TIO

Tio

my personal place

Author: tio

A human who's furious and curious.
My Own Music Website

My Own Music Website

MusikWave – http://www.musikwave.com/

I don’t listen to music that often (I prefer listening to Alan Watts, Jacque Fresco, or other such ‘entertaining’ people 🙂 ) but I do like to listen to music from time to time, especially while working on some websites or design the magazine. I never pay attention to the lyrics though, as I saw many do, so I can listen to all kinds of crap yet I enjoy it :).

I was surprised when I found a few years ago that people pay to listen to music, I honestly had no idea that with so many free streaming services out there people still pay to listen to music. I come from an environment where if you buy something online you are an oddity. The people I know never pay for Windows, or any software, movies or music. Maybe because they do not have the money and they got used to find them much easier for free, online. For instance, the torrents can even be streamed right now via services like WebTorrent so it is even more easy to watch movies via torrents. Also, free (and ‘illegal’) services like PopcornTime made Netflix or Hulu look completely outdated and pointless.

Anyways, I used Grooveshark.com to listen to music for the past years, and I have tried many such streaming services, but that looked to be the best one. I don’t download or have any songs on my computer since 2007, I find it completely irrelevant since you have an internet connection 99% or 100% of the time (without internet I honestly don’t know what do do with my computer 🙂 ). Grooveshark was closed a few months ago though due to being ‘illegal’, so I tried to find another such service but found none that was good enough or ‘legal so it will not get shut down. I tried the very well known and legal Spotify and I got lost through its user interface plus I did not find many of the songs I was looking for, not to mention the annoying ads (but even without the ads, I would have never paid for such a limited srvice). So, looking for an alternative I found a great template that automatizes pretty much everything: sorts albums, artists, songs, etc. It uses Last.fm for sorting and Youtube for streaming, thus it is 100% legal and you can find all the songs you can imagine via this service.

So, I bought and set up this template and made my own music website :). As simple as that.

Even though as I said I do not find music that important/interesting, I am completely impressed by this template and in my view it make services like Spotify look completely obsolete. It is true, for mobile is not a great experience right now, but as soon as the developers improve that, I will update the website.

I will also look into how this template works because I would love to make a VIdeoNeat TV kind of service, with streaming science videos from youtube in a very smart way.

So, enjoy it as it si free and great 🙂

MusikWave – http://www.musikwave.com/

 

Living your dream

Living your dream

Here’s something interesting: if we were able to decode dreams and play them in a movie-like format, would you be interested to watch them?

Let’s say you go tonight to bed, you wake up tomorrow and I give you this technology to be able to see what you dreamed last night. Would you be curious? I am sure most will, as I will as well. But what if the recording of your dream lasts a few hours time? Would you watch it all? Then would you continue with the recordings and watch them every day after you wake up, like you watch a tv series now? Because if so, you may end up dreaming your dreams, or living your dream. Get it?

If you watch what you dreamed, for many hours a day, every day, is like taking what you have in your head and putting it back again in a constant loop with tiny variations. I find this a huge waste of time.

But wait a second…I think that’s pretty much what most people do today.

Taking_photos_of_nature_with_phone_3_590

They go to places and take photos or record videos of that place and they barely enjoy it. They share that moment with others and end up looking at photos more than at reality. You look where I went on my FB profile, I look at yours, we both look at photos. I know people that see all places in photo quality, to put it this way. Because they look for how awesome a photo with a sunset will look like, but they don’t enjoy the event. Look at your Facebook or Instagram, or other people’s profiles, and you will pretty much have an idea of what I am talking about :). If you spend your life taking photos and videos, and then watch them later on, it’s not only similar to watching your own dreams, but even spending time recording them. And you forget to live….

 

More to that. How many watch movies, reality shows or tv series? A lot! You can look at stats and you will find that billions of creatures watch them daily. But isn’t that like watching other people’s dreams?

TV-Watching

Think about this….is it worth spending the short amount of time you have on this planet looking at digital representations of it, of reality?

 

I used to be obsessed with new phones and cameras, I had some of the most high-end phones back in the days when phones with cameras were first available. I was taking so many photos and recording so many videos. One time I remember I went to a school holiday (in a camp sort of a thing) and I had an Alcatel from 2003 (brand new) with less colors than my shoes that are blue with white :)) and a camera of such a low quality that you could identify people from trees, but not the other way around :). Anyways because I loved technology I took the phone in this holiday and filmed/photographed everything, even though it only had 1.8MB for storage, but I deleted many photos as I wanted to take new ones. I used it so much and looked at the holiday/trip through its display for so long that I had troubles for weeks to be able to think or dream in more than 3 colors :). I mean it. It was so frustrating but if I tried to imagine a scenery I wasn’t able to imagine it in full colors. Only in Alcatel quality. All of that trip for me was in 3 colors. Same way, I suspect, such moments, if not most part of people’s lives, are in HD or 4k, but never in full eye-resolution.

Everywhere I go I see people with their phones taking so many photos, then they look at their screens to be sure the photo is good. They seem to pay little attention to wherever they are.

I choose not to slip into this kind of behavior again and I rarely take my phone out to ‘capture’ the reality, so rare that I have to explain it these days because it is not like I am taking only 30 photos a week, but maybe 10 a year. I realize now how relaxing and real it is to enjoy where you go (or when just live) instead of taking photos or record. Even if you say that you will only take a few photos, I suspect that unconsciously you are still looking at sceneries in terms of a good photo shoot, and this may diminish your enjoyment of that moment.

I know that it is interesting to look back at photos of you, more so when you get wrinkles :), but I hope to create a very interesting life for myself so that I don’t feel the need to look back, not even further, but at present.  When I was little I played all day long with my friends: hide and seek, football, and so many other games. I find it ridiculous to imagine now that we could stop and take a selfie while hiding when playing hide and seek and ‘hashtag’ it  #youcantfindme and put it on twitter. Or a group photo with the momentary football teams that we assembled on the spot. We enjoyed that moment and didn’t feel the need to post it somewhere or capture it so we can look at it in the future, because we were so busy with the present. We really felt like we were living and we won’t miss a thing if we don’t record the moment because tomorrow we start over again 🙂

A side note: I suspect that people who post photos with them or updates about how much fun they have, don’t have that much fun because if they had they would have little or no time or interest to post it on a social network for others to see. Don’t you think? I also suspect that most interesting people don’t have a FB or Instagram account :). They may not care about such things, but their present life that they are so busy living that they don’t need to record it.

