Saturday, March 12, 2005
Souls, insanity and karma
You might recall that my post of 3-3-05 was about how insane people, and in particular those who are insane AND evil, seem to not get the normal karmic feedback one would expect them to, given the intensity and ugliness of the energy they produce; at the end of the post, I asked for karma to send me the answer... and that's the last I thought about it.
Two nights ago, and again last night (to be sure I'd absorbed it all), I watched the 1st 2 parts of a Nova series about string theory; after the 2nd viewing, I started thinking about souls. Are they made of strings? Or, are they made of the currently-undescribed energy that strings are made of? Is karma made of strings, or are the strings made of karma? If the latter, could souls in fact be something different than everything else in the universe, MADE of something different, as so many people think they are, and thus be made out of unformed, non-string karma, while everything else is made of strings? I had nothing to base any answers on, so my mind just kept going around and around it.
Then, today, I went over to my friend Al's excellent blog
http://oldwhig.blogspot.com/
and discovered that he'd put up a post that referred to several posts of mine... including the one about karma and insanity. Karma. Insanity. Souls. Karma. Insanity. Souls.
KABOOM!! The asked-for epiphany hit. I've said in various posts that, when we refer to evil people as being soulless, we might not just be taking poetic license; the chilling lack of humanity in these individuals seems to me to very likely mean that they in fact have no souls, or at best have stunted and/or deformed souls. Souls are made of the energy of karma; you could also say that karma is made of the energy of souls (which is the same as the energy of thought and feeling, the latter of which a sick, evil person is lacking in in large part, which is probably a direct cause of the abnormal souls, come to think of it!!)... the central concept is that our souls are part of karma, and, as the sum of all our thoughts, feelings and energies, our souls can be seen as our interfaces with the greater engine of karma. So, if a person is deficient in their karmic interface, shouldn't we EXPECT their interactions with karma to be affected? How could they NOT be, when you think about it? Looked at with this new understanding, it makes perfect sense that an insane person would NOT be subject to the normal rules of karma... they might even exist totally outside of the normal flows of energy that lead to having good or bad karma, but I don't see any way to judge whether they might have a LITTLE bit of karma or not without getting to know some of them well enough to see how karma is working for them, and I do not, NOT, want to ever, EVER have that kind of closeness with that sort of person, or even to know one casually.
I asked for an epiphany, and I got it-and FAST. I even got a bonus epiphany about WHY the soul of an evil person wouldn't be normal. Do I think that the train of thought created by the Nova episodes, and the appearance of Al's post, and the timing of the 2, entering my life starting a week after I asked for answers, are coincidences? Nope.
Two nights ago, and again last night (to be sure I'd absorbed it all), I watched the 1st 2 parts of a Nova series about string theory; after the 2nd viewing, I started thinking about souls. Are they made of strings? Or, are they made of the currently-undescribed energy that strings are made of? Is karma made of strings, or are the strings made of karma? If the latter, could souls in fact be something different than everything else in the universe, MADE of something different, as so many people think they are, and thus be made out of unformed, non-string karma, while everything else is made of strings? I had nothing to base any answers on, so my mind just kept going around and around it.
Then, today, I went over to my friend Al's excellent blog
http://oldwhig.blogspot.com/
and discovered that he'd put up a post that referred to several posts of mine... including the one about karma and insanity. Karma. Insanity. Souls. Karma. Insanity. Souls.
KABOOM!! The asked-for epiphany hit. I've said in various posts that, when we refer to evil people as being soulless, we might not just be taking poetic license; the chilling lack of humanity in these individuals seems to me to very likely mean that they in fact have no souls, or at best have stunted and/or deformed souls. Souls are made of the energy of karma; you could also say that karma is made of the energy of souls (which is the same as the energy of thought and feeling, the latter of which a sick, evil person is lacking in in large part, which is probably a direct cause of the abnormal souls, come to think of it!!)... the central concept is that our souls are part of karma, and, as the sum of all our thoughts, feelings and energies, our souls can be seen as our interfaces with the greater engine of karma. So, if a person is deficient in their karmic interface, shouldn't we EXPECT their interactions with karma to be affected? How could they NOT be, when you think about it? Looked at with this new understanding, it makes perfect sense that an insane person would NOT be subject to the normal rules of karma... they might even exist totally outside of the normal flows of energy that lead to having good or bad karma, but I don't see any way to judge whether they might have a LITTLE bit of karma or not without getting to know some of them well enough to see how karma is working for them, and I do not, NOT, want to ever, EVER have that kind of closeness with that sort of person, or even to know one casually.
I asked for an epiphany, and I got it-and FAST. I even got a bonus epiphany about WHY the soul of an evil person wouldn't be normal. Do I think that the train of thought created by the Nova episodes, and the appearance of Al's post, and the timing of the 2, entering my life starting a week after I asked for answers, are coincidences? Nope.
