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10/16/2009 OpenRestaurantThis definition of the
OpenRestaurant system is a community organized and run, free food
restaurant. It is based on the ideals for feeding the hungry, and
community spirit. Anyone with the spirit of an entrepreneur may
attempt to create one in your neighborhood, as long as the population
of willing, caring, and able bodied people is large enough. This may
require a local population of several thousand people.
FOOD MANAGEMENT & DINING 5/8/2009 Merit: Ever ElusiveThe merit system is arguably older than humanity itself. Observed in
many types of animals, this system has its roots in the very advanced
nature of social interaction itself. Merit is a precursor to complete
obedience, and therefore it must be handled carefully, so as not to
create a system of willing slaves. Before discussing merit, one must consider how this fantastic system could possibly come about. Primarily, it is a more just system than the current "wealth=merit" system, since there are innumerable ways to make money without using our better qualities. As people realize this, they will slowly come around to it, since there is more social security in the merit system than there is with money. In case you haven't realized it yet, the merit system replaces the money system. As large organized groups of people learn how to take more and more money for themselves, they will master the art, and their greed will destroy them. Since there is no amount of money that can satiate true greed, there is also no limit to the lengths that a truly greedy person will go to. This will eventually lead to wealthy people finding the merit system, and implementing it. Since basic goods and services for living are free, all that extra money goes straight to the top when it is no longer needed. Farming will soon become a zero labor industry, and goods required for farming will either be produced on site, or they will become free for trade. With everyone eating for free, a diet stabilization system must be implemented in order to keep everyone healthy. The public health will truly become a public matter, with all unhealthy people being organized into various treatment facilities. Once eating is free, time becomes free. You no longer have to work to keep your stomach full. Everyone in the world may now pursue their ultimate dreams and goals in earnest. Now, you might ask, what is stopping everyone from just sitting back and relaxing? The answer to that is simple. Even though you have to work for a living, you are bombarded by all kinds of ways to be lazy and unhealthy, and that is why you are so lazy and unhealthy. Once the system no longer has money to motivate you to work, it will clean up its act, and no longer tempt you with such things. You will be healthy, full of energy, and interested in fulfilling your dreams, and that is what the system will be trying to sell you. Here is where the merit system comes in. Lets verify that we understand the basics. There is no money, eating is free, and the system helps you stay healthy. There are certain things that you will still want, and they will be restricted from you, just like in the days of money. There are also certain things that the system agrees is good, like working at a job, and it wants to reward you for it, but there is no money. The answer to this is the merit system. With merit, you may earn points, and get restricted things that you want. Don't be fooled though, merit is different from money. In a money system, you must earn x amount of money, which enables you to buy goods totaling x amount of money. In a merit system, you earn x amount of merit, but you keep your merit. Also, if you work at a job, you don't steadily earn more and more merit, as you would earn money. Merit is earned by purity of character and good old fashioned workplace efficiency. Goofing off is no longer tolerated, it is punished with a bad character score, and factored in to your overall efficiency rating, which affects your merit score. Additionally, low efficiency is not punished, it is simply considered to be your ability level. If there is anything that the merit system helps solve, it is using statistical analysis to determine what you are best at, and slowly helps you to reach your peak. Of course, greed will still exist, and although it is considered a bad trait, it has some motivating factors that can prove useful, but instead of being greedy for money, people will be constantly trying to find the most efficient way to do their job, and the best character traits to use to get enough merit points for that big screen TV. Also, most of the side effects of greed will be eliminated, and here's why. In a money system, things still have value after you get them, but in a merit system, things have no value after you get them. Since merit points don't transfer to goods and services, those goods and services have no value, and therefore, there is less motivation to steal them. Sure, it will look cool in your house, but once you have it, you can't do anything dishonest with it. Also, the person you took it from won't be sad about it, since they will report their TV stolen, and get a new one. Meanwhile, you will be in big trouble, because that modern TV plugs into the internet and tells everyone who you are. An additional side effect of the merit system is that its very existence in your life will motivate you to educate yourself and improve yourself, and there will be nothing in your way to stop you. Education will be free, and since efficiency equates to merit, teachers will be constantly researching the best methods to teach, and the best teachers will have enough merit to get the best teaching aids, and they will share them with the other teachers at the schools. Also, practices that improve their merit score will be shared, and improve the merit scores of everyone else there, and eventually the world. Who is in charge of giving out merit? Simply speaking, the same people who had money in the old system, everyone. You will have limits and quotas on how much merit you may give out, and there will be many ways to determine when merit is given without any reason. For instance, parents can give merit points to their children, which will allow them to get x amount of candy at any candy store, or that bicycle, or that R/C race car set, or that young scientist set, or that backyard astronomy set, etc. Parents will be given a standard quota of merit to give out, and someone may come around to determine whether they are abusing their authority. There are also multiple merit calculation segments in your merit score that are easily looked up on the internet. Each segment has the amount earned, and the possible maximum, which is based on the subject. A part time job will not have as much maximum merit as a full time job, and so on. A child may have a segment for parental merit, school merit, extra curricular merit, job merit, and more. An adult may earn job merit, community merit, relationship merit, and more. There is also locked merit. When you get something, some of your merit is locked for a period of time. This prevents you from getting a ton of things all at once, and creating some clandestine money scheme to undermine the merit system. Some things may lock some of your merit for as long as you have them, for instance, a space ship captain may have so much merit, he can simply get a new ship every year. To prevent this, the space ship will have to lock his merit until it is destroyed or becomes useless. It is also possible to pool merit points. Managers of large corporations may pool their merit points in order to get some special equipment for the efficiency and luxury of the workplace. This brings up the nature of merit pooling. It must be completely voluntary and non-contractual. Large corporations must never be allowed to take tons of merit points from every employee by force, in order to rule the world, or some such unthinkable action. The pooling of merit points has the impact of allowing insignificant people to voluntarily do greater things than were ever dreamed possible. For instance, merit point pooling could be used to create a space station, or it could be used to overthrow the current leaders. PS: Who decides how much everything costs? Economists and politicians, of course. The merit system isn't a completely alien concept, it is simply an evolution of the money system. 12/31/2008 Assistive TechnologyAs the world gets better, it seems worse. More sick people are able to survive. As we head into the future, those ill and infirm shall take over. Perfect health has always been rare, but soon it shall be a thing of the past. Therefore, we must take more aggressive steps to assist our sick, our poor in spirit, and our physically and mentally challenged.
TESTING
The first thing that needs to be done is to have think tanks set up across the world, alongside testing facilities, in order to quickly develop comprehensive testing systems for every kind of trait imaginable. Currently, testing is expensive, and not even the most experienced of professionals really know what they're doing. The reason is that testing requires a mix of two things, those are extensive scientific data and years of trial-and-error testing.
Usually, drugs and surgical procedures are not used for these tests, and in most cases, all you need to do is fill out a questionaire. Because of this, testing should be free for anyone, paid in large part by the world's businesses gleaning all that anonymous testing data from the anonymous masses. For the smallest effect, it could keep a kid off the mean streets. For the largest effect, it could instantly get someone their dream job. In some cases, some tests may hold prize winnings for the one(s) who fit(s) the secret criteria, all you have to do is have the tests done.
TELECOMMUNICATION
In this world, there is no greater tool than telecommunication. Although it has been available for years, many people have no idea what they are missing out on.
11/15/2008 MarriageMany people believe that marriage is one of the cornerstones of society. People have even claimed biological evolution as the mother of marraige. In many ways, marriage has been a fundamental part of culture. Yet in light of all of this, it has been sickly misunderstood, and misused.
As you may have heard, many scientists believe that marriage evolved. The human brain was growing too large for the birth canal, and causing babies to be born premature in order to fit through. As natural selection goes, mothers who had to be with their newborns for all hours of the day were unable to hunt or gather enough to survive. Men who stayed around to help would then share their food with the woman nurturing the child. At a certain time in human history, people spread out, and dind't live amongst a lot of other people. This is when love between a man and a woman became dominant. At other points in human history, there were plenty of people around. These people had to work together in a cohesive way, and that is how friendship became dominant. All emotions, including emotions of love and friendship, can be traced back to when they were required for survival.
As time passed, and civilizations grew, it was only natural for the legal system to incorporate these fundamental survival systems into law because of how beneficial they are. Eventually, however, marriage was reworked in culture to give someone power over someone else. In some cultures, men were given dominance, and in others, women were given dominance. As time went by, parents were given power over the relationships of their children. Later, people were obligated to marry because they had had sex and a child was born as a result. Now, there is a split. Some people choose to have rampant sex, some people choose to live together, and some people continue to follow the old ways, whatever they may be. Now, although there are many lifestyles, and although there are many customs for partnership, there is only one law, and that is deeply flawed.
From its evolutionary origins, we may extrapolate a relationship between marriage and law. There are two things involved in marriage that the law applies to. The first concept is the agreement to cooperate in a household. The second conceptis the agreement to cooperate in order to raise a child. Without these two fundamental agreements, when applicable, having a functional family is impossible. It is also important to separate these two concepts. It is also extremely important not to limit either concept to the idea of an agreeement between two people, since in many cases, more than two people are closesly involved.
Another issue is parenting. One of the fundamental definition of parenting is having the right to make decisions for a child, and teach the child how to think, and what to believe. This is an obsolete belief, since everyone knows that when you send your child to school, the school does all of those things. In many ways, it can also be an illegal idea, since some parent may teach a child to kill, to rape, and to steal. When all else fails, there is still the option to take care of a child. This means providing food, shelter, and clothing. Legally, anyone can do this at any time, and for any duration of time. It is one of the worst legally defined components of parenting. The final, most fundamental element is the biological element. Although many mentally disturbed people have become famous pondering the implications of passing on ones genes, normal everyday people understand the meaninglessness of the genetic component of parenting. No matter what the childs origins, the end result is the same, the child will become an adult.
