Notes from the Decline of America. "If you can't bash your own who can you bash?" Propaganda as an art form. The Shadow speaks. The whole is different than the sum of its parts. Things fall apart on their own.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
On Faith
From a work in progress:
Technology is an upstart cult. Like many cults, its foundation lies in hitherto established religious doctrine. Long before it was a scientific belief, determinism was a religious idea. The concept of a deterministic deity is among the main reasons progress was accepted as liege in the first place. Some myths are better than others. Herd animals crave the false security of the familiar. Some masks look too much alike. For a believer, only faith is relevant. For a machine, faith does not exist.
Technology is an upstart cult. Like many cults, its foundation lies in hitherto established religious doctrine. Long before it was a scientific belief, determinism was a religious idea. The concept of a deterministic deity is among the main reasons progress was accepted as liege in the first place. Some myths are better than others. Herd animals crave the false security of the familiar. Some masks look too much alike. For a believer, only faith is relevant. For a machine, faith does not exist.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Only Two Types
With respect to the environment, I've noticed in a decade of working as an (un-)civil engineer, there mainly tends to be only two of types people I run across: those who trash everything and the fanatics. The former group wants to shit their own bed; the latter wants to do nothing. Neither seems capable of much thought. The idiots who don't seem to consider the environment as something worth saving are just abortions, and don't merit any consideration. The fanatics, on the other hand, can't seem to see the forest for the trees (or around here, the Puget Sound for the water). A case in point concerns incidental harassment of marine mammals. The fanatics will do everything they can to put restrictions of pile driving so as not to bother the sea lions. As a native fisherman once hotly explained, what's killing the marine mammals is their diminishing food supplies, not noise from a pile driver. Therefore, old creosote treated timber piling is not being replaced by steel pipe piles as quickly as would otherwise be the case. Creosote is fatal to fish spawn, but they can actually live on steel piles. Therefore more fish die, more sea lions starve, but at least it isn't too noisy. What a world...