Friday, March 11, 2005
An amusing memory
I remember when my father decided that he would enforce a rule that I was no longer allowed to speak with food in my mouth, although he and my mother never applied any such rule to themselves; hypocrisy was nothing new for him, and my mother generally silently enabled him to pursue these random over-restrictions on my life, so her failure to prevent the rule was nothing new, either. The GOOD news was that this was one of the times when a rule was going to conflict with his interactions with me, and, as always, he was too stupid to see it, and too stubborn to take it back once it became obvious that he'd made it possible for me to use his rules against him, which I did as a matter of principle whenever I could. As a consequence, we went through any # of iterations of the following:
I'd have just gotten a bite of food into my mouth, and he'd ask me some sort of question whose sole purpose was to harass me while I was eating; slooooooooowly, I'd turn my head, exaggerating the workings of my jaws to make it clear to him, and to my mother who was always monitoring everything, that I was chewing, and look into his eyes with an expression of naked triumph at being able to safely not answer him because his own rule prevented it. He'd sit there fuming as I chewed and chewed, KNOWING that he'd created the situation that allowed me to stick it to him, but not having a valid way out of it. With more temper than sense, though, he TRIED to twist things to suit his preferences with amazing frequency:
Him (to me): Well?
Mother (to him): She's EATING, can't you see that? You said she can't talk while she's got food in her mouth, remember? Stop trying to make her break the rule just because you couldn't wait until she swallowed to pester her.
Him: Well, why does it always take her so long to chew a mouthful of food?
Mother: Probably because YOU told her she had to eat more slowly.
I'd be looking even more triumphant after this exchange, because he'd been called on his inconsistencies right in front of me; he'd usually shut up at this point, and, when I'd finally swallowed my food, I'd respond to whatever he'd said... which he didn't care about anymore, since his plan had backfired, and so would give some nasty reply to before returning to his meal or to talking to my mother. Every so often, though, he couldn't resist the urge to make his usual attempt to make everything I did into some sort of wrongdoing, and he'd change tactics with things like:
Him: Why does she always have food in her mouth when I speak to her?
Mother: Because she's EATING HER DINNER.
Him: That doesn't mean she should be eating nonstop; she should be pausing periodically.
Mother: For WHAT?
Him: To talk to the other people at the table.
Mother: I don't want her to talk to me when I'm trying to eat, and if she spoke to YOU, you'd be hysterical that she interrupted your meal.
Him: She still shouldn't just eat-eat-eat; that's not how a human being is supposed to eat.
Mother: Since when?
Him: WE don't eat nonstop.
Mother: WE are usually having a conversation; SHE is NOT, so there's no reason for her to stop eating.
Him: Yes there is; she's eating like an animal.
Mother: No, she's eating like anyone else who isn't talking eats, including you.
Him: *I* do NOT eat like that!!
Mother: Yes, you do.
Him: NO I DON'T!!.
Mother: Yes, you DO, and stop your bellowing.
Him: I don't want her to sit down at this table and eat without pausing anymore.
Mother: You can just forget about that!! I already have to wait forever for her to finish her meal so I can clean up, and I'm NOT going to wait even longer so that she can sit there not eating for no reason!! I want her to get through her meal as quickly as possible, so stop trying to find ways to slow her down, and stop interrupting her when there's nothing you need to say to her that can't wait until later.
He'd totally lost the battle once she'd given her speech, and we all knew it, and he KNEW that we knew it. He'd usually throw a hateful glare at ME at that point; I'd respond with a smug look that he couldn't do anything about. If he was done with his meal at that juncture, his humiliation wasn't quite over with, because my mother would add:
Mother: You're done with your meal, so there's no reason for you to still be sitting here, and no EXCUSE to do so just to bother her when she's trying to eat, not to mention ruining MY dinner; you leave the table, go sit on the couch, and let she and I finish our food before it gets stone cold.
She'd give him a challenging look, daring him to try to make a case that he should be allowed to keep sitting there causing trouble; he never rose to that challenge, EVER... he'd toss another glare at ME, and then slink off to sit on the couch.
It occurs to me that it might not be obvious to anyone who grew up in a normal family why this whole thing amuses me; it's that this grown man with a PhD felt it necessary to go to such extreme and transparently ugly lengths to make my life unpleasant for no other reason than that he COULD, and that the stupidity (in the lack of common sense meaning) that typically accompanies evil caused him to bungle his attempts over and over, because in his eagerness to get at me he NEVER thought through how his endless and often contradictory rules, and my mother's presence, would restrict what he could get away with... if I had a dollar for every time his bull in the china shop efforts led to him losing out due to these things, I could buy out Bill Gates.
From quite a young age, I was able to out-think him on a regular basis, and those times that I defeated him were the high points of my childhood.
I'd have just gotten a bite of food into my mouth, and he'd ask me some sort of question whose sole purpose was to harass me while I was eating; slooooooooowly, I'd turn my head, exaggerating the workings of my jaws to make it clear to him, and to my mother who was always monitoring everything, that I was chewing, and look into his eyes with an expression of naked triumph at being able to safely not answer him because his own rule prevented it. He'd sit there fuming as I chewed and chewed, KNOWING that he'd created the situation that allowed me to stick it to him, but not having a valid way out of it. With more temper than sense, though, he TRIED to twist things to suit his preferences with amazing frequency:
Him (to me): Well?