There are certain things that every parent is thought to want for the child. A parent wants a child to live, not be too unhappy, have a healthy parent/child relationship, share the parent's values and beliefs, and to grow up to be a responsible adult. Lets cover each one of these wants one at a time from the legal system's point of view. The legal system provides laws against having a child be mistreated or neglected, thereby reducing the chance of, or preventing the child from dying. There are many social services set up for children in most systems that deal with children, or the family in general, thta try help them with any social issues that may arise. In most cases, parents are held responsible for their child's actions. This gives parents an incentive to keep control of the child as best they can, reenforcing the parent/child bond. It is the parent's decision to take children to any institution, religious or otherwise, that may help indoctrinate the child in the ways and beliefs of the parent. Not only is there no legal way to manage this freedom, but there is also an unspoken understanding that once a child becomes an adult, the new adult may have completely separate beliefs. There is also no legal guarantee that the child will develop into a responsible or autonomous adult, one who can carry a job and provide for his or her self. In fact, all responsibility issues lay solely on adults, with children looked upon as completely dependent and unable to make decisions for themselves, then suddenly mature enough to have a role in society. No responsibility is legally set upon the parent to prepare the child for adult life and responsibilities. However, this is slowly being realised by the government.
Marriage is a decree of love between the subjects determined by religious denomination. In many cases it is a commitment to stay together to raise the kids that you accidentally had. According to (Christian, etc) religious tradition, it is a moral commitment between a man and a woman, to stay together until death. This has nothing to do with the government, in fact, government added all of those legal details to make money. Now, governments around the world are trying to push religion out of the marriage process altogether. Now on to the provocative issue of legal marriage. According to the Unted States constitution, in a very basic way, it is unconstitutional. Marriage, as it is defined today, is a fundamental component of religious freedom. It is both a statement of love, and an agreement between two individuals to cooperate in a household in a way defined by religion. It is a bond that is not legally appreciable in any way except child rearing, and only then in an abstract and clumsy way. It is most commonly created by the legal authority given to a religious leader to perform a religious ceremonial ritual, which is completely alien to, and largely unregulated by the law. It also has legal economic implications involving the separation of household value, which is not only outrageous and perverse, it is unfair to any other partners of the household, who are by default, not included in this legal union between two people.
This then is how the system of marriage is to be. It is the only way to solve all disputes of inequality, and it finally resolves the legal inconsistencies that legal marriage created. I am by no means going to outline the entire solution, as I still have hope in lawmakers, and I believe there are many issues yet to be resolved, and I look forward to seeing how the states resolve them.
All issues not covered under the law are subject to religious scrutiny and determination under the final definition of marriage. For instance, religious views on social interaction and moral ideology that do not intersect legal authority, issues of household roles and command heirarchies, religious rituals and obligations that do not intersect the law.
There is to be made a legal agreement between adult household members. This agreement automatically applies to any children who come to maturity in the household. The agreement outlines the legal power and positions that each member holds, and it assigns a piece of household value to each individual. The default agreement, which takes affect after a considerable period of time, is an equal share of the household, which may be claimed upon vacating the premesis.
There is to be made a legal agreement between all adults who have guardianship over a child for a considerable period of time. There may be permanent, temporary, or cyclical versions of the agreement. This agreement is useful for declaring responsibility beyond the customary family unit, and may be used to gain family level clearance or access in most situations. The default agreement, which takes affect after a period of time, includes personal contact with the child, miscellanious responsibilities, outside activities, legal benefits, and legal penalties. Also, the child, if old enough, should be included in the proceedings. 10/30/2008 Macro CapitalismHere I will show you what my definition of macro capitalism is, and I will frame its construction.
Capitalism is a perogative to amass wealth. It is done by first and always earning more money than you spend. The most secure way to do this is by working at a daily job for long hours. There is really nothing more to it, and anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. Capitalism is about standing on the shoulders of others, but it isn't about despising the poor.
In stage one, you will usually work at a zero-skill job for low wages. You will feed and cloth yourself the minimum for society. You will amass a certain amount of money needed to get to the next stage. You will probably want to work on your people skills, as they will help you in later stages.
In stage two you will spend a large chunk of your savings to acheive a more secure and higher income job. This may involve going to school, or it may involve buying the materials you need to start a business. Whether this gets in the way of other life goals or not depends entirely on your ability to meet the challenges that you face, and the future challenges that you strive to face.
There is only so far that you can go on the labor track. Once you have reached a pinnacle of your labor track, you will need to go either into business for yourself, or go into politics. In both of these tracks, you will need to get a lot of colleagues or friends to support you. Watch out though, in this arena the people around you are possibly all macro capitalists. This is stage three.
Now, you may think there are no more stages, but you would be wrong. For the simple fact is, once you have all the power in the world, there is only one way to gain more power. That is to mine it and grow it for yourself. In this task, you will be stepping into the global arena, and into stage four. If you are a country around now, you will notice that unless you have prominently reached this stage, you are considered a developing country, or a third world country.
Stage five is a bit more complex, for you will have total domination over the entire world. You will be soaking all of the wealth out of the earth that it has to offer, but as a good capitalist, you will want more. The only way to get more wealth out of the world than it is already producing for you is to make the system more efficient.
To make the system more efficient, you can do many things. You can make your people into lab experiments by testing all kinds of chemicals on them. You can give them diseases so they will be more obedient. You can make them retarded so they will do only as you command. You can put your people on a diet. You can make your people carpool and live in apartments. You can put the shops and housing next to eachother. You can make people work smarter, not harder, by promoting research in science and technology. You can make your people get along better by promoting psychological research. You can also make your people healthier by promoting research into nutritional food products.
Do you dare imagine a sixth stage? I would. Stage six is the domination of the solar system. This is the stage that we are in right now, or rather, some lucky macro capitalists are in. Before we talk about how to succeed in this stage, I hope you understood which ideas for promoting efficiency were good, and which were bad. Also, I hope you got the subtle historical references, and yes, I believe macro capitalists are to blame, but they have done just as much good.
At the time I am writing this, I believe that I will not live to see the sixth stage of macro capitalism. For this to happen, people must forget about their differences, and embrace eachother as equals at all levels. Basically, everyone must act as a unit on a computer game, each starting out the same, and only being improved by the system. Racism and sexism will not be defeated in my time, along with nationalism and religious hate. Those may take many centuries to resolve, and will never really go away. Once multiple planetary colonies are established, I am glad that I will not live long ehough to see the impact of planetary hatred. 10/16/2008 Restoring Society (USA)It all started, somewhat innocently, in a small log house in the early development of the country. This was the advent of the mass education system. Starting on the small scale, a schoolhouse would often only hold five to thirty students of all ages. By no means was this required, it was simply a responsible thing to do to earn more money to make a better life for yourself and your family at some big business. Then at some point, schooling became socialized. It was no longer a respectable thing to get an education, instead, big business had squeezed all of the profitability out of subsistence labor, and everyone had to be put into a pre-formed niche.
As you may have picked up on, the begining of all of the country's problems was the advent of compulsory mass education mixed with the dominance of big business. This has a minor crime side effect that was originally thought to be due to bad parenting. Originally, parents were couped up in close quarters with their children. They had nothing better to do than to get to know them, and the children had no choice but to cooperate and make a strong enough bond in order to make things easy for everyone. Often in larger families, one or more children is able to escape the bonding rituals and always be a rebel, but that's another story. All of this bonding and connecting made for a very efficient family, and it was well needed. This was because there were no televisions, no computers, no cell phones, only hard work to look forward to. Then, big business stepped in, and it all changed.
Big business is the driving force in economy, education, consumerism, technology, medicine, agriculture, and any other industry. These are the people who can afford to pay more people to do less work, and sell products for less. The secret to their sucess is a mixture of many things, including low wage labor, complex machines doing the work of a thousand employees, and the ability to work around the clock. The downside to big business is that everything becomes more specialized. In order to work there, you must have training, and you must often have a lot of complex training that only an expert can provide. With these expectations, and by making education expensive, big business effectively closed the loop, making it impossible for for people outside the economic circle to get in. They squeezed the subsistence laborers until they could no longer support themselves, making it impossible to get an education, and often causing suicides and putting children on the streets.
The people who successfully got into the big business loop also paid a high social price. They must work away from the home for an extensive amount of time. This time is rightfully called the productive hours of the day. In the old family, the productive hours of the day were spent on social bonding tasks, such as family farming, family harvesting, family picnics, going to events such as church or parties, and playing teamwork skill building games. The basic principles of responsibility were practiced in the home, with very real concequences, and real rewards. In the new family, the parents are at work for long hours. They work as long as possible in order to get the most expensive consumer products from the biggest businesses. During the first few generations, they held on to their sense of responsibility in their children, remembering to save money to get them educated. However, they had no time to teach their children how to be responsible. There were no wholesome parent-child activities that stimulated teamwork skills. Children rarely had the opportunity to practice responsibility, with real concequences and real rewards.
Suddenly, it became obvious to everyone that children were lacking something. They simply didn't have what it takes to be a good employee or employer. They wanted to party with their friends all day, and use illegal substances. They would turn to a life of crime to get what they wanted. Their parents were nowhere to be found, and when they were home, they could be found around the television set, or sitting in their favorite chair, eating or drinking. Social skills had degraded so much that parents were no longer able to have a nice conversation with their kids. With such inept parents, it is no wonder that the children were unable to keep a polite tone with them. This created the age gaps, with everyone from each age group only understanding and identifying with others from their own group. Although, when researched, these groups were found to be fundamentally alike, with only minor social translation issues. This is not to say that everyone was this way, some families had refused to work inside the box, and had raised their children.
