Let Them Starve?

As you know, were all about asking questions and expanding
perspectives here at the Ranting Walrus. As usual, we have
for you another unusual idea: "Why don't we let the
starving portion of the human population die off instead 
of increasing the population more so we can equal the
amount of food we have since we greatly outnumber our prey?"

The basic assumption here is that there's not enough food to
go around. I honestly don't know how much it would take to
feed the entire population of the world, but i had 3 meals
today, yesterday, the day before... And don't forget, this
country is having an 'obesity epidemic!' Its not that
there's not enough food, but the distribution of that food
is uneven.

Furthermore, there was some pertinent data collected from

the biosphere experiments. (If you're unfamiliar, a group

of scientists made a big giant dome that contained several

different climate zones (a tropical rainforest section, a

tundra, savanna, deciduous rainforest...) which they lived

in for two years, sealed off from the rest of the world)

They came up short on harvest, and were forced to

drastically restrict their diet, eating only one large salad

everyday. However, their health had never been better,

indicating that we would actually function better eating

less, which if acted upon, would free up even more resources

to be shared among the starving.

An interesting side note: when your stomach is empty, it
secretes a hormone called ghrelin which has been positively
correlated with increased creativity and intelligence. My
thoughts are this is an evolutionary adaptation: when you're
starving, its because you haven't been able to get food. Your
stomach makes ghrelin, and suddenly you start thinking in new
ways, and devise a new plan to get your meal. The existence
of such a hormone also validates dreams of smart drugs...
but thats probably not happening anytime soon.

And as far as competition: why compete when you can
cooperate? Cooperation just makes more sense: you're
getting another person to do your work, and it doesn't
get much better than that. Helping people is not only
a better thing to do morally, but its just as good if
you look at it in terms of numbers. If you do nice things
for people, they are more likely to return the favor.
You feel good about yourself, thus boosting self image.

So its in your best interests to help those around you.
Hence why we need to devise ways to help these people
living in squalor worldwide. I had an idea a few months
ago to potentially cure a lot of diseases with nothing
but a pocket full of jelly beans, a head full of lies,
and more optimism than is necessary. Imagine a bunch of
fake doctors, giving jellybeans as placebo drugs to
people and telling them its medicine that will cure AIDS,
malaria, etc. There are different ways to boost the
effectiveness of a placebo: a red pill will work better
than a blue pill; a happy doctor will have better
results than a grumpy or indifferent doctor. Unfortunately,
this idea was brought before a big debate in the APA and
they declared it unethical, but that just means I'm not
going to have their support. If I can get a success rate
of 51%, that means more people are benefiting from it
than not, so its better for the majority of people if
it works. That's the only problem... I don't know for
sure exactly how effective this will be. I can say that
placebos from other studies have had success rates of
up to 50% (these were for antidepressants, which were
found to be just as effective as the actual meds... don't
bother buying the real drugs, buy the illegal ones, they
will cheer you up with much more reliability than the
legal ones will), but these were for painkillers. Since
pain is a purely psychological phenomenon, applying a
new mode of thinking would be one way to cure that problem,
but would it be enough to work on other, germ based
diseases. There is evidence to indicate yes. Although with
viruses it might not be the same: you can reduce the
symptoms of the person, but once you have a virus you
will always be a carrier. So even though you won't suffer
from AIDS, you can still pass it onto those who don't have it.

And for increasing the population, yes, there are a lot of
people on this earth, probably more than our food supply can
handle, but who are we to deny the basic needs of life for
our fellow man? I believe you should lend a hand wherever
you can, especially if it would save a life. Even if you have
the people compete over their resources, you'd have survival
of the fittest. But then again, cooperation instead of
competition would allow more people to survive... which
means the most cooperative people would survive. Who knows,
maybe if we can get in harmony with our planet it will
sustain more life than we originally thought.

This is all very idealistic, but man has been killing off
his brothers since recorded history, so I don't seriously
think theres any future hope of humans forgetting about
things like anger and revenge and pursuing cooperation over
competition. Humans will be humans, and there will probably
never be world peace, and that my whole plan for the future
will never happen as well. This question is more a predictive
model than a plan of action. Those in starving lands will
perish while the rich hoard up all the food.

That's just human nature.

A River Crossing

As he climbed through the jungle, he found yet another
obstacle: a river intersected his path. From the riverside,
he gazed across the rocky waters and planned a way across
using large stones in the river. He started with vigor, but
as he approached the middle of the stream, he found his
boulder boulevard came to an end. Stuck in the middle of
the river, he had two choices: stay put and hope the river
would dry up, or go back and try an alternate route. As he
thought this, he chuckled to himself. With a splash, he
jumped into the water and gleefully completed the crossing
painlessly. It was only water.

Will You Shut the Fuck Up?

