A Diatribe on Objectivity

The most meaningless point someone can use in an argument is one claiming “objectively”. Stating that something is objectively true, objectively false or objectively objective. Opinions can't be objective. Even most facts are really just opinions based on facts, and therefore are also subjective to the person. Anything idea that we think, any “fact” that we believe are and can only be seen through our own perspective, where we filter anything we hear through layers of abstraction before reaching our mind. Whether something is correct or not depends on our own, heavily biased, contextual minds. Anything we think is a product of our upbringing or even genetics. It is impossible to view something from a detached, impartial viewpoint, because even the concept of an impartial judge is based on our preconceptions of such a thing.

Context matters. It matters a lot. To look at something without its context is barely looking at it at all. Take someone else's opinion. Do you agree with it? Maybe, maybe not. But any person with intelligence wouldn't judge the person based solely on this one opinion, as if the context in which it was said, and the context of the person in question didn't matter. Here's a case study: murder. Intentional murder of another human. Surely that must be wrong? Well it all depends on context. Is the murder of a terrorist moments before he blows himself wrong? What about abortion? Euthanasia? Suicide? They are all the intentional ending of another persons life, but yet whether they are “wrong” or not is subjective.

And for this reason, I think that objectivity is not only a trap and fallacy, but also is a bad one. Nobody should strive for objectivity, personal biases are what make humans people. They literally are our personality. When you try to look at something objectively, you are disregarding everything you have learnt through your life, any prior knowledge is cast away as a bias. If a court judge looked at everything through the cold eyes of a robot, he wouldn't last too long. The context matters, and it matters a lot. Maybe it is the only thing that matters? Well that depends on your personal opinion crafted over the course of your entire life and shaped into whatever world views you currently hold. Nothing is objectively right, nothing is objectively wrong; and don't pretend it is.

The New Frontier

The late 19th century Americas were the heyday of exploration and modern day conquest. Cowboys facing off in the high noon sun, pirates swashbuckling around and doing piratey shit. Worlds where every man was looking out for himself, and himself only. Where you could do anything you wanted, and there was no long arm of the law to close in on you. While we have excessively romanticised this lifestyle in our current society, most sane people can see that life as a gun-slinging cowboy or swashbuckling pirate would be much less glamorous in real life than we like to portray it as. But what if I told you that you could live that life right now: present day, present time. And what's more, you could live it without any of those pesky side-consequences like having you're possessions stripped or being shot in the head with a block of lead. All you need is to be born somewhere decent and to own a piece of super-modern technology. A time machine. Wait, I meant a computer. Or I guess a phone if you're fine being forever pleb tier. What I'm really talking about is the good old Internet, and you should've guessed: it's the only thing I talk about!

Quoting a wise anon from /jp/, “the internet is still in it's wild west stage, and I'd like to keep it that way desu.” The capabilities of the internet are currently mostly unexplored. Every week some new web technology is revealed, and the 70s sci-fi Borg rhetoric edges ever closer to reality. Many remote corners of the internet remain lawless; the ever elusive deep web, the real hives of Nazi flat earth societies; gee, even actual pirating is a thing. It is a way to get information directly from real people, to communicate with anyone anywhere without the veil of some supreme authority. A place where any opinion is valid, and anything can be said/done without repercussions. The current internet is rife with opportunity, but also with danger. But the danger is what makes it fun. Any idiot can wander into the deepest corner of internet culture, but they'll be damned if they don't understand the language used, etiquette preached and exactly how everything works, almost like walking into a bar without knowing its run by a local drug lord. For those in the know it acts almost as a second home, somewhere to refuge from all those normies and wallow in depressing cyclical arguments.