Then came the age of delinquency, disease, and social tension. Parents were willfully ignoring their kids because the school system was taking care of them all day. Sick children were rarely helped before the point of no return. As a natural coping mechanism, a huge populous of health-centric people developed in society. These people decided that the only way to stop this downward spiral was by using another massive institution, big government. Of course, they had no idea what the root cause was, they simply were trying to get rid of the symptoms in the quickest way possible. This quick way was to mandate that every have certain entitlements that have been shown to combat the symptoms, and people who refused would be punished according to the law. This failed many times in the past, and was also met with strong opposition because many families had reverted to the old ways and had no need for the blanket bandaid policies pushed on them by the government.
Now that you know the general history of the problem, there are many solutions that may be applied in order to solve the real underlying root of the problem. The first thing that must be done in order to combat the social degradation that started in the home is to re-integrate the family. This is being done by use of technology, and may occur naturally in good time. People are staying home, and communicating with work by internet. Children are also staying home, sometimes through homeschooling, sometimes through a new technology called cyber school. This was first developed with higher learning, but it is so useful and relatively low cost that it is trickling down even to elementary school.
Another aspect of recovery must also be addressed. Just as the traditions of the old family stuck in the hearts and minds of the earlier generations long after the constructs of the old family were destroyed, so too will the ways of the new family stick in the minds of people as they transition back to what is healthier. The rules of the close family will have to be re-written, and the new social laws that are in place must be followed. Easy ways of punishment such as spanking are now shown by many studies to cause many bad psychological side-effects. Some are even classified as forms of torture, illegal for use even for enemy combatants. Even though some may consider the difficulties of such a proposition to be great, the benefits far outweigh the challenges by every scale known to humanity. 7/2/2008 Reform DevelopmentReform is a fundamental activity in most nations. It is usually also a last minute activity that may solve one problem, but then also introduce more problems into the mix. Reform is usually brought about by good oversight, but this is not about oversight, nor is it about some of the reasons one may need to trigger a reformation.
As a rule, reform solves the weaknesses of whatever is being reformed. To put it simply, a reform is just a recipe change, be it large or small. Perhaps you are reforming a recipe for cake that isn't light and fluffy enough. Maybe you must reform a police infrastructure to be more efficient. Whatever it is you are doing, it is fundamentally important that the old system doesn't work well enough, or that the new system will work better. It is no coincidence, therefore, that usually nobody will even consider going back to the old ways. It is also not surprising, when you think about it, that a system will require some type of reform in the future. It is important, however, that you go about any reform in a deliberate and informed way.
One of the main obstacles to reform is the fact that the people using the old system believe that it isn't broken. Another main obstacle is that those people also perceive the new way to be very extreme and invasive. Either point may be correct, but neither is a good reason. The main and most important factor to any reform is to make sure to introduce it as an experimental action. It would be pretty idiotic to, for instance, change the flavor of BBQ sauce that a restaurant serves with its ribs after thirty years without any consideration to the customer's feelings, and without the possibility that you may be persuaded to change it back. It is the same for every other type of reform. It is also important to be well informed about the choices you are making. Perhaps a year after changing the BBQ sauces, you find out that it is spiked with trace amounts of lead.
Another important bit of advice is to always try to hybridize. In a business setting, try to keep some of the old staff, and re-train them. Investigate every detail about the old business structure, and try to save some of the policies that worked well. In some areas, you may not need to change anything at all. It may also be important, if you are using a fairly new business model, that you also monitor it closely for a period of time to make sure that it performs to your expectations. One of the benefits of keeping some of the old workers is that you can get a better idea of how the old system worked. Old employees may be able to give you pointers about what worked well, and how to adapt or merge the two systems to maximize efficiency. It may be less efficient from the begining, but it has a greater potential.
Sometimes people involved in reforming the system may be new to the whole thing, or at least new to the specific situation that they will be working with. These people, such as new presidents and new employees, may be going into the situation with their own pre-conceived agendas. When a change is proposed, it is usually not based on much research or on much real understanding about how things work locally. It is usually based on the idea that it will improve one small isolated detail that everyone is complaining about. One small example would be the idea of adding more oil to a cake mix so it won't stick as much, and to improve moisture. This makes the cake heavier, may not make it stick to the pan less, it may interfere with the overall flavors of the cake, and the oil may increase the unhelathiness of the cake.
This brings us to a common situation in which the person in power doesn't have the intelligence to make the decision (s)he is making. If the person is smart, (s)he will bring in as many professionals, analysts, and scientists to the bargaining table as possible, including people with opposing views. If everyone has a chance to state the facts, and give their best projection of what would happen because of your decision, your plan will be much better for it. Bringing experts to the table is also good for another thing, that is to bring you an in-depth plan of what they believe solves the problem the best. Lets say some anonymous investor buys an ice-cream factory that is going out of business, but wants to keep it as an ice-cream factory. The investor has a great opportunity to bring in professionals from anywhere to analyze the situation and give input on how to make it succeed. Information and experts are spread out all over the world, so theoretically, you could ask a Russian professional and a Japanese professional for a project in Mexico.
Here is a good real-world example where people didn't quite understand. Currently USA politicians are arguing about the price of oil, why it is high, and how to make it go down. For one, they hardly hired any professionals to look into the problem. They didn't ask the same professionals, and they obviously didn't cross-examine them. They seem to have made up their minds about situation even before hiring professionals, and only once they were questioned did they produce any meagre amount of scientific information. Again, and this is extremely important, the information was conflicting, ignored the opponent's results, and was not detailed enough to have a decision made upon it. With faulty information and pre-determined decisions, a person can not make the right decision. 6/17/2008 Drug DomeA culture is a widespread way of life. Its definition is derived from the term 'cult' which is a group of people with the same beliefs and practices. It baffles me as to why a 'cult' is a taboo and a culture isn't. It defines your desires and your taboos, and it ensures that everyone else feels the same as you. Unfortunately, culture is fallable, and there are people who deny their cultural roots in favor of some alternate way of life. Culture is given to you in many ways. You can get it from a family member, from a close friend, from other people in your living environment, and you may even have a strange inner culture all of your own. As we affect people in our daily lives, they learn elements of our culture and will almost always adopt those elements.
When a person learns cultural ways from you, they usually pick up new taboos, which are things you don't like.Taboos are the most influential parts of culture, and often the most harmful. It is uncertain how taboos start up, but the basic reason is that a person didn't like something, and influenced everyone else to dislike it too. In this way, it can become illegal to say that the earth is round, or that the planets revolve around the sun, and so it has been. Cultural taboos, for the most part, are a detrement to society, and should be minimized at all costs. There are some taboos, however, that are good, for example, being smelly and dirty is a taboo that makes you focus on personal hygene. Other taboos, such as harming yourself in some way, can cause great disorder.
Personal harm is the most basic cultural taboo. In early years, people believed that neglect was a part of personal harm. As the government neglected the common person, and imposed unreasonable laws on them, they rebelled and started democratic societies. As the fields of science advance, we find more and more ways to hurt ourselves, and we uncover bad effects of things that people have been doing for centuries. For example, although people have been smoking since before recorded history, it has been found out by science that elements in smoke can cause cancer. There are also drugs that people ingest or inject that can cause them harm. The obvious cultural response to a harmful substance or activity is to make it a taboo, and since culture can not resist infiltrating the legal system, they have outlawed these drugs.
There has never been an effective punishment to any harmful activity except for a quick and often bloody military action against all of the people who do it or accept it. The only way to really end any harmful activity is by containing it peacefully and affecting the people who do the activity in a positive manner. This means that when they do their harmful act, they are in the safest possible environment, around people who disapprove passively and mildly, people who may be their friends. In addition, this keeps harmful substances in a controlled environment as well, which helps control the supply and demand issues of illegal drugs. It would also be a paradigm shift in the way we think about substances. Instead of the 'no substances allowed here' signs, you will find only one sign, 'substances allowed here' on the door. This means that everyone who is a possible addict will have a safe place to stay instead of living on the streets. It also means that people with possible cures will be able to find them quickly and easily, and treat them.
There may be some question as to what 'substances' apply under this new system. I would use the legal system's definition of "any substance that impares judgement" and "any substance that is toxic to the human body" to be a harmful drug. This would logically include alcohol, certain herbs, cigars and cigarettes, and certain pain medicines and cold remedies. This paradigm shift in how we view drug users would also include legal incidents. When someone is caught doing an illegal drug outside the containment area and not breaking other laws, they will be sent to the containment area instead of being charged with a crime. Luckily, hospitals are contained and peaceful environments to administer some medicinal drugs, but where do the other people go?
This is where the "Drug Dome" comes in. It would be the size of a mall or a stadium, totally self contained, with even the open air areas being contained. This is not to be like some jailhouse though. It must have apartments and facilities for all of a person's needs. Drug users are not all lazy bums, they are also police officers, grocery store workers, waiters, little old ladies, sports players, doctors, nurses, and government officials to name a few. I expect that as a payment for the use of the drug dome, users will have to spend some time keeping it sterile and in working order. Everyone who uses the facility will also be entered into a database, with their current status of clean, addict, or recovering.
There are even more benefits of this system, beyond keeping people off of the streets and in fear for their freedom. It allows humanitarian groups to easily access and fund the treatment of individuals. It allows for scientific observation of people in a calm and safe setting, which the academic community is very interested in. It keeps alcoholics, who kill someone every day, off of the streets. It may also provide as a place to rest for travellers with little money to spend, and as a payment they can cook or clean. It will also keep products away from street corners near schools and other places where young people may become victims of dirty capitalism. It will, as I am certain, eventually lead to the elimination of truly harmful practices, and the safe controlled use of not so harmful practices.
