social services

I wait in the corner
barefoot woman walks in
her hands shake
she sits down next to me
arms crossed
she says, "don't be embarassed
I didn't feel like shoes"
I say, "I'm not,
are you alright?"

"I need to go to the hospital," she mumbles
"do you need any help?" I say
her face startles
like she's not used to people hearing her
"this is fucking bullshit
I hate this place
what number are they on?"
"they skip around
I think they forgot me"
"you should go up to a window and tell them"
"I'm patient"
"I'm not"

tattoo man stomps in
knuckles drag on tile
he sees me
I see him
he kisses her
he says, "I love you"
she says, "I love you too"
like she's convincing someone
he leaves

"why are you here?" she asks
the weight of society in her tone
I say "I watch my two kids
ex-wife wanted a career
then she left because I wasn't successful"
"why aren't you successful?"
"because I watch kids"
our eyes meet
barefoot woman says
"I'll never understand women"
we smile

they call my number
I fill out forms
as I drive away
tattoo man
rides his bicycle around
he sees me
I see him
I wonder if he thinks
that when he's mounted her tonight
she'll think of me



...

everyone has infinite value

a piece of bread
with the potential energy
of 100 calories
has the value of a few cents

your mind
has the potential energy
of infinite ideas
of infinite words
of infinite power
of infinite value

why do you allow others
to treat you as less than infinite
why do you allow yourself
to treat you as less than infinite

I see your infinite value
it blinds me
this world of billions
of supernova

how different the world looks
when you see everyone’s value
like stars in daytime
as no one is worthless

do not let anyone give you
nothing for you
you are worth infinite value
you are worth living

you say, “how can we be
worth infinite value
we are common
like sand”

I say, “water is infinite value
in a desert
your mind has infinite value
in this universe”

you say, “what of the ones
who treat me as less
than infinite
what of them”

I say, “why believe them
they believe you are worthless
believe my infinity
as I believe in yours”

...

Beliefs are Monkey Bars

beliefs are monkey bars
you hang on
everyone hangs on
you look up at the sky
you think
“if I hang on long enough I’ll go there”
you look down
you think
“if I let go I’ll land in the tanbark”
(no one likes tanbark)
(it’s pokey)
you look around
everyone hangs on
you hang on
your hands hurt

you hear a voice
that voice is me
I say
“let go of the monkey bars”
you say
“what an idiot”
I say
“hey, I’m not an idiot, let go of the monkey bars”
you say
“I’ll fall in the tanbark”
(no one likes tanbark)
(it’s pokey)
I say
“no you won’t”
you say
“yes I will”
I say
“no you won’t”
you say
“what about gravity”
I say
“there’s no gravity in your mind”
you think
you look around
everyone hangs on
your hands hurt
you decide

a) you hang on
until you die
and you let go anyway

b) you let go
you let go of the past
you let go of the future
you let go of prejudice
you let go of preconceptions
you let go of power
you let go of control
you let go of words
you let go of identity
you let go of hate
you fall
and fall
and fall
and fall
and never hit the ground
because there’s no tanbark
(no one likes tanbark)
(it’s pokey)
you float around
with me
and the rest of the dreamers
and imagine a world without monkey bars
and falling


…

Why Humans Never Want To Contact Aliens

…

Imagine sometime in the far future we pick up some type of signal from an alien civilization.  Since we mastered harnessing an infinite amount of energy using our perpetual motion engines, it’s pretty easy for us to hop in our spaceships and break the speed of light.

Once there we scan for life and find none.  Puzzled, we instead find that the entire planet is in a constant state of creation and destruction due to out of control chemical chain reactions.  In addition, the harmful radiation from the nearby star, and the corrosive gases in the atmosphere would make life as we know it impossible.  And yet, we are still receiving crude repetitive transmissions from this planet.

The captain orders a team sent to the surface to ascertain the planet from the ground.  Our anti-matter suits should be effective at reflecting any sort of hostile matter or radiation that would kill us outright.  We beam down to the planet, and what we find is horrendous:

Everything on the planet is hostile.  From the tiniest groups of molecules to the largest object, anything that moves on the planet will chemically assimilate anything else.  Though we are repulsed, we are vaguely curious.  From razor sharp blades, to pointed objects, to poisons, to lethal traps and exothermic reactions, everything has a way to consume energy. 

