We might not like to see it, to some its the one thing they would love to see and at the same time love to never see again. We have split emotions about it, sometimes its better to ignore it, other times one needs to take a long hard look at it. Reality is different from person to person, some let it pass by and some of us analyze, dissect and try to put it in system.
One thing stays a constant regardless of what you do, Occam's Razor. It's a fun principle and goes nicely in hand with When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" from Sherlock Holmes. If you first apply Occam's Razor to a problem, and then Holmesian deduction most questions and problems will be solved or at the very least understood better.
However once you add Illusory superiority into the mix we lack the needed objectivity in most cases to judge ourselves. People tend to come in 2 categories, the ones who judge themselves too lightly and the ones who do it too harshly. Very few people if any of the ones I've met tend to be on the mark with every aspect of themselves.
*This wasn't ready to be posted, but I decided to post a work in progress because a friend might need to read this right now*
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Happy International women's day
I am happy to see so many great women walking in support of their gender all across the world. I am glad that we, by having an arbitrary day where "women come first" we can help bring women as a gender forward in the world. The 8th of March is to thank for so many important things, the abolishment of suppression of women in the middle east, abolishment of arranged and forced marriages. Oh wait it does none of those things.
I'm Norwegian born and bred, I still live in Norway actually and here the 8th of March seems to be yet another day where feminine values are boasted as better than male values. While I am in complete support of "equal pay for equal work", that discrimination based on gender is wrong and so on, I feel like my gender has come under attack.
Not to the degree of "damn you women who have had your boot on the neck of men for centuries" but I feel like my values are marginalized by increasing pressure from certain groups. The women's right movement as it started, to bring women from being second class citizens to full citizens I understand, it was a great things and it needed to happen. However can we stop this fullscale attack on everything testosterone driven?
Of course if you look to countries like Spain, Greece, Italy and France where the male values are seen in a different light the women's rights movement and subsequent assault on male values is less severe but in cultures with less clear male role models and patterns the man is slowly being etched out.
Of course in "The Honeymooners" the line "Straight to the moon Alice" was a bit over the line, domestic abuse is not funny, unless the wife dressed up as a clown is beating the crap out the husband. On the other hand the lame, feminized, empty ballbag of subservience and groveling done by Doug Heffernan on the king of queens, Ray in Everybody loves Raymond, Alan on Two and a half men, and so on isn't fine either.
Nobody ever draws a line, that's the problem and nobody seems to be willing to say "Ok we've gotten what we came for, now pull out!" At the start it was rights to vote, which I and most of the men I know agree with, then it was no discrimination against women when it comes to jobs, then it was equal pay for equal work all of which are very reasonable.
Just like the Republican Party, the various interest groups for races, and groups Feminism got hijacked somewhere in the late 70s early 80s by extremists. While most women are reasonable you always have the "PETA" people of an organization that just takes the ball and runs with it without looking back. As I see it, if someone truly wants to be an equal they are willing to give up privileges in exchange for rights.
I have never seen a bar or nightclub have a "Men's night" but "Ladies night" where women drink for half off and get in for free is a pretty common occurrence around here. When looking at apartment listings I frequently see "Women only" and when I look at job listings I often see "Women are encouraged to apply" I have never seen the same for men.
I have never seen campaigns to get more men into what has been considered "female" professions. Male children would be better off with more male employees in kindergarten and in school, mostly because I think its unhealthy for a male child to grow up without male role models. Why aren't men quoted into jobs that are largely female professions?
Yes I wrote most of this to provoke to a degree, but to be honest the women's lib movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, they are all about the same thing; Choice. Am I wrong? It's not about every woman having to get a college eduction and have a career, but having the choice to do so. If a woman chooses to be a wife and mother instead of hunting for a career its her choice.
It's the same basic right we all want right? To choose and enjoy our own path in life rather than one set out by society? To have the choice to decide what we enjoy and value not what everyone else does. However this choice is rapidly being driven to hell in a pink Prius.
So men do want to get married and have kids, some don't. Some women don't want kids and a husband, some do.
So lets just let everyone be who they want to be as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else ok?
I'm Norwegian born and bred, I still live in Norway actually and here the 8th of March seems to be yet another day where feminine values are boasted as better than male values. While I am in complete support of "equal pay for equal work", that discrimination based on gender is wrong and so on, I feel like my gender has come under attack.
