Saturday, January 14, 2006

Time Terror

Tell me, my wealthy friend... do you lose sleep at night wondering for your personal safety?


Have you become more concerned about he potential for terrorism? Hell, do you wonder if the next terrorist attack might come from your very own neighbor?!


How will they get you? WHEN will they get you?


Homeland security measures are up. Inspections at airports and train stations are up. Why, it's getting where a "respectable terrorist" can't make a decent killing in America ANYMORE...


Well don't get too snug in your rug, friend... it's only a matter of TIME before the terrorists figure out the one door America and Homeland Security has left wide open!


What door you ask? Why the door to the past. More specifically, the door to YOUR past!


For less than $100 dollars ANYONE can buy the plans for all sorts of time travel devices! Check it out! http://www.futurehorizons.net/time.htm


What is going to stop terrorists from acquiring these plans, building their own time machines, and going back to kill you when you were just a child... or worse, killing your parents, etc.?!


This route isn't just open to terrorists, but also to the guy you cut off on the highway, or the jerk who thinks it's not fair that you have a better job then he does. ANYONE could sneak into the past and harm you, your family, friends, lovers... or, they could do worse than just harm you...


The TIME for protection, the TIME for action, the TIME for somebody to do something about this is NOW! Don't wait a moment more! Someone could be firing up their freshly built time machine at this very moment!


WHAT can we do, you ask? Why protect our time-lines of course!


Drspeg Industries, Inc. has made a critical breakthrough in temporal distortion attenuation fields. They have discovered a method by which your personal time line can be isolated from the time stream flux. Simply by placing a sample of your DNA into the isolation and extraction chamber of the Temporal Distortion Attenuator (TDA), it is able to encapsulate the chronopath of your DNA back to the moment you were conceived.


Until researchers at the Drspeg Institute for Advanced Theoretical Metaphasic Physics developed the newest branch of chrono-quantum physics, this technology was considered mere science fiction at best!


How did they do it? Well, to make a complex story simple, they developed an extrapolated set of Fourier based retro-chronological calculus formulas that proved DNA timestream encapsulation was POSSIBLE! From these calculations, the TDA was born!


And not a moment too soon!


For a mere $8,500 you can purchase a TDA for your own personal use.


Only $8,500 as a one-TIME payment for a lifeTIME of security.


NOTE: Once calibrated for use by a single person's DNA sample, the TDA CANNOT be used for another individual. However, additional or replacement isolation and extraction chambers may be purchased for $750 each. This is especially recommended for protecting loved ones who may not (yet) be able to afford their own personal protection TDA.


Currently, there is only the personal model. Drspeg Industries, Inc. in conjunction with Drspeg Institute is hard at work attempting to develop TDA’s that can accommodate one's entire family tree (retroactively, of course).


Prepare yourself. The future of terrorism is the past!

Friday, January 06, 2006

Belief

This is probably going to be much less lengthy than it should be to convey my thoughts clearly. However, I find that I don't actually start to think about what I want to blog until I'm in bed TRYING to fall asleep at 2:00 am. Yep. School's about to start and so, naturally, I am losing sleep.

Right now (in my life) I am interested in the idea of BELIEF. Specifically, I am fascinated by the dynamic underlying belief formation, maintenance, and change. Truthfully, I am mostly interested in the "change" part, but the other two interest me as well. Actually I have a hunch that belief maintenance and belief change are the most closely related of the three possible pairings.

Let me quickly add that I'm not picky about what type of "belief" exactly, although I can appreciate the religious baggage (strong association) that seems to come with that word.
Almost everything that we are and that we deal with is essentially belief-based. So unfortunately, the term "belief" is too broad to be studied to everyone's satisfaction. For this entry, though, rather than elaborate on my definition/specific interests, I wanted to jot down my insomniac thoughts from last night (this morning).

First, the basic concept of "belief" cannot be what differentiates humans from other creatures. Clearly all creatures that interact with (respond to, etc.) their environments must maintain or form beliefs. That is, concrete beliefs: "That thing hurts/causes pleasure/etc." And, "That animal is a threat" and "That animal is somehow depriving me, or threatening to deprive me of something valuable like food, etc." (not that I think my dogs are articulating their beliefs... I'm just using words to convey the basic sense of what I mean by "concrete beliefs").

It occurred to me last night, though, that humans are likely to be the only critters that form abstract beliefs and act on them as fiercely as if they were concrete. That is, I can imagine a wild animal defending its turf/food/mate/etc. -all concrete things- when it believes that turf (etc.) may be taken by some competitor (another wild animal). We, on the other hand, are capable of just making up some shit in our heads that has NO CONCRETE SUBSTANTIVE MANIFESTATION (like belief in a particular god) and defending that belief aggressively if we perceive a threat to it.

By the way, I'm NOT trying to make a particular religious statement. The same kind of reaction happens when we make up our minds about a loved one, or an adored celebrity, etc. If another person mocks our belief (e.g., one my wife hates is when I refer to Barry Manilow with the same term I might use to describe something the dog did in the yard: BM), or disagrees with it, etc. we take offense, get angry, punch, kick, scream, make fun of one of their beliefs. For some reason the threat against an abstract belief is treated the same (nearly? sometimes more so?) as a threat against a concrete belief.

Take away my food and I die. Take away (change) my belief and what...? NOT die... technically, I've just been "educated." But look at how people react! We kill others who don't go along with our views (ok, another shot at religion... but it's true of other beliefs as well).

How do we justify this strange approach? We tie the abstract beliefs to concrete ones. If I believe that being gay is wrong, what's the big deal if someone tries to change my mind?

Well, if I want to get people to really defend (maintain) such a belief, I need to tie it to something that results in a concrete threat: So, obviously, if we let gays marry, then that pure fresh clean strong moral fabric of society will be torn and people will start raping each other and taking away their kids to force them to become sex-slaves and then I'll lose my job, be unable to pay bills, become homeless and have to buy a gun to rob people so I won't starve.

OK, clearly I'm too tired to make my points clear. Sorry. I'll stop. Good night.