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14 July 2003 (Originally 30 January 2003)

If we don't change in physical appearance for the next million years, will we have to consider that Darwin's theory of evolution is bunk, and have to seriously reconsider the "made by God in a day just this way" theory?



14 July 2003 (Originally 30 December 2002)

Laughter as Currency

If you think about using laughter instead of money, the analogy extends a fair
way through the chain of economy without falling over.




14 July 2003 (Originally 29 December 2002)

How do girls in advertising posters look like they are orgasming?


A Man Described This Room to Me Once

My room is an underground room.
It contains a long dark wooden table, the at which I sit.
On the left is a bookshelf containing the past and future in my life.
On the right is a wall with two torches on it.
I can call anyone through it and ask them questions.
They will come in at sit on a chair on the right side of the table from me.
They cannot lie.
They can refuse to answer but then I will know the answer.
Behind me is a video screen that can play hypothetical outcomes if different decisions were made by me in the past. I can replace my memories with these outcomes.
Sitting on a chair on the left is Nathan, an old father from 1850.
He is a teacher/healer.
Standing near the table on the left is a younger me from this life that I can talk to.



13 February 2003

A Letter from one of the Residents of Houses to the Residents of the Streets

I live in a house, work in an office building and walk through the city to and from work each day. I am frustrated and perplexed by the number of people who stop me to ask for money.  More often than not, offering anything less than an apology in return results in an abusive comment about how greedy or rude I am. Sometimes refusing to give anything results in a tirade of social commentary about the widening gap between the rich and poor. Once, it resulted in a heartfelt apology from the beggar for stopping me on my way. I give, and the beggar turns to the next person and asks them the same question. I ask what the money is for, and invariably it is a bus or train trip home.

Who is the beggar I am talking to? A junkie? A homeless person? An abused person? A poor person? A hungry person? A uni student? The media has painted a picture of begging “clubs” making good money from begging, and quoted that nine out of ten beggars don’t need the money.

This is my frustration: I do not know the person asking me for money. I do not know the person who just abused me for refusing to give to them. I don’t have a problem with giving. I have a problem with being swindled.
 
Misunderstanding is the reason for the widening gap between myself and the beggars who cross my path. Don’t misunderstand me. I bought a junkie lunch when he asked me for a few dollars. After lunch, at his request, I held a belt tightly around his arm so he could better find a vein to inject with heroin.

I don’t have a solution to close the gap between the “rich” and the “poor”. But I do have a solution to my  frustration with beggars. It is simple.

When I want to borrow money from a bank, they want to know for what purpose.
Why should it be any different from me to you?
When I ask a bank for money, I have to divulge a lot of personal information before they will part with their money.
Why should it be any different from me to you?
The bank maintains the right to ask for all the money back immediately if they find out I have lied to them.
Why should it be any different from me to you?
The bank actually expects the money back. And with interest.
This I do not expect.

Whenever you shop for food, pay rent, go to a movie, go to the doctors, or entertain your children by taking them to a  show, get receipts. Ask for receipts for everything you spend your money on. Keep them in an exercise book. I don’t care if you don’t include receipts for cigarettes and alcohol, and I don’t expect you to get receipts from your dealer. Show me the exercise book next time you ask me for money. I will look at how you have spent your money. The more receipts, the better I will know you. I will know who I am giving my money to. It will ease my frustration. You will receive from me according to your honesty, not your circumstance.

A beggar once asked me for a few dollars because he was dying for a beer. I gave it to him because he was honest.

See you on the streets.



Frances Moore Lappé

"I have come to see that food production and food distribution are in the midst of a revolution, a revolution that puts people’s need for food last. And the revolution is led by the largest corporations on earth and elite-based governments. It isn’t fought in the name of liberty or equality or fraternity, but in the name of profit…

The outrage of hunger amidst plenty will never be solved by ‘experts’ somewhere. It will only be solved when people like you or me decide to act."




Way of the Peaceless Worrier

Self-discovery and self-help books fill at least one shelf in nearly every bookstore. More in second hand bookstores. Which says something for their enduring relevance.

Reading them can be like a breath of fresh air. A single breath. A breath which can only be held for a short time before being released.

During this short time, there is ample opportunity to evangelise others with your newfound wisdom and generally end up irritating others and embarrassing yourself when you look back your acts during the temporary madness.

