The state of illegal drugs

From what I can tell people take drugs for a number of reasons (Some of them are good ones) but often it's as an escape.

Regardless, addiction is a problem that needs to be culled. But the trick to culling drug use isn't to criminalize it or any such non sensical thing. It's actually to create a fair, equal society that people don't want to escape /from/.

Now, since that is a long way off in the mean time we need a part time solution.

First off, let me say that the criminalization of mind altering substances is an infringement on the freedom of human consciousness. Which happens when the powers that be try to control what the citizen does in his/her private life and puts in place legal barriers that only benefit organised criminals, demonize and punish every day citizens (often victims) as well as limiting the expansion of individual experience for those who make the lifestyle choice of altering their conscious for whatever reason that may be.

The idea that criminalization is for our own "protection' has been widely discounted and frankly, it's stupid.

The criminalization of mind altering substances doesn't under any circumstance protect/help the recreational drug user or the serious drug addict, or any of the different kinds of drug users in between.

How does it help or protect the drug user to imprison them, or mark their criminal record, severely limiting their path in life for what is a non violent crime that hurts nobody but (arguably, based entirely on context) themselves? Either form of punishments have seriously negative consequences for the direction of life in general and on the other side of the law, it creates an unbeatable criminal enterprise that ties up law enforcement in enforcing bullshit crimes that distract from doing actual police work.

Don't get me wrong, drugs can make people do fucked up shit, which we already have laws in place to punish people for. (unless you're rich, then the laws don't apply to you)

Say I have problems sleeping.

It is illegal for me to ingest a substance extracted from a herb that has never killed anyone, that there are specific receptors for in our brain put in place through a process of evolution specifically for the ingestion /of/ the chemical which can basically only be found in this herb.

But it is perfectly legal to buy highly addictive sleeping pills that /have/ killed many people, which put me out to a point so that a fucking tsunami wouldn't wake me from the coma those over the counter death pills put me in. (They are often recommended by the doctor too, soon to your kids as well for "sleep deficiency disorder").

An entire generation of kids are prescribed amphetamines (Dexedrine) to grow up and become the crystal meth generation and we scratch our heads as to why?

We encourage prescribed addiction to anti psychotics and anti depressants and whatever else for whatever the pharmaceutical companies can help define as a new form of mental disease that cause as much (and recent studies suggest maybe more) harm as illegal drugs.

When someone contracts HIV we don't send them off into the street to score medicine cooked up in some garage of some two bit dealer at ridiculous prices under the pretense that "You chose to contract HIV cause you didn't wear a condom"

When someone gets skin cancer we don't send them off to delve into the criminal underworld to fend for themselves under the rationalization that "You chose to get skin cancer by not wearing sunscreen"

Yet with drug addicts as a society we rationalize why they need to to be demonized, go to prison or have opportunity removed from their lives by marking their criminal record or sending them to criminal university for their /own/ good? It's supposed to benefit them?

People! The war on drugs is a war on our own families and friends!

Drug addicts are sick and in need of medicine made in proper laboratories, ingested in measured doses, under controlled circumstances to gradually be weaned off, under the support and supervision of medical professionals.

I personally am for decriminalization of all drugs coupled with truthful education about drugs (Not the bullshit propaganda currently spinning about which serves mainly the purpose of making people lose trust for the sources of such information). I believe society needs to remove the taboo from addiction and begin to view drug addicts the same way we view sick people.

It's a win win, we help the drug addict get better so they can avoid becoming a drain on society so they can support a hundred dollar a day habit (and avoid turning them into the real life equivalent of Gollum), and we remove the most profitable part of criminal enterprise in one fell swoop (As is evident in countries that have experimented with decriminalization and stuck with it like Portugal)

Drug criminalization and the continued war on drugs is irrational and antagonistic to the progress of human civilization. It exists and continues to exist through organized criminal influence in the American justice system using illegal income laundered through legitimate businesses which is then used for the lobbying, influence and eventual manipulation of the political process into spreading the idea that being "hard on drugs" is going to have the desired effect we all want. less drug addicts and drug dealers.

