I’m incredible, arrogant, and deluded, but not for the reasons you argue

Dear Anonymous,

Wow, I haven’t had an anonymous comment in a while. I’d actually grown to miss them! And I’m not even being facetious. I like anonymous comments. I even argued for them here.

Anyway, here’s the comment. I’ve split it up to respond to each part.

Forgive my sounding like a jerk, please, but you can’t be serious.
If you claim to know the answers to all of these questions, you are incredibly arrogant and deluded.

You don’t sound like a jerk and I’m not really serious. The post was mostly tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to come up with a list of 100 things and ended up locking myself into that style. I realized my list should have included much more history, but then I realized how little valuable history I knew.

More than anything, the post was an attempt to show that— no matter who we are— our education could always be improved. I was trying to list human realizations, accomplishments, and discoveries that people should be aware of as part of our cumulative heritage. Does that seem fair enough?

“What is a black hole?” Really? You know? Publish!

A black hole is an area of condensed mass so great that even light cannot escape. Extra credit would go to anyone who used the terms ‘Hawking radiation,’ ‘quantum mechanics,’ ‘general relativity,’ ‘quantum gravity,’ ‘event horizon,’ or ’spaghettification.’ Double-extra credit for the last one. My post didn’t ask for precise knowledge, only working knowledge, which I have just provided.

“What do Muslims/Christians/Hindus/etc believe?” You think that they all believe the same thing?

They should if they’re being logically consistent with their beliefs. But even though most people cherry-pick their faith, there are core tenets of certain faiths that all members have in common. For instance, I cannot call myself a Muslim while simultaneously believing Mohammed was a wanker who conned everyone. I can have Muslim-like beliefs, but Islam-proper is removed from my grasp. I have no problem with people believing different things than other members of their faith, I just want people to have a general outline of what these faiths imply because I think it’s important to know your world.

“What is gravity?” What is a force? Please tell us.

Gravity is the force mass exerts on other mass in the form of pull. The net result is always that the smaller object gets pulled into the larger object. Force is mass times acceleration unless you’re being ‘deep,’ in which case I have no idea what you’re aiming at.

“Explain quantum theory” Wow. This just shows your ignorace. (sic)

If you didn’t get the joke, how could you single out the punchline? I know nobody can explain quantum theory just like I know nobody (myself included) has full knowledge of all the things on that list. That’s why it’s on there: to call attention to itself and the absurdity of the list. Sorry if that went over your head, perhaps I should have been less subtle.

I’m sure you get the idea. Give me a break.
And you clearly need to do some reading on metaphysics–you don’t know what “is” means. Get rid of this list and start back there–look up “ontology”.

That’s rich. You realize I’m a philosopher, right? “Is” is a form of “to be.” Aristotle specified two forms of “is” into qualitative identity and numerical identity. To say that something is something else is to imply that it has properties similar to the other thing (qualitative) or that it is necessary and sufficient to form that thing (numerical). I think you imagine me to be using the second form, when in reality I’m using a more colloquial speech to better suite my readers. I could use a more precise formal language, but that seems counter-productive.

Ontology is the study of being. I always remember by thinking of the exact opposite as “Offtology,” ha ha. I’m not sure why you mentioned ontology at all. It’s tangential at best, irrelevant at worst. If you’ll tell me, I’d gladly respond.

I imagine you’re an undergrad at York University interested in philosophy of science and checking your favourites tab from your work in an office or something. I don’t think you really want to get into a flame war. You probably just took the previous post too literal and too arrogant, then mistook my personality from that post and commented in an attempt to show me the ‘light.’

How far off am I?

—Pixelation Qyw Styx

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Open Letter to Environment Haters

I like the environment. It’s been good to me. It warms the cockles of my heart. So when it asked me to write a post in my own style for Blog Action Day, I was more than happy to oblige.

Insofar as it is convenient for me to do so, I always do what I can to help the environment.  I drive a hybrid car and will eventually switch to electric.  I reuse and reduce.  I avoid using electricity in daylight (the nature of electricity requires power companies to produce as much as the maximum electricity used of the previous year).  And I don’t eat meat (factory farming uses more water than we use for human consumption, more land than you can think of, and produces more greenhouse gases than cars).  It’s part of my ‘do no harm’ moral theory.

