Love having written

I was reading more from my latest link under DIVERSIONS, "You are not so smart" - an interesting blog. It ties in with a movie I just watched called "Dreams with Sharp Teeth", which is a documentary on the life of Harlan Ellison (he has authored a lot of books and stuff). I really liked the movie - very inspirational. Sure, he likes to sue people and seems like he can be kind of abrasive, but he seemed like a good guy to know. Maybe some day...

There was a lot of interesting insights in the movie, but one of the key insights that stuck with me was him talking about other writers. Well, people he didn't think too highly of as being writers. He said he hears this all of the time, "I like having written, but I hate writing." He said that kind of person isn't a writer, he is a hack. Harlan loves to write as well as having written. He said something about a true writer, if had his hands and feet tied behind his back, would be tapping out words on his typewriter with his forehead. I think a typewriter is a type of word processor for really slow computers.

It is that dedication to writing that seems to fit into the sentence I hear from self-help (really, self-help from others...) people: "Do what you love and the money will follow." It always seemed like a platitude. After seeing the movie, I could see that here was a person who loved what he did and seemed to be enjoying success. Maybe there was some truth to this? But what was that truth...

I was still mulling this over in my mind, trying to see how it all fit in with what I know of this World, when I stumbled upon "You are not so smart." There was a blog post about the two people inside of everyone - just like this "move" I was watching the other day. This all came together for me. You can read his blog post about it for clarification of his idea, but this is my post about how it all ties together.

One of you thinks only of the now. The other you always thinks of the past. We all try to balance this fun-loving, live-the-now you and the you that wants to have memories to reflect on. The author claims this is a challenge, which seems true. But then Harlan Ellison comes to mind and his quote. The best way to balance the two yous is to love what you do and do what you love. :)

Build memories (people who like having written) and enjoy the now (people who love to write). Resolve the conflict to a better life! If the now-you likes something that the past-you will like to reflect on in the future, you have a winner!

The Edward

Bystander Effect

I remember it like it was yesterday. A few years ago I was in Japantown with some friends. We were in a restaurant enjoying our food when a most shocking event occurred! A man burst through the kitchen amid raised voices, and he was brandishing a large knife, which I had assumed he lifted on his way through the kitchen. He trip and fell to the floor near our table. I got up and ran out of the restaurant. Shortly others came out. Why did I run? Better yet, why did it take others much longer than me to leave?

I was reading about the Bystander Effect just a few moments ago. It has happened many times throughout history - it happens every day actually. ("it" not being me reading about the Bystander Effect, but the Effect itself, just to clarify) The first time I heard about it was in High School psychology class. The story was about a woman who was raped and stabbed in New York City while 30+ watched. No one called the police. There was outrage after the event! "How could these inhuman monsters just watch this woman be brutalized for so long without any of them lifting a finger to call for help?!"

It was a shocking story, but it is repeated every time someone drives past a car on the side of a busy road. Everyone thinks that someone else will help, someone else has or will take action. Or they do not want to feel like a fool, "There probably have been twenty other people who have called it in! They will tell me that they know about it already." So no one does.

The same with the woman in the New York City that I had heard about. But I also learned a trick at that time. In situations like that, when people can see other people, no one will take action. They will look around and see that everyone else is calm, so they think that if the other people are calm, I should be calm to, or else I will look like a fool.

So, if someone is brutalizing you, calling out for help will not work - no one will help. The trick is to get someone to take action, so you have to call out someone specific in order to change the crowd. Point to someone and say "You, help me!" If you know the name of one of the people around you, let's say Bob, say "Bob, help me!" Once it is personal, people realize something is wrong and action needs to be taken. The crowd will turn. I hope you never need this advice, but if the situation occurs, it could save your life.

Back to my situation all of those paragraphs ago - I ran out, making noise on the way, so that others would know that the situation was wrong/dangerous. I hoped that by breaking the calm that the diners had, they would take action quicker than if I did any other thing. I do not know if it had that effect for sure, but at least that was my goal based on the psychology of crowds and influence.

The Edward

Dirt Phase

I heard a story the other day, the claim on the news was that there is this jellyfish that is immortal! I thought, "Wow, that must be tough to verify!" How does one verify if one is immortal? But then again, that isn't the point for today...

In reading the story online, I found out that this jelly fish goes through many stages of life, but when it gets to the end, it just cycles back. So, young, middle, old, then young again. Based on this, the scientists claim that this jellyfish is immortal. Shocking, I know! Hard to believe that they were that logically incorrect and still made the news!

What does immortal mean? Everything changes. Take you for example, today you know things that you didn't yesterday and you probably forgot things that you knew yesterday. If we expand that out for a few decades, at what point are you not you? General Semantics answers this question - something I blogged about a long time ago. You are not you. Every time you change anything, you have changed - an old you has died and a new you born with someone else's memories. Every second is a rebirth! So, am I saying every second should be your birthday? Yes, yes I am.

