Life on Planes
I spend some amount of time traveling by air; it’s never enough to satisfy me, but the time-and-space aspects of it always fill me with giddiness. Pondering those aspects 
gives an excellent opportunity to examine our place in the larger picture of space, for it’s not such a common event that a person can noticeably leave one spatial reality to spend time in another spatial reality. Making the situation more contorted is that we, humans, have attempted to force the application of a framework of calendrical time — an application which doesn’t conform so well to the properties of our planet – of a sphere.
To paint an example: i flew to New Zealand over Thanksgiving. I boarded a plane in Vancouver on a Friday evening around 5.30p; it was wintry – typical for that time of year. I flew for 14 hours and arrived in the morning — but it was now Sunday. Walking around downtown Auckland at 8.00a on what was already shaping up to be a warm summery day (typical for that time of year), i gave my friends T&E a call; they were in California so i knew they’d be awake since it was a few hours ahead: they were answering the phone at 11.00a — but on Saturday. On my return flight, i boarded a plane on Sunday night around 8.00p, flew for 13 hours, and arrived at 12.30p — it was Sunday, early afternoon.
So, how did we get to this state of chronometric cluster fuck? Well, this is just one of the side effects of our living on a sphere. … Continue reading
Marked as: Math • Reality Frames — 1 comment (RSS)
Myth as Asylum from Questioning
This may read as nonsense given the seemingly endless stream of news items in which guy from faith A attempts to kill person from faith B and recent quasi-scrutiny of the belief system birthed by that science fiction author; if so, suspend your disbelief for a moment. Tolerance of religious belief has causally allowed a regular discouragement of scientific inquiry, but what is more damaging than that is that it has allowed illogical ‘explanations’ of real world phenomena to gain social validity. I suggest that by allowing one large portion of people’s lives, of their tenets, to slide by completely unquestioned despite obvious flaws and contradictions, an underlying message of complacency towards the ‘okay-ness’ of irrational and unsupported policy claims is being allowed to permeate portions of society in which it has no place being. … Continue reading
Marked as: Belief Systems • Science • Societal Policies — 7 comments (RSS)
2009 Prediction: Extended Neighborhood Watch Nabs Criminals
Updated: 13.dec.2008; article appended
The world population has a subset comprised of people who, for one reason or another, demonstrate an online desire to constructively expand and, at least in their view, build a better society around them; this phenomenon is repeatedly demonstrated through public knowledge repositories such as those backed by a wiki format. Concurrently, 2008 draws to a close with live web presence being broadcast in increasingly better quality, and with content of every day slice-of-life views. … Continue reading
Marked as: Law • Societal Policies • Technology — 2 comments (RSS)
An Incongruent State of Terrorism
As a preface: this article shouldn’t be mistaken as me being wistful for terrorist actions; i am ~infinitely more glad to have the lack of terrorist activity in the geographical places i love than i am pained by yet something else not making sense in the world.
As much as i would wish quietude on my thought processes and to simply enjoy the silence, there is something nagging which i’m unable to shake: there’s something suspicious concerning the state of terrorist attacks in the US and in Europe — an equation which doesn’t appear to add up when written out. … Continue reading
Marked as: Governmental Policies • Technology — 3 comments (RSS)
The Imminent Speciation
One need not look too deeply into the science news of the world to follow the quickening march of both genetic and man-machine-merging developments. As successful human trials become prevalent, self-enhancement by private individuals will soon follow. This self-enhancement can be neither universal nor equal and so, due to this, places the world human population on an immutable convergent path to speciation.
… Continue reading
Marked as: Science • Transhumanism — 4 comments (RSS)
Alice
Alice cover by doug mesner
The following short story was written by Carole A. Travis-Henikoff, an independent scholar specializing in paleoanthropology.
Travis-Henikoff began her literary career as a culinary writer .
Her current research explores death, dying, grieving, dreams and anomalous occurrences.
Travis-Henikoff’s recent book Dinner With a Cannibal has earned widespread critical acclaim. Publisher’s Weekly gave the book a star, stating that the book is “a meticulously researched, compulsively readable history of mankind’s greatest taboo.”
With Alice, Travis-Henikoff enters a whole new literary genre with a story just as enjoyable, exploring a topic no less taboo.
Alice appears on The Process for the first time… … Continue reading
Marked as: Science • Societal Policies • Technology • Transhumanism — 2 comments (RSS)
Leaving The Cult: An Interview With Therapist John Knapp
John M. Knapp, LMSW (pictured below), is a therapist who specializes in counseling those who are recovering from “cultic abuse”.
Doug: A friend of mine forwarded me your website and I’m generally very skeptical of cult experts, but I was struck by the fact that you don’t seem to be promoting the idea, popular in the 80s and early 90s, that there is a Satanic New Age Underground working to overthrow American Judeo-Christian values.
John Knapp: No, I don’t. And I’m actually not that aware of that tendency in the eighties and nineties, though I came pretty late to the scene, so it’s possible that it was around. I have seen people who call themselves Christian counselors make somewhat similar kinds of assertions. But I’m not a Christian counselor, and I don’t feel that way. … Continue reading
Marked as: Abnormal Sociology • Belief Systems — 1 comment (RSS)
Psilocybin
psilocybin, n.
An alkaloid, found in several mushrooms native to Central America (esp. of the genus Psilocybe), which when ingested produces hallucinogenic effects similar to those of LSD but milder and more short-lived. Cf. magic mushroom n. at MAGIC adj. Special uses.
Psilocybin is the dihydrogen phosphate ester of psilocin. Formula: C12H17N2O4P.
but always with the knowledge that ‘the rest is silence’. 1993 R. RUCKER et al. Mondo 2000 86/1 The clarity of atomic vision you get when you’re very high on LSD or peyote or psilocybin is a sheer tuning in to the way the brain actually operates. 2004 Independent (Tabloid ed.) 30 Nov. (Review section) 13/2 Next month, a new trial will begin at Harvard exploring whether psilocybin can relieve the symptoms of cluster headaches.
Anxiety may have been the first effect. My heart began to race and the fat, shouting stand-up comic on the television grew unbearably irritating. “Time to turn this shit off,” I told The Chemist. The bedroom in The Chemist’s flat, comfortable just a moment ago, seemed to grow smaller and threatened to become too confining. I sat on the bed and tried to subdue this ominous feeling. I didn’t want the fear of bad trip to become the very cause of one. The Chemist paced about, turned off the television, shuffled through a disorganized stack of CDs. He too was beginning to feel increasingly agitated. Half an hour had passed with no certain result. But, we both knew, results were certainly forthcoming: An NMR had been performed to ensure that the synthesis was exactly correct, and we measured our dosages according to bodyweight, consuming a “high, safe dose” as specified in a Johns Hopkins University study. … Continue reading
Marked as: Introspection — 5 comments (RSS)