Monday, December 03, 2007
Whatever Happened to Count Dante?
There’s a new movie in the works about the martial arts teacher who used to advertise in comic books. I remember those ads from the comics I grew up with. This article tells his interesting story.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Funny Christmas CardsFriday, November 23, 2007
The Nature of Green InsanityOne of the reasons I rail against green hysteria is that it seems to instill a deep kind of self hating psychosis in people. And that can lead to mental illness.
These two stories are a perfect example. In one, a woman has herself sterilized to “lower her carbon footprint”. She had aborted a fetus for the same reason, previously. Sure, one can joke that she’s doing the gene pool a favor. But I feeel sorry for her. There will come a time when she’s older when she may regret her decision and there’s nothing she can do about it.
In the other story, two scientists claim we’re shortening the life of the universe.
New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.
The damaging allegations are made by Profs Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and James Dent of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, who suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the cosmos to revert to an earlier state when it was more likely to end. “Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe,” Prof Krauss tells New Scientist.
The team came to this depressing conclusion by calculating how the energy state of our universe - a kind of summation of all its particles and all their energies - has evolved since the big bang of creation 13.7 billion years ago.
The ego that’s involved in both stories: the delusion of power that they attribute to humanity, and thus, to themselves, is so out of bounds it really should be considered a pathology. Humans are prone to delusion because it’s a survival instinct we have. It helps us to put up with harsh environments. Thus, people are found at all corners of the globe. They can psychologically adapt to just about any kind of place. What we do is create a simplified reality for ourselves. We define the rules of this reality, no matter how unrealistic these rules may be. Thus we get magical thinking. Thus we get bizarre religious cults. Thus we get the green hysterias that man has some kind of godlike impact on the planet.
It’s one thing to work to have a cleaner world, and cut pollution and needless development. It’s another to castrate yourself because some politician like Al Gore convinced you that you were a bad person for even existing. The hysterics are leading gullible people down a self destructive path. And they are forcing the rest of us to put up with laws and taxes and (almost worse) self righteous lectures that aren’t even necessary.
They keep amping up the hysteria to ridiculous degrees. I’d love to see how they top the theory that we’re killing the universe by observing it.
Just watch. Someone will. The absurdity of their self righteousness is lost in their hubris.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Shaolin ExercisesThe Science of Trolls
Interesting article from New Scientist on the psychology of web trolls.
Social psychologists have known for decades that, if we reduce our sense of our own identity – a process called deindividuation – we are less likely to stick to social norms. For example, in the 1960s Leon Mann studied a nasty phenomenon called “suicide baiting” – when someone threatening to jump from a high building is encouraged to do so by bystanders. Mann found that people were more likely to do this if they were part of a large crowd, if the jumper was above the 7th floor, and if it was dark. These are all factors that allowed the observers to lose their own individuality.
Social psychologist Nicholas Epley argues that much the same thing happens with online communication such as email. Psychologically, we are “distant” from the person we’re talking to and less focused on our own identity. As a result we’re more prone to aggressive behaviour, he says.
Another factor influencing online communication, according to Epley, is simply the risk of miscommunication involved with text-based messages, which are inherently more ambiguous. At the same time, he notes, email “has the feel of informality – we just fire something off”, even though we probably ought to treat it with the same care as a written letter. And, as most people probably know, this can cause problems for both the sender and the receiver.
I also believe there is another phenomena there, which is an extension of group think. When people belong to a certain group, they feel empowered to be bolder than they normally are, to cut loose. Because they think their friends have their back. So when you get a horde of people coming to a site to trash the owner, as happened to me recently, they believe they are in the right because their group is going along with it. People often don’t want to do something unless others do it. Then they believe its OK. This is why we see examples of bad behavior from mobs time and time again. The individual people would probably never do something like that, but ginned up on angry emotions by the crowd, they move like fish in a school or herds of enraged water buffalo. The herd mentality is really a nasty thing.
And like I said, AGW seems to be a herd mentality thing. Most people don’t know good science from junk science. So if a bunch of scientists say something, they just shrug and accept it. Just as when a popular website makes some claim, the fans of that site get all riled up like sports crowds for their team. It then becomes an anti-intellectual exercise.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Spock Ears?
Now you can get Spock Ears. As body mods go, its a lot better than this one. Brrrr.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Movie Pumpkins
These are some amazing Jack O’Lanterns
Monday, October 29, 2007
Congrats, Red SocksThe Red Socks won another World Series, which means my sister will get another World Series ring. Those things are heavy!
Hopefully she’ll have it when I see her for Thanksgiving.
Anyway, congrats to the Sox!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Afraid of the DarkLate one recent night, Mr. Burroughs had gone out to check the mailbox when he saw two green, glittering eyes, triangular ears “and the general impression of height” in the shadows. When the creature began to walk toward him, Mr. Burroughs ran into the garage, fearing for his life. “Our skinny, gym-polished urban bodies are no match for anything that scratches its back on a tree,” he said. “Whatever it was, it was both curious and unafraid — two traits one does not admire in wildlife when one is alone in the dark.”
And it’s not just what lurks outside that sends imaginations running wild. Even the houses themselves can send chills up one’s spine. “You climb into bed, and suddenly you hear groans, creaks and low, deep thumping sounds, as though there are rabbits trapped inside the walls, or fingers gently teasing the exterior window frames,” Mr. Burroughs said. “Not a night goes by that I am not absolutely convinced somebody has entered the house and they do not have a conscience.”
Manhattanites and country living has been the inspiration for many a film. Usually, comedies.
I’ve known a few people who were longtime NYC residents who needed a tape of traffic sounds playing or a loud TV to fall asleep at night. It’s interesting how the environment you’re used to acclimatizes you so that a change to something more serene can seem threatening.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
PoundcakeBill Cosby speaks some sense to his community. This is a real leader. he is willing to say things that might be unpopular to some. The people it would be unpopular with are the people who need to listen the most.
It’s too bad some will think he’s just an angry old man. Because here is a guy who lived in segregated times and worked his way up from nothing to become a very rich man. He knows what he’s talking about.
And frankly, a lot of communities could use this speech.
