Michael Mitchell: Archive

"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it. One should earn one's living by work of which one is sure one is capable. Only when we do not have to be accountable to anybody can we find joy in scientific endeavor."

Albert Einstein

I have a "naive" theory. I think we all share the same fundamental beliefs, but we've been sold on moral shortcuts to security, wealth and happiness, not only by religion, but also by science, and then economic survival and social pressure, two interrelated features of the nature of civilization itself, keep us dependent on them, even though we don't wholly and fully consciously believe in anything really. We just pick a side and hope for the best.

It's not exactly a theory to me, however. I've put in the work. I'm certain of my fundamental beliefs, certain I'm right, so I can very easily tell that almost no one else is, that they don't fully believe in what they say they believe in, much less practice it consistently. But I understand also that that doesn't help anyone else, either, that my belief can't be proven. It's the sort of thing you have to see for yourself, that you can ignore even if I shoved it right in front of your eyes, and seemingly without consequence.

Unlike science and religion, that's how philosophy works. That's why when some philosopher teaches you something you think or feel you already knew it. "A is A? Duh. Of course, something can't be what it's not." But you'd be surprised how often you fuck that up in your mind, if you stop and think about it. It's the fundamental principle of logic. Do you think everyone is logical all the time? Not even close, right? Wild guess. Do you still, then, think "A is A" is an easy principle to grasp? Every time you're illogical, it's because some A you thought was A was, in fact, not A. Aristotle discovered that thousands of years ago, but even the smartest people on the planet still fuck it up. It's called an "error".

Many intellectuals and "spiritual" leaders don't even believe in logic. It's not taught by many religions for a reason. LOL. They hate it and seek to undermine it every chance they get. They think it's heartless and inhuman, that faith or intuition or emotions are a better guide than reason, and they know, on some level, that shit like God and Heaven don't exactly work with it, either, if you give them a little thought and scrutiny. But if logic is the method your [human] mind uses to determine truth beyond the directly perceivable, then how can it be inhuman at the same time? You have to pick one. You can't only be logical whenever you feel like it, not if A is A. So how obvious is it as a principle?

Facts over feelings!

A is A, also called the Law of Identity, is an axiom. It can't be proven or disproven. Either you understand and accept it or you don't. The concept of "proof" itself depends on it. You can't prove anything if the proof isn't whatever it is. Most "big thinkers" can't accept this, though. They need an explanation for it, and that's when religion and science lose touch with reality and philosophy is abandoned. Good philosophy, I mean, because most philosophers are guilty of violating the Law of Identity, too, and are really to blame for philosophy's cultural insignificance.

Nearly everything you see, hear, read and are taught by your parents, teachers, preachers and political leaders is based on both religious and secular belief systems that are guilty of contradictions at their root, contradictions that ultimately lead to obviously wrong conclusions, like the "good" of self-sacrifice and the welfare state and genocide, but if you don't investigate the whole systems, you'll never know it, never make the connection. You'll generally accept some watered-down version, practice "moderation" personally and rationalize or evade conscious guilt for all the associated tragedies, because somewhere in the back of your mind you know those vague ideas you accepted but didn't bother to fully understand led to all that unnecessary pain and destruction just so you can bitch on Twitter about the degradation of traditional family values and gender pronouns and capitalist exploitation and having to wait in line for several months for free healthcare.

When I ask myself if God exists, I don't consider anyone else's opinions or beliefs. It's really not a complicated question. There's just not a lot to think about, if you ignore the shitloads of nonsense other people have said and written on the subject, if you don't take it as "gospel", if you think for yourself. I don't mean to ridicule anyone's beliefs, but if it didn't already exist, I don't think I would've even imagined the concept of God myself. I just don't see the need for it. 10,000 years ago? Sure. Fire bad. Thunderstorm scary. One unexpectedly long winter and you're dead. But today? It's just a fucking racket, a means of controlling people and most people simply want to be controlled, and this leads right to authoritarian government, even if it's not officially based on any specific religion.

Freedom seems like an obvious lifestyle choice to me, to be left alone by the government, to live my life without a legal authority telling me how to live it, literally holding a gun to my head to take half my paycheck because I need a higher power to force me to be moral, but it's actually a very new concept, historically speaking, so it's not that surprising really that almost everyone still prefers to rely on a social system rather than taking full personal responsibility for their lives.

How many people would do what our system does, though? Would you steal money from a rich person and give it to a poor person? I don't think so. It's wrong and everyone knows it. Compared to the country's population, the system is ultimately controlled by relatively few people, not politicians, but the special ones who invent and guard and tinker with belief systems, who sit in their Ivory Tower in God mode looking down on the rest of us thinking they can live our lives better than we can, and we just choose the team we hope will win, the one that fights for the issues that personally matter to us, which is really the same as being in that tower with them. Remind me, which side is against taxation on principle? How are all those privileges and benefits paid for? We have no problem with the government doing collectively for the "public good" evil shit that almost none of us would do individually even if our own child were dying from cancer.

I don't mean to indict everyone here, but we're responsible for everything our government does, even if we don't agree with it. Amazon, for instance, makes our lives better by giving us goods and services we choose with every voluntary transaction, and that's how a free market system should work, but many businesses actually rely on the government to exist, no different than the poorest welfare recipient, because the market for their products, such as electric vehicles and "renewable" energy, has to be forced on us. I think that's dumb and wasteful and unfair, but that's the fucking system.

Freedom, as an uncompromised political ideal, is simply not in most people's best interests. We pay it lip service, but most jobs and businesses ultimately depend on the idea that they can't survive on a 100% free market, one without government assistance and regulation, and they're not entirely wrong because the government does heavily interfere in almost every industry, making it very difficult to imagine an alternative, just like when the Church was so entangled with the state few could see the difference -- and from the consumer perspective it's even harder to see.

A few hundred years ago there were only a few major religions running the world -- all of which still exist on a massive scale and still need money to survive, which means they financially rely on their cultural influence. Now there are a few secular ideologies that took their place in government, "secular" ideologies that are actually very compatible with the mystical ideas of religion, especially self-sacrifice.

That covers just about everyone, I think. Even if you didn't believe in the efficacy of any of these belief systems, wouldn't you lie through your teeth if being honest meant social ostracism or starving to death?