Homo Sapiens 2.0

The temporary and precarious nature of our existence sometimes disturbs me and makes me fear for the people I care about, but for myself, I am not so worried. I suppose it would be unfortunate to be deprived of additional pleasure and fulfillment, but I have already had more than my share, I think, particularly when one considers the sometimes abbreviated, often more difficult lives of those ancients who had more talent and contributed more to the world than I did. Just to name one instance, Shakespeare did not live past the age of fifty, I believe, and certainly many of my acquaintances have already exceeded his span, and it is likely his life was more difficult due to the times he lived in.

We are fortunate to be human, compared to say squirrel or cat, but being human does carry with it the curse of mortality, impermanence. Perhaps one day scientists will develop Homo Sapiens 2.0.

My vision of Homo Sapiens 2.0 stores our identity in bits and bytes upon a computer system. In the first place, I realize it is very controversial to propose that a human personality can be broken down into bits and bytes and stored on a computer. I believe that it can, that there is nothing to our psychology that cannot be translated into software. If I like something, I like it to a degree that can be quantified on a scale from one to a hundred, and if I dislike something, that dislike can also be quantified, and rules and provisions can be established that further refine my likes and dislikes. All of this should be immediately apparent to anyone who has ever programmed a computer. It is the non-programmers who tend to think that computers will never simulate human beings. I would never make such a rash presumption. Already, computers play better chess than human beings, and they do many other things better than we do as well. In time, artificial intelligence will eclipse our own native intelligence, and then it will be a simple matter to simulate our little personalities.

However, in order to interact with each other and with the physical environment, I think it will always be useful to spawn organic clones that are robust yet replaceable in the event of injury or death. We will, each or some of us, spawn clones to get things done, but when these clones die it will be of little or no concern to the entity that dwells in safety and redundancy on a computer system.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

A Review of Sellyourgold.Com

 I checked out this site for selling gold, but like all gold-buying sites, it left me cold. For one thing, that web site does not specify how much they pay for gold. They prefer to remain mysterious. I and everyone else in the world want to know the minimum scrap price they are willing to pay for gold. None of these gold-buyers reveal that essential bit of information.

That site quotes prices that they have paid in the past (when gold was how much? $50 a gram? $20 a gram? who knows?) per pennyweight of gold, an archaic measurement. Pennyweight has no relevance in the modern world. We might as well go back to measuring distance in furlongs if we are going to use pennyweights. The metric gram is sufficient for all measurements of weight. There's nothing complicated about milligrams and it is understood universally.

Any fifth-grader worth his salt can calculate the commodity value of any marked piece of solid gold jewelry using nothing more than a metric scale with an accuracy of +/- one milligram and a magnifying glass to read the mark. Read the mark to determine karat weight. Divide karat weight by twenty-four to obtain the percentage of gold. Weigh the jewelery to obtain gram weight. The last variable, the current price per gram of gold, must be obtained online and will vary from day to day, even second by second, although I only care about the daily price and would accept anything within a dollar or two of it. Multiply the percentage of gold by the total gram weight by the current price per gram, and presto, the commodity value is obtained. Easy. Nothing to it. Javascript to help people estimate commodity value could be written in a single afternoon. I do not know why these gold buyers don't offer such a service, when they have clearly spent a small fortune on web design.

I have decided to hang on to my gold jewelery, because I don't trust any of the commercial gold buyers. I have yet to find one that pays a decent amount, in the 85 - 90% range for scrap value at the current commodity price.

Gay Marriage Vs. Civil Partnership in the UK

Although I am pleasantly surprised by the conservatives in the UK, I find it difficult to get enthused about Conservative PM David Cameron's proposal to open the institution of marriage up to gays. In the UK, gays already have civil partnership. Apparently there are few advantages to be gained by changing the already existing "civil partnership" into "marriage". One gains the title, the religious ceremony, and the ability to divorce in the case of adultery. To the best of my knowledge, civil partnerships already offer the option of dissolution (akin to divorce), and therefore, I do not find those things very advantageous for gays. Perhaps there is a piece of the puzzle that I am missing due to inadequate reporting in the media.

However, I suppose it is an encouraging sign that the UK Conservatives are embracing gay rights at long last and showing their ideological brethren in the U.S. how to become relevant in the 21st century. I certainly would have to look at the Republicans a second time if they came out in favor of gay rights. Today, many Republicans go out of their way to offend gays. Not every Republican is a bigot, but bigots vote Republican, if they vote at all.