While its cool to make comparisons pointing out the similarities, I want to throw in one, important, parallel. The wild west didn't last forever. Eventually the federalists came in and set up the rule of law, imposed taxes, stopped all that damn killing. Already we see the enormous conglomerates moving in and marking down their territory and their rules. Economic machines such as Google or Facebook, once themselves children of internet freedom, now controlling large portions of internet usage closely. When once people would visit independent forums to surf, they now flock to much more normal corporate websites. While the fringes of the cyber frontier are far from being under their authority, we're all definitely at risk. And there doesn't seem like there's much we can do but watch. Its the classic trade of freedom for safety; but do we need safety when there's nothing to fear? The internet never killed nobody, and now acts as the vanguard for free speech in an ever more controlling society. Always question authority and stand up to it, while we still have the upper hand.

Autism isn't Real???

Autism is a fraud. And even more, its a harmful and dangerous fraud. Its my belief that autism, and most other mental illnesses, are completely made up labels that we designate people with for maligned reasons. The modern concept of autism was only invented in 1943 by a Doctor Leo Kenner. Before it was invented, no child had ever been diagnosed with autism, but now, around 1 in 50 children are diagnosed with it in the US, and they're worse of for it. Simply coming up with the term is making up a problem that was never really there. My argument will be to explain how I don't believe that these types of “illnesses” are illnesses at all, and the use of them as labels is a humanitarian atrocity. [Just as a disclaimer, I use autism as a blanket term for a spectrum of mental disease labels in this post, so pipe down.]

Everybody designated as autistic are completely normal human beings. But not quite. The way that their brains are wired to deal with certain situations is different from the norm, whatever that may be. While the average person acts in one way to a certain situation, an autistic person acts in a different way. This is all there is to it. No underlying physical difference is present between the two people, just the way that their brains are wired. To “fix” autism, all you have to do is rewire the brain to the brain of a normal person. “Impossible!” I hear you sperg, “it can never be done!” Wrong. Rewiring our brains is an activity we all partake in all the time, everyday. Everything single you think of builds up new relations and connections in our minds and thus, the way we think is changed. When I think about a new idea, then that idea has become part of me. Every decision I make from now on will be influenced, if only negligibly, by this new idea; this is what it means to learn.

The way we react to social situations is no different from the way we think, in fact its the same thing. The way I react to a social situation is based solely on the connections present within my mind, and so can be influenced with the learning of new ideas. This is obvious if you think about it, as we grow up we learn the way that we should act by copying those around us, and so our entire personality is molded. Even as an adult it is very possible to change the way you think. Personalities constantly change, evolve and mold themselves around the ideas around us.

Now take this principle and use it with autism, or any other mental disease. Having one of these so called diseases is just the same as thinking in a different way, because of the way your brain is wired. If you act weird then other people are sure to tell you. Once you know this all you have to do is mimic the way other people around you act to situations. Eventually you will be great at pretending to be normal. This is a thing that happens already. “Coping with autism” is just learning to act as a normal person so well that you are indistinguishable. My argument is that this is problem solved. Once you act normal on the outside you ARE normal. The concept of being normal is based purely on outside appearances. Once you act normal, you are normal. You just cured your autism. In fact, it never existed. You just had a different way of acting, a different personality: nothing more. And as we all know, personalities are not permanent.

There is one major problem with this though. And its the way society acts to these people who have grown up with a slightly different mind. We notice patterns in the way some people are different and categorise them and label them, its just human nature. But by labelling a person with one of these labels we say that is who they are defined as, and there isn't anything they can do about it. If you do something strange and have autism then they just say: “Oh don't worry. You can't help it, you're autistic.” Oh good. I don't have to change. Its OK to be autistic and there is nothing I can do about it. My autism will never be cured.

My method of autism eradication would involve purely of the eradication of the term “autism”. People who act odd are just that, odd. If enough people tell them that then they will be like: “Oh, I don't want to be odd. I think I'll try to act like other people.” Autistic people aren't idiots, they can do this. Don't dehumanise them by saying they can't help it. And as explained above, just pretending to be normal makes you normal. I can draw a parallel to labelling somebody as a “racist”. You wouldn't be like: “Oh don't worry. You can't help it, you're a racist.” That's dumb. No, you'd tell them they're an idiot and the way they think is wrong and they need to change it. This is the same as my argument against mental illnesses. The labelling of small children as different or somehow broken is a horrific practise that has to stop. Once they've put you on the autism register they'll never remove you. Anything you achieve will always be “despite your autism.” You will never be accepted into society, and they have the gall to think they're helping you. The systematic segregation of people from birth into categories has to stop. Special privileges should never be given to entire groups and the sooner we see that this doesn't work the better. Let people decide who they want to be for themselves and you might just find that potential autists decide to just be what they are, humans.