It isn't. Keeping drugs criminalized /creates/ the illegal market, gives it value, which in turn motivates criminals to export, distribute and advertise to consumers. And you know what? It's fucking working. We cannot beat a hundred and ten billion dollar a year industry. Not in a world of unchecked capitalism. Impossible.

It is time people woke up and began to realize that to support the criminalization of any mind altering substance is to support organised crime, irrespective of the potential damage these substances may or may not cause.

The argument of decriminalising drugs is not one rationalised by the idea that drugs aren't so bad. Because they often are (Especially if using drugs instantly make you an outcast from society and define you as a criminal). The argument for drug decriminalization is rationalized by the fact that the criminalisation is making the problem we are trying to solve, worse.

To criminalize illegal drugs and defend the irrational notion that keeping them criminalized is a good thing is to indirectly support and protect the one hundred and ten billion dollar a year industry and main piggy bank of organized criminals known as the illegal drug trade. Odd that this number rose dramatically since the west invaded Afghanistan (As did heroin use in the 1st world, Afghanistan's most popular export).

In a world of unchecked capitalism the rich rule, and one of the top five most profitable industries in the world (only because it is illegal mind you) is exclusively owned by organized criminals. And we wonder why politicians always lie and our top police officials are constantly going down for corruption.

You know what doesn't lie? Money.

Rationalizations are not justifications

People should begin to learn the difference between rationalization and justification. One can rationalize anything and everything. Every evil act ever committed has a very reasonable and rational lead up of events so they make complete sense to the point where one can empathize. This is fine. Useful. Necessary. But to use rationalizations as justifications for morally or ethically questionable behaviour is a slippery slope that forward thinking people should be careful to avoid. There's a rational reason for everything. Doesn't necessarily make it justifiable.

I can't tell you how often I come across people who rationalize as justifications. As if it's a surprise that there are reasonable explanations for why horrible things happen.

"Sure he hit his girlfriend, but he just caught his girlfriend in bed with his best friend"

"Politicians /have/ to serve the rich or the rich will influence policy to have them kicked out of office"

And so on. It's amazing how often I hear it.

Rational thinking is the road to finding a justification if there is one, and the key to balanced thinking. But one should be careful not to confuse a rational explanation for something with a justification. Not that quite often there can't be one. But too often people create a justification for a horrible deed at the first sign of empathy.

Empathy is a powerful tool, and integral for trying to understand where other people are coming from with their actions. Rationalization is the most useful way to find empathy for actions and movements that are morally and ethically questionable.

But we live in a world where people are taught that bad things like the Third Reich, or 9/11, or Saddam Hussein, or whatever just happen for irrational reasons committed by or for people with no motive other than:

A - As a result of some form of brain damage.

B - A desire to spread evil and attack "good", whatever that might be.

As a result, when these people who have grown up with this black and white idea of good and evil begin to rationalize they confuse it for a justification because it comes as a surprise that even the most atrocious act has a reasonable, rational, even empathetic explanation. What's worse, is that these same people reserve the ability to rationalize only for people and societies whom for they want to justify actions. If you're going to rationalize, rationalize fucking everything, every side, every person, every action.

Suddenly it's news that every single human being out there is a product of their environment and all of a sudden it's used as an excuse. But only for people and movements our narrow minded black and white society deem worthy of it.

As an example: If an Afghan kills himself and takes some Americans with him, they are god damn Satan reborn. When an American soldier goes on a killing spree murdering in cold blood women and children everyone is falling over themselves to turn him into a victim.

The subjective nature of quality

Some people (myself included) would argue that only taste in art is subjective, and that quality in art isn't. If quality in art was one hundred percent subjective there would never be any consensus as to what constitutes great art.

What is quality? Probably the most debated idea in the history of creative philosophy.

One idea in defining quality however can not be disputed. Quality is experienced.

It amazes me that creative quality is often found in work that mainstream viewers or intellectual viewers describe as "boring".

Now, "Boring" is hardly ever a valid critique of creative work. Most of the time, to find a critically acclaimed or commercially succesful work "boring" means the viewer was not in the right head space to experience the quality of the work or the viewer did not fall into the target audience for the work. One can criticize many things about creative work, but "boring" is a sign of the viewer's lack of viewing ability, not in lack of creative quality of the work.

