retard u suck!!!1 (A Look at Flamers)

Alright. That's it. I have absolutely had it up to the very last hair on my head with those people. You know the kind of person I'm talking about. Yeah, that's right: those people who have a million bad words to say about anything and everything, yet not one good. If you use the Internet at all regularly, you will no doubt have come across thousands of these 'flamers'.

Seriously, what is wrong with them? I understand that criticism is necessary if anything is going to improve, but constructive criticism, please. Just 'bashing' or 'flaming' something for no good reason is... well, pointless.

And more than pointless: it is actively damaging to the psyches of both involved. The flamed party often becomes aggrieved by these senseless attacks, quite understandably, and invariably becomes embroiled in an emotionally draining argument. Even if the flamee has the good sense to stay away from said argument, comments like this are still very damaging.

Don't they realise what impact such flaming has on other people? Words can be very powerful - they can make people think, act or feel differently. I find it genuinely sad that so many people around the world think it's okay to treat their fellow human beings like crap, whether over the 'net or in real life.

I would like to know how these flamers think, I really would. What goes through their minds when they launch their hurtful attacks on people? Or is there indeed no intellectual intervention - is it simply instinctual?

Ultimately, there can be no defensible logical position for insulting someone. As any logicians will know this is a case of ad hominem, or attacking the man rather than the argument. Slagging off or dissing the other person, in layman's terms. So why do this?

Because it's all they know, I say. So many people in today's world grow up around people who frequently lose their rag and shout, make snide, hurtful comments or are just generally obnoxious. In my town, I have on several occasions seen parents shouting at and even swearing at their children.

You just don't do that. Children should not be shouted or sworn at. They are still very young and therefore have not yet built up the thick skin needed to deflect such comments. Such displays of flagrant anger from their own parents can only lead to a child growing up emotionally damaged. Parents should learn to develop tolerance and patience, at least when around their children. I can say from personal experience that nothing scares me more than my own dad when he's angry - even now, in my teens, that kind of thing lingers in the unconscious mind.

If I ruled the world (Which I have no intention of doing, let me state: it's far too big. I'd rather rule a small area the size of Luxembourg - the country or the capital.) I would make it so that everybody, and I mean everybody, would have to undergo a test before being given a license to breed. Call me a fascist if you like, but I have some reasons, good ones or not.

The gift of life is far too lightly given in today's world: I don't think I have to remind you about the horror stories concerning teenage grandmothers. And once it is given, it is not respected. A life is a terrible thing to waste, and yet it so often is because parents do not properly appreciate the full extent of just what having a child means.

In fact, I hate that phrase; 'having' a child. You don't just 'have' a child in the same way that you have a football: you take care of them. When you bring a life into this world, you burden yourself with an important responsibility, and like most responsibilities of this magnitude if it is not shouldered then it can lead to truly horrific results. Alright, so perhaps failing to be responsible for a child is not quite the same as failing to be responsible for Chernobyl's reactor, but if your child is screwed-up enough then murders may occur - names like Jeffrey Dahmer and Seung Hui-Cho spring to mind.

So am I saying that flamers are sociopaths? I suppose I am. One does not necessarily have to go on a killing spree to be a sociopath - people who don't care about the feelings of others and are fully justified of their own actions, no matter what the case, are displaying sociopathic tendencies. But then, do these flamers feel fully justified? Or do they realise, on however unconscious a level, that what they are doing is wrong?

In the end there just ain't enough love in the world. Yes I did say that, and if you feel like throwing up now then please go ahead.

But isn't it obvious? The child grows up emotionally damaged and not knowing how to love because their parents never showed them any, not knowing how to themselves. Having grown up, they then have a child of their own, and the whole vicious circle repeats itself, like a serpent biting its own tail.

If the world is to become a good and happy place, then love will be an integral part of the process. It is widely-held that hate is the opposite of love, but these same people often forget that hate is often a product of fear. Hate leads to destruction, and why destroy anything unless it's a threat to you? It is natural to fear threats, and therefore to hate them.