Fearing for our lives, we beam back to our ship, carefully decontaminate the team, then place a warning force field around the entire solar system.  We build a science station with a nova bomb on a nearby planet in case the contagion spreads, and then hastily head back home.

What would have happened had this planet been exposed to infinite energy?  It’s only logical that the chain reaction would have spread infinitely, consuming the entire universe.  Photosynthesis and cellular respiration must be quarantined for the safety of the universe.

That’s why this is called, oh wait, I wrote the wrong title.  This should be: “Why Aliens Never Want to Contact Humans.”


…

meek poor crowds sake of /
shall comforted under god /
opened blessed heart

...

Words from the Bible.  Written for dVerse Poets Pub.

If The People

If the people
in the steeple
love the laypeople
and the laypeople
love the townspeople
and the townspeople
love the congresspeople
and the congresspeople
love the businesspeople
and the businesspeople
love the salespeople
and the salespeople
love the tradespeople
and the tradespeople
love the craftspeople
and the craftspeople
love the little people
and the little people
love the no people
then we sheep
might reap
what we sow.

Universal Zombies Themes, Part 2

You wouldn't know it from outside my blog, but for some reason, this post has the most page hits of anything I've written so far. Apparently some college professor somewhere has a class with an emphasis on the walking dead, so lots of sweaty students are typing "zombie themes" into Google and ending up here. Don't worry about it, I've been there. Your secret is safe with me.

I'm also fully aware (as it has been thus since Shakespeare's day) that the players should conform to the wishes of their audience, so here is another thought on zombies as a trope. Steal it...ahem, quote me and provide a proper MLA style citation. Or whatever. Just be aware that the dusty dude with glasses and a red pen can use the internet, too.

So here goes:

For the majority of movie history, zombies have been predominately one type: Sad. They wail, they shuffle around, they don't particularly look like a fun lot. I'd even go so far as to say they were depressed. I mean, maybe that's why they eat brains, just to make themselves feel a tad better before they burst apart at the seams. They aren't even really that scary, since they are so freaking slow. I mean, one dude with a baseball bat can take out at least twenty without any effort. Come on Hollywood, hear that? It's called suspension of disbelief shattering.

Then around 2002 we had a new type of zombie, the angry type. You can thank 28 Days Later for that one. Finally, a film with zombies in it that is actually scary. Rage zombies are pissed off, and oh yeah, they can run really fast. They are also pumped with adrenaline, so that means they are like undead PCP junkies with super strength. Think Incredible Hulk.

Still, rage zombies, while fun to watch, aren't necessarily built for one of the major tools in filmmaking: Suspense. It's tough to build up to a scare in an audience when the zombies are so stinking fast, and your entire movie changes to a shlocky surprise flick at every turn if the zombies aren't laying in wait for an ambush somewhere.

Okay, so we have sad and angry zombies, what are we missing? What major emotional state has been yet to be explored fully by zombie filmmakers as a whole? I'll tell you what:

Happiness.

That's right. There should be happy zombies. Think Wall-E. Think of zombies that actually wanted to become zombies in the first place. Imagine the themes possible in an exploration of that. You'd have protagonists that would have to wrestle with the fundamental questions of an eternal reward, right here on Earth, that would be better than living as a "normal" human. Let me list a few places where a movie like this could be applicable to our modern world:

• video games (particularly MMOs)
• religion (specifically heaven)
• pharmaceuticals (a pill that makes you a happy zombie)
• humans as secondary lifeforms (alien or machine or whatever zookeepers, think Matrix)
• advertising
• government
• movies (talk about self-referential)
• relationships (eHarmony type sites)

That's just a drop in the bucket of what I'm talking about. Sure, there have been movies that tangentially explore these themes, but minus the zombies. Get some gory zombies running around with giant smiles on their faces, have Woody Harrelson say, "Man, I'd sure like to be happy again and see my little pup," and get some drama going with this stuff. Add in some clowns for giggles, just to be sure.

So get to it Hollywood. Make some freaking Happiness Zombies.

