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« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Assimilated By Facebook – Is Resistance Futile?
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on February 24, 2011 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, February 24th, 2011I would have never discovered the disturbing similarities between Facebook and the Borg if I hadn’t tried to escape “the collective”.
Have you been assimilated yet? You may not have even noticed it happening. Do you have shadowy memories of a previous life in which you didn’t check Facebook every morning when you woke up? When you didn’t think in status posts, putting yourself in the second person to construct clever phrases like “John or Jane Doe is [insert comment-baiting one-liner]? When you didn’t feel vulnerable and afraid when the hive mind was not humming around you sharing their thoughts in a constant stream intermingled with your own? My little joking analogy here isn’t so far off base. We’ve asked before if the internet is actually a giant flesh-eating robot, but we think it may be worse. Facebook may actually be controlled by the Borg. If you’re a normal human, with your life firmly rooted in the real world, you will have no idea what I’m talking about. But if you’re a person who spends a fair amount of time on the web, you have almost certainly at some point found yourself – and perhaps still are – spending an awful lot of time interacting with Facebook. Early on, we would wonder to ourselves: “am I weird? Am I the only person who feels like some kind of Facebook addict? Personally, when I validated this feeling with my friends who pondered the same question, it only made me feel like they were weird too; it didn’t provide much comfort. But the results are in, so we can stop second-guessing ourselves. Yes, it’s a problem. We now know that a third of women 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up, even before they go to the bathroom . We know that serious addiction sites label it a problem, as do PhD Psychologists. As far as I’m concerned, this is a moot point. What concerns me is the fact that Facebook bears such a disturbing resemblance to the Borg, and there may be NO WAY to escape the collective. Recently I thought I’d at least give Facebook a rest, but still found myself unconsciously logging on, to find that nothing new of interest awaited me – the same banal stream of commentary, the same pleas to support liberal or conservative causes from my friends. And nobody commenting on my crap. That’s the killer. When the little red number is low, and only indicates comments on other people’s stuff. How depressing. So why the hell was I reflexively logging in for more letdowns? Probably because I’m a Faceborg Drone, that’s why. I thought to myself “Wow, I think I’m going to have to actually de-activate my account for a few days, and go back when I feel more rational about the whole thing“. But no-OO-oo. Facebook tried to scare me with images of the fellow drones I’d be abandoning, and actually wouldn’t LET me de-activate unless I assigned another person (who is on Facebook) to manage a couple of apps or pages connected to my account. DIRTY TRICK, Facebook. But I expect nothing less from what I now know is an alien collective that intends to “add my biological and technological distinctiveness to its own“. Below are examples of how Facebook is like the Borg, and how hard they make it to escape the hive. More soon, I have to go share this piece on Facebook now. Read the rest of this entry »
Astrology 101
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 15, 2011 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011Why I have at least as much faith in astrology as I do in say, economics, with a brief introduction to how it works.
