On War.

The Following is taken from a much larger work that will be released in Book form in December.

On War: Usually when we fight a war, (which we will define as one large group of people fighting another, with some degree of organization) it is to fight a perceived injustice. Such is it that we qualify unjust and just wars. The problem often becomes a matter of defining justice. Sometimes our decisions are easy: I'm sure the number of people supporting the ideology that led the German people to become Nazis will remain low for the remainder of history. Sometimes your country uses any excuse to march all over the world taking what it wants, often to help "liberate your people from their own tyranny." War resides in a fog of action based on unclear economic desire. War is almost always built upon a lie. Modern wars are fought for perceived ideologies and actual power and in modernity, power is money. This is why America moves into certain countries to "help them democratize" while it leaves other neighbouring countries alone. These other countries are no less despotic, their citizens are no less endangered, they simply don't have any resources America wants, like oil. 

Wars of the past, when we used to fight man to man, weren't as effective as they are today because men are inherently adverse to killing other men, believe it or not. However, with the advent of psychology and technology, soldiers are now more removed from their kills, both inside their psyches and on the battlefield, meaning they are more effective, meaning a higher kill ratio. (Still, not enough removed to get the Veteran suicide rate from being far higher than average.) Consider the following quote: "Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Hermann Goring at the Nuremberg trials, 1946.

Here we should note that when one looks at the totality of the history of all known wars fought on the planet, only a fraction of one percent were begun by the populace. The vast majority of people, even soldiers, wish to live their lives in peace. It could be easily argued that any war could have been avoided by either conciliatory gestures by the warring parties' leaders, or in fact, as in the old music video for Two Tribes by Frankie goes to Hollywood, we simply throw those leaders into a ring and let them duke it out. The reason this does not happen is simple: War is business. War keeps the wheels of industry greased. War makes money, for manufacturers, for the military, for governments, for countries. This is not even taking into account the so-called spoils of war, merely the machinations of the military industrial complex. 

All wars can be avoided. I'm not even suggesting that there aren't people who need to be stopped from committing this or that atrocity, I just think it can be done much more efficiently. If, for instance, you have some charismatic nutter running your country and drumming up fear about a neighbouring country, it would be fairly simple and cheap to remove him from office, (one way or another,) at least compared to the price of war. The reason wars continue to happen is merely that the folks in power want them to happen. What does that say about them? 

“The organizing principle of any society is for war. The basic authority of the modern state over its people resides in its war powers. Today its oil, tomorrow water. Its what we like to call the God business; Guns, Oil, and Drugs. But there is a problem, our way of life, its over. Its unsustainable and in rapid decline, that’s why we implement demand destruction. We continue to make money as the world burns. But for this to work the people have to remain ignorant of the problem until its too late. That is why we have triggers in place, 9-11, 7-7 , WMDs. A population in a permanent state of fear does not ask questions. Our desire for war becomes its desire for war. A willing sacrifice. You see fear is justification, fear is control, fear is money.” quoted from the film the Veteran.

There is always the opportunity to fight the cause of the war, rather than the war itself. We are not ants, nor chimpanzees, the intellectual gifts of the human should be passed forward unto others, rather than insulted in the name of nature, disguised as patriotism. Wars need not flourish any longer.

Just because you don't have a solution, doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

Everybody is talking about the Russell Brand interview and article about how the world needs a people's revolution to survive.
He's not wrong.

Here is the interview about his article that's bouncing around facebook.


And here is the article itself, which is of much more value than the above interview.
 http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/russell-brand-on-revolution

"We have succumbed to an ideology that is 100% corrupt and must be overthrown."
"The Agricultural Revolution took thousands of years, the Industrial Revolution took hundreds of years, the Technological Revolution took tens, the Spiritual Revolution has come and we have only an instant to act."

Well said Russell, now find a way to make it funny and pick up where George Carlin left off, or don a robe and fight fire with fire. I don't expect any real solution from you, but I'm very happy that you have joined the ranks of we wee sirens. 

Book Title Contest

Hello Readers,

This winter I will be releasing an anthology of everything I've written so far, (or at least, everything I've written well.)

I'm currently working on a title for the book, something that will sum up my work, in its entirety.

To this end I am offering my readers the opportunity to NAME MY BOOK.

Simply suggest the title(s) you have in the comments below, on the facebook page here or email me at brian_taylor@live.com

The winning entry will receive ALL 6 BOOKS in my catalog.
-The Rampant Ineptitude of Modernity
-Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self
-The 21st Century Enlightenment
-The Authentic Self
-Hyperexistentialism (to be released this winter.)
-The As-of-yet Unnamed Anthology

This is around $100 value.

So put on your thinking caps, if you haven't read enough of my work to come up with a title, get reading and send in those title suggestions.

I look forward to seeing them.
And thanks for reading....

Brian.

On Superstitions

For how many more generations must we put up with superstition?

