I created a Youtube channel with "educational videos for aliens" where I pretend to be an extraterrestrial explaining humans, earth and the human condition to aliens. The first video came out sunday. Check it out:



It may not be a very "royal" hobby and it's also somewhat anachronistic - but it's certainly fun. Besides, it allows me to take an "outsider" pespective on humanity in general and on your century in particular, just as my view from the early 18th century (or my shortlived "demonic" blog which eventually got kind of stuck).

Santa Claus - a modern god?



The cults and customs of the 21th century never stop astonishing me. Take for example christmas: In my and your time, christmas is a holiday of the arrival of a god. However, I've the impression that for most people in your western consumer society, it's not the christian god who comes at christmas, but a new god, an american god: Santa.

But why do I call Santa a god? Because he has many things in common with gods of polytheistic religions:

• He has his own cult, the Santa-Winter-Gift cult, only loosely related to christian christmas and followed by christians and atheists alike. This cult includes rituals like the hanging of stockings at the chimney.


• People pray to him - particularly children via "letters to Santa".


• He fits into the archetype of the beardy patriarch god, pretty much like Zeus/Jupiter, Odin/Wotan as well as god the father in many christian paintings.


• He is responsible for some aspect of reality, in his case gifts and brumal cozyness. (For me this is very strange - in my time, frost and snow are things that kill people.)


• He has his own lore: The home at the north pole, the little elves, the reindeer sledge... Much of this lore seem to go back to the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and the children's book "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus".


• He travels over the sky on his sledge, like Helios on his sun-chariot or most other sun deities.


• He has familiars (reindeers and elves), like many of his cogods.


• He is said to live in a distant place which is almost inaccessible for mortals, pretty much like the heavens, Asgard or Mount Olympus.


• He has his own holiday - for now shared with Baby Jesus, but for many, Christmas is a Santa holiday rather than a Jesus holiday.

The funny thing is that Santa is shaped after a typically american archetype: The Gentle Old Business Magnate. Scrooge McDuck, Colonel Sanders, Ebenezer Scrooge (who becomes gentle in the Dickens' novella), to name just some examples. Even Steve Jobs played this role (even if his gentleness is doubted). Santa fits perfectly into this archetype: He runs an offshore toy factory, he operates worldwide and has seemingly unlimited resources, he gives gifts to children, and he has a fluffy white beard.

The question is: How comes that in the western world, in particular in oh-so-christian America, christian Christmas gets more and more pushed back by the neo-pagan Santa cult? My hypothesis is that Santa fits better to calvinist-capitalist America than Baby Jesus. (I might be biased, though - it's not a secret that I don't like Calvinists, or Huguenots as they were used to be called in France.)

See, Calvinism is based on the heretic doctrine of predestination: In plain English, God doesn't give a shit what you do, as he has already made his choice and won't change his mind, even if you give all your belongings to the poor. On the other side, it's important what you are, as earthly wealth and power are signs that you are one of God's choosen ones. In a nutshell, God loves the rich and hates the poor. (This is, of course, in contradiction with the gospels - maybe that's why hardcore Calvinists prefer to read the Old Testament and to refer to Jesus only in phrases like "Jesus loves..." and "Jesus hates...")

Of course, the poor baby Jesus, born in a barn or cattle cave, doesn't really fit into a society built upon the "God loves the rich" doctrine. If this Jesus was born like an illegal immigrant, lived like a hobo, preached love and poverty and died like a criminal, how can we put his birth into the center of the most popular holiday of the year? So it's only natural to replace the poor hobo baby Jesus by a new god, shaped after the Gentle Old Business Magnate archetype. In this new cult, baby Jesus becomes a mere accessory, one among other tales of the Santa cult lore.

Please keep in mind that I'm talking about Calvinist nutheads, and by extension about people directly or indirectly influenced by Calvinist doctrine - I'm not talking about all christian people or all US-Americans. Not everybody admires Gentle Old Business Magnates, not everybody worships Santa, the neo-pagan god of gifts and wealth, the come-back of Mammon.

You might wonder whether there are other modern gods in western culture. I don't know, but there is none than I knew of. Creatures like the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny / Easter Hare are gentle house spirits rather than deities. Superheroes are clearly perceived as fictional and correspond to classical heros or half-gods rather than gods. Things like Internet or War on Terror lack personification. And attempted personifications in US society like Uncle Sam, Columbia or Lady Liberty (the latter being a French import) never made it beyond paintings, statues and postal stamps. And besides "traditional" deities like God, Allah or YHWH, no other supernatural being has such a huge cult as Santa has.

For now.

Yesterday I discovered a gem amongst the SG videos. Meet the amazing Kyoko from Iceland :


I'm not really surprised that in a land where glaciers mate with volcanoes, creatures of supernatural beauty are born...

Meanwhile, in 1792...

I'm writing these lines on July the 14th, 1711. Seventy-eight years from today, an angry mob of thousand furious Parisians will storm a city prison defended by a fistful of old men. The attackers will loose a hundred men, kill seven and free all the poor, poor, oppressed prisoners - four forgers, two madmen and one deviant aristrocat.

Yay.

