Life is a game

Many years ago, this one time while I was reading random articles on Wikipedia, I came across some articles about Scientology. Soon I ventured in that direction outside Wikipedia and found this incredible article called "Life is basically a game".

Now this philosophy really made a big impact and it stayed with me because I understood games, having spent large amounts of time in my childhood playing computer games. But I couldn't quite directly use this knowledge. In fact, this reminds me of a book I have. It's almost 100 years old, and it's a treatise on the topic of advertising. While the book has some value, I don't really have much of an interest in the subject of advertising. So I keep it, hoping that some day it will bring me some value. Similarly, LRH's philosophy of the Game of Life stayed with me because I sensed that it had value, but I couldn't use it. Also, in retrospect, I can say for sure that LRH didn't quite get it right. One reason might be that there are claims that LRH was heavily medicated, and this would have affected his writings. LRH likely also had dishonest intentions, and as a result he could have deliberately made up all kinds of nonsense, thereby unknowingly and unintentionally producing this little gem. A bit like the monkeys typing Shakespeare.

In any case, a little gem it was, and this knowledge - this wisdom - stayed in my mind, dormant, a key waiting for the right lock to come by.

With my recent studies in sociology however, I've come to understand that all life is basically a game. And it is possible that LRH's philosophy was the key to me recognizing this fact. Here I will try to outline what I've found.

• All of life is basically a game.
• The vast majority of people don't realize that life is a game.
• The tiny minority of people who do realize that life is a game:
• of these, the vast majority:
• don't know the rules of the game.
• don't know the winning and losing conditions, and thus don't know how to measure their success or failure
• can only guess at the rules, and thus can't know for sure whether they're playing by the correct rules.
• The game never ends.
• A person can never objectively know, and ultimately won't care whether he succeeded or failed:
• but his success or failure will depend on the success or failure of those who came before
• but his success or failure will affect the success or failure of those coming after.
• so most people, even if they are aware of the game, don't care about it.
• Success can easily be undone by those that come after.
• Sometimes, failure (but not utter failure) can also be reversed by those that come after.
• No one will ever know whether the rules they're playing by are the correct rules.
• Those who aren't aware of the game use the strategy of "follow the herd", ie. do what everyone else is doing. This is a strategy that works, but only if the herd is doing the right things, which is most of the time because the herds that remain are the ones that did the right things. (Clue!) Sometimes though, the herd may start doing the wrong things.

Execute the criminals

If you believe in evolution all the way like I do, some conclusions are inevitable. Such as: criminals should be given much harsher sentences, and the focus shouldn't be on trying to rehabilitate them. Rather, they should be executed without undue delay, especially if there is even a tiny suspicion that they will commit further crimes if set free.

There is currently way too much compassion being shown to criminals. They are put in prisons whose luxuriousness rivals that of 3-star hotels. It costs an absolutely staggering amount of resources to house these criminals. Ultimately the cost is borne by the taxpayer, who are struggling to raise their own families. Of course, the problem is that too many people are dependent on the "crime industry". The police, judges, lawyers, prison guards, etc. People in these professions, like parasites, produce nothing of value.

This crime industry is the main reason why the government is so keen on gun-control. Someone once told me about a labour union strike that happened at his place of work. Unfortunately I was told this story possibly 20 or more years ago, so I don't remember the details clearly, but please bear with me. There was a bulb that needed to be replaced, so he asked the workers to change it, but the workers on strike refused to change the bulb because they were agitating for higher pay. When he tried to do it himself, they prevented him from doing it and instead threatened him with bodily harm. Just like the union workers, the government also refuses to let the common people take matters into their own hands, because then a lot of government-employed people would be out of work. It's just basic economics. Andy Turnbull explains it brilliantly in The Cassandra Papers:

The most obvious problem with the GNP is that it counts all transactions as positive factors, even if they are obviously negative. The ice storm that hit southern Quebec and eastern Ontario in January of 1998 added billions of dollars to Canada's gross national product.