I understand that there might be people enjoying taking photos and don’t see this as a big deal, but do you wonder how it would be to live in an era where there were no such devices? Maybe that would be more fulfilling for you? I’m just wondering this…

 

I’ve been in some very interesting places and took no photos at all, but I don’t feel like I had missed anything. I enjoyed the trip and this is what I do for the past years. Try to leave your smartphone at home when you go out, see how that feels :). Maybe it is a complete waste of time to record all these moments…..for whom are you doing this? And whoever that ‘whom’ is, in hundreds of years time (or less), your photos or videos may, more than likely, be completely irrelevant. So, I would suggest to live for yourself, and if you leave no trace of your life, no worries, all of our life’s traces will be gone eventually (and quite sooner I suspect because with so many photos you may find it hard to already see their relevance).

I don’t choose to live my dream, I just try to live 🙂

Social Pressure

Social Pressure

Social Pressure: The Force Behind Societies

This girl falls pretty hard at a ballet concert and hits her head on the floor, but although we can see that she felt pain (perhaps quite a lot), she quickly went back to ‘perform’ the dance. 

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This is something we may not pay that much attention to, but I think we are missing an important ‘force’ that holds societies together, and that is the “social pressure”. Trends in fashion, jokes, what is gruesome, normal, what are the limits of social values, were always fine tuned by the social pressure force that exist solely as an unseen effect and influencer of human cultures, ideas, rules, norms.

What I want to talk in this article about, is the general influence this ‘force’ has on all of us, and see if we can define it and how valuable it is for The Venus Project’s direction, as it might be one of the most important aspects that will keep a society like TVP in place.

 

DARK MATTER

From Galileo and Newton, to Einstein, one ‘force’ has become more well know than any other, it is the Gravity. Many people have heard of this force, which as Einstein proved it is actually the bending of space (not really a force), but there are other forces or ‘theories’, less known and less popular. 

Take for instance a galaxy. Huge pile of stars and planets (billions of them), gas and interactions. Many have thought that the ‘backbone’ of a galaxy is the very popular gravity that holds all of the ‘stuff’ into one formation. However, recently humans realized that there is not enough mass for the matter that is inside a galaxy to be held together by gravity alone. In short, if all the matter that is observed inside a galaxy would rely solely on gravity’s effect to hold its structure, a galaxy could not form. They then theorised that there should be more ‘stuff’ than the ‘stuff’ we observe, and this ‘stuff’ should have enough mass to then explain why galaxies do not fall apart. They called this stuff ‘dark matter’.

Spiral galaxy NGC 1376.

And this ‘thing’, because they do not know what it is exactly, seems to be an essential part of the universe we know, without which the universe that we know today would not exist. It cannot be seen directly (it does not absorb or emits light), but its effect on other cosmic bodies seems to be noticeable. 

SOCIAL PRESSURE

In the same way, we today may think that what holds a society together is knowledge, culture, technology, or laws, and even if some of those are of course part of, I think the ‘dark matter’ in this case is the social pressure, without which, a society could not have formed, no matter of the society. 

Social pressure may be mostly associated with a negative impact on individuals, but in actuality it all depends on the circumstances. What I want to do is to showcase its power regardless of the outcome.

Let’s categorize the social pressure in 3 distinct parts: the fear, the uncomfortable, and the unnecessary.

 

The Fear:

At a high point on planet Earth, as one may call it ‘almost the top of a mountain’, a group of people survive with only their basic necessities met. They have an agricultural system to provide them with food, and collect water mainly from the melted ice that sits like a blanket on top, around and close to them. They are not many, they have no government, no money, but they are organized because of one simple and single force: pressure, peer pressure.

150324_SCI_Himalayas-MeetinginMarthang.jpg.CROP.original-original

You see, water is scarce there and working the land requires many of their own. Both can only be achieved through cooperation. When cooperation breaks and conflict happens, the instigators face ‘social imprisonment’. They are ignored by the rest of the members and the instigators’ lives become solitary, in a place where the nearest pile of civilization is 257 km (160 miles) away, and can only be accessed with a jeep for only a half a year as the rest of the year is covered by snow. This social imprisonment is so powerful that no one wants to be in such a position. If they do not want to help with the agriculture or share water, they are threatening the survival of the entire community and the community reacts like an immune system.

They very rarely face such issues because of the tremendous force, not written, but felt, that governs their community. You can read more about them here.

Laws are the means through which ‘civilized’ (that’s what some say) societies tried for thousands of years to keep themselves under control (be it for ‘good’ or ‘bad’ reasons). But trying to map and harness the power of social pressures with laws is like trying to map the stars in our galaxy with the naked eye and harness their solar power. Very inefficient, almost ridiculously so. Laws may make a few fear to break them, but as we showcased in our article on prisons and ‘morality and ethics’ their power is greatly limited and most of the small scale conflicts (in family, with friends, etc.), and perhaps even big scale conflicts, are solved inside the community/family and not by law, and ideally will be solved by technology as we will discuss near the end of the article.

Think of that community of people living on top of the mountain. If they had laws that did not matched the reality in which they lived in, then the laws would have been inefficient. If they would have said: “If one refuses to work, then he/she will be kept in a dark room for a period of time as a punishment” then the people may not have seen the ‘reason’ behind such a law and not be as pressured to respect it, but if they grew up with the notion that if they refuse to work, they hurt the community that they were part of, and there are some inherited laws (like social imprisonment/ignorance, and not punishment as in the ‘law’ sense) then one could better measure the consequences and understand the ‘reasoning’.

 

To put it another way, if you were to explain to your kids all of the things they are not allowed to do (don’t play with the dishes, don’t throw away the food, and so on) then you will have little success, but if the children grow up understanding that by playing with the dishes they may break them and that hurts the family financially, or that throwing away the food then they may not have what to eat, and all that will also cause their parents to be ‘upset’ at them (not talk to them, ignore them), then this will be more efficient as a social (familial) pressure that the children will learn to respect.