Mindless Self Indulgence

     -And how I learned to stop giving a shit and love it.

Preface: You know how I said I had a few blogs backed up to post? Well this is it, there were only two, so you better enjoy it.

One human flaw that is wrought throughout culture, and is especially prevalent on internet forums; is the disgusting, immoral practice I'm going to dub media elitism. When a certain object or concept is held in such high regard that everyone has to think it is the epitome of greatness, lest they be named as a shit-tasted normie. Oh wait, did I call it a flaw? I meant completely normal idea that has been practised throughout history and is part of humanity's innate attraction to certain things over others.

You see, I've been through three phases of media elitism. At first I was like your average edgy teen. I held such veneration of the collective idea of “good taste” that I would purposefully seek out these “ascended forms of art” and force myself to like them. I often didn't really get it, as most people don't with high art, but I just attributed this to me being an idiot pleb and I'd just try harder to work it out next time. I spent hours watching films I didn't get, listening to albums I didn't get, binging anime I didn't get. Stupid, right? Wrong. Because you're overlooking one important factor. The most important factor. In fact, it is quite possibly the only factor that even matters.

But before I tell you what it is, I'll move through the two other phases, just because I'm a bait switching cunt. The second stage was the inventively named “elitist elitist” stage. One day, or rather over a transitional period, I realised that liking things just because other people told me to was dumb, and a thing only idiot plebs would do. So I stopped liking the things I was told were good, and looked for things I liked all on my own. I tried to judge a thing based purely on its own merits, disregarding anyone else's opinions or the context of the thing in question. This might sound like an admirable breakthrough, becoming a better person, growing up. However, it's not like I came to these conclusions on my own, or even if these conclusions were even grounded. It was just that the people that I looked up to had changed. Now I looked up to the people that looked down on those I used to idolise. So I switched from calling my original idols “gods of good taste” to “the idiot masses”; and the content they liked from “intellectual masterpieces” to “pretentious artsy bull crap”. Even though I believed I was rejecting elitism, I had just ascended into a higher form of elitism, elitism elitism: the belief that you are above elitism and elitists. Putting it this way you can see that its just as dumb, if not dumber, as stage one, and much more dangerous.

It was around this time that I actually started to mature mentally. And by mature I mean completely destroy my humanity by becoming engrossed in my own cynicism and nihilistic tendencies. Don't worry, I'm perfectly mind broken. I entered the pit of philosophy (ie. - Having no life and spending all my time in my room with the curtains shut), and left it with my favourite phrase: “Fun things are good.” God that was a fucking waste of two years. But this phrase does actually sum up my point nicely. The only reason to ever do something is to have fun, and this brings me back to that oh-so-juicy snag point from half a page back. The factor that I omitted was that the act of indulging in elitism was fun. Being an elitist is fun. Watching pretentious Japanese cartoons that I don't understand is fun. Every aspect of being an elitist is fun, mindless fun. And it doesn't really harm anyone either, as long as you keep it to meaningless stuff (like art). And as we all know, fun things are good. If it's fun then there is no reason to stop. So I have returned to being an autist. Sorry, elitist. I watch French noir, listen to prog rock, hell I even write esoteric elitist blogs on the internet. And right now I find it fun. And that's good enough for me. And that is the story of how I learnt to stop giving a shit, and love mindless self indulgence.

PS- If you thought this would have any relevance to the band, you were right. This is literally what they're all about. MSI is all about not caring anymore and just loving fun things: it's literally their name. I'll write a full post about them at some point. Or maybe I'm just a fraud and this is just another mindless rip off ;)

Selling my Soul to the Internet

Preface: This is a blog post from late December intended for the old site. Its short and kinda crap, so perfect for a first post. If you're a filthy outsider then this is pretty much what you're in for. (Also please leave.)