 One of history’s better known astrologers, Galileo Galilei |
People have on occasion asked me if I believe in astrology. I always have to chuckle a bit, because to me it’s sort of like asking if I “believe in” history, theoretical physics, archaeology, or economics. I’m referencing those four fields of study in particular, because I used to hang out with a group of doctorate students that included a person from each, and my favorite conversational goad was to ask them how their fiction writing was going. Using the historian as a wedge, it was pretty easy – especially after a few drinks – to get them all to admit that in the end, they were all really just fiction writers at heart, even if in the beginning they hard started with some reasonably solid facts. So do I “believe in” Astrology? Probably more than economics; I always considered the term Voodoo Economics to be redundant. But the simple answer is “no”. However, I find it to be a fascinating field of study. A field of study that – unfortunately – attracts a lot of loonies. And it seems that the looniest of the loonies are the ones who seek the most attention for their work, while the folks who do all the rigorous computation and statistical studies remain almost entirely unknown. The result of this is that the familiar face of astrology is the “daily horoscope”. Even the most uninformed student of the “serious” study of astrology will side up with the pragmatist who says that a daily horoscope is bunk, and at best a form of entertainment. This form of astrology supposes that somehow, all the people born in a given month (i.e., people with the same “sun sign”) will somehow have a similar theme playing out in their lives on a given day. We’re talking about more than 580 million people. I’d feel confident saying that about the only thing that ALL of these people would have in common is that they all benefit from breathing oxygen. I recently offered up a less-than-vigorous defense of the serious study of astrology, but just what is the “serious” study of astrology? I would say that it’s an attempt to explore the human psyche and its interconnectedness with the universe in which it dwells. And just how does it do this? Well, much like psychology, sociology, philosophy, and religion, it relies on a lot of symbols and analogies to describe the human experience, but astrology attempts to connect this human experience with observable planetary cycles. I know. Still probably sounds fishy. But I’m not trying to convince you of anything, other than to understand a little more about the topic before you dismiss it in relative ignorance. I mean, we’d all agree that alchemy was probably a frivolous pursuit, but modern chemistry and medicine would probably not exist if alchemy hadn’t. And according to that Wikipedia item just linked, Isaac Newton devoted more of his writing to it than his other studies combined. So let’s not throw out the proverbial baby with the proverbial bath water. If you’re still reading, below is my version of Astrology 101. Although I’ll be doing an Astrology 102, we probably won’t have a 200 series level; not only do I not have enough knowledge to pull it off, I don’t have enough interest either! Read the rest of this entry »
In (Not Terribly Vigorous) Defense Of Astrology
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on February 3, 2011 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011The easiest way to dismiss Astrology as a useful area of study is to not study it at all. Part I (the most boring installment) of my Astrology 101 course.
  Cosmos and Psyche is a weighty read, butoffers a lot of insight into modern astrology. |
You probably are familiar with the minor hubbub a few weeks ago about how your astrological sign had suddenly changed, proving that astrology was a sham, because astrologers were such ignorant twits that they didn’t know anything about actual constellations and how their relative position shifts over time due the tilt of the Earth or the moon’s gravity or whatever. While the “news” (even the poor guy who accidentally started the whole thing later pointed out it was nothing new) made for some amusing small talk, I kept my mouth shut through most of it all. Why? Because – brace yourself – I’m an astrologer. Or more accurately, I’ve studied astrology quite a bit. And over time, I’ve noticed two things that are almost always present when people are dismissing astrology as a frivolous and unscientific pursuit. The first is a nearly absolute and willful ignorance. And the second? A more passive kind of ignorance. The first kind of ignorance is the kind I want to address, because the people who seem to have the loudest voices and the most confidence in their wholesale rejection of astrology are often the most utterly ignorant of its methods, and aggravate their ignorance by trying to treat the field as a conventional science. The first and most basic part of their problem is that they assume that the “sun sign” astrology that is presented in tabloids has anything to do with what contemporary astrologers do. The second part of their problem is that they take this assumption that astrologers frame all their work around where the sun appears to be when a person is born, and add another assumption, which is that astrologers think that astrology is a hard science. They then proceed – in total ignorance based on their own failure to examine the topic – to try to dismantle it for being unscientific. So here I am, to try to bring a little light to the topic, so that if and when you still want to dismiss the whole study as frivolous, you’ll at least be doing it from a more informed point of view. One of the first problems we should get out of the way is the fundamental “purpose” of astrology. Although the inclination is to think of it as “fortune telling”, and although you can find plenty of people who claim it is a predictive tool, these folks are easily hung out to dry in the same way as any charlatan, whether you’re talking about economists, psychics, or mortgage consultants in 2007. Time will prove the fallacy of their claims. But the most useful implementation of astrology – and the implementation I think most well-studied astrologers will agree upon – is in fact as a tool of reflection, and a way to explore human behavior. And the study is rich with the necessary imagery and symbology to do just