On Funerals

So, I was thinking about this for a while...

In life we are born, we live for a period of time, and then we die. What happens after we die isn't certain, but we are at least certain of what happens while we live. (More on life as a process at a later blog).

And at the end of it all, you generally have a funeral, but during that period you're dead. Now, funerals are generally tied to spiritual things. You wish the soul or whatever to do well in the next life, or afterlife or oblivion or whatever the beliefs are; and you stay musing upon the person's memory and mourning the loss.

Now here's the problem. The only person not being effected by this is the person being celebrated. Even if you believe in an afterlife, there is no guarantee that the person is watching, is able to watch or wants to watch. Maybe he reincarnated already, maybe he's enjoying permanent happiness and doesn't care about the affairs of this world, maybe the afterlife doesn't let you see what's going on. We don't know.

So here's my proposal to turn it into a humanist ritual. This doesn't have to replace the current spiritual funerals, and both can be done. This requires the subject to be alive at the time, so it can't be done in certain cases, but where death may be predicted its possible.

So, you call upon the subject's friends, family and well-wishers. You place him in a large enough location - it doesn't matter where. The person then gets to meet his friends and people who care about him - which should make him feel happy or comforted. You then place him in a location where all can see him - the head of a table, a platform or whatever, and a list of all the person's achievements are read out, and appriciated by the crowd there.

These achievements could be anything, and depend on the person's own philosophy. They could range to the jobs he performed, his academic achievements, creative ones... The idea is to show what a full life the person has lead, and for those present to appriciate what the person has done during his life - while the person is guaranteed to see it.

Of course you can have an additional spiritual funeral later. At least this way the person is alive to see how his life fared and whether it was all worth it.

Llama

Tanning

Its that time of the year again when men and women absorb a bunch of UV rays in order to make themselves look more attractive (for some reason).

So, would someone kindly explain to me while looking like someone from a different (darker) ethnicity is considered more attractive than looking your usual colour? It gets even worse when in this brilliant country of mine, men appear to have an inkling towards white-coloured foreigners and treat pretty much everyone else with suspicion. I'm not trying to pass a racist remark here, its just the way things tend to be.


It gets even worse when you realise that getting tanned isn't good for you. Nope its not. Yes you can get cancer, or skin which looks like leather (hrm, curing leather is called "tanning"). Granted its not nearly as bad as staying away from the sun ALL the time, but I'm talking about doing it on purpose. Like going on a nice beach somewhere, or even worse, using one of those machines.


Meh, but I'm sure you've all heard this rhetoric tons of times. What you might not know is why tanning is considered 'attractive'. Predictably its one of those social conventions which started out borderline logically. So here we go:

Originally (Ancient Times) tanning was thought of as being ugly. Because it meant your family was poor and you were labouring in the fields all day and getting sunburnt. You inferior person. If you were rich you'd be at home all day doing whatever rich people do all day. Play the equivalent of modern computer games presumably. This meant you had white skin.
Then the industrial revolution came. This moved workers away from the fields and into factories which did not have the sun on them. Now the working class had white skin. Now if you were rich you wouldn't want people to think you were one of those lower class people who work in factories all day, so you'd stay sunbathing on the roof or whatever. You'd have darker skin, and they would have lighter skin.


Given in this day and age where a woman going to work isn't considered bad anymore, and that staying out in the sun too long is bad for you... WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE STILL DOING IT?


Llama

Free Speech!

Last month or so, a particular gentleman made some not-at-all friendly remarks about homosexuals. The answer from the homosexual community was attempting to prosecute him both locally, and through a European Court. Now I don't know what this person said, or claimed, and I'm sure it was quite mean and liable to make people cross - but in my opinion he should have the right to say whatever he wants.

When I talk about free speech in this context, I mean the expression of opinions. I'm not attempting to talk about any other expressions. Threats aren't expression of opinions, neither is swearing. These are outside the context. But, back to the point.

Generally free speech has a limitation on it, namely it can't offend social norms and it can't attempt to remove other people's other human rights. I believe these are wrong for these 4 reasons:

I) Social Norms and likely to change. People who were 'censored' for saying something different one year, might be norm in the next. Around 2500 years ago, a particular person was poisoned for "Corrupting the Youth of Athens" by spreading his opinions. Around 1975 years ago, another particular person who was spreading teachings about loving each other was nailed to a cross for offending social norms. 375 years or so ago, someone made the audacious claim that the earth moved around the sun and almost got himself burnt at the stake.