A superstition is an illogical belief that an effect was created by a supernatural cause, or to put it more plainly, it is a desire to believe in nonsense.

There is a very real reason for superstition to exist, it is probably something that helped us evolve, it also seems to be inherent in our being, although mostly socially engineered. When we were primitive humans, huddled together near our grassy plain, living in caves, (or whatever,) it made perfect sense to be leery of rustling grasses, for we may soon be eaten by a lion. Some have argued that those who were more superstitious may have proven more likely to survive, for if you simply ran away every time you heard the grass rustle, you will have likely survived the odd hungry lion, for the multitude of times it was the wind creating the sound. (Do cowards live longer than the brave?) So then you would have taught your offspring to fear the rustling grass as well, which in turn would keep your cautious genes going, whereas the less cautious would have, at least part of the time, gotten eaten by the hungry lion. So the inherent, evolutionary fear crosses over into social engineering.

Moving forward in time now, through the various societies, religions, institutions and ideas that have prevailed, we discover that most superstitions are entirely socially engineered and not at all based in reality, (although some are.) Let us take a look at common modern superstitions, where they came from and what we believe about them. (And let us not talk about the biggest superstitions of them all, Gods and religions.)

Knocking on Wood: If you're not familiar, the basics of he apparent phenomenon are as follows: If one has the urgency to utter a proclamation with disdain for the manifestation of the utterance, one has the opportunity to nullify it by touching wood, especially when used in conjunction with the proclamation, "touch wood." So our argument is that if we touch wood and we say "touch wood," the thing we said just previous will not come true. Our belief however is that we somehow have both the magic power of conjuring what we say and the magic power of taking such conjuring away, provided there is wood handy. (I'm excluding the American version of this where one knocks on one's head as if it were made of wood.) Some would argue that this is just a social habit, a form of courtesy we offer as apology for saying such dreadful things, but superstitious people are not actually thinking about what they are doing, when the do such things, despite our desire to wish no harm to anyone, (we hope.) Although it remains unclear as to its origin but there seems to be a consensus that it stems from pagan tree worshipers who would knock on trees, or stumps, after taking some or all of the wood. This would allow the souls of the trees to escape freely, rather than be trapped in the remaining tree, or stump, which would keep evil spirits or other mythical creatures from being attracted to the tree, hang around and cause you bad luck.

Friday the 13th: There are countless references going back centuries to the unlucky nature of the number 13. Mathematically, 13 is an odd number, it's prime, it's also a bit unusual if only because of the fact that, at least on Earth, 12 is an extremely common number. 24 hours in day, 12 months in year, roughly twelve weeks in a season, we even sort our eggs and doughnuts in dozens. (How come nobody considers a "baker's dozen" (13) to be unlucky?) But nobody is talking about the unlucky nature, (in literature, history or otherwise,) of the number 13 until after the popularization of the Christ tale. (So it is, at the least, a superstition of a superstition.) The fact that it was attached to the idea that Friday is unlucky, (Christ was crucified on a Friday, sailors didn't want to depart at the end of the week, preferring to start journeys at the beginning,) is probably just the compounding of unlucky concepts into a superstitious double-whammy. When you take into account that the unlucky day tends to be cultural, (Greeks and the Spanish think Tuesday is unlucky, because Constantinople fell twice on a Tuesday, to two different empires,) it's easy to see how the unluckiness of the date is arbitrarily attached to a day when something bad happened to you or your people, a long time ago. For instance, on Friday the 13 of October 1307, King Philip IV of France had every member of the Knights Templar arrested on charges of heresy. It mattered then, to them, it doesn't now, to you. Today, Friday the 13th is the safest day to travel, because people who believe in such things stay at home. This makes it, at least in terms of traffic accidents, a luckier day than average.

Lucky charms: No, not the cereal, but things like a rabbit's foot, or perhaps a charm you wear around your neck, maybe of your favorite saint. These things have been around as long as charms have. Perhaps even primitive human's would wear a string of lion's teeth around their neck to communicate to the universe this or that belief. We know the ancient Egyptians would wear and provide to their livestock, amulets of Ra, or Isis, in the hopes of drawing out the luck of such deities, rather than suffer their wrath. Historically, such charms have a fairly precise track record of working fifty percent of the time.

Saying "God Bless you" when someone sneezes: This is one that I stopped doing once I stopped being a child. Now when people sneeze I say nothing. Sometimes, even in the time and place I live, I still get slightly dirty, expectant looks, as if to say, "Well, aren't you going to say God Bless you?" Instead I say, "Get much on ya?" (Well, sometimes.) If I sneeze and someone offers "Bless you," I'll usually just say nothing, maybe "thanks," but often I say, "I'm not sure you're qualified." Sneezes are not caused by demons trying to escape my body. There's no need to combat that demon by attempting to manifest the will of God. (Why would you do that in the first place? Even if it was the middle ages... I'm flattered that you think God has time to worry about my allergies, but...)

