On the 9th of August this year, Australian citizens will be asked to fill in a form detailing multiple areas of our daily lives. This is known as a Census, and it occurs every 5 years. This year, the Atheist Foundation of Australia is campaigning to encourage people to be honest with themselves and state on the Census that they are non-religious. This is very important, as currently Census data is used in support of funding religious organisations.
I have no qualms with people believing, but when politics becomes religious, things get scary. *cough* The inquisition *cough*. In this day and age, governments should be secular, in order to best support their country. Most people I've spoken to who claim to be religious really aren't. They just have been saying they are for so long that it's just stuck. The Australian 2011 Census will hopefully show that more then half of Australian Citizens are non-religious, as seems to be the case, though I do believe this is aiming a little high.
Check out their site, as well as this one. It goes into greater detail then I have here. I discovered these sites from a mutual follower of Atheist Propaganda. Check that out as well, it's very entertaining, and much more thought out then my own. Until I'm next sane,
crites evidentia logica.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sapiens: Rodents in Disguise
Everything we do as a race is horrid. We are like technological rats. We swarm into an area, eating and wasting our way through the natural resources, and screwing to the point where we need outside sources to sustain us. Instead of finding places to hollow out and live in, or burrowing underground, we build structures to live in, some of which could easily house 2 or 3 times as many people as they do. With growing unemployment and homelessness, I feel it's selfish of some to keep empty houses for the off chance they might pop 'round for the week this year.
There is a big difference though, aside from the size thing, between us and rats. We have a hierarchy. Within society we have people who effectively control others. The most effective of these are the governments. They control their populations, while making them believe they are free. HA! True freedom cannot exist, not if we are to survive. I do not dispute this, though I do understand it's not perfect. Rats over-populate then slowly die off, and even eat each other, when the food runs out. We grow our food, but what happens when our vital resources run out? Petrol is running low, and as one of our vital resources, we can see an example of the Human reaction. What happens? WAR! We kill each other for the smallest scrapes. Sure, there are some who are doing the smart thing, trying to come up with an alternative resource, but they are a minority, compared to the people who are attacking others, either to take control, or keep it.
I'm going insane. I've been thinking about this for a long time. Since before The Matrix came out. My inability to change anything is taking it's toll. I doubt I'll be posting particularly coherent things on here. Hell, even this post has no structure. Tomorrow, I'll open Pandora's box. I'll embrace this new found madness, and I'll see how it fares in my attempts to save the world.
I have a back-up plan. I doubt I'll be able to bring myself back from the black abyss of insanity, so I've brought in outside help, so in a week, I'll be back to ... relative normality. See you on the other side.
crites evidentia logica
There is a big difference though, aside from the size thing, between us and rats. We have a hierarchy. Within society we have people who effectively control others. The most effective of these are the governments. They control their populations, while making them believe they are free. HA! True freedom cannot exist, not if we are to survive. I do not dispute this, though I do understand it's not perfect. Rats over-populate then slowly die off, and even eat each other, when the food runs out. We grow our food, but what happens when our vital resources run out? Petrol is running low, and as one of our vital resources, we can see an example of the Human reaction. What happens? WAR! We kill each other for the smallest scrapes. Sure, there are some who are doing the smart thing, trying to come up with an alternative resource, but they are a minority, compared to the people who are attacking others, either to take control, or keep it.
I'm going insane. I've been thinking about this for a long time. Since before The Matrix came out. My inability to change anything is taking it's toll. I doubt I'll be posting particularly coherent things on here. Hell, even this post has no structure. Tomorrow, I'll open Pandora's box. I'll embrace this new found madness, and I'll see how it fares in my attempts to save the world.
I have a back-up plan. I doubt I'll be able to bring myself back from the black abyss of insanity, so I've brought in outside help, so in a week, I'll be back to ... relative normality. See you on the other side.
crites evidentia logica
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Directional Evolution
In the world today many things are openly verbal, and others are taboo. Homosexuality, whilst controversial, is openly verbal. So is genocide (although genocide is morally abhorrent). The mental state of a person is taboo. As was Eugenics. But now, recent breakthroughs in the field of molecular biology and genetics have begun to bring light back to the once popular ideal.
Eugenics is, on a basic level, the conscious identification and control of evolution, with a focus of humanity. This idea was hugely popular in the 1920's, where governments actually wrote legislation based on the misconception that the mentally ill were somehow inferior to the rest of the population. The euthanasia and sterilization have all but stopped, although there are places who do voluntary sterilizations. Eugenics met its apparent defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Nazi Germany did not outlaw eugenics. It legalised it, calling for the euthanizing of the mentally ill. It reached its peak when the concentration camps were opened. Millions of Jews and Gypsies were killed in less-than-humane ways, all in the name of the betterment of mankind. There is some debate as to whether Adolf Hitler started the death camps because he believed Jews and others were a detriment to society, or a threat to the Aryan race. In any case, whether or not eugenics is inherently evil, the methods employed in it's name were.
