Corporate Nation-State Gameshow

Idea for a gameshow: Invade a bunch of third-world countries too small to withstand a TV network-funded militia. Management teams from contestant corporations are assigned different countries to run. The corporation that improves their country the most gets to keep the country and name it after itself.

Babyboomers taking shit out on kids

Whenever there’s a social crisis caused by babyboomers, the babyboomers punish kids for it. Eg Barnaby Joyce wanting to restrict the cervical cancer vaccine. Kids deserve cancer if they don’t act the way Joyce wants them to. Morris Iemma wanting to make schoolkids sing the national anthem in response to the Cronulla Riots. Work for the dole.

Human Reality vs Ideology, Joyce’s Cervical Cancer Vaccine Comments

There is a faulty type of thinking that results in a form of conservatism that wants to organise the world in a way that would suit a population of humans that act properly/rationally. Of course the “properly” in turn is laden with value judgments. It’s an ideological, non-pragmatic and inflexible approach to the world. Egs include opposition to abortion (people shouldn’t be having sex for non-procreative reasons anyway so there’s no need for abortion), drug harm minimisation (they should be sober, so let's pretend they don't exist), etc. Human behaviour outside of these people’s moral strictures does not compute.

An example has just cropped up with Barnaby Joyce’s comments about the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil. He wants the Health Minister rather than the TGA to approve it because he’s worried about the “social implications”:

“There might be an overwhelming (public) backlash from people saying, 'don't you dare put something out there that gives my 12-year-old daughter a licence to be promiscuous’”

I’ve talked before about the vindictive spirit with which people want to punish people who don’t meld their identities to fit with artificial structures humans create. Inefficient people should be discarded. The type of thinking I’m talking about here is similar. It’s an erroneous approach to the world in which ideas trump humans. Free market faith, fascism and centralised communism are the same. Something must be wrong with the humans if they don’t fit the theory, not the other way around. I can’t think of a name for this type of thinking though.

Palestinian Elections, Western Awareness

The news frenzy around the Palestinian elections is making ordinary people aware of Palestine. People are asking where it is, why they don’t have a country, how can it exist in Israel, how did it end up like that, etc. There is no longer a Yasser Arafat bogeyman that explanation can be simplified around and tripped up by. If ordinary working class Westerners start developing an awareness of the issues then Israel’s position will become less and less tenable, since our rulers prop them up.

Gay Men vs Hetero Men Re Types

Gay men have stricter and more specific categories of people they’re sexually interested in compared to hetero men. If you’re more predisposed to investigating your own sexuality in detail then this type-awareness is more likely to arise in early stages of the investigation, but if it calcifies into strictness then the investigation must have been arrested. The second movement wasn’t achieved. It's like some kind of exhaustion with the uncertainty and flux and that unremitting self-analysis brings. The same goes for all those gay men out there who are heavily attracted to women but who don't pursue it because it causes social problems with the gay community. They're exhausted from the first round of social problems that came with coming out.

Random gossip that’s probably not true

Word from someone high up in New Zealand Customs is that authorities are expecting a Hurricane Katrina-style breakdown in society when bird flu finally hits. For weeks at the least there will be no international travel whatsoever, government services will be non-existent and there’ll be a law + order breakdown. There’ll be a shortage of food, water, paracetamol and anti-inflammatories. I didn’t think anti-inflammatories were relevant to the flu… who knows.

A friend that’s into trannies (where does that fit into the strict gay/bi/straight system?) met a trannie who was with a very famous, very good-looking AFL player (my ex has a crush on him - can‘t wait to tell) for a few years until last year. She is pre-op and fucks him but he’s confused and part of the reason they broke up was he wanted her to have the operation and she doesn’t want it.

3 of 6 current male High Court justices use male sexworkers, not counting Kirby (if the allegations about him were true). One just does group sex with girls, not touching the boy. One spanks the boy, calling him a “bad operator”, with emphasis on the “or” syllable. In my experience people that have crazy power are usually sexually submissive so that’s unusual. The third is into extreme pain, including tubes down his urethra. I wish I could publish my own famous client stories because people wouldn’t be able to be so destructive if there were less secrets and hypocrisy but I have a weird professional discretion ethic plus the defamation laws are intense.