Sad little girl listening her parents having an argument

Therefore the fear behind social pressure must be one that matches the reality and it is inherited, not punishable by others, but self imposable. If I refuse to share water with people, I know that they will ignore me and I will become alone and with no help for the future, no support of any kind, and this will make me feel more powerfully the things that I will lose if I am not going to respect that ‘rule’. It will also make it hard for me to blame someone but myself, but if there will be a punishment for my behavior in the form of a law, then I may regard that as a ‘someone else’ that punishes me, which is the one that made the law and people who are supporting it, and it may make me feel like I am right, but the law is ‘wrong’. And all this may make the law very inefficient. Understand? I hope so.

So, if there will be a ‘fear’ factor when it comes to social pressure, then for it to be more efficient, its ‘reasoning’ and consequences must match the reality and be properly understood by the people.

 

In our societies people fear the same social imprisonment too: you can start to be ‘mean’ with your friends (not violent or breaking the law) but you know that you will lose them and this fear makes people modify/edit their behavior. In a documentary by Channel4, “The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds”, they looked closely at how 4 year olds interact with each others in a kindergarten, and one example is perfect to show how social pressure in the form of ‘fear’ influences the human behavior, almost similar with how scientists, although they can’t observe this ‘dark matter’, observe its effects on other cosmic objects. There was a 4 year old boy who was very mean with the other children (he was stealing the toys, food, and behave in a ‘rude’ manner) but after a while, because of his behavior, the other children started to ignore him and not play with him. The teachers were also reminding him many times to behave better with the other children because it is not nice to behave the way he did. But never punished him for his behavior.

Chaim, Christian and the chocolate cake. Photograph: Katie Hyams/Channel 4

This entire pressure, being felt day by day, made this kid to start and behave more nicely towards the other children and seek for friendship at one point. You could clearly see him suffering for being alone. No punishment was applied for this kid, only the social imprisonment he felt because of his own behavior. No one he could blame for his behavior, no ‘enemies’ he could project a possible anger towards, he just felt alone and ‘fighting’ with no one but his own behavior. Realizing that improving his behavior results in better outcome (making friends for instance) he seemed to understand and control this better than a rule that might have punished him for the behavior he exhibited.

Politicians are very scared of such pressures and often they choose their words carefully to not upset the people, or else they may not get elected. ‘Mini-Gods’ (celebrities) are also pressured by their fans and their public appearances to behave in a certain way and only say a certain things. Even priests, parents, or other people in societal ‘functions’ will fear for losing their established position. 

When the uncomfortable becomes very uncomfortable, the fear is felt.

 

The Uncomfortable:

If the husband of a loving wife, dies, and at the day of the funeral the wife cannot find her makeup tools to prepare for the funeral, she may get stressed over this, even though it is the funeral of her beloved husband. She doesn’t want to look ‘bad’ or ‘inappropriate’ even in such situations because that may make her feel uncomfortable. 

A girl with a rare syndrome is sleeping even 2 weeks on a row, with occasional wake ups to go to the bathroom and eat. She is a teenager and, from what this documentary about her portrays, she seemed more concerned about not missing school or the prom than about her own health. One may wonder why she may seem more concerned about societal factors than her own health. If I were to have this syndrome, I would be very interested as to what is causing it, how it affects my health and what can I do to improve my situation. But even the girl’s parents looked more concerned that she may not be able to finish school than how this syndrome affects her health. Towards the end of the documentary she seemed more emotionally affected by her high school final grades than about the important medical results of her condition that she just received. As a side note, I am sure her parents are concerned about the girl’s disease, but they seemed far more emotionally touched/driven when it comes to society based and invented rules such as the one’s look, proms, or school grades, than about a real, health crippling condition. 

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In another documentary, a girl had another rare condition that made her look much older than she was. At 16 she looks like at 60. Face, teeth, indeed some internal organs, seem to be all affected by the disease. The interesting aspect is that, as shown in this documentary as well, the girl and the people around her, looked more concerned about the peer pressure, social pressure, than about the disease and its effect on the girl’s health. The girl, as she said, was mocked and ridiculed in school because of her looks, and that seemed to have affected her more than the disease itself. This was evident when she went for a very expensive and painful facial plastic surgery to ‘fix’ her, not health, but societal problem.

This all shows, I think, how, even if your life is on the edge or crippled by some sort of disease, many people are conforming to the tribe’s norms that they self subject to and get ruled by.

 

And these are not rare situations, we all feel uncomfortable by this kind of social pressure every single day. One may even be quite stressed that his hairstyle is not ‘ok’ in the same day when he finds out if he has cancer or not. Very few of us think of walking very slow on the street, just so we can piss other people off (because that may cause us trouble with the other people); or say nasty words to random people; dress in pink dresses if you are a guy; curse at no one while walking on public; dress backwards; lick trees, or whatever. 

You can do many things in this world that are not punishable by any kind of law, yet you don’t because is either the social pressure (you are afraid of how others will see you or how they will react) or because it doesn’t even cross your mind to do these things.

I was once walking with a friend of mine and we saw a convertible car. We were young and from a tribe where you don’t see such cars very often. He laughed and said: “Ha! Such a stupid design. I bet many people pee in his car because it has no roof!” That looked like a good argument for both of us at that time :). But of course, this is not happening because no one will really thinks of doing that, even if some may do this, and it is not because of the fear of laws/consequences mainly, but just because it is not ‘right’ to behave this way or because of what other people might think of you if you are exhibiting such behaviors.

 

There are many psychological experiments done over the years that show even more clearly how this ‘force’ of social pressure is present in many cultures and in many different circumstances and ways. Watch this playlist to see some of these experiments:

[ytp_video source=”1-U6QTRTZSc”]

Think about it: the way people talk, walk, what they wear, what they like or don’t like, is very much influenced by the social pressure. No law tells you to not wear a dress if you are a guy, yet you don’t wear one even if you may like it, because you are afraid of how others will see you. You will feel uncomfortable.

