I am heretofore severing several people from Northern Virginia from my life.

Starting next fall, my permanent address will be in Madison.  I will no longer have a permanent address in Virginia.

I expect most of you will say 'Good riddance, the bitch', because most of you seem to have basically decided that's what I am.  I respect your right to think that.  I can still think you're wrong about some of your reasons why, and I can understand a few of your reasons why you think I'm a bitch, but I clearly belong here in Madison because people, at least, seem to think better of me here and have some sense in their head.

I am visiting my parents for the summer.  I expect to be a bit of a recluse, other than a summer job at the Department of Health and Human Services or the NSF or some other prominent scientific institution.

I have my reasons, and I think they're damned good and rational ones - well-examined for the last several years - for being a humanitarian misanthrope.

If you're glad that I won't talk to you anymore, more power to you.  If you're sad, too fucking bad for you.

Granted, I have unleashed a lot of vitriol in the last month or so.

Let it be said, however, that my vitriol is not without substantial backup.

As regards humanity getting dumber, here is a study saying the average IQ of humanity is about 88 and a study detailing the detrimental effects of a decrease in IQ in society:

As regards the universe expanding and a galaxy crashing into the Milky Way, here are articles explaining them:
http://www.astro.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/temp/evolutionOfGalaxies.pdf

And whether the universe expands or not, humanity's still fucked: a flat universe and a closed universe eventually disappear by Big Crunch, according to http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703183.

As regards my general disgust for humanity and my ambition to do some major good for the world, here is an article detailing the fact that I can be a humanitarian and a misanthrope:

I read your comments, and while some of them have made good points, some of them have been utter shit, because there is information in the scientific field that disproves the assertions they make.

Then again, I note that the 'utter shit' usually comes from people who aren't, for example, as well-read as I am on matters of science - they are usually nonscience majors, which is part of why I have a certain amount of contempt for people who are nonscience majors who tell me I'm wrong on some scientific topic which I can prove I know more about.  I do not profess to know more about, say, Italian, than a person who is fluent in the language.  But I can say I know more about biology and neuroscience and chemistry and physics than they do, and to a point, I have some reign over matters such as evolution and the origin of life, because I've been educated in the scientific background of it thoroughly to said point where I am familiar with not only the organismal and cellular aspects but the molecular aspects.  (Suck on it, Pat Robertson.) .  I am doing lab work in neurogenetics.  I think I have a certain special premium on certain areas.

It is intellectually irresponsible to think something is extant that is not testable or has been proven to not exist.

You would do mighty well to keep my real name out of your comments, as well.

I officially hate everybody.  Except for my fellow neuroscientists and other scientists.  I am absolutely serious about the fact that I have a deep hatred for anyone in general who is not a scientist.

Because nobody seems to care enough.

Fucking politicians, psychologists, businessmen, blue-collar workers - they're so absorbed in themselves that they can't look outside their own little anthropocentric world and see that THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT CARE FOR THEM.

And humanity as a whole is phenomenally stupid.  I swear, if humanity as a whole had no more hope for getting smarter, I'd kill myself, because an existence where human life cannot last forever is an existence where my legacy would be meaningless.

Humanity has hope, though, because I'm majoring in neuroscience, I'm getting my PhD in neuroscience, and I can think of ways to make people smarter.


Part of why I hate people who follow a religion to a tee is the fact that they intentionally delude themselves about what is coming and they have the most illogical excuses for believing what they believe - tautologies, reductio ad absurdum, reductio ad Stalinum, their appeal to tradition, the fact that they've never been exposed to anything during their childhood besides their religion, fear of rejection by their families - fucking pansies.  Yeah, you know what, a lot of you people who read this journal will hate me, but you know what, I'm honest.  I think religious people are nutballs.  You're all going to die, there is no heaven or hell, and you're going to face total nonexistence and you won't even be aware you're dead.  Your perception of anything completely stops.  Your brain, in effect, ceases to function, and becomes an inactive lump of cells.  You evolved from apes, which evolved from therapsids, which evolved from - I think - Tiktaalik roseae, which evolved from fish, which evolved from simple tubular organisms, which evolved from clumps of cells, which evolved from bacteria, which came about from organic molecules, and your existence and my existence are ultimately meaningless unless we choose to cheat the universe at its own game.  Because the universe is expanding, the Andromeda Galaxy is hurtling towards our Milky Way, and unless we do something about it, HUMANITY IS FUCKED.

You secretly want to be immortal.  If you think there's a heaven or hell, you want to be immortal.  You think your consciousness will continue and you think you will somehow be aware of said imaginary places.

And if you think I'm wrong, find a scientific paper from a well-respected journal (respected in the scientific field) to back your assertion up and tell me what the title is.