And yet, intellectually, I have no real reason to do so.  I hedge my bets, but I don’t suppose we’ll do any better in the large scale than so many other populations have failed at in the small scale before (Ref. J. Diamond’s “Collapse”).

I fear our race should have played out the Prisoner’s Dilemma 10,000 more generations before the advent of technology. My fear is that only in that way could a true morality and conservationist respect for nature develop. As it is, we’re in a rather precarious point in our history in which the combination of individual demand is having a detrimental effect on our environment. We’re a bunny population that has outgrown its food supply, a too virulent virus where the best strategy for each individual finally comes directly at odds with the necessary group strategy of survival.

And I’m pessimistic. I think that our individualistic societies are too short-sighted to realize they are damning the world or too selfish to restrain their own uses and abuses.  We’ll be choked to death by the free rider problem.  Oops.

If you disagree, that’s cool. It’s intellectual masturbation anyway. Neither of us will know how it turns out so it’s foolish to feel certainty, anger, or superiority anyway. At least the course of action that my point of view requires is a sustainable one. Individual ignorance is not. However, I don’t have to worry about the future. My genes shall only be represented insofar as my siblings are related to me. I’m just not going to be a jerk and mess it up for those whose genes will go on.

But good luck with that.  Seriously,

— Pixel Q. Styx

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Express Written Consent

Pixel Inc. and its subsidiary “A Pixelated Mind” also known as “pixcapacitor.com” (hereafter known as THE MAN) does hereby give you or your company (hereafter known as the AGENT) the following permissions:

• naming a building after Pixel
• copying and pasting entire articles or this Web site on the condition that you link to me or somehow intimate that Pixel wrote something worth reading once
• linking to A Pixelated Mind or intending to provide a link
• pretending to be just like Pixel
• reproducing Major League Baseball
• using Pixel as a character in a non-licensed Harry Potter fanfiction.
• writing a biography for fun and profit
• posting Pixel’s real name, birthday, social security number, credit card number, passwords, and fan fic name online
• comparing Pixel to Josef Stalin, but NOT Hitler
• naming your child any combination of “Pixel8shun,” “Sir Pixalot,” “Pixapotomus,” “Pixel A.” through “Pixel R.,” “Pixel T.” through “Pixel Z.” and “Steve” on the condition that we get to be the legal owners of your child’s future creative endeavors and that all of your child’s birthday cakes be shaped like Pixel’s face.

We DO NOT give you the right to name your child or building any non-alphanumeric representations of “Pixel.”  We DO NOT give you authority to live free OR die hard.  All other authorities to be determined.

Thank you for your interest,
Pixel Q.
Pixel Inc.

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Dear Australia,

Why do you hate visitors?

Do you think we smell bad? Are we jerks? Do we take all of your jobs? Or do you just think we’re going to bring rabbits into you and watch them wreck havok?

I know you worked hard to provide information for people who want to visit, but all of the information I find is simply disheartening or confusing. Examples:

• Do I need a family member living in Australia to sponsor me, or can it be just anyone I know?
• How do I prove I’m of good character? If my life’s plot hasn’t advanced much and the setting is miserable, it’s assumed I have good character, isn’t it? Otherwise it would just be a miserable existence and those haven’t been popular since Dickens!
• If I’m looking for a job, how exactly can I afford the $1305 charge for a Visa?
• Why do you hate us so?

I doubt John Howard himself would be able to get a visa.

Continue reading Dear Australia,…

Last Year: Could it be??, Foods not covered in the five-second rule
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I’m such a jerk to myself (Part II)

Even when I expect nobody to read what I write (as in a diary or in general), I still write silly non-sequiturs or pathetically lonely attacks on my prior positions that I may or may not have actually ever held.
My latest e-mail to myself:

Dearest Pixel,
I write this letter to inform you that I am thoroughly disappointed in you. Your life is a colossal disappointment to me. By the time you read this letter, you will be broke, alone and unloved. I know this because I know you. This is the reason why I have taken the advanced precaution to withdraw all of your money, isolate you from everyone and viciously attack all your loved ones. I simply can’t let you have the first strike at ruining your own life.
Loser,
Pixel

P.S. Actually, I did read some interesting things that I wrote to myself. Mostly, it was 2005 me bragging to myself (circa 2006) that I (2005) was dating a beautiful Australian girl and I wasn’t (2006 again). It’s okay, though. I always tease myself like that. It’s kind of my thing

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