Tender Gender Blender

I just finished reading this fanfic which on the whole is very good and touched on a lot of interesting things, but I think it suffers to much from only seeing gender as binary. I have touched on before how I dislike society's idea of binary gender, that time focusing on sexual attraction. I even mentioned the anime of which this fanfic is based as a key point in my developing sexual feelings, and that remains true with sexual identity as well. The problem as I see it, exactly like my discussion of sexual attraction, is the more people try to insist male and female gender roles are different the more they will be different. The more people insist that there is a inner "male" or "female" self, the more people are trapped by this idea. The more people insist they are born into roles they can't change the less they will ever be able to. People are driven I think more by memes then they realize, more by ideas about who they should be inside. They build up ideal personae and feel uncomfortable when they don't match it. And let me make this clear, in regards to this story, I think it would have ended up the same way if it was discussed this way. But there is so much grief and angst caused by this binary idea of male and female, of what the character "should" do, and no one, not one single person ever seemed to bring up the possibility of remaining both male and female, that you didn't have to choose like that. I don't think it would have changed the outcome that much, but I think it would have led to a deeper, less forced, and less fearful way of looking at the problem. I was even talking with someone not to long ago that seemed to be struggling with a transsexual identity crisis, and even I had a small struggle with one at one point. The thing is though, there are so many things, like make up and high heals, that I wouldn't put up with, even if I think it would be nice to have a female body sometimes. There are so many things, like sports crap and being macho, I refuse to put up with even when I have a male body. I roleplay as female or hermaphrodite characters a lot, and I am curious about it, but I really feel like my "true self" is something that gender just doesn't apply to. I still would like to be female some time, not because I hate being male so much as because I would simply like the freedom to choose and try it. The way technology is, that is just not practical, and so I stay male. I am not a fan of my body truth be told, nor of my gender, but I just don't see it as that important. My life doesn't revolve around it. I know it's just not that easy for some people, but I am not saying people should not live in the body they feel is right for them, I am just saying there is a lot more to it then "really being" "male" or "female". It shouldn't be something you have to force yourself into becoming another person for, and if you want to be another person that desperately, there might be something more then just your sexual identity behind it. I guess the real issue I see is that it's such a muddled and abused subject, caught up with so many preconceptions and confused messages. If people could just change their sex whenever they wanted, I don't think it would be anywhere near of an issue, and people would just be able to try it out and pick one, or not pick one. And maybe someday, but now this whole drudge of issues comes in to play, and for what? If you have a penis or vagina? If you want to put on dresses and pretty yourself up, do you need to be a girl? If you want to lay in pants and t-shirts and watch the game do you need to be a guy? Do what you want and live how you want to live, do that first and then worry about your naughty bits or how you present yourself to people.

Social Noise Reduction

There is a particularly common criticism of today's society I hear a lot. I am not sure what the term for it is, but I think it is a core part of the larger ideas of Postmodernism and Cyberpunk. The criticism is that nowadays, thanks mostly to the internet and mass media, people are bombarded with so many opinions, alleged facts, works of fiction, ideas, and memes, that people have become either terminally unable to separate the "signal" from the "noise" in the information we process, and/or are incressingly distracted by the trivial.

And yeah, I can see that. But before we go around claiming Ludd was right and throwing out all our communication technology, maybe we should consider that maybe PEOPLE are the problem, not the information. First of all, I think the problem with people being unable to tell the difference between fact and fiction is simply that most people don't have the critical thinking skills needed to parse information in an optimal way. What's more, most people don't have a broad enough perspective to realize that sometimes it doesn't even matter. People are often more interested in picking a side and being right then anything else. Sometimes, especially with controversial or heavily contested subjects, you just have to admit that some things may or may not be true. This doesn't mean you can't draw conclusions, you just need to think about logic in a different way.

As for people being distracted by the trivial, I actually take it as a sign that what a lot of people say is important, isn't really that important to a lot of people. That doesn't mean it isn't important in the grand scheme of things, but people so rarely look or care about the the grand scheme of things. I think, for example, kids getting distracted from school by video games is not a problem with the games. It's a problem with the school or maybe the parents. People shutting themselves in and playing MMORPGs all day is not a problem with the MMORPG. It's a problem with our society. As for the people who get distracted themselves, it's hard for me to make an argument that they are at fault if they honestly don't care. I mean, yeah, they are doing it to themselves but that is a choice. They pay the consequences for that choice. Though I may be bias because that is more or less what I am doing, allowing myself to get distracted fully understanding that there is a price to pay. Some times it's worth it, sometimes it's not.

I feel personally, like I have spent the last ten or so years of my life mostly just gathering information and working it out in my head. Trying to build a sort of cathedral of images and thoughts in a manner similar to how Carl Jung worked out his issues by writing his Red Book. I have been interested in that sort of thing for a while, probably ever since I was a kid and saw parts of The Wall, and perhaps even before that with my childhood games of imagination.

But, Carl Jung stressed the need to write these things down, so that they become contained and objectified, and I have done very little in the way of actual writing and art. I have a powerful urge to do so, which is part of what my hack was intended to do actually. To give my ideas and outlet and to make them more 'real' so to speak. I suppose in the back of my mind, there is a third criticism of today's society that saps me of the motivation to do much work on it. And that criticism is that there is so much of that kind of stuff out there. Stuff that both intentionally and unintentionally explores these themes I want to explore. And while they might not do it in the same way, they cover a lot of the same ground.

