Muslim, whether you pronounce it correctly or struggle to scoot one of its many ignorant distortions by your ciggie and through the gap between your two “chewin’ teeth” the meaning in the same, people who follow Islam.

Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 10, 2015

Islam, like every religion has many ideas and systems that I strongly disagree with and believe are potentially harmful to peoples development and lives. However, the way I live my life and my beliefs are held in equal disregard by those whom I oppose.  Personally, I am accepting of all cultures, beliefs, ideologies and actions as long as they do not negatively impact on others or myself. I also believe that Islam in particular has many outdated and archaic ideals that make for an unjust society and an overall unpleasant existence for many involved. Ideas like this are not exclusive to Islam, however, based on my limited knowledge it is where they are the most prevalent. This allows a lot more negative attention and onus to be placed on those who do perform negative acts.
This does not mean that all Muslims or even a large number of Muslims support these ideas or govern their lives by them, but they still exist.

The vast majority of Muslims pose no threat to the concept of a free society or the safety of others. However, a small number do. This minority group is like a fat kid shitting in the ball pit of a McDonald’s birthday party, he isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to be doing there but he’s fucking it up for everybody else.

A small number of:
Red haired people are rapists
Asians are serial killers
School teachers are child porn enthusiasts
Chilean miners are methamphetamine addicts
Muslims are dangerous

If you remove the “A small number of” on any of these statements you are left with a lie. Although, some less propagated by the media than others. The majority of the publicity is left with this small minority, as the non-invasive peaceful majority is rarely shown in western culture. Vilfredo Pareto, the influential Italian economist has a theory best suited to situations like this, the 80/20 rule.

The 80/20 rule relates to uneven distribution of commodity within an economy. For example, 20% of Muslims receive 80% of the media attention. The number of Muslims who pose these threats is most likely no where near as high as 20% but the theory still applies. A minority receives the majority of publicity that is the issue.

The purpose of this post is not to defend Muslims but defend people who have done nothing wrong and deserve the same level acceptance as you wish to receive.

If you were offended by anything in this post I apologize profusely that you have to live such a depressing existence.

2,200,000,000 Christians
1,800,000,000 Muslims
1,100,000,000 Atheists
1,000,000,000 Hindus
380,000,000 Buddhists
14,000,000 Jews

Religion is ubiquitous among all cultures on earth and has been for the entirety or recorded history. This concept has puzzled me for as long as I have been exposed to religion as I was raised with barely any presence of it. My Grandfather is very religious and when I was younger we would often go to church for events like Easter or Christmas if he was staying with us, which allowed me to form an opinion from both sides. I had experienced religious practices and observed those invested in them but wasn’t brought up within it.

My impressions of these church services were of confusion and curiosity, I didn’t understand why this man standing up the front of a room telling stories from an ancient book was so important to so many people. After all, nothing was happening, I wasn’t feeling any divine presence with me as I sang the hymns or prayed in unison with other families. I thought I was missing something or I wasn’t doing it right. As I got older I started learning about other religions that I hadn’t been exposed to, such as Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Yet again I was confused by this new information as it only brought more questions that couldn’t be answered:

So Judaism is like Christianity but Jews don’t believe Jesus was the son of God and Christians do but they believe in the same God and share some of the same writings but not all of them but Muslims believe in a completely different God with a different prophet and Hindus have multiple gods  and they put dots on their heads and Sikhs wear turbans and aren’t allowed to cut their hair…

It was an information overload that I couldn’t wrap my head around.

Who was right? Which religion had figured it out and which hadn’t? How do people decide which one to follow? Is it just what you’re raised into? If everybody thinks they’re right how can you tell who really is?

All these questions completely turned me off from the idea of religion, I never took anything religious seriously and was entirely switched off to the idea of it becoming part of my life. I have never liked the idea of one’s life being governed by a predetermined set of rules with no explanation or deliberation.

As Atheism increased in cultural popularity, the idea of religion being an archaic people management programming structure began to dawn on me. For a long time I referred to myself as an Atheist and had strong opinions regarding the negative effects of religion on society that I would often express openly. However what also dawned on me was that I had become what I was against, I had become somebody who pushes their ideas onto others (often aggressively) and restricts themselves to  being able to follow a single set ideology. I knew I was right and everybody else was wrong, this was exactly what I was trying to avoid. Much like when I was at church as a child with no prior investment in any religion, I was now able to take an outside look at Atheism and see it for what it really was, a religion. It’s not a conventional religion by any means but still very much a religion.

To many followers of Atheism, the idea of a deity has been replaced with science. Now I’m a pretty big fan of science but I don’t claim to understand almost any aspect fully, though I tend to fall into the trap that many do of taking somebody in a position of authority’s word for it. Can I prove the existence of cosmic background radiation? No but I can read about it in some guys book. Can I prove some 900 yearold guy gathered one of every animal on earth and put them on a boat so God could start a new game? No but I can read about it in some guys book. Granted the science guys book tends to have the story a bit more fleshed out but how many people are aggressively regurgitating these ideas in opposition to somebody else without actually reading or understanding the information. The point I’m trying to make is that a group of people who’s main objective is to put an end to the blind following of ideas do an awful lot of it themselves.

At my current stage in life, if somebody asks if I am religious or atheist I offer the analogy that “OFF” is not a station on a TV.

Thanks Bill, couldn’t have said it better myself.

A segment of Bill Hick’s 1993 comedy special “revelations”

With the current state of technology being as accessible and ingrained in everyday life as it is, it only makes sense for commercial corporations to attempt to exploit it in order make as much money as they can, after all, that’s their goal right?

