Fear and Money

There is a war in Iraq. Everyone in the United States knows this (at least I hope they do). The American public was convinced that this war would help keep us safe from terrorism. Lies were told, money changed hands, and lives were lost. That's how war works. But there are a few things that I think need talking about. If you have an enemy that you can't wipe out, due to the nature of the enemy, then maybe you shouldn't piss them off. Do people really believe that "Terrorists" are a specific group, and that they can be eliminated without making the bystanders hate us just as much? Are people really afraid that at any moment our country will be attacked and our lives will be destroyed, and that it is worth destroying entire countries to prevent this? If so, then by all means, stay this course.

The attacks of September eleventh were the worst attacks on US soil since pearl harbor. 3,000 people died as a result of the September eleventh attacks, and as a result of the war in Iraq, over 4,000 US military service members have died, and, depending on who you ask, a lot of enemy combatants, and even more civilians. I am not a military strategist, but what I see is one of the most powerful countries in the world tossing lives aside under the pretense of preventing deaths.

If the US government can afford such an expensive war, whatever the reason, why can they not afford to help their own society? There are two types of people who are afraid of communism: The rich and ignorant. That's not to say there aren't plenty of other people who don't think that communism is a great system, but I don't think they fear it. If we can help fix starvation, poverty, and resource shortage, does it really matter what system we use? I'm not saying the ends justify the means in all cases, I'm simply saying that money spend on death could be better used on life, to the benefit of all.

The monetary cost of this premeditated, preemptive act of violence, intended to somehow "create peace" out of an already antagonistic relationship, is now in excess of five-hundred billion dollars. Almost thirty-six million Americans are living below the poverty line, and the estimated total credit card debt of Americans is sixty billion dollars. The amount of money spent on the Iraq war could (at least temporarily) bring every American family out of poverty and repay every American's credit card debt.

This isn't some kind of in depth analysis, it's not the opinion of an economic analyst, but it is a simple question: To the American people, is attempting to delay a possible terrorist attack more important than poverty in our own country?

Commercialization of Food

At work today, as I was unloading the truck that comes twice a week to restock the store, I was struck by the fact that twenty-four of the items on that we received were cases of happy-meal toys and the correspondingly themed happy-meal boxes. Usually we receive maybe two to four cases of toys, and several packages of generic happy-meal bags. However, In the interest of making more money for everyone (and by everyone I mean our parent companies), it is deemed necessary that we lavish ourselves in Kung-Foo Panda decor and provide hundreds of toys and themed product packaging.

McDonald's isn't a toy store, it's a junk food chain, that serves pretty tasty food pretty fast for a pretty good price. Not content with filling that niche, they make deals with the entertainment industry so that children, excited about an upcoming movie, will want all the toys that come with fast food. It's great advertising for both sides, as anyone visiting a McDonald's during a children's film release will be bombarded by advertisements and merchandise for the film.

I don't really have a big problem with this, but it strikes me as kind of sad that it works so well. That children are so enthralled by junk food and whatever the newest animated film to hit theaters is. There is nothing wrong with child happily playing with a new toy, or they way their face lights up to see an exciting movie, but I feel that the pace of this pop culture bombardment encourages children to jump blindly to the next toy or film. It's hard to put my finger on it, it's just something in my gut telling me that what is happening is more like shoving toys and food and movies at children, rather than making a gift of it. It's like how getting an invite to a free trial of something is kind of cool, but when your inbox is overflowing with invites to every possible crap, what is a gift in moderation becomes spam. I feel like the media is shouting "And now for a limited time only!: You can have more fun, all you have to do is drop what you're doing and pay just a little more money! This is one decision you WON'T regret!"

Like I said, It's not really something I'm angry about, responsible people will survive this (we survived telemarketers, after all), it's just something I noticed.

thought for tomorrow: I can't believe Speed Racer tanked, it was one of my favorite films to come out in the last few years.

The dumbest thing since sliced bread

Well not actually, but the phrase is relevant. I was stumbling around on stumbleupon and found this site, where I was struck by the silliness of someone patenting sliced bread. First of all, bread has been around for millennia, so slicing it shouldn't have taken that long, and it sounded like a simple thing to patent, add to that the fact that the man who patented with a jeweler with a Jewish sounding name just sounded completely implausible.

Immediately doubting the credibility of the page, I hopped over to wikipedia to look up sliced bread. Sure enough, it had been patented by that guy, however, the specific detail of being machine sliced pretty much explained why Caesar didn't have "sliced bread". But then I saw something interesting. Sliced bread was first commercially manufactured in 1928 (according to the manufacturer, not exactly the most reliable of sources), but in 1943, sliced bread was banned by the US government. Here is the section of the wikipedia article if you want to look into it more yourself, but the gist of it was, with the war and all, the cost of flour was going up and sliced bread would dry out easier so it needed heavier wrappings, and this could unbalance the economy or something ridiculous. So they banned sliced bread. This ban lasted only a few months, from January 18th, to march 8th of the same year. It turned out that the economy could probably handle sliced bread.

