There is no Hope

When a society can no longer diagnose its own ills, and the vast, miseducated and brainwashed masses gleefully seek to amplify the problems which cause their own  discomfort - it's just about game-over.

We now have large swaths of population that have wholly bought-in to the lies they've been shoveled for years by savvy politicians.  They've been told the rich are out to get them.  That we're all at fault for ruining the planet's ecosystem.  And that less is more -- less freedom, that is, means more happiness.

I used to think you could reason with people to gain a higher degree of mutual understanding.  Now, I believe this is a falsehood.  There is a sufficient "critical mass" of people that are totally beholden to illogical, faulty reasoning that society can no longer be expected to "tend toward order" in the long-term.  As demonstrated in Adam's startling (and depressing) video above, seemingly "educated" indivudals are incapable of comprehending the reality that motivates their own protest actions.  The want more of the same.  And they are programmed to disbelieve (or disregard) any potentially conflicting evidence.

That fact ensures their entrapment in the madness.

They use words like "1-percenters" or "corporate masters" or the venerable favorite:  "Haliburton".  But they don't know the meaning of it all.  They think they do, but a simple series of questions, designed to extract a coherent, logical progression -- it causes their ideology to completely collapse.  They cannot explain why.  Hostility increases, and they become defensive.

And never, ever do they let opposing views for critical analysis. The whole, wicked world is out to get them.  The boogeyman in running the bank.  The corporations want to digest your blood for fuel.  And the Tea Partiers are the zombie-henchman of the corporations.  They dare not question any of this, for they are far too long committed to this line of reasoning to ever change.

After all, the Democrats, with which they allied, have told them so.  It must be true. 

At some point, a viral infection threatens your life when the infection has become sufficiently pervasive.  Looks like we're about to collectively succumb to the virus, if you ask me...

Environmental Insanity

So this guy, James Lee, finally snaps under the weight of his environmental lunacy.  He grabs his weapons and heads over to the Discovery Channel to fix their program linup, and takes hostages. (WTOP article here)  (Washington Post article here)

Did you happen to look at this guy's manifesto?

• All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.
• Programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed.
• Talk about ways to disassemble civilization.
• Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn't, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
• Find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies.
• Find solutions for global warming, automotive pollution, international trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using oil in order to REVERSE gobal warming and the destruction of the planet!
• Saving the planet means saving what's left of the non-human wildlife by decreasing the human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You're the media, you can reach enough people. It's your responsibility because you reach so many minds!!!
• You're also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
• Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.  THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
• It is the responsibility of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution.
• War must be halted. Not because it's morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
• Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
• The humans? The planet does not need humans. You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

It's a very thorough and cogent thesis, yes, but I think this fellow needs a few extra points, like these:

• And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids. 
• Have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?
• Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?

Folks, this here is what happens when the environmentalism gets completely out of hand.  Madness ensues... Someone from PETA, please help.  Come get your boy.  One of your overly-enthusiastic minions is getting out of hand.

Sometimes, There Isn't Hope

Life seems to be getting pretty crappy these days.  I find it hard to have a reason to get out of bed.  Things only seem to get worse after I do.  And then, later, after a day full of hopelessness, pain, and misery, the only sure winner is sleeping for a while.  It's a blessed time wherein you're temporarily removed from all of your suffering.  Yes, it might be supplanted by a terrifying nightmare, but at least that's a different horror than what you've gotten used to seeing.  When you wake up though, it's back to the same damned schedule of ruin and angst that you left behind the hours before.  Time to do it all again.  The same misery, over and over again. 

Of course, if you're insomniac like me, this tantalizing escape may even be out of hand's grasp, though frustratingly close at times.

Religion would say "there is a reason for everything".   But I don't think that's true.  Certainly there is an cause for every effect;  though we may not be able to know exactly what's going on at all times during or after, I find calm in the belief that there must rules of nature that describe, deterministically, how everything will work itself out.   It gives me a tiny modicum of hope.  There are days where that's all I have to go on.

Object X hits object Y a particular way, and there is a physical rule which can describe the outcome, every time it might happen that precise way.  That rules exist, whether we understand them or not, is important to me.   There must be order;  if all this is random then I don't really find that funny at all.

What, was God drunk and decided to have a hoot n' holler  and make "random outcome universe", knowing full well his creations would try to figure it out, in abject futility, until it was over?  Sadist.

But why?  Why?  Demand a reason for the rules of behavior -- that implies some kind of justification of why it is that way.  Why, indeed.  Well why not.   It has to be some way, so why not how it is?  Just as long as the rule is the same tomorrow as it was 3 million years ago, I'm fine with that.  Maybe it can't work any other way.   I think the actual answer for "why" is probably way above any of our paygrades.   Enter God, I suppose.

We can't tell too well what's going on at the scale of the very, very small ... the muons and neutrinos and other hadrons bouncing about in that level of the universe.  Yes, this is a familiar feeling.  We can barely guess as what the rules really are, since we can't just reach in there and tinker with it at will.  We spend bazillions building ever more elaborate devices (LHC) to smash things apart, in hope to glean some further insight, however slight, in to the mysterious and unknown rules here.  In the end, well, we seem condemned to guess at it for all of eternity.   How depressing is that thought.

Perhaps we'll figure it out one day, possibly by the time all those monkeys with typewriters have finished their  Shakespearean sonnets, I suppose.

And so I look at my life, and I see that I don't understand the rules which are guiding it.  They must be there, and if only I knew them, I think I could get a handle on the course of things.  Change it for the better, or know to promptly give up -- that there is in fact no solution possible.   But here I sit, and know not do I whether there is an answer or oblivion.  It's hard to forge ahead with that realization firmly in mind.

Our laws of thermodynamics tell us that, well, it's all going to end badly, eventually.  There's no reason to hope otherwise (yet discovered).  Recycle all the aluminum and plastic you want, it's a lost cause.  The sun will burn out and explode.  The universe must ultimately come to a dark, motionless, and totally frozen state of thermal equilibrium.  Then's it's over, forever.

So if I put on a happy face tomorrow morning, and charge out of the bed with lofty and prodigious goals in mind, well who am I kidding?  Perhaps this is the day the Al Qaeda nuke goes off, and we're about to have chaos.  Perhaps it's not going to be a shitty day, and we'll squeak by for a little longer.  It's going to end badly eventually, so is it really worth the effort to hope for any better?

I guess not.