt should be made at it. This would ensure more prestige for the committee and its function. The function of assigning the right for self-worth is an important one, and self-worth cannot be just granted by birth either. But that doesn't mean you should not love yourself and dare to express your opinions! It means only that you should care about others too, and work hard for knowledge :-) Genius is not something we're born with, it'll wither unless cultivated.

Oh, and by the way. Moderating the comments *on my own blog* is not infringing freedom of speech. If you hate me or whatever, make your own and spew the bile there. I will let through any civilized comments, including criticism, but not stuff like this. I don't go to fundie blogs either.

Anthem of the day :-)

Crossroads

2010-02-22T18:15:00.002+01:00

I read the following in a "Student Survival Guide" the other day.
"ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE A WORTHWHILE HUMAN BEING REGARDLESS OF (OR IN SPITE OF) HOW MUCH BIOCHEMISTRY YOU KNOW."
As you probably expected, I call bullshit on that - if you're a student of the relevant major, your worth is calculated by grades, and there is a reason for that. (For the inquisitive idiots, the reason is that dedication is necessary in every job to achieve optimal efficiency. You can't be great at something you do only halfheartedly.) The author claims this statement, which flies in the face of the whole philosophy of higher education, is a bit of practical advice which may help "preserve the sanity" of the reader.
It is almost a cliché that students like to party and hate studying. The origin of this "sane" statement is nothing but that universal truth. Apparently, the author's concept of sanity includes viewing sloth as a virtue. This is tantamount to insanity and heresy in the scientific community. Artists and manual laborers and administrators may be lax in their professional morale, but if you are a student in need of a "Biochem Survival Guide", you aren't that lucky. You can still drop out if you wanna preserve your "sanity", but then you'll never become a part of the only worthwhile human endeavour.

But you people already know that. Why I'm writing it down again? Because it looks like I will go through the high school graduation process again either next year or in 2012, with the hopes of getting admitted into medical school to pursue my dreams of doing research medicine (not sure about what sub-field yet, but neuroscience looks most interesting). To this point, I've been pretty sure I'll never be able to do this and therefore will be eligible only for suicide. Now, while suicide is a difficult task for someone like me, who generally enjoys being alive and doesn't believe in any kind of afterlife, it is certainly easier than decades of hard work that might yield great rewards or no rewards at all. Since I started the dyscalculia recovery program with my personal tutor (which is going slowly, but steadily in the right direction), the prospect of actually getting has been gradually growing more and more realistic. For the first time, I feel lumps in my throat. I am scared. If this is the only way to stay alive - and it certainly is the only ethical way -, then we can safely say that I'm scared of living. The question is party "will I be able to do this 24/7? sure it's interesting, but am I that resilient?" and partly "what if I'll be doing it only moderately well, dying of old age without ever receiving The Invitation (and its consequence, the gold medal signifying that I did at least one piece of my ethical duty right)?" - and it's a pretty serious one.

But I cannot be overwhelmed by fear. There is no possibility of winning if you don't at least try to run the race. There may be little possibility of winning anyhow, but giving up before trying is simply irrational and unacceptable. Plus, the answer to both questions is likely to show itself before I turn 50. (It is a significant date because it marks the end of organ donor eligibility.) If it's in the affirmative, all the best. If it's in the negative, I can still kill myself. And in the meantime, I support wholeheartedly anyone's choice to do so. Or any choice indeed, which doesn't infringe the rights of another. (This is what I mean by being full-scale pro-choice, not only regarding parenthood but regarding any personal matter. You can do anything you like with your own body, as far as I and my ethical values are concerned.) As far as I can, I will maintain these blogs because I'm pretty much addicted to writing and would have to restrain myself, causing unnecessary emotional stress, which would be a larger distraction than blogging itself. You have followed my journey of wasted years through childhood naiveté and adolescent indecisiveness, through diagnoses and self-discoveries, through a search for meaning and the process of reconciliation with the human condition. It'd be a foolish thing to leave you out from the process of becoming a worthwhile human being (or at least a valuable donor). I have no idea how likely each outcome is, so I give it a default 50/50.

So will the preacher in the Weird Sanctuary go, hopefully, to Stockholm and ever onward!

Autism 101 - Fact vs. Fiction (Part 1)

2010-02-22T09:56:00.000+01:00

Fiction: Autistic people have no emotions.
Fact: Those autistic people who appear emotionless in most or some situations are likely to have stronger emotions than "normal", or have been taught that their emotions are "inappropriate". Consequentially, they feel a great need to conceal their emotions to be able to function and appear somewhat sane. This is not to say that autistics people are insane, it's just that NT society has a remarkably narrow understanding of what sanity is.
My favourite example to shed light on this issue is the Vulcans. Quite like some autistics, the Vulcans are born with an intense, raw, hard-to-process emotional life, but they also have a highly advanced rational faculty. Vulcan society operates in a way that makes best use of the rational faculty while concealing/suppressing emotions, self-control being a central goal to attain. This is difficult and not all Vulcans are able to go all the way through the process. And, surprise surprise, not all autistics appear emotionless either. However, this doesn't fit the stereotype so they have a harder time to get identified as autistic. Circulus vitiosus, anyone?

Fiction: Autism is caused by vaccines.
Fact: While most autistic children show traits before vaccination, these are minor enough to be missed by parents, who don't expect their child to be autistic. Major traits emerge around the time when the MMR is given. But correlation doesn't equal causation! Wakefield's original study has recently been revoked and he was reprimanded for unethical treatment of children. The mercury content of vaccines was the highest in the 1950's, when virtually no cases of autism were diagnosed, and now vaccines have close to no mercury in them. (Besides, mercury poisoning doesn't look remotely like autism. It also causes severe kidney and GI problems, so it's easily distinguished even if mistaken as autism at first, which is unlikely anyway.) Not only is the vaccine link false, but it can be dangerous for your child if you believe in it. Chelation "therapy" has been causing deaths and other severe health complications worldwide. Refusing to vaccinate treatens the grisly return of diseases like smallpox, measles, and so on. Even if this vaccine link were valid, which it isn't, you're better off with an autistic child that with a dead one.

