YeTube Round-up #3

SouthPark tries to become e-famous


Convert to every religion, just in case


Absolutely brilliant video, showing how small we really are


Guy uses a wii remote in a rather different way


Some music: Summoning - Long Lost to where no pathways goes

YeTube Round-up #2

Horrible people :- soap opera gone mental. (great series, I recommend watching all episodes)

Behemoth - Decade of therion :-the best of the "misheard lyrics" videos

Christianity in half a minute :- great for easter

Sileny Ota :- most funny 7 seconds ever recorded. Gets funnier every time you watch it

YeTube Round-up #1

A weekly round-up of funny/interesting videos, and sometimes other interesting links I found throughout last week. Firstly, some great series that I recommend to follow:
You suck at photoshop - the best video tutorial. Ever. (Here's the first one)

And something less serious: Al Bundy vs fat women

Bonus link: Jesus appears on some really crazy stuff!

Best $5 you will ever spend

New NIN album. Yes, you read right - whole album for $5. And even better, this album consists of four CDs. Amazed? There's more. You can grab the first part (Ghost I) for free from various Torrent sites, and don't be afraid - it's totally legal, Trent himself posted there to promote his work. And for this 5$ you can download whole four albums, in mp3 or flac, so stop reading and go buy it! As soon as I get my credit card I'm buying it, or I will treat myself to the deluxe package.

Trent Reznor explains, "I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts."

First Atheists

Of course the story of Adam and Eve is fiction, and at most it should be considered symbolic. And you must stretch much too much to even call it remotely true. But bear with me.
I would say that the official interpretation is that Man was given everything imaginable by God, and even so, Man doesn't really appreciate this Garden of Eden and disobeys God just for the fun of it. So we see human as never satisfied, prone to indoctrination, and basically not so bright. But I read this story the other way round, hence the title. Let's forget about this paradise stuff, and concentrate on why exactly man disobeys God. Being told that everything was his, except one little tree. So the man asks "Why is this tree forbidden?". That was the reasoning given by the snake. It's just another apple, like hundreds others in this garden, so go ahead and eat it. Man saw that God's rule wasn't logical, why ban a tree that is just like the others? Why this, and not some pear or plum tree? Human has built-in process that asks "why" every time a stupid and illogical rule is introduced. Think about it - when you were a small child and your parents told you not do something, you often inquired "why?" and they explained more or less, why this act would be harmful to you or others. But God didn't tell why eating this damn apple would hurt anyone, so man was easily convinced this rule wasn't worth following. It was just rule for the rule's sake, hence man ignored it.
Note: I know that the title says "atheist" and this story doesn't involves atheism per se, but every atheist I know starts by asking such questions: why can't I eat meat on Friday? why does God forbids me to eat pork? It's the first step to atheism, and perhaps the most important, yet most natural to make, as even believers often asks those questions. Of course this expands beyond religion, as people will subconsciously analyse every rule they are made to obey.

Castle Party 2008 video

A little presentation of what will play at this year's Castle Party.
Deine Lakaien

Die Krupps

Anne Clark

The Cruxshadows

Closterkeller

32crash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMBXmLy4oFw
Garden of Delight

In Strict Confidence

Pati Yang

Persephone

1984 and Made in Poland - I couldn't find anything
SITD

Colony 5

Sieben, Reaper - Didn't find anything
The Moon and the Nightspirit

Red Emprez

Thy Disease

Xess

Error:Genesis

Elektro Jugend Kollektiv

Square Extension


That's all that is confirmed, if any new band will confirm it's appearance I will post some video. All videos found on YouTube, I didn't upload them. Thanks to anyone uploading them!

Transhumanism

I have recently been talking to a friend about future of mankind, and we started thinking about evolution, and what will be the next step. Being a great fan of cyberpunk I remarked that this is the next step - artificial parts, nanotechnology and implants. I gave it more thought, and then found out it's not original idea, as there is already such movement.

Transhumanism - in short, it's a theory that the next step in human evolution is artificial one, powered not by nature's processes but by human himself. Even more, not only it is started by man, but controlled and decided by man. I'm not sure that this still counts as evolution, but we will get to that later. Extending human body's capabilities beyond natural, making us stronger, tougher, possibly smarter, with better memory, and with nano bots - more resisting to viruses and illness. Technologically, it sound fair and possible - some enchantments are in common use (i.e. artificial hearts), most of this is being developed, so there's no problem on that front. So you may ask - where is the problem? It may sound wonderful - soon we all be almost immortal, beautiful, strong and clever. Paradise carved in titanium, right? Not necessary.

First of all, let's head to the definition of evolution - it's a natural process, not human-driven. Of course, transhumanists will argue that we run out of natural possibilities and have to "help" nature a bit. And by "a bit" they mean a lot. But that's OK, we stopped caring about natural way long time ago. Directing evolutionary forces could be beneficial, and this argument doesn't matter anyway - even if you couldn't call such improvement evolution, who cares about definitions?

Next thing I'm not so sure about is the "next step in evolution". Are we really beyond natural capability to evolve? Let's head to good old friend the dictionary first. Evolution is the way species change to adapt to certain aspects of the world around. Without going into boring details, I rather see humanity making changes to the world around to help us survive, growing more food, installing central heating and running water, just to name a few without which we could not survive. So instead of letting the nature make us better and fitter for survival, we change the rules of nature. We are getting weaker, and that shows. Imagine that all electricity goes out is your city, let's say for a week. After a few days there will be total chaos, looting and riots everywhere. This goes more into psychology than biology, but still, we have somehow evolved to live with luxury. Of course human body will survive without most of it, but the spirit? Some better example perhaps: if your body is infected with bacteria or virus, you have your immunology system ready to investigate and prepare something to fight back. But why bother, when you can use antibiotics? (bonus controversy: healing is against natural selection). Viruses evolve quiet quickly, so any pharmacological cure will be useless pretty soon. Our bodies were meant to cope with that, not our brains. But I believe I'm drifting away of my main topic, so let's head back to this great transhumanism.

Promising improvement in every aspect of life is a catchy slogan, I admit. You get nano mechanical implants for your muscles, nano robots to deal with any infections and cancers, so except good ol' shotgun blast to the head - you're indestructible. Hell, many H+'s believe that we could double our life span! Then you have neuro-implants for brain and whole nervous system, so lighting-fast reflexes and all that. Everyone will be a genius, handsome and strong. Sounds utopian? Meh. Of course not everyone, nano technology isn't cheap, so if you can't afford it - tough luck. But who cares? I know what will not change, no matter how much metal you put into you. Human nature, the same that said "wow, cool new discovery. now how do I use it to kill others?". Any fan of cyberpunk literature will agree, such movement could easily turn against us. But that should not stop us from advancement. That would be like saying to ban all forks, because you can gouge somebody's eye out.

Of course every new technology is dangerous and in wrong hands could be deadly. Cloning, for instance, have great medical usage, but also easily can be used for evil. Just as some believe stem cell research is unethical, some think that just blood transfusion is unethical, too. Who decides what is ethical anyway?

After reading this, you may be surprised to hear that still, I could call myself transhumanist. A conscious one, aware of all dangers, not following blindly chanting "come on, be cyborgs, it will full fill our dreams".
(writing this inspired me to play Deus Ex again.)