Techno-Boner Safety

 I've been known to skitter disjointedly around the borders of the Transhumanist community. Never as an active participant, much to my chagrin, but always an enthusiastic advocate. However, as with all of the ideologies I tend to become entangled with, I have a hard time towing the party line.

For those who don't know, the Transhumanist movement is a loosely bound group of individuals and small groups dedicated to the absolute development of humankind through the expansion of science and technology. Key tenets of the movement are movement are; the abolition of involuntary suffering, the end of biological decay of the living (aging), cognitive enhancement, and exploration of the universe. By and large I agree with these ideals, though for me the core of the issue is absolute biological freedom, the ability to completely determine one's own characteristics and abilities. Notice nowhere in either sentence is mind uploading or the "immorality" of death described. There are members of the community who hold these as goals but I give no fucks about them. My issue arises from people disregarding or denouncing the community for those beliefs. Or worse, claiming that we're either complicit or blind to the possibility of corporate exploitation. 

To many of us the dissemination and availability of these technologies is absolutely crucial to transhumanity. Trans-humanity, not trans-oligarchy, not trans-white people. All the willing must be given the viable option to ascend or we're talking about a different thing entirely. That option bit is pretty fucking important too, by the way, its a freedom thing not a full spectrum biosynthetic rape. 

My other big gripe is the argument that augmentation is an unnatural violation of the human self, the fear that modifying the body will indelibly taint the soul and turn people into robots. This is the worst one and we see it everywhere. Games like Deus Ex and Shadowrun, on T.V. with Doctor Who's Daleks and Cybermen, in every vein of science fiction. This whole line of inquiry sets me down a hatespiral that I tend to struggle with for days.

Since the first filthy cave-dweller accidentally stabbed himself on a broken rock, human evolution has been primarily external. Sure the average height of Europeans has increased, pinky toes have shrunk and appendices have become vestigial; but two of those three are based in the development of technology. The extra digestive organ that became the appendix atrophied as cooking techniques became more advanced and less effort was required to keep food from killing us. Pinky toes are no longer needed to assist balance because of the broad leather or rubber pads we strap to our feet. Tools get better, mankind evolves to better accommodate the tools. 

So Transhumanism isn't even a question. Its a misnomer. Humanity has always been defined by the tools its developed, so naturally integration of those tools into the body cannot negate any aspect of humanity. If anything, exploration into the integration of tools and development of the self in regard to the external is one the most human activities one can participate in. So fuck those people, lets all get to it and bust out some sweet ass robot arms.

~Eshi

Sequel 4: Oh God Why is There Another One!

As I wrote this I realized that it goes in the same direction as my last article and for the same reasons. Overall multiple industries are heading in that same direction, and it is because they think that the public will be swayed by a shiny thing rather than a novel thing. People will go after the same shit with a new paint job rather than something that may or may not improve upon an idea, or shit, even be a new idea.
Here is a quote from a comedian in my top 5, Marc Maron making this point better than I possibly could:
"We’re so easily controlled in this weird way. You know when a movie sucks? You can tell when a movie sucks from the fucking poster. you know that it’s going to suck during the coming attractions. Pearl Harbor, you saw the coming attractions for that movie and were like, this is gonna fucking suck. And the you see it again and go, this is gonna suck. Pearl Harbor, the movie was worse than the invasion itself. And then finally when it opens you think but hey we’ve got to go and see it. And everybody goes just so that they can walk out and say, told you it was gonna fucking suck.But then it makes millions of dollars and they keep making shit and we keep lining up for it. It’s almost like they say, hey we keep filling up the trough and we go, Yay! New shiny poop."

Now on to the subject at hand: Video Games

I love video games. I think it is great that they are becoming more popular as well as easier for smaller companies to produce/get funded (thank you greenlight and kickstarter). There is also a trend among video game companies, especially since a new generation of consoles was produced recently, with making video games look amazing which I think has hurt some aspects of video games as a whole. Better graphics isn't an inherently bad thing, after all distractions from reality are far more effective if they have an "oooh shiny!" factor. It is however a bad thing when there are cuts to other aspects of the game.