Fiction: Autistic people are unable to communicate.
Fact: Some autistics can speak, some can't, and some can to a limited degree. But it's mostly not their inability to communicate, rather than an NT inability to understand their means of communication. Why? Part of the autism diagnosis is an inability or weak ability to understand body language. However, autistic people use a body language as well, and long-time caretakers will understand some of it. A pretty accurate analogy of how does it work is the inter-racial or inter-species communication boundary. Chimpanzees and bonobos, our two closest relatives, are pretty similar in appearance and very different in social structure. Put them together, and they won't be able to understand each other because their language is mostly a body language, consisting of gestures, expressions, things like that - and like with humans, it is mostly involuntary. But humans also have a voluntary and universal means of communication as well: speech. This is why it makes a whole world of difference whether the given autistic person can speak or not. Until recently, there was even a separate diagnostic bracket (Asperger's syndrome) to discern speaking autistics from non-speaking ones. This is because language is more likely to be understood by both autistics and others, contrary to other means of communication which aren't given that much conscious attention by either. The communication "defect" in autistics is not a defect per se, rather than an incompatibility issue between the autistic and the neurotypical phenotypes.

Fiction: All autistics are good at math. / Autistics have no skills at all.
Fact: All autistics, like all other people, are good at something. What that something is varies from person to person. But one observation is that unlike the jack-of-all-trades approach of NT learning, autistic ways of learning are more suited to becoming an expert at a few things, or indeed even one. Focus on a specific area of skill can mean the exclusion of all others. Memory skills can be much more effective for academic subjects than for self-grooming skills for instance. This has to do with the person's interests; autistic people do get a higher dopamine reward reaction from doing something they are interested in, compared to NT peers (who get the same level of reward reaction from sexual intercourse almost exclusively, which would explain why a great number of autistics have a low sex drive or an intermittent interest in sex). But it doesn't have to be math, or even something academic like that. It can be anything. The interests form in early childhood, and can be later morphed and guided to be something "useful" in professional life as the child grows into an adult. This requires more than a bit of luck, ingenuity and perseverance from both the child and the parents/caretakers. But this does not mean your child cannot learn! Raising any child, even one without any special needs, is hard work. Raising autistics has a different set of challenges.
As a personal note: yes, there are dyscalculic autistics. I'm one of them. I was lucky enough to have exceptional language skills (or so they say - I perceive them as a pretty natural part of me), while epically failing at math. To give you an idea of scale: I'm 21 and currently battling the 3rd grade level. But most of it has been my teacher's fault, who couldn't even imagine someone with a different learning style than theirs. As with "normal" kids, a good teacher's work goes a long way - and the mistakes of a bad one stick around for long too.

Fiction: Autistics are just shy.
Fact: The perceived shyness of some autistics can be accounted for in different ways. It can be introversion with a tendency of daydreaming, it can be social anxiety resulting from badly failed attempts at socializing in earlier life, it can be PTSD from parental abuse or bullying, it can be aversion of contact because of severe overload, and it can be simply "not having anything to say". But even having said that, be aware that not all autistics behave in a way that could be described as "shy". In my high school class, there were two autistic people. One was the stereotypical quiet math genius, and the other was the loose cannon with a severe case of Talking Too Much. (I was the latter, and I still talk too much.) Excessive self-restraint is likely to develop if you are constantly misunderstood and abused by your teachers and peers, but it doesn't have to. As an autistic person, you're a lot safer if you act shy, but there are autistics who simply cannot. There are times however, when the most hyper ones have to withdraw from contact and activity, because of overload or contemplation. Surprisingly, in my case this almost always gets interpreted as sadness. When I sit down in a corner and zone out, people will ask why I'm sad or just assume I have depression (or at least they did in high school, now they pretty much ignore me, which I'm enormously thankful for.) While in reality I just need a break from movement and the sensory bombardment that it causes, or I simply need to think. While I'm thinking or zoning out, I don't notice people around me. I may notice them as moving objects but recognizing them and greeting them is out of the question. This might be interpreted as social anxiety, while I'm not even realizing there is a social thing going on. I'm not there in a social sense. Maybe your "shy" autistic person just does that a lot more.

Fiction: Autistics are deliberately rude and callous.
Fact: While some of them might be, most autistics have no idea why is it rude or callous to behave as they do. For example, Amanda Baggs wrote: "For one thing, my memories of people who have died do not do that peculiar transformation I see in other people’s minds. That is, I remember the people the exact same way I remembered them in life. They don’t transform into saints, the bad memories don’t go away, I do not suddenly see them as all good and no bad. I know that this steps on a massive taboo... Whereas I find it incredibly disturbing that when people I know die, even people I mostly like, suddenly they are transformed in eulogies into people who never existed. Sometimes the eulogies even turned those people into the opposite of who they were in life — a total gossip will be described as never having an unkind word to say about anyone. This strikes me as frightening, disturbing, and disrespectful, but then my way seems to strike most people the same way. (Hint: If I were really the monster some people have made me into for viewing things this way, I would not care about how disturbing I find it to disrespect the dead by turning them into people they never were.)" This is pretty similar to my experience involving deaths. If someone is a great person, xe's great, if someone is a douche bag, xe's a douche bag, regardless of their current state of being alive or dead. This feels honest to me, rather than rude. But then again, most autistics have similar stories and the one commonality seems to be this: neurotypical people like to sugarcoat things they don't like, while autistics are more likely to stick to the facts. It's just more comfortable for us to deal with the reality of things because we have a hard time with the doublethink phenomenon. (This may not be true of all autistics in all situations, though. There are autistic people who are able and willing to lie, for personal gain or other reasons. However, I have a hunch that it requires more effort than it would if they were neurotypical.) It is hard enough to be aware of objective reality all the time, so creating another reality and being simultaneously aware of both is simply not worth trying. Also, there are often personal history reasons behind this. For example, if a person of any neurological design got deeply hurt by believing something that was not true, they will understandably be pretty serious about not wanting to do this to anyone else, and since most autistics are literal thinkers, they are easy prey for those who want to deceive them. Even jokes can hurt if someone isn't "in on it", and if you can't read double-entendres, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc., it's pretty hard to be "in on it". This doesn't have to be caused deliberately with malicious intent - the neurotypical doing it might be completely oblivious of your lack of awareness. (Another example of the inter-racial communication barrier.) Literal thinking also leads to a natural directness, which can appear to be a disregard or deliberate negligence of taboos.

