The Suze

I was reading an article by David Suzuki today. In the article it seems like he is struggling with the problem of how his enviromentalism makes todays world seem so much worse than the world that he grew up in. Here's his conclusion:

"Have I become a grumpy old man who sees only the past as wonderful and decries the modern? I don’t think so, but I mourn the time when nature was still rich. I know we can’t change the past, but together we can create a brighter future for our children and grandchildren. We know where the problems lie, and science offers many solutions. Now it’s time for action. If I’ve learned one lesson in my 73 years, it’s that everyone, including those in government and business, must pitch in if we want to change things for the better."

Suze puts together a noble article. What he is most worried about is that the future world will be unlivable for his grandchildren, and his grandchildren's-grandchildren. He looks back at the world when he was a child and his ability to drink water right out of the stream, and he romantacizes this world as being better than today's world. Today's world has traded the ability to drink fresh stream water, for the ability to have seasonal chemical grown fruits and buy cell phones every year. For Suzuki, the 21st century is only about petty capitalistic treasures, while the 20th century was about cherishing the beauty of earth.

I am surprised by Suze's vision for the future. He still thinks that it is possible to achieve the change that will make this world a healthier place to live. He plans to achieve this by science and the government. This is where I think Suze goes wrong. He is still caught in the trap of the 20th century thinking that has got us trapped in enviromental devastation and has brought us the luxuries of plasma tv's and blu rays. This trap starts when one thinks that science holds the answer to saving the earth's problems. Many companies are investing in green technology. For example, all the major oil companies have branches of their company devoted to wind energy and other alternative energy sources. This is not done for a love of the earth, but is done instead because there is money to be made off of the growing sentiment of people who love the earth. So instead of drilling oil from the ground, we construct a million dollar wind turbine to use wind to power our homes. Hundreds of thousands of wind turbines would certainly cost a lot of money, and newer green technology could end up being the cornerstone of many failing economies around the world. And just like how many people think that they can buy their way to happinesss with blu rays and plasma screens, many people think that we can buy our way out of this enviromental crisis with green technology. Suzuki provides enviromental optism by suggesting that green science and green technology has a saving power.

In the end, there is nothing left but pessimism. The movie Wall-e becomes not a story of fear about our dismall future, but hope that human beings can still live in this universe even once they destroy earth.

Obamamania

Given that Obama was in Canada yesterday, i think it is time to pay tribute to him. here is a link to a video that most say won obama the election. he was still fighting against hillary at this point in the election and clinton dug up some dirt about Obama's old reverand. Apparently Obama's reverend thought that America was only about racial hatred. the reverand sees the main battle in america as whites suppressing blacks. he sees wars taking place in the world based on racist elitism... like israel invading palestine. and most of all the pastor hates america and everything that it does and is doing to subjugate him to his place in society. obama obviously disagrees because he is the example of blacks being able to make a place for themselves in society. Fox wanted Obama to distance himself from the revereand, but obama refuses to stop being friends with the reverand even if he disagrees with the stories that the reverand believes in.

link

ffwd to 13:30 and watch until 1600

Things that seem unimportant but are really bad signs. Also there are some positives

Pontiac, the car brand, is probably going to be a part of history in the coming months. No longer will small badly built Sunfires plague the roads. Unfortunately, we're fucked. Cars exist for one reason: to be exciting. On the surface you can argue with me, but let me elaborate:

• Transportation: I think we can all agree that there are other ways to transport ourselves. In an urban environment. Public transit, annoying as it is, is often faster, absolutely cheaper, and scientifically proven to be less stressful than driving (I have no citations). True, public transit has problems. No one likes walking. But there are several ways that this problem can be solved. One solution is what the prophetic and enjoyable Minority Report demonstrates: Personalized public transit. I picture a residence+vehicle program where an existing infrastructure is used to operate a more personal way of "transit". Small capacity vehicles without driver interface can operate together to greatly increase efficiency, and more importantly, comfort. That's why we don't ride trains and buses: they're run by incompetent (other than BC it seems) organizations that genuinely do not give a shit about their riders. How can I be so sure? Ride an old C-train, the ones from the 60's. I want to point out that the trains in North Korea are 8 years newer than ours, albeit of much worse quality. The seats face each other, the spaces inbetween are inadequate, and all this is fixable by a simple retrofit. Cost > customers, because it's publicly run. Counterintuitive, I know, but because there's absolutely zero competition, there's no incentive to improve comfort. There's only an incentive to use as little of the budget as possible, which explains why we spent tens of millions on new trains in calgary instead of tens of millions of fixing the 7th avenue infrastructure with a series of underpasses.
  
