My Personal Headspace - Random Bits & Pieces

This is something that has actually always been a problem.
History is littered with these individuals, and they can be
encountered at every corner in the daily life as well.
I will, however, say that - even if these people themselves
are actually neither more nor less common than before - you might find yourself
exposed to their expressed thoughts a lot more often, with the internet providing a
voice to anyone who feels he (or she) has something to say.

Now, before anyone takes a potshot at me, let me just say that I am well aware that
I am doing the very same thing right now. Instead of making claims that I'm different,
or in any way better than the very people I'm about to discuss, or that I'm simply
employing an "If I can't beat them, I'll join them" strategy, I'll just concede
to being a hypocrite for now, and you can judge me afterwards.

The thing is, everyone thinks of themselves as reasonably intelligent.
Most people will have the humility to admit that they are not certified geniuses,
but they still think of themselves as pretty smart, all things considered.
The problem arises when they are confronted with someone who share this notion,
regardless of wether or not one of them is actually right or not.

See, despite admitting that s/he may not be a genius, most people also refuse
to acknowledge someone else as being smarter than themselves - even if
the person they are talking to actually is a certified genius.

One fairly common reason for this is the fact that everyone is a stranger online.
The mentality being "I don't even know you, so why should I belive that you are smarter than me?"
What often follows is that childish debacle that is the 'online discussion', and
it almost always deteriorates into 'proving' that the other party is a buffoon,
and that you were right all along. All in all, it's an ugly picture.

*****

A lot of this stems from the inability to acknowledge that someone else
may actually not only be intelligent, but also *right* - even if said
person completely disagrees with yourself.

-"This makes sense to me. If it makes sense, then it's logical,
and if it logically makes sense, then I am correct, and that must
mean that anyone who disagrees with me must be wrong."

^ That very way of thought is the main culprit to all of this.

Now, I am all in favor of rational thinking.
I absolutely swear by the ideal that people shoud approach any problem
from a reasonable and logical angle.
The problem is that the above way of thinking has none of
those qualities.

See, unless you are the absolute pinnacle of human evolution, and your
intelligence is so far off the scale that you are virtually omnipotent,
there is a possibility that you are wrong - even if that makes no sense to you.

Even if something seems perfectly reasonable to you - even if it's
so plain and simple that there's not a doubt in your mind that you
are mistaken - you could still be wrong.

Now, someone more intelligent than yourself could probably see that,
but because you have it all "figured out" in your own way, most people
will not let go of their own mindset and just concede the point.
Most times they'll ask for an explanation as to what exactly it is that
they have misunderstood, wether it be through a polite or (even more often)
an outright rude 'challenge' to a "debate" (and I use that word loosely,
because what normally follows is not a proper debate).

What further complicates things is the fact that, depending on what the issue was,
it may not be possible for the smarter person to explain things in a manner that you,
with your lesser intelligence, is even able to understand.
Of course, your ego would probably never allow you to admit that, and so,
we are back at point one;

-"I may not be a genius, but I am reasonably intelligent.
Certainly intelligent enough to grasp a simple explanation about
why I was wrong! So, if no such explanation can be provided,
then I can't have been wrong at all - which means the other
guy was wrong, and not me!"

What if you're not?
What if the explanation was indeed provided, but because the 'other guy'is
so much smarter than you, you just didn't get it?

That actually seems to be an issue far more often than you may realize...

******

Now, to get to the root of this whole mess, let's explore what it is
that makes people assume that they are reasonably intelligent individuals.
To do that, I'd first like to split everyone into two groups;
Those who care and those who do not care.

Those who don't care are the ones who have invested their ego elsewhere:

One man could be the world's greatest basketball-player, and as long
as he could do that, he didn't care if other people were smarter than him.

Another man might not be the world's greatest anything, but instead he
takes pride in being a hard-working, honest individual that takes
care of his family and is happy with that.

Tell either man that "I'm smarter than you!" and he probably wouldn't
even care if it was true or not.
He has other priorities, and he'd probably shrug you off and say
"Good for you! Now use that intellect to do something worthwhile."

Then there are those who do care...

This crowd will give you a much less friendly response, because these
are the people with something to prove.
For whatever reason, they have invested their ego in their intellect,
and attacking that is like an attack on their own sense of worth.

You're not just saying that you have a higher IQ, or more knowledge about a
given subject than they do. What you are saying is that:

"I'm smarter than you and that makes me better than you!
Everything you can do, I can do better!
I'm more capable, more popular and more worth than you.
I make you obsolete!"

Once you understand that this is what they are hearing, it does make it a bit
easier to sympathize with them, doesn't it?

Well, not really...

Most of the time, these people are some arrogant bastards anyway,
so who cares if you hurt their feelings. That's all besides the
point anyway. ;)

Given the nature of this whole post though, the people in the
latter group - the people who do care - are more interesting,
and obviously more relevant.

*****

So what is it, exactly, that makes people feel so much smarter than they are?

Well, a lot of the time, it seems that it has something to do with
other inadequacies, though it's by no means an absolute factor.
For the most part, this particular reason seems to be
limited to the stereotypical "outsiders".

"The cool kids won't play with me, because I'm too smart.
They call me a geek just because I'm more intelligent than they are.
Stupid cool kids."

This is obviously a stereotype that is most relevant when it comes to
rather young individuals, but I guess it could somewhat linger
into adulthood for certain people.

For anyone who might have felt that the above example was aimed at you:
I'm sorry, but this just isn't true.

The 'cool kids' might be just as intelligent - or even more - than you are,
no matter how much of a nerd you are. Truth is, they probably just have
more in the way of social attributes than you have, regardless of
anyone's intellect. Maybe they're nicer, maybe they tell better jokes,
maybe they have hobbies that make them more interesting or maybe they
just look better than you do. (* I'll get back to this later, further down.)

None of which are mutually exclusive with a decent level of intelligence.

Depending on the person, it may not be morally defendable for them to exclude
an individual from this 'cool kids club', but that doesn't mean that
they are stupid. It just makes them mean.
It obviously doesn't mean that they're all smarter than you either,
but assuming that someone's dumb because s/he is popular is ridiculous.

---

Moving on, and into a slightly higher age demographic,
we start seeing the cultural elite becoming more pronounced.

This is where intelligence starts being almost defined by personal tastes.

To make a perfect example, I'd like to explore what happened when
the Lord of the Rings hit the silver screen.

Everyone's aware that the movies were a huge hit.
Almost everyone (at least in this age group) had seen them,
and even if they had not, they knew about them and had an opinion on them.

It also pushed the phrase "the book was better" from something you heard
mentioned once in a while to something you heard all the freaking time.

Why?

Because LotR was suddenly relevant in everyday society.
It became a topic for conversation.
There was a certain status connected to being educated on the subject,
and one obvious requirement of such an education was obviously
that you were familiar with the source material.

Every time I heard someone say "the books were better" (and it happened a lot!)
I'd just nod my head and say "it sure was" or something similarly,
peacefully acknowledging that the other person had the "education".
Most often, that's all they were after anyway.

Few, if any, had actually read the whole thing though.
How could I tell? Because out of all the people who have read that book,
only a small number actually feel so strongly about it.
I certainly did not care, which meant that I wasn't interested in getting
into a discussion of "book vs movie" at all.

Truth is, I did read the book and I think it's quite bad.
It has a slow, convoluted narrative, the characterization is
messy and the pacing is all over the place.
It does a decent enough job in terms of establishing a setting,
and the core story is okay, but the end result is a
diamond in the rough - at the very best.
As someone who's not much of a fantasy-fan to begin with,
the whole thing was pretty uninteresting to me, and I enjoy the movies
much more than the book, since that used a much more fluid narrative
to move the story along.

However, since I refrained from getting into any serious discussion
about the book while this was all going on, I'm sure a lot of people who
did read it assumed that I was just another "uneducated" person who just
tried to pass myself of as smarter than I was.

I didn't care then, and I still don't.