Mother (to him): She's EATING, can't you see that? You said she can't talk while she's got food in her mouth, remember? Stop trying to make her break the rule just because you couldn't wait until she swallowed to pester her.
Him: Well, why does it always take her so long to chew a mouthful of food?
Mother: Probably because YOU told her she had to eat more slowly.
I'd be looking even more triumphant after this exchange, because he'd been called on his inconsistencies right in front of me; he'd usually shut up at this point, and, when I'd finally swallowed my food, I'd respond to whatever he'd said... which he didn't care about anymore, since his plan had backfired, and so would give some nasty reply to before returning to his meal or to talking to my mother. Every so often, though, he couldn't resist the urge to make his usual attempt to make everything I did into some sort of wrongdoing, and he'd change tactics with things like:
Him: Why does she always have food in her mouth when I speak to her?
Mother: Because she's EATING HER DINNER.
Him: That doesn't mean she should be eating nonstop; she should be pausing periodically.
Mother: For WHAT?
Him: To talk to the other people at the table.
Mother: I don't want her to talk to me when I'm trying to eat, and if she spoke to YOU, you'd be hysterical that she interrupted your meal.
Him: She still shouldn't just eat-eat-eat; that's not how a human being is supposed to eat.
Mother: Since when?
Him: WE don't eat nonstop.
Mother: WE are usually having a conversation; SHE is NOT, so there's no reason for her to stop eating.
Him: Yes there is; she's eating like an animal.
Mother: No, she's eating like anyone else who isn't talking eats, including you.
Him: *I* do NOT eat like that!!
Mother: Yes, you do.
Him: NO I DON'T!!.
Mother: Yes, you DO, and stop your bellowing.
Him: I don't want her to sit down at this table and eat without pausing anymore.
Mother: You can just forget about that!! I already have to wait forever for her to finish her meal so I can clean up, and I'm NOT going to wait even longer so that she can sit there not eating for no reason!! I want her to get through her meal as quickly as possible, so stop trying to find ways to slow her down, and stop interrupting her when there's nothing you need to say to her that can't wait until later.
He'd totally lost the battle once she'd given her speech, and we all knew it, and he KNEW that we knew it. He'd usually throw a hateful glare at ME at that point; I'd respond with a smug look that he couldn't do anything about. If he was done with his meal at that juncture, his humiliation wasn't quite over with, because my mother would add:
Mother: You're done with your meal, so there's no reason for you to still be sitting here, and no EXCUSE to do so just to bother her when she's trying to eat, not to mention ruining MY dinner; you leave the table, go sit on the couch, and let she and I finish our food before it gets stone cold.
She'd give him a challenging look, daring him to try to make a case that he should be allowed to keep sitting there causing trouble; he never rose to that challenge, EVER... he'd toss another glare at ME, and then slink off to sit on the couch.
It occurs to me that it might not be obvious to anyone who grew up in a normal family why this whole thing amuses me; it's that this grown man with a PhD felt it necessary to go to such extreme and transparently ugly lengths to make my life unpleasant for no other reason than that he COULD, and that the stupidity (in the lack of common sense meaning) that typically accompanies evil caused him to bungle his attempts over and over, because in his eagerness to get at me he NEVER thought through how his endless and often contradictory rules, and my mother's presence, would restrict what he could get away with... if I had a dollar for every time his bull in the china shop efforts led to him losing out due to these things, I could buy out Bill Gates.
From quite a young age, I was able to out-think him on a regular basis, and those times that I defeated him were the high points of my childhood.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Clarification of string theory
Tonight, I saw the first 2 parts of a Nova program, "The Elegant Universe," which is dedicated to making string theory understandable to regular people... and it HAS really made it clearer for me. As I've posted before, string theory predicts that everything, all matter, all forces, EVERYTHING, in the universe is made, at the finest level, of unbelievably tiny vibrating strings of energy; this knocked me over when I first read about it, because I'd already intuitively sensed that everything was made out of one thing... the energy of thought, aka the energy of karma (since scientists still can't tell us what the energy the strings are made of IS, I'm sticking to my analysis for now).
How did they GET the idea for a freaky-sounding concept like string theory? First, there was an equation:
"In the late 1960s a young Italian physicist, named Gabriele Veneziano, was searching for a set of equations that would explain the strong nuclear force, the extremely powerful glue that holds the nucleus of every atom together binding protons to neutrons. As the story goes, he happened on a dusty book on the history of mathematics, and in it he found a 200-year old equation, first written down by a Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler. Veneziano was amazed to discover that Euler's equations, long thought to be nothing more than a mathematical curiosity, seemed to describe the strong force."
Second, there was a leap of genius; theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind looked at this equation, and saw that it ALSO described something like a particle, but built like an "elastic string" that vibrated, rather than just being a little dot. (Finally, an explanation for why they call it STRING theory, even though the most popular current version talks about little LOOPS of energy rather than "strings" per se.)
Next, scientists discovered, amongst the many sorts of particles that were being discovered at that time, things called "messenger particles," the exchanges of which were responsible for the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces; the familiar one is the photon, which is the messenger particle for electromagnetism. This gave them "a consistent theory of elementary particle physics, which allows us to describe all of the interactions-weak, strong and electromagnetic-in the same language," and they called it "the Standard Model."