This served as a little reminder to me that, not only is the government fully capable of moronic decisions now, but past governments have made their fair share of dumb decisions as well. It's not like there was really a good old days where politicians weren't retarded. Just remember, next time you think something is the greatest thing since sliced bread, sliced bread was once illegal.

thought for tomorrow: banning cigarettes sounds downright sane compared to that.

Strive for human improvement validated by Rock Band

Last night I was watching my friend play rock band, and I was thinking about how amazing music is. Created by people willing to learn the skills to operate their fingers individually in abstract patterns to create the sounds they desire. Modern stringed instruments, such as the guitar, have ancestries that can be traced back to the ancient Romans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar#History). I got to thinking about how long humans have been making music and how the devices with which to make music have evolved over thousands of years.

The idea that prehistoric man discovered that making sounds could be fun, and that this knowledge persisted strongly enough and was important enough that people not only learned how to make music with what they had, but tried to improve their music making tools. Today we have awe inspiring orchestras and heart pounding, head banging rock and roll, because for thousands of years, mankind has been striving to improve and alter the ways in which we can make sound.

To me this simple everyday fact is a monument against slacking off. It is a testament to falsehood that greed controls everything. Sure, money makes the world go 'round, but people can always work to slowly change the face of that world. The world keeps turning, but tomorrows world doesn't have to be the same.

Thought for tomorrow: Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero aren't just games, they are celebrations of culture.

Breaking out onto the interwebs (all of them!)

I've decided that I want people to read my bitching, so that they can bitch back and maybe we can get some ideas flowing. That's why I'm going to take steps to actually attract some readers, the first of which being the claiming of this blog on Technorati.com.

Technorati Profile

freedumb

So maybe it's not easy to get rid of selfish greed, but here's the flip side of the coin: Some people care so much about what other people are doing, it's completely ridiculous. In the US, the banning, taxation, and advertising against the smoking of cigarettes has become huge. The fact that there are announcements on television criticizing tobacco companies for existing is ludicrous. In this land where cash is king, someone paid money to tell me that smoking shouldn't exist. Why? because they don't like it. Oftentimes when you try to bring this up with a nonsmoker they will just say "Oh well it's to protect us from second hand smoke, and it smells bad." Okay, I understand why you wouldn't want to be around cigarette smoke, but get this, maybe if you weren't a dick about it, people would give you your space and you could give them theirs. How did people forget about prohibition so fast? Back when it was arbitrarily decided that no one should drink because it was bad? That turned out so well. I bet if we try the same thing with smoking America will be a happier place. Might as well try it with homosexuals too, I'm sure pissing off all the gays will make this a better place. What are people afraid of, second-hand gay? You can't wave a flag and say "let freedom ring," unless you tag on at the end "unless you do something I don't like even though it doesn't really effect me."

The freedom to do only safe, healthy things is no freedom.

thought for tomorrow: I'd be more worried about second hand car exhaust

Unacceptable.

Money has been around forever. Currency with a universal value is a necessity to the economy of any society with a large population or significantly long trade routes. What I don't understand is when people decided it was acceptable for greed to become a lifestyle. To pursue profit directly, rather than survival or comfort. To seek to obtain money in vast amounts simply as potential to buy comfort. Why is it considered okay to seek personal profit at the expense of other people survival?

People have been exploited for profit for as long as there have been people, but it's often been considered wrong. Thieves have been shunned, conquerors have been judged by net improvement of the conquered area. Cheap laborers have always been exploited, but in this modern world, in the information age, when who is being exploited and how is almost common knowledge, why does it persist? Why is it okay to ignore what would be a "fair" exchange for services and instead simply charge as much as you can get away with? Why are the exploited masses so passive, even in the richest countries in the world?

The modern information flow is so thick, shouldn't we be able to envision a system where everyone can just get along? Here is am example that I'm sure a lot of people in the US can relate to: Text Messaging. It costs a fortune. Without regular plan, it usually costs 10-20 cents per message sent OR received. Compare that to the cost of an entire minute of conversation. The amount of data transmission for a text message is insignificant compared to real-time two way audio transmission. And yet throughout the industry, consumer is charged significantly more for a small amount of data just because they can be.

Historically, the cost of sending a telegraph was extremely high because of the lack of sophisticated automation, limited telegraph lines, and expensive telegraph machines. Text messaging is a completely automated system, often more convenient than a phone call, and with much lower tolerances for delay. A ten second delay between sending a text message and it being received is insignificant, but the same delay during a phone call makes conversation extremely difficult, and yet we pay more for the easier, simpler, more convenient for everyone service. Could the phone companies, who existed and succeeded for so long without text messaging really not survive without gouging their customers? Couldn't a balance be reached where they would respect out patronage and we would respect the cost of their services?

thought for tomorrow: I need more than 250 txts a month