There is nothing wrong with not being in the right head space to experience something, but not being able to recognize it will eventually prohibit the viewer from experiencing as much quality as possible.

Advice: If you find a creative work boring, but can't really critique its value on any other levels, watch it again at some other time in a different head space. It works.

It may surprise people that viewing is an ability. It takes serious focus to be a good viewer/experiencer of creative work.

Knowledge isn't really a prerequisite at all, despite what academics may believe. To be a good viewer, one must rid themselves of ego when viewing/experiencing. One must focus.

The aim of the viewer should not be to find flaws, it should be to experience quality.

I have found when I spend time with people who consider themselves film buffs we fall into a competition where the person who hates the most creative work wins. Especially if you hate work that a majority of critics or mainstream audiences see quality in.

As if your lack of being able to recognize quality is some kind of skill. It isn't.

I feel sorry for people who can't recognize quality anywhere and everywhere it exists. My goal, as an artist is to put myself in the right headspace to experience quality in every creative work it can be found.

If I can't see quality in a film that receives critical acclaim or commercial success I like to consider that a flaw in my /own/ viewing ability. I find this enhances my viewing ability and motivates me to expand on my taste and eventually one day puts me in the right headspace to experience what I was missing.

I think all film appreciators, or appreciators of /any/ creative works would do well to remember this.

Too often does the viewer disregard their own state of mind when experiencing creative work. This is arrogance.

Sometimes the viewer must accept that perhaps it is not the work that is lacking in creative quality, or the viewing ability in the people who can see its creative quality, but ones /own/ ability to recognize the creative quality which is evident to the others who do see it. In simpler terms, what could be lacking, is your own eye for this level of creative quality. A frightening concept to those who consider themselves film experts.

But fear not. Acknowledge it, and take it as a challenge to expand your taste. Because although taste may be subjective, creative quality, in my humble opinion, is not. So often, when a portion of the audience can recognize quality somewhere you cannot, and that recognition is honest and truthful. You should take it as a challenge to expand your own taste, because life should be about experiencing quality, not turning away from it.

The current state of human reason

As an Atheist, I have to say that the zealot atheism I see in so many fine thinkers today, in my own humble opinion is doing society harm because the emotional consequences of such behaviour is not considered.

To value mathematical reason above all else is folly and part of what brings about the key destructive idea of "It's not personal, it's business".

Emotion and reason are equal at the very minimum and to value either above the other leads to an unbalanced society, like the one we currently call "The world"

Emotional rationale and mathematical rationale both need equal measure before any decision is made.

Currently this is not the way in the major decision making circles of human civilization, hence the continued cycle of violence and destruction through emotional consequences that are never considered or given any real value.

Emotional individuals (Irrespective of mathematical intellect) are often considered weak within the status quo of general human civilization. As if we are unable to be make difficult decisions or some such nonsense. As if emotional beings are not "hard" enough.

The truth is that to make decisions dispassionate of emotional rationale is easy and intellectually lazy. It is only when considering emotional consequence whilst using mathematical rationale that finding the right course of action becomes a real challenge.

To value mathematical rationale above emotional rationale, or vice versa, is lazy and history will look back and acknowledge it as the dominant form of ignorance rampant in our era (Especially in the 1st world).

Both emotional and mathematical intellect are equal and deserve equal consideration. Both form the sum total of the human intellect.

Ignoring one in favour of the other, and to think that the process of evolution would imbue us with such ability so we would or should not use it is itself highly irrational, emotionally as well as mathematically.

KONY and the complacency of the 1st world citizen.

Hey, online activists. Good to see you find a conscience when a popular manipulative video pops up. Once you click "Like" enough and maybe even donate some money to an organization you know nothing about and feel like you've done your part and feel nice and warm and fuzzy about yourself and your conscience is nice and clear, let's hope your activism continues.