---

The same thing is still happening today though.
Even though the book/movie in question has changed, people are
still using these cross-media productions to somehow claim
intellectual superiority.

It's true for Harry Potter, it's true for the Twilight-series and it's
true for Dan Brown's books about Robert Langdon.

I haven't seen The DaVinci Code and I fell asleep during Angels & Demons.
Maybe they're better than the books, maybe they're not.
All I know is that, although I did enjoy the books, I didn't feel that
they were the masterpieces that they are being treated as.

Maybe it's because I was already familiar with the gnostic gospels,
and so, every 'revelation' in The DaVinci Code became utterly predictable.

Maybe it's because I was interested in - and then tired of - conspiracy theories
revolving around the freemasons and the illuminati a long time ago.

It doesn't really matter.

The point is that I'm certainly more "educated" on the subject of
the gnostic gospels than someone who's only reference is The DaVinci Code,
however, that doesn't make me any more intelligent than that person.

It just means that I have, at some point, made a priority out of learning
about it, while the other person was doing something else, and while
the pursuit of knowledge is something I'd encourage everyone to try, the
exact subject is something I'll leave to each individual's discretion.

---

Now, I'll try to wrap up this leg of the article, as there are
other aspects I'd like to explore as well.

I've already admitted that I'm not much of a fantasy-fan.
So what do I like?

King Lear,
The Kreutzer Sonata,
And The Ass Saw The Angel,
Klokkemakeren,
I Curse The River Of Time

These are books that I like a lot, and that might help anyone who's interested
to better understand my point of view.

That said, I can appreciate anything with a good story and a strong narrative.
I just don't think that an interesting premise is a good enough excuse
for a half-assed narrative.

*****

So, clearly there is a sense of intellect connected to reading literature.
This is something that has always been there, and I don't think it will
go away any time soon.

However, I'm not conviced that every single person sitting online and claiming
superior intellect is such an avid reader.
Even more to the point, what about the discussions that have absolutely
nothing to do with literature at all?

Since this is an online article, I'll go ahead and presume that whoever is reading
this is doing so on a computer of some sort.
Computers and the internet go hand in hand, and no matter how fancy the iPhone
or your new Playstation is, the computer is still the main access portal
to the internet.

It's not a huge surprise then, that computers are often discussed on the internet,
something that makes for a good example of a discussion not connected to literature at all.

Personally, I consider myself an intermediate at computers.
Obviously, real computer pros will would likely rank me much lower than that,
but on my own scale that's where I'm at.

I'm knowledgeable enough to assemble my own PC from hardware parts,
and tweak them to my liking, and I can fix most software issues on my own.
That said, I don't know a single line of coding and I couldn't hack
myself into a pocket calculator, so I'm definitly not a pro.

Does that automatically make me dumber than some incredible computergeek,
who has spent his time learning C++, and can list every
edition of Linux by memory?

Maybe, maybe not, but it's actually far more likely that it's because in-depth
computer programming has never been a priority for me.
I have other hobbies and other interests that I would much rather invest myself in.
Now, I'm not saying that anyone who does know coding only has one interest in life either,
but the fact is that at some point, s/he has chosen to study that
over something else.

Also, on the point of hardware, and how it all works, that is much closer related
to mechanical intelligence, isn't it?

A car mechanic is certainly less intellectually predisposed than
a professor of history - at least as far as the socially accepted
norm goes - but does it actually make him stupid in comparison?

---

To answer that, let's look at some people who are regarded as
the some of the most intelligent individuals in the world;

Rocket scientists, nuclear physicists, electronic engineers and so on.

The list is long.

Last time I checked, there was no requirement for any of them to have ever
read the books of Leo Tolstoy.

So, if intelligence is no longer limited simply to the intellectual realm,
where does that leave us?

Well, the one thing most of these smart people do have in common is a firm
grasp of mathematics. Indeed, math is held in very high regard, in terms
of intelligence - and rightly so.

Mathematics requires an understanding of logic, of consequence and of relation, and higher
levels of math requires you to keep notion of those into the realms of the impossible.
Math is also something that can be applied, almost universally, to pretty much anything.

Some times, applying mathematics to the abstract can become almost philosophical
in nature, as there may not be a formula that answers the riddle - at which point,
mathematicians will attempt to create one.

As a result of this, I'd say that to deal with advanced mathematics you are
required to have a high level of theoretical intelligence.
There's just no dismissing that fact.

However, going with what I've said earlier, that doesn't completely rule out that
someone who's no good at math can be intelligent.
It might be that the person in question has a genius-level
intelligence, but s/he simply has no interest in mathematics at all.

Who's to say that a super-genius wouldn't simply grow bored with math
at an early level, and seek his challenges elsewhere - long before
the truly advanced problems were even introduced?
With the way schools work now, that's certainly not unthinkable.

*****

So we're not really any closer to an answer at all then, are we?

Of course, I've also completely left out the realm of arts.
Mozart, Van Gogh, Michelangelo and so on.
They are all regarded as geniuses, but it's hard to measure
that kind of intelligence.

After all, someone who doesn't like their work might be blinded
to their brilliance by his (or her) own personal preferences.

Preferences...

Indeed, I think that word may be the key to the entire mystery.

Why do people think they are smarter than they actually are?
Why do people assume others are dumber than they are?

The answer; because any one individual has his own idea of how the world works.

In effect, nobody has a better understanding of *your* world, than *you* do.

Now, this isn't a new or revolutionary notion - and I won't pass it off as one.
"All things are relative". It's been said before, and quoted a bajillion times.

That, of course, means that in *your* world, *you* are the most enlightened,
most intelligent individual alive, since *your* understanding of things will
always be correct in relation to the world *you* perceive.

Of course, that doesn't _really_ mean you're the smartest person in the world.

The way to measure a person's intelligence, with all this already said,
is to measure the individual's understanding of how things work in
our common, conceded world. The melting pot of all our perceived realities,
where the "truth" is the middle ground that the majority can agree upon.

3+2=5 only because that's something we all have agreed is the most logical
way to do things. If the world, collectively, agreed that 2 was actually more than it is,
then the answer would be different.

I'm not talking about the definition of the '2' symbol here, just to make that clear.
What I'm saying is that if the definition of measurement was different,
then 2 could mean a lot more (or less).

Much like the value of money is agreed upon, the value of measurement is also
something we have at one point reached a sensible conclusion about.

$1 = 0.7Euro   (approximately, at the time of writing. It's not that important)

This is a value we've assigned these items, but it is only true as long
as our common, shared reality makes it so.
In that same manner, we could have also have turned measurement on it's head,
and agreed that one stone is much more than four equal stones.

Of course, doing so now doesn't make any sense at all,
and that is my point.

*****

One's intelligence = one's understanding of the established truth.

This is what can be measured (to some degree), and this is what
everyone else has to relate to when they are interacting with you.

*****

Well then, if that's truly what intelligence is,
then what does that mean for the original question?

Let me put it like this:

I'm smarter than you. (person 1)

Don't laugh; I'm probably smarter than you too. (person 2)

That guy could be smarter than me (person 3), but I'm
most likely smarter than you (person 4), as well.

I could go on.

Fact is (and I *know* how this is going to sound, but I promise that
I'm not trying to brag my ass off by saying this), according to
several conventional and a few not-quite-so-conventional tests I have
subjected myself to, I'm smarter than 95-98% of the world's population.

(((and no, I'm not talking about those ridiculous online IQ-tests,
that pops up on every other site, in case you were wondering)))

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch and assault me with
all the power your ego can muster, please keep in mind that the
said % figure does count for The Whole World.

That includes everyone from college professors to uneducated children,
living in 3rd world countries - and which of those do
you think are most numerous? Yeah, there's a rather large crowd
lowering the average here, so in that kind of % calculation,
I'd assume anyone reading this would rank quite high as well.

That said, it does mean that statistics and mathematical logic establishes
that I'm more intelligent than a rather large majority of everyone
I ever talk to.

Want to bet on wether or not the majority of them are
willing to admit to that fact? Right.

