Yes. No

Yes. No. Two of the least meaningful words in the English language.

To answer a question with a "yes" or a "no" is to tell only one percent of the story. To ask a yes-or-no question is to disregard the other ninety-nine percent willingly.

But the world is colorblind. All that exists is black and white. There is no gray, and even if there were, it wouldn't matter, because gray is just black and white in some combination.

Computers work perfectly. Even when they don't. Cold logic is the way to go. Calculators don't forget to carry the ones. Even when the batteries are dead, they will not give you wrong answers. They will not give you right answers, either, but they will not mislead you.

Computers work perfectly. People should be more like computers. Even computers with imperfections are predictable in their flaws. So should people be. We should imitate the cold, plastic-encased logic of our own creations if we plan on avoiding misleading people. Ones and zeroes. Black and white. Yes and no.

Maybe. To answer "maybe" is to acknowledge the gray. But maybe is still just black and white. It's black or white. It can go either way, but it can not go neither way. It is not a third, independent choice in itself. No matter what the reasoning behind a "maybe" is, there are still only two options: yes and no. Black and white. But what about the other colors? What about orange?

Everyone likes multiple-choice questions. What could be easier? Even if you don't know the answer, you know it. You see all of the options and know that one of them is the answer. You might pick the wrong one, but that doesn't matter. The answer is right in front of you, so you know it even if you don't realize it. People don't realize that they can know something without realizing it. They know it, they just don't realize it. Therein lies the problem.

Everyone hates essay questions. An essay allows, no, requires you to have knowledge. Knowledge is useless. It is logic that is valuable. An essay is a painting that allows for colors other than black and white, but you have to mix the paint yourself. That takes time. Multiple-choice questions are much better. True and false. Ones and zeroes. Yes and no.

Everyone hates essays. Essays allow, no, require thought. Computers don't think. Computers compute. People should learn to compute. Computers don't experience pain. Pain must come from thinking, then. Essays allow, no, require you to paint with the entire spectrum instead of binary.

Allow and require. Both mean essentially the same thing, yet evoke entirely different things. Positive and negative, connotation and denotation. If an essay allows you to do something, that means that whatever "something" is, it is a privilege. In order to require something of you, though, "something" must be a chore.

And it is. Essays require you to paint. Computers can't paint. Computers don't produce art. Art is a chore, not a privilege. Paintings require knowledge; correct answers simply require logical yeses and nos. Thought, art; all these things not associated with computers are not performed, interacted with, or made by computers. Computers have no concept of pain. Therefore these things must be the source of pain. Cold logic isn't painful. Cold logic isn't even cold, because adjectives needn't be assigned to something as straightforward as logic. In order to avoid pain, avoid thought. Avoid art. Avoid essays.

Pain is relative. Computers do not experience pain. People do, but people should imitate computers, their own creations, in order to escape pain. But in the meantime, pain is relative. Thresholds can only be determined by epitomes. The most painful thing you have ever experienced is the milestone by which you measure all of your other life experiences, until the day that you set a new record. Someone telling you that this is the worst day of their life doesn't tell you anything about them. They tell you something about yourself. You think about the worst day of your life, mentally stamp those emotions onto them, and all of a sudden, you understand how they feel simply by understanding how you feel.

Some people don't understand how they feel. That's good. The less they feel, the less they think, the more they compute. Besides, pain is relative. Some people have it worse. Some people have it easy. But the worst experience I've ever had is as bad to me as the worst experience you've ever had is to you. If we were one person, there would be a comparison. If you had it harder than me, and we were one, then my threshold would be set by your epitome and my epitome would be a smaller, irrelevant milestone. But we are not the same person.

Thresholds are set by epitomes. You have yours and I have mine. If yours is higher than mine, they are still the same to each of us. I haven't lived yours. I have only lived mine, and can know nothing higher than my highest. Vicariousness is not an option. I cannot understand your epitomes when I only have mine to know. When I set a new record, it may be a record you set long ago, but it is still the worst to me and I will describe it as such. People mistake this as selfishness, when the truth is simply this: pain is relative.

But it doesn't have to be. There are two ways around it. The first way is to avoid pain altogether by computing. Ones and zeros. Black and white. True and false. Yes and no. Logic is more efficient than knowledge. Calculators are more efficient than pencils. They are not wrong. When a calculator runs out of batteries, it is still not wrong. It is not right, either, though. It is neither yes nor is it no. But it is not maybe, either. It will not mislead you. A pencil might mislead you. It can give you a wrong answer. Even getting no answer is better than getting a wrong answer, because when theres a possible wrong answer, there is a maybe. Maybe is only gray. And what about orange?

Orange is for painting. Painting is for essays, not for multiple-choice questions. No one likes essays and everyone likes multiple-choice questions. But even multiple-choice questions can mislead you. None of the above. All of the above. Not A or B; rather, A, B, C, D, or E. Multiple-choice is a step away from essays in the right direction, though. A step towards yes or no. A step towards binary. Ones and zeros. Yes and no.

Essays allow, no, require not only thought, but also explanation. Multiple choice questions require no explanation. The answer is A. Why? It doesn't matter. Explanations cloud the truth. Explanations are subjective. Like pain. We need to stop explaining and start computing. Pain is relative.

But it doesn't have to be. There are two ways around it. The first way is to avoid pain altogether by computing. The second way is to...understand. If you and I understand each other, we understand each others epitomes. We know where each others milestones lie and we respect that our thresholds are different but equal. We are like one person. Understanding is difficult though. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes thought. And it's not easy. There is a much, much easier way. Cold logic. But it is not necessarily the better way.

There are two ways to live. As a computer and as a human. This is an important decision to be made. It is possible to be born a human and die a computer. It is possible, too, to be born a human and die a human. But it is not possible to be born a computer and die a human. Perhaps this is a sign that becoming a computer is a step in the right direction.

Being a computer has its advantages. And it has no disadvantages. Not one. Being a human does, though. Being a human has plenty of disadvantages. And it has advantages, too. Advantages that greatly outweigh the advantages of being a computer. However, the advantages of being human do not outweigh the disadvantages of being human. They even out in the end.

This is an important decision to be made. The truth is that there is no right or wrong answer. The truth is that there is no truth. Truth is painful. Pain is subjective. Truth is subjective. The question is: "Do you want your life to be an essay question, or a multiple-choice question?" And that question is what you make of it. It is a binary question. There are only two options. But you have the option to explain your choice. If you choose to explain, then chances are that you chose the first option. If you choose to answer it in binary, then it is only logical that you chose the second one.

The way that you answer this question reflects your actual answer. The form you choose to answer in is your choice. It is a perpetual motion machine; a paradox. It is an important question, though. Which will it be? A computer? Or a human? Choosing human is a difficult choice to make. In order to choose to be a human, you must subconsciously be answering the following binary question with a "yes": "Do you want to have disadvantages?" This is why most people choose to become computers. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the logical choice. To respond "yes" to that question is a difficult thing to do. But if you do it, chances are you realize that imperfections are what perfect you.

"What's it going to be then, eh?"

Yes? No? Two of the least meaningful words in the English language.