The primary breeding ground of fear is ignorance. It stands to reason that you'll take the brightly-lit path rather than the dark one, doesn't it? I don't know when it was exactly that being intelligent became unfashionable, but it has, which I think is a crying shame. Not only is it not fashionable to be intelligent - intelligence is commonly regarded by those who supposedly are fashionable to be an abberation and something to be shunned. Those words 'I hate reading' sound like nails on a chalkboard to me, but what's so lamentable is that they're so often spoken.

Alright, I can understand why intelligent people may be shunned - maybe people think that they're showing off their acumen, which is sometimes the case. However, how is this any different from the 'fashionable' people showing off their fancy clothes, accessories and even their bodies? The growing trend among young females these days is to look good rather than be intelligent: I have heard that there is even a miniature stripper pole for pre-teen girls. Doesn't this sound at all disturbing to you?

Do not think that I'm saying acquiring intelligence instantly makes you a good person. It doesn't necessarily. Werner von Braun was a rocket scientist, yet he was directly responsible for the development of rockets like the V2 and ICBMs - tools of mass murder, no less - for first the Germans in the 2nd World War and then the U.S. afterward. Where and on what he chooses to work is his own business, but I think you will agree with me in saying that his morality is perhaps slightly less than impeccable.

But I am saying that, without intelligence, you cannot come to understand yourself, nor the people around you. It is through understanding of the human psyche's machinations, coupled with love for one's fellows, that anyone can become a good and kind person.

So enough with the flaming, yeah? There's enough hate in this world as it is - there's no need to exacerbate the problem. And if a flamer attacks you, please don't reply in kind - hatred breeds only more hatred, as I have demonstrated.

But neither does that mean you must suffer in silence. Instead, draw them out. Ask them why. Questions lead to answers, which lead to understanding, and possibly even to liking. And if the flamer responds in kind to you, all the better. Just like hate, harmony leads to nothing but more of itself. Let's try and keep it that way, eh?

Absolute Certainty/Uncertainty

I think therefore I am.

To think is to exist.

To exist may or may not be to think.

That which does not think does not necessarily exist.

Existence may or may not be conclusively verified by self-acknowledgement of existence.

-x-

I think therefore I am.

I am a thinking entity.

I know myself to exist because I think.

Thinking is only possible by reception of stimulus, because nothing can be created from nothing.

Reception of stimulus means it must originate from a source external to the self.

Stimulus can only be created by other thinking entities.

Other thinking entities must exist.

-x-

Nothing can be objectively perfect.

The senses are not perfect.

Perception allows an entity to perceive only a certain aspect of anything.

Different entities will perceive different aspects of the same thing.

Their perceptions of the same thing will be different.

All perception is subjective.

There is no objective perception of anything.

There is no single objective truth.

There exists only subjective truth.

-x-

Nothing can be true or false unless it has been perceived to be so by an entity, save for thinking entities which must exist regardless of what either they or any other entities think because they think.

Thoughts provoked by World of Warcraft

I can appreciate fully the fact that most people who play World of Warcraft are seen as being nerds. But first, let us take a look at what a nerd is:

1. a stupid, irritating, ineffectual, or unattractive person.
2. an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit: a computer nerd.

1. A foolish, inept, or unattractive person.
2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

Those are of course both taken from my one-stop shop for all dictionary definitions on the 'net; the most esteemed and highly accessible www.dictionary.reference.com (although of course it can be a lot more easily reached by leaving out the '.reference' part).

There, see? I have not even begun talking about WoW directly, and already I am referencing websites. *sigh* There really is no hope for me. I even say 'LOL' in the course of everyday conversation.

Alright, let's get down to basics: I do not go out very often. For me, grounding would be no punishment. In fact, a punishment for me would be being forced to go out, but there you are.

However, I do not consider myself 'socially inept', and neither do many of my friends. I have a circle of friends in Pembrokeshire College. I also have one or two enemies, but then that is the way of things.