No, I'd rather keep quiet about it to anyone who doesn't need to know.
Just like I always have. See, despite those test-scores I just mentioned,
I wasn't a pronounced 'geek' back in school, at all.
In fact, I used to hang with what was largely considered
the "in-crowd" (* Told you I'd get back to it later on).

I'm all for 'flaunting it if you have it', but I
honestly have nothing to gain from doing so.
It would only create animosity.

I'll admit right away that my strongest suite of intelligence
is on the theoretical side, and so, I have very little ego invested
in whatever intellect I do possess, because the activities I enjoy
the most in my daily life do not require any of it.

I like to drive cars, play guitars, shoot guns and climb on rocks - all of
which are quite physical, and none of which require much thoughtful analysis.
Besides, as far as 'status' goes, I couldn't care less what people outside my
social circle think of me, as long as I'm not miserable and can
do the things I like to do.

Yeah, I'm just awesome like that.

Naaah, I'm not shy to admit that I also have a geeky side,
since that should be quite obvious after this post.
I also enjoy reading books, studying various subjects and I do
still play video games too - something most of my friends have
stopped doing, some 6-7 years ago.

Still, I do all of those in solitary, so it really changes nothing at all.

Besides, even with this certified level of intelligence, that doesn't actually
mean that I'll perform better at whatever than the next guy.
I have several friends who are better at this or that than me,
and that's perfectly fine.

Hell, it's not rare that a couple of my buddies come up with something much smarter
than I ever would, and they don't have much of an intellectual background at all.
In fact, most of'em aren't even interested in getting one.

---

So what's the point of all this?

Not a whole lot actually.
I just hope that maybe someone will actually read this (hah, fat chance) and maybe
consider the fact that there are such a multitude of ways to measure intelligence,
and none of them truly work.

So maybe you were more knowledgeable than that other guy,
and maybe you did "pwn" him with your superior way of expression,
but that really doesn't mean a thing.

Sure, expressing yourself in a rational, logical manner will obviously
put you ahead of someone who just rants and raves incoherently.
That much is obvious, but like everything else I have mentioned,
it has little to do with actual, applicable intelligence.

I've met people with incredibly high intellects that could
hardly put a sentence together, word for word,
so it really doesn't mean anything.

I'm NOT saying that "everyone has their own kind of intelligence, so we're all equal"
or any of that kinda crap. I don't belive it, and I never will.
Some people truly are superior to others.

What I am saying is that unless you're abso-fucking-lutely certain that you
really are more intelligent than someone, keep your freaking mouth shut,
and don't immediatly dismiss anyone who says s/he's smarter than you.

They could very well be.

You're not the smartest person in the world. In fact, you're most
likely completely average - because you do realize that the majority are?

-K.L.

PS.
Online "debates" are like a baboon's ass;
Full of color and even more full of shit.

This is not going to be like any of my
previous articles. It will be worse.

A lot worse.

That's a fair warning, don't you think?

In my previous 5 posts, I've at least tried to
express myself in such a way, that anyone
who might read them have - at the very least -
a moderate, reasonable and (although certainly
not complete) fairly informed view into the
reasoning behind my thoughts.

This post will offer no such commodities.

Following what seems to be the online trend,
I'm just going to bitch and moan about
everything I have a problem with, that I
can think of right now (I'm sure I'll forget
something, because I actually have a *lot* of peeves),
and offer only a minimum of insight into why
any of these things annoy me.

Now, I could very easily have written a
separate post for each and every point on this
list, but I chose this collected format instead,
since that way I'll only have a single angry, offensive
and judgemental post on my record, instead
of several shorter ones.



***Several of the following statements are liable
to offend certain people/groups.***



This is a list of things that I think are wrong with
the world today, or just general grievances that
aren't really wrong but still piss me off:



1.
YouTube.

Not the service itself, but a large part of the community.
Mainly the attention-whores who absolutely love
themselves, and post their videos for no other
reason than to expose themselves to the world.

I'm not even talking about people like Chris Crocker,
because - even though I find him annoying too - he
actually tries to make a statement in some of his clips.

No, I'm talking about the fat, ugly mirror-breakers,
that post clips without any kind of purpose.
Some times they sing a song - but they have no
talent, so it's got no artistic value!

Then, when someone has the balls to
address the stupidity of these people being
on public display - they have the audacity to
talk back?! Seriously?!

Listen up, "D.I.A.M.O.N.D.", if you are serious
in your belief that what you did in this clip is
anywhere near the kind of singing talent that
deserves to be broadcast - you are a fucking moron!



2.
I'm very annoyed by the state of art, in this day and age,
and it's entirely to blame on the popularisation
of Modernism, and the dumb, fucking idea
that "everything is art" and that the only
difference is in levels of depht.

The chaos of trying to create categories for
all this new stuff, now that everything was art,
resulted in the huddled mess that is the
art scene of today.

Structuralism (and in turn poststructuralism)
is only one example, where people apply
art labels to social networks.
What? Of course you can make a piece of art
that reflects a social structure, but to call the
structure itself art? It's stupid.

Suddenly you are a mindless conformist if
you are male and wear pants, because
wearing a dress instead would mean you
were "deconstructing the reality" by going
against the norm - and "making art" simply
by putting on women's clothing.

Wether your sources were analytical or
continental (as if Marx cared, when he philosopihed
over echonomics, what effect that would have
on painters) they all fall into the same category,
in my head: Bull. Shit.

Like I said, I blame Modernism - but Modernism
itself wasn't really that bad.
It just paved the way for all of this really bad stuff.
I actually appreciate Surrealism and
the abstract - of course I do(!) - to a point.
The point where it turns into bullshit.

Take this picture as an example:


This could pass as "Modern Art".

I call it... "When a Boy Becomes a Man".

The symbolism goes like this:
As an older child / young teenager, life is chaotic,
and you're not really in control.
You are always influenced by forces outside
of your own will, be they hormones, friends,
teachers or your parents - yet you are growing
older, and in that sense; moving.

Slipping on a banana-peel also puts
you in a state of disarray, where you are
moving - but with minimal control.

However, as you reach adulthood, that changes.
You are still moving, but find yourself much
more in control. The chaos and the outer influences
are still present (in the form of the peel),
but the roles have been reversed.

You are now in control, as shown
by the peel's placement on top of the shoe.
It's still influencing your steps, but since it's
placement has changed, you are no
longer slipping - but in control
of your movement.

Of course this is all bullshit, and I
just pulled all of that out of my ass,
something I'm sure you are all aware of.

Because you are aware of that, you might be
tempted to say that it would never have passed
as serious art, but I believe most of that has
to do with the setting you are viewing the
picture in right now.

If you had been told that same explaination
by an "artist", while viewing the picture on
display, it would be different.

You may still have discarded it as crap,
and questioned the artistic value in your head,
but you probably wouldn't doubt the
fact that it must have had at least *some* of it -
if only for the fact that it was there.

What I am saying is that even "modern art"
needed a narrative - a point; a reason
to be considered art.

If there was no message being conveyed,
no visceral (or in terms of music; audible) experience,
or - at the very least - some emotion to be
gained; it wasn't art.

Today that has changed.
Like I said, today *everything* is art,
and artistic value is no longer judged on
the narrative conveyed, or even the emotion
that the work may trigger within it's audience.

Today, artistic value is based upon
the amount of emotion that the artist had
while creating the work -
the viewer's experience be damned!

That means a picture like this (see below) is
accepted as art - and may even hold high
levels of artistic value - if the creator
manages to convince an audience that he
was really, really sad while applying the blue,
and really, really angry while drawing the red line.



Yeah...

That is some serious bullshit!



3.
Elitist bastards that use arguments that could have
been valid - if they came from someone else, who has a clue.

There are many, but I'm referring to the "metalheads"
who proclaim their superiority over
the "brainwashed masses" because they listen to
music that supposedly has *that* much more
artistic value, using completely backwards reasoning,
including (but not limited to) statements like these:

"The music has meaning, more depth and emotion than pop music.
It also takes more skill to play, so it's way better from a technical
point of view as well!"

