Wicker Park is like an Active Volcano

I live in Wicker Park. There's a lot going on here. Musically and culturally, it's a clash between the gentry, the artists, and the endemic people of the area. It's still pretty cool, if cool means anything in this day and age.

It's strange to see a hipster couple, dressed in American Apparel, with a baby stroller. It's like hey, time to settle down.

Wicker park is kind of like an active volcano. As far as all the culture jumble goes. I live about four blocks away from the heart of the universe, the intersection of North, Damen and Milwaukee. It gets crazy at night; it's a hubbub.

I don't subscribe to any particular political philosophy - my basal explanation for my morals is that I know that there are people out there suffering, and I might be one of them. So I guess you could call me a post-liberal - get to know the people; do not brush them aside with complaints about big or small government. Get to know what is going on and deal with it.

If I was running for office, my slogan would read one of two things, either: "things should be awesome, 24-7" or "who are you and why should we care?"

I DATE VOLCANO WOMEN

I tend to date women with extremely powerful personalities. Partially I think it's because I'm so obnoxious that it takes a lot to balance the equation.

Here's a diagram:

Me + smart girl = OK

Me + wild girl = SIZZLE

Me + demure girl = fizzle

I don't really have a virgin whore complex. I believe that women should not be judged by their sexuality. It's dehumanizing to believe that women can be typified into those two roles.

I know life is not so pristinely shaped and that people have foibles and that there's a limitation to how well people's thoughts correspond to their rules. I have a science background, too; I have faith that the universe can be explained by human language as long as we have adequate language to describe it.

People have the strange ability to alter our genetics because of thoughts. I don't mean like you think about changing your DNA and whoop, there it goes, I mean that human thoughts are sometimes more important than biological reality.

I'll make a simple argument: if you could quantify the amount of benefit from a single human action into biological numbers, it would not add up. People do not make sense.

I know it seems obvious that human beings, as a species, are not logical, despite their large craniums and capacity for tool use. But why are people not logical? Is it because we have easier lives today than we did in the Pleistocene? Why are people so dumb?

I think the answer lies in the value of human life. In a country like China, human life is abundant. There are 3 billion people to control. Labor is cheap. China, according to Thomas Friedman, has two main goals: Taiwan and Oil.

PLASTIC IS MADE FROM OIL

I'll make an anti-environmental/ pro-environmental jab here and say that everything made out of plastic is made out of oil...and it lasts forever! Holy crap, this wrapper from this powerbar I just ate will last for like five hundred years! I ate this thing in five minutes! What the fuck!!?!?!? Do I really need to be powered-up that bad? And the answer is yes.

WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT?

1. My life sucks! Why should I care?

Answer: 'Cause caring about a cause is fun! You love it. You get to march and get huffed up and hang out with people who share the same beliefs. You can have a pow-wow and discuss how awesome it is to care. (Plus enviro-hippie chicks will totally put out.)

Don't forget that the sun will eventually go FUCKIN' SUPERNOVA. If humans don't destroy the world in the meantime. Or our robot masters...sigh.

Why do I even care about the environment? I'm stuck in Wicker Park, goddamnit. I don't even drive. I think that people should bike everywhere and that solar power should be mandatory. We should have a solar-powered internet infrastructure for free.

1. Animals are dumb.

Answer:

Nobody wants to see animals suffer, except for sadists. What about those sadists, huh? You're taking away their one sense of joy!

Vegans bug me sometimes, especially the ones who are anti-animal testing. I'd love to see a vegan take this argument to the World Health Organization. Let's test that AIDS vaccine out on a pile of tofu, dude.

But seriously, it's probably better to test out that cosmetic on an animal before a human. Unless you want to volunteer to be a test subject to save a rabbit's life and take one for the team...go team Mammalia! We got boobs and fur, bitches!

I think that it's ok to test out products on animals. I eat animals sometimes. I tend to go on three-month long vegetarian stretches. I think it's best to treat yourself to a good steak every once in a while.

The majority of the world's land biodiversity is located in a wide belt around the equator. If you take one leaf off one tree in the rain forest, you have hundreds of organisms, and thousands of interactions. Not to mention parasites. (Although, I'll save my rant about how cool parasitism is for later. Seriously, dude.)

If you add in the amount of aquatic biodiversity, and consider the amount of problems that occur from over-fishing, the largest damage to the environment is caused by the economic demand for food - farmland = less habitat = less biodiversity (I think it's a linear relation between area and diversity, SERIOUSLY.)

If farmland and fishing are the effect, then economic demand is the cause. There should be a world organization that takes care of that problem...hmm. I don't know, maybe the United Nations?

And even then, it's sort of like saying as a meta-statement "HEY, DOUCHEBAG, WE'RE ALL EARTHLINGS - YOU ARE DAMAGING THE ENTIRE THING BY BEING SELFISH."

To which the meta-reply is "I'M RICH, BEEEEYATCH!"

Which means that the entire argument is a matter of power, not economy. Ew. Seen that before. Power is way cooler than money.

Dumb dumb dumb. It makes me want to just give up. That's not true, I'm not the giver-upper type. I'm the selfish type. When the apocalypse comes, I'm want to steal a spaceship, grab forty or so of my favorite friends, and head for Mars.

You can come, too. I'll save you a seat. Windows seats are taken, tho.

It makes me think that the "indie" culture has been around forever in some form. It's like a way for people to get away from people that they're forced to interact with. It's a secret club, not everyone is allowed access. Roman cults were indie-rock clubs, fertility goddesses were celebs. Maybe it's only in Western culture...

If aliens ever visit Earth, do you think that they will be an organized militaristic culture or a bunch of lazy-no-good yuppies? I imagine that the capitalism/communism dynamism is as efficient on Earth as it is on another planet. Have to get back to you on that one.

"Xeno-economics" - predicting the economic processes of intelligent civilizations on other planets. Maybe supply-side economics works over there.

Which brings me to the complaint about classical liberalism. Libertarians if you will...

To again bring up the point of power being cooler than money, the person who was most interested in having a flat-tax was ______. He was in the process of implementing a strategy for enabling such a tax when the people in power started thinking "We could make money off this....awesome...."

He just wanted to see more of the money for people rather than lost in bureaucracy. I think that the problem there is that flat-taxers don't see the fact that people in power are EVIL. It's a contradiction - people who are in power have the means to control other people - people are controlled by human nature - human nature is selfish. And entrusting power to other people is something that Libertarians viciously oppose.

Or maybe the Libertarians see a world of economics and rights that is frozen in a moment. It relies on people having control of their own destinies in the present.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE FINAL VOLCANO

To conclude, this rant has gone on for paragraphs and paragraphs. I don't think I made any strong points. Maybe I stretched some ground and poked holes in cobwebs.

But the other volcano that I stand next to is my own head. Even though Wicker Park is a volcanic eruption of culture, my brain is a volcano of thought. It's always ready to explode. I don't know why I contemplate things like this. It's just that my brain needs to explore.

Maybe this is the worst volcano to stand beside, and the one is best avoided.