History of Evil

This is a video I was reminded of in class today when I was talking about class conflict, feudalism and capitalism. It's basically a satirical interpretation of evil in western civilization that's supposed to make you question what evil really is.

Oh, and the God-is-dead quote is just quoting Neitzsche. Look him up.

The Future

So, I've been thinking. Regardless of your opinion on what's happening in the stock market, it can generally be argued that this is worthy of the history books. That makes me think another thought. If it does turn into a depression, what next? What would the long-term effects of something like that be? Would people be fed up with capitalism, making way for a socialist revolution? Would it take another World War to end it? 

Basically, what I'm asking you to do is hypothesize about the future, and how this century will turn out.  When people talk about the future, at least for me, the image of the Jetsons and perhaps a hoverboard comes to mind. I know for a  fact that it will be more than just that. Take this oppurtunity to hypothesize madly about the future, the more unique they are the better. Imagine it not just politically, but technologically and culturally, if you feel the urge.

Alan Watts

After realizing my comment on Jack's post was quite Dharmic in nature, I decided to share with you one of my favorite modern thinkers.

Alan Watts is mainly thought of as a presenter of Eastern Religion sto a Western Audience (Buddhism, Taoism, etc). As a member of the LDS Faith, often I am (wrongfully, I admit) paranoid to pro-atheist media (videos, articles, etc). Stumbling on one a video of a talk of his, I originally thought that that's what it was. But as I listened, I began to realize that, even though it defied traditional Western thought in a revisionist manner, it was religious. Not Christian, mind you, but extremely enlightening. Listening to this man's talks has brought a new type of thought to my mind and thinking (or at least given a name and reality to something already there.)

Also, Alan Watts died of alcohol poisoning, and had used hallucinogenic drugs in his lifetime, leading to a first impression of an 'unrighteous', 'immoral' person (perhaps one that had gone astray). But as I thought about it, I began to realize that this man has done much more good, at least for me, than most of the general authorities of the LDS Church (that may just be my relative lack of obsession over the Church compared to this). It really changed my opinion over what 'good' and 'doing good' is.

This is a (rather long) video of Watts talking about the nature of time. One of the main themes in everything he presents is that our perception of the world as made up of separate 'things' is flawed and that everything is just part of a whole. Don't be daunted by the video length (I would be). You can skip around if you want to.

Crisis

What do you think of the current economic crisis? Will it develop into another depression? Your thoughts.

American Empire

After a long hiatus on my blog-posting, I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite YouTube videos. Don't take offense, if anything, consider it thought provoking.

Ideals

To make any potential ambiguity clear, I will briefly state my political ideals:

I believe that everyone should be treated equally and should not be able to take that equality away from others by means of manipulation. People should have an equal say in everything that happens, and shouldn't have those choices made by other people. Needless to say, I am very anti-capitalism (I know I use capitalistic services, but, hey, what are you going to do?).

A political system that would sum up my ideals quite nicely is called parecon (participatory economics). Look it up.