Are We Alone in the Universe?

By Christopher Barr │POSTED ON DECEMBER 17, 2014

People often confuse ideas between what they want versus what is probable.  Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi asked the question back in 1950, ‘Where is everybody?’ meaning if there is intelligent life out in the deep of space, where is it?  Why haven’t we picked up some sort of long range signal sailing across the universe from their distant civilization?

Entertaining the proposition of ‘want’, we find ourselves believing in all matter of scientific fiction.  Movies, stories, radio broadcasts and imagination have most of us all believing in some sort of life on other planets.  Most of us think it would be cool if there was something out there.  Somehow Aliens could solve all our problems clearly because we are unable to.  The sad state here is the answers to our own existence is right here on earth but most of us are too stupid to investigate ourselves.  Instead we seek outside answers because we delude ourselves into thinking that our problems can be solved, but not by us.  Anybody that has opened a psychology book and understood it knows that our problems are within us.  We must look inwardly in order to healthily live outwardly.  We live in a society that breeds drone people that are trained like pets to believe they are free.  The likelihood of a mass enlightenment that pulls dumb-downed people out of their own dumb versions of reality is unfortunately unlikely.  We will still believe that fantasy and reality are one in the same.  We will still believe that our way of looking at things must be the only way and anyone who challenges that, excommunication or death for them.  So many of us that are commonly blinded by truth all around us look to the stars, we look toward space.

The problem with our concept of space is our attraction to fill it.  We buy a house and what do we do, we fill it with stuff, some practical like a bed and couch, and some not so practical like ornaments and pictures.  We buy boxes to put things in them so it’s understandable that when we look at space we think of it as something that should be occupied by something.  The problem here is we take this same practical sentiment and apply it to the universe.  Without considering reality and the Fermi Paradox, it seems reasonable that life must exist on other planets.  Most of us don’t really know what we are talking about so seek culture for guidance, we then rewrite, reconstruct our own reality to fit into our fabricated belief system of our limited worldview.

Now when you factor in evidence and probability, intelligent life on other planets starts to become less likely.  The number one thing to consider when hypothesizing about extraterrestrial life is this; if they are out there why on earth would they care about us?  We would be ants to them, self-destructive ants; we would be this early civilization of beings that barely have left their own home world.  Then there is the chance that they might be intelligent beings but have never developed technology to even achieve interstellar travel.  We have such an intelligent species on this very planet, Dolphins. 

Then the most likely case, just because there is 10,000 billion billion planets in the Universe, that doesn’t necessary mean that intelligent lifeforms with technological capabilities live on them.  Our species itself was a fluke.  There were so many sets of circumstances that nudged us from nothingness to the most intelligent(?) species to exist on this planet.  For a planet to be the correct distance from its Sun, for the thermodynamic properties to just be right for complex life to occur, make the odds dubious.

This fantasy that we have built upon over the years still goes back to humanities number one problem; it can’t get over itself.  Our solipsistic species is under the illusion that we are special, so special in fact that we created a make believe father figure that is the architect of us all.  We did this because we are scared of the dark, the darkness of loneliness, the darkness of outside forces such as weather, animals and other people, the darkness of death and the finite nature of existence, and the darkness of space, time and the universe, and most importantly the darkness of our own inner minds.  We are all on a ball spinning around in a universe that is endless and cold.   We as a species define our reality through fantasies, concoctions that we over many centuries made up so we could mean something.

The idea of extraterrestrial life falls under the illusions we tell ourselves in order to get through the cold existential bleakness of our daily lives.  We want to mean something without really knowing why we want to mean something.  We are drifters in our minds searching for a home that we can call our own.  We are the aliens we seek; we are the enablers that keep us back from whatever it is we want.  We are the blamers that convince ourselves that the problem with our world isn’t us but rather everybody around us.  We are the deniers that don’t want help from other people because our massive egos couldn’t survive it.  We are desperately floating in the space of our minds seeking assistance.  As a consequence, the fantasy of the mind fabricates realities that don’t exist in the world outside the complexity of the mind, like religion and this notion of life out there somewhere looking down on us.  We will remain alone until we wake up, or are woken up to the realities of existence and death on this very planet.  We will suffer if we don’t travel down that road and face our fears by telling them that they were the lies all along.  

The Problem between the Rule of Law and the Online Court of Public Opinion

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON DECEMBER 8, 2014

Society is stuck together by the glue that the law enforces.  If this wasn’t the case we wouldn’t have much of a society and we certainly wouldn’t have a society like the one, for the most part enjoy, in the first world.  We need just look to some third world countries to see that murder, theft and rape are an every hour and sometimes every minute occurrence.  Yes there are bumps in the road but for the most part we are free to walk where we want to walk, and carry our food from the grocery store to the car without being ambushed.

