You are the Haughty Intellectual.
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You are a very rational person, emphasizing logic over emotion, and you are also rather arrogant and self-aggrandizing. You probably think of yourself as an intellectual, and you would like everyone to know it.

Not only that, but you also tend to look down on others, thinking yourself better than them. You could possibly have an unhealthy obsession with yourself as well, thus causing everyone to hate you for being such an elitist twat.

On top of all that, you are also introverted and gentle. This means that you are just a quiet thinker who wants fame and recognition, in all likelihood.

Like so many countless pseudo-intellectuals swarming around vacuous internet forums to discuss worthless political issues, your kind is a scourge upon humanity, blathering and blathering on and on about all kinds of boring crap. If your personality could be sculpted, the resulting piece would be Rodin’s “The Thinker”–although I am absolutely positive that you are not nearly as muscular or naked as that statue.

Rather lacking in emotion, introspective, gentle, and arrogant, you are most certainly a Haughty Intellectual! And, most likely, you will never achieve the recognition or fame you so desire! But no worries!

Ha ha! and the link to the test: http://www.okcupid.com/tests/4741219933576750506/Personality-Defect
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It says i scored more Rationality, Brutality, Extrovertion (-ism?) and Arrogance than 99% of my age and sex! woo-hoo! :D

Okay – go test yourselves too. I’m starting the “The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test“. Now nothing with a name like that can be bad… :D

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Edit: OK, i scored.. odd. And the test is weird. It turns out I’m a: N-A-R: a metaphysical Non-Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Relativist.

The descriptions for the 3 are mind-blowingly long so pasting them here is not an option. :)

Some excerpts follow:
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Metaphysics: Non-Reductionism (Idealism or Realism) … (i seem to be Realist?!) … Realists deny the validity of sloppy metaphysical reductions … Realism is the most common-sensical of the metaphysical views. It doesn’t see reality as a unity or as reducible to matter or mind, nor does it see reality as divided into a phenomenal world of experience and an unknowable noumenal world of things-in-themselves. Realist metaphysics emphasizes that reality is for the most part composed of the things we observe and think. … Aristotle and Popper are famous realists.

Epistemology: Absolutism (Rationalism or Pragmatism) … As an Absolutist, you believe that objective knowledge is possible given the right approach, and you deny the claims of skeptical philosophers who insist that we can never have knowledge of ultimate reality. The two types of Absolutists recognized by my test are Rationalists and Pragmatists. … Epistemological Pragmatists are fundamentally identified by their definition of truth. Truth is, on this view, merely a measure of a proposition’s success in inquiry. This view is a strictly scientific notion of truth. A proposition can be called true if it leads to successful predictions or coheres best with the observed facts about the world. Thus, for the pragmatist, knowledge of reality is possible through scientific reasoning. … Pragmatism borrows elements from realism and yet attempts to account for the critiques made by skeptics and relativists. It is essentially a type of philosophical opportunism–it borrows the best stances from a large number of philosophical systems and attempts to discard the problems of these systems by combining them with others.

Ethics: Relativism (Subjectivism or Emotivism) … Subjectivists see individual or collective desires as defining a situation’s or object’s moral worth. Thus, the subject, not the object itself, determines the value. … In regards to the definition of “good” or “right”, a Subjectivist will tend to define it as whatever a particular person or group of people desire. They do not define it merely as “happiness” or “pleasure”, for instance, because sometimes we desire to do things that do not produce pleasure, and because we don’t consider all pleasurable things good. Furthermore, Subjectivists recognize the validity of consequentialism in that sometimes we refer to consequences as good and bad–but they also recognize that our intentions behind an action, or the means to the end, can also determine an act’s moral worth. Again, there is no one rule to determine these things. Hence the relativism of moral Subjectivism. The most well-known of the subjectivists is Nietzsche.
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So what can I say :) It’s all fun and games until some weird web-based personality test starts you thinking… :D

And that concludes our broadcast day… ;)

“Did you know that in 10 years the number one English speaking country in the world will be… China?”

This below is an updated version of a presentation created in August 2006 and meant to start debate over education in the U.S. It’s a nice collection of very interesting and hopefully – thought provoking – facts.

The content is quite America-centered, of course, as the presentation was meant for internal use in a Colorado High school faculty meeting, but since then it’s spread virally over the net. Nevertheless – it’s very much worth watching.