In fact, I have a set of social skills that could be considered from many angles to be quite replete:

1. I am very friendly.
   
2. I smile a lot, if the maintenance of a facial expression counts.
   
3. I can carry a conversation on just about anything. This is principally because of how I have an opinion on absolutely every topic, even if I do not necessarily know anything about it.
   
4. I am generally very accepting and tolerant of other people's quirks, principally because I am extremely quirky myself.
   
5. I like to help people whenever I possibly can without impinging on moral codes.
   
6. I can listen very well. This is actually a lot harder to do than most might think: mostly people just use the time that other people are speaking to come up with whatever it is they are going to say next.
   
7. I can even make a list of why I am nice.
   
8. I can make reasonably (but not amazingly) risible jokes, like how you've probably completely failed to notice how I have missed out point 5 (which, in case you were wondering, was a point telling you about how I can miss out points in a list without anyone noticing, but then of course you never read it).
   
9. As you have no doubt just realised by looking back up the page, I am also an exceptionally good liar (I study Drama), which is actually a vital weapon in any socialite's armoury. ('Does my bum look big in these jeans?' 'Uh...')

In fact, the only thing I can say is missing from my list of social skills is the ability to go out. If you take me to a social gathering of just about any kind, then you will probably find that I am quite pleasant, not to mention anything but stupid or ineffectual... except where there are large collections of thuggish people.

Do not get me wrong. Most of the people where I live (Haverfordwest, yes I gave away where I live, OMG you're gonna rape me argh argh argh) probably as pleasant as me, if not more so, but they have a sense of humour and an interest in 'baser' topics which, frankly, makes me want to turn and run.

Yes, I am a wimp. I admit it quite freely. If you asked me whether I would rather have my wallet stolen or get punched in the face, you wouldn't receive any answer because I'd already be disappearing into the distance. True, I am perhaps not quite as fleet of foot as I wish I was (Dawn of War and the Eldar forever!), but fear gives you wings - not Red Bull, no matter how funny the latest Looking For Group webcomic may be.

Anyway, I've been doding the topic for long enough now. Back to World of Warcraft. I have just bought The Burning Crusade expansion pack, and even as I type this it is installing. Or, more correctly, it is downloading all the patches released since TBC was first released itself, which takes infinitely longer than actually installing the game and the expansion pack put together. I could make a new character and get it to Level 70 in the time it takes for all the patches to download, but that's beside the point.

What is it that endears WoW to me so? Let me count the ways...

1. The Market System
   
   Such a highly-developed market system is seldom seen in a game. Of course the fact that WoW is an Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game and that people are perpetually contributing to it means that it will therefore be intrinsically superior to that of any fixed market system of a non-MMORPG, it is still a superior simulation of the commercial process (except without the corruption, although the fee the Auctioneers take seems oddly like a backhand...).
   
   In fact it is exactly this ever-changing aspect of WoW's market system that makes it so amazingly interesting. There are ever so many items that can be discovered, that can be bought, and, in the finest tradition of all MMORPGs, can be made. In this way, there is a never-ending supply of things to be bought, sold and bargained, and one can never have all the best equipment - unlike in any non-MMORPG, where it is always depressingly easy to acquire all the best gear after which dispensing with the ranks upon ranks of enemies becomes a cinch.
   
   I have always absolutely loved any game with a complex market system. I don't mean to sound overly girly, but there's something inexplicably fun about using the Ctrl + click function which allows you to see how your character would look wearing/wielding a certain item - the dressing room, as t'were.
   
   As a final note on the market system, even when I have bought all that can be bought with the money I have at my immediate disposal, even when I see that all my fellow players are vastly richer than I am, I can always comfort myself by looking at the Auction House lists and seeing what exorbitant prices people will pay for items which could probably be bought for a vastly reduced price a few days later. Such rubes, I swear...
   
2. The Combat System
   
   Many people say that WoW's combat system is extremely mundane, for the understandable reason that it operates almost entirely on the simple 'point and click' function which has become so popular throughout the Role-Playing Game-genre. However, I feel this complaint is invalid because of all the different spells that can be accumulated by a character as they progress through the levels.
   
