Flags for everyone!

Proud to be ...insert nationality here...?

This makes as much sense as being proud that the Earth orbits the Sun! Like the location of your birth, you had nothing to do with the relevant processes that brought this state of affairs into being. Both are physical facts no reasonable person could or should take credit for.

Remarkably, society has engineered a gigantic theatrical performance in which many people act as if location of birth is a measure of worth. Unfortunately, most of the players have forgotten that it's just a show, and their ideas about the value of human life translate into real tragedies on every scale imaginable.

They forget that we are all the same species, and that the world they grew up in was not one of their making. As a result we have flag parades, refugees locked up in prison camps and TV programs where people go on and on about how 'our people' have a set of intrinsic qualities that consist exclusively of the best aspects of human behaviour (of course!).

Perhaps the orbit of a planet around a star is simply too far removed from the individual to invoke warm fuzzies. Imagine then if the play changed so that being born on Earth was the metric by which human worth was judged. This would eliminate the whole pride thing - being born on Earth, or even in the Universe, is something everybody has in common. Of course, we don't need an elaborate theatrical conspiracy to exist for this to be true!

Nationalism turns out to be just another one of those ruses used by the unscrupulous to divide the foolish for their own ends. Give a bunch of people a simple truth/identity to zealously latch onto, then label all others the enemy - the result is a slavering mob baying for blood at all costs. This is the extreme to which national pride will run, if let off the leash - a leash usually found in the hands of those who aspire to lead us. Observe as they loosen their grip whenever times get tough.

So if you really must get engage in flag-waving nonsense, fly a flag for Earth. Better yet, fly a flag of you, celebrate your own traditions and conduct your own interpersonal geopolitics. Take the future of your solo nation into your own hands and get teary-eyed as your personal anthem loops endlessly in your head! If you are going to get into ridiculousness, you may as well go all the way! Just keep in mind that you've no more claim on this world than any of the other six billion or so nations swarming on its surface.

Honesty

A picture that brought to my mind this article, which was written by a great hero of our time.

Techno-smears

Next exhibit: Planet Earth. Here we have a small planet with an infinitesimally thin smearing of technological organisms on its surface.

A kind-of determinist outlook might take away from 'the purpose of our existence' - but gives us the apparent freedom to decide what purpose we should or could follow, just for kicks.

For me the most fun adventure would be to see if this mechanically insignificant coating of humans can spanner up the works of the entire universe! 'You call that entropy?' we'd say, and bring the joys of an early heat death to the cosmos, swinging ropes of evaporating black holes above our heads as we scream towards the end of time itself.

from Mindcloud Wiki.

Night shift, two quotes and a leak from my brain

"The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round and it has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: 'Is this real? Or is this just a ride?' And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and they say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid - ever - because... this is just a ride.' And we kill those people.

'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride! Shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry; look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.'

It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that - ever notice that? - and we let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because... it's just a ride, and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort. No worry. No job. No savings and money. Just a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy bigger guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, into a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year and, instead, spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would do many times over - not one human being excluded - and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever. In peace."

- Bill Hicks (1961 - 1994)

"One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth, finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time. But this is an ancient perception . . . history is full of people who, out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power, have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again."

- Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)