31/07/2008

The Perfect Human Vol. 1

I'm expecting this to become something of a series of posts, all revolving about humanity, our history and future, and our genes. Though that's probably just a small piece of what I'll mention. So, let's get to it, shall we?

We all know that there's always been a notion of a perfect human being, either the übermench of Nietzsche, the Nazis addition, the perfect athlete, movie star, astronaut, or thinker.
Some, like the samurai, tried to incorporate several aspects of the ideals of that time. The monks aimed for another. All, in a sense, striving to become perfect in what they saw as the only way possible. Either by fighting or meditation. (A really bad comparison in this case.)
But what I think about, not disregarding the past of course, is the future.
Thanks to watching Gattaca, and reading the latest from Iain M. Banks about us joining the Culture after genetically erasing racism, greed and so on from our DNA.
I can't help but think that it might not be such a good idea.
For instance, what if the modifications, instead of erasing all competitiveness, makes us passive and uninterested in everything?
What if the people who have been moded becomes the obedient workforce of the unmoded, who only care for their own gain?
Not that I think that would happen, but you could write interesting fiction about it. And fiction have more than once become reality, so who knows?

When we've got so far into the future that we can get rid of unwanted personal traits in people, we're probably also able to actually turn everyone into superwomen and men from birth. This presents another problem, does a superior body lead to a superior person? Here we get into the debate about inheritance vs. upbringing, which is fascinating, since I think both play into it. But I have to say that I think upbringing gets the upper hand for the most part. Sure, you can be totally fucked up from birth in a number of ways, but can also be so from upbringing. And with the right upbringing I'd like to think a monster could become a saint.
In Gattaca the protagonist does things his physically and genetically superior brother could not not, not because he is better than his brother, but because he has a reason and a goal that motivates him. Which in turn makes him better. Comparing this to what Banks said about competetiveness being a hinder for us, I can't say I agree there either.
It can be if you don't have control over it of course, in which case I suppose it's pure greed more than anything. But it's also a powerful way of achieving things we didn't think we could.

For instance: jump from one place to another. Now do it ten meter up in the air and the previously filled distance is a pitfall. It gets a lot harder that way, even though we know we can do it, if we don't have the motivation to do it we'll give up. And besides, you don't have to compete against your übermenchian brother, you can compete against yourself.
It's harder, but also a lot more rewarding if you ask me.

29/07/2008

Playing Catch

I have once more returned for a joust with the words and letters you see before you.
Lately things have been kinda busy, I'm back home for the first extended period of several days this month though, so that's probably about to change from now on.

First of I was at the Arvika Festival, awesome funtime all around there. Then I got home and the same day my friend called and told me I had work in a few days if I wanted to. So, I spent two days at home, then went over to my mateys place for the duration of about a week while we worked. Then I was home once more for a few days, before leaving for the capital around these parts, namely Stockholm. I spent arond 10 days there mostly just relaxing with my dad, various relatives, my dads girlfriend and her kids, and my trusty laptop.
I played trough Max Payne 2, half of Mass Effect, and got to see a bit from Bioshock (awesome) Witcher (not really my thing), and I saw Hancock as well. I have to say that I really hated the ending to that one, way to Disney-cuddly for my taste, especially considering that Hancock actually killed quite a few badguys in it. Not grapchically or anything, but punshing people trough walls generally have that effect if you ask me.
Now comes the spoilers, so skip the last part here if you wanna see Hancock:
The movie would have been a lot better if it ended with them dying, or with Hancock hurling himself to the moon.
First option have the advantage of being a shock to the viewer. The immortal hero, and his immortal on and off girlfriend gets killed by a simple bunch of criminals.
The second one could go in a few ways: He drifts of into space, becoming more and more powerfull as he gets further and further away from earth.
He stays on the moon, becoming a hermit.
Or he ends up fighting an alien scourge coming towards earth?
That last one would be a bit of a return to Independence Day though, so maybe that's off in this case.

Either way, now I'm back home once more. Brain hardly functioning thanks to severe lack of sleep, due to riding the train down here instead of sleeping.
Riding a train in the current heat that's pounding on us right now wasn't the best idea either. Sure, it was at night so it wasn't to hot outside, but a train crammed full of people trying to sleep, with windows that you can open, but that will prevent you from sleeping because of the occasional bursts of sound made by the train?
The choise was: either you sleep in suffocating heat, or you get a little sleep interupted by bursts of ear-shredding sound.
I manged to sleep a bit, but mostly I read about Anarchism or listened to rhe Roots.

This resluted in the usual state somewhere between perfect clearness and sleep that presents itself when you've neglected sleep, about a hour before I was supposed to catch the train while in transit in Gothenburg. Things seemed suprigsingly clear, I knew what I would do with my life, this included parkour workshops, politics, and writting.
And none of it seems all wrong after a good nights sleep either, which actually scares me a bit, since I've never really known what I've wanted to do before.
Maybe I've changed a bit, but that much?

