Decades.

Decades are funny.  You hear about people getting all weird at this decade or that, we make a big deal of a person’s nth decade of life.  I don’t think too many people go into a decade thinking that it will be a big deal.

For me, having just recently passed my 4th decade, it has been kind of a big deal.  Looking back, each has been, in its own way.

At 10, puberty hit.  At 20, I was lost, and all seemed inpossible.  At 30, I had kids and was developing a successful career.

40.  Here I am.  I went into the dark for a while in my 30s.  Embraced the crazy and tried to exit society for the loft seating from which I could scoff at the madness of society and try to embrace disdain.

I don’t have that much to show for that time, though.  I learned myself, and perhaps that was necessary of painful to me and those who depended on or cared for me.

I’m done with it now, though.  The cold and dark is soothing and all, but it really isn’t living at all.  Life, the experience of it, is being a cog in something greater than ourselves.  Society itself is an organism which works best when the parts all interact well, and while no cog is required all are valuable.

I’m valuable.  I have something to add.  If I had the means to make lives better, I would simply for the joy of it.

I want that.  I want to be involved again in the world, and maybe make it better for a few.

To do it, to get there, I have come to grips with my spirituality, and I approve of where I am with it.  I think God and I have come to terms, and I’m willing to submit as I am able.  I don’t mean I’m going to get all judgey, or weird about anything.  The God I know is pretty chill, and man has been a ducky interpreter along the way.

The other big thing: I have to go back to doing work that makes me feel like I’m doing something of value.  Customer Service is a job, sure, but I want to build stuff.

So yeah.  40.  Big changes.  Maybe I’ll crash and burn and at 50 make another big turn.   Maybe I’ll find out what life is by embracing this whole life and joy thing.  Better living through eudaimonia, maybe.

Liberty or death needs to become a thing we understand and mean again.

This is what I read that made me rant like this.
All of you people out there that are ‘Yay Liberty!’, we need to talk about Trump for a second.  All of you who feel that one constitutional or civil right or another is all encompassing and important, listen up.
One of the things that I heard sold as a good reason to vote for Trump was that he would pick supreme court justices and cabinet that would be willing to protect thus or that and build up business and ‘make America great again’.  It all sounds great.
Except… he recently chose a guy for AG who is all for the reduction in liberty we have gained over the past 20ish years.  Not cool, man.
I’m as peaceful a person as they come, but I’m going to watch close, and should things back slide into the various isms being okay for any reason, I will be prepared to fight, protest, whatever.  
That said, that seems to be my attitude for every president.  Obama freaked me put with Obama care and random acts of assassination.  W. gave us the Patriot act and the surveillance nightmare with that.  So I’m not prepared to call for a revolution or something, but I am saying to be watchful.
The United States citizen is only powerful if we work together, and to do that we have to agree that if the defense of one right or equality of one group is important, then they are all important and to be defended.  Even to our deaths.
I will not live in a nation in a regression to monstrous ways of treating human beings without fighting against that change for evil.
For those that use Jesus’ name in support of this garbage, please remember that Satan was once God’s most favored, powerful, beautiful angel, and any that appear as if they fit the role of Christ in a situation are often antichrist in their ways. 
Be watchful, but be hopeful.  Be happy but prepared for hard times.  Together, we can do anything, individually, we can sow the seeds of liberty.
If you’re feeling this share it.

Why aren’t we building a ship intended for just space travel?

Elon Musk is hell bent to get to Mars and I support that.  Humanity needs to get off this planet and have it turned into a garden/reserve.

That said, we keep talking about these one way shots to Mars.  It seems like we’re wasting a lot of time on things that could be done more cheaply and efficiently with a good planned infrastructure.

My position: I believe that we will be much better off going ahead and building all of the things to get us to Mars and back on a regular basis.  

SpaceX and friends have taken the first step towards this, with reusable rocketry.  This reduces the cost of travel to low earth orbit by a large amount.  This has lead to discussion of flying a rocket from Earth’s surface to Mars.

The problems here are impressive.  We can’t afford to carry humans, their provisions, the necessities for the months long trip, the fuel, etc. In a one shot trip escaping Earth orbit and landing safely on Mars.  The initial launch would be ridiculouslying expensive to put it mildly.

On top of that, travel outside of Earth’s magnetosphere carries with it threats we have to prepare for.  There needs to be shielding to deal with cosmic radiation that is less plentiful near Earth.  They need some kind of protection from the much smaller asteroids and such that would act as the iceberg to our Titanic.

