There’s a part of me that says I should feel bad about being so interested in citizen journalism and then letting my sites and Twitter accounts set stale. Why? I can always start again. I can also let it sit stale forever, just another testament among many of tried and failed Internet experiments. Maybe someone else will be more interested in it than I was and take what I started and keep going. Ultimately I’ll trust myself and will not force myself to do something I am not interested in.

And it’s been alright. I’ve focused on finding a way to enjoy my work situation, even though it isn’t ideal. I’ve focused on my motorcycles and other vehicles, because I learn a lot about myself by giving myself a technical challenge. I’ve been reading and watching good movies, just because I want to, not necessarily to learn anything. I’ve been spending time with friends and enjoying entertaining them and enjoying them entertain me.

I have a large whiteboard above my computer that I wrote, “Unblank the Blank” in big letters on. I wrote it because I was worried that my drift away from the topics that I thought were more meaningful than motorcycles, hanging out with friends and learning enjoy whatever situation I am currently in, meant that there was something wrong with me. But I’m alright. I’m not saying that I won’t ever be interested in the deeper subjects again, but at the moment they just don’t seem as important.

I’m not sure why, but that’s OK too.

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I recently finished an interesting book by Sam Harris. If you are interested in the continuing discussion of secular morality, I suggest picking up a copy of The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Sam Harris starts off strong discussing the need for a scientific look at morality. He gives some fairly difficult to look at examples of moral issues with human kind and the proliferation of moral relativism in the scientific community. I enjoyed the first half of the book and thought Sam made great points on why morality does not belong in the domain of religion. The second half gave me some major heart burn. Particularly with Sam Harris’ conclusion that we are deterministic beings. This is a philosophical debate that has frustrated me to no end. I understand the scientific evidence (so far) that our brains are as causal as the universe but philosophically it makes no sense to me. Especially when a hard determinist is trying to make a moral argument! If we are determists we have NO WAY of knowing if what we are doing is correct or incorrect. If we are just a series of cause and effect, the concept of judgement flies out the door. That said the free will argument is just as frustrating. It seems that those who hold free will as a truth can only hold it as an axiomatic truth, because there is no way to really step outside of our consciousness and verify whether we have free will or not. Ultimately I remain a frustrated free will advocate (because that is what I experience) but wonder what Sam Harris is thinking in advocating determinism and secular morality in the same breath. I don’t know if this is something I will ever find a satisfying answer to. Harris also seems to be stuck on the concept of government, but I can’t completely blame him. The concept of government is such a more prevalent false concept than religion in this world. I don’t think Harris is a utilitarian as many of his critics claim, so this book is worth the Audible credit if you want to get your mind into gear about this subject again.

Battlestar Galactica. As comic book guy would say, “Best Show Evar”. At least in the Sci-Fi genre. I guess I should have a spoiler warning here just in case I talk too much about who the cylons are and what not. So if you haven’t seen it yet, all I can say is that it is an amazing metaphor about the multiple personalities that everyone has spinning about their heads and the conflicts and resolutions that one can achieve through their interactions. As a base story and drama it is beautiful. As a metaphor it becomes genius. If you think of the Battlestar Galactica and its fleet as a part of a personality and the Cylons as another part, you can start to understand the complex battle of personalities that many of us experience in our heads. What I really appreciate about the metaphor is how it resolves. At the end of the show you see two of the characters discussing whether the past will continuing to repeat itself. Since the personalities did come to a resolution with one another they discuss the chance that what has happened before won’t happen again. In the show they did destroy the nihilist representative of the personality, so if I were to continue the show, I would have that come back to bite them in the ass. There was also a ton of eastern philosophy used in the show to further this metaphor of the human experience. Unfortunately it did bring along some bullshit into the metaphor but overall it didn’t matter. I highly recommend this show. It can be difficult to get through as it does sometimes get extremely depressing, but it pays off.

What else? Life, she is beautiful.

It’s a beautiful reminder of why our existence is so amazing.

Well guess where I found it being sold as a t-shirt? On Alex Jones Infowars t-shirt store.

How many times is this piece going to come back and haunt me? If I recognized intellectual property as a valid concept, I might just consider suing him. And then I’d sue him for mental anguish. I don’t know if I can deal with accidentally helping the truther movement.

Let this be a lesson children. No propaganda goes unpunished.

Videos

My introduction to North Korea was through the Vice Guide to North Korea.  It still remains my favorite because it is a good mix of entertaining and informative.  It doesn’t go as deep as the other sources of information do, but it does give you a tourists perspective of this country.  It piqued my curiosity and was the reason I decided to continue learning more about North Korea.

They also just released a different version of the same trip where they explored the North Korean Film Industry.

Shortly after finishing the Vice Guide, I found this special from National Geographic.  It’s a slightly deeper look into the brainwashing that the North Koreans suffer.

Audiobooks

Nothing to Envy:  This book chronicles the lives of several different citizens of North Korea and their escapes from the dictatorship.  It was a painful but inspiring read.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag:  Thanks to Casey for recommending this to me.  This is one mans story about growing up in a gulag and escaping from North Korea.  I have never heard of more cruel conditions than the ones that these gulags inflict upon its political prisoners.  I think it’s the most important book to read to gain more insight into how terrible and destructive to humanity the concept of government is.

Articles

Worse than 1984.  Christopher Hitchens wrote an interesting article about North Korea. 

Let me know if you recommend any other reads or watches that relate to North Korea.

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Hope you follow it, because I’ll probably be updating it more than this blog.

I went through 5 years of college without forging one friendship that has stood to this day. Come to think of it, I went through all of school without one relationship lasting. I probably would only have a group of acquaintances that I would call friends if it were not for the Internet. I hold the word friend to a higher level than most. To me, a friend is someone who I feel connected and alive with. Someone who I can truly explore who I really am with. Someone who will let me explore who they really are. It sounds cliché. I wish it was. I think many people go through life with that hope but don’t achieve it.

The Internet has enabled me to seek out and forge those relationships. I don’t think it’s very conscious at the moment, but I think most people on social networks are on for that same reason. I think that it’s part of our social evolution and a key part.

Without the Internet I would not have been introduced to Ayn Rand’s philosophy, atheism, anarchism or any other ideas that have completely changed the way I think about life.

My generation is sitting on a potential energy bomb of social connection and are hooking into it at an exponential rate. There are flurries of true human connection here and there but I don’t think that it is even close to being fully tapped.

That’s what excites me about the Internet. The potential for human connection. That’s why I blog. That’s why I Facebook. That’s why I Twitter. That’s why I use deviantArt.

I just thought I’d make it conscious and hope to make it conscious for others. I’ve seen a lot of shaming (self and external) going on lately about using social networking. I don’t want it to become another excuse to shame ourselves for being human. These tools are meant to be embraced and used to connect with people who will help you become who you are. And by natural exchange, you will help them become who they are.

My earliest curiosity in propaganda was sparked by a street artist named Shepard Fairey that started a street art movement called Obey Giant.  If you haven’t seen this sticker or poster plastered up somewhere, you haven’t been paying attention to your surroundings.

I saw was this poster and wondered what it meant.  At the time the Internet was limited to AOL and Prodigy so I didn’t have the information sources that I have today.  I happened into a strange bookstore in San Diego county called Ducky Waddles.  I noticed that they had posters with Andre the Giant’s face all over the place.  They also had a book that talked about Fairey’s purpose for the Obey Giant street campaign.  As far as I remember it was to evoke a curious response and have people question their surroundings and the advertisements they are subjected to.  I flipped through the book and found other pieces that Fairey had done, such as this one:

I found these pieces powerful and the idea behind them powerful.  One simple image was able to evoke so much curiosity and excitement in me.  I started to learn more about propaganda and its use throughout political history.  If you doubt how powerful this imagery can be, just do a Google search on North Korean Propaganda and see how full of emotion each piece is.

I started to notice more street art around me.  Around this time I was also becoming interested in philosophy.  I was slowly drifting towards atheism and moral relativism.  A Christian friend of mine, who was also a philosophy major, pointed out some pro-Christian street art that was around.  One piece in particular gave me the chills:

It also angered me to see this.  It was a reference to the most hotly debated topic in the religious versus secular realm: abortion.  I was angry mainly because the message was so trite for a topic that was so complex.  But I also realized what an emotional impact that this trite message could have on people.  How it could shut down thought so quickly and shut down debate.  I played around with the idea a bit and produced my first anti-propaganda piece.

I thought it was amusing, but didn’t ever feel like I made the impact I wanted to with it.  It didn’t really evoke the same deep emotions and certainly didn’t spark much curiosity.

I would travel up to Santa Barbara during my college years to go to parties.  While walking off a hangover one day I came across this painted on a sidewalk:

I was starting to get into Objectivism at the time and again felt angry and personally insulted by this piece of propaganda.  I countered it with my own:

This piece had emotional impact.  When I posted it on my blog, I received floods of hate comments.  I also was shocked later to see it on a bumper sticker, and then another, and then somebodies avatar, and then another.  It spread virally to some degree.  I still see it to this day pop up around the web and on peoples cars.  Unfortunately it is mainly being  used now by conservatives.  But that’s what I get for not fully understanding Socialism and Capitalism.  That’s the danger of spreading an idea.  If you don’t fully understand it, it will be used to further evil agendas.  Part of me is proud that I created an emotionally impactful piece of propaganda but I also worry about any consequences it may have in the future.

I tried to counter my own mistake with yet another piece fairly recently:

Better.  But, still not sure about its future impact.  Time will tell.

The propagandization of my own image is something I derive more joy than any other form of propaganda.  I’ve used it as an expression of one part of my personality or another.  The first part of my personality that emerged in the form of propaganda was one that I named MAF.  This was an acronym for Mini American Flags, which was a blog I used to have.  I used it to express my ideas in an over-the-top, humorous sort of way.   Here was the most prominent image that I used of myself:

MAF is the part of me that desires attention and has strong opinions on every topic.  He’s sort of Lewis Black sort of character that I use to express my frustrations about the world in a funny way.  I think this part of my personality bloomed because I was sick of being propagandized by my parents and my culture.  It was my first rebellion against the norm.

During this time I posted the following to try to evoke emotions in others.

I had a lot of fun with these images and spent hours on them.  They did evoke response, especially the Bush ones.  It’s what I wanted from my world.  Feedback and response.  Both things I finally had the freedom to control in my own life rather than be subjected to at the hands of my family and teachers.

I had a lull after that, sometimes producing a piece just for my own entertainment.

Neither really inspired anything in me, but were fun to play around with.

Last night I had insomnia pretty bad.  For some reason I picked up my mouse again and produced the following.

I’m not really sure where this came from, but I was proud with the result and others enjoyed it as well.  It’s another self-portrait.  Possibly another awaking of part of my personality.  I hope so, because whenever a new part emerges I spill out onto this world with so much creative passion.  Hope to post more soon.

Let me know what you think about propaganda and the emotions it evokes in you.  Is it an art form that you appreciate?  Hate?  Can it be used for good?  I’d like to think so.  The medium is the message.

*AFTERTHOUGHT*  Shepard Fairey went onto produce one of the most infamous pieces of propaganda of our time.  I find that disturbing because he knew the power of propaganda and seemed to be against it.  And yet he will go down in history as helping Obama get into power.  Wow…