Polarites

There is a fundamental, archetypal type of brain architecture that results in swings between poles in relation to moods, personality traits and capabilities. Someone with this architecture is a “polarite”. Brain polarity has something to do with erratic function of NMDA receptors. Polarity underlies some “mental illnesses” like bipolar disorder, hyperfocus/hypofocus in ADD, etc, which are usually polarity subject to stress.

People that say they’re full of contradictions are probably polarites. Polarity fucks up personality/psychometric questionnaires. They ask if you’re sociable and you think “sometimes extremely” and “sometimes not at all” and answer in-between, which is actually what you never are.

Altruism or Power-hunger?

When people say “I want to change the world” they’re not being altruistic or idealistic, they’re being power-hungry. It means they want to impress their own vision on the world. They want their own ego to have a disproportionate impact on the world. My first time around at uni I did humanities that would let me get into a position where I could influence society from above and avoided science because I considered scientists to be the footsoldiers whose work people like me got to choose how to deploy.

Optometry and Polarity

I need glasses but I’m vain, know I’ll lose/break them, and suspect that contacts will irritate me too much. But my biggest issue is that I don’t trust optometry. Unless you subscribe to unintelligent design you’d think that our eyes couldn’t have evolved so dodgily that half the species can’t see properly. If eye problems are caused by muscle atrophy from unnatural modern lifestyle issues like computers and reading then you’d think that we could recover lost muscle tone. And my vision varies wildly with my polarities so I’m going to get glasses that match the vision problems I happen to have while at the optometrist but not the rest of the time. Optometrists aren’t going to get it if I start talking about oscillations in nerve firing rates, concentration/dissociation, posture etc. Moderately intelligent people are the worst. Give them a bit of specialised knowledge and they think they know everything. If it wasn’t in the textbook it can’t be true.

Kim Beazley: Howard’s Best Weapon

Despite the wave of antipathy towards the Federal Government over the industrial relations changes, Beazley has somehow managed to keep Labor at a two-party preferred 48-52 deficit. He has to go. And if Labor loses the next election it should be disbanded. The working class of Australia needs a party that represents them. Labor is an upper class party with the twist that some of their members condescend to have pallid university-induced bourgeois sympathy for the working class, culture and social progressiveness. And they expect us to be grateful for it.

I saw an end-of-year wrap up on domestic politics by Jim Middleton that claimed that Beazley had cemented his support within the parliamentary Labor party because of his performance in 2005. This is simply a bare lie. He had the opportunity to hammer the Coalition on a whole bunch of vulnerabilities but barely got his head on TV.

Unions and the Next Election

In the lead up to the next election it is absolutely essential that unions don’t associate themselves with the Labor party. There can be no re-affiliations, no direct campaigning for Labor. The union campaign against Howard’s IR changes has been unexpectedly well-organised and executed. The people are in our pocket on this one. We can’t afford to throw it away by appearing to be a front for Labor. People on all sides of politics hate Labor and the mediocre hacks that have taken it over. We are more likely to get Labor up if we stick to the issue and run an anti-Coaltion line. We also have the opportunity of running campaigns in individual seats aimed at drawing out the local candidates’ stances on IR. With the amount of passion in the Australian community over IR right now there is the potential for wedging individual candidates away from the party line, etc. Unions can issue seat-by-seat evaluations of candidates’ overall stances on IR.

Supposedly Water-Efficient Showerheads

I hate “water efficient” showerheads. It takes 5 minutes to rinse the soap off you instead of 30 seconds with the old showerheads. Efficient. And I have a bit of Asperger’s skin-nerve hypersensitivity (ticklishness, etc) and, depending on my brain-state, the tiny jets of water sometimes sting.

Celebrity Monotheism and Personification

Humans have a need to personify everything. Inanimate things are given human motives, eg “selfish” genes, “my computer wouldn’t let me…” It’s something to do with limitations in our intelligence that aren’t as restrictive when we turn our thoughts to human behaviour.

We focus our anger on individual political leaders like Bush even though if he’d never been born some other cheerleader for the underlying movement would be doing the same things.

You can talk to a complete stranger about celebrities and you both know exactly what you’re talking about. Replaces mutual friends / community figures in cultures that suffer from social isolation.

Perhaps this is why Christianity has been so virulent. Jesus’ students’ masterstroke was personifying god itself. No longer just an abstract force in the sky. Christianity is the celebrity monotheism. God as celebrity. Jesus Christ Superstar.

