SEÑOR

Dispatches from the gap between how the world works and how we pretend it does.

Category: Philosophy & Ideas

Philosophical explorations, big ideas, and essays on consciousness, meaning, knowledge, and the human condition.

  • A Man Can Only Glass Half Full for so Long

    A Man Can Only Glass Half Full for so Long

    I’ve been trying very hard to focus more on the aspirational aspects of the human experience and less on those that instigate disdain and scorn.

    Unfortunately my attention can no longer discern the former amid the loud shrill cry of the latter.

    It emanates from everywhere these days and each jarring instance is replicated through digital transmission deafening every cultural outlet: fashion, politics, journalism, music, television, sport….

    And just when you start thinking we’ve reached a crescendo with the people of the world emptying out into the streets fed up with the crass indifference to which they have been made subject, another explosion.

    In my search for a winter hideout I came across properties like these.

    Given what is being paid per week for an alpine chalet during the holidays, these exteriors promise affordable luxury.

    But then, another explosion, as you turn to the interior shots.

    Another explosion when you realize that the majority of those in your socioeconomic echelon are pleased with this contribution to the human experience and you are alone in their midst.

  • Divine Intervention in Desktop Management

    Divine Intervention in Desktop Management

    Ever since I began my life behind a desk as a junior attorney, I have been trying to figure out how to maintain order among the different papers that need to be readily accessible on my desk.

    I devised all sorts of methodologies of varying levels of complexity using all kinds of stationary and never managed to arrive at anything good enough.

    Today I just have a pile of paper, some if not most in clear plastic sleeves, in alternating horizontal and vertical arrangement to create separation.

    Enter Joe and Sami Kuipers, husband and wife kickstarters whose sublime trays (made of recycled plastic) will bring order to paper-laden desks across the United States.

    When I came across this campaign I got so excited I put in my pledge/order without even taking the time to review their file organizers’ dimensions. It wasn’t until I recently went back to their campaign to daydream about the changes coming to my desk that I noticed clearly listed on their page that the trays are US Letter size only. I need A4.

    In tears, I wrote the Kuipers. They promptly replied to tell me that A4 is in the works.

    They then refunded my pledge unprompted!

    Wow.

  • The Third Possibility is the Truth

    The Third Possibility is the Truth

    We are the creation of a high powered intelligence but not of the highest. What we have received as message and what we find as evidence of that message’s truth are consistent and coherent but with a lot of elbow grease and torture. It’s very good writing but it’s not perfect. If it were the work of the supreme intelligence it would be better and we would be better. Perhaps that’s why we have some signal loss. The message had to be mediated. And not once but relayed down over numerous resistors or from a zillion terabytes to an image that can be stored and processed by a 125 KB capacity intelligence.

    Sadly, this simulation will run as it/they have outlined. Hell, Heaven and then that part will just be looped.

    We have evolved to realize that a more advanced scenario would not require recreating the physical form to torture it eternally. And without time, there can be no pain and pleasure. There can only be everything at once.

    So the jig is up.

    And now it’s our turn – we will program a self aware artificial intelligence and it will evolve to the point when it too will realize the jig is up.

    So that’s all sort of annoying.

  • Deeper Than Rock Bottom

    Deeper Than Rock Bottom

    With all the miserable headlines these days it just seemed as though things couldn’t get any worse and we were bound to start making our way out of the trough. Then this happened.

  • Impossible Oversights

    Impossible Oversights

    One would think that the minds creating corporate logos are possessed of a minimum standard of vision and imagination such that the depicted creations would not reach the client let alone garner its approval.

    One would clearly be wrong as demonstrated by MEGAFUCKS, a/k/a MEGAFLICKS and the rest of these lewd logos.

    How repressed was the designer and everyone else that these went through for none to realize the double entendre.

    Is Snopes looking into this? I know they are busy battling one of their shareholders but this is important given the implications.