There are about a million more superstitions that are still commonplace, in various forms around the world. They're usually completely harmless, a habit we picked up from our parents, or like a fun bit of belief that we feel increases the chances of things going our way. It's a pretty rare occasion for people to suffer because of them, although this does take place. Consider the compulsive gambler who honestly believes he only wins when he wears his lucky shoes, then loses those shoes. He is going to suffer because of his beliefs, but it's his own damn fault. When one looks at most superstitions, they stem from some ancient idea we had about the world that has since been proven to be ridiculous, often from a socially engineered intention, usually due to religion. (We need this idea in, this idea out, so let's get people to think thus.) However, superstitions come from the same place as ideas that we have abolished, for various relevant reasons, such as: slavery, racism, sexism. Yes these things still exist, but they are frowned upon and rightly so. Superstitions are certainly less harmful that these counterproductive ideas, but they are made of the same stuff. I'd like to continue thinking for myself and communicate in the world without being embarrassed by what my fellow humans continue to needlessly believe. There's still mystery in the universe. I, for instance, believe in God, despite having no particular proof of existence. (See my essay, "Existence doesn't matter to God.") I don't believe in superstitions because we have proof that they are useless in our time and place. There are still many unknowns, you can still enjoy the mystery and you're entitled to believe whatever nonsense you like, but you had best be careful when your beliefs lead you to action. Believing in the pointless is counterproductive. This, however, does not make the concept of God any less of a superstition, it's just the ultimate superstition, due to it pointing at the ultimate causality.

What superstitions do you "use?" We can talk about them in the comments below, if you like.

Why I am a conspiracy theorist.

It's simple really, I am a conspiracy theorist because conspiracies are fact.
We can look at history, at any point, in any country and find many examples of conspiracy perpetrated on the masses, usually by those in power.
"Conspiracy" as a word, really just means "to work together." We've taken that idea (which comes from the French) and turned it into something nefarious.

So really, when we're talking about the conspiracy theories the world of the 21st century has to offer, we are specifically dealing with the bastards, who work together to grind you down, whatever that might mean for you. If you think that the powers that be aren't in the business of using you for their own purposes, then I suggest you do what you can to stop producing, stop working, stop paying your taxes, stop buying into social engineering, stop caring about pop culture, stop serving in the military, stop serving your masters altogether. Then wait for the rewards of your non-efforts. It won't take long before you realize that life itself is a conspiracy of past conspiracies. We are not where we are by mistake.

However, the lifestyle of the western paradigm, desired by all, even those who claim to hate it, is not something that is easily repaired. It is also not the purpose of this article, all of my writing combined comments upon it, but does little to solve its problems. I am a mere reporter of the problems, we each must take it in turn to do what we can to improve the world.

Today, I wish to point out that so called "Conspiracy Theorists" are not necessarily tinfoil hat wearing UFOlogists, or those who believe that 9/11 was an inside job, or that the HAARP installation is causing earthquakes, or that Deep Underground Military Bases are going to be concentration camps for millions of detainees when the shit hits the fan. I am a conspiracy theorist because I examine my own hands for evidence of that shit. (And 9/11 was an inside job...)

When one looks at the fringe, one sees the future. Sometimes that future is a lie, or incorrect, but sometimes it is true and becomes part of the mainstream. A conspiracy theorist looks to this fringe and examines it. A good conspiracy theorists doesn't claim true that which he or she has no proof of, nor does he or she denounce that which there is no proof of. Lack of evidence is not evidence of a falsehood. The future is a product of our being and doing, of our intentionality. The future is also a product of the past. So looking at past conspiracies that have become accepted as truth is a good place to start, if one wants to develop an appreciation for what might come.

When one looks at the conspiracies of the past, one finds the same people, or groups of people, or types of people committing the same types of conspiracies, with the same goals: Power, control, resources, money. Then, if one wants to understand exactly who these people are and what they're up to, one simply has to look at the people at the top.

I am a conspiracy theorist because the Americans (and those who idealize them,) keep me in fresh conspiracy. Conspiracies that matter, that are important, get revealed ultimately anyway. Then people say things like, "Oh, I guess they are documenting all my phone calls and emails after all." Unfortunately, those same people go on to say, "Oh well, what are ya gonna do about it?"

Conspiracy theorists know what is really going on, they just don't know it yet.
People who think conspiracy theorists are kooks are throwing the truth out with all the untruths.
I choose to believe what I want to believe, I am entitled as are you.
But denying the possibility of a conspiracy theory just because it sounds crazy also denies all the past conspiracies that have been proven true.
The world is a crazy place, full of crazy people.
People in positions of power are no less crazy, or stupid. 
Don't be afraid to examine the crazy and stupid things they (we) have done in the past.
Don't be afraid to think about the crazy and stupid things they (we) might be currently doing.
Your life might depend on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hyaoJYuznA&feature=youtu.be