Vacie El Veto

Digital Natives prove how Anarchy would fail.

2008-09-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

I was about to start off about the relation between narcissism and social networking but then realised this would be quite hypocritical due to blogging, so I shan't ;)

But I will say that it should be realised how people are creating such double lives thanks to the internet- and thus display the nearest we are going to get to a real-life example of Anarchy on a large scale.

Timid people are able to exert their destructiveness within which would otherwise build up inside so they destroy themselves (or, on a more positive note, express themselves creatively and gain the ego boosts they are too shy to get otherwise)- this by some controversial 'vigilantism' (note: the recent hacking of Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account by Anonymous last week (and yes, it was them- the 'spokesperson' was clearly from the anti-Scientology branch of 'Anonymous')... though it is questionable whether this was due to any 'vigilantism'- or rather, the somewhat raunchy past of the VP candidate allowing some lulz to be had).

Of course, on the other hand it serves only to do what we must consider would be a direct result of Anarchy taking over- the freedom and ability to exercise one's narcissism, it can be a catalyst for them to do as they're thinking... (though, specifically to 'Internet vs. IRL' this could mean warnings that could prevent tragedy.)

It also seems a truth to me that Anarchy had its one chance with the internet- a chance to prove itself after it's name was so kindly shat upon in the times of Emma Goldman so the ideology was blurred away in smearings of dung; Unfortunately Communist countries are of course still finding ways to censor it and others within it choose to find offense from all sorts published here, while exclaiming the victory abundant for Freedom of Speech- surely a contradiction?

At the same time I can also admit that right now, I am doing the cyberworld equivalent of stealing- downloading music. There is also the matters of fraud, impersonations, breaking and entering (hacking/ cracking being the cyber twin), breaches of privacy, child abuse... these being the real life crimes enacted by Digital Natives/ Immigrants, just in the cyberworld- in that key example toward Anarchism.

They do this thanks to the mask set upon them.
Imagine if we never even had to fear being tracked through our ISPs?

Religious, Ridiculous.

2008-09-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

This time next fortnight it would seem we'll have a new scathing documentary to go alongside our copies of Farenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine and Sicko brought to us so graciously by Michael Moore; While not forgetting Supersize Me and any else such commendable products you may care to think up.

Alongside the director of Borat, Larry Charles, we see the popular US comedian- very outspoken on his views as to politics and religion (accusedly with a focus on Catholicism)- Bill Maher, take to the religious world interviewing all who would speak to them (under somewhat false pretences, admittedly), drilling them with questions they really don't ever want to consider so to portray, well, how ridiculous their religions are. Hence, Religulous.

Trailer here.

I'm in the thinking that it's commendable, genius- so many people speak of "If we were to ask these religious leaders..."- and here it is, done!

Blasting another's religion is always seen as such a taboo, but in this day and age, this barrier needs to fall- and yes, it is a barrier. As many philosophers in the past few centuries have concurred to- and as would anyone with a halfway decent knowledge of wars in history agree to- it's about time the restraints caused by 'respecting one another's faith' fell, allowing for progress. Although, of course, I'm not saying this is in anyway feasible- the issues with it are as obvious as the ones there are to anarchy. Unfortunately the hivemind does not exist universally for humankind. Fortunately, we now have the internet- and even though, in reality, nothing can truly be done to conquer the issue- we can still bitch and whine about it here.

As a quick side note, I had to smile to myself as I was following through links, coming across Disbeliefnet- where I find a link to the CoS Video Channel. Scientology just being an obvious example of how deluded a religion can make people- and under such false pretenses in itself! (And also on a personal note as I recently took part in anti-Scientology activism (...yes, due to "Anonymous" -gag-)- though I've gladly rid of this time-waster.) If there were ever an example to show as to why you shouldn't get involved in anything even in close resemblance to a religion- Scientology would be key.

Back to my original thread of thought however. It would seem from today's article on the Guardian website (if it were in the newspaper is unknown to me as I was unable to get a hold of one today, humbug) that it has indeed kicked up quite a fuss- especially from Catholics who believe a focus has been set on them, namely due to Maher being born into a Catholic setting and hence after, particularly anti to Catholicism- whether there is actually a focus, I can't be sure, since it is not released yet ;) But if there is- so what?

I thought a little criticism is always healthy from time to time?

I wouldn't take insult to another taking the piss out of my 'religious' beliefs (these being quite LaVeyanist in depth, but overall, anti-theist). This being because I feel secure with them. I believe I can justify them and I can listen to criticism, account it, and still feel this way- since my beliefs bare nothing to hide.

So, what is it they have to hide? Since they're getting so riled up about this?

And what ever happened to anything and everything in good humour, huh?

Live, waste, die.

2008-09-19T17:45:00.000-07:00

Page 10 of yesterday's Guardian, and I have stopped reading and turn straight to a search engine, simply at the sight of the headline to the tiny article at the bottom under the heading of “Science”. Whether this is appropriate terming... I am critical.

“Patients to help shed light on life after death”.