For my part, once gays win civil partnership rights, that is pretty much all that is needed, other than avoiding censorship and other efforts to marginalize gays. I am not concerned about the terminology used to describe a same-sex union. I am not interested so much in the word "marriage" or the religious ceremony as the practical, necessary, real-world benefits bestowed by civil partnership. Our lives would not be as hard nor as precarious if we had the many rights and privileges our straight friends enjoy as a matter of course. If the Anglican bishops want to have a separate arrangement in their Church for gay unions, "separate but inferior," that is of little consequence to me, and I would be inclined to not care at all, for the simple reason that I am not Anglican or Catholic.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Castro Meets the Pope

There is something poignant and meaningful about Castro meeting the Pope and speaking in civil and cordial terms. Their friendly meeting shows that killing off one's enemies is not the best way to go about things. Far better to show patience and understanding and to wait for the imperial court of the world & the times to settle the great Questions. I can remember when some Republicans were calling for the assassination of Castro. It is probably better that he lived without undue interference. If nothing else, a superb accomplishment of Castro is the free public health care system in place in Cuba, as well as the Cuban doctors and nurses that are exported throughout the third world. I believe that the sanctions in place against Castro's regime should be lifted. His regime is not as bad as others that we do business with.

In truth, Castro and the Pope have much in common. While inhabiting different sides of the political spectrum, they are both representatives of declining ideologies.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Marijuana & Obamacare

If the U.S. Supreme Court now throws out provisions of the health care reform, then a reinterpretation of the Commerce Clause has occurred, which would have implications for marijuana prohibition, were the Supreme Court composed only of honest individuals. However, I suspect the Justices vote along party lines with little or no regard for logic, reason or the Constitution. They pick and choose based upon their own prejudices.

They may rule that the federal government "exceeds its authority" in compelling citizens to purchase health insurance, and then turn around and support previous rulings that a citizen growing a non-toxic, non-addictive, medicinal natural plant may be imprisoned. In the former case, the Court supports "individual freedom," whereas in the case of marijuana, the government can do whatever it wants, anytime it wants, and for any reason, whether valid or not.

I think that this Supreme Court has been clipping away individual rights and freedoms for a long time, and it will oppose health care, while claiming that they are supporting "freedom," namely the "freedom" to suffer and die without health care or with substandard health care. Meanwhile, marijuana, which has never caused death, unlike substances such as prescription drugs, tobacco and alcohol, continues to be the most common excuse that the government uses to wage war against its own citizens.

Good Republicans are Eliminated

Good Republicans get eliminated by the base. The only Republican I may have voted for over Obama, Jon Huntsman, was eliminated early in the Republican primary. Only far right-wing nuts survive the primary process, because only they reflect the Republican base. You have people who do not believe in evolution, who want to make birth control an issue, who think women are sluts, and who want gays to go back in the closet. They think education is a misdemeanor at best, and war is the only way to improve the country. In a nutshell (not the Republican one), that's why I vote for Democrats, every time. I hope that one day the Republican party will start nominating intelligent and reasonable people again, like they did back in Lincoln's day.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Florida Republicans Say, "Thou Shalt Kill"

What if the New Black Panther Party decided to launch a Neighborhood Watch program of their own, riding around black neighborhoods with loaded guns and questioning any random white man or woman they see walking along the road at night?

In the Wild, Wild West of Florida, anyone has the right to kill anyone they please due to Florida's Stand Your Ground law, the brainchild of the Republican Party & the NRA, which allows people to kill anyone they want, anytime they want, as long as they remember to tell the cops they were in fear of their life when they shot and / or killed the unarmed victim. They certainly won't be contradicted by anyone, as dead men tell no tales!

Republicans think the Ten Commandments must be posted in public spaces all over creation. I suggest they learn how to follow the Commandment that says, "Thou shalt not kill." That's the most important one of all. Once they master that one, then they can progress to the other nine. But by that time, they will have become Democrats.

Republicans hate gays, marijuana and birth control, but they love guns, war and now just plain ol' shootin', murderin' and killin'.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

One Thing About Obama: He's Smart

One big reason I like Obama and will vote for him in 2012 is that he's smart and has good morals. I even get the impression that he is smarter than me, and that's a good thing. He damn well better be smarter than me if he is going to lead the United States! In this article, Obama demonstrates awareness of American Sign Language.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Cash Money, Now and Forever!

Some in the mainstream media are eager to celebrate the end of cash. They want to eliminate cash from the world and replace it with credit cards.

If cash isn't used, then the government is disenfranchised from the economy, which sounds good to conspiracy theorists, but consider for a moment the alternative methods proposed for paying for transactions. Using a card of any kind, whether it goes through Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, or any bank enriches a private corporation, which then accrues immense wealth and power. Some of these corporations are already wealthier and more powerful than some states in the United States and some countries in the world. These private tyrannies remain unaccountable to voters or to anyone other than a small group of large stockholders or private owners. They can and will do whatever the hell they can get away with.

The choice between cash and cards is an easy one. Cash for me, thank you very much, whenever I can. Most merchants I know are happy to receive cash, and some of them offer a discount to those customers that pay with cash, because otherwise the merchant has to pay the credit card company a transaction fee. I don't know what rock the writers searched under to find these strange business owners that don't like cash.

