Just some words on when updates are likely to come. This is mostly to record what I think about at work, which can be a lot given than on most days I am at work for about 8 hours, much can be thought of in that time.
Well, in unpleasants news, I find that there is going to be mandatory overtime this Saturday. Lots of projects wrapping up and needing doning, so they need people working overtime. I hate mandatory overtime. For one thing, it is mandatory work on a Saturday. I will gladly volunteer that work, but requiring me to give up a day off is not what I dig. The other thing is that voluntary Saturday work is 10am to 3pm. 5 short hours and done early enough that it’s still pretty much all of Saturday left. A nice, full weekend to party. Mandatory is 8 hours and from 3pm to 11pm. It essentially kills the weekend. It’s really no fun. But, on the other hand, it’s 120 dollars before the government gets their grimy paws on it. And 120 dollars is tasty goodness.
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Now, if you want to know what I was thinking about in regards to economics. Well, it was a whole lot more interesting in my head and required way too much explanation of terms. What it boiled down to was that economics in MMORPGs is weird. Very, very weird.
Why is it weird? Well, that is due to combination of a market free-er than anything I’ve seen in the real world and bizarre supply. It’s weird, and hard to explain clearly.
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I really like Kotoko. She’s a great singer. And, at least according to Wikipedia, she’s a songwriter too, which is weird for pop. If that’s true, she’s a dern good one. I was listening to her song Being several times in a row. I just don’t get tired of it. As I was listening to it I noticed how much it vibed of Radience, which is another of her songs. Not, “they sound the same,” but “they share a sound.” It was nifty. I don’t often notice such things.
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I also thought back to a conversation I had last Tuesday with Atheist Boy. We had been discussing Enthusiast Lady and he asked me what church body I was affiliated with, I answered, but his response was really rather kinda huh. What he said, “Well, you guys are really all just the same. Your only differences are stuff like whether or not you can eat meat on Wednesday.”
And this thought isn’t all that uncommon outside of religious bodies. “You’re all just the same, really. Your differences are all superficial.”
First, what qualifies these people to judge important differences? A lot of it, I believe, comes from the need to justify themselves and belittle us. “Y’all’re just to blind to reality to see what we see.” But, as they don’t believe what I believe or what Billy Graham believes or what Osama believes or what Siddhārtha Gautama believed or what-have-you, they have no clue about how or why certain things are important.
Second, what are these people thinking? Honestly, how can they not see certain differences.
For example, lets take me and Enthusiast Woman. We are both Christian. She may be a crazy woman, but I do think she is Christian. However, she believes that God speaks directly to her. I, on the other hand, don’t. That is quite a large difference, and I can’t see how someone can’t see this.
Or, there’s this little thing called Justification and how it works. If you can’t see the difference between what I believe about Justification and what a very large portion of the world believes about it, and the great importance there in, there are two options. A) the doctor dropped you on your head when you were born. B) You are being willfully blind.
And seriously, how does this guy, as an avowed atheist, know whether or not eating meat on Wednesdays could be of dire importance? Really now. It could be. In fact, I’ll say right now, that it is. It can be the difference between salvation and damnation. Well, maybe not that in itself, but how beliefs about that reflect on the person’s view of Justification.
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And I almost forgot about what I was going to say about pacifism. Now, one of the things that is commonly thought about pacifism is how it is a beautiful ideal. Such a wonderful thing. Shunning violence and what-not.
Of course, if everyone could live in peace with one another, that would be beautiful and lovely. However, there is a problem with that. People aren’t so good and wonderful that everyone would live in peace with each other, and that’s what makes pacifism an ideal. It is unattainable. People aren’t such that everyone will play nicely. You only have to look at the little bullies in preschool and the like to see this. At such a young age there are folks who just won’t play nice.
But even with all this, pacifism is still seen as a great ideal to work to achieve on this earth and lah-dee-dah.
Now, I was reading me some Naked Empire a while back, and something that was said in the book kinda struck me and comes back to every once in a while. What was said was basically that pacifism is not good and lovely, but evil. This is somewhat striking. It goes quite counter to conventional thinking.
Why is it evil? Well, that boils down to the fact that there is evil in this world. A pacifist, due to the fact that they won’t fight, is but a willing pawn to those who would enact violence upon the people. Evil must be punished. Evil must be fought. Refusing to fight evil lets evil prosper. And that exactly what pacifism does.
Now lets say we had a perfect world where nobody caused harm to another. If you think about it for a second, pacifism wouldn’t exist. Or, more accurately, the concept of pacifism wouldn’t exist. The thought of enacting violence upon someone wouldn’t even cross people’s minds, so the thought of refusing to fight would also not exist. To call yourself a pacifist essentially acknowledges that evil exists, but refuses to stand against it. To let it run unchecked.