Not to the degree of "damn you women who have had your boot on the neck of men for centuries" but I feel like my values are marginalized by increasing pressure from certain groups. The women's right movement as it started, to bring women from being second class citizens to full citizens I understand, it was a great things and it needed to happen. However can we stop this fullscale attack on everything testosterone driven?
Of course if you look to countries like Spain, Greece, Italy and France where the male values are seen in a different light the women's rights movement and subsequent assault on male values is less severe but in cultures with less clear male role models and patterns the man is slowly being etched out.
Of course in "The Honeymooners" the line "Straight to the moon Alice" was a bit over the line, domestic abuse is not funny, unless the wife dressed up as a clown is beating the crap out the husband. On the other hand the lame, feminized, empty ballbag of subservience and groveling done by Doug Heffernan on the king of queens, Ray in Everybody loves Raymond, Alan on Two and a half men, and so on isn't fine either.
Nobody ever draws a line, that's the problem and nobody seems to be willing to say "Ok we've gotten what we came for, now pull out!" At the start it was rights to vote, which I and most of the men I know agree with, then it was no discrimination against women when it comes to jobs, then it was equal pay for equal work all of which are very reasonable.
Just like the Republican Party, the various interest groups for races, and groups Feminism got hijacked somewhere in the late 70s early 80s by extremists. While most women are reasonable you always have the "PETA" people of an organization that just takes the ball and runs with it without looking back. As I see it, if someone truly wants to be an equal they are willing to give up privileges in exchange for rights.
I have never seen a bar or nightclub have a "Men's night" but "Ladies night" where women drink for half off and get in for free is a pretty common occurrence around here. When looking at apartment listings I frequently see "Women only" and when I look at job listings I often see "Women are encouraged to apply" I have never seen the same for men.
I have never seen campaigns to get more men into what has been considered "female" professions. Male children would be better off with more male employees in kindergarten and in school, mostly because I think its unhealthy for a male child to grow up without male role models. Why aren't men quoted into jobs that are largely female professions?
Yes I wrote most of this to provoke to a degree, but to be honest the women's lib movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, they are all about the same thing; Choice. Am I wrong? It's not about every woman having to get a college eduction and have a career, but having the choice to do so. If a woman chooses to be a wife and mother instead of hunting for a career its her choice.
It's the same basic right we all want right? To choose and enjoy our own path in life rather than one set out by society? To have the choice to decide what we enjoy and value not what everyone else does. However this choice is rapidly being driven to hell in a pink Prius.
So men do want to get married and have kids, some don't. Some women don't want kids and a husband, some do.
So lets just let everyone be who they want to be as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else ok?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Productivity
I watched the new show "Undercover Boss" where the boss goes undercover in his operation to see what his employees work and live like. Most of the time these bosses seem shocked that their employees are treated the way they are, have low morale etc.
This isn't a huge shock to be honest, after working similar jobs as the people on the show, low morale is the least of their problems. I had this job at one point where we were clocked every minute of a 7 hour workday. Breaks were lined up by the minute which is fine, if we had more out time than the allotted breaks we had to fill out a report as to why. Half the workers smoked and yet we had to smoke outside in very cold weather. The tools at our disposal were totally inadequate, we didn't have internet and the about 7 times I got suicide callers I wasn't even allowed to contact them later or to contact the police and send them to the address.
Yes I totally love to know that 7 people out there were desperate and depressed enough to tell a random guy that they were going to kill themselves. Entertain me with their sad stories, how it feels to be 15, pregnant and kicked out by parents, how it feels when your 4 year old son dies and not even know what happened to these people.
Some might be cold enough to ignore this, I am not.
At the end of the show the CEO brings the employees who have been hurt by slaveownerish policies by these companies and presents them with some arbitrary gift without changing the policies. The funny part of this is that it shows the divide in thinking between the CEO and the employee. If the CEO put in place policies that improved how the people felt about the company they work for productivity would go up, slacking off, stealing from the company and not giving a shit would go down.
I don't screw over a company that treats me fairly, and like a person as opposed to employee 281. Of course stock prices have to go up every year, so where does a company that is already streamlined and effective go? They have to push the margins, on the product, on the production of the product and in every line, except well the CEO salaries. You see those also seem to go up, stock options, bonuses, golden parachutes and so on. So with a limited amount of money to cover salaries, benefits, and so on, the company has to make a choice.
