Free Will of Life

We presently live in an era where everyone pretty much adheres to a self-inflicted notion of positive free will. This only means that he is willing to make himself  party to a social contract provided he exercises his free will positively. This is as opposed to negative application of free will. What is positive and what is negative will always be defined by the zeitgeist of the present civilization he inhabits. Our contemporary one is, by a vast majority, leaning towards profit of the capital economy. The trickle down apparatus which has bottlenecks at nefarious points. This apparatus is chugging along with an ever changing rocky planet who is balding at the poles.

Nothing is constant, everything...

Theological doctrines bring about the conundrum of a deity with before-hand knowledge of the person's impending choice and action, utilizing his free will. Some ideologies walk out of this impasse by proclaiming that divine and earthly knowledge are incomparable. Omniscience takes over. It is presumed that human minds will never be able to grasp what this 'Godly knowledge' entails. It can never be expressed in human languages or thoughts.

The solution is found by breaking apart the concept of human time. God is able to experience every moment at the same time. He is in the Eternal Now.

My view is that since it is already considered that God's knowledge can never be expressed through human languages, this also applies to his attributes and descriptions. God can never reside in a word, only thoughts.

Overly Attached Surveillance

With terrorism rearing its ugly head in a hydra-like frenzy where even after you cut off the core, the affiliate cells only begin to grow stronger, it is only natural for the super-power of the world to eavesdrop on global communications in order to track possible attacks. This my friend, is the beginning of the end to privacy. The shockingly pervasive monitoring of global data communications by NSA has the world up in arms and as internel organizations met in Uruguay, they expressed desire to free themselves from North America's stranglehold on personal communications data from around the world.

It is true that religious extremism has a vice like grip on impressionable as well as mature but misdirected individuals who hang on to every word and heavenly plan dictated by their clergy. It is always interesting to note that these leaders never actually take part in the final part of this plan which regularly involves killing themselves along with ordinary, innocent civilians who were going about their day. These so called leaders marry numerous wives and consort with even further number of concubines while sending off indoctrinated soldiers to their imminent martyrdom, all the while promising bliss in after life. If this afterlife is infact so blissful as they claim, then what in heaven's name are the clergy and leaders doing on this plane of existence. Aren't they supposed to bid farewell and join up with their God, ASAP?

The point is that extremist indoctrination is going on in full swing and this has lead to NSA's pervasive monitoring of the Internet. We are now in a permanent oscillation between chaos and control. The terrorists resort to sophisticated communications which include user-created Arabic chatrooms, hiding inside hardcore pornography websites where you won't be noticed that much. They even just leave messages in draft boxes and share the password so that there is no transmission which the NSA can intercept. Apparently, the well-connected cells have no trouble with funding. Even Osama bin Laden was a construction magnate who was immensely rich. There has been speculation about what was the intended outcome of the decimation of World Trade Centre. According to Osama's knowledge in construction, they had set out to collapse all the floors above the point of impact. But when in fact the entire building collapsed, it was just a bonus to these nihilo-anarchists masquerading as fundamental extremists.

It is in order to deter these kinds of attacks in the future that the whole of our Internet is being monitored. We are truly at the end of our privacy era. The future awaiting us is where every global citizen is a potential terrorist unless proved otherwise. The lower you travel down the societal strata, the higher the chance of citizens resorting to nihilo-anarchist tendencies. It is the neverending battle between the haves and the have-nots!

Coming back to the topic at hand, NSA has struck a collective nerve on the global internet body with its all out assault on privacy and unauthorised data collection. The rest of the world wants to remove themselves from the North American internet but is this even possible. The various internet organisations that met up included the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and the Internet Society. How can the world ever free itself from North American internet when ICANN and other important internet organisations are US based? The internet in its present form is truly a North American product, designed, developed and maintained by the superpower. The rest of the world are just tourists when compared to their hegemony over global internet administration.

What the world is gearing towards is a division of internet over nation-state boundaries. It  already exists in China and the Middle East. Political leaders will espouse privacy of citizen as the concern to introduce this division, but it has the benefit of control as well. This a dangerous development if implemented in coming decades as several democracies have a skewed understanding of legal and moral issues. This is even more magnified when extruded to the virtual world. In India, corruption and bribery by political leaders are envisioned  to be of negligible consequence by fellow lawmakers while it is considered to be productive to withhold national tax money in offshore havens. On the other hand civilians are put under arrest for sedition, when in fact all that was committed is a cartoon drawn, or an article written.

The formation of this nation-state internet on a widespread global scale seems further down the line though. As of now, the infrastructure only allows the entire world to be at the mercy of their North American superpower till Internet organisations are built with a global partnership, unlike the limp United Nations where only the few have their say.

What does He look like?

There are several threads running on Quora pertaining to the Universal God's physical attributes, or as in layman's terms, what does he look like? The following image has been predominantly present in these kinds of threads.

The reason that this image encapsulates God is probably the placement of the 3-dimensional cube implying that God himself is extra-dimensional. This is all speculation of course.

