How do you know that you know?

How do you know that you know?
Everything that one knows one has experienced through the senses, now what if all the senses are being mislead by some greater force. Now how can we know that this is real something else is not, well we can not know because we can not trust our senses to provide information that is correct or can be checked against other sources of information. We like to believe that the world around us is real, since that makes it simpler to interact with that world, yet is it real? In theory we, our minds could be in a jar, in which we experience everything, and can not even percieve reality. Since we are fed with this information from this other source. To come back to the original question, if we can not verify what we percieve to be real then we can not verify anything we believe to be true. Then logically we can not know anything, yet we often say that we know.
How can that be if we can not actually verify this 'knowledge'?

Buy nothing?

Adbusters BND or Buy Nothing Day is knocking on the door again, well what is that supposed to mean? Simple it is not to say 'Bring down the Corporate Tormentor' but rather a) give you a reason to exercise restrained over yourself for one day and see if you can simply go through one day without buying something, it is a form self discovery mixed with seeing your environment with other eyes. b)well I would link b) to the article about 'Purchase addiction' which ties in with self control, further shouldn't it be possible for a person to go through a day without having to buy stuff? I mean you can stock your pantry a day or two before no harm done there but do you really need to buy something every day? So why not just not buy anything consciously for one day? I' am sure you will notice something if you do not buy anything for a day.

The BND is November 24 till the 25th. (24H of buying nothing!!!)

Nature and humans

There is an interesting question which I came across, this question has to be elaborated, first we life on the same planet which we share with other species. Yet, for some reason humans seem to think that they are the only ones that matter on the planet or rather that the planet is there to provide humans with a more comfortable life, or in other words with the resources to provide the comfortable life. Is this because we do not see ourselves as part of the planets eco-system. Now I will use the word 'nature' to represent the eco-system surrounding us. In many religions and in the environment we create for ourselves we seem to distance our selves from nature. This 'separating' off ourselves from nature, allows us to see nature or rather the other creatures in nature, as being lower then humans thus allowing us to exploit them.
Does that allow for a happier life? Does the separation of humans and nature allow us to be happy? The interesting thing is that we depend upon nature for everything that we need, or make.

Nihilism

Nihilism seems to be the response inspired by the environment we life in today.
We life in an age, in which we hear over and over again that the world is slowly or maybe fast nearing its end. We learn that our environment is being abused by us and that is destroying the world as we know it. We create new threats we none are are and perceive the world as hostile. Why do we understand or perceive our environment in such a way that we see those things? In the 50's and 60's people already believed that the world would end in several decades. Interestingly enough we seem to want the world end around ourself, further we believe more and more in the end of our lives instead of an afterlife. Nihilism, the believe that we die and that then we turn into nothing else but compost, seems to have won over all the other believes. The question is, why did that happen? Are predisposed to nihilism?
Our media and similar are all seemingly supplying us with negative news, why? Because it sells better then good news, why is that the case one would wonder why do humans want to witness brutality or know that the world is going to end sooner then in several billion years when the sun expands. It seems odd, yet if we truly are predisposed to nihilism would not the most logical explanation be that we want to be reassured, that we need to proof to ourself over and over again that we and the world that we life in is going to end? And if that is going to be soon then we can grasp it more easily, and it is actually going to impact onto our lives.

P.S. I thought that something such as this post would be the most appropriate as the number 100 post.

Ideology...

Ideologies seem to be destined to stand in conflict with each other, to create tension between each other and then ultimately go to war. Why is that? People that believe in their ideology most often believe that all other ideologies are wrong and are willing to kill for their ideology and often are willing to die for it as well. Yet, why do ideologies necessarily confront each other? Ideologies aim to answer many questions and often do so in a way which does not allow for different answers. This creates friction when two different ideologies meet each other, each explaining the world and certain other things in its own ways. The ideologies 'threaten' each other by simply supplying a different point of view. But do ideologies have to 'feel threatened' by each other? Is it impossible for ideologies to coexist?

The time of the year...

