The only reason we exist is because we have been reproduced; existence implies reproduction. We are vehicles for perpetuating genetic material and the only reason we exist is because of replication. If you draw any meaning without that fact you risk manufacturing absurdity through false context. Consequently, it only makes sense that so many individual decisions, such as self-perpetuation and self-magnification, are based on that fundamental (genetic) value. 23.11.06

The Lottery Logic

29.08.04 Lotteries appeal to a broad spectrum of the populace because no element of skill is required to play, unlike gambling games such as poker or craps that often do. Casino gambling games have far more favorable odds to the player yet lotteries never lack for customers to buy the tickets. Gambling is different than the lottery in another way because no one seriously walks into a casino thinking they will break the bank and walk out millionaires yet most every lottery player actually does think this or they wouldn’t play. Indeed the larger the payouts the more people buy tickets even as the statistical chances of winning decline! Even more ironic is the fact that if the lottery is done legally the results are completely random and completely unpredictable yet the lottery playing public still expends an inordinate amount of effort on concocting predictive methodologies! Perhaps money is the new religion, eh?

No one would run a lottery if they didn’t turn a profit from it. Fiscal Year 2003 sales by American state indicate that per capita lottery ticket sales vary from $1,194 in Rhode Island at the high end down to an average of only $37 spent per person in Montana.

But make no mistake, the state lottery is a multi-billion dollar industry. New York State made $1,780,360,000 in profit during 2003 on total lottery ticket sales of $5,395,960,000. To put this in perspective, the entire state of Nevada's casinos generated $9.6 billion in 2001. The majority of the profits from the public’s voracious appetite for lottery tickets are generally spent on education and other social services to deflect from moral arguments against gambling and this highly profitable monopoly that government exercises.

The odds of wining any given lottery game vary widely depending on the numbers in the pool, the required set of winning numbers, the order if any and so on. As an example given a pool of 50 numbers to pick from and the winning requirement of choosing all six numbers regardless of order the chances of winning are: 50/6 * 49/5 * 48/4 * 47/3 * 46/2 * 45/1 = 15,890,700:1. To put it another way, with one ticket you have 15,890,699 different ways of losing the jackpot! If you were to purchase 10 tickets all with different numbers in this same game your chances of winning (the jackpot) are not appreciably better, just 1 in 15,890,690. To guarantee winning one would have to purchase 15,890,700 tickets but it’s unlikely that any given lottery would even issue that many tickets for one game and besides even at only a dollar a ticket the payout probably wouldn’t cover the cost of buying the tickets. And besides, if you already have $15 million then why are you playing the lottery anyway?!

They say ‘you can’t win unless you play’ but buying more tickets does not increase the likelihood of winning unless it is for the same round. In other words, each game drawing is a completely discrete set with absolutely no bearing on any other – if you lost the last three (or 300) games you are no more likely to win the fourth.

So what about the argument that ‘someone has to win’ (and why can’t it be me)? It’s true that many people win in the lottery but that doesn’t mean they get the multi-million dollar jackpot, rather $10, $20, $50 for a few correct numbers probably doesn’t even recoup the amount spent buying the tickets as evidenced by the per-capita averages mentioned before. The lottery even more so than traditional casino gambling is intentionally designed to create many, many losers and only a very few big winners, just enough to generate a motivated customer base and still remain very lucrative for the operator. For details on how the payouts are actually done read How Lotteries Work, Annual Payments.

I have to admire the insidiousness of the jackpot state lottery and how it plays upon the irrational weakness of the human mind.  As seemingly illogical as lottery behavior seems it’s rooted in the psychology of risk versus reward, the initial outlay is deemed an acceptable risk given the magnitude of the potential jackpot. The statistical facts are simply too large and abstract to have any significance to the average individual in making their decision. Crafty. Call me a cynic but the state lottery seems like Capitalism’s best defense and antidote against Marxist machinations because it sates the greed need without any fundamental shift in wealth or progressive changes to society. Regardless of the true intent, in practice the multi-million dollar lottery may well be the ultimate tool for pacifying the public's materialistic desires - it is the state's insurance against revolution.
Feelin’ lucky?

