Cold Constructs Blog

What’s the point in micromanagement when free systems are self-maintaining? Why would you want to create a monolithic government to provide its citizens with a life? Why the fuck would anyone want a nanny state?

The point of a government is simply to protect our rights. That’s it. But that’s not what the US government is doing very well, and it suddenly decided to take on a number of other tasks as well. We now have on our hands a government of men, not of laws. So yeah, this blows. The gov’t is so fucking big it’s slow and inefficient. Why? Because the thing men want most is power, and with this huge institution a few of them get it.

This greed for power is a problem. Power corrupts, and Greed is Bad(tm). To stop this drive for power you simply remove the engine–get to the source of the problem and destroy it. This means we shouldn’t set up a government that gives one man too much power. The more people he has power over, the more corrupt he gets. So only put men in charge of a small population, such as a city. This would limit the amount of power he has and could ever get, and so corruption wouldn’t be so devastating and widespread since it’s limited to the area that the corrupt official has influence over. But I’m not advocating the return of the City-State. I’m advocating that the distribution of power lean in favor of the local governance. This would also allow the top authority to become more familiar with local problems and solve them much quicker than any lard-ass gov’t could.

You’re probably saying we already do this, and they’re called Mayors. Thing is, they don’t have much power. Too many decisions are given to more distant authorities who are not familiar with local situations. The national gov’t passes the big laws that affect everyone, even if they don’t need it. Take away power from the national officials and give some to the states and even more to cities. Our nation is too populous to govern effectively or even with everyone’s consent (which, I might add, is the moral justification of the government’s use of physical force).

Put simply, we need to chop the nation into more effective pieces. The nation is obviously split as it is, so even if we simply draw one extra line somewhere most of those people will get what they want since everyone who disagrees is on the other side of the border. Two presidents are better than one.

Groups of people are the most fascinating things. A person is an individual that could be completely autonomous and even survive on their own if they’re strong enough, mentally and physically. But these individuals are components of a larger system. We’re simply social animals that demand other people to not just have a better chance of surviving, but really living as well. Put individuals in a group, and the plot suddenly twists. The individual becomes a mindless drone, dependent on the surrounding persons in order to make decisions. Groups of people eventually create customs and traditions, which are the basis of culture. Certain customs are more effective than others. So which countries have effective cultures and how did they accomplish it?

I’ve been to Norway and discovered how incredibly nice they are. Everyone can speak English, and quite good English at that, so I was able to talk to them and get to know them a little. I noticed how liberal they were with the human body. Naked statues (mostly female, if not all) were everywhere. So nudity is socially acceptable within their society. The same goes for Italy and France–others as well, but not to such extent. What about a nation that condemns sex publicly, such as the USA? We also embrace violence, and I think this can be noticed in our foreign policy…

However, sex nor violence do not make or break a nation. It has little to do with how the nation fares defensively and economically. There’s one rule that everyone needs to keep on mind: there are exceptions to every rule. Simple, true, and it can get you out of tough decisions sometimes, somehow. You realize you can’t make everyone happy, not everything will work, and there’s nothing you can do about it unless you want to burden the system and keep it from realizing its potential. Victorian England and the USA condemn sex, and they were pretty powerful. Muslim countries also condemn sex, but they suck more shit than my toilet does after I had some bigass bean burritos. There are numerous countries who embrace sexual freedom and they’re having a great time, such as Scandinavia. Thing is, here there are too many exceptions. So many that the rule must be wrong. There is no correlation between sex and a country’s greatness. Do any social customs matter at the national level? Do they make countries more progressive of hinder them?

When I created this post I set out to discover the relationship between social customs and their effect at the national level. I didn’t expect to find no relation at all. I only discovered that, perhaps, social customs remain effective at the social level. “Society” is defined as interactions between individuals, in groups or not. They come in all sizes, but none can be correctly identified as being larger than a single province within the nation, according to population and not geographical location. Social customs are just the way individuals act, and they don’t influence matters at a higher level. Of course there are exceptions…

A new series for my blog, Tech Concepts. I gather info on current technologies and see what can be done with them. Of course I first point out a problem that the concepts will solve. Otherwise it’s just mental masturbation.

