The Morality of Serial Killing through the Ages

This is another of those pieces for the ACRE Forethought blog, this time about serial killing. Here's the stupid shit I wrote.

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Suffice to say that the morality of serial killing hasn't changed too drastically through the ages. It is bad. It is a very bad thing to do. However, the scope of what counts as serial killing has certainly changed over the course of many thousands of years, and there continues to be a discrepancy even from place to place geographically in one time frame.

According to Wikipedia:

A serial killer is typically defined as an individual who has murdered three or more people[1][2] over a period of more than a month, with down time (a "cooling off period") between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification.

This definition is, of course, nonsense. If this definition were accurate then you or I might be considered serial killers, which is clearly unworkable, because we are not bad people. I certainly am not.

Now, just over three months ago I killed a ticket inspector on a train, because I didn't have a ticket. Clearly, this was an action based not in psychological gratification, but in simple practicality. Ticket prices nowadays are ludicrously expensive, and I felt utterly justified in killing the man. In fact, I consider his checking me for a ticket an act of suicide.

A few weeks later, I was watching a national-level sporting event in a public house, and was distressed to discover that I had been surrounded by other viewers who were far more demonstratively approaching the game than was I. One fellow shouted at a sportsman in quite an alarming way, and I, not expecting the yell, was quite startled. Well, of course it is quite rude to startle a gentleman who you are watching the game with, and so I was quite forced to mash his fizzog into a mushed pulp of skinflakes, bone fragments and gore. Thankfully, his yelling quickly abated. I can be uncharacteristically merciless in the doling of justice. It is just rude to shout out; be quiet for goodness' sake.

For another fortnight I saw no wrong in the world that needed my direct intervention. Just as I crested the event horizon of that fortnight, I was confronted with what I must consider the nadir of human decorum. Having travelled to the Capital of the fair nation which has the honour of housing me, I entered a restaurant, nothing too fancy, just some common place where the common people may go to partake of their common fare. I sauntered up to the bar, for there is no waiting staff in these types of places, no one comes to take your order, you have to go up and actually order it yourself. It's a clever system. The very fabric of the place is designed to erode your dignity. Hungry as I was, I forced myself to the bar, hence my sauntering, and locked the serving wench with the iron glare of an angry eagle who has spotted something annoying and is trying to stare it out because he is an hard bastard. The wench, a veteran of this workplace, was unfazed, and spat right in my eye. I was impressed, and suddenly I felt all my anxiety melt away. The spittle, sinking in the cleft between my eye and my nose, ploughed by endless years of sleep deprivation, tricked my body into believing I was crying, and as such things always do, this belief cyclically perpetuated itself, and I began to weep. The serving wench, regaining her balance after her colossal spit, knew exactly what I was about. With a cry of "Blood alive, man! To a seat with you!" she swandived over the counter and, driving her head into the very top of my skull with the entire weight of her body behind her, we crumpled to the floor in a fallen mess. I was a little disturbed by this, but not knowing the ways of the peasant folk I kept schtum so as not to conduct any undesirable faux pas.

Groggily regaining my feet, I whipped around to face the also recovering wench, and landed a solid haymaker on her collarbone. Hearing it snap and pop, I smiled, and she led me to a nearby table and promised me that a plate of cod and chips, with mushy peas, would arrive within 10 minutes. It did, and it was piping hot and looked all set to be delicious. I arose from my chair to peruse the condiments, and alongside the vinegar, the salt, mayo and tartare sauce stood an overlarge bowl that was almost sarcastically empty. It might not be normal to have with fish dishes, but I need tomato sauce. I fucking lost it at that point. Leaping onto a nearby table, I lashed my foot out in a vicious 180° arc which caught three diners; one in the nose, another in the ear, and the third was entirely decapitated, spraying viscous red fluid into the empty tomato sauce bowl, the irony of which enraged me further. Rising unsteady on his or her feet, the diner that I'd punted in the ear made a clumsy attempt at my legs, which I'd foolishly left on top of the table; a rather perilous position. Due to my acrobatic background, I was able to avoid such a clumsy attempt with complete ease. Slipping nimbly off the table, I planted myself firmly and pushed against my clueless combatant. The force of my push sent the diner careening limply into the air, where an acquaintance was made with an adjoining window, but was short-lived. With this troublesome individual dispatched, I turned to the fellow I'd kicked in the nose. Looking down upon his crumpled remains, I discovered I'd killed him with the blow. I can be very deadly when I've been wronged.

Bracing myself back a step, I made a quick dash and with an effortless handspring, leapt into a series of cartwheels and somersaults which took me across the length of the room, the last of which raised me high into the air and, sailing over the bar, my legs, acting as fleshy javelins, speared the barmaid, with precision, through the sternum. My fish and chips remained uneaten.

I'm in jail now, because I've been "caught", apparently. What I did wrong I'll never know. One man's anecdote is another man's horrendous crime. The occasion on which I was detained involved self-defence on my part. My flatmate was trying his level best to watch a program I believe is called 'The Goblin People Argue over their Goblin Children', and for the entire half hour of the show I found it necessary to dry my hair using the most powerful setting on my hair drier. Of course, he complained because he couldn't hear the show, which was the entire reason I did it. I hadn't even been in the shower, or moistened my hair even slightly. He came at me with his fists, but using my deft fingers I was able to unzip his jeans, forcibly insert the blow drier where the dry does not blow, which caused him some measure of discomfort, and eventually butchered him thoroughly, due to a power malfunction with the device.

The police have no sense of humour, which is why they end up in fights so often.

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Louis CK's Million

This is why Louis CK is my favourite ginger person. His latest standup release was done in a novel new way. He fronted the money himself, filmed it himself, and released it himself on the internet for $5. That is around £3.50. I bought it, it was easy to do, and it was very enjoyable to watch. It is something I will treasure in an external hard drive somewhere, and enjoy again.

Then, due to a tweet on the subject by Graham Linehan, I discovered this, which has pretty much made my day. Reasonable, dramaless, straightforward humanity. I love it.

hi. So it's been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That's a lot of money. Really too much money. I've never had a million dollars all of a sudden. and since we're all sharing this experience and since it's really your money, I wanted to let you know what I'm doing with it. People are paying attention to what's going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.