In 1993 the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York added more than a billion dollars to the GNP of the U.S.A. In 1995 the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City added even more that year and sparked a long-term increase of at least $300 million a year for extra security at US federal buildings.

In Canada Paul Bernardo who raped at least 14 women in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough and who kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed two teen-age girls in St. Catherines added tens of millions of dollars to the GNP. His contribution includes the cost of the police investigation of the rapes and kidnaps, medical and psychiatric treatment for the victims who survived his attention and, after he was caught, his trial and the media frenzy that accompanied it.

If he spends the rest of his life in jail he will continue to contribute to the GNP because the average prisoner costs at least $50,000 a year to maintain and a "special" prisoner like Bernardo, who needs protection from other prisoners, probably costs more. If you believe in numbers, Paul Bernardo was and is a productive member of society.

Read that part again: Criminals are productive members of society. Why? They stimulate the economy. They reduce unemployment (many people, like lawyers, judges, police, etc. base their livelihoods on criminal activity).

But what about the suffering caused to the criminals if we execute them? Assuming anyone in their right mind would care, the criminals will cease to suffer once they're dead anyway.

There is one very real problem: innocent people being falsely found guilty and executed. A best effort should be made to determine if the accused is innocent, and if he is not, the sentence should be carried out without delay. If it turns out later that the one executed was falsely accused, then the accuser can be executed just like the other criminals. Innocent people die all the time: that's just tough. Next time don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Other than the economics and morality of it all, why do I think that criminals should be executed post haste? Evolution, what else! Executing them will reduce the likelihood that they will have children. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, the saying goes. Since behaviour has a genetic component and is inherited from parents, it makes sense to eliminate "criminal genes" from the gene pool. Shocking? Well, think about this: why do you think the majority of people living today aren't criminals and instead law-abiding citizens? Because throughout history, those who committed crimes were often executed. They didn't last long enough to leave many children around. If those criminals were treated any differently back then, there would be absolute chaos in society today. The wolves would outnumber the sheep.

What kind of society are we creating for our children?

What is a marriage and what is it for?

In the post-pill era, it has become necessary to clarify exactly what marriage is and what it's for. Why is this necessary? Because there are now so many alternative lifestyles that it has led to conflicts between those who want to be included, and those who want to keep things as they were.

The purpose of marriage has always been for the sole reason of raising healthy children. Many will mistakenly disagree, citing "love", "companionship", etc. The source of this mistaken belief is the ignorance or rejection of the theory of evolution. The means has become the end. In fact, love and companionship are simply the glue that holds a relationship together, hopefully for long enough until the children are independent. In fact, sex itself is now no longer just a means to an end - it is an end in itself.

Those who have children, but nevertheless think that love and companionship are the most important thing are simply doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Nothing wrong with that. Still, the arrival of children does negatively affect love and companionship in a relationship, so those who value their love and companionship will limit the number of children they have. An endangered species, but not worth shedding tears over.

Those who don't have children will go extinct, so it really doesn't matter what they do or think anyway. They are simply the props or furniture in the stageplay of life. They may get married and be happy together. They may even be a homosexual couple. But in the end, what's the point of being happy if they don't have children? There won't be anyone like them in the future, that's for sure! So it doesn't matter if they want to get "married", because it's not really a marriage in an evolutionary sense.

Some may want to get married and have children but don't want their own, so they adopt. They may be homosexual couples. As before, if the children aren't their own flesh and blood, then they too will go extinct. But they are providing society a service, by parenting some children who would otherwise be a burden on society.

In the past, before the contraceptive pill was invented, sex invariably led to a baby. When this happened, the fate of the child depended on whether it had a father. Because the difference in outcomes (between those children with a father and those without a father) was so big, one thing led to another and marriage was invented. First time, monogamous marriage is the best possible environment in which to raise healthy children. Nothing else comes close.