RE: 3pm Happiness Updates

I'm happy that I prayed to God today for the second time since I was in my early teens.

The first time was a week ago, and it surprised me: that deep down, underneath all the intellectual garbage, I really am a theist.

Before that, I think I hadn't really prayed to God since my pipe-smoking grandpa had died, one uncle died to a brain tumor, and the other uncle was struck by lightning. I've been gripped in the "why pray to a God that doesn't care about you?" type mentality for about twenty years now, and the dam just broke last week.

Now I'm not really talking about a corporeal deity that floats around on clouds, or any other version that mankind has cooked up over our convoluted history. The God I am talking to is a personal, yet universal Good. Maybe universal is the wrong word, since I mean ever-present, but not necessarily absolute in the rigid sense of the word.

What I prayed about is private, as is any conversation I have with myself, but one thing that specifically stands out in my mind is that I no longer care whether I logically believe in a God, or if there is or is not proof of his existence. What I do care about is that I need to believe in an influence for Good in the world. I need to believe in Love, and Patience, and Compassion, and Tolerance, and Honesty, and Hope. At the core of my being, I absolutely want these things to exist, and I would like the resolution to help make these abstract concepts a reality. I feel that the universe is a place where these things can and should exist, and if that means I need to talk the crazy person talk by talking to myself, then so be it.

So I prayed, and I'm happy about that.

Get Your Damn T.V.s Off My Pump

There's a Shell station near here, and some genius thought it would be a super idea to stick televisions on the pump. I mean, in the three minutes I'm getting gas, I doubt I'll have time watch an entire episode of anything interesting, so I'm guessing these are designed to fill up my head with advertising.

That's a brilliant thought, Mr. Executive! Buy televisions, spend money on installing them, powering them, and upkeeping them, then overcharge my gas, and tick me off in the process, so I'm less likely to want to visit your establishment!

Since you are too dumb to realize what you are really selling, let me explain it to you: The entire point of getting gas is to encounter a small slice of time, a meditative bubble, where we have nowhere to go, and nothing to do, where we wait for a number to magically count up from zero gallons to our personal capacity for enlightenment.

After I've slid the card, stuck the nozzle in the tank, and picked 87 cause I'm cheap, I'm in charge. Let me say that again: I'm in charge. I want to lean up against my car and do nothing. I want to check my windshield. I want to look over my car for dents. I want to clean off the birdshit. I get to pick, because I'm in freaking charge, and your T.V.s are getting in the freaking way.

We need moments of respite in this crazy world, and pumping gas is one of those few islands in the storm. If you fill it up with inane babble about your stupid credit card, then you have ruined the experience. You have annihilated a section of my life that I appreciate, and you need to know that there will be a natural consequence for your disregard of our merchant/customer relationship--

I see that Chevron across the street has no televisions.

A Kind of Immortality

I get haunted by ghosts all the time.

Now before you call Ghost Hunters, I'm talking about the abstract kind. These are the empty husks of memories that follow me around and punch me in the gut when I'm doing something else. I'll be minding my own business, driving to breakfast while listening to my wife and kids, and I'll see a soccer field, and all of a sudden I'm possessed, and apparitions from when I was a scrawny kid with acne will bombard me. I'll be back in time when I was a wallflower, and I'd avoid the ball, until the coach told me to get more aggressive. With sweaty phantoms of blue and yellow all around me, I will growl, just like I did on that grass. I will be angry. I will be an animal, and I will kick that goddamn spiritual soccer ball in that goddamn ethereal goal.

Until with a jolt, I must stop the car, just like how the referee said, "Hey kid, you can't growl, that's a warning. You do it again I'll kick you off the field." I am no longer bewitched, and the ghosts have faded.

Though I can still feel them, as they swarm beneath the surface, and all of the people I've known, who are dead and gone to me now, who are just figments of my imagination, will continue to live on through me. Perhaps there is not a heaven. Perhaps there is not a hell. Perhaps there is no where we truly go when we die, and everything we've ever done will mean nothing in the far distant future.

For now, however, those who have passed on from my life exist in me, and one day, when my physical form is gone, just as I have been haunted, perhaps others will be haunted by me.