Calculating how much cash to pay, how much change to make, and storing the little coins and paper are all helpful and restorative exercises for the brain. Using the brain is a good thing. I like to perform simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Sometimes I like to do simple algebra as well. These tasks are fun, not boring or difficult. As for cash itself, it can be beautiful, when designed properly. My favorite coin is the Walking Liberty, and my favorite bill is the 1976 two-dollar bill with the interesting scene on the reverse.

Making everything as easy as splat is a bad idea. A transaction needs to be slow enough to permit people to stop and consider what they are doing when they make a purchase. Cash is a powerful defense against the impulsive purchases that cards encourage. I wish that paying for things took ten times as long as it does now, because few would then buy the useless plastic crap imported from China and sold at Wal-Mart.

If the lazy idiots and conniving capitalists win this war they are waging against cash, then I will mourn the humble little coins and bills that used to circulate, those elegant symbols of our Republic and its long history, so useful for the education of children and reminders of the great minds that shaped our world. The death of money would be a long nail in the coffin of our democracy.

Test Scores Mean Zip

The No Child Left Behind Act, the No Child Right Behind Act, or whatever federal, state or local programs that emphasize tests, tests, and more tests, and even more tests on top of the tests that students are already being tested on, are bad ideas based in good intentions. When salary is tied to students' test performance, guess what, the test scores  are going to improve just like magic, or just like teachers spent a couple hours in the staff room erasing answers and marking in the right ones.

There is a difference between tests to control pass or fail and the tests the government requires in order to evaluate teachers and schools. I think students are government-tested entirely too much. In my day, the kids had one official statewide test at the end of the year, period, end of story, and even that one was a week-long hassle and detracted from learning. Testing is not learning. Testing is just a gimmick to appease anxious parents/voters.

It is no great mystery why Johnny Stupid can't design rocket ships. Stupid kids with stupid parents are not going to perform well, and no amount of effort by teachers will change that. No amount of government money thrown down the toilet is going to change that, either. Until stupid people start using birth control, there are going to continue to be a lot of stupid kids in the world. The answer to education problems is a nineteen cent condom along with an instructional video on how to use it.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Good Times?

I have a funny feeling that these years we are living through will be remembered as the good years--maybe even the best, although for my money the 1990s were the best for me from the perspectives of health and wealth.

The environment seems like an important issue simmering on the back burner, ignored altogether by Republicans. What if the weather turns really bad and stays really bad for a long period of time? I suppose that those of us alive today will be glad that we were alive today and look back upon this time as a good one.

An Infatutation with Firearms

When I was a little boy, I was drawn to fire--flames and burning--but not firearms, other than toy guns or squirt guns, because they simply weren't available (we had no guns in our house). As a teenager, guns were regarded as foreign and dangerous objects, and when I did encounter them, I treated them with apprehension and mild disdain and did not fire them even in play.
 
I'm glad I don't have any infatuation with firearms, but I'm aware that a number of men do seem to be in love with the things that go bang. They are drawn to guns like moths to a flame. Some get into a great deal of trouble and bring enormous hardships down upon themselves due to their actions involving firearms.

Human beings have no natural defense against the metal missiles fired by guns, and that is why guns are such a big problem in the world, responsible for so many life-altering injuries and deaths. If there were some defense, such as a natural protective armor or self-regenerating capacity, then we might as a species take a more liberal attitude toward guns and their users. But once a man is shot, he tends to go down and stay down. Many are the gun owners that wish that the person they shot could get up again and be safe and sound. Many are the gun owners that regret pulling that trigger.

In regard to the unfortunate incident in Florida, I think a self-destructive urge was at play, a death wish closely related to the need to prove oneself. I would imagine that appointing oneself as the Neighborhood Watch, when nobody was asking or paying for this service, and taking it upon oneself to go out at night and hunt and confront a young man walking alone in a neighborhood was motivated by the desire to express machismo. Such an act was only possible with the addition of a firearm, because the same individual would never have been able to prevail in any fair fight. A coward, unversed in combat and lacking in actual courage, turned to a gun in order to supply what Nature did not, force and courage.

Instead of being the lauded hero of the neighborhood, as perhaps he imagined before our prospective Batman set out on his foolish solo mission with a loaded gun, he is now the detested villain, known throughout the country and even the world for a single act involving a firearm. No one has much to say in his favor, but many speak ill of him, and the vultures are circling, and his remaining days upon this Earth seem dark with many shadows. He went looking for trouble but didn't find it and decided to make it. So it is often with men that feel that they have something to prove, that want to show to others that they are a man and can't seem to find an appropriate and rational avenue to pursue that goal.

I would think he would have been better off volunteering at the local fire department, animal shelter or community theater rather than driving around at night with a loaded gun, looking for trouble.