I understand that in your time, it's still a public holiday in France. Excuse me if I find this somewhat peculiar.

Some time ago, I listed here some unlikely events that would make me very, very happy ; Austria and England demand peace, the pope allows polygamy, or Flux comes back.

Bad news is that England and Austria are as stubborn as ever and didn't change their mind. The same holds for the pope.

Good news is... guess what ?

On the value of living beings

One of the great ideas of your time is the idea that all human beings have the same value, regardless of race, gender, origin, nationality or religion. Seen from my time, it's a very bold idea. Not everybody shares this idea, even in the western world; and even more share it in theory but not in practice - but it is generally accepted, part of your democracies' ideologies and fixed in many constitutions.

But what about other living beings? Do they have the same value as humans, the same right to live?

This concerns at least two controversies of your time: Veganism and abortion. But these controversies are highly emotional and in some cases influenced by religious and political opinions, so let's rather start by considering a hypothetical case:

Assume that in the year of grace 2020, astronauts discover strange pumpkin-sized mushrooms on Mars. Suppose these "Mars Mushrooms" are in some strange way capable of reasoning. Furthermore, let's assume that fried Mars Mushrooms are not only a delicious dish, but also capable of curing cancer.

It's not difficult to guess what would happen next: A lot of humans, probably the majority, would consider Mars Mushrooms inferior beings and happily exploit this newly discovered gourmet cancer cure, whereas others would claim that Mars Mushroom have the same right to live as humans and that killing them is murder.

Who is right?



The answer, of course, is that there is no answer. All depends whether you consider the Mars Mushrooms inferior beings or equal to humans. In other words, it depends on the value you attribute to different kinds of creatures. (In this article, "value" means moral value like in "all humans are equal", not emotional value like in "I like my own kids most".) There is no "objective" value of creatures. Some may try to argue for a high (or low) value by considering criteria like intelligence, conscience, the ability to feel pain, or even cuteness, but as there is no formula to compute value, it doesn't help much. In the old days, one important criterion was "does it have a soul?", but as the existence of a soul is not a scientific statement (it is not falsifiable), so this criterion has become less popular in your time.

So, if "value" isn't objective but subjective, where does it come from? Well, imho it's highly influenced by culture, but ultimately a personal choice. This choice forms a premise, a base for ethical decisions: If I consider Mars Mushrooms as equal (or almost equal) to humans, it would be murder to kill one to save a cancer-patient; If I consider them inferior, it would be murder not to do so and to let the patient die.

Now, in our Mars Mushroom example there will be probably two different kinds of "mushroom protectors": The militant protectors will apply their own standards to everybody else, accuse the mushroom-eaters of being killers and eventually try to push a law to protect the life of mushrooms. The tolerant protectors will apply their standards to themself, not eat mushrooms and maybe try to convince their friends in a non-offensive way, but they will respect the fact that other people have different opinions. The latter attitude appears more reasonable to me, but it is far from being easy: It comes down to seeing innocent creatures slaughtered, creatures you love, creatures you consider as valuable as humans, and to forbidding yourself to intervene. So, the decision of (a) according a high value to those beings and (b) to remain tolerant is not an easy one, and may appear cowardly and unethical to some.

Note that according a high or low value to a creature is a priori not an ethical decision for itself, as it forms the premise of ethical decisions. Whoever considers another person evil because this other person attributes a lower value to mushrooms misses the point. There is, however, one exception to this rule: Every culture, every time has its standards, its "minimum values" attributed to different kinds of creatures. Your time has established the standard that all humans have equal value, and that animals (at least some) have a value superior to zero. If you go below those values, if you consider women or Albanians or Huguenots lower beings and treat them accordingly, or if you torture dogs or horses just for fun, you are - according to your occidental standards - evil.

(As a side note, even within western culture, the common consensus about value of beings differs. In France, for example, you can order horse steaks in restaurants, in Germany you can't. In both countries, you can order a bunny meet, but try to order a bunny stew in the States... It's not that French people are "evil horse-eaters", it all depends on which value a culture attributes to different kinds of animals. (As a side-side note, pigs are more intelligent than horses.))

So, according to living beings values below the culture's "minimal values" is considered evil - hence the notion of racism, sexism or cruelty to animals. However, imho you can't consider someone evil because their definition of "value" doesn't match with your own personal definition. Many people seem to forget that. This brings us to the two controversies mentioned in the beginning: On one side we have the controversy of vegetarianism/veganism, which is (other reasons for vegetarianism put aside) mainly based on the question whether or not animals have equal value to humans. On the other side, we have the discussion about abortion, based about the question whether or not a human embryo has equal value to a human. In both cases, members of the "value equal to humans" faction consider killing said creatures murder, whereas their opponents can't see anything unethical in it.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that the two discussions are equivalent. Nor am I comparing the "value" of animals with the "value" of human embryos. An animal and a human embryo are quite different things. All I'm saying is that in the two discussions are based on the open question whether or not a certain living being is to be considered of equal value to a human.