Let's hope you stay as interested in world affairs like the atrocities, terror and fascist foreign policy our own leaders have been carrying out in the third world for the last eleven years in /our/ name, spouting the words "Freedom" and "Democracy" whilst replacing one oppressive regime for another. Seizing a regions natural resources for the sake of monopoly, in the interest of the oligarchy we all support as a direct result of the 1st world citizens complacent, catatonic, zombie like hypocrisy on display to the rest of the world when we don't reign our "Elected" leaders in.

Before we get on our feel good high horse about sharing knowledge and not being complacent think about this;

Complacency is allowing our chosen leaders to support imperialism and continuing to endorse a highly irresponsible and inhumane foreign policy in the third world.

Complacency is sitting idle while our leaders bang war drums for yet another war in the middle east which will end in one oppressive regime replacing another.

Complacency is sitting idle in a one party nation with two fractions that campaign on marginally different policies but regardless of promises made turn their back on their voting base and gradually move the leading nations of the 1st world more to the right.

Complacency is allowing our chosen leaders to indefinitely imprison and condemn citizen whistleblowers, without charges for uncovering and revealing war crimes.

Complacency is allowing ourselves to be conned into this idea of supposed democracy when the politician is not held accountable for campaigning on lies and the citizen gets no say in what our leaders actually do that affects the rest of the world and probably indirectly supports people like KONY to begin with.

KONY is a bad man. But perhaps before we get on our high horse about complacency, we should take a look at what the empire we support, of which we are a part of is actually doing in the third world.

This is just another side of this issue, and it bothers me a little that everyone is all up in arms about KONY, an issue that's largely been dealt with, by essentially supporting a cause that is going to benefit arms dealers. But nobody seems to give a shit about the terror we are bringing and continue to bring to the middle east and the rest of the world, directly or indirectly as a cause of /our/ complacency and our refusal to hold our leaders accountable.

Just a thought.

P.S - I haven't looked into this, but I'd put money on the possibility that Uganda has oil. Anyone?

There is no such thing as human nature.

Lately I've kept coming back to the question of human nature. Intelligent, moral, ethical people continue to use the term as a rationalisation device as to why human beings in repetitive patterns, continue to commit atrocious acts of genocide and destruction. "It's human nature."

Let me explain something. There is no such thing. The idea that we have to destroy each other as if that is some kind of inbuilt instinct is ridiculous. The only things we /have/ to do, as human beings, is to eat, to drink, to shit, to piss, to breathe and to fuck (Sometimes not even that). That's it. Everything is else societal and environmental pressure.

I call it 1st world exceptionalism.

The 1st world exceptionalist will use phrases like "People will always X. People have always Y. People will never X and/or Y"

We will notice that when the 1st world exceptionalist use these phrases, they seem to consider themselves outside of what they define as "People". The 1st world exceptionalist believe themselves exempt. Which is not unreasonable as long as we acknowledge the truth as to why. The why being societal and environmental pressures.

To acknowledge this truth however, comes with the realization that every other human being in any society can be produced to be exempt too. Which cancels the idea that "people" are naturally anything.

We are products of our environment.

To think that human beings have some inbuilt psychological pattern that forces us to destroy each other, and at the same time to suggest that we are exempt from this rule we claim resides in our "natural" psychology is arrogant and closely linked to a superiority complex usually adopted by racists.

If this was true we'd all be constantly fighting down some natural urge to murder each other. Do we, and have we done horrible things as a civilisation time and time again? Sure. But to use that as some kind of justification for why change in human psychology is impossible is just plain wrong. If human psychology could not change we would all still be living in caves.

To suggest that it is human nature to commit these horrible acts and that societal and environmental pressure is not the cause, is to suggest that we (The 1st world exceptionalists) are somehow above the rest by some kind of divine magic.

Let me define it. If one person, or a community of people are able to become moral, ethical people who try and do the right thing by each other, every single other human being on the planet carries this same potential.

If you happen to be a person who does not carry what some claim to be a natural human instinct to be greedy and murdering pigs, this is not because you are special, it is because you are lucky. You are lucky to be born into a certain community, part of a certain society, at a certain time, with certain people to take care of you, and that you have gone through life relatively unscathed of experiences that might turn you into a more destructive kind of individual to yourself and society as whole.

