Why? Why? WHY?

2011/07/23 — isecore

Pardon my french, but WHAT THE FUCK is wrong with people? Yesterday some 80+ young people lost their lives because of a deranged madman. What was the purpose of it? Nothing. It was just a pointless act of violence.

The world is filled with violence and it saddens me. Mans inhumanity to man is becoming even more legendary. We happily maim, butcher, destroy and kill each other over more or less trivial or stupid reasons. There are two things high up on the list of stupid reasons why we destroy each other: money and religion. Pretty much any other reason you can find will have roots in either or both of those things.

Religion is the most glaring thing we should’ve ditched long ago. Religion serves no purpose, it never has. Let me spell it out for you: it’s a heritage from something ancient kings invented to control the stupid masses. We don’t need religion, we don’t need some god telling us what to do. I’m tired of religion. I’m tired of religious zealots telling me all kinds of stupid horseshit that I know is wrong, yet expecting me to believe it as if it was real. No, there is no god. No, there is no magic. There is no invisible man in the sky. We don’t need a “god” to tell us what is right or wrong, we know it in our hearts because we’re blessed with this little thing called intelligence. Religion and gods are the product of scared people living in caves and being unable to explain the world around them to themselves. Those people needed theses things to make sense of the world.

We don’t need it. Please, move along. Leave this nonsense behind.

This is just me ventilating. There is no purpose to this post other than me letting off steam. If you’re religious and take offense at what I’m writing, then that’s your damn problem. I’m tired of intolerant people expecting me to be tolerant of them. I’m tired of stupid people expecting me to lower my intelligence to fit their ceiling. From this day on, if you’re an intolerant, ignorant, narrow-minded, bigoted asshole then you will receive one phrase from me: Well, fuck you then.

More than 80 people died yesterday. I shudder when I think about how various fuckwits around scandinavia will try to use this horrible incident to server their selfish, xenophobic, backwards purposes. How they will pervert this awful event into something even more nasty.

I belive in other intelligent species outside of our own earth. I’m convinced we’ve been visited by these creatures, and I’m equally certain that they have observed us in the past. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we’re quietly being observed RIGHT THIS MINUTE by them. Observing us, trying to determine if we’ve evolved even the slightest bit, and if we show even basic civility to others. And I wonder what they think when they see the hundreds of years of torment we cause each other over nonsensical issues we should’ve left behind long ago. I wonder how harshly we’re judged when they see things like the crusades, the spanish inquisition, two world wars, hundreds of tiny wars caused by (in the big picture) completely inane reasons. I wonder what they think about us, when they see a lone person chaotically destroying and killing others of his own kind.

I wish I could say to them, please, don’t judge us too harshly. There’s good inside us too, and that’s where I put my own faith, that’s where I put my own stock. That’s what I believe in. Not in some cold and distant god, but in the goodness within ourselves.

Posted in Politics, The World, Thoughts And Such. No Comments »

Democracy Should Be More Like UNIX

2010/09/17 — isecore

Now, I know a lot of you out there on the intartubez will go “huh? wha?” at that topic, but I’ll explain in due time.

I come from a nerdy background. Or well, not so nerdy really, but one of my primary interests is technology and computers. Add to this that I’m also very observant and intelligent, and think a lot about the world around me and what could be made to improve it.

Currently Sweden is gearing up towards yet another election. In a few days the keys to the country will be handed over to a new set of con-men and con-women who will steer it in whatever direction they choose. Despite my general malaise regarding politics I’ve been thinking a lot about how politics, democracy and society could be improved.

See, Sweden is rapidly becoming a two-party country with only a few minor outside players. The political parties representing the blue (right) and red (left) sides of the political spectrum in this country has each gelled into somewhat uneasy alliances with each other. All the somewhat blue parties are in one alliance, all the somewhat red (and some green) parties are in another alliance.

I find this somewhat worrisome.

Now, like I said, I’m a somewhat nerdy person and I like computers. I’m also a Linux-user, and as such I’m going to use operating systems as a metaphor for politics.