So I'm breaking the million into four pieces.

the first 250k is going to pay back what the special cost to produce and the website to build.

The second 250k is going back to my staff and the people who work for me on the special and on my show. I'm giving them a big fat bonus.

The third 280k is going to a few different charities. They are listed below in case you'd like to donate to them also. Some of these i learned about through friends, some were reccomended through twitter.

• The Fistula Foundation
• The Pablove Foundation
• charity: water
• Kiva
• Green Chimneys

That leaves me with 220k for myself. Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my childen. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business. In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million.

I never viewed money as being "my money" I always saw it as "The money" It's a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.

The thing is still on sale. I hope folks keep buying it. If I make another million, I'll give more of it away. I'll let you know when that happens because I like you getting to know what happened to your 5 dollars and bringing awareness to the bla bla bla.

Okay I really gotta go now. Thank you again. I will now stop bugging you. I really hate being in the news this much so I'm gonna just disappear for a while.

Happy hollidays.
Louis C.K.

Winter Constellations

It is early December, so perhaps it is a little TOO early for this observation, but I have seen very few trimmings this year. Though I myself have no intentions of trimming my house, nor ever putting up a tree, I have enjoyed trimming up in work. I put up a Christmas tree with my friends from work, and had great enjoyment twisting a stiff length of faux branch up the railings of the stairs.

Still, no stars twinkle in windows as of yet. The closest I’ve come to being moved by shiny lights was in looking at the actual moon one night when it was full, and eventually managing to make out its curvature, seeing it as a ball rather than as a flat circle. That pleased me a lot.

Maybe it’s the recession. Timers are hard, money is scarce. Electric bills are high enough without plugging in some shinies to no palpable end. But is that really the case? In bust times comedy profits, as people give of what little they have for a smile. Would that not hold true for Christmas decorations? Tinsel, if already owned, runs on observation. Are people simply miserable? Or are people deserting Jesus?

It is my guess that we are a more godless nation than even it is estimated. Certainly we are a hearteningly secular place, though some seem not to fully appreciate what this entails. Our publicly-funded school system is still upsettingly entangled with religious ‘teaching’, and too many hold on to an unquestioned presumption of higher power. I don’t think as many people as I would like are turning away from the gods. I certainly don’t think that if they were turning away, it would correlate with a decline in trimmings or Christmas decorations, and this is why I believe that.

Christmas is not about Jesus. A celebration within deep winter predates the Cruijff by many a year, and though Christians have tried to paper over these previous incarnations of the solstice, we can still see through. In fact, the baby Jesus’ mug has been plastered there so long the façade has begun to peel horrendously, and we’re left with a collage of diy disasters, a patchwork of Jesus, Santa, trees, tinsel, Coke, tradition, rampant consumerism and human solidarity. Of these only human solidarity really interests me, though I think consumerism may be necessary, and I certainly have no better idea; trees and tinsel can be pleasing, mind you, and Santa is quite good fun.

Jesus I’ve got no time for, especially not in his super-privileged baby form, and Coke is too sugary. Tradition is overrated, though often fascinating to consider.

So, are we lacking a festive spirit this year? Are we failing our human solidarity? Or are we poor, plain and simple? Warmth comes before shiny colourful constellations trotting predictable waltzes around the window frame.

Perhaps we are in truly dire straits.

Perhaps its just a little early yet for decorations.

The Three Wise Men (or How My Pedantic Literary Criticism Can Ruin Christmas)

This is how the story was told to me. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, the was no room at the Inn and therefore they ended up in a stable. In this stable Mary gave birth to a baby boy: The Little Baby Jesus™. So far, so within the realm of the possible.

Meanwhile, however, a group of people were believed to be homing in on TLBJ™'s position. These were two distinct groups of people. The first group were shepherds, who'd been tipped off by an angel. From this we can deduce that this is now firmly a work of fiction, but nevertheless we shall continue. The second group were the Three Wise Men. Widely reported as having come from The East, these were three educated, worldly and rich fellows. They had been travelling far longer than the shepherds, having come all the way from The East, and rather than following the instructions of angels, these three were following a bright star. This may not sound like the actions of Wise men but you are underestimating the brightness of the star. Boy, was that star bright. Also, it must have been a Wise thing to do, because they are the Three Wise Men. This is known as a tautology, which in logical dialogue is a negative, but in Biblical thinking is a virtue. Also, when it is said that they were following the star, I don't think it is meant that they were using it to navigate by, as the story was told to me the star was actually leading them like an astronomical will-o-the-wisp. I'm not an astronomer, but I'm fairly certain that would be considered fairly kooky behaviour for a star to be engaging in, what with them being so far away and a lump of unconscious matter and all. Stars aren't known for their interest in human affairs, let alone feeling it imperative to lead three gentlemen to a baby in a stable.

However, I will allow for all this magick, and continue with the story.

Following the star, the Three Wise Men are led to TLBJ™. They have brought gifts for the infant, one each. These gifts were Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, which are all fairly unconventional gifts, although the usefulness of gold is readily apparent. That is a Bloody Good Gift™. The Three Wise Men burst dramatically through the stable wall with a Jeet Kune Do flying kick, and doing headstands the three lay their offerings at foot of the manger, wherein lay TLBJ™.

Why did they do this? Who did they believe TLBJ™ to be?

They believed that He was the son of God. They believe that He is the King of the Jews, the redeemer, the Holy One, the Dude. It is with that conviction that they travelled so far, all the way from The East remember, and brought their thoughtful gifts.

They partied late into the night, and the second wise man really impressed with his bodypopping skills, that he had developed in The East. The next day, presumably, the Three Wise Men went home, and were never heard from again.

TLBJ™ grew up to be Jesus Cruijff, a carpenter. He was raised by his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, presumably in an amount of poverty and hardship. No account is given of what the family did with the gold, frankincense or the myrrh. Presumably even a modest amount of these would have made a significant difference to the life of this little family, but nothing is said of it again. Perhaps Joseph had a nasty gambling habit, or Mary may have pissed it up the wall at the local tavern.

However, it is the Three Wise Men themselves that really bother me. These three were wealthy, educated and driven, after all, they had travelled far, from The East, in order to meet with TLBJ™. They believed this child to be the son of god, and yet after some preliminary gifts they bugger off for the rest of his life. Surely they must have had a vested interest in educating the child, raising him out of a life of poverty and hard work, ensuring that he lived healthy and well? He's the son of god for Cruijff's sake! Of course, I shouldn't question their wisdom, for how could they do something unwise, being Wise as they were?