"But," you might be thinking "the story of the jellyfish is different! They mean that it is the same continuous life form! Sure, there are differences, but it is the same." Actually, it isn't the same. When it is young again, what did it lose? It has changed, its chemicals are different, its memories are different... Is a butterfly the same as a larva? Is a hamburger the same as a cow?

Throwing all that I believe away, we can celebrate the scientists' discovery of immortal life! If this creature goes through many phases and yet we consider it to be the same creature, just with different memories and different chemicals and some of its old chemicals have been used by other creatures, then I am proud to announce that I just discovered that humans are immortal!

That's right, you read it here first, Humans Are Immortal! They start as babies, go through young adult, adult, old age, then the newly announced dirt phase. During the dirt phase, there is some memory loss and loss of functionality, but so again, the matter that made up this "dirt phase human" goes back into the system and a new human is born!

I can not wait for the science to be able to track me back through my past "lives". Some day, I hope to recover all of my lost memories, something that the jellyfish can not do. So, I guess we humans are even more immortal than the jellyfish, or at least we will be some day. And since we are immortal, today is the same as a million years, so I can wait.

The Edward

Cover Me

I heard the news - the US has passed some sort of Health Insurance Reform. We can all probably agree that it would be great if everyone had health care for their entire lives (not so sure about insurance, but care is good). And we all know that the only reason everyone in this country doesn't have full health care coverage is because of evil corporations, evil insurance companies, and evil doctors/hospitals. Given that all of that is true, we have nothing to disagree about, so we can move on to a thought experiment!

Imagine a strange world, a world in which health cover is expensive not because of evil people, but for some other reason. In this other world, let's see if we can figure out why health coverage is high and what they could do to meet the goals of: 1) cheap coverage and 2) coverage for everyone. As I said, this is some other world, not ours, so nothing to get upset over, just a thought experiment.

Let's imagine that the rules that we have here of economics works there as well. Let's say that as demand of something rises, if the supply doesn't also rise, the cost will go up. So, if they added 30 million new people into the demand for something, but didn't change the supply, say the number of doctors/hospitals, then the price would have to rise.

If these things are true, then we can see why health care costs so much - a lot of demand, but a limited supply. Unless, in this other world, there are hospitals just sitting empty and doctors with no patients, because if that were the case, then there would be an oversupply, which would have caused the prices to fall, and since we stated that the prices were high, we can assume that all of the hospitals are full and all of the doctors are busy, just like here.

Now, as mentioned, we add 30 million new people with demands, which is good, if these people are sick, we want them taken care of. But, if there are no idle doctors and the hospitals are already full, where will those people go? Who will treat them? So, prices would rise in this strange land.

Now let's say that their government decide to step in and fix this rising price problem by fixing prices, what do we think will happen next? Price can not rise, supply will not change, demand will be high, so the only thing that happen is rationing. There was rationing before, it was just set by price, those who could pay got the rations. Under this new system, rations will have to be set some other way, by some government agency. That person will decide who gets health care and when, and to make sure it is fair, it will be decided by who can fill out the government mandated paperwork the best or who will wait in the longest lines. There is no other way with the rules as stated.

But, you say, why did I propose all of these things, create a thought experiment that has no solution? Well, you are wrong, I see a solution - do you?

The only thing that actually isn't fixed is supply. If prices are high, and demand is high, one just has to increase supply to bring down demand. So, if this other world government instead increased the number of doctors, increased the availability of medical supplies (instead of putting a 10% tax on them, which will cause fewer of them to be sold), increased the number of hospitals, etc, made the supply so overwhelming, the price would naturally fall. Doctors and hospitals would be begging for business, trying to increase their demand.

So, I'm suggesting, that is this other world, that if the government feels that they need to do something to decrease price, increase quality of care, and achieve their goals, there is only one solution: pay for loans for doctors so that there are more, create science programs to research better medical technology, increase production of medical devices, and make more land available for hospitals, just to name a few.

But we do not live in that land. We live in a world where evil people are stopping us from getting health care, a land were people would let their fellow humans suffer and die rather than lose a profit margin. Too bad, the other world has a way out of their problem.

The Edward

It happened again... thoughts?

Using Edward's Arcane World for non-view purposes? Is this how I'm going to do it in the New Year? Well, maybe this is my view of your world... sort of.

Something odd happens to me every so often, and I have no explanation for it. Actually, that is a lie, many things weird happen to me all of the time, which is one of the many reasons why I started this blog. But this one thing stands out from the rest, because I feel that there has to be an explanation for it! Any doctors out there?

It happened again tonight, so I explain the situation and see if you can tell me what is the cause.

I can not eat spicy food. I really just tastes like burn to me. Everything burns, my lips, my hands, my mouth, my tongue, my stomach, etc, you get the idea. I've tried over the years to build my tolerance to spicy with mixed results. It still burns, but every so often, I make my way through something mildly spicy without being sick.

