the discovery

the discovery is a netflix movie from 2017. in it, a scientist discovers proof of an "afterlife." that is, some part of us goes somewhere after we die. he isn't sure what it is that goes, or where it goes to, but millions of people kill themselves anyway.

which i think is crazy. because even outside the "what" it is that goes, "where" is more important, no? lots of religious people believe that if you kill yourself, you don't go to heaven (or its equivalent), even if you would have if you'd just died. wouldn't that be the same in this the discovery world?

i feel like there may be a slight increase in suicides, but not that many more. the biggest change would be more religious people. and that the religious would be more religious.

another interesting idea is that murder may become more prevalent. because you're not ending their life, you're just... transferring them elsewhere. this makes a lot more sense to me. i think mercy killings would spike like a mofo. not sure about regular murder though, because it's not as if people who would but don't currently commit murder only don't do it because they're worried the victim has no afterlife. plus, there would still be legal consequences to murder. there would probably be more murder, but only a small increase. 

in case you cared: the movie plot summary

religion = mental gymnastics

for my birthday this year we spent the weekend at my parents' timeshare in escondio. we did a bunch of things but the thing i really wanted to do was visit the Creation & Earth History Museum & Bookstore and the Unarius Academy of Science. i purposely didn't do much research before going and i deliberately planned of us to visit them back-to-back. 

the Creation & Earth History Museum & Bookstore was very interesting! it has a surprising amount of science for a place that denies a lot of science, lol. and there was a lot of dinosaur stuff! basically tho, it was "this science stuff proves this stuff in the bible." and the science stuff that disproves the stuff in the bible is either wrong or not mentioned. there is also a big room full of physiology and human anatomy, basically using the watchmaker analogy to prove the existence of god. 

after that, we went directly to the Unarius Academy of Science which had much much less funding but was no less interesting. we were lucky enough that the man staffing the place was very happy to explain their beliefs and to give us a tour of their space. in a few words, this is a space cult that believes in reincarnation.

we really ran into to a full spectrum of belief that day! a number of the people in the creationist museum seemed to fully believe in it. and while there were only two people at the unarius place, we only interreacted with one, but he was definitely a believer in his religion. 

of the four in our party, it was t, who is some sort of christian (i don't know what sect, this is not a knock on her, just my lack of knowledge) and fairly devout; her bf i, who seems to believe some of the major tenants of christianity; j, who is agnostic and believes there may be some kind of creator; and me, an atheist who believes in neither creator nor afterlife.

i think besides learning about the religions themselves, it was really interesting to see what people accept and what they reject. t made some comments about how the museum got some things wrong in the bible, but the creationists would say the same of her, as they do say it about science! i think we all were a little more skeptical of unarians but like... why? give it 3000 years and it may become the most widely accepted religion, who knows? 

what i think is most interesting is how people scoff at other beliefs when they are only very short step away from the same thing. the mental gymnastics one must go thru to believe one branch of science but not another, one random book but not another, or to look at it all and sill turn away is really something. i am also closer to creationists that I'd probably like, because religious belief isn't so much a line as it is a circle. I don't believe in the bible, but i do fairly blindly believe in science that i don't at all understand.

really, as long as you really believe in something, you will believe in it, "facts" be damned. 

suicide services

if I were in charge of things, there would be a service to help you plan your suicide. you would make at least two appointments with two different therapists who wouldn't try to talk you into or out of anything, but they would listen to you explain why you felt strongly you wanted to die. if they both agree that you appear of sound mind, that this isn't a rash decision, and that this isn't because of a temporary situation that can otherwise be solved, they would individually approve of your case.

after that the service would help you plan stuff out: what to do with your stuff, who to notify, funeral arrangements, and how, when, and where you want to do it. this creates less burden on others, gives you some control over what happens, and also draws out the process a little to make sure you're serious. I would hope that beginning to almost end (from your reaching out to the service, to be given the means of suicide), would take at least three months.

after everything is planned, the service would give you the drugs or whatever it is you decided on as your method of suicide. you would have someone with you, or at least nearby, to make sure things don't go wrong. BUT they aren't to pressure you in any way. should you change your mind, great! if you don't, you'll know that your plans will be carried out after your death. 

