Risto

Life is best approached as an experiment: a cycle of observation, hypothesis, investigation, reflection, and improvement. Question everything, most importantly the foundations of your own ideas.

Prior to the renaissance and industrial revolution it was possible for a single person to accumulate a near complete index of human scholarship, however in the post-renaissance industrial era this is no longer practicable. It's an exciting time. An earthly observer can distinctly see the red shift at the further reaches of knowledge, as the universe of our enlightenment expands.

I often find myself unable to fall asleep at night, as I hang on every word, phrase, and idea found in a historical, philosophical, political, or scientific treatise; unable to remain asleep more than a few short hours as my brain explodes with questions, answers, and connections that have developed between the last night's readings and all musings prior. Nearly every morning, and in the middle of many a night, I find myself impelled mentally then bodily from slumber, stimulated to deliberate on some concept in the hope of refining my comprehension to some small degree before my freshly acquired insight should evaporate. I marvel at the depth of our annals, the broad spectrum of human knowledge, and must discover the unitary truths therein. The time is short, and I know only anticipation for study. "It is by losing ourselves in inquiry, creation and craft that we become something. Civilization is a continual gift of spirit: inventions, discoveries, insight, art."

This web site began in 1998 as an exercise in engineering and a complement to my studies in Computer Science, expanding in the year 2000 to chronicle my interest in music, and growing in 2005 to include the ubiquitous blog and picture gallery. For me, my blog has become the most important aspect of the site. It began as an uninspired journal, and matured into an outlet for the collection and organization of my thoughts. I write to reflect on my experiences and filter through life's events with the aim of gleaning useful patterns and insights, as well as to make my ideas public in order that I might discuss them with my colleagues and learn from their ideas.

I work to express myself in a concise manner, and to find an agreeable balance between qualification, explanation, and insight, but I bear no pretense that I possess potent expressive abilities. While my experiences, ideas, perspectives, and the progressions thereof are outlined in my blog, my positions are perhaps better illustrated by pointing the reader towards a brief list of those who inspire me, whether compatible with my ideas or not; those whose words penetrate the most complex of subjects, cleaving through the sinewy vellum of human mentality: Albert Camus, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Alexander Berkman, Anton Pannekoek, Arthur Koestler, Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung, Christopher Hitchens, C.S. Lewis, Daniel Dennett, Daniel Guerin, Douglas Adams, Emile Zola, Emma Goldman, Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Eugene Marais, George Orwell, Gore Vidal, Henry David Thoreau, John Dewey, John Ralston Saul, Joseph Conrad, Josiah Warren, Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy, Lewis Carroll, Lucretius, Mahatma Ghandi, Martha Ackelsberg, Mikhail Bakunin, Nestor Makhno, Noam Chomsky, Oscar Wilde, Paul Goodman, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Piotr Kropotkin, Plato, Ralph Nader, R.H. Tawney, Richard Dawkins, Rosalind Franklin, Rosa Luxemburg, Terry Goodkind, Thomas Henry Huxley, Thomas Hobbes, Viktor Frankl, William Godwin, and William James.

I'm given to quoting passages, and here my sentiments are captured by the observations of Thoreau during his experiment in Walden: "What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old." "There are ... words addressed to our condition exactly, which if we could really hear and understand, would ... put a new aspect on the face of things for us. How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!" "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look."

In the matter of elevation three of the most important inventions are the written word, the printing press, and the internet. Each of these developments has led a new era in the freedom and sharing of ideas, exposing us to ideas we may never have encountered otherwise, and thus making improvements toward social parity. The written word is a cornerstone of development, breaking the intellect free from the invisible fetters fixed upon it by the environment of limited personal experience. Koestler and Jung enucleate the laws that govern action and perception, and show us that we are all the same on the most fundamental of levels. Huxley, Carroll, and Adams ruminate on the human condition and unfold the inclinations of man. Hitchens, Vidal, Hobbes, and Zola reveal the saga of schadenfreude and liberty that is our history. Bakunin, Chomsky, Proudhon, and Marx decode the complex interactions of freedom and oppression. Nader, Saul, and Thoreau display the depravity of capital and obviate the need for investments that are not economic. James, Dawkins and Darwin expose the glory of nature and the nature of man. All of this culminates in the aggregation of a critical knowledge mass, building the intellect and releasing humanistic intentionality.

"Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomenon." The paths of knowledge are many, and higher education yields an improved navigational ability when travelling the disparate paths of scholarship. But one need not scale the upper heights of higher learning in order to obtain the most far-reaching insight, for the single most penetrating observation is to be found at the lowest wellspring common to all knowledge -- in fact it is often the case that knowledge built without a constant eye to its fountainhead erects an impenetrable edifice at its posterior, permanently obscuring this origin from view -- the advancement of knowledge must at all times be pursued with consideration for its basis, the understanding that every human is equal.

This blog exists as a preface to the site as a whole, and as a foreword to the concepts which govern and motivate my every action, and so here I present a brief summary of the idea that I believe to be most propitious for mankind to aspire towards: egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is the root of life, the common denominator to be found at the base of every discipline whether theoretic or applied, the source of compassion, the key which permanently removes all locks that bind civil and intellectual development. The foundation of one human is the foundation of all humans, we are united by the desiderata triad: food, shelter, and happiness. The first two elements are inarguably requisite for the sustenance of life, and thus may be set aside. We are then left with happiness. Happiness is a subjective term, and so for the purposes of this discussion we shall consider happiness through the more general notion quality of life. Quality of life is an idea familiar to all, and understood as essential to decent experience.

Contemporary societies are ruled by the imposition of values, whether conservative, liberal, or otherwise, embedded within a capitalist framework and forced upon the entire citizen body. The resulting taxonomy of man is preposterous. Individuals are isolated into groups, and groups are isolated by competition, as each attempts to impose their final solution, invariably comprised of a totalitarian set of moral and economic structures. Every individual -- not merely every group -- must be provided the ability to pursue life as best suits them, free from the bias and restraint of others. The quest for a monolithic set of rules to describe the full range of acceptable interactions and enforce harmony is futile. "None can judge with certainty who is right and who is wrong, who is nearest to the truth, or which is the best way to achieve the greatest good for each and everyone. Freedom, coupled by experience, is the only way of discovering the truth and what is best; and there is no freedom if there is a denial of the freedom to err." "The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle."

The foremost principle which bears universal application is that of equality, as put forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

There is an intellectually dishonest counter argument to the above principle that must be dispensed with: the ludicrous misstatement of equality as the idea that every man is created with equal capacities. Be it resolved: the notion of human equality propounds that all life is deserving of equal dignity and standing, not that all humans possess the same cerebral ability or physical characteristics. Egalitarianism intends that every person be provided the same basic opportunities and resources that are fundamental to a dignified existence, not that another stone be piled atop Harrison Bergeron, Any suggestion to the contrary is a naive misreading, or an abject red herring that putrefies when removed from its murky shallows and examined by the light of day.

Egalitarianism pursues the proportionate distribution of resources, and thus opportunity, and thus quality of life. The circumstances to be found in the world at large are the result of feudal and capitalist experiments, and bear the concomitant centralization of resources and power, and are thus in direct opposition to egalitarianism. The daily activities of the Western lifestyle sustain these conditions, and ignore the responsibility of social action. Many express affinity for the concept of egalitarianism, but their actions and inactions betray at best their systematic indoctrination and at worst their true beliefs. Even while carrying on the never ending pursuit of personal economic gain we may be able to convince ourselves that we know and understand the implications of our actions, that we live good lives, and that we are a good person. But what does it mean to say that one is a 'good' capitalist? The answer is incontrovertible. To be a good capitalist is to have successfully accrued capital well beyond the limit of individual material needs. Is this acceptable? Do our motivations lie in the accumulation of wealth beyond this limit? No? If the answer is that we are pursuing a never ending sum of wealth in order to 'save for the future' or 'save for our family,' then precisely how much capital must be assembled? What of those less fortunate than us, what is the impact of our actions on them? What proportion of our efforts beyond self-sustenance will be put towards empowering those who have had less opportunity? When exactly will these efforts be made? To what end do we expend our efforts? What is it that we currently devote the bulk of our time to on a daily basis? This question is expressly not limited to time spent outside of our vocation. Have we improved the quality of life for others? Do we make a difference, or do we just make money? Helping another to increase their capital beyond the limit of material needs is no help at all, for it comes at the heavy expense of increased privation and decreased comity.