You can't really squeeze the top dogs at a company because they are the guys who "keep it running" sure every employee helps a company keep afloat, but the top guys are the people who keeps it afloat the most. They are the guys making the big deals, the faces of the company and so on.
They are also hard to replace, a guy flipping burgers, answering phones, delivering lunch and so on can easily be replaced, especially in todays jobmarket where the unemployment seems to go up every month.
Think about it, like a Donald Duck cartoon. Scrooge has all the money, Donald is in debt to him, so Donald is forced to work at a slave wage doing menial tasks exactly the way Scrooge wants him to. Now you can't fire Scrooge, but you can find someone to do Donald's job of polishing coins. Scrooge has the money, he has the connections, he makes the big deals happen, Donald shines coins.
So when you have a CEO making 300x as much as a regular worker, there is a slight distribution problem. I'm a capitalist but I also think some things are obscene. Communism can't really work but I do think taxing the shit out of luxury items might. Let's be honest nobody needs 40 room mansions, nobody needs a huge boat, 20 cars etc. So how about this;
Cars that cost over a certain amount has a high tax, maybe as much as 50% on them.
Mansions have a similar tax, lets make it a % of the sales value, to prevent people just hiking the price of them.
Now these taxes would go towards things like universal health care, Increasing the minimum wage, and generally improving the standard of living for Lower and middle class. One could even give tax breaks on normal house, home loans and so on.
What this would do is to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom, yeah sure it may be against what all the people who've recently read and started masturbating to "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand but it would help. You see I am of the belief that a lot of things are like the high end audio cables most audiophiles orgasm in their pants about. Sure they look pretty and saying how much better they are makes you feel good, but the human ear can't tell the difference.
Sure some things are nice to have but why do they matter? That's the problem, we've moved away from a culture that cares about character, integrity and knowledge and onto what a person owns. We don't need most of the things we want. I don't need a TV in the bedroom, I don't need a fridge that makes ice-cubes, I don't need a coffee maker with a self timer, I don't need a million different knives in my kitchen, or sun-dried tomatoes from the Sicilian cost marinated in extra extra virgin olive oil.
My body doesn't know the difference between a slice of bread and pure sugar, my body can't tell the difference between a prime cut and a crap cut of beef. I still enjoy the nice stuff but I don't need it to live. That's the problem we indulge, and indulge and indulge, until there is nothing left to indulge in. We're a culture of overindulgers, going from one lust to another.
It's not just sex, drugs and food. It's religion, Television, videogames. Religion has gone from spirituality to commence, Television has gone from something you watched once in a while not the whole day. Video-games are made to be as addictive as possible.
We're a world of people who have strayed from our path, we don't get the adrenaline and stimulant rushes from our brains that we used to in our lives so we have to mass produce them. From bungy-jumping to sex addiction to emo's cutting themselves and people pouring pure high fructose corn syrup down their throats. It's all a hunt for rewards from your brain.
This isn't a huge shock to be honest, after working similar jobs as the people on the show, low morale is the least of their problems. I had this job at one point where we were clocked every minute of a 7 hour workday. Breaks were lined up by the minute which is fine, if we had more out time than the allotted breaks we had to fill out a report as to why. Half the workers smoked and yet we had to smoke outside in very cold weather. The tools at our disposal were totally inadequate, we didn't have internet and the about 7 times I got suicide callers I wasn't even allowed to contact them later or to contact the police and send them to the address.
Yes I totally love to know that 7 people out there were desperate and depressed enough to tell a random guy that they were going to kill themselves. Entertain me with their sad stories, how it feels to be 15, pregnant and kicked out by parents, how it feels when your 4 year old son dies and not even know what happened to these people.
Some might be cold enough to ignore this, I am not.
At the end of the show the CEO brings the employees who have been hurt by slaveownerish policies by these companies and presents them with some arbitrary gift without changing the policies. The funny part of this is that it shows the divide in thinking between the CEO and the employee. If the CEO put in place policies that improved how the people felt about the company they work for productivity would go up, slacking off, stealing from the company and not giving a shit would go down.
I don't screw over a company that treats me fairly, and like a person as opposed to employee 281. Of course stock prices have to go up every year, so where does a company that is already streamlined and effective go? They have to push the margins, on the product, on the production of the product and in every line, except well the CEO salaries. You see those also seem to go up, stock options, bonuses, golden parachutes and so on. So with a limited amount of money to cover salaries, benefits, and so on, the company has to make a choice.