It didn't explain gravity, though; that crucial bit of theory came in the 1970's, when physicist John Schwarz saw that the equations of the then-incomplete, and largely forgotten about, idea of string theory described GRAVITY, and this led to the realization that the strings had to be REALLY tiny (why, they don't say)... 100 billion billion (NOT a typo) times smaller than an atom. This led to them seeing that the mysterious massless particle that they'd been predicting with the theory, which they'd thought was a flaw, was in fact the graviton... the messenger particle for gravity, the missing piece of the puzzle. Schwarz believed that "if strings described gravity at the quantum level, they must be the key to unifying the four forces"; they don't say HOW he made that leap, WHY being able to explain gravity meant that strings had anything to do with the other forces, so it probably requires a PhD in physics to understand.
Joined by physicist Michael Green, Schwarz spent 5 years battling the anomalies in the equations... and then, finally, in 1984, they got all their #'s to add up right, which "meant the theory was free of anomalies. And it had the mathematical depth to encompass all four forces." To quote Schwarz: "So we recognized not only that the strings could describe gravity but they could also describe the other forces. So we spoke in terms of unification. And we saw this as a possibility of realizing the dream that Einstein had expressed in his later years, of unifying the different forces in some deeper framework."
To really explain everything, of course, string theory would have to provide the link between our world and the insane world of quantum physics... which it DOES: "It's the jitteriness of quantum theory versus the gentleness of Einstein's general theory of relativity that makes it so hard to bridge the two, to stitch them together. Now, what string theory does, it comes along and basically calms the jitters of quantum mechanics. It spreads them out by virtue of taking the old idea of a point particle and spreading it out into a string. So the jittery behavior is there, but it's just sufficiently less violent that quantum theory and general relativity stitch together perfectly within this framework. It's a triumph of mathematics. With nothing but these tiny vibrating strands of energy, string theorists claim to be fulfilling Einstein's dream of uniting all forces and all matter."
With this new info, I can finally SEE how string theory came to be, and why they say it explains everything; the power, simplicity and brilliance of it just blows me away. The explanation of how one kind of string can produce everything also shows an unexpected beauty to all this science:
"Just as different vibrational patterns or frequencies of a single cello string create what we hear as different musical notes, the different ways that strings vibrate give particles their unique properties, such as mass and charge. For example, the only difference between the particles making up you and me and the particles that transmit gravity and the other forces is the way these tiny strings vibrate. Composed of an enormous number of these oscillating strings, the universe can be thought of as a grand cosmic symphony."
Ahhhhhhhhhhh....... Music of the spheres, anyone?
How did they GET the idea for a freaky-sounding concept like string theory? First, there was an equation:
"In the late 1960s a young Italian physicist, named Gabriele Veneziano, was searching for a set of equations that would explain the strong nuclear force, the extremely powerful glue that holds the nucleus of every atom together binding protons to neutrons. As the story goes, he happened on a dusty book on the history of mathematics, and in it he found a 200-year old equation, first written down by a Swiss mathematician, Leonhard Euler. Veneziano was amazed to discover that Euler's equations, long thought to be nothing more than a mathematical curiosity, seemed to describe the strong force."
Second, there was a leap of genius; theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind looked at this equation, and saw that it ALSO described something like a particle, but built like an "elastic string" that vibrated, rather than just being a little dot. (Finally, an explanation for why they call it STRING theory, even though the most popular current version talks about little LOOPS of energy rather than "strings" per se.)
Next, scientists discovered, amongst the many sorts of particles that were being discovered at that time, things called "messenger particles," the exchanges of which were responsible for the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces; the familiar one is the photon, which is the messenger particle for electromagnetism. This gave them "a consistent theory of elementary particle physics, which allows us to describe all of the interactions-weak, strong and electromagnetic-in the same language," and they called it "the Standard Model."
It didn't explain gravity, though; that crucial bit of theory came in the 1970's, when physicist John Schwarz saw that the equations of the then-incomplete, and largely forgotten about, idea of string theory described GRAVITY, and this led to the realization that the strings had to be REALLY tiny (why, they don't say)... 100 billion billion (NOT a typo) times smaller than an atom. This led to them seeing that the mysterious massless particle that they'd been predicting with the theory, which they'd thought was a flaw, was in fact the graviton... the messenger particle for gravity, the missing piece of the puzzle. Schwarz believed that "if strings described gravity at the quantum level, they must be the key to unifying the four forces"; they don't say HOW he made that leap, WHY being able to explain gravity meant that strings had anything to do with the other forces, so it probably requires a PhD in physics to understand.
Joined by physicist Michael Green, Schwarz spent 5 years battling the anomalies in the equations... and then, finally, in 1984, they got all their #'s to add up right, which "meant the theory was free of anomalies. And it had the mathematical depth to encompass all four forces." To quote Schwarz: "So we recognized not only that the strings could describe gravity but they could also describe the other forces. So we spoke in terms of unification. And we saw this as a possibility of realizing the dream that Einstein had expressed in his later years, of unifying the different forces in some deeper framework."