My goal, although I believe it may be slightly unlikely, is to have all pubs/bars/salloons in the dome. Also, the growing, cultivating, and processing of more harmful products must be done inside this dome's property. People who produce anything under the dome's protection, at a profit, must contribute some of their wealth back into the dome, which is not just throwing away money, it is to improve the work place and living condition of everyone in the dome. Only drug related businesses may exist for profit inside the dome, it is one of the most important rules of the dome as well. Also, only people who do not do harmful substances may have a stay limit imposed upon them at any time. The dome must be a non-profit organization, with all profits either being donated to charities or given directly to the government. Although I believe this to be slightly unlikely and unfeasable, I imagine that a drug dome would be created for each city relative to the size of the substance using population. 4/29/2008 The Aid MentalityIn this new age, we have created technology that can support us without worry. Although this technology is not all very highly used yet, it will eventually be extremely important to our daily lives. There are also areas of the world that don't even have what we take for granted, forget about the things that make us enjoy life. They don't even have what we have been calling basic needs, and they've been surviving.
So, what happens when people with the bare minimum in life get hit with a disaster? Of course, they die. Some people may be disturbed at the matter-of-fact way I state it, but it's been happening since the begining, and it will continue to happen until the global aid foundations get to them. In addition, there are also disasters that people at the top will still die from, and of course, they are mourned, and we all get on with our lives just as before. In fact, civilizations throughout history have been playing the waiting game that completely relies on peoples misfortune and death. When a plague comes through, the farmers die and can't sell their crops, and the neighboring city or country comes in to invade.
In the current era, there has been a huge increase in global awareness. People who have previously been hidden by remote locations and isolated by lack of trade are now exposed to the entire world. Whether or not their geographic outlook has changed, we are able to see them, day or night, in good times and in bad. All of the people who have never known hunger or oppression, and all of the people who only know such things, can now look at eachother, talk to eachother, and whatever else they are allowed to do.
In every part of the world, people are realising that we are all the same. No matter what color of skin, any person can survive in any culture, eat the foods, live in the same conditions, work in the same jobs, and think the same ways. People now understand that everyone has the same basic needs, and quality of life is based on the same exact things, such as health and environment and education. People are begining to understand that life can be made easier for a vast majority if everyone is given the same opportunities and attention.
For a long time, people have been getting very strange ideas. People are noticing that other people over across the globe are having trouble, and many of them are making the effort to help those who were left with nothing to get back on their feet. The strange idea here goes against all of what history portrays about the human race. Once a civilization becomes large enough, it usually goes into a rough competition with all settlements around it, but now, people are no longer trying to compete, but to level the playing field, to make everyone equal. As any child can understand, you can't win or lose a competition if everyone is equal, and when your opponent can no longer compete, it means that you have a greater chance of winning.
This is where the aid mentality comes into play. People are no longer competing with eachother, they are competing with other big businesses. People have completely de-humanized these businesses, while at the same time, they have humanized people all across the planet, people who used to be evil monsters with bloodlust are now real people, but the businesses they work at are the monsters. Now, whenever one business becomes successful enough, and when all of their competitors are beaten, people do not cheer for them as the conquering heroes as they would have in the past, they scorn them for having destroyed the lives of the people who have previously worked in competing businesses.
There is another impact of the aid mentality, an impact toward the people who are giving all of the aid. These are people who insist on higher standards of living, and no matter how small their budget, they will continue to meet their minimum needs and usually put it on credit cards. These are people who have been touched by misfortune in the past, and may still be struggling to survive. People who have lived with nothing are very powerful people. They can do more with less, and when they come together, they can do much more than those who are living rich. This compassionate attitude will not get these people to become rich, in fact, they will grow to be suspicious of rich people, and may even fear to be rich on some level. They will give money to all sorts of charities to keep from becoming the monsters that they perceive the rich to be, and often rightly so.
Here is where it really gets interesting. Now, there is a very strong global quality of life improvement effort. According to the rich, people are putting themselves in compromised positions in order to help someone who is just taking up space, possibly even someone who could be a potential competitor. People are learning that you need more than just food and clothing to live happily, you need security and sanity. You need friends, and you need a purpose in life. You need exercise and you need some minimum amount of order and law to keep people in line. This is exactly what these humanitarian efforts are doing, they are not simply bringing religion and morality as the humanitarians of the past, they are bringing the science of the good life.
Eventually, this activity will not be sustainable. Selfish people with the money and power will eventually get tired of all of the humanity, and attack the people in general. There have always been selfish people who have wanted things done their way, and they have always found a way to get power, and there have always been other people happy to help them get it. Back then, there were not so many people living, so it was easier to control 'those who did not use weapons' and make them support the ruler for fear of their lives. When a population became too large to control this way, they would simply branch off, and with bloody results. Now, there is nowhere left to go, and there will never again be enough selfish dominating people around. The only answer is a completely different way to live, an environment where everyone supports everyone else. An environment where there are many hard workers, and many people hardly working.
There are already communities where this is happening. Here, it is not the controllers with power, but the leaches. The people who know how to work the system to get the most return for their complaining. In a society that helps everyone in need, there are professionals in the department of homelessness and uselessness. These are people who not only refuse to work because of the benefit of aid, they like it that way, even in hard times when aid is scarce. It has become a society that lacks the strong dominating types, and wishes to cast off or reform its lazy and rebellious members. It will be a completely new type of world, with new problems, and new opportunities. It will no doubt be a global society, a society with free information and lack of jobs. A society with quick solutions to age old problems, but no end in sight. A society where unimaginably large things happen every day, and life spirals out into the far reaches of space. 4/28/2008 MacroCivilizationThere are a few things you will hear about when you think about large or macro things. You'll probably hear the term MacroEconomy or MacroEngineering. Those are all fine and dandy, but they are only a small piece of the greater whole, the larger macro, the MacroCivilization. Lets start by looking at the main components of a MacroCivilization and find out why they don't work as well by themselves.
There are many things that you can apply the term "macro" to and get a slightly bigger picture about the world.
There are:
Many people, although mostly for either impractical or selfish purposes, believe that the macro civilization is important. They understand that if one component of any one of these becomes too large, it will cause the destruction of all of the rest, and if one becomes too small, it will lead to its destruction. They also understand that sudden growth or shrinkage of a component means instability, which will eventually impact all of the surrounding ones. It is also important that there exist a way to renew and recycle an old component without creating a major disturbance. Lets look at a branch of MacroCivilization for an example of this. In MacroPolitics you have a view of the world of governments. You can see that a president or dictator gets old and weak minded, and people become unhappy, and that leader is eventually evicted from office and replaced by someone fresh and new. You can also see that when a country is doing very well for itself, and it reaches the point when it produces more than the world can buy, that it may decide to expand its borders just a bit, using all of the excess product to fuel a free expansion. You can also find a small country that is in decline, struggling to keep its independence from its neighboring countries, who decided to invade because its neighbor was weak. You can also see that some countries don't make a large disturbance when an old leader is replaced by a new one, just look at the difference beween a country that votes for its leader for an office lasting only a few years versus someone who has to die first. In MacroSociety we see the effects of culture, nationalism, and quality of life as the deciding factors for what people are like. You can see that people with common interests tend to group together and support eachother. Special interest groups tend to pool their resources in order to fight the activities of other special interest groups. You will notice that when a group becomes too small to support its spending, it dissolves, often only for a while until enough people can be recruited again. Eventually, each group gains a level of stability, and every special interest is taken care of in a way that doesn't disturb anyone else. Of course, people come and go all the time, often with new ideas and new resources to burn, and they have a grand idea that will make all opposition useless. There are also dangerous groups, ones that exist only for the destruction of all others, ones that think they are all that matters and all others are simply taking up space they could be using better. MacroEconomy has been around, in obscurity, for the longest amount of time. People have always been concerned with the general way to produce goods or services that are marketable to people from anywhere, and then afford goods and services from those people. This is the most finessed and balanced system that exists as a field of study. Even instability is tolerated, simply because there are more suppliers of any goods or services for anything bad to happen as a result. The only areas of worry are on the global scale, and this is where it gets complicated. The global economists are constantly trying to figure a way to increase resources within their own countries and limit the amount of goods and services being purchased. These days, it is nearly impossible to do that job because of the internet, and drastic measures are conceived of and set into motion in order to supposedly stabilize the global economy. MacroAgriculture is a practice that many governments use as an excuse to limit the production of their farmers. Since prices go down when supply goes above demand, it often takes a government to keep things under control. The problem with this view is that food is life, and if you limit the life giving nutrients, you often start wars. In many cases, a major civilization will notice a small poor country is growing out of control, and they immediately increase the price of food to that country. The problem with that scenario is that a country needs a certain minimum population in order to take care of all of its needs, so it will increase that population without the funds to support the growth, and pay for it later by overproducing goods and services. Unfortunately, there are areas of the world that are too harsh, or where people don't understand this process, and they keep failing over and over. Of course, there are many more studies of the big picture, often with the term "macro" before their names, and they are all quite interesting and quite well shrouded in mystery, and usually not managed well. People with a lot of money are usually in charge, guiding the creation and destruction of nations, with nobody to stop them. Although there is no room for personal agendas or grudges in the Macro Sciences, the group of people managing them are so few and so elite that it doesn't matter. There is one way to tell when the MacroCivilization is in balance. That is when all people are fed and clothed, when noone is in debt, when all technologies are made as efficient as possible around the world, and when it does not matter how small or large any country or group is for its concerns to be heard and for its needs to be met. This does not really mean to have a global ruler over the planet, it simply means that they all work as a single ruler, which is pretty difficult for rulers of today, with their god complexes and their inferiority complexes and their constant spy games. 3/15/2008 Memory TriggersI was thinking about how unfortunate it is that my grandmother doesn't remember things as well as she used to, and I started thinking about everything that I have learned about memory. The processes that facilitate memory formation are complex. Not only memory creation, but memory storage and recall can all be affected by mood and health. This article is a product of one of my missions to take over complete control of all of my mind and body functions someday.
