R.I.P Robert Strange McNamara

Death of man who made a different. He like many in history have made grave mistakes but unlike most has publicly recognize his mistake and spent the reminding of his life repenting. R.I.P.

John Hodgman’s following act.

Of all of those correspondnet dinner comic acts, this is perphase the best performance i have seen.  Hodgeman’s act can perhaps best describe as an analogous opposit to Stephen Colbert’s 2006 correcspondent dinner act. Colbert’s was impressive for it was fearless, but John Hodgman’s act should be applaud for it is coherent and delicate in its balance of celebration and caution.

Hodgemans act has an overarching theme that saw the world divided by conflicting philosophies of nerds and jocks. Bush administration was portrayed as a jock administration that “preceded at all time from intense confident and certainty with what they are doing was correct, they privilege gut instinct over complexity and bookish rumination”. while nerds are those “preceed with different philosophy, not with certainty but with questioning, [nerds] are the questioners, the reality testers the nickpickers” Obama is of course a nerd as evident by his collection of comic book, being comfortable with technology, writes books even when he doesn’t have to, and speaks of restoring science and the concept of objective reality to the public square.

Amidst of Hodgeman’s soaring celebrate of Obama presidency as the “revenge of the nerds” he asked if Obama “is truly nerd cored or is this really just an act”. It was as if he is warning Obama that there is cynical suspicion and fear lurking not far beneath the feel-good triumphant of his nerd constituency.

Hodgeman move on to a a few nerd purity test, and then reminds Obama that we are at the beginning of major historical shift, where conventional labels for defining and dividing are quickly vanishing. This moment of inception is too delicate and has too great of effect on the long road ahead, its no time for victory parades. Hodgeman ended by saying that he (the arch-nerd), thought not always in agreement with Obama, he have been and alway shall be his friend, with the Vulcan phrase “live long and prosper”.

Hodgeman’s act really stuck a cord with me. As a nerd, i am dazzled by Obama, but my excitement of his presidency is always undermined by my cynical suspicion towards idolizing seemingly benevolent wield of power. For my education will not let me forget why power will always corrupts. This is why i like this act so much, because embracing with caution at this moment of Obama’s presidency seem the most fitting.

Also see the predating Stephen Colbert’s analogous idolization of Bush as the gut following jocks below.

On freedom

The concept of freedom that i usually hear on the air waves are usually referring to political freedom, or freedom from the state institutions.
I have a more expansive understanding of freedom. To me true freedom dont just liberate you from the state but also from other constrains namely social constrains, psychological constrain and biophysical constrain.

Social constrains is the bases with which state constrain is a manifestation of. the constrain the state place upon its citizens are the result of historic development the society. State constrain only encompass the codified portion of social constrain not the implicit social etiquette. by implicit social etiquette i mean manners such as not eating with ones mouth open. violating implicit social etiquette do not result in punishments from the state but it will invite social isolation and disdain by others.

of course implicit social etiquette form of social constrain is only a constrain if you care about what other people think of you. if you do not there is no constrain. so why do we care? we care because we are genetically build to reproduce genes and survive not only by our own labor but by benefit derive from reciprocal relationship we have with other members of the society. We cannot naturally reproduce individually, and we survive better with the help of others.

People as i understand them, do not think in terms of reproduction and survival when they interact with others. Humans are driven by biological incentives systems that encourages human to act in a way that will result in survival and ultimately preserve of the gene. These incentive systems (carrot and stick) are in another word desires and dislikes, they are what i call psychological constrains.

While state and social constrains can be understood as constrain that the social environment place upon the individual by doing or not doing something to the individual. Psychological constrain are basically the desires within the individual. but does this make sense? what is this thing that can be free from ones desire? consciousness? and whats consciousness without desire? i mean, the prove of the existence of a human consciousness are acts of individuals that reflect self-awareness. but what are these acts that reflect self awareness if they do not reflect some sort of desire.

or as a cop-out we can understand psychology constrain as the conflict between desire that derive from our gene and desire result from learned experience. I am not entirely satisfy with this understanding because it simply places prominence of one source of desire over another. and i am not even too sure if desire can be categorize in to that way.

I would like to say that psychological constrain are emotions that troubles our consciousness, but i cannot make a clear case of it without developing a deeper understanding of what conciousness is.
I am just going to leave it here and move on to the next constrain.

biophysical constrain are the limit of laws of the physical universe. we have a limited life span, we can only strive on a very particular atmosphere, we need to eat, sleep . and that we cannot work through walls nor ignore gravity.

thats all for my unsatisfactory consciousness centered understanding of freedom. so what would a society looks like if it adopts this view?
it would be a society that maximize human power to change the environment and their biological self.

I am going to bed.

quote of the day

on nominating Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Andrew Sullivan said

she’s not a lesbian. So we lose the gay seat (just kidding).

LoL

I am a Daily Dish reader

Just read a short biography of Andrew Sullivan and i, as i have already find out through reading his blog, fine this this gay, conservative, pro-obama, pro-market, terminally ill catholic absolutely fascinating. Of all the blogs i subscripts to i read Sullivan’s blog the most, at least once every day. and of all the current affair commentators that i pay attention to, he is properly the only one that is a staunch believer of an organized religion – catholicism. I dont agree with him always, but as i said, i find him fascinating.