The above picture shows a close-up view of a Koala’s hand. As you’ll note, there are clearly five fingers in total, two of which are thumbs. This is rather odd considering the overwhelming presence of one-thumbed species and raises the question of how two thumbs may have come to be superior to one. But this past month, hidden scrolls, unearthed from beneath the sands of the Great Victoria Desert in Western Australia, revealed some clues that explain this phenomenon and could save all of humanity.
Today, Koalas inhabit the Australian wild. They have a diet composed almost entirely of eucalyptus leaves and are also known to sleep for approximately 20 hours a day. But the scrolls, written in an ancient script closely resembling Snapchat emojis, revealed that, thousands of years ago, Koalas had built a complex society revolving around a democratic rating system (somewhat like the one seen in Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1). Essentially, Koalas were able to rate the banter of other Koalas using a simple thumb up or down. The banter rating, or banter score for short, would then be accumulated over countless interactions into a single score for an individual Koala and would translate into their rank within society.
To understand how such a society would have necessitated the development of two thumbs, one needs to look no further than the state of our modern day internet forums where fake internet points exist. The upvoting and downvoting of posts on the vast majority of these forums, and certainly on the largest ones, is based almost entirely on preconceived notions held by an individual before even seeing the post instead of on the merits of the post as well. It has made most sites incredibly toxic to multiple viewpoints and most subcomponents of websites turn into self-affirming and shallow environments hostile to both opposing and to nuanced viewpoints.
Given the sorry state of our internet, one might imagine that a society built upon this type of framework would suffer immensely if a better system did not develop. This is where the 2nd thumb comes in. The addition of a 2nd thumb doubles the variety of reactions one can exhibit. Whereas before, people could only “love” or “hate” something, now they could “like” it or “dislike” it. Much like how humans rapidly evolved to support lactase persistence, Koalas quickly developed two thumbs. In an aggressive, feudal, honor-based society, a single thumb-down often started wars and led to quick and bloody deaths so those with one thumb were quickly wiped out, leaving only those with two.
Once the norm became two thumbs, there was a golden age for the Koalas. But as all good things must come to an end, so too did the Koala golden age. It was cut short by vicious corporate greed attempting to commodify thumb configurations in order to game the system. They bought out click-farms in Bangladesh in order to increase their ratings and solidify the nobility. The ensuing thumb wars devastated the local economy and the Koalas never recovered, their cities laid to ruins, and their lands turned to desert. The few who survived had reached a level of enlightenment that humans have yet to attain. As a society, we have moved further and further away from doing labor so that we could have more time to do nothing at all, or to sleep. The Koalas who survived had found out how to manage to do almost nothing all day and still survive. That is how they ended up sleeping 20 hour days and eating minimally. Incredible creatures honestly.
If there’s anything to learn from all this, its that we need to move our index finger further to the inside of our hand so that we have two thumbs. Then, web designers will have to redesign all of their websites to reflect this change in our biology and thumbs up and down will instead have to take into account our multiple thumbs. I predict that this will save the internet.
Furthermore, in the spirit of being bold and making risky predictions, I predict that this change will occur within our lifetimes. Until that day!
After watching through the entirety of Spongebob, the hit adult TV show praised for its realistic portrayal of undersea life and daring anti-government rhetoric, I have uncovered the truth about the free market. Many people have been complaining about the appointment of Mr. Andrew “All I wanna do is (bang bang) and take your money” Puzder to the position of Labor Secretary by incoming President Donald Trump, but they haven’t realized that their complaints are unfounded. As the President of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr, he has been producing delicious, cholesterol-loaded, food while suppressing labor dissent in the ranks through innovative propaganda techniques. An incredible businessman and role model to us all. But taking his methods to another level, it is really Mr. Eugene Krabs who has proved just how important the free market is to the success of businesses.