• Utility: So fine. Cars/trucks deliver goods. Well, that problem is in the process of being solved. A new design to replace the double-decker buses in London incorporates seating that converts to cargo room. I see no reason that the same autonomous small-capacity transport vehicles cant integrate either their own cargo space, or latch on to other cargo modules. Once up to speed, only one vehicle needs to use its drive, and the aerodynamic gains will make the old way seem insane. Unfortunately, the bus design was rejected in favor of buses designed by Aston Martin, one of the most insanely wasteful and badly run auto companies ever to inhabit the economy. Yay progress.

So anyway, we've solved all the real bits. Except Cars only exist to be exciting. Pontiac is The excitement brand. If they're gone, what's next? We're running out of whimsy. Nothing I mentioned is exciting. If we get rid of cars, what will that segment of society find exciting next? I nominate extreme marijuana abuse, but I have a feeling that wont pass legislation. Drug addiction is unacceptable, whereas addiction to pointless speed and chemical energy consumption is accepted gladly.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that Pontiac's dissolution is heralding the destruction of the modern transportation industry, the only thing that currently links the vast, vast, vast majority of urban spaces. The first country to embrace this will increase their economic output by such a margin that only a cable to space would upstage it.

While we're on the subject, WHERE IS THE CABLE TO SPACE? GET ON IT JAPAN.

Into the Wild

This movie has affected me in a way I was unprepared for. I have never been physically moved to tears by anything other than the time I ran over someone's kitten and I could have probably saved it, but I was afraid to reverse the car back to check on it. Ya, I'm walking a fine line between being a horrible person and a living saint.

The thing this movie is teaching is so much more than what it realizes. It's a rare film that creates such a layered metaphor it becomes a double helix, seen in profile. One of the helixes is the simple story, the timeless classic tale of a young man who ventures off into the wild. Before you openly mock Emile Hirsch's character, you should know he belongs to the ranks of men who ventured off on epic journeys with almost no preparation; a group that includes Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol (read the biography if you think I'm just being a dick), and the possibly fictional Jesus. He wants to get away. He wants to escape what he's stuck in. Chris Candless had a particularly difficult personal life, and came from a middle class family.

The second helix is the essential part of this movie that Sean Penn has succeeded in capturing: it's wrong to want to isolate yourself. It's inconsiderate. To abandon society because you don't like it is wrong for the same reason ants wither up and die when they're outside the ant-hill. Emile said it best at the end of the movie: happiness means nothing if it's not shared. I am unapologetic about this. If you have the desire to fuck off to Alaska, you make sure you're coming back.

There isn't a ton of happiness in a lot of places. To rob your family, to rob your friends of the unique ideas and concepts contained in your brain is a disgusting crime. To isolate yourself from society is a horrific crime, a slap in the face against every single human being who could benefit from your singular opinions and conclusions. I have as little respect for Chris Candless as I do for suicides. There's no such thing as a reason to kill yourself, with the possible exception of inevitable death caused by sickness.

The really interesting parts of this movie are when the Helixes collide. When the Sine curves overlap, you're in a zone where the metaphor is no longer a flashback, you're at the very last scene of the movie where the tree falls in the forest. The tree is the most beautiful, symmetrical fir you've ever seen. It's had a good summer, wide rings and strong, well covered branches. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen grow from the ground, and one strong wind topples it. When those two curves hit each other, the sad fact that people need to leave violently clashes with the equally difficult fact that people need to share.