To really explain everything, of course, string theory would have to provide the link between our world and the insane world of quantum physics... which it DOES: "It's the jitteriness of quantum theory versus the gentleness of Einstein's general theory of relativity that makes it so hard to bridge the two, to stitch them together. Now, what string theory does, it comes along and basically calms the jitters of quantum mechanics. It spreads them out by virtue of taking the old idea of a point particle and spreading it out into a string. So the jittery behavior is there, but it's just sufficiently less violent that quantum theory and general relativity stitch together perfectly within this framework. It's a triumph of mathematics. With nothing but these tiny vibrating strands of energy, string theorists claim to be fulfilling Einstein's dream of uniting all forces and all matter."
With this new info, I can finally SEE how string theory came to be, and why they say it explains everything; the power, simplicity and brilliance of it just blows me away. The explanation of how one kind of string can produce everything also shows an unexpected beauty to all this science:
"Just as different vibrational patterns or frequencies of a single cello string create what we hear as different musical notes, the different ways that strings vibrate give particles their unique properties, such as mass and charge. For example, the only difference between the particles making up you and me and the particles that transmit gravity and the other forces is the way these tiny strings vibrate. Composed of an enormous number of these oscillating strings, the universe can be thought of as a grand cosmic symphony."
Ahhhhhhhhhhh....... Music of the spheres, anyone?
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Karma vs stupidity
Sadly for the sweet-but-foolish, karma, although very powerful, PALES in comparison to the power of stupidity. If you want good things to happen to you, it's not enough to be a good person; you have to make good CHOICES, too. It doesn't matter if you're an absolute SAINT: If you pick scumbags as relationship partners, karma will NOT protect you from being cheated on, lied to, and generally mistreated. If you refuse to get education and training, karma will NOT hand you a great job. If you're careless about locking your doors, karma will NOT protect you from being ripped off. If you can't be bothered to use sunscreen, karma will NOT protect you from skin cancer. Don't get me wrong, having good karma DOES mean that whatever people and resources exist that could help you ARE much more likely to be there when you need them, but you absolutely should NOT count on this help to be sufficient to protect you from harm if you've done something(s) stupid.
What's all too often the case with people that everyone thinks are "nice" is that they can't bring themselves to kick toxic friends out of their lives, or resist drama queens and bad boys in romantic relationships, or leave dead-end jobs, or take the risks needed for real success, or say "no" to things they don't have the time, $ and energy for, or do any # of other things necessary to achieve success and/or happiness, or even to prevent disasters; despite all of that, plenty of sweet people DO have good lives, even when they're making some stupid choices, but when they don't, it's not due to karma... it's simple cause and effect, just like MOST of what goes on in the world.
What's all too often the case with people that everyone thinks are "nice" is that they can't bring themselves to kick toxic friends out of their lives, or resist drama queens and bad boys in romantic relationships, or leave dead-end jobs, or take the risks needed for real success, or say "no" to things they don't have the time, $ and energy for, or do any # of other things necessary to achieve success and/or happiness, or even to prevent disasters; despite all of that, plenty of sweet people DO have good lives, even when they're making some stupid choices, but when they don't, it's not due to karma... it's simple cause and effect, just like MOST of what goes on in the world.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
The facts about opinions
We've become VERY fond as a culture of believing we each have the right to have an opinion on every topic, no matter how ignorant we are on the subject, and that our opinions are somehow sacred; it doesn't matter if there are FACTS available, and if those facts contradict what we're saying, we still think that as long as we use the word "opinion" we have guaranteed immunity against being argued with. As a terrifying corollary to this, far too many people also believe that it IS ok to argue statements of FACT, and to hold unfounded opinions as superior to facts, with the reasoning apparently being that facts are occasionally in dispute, but opinions are beyond dispute. {rolls eyes}
Let's be clear what I'm talking about here: Facts are, for the most part, things that are provably true; although you can't "prove" that you dreamed about a cow last night, in general facts can be verified by things like math, science, reference books such as dictionaries, and accurate records of various kinds. An opinion, in contrast, is "a belief or conclusion held with confidence but NOT substantiated by positive knowledge or proof"; while there ARE certainly endless opinions that really CAN'T be validly argued with because there's no provably right view to hold, such as whether red's a prettier color than blue, or whether beef tastes better than chicken, there's nothing in the definition that says anything about opinions as a whole being unable to be disputed, much less about them being somehow superior to facts.
How does this apply to real life? In conversation, we can usually tell when someone's stating an opinion, and stating it AS an opinion, but it gets problematic when people state opinions such that it sounds like they're stating facts, because they consider their opinions to be equal to, or better than, facts; this can lead to real problems, especially with so many people getting so much of their information, or what they THINK is information, online.... for example, on health-related forums I've seen so many ridiculous and provably-wrong opinions on MEDICAL issues that were stated, and accepted by readers, as facts that it gives me CHILLS. Although readers other than me MUST know that what's being asserted is wrong in each of these cases, no one other than me ever SAYS anything... and when I speak up, the wrong-sayer will scream that it's their opinion and can't be argued with, and 10 other people will chime in that quoting doctors and researchers or otherwise mentioning the FACTS is "wrong," and that the "right" thing to do is to make an "analysis" based on no medical training or concrete information to form an opinion, and then treat it as gospel.