that. The assumption that astrology lays claims to defining direct causal connections between planetary events and mundane events is mostly imposed by people who haven’t studied it, not the people that do. In fact, I’d additionally assert that modern astrology is an excellent tool for exploring phenomena that are described as synchronistic events, as well as for pondering the kinds of perplexing acausal events that are an intrinsic element of certain phenomena in physics. And regarding the methodology and theoretical foundations? This is where it gets interesting if you actually dig deeper. Many contemporary astrologers eschew much of “classical” astrology altogether. Classical astrology was based on some basic apparent positions of objects in the cosmos, and the motion of these objects in relationship to each other over time. It also included a lot of arbitrary divisions of the visual cosmos with simple geometry. This is what you’re hearing about when someone refers to houses (which are 100% arbitrary, leading to a lot of debate if one takes them seriously) and zodiac signs. Even centuries ago, a competent astrologer was well aware that the groups of stars that roughly line up with the plane of the solar system’s orbits were arbitrarily imposed, and that the 12 accepted constellations weren’t all literally 30 degrees wide, conveniently fitting a circle. In any case, in spite of the fact that these concepts still influence the interpretation of the symbols of astrology, they’re almost entirely abandoned by many, via the contemporary study of harmonic astrology, which is in fact based on massive statistical correlations of biographical and historic texts with the angular relationships between planets at given points. The volume of material statistically compiled this way probably rivals the statistical modeling of modern psychology. Which is a science (along with sociology) that is probably a better analogy for what astrology studies than astronomy is. I’m going to be doing a few followups on this topic, in the form of what I hope is a more entertaining “Astrology 101″, but if you want better insight into the rather compelling body of knowlege connected with the study of astrology, I highly recommend Cosmos and Psyche
A Perfectionist’s Guide To Enjoying Imperfection
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 23, 2011 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011Trying to do things perfectly is easy. The hard part can be accepting that you won’t.
 No wonder he did so many sketches. He was in the perpetual planning stage that plagues perfectionists. |
Can you guess who said “I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have”? It was Leonardo da Vinci. Can you imagine? What a miserably unhappy fellow he must have been. And a perfect example of one of the pitfalls of being a perfectionist. We often think of a perfectionist as someone who meticulously demands that everything around them be “just so”, imposing their will on others. But I speak from firsthand experience when I say that more commonly, perfectionism manifests itself as a self-defeating, sometime paralyzing life approach that leads to procrastination, disappointment, and an ongoing, low-key dissatisfaction with life in general. I personally didn’t realize that I had this problem until a few years ago. It was brought to my attention in an unexpected way; I had quit drinking, because although I wasn’t having more obvious, “dramatic” problems with alcohol, I recognized that it was significantly diminishing my quality of life. It was a long-time struggling alcoholic that mentioned it. It was a simple, but shocking revelation for me. Prior to that point, I knew that I tended to be extremely organized, a little particular about fine points, and punctual. That sort of thing. But what had never occurred to me was how many things I hadn’t done in life, because unconsciously, I felt I wouldn’t excel at them. On the other hand, I’ve done very daring things in a mediocre way, like skydiving and hang gliding. With hindsight I realize that I secretly thought that things like this somehow made up for all the other things I hadn’t done. Because who can question your willingness to do things when you can inject that kind of experience into a conversation? If you’re not sure if you’re a perfectionist, maybe you you should take this test provided by Discovery Health. If, like me, you get annoyed with the obviousness of the test questions and quit after the first page, you probably have a problem with perfectionism. There are hundreds of articles on perfectionism out there, but one of the more concise summaries I found just now was this one on the University of Texas web site. It defines a lot of the key characteristics and the problems they create in a simple, summarized format. So assuming you’re deciding that maybe you have a problem with perfectionism, how do you fix it? My asking that question is kind of a joke; that’s probably one of the first things you have to get used to. Life is not a state, or a series of states, it’s a process. If you even pause and say “Damn, I think I have a problem with perfectionism”, you’ve begun to fix it. And you may never actually “fix” it. That’s the real secret. Part of dealing with self-defeating perfectionism is simple acceptance of who you are. And accepting that you’re not perfect, may never be, and probably you’re the only one who expects you to be. This piece on Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong.com takes a rather in-depth look at the problem, and offers a ton of ideas for working on it. But I have three simple suggestions below. You’ll be surprised that not only will you like you more when you learn to let go of some of your negative perfectionist traits, but other people will too. Life’s too short to mope about lamenting its imperfections. Learn to enjoy its consistently successful chaos. Read the rest of this entry »
I Don’t Hate Guns, I Just Feel Better When They’re Not Around
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 16, 2011 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Sunday, January 16th, 2011With Over 190 million guns in America, they’re not going away any time soon. Maybe if we called it “gun approval” legislation instead of “gun control” legislation, the typical gun owner would get less up in arms about registering their weapons.
