Humanism in the Bible Belt

My grandmother is nearly blind, and as such, I sat beside her last night and read aloud her mail.

What an odd feeling it is to read an Ann Coulter update; immediatly followed by a Christian-Zionist news-letter; to my own grandmother. My grandmother, like many people, simply does not know what she is doing. I tried to briefly explore the issue with her; however, she just had some vauge reference to getting calenders and helping people.

  I feel angry with the people who take advantage of my grandmother’s good will. She doesn’t know how the Christian Zionist Alliance builds settlements in Palestinian lands, nor does she know the hatred promulgated Ann Coulter.

 I took part in a prayer at a Christmas dinner. I didn’t really know what to do: I didn’t want to start a scene by refusing; however, I didn’t want to offend anyone by fauxing prayer. I did bow my head – at-least out of respect for other people’s religion, but I felt like an imposter, and that in some way I have disrespected the Christian religion.

Humanist Fasting

I feel there is an unspoken belief in Humanism that aestheticism is bad and irrational. However, I disagree with this notion.  A Humanist life is the constant search for truth and rationality. Rationality requires self discipline and the ability to control your urges for the sake of operating at a higher level. I think that moderate aestheticism can be a great source of self discipline and self discovery.

Thus, this past Monday I took a fast. I promised myself no food or drink other then water for 24 hours. The first 12 hours was not bad, I at a light snack at 8:30pm Sunday, and went about my normal evening activities.

When I woke up, I at a few crackers so that I could take my pills. I think this is an important aspect of fasting as a humanist. On a strict fast this would have been unacceptable, but I knew as a rational being that without a small amount of food, my pills would be useless, and I could run the risk of hurting my self. Thus, I followed the middle ground, and came up with a satisfactory solution to meet both needs – my fasting experience would not be disturbed by a few crackers, and my medication would have it’s full effect. This is practicing moderate asceticism.

The afternoon went by fine; however, by the time 4:00 came arround my hunger was becoming more and more noticeable. by 6:00 it was very hard for me to concentrate on my work. By 8:00 I felt slightly ill. I quickly realized how fast the human body, and mind, degrades when it is deprived of something it wants and needs – it made me feel slightly vulnerable.

When 8:30 rolled around, I ate ,normally, and went about my evening activities feeling accomplished and having new thought to reflect upon.

Overall, I think this was a good experience, and i recommend fasting to anyone who wants a good test of self discipline; however, I advise you to be rational when you do it. If you take medication that needs food, there is nothing wrong with eating a bit when you take your pills. There is nothing wrong drinking  water. If you can’t concentrate anymore have a small snack. I believe the key to good humanist fasting is to be reasonable when you do it; understand you are doing it for self discipline, not to win favor with god or whatever.

The (Mobile) Information Tax

 

According to the wiki a shenanigan is “a … deceitful confidence trick, or mischief causing discomfort or annoyance.” And that is exactly what the Bell has done with their new ‘$7 Unlimited Data Plan’.

The recent story about a man being billed the equivalent of a luxury car for using his mobile phone as a modem is a exemplar of using consumer confiedence to trick the user into overuse. It is true that the plan is explicit to mobile internet, but many people see the internet as such without distinction of it’s delivery. I assert it is any service provider’s due diligence(1) to warn when a customer might be accruing a large tab – just as a good bar tender would warn a patron when he has had too much to drink.

Fundamentally there is something very disheartening about this. Inferring from to Thomas Purves the CRTC has sat idly by as the telecom giants have made Canada a technological third world country out ranked by such great nations as Rwanda. What justifies a $85,000 fee for moving data from one computer to another. To reitterate:

“We are paying huge sums of money to have our largely user generated data transfered from one machine’s memory banks to another on largely automatic systems.”

To put this in perspective wih this single cellphone bill, my service provider could pay a full time technician a healthy sallary to operate only for me, and still keep a profit in the tens of thousands of dollars.

We are paying a fee to get the same data received through land lines transmitted wirelessly. Additionally, how the data is used is once again taxed dependent upon how it is used. Why should my service provider have an knowledge of how I use my data. If I am going to pay $7 for a largely automatic system to send me data then I should own that copy of the data, no mater its content or intended use as soon as it enters my memory banks.(2)

The Anarcho-Liberalist revolution stands on the pillars of a free and open internet; don’t let it be controlled.

I highly recommend you all email your representatives and demand better consumer advocacy from the CRTC.

1. I assert serious finanical harm to a individiaul still quallifies as harm, albeit intangible.
2. It can be argued that the maintenance fees justify a higher costs; however, I argue that the sheer number of people making use of these networks pay for any maintenance many times over. Though, I would be interested in seeing some kind of cost analysis.