Seeing God

"Born Believers:
How Your Brain Creates God"

"News" items like those in the video above always give me a sense of horrified amazement. Besides the grim realities of war, stories like "Jesus's Face on Toast" make me the most pessimistic about mankind's chances of long-term survival.

I saw the video compilation on Cynical-C blog and I can't believe how much airtime is spent on craziness like this. (I'd rather watch stories about leprechauns anyday!)

My question is- why haven't the major news agencies picked up on the more relevant mystery of my Tibeten Doppelgänger?!?

The reason that people imagine they are seeing their body double or a holy apparition is explainable. The mind is a network of connections that is constantly processing patterns. The connectivity of the brain operates at all levels - cellular, genetic, and quantum- experiencing limited frequencies from the infinity of reality .

"Scientists Model Words as
Entangled Quantum States in our Minds"

'Seeing' divine signs in random patterns is no different than when I used to look out the window at night as a kid, imagining faces & figures in the trees. The only difference is that even as a child, I knew my mind was creating those images.

Either all the people who believe this stuff are just more foolish than I can relate to, or some are cynically trying to hype the 'sightings' to somehow make a profit. Unfortunately, there's probably a nice amount of both in there...

Hero Machine

(click to enlarge)

I saw this website a few years ago, & it showed up on Neatorama recently.

It's called Hero Machine and lets you put together a character from all kinds of options.

Although it pales in comparison to the Character Creation of Soul Caliber IV, I still had fun putting together a heroic version of 'The Monkey Buddha', above.

I also took a few minutes to make another character.
He would be so kick-ass that he wouldn't even give himself a name. However, the alarmed people of his fictional world would name him "The Quantum Menace." He would then proceed to atomize those same people....

*Don't call him "The Quantum Menac......"
zzzzzzzzzzzaaaappp!!!

Packaging Garbage

I truly enjoy graphic design & have designed alot of packaging for a variety of products. Sometimes, though, I can't help but think about what crap people try to sell where a designer must create packaging to make it appear to be a valued item.

On the other hand, some products don't even have the benefit of decent packaging. Looking at items in stores like a dollar store really cracks me up. Bad design is an exalted form of comedy to me.

TheDieline.com is one of the design websites I visit daily, and there was a link to an NPR article that takes the notion of "selling garbage" to a literal level. It just shows that the idea of 'value-' like the idea of 'art'- is a totally subjective experience. This is a case where the 'story' is what creates the value, not the physical product.

NPR:
"Treasure or Trash?
Artist Says It's in the Packaging"

No Global Currency?

It was very refreshing to watch President Mack-Daddy give a press conference where, unlike his predecessor, he can explain the issues intelligently & at least speak like a sane human being.

One answer that caught my attention was in response to a concern that I had in my last post, regarding the possibility of a global currency. This 'solution' to the worldwide financial crisis would simply be a means to consolidate control over the world's population.

Obama stated very succinctly,

""No, I don't support a global currency,"

Unfortunately, it's probably not within President Obama's or any other government official's limited power to determine such an outcome.

Since the United States gave up its right to create money to the Federal Reserve, the government has been the subordinate of the central banking system, not the other way around.

Obama:
"I don't support a global currency"

The comment comes in this video @ 3:33

Global Currency

The current financial crisis surely has nothing to do with the eternal dream of international bankers - control over a single global currency.

"Pay no attention to
the financial overlords behind the curtain!!!"


"IMF poised to print billions of dollars
in 'global quantitative easing'"

The Robot Apocalypse has Begun

The increasing complexity of technology in fields such as robotics has really become astounding. Despite the wondrous creations that people make for productive purposes, there is always going to be the flip side of the coin, where knowledge is used for destructive purposes.

One thing that is particularly worrying is the use of military machines that kill by remote. Although it's no more impersonal than wiping out a city by dropping a bomb from a plane, there's something crazy scary about the idea of autonomous killing machines.

ABC.com
"Do Military Robots Need Rules?"

The world has refused to enact Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. In fact, research in military robotics is a top priority. As a result of humanity's negligence, we have crossed the ethical boundary into mechanized mayhem. I saw this historic story on disinfo.com:

Gizmondo.com

"Pilot-less Drone Makes First Kill Ever"

Here is an actual photo from the mission:

Irish Wit & Wisdom

Since I was busy celebrating St. Patrick's Day at the local Irish pub, I didn't get a chance to post this last night.

Even though I have an Italian last name, most of my grandparents were Irish. In one sense, 'nationality' is just another set of labels we give ourselves. It is human nature, though, to organize into social networks of all kinds, and a national identity is just a larger form of a tribal identity.

Mostly, though, national pride gives us all a reason to have parades and get drunk. This page has some pretty good quotes by past Irishmen-

"St. Patrick’s Day Words of Wisdom"

"The problem with some people
is that when they aren't drunk, they're sober"
- William Yeats

On a seperate Irish train of thought, I also came across an out-there webpage via Renegade Futurist that speculates about the secrets of ancient Celtic & Druid cultures hidden by allegories such as St. Patrick. The basic premise is that Ireland was in contact with other lands in the East. It's called the Manifesto of the BLACK THORN LEAGUE, whatever that is supposed to be.

"In another interpretation of St. Patrick's anti-reptilism, the "snakes" he banished were in fact "druids", i.e. Celtic pagans.