That's it. "Good" individuals, are lucky. "Bad" individuals are unlucky, and in some cases insane.

"Good" individuals come about because of environmental and societal pressures in the same way "Bad" individuals come about. This is psychological and scientific fact.

In other words, the pattern of human evil and destruction that realists and ignorant fools claim to be part of human nature, is not. It is a symptom of societal and environmental pressure, which is perpetuated as an indirect result of "Good" people clinging onto this arrogant, superiority complex that the only reason we, as individuals don't carry the urge to destroy each other is because we just happen to be "better".

As an eight year old I went from knowing not a word of English to speaking fluently with a flawless accent in a period of eight weeks. This was not because I was some kind of genius, this was because of the societal pressure placed on me by my environment (Moving to London from Norway) and the natural learning ability of being a child (Which is not considered or utilised by any educational system anywhere in the world).

We all carry the same potential within us as human beings and to suggest otherwise is to suggest some kind of divine chosen superiority over the rest of the human race.

Fuck. That. Shit.

There is no such thing as human nature, and our potential as human beings is infinite.

A response to all the open letters to the Banksy letter (Especially that guy Craig Ward).

Some of you may have seen the open letter from Banksy to the advertising world floating around the net. Some of you may also have noticed quite a few advertisers trying to defend their place as modern products of a machine most recently pioneered by Joseph Goebbels.

It blew my mind how good the human mind is at rationalizing itself out of guilt for fucking shit up. I wonder if the blonde haired blue eyed Germans in the third Reich did the same thing. I thought I'd just post a response to all the responses cutting Banksy down for using the same techniques the advertisers do to get his word out.

I am not hugely familiar with his work (Banksy) But I've seen some of it. I like his ability to hone in on truth in a simplistic way that I define as the feeling in the reaction to seeing his work. Generally I feel he manages to reflect on what many of us have grown up feeling but lack the intellectual or creative ability to define.

I also saw his documentary (The oscar nominated one) and I had a very similar reaction.

I like his work, sure. He's a great artist, and he has something to say, and he respects his creative integrity. As an artist myself, I can respect that.

Now, Banksy may use the same techniques as traditional advertisers in some way, but the difference is the content and the idea. Where the "advertisers" use the highly effective method of distribution to essentially promote greed and consumerism which is precisely where the worlds current crises of capitalism comes from. (Growth and greed is the same thing)

Banksy, and other real artists who retain their creative integrity seem to try and use the process to perpetuate ideas that actually make a positive difference to the people who see it rather than making you feel insecure about how much money you have, or what things you own, or what you look like.

Some people may argue that people are intelligent enough not to be brainwashed by a commercial. True. Does one commercial brainwash people? No. Do a million of the same commercial, spouting the same superficial idea, in different forms, over a lifetime brainwash people? Yes.

To pretend this is not the case is like pretending that human beings are not biological computers with a sense of self, programmed through input, that input being reactions to experience which sum totals in this thing we call personality. We are products, and society produces us, wether you like it or not. This is science.

Some people will argue that advertising, good or bad, makes the world go round and that we should accept it as a necessary evil. Well, human slavery used to make the world go around too. (Some argue it still does) Should we bring that back?

Some will argue humans have "always" been greedy and wanted more of what the other person has, and to feed this instinct is only natural. Well, human civilization came about roughly eight thousand five hundred years ago and I believe it was the greeks who first realized the power and influence of the artist and decided to harness that influence for the use of social conditioning. To call that small period of time "always" is stupid. We have existed anatomically identical to now for barely two hundred thousand years and nobody knows what we were doing for most of that time so please open a dictionary and look up the definition of the word "Always".

Existence does not start and stop with your own individual sense of self, or the start of the current ruling empire, the world goes on, and things get better, or worse, and yes, believe it or not people have existed who did not value personal possession above all else. It's just that they got wiped out, by people who wanted all their shit, because they were god damn greedy.

To think that human beings cannot be better than what we are, is antagonistic to the progress of human civilization. To pretend that forwarding a corporate agenda designed for one purpose and one purpose only; to make billionaires richer, to make the average person dumber, and to think that is anything but unethical and just plain wrong, is naive and makes the people who rationalize themselves into thinking this is okay, part of a much larger problem.