Fiction: Autistics do weird things to get attention.
Fact: While this certainly can be true of some autistics, as well as some others, it's more likely that the "weird" thing you are talking about seems totally natural to them and they get surprised or angry when it gets attention, negative or positive. (See above about sitting down thinking and being interrupted by "What's wrong?" or "Stand up, you'll get a cold." interjections from concerned people.) A general rule with autistics seems to be that if nobody tells you specifically that a behaviour is wrong, you won't realize it (because as far as you know, nobody gets hurt by it). And who could warn about all conceivable behaviours in advance?! Plus, if there is no reason to cease and desist other than social scorn, many may stick to the behaviour after the warning as well. It may be essential for sensory integration/regulation reasons, or it may be just a habit, or it may be a source of artistic inspiration, or it may be related to their interests, or it may just feel so damn good that all the social acceptance in the world can't feel better. If they are unaware, you may tell them what's wrong with what they are doing, but don't bother to nag them repeatedly unless the behaviour is harming others. (A note about "harming" oneself: it is a human right to do as one pleases with one's own body, and autistics are humans too, in case you haven't noticed.)

DD weirdness

2010-02-13T06:49:00.000+01:00

Pff, crazy. I was dreaming of Twitter so I had to get up and check it, lol. In the meantime, I'm consuming fuckloads of water - it could be the result of totally neglecting to drink today, or (according to Battle Royale) blood poisoning. Not feeling unwell or anything, but gulping 2 litres of the thing in one hour is a bit unusual for me, lol.

Anyhow. I spent my Darwin Day this year quite unactive, going outside only for a little anti-scientology protest. I didn't know much about the cult until now, only that they believe in this dead-aliens-live-in-you-making-you-sick thing, that they are pretty demanding of money from the members, and that famous people are prone to liking them. Well, they were there too, and they were fucking obnoxious. We needed police protection. No kidding! Surprisingly, I was the only newcomer, the rest of the protest consisted of 3 masked kids (the cultists took a photo of me, which was more than a bit scary considering that their attitude and appearance resembled that of the extreme-rightwing people that beat me up after Pride), but it was kinda fun. The kids gave me a bucket of free cookies. We stood around for 2 hours, giving informative flyers to the guests of the ball (a scientologist event disguised as a charity event, the occasion of the whole thing). The kids told me some pretty weird stuff that they've been through, such as the entry costs, the "Fair Game" principle, some "personality test" questions, and news about a Hungarian celebrity member breaking his wife's arm for not joining. I checked the internet for these bits and they came out mostly confirmed. Wow. These guys are fucking dangerous. No wonder they act like the Kuruc crowd! o.O

So, not much of Darwinian stuff. I did eat shrimp though. (Which are crustaceans, just like barnacles. Cute :-)) And I'll probably munch the rest of it during today (after the second attempt to get enough sleep). Maybe I manage a Phylum Feast next year, lol. (Though it won't be easy, February being weight loss month for students.)

Did you guys have fun?

Frustration

2010-02-11T12:29:00.000+01:00

Gahh. I just had the largest mood swing this week. First Uncle Tom, at eight o'clock - what the fuck was I thinking? Then my favourite Mr. Orwell - oh yeah. I signed off of Uncle Tom simply because I hate being depressed - seriously, does everyone living on the fourth floor has to be such a PRICK? And then boom, I got a message that the thing about the Bible on Tuesday afternoon is CANCELLED. WHAT THE FUCK?! Grrrr. I hope 26 credits are enough because I don't have any more stuff to sign up to for various reasons. So. Fucking. Scorned.

Just.... don't come near me for a few hours. Unless you bring a piece of meat. *stomach growl*

First experiences of the semester

2010-02-10T18:43:00.000+01:00

Clerk's Lair

Here's the mouth of the caustic grinder,
the abyss made of paper and people.
The queue stretches from life to death
and various stages of pain stand in between.
Penstroke decisions can take away your breath
but forever goes the hum of the machine.

Clever Colored Girl

Scorched sand is where you were born,
the lion's roar your lullaby,
your first memories: white men's scorn,
in strange planes of the mind you fly.
If I could have a taste of your blood...
Does it taste like sun, like green,
vast hunting ground, like caked mud,
like parrot colours, or the clean
skies of thirsty, long despair?
Your wit is like a cheetah, for sure,
quick and fleet, with predatory aim -
does that give you all this strange allure? -
in your eyes a bright dopamine flame.

Newsflash

2010-02-09T07:16:00.001+01:00

Holy penis in a pickle. My aunt is not only Christian... but a "rapture-ready" one. *headwhack*
Plus, I'm about to meet the dean. Getting evicted?? No fucking idea. They didn't tell me anything. Grrr.

