I am nonplussed. Now, despite Left Thumb's arguments that this could very easily mean I am also non-subtracted and hence neutral, this is not the fashion in which you, the reader, should comprehend my statement of dissatisfaction. What has me so perturbed? Well, Stephanie Meyers, obviously, but beyond her attempts to return literature to the stone age (although, this might be an insult to rocks), numbers bother me. On the West Wing, Josh Lyman once said "Numbers don't lie." Joey Lucas astutely responded. "Of course they do. They lie all the time."
So let's get to it. Some are purveyors of the truth, others are dastardly (like 156. watch out for 156). But either way, they (or their being ignored by people) annoy me. Actually, they enrage me. Right Thumb is enraged.
156. Let's face it. This number lies all the time. You know it does. I know it does. Let's just get rid of it. Who is up for going from 155-157?
12,000,000,000,000: This is how much money we owe people. Needless to say, I am not a big fan of gargantuan numbers which represent money I owe to other people unless there is a cute little "-" before the number begins. Of course, there isn't.
Something like a gazillion: The number of pages in the Senate and House healthcare bills. Easy reading.
3.1: Nuclear power plants, over the long haul, can produce electricity at a relative costs of 2.1-3.1 cents per kilowatt. Coal plants, from 3.7-6.0 cents per kilowatt. So, why are we not making nuclear power plants? I HAVE NO FREAKING CLUE SO EXPLAIN IT TO ME. Granted, the startup costs for a nuclear plant are a much higher percentage of those total long run costs (estimated to be about 50% of the total cost compared with 15% for a coal fired plant's start up costs) but with today's interest rates, who cares?! And these aren't numbers spewed out by some Nuclear Researcher who needs a job. They come from two international organizations, one within the OECD (the Nuclear Energy Agency) as well as the IEA (International Energy Agency). The end is nigh, not because of Mayan calendars ending, but for the same reason the end is always nigh. People. Are. St00pid.
0.0: The effective interest rate in our country right now. Seriously. Look at that number. Somebody tell me this could possibly be a good thing. SOMEONE TELL ME THAT.
*looks around*
No one? Yeah, thought so.
Approaching 70%: The divorce rate in our country. Let's keep advertising contraception on TV though, because clearly it is working.
Some positive number: The amount of money our Treasury Secretary did not pay to the government that he was legally obligated to pay.
3rd: The arguments regarding a "2nd" stimulus bill are really about a third. Bush passed a stimulus bill. We just didn't call it that. But it cost 800 billion dollars and was, for all intents and purposes, a stimulus bill.
6: The number of years you were expected to be dead for by the time you got a single social security check back when social security was invented.
20: The number of years life expectancy has increased since social security was invented.
14: The difference between those two numbers.
8: The number of years since the Twin Towers got knocked over by a bunch of evil thugs.
0: The number of large buildings we have built where the Twin Towers used to be. I'd say shameful, but this is just the way we operate now. When was the last great public works project this country undertook? The transcontinental railroad? We might as well hold up a sign: knock our buildings down... we'll talk about our resiliency a lot, maybe even invade some countries we picked out of a hat, but we won't actually fix anything!
Let's end on a happier note:
25: Days until Christmas. Have a wonderful season.
~Right Thumb~
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Robber and Robbed: Subjectivist Slamming
This post is being made in response to one of our readers, who, in commenting upon one of our posts, expressed dissatisfaction with the intelligence level of our philosophical foils. (Let it never be said that we do not heed the comments. So go comment. Now.) This reader was of course right in that Ayn Rand’s IQ was lower than the temperature in Antarctica or even the IQ of Uwe Boll. According to reliable sources,* any IQ beneath 70 is considered feeble-minded. By this measure, Ayn Rand’s mind was so feeble it couldn’t make it from the easy chair to the bathroom without a team of social workers.
And so I have decided to up the ante with this post—philosophically speaking, that is. And also normally speaking. While my subject today still deserves a hefty dose of Thumb-style ridicule, he was actually kind of a Smart Guy. Arguably. But he was dastardly.
Robber: Immanuel Kant
Robbed: Western civilization
Oh, he played innocent. Look at old Immanuel, no harm to anybody. He just stares at a church steeple all day and then scribbles down some notes about Life, the Universe and Everything.** He’d never hurt a fly, let alone set humanity upon a downward spiral of philosophical inquiry that would hold us at a virtual standstill for at least several centuries and lead to widespread relativism and denial of the metaphysical and epistemological basis of the concept of truth in the human mind.