Advertising could be a good thing. Like the getup ads for example, and that recent Guardian "Three little pigs" ad. But doing good is not what the advertising industry is primarily used for. Any industry the marketing/advertising world gets their hands on, is eventually dumbed down and sold with product quality and creative integrity becoming a last priority. Artists and creators becoming slaves to middle men who are slaves to the irrational idea of never ending growth.

The film industry is a prime example. Dominated by middle men who are willing to go to great lengths to remove freedom of the internet to protect obscene profits they had no right to be making in the first place, especially if those profits come at the expense of quality.

As for the difference between what McDonalds do and what Banksy does, It's pretty easy to spot the difference, and if you can't, well, then you're a prime example of what is wrong with the current model of corporate advertising.

I myself used to bring in a nice living selling vanity and insecurity to people so they would buy useless stuff they didn't need. It's difficult not to take part in that machine, especially as an artist wanting to make a living. I would rationalize it in just the same way that people like Craig Ward do. But then I woke up, and quit, and now I barely make any money, but fuck all that. My creative integrity is worth more and I'd rather be a prostitute than go back to that world and help make the future a worse place. A prostitute is much more useful to society anyway.

Honestly. Nobody cares if you make most your living doing it, nobody cares if you depend on it. Slave traders made a living too. Great. Good. You're still part of the problem, and although individuals may forget, and maybe not even care, history remembers, and history god damn well does care.

Does Banksy, or anyone else for that matter seem to have the solution? No. Probably not. Does a cancer patient know how to cure cancer? No. But before the cure, comes the diagnosis.

If you think you're free, try being free without money.

Currency exists to motivate people into slave work and to ensure the power of the ruling class, since (unfortunately) the progress of human civilization has always been dependent on human slavery. Hell. It's the most defining characteristic of human civilization so far. The interesting thing about the next hundred years though is this;

Machines will take over all the slave work. We're already seeing this happen in lots of factories. The issue however is that the more machine slaves we create, the more human "slaves" can be "free". But instead of their lives improving, it gets worse since in our current system of rule, without currency, there's no place for you anywhere in society.

The more machine slaves take over from human "slaves" the more human suffering we will see through human poverty and the higher a concentration of wealth we will see in the ruling class.

Soon, there will be no slave jobs left.

In other words, within the next hundred years we will finally see a push from the suffering part of human civilization to eradicate the concentration of wealth (Since the majority will not have any way to actually make money), and since there is no need to motivate people into doing shitty ass jobs anymore, which essentially will eliminate the need for "rulers".

We will see a rise of intellectualism and free thinking through free education (minus institutionalization) on the internet, as well as an increase in connectivity between minds, maybe even the rise and dominance of empathy. Hopefully, eventually, maybe we will even see the realization of a society full of socially conscious individuals, all stepping forward to do their bit, with government serving one purpose and one purpose only. (If it will even still exist)

To serve the human population, instead of ruling us, which is how it currently is. We are ruled, and our police force are militarized prison guards.

When one looks at the nature of human slavery and how it evolved, it's quite interesting to see how we are actually living in a state of advanced slavery. Sure, we have good slave owners like the Australian rulers (unless you happen to be aboriginal or a drug addict, then our slave owner is a pretty bad one), and bad slave owners, like North Korea, and the Iranian oppressive regime. But they're all slave owners, and unless you have money, society will keep you dumb enough never to see this, but smart enough to do the menial tasks it requires us to do to keep society moving forward.