So they disappear, taking no further part in the story, and Jesus grows up exactly the same as he would had he never been visited by Three Wise Men. It's almost as though the Christmas story was a standalone tale not meant to fit into the overall ark of His life story, almost as if this story of His birth was a Frankincense's Monster stitched together from the body parts of older messiah birth tales. I use the term 'almost' inaccurately there, what I really mean is that is exactly what this story is.

However, as we are often told, we have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. With all the magickal sillies pulled out of the yarn, here is the true meaning of Christmas: A baby was born in a barn, and some people went to see him. That's a pretty naff meaning of Christmas. For it to really mean anything in a religious sense it has to be replete with all the magick, one dimensional characters and gaping plot-holes.

Luckily, Wintertime celebrations did not begin with the Jesus cult. As with so much in Christianity, Christmas is simply a re-tooling of something that already existed. But if we aren't celebrating the given bornness of TLBJ™, then what are we celebrating? Well, in the Winter, it is pretty dark, cold and miserable, atmospherically speaking. My impression is that at some point people started flicking the bird to the weather, saying "it is cold, it is dark and it is miserable, but I am with the people who matter to me, and I am going to be a cheerful fudge, even if it kills me".

Of course, in some parts of the world it isn't cold and miserable on Christmas, so I don't know what they're happy about. Oh, wait...

I like time off work. I like getting presents. I like spending time with friends and family. I think it's very important to have times set aside to reflect and recharge, to consider your life, and perhaps make modifications to the path you may have been hurtling down over the course of simply living through the rush of life. I even like silly stories, but not when they are taken seriously. I don't need a seriously silly story to justify the things that popularly make up Christmas, I think the holiday stands on its own merits, mysticism aside.

Put it Away!

or: How I Know that Bared Human Flesh is an Abomination.

This is a piece I wrote (facetiously) for my comedy groups communal blog The ACRE Fourthought. The topic was nudity, and this is what I done written. I will post a link at the end should you wish to read the other ACREs pieces.

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Good heavens! Scarcely can I venture from the grounds of my land, nor peep from the upper echelons of my towers without my oracles suffering a cannonade of unfiltered humanity. I cannot bear to see bared flesh, it makes my stomach churn with the violence of a child drowned in a storm. I must apologise for the strength of that analogy, but I feel it is entirely necessary to kindle in you an appreciation for quite how distasteful I find the sight of skin. Grargh!

Humanity developed clothing for a reason. It is because our bodies are hateful to us. The soul within the body is trapped, like a dignified gentleman bedecked in formal regalia forced to travel via a zorb ball of muck, carried aloft on a canal of effluent. It is clear in both examples that we are better than such things, and must strive to rise above of our imperfect transport.

The bodhisattva Siddhartha Gautama knew well this problem, but incorrectly identified that it is life itself that is suffering. Wrong, Siddy, wrong. It is our bodies which are the source of suffering. Look at them for Cruijff's sake! They are loose, sagging, peach hemp sacks holding on for dear life! The Sisyphean effort of the human form to defy gravity is a pathetic reminder of our imperfection and must be summarily ignored. Of course not everybody agrees with me, and those whose conclusions differ from my own are, quite simply, cretinheaded pocks.

There are even such fools as believe the human body is a thing of beauty!!! I have a mouthful of vomit simply considering such an untenable position. Beautiful, they say. Good spirits, I should fucking well say not! The droop of a breast and a willy's wrinkles and not things to be celebrated. They are things to be covered up, as all fundamentalists correctly know. However, they also believe that god created us perfect, which is clear nonsense. No sensible thought had a hand in designing a human being. Should we shit when standing, our excrement would travel down the backs of our legs, which is wholly unpleasant. A further example of the imperfection of humanity are the people who, most perversely of all, enjoy these sorts of things. People who would like nothing more than to have flecks of faecal matter in their eyelashes. Dirty dogs! It is horrifying to think that even if people appear decently dressed, it is still possible they are harbouring essence of dookie in the hair near their eyes, the eyes they are looking at you with. Cack. But I digress.

No, I will digress. Surely we cannot be perfect beings, how perfect can we be when in experiments run by Berrendium University, 98% of sane humans were unable to differentiate between an image of a testicle sack or of an elbow. What caring creator would copy and paste between two such incompatible areas? Not a cowing one! It wouldn't and didn't happen.

I was once so disgusted with my own physicality that I bit a chunk of flesh straight out of my arm, but this only succeeded in upsetting me further.

Cover yourself up!

It just occurred to me that you could be naked reading this, and it revolts me. I'm freezing cold right now and I'm wearing a quarter of a million togs worth of duvet. How cold must you be whilst naked? Very cold indeed, but of course you cannot feel the cold because you are being protected by Diabolus, King of Hell, who loves nudity because he is perversion. Cover yourself up or burn forever in angry sulphur! Get some wool about you for the love of all that is good.

It is an undeniable fact that all bad things happen when at least some part of the skin is clearly visible. The only human who ever successfully lived without sin was Breton Diarckaluuma who was born into a large hessian sack and spent his entire life in there, being fed by his parents who gunged porridge through the side of the sack. The only way they could tell whether he was a girl or a boy was asking him to provide a detailed verbal account of his genitals, which he did with undignified eagerness.

I had sexual intercourse once, and I was so ashamed with both my own body and the body of my accomplice I drowned us both in a vat of dimethylmercury where we both would have died had I not INSISTED that we be clothed in an Iron Maiden of kevlar. I patented this cleansing procedure under the name Nudity-Expunging Baptism. Whenever I masturbate I don't look.

Fashion today is like the worst kind of cooking, tiny proportions and inappropriately ineffective dressing. Just as a sprig of parsley does not cover up a big bowl of oats, so too is vacuum-packing yourself in skimpy garments which do not cover up your skin unsightly.

If my expert evidence has still failed to convince you, consider this, every single person in the history of the world who has ever died at some point had their skin showing. The exception of course is Breton Diarckaluuma, who is alive and well in space, hidden. Be decent and cover up your inane appearance, and you too could live forever.