The true hero:
Before we get into Mr. Krabs’ labor practices, it is worth mentioning how important the economy is to Mr. Krabs:
One of the most important requirements of a fiat currency is that people believe it has value. This man believes so strongly in it, that the thought of losing a cent provokes his animal spirits and causes him to foam at the mouth. He is single-handedly producing enough belief to power our economy. Like any good pure economist, Mr. Krabs recognizes that “money makes the world go round” (from Krusty Love), “money is the ultimate source of joy” (from Funny Pants), “the money is always right” (from Krusty Krab Training Video), and of course “Counting me money. Money sweeter than honey. Money money this, money money that, profit will make me wallet fat” (from Squid on Strike). Adam Smith would be proud.
Mr. Krabs also has a brilliant business mind. From incentivizing employee productivity through the employee of the month award and through fining errant behavior:
And also through his understanding that the customer is always right and that time is money. He’s always willing to find a good deal, as when he traded Spongebob for 62 cents to the Flying Dutchman, his refusal to give refunds noted in the fine print, and from his ability to sell a broken umbrella for $20.
But for all his genius, he is constantly stymied by the repressive, borderline authoritarian policies of the Bikini Bottom Government. Just look at how he feels about the tax collector:
But more than the taxes, there are the regulations. There was the episode where Spongebob was forced to take a vacation even though he wanted to work because employers were required to give a certain amount of time off to employees or pay a fine: http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Bummer_Vacation Neither the employer nor employee wanted time off, but the government forced it on them. Another time, health department regulations shut down the Krusty Krab for using too much grease in the food even though that is exactly what customers wanted and it was profitable for the business owner: http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Health_Inspector_(Greasy_Buffoons).
The paternalistic government decreased happiness through this regulation.
One instance where the policies have been relatively lax have been minimum wage laws. Spongebob actually pays Mr. Krabs to work there:
But Spongebob obviously loves his job and does it well so everyone benefits. Minimum wage laws would be an unnecessary restriction that would cost him his job, Mr. Krabs his business, and Bikini Bottom what appears to be one of two fast food restaurants in the whole city.
The real challenge faced by workers these days isn’t greedy employers, but technology. The Chum Bucket is the perfect example of how technology can lead to fewer jobs and faceless capitalism. Mr. Krabs might be the hero of the post-industrial era economic arrangement through what some economists call the “job loop” (https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/worldaftercapital/content/part-two/Labor.html), but it is the Luddites, the anti-vaxers, and old people in general who are fighting the real fight. We must stop progress at all costs. We must stop progress at all costs.
To that end, this past election was a great first step. All across the world, people are realizing just how dangerous progress is. This is evident in the rise of enlightened, neo-luddite, anti-science, anti-fact, and downright uneducated party platforms in places like the US, UK, Germany, France, India, Poland, Italy, and in many other less important countries around the world. The formation of bubbles, ironically an effect magnified by technology, has been incredibly useful in this regard. Moving forward, we must continue to shut down conversation, hurl accusations of racism and misogyny at everyone we disagree with, and further embrace hypocrisy so that we can protect ourselves from the potentially disastrous effects of technology.
Thanks for reading!
Brought to you by the number 1 source of biased truth. Let’s misinform the world for its own good together!
Many of my friends and most people in America who have both been lucky enough to not have experienced the negative outcomes of the past few decades of the world economic/political order and the effects of technological advancement, and who are both not stupid and not racist, will have been surprised or upset by the outcome of the recent presidential election. Or at the very least, if they saw the election outcome coming, they would certainly not have predicted such a passionate populist movement emerging on the Right. But if they had paid any attention to the past few decades of Corn Pops commercials as I have been doing, it would have been quite obvious that public trust in the government was eroding, that there was a deep entrenchment of pessimism among segments of society, and that there was the perception that a strong anti-establishment leader was necessary to fix the country. Let’s see just how accurate Corn Pops commercials can be in foreshadowing the evolution of this sentiment.