You can't really squeeze the top dogs at a company because they are the guys who "keep it running" sure every employee helps a company keep afloat, but the top guys are the people who keeps it afloat the most. They are the guys making the big deals, the faces of the company and so on.
They are also hard to replace, a guy flipping burgers, answering phones, delivering lunch and so on can easily be replaced, especially in todays jobmarket where the unemployment seems to go up every month.
Think about it, like a Donald Duck cartoon. Scrooge has all the money, Donald is in debt to him, so Donald is forced to work at a slave wage doing menial tasks exactly the way Scrooge wants him to. Now you can't fire Scrooge, but you can find someone to do Donald's job of polishing coins. Scrooge has the money, he has the connections, he makes the big deals happen, Donald shines coins.
So when you have a CEO making 300x as much as a regular worker, there is a slight distribution problem. I'm a capitalist but I also think some things are obscene. Communism can't really work but I do think taxing the shit out of luxury items might. Let's be honest nobody needs 40 room mansions, nobody needs a huge boat, 20 cars etc. So how about this;
Cars that cost over a certain amount has a high tax, maybe as much as 50% on them.
Mansions have a similar tax, lets make it a % of the sales value, to prevent people just hiking the price of them.
Now these taxes would go towards things like universal health care, Increasing the minimum wage, and generally improving the standard of living for Lower and middle class. One could even give tax breaks on normal house, home loans and so on.
What this would do is to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom, yeah sure it may be against what all the people who've recently read and started masturbating to "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand but it would help. You see I am of the belief that a lot of things are like the high end audio cables most audiophiles orgasm in their pants about. Sure they look pretty and saying how much better they are makes you feel good, but the human ear can't tell the difference.
Sure some things are nice to have but why do they matter? That's the problem, we've moved away from a culture that cares about character, integrity and knowledge and onto what a person owns. We don't need most of the things we want. I don't need a TV in the bedroom, I don't need a fridge that makes ice-cubes, I don't need a coffee maker with a self timer, I don't need a million different knives in my kitchen, or sun-dried tomatoes from the Sicilian cost marinated in extra extra virgin olive oil.
My body doesn't know the difference between a slice of bread and pure sugar, my body can't tell the difference between a prime cut and a crap cut of beef. I still enjoy the nice stuff but I don't need it to live. That's the problem we indulge, and indulge and indulge, until there is nothing left to indulge in. We're a culture of overindulgers, going from one lust to another.
It's not just sex, drugs and food. It's religion, Television, videogames. Religion has gone from spirituality to commence, Television has gone from something you watched once in a while not the whole day. Video-games are made to be as addictive as possible.
We're a world of people who have strayed from our path, we don't get the adrenaline and stimulant rushes from our brains that we used to in our lives so we have to mass produce them. From bungy-jumping to sex addiction to emo's cutting themselves and people pouring pure high fructose corn syrup down their throats. It's all a hunt for rewards from your brain.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Procrastination
We all procrastinate at some point, the question is at what point does it become damaging? Is it at the point where you realize that some deadline is looming at the end of the week, end of the day? Maybe its when you realize that you've spent your whole life wondering, instead of experiencing? At age 26 I know more than most people, I could hold lectures on psychology, history, social-anthropology, social dynamics, computers, literature, art.
I've written 2 full length novels, a myriad of short stories, I speak several languages, yet I feel very unfulfilled because one aspect of my life lay unexplored and I have no idea how to proceed with it. Most topics have a set curriculum, read the basics, then move on to more advanced stuff, then move on to the expert part. As you learn a topic it expands and becomes more interesting as a whole. Read about WW2, and you tend to develop an interest for fascism, Nazis, concentration camps, then you may dip into reading about fascism in Italy, then you start to wonder how such a policy could ever get support. So you start to read up on the pre-nazi years in Germany and you realize that the Versailles treaty was a bit harsh and as a result Germany was plunged into a despair where a lot of people couldn't even afford to buy food.
Anyway, I've spent a lot of my life reading and observing, but I've always procrastinated on certain subjects, like human interaction because I felt it was unimportant at first, then as I grew older however the task of learning became more and more daunting and as a result I chose to procrastinate it further.
