Almost a year later and things are still rolling along. The sun is still rising and setting, human sacrifice not required. In the meantime I’ve accomplished little, although I’ve learned about some new topics.

Flavorists, food science, food rheology, esotericism, psychology, mysticism, religions, natural health, meditation, propaganda, the 1990s, futurism, sustainability and a few other things. All fascinating. An advantage to expanding knowledge horizontally is a more complete perspective on how everything fits together. The lack of in depth knowledge is a problem though.

The world is changing rapidly, and I feel it will be a dramatically different place in five years; not for the better. The multiple rounds of quantitative easing. The erosion of privacy and freedoms under the pretense of security. Persistent unemployment. These, and other trends are concerning and seem to be signs of general decline. It seems that planning for a certain, rainy outlook would be a good idea.

Abortion is a controversial topic that has seen a great deal of debate. On one hand we are told that abortion is immoral while others believe in the right to choose. Rarely is reality so black and white, and the topic of abortion is no different. Abortion is a necessary right that maximizes personal freedoms, but it is also a right that should be tempered by the law.

Abortion Is Not Murder

Prolife advocates argue that abortion is tantamount to killing babies. However, this perspective is simplistic and does not consider the wholly different situation. Several points need to be considered before understanding why abortion is not murder. First, society accepts that murder is wrong on the basis of human rights, a code of morality. This code, along with most laws, is roughly based on the Golden Rule, a rule which states that one should treat other individuals in a manner that they would expect to be treated. This rule is seen as just because individuals are conscious and capable of experiencing situations that may negatively affect them, but it cannot apply to things that do not have all the characteristics of individuals.

While the unborn is undeniably human, it is not an individual as it lacks many of the characteristics that define one. Until birth, a child it is neither conscious nor independent and relies on the mother for survival. While an unborn does become progressively more of an individual over the course of development, an unborn child is never complete and has always been a part of the mother. This dependence draws into question whether an unborn is an individual. In addition, the unborn does not possess consciousness and cannot experience harm caused to it. Thus if a child is aborted, has someone really been murdered? If something is unconscious and incapable of experiencing harm, it does not meet all the criteria for being an individual, and thus it cannot be murdered. Therefore, there is little immorality in such an act. This is not to deny that the longer one waits to abort, the more abhorrent the act becomes.

The Right To Self

There is probably a more accurate term for what I had in mind, but I cannot think of it at the moment. Each person has a right to self and self determination, and abortion maximizes these personal freedoms. One should have the right to act as they choose, granted that their actions do not conflict with the Golden Rule. With abortion, the fetus is entirely dependent on the mother, and it is still a part of the mother. While I am not implying that abortion is as insignificant as getting a tattoo or a piercing, abortion is in a sense a modification of the self, which does not negatively affect others aside from possibly offending your sensibilities. Outlawing abortion would be a restriction on the right to self and a restriction of personal freedoms.

Abortion Maximizes Pleasure

Yet again for lack of a better word, I will use pleasure to describe the concept of maximizing desirable, positive things. Another issue to consider is the variety of situations where abortion may be considered. Raising a child is a massive investment of time and money. Until the child becomes an adult, parents exist to serve as advisers and are obligated to provide the sound advice, tools, environment and resources necessary to enable the child to achieve personal happiness. This is the role of parents.

To enable the child to achieve personal happiness, parents must address both nature and nurture. If neither of these conditions is optimal, the child has a greater chance of experiencing suffering (another filler word for the opposite of pleasure) down the line.

What are these optimal conditions? In terms of nurture, the parents must make enough money to ensure the entire family a comfortable lifestyle, and they should be well educated in a variety of fields. I am not suggesting that the poor should not be permitted to have children.

In terms of nature, the parents should ensure their children have no defects. If a defect is detected early on, the best option would be abortion. I do not use the term defect loosely, and it would apply only to reasonably serious problems that would prevent the individual from living a comfortable life in the future. On some level all of this might sound cruel, but it is all for ensuring an optimal future for the child.

Suppose a low income family decided to have a child, but it had some sort of defect which caused him to have a weak immune system so that he required frequent hospitalization. Both parents are working hard, but with hospital bills, they work even harder. The kid misses school frequently because of his illness, falls behind on his schoolwork and is unable to establish solid friendships. The child’s inability to establish friendships makes him an outcast which causes social anxiety. This hypothetical scenario shows how small problems are amplified due to the butterfly effect. With legalized abortions, a problem with “nature” and the subsequent problems it creates are prevented.

In another instance, suppose a family has a child by accident, but is not fully committed to the child due to the birth being an accident. In this situation the parents are lacking commitment to ensure that the child can maximize happiness. While the child is not provided an optimal environment for growth, the parents may be slightly unhappy they must support a child they never intended to have. The result is three people who have not maximized their pleasure. This example shows how a problem with “nurture” is prevented.

Reasonable Abortion Laws

• Abortion on demand is legal prior to 15 weeks.
• Abortion to maintain the health of the mother is legal any time prior to birth.
• Abortion due to rape is legal at any time prior to birth.
• Abortion due to defect is legal any time prior to birth.
• Children born with disorders that can be detected during pregnancy should not be allowed support related to its treatment using public funds. This assumes that testing for these disorders is provided to all during pregnancy.
• Depending on how healthcare is provided, there must be limitations on the number of standard abortions within a timeframe funded by the public to prevent abuse.

While abortion may offend the sensibilities of some, the benefits to society and personal freedoms it creates are far greater.