Memory is what makes us who we are. It is a complex record of our past experiences, and a guide to our future. We all act upon our past experiences, good or bad, right or wrong. We rely on memory to help us perform the simplest of tasks. We remember what we can and can't do, our likes and dislikes, past events, and how we feel. So, I ask, why do we simply take our memory for granted? Why do we use it until we are old, then allow it to slip through our fingers? Iti s important to understand memory and use that understanding to protect and improve our ability to have clear brilliant memories of our experiences, and even to forget the bad ones.
In order to understand memory better, we must first understand a few other things about the mind. For instance, there is a conscious part of the mind, and an other part of the mind. The conscious part of the mind is your ability to experience things in the moment. It is able to record memories in an area often called the short term memory. The conscious mind marks memories as good or bad and as important or unimportant. The other part of the mind is just a housekeeper. It controls everything that the brain's hardware is capable of, but the conscious mind does not know how to control. A person can live an entire lifetime without changing a thing from this point.
On a more cutting edge scientific note, it has been found that brain cells are made like a two-sided recordable disk. They store two types of information together. In most cases, if the information on one side of the 'brain cell disk' is worthless, the entire memory is ignored. That is why you will forget things that have no meaning to you, and why you will remember interesting or important things more clearly and easily. It is possible to stimulate memories by increasing their importance status. It is also possible to mark memories as worthless, and forget them. The brain is very complex, and science is still figuring it all out, and there is always more to find out. For instance, I am not completely certain how memory is physically destroyed, whether the brain cell loses connection, dies, or is simply ignored.
There is also a developmental process that involves memory. As children grow up, their conscious minds gain access to processes that the 'subconsious' or 'unconscious' mind was previously controlling. Different people develop to different levels, and if you are a people person, you understand this well. Taking over your own mind is a complex and puzzling task. It involves proving to your subconscious that you are ready, willing, competent, and responsible with the tasks you will be inheriting control over. For example, some people are never quite able to remember exactly what they want to remember. They wander through life doing things they don't care about, and learning things that have no relation to their activities. They wonder why they have such useless memories, but can not master the tasks at hand.
It is a fact that the conscious mind can eventually take control of any and all body functions from the subconscious. The conscious mind can also tell the subconscious mind how to work itself. The thing is, the conscious mind is the ruler of the body, it is you, and the subconscious mind is simply there to manage your life until you are responsible with it. After years of not being in control, you may find that you have a lot of catching up to do if you want to learn to control yourself. It may be that your subconscious has so much experience, and has created so many mental facilities, that you feel unable to master it all. It is always good to start practicing something when you are very young, but anyone can do it. You can even simply take control of the subconscious' processes without making your own. Luckily, you also have the option to simply take temporary control, and gradually build up to full control, such as meditating to change your heartbeat.
The conscious mind is very simple. Its original hardware is stored on a few tiny spots of the brain. This hardware was supposedly developed at the begining of creation, before the others existed. They are functions such as pleasure imprints, emotional response, and reflexes. It is important to clarify the hardware capabilities of the brain. They are memory filters which feed information to your conscious mind in a way it can understand. There is the visual system which processes the understanding of what you see. The hearing system processes what you hear. The balance system, which helps you balance even before you know what balance is. The tactile system, which processes what you touch, telling you hot or cold, rough or smoothe, and so on. There is also the smell and taste center. There may be more that I have forgotten or never knew about, nevermind those.
Now you should understand where to start, and how to start improving your memory. Here are a few examples that may clarify further. A person listens to music that is obviously very enjoyable. That person's conscious is writing two streams of data into the short term memory, they are extreme enjoyment, and the sound itself. Now, whenever that person wants to remember enjoyment, s(he) doesn't really have to play the song over, but simply remembering the strong enjoyment should trigger the sound of the music. This also leads to an unfortunate side effect in which the person is able to sing the words to the song by heart, but not have any idea what the song means. The reason for this is that memories were meant to be written with two certain types of information, the data itself on one side, and what it means on the other. This is how you know immediately what is making the noise if you hear a cat meow or a dog bark. Your brain searches for the sound, and reads the other side of the brain cells at the same time, which say CAT or DOG on them.
Now for the truly far out stuff. Imagine someone is having trouble remembering the order of verses in a song. They know the verses by heart, but they can't quite figure out which one goes first, and which comes after. This person simply recorded separate verses of the song, along with the meaning, which could be anything. Here is the proper way to remember a song easily: First think of the first verse. All the while you are learning it or simply remembering it, think of the name of the song, whatever else you want to remember about it, and the fact that it is the first one. About halfway through the verse, try to remember the next one. You should be able to combine two 'meaning' markers into the same verse. When you remember the verse again, you will remember the name of the song, the other information, then near the end of the verse you will remember the next verse, and immediately be able to start it. This is not only true with music, it is true with anything.
Memory has a cascading effect of association. This means that you can make multiple memories with the same meanings, and instantly connect them when you think of the meaning. You can also connect multiple meanings together. For example, think of cats and dogs long enough, and you will immediately think of dogs when you think of cats, and so on. Thinking of seemingly unrelated subjects together can make your memories more vibrant. For example, thinking of the ocean waves and the sandy beach at the same time will make your memories of going to the beach more memorable. Taking it a step further, think of the sky, the ocean, the beach, and whatever else you liked, and you'll have a greater chance of remembering them together the next time you are reminded of one or the other.
In the old days, people used to think that when they got an idea from nowhere, they were being given a message from god. Regardless of whether that was true, it is also possible that it was the work of the subconscious mind, simply doing its job of housekeeping in the brain. I have tested all of the above activities on myself, so I know they are real. I used no substances to enhance or augment my experiences, but they may help/harm the process. 2/17/2008 Bus Boy PsychologyI was considering things, as I often do, with my usual minute-long super-speed analysis style, and I came to an interesting conclusion involving restaurants. It had always struck me as extremely unfair that everyone had to start out taking plates from tables, going out into the crowds of people that any restaurant has most days. I can't handle being immersed in too many people, it's like being in a deep pool without being able to swim.
It struck me today that there is a certain psychology behind the gauntlet that every aspiring food service worker must go through. Aside from separating out the weak or non-social, like me, it also gives the remainder of the new blood a perspective on the whole point of being a food service worker. You are there not only to take plates and get orders, but to interact with the people you serve for. You are there, immersed in the environment of consumerism, as a public servant of the people. It may be difficult for some, distasteful for others, but for those who are truely made for the food service life, it is a joy and an honor.
On my life's journeys, I have encountered a breed of people who enjoy such things. Since my mother passed away, I have gotten a chance to get to know my dad more, and since he is a career food industry worker, I got to know how his kind lives and thinks. I used to think that people were conditioned for such work, and that may be true to a point, but there is a type of personality that is even more helpful in coping with the food service atmosphere. They love to be around people and they hate to be alone or in a quiet place, where I hate to be around people and enjoy the silence of nature and other solitary places. These people stand out amongst the masses as friendly, funny, and all-around good people. They may or may not be leaders, as with their intelligence, but they have a desire in their hearts to help out in whatever way they can.
This is where bussing tables is important. The rough and inexperienced food-service worker gains a healthy respect, interest, and friendship for the people whom they serve. Once excellence in bussing tables is acheived, in a large scale restaurant, the worker is promoted as new blood comes in to replace them. Now is when they may learn new skills and earn a bigger pay check. From here on, though, they may not have so much contact with the customer. Also, from here on, the true career food-service worker is thinking about doing the best work possible, to satisfy the customer, with whom a close bond has hopefully been formed. A focus on doing your best is then made, and that always makes better tasting food.
Over the years, the food-service worker may forget why they are so serious about making good food, but it is already ingrained into their being. Perhaps near the begining of their new position, they may find a slight lack of social stimulus. This usually causes the worker to make very close bonds with the other workers in the kitchen as a replacement. Often, without strict management, workers may be found loitering over raw food talking to eachother, and sometimes more than that. I, on the other hand, would probably have to start out in the food-service industry as a dish washer. Waiting tables would only make me hate people, and if I survived that experience, I would not have built a good work ethic for my next position. Luckily, I already value doing my best in anything anyways. 1/25/2008 Deep MeaningsLanguage is not very simple. Sometimes it is difficult to say everything you mean. Sometimes you could say what you mean in an hour, but you only have five seconds. Sometimes you could write an essay about your subject, but you are only allowed 50 words. There are also some things that can be said in one sentence, but when you think about it, it means as much as it would have if you said it in an entire essay. Same for the other things. A lover could write an essay about all of the things (s)he loves about the other person, or just say "I love you."
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
This not only means that obviously more people need more supplies, but that more people may need way more than a few people need. A small amount of people could live and work on projects together, but with a huge amount of people, some may never meet in their lives. A small amount of people may have a small amount of problems such as genetic illnesses, but not all would be ill. With a huge amount of people, there is a much higher number of illnesses. A small amount of people may live near eachother, but with a huge population there needs to be organized shipping and transportation to many places. If you are the leader of a small tribe, you may have no ability to govern a huge city. Some would say that larger populations need an exponentially greater amount of things (that's a lot).
Learn from others mistakes, but make your own too.