To the fucktard who is my ex:

Please stop contacting me.  If you are trying to send that tape back, use the fucking postal service.  If you try to contact me again, I will get a restraining order.

Holy shit, now someone really needs to shut the Religious Right down.  And kick Bush out of office.

No sex for people between the ages of 18-29?  For goodness's sake, Supreme Dictator Bush, I think I have a constitutional right to fuck.

Conservative Christianity irritates me.  A lot.  So does Orthodox Judaism and Wahhabi Islam.  In fact, the only religion that hasn't made me angry in some way is Buddhism, and it has its own flaws.  Damn, Siddhartha, you are a masochist.

Think for yourselves, people.  Don't let some grossly misinformed guy from 4000 years ago or 2000 years ago or 500 years ago make your moral decisions for you.  If you can't think of anywhere else to look for your morals, then, well, you aren't looking hard enough and you aren't living enough.

America is not a Christian nation.

It is secular.  Read the Constitution and read a couple of biographies of its signatories.  Franklin and Washington were Masons and Jefferson was a deist, and Thomas Paine, although he was not a signatory, was a deist as well.

The Religious Right needs to check its facts (and the Bible isn't fact) before it starts slinging its shit.

That is my post against theocratic stupidity.

The Religious Right must go down.

You know what?

Can Wisconsin secede from the United States?  Please?  Because the rest of the US sucks.

I don't relate to anyone in the SCA.  Even the people I've known for years that are members of the SCA.

So I'm not sure how much I still have in the way of ties to people such as Karen or <lj-user="weebaby"> or the rest of that crowd.

I mean, I care about them, but I feel as if I don't have the commonality anymore.  We're totally different people; different beliefs, different backgrounds, different sections of society - I'm in academia, my life revolves around my goal of getting my PhD in neuroscience and researching human intelligence, and consider myself to be among the neuroscience crowd (college students, grad students and professors) and plan to have a career in research and academia and not have a family and spend my life in a lab, while they're very much the family-centric sort and are at least a generation up from me and have children of their own - and while I respect them as a person, I just don't feel close to them anymore because of a lack of commonality.

The people I've known for about 9 years - well, I can't really relate to them anymore either.  Yes, they're my age, yes, most of them are in fact brilliant, and yes, they respect me, but unfortunately, they remind me of a past I would rather not be reminded of, and I get the impression that some of them have not in fact made any new friends, and some of them have about zero ambition.


How I'm going to survive during Spring Break, I don't know.


I have often wondered, in addition, what people really think of me.  I get the perception that people either like me or hate me.

Okay.  I have had enough of PeTA and the ALF after learning that they have targeted universities as well as corporate laboratories.

PeTA and the ALF MUST GO DOWN.

I am jaded.

Fucking greedy developed nations.

You know what?  I think the United Nations should ban nuclear weapons and send us back to conventional weaponry so more money could be put into healthcare and education and research.  I think the defense budget should be halved.

People's earnings should be capped at approximately $3 million a year.  That's right, professional athletes, celebrities, and Bill Gates: you earn too much.  Businesses should be required to donate a percentage of their earnings to the poorest people in the world.

I am going to do research in intelligence and figure out a model for human intelligence, which will be used to make technology to augment human intelligence.  I will gleefully earn less from it than I should and I will drive the price down as much as possible, no matter how much the technology costs.

Everyone should be entitled to a doctorate or two and/or a professional degree or two.

I think people are not entitled to McMansions.  There should be a cap on the cost of a home per so many people, and one home per family unit/group of roommates.

Ostentatious displays of wealth are for the uncaring.

Rapists will be executed and those who kill a human being after their victim develops a brainstem will be executed.  These scum do not deserve anything for their crimes, not even life.  Perhaps the victims should be allowed to kill the rapists themselves if they so choose.

One day, I will augment human intelligence and put someone in the Oval Office who is more of a people person but who agrees with my views.  One day this world will change.

My beef with PeTA:

"PETA has published a leaflet called “Animal Liberation Front: the Army of the Kind.” In another pamphlet, “Activism and the Law,” PETA openly offers advice on “burning a laboratory building.”

“I will be the last person to condemn ALF,” says Newkirk. And in another interview: “I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren’t all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I’d light a match.” In ALF’s publication Bite Back (yes, this terrorist group has a newsletter), Newkirk has said: “You can’t have all politeness and patience, all potlucks and epistles … Some people will never budge unless [they are] pushed to budge.”"

Ingrid Newkirk is a disgusting woman.  She should be shot.

Also, PeTA should confess to the 85% of animals it euthanizes and ALF's headquarters should be burnt to the ground.