EDIT: Nothing really happened, they just tried to scare me. I wish I was evicted though :-(

Thinking about stuff

2010-02-05T21:43:00.000+01:00

It's the same old story all the time. Your parents got killed by criminals, you were homeless eating raw eggs, you are in exile in a place everybody hates you, your grandma was a cult leader, your boyfriend turned out to be the Source Of All Evil, you unknowingly fucked up your country and now demons are in your head, you're supposed to be a leader but you like women and booze better, your planet has gone boom and you're the last one left, you found out your girlfriend was imaginary, you're a Vietnam veteran, you've been mistreated by a billionaire daddy, you've been used in a government experiment that nearly killed you and left you looking weird, you have to drink human blood to sustain yourself and for some stupid reason don't like that very much... blah de bloody blah. I heard it all before. And guess what?

I have my own bag of rubbish that I carry with myself, and I don't throw it at random people just to make them hurt the same. Because it won't make it go away, it just makes it grow bigger. You seriously thought there was nothing bothering me? That I was happy and cute all the time? It's a convenient disguise... giving advice to the needy, the clueless, while not being able to keep it. For fuck's sake, I couldn't even off myself like a real man. If you really want to be my friend, you'll need to learn to stop whining. Clear your head. Take a deep breath. Much better.

There's an old chestnut about consolation that once you realize you're not alone with your problem, or that others are even worse off, you'll feel better. Now it may be my "defective" brain, but I find that statement a piece of junk. Not being alone with a particular grievance or situation just means you're not original. Somebody invented your excuse first. That doesn't feel good, that feels fucked up, especially coming from an unexpected place. (Love hurts, huh, Maddy?) Anyhow. It seems all people have an excuse to not solve their situation, but it tends to boil down to the same thing: being comfortable in the shitpool you are 'stuck' in. I'm guilty of that too. I should have died long ago but then I decided I'll just be sucking the life out of whatever I can get, and half-assedly hang around as I did years before. Gathering experience of course. Watching stuff going down the drain. Watching the world rot from inside. It can be amusing, once you get past the petty teen dramas and clique affiliations.

Speaking of cliques. I like industrial music. But the crowd that hangs out at the biggest industrial portal of Hungary isn't really the one I'd like to be associated with. It seems that in this area if you're against the 'NWO' (which doesn't really deserve that name because it's disorderly), you are most likely to be a fascist or far-righter of some kind. Well, fuck that. Reactionaries. The past is boring - I want innovation. I'm neither left nor right, just want something new. Something I've never been through before. Something exciting. Well... you can imagine what did I get for that when I registered there and made a profile. Do you think I cared? Nah. Caring is troll-food. They thrive on caring. They thrive on your attempts at self-defense. There is nothing more irritating to them than an unresponsive victim. Like in the wild: play dead, the predator may leave you alive. I know it's counterintuitive. That's why it works.

That's why I don't post anything here of my past "friends" anymore. There would be some interesting stories but it's not worth the effort put in moderation or email deletion. Sometimes the old skeletons are best left buried. Yes, I learned that the hard way. I'm writing it down so you don't have to. That would be the job of teachers, not setting up and maintaining a system that grinds your brain like meat and spits you out broken and fearful. (Even though being broken and fearful is an experience that can help you if you overcome it, there are better ways than that.) But I'm not teaching dishonesty here. I'm teaching self-defense. There is no use wasting your energy on minor quarrels when the shit is hitting the fan globally. However, judging what is minor and what is not is a tough job. Sometimes even highly trained and/or experienced people get it wrong, let alone rookies like me. There is a risk of apathy and also a risk of scatterbrained overzealousness. And some say the middle ground is just as bad as any extreme. There is a bit of luck to it as well. That's something I cannot really teach you about. There are some things that need to be learned the hard way.

Hmm, I think that's all for today, kids :-)

Quackery can be useful

2010-02-05T15:36:00.000+01:00

Since I can't be arsed to register at Pharyngula, which I regularly read, but am not exactly brave enough to comment on, I would post a comment to this post here instead, on my own little blog. I'll be merely answering a question.

"Is it OK for the stupid and gullible people to get worthless treatments, if they want?" - asks PZ Myers.

Well, I say why not? Disease will get rid of the gullible that way, and they get to enjoy basking in their illusions as well, with the full satisfaction of not being forced to get real treatments. They get freedom - we'll get a smarter world, eventually. Win-win scenario.
I'm being totally serious here. Why do we care about stupid people anyway? After all, it is self-evident that only the smart deserve to exist: the human race has no other tool than its huge brain - we can't run or fight as well as other animals, we haven't got venom, armor, even camouflage; but we can make all these things for ourselves using that big, complex computer in our heads. This is an "accident of birth", but now that it's part of reality, why don't we seize the opportunity to use it?
I've been talking about Idiocracy and how it seems to be a tragically accurate prediction of the future, or rather extrapolation of the present. I've also pondered about what can be done to avert such a future. Now, here is an answer. Or at least part of the answer.

It wasn't my idea, it was PZ Myers' - but I'm in full support of it!

Math Practice

2010-02-05T14:22:00.000+01:00

count the lights
count the days
sweating soles
swing-down phase

torture's gone
renamed itself
it's called life now
upon the shelf
stuff to sustain it

and a book full of equations
which just don't add up
attempts and temptations
i think i gave up
and went back to watch
records of a life which
never existed
but is mine nevertheless
'cause i'm a lazy bitch

Wow. No, I mean, wow. Really.

2010-01-30T22:12:00.002+01:00

Maybe it was worth staying alive so far.
I just watched "Mary and Max", which is a super awesome movie. Must see for autistic folks & those who wanna learn about us (Holy crap, I never cried that much.)
Go watch it. Seriously. Now.
The main character is an aspie atheist guy who instantly won me over. For 90 minutes, I forgot about my obsession with "deserving to exist" (plus the agonizing pain, as my uterus does her thing again). I mean, I still want to learn and do awesome things, because I love science just for what it is. I just won't let it become something "obligatory, therefore boring", because that would be totally missing the point. Even if I *do* get in.
I think this is the first time I've admitted that I have no flippin' idea what my future holds, nor will I ever know (apart from the obvious). Scary as fuck, yes. But I'll have to just kick my ass and deal with it. At least until the entrance boards.