So next time you are trying to decide whether some relationship is a marriage, remember that the key ingredient is children. There must be children, or atleast an intention to have children. Otherwise it's not a marriage.

The four kinds of love

I am reading a book called "Why Marriage Matters" by Glenn T. Stanton.

The author explains how there is not just one, but four different kinds of love: eros, philia, storge, agape.

Eros is physical attraction and passion, but it can also be more than that. It need not necessarily be a blind attraction to just anyone. Its object can be a specific person.

Philia is friendship that you feel towards your friends. Philia may be the same as "platonic love". When those who we love in this way are absent, we find life less fulfilling. We feel this way about those special people who we would choose to watch a movie with, walk on the beach with, or share our joys and troubles with.

Storge is familial love. It is love between family members, neighbours, and community. It is a kind of "glue" that keeps the tribe together.

Agape is unconditional love, or love under will. This is distinct from the other three, in that it requires effort to maintain. It cannot spontaneously happen - it can only be created and sustained by a conscious act of will. It cannot be sustained by emotion. This love often acts against emotions, which are transitory. It goes against human nature. This is the kind of love that sustains a marriage through thick and thin, in good times and in bad. He quotes Eric Fromm:

"In contemporary Western culture ... love is supposed to be the outcome of a spontaneous, emotional reaction, of suddenly being gripped by an irresistable feeling."

"One neglects to see an important factor in erotic love, that of will. To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgement, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever." (1)

He continues:

"A true promise means something only in the context of the possibility that we would not naturally produce the thing promised. We promise our love and commitment to our spouse because we recognize that it is not likely to sustain itself upon our original emotions. Our love is sure to be imperfect because we ... are imperfect. In this context, we make a commitment to our beloved to continue the hard work of refining and cultivating our love."

"The recognition of this aspect of marriage is imperative because it goes right to the heart of why so many marriages don't last. Marriage is hard work and takes a commitment to our spouse and to the idea of marriage." (2)

---

References

• 1. Eric Fromm, The Art Of Loving (pp. 55-56)
• 2. Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters (pp. 166)

Why employers should only employ married men

Many social science studies have consistently shown that married men (on average) earn more than either single men or single or married women. In fact, this is the earnings order:

1. Married men
2. Single women
3. Single men
4. Married women

Dr. Warren Farrell documents this in his book "Why Men Earn More" which thoroughly debunks the "wage myth" that feminists use to reinforce their victim status.

The most reasonable explanations for the wage gap are motivation and specialization. Married men, especially with children, are found to be more dissatisfied with their wages and put in extra effort to earn more money to support their families. Single men without children simply don't have the same level of motivation to work, simply because their basic needs aren't being met. They are much more motivated towards other, more fundamental, things instead - like trying to have sex regularly.

Consider the other basic needs. When you are hungry, you can't really concentrate on other things like going to the gym, watching a movie, going to a concert, etc. Likewise if you need to go to the toilet, you can't concentrate on other things. Sex is similarly a basic need that needs to be met just like the other needs.

While work does have a direct relationship with hunger, it has only an indirect relationship with the fulfillment of sexual needs. That is, we satisfy our hunger by working. If we don't work, we don't get paid, and we starve. But most people do not work to get sex. Yes you can work and earn money and spend that money on prostitutes, but for the vast majority of men, such relationships are deeply unsatisfying because this lifestyle is not conducive to having children. Or you could work and earn status and power and wealth and these things increase your ability to get sex, but for most men this is too great an investment to make for a delayed and uncertain reward.

It follows that single men are less motivated to do work, because they've got nothing to work for. To them, life seems meaningless and empty. And they're constantly thinking about sex. They won't admit this of course, yet it's true.