In the world today, a new form of Eugenics has formed. Designer babies are just one avenue a person can take to enhance your child to be slightly better than others. While this is not the only means, it is the best known. The kind of positive directional eugenics is a change off pace from the out-dated negative direction. Promote the good, not the bad is much more PC than Stop the bad. A analogy could be drawn to health and medicine promotions: Eat right and exercise, so we don't have to cut away infections. I feel this is a positive step in human evolution, so long as it wont hamper social evolution. Calling for mandatory sterilization or death of those deemed unfit for procreation would slowly kill society, and thus humanities only hope for higher evolution. But slowly weeding out natural aggression, and other of societies ailments, through the betterment of our children is much safer and, dare I say, righteous.
Before I conclude this post, I would like to draw attention to the media. There is a mixed climate for the advocates of Eugenics in the media. Most news programs spin designer babies to be a bad thing, though there are exceptions. Many movies also have ties to eugenics. Any Sci-fi where people are changed genetically, either directly or through a slow breeding process, is based on the idea of eugenics. My favourite example is: Idiocracy. It's a brilliant and funny movie, which is based on an age old idea that less intelligent people breed faster the more intelligent people. This is generally true, though there are some smart guys who counter this. I recommend this movie to anyone. Anyone at all. It freaking hilarious.
To conclude, I have only recently researched into the intricacies and history of Eugenics, and I find nothing inherently wrong with it. Error lies, like in most things, with humans. We as a species have the ability to make ourselves better, either by cutting back on the bad, or promoting the good, but we don't have the foresight to see which way we should evolve. This is the folly of man, and in hindsight, we could probably have used a little less violence in our nature. Hopefully, we live and learn.
crites evidentia logica.
Eugenics is, on a basic level, the conscious identification and control of evolution, with a focus of humanity. This idea was hugely popular in the 1920's, where governments actually wrote legislation based on the misconception that the mentally ill were somehow inferior to the rest of the population. The euthanasia and sterilization have all but stopped, although there are places who do voluntary sterilizations. Eugenics met its apparent defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Nazi Germany did not outlaw eugenics. It legalised it, calling for the euthanizing of the mentally ill. It reached its peak when the concentration camps were opened. Millions of Jews and Gypsies were killed in less-than-humane ways, all in the name of the betterment of mankind. There is some debate as to whether Adolf Hitler started the death camps because he believed Jews and others were a detriment to society, or a threat to the Aryan race. In any case, whether or not eugenics is inherently evil, the methods employed in it's name were.
In the world today, a new form of Eugenics has formed. Designer babies are just one avenue a person can take to enhance your child to be slightly better than others. While this is not the only means, it is the best known. The kind of positive directional eugenics is a change off pace from the out-dated negative direction. Promote the good, not the bad is much more PC than Stop the bad. A analogy could be drawn to health and medicine promotions: Eat right and exercise, so we don't have to cut away infections. I feel this is a positive step in human evolution, so long as it wont hamper social evolution. Calling for mandatory sterilization or death of those deemed unfit for procreation would slowly kill society, and thus humanities only hope for higher evolution. But slowly weeding out natural aggression, and other of societies ailments, through the betterment of our children is much safer and, dare I say, righteous.
Before I conclude this post, I would like to draw attention to the media. There is a mixed climate for the advocates of Eugenics in the media. Most news programs spin designer babies to be a bad thing, though there are exceptions. Many movies also have ties to eugenics. Any Sci-fi where people are changed genetically, either directly or through a slow breeding process, is based on the idea of eugenics. My favourite example is: Idiocracy. It's a brilliant and funny movie, which is based on an age old idea that less intelligent people breed faster the more intelligent people. This is generally true, though there are some smart guys who counter this. I recommend this movie to anyone. Anyone at all. It freaking hilarious.
To conclude, I have only recently researched into the intricacies and history of Eugenics, and I find nothing inherently wrong with it. Error lies, like in most things, with humans. We as a species have the ability to make ourselves better, either by cutting back on the bad, or promoting the good, but we don't have the foresight to see which way we should evolve. This is the folly of man, and in hindsight, we could probably have used a little less violence in our nature. Hopefully, we live and learn.
crites evidentia logica.
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