fixtheworld

Current Twitters Michael Jackson Memorial

Posted from the US

Wierd, wierd convergence.....

-r

Taliesin West - Back To The Future?

Posted from the US

I just finished touring one of Frank Lloyd Wright's great works - Taliesin West (thank you to my architect uncle who recommended that I stop there after COFES).

The best way to describe it is one of the places you should see in your life, in order to better understand what life is.

I have never been a fan of what I call Ego Architecture - giant tall buildings, massive arenas, Roman Coliseums. Ego Architecture is mostly about how people are displaying their ability to dominate, show-off lots of money, subjugate - the philosophy behind it is bankrupt.

 I have also really not liked what I call Crap Architecture - pretty much most buildings you see in developments, malls, Taco Bells - just generic, bland, numbing, crap. These structures, which most of us live in or are subject to daily, do not even have a bankrupt philosophy - they have no philosophy.

It is very much like music - you sift through lots of garbage and then you happen upon the White Album - and then everything is different.

As I was walking through, I became convinced that Frank Lloyd Wright was with the Tao. In the music hall I find this:

 

Lao Tse is known as the founder/early philosopher of Taoism, which in modern terms, makes him basically Yoda. 

Frank Lloyd Wright was less of an architect and more of a Tao Master - a Jedi. Taliesin is an embodiment of this philosophy, and it has not been very well understood or replicated. People try to copy his style and end up at a loss. Taliesin is an example of people living in the Way, and it is a good way for us to be in the future: sustainable, humble, local but expansive in thought, built for humans, built for what life is meant to be. The energy expended by the collective set of humans, under the right philosophy, could let us all live this way.

Having been at the top of the mountain (literally, at Davos) and now having been at the side of the mountain (at Taliesin), the side is much better. We are meant to be at the side, co-existing, blending in seamlessly. If we want a future, and we want future generations to respect what we did, we need to start thinking this way.

We could, and we should.

-R

Final Thoughts From COFES 2009

Posted from the US

Overall a great conference on the future of technology, software, and engineering. Unresolved questions as to how to integrate or possibly change/blur what it means to be a developer. Users may become developers on a mass scale - but no one has figured out how to do this yet. The wide net of collaborative development, concurrent engineering, and searching the long tail for good thoughts has been thrown - lots of strange fish to sift through.

At dinner Saturday night I sat near a key scientist who used to be at Bell Labs - we were lamenting the loss of fundamental research in the US (and discussing how in Asia they are building massive scientific research parks). The lack of interest in US students in becoming engineer/tech people is alarming - its like we have a our collective head shoved in a dark hole. The way out of the economic mess for the US is through innovation and driving technology and industry (think automobiles, computers, software). We're losing ground. Perhaps we should focus hugely on solving global healthcare and energy - and be the technology leads in these areas.

Other good COFES insights:

• Jon Hirchtick's blog for Solidworks
• Deelip.com

-R

Thoughts From COFES 2009- Day 1

Posted from the US

This is my first year at the COFES conference, which is a yearly Congress On The Future Of Engineering Software. The overall atmosphere is very laid back and collaborative, which is pretty amazing given that many of the participants are fierce competitors every other day of the year.

Today's highlights:

• Stephen Prusha and the future of "Team X" at JPL.
• Transformational Computing - and what this may mean for healthcare computing.
• Microsoft's vision of the year 2020 in computing - was simply awesome and very unMicrosoft and very Applesque in its awesomeness.
• A cool Australian researcher's populist use of webcams for very elegant and fluid face tracking and integration into control of 3d software + a great live demo that included a Quake like shootout.
• Bruce Branit's WorldBuilder.

Lots of thought leaders here from Boeing, NASA, Microsoft, Autodesk, JPL...

-R

COFES 2009

Posted from the US

At the cofes conference.... Microsoft just showed the vision of computing in 2020....awesome!

-r

Kutiman

Posted from the US

Find kutiman on youtube.

It is where it's at.

-r

Death On A Factory Farm - Revisited

Posted from the US

I recently saw the HBO Film "Death on a Factory Farm" ( http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/deathfactoryfarm/index.html) - and I have not been able to sleep well since.

I have been a vegetarian since I was a kid, essentially because I always believed that there was something morally and ethically wrong for humans, in this day and age, to eat meat. The film reconfirms every horrible notion and reality about what really seems to be a fundamental evil.