This document was last updated on 12.01.2010.

Creativity, vision and determination are the keys to success and progress. Determination may come easily, but creativity and inspiration do not come from willpower, and require constant stimulation with the unique and new to be maintained.

The following are resources that will open the mind by exposing it to unconventional ideas and to prevent one from falling into set patterns of thinking.

Technology

These are for imagining what might be possible in the future.

• Cyberpunk Review
• TransAlchemy
• High T3ch
• hplus Community
• IEEE Spectrum

Design And Art

These are for artistic inspiration.

• Inhabitat
• Josh Spear
• Instructables
• FFFFOUND!
• 99designs
• Page Gardens
• Best Web Gallery

News And Society

These, along with a wide variety of news sources will hopefully promote unbiased interpretation of events, as well as coverage of events not seen in the mainstream media.

• Cryptome
• TED
• Chilling Effects

Reading

These are some tech religious books filled with wild crazy predictions.

• The Age Of Intelligent Machines by Raymond Kurzweil
• The 10% Solution For A Healthy Life by Raymond Kurzweil
• The Age Of Spiritual Machines by Raymond Kurzweil
• Are We Spiritual Machines? by Raymond Kurzweil
• The Singularity Is Near by Raymond Kurzweil
• Transcend: Nine Steps To Living Well Forever by Raymond Kurzweil
• Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey

While Wikipedia I stumbled upon a book called Conscious Robots. My old post, A Conjecture On Consciousness, seems to be similar to this book, which I found interesting. Now that I read the original post, I realize the writing is terrible, rambling, disjointed and does not use the words I necessarily intended, nor does it accurately capture what I had in mind, which was not consciousness but free will.

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.”

- John Watson

But in reality I hope all of this is wrong and there is free will, whatever that is.

I was browsing some photos of California, and I could not stop thinking how amazing it must be to live there. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the state twice in my lifetime, and both trips were unbelievably fun. When I returned home it was like stepping back into an empty room. It was just mile after mile of urban sprawl. Within a reasonable distance, there are no places of historical interest and no locations of scenic beauty. Even the downtown districts are boring.

But the photos were incredible. Natural beauty, dense urban areas with skyscrapers, beautiful graffiti art, a dash of sprawl, abandoned buildings.

Texas is by no means a bad place to live. It’s inexpensive living at its best, and many Californians are moving here as well because of this.The problem is that it’s living distilled to an industrial scale. It’s unnatural. It just seems like all there is to do is just work, work, work and then shop shop shop, because within a reasonable distance, that’s all there is – buildings for working and stores for shopping. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would broaden my horizons, nothing that would spark my creativity, nothing that I saw in those photos. It just seems like there’s so much diversity in every aspect of life in California. And so many great new ideas start in California – bands, tech startups, other businesses, etc., all of which I attribute to the atmosphere of the state. That and the continuous stream of feel good sunshine.

Of course, the photos were only of select scenes that were exceptional in some way, but even considering this fact, none of them can really be found in Texas.

So I was reading Wikipedia, and as usual one entry led to another until I stumbled upon the online disinhibition effect. I have definitely noticed that people tend to act differently online and become more wild in general, whether it’s the stupid, inane YouTube comments or forums. But I guess that’s the great thing about the internet. The facts I suspected, the illusion of anonymity and equalization, turned out to be correct. It’s a fascinating read. And more.

Studies conducted by linguists on the way people speak with syntax, vocabulary, etc. as a reflection of how they think. Need to find more information on these topics more readily. Just like everything else, analyzing it can be distilled to a simple process. Just need to figure out how.

The instructor is not a person. People have varying teaching methods, resulting in students with varying levels of understanding depending on who taught them. The teacher will take on a secondary role as clarification instead, by answering student questions.

Students will learn from video courses. Each student will have a touch screen desk and learn from an animated video lesson. This allows student control of pace. With videos, it eliminates the potential disadvantage of bad teachers. In addition, videos can be split tested for teaching effectiveness. By modifying certain parts of the instructional videos into A and B categories, and analyzing the scores of the students who took the A and B tests, we can compare scores and see whether one particular teaching method was more effective. Obviously there are factors that will affect this, but this is a generalization. With A and B split testing, the lessons can be continuously improved. By the end of the semester, if a either group A or group B shows a statistically significant score from the other, their score will be modified.

The lessons should also be based on a question and answer format. All lessons currently consist of a mess of facts presented with no explanation of their applications, significance or anything. They are presented as nothing more than facts to remember, and this makes it difficult. In addition, questions can be categorized into different fields so that after performance testing, specific areas of weakness can be isolated and resolved.

In addition, students will have the option to choose from three different learning as an autodidact, from instructors or from the aforementioned interactive video programs.

Number of hours exercised must equal the number of extra years lived to make back the time investment in the exercise. To be a worthwhile investment, amount of time spent exercising must be less than the number of extra years lived, thus you are gaining time.

So assuming every day you exercise 1 hour, and that this would extend life expectancy by 3 years, the extension of 3 years would equate to 26,280 hours of life extended. Therefore if you exercise for an hour a day from birth, at the age of 82, your investment would balance out, and any further exercise investments would not pay off. This is assuming the lifespan extended by is static.

There must be a reason all (most) great ideas seem to come from kids in college. The atmosphere is stressful, hellish, overwhelming. At the end of the day, you’re just exhausted. But this in turn, makes everything else seem like the most fun thing to do in the world, thus inciting motivation.