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The full blog is here.

Why I am an Atheist

On freethoughblogs' Pharyngula, it's author, the embryologist PZ Myers, asked for submissions for pieces under the title 'Why I am an Atheist'. I've been reading for them for awhile now, and it only just occurred to me that I should probably contribute, rather than just consuming everyone else's contributions. I'm submitting the piece to the blog, but I thought I'd post it here too. Here it is.

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My mother told me that at a fairly young age,perhaps 4 or 5, I asked whether God was real, and I was told that no one knew, I had to decide for myself, that there was no need to rush a decision, and I shouldn't worry about it. It is only recently that I really came to appreciate the significance of their decision. It is one of the things I am most grateful to them for, amidst a mix of other love and support-based decisions they made in raising me, or perhaps it would be better to phrase that as: in helping me grow.

The reason I give for being an atheist is the base logical statement all interested atheists develop: there is no evidence to suggest there is/are a god or gods. However, I was an atheist long before the matter had been so completely clarified in my own mind. In preparation for writing this I tried to track back the steps, to figure out what exactly caused this position in the original instance.

I live in the UK, and unfortunately British government schools are inextricably married to religion, as a recent entry here attests, with the Conservative-Liberal coalition government sending Bibles to schools. In Primary schools each half of the day begins with prayer, and in both Primary and Comprehensive the day begins with an assembly which is required to contain some Christian-brand religiosity, although in my memory this often amounted to tacking a token prayer to the end, though still requiring pupils to close their eyes, bow their heads and do the hand-clasping prayer gesture. My teenage years were fairly empty of rebellion, and perhaps this is where it snuck out; during prayer I would keep my eyes open and stare around the hall, hoping to catch the eye of a teacher willing to berate me for not joining in. I am a rebel and I showed them. It was very interesting to me, and possibly heartening, to see a number of teachers also not partaking in these displays of public wishing.

Remembering back to other instances, I didn't hold on to a New Testament which was given, by which organisation I'm not sure, to all first year students in Comp (around age 11/12), nor was I very respectful of bibles on a school trip the same year. All school trips I've been on that includes a group of students sleeping at some camp or similar come with their own spooky myths. The myth of this particular location, the University of Lampeter, was that there was a bible in some rooms, and that if you looked in the bible, 3 lions would jump out of the book and eat you. Easily disproved. I made friends with everyone in the corridor by pretending that the Bible was eating my face off, though I am uncertain as to whether this technique holds it's friend-earning potency in adult life.

In my casual observation it seems that the most fervent opponents of religion are those who have been under its thrall at some point, which is odd as debate of this nature is my favourite pastime. I absolutely love talking about religion and atheism, though it seems I never really Believed, nor was I ever told to. I suppose at a push the British education system is still riddled with Xtianity, but the school I personally attended observed their requirements in the most casual way, with very little apparent sincerity. Religious education (R.E.) was a class on the curriculum, but was largely considered a joke subject, with most pupils viewing it as a free lesson, where they misbehaved horrendously. I eventually took the subject as an A-level (age 16-18) where we mostly covered Islam and Ethics. At that level the class was utterly fascinating.

Religions have a lot of hateful opinions, and their justifications for them are, thankfully, spurious and illogical. As far as I can remember I have not personally been noticeably subjugated, mistreated, bullied or coerced religiously at any point. However, a huge number of people have not been so geo-culturally fortunate, and are suffering horrendously because of inherently unsupportable, and therefore illogical, claims, and while that isn't why I am an atheist, that is why I see the importance of making the effort to be as robustly vocally atheist as I can.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying

After a long bout of laziness and transport hang-ups I finally started attending Skeptics in the Pub again. For anyone unfamiliar with these types of event they are casual / enjoyable / laid back lectures and presentations on a variety of science and sceptical-based topics, the ones I previously attended discussed alternative medicine and psychic conmen.

The talk on Monday was titled ‘Progress in Astronomy’s Big Questions or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the 21st Century’ and was presented by Chris Lintott, an astronomer who works on the BBC’s Sky at Night. Chris was personable and engaging, and made what could possibly be very tricky information understandable and clear. The talk touched on a lot of topics within astronomy, which was great for an astropleb like me, though anyone more familiar with the subject may not have learned much, but that is the risk with any talk, I suppose.

Physics, with astronomy in particular, have a weird effect on me. This effect is characterised by i) existential dread, which then morphs slowly into being ii) seriously chilled out. Had I gone expecting this ‘drop tower’-style ride of emotion, I would not have been disappointed.

Some of the current theories and hypotheses of astronomy seem custom made to blow minds. The observation that only around 4% of the Universe is made from regular matter is deeply, deeply odd. It also suggests that use of the term ‘regular matter’ is ill-advised, given that since it’s in the minority that kind of matter is actually highly irregular. It is currently thought that 23% of all stuff in the Universe is dark matter, which is stuff that we cannot see, but whose effect is observable on ‘regular matter’. That is to say if a certain planet should be moving in a perfectly circular orbit (illustrated here O) and it isn’t, it follows that there is some invisible matter whose gravity is affecting it. Having climbed up to this level of understanding, it is then necessary to make another difficult clinb. We have matter: stuff we can see, dark matter: stuff we can’t see, and then in order to make calculations work in simulations, we get dark energy. We cannot directly observe dark matter, and from my understanding we don’t even know where or what dark energy is, how it works or where it’s coming from. However, when factored into calculations, we end up with models that correlate almost entirely with the Universe we see, which strongly suggests that dark energy is in fact there, and it makes up over 70% of what makes up the Universe.

It is this sort of information that leads to what I mentioned in point i). How am I meant to shield myself from complete intellectual meltdown when the vast majority of the Universe is made from something no one understands? I dabbed at my ears with a kerchief to stem the flow of brain (there’s little more embarrassing than rogue brain matter in a beard) and continued to listen as the topic changed.