 

The Unnecessary:

But this state created by the social pressure doesn’t have to be one of ‘fear’ and discomfort, but one of feeling ‘right’ to not behave a certain way. Meaning, a scientist may not destroy important fossils because he may understand the importance of them, even in a situation in which he will not face any legal repercussions. He understands, based on his culture, that it is not ‘right’ to behave in a certain way and he can be influenced by that even in situations in which he doesn’t feel any kind of fear or be uncomfortable about his decision.

potrojny grob 

I can take all the money from TVP Magazine donation campaign, not share any with Ray, and run away with them without making any TVP Magazine issue :). Since perhaps no one knows where I live or who I really am, and I signed no contract that forces me to use the money for this magazine, I would probably face absolutely no fear or state of discomfort by doing this (no one can contact me to make me feel bad about my decision). But I can’t do this because I feel it is not ‘right’. There is no law or punishment or state of discomfort that something/or others can put on me, but still, I am behaving ‘properly’. And that is solely because this is how I feel is ‘right’ and that state of feeling is created by the environment I was exposed to. Thus, I feel it as unnecessary to do this.

 

BUT IT CAN BE BEND OR BROKEN OR IT CAN VANISH

If you were to give to the people from the top of the mountain as much water as needed and food, without them being forced to work to obtain them, then the social pressure on behavior that gravitated around those needs will vanish as no one can be punished for not sharing the water since there will be no need for sharing it.

If the dishes are unbreakable, children can play with them and no social pressure will be needed to make them change their behavior in regards to that as they can’t break the dishes.

If that 4 year old child had access to all the toys and foods he wanted, then he would probably not have seen the point in stealing any toy or food and so his behavior towards the other kids would perhaps be very different. 

If people would have been educated about what ‘beauty’ is or even what ‘social pressure’ is, then perhaps less will see the need to modify their appearance or behavior because of other’s opinions or put their appearance first and health second.

If I were to starve to death and would need the money from TVP Magazine that also belongs to Ray, then maybe I will be forced to take all the money to save my life. On the other hand if I were to live in a TVP like society where we would need no money to cover our basic needs (to keep us alive) as they will be meet, then the entire dilemma/situation around this issue would disappear completely (no one would even wonder if I were to do such a thing).


Great-artists-steal-How-to-dramatically-improve-as-a-Web-Developer-by-stealing-from-Open-Source

When the fear created by social pressure is exceeded by other means (like being in a position where you life is threatened by, let’s say, lack of food), when environmental factors (climate change, poverty, etc.) are more uncomfortable than social pressure, and when you don’t see it ‘right’ anymore (education, changing values) to behave in a way that society values as ‘right’, then social pressure can break, bend or vanish in certain circumstances.

 

But I find it hard to think that social pressure will ever be eliminated as it is an effect of the contrast between social norms (culture and the society) and individuals. If in a society there is normal to share for free all the goods and services, then the social pressure will be felt by those who may think of not sharing. Not all will feel the same effects and in the same way, but we are all, in a way or another, no matter of the culture and society, affected by the social pressure, this invisible force that shapes our behavior, and we shape society because of it, and society influences us, and this loop is a constant one.

 

But hold on, I have talked about social pressure as if it is a ‘something thing’ although I must admit I do not understand what it is properly either, only see its effects, and let me explain why it may not even be a ‘something’ but a ‘something else’.

Baby Expressions

Dark matter is, probably, not ‘matter’. At least not something we recognize as matter. Scientists have literally no clue of what this is, but it certainly is something. Maybe gravity is not properly understood and this dark matter doesn’t even exist, and is something beyond it and the gravity. It is still a mystery, a complex one to solve for us, humans. 

Social pressure may be the same. Perhaps we are just observing some effects of the environmental influences on human behavior and we choose to call some behaviors as as social pressure influenced, some scarcity driven, some emotional, and so on, and they all might not even be relevant categorized as such. I do not know, I must admit, because this might be more complicated than the dark matter itself, but as in the case of the dark matter, there is definitely something there as we see ‘its’ effects, a ‘force’ that makes most people behave in a way that does not break the social norms that often and this ‘force’ seems to keep a society more alike, more uniform, more robust, whatever this society might be.

 

This whole thing might be explained by rewards and punishments in regards to behavior. When you give food to a pigeon who turns its head left, and you do that many times, then the pigeon associates the head movement with the reward. Perhaps people associate rewards in how people behave to them with other kinds of behaviors that they themselves exhibit. If one sees that by drinking alcohol and being a bully he is admired by his peers, then he might continue that behavior for the peer reward factor. In another sense, of one sees that when she brings religion into discussion when she is with her friends, it makes her friends uncomfortable and they even try to ignore her, then she might end up by not discussing religion with her friends.

 

Therefore, this thing that we may call as social pressure, if we can define it properly, should then be regarded not as a ‘bad’ or a ‘good’ influence, but an influence, a powerful one. The saner the society, the more positive outcomes such influence will have.

 

To harness its powers for a progressive and saner future you should create an environment in which people are scientific enough to have a basic understanding of the world the live in, human behavior, technology and semantics. Also, without an environment of abundance (goods and access), meaning an infrastructure that can keep a society saner, this ‘social pressure’ will be perhaps more harmful and many times non effective as people will steal, become violent, and create all sorts of issues when their needs are not meet, regardless of how powerful the social pressure will be.

 

In a TVP like society people will feel right to not steal or take advantage of others; they will feel right to share with people, cooperate, help the others and the society. It may feel hard to imagine that such a world can work without police or laws, but couple the TVP infrastructure with social pressure and I think we might see it being a realistic view of the future.

 

Language is very inefficient when trying to explain such a complex subject and I can only hope you understood this article. I highly recommend you the article we did on Reason and Logic and one about values (The TVP Vaccine) to try and see how it connects with this one.

 

NOTE: This article was written by me for TVP Magazine but was not accepted by Jacque and Roxanne as they said it has many assumptions, and I agree it has some, but I also think that you cannot avoid this when talking about human behavior. Anyway, I think it is an important article at least to make you think about social pressure and what, if any, importance it has. 😉

Less talk, more work

Less talk, more work

Some people have asked me many times over the past 4 years how I could create TROM documentary alone, or manage/do other projects that are very work intensive like TVP Magazine, or how do I get motivated to make videos, write, and so on. To be honest, I kinda’ understand their questions as I have seen many people trying to do different projects and failing to accomplish that. Why are they failing?

Here’s why I think many people fail.