I don't think this is morbid at all. if anything, I think it's immensely practical and respectful. I think it's rather rude of people to tell you that you don't actually want to kill yourself, things will get better! well, maybe they won't, or maybe they will but I don't want to be around for it. maybe I just want to die but am scared of screwing up. maybe I don't want to traumatize whoever finds my body.  maybe everything anything, I don't care. I respect your decision. I think as long as it doesn't hurt others, you should have a certain amount of autonomy over your own body and life. hurting others emotionally because they don't respect your decision to do with your life what you will, doesn't count. keeping yourself alive just to appease others is no way to live, I think, unless that's what you want to do. in which case, you're allowed to do that freely as well.

vaccinating teachers

Axios - Teachers want the vaccine, but they'll have to wait
WBEZ Chicago - Chicago Teachers Say They Won’t Put Their Families At Risk By Returning To The Classroom

this is so ridiculous. of COURSE we should vaccinate teachers before REQUIRING them to go back to work in classrooms!! people under 16 aren't even approved for vaccination yet they for sure can get sick and/or pass it along.

wtf would even be the point of not vaccinating teachers anyway? they'll start to get sick right away, need to take time off, we'll hire subs, who will also get sick, and eventually we'll be out of teachers. how is this a necessary process? 

honestly, i'm so annoyed that most countries are vaccinating the elderly and at risk before the actual essential workers, or even the rest of the working population. in america all we hear about is opening up the economy, but how can we do that if we can't go back to work or do regular things because we're afraid of getting sick? yes, vaccinating the elderly will prevent more deaths, but that's not actually useful in the long run. more useful would be vaccinating teachers, postal workers, bus drivers, people who are forced to come into contact with many people. this will slow the spread of the disease sooner than it would if we were to vaccinate older or more at-risk populations first. high on our priority list would also be essential workers like grocery store people, delivery people, agricultural workers, people who cannot work from home. they keep the world running, not retired people who can choose to stay home or go out. 

i'm not against the elderly getting vaccinated, but it doesn't make much sense to base their priority sorely on age. a more reasonable criteria would be job sector. i do understand that it's much easier to do this by age though since you can "prove" that much more easily. 

related article from Reuters: Why Indonesia is vaccinating its working population first, not elderly

an excerpt: "Younger working adults are generally more active, more social and travel more so this strategy should decrease community transmission faster than vaccinating older individuals,” he said."

I think that it may seem more moral to vaccinate the elderly first because it will prevent more immediate deaths. however, I do think that in the long term, vaccinating more "essential" and "active" people first would prevent more total deaths and long term negative effects in the world, including, yes, the global economy. 

also, this article about Age groups' contribution to COVID-19 transmission in the U.S.!!!

the measure

Ravi Patel (of Meet the Patels) has a new show called Ravi Patel's Pursuit of Happiness. it's a travel show where he tackles different theme each episode rather than a new destination. 

in one, he focuses on work-life balance. he goes to south korea with an equally workaholic friend and there they "die," give their own last words, and go to their own funeral. in ravi's self-eulogy he says that he read of a "Buddhist philosopher who said, the measure of one's happiness in life is the extent to which, by the time he's passed, he's contributed to evolution."