A rather good example of this is the Saint's Row franchise. I loved saints row 2. It was funny at times, moving at times, and at its best when it did both together. It was a great example of story telling. One of the best parts of the game is how much you could make the main character your own. You could customize almost everything. You could wear hats at almost any angle as well as wear any combination of clothes you could think of (bright pink thong, fishnets and an expensive tailored suit jacket for an example). Saints Row 3 was way more bombastic in its presentation then its predecessor(a trend that saints row 4 continued by giving you motherfucking super powers) The graphics also got a significant improvement which was kind of nice. But you could no longer wear a baseball cap at 45 degrees with the bill buried in your shoulder (because looking ridiculous is fun) This is a minor gripe, but it felt like the character was less mine somehow, which was sad. The third game also removed context for a lot of the side missions which made them feel less impressive: for instance in SR2 you wield a shit flinging truck to show the bourgeois what's what. Meanwhile you just kinda do it for no reason in SR3. This makes it seem like the game creators cut corners, and if I had to guess more money was put into graphics, so other areas might have come up short. SR3 was still great fun, but felt slightly hollow at some points.

I am also a fan of the pokemon series of games, and I think that some of the newer ones increase in graphical quality reduced the amount of gameplay. Caves all seemed smaller, routes got shorter, and the endgame content of Black 1 and 2 was sparse. X and Y introduced 3D models (which are gorgeous by the way) but it still felt small compared to silver and gold which came across as huge since you get two full regions to explore and conquer. I would have gladly traded 3D graphics for a more expansive world. 

I am an outsider to the industry so take my statements for what  they are: observation. Looking at trends in popular games the graphics improve and the quality of the games kinda goes down or just stays the same but they add/change the sequel number/subtitle. Hell, many games these days are just clones of previously successful titles. The modern warfare/battlefield/call of duty series are a great example. They are all interchangeable shooters that produce a lot of pretty minimalist (at least in terms of gameplay) sequels which all look great, but don't add all that much more. And just like the endless sequels coming out in Hollywood they make a fuck ton of money and sell a lot of copies.

These are kind of old examples, and I don't think that just graphics are to blame. Cost cutting is happening more and more due to a down turning economy, so in an effort to make money in a bad economy game companies are turning out sure wins with nice looking graphics in an attempt to reach as wide an audience as possible (much like my last article pointed out about the movie industry). I would just like to see more passion in my games, which is why (once again) I am glad web sites like kickstarter exist to give the option for people to make games based on a passion for the art, and less a need to keep profits above the bottom line.

DS<P if P=Person

Today I'm going to talk about a thing that never fails to give me a hate boner. Yes, kiddies the topic of the day is cowardice. Not just run of the mill,"Oh shit I might die. Run away" cowardice either. I've got no beef with Shag and Scoob. My issue is more insidious and far more pervasive. My problem "arises" when that fear becomes a weapon.

Its a relatively popular narrative trope, but its a trope because these people exist. The folks who are so afraid of something (for most people failure or pain but also intimacy, judgement or motherfucking monsters) that the people around them become a resource. This kind of thing is disgusting. Now, let me reiterate; its not cowardly to run away from a bear, it super fucking is to kick the person next to you in the junk so they can't. Anytime you throw someone under a bus in the hope that it wont hit you, you become less than a person.

Its a behavior we need to stop, and not just in ourselves. We need to punish that shit, demonstrate that it will not be tolerated. Now, while I personally am a fan of corporal action, for some reason not everyone agrees with the value of neck-punching. If that's you, call people out; it would have been amazing if Anderson Copper had, mid-interview, called Donald Sterling a piece of shit; and it would have shone a nasty old man that he can't get away with his silly shit in real time.

So next time you see someone try to fuck another person over to protect themselves, do something about it. Its about time we all started acting like the community we are and doing what is fucking right. All that's required for evil to flourish or whatever.

-Eshi

Coming This Fall! Sequel 3: The Sequelist

I recently saw the second hobbit movie and I was floored. The movie was a couple hours long and Like 30 minutes of the movie were from the book. I love The Hobbit, it was one of the first fantasy novels I read and It made me really enjoy the genre, so I may be biased as to what the movie should contain but even then it was a shameless cash grab.

 I get into spoiler territory here. Fair warning.

Legolas shows up in this movie. He was never in the books, not even mentioned. He is in this movie for the fan recognition dollar (like adding Darth Vader to Soul Calibur or adding C-3PO and R2D2 to the 3 prequels to the Star Wars franchise). It didn't add anything meaningful to the story, and really only served as a basis for throwing in a romance between star crossed lovers in an attempt to woo more types of fans.

The fight with Smaug under the lonely mountain, specifically when the dwarves show up and run around in a Benny Hill-esque scene and ends with them pouring molten gold (by the way filmmakers how the fuck did several tons of gold melt in only 10-ish minutes in smelters that had been off for a long ass time). Also never happened, though looked kinda nifty, and could have been solved in seconds by a little more fire on Smaug's part.