To the coward who posted under 'Anonymous' to my journal:

"Considering that you only display the arrogant and self-centered aspects of your personality in LJ entries I would certainly prefer you to be in a lab somewhere than have you actually dealing with people. Even neurosurgeons have to talk to patients sometimes and this world does not need another surgeon who thinks and acts like she is "God's gift to medicine" (or should that be "god's" for you?) even if she is the best damn neurosurgeon the world has seen.

Of course, you are a more rounded person than LJ shows so this comment is both snarky and gratuitous."

For goodness's sake, get a LJ name, identify yourself, and own up to your comment, or privately contact me, or get the hell away from me if you don't have the guts to say this to my face.  Anonymity is not the best policy.  I might actually respect you more, even if I still won't agree with you, if you identify yourself.

And the comment about '(insert your preferred notion of a deity here)'s gift to medicine'?  Really, really snarky.   If this comment was snarky and gratuitous, as you say, why did you say it?  And that first sentence doesn't make sense when you compare it with the last sentence.  Seriously, look at what you type before you type it.

I like to know who my critics are, thanks.  (If you had identified yourself, I might not have publically made fun of this comment in my LJ.)

Now I'm trying to think of who this might be.  Writing style.  Hmmm.  Not my mother, and my father wouldn't make that snarky comment about 'this world' etc. (and if he did, I am not talking to him ever again after I get my undergraduate degree),  I don't think any people my age that I know would write this, as they are either in agreement with my ideas, would not snark about it in this way, or simply would not type that eruditely.  But if you are one of these people, let me know, or if I find out and you don't tell me this beforehand, I'm going to whack your ass into next year metaphorically because I don't sink to the level of physical attack.  Most younger people whom I know who use LJ aren't nearly this erudite.

Which brings me to the people that I know that are in their thirties or older, and there are a great many of you, numbering at least ten or so, so if you are in this group and did not make this comment, do not feel singled out.  But if you are in this group and you did make this comment, you are evidently pathetically immature to not take basic responsibility for your comments and I thought better of you.

My plan for the future of humanity:

Make people smarter
Keep the universe from expanding
Build arcologies
Build a trans-world highway system
Make airplane travel affordable to even college students (decrease the price of tickets to around $100 for intercontinental flights)
Build a worldwide database of criminal records and alleged terrorist links, accessible only by immigration control
Colonize Mars, terraforming it
Build small outposts on the moon

Another moment of Deep Thought (TM).

Religion is the opium of the people.  Marx, at least, got one thing right.  (No, I am not a Marxist or a Communist, I simply think the guy was on to something when he made this quote)

Before you start the criticism, let me explain the context of this quote and make an additional quote.

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people… The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness….The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo….Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and cull the living flower.”

He makes the point that religion acts like an opiate, expressing that the religious person expresses the fact that they are suffering by being religious and voicing their protest against that suffering by being religious.  He makes a very good comparison to painkillers, and suggest that the abolition of religion as a 'painkiller' signifies the demand that those religious people work toward the betterment of humanity and the harnessing of the power of the universe to create happiness from what logically and rationally and really is.  Criticism of religion, therefore, is likened to a real treatment, such as surgery or an antibiotic or the natural healing process, which heals the injury and removes pain - the 'living flower' being compared to happiness in what is rather than the 'chain' and 'imaginary flowers' of religion.

Religion is the opium - morphine?  Vicodin?  Dilaudid? - of many people, designed to distract many people from the pain that is our current reality, much in the way a narcotic distracts people from pain in their body.  There are some people who abuse it, much like people who abuse drugs today - people such as Pat Robertson, al-Qaeda, Fred Phelps, the Iranian and Iraqi governments, and other fundies are the Rush Limbaughs, if you will, of their respective religions.  And there are those, such as me, who are atheists and refuse to take that opium and instead deal directly with the pain by changing our current reality through scientific discovery.  Science is the antibiotic and the treatment which will change our world and therefore our current reality and make humanity progress so there is no pain and religion will disappear from the face of the earth, allowing people to be happy about what really is.

No, I have no problem with those people who choose to be religious, but it saddens me that anybody wants to believe notions that are logically and rationally absurd.  The reason I mention religion is that historically, it has always been at odds with human advancement - for example, the Catholic Church's opposition to Galileo Galilei and its relatively recent acceptance of the fact that evolution exists, or Islam's evident preoccupation with the subjugation of women  (why don't they make men wear hijab too?  Women can have uncontrollable lust), or Hinduism's caste system, or Buddhism's concept of reincarnation - frankly, pretty much any major world religion has its stupidities.

My point is that there is hope for humanity and science is the aforementioned hope.

Arrogant?  Some people certainly think so.  I can see what could be misconstrued as arrogant, and aside from that, I have been arrogant sometimes, so I can see where you're coming from.  I think I know what I can do and what I can't do and I'm not afraid to be honest about it when I think it's called for.  If you think arrogance is simply bragging, please make friends with Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster.  There is an element of falsehood to arrogance.