 

1. Depend only on you!

When you do something new, different, and get no reinforcement, then it is just you doing that and thus no prize for what you do or encouragement.

Therefore if you do not enjoy the ride and you still expect for such reinforcements, you will probably fail. Most things that I’ve done, from magazine to documentary, other videos, or websites, I’ve done because I enjoyed staying at the computer and working on them, not expecting any reward at the end, not expecting anyone to encourage me, not having a deadline. I’ve done them for myself, for my own pleasure. And thus, depending only on myself, I rarely back down from any project.

If you mentally depend on others to encourage you, then what happens when you don’t get any encouragements?

 

2. Don’t plan!

Many people make lists, prepare, create a plan, and they put a huge effort into this, then they have no energy or motivation left for doing what they wanted to do in the first place. I know many people who create teams, make logos for the teams, many spreadsheets, groups, and spend most if not all the time preparing as if it will come if you prepare for it. Many people have told me they will help me with this or with that, or will do this or that, and I never heard from them again. I know they were all well intended and nice humans, but they consumed their energy (probably) before they begun.

I never do that. If I feel like writing about something for TVPM I open the Google Docs and start writing. If I want to make a website I start working on it. When I took TVP Magazine project I first made a demo and showed it to Roxanne and analyzed how much time I need to make one issue. When I presented to her what I want to do, I already made sure I can manage this project by testing that.

I remember when I and another friend, while in high school, were planning to open a web-design company. We worked on the company’s website (ours) for months (we debated over the logo for weeks), we thought about prices, how we will work, how we will get paid, and so on. The result? No web design company because we lost the interest after a couple of months.

If you want to make a video about something, like the series I’ve done recently with Jacque Fresco, just open the video editor, then search for what materials you need (music, voice, footage) and start doing it. Forget about planning as to how long the video should be, what footage to use, what music. Such things come about while you are working on it.

 

3. Forget the details!

Another mistake I think people do is to focus on details way too obsessive. The blue is not blue enough, the corners are not sharp enough, the music is a bit too loud….you will drown in your own thoughts and not do any project. You will get better as you work more. The more videos you make, the better you will make them. So what that a video has a music that is a bit too loud!? Release the damn video and next time make one with a lower volume for the music.

You should decide of what matters. If you want to influence people through videos that have a powerful message, then remember that even 240p videos made in Movie Maker go viral. People don’t care as much about such things as you imagine. Do you think that your video will be successful if it is in HD? I bet no! There are many HD videos with barely any views on Youtube.

I haven’t made any video that got millions of views until now, but I made many that have thousands of views. Maybe the more I make the more chances for one to go viral. The important thing is that I am not looking for that.

Videoneat has many glitches, and works poorly on mobile devices, but I think is better with it than putting it on hold until solving those problems. TROM has many audio imperfections, but changed the life of many people (as they have told me). TVP Magazine sometimes has some typos or design errors, but we improve that on the fly and people still love the magazine.

 

4. Take into account what others say, but don’t!

I can’t remember how many nonsensical advices I’ve got for the past 7 years…but I took them into account, and if I detected bullshit, I moved on. And most, were bullshit. By that I mean people will always try to teach you how to do things in the ‘right’ way.

Use only 3 colors for the design! Don’t make videos longer than 4 minutes! No one will use such a website! !!! And so on!

Do you think they know much about this? Are they successful on making videos, websites or other projects? Probably not! And even if they are, why not try it your way. If I were to ask my friends if I should make TROM documentary 14 hours long, well… imagine what they would have said to me….Or an online magazine….I am sure many would have said that people do not read magazines nowadays.

 

5. DO it!

I can’t stress this enough. Whatever you have in your mind to do: a website, a video, whatever, just do it. You may not finish it, but if you enjoy doing it you won’t care, and in the process you will learn something new. Stop thinking if others will enjoy it, if it will be successful, and so on, you will be able to measure such things and improve on the fly. Some of the most viewed videos I made are those I worked the less on, strangely enough.

I have also seen people buying all kinds of equipment before starting a project because they think they lack a good mic, or a good camera, or a good software, or a good computer. This is like buying a training suit and sport shoes thinking that you will start making some exercises. Many times that is not the true and you will wear your training suit inside your home watching TV :).

I made TROM documentary with the most low spec computer you could have, and I made it in HD. That is because I was motivated. If I had waited for a good PC, no TROM would have been made.

Therefore, I think that if you want to do something you should start doing it and remember that people ‘know what they know’, nothing more than that, and they may not know much to give you any advice, thus be original and do it your way. And enjoy the ride because if you fail to accomplish what you wanted to accomplish, then it will be no waste of time.

I never got any reinforcements for anything I’ve done so far, and everything I’ve done I’ve done it for me, for my own enjoyment. The fact that thousands of people enjoy what I do, every day (reading or watching stuff I do) is a side effect of my work and my drive towards sharing with people what I do. I made VideoNeat because I always loved to share information with people, and now I share documentaries I see, with hundreds each day.

As a side note, I realized for the past year that I spend too much time managing the TVP Magazine viral images that we post on TVP facebook page, and by tha I mean I reply to all comments that needed a reply, and debated with people way too much. I thought that maybe I should cut that time by 80% (since many such debates were leading nowhere) and spend this 80% doing something else, and well I managed to make 6 short videos in a week that have reached many thousands of people, I managed to work more on a new TVP website that we strive to create, organized 34gb of Youtube videos that we intend to post on the new website, and do other things that are more productive. So that was less talk, more work 🙂

This is what works for me, to enjoy what I do (the ride) and do it in the way I consider is best to do it although listen to others as well but have a good bullshit filter, and just start doing it without planning too much.

