A Quick Rant

Just got irritated over the last couple of days by a few things that I have encountered, and I wanted to write a quickie complaint about them before writing up the game info and the house rules that I will be using this Saturday. These are my own particular idiosyncrasies, so I doubt if they will resonate with anyone else out there, but what the hell - what good is the internet if you can't whine about ultimately trivial and insignificant crap.

First, I saw that old standby of a bumper sticker that never fails to piss me off - "Your dogma ran over my karma" or " My karma ran over youre dogma" (I've seen both, and I have yet to decide which infuriates me more). It is part of a typical anti-Western religion crap that has taken hold of the country since the early sixties, stemming from mostly anti-establishment, anti-heirarchical movements. The thing that bugs me the most, however, is that karma is a dogmatic point of Hinduism (and also some sects of Buddhism). Dogma just means of a system of accepted principles (of a religion, for example), or a prescribed or established doctrine. Karma is an established doctrine of Hinduism and Buddhism that dictates that one's actions have effects in this life and the next, and that part of one's karma is their dharma, or adherence to religious doctrine. It just bothers me how some people think that Eastern thought is inherently better or less dogmatic than Western. It is just as extreme and just as frustrating as the idiots who insist that you must accept Christ (or their particular brand of Christ) to achieve salvation. In fact, in many ways it is more frustrating, because those people believe that they have all the answers because they have cherry-picked a miniscule aspect of a rich and complete faith tradition, and then purport to be enlightened. It is this trivialization to which I object very strongly.

This is not to say that westerners should not convert to Buddhism or Hinduism, or to say that Eaterners should not convert to Chrtistianity, Judaism, or Islam, or anyone not being able to select the religious tradition that holds the greatest appeal to them. I just think that people should be fully informed about whatever tradition of which they want to become a part. Of course people can still pick and choose the aspects of those traditions that resonate most with them, and in truth, there is a lot of overlap between most of the major religious traditions, just know what you are talking about before opening your damned mouth around me, and don't flaunt your ignorance with an air of superiority that just makes you look more stupid than you actually are.

The second thing that bugged me in the past few days, (and fortunately some reputable scientists wrote a counter, I'll link to it later when I have more time) was an AP story by their science editor who was claiming that Obama would save the planet, and that if all of the icebergs floating in the ocean right now were to melt, then the world would be flooded. Of course, he neglected to mention that the surface sea temperatures (a key indicator of "global" warming) have dropped 2 degrees (Celsius, I believe, but I am going from memory now), and that Obama's plans for a "cap and trade" policy do not lower Carbon Dioxide emissions, nor does the switch to "clean coal" - that eliminates SO2, not CO2 (SO2 causes acid rain, and also promotes global cooling, so fixing one problem may harm another, if you do not pay attention to the incredible complex nature of the climate in the first place). But you probably already know how I feel about the CO2 thing (H2O is the actual primary greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of warming). But the most heinous thing about the article was the contention that most third graders can refute from a lab that you could do at home. Drop several ice cubes in a glass, fill the glass to the brim, and then let the ice cubes melt. The glass won't overflow because ice is less dense than water, and the ice is already in the water - duh!!!

Of course, the idiot probably wanted to refer to the ice that is on land, but he didn't - and the ice on land, say the Greenland shelf, would have to all melt near simultaneously to make the sea levels rise to the level Al Gore mentions in his movie (a point which no reputable scientist thinks is even remotely likely to happen). My point is that we think that the climate should always stay the way we remember it as kids, and we fail to realize that we are part of an immense dynamic system that we have been living with for thousands of years - we have lived as a species through an Ice age, we are now in an interglacial period for the planet - expecting global stability is foolish, we need to adapt to changes as we always have. And, as there are indiginous tribes in both Arctic and desert conditions, surviving without modern technology, it is easy to see how well we could adapt to any change the planet may offer us - check out Bjorn Lomborg's book Cool It - he believes in a human contribution to global warming (moreso than I do), but he offers realistic and positive solutions that do not, in our first world arrogance, cripple third world economies (as most Carbon restricting plans would). Also, all that is on the planet has always been here - we lose and gain very little to space, and all the carbon that we are "generating" has always been here - some will argue the "sequestered carbon" point, and I can tackle that later, but suffice it to say that the carbon has not always been sequestered, and that as we unsequester it we promote growth of plant life worldwide...

So what the hell was my third thing that pissed me off... I can't remember right now, and I suppose that is for the best. I am going to stop this crap right now and write the game info on the L5R Blog I have running, then I am going to visit my mom with my wife for new year's day (but there is no point in celebrating, to my mind it is just another day - but my wife and mom both want to so I will be social - a good thing even if the reason is bogus; the real reason is that I want to spend time with them).

ADDENDUM:

I remember the third thing, it sometimes sets me off, and I have friends (some of you might be reading this) who go on this particular rant - and let me preface with the fact that none of you started this little rant, though sometimes, I will admit, that your rants can irritate me (as I'm sure that mine do to you) but this does not diminish the fact that we are still friends. Anyway...

The profligacy of the American middle class, or of middle class in general is something that many people rail against, and it can be quite irritating. I know that the middle class in general, and the American middle class particularly is blamed for having an extremely wasteful lifestyle and uses more than its fair share of resources, etc. There are a number of different ways to address this, but I want to pick one part of the topic in particular because I do not have a lot of time right now (I'm leaving for my mom's in 5 minutes). It has been said that people should not use as much as they do and that they are "wasteful". I would question by whose standards. Some say that to save the planet, each person should use less, etc. and this may wel be true, but right now the beliefs entailed in that are more religious than scientific, and I would still question - what is the correct standard. Using wood to build houses may be considered wasteful, unless you view that it sequesters the carbon that is in the wood and more trees are planted that suck up even more carbon, while use of "effecient" materials like concrete actually produce most of the worlds CO2 (the process of making cement produces lots of CO2 - the leading production in the world, actually amounting to 7% of the CO2, I believe). Even further, why should we stop there? Who is to say that no one should have a car, we should all switch to subsistence farming for ourselves, and make forced earth homes. We do not need electricity, we do not need processed food shipped from around the world, or even from several miles away, we could shift to a lifestyle of "peasant purity" like Pol Pot and Heinrich Himmler wanted their people to - this would really cut down on the waste.

My point is, what standard should we adopt? One friend said, "Get only as much as you need." But even this begs the question, what do we need? What do we want? We could easily do without heat if we forced everyone to live in more temperate climes and use blankets in the winter, but is this appropriate. No one needs a computer - they could get a job that does not require it, or they could support themselves by farming. Again, this is a bit ridiculous, I am well aware of that, but the question still remains - who determines "need" vs. want? Every country that has tried to dictate that has been tyrrancial in nature, and the reason Europeans are much more willing to deal with an extravagent upper class with a impoverished or minimally supplied middle/lower class is because of the history of nobility in those cultures. It is easy for them to feel like they can sacrifice and ignore the profligacy of the nobility because there is still the legacy of the divine nature of the noble lines (the divine right of kings, etc.) Obviously, this is a bit of a generalization and only touches on the attitude, I will address all of this more fully at a later date. Gotta go.