A Different Sort of Penis

The wife went to a "Future of Social Gaming" seminar, to which I replied, "Tell the geniuses at the social gaming thing to make people suck less."

I was half serious, and as she always does, she ignores me when I'm being...being, well like me. Then last night, I'm playing League of Legends, which is a free-to-play competitive PvP game, and the dicks arrived. They started using the N-word, and dropping F-bombs, which is shorthand for, I'm a dick, and I'm going to let you know I'm a dick, and there is nothing you can do about my dickishness.

Then they started "feeding" which is a type of griefing in which a player lets the opposing team kill them over and over again, which in turn makes the opposing team more powerful because kills give experience and gold. So not only are the dicks being dicks with words, their actions are dicky as well.

So the half-serious quip becomes truth.

Now, to be fair to LoL, they have a reporting system (which is ineffective due to the number of complaints vs. the number of employees at their company), and they are implementing a democracy of sorts called the Tribunal System, where we the players may judge other players. Hopefully all of that works out. Perhaps heads will roll, and Viva La LoL! will save us from the dicks, but honestly, that is just sweeping the dicks to another place, somewhere else where they can continue to be dicks to other people (hopefully each other).

My observation about most attempts to corral the dicks away from "normal people" is that they tend to treat the symptoms. Yes, suspensions and bans work, about as well as prison does, which means it's too little too late. As proposed by Penny Arcade in this comic, what gives the dicks their power is the anonymous nature of social gaming. I mean, think about it, how can something be social if the people in question have no idea who they are being social with? Wouldn't that be called "anonymous gaming" or perhaps "gaming with strangers?"

Though the quick fix of attaching your real life information to your game avatar has serious issues, as evidenced by the World of Warcraft Real ID fiasco. So on one hand, we have anonymous dicks, and on the other, we have dicks IRL.

So I'll rehash here what I told my wife (seriously this time), because the entire future of social gaming depends on it--

Hey Geniuses: Fix the Dick Problem.

Contentment Defined

Happiness <---> Unhappiness

As I alluded to in my last post on the subject, the above sliding scale is wrong. By this I mean, ineffective, counterproductive, and unlikely to make anyone anything other than ticking time bombs of self-destruction. For if you are not happy, then you must be unhappy, and since there are so few moments in your life when you are happy, then you must be unhappy the rest of the time.

Remember, I'm using these definitions:

Happiness = Pleasure + Triumph
Unhappiness = Pain + Grief

My prediction for everyone on the planet (and if I can't make that assumption, which is a fair objection, then I can at least make it for myself) is that there are relatively a few moments in our day to day lives where we are feeling true pleasure or triumph. So if you aren't happy, then by all accounts, if you only use the happiness/unhappiness scale, then you must be unhappy. You might not feel it, you might be doing your daily routines, wondering what is wrong with your life, your job, your kids, your hobbies, yourself: why you don't feel happy, and if that means you really are unhappy, underneath it all.

I propose that your life is not wrong, and that you are just fine, because your spectrum should look like this:

Happiness <---> CONTENTMENT <---> Unhappiness

I have put the middle term in all caps, because 90% of your life is smack dab in the middle. You are only up in the clouds 5% of the time, and you are only down in the dirt 5% of the time. The rest of your life is in that middle ground, where everything tastes like water, where you aren't too hot, aren't too cold, where you might not get what you want, but you might just get what you need.

Once you reorient yourself, once you stop seeking out the fleeting wisps of happiness, or rolling with the hard knocks, then you can perceive that who you are, no matter what you do, is an invisible path. Your life is the intangible middle ground. You will not remember it tomorrow, and you will not notice it all around you, until you stop, and pay attention to your contentment.

What is contentment? Well, let's define it further:

Physical Contentment = Flow

What is this? Flow? That sounds dumb. And yet, when an athlete is acting and reacting, without thought of failure, when they move like water, when they flow, then they are truly content. They are in the zone. When you are brushing your teeth, or vacuuming your carpet, or cleaning your toilet, or driving, or eating, or watching your kids play, or whatever concrete action you are doing when your life is moving on and on and on into the future, you are flowing with it and around it and through it, without thought, with and without effort, and you are water. Your life is mostly flow. It goes on, and you only notice the rapids and rocks in the river, while you ignore the river itself.