The snake may have been an emblem of the Old Faith, as it is for many forms of paganism, including African (Damballah) & Indian (the Nagas) -- & even for the Ophite Christianity of Egypt (Christ himself depicted as a crucified snake)."

Although I'm not sure all of the "Manifesto" is true, some of the points reminded me of the ongoing speculation about the nature of the island's civilization before Roman invasion.

Early Religions of the Irish:
"Serpent Faith"

Ancient Celtic History

Story of the Celts

"The Cross and the Plumbline"

Financial Monkey Business

Some monkey-related economic stories from ScienceDaily.com:

"Humans' Rational And
Irrational Buying Behavior
Is Mirrored In Monkeys"

"New Study Finds Similarities
Between Monkey Business
And Human Business"

I'm way too cautious and practical to enjoy gambling.

My parents always hounded me to be conservative with my finances. Living on my own since high school has also made me more reluctant to waste hard-earned money on risky endeavors, like gambling on anything. That's one reason I find the rampant greed and irresponsibility behind the world's financial crises to be so offensive.

Unfortunately, huge corporations and financial institutions have neither the guidance of parents nor a natural moral compass to act responsibly. The scale & complexity of the current economic situation makes it hard for people to focus blame or action toward any one entity, whether it be government officials, companies, their CEO's, central banks, or corporate media.

There is all kinds of coverage of dreadful economic news flooding the airwaves and interwebs. I am a visually-oriented person, so the best way for me to generally grasp these nebulous concepts is through infographics. I really don't enjoy dealing with numbers, so graphic interpretations are much more apppealing to me.

Here's a great set of visualizations that I remember clicking on somewhere. Even in semi-simplified form, it's a tremendous amount of information to absorb...

"27 Visualizations and Infographics
to Understand the Financial Crisis"

You only need to look through a few of the presentations to get a feeling for the absurdity and scandalous nature of the whole system.

I thought this one was especially clear & easy to follow:

Solutions of varying degrees of practicality exist out there for many problems facing the state of America's economy. Right now, Obama still has the popularity to take some pretty drastic measures, but he'd need superhuman will and overwhelming public support to accomplish even a fraction of what should be done.

A Clockwork Monkey

After following a link to T-shirt designs on io9.com I saw this funny graphic of a 'Clockwork Monkey', drinking his drug-laced milk. It is just one of the endless possible pop culture icons that can be monkeyed with.

Back in high school I watched A Clockwork Orange several times & found it to be disturbingly crazy. The movie's dialogue and fictional lingo is totally off the wall. Stanley Kubrick somehow makes the character Alex almost likeable, despite the fact that he's a psycho scumbag.

Actually, the brutal depictions in A Clockwork Orange make it apparent how little we ultimately differ from the other simian animals in the world.

Monkey Morality

"Morality May Have Roots
in our Primate Ancestors"

Considering how complex social behavior of monkeys can be, it's not surprising that these creatures can exhibit signs of what we call "morality." If they can drive around on scooters and Segways, or rock out to music, surely that is proof of complex cognitive function...

"Altruistic Apes"

Morality basically describes situational judgments that have social consequences. To me, morality is completely subjective. I have never believed in the totally absurd ideas of "absolute good" and "absolute evil". Just like monkeys, our actions are better characterized as 'better' or 'worse' for the individual or society. That consensus however, is pretty much a majority opinion and not some concrete, absolute fact- like many people think The Ten Commandments are.

People with the time and resources to observe monkeys have determined:

"Monkeys Have a
Sense of Morality"

Monkeys may exhibit morality, but that doesn't mean they are immune to vices such as gluttony...

Money

"Money, it's a crime."

Although there's the saying "Love of money is the root of all evil," I consider money to be a practical social tool.

Like the idea of a 'nation-state', currency is mostly an abstract concept that doesn't ultimately exist outside the collective agreement of those who recognize it.

The international banking system, though, has become much more than simply a tool for exchanging goods and services. It has been engineered for centuries to be a system of control over the human race.

There is alot of talk about how to 'fix' the financial system by throwing around theoretical dollars, but no one is directly addressing the root problems of our entire economic system. Ok, almost no one.



I always kind of understood that without gold or physical commodities to back up the value of money, it is all just a game of shuffling numbers. However the more I try to learn about the fundamental nature of such corporate institutions as the central banks, the Federal Reserve, and the IRS, the more it seems like a monumental maze of misdirection for a truly epic Ponzi scheme- cloaked in the appearance of legitimate lending resources. As it turns out, the money that banks lend doesn't physically exist.

" The Government is in Debt
to Private Banks
that Pretend to Have Money"

This video, concerning the idea of "money as debt", is on the website of Elizabeth Kucinich- the wife of my first choice for President and my personal political hero, Dennis Kucinich, who's in the video above. Elizabeth is just as intelligent and progressive as her husband and this video is a simple, yet revealing look at the madness behind the global economic system.



After seeing information like this and currently watching the completely man-made system going to crap, it's hard to avoid the thought that this whole mess is being purposefully directed toward a unified system of global financial power:

"Why the Economic Destruction of America
May Be Step One
of a Global Banking Power Grab"

All that I know is that as long as the banks continue to give me the money that's supposed to be in my account, I'll happily keep my pitchforks & torches hidden away.