We’ll start with a brief, biased overview of history after World War 2 up until the late 1970’s where the first relevant commercial takes place. The late 1940’s and 1950’s were a time of American economic dominance. Part of this was the result of the absolute destruction of most of Europe and Japan and the struggles for independence in most of the rest of the world and part was due to a booming population, superior investment, and a (relative to today at least) functioning government. It was a time of heightening Cold War tensions, loose morals, and incredibly boring movies. It was not a good time to be non-White, but it was relatively glorious if you were (except if you were a woman too).
The 1960’s and early 70’s roll around and things start changing quick. America won a lot of things during this time: we ended racism forever in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act, we beat science in 1969 and realized we no longer need to care about it anymore, we permanently saved the environment with a series of bills in the early 1970’s such as the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the creation of the EPA (this one was a bit overboard as it is a superfluous organization representative of the increasing reach of bureaucracy, a mistake which will soon be rectified with its dissolution), and finally made some sweet video games. However, despite all of these seemingly incredible accomplishments, the seeds of our future failure were planted. The Vietnam War and the Watergate Scandal demolished our trust in the government. And even worse, the Immigration Act of 1965 started waves of invasion that continue to this day.
And with that, we get to the first commercial, taking place in the late 1970’s:
We start off with two kids, representing the average American, trying to enjoy their cereal when they are rudely interrupted by a man calling himself “Big Yella”. By the late 1970’s, income inequality (see below figure) in the US had already begun to rise from post-war lows in a phenomenon termed by some economists as “The Great Divergence”. This Big Yella guy, representing the wealthy and corporate interests attempts to buy out the cereal from the two kids. But, the late 70’s were also a time of high inflation so cereal was vastly overpriced and he has to offer some serious stuff just for a bowl of cereal. He also attempts to prostitute the environment by selling a big yellow bird (genetic modification perhaps?). The kids, obviously morally superior due to their being common Americans, reject the offers, but in the spirit of economic liberty and general goodwill offer the man a share. But the MAN is greedy and pulls out a giant spoon and begins to advertise this valuable resource for the whole world to see. We can expect that he will abuse his privilege and ravage the economy, foreshadowing the events of the 1980’s.
This brings us to our second commercial taking place in the 1980’s:
By this point, many major American cities, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, had been taken over by minorities and become crime-infested ghettos. The economy was experiencing stagflation, our reputation abroad was suffering, and inequality continued to rise. We can see some of these themes in the commercial. The mom is rushed because the economy has forced mothers to enter the labor force or barely survive as a one-income household. They have turned to the woods to escape the crime rampage of the big city, convincing their daughter it was a “vacation”. The scarcity of resources, such as oil, is reflected in the existence of only one Corn Pops box in the entire store. But look! The old man, a metaphor for Ronald Reagan, enters and brings in a few more Corn Pops solving the crisis by increasing the supply of Corn Pops (supply-side economics?). But this will not solve the underlying issues and will only provide a temporary cover as the issues continue to bubble under the surface in the 1990’s.
The next commercial takes place in the 1990’s:
After the complete takeover of the left by the Neoliberal philosophy and the corporate stooges that pushed it, the economy experiences a resurgence in the 1990’s buoyed by the tech industry. But even though it seems that we have escaped the seeds of doom sewn in the 1970’s, this was possibly the worst thing that could have happened as we can see in this commercial. Aaron Paul, the boy in the commercial, representing the American populace, does not care at all about what his parents are saying, as long as he gets his Corn Pops. His mind has been completely taken over by commercial propaganda. But the parents, aka the government, are so out of touch with him, aka the people, that even though they think there is odd behavior, they are completely convinced that they have the situation under control and thus continue their policies as if nothing was wrong. They are blind to the trauma suffered by the people and are convinced their paternalistic philosophy is succeeding. This cannot be good.
