Beyond Human

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/magazine/23wwln.html

Many of the fans milling into this year's postseason baseball games have been wearing authentic major league uniforms, with GUERRERO, say, or OSWALT, stitched on the back. True, society has traditionally encouraged kids to fantasize about what they'll be as adults. But most of the people I've seen in $200 regulation shirts are adults. What they're fantasizing about is an alternative adult identity for themselves.

Why do they do this? The literary critic Paul Fussell once speculated that wearers of "legible clothing" like T-shirts were merely losers trying to associate themselves with a success, whether it be a product (Valvoline) or an institution (The New York Review of Books). A conservative view held that dressing like a child meant shirking the responsibilities of adulthood. It was a subset of dressing like a slob. But these explanations do not cover the ballpark people or (to take a similar phenomenon) those weekend bicyclists in their expensive pretend-racer costumes, with European team logos and company trademarks. The message in their clothing is aimed not at others but at themselves. It is a do-it-yourself virtual reality.

Abandoning your own world for a made-up one is an ever larger part of adult life. For the futurist Ray Kurzweil, this is only the beginning. According to his new book "The Singularity Is Near," we are approaching the age of "full-immersion virtual-reality." Thanks to innovations in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, you'll be able to design your own mental habitat. You'll be able to sleep with your favorite movie star - in your head. (It is not lost on Kurzweil that you can already do that, but he insists it will be really, really realistic.) Those same technologies will help us "overcome our genetic heritage," live longer and become smarter. We'll learn how brains operate and devise computers that function like them. Then the barrier between our minds and our computers will disappear. The part of our memory that is literally downloaded will grow until "the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate."

But this raises questions: What will then be the point of unenhanced human beings? And what will become of our relations to one another?

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all it takes is a couple of re-occurring instances consecutively for a person to take notice of the generic and often times hilarious way of life human society has evolved into...the testament usually goes to great writers, who dont' necessarily philosphize or invent original ideas but rather are the eloquent word stringers to put thse acts of cliche's into a cliche.... -- some program on tv was talking about the pathetic nature men succumbing to "women and sex", quite normal really, but what strikes me me right now....is the combination of a few nights ago (i was explaining to someone how long i've been playing guitar, why i picked it up and uhh...'how many guys have picked it up to get chicks' + ' how many times do you this guy, who also jams, has used it as a move...') and i've never noticed it before...but just looking up online guitar tabs.....the tabbers always leave a comment at the bottom...and i quote..."this is a n EXCELLENT chick song..." HAHA.  there should probably be a "get laid" tally at the bottom...one of those "reader polls", the equivalent of espn's sportsnation polls, we'll have guitarworld's  sex quotidien poll....

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someone send me a good article on this bernanke guy and his dollar policy.....

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writing, for me, doesn't just push you through emotional baggage and organize everything into a neat row of ducks, it also helps the technical aspects of my life as well, continuingly proving that my naivete in hs to avoid english and thinking it was a waste for future vocational practice was absolutely positively wrong.....interesting when you look back on those mistakes....those "i told you so's" from other people, those....*Blush blush....* i hate admitting i'm wrong, kind of deals.......

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6448213/did/9777070/?GT1=7128

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"you guys look like you're having a blast"

that's quite the redundant review for the blog as of late, but as hilarious as the following artwork in retrospect, it almost seems boringly reptitive....which means...the next time around, we'll take it to the next level.....(don't worry lop, no tabasco on the eyes....only lips, and plus it will most likely be poured on frank....again, poor frank), i wonder, why is drawing a penis a standard -- a MUST when it comes to body art?