Friday, December 14, 2007

Self Expression is Electric

Speaking Via the Brain

This story of a 24 year old man with "locked in" syndrome reminded me that each one of us has this golden opportunity to share what happens in our minds by communicating it. If we are stripped of our mouths communication becomes a one way street. In the end it doesn't matter if a thought is spoken, written, broadcast, podcast, announced over a PA or carved in stone. Ideas are electronic storms in the mind that can either be heard now or later. as long as a mind is intact it remains capable of ideas and ideas change the world. I have thought a lot about the implications of instant messaging and texting for the future of cooperation. This story makes it seem like a real possibility that at some point in the not-so-distant future all minds will be connected in a large web of information not bound by the keyboard interface but as a constant milieu of physiological imagination and digital representations. This is either very scary or extremely exciting depending on you perspective.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Core Enlightenment Beliefs:

Naomi Wolf recently publish a book entited...

The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

Upon listening to her explain (on both the O'Reily factor and Democracy Now) how the actions of the Bush administration over the past six years have followed in the footsteps of the actions taken by fascists like Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Pinochet, my friend Teri and I became fearful of the destiny of the United States. But rather than inciting the flight mechanism, native sons and daughters of the United States should stand tall and fight. With our collective minds in an unprecedented cooperation we should fight to overcome our own diminished attention spans and prove we are NOT the United States of Amnesia. We need now more than ever to remember who we are as a nation and where we come from in order to prevent the full erosion of our liberties.

These core enlightenment beliefs changed much of the world during the last 241 years. Let us never forget them or their meaning.



GOVERNMENT CAN ONLY BE EMPOWERED BY ITS CITIZENS

SUCH CITIZENS ARE BORN WITH CERTAIN NATURAL RIGHTS

NONE ARE BORN SUPERIOR TO ANY OTHER

ALL WILL BE TREATED EQUALLY BEFORE THE LAW

THE STATE HAS A DUTY TO HELP THE NEEDIEST OF ITS PEOPLE



These are the basis for Thomas Paine's "Rights of man"

In these few words we witness the power of ideas to change the world.
never forget them.