There is a deep difference in design philosophy between UNIX-like systems (of which Linux is one) and the most common operating system on personal computers today, i.e. Microsofts Windows.

The difference is subtle but interesting. The philosophy in UNIX-type systems is to make small, specialized applications that do one thing and do it very well – and then make these applications very easy to interoperate with other applications. In fact, most “applications” in a UNIX-like environment aren’t applications in the proper sense of the word, but rather they are individual tools in a toolbox. Just like a hammer or a wrench they do one thing, and they are specialized in doing only that thing. The kernel in the operating system provides some common functions, but just like a toolbox it is essentially useless unless there are tools inside it. These tools in turn are designed to interoperate.

This is why the “proper” applications in many UNIX-like systems are more like front-ends to these tools. The provide a nice, neat interface with which you can work and behind the scenes it’s still most of the same common tools that do the actual work, operating and communicating with each other, each tool doing precisely what that tool is designed to do and nothing else. Each tool has been refined and refined for many iterations, and it is a beautifully crafted tool designed to do just one or maybe two things, but to do them very well.

By contrast, the design philosophy in the Windows world is quite the opposite. Most applications are what I call “limousine applications”. They’re big and bloated, they’re unwieldy, and they try to do as many things as possible at the same time. Again, the operating system acts essentially as the toolbox and provides some common services, but again the toolbox without the tools is just a useless box accomplishing nothing.

However, in the Windows toolbox the tools are strange, multi-jawed, multi-gripped, bizarre creations that try to do everything at once and succeding quite miserably at most things. Sure, they get the work done, but they don’t do it very well and they don’t do it very quickly. Usually because the tool is full designed to do 10 or maybe even double that amount of things, and thus it ends up doing each thing quite miserably. The toolmaker is also very selfish, and as such none of the tools in the Windows toolbox has any interoperation. You can choose one tool at a time, and they will not work well with each other.

You get the picture?

Democracy in Sweden (and in most parts of the western world, especially the US of A) is or have already become the political equivalent to the Windows toolbox. You have one, two or in rare cases three parties that all try to do everything required to run a country. Everything from collecting taxes to running hospitals to making sure the roads aren’t deteriorating is supposed to be managed by one or two parties. The parties have grown into gargantuan multiheaded monsters that stumble through politics spreading their efforts so thin that nothing really works. They want to run everything, but because of their organization and size they end up running everything quite badly. Lots of issues fall to the wayside or are forgotten by this lumbering beast.

I think democracy needs to be more UNIX-like. Rather than having one or two huge political parties trying to cover every issue our society involves, we need many small parties, parties that focus on one thing and focus on doing that thing very well – and then communicate and interoperate well with all the other political parties.

Posted in Politics, Sweden, The World, Thoughts And Such. No Comments »

Julian Assange Har Inte Våldtagit Någon

2010/08/21 — isecore

Just nu rullar den stora nyheten att Julian Assange, mannen som är ansiktet utåt för kontroversiella Wikileaks, söks i sin frånvaro anklagad för våldtäkt.

Problemet är bara att det här är helt och hållet fabricerat, och man behöver inte vara speciellt insatt i det hela för att förstå att det är fullständigt fabricerat och att “nyheten” är skapad av utländska intressen som manipulerar lilla Sverige till att göra som de vill.

Intressen i USA har ju de senaste månaderna varit enormt kritiska till Wikileaks. Ända sen den där filmen om helikopterpiloterna som glatt sköt ihjäl civilister läckte ut har Wikileaks varit en nagel i ögat på ganska många departement i bland annat USA. Nu försöker man på alla sätt att släcka ner det här, för att förhindra att transparensen i samhället får fortsätta.

För det är vad Wikileaks representerar: en möjlighet för oss vanliga dödliga att inse att majoriteten av de människor som sitter vid makten runt om i världen gör saker som är etiskt oförsvarbara och dessutom ljuger om det. Dessa människor vill se till att vi vanliga medborgare fortsätter vara en korkad fårskock medan de fortsätter att manipulera oss och göra saker som de själva sagt är olagliga och aldrig händer.