I often think that the point of participating in anything is to make it better. people should feel like you've made their life better for having been friends with them. your work should be better for having employed you. your team better for having you on it. your club for having you in it. this betterment can be big or small. you can bring in huge profits to your company, or you can be a pleasant co-worker that everyone likes to have around. you can be team leader or club president, or you can always bring a main course and extra napkins and utensils to potlucks. holding doors open, letting people in front of you in line, getting off the phone for the cashier, saying please and thank you to everyone. these small things count. 

most of us won't have a big effect on the world, and that's okay. but I would hate for anyone to actually think the world would be better place were I dead. hell, I wouldn't even want someone to think their day would be better were I not to exist. we're here, so let's make the best of it. 

one sentence

Radiolab episode The Cataclysm Sentence was about Richard Feynman on the One Sentence to Be Passed on to the Next Generation, which was "If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied." 

the hosts asked a bunch of people the same question and they got all sorts of answers including stuff about fear, about God, about race. honestly, mostly dumb stuff that aliens wouldn't care about because these things are too specifically human.

I thought a good answer was from writer Jenny Holwell: "Everything is connected." she said about it: "to me that feels like a sentence that contains an element of scientific truth, but also inspires us to believe in it. Because I do think that whatever we leave behind needs to contain something about it that would inspire the finder to believe in it."

before I heard her sentence I was thinking mine might be something along the lines of "no matter how much you want it to be untrue, basically, nothing you do matters." which is... fucking dismal, lol. I like Jenny's thought that it should inspire the finder. so I added another sentence.

"No matter how much you try, basically, nothing you do means anything. But don't try too hard to disprove this."

last meal

On Death Row, Women Want Salad for Last Meal. It’s no secret that men and women eat differently. Turns out, they stay true to their habits to the very end.

firstly, i wonder what women in other countries / cultures want. is it the same type of thing? do women or men in the isolated jungles of the amazon also do this?

second, i wonder what i'd want! i'm tempted to list every food i love, but they'd never let me have so much... i'd definitely order a lemonade. maybe steak and mashed potatoes. well... some kind of potatoes. or maybe a grilled cheese sandwich and herbed potatoes. mac and cheese with scalloped potatoes? or ramen from santouka, or a cup o noodles, or french onion soup, or soondubu. maybe some charcuterie and a simple cheese plate, with olives. a fruit salad with berries mango and pineapple, or strawberry surfrider smoothie from jamba juice. or a small bit of french bread with tons of butter. for dessert i'd want either a fruit sorbet or rainbow sherbet. hahaha, i'm pretty set for the drink and dessert, it's everything in between i'm having trouble with. there are definitely fruits in my last meal tho. veggies... not so much.

third, alcohol is prohibited, right? that's why no one got any? that seems a little unfair. i mean, they haven't even have like, half a shot of whiskey or half a pour of gin?

what about you?

sacrifice

quotation from frank dikotter - mao's great famine: the history of china's most devastating catastrophe, 1958-1962

mao believed that during a famine "it is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." i know that a lot of people who disagree with this statement, but really, isn't this the best way? why share meager and much needed resources just so everyone will suffer? isn't it, in some ways, more humane to kill the weakest so that the strongest can live longer? i guess that a big problem with this type of thinking is that it eliminates the possibility of unexpected change in the situation: donated food, reversal of bad weather, whatever... you can't unkill someone now that an hour after their murder, help arrives.

there's also the huge problem of who to kill first. the sick and feeble (of body) would probably be the first since their bodies are already compromised. the really old (especially women who are post-menopausal) would probably go next since they are of less "physical value" to society (they may be the keepers of our history but they sure can't do heavy lifting). next should probably be the mentally challenged who aren't good with physical labor. and of course, you should at some point start eliminating children. as long as the adults aren't permanently sterile, they can also produce more kids. men should probably also be eliminated more than women since most women can only have one kid a year while men have no such limitations. in the very end you should be left with a handful of youngish men and a larger group of women.

it's easy for mao, in his nice house with plenty of food and blankets and family secure, to say that to sacrifice half a nation so the other half can prosper is the right thing to do. but who could ever be so cold? the "best" solution would be for volunteers. and before you scoff at that, remember that seniors in japan did it as did the inuits (maybe). of course, no infant or mentally infirm would volunteer themselves so we really are left to murder, not suicide.

and on another topic, tho certainly related, if you're interested in learning a bit about cannibalism, this was a pretty good read.

quotations

frank dikotter - mao's great famine: the history of china's most devastating catastrophe, 1958-1962

"...this book shows that at least 45 million people died unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962."