Something From Nothing (1/1=0+1)

October 2004

Random

Rational decision making process' are excellent means of arriving at accurate conclusions but not always the best strategy within social interactions. This is because being rational means being predictable and being predictable means able to be exploited by a cunning opponent.

In this case random decisions are often superior to rationally planned ones, what's referred to as a mixed strategy in game theory. Irrational, unpredictable decision making would seem to be a luxury that only sentient beings (or a programmable computer) can enjoy. Even if the decision of an animal may seem irrational from our observational position this is never actually the case. The animal may be acting upon flawed or incomplete information to make a (poor) decision but it is nonetheless always, barring brain damage, perfectly rational. 13.07.02

Missing Memory or ...uh what was I talking about?

A noticeable inability to stay on task, to focus and get the job done is characteristic of modern living. Indeed the patience and concentration needed to see any strategic plan to fruition is largely lacking. My contemporaries seem quite unable to sit down and carry an unpleasant task from start to finish, or indeed any lengthy task for that matter. [Me I'm like a laser beam I focus until it's vaporized, usually unable to tear away until the task is completed like some kind of obsessive perfectionist. But that's perhaps why I notice this in the first place.]

Much of it I blame on television and similar cultural inculcations of incoherence, rapidity of alternating thoughts and the debasement of concentration. But also responsible is our cultural obsession with the chronological regimentation of daily life. And actually this trend is increasingly well documented.

Serious scientific researchers are discovering that modern people are losing memory and the more computer oriented the greater this loss is, likely due to the chronic use of planners and computerized appendages to organize life. And I've seen it too at work and elsewhere, often blamed on age or hectic schedule. I'm sure you've observed it as well if you stop to think about it, people forgetting because of lack of impetus for remembering because the machines do all the remembering for us. It's not a permanent disability just an atrophy of skills due to lack of exercise, but still no less serious.

Think of it, before writing memory was impeccable by our present standards. The equivalent of entire books of stories, rules, laws and folklore were maintained solely in the mind. Hearing, learning and memory were exceptionally interlinked, example 1000 years ago Lögsögumaðr or the president of the Icelandic Althing had the task among others to recite the entire code of law from memory. In other words the Lögsögumaðr had to listen to the entire code of law spoken by the outgoing office holder, remember it in entirety and then recite without flaw when needed months or years later. Today people are lost after a 15 second commercial! Don't tell me people are smarter today than 1000 years ago! More educated perhaps but not more intelligent.

It's been stated that television and to a lesser extent the Internet is beneficial in that it trains nonlinear thought process'. Or more succinctly the belief is that rapid, alternating mental associations create fast thinkers, a necessary skill in our rapidly changing world. I contend this is just the apologists position for the clearly detrimental effects of this affront to the critical ability to concentrate on singular issues until resolution. The myth of the new era, that because technology generates sudden changes that somehow every old rule and law of life is rendered spurious. Now we remember by proxy through technology from writing notes to electronic organizers to alarm watches. Yet much of the apparent advantage is illusory for while it spreads memes, ideas and thoughts more rapidly the duration with which those thoughts stay in the mind is weakened to the point of creating mnemonic invalids.

Living by the clock is unhealthy and unnatural, I don't recommend it and I certainly avoid practicing it myself; I have no cell-phone, no pager and no PDA (like an IPAQ). And at the price of seeming even more didactic than I probably already do I would urge you to ditch the digital dog leashes too if at all possible. Some people can't or think they can't afford to do without but they'll eventually realize even if they can't remember why that an over-reliance on machines for mental processes' only makes the individual weaker and less capable of productive thought and reason. The people that succeed in life aren't the ones that can entertain six independent thoughts a minute but the ones that can hold onto (the right) one long enough to do something with it. Success has two paths, dumb luck and long term planning and for most of our TV addled neighbors their only hope is dumb luck. 13.04.01

Y2K - Computers: 1, Humans: 0

Considering the fantastic hype and fear associated with the Y2K computer problem it seems somewhat surprising that it just totally drops off the radar screens come January 2. I think the authorities that magnified its significance want their faulty reasoning to be quickly forgotten and everybody else is too busy getting on with life.

Well I’m not going to let it go away that easily. I knew people that were seriously concerned even panicked over what they felt was going to be a major crisis. People ready to hide behind the mattress with a 12-guage pointed at the front door. And I’m even talking about people in the (computer) industry that probably should have known better. But that wasn’t the only popular concern a lot of people feared Armageddon, global panics, nuclear war, the second coming etc. Which makes the lack of closure on the issue all the more glaring.