Meat - bacon, ham, burgers, steaks, ribs, chicken, fish - there is no doubt that it tastes really good. Billions of people love meat - the notion of not eating meat does not compute. However.

Most people block from their minds where the meat came from (it's in a box on a bun, or in a hot dog pack at the supermarket). Most people do not realize what happens so that they can get their meat. Yes, someone else does bad things so I can get my meat, but damn it tastes sooo good. This group may be bothered by killing other creatures - but if they don't see it, it's ok.

A smaller minority actually kill for their meat - they fully realize what they are doing and understand what has to happen so that they can eat their yummy meat. On one level this group is at least more consistent and honest - but on another they scare the crap out of me. Not being bothered by killing is a problem - humans should be greatly disturbed by the act of killing anything.

In all cases a major problem is the concept of a creature who is there to die for you to eat it. A living creature as property with no to minimal rights. The assumption is that our ambitions, our fleeting sense of hunger, and overall sense of superiority over all life somehow allows us to do anything we want to other forms of life. This same thinking is found in human interactions - where one religion, race, sex, etc. feels that because it is superior somehow, that it now has a free license to use and abuse. This notion of use and abuse permeates the film, and the most disturbing aspect is how many people felt that they were doing nothing wrong.

In most religions and philosophies of life, there is the concept of achieving a higher state of being, of an expanded spiritual view - and a view that there is something inside. The view of Decartes that animals are machines with no feelings and no intrinsic value still widely persists today - and often it is compartmentalized - I love my dog, but cows are food.

I do believe that one day most, if not all, of humanity will wake up and realize what horrible things we have done, and continue to do, to other living creatures. The extent and magnitude of the horrors we have committed is almost beyond calculation, to billions and billions of living, sentient creatures.

I can not explain this divide, of those who get it and are extremely disturbed, and those who do not. It is a great divide - and many who do not get it can otherwise be warm, caring, and extremely nice people. And those who do can sometimes be terrible humans in many other regards. But in watching this film, in watching extreme abuse in action, the divide becomes clear.

I am always very accommodating and cordial when I eat with others who eat meat - I do not impose my views on them and generally do not push the issue. Is this wrong? Is meat murder? How and when will the world as a whole come to see, as it has slowly come to see other past evils, that this is yet another evil to one day abolish?

-R

On Global Poverty - 2008 & Beyond

Posted from the US

Some interesting statistics:

Recent World Bank Development Indicators (2008) show that roughly half of the world's population (3 billion people) are living on $2.50 US per day - or less.

Some quick thoughts and ideas as to how we can attack this massive problem:

• The growing concept of blending microfinance through mobile phone networks and interfaces.
• A global, cloud-computing based "poverty facebook" - connect the poorest with everyone else - and leverage the power of personal connections and enlarging the personal sphere of those with the money (in sight can no longer be out of mind).
• Global, low-cost/no-cost peer to peer computing and communications networks - access to open-source information and education is cheap, very powerful, and helps to remove the barriers between those who have and those who have-not.
• Leverage the above to create local, sustainable business that can address worldwide market needs - everyone can be a global entrepreneur.

-R

The Tears Of Jesse Jackson

Posted from the US

One of the images from last night that remains firm in memory is that of Jesse Jackson - his face in disbelief, overcome, and to a degree weeping.

I think when you lose hope, when you lose faith - when you are traumatized by hate and injustice - you start to develop a lashback mechanism. Jackson has struck out at many people - some deserving it, but some who did not.

The death of Martin Luther King probably marked the end of real hope for him - and Jackson's own failed run at the presidency likely reinforced a mentality of cynical reality and bitterness. A black man can never be  president - not in this country.

Jackson represented to many Americans a former beacon of hope turned into a somewhat wounded creature, an angry man surrounded by an inevitable sea of racial injustice.

Until yesterday.

I hope that Jackson has faith renewed - and an understanding that never is the time to emulate the oppressive powers that were. I hope that Jackson saw a sea of faces of all colors voting in mass for a man of his color - and to many, color did not matter.

Not an abstract faith - but a practical faith that good people of all kinds can do the right thing and move beyond racial, gender, religious, and ethnic lines.