My purpose is not to delve into Immanuel’s actual philosophy. That would frankly bore readers, and would also require that I actually read his stuff. I have no intention of doing so in the near future, not because I don’t occasionally enjoy inhaling feces directly from the page, but because there are simply too many other good Books around. Like Asimov. But it might be good to show you readers the big picture, at least, and see why his influence has been so perfidious.
After and because of Immanuel, philosophers began to think you couldn’t talk about Truth anymore. It was merely a measure of subjective experience, they said, and not a statement about reality.
While I will not try here to refute Immanuel and his band of groupies in any philosophical sense,*** I will say that this is simply excrement. 2001 really is the greatest movie ever made, not just subjectively so. Millennium Force really is one step beneath heaven. This post really is about Immanuel Kant. Right Thumb really is smarter than you.
Now let’s take a look at a few quotes. Just for fun.
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”
If I can understand what he’s saying here (and if I can’t, it’s not a failing on my part but just that ol’ Immanuel liked to be ambiguous), he’s saying that when you actually think about it, happiness doesn’t really exist. Hah-hah! Immanuel clearly never watched Battlestar Galactica. Or Star Trek. Or read Two Thumbs Sideways. Then he would know happiness. (Possibly even ecstasy in the last case.) He must have led a bleak and dreary life. I’ll bet nobody ever gave him a kitten.
“I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.”
No, you just believed you had to do this.
“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.”
The other day I saw an elderly gentleman asking for help with his tax returns. I guffawed and said to Right Thumb, “Hehe, so immature!” (As a side-note, Right Thumb’s response was a veritable diarrhea-of-the-mouth concerning the economic theory behind senior citizens, taxes, policy-making, and The West Wing. He clearly felt strongly about many of the issues involved, although I could never quite make out his exact opinions.)
“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”
I once thought of burning Critique of Pure Reason over Immanuel’s grave. Then I realized the fire might spread so I gave up on it. Oops, I’m unethical.
Now it’s time to finish up with Mr. Kant, simply because I cannot take any more of this. And remember, this post really did exist. Now, to see if our readers do.
> Left Thumb <
* Meaning a Google search.
** Although he was a Smart Guy, Immanuel was not quite smart enough to reach the conclusion of “42”.
*** I am certainly up to the task, but this would once again simply bore our readers to tears. That is, if tears exist other than in my subjective experience.
And so I have decided to up the ante with this post—philosophically speaking, that is. And also normally speaking. While my subject today still deserves a hefty dose of Thumb-style ridicule, he was actually kind of a Smart Guy. Arguably. But he was dastardly.
Robber: Immanuel Kant
Robbed: Western civilization
Oh, he played innocent. Look at old Immanuel, no harm to anybody. He just stares at a church steeple all day and then scribbles down some notes about Life, the Universe and Everything.** He’d never hurt a fly, let alone set humanity upon a downward spiral of philosophical inquiry that would hold us at a virtual standstill for at least several centuries and lead to widespread relativism and denial of the metaphysical and epistemological basis of the concept of truth in the human mind.
My purpose is not to delve into Immanuel’s actual philosophy. That would frankly bore readers, and would also require that I actually read his stuff. I have no intention of doing so in the near future, not because I don’t occasionally enjoy inhaling feces directly from the page, but because there are simply too many other good Books around. Like Asimov. But it might be good to show you readers the big picture, at least, and see why his influence has been so perfidious.
After and because of Immanuel, philosophers began to think you couldn’t talk about Truth anymore. It was merely a measure of subjective experience, they said, and not a statement about reality.
While I will not try here to refute Immanuel and his band of groupies in any philosophical sense,*** I will say that this is simply excrement. 2001 really is the greatest movie ever made, not just subjectively so. Millennium Force really is one step beneath heaven. This post really is about Immanuel Kant. Right Thumb really is smarter than you.
Now let’s take a look at a few quotes. Just for fun.
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”
If I can understand what he’s saying here (and if I can’t, it’s not a failing on my part but just that ol’ Immanuel liked to be ambiguous), he’s saying that when you actually think about it, happiness doesn’t really exist. Hah-hah! Immanuel clearly never watched Battlestar Galactica. Or Star Trek. Or read Two Thumbs Sideways. Then he would know happiness. (Possibly even ecstasy in the last case.) He must have led a bleak and dreary life. I’ll bet nobody ever gave him a kitten.
“I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.”
No, you just believed you had to do this.
“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.”
The other day I saw an elderly gentleman asking for help with his tax returns. I guffawed and said to Right Thumb, “Hehe, so immature!” (As a side-note, Right Thumb’s response was a veritable diarrhea-of-the-mouth concerning the economic theory behind senior citizens, taxes, policy-making, and The West Wing. He clearly felt strongly about many of the issues involved, although I could never quite make out his exact opinions.)