Abstract Contentment = Meditation

Huh? So we are all monks now? Do we have to sit cross-legged and chant "oooom?" If it helps you, sure, but I'm talking more the general use of the term, where your brain is occupied, but neither filled with triumph or grief. This is the place where daydreams go, or where you might think about the task at hand, or you might not be thinking at all. Your brain might be in idle, or it might be supercharged, working on your doctorate thesis. The key thing to notice here, is that we are talking about your day to day thoughts, combined with where your brain is when it is not thinking at all.

So where do we go from here? Now that we have a framework for contentment, we can notice it, and strive for it. We do not need to buy that car, or fuck that person, or wallow in our misery. Our goals can be a sustainable self, with contentment as our goal, and while the ups and downs of happiness and unhappiness might frame our lives, we are secure in the knowledge that we are content, and that everything is just fine after all.

Love, Leads To

Love, leads to
sex, leads to
babies, leads to
overpopulation, leads to
scarcity, leads to
bickering, leads to
war, leads to
death, leads to
hate, leads to
exhaustion, leads to
reparation, leads to
forgiveness, leads to
peace, leads to
love, leads to

Seven Ways to Fail at Twitter

I felt the need to provide a counterpoint to this.

Since I'm an introvert, I have a knack for ticking people off. Through much trial and error, I have found the best ways to ostracize myself, not only from Twitter, but pretty much any gathering of humans. I currently have 23 followers and falling, and will probably have even less after this post. Huzzah!

If you wish to retain your reclusive nature, here are the seven best ways to fail utterly at Twitter:

1) Don't care about other people. This seems obvious, but it can be deceivingly difficult to have complete apathy for other humans. (Notice I'm not talking about antipathy here. This is indifference, not disgust.) Don't take an interest in anyone else, and hopefully, they will take the hint and get their attention elsewhere.

2) Don't read tweets/posts/blogs by anyone else. People only care about themselves, and if you start reading about what they think, then they are more likely to think you care about them.
See 1).

3) Never respond to anyone by name. People like attention, and if you give it to them, they might stick around, which is appalling in the grand scheme of things. In other words, if you do read what other people write, then for Pete's sake, don't tell them you did so. Though it is far better to only write about yourself, and preferably in abstract ways that mean little to anyone but yourself.

4) Talk about your cat/kids/poetry. Besides caring about themselves, people only really like controversy. Think train wrecks or beautiful people doing dumb things, and do something absolutely the opposite. I suggest linking pictures of waterfalls. Like so.

5) Never ever use "#". Using a hashtag is like an indoctrination tattoo that brands you as a member of a tribe. And tribes are made of people. And people are bad.

6) Play the Devil's advocate. Argue...I mean, debate people about everything they care about. Preferably if you can maintain a cool composure. Everyone hates a hothead troll, but people loathe the guy who never insults everyone, who reasonably shreds everything you care about to ribbons, and who always seems to be right, while making you look and feel like an idiot.

7) Never ask for the opinions of other people. If you ask for comments, that implies you will read what they write, which goes against 2).

Hopefully this post will be helpful to the frustrated introverts among us who have been doing this thing all wrong from the beginning, and will teach them the fundamental tools to sever interpersonal relationships, so that we can find fulfillment with our intrapersonal communication.

Dragon Age and the Tea Cups

Whenever you make a character for a roleplaying game, it's a part of you. You pick a name, you generally pick the appearance, and you might even go so far as to pick the personality or profession of the character. This means you are emotionally invested right out the gate, unlike a movie or book where you have to learn to care about the characters involved.

So when I played Dragon Age: Origins (yes, I'm a cheapskate and waited until Steam had the "Complete Edition" for $25) and my male elf mage was able to choose to have sex with a male elf rogue, it effected me more than I thought it would.