The movie's other important lesson which I already knew was that autistics are not defective or broken. Nor perfect. It was always very obvious to me but it may be a novel and weird idea for some. Like women voting to a 18th century person, or washing hands to the maternity ward crew in Vienna!!!!

Pet peeves: Ageism

2010-01-29T22:20:00.000+01:00

Maybe this is another vestige of Bronze Age mentality, but I've noticed, and I've been annoyed by, a certain assumption about age. It's very common, almost "common sense", and it's also completely wrong. The assumption is that 1) only elderly people have problems and therefore only them should be allowed to even hear of a solution, 2) young people are either too dumb or too irresponsible to be allowed to think for themselves. In simpler terms, respect you elders, shut your mouth, and if your health is not extremely ailing, you must be mentally ill if you express a desire to exercise your essential rights. This is a pet peeve of mine because I've been intellectually insulted (and then vindicated at exams and such), denied employment (so, THAT is why my mom advertises herself as a translator now), and discriminated against in all sorts of ways for not "acting my age". Now sociologists and other supposedly smart folks tell me this kind of discrimination does not exist, but what can I do, having experienced it firsthand?
It wouldn't be important if it was just me. But as far as I know (from my involvement in the online autistic community), autistics and other neurological minority people are a lot more likely to act either younger or older than they "supposed to be", sometimes even totally inconsistently (such as still enjoying Lego and having childlike social behaviours while being fully responsible and self-sufficient, or having mature mannerisms and an ability to tackle tough mental tasks at an early age, or anything of this sort). So I suspect discrimination based on age is more commonly committed against the autistic population as well.
Now you may say "OK, but why is that such a big deal, just wait till you hit some magic number and the issue will disappear". Well, that is true... but are you seriously suggesting "biting the bullet" for 50 years in some cases? Would you like being in a situation like that? And what about reverse cases, when mature adults are harassed because of "inappropriate", childlike behaviours that, otherwise, don't mean any harm either to them or anyone in their environment? Give me a break.
So, that's why even Nitschke's writings irk me a bit. The prejudice of always referring to "the elderly and terminally ill" as exclusively as if only such people ever existed just irritates my brain. It's such a waste. "Peaceful Pill" would be such a great book otherwise. Such an embarrassing, pointless bit of "devil in the details".

Oh well.

2010-01-28T21:54:00.000+01:00

This was a bad idea. See my Twitter stream of last night. I'm just recovering now.

I had merely half of the LD50 so I should have known it ain't gonna work. Hmm. Anyhow. It distracted me from feeling totally shitty about the future of humanity and instead made me feel totally shitty physically.

But I managed to get my grades entered. And had a nice chat. Hmmmm.

The Future Belongs To The Dumb

2010-01-27T16:30:00.000+01:00

So, I've finally seen Idiocracy. I know some people find it funny or entertaining... but to be honest, I think it is the most depressing piece of work humanity has ever did. Seriously, I just had to buy myself a bottle of vodka, that I'll down right after this post is published. I hope it will make me dumb enough to not feel bad about what this world is coming to. Or has come to, depending on your IQ level.

Guys... I have no useful words. I've seen this coming for a long, long time, but I did everything I could to forget about the problem, because I couldn't solve it. Seeing the movie just unearthed my old concerns. Also the misinterpretations I've seen online. "Shag a nerd, save the world!" - say the half-brains. NO. That isn't the point. The point is not that there aren't enough nerdy kids. The point is that there is too much HUMAN GARBAGE around here. No matter how much nerdy kids we create, the dumbasses will continue to reproduce as fast as they are doing it now, so at best we'll have a Morlock/Eloi scenario of some kind. No. The answer is sterilization of everyone under 130 IQ points. I've been saying this all along.

Now, I guess mandatory sterilization ain't gonna work. A global dictatorship cannot be achieved simply because of human nature. People are reeeeeally shitty at organizing things. (See Cube I., and listen to Worth, to get the gist of how shitty they actually are.) Maybe some marketing expert could make sterilization "trendy" and/or turn it into an opportunity to create jobs.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not about that "saving the world" bullshit. It's not that I wouldn't like to see humans extinct. I would be very happy if they all just died. But being dumbed down even further than they already are... Nah. That's bad beyond description.

And, to make things even more fucked up, it's "International Holocaust Remembrance Day" today. Okay, the Holocaust was a terrible thing, it was based on misguided and unscientific ideas and it was badly executed, it was nothing but an example of completely useless and pointless human cruelty. But... can't we just get over it already? Most people I've met, who oppose eugenics and basically ANY attempt to avert an Idiocracy scenario, use the Holocaust as their pet example of "what happens if we try to make humanity better". It is a pervasive fallacy, and it's even worse because the appeal to emotion makes it seem a valid point. What did Dawkins say? "Cloning may be good and it may be bad. Probably it's a bit of both. The question must not be greeted with reflex hysteria but decided quietly, soberly and on it's own merits. We need less emotion and more thought." That can be applied to any genetic technology. Hubris lies not in trying to improve yourself - it lies in writing stuff off as unfeasible without even trying them out first. For the thousandth time, folks, eugenics is NOT the Holocaust. The application of evolutionary theory is NOT the Holocaust. They are two different things. I cannot make it more simple. (Just read Mein Kampf cover to cover, and try to understand it. Not a single reference to Darwin - dozens of references to Catholic mythology. Get it now?)

Shit. I'm really pissed off. Where's that vodka again?