So.  We are talking about a ship that has to be built using materials and industrial capability we have on Earth in quantities that would strain our planetary supplies. 

For this, we need a shipyard.  In space.  A drydock, pressurized or not, that is for the construction of ships that are not intended to enter an atmosphere.  With this we need an infrastructure to support it.  We need a commercial/residential space station where the construction workers and their families can live, and other workers can provide them with opportunities for socialization, entertainment, health services.

For all of this, we need resources that aren’t handy in quantity without disruption on Earth.  That means the moon and nearby asteroids would need to be harvested and mined, and industry would need to move to the medium of space to save on the costs of the flight from Earth to Space.

They would probably find, once they got moved, that things are cheaper to manufacture in space, and the costs of delivery to Earth would be a tiny percentage of the trip from Earth.

To me, that’s the step we should be working on.  It kills two birds with one stone.  Environmental pollution shrinks tremendously, manufacturing costs go down, poverty reduces, it just has an investment cost.

And there ends my thought for now.  Might continue this later.

Can we please hold off on anymore human foolishness for a bit?

We are SO close to a post labor, perhaps even post death world, technologically.

But, here we are.  The number of powder kegs that lead to World War 3 or some other nightmare scenario that are just laying about are terrifying.

Syria.  The China thing.  North Korea shot a missile from a sub.  People are still arguing over the whole color/gender thing.  People are killing people for their religion, ethnicity, etc.

We can be past all of this.  We can, as a species, get past this…  freaking childishness.

Then there’s the other side of things.  There’s commercial spaceflight.  There’s a plan to mine asteroids.  Genetics is doing amazing things, and it’s claimed human cloning is possible.  Artificial intelligence is becoming.  Computational speeds and abilities are insane.  There are driverless vehicles starting to go onto the roads.  Somebody woke someone’s brain up with an ultrasound recently.

I mean, dude. We are RIGHT THERE!  So close we can taste… Utopia.  Space colonization and moving industry, power production, even most of the species, off planet.  Clinical immortality is just down the block.  An end to a need for human labor is really in our faces.

We could be the generation that moves us to and through the technological and industrial and societal revolution that’s upon us, or we can muck it all up over stupidity.

I don’t know if there’s anything I can do, except to try to be a positive influence on those around me.  Maybe you have greater power or money or… whatever, in which case, any help to get us all through this would help.  Maybe you don’t. If you can do nothing else, make someone’s day a little easier.  Help if you can.  Be kind.

Maybe that’s what we need.  Everything goes viral and people embrace it.  I wonder if we could make kindness viral as well.

Try it.  Go tell someone random that it will all be okay.  That they are worthy of happiness.  That it’s okay to believe things or not, as long as you don’t harm anyone else over them.  Let your deity or whatever ism you hold dear take care of that.

If we can all just stop the fighting and hatred, our kids will be able to truly become, and their kids may never know sadness or war or mental illness, maybe even death.

#dontkillthefuture

The Afterlife

​Fuck.

I’ve been sitting here, waiting, for…  I don’t even know how to define it.  It feels like 3 hours, so let’s say that.  I just wish they’d pick something.

I mean, the first 5 minutes or so we’re great.  The whole welcome wagon was there when I woke up.  Various minor sub deities, some pretty weird ones I’d never heard of, including some guy talking about embracing despair, they were all there.  I mean, it was like being surrounded by aliens or something, you know?

But then, they’re appearing, one at a time, in my mind.  It’s the weirdest feeling, having a being rummage about within you seeking value, when this being is so much greater than you.  Moment to moment I had this alternating experience between destruction, creation, wrath, resolve.  It was madness and genius and every potential that I have been or could be, separated as distinct experiences over the course of each moment.

Then, they were gone.  Out of my head and now in an arena, champions chosen by each.  Things blacker than black battled, rage-filled with beings of purest light.  It was as if reality warped upon itself.

And then, they stopped.  Standing, bloodied and beaten, but staring at me.  Are they waiting?

**CHOOSE**

What the fuck?  Look, I just got here, nobody has told me shit.  Am I being chosen by someone?  Am I choosing?

**CHOOSE**

Dude.  I get the silent treatment for hours, and you guys fight and now I’m supposed to choose?  Choose what?  Is this Heaven?  Hell?  A dream?

**YOU HAVE FAILED TO CHOOSE AND IT HAS BEEN CHOSEN**

Oh, good.  WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOU-

Ngh.  Awake.  Darkness.  Wet?  Definitely…  am I breathing?  What the Fuck is going on?  OH MY GOD I’M NOT BREATHING!

