The end

A while ago I became some what unsatisfied with this blog.  That was when I had that long hiatus, during which I basically did not post anything.  After a while I realize that the reason I was not enjoying writing posts was due to some of the self defined constraints of the blog.  So to get around this I started a new blog, one that does not have much of a scope or stated goal, but is a free form place to write.  Because I wanted to know if anyone had any interest in reading what I had to write aside from being family and friends, I kept the blog anonymous, not letting on here that I had another blog going.  Then with the request for posts on Jesus and game, I started posting here again.  Sense then I have been double posting most posts both here and there, wanting the freedom to be able to write things that might involve something personal without having to fear offending someone actually involved.  But after going so long without that situation actually coming up, I've mostly gotten tired of posting the same thing in two places.  So I will not be posting on this blog anymore.  To read all new posts go to boochsays.blogspot.com, which is a better designed blog that receives many times the traffic that this one does.

Celebrate the Damn Holiday

During this time of year a lot of Christians get their panties in a bunch over the celebration of Halloween. I admit that I am a recovering panty bunching Christian myself. But the simple fact is that there is nothing wrong with kids dressing up in costumes and walking around the neighborhood. In fact, there is no action that we can take that is sinful.

Sins do not come in the form of actions. It is not movement of molecules, or transfers of energy that are sinful. If it were any different than rocks would be capable of sin. If it were different, to go back to the topic of holidays, you could map out the orbit of the Earth and highlight the Halloween portion of the orbit, saying “See here. This is the part of the Earth's orbit that is sinful.” Of course no one preaches that rocks commit sins, or that parts of the Earth's orbit is are sinful, while other part are righteous.

The reason for this is that sin is exclusively the realm of the heart and mind. This is why so many actions can be considered righteous in some cases and evil in others. This is why when Phinehas butchered two people by driving a spear through them, it was attributed to him as righteousness, but when Cain slew Abel it was attributed to him as sin.

This is also why Jesus preached a new standard of righteousness in Matthew 5:28 when saying that to merely lust after a woman is that same as committing adultery with her.

So what is the key? How do we determine motivations? Jesus tells us in Matthew 22 when saying what the greatest commandments are: to love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. He then goes on to say “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” What Jesus is saying here is that any action taken with a heart or a state of mind that does not put God first, or that puts yourself before your neighbor, is sinful. And conversely any action taken with a heart or state of mind that puts God first, or puts your neighbor before yourself (without violating the putting God first part), is righteous. So by this definition celebrating Halloween may or may not be a sin based on the reason for celebrating it.

If you are decorating your house and yard for Halloween so you can look down on the yards of your neighbors as their yards are not nearly as cool, you are sinning. If you don't decorate your yard or pass out candy because you dislike your neighbors, you are sinning. And of course if you celebrate Halloween by mocking God and preforming satanic rituals, you are sinning.

Laundry list Christians (that is those who have a long list of things that you must do or believe before being a REAL Christian) are fond of pointing out that the roots of the holiday are pagan rather than christian. And they point out rightly that we are not to follow pagan practices. What they miss however is the relationship with follow pagan practices and motivation. The Israelites were forbidden to following pagan practices in as far as they were related to idol worship. The pagans also made a practice of eating, but the Israelites were not forbidden from doing that.

In basically all cases where the Israelites were forbidden from partaking in pagan practices there is a direct idol worship link. Take for example Leviticus 19:28 “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.” This is often cited as a reason to not getting tattoos. But this is not some incitement against all bodily marks, it is condemning the practice of ancestor worship. If you play football and you put dark marks under your eyes to cut down the glare, you are not violating Leviticus 19:28. Another example is Jeremiah 10:2-5 which is often cited to condemn Christmas trees: “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.” Again, the take away should not be that decorated trees are intrinsically evil but rock gardens are okay. What is condemned is the practice of worshiping trees as idols. And don't tell me that by singing “Oh Christmas Tree” people are engaging in devil worship. Appreciation is not worship. You should sooner condemn songs like “The Star Spangled Banner” or “America the Beautiful” as idol worship than a song like “Oh Christmas Tree”. But very few laundry list Christians have that as an item on their list. The reason of course is that being a laundry list Christian is not about trying to serve God but rather to usurp God's role as judge.

