The Strange case of Me and Myself - EL Blog Post

Taken From: The Straits Times, 24/2/07
Title: New Media: A Case of Jekyll and Hyde

With the rise of the new age of technology, so too, follows the new age of crime.

Before, the crime was done in person, and belonged solely to those bold enough to do so in person, but today, improvements in cyber technology has given rise to a new breed of lawbreakers: Those emboldened and uninhibited by the supposed anonymity on the internet, and driven by peer pressure and/or the misguided belief that things on the internet are "free".

They think they aren't seen. They think they won't be caught. They think it's alright. Better, they actually don't mind going on like this. Best of all, they can be anyone.

There have already been many examples of such people, even here in Singapore, who have been caught on the wrong side of prosecutions for law infringements on the net. But yet, there are many who persist in such practices, and there are even those who have a “till the last thing is mine” attitude.

While the rise of technology has provided us many new benefits, as always, there are ways to misuse these benefits, and there are those who would exploit such opportunities.

For example, the email can be used to send emails, to share vital information, and even just to talk. Cameras are now installed in hand-phones, and there are now even tiny cameras available, for security and for convenience. But yet, the good aspects of these things, could, too be used for evil purposes, such as online scams, and to promote the notorious art of voyeurism, both now made so easy by technology.

Why then, is this happening? Why is there this rise of a morality of “It’s alright, it’s all free anyway, and it’s not that serious, I won’t get into trouble, so long as I’m not hurting anyone”? Why are people who are the average person normally, the criminal on the internet?

It has a lot to do with two things: Dishonesty, and Greed. It’s whether we have enough integrity as we think we do when no one is around to stop you. It’s whether we will settle for the things we already have, or if we want to succumb to the temptation of getting something we want but don’t have, and get it free.

In the eyes of these people, they think that when no one is watching, they can do whatever they want, and get whatever they want.

But “Code Blue is Watching Them”. In order to counter the rise of these “cybercrimes”, many IT consultancies are now working double time as cyber sleuths, seeking out and reporting these “cyber criminals” to the police. In addition, private music industries and even the MOE have been roped in to stem the Red Tide of cybercrime, through talks educating students, the most high-risk age group for cybercrime, about the dangers of illegal acts on the internet.

And as I said before, many here in Singapore (I shall not name them here) have already been arrested and sentenced to various punishments, for various crimes, such as stealing wireless signals, illegal downloading, cyber-voyeurism and the like, thus displaying, albeit in a very limited way, the effectiveness of the enforcement of the legislation

Alas, forbidden fruit tastes all the sweeter because it is forbidden.

Will these “preventive measures be successful, or will they all just go down the drain as wasted resources, or as the Chinese say it, be “taken as wind around the ears”?

In my opinion, it’s the people who are on the receiving end of these legislations, and their mindsets that matters. It really boils down to whether people will be willing to listen to these warnings, and refrain thereafter from these illegal acts.

Even if the legislature were to ban illegal downloading altogether, if the people’s hearts are not turned to the law, then it will either be rule by force, or just an empty shell of a law, with the occasional “example of what happens” cyber-martyr that makes ripples everywhere but where it would really bang a nail into the coffin of cybercrime: The minds of the people.

Only if there is a change of mindset, can there be a real change in the situation.

The Illusionary Idea of the Illusionary World

The idea that the world is illusionary is rather strange, at least the way I see it.

Given Set Theory, if the world is an illusion, then if you are within the parameters of the world, you are an illusion yourself, and therefore do not exist.

What on earth does anything matter to something that doesn't exist, and what on earth does something that doesn't exist matter to anything else?

Taking an example of escaping a situation of being under threat, you would require a self, a threat, and a freewill to escape. If any one or more of the three were an illusion, or if all were an illusion, it wouldn't make any sense anymore.

For example, if the threat were illusionary, there would be no logical need to escape it, and if you and the freewill were illusionary, it wouldn't matter if the real threat hit you anyway.

Best of all: How about the existent illusionary self, using an existent illusionary freewill to escape the existent illusionary threat.

You need existence to breed an existing freewill, and then again you need something existent to run from. There's no point in running if your freewill is illusionary, there's no point in running if you were, and there's no point running if the threat was an illusion too. And the argument would break down in itself if all of them were illusions. Ha, ha.