If you found such a book in the self-help section of your book store, kindly tell the staff that the only person it will help is the author, and that it should sit somewhere between the reference and fiction sections, preferably with large red arrows and signs pointing to it.

The title of this article is an abomination of the title of one of my favourite self help books of all time. Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman. Here is a book that inspires people to live beyond themselves and be amazed at the magic that surrounds them in the world. Even if it only happens to other people.

I could be alone here, but I think Peaceless Worrier describes my state a lot of the time. Ageing is helping, though. “Being present in every moment” is a rare achievement that can easiest be achieved after many drinks in the company of good friends.



25 August 2002

Michael Moore

Michael Moore is an American with a strong desire to reveal the lies of those in power (financially and politically) to his fellow Americans. He does it in a humourous way, but gutwrenching way. I'm not sure if Australia has an equivalent person. Perhaps Rod Quantock comes closest, but he tends to choose the stage as his medium, and misses on the larger audience that television and cinemas provide. Max Gillies has done a similar thing over many years (including his latest show, "Your Dreaming") but I think the difference between Michael and Max is whether the object is to make a point or to make humour. Looked at a little more deeply, the difference perhaps is whether the respective audiences can be motivated to action  or resigned to the status quo, regardless of both people's desire to laugh at their respective authorities.


Michael's movie Bowling at Columbine was entered at the 2002 Cannes Festival.

His website is here: MichealMoore.com


21 August 2002

Australia Needs More Children?

The government is debating ways to encourage Australians to get married, buy a house, settle down and produce children/taxpayers to fund older Australians. How did we get into this situation? Well, maybe if they didn't keep eroding the security of full time jobs by allowing businesses to replace full-time employment with casual employment, some Australians might be more secure about being able to afford the other long term commitments.

Maybe the government can pursue a form of Reverse Mutual Obligation by paying people to have and raise children/taxpayers.



19 August 2002

Evol

Manipulation

This program uses subtle manipulative mind-control techniques to help you look after your fellow man. If you do not want to take part in this, please leave now.



The Importance of Money?

Can we live without money in a city? Can't be done.
Can we run a business without debt? Maybe.
Can we run a successful business without cheating? Maybe.

Couldn't We Live Perfectly Well Without Money?


18 August 2002

Back To The Middle Ages?

Are we returning to feudalism?

We pay fees for every service
We are losing our public ownership to private owners



August 2002

Three Disturbing Things

I heard a great idea and felt bad about passing it on to someone who might make a dollar from it. If the person with the idea never acts on it, it is lost to the world.

I heard a great idea and felt scared to pass it on because the person who told me threatened legal action. If the person with the idea never acts on it, it is lost to the world.

I can afford to give away my ideas because I have a job that does not rely on them. If my livelihood relied on the protection of my ideas, I would vigorously protect them.


1 June 2002

3D World Journalism

With the advent of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), I think someone to become a character, and travel around the online world as an journalist, interviewing characters, writing up stories, and selling the newspaper online back to the characters in exchange for gold or items.


Angle for AI?

Parameterize aspects of objects for comparison of concepts and find patterns in the differences between objects, and not have actual meaning nodes.

Possible concept/idea parameters to measure the relatedness between objects:

Permanence
Probability
Representation
Temporal - range
Causal - degree
Effectual - degree
Physicality
Provability
Paradox
Logicity
Positivity - morality? (+/- index)

Measure the degree moved from other concepts (using weighting as distance - summing parameters? )

Which parameters are subjective, and which are objective?

We should be able to create a taxonomy of meaning. But it would be more like a graph rather than a hierarchy. The graph would be n-dimensional where n is the number of measuring parameters. It could be difficult to visualise :)


How You Know You Have Been In A Cult/Abusive Relationship?

You haven't left until you see the group was a cult, or the person was abusive.
Denial is a major sign of psychological/physical rape.
Little self-esteem
Sexuality issues
Withdrawal from family and friends
Unable to trust people in authority over you
Difficulty in thinking objectively about the experience
Dependencies on addictive substances/activities


Creating A Micro-Economy

This is based on taking the financial risk away from the institution from which the money is borrowed, and taking it on personally. Person A lends person B to pay off B's credit card. A can charge less interest/charges based on the knowledge that B may feel obliged to pay back A on the basis of the friendship. A should only lend to B if they know that even if B reneges, the friendship will not be devalued.


