Armchair Philosophy


I love quick summaries so here's the one for this site:

Just be nice.

Yep, that's it, you got it all.  Plus you got the added bonus that if you don't agree with it you can leave now without having to waste anymore of your time.  If you have any belief that you can play the bully and take away from someone else, regardless of who the benefit will be rendered to, that's just not right.  And it doesn't matter if you pass laws making it legal or make them into taxes.  The role of the elementrary school bully is still played out.

	"He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done." 
					- Leonardo Da Vinci

The theme and goal of Armchair Philosophy is Reconciliation.

To bring people with different ideas together and help them understand one another.  As such differences of opinion are not only good but encouraged.  I believe that through honesty and actually listening to each other that either you or I will come to agree, or at the very least, find the situations which would be apropriate for various courses of action.  In other words, we may not agree on the state of the world, but we can agree that given a state of the world such and such a course of action would be useful.  Perhaps world view can be merged as well.

Notes on Topics:  religious points are perfectly acceptable parts of philosophy, as are political, industrial, commercial, and family ones.

Sections/Discussion topics:

I really admire Richard Fynman.  His physics, his hacker attitude toward exploration, his logic.  But he makes a very poor philosopher.  His philosophical arguments are full of holes, and statements that scientists shouldn't have any moral under pinnings would have brutally distructive consiquences anywhere it was put into effect.  If we act in the relms of science without morality it will be no different from acting in anyway without morality.  And avoidable destruction pain and suffering will result.  --  I need to flush this out...

Likewise Linus Torvalds, while an acceptional programmer, and leader when it comes to computer operating systems has a philosophy section in his book that seems to me so poorly thought out that I don't really think anyone will take it seriously.  --  I'm not going to bother saying any more on this because I really do believe that is true.


No one cares.  No one wants to think about it.  It's not a big deal.
But it IS a big deal.  The Communist Manifesto Arm Chair Philosophers
Because it is a Big Deal And because we do care.  Many striving for power want the rank and file to think it's not a big deal, it makes their struggles easier if we all roll over and play dead for them.

The greatest flaw of Communist is revealed in the Tradgety of the Commons.  Freedom is replaced by a central authority directing all actions.  That's the magic of Free Trade, it's optional, I don't have to trade with or buy the goods of anyone!  I get to choose!  I am in control.  I can even opt out.  Under communism, there is no choice to opt out.  Even though I am no Jew I lived and worked on a Kubitz (I hope that's how it's spelled) for a mere week.  Now, if Communism was run like that!  It would have succeeded!  Living on a Kubitz is optional, you can leave if you like.  You are permitted to have personal property, you can even cook for your self if you wish.  Or there is the public cafateria serving food almost round the clock.  I must say though, my brain sort of hit a snag seeing all those bicycles without locks and being told that I could ride any of them.  I just couldn't do it.  It felt too much like I was stealing something.

Truth speaks to both the Intellect and the Emotion.  It religious
circles we call this knowing something with "heart and mind".  It is
very difficult, and perchance impossible, to concoct falsehoods that
successfully appeal to both the emotional and the logical.  One of the
characteristics of Truth is that it resides in this domain, the union
of these two.  It is neither the confusing roar of a pep rally, nor a
technical obfuscation of the truth.

Some claim that there should be no "religion" in government.  They really don't know what they are talking about.  The oldest known codes of law were inspired by and implementations of religious codes.  The Babalonian ones are the oldest I know of, dating back even earlier than the oldest Chineese ones that I know of.  In Hebrew culture "law" and being a "lawer" were religious items entirely.  And so it has been throughout time down to the body of law governing the United States.

Ayn Rand
opendebates.org
Families Under Fire>> conference at BYU

There is no quicker way to break the back of a people than to give them free money.

I believe that the truth is more convincing than any lie. Some may not wish to believe it, others will hate it because it reveals their falseness, but true people everywhere will acknowledge it.

Some believe that falsehoods are more believeable and convincing than the truth, and perhaps they are easier in that one is free from the truth to make up the most pleasing and acceptable statements. But some will know their falseness and the opportunity to be proven a lie will forever loom over all that you construct on such statements.


Disney: Mickey or Maleficent?

For many years the new Disney company has rubbed me the wrong way.  At first I didn't know why, then it became gradually clearer.  They began producing 2nd and 3rd rate stuff, and relieving themselves of any moral underpinning and patriotism.  The movies made in the last few years have gone quite preachy, oftentimes giving messages that I can't entirely agree with.  Their alternative labels produce things that I neither want my children to watch nor would I want to watch such myself.

