Month: April 2009

Dear Dad

Thanks for…

Special eggs.

Giving me the good pieces.

Letting me ruin your tools.

Playing Vivaldi.

My first sword.

Showing me the value of honesty.

Making me a nerd before it was fashionable.

Sledding.

Proving by example that kindness is not weakness.

The Sergent family deformity.

Driving me everywhere.

Showing me how to work smart, not hard.

Saving mom from Denny.

Showing me how to shoot.

Connecting me to the world.

Having insulated pliers.

Teaching me loyalty by example.

Showing me that jokes don’t have to be funny to be fun.

Making learning fun.

The PVC robot arm.

Replacing Soundwave.

Showing me what willpower is.

Making toddlers crack up.

Peanut butter sandwiches.

Elderberry jelly.

Showing me how to start a conversation with anyone.

Never judging me.

Putting absolutely everything together.

Breaking the cycle.

The y chromosome that made me so tall.

Showing me how to fix anything.

Letting me “help.”

“Silly.”

Showing me that being a man does not mean being mean.

C.I.M.S.

Remembering what it was to be a boy.

Making me a Borg for Halloween that time.

Letting me buy both when I couldn’t decide which I wanted.

Diablo.

Showing me what real strength means.

Dear Mom

Thanks for….

Bringing me cans of mountain dew when I was being a computer geek for days on end.

Keeping me alive by figuring out how to make broccoli awesome.

Not killing dad even when he really got on your nerves.

For putting up with me after it became clear I was going to very nearly be a clone of my dad.

Trying to play GI Joe.

Showing me that nothing is above being made fun of, not even GI Joes with dumb hair.

Showing me that its ok to get seriously pissed and throw crackers.

Putting up with my complete and utter distrust for the entire concept of medicine when I’m sick.

Having my back against the school system.

Teaching me compassion.

Showing me that my emotions matter.

Putting up with my ranting despite the fact that I’ve attacked virtually everything you believe.

Unblinding my bear.

Buying me a house.

Never suffering fools.

Making hunger a mystery for nearly a decade.

King for a day, day.

Monster spray.

Letting me get you a robot for mother’s day.

Showing me that forgetting is not the same as not caring.

Letting me stay in the pool till my hair turned weird colors.

Packman bologna.

Making those “Best mom in the world.” statues mean something.

Letting me stay up late enough to watch star trek for years on end.

Every time you answered to “MOOOOMMMM!”

Waking me up so I can sleep some more.

Letting me open another one early.

Cleaning my room when you wanted it clean instead of making me do it.

Making my casts tolerable.

Letting me ruin your camera.

Getting my knives back from the fascists.

Being the medic for every random friend I ever had.

Putting up with the string of weirdos I exposed you to.

Letting Papaw show me the guns.

The Christmas coupon countdown calendar.

Making it ok to stand up to morons.

Hiding presents for me at random all over the house.

Teaching me optimism.

Providing proof that a mind can be open and strong simultaneously.

Giving me my very best trait, my ethics.

Showing me that I was not a possession or a pet to be trained.

Introducing me to the three best men on the face of the earth, your dad your brother and your husband.

Sorely testing my position that unconditional love is a myth.

One answer to the Fermi Paradox

Imagine the singularity, and how fast it is happening. Now think of the Amish. What would happen to the Amish if transhumanity exploded around them?

Would transhumanity hurt them? Force transhumanity on them? No. We’d take care of them, allow them to live their lives as they choose, and accept strays, maybe even protect them from asteroids and gamma pulses and the like. Ultimately we would do the right thing.

What if this already happened? What if the stories of Atlantis and the old gods and the pyramids were true to some extent, a prehistoric technological society that reached singularity and abandoned the planet, but saw many dense pockets of humanity obsessed with staying as they were.

Maybe we’re living in a nature preserve, fenced and protected and thats why SETI sees nothing, and why it looks so very much like we’re alone. Maybe we’re not. Maybe the grays are zoo visitors. Maybe the angels we claim to see are game wardens, and maybe the light at the end of the tunnel is just the exhibit’s exit.

I say we try to find the glass so that we may tap on it.

Sure Occam’s razor cuts this to shreds, but the answer can’t always be simple, can it? Seems arrogant to think so, given just HOW simple our idea of simple is.

Just a thought.

Ending and beginnings

Things change.

Axioms are uncovered, and I find myself with no life’s work anymore.

You cannot be convinced.

Could I honestly talk you into anything you did not already believe?

It comes down to trust, trust in people and trust in your perceptions.

I can’t make you trust me, and without that nothing I say or even show you matters.

You have no choices. You can not be enlightened from without. You either are or are not. Timing is irrelevant and an illusion.

Do you know what things mean? No choices. Who you are as a person is a function of choices you never made, choices made for you at the instant of the universe’s inception.

It’s been said before. This is not news. Electrons behave in a predictable way or a random way. Either way, you choices are the same. Governed, or random, both meaningless with regard to who you are because you do not exist.

I have spent my adult life talking to the dead.

What does a philosopher do when it finds the answer?