The ministers of reverse hate - that a white, racist America does not care, that what was will forever be - today you are proven wrong - and I am sure you were never happier being so wrong.

My generation is post-racial - we have spoken.

-R

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Posted from the US

But I feel fine.

It's hard not to - as we watch the wheels of democracy turn and flat out demolish a long chain of racial injustice, bigotry, and outright disgusting oppression.

It's good to be an American today.

I wonder what the rest of the world is thinking.

-R

Obama Is In The House

Posted from the US

OMG!

-r

An Obama Win - The Best Case Scenario

Posted from the US

The fat lady ain't singin yet - but she is warming up offstage. There is still the possibility of a McCain victory - but I'm not sure it would be good for anyone.

The Republican party needs a time out - a bit of time to regroup, reinvent, and to purge out elements that no longer make sense:

Fiscal responsibility? Great!

Less government? Great!

Crazy right-wing religious groups?

Ignore science?

New world orders?

No!!!

Get back to your early roots - way, way back  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)

"The Republican Party was created in 1854 in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that would have allowed the expansion of slavery into Kansas. Besides opposition to slavery, the new party put forward a progressive vision of modernizing the United States — emphasizing higher education, banking, railroads, industry and cities, while promising free homesteads to farmers. In this way, their economic philosophy was similar to the Whig Party's. Its initial base was in the Northeast and Midwest. The Party nominated Abraham Lincoln and ascended to power in the election of 1860."

What happened? There is some good zen in taking a major loss here and retooling the whole engine. It's a mess. Get rid of the crazy uncles and become the progressive, professional technocrats we'll need to run this country (see China, a country that is building a major new city every month). We don't want to see Palin in 2012 - we want to see some measured pros.

As for Obama and the Democrats? We really need to have Obama win this election and purge the national consciousness of all that is Obamaness. The symbolism, the mythology, the messianic vibe - nothing pours cold water on all of this visionary bla bla bla than the dull mechanics of running a complex country like ours. We need to have this party and to get it out of our system - or we'll never, ever get over it.

We do need an Obama victory to truly begin the end of hundreds of years of slavery and racism in this country. An Obama victory will help us become post-racial, and will likely inspire millions, and more importantly I think we will see a positive cultural revolution - an Obama role model is a great one for many kids growing up thinking that the US offers them nothing but a jail cell and a lousy job.

We also need an Obama victory to simply regain some balance after 8 years of Bush. On a higher level, an Obama victory will likely yield a pretty centrist road - and this reality will also moderate to all sides that most Americans simply want basic, up the middle, government - nothing too radical. Sitting in the President's seat, Obama will have to move towards the center once he gains the full picture of what is required to keep our country together - anything else would be impractical and likely unsuccessful - and I think Obama will follow much more of the Clinton, practical model. He will be surrounded by many brilliant and professional advisors - and his demeanor has been steady and methodical more than it has been radical. The reality is that Obama will likely need to follow many of Bush's policies of the last 18 months - Bush today is no longer the same Bush. He has no credibility today, but he has learned a lot and Obama should learn from him.

What of Obama's radical roots and associations? There is no doubt that Obama came up from a very different pathway than McCain, or Clinton, or Reagan, or Kennedy, or basically any other president. The real shock many white Americans are having is that they are having to look closely at minority culture - at people and groups that did not matter to them. But here is a question - if you are not the white son of an admiral, what is your pathway? What country club and private school would accept you? How are you going to move up? If the conservative Republican Right is wondering why someone like Obama came from the liberal Left, it's largely because there was never a place for him in the Right - even if he wanted to be there. The Left was the only place to go - and that's not right - and that should change. The party that opposed slavery should be embaressed and it needs to regain its ethical and moral center.

Many white Americans are disturbed by the words and speeches by people like Reverend Wright - but are we equally disturbed by how this country has treated minorities, especially African-Americans? We are only very recently coming out of a time where this country's racism was so blatant and omnipresent that it was practically a material reality - like the sky and moon. This country created Reverend Wright - it created the disgusting racial environment and oppression that generates intense feelings of backlash and hatred of the oppressor.

But we can prove that Reverend Wright is wrong. In this year and time, an Obama win helps to prove that this country is no longer run by racism - that we have moved beyond the evils of our past. We move past race, and back to the mundane, practical aspects of what is needed to run this country.