Personally I felt that the U$ would come out fine but was more concerned about foreign nations like Japan or Russia. Not too many analysts really believed that nothing at all would happen, which is essentially what happened – or more accurately didn’t happen. Ironically the U$ appears to have been the worst hit (so far) given the failure of a military satellite system.

But when you add it all up I think it becomes increasingly clear that computers are more reliable than we give them credit for, and when errors do creep in inevitably it’s due to the humans. It’s the forgotten password or the null code, the hacker breaking into the network, and the flawed software. Computers do whatever they are told to do and will give the same answer over and over again – that's what they're intended for. So if you program a computer to tell you 1+1=5 and then people get mad at the incorrect arithmetic who’s the real fool here? And of course who gets the blame for everything going wrong - the machine. Until our technology progresses to the point where computers are building other computers or writing code and neural networks are ‘thinking’ using non-linear algorithms, our computers are fairly reliable things - like a hammer or a screwdriver almost too dumb to break (but I’m over-simplifying).

I don’t feel that a computer-organized society is necessarily evil. It’s the people that control those computer systems that I worry about. A computer is a predictable system whereas people have weakness’, loyalties, ulterior motives, emotions, the list goes on and on. I mean what would you rather trust your life to - a dialysis machine or some underpaid and overworked nurse to show up every 30 minutes at your hospital bed?

The point is that our society already depends on machines and computers for life support both literally and metaphorically speaking. Neo-Luddite's don’t have the right idea; it’s not an issue of turning back and refusing technology it’s an issue of how far should we go? Deal with it. 06.01.00

Everyone’s A Machine

All human behavior is rational and thus predictable. Why human behavior is rational and logical I‘m not sure but it is and let me explain how.

Every action is based on input data (facts) and the individual judges the best course of action from this data, If one can control or know ahead of time the data then they can accurately predict the behavior; (this is behaviorism ). Even insane people act rationally they just have faulty input data. They follow the voices or other forces that seem odd to us but not to them. Aberrant behavior is just conditioned by experience. These individuals are acting rationally within the framework they grew up in.

From this conclusion I believe that any one's behavior can be changed i.e. to make them less antisocial, but the time, effort and money required to do it may often be to great to be worth it, especially as the persons age increases. The more I think about it, Skinner really had something and I don’t understand why it hasn’t been more accepted, and why so many flatly refuse to accept his conclusions at all!

I think the most mysterious part is why people don’t act more randomly or irrationally in the first place? Maybe it’s just inefficient, and unnecessary? No need to confuse predators? All cultures value trust, and faithfulness so it is evolutionarily profitable to be honest and rational.

Sometimes I throw people curve balls and do things differently then they expect (either intentionally or usually just because it seems right to me at the time and not out of malicious intent). They either get very impatient or just act perplexed and try to argue; in other words I don’t always like to do what I say I’m going to do or what I planned to do. But this is because I overanalyze everything and never have enough datum to get a clear picture of the situation.

Anyway most if not nearly all people are very simple psychologically and they have been conditioned to fit in socially. This entails doing what the group does and obeying the common laws. My point is that even behavior that seems nonsensical or irrational to the shallow observer actually is very logical in the mind of that person. No one intentionally tries to act randomly or senselessly. Maybe its the conquest of impulses or maybe just life in a mathematical world of logical causality. 02.08.98

Hyper-Rationalism

Human existence can be divided into two fundamental forces, action and thought. In most people one or the other force predominates, subordinating the weaker force. In rare cases one force reaches an extreme status of unitary expression and the complementary force ceases to participate meaningfully.

In a hyper-rationalists psyche, thinking is the sole motivation. The individual bases every impulse on logically based reasoning. This status however means that very few actions are carried out; especially in an irrational world where one never has all the information for any given situation.

The ultimate consequence of a hyper-rationalist individual is a state of non-action; merely an informational transistor. This transistor absorbs raw information, rationalizes the data in relation to the outside world and then espouses an interpretation of that data. The human becomes an information processor, a living computer.

