The End of an Era

After months of pondering I finally took the plunge and decided to leave Facebook for good; there were a few things noteworthy to the decision, it was difficult and I felt as if I was leaving to move into a cave somewhere in the jungle in a very remote part of the world. The goodbye messages didn't help in that sense...

Facebook can be a very useful tool to keep in contact with friends and relatives, specially for someone like me that has them spread throughout the world. But at the same time it is where you can witness the depths of selfish narcissistic bickering that your loved ones can go, there are almost no social barriers to prevent it; and that saddens me a lot.

I could have changed the settings and be more selective in regards to whom sees the posts, but that's my nature, I don't discriminate in that way. If you were a friend, I wouldn't have anything to hide from you, and if I had, it wouldn't be posted in social media.

Another aspect of FaceBook that contributed to me taking the decision to leave it and deleting all my data, is the fact it takes too much valuable brain time from me. It is like a box of chocolates, if you like them like me, it is difficult to stop. I never had to be aware of every single titbit and morsel of thought that passes through my friends and family minds. I don't have to plaster all what I am feeling and find interesting on a board for all to scrutinise and satisfy a then non existent need to be accepted and agreed with ( how many "likes" did I get on that post today? ). It adds noise to my mind and it contributes to the shrinkage of my attention span. Over all, Facebook is just noise, and noise makes the mind work harder and inefficiently.

Now, back to that good book I put aside a while ago...

From Here and Out

Caught a glimpse of madness
Virtual circus
It's a long way down
Hollow no protection
Kick
You can scream
Walk your wicked way
Never getting what you need

Want what you want
When you want it
Want what you want
When you want it
Dig me out

No mercy
You are what you believe
And you are incomplete
Do as you please
Do what you will
Hang your head in shame
Never getting what you need

Don't risk your life and the lives of your comrades
Leave now and go home
Watch your children learn
Do not invite your own destruction
This is a road of no return

As the kingdom crashes
Cause of actions
You're a hangman now
Swallow dust and ashes
Wish you can dream
Shout your maniacal pleas
Never getting what you need

From here on out

(KMFDM)

????

Anonymous has become a force to reckoned with, and I confess I have mixed feelings about the group. On one side they became the embodiment of all what I have long wished to have done long ago. A force as powerful as nature itself, and as the name says; a voice devoid of shape and form, but with a fist that can be felt quite real. On the other side, it's apparent lack of coherence both in it's actions and in the language found in it's websites, makes it too chaotic to be taken seriously. Plus the fact it condoles religion, which I do not. But although I am an ordered freak, I cannot help but to feel sympathetic towards them.

Expect Us...

I have been following this closely for the past months, and the beauty of what these guys are doing doesn't stop to awe me. Hat's off to Anonymous.

"Today - the Ides of March - is the day Julius Caesar was betrayed by those he trusted. Today we gather together as Anonymous to call attention to another betrayal of trust - that of the Church of Scientology upon its followers. Since its inception, Scientology has traded in false hopes and promises, betrayed the trust of its members, taken their money, their rights, and at times their very lives.

The Church has - and continues - to lie to them and the world.
The Church betrays its members when secrets harvested from spiritual counselling are used against them as blackmail and evidence in court.
The Church betrays its members when they demand members disconnect from family and friends who question the church.
The Church betrays its members when they discourage the taking of prescribed psychiatric medications, a practice which has led to a number of shocking murders and suicides.

In the month since our first worldwide protest, there is a new public consciousness about the crimes of the Church! We have seen an unprecedented flood of Scientologists join with us across the world to testify about these abuses. To the Scientologists who fear us: You have nothing to fear from our peaceful protests. We are here because we CARE about you. We demonstrate only against the abuses of the Church management and we stand by your individual freedom of religion.

We urge you, Scientologists, to re-examine the facts you have been told.
How is your money spent?
Why does your leader, David Miscavige, demand so much of it? WE have our OWN Miscavige – Jenna Miscavige Hill, David’s niece, who stands with us today. Your anti-psychiatry front group, the Citizens' Commission on Human Rights, is led by Bruce Wiseman. WE also have our own Wiseman – his daughter Kendra Wiseman. They have joined the voices of other ex-Scientologists whose stories of abuses have been lone voices in the wilderness for too long.

We Anonymous, wait for the day when, like the Berlin Wall, the wall of silence around the LIES of the Church of Scientology will fall. Like the East German government of the past, the Church of Scientology has its own secret service to spy on its own members and outside critics.

It encourages its own members to betray others for being “out ethics”.
It blackmails members.
It commits atrocities through the operation of church prisons and slave camps, under the guise of the "Rehabilitation Project Force."

Members of the Sea Org have been forced into accepting abortions against their wishes.
"Upstat", privileged members have abused women and children with impunity. And the Church has attacked its enemies with frivolous lawsuits, harassment, kidnappings, and countless suspicious deaths.

This world holds no place for organized crime perpetrated on this scale. Last month ten thousand people demonstrated in one hundred and seven cities across the world. They came together to make the first breach in the wall of silence. Today we are on the streets again, our numbers ever-increasing - and we will come again in April - in May - in June - and July. We will come until that wall of silence is RUBBLE!

We are Anonymous. We are legion. Expect us!"

I told you so...

At last some sense in this country...
Follow this link to more info.

Neocortex

Reading Jeff Hawkins "On Intelligence" served as an introduction to Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained". More accessible to the layman and full of revealing details on the internals of human intelligence (I mean, any neocortex possessing creature...). Repetitive at times, but I believe that is so ignorants on the subject (like myself) get to understand the concepts presented.

The book reinforces the idea that consciousness is no more than a natural phenomenon, and bases on the principle that awareness of your environment and self awareness is built on the neocortex capacity to recall memories.

One more stone on the mausoleum of religion, pseudo-science and mysticism, specially after his explanation on how the neocortex creates a world model used as the basis for prediction of the environment.

I hope I will still be alive when his an similar researches bears fruit. It will be fascinating to see the effect it will have on our lives and on the way we see intelligence.

The Next Level

It may sound rather preposterous to some, but evolution will not be exclusive to the organic media. This wonderful mechanism has already proven to be of use in many fields, computing, economics, ideas; because ultimately they are linked to ourselves, another part in the evolutionary dance...

We are no more than a stepping stone in evolution, and it makes me wonder how long it will take for us to spawn the next species, that will (maybe) take our memory far beyond the boundaries of our solar system; a more resilient, virtually immortal and inorganic species.

Many of you may be amused by this, but stop and think for a moment, what refrains something being alive in a media other than flesh? “But if it was possible, don't you think it would have already happened?”, maybe not, maybe the inorganic life needs an organic foundation to start, maybe the organic needs to achieve a specific technological level to become the enabler of the inorganic (I prefer “inorganic” other than artificial, as it would be removed from the evolutionary path).

Since we are products of natural evolution, the thought that technology created by us is subject to the same laws is not difficult to follow. Think for example of self altering computer viruses, or replicating nanomachines (Not there just yet, but close...)