This is a valuable saying. It is extremely important to understand that we are all similar. We all go through nearly the same life problems, and we all have generally the same live values. Everyone needs to eat, sleep, poop, have fun, learn, and socialize. It's amazing how much time we spend every day doing all of those things. There are many things to do, and they are complex, so much so that there are many ways of doing everything. There are also many wrong ways to do things, and sometimes you don't want to ever do them because you never want to suffer the consequences. For example, some people ate poisonous plants in the forest when they were lost, and died. Some children went into the road without looking. Some people had xxx with someone who was infected with AIDS. Some fell off a cliff.
Of course, there are things you should do on your own, such as trying new foods. You may think it was a mistake later, but you never know until you try it. You may find that you love dancing, so do it even if you are bad for a while and make mistakes. Some people avoid math because they make so many mistakes, well, you may want to get some pages of math problems to do so you get better. Some people may be afraid of drowning, but the truth is, it's more of a mistake not to learn to swim than it is to drown, since that would be the reason you drowned.
Have permanent friends, but not permanent enemies.
If you don't understand this one, I won't hold it against you. Some people are horrible, and you may think they deserve your hatred. It is difficult to understand why you should not hate people, and it is difficult to understand why you should be friendly to people who are not friendly to you. The truth is, you may not be the right kind of friend if you don't understand this. The good thing is that I will now describe how to be the right kind of friend.
People change. This is not true for everyone, but for many, and you should always keep trying to find the good in people. Some people are very trusting and very friendly with all of their friends, but it is important to respect other peoples customs. Some people are huggers, so if they do not hug you, it means they don't like you. If you are a hugger and like someone, but they don't want to hug you, it may not mean they hate you. It's good to treat everyone differently, for example, have many stages of friendship. It's good to have at least these stages of friendship: aquaintance, light conversation, someone to go out with, someone to hang out with, someone to invite to dinner, someone to have a deep connection with, and someone to share your life with. If a friend takes advantage of your trust at one stage, don't kick them out of your friendship unless it was really bad like theft, murder, and such. Instead, take the person down a level on your friendship pyramid. For example, I consider everyone who I can talk to as an entry level friend.
Having the wisdom of a child.
It is an old myth that a child knows good people from bad people, and people have sometimes listened to their baby's response to someone before entering into a relationship. Although this is a myth, there is much to be said about the wisdom of children. Children are more sensitive than adults, and it's good because an adult needs to be less sensitive to survive the harsh reality of life. Children can be more forgiving than adults, but they can be more quick to show their true feelings. Small children have their faults, such as an insatable desire for sweets, but don't let that fool you. If you have any weaknesses, you can be sure that a child will use them to his/her advantage at getting that candy or toy. Many children also tend to be happier than adults, which is very good for your health. A child may also have an active imagination, making up stories, imagining things that don't exist, and making up new games to play. An active mind is very important, and many adults forget this and become very bland.
There are many other good sayings, but that's all for now, maybe I'll make an update. 1/19/2008 Voice ActivationVoice activation is the next big thing. It is already practical for many large organizations such as governments and vehicle security companies. There is still one small hurdle to be made. This small hurdle will be made when artificial intelligence becomes more widely useable.
In a world of sight, sound, taste, and touch, we may lose track of our other senses and become trapped in the consumerism bubble. It is something you always know is there, but you never pay attention to it, usually not even after you are trapped. This is what many large companies are running into when they try to implement voice recognition software. Voice recognition is the ultimate outsource. It can understand whatever language or dialect it needs to, simply through guided input. Also, if a computer is not programmed properly, you simply have to re-program it to work correctly, unlike with a human being. The only problem is when the consumer becomes so annoyed with it that he or she decides to just give up instead of reporting a glitch in the program, since many voice activated technologies can be semi-functional even if you can't do what you are trying to do.
Voice recognition software is not only extremely useful, it is, as I said earlier, the next big thing. It will take over the jobs of all telephone operators in the entire world. Although the perfect voice activated program is still probably years away, the science behind it is here, and has been since the fifties. The voice programs that you may be familiar with currently give you a list of options and ask you to say one of them. It gives you a short amount of time to say one, and then either goes to the next option or asks you to repeat what you said. Newer voice activated programs allow you to choose a word to use as a command, such as a family member's name or some unique password. When you say a word, it tries to figure out which word you used based on what you said before.
I am not familiar with the pogramming behind the more recent voice recognition software, but I can tell you how it should be done. First, all of the valid sounds that a person can make must be stored into a phonetic database. There must be a list of alternates for each sound, based on similarity checks to every other sound in the database. Secondly, all words in the target language must be phonetically mapped. This does not mean to record every word and get the computer to reognize it. This means to spell each word based on how it sounds. For example, here would look like hEr and dictionary would look like dic-shun-erE. This is because everything a person would say is not spelled in the same way it is written, it is spelled in a phonetic code. Once this is done, the words are much easier for the computer to understand.
The phonetic dictionary takes all possible meanings of the sounds and puts them in a list of words that are spelled correctly. This includes words that may be unique to a dialect, such as yeah for yes. The dialect specific word is translated into the standard word, and a new list is made. Now the words that couldn't possibly make sense in the context of the sentence must be thrown out. For example, if the computer wants a yes or no answer, and the list is HELLO GOODBYE YES GANGSTER PEA, the words that don't make sense are thrown out, and the new list only contains the term YES. Since it is completely possible that multiple words may remain in the list after this step, the program should never say it does not understand the answer, it should instead give the possible words back, and ask for 1 or 2 or 3, or to make a sound when the correct word is returned.
If at all possible, an interactive screen should be present in order to help with mis-understandings and new word entry. I also did not cover the differences in voices, because it is a main focus with voice recognition software already. It is possible to simply measure the average tones and raise or lower the voiceprint automatically. 12/14/2007 Creationism vs EvolutionismThere has been debate about teaching creation or intelligent design versus evolution. Upon looking at the genetics and the evidence for evolution, I believe it makes a very strong case. There is a lot of evidence that shows extreme similarity between multiple organisms, and parts of organisms. The oddity is that the similar structures often have different uses within the organism.
I do not know how much of our genes are intelligently designed, but I have a feeling that someone in our distant prehistoric past may have had a hand in editing the genetic material that existed before them, wherever that material may have come from. This brings forth a chicken vs egg problem that is very perplexing, and so I am very skeptical about it. The scientific level that we currently work at allows us to edit our genes in whatever way we may wish, and we may also create totally new organisms as a simple matter.
Upon making the above rant, I realise that although science is the way we go about learning how the world works, it has become its own religion in many ways. This is where creationism comes in handy. Although it is not easy to scientifically prove or disprove the existence of a supernatural being, it is certainly a compelling argument for those with a faith. Creationism is important in this way, it stands to keep science from becoming an exclusive religion. By religion, I mean that people have beliefs about gods and other such things. Many of the people in the scientific community have the belief that such things do not exist, and therefore, they are, in my definition, practicing a religion.
I do not mean to say that I am against religion. The human brain uses belief in a greater power to get people through troubled times, and all those who had no such belief have since perished. Religion has inspired many great advances in science itself, which I believe far outweighs any harmful effects. I personally don't believe that people should use bias in scientific matters, but people do not always know they are biased and need oversight. I understand that I am personally biased towards creationism or intelligent design as far as the complexity of genes goes, but I am also biased towards evolutionism as far as the scientific approach that has been made. It also doesn't usually say exactly how we were created by any spirit being, so I think there is room for both, with clear use of evidence to decide any dispute.
Although the proponents of creationism are constantly giving ground over to evolutionism, it is not because of the idea that god exists, it is because they added details that do not properly show what their religious material says. Every one of the faulty details will be destroyed as science advances. Only people who believe things without being backed up, and without having a basis in religous material or science, will make this kind of mistake. It completely insults everyones intelligence. We are decades to centuries away from knowing whether a god exists with science, and I am content to wait, and simply hold a non-scientific belief, with the hope that there is some truth to this, and that I will someday be able to exist for eternity without any problems.
On a more positive note, many cutting edge advances in science have affirmed the teachings of religious texts in the areas of psychology and other social sciences. The teachings in books, for example, the bible, can enrich the lives of everyone, and create a positive atmosphere of love and peace for all. Although many criminals have tricked people into doing terrible things with religion, it was not the direct fault of religion, and religion should not be blamed for such things, in the same way that science should not be blamed for guns or atomic bombs. We must look at religion and science in a complex way, the way that we view eachother. In this way of thinking, if a child steals a cookie from a cookie jar, that child should not be sent into the desert to die for his/her crime. If a person burns dinner, that person should obviously not go to jail for making his/her family starve that night, they will survive, as the human race will. 11/28/2007 Update 3: ParentingParenting is a pseudo-science these days. Raising children is such a mythical practice, comparable to sacrificing animals to the Greek gods. Of course, I am very optimistic about the whole thing, as I have been discovering the answers to many of the questions parents may have, and I have been trying to uncover some of the myths involved in the difficult work that is being a parent.
In this update you will learn about a horrible myth that plagues mankind with suffering. This parenting myth not only affects your child, it affects you, it affects your grandchildren, and friends and family of all. The myth I am speaking of is the belief that children should be indulgent in all of life's pleasures and fun because when they are adults, they won't be able to do these things. As I have said before, this myth is tragically wrong, and life threatening in some cases. It is so important that you forget you ever heard this myth for your sake and for the sake of everyone else.
Here is how this myth got started: First, you must understand that the brain of a small child is not completely developed. This does not affect most children much because the parts that are developed are all that is really needed for simple living. As is scientificially understood these days, a child's brain could finish developing as late as eight years old, and as early as four or five. I do not mean that a child who is that young is not capable of understanding or thinking, simply that the process is not yet complete, and they may be a lot better at it once it is done. Also, the brain is wonderful because it knows its own limitations in most cases. It has several ways to keep the child alive that may seem obvious to those who know, but may be very frustrating to a parent who has not studied.