So what happens when the law lets the people down?  What happens when a police officer in Ferguson and a police officer in New York are responsible for the death of a man, a man resisting arrest but otherwise containable without the need for lethal force?  The death of Eric Garner and the Grand Jury’s decision to not indict New York Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo, for applying an against regulations chokehold causing the death of Gardner, was yet another blow to this ongoing police brutality problem in the United States.

There are still more women coming forward claiming that Comedian Bill Cosby had drugged them and raped them.  The problem with the law as we all would like to see it; is it’s become this tool for the one-percenter’s and the Elite just beneath them to wield as they will.  Justice is supposed to be blind but I think we are all coming to terms with the fact that it can see just fine.  Justice can be quite cruel to those that don’t toe the line as a worker for the Elite, and for those that threaten profit so the Elite can maintain their power over the populace.

The police, and I’d like to state not all the police, have become mercenaries for those that rule over us.  “To Serve and Protect” is no longer for the working class, it’s for the Multinational Bankers, the weapons manufactures’, the CEO’s and politicians that perch themselves up on the highest levels of power, beneath the one-percenter’s and the true Power Elite.  This realization begins to force us to question the very laws that we assumed held society together.

The sad thing is we are getting comments from people via the television or internet claiming that the alleged victims of Bill Cosby should have come forward earlier.  We are being told by some so-called experts that if people like Eric Gardner didn’t resist the police they wouldn’t be dead right now.  The problem is these are heavily biased opinions attempting to serve themselves as arguments.  The internet especially, has allowed most of us to believe that what we have to say is just as qualified as a professor of sociology’s is.  The internet has afforded us anonymity and it has emboldened us.  There have been many legitimate opinions from people disapproving of the way police are going overboard, but then there are the ones with agendas that are exploiting such tragedies for their own gain.

The internet has been in the public-sphere for just over two decades now.  Many people have had some time now to warm up to this new form of communication.  It is not lost on me that this very article is an opinion, with that said; opinions are just getting out of hand.  There are so many opinions about any given topic that they flood the playing field.  They suffocate the discourse itself into a competition of narcissistic viewpoints; they blind the potential for truth to surface.  

The real problem is because the gates instantly become flooded with haphazard opinions; it doesn’t give a person much time for them to think about their opinion.  As a consequence people simply react to comments with often gibberish rather than thoughtful insight.  Certainly time is a factor as well, they want the opinion now before the next sound bite swallows the previous one.  Social Media is a beast that could alert us to the mischievous criminal activity of the ruling class and unite us, or it can turn us all against each other while the ruling class profits from our misery.  I’d love to say that it will unite us all against the tyranny of the Elite but what do I know, this is just my opinion that can be easily accessed or simply discarded by the safety and security found by the click of the mouse.

BLACK FRIDAY: Crashing Through the Doors for More 'Stuff' to be Happier People?

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON NOVEMBER 29, 2014

Black Friday as you know is a sale, held by various stores such as Walmart, Target and many many others, the day after Thanksgiving Day in the United States, in some cases even before midnight.  It falls just after a time when many are giving thanks for who they have in their life and the food they have on their table.  Thanksgiving is about being grateful, it’s about being thankful, it’s about being humble.  Then Black Friday comes around a day later and all bets are off.  Maybe the average American Walmart doorcrasher would provide the excuse that it was Thanksgiving ‘Day’ not Thanksgiving ‘Year’.

Black Friday and the crazy events that occur at department stores isn’t necessarily a sign of the fall of civilization leading to an apocalypse, but it is a representation of all that is indecent in society, manifesting itself when those front doors open and waves of heathen shoppers storm over each other to get to that buy one, get one free doll for their kid or that wall-sized flat screen TV that’s half off.

There is this cycle that the world’s greatest civilizations go through that starts with bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; and from dependence back to bondage only to go round and round again.  This savage behaviour is new in America because when I was a kid this certainly didn’t happen.  Black Friday is one more little nudge as the decline in society furthers.  Again, not the death of us all, if you want that look no further then the Fukushima power plant in Japan to state a case on that.

What we do have here are people running amok, without having a clue as to truly why they are doing it.  This consumer culture is so saturated with advertising telling people the only thing they can do to complete themselves is buy ‘things’ is a sign of a sick society.  Reading books and discovering what it means for you to be alive on this planet in this time are signs of a healthy society, sadly that isn’t a society I ever heard of, maybe little pockets in Europe.