Personally I do not think bands like Dimmu Borgir - who
sing about trolls and vikings - offer a narrative
that is in any way more compelling than
someone who sings about a more realistic
issue (even if it's just a fucking broken-heart cliché).

Then we have other bands that are pretty much
just writing the same "emo" texts as far more mellow
artists do, and the only difference becomes
the presentation - and that is a matter of personal
preference, and not actual depth of the matter.

Oh yeah, and of course there's the extremists.
Those are the most laughable ones of all really.

I quote:
"I ram my fist into her hole.
From her crotch, piss now flows.
Rectum filled with shit.
I fucked her emptied body,
until she became stiff."

Obscene imagery can be used in art to create
a lot of things, from an uneasy atmosphere to
outright disgust and anger.
That kind of text doesn't accomplish anything
of that sort though. It's just silly, and
whoever wrote it is just trying way too hard;
it becomes pathetic and laughable.

Next we have the performance itself.
Seriously, screaming does not make a
song emotional - and most certainly not deep.
Fans claim it relays pure rage, and "evil".
Well, if it's truly pure rage then it already fails,
since that is just as deep as the Teletubbies theme -
which relays sheer happiness.
Both approaches relay *one, single* emotion,
and that is not deep - no matter which
emotion it is. Anger is not automatically
deeper than bliss, and neither offer any
sense of emotional conflict or multilayered depth.

Oh, and the technical nature of the instrumentals is
completely irrelevant as far as genre goes.
If Zakk Wylde wanted to write a song for Avril Lavigne, it
would most likely have all his technical signatures, only
with a different presentation, just as Mike Oldfield would
have no problem composing a metal instrumental,
featuring the very same acoustic breakdowns and
dynamic shifts as Opeth.

Seriously, if you were looking for professional
qualities you would all be listening to opera
and classical symphonies, since the compositions
of Bizet or Vivaldi are certainly much stronger than
those of Children of Bodom.

Just admit that you listen to that music
because you like the way it sounds,
and don't try to justify it with your ass.



4.
I hate the over-exposure of homosexuality!

No, I don't hate gay people - I hate gay people who
feel the need to shove their sexuality in my face!

Fine - you're gay - and you're proud of it.
Good for you.
Do I really need to know that?
Seriously, what is the point of drawing such
extreme amounts of attention to that part
of your person? I don't fucking get it!

It's as if these people don't have any other
redeeming qualities at all - and I'm not
the one implying this; they are!

Speaking for myself, I certainly don't choose
to introduce myself, or draw attention to myself,
based solely on my sexual affairs.

No, if I'm performing at a concert, I try to expose
the music; the art; and, of course, my performance.
If I'm in the process of getting to know someone
on a personal level I try to present myself by maybe
talking about my hobbies; my interests; a little insight
to the way I think or something similar.

What I don't do is present myself by saying
"Hello! I have sex with women!" or worse still;
I could make a street parade dedicated to
showing the whole world that I like to sleep with girls!

Then they have the audacity to demand that the
rest of us treat them with respect and consideration...
Fuck you! I'll treat you with exactly the same respect
I would have for any other person who walked up
to my face and started sharing details about his
sexual life with me. That's NO respect,
in case you were missing the point.

If you want people to address you in a proper manner,
find something else to use as your "ice breaker" than
the fact that you like cock.
Personally, I have no interest in who you sleep with,
and if you insist on sharing the information with me,
regardless of that fact, I'll tell you to fuck off.

The whole thing grinds my gears, and I am tempted to
say that every single homosexual should be legally
tried and convicted with the same prejudice as
any other sexual deviant, such as pedophiles,
necrophiles and those beastiality freaks.

No, I don't actually think that a gay person is
as bad as a pedophile, but if they were all
forced back inside the closet, then this
overexposure would surely end.



5.
Not-so-talented children on talent shows.
You all know which ones I'm talking about.

Honestly, it's not the fact that they're not talented
that is the problem. There are plenty of adults on
these shows without talent too, since every
celebrity-wannabe, with an extremely distorted
image of self, seems to jump at the chance to
be on TV for 3 minutes.

What annoys me is the fact that these kids
are pampered and lied to.

Whenever some adult clown comes on stage
and makes an ass out of (her)himself the jury,
as well as the audience, makes them painfully
aware of that fact - without hesitation.
That's good! Maybe that person will then go
home, look in the mirror and re-evaluate
his/her "talent" - hopefully with, at least
a little bit, more accuracy than last time.

The kids, however, are offered no such chance.
Many, many, many children walk on stage and
put on performances that are
tremendously underwhelming - yet, they are
told that they did a great job, and that they
should be very proud of themselves.

When rejection-time finally comes around,
there is no harsh reality check there either,
since the message is always sugarcoated and
overwhelmingly positive - despite the fact
that the performance could have been horrible.

It's the same sorry excuse for "feedback" that
mothers are notorious for giving their untalented
children, in order to build the child's self-esteem,
and also just because nobody wants to cause
a child to cry over hurt feelings.

Well, what happens then, when the time
for that reality check finally does come?

We end up with all those adult losers, who
come to the talent shows and get ridiculed
and chased off the stage, while the laughter roars
behind them - like some sort of themesong
for broken dreams.

Wouldn't it be much better to tell the child
that s/he has NO future as a professional singer,
so that maybe the child can change it's focus,
and discover a talent that is truly worth pursuing?
After all, building your self-esteem on a shaky
foundation is a sure way to set yourself up
for a massive emotional crisis...



6.
Back to the musical topic with another complaint;
I want to add that I absolutely hate Rap, Hip Hop and RnB.
That may sound like a racial issue, but it's not. It's cultural.
When it comes to Blues, Jazz, Soul or any other form of
"black" music - I have no problem.
My problem is with the MTV-stereotype "gangsta",
and every single other kind of "gansta" for that matter.

You're not "hardcore", you're not "pimp", you're not "G"
and you most certainly are not cool.
No, the only good qualities you do possess are
high mortality rates and a seemingly unending willingness
to provide a healthy demand for police officers.

Oh, and you make me laugh every time
I see you try to make a run for it, wearing
oversized trousers, on "COPS".



There you have it.

Part 1 of my nonsensical complaint-post.
I'll probably add more to it some time when
I am in "that" kind of mood again,
but until then, this will have to be my
contribution to the neverending world
of complaints and disagreements that
is known as "The Internet".

Take care!

The Holy Bible.
It's the world's most famous book,
and the heart of most major branches of
modern Christianity.
It needs no drawn-out introduction.

I'm also certain that most of you are aware
of the controversy surrounding The Bible.
Over the years, critics have always pointed out
it's flaws - some are obvious while others are
more obscure, but none have gone unnoticed.

Not surprising, considering it's high profile and
extremely important status in our society.
Over the 1800-or-so years since it took on it's
first (known) form as a complete document,
people have analyzed it - and questioned it.
Even in times where doing so was outright dangerous,
people would still analyze the texts - be it in search
for some ultimate truth, or just to challenge The Bible
as a means of oppression and injustice.

I'm not going to dig too deeply into the specifics of each
various criticism aimed at The Bible, but I will
make brief mentions of a select few over the
course of this article.
If you wish to learn more about any one of these
examples (or others), there are plenty of sources
to turn to - and a huge number of those are obviously
going to be more informative and present a deeper
understanding of the problem than I am.

The very first thing I am going to address is the fact
that The Bible - as most of us know it - is far from complete.
Like any other book, The Bible had it's "editors" - many more,
by far, than any other book in history, I'm certain.
First of all, you had the original manuscripts; a huge
collection of writings and tales passed on
through the word of mouth. Many of these sources had
roots in other religions completely (which is obvious, since Christianity
as a religion didn't even exist yet) while others were just
philosophies and other thoughts and ideas that
wise people had come up with over time.

These documents and ideas were then compiled into a single,
coherent narrative. The exact time of these events are pretty unclear,
but it's believed that the Tanakh (the original Old Testament) as
a canonized document was completed around 200 BCE and 200 CE,
despite the Talmud's claims that it was finished in 450 BCE.