Yes, it is the time of the year again, Christmas is closing fast, some people dance in the streets, others remember. The year is closing to its end fast and we are compelled to think: "Was this a good year? What really changed?" and other things very similar to those thoughts. People begin thinking about their Christmas presents and about the presents they feel compelled to give.
Who do they care enough about to give a present?
What should they give as present?
Yes, it is the time of the year once more, the stores begin stocking for the Christmas rush which most likely will compensate for the lower then usual sales up to now. If the sales were up to the expectations it certainly will boost the stock prizes and that will make the CEOs happy which then will give bigger presents to their families or themselves. Yes, we do live in a time of materialism where nothing matters as much as the collecting of items.
Is that the spirit of Christmas?
I do not know what I do know is that we often do change the meaning of events to incorporate new ideas. Yes, in this time of the year we start looking for others to stay close to us, to make ourselves and those that are close to us loved. Now in today's world presents do symbolize in part love it would seem, since if we do not give a present but we could afford it seems that we do not care about the person that we do not give a present to.
Is that really so?
Can we love someone or care about someone and not give them a present?
I would dare say yes, yet I must admit that it seems to hold true that a present represents something. Why it does I' am not sure maybe it is because we then think that the person really thought about the present or that the person cared enough to go out and get a present. Maybe it is just a new social norm to which we conform by now and which we justify with those statements. And then the thought occurs "What would he/she like? What would make her/him happy?" Most often we are unable to answer that question and we pick something that we think that person would like. This helps the businesses which then after Christmas offer the possibility of returning and exchanging products, this is not out of the goodness of their heart but rather because of simple economics, which works as follows person buys presents give present but the present is rejected and is then returned the person that received the present then will select a new present. This present might be the same value but most likely has a higher value and this boosts the shares a little and also makes the sales record look better.
In the end after all the presents have eventually found their respective recipient and everyone is happy and is reassured that they matter to the people that matter to them. Yet, sometimes there is the lonely person that would like to be part of all that but can't because of convention or because the ties are not close enough yet. The phenomenon of Christmas is most curious and it is often called the time of love, yet I would say that we considering the way Christmas is celebrated that we should add a second title to "Christmas the time of love" and then (It also is the time of record sales or Shareholders prepare for the launch or maybe CEOs remember all that money is not your's).
In the end we do not think of the present as much as of the person the showed us that showed that he/she cares and that you are important to them.

P.S. Yes, it is true what they say, we these days show love, good intentions or just friendship by giving away a present.

Islam die Vernunft religion

Hier sind zwei URL's die zu Artikeln fuehren die sich mit diesem Thema beschaftigen, beide sind aeusserst interressant.


Mohammed wollte nichts Neues bringen
Drewerman lobt Islam

Mind boggling

Now here are some things that seem odd but are true.
Everything in this world consists for the greatest part of nothing, because the atoms have only a tiny core and the electrons rotate around that core but everything in between is empty...totally empty.
You did not and will never touch anything in this world, this is because everything has a magnetic field which pushes everything else back. What you think is the touching of something is in fact nothing but the pressing of two electro magnetic fields against each other. (You come within nanometers of the actual object but you never touch it)
Why is something where it is? Or rather why is it there when you look? (This is a theory) Couldn't be that we influence our environment just by looking, or in other words if you look at an object you decide that it is there, but if you would not look this object could me somewhere else our be in more then one place at the same time.

And this is enough for now.

Police Brutality?...

The state officially has the monopoly on violence within its own boundaries which means that state is the only party in that can administer 'violence'. The police is the tool to enforce the rules set up by the state, state in turn gives the police the right to administer 'violence' to insure that the police will be listened to.
Now it is somewhat of an oxymoron to scream "Police brutality" if the police has the permission to administer violence towards anyone who is doing something against the state. Why do people then complain when the police uses this 'right' and administers violence against offenders and suspected offenders. Technically the once that are going against their rights and powers, are the people resisting the police. They do not have the right to administer violence against anyone, which means that when they attempt to administer violence against the party that is allowed to administer violence, the one that 'should suffer' is the party that is offending not the party that is remaining within its rights. Right?

Hero vs. Celebrity who truly remains...?

A hero in the more traditional sense is someone who is willing to fight and die for a good cause, for something just. Today hero's are either short lived or never noticed, while celebrities can be the center of all the attention as long as they do enough things that are interesting to the population i.e. the TV show 'Osbournes' and similar shows. The question remains what is truly amazing about a celebrity that they warrant such a great deal of interest? The hero of today can be anyone who does something socially responsible, something good, while a celebrity does nothing but please themselves, some do consider the benefit of others as was shown in the address made by George Clooney in front of the UN. But that action did not make him a hero or a celebrity he was a celebrity before he came there, he used his 'Celebrity Card' in the attempt of forcing the UN into action. Now what truly makes a celebrity? Is it charm is the roles they play, is it the fact that they can do what we want to do, is the true charm of the celebrity that they live in a dream like world?
Maybe in a millennia the archaeologists will write about the people in the year 2006 and how they revered a god called William Shattner, while others argue that the god Kurt Russel must be more powerful or was it Silvester Stalone that was the true master of the pantheon?
The hero on the other hand has become a very common thing every can be one, one just has to be at the right event and a week or a year later you suddenly become a international hero, for a week or two but than the hero slowly disappears again. Moving out of the light to make space for another hero or maybe for a celebrity.
Has the abundance of Hero's let to the understanding that it is easy to be hero but not a celebrity, since everyone knows what makes a hero all you have to do is find the right situation and than do the 'right' thing it is very easy right? But how do you become a celebrity someone that is interesting to millions and not forgotten quiet as fast.