So, according to Google the speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s, and I have no reason to distrust Google, after all it knows everything, and is my friend. And, of course, as we all know, nothing can go faster than the speed of light, right? Wrong, apparently. By this time my poor kerchief is aflood with grey matter, so fully has my brain been blown. According to observations, distant galaxies are moving away from us very fast indeed, of this much I was aware. However, I was informed, these distant galaxies are in fact moving away from us at around 40 times faster than the speed of light. I would have thought this would have been a problematic observation, but the solution to it is akin to stepping outside of the Matrix. The speed of light is not the fastest that anything can travel. The speed of light is the fastest that anything can travel THROUGH SPACE. The answer is that because space itself is expanding, this is contributing to the speed at which those distant galaxies are moving away. The speed at which space is expanding is not subject to the same limitations as are things moving through space, so it seems that it can expand however fast it bloody well wants to. At this point I’ve run out of brains and it is the actual structure of my skull that is now crumbling.

So with all the factors contributing to seemingly insurmountable levels of i), how does astronomy bring it back around?

The answer is stunning pictures and videos. Since Chris is a working astronomer, some of the talk was able to focus on very recent research, footage and images. He talked of the Sloan Survey Telescope in New Mexico which created a 3D map of large tracts of the local areas of the Universe, and we were also treated to images from the Hubble Deep Field telescope, which are always a delight. It is in these images that I find myself becoming ii). Such a simple technique, a pull back and reveal, applied to these pictures of such enormous complexity and depth, is so immeasurably soothing. As the picture pulls out, revealing layer upon layer of blips, swirls and clouds of light, each individually a galaxy, and as you focus on the foreground all the galaxies we have previously passed form a majestic, near infinite cloudscape in the background. Stunningly, stunningly beautiful. So, why does this in particular chill me out so much?

Perhaps the most fallacious component in the human psyche is our own inflated sense of self importance. It is very difficult for us to view any state of affairs from anything other than an anthropocentric vantage point. This is where all religion comes from in my opinion. We look at the world and from our observations we see a world, and in fact a universe, that doesn’t care about us at all. Humans indiscriminately die for no moral reason, simply due to the chaotic nature of things. This is an unpleasant situation to consider, and so there is no end of imagination and wish-thinking that we will go to in order to convince ourselves that this isn’t the case. For me, the deep field astronomical images are the perfect remedy for this problem. When confronted with this reality, it is impossible to countenance our wishful thinking. It isn’t negative to be freed from our fantasy in this case, for while it strips us of the false comfort of eternity and supernatural protection, the simple vastness of the scope of the Universe, for me at least, is an incredibly comforting thing. In my life I worry about a lot of things. Some of these things it makes sense to worry about: whether there is enough food to eat, a place to sleep, people around that I can rely on and whose company I enjoy. However, there are a large number of things I worry about that aren’t of any use. Wandering around alone in public I find myself very self-conscious, though in attempting to define the exact nature of that anxiety I find it difficult to actually explain. Am I anxious about people watching me, judging me? I think that is part of it. Also, days are filled with numerous unimportant encounters which, if you allow them to, can colour your life, bogging you down in petty concerns. These are the anchors which those images cut loose, for me anyway. I am vastly cheered by those pictures, because I can go about my business far happier, for a short while at least I am possessed of a fresh perspective which allows me to discount events and concerns for which there is no reason or function in allotting any importance.

I have been really cheerful ever since Monday, because I spent some time bathing in images of other galaxies.

Also I learned a little about the Universe where we live, in the company of pleasant people, and it only cost £3. All in all, time, money and effort well spent.

I believe a talk is planned for December if possible, though none is currently booked in. The next talk on the books of Cardiff Skeptics in the Pub is on Monday, February the 20th and is titled ‘Why Nothing Matters’. That sounds like I’ll be so chilled out afterwards I might need assistance leaving the building.

http://cardiff.skepticsinthepub.org/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/123642454331540/

Some More Wales Shark

It's been about two months since the last video, so I thought I'd share my newest one here aswell.

The Smell of a Good Book

Here's this month's ACRE FourThought blog. My contribution is below, and you can follow this link to see the original page with the contributions of the other fellows undertaking this magnificent literary/bloggerary effort.

*****

I have a kindle, I like gadgets, and I embrace progressive technology enabling books to be read in a progressive way. As technology improves, books as a medium will evolve. It was noted on Stephen Fry's Planet Word documentary that as handheld e-readers improve we will see books that incorporate video and extensive footnotes, clips of music and similar. There are already books rife with hyperlinks, and it isn't difficult to imagine the benefits of textbooks where the references in the bibliography lead to the actual articles or papers themselves. These improvements would make studying easier and reading more fun.

Already on the kindle it is possible to see sections of text underlined if they have been highlighted by a number of readers. I'm not sure how I feel about that, hopefully it's a feature that can be turned off; I'd like to come to my own conclusions, and how I read a section of text will definitely be affected if I am aware many people felt it noteworthy.

As much as I enjoy e-readers, for me, personally, they are currently missing something. However this is not informed by practicality or sense, rather it is a hipster coolwank pretention. Much like musos who prefer cds to mp3, and the older who prefer cassette to cd, and the older who prefer vinyl to cassette, and the yet older who prefer music boxes to vinyl, I prefer books. I think it's likely a preference which will take longer to shift culturally, for in comparison to these evolving music recording formats which evolved over a comparatively short period the book has existed in a largely unchanged format for a large number of years.

So, in what ways do books differ to e-readers? In every material dimension the variety of books make them artefacts I delight in, and while the all-in-one nature of e-readers is also something that pleases me, books of paper and ink stimulate so many more of my senses. I have a colossal gospel tome of the Lord of the Rings, with tiny print despite its giant size, a long bound bookmark fraying at the edge, bounteous illustrations taking up entire pages. It is a beautiful book. It frustrates me somewhat as its size excludes it from one of my favourite pastimes: reading in the bath, however it makes up for this by sitting unused for months, years, and then upon re-discovery it has amassed a layer of dust, allowing me to blow it off, imagining that this is an ancient text I have discovered in an ancient ruin or storehouse. On the other end of the scale I have books from the Penguin Popular Classics series, which were printed cheaply in order to make them more available. Old plays and novels have in this way been shrunk into tiny, thin volumes that suit my pastime magnificently. In this way old bastions of literature stand pamphlet sized, and are a far more valuable and rewarding than anything committed to a flyer. I'd be more likely to frequent a pizza place or an indian restaurant which posted The Picture of Dorian Gray around the neighbourhood instead of their own tacky lists of food.