Married men on the other hand, are more motivated because they have a wife and children to care for. Life doesn't seem so meaningless and empty anymore. Also, you don't just have the man's work - you have a woman's work behind it as well. Because a married man is simply more available for work, because his wife frees up significant amounts of his time by taking on domestic responsibilities that the man would otherwise have to do if he was single. In a sense, his wife invests her working potential in her husband's career for mutual gain.

Phyllis Schlafly would often speak at women's colleges in the late 70s and early 80s. She explained to them that even if they worked just as hard, and put in as many hours as their male counterparts, there is one advantage a man has that they'll never have; namely, a wife. And, of course, the response would come back, `Why can't a woman have a house-husband?'. Schlafly would respond, `Good luck finding one'. It's not impossible, but it's very improbable. (1)

If you are an employer, you would be wise to employ only married men. Your second choice would be single men, but only those who are planning to get married and have children in the near future. But if single women are more motivated and hardworking than single men, then why prefer men? Because if these single women are of childbearing age, then they are unreliable and potentially expensive employees - we must assume that they will get married or pregnant at some point in the future and you will have a higher employee turnover or other high costs (maternity leave, job sharing, etc) as a result. If you pass on these high costs to your customers, you will lose business to your more efficient competitors who don't employ women. If you pass on these high costs to your employees, you will lose your best employees to your competitors.

If instead perverse incentives are put in place that makes it "profitable to be inefficient" by penalizing companies that refuse to employ women, and by rewarding those who do employ women, then society as a whole will lose business to more efficient societies. Companies may move overseas, workers may choose to emigrate, etc.

1. Reader reviews of book "The Flipside of Feminism"

The case against women's right to vote

I watched a documentary today called "I Want Your Money". An excellent documentary that explains the reasoning behind conservative (USAmerican) fiscal policies. It is an excellent documentary that is worth watching.

Near the start of the film, Mike Huckabee (former Arkansas governor) describes what he read in a book many years ago called "Why Democracies Perish". He says:

"Democracies perish when people begin to understand that they can vote for themselves largesse out of the public treasury. And once they begin to recognize they have the ability to take away other people's possessions and vote it for themselves, they will begin to do that increasingly to the point that they take more out than they put in."

This makes perfect sense. It's exactly what's been happening in the USA (and other socialist countries). Democrats (liberals, progressives) in particular have repeatedly been trying to increase the number of people dependent on the government, and they do this by increasing the scope of welfare. Why would Democrats try to get people dependent on the government? Because that way, they can get votes from them. After all, it is perfectly understandable that those on welfare are more than happy to vote for the party that provides them that welfare, by taking money from those earning it and giving it to those who aren't. This is done with the noble intention of helping the poor, but as someone once said, "If you pay people to be poor, then you will never run out of poor people."

Under the US system of government, each person gets one vote, regardless of whether they are contributing (paying taxes) or non-contributing (not paying taxes) citizens. Even those who pay no taxes get the same opportunity to vote as those paying taxes. A citizen will effectively not be paying tax if the government gives him as much or more money (in the form of welfare, tax deductions, tax credits, etc.) than how much that person paid in tax - he is a net non-contributor.

But what has all of this got to do with women's vote? Consider this parallel:

"Democracies perish when feminists (largely single mothers, "independent" women, career women, etc) begin to understand that they can vote for themselves largesse out of the public treasury. And once they begin to recognize they have the ability to take away men's (and married women's) money and vote it for themselves, they will begin to do that increasingly to the point that they take more out than they put in."