Either that, or human population will be culled by approximately 5 - 6 billion people, and the ruling class will remain, and get to feel really bad about what happened, but not take on any guilt cause it happened a few generations ago and "I didn't do it" :P Just like we did not, and are not reaping the benefits of the aboriginal genocide and invasion, the native New Zealand genocide, the Africa situation, the American Indian invasion. (That's sarcastic, we very much are, and we refuse to accept our place, and guilt in this, merely because it didn't happen in our immediate lifetime)

We're told our freedom of choice through consumerism and choice of slave jobs equals freedom. This slave job, or that slave job, buy this useless thing you don't need, or that useless thing you don't need. Want a job where you get to make a difference? Well you either need to be rich, need to have parents who put everything into giving you the opportunity to pursuing it without having to enslave yourself, or your parents need to be high up in whatever industry you want a good job in. (This one's a personal favourite, left over from the monarch days)

We have been led to believe that our slavery is freedom, and when anyone raises a concern, they are told to compare now, to then, and be happy now is not like back then and to be "realistic".

"Realists" say things like "Life has always been like this, deal with it" without any care for how ridiculous using the term "Always" is when referring to roughly 8500 years of human civilization. Without any consideration for the irrational idea that life seems to stop and start with the limited existence of our individual sense of self. Hell, that's barely the blink of an eye in the history of time.

The corporate idea of never ending growth itself is a product of this selfish, irrational idea. Tell me, in what place of the universe, ever, does something continue to grow exponentially without eventual implosion? Time to wake up.

No, it isn't stealing. Wake up to your brainwashed self.

Stealing, and downloading a copy of something is not the same thing. Is it right? No. Is it stealing? No. We've faced over a decade of the copyright lobby using blatant propaganda designed to make the public associate downloading with a negative moral attitude ignoring the fact that literally everyone does it (Even people against it).

Right now there are people who are actually advocating sending /themselves/ to prison or facing worse punishment than we give pedophiles and sometimes murderers for downloading movies or shows, which we are advertised through the net and word of mouth, which we really want to see which is not available for legal purchase in our area. Sometimes for years.

Now /that/ is brainwashing. The idea that downloaders download because we are bad people. Ridiculous. We download because our demands as consumers are not being met.

The idea that we're all thieves and bad people who need to be punished because we're lacking in moral fibre, when the reality is that piracy is a symptom of the industry's failing/refusing to meet the demands of a rapidly changing market in order to maintain the gatekeeper exhibition model of distribution, which in itself is responsible for as many failures as successes due to the crazy ass costs of going that route in the first place is the problem.

Piracy is a delivery platform problem and criminalising the people we are making content /for/ is an emotionally irrational approach.

The world is changing, and the industry will change with it or die. One thing that won't die, is the artist, the film maker. Because the true artist continues to make art regardless of who gives them 'permission' to do so. And believe it or not, we can do it without paying Harrison Ford 14 million dollars to step outside his house and phone in another performance.

P.S - The people who make the absolute least amount of money in this industry, are the artists. The people who make the most are the middle men. Fuck. That. Shit.

How to live forever.

I think individualism and collective socialism should not be mutually exclusive. I think we need to acknowledge and come to live with the reality of the fact that we are individuals as well as one, we are both at the same time.

Without one, we cannot balance out the other.

The individual not being as important as the collective is how the Corporatocracy rationalizes human suffering.

The individual and the collective are the same thing.

I think it's important to view the creation of a perfect world as a multi generational endeavor. Psychopaths in whatever human form only exist because the experiences that have formed their personalities produced them in such a way (Unless they are biologically prone to being crazy).

I like the old samurai philosophy of the individual considering the ripples of all decisions seven generations into the past and the future. Really puts things in perspective.

Humans are biological computers with a sense of self and like computers we are programmed through input.

If the input is right, society will not produce people who want to hurt others because they see hurting others as hurting themselves.

It's worth remembering that heaps of the people who were the most pissed off about the abolition of slavery in the U.S back in the day were actual freed slaves.

When you create a system dependant on human slavery you create individuals dependant on /that/ system. They were produced that way.

The last two hundred years (Of which my own, personal sense of self can only recall twenty eight) Seems so long as an individual, but as a collective, it's barely the blink of an eye. And they say we don't live forever. Ha. I've been alive for thirteen point five billion years. And that’s just if I view my existence within linear space time, which I don't.

It's much more fun to consider cyclical space time as a whole the sum total of which equals every outcome of every single event, experience, minor or major, internal or external, subjective or objective, conscious or subconscious, micro or macro, ever to occur, that could occur, that will occur, anywhere, at any time, ever. Hell. Some scientists, for lack of a better word even refer to this sum total as 'god'. Which is far too limiting and misleading.

