Greed. There But For The Grace Of Cash, Go I

In the 1987 movie "Wall Street", Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gecko famously says greed is good.

While in the shark infested financial waters of the late Eighties this sounds like an iconic shift away from the socially concious, humanist if you will, ideals of the Sixties via the chaotic social and economic environments of the Seventies. The Eighties were the Wild West of this thinking, bouyed by the economic policies of the Reagan administration. The process was unpolished and used the brute force of the corporate raider to accomplish the goals of greed.

Like all wild lands, this process was eventually refined and it evolved into the juggernaut we witness today. Now we watch as companies influence local, state, and national laws to their own benefit while twisting the process to claim their desire to protect the consumer. Comcast claims to be an opponent of the "Phonies" and their duplicitous claims of unfairness in the laws designed to loosen their monopolies. Comcast may be in competition with the Bells, even I am looking into their VOIP solution, but they are in cohoots with this enemy on the topic of Net Neutrality, or an internet open equally to all persons without prejudice.

Both Comcast, their fellow CableCos, and the Bells want to see an Internet where they get to determine the level of your access based on the rates the customer pays. This seems like a nominal issue and a formalization of the Internet as most people know it now, but it is a drastic difference. Comcast could hold their customers for ransom to the companies on the Internet. For example, they could ask Google how much they want to pay to have Comcast allow faster speeds to their site over MSN or Yahoo!. Should Google pay this ransom, the Comcast customer base would be effectively pushed to one vendor or another. This is regardless of how much bandwidth a company purchases. It is the ISPs trying to squeeze every last dime from every last avenue. Perhaps you like MSN and I like Google. Our preference should not be based on whether or not Comcast made a few bucks, but whether or not MSN meets my needs over Google.

This is a situation where Microsoft may be your biggest ally. They do not want to be forced to pay big bucks to have "preferential access" available to their customers and it will be no small drop in the bucket from a company as invested in the Internet as MS.

The biggest problem in all of this greed by the TeleCos and CableCos, is the ignorance and greed displayed by our intrepid congressmen. A rather foolish and clearly ignorant senator named Ted Stevens. Senator Stevens is from Alaska and displays an amazingly inaccurate and nearly childlike grasp of the technologies governing the Internet, yet this man is going to be one of the people who determine the quality of your access to the Internet.

Right now you may be saying to yourself that this is how capitalism works. Each person or entity is entitled to price their product as they see fit. The market is then supposed to determine whether or not that price is fair. However, what we are seeing here is an example of collusion, if that term is applicable, and a captive marketplace. Someone is actually being unfair to Microsoft, if you can believe that. This is the same sort of practice as if the hospital charged the doctor for each patient they saw through that hospital. You would only get the doctor who could afford to pay the hospital.

Who do you think would foot that bill? The patients.

Who will foot the bill if the ISPs have their way? You and I.

Several digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) are working to get Net Neutrality put into law and I am an ardent supporter of the EFF, but there is a larger picture here. This is the need for a law itself.

We exist in a system where our only two options appear to be allowing the ISPs to determine the balance of the Internet or allow the government to write a law governing a technology they clearly do not understand. The first option is not viable and the second, considered honestly, will be influenced, and probably crippled, by the money of the TeleCos and CableCos, rather than built on the knowledge and consideration of those who truly grasp the technology and the need for a fair-access Internet.

This is the great flaw in Capitalism. True and fair capitalism requires a fair playing field for all involved. What we have here is an essentially powerless majority enslaved by the government influence and money of the financial-haves minority.

Greed is not good. Greed turns social issues into fiascos. Greed turns all decisions into financial decisions. Money over good technology decisions. Money over good healthcare decisions. Money over the humane decision. Money over the smart decisions.

In the end, the money leaves the rich empowered and the non-rich wondering who is looking out for them. In the end, no one is looking out for us, but us.

The Embarrasment of Ignorance

Mowed the lawn while listening to:
The Insane Clown Posse - The Great Milenko - 82/100 (The albums is so absurd, it is funny)
Ice Cube - Laugh Now, Cry Later - 88/100

Dr. Stephen Hawking posted a question to Yahoo!'s Answer Board.