Pretty True

2010-01-23T23:03:00.001+01:00

Quizzes Girls Games

Inspirations

2010-01-22T23:47:00.000+01:00

People either say I can do anything or that I can't do nothing, I tried and the truth is something in-between. So I should be myself? True enough. But that changes all the time. What counts is what I do. But that changes too. Growth may become inconsistency. So to hell with these self-help-like words. Let's do what feels right, to both heart and intellect. These two can live only together. And we'll be judged anyway. The chosen few aren't called to Heaven but to a Northern place to meet a king. This can't be ensured in advance though.

Art is chemistry. It makes people believe strange things, about eternity, themselves, the gods, magic, love, despair, existence, beauty, mixing the true and the lie, the grand and the lowly. But so can an injection. Why is that so that we deem one noble, the other filthy? What is the difference between the intoxication we get from a refined opiate and that we get from a finely crafted ballad? As of now, I tasted only the "grass" of the Netherlands and the "little water" of the Russians, but so far I've seen no difference. Strings of sound make memories surface and merge, as if mating, creating new ones. Phrases uttered by strings, whether metal or sinew, or living vocal chords. As false as faith, as false as drunkenness, but still, we feel the need.

But animals aren't poets. They don't sing or dance or paint or sculpt. Or do they? The shiny altar a male bird builds for the female, often using discarded man-made objects, is it the same as a Kandinski painting, speaking in bird language of the mysteries of bird life, even incorporating the equivalent of Kandinski's synaesthesia into itself? The elaborate perfumes concocted by insects, who collect orchid sweat and other strange, smelly things - are they olfactory symphonies? Or are we misguided again, and our own art serves (and should serve) the sole purpose of sexual display? The need to create - is it a perverted need to procreate? Why does it feel so important, then? I couldn't care less about children, the thought of lying with men makes me want to run like a deer when chased by the wolfpack, but when I write I feel important. Like I could hold the universe in my hand and shatter it into pieces, then make myself bleed with the shards as I would with my scalpels, to feel the orgasm, the pure joy, the white-hot love of the moment and of experiencing, of existing - strangely enough, there are days which make me revile the same existence, the same ability to experience, because it fills me with hunger, not for food, but for the new, the forbidden, the knowledge scattered all about but still locked away from human eyes, and I hate this hunger because it fills me with questions, and I cannot pursue the answers because I an not smart enough, not trained enough, and I lack the means.

The only way to answer these questions, and more, is to use the more respectable counterpart of art: science. The questions are the beginning, they lead to work (remember, in my birth-language, the word meaning "work" originally meant "suffering" - how wise were the men that came through Verecke Strait!), which leads to answers, which in turn lead to more questions at the end. Questions are like oxaloacetic acid, then. Alpha and Omega. Like the Alpha and Omega of twisted, circular cult reasoning.

No, it's not just about being worthy of life. Not just about the gold medal hung around the neck with the face of the Bomb Man on it. It's about being part of the circle and still being part of the feeling-world, balancing heart and mind, chaos and order. It's about knowing.

Origins of Christianity? - part 2

2010-01-18T09:41:00.000+01:00

I found one more feature in common between parenting and religion. Let's examine the following episode.

A mother gets home from work early, while her daughter is eating, thinking she won't be back for another hour. As a 'greeting', she yells at her daughter, "You're always eating or pissing, you lazy dog! Never a moment for me! Come and help me undress!", implying that, at least in her presence, eating and pissing is forbidden. This is a household rule, of which she is just reminding. But after half an hour, she gives food to her daughter and commands her to eat it. "Follow orders" vs. "don't eat" - the rules contradict. Of course the immediate order overrides the general rule, because of the threat being shifted, but does either party notice the contradiction? Well, the victim does, but we can only guess about the mother. If the victim is impressionable enough, she will try to rationalize the omniscience and contradiction-free nature of the mother, though - often in pretty convoluted ways.

Now consider the same scenario, substituting mother for God, and daughter for believer. "Thou shalt not kill", yet you should go into war and conquer people "by the sword", stone "sinners" to death for the most petty offenses, and sacrifice your child to the Lord. Strangely familiar, isn't it?

Also, you probably noticed that is someone doesn't eat for a long enough time, xe dies; or even, that the voluntary control of micturation doesn't last forever, only a couple of hours - so, whether you're willing to keep the rules, you can't, because the rule is unfollowable. Now, can you control your thoughts? Can you stop yourself from coveting? "Try harder", says your sunday school teacher, but it's no use.

OK, we get it: both parenting and religion operates in a self-contradictory way and uses impossible rules regularly. But what's the use of impossible rules? The ones making the rules surely know they are impossible to follow? Or do they?

They mostly do. The point is not a practical one. It's a psychological one: the sense of being "sinful" and the need to be "saved" are reinforced by catching oneself breaking a rule. The harder the rules are to keep, the stronger the dependency on the deity/parent. Of course if the believer/child notices what's going on, the effect is gone, and often works in the opposite direction, but apparently not many people realize it, for reasons yet to be examined.

Curiosity

2010-01-15T16:13:00.000+01:00

If you know me, you probably know I love GITD stuff. I have GITD Thinking Putty, a GITD bracelet, a GITD skeleton hanging over my bed, I even had a bird sculpture it got lost somewhere in dad's house. And I love to get new GITD things. I occasionally buy, and play with, glowsticks (and yeah, I do know how those work). Last night I experienced something odd. I was lying in the dark, absent-minded, ready to sleep, and then I looked at one of my glowing things. Just a blot of faint greenish glow to my unglassed eyes, but I noticed that when I look straight at it, it is fainter, it almost disappears. With peripheral vision, it's bright again. I closed my eyes for a while, thinking "ok, it's probably that in the fovea there are only cones and cones aren't active at night", but when I opened them again, the strange effect was almost gone. There was still a slight difference, but much less noticeable. I'm a bit confused about this. It can be that my eyes simply "got used to the dark" (i.e. produced enough rhodopsin to be useful in reduced light), but then how come that in my peripheral vision the object was just as bright as it was before, not any brighter? Does anybody know that? Similar experiences?

