hey conservatives…. get a damn life already!

“This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,â€? in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits…

“Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,â€? could run “ancestor simulationsâ€? of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.”

there have been several journal articles written about this as well, one asking “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?“, one discussing “The Matrix as Metaphysics” and another telling us “How to Live in a Simulation” just in case we really are.

so again, what is real? reality? we can’t look to truth for the definition of reality as truth is essentially a consensus among a group of two or more individuals about a particular event, interpretation or experience. if you’re a realist like myself, then you believe the world is comprised of a conglomeration of definite facts that exist independently of humans, beliefs or perceptions. as the philosopher ludwig wittgenstein stated, “The world is all that is the case.” can we arrive at reality from existance (i.e. “to be real” and “to exist” are one in the same)? though if youi feel reality is simply that which we observe, perceive or experience, then isn’t that moving more towards truth?

in the end, couldn’t it be argued that truth and reality essentially don’t exist?

anyway, back to the podcast discussion. tonglen meditation is the tibetan practice of sending and receiving that is commonly used in the buddhist religion. the practitioner breathes in the bad and breathes out the good, taking on the suffering of sentient beings. As described by this source:

“In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves. In particular, to care about other people who are fearful, angry, jealous, overpowered by addictions of all kinds, arrogant, proud, miserly, selfish, mean — you name it — to have compassion and to care for these people, means not to run from the pain of finding these things in ourselves. In fact, one’s whole attitude toward pain can change. Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, one could open one’s heart and allow oneself to feel that pain, feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kind. …�

although it goes against the inherent selfishness of humanity, this article explains that it strengthens us and brings us more in touch with reality:

“People often say that this practice goes against the grain of how we usually hold ourselves together. Truthfully, this practice does go against the grain of wanting things on our own terms, of wanting it to work out for ourselves no matter what happens to the others. The practice dissolves the armor of self-protection we’ve tried so hard to create around ourselves. In Buddhist language one would say that it dissolves the fixation and clinging of ego.

“Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness. We begin to feel love both for ourselves and others and also we being to take care of ourselves and others. It awakens our compassion and it also introduces us to a far larger view of reality. It introduces us to the unlimited spaciousness that Buddhists call shunyata. By doing the practice, we begin to connect with the open dimension of our being. At first we experience this as things not being such a big deal or so solid as they seemed before.”

so is this what i’m attempting? is this the reason i give a damn about so much for that which either lies beyond my control or doesn’t affect me directly?

then, with the recent rants and realizations about how so much of bona fide society, especially here in america, consists of self-righteous, quick-to-judge, racist and/or discriminatory bigtos, i began to think about how digital communication and interaction on the internet is this “neutral society.” probably the most amazing and exciting thing about the internet and how it has changed the way in which we interact with each other is the fact that we only know people through their words and thoughts. the internet essentially strips away potentially controversial issues of race, gender, sexual orientation and physical appearance. you don’t care what the person on the other end you are interacting with looks like. the only thing that matters is the immediate conversation and ’socio-digital’ interaction taking place between them and yourself. you don’t know who these people are from the outside…but rather you get to know them through their words and passions and from their heart. of course there are exceptions when you began to introduce those stripped away concepts back into this “neutral ground,” most likely the primary problem with social networking sites nowadays that try to mimic reality.

thankfully i’m not the only one with this opinion… just check out the comments on their blog in regards to the new site. and if you want to experience horrible web design, give the new mtv.com a peak but don’t say i didn’t warn you!

and, for the last two weeks i have been getting a call everyday from 212-798-9291, which i knew was in new york and at first excited me since i have been applying for jobs in nyc recently. but of course they never left a message… and called every single day at least once, sometimes more than that. what next? google it as it’s not a call regarding a job i’ve applied for! i find out its the number for register.com, who i used to have several domains registered with until i transfered them all the the much cheaper godaddy.com. i have been missing their damn phone calls to find out what they want… must be a sales call as i no longer have any domains registered with them anymore. finally today i was here to answer the call and they were notifying me about my weatherquests.com domain about to expire in a couple of days. i was like, um no i transfered that to another registrar a while back and it still has at least a year left before expiration. so he said to hold while he checks on his end and sure enough…he found that i was right. upon realizing this, he replied ’sure enough it’s registered through godaddy. ok then, sorry about that, and we will fix that in our system’ and then quickly hung up.

ggrrr! calling every day without verifying your accounts database is totally ridiculous!

first off, let’s take a look at technology and the increasingly important role that it’s playing in our everyday lives. since the last dotcom bust of the late 1990s, the intern are embarking on ‘web 2.0′ (i really hate buzz-words, so this term really means nothing other than defining this trend), which supposedly is the next version of the internet led by organizations like google, flickr, yahoo and the hundreds of online digital communities that have popped up. with the increased rate of information exchange, communications and interaction, most of our lives are shifting to be experienced online as the amount of democratic power we hold is becoming widely available. google is finally giving microsoft (the once powerful, unreachable conglomerate of a software company) something to worry about and microsoft is definitely worried as of late. they no longer are the innovative software developers they used to be as they have fallen behind in trends and innovation, which of course has been led by companies like google leading the shift into web 2.0. everything will be done online. the current handful of web-based application, or RIAs (rich internet applications), that google has developed are merely a glimpse of what is to come. software will shift towards the internet rather than having to install software on your local computer, which offers many benefits for both the developers (easy updates, more control) and users (no installation requirements, no technical problems for inexperienced users).

