Calculus and a One up for Bill Maher

Maybe you know that I like watching Secular Talk, ... which in all honesty follows a neat formula. The news in the beginning and some follow up thereafter. So, you don't need to watch the whole thing to be up on a bunch of things. On another note you might know that I liked Batman v Superman - I really genuinely enjoyed it - and the issue that the popular oppinion on the internet is the opposite somehow bothers me. To put it simply: Its interesting. It makes me think and wonder about a bunch of things.

Ultimately though, its the easiest for me to just sort it away. Ignoring it. Believing for instance - because that is how the aftermath of my synapses firing settles that matter - that everyone who disagrees with me on that matter is a victim of some brainwashing.
As so: How does life, regarding our minds, work? Turns out you can compare an individuals life at any point in time to the tangent line on a curve. If I were to at some point change my mind - I first have to 'progress' on that curve far enough to get to that change. There is no 'instantaneous change'. Never happens. Once someone repents, there is always a story leading up to it. If I talk to you words of reason, you first must be at the point where your mind is inherantly capable of dealing with the idea. You can be smart - but, I have a hunch ... that ... the smarter you are, the more difficult it will be for you to ... "be smart" in a variety of cases. A great example for me in this case were the Nostalgia Critic (a.k.a. Channel Awesome) and his perception of the Matrix movies. (And its: "Lets move 'for the purpose'" not 'on' purpose). But to understand why you need to understand my perception of the Matrix, where I guess - you wouldn't ... even if I went on to explain ... but ... maybe I can - ... lets see ...


The scene at the beginning of Matrix Revolutions, Neo in the Train station, ... I find the conversation between Neo and the Program pretty compelling. Its not compelling in a sense of movie quality; That doesn't matter to me at that instance. What they say doesn't have to be true either. Its just some stuff to think about - which admittedly, you don't ultimately come to do a lot when in the theatre. What I mean is that if you're "smart" you 'need' it to have some kind of sophistication to the material. I mean, I suppose that these scenes turn out as gibberish to individuals who are "on the other end of the spectrum" - where either you want to truely reflect upon these deeper questions of life - or your mind simply decouples from the content. Its pretty much how to me the conversation between Neo and the Architect is pretty much one of the most important moments in the movies - but certainly equally as odd. I mean, you could think of it as of a mirror, you being Neo. You expect to access the setup screen of the Matrix and press the exit button but woops - a ... strange man in a grey suit talks crazy shit at you. Whats your reaction? "Bad movie!". After countless times of seeing the movies I figured: Its the Architects motivation to make Neo walk through the door to Neos left. "If I were you, I would hope that we don't meet again!" ... "We won't [smurky face]!"

Think about what motivates you - or - what you would consider "your lifes agenda". The cornerstones of your reasoning. If I were to change your mind - to so: "Make you turn around and not walk towards that cliff" for instance, you then would need those cornerstones. Thats what school does. In math for instance you're provided with information that you then have to inherit - and act according to to succeed (solving math problems). Similarly Christian education when taking it to the basics (the Doctrine) only has three simple rules: Believe in Jesus, Repent and Get Baptized. Those were three things you would have to 'inherit' - but, spoiler, just telling these to people doesn't suffice. It doesn't even suffice to make it even simpler and just make points about the Testimony. Not even when talking to other Christians.