And another thing funny, is that people bother to think about such things, all the while assuming that they have existent, non-illusionary knowledge to illuminate the existent illusionary people of the world in an existent illusionary world.

Or, they make some cheapskate, non-provable, non-disprovable, intellectually dishonest idea concerning the absolute truth of their premise, which usually has no rational grounds whatsoever.

Checkmate.

The Foolishness of the Week III

A rather angry woman was sitting in on a sermon on the Meaning of Life. Rather angry with the pastor's statements about coherence and incoherency, she stood up and railed at him, "WHO TOLD YOU THINGS IN LIFE HAD TO BE COHERENT?"

The pastor looked at her in an amused fashion, but said rather seriously, "Ma'am, I have an answer for you, but would you like it coherent or incoherent?"

Oopsie Daisies.

Checkmate: Nirvana Lost

"Can one not need, and be free of all desire?"

At times, we may think life is so burdensome, that we want to quit, and we wish we needed nothing, and desired nothing.

It happened to me before, and I thought I could do it. Pity it was an illusion, a chasing after the wind.

Why? Why the end to such a desire?

Because it was a desire. I realised it was impossible for me to not need, or be free of desire, because I needed the desire to desire nothing as a premise, and then have the need to believe I need nothing as another premise, and also as the conclusion.

I couldn't do that without making a walking fallacy out of my life, so I gave up.

The Foolishness of the Week II

"There is no such thing as an exclusivistic truth, in terms of religion. Anything else would be epistomological arrogance."

Very funny.

One, truth by definition is exclusive. I can't say "I am me" and the next "No, absolutely not, I am my grandfather" and think that it is logical, that is ridiculous.

Two, they are assuming that "pluralism is the way to go in terms of religion" is the exclusivistic truth in terms of religion. Interesting, but a self-contained fallacy.

------NEXT FOOLISHNESS-----

Student: "Sir, How do I know I exist?"

Teacher: "And whom, shall I say, is asking?"

Even funnier.

For one thing, the student, if he didn't exist, couldn't have asked the question, and the teacher wouldn't have answered it, because he would never even have heard it.

For two, the teacher was purposely assuming he could hear the question from a non-existent person, but gave such an answer to inform the student of the fallacious nature of his question.

Strange Quotes People Made:

Napoleon : "What is History but a fable agreed upon?" (A strange quote, taking into account that Napoleon made history himself.)

Voltaire: "All sects are different, because they come from men, but morality everywhere is the same, because it comes from God." (That really depends if you woud accept God or reject him.)

Isaac Asimov: "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." (Uh...hold on, unless he's talking about a warped sense of morals, this statement is a bit...weird.)

Aldous Huxley: "An intellectual is one who has discovered something more interesting than sex." (It really doesn't take an Einstein to find out something more interesting than sex, just that Aldous was a hedonist, and his only doubts about it were expressed in Brave New World, and nowhere else.)

A flash in the pan

Many people remember the rival of Rome, Carthage, and the general Hannibal, but how many remember the one who defeated Carthage? His name was Scipio Africanus, student of Polybius and general of the Roman Empire.

This man, who defeated the worst enemy of his nation's empire, was thinking of very transient things in his moment of glory. On the burning of Carthage, he said talked about the mortality of nations, even Rome. And on his mounmental victory which crowned him in glory, he had this to say: "It too will pass."

A Nation's Regress

In a recent poll, it appears that this generation of Americans have a new view about religion, Christianity in particular. They now believe that it is good for them, that America is a Christian nation, but that it should play only a small role in the running of the nation.

America is the only nation in the world to have been formed by Christian men, with Christian foundations for a Christian nation. That it has fallen to only giving their nation's premise a sense of lip service is nothing short of a joke, if not the laughingstock of the world, that a nation could so flatly push off the forces that created it, let it survive, and give it power. For it was this unity that allowed it to pull through many tribulations, from a revolution to civil war.

A look at the annals by Polybius, The Histories, brings us a valuable insight into why Rome, and many other republics, fell: The eponymous "corruption of customs". Rome fell because of the corruption of its constitution.