"when there is not enough to eat people starve to death. it is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill."

"in russian there is a distinction between liudoedstvo, literally 'people eating', and trupoedstvo, or 'corpse eating'. it is a very useful distinction, one which introduces much-needed nuance..."

self-control

sacred salubriousness: why religious belief is not the only path to a healthier life

why is there a "strong correlation between religiosity and lower mortality"?

"religious people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors, such as visiting dentists and wearing seat belts, and are less likely to smoke, drink, take recreational drugs and engage in risky sex. Why? Religion provides a tight social network that reinforces positive behaviors and punishes negative habits and leads to greater self-regulation for goal achievement and self-control over negative temptations... Religions offer the ultimate delay of gratification strategy (eternal life), and the authors cite research showing that 'religiously devout children were rated relatively low in impulsiveness by both parents and teachers.'"

"The underlying mechanisms of setting goals and monitoring one’s progress, however, can be tapped by anyone, religious or not... In his lab Baumeister has demonstrated that self-control can be increased with practice of resisting temptation, but you have to pace yourself because, like a muscle, self-control can become depleted after excessive effort. Finally, the authors note, “Religion also improves the monitoring of behavior, another of the central steps of self-control. Religious people tend to feel that someone important is watching them.” For believers, that monitor may be God or other members of their religion; for nonbelievers, it can be family, friends and colleagues."

what i'd like to know is what's so great about living so long anyway? though i suppose the assumption is that you'll be healthy. and if you can have quality and quantify that would be even better.

last meal

 

texas no longer serving death row inmates a special last meal

i think that kind of sucks. i agree that the dude in this article took advantage but to deny everyone in the future the privilege is not nice. the article says that "some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple 'final' meals, restrict it to one or impose 'a vast number of conditions'..." which i do think is a good policy. maybe we can allow a person three special last meals, and if they don't eat the first one, or if they do crappy stuff with it, they don't get any of their remaining two.

i get that we only execute really bad people (well, we try to anyway). and usually the crimes have to be pretty gruesome of us to kill them for it. violent crimes, nothing like tax evasion or theft or anything like that. so of course you can argue that we shouldn't give them any privileges at all, not even a request of a last meal. but just cause they're messed up doesn't mean we have to be also.

the last meals project features some interesting last meals. very simple and sad. actually, they're pathetic because they are so simple. all john r thompson wanted was a glass of fresh squeezed oj. doesn't that kind of make you want to cry? gerald lee mitchell wanted one bag of assorted jolly ranchers. i don't know why he wanted them, and i can think of some really twisted reasons, but maybe those were his favorite candies as a child and as he sucked on each one in the hours leading up to his death, he thought about that one time he was so was so scared by that rabid dog that he peed his pants. and his dad, rather than getting mad like he always did, hugged his son, said that it was okay, and slipped him a jolly rancher or two. maybe he thought about the last halloween with his mom. he wanted to be a barnyard animal, but all they had was his brother's old green sweatshirt so his mom made him a frog costume. gerald was so mad; who wants to be a frog?! he made such a fuss about it but his mom dragged him door to door anyway. and the next day she ran away with their neighbor's husband. at seven years old, all gerald could think was that if only he hadn't told his mom he hated that costume she wouldn't have left him.