   Until WoW programmers can think up a way to make it so that the macros they have so thoughtfully provided in the game can take commands which only activate as soon as the Universal Recharge has completed, then I will be happily mashing away at the number keys which act as Hotkeys for the spells until I can't mash no more.
   
   In fact, the sheer simplicity of the game's Combat System allows the player to focus on its many other merits, some of which I will go into now. You don't want a Combat System so amazingly elegant and over-elaborate that it takes all your time to learn it, which is why I appreciate all the work the WoW programmers have put into creating the many alogrithms which make the computer do all the calculating of the various factors which modulate the outcome of every single attack.
   
   Besides, if you had to consciously control every single last move your character executed, it would make the gameplay unbearably frenetic as you would have to perform some little kind of minigame for every single spell you used. Since we WoWers use so many spells with such dizzying frequency, this would be quite clearly a completely effort- and time-wasting feature. In this case, apply the old axiom: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'
   
3. The Mythos
   
   As anyone who has had even a casual brush with the many complexities of Warcraft will understand, be they in the form of the Warcraft Real-Time Strategy games or the MMORPG form of which I speak, they will soon realise that there is a truly vast mythos which has been constructed for the world of Warcraft (now you know where the name comes from - me).
   
   Although of course it is constructed out of many already-existent fantasy conventions and thus could be accused of lack of originality, I would counter this argument by asking this simple question: 'Is anything truly original?' Like I said before: 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it', and the way things seem with the existing fantasy genre core quad of races, i.e.: elves, dwarves, humans, and, to give them something to fight, orcs, which seems to be a winning formula. Just take a look at The Lord of the Rings - one of the most phenomenally successful mythoi (plural learned from www.dictionary.reference.com, as you may have guessed) ever created, and it sticks very close to this racial canon.
   
   But WoW takes this core triad and goes even further. Next there are what I like to think of as the 'second tier' of fantasy-conventional races, i.e.: Blood Elves (read: evil twins of Night Elves), Undead (read: zombies) and gnomes (read: hobbits). Although these classes are (as you have seen in the brackets) derivative, they have been spun in a completely new way.
   
   Then comes the exceptional third tier, which is decidedly more original. First, the Trolls: an odd race which, frankly, I don't understand and don't much appreciate, but is definitely new in some capacity. Then there are the Tauren, whose distinctive American-Indian culture and ironic similarity to the buffalo they hunted I find particularly risible. Finally, perhaps the most creatively-inspired race of all those playable, is the Draenei: in appearance an odd but interesting spin on centaurs, in attitude more like a racial religion very similar to the virtuous Tau of DoW fame, and thus incredibly well-suited to the comparably light-worshipping class of Paladin.
   
   And, before you dismiss these races as mere names, understand this: every single last one of them has an entire mythos made for them alone, including genesis, development, relations with other races and all sorts of minutiae that are canon only within the world of Warcraft.
   

I'd very much like to continue, but I'm afraid it is now 2:22 in the morning and I have spent all my time since midnight composing this. Nerds, eh?

Linkin Park - Breaking the Habit (Music Video Analysis)

Looking at a video for Breaking the Habit on YouTube, or more specifically the comments for it, it occurred to me that what the song is about might not necessarily be common knowledge to everybody. Like any quick-thinking half-British half-Japanese 16-year-old, I instantly leapt to the nearest (and most easily findable) blog site to publish my thoughts for the e-community to see the world over. In this analysis I hope to shed some light on what is a dark and less than pleasant representation of reality. Ladies and gentlemen - Breaking the Habit.

So, we start off with an establishing shot of a dingy industrial city. The use of cartoon allows for some interesting surreal effects; cogs and pipes dance before one's eyes. As if the grime of industry weren't unpleasant enough, the audience now has to deal with nightmarish displays of a city gone wrong.

Citizens disconsolately tread the streets, looking like insignificant ants thanks to the wide-shot. The anime-style ghostly images of Chester Bennington flash before your eyes. It is night, with all its connotations of darkness, evil and obfuscation of truth. A body has been discovered, its previous occupant having made a considerable dent in the top of a car, and just to top it off are those four disturbing minor notes in the background which are constantly, constantly descending. One cannot help but wonder why nobody is dancing around in the street singing It's a Beautiful World.