We all know that one person who is never at a loss for words, but we often wish they would sometime. Vowels and consonants dribble out their throats like hot piss down a bald, hairless leg, for eternity, through the cosmos, into alternate dimensions... do you get the point? We all know that this person will inevitably end up with a mouthful of fecal matter from some land mammal. And no one will feel any sympathy because annoying chatter is, by definition, annoying.
But it’s useful as hell. Socialization is a form of intelligence. This sounds odd to those of European descent because that culture values booksmarts and technique over social ability. Look at our school systems, they focus on memorization and high levels of technique. Other cultures embrace other skills. And speech is certainly a skill. There are people that can read more information from a person walking by than another person can by directly asking them their emotions at that moment. And then when you factor NLP into the sequence...
Neurolinguistics Programming can best be described as the practical study of communication. Its an incredibly useful tool, which can be used to unbelievable effect in therapy, business, and plain old day to day life. This whole post isn’t about NLP; however if you are interested, I’d recommend the following names to you: Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Milton Erickson, and Robert Dilts. I INSIST you watch some of Derren Brown’s stuff on Youtube.
On second thought... maybe not. Some of those tricks I want to pull off and I don’t need competition.
Mindless blabber has its good points as well. It is a bonding ritual, where people communicate their thoughts and emotions to each other. Religion, politics, and sports hold this in common: they all give people something to identify with, as well as channel their values and beliefs. All people enjoy expressing themselves, and how we express ourselves defines who we are. Musicians make music, painters paint pictures, photographers take photos, and social butterflies express themselves through spoken word. Anyone who has a passion for something can tell you the benefits of expressing yourself. Those who blabber mindlessly actually are doing something, even if they are not saying something: they are expressing themselves.
And c’mon, who hasn’t experienced an awkward pause in conversation? Who initiates conversation? What should the topic be? Maybe a joke would best break the silence? If so, what kind of joke? Oh god, this is awkward. Quick, give me a banana and an assload of toothpicks, I need to make a replica of a marine animal!
Still, annoying blather is annoying blather. But maybe the reason we feel so negative towards those who chatter restlessly is because we’re actually jealous of their superior ability to facilitate conversation.

The Legacy of the Ranting Walrus

I promise, this is the last philosophy post for a while, hopefully ever. Maybe one day i will find an actual topic to talk about instead of making sweeping generalizations based off of sketchy logic.

As with all philosophy, this was plucked straight from my large intestine. This particular fecal assortment was arranged for my friend, so he could do other things besides his english hw. Enough, now post.

Sitting back in a chair, its easy to reminisce about the old days, when struggles were fought and won, and obstacles were overcome. Resting on your achievements can be a very comforting thing, but aside from comfort, what exactly does a legacy function for? Complacency is the death of motivation. When one feels their job is done, they sit back and relax, forgetting their initial drive that lead them to achieve in the first place. But worst of all, complacency leads to bragging. If one is not currently working to achieve their goals, then what does one say when confronted by this fact? The majority of people find it perfectly appropriate to cite their past experiences to show they have put in the effort and have achieved something, after which they give up on dreaming and end the pursuit of their goals. The only thing they have achieved is a bad excuse for laziness. Those who expect their legacies to carry them to prosperous lands of plenty and joy are deluding themselves. Your legacy will not take you anywhere, it is only a history of things you have done. The only way to get what you want is to get it, and there’s no other way to get it than action instead of talking about how you used to get it. Obviously you don’t get it anymore, and as far as I’m concerned, you’ve given up on trying, yourself, and life, all at the same time.
But there are those that argue having a legacy to lean on can help support an identity, especially in dire times of trying. There are numerous ways to achieve motivation, and some ways have fewer far reaching consequences than others. Those who look to their past to find support for themselves look to different times when certain people reacted a certain way. This is history, the detailed account of how these people reacted under these conditions. Those conditions are unlikely to ever be repeated in the exact same way, so how could looking to the past ever really help one? The situations are different; the people are different; everything is different. The only way to get through these times is to persevere and not lose track of your goals and ideals. For our thoughts really are who we are.

Sorry 'bout that

Yeah, my last post probably casts the image that I am indeed another angry teen with confidence problems due to my excessively bad acne. But this is not the case. I am a happy person overflowing with joy and love and all that crazy bull. Whatever.

Today I'm going to attempt to counterbalance the negativity of my previous post with some enlightening over-optimistic philosophy. That's your only warning.

In english today, I was asked to think of a time I had revenge. This whole concept of 'getting even' seems silly to me, but a lot of the kids in my class were very serious. everyone had a great story about how this person wronged them, and to get retribution they made the aggressor's life worse. What upset me most was that no one even momentarily considered how their retribution would improve the situation for anyone. The only way to 'right a wrong' is to forgive, and try to understand why the aggression happened in the first place.

Who really does benefit from revenge? Certainly not you. You must spend time and energy thinking of the perfect way to get back, time that could have been spent doing something that would benefit yourself, or someone else. Instead, you use your powers of creativity to hurt and harm others. Is this the best way to achieve a peaceful society?

What people have to see is the cycle of revenge can be broken, and very easily. Stop caring about revenge. The past is past, and its time to move on. Dwelling on the unpleasant is never a good thing. True, there are some situations where one has to stare straight into the face of negativty and bad situations, but simply because the situation sucks doesn't mean you have to feel bad and get upset. Anger and hatred are feelings we choose to feel. So are happiness and forgiveness. Which do you choose?

But dude, what about people who constantly take advantage of you? Those assholes who are constantly getting in the way and forcing you to deal with them? There's two ways of dealing with these kinds of situations: be a buddhist and genuinely don't care, but this method doesnt work for a lot of people. The other is to learn that some people need to be avoided, and using negativity to deal with problems is never constructive. Thats a hard lesson to learn, and it takes some time getting used to it. When someone comes and tells you, "Uh, Jeremy... I accidentally smashed your beautiful antique guitar over a giant multi-dimensional butterfly. Hope you're not upset." its hard to react with kindness and understanding. But getting angry won't make the guitar piece itself back together, stop the butterflies from manifesting themselves in this dimension, or make your friend any more sorry for breaking your guitar.

In conclusion, you should never have to ask the question, "Is this squid or vagina?"