VideoNeat taken down

VideoNeat taken down

VideoNeat is a project that I started to gather all of the wonderful scientific video-materials that I can find and share them with people in a way that is very simple and efficient. I hoped that human beings, on this sphere we call Earth, will know more about the world we live in and that can have a ripple effect overall leading perhaps to a smarter society.
I know we live in a crazy world where people’s imagination is at high peeks and they think that ones and zeroes can be owned, so I did not hosted any video or photo material on this website specifically because of that. However I received today the following email:

Good Morning,

Pursuant to 17 USC 512(c)(3)(A), this communication serves as a statement that I am a duly authorized representative of The Teaching Company LLC, which is the exclusive rights holder for the video content being hosted at http://www.videoneat.com/lectures/, including but not limited to the titles A New History of Life, Black Holes Tides and Curved Spacetime: Understanding Gravity, Joy of Mathematics, The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries, Physics and Our Universe: How It All Works, Understanding the Science for Tomorrow, Introduction to Nanotechnology: The New Science of Small, Understanding the World’s Greatest Structures, The History of Scientific Medicine Revealed through Biography, Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It, My Favorite Universe, Great Thinkers, Great Theorems, Great Scientific Ideas That Changed the World, Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, Science: 20th Century, Science: 1700 to 1900, and Science: Antiquity to 1700.

These exclusive rights are being violated by material available upon your site at the following URL: http://www.videoneat.com/lectures/;

The use of this material in such a fashion is a direct violation of our terms of service and is not authorized by the copyright holder, the copyright holder’s agent, or the law.

Please confirm within 48 hours that you have removed this material and will cease from additional copyright violations, or we will pursue legal action, including but not limited to pursuing a shutdown via your hosting provider.

Thank you.

Regards,

Michelle Merritt

The Teaching Company, LLC

The Great Courses

4840 Westfields Blvd Ste 500

Chantilly, VA 20151

1-800-832-2412

merrittm@teachco.com

 

My reply:

Hello,
No video is hosted on VideoNeat.com. The links are from public places. Let me know if that is still infringing any copyright. I am sorry if that may have caused you any trouble. If indeed we infringe copyright by embedding videos that are from internet public places, then we will remove the material. Please let me know. Thank you!

Then:
Hello, If you are hosting these videos from public places (like YouTube), if possible, would you be able to send me the link to the website that is hosting the material? Since this is our intellectual property and you are not permitted to post them, we would appreciate you removing the material from your website, and I will pursue the website that is hosting these videos. Thank you for your cooperation in advance. Michelle Merritt The Great Courses Compliance Department

Me again:
Can you please let me know if and what law videoneat.com is breaking by embedding videos from public sources? I want to fix that first so there will be no issues in the future. I am not aware of such a law this is why I want to make it legal if it breaks any law that I am not aware of. Second, videoneat.com is a non-profit website and all the materials that we present are only for educational purposes.
I will immediately remove the materials if we are breaking the law by embedding them. I am all for cooperating for sure.
Thank you

Reply again:
Our courses are intellectual property and you are infringing the DMCA laws that strictly prohibit any reproduction. Here is your official Notice of Infringement statement:

Hello,

My name is Michelle Merritt. I work for the Teaching Company LLC The Great Courses. The below links have been posted on your website in infringement of our copyright:

http://www.videoneat.com/lectures/

Proof of Infringement: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/index.php

I would appreciate your assistance in removing these. Below is the DMCA statement

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

If you require any further information please feel free to contact me either by email or at the number below.

Thanks

 

That took 6 hours or so. I had 48h to decide, remember? Well then I’ve got an email from the hosting company saying that they took all of the website down until I remove those pages with ‘their’ lectures. Again, I hosted no lectures on VideoNeat. It is like if you see a video on youtube and embed it on your website, and the video (without you being aware of that) is ‘illegal’ then your website can be taken down it seems. Well that is great!

Right now it seems that I can put the website back if I remove all of those lectures. However since I don’t have access to the back end of the website anymore I don’t know how I am going to do that. I am waiting for the hosting company to reply. To be honest I am not surprised at all, and although probably videoneat.com will be up again without lectures, it can happen that the entire website will be taken down one day.

I can’t say much about this because it is what it is, that’s the world we live in….Don’t worry though, the internet is full of those lectures and even more than that, and I will make a page/list on videoneat for where to find the best lectures online. I will post more about this subject because there are some other interesting facts about this. I will post updates here as to how and when I will be able to get videoneat up again.

One thing to think about, this personal website hosts more copyrighted materials than videoneat did, because I do not own the photo thumbnails from the blog articles. Just a thought….

 

UPDATE 1

Site is up now. I had to remove the lectures though, but I will post an update on how I intend to replace this section of VideoNeat with better lectures. By the way if you were following any lecture on VideoNeat please send me a personal message it will be such a shame to not finish the course ;).

UPDATE 2

I didn’t have the time to add lectures from other sources, but I will as soon as I have some free time. Until then you can go and buy their courses for hundreds of dollars each, here. However please DO NOT use torrent like websites to download them because it is not a Christian thing to do!

 

UPDATE 3

I added lots of new lectures now, and they are not from the great expensive company ;). So, we are back 🙂 – http://videoneat.com/lectures/

I was hit by a car today

I was hit by a car today

Today I’ve been hit by a car on the crosswalk. The car was a police car (first irony) and everything was legal/right/lawful. But the second irony is that when I crossed the street, a firefighter car hits the police car from behind, and the police car hits me.

Luckily I managed to jump up and so it won’t hit my legs first, and protect myself with one hand to not hit the car with my head, and to my surprise I even landed on my feet after a few meters from the impact. Quite a thrilling moment that reminds me how fricking stupid this system is, letting people to drive these huge pieces of metals instead of having autonomous cars as a default option for all cars.

The firefighter’s excuse was that they were looking for lost children and didn’t pay attention to the road. And that is even more of a motive to have self driving cars.

The astonishing thing is that there are 1.3 million people killed in traffic accidents each year. That is as much as HIV kills each year. Imagine that!

Here’s a picture I took after the incident happened:

20140825_202705

Imagine that the police car was a meter or so behind the crosswalk before it hits me. So I was thrown a meter or two in front of the stopped police car that you see in the picture. You do the math. By the way, before crossing the street the policeman waved me to cross it, signaled me that I can cross it….so wasn’t my fault at all.

What was so astonishing to me is that the policeman didn’t bother to go out of the car and ask the guy that was thrown meters away from the impact (me) if I am ok. It took many minutes after they did that and even then, they said to me if I feel ok I should go home. Well I was just thrown couple of meters from a direct impact and they are telling me to go home. Anyway, some people were very nice and tried to help with anything they could, firefighters as well. I wasn’t injured that bad, my back and one of my legs hurts a bit, and I might go tomorrow to the hospital.