This to anyone should provoke interest- regardless of their religious stance; if they say it does not, it is most likely that they are lying. But these articles have stood out to me since the New Year as I'm struggling to understand my own experience, a hint, of 'life after death' that occurred toward the end of October last year, one that gave away a little to me on what the mind might be.

The short article itself explains that there is to be a study done by the University of Southampton, using heart attack survivors in the UK and the US over the next three years- an 18-month “test phase” having precluded it solely in Britain. They hope to use 1,500 patients who 'woke up' after having had no heartbeat or brain activity. These details are of little interest to me- they just told me it'll be like any other study done on the matter, as unlikely as ever, but possibly more orderly and with more participants. Wonderful.

No, what struck me about this experiment was it's name: “The Aware (Awareness during Resuscitation) project”.

Unlike most other rambles about supposed “near-death experiences” this seemed to be saying to me that the subjects are somewhat conscious while having supposedly 'slipped away' (out-of-body experiences basically). Most doctors will tell you this is ridiculous, as it is scientific belief that it is something in the brain that produces thought; Marx and Engels tell us in the German Ideology how man has simply replaced instinct with consciousness, evolved (, unless of course you are one of the so-called 'nature worshippers', with a “purely animal consciousness of nature”- we can presume here they are talking of such religions as Paganism), that all blocking our path to real progress is our persistent cling to religion, and that is the end of the matter. No life after death mentions. (In fact it could be said that it is implored that religion serves only to reassure the proletariat that there is a meaning to their lives, even in contest to the higher-classed and more educated people (who at this time were turning with sudden realisations to the recently fashionable fad of the time that is agnosticism).)

This theory, however, challenges these views- and to my dismay, might create more sense of my own experience.

I'll attempt to be brief in explaining what I'm referring to. (This will, of course, fail. [And indeed it does.])

In late October last year I underwent an operation to have my 'cerebral shunt', inserted when I was 10 months old, removed as I had been experiencing discomfort for a few years and after regular scans and the discomfort increasing, the doctors believed it safe (that I no longer suffered the symptoms of hydrocephalus, and it really was only as a result of the tumour removed a month before I was diagnosed with it that there was an imbalance of fluids for some time), after 16 years of having it, to remove the damned thing.

They were wrong. It was not safe.

I awoke the day after my operation with a splitting headache and nausea- all that was keeping my food down was regular dosages of anti-sickness medicines. Despite this, they sent me home the same day- presuming that these symptoms were just a reaction to anaesthetic (I hadn't had any other operations since the insertion of my shunt sixteen years before so it was still yet to be known how I would react to the stuff).

The day I was sent home being a Friday, it was then evident over the weekend that my symptoms were getting worse. A lot worse. First it was just headaches and nausea, easily countered with painkillers and sitting very still, attempting to sleep- but by the Sunday night it was getting hard to balance and the pain was becoming unbearable- my memory is foggy, but it is likely I had overdosed on painkillers that night while wandering the house for some way to relieve the stress since I do remember in the morning that it was noted more than there should have been taken, were missing.

Monday morning, I zombied on downstairs, noting that my stomach felt peculiarly settled- this must be a good thing, surely? And so I settled down to a (dry, I hate milk on my cereal) bowl of 'Honey Hoops' and, neither feeling any benefit or downfall to having consumed this, the morning carried on much as the weekend had, but minus the nausea.

Until lunchtime.

My mother had taken the day off work, noting that I still had the incredibly painful headache and was still quite unbalanced (plus apparently being a bit 'out of it'- but since I was, I do not recall this), so it was she who asked me what I would like for lunch- I was clueless. She asked me to go look about in the kitchen for something I'd like, so I did this but did not even compute decision making, especially for food- I really didn't want any. The thought of it- oops. On came the nausea again. Returning to the living room (this being where I could admit I was 'out of it') I sat on the edge of the seat of the sofa and said quite clearly with such a monotone that I could not find anything for lunch, that I did not feel like eating; Upon which, I burst into tears. For no reason- I was actually quite emotionless inside, 'listless' was how my mother put it on the phone not five minutes later, to the hospital, as we had now surmised this seemed a bit over the top for simple side effects to anaesthetic.

Some time later I was back at the hospital, skipping waiting lists and lines, undergoing scans before being sent to a waiting room with a woman who wouldn't shut the fuck up about her fucking neck brace while I was clearly quickly deteriorating right in front of her. I know that sounds selfish, and I thought I was then too, but I only mention it since it was the most unusual feeling that I wanted to rage, but failed completely to drudge up any of the physical commodities for it. By this stage the need to drink was lost from my mind and if I was thirsty, I was not conscious of it- and this is where I can start explaining, because it really was as if I was going inward on myself, back to a source. I can't really remember what I was thinking, I do wish I'd written this all down sooner after (but this was impossible, although I care not to explain, and doubt it is worth it (it would just be a bitch about certain corruptnesses in the NHS by the end)).