The corporate executives have their worker sheep tending to the wolves while they collect all their greed money.  It’s sad to see this because people, average people and let’s face it, not the brightest, have no idea how dooped they really are.  Some camp out before the midnight madness gets underway as most are still digesting their Thanksgiving turkeys.  It’s horrifying to see such animalism among a society of people that are told they are members of the greatest country on this planet.  Certainly beyond the looking glass most of the world knows this not to be true, as they sit and watch video upon video on YouTube, of Americans making complete fools of themselves.  

Let’s not forget that all Americans aren’t savages, so they too will shake their heads at their own countrymen as they trip and fall their way over to the electronics department to get their hands of that last doorbuster, as members of the media film the whole thing to later make fun of it on national news.  There have been people shot, stabbed, pepper-sprayed, kicked, punched, split on and verbally assaulted so crazed shoppers can get into the store only to find out that the product they wanted has been sold out.  What they don’t know is these doorbusters are purposely understocked so the department store can sell other products at their regular prices. 

We are taught to hate ourselves so we buy things to correct that presumed fact.  Maybe it’s a desperate attempt at saving face in a society that, for the most part steam-rolls over the average person trying to make their way in the world, even if it’s a narrow-American-minded world.  Regardless the bait is set and the animals come.  To me it’s odd to have such a need for something like a pot and pan set that turns you into a crazed lunatic.  But I think we all know it’s not quite that, what it is; is displaced anger and a desire to fill in the gaps of that American dream that you we promised.  It’s about taking what’s yours and to fuck with everyone else. 

It’s actually about narcissism because I can tell you that intellectuals and mindful people wouldn’t be caught dead crashing a door for a Guttenberg Bible, no more than you would see a Buddhist strapping a bomb to his chest and running into a Hindu café.  Walmart and the like know that their average customer isn’t the smartest tool in the shed, so they know that they can easily manipulate them with just a little piece of cheese.  Sadly there are too many people ready for the thrills of cheap prices and in some cases, are ultimately too blind to see that they have bought into the spectacle of crowd mentality, driven debauchery.    

Ferguson on Fire because Grand Jury's Decision to let Wilson off the Hook

by Christopher Barr │POSTED ON NOVEMBER 25, 2014  

The people of Ferguson, Missouri and the whole of the United States are completely justified in their grievance of the Grand Jury’s decision to not bring criminal charges against police officer Darren Wilson, for the shooting of unarmed youth Michael Brown on August 9th.  This decision not to indict this man unfortunately isn’t that surprising; it was just the Elite protecting one of their soldiers.  I might add the law and justice don’t apply to them in the same way as it does to all us worker-bees.  They’re special because not only do they run the show, they own the show, so that’s not surprising. 

It’s still upsetting that this form of injustice can be allowed to persist but one thing I do know for sure, burning down a portion of your own town will do nothing, if not straighten their case and continuing their need/desire to use excessive force.  Certainly not all those angered at the Grand Jury’s decision fled to the streets with fire bombs and started destroying everything in sight, but a lot did do that.  

Looting, really?  Again, I get the rage I get the disgust but displacing your so-called anger over a very justified position, only to bust the windows of electronic stores to steal flat screen TV’s loses the point and isn't helping matters.  Burning down part of your town and terrorizing your fellow neighbours, destroying people’s local businesses, and shooting at firemen tasked to put out the fires so the whole city doesn’t burn down, isn’t going to get your point across in the judicial way that it should.

What we are dealing with here is a great hypocrisy.  These rioters not only destroyed the lives of a number of innocent people who had nothing to do with any of it.  They made the very police officers, that they accused of being unjustifiably heavy-handed and brutal now justified with their resolve.  They have given license to police across the country to possibly think a little less, when being approached by a precarious individual in the dark who may or may not be armed.

Group think, group mentality has for the most part, shaved off the IQ’s of most of those that participate in it.  There are injustices everywhere, macroscopically down to the microscopically but what holds a society together is the application of reason and logic, two ingredients that were lacking in Ferguson.  This resulted into madness, animals expressing themselves, not with the full capacity of their neurological functioning, but rather to that of dogs.  

Philae's battery dies as Scientists still celebrate the success of the mission

by Christopher Barr

The mission was a huge success both scientifically and historically, but unfortunately Philae has landed in a shadowy crater.  This problem is preventing the device from the proper amount of sunlight for its solar panels.  The battery as died on the lander shortly after it collected all sorts of information to help scientist better understand the composition of comets.  The Rosetta orditer will continue its own orbit around the comet for more than a year, collecting whatever data it can on the comet as it barrels through deep space.