Opioid Epidemic Cultural Breakdown

i just read such a beautiful interview on NPR about opioids

the guy FUCKING laid it out

in an era where machines are threatening the dignity of the "working man"

he loses an aspect of meaning, but also religion is gone now too, so he can't fill the void with that either

oxycontin actually serves as an instant replacement for oxytocin, which is the neurotrans. released when you get social acknowledgement like sex, being rewarded for work, or partaking in communal spirituality

furthermore, technological age of screens encourages us to get "lost in our own worlds" at the screen rather than going out and interacting

so staying home in ur own world using oxycontin is a natural consequence of undignified labor + expired religions + screens

a couple of other things, 1. you can trace this correlation starting from the AIDS movement where patient autonomy was encouraged, aka fight for your treatment as a patient regardless of what doctor says, to now. This patient autonomy is part of why patients are so adamantly demanding these drugs.

2. this is hitting men much harder than women. part of this is because men have been traditionally getting their prestige and meaning from manual work, which is now gone, and also that being a man is sort of irrelevant in this social progressive period where the woman is being redefined in a fruitful way.

so all of this together just leads to people demanding drugs to ease pain, but then sinking into this world of meaninglessness and loneliness that can only be nurtured by oxycontin.

tldr: opoid epidemic is less of a physical/economic issue and much more of a spiritual, psychological, and existential issue.

you can also see this in the surge in weed and meditation in culture

people are desperately trying to fill this void

you can't just view humans as economic agents, they will lose meaning and destroy themselves

you need a system which views them as complex, psychological, emotional etc beings

we need a new religion etc

it was such a good interview, best one ive heard in a while, here is the original article:

https://medium.com/new-york-magazine/the-poison-we-pick-261d062e6938

7 mins

Sartrean Solution to Consumerism: Consume Nothingness

General Summary: We can’t help but have an impulse to consume in our modern society, so the solution is not to avoid consuming, but to consume nothingness (i.e. your relaxing breath). this parallels sartre who sort of said, we can’t help but asking “what is consciousness” in our ego-based society, so the solution is not to avoid talking about it, but to just call it “a pool of nothingness in the brain” that sucks everything in.
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We are trapped in layers of consumerism. In one sense, we can resist temptations--eating, smoking, masturbation, etc to rebel against consumerism. But we still lose here, as the entire Western society we are situated in is framed in terms of consumerism, so you will constantly find yourself in jail. Every directive and norm is telling you to consume, and you have to pass constantly. This is not solving the problem, but rather imprisoning yourself to it.

Sartre found himself in the same situation in the 20th century--we were still trapped in Descarte's formulation of the cogito--unable to formulate our relationship to the world without conceiving of our "selves," our discrete "consciousness," which necessarily separates us from the world. Even if you say things like "my consciousness is connected deeply with the world" or "we are all one!" you still lose in the same way as consumerism above, because the cogito, whether formulated as "consciousness," heideggarian dasein, kantian transcendental subject, etc, is still the individualist separatist framework within which you are operating.

So Sartre devised an ingenious solution--let us not rebel against the framework we irresistably operate in, but rather invert it with nothingess. He defined consciousness as "a pool of nothingness in the brain," a sort of vacuum that is always sucking in everything. In this formulation, you submit to the cogito, but also transcend it, as now consciousness is always OF something, and if it is not filling itself with SOMETHING in the world, then it is--literally--nothing.

I stumbled upon a solution to consumerism that I found strikingly similar to this. If I meditate immediately for 10 minutes upon waking up in the morning, focusing on my breath and watching the dreams go around in my surface-dreaming mind, without falling asleep, my breath becomes an exceptionally calming force throughout the rest of the day, almost like a drug. It is as if doing breathing exercises in the morning while my brain is still on drugs forges a connection between breathing and hallucinating that MILDLY maintains itself throughout the rest of the day. Here, any time I felt a consumptive impulse, I would simply breath, and it would have this neurally calming effect, similar to that of a drug. And in this case, I could consume, consume, consume all I wanted, eating nothingness all day, but oddly escaping the paradigm of consumerism from within it.

Do not rebel against your framework--invert it with nothingness.

"Man would rather consume nothingness than not consume at all"

Climate Change Skepticism as an Opportunity for Cultural Shift

had a meditation this morning

was thinking, climate change skepticism is actually a really good opportunity for science, and global culture at large, to make a marked distinction between the truth and technical-sounding jargon

right now they are viewed as one in the same by most laypeople

thats why an argument for global warming and an argument for why the earth is flat are equally compelling to laypeople

its just a bunch of exclusive technical jargon, and that is one of the issues in truth-revealing practices such as science...it is one of the most rigorous and reliable, yet also one of the most exclusive...accessibility was never a focus, and that's led to a national crisis

one solution is education, yeah

but i wonder if there is something else, where we can finally change the language to not be as exclusive and make truths more self-evident

perhaps blockchain?

