So, I'm back at uni now. I have an 8:30 start every Monday, a Monday which promises 5 hours of lectures with a two hour gap between the first and second. Mondays already suck, but my Monday made extra effort this semester :P I didn't really talk about uni last semester cos there was nothing much to talk about, really (and my mood was down a lot of the time). I'm actually excited for this semester, though. If I play it right, it'll be the start of a lot of new things. Hopefully, the Film and Performance Society has another one of their variety show things so I can do stand-up :D
Looking over the subjects, though, I'm actually pretty excited! The content looks really interesting. I just had my first lecture for The Scientific Revolution, which was a bit intense given it was an overview of the whole course and the guy covered a lot of content (and given that I'd woken up only an hour earlier :P). But at the very least, it's related to philosophy (natural philosophy, more specifically), and so long as the concepts are better explained in the lectures that actually cover them, I think I'll be fine.
I took advantage of the break to try and get some subject outlines, but I only managed to get the outline for Media, Ethics and Law. Almost all the lecture headings are things I research in my own time for funzies: Censorship, Privacy, Violence in Video Games, etc. And the readings for the first topic (Privacy) were interesting to read; a big change from the usual boring readings I'm used to. I think this class will be lots of fun :) Here's hoping I can let my guard down a bit in the tutorials and get involved in debates; it's a good opportunity given my interest.
I also got the first set of lecture slides for Discrete Mathematics. The class seems irrelevant at a glance given I'm majoring in Philosophy, but it's all about logic and problem solving, which is related to my other philosophy class this semester, Practical Reasoning. I couldn't find another arts subject that caught my interest, so I looked at the maths once just for the hell of it and found this. The opening slides all talk about logical statements, truth tables, negation—all stuff I'm familiar with, but can definitely learn more about. It'll obviously delve into shit I've never seen before in any real depth (set theory, for example), but I like it when the course starts with stuff I'm familiar with; it makes it so much easier to work your way into the harder stuff cos you already have a foundation for the simpler stuff. I also haven't done any real maths since high school, so it'll be somewhat nostalgic to do it again.
I'm just really happy to be back at uni. Last semester was uneventful, and I'm actually looking forward to all my subjects thus far, so that'll be a huge help towards maintaining a positive outlook on things. The only thing I'm really dreading are the research essays (I fucking hate research via books, regardless of the field :P). Apart from that, it's all anticipation. Yay :D
Monday, 29 July 2013
Saturday, 13 July 2013
Conspiracies: Thanks for Ruining My Evening
Last night wasn't a fun night for me. I was up at about 10 pm on reddit, and I decided to hop on over to r/conspiracy, just for lols. There was one post there that said something to the effect of "Wow, all the conspiracies seem to be coming true!", with a comment that said "They're not coming true; they're just slowly being revealed to be correct." I dunno why, but that seriously scared the shit out of me. We're talking people who believe 9/11 was a false flag, who think there's some secret group of people controlling things, people who we never even see or hear of. Thinking about that kept me up all night. I wanted to talk to a friend of mine but she wasn't on Facebook, hence my departure (turns out she logged on while I was asleep and said hi, lol). I also had a stomach ache, which only made it harder to sleep.
It frightens me that there could be a huge war that destroys everything, leave us living on some desolate wasteland. It frightens me that I could be conscripted to fight in such a war, a war that might never end. It frightens me that I might be captured for holding dissenting opinions and never heard of again. I'm not strong enough to fight these things. I need comfort, and having my mental comfort taken away from me is evidently hurting me.