Gandalf's role in this movie was largely fluff for advertising the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I get that since the Hobbit is a precursor to the Lord of The Rings you want to add moments that hint at future events. However by adding a long fight scene in which a character we know will live (since he is in the other movies) is put in mortal danger to fabricate tension and leave a cliffhanger for the next movie your only really doing a disservice to the people watching the film and to the source material.

All of these never happened in the source material, so why did the filmmakers add them to a movie. I am sure several readers already know, but I want to vent so I am going to talk about this. They did it to make money. For those of you not in the know, The Hobbit was going to be a single movie at first, then two, and then they decided to do three movies. Personally, one movie would have cut out a lot but it could have been done. 2 would have been fine if they were both shorter than 2 hours. 3 movies however, was a stretch and so they ended up having to add a lot of fluff that but they did it to make money. The original Rings trilogy made 2.9 billion dollars just from box office, and it only cost 281 million to make. That is a metric fuck-ton of money in profit, so trying to cash in somewhere near that amount of money they are trying to extend the films as much as possible.

I am not stupid, I know that the movie industry is just that. An industry. They exist to develop a product and sell it for profit. Movies are also insanely expensive to make, and so they need to make money to at least cover expenses and get the production companies more money to continue to make movies. Herein lies the problem, and what I think it is why the movie industry is slowly dying. The reason we see blockbusters that are remakes or sequels and not original stories is that the movie producers know that they will do well because they already have. The Star Wars reboots, 21 Jump street (and 22 jump street, the sequel), Red Dawn, Fright Night, Willy Wonka, and now a new generation of movies based on fucking board games: Real Steel (Rock em Sock em Robots) and Battleship (Battleship) are all examples of these "safe bets". A belief that sticking to old concepts to cash in on nostalgia is insanely effective, but creates a limit on what will be made. Some independent movies are fascinating, creative, and deep. It is sad that they will not get as many viewers as another expendables sequel so less and less of them get made. Why do a lot of people go to franchise movies and not to original? our economy is doing poorly so spending money on a gamble film (one you don't know much about, so you don't know if it will be good) is less appealing than source material you recognize and "trust". So people will go to another reboot of spider-man (The amazing Spider-man (2012): gross domestic earnings: $262,030,663) and ignore movies like The Hurt Locker (Gross domestic $15,700,000). And when trying to get peoples attention they blow more of their budget on CGI effects and actors and end up making way less or losing money (the budget for Spider-man was $230,000,000). This may just end up hurting the industry more in the long run, as well as make it harder for new ideas to gain traction.

Thanks to crowd funding sites like kickstarter and video sites like youtube and vimeo people can get independent/original movies out into the world more easily. So at least there is a silver lining to filmmakers who want to produce a movie without having to go through industry gatekeepers.

Something That is Amazing

This isn't going to be a full post, but I just found something amazing that needs to be shared with the world. In one of my earlier posts I poked at correlation not equaling causation and Just today via Kotaku.com I was pointed to a website that lines up a bunch of fucked up correlations that will make you laugh out loud.

Take a look through the web site and enjoy.

 That is all.

Feeling Skeptical

Alright, so there's a trend adopted by a couple of the communities I have come to associate myself with, and I need to vent about it. Now bear with me because this is bound to catch some hate. Most people who call themselves skeptics not only aren't skeptics, they are assholes. I feel the need to break this down, justify myself here, because this is a thing that has become a big part of our civilization.

 First, let me say that I hate fluffy-bunny bullshit. The shiny happy people in the desert trying to crystal-fuck themselves to the tenth stage of enlightenment if only they could just afford another treatment to rid themselves of the giant shapeshifting demon (~19 min). Fuck those people. Not because they're wrong or right or because anyone knows anything about it but because they make any exploration of nontraditional paradigms fucking laughable. They serve as a tool for force hostile to their own community and that is fucking disgusting.

 Now, that said; we need to examine the people who stand most firm against that group: skeptics. Skepticism is a tradition philosophy almost entirely represented by an examination of the world via empirical means. I'm going to stop here to explain empiricism because it gets badly misused all too often. Empirical knowledge is knowledge originating in or based on observation or experience. Philosophically, this means that if you didn't see it happen or play a role in its happening you do not know shit about it. In fact "not know"; Can't know anything about the subject with any sort of authority. In fact classical skepticism often characterizes itself by expressing near absolute uncertainty. The most skeptical thing that can be said in any situation is "I don't know."

 There are certainly situations where claiming definitive knowledge without direct experience is fine. We know the earth is round. we've been in space, we can test various aspects of human space travel, we have historical records going back thousands of years expressing the curvature of the earth. Fuck, if you go far enough in any direction you will wind up where you started. Bam, fucking round planet.We live in a world where we don't have to personally experience absolutely everything to at least come close enough to knowledge and that is wonderful. However, its important to remember the whole "absence of evidence" adage. Anytime a subject arises where no positive evidence has been discovered the most anyone can or should say is "we don't know."