As well as their dimensions, the texture of books are also wildly varied. The plastic smoothness of dustsheets, the childish joy of running your hands over raised title text, like finding a shiny Ole Solskjaer in a packet of stickers. The simple pleasure of running your finger down the edge of the body of pages, watching them flick quickly back, enjoying the whirr of the motion and the breeze created. Joy. There is no better way to up the anticipation of a new journey about to begin within the pages.

But of all our senses, the most strangely powerful is smell. The olfactory stimulus can drag us back in time like no other. Perhaps that's slightly exaggerating; a film watched in childhood rewatched much later can warp us as well, and an album or a song repeatedly listened to can warp us back to the time and place when we hear it years later. For example Ghostbusters 2 turns me into a child as I watch it, and Tenacious D's Tribute takes my back to my teenage bedroom, playing Championship Manager 01/02 on an old PC. But from my experience so many more books can achieve this effect.

And regardless of this effect, I fucking love the smell of a good book. Even the smell of a shit one. I was shocked when I smelt a Twilight book, as despite knowing that it was a collection of written parp, I was shocked to discover that it smelt like a real book. Such is the power of smell, it can positively augment a good book, and it can even cover the reek of a poor book and bestow upon it the credibility of paper, glue and ink.

I recently re-read the first R.A. Salvatore book, The Crystal Shard, and as well as being pleased at how well it stood the test of time and very much enjoying it, I was surprised by its smell. 'Oh yes' I thought, 'this is the smell of fantasy'. And I was surprised by how right I was. Perusing the limited stock I have at my disposal, I am right now smelling Weis & Hickman's Dragon Wing (raised golden title text - delicious) and though it is, of course, the smell of paper, ink and glue, it also smells of fantasy. Also at hand I have Raymond E. Feist's Magician, and it smells exactly the same way. Why should this be!? All these books are from different publishers, and yet they smell exactly the same way. It is as though a secret council of fantasy elders convened and decided "this is how we want fantasy to smell", and so it does.

Koushun Takami's Battle Royale has pages which are unusually white. It has a cold smell, slightly sanitise and lacking in personality. Like a hospital ward or a government building. The cover is a deep red, glossy with a dimpled title. It fits the story magnificently. I have a number of Haruki Murakami books, mostly through the Vintage label, and to me the smell of them is the ultimate smell of comfort. It is the nasal equivalent of putting on the comfiest of pyjamas and hibernating deep in bed. Final Fantasy VII is my gaming equivalent of this. Thanks to the portableness of books, and FF7s release on the PSP I can have this sensation whilst actually in comfy pyjamas and in bed, but I daren't risk it lest I slip into an eternal coma of comfort. Or die as it is also known.

The book which has most moved me nasally recently is Richard Dawkins' The Magic of Reality. Ostensibly a book for older children it is, frankly, utterly majestic. Each page is glossy and rich with colour, and smells of recent redecoration. If you like reading and sniffing paint, I would suggest firstly that you stop sniffing paint, but while you're going cold turkey you can work your way intellectually and olfactorily through this tome. With it's dustsheet off it is a pleasing pale yellow, and at the risk of looking like a lunatic I could very easily simply touch it for an entire hour and be pleased. I would argue that e-readers simply aren't a substitute for that.

E-readers are cool and functional, but they simply don't (yet) have the capacity for exciting me fully in the material world. My kindle doesn't smell of anything. Of course, being human beings we are problem solving animals and we, as we have always done, have thought our way around the problem. We have covers for these e-readers. I have three, for reasons which parallel the Goldilocks tale. One came with the device, a cheap black leather case, and was functional but a little loose and it did not please me. The second, which I bought, was a purple latex sheath which attracted dust like a bugger and was therefore unpleasant to the touch. My final purchase, which so far has pleased me, is a brown hemp cover which is delightful to the touch, and also to the nose.

I am sometimes moving with the times, but I hope that it will be awhile yet until the smell of fantasy is eradicated.

The Reason of Reason

I recently watched the documentary 'Collision' which charted correspondence between and a subsequent debating tour by Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. I am very interested in the work of Christopher Hitchens, who is a highly-regarded journalist that is also well-known for his participation in public debates. It is my interest in Christopher Hitchens which led me to find this film. The topic of debate was 'Is Christianity Good for the World?', with Hitchens, an atheist/anti-theist, arguing the negative and Wilson, a Christian theologian, arguing the positive.

It was a very interesting piece, with fascinating footage of the debaters off-stage which provided some insights into their characters, and helped to humanise them both, which I felt was valuable in an arena where it's easy to demonise the individual who is proposing the world-view counter to your own. Also, seeing the two men treating each other with grace and politeness was very heartening, proving, to me at least, that the effort was to actually engage in a logical process of understanding, and not shout each other down or out emote each other, although bits and pieces of these behaviours do crop up in the piece, though that is human nature I suppose.

If you have the variety of nerditry that I possess, namely the enjoyment of debates, and you have viewed a fair amount of these, you will quickly find that a number of the arguments and refutations become repetitive very quickly. This is largely, I would speculate, due to one side thinking that a point is valid, with the opposing side considering it as solidly debunked and vice versa. This ensures that a vast amount of debates, specifically on the topic of religion/atheism (i.e. the existence / non-existence of god) I should perhaps specify, often cover the same ground. Therefore it is a joy to discover an argument that you've never come across before, it is like finding a free toy in a box of cereal which isn't even promising a free toy (I used to like the holographic pictures). Such was the case in this debate.

In actuality I just clicked through the film again to find an exact quotation of what was said, and I was unable to find the question I was thinking of. I have watched a large amount of such debates recently, which leads to the possibility that I heard this argument elsewhere, so I won't attribute it to Douglas Wilson in any concrete way, but I will present it nevertheless.