The Democrats need this win, but so do the Republicans. They both need to move past race, past the strange extreme elements in both parties, and they need to realize that we need both parties to become more centered, more professional, and more in balance.

An Obama win, and a reasonably successful presidency will do a lot to heal this country and our place in the world at large. A centered, balanced approach would be the practical one, and would surprise may Republicans that we did not become one giant, bloated welfare state. An Obama win gives the Republicans needed time to regroup and come back as a much more tight, rational group - we need economic professionals, not gun-toting nuts.

It is true that an Obama win has a huge amount of uncertainty - his victory alone has transformational and non-linear effects that are hard to predict, worldwide. The real change would be no change - if he stays steady, rational, practical, and centered - that alone would be revolutionary.

McCain has shown flashes of honor and character - he may lose because he resisted the temptation to engage in the full racist attacks that were possible. Yes he and his party dabbled in nastiness, but McCain clearly held back to his own detriment (Palin is another story). McCain has some real sense of honor and as Americans we should be proud of that. This is not McCain's time to be our President - he may yet win, but the hour is not his, and I think he knows it. But the hour can be his in the way he deals with his opponent as a gentleman and a human being in the final hours of the election, as well as in the days that follow. The inner hero which is in McCain will not be bitter in defeat, but will help heal this country. McCain's resistance to the ugliest side of his party, and his grace in the weeks to come may make him as important and as visionary as Obama, when all is said and done. McCain wants to win badly - but not at any expense. McCain's defense and support of Obama after the election will be critical - and a true display of a real maverick.

-R

In Defense Of Obama

Posted from the US

I enjoy the freedom of being an independant - it avoids the trappings and groupthink of party politics.

I have found good and bad qualities in both McCain and Obama - both are at the heart of things political beings, optimized to gain votes and win elections.

But.

I am finding the latent, underlying racism and fear pouring out of the Republican side to be disgusting and in direct opposition to core American values and our sense of liberty and freedom. I would like to see the Republicans return to the lean government, land of freedom, liberty for all thinking of Jefferson, Adams, and Washington.

I think our nation's founders would smile at the progress of our country that overcame slavery, bigotry, and elected a man who may best fit the vision of the American dream of equality for all peoples.

Whoever you vote for, please strip out any racist filters from your mind - this is America.

-r

Welcome To The U.S.S.A.

Posted from the US

We are a just a few days from what is looking like a massive Obama victory.

It may very well be transformational and chock full of change - but to what?

The United Socialist States of America?

I like liberal concepts, but greatly dislike their manifestations through centralized state power.

Let's hope for the freedoms as envisioned by Jefferson, and the open democracy promise that is the web - and not the bloat of centralized mass government growth.

-r

Voting today

Posted from the US.

I'm standing in quite a long line today, participating in that great american tradition: early voting.

-r

A Response To Richard Dawkins & Sam Harris

Posted from the US

Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are both leaders of a somewhat recent new wave in atheist thought - and both have reached celebrity status as best-selling authors and speakers, primarily by bashing religion and promoting rational thought.

The books which lay out their strongest viewpoints include Dawkins' best seller "The G-d Delusion" and Harris's best seller "The End Of Faith".

I think that I can sum up most of their arguments in the following way:

• Religion requires a suspension of rational and logical thought.
• Most, if not all, religious people are willing to accept many ideas and statements as true, with no proof (outside of certain texts).
• Many, if not all, religions are filled with local/regional specificity, which removes the universal applicability of whatever messages may be present (and also trap the religion as a cultural, tribal phenomena).
• Religion does not hold up to scientific scrutiny, including hypothesis and test.
• Religious people, who do not hold up their religions to scientific scrutiny, are willing to act in very illogical and irrational ways, which has often led to great evil (see the Inquisition, etc.)
• We are at the point in human civilization and development that we need to abandon religion on a wholesale level, and continue forward based on rational thinking and scientific methodology.
• Even intelligent people, who have religious belief, are essentially delusional with regards to their religious belief, and it is time that they abandon their concepts overall and become atheists.