It seems that Walt Disney's final wish to "keep the Disney thing going" has at last run out of magic pixie dust.  The current lead, Michael Eisner, runs the company into the ground to turn a profit.  Long gone is the origional dedication to quality and willingness to take financial risks for the progress of the medium.  Misure Eisner openly admits this proclaiming that he has no modivation to produce great films or support the morals of our society, only to pad the wallets of the stock holders.  Well, I'm one stock holder that so much disagrees with this metality that I won't buy Disney stock; if I had anymore I'd sell it too.  Get the hint buddy boy?  The real nail in the coffin, for me, has been that this poor manager, Eisner, has ousted Roy E. Disney.  Yeah, they guy at the beginning of Fantasia 2000, that's him.  They kicked out the Heart and Soul man Roy Disney.  So much for any Disney family influence in their own company.  Dejavu Apple Corp. any one?  When Eisner is out of there my family will re-invest in Disney Corp. but not before then.  And we'd like to see a real change in their general direction and attitude too.

Here's my little note from when I signed Roy Disney's oust Eisner patition:

I have no unrealistic view of what the Disney Company has been or who Walt Disney was. If things in the 'Magic Kingdom' were perfect the tales of Bill Peet and Walt Kelly at WDC would be happier ones. But a man who has no higher motivation that to profit his stock holders has no business running a show like this. Further more I can not, in good conscious, maintain business relationships with an organization which has no greater commitment than to the all mighty dollar. I have encouraged all my relations to divest themselves of disney stock. I have loved many a disney film, but I can not overlook WDCs strong support for poor legislation in the US Congress such as the DMCA, wide spread degradation in quality, and their new found lack of morals at the managerial levels. Get out Eisner. And get the WDC out of politics.

Please also see www.savedisney.com which is Roy E. Disney and Stanly P. Gold's site trying to do something about the company they love.  Truely, this is a sad state of affairs.

One last thing, as a kid I used to go to Disney Land twice a year.  Tomorrow Land was one of my favorites, all those cool rockets and cars.  So I was terribly sad to learn that they've ripped it all out.  That's right, no more submarines or natulus ride.  They went so far as to literally sink many of the subs in the caribbean.  So they're gone for good.  The sky cars that went through the matterhorn were my very favorite, they're gone now, all gone.  The boats are gone, the people mover, the rockets, both submarine types, even the monorail is barely operating with only half the trains being operational.  What? are they going to take down the rail way train too?  And it's not like they've replaced them with something cooler, they haven't.  As an astonishing matter of fact, for the most part, they haven't replaced them with anything!  The sub pond is now just an empty pond.  The people mover track stands idle, an odd unaccessable walkway over your head. Some things are simply boarded up.  I'm sorry, I went to that Captin EO thing, and it really didn't do much for me, I'd probably change it to something else.  Even space mountain wasn't for me.  A ride which lasts 30 seconds for which you stood in line over an hour?  It does look really cool on the outside though.  I know that my opinion on rides and attractions is not the last word on amusment parks, the tea cup ride always made me sick.  Yet, I can't help but wonder how many people agree with me.  Yeah, I'm probably just some old guy who wants his old rides back, my wish that they'd bring back "America Sings" probably shows it.  But I did go to both the circle theater and the revolving "America Sings" every year because they were so cool.  Now I don't even feel like taking my kids there.  Even though they wouldn't know what they were missing, I'd just be too sad.

The Information Economy

Farming Economy --> Industrial Economy
    --> Service Economy --> Information Economy

When I first heard this twenty years ago I cringed. I knew it was wrong because of something I had read in the Book of Mormon. "And they had greater opportunity for learning by their wealth" The problem with the idea of an information based economy is that it costs nothing to give knowledge away. And with the Internet, it costs almost nothing to distribute great quanitities of information. Once the information has been created there is no economical reason not to give it to everyone. In fact if we all had to pay for all that information we would all be broke. No one could afford to purchase all the software that we have available through Free Software. Individual pieces of software /may/ not receive the funding and work that they would under a Free system. But everyone can benifit from what is available instead of the few who can afford the several thousand per year to pay for that SoftImage licence, or OrCAD, or LabView, or some nice CAD package... but why should SoftImage not be available to everyone who could benifit from it instead of just the subset that can afford it.

many contribute, vs. a well funded core. the core is detached from the use, and often implements less useful things instead of putting their efforts where it really counts.

Some of these "Economies" are more invention of the marketers trying to make a buck. There are useful services provided by a 'service economy' but when attempts are made to servicize and industrial product, quality suffers, total costs rise, and people do not receive the useful things they had under the previous 'economy'. As an example, if you 'servicize' power tools you would offer them as something that would be rented, not sold. Or sold but only 'warrentied' for a few years, and consiquently manufactured only to operate and survive for that warrentied period of time.