 We don't know if there is an afterlife. We don't know if aliens visit earth. We don't know much. Honestly, most of the "paranormal" category exists in a place where we don't even know for sure what we're looking for. At least not yet. If there is an afterlife, how the hell would we interact with it? What if it exists in dimension we haven't been able to explore or recognize.

 Science gets better at what it does every day, so saying that we know things we can't even really explore yet is a massive disservice to all of us. Science never makes a statement when it can ask a question.

 So any time you try to tell someone what they experienced you are not a skeptic, you are wrong, you are a douche bag, and fuck you. Maybe direct people you feel are misguided towards better information, offer alternatives, hell maybe even have a discussion *gasp*. Skepticism, science, mysticism, spirituality; these things all seek a greater understanding of reality, we could do better than to be at each others throats over them.

-Eshi

A couple ways that movies/culture affect belief

Quick, How many phone calls do you get when you are arrested?

 1
 Right?

I would be willing to bet on that being the answer most of you gave. How do you know this to be true? You see it in every cop drama, tv or movie, ever. Too bad it is false.

Hollywood likes to stick to what works, and the one phone call when you get arrested is a nice way to add tension/restrictions on characters so that they have a hurdle to over come. Turns out though, that most prisons will let you use pay phones all you want, as long as the people you are calling accept the collect charges.

 Another popular thing that movies do to add tension: "We need 30 seconds to trace the call" I am sure as you read that you thought of at least Nope. most calls can be "traced" just by the phone being on. If your cell is on it constantly pings cell towers. All the police have to do is call a cell phone company and they get the data, and with a little math can triangulate the position of the caller.
Boom, they know where you are.
Also, as part of a government/company agreement, the po-po can turn on a cell phone that is off, so if you don't want to get caught throw away your cell phone (or at least pull out the battery and SIM card).

 The last example I want to point out is a little odd.

Would you eat a Tarantula? No? Well, that's not surprising. Gross right? hairy, leggy, squirmy. If you answered that way you probably grew up in a country where protein sources are more cuddly, like cows and pigs, but in areas where those animals are harder to raise (at least as a sole source of protein) people get protein from other sources. Bugs have a lot of protein and are fucking everywhere so getting them isn't really to much of a problem. In fact due to their low carbon footprint and ease of access the UN even suggested more people should do this, as it would be better for the environment and is a lot cheaper than pork beef or chicken. I find a lot of enjoyment in examining the way that culture shapes belief.

It isn't always fun though, sometime you find some fucked up shit. It should not be a surprise that the government manufactures consent, on both sides, but sometimes the flagrancy of it is appalling.

 I started this post wanting to point out amusing ways in which we view reality differently due to environmental/cultural influences, and as I continued I realized that this kind of thing can be dubious, as well as benign. So, I think it would be a good if people read this and thought a little more about sources of information and ideas. Not necessarily just to see when the people in power lie (although that is a pretty nice benefit of doing this) but also to see how much culture effects the people in it.

Jesus-Analogue vs. Super-Ninja! This Summer's Blockbuster Hit!

Film culture seems a solid theme for this week so I guess I'll carry it on. Everyone has a beef with some aspect of movie culture; it bugs Brian when people get their undies bunched over past-date spoilers. That's fair, if you cared you would have seen it. What bugs me is when people feel set to judge about a movie for not being classy enough.
Now this one is kinda tricky so bear with me. Yes some movies are art, how you gauge that comes down to you. Some movies are dross, The Necronomicon, 80's cheap muppet horror; twas bad folks, I've been less disappointed by deaths in the family. But the overwhelming majority of movies fall well between art and trash. This is by design. I wont say that this is the right way or the best way, hell its not even really a good way. True art in cinema is an incredible experience, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't enjoy "lesser" productions. Its not a money thing for me and it certainly isn't a class thing. Life is fucking short, brutal and all to often joyless. Honestly, I feel about naturally happy people the way I feel about people who just accept their family's religion gratis. You've found something that works for you (probably through an intentional lack of observation), I'm glad it works for you but if you could fuck off and leave me alone that would be phenomenal. Because I'm not a terribly happy person, and because I dislike being unhappy I tend to take all comers as far as humor and drama are concerned. If there is anything I can find pleasure in during a movie I will do my level best to find it. It opens up a vast landscape of content to enjoy. You just have to surrender to the context of the situation.
I like Super Troopers; it is a stupid fucking movie. It is, in fact meant to be a stupid fucking movie. Broken Lizard didn't get together and decide to make a gripping cop drama about highway patrol men and corrupt cops (fucking spoiler alert) and then just fail catastrophically. They made a silly, raunchy stoner movie about cops. I've been told that my enjoyment of this movie somehow lessens me. Fuck those people.
I enjoyed Equilibrium; also a stupid fucking movie. Any time we've got a Jesus-analogue /super-ninja its a recipe for fucking stupid. But it is exactly what it sets out to be; a fun action movie with awesome combat gimmicks. If you watch these movies for the story or expect them to be terribly story oriented -you- are the one with the problem. So you know; stop being a judgmental prick. If you are. If not, carry on.