Regardless of the actual date, one thing is certain; a lot of
the original texts were scrapped in the process.
It doesn't even matter if the reasoning behind them being
thrown out was sound, since without them it is impossible
to determine if The Old Testament was "cencored" as a
result of biased scholars.

It certainly doesn't help matters when you find out that
much of the New Testament was discarded as well.
In fact, it gets much worse, because the material discarded
from The New Testament still partially exists, but isn't
accessible to most people - or experts.
This results in a whole lot of propoganda, and it's near
impossible for any ordinary person to seperate
the truth from the lies - if there even exists such absolutes
anymore, seeing as most of the time we're dealing
with "half-truths" rather than outright lies.

Not to mention the translation-problems, that have
resulted in such screw-ups as the whole "Virgin Mary"
debate - when in truth, the original text referred to her
with a word that literally means "young woman" and
someone chose to translate that as "virgin".

Again, I won't dig too deep into this, as it's not
really relevant to my article wether or not Jesus
had a child or if he got married - that's a discussion
that has been done to death already, in the wake
of a certain book by Dan Brown.

The point is, we're not getting the complete picture,
something that complicates our understanding of
The Bible itself. should we take everything literally,
or is there room for spiritual interpretation?
What is absolute truth and what is
determined by the individual's own understanding?

In this article, I will mainly focus on the beginning.
The Book of Genesis, and it's account of creation,
as well as how we try to explain the same
event using modern science and
science-based philosophy.

The Book of Genesis says that God created the
heaven and the earth, all the animals,
Adam and finally Eve.

How?

Well, He just did really, though most accounts that
even attempt to bring some depth to this claim that
He created these things with His voice - by speaking
them into existence - and this is where I finally get to
the meat and potatoes of this article!

Apply our present-day science, facts - as absolute
as possible based on our level of
knowledge - and humanly
comprehensible rules of logic, and The Book of Genesis
makes absolutely no sense.

Science tells us about the Big Bang, the collision of
atoms and expansion of mass.
When it comes to life on our little planet we turn to Darwinism.
Still, that doesn't answer the big questions - the ones that
existentialists have asked throughout history - what caused
the Big Bang itself? If the Bang was a reaction, it must
have had a cause. Then there's the issue of life.
What creates life? Any organism is constructed by
cells and tissue, but if the "mechanics" were enough
we would be able to reproduce this at will, but obviously
we have not been able to create "life force".

To even attempt to answer those questions, using science,
we have to go back to basics.

Existence itself consists of 4 elements:
Time, energy, nothing and darkness.
Each of these elements are as abstract and
inexplainable as they are obvious - and they
are all related to one another.

I'll try to explain Darkness first of all.
Where there is no light, there is darkness.
Darkness does not cease to exist, and it
is always present. Illuminating an area, or space,
will only make darkness "invisible" for as long as
you continue to sustain the light, and
as soon as light disappears - darkness
becomes visible again.

What creates light? Energy does.
Light is created through energy.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying
all energy creates light.
What I am saying is that light can not
exist unless energy exists first.

So what is energy?
Well, basically... it's everything.
No, not always literally so, but in
broad terms that encompass
both direct and multi-level indirect forms.

Substance, or matter, is energybased
in the sense that every solid thing is made
up from groups of molecules in different
arrangements. Molecules are, of course,
only collections of 2 or more atoms themselves,
and what is an atom made up of?
Electrons, protons and, in most cases, neutrons -
all of which are particle results of energy
dispersions, like radiation.

I'm not going to turn this into an article on
quantum physics, so either just trust me on this
or study up on it yourself. In fact, I would
advise you to study up on it regardless of your
faith in my own knowledge, because this is the
scientific knowledge that will enable you to
come up with truly deep philosophies...

Anyway, back on point...
Energy can not appear or disappear - it can
only take on a different form.

Yeah, tell that to a 9-year old when his MP3-player
has drained the batteries, right?

It's true though.
When you eat a sandwich your body extracts energy from
that sandwich. That energy is then distributed and stored
throughout your body. When you move your arm,
that same energy moves through your nerves as impulses,
then through your muscles only to change forms
completely and become movement energy.
It will then disperse, and split into several different forms,
including new neural impulses that travel back
to tell your brain that your arm has moved, as well as
external energy through the force that your arm just
exerted - such as repercussions in the air,
gravityshifts and so on.

If you want to be even more detailed, there are
shifts in energy within yourself at all times,
as cells die and new ones are created, as well as
the tiny movements that are always
occuring inside you. Since no two electrons can
ever occupy the same quantum space,
energy is never the same.

These rules are, in large strokes, the same
for everything that has substance, and
moves energy - which is effectively everything
that is not abstract or non-definable.

Okay, so energy is everything and where there is no
energy there is darkness - but if energy can be measured
and detected, then why can't darkness?

Well, in a way, it can, since (unless you are blind from birth) you
can tell the difference in levels of illumination.
You can see that a dimly lit room has more darkness than
a brightly lit one, and measure it that way, but
the question is wether or not you are seeing something or
rather *not* seeing something - or to put it differently;
does the room have more darkness or less light?

To explain that further, I'll bring in the 3rd element; Nothing.

Before I say anything more I have to inform you that
just the idea of "nothing" as it's own existence is
very debateable, since the existence of nothing is
a huge oxymoron. After all, if something exists, then
how can that truly be nothing?
Despite that problem, this article couldn't be complete
unless I mention Nothing. That would be the same
as cutting scriptures from The Bible... ;)

If nothing does not exist that means that the
natural state of all things is dark and cold,
since both light and warmth are products
of energy - as I have already explained.

However, what if nothing *does* exist?
If that is true, then the energized state of
illumination and warmth would be the natural
state of all things, and darkness (and cold) would
be products of Nothing.
Nothing would be exactly similar to energy, except
with the completely opposite effects.

It's incredibly abstract at this point, since the
existence of Nothing can't be proven - or disproven!

Regardless of it's existence as a polar-opposite to
energy, or it's non-existence as truly nothing,
the undeniable fact is that where something
is not - there is nothing.

All of those elements are bound by
the final one though!

Time.

Some call it the 4th dimension, while others
consider it an abstract force, and most people
are aware of the many paradoxes related
to time - even if most people only ever
think about it on a superficial level, when it's
used as a plotdevice in pop-culture.

Is it possible to travel through time if you go
fast enough, like some lightspeed scientists
believe, or would you have to distort the
fabric of existence in a completely different manner?

Maybe Time is better treated as a constant
pool of water, in which we move, rather than a
flowing stream that moves around us?

Would Time have borders, or limits?
Does it loop, or is there a beginning and an end to Time?
Is it linear, but infinite?

What if it branches?
Would traveling in time enable you to visit all
possible outcomes of each branching
scenario?

Destiny? Alternate realities?

I can't answer any of those questions, and that itself
is a clear indication of how abstract the subject matter is
becoming, as I dive deeper into it - despite approaching it from
a scientific angle, with as much logic as I can apply without
completely breaking the idea itself.

With enough thought and research, it is probably possible
to explain one of these elements without making
any of the other 3 absurd in the process, but at this
point in time, I don't think we have the knowledge,
technology or science to do so...

The question now is; how does this relate to Christianity?

Well, let's go back to The Bible.
God is supposedly omniscient (as well as omnipotent,
but that isn't as hard to accept.)

There are two definitions of omniscience:
Inherent Omniscience & Total Omniscience.

As far as what is written in the Bible, God is *claimed*
to have Total Omniscience - meaning he knows
everything. Absolutely. Everything.

Why then, would The Bible mention that God was
disappointed on several occations?
Other times he decided to test the strenght
of someone's faith, by putting them through
a trial - which serves no purpose if God
already knew the result.
At one point, it's even written that
God was outright surprised!

Clearly not Total Omniscience then.

So what about Inherent Omniscience?
It's certainly viable to say that this is what The Bible
really meant when referring to omniscience,
since the sub-definitions weren't devised
until more recent times.