Judeo-Christian Jealous God vs Individualism

There’s some kind of weird relationship between the Judeo-Christian jealous god thing and the arch individualism of the last few decades. Individualism lets people express their desire to be the ultimate master of their own lives. It’s not just a rightwing issue - both leftists and rightists value personal freedom and responsibility. The hold of individualism makes some people reject the jealous god and dabble in different religions and new-age stuff. It makes some other people turn to superficial evangelical Christianity like the Hillsong Church where you can indulge your self-oriented temporal desires and not be asked hard questions, but at the same time still feel like you’re being loyal to the jealous god.

Fog Facts

In his novel The Librarian, which is fiction but with heavy slabs of non-fiction based on Bush II’s presidency, Larry Beinhart coins the term “fog facts” to describe facts that are on the public record but not remembered by the general public due to orchestrated mainstream media silence.

I’m going to start cataloguing some.

1) Bush II called the US Constitution “just a goddamned piece of paper”. I found this mentioned in passing in the SMH, but it’s hardly anywhere else in the mainstream media. Other sources: here and here.

2) In The Librarian, Beinhart gives an account of how the group of media outlets that did a recount of Florida in 2000 managed to suppress the fact that Gore really won. When I googled the headlines he put in the novel, they turned out to be from real life. He gave an analysis of how the New York Times article “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote" gave the impression that Bush won while actually admitting that he hadn’t. If you go to the article, he’s right. Here’s his analysis:

“The New York Times spent the first three paragraphs of the story supporting the headline and explicitly stated that Scott [Bush] would have won even with a statewide recount. But then, in the fourth paragraph, in a very convoluted sentence, it said that Scott would have lost in a statewide recount. Then the story spent five more paragraphs explaining that a statewide recount was never a realistic possibility and then listed a clutter of partial recount scenarios under which Scott could have won.”

3) John Howard used to oppose Asian immigration and sanctions against Apartheid South Africa.

More later.

FAT-1 Bipolar Gene and Moron Journalism

Researchers have found a gene that correlates with bipolar disorder. When I first heard, I thought I’d have to rant about neurovariant genocide / eugenics, but then I read further. (Can’t find the original anywhere so I’m piecing it together from different articles - all of which are appalling. The SMH was actually better than New Scientist.)

The gene doubles the risk of bipolarity. So if you have the gene you have a 4% chance of bipolarity rather than 2% for the general population. New Scientist says that the gene is involved in 10% of bipolar patients. I take this piece of ambiguity to mean that 10% of bipolar patients have the gene. Since the gene is found twice as often in (diagnosed) bipolars, 5% of the general population must have the gene. It’s nice to scrape up every piece of information we can but this is nothing to stop the presses over.

I have to take a swipe at Elizabeth Gosch in The Australian:

“Australian scientists have become the first in the world to identify the gene that makes people vulnerable to manic depression.”

The gene? This is the kind of journalism that makes the public distrust science. To report on science stuff you should be a scientist.

Physical Correlates to Affective Spectrum Disorder

My theory is that the following physical disorders correlate to affective spectrum disorder:

- inflammation in general
- back problems
- digestive problems
- allergies
- skin problems

It’s a matter of circular causation. Treat the physical problem and the mental side will improve and vice versa.

Inflammation is huge. The recent explosion in mood disorders and other inflammation-related issues (eg some types of cancer, arthritis) is related, among other things, to the fact that we don’t eat enough good fats anymore and eat too much sugar.

Anti-inflammatories vs SSRIs
Anti-histamines vs SSRIs

Anti-inflammatories vs SSRIs

Prediction: if common anti-inflammatories were subject to the same trials that have resulted in approval for SSRIs, they would prove superior in alleviating depression.

Also there would be no problem with triggering suicide in some people. The reason SSRIs do this is that they elevate serotonin indiscriminately across the whole brain, and serotonin increases can drive down dopamine and noradrenaline levels. And these three neurotransmitters fluctuate through the day with circadian rhythms. So SSRIs are sledgehammer treatments, just a shake-up of the brain. Might improve some things, might harm other things.

Me First?

I’m pushing 30 and have never had anyone die. I’ve never been to a funeral. Not even an acquaintance. The closest has been someone I didn’t know in my year at school. I don’t know anyone else that's my age or older that hasn’t been to a funeral. And I would look great in a black suit with black sunnies in dignified silence.