Then, of course 9/11 happens, leading to the following commercial:
An apparent emergency situation in which Corn Pops are gone turns out to only be a nightmare and distracts us from the true underlying culprits, which are only hinted at in the commercial. Yes, 9/11 showed us that terrorism was an issue in America, but even while we dealt with terrorism, we were distracted us from the economic and cultural decay taking place. Just look at the poor boy when he wakes up from this nightmare: studying himself to death at such a young age as reflected by the increasing need to go to College by today’s youth just to have any chance of a decent job. Little did these kids growing up in 2002 know that when they grew up, graduating from college is hardly a guarantee of anything except debt. We focused on the nightmare of terrorism, of no Corn Pops, but it was merely a symptom of the destruction of society perpetrated by the parents from the 90’s commercial, the old man from the 80’s commercial, and Big Yella from the 70’s.
And then, finally, the issues of globalization and immigration reach a climax in the following two (dating 2009 and 2010):
At this point, you may notice that there are no humans at all in the commercials. That is because people have bought into commercialism so hard that they’ve moved beyond being defined by the things they own and have actually become those things themselves. The American people are now Corn Pops. In the first commercial, a zombie invasion (representing the vast hordes of anti-American immigrants that have destroyed the culture of this country) invade a home and in the second, aliens (representing foreign governments/businesses/ideologies) do the same. At this point, one can clearly predict the rampant alarmism present in these advertisements. But, it is still not clear how this predicts the rise of President Orange.
This last commercial, dated 2009, will change that.
At surface level, it seems as if its just a play on High School Musical which came out around the same time, but in reality, it actually predicts Trump. Remembering that the American people are now Corn Pops, we see the emergency of a super Corn Pop. In this video, we can see many of the same traits exemplified by Donald Trump: an inflated ego, narcissism, strange coloration and body shape, but also an optimistic message and a clear rallying cry. He even asserts the same racial supremacy type arguments where he claims to be better than “other cereals” and yet we see in the video that these other cereals are still supposedly supporting him just like the real life narrative pushed by the Trump campaign where they claim minorities love them while simultaneously disparaging them. Anyone who saw through the details of this video could have seen that this super Corn Pop would emerge and provide the answer to the divisions plaguing this country. It is a shame that more people didn’t.
Unfortunately, the outcome of this is not going to be so good, as predicted by this 2008 commercial:
This President’s promises are all a mesmerizing dream and will not come to fruition. But hey, what do I know. I’m just a cereal enthusiast.
Let’s start with Sikhi (aka Sikh Religion). Without going into too much detail, there are 3 aspects of Sikhi relevant to this post:
The first is the existence of some single divine force (aka The Creator, The Divine, God, whatever you want to call it) that permeates existence and is in fact inseparable from creation.
The second is that each person is also a part of this by virtue of being part of the universe which, as mentioned, is inseparable from The Creator.
The third is re-incarnation of the soul of each individual.
The three are tied together through the following: the goal of each person is to escape the cycle of re-incarnation by tearing away the illusion that they exist as a separate entity from the rest of the universe, thus connecting themselves with The Divine.
As you might expect, even within this super basic outline, there are already so many different ways to interpret the specifics as to how all of this actually takes place. The one I will focus on here is how re-incarnation works.
As far as I know, there is 1 main way most people think re-incarnation works, and 1 fan theory which, surprise surprise, is the one that I pick. The main one is the classic story: the karma of your past life determines your current life and your actions in your current life determine your future lives. If you are good, you might be reborn into a better situation, but if you are bad, you might be worse off or even come out as an animal. Also, I’d like to add as a side-note that most people think re-incarnation works on a linear timescale such that your past lives are literally in the past, but I think that’s a bit ridiculous and instead you should be able to be reborn in the past (ie. You might die in the year 2060 and then be Napoleon in the next life). Anyways, this is a pretty tidy way of looking at things because it explains many things. First of all, there is a clear mention of re-incarnation in the Sikh texts which this view would obviously satisfy since it is the literal way of interpreting the text. Moreover, it would also explain the wide disparity in status of people at birth. It would also explain how it is fair for babies to die before they have a chance to become spiritual, why some people are never introduced to Religion, and it would explain why the human birth is important because it is the only birth in which you have a chance to achieve enlightenment. Overall, its pretty neat isn’t it.