...i mean, who knows?

natural burial

i've always thought that the way we deal with our dead makes no sense. we take out their organs, pump them full of preservatives, dress them up, put them into expensive and beautiful coffins, and bury them under 6 feet of dirt. but... why?

as a kid i used to want to be cremated and have my ashes scattered (instead of kept in an urn). then my dad told me about the neptune society (tho, thanks to his poor english, i always thought it was lipton society) which gives you the option of scattering your ashes at sea. sounds fun!

in high school i thought maybe it would be cool to be buried under a tree or whatever, something natural. then sometime in college a read stiff by mary roach. she described a bunch of alternative "burials" including promession or cyromation. when you die, they quick freeze your body using liquid nitrogen, then they smash it to pieces. that stuff can now be used as fertilizer! your body is mostly organic anyway, and plants / soil need nitrogen. also, nitrogen is very abundant, and this process creates by little by-product, unlike traditional cremation which creates air pollution in the form of carbon dioxide. so awesome!

but the other day i saw the above video on ted about the decompiculture society. founder jae rhim lee was also worried about the environmental effects of traditional burial so she came up with a new idea: a body eating mushroom suit! when you die, you wear a special outfit that has "infinity" mushroom spores on it. your body is then buried and the mushrooms decompose your body. they also eat up all the random chemicals and stuff in your body, which is really great. apparently our bodies are chock full of poisons and stuff that normal decomposition would have a hard time taking care of. but the mushroon death suit takes care of all that. pretty smart!

but as intrigued as i am by decompifulture i think i still prefer promession. it's faster. not that faster means better, but it also seems... safer. what if the mushrooms don't work? what if wild dogs dig up my body? what if unknowing people stumble upon my body and dig me up and think i'm a cult victim?

anyway, i totally recommend reading stiff by mary roach. but if you don't have the time for a full book, this article pretty much sums up a lot of the stuff covered in the book.

anyone else give any thought as to how they want to be "buried"?

stayin' alive

hilarious and instructive video on how to do "hands-only cpr."



i love ken jeong!

simone de beauvoir - a very easy death

"I do not blame my father. It is tolerably well known that in men habit kills desire. Maman had lost her first freshness and he his ardour." [36]

"'If you had not lost your faith death would not terrify you so,' wrote the devout, with rancorous commiseration... And inwardly I told them all that they were wrong... Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death." [92]

"'A corpse no longer means anything.'" [97]

"We were taking part in a dress rehearsal for our own burial. The misfortune is that although everyone must come to this, each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days which she confused with convalescence and yet we were profoundly separated from her." [99-100]

kidney for you?

headline: tv show has contestants vying for kidney transplant.

as macabre as it the show may sound, is it actually wrong? i mean, in the end someone will receive another lease on life, and that's more than most tv shows can say, right? its not easy to find a kidney donor. there are tests, lists, moneies, surgeries... you're on a list. it's not quite a first come first serve list, but it's not necessarily "fair" how people are ranked. somewat "undeserving" people (criminals on death row, perhaps) may get your kidney while a genetically defected 3 year old goes witout and dies. this woman, lisa, is doing a good thing by donating her organs. don't you think it's only fair that whoever gets it is someone she thinks who deserves it? i kno that for me personally, i would not be willing to donate my kidney to a person on death row or who has a life sentence in prison, or even to a really really old person. damnit, i want my kidney to go to someone who actually needs it and who i think will take care of it, and not just someone who wants it.

btw, did they really have to make it into a racist thing? "damn the dutch"; is that really the way to go?

Tags: tv, kidney, organ donor, ethics

fires on the plain - shohei ooka

"After all, people live only because they have no reason to die." (229)

"People seem unwilling to admit this principle of chance.  Our spirits are not strong enough to stand the idea of life being a mere succession of chances -- the idea, that is, of infinity.  Each of us in his individual existence, which is contained between the chance of his birth and the chance of his death, identifies those few incidents that have arisen through what he styles his 'will';  and the thing that emerges consistently from this he calls his 'character' or again his 'life'.  Thus we contrive to comfort ourselves;  there is, in fact, no other way for us to think." (233-234)

"Maybe this, too, is nothing but illusion.  Yet I cannot doubt all my feelings.  Recollection is itself a type of experience -- and who can say that I am not alive?  Even though I can believe no one else, I still have faith in myself..." (240)