So I have a weird irrational thing in my head that everyone’s waiting for me to go first but that I’ve been intransigent in getting my life goals wrapped up so I can get off this rock.

Ads Exploiting Emperor’s New Clothes Phenomenon

There’s an ad on TV that goes “We all know carpets should be cleaned once a year, don’t we?”

It appeals to the Emperor’s New Clothes psychological trait where everyone’s scared of being the stupidest person in the room. You must be a retard if you don’t know what everyone else knows about carpet cleaning. You must be a slovenly retard.

I’ve never had a carpet cleaned in my life. By the way, if you live in NSW, it’s illegal for a real estate agent to demand that you dry clean the carpet. Not many people know this and almost all agents put the demand in their tenancy agreements. Such clauses are void.

Tommy Haas Haircut

Saw Tommy Haas on TV this morning. He’s had a haircut - I never realised he was hot before. I find it impossible to find guys with long hair attractive. My ideas of masculinity and femininity are still tied to things like when you’re a little kid drawing boys with short hair and rectangle bodies and girls with long hair and triangle-dress bodies. If something so contingent/peripheral to masculinity determines my attraction it makes you think of the division between unmediated animal sexual attraction and mere visual attraction.

Bad Feminist

RF: “Come on you bitch! Aw.. I’m such a bad feminist…”

Murder Victims’ Families, Certainty and Blame

Murder victims’ families always believe that the person charged is guilty. One day psychologists will pathologise this phenomenon. The need for closure outweighs the need for truth. It’s related to two human characteristics: the blinding drive to lay blame and the “people don’t want truth, they want certainty” maxim.

Subsistence and Productivity/GDP Comparisons Over Time

Saw a documentary last night that claimed that we face economic disaster when we can’t shrink microchips any further.

If technological development suddenly stopped altogether our productivity would not actually decrease. In fact productivity would rise for the first few decades that it would take to bring all of the human race into the same proximity to latest technology. Then it would be static. Static productivity means static level of goods and services. Not economic disaster.

The orthodox economic view is that we’ve had massive productivity and GDP per capita increases in the last century. But most of the goods/services being measured did not exist even a few decades ago. We determine the contribution to GDP of a new product/service by its price relationship to other goods/services in the present. For instance, a computer might be worth 100 loaves of bread in 2005 money. Thus we purport to be able to say that a worker who produces 1 computer per day in 2005 is 10 times more productive than a worker in 1805 that makes 10 loaves of bread per day.

First, comparing goods in subsistence times and non-subsistence times is apples and oranges. The utility of a loaf of bread that prevents malnutrition cannot be compared to the utility of a loaf of bread in a rich society.

Second, most of what is measured by GDP in 2005 is of little inherent/objective value. Especially directly destructive stuff eg alcohol.

Mainstream economists consider Western economies to have grown at rates of something like 2%/year over the last century. No permanent system/entity sustains such rapid growth over such an extended period. We need GDP growth of at least 1% per capita just to maintain employment levels. Something’s not right.

Abortion, Wages and Market Demand

Another ulterior motive for ruling class opposition to abortion liberalisation:

More people increases the supply of labour, driving down wages, and increases demand for goods/services, driving up prices.

If the population expands faster than the supply of housing then the value of their real estate goes up. Ruling class people are making money from the collapse of public housing and explosion of homelessness in the last ten years.

Population growth increases the size of their fiefdoms without diluting their power. The more underlings you have fighting each other to be closer to your status, the more powerful you become.

Use Your Fucken Blinker

When a pedestrian (me) points out that a driver didn’t use their blinker, thus resulting in near collision, why does the driver get angry with the pedestrian? Especially now that I’ve developed enough self-control to not physically touch their cars. If there’s anyone that’s actually reading this blog and is one of these people, feel free to anonymously explain yourself. Putting on your blinker should be an unconscious act, freeing conscious attention for reacting to the road. You should find yourself doing it in the middle of nowhere.

Also, I have no sympathy for people making up the road toll except for kids and pedestrians. If I was a bit more Pat Robertsonish I’d say it’s god’s punishment for habitat destruction. Mother Earth disgorging herself of hostile bacteria.

I propose that only people who fall into the top 20% of the population for hand-eye co-ordination be allowed to get a driver’s licence. You’re all very cute but cars are dangerous and not many of you are very good with them.