“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”
I once thought of burning Critique of Pure Reason over Immanuel’s grave. Then I realized the fire might spread so I gave up on it. Oops, I’m unethical.
Now it’s time to finish up with Mr. Kant, simply because I cannot take any more of this. And remember, this post really did exist. Now, to see if our readers do.
> Left Thumb <
* Meaning a Google search.
** Although he was a Smart Guy, Immanuel was not quite smart enough to reach the conclusion of “42”.
*** I am certainly up to the task, but this would once again simply bore our readers to tears. That is, if tears exist other than in my subjective experience.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The hackneyed, trite, confounded...
...cliche. So abominable, so undesirable, so destructive. No better way to kill a conversation than to pull one of these out of your derriere. While I maintain that it is the French pronunciation that kills them (just imagine how cool they would be if they were pronounced "clish" as opposed to "clee-SHAY"), it is still worth sorting through them. Some are useless, some are horrendous, some are almost forgiveable. Let's get to it.
"All's well that ends well."
Horrendous. First of all, this is simply untrue. The Cold War ended well. This doesn't make me want to have another one (although, Left Thumb still thinks we are in one...) Second, if all parties agree that something ended well, why is there a need to superficially state that fact? And if parties are not all agreed, then... the pointlessness, amazingly, is enhanced.
"Better late then never."
Useless. Being late is very often not better than never. For instance, coming to the Beanie Baby craze late was okay... never finding it at all would have been preferable. Or, finding your pitching talent after you have already been traded from the Yankees is worse than never finding it. For the rest of your life you will regret your tardiness. For the rest of your life.
"You say tomato, I saw tomawto."
No you don't. NO ONE says tomawto.
"Time heals all wounds."
Almost useful. The only problem is...
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
Leading to the first rule of cliches: you can always find another cliche that says the exact opposite thing.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness."
Excuse me, I need to have a chat with the Almighty. Let me grab my Jergens.
"The plural of anecdote isn't data."
This one is almost forgiveable. Even I have been known to employ it from time to time, in a totally non-sarcastic fashion.
"Defense wins championships."
So does offense.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
We have absolutely no reason to believe this. The most powerful people in the history of the world were not absolutely powerful. And even then, most of them were just as evil/not evil before they took power as after. Genghis Khan didn't start ravaging villages once he conquered over 2/3 of the world. He ravaged villages in order to conquer 2/3 of the world.
"All's fair in love and war."
No it isn't. The reason we go to war is almost entirely because we are attempting to seek just retribution for some horrible wrong done to us by someone we thought loved us. Now that I think about it, I should go invade Belgrade.
"Water under the bridge, over the dam, etc."
I actually like this one. For instance, once I make this post, if anything offends you, which it surely will, I will apologize, and then you'll say "Oh don't worry, it's water under the bridge..."
People are always telling me that.
~Right Thumb~
"All's well that ends well."
Horrendous. First of all, this is simply untrue. The Cold War ended well. This doesn't make me want to have another one (although, Left Thumb still thinks we are in one...) Second, if all parties agree that something ended well, why is there a need to superficially state that fact? And if parties are not all agreed, then... the pointlessness, amazingly, is enhanced.
"Better late then never."
Useless. Being late is very often not better than never. For instance, coming to the Beanie Baby craze late was okay... never finding it at all would have been preferable. Or, finding your pitching talent after you have already been traded from the Yankees is worse than never finding it. For the rest of your life you will regret your tardiness. For the rest of your life.
"You say tomato, I saw tomawto."
No you don't. NO ONE says tomawto.
"Time heals all wounds."
Almost useful. The only problem is...
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
Leading to the first rule of cliches: you can always find another cliche that says the exact opposite thing.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness."
Excuse me, I need to have a chat with the Almighty. Let me grab my Jergens.
"The plural of anecdote isn't data."
This one is almost forgiveable. Even I have been known to employ it from time to time, in a totally non-sarcastic fashion.
"Defense wins championships."
So does offense.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
We have absolutely no reason to believe this. The most powerful people in the history of the world were not absolutely powerful. And even then, most of them were just as evil/not evil before they took power as after. Genghis Khan didn't start ravaging villages once he conquered over 2/3 of the world. He ravaged villages in order to conquer 2/3 of the world.
"All's fair in love and war."
No it isn't. The reason we go to war is almost entirely because we are attempting to seek just retribution for some horrible wrong done to us by someone we thought loved us. Now that I think about it, I should go invade Belgrade.
"Water under the bridge, over the dam, etc."
I actually like this one. For instance, once I make this post, if anything offends you, which it surely will, I will apologize, and then you'll say "Oh don't worry, it's water under the bridge..."
People are always telling me that.
~Right Thumb~
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