Some Scattered Thoughts on Season 2 Episode 4 of Black Mirror

I would write this into a cohesive post but am in a bit of a crunch, so hopefully these can serve as helpful notes for someone who would like to write a thoughtpiece on this. Feel free to take, just happy to get these ideas out. I bolded the parts in particular that I thought could be nice aphorisms from the episode:



I saw ep 4 of black mirror, a truly beautiful revealing of the importance of death in the human story. with a presentist mode of existence, and the important characteristic ability that we have to "forget" (a la Nietzsche), would we really want to keep going, if we had the chance? easy to say yes now, hard to know what you'd say then.
this was the first good episode this season for me,
the importance of life's ephemeral glow.
her decision to stay with the girl into eternity was so much more heartbreaking than the option to die and preserve the meaning she lived
cheating death does not evade nothingness, if anything, it emphasizes it
sartre would have loved that episode
we live with this paradoxical yearning to both escape death and experience a type of meaning that transcends life. this episode sort of demonstrates that we can't have both, in a really beautiful way.
singularity is bullshit, technology can't "solve" existentialism.

Conversation with a friend:
i had to like, think for a while just to reconcile the emotional disturbance it left me with
thats a sign of a good ep

yeah
It's so creative, even as a premise, then to build that world, build the characters so that we care about them, and then introduce a conflict and meaningful resolution
All in 90 mins

Yes! How could they do so much in so little time!
High maintenance also is good at this in its own way
Like you know so much about everyone so quickly, from so little

Character driven plot development

But this black mirror had this kubrick-esque quality
Where even at the end, during the supposedly happy ending, you can't help but feel there is something deeply disturbing about all this when you're looking at those circulating lights at the very end
Similar type of discomfort u get during the outro to 2001 odyssey

Just like, not readily explainable, but you know there's something

This is what Heidegger called "working art"

Hermit

Changed my life.
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201409/the-last-true-hermit?src=longreads&printable=true

Future Science

Automated Professors
http://narrativescience.com/artificial-intelligence-platform/

Open-Source Science
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5632760
http://www.openscienceframework.org/

Automated/Centralized Experimental Infrastructure
https://www.transcriptic.com/

http://www.synthego.com/

Drugs and the Meaning of Life

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/

Extremely moving and persuasive passage on drugs and the way they should be treated in modern culture.

Synchronicity

Some wiki excerpts on this beautiful concept.  Following the excerpts, I will use this post as a place to collect all examples of synchronicity that happen to me:

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningfulmanner. 

The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.

The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships that are not causal in nature. These relationships can manifest themselves as simultaneous occurrences that are meaningfully related.

Jung believed that many experiences that are coincidences due to chance in terms of causality suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances in terms of meaning, reflecting this governing dynamic.^[8]

 Following discussions with both Albert Einstein and Wolfgang Pauli, Jung believed that there were parallels between synchronicity and aspects of relativity theory and quantum mechanics.^[9] Jung was transfixed by the idea that life was not a series of random events but rather an expression of a deeper order, which he and Pauli referred to as Unus mundus. This deeper order led to the insights that a person was both embedded in an orderly framework and was the focus of that orderly framework and that the realisation of this was more than just an intellectual exercise, but also having elements of a spiritual awakening. From the religious perspective, synchronicity shares similar characteristics of an "intervention of grace". Jung also believed that in a person's life, synchronicity served a role similar to that of dreams, with the purpose of shifting a person's egocentric conscious thinking to greater wholeness.

Example:

A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since.^[15]

(9:16:16 PM) Amro Maz: this one time

(9:16:19 PM) Amro Maz: i was at the airport

(9:16:23 PM) Amro Maz: and my mom was late to pick me up

(9:16:36 PM) matteoplix: uh oh

(9:16:38 PM) Amro Maz: so when i arrived, i went and hid behind a column

(9:16:40 PM) matteoplix: amir is FLIPPING OUT

(9:16:54 PM) Amro Maz: and every like 5 minutes i peeped out

(9:17:05 PM) Amro Maz: this one time, after one of the peeps

(9:17:12 PM) Amro Maz: RIGHT when i saw the back of her head

(9:17:20 PM) Amro Maz: she SUDDENLY turned around and looked directly at me

(9:17:37 PM) Amro Maz: later when i discussed this with her she said she "felt" me staring at her

(9:17:49 PM) Amro Maz: this i believe was an example of synchronicity
-------------------------------------

[crumpets]:

(kedzie05) man

(kedzie05) holy shit

(kedzie05) that must have been hard to watch

Amir:

what

[crumpets]:

(kedzie05) my descent into madness

(matteoplix) wtf

(matteoplix) dude fucking stop

(matteoplix) with the sn=yncrhon

(matteoplix) holy FUCK

Amir:

me?  i never noticed such a thing

[crumpets]:

(matteoplix) ok guys get this

Amir:

sep

[crumpets]:

(matteoplix) im re listening to the fly lo

(matteoplix) and as kofi typed

(matteoplix) descent into madness

(kedzie05) holy shit

(kedzie05) hahahaha

(matteoplix) i heard “descent into madness”

Amir:

NO

A very cheeky symbiosis.