I mean, a part of me chose to have sex with a virtual male. That is a pretty big deal for me. I mean, I have no choice when the dudes in Brokeback Mountain get in on, because I'm a passive observer, but here I am, actively choosing a virtual homosexual relationship. Here's an analogy:

Say we are at Disneyland. I don't like the Tea Cups. Don't get me wrong, if other people ride the Tea Cups, that's fine with me. That's their business. It doesn't hurt me when they ride the Tea Cups, and it doesn't seem to hurt them, so I respect it. I don't hate the Tea Cups, I just don't like them. Vice versa, if I like the Matterhorn, I wouldn't expect the people who like the Tea Cups to absolutely like the Matterhorn, but I would expect them to respect that I do.

So here I am, playing a game, and bam, a part of me chooses to ride the Tea Cups. (Of course, it's not the same thing, since it was more akin to watching a home video of someone who snuck a camera on the ride, but you get the picture.)

While I was watching two male elves have sex (one of whom was me!), I felt aversion. Now don't get me wrong. This wasn't hatred. I just didn't like it. In the same way that I would get nausea from riding the Tea Cups, and not like that experience, I also did not like this experience.

However, I am not the type to start carrying torches and berate Bioware and Electronic Arts for putting homosexuality in their game. Far from it. I'm self-reflexive enough to wonder why I felt the way I did. Here are the two points I took away from that experience:

• If a part of me chooses to be homosexual, and I don't like it, then that means I'm not homosexual. Which sounds obvious, but we are treading into the future, and these virtual spaces we have set up can blur the lines, and it is better to explore these concepts, rather than ignore the elephant in the room. Especially when other fellow heterosexuals often turn their aversion for homosexuality into hatred, which is counterproductive to society.
  
• Second, I wonder if homosexuals feel the same aversion whenever they make an RPG character and choose to have a heterosexual relationship. If that is the case, then I'm sorry that there are an overabundance of heterosexual relationships in RPGs, and I wish for a future where there are more games like Dragon Age, not less.

Fish and Religion

In Texas, there is a church on every street corner. I would even guess that there are more churches than schools. In neighborhoods where people live in shacks, the house of God is a mansion.

Now before I get too far into this post, I'd like to be clear about my intent. I'm not trying to be judgmental about this. I don't want to get into a war over religion, at least not with this particular thought. This is not a criticism on religion, but an observation and hypothesis of why I think Texas is overflowing with it.

It's really quite simple: Texas is a huge, flat place. The sky seems like it goes on forever and ever, and in any direction you look, all you see is land and more land, that goes on forever and ever and ever. I've now traveled up and down southeastern Texas and it is mile after mile after mile of horizontalness. It's exactly like living in Flatland. (Granted, south and east Texas isn't all of Texas, but it's where most of the people are. Also, west Texas looks pretty flat when you fly over it.)

Contrast this to where I live, Silicon Valley. The most obvious thing is that I am bounded by hills. I see limits, the sky is diminutive in comparison. If I want to, I can actually reach a mountain without much effort. I have the option to get somewhere, and I am never ever lost.

Just imagine the psychological ramifications of this:

• In one land, a person is insignificant, with no end in sight, with limitless surroundings, and where it is pointless to go anywhere because everything is exactly the same, no matter where you go. The smaller you are, the more likely you are to notice how colossal everything else is, and be more inclined to prioritize the observance of an infinite being.
  
• In the other, a person can easily reach landmarks, goals are achievable, and the sky does not intimidate. Horizons are varied, and thus things may change. The bigger you are, the more likely you believe that the heavens are in your grasp, and be more inclined to neglect the observance of an infinite being.
  

In essence, in Texas, you are a small fish in a big fish bowl, and in California, you are a big fish in a small fish bowl.

Alien Hippies

Where are all the aliens?

This is the fundamental question behind the Fermi paradox, which in essence states that we should see some evidence for extraterrestrial life, given the large number of stars in the observable universe (70 sextillion, woo!).

So I am going to flip the question around, and assume some possible scenario where an alien civilization might rise up out of the galactic muck and see our universe as its own plaything.

• Assumption #1: There is or will be a supremely advanced species. This civilization should do any of the following: spontaneously generate matter and energy, is immortal, and can perceive and travel through space, across dimensions, and even between universes.
• Assumption #2: Time travel is possible and has been mastered by the species in Assumption #1.
• Assumption #3: The species in Assumption #1 is aggressive. Not necessarily in the sense of being destructive or bloodthirsty, but willing to expand to fill other niches, like every form of life on Earth.