How Does the enviroment really affect us?...

Many say that the enviroment is not as important as we sometimes make it, that it does not strongly affect our personality that it does not change the way in which we develop. The truth is that if we move that one tents to loose sleep due to the changed sound background. It is also true that different enviroments offer different choices to the person in question, now it might not affect the development of the personality but I' am certain that it does help to create certain likes, dislikes as well as different physical abilities. If someone has to walk or swim everyday this person will certainly be fitter than the same person having the choice to use the bus, and sometimes using that. Thus making the person that has to swim and/or walk fitter, now the enviroment creates circumstances under which the person has to the abilities. The use of those abilities insures the increased ability to use those.
What all this rambling basically is saying that I do not believe that the enviroment has the small role that we often atribute to it. That the enviroment dictates how we use the abilities that we have available to us.

Computers and their effect on the world...>

The computer industry is the most important industries in the world, this is so because most industries need computers to function as well as do their products. Today's cars would not work without onboard computer systems, the same counts for the air traffic which needs computer assistance to work as it does today, records are kept on computer systems because it is more convenient. Production lines need computers, to control the roboter arms, now we still like to have the illusion that we are the masters of our world. Of course we could pull the plug on all computer systems, but this most certainly would cause great famines as well as shortages in all other areas, to make a long story short our industry would collapse without the computer since the computer control's or is used to as remote controls other tools. In this light shutting down computers seems more like mass-suicide since we would not be able to sustain so many humans without computers any more. Sick and old people, as well as people that are over or under-weight would most certainly be the once that would pay the greatest price not to mention children, since they depend on the industrial products. Basically computers have become the single most important tool in today's world. And we need them more than ever, this trend seems not to slow down but just to accelerate, if you do not believe me just go outside for a day and count how often the computer is necessary for the things you do.

What is Justice?

Justice is hard to define and it is even harder to define how justice should be achieved some say that it is right to kill in order to do just, some say the best thing to do to help the people that need help as well as to educate them so that differences and hate can be overcome. Now others again say that violence in limits is the key to justice and many drift between the two extremes on the one side war supporters who say 'If you are not with us you are against us!' and on the other extreme are the people that say 'Please all of you stop this senseless fighting and lets talk.'
Now the problem is a) indecision about these two points which of the two is 'better' b) media and politicians often paint war as something that it is not, as the purposeful fight for the good of humankind. War is not just in principal all involved sides usually break the rules of reason most soldiers if they survive continue to suffer under what they have seen and done for the rest of their lives. Now is it necessary to spend so many resources on wars that can not be won?
"War on Terrorism" is in its core principal wrong, you can not siege war on a concept or an idea, you might as well declare 'War on Dreams' because that is to what it boils down. If you finally kill all Al-Quaeda members what then? Does anyone honestly believe that the struggle will end there? The truth that the Al-Quaeda fight for an idea, a dream this is something can't shoot, bomb or eradicate it eventually comes back to the surface, violence at this scale does not help on the long run. It is true someone that kills innoncent people, POW and others that are so called non-combatants should be punished but that counts for the soldiers as for the so called terrorist, since you have to realize that those 'terrorists' do not fight without reason because they are fighting for freedom of something. Their methods only differ in one way from the ones western powers, eastern and all other powers use which is the sophistication of their tools.
So what makes us 'better' than them? The modern war has killed more than terrorism ever did, and remember just or unjust cause is only a question of perspective.

War

It is most interesting that the human race seems to enjoy war so much. War killed an estimate of 105 million people 62 million of those were civilians and that only between 1900 and 2000. Now in the entire human history, as far as we can track it, there have been only 29 years of peace around the world (Will Durant calculated this), in all the thousends of other years there was always at least one war going on on the planet.
Why is that so?
Is it the human condition to kill others?
First we create differences that justify oppretion, once that is in place we can justify attacking those who are obviosly are less important than we are and thus we can start killing them.
War is used to justify the killing of others which either posses things we want or just to gain total control over the own nation. Maybe even both in some cases.
It is possible to show compassion for others, instead of hatred and voilance, now I can see that some people like the fighting and there is nothing wrong with that as long as they take it out on other people that are like minded and not on others that are innocent and only wish to live in peace.