However, the concept of knowing everything except what
you choose not to know isn't truly knowing everything, is it?
I mean, if you read chapters 1, 2 and 4 of a book, but
choose not to read chapter 3, then you will know
everything from those chapters - but you will also
be able to deduct much of what happened in
chapter 3, simply by piecing together what
happened in the chapters you did read.

Does God not have deductive ability then?
Or did He choose to withold so much knowledge
from Himself that deduction became impossible,
at which point I would actually contend the
definition of "omniscience"
at all, as opposed to just "knowing a lot".

***Because I'm beginning to get tired from writing now, I'm
going to quote Wikipedia on the issue
of God and Omniscience, since I found that it
said pretty much everything I would have said myself.***


Some theists argue that God created all knowledge and has ready access thereto. This statement invokes a circular time contradiction: presupposing the existence of God, before knowledge existed, there was no knowledge at all, which means that God was unable to possess knowledge prior to its creation. Alternately if knowledge was not a "creation" but merely existed in God's mind for all time there would be no contradiction. In Thomistic thought, which holds God to exist outside of time due to his ability to perceive everything at once, everything which God knows in his mind already exists. Hence, God would know of nothing that was not in existence (or else it would exist), and God would also know everything that was in existence (or else it would not exist), and God would possess this knowledge of what did exist and what did not exist at any point in the history of time.

It should be added that the above definitions cover what is called propositional knowledge (knowing that), as opposed to experiental knowledge (knowing how). That some entity is omniscient in the sense of possessing all possible propositional knowledge does not imply that it also possesses all possible experiential knowledge. Opinions differ as to whether the propositionally omniscient God of the theists is able to possess all experiential knowledge as well. But it seems at least obvious that a divine infinite being conceived of as necessary infinitely knowledgeable would also know how, for example, a finite person [man] dying feels like as He [God] would have access to all knowledge including the obvious experiences of the dying human. There is a third type of knowledge: practical or procedural knowledge (knowing how to do). If omniscience is taken to be infinite then all knowledge of all types would be fully known and comprehended.

Foreknowledge and its compatibility with free willl has been a debated topic by theists and philosophers. The argument that divine foreknowledge is not compatible with free will is known as theological fatalismm. If man is truly free to choose between different alternatives, it is very difficult to understand how God could know in advance which way he will choose. Various responses have been proposed:

• God can know in advance what I will do, because free will is to be understood only as freedom from coercion, and anything further is an illusion.
• God can know in advance what I will do, even though free will in the fullest sense of the phrase does exist. God somehow has a "middle knowledge" - that is, knowledge of how free agents will act in any given circumstances.
• God can know all possibilities. The same way a master chess player is able to anticipate not only one scenario but several and prepare the moves in response to each scenario, God is able to figure all consequences from what I will do next moment, since my options are multiple but still limited.
• The sovereignty (autonomy) of God, existing within a free agent, provides strong inner compulsions toward a course of action (calling), and the power of choice (election). The actions of a human are thus determined by a human acting on relatively strong or weak urges (both from God and the environment around them) and their own relative power to choose.
• God chooses to foreknow and foreordain (and, therefore, predetermine) some things, but not others. This allows a free moral choice on the part of man for those things that God choose not to foreordain. It accomplishes this by attributing to God the ability for Him, Himself, to be a free moral agent with the ability to choose what He will, and will not, foreknow, assuming God exists in linear time (or at least an analogue thereof) where "foreknowledge" is a meaningful concept.
• It is not possible for God to know the result of a free human choice. Omniscience should therefore be interpreted to mean "knowledge of everything that can be known". God can know what someone will do, but only by predetermining it; thus, he chooses the extent of human freedom by choosing what (if anything) to know in this way.
• God stands outside, and therefore can know everything free agents do, since He does not know these facts "in advance", he knows them before they are even conceived and long after the actions have occurred. The free agent's future actions therefore remain contingent to himself and others in linear time but are logically necessary to God on account of His infallibly accurate all-encompassing view.
• Instead of producing a parallel model in God's own infallible mind of the future contingent actions of a free agent (thus suppressing the agent's free will), God encodes his knowledge of the agent's actions in the original action itself.
• God passively seeing the infinite future in no way alters it, anymore than us reading a history book influences the past by simply observing it retrospectively. However, He might choose (or not) to read any chapter or the ending, or open the book at any page.

Okay, so we have a number of explanations
regarding God's omniscience...
although neither one can be proven by any
scientific means, and many of them depend on the
ability to "bend" the meaning of definitions to
become truly correct.

So with the very definition, and even possibility of omniscience
up for debate, I'm going to make a very blunt
and extremely rough proposal.

What if God's role as creator only goes
as far back as the very limits of my
earlier attempt at scientific exploration?

Perhaps God didn't literally speak
everything into existence, but instead
what we refer to as God is the source
of the 4 basic fabrics of the universe.

If God's "omniscience" only refers
to his knowledge about the 4 basic elements,
and how to combine them to create life,
then that can easily be interpreted as "knowing everything".

It's comparable to all knowledge, in that sense.
Let's call + one of the basic elements of creating math.
If you know how + works, then you essentially know
the answer to every problem based on that
binary sign. When it comes to the existence
of addition mathematics - you possess all knowledge.

Another analogy could be that you probably
know how to use a saw to extract two
boards out of a log. Then you have
the knowledge of how to create the "fabric".
You also know how to use a hammer and a nail
to connect those two boards and make a shelf.
In other words; you possess the knowledge
of how to use the fabric to create something.
All that remains is for you to actually beat the nails
into the boards and you will be the creator
of a small shelf.

Assuming that small shelf was capable of
actual thought, it wouldn't be hard
to imagine how the shelf would regard you as
it's all-knowing creator.

***Yes, I am aware that my analogies suck tonight,
but please cut me some slack, since I haven't
slept for much too long.***

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, despite the fact that much
of what is said in The Bible is hard to believe,
and maybe even impossible to prove doesn't
automatically mean that it is false.

After all, what is facts anyway, if not
only the borders of our knowledge?
Facts are absolute truths only until
we gain the knowledge to prove them false.
It was a scientific fact that the earth was
the center of our starsystem, and that the
sun orbited us - and going further back -
it was also a fact that
the earth itself was flat.

As of right now, it is a fact when I tell you
that the existence of Nothing can not
be proven, or measured.
It's also a fact that all non-abstract creation
is ultimately energy-based.

Will this be fact in some far-off future?
Who knows...

Now, as this article is coming to an end, I would
like to point out (just as I did in my opening) that
I have really only addressed The Book of Genesis here.
It was never my goal to address every single conflict between
The Bible and science, or the paradoxes that accompany them.

I was simply asking a question, and then exploring
the mere beginnings of an answer - for my own
sake more than anything, so do *not* take
this as an attack on your own ideologies.

With that said, my final sentiments are as follows:

*God may, or may not, exist as the sentient entity
depicted in The Bible - or some other form completely.
We clearly do *not* possess the knowledge to explain
our own creation, so wether or not you wish to attribute
the reaction between "fabrics" that caused it to God
or random coincidence is up to you.

*If you do choose to acknowledge God as an entity,
and not a mindless force, then "He" is, indeed,
most likely omniscient - depending on
your definition of the word.

This is, in no way, my absolute stand on philosophy though.

I am, for one, completely aware of possibilities like the "real truth" actually
being abstract instead. I'm quite familiar with the idea that God's
existence might be directly linked with each individual, or
even our collective level of faith.

I'm not ruling out other religions either, but my knowledge of
any other religion besides Christianity is sadly not
deep enough for me to sensibly explore their boundaries.
Ideally I would like to explore an ancient religion, much older
than the ones Christianity shot off from... and I probably will, one day.

Maybe we're all living in The Matrix? :P

Then there is also the possibility that no religion, philosophy
or psychotic fantasy is even close to the truth,
and that the actual reality is just
not something we are able to imagine

Perhaps we're not even meant to know, and by
digging too deep into the matter we'll only bring
about our own misfortune...