Rarely does this situation reach its zenith in humans and when it does occur, usually a period of action dominance quickly follows. This is because introspection and run away reasoning obsesses on the self and the worlds plight. Soon the individual becomes compelled to save the world from its downward spiral and rescue an ungrateful population of inferior intellects. Much human genius has been recorded during these periods of one man's crusade to rescue society.

Still hyper-rationalism is a social aberration just as is pure action without the presence of reasoning (the polar opposite of hyper-rationalism) i.e. criminal activities. Society no matter where or when always seeks to eliminate aberrations and similar threats. Just as the Khazar Jews killed their most intelligent as threats to either establishment, so does America in 1996 (albeit a symbolic crucifixion). The mass media reflect the base yearnings of the population - destroy the brilliant and magnify the (safe and acceptable) stupid and ignorant. "Anyone smarter than me is too dangerous" truly a very democratic reality!

Insignificance

Just one of nearly 6 billion; an insignificant anomaly of intelligent life in a mass of anomalies. We all live just to live more - it’s so irrational?! Suicide is rational, death is logical but life is pointless just delaying the purpose of the inevitable. I don’t care about any other "human" since they will cease to matter when I’m dead; they may continue to struggle and play but what does it matter to me? I don't care about family or relationships since they aren’t me, they don’t die when I do and on top of that they tax my personal resources when I am alive!

The more hyper-rationalist I become the less traditional morality and values matter. After all a machine wouldn’t fear being turned off. Reductionism, study the fundamental economics of a rational consumer, follow logic to the conclusion in philosophy - what results?

All that matters is what I want and how to get it with minimal (social) resistance. Most desires are of little utility thus the required social friction to gain them must be minimal otherwise they aren’t worth the effort - remember life is economic. The best state is a minimum, a comfortable minimum - get as much as you can for the least effort. If it requires large amounts of personal effort to acquire then it is economically undesirable (in most cases).

When young the best actions are strategic because the statistics dictate a continued existence for many years. As age increases one must logically become more tactical in their economic expenditures. This is what I’ve tried to do for over two decades - achieve strategic success at economic minimum effort.

Electoral efficacy:6.7x10^-7%
Lottery odds: 3.3x10^-7%
% of worlds wealth controlled: nil
% of world pop.: 18.2x10^-9

Today I live at the period of greatest world wealth and population. My life is a lottery odd statistic living at the spike of a global boom at the prosperous tail end of the consumerist civilization. Thus: whatever benefits me especially strategically with a minimum of effort is good. In this wealthy civilization, prosperity is easy to acquire so it is acquired...

Concern for affairs after death is irrational and based on an erroneous impulse of emotional altruism. Altruism as an emotion can’t be quantified and thus does not exist. Same story with post-death events. No data means no existence means no care.

Hyper-rationalist philosophy gives consistent, continuous economic results where as emotion and intuition are highly erratic in success. HR is much more cost effective mathematically correct. Prosperity will end soon; due to time and energy constraints a new super energy source i.e. fusion is unlikely to be developed before civilization has an energy crisis. This increases the need to be economically selfish and cost/benefit conscious. The value of human life is extremely inflated; it is a cheap commodity heavily invested in with increasingly marginal returns. If this commodity collapses then the minimal survival effort on my part increases astronomically, feedback to early strategic planning and social position. 17.10.96

Social Mechanization

"I think everybody should be a machine." , "...I feel that whatever I do and do machinelike is what I want to do." - A. Warhol

"I want to be a machine." - how awesome! The ultimate utilitarianism. Although he was the P.T. Barnum of avant garde, Andy Warhol tapped into a success pattern for the 21st century and his art reflected the hyper-rational utility of being a machine. Reproduced images, repetitive photos and practical advert. type art, this is art reductionism - machine logic. Emotion, feelings, must be reduced to like/dislike good/bad, positive / negative stimulus; BINARY REALITY. I want an exclusively binary reality.

The successful 21st century biological organism existing in a technological biome must adapt to become hyperational. All stimulus or input must be reduced to a binary basis on a quantifiable scale. When we find positive stimulus we download it process it until it no longer works (becomes negative) and find a new positive. Utopia is when everyone in a system thinks alike then positive stimulus can be copied and delivered to all at once. When positive stimuli can’t be found any longer than the organism self-destructs; when the utility of existence can’t be justified anymore then suicide is the logical recourse. Compassion, altruism, pity, any such feelings that add to human unpredictability must be eliminated. Opinion must be exorcised from humanity, humanity must be made rational humanity must be mechanized. Utopia would depend on the quick punishment of all irrational actions.

