Normality - A Moronblogger Article

So, I get to thinking about normality. I get cheesed off, you know, at LGF nowadays. I shouldn't, really - It's Charles' blog and money that's keeping it, and obviously a huge number of commenters and readers like him adding more of the anti-ID, anti-creationist stuff that he's doing right now. As a creationist, this obviously doesn't quite fit my bill, but I'm not gonna complain on his blog. I'm not really even gonna complain on my own - how many people actually read what I have to write?

But here's what gets me going; evolution, you see, is an upward transitionary path. You get from something less complex to something more complex; from a single-cell creature to a multi-cellular creature, to invertebrates, to vertebrates, to warm-blooded vertebrates and so on. But we all know the unthinking universe does not work like that. The Laws of Thermodynamics pretty much guarantee that the inevitable result of time, and even energy, into any system, is disorder. You know what the only way to reverse this is? Intelligence. Intelligence, and information, and energy, and time, can equal increased order or more complexity. It doesn't guarantee it, but it does make it possible.

This, by the way, is really what Charles and most every conservative knows. Because conservatism requires intelligence, and hence it's hard. The default (or normal) position of just about everyone on the face of the planet is to be lazy, ignorant, stubborn, self-centred and stupid. We start out like that when we're kids, and we have to be educated and trained out of it. Don't believe me? See what's happening now in the public school system in the States. Why is the usual tagline that you're more likely to be liberal when young and conservative when old? That's because the older you get, the more work you're likely to have done (or have to do), and the more mental power you have to exercise. Conservatism is a thinking man's game, and it is not the default. Democracy, or at least the truly useful type of democracy, is also not normal. Why are autocracies the major form of government throughout most of history? Because people are lazy, and prefer to have someone else do their thinking for them.

Remember when I said that intelligence is necessary but not sufficient for order and increased complexity? There is a great deal of intelligence in our cellular makeup (in fact, in cellular makeup, period). How the immune system recognises 'normal' cells and goes after everything else that doesn't belong, how the sensory organs transmit messages back to the brain, how our metabolic functions regulate our temperature, how our whole body struggles to preserve life at all costs - these are not simple tasks and require the dense information carried by our DNA, and the autonomic systems.

To get to what we call 'normal' or 'healthy' human physiology requires a lot of coordination and meshing together of interconnecting parts. And sometimes, it is not enough. We end up with blind and deaf and dumb people; autistic people, folks with allergies, haemophilia, cystic fibrosis, and a whole host of other congenital diseases. As if that's not enough, during our lifetimes we have to put up with arthritis, osteoporosis, rheumatism, cancer. Let me tell you, we are losing ground just trying to maintain our current states!

This, by the way, is why we say the price for peace is eternal vigilance. And why we have to fight to preserve our civilisation and our culture every generation. Because the 'normal' for us is actually an ideal situation, and that ideal situation requires a lot of effort to maintain. The actual 'normal' is war, poverty and barbarism.

Which brings me to the real point of my post. You know that there are militant deaf people out there, and also people who amputate (I call it mutilate) themselves because their mental 'idea' of themselves do not include a particular limb or other body part. In other times and other circumstances, we would try and counsel them out of it, won't we? We would think that a deaf person, given the opportunity to hear (maybe through artificial cochlear implants, or nerve regeneration, or whatever) would be crazy not to accept with gratitude, won't we? And someone who chops his right leg off because he though it didn't fit in with the rest of his body, even though it was physiologically sound, we would think needed to be put in the asylum, true?

And yet, such people and others like them do exist, and we put up with them - more, we encourage these insanities.

It does not give me much confidence.

EDIT: Yes, I am talking about SRS folk. For those of you who think this is some kind of sonic enhancement scheme, it also stands for Sex Reassignment Surgery, the let's-chop-of-your-balls-and-invert-your-dick-to-make-it-a-pussy-instead kind of surgery. But, the parallel situations I mention above are in fact real situations - not some twisted shit I dreamed up just to illustrate my point.

This one thing I don't know, though. Are there actual psychologists who recommend that a person who just feels wrong with a right arm get it amputated? Or who defend the militant deaf family's right to keep their daughter deaf or something?