I WISH I was joking.
To be blunt, those of us not so seduced by the idea of our random thoughts being treated as inarguable "facts" have GOT to have the backbone to confront people and make it clear that what they're making out to be facts are NOT facts, and that opinions that are contrary to established facts are WRONG, plain and simple. Why is this so hard to do? I know, I know, we were taught not to ridicule people's opinions out of politeness; if someone says they prefer vanilla ice cream and you prefer chocolate, you're NOT supposed to say, "Boy, you sure are stupid-everyone knows that chocolate is the best flavor"... and we should certainly still follow that teaching, as an opinion isn't better or right by virtue of being yours, or worse, wrong or deserving of abuse by virtue of NOT being yours. However, we've GOT to put a stop to the ever-increasing practice of nodding and smiling at ANY statement preceded by "My opinion is" (whether actually said or just implied), or in which a clearly-incorrect opinion is being presented as a fact, because we have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by giving up on the crystal-clear difference between facts and opinions, and the equally crystal-clear knowledge of which of the 2 is RIGHT when they're in conflict.
Let's be clear what I'm talking about here: Facts are, for the most part, things that are provably true; although you can't "prove" that you dreamed about a cow last night, in general facts can be verified by things like math, science, reference books such as dictionaries, and accurate records of various kinds. An opinion, in contrast, is "a belief or conclusion held with confidence but NOT substantiated by positive knowledge or proof"; while there ARE certainly endless opinions that really CAN'T be validly argued with because there's no provably right view to hold, such as whether red's a prettier color than blue, or whether beef tastes better than chicken, there's nothing in the definition that says anything about opinions as a whole being unable to be disputed, much less about them being somehow superior to facts.
How does this apply to real life? In conversation, we can usually tell when someone's stating an opinion, and stating it AS an opinion, but it gets problematic when people state opinions such that it sounds like they're stating facts, because they consider their opinions to be equal to, or better than, facts; this can lead to real problems, especially with so many people getting so much of their information, or what they THINK is information, online.... for example, on health-related forums I've seen so many ridiculous and provably-wrong opinions on MEDICAL issues that were stated, and accepted by readers, as facts that it gives me CHILLS. Although readers other than me MUST know that what's being asserted is wrong in each of these cases, no one other than me ever SAYS anything... and when I speak up, the wrong-sayer will scream that it's their opinion and can't be argued with, and 10 other people will chime in that quoting doctors and researchers or otherwise mentioning the FACTS is "wrong," and that the "right" thing to do is to make an "analysis" based on no medical training or concrete information to form an opinion, and then treat it as gospel.
I WISH I was joking.
To be blunt, those of us not so seduced by the idea of our random thoughts being treated as inarguable "facts" have GOT to have the backbone to confront people and make it clear that what they're making out to be facts are NOT facts, and that opinions that are contrary to established facts are WRONG, plain and simple. Why is this so hard to do? I know, I know, we were taught not to ridicule people's opinions out of politeness; if someone says they prefer vanilla ice cream and you prefer chocolate, you're NOT supposed to say, "Boy, you sure are stupid-everyone knows that chocolate is the best flavor"... and we should certainly still follow that teaching, as an opinion isn't better or right by virtue of being yours, or worse, wrong or deserving of abuse by virtue of NOT being yours. However, we've GOT to put a stop to the ever-increasing practice of nodding and smiling at ANY statement preceded by "My opinion is" (whether actually said or just implied), or in which a clearly-incorrect opinion is being presented as a fact, because we have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by giving up on the crystal-clear difference between facts and opinions, and the equally crystal-clear knowledge of which of the 2 is RIGHT when they're in conflict.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Paper power
It's not uncommon for wives to leave notes for their husbands; I'm guessing, though, that not too many leave notes and lists rolled up in their husband's keyrings, taped over the monitor and the lock of the back door, laid on the keyboard and in the middle of the hallway, attached to open cabinet doors that block that hallway at eye level, the fridge, the cabinets... so many pieces of paper all told that my husband has suggested with total seriousness that it'd be a cool work of art to make some sort of montage with a hundred or so of the many thousands of them as a representation of our married life.
I've gone farther than just writing notes, though; it started with the cheese compartment, which is, as the name suggests, where cheese and ONLY cheese should be stored. My husband decided that this tiny area was the "most convenient" place in the fridge to put literally EVERYTHING; he also claimed it was easier to see everything in there, although that was provably wrong, as all he could see was whatever item was right on top. Talking to him when he's picked up this sort of habit is a waste of time, so I devised a plan; I taped a sheet of paper over the top of the compartment, with the words "CHEESE ONLY" on it, to make it impossible for him to blindly shove stuff in there... well, actually, it was only SEMI-impossible, as he figured out how to stick some things in around the edges without lifting up the paper. Determined to triumph, I made a new cover with TWO pieces of paper, thoroughly taped in there such that, although the compartment was still usable, it really WAS impossible to put anything in there without lifting up the flap, and, stubborn as he is, he just wasn't willing to invest the effort to keep putting things in his favorite spot, so he gave up and started sticking them in other places. We went through a brief period where he was putting the CHEESE in random spots all over, but the 2nd time I found that he had a half dozen packages of cheddar open at the same time because he couldn't be bothered to keep track, or to LOOK before opening a new package, he felt guilty enough about the food wastage that he went back to putting the cheese in its proper place... most of the time, lol.