My response here is not going to be a widespread defense of religion in general, because in many respects, it is hard not to agree with many of Dawkins' and Harris' core arguments. In fact, most religious folks think the same way as Dawkins and Harris about every other religion (other than their own). They probably don't believe in Zeus, The Flying Spaghetti Monster , or thousands of other strange, defunct ancient and pagan deities. Religious people, by and large, are mostly absolutely certain about the truth and reality of their religion and belief system, while they are also certain in the absolute falsehood of the religious beliefs of all others.

Let's start the argument by wiping the slate clean (as Harris and Dawkins would want) and throw out all religious baggage and trappings. What is left?

• Rational thinking
• Scientific Methodology
• The Universe
• All living creatures
• Major unsolved problems.

What are some of these major unsolved problems?

• How and why did the Universe begin?
• Why do we experience the world in conceptual representations? Why do we act and feel as if we have a mind separate from our physical brain?
• What happens to us (and our minds, if such a thing exists) after death?
• What should govern human behavior and morality?
• What to make of the many mystical and contemplative experiences members of many different religions and sects have had (Sufi Muslims, Jewish Kabbalists, Christians, Buddhists, Native Americans) - and in theory, can still have (which makes this a testable, repeatable experience set)?
• How do we frame the broad concept that key individuals in most, if not all, religions, claim to have been in some contact with something?

The immense challenge to religion is that it has become overly comfortable and reliant on many of the ills that Hawkins and Harris decry: a lack of intellectual thought, a lack of demand for proof and experience, and a lack of filtering - many, many ill conceived ideas and beliefs have grown and attached themselves to the core ideas of many religions, like weeds and garbage choking the splendor of a formerly beautiful garden. The new wave of atheists are basically hacking away mercilessly at all the weeds, all the in-growth - but I suspect that there many be some hidden jewels and ideas that they pluck out (which merit saving). In fact, the garden of religion may be so overgrown that some can only see the weeds - and perhaps in many religions, there never was anything of merit.

This response will not be the end of an argument, but the beginning of one. Here are some basics:

• Let us separate the concept of G-d from the bureaucracy of religion.
• Let's agree that the scientific method (which Harris and Dawkins rely upon) does not allow for complete atheism, as this would require certainty. At best, one can only be uncertain about the broad concepts of G-d and the major questions which stem from this, and allow for future hypothesis, theorems, proofs, and tests.
• Let's propose that scientific inquiry could lead to the knowledge of G-d.
• Let's agree that the concept of G-d is not well understood by anyone - so we need to clarify what it is we are trying to find.
• Let's review that in some religious texts, that claims are made for actual events occurring, vs. blind faith in their occurrence (if Richard Hawkins was at the parting of the Red Sea, one could argue that he would be presented with evidence of something going on, vs. blind faith).
• Let's follow Harris' thread where he grants a level of viability to mystical and contemplative traditions - which may be a bridge between seemingly intractable viewpoints.
• Let's finally agree that we do not yet know enough about the human brain - which means that even the concept of rational thought is up for debate (the brain itself looks much more like the machinations of the Flying Spaghetti Monster than Hawkins or Harris would like to admit - it is perhaps not a very rational machine - and we may need to somehow work through this issue).

My goal is not to blindly argue (as many have) with the low-lying fruit debate that Hawkins, Harris, and many others in this new wave of atheism have pounced upon. Let's grant them a 90% victory - because it is likely deserved. However, it is time to move the debate up a level, a level which will not be so easy for them, or anyone, to argue with simplicity. It is at this higher level that the seed of religious thought finds its only true hope, and it is an arena where science and core religious philosophy may not be incompatible.

-R

Hello world part2

Blog test from iphone.....

-r

On Obamaness

Posted from the US

Yes - you know it. You feel it. It's Obama's Obamaness. He just toasted Hilary and John Edwards in South Carolina. He's Obama. Say it "Oh-Bah-Mah". He's chock full of mighty Obamaness.

He's just got it. That cool. That vibe. It doesn't matter if he advocated feeding cute bunny rabbits to tigers on live tv. It wouldn't matter if hosted a cooking show for gourmet cannibals. His Obamaness takes over. Jordan had it. Jimi had it. Miles had it. James Dean had it. Early Brando had it (lost it). 50's Elvis had it (flickered a bit in the Vegas days).

Hilary is oatmeal. Sensible. Practical shoes. Do your homework and eat your broccoli. Edwards is a lightweight weeny (he lost to an African-American man and a white woman in his Southern, Dixie flag waving, Confederacy forever home state!).