 Ann Coulter understood this very well, and she has said this publicly:

• Youtube: Ann Coulter explains why its better if women didn't vote
• Youtube: ANN COULTER ON HILLARY AND WHY WE SHOULDN'T LET WOMEN VOTE
• Ann Coulter: Take away women's votes because "women are voting so stupidly"

Your immune system is more reliable than you think

My housemate (landlady, actually) thinks I have a stomach of cast iron. Here are some of the things it can do:

1. I went to Nariel Creek Folk Festival during the last Christmas & New Year holidays, and existed solely on tinned food, bread, fruit, etc. It was really hot at that time of year and the interior of the car often got quite hot. As is to be expected, the bread turned moldy with about 4 or 5 different varieties of fungi. The patches of mold were quite large and furry. I deliberately ate the moldy bread, just to see if my body could handle it. The bread tasted sickly-sweet. I gagged several times while trying to force the stuff down and washed it down with unfiltered water from the creek.
2. I made some chicken wraps using roast chicken on a thursday night before the Jane Austen Festival, fearing that there might not be enough food containing protein provided at the festival. As it turned out, the event was more than adequately catered for, unlike in previous years. The wraps sat in the car for a whole week, unrefrigerated, until I ate them the friday night (of the week after the festival) after working out at the gym. The wraps were visibly moldy, and smelled and tasted as much. It was quite an effort trying to get them down.
3. I've eaten roast chicken that had been left on the counter unrefrigerated for more than a week.
4. I've drunk spoiled milk on several occasions.
5. I have a packet of pasta with seasoning sachet that's been "expired" for more than 10 years. I plan to consume it at some point in the future.
6. I've eaten various curries that had gone sour, simply because there was a lot of it and I didn't want to refrigerate them.
7. I defrosted some chicken thighs and cooked half of it. The other half sat in the refrigerator (not the freezer) for about 1/2 weeks. I had forgotten about it, and my housemate complained that the fridge had started to smell. Upon finding the chicken there, I proceeded to cook it in a curry. The chicken had visibly started to decompose, and it had a rather bad smell. The resulting curry also spent some time outside a refrigerator and the last of it went sour. Still, I ate every bit of it.

Now I believe that I'm not fundamentally different from anyone else, so it must be that the average person's immune system is actually capable of feats like the above. For example, many poor people scavenge for food in dumpsters. We are led to believe that our immune systems need all the outside help they can get. Why is this? Perhaps some industries depend on our ignorance:

1. Would refrigerator manufacturers sell as many refrigerators if people knew that food can last quite a long time at room temperature?
2. Would the food industry sell as much food if people knew that food that's past the expiration date is mostly still safe to eat?
3. Would food-safety related government departments still have as much work to do and thus get as much funding if people knew that food-safety is largely a non-issue?
4. Would pharmaceutical companies sell as many drugs if people knew about the "hygiene hypothesis"?

It is important to realize how our immune systems work. It learns about new bugs when we ingest small quantities of them. Then when faced with subsequent invasions of these bugs, the immune system is quick to respond and eliminates them. What I've done is to deliberately introduce new pathogens to my immune system, in a way immunizing myself from them. The immune system is very effective at eliminating biological threats in this way.

Not all threats to the human body are biological in nature. Many are chemical in origin. Some bugs that infect food produce toxic chemicals that causes problems in our bodies that our immune systems can't do anything about. Our main defenders against these chemical threats are our kidneys. They filters out most toxic chemicals from the blood, and excrete them into the urine. However I don't think the kidneys "learn" to break down new chemical toxins, but still they are capable of eliminating most chemical threats.

Ironically, it is those who are the most diligent about food-safety who suffer most of the food poisonings which are often life-threatening. I have made a deliberate choice and acted accordingly to protect myself from food poisonings by deliberately consuming food that's not fit to be eaten.

On a related note, it is truly staggering to know just how much food goes to waste in more developed countries. When I was at Woolworths supermarket choosing the previously mentioned roast chicken (for the wraps), I noticed that a worker had come and was waiting close by with an open bin. I realized then what was about to happen. I chose two roast chickens and as I was walking away, I muttered "Shame... that's a real shame!" while he proceeded to throw the 4 or 5 remaining chickens into the bin.

The cost of the thrown-away chickens is recouped from the sale of the sold chickens. What if they reduced the price of the chickens in the first place? Perhaps then more chickens would be sold, and there would be less waste.