The latest battle was about the top of the microwave; my husband insists on seeing it as a shelf, and, although those with very tiny kitchens might be justifiably forced to use it as such, we do NOT need to, and having dirty dishes and such up there looks trashy, so I made a big sign saying "NOT A SHELF" and hung it from the overhanging cabinet. He ignored it blatantly and simply reached around it to plunk things down. Taking a lesson from the cheese war, I taped enough paper up that it was no longer convenient to shove things up there... and he kept doing it. I put up so much paper that it was literally impossible to reach the upper surface of the microwave without carefully maneuvering between pieces; I thought that was it, until I noticed that some food packages that had been sitting around on the counter had mysteriously disappeared, and I checked behind the papers... and there they were. I marched into my husband's study and demanded to know what excuse there was for him going through so much effort to put stuff on top of the microwave, and he had the gall to accuse ME of thwarting HIM!! I pointed out that keeping him from slopping up the kitchen did NOT count as "thwarting him," but that by going to extreme effort to put stuff where it didn't belong he showed that, far from just doing what was most convenient, as he always swore he was, he was in fact actively thwarting ME... and he couldn't deny it, nor could he deny that there was simply no excuse to keep stashing things in what was now inarguably the LEAST convenient spot in the kitchen, so that battle has also been won.
They say you can't change someone else's behavior. They say a person has to WANT to change in order to alter their habits. They need to come and talk to ME!! :-)
I've gone farther than just writing notes, though; it started with the cheese compartment, which is, as the name suggests, where cheese and ONLY cheese should be stored. My husband decided that this tiny area was the "most convenient" place in the fridge to put literally EVERYTHING; he also claimed it was easier to see everything in there, although that was provably wrong, as all he could see was whatever item was right on top. Talking to him when he's picked up this sort of habit is a waste of time, so I devised a plan; I taped a sheet of paper over the top of the compartment, with the words "CHEESE ONLY" on it, to make it impossible for him to blindly shove stuff in there... well, actually, it was only SEMI-impossible, as he figured out how to stick some things in around the edges without lifting up the paper. Determined to triumph, I made a new cover with TWO pieces of paper, thoroughly taped in there such that, although the compartment was still usable, it really WAS impossible to put anything in there without lifting up the flap, and, stubborn as he is, he just wasn't willing to invest the effort to keep putting things in his favorite spot, so he gave up and started sticking them in other places. We went through a brief period where he was putting the CHEESE in random spots all over, but the 2nd time I found that he had a half dozen packages of cheddar open at the same time because he couldn't be bothered to keep track, or to LOOK before opening a new package, he felt guilty enough about the food wastage that he went back to putting the cheese in its proper place... most of the time, lol.
The latest battle was about the top of the microwave; my husband insists on seeing it as a shelf, and, although those with very tiny kitchens might be justifiably forced to use it as such, we do NOT need to, and having dirty dishes and such up there looks trashy, so I made a big sign saying "NOT A SHELF" and hung it from the overhanging cabinet. He ignored it blatantly and simply reached around it to plunk things down. Taking a lesson from the cheese war, I taped enough paper up that it was no longer convenient to shove things up there... and he kept doing it. I put up so much paper that it was literally impossible to reach the upper surface of the microwave without carefully maneuvering between pieces; I thought that was it, until I noticed that some food packages that had been sitting around on the counter had mysteriously disappeared, and I checked behind the papers... and there they were. I marched into my husband's study and demanded to know what excuse there was for him going through so much effort to put stuff on top of the microwave, and he had the gall to accuse ME of thwarting HIM!! I pointed out that keeping him from slopping up the kitchen did NOT count as "thwarting him," but that by going to extreme effort to put stuff where it didn't belong he showed that, far from just doing what was most convenient, as he always swore he was, he was in fact actively thwarting ME... and he couldn't deny it, nor could he deny that there was simply no excuse to keep stashing things in what was now inarguably the LEAST convenient spot in the kitchen, so that battle has also been won.
They say you can't change someone else's behavior. They say a person has to WANT to change in order to alter their habits. They need to come and talk to ME!! :-)
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Spammers are getting stupider
It's getting easier to identify spam recently, possibly because only total morons are still creating it, or because they're so bent on using new techniques to stay ahead of our ability to detect them that all they've got left are stupid ones, or... I dunno, but I'm amazed that they're still fooling enough people to make it worth their while.
The stupidest thing they're currently doing is having the sender's name be something utterly ridiculous, like "Clarabella Finkleheimerschmidt"; when you see that name, you instantly realize that you don't know, have never known, and never WILL know, anyone with the first name "Clarabella," much less with the last name "Finkleheimerschmidt," and thus that that email is spam and can be deleted... which means that you won't be reading the email or responding to its contents (which usually include one or more links to click), and the spammer has no chance whatsoever of making $ off of you.