The human society will become a computer consisting of living atoms that work together harmoniously to extend group success and survival. "I think everybody should be like everybody," Andy Warhol.

Homogenize society to build the social machine. Self-homogenization is a reality; as opinion loses significance and individuality becomes duplicity we all become merely copies of the same atom! Information technology infrastructure is quickly filling in the space between the atoms. "Progress" is the lure and everyone is groping to get it; eventually they will fall into the trap and be subsumed into the machine to become a neuron of the social brain. "I want everyone to have no opinions." [ed.]  No opinions the final stage in mechanization because no opinion means one group opinion; one opinion is one machine.

Extinguish individual opinion, imagination, and thought. I want everyone to have no feeling, no thought and no opinion, I want everyone to be a machine like everybody else.18.10.96

Characteristics and Consequences of the Machine Society

The machine society has performed a brilliant production of holistic reductionism. Religion has become quantifiable under the money morality and the individual ego pleasure drive. Art, music, anything reflective of spiritual energy has been the (unfortunate) sacrifice for digital success.

As the laws of scarcity exert pressure on our consumerist regime, the machine society will become increasingly efficient in extracting useful value from the individual. All values are based upon the fundamental economic utility of the object, we waste because we can afford to (its cheaper to throw away then reuse), we are charitable because we can afford to be, etc. One might rightfully ask why haven’t we begun to explore and mine the Moon, Mars, or the asteroids its almost 2000?! Because given our current technology even if Fort Knox was on the Moon’s surface we couldn’t turn a profit getting it!

Our digital civilization is utterly predictable because it is totally utilitarian and rational. The maximum level of individual pleasure for the least economic expense. If the cost of gas reached point X then people would use public transportation because the personal pleasure of owning and driving their own car will be uneconomical. Essential modern civilization is the triumph of the (Jewish) economist.

History has shown that what men want is often not healthy for them at all. The mechanistic civilization is ultimately self-destructive because it has no foresight; it exists in the hyper-practicality of the moment and bets future technology will solve the problems created by "now" living. We strip mine the mountains and bulldoze the forests, miscegenate, exploit, degrade all for the economy of selfishness.

As the cost of maintaining the digital society increases due to the waste of tactical planning sacrifices must occur. Eventually governments much like huge M.N.C.’s will spin-off separate govt.'s to maintain economic equilibrium. After power and ethnicity is rearranged what then? Fifty more years of tactical economics of selfishness? Ultimately when personal pleasure is too costly spiritualism will return to the race probably reflected in resurgent culture and nationalism. A synthesis of the old rational money morality and the new (old) spiritualism morality will find expression. Perhaps individual energy will once again have value. What kind of social politics will evolve out of a morality of utilitarian expediency and a situation of resource scarcity in 2050? Biological efficiency, true positive evolution? Inevitably.

It must be remembered that civilization is the human desire for something they shouldn’t have: an escape from biological evolution. Civilization isn’t the peak of human excellence it is a monument to the races ability to create an Eden (or a Tower of Babel). The races real progress must and does come from outside of (or despite) civilization. Progression isn’t through technology it's through biology, permanence lies in evolution of genetic material. The irony is that human nature strives for evolutionary stagnation as a byproduct of Eden. The most advanced race will subsequently create Eden and evolve the least and vice-versa. What kind of biological dynamic is going on here? Since the genes use the biological organism for reproduction maybe their greatest propagation success is when the security of civilization protects individuals. The genes resist evolutionary change and desire Eden for the largest numbers to be procreated. 23.10.96

Someday we may live on silicon chips. By copying our neural patterns and placing them within a computer not only would we attain immortality but omniscience and omnipresence of a sorts as well.

When trapped in a loop and frustrated the wisest course of action is to pause and consider the outcome you are truly seeking separated from the immediacy of the situation then reevaluate the methods and actions you are employing to reach that outcome. What am I really trying to achieve here? Do I really need to do this? Or could I do that instead and still achieve the same outcome?