While I am not the type to elevate any other human being to a status significantly above my own, it is always interesting to have the opportunity to interact with a recognizable leader in any field. It is the same idea as being on television. It is cool because one does not get that chance very frequently without working in the field. For example, Steve Hawking and I do not kick it by the pool on a hot day listening to the latest Jay-Z track. He is more of a Zeppelin guy, while I lean toward Tool.

When Dr. Hawking posts a question on a publicly accessible message board, it is an opportunity for the respondents to shine. Whether they are other scientists with advanced degrees or the 12 year old perusing the Internet, they have a chance to take a stand, post their idea or opinion, and demonstrate there is more to common culture than Brangelina, beer commercials, and American Idol. So the question comes forth:

How Can The Human Race Survive The Next Hundred Years?

I suppose that is an interesting question. It could be worth considering the environment we live in currently and trying to derive the progression for the next hundred years. I think it is more of an experiment rather than an actual question. An experiment where the answer to the question is less important than the idealogies contained in the answers submitted by the subjects. In other words, Dr. Hawking is not confounded as to how man will continue to exist for the rather paltry period of time we call a century. Keep in mind, this is a man whose research and publicized works deal with millions and billions of years.

So how did we, the public, respond to this question?

...

With embarassing ignorance, misguided piety, and bold, self-assured stupidity.

I am sorry Dr. Hawking, but the results of your experiment are a touch depressing. Perhaps a more relevant question is whether or not the human race deserves to make it for another hundred years.

While there were some attempts at respectful, well thought-out, intelligent answers, the vast majority were one line attempts at humorous nihilism or out right stupidity.

Some sample answers:

it can't

how about TRUST IN JESUS CHRIST, pal!

dont matter to me cuz i wont be alive that long.

i dunno. but one thingyz for sure. the white race and black race will be extinct....

The same way it has survived so far, with Gods will. Without his divine will nothing is possible. The world will survive with his will and grace

That is it folks. There is no point in continuing. According to all 7 IQ points that responded, we either have no chance to survive (make our time. [if anyone gets this joke let me know]), it does not matter because in 100 years we will all be dead anyway so the rest is someone else's problem, or we can keep on being the underachieving top of the food chain because the almighty is going to make it rain roast beef and chick peas when we are hungry and is just biding his time to stop global warming, reveal to all the glory of world peace, and remedy the inequities of the world's political and financial systems.

Oh, wait. The whole "thingyz for sure" line. Wow. Just wow. I think that line stands on its own. I can add no insight to sound thinking like that. Now that I really think about it, perhaps I am being too elitist about the whole thing. Perhaps this guy is right. In the last couple of weeks I found out I am contributing to this phenomenon. The Donut Shoppe is having my baby, but secretly she is simply breeding the white out of my progeny. How ingenius. How EVIL! Or perhaps I saw through her ruse and I am breeding the brown out of her? Who is smart now?

To reiterate, there were some ideas into which people actually put some thought, but the overwhelming majority were insipid comments such as I previously mentioned. I am clearly not opposed to sarcasm or humor, but perhaps the cool points gained from a snappy Internet comeback to a wheelchair bound physics professor just do not impress me like they would have when I was... well, never. The invocation of God as the solution to all of our problems is embarassing enough, not from the point of view of a skeptic, but from the shear audacity that a supreme being created humanity to sit around and whine to him whenever things do not go its way. These are the same "God of the gaps" people who see science and technology as encroaching on God's plan rather than explaining a world he may have given us. These are people who fill every empty space in their lives and their understanding with their conveniently twisted and often conflicting versions of God.

This is what comes of a question posed to the puclic at large. Derisive comments and one liners are far easier to fire off than an idea or argument fully considered. It is an often quoted line, "There are no stupid questions," but it is unfortunately clear that there is a nearly limitless supply of stupid answers and ignorant people willing to provide those answers at a moments notice.

The Mystery of Life...

I knew something was up.

Something was going on and I was about to find out what it was.

There was a mystery to solve and I was going to solve it.

Ok. There was no mystery and I knew exactly what was happening. I was on the inside as far as that goes. It was the outcome that was in question.

The proprietor of the Donut Shoppe was going to call me up stairs any moment so that we could reenact a scene we had done several times before. No, not that you perverts. Freaks!

As I walked into the room, she stood their looking half-sad, half-scared, and half-excited.

That is right, you mathematicians out there, she was 1.5 people when I walked into that room. Although 1.00000001 would probably be more accurate.