 Do you really feel safe knowing guys like this have unrestricted access to guns? |
For most of my life I’ve held the belief that the world would be a better place without guns. I’m enough of a realist that I don’t have any hope of that being the case in my lifetime, but the topic is still of some concern to me, because while I have little interest in having one in my own hands, I have even less interest in having one around if it’s in someone else’s hands. Before I go on, I should point out that as a youngster growing up on a farm, I had the opportunity to handle a variety of guns, including rifles, shotguns, and even a couple of revolvers. I also had the chance to shoot an Uzi once, and can tell you from firsthand experience that it’s quite an amazing little machine. The opportunity to handle and shoot guns in a responsible fashion like this is in fact why I don’t believe we need them around. My use of the word “believe” is quite pertinent to the topic; I think it safe to say that the pro and anti gun debate will stew for quite some time, largely because the logic behind most arguments on either side is usually based on sentiment, not objective fact. I would feel a lot more comfortable with most gun advocates, for example, if they were just more honest about their motives for gun ownership. The most commonly cited reason for owning a gun is self-defense. Which is a bit ludicrous, in my view; self-defense against a gun would be wearing Kevlar Long Johns. Firing a gun in “self defense” is actually hostile retaliation if the attacker shoots first, and flat out hostility if they don’t. Just explore the Han Shot First debate if you don’t get what I mean. If gun owners could actually just come clean and say they enjoy the feeling of power a gun gives them, I’d feel a lot more comfortable, because at least then I’d know the person in control of this tool of violence and destruction was not self-deluded. A soldier, for instance, knows why he has a gun – if called to action, he’s going to use it to injure or kill someone, and he’s trained accordingly. And the hunting argument feels a little feeble to me too. The food supply we have via commercial animal slaughter provides more than enough meat for everyone, and shooting Bambi’s mom or dad from a few hundred yards away is hardly what I’d call “sportsmanship”. Sportsmanship would be stalking the prey and taking it down with a buck knife. On the other side of the debate, I think there’s a general failure of reason; with over 190 million guns in the United States and a highly profitable industry producing more than 4 million more annually, they’re not going away any time soon. And the fact that it’s a typical gun owner’s belief that it’s a God-given right to own one suggests that firearm restrictions and prohibitions would have effects similar to prohibitions of mind-altering substances; i.e.: the problems would persist and perhaps evolve into even more complex problems. And while I find myself a bit awkwardly aligning with many gun advocates regarding the logic behind our constitutional right to bear arms, I’d hasten to point out that if civil unrest reached a level where we were violently resisting our own government, the authority of the constitution itself would reasonably be in question, and I might be first in line at the armory to preserve our freedoms. But in my opinion, the main problem with gun ownership in America is that there are so many cultural problems underlying the gun problem that legislation will remain an emotional, divisive, highly politicized issue for some time to come. Having lots of guns around doesn’t intrinsically mean high crime rates; Switzerland is commonly held up as proof of this fact. However, Switzerland has neither the poor standard of living nor the complex cultural diversity we have in America. But the comparison is useful in one way; the politicized language of “gun control” instantly evokes a dissonant chord for a gun owner, because power and control are intrinsic to their desire to own a gun. Maybe if we called it “gun approval” legislation instead of “gun control” legislation, the idea of registering firearms would be more palatable to those who want to own them. I certainly don’t want to take your gun away; although it’s clear to me that a gun has no purpose other than death or destruction, it’s not guns that kill people, it’s people. The guns just make it a lot easier, as Eddie Izzard points out below. Read the rest of this entry »