Utan Wikileaks kommer korruptionen i maktens korridorer att fortsätta och bli om möjligt ännu värre. Wikileaks behövs.

Men det är en obekväm organisation för just dessa människor och därför skyr de inga medel alls att försöka sätta käppar i hjulet. Där ingår att fabricera såna här smutskastningskampanjer.

Uppdatering: Fick precis reda på att anklagelserna hävts. Skönt! Det gör mig glad att det åtminstone finns lite vett kvar i det svenska rättssamhället.

Posted in Politics, The World. 11 Comments »

I Spy, With My Little Eye

2009/09/24 — isecore

We’re surrounded by politicians and corporations who feel more and more threatened by us and by the Internet.

The corporations (most obviously represented by the media-maffia) feel threatened since people now have the power to distribute their own creative works with none or very little cost. This threatens a business-model that’s built on not creating anything, but by controlling the flow of creativity from others. The Internet has rendered record companies virtually obsolete, since musicians now can distribute their own music.

Politicians feel threatened by the Internet since it allows limitless communication. No longer do we have to rely on the filtered and controlled information that they allow us through controlled outlets such as radio and television. Instead we can communicate endlessly, and with immediate reaction. Blogs and chats and direct interaction between citizens threaten to overthrow their empire of bureaucracy. This is unacceptable for them, since they want to maintain the status quo where they can use a system they control against the majority of the citizens.

Add to this mix a lot of greed and stupidity and you have a recipe for a dystopian future where the most amazing invention humankind has ever created (the Internet) is being used to control the vast majority for the benefit of a small clique of self-appointed elite.

One of the most common thing proponents of a draconian society uses is the phrase “if you’re clean you have nothing to worry about… ” which implies that if you’re a law-abiding citizen you should simply accept this invasion of privacy and loss of rights they’re trying to push on you.

Imagine a future society where everything you do is monitored. Not even George Orwell in his wildest imagination could’ve dreamt up such a horrible dystopia, and it’s all thanks to corporations and politicians corrupting the beautiful internet for their own hidden agendas.

It could start innocently enough. Think about it, virtually every computer today has a webcam – either built-in or attached through a cable. What if some politicians decided that every webcam had to be monitored via a government-installed piece of software? Just to make sure that you’re a law-abiding citizen. I mean, if you’re law-abiding you have nothing to hide, right? Just install the software and we won’t suspect you of anything. If you don’t install it, then that automatically means you have something to hide, and they will decide without informing you what kind of freak you are – even though you just wanted to maintain the right to privacy.

This is why you need to vote for your local Pirate party. If there is none, you need to start one. Before it’s too late, before commercial and political interests have corrupted our society into the one I describe above.

Posted in Computers, Politics, The World, Thoughts And Such. 2 Comments »

Germany Bans Intelligence And Understanding

2009/05/09 — isecore

A few days ago I read about how Germany is mulling a ban on Paintball. They feel that paintball glorifies violence and teaches children how to kill each other.

Now, I understand that killing other people is something you don’t want to encourage, but this is not the right way to go – banning things that might be vaguely similar in some kind of knee-jerk reaction to try to “fix” the problem. It won’t solve anything, and will only serve to further stamp in the popular opinion that politicians are power-mad morons who can’t see reality even if it hit them on the head.

I’m not a big pro-paintball type of guy. I’ve only played paintball once, and while it was great fun I didn’t really get hooked. It just wasn’t my type of sport or game or whatever you might call it. But I’m in some kind of shock that the German government is so blunderingly stupid that they think paintball is the cause of all evil when it comes to those horrendous school-shootings.

If we’re going to ban everything that might inspire violence, then why aren’t we banning all the militaries in the world? Or banning toy guns? Or model kits of tanks? Or super-soakers? Or heavy-metal music?

Hey, lets just force everyone to do nothing but sit in a field of flowers and listen to the sound of silence? That way no one might get inspired to kill someone else.

Posted in Politics, The World. 1 Comment »
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