I've written 2 full length novels, a myriad of short stories, I speak several languages, yet I feel very unfulfilled because one aspect of my life lay unexplored and I have no idea how to proceed with it. Most topics have a set curriculum, read the basics, then move on to more advanced stuff, then move on to the expert part. As you learn a topic it expands and becomes more interesting as a whole. Read about WW2, and you tend to develop an interest for fascism, Nazis, concentration camps, then you may dip into reading about fascism in Italy, then you start to wonder how such a policy could ever get support. So you start to read up on the pre-nazi years in Germany and you realize that the Versailles treaty was a bit harsh and as a result Germany was plunged into a despair where a lot of people couldn't even afford to buy food.
Anyway, I've spent a lot of my life reading and observing, but I've always procrastinated on certain subjects, like human interaction because I felt it was unimportant at first, then as I grew older however the task of learning became more and more daunting and as a result I chose to procrastinate it further.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Black and white?
Black and white thinking is a dangerous path to go down. Not because there is necessarily something wrong with thinking in absolutes, well there is but that's besides the point. I put people who are prone to black and white thinking on a low level on a scale of empathy. Why? Because it shows a distinct lack of the ability to put yourself in other peoples shoes.
The question "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?" has been used by many people as a way to force people who believe murder is always wrong to admit that maybe in rare cases its justified or for the betterment of the world. However they fail to take everything else into consideration. If Hitler had been killed in 1918 or something before he rose to power in the Nazi party and before he took control of Germany, the course of history would have been radically different.
The Cold war came as a direct result of WW2, the growth of the Soviet Union came as a result of WW2. The Hippies, the greasers, even 1980's hairbands came as a result of WW2. Great developments in computer technology, rockets, man on the moon all comes as a result of WW2.
So answering yes and no is making the question way to easy, since every choice has secondary effects. People also underestimate cultural influence, there is little doubt in my mind that if your average Christian had been born in Yemen or Saudi-Arabia they would be a Muslim, just like if a few hardcore Muslims were born in the US they would most likely be Christians.
One needs to be open minded but at the same time look at things in perspective. In the Nuremberg trial following WW2 the former heads of state of Germany were convicted on conspiracy to wage offensive war, take the land, the valuables and people of other nations, in addition to the extermination of the Jews.
Now isn't this roughly what America did with the invasion of Iraq? I mean with Afghanistan there was a reason to enter the country, it was and still is a breeding ground for extremists. In Iraq there really was no justifiable reason to attack the country, and there was no declaration of war, just an invasion.
That strikes me as being very similar to what the German high command were convicted of following WW2, waging war and invading sovereign nations without a declaration of war.
I was for going into Iraq when it was believed they had weapons of mass destruction but they didn't did they?
In addition atrocities like abu-graib comes to light, the behavior of Blackwater towards civilians, the clear exploitation of the situation by Hallie-Burton and countless other American companies, the complicity of Dick Cheney in the exploitation of Iraqi resources and the way the war was waged and I think a Nuremburg trial would have no choice but to convict the republicans in charge of this war.
The question "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?" has been used by many people as a way to force people who believe murder is always wrong to admit that maybe in rare cases its justified or for the betterment of the world. However they fail to take everything else into consideration. If Hitler had been killed in 1918 or something before he rose to power in the Nazi party and before he took control of Germany, the course of history would have been radically different.
The Cold war came as a direct result of WW2, the growth of the Soviet Union came as a result of WW2. The Hippies, the greasers, even 1980's hairbands came as a result of WW2. Great developments in computer technology, rockets, man on the moon all comes as a result of WW2.
So answering yes and no is making the question way to easy, since every choice has secondary effects. People also underestimate cultural influence, there is little doubt in my mind that if your average Christian had been born in Yemen or Saudi-Arabia they would be a Muslim, just like if a few hardcore Muslims were born in the US they would most likely be Christians.
One needs to be open minded but at the same time look at things in perspective. In the Nuremberg trial following WW2 the former heads of state of Germany were convicted on conspiracy to wage offensive war, take the land, the valuables and people of other nations, in addition to the extermination of the Jews.
Now isn't this roughly what America did with the invasion of Iraq? I mean with Afghanistan there was a reason to enter the country, it was and still is a breeding ground for extremists. In Iraq there really was no justifiable reason to attack the country, and there was no declaration of war, just an invasion.
That strikes me as being very similar to what the German high command were convicted of following WW2, waging war and invading sovereign nations without a declaration of war.
I was for going into Iraq when it was believed they had weapons of mass destruction but they didn't did they?