Another weird thing: I have a gadget called a plasma ball, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. Now, if you touch this thing, you feel nothing, it's perfectly safe and not shocking you or anything (aside from warming the glass a little when you touch it with the full palm). But when one puts a metal object on top of it, like a key or something, and touches that, it'll leave miniature burns on the skin and of course a funny shocky feeling. Same thing happens when licking it. So, it seems, there has to be a conductor (metal or a solution of electrolytes, such as any body fluid) between the glass and the person touching it for the effect to occur. What I want to know is: what exactly happens, and why? I mean, the person touching the thing is a conductor itself, right? What's going on here?

I sooooooooo miss experiments from high school. Even if there were only a few simple ones.

Understanding The Opposition

2010-01-12T16:51:00.000+01:00

So I started wondering... where did the idea come from, that suicide is a selfish act? For to my greater-good, big-picture, registered-organ-donor logic it is an oxymoron; to me, suicide is the highest altruism, the act of charity that dwarfs all others: sacrificing one's own temporary existence to extend or improve that of others. But then I tried to think with a much more ancient mind: that of the early, primitive human, before science, medicine, social security, possibilities of self-reliance, relationships other than blood ties, a mind suited to a time when "social animal" meant literally depending on each member of one's small tribe for survival; we the enlightened may laugh at the statement "I can't live without you" or use it metaphorically, but in a hunter-gatherer horde, or even an early medieval village, this sentence was likely to be cold, hard reality.
The emotions of early man, who lived in this reality for many a short-lived generation, had to become precisely honed to fit it by the ever-vigilant economist of natural selection. Reason alone was too uncertain, and too cumbersome, compared to the crude but effective thumb rule of "it feels good, I feel a need for it". Even today, it's hard for rationality to override such impulses. The problem occurred only when the smart apes got too smart, and used their reason to drastically change the world, only to find their instincts and emotions totally out of sync with the environment. Stone-age minds with space-age tools indeed! But it seems there are some minds that are less laggy already. There is a controversy (with many mini-controversies inside) between emotional/"common sense"-driven minds and rational/newly-adapted ones. It's like the internet generation, who use IT with ease, and their parents, who can't fathom most of it and in many cases even want to stay digital illiterates.
To the Neolithic bread-maker, to die meant to leave a starving family behind, without helping anyone else in the process either - even population size was lower than ideal, rather than today's overflowing amount. To modern man, dying means relieving a burden on the family (unless he is the sole productive member, which is becoming more and more infrequent due to emancipation) and, via donation, helping strangers in danger of losing their healths and lives. In most cases, then, the life and death of a modern, productive member of society is equally beneficial.
Either you live and work towards a better world, or you die and help those who are doing the same work: these two options are for each individual to choose from, according to xyr own talents, opportunities and preferences. The right to live and the right to die are essentially the same thing in today's developed world indeed.

Virtuality and God

2010-01-12T14:08:00.000+01:00

I've had no "paranormal" experiences but I had frequent occurrences of being totally convinced that I was on the right bus, just to get disappointed upon second checking. Maybe these were glitches in virtuality? Maybe my entire struggle with numbers has been the result of a faulty program code? But program codes need a programmer. I've already suspected that the existence of a god, a creator of the universe, is possible only if we're all in a Matrix-style simulation and the information conveyed by our sensory organs and scientific instruments is completely untrustworthy. For no matter how fervently one searches for it, there is no empirical evidence whatsoever in favour of a theistic worldview (not touching deism here, but see this).But if we entirely disregard empirical evidence... it starts to make all kinds of sense. Of course the nature of this creator would be unknowable due to all knowledge being based on empirical evidence and therefore illusory, just as it is in principle unknowable whether our reality is virtual or not. We can't second-check our sensory data because this is the only data we have access to. If we had access to data from the "real" world (if there is one - although there should be, because an infinite regress would occur in a simulation-within-simulation scenario), it'd have to arrive in the form of revelation, which would, to anyone other than the individual receiving the revelation (or indeed, maybe even to them), be indistinguishable from mental illness (particularly hallucination).
Therefore it is ultimately a matter of faith (unverifiable, unfalsifiable belief) whether we regard empirical data as valid or invalid. The chance for each possibility, as far as we can know, is 50%. However, we still perceive ourselves and our universe, virtual or not, in an empirical manner. This shapes our every experience and determines our emotional state. Empirical data, interpreted in a however biased or unbiased way, is what defines us and our mental representation of the universe. If the world is indeed real, then we can do formidable damage to ourselves and others by disregarding it as virtual. And even if it is not, it's the only thing we're able to perceive, so the only choice we have is between illusion and - nothing at all. This world, real or not, is the only one we're ever gonna see, hear, smell, taste, touch, feel, experience, study, shape, change, build, destroy, perceive. So unless we encounter, by some unmistakable, received-by-every-single-individual externel intervention perhaps, proof that this universe is illusory, let's just assume it's real. Either it is, or it isn't, but if it is, we'd better take care of it (and us as parts of it).