Kyle (Secular Talk) doesn't like Bill - in some sense. That because to him, Bill is an example of Corporate Media drinking the Corporate Cool-Aid who keeps on/for adressing the wrong points. The specific Video I'm responding to shows Kyle first of all showing us a segment from Bills show. Thereby Bill tries to talk someone into admitting that all the American Intelligence Agencies confirm that russia had its fingers in the election, but that guy keeps evading the question while Bill keeps on pressing him to it. And then Kyle goes on to explain to us why that is bad. And when looking at the world through that window - I can't help but think of Bill as a Brother at arms. I mean, we're both fighting wars others think are aimless.
And I'm sure that what I'm going to next can be also twisted around. Because I've just watched some videos on Calculus (channel: 3blue1brown) I have those images in my head and they snap in so well - ... I hope I can get this right.
So, first of all "don't worry" (or do worry, if you're an academic). What is Calculus? Calculus is about retreiving accurate values regarding problems that on first glance cannot be solved accurately. Like, how to calculate the area of a circle? I mean, you may know the formula - Pi*R^2 - but how do we know the formula is accurate? The idea is to split the circle into rings - and to look at each ring as at a rectangle - and to add the areas of the rectangles together. Obviously the value won't be accurate, but the 'slimmer' the rings get, the more accurate the value will be. And a lot in Calculus, so I'm told, is kindof about that. So, the 'tangent' of a curve is not retreived by some random formula, but basically by looking at the difference in height between two points on the curve, and is more and more accurate the smaller that distance between the two points gets. Idealistically that difference were zero.
So - I want you to think of a curve, maybe a quarter of a circle, and the tangent line is here the line crossing two points on the circles circumference. So, more classically, think of "the" triangle.
So - in that sense we can "imagine" a Tangent line representing either Kyle or Bill - and in that sense, they would be opposed to each other. Kyle is so 'against' the 'russua' thing because its obviously an issue thats entirely irrelevant when compared to all of the other things that Trump did and have to be pointed out. We can further look at that as a trend - in which sense "trend" compares to "personal life agenda/motivation" - and here we can add the impression that Kyles trend is trending towards a socialistic dictatorship. While Bill is trending into democratic tohu wabohu/pointlessness. We can however assert that both are "defending the same grounds" - ideologically speaking - at which point their seemingly opposed positions are two sides of a field facing different directions.
One case for Bill is that he thinks that Trump is bad - and his point pretty much is that yes - Hillary would have been less terrible. And he kindof gets a lot of flak for that. And at that point we could say: "Sorry Kyle, but you drank the Cool Aid there!". Although we can add that Trump is a good thing - because - well, the uproars he causes should make people think about whats happening and ... "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger". But - that isn't really logical, or ... "real" as we might say. So I might go on and add that instead of focussing on all the Bullshit Trump is pulling we should focus on the Bullshit Republicans are pulling - like - how the US Government pays for Dialisys based on a decision of Nixon, while those "companies" doing the Dialysis are utterly corrupt. We may have to worry that Trump still has an ace up his sleeves, so, like 1 year in he'll just make things better and things will be forgotten while having gotten a few things rolling that will at some point be featured in some barely acknowledged conspiracy theory.
So yea - my logic here is that people doing 'good' things isn't always 'good' - like a downsloped tangent line can bridge a pretty broad upward spike if we're not accurate enough!
Thats the whole point against the 'Corporate Democrats' - I mean, that things went out of control at some point in the past; Like - the next president of the US is going to be stuck with the deals that Trump has made, as Obama was stuck in the Wars that Bush had started.

Bills assessment of why people voted Trump: "A gut feeling. The world has changed and they don't like it". With that being on your mind, with that being what you are convinced of, you cannot be 'pro Trump' even if he does good things. And I share that perspective. That is one of the bigger issues round about what I call 'the Phantom Menace'.


The premise is pretty much that first there is a Republican. So, skepticism rises. Then you see the campaign - and you find its utterly stupid. More skepticism rises. (And I don't know how you could associate the term 'skeptic community' to Trump supporters!). But everyone is free to make up their own mind - so you watch while expressing your oppinion eventually. Then you find how everyone is bitching about Hillary and thereby boosting the popularity of Trump - while being utterly concerned already - and so - either way, whenever you were 'Anti Trump' you had to listen to how Hillary is no better; And a million alarm bells go off in your head; While basically already being neck deep in shit creek - and the next time you look around you see pictures of Missiles fired from US contraptions within a puff of smoke round about russia and medicaid and what not.

There is so much wrong that there almost isn't a wrong front. I don't think that any individual issue will solve our problems. The only thing that truely matters is 'awareness'. And if you expose some guy who can't admit on a simple premise, as simple as "intelligence agencies report" - that causes awareness. The important part is not the awareness of the issue - but an awareness of the wrong that is going on. What 'wrong'? That neither is the important bit. Whatever you experience as wrong - that is the awareness you 'take home' - and from there you conclude what is 'right' - and that is what ultimately counts.
The problem here is however that the 'wrong' isn't an 'easy problem' - as you could argue that people already concluded their 'right' and therefore voted for Trump. Or Hitler. Or Erdogan. Next stage - confusion where some will talk but those that aren't exposed to that talk 'matter' - to the point that they are used to live in shit and have no concept of betterment and therefore continue to be feeding the bad guys on the "gut feeling" that they do the right thing.
Why are they the bad guys? They stand up and 'say' what people want to hear! "How could you possibly be against that?". What would North Koreans know about 'fair government'?
So, lets put it that way: Pro Trump='pro radical change, possibly to the worse'. Pro Hillary='pro ... possibly no change at all but it can't get much worse than Trump'.
And I guess thats where Kyle is at. He's "pro radical change" - and is in that sense 'pro Trump' because he delivers that 'quake' needed to bring real change about.