I also had a feeling of meeting myself when I was headed out of the station. The glassdoor was reflecting the sun in such a way that I could see myself in it, but in my tired state I didn't realize it was me, and I tried to move out of the way of my reflection.
When I relized my mistake I kinda froze for a minute, the realization was quite huge, at least to me. It felt as if I was outside my body watching myself for a moment, and it didn't feel too bad actually. Which either means I'm an egotastical maniac, or just quite a mellow dude, hard to tell.

16/07/2008

Stuck

For the time being I've got this terrible feeling that I'm stuck. I can't get anywhere, and even if I tried, it would inevitably just end up as another half finished project in the graveyard where such projects go when I tire of them.
This is not exactly true, but that's never the less the feeling I've got right now.
So I decided to come here, to share my painful confusion and indecisiveness with you!

So, what's going on lately?
I was of course at the Arvika festival. Which was awesome, great weather for the most part, all the bands I saw was at least good, new friends, the boss was nice as well.
Sure, we had to work our asses of for a few hours or so, but it was worth it.
Best shows was: Danger, The Go! Team and Saul Williams.
The Go! Team had trouble with their mics at the start, since the tent they were supposed to play in was flooded, which had delayed things, and gave them less time for a proper sound check.
Despite this I had an awesome time, at the front, with a sea of people moving with the music at my back.

Then we have a bit of a tie, although since I missed a bit of Saul Williams, and didn't really get a good place to stand, it was an awesome show. Saul is more of a rockstar than many rockstars of today. He just couldn't stand completly still it seemed, and his face was a constant display of emotion.
If I'd seen all of it, I think I'd probably call it the best show at Arvika this year.

Then we have Danger. Which you can't read facial expressions at even with a binocular, since he wears a mask while on stage. To be a bit more precise, he looks like a negative of Spiderman, wearing a black t-shirt with a neon print.
He's got some sort of white shining eyes, which in combination with the neon print flashes as the lights flash with the beat of the music.
The music, in this case, is French electro, with a touch of old videogames.d
Awesom music, accompanied by a homemade VJ set consisting of clips from movies such as Predator, Robocop, Indiana Jones, old cartoons and quite a bit of nice material made for (or maybe by?) Danger himself.

I was there for a week, 4 days of work, 3 days of music. I saw 17 bands in total, hang out a bit with friends, and had a good time in general.

Then I got home, and found out I had potential work ahead of me if I wanted, so I've worked for a few days, and now I'm leaving for the capital soon.
I had to go away to work as well, so I haven't been home a week straight this month.
At least I'm not getting bored though.

09/07/2008

The FRA-law. Again.

Since this affects me personally your gonna hear about it until you either accept it, or jump from a building.
First of, according to a Swedish newspaper, sources close to the department doing the surveillance are saying that the main purpose of it is to intercept Russian intelligence, which would mean that the relations between Sweden and Russia might go a bit frosty.
It's not considered very nice to spy on your neighbors. But the Russian spy who defected was apparently killed under orders from the Russian government, so it seems ol' Russia is up to her shenanigans once more.

Secondly, it seems all the youth sections of the different Swedish political parties are united against the FRA-law. The old politicans must realize that they've fucked up by now, right?
Either way, it's good to see that liberals, democrats, conservatives, socialist, enviromentalists and everybody else have found some common ground for once. Hell, we might actually start getting along for once!

Fuck You McCain, Fuck You

I'm taking a stand, not saying that I'm supporting Obama or anything though. He seems way too perfect to me.
McCain, on the other hand did seem like an alright guy at first, except for being right wing, but I can't really tell the difference between Liberals and Conservatives for the most part when it comes to American politics anyway. For a Swede they're way to similar to make much sense.

Either way, McCain apparently dislike people comparing him to Bush so much that a librarian who had a sign saying "McCain=Bush" got busted for trespassing at a public campaign event. Public apparently mean a different thing than I thought it did. Or maybe McCain is penpal with Mugabe and have decided that politicans are too soft on people who won't vote for them?
Either way, a 60 year old librarian is apparently a real threath in politics, if people who can actually read is against you, the ones who can't will notice, and realize there's more to the picture than they thought.
Oh, and then we have the fact that McCain is going to fix the American economy, but haven't said how, so either he's a wizard, or he's bullshitting. Of course he could be both, but I seriously doubt it.
Not that lies are uncommon in politics these days. It seems like you have to lie your ass of to get elected, and then people act surprised that you don't turn the water into wine onces your in position.
Politicans are not divine being able to right all wrongs, in fact they're just as fucked up, intruthful and generally human as the rest of us. They like sex, to drink some booze or get stoned once in a while, watch crappy tv and eat junkfood.
To expect them to fuck up less than others just proves we think way too highly of politicans, and probably of the human race in general.
My view on the human race is well documented though, so no need to get into that here.

As I said, I don't really like anyone runing for president, solely because they want power, and people like that are generally bad news in my opinon.
Obama haven't given me a real reason to dislike him yet though, so that's good I suppose.
Not that I've been paying much attention or anything either so far.
I'll probably do so once the real election starts getting close.

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