But, here is the weird part... every so often, I can not taste nor feel spicy food. Not at all. I can eat the spiciest thing I can find, and it has no burn whatsoever. None. I can taste everything else fine, I try other flavors and I can tell them all apart. But not spicy.

It has happened only a few times in my life, though it could happen more frequently but I am unaware of it since I rarely even try spicy food. But it happened tonight. I ordered a very spicy dish, and nothing. Others told me it was spicy. I got home and tried some hot sauce, nothing. Chocolate, fine. Salt, fine. Every other flavor I've tried, a-okay. No burning on the lips, mouth, stomach, nothing.

I admit, it kind of worries me in some ways. Can my reality change so much? Is spicy really just in my mind? Has my mind been causing this burning all a long? Hard to imagine, since the pain seems so real and it matches others experiences with spicy. Or is it that my mind can just block it out sometimes? Or is it something else... like aliens trying to sent crop circle to my taste buds? Or some horrible crippling disease for which this is the first symptom? Will I be coughing up blood in the morning? Who knows?! Maybe it would be more fun than it sounds.

Has anyone every had anything like this happen to someone they know or even to themselves? I mean really, crop circles in the mouth sounds too exotic to be real, and yet, I have no better explanation.

I hope to find an answer! Somehow. I've searched online. I've asked people. Now I will ask you. Though, I am sure there is an intersection of some of the afore mentioned groups. Non-people should feel free to reply as well.

Talk to you again soon.

The Edward

Vaginas are a lot of fun to play with...

That line was the teaser for the next episode of a dating show I watched when visiting my family back East. It been with me ever since then. The line was spoken by one of the dating counselors to one of her male clients on the phone. This dating service has one rule, no sex until both people are committed to each other in a monogamous relationship. That is the premise of the show (and that the men are millionaires, while the women are not): they set up some dates for the "couple", film it, then show the aftermath of the clients breaking that one rule.

"Vaginas are a lot of fun to play with, but you are not marrying a vagina." That is my recollection of how that quote ended. The idea is that people going to the dating show are looking for someone to marry. Probably most of the women these men date have a vagina and could have a lot of fun as a couple with it, but the vagina overwhelms the sense of what it would take for a long term relationship. They even state something like that. Yet, it is a lie.

For the parts of the show I saw, it was always the same. They have a great first date based on the feedback of the women. They are wined and dined like never before by these millionaires. Then they go one a few more dates and decide that they want to lock the man into the relationship by having sex with him. Then they end up on the show again crying, saying that he got what he wanted and now the relationship is over. The interesting part was that they actually called both parties on it, they would tell the women off for trying to entrap the man with vagina and call the man for using his vast resources to overwhelm the women into thinking they needed to have sex or else he would look elsewhere.

So, even though the premise is that sex is common and easy and can skew ones sense of goals, it turns out that both parties want to have sex but for different reasons - neither of the parties actually believed that there was long term viability of the relationship.

What I came away with is that part of their initial premise is correct, people who are going to last long term do not seem to have sex right away. They know that they can have sex easily, but they want to focus on making sure that they person they are dating is actually a good partner. Once that is established, then sex is a part of their relationship. But for people who know that there is no real long term potential, they go for it as soon as they can, so that they at least get something for their efforts.

Why has this stuck with me? Because of the entire show, that seemed to be the only honest thing in it, and it seemed to be a very good summary of dating - I had never thought of as good and of as succinct way of explaining my view of sex to other people as that one line. Vaginas, in my experience, have been indeed a lot of fun to play with, but I am not looking to marry a vagina, but find a partner.

The Edward

Cool New Ponzi Scheme to Join!

Ponzi Schemes seem to be everywhere there days! With their ever increasing popularity, it gave cause to some thoughts about your World.

The population of the World is increasing. Each generation adds additional demands upon the limited resources of the World. What is the best way for our generation to make the most of it? How do we get our fair share? It's as easy as sin!

How do Ponzi Schemes work? Say you want a million dollars. Now say you go out and find 1000 suckers who will give you $1000 each. Why would they do this, you ask? Because you tell them that you will give them $2000. But where will you get this $2,000,000 (ie 1000 people at $2,000 each is your debt) from since you only have $1,000,000? You go out and find more people to give you $1000 each and give that money to the first people! And why do these new people give you money? Because you tell them that you will give them $2000 each. Go back to step one and repeat. Basically, as long as you have future suckers willing to give you money to pay off your past debts, you can keep that initial $1,000,000 for yourself!

Combining these two ideas we get what we have today! We can borrow money from the future, ie the children of today, by telling them that we will give them a lot more money in the future if they just give us a bunch of money now. Then they do the same thing to the next generation. Repeat!

And why will this work? It works because there are more people in each generation. As long as we keep ahead of the borrowing curve by producing more children, we can, generation after generation, live in the lap of luxury! We can fuck ourselves into a good life.

Just keep it up, we need a new larger generation of suckers in order for the Ponzi Scheme of Life to succeed! The more children in the next generation, the better our current lives will be, since we will have much more to borrow against.

The Edward