(In going back to get the link for r/conspiracy, I'm getting paranoid again. This is just to show you what's making me so nervous :P)
My scepticism, however, does not pick and choose who it targets. It targets everyone, including people like this. These theories are almost like religions in and of themselves: people see things, they connect things, they draw conclusions. Their own scepticism is, in and of itself, jaded by the same paranoia I felt when browsing their subreddit. Obviously, some conspiracies can be true -- for instance, the fact that we're all being spied on by the NSA and other agencies -- but a lot of it is pure speculation. These people are not special. They're not more knowledgeable by default than anyone else. Many Christians think the Bible has prophecies in it that are true; many Muslims think the Qu'ran does the same; and conspiracy theorists have their own groups, their own literature, and their own perspective to run things by. They put things through their own filter which they themselves have built.
The human mind is also far too prone to linking things together than it should be. It's hardly a reliable machine. Take, this video here demonstrating how likely coincidences actually are:
It's too easy for us to see things that aren't really there.
But let's assume it's true: let's assume there will be global conflict, nuclear conflict, war to fight. Can I do anything about this? Not really. Will I die earlier than expected? Probably. But that's the end; death is the end of my suffering. I don't know what happens after you die, but from what I understand, it's simply nothing. I could be wrong, but that's what I'm assuming for now. And if I don't die, I will, at the very least, have experienced a very interesting life, one of great gains and many losses. I will have stories I can tell to people about the struggles I have faced (if there is indeed anyone left).
Now, however, I'm distraught. I want to feel comfortable again. As I said earlier, I wanted to talk to a friend of mine but she was offline when this started. I would talk to my mother but she's got a really bad cold. I felt very alone; I still do. I wanted someone to talk to, someone to hug. I know their telling me 'everything's going to be OK' might not do anything, but their presence and consolation would mean a lot. I have no intention of killing myself, in case you're wondering -- suicide is not the answer, nor is self harm -- but this is really getting to me.
As they say: ignorance is bliss.
It frightens me that there could be a huge war that destroys everything, leave us living on some desolate wasteland. It frightens me that I could be conscripted to fight in such a war, a war that might never end. It frightens me that I might be captured for holding dissenting opinions and never heard of again. I'm not strong enough to fight these things. I need comfort, and having my mental comfort taken away from me is evidently hurting me.
(In going back to get the link for r/conspiracy, I'm getting paranoid again. This is just to show you what's making me so nervous :P)
My scepticism, however, does not pick and choose who it targets. It targets everyone, including people like this. These theories are almost like religions in and of themselves: people see things, they connect things, they draw conclusions. Their own scepticism is, in and of itself, jaded by the same paranoia I felt when browsing their subreddit. Obviously, some conspiracies can be true -- for instance, the fact that we're all being spied on by the NSA and other agencies -- but a lot of it is pure speculation. These people are not special. They're not more knowledgeable by default than anyone else. Many Christians think the Bible has prophecies in it that are true; many Muslims think the Qu'ran does the same; and conspiracy theorists have their own groups, their own literature, and their own perspective to run things by. They put things through their own filter which they themselves have built.
The human mind is also far too prone to linking things together than it should be. It's hardly a reliable machine. Take, this video here demonstrating how likely coincidences actually are:
It's too easy for us to see things that aren't really there.
But let's assume it's true: let's assume there will be global conflict, nuclear conflict, war to fight. Can I do anything about this? Not really. Will I die earlier than expected? Probably. But that's the end; death is the end of my suffering. I don't know what happens after you die, but from what I understand, it's simply nothing. I could be wrong, but that's what I'm assuming for now. And if I don't die, I will, at the very least, have experienced a very interesting life, one of great gains and many losses. I will have stories I can tell to people about the struggles I have faced (if there is indeed anyone left).
Now, however, I'm distraught. I want to feel comfortable again. As I said earlier, I wanted to talk to a friend of mine but she was offline when this started. I would talk to my mother but she's got a really bad cold. I felt very alone; I still do. I wanted someone to talk to, someone to hug. I know their telling me 'everything's going to be OK' might not do anything, but their presence and consolation would mean a lot. I have no intention of killing myself, in case you're wondering -- suicide is not the answer, nor is self harm -- but this is really getting to me.
As they say: ignorance is bliss.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)