Mand'alor Dash

As promised, a full review:

Robyn's really stepping her game up. Her latest cover is just as good as some of Scott's best work.

A couple classics by Vera Lynn: I'm not even British, but I've been stricken with unaccountable Anglophilia today.

10s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. I have a pretty wide range of tastes. Not a fan of the 90s, or anything past that.

Do we get these points if they've simply lost their memory? If not, I scored 9. If so, 13.

But for the concept of morality to have validity, two polar opposing actions can not both be valid and moral. This is why I contend that the issue lie in the hands of biology. There is no "biological relativism" or nonsense like that to muddy the issue. Simply put: Subjective morality defeats itself, and objective morality leads to atrocity (as is the case with honor killings) Let me explain it like this: You believe them to be immoral. They believe you to be immoral. These premises can't simply be argued against one another. They rely on moral ideals that exist only in the minds of those who already agree with them. It's like an Englishman debating a Spaniard, neither understanding the other's language. "Choice" and "life" are banners which masquerade as arguments. It gets even worse when camps start referring to their opponents as "anti-choice," or "anti-life," as if the issue has been boiled down to the point that it's completely light and dark. No point inbetween. I'm not telling you to be, but I am asking you to keep a tally of how often ideologues substitute meaningless, esoteric moral arguments in the place of substance. The governor of my state recently signed a $15 minimum wage despite acknowledging that it made no economic sense. Guess what word he used to defend it. Constructs of the human mind have no physical form. They don't necessarily "exist" per se, but some can be said to be accurate representations of reality. Mathematics, for example, is a carefully constructed series of rules and operations designed to work in tune with a wide variety of fields. Science, economics, history, music... Math has been proven to accurately predict and describe the workings of the world in a way that morality has not. :\ I know you didn't mean it that way, but there really is no nice way to say that. I'm an emotional sap just like anyone else. I hug dogs and cry at the end of movies . Feeling is great, just don't let it dictate the way the country is run.

The entire post was written as a stream-of-consciousness, which is why it reads more like a rant than a scientific journal. One major point of this that I possibly didn't do very well in elaborating was my view that morality is a disguise. Complex issues, requiring an incredible amount of logic and evidence to debate effectively, are effectively reduced to soundbites and buzzwords because it's easier to build an echo chamber. Morality is built inside of these echo chambers, and screamed at max volume whenever people don't want to argue like adults. Pointless buzzwords that serve no logical purpose, draped in a guise of morality. This is what has taken over political discourse in our world. I have an opinion on abortion, I just don't drape it under undeserved righteousness. So, when a Muslim man beheads his wife in an honor killing, you are not disturbed by the fact that there are millions who consider his actions "objectively moral?" One can "interpret" morals to their heart's desire, but this does not change the fact that all existing schools of moralistic thought can, have, are, and will be used to promote atrocity. Whether it's the middle east, the DPRK, or the Soviet Union, once enough people believe that something is "right" simply because it is, that is the course that history will take. And it usually does not end well. I believe that morality is a construct of the human mind, either built within a man's mind to justify or temper his own actions, or indoctrinated into his mind by somebody else. In either case, the idea of moral principles superseding reality is what I despise. There is no shorthand to life. There is no cheat guide to making good decisions. There is no checklist to being a "good person," and putting on a righteous mask does not score you a shortcut. I am amoral because I own neither the checklist nor the mask.

I agree that pessimism and realism are not one and the same. Saying the sun is going to explode tomorrow is certainly pessimistic, but you'd have a hard time finding an astronomer who can back that claim up. There are delusional morons on any side. What they have in common is that most of them (not all) love to stand atop a high moral horse and preach about how their way is the only way to see the world. Others use their "morality" to justify actions that are beyond despicable, since no train of logic or rationality would have ever led there. Seeing too many of those people in the world is what made me a cynic.

This is something I have considered. Logically, I consider it a dead end. Obviously, no good came from mass loss of human life from events such as the Holocaust or the Great Leap Forward; so rather than chase my tail into nihilistic oblivion, it's simpler to just say that the average human being, until proven otherwise, is of more use to the world with his heart beating than without. I don't consider it a moral because it's not an absolute. Osama Bin Laden and Che Guevara are of more service to the world as corpses, but they are far from the average human being. In other words, I'm a cynic, not a nihilist.