In addition atrocities like abu-graib comes to light, the behavior of Blackwater towards civilians, the clear exploitation of the situation by Hallie-Burton and countless other American companies, the complicity of Dick Cheney in the exploitation of Iraqi resources and the way the war was waged and I think a Nuremburg trial would have no choice but to convict the republicans in charge of this war.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Religion
A friend linked me this Eddie Izzard clip the other day and it started me thinking. Isn't religion a case of cake or death as well? Think about the Bible for instance, the vengeful wrathful God of the old testament, and his hippie of a son Jesus. Now I say hippie in that he promoted tolerance and love over clear threats of a horrible death like his "father", then there is the Holy spirit but I haven't figured out if he's a messenger/servant for the 2 others or just a weaker distinct personality.
Now before people jump me, I'm not sure if there is a God or not, I'm not sure if I'm a manifestation of a mind within its own consciousness and that everyone else is another manifestation. I don't have all the answers, to be quite honest I have more questions than answers. I'm not arrogant enough to pretend or delude myself into thinking the Bible is the literal word of God or that I have the mental capacity to "understand" a being of such magnitude.
You are aware that if Creation is a reality, then we are talking about a being so powerful and knowledgeable its beyond any human imagination right? We are talking of a being capable of creating something out of nothing, of creating a "biosphere" capable of sustaining life, renew itself, balance itself through what means needed in order to keep the closed system of "Earth" alive.
We are talking about a being that created countless sources of energy for us to tap, countless technologies for us to explore. A being created the human brain, far more advanced than any computer we can currently make.
Of course this being also put the "home" of 3 major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) in the same place and then put a large amount of oil beneath it. A being that created a sun that will eventually destroy us all, jealously, hatred, anger, fear, and every negative emotion that exists. So I guess even God has a case of "The Mondays"
Well back to the original intent of this rant. Currently major religion is not really a choice, either paradise or eternal torment, heaven or hell, for good days or for bad days, and its for eternity. I have no doubt in my mind after reading The Bible and Qur'an that God and Allah are both fully capable of this type of organized torture. So if you believe in your heart that there is a God by all means worship him, I would too just to be on the safe side. I'd rather be chilling in heaven with a tumbler of nice single malt and a cuban cigar, than spend eternity nailed to a wall in hell being tortured.
Would you like this piece of cake, or should I stab you in the jugular with this fork?
Now before people jump me, I'm not sure if there is a God or not, I'm not sure if I'm a manifestation of a mind within its own consciousness and that everyone else is another manifestation. I don't have all the answers, to be quite honest I have more questions than answers. I'm not arrogant enough to pretend or delude myself into thinking the Bible is the literal word of God or that I have the mental capacity to "understand" a being of such magnitude.
You are aware that if Creation is a reality, then we are talking about a being so powerful and knowledgeable its beyond any human imagination right? We are talking of a being capable of creating something out of nothing, of creating a "biosphere" capable of sustaining life, renew itself, balance itself through what means needed in order to keep the closed system of "Earth" alive.
We are talking about a being that created countless sources of energy for us to tap, countless technologies for us to explore. A being created the human brain, far more advanced than any computer we can currently make.
Of course this being also put the "home" of 3 major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) in the same place and then put a large amount of oil beneath it. A being that created a sun that will eventually destroy us all, jealously, hatred, anger, fear, and every negative emotion that exists. So I guess even God has a case of "The Mondays"
Well back to the original intent of this rant. Currently major religion is not really a choice, either paradise or eternal torment, heaven or hell, for good days or for bad days, and its for eternity. I have no doubt in my mind after reading The Bible and Qur'an that God and Allah are both fully capable of this type of organized torture. So if you believe in your heart that there is a God by all means worship him, I would too just to be on the safe side. I'd rather be chilling in heaven with a tumbler of nice single malt and a cuban cigar, than spend eternity nailed to a wall in hell being tortured.
Would you like this piece of cake, or should I stab you in the jugular with this fork?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Something new
A few years ago I visited Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz 1 and 2. We arrived in Germany one morning and continued the busride towards the camp. The camp of Bergen-Belsen we were told was originally a Stalag, or prisoner of war camp, until 1943 when it was turned into a concentration camp.