Even when they're not getting quite so extreme with the names, they tend to make another mistake; they include a middle initial in the name, which no actual person does. "Edward Smith" MIGHT be someone you know; "Edward K. Smith" is definitely a spammer... what could possibly have made them think that adding that middle initial would make it MORE believable that their emails were from a real person?
If they had any brains, they'd have the sender field contain only a first name, and use one that the average person will actually associate with someone they know; if you see that you've received an email from "John" or "Susan," there's an excellent chance you'll open it, and isn't that the whole POINT of spam, to trick you into opening it? Anyone who isn't bright enough to figure that out shouldn't bother pursuing a career as a spammer.
Another dead giveaway is when the sender field contains a person's name, but the subject line makes it sound like the email is from a business of some sort, with phrases like "About your account" and "Your bill is overdue"; REAL businesses, even tiny online ones, use the name of the business and/or the department the email is coming from in the sender field. Would it be so tough to make the sender field look like a business name, such as "EZ Online Shopping Site"? If they were REALLY smart, they'd make the sender field an unremarkable name, and the subject field "Re: eBay item # 4739573849"; so many people do eBay, none of whom memorize the #'s of whatever items they're buying, selling or asking about, that many, maybe even MOST, recipients would open the emails... *I* certainly would, as I get valid emails that look just like that all the time.
Another common bungle in the subject lines of spam is to use a name other than the recipient's; if you get a subject line that says "How have you been, David Johnson?" and your name is Margaret Smith, you're not going to open that email. What's worse is that they tend to use unusual names for this, so there's not even that one in a million chance that they'll get someone with that name; if they just used a common first name, and no last name, this might strike gold once in a while, but the names I've seen used have NO chance.
There are a couple of miscellaneous mistakes being made as well; one of them is using file attachments to make fancy graphics in the emails... we're all so paranoid about file attachments from unknown sources that even if the sender's name and subject line don't put us off, we delete the emails out of fear of viruses. The other one is forgetting that the use of random word generators to fool the spam filters should NOT extend to the subject line; if you see a half dozen nonsense words in a subject line, unless you have some very odd friends, you known instantly it's spam.
If spam is ever defeated, it won't be by any new twist of technology; it'll be because the spammers have gotten so clueless about how to trick people into opening their emails that the $ disappears, and they give up.
The stupidest thing they're currently doing is having the sender's name be something utterly ridiculous, like "Clarabella Finkleheimerschmidt"; when you see that name, you instantly realize that you don't know, have never known, and never WILL know, anyone with the first name "Clarabella," much less with the last name "Finkleheimerschmidt," and thus that that email is spam and can be deleted... which means that you won't be reading the email or responding to its contents (which usually include one or more links to click), and the spammer has no chance whatsoever of making $ off of you.
Even when they're not getting quite so extreme with the names, they tend to make another mistake; they include a middle initial in the name, which no actual person does. "Edward Smith" MIGHT be someone you know; "Edward K. Smith" is definitely a spammer... what could possibly have made them think that adding that middle initial would make it MORE believable that their emails were from a real person?
If they had any brains, they'd have the sender field contain only a first name, and use one that the average person will actually associate with someone they know; if you see that you've received an email from "John" or "Susan," there's an excellent chance you'll open it, and isn't that the whole POINT of spam, to trick you into opening it? Anyone who isn't bright enough to figure that out shouldn't bother pursuing a career as a spammer.
Another dead giveaway is when the sender field contains a person's name, but the subject line makes it sound like the email is from a business of some sort, with phrases like "About your account" and "Your bill is overdue"; REAL businesses, even tiny online ones, use the name of the business and/or the department the email is coming from in the sender field. Would it be so tough to make the sender field look like a business name, such as "EZ Online Shopping Site"? If they were REALLY smart, they'd make the sender field an unremarkable name, and the subject field "Re: eBay item # 4739573849"; so many people do eBay, none of whom memorize the #'s of whatever items they're buying, selling or asking about, that many, maybe even MOST, recipients would open the emails... *I* certainly would, as I get valid emails that look just like that all the time.
Another common bungle in the subject lines of spam is to use a name other than the recipient's; if you get a subject line that says "How have you been, David Johnson?" and your name is Margaret Smith, you're not going to open that email. What's worse is that they tend to use unusual names for this, so there's not even that one in a million chance that they'll get someone with that name; if they just used a common first name, and no last name, this might strike gold once in a while, but the names I've seen used have NO chance.
There are a couple of miscellaneous mistakes being made as well; one of them is using file attachments to make fancy graphics in the emails... we're all so paranoid about file attachments from unknown sources that even if the sender's name and subject line don't put us off, we delete the emails out of fear of viruses. The other one is forgetting that the use of random word generators to fool the spam filters should NOT extend to the subject line; if you see a half dozen nonsense words in a subject line, unless you have some very odd friends, you known instantly it's spam.
If spam is ever defeated, it won't be by any new twist of technology; it'll be because the spammers have gotten so clueless about how to trick people into opening their emails that the $ disappears, and they give up.