Where I find the human psyche to be the culprit for creation of deities is when they start to run along with these mighty speculation enforcing these beliefs on their neighbours.

Doubt is an overlooked quality in human beings. The very fact that you doubt the existence of an extra-dimensional being controlling your fate makes you an infidel. And being a non-believer makes you exclusive. There are several avenues in societal structuring where this exclusiveness will rear its ugly head.

Fear and Panic at Ratangarh

The tragedy unfolded over a bridge plying across Sindh river which was already engorged after the rain. About 20,000 people populated the 400 metre bridge, but many were unaware that they wouldn't make it to the other side. Pilgrims had gathered to take part in Navratri festival which was being celebrated all across the country. The prologue to the episode was setup earlier when pilgrims suspected that this bridge at Ratangarh temple in Madhya Pradesh, India, was about to collapse after a collision broke off some railings which spurred rumours regarding its imminent demise.

As the 20,000 were crossing it, the mob mentality clicked hard and everyone began to panic that the bridge was collapsing. I'm guessing it was started off by some kind of audible creaks of those broken railings. As with any kind of mob, the reactions spread thick and fast even prompting the police to react negatively with their lathis trying to beat the panicked crowd into submission. This only aggravated the situation.

People jumped off the bridge into the river as well, while the majority deaths occured by pilgrims getting stampeded.

115 fatalities have been confirmed and it may rise as many of the injured pilgrims are still languishing in hospital beds with varying levels of injury.

It's a pity.

This bridge is no strange bedfellow to misery as 50 pilgrims were swept off to Patala when they jumped off the bridge in 2006 while avoiding being crushed in a similar stampede.

Third world civilzation puts an onus on its citizens to become statistics rather than human beings.

Daily Wine - DextraComm

Well, today's post is a shameless plug for my freelance services which includes Content Creation and Search Engine Optimization services.

I kind of started out in SEO and then realized that you need content that is optimum for reader interaction in order to have successfully higher ranked search listings. This is why I later then branched out into writing. But as time went on, I began realising that writing is far more enjoyable than just tending to technical rules to get your website reach front pages of search engine results.

Dextra Scribes & Communications was created with this objective of providing quality service for varying requirements.

You can find DextraComm listed on Elance here and avail of its services:  https://www.elance.com/s/dextracommunications

For philosophy oriented tweets and shout-outs on true think-pieces as well as fun stuff, don't forget to follow DextraComm on Twitter here-> http://twitter.com/dextracomm

If you're a FB lurker or heavy user, you can keep track of latest happenings, or get motivational posts as well as the most recent memes by liking DextraComm on Facebook here-> http://facebook.com/dextracommunications

Catch you guys on the flipside!

Selective Care - Indian Nanny State

When you have nation-state containers, which are modern counterparts to ancient empires, with a myriad strata of population to control, you can be sure that this state will undertake the role of a nanny watching over its human resource occasionally prescribing legitimate and illegitimate behaviours.

Today's case in point: warning against the usage of tobacco that is being plastered all over television and all forms of video presentation. The state is pushing film-makers to a scenario where it would be cumbersome to include scenes of cigarette smoking in their productions to avoid government mandated notifications which indubitably takes away the immersion of viewing these feature presentations.

Here is a summary of the various requirements put forward to comply by tobacco companies as well.

I am not a shill for any tobacco company and I certainly do condone smoking, especially if you're blowing the smoke into someone else's face. But beyond that I consider it an individual's freedom to smoke or not to smoke.

What has happened after  a 2011 amendment is that every channel being received on televisions across the Indian sub-continent is saturated withantismoking messages before, during, and after most broadcasts. Movie makers are increasingly affixing anti-smoking  infomercials before the start of their movies. One might even venture to think if we're all going a bit overboard with this.

What irks me is the fact that the most deaths in India are attributed to traffic accidents which happen on public roads. People who embark on a journey just like any other day are cut down. Reported accidents are mourned for a day and then forgotten. Traffic laws aren't enforced. People drive on whatever part of the road that they feel like. Pedestrians walking across zebra crossings are considered fair game by motorists. The underlying logic is that if one person slows down for these pedestrians, then he'll get rammed by the rushing motorist following behind him who refuses to slow down no matter what.

Coupled with this is the fact that all these movies and television shows with anti-smoking banners also portray rash driving and improper traffic etiquette. Why are there no warnings regarding this aspect of life?

This nanny state decides to protect citizens selectively, while alternately ignoring all other, or even the major cause to loss of life in India. More importantly how much screen space will be left to be viewed after banners pop up against smoking, drinking, rash driving, stalking, and rape?

The Collective

On a planet of 7 billion and more human beings, individuality gives rise to chaos. Persons are easily identifiable and controllable when grouped into collectives. These collectives might be macronations or micronations. Obedience to authority is inculcated at a young age. Adherence to rationality is to be encouraged at all costs but stratification of societal layers always leads to segregation.

This predominantly economically  segregated collective is grouped into a large nation-state narrative where each individual is mandatorily expected to be proud of being included. Freedom of will is touted as the de-facto quality of a human being but you find that these free-willed entities are being spoon-fed manufactured enthusiasm for pre-ordained practices and approved conventions.