Lately I have been reading a lot of random webcomics and watching videos of a lot of random games. And it gets to the point where there are just so many works of fiction with so many themes and ideas, that even if a few of them still make me take notice of something or reevaluate my ideas slightly, I don't really think there is much room for me. Which is a stupid way of looking at it really. I talk all the time about being the butterfly that starts the storm, of how I would be happy if my ideas were remembered even if I were not. After all, I am sitting here writing this in a blog that I am not sure anyone actually takes the time to read. And maybe this blog is like my red book. Maybe blogging in general will help people deal with there problems just knowing, even if it is never read, that it is out there somewhere for people to randomly find.

I can always hope, and I guess hope is enough to live on.

A:\WORLD\

Lately I have been reading some of the Discworld novels (well actually listening to the books-on-tape versions, but close enough). For those that have never heard of the series, it's basically to fantasy what The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was for sci-fi. If you never heard of that either, it's a bit like Monty Python in space. If you also don't know who Monty Python is, you are officially dead to me you sad humorless person (or maybe humourless would be more appropriate). As a side note why are the British so good at being funny? Maybe it's because they don't have the misconception most Americans do that all you need to do to be funny is be as crass and stupid as humanly possible. Then again this guy is American so maybe there is hope yet.

Though really the humour aspect is only part of why I compared it to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. One of the things I admire about The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is it's way of taking strange mathematical or scientific concepts, and totality running away with them and using them to engage in fantastic worldbuilding. Discworld does pretty much the same thing with fantasy concepts as well as mathematical or scientific concepts.

Some of the recurring themes, for example, have to do with stories and belief, as well as a hint of metaphysics and magic. Though I had not known much about the series before I started "reading" it besides the basics, it reminds me of some of my own ideas relating to memes and how magic works. Of course, my ideas aren't really that new, and I am sure some of them might have come indirectly from discworld. The idea of gods and other beings being born based on belief for example is one I heard before, and I am not sure where the idea originally came from (though I think maybe even some greek philosophers may have discussed it).

It also reminds me of Homestuck in the way the characters also become part of the worldbuilding and each event seems to be at least mentioned somewhere else in the series. Currently there are over forty books in the series, compared to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy's six (5 if you refuse to count anything not written by the original author), and like Homestuck, although it started as basically a parody, it has become more serious without losing the funny bits. Unlike Homestuck however, the books are largely only connected by taking place in the same setting and involving a lot of the same characters. In any given book, events from other books are mentioned but the details are usually not very important to that book's plot. I have been "reading" the books essentially backwards for the most parts, and I don't feel I miss on that much important information.

I don't think the series is perfect however. One think I dislike is that it's conflict seems to fall into the mold of "smart vs. stupid". Good guys are clever people who are surrounded by not so clever ones. The antagonists, while there are a few truly evil people tend to be more small minded and self-centered. Of course most of the stories do not feature overt hero/villain conflict dynamics as much as having the heroes have some general goal that put them in conflict with a number of lesser antagonists which are fooled or dealt with. There is sometimes a central "villain" as well, but not always. One problem this causes is that the heros often end up looking better then anyone else. Of course, there are exceptions.

In general though I find the series witty and interesting. It's kind of surprising how a world carried by four elephants on the back of a giant turtle can feel so real and alive actually. Though maybe the voices in the books-on-tape version help.

I Meme It!

I really think that Memetics should not only be thought of as a serious subject, but should taught as part of basic high school or at least collage curriculum. And before you go thinking memes are just some internet thing, they are not. Memes are everywhere. Whenever you run into an idea or opinion, it's basically a meme.

And here is the thing. About 90% of people have no clue what memes are and how they can be used. Not only is memetic engineering a real thing, people have been using it, intentionally and unintentionally, for at least as long as there have been propaganda campaigns and advertisements, and possibly as long as there have been memes at all, which is about as long as humans have been able to communicate with each other.

The reason I think education is important is I think people should learn to be critical of the memes they pick up and spread. That people should learn to examine the consequences of following beliefs and ideas that propitiate their lives. I am not saying memes are bad, I am saying people need to examine them more closely in their day to day lives, and understand the effects of how they change people's lives.

If you ask me, memetics is a lot more important then genetics. The process of evolution may have begun with genetics, but ever since communication is possible memetics has taken over as the primary driving force behind it for us. All of our technology, ideas, art, and so on that humans have developed is passed down memetically and evolves. It has gotten to the point where we are able to manipulate genes ourselves, and all sorts of ethical and moral questions have popped up about if we should or what we should do with it. Thus our memetic ideas are now directly influencing what we do with genetics.

Once most people realize memes exist though, and once most people see how to use them and how to make them spread, I think people as a whole will be a lot more resistant to dangerous or malicious memes, such as maybe ideas like "suicide is cool, kill yourself" or "Big Brother loves you, trust Big Brother". Because by critically examining our ideas we can see more the effect they have on us directly.

And yeah, this article is basically a bunch of memes too. But since no one reads my blog, I think they probably won't spread very far. Maybe if you like this idea, spread it around a bit for me? :3