 

I waited for the ambulance to come, but they said that I can go home if it doesn’t hurt that much and I can go to the hospital if it starts to hurt more. Anyway, I was going home and another policeman stops me with his motorcycle and asks me for my name, address, and other stuff that I didn’t know. I had to go home, find these ‘very important documents’, and go to the police station where they scanned them and they sent me home.

 

So, that was my day, how was yours? 🙂

I was hit by a car, pretty seriously (luckily I managed to have a pretty good reflex) and I was sent home as if nothing happened. I am sure if I had a huge poster  that said the word ‘nigger’ or showing a picture with a ‘vagina’ I would have been much more ‘investigated’ by the police.

 

They think that they are solving problems by putting signs on the road, creating laws, telling people to drive more carefully, but the only way to fix problems is to fix them, and by that I mean use science and technology to solve them. If there is a ‘war’ against cancer, why isn’t there a war  on cars driven by people that kill 1.3 million humans a year?

 

By the way, because of tribal separation and the fact that I don’t know spanish very well, even when they tried to talk with me it was such a mess (language barrier). This system we live in even if it seems to work, it is just an illusion. It doesn’t. It knows best how to hide collateral damages so that it looks like it is working.

 

I have to take a break for a few days to recover a bit, so TVPM will be released a bit later than usual.

 

The most unfair game

The most unfair game

The most unfair game you will ever play:

Think of this world, the monetary system, as a Monopoly game.

Alex wakes up in the morning.

He hears a lot of noise coming from the living room.

He doesn’t know what is happening.

He goes into the living room and there are many people playing Monopoly on a big table. There they are: Alex’s family, friends, relatives, and some people that he doesn’t know.

6a01347fd525ca970c015435d9cef1970c

Alex smiles and sits at the table. He watches for a while how they play and then one guy says to him “Roll the dices kid, it’s your turn! Here, this is your board’s piece and take $100. Go on, roll the dices now!”

Alex feels excited and does as is told.

“It’s a 7!” Says one of his friends.

Alex moves his monopoly piece and his friend says : “That’s my property! You have to pay me $20.”

Alex feels a bit uncomfortable about that, but it is the start of the game, so he accepts and pay. He only has $80 now. When Alex has to take his salary, he realizes that his is way less than of the other ones. He starts to lose his enthusiasm about the game.

The game goes on and Alex jumps from property to property, paying almost all of his money to the others.

Alex: “Hold on! I don’t think it’s fair! When I came to the game, everything was bought. Every single property, every single house or hotel that you have on your properties was there….What is the point for me to play the game if everything is bought and I don’t even have money to buy anything even if there were available properties?”

DSC_0402

“These are the rules son.” – Says one of his parents. “Go on, play more, it will be better!”

Alex doubt this, but continues to play.

Alex’s friends are much better off than him. They have many properties, hotels and houses. Alex ask one of his friends how is it that he has so many things because he wasn’t playing for longer than him. He says that those are his parent’s properties and he can own them because of that.

“You see, your parents have no property. They don’t play well at all son.” says the father of his friend, with a slightly arrogant smile on his face.

Alex: “I don’t think it’s fair at all…”

 

One of Alex’s relatives is in ‘jail’ but he is happy about that “I stay here and make money” he says. “I have no worries that I have to pay anything to anyone, no worries at all. Sometimes is better in jail than out.”

Alex’s parents encourage him to strive more because by doing that he will succeed eventually. He tries, but nothing really changes.

Alex’s parents leave the game. They leave him with a bank debt that he has to carry on with him for the rest of the game. Now things are even worst for Alex.

The game becomes no fun at all. Alex spins his monopoly piece around that game board, round and round, rolling the dices, paying to others for stuff that they own, getting an unfair payment from time to time….

“Where is the fun?” he says.

“I see you guys competing with each other, selling and buying properties, adding houses and hotels, fanatically calculating your ‘wealth’….but where is the fun in all this? Aren’t you tired? Bored?”

Worldwide+Attempt+Break+Monopoly+Playing+Record+UK6_nv5Ru9Il

“You are bored because you are losing, don’t you see?” – People at the table making fun of the kid.

“You don’t seem happy at all either, you seem to just play and not be able to stop.” says Alex to them. “And yea, I am losing as you can see, but I came here to play a game, to enjoy it, not necessarily to win it. And you already had the rules in place, you already had most of the board bought, and you even pay me way less than the other players. Of course I am losing.”

“You should take a loan” – People are saying.

“No, I will end up like my parents, losing even quicker. And more than that, I do not want to play anymore. It is not even a game anymore, it is madness. I am off!”

Some guy at the table grabs the kids arm “Not so fast kid! You cannot leave when you want to leave. You leave when we say!”

Godfather_2124354b

Alex: “What?! Are you kidding me? What is this, Monopoly Mafia? Let go of my arm!”

A lady at the table: “Darling, let him go. He is free to go, but he won’t get any food or any place to sleep if he leaves the table. You are free to go hunny.”

Alex: “Are you guys insane? What is wrong with you? This is just a damn game! Don’t you see? I think you have played it for so long that you took it seriously. You see all those houses and hotels, all those properties and money, all those shiny pieces you move around the board? They are not real guys! Wake up!”

People at the table: “What are you, a philosoph kid? If you don’t want to play, don’t play. But as we said, there will be consequences for that. We aren’t the ones making the rules, you know. These are the rules of the game. It is what it is.”

“I would help if I could Alex….” says one of Alex’s relatives.

Alex: “Oh my God guys….you really are taking this seriously….aren’t you?!”

 

—————————————————————————

What would you say if this happened in real life in a game of Monopoly? Completely ridiculous and crazy, right?

Imagine someone telling you: Come on and play Monopoly with us. But keep in mind, most of the properties are already bought; many properties already have houses and hotels and we will tax you a lot if you end up on them; you get paid less than we do; some of us can change the rules of the game; and if you leave the game or you don’t want to play, we will deprive you of food and shelter, and of any basic needs, in your real life of course. Be aware that even if you play well enough, it can become a bit crazy: you will be obsessed with acquiring more wealth and be more competitive, and many times you will feel that it is never enough for you. A, and we will choose your Monopoly piece. Come and play with us! 🙂

Doesn’t it sound like Hitler just invited you to play Monopoly with him?