I think that television is partly to blame for indoctrinating so many young people with the idea that guns are the way to prove oneself, that guns are the solution to problems, for idealizing violence. In real life, things seldom work out they way that they do on television shows. Of course, no one ever volunteers at the local fire department, animal shelter or community theater on a television show. More likely in T.V. land, they are associated with the mafia, a corrupt police cabal, Mexican gangs or are solitary vigilantes. (I betray my age with the references to television, because these days, video games occupy more time of young men than anything on television.)

Law enforcement strategy is largely based upon noticing things that are out of the ordinary, that do not fit an accepted pattern, an assumed version of what is normal.  Black people were out of the ordinary for the neighborhood. The perpetrator did not expect that a young black person would have any legitimate reason to be walking alone at night in that area. His imaginative faculties clearly are very poor in view of his actions that night. If anyone should never have appointed themselves to the Neighborhood Watch, he is a prime example. His doom may be wrought on the basis of stupidity, cowardice and overreaction rather than malice in his heart toward any specific group. That does not excuse his actions. Stupidity has never been an acceptable defense for any sort of crime, only a mitigating factor that might be considered during the sentencing phase--or might not.

Robert A. Heinlein once wrote that there is only one capital crime in the universe, and that there is no appeal and no parole and the sentence is carried out immediately, and that crime is stupidity. Most of us spend our lives just trying to avoid making any stupid mistakes. I think it is a double tragedy when someone commits a stupid mistake that results in harm to another person. It is a tragedy for the victim as well as the perpetrator when he is eventually apprehended and has to face the consequences.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

The Gym and Other Wastes of Time

There is plenty of work to do in the world, and working out at a gym seems to me a silly or at best a selfish act, because no good work is getting accomplished by the shifting of dead weights or the turning of a treadmill. I have always preferred doing something physical that either serves a purpose or else makes money. Working out at a gym, or going for a walk with no other purpose in mind than walking, always struck me as a slightly foolish waste of time and energy. That said, I've spent plenty of time going for pointless walks and runs and lurking in gyms. But no more. I think it is better to find personal projects around the house, yard or community to work on and complete rather than buying a gym membership. In that manner, the imagination and the soul (and possibly the bank account) are exercised and enriched in addition to the body.

Rather than lift weights at a gym, a prospective bodybuilder would be well-advised to sell his services as a mover and be paid to lift, rather than paying for the privilege of lifting. Rather than walk in a park for no other reason than exercise, a man would be better off working a job that requires him to spend some time on his feet, thereby getting paid, in effect, to walk and move around.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Yet Another Stupid Republican Law

Florida's Stand Your Ground law has been shielding killers and keeping them out of jail for quite some time. Mr. Zimmerman is just the latest rocket scientist to apply the Republican-crafted law to defend himself against charges of murder.

On a related note, the former Mississippi governor, a Republican, pardoned several murderers and even bought them cars for their personal use, which begs the question of what sort of favors these murderers did, or will do, for him.

The Catholic Church

The Dutch Catholic Church castrated boys in the 1950's. I wonder what we will one day discover that they are doing in 2012?

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Is Red Meat Bad?

A recent finding by researchers indicates that any dose of red meat is bad for health. I find that rather surprising. However, I have reduced my consumption of meat to once a day. I may reduce it further, to once every two to three days, if there is a health benefit. I am pretty flexible on diet and will eat anything that seems to improve health, as long as it does not taste too bad or cost too much.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

So-Called Terrorist Bombings in Syria

I wouldn't put it past the Assad regime to stage the so-called terrorist bombings in Damascus and Aleppo. The fact of the matter is that the regime is an expert in those sort of bombings and finances them around the world. No one is better at it than Assad's regime. If some other actor is responsible, then the Syrian regime can hardly complain, because the chickens are coming home to roost. A dose of their own medicine might do them some good.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Iraq

The billions we spent in Iraq have resulted in a pro-Iran, anti-American government that allowed the Iranians to use Iraqi airspace to send Iranian troops and war material over to Syria to assist Assad's regime.

Republican leaders must hate the American people, because they want to spend taxpayer money on hostile or indifferent foreigners, but begrudge every penny spent on unemployment insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, Social Security, or any other program that helps ordinary Americans.

An Obvious Injustice

The outrageous case of Mr. Zimmerman, self-appointed vigilante who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, is bad news for everybody, because it will inflame racial tensions and foster a sense of injustice. The harm is compounded by the inaction of the local police department.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments

Assad's Personal Emails

A bit of black humor is on display in the exposure of Assad's personal emails, which reveal a shallow, self-absorbed man detached from the horror and brutality all around him and focused only upon personal pleasure. Then again, I suppose most criminal psychopaths are the same. There seem to be plenty of similar types right here in the U.S.

by igor 04:20 8 replies by igor 09:32 6 comments