Be Here Mondays

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Redneck killbot mindlessly implementing the genocidal imperialism of President Chimpy Bushitler.

by David · Tuesday July 1, 2008 9:20 pm PERMALINK

Liberals may love America in part because it aspires to certain ideals, but if they love it only because it aspires to those ideals, then what they really love is the ideals, not America. Conservatives are right. To some degree, patriotism must mean loving your country for the same reason you love your family: simply because it is yours. [»]

Yes, though not merely "to some degree." Our writer is trying too hard to be evenhanded. In particular he concedes too much to the nonsense that criticism of America is patriotic. Whatever else it is, criticism by itself is never a sign of patriotism. To be stirred by the condemnations of one's country and repulsed by the celebrations does not make one patriotic. Criticism that is patriotic must be grounded in uncritical patriotism. You must first love your country as your country. But most liberals skip that step and go straight to the carping and whining. They do not act like members of the family and are no better than loud-mouthed, busybody neighbors.

See also here.

by David · Sunday June 29, 2008 9:31 am PERMALINK

The Pointlessness of Downloaded Consciousness

by David · Saturday June 28, 2008 8:47 pm PERMALINK

When artifical intelligence reaches a certain point, the consequences will be so profound that the moment will represent a radical, indeed shattering break with all of prior human history. Or so say the believers in The Singularity.

Without question The Singularity is just The Rapture for Nerds. Well, for a certain sort of nerd, who has so thoroughly imbibed materialism and yet retains his natural human longing for our eventual Home. Perhaps the silliest expectation for a post-Singularity world is that one will be able to download one's consciousness and thus not die.

Yes: Immortality of the Soul, for Nerds.

Leaving aside the technical unlikelihood of being able to download consciousness, there is the simple fact that no matter the fidelity of the download it cannot be me. I am here. My download is over there. Each of us occupies different points in spacetime and subsist in very different sorts of matter. We are ontologically distinct. My downloaded consciousness represents no sort of continuity for me. Yes, to everyone else, a "David" might continue, perhaps without much difference; but to me, that "David" is a separate being.

Downloading myself is pointless. The fear of death is not the fear that a particular set of algorithms called "David" will no longer putter along, but that I will cease. Downloaded or not, I will still cease. Even if you deny that a specific consciousness is a real thing and mechanically irreproducible — indeed, especially if you think that consciousness is just an epiphenomenal delusion of your body's particular collection of molecules — you can't avoid the simple fact that your copy is over there. It's a copy, for goodness sake! Who cares if it exists when you do not?

Why would anyone find comfort in such a thing?

Only a Bit Better than Catblogging

by David · Saturday June 28, 2008 3:37 pm PERMALINK

I bought my house from a woman who had found herself a husband and was going off to live with him. I met her only once, at the closing. She was ex-Navy and had been stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf — between the Iraq wars, I think. Now, I don't know what I would expect from a former sailor, but somehow her house, when I looked it over before I bought it, seemed quite conventionally feminine. Most especially, she had painted many of the walls using stencils: There were ferns, vines, flowers, bamboo forests, geometric shapes. My walls still have her paintings, in part because some of them are nicely done, but mostly because I'm not one to bother re-decorating.

She had also been quite the gardener. I am no more a gardener than I am a decorator. Yet there are those perennials that come whether you will them or not.

I wonder what she put between the plants that remain. Anyhow, I don't do anything but weed and clear out the dead stems and such, yet every summer I get some robust and colorful flowers. I have no idea what they are, but they are very nice.

The undirected perfection of life, eh? Well, undirected by man, in any event. The bushes towards the back will flower later in the summer. I suspect the previous owner planned it that way, so that there would be color all the time.

Now, there are bare spots around the trees, where she no doubt put her annuals. There is one spot where the trees died before I came and there are only two small stumps. Recently something took root.

It's several plants. They should flourish, since they're well placed for sun and rain, and, yes, I am culling them and keeping the weeds at bay. Don't know what they are but they don't look like the usual weeds, so I'm letting them be. Trees, maybe? Giant beanstalks? Pods from space? We'll see.

To the McCainiacs out there: I should vote for McCain because he might hold the line against the darkness in the Supreme Court? Remember this: Activist busybody Earl Warren was appointed by Eisenhower; and dim-witted Anthony Kennedy, he of atrocious Casey, suicidal Boumediene, today's vile Kennedy vs. Louisiana, and other abominations, was appointed by St. Reagan.

Point being, Supreme Court nominations are a crapshoot even with Presidents far sounder than McCain — so stop using the Supreme Court as a hopeful reason to vote for Maverick Man.

by David · Wednesday June 25, 2008 4:01 pm PERMALINK