Responsibilities

It is true that a Globalcitizen has responsibilities beyond his/her own yard. But in what form do those responsibilities materialize?
My definition of the responibilities are as follows: A Globalcitizen is responsibile to help others if able without risk for the own person. The citizen is not supposed to go around and force a certain way of thinking or a specific culture or a political system onto others that are different and for some reason considered wrong.
Western powers have managed to involve themselves in many struggles in which they had no reason for being. The western powered displayed an shocking amount of ignorance towards other cultures, this ignorance has caused even more problems when the western cultures tried to 'liberate' certain people. It is not to say that the Soviet Union was any better while it was in place, it seems that the more recent 'super-nations' or 'super-powers' have been very interested in other nations or other cultures politics and costums. There were empires that reigned before the British ,which I would define as one of the first recent 'super-nation', those other older empires at least most of them showed by far greater tolerance than it seems possible to see from today's 'super-nation'. It might be that certain customs seem unfair and anti-human, but the same might be true for western costums out of the perspective of those whom we judge.

'Civilization'

Is it really fair how civilization is defined?
Socities that are seen as uncivilized are automaticly primitive, bad and of course savages. Is this way of thinking really fair?
Here is the definition of civilization is it fair or is it just a way the 'white man' found to make other socities seem less important?
A Civilization has to have, culture (arts, language written and spoken), a written law code, must be non-nomadic (settled in towns and cities), must have agriculture, the distribution of technology (tools, metall working, etc.), centralized political power, Religion and some sort of priest.

How to walk...

It seems that the human slowly loses his/her ability to walk this is prooven by the permanent use of cars of similar vehicles in situations in which it would not have been trouble to walk or ride with a bike. What makes it neccasery to use the car to get the mail or to get to the job when the bicycle or feet would have worked too? If one uses the car for those purposes than one should keep in mind that a car waights on average between one and two metric tons, this weight has to be moved as well, why does one need this, isn't that the kind of lazyness that could cost us dearily later?

What is the difference between this and that human?

What causes masses to kill each other?
What is the reason that one human states that he/she is better than another one?
What causes this thinking?

Humans are one species but that does not stop them from killing and hating each other, brutality in any form appears in all the 'developed' areas of the world while most 'primitive' tribes do not hate other tribes or consider someone who looks different then they do as a threat. What makes us so much less capable of dealing with other human beings?
The main difference between our picture and that of the 'primitive' tribe is that they (the tribe) do not see other humans as something different but as humans. We on the other hand see someone with a different language then ours or with a different skin color as different and thus as an unknown. The unknown is something that the human is the most scared of, humans have tried to rid themselves from this fear by eliminating unknowns, something that has only limited success. But than the humans found another way of destroying unknowns which is destroying the object that can not be explained, the argument then would be that when the unknown is destroyed than the unknown can not endanger the humans that destroyed it. This approach has caused a great deal of destruction and death, is this why we named our own races current development state 'Homo Sapiens Sapiens' which means Whise Whise Man. What would thought of a man living on top of a mountain entirely alone stating that he was a Whise Whise Man would he be taken serioulsy or rather be considered crazy and sent to asylum. Is our race ready for the asylum?

Logic and its troubles

Recent events as well as articles written by many sources (probably including this one) have lacked logic. The average person does not ask or wonder about those problems, (mainly because of the lack of education in that area, this is not to mean that you have to be smart but that schools, do not teach philosophy and critical thinking. That with that most people do not learn how to ask questions and how to see through false arguments.) The war on Terror is one of the best examples because all logic would dictate that the only way to solve that issue would be to support understanding and thus reduce hatred and fear. Since man fears everything that is unknown but can easily adjust if dealing with something that can be understood, which is that the average Islam and Christian person have many things incommon. For one these would be the love for family and surely the strong dislike towards taxes and Bosses.
But all these points are not the reason fir this article so I apologize for being carried away, this article concerns itself (which it admittedly can't, only the writer can concern oneself with something) with the troubles logic is encountering today. Logic is being twisted and turned by fanatics and people that just don't care about the impact that their words might have, or they just like the power that these words give to the speaker. The only way of finding out misinformation is to analyze the written text and then to cross-reference it with information available that already had been verified. A great book concerning itself with that is 'Crimes against logic' by Jamie Whyte. It is easy to read and can show the wholes that commonly appear in reasoning. The book is written in the same way a conversation would be held which makes the reading experience very personal and even though that one reads a monologue one has the feeling to be part of the conversation.