The area itself was covered by memorials to the countless people who lost their lives in the camp. Despite the staggering amounts of people who lost their lives in the camp, it was not actually a "Death camp" like Sobibor, Treblinka and the camp I was going to see later on. As we arrived and stepped out of the bus I noticed the cold and gusty weather, quite suitable for the location I thought considering its history.
Where the camp stood there is a museum and memorials today, no trace of what was once here can be seen, apart from a few suspicious land formations where the camp used to be. When the camp was liberated it was the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in modern history according to the British who liberated it. Roughly 55000 prisoners in various stages of emancipation and decay, walking, laying, sitting and eating in filth, most wearing only flimsy rags, some naked.
The bodies of prisoners that had died, some only hours and minutes before the liberation lay around the whole camp, some of them stacked in piles and others lay across the grounds where the poor soul had fallen.
After being allowed time to walk around the exhibit and take a look at the pictures taken at the time of liberation and the humanitarian aid to the British. Reading the testimonies about what went on there, which I'd mostly read before. It was a new experience to be this close to where it all happened though. It was a bit surreal as the sun came up and a rainbow stretched across what had once been the apellplatz where so many people had stood and wondered if that day would be their last, if an SS man would just pull them out of line and have them murdered, for no other reason than that they could.
When the camp was liberated by British and Canadian troops most inmates were so starved that they couldn't eat the regular rations the troops had as their digestive systems couldn't handle the heavy food after long term starvation. The result being that they died due to the heavy food and overconsumption of nutrients. They then tried skimmed milk, which was better then finally famine mixture.
A guide showed my group into the little cinema in the museum and we got to see the famous video from the camp. Including bodies being buried and tanks with mounted flamethrowers incinerating the camp. The 50 or so people sat there in complete silence as the movie played, and as the lights came on I looked across the faces of my classmates, the few other people there and the guides.
My eyes got stuck on this little Chinese girl in my class, the arms of one of her friends wrapped around her as tears slowly ran down her face. She shivered in her arms, the image of something fragile and I felt this strange feeling of emptiness, because I felt nothing. Was it that due to my interest in the subject of concentration camps? was it that I had seen this footage before? Could it be that a lifetime of violent games and TV had desensitized me? Or was it that I'm just cold?
To be continued.
The area itself was covered by memorials to the countless people who lost their lives in the camp. Despite the staggering amounts of people who lost their lives in the camp, it was not actually a "Death camp" like Sobibor, Treblinka and the camp I was going to see later on. As we arrived and stepped out of the bus I noticed the cold and gusty weather, quite suitable for the location I thought considering its history.
Where the camp stood there is a museum and memorials today, no trace of what was once here can be seen, apart from a few suspicious land formations where the camp used to be. When the camp was liberated it was the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in modern history according to the British who liberated it. Roughly 55000 prisoners in various stages of emancipation and decay, walking, laying, sitting and eating in filth, most wearing only flimsy rags, some naked.
The bodies of prisoners that had died, some only hours and minutes before the liberation lay around the whole camp, some of them stacked in piles and others lay across the grounds where the poor soul had fallen.
After being allowed time to walk around the exhibit and take a look at the pictures taken at the time of liberation and the humanitarian aid to the British. Reading the testimonies about what went on there, which I'd mostly read before. It was a new experience to be this close to where it all happened though. It was a bit surreal as the sun came up and a rainbow stretched across what had once been the apellplatz where so many people had stood and wondered if that day would be their last, if an SS man would just pull them out of line and have them murdered, for no other reason than that they could.
When the camp was liberated by British and Canadian troops most inmates were so starved that they couldn't eat the regular rations the troops had as their digestive systems couldn't handle the heavy food after long term starvation. The result being that they died due to the heavy food and overconsumption of nutrients. They then tried skimmed milk, which was better then finally famine mixture.
A guide showed my group into the little cinema in the museum and we got to see the famous video from the camp. Including bodies being buried and tanks with mounted flamethrowers incinerating the camp. The 50 or so people sat there in complete silence as the movie played, and as the lights came on I looked across the faces of my classmates, the few other people there and the guides.
My eyes got stuck on this little Chinese girl in my class, the arms of one of her friends wrapped around her as tears slowly ran down her face. She shivered in her arms, the image of something fragile and I felt this strange feeling of emptiness, because I felt nothing. Was it that due to my interest in the subject of concentration camps? was it that I had seen this footage before? Could it be that a lifetime of violent games and TV had desensitized me? Or was it that I'm just cold?
To be continued.
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