User:UHM/streamofconsciousness

Stream of Consciousness - or: Excuse me while I wax philosophically like a high Carrie Bradshaw

March 18th, 2012: Story of my life
Me on March 12: [http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Conservapedia_talk:What_is_going_on_at_CP%3F&diff=prev&oldid=985060 I'm so happy there are no primaries in Germany. No bullshit, just a person and a party program!]

Die Welt on March 18: Greens will now have primaries!

Me on March 18: Oh damn it, people… *sigh*

January 22nd, 2012: Same Level/Fun with Logic

 * ''Speaking outside a polling station at the Hazel V. Parker Playground here in Charleston, Lynn Land, 61, said she decided to vote for Mr. Gingrich “at the very last second,” complimenting him for showing an ability to think on his feet at the debates. “He is a seasoned politician and will be able to debate Obama on an even level,” Mrs. Land said.
 * — Gingrich Wins South Carolina Primary, Upending G.O.P. Race, New York Times''

It is kind of funny what normal people say to justifiy electing somebody. Lynn Land here, justifies voting for Gingrich because he knows the game and can debate Obama.

But wait:
 * 1) Gingrich has about a fourth of a century to train himself, Obama only 5 years.
 * 2) * → Obama can learn five times faster than Gingrich.
 * 3) ** → Obama is about five times more intelligent than Gingrich.
 * 4) Land voted for Gingrich because he could do this, implying that other wanna-be-nominees are not able to do it.
 * 5) * → The other wanna-be-nominees are dumber than Gingrich.
 * 6) ** → The average Republican has to be either (a) too intelligent to get into politics or (b) the average Republican has to be dumber than the average Democrat.
 * 7) *** → (a): The average Republican does not believe that he has to help America, therefor is self-centered. (evolution is true!)
 * 8) *** → (b): There is no reason to elect a Republican, except feeling like gambling or being stupid yourself.
 * 9) If (1) and (2) are true:
 * 10) Land herself is either trying to manipulate the primaries by voting for stupid people, or she beliefs that a stupid person could handle the country better than an intelligent person.
 * 11) By voting for a stupid person rather than an intelligent person, Land herself has to be stupid.
 * 12) With, (1), (2), (2b), (3) and the fact that Land said this to a press person → Land herself just called herself stupid in a world-wide available paper.
 * 13) → Land is right, people that vote for Republicans are stupid.

I ♥ logic.

December 25th, 2011: Oh, well, that explains it
QFT

December 18th, 2011: Dead or Alive
'Cowardice' and 'chaos' seem to be the words to describe the FDP these days. The party just got a streak of bad luck the last years, I'd say. For decades the party was estremely important in Germany, it literally made governments. But not because it was so powerfull or got so many votes, but because it got just enough to make a difference. The SPD was the party of the workers, the Union was party (or the two parties) of white collar workers and the FDP was the one for the rich. The FDP could, every four years, choose who to make government with. Like a beautiful girl in a bar full of men it was able to choose who to go home with and make demands. Problem was: at some point even the lonliest man is going to say "fuck this".

And that's what happend in 1966 when the FDP left the coalition it had with the Union. The coalition fell apart over budget issues and the Union and the SPD rather danced with each other, formed a great coalition and let the new Germany into it's first crisis. On the other side of the political landscape and equally tradtional part of the youth, communist and democratic socialist were going to the streets. The new grand coalition was bad news. It was able to change the constitution on a wim. It was overall the worst possible timing. The Vietnam War was raging, and the first post-war generation was now able to read and understand what had happend in the old Nazi Reich. "How could this have happend?", "Where were you?", "Why didn't you do anything?" it echoed through households, streets, classes and the media. But that wasn't even the biggest part of it, that was the Emergency Acts. The middle class, fat from the Wirtschaftswunder and now encompasing even workers thought back with all it's power. The media branded the students communists, socialist, terrorists and rioters - the police answered brutaly and the Eastern bloc took the chance and invested in the movement, but that was only revealed in the last years. The FDP held idly to it's principles and voted against the Emergency Acts, but the image of rich peoples party stuck.

In the elections of 1969 the unthinkable happend, the social democrats of the SPD fomed a coalition with the liberals of the FDP. Now every party had danced with every other. The German centrism that is typical for it's politics today was now clearly visible. If the rich peoples party was able to govern a country with a subvariety of socialists and find some common ground, the three parties in question were hardly distinguishable. From 1969 until 1982 the FDP was in government together and the Union went through an inner crisis: the CSU (Bavaria) threatend the CDU (all other Länder) to go national in the next elections. In 1982 the FDP left the coalition with the SPD and made anew with the Union. In 1983 The Greens made it into the Bundestag for the first time, from now on the FDP became, essentially, the Unions bitch. After the Wall fell, the Greens were elected into the Bundestag again and again. The party of hippies, civil rights activists in Eastern Germany, socialist and others, reflected what the youth wanted, the FDP became not only the party of the rich but also the party of the old. In 1998 The Greens and the SPD formed a coalition, the first purely left-wing coalition in German post-war history did — cut social programs… Thereby giving rise to the SPD going Splitsville, the left wing of the party flew by the 10,000s into the newly formed democratic socialist party Die Linke. The FDP, now being demoted to being the Unions bitch eradicated there old socially liberal ideals and a still in the closet gay guy in the uniform of party head argumented against same-sex marriage — understandably many Germans now really saw what had happend to the FDP: in economical issue it had become the bitch of big industries steadilly calling for lower taxes and in social issues it had become the bitch of the conservatives trying not to piss them off to much. Still though in 2009 when being called upon for economic competence the FDP got 14.6% - with Die Linke and Greens both getting more than 10% that sounds like more than it actually is, what had happend is that people were fleeing from the SPD and the Union to third parties. Now it is 2011 and in the polls the FDP stands at 3% — that means no seats if elections were to be soon. What happend?

