Children of the Damned

As anyone who has known me in real life for more than ten minutes can tell you, I don't like kids. I frequently refer to them as larva, homunculi, spawn, etc. usually in jest. But I am serious about not liking them and having them make me uncomfortable, and I did not realize until just recently why that is.

I am afraid of not doing what is right by them. In my particular case just having one could end up a disaster just on the grounds that my genes are a minefield of debilitating migraines, epilepsy, eye damage, and the obnoxious task of trying to find pants that fit someone over six feet tall but has no waist to speak of. But even if I adopted a child I would still be paralyzed by the fact that I wouldn't know what to teach it, how to talk to it, or how to help it grow into a decent human being. The running joke is that I couldn't shut it out in the hall when it cries like I do the cats.

The reason I feel this was is because we are never really taught what having kids is like. We always hear about how they are a gift, a blessing, a wonder, a treasure, and numerous other positive value adjectives. We hear about how they make your life complete, and for some I imagine that to be true. But the thing is that we are not taught about how they scream all night, need to eat at irregular hours (another reason for me not to have kids since I never grew out of this one), that they are smelly and weird looking, or that your life as you knew it ends when their's begins. This is not to say that my parents never taught me. They did a pretty good job all things considered.

That last point always seems to rub people the wrong way. "That is selfish," they tell me. "It isn't all about you, you know." "They bring value to your life."

Bullshit. It is actually all about me because I am the only person responsible for adding value to my life. Thus that last response is a damned good way to get my blood pressure up. If you require an external source to add value to your life then having children will not make you any more fulfilled and when they grow up and move on you will be stuck with a stranger that looks just like you in the mirror.

Like I said, some people may feel fulfilled by having children. These are people who see that as the path they want to take in life. More power too them since this species, despite its numerous and destructive faults, deserves a future to make things better. Hell, we are genetically programmed to feel that way about kids. But that is no excuse to hide the realities of parenthood from our children.

So I beseech you, people who think its so damn important to have kids, instead of telling people how wonderful it is and giving the false impression of puppies and rainbows all the time, teach them the hard parts too. Teach about the parts that keep you up at night. Teach about the parts skipped in movies and books.

What are you doing?

I ran into one of my old professors today and like many people who have not seen each other in a while we asked one another what we were up to.

I asked him about what he was teaching, and he cut that off and asked me point blank:

"Forget about that though. What are you doing?"

It was right about then that two thoughts came into my head. One was a screaming shallow noise machine designed to mask its quiet and powerful partner. This first thought gave all of the normal excuses:

"Looking for work."

"Working on my writing/painting/underwater basket weaving."

"Taking care of the puppy."

All of them true but useless and unspecific.

The other thought that was hiding right behind them was far more terrifying. It whispered its quiet poison into my mind:

"nothing"

It was then that Nietzsche's abyss stared back into me for it was also the moment that I realized I had been staring into it ever since I had lost my job. Or, more ominously, longer still.

Like all good questions it opened up into many more, but only two really mattered in this transcendental 'oh shit' moment: "Why?" and "What are you going to do about it?"

At this current time I don't know the answer to either one.

Conveniently by the time I got home I had come down with one of those psyche shattering migraines I am prone to and as such had a great excuse for lying curled in the fetal position in my bed. I spent the rest of my day running on automatic as my mind raced through oblivion and arrived at nowhere.

It was definitely one of those damn days.

All the king's horses....

With the economy seeming to be in shambles due to misregulation, idiotic business practices, manipulative marketing, poor consumer education, and enough bad decisions for everyone to take a pint or two I as a university student have to step back and take a look at a system that has placed a rather large burden on people like me.

Namely: Student loans.

One of the large problems with today's ease of going to college is the price of that same ease. Student loans are given out to people fresh out of high school with little or no money management skills. Most of them have very little concept of value or money, let alone how to plan to pay for something that is only getting more expensive with each passing day.

For some, they are told that they are making an investment. That the money they spend now will be paid back before they know once they are out in the real world and have a nice job where the money just rolls in.

Bull shit.

Unless you are getting one of those generic degrees that will always be needed (business, education, hospitality, medicine, ect) then your chances of finding that perfect job waiting for you is just slightly higher than rolling a thirteen in a game of craps.

This leaves a lot (read majority) of students entering the economy in the red with no real understanding of how to fix it except to throw some money at it and eventually it will go away.

Debt is a bad, bad thing for an economy. Especially when its largest consumers (young professionals and families trying to keep things running smoothly) are trying to fill a hole dug just to get them into a position so that they can make a decent go at making a living.

So, time to get down to the point.

Why do we encourage people to go into debt? It makes no long term sense! What the fuck is the point of making a ton of money one day, only to go bankrupt the next?

This current generation of graduates are inheriting what can only be described as a monetary clusterfuck, and are steamrolling along with debt up to their eyeballs ready to make the situation worse.

People, we all need to wake the fuck up and start doing this thing called saving that has fallen out of vouge in the last couple of decades.

Crazy people!

In this day and age, knowledge is literally a mouse click away. You just have to know what to look for and how to look for it. Many search engines have popped up to help us along in that respect. Hell, Google even has its own verb.

So, when someone comes to my attention that is absolutely bug fuck crazy AND uses the internet on a regular basis, I have to question:

How can people be ignorant in today's connected society.

Take for example this loon. (I know, I know, logical fallacy, ad hominem blah blah. I'll get to proving it in a moment.) She is constantly posting things she has 'googled' and found confirmation for.
So, lets start off with the first in the "WTF is wrong with these people" category of posts.

This lady suffers from what is commonly referred to as 'confirmation bias'.
As summary is that confirmation bias is looking only at results to back your point, and ignoring or disregarding results that counter your frame work.

Take for example her constant discussion of 'natural' cures to common maladies. Or, her damned constant evocation of her deity in order to justify her points without bringing to the table any evidence of her argument.

For example, her discussion of the so called gay agenda. So far, my 'googled' results have only come up with crazy right wing websites discussing some secret cabal of well dressed individuals who are organized by the devil himself and out to eat/rape/sacrifice children and bring about the downfall of mankind. All of the other websites just seem to express a general desire to not feel persecuted for who they are attracted to.

Hmm, one of these seems pretty reasonable, and the other COMPLETLY FUCKING STUPID.

She mentions that gay people are 'beyond redemption' in her ancient tome of wacky magic. Well, I would like to present evidence in the form of her blog that she may be beyond redemption for her intolerant, inane, uneducated screeds against her fellow human beings. Logic is beyond her scope of understanding, and she is raising a 'quiverful' family inside of this insanity.

It makes it that much worse that the children will never escape the oppresive, unjustified boot heel of religion. Reason dies a small death with each child not free to wonder and explore the universe without the confines of bronze age mysticism.

Eternal Sunshine of the...

Holy shit.

Scientists are on the trail of deleting those pesky traumatic memories. This concept has been addressed again and again in science fiction, and the results are rarely good.

Our memories are what shape us as people, especially the bad memories. It is where we draw our knowledge from. It is how we learn to how to deal quickly and efficiently with adversity.

But, I think there are instances that this technology can help people. Things that are needlessly traumatic, or that it would run a higher risk trying to get the person to cope than it would to wipe out the memory all together.

Don't get me wrong, anything that pushes us closer to understanding that wrinkly ball of matter twixt our ears is a good thing, and this technology if nothing else is a definite leap forward. I support what these researchers are doing, and no one should stop them. I just frown on those salivating waiting for it to hit open market so they can forget exes and excess.

But, feh to those people. Let them live their troubled lives and let us push forward unto a new age for mankind and a better future through understanding.

SCIENCE!