If there are not, then I fail to see why there should be any difference between that and issues involving your genitals. If there are... words will fail me at that point. But let me just point out that a mere 5 decades ago, homosexuality was categorised and defined as a mental disease - and still is, in many parts of the world. Psychologists don't necessarily know everything, and I wouldn't appeal to their authority.

Life, Youth and Death - Introspective Series part 1

And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the
garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Genesis 2: 16-17 tells us that death is the result of a single act of disobedience to God, what we call sin. And what brings this post about? One of my church members has recently passed away of a heart condition; she was a member of my parents' cell group as well, so there was a certain degree of closeness there. And she was also close to my parents' age, so you can imagine that mortality is very much on my mind right now, selfish man that I am.

Our Catholic brethren would have it that this immortality or undyingness that existed in the Graden of Eden was preternatural; i.e. given by the grace of God and withdrawn from the baseline 'natural' man when he committed sin. A form of 'plug-in immortality', if you will. I don't buy it. Because nature is also by the grace of God; if He did not create the universe and all that is within it, we won't be here to discuss anything. Besides, we know God created Adam and Eve and endowed them with exactly what He wanted them to have, so it was part of Man's nature to be immortal right from the start.

And we blew it. Big time. Because of this one action of Adam in not restraining either himself or his wife, all of nature itself is blighted. We do not usually notice the blight, because we too are blighted. But it can be guessed at; our killing for food (NTTAWWT), the constant (and I mean constant, even in our own individual lives) swapping of wrong for right, the struggle for supremacy between races, religions, tribes, tongues, sexes even.

But the greatest blight of all is death. It is NOT in our nature to face death as we face all other adversities. We run and hide from it like from no other threat. We deny it, we fight it, we do everything in our power to delay its oncoming onslaught. We react like no other living creature does in the presence of death.

It is said that men are at their greatest, physically speaking, at around ages 18-21. This is when the muscles are at their best tone, when the fertility is highest, well, everything is all good withal. It must be true; otherwise why would men of all ages beyond this try everything in their power to return to that age? Maybe God created Adam to be around that age (I don't know). Certainly, however, I don't feel all that different from 21.

I do not fear death for myself. Although I don't want it either. I have HOPE in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, through whose Spirit my process of CHANGE from carnal man to regenerate man is enabled and expedited (although it's until an end-of-life process).

Public Transport - Bah, Humbug! - A Moronblogger Rant

So I wasn't going to do one of these so soon (wanted to do posts on youth, life and death, you know, the light stuff), but RapidKL (a damned oxymoron if ever there was one) has finally pissed me off beyond all recognition. So, here's a moronblogger rant to start the day off with.

The definitive list of why Public Transport sucks

1. Timing and scheduling

There are countries in the world where, whatever you think of the politics, socio-economic milieu, or whatever else, they actually make the damned trains run on time. Germany, at least as of 10 years ago, was one such place - to the extent that should a train run later than normal, even by as little as a minute, they actually give every passenger a fucking excuse letter to show their boss!

Then, you also have countries where the variation is ~5-10 minutes. Still within acceptable parameters, really - Australia is one, Singapore is another.

And you have UTTERLY FUCKED UP places like KL, Malaysia, where they can't even get the crummy, shitty buses to run once an hour when they're supposed to come every 20 mins! You've had two years to come up with a timetable that's even halfway accurate, and all you can say is "Natch"?

2. Comfort

Listen up, you motherfuckers, we the customers of your public transportation system (whichever one it may be), we are Homo sapiens. Thinking Man, comprende? Do we look like sardines to you? No? Then why for the love of all that's holy do you INSIST on PACKING US INTO YOUR BLOODY TINCAN TRAINS like we are?

3. Professionalism

That's assuming you cocksuckers can even read! Half of the bus drivers are stoned off their ass on some shit or another, possibly crack; the other half are perverted dickheads, and in neither case do they actually have a damned license to operate a 10 ton vehicle other than a ballistic missile. I actually, on the day of my college exams, saw a bus crash into a Land Rover RIGHT OUTSIDE MY HOUSE! The bus was sloghtly dented, and the people were fine (so was the bus driver, may he spend 10,000 years as a female camel in Saudi Arabia), but the Land Rover was smashed to all hell and the driver bled all over my college mate's car on the way to the hospital.