And you were the only one to see it. You didn't bring anyone with you to share it. It never happened. You wasted your life, Chris Candless. You were a smart guy, and you deprived society of an intelligent mind, something we are lacking. Isolationists think they're fixing their own problems by leaving society, but all they're doing is losing the vital social interaction that creates a human, and at the same time, contributing to a society that is arguably getting out of hand.

So fuck you, hermits. Read my lips: fuck you. I give you ironic permission to end your lives so you may never produce children that insist on making life worse by being selfish. Fuck you with a rake.


*note: I noticed upon editing that I subconsciously typed "christ" instead of "christ" each time

*note: I noticed after my last note that I did it in my note too. I assure you I am still an atheist, albeit an obviously Freudian one.

The Medium is the Message

The medium is the message

Yes it’s all about the media

Not the content on the Googles

CNNs and wikipedias

It’s about electricity.

Just like McLuhan said

Why do you think they call it power?

It’s all extensions of our heads

Accelerating cultures

‘Till they transform or get devoured

Yes our brains give shape to

Commodity chains

‘Mass’ media for the masses

It’s the new gospel truth

Whether communist or fascist

Propaganda has a use

Compressing time and space

With internet and computers

Can you create more change

With a blog or a six shooter?

Scotia Bank Wacky Whore

possible political strategies to deal with crazy people in canada:
1)send them all to mental hospitals until they are sane
2)send them all to camps in the interior and let them be crazy there.
3)grow to tolerate their craziness
4)ignore them and make them feel like outcasts
5) a different version of number 2 except send them to live on icebergs in the arctic.

Last night i was getting my rent money from Scotia Bank. This very eloquent British woman began talking to me from the ATM next to mine. She looked quite normal and i assumed she was intelligent because of her accent. She opened up the conversation with "Do you know the government controls the weather?"
I replied "what?"
she said "the government controls the weather. they send microwaves into the air and everyone is going to be getting cancer."
I said, knowing full well how conspiracy theorists think "are the build-a-burgers involved?"
"oh," she said, "so you already know about the New World Order?" At this point she warmed up to me quite a bit because she realized i wasn't a skeptic that was completely ignorant of conspiracy theories. "yes the billabergers are likely involved. but its impossible to trace them directly to the weather. the people that are really responsible are the police and the military."
I told her "i go to university and my professors are completely unwilling to enter into the pseudo sciences. if what you are saying is true, then either my professors are lying to me to hide the truth, or my professors are completely ignorant of reality. which one do you think it is?"

Unfortunately she didn't have a response to this. If i had to choose a policy option for her it would be a combination of 3 and 4. the lady obviously had no university education. and because of this she doesn't know how to sift through bad sources and has ended up using unreliable website to form her understanding of the political reality. she asked me to do a search in google for "military's pandoras box" and guaranteed me that a University of Ottawa professor was writing articles on the weather manipulation... i didn't find any evidence of this when i checked out the site.

I believe that this lady is not insane. she is unable to understand reality in a healthy fashion. She is old and bored with how this country works. It is partly stephen harper to blame for being so boring that people are forced to buy into science fiction accounts of politics rather than except the true blandness of the canadian political system. but the problem with this lady is that she really demands to be taken seriously. she really wanted to convince me of her reality. she wouldn't stop talking to me even when i told her my friend was waiting in the car. and then when i ran to my car the lady ran after me to hand me a piece of paper with the website that she wanted me to check out. she almost got in the car with me. does anybody know why this lady demands to be taken so seriously? why can't she just think these thoughts without talking about them?

Michael Phelps Secret Weapon

Taken in November 3 months after his 8 gold medal performance at the olympics. He got in trouble and had to apologize to the media for setting a bad example. I'm sure he wasn't smoking weed during his training because that would have turned up on his drug tests (although maybe ross robiglatia set the precedent that THC is not performance enhancing). Anyway, the interesting question is does Usain Bolt smoke weed?


(the weed jamaican him win gold)