The problem was similar for America. Its founders knew that a brilliant constitution would not save them from corruption. Rome was one of the greatest constitutions ever known, but it fell. So how could they keep America from falling similarly?

Was it the concept of democracy? Definitely not. Even the great American founder John Adams said that "there was never a democracy that did not commit suicide". Definitely not a nice way of putting democracy's chances of saving a nation.

Was it humanism and the efforts of man and the constitution? Most certainly not, as it was already proven then, and even more so now, that man left to his own devices would subvert his own system.

Those who created America, however, had a solution to it: They would combine 3 aspects that they believed would save them: Liberty, Virtue and Religion/Faith, three interdependent, interlocking values.

For liberty had to be paired with virtue, so it would not be subverted by the lack thereof, virtue needed faith, for they believed that God was the giver of the absolute moral law, as recorded in the Bible. Also, faith needed liberty. After all, you must be at liberty to do anything, to do anything.

Also, they believed in an unimposed Christianity that would flourish by their faith, and go form strength to strength. They knew all too well that once a religion like theirs became established and imposed, it could all too easily repeat the tragedy of the Crusades, through which, counter-posed to the actual nature of Christianity, was used for conquest, furthering of ambition, and the spilling of enough blood to fill the sea.

Another irony is that this point is sorely missed by skeptics who would question the Christian on such a basis. Possibly because if they argued from a standpoint of historicity it would be tantamount to climbing a steep slope under heavy fire.

It has been said that it is after war that people become disillusioned, that it is during peace time that people become complacent, and that it is when conflicts begin brewing again when these same people will no longer have any more answers, let alone know what to do.

And lo and behold, America has indeed changed. Far from being a nation in which God was fundamental, and the state government is marginal, now the government and the people are fundamental, and God is made second fiddle, or else not included.

And now, the God that the founding fathers believed in is being made to play second fiddle once again, to something a lot more like that of the French during their anarchic revolution: God aside, Power to the People!

And what was the result of the French Revolution? A godless bloodbath, nothing less.

The idea that "we must save ourselves", and the suggestion that there is a better idea, is nothing but a valiant attempt to block out the facts, if modern society reflects anything about our current state.

The world without any moral law (save what we give ourselves), if not fallen enough already, is on a downward spiral towards insanity.

All kinds of sexual inclinations, so long blocked out in America by its Christ-based constitution, are now rampant, accepted, and worst of all, promoted.

The media and pop culture have also been infused with so much secularised thought that it is almost inevitable that even pop groups go on a downspiral (look at the Black Eyed Peas, and see how much "Don't Phunk with My Heart" is such a far cry from "Where is the Love?"

As to the democracy, it was also written by Polybius that,

"When a commonwealth, after warding off many great dangers, has arrived at a high pitch of prosperity and undisputed power ... the manner of life of its citizens will become more extravagant; and that the rivalry for office, and in other spheres of activity, will become fiercer than it ought to be. And as this state of things goes on more and more ... this will prove the beginning of a deterioration."

Sounds like America? It sounds like the world anyway. Worse, Polybius didn't say it all.

The average person does not have to look hard for depravity. Just a quick look on the internet, or a look around his or her school campus would speak volumes already.

Ironically enough, people such as the founding fathers of America such as John Adams, American presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Even more amusing to note is that we don't see so much of this talk anymore.

People like CS Lewis (Men Without Chests) and Muggeridge, and from Russia, more recently, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, also warned us of the dangers of godlessness and the lack of moral fibre.

And now can America, weakened as it is by the influences of secularisation, pluralisation, among other things, say with confidence: In God We Trust?

Even now, they put their faith instead on the people, a highly volatile authority, and easily swayed by current events, national illusion or disillusionment and by the charisma of men and women who have the proverbial "three inches of immortal tongue", and on secular authority.

The issue of religion however, is left at this : "Yes, religion and God is rather good to change people's moral values, and we think it has been pushed away too much, but we don't want it imposed on us either. And yes, America is a Christian nation...but oh no, no thanks, we don't want God in our politics and our laws, thanks."

It really leaves one to think "What God?"

And why America? Why did I pick them to hit all of a sudden? Because it is the greater tragedy when something at the height of its power falls.

I'm not carthartic though.

Source: http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=153