Children have a very good survival mechanism in the brain. This system causes them to cry for food and be more scared or emotional when something happens, in order to be safe from predators. Small children will crave sweets and hate bitter foods, since some foods in nature can be poisonous. Of course, these survival responses are old, and they are not needed to live in a civilized way. They only serve to confuse inexperienced parents, which often leads to obeisity and social disorders. Being able to control attention span and resisting a craving is simply a skill that must be learned to be a good adult, and small children look to their parents to help them know what is right.
Here are some common knowledge examples: a child goes by a candy machine and if the parent refuses to give some to them, the child cries. A dog barks really loud near a young child, and the child becomes afraid and has a panic attack. A young child is hungry or scared or in pain, and all of the other young children in the area become sad and join in the crying. These are only a few of the commonly noticed behaviors. In many instances, the child may need to be comforted by a parent, or fed, or the child will simply have to forget about what happened, which is notoriously easy at a young age.
Now to the meaty part of the myth. A child should have fun being a kid. This is a half baked idea, so I will bake it fully and show you how absurd it really is. A child should have fun being a kid, for when they grow up they will not have any more fun. As you can see as an adult, this idea is laughable. Adults have all kinds of fun, surely more fun than a little kid could dream of. But there is a dark and dangerous side to this myth as well, for, having too much fun can lead to big problems in adulthood such as depression, fatigue, alcoholism, drug addiction, cigarette smoking, food addiction, and emotional problems.
Why does having too much fun hurt you so much? The answer is a bit complicated. First of all, you must understand that fun causes the release in the body of a few natural drugs. These drugs are naturally produced in the brain when something fun happens, so you can feel the satisfaction and exhiliration of having had a good time. These drugs are also dangerous, like most addictive drugs. They can cause a condition in the brain that makes you get used to the amount of fun that you normally have, then you don't experience such intense happiness. The fact of the matter is, you must have only a moderate amount of these drugs in your body every day, or it will make you addicted. These drugs can be thought of like steroids, which are another type of natural drug in the body. If you take steroids, when you have to stop, you need to slowly lower your dose because your body needs to carefully regulate them.
Now, imagine fun as an addictive drug. Now imagine giving a lot of addictive drugs to children. If you are getting your child to have too much fun, you are overdosing them on that drug. Now imagine what happens next, as usually happens in a person's life. The child will grow up and stop doing those fun little kid things. Instead, they will start doing drugs, or alcohol, or smoking, or eating or some such activity that causes a fun response. These habits not only cause a fun response, they also have their own little side effects, such as liver/kidney/lung/heart disease or being overweight. Sometimes they will lead to horrible diseases such as diabetes and cancer and even brain damage.
If you do any follow up research, you will find that this is all true. I believe that I have now sufficiently proven my point. You must help spread this message, and correct people when they recite such aweful myths. Lives are at stake. I am already a lost cause because I too am addicted to fun. I play computer games for hours just to feel normal, and I watch television the same way. Sometimes I overeat good food. But I always feel the side effects. They can include headache, nausia, heartburn, upset stomach, bloating, soreness, fatigue, weakened immune system, depression, inability to function properly, dehydration, and increased weakness. You, family members, or friends may all be suffering from fun addiction, or may be at risk.
There is hope for some. You must be very careful about lowering the amount of fun you have. You may want to exercise more if you don't exercise much, that will cause a fun response that is not as harmful as most others. Unfortunately, doctors do not recognise the impact of fun addiction as well as the should, but if you are on good terms with a doctor, you may be able to work out a medically sound system. For some people, just as some people can not quit other addictions, there is no hope. You may be one of them, you can only find out by trying and being very determined. For those who are at risk, please try to affect their lives and give them a good work and exercise ethic. Help them not have too much fun as small children so that they will not have to turn to harmful substances to get their dose of fun when they are older, have two jobs, and have three kids to worry about. 10/18/2007 Spectrum: InterestInterest is a major factor in the lives of everyone. It can be said that interest is one of the fundamental driving forces that defines life, and makes us who we are. Interest is another of those fundamental forces that we generally take for granted, or at least underestimate. Although we are mostly defined by our weaknesses, our major interests prevail throughout our lives.
A major interest is not always easy to pin down. It may be that we are focused on our daily lives, or perhaps wer are busy with lesser interests that happen to be more accessible at the time. Of course, although we may not be able to consciously engage our greatest interests, we may later find that we know things that we shouldn't. It is not completely understood at what age, or by what means, our interests are formed. One major element in defining interest is obviously who or what affects our lives most. Another major influence is in our abilities and disabilities.
Now I will go off the deep end and explain why I described this seemingly reasonable theory. In truth, we have under estimated the affect of interest to an extreme degree. In fact, I have recently found out the very extent that interest has on the human condition. The greatest interest a person could have, if it finds an outlet, can go so far beyond the abilities of an uninterested person that the facts from such activities are unfathomable, and often covered up or taken as lies. I am not talking about simply being exceptional, I am speaking about being legendary. Here I will give some real life examples.
I will start with myself. I have had an extreme fascination with human behavior since before I can remember. That is, before school, and before anything should have affected me. I didn't know how to describe it at the time, as is common with most people. Now, I have an understanding of the mind and of why people do things that usually requires years of documented research. I can file and compare lists of thousands of people symultaneously while I live my daily life, constantly coming up with new theories to test, and often proving or disproving theories in a matter of days. When I put this main interest into the conscious part of my mind, I become able to process psychological data at an incredible rate. The people are all people I have spent at least fifteen minutes with, in fact to face candid contact. Of course, the mind is a fickle thing, so I may become unable to control it at any time, and lose sight of my goals.
In ancient times, people were largely isolated. They made their own tools when they needed them, and if they wrote down their findings, they were often cryptic and sometimes written in code. This did not stop them from becoming more advanced than we are today. In tiny pockets of the world, people explored regions of art and science that are yet unimagined by us today, and for good reason. They were driven by interest and given all of the tools they needed quickly. We are driven by need, and only given what we sweat and toil for over years. Until recently, only people who toiled and worked out of a survival or competitive instinct were recognized as great people, but information from the ancient past, from people who acted on the greatest impulse of all, interest, keeps revolutionizing areas of science and technology. No matter how advanced we get, if we don't utilize these interest machines in our brains, we won't advance far enough fast enough to survive the next major catastrophe.
Another few great examples were the ancient philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These people were able to indulge their interests and come up with some truly extraordinary advancements. Many such people, throughout history, have often said that they were acting out of fancy, and they often had no desire for payment or return, except that they might continue doing what they were doing, fascinated at their work. A vast majority of these people also did not claim to have done difficult work, but that it was simply interesting or fun activity. These markers may also be used to determine whether a person is truly following their greatest interests, or whether these people are doing it for attention or personal gain.
So, why do we have such powerful interests? I believe that we are meant to have a place in the world to make a differnce, and that we can all help the world in different and extraordinary ways. We must act as a single organism, working to relieve the tensions and suffering of itself, to live in equilibrium and to understand itself. Luckily, the good in the world is banding together to make this a reality, however, the bad in the world is also becoming more concentrated as a result. Anyways, I believe that the world is progressing nicely. And now I must stop this article, and wait for further developments. Hopefully more people will be able to follow their greatest interest and advance the world. 9/23/2007 Mind SharingImagine the brain as being a mostly unexplored and mostly unutilized part of the body. Notice the size of the human brain with respect to body size in comparison to other creatures. Now recall the supposed percentage of the brain being used or perhaps usable at any given time by any given human.
I will now venture to postulate that not only is the brain mostly under used, but it is also so extremely efficient as not to run any processes that are not currently in use. I would also go so far as to hypothesize that not only is the brain similar to an efficient computer, but that it is itself a hardware oriented type of computer with all sorts of hardware acceleration based components. For example, the parts of the brain that are most used are the optic nerves taking input from the eyes simply because we have them open all the time. In addition, I will remind you that the most used parts of the brain are not the largest of them, in fact, they are oriented to the opposite extreme as being quite small.
Now take in the possibility that, as the brain is a hardware oriented computer, it may possibly have a huge mechanism for the creation and deployment of advanced software. As a supporting argument, notice how people who perform a certain task may more readily be able to do those tasks and improve upon techniques to an extraordinary level. Also notice how a single person may become good at many jobs, or become great at one specific job and as a result, less useful at other jobs.
Notice how, in youth it is easier to learn, even though a child is still learning the ways of the world. I would imagine that this is because there is not only extra room for learning, but there are programs in use to facilitate learning that a youth would eventually stop using upon completion of most developmental tasks, and the learning program then becomes specialized and less effective at a variety of tasks.
Furthermore, notice how people think about their job more often. Notice how mathematicians think about math, workers think about work, and social people think about what to say. Notice how all of these people eventually say that the thought processes take no time at all, but that doesn't stop them from thinking about the tasks at hand. Also notice how a person's ability to perform their task is reduced when they are overwhelmed by some distraction, causing them to no longer be able to focus.
This brings me to my main point, which is the ability for someone to tap into the hardware which exists, yet there seems to be no existing software to utilize the components. I believe that a person may focus on creating a search program designed much the way a computer search program works, in order to find, access, and identify the usefulness of each brain component. Now all you have to do is focus on a basic hardware function and attempt it. After that realisation, it would only be a matter of time before you find all of the brain's mechanisms, and if documented, these mechanisms may be harnessed by others using the same process.
I believe that we already own a copy of the search program from birth, and that it is simply put into storage somewhere in our subconscious. We could then focus on developing software for our unused hardware components, much the way we develop the software of our speech and sight centers of the brain, by using them. The software's main purpose is as an input control, allowing the mind's processor to make meaningful outputs to the recognition centers of the brain, and therefore making us more intelligent beings.