Self-centered?  Some of you may think so.  But I'm not entirely sure where this is coming from.  Yeah, I try to take other people into consideration when called for, but I think I'm allowed to say things from my point of view.  And frankly, I put myself first.  Always.  Everyone should put themselves first.

Tactful?  Me?  Hell no.

In no way do I think I'm the world's gift to medicine, and patient interaction is not my thing anyway.  I do, however, think I am pretty knowledgable about it, which in no way implies anything about my skill in handling patients.

I have my problems, everyone has theirs, and I figure I can hear what you have to say and decide what to do with it as I choose.

I'm beginning to consider the possibility that I would rather have just my PhD.

Realistically, I don't know if I'm going to enjoy med school, because it's largely memorization for the first two years, and clerkships for the second two years.

Neurosurgery is saving lives, but I can impact a lot more people and improve humanity as a PhD.

I can sacrifice the massive salary.  PhDs pay pretty well and I have enough ability to become the best neuroscientist in the field.

I could spend my life in a lab.

I think it's funny in a morbid way that society doesn't realize it is completely fucked when the truth is right there.

Oh shit.

I realized how broad my interests in my field are.

I need to specialize.

Do I want to do cognitive, computational, molecular, genetic, or systems neuroscience?

Because I need to bug my advisor about research now.

I think I may ask my advisor if I can do research in his lab.

Also, when doing my graduate studies, do I want to minor in math?  I think, post-calculus, math shouldn't be too hard.

Anyway.

Existential crises are horrible.  I have six points to contend with about this existential crisis:

1) I'm gonna die eventually
2) the only reason life exists is because a bunch of molecules created cells and evolution happened
3) anything that anybody contributes to humanity is ultimately worthless in the scheme of things because the universe is going to either freeze, burn, or rip out of existence
4) in the scheme of things, humanity is generally stupid
5) we are all the result of our genes, which are... well, nucleic acid.
6) our consciousness is a function of our brains and our neural structure and our synapses and our genes.  Go reductionism.

I refuse to wear rose-colored glasses or see this through the eyes of anything except complete and total secularism and scientific thought, because I see no reason to view this through the eyes of any religion or believe in the existence of anything that has not been scientifically proven to be extant.  I also have no reason to believe in an afterlife or reincarnation or magic or the supernatural.

Cynicism and skepticism have been some of my closest buddies, which is not bad because they help.

But OH my brain hurts.

I don't mind most religious people, but organized religion makes me want to vomit.

Also, I want to wring the neck of the graduate student that teaches the intermediate composition class which isn't even necessary for my degree, but is necessary for some medical schools.  The man assigns a 6-page paper when I already have to write a 12-page paper which is ONE THIRD OF MY GRADE and WHEN I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL FOR A WEEK.

Also, I think it's absurd that my neighbor complains about the fact that I want her to turn her music down because it is LOUD AS FUCK.  There's something called headphones and the volume knob.  Her friends evidently think I'm a bitch for complaining about it too.  Well, her friends are absurd, too, for thinking I'm a bitch for not wanting to hear so much noise.  I don't tolerate stupid.

They're all freshmen and they're liberal arts majors.  Surprise surprise.  I have a rather marked hatred of most liberal arts majors who are in their first year of college (c.f. my inconsiderate and immature former roommate who was apparently also a homophobe, who moved out because apparently I wouldn't let her party in the room).  They don't study half as much as I do and damn it, they really don't understand the fact that I am here to get a degree and not party and I study in my room.  And I don't sacrifice my studying spaces.  You want to party, you get out of my room.

Especially when I start preparing for my MCATs next year - OH THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY IF ANYONE DISTURBS MY STUDY.

Otherwise, life is great.

Biology 152 is awesome (the lab is good, the class is good, and I look forward to the lab 5:00 pm every Thursday every week ), Math 221 is great (the TA is awesome - Tete, you are the coolest Thai graduate student ever - I am buying you a Klein bottle at the end of the year.), and English 201 is uneventful.

On notice:

North Korea
The Middle East
Kim Jong-il
Osama Bin Laden
George W. Bush
Tony Blair
Abe Shinzo
Ishihara Shotaro
Africa
The Chinese government
Fundamentalists
Pat Robertson
Jerry Falwell
Billy Graham
Crown Prince Naruhito
The Japanese Diet
The southeastern United States
Barack Obama (he has no experience)
The negative sides of masculinity and femininity
Communism
Radical socialism
Mitt Romney
Brownback
The Libertarian party
My uncle's doctors, who clearly know less than I do about their field (and they already have their MDs)
The nerves in my leg
Theism
Foreign students who are citizens of European countries
People who get drunk
The Ethiopian government
Hamid Karzai.