I personally am taking from it 2 genuine gems for myself – the name of the foundation “Shift Happens” and the statement “We’re living in exponential times.” which I intend to abuse as a forum signature wherever I can. :D

(To be honest I don’t really believe the last part about the supercomputer and the $1K computer, but it’s still quite nice to watch despite those 2 :) )

via Neatorama

Each year on July 7th Robert A. Heinlein’s birthday is celebrated on a convention in his home town of Kansas City, Missouri, and this year, on 07.07.2007 – it’s his 100th birthday.

I’m not the biggest Heinlein fan I know, but that’s just because I know many. :)

Still I believe a certain sleepless summer night of following the ethical meanderings of Mike – the solipsist archangel in the Strange land of human relations, and a certain feeling of pride and fervor that catches my throat and makes my eyes glitter wet even to this day when the memory of the Starship Troopers hit – as hard as ever – all give me the “state of mind” and “emotional conviction” that make me “humbly proud” to praise a great man.

Here’s a list of quotes from Heinlein:

• Money is a powerful aphrodisiac… but flowers work almost as well.
• An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.
• Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.
• If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science. It is opinion.
• Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.
• Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous (he is also a fool.)
• A generation which ignores history has no past–and no future.
• A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
• What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it!
• History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
• It’s amazing how much “mature wisdom” resembles being too tired.
• Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.
• Cheops’ Law: Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
• A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate.
• Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
• It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier.
• One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.
• Sex should be friendly. Otherwise, stick to mechanical toys; it’s more sanitary.
• Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
• You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.
• In a mature society, “civil servant” is semantically equal to “civil master”.
• A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.
• The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our races’ most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must—never for sport.
• What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars fortell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
• Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can’t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.
• Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.
• A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual” — find out how he feels about astrology.
• The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship.
• Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money — but long on hugs.
• Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful—just stupid.)
• Citizenship is an attitude, a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than the part . . . and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself that the whole may live.
• The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation.
• An armed society is a polite society.
• If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you’ll abort it if you do. Be patient and you’ll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.
• A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
• “Love” is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
• In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
• Of course the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you–if you don’t play, you can’t win.
• One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns he must die and accepts his sentence undismayed.
• Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
• The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
• Thou art God, and I am God and all that groks is God.
• Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
• There is no such thing as luck. There is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.
• A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
• Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
• Don’t ever become a pessimist… a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
• I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
• Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.
• The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.

This is a list that can go on forever. :) So let’s just stop and recap at:

• May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.

Seems to me a decent ending ;)

here’s the link to it again: http://www.solstice.us/russell/agnostic.html

I don’t see any point in reposting it like Wilkins did – the piece is set very convenient in the source page, so go read it there.

And I’m not very keen to comment it either, although it’s a long text, and as such has many “handles” to base an argument on. (that is – i do not totally agree with everything in it :) )

But like in the case with the Humanism definition, it’s put good enough and it is interesting enough, and the extent to which I agree with it is also enough to throw it on the haystack of arguments and save me some time and effort of wording it myself.

The article itself is presented as an interview. I don’t know for sure if it’s an actual interview, or just summed up answers to expected questions, but I’m more inclined to think it’s a real one, because of the genuine stupidity and weirdness of some of the questions. I for one would be ashamed if the interviewer was somehow associated with me! So – pity the Americans (and not only them ;) ).

But the other interesting thing is how it sheds some light on the picture of the world during the Cold War, and which is more valuable – on the part of it, which we couldn’t have seen or known from our own experience.

Back on topic – I can’t help but wonder if Russell’s view of Agnosticism has anything to do at all with the Religious question – whether or not a deitiy exists. Although the word itself derives from one of the possible answers, it seems to me that his view is more concerned with ethics and focused on how we should handle knowledge instead of weather or not what we know is true?…

In this regard is Agnosticism just Modesty + Tolerance?

It’s a greeting you can virtually die for. Literally.

Cory over at boing-boing has a post about Chinese Gold Farmers pointing towards this curious site of a documentary on the subject www.chinesegoldfarmers.com

step forwards – and here you get this small trilogy of video excerpts from the film in the making:

Preview Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho5Yxe6UVv4

Preview Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRrhpoMd88Y

Preview Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH1LGdjZUKQ

It’s somehow sad. Two worlds, reaching towards each other with no chance to meet except on the nether fields of cyberspace.

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*Fight Money – is the machine translation of the Chinese term thanks to Google Translate