I was born in early 1999, and so was part of the first set of kids who grew up with easy and universal access to the internet from a young age. Growing up I would often spend time on the family PC and from the age of about 7 I would start accessing the internet. First it was purely for viewing images on Google, but soon I found my way onto flash game websites; followed by Youtube; followed by text forums. However, the history of my internet usage isn't really the point I was going to make so I'll stop, but I'll probably make a proper one in the future.

What I do want to talk about is how the internet broke my mind, or at least fundamentally altered the person I grew up into. The modern age of the 21st century is often referred to as the “Information Age”, where any and all information is freely available to anyone at anytime, as long as your not poor. And while this is all well and good, retrospectively I believe that my mind was completely overloaded with boundless information and ideas. In ages past parental guidance has always been the main source for a child's moral and cultural education, but with the turn of the internet, we all had other people to look up to, to admire and to copy. Now this is obviously completely fine because the internet is populated solely by upstanding and inspirational heroes. Except it isn't. And by the time I had worked this out I was in too deep and didn't want to pull out. Here I am mainly talking about the old-guard internet forums of pre 2010; namely Newgrounds and 4chan. I always knew it was all meaningless and dumb, but I carried on despite it. Despite knowing full well that this was a waste of my time, I was drawn in by just how cool it all seemed to me. And this is the crux of the problem. Its fun dicking around on the internet, or at least it looks fun. When you hear of these guys its almost like some kind of myth. A cool club full of the best people. And you instantly want to be a part of it. At a time when nothing was happening in my life, aged around 13, I saw this as an opportunity to ignore the real world and just fanny around online with a bunch of douchebags. And here's the thing. I don't regret it at all. I had just as much fun as anyone else was having, probably, and I doubt I'd change much if I could. So I, completely purposefully, went deeper and kept going on my quest to be an oldfag. This is why the title of this post is “selling my soul”; my soul wasn't taken, I knew very clearly what I was doing and I thought it was good. I still do.

It boils down to my fundamental ethos behind what I do with my time: Fun things are good. If I like a thing then that thing is good, and I will carry on that thing, despite what other people lead me to believe. To this day I visit virtually all the same sites, and I'm realising that everyone around me (in a virtual sense) is just as, if not more, degenerate as me, and my choosing of what I do with my life is A-OK. I'm telling you that you should give up your soul to the internet, or anything else for that matter. Humility and restraint are two important qualities. But you should also take any opinions people have about things with a handful of salt, they're probably wrong. While you shouldn't break norms for the sake of breaking norms, do whatever you want and you'll be a cooler person for it.  

New Site (News)

Well here it is, the new site. What's that? It looks the exact same? I know, I just ported over the settings for the last one. Wordpress was being a dick and forcing micro-payments on me so I just shut it down. Hopefully Blogspot's nicer. Also I'm using a shiny new domain name because apparently I have nothing better to spend money on.

Even though it looks the same there's one thing missing. Content.
I've decided to leave all it behind. Poof, gone. It was all bullcrap anyway and I wanted an excuse to destroy its existence anyway. But please don't expect this new version to be any better. Also I stopped writing Spirit Knot months back and frankly I can't be asked to go further with it, it's not like anybody read it anyway ;_; Anyways if I ever get round to it I might try to stick it all into one pdf and release it but for now its (temporarily) gone from the internet. Watch this space!! (Nope)

As for the blog I'm just starting again. The old one is deleted already. I'll try to be less cringy this time so maybe I can read back my posts without throwing up. Who the fuck am I kidding though? I've got a slight backlog of unreleased blogs so I'll be posting them over the next couple days. Also an about page? I'll do that soon. [Edit: Done, its just as fucking awful as I wanted.]

Anyway, this is the new site, for all three of you who subscribe. And remember that I don't want anyone reading this, so advertising is strictly prohibited.

Welcome to OFS, now get out.