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Friday, June 23, 2006

Chicken Poop Story #2 Fishing on the Information Super Highway

It’s the year 2501, and we finally got it all hooked up. It’s a super-broadband world, a hyper-connected universe we live in, and I feel so fortunate!

Upon my barest whim, I can be instantaneously provided in 3D and super-surround sound all of the knowledge ever created by man. That means that all the music, all the art, all the literature, and all the science is here for me to explore and wonder.

But I’ll get to that later.

I can also virtually teleport myself anywhere in the universe to meet strange alien civilizations, explore strange new worlds, and go where no man has gone before.

But I can’t be bothered right now.

I can also transport myself to higher dimensional planes, visit deceased relatives, time travel to visit long dead civilizations, and pet my late dog Spot.

But I don’t have the time at the moment.

In the meantime, I can indulge my interest in what is truly important to me: bass fishing! I’ve configured my information portal to receive 500 bass fishing TV channels, 12 all bass radio feeds, 7 bass chat rooms, and a virtual lake full of infinite fish. But I’m not alone in my joy. All over the world, folks are setting up individual information portals that allow them to indulge in their own needful obsessions, like soap operas, cookie jar collections, and foot fetishes. Thanks to the universal information super-highway, we can all focus on the things we know are important to us. As for the rest, I am sure we will all still spare a minute or two, but we’ll get to that later.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Virtually Reality


We are more like TV sets than we know. So what does a TV set know but what it receives, which to us is but a bunch of static. We of course do one better than TV sets, since we can get incoming signals from 5 information channels (we call them senses). Evolution has pre-wired our brains like some organic cable box to take it all in, interpret it, and then proceed to bore us all day with the soap opera that constitutes our lives. So, what is reality? It’s all in your head, and indeed, can only be in your head. For in your head is all there is.


And that’s metaphysics.

Now that we know what reality is, how do we improve upon it? Naturally, you can improve upon the story, get better actors, and have intriguing and gritty plots that have happy endings every time. As technology improves, physicists see no end to its exponential capability to control reality. The best way to do that it not by rearranging reality, cause reality is but an illusion anyway. The secret comes by copying it. All civilization is geared to making better copies or emulations of the world. Why? Because we can control it, stupid. After all, isn’t it a far better than having to receive 54 boring TV channels to have the ability to program those channels yourself with weird, tasteless programs of your very own devise. Ah heaven, or maybe the real heaven.

Stay tuned.

To illustrate this truth, I have created a chronology for the advance of baseball over the millennia, as if baseball was the only thing worth thinking about.

1950 Play ball in sandlot

1960 Watch TV baseball

1985 Nintendo baseball

2001 Virtual reality baseball with headset and force feedback

2112 Virtual Reality room (i.e. a holodeck, like in Star Trek)

200 Billion Years AD Play ball in sandlot that perfectly simulates sandlot, or the ultimate computer, God, may be thinking about going to the ball game, and He just happens be in the grandstands, munching a hot dog, and watching you try not to strike out in life.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Mezmer's Modest Proposals for the 21st Century


First, kill all the lawyers. Nuff said


Second, lobotomize all the psychologists. Easy enough to do, just take away all of their certificates. You see, psychologists, like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, don’t have a brain until they get a diploma. So take them away, and soon they will fade away in the distance, like that annoying mother in law you never had. Of course, if this proves impractical, then issue Ph.D.’s in psychology to everyone who passes a driver’s ed course or graduates from high school. This should represent just enough ‘life experience’ to equip everyone to administer to others in need. Besides, if John Gray (Men are from Mars, etc.) can buy his Ph.D. from a diploma mill and if Dr. Laura Schlesinger can preach platitudes with a doctorate in physiology, then you and I can certainly also dispense sage advice.

Third, neuter all the politicians. The Chinese did it to all those who served on the Emperor’s retinue, and the Chinese government lasted millenia. A side benefit of this is that politicians will have less aggressive impulses, won’t leave their DNA everywhere, and will have great singing voices.

Then hire Aunt Madge or Uncle Charlie. There is always some person you know who has more wits and wisdom about him or her than anybody you will ever know. This is your proverbial great aunt or uncle who knew the right cold remedies, the right fishing holes, and the right way to tie your shoe. We need wise old relatives in the right places, and its easy to find them. They are the one’s who make great apple pies, coach little league, and with impressive omniscience always remember your birthday and are quick with the I told you so. So hire them, put them in control of everything. Then sit back, and soon we will see the thousands of Pottervilles in America slowly morph back to the Bedford Falls of our imagination. Indeed, it would be a wonderful life!

Sunday, June 04, 2006

The Most Stupid Motivational Story Ever Told!

It was the archetypical pep rally, repeated no doubt since the days of Caesar and his legions, and probably countless times before. But at this time, this moment, it was being repeated in schools across the continent. And boy, was everybody pepped up! You know the routine. We can do it! We just need the will, the motive, the desire. Just repeat the mantra of success and surrender to the enthusiasm of the crowd. Nothing can stop you if you really want it. And the reward was respect, prestige, and the right to shout from the roof tops: we’re number 1 !!!

So with mounting enthusiasm they all listened, and en masse marched off to earn their place in the sun. Unfortunately, what most of them earned was an unmarked place under the ground. It was August, 1914, the beginning of World War I, and the month of the can do attitude. Of course, a collision with reality can derail even the highest convictions. But in the meantime, we got motivation!!

Now inspirational platitudes can be sometimes be a good thing, as we need a little delusion now and then as we go down with the ship. But inspiration, if held by the gossamer thread of an unrealistic perception of the world, is a lemmings ideal. Unfortunately, in spite of our intellectual and cultural sophistication. We still follow the crowd, surrender to the metaphors of God and country, and do as we are told. But in the meantime, as all of the pundits and self-help guru’s keep telling us, the question’s not the thing, for all we truly need is motivation.