…by Shane Deichman with the 123 Meme.

Folks this is how 5GW will happen! Beware the facile meme, the urge to do as it commands!

Ok now on to seriousness. The 123 Meme works as follows:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

However, the meme stops here. At least in this branch, since I won’t be tagging others. (I am channeling the character in Dead Poets Society who doesn’t march with all the others.) But I can do 1-4.

Book: The Complete Essays of Montaigne.

And for several months now, it’s the only book I’ve had handy, the only book I read. I must have read everything in it by now….but only piecemeal. I pick it up and open to a random page, read a bit — sometimes read a whole essay (for the umpteenth time), sometimes read only a few paragraphs. And in this way I’ve gone front-to-back and back-to-front over it several times.

Here are the three sentences requested by Shane Deichman:

I would have portraits there of Joy and Gladness, and Flora and the Graces, as the philosopher Speusippus had in his school. Where their profit is, let their frolic be also. Healthy foods should be sweetened for the child, and harmful ones dipped in gall.

Just a quick note.

I have spent almost two months relatively blog-free while playing World of Warcraft.

Previously — my last blogging slump — I had devoted a lot of time playing Blogshares while my blogospheric output dwindled, though even then I had begun to wonder whether Blogshares might hold some lessons for those interested in the fifth generation of warfare.

Lately, I’ve wondered something of the same about World of Warcraft — but barely. Instead, I’ve made some mental notes about WoW and how the game may reveal some things about our society and habits of cognition. For instance, WoW is incredibly racist; i.e., each race in WoW — gnomes, night elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, trolls, etc. — has particular limitations or special traits not shared by other races. No one playing the game seems the least bit bothered by such a method of categorization.

Instead of trying to find the ways World of Warcraft might illuminate the subject of the fifth generation of warfare, or else trying to find some material for Dreaming 5GW — some lesson — in my two months of obsessive game play in that other world of warcraft, quite the opposite has occurred. My distance from the blogosphere has given me perspective, and I’ve had a surprising realization.

The Blogosphere is an MMORPG: a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Those who have never played such games may not understand what I mean by that; but so it goes.

I have also wondered whether the blogosphere may ultimately be little more than that. But then, do we really comprehend the concept of MMORPGs? Hah.

This may be my favorite song, ever. Best rendition of two classics.

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole makes me glad to be human.

 
From:

Wikipedia:

The Hawaiʻi State Flag flew at half-staff on July 10, 1997, the day of Iz’s funeral. His koa wood coffin lay in state at the Capitol building in Honolulu. He was the third person in Hawaiian history to be accorded this honor (the other two were Governor John A. Burns and Senator Spark Matsunaga) and the only non-politician. Over 10,000 people attended his funeral. His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean at Mākua Beach on July 12, 1997.

i aggree. we must come togethor and smash the al qaedas heads in with sledge hammers. there going around cooking children and blowing themselves up in mosques that celebrate the prophet’s (peace be upon him) birthday. there a threat to humanity and there a threat to islam. let’s not forget along the way that israel is a terrorist state and that bush is completely evil

—from commentary about a YouTube video.

This video, in fact:



Sometimes, I spend hours reading conversations on YouTube. The cultural and/or international clashes are enlightening, though often incoherent in a literalist sense.  That is, one can read between the lines, follow the trends, see what the world is thinking.

In this respect, wedding video to international dialogue may prove the most powerful force of globalization.  So much subtlety occurs between the lines — in fact, so much that is subtle occurs without the participants even realizing the scope of what occurs.

It is interesting to see that the most common English word — well, I’m guessing, without having done a study; but the most common English word world-wide seems to be FUCK.  It is a very funny catch-all, with many meanings “between the lines”.

Also interesting:  The way homosexuality so often enters into any confrontational conversation on YouTube.  Once upon a time, a mention/comparison to Nazis or Hitler was a sign that the conversation was over; now it’s fags, faggots, gaaaaaaaaaay, etc.  World-wide it seems.  This is significant.  (I once began a series on homosexuality and globalization…but became distracted from finishing it by the OODA, which needed exploring in more detail before I could finish the series.)

One thing I’ve never written or spoken in conversation, which seems quite relevant, but which I’ve often thought:  If someone were to ask me which American celebrity has done the most for “gay rights”, my answer would not be Ellen DeGeneres or Rosie O’Donnell, or any of the slew of celebrities who have come out of the closet and/or have advocated for gay rights.  Those two, and others, have done much, and I wouldn’t demean them or lessen their roles — however, the real answer (and I truly believe this) is:

Jerry Springer.

Yep.  That’s right.  His show, as trashy as it was, nonetheless opened America’s eyes to the cheap and tawdry side of America, in which gays, lesbians, straights, bisexuals, and persons of every race and of both (and more?) genders were equally represented.  One could no longer speak of homosexual depravity without acknowledging the depravity of heterosexuals.  Homosexual pedophiles?  Well, there were many incestuous heterosexuals, heterosexual pedophiles, adulterous heterosexuals, heterosexual swingers and prostitutes, and so forth as well.  Etc.  I don’t believe people realize the extraordinary effect Jerry Springer had on America.  Regardless of his true motives — whether for money or fame or any other thing — he served a key role, perhaps the key role (especially given the many imitators who have followed him) in opening the stage for dialogue vis-a-vis gay rights, gay equality (the good and the bad), and so forth.