So. Current computing systems are slow, ugly, difficult to navigate through, cumbersome, and outrageously unreliable. A completely new look at how we use computing technology is needed in order to solve these problems and make life even easier than it was before computers ever existed, and give us many more capabilities. This concept is a transparent technology that I’ve christened the augmented reality controller. It’s a wearable computer that displays information over reality by projecting images on a pair of glasses or directly onto the retina.

Every component of the system (sans one) is open and can be upgraded, modded, and otherwise customized to satisfaction. The one component that can’t be modified at will is the core software framework, which is responsible for interfacing, networking, and augmented reality (hereafter AR) navigation. This is to ensure universal compatibility. It is preloaded into a memory module on the mainboard. It can, of course, be upgraded, just not independently modified by the user.

Everything the user has created, altered, or attained will be stored in a removable hard drive-like module (let’s cleverly call it the user module), which means all the users data, preferences, command sets (kind of like applications), and the like will be kept separate from everything else. This allows for seamless core upgrades that never touch user data, portability (detach much smaller user module and plug it into a public terminal and feel instantly at home), privacy (smaller, therefore easier to hide), and dammit, it just makes sense.

core software framework responsibilities

Interface: Jef Raskin’s book, “The Humane Interface,” explains this in detail, or you can get the gist of THE over here. A notable function of THE is time manipulation. Everything done on the system can be paused (even in mid-process), rewound, and undone (e.g. by rewinding and resuming before the mistake was made). Thus, no “save feature” is needed, ever.

Networking: The Augrecon functions on a wireless mesh network. The hardware in the Augrecon includes a storage device (separate from the user module) that is used specifically to contribute to the mesh network. THE (see above) is used to navigate within the network.

AR Navigation: I.e. virtual space interacting with physical reality. For example, when I point to a building, the Augrecon displays information on the building on my Heads Up Display (glasses, in this case, but could be contact lenses) including but not limited to info on the architect who built it, when it was built, its function, distance from my current location, and anything else relating to the building. This also works vise versa; virtual objects can interact with physical reality. Yay for AR gaming–check this out.

I might update this post if I think of something more to add to make the concept more understandable.

I’m getting really fucking sick of all those hippies in power (everyone in the 40-70 age range). With their twisted delusions of grandeur they stomp on our faces and tell us it’s in the public’s best interest and their security. Which public are they serving? Why do they create more power than was given to them? All they want is to make a difference, good or bad. They’ll be immortalized all right… history will remember them as the assholes who fucked humanity over.

They want power and control for no other reason than to simply possess them. Democracy be damned. Technology never did us any good either, apparently–so let’s hinder it’s capabilities.

While the rest of the world rides with the Kyoto Protocol, Bush is like, shit no, I have a better plan! Let’s just ask companies nicely to stop greenhouse gas emissions! Of course they’ll listen, it’s me!

Hey Microsoft I got a great idea for you! Patent programming operators so that no one else can write software! That’ll solve all of your problems. Oh, you already did?

Well hey, at least we got started with on the private space sector with the success of SpaceShipOne. Too bad we’re not really free to open new industries. Nope, we need permission to do stuff. Last time I checked, we told the gov’t just what it can do and we told ourselves only what we can’t do. When did this get switched?

The US economy. Yeah, about that. We owe Japan and China a lot of money. Once they have a strong enough economy of their own (China is pretty much there), they will no longer invest in ours and will then recall their credit. Kuro5hin gives the details. Thank Bush for that one… then again, he reflects the monetary habits of the rest of the country who spend money they don’t have. Idiots. It doesn’t help that the USD is plummeting to new lows. Hell, we can drive ourselves into the ground without help. All we need is a moron as president so that he’ll turn democracy into a tyranny by putting Yes-sir’s under him. Bush doesn’t want people that make him cry.

So you think all this Big Brother paranoia is unfounded? This might change your mind.

And do you honestly think Bush really is a lovable guy? He doesn’t give a fuck about you or your privacy. Now that he’s replaced the administration with faithful followers, everything done by them is his direct doing, so when I say shit like “look what Bush did” I mean Bush, his admin, and the government in general. I kinda wondered what a modern day tyranny is like.