What the above examples aim to illustrate is certain people who were killed for their beliefs turned out to be 'right' or have effected social norms to the point that they're celebrated. So why bother putting such a limitation?

II) If the spreading of the opinion is 'bad', then by extension you'd assume that holding the opinion would be 'bad' too. But should there be such control over people's opinions? Can't they be free to believe whatever they want? If I want to believe that people who's names start with Z are idiots, then what right does anyone have to intrude in my brain? 

III) We need different opinions to reinforce and adapt our own. Discussion is an important part of noting whether are opinions have holes in them, or whether they can stand up to cross-examination. If everyone needs to hold an opinion which is 'community friendly', then who's going to argue against it? Who's going to point out that we're doing something wrong?

IV) It can be used to oppress people. Been done years upon years. You leave a small clause, a fall-guy who gets punished for speaking out of line for something properly offensive, and bit by bit the rights get worn away. Yes its a slippery slope argument, but its happened time after time.

So in my opinion, all speech should be protected, no matter how offensive, different or weird it may be. People should have the right to believe anything they want, spread this opinion and have it cross-examined and modified.

LLAMA

Horrifying News Story

Malta, LNN - Antonia the ant succumbed to her injuries today after being gassed with InsectAway (R) while wandering around in a house. Antonia was found face up around a week ago in the home of Mr Joseph Borg, who claims to know nothing about this horrifying murder. "I was just gone to the shops, when I came back I found this brutal murder had taken place. I would never harm such an innocent creature. And anyway, why should I hurt it? It just an innocent cute little thing".

The Location where Antonia was found

Antonia was rescued by the Foundation for Understanding Special Statuses (FUSS), who immediately posted pictures of the horrifying incident on VisageTome. "This way people can have something to whine about if their lives aren't depressing enough, or they're tired of the divorce debate and aftermath". From then on, Antonia became a paragon of survival and a mascot for animal cruelty, in fact her body will be placed in a special room in the Museum of Caring, where an exhibition detailing her life and death will be presented by Mister N. Obody. 

Immediately after her death, crowds blocked the streets to the capital city, throwing rocks and chanting slogans. "What sort of society would allow this sort of thing?" said protestor Michael Ellis, "I don't care about the people dying of hunger, just make sure that innocent creatures like these are protected".

The "Lets Remember Antonia" fund has also reached a new high. Experts say that the money collected could give clean water to a number of 3rd world children, but instead it will be used to "Find that hooligan who did this, then we'll strap him down and gas him to death".

Readers are reminded that if they want to help out, these majestic creatures are always available for adoption, but it takes less effort to post links in Social Networking sites then it is to get one's hands dirty.

In related news, stocks for Insect Away (R) took a dive after a can....

A Question of Probability

A while ago I spotted my mother reading a newspaper. I spotted this very interesting advertisement on the front cover.

I would like to point out that we have a population of around 400 thousand, and its only June. That's quite a few mugs. Note that these are winners. What this cheerful advertisement fails to explain is how many people scratched a loss. Its obvious that this number must be larger than the winners, otherwise its not a profitable enterprise.

So lets talk a bit about gambling. Even at prima facia its obvious that its all a giant scam. For one, its run by a business - the business' goal is to make money. If it didn't create additional money, they wouldn't keep offering it. If you look at giant buildings called Casinos, some of which are incredibly large buildings with swimming pools and gold everywhere... its quite easy to see who's winning in this whole ordeal.

So what's the reason people keep falling for this very obvious scam. There are three reasons. I don't know the technical words for the first two, but I'm sure my psych party-member could furnish us with them.


Basically, regardless of probability, you'll always get the feeling that you're special. You're very special. In fact, if the chance of winning is 1 to 42C5, you're still going to beat the odds and win. It's kinda like magic.


The Second reason is the idea of investment. If you invest in something, there is a tendency for you to continue investing in it, even if there is a better option. You throw away a ton of money at a casino, and you want your win. You've invested too much in this already.


The third reason of course is the media. How many films include people winning a new life at a casino or something? 


So basically, somewhere along the line someone noticed that mugs love probability and are willing to give up money for a tiny chance to win much more money. And this tradition has continued on today, and the largest winners are those who offer the services.


The Llama

The Debate Drinking Game!

With the divorce debate still irritating us, I present to you all the Debate Drinking Game.

Basically it goes like this - get a friend and a whole lot of water (or any other liquid), and watch some debate on the television. You and your friend takes opposite sites. Whenever any of these 'bad arguments' occur, the person siding with the party which made them, takes a dose of the liquid. See who dies of water poisoning first.

Works well with other debates to!