Obama? He is rocking his Obamaness. A friend of mine thinks that he coined the term (although I have seen it floating around). Women want him, men want to be him. He is. He'll fly out to Iran and tell all those cats to cool it, baby. He'll saunter over to Noth Korea and tell them freaks - hang out with Obama - and you'll get some sweet honey. He'll speechify the terrorists. He'll quiet them boys at the Pentagon. Hell - he might even get some good ole' Republicans to vote his way because he just throws his Obamaness their way and they'll all just melt like cheddar on rye. Jackie Robinson. Willie Mays. Obama.

Obama is black and white. He's all religions, all people. He's telling you to become one with him - because he is all.

In a field where the Republicans have one of their worst lineups of all time, and with a country not so enamored of Clintoville 2.0, we have Obama. He's like the iPod. Jobs. Pixar. It's hard to say what he's really about - or if he's the guy to lead the nation out of a big horrible mess. There really is not much outside of Obamaness. But sometimes that may be enough. He's the open source candidate - add what you want, it all sort of hangs together.

Like him or not, he's the coolest guy on the block.

-R

On Cancer, Wheatgrass, and Robots

Posted from the US

The last year has brought with it the intensity of close relatives, associates, and friends all facing severe forms of cancer - the type where the oncologists have not much to offer other than poor statistics.

A few things learned:

• Oncology, and cancer research in general, is not where it should be.
• Chemotherapy may work sometimes - but the general philosophy of it will probably be looked at one day (maybe 10 years from now, who knows) as poorly as we look at carpet bombing from WW2. Targeting is poor, so blow up everything.
• The worst thing an oncologist can say to anyone is "you only have __ days/weeks/months" to live. I do not believe that this is good for the mind - and it can become a self-fulfilling statement. What they are really saying is "I have nothing more that I know what to do with you - as my primary tool is chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation - if I can't cut it, poison you, or bombard your body with radiation, I'm at a loss". What they should say is "there are many alterantives beyond conventional medicine - and some of these have proven to be anecdotally even more effective than chemotherapy - perhaps now is a good time to try these other systems out".

It may sound like I'm coming down hard on oncology - which is not completely fair. There are good oncologists and many people have been helped by surgery, chemo, and radiation. But the overall toolbox for fighting cancer has been pretty primitive and not as effective as one would wish.

I did find new threads of interest and hope:

• Cyberknife - The is a cool robot developed by John Adler at Stanford, and now commercialized by a company called Accuray. I remember being in Silicon Valley in late 1999, at an angel investor night, where my company was invited to present. There was a discussion among the investors about the Cyberknife, and how this was a poor business model and a bad idea - but any kooky internet idea was worth throwing $5million at without even a thought. Today, in 2007, the Cyberknife is one of the only, if not best ways, to basically zap tumors anywhere in the body, and there seems to be no limit to how often it could be used on the same patient. It kills the tumor and leaves the healthy tissue alone. It is an amazing machine - and I'm glad someone believed in them and kept the company going. This summer I took the close relative out to Stanford where they used the Cyberknife to kill some nasty tumors near critical structures - and it really did the job. The sad part was that I had to push the local doctors into admitting that this was needed - they barely even knew about the Cyberknife and what it could do.
• Wheatgrass - I've stumbled upon an interesting newtwork of raw vegan/sprout/macrobiotic types who have basically been the last hope for people who have been told that there is no more hope and the end is near. There is a massive amount of anecdotal data, and some peer-reviewed level scientfic data, that wheatgrass, combined with a mostly raw, vegan, living sprout based diet can be a major boost to the body and help people fight and recover from the most severe of diseases. I even went to visit one of the motherships of the movement, a place called the Hippocrates Health Institute. They are the Meccas, Medina, and Jerusalem of wheatgrass and being a vegan for health. The vast majority of the people who go there have no other roads - and they appear to have helped thousands. The movie CrazySexyCancer is an irreverant path into this whole world.

Why does any of this matter? I do think that the very high-tech (Cyberknife) can go hand in hand with the seemingly low-tech, even anti-tech, concepts of wheatgrass and being a vegan. One uses technology in a smart way - kill only the cancer, leave the body alone. The other puts a massive filter on your food intake - all bad foods are gone, and massive doses of the most healthy types of foods and juices are what you eat forever more.