And I wonder, really, if YouTube is serving the same purpose, for issues relating to race relations, cultural relations, international relations, as well as gay rights.

Something to think about.

lemas = lemmas or lemmata [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=lemma]

A couple of the two most relevant definitions given at that link:

1. a subsidiary proposition introduced in proving some other proposition; a helping theorem. [Dictionary.com Unabridged]

1. A subsidiary proposition assumed to be valid and used to demonstrate a principal proposition. [The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition]

So, you see, assumptions can form lemmata.

“I have no idea why criticisms of torture are so poor. “

With regard to torture: I believe you will find that every argument possible for or anti torture will have as its basis or bases unprovable lemmata, or biases. Whether utilitarian, moralistic, etc., the argument will come from a prevailing world view formed in the miasma of other assumptions about reality.

One might as easily say that the Universe itself has reached its life-sustaining state through a series of extremely destructive occurrences; why then must humans turn from destruction, torture, and so many other Universal properties?

Given the many assumption-based lemmata, there is really no wonder that we are in a constant state of di-lemma.

—A comment I left recently at tdaxp.


In truth, most lemmas acceptable by scientists and philosophers are assumed to be true by all parties in any debate:  This means, contrary to the comment I left at tdaxp, those lemmas are used within an argument which will be agreeable to the persons involved in the debate or proof-seeking, simply because the use of any other lemmas — that is, controversial lemmas — defeats the point of “winning” the proof or showing the proof to your interlocutor.

However, from a skeptical p.o.v., one might say that such agreement over bases of proofs is merely that:  agreement.  The agreement is not proof itself, but merely the utilization of facts which all may agree are facts; which is to say, it is the use of common assumptions.

We can show this to be true of any argument in which undisputed lemmas are used by following a skeptical inquiry — the most common skeptical inquiry.  We can use infinite regress, or ask Why? or Is that so? of any lemma offered.

Infinite regress has some utility for breaking up ossified belief systems, mostly for showing any dogmatist that he has not fully contemplated his own beliefs.  But infinite regress cannot show us the answer to any given question; e.g., whether torture can be justified or delegitimized.  What it may show us is this:  Where does an individual dogmatist draw the line on reason?  How does he stand, what are his fundamental biases, his superstitions?  Etc.  Infinite regress is fundamentally (it would seem) a method for defining humans; once defined, we know better how to negotiate with them or influence them.  This utility has the advantage of directing us in our effort to argue a case contra another’s arguments; that is, the general assumptive aspect of lemmas can be used in any proof-making, tailored to convince our opponent in a debate, since, as implied above, many other arguments would be blasted as “bromides” or worse by our interlocutor if our chosen lemmas just happen to have an assumptive base our interlocutor does not share.

As for myself, I would not use torture for any of a thousand offered reasons justifying its utility in a thousand different circumstances; however, I can imagine situations in which I would.  Having imagined those, I have a better tool for avoiding those eventualities. Some others in the world might work opposite, or would seek to create those eventualities. For whatever reasons.

Lately, I’ve added a few free tools to my system, little helpers:

Meesoft’s Diagram Designer:

— a simple but useful tool for designing charts, graphs, and so forth.  In fact, I used the program to design some recent diagrams for 5GW at D5GW.  Some of the syntax is unusual (for instance, formatting text) but not difficult to master.  Admittedly, I’ve not used the Diagram Designer for much yet; so I don’t know everything it can do.  (My general modus operandi is to focus on current projects; not, test driving applications fully!)

I downloaded it from CNET, but it can also be downloaded from the developer’s site.


ALZip 6.7:




A very useful zipping utility.  Granted, WinZip is the most common application; but AlZip is nearly as good and is totally free.

Nearly as good:  I have had only one difficulty, which occurred when I tried to extract the file and folder structure from a peculiar archive downloaded from the ‘Net.  But I’ve only had that one difficulty.  ALZip has performed well in every other instance.

ALZip can be downloaded from CNet as well, or from the developer’s site.  (ALTools, the developer, has a slew of utilities available for free download; I may have to check out some of the others, eventually….)


IrfanView:

Okay, I’ve used IrfanView for over a year, but I’m adding it here because I think it is a very useful tool for quick editing of images.  (Typically, it’s a viewer capable of displaying images, video files, and slideshows of images and videos in a wide range of formats; but IrfanView has some nice editing features as well.)




—that’s actually a screen capture of a screen capture of a screen capture!  Adding borders to an image via an editing of the canvas size makes easy the addition of text below or above an image.  Normal resizing, sharpening, color enhancements, etc., are fairly simple with IrfanView.

I also recommend downloading and installing the plugins package from the developer’s site:  a great portion of the utility of Irfanview is available only after the plugins have been installed.

Downloadable from CNET or the developer’s site.

In the spirit of ZenPundit, I offer this for your enjoyment: