convention

i wonder if russians have just as hard a time remembering my name as i do, Александр.

unintended consequences

people have probably heard me mention those two words incessantly for the past year and a half.

it dawned on me that life is similar to the heisenberg uncertainty principle or the observer effect.

thus, when you interfere with anything, there are bound to be unintended consequences. unfortunately, most of us are far too short-sighted to map out a probability tree with the 1,000,000 potential outcomes, and the subsequent secondary cascade of 1,000,000,000,000 potential outcomes, the tertiary cascade of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible outcomes, and so on.

so unless you're about to prevent a train wreck or some outcome that doesn't have potentially adverse secondary, tertiary, etc consequences, sit down and hold tight.

coin toss

[content rated E for evolutionists. not recommended for creationists.]

what are the chances that if the earth were to start over 100 times, that the land masses would be the same. that the same wars would occur. that genghis khan would have existed. that japan and germany would have gone bat sh*t crazy. that insane dictators would coexist on this planet. that we would go into space. that the same languages would be formed. that britain would colonize the world. that we would develop the atom bomb. that english would be dominant. that people would look the same. that currencies would be formed. that law would be created. that religion would exist. that corporations would form. that the same viruses would kill us. that steve jobs would be born and create apple. that we would have technology.

what are the chances of these convergences?

i welcome my nerdier folks to run some bayesian and mcmc modeling, but really, isn't the outcome fairly improbable? and by improbable, i mean infinitesimally minutely impossibly possible.

game over

life is like a board game. no matter how many pieces you collect, no matter how much property you acquire, countries you invade, opponents you bankrupt, money you collect, at the end of the game, it's all moot.

your money and other game pieces are no good.

everything goes back in the box, only to gather dust.

propaganda

national anthems are merely hymns of propaganda of nations - governments and borders that wax and wane and change hands at the whims of mere mortals.

we are all born human, merely different by thought and peril.

as a man for all humans, i can't condone war, so i stand for global health.

fools and progeny

we are the most foolish specie on this planet.

you may think we're made of molecules and magic (since we can't really replicate life), but we're really made of time. as we sit here, we're aging, or if you're morbid, we're dying. so everything we do is a measurement of time, which makes its mark on us as age. no matter how much we make, how little or how much we do, or how much plastic surgery we get, we age. so everything we put each passing second into, we're putting a part of our lives into.

so we're all in this rat race, putting our time - our lives - into 9 to 5s (if you're fortunate), putting our lives into our jobs (that some of you really hate) for the sake of money. and we put that money into things. so we put our lives into things and spend all day worrying about our things. what if my house burns down? what if someone dings my car door? what if i spill water on my laptop? what if a hurricane tears through my vacay house in the carib? what happened to that weed whacker i lent my neighbor? where are my video games?

we project our lives into stupid physical objects. and the wiser of us procreate. they project themselves onto their children. love them. watch them grow. the better of us do good. we project onto other people. we do good for the world.

because at the end of the day, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Cancer

What if you could know the exact instance when you get cancer?