Will you play? I am sure not. But you are already playing this game, don’t you see?

 

You are born in a world where people are already owning almost all of it: hills, beaches, hotels, houses, pools, bikes, cars, clothes, food, gadgets, even animals or anything you might imagine.

Your wealth will depend on your family’s wealth most of the times. You will get an unfair payment that does not reflect your efforts. There are tons of rules out there, most of which you are not aware of, and many people in this world can bend or remove/create new rules that will have an impact upon your life.

Your ‘monopoly piece’ is choose by others in the form of culture (what language you will learn, customs and traditions, religion, etc). People are very competitive in this world and want to take advantage of anyone (including yourself) — many of which feel that it is never enough wealth, and with a compulsive drive they want more and more –. Even the idea of being in jail and making money is something depicted from the real life. Many people in jail live better than poor people.

And most awful of all, if you choose not to play this real life monetary game, then you will not be able to purchase food, purchase your right to medical treatment, or to any of your needs. You can literally die if you do not play. Actually this happens with so many today.

A, and all of the people will tell you that you are not forced to play the game. And most of these people (players) do not even realize that it is just a game.

It is already happening yet you might not notice because you are part of it.

 

Please consider again if you would play a game that it is as rigged and coercive as the world we live in is. I bet none of you would resist 5 minutes playing it.

I think it is time for people to realize that and stop playing this crazy game, and instead focus on what is real: what we want as a species relative to our place on this sphere we call Earth.

In the end, it all goes back in the box:

Not part of any group

Not part of any group

I am volunteering for The Venus Project for the past few years but I never felt myself as a TVP Supporter or Activist. Why ?

When I was 12 I had a favorite football (soccer) team. I never missed any game. I had a t-shirt with my favorite player and my emotions were so high when they played. I remember that other friends of mine liked other rival teams and sometimes, when my favorite team played with their favorite team we’ve got into an argument. They always said “we deserved that penalty shot”, “we were better than you”, and so on. And I never understood why they say “we”, why they felt so part of those teams as to say “we”. They didn’t play obviously so why say that ? I never said “we”, I always said “my favorite team played better than yours”, but never “we”.

What I realized is that although I loved that team, I had distanced myself enough from it to be able to not be completely blind and so, when for instance there was a penalty shot for the adverse team and the referee didn’t accorded it, I was able to admit that it was actually a penalty shot and it was unfair for the adverse team.

And that’s the point.

I actually made this bookshot entitled “Harmful Thinking” especially for this kind of subject. You should read it is really important for all of us to be aware when we are emotionally entangled.

I do not want to create my self-image around any group or idea because, if I do so, I am prone to be biased, and erroneous thinking. It is better to look at things from outside their own limitations. For instance if someone comes up with a better project than TVP, I will go for that and volunteer for that project instead of TVP.

I eat many vegetables but I do not consider myself a “vegetarian”. I do not believe in any gods, but I am not an “atheist”. And I love science but I am not a “geek”. Those definitions that evolved into categories, in my view, are more detrimental than helpful. Sure may be a pleasant feeling to be part of the vegan group and meet with your vegan friends, but that with surely make you biased to hear arguments against “being vegan”. This will harm you and mislead you. And that goes for any such group.

I never smoked or drunk alcohol, although I tried that a few times, and I always heard people saying :”So you aren’t a smoker, isn’t it ?”, and I was like…well, isn’t that you are the “smoker” and I am just me ? People define now what you are not ? Isn’t this completely ridiculous ? Because there are so many things I am not.

I do not understand why I should declare myself as being this or that….I am just a human being and that’s not even a definition or a category because I have no clue what a human being really is.

Don’t limit yourself by following a group of people or a leader. I rarely give quotes, only when it is necessary and serve as a “link” for people to know more about what I quote, but I always prefer to send a message regardless of who is saying it. I see many people posting on social networks lots of quotes, and I never read who was quoted, only the quote, because that is the essential part.

So I will travel through my life, tasting ideas and picking the most I find relevant and factual without feeling the need to be part of any group and have a ‘badge’ for that 😉

4 things that amaze me (1)

4 things that amaze me (1)

This may become a series since there are around 40000 things that amaze me. But here’s what it is for this post.

1. The fact that I, you, all the people you know and ever lived, mountains, chocolate, hair, socks, stars, cows and everything else is made up of the same structures. Tiny structures we call atoms. Or even more exact, a proton and an electron. This is purely mad, it is a trillion times more mind blowing than the movie Matrix.

Here’s a real picture of an atom:

atom-wave-function-1

2. Is been only 20 years since the first exoplanet was discovered. Can you digest the fact that until 1992 there was no real proof that an exoplanet existed ? We take this for granted now and seems like people are not even excited at all if they hear about a new exoplanet being discovered, but till ’92 there was NONE.

Here’s an amazing picture of such a distant solar system. These small dots you see are planets….wow:

HR_8799_planetary_system_photo

3. The fact that around us there are movies, photos, private conversations and lots of other thoughts, but we cannot feel that. Internet and radio are all around us basically, but you need special tools to interpret them. Just imagine as you are reading this post there are melodies “singing” all around you but you cannot detect them. Just pick an old radio or your smartphone and listen to them to see that they are really there. And when you use a WiFi and send a message, that message goes through “thin air”….what if someone catches it and read it ? :). Well that’s a hacker actually 😉

More than that, think about the fact that you can “instantly” transmit a message/photo/video to someone on the other part of the Earth….quite hard to believe and we take it all for granted.

This is an amazing experiment that shows how the WiFi actually looks like:

4. I am amazed by the fact that one day I will not be anymore. I am really amazed by this fact because is hard to believe. We all seem to be very busy with our daily life never realizing we will not be here for long and is no way to “get back” to the game.

That’s a pretty hard thing to swallow. But there were many other billions of people who are not anymore. You and I will be one of them. Is damn scary, but even is we will be able to extend human life and even “digitize” ourselves and therefore live “forever”, it is still very likely that we will not be at all at one point. The Sun will expand and destroy the Earth as we know it today, and also the Universe is expanding so much it will have an “end” eventually.

Is such a frustrating thought…..sad, hard to believe, complex, interesting, real…..