On Poverty

This essay is taken from a much longer work that will be released in book form in December.

Poverty can not be described by simply claiming "I have no money to feed my family," because if you live in an area with fertile soil, fresh water to drink and animals to hunt, you have no need for money. (This assumes that you don't have someone stopping you from growing food, taking water or killing animals.) However, the poverty stricken African living in a straw hut is quite different than the poverty stricken American living in Detroit. How you came to be poor is of no consideration for our discussions. (For instance, we are talking only about the issues that seem out of our control. If you are just poor, living on the street because of a mental problem or drug addiction, you are excluded from our discussion, destitution due to a lack of effort or ability is merely a result of weakness. Get help. Steal if you must. There are three meals a day in jail, go get them. What you may judge as harshness is mere evolutionary correction rendering your concerns irrelevant.) What matters is that money doesn't always have to factor into the quantification of our problems. 

Many communities, such as Native North Americans, flourished for thousands of years without even the concept of money. Certain African, Indian and Asian communities live the same way now that they have all along, without money. For our purposes, the word Poverty must mean a lacking of the ability to provide the basic necessities of life. Such as it is, if you have these necessities, by any means, you are not actually poor. It might seem strange, but the homeless man in the big city, living in a box in an alleyway, eating at a Church or even digging in dumpsters may seem poverty stricken, he is not. In such a case the man is poor, certainly, but he is still able to provide the necessities. In Canada, the "poverty line" is at about $18,000 per year. This amount would feed an entire village of destitute people in India. Money must be taken out of our concerns about poverty as it is imaginary and relative to the power we give it. We will discuss money, but as for the concept of poverty it must remain mutually exclusive. 

So what are the problems that lead to poverty? Simply put, the answer is "that which inhibits us from providing for ourselves." The reasons normal, healthy humans are unable to provide for themselves can be many and varied, but we are addressing only those that are naturally unavoidable: Bad soil, bad water, no resources for shelter and, of course, our old friend war. Excluding war, for now, is there anything to be done about bad soil and water, (or lack of?) Yes, the most useful combatant is knowledge. If you don't know how to grow food in dust, it is only because you haven't learned how yet. If you don't know about irrigation, it is only because you haven't learned about it yet. The Earth goes through natural, (and unnatural) changes that render certain areas infertile, this is going to continue with or without our help. Sometimes a people must migrate, this is also going to continue. However there are things that can be done to assist any people, anywhere. It's simply a question of getting the right information to the right people. Information is free, or at least it should be. This is the part of the poverty problem that harkens back to the money problem again. Not because the poverty stricken lack money, but because the rest of the world thinks it takes money to solve a problem. (Or rather, no one is interested in solving problems that they can't cash in on.) One doesn't need to provide UNICEF food drops to a village resting beside a river polluted beyond providing fish and water, if one simply chose to stop the factories from polluting the river. Thus we come full circle to the money problem again, in that the making of it trumps all other concerns. 

Solving the problem of poverty is going to be accomplished by free education, reason and willpower. Some dirt will not grow anything, sometimes you will have to move, sometimes the Earth will rear up and remind you who is boss by, for instance, flooding you out, but more often than not you will be poverty stricken because either you or someone near you has done something stupid. (Such as ruining your immediate environment, or forcing you out of a successful environment.) This "stupidity" might take the form of corporatism, (old fashioned greed,) it might even be a lack of foresight. It might happen all at once or take decades. Don't be tricked into thinking that just because you have no money you are poverty stricken. The truly poverty stricken are not fighting for income, they're fighting for their lives. You could throw money at poverty all day every day, it won't fix a damn thing, only knowledge and effort will. So the solution to poverty is education and foresight.

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.