So if all three of these assumptions are true, then one of two options opens up: either this advanced population is an alien race, or is us at some point in the future.

If it's the former, then why are we still here? If a hostile alien race that has existed for many lifetimes of other universes can time travel, then it can surely jump to when we were defenseless single-celled organisms and destroy all life on Earth for the entire existence of this universe. Or perhaps they can foresee that we are not and never will be a threat, either because we mushroom cloud ourselves, or some natural disaster like a comet destroys all life on Earth, or at least all sentient life.

Let's look at the other option: the most advanced species in the entire history of all universes is us (or at least, an evolved version of us.) I find that rather difficult to believe. Not only are there untold numbers of stars and planets in our observable universe that are older than our sun and Earth, but we are just scratching the surface with our predictions for other possible universes, which could be nearing an infinite number that may have existed for near an infinite amount of time. The likelihood that we are or will be the most advanced species ever is pretty slim.

For sake of optimism, let's reject that we (or some other species on our planet) will blow ourselves up, and that we will not be able to foresee and avert possible natural disasters. Let's also assume the anthropic bias that lets us be the center of the known universe is also incorrect.

So therefore, if both options are unlikely (either aggressive aliens or us), I think that at least one of my three assumptions is invalid. So either:

• Counter-Assumption #1: There will never be a supremely advanced species.
  
• Counter-Assumption #2: Time travel is never possible.
  
• Counter-Assumption #3: The advanced species in Assumption #1 is not aggressive.

Of the above, I find that counter-assumption 1 and 2 are the most likely to be eliminated . If there are countless universes with countless galaxies with countless solar systems with countless ways to create sentient life in ways that we can only dream of, then the probability of at least one supremely advanced species that can master the laws of the universes becomes almost a certainty.

Also, the very idea that time travel is not possible is pretty silly, especially considering the idea that monkeys barely out of the jungle have theorized that space and time are perpendicular sides of the same coin.

So let's look at #3. Why are species on our planet aggressive? Why are they genetically programmed to reproduce, and fill an ecological niche at the expense of another species? Why do tigers have fangs and claws, rose bushes have thorns, and people kill each other in all sorts of creative ways?

Easy. Scarcity. Life on our planet evolved with limited resources. Every species on this rock fights tooth and nail for every scrap of food, which most likely is some other species that we happened to tooth and nail to death. We are bounded by our evolutionary heritage to kill or be killed, and either dominate our environment or have our environment dominate us.

However, what if the advanced civilization in Assumption #1 has already fixed their problem with limited resources? What if they have solved all hunger, have no need of land, can generate any sort of matter or energy at will, and have tinkered with their own genetic code to limit their own exponential population growth?

What if they are no longer aggressive, either because their evolutionary track was not as cutthroat as ours, or because their technology solved the problem of scarcity ages ago, and thus no longer need to dominate the universe, let alone us?

Notice, that I'm not saying that the species in Assumption #1 is benevolent. I don't imagine they would be particularly thrilled to have competition, at least not from us if we cannot conquer our version of scarcity. Though perhaps they would at least be interested to see our evolution from single celled organism to universe traveling civilization, if we can control our unchecked aggression first so we don't annihilate ourselves in the process.

So if there is an advanced civilization, and we want to meet them someday, then I suggest that the number one priority for our civilization--besides not blowing ourselves to smithereens--is to master our control of available resources without exceeding it, and figure out a way to transition ourselves from an aggressive dominating civilization to a non-aggressive, non-dominating one.

How to Detect Equilibrium

I've been thinking about water, and how it has no taste.

I mean that's weird right, something that covers about 70% of the surface of the Earth, that is absolutely inseparable from life as we know it, and we are even made of it, or at least 50-60% of us is made of it, and the sense capable of detecting things that we ingest is incapable of identifying it?

I mean, if something was so important, don't you think we would have evolved to notice it? Sure, we can distinguish other substances in the water, like sugar, salt, or alcohol, but the actual water flavor remains elusive.

On a similar note, what does air taste like? Sure, we can detect a lot of poisonous gases, mostly fumes we may have experienced in the wild, like smoke or methane, things that could have been dangerous had we stayed in them for too long, but the air we breathe, moment to moment, is an undetectable phantasm.