It's a waste of a civilization to limit the perception of our existence to our own individual sense of self.

The Fascist Rule of the Corporatocracy

Fascism is ripe and making an old school comeback in a new school way.

Our police force has been militarized over the last generation and their place in our society has slowly but surely become that of an enforcer of tyrannical laws and to quell public dissent that threatens the balance of power. They are not public servants, they are prison guards.

The indigenous population of this country have experienced this kind of shit for ages, it's now spilling over to the rest of the population.

Our elections are a form of social control designed to give us the impression that we have a say in how our countries are run. Nobody pays any attention to the fact that regardless of who is in power, after every election, things always just continue on as if the last leaders never left.

We don't elect our leaders, we don't have a say in how our country is run, and we are not, nor have we ever been free. We just happen to be lucky enough to have a good slave owner, who understands that an efficient slave, is a happy, dumb, distracted slave who knows as little as possible about the outside world.

The slave is kept dumb through a carefully regulated social conditioning propaganda machine known as the media industry. We are brought up in societies that teach us to associate learning with prison, that ignorance is worth the same as knowledge, and that tolerance of ignorance is a good thing.

The slave is distracted by being motivated into pointless accumulation of capital gain as a direct result of society teaching us that capital equals happiness. That self worth is equal to the capital value of the individual.

The slave is controlled through motivations incepted by a lifetime of social conditioning.

The internet is the only element to threaten the slave owners control, and the film industry is the front the Corporatocracy will use to demand total censorship, to take back control of the minds of the future.

There is a misconception that wars are fought on battlefields, or in courtrooms, or in elections. Not so. The war is fought long before, in the mind of the citizen, philosophically, by social conditioning and inception of ideas through media.

I've come to realize that WW2 was not about 'good guys VS bad guys', it was about all the slave owners of the world fighting each other over who would get to enslave the rest of the world.

'left VS Right' is an illusion. We have no left. The great struggle of the coming generations will be 'corporate interest VS individual interest', and it will sum total, hopefully, in the abolition of government as a ruling body alltogether and a civilization full of socially conscious individuals who all step forward to do their bit. The state will serve the people, not rule the people.

Life will be lived for happiness and the progress of all rather than the enslavement of the world for the benefit of a few.

We will come to learn that human beings are precious and that human life and potential is wasted if spent on activities that do not make one happy or content, that do not fulfill a personal desire that only the individual can recognize within him or her self /if/ allowed freedom and support by the state to pursue it.

Machines will become our slaves and everyone will be free to live the life they want to live. This will not be considered a luxury, but a civil right.

Currency will become unnecessary and nobody will live beyond or below their means. Everyone will have what they need and greed will be recognized as the cancer it is.

We won't need protection from other human beings because we will remove reason for other human beings to want to hurt us.

We will live life as if we are all individuals and one in the same way that individual atoms form up the whole of our individual bodies of which our individual sense of self resides acting as a driver for our subconscious.

We will push for the happiness of all rather than accept the suffering of the majority so we can maintain what little comfort we do have.

Human civilization is less than eight thousand years old, If it was a person, he or she would be a child. And just as a child must one day grow up and fend for itself as a grown person, human civilization must one day break free from the slavery of government. Our journey is to rule ourselves. Our journey is to create a civilization where society designs individual education that is focused in a manner as to maximize and realize the potential of every one individual on the planet.

We can all be Einstein's, Darwin's, Hawking's, Beethoven's, Mozart's, Kennedy's, etc. These people are not abnormalities of human civilization. They are simply human beings operating at full potential. We can all, every single one of us realize equal potential, society just has to let us.

Imagine a civilization where the rational mind can allow the intuitive gift to flourish. A world where all decisions are made from a place of mathematical /and/ emotional rationality.

Nature did not give us both reason and intuition, mathematical rationality and emotional rationality, for us to ignore one in favour of the other.

Soon, we will learn to use both and the world will change, and history will look back on this time as the fascist rule of the corporatocracy. The time before human civilization was free.