So to bring it back to Halloween, boys that dress up in a bed sheet are no more worshiping ancestors, death, or the devil, than girls who dress up as princesses are worshiping the Queen of England. There once was a time when Halloween was about idol worship, but that time has long since passed. And as it is no longer intrinsically about idol worship, there is no longer anything intrinsically sinful about it. The fact that there is still some small sect of people who do practice Halloween as a pagan ritual does not change that. And for you laundry list Christians reading this who disagree, let me ask you this: if earth worshiping druids started to observe the Sabbath, even doing it on Saturday instead of Sunday like good laundry list Christians do, would you stop? If the answer is no, then unbunch your panties and go out and enjoy Halloween.

Just be yourself

When it comes to attracting women, the advise that is often thrown around is to “Just be yourself.” This is very poorly worded good advise. What they should be saying is to keep a consistent internal state, don't try so hard, and keep a strong frame. All of this can be interpreted as being yourself, but if you are a person who by nature tries hard to please, changes their internal state to meet others expectations, and tends to get pulled into other peoples frames, than you will validly interpret this advise as the staying the course which is not what the adviser meant, and not a good idea.

To better illustrate what I mean by keeping a consistent internal state, not trying so hard, and keeping a strong frame, consider the following example. When I was in college, I lived in a dorm that housed 32 guys. The floor was not divided up between age groups, so every year the seniors (hopefully) graduated, and a new batch of freshmen came in. And every year the freshmen were largely intolerable socially for the entire first semester, and about half of the second semester. The reason is that they came in all doe eyed, so eager to please, and so afraid that they would not make any friends. They would laugh heartily at every joke anyone told no matter how unfunny the joke, or how God awful the delivery. They would listen enthralled to any story, be up for any activity, and never let on what was really going through their heads. One of my friends and I were really into the card game bridge, and decided to teach some of the new freshmen how to play. We played regularly with them for that whole first year. It was not till a whole 2 years later that we found out that they dreaded every minuet of it. There was even one occasion where two of them saw us coming and one pulled the other into the stairwell where they hid under the stairs till we passed by. I only heard about this nearly 2 years after it happened.

This is the way that we tend interact with all new people (hopefully not to that extent), especially with men who are meeting new women. The issue stems from the fact that with new people we don't have any past validation of their interest in us or affection. So say you meet someone new and excitedly ask them if they want to go to a haunted house for Halloween and they say “Aren't haunted houses for kids?” To “be yourself” is to keep your state by remaining excited, not getting mopy about them insinuating that your a child, by not fall into their frame that haunted houses are for kids, and for gods sake by not being try hard and saying “Ok, than we can do something else! Anything else! I would do anything to be with you! please love me”. In short, don't be like a doe eyed college freshman so eager to please, and so needing to be loved and accepted.

Abortion is not a state issue

One of the most amazing logical disconnects people have is on the issue of abortion. First there is the most repeated straw man that a woman should be able to do what she wants with her own body. This of course is wrong because the issue is not her body, the issue is the body of her child. Some people might say that the fact that the child is dependent on the mother as a host body, or because it cannot live aside from the mother somehow changes the rules. Of course that is absurd. I don't have the right to kill people dependent on me, nor should I. In the same way dependence is not a justification for murder in the case of an unborn child.

Then you get these zany ideas (and when I say zany I mean Charles Manson devil worshipping level of evil) about how it should be illegal except for cases of rape and incest. This assumes that there is something wrong with abortion other than the fact that it is murder. If it is murder, than the child’s lineage should not matter. The cost to the mother is unfortunate, but just because someone inconveniences you does not mean that you have a right to kill them. Even in cases where the guilt lies with the same person who is inconveniencing you, you still don't have the right to kill them. Take the case of my friend who lived in an apartment where the residents above her broke their toilet and instead of calling the land lord to get it fix, just kept using it while the sewage dripped down into her bathroom. As they were also not paying rent at the time, they should have fit the bill in every way to make their killing permissible either by my friend or the land lord. The were inconvenient, and dependent. But still to murder them would be a crime, as it should. It's no different in the case of a child conceived by rape and incest, except for that it might be a bit more extreme, but the rules are the same.

The last major fallacy that seems to infect most of the right is the idea that murdering children should be a state issue. Of course if you don't mask the act of taking a baby and sticking a fork in its skull until dead behind terms like abortion, then the reason that it is not a state issue becomes perfectly clear. Its against the 14th amendment right now, without changing any laws, as the 14th amendment does not allow for denying anyone of their life without a trial, and in many states doctors are already legally forced to admit that unborn children are separate living beings. Even if the constitution was set up in such a way that it was a state issue, any leader who does not see protecting innocent life as something that comes before honoring some piece of paper, is not fit to lead a herd of lemmings of a cliff (ok I guess you still may consider them for US public office).