That is now yet a bit closer to my perception of the matter. Where simply put: There was an awareness of how Trump "should" win - as there is a simple 'tendency' (of stupidity) that would vote for a person as Trump; And there doesn't seem to be another way to "solve that problem" other than letting people have what they want, sotospeak, ... but depending on how you are 'wired' you can or cannot deal with that awareness. That is why I would also ultimately take it so that if you didn't like Batman v Superman you must be somehow deluded - ... and sometimes a circle is just a circle, but you can also draw a circle as a triangle. If you're "too smart", a circle is to you going to be a Triangle - and people who don't get that - they will think you're crazy! And that why, as a responsible Politician you have to be 'pro gaming'. Why? A politician is, for all intents and purposes, a parental figure to society. And unless you understand your childrens needs you cannot truely care for them. Yet another reason why Trump would appear to be a reasonable pick.

There also is a cynical stance to it - that of being totally pro WW3 based on the shallow hope that after the dust settles there is some hope for starting over again until things somehow eventually get done right; While as it stands things are just one huge complicated mess you can't wrap your head around and so you inwardly hammer the "Nuke" button because you want it to somehow go away.


Science: In the best case - we should be able to trust the scientific community that once they say a thing is a thing, it is a thing. Like, who came up with the 'Planck length'? I mean - how is it a thing? Did Planck just guess? Is that how scientists work? Yet, the more complex our scientific understanding gets, so, the higher the building becomes, in that sense, the more important a solid foundation becomes. Which means that there will be people who don't make it to the upper Levels - and that for various reasons. Like, most people don't need most of that knowledge themeselves! So, let a circle be a circle. But at the same time you want to make sure that "the elevators work" ... that so people can take a circle for a triangle and be understood. I mean, it is at this point a simple matter of luck and being utterly irresponsible regarding the way I live my life that I even know enough about Calculus to make this analogy.
Of course - credits to all the busy YouTubers!

Education by YouTube ... how low have we sunk?