But, if you’re at all like me, this all sounds a bit too magical to be true. I’ve always felt that Sikhi was a very, very practical philosophy. Where, in a practical philosophy, would there be the need for something like that kind of re-incarnation? I am personally of the view that this particular view on re-incarnation is an influence of the historic use of re-incarnation in South Asian society as a way to justify the oppression of the caste system. Instead, I think that re-incarnation as written is a concept mentioned in the Sikh texts as a metaphor for something else. The Sikh Gurus often referenced popular beliefs at the time to relate to the people and I think this was one of those cases.
Now, before I get into my version of re-incarnation, let me get into The Legend of Zelda for a bit. And, I know I’m simplifying this by a lot so please don’t murder me in my sleep if you get triggered by my slaughtering of the Zelda Universe/plot. There are a few things we should clear up right away. The three characters of interest here are Zelda, Link, and Ganon. No, Zelda is not the green dude with the sword, that’s Link. Anyways, the overall Zelda timeline is SUPER complicated, but here is the relevant part: At the end of Skyward Sword, the antagonist of the game, the Demon King Demise, tells Link that his hatred will be reborn as a being (Ganon) to fight against future incarnations of Zelda and Link in a never ending cycle. And in fact, a common fan theory is that this event sets the foundation for all Zelda games taking place in the future: the trio are reborn/revived/resurrected many times and battle it out in a classic good vs. evil matchup. You might see where I’m going with this now.
The first view on re-incarnation can sort of tie in with Zelda. Each life, you have to fight for good. If you lose, you have to do it again, but what happens if you win? Does that mean you’re done? People don’t reach enlightenment often so this would mean you lose most of the time. This is because in Zelda, even after winning, there must be another cycle, but that would not be the case if you reached enlightenment. Thus, implying that you have to lose the battle each time so that the cycle can continue. But losing is not only not fun, pretty much all Zelda games end in a victory (unless you suck at video games). Besides, in a single life, we don’t fight evil only once. There are many different forms and it comes back many times. This leads me into the fan theory on re-incarnation.
The way I see it is that re-incarnation takes place within a single life. We are constantly living through cycles of happiness and sorrow, of success and failure, and of various other things. Re-incarnation is the cycle through our mental state, and when we finally tap into our connection with The Divine, we can permanently escape all of these cycles. This concept of re-incarnation loses some of the neatness in explaining away luck and fate as compared with the other system, but it has some advantages as well: it is a lot simpler than the other system, it makes more sense to someone who doesn’t believe in an afterlife, and it makes more sense with the Legend of Zelda. Under this system, our life is the entire Legend of Zelda series. We constantly fight internal battles that sometimes result in bad decisions and sometimes in good decisions. And even when we do make the right call and Link defeats Ganon, just as you can never seem to get rid of all of your vices and one or another eventually comes back to disrupt your life, you can be assured that Ganon will find his way back to haunt Hyrule. It means right now we could be living out the events of The Windwaker! And tomorrow might be Twilight Princess!
In this case, how does enlightenment happen? Well, all we can do is try our best to stick to our path and if we’re lucky it’ll work out. There is no guarantee it will occur, and that’s ok! Its clearly fun enough to play each Zelda game even though you know Ganon is going to come back again anyway. And in fact, sometimes you find out you didn’t even win (as in the Fallen Hero timeline)! And how can Link defeat Ganon for good? Well, we don’t know if that will ever happen (please please don’t so that there will be more and more games). This is just a fan theory, we’ll have to see if future games confirm it.