She stood there, with a small plastic stick in her hand and those beautiful, big, brown eyes looking at me.

"It is positive."

And in my brilliant, loquacious way I looked her dead in the eye and said...

"Really?"

The Donut Shoppe is going to get a new employee. There will be a Fisher-Price lawnmower next to mine.

We wait to find out when.

This is so scary, so simple, so big, and so FREAKING AWESOME that words do it no justice.

I have waited nearly 30 years to hear the words, "it is positive."

Nine months is nothing.

The Philosophy of the Lawnmower

Mowed the lawn while listening to:
Soundgarden - Greatest Hits 95/100
Static X - Start A War - 90/100
Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs - 97/100

This is not a ripoff of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

This is the direct result of a menial lawn task and some time. I have learned over the years that while I hate doing chores rather than ignore them, as I did when I was 10 (Ok, 21), I try very hard to be a mature adult and get these unpleasant tasks completed. One of my jobs in the house I share with the beautiful owner of the Donut Shoppe, is the lawn.

Yay!

I am not a golf guy. Golf guys love cutting their lawn and pretending it is Saw Grass or Pebble Beach. I would rather live on a pebble beach. I would not have to mow. But since I have to mow the lawn, I listen to some music and rock out while I push the Family Truckster around the yard.

Mark Twain, I believe, once said that golf is a good walk spoiled.

I say, mowing the lawn is a freaking (uh-huh, yeah, FREAKING) waste of my life. Yet, I have made it entertaining. But I have a mind that wanders and when I am completing boring tasks, if my mind gets stuck on my task, I get the urge to scream. Not attractive in a 3 year old and I believe it is grounds for divorce when you are nearing 30.

So I need more than a song to keep me going.

That is right folks! There is a point to this rambling. There is are two reasons the world famous "a blog. no plan. utter chaos." blog has died.

Are you ready?

On the edge of your seat?

Hating me right about now?

C'mon, just a litte?

OK. Good.

Reason #1.
While I hate mowing the lawn, I get a bizarre, OCD-esque (that is obsessive-compulsive disorder for those of you whose are not married to a hospital worker and have most of your relatives and friends working in a hospital) pleasure out of the clean, ordered look of cut grass. While few people would accuse my Forgetful Jones-self of having anything close to OCD, when so many members of your family have it, some of it was bound to rub off, I suppose. Since many (or none) of you may recall from your high school chemistry class, that entropy (chaos) does not require energy, while order requires great amounts of energy. This is the idea. I needed a way to better regiment my posting so someone may actually find my blog worth reading. Hence, I linked it to my most regimented activity. So from the chaos of a blog with no plan, comes The Philosophy of the Lawnmower. Order.

Reason #2.
To go along with my music, I spend most of my mowing time thinking. Rivetting, I know, but I find that during these times that no one wants to interrupt me, unlike at work, I can really think about things with a little more attention than I can while, say driving.

Who cares, you ask?

You should. Not because I spend my Wednesday or Friday afternoons contemplating black holes, or the existence of higher beings, or why, if there are higher beings, George Bush and his boys do not get sent directly to the 666th layer of Hell. But because you should spend time thinking too. Take some brain cells away from your toilet scrubbing and engine block rebuilding and think about a big issue. Any big issue.

Think about why you are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice.

What was existence like before the Big Bang?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

The answer to the last one is three, so stop wasting your time on that one.

But you must think hard and you must think clearly. If your reasoning ends with "just because," or "because I am a Republican," or "the Bible says so," or "because I want to be a pirate," then you are not trying hard enough. Take some time to better understand why you think the way you do.

If you are so inclined, post your thoughts as comments and share your insight.

Expose your reasoning to the ideas of others.

Only then can you become one with the lawnmower.

Only then can you realize, that it is not the lawn that gets cut, but yourself.

Only then can you realize the truth.

There is no lawnmower.

OK. That sounded so much better in the Matrix.

The lawnmower is running. There is grass to be cut. I named my lawnmower Occam.

Out of Chaos... the Lawnmower...

And out of the chaos
There arose a singularity
A dense, crushing soullessness
An ebony speck on existence

The chaos shuddered before its might
Before its relentlessness
Before its Order
The chaos streamed into the irresistable gravity

And leading the way
Paving the road before this invisible,
Terrible monument to destruction
The lawnmower man...