(2:35:30 PM) matteoplix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
(2:35:31 PM) matteoplix: BOOM
(2:44:34 PM) bboyamir: SICK
(2:45:22 PM) matteoplix: i went in one
(2:45:24 PM) matteoplix: soooo cool
(2:45:30 PM) bboyamir: OH really!
(2:45:38 PM) bboyamir: in mexico?
(2:45:39 PM) matteoplix: yup in new mexico
(2:45:41 PM) bboyamir: new
(2:45:45 PM) bboyamir: damn thats tight
(2:45:50 PM) matteoplix: was sick nasty
(2:45:58 PM) matteoplix: it was so cool inside despite the temperatures
(2:46:01 PM) matteoplix: no ac
(2:46:42 PM) bboyamir: see like
(2:46:45 PM) bboyamir: technology and nuclear energy
(2:46:49 PM) bboyamir: thats us DOMINATING nature
(2:46:55 PM) bboyamir: but these earthships
(2:47:00 PM) bboyamir: thats us like smirking at nature
(2:47:05 PM) bboyamir: and i kind of like that attitude more
(2:47:09 PM) matteoplix: yeah
(2:47:09 PM) bboyamir: windmills too
(2:47:12 PM) matteoplix: like hey , i see u
(2:47:15 PM) matteoplix: nature
(2:47:22 PM) matteoplix: very cheeky symbiosis
(2:47:25 PM) bboyamir: hahahah
(2:47:34 PM) matteoplix: thats the way it needs to be
(2:47:39 PM) matteoplix: no more raping

What should be our approach to renewable technology? Shall we only focus on the utilitarian end goal, the destination, securing pure energy in the most efficient manner possible, or is the method, the journey, the approach, equally important? Is the world our gas station or our friend?

For more see: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology"

Here is a supplement:

When Heidegger investigates 'the question concerning technology' he is interested in the essence of modern technology, not just any technology; for it is modern technology that poses the problem. Heidegger presents as an example of traditional technology peasant farming. The relationship of the peasants to the land is one of respect: they tend the land, are stewards of the land, cultivating it, synchronized with its patterns, to let the crop develop out of it. Modern technology, however, exploits the land as pure resource, trying to gain the 'maximum yield at minimal expense'. Modern technology challenges the land, or whatever it happens to be exploiting, to yield more. Objects are thus revealed as pure resource. Objects are exploited for all the energy or use they can yield and are left to stand there until they are to be challenged for more use again. For instance, the dam on the Rhine reveals the Rhine as merely a resource for hydroelectric power. Even viewing the Rhine for its beauty has been made into a tourist industry, again exploiting the Rhine as a resource for tourist gratification and photos.

Internet progress

moot on preserving the freedom in individual identity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e3Zs74IH0mc

also, an awesome letter written in 1992 about the onset of the 'cyberpunk'

http://cyber.eserver.org/cyberpnk.txt

Charlie Chaplin speaks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo&feature=related

This time is approaching...one can feel it.

True authenticity

After Guevara's death, Sartre would declare him to be "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age" and the "era's most perfect man." Sartre would also compliment Che Guevara by professing that "he lived his words, spoke his own actions and his story and the story of the world ran parallel."

I would like to introduce Sartre to this guy.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jxxay/who_is_that_guy_or_that_girl_from_your_office_and/c2g0vgv

must read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Anus

"The Solar Anus is a short Surrealist text written by the French writer and philosopher Georges Bataille, as well as the name of a performance art piece by Ron Athey.

Albeit elliptically, its aphorisms refer to decay, death, vegetation, natural disasters, impotence, frustration, ennui and excrement. It makes ironic reference to the sun, for, although it brings life to the Earth, it can also result in death due to its unrestrained energies. Moreover, the anus should be seen to be an expression of the inevitability of residual waste due to its role in excretion."

Zizek on capitalism solving its own problems

He's just always killing it. Nice animation too.

http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/07/29/rsa-animate-tragedy-farce/

If these charities/consumer ethics simply delay the problem by giving the consumer a 'complete package,' (you can buy your new shoes WHILE purchasing away your guilt!) should we participate in them, temporarily saving a few cows/children here and there? Or should we rebel against them, by further spiraling into the morally reprehensible purchases, and showing capitalism that we are not simply consumers who can buy away our beliefs.

Or rather, is assuming that consumer behavior can advance a belief system at all just further spiraling into the grips of capitalism? We should continue purchasing as we do, playing apathetic to consumption, while seeking other means to solve the problem in the long-term (science, legality, etc).

Cultural Death Denial

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/07/designing-a-mushroom-death-suit.html

A man of the future.

The Temporary Autonomous Zone

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gusnyc/3367249113/

Don't you love it when the exact thing that you want to happen...happens?

It's like lucid dreaming.

reference:

http://hermetic.com/bey/taz3.html#labelTAZ

WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSTOOD

When we start the movement, our slogan will be