There is no absolute answer, but it is in our
nature to keep searching - despite that fact!
That is why people like me write articles like this,
even though it doesn't change or prove anything at all.
It's the exploration itself that is the reward, and
through analyzing our own philosophies we
have the potential to grow on a spiritual and
intellectual level - bettering ourselves as
individuals through a never-ending journey
in search of that elusive absolute enlightenment.

I have so much more I want to say bout these things,
but I realize that this article is already much too long.
That's okay - if someone does bother to read it all, that's
a nice bonus, but for me... it has already served it's
purpose. It let me immerse myself into my own
philosophical thoughts, if only for a little while.

Thanks.
- K.L.

Western Europe is an incredibly arrogant collection of countries.

Always have been, always will be.

Why just "Western" instead of the entire of Europe?

Well, the Middle East has always been frowned upon, due largely to
their non-christian religions, and the fact that they seem
to always be at war with eachother.
The latter in turn leading to widespread poverty, and by extension,
a shift in priorities away from high-art to more sensible things - like
staying alive. Or not getting shot. Or a combination of the two, and so on.
In any case, Eastern Europe is generally not kept in the
same regard as Western Europe by any standard, and I think most people
are aware of the fact...but again, I digress!

Western Europe also has a sense of superiority when it
comes to the US. It's always been this way, ever since the American pioneers
first broke free from their European influence.
From that point onwards, and all the way up until today, Western Europe has
always been the "elite" of Western Civilization, while the US has been the
rednecks who are only good at farming and shooting things.

A few examples to really push my point;

EU has classical music, with all the genres that entails; such as opera, chamber music, orchestral
symphonies and so on, as well as the modern day
bohemian alternative indie groups, who write lyrical allusions to Kafka and Ayn Rand.
US presented us with country, where nasal farmers whined about their dead cows,
and later paraded bands like Bloodhound Gang - who sung songs about pornstars and penises.
I won't even get started on the "gansta rap" phenomena of recent years...

In litterature, Europe prides itself on big names like Marx, Shakespeare and the aforementioned
Rand and Kafka - all decidedly more accepted by the 'elite' than someone like, say... Mark Twain,
whose "Great American Novel" becomes almost mundane in comparison.

In other arts you have the big names like Michealangelo and Picasso, not to mention
the obvious Da Vinci, who is also a big name within philosophy which is yet another category
where any "who's who" list would be made up by Europeans, with a couple of Asian war-strategists
thrown in for good measure. It's certainly not a comparison that the US comes out of, looking all too good.

Yes - I am perfectly aware that recent years have shown a more mixed culture,
where even Hollywood can produce the odd arts film every once in a while,
and white rappers from "the ghettoes in Manchester" (...) are becoming more commonplace.

That doesn't change the fact that this cultural seperation is deeply rooted,
and kept very much alive - especially so by the upper class, but by
a large portion of the common folk as well.

Anyway, that's all fine and dandy really, but if there's one thing the US has over Europe it's muscle.
Despite all our pretty paintings and multilayered poetry we're obviously not packing as much
heat as Uncle Sam - something that we were made painfully aware of when the US had to come
rescue us from a certain would-be-dictator with a nasty moustache and a bad hairdo.

I mean, except for France who has an extensive nuclear program, and possibly Israel with their
fearsome intelligence service, the EU has a pretty low-profile military.
Certainly nothing compared to whatever armament the US is now sitting on,
after the Bush-administration made the military it's top priority for almost 7 straight years...

Yes, Europe has had it's fair share of violence as well.
The Roman Empire, ancient Greece, the French Revolution, the Spanish Inquisition
and countless other incidents riddle our history.
Hell, both the Great World Wars of modern history were started and fought mainly in Europe,
so historically we're not really better than anyone else.
However, in these modern days, with the US acting as an aggressive world-police,
it's easy to claim a moral highground - made even easier by the massive fuckup that is the Iraq-war.

In fact, the US has always been regarded as our violent "sibling".
They allow their civilians to own firearms - even extremely powerful ones.
In most countries of Western Europe even police officers don't carry
sidearms when on patrol. In fact, they need to get special permits in order to
use any firearms at all. Seriously though, there is no reason for any civilian to own
something like a handgun, except to kill someone (and usually not the intended victim either).

Hunting? Low calibre rifle gets the job done.
Target shooting? Airguns work just as well.
Home security? Buy a baseball bat instead, as it will serve you better in the
close quarters of most houses, and you're less likely to shoot a member
of your own family (or yourself), as the statistics clearly show that most people
who buy guns for this reason end up doing.

Anyway, I'm not interested in discussing gun-control right now, so I'll let that rest.

Now, I wholeheartedly disagree with the US approach of pre-emptive strikes
against countries that *maybe* have WMDs, only to uproot the political balance
and leave said countries in a chaotic mess.
Let there be no doubt, I think that's absolutely disgusting.

However... I'm sure many of you are familiar with the
expression "when good men do nothing, that is evil enough".
Yeah, that is exactly what the UN is doing - and yes, I realize
that there are political bonds that tie our hands
in this matter, since the US are a (very, very large) part of NATO, and the fact that even the EU itself
can be held accountable by NATO - and not the other way around - and for that reason it's very hard to
oppose the US through any means at all, except by offering a minimal amount of support.
The only way to "fight" this battle within the political safety borders presented by the alliance of Western Europe and the US, is with the metaphorical "weapon" of inactivity. It's the logical approach, and most likely the correct one too, considering any other, more aggressive action could prove disastrous on so many levels.

Despite that fact... it still doesn't *feel* like the right thing to do.
Would it be better to put Europe and the US at odds with eachother,
and devastate international relations throughout the entire
body of Western Civilization just to "put our foot down" and tell the US to
stop playing world police?

Well, like I said in my opening statement, Western Europe doesn't *really* care about
the Middle East anyway, so at the moment the problem isn't really ours in the first place.
The US is playing world police, and we don't like it - BUT, as long as they're only
doing it to those "war-crazy muslims that we'd rather not have too much to do with anyway... it's ok".
Make no mistake, we'll never say those sentiments out loud,
but ultimately this is what the majority feels.

Don't feel too bad about it - it's human nature to not feel as bothered
by a problem that doesn't directly concern yourself.
I'm certainly not going to claim that I don't
think and feel this way myself, to a certain degree.
Point being; we could challenge the mighty USA if we were united in
our opposition, and dedicated to the cause.
However, for the time being, we won't - simply because none
of us care ENOUGH to do anything about it.
We probably won't care enough to do anything about it, until it's one of our own Western countries
that is under attack - and by then, it will probably be too late...
So, I really just want you to at least have this in the back
 of your mind the next time you start preaching morale
about what the US is doing (which I am certainly not defending either).

The power to oppose this injustice lies with us - or at least the power to pressure our own goverments
into action. Turning this around takes a certain awareness and
commitment that is sorely lacking in today's society.
The people of Iraq do not have the power to oppose the US.
That's no longer a viable option, since doing so
could only make things worse. If the US were to pull out right now, the country would be left in shambles and chaos - even more than it already is. On the other hand, the US needs to get the hell out of there, and let the country sort out it's own politics - without forceful interference, since the very presence of US troops is a disturbance in itself.
The only thing certain is that it's one hell of a mess, and it should never have happened.

Sigh... I really didn't mean for this to de-evolve into another anti-war segment.
It's the last thing I wanted to do, but I guess I fell into my own trap, as it's almost
impossible to discuss US/EU relations without mentioning the issue, these days.

Anyway, things might still change.
The US learned nothing at all from their previous blunders (like Vietnam) but because
information is so much more accessible in this digital age, the common US citizen - as well as the rest
of the world - are all the more aware of just how bad an idea the war on Iraq really was.
Americans are aware that the rest of the world frowns upon
everything "Dubya" did, and while there's a few
rednecks and KKK members that still support him, much of the general public are humbly asking
for a second chance - a chance to prove that the US does indeed promote freedom, and not
facism, cleverly disguised behind speeches about God - that go
against everything The Lord ever preached.

