The Binary Circumstance

The Dalai Lama is in Seattle and there are several big events scheduled while he’s here. The biggest event took place yesterday afternoon at Qwest Field.

When most people think about being compassionate they run straight for their emotions, looking to help somebody that they feel pity for.

For me, compassion is nice but it doesn’t solve a lot of problems, it doesn’t cure diseases or eradicate poverty. It might make us feel better and it may assist in the healing process, but holding rational premises does much more to solve individual and global problems than just feeling compassionate.

If you want to be compassionate, fill your mind with rational ideas that are supported by evidence. All the ideas that you hold that are not supported by evidence will ultimately create problems for yourself and many others as well.

Knowledge is the seed of compassion.

There is nothing to be known about things that aren’t there, so stop wasting your time and your brain cycles thinking about ideas and concepts that are not connected to reality. Religious delusions prevent people from solving problems because they require that the mind disconnect from reality. In order to solve problems you must connect to reality. That is where the solutions lie.

…In Ayurvedic terms, space is the principle of unbounded choice-making potential–and it is literally everywhere, though our senses may deceive us on this point. For example, modern physics asserts that more than 99.99 percent of the material world is actually empty space, despite its apparent solidity. Even subatomic particles are only localized probabilities, and the vast emptiness between the electrons and nucleus of an atom in proportionately far greater than the distances between the planets of our solar system. –The Wisdom of Healing by David Simon M.D. pg.35

Want to see some really amazing sea creatures?

Watch this video.

David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a shape-shifting cuttlefish, a pair of fighting squid, and a mesmerizing gallery of bioluminescent fish that light up the blackest depths of the ocean.

And it gets better than that!

Seattle is planning to charge shoppers $.20 for each disposable paper or plastic bag they get at the store to encourage people to use reusable shopping bags.

From the Seattle Times:

To reduce trash, Mayor Greg Nickels wants Seattle shoppers to pay a fee on all disposable bags — paper and plastic — at grocery, convenience and drug stores.

Customers would be charged a 20-cent “green fee” per bag used at the checkout line. If approved by the City Council, the fee would take effect Jan. 1.

“The answer to the question ‘Paper or plastic?’ should be ‘Neither,’ ” Nickels said at a news conference Wednesday morning. “Both harm the environment. Every piece of plastic ever made is still with us in the environment, and the best way to handle waste is not to create it in the first place.”

Nickels said he wants to encourage shoppers to use reusable bags. The city plans to distribute one free bag to every household before the fee would go into effect.

What’s next? A $5,000/year pollution tax on all cars and trucks to force people to ride bicycles? Such a tax would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, clean up the air and force people to get more exercise which could reduce our country’s health care bill.

I don’t think the oil companies would like such a plan.

There are ways to recycle both paper and plastic bags. Is this an admission that people in Seattle don’t recycle?

If mandatory, coercive governments weren’t inherently irrational and anti-nature, we would not be genetically selecting in favor of people who are genetically predisposed to be irrational and anti-nature. If our culture wasn’t so mystical and pro-religion (based on unscientific beliefs), we would be selecting for a population of people who are predisposed to be rational. People would naturally act in ways that protect their health and their environment.

Or they wouldn’t.