Google hosts a service called AdSense. AdSense allows website publishers to include ads on their pages that have a distinct relationship to the content of the site. Money is awarded to the publisher based on how many clicks an ad receives. In theory the ads should receive a lot more traffic because they are related to the sites content, meaning they will be more likely to interest visitors. This method of advertising is fairly non invasive as it does not use your own personal information in order to tailor which ads you will be presented with but rather the information provided by the website’s publisher. AdSense can be beneficial to both users and creators as the ads may be helpful to users as leading to more clicks and income for creators.

Good Guy Greg

Amazon.com uses a method that tracks what customers who purchased an item also purchased and suggests those products to consumers who are viewing the same item. This provides customers with useful recommendations for items they may genuinely be interested in but were previously unaware of as well as generating further sales for Amazon. This may also lead to a rabbit-hole-like effect where customers are recommended more and more products as they continue to purchase them.

Chris Anderson explains an effect born through the use of these recommendations known as The Long Tail. With the example of Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void‘s resurgence in popularity after over a decade of being relatively unknown. This was due to the release of Joe Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and subsequent recommendations of Touching the Void by Amazon. This shows that it is possible to be profitable by selling small amounts of seemingly obscure items as opposed to the “hit culture” of selling large quantities of extremely popular items in bursts.

However some methods of internet marketing are drawing a fine line between advertising and invasion of privacy. Facebook for example, collects and stores information related to what you have searched for, viewed and even discussed privately with other users. They use this information to go a step further from the AdSense model and target their ads specifically to the users behavior rather than just in relation to the websites content. This poses many concerns regarding information security and privacy, as what is essentially a unique profile is created for you with the use of stored personal information. This is known as behavioral targeting.

Google = Illuminati Confirmed

Personally I am not concerned with this information being stored as I am currently unaffected by it. However, who knows what the future holds for my precious information. It may one day be used to create an exact robotic replica of myself, crushing my anemic body swiftly and beyond recognition in order to assume my role in society with my friends and family none the wiser. Until then, AdBlock will suffice.

An artist’s interpretation of the collective consciousness Courtesy: http://thegreaterpicture.com/

Communication and collaboration are two of the main driving forces in our progression as a race. Civilizations come and go but many of their achievements and discoveries are passed on to future civilizations through their written documentation. For example, Isaac Newton’s work  in mathematics and physics have shaped how they work today.
Nearly 300 years after his death he is still credited and revered as the father of modern physics, his intense documentation and the widespread publication of his work created the building blocks that facilitate modern physicists’ work.

Isaac Newton ponders a falling apple, eventually leading to his discovery of gravity Courtesy: http://www.pixshark.com 

The point I am trying to make is that it is not just one person working alone to advance our collective knowledge bank, but countless generations picking up from when the last left off. This assembly line if you will, is entirely made possibly efficient through the written word, writing facilitates learning and absorption of this information so that is can be continually contributed to and corrected.  As information becomes more accessible and available in different mediums through means such as the internet, film, TV, radio etc. this process exponentially increases in both effectiveness and efficiency.

Writing is a technology for the collective memory.
– Jay David Bolter

Jay David Bolter’s Writing Space raises the concept of the economies of writing present in various historical cultures. As further resources became available through advances in technology and awareness, these cultures began to harness the efficiency potential of the written word. As these technologies advanced from literal imagery to phonetic constructs, more meaning and information was able to be communicated with greater efficiently, leading to faster progress as a civilization. This method of writing also allows information to be translated from one language to another. One of the most important instances of this is the discovery of the Rosetta stone which allowed scholars an interpretation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs as the information on the stone was also present in Greek script.

The Rosetta stone on display in the British Museum Courtesy: http://www.edukwest.com

However some issues arise from the written word, mainly concerning validity and misinformation. Writing often presents the material without any information regarding possible personal biases the writer may have been operating under. For example, Adolf Hitler’s infamous work Mein Kampf (My Struggle) outlining his political and social ideology, was strongly motivated by many factors that shaped Hitler’s personal distaste for Judaism and the current state of Germany. Hitler was able to use the success of his work as a political platform to garner widespread support on a massive scale. In hindsight, the following Hitler received behind such heinous actions and ideas is seemingly impossible, though is a testament to the effectiveness of the written word as a means of influencing.

6,000,000 Jews

3,000,000 Soviet prisoners of war

2,000,000 Soviet civilians

1,000,000 Polish civilians

1,000,000 Yugoslav civilians

70,000 physically and mentally disabled

200,000 Gypsies

The Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think raises the idea that”For years inventions have extended man’s physical powers rather than the powers of his mind.” I agree with this idea in the sense that what is required of somebody to perform various tasks such as gathering information through research is becoming progressively easier as the technologies become more accessible. For example with the wealth of information at our finger tips as a result of the widespread accessibility of the internet, there is less of a need to actually know and have learned information.

I don’t believe that technology makes people stupid, although it does create a culture where knowledge itself is less valued as it is so readily available via external sources. If you want to know who starred in Seven Samurai, instead of taking the opportunity to exercise your neural synapses, you simply google it, instantly being presented with all relevant information.

An example of the reputable information freely available on the internet

Formal training or mastery are no longer necessary for many practices to which they were once essential. For the first time historically any information is freely available to be accessed at the requestors connivence, free from structured learning or commitment. This means that anybody who is willing and able can learn a trade for example, or a musical instrument, these skills were previously only available through formal avenues of education.

An example of readily available publicly created learning resources.

This idea of self teaching has both positives and negatives, for example widely available information leads to a more intelligent populous, however those who are free to gather information are also free to provide it, this may lead to misinformation being passed on in a broad scale as non accredited sources may be perceived as entirely factual.

A very real quote from Abraham Lincoln Courtesy: http://www.blakemore-noble.net/