The dystopian setting is now set. The corpse, belonging to Monsieur Bennington, literally appears to 'give up the ghost', which then leads us through gritty ventilation ducts to see the insides of various rooms. Why must it sneak into these rooms through the ventilation when it could so easily go through the door?

Because the door is locked. Because the person who locked it doesn't want you to see.

Wait. I'm getting ahead of the song here. Let's backtrack.

Here is the first verse.

Memories consume
Like opening the wounds
I'm picking me apart again

You all assume
I'm safe here in my room
Unless I try to start again

Let's take the first three lines, because they are a complete idea in themselves. Haven't you ever got so lost in your own memories that you feel as though you are living them again? You can't live in the present while you're still thinking about the past. People who have regrets, who have guilt intrinsically linked to these memories, will pick at them consistently. Memories make us what we are. Is it beginning to make sense now?

The second part seems clear enough, save for 'Unless I try to start again'. 'Start what again?', you may ask. What, you think somebody obsesses over their past mistakes and their present condition just once and then decides to shape up? That's the Habit mentioned in the song; the obsession with one's imperfections; the hate for one's own regrets, guilt, weakness, whatever it may be.

Through this, Bennington's ghost presents us with a man at a desk, emanating smoke that looks much like Bennington's spirit. The vocalist's face appears to us in the smoke, again juxtaposed against cogs and pipes, eyes screwed shut in an expression of pain. In a sense, Bennington acts two roles. Not only does he sing his own song but he is singing it for the people he shows to us, both narrating and explaining simultaneously. This is their song, as you can tell from the way he constantly appears around them, in their smoke and in their walls - he's just singing it for them. This is conclusively displayed in Bennington's ghostly face fleetingly superimposing itself on the girl's face as she speaks - their lips sych perfectly.

Then, just as the bridge begins, we have an iconic image; a shattering mirror. A mirror is so often used as a metaphor for oneself; after all, one doesn't look one's reflection in the eye. You look yourself in the eye. Your reflection is you, and when you break it, that is a classic denial of everything you are. You don't want to be yourself. Can you imagine what mental torture these people are going through - the feeling of entrapment, of self-hate?

I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose
'Cuz inside I realise
That I'm the one confused

Of course, the last thing you want when you have problems is more problems... but the very fact that you are trapped inside a self you hate means there will always be more problems. The metaphorical 'battles' that Linkin reference here are the battles within oneself - the struggles held in your psyche against yourself. When you hate something it's only inevitable that you'll attack it, but what happens when you hate yourself? These people are confused because they are trapped in a vicious circle.

1) I hate myself.
2) I attack things I hate.
3) I hate myself for attacking myself.

I think you can see how it operates from there on.

This vicious circle is, pure and simple, the all-important Habit. Why would the song be about breaking something that was easy to break? This is Linkin Park; we're talking major emotional strife here. But there's one more reason explaining why the Habit is so hard to break...

The girl, a teenager in a room that is symbolically disarrayed and littered with shards of glass, writes 'I'm nothing'. This is truly how she sees herself; her self-esteem is so phenomenally low that she is no longer. She has lost so much of herself that she doesn't even care about the glass shard she holds, cutting into her hand; this is another attack against herself.

Then we reach the emotionally charged chorus.

I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean

I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit
Tonight

Ghost Chester hurls us mercilessly onward through ventilation shafts to a room where the desk man comes back from work, loosening his tie and then opening his briefcase. We don't see what's in the briefcase - yet. The smoke we first saw him with is a clue, though, so don't forget the desk man just yet. He presents a vital component of the Habit.

There are truly disturbing sights that flash momentarily before our eyes - a red face screams in anguish, head thrown back and jaw distended to a disturbing extent, carrying on the theme of blood from the girl (the fact that it first flashes on the word 'scream' makes it all the more effective as it registers in both the visual and aural senses). It continues in the tomatoes a dishevelled woman throws at the man in the door - this is the first external attack we have seen.