Religions that are commonly not called as such

Definition of Religion:
1.Belief in superhuman or divine power or powers being to be obeyed.
2. The state or way of life of a person.
3.As well as the belief in a system.
4. A pursuit or interest followed with devotion.

Capitalism
1.The term Capitalism was used for the first time by the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray in 1854, to denote ownership over a great amount of capital2. The 'religion' of capitalism3 is basically nothing but the extreme of trying to gain money4, and other forms of capital in great amounts. An actual point of origin or time is not known, but the idea of capitalism already existed in the Roman, the Chinese, the Mongol empires. At that time, Capitalism took the form of trading. But acquiring capital was not the sole goal in life until the late 1800's. (Family was considered more important).
'The Medieval world considered greed to be a destructive force that could wreak havoc on the well-being of the community. A merchant was allowed to make a fair return that is, or that would allow him to live in a manner appropriate for someone of his social standing.'5
3.Capitalism developed out of the wish of gaining as much as possible with the least amount of work.
Capitalism was not fully integrated into society until the 1800's.
2.Principal capitalistic figures today would be any person that hords great amounts of Capital. Capitalism is exemplified in the 'American Dream', which basically means nothing but that a person starts with nothing and finishes with great capital at his/her command.
4.Today, most people 'practice' capitalism. The homeland of capitalism is now the United States of America.
5.The potent Symbol for capitalism is money. Money serves as a universal good which can be used by everyone to be exchanged for anything that can be purchased.
6.The main ritual of capitalism is the profiteering at any cost including war, death and destruction.
The best example of this is the second Iraq war in which large corporations have made great profits in the pursuit of war.
Another example would be the second world war which was about nothing else than capital. Germany wanted to acquire 'Lebensraum' (Living space) and the U.S. Economy profiteered like never before by selling arms, materials and equipment to both sides (only until the U.S. entered the war), the Japanese wanted to gain territory and resources. We should not forget one of the major causes of the devastated German economy was the payments Germany had to pay after accepting sole responsibility for the first World War, and the dismantlement of German factories (most of the equipment moved to France).
7.In the religion of capitalism, money is sacred and great wealth promises salvation. A person that practices capitalism can be 'bought'. This person has only one moral objective which is the gaining of more capital thus making the 'free' market a unassailable moral good.

Communism
1.Communism on the other hand originates with the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published in 1848. The Ideal of communism is helping the community and through the community the individual as well. Communism is said to have started with the Communist Manifesto, a document which stated that everyone was equal and that everyone has a right to live at a comfortable and similar standard.
2.The Principal figures associated with Communism are Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) who ruled Russia with an iron fist. In China Máo Zédōng (1893-1976) was someone who believed that a human can still be a living god, Mao was a strong supporter of cults that followed Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and of course himself.
3.Communism gained great popularity in Europe, Asia and America in 1849 until the mid 1900's. The strongest supporters were in the working classes. Communist-sympathizers were hunted and discredited over the following 150 years and still are. Some nations started persecuting Communists on their own soil.(These were capitalistic nations, even though communists did not pose a threat to them).
In the 1950's, the United States started a witch hunt hunting communists initiated by Senator Joseph McCarthy (he was a Republican). He condemned and prosecuted communists throughout the U.S. denying suspected communists employment in the private sector and government6. He even targeted Generals, other Senators and members of the film industry (the film industry had more than 300 victims).
George W. Bush challenged his opponents of being a socialists (or god forbid a communist) in the elections of 2000 and 2004. Painting his opponents as socialists became his political strategy.
4. There are not many communistic nations left and sympathizers are becoming rare.
5. Communism does not have one or multiple symbol(s) that represent Communism but rather an ideal, the ideal off everyone being equal.
6. Communism does not seem to have any ritual(s). This is probably due to the non-uniformity between the different communistic governments.
7. There are only two things sacred in a communistic society; one is Family and the other is Community.
P.S.: A common misconception is that Communism is inconsistent with democratic Principles, which is not true. Good examples for this are First Nations.
Another popular myth is that Russia's and China's versions of Communism closely reflect the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Both China as well as Russia replaced one elite group with another one, while Marx and Engels dreamed of a world of equality, without elitism, class or financial disparity./div>