The demise of the FDP is multicausal. It's image couldn't have been worse. While the rest of Germany swings to the left and is on an anti-capitalist high with the Greens temporarily almost establiching themselves as "one of the big ones" the Pirate Party became a real alternative - and even worse, actually represents the peoples opinion right now. A great load of the young Germans identify as democratic socialists, "greens" and care a great deal about privacy matters. The Pirates take all that and put it into a party form, the FDP becomes a living relic of the old Germany from the times of the Cold War, while the Pirates are the New Germany's eqivilant to the FDP. They are liberals, but on social issues only. They are young, but enough of them have own businesses, academic careers and other stuff people like to value somebodies life on. The failure of the FDP is not a failure of not swinging towards a right-wing nationalist euro-sceptic position, but treason upon their own values. The cowardice many speak of is not because the FDP didn't boldly and in a populist manner harvest votes from let down conservatives, but to stick to their old ideals. The FDP did not fuck it up for them the last 2 years since being in government because they didn't decide fast enough for Europe, but because for years they have lost their way of social liberals, of people that were in favor of feminism, of freedom for all and of pro-europeans free-marketeers. The very moment the FDP became the bitch of the Union their death was imminant. The only thing missing was a national swing to the left and that's were we are now. But instead of going back to their own ideals, the FDP holds idly by being a bitch and it's wings fight for the power in doomed corpse.

For me, as a democratic socialist of sorts that's fun to see. Schadenfreude should be embraced if it's only about polling numbers.

December 9th, 2011: Cold Confusion
There are some phrases in the English language that are just funny to foreigners. The phrase "Cool down! You're not that hot either!" for example. Could you shorten that to "freeze!"? Oh, wait...

December 4th, 2011: Competition
As I was writing Hanja down on little learning cards so I can, you know, actually learn them today, something hit me. If the Ancient Chinese actually just never switched to a script that actually represented the phonology of their language and just kept on writing half-arsed standardized pictures on stuff, where is the difference between this script and actual pictures? If art in the most inclusive sense of the word means communication, were is the difference between art and communication? Is there any at all? Would the word art be served with the definition of "communicating something"? And if so, what would "something" have to be? Would a feeling suffice or does it have be something more complex? Does the artist have to have a message? Would it the message "this art has no message" suffice to deliver one? Like for example the thousands of friendly saying we exchange every day with total strangers, the small talk about the weather and in my grades how the classes are going — to which the answer is almost always "Well, and you(r's)?" (which is more often than not a flat out lie with both people knowing it) — is their much difference between a sentence and a pencil stroke on a picture, the first note of a composition, the first move of a dancer or the first few moments of video of some format? Where is the difference between language and art?

May it be standardization? Sure, there are "official rules" as to how a language is written and spoken but nobody get's imprisoned for breaking those, the worst you get is a weird look if you start talking in tongues all of a sudden. In art you may even get a reputation for breaking the rules. You are then a "revolutionary". A "post-modernist". You're "deconstructing" what was formerly "a rule" is know not "a rule" anymore. Where is the difference between a failed attempt at communication/art and successful and revolutionizing breaking of such a rule?

If the difference between art and language is so minimal, maybe we are able to learn how to understand one thing by understanding the other one? If we are able to undesrstand how we undesrtand art — how the artist communicates with us — we might be able to understand how we can talk to each other. If we are born a tabula rasa — an empty board — we would have to learn the signs of that particular method of communication. We would notice a pattern, a word for example, observe what it is refering to, and than see the word as reference to what we have seen, by automated standardization our brains would "culturefy" that, we would learn how to use something by looking how it is used and reproducing that. The same way we learn to speak, to walk we'd learn to understand art and therfor understand how to understand what the artist is telling us. If an artist would now break out of this and break these conception, these unstandardized rules, is he actually breaking those rules or is he activating another learning process? If an artist was to create his own set of rules, would he create his own rulebook to understand his signs buried within his art? Would he create a language?

People have done that before. Is it possible that an art movement isn't that much different from a standardized language? If such an art movement is not centralized but physically unable to communicate through anything but there art, through death of some of them for example, we couldn't even speak of conscious selection. If there are many watchmakers working on a single clock, are they combined a single blind watchmaker? If art movements are in competion to each other over selling more art and "staying true to their art" and languages are in an equal dilema over a geographical or technical space — a struggle of combining effectiveness and variation with simplicity of adoption — where is the difference between art signs, linguistic signs and genes?

If several things with different modes exist, there has to be competition between those things. But now I have to go back to actually learning those Hanja, but the question if this was art or an attempt at communication remains.