However symbolic, the red is in all cases indexically linked to blood. It is perhaps rather cliched, subscribing to the stereotype of the 'emo' genre that Linkin Park is connected with and all the ideas of self-harm that go along with it, but its main point is undoubtedly to show in raw, uncompromising terms the way these people are feeling. Frustration. Anger. Hate. Violence. Blood. So much of the blood we see in the media is spilt out of hate - whether it be the prostitute serial-killer or any one of uncountable terrorist attacks - that we make the connection between HATE/BLOOD automatically on a subconscious level.

The whole chorus is about how frustration can push us to and beyond the point where we have no control. The characters Ghost Chester presents to us can't bring themselves to realise that they are in serious denial. It is a common reaction to a threat you feel you can't deal with... but then, how can these people break the Habit if they don't know they're locked into it? As has been said before, part of the solution is admitting there is a problem.

Ghost Chester treats us to more images of his tortured face singing the lyrics - a direct appeal to our emotions. Like the blood, this is a direct attempt to subconsciously activate emotions, and what do we convey emotion with? Well, mostly with body language of course, but the face is what we look at and what we learn to read the best. The image of his tortured features along with the equally pained singing once again links the visual to the aural, getting across the suffering the characters are going through.

Then begins the second verse.

Clutching my cure
I tightly lock the door
I try to catch my breath again

I've hurt much more
Than any time before
I have no options left again

An interesting thing occurs here. Ghost Chester presents to us the mirror from before flying back together, rebuilding itself. Everything happens backwards - the girl unbreaks the mirror, uncuts her hand, unsmears the 'I'm nothing' paper with blood... unsheds a tear from a glittering eye. Although this may appear completely off the wall, it can be explained in this way.

The second verse is what happens just before the first one. What's the cure? Why doesn't it work? Well, that cure is supposedly solitude, being alone and away from all those people who want to hurt you, but in reality that just leads on to the second part of the verse. Now that flight is finished, you remember why it was you ran, and the Habit begins again. In reality, loneliness is the worst cure, although it could hardly be better to hang around one's antagonists. There are no options: nobody to go to.

The desk man makes a dramatic return. His blood-red eye slowly closes; the veins in his face are bulging... and then we are finally shown his part in the Habit: a hypodermic needle with some evil-looking green liquid dripping from it. That's why the smoke has been Ghost Chester's vehicle through the city: the smoke of cigarettes, of addiction.

The Habit is now three things; 1) a vicious cycle, 2) denial, and 3) ...addiction. No matter how foolish it might sound, there are those who like hurting themselves, be it physically or mentally. I actually missed out a step from the vicious cycle, so let me fill it in.

1) I hate myself.
2) I attack things I hate.
3) I feel good for punishing my hatred.
4) Later, after the reward fades, I hate myself for attacking myself.

Not unlike victims of anorexia, an emotional reward is gained for punishing the self that the victim hates. After all, nobody would do anything without reward of some kind - true altruism does not exist. Self-pity and self-harm are the easy way out: again, part of the denial aspect. Believe it or not, fear of how hard it would be to pull oneself back together can seem scarier than the fear of further self-harm.

I'll paint it on the walls
'Cuz I'm the one at fault
I'll never fight again
And this is how it ends

Ghost Chester then re-enters his body and unfalls back to the rooftop. Why is Linkin doing it again? They already did the rewinding thing; surely they don't expect that you won't remember that... ah, wait. Remember. Memories. Is the music video somehow returning to its beginning?

Of course, when we suffer we wish that we could return to better times... but life isn't like a music video. Time waits for no-one.

I'll never fight again... and this is how it ends.

Pink Floyd suddenly springs to mind here, with an alternate but synonymous lyric:

Goodbye, cruel world... I'm leaving you today. Goodbye... goodbye... goodbye.

'Send not to know for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee.' That means, more or less; 'every death kills you too'. Linkin Park made this song for a reason.

You must make of it what you will.