[ ] Think of the Children
[ ] Religious Attack ("Fight the Good Fight! Our victory is assured!")
[ ] Personal Attack
[ ] Reference to something which happened in the opponent's past
[ ] Attempting to show Opponent is a Hypocrite
[ ] Godwin's Law (Reference to Nazism or other extremists)
[ ] Reading From the Bible
[ ] Misreading/Misinterpreting something from the Bible
[ ] Bringing up Statistics which don't make sense
[ ] Bringing up Statistics which are misinterpreted
[ ] Making up Statistics as you go along
[ ] Extended Metaphor which makes no sense
[ ] "I can't counter your argument but choose not to agree with you"
[ ] "You have your own opinion and I deserve mine"
[ ] X is a human right
[ ] X is a FUNDEMENTAL human right
[ ] Celebrity agrees
[ ] Some Important Person Agrees (Dr/Lawyer/whatever)
[ ] Political Party Agrees
[ ] Slippery Slope Argument ("If we give them X today, they'll want Y tomorrow")
[ ] Reference to the year ("Its 2011")
[ ] Reminder of the country the debate is taking place in
[ ] All Catholic Priests are pdfs
[ ] Circular Argument
[ ] Us or Them argument "People who believe in X are all [bad thing]"
[ ] Liberalist Creed statement "We should have the right to decide for ourselves"
[ ] Conservatist Creed statement "Its worked in the past"
[ ] No True Scotsman ("If you were a true [member of group], you would agree with me") - S.C.



I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list. But you should have enough to unbalance the Sodium in your brain.


Llama

Petition to Save the World

Petition to save the world

So, there appears to be a 'new' phenomenon in social networking sites these days, which appears to be a logical continuation of the 'email petitions' that used to be common a while back.

Generally they take the following form:

"[Request that people put this up for an hour]
[Messsage Goes Here - generally its either about raising awareness or putting it up in some groups' honour]
[NumberOfPerson% won't repost this statement, emotional blackmail to repost goes here]"

Example:

"Put this as your status if you know someone who has Mad Llama Disease. I wish that people would cure this horrible disease. People who have Mad Llama Disease look for LOVE & ATTENTION. 92.135% won't copy and paste this. Will you make it your status for at least one hour?"

Now I've seen a ton of these, for reasons including cancer, homosexuality and some law in Uganda about killing gay people, asperger's syndrome...

Now, for the most cases these things are useless. For certain cases, they are actually worse than doing nothing at all.

So lets start with 'useless' ones. The world doesn't function through democracy or through wishful thinking. If 1000 people sign a petition for there to be democracy in Libya, there won't be democracy in libya.

Petitions and stuff like that work when:

a. Someone is actually giving the results to the right person
b. The right person actually listens to the results (for example is a politician in a DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY)
c. The change is easy to do and the only reason it wasn't done was because there was a perceived lack of interest in it

Most importantly, pharmacutical companies don't work through democracy either. They work through the movement of profits. So a petition to cure mad llama syndrome - if its not going to be profitable, is going to be useless.

Now lets talk about "Raising Awareness". This is a common excuse. "Yes I put this message up in order to raise awareness about mad llama syndrome".
Awareness is such a funny word isn't it? Lets see what it means: "The state or quality of being aware of something". So I would assume "Raising awareness" means "Making people who weren't aware, now aware".

So, what a nice idea. So you'd expect that 'awareness' will teach information that most people don't know. Now I don't think within a 250/100 character limit you can teach too many people, but I digress. So, did you know being homosexual is neither a choice nor an illness? I sure didn't know this very obvious fact until I saw it in one of these posts.

So when does Awareness work? When you have simple information, which most people don't know, and which could be important - "Did you know that after the age of 102, you should test yourself for Mad Llama Disease by performing this method? It could save your life"

Allright, so now we see how most of those are useless. Now in certain cases (as explained earlier), they do more harm than good. Lets explain why:

People like feeling happy. Sometimes certain things cause feelings of guilt - such as the emotional blackmail which comes with each and every message. Now, signing/spreading this sort of thing, gives a cheerful feeling that you're actually doing something helpful. In reality (as above) you're doing nothing. Now, this feeling of having done something could very well stop you from doing something which could actually help.

Case study - Yesterday I helped Mad Llama Disease Sufferers by 'raising awareness'. I don't feel compelled to help in another way such as by sending money to research facilities, which could actually help someone. When the emotional blackmail appears to push you to spread the message around, you will obey that. You won't be doing anything useful.

So use your head instead of your emotional centers of your brain.

Llama.