additionally in conjunction with the increased role that the internet will have, ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing is becoming more of a reality, which is simply the existance of digital technology embedded in our phyiscal environment in such a way that it essentially becomes invisible due to our daily, continous interaction with it in a more natural way. soon computers will not exist as those humming boxes we all have next to our desks. keyboards and mouses will only be alternate input devices. ubiquitous computing offers hope in the human-computer interaction (HCI) problem. we will interact with computers using more natural gestural commands with our bodies rather than only our hands via the keyboard/mouse. computers will be able to recognize and respond appropriately to our spoken words as well as our hand and eye movements in order to complete a task. therefore, since such technology will be totally embedded in our physical space, we will be interacting with our environments rather than with a machine/computer. this is essential in order to get beyond our current limitations to access that exist with the current state of digital technologies, computers and the internet.

furthermore, ubiquitous computing offers several other promises as well. we are quickly running out of available ip addresses (the numerical address to your computer on our global network). therefore, a new method of assigning ip addresses has been developed that essentially allows us to assign an ip address to every single grain of sand on the planet. if you haven’t realized, that’s trillions of available ip address! that’s not how this technology will be used, however. instead, we will be able to assign every physical object with an ip address in order to track its precise location using GPS tracking devices combined with KML files used in google earth/maps and yahoo maps and geotagging objects. geotagging has become one of the greatest new trends as it allows people to assign an exact location for things on the net, such as their shared photos and the latitude/longitude position it was taken. this can then be overlaid onto a map to provide a visual map of the user’s trip or path taken via a series of geotagged photos. with all objects being able to be tracked in real-time, we will no longer lose our items. say, for example we lost our keys (as we always do!). well, since they have their own ip address via an RFID tag attached to the keyring, we can simply google the keys’ ip address or alias and it will plot onto a map where they are located with impeccable accuracy. the possibilities are limitless…

aside from technology, other changes are taking place if you have been paying attention. the united state’s role in the world has become degraded and negatively altered. we are no longer the country others look up to, but rather are more ashamed and disgusted at due to our recent bad decisions and moves that are simply looking out for our own self-interests rather than the interests of the global community. our economy is suffering. we no longer manufacture many products here at home as everything is being outsourced and manufactured internationally where labor is cheaper. thus, we no longer have a strong economic backbone that manufacturing tends to provide… we are more dependent on highly unstable technology markets whose intense fluctuations can disrupt the economy instantly. our involvement in iraq has continued to weaken us slowly, as if an infection continuously feeding off our resources with nothing in return and no real progress being made. and now, we have more conflicts to consider–iran, north korea and now israel and lebanon in the region. if we get involved in a war with iran or north korea in the short-term, it will likely be over. other economies are quickly gaining strength… china (strong manufacturing economy) and india (strong technological economy).

meanwhile, our (the united states’) inability to move beyond that which we are comfortable with. this is stifling our innovation, creativity and entire social fabric. take architecture for one… we know recent trends in architecture are not the appropriate response to the problems it has to answer. however, we continue building much of the same. our cities continue to sprawl, designed only around the car which forces us into supporting the private automobile industry since our cities are not pedestrian or public transportation friendly. whether this is an ‘under-the-table scheme’ put in place by the government, developers and the u.s. auto manufacturers, who knows. shopping strip centers and big-box chain stores are disgusting and are littering our cities with faux design, faux culture and a lack of anything beneficial. drive across the country and one will quickly learn that from city to city, there is monotony… sameness and lack of place. one place is the same as the next and the same as the next. the only defining element of american culture is sameness. we have no true identity and go about our lives oblivous to the fact that there’s an entire world out there beyond our ‘comfort zone’ that many of us have no desire to experience. but why? why is it that we, americans, think that our lives, our values, our beliefs and our country are the greatest? how is it that we argue for so many freedoms and equal opportunity for all, yet we continue to surpress the same minority groups? we are a society of hypocrits which will do anything to get what we want, even if that means our own government changing/adding/breaking laws just to get what they want.

so, where am i trying to get with all this? the world is quickly changing and if we, the united states, does not evolve with it we are going to get left behind. we are not as strong as we used to be and are increasingly losing ground. our society needs to educate itself and worry about global concerns rather than living lives in oblivion and in our own personal ‘bubbles’ of comfort. yeah the news may not be as exciting as your evening network sitcom or mtv series for some. but if you want to rot your brain in a sea of ignorance, than please do not participate in a society where the rest of us are concerned for the well-being of a global community.