I mean, YouTube is like ... the Lost Woods. That part in a Zelda game where you have four exits to a screen - but wherever you go, you end up in the same one, or get back to the start, unless you know the sequence of exits to take. Its like all stuff there is in this world thrown into one small pot - which is a good metaphor for 'the western civilization' as well. As it so is with ones mindset - there are people who are inherantly incapable to being "Anti Immigration". And being pro immigration isn't as much 'pro immigration' as it is 'pro justice' - where the flipside is: Would we be 'Anti Immigration', could we ascertain that things would be getting any better for where those people would be coming from? I meean, we here in the west are lucky to being born here - where in a sense we're lucky that "this place" even exists to begin with. So, "we" are practically 'the hope' for the rest of the world - which is why people keep coming here and in my oppinion that is a good thing. Disregard all the "morons" that come along with the rest, we end up cultivating a culture of variety - which again influences our mind and helps us to have more sympathy for people in less happy places. We also cultivate a culture of friendship and cooperation - things I wouldn't want to trade in for anything. And so there is a very very very very VERY very slim slim ... slim slim line where I can even sympathize with Erdogan supporters - as, its a nationalistic perspective though. They see how well we are off here, and of course they want to have that there where they come from and so they will support what gives them a feeling of their country getting 'stronger'. 'We' however see it differently. We have no attachment to turkey - and seeing how those people act (sometimes or some of them), ... yea, face to the base ... like ... "an eye for an eye" ... but eventually it are 'our Liberal perspectives' that give them a feeling of being not allowed to be a strong nation.
Its ... close to issues of panic. When you panic, a bad choice is a good choice! Like, try to review the 'gap' between people living in a rural area and people living in a densely populated one when it gets to social interaction. In dense areas people tend to isolate themselves ... err ... I mean, when living in a rural area there's a more 'easy' foundation for socializing which means that there isn't much left to be concerned of other things, like politics. Its like a gap in educational levels. So, "on the high horse" we see how obviously bad Erdogan is - (but yet would vote for Trump/AFD ... or NSDAP ... such) - saying as much as: Who of us actually has a good option?
That is a problem. However - ignoring that, what I mean is that 'we' here in the west ... figuratively speaking ... "should" be like a Nuke. So, we're like Plutonium and we get smashed together, reach critical mass and from there expand. Urr ... not in the bad way. I mean, on the other side - being 'Anti Immigration' can be both too, positive and negative. Its egoistic when thinking of our economy, though, that certainly is going to be one of your points at some point if you're on that side of the fence. At some point it is however just negative to see how we're taking people in and see no betterment anywhere. Or even see how our generousity yields us disrespect. Although, where that disrespect emerges, its probably even justified. "Survival of the fittest" and "Look for your own". I mean, can all of us here in the weast wear that 'generousity badge'?
But there is no way around it - if things are to change for the better, it has to start somewhere. And therefore we at first have to 'enable ourselves' to act as positively extroverted. And that isn't something we can make up to our politicians only. Or even at all. I mean - theoretically: If we just started to act as an autonomous society - assuming we are the majority - what can the government(s) do? Order the police and military to stop us? Sure! But ... that idea is utterly flawed because policemen and soldiers are too only human.
The problem is our disorganization. The problem is that we as individuals are asked to be individuals - while we as a society are somehow curbed to our governments. So if anyone were to say: I'm going out there and help those other countries - that person can barely rely on any sort of backup. Thats the thing. We are individuals, 'forced' to be individuals. That is the idea with the 'critical mass'. We are supposed to be egomaniacs looking out for ourselves, uh, ... have an introverted perspective as the cause of all problems is there. And that way we may eventually come to enable ourselves/others to turn outward - having the entire rest as backup. What is secret doesn't matter. And the people who are "responsible" for outward interactions aren't going to be people acting in the shadows. It would be our concern as a whole - but first we must have that inward clarity ... as otherwise we'd have to encourage each other to turn extroverted ... and thats how the problem is obvious to see. What are 'you' supposed to do? Whatever you think, its your own choice. As an individual. But ... its also just a guess. Maybe you feel compelled to comply ... because its the good thing to do ... but as a single person, you're still just a single individual.


And I guess this wraps things up for now ... almost! ...
... now .... this wraps things up for today. Kindof. I mean - ... there is that issue. In this context ... it seems a little bit "too good to be true" ... its like Donald Trump plays directly into my hands. Which is why ... I might have to write a few things to say how thats an evil genious plan ... but ... ... instead I'll tell you this:

That but above is also a statement against "hysteriaism". "A.k.a. "Warmongering"". It seems counterproductive to "be egoistic" - but ultimately you got to ask yourself how 'you' can 'make yourself' do the right thing! The idea of 'repentence' ... can I guess be seen too much as a 'turning around' - which is connected to denial. Is it wrong or bad?
Whatever - I don't see it as a turning around, I see it as 'progress'. I mean, certainly there is a way to get this the wrong way, as much as the opposite of it. But progress in this is sense is a matter of you challenging yourself to do the right thing ... clearly ... where the emphasis should be on 'your' self. Not the body you occupy, but the 'who' that you are.
That are your beliefs, your ideas, your opportunities, ... while also making sure that in the long run you're not going to end up doing the wrong thing. And ... I'm sorry ... but there is, I think, no clear "how to" - other than the one thing.

Whatever. The way I want to think about it is that through the egoism we are forced to have, we are all walking down a road that leads up to the same point; And that its wrong to take a turn as to move in circles or to even move the other way. Well, that isn't as flat as "turning around equals doing good stuff". If you're an activist - turning around were to stop being that. Because, you there were an activist for reasons - reasons that define and describe you as an individual. Those were your strengths. Neither do I want to say that you just should continue to be yourself without any consideration at all. Its the whole point that you take what is good and right the way you can take it - and that is ultimately something that I cannot give you.



Yea, its kindof redundant to say this over and over again - this way and that way. But I'm convinced that the only way you'll be able to truely do the right thing is once your heart is in it. And that can mean many things. But one more common aspect is that this way "what to do or think is right" won't be dictated to you - it will simply come forth from within you as you allow God to be your God!



Circles and Triangles

CNS.2017.05.25|09:28