Laundry List
Here's a list of what concerns me at the moment. What better place to air it than in front of a million strangers.
1. My first day of work was good. It's a beautiful hotel and the people are interesting. I feel kinda boring in comparison, but I suspect in a while I'll be insane enough due to the influence of Santa Fe. It's nice working in a place where there are attractive guys again, too.
2. I'm sorry that I went with Matt and Dad to dinner. Dad's birthday was a few days ago, so Matt takes him out to dinner. It was a mistake, and at a certain point, I knew I was hurting them to be there, but we'd all driven together and I couldn't leave them.
3. I'm not stupid. More importantly, I'm not stupider than my brother (or compared with my brother, semantically), despite what my Dad says. I used to tell everyone that my brother got 10 points higher than me on our IQ tests until a few years ago when my mom got sick of that and showed me the results. I don't deny that he's better than me, but I no longer ascribe that to intelligence. Instead, it's part of his drive, his will to live. It's simply stronger than mine, and it always has been.
After my Dad said that he had proof that Matt was smarter than me and I asked him for that proof, he waved the reciept for dinner in my face. Matt paid. I don't have the ability to buckle down and do the work like Matt can, but that isn't intelligence. Not in my book.
4. In "The ends justify the means" the reason is the "end(s)" and action is the "means."
So, the war in Iraq is the means, America corporation control of Iraq's oil is the end. No one really listened to me during dinner, both of them were shushing me, but this is what I would have said about it:
These things exist on a continuum. They can be a simple a therefore b, or a complex chain. The ends of one might be the means of another chain link and vice versa. For example, to make himself richer, Bush must make oil companies richer. Getting rich is the goal, and his actions are the means to that goal. That's the first link. The second link is that in order to make the oil companies richer, Saddam Hussein can't be allowed to continue to behave in a manner that continues sanctions against Iraq. Making oil companies richer is the end, and removing Saddam Hussein is the means. In the third link, in order to remove Saddam Husseing, there must be an invasion by America. To invade, there must be a politically correct reason to do so, such as claiming that he's a genocidal maniac. Invading is the end goal, claiming that he's going to continue to murder his own citizens is the means.
That's four links in a very long chain. Those are fairly general links. Those individual link can be broken down into multiple individual links. In order to understand the chain, it's important to know what part of a link is the end, and what is the means.
5. Yes, I care.
About lots of things. I care about people dismissing my ideas. I care about individuals on television embarrassing themselves. I care about how well my brother can express himself.
6. What the hell good is a memory that lies to you? It must be a genetic thing. I can remember certain things vividly . . . but I can't always trust myself to know what is real or not. Was that McDonalds spanning the highway a real place, or was that a dream? I can't tell except when I have feelings associated with it. If it was free of pain, it wasn't real. If it sucked, it probably was.
This is related to the Ben's maxim of Sexual Orientation: Ben's attraction to a person is inversely proportional to that person's homosexuality.
That's the laundry list. I wonder what will happen tomorrow.
1. My first day of work was good. It's a beautiful hotel and the people are interesting. I feel kinda boring in comparison, but I suspect in a while I'll be insane enough due to the influence of Santa Fe. It's nice working in a place where there are attractive guys again, too.
2. I'm sorry that I went with Matt and Dad to dinner. Dad's birthday was a few days ago, so Matt takes him out to dinner. It was a mistake, and at a certain point, I knew I was hurting them to be there, but we'd all driven together and I couldn't leave them.
3. I'm not stupid. More importantly, I'm not stupider than my brother (or compared with my brother, semantically), despite what my Dad says. I used to tell everyone that my brother got 10 points higher than me on our IQ tests until a few years ago when my mom got sick of that and showed me the results. I don't deny that he's better than me, but I no longer ascribe that to intelligence. Instead, it's part of his drive, his will to live. It's simply stronger than mine, and it always has been.
After my Dad said that he had proof that Matt was smarter than me and I asked him for that proof, he waved the reciept for dinner in my face. Matt paid. I don't have the ability to buckle down and do the work like Matt can, but that isn't intelligence. Not in my book.
4. In "The ends justify the means" the reason is the "end(s)" and action is the "means."
So, the war in Iraq is the means, America corporation control of Iraq's oil is the end. No one really listened to me during dinner, both of them were shushing me, but this is what I would have said about it:
These things exist on a continuum. They can be a simple a therefore b, or a complex chain. The ends of one might be the means of another chain link and vice versa. For example, to make himself richer, Bush must make oil companies richer. Getting rich is the goal, and his actions are the means to that goal. That's the first link. The second link is that in order to make the oil companies richer, Saddam Hussein can't be allowed to continue to behave in a manner that continues sanctions against Iraq. Making oil companies richer is the end, and removing Saddam Hussein is the means. In the third link, in order to remove Saddam Husseing, there must be an invasion by America. To invade, there must be a politically correct reason to do so, such as claiming that he's a genocidal maniac. Invading is the end goal, claiming that he's going to continue to murder his own citizens is the means.
That's four links in a very long chain. Those are fairly general links. Those individual link can be broken down into multiple individual links. In order to understand the chain, it's important to know what part of a link is the end, and what is the means.
5. Yes, I care.
About lots of things. I care about people dismissing my ideas. I care about individuals on television embarrassing themselves. I care about how well my brother can express himself.
6. What the hell good is a memory that lies to you? It must be a genetic thing. I can remember certain things vividly . . . but I can't always trust myself to know what is real or not. Was that McDonalds spanning the highway a real place, or was that a dream? I can't tell except when I have feelings associated with it. If it was free of pain, it wasn't real. If it sucked, it probably was.
This is related to the Ben's maxim of Sexual Orientation: Ben's attraction to a person is inversely proportional to that person's homosexuality.
That's the laundry list. I wonder what will happen tomorrow.
posted by Spherical Time at
11:08 PM
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