With that said, I would like to ask all of my fellow Europeans not to judge the Americans too hard, as seems to
be the trend now, since it's quite possible that we could have prevented the mistake if we had
been a little more concerned about what happens in the Middle East a little bit sooner, instead of
focusing entirely on beautiful paintings, opera and reading old books.

Being educated means exactly nothing if you can not be bothered to take
that wisdom and apply it somewhere useful.

It's been a while since "Street Fighter 4" was released to the
home consoles, and the community seems to have been divided over one, very specific issue;

"Play to Win."

The community can be roughly divided into 3 groups:
Those who swear by the motto "play to win", those who do not
and finally those who just don't care either way.
That third group of people are sort of a write-off, since they obviously don't
really matter in this issue.

Now this isn't a new phenomena by any means. It's been around probably for as
long as organized competition has existed, in any shape or form.
The phrase itself was, as most of you know, coined by David Sirlin - a game designer,
and high-level Street Fighter player.
However, the arrival of Street Fighter 4 brings in a lot of new players,
as well as bring back a bunch of older ones, and the clash of ideology
becomes appearent once more.

Now, I want to start with addressing the people who do not "play to win".
The so-called "scrubs" of the Street Fighter community.
Defined by the common denominator of home made rules and vague codes of honor,
the "scrubs" are kind of a paradox themselves.

Why?

They commonly claim to "play for fun" rather than to win, which I suppose is okay.
The counter-argument is often that "winning is fun", but that's narrowminded.
It is completely possible that some people will have fun simply playing the game, victory be damned. I mean, if someone buys SF4 just to watch the flashy Ultra Combo animations, or make a drinking game where the cue is "every time someone shouts 'Hadoken'", then they have every right to do so.

Those are the extreme cases though. Most times, even the "scrubs" will concede that winning does actually account for alot of the fun.
Their gripe? It's how you win!
If winning means resorting to abuseable tactics, or the "spamming" of a certain move,
these people would rather lose.
If it means picking the same character for 20 matches in a row,
they would rather lose.

These "codes of conduct" are fine, all on their own, but when applied to a competitive game, there's one major question: where is the line drawn?
Are you allowed to throw only 2 times per round? 3 times? Or maybe none at all?
The answer is as diverse as the number of players, so there can be no real answer to this, unless the game itself used some sort of system where you would be disualified for throwing more than 3 times. But then the most viable tactic would be to throw 2 times, every round, so would that then be considered cheap?

I don't know, and it's not important. The point is, every single one of these people have some sort of rule, or moral code that does not exist within the game itself, and is obviously then only appliccable by people who share the same mindset.

The problem is that alot of these people expect others to have the same mentality, and this is where the clash occurs.

The people who "play to win" are completely opposite.
If a character has a move that is indeed extremely abuseable, the P2W-player will have absolutely no qualms about entering a match, and pulling the victory by using that move exclusively for the duration of the fight.
It's an almost primal drive, comparable to a real street fight, where most people would do anything to walk away the winner, with a minimum of injury.
The common question to this disposition? Well, it's not a real street fight, so why the hell so serious? Why does the player so desperately seek victory?

Well, there are several answers. Sense of accomplishment is obviously a factor, as is the drive of the competition itself. After all, what is really the point of entering any sort of competition if you're not willing to put in your best effort? To have fun? Yeah, okay, but there has to be better ways to have fun than entering various competitions to lose....
Some P2W-players even credit this to their own code of honor, stating that playing any less than their best would be an insult to the opponent.
I can understand that. I really can, but what when the opponent is a "scrub" who doesn't really care about being "insulted" by downplay, as long as the P2W-player plays "fair" (in accordance with the "scrub's" own moral code)?

Well, there is one major difference: The "scrub" plays by "rules" not enforced or included within the game itself. The P2W-player is simply using the best weapons at his/her disposal, all within the boundaries of the game.
If the "scrub" doesn't like playing a game where it is possible (and legal) to throw 20 fireballs one after the other, then perhaps the answer is to simply play another game...?
Does the "scrub" have the right to even complain, when he/she willingly puts him/herself in a position where s/he is suspectible to such abuse?

Now, it may seem that I favor the P2W-mentality, by asking that question, but I find that the alot of the P2W-representatives do actually not even play by the true meaning of "Play to Win" as it was intended.

In fact, some of it's most adamant defenders does not even understand the full concept of "playing to win"!

It's like they only read parts 1 and 2 of David Sirlin's original series of articles, but completely ignored the 3rd part - in alot of ways, the most important part.
The part that makes "Play to Win" even feasible, without being a complete bully.

To roughly translate, this 3rd part tells you that always "playing to win" is actually the dumbest thing anyone can do. Specializing in one character is good, but playing that character exclusively is bad, and treating every match as a serious competition is just plain wrong! "Playing to win", in reality, basically means no doing so, in most cases.

Yeah, I know, it sounds confusing, and I'll add links to the article itself at the bottom, so you can read it yourselves, to better understand the concept.

The point is, you should only "play to win" when there is actually something to be won! When you're playing your 6-year old little sister, it does not hurt to go easy on her.
It won't make you a better player if you beat her, just as it won't make you a worse one if you lose.

This brings about one more question though:
"Where does it apply?" and that itself is very much relevant to the experience of SF4.
Seeing as the vast majority of players will never enter professional tournaments, the online mode is what it all comes down to for the average player - no matter which ideology s/he follows.

Now, as who follows any online Street Fighter Forum are aware of, there is an influx of complaints concering things such as "everyone plays Ken!", "I hate spammers!" and "X character is cheap!".
People will complain, and in 90% of the instances, some person will at some point answer with a snyde remark. That's normal. It's just the way internet forums work, and there's precious little to be done about it. It shouldn't be a huge problem for anyone either way.

The question I want to ask though is "are these complaints justified"?
No, I personally don't think so. Even if you have the mentality that the game should for some reason have this or that "rule", and X move is "cheap", you can not complain that others do not play the same way you do. To suggest something like that is like... on the border of mild facism, and just wrong. You may "play to have fun", and that is your right, but maybe your opponent actually thinks throwing 30 fireballs at you is fun, so practice what you preach.

That said, I don't much like the people who respond to the complainers with quotes from "Play to Win" either!
In fact, those responses are the main reason I even bothered to write this long wall of text. Like I already touched upon, "play to win" means that you some times "play to play"!

That means, you do not pick Sagat 30 times in a row, in a Player Match, just because he is your main character, and incidentally, top-tier.
Also, you do not use Sakura's c.short-linking combo for a quick and easy victory, in an unranked match.
Then you're applying the "play to win" mentality, in a setting where it
does not belong. Under such circumstances, truly "playing to win" means you would instead "play to play", and try to diversify instead of annhialiting your opponent.

Then there's the issue of Ranked Match...
Personally, I don't "play to win" even in those, because I just don't care that much about Battle Points. Yes, it's the closest thing most players will ever get to a real competition, but still - it's not. Not really. There's no prize, very little glory and just not enough incentive (for me) to think of it as a truly competitive setting.
I know some might disagree, and if you personally think Battle Points are something worth "playing to win" over, then by all means; be my guest.

So what is the final conclusion?
What was the point in writing all this?
Pretty much that both ideologies have their flaws, but they can also both be defended.
There is no right or wrong way to play, and seriously... at the end of the day, this is still just a game, and shouldn't be taken too seriously - playing to win or not - and because it is just a game, there is no reason to become an offensive elitist just because you happen to be good at it. Remember, 90% of the people you will encouter online are casual players - players with other priorities in life, so by extension, you're just making youself look silly for taking a game so seriously, giving it more credit than it was ever meant to have.

That's all from me, for now.
To those who read this stuff, thank you,
and for those who shrugged it off as "tl;dr"
I can completely understand where you are coming from. :)

Links to "Play to Win" (the original article - not the book):

Part 1:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html
Part2:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-2-mailbag.html
Part 3:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-3-not-playing-to-win.html