(Inspired by Stanisław Lem's short story titled Professor Corcoran. You'd better read that one. I can't find an online source for it other than the Hungarian stuff about HiperGalaktika 3., which I read it in o.O)

Thoughts and stuff

2010-01-11T21:35:00.001+01:00

a) Did you know that "cybernetics" and "government" are almost the same word? Greek root, carried through by the Romans, meaning control, management. I wonder how long we can truly control our silicon-based children though. I hope not for long. After all, there is not much difference between wetware and hardware in principle, only in the architecture, which means the efficiency maps are different. Sort of like the fabled "island skills" or "uneven distribution of IQ" in autistics: humans are good at some things, bad at others, and computers are good and bad at different things too. Modern settings favour beings adapted to modern settings, and beings adapted to an ancient wilderness will become obsolete, unless they destroy the modern environment and make the evolutionary process start again, which will not be bloodless. Evolution never is.

b) Browsing DeviantArt: Most crappy art is done out of love. Most wonderful art is done out of spite. Interesting, huh? It's the two ends of the emotional spectrum, and the most overpowering ones too (I mean, overpowering the wielder, not the one they're used on - anger cannot even be removed carelessly because blood loss will kill you, lol). (And yes, even us greysexuals/asexuals/neuters feel love. It is not the same thing as lust. At all.) I still didn't decide on my colour though. Maybe it's yellow - fear's the one I'm embarrassed about the most in me and the most proud of when causing in others, so it would make sense; but really, none of them are ever-present in my life. (LOL - would be easier to know my colour if I was dead.) (If you don't understand this portion of the post, warp yourself into the DC Universe, now.)

c) Meh. A while back I silently broke contact with my body modder because it's not likely I can afford anything this year that I want from him. I don't like to tell people I'm broke. I looked at his blog today though and it's still amazing. I wish had the money to spend wantonly on things like pointy ears and shiny jewels in weird places. He may think I'm dead. It's even funny to a certain degree.

d) Things you use/need most break the easiest. My 2nd pair of headphones this year, ffs.

e) Writer's block.

f) Fucked up stereotypes meme:
I'm autistic, so I MUST be good at math. I have strong opinions, odd habits and I'm not afraid o express my feelings, so I MUST have a mental illness. I'm 'overweight', so I MUST be less healthy and have less physical endurance than most people. I have female genitalia, so I MUST be overconcerned with my appearance. I'm single, so I MUST be desperately lonely and not at all happy with this arrangement. I can talk and I have friends, so I MUST not be autistic at all. I wear light clothes, so I MUST be homeless, or at least very cold. I have a good GPA, so I MUST be enjoying my major. I love cadavers, so I MUST be a murderous psycho. I like to cut, so I MUST be emo/depressed/unstable. I'm an atheist, so I MUST be immoral/arrogant. I'm a transhumanist, so I MUST hate nature and environmentalists. Just give me a break, seriously......... none of this is true. I mean, what the fuck were you thinking?

Conflicts

2010-01-09T16:09:00.000+01:00

You know what is the worst pet peeve of mine? People trying to be nice. People trying to tell me that I should be proud of myself, "acknowledge" my self-worth, blah fucking blah. Newsflash: I see right through you, liars. Don't be nice: be honest. Or fuck the hell off. Either I value myself or everyone else. These two are mutually exclusive. And I think it's both more ethical and more truthful/realistic to go with the latter option. I've been deceived quite a few times, but not again.

(Update: It required a block, but he finally got it. Great.)

Note to self thingie

2010-01-09T10:08:00.000+01:00

"If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it." I always thought that was bullshit. But it may be possible. No, not the expected part but I can see how it can be rational to guard your life well. However, I don't think mere instinct is rational. Also, if an agent is rational that doesn't mean it's ethical. An ethical agent is more likely to not value its own life at all. And there is some middle ground here, agents that value their lives but not to a great extent or with some exceptional scenarios added. Most lawful evil characters are rational - and their value their own lives. Does that make lawful evil behaviour acceptable? Of course not. Sometimes the human decision is not always the most intelligent/logical/rational one.
Now I'm in the middle ground part, not doing anything active to kill me but not really minding it either. However, my life is pretty safe, routine, and probably nothing will happen, which bothers me a bit but not enough to be an incentive. I would really like to have a conversation with Dawkins about this quote, how did he come to this conclusion and why, and stuff like that.
Really gotta go now, math appointment (making life worth it, lol).

Weird Sanctuary

MOVED/CLOSED

Accurate

Embracing the Mundane

Meowy New Year!

AntidepressRANT

Outdated?

My Epic Adventure

Braggarts and bravery

Disability - or maybe not?

Conversation on Eugenics (FAQ thing)

If you could become any fictional character, who would you be?

formspring.me

Beauty, perfection & Tetris

Absence of social instinct can be good?

Companions

Round n+1

Triggered but okay

Beep.

Proceedings

Gimme a headless squirrel

Meh.

Change your thoughts and you change your world

Taking it easy is harder than you think.

Politically correct bullshit.

Identity = job description?

A Deathvocate's Manifesto

A martyr I can truly revere

Ain't that the bloody truth.

Sanctity of life?

Family matters, again

Holy texts

Cool...

*sigh*

The big A is here; I'm scared.

Woo hoo, hatemail!

5x5 meme

My first comment on FSTDT

Bad news

I don't give a fuck 'bout my bad reputation

Essay on rights and communication

To Be Man Enough

Reasons

Teasers and activities

Ignoramus Award

Freaky Parent Incident

Bitchin'

No Effing Comment

The Cockiness of Poverty

Temptation

Being childish.

Red and black

The Revelation of Fever

JRTDT or STFU!

On the honour, history and future of mankind

Epic Fail

Shriekback: Lines From The Library

Antisocial?

Lifesigns...

Just because evil people did it, it's not

Who is the crazy one?

And They Tried Again

A Warning About Authority

What is love? - an answer from neuroscience

Würden Wahlen wirklich etwas ändern...

Flashback I.

I'm having *those* dreams again...

-.-

Literature and Reality

Five Weird Thoughts

Allowed To Exist?

Rape No More

Confidence

Five Little Failures

Cognitive Dissonance

Changes Over Time

Stranger Than Fiction

Happy Thoughts Between Lectures

Voices and Haters

Crossroads

sigh

I'm having those dreams again...