Human Bodies

This post contains what some might see as spoilers, even though The Matrix is nearly 20 years old, and Jupiter Ascending is going on three years pretty soon.

My mother had me thinking about the Wachowsk(i/a)s/Wachowscy with an assignment she has to do.

Part of what I've liked about their worlds they've built is how they'd trivialized the human body. They've made them into nothing more than disposable robot batteries and grind-up fodder for a youth serum. They've shown that you can just shoot one dead and, while it hurts some people, they move on. They've shown that we're, in the grand scheme, not very unique because the genome is finite and eventually, as I've remarked on before, someone else will come out exactly like us genetically long after we've died.

They've show being cavalier with modifying the human body, augmenting it, pushing it, warping it.

I can't speak for their other creations because I haven't given them shots (or a care, really), but I'm sure they have those themes somewhat too. In the back of my mind, I've had the thought that it probably relates to their eventual transgender identities.

What really makes humanity so special, though, eh? Because God created us? Because we're somewhat modifying this planet to suit our needs at the expense of all the other life it has? Because we're the "only beings of merit/consequence" in the universe?

People need to remember this planet can, and has, squish/ed us flat.

Ultimately Why We Work

Yes, this is not scholarly. I have no sources, and have done no research. It's not even original. It's just what I've been thinking about on the way home... from work.

We work, though, because we, somewhat, fear what idleness can do. I'm certain when we all didn't work, when we meandered and thought, socialized and did whatever else idle humans do, we got into trouble. We see sometimes how children behave when they can do whatever they want, and I suppose even adults may do the same. We'd found we could do things, construct things, put things together, and went with that.

Someone worked, and then eventually more worked. Then we'd started deciding things had relative worth, and that we could trade one thing for another. We got the idea of fairness, because this person shouldn't have to work harder than someone else and not get more out of it than that someone else.

We began having an ethos of gaining things, wealth. Our populations expanded, meaning we had to make sure resources lasted, even though people with more wealth could buy as many resources as they wanted, leaving others without. Or they would sell those resources to gain more wealth. We created governments as we'd learnt about power and resource apportioning, including that governments could raise funds from land just as individuals found they could.

People who don't want anything to do with the regular scheme of things -- working for pay, having a mortgage, living in a proper house, creating more humans -- don't propagate the system humanity has created. Other human beings sometimes look at those who would take what they have and go out on their own with some amazement and some jealousy. "Why does he get to not work? I don't want to work." The person striking out on his own would have a time trying to do that, though, because the system wants everyone to pay for land.

The system has budgeted that so many people who make money will put a certain amount of that towards the system to keep it going. Having less people doing so undoes the system. People can't have tiny tracts of land for tiny houses because the system wouldn't make enough to sustain itself, so they'd set rather large minimum plot sizes.

Minimalism in a culture that treasures having more is a sin, something awkward and unseemly.

We work to keep ourselves busy and because it keeps the system that developed out of keeping ourselves out of idleness going.

Google stops censoring in China

"Google says it has stopped censoring its search results in China, risking confrontation with the country's authorities."

Go to BBC to read the original article.

Now, I've been conservative on a number of subjects in my life. I remember there was a discussion in my Honors Colloquium class in my third year about pre-marital teenage sex, and I'd said I wish there were a pill that would block such thoughts and then alternative treatment would occur in the period when two come into an agreement to wed.

My mind has changed somewhat on this subject because it's a little hypocritical to want to curb human nature in one regard but want complete openness - in this case uncensored Internet use - in another.

The reason the Chinese government wants to censor people is because they know what they do is wrong. They stomp on people, they keep them from knowing things, and they keep them in a state of hopelessness and ignorance. This, I believe, is wrong, and Google stepping in - even at the risk of China throwing them out, thus losing a vital Internet-using market - and standing up for freedom of Internet use in China.

I have issues with that China has grown so vital to the United States' economic function without making any changes whatsoever in their human rights policies, stances on freedom of speech and expression, and general arrogance.

May something change.

Top 10 Useless Limbs (and Other Vestigial Organs)

LiveScience: "In Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) and in his later works, he referred to several 'vestiges' in human anatomy that were left over from the course of evolution. These vestigial organs, Darwin argued, are evidence of evolution and represent a function that was once necessary for survival, but over time that function became either diminished or nonexistent."

Take a gander. It's fun reading.

PETA to Ben and Jerry's: Breast Is Best!

The PETA Files: Okay, so... Yeah. I'd be willing to try it, but commercially and logistically, it's a very hard venture. I agree with a number of the commenters that, at least, make the current process for obtaining cow's milk more "humane," if what they say about forced pregnancy is true.

I'm a soy milk drinker myself, so I don't even have a stake in it, and I drink soy milk mostly because I think I've become very, very mildly lactose-intolerant (and the fact that soy milk in WholeFoods and Publix is less expensive than cow's milk).

To each, his own.

Solar Tsunamis Move at Astronomical Speeds

Solar Tsunamis Move at Astronomical Speeds - Yahoo! News: "Images of a tsunami blasting its way through the sun's lower atmosphere have been taken for the first time."

Read it, and then the video is here.

I just love stories of human progress as far as new things accomplished. If we put our minds to it, get our physics in check and whatnot, we've got it licked...

So long as we're responsible.