Now brace yourself for something a little bit unbelievable. I think that it may be possible to not only use your own mind, but that our minds already come with networking hardware that allows us to share minds. All we have to do is develop a software in our heads to utilize this hardware capability, allowing us not only to have more brain power, but to have more data available to us from people who really know their stuff. Haven't you ever felt like you knew something that you couldn't possibly have learned, or were better at something than you should be? Have you ever felt like the industry stole your ideas, or coincidentally were thinking about something you later read in tomorrow's news? Have you ever spoken with someone about some random subject and found that they were thinking about the same thing? I have done all of these things and more.
This is the reason I am so interested in mind sciences and every productive scientific thing that anyone would think about. I have, on a consistant basis (not scientifically but in my opinion), had such coincidences happen to me over my lifetime. I am currently not only working on strengthening this supposed ability, but I am also constantly formulating ideas and plans for the improvement of any productive scientific thing that I can get my mind into.
I am led to hypothesize that the sharing of minds is not something that an average person can acheive in a one-sided manor, as you will have to get your subject's attention for it to be most effective. If you are interested in a field, think about emailing someone in that field. If you find yourself thinking about things in an unusually complex level, research your community to see if there is a professional on such matters near you. I would guess that an intelligent person may automatically transmit data that they are studying or interested in, that anyone may be able to pick up on in a local setting. I am not completely sure whether creating an attention connection will strengthen your ability because I have not researched my neighborhood, and have only met people with the professional knowledge I was using by chance. However, since the internet is able to create connections by jumping between nearby connections to reach the destination, I believe that our minds may have that ability as well. 9/1/2007 Social OrganicsWe, at our current level of knowledge and ability have barely begun to experience or fulfill our potential. One area that we have always struggled with has been varying population density. The mind is wired for social activity, and one must be very strong in what they believe in order to break such social habits and ties. In addition, humanity does not yet fully understand how to control the powerful tools that enable us to work together.
While we as a species have far to go to figure ourselves out, there are many telltale signs and trends that may be graphed to show a pattern. This pattern, as with all patterns, can act as a guide for higher and lower magnitudes of behavior. As many people know, once a trend is figured out and critiqued, a new stronger trend rises up and replaces it. It is the same with most things, and it is probably true with social behavior. Even so, this is what causes progress, and I belive that progress is what will keep our species from going extinct.
The smallest magnitude of social interaction is the singular interaction within a person's mind. Yes, the brain functions within itself and 'talks' to other parts of itself and with the body. You must learn to care for your body and mind to make it flourish. The second level of social magnitude is with a pair of people. Many people say that this is the greatest level since it invokes thoughts of sexual activity in most peoples minds these days. In truth, this is where everything gets very complicated.
The next level of complexity is with a small group. In small groups everyone usually knows everyone else and everyone knows what needs to be done and who does it. A small group can be from two to about fifteen people, with some wiggle room depending on your idea of a group. Some people are simply more socially active and can handle around thirty people as a small group. I personally am uncomfortable with more than a handfull of people. People in a small group often find themselves helping eachother with jobs and sometimes switching jobs altogether. People in a small group often tend to do more social experamentation amongst themselves.
In a large group you start to forget who everyone is and what everyone does. The operations required to support a large group may be so complex that no ordinary person can even remember them all. A large group can be a classroom or the employees of a super store. People in large groups are usually much more specialized than people in small groups once you have about ten people for every job that needs to be done. It is true that a ton of well educated people would be a nice benefit for any group, but large groups can overwhelm someone with the ability to do anything, and often that ability comes with a huge ego that can get in the way of smoothe operations. People in large groups often seek smaller groups of people who share social similarities, and often find themselves pairing with someone on a more permanent basis.
Greater still than a large group is a huge group. A huge group of people can be imagined as the audience in a grand auditorium, or the customers in a super store or mall. In a huge group, you absolutely need to have a small group to keep you focused on the tasks you must accomplish in your daily life. The huge group and the large group are also hyrids of one another. To one person a large group can be huge and to another person a huge group can be just large. People in huge groups are often flooded with social interaction to the point of overstimulation. Often people who are stuck in a huge group will be confused about themselves and often have a defense mechanism that causes them to forget things they don't need to know. People in huge groups, due to this confusion, are often not very socially centered and can drift from one empty relationship or sexual encounter to another. They often use substances to dull or sharpen their minds in order to make everything easier. They also usually find themselves locked in a dead end job with no hope of learning or finding a different vocation.
Small groups must be extremely organized in huge groups. As discussed previously, people tend to pool with others who have the same values as themselves, well in a huge group people pool with others who are in a similar situation or class. Small groups then tend to advance into organizations. When the right people form a small group, they become an integral part of the huge group. The small group often offers a service that is unique and greatly needed. Examples of such small groups are consulting firms, delivery services, shops, restaurants, public services, specialized maintenance, medical care, and education.
The next level up is the ultimate group. It is theorized that this size of group is at such a level of abstraction that human beings do not have the ability to notice it is there. In an ultimate group, small groups usually grow into bulky pseudo-large groups. These bloated groups often tend to be less efficient and pose a weakness to the very fabric of the community itself. Theoretically, when a small group tries to grow into a large one, people specialize so much that they become helpless when facing varied situations that small groups call for in small groups. In addition, negative tendencies that are usually reserved for huge groups will emerge and tear the small group apart. Businesses have tried to address this with the institution of departments (large) and teams (small), however, since these are not organic groups, they are not usually as efficient as they could be. In an ultimate group you often find several sets of large groups that run almost independent of eachother, and small groups are usually packed very tightly in massive skyscrapers.
As you can see, I stress the importance of maintaining small organic groups. These are people who enjoy eachothers company and get along in the long term. However, small groups must not only become stronger as society compacts in on itself, they must also become more intimate. A pair, the most basic physical group, must expand (not sexually) into the size of a small group, and a single unit must expand into two or more. This means that you must share your thoughts with one or more people, and although I pointed out that this is not required sexually, people in larger groups tend to need more social outlet, so pair up with someone you trust and enjoy being with or stay out in the country. When a group gets extremely dense, you must find yourself working with partners without using names or imagining a body, as is common inside someones head. You must work together simultaneously with someone on the same task like a multi-armed octopus. You will find yourself making up for the other's shortcomings. 8/29/2007 Realities: Excess and SlothIn a world of endless advertizement, an atmosphere of completely unstructured competition, and excessively lavish consumerism, the world is bloated and weak. Everyone feels resentment against the world for their own weaknesses, yet nobody wants to go the distance required to be any better. The world is filling to the brim with half baked personalities who age and sour into immoral and loathesome people. Yet there is still hope, as long as there is a single person with the knowledge and ability to affect a positive structure, even if they are only able to make their own life healthy, we will all have a chance to become better individuals at some point.
It is difficult for people to take it all in, but we all tend to lie to ourselves about things. The biggest area of untruth involves perception of reality. Usually people try to talk themselves into believing that their ideas are always correct, or that their loved ones can not tell them things that are wrong. Many people decide that whatever they are doing is right and the best way to live. Others simply refuse to change their bad habits. I myself am at fault, and have many bad habits that I am halfheartedly trying to break. This is a serious epidemic and must be eradicated in the way human beings conduct themselves. Illusion should not get in the way of reality. It is really a disease worse than cancer and diabetes.
Step one in the recovery process is admitting that you may be wrong in some area of your life, even if you don't know what that could be, or are trying to tell yourself that you don't know. It is extremely important not to feel bad about this and get on with your life. Try it out with a friend or relative until you are not shocked or embarrassed about it. Try play acting in a very blunt or even rude manner to further toughen your resolve against any feelings of guilt which are actually the root of your emotional responses. Nobody is perfect, and the amazing paradox is that even if you can't understand yourself, you can understand others. Most people really do understand other things better than they understand themselves.
The next step is identifying something in yourself that may be a problem and solving it. Maybe you get in arguments with someone that never end, well, use a search engine and look up the topic of your argument. If you are wrong you may resolve the issue however you are accustomed. I myself don't really do anything to resolve an issue, the resolution is the disappearance of the problem itself. Of course your customs may be different.
In this age of information and discovery, everyone should be looking for the answers to their problems. Problems don't just fix themselves, and more problems tend to build up on top of old ones. Think of something that you do a lot each day, for me it is using computers. Now remember to think of a problem you have that can be solved by using information, and try another way to solve the problem each time you start or finish your most common activity. I myself have developed bad allergies, so I have been researching the cause of allergies and ways to get rid of the cause. Remember that most solutions only get rid of the symptoms, don't settle for any solution that allows your problem to come back any time soon.
Remember, it is bad to defend your flaws. Your flaws are there whether you talk about them or not, how about getting rid of the source of conversation and eliminate the flaw. If your problem is permanent, remind others not to complain about something they can't get fixed. If you can fix something, try fixing it instead of complaining. Also remember that most people under-estimate themselves. If you are one of those people, you may be lacking in life experience and you have been wasting your time. How can you learn your limits? Stretch yourself TO your limits. Try tests of balance, tests of sight, tests of resistance from temptation, tests of strength, tests of knowledge, tests of speed, etc., etc.
Also, I have noticed way too often that people tend to associate discomfort with emotions such as hate, fear, anger, and sadness. Discomfort is often a part of growth. You should never hate discomfort, in fact, try looking at it as a test of endurance. If exercizing makes you tired, you don't hate exercise, you are making yourself stronger. If studying makes you frustrated, don't hate study, you are getting smarter. In fact, positive feelings toward things can make them more effective, and negative feelings toward things can make them less effective, so hating exercise may make you a weakling, and hating study may make you stupid. |
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