-Eshi

Spoiler Alert!

Recently I was reminded of an incident (incident might be too strong a word) in which I was discussing the movie American Psycho with a small group of people. I revealed the end of the movie casually because I was making a point about it and one of my friends got mad at me for spoiling the ending. At the time the year was 2011, and American Psycho came out in 2000. I would like to propose a rule: pointing out a spoiler alert should only be necessary for movies that are under a decade old. This is a minor gripe, some might say "petty" and be completely right but it irks me none the less (this blog is just supposed to be about whatever I feel like writing about so petty bullshit it is!). Spoilers of a movie that is old are super common. I get getting huffy over a spoiler about last night's Game of Thrones you have Tivo'd or about a movie that came out last month, but there is a line.

I have never seen Pretty Woman, but thanks to pop culture references I know the plot is roughly analogous to My Fair Lady (or Pygmalion for the more traditional thespians out there). I know, thanks to the same type of reference that there is a penis where you would not expect to find one in The Crying Game. We live in a world where pop culture references are common (shit, there is even an entire movie franchise based on parodying scary movies "ironically" called scary movie) so I would argue that expecting a ten year old movie to be spoiler free may be too much to ask. That being said, I don't think people should spoil movies on purpose, just don't get mad at people for doing it to a 10 year old movie accidentally.

That being said, because I feel petty: Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze

Mummorpiggers

As I've mentioned before, I'm a gamer in pretty grand fashion. However, there's one genre I've never found anything redeeming in. Massively multiplayer online games. My feelings about MMOs have meandered back and forth between snide ambivalence and outright disgust. Now, part of that is just a general distaste for people. I tend to play games largely to escape society and by their nature MMOs force the players to interact, not just with people they don't know but with the sort of people who propagate in an online environment. Unfortunately some of these people are trolls, people who take advantage of the anonymity Brian tapped on previously. Now, not all of the people who play these games are this caliber of virulent doucheweed but enough of them are to ruin the experience.

If it were just that I might keep at it. I might keep working to find a group or game that made the genre salvageable. Really the worst part about these games to me is the fact that they are intrinsically exploitative. All games are really; hell the standard structure of modern human interaction is largely based on principles of exploitation. I just find MMOs to be a sick, insidious herald of the worst abuses of my community. Even if we're only discussing free to play games, a necessary aspect of the field is the generation of a low grade addiction. The game seeks to generate the most sense of reward possible, make the gamer feel accomplished without having the reward effect the game much. Gotta keep the effect down so they don't run out of content too fast.

When they do start running low on content they tend to just tack on some endgame content (which has been known to make things people spent months working on obsolete). When the trickle of new players/old players trying something new start complaining about how the best parts of the game (see new content) are all endgame, after all the ugly grind, they streamline the grind so much that its worthless to try and develop the skill set. Abuse picks up as a whole group of new players don't have any idea how to play "right". The more new content they need the less work tends to get spent being something more than just addicting until the whole endeavor just turns into keeping players craving. Kill the story, kill the joy, just keep the junkies twitching. And of course it works, from a market standpoint. Massive returns, high sales, great for business but bad for the community. The tactic spreads due to success and more and more companies throw more money at the shallow, addicting aspects of game play. Our joyous escape more and more loses its art and picks up more business. History doesn't have much good to say about that things that go down that route.

-Eshi

Anonnymous

As a denizen of the internet, I happen to be a fan of the anonymity that is afforded to people who use it. Like most things in the world though, it is a double edged sword. The greatest boon that anonymity gives us is that it protects you from recrimination, like being able to be a whistle-blower without the accompanying stigma that comes with it. But the worst thing about anonymity is that it protects people from recrimination. The same anonymity that protects people who show injustice also protects people who are fucking assholes. I have seen in the news lately a lot of stories about women who post their views on comic books or release video games, or really do anything on the internet being threatened with rape or violence. I used those two specific examples because they hit close to home. I am a geek. I love video games and comic books, and just because I didn't list others doesn't mean they don't happen, I just would hope that the group I identify with wouldn't end up being fucking terrible to people because they are different. You would think that people who come from a group that is stereotypically ostracized would be more open to people. But I digress: Because of the anonymity granted by the internet these people feel comfortable threatening people they have never met with an action that I would classify as one of the worst things to do to a person, simply because they are the "wrong" gender or have a different opinion.