Anyways, I think this is mostly a nice way of making myself feel more important than I am. But I also think it makes it easier for me to cope with my shortcomings and failures. The whole thing is a long process and we constantly get chances to prove ourselves and improve on our past mistakes. Link always has to struggle for a long time, and usually even longer if I’m the one controlling him, before he can finally win and then the next game, he has to start all over and solve completely different puzzles. At least we have the advantage of building on our previous knowledge (though technically if you played through every Zelda game, you’d probably get faster at beating those too, further proving why our lives are a Zelda series). So there you have it – some empty motivational words to cap off the most ridiculous fan theory in existence. I am sure there is more evidence out there to prove this theory, but I am clearly already convinced so we’ll leave it at that.
I am retaining the right to delete comments for violating any of the rules which, at least initially (and let’s be real, probably forever), will be entirely subjective. I might also edit the rules in the future if I feel that I need to.
No spam -> I better not see any posts with no other purpose than advertising. None of those “I make $1000 a day working from home” type things that are all over The Economist.
Language -> keep it PG.
Civility-> You are not allowed to disagree with me. In all seriousness though, no ad hominem attacks on other commenters. Feel free to attack me personally, but watch yo language.
I strongly encourage you to disagree with me, even if it is for the sake of argument. I also welcome any questions, comments on my poor writing ability, and speling/grammor mistakes.
Warning: For this post and for every future post, there will be heavy amounts of sarcasm. Please try to keep up with my intellect. Apparently this note was needed.
I never really thought about starting a blog until one of my friend’s brought it up when I was telling him about how I liked writing. I’ve been keeping a daily journal for the past 2.5 years and while most of the posts are short and uninteresting, every once in a while I free-write my thoughts on some event or idea. Nobody reads my journal, obviously, so everything I write is for my own thought process only. And, most of the stuff I write doesn’t really come up in conversations because my personality forces the vast, vast majority of my conversations to become utterly nonsensical a few minutes in. But its obvious that discussing an idea with multiple people will develop your views further and show you where you were wrong, or possibly convince someone else of your views. If I’m going to write anyway, I might as well enhance the experience.
There are three main downsides I can see to having a blog. The first is that I think its somewhat pretentious to have a blog, but seems that most people I’ve talked to about it have told me this isn’t a legitimate concern so maybe it’s only in my head.
The second reason is making public my private thoughts, views, and ideas, and as a result possibly alienating people who disagree. Whereas its quite easy to have a diverse group of friends when you never say anything substantial, that isn’t the case when you are open about everything you think. But there are a few reasons this isn’t really much of a problem. First, and most importantly, I’ve always held that you should only believe in things that you think are worth believing and that you shouldn’t be afraid to express it. I also don’t plan to be blindly partisan (or even necessarily political) in my blog. In fact, most likely it will be a random mix of topics that I find interesting: tech, sports/entertainment, philosophy, news, etc. Most posts will be the most idiotic thing ever written by anyone, not even worth getting angry over. Moreover, I have high faith in the people I know to the point that they wouldn’t remove me from their lives because I said something they disagree with, I mean plenty of people who still tolerate me think Lebron is better than Kobe. So I think it’ll be ok.
The third and most important reason is that there is a chance no one will read it. I mean how would that look? That would be like going back to the early days of Facebook when, like everyone else, I posted everything I did on my wall, and constantly worrying that no one would like it. But, I recently went through some really old stuff on my friends’ Facebook walls and thought it would be kind of cool if people posted more, except for privacy concerns. But I am not too worried about my privacy on the blog posts. I encourage stalkers. In fact, here’s my phone number: 206-569-5829. Have fun. Yes, there is still the issue that no one reads it, but I have already come to terms with being a nerd and having no friends. Can’t really get worse, so I might as well make it harder to ignore me.
And so given these benefits, my egomania, my narcissism, and my desire to eventually stifle all opinions contrary to my own, I am starting this blog in the hopes of eventual world domination.