Wait.  I’m not breathing.  It’s okay.  Whew.  Where am I now?  I kind of remember…  a dream?  Of what?

There’s pressure.  Fuck.  FUCK!  MY HEAD! I’M BEING SQUEEZED OHSHIT OHMYGODLIGHTSOMUCHLIGHTITHURTS

Oh fuck!  A doctor!  Maybe I can explain to him.

“~~Doctor~~ WAHHHH!”

Oh shit.  Ah fuck.  Not again.

Wait, this woman, she’s on the bed.  That’s my mom.  Ok.  She looks like hell.  Wait.  Where’s… oh there he is.  Douchebag by the door.  Ok.  Fuck.

Not again.  Dammit.  One of these times I gotta pick something.

End

Why people are ‘feeling the Bern’

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/revealed-30-year-economic-betrayal-dragging-down-generation-y-income

Thus is why Sanders is doing well in the US.

Birthday thoughts…

Yay me…  Another point!

I can’t prove it.

I can’t prove that I exist to a satisfactory level to myself.

It frustrates me.  Whatever evidence I find in favor of the idea I exist is stymied by the argument from the Matrix or the Brain in a Jar idea.

Part of my difficulties in understanding humanity may lie in the fact that this is a major issue to me.

I wonder sometimes whether it would be better if such things were utterly boring to me.

Sorry.  Just some ramblings.  I want to start trying to put some of my randomness here, so expect more like this.

Dear humanity,

Fuck you. No, seriously.

I avoid suicide just because I’m hoping to see you really fuck things up to the point of extinction.

The ones of you that want to ‘change the world’ are hypocrites and morons. You claim you want freedom, but you fuck everything up if you get any of it. You are egocentric, and will always act in your own individual self interest when given a choice or opportunity, ignoring the effects of your decisions on anyone else.  Your idea of ‘freedom’ is just your own subjective concept that you want to force on everyone else, thus denying them the freedom to think differently.

There’s some that aren’t that way. You are more likely to try to talk the first people down or explain things to them.  Fuck you, too. You’re so THIS way that all you do is bitch and moan about things, but when the chips are down you can’t switch out of it and actually DO anything.  You fuckers would try to have a debate with an incoming asteroid.

Some of you have overcome things. Fuck you, too. Everyone overcomes something, so shut the fuck up about it. At least you knew about whatever it is that you overcame, in order to overcome it. Most everyone else doesn’t even see how fucked up they are that it doesn’t occur to them they have something that is bad enough in themselves or in life that they need to overcome it.

The ones that don’t see those things that need to be overcome, fuck you, too.  Open your eyes and do some fucking introspection.

Luckily, some people are kind enough to point out the foibles of everyone else. If that’s you, then fuck you, too. Look at your own fucking lives and fix that. Nobody wants to hear your stupid mouth unless your life is fucking perfect.

As for you perfect people. Fuck you. You don’t exist. If you think this is you, you’re fucking deluaional, so fuck you for not seeing it.

Maybe if you stupid, brain dead, mouth breathing lights of mediocrity could see any of this is true, we could get somewhere as a fucking species.

Until then, keep it up, morons. I don’t know whether to hope for it to go nuclear or for you to develop a pathogen and spill it or just devolve into unreasoning simpletons, and go out like the Neanderthals.

Sincerely,

One of you fuckers.

I wish I couldn’t see it.  It would be so much easier.

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I’m curious about something.  Why is it that, after a number of what could be considered ‘terrorist attacks’ by the mentally ill, there was great outcry in favor of the restriction of the right to bear arms?

Why is it that there is no reported outcry for there to be a legal requirement for all citizens to carry and train with a firearm, especially after the recent attacks in France? 

It would seem to me that an appropriately armed and skilled citizenry would be of great help to the government in maintaining public safety.  Not only that, but the police would have an understandable excuse to field military grade equipment, in order to ‘outgun’ the average criminal.  Heck, it would save money, give reason to grow American manufacturing, and thus be a boon to the economy and middle class.

I mean, people say the second amendment is outdated, but perhaps they’re thinking in the wrong direction.  It should not be a right, but a requirement. Isn’t that the situation we have with health insurance?

What am I missing here? Am I correct?

For the record, this is the law in Switzerland.  I haven’t heard about any terrorist attacks there.  Maybe they’re on to something.