 I am a firm believer that people have the capacity to be good without anybody watching, however the internet constantly pokes holes in that ideal. People will threaten death, rape, violence, or even just try to ruin someones life because they don't agree with what the targeted people are doing, and they do so without fear of reproach, and I think there in lies the issue. If someone makes these kinds of threats, I think that they should have that anonymity revoked. The internet has done it before for different reasons. If these people cannot respect their anonymity as a whole, they should not be allowed access to it. Seriously though, why the hell say shit like this to people? Just because they disagree with your opinion? Or because they killed you in Call of Duty? Or because they didn't go make you a sandwich? Fuck you, you solipsistic cunts. You bring shame to a group that should be better then that.

 On a lighter note (because making fun of stupid people should make me feel better, right?) some people are stupid enough to think that even when they post on websites like youtube and facebook that they remain anonymous. Like all of these folks. Holy shit, right?

I like to make people uncomfortable. A lot. The better I know them the better it feels. Groaning and shuddering when you accidentally brush against someone. Or when you shake their hands. Pretty much whenever there is physical contact... or eye contact... or there is someone else in the room. Its amazing. Casually over-sharing even slightly can immediately shut down a room in ways you might not expect.

Now I will freely admit that 1: this behavior rarely makes a positive impression, and 2: its not entirely intentional. My enjoyment of other people's awkward responses really developed from the fact that I loathe the social distance people create. The idea that it benefits anyone to split their personality between public and private is absurd to me. I can understand being aware of word choice and attempting to be sympathetic to people's situation, but that's not what that distance is used for. People use their masks to keep others at bay, to protect themselves from other people. Here's the thing. That is preemptive and preemptive behavior is never fucking justifiable. Period. Full Stop. Other Punctuation Term Denoting The Completion Of  A Statement. By "protecting" ourselves from people we don't think we know well enough to be honest with we're just making it more difficult to connect, more troublesome to empathize and more frustrating to interact in general.

So lets fucking stop it shall we? Next time someone asks you about your day; fucking tell them. Then ask about theirs, coax out a genuine response and try actually caring. Talk out your problems instead of hiding behind damaging social conventions. When someone gets real with you get real right back instead of shutting down, you might learn something and hell might help you both. Fastest way to shutdown an asshole like me is with a genuine response. If someone groans heavily when you touch them maybe agree that human contact is really nice. Or hell, "wow that's kinda creepy. Why do you do that?" We'll never improve as a society if we keep reinforcing our separation instead of engaging.

That is all. Go away.

-Eshi

Something That Makes Me Angry.

There is a group of people who don't vaccinate their children on the grounds that vaccinations and autism are linked. These people, while possibly having the best of intentions, are hurting their children, and possible causing other parents to do the same. Worst of all, they are doing this because of a false corollary and a fake study. I understand that parents with children who have autism struggle with something that I can hardly imagine. I know that it must be difficult, but blaming something like vaccines may cause more harm than good. Evidence for the vaccine - autism link is taken from two faulty sources. The main source of this claim was a study done in the UK in 1998 that showed that vaccines cause autism in children without autism. This, of course, caused some people to freak out and stop taking children to get vaccines. Since then vaccine curable diseases have gained more traction. The worst part? It was all fucking bullshit. And it was completely retracted in 2010. The study was fabricated by a group of lawyers who wanted to file a class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies. There has not been another credible source of this information since.

 The second bit of evidence that people who claim that vaccines cause autism is the corollary that since the start of vaccinations as normal thing for parents to do, the cases of autism have risen. When doing research on any topic there is a major pitfall that too many people fall into. Just because two sets of data change in a similar way over a similar amount of time, does not mean that they are even related. Example: The amount of pirates in the Caribbean has diminished over the past few hundred years. During this time the average temperature of the ocean has risen. Does this mean that a lack of pirates caused global warming? Fuck no. they correlate, but other then that, they don't interact at all. Correlation is not causation. The correlation between autism and vaccinations looks OK, until you look at the reasons for it. The definition of what autism is has changed a lot in the past 50 years, so many more people have been diagnosed with it in that time. At the same time new vaccines for diseases began to be developed, so of course the rates of people getting vaccinated went up. The two are related on that growth rate, but are not causally linked.