Can you ever be truly free?

Introspection leaves you in the lurch where you'll be stuck in purgatory, hanging above collectives with no  place to go. Humans have always been social creatures with equal participation for maximum productivity and exploration. But certain micro-societies ingrain themselves in fundamental structures found in administration with a stranglehold over resources. In fact, these individuals or 'convenient collectives' then proceed to group the remnant population into Human Resource.

No matter what, you will be managed!

Atheist Etiquette

stanleycolors.com

I've recently come to a realization that it might work against you socially, if you ever admit that you're indeed a vehemently gnostic atheist. I've personally made this mistake while interacting with a former priest. You see, the problem lies in the fact that with this revelation, if you do choose to divulge, is a total antonym to a believer's sense and purpose of life.

With one comment, you're implying that his/her faith is imaginary, intangible, inconsequential, and arbitrary. Human beings are selfish and possessive when it comes to their ideas and beliefs just as with their material owning. And the only way that you can take away these beliefs held so dearly to their heart is by stating that these are all fairy-tale musings, entirely flimsy.

I'm beginning to realise that this flimsy reality is created out of choice and inability to comprehend the purpose of their existence. Clinging on to reasons which are just manufactured thought patterns that are taught to young ones and disseminated one generation at a time.

You have the freedom to think for yourself, but what I'm saying is that you should reign it in and lean towards describing yourself as an Agnostic Atheist whenever an opportunity presents itself to spell out your ideology of belief, or non-belief in this case.

Aarushi-Hemraj Murder : Shoddy Investigation

The infamous double murder that shook entire nation of India is yet again a prime example of incompetence and social projection. Investigators have been dillying and dallying from day one which has finally culminated in a scenario where the parents of the 13 year old victim, Aarushi Talwar, have been convicted of the crime way before the court has pronounced verdict.

Tehelka has put out a poignant piece on the progress of this sensational murder case. Most important section of that article is the following paragraph:

The aides, on the other hand, particularly Krishna and Rajkumar, showed deception in their lie detector tests. Even more crucially, their narco tests pointed to their involvement in the crime. They admitted to their presence in the house that night, described the sequence of the crime, the murder weapon, and how Aarushi and Hemraj’s phones were disposed of. Arun Kumar, the head of the CBI team investigating the murder, held a press conference on 11 July 2008, sharing cautious details of these tests with the media.

These 'aides' refer to friends of Hemraj, the second victim, and domestic help to the Talwars, whose dead body was found lying on the terrace. These aides were domestic help to a neighbour and another was employed by a friend of the Talwars. They were familiar with murder scene environment.

As the second CBI team took over, they let their incompetence shine forth by letting the leads of this investigation implicating these aides to go cold. Instead they resorted to convenient conjecture implicating the parents. This is the part where social projection comes into the picture. These investigating inspectors and judges presiding over this case begin to project certain evil characteristcs upon the parents. This happens because the suspects and the invigilators belong to different sections of the society in most cases, as elsewhere in India. They begin to imagine the suspects to be of heinous capability, while downplaying incompetence on their own part.

Best Monologues I - 25th Hour

No, Fuck You
written by David Benioff, from his novel

(Monty walks into the bathroom. He looks in the mirror. In the bottom corner, someone's written Fuck You!)

Monty: Yeah, fuck you, too.

Monty's Reflection: Fuck me? Fuck you! Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it.

Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back.

Fuck squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a fucking job!

Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores and stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. Slow the fuck down!

Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35.

Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English?

Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin' and dealin' and schemin'. Go back where you fucking came from!

Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds!

Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gecko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for fucking life! You think Bush and Cheney didn't know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Imclone! Adelphia! Worldcom!

Fuck the Puerto Ricans. 20 to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin' parade in the city. And don't even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, because they make the Puerto Ricans look good.

Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, and their St. Anthony medallions. Swinging their, Jason Giambi, Louisville slugger, baseball bats, trying to audition for the Sopranos.

Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermés scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You're not fooling anybody, sweetheart!

Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don't want to play defense, they take fives steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the fuck on!

Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust!

Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child's pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you're at it, fuck JC! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin Otisville, Jay!

Fuck Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and backward-ass, cave-dwelling, fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fueled fire in hell. You towel headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal, Irish ass!

Fuck Jacob Elinski, whining malcontent.

Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery, my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend's ass.

Fuck Naturel Rivera. I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back. Sold me up the river. Fucking bitch.

Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar. Sipping on club soda, selling whiskey to firemen and cheering the Bronx Bombers.

Fuck this whole city and everyone in it. From the row houses of Astoria to the penthouses on Park Avenue. From the projects in the Bronx to the lofts in Soho. From the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park slope to the split levels in Staten Island. Let an earthquake crumble it. Let the fires rage. Let it burn to fuckin ash then let the waters rise and submerge this whole, rat-infested place.

Monty: No. No, fuck you, Montgomery Brogan. You had it all and then you threw it away, you dumb fuck!

(He takes a breath and tries to rub away the words.)