Now I should say in advance that this argument is perplexing to me, because my instinct tells me that there is some fundamental fallacy taking place, but after playing with it in my mind all I have managed to achieve is a headache. In questioning the mandate of morality in a world where there is no ultimate moral creator, we must suggest another way of justifying the importance of morality. In my memory of this argument, 'reason' was suggested to justify morality. Using reason we can come to the agreement that murder, perjury and stealing (three things that are often considered as being immoral in every human community that has ever been observed) are immoral because were they practised widely, the community in which they were practised would fall apart under it's own lack of solidarity. If there was a community who did not consider these things immoral, that community would not survive. Taking the argument a level further, and this is the point which perplexed me, is that on what terms are we judging the efficacy / mandate / importance of 'reason'. The proposition was that if we are judging the process of reason using the standards of reason that this is a circular argument and therefore null. My own personal reaction would be to suggest that the effort and the process of reason has been proved time and again to work, the only concrete and clear understanding and achievements we have achieved as a species have come from the application of reason. The process of faith has never once enabled a human to fly, though some would claim, ludicrously, otherwise. It is only reason, specifically scientific endeavor with reason at its core, that can claim that accolade. The counterargument to this claim is that the process of judging the merit of a process by its achievements is itself the use of reason, and so it is, again, circular reasoning. It was at this point that I fell prey to a frustrating headache.

Of course the argument also applies the other way around, I would argue, as if you say "you can only see the merits of reason by using a process of reason" then similarly "you can only see the merits of faith through having faith". The only way to avoid this that I can see would be to claim that the value of reason must be self-evident, which I would be wary of stating, as clearly there are a large number of people who seem to abstain from reason, and if not in every aspect of life then they seem alarmingly able to partition their lives into a) problems that can be solved with reason, usually in the material/scientific realm, and b) problems that can not be solved by reason, which usually land in the supernatural realm and sometimes the moral. I am skeptical of the existence of a supernatural realm because it, by its very nature, cannot be verified or observed using scientific means, which, as techniques and tools improve, has been able to verify and observe more and more. Of all the things we previously believed to be supernatural in origin and now understand, the supernatural claims were proven correct 0% of the time. Zeus threw the lightning until we figured out what was really going on, the world was flat until we figured out that it was actually a sphere, and while we may not yet understand precisely how the Universe came into being, precisely how life arose from non-life and precisely how morality emerged I am confident, because of our reason-based problem solving past record that we will eventually come to know the answers. Even if this is not the case, and we cannot know as a species how these fundamental processes began, then that is still no reason to hypothesize a solution that would be contrary to everything we understand about the nature of existence, which is what a supernatural creator would entail.

Some would also feel that a morality that exists simply as a survival mechanism because of evolution would be devalued, but I would argue that that is simply not the case. Though we arrived at our current state due to evolution, our possession of sentience means that we can evaluate, using reason, what is of value and what is not, what is good and what is not, so while morality evolved for survival reasons, we can understand that it is of more fundamental value. Simply because we have discovered that morality has it's origin in natural selection does not devalue its importance, just as understanding that love developed in because it helped propagate genes doesn't devalue or lessen the impact of love.

I fear I have drifted slightly askew of topic there. The core point of this entry was to discuss the idea that justifying the importance of reason using reason was a circular argument. In the brief discussion I had regarding this it was pointed out to me that this is perhaps an epistemological issue, which is an area I have not read into, so I will be endeavoring in that direction soon.

Headache.

Comments are for Commenting

In a bid to get involved with my local community, I started reading the websites of a number of my local churches. They all seem to be doing some very good word, and providing very valuable services to the community, such as mother toddler groups, fundraisers and other events.


I found a blogspot account for one of the churches local to me, the St David's Uniting Church, which provides an account of the events that they put on in the church. In one post, here, seems to have been a talk which focused on 'sin'. I would say that this is largely understood as a religious concept, and as is so often the case though we have a general understanding of what 'sin' is, I realised I was unable to actually form a coherent definition that I feel people would agree to. After looking at a few dictionary definitions I found that at it's most basic it is an action which breaks a moral law.


If you click the link you can see the entire post, which isn't particularly controversial, but as I read it I felt that there were two conflicting accounts of what constituted 'sin'. I tried to comment on the post, since that is what the option is there for, but discovered that only the authors of the blog are allowed to comment there, so, having written out my comment, I felt slightly annoyed, and thought I'd post it here instead. Here it is:


*****


I'm not sure whether I'm misinterpreting what's been written here, but I think some of the thoughts on sin here are inconsistent.


In the third paragraph it says:


"Sin is not so much about moral misbehaviour as about lazy thinking - opting out of thinking for ourselves."


Which, it seems to me, would be advocating critical thinking, however in the next paragraph you say:


"It cannot be sinful to think as we have been taught, rather the sin is to refuse insights which are given to us, which would keep us honest."


Unless I am misunderstanding, you seem to be saying that you should both 'think for yourself' and also 'think as you were taught', which would seem to be contradictory.


I'm unclear if your sentence "think as we have been taught" refers to a method / way of thinking or whether it just means 'believe what you are told (presumably by someone in religious authority).


Apologies if I've simply misunderstood.


*****


I personally do believe it is very important to think for yourself, and to think critically. If the second point raised does imply that it is good to simply believe what you are told, I would vehemently disagree. They have phrased it very misleadingly if that is what they are suggesting, travelling an interesting linguistic route to justify simply believing as the church says. Unfortunately I was unable to ask them directly, so I may never know what they actually intended.

Skepticism

Recently I have become preoccupied by skepticism, rationalism, critical thinking and science, and I have been watching and reading widely on these subjects. My research efforts have been a little formless and scattergun, so I decided to start blogging about it in order to give more form to my efforts. I am intending it to be somewhere I can write as I learn, to serve as a tool to help me keep track of what I am learning about, and also, hopefully, serve in some small way as a link to a community which is growing ever larger in the world, and especially online.


Who am I and where am I coming from?


My name is Adam and geographically I am from the South Wales Valleys. I am an atheist, and while I've never considered, nor experienced anything that suggested, that position to be socially controversial, it seems that it is widely considered as a minority position, and so in the effort of upping awareness I have no reservations about broadcasting my position. I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of a god/gods.


I would like to be able to say that all of my beliefs boil down to:


I believe in x because there is sufficient evidence to support it
or
I do not believe in y because there is insufficient evidence to support it.


Unfortunately that isn't the way life works, and I, as everyone else is, am subject to presumptions and trust in arguments from authority. I believe it is only a rational approach that can help filter out presumptions and falsehoods from actual truth. At this point in human history our knowledge is so vast that it is impossible for any individual to have tested and to conclusively know everything we have discovered or worked out as a species. No one person knows everything, and every individual has been wrong or mistaken at some point in their lives. I believe it is through a process of rational thinking, skepticism and critical analysis (and self-analysis) that we can discover what is actually true or correct.


