User Submitted Blog Post: Future Compliant, April 25, 2008

Future Compliant, April 25, 2008

by Rick Dakan

Continuing the trend I started last week, I'm going to once again rant (although not as much) about another prime example of future non-compliance: Astrology. Now there's not a thing in the world that I've ever seen, read, or heard that makes me think there's a lick of sense or truth in astrology. The fact that it's so widely accepted makes me cringe in embarrassment for people. There's nothing sillier than a sentence that begins with something like, "I'm such a Libra, I always..." Man oh man oh man. But I've had several good friends who believe in it whole heartedly and have assured me that there's lots of good evidence for it and a long tradition of scholarship and science behind it. I agree there's a lot (a LOT) written about the so-called "science" of astrology, but it's one of those cases where I don't think that word means what they think it means. Astrology is not science. But science has taken a good, hard look at astrology, and recently published their findings. The result - looking at 2000 people born within minutes of each other (time-twins as they're sometimes referred to), researchers found no correlation at all between their astrological birth circumstances and their real, actual lives. No surprises there, although I'm glad they did the research.

Interestingly, in his fascinating book Quirkology, Richard Wiseman has a good section on astrology and shows that there is some research to suggest that there are circumstances when your astrological sign might influence your life. Among people who really believe that they're born under a "lucky" sign, some data suggests that they live slightly more successful lives, while those who firmly believe they're unlucky live slightly less successful lives. Those who don't believe remain unaffected. This is in line with Wiseman's wider research into luck, which shows that we really do make our own luck - people who think they're lucky being more likely to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves, while those who think they're unlucky tend to be more pessimistic and thus risk averse. All of which supports my general point that believing in astrology if decidedly future non-compliant. It means buying into a false belief system that short circuits your relationship with reality and can impair your dealings with the actual world around you. Yes, there can also be an upside - there could be false hope driving you to greater things, but that is a Faustian bargain to be sure. Why not take the world on as it really is - on balance it will probably improve your chances a great deal.

Speaking of living under twisted unrealistic and counterproductive paradigms, there's this fascinating multi-part interview with actor Jason Beghe who, after many years and a bunch of money, has recently left the cult of Scientology. I submit it here without further comment, except to say that it's a fascinating insight into that world and all the strange, strange beliefs and practices they hold dear. Check it out.

And then there's this recent article, pointing to recent research that suggests that the human population almost went extinct 70,000 years ago, getting down to as few as just 2000 individuals before bouncing back. One good plague or one more drought and that could have been it for humanity. It's a powerful testament to all kinds of important facts about our existence. One it shows just how potent the combination of geometric population growth and our evolved intelligence are that we can go from 2000 to over 6 billion. It also shows how fragile our place in history really is. There could easily be no intelligent life on Earth right now. Makes you wonder just how rare intelligent life is in the rest of the universe. One would hope people will take this discovery as a warning - humans are not "destined" or "pre-ordained" to survive, and we still have plenty of time (and even more capacity) to screw up everything for us. That being said, I think it unlikely that all humanity will disappear from the Earth, although if we continue being stupid and selfish and wasteful, I wouldn't be at all surprised if at some future date we went back down to thousands not billions.

Well, this hasn't been my cheeriest post ever has it? Astrological inanities, cult brain washing, and mass extinction are not cheery thoughts to take with you into the weekend. So let's end on a more positive note. Do you wanna give personal future compliance a try and try this whole Linux/Open source thing out for yourself? Well now's the time! The newest version of Ubuntu Linux was released this week. It's free for the taking - a complete, fully functional, awesome operating system that does everything you'll ever need. Well probably. It's certainly been great for me. I've been Using Ubuntu as my main OS for nearly a year now, and I love it. Plus you can try it without committing by getting a Live CD that lets you run Ubuntu from your CD drive without installing it on your computer. So try it out! Join the future of software freedom with the rest of us cool kids.