 The main reason this argument makes me angry is that it is based on lies. I understand they want to help, but looking at the data they cite shows that their argument is faulty. All they are doing is spreading misinformation, and people may suffer because of this movement.

A Roll Of The Dice

I've been called a Gamer, but I don't feel like that's accurate. I game like its a problem: old school, new school, disk, cartridge, computer. Console doesn't matter. Genre doesn't matter. Graphics and writing are all but meaningless. Give me a story that doesn't make me want to kill myself and a means to interact with it and I'm a pig in shit.

That said, video games are a dirty backstreet whore compared to my real love. Tabletop. D&amp;D, Vampire, Shadowrun; Its dangerous. I've lost more hours to tabletop games than I have to the crushing sadness in my soul. To me rolling dice is kitty-corner to orgasm. It's the perfect vice. Absolute customization coupled with a near infinite variety of genres, settings, abilities, story possibilities. Almost absolute control of the escape experience. Add in a couple other folks of similar disposition and the world opens up in ways its hard to describe without resorting to cliche` or innuendo.

And that's just playing in a good game.

Building a world from a base system or, hell, from scratch, is very much like being a god. Developing a history and peopling a whole cosmos, having absolute control over the creation and evolution of a world and then giving it all up as the players come into it. Letting them interact with the personalities you've forged and watching your world change from their touch. Its intoxicating.

Now, I know it can be hard to come out of one's shell in a role-play environment. Pretending to be someone else, especially in a wholly fictional context tends to either make you feel like an asshole or an idiot the first few times out. But it gets better, and its totally worth it. Everyone escapes somehow, for me the best part of the escape is getting others out with me and doing something grand. Maybe not good or noble, but Grand. So what the hell. Get out there, roll some dice. Be a ninja or a vampire or the chosen thrall of some Elder Thing.  What do any of us ever really stand to lose?

-Eshi

Profanity and You.

Shit Piss Cunt Fuck Cocksucker Motherfucker and Tits.

 George Carlin's bit (7 dirty words you can't say on TV or radio) touches on a subject that is dear to my heart. Swearing. I was brought up in a home where my parents never really swore to much, and never got too angry when my sister and I used a swear word. Like most people, my parents understood that some language was inappropriate in certain settings and passed this on to my sister and I. Profanity has been something I thought about a lot since an incident that occurred in my fourth grade class. I don't remember exactly what made me say it, but I said offhandedly at one point "what the hell?". I didn't see this as a bad thing, I was expressing disbelief at a situation. All of a sudden I was getting berated by my teacher and 3-4 students for using the "H-E-Double hockey sticks" word. I couldn't believe it. Hell wasn't a curse word to me. I was puzzled by the idea that a word could be offensive to someone. I had never given it much thought before that. I just took it as granted that some words are "bad" because that was what I was told. This eventually led to me questioning other aspects of what I had been taught, and why (an aspect of myself which persists to this day).

 This was a valuable lesson, and has led to some interesting discussions. The conclusion I eventually came to was that "curse words" were arbitrary. Most of these words have to do with bodily functions and parts, and I would argue are "bad" because of this because we live in a mostly puritanical society in which bodily functions are shamed, and morality from personal belief is inflicted on others. There are, however, words though that slip through this censoring in modern culture: "Scientific terms" (Breasts or mammary glands instead of Tits), euphemisms (beanbag instead of ball-sack), and words that are "softer" in terms of how it is pronounced (poo/shoot instead of shit, shit sounds "sharper"). In most cases these are fine for use by most people, but are still "bad" to people who find talking about anything "personal" taboo. The fact that there are words that are acceptable in colloquial speech, even though they have the exact same meaning, means to me that, for whatever reason, we decided that these "curse words" are not to be used in public settings.

 These words serve purposes other than the base definitions they point too, and this is why we see them continue to thrive instead of die out. They feel good to use, they can make people laugh (which feeds into the last reason), they are cathartic for pain (both physical and mental), and they are fucking great for adding punch to a statement. That last one has the most weight in my opinion. I can use a word that everyone knows to make a statement hit harder. These words don't just make people listen, they are huge in terms of meaning. They add a colloquial context to a statement that give it more depth, then if I were to use a normal word. I would argue that context and intent are more important than the words you use. Words cannot be inherently bad since they are symbolic of a concept, and not of a moral stance.