I don't believe this aim is easy to achieve. This is why I subtitled this blog 'A Skeptical Effort', because being skeptical is a constant effort, it is not something you achieve and then have built into you and suddenly you can think critically about everything. It is something you have to work at, and it involves the willingness to alter your position if you discover you are wrong.


I have a degree in English Language and Communication which, of course, is of minimal use when it comes to scientific matters, but I would say it has made me very capable where it comes to picking apart illogical or inconsistent statements, and also gives me a grounding in research and analysis. Perhaps stating it in such a way is slightly hubristic, time and my efforts will show whether I am mistaken in my self-assurance.


I am eager to improve my scientific knowledge and understanding, which I have left wither somewhat since school, but I am actively taking steps to improve. While I have an interest in all things skeptical, the specific area of interest where I have an acute fascination is religion, as it has such clear and tangible positions on morality, where it's pronouncements, by their very nature, are not open to discussion or alteration, which I believe is a stubbornly ignorant position, and ultimately negative.


My aim is to always be learning and thinking, and using what I learn to be better in interacting with other people. I believe in the importance and value of discussion, and am seldom happier than when pointedly philosophising with good people. I hope that I am always trying to become a better writer. I write fairly often, though broadcast the writing less and less lately, and I also record vlogs, up until now on the topic of the Welsh language, and I also write, perform and record sketches, podcasts and videos with my friends, in a comedy group called The ACRE. I, increasingly infrequently, perform stand-up comedy. I enjoy reading (favourite author Haruki Murakami), playing games (favourite game Final Fantasy 7), watching good films, good comedy and anime regardless of how good it is. I have recently discovered the abundance of long debates and talks on youtube and I have become obsessed with them. Above everything else I value thinking and talking, by myself and with other people. I can't do very good impressions and I know very few jokes. I almost always have a beard of some kind, but I distrust moustaches.


That's some of me and Why.

Robot

This is another migration of a piece I wrote for The ACRE FourThoughts blog, this time on the subject of 'Robot'.  For the pieces of the other contributors on the same subject click on this bit of text here.

*****

The Softly Spoken Robot.

The softly spoken robot was often taken advantage of because he was so polite, and softly spoken.  He became frustrated on these occasions, but remained philosophical about them.

The softly spoken robot was well liked by his colleagues, but he was, sometimes fundamentally, misunderstood; he had few real friends.  Seeing that he was being taken advantage of by unscrupulous, brash robots, his colleagues sympathised, but did nothing.  Theories abounded when it came to the softly spoken robot: he was just shy, he was meek, he was secretly a zen master, there were as many opinions as there were robots to hold them.  They all dovetailed on one point however.  He was, indeed, a very softly spoken robot.

The softly spoken robot took some time off work during the summer, a modest amount, and travelled somewhere cultured and mature, there were museums and poets and complicated food in small portions.  The softly spoken robot enjoyed himself quietly, smiling gently and expressing his enjoyment in a restrained, dignified manner.  At the end of his holiday, he came home.

Back in work he quickly, and without complaint, slotted back into the routine.  The softly spoken robot assumed his cog-like function, and began whirring in the machine, stoicly.

A lot of extra work had been allotted to him, because, in his absence, the other, less softly spoken robots, had sluiced off a portion of their own workload and allowed it to accrue under the duties of the softly spoken robot.  They knew that he, being so softly spoken, would not complain.  And he didn’t.

The softly spoken robot was a good worker.

During his holiday, a new member of staff had been hired.  She was a young, eager, outgoing robot, bubbling over with ideals and ambition.  Still wet behind the audio inputs, it was left to the softly spoken robot to show her the ports.  During this mentoring process, the softly spoken robot came to enjoy the company of his energised colleague.  He observed her methods and interactions and came to question his softly spoken nature, which he had previously, unquestioningly, held as a virtue.

There was no grand overnight transformation, of course.  The change was a slow process, as changes of this kind always are.

As the outspoken robot acclimatised with the workplace, she slowly came to recognise the clandestine foisting of work on her softly spoken friend.  She was outraged.  She had come to be very fond of the softly spoken robot, finding his quiet nature charming and his stoic ethic admirable.  Seeing such good thoughts and deeds rewarded only with opportunistic laziness riled her at the very core.

She decided she would discuss this with the softly spoken robot.  Considering beforehand, she opted against an energetic confrontation, knowing that this would upset him in his gentle nature, and understanding that explicit confrontation is never desirable, and seldom effective.

Broaching the subject tactfully, softly but directly, she asked the softly spoken robot why he accepted the unfair situation without fuss.  The softly spoken robot’s eyes lost a little of their glow, evoking a quiet sadness where usually mellow content radiated.

“I do the best I can”, said the robot, softly.

The outspoken, but well-meaning, robot frowned, still frustrated by the inherent injustice in the situation.  Seeing that she was unsatisfied the softly spoken robot continued.

“When a situation is presented to me, I do the good thing.  I always try to conduct myself in the best way I can.  I try to do the good thing on every occasion, in every situation.  I can’t be held accountable if others conduct themselves otherwise.”

Feeling that he had made his point to the best of his abilities, the softly spoken robot clocked out, it was the end of his shift, said goodnight and went home.

It would take a little while for the outspoken robot to come to terms with the softly spoken robots black and white mindset, these processes always take time; thinking about things, really considering them, is a slow, thorough engagement.  She never fully reconciled herself with the injustice of the situation, and rightly so.

Over months, years, the two robots came to enjoy each others company more and more, and eventually they became a couple, leapfrogging the distasteful institution of dating, and opting not to get married since it was so clearly a redundant tradition, and because they lived in a society which did not allot special exemptions and privileges on those who are married.

The two robots learned a lot from each other, and were duly promoted to more prestigious positions due to their pleasant manners and their admirable work ethics.

They opted not to have children, since the robot population had become over-saturated and was having an adverse affect on their environment.  Though it was the sensible decision, it was something of a pity as less considerate robots spawned thoughtlessly, which resulted in more brash, lazy robots.

Together, the two robots worked hard, and enjoyed themselves.  The softly spoken robot learned the use of being a little more outspoken, and the outspoken robot learned the value of being a little more softly spoken.  They were content a large portion of the time, and they didn’t expect, nor did they ask, for more.