So in a short time I learned that the many local doctors have a limit to their vision and understanding - practically everyone in my area was ignorant of the Cyberknife, or only discussed it when I pushed it hard. No one raised the issue of moving off the chemo highway and trying something else. Somehow bombarding the body with massive doses of the most healthy foods has nothing to do with today's medicine. When I visited the people I knew in the hospital, the food they were served was old, grayish, and reminiscent of my high school days (fries and ketchup were considered to be veggies). There is even a McDonalds(!) in the lobby of the hospital - which is essentially insane and hypocritical on all levels. The hospital philosophy is "we'll ram you full of drugs, morphine, and allow/encourage all kinds of junk food - and then we'll tell you there is no hope". I have a hard time understanding the disconnect between a radically healthy diet and utilizing that to fight disease alongside smart, targeted therapies (like Cyberknife). In an onclogy world where some of the best chemo drug trial only extend life statistically by a few months, why is no one seriously looking at the alterantive routes, which have an abundance of anecdotal success?

I did speak to some people on the alterantive side, and the answer was basically that the drug companies can not effectively bottle and market the essence of the radicaly vegan/wheatgrass programs that help people. They fear that something simple and cheap may blow out their costly biotechs. It's not a reductionist concept - it's a whole systemic concept, where the entirety of the plant, in it's live form plays a role. I still think think that it is worth hard core research. From what I have seen to date, I would rather take 500 late stage cancer patients and put them through a raw vegan/wheatgrass program than force more chemo upon them. It would be very interesting to see a double blind study done this way - and to see the outcomes of each group. If a major study was done by reputable groups (say Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford) and the outcome was in strong favor of the vegan/wheatgrass programs, what would that do to modern oncology?

There are a lot of alterantive therapies that are very snake oil in their mumbo jumbo and magnetic healing powers. One of the problems with any alternative medicine system is all of the unncessary and sometimes defeating crap that wraps around it. The good things are sometimes lost in a sea of crystals and quacks. However, even "real" mainstream medicine has many flaws: chemotherapy with poor/sketchy results, no good answers for many cancers and disease, and hospitals that promote a diet that could turn a healthy person sick. I think carefully filtering out what matters and could be relevant from both sides is key.

It has been hard for me to shoot down the concept of a filtered, hard-core, expertly designed raw vegan/wheatgrass programs. There is some primal logic there that makes sense on a fundamental level. It also shows up in many parts of the world, with many different types of people discussing complete returns from the brink. It's worth looking into more deeply. I don't know how or when a serious study could be funded, but it would be quite interesting. Scientists need to learn how to study these things on a major scale, how to get the research funded, and how to co-exist with ideas that may be wild and out there today, but possibly the real deal. After all, penicillin came from mold, and aspirin from tree bark of willow trees. Why can't the cure for cancer be in a blade of grass?

-R

A New Movement?

Posted from the US

It seems to me that a set of ethics is emerging that is universal and global and is going to ultimately bang heads with the older established ways and religions.

Here is what I see:

• A connected, global community - in constant communication with each other
• Tolerance and respect for others - including their different choices
• Color, race, sex, ethnicity - does not matter
• Respect for the environment - stop abusing it
• Overall drive for alternative energy that is renewable and low-impact
• Freedom of expression
• Intellectual property is to be shared (freeware, music, books)
• Wiki-Thought - empower the people but embrace the individual
• Have a wicked sense of humor
• A vegetarian, or semi-vegetarian attitude - eating animals will become so 20th century
• All things organic, natural, healthy
• Processed foods = crap
• Hacker ethics - life is more than a daily grind
• Work - what you do should positively contribute to humanity (bomb builders should become health care workers)
• Most things developed by Apple & Pixar film morality
• Linux and it's ilk
• Politics - an old mechanism - becoming a sad joke
• War - no tolerance for it anymore
• Virtual life - a life lived in second life and games
• The web everywhere - a right like breathing and water
• Healthcare - technology should enable great care for everyone
• Robots - we're not afraid - we want them to clean our house
• Drugs - who needs that when you have VR?

This loosely connected list (incomplete) seems to tie a lot of people together around the world. It's not really liberal or conservative - it's more post-human, or perhaps, neo-human (hey, we're human again folks).

-R