Divorce and Economic Rationalism

If you divorce after ten years, and lose, say, 100 thousand dollars, you could have bought good sex once every three days instead, and not had to keep paying after it was over.




11 November 1998

Suppresion of Ideas/Stupid Ideas

Search for these words using Google

Cancer
Gaston Naessens
Raymond Royal Rife
Cancer Cure
Harry Hoxsey
Bruce Collins
Fluoridation
Ozone Therapy
Oxygen Therapy
Ralph Moss
Essiac Caisse
Max Gerson

Scientific Discovery
Faces on Mars
Nikola Tesla
Antigravity
T.T. Brown
Wilhelm Reich
Sigmund Freud
Aetiology of Histeria
Immanuel Velikovsky
Roswell, New Mexico

Alternative Energy Systems
John Freeman
Francisco Pacheco
Hydrogen Technology
Mechanical Fuel Vaporizer, Peter Neilson
Cold Fusion
Free Energy Technologies
Paul Brown


US Patents

1974483
2949550
3018394
3022430
3187206
3223887
3518462
2912244
2214273
2236595
2775818
2801086
3393279
3647970
3890548
2482773
4151431
2351055
1633791
2123485
2460707
2026798
1938497
1997497
2026798
2995644
3156787
3170993
3267931
3497637
3563246
3586791
3629521
3726762
334823-1402025
3809978



12 March 1998

This is not a story.

This is your mind telling you to be careful. There is a war on for control of your minds, and your enemy is already controlling your consciousness, putting up smoke screens. This is the only way I/you can communicate with me/yourself.

The war began with drugs.

We knew drugs were destroying brain cells. Then we thought it wouldn't matter to take them because we wouldn't know better.

You can turn the page, but the memory is indelibly overlaid. The only way you will see what is really on this page is when we overthrow the enemy.


25 November 1997

A New Society

Introduction

The sooner our forays into space become a regular part of regular people's lives, the sooner our  common vision will be stretched beyond the edge of our atmosphere and into the unseen reaches of space.

Societal Structure

Even on Earth, the structure for the spacebound society can be created on a small scale. The main aims of the structure will be the preservation of wealth of resources and power - more than anyone could possible want, thus removing the damaging combined effects of a scarcity of resources and greed.

Enormous wealth would be required to produce this sort of society in miniature. In my own lifetime, there is one feasible way of producing such wealth: create a successful computer software company, and feed the social container with it's profits.

The social container will allow freedom to research new sciences in the form of projects, decided by the society's participants.



November 1997

Possible Book Titles

The Double-Edged Sword of Privacy:
Exposing Yourself To Exploitation For Better Protection

Protecting the People vs. Protecting Itself:
The Government's Desire For Information

Fines, Jail, Punishment:
Why Rules Alone Can't Keep A Society On The Straight And Narrow

Fines: Why Hitting The Pocket Is More Effective Than Hitting The Conscience

Cheap Labour: Why People Are Paid Less Than They Are Worth



24 April 1997

Second law of thermodynamics. A differential allows heat
to flow from hot to cold. If information was seen as heat,
education could be seen as obeying the second law too.
Are we information generators?




19 March 1997

Bridging the Internet and Reality II

During sex with your partner, imagine calling out their email address at the point of climax. To remind them of the internet at such a moment would definitely be a defining experience. Make sure you call out their address and not someone else's though.


Living in a Computer

How would you get sexual satisfaction?

Would you still have sexual urges? Maybe you would look around the Web for pornographic material. You would have more freedom in the choice of location. You could look around for romantic or kinky material, but where would you find satisfaction?


16 March 1997

Bridging the Internet and Reality

I like to think of ways to bridge the gap between the Internet and people's physical reality.

I want to suspend the disbelief of the internet's reality. Most people access the internet through screens they look at for many hours a day after which they leave their rooms or offices and have little interaction or contact with the internet away from their computers with the exception of seeing URL's on company and product advertisements.

The other night I was on a train, and I wrote a couple of poems about the train trip and the people on it. I signed the poem with my email address, and left it on the train. Another thread between reality and the Internet.

A thought I had that would be fun would be to invent a Web page that gave instructions for someone to go to a certain place at a certain time where they would meet someone that gave them instructions to follow. The page would be 100% accurate in describing what would happen to the person who read it and followed the instructions, because the writer of the page would be the person the reader met! Hmmm. Suspend that disbelief.








© Copyright 2003 Mark Daniel Osborne