Pensar Un Poco

pues, pienso mucho. damasiado. y aqui puedo depositar estes pensamientos para otros pensadores.

Open Letter from Osama bin Laden to Opponents of the Sufi Mosque in Lower Manhattan…

“What’s up, American Right Wing!? High Five! Praise be to Allah! Ayman and I just wanted to say thank you, from the bottom of our very dark hearts, to those of you standing strong against our common enemy, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and his band of peacenik Sufi jackals. You may not know this, but Feisal and his ilk have been a thorn in our Salafist beards for some time now. While we do all the hard work stoning women to death and beheading infidels, they’re out there singing kumbaya and preaching religious tolerance! In fact, it would be fair to say that they are on the front lines of your so-called “war on terror” in Pakistan. Why, just last month our good friends from the Pakistani Taliban slaughtered nearly 50 Sufis during one of their ridiculous, ecstatic prayer sessions, praise Allah. My comrades have also blown up their shrines, beaten their women and, in short, made their lives a living hell, as it were. And still, they defy us! All the while preaching openness, reciting mystical poetry, and singing songs just like you Western infidels do. The chutzpah! One would think the two of you would make for fine bedfellows, what with all the peace, love, an understanding garbage you’re both so fond of. So you can imagine the shock Ayman and I felt when we found out that you were actually preventing these natural allies of yours from opening up a so-called “mosque” in lower Manhattan, under the mistaken assumption that it might somehow benefit the cause of Al Qaeda! We were like, “Whaaaattt??!!… Those idioits!!”. And then we were like, “Yesss, baby!” and we high-fived for the first time in our lives. Who would have thought that the so-called American right wing would provide us with such welcome support in our mission to destroy the very fabric of their nation! A little explanation is in order…

You see, when we instructed the 9/11 high jackers to attack your Twin Towers of Sin, we knew it would piss you off. We also knew that despite our willingness - strike that, preference - to die, we were greatly outnumbered. But we had a trick up our sleeve, as you say: we knew from past experience that your admirable impulse to “even the score” was coupled with an astounding ignorance with regards to Islam and its many offshoots. We wagered that you would overreach and attack innocent Muslims, giving them no choice but to join us in our most holy Jihad against Western infidels. At first, it appeared we were wrong: the Imam Feisal Abdul Raufs of the world spat in our faces, renounced our cause and even claimed we were not real Muslims. You can imagine how frustrated we were! Their lack of support almost led to our defeat in the early years after 9/11. Still to this day, they renounce us, humiliating us publicly and helping to shield the larger Muslim world from our glorious message. But now, I believe the tide is beginning to turn…

You, my right wing comrades in arms, are doing just as we hoped you would! Your enemy has remained illusive, your economy has faltered, and so you are left with no one to blame, much like a hunter without a prey. The finger, it itches so, does it not? And those bullets don’t come cheap. Isn’t it just a whole lot easier to lump us all together - turn us all into one common, faceless enemy, so that you can finally have your revenge?! It’s OK, really! I completely understand. In fact, you have my full support: make enemies of the Sufi infidels! Harass them in their houses of worship! Confuse them with the righteous and make them unwelcome in your land! Of course, it’s all quite silly, to say the least. It makes about as much sense as harassing peace-loving Christians for the crimes of David Koresh, or ostracizing the town of Pendleton, New York, because it gave birth to your Timothy McVeigh. But hey, let’s not split hairs over this one. You know what they say, in your native tongue as well as mine: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”!

The Screaming Child

“in Matajorca, there lived a baby who screamed louder than a rooster crows. The townspeople, dependent as they were on the rooster’s morning song to awake from their slumber, grew tardy and unreliable. ‘Do not have dealings with the men of Matajorca’, it was said, ‘for they are gravel-eyed and slothful’. Matajorca’s travelling fishmongers were the first to suffer. Their herring rotted in stalls and their wives were forced to work, first in the tar pits, and later as gravediggers for the armies of Glaksyuel and Heyr-Both.

One day, the baby’s mother decided to take matters into her own hands. Grabbing her child by both arms, she dared him to scream. When the child obliged, the mother screamed back with such volume and ferocity that the priests of Matajorca fell to their knees in fits of hysterical self-flagellation, convinced that none other than El-Ekhyiel Himself had returned and the Hour of Judgement was at hand.

From that day on, the baby no longer cried loudly. The townspeople regained their respect and Matajorcan commerce thrived.”

  • from The Teachings of Hector the Humble, explaining aphorism 796: “Show me a baby that screams and I’ll show you a mother that doesn’t”

Notes on the Future (the Great Merge)

like it or not we’re all inching ever closer towards “the great merge”. mark zuckerberg may be a control-freak - lifting our personal info bit by bit for the benefit of facebook, but it’s nuthin’ compared to what’s ahead…

our economy is incomprehensible, our government spends too much and doesn’t know how to stop, many of us can’t manage our own lives. all symptoms of the same cause: ever-increasing complexity. algorithms run the show - only they’re doing a terrible job of it. what is to be done?

there’s only one thing to do - make ‘em smarter: give ‘em more data. digitize and database all the variables we can. let the programs create better programs to crunch it all up and figure it all out. remove barriers, fences, all things analog and arcane.

privacy? we can’t afford it. but don’t worry, by the time it’s gone we may not remember what it was anyway.

cool wondersmitten sketch