Thursday, April 24, 2008

Stuff concerning the Texas branch of the new polygamist church of the latter day saints:

This post is more than atheistic & antisocial, it's probably tacky & I apologize for that, but it describes stuff that's simply not questioned, or acknowledged, stuff fundamental (if you will) to our own, and many other species lives. Stuff that should be referenced somehow before undertaking anything which might otherwise require a short prayer.

this is a partial, exemplary list of un-citizenly behaviors:

Disrespect is the main one, (all others follow) for example disrespect of the Sea, of Death, the Unknown, and areas of Karmic response (like pissed off motorists and large men w/ chainsaws wearing goalie masks). These require an assessment of potential for which we're unavoidably responsible, with the caveat of stupidity.
Stupidity is socially acceptable to respectable people, because a stupid person would seem to be unaware, and they make the lives of respectable people look coherent. Without The Stupid, their lives would be meaningless. Or rather, without someone stupider than ones self, the pecking order could shift up a notch, and irrelevancy could happen to YOU.

My 8th grade math class was seated by order of achievement. The girl of my dreams was at the front nearest the teachers desk (Mrs. Witt), I sat in the last seat farthest from the desk (but nearest the door), and behind several inbred hillbillies. Charlie R. sat in front of me, and gave me answers (IQ of 60, in 1959, Special Ed. was only one class during study hall), which were useless, but he was a genuinely good guy (and stupid). Charlie was a good guy because his survival trait was agreeability, he was forced to be sucessful because nobody had his back, whereas the hillbillies all had giant beetle browed cousins.

Shame can be great stuff, porn actors get off on it. It seldom gets real public scrutiny though, either by the people who like it or the people who hate it. So what is it?

Schmeegle the Gollum killed his fishing buddy. Some say it was out of greed, others say it was because he was weaker than the ring of power (well who isn't?). He was ashamed to hang with his people afterwards though, & the ring seemed to be enough to get by on. He was still Hobbit enough to honor those values he dumped on himself for, & he couldn't let go or reconcile, so he became schizophrenic. The fact that his insanity saved the world is seldom mentioned because his actions appeared to be selfish (rather than stupid or altruistic), but we'll never know for sure, so he'll mostly be remembered for his treachery and fantastic CGI animation.

Ok, treachery means selling out your people. If you're not ashamed for that, you're probably psychopathic (which means lacking the ability for remorse, and thus, you have a great future in politics), or inhuman. Inhuman isn't a fair lable though, because dogs are more loyal than people, even though they & other carnivores usually require food rewards for their loyalty, not so with Meercats in their own society, but they, like dogs, expect it from humans, so though I'm not an animal whisperer, I suspect their infidelity revolves around mistrust. As a human I couldn't blame them, but this definition is getting anthropomorphic, so lets get back to whatever the topic was, oh yeah... treachery, well that about covers it.

Now getting back to shame: the final judgment on shame comes from ones self, it's decided by what's really detrimental to personal success. Islamist, Jews, Meercats and Christians all follow approximately the same code when it comes to premarital sex, which is (in case you haven't heard) that you shouldn't do it.

How come?

Because un regulated population uses up more resources than the populators can supply (because they're otherwise distracted), so everybody looses (except psychopaths, and cannibals). So then why don't these societies promote birth control? It's not because laws governing marriage and promiscuous behavior were written before birth control existed, there's always been birth control (though often drastic in some respect).

Rather, the nature of power is such that it requires sacrifice and obeisance. And getting a population to deny their sexuality, (sometimes donating their forskins, or sewing up their vaginal labia) is real obesiance. Starting on a family level (because mom says), through tribal (because Cochise says), and (viola) ending with national policy and church doctrine (because W says). Leaders depend on ritual warfare, sacrifice, and ancestor worship to legitimize their rule. In the old days, some forced their retinue of wives, concubines, and servants to follow them into death. Meercats don't do that, but every baby Meercat is taught by physical & social contact, to stick with the group, and that ostracization is fatal, and stupid.

In other words, population control is a survival trait of the species, whereas powers' control over it's followers is a survival trait of the leader.

With this contradiction of intent, we have the formula for schizophrenic policy on who controls reproductive rights, which (like Schmeegle) can't let go or reconcile.

....

Part of the concern about sex comes from parents worried about breaking their family group, and part comes from social institutions concerned about losing control of their social base. Sex is dangerous to learn, not so much because of predators & pervs but more from hormonally forced rationalization, which causes a change of personal fidelity to be possible. To preserve continuity of known social patterns, both institutions have vested interests. A solution would be to formulate a structure for rationalization, that maintains existing ties. "Yes, you can spend the night over there, but call us first so we know where you are", & stuff like that. By the way, kid sex is at least as real to kids as grownup sex is to adults, the hormones sometimes aren't identical, but they still compel, and the result is the same.

Teaching kids about close encounters affects their social competitiveness as much as sports. The kind of teaching influences the effect. I don't advise anything though because acceptability changes from region to region, and the topic is usually taboo because of the above vested interests, so: Good Luck. A lot depends on the circumstances, of "the taboo topic which must not be named" though, and I suspect it's associated strictures are a lot like fundamentalist strictures everywhere, for example Mohammed said women shouldn't travel alone, for the simple reason that at the time it was dangerous, and he looked forward to a day when women could travel alone. But later fundamentalist interpretation (in this case, including the court) means "not ever, under any circumstances". The looming commitment of having "inter-age" sex in contemporary society, can't be applied equally, and it's easy for the stronger and more sophisticated partner to diminish the other. With that in mind, all kinds of legal protection for jail bait can inspire respect from even the most jaded pervert, but who protects the adult? Heck, adults can protect themselves, right? not if fundamentalistic judgment causes them to loose their job, home, family, & community respect. A court system that allow that (much less promotes it) assures it's own future relevance, but aggravates the problem.

The problem here is that the state enforces a set of values which are just as fundamentalisticly dumb as the Revised Church of the Latter Day Saints. Don't get me wrong, they both creep me out in their own way, but I can say that because I, (like the church and the state), have my very own blog which doesn't allow comment, so I don't have to consider opposing views :-)

Australian Aborigines have a system of keeping rampant sexuality under control by marrying everybody twice. The first marriage is at the age when kids are likely to cause trouble through social competition, or by creating indiscriminate, unwanted mouths to feed, at puberty, around 9 to 12. Their first spouse is typically an elder living alone because the elder's own second spouse has died. The effect of the old/young marriage is that it pairs both groups w/ each other at an age when they can most agreeably benefit from their partners age, the kid learns about social responsibility, has boundless sexual energy that keeps the elder focussed and competitive, and the elder has someone to care for them and make them socially relevant. The first marriage lasts till the elder dies, like about 5 to 15 years. Then the kid is an adult who has learned to take care of a household, and is free to marry again to have kids of their own. The Aborigine culture has persisted for 10 to 40 thousand years, in a land where even ants struggle to survive, until european laws made it illegal to have sex with kids.