Game in the opera

One of the reasons that I started getting into game is that I really enjoy intellectual dissection. Before I learned anything about game, my tool for dissecting social dynamics would have been more like a machete, but after reading just a little bit about game (specifically about shit tests) I noticed that I had a much finer tool like a butchers knife. Now after several months of reading game blogs and a couple of books I've actually got a scalpel.

With my new found skills one of the most interesting things that I see is the the principles of game are followed by almost all the story tellers. Whether its books, TV, movies, or whatever, most romances go as expected according to game theory. This is interesting because most people when first hearing about game tend to brush it off. And yet while their conscious mind rejects game, their subconscious already is following the all of the principles. This just serves as more evidence that the rules of attraction are biologically imprinted on each of us.

Another thing that is interesting is being able to see story arcs in a new light. For example, I very much enjoy musicals. One of my favorites is The Phantom of the Opera. For those who are not familiar with the story, it revolves around a man who due to a horrible facial disfigurement present at birth, has hidden himself away in secret passages underneath the Paris opera house. In the book you get more details about his life, and get to know that his own mother was afraid of him due to his face being sunk in resembling a skull. I don't actually recall if he ran away from home or was thrown out, but either way he spent time in his youth as a freak in a freak show. He eventually escaped from there and actually went on to do some amazing things. As the book unfolds it becomes clear that he is truly a renaissance man, speaking contemptuously of Mozart as a composer, and achieving great things as both an architect and an engineer. On top of this, despite his disfigurement, he is quite gifted physically. He is almost supernaturally strong, and has a singing voice that far outstrips any of the performers in the opera. But because of his face he is unable to relate to any other human being and finds himself utterly alone his entire life.

So the musical takes place during the portion of his life where he is in the opera house trying to seduce a chorus girl as the Phantom. He gives her singing lessons, and does it all while hiding in the walls, completely unseen. Then as he tries to escalate the whole thing, trying to get her used to him by hypnotizing her and bringing her to his lair. In the end the relationship blows up and he tries to kidnap her and then lets her go, never to be seen again. But as I was last listening to the musical, I realized that more than because of his facial disfigurement, the phantom was rejected because he is a stone cold omega. One clear place this is demonstrated is in the song towards the end of the musical, Past the Point of no Return, which is a song written by the Phantom who is forcing the opera house to preform his work by means of terrorism. In the lyrics you can see a total disconnect between how the Phantom's mind works and how normal social dynamics work, and this disconnect is far more disconcerting that any facial disfigurement. Take for example the section

Past the point
of no return -
no backward glances:
the games we've played till now
are at an end . . .
Past all thought
of "if" or "when" -
no use resisting:
abandon thought,
and let the dream
descend . . .

The song is sung by the Phantom to the chorus girl, and the message is that in the play their relationship is done being playful, and now they are going to get serious and have sex. The total disconnect between sex and play inspires more dread than the fact that he wears a mask, and is clearly a sign of him being an omega. The song then makes a 180 during which the phantom declares his undying love, by softly and sweetly singing

Say you'll share with me
One love, one lifetime
Lead me, save me from my solitude

Say you want me
With you here
Beside you
Anywhere you go
Let me go too

These lyrics are fine by themselves, but the fact that there is no transition from the above internal state to this state makes the whole thing unsettling.

Specifically the phantom's problem is a lack of state. An alpha male knows who he is and knows what he wants and what he is doing. As such his inner state is stable. Other people can come up interact with him and if he was happy before he will continue to be happy, if he was angry he will continue to be angry, and so on, only slowly transitioning from one state to another. This is because his validation does not come from the people immediately around him at any given time. An omega on the other hand will rapidly jump from one state to another based on insignificant social interactions, often wildly misinterpreting small exchanges or even lack of exchanges. It is by being like this, far more than from having a disfigured face, that drove the phantom from society, and kept him from being able to build relationships with anyone. Of course it is a fictional story, but it is by following these game principles that the story actually works.

The West does not owe slave descendants anything

The thoughts that most conservatives have about reparations generally is either in the camp of thinking that whats in the past is in the past, or that due to disproportionate representation of black people on the welfare roles that we have already paid. What neither of these take into account is that fact that the idea that slavers went to Africa and rounded up a bunch a free men to use as slaves is almost entirely a myth perpetuated by the book and the movie Roots (which was both fictionalized and plagiarized by the way). The truth is that in almost all cases American slavers sailed to Africa where they met up with African slavers who sold them slaves. This should be evident by the fact that the native Africans were no more or less civilized than many of the Indian tribes that Western Americans came across, but they did not conqueror and enslave them. If they had run into Indian slave traders in any kind of large numbers (I certainly can't say that it never happened) there would have been just a large a trade of Indians as slaves, but the fact remains that it was unique to Africans.