So water and air, two substances that we are 100% dependent on, we cannot sense. Isn't that completely counterintuitive? I would think that we would be able to detect both of those, in addition to everything else, not everything else minus those two things.

Granted, we can see and touch water. However, the simple explanation for that one is that we've evolved to fit in another environment, one that is surrounded by air. We can't see air, and we can't feel air unless we move or the air moves. If we were fish, I'd wager we couldn't see or feel water either.

So once we moved on land, and being surrounded by water became a hazard for us, we quickly evolved to sense water by sight and touch, but we remained blissfully ignorant to how water tastes.

Now that I mentioned environment, let's move on to something that isn't a substance. Let's talk about temperature. Can you feel heat and cold? Certainly. Can you feel what a comfortable temperature is? No way. In fact, we don't even have a word for what that would be. Is it warm? Cool? Lukewarm? Nope. All of those indicate some amount of either positive or negative from your base temperature.

So we can't taste water or air, we can't feel motionless air or an ideal temperature, and we can't see air. What does this tell us about ourselves? When we can't physically notice the things that are most essential to us, when the fundamental structure of our perception excludes perceiving the very nature of our existence?

What ramifications does this have? I mean, we can only experience gravity if we jump. So what about space? What about time? Can we ever see, taste, or touch either of those? Would we have to be a fish out of water, or rather a person out of space and time in order to sense those? These yardsticks that we consider intrinsic to our nature, can we only ever truly sense them if we transcend those dimensions?

Leaping from philosophy to psychology, can we ever genuinely experience contentment? Notice, I'm not talking happiness here, but the type of personal equilibrium that is the equivalent of not tasting water. Is that state of being the enlightenment that many have searched for, but few have ever found? Is this what the Buddha meant when he talked about the void?

Does the path to true enlightenment (or contentment, or fulfillment, or whatever word you want to call it) require realizing that everything tastes like water?

Fight Fire With Ice

I wrote this after I was called out for using the word "irregardless" in a forum post:

Some people might be interested in this link. Or this one. Or this one.

Then again they might not. They might believe it is their duty to point out any flaw in any person at every opportunity, irregardless of the circumstances, especially in a thread devoted to an entirely unrelated issue, in the hopes that their efforts will exasperate the discussion, and bring the entire enterprise crashing down in flames.

Luckily, I am made of ice, and do not care one whit how I spell things, or what people think about how I spell things. I realize that you are trying to help me learn how to spell, because it is obvious I am in dire need of such services, however, I am perfectly capable of finding an online dictionary myself. So thank you for your trouble, and let's endeavor to keep this discourse on track.

What I Was Going to Post

So I was writing on the Dungeons and Dragons forums, and a troll appeared. He said this:

"but by that you do admit that knights ARE indeed optimizable, therefore the basis of your argument is false and as my esteemed colleague states www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY"

My first instinct was to write this, which I think might have been against their code of conduct, so instead of replying with it, I'll instead post it here:

Your esteemed colleague failed at reading comprehension, and now you are implying that knights are only optimizable with builds that contain one race and/or one feat?

Okay, great! Good answer! Of course, I already knew that, and nowhere in my post is the assertion that knights are not optimizable with a half-elf or mark of storm, but of course, that would require reading, which I realize is an ambitious request in this day and age. Perhaps I could flash a lot of bright lights, maybe bang some drums, and then it will be easier for the inattentive among us.

Or perhaps you aren't saying that, and are instead jumping to conclusions, because you would rather see the simple answer rather than anything complex. Which I understand might be taxing on a brain's mental processes. Whew! Let's not think too hard! This is exhausting!

Or maybe you are trying to start an argument, which won't work either, because I'm not particularly prone to caring about what other people on the internet think about me or what I think, though of course, the more you can show me that you can spend more than 5 seconds considering something I've said, then I might be willing to entertain the notion of exchanging information with you.

Of course, I did not follow your youtube link, just as I didn't follow your colleague's link, because I lack a sense of humor, and because one day, in the distant future, all communication might one day be like this.

Though I'm sure your link is humorous!