4. Maintenance

Look, this is not so hard. Clean the damned trains, trams and buses. It's not rocket science, for fuck's sake. We're not asking for scented towellettes and orange juice everytime we get on board. Just common, decent cleanliness, so that we don't step on someone's leftover gum, or spooge left there from two minks banging each other. Or sitting on such.

And for crying out loud, regular checkups of the equipment, OK? "Dear valued customers, due to technical difficulties the duration between each train is now 7-10 minutes. We are sorry and apologise for the inconvenience." The HELL you are and the HELL you do! If you were really sorry, you won't let it get all FUBAR and SNAFUed in the FIRST PLACE!!! And don't fucking apologise, assholes, FIX IT!!!!!

5. Pricing

Do you know, to get from London to Blackpool by British Rail, and this was 15 years ago now, could cost up to GBP1000 for a group of four? Oh, but buy our yearly family discount pass for GBP200 and kids below 16 can ride for GBP1! WTF?

And why is it that to ride ONE station costs RM1.00 but to ride TEN stations costs RM2.50? Are you serious? Do you bozos (RIP to the original and best Bozo, who was easily 100x smarter than these other clowns running the show) even sit down and plan your pricing strategies, or do you just get stoned and make it up as you go along?

And this is not even to mention the corruption and nepotism going on in tender exercises!

Rant over.

A introspective on youth

So, my boss' birthday was on Monday. He was born on the same year that I was. Which makes him 28, and in some few months I will be also. Which got me thinking about youth, and the aging process.

Aussies for some reason make a big deal out of their 21st birthday (okay, that one I kinda get), as well as their 30th (this one I don't get). Even as a kid I knew that schooldays were gonna be the best days of my life. Think about it; only half a day in an institution, half of that time goofing off and the other half bullying the teachers. Was so successful that one year my class made each and every teacher cry and run out of the classroom, except our Biology teacher. Who was 6'6", 250lbs and looked like a former Marine DI. (As an aside, he looked like he could not only tear us a new asshole, but do it with his hands tied behind his back, too. Our little antics didn't faze him at all). Compare that with working 8-6 Mon-Fri with a noose around your neck every day (except Casual Fridays, which is alright). And maybe 1 month of vacation, including public hols.

At 28, people will still say you're young. But you're not young young. And part of the problem is when your mind doesn't catch up with your body. This is perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of aging, I find. That, and finding out that many people you know are already married with children. Where does the time go?

See, here's the thing. No surprise to know that adolescent boys are attracted to adolescent girls, right? Of course, it is true that adolescent boys are attracted to females, period. And they're a perpetually horny lot too. Brash, crass, do stuff without thinking, generally acting the way you'd expect a teenager to act.

What happens when that fellow grows up, though? You'd think some degree of maturity would set in. But I find to my dismay this is not the case. I still exhibit, to a large degree, the same characteristics I did 10 years ago. Which, when I think about it, means I haven't grown and changed much at all; now tell me this is all right. You won't, right?

Specifically, I am still perpetually horny, girls in pinafores can still get me going (let's not talk about Japanese schoolgirl uniforms here, okay?), I still play computer games, my parents still get on my case, I'm still tactless and impulsive - you know, nothing much has changed from 10 years ago from my perspective. Except I have a job that I like and I'm good at and I get paid a halfway decent amount for.

Now, what does that all mean? I can conjecture one of two things; either I was already pretty mature back in '98, or I'm a highly-functioning retard with the mental age of 18. Or 15, for that matter. Considering that I call myself a moronblogger, of course the latter is far more likely. Still...

And I am not alone. In certain European countries, people my age still stay with their parents, and are still jobless, and are still acting like the typical teenage punk. I'd love to tie the liberals into this as well, associating govt with parents and nanny-statism and whatnot, but I'm talking about individuals here.

I don't wanna grow old! And I don't want to stay a perpetual youngster either! Life is indeed a complex affair. And you know what? I love it! Because in my mind I'm still a teenager, it's hard for me to grow old. But even as a teenager I was a pretty conservative and world-savvy fellow, so it's not as if I'm still naive.

Over the next few weeks I think I'd like to explore several aspects of my youth, mostly concentrating on my school years.