While in the waiting room I had apparently also completely lost my balance as when the doctor came to retrieve me and I stood, I immediately found him having to rest me back on the sofa since I'd just near collapsed- eventually we got me into the ward, into the same bay I'd been in for the removal of my shunt just three days before- in the next bed along. Once I was settled he began to sit in order to explain what was happening to me- and with expert timing I threw up into a cardboard bedpan in an instant- the nausea having hit once I'd stood in the waiting room.

Again, I was settled- albeit after having been changed into a hospital gown and those stockings for preventing blood clots or whatnot 'slipped' on- if I'd have been in a better state of mind it would've been obvious then what was coming, but I think I was too in awe of how brilliant it felt to be empty (all that I'd vomited up was exactly as it would've been upon swallowing), oh, and that I suddenly felt drowsy.

I accepted the 'news' that the ventricles in my brain were completely swollen with cerebral fluid and thus my brain was being crushed up against my skull... rather nonchalantly- signing the forms for the operation without a single air of... well, caring. I was happy, excited. It felt as if I were to be free soon. The prospect of the operation before me, happening as soon as they could free up a theatre, was absent from my mind... I just wanted to sleep.

People kept trying to talk to me, but I got fed up of replying, focussing on the happy place swallowing my mind instead, and as a result, drifting out of consciousness.

Now, I don't know what was happening outside of my mind from here until I met the anaesthetist, but as far as I'm aware, it was all going downhill, even faster, upon the loss of my consciousness- it was apparent already that my body had been shutting down- now the situation was dire.

But what did I care?

This is what there was: an enlightening... nothingness.

Here there was just me and, well, my mind. It felt as if I had all the knowledge there is to be- in this nothingness, this black. I could never be bored and unhappy there.

Oh, and then here's reality again, I'm suddenly being pushed in a room to be anaesthetised and people are talking to me again. Drunk with the euphoria of where I'd just been I happily replied to them... or so I thought. I later found out that I was pretty much just meat that excruciatingly slowly breathed away and looked out dryly with unfocussed eyes. In my head though, I'd never been more alive- the pain now absent as my mind seemed to break all bonds with my body.

From here, the rest is irrelevant- I obviously (eventually, not thanks to further NHS cock-ups) survived. But the point of that pointlessly long ramble was that what I experienced of being near death- indeed, dying, is that I was moving nowhere. Instead, all else had become absent to my mind other than raw knowledge, or an anticipation of, and a euphoria.

Now, to relate this back.

The term “Awareness during Resuscitation” seems incorrect to me in the sense I believe the scientists and doctors are aiming at- being that the outside world is still available to our minds. With the logic that this cannot be without our senses, and then the experience I just explained, it would seem our minds, consciousness, and an awareness of the outside world would be two completely different things. What I feel had happened to me was that I'd gone inwardly to an origination, as well as an end.

I'm aware that I hadn't died in any literal sense, but was just very near- but this is what just makes me more curious.

In a news article on the BBC website from 2000 it is said researchers found “[Patients who'd had near-death experiences] told of feelings of peace and joy, time speeded up, heightened senses, lost awareness of body, seeing a bright light, entering another world, encountering a mystical being and coming to "a point of no return".”

I can account for the feelings of peace and joy, as well as the lost awareness of body- but others lead to a contradiction.

You cannot have heightened senses if you have lost awareness of your body, unless you want to argue that the senses are in no way linked to the body- despite that if your eyes are blighted, your vision will be too.

As for “seeing a bright light”, “entering another world”, etc. I cannot comment since I don't believe I reached a stage in my disintegration where this might have happened. But I can't help thinking this is just a fantasy of religious believers- that they 'remember' what they want to have seen- deceiving themselves.

It'll still remain as much of a mystery to me as it did before my experience as the accounts from others are so unreliable- as well as so awfully convenient to the religious believer.

I couldn't help but to giggle at this article from The Good News Magazine where they use the example of the Egyptian God Osiris to back up their indifferent claim that the concept of Heaven was about even before Christianity- so it must be true! This reeks of foot-bullet since it is widely acclaimed that the stories enlisted by Christianity about Jesus are copies of those from the Egyptians about Osiris.

Just as a final note: relying on the religious stories you copied from to create your own religion is not a way of proving your beliefs (and so this goes for pretty much all religions out there to different extents and degrees)- as much as listening to those who create their near-death experience in their mind as according to what they want to have seen (tragic victims of cognitive dissonance in their vain attempts to prove their life-long fallacies... Again we can refer to The Good News Magazine who admit “Man has always wanted to live without ever dying [...] Sadly, he has embraced beliefs that he cannot prove true.”). At the same time no “science” can identify anything of truth either since the observer's bias, or paradox, is an inescapable trap in this scheme- as it outlined at the end of this article (elaborating on the one from the newspaper itself).

And to finally end I focus on this one comment by “DaveMere”:

“Seems interesting enough to me. If we can spend billions on a particle accelerator, why not much less on a study like this? The implications of a positive result are just as profound, and probably more so.

Much less chance of ripping the Earth a new one as well."

A good point- though might I point out that is it not likely that if a 'good' result were to come from this experiment (I am pessimistic that any 'results' will be reliable and valid however) then it could well just lead to mass-suicide as people choose to skip this life?

Just saying...