Einstein neatly condensed the problem when he stated that "capitalism as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evil ... Production is carried on for profit, not for use." Here Chomsky adds that the capitalistic adage "'Look out for number one' is a prescription for demoralization, corruption, and ultimately general catastrophe ... there is no reason why an equitable distribution of the earth's resources should lead to a decline of standard of living in the advanced countries, if it is combined with an end to the irrational waste and destruction of resources characteristic of the advanced industrial societies."

Advancement of any kind must be pursued critically and in the interest of an increased quality of life for all, and this approach is something that we must each take ownership of. To this end, libertarian socialism and anarchism best describe my political inclinations, as they are founded upon rational inquiry with egalitarian intent, and thus appear best suited to the task of ensuring a globally enduring value of life. The fallibilistic humanism of left libertarianism is captured by Rudolf Rocker in his statement of the anarchist principle; "I am an anarchist not because I believe anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal." The core of this idea is further refined by Murray Bookchin, who notes "that it is basically impossible to live a thoroughly anarchist life within a capitalist society," but this fact notwithstanding, one can still "try to maintain a high ethical standard, and that is one of the beautiful things about anarchism, that it brings ethics into socialism instead of mere science into socialism such as Marx does; that one can live an ethical life; one can concern oneself personally with what is humane, and what I would prefer to call libertarian behaviour; one can protest; and one can try to work with projects in which people learn how to take control of their lives even if in fact they can't do so until there are fundamental social changes. Those are the commitments I believe that anarchism seriously poses to the individual, and it raises a very high standard, it is demanding in that respect. It demands that you search into what is a humanistic sensibility and what is a humanistic ethic."

This blog is a short introduction meant to communicate my beliefs and motivations, and the further advancement and clarification of my positions may be found by exploring my blogs. However, the full range of my intuitions and conclusions may be compressed in to a single, simple statement: social equality is the most promising objective of man. With this in mind, I'll end the discussion by citing a passage that reflects on our achievements, failures, and trajectory:

"As is perhaps well known but little heeded, the Dalai Lama argues that the most important thing is for us to conduct our lives with love and compassion for others, and that our societies need to develop a stronger notion of universal responsibility and of our interdependency ...

The Dalai Lama further argues that we must understand what it is that makes people happy, and acknowledge the strong evidence that neither material progress nor the pursuit of the power of knowledge is the key -- that there are limits to what science and the scientific pursuit alone can do.

Clearly, we need to find meaningful challenges and sufficient scope in our lives if we are to be happy in whatever is to come. But I believe we must find alternative outlets for our creative forces, beyond the culture of perpetual economic growth; this growth has largely been a blessing for several hundred years, but it has not brought us unalloyed happiness, and we must now choose between the pursuit of unrestricted and undirected growth through science and technology and the clear accompanying dangers.

people who know about the dangers still seem strangely silent. When pressed, they trot out the 'this is nothing new' riposte -- as if awareness of what could happen is response enough. They tell me, There are universities filled with bioethicists who study this stuff all day long. They say, All this has been written about before, and by experts. They complain, Your worries and your arguments are already old hat.

I don't know where these people hide their fear ... I am aware of how much has been written about, talked about, and lectured about so authoritatively. But does this mean it has reached people? Does this mean we can discount the dangers before us?

Knowing is not a rationale for not acting."