mala tempora currunt

PhD update (now there's an excuse for not blogging)

Is there a rule that every blog entry should begin with a (Smiths) song lyric, or a latin phrase?

I've omitted the song lyric and I couldn't figure out the latin for "told ya so". And anyway that sounds petty and immature, and as readers, you will no doubt be aware, that I'm trying to not do petty and immature anymore. Call it a New Years resolution if you like.

Well, when I say every blog entry, I guess I mean... um, just my blog entries. I wouldn't expect that rabble of kiwi political bloggers - the boring lot that seem obsessed with blogging about current affairs and what John Key is doing and etc. That incestuous crowd that all quote each others blogs and use such tiresome bloggese like, "hat tip", or "blog roll". oops there's me going all petty again. (yes, that was meant to be so unfunny as to be funny - weird how circular humour can be)

Mala tempora currunt means something like bad times are upon us.

Upon me I mean, no I'm not talking about the "credit crunch" or the "global downturn", "banking crisis" (whatever), we "talked ourselves into this recession" don't you know. And we're now busily talking ourselves into a depression (apparently) - yippee. I love natural disasters, I remember racing off to view the Hutt River in full flood as a kid wondering what it would look like if it actually broke it's banks. I remember in my mid 20s being fascinated by an approaching "dangerous" cyclone whilst living on the Gold Coast.


Perhaps a Samuel Butler quote would work. I discovered this by reading Norbert Wiener's, Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation. Wiener is generally credited for bringing to our attention, in the 1950s, computer ethics - he contended that "machines can and do transcend some of the limitations of their designers (and today we'd probably have to add, their users) and that in doing so they may be both effective and dangerous".

However, Butler's predictions were far more extreme - in 1863 he wrote an essay which was published in the Christchurch Press, he said

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life.

I think it was, to some extent, Butler who inspired Wiener. A few years ago I walked past Butlers Forest Stream hut. Forest Stream is a tributary of the Rangitata, it runs up into the Two Thumb range, for a summer expedition i traversed the range solo - a far more satisfactory pursuit than blogging under any conditions. Which reminds me, I need some mountain time. I didn't go up to Butlers hut, it was on the other side of the river and I didn't feel like crossing it - not that it was overly dangerous, just the previous year I'd had a minor scare in a swollen MaCauley river (on the Lake Tekapo side of the two thumb range) and crossing swiftly flowing streams unecessarily (a kind of natural disaster) wasn't on my wish list.

Anyway, back to the writing. (progress report - literature review of Information Ethics)

Far Quitery Knows No Bounds.
or, please do not post pointless points in my comments

The biggest flaw of the pseudo-philosophy called "objectivism" is that its principle tenents are a priori inalienable self-evident truths. Essentially this is a necessary condition for the belief that any particular act is objectively right or wrong. Additionally not helping the cause is the fact that the dogma is overly represented by juvenille pimply faced boys whom after discovering it promptly annoint themselves all knowing rational pedants ready to comment (logically of course) on everything and anything.

Now, I like to think of myself as a philosopher, but unlike Paris Hilton I don't always go out wearing my makeup. Generous helpings of narrative bullshit, satire, illogical mutterings, irrational polemic piffle, and off the cuff thoughts and notions is all wonderful stuff. Living your life with the stupid attitude that prompts you to attempt to logify every sentence you write or utter is about as boring and pointless as it gets.

The reductio of this position is inherent in this little gem by Kane Bunce. Now I don't know much about Mr Bunce other than what can be gleaned by his posts (and his occasional comments on various blogs) but by a strange paradoxical reason that just occurred to me governmental control is most certainly needed such that utter fuckwits like this don't get to make any decisions about matters of public and private good. Bunce is a cartoon of his own ideology. His ridiculous comments policy stands against everything his ideology stands for.

For your amusement I have assembled a brief selection of quotes from Mr Bunce.

• "Why is it that Iran and North Korea are merely considered rogue states? Both are more than rogue states. They are a threat to the West. Western nations should pull out of Iraq and send their troops to these two countries instead. ... And while they are at it why not deal to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon?" (get in touch with the redneck within) These people are terrorists and the world would be a safer place without them, were gonna bring these suckers to justice!!!
  
  
• "To teach a child, or an adult for that matter, that they have a responsibility to others will lower their mental health not raise it" What lower it below their nose, or below their crotch?
  
  
• "No person has any responsibility to others" Oh, I wish I could apply this to my son sometimes.
  
• "Is the extinction of great white sharks a travesty for humanity? No, I don't think it is. It is not a species we rely on to survive, so it is no travesty to humanity." It's just lucky we NZers rely so heavily on the kiwi.
  
• "And he said a world without tigers would not be worth living in. Clearly he values tigers above humans." I think I might be overly valuing porn and alcohol.
  
• "And as the science gets older it gets safer, like all scientists" It's just a shame the chemist that developed thalidomide wasn't 85.
  
• "So we here in New Zealand will receive local cooling, which is contrary to global warming" Oh, this science obviously isn't old enough yet! What a relief.
  

nb. I think free speech is overated - therefore I have comment moderation turned on - I do not have a comments policy - I just make it up as I go along. I reject capitalism per se as a farce and a joke nevertheless I have little option but to participate in it - however I can think of better ideas, I have issues with democracy just because a majority of individuals believe something, it does not necessarily follow that it is either true or good. And I certainly do not believe in a fundamentalist approach to private property rights. That is overall I typically disagree with capitalism's consequentialist approach to ethics, in favour of perhaps a combo of deontological and virtue or character based approaches. Sometimes the ends never justifies the means. And if you disagree with that, well, you simply aren't thinking about it.

Joe Bennett and Asian Knickers

I've always like Joe Bennetts humour, ironic, satirical and kiwish. This article suggests, him and I, we're on the same team - on ya Joe.