 Essentially what I am trying to say is this: People who care about cursing enough to tell you that you talk like a lower class (in fact higher class people tended to curse more in studies than people in the lower classes, because the people trying to ascend social ladders wanted to be on their best behavior to appear more like higher class people: also fuck people who judge people based on their income class), lower intelligence(intelligence has nothing to do with it as far as I know because I couldn't find any studies from reputable sources that showed this), or are morally corrupting of youth (kids learn these words from their parents mostly anyway) are trying to force their moral opinion of something onto you. This is wrong. Just because they find the aesthetics of your speech to be bad, doesn't mean they get to tell you how to act. As I said, words are morally neutral, so by trying to drag them into that realm, they are being overly controlling of people they have no right to do so with. In Short: Fuck those guys. Judge for yourselves.

 Also, if you have any response to this, please comment: I would love to have good discussions take place on the topics we talk about here so please add any information you want to (sources are appreciated). My only request is follow Wil Wheaton's advice and don't be a dick.

 Sources: I did some research before writing this and found a few articles that have some good/interesting information on profanity. The ones that I used as sources in this post are linked bellow. I highly suggest you read them.
Time Magazine
psychologicalscience.org
theguardian.com

Man, Fuck People.

Rich people especially. I know Brian was down to start this of light, but he is not me.

I'm angry and hateful and made of poorly drawn action lines. For those of you who haven't kept up with the murder gnomes in my head; this is what's got me riled. In case links make you nervous That is the story of Robert H. Richards IV, heir of the Du Pont Corporation getting off with a gentle caress of the wrist after admitting to sexually assaulting his infant son and raping his very young daughter. His defense consisted of essentially two prongs. First that his rape and molestation of his children was an accident and he felt mighty sorry about it; and second that being a 6'4" 250lb rich white man prison wouldn't be kind to him.

 I will freely and gleefully concede the second point. Prison isn't a kind place, especially for kid fuckers; it isn't supposed to be. There's been a good deal of discussion on classifying pedophilia; some people try to make the claim that its a sexual orientation and try to condemn or excuse it on that front. Others, including the APA categorize it as a paraphilic condition.

 What pedophilia is isn't really my area of expertise. While Richards' behavior is horrifying it isn't the part that set me off, there are sick people all over the world. That part that sent me off was that it was largely hand-waved away legally. The man has lived his entire life milking a massive trust fund and perhaps the first time he stood a chance of facing any kind of negative consequence he made a sad face and threw money at it till it went away. I know it's a well beaten equine corpse but we can't keep letting people with money get away with shit. Something has to be done, and I really don't think anyone wants to hear my suggestions.

-Eshi

You've got to make yourself laugh

Hello, and welcome to Kinda Whatevs. A blog, whose name is both ironic and literal at the same time. My name is Brian, and my compatriot Eshi and I will be posting from time to time on whatever we feel like talking about. I wanted to start us off on a light note, with a couple things that we like to do for fun when we are bored.
  1: adding the phrase "saved my marriage" to nouns or subject for amusing results. We tend to use an "old man" voice, and in the stereotypical kind of old-man-from-any-comedy-dispensing-generalized-advice-to-a-younger-person way exclaim that X saved my marriage.
Here are some amusing examples:
  Wu Tang Clan... saved my marriage.
  Crystal Meth... saved my marriage.
 Stuff like that. Its a fun way of wasting some time with a friend, or by yourself when you get bored.

  2: I like to do this when I read articles: add the phrase "There were no survivors" to the end of puff pieces, or similar types of articles, in which the phrase would not normally go.
Its kind of dark, but slightly amusing when you read an article on a news website:
 "36 hours in Jamaica" - there were no survivors
. "College Classes Use Arts to Brace for Climate Change"- there were no survivors.

 Both fine articles, but made a little more amusing with some dark humor.

  3: "Bro-ing" adding Bro in the place of certain rhyming syllables in words during a conversation to try to be obnoxious. Using people and or professions seems to work best.
  Brosef Stalin
  Bromigo
  Brosephus, Brostorian of the Broman empire.
 To be honest, I tried to think of something funny for this, but out of context they all seemed odd, so here is comedian Baron Vaughn showing us all how its done: Bro

 By the way, I suggest listening to more of his stuff, its great. All of these so far have been in jokes to my group of friends, and taking them out of that context seems to make them unfunny. As I wrote this I realized quickly that these are funny to us, not necessarily because they are comedic gold, but because it is something that you and friends share together and laugh at. I don't want to say that you should do these things with your friends because every group of friends has these types of inside jokes, and they are mostly unique to them. Outsiders may find them funny, but more often then not they lack the contextual emotional connection that is in the minds of the people who are part of that group. I just wanted to point out that you should appreciate them for what they are, a construct of your friendship that represents that connection. Something that, while may not be completely unique to your group, is something that is special. Also, if you try any of of these, and it makes you laugh, then my job is done.