This is not to say that all white men who bought slaves were righteous. The right thing to do would have been to free them as soon as they had been purchased. But consider another case. If you came across a man who was desperate for cash and in his desperation offered to sell you his wife's engagement ring which was clearly worth thousands of dollars and though you could have paid full price, you take advantage of the situation and buy it for only a few hundred. Is that the good christian thing to do? No of course not. But on the other hand, after the transaction is made do you owe that man anything. Again no. In the same way, American slavers did not owe the slaves that they purchased freedom because they did not enslave them. The truth is that those who made it to America where the lucky ones. There were certainly some bad slave owners in the south, but in Africa to treat a slave as being more valuable than a horse was the exception.

If your still not convinced consider another example. In Nazi Germany, Oskar Schindler rescued many Jews from concentration camps. The rescued Jews basically worked for him in his factory as slaves. At the end of the war did he owe them reparations? Of course not. By acquiring slaves he was saving them from the gas chambers, and is considered a hero for it. This is not 100% analogous with American slavery, but it demonstrates the principle. If life as a slave in America was not worse than life as a slave in Africa it means that Americans do not owe former slaves anything. In fact we did give them something: freedom. Something that they or their ancestors would not have gotten in Africa where the slave trade is alive and well to this day.

Abusing Chivalry

Most men have the idea impressed on them that they should protect the weak. This is particularly manifest in the idea that a man should never hit a woman. The assumption with this idea is that the man is always stronger than the woman, otherwise it would not matter, as is made obvious in that severely handicapped men generally are not held to this standard, but find themselves falling more into the societal category of women in that they should never be hit either. What is less engrained is the idea that if you are on the receiving end of special treatment you should not abuse it. That is to say if you are a woman or in some other societal role where men are to refrain from being violent towards you, you are also obligated to refrain from being violent towards them. But more and more its getting to the point where this second half of the unspoken contract is completely ignored. Take for example the recent event with Phoenx Jones, the costume wearing, pepper spray wielding, crime patrolling, self styled super hero.

Phoenix Jones Stops Assault from Ryan McNamee on Vimeo.

In this video he is patrolling with his side kicks and sees a street fight taking place under an overpass. He immediately runs in and breaks up the fight with pepper spray while his side kicks call 911. Then one of the girls who was watching the fight starts chasing him around attacking him with her high heel. Now clearly there is no question that Phoenix Jones could literally kill this girl with his bare hands if he so chose, but she correctly assumes that he will hold up his end of the societal contract while she flagrantly breaks her part of it. And the real kicker is that the only person charged with anything in this case was Phoenix Jones, while clearly he was on the receiving end of assault.

Contrast that with the more recent case of two women assaulting a man working at McDonald's (read the story here).

In this case the worker behind the counter questioned a $50 bill that they gave him and in response one of them reached across the counter and slapped him, and then threw herself over the counter while her friend started walking the long way around to reach him. They also assumed that he would uphold his end of the societal contract while they flagrantly broke their end. In this case they were wrong. He responded by grabbing a metal rode and beating them. One of them just suffered a fairly deep cut, but the other suffered a broken skull and arm.

It's interesting the way that the story is reported. They keep it in terms like there was an altercation that got violent. The sense is very much, something bad just happened and then the McDonald's employee went crazy. It never mentions whether or not the $50 bill they gave him was counterfeit or not. So most likely what happened is that they gave him a fifty, and as per store policy he had to check it out make sure that it was not counterfeit. In their intoxicated state the two women took this as a slight and then go on to assault the worker. He excessively defends himself. So unlike the phrasing in the news report that he attacked unruly customers, or that it was a fight the escalated out of control, this is a case where a man was attacked by two women and responded. It is totally inappropriate to say that he attacked them, as they were literally chasing him behind the counter with intent to harm when he “attacked”.

At least in this case all parties were changed with crimes. However if we keep going on with the idea that men should just sit there and take it or run away while women attack them instead of responding we'll get more and more of these incidents. Also, it needs to be made clear to women what their role in the societal contract is, as many of them clearly think that theirs is a place of privilege and the the contract only goes one way.