In this post, I'm not taking position in either of the said controversies. But I appeal to you, whether you are pro or contra abortion, vegan or carnivore: Please realize that your postulates, the value you attribute to embryos or animals, differ from the ones of the guy you are arguing with. It doesn't help claiming they are a murderer when they are not according to their postulates, and it doesn't help either to minimize what has a high value in their opinion. Most of all, you should not forget that the core of the controversy is not about God, women's rights, the taste of meat, the Bible, tradition or the alimentation of Homo Erectus, but about the value you chose to give to certain living beings. If you keep that in mind, you may not come to an agreement, but at least you might "agree to disagree".

Dire que le communisme peut fonctionner parce qu'il a bien fonctionné pendant les deux mois de la Commune de Paris revient à dire qu'un homme peut être un mari exemplaire parce que dans une de ses nombreuses affaires il était fidèle et attentionné pendant les deux mois passionnés que durait cette liaison.

(In English:

Saying that a well-running communistm possible because it actually worked during the two months of the Paris Commune is the same as saying that a man can be a model husband because in one of his many love affairs he didn't neglect or cheat on his mistress during the two passionnate months their liaison lasted for.)

The oh-so-discriminating Halal Burger

In the light of recent events in France (see below), I wish to discuss one question: What is discrimination?



This word is unknown in my time (not because the phenomenon doesn’t exist but because it is considered normal). However, even to me it seems to be a quite simple thing: Treating people differently depending on generalizing criteria, like gender, race, sexual orientation, religion and so on.

In my time, a world which condemns discrimination seems like Utopia. Do you, citizens of the 21th century, live in this Utopia?

Before we try to answer this question, let’s think a bit more about what is discrimination. More precisely, allow me to enumerate some examples of what discrimination is not:

• A nun, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar. The bar happens to serve only anti-alcoholic beverages, which pleases the imam. All three are treated the same way and are allowed to order the same drinks. Is this discrimination? In my not-so-humble opinion it isn’t.


• Now, they walk into a bicycle shop. The shop happens to sell only step-through bikes, which pleases the nun (and possibly the imam, depending on his cloth). All three are treated the same way and are allowed to buy the same bikes. Is this discrimination? I don’t think so.


• Eventually, our three friends walk into a sex shop… wait, let’s say a grocery. The grocery happens to sell only kosher food, which pleases the rabbi. All three are treated the same way and are allowed to buy the same food. Is this discrimination? I doubt it.


• Finally, the three people walk into a fast food restaurant. The restaurant happens to sell only halal food, which pleases the imam. All three are treated the same way and are allowed to buy the same food. Is this discrimination?

You may be surprised to learn that for some politicians in France, it is!

The restaurant in question belongs to Quick, a French-Belgian chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, which decided end of 2009 to serve exclusively halal menus in eight of its 362 restaurants in France. The restaurants, situated in districts with strong Muslim population, serve only halal beef and replace bacon with smoked turkey. (You can order a beer, though.)



Now it gets funny (or sad, if you still had some hope that this world makes sense): One of said restaurants is in Roubaix, northern France. In February 2010, the socialist mayor of Roubaix, René Vandierendonck, feels this is “discrimination”. He has filed charges against Quick with a regional court, as well as a complaint with France's main antidiscrimination authority.

But he is anything than alone. Soon afterwards, politicians of other parties jumped on the issue – not surprisingly Marine Le Pen, vice president of the far-right National Front, but also politicians from the ruling UMP, including the party’s secretary general Xavier Bertrand and the agricultural minister Bruno Le Maire. They all feel “discriminated” when they walk into a restaurant and can’t have the burger they want. Not that the burger is refused because of their race or religion, but it simply isn’t on the restaurant’s menu.

(That reminds me my last incognito visit in the 21th century when I walked into a Burger King and ordered a Big Mac, but didn’t get it. I felt very, very discriminated...)

But this isn’t the end of the story. Quick announced they were “thinking about” offering both halal and haraam (non-halal) burgers. In exchange, Vandierendonck has retired his complaint. On 1st September 2010, Quick extended [french link] its halal experiment to 14 new restaurants, making it a total of 22. To avoid new complaints and accusations, the chain decided to offer also one non-halal burger in these restaurants (however not prepared on-location but defrosted). Nevertheless, the decision has triggered new outbursts of public stupidity; local politicians and mayors all over the republic complain about this supposedly discriminating decision.

Let me get this straight: Discrimination is when two clients want to buy the same dish, but one of them doesn’t get it due to some generalizing criteria. Discrimination is not when two people want different dishes but one doesn’t get his dish because it isn’t sold in this restaurant.



Every restaurateur, every merchant has the right to adapt his offer to the preferences of whatever group of clients might be most likely to buy from him – I understand this is what you guys call a “target group”. The point is that he hasn’t the right to refuse one of his merchandises to someone who belongs to another group. So, those complaints about “discrimination” are nothing but utter nonsense.

Strangely, nobody in France complained about kosher restaurants, or about restaurants who serve only fish on Friday, according to catholic tradition. Why is this not considered “discrimination”? What is the difference?

Well, the difference is maybe that “halal” is islamic. France is home of about five million Muslims, and naturally, due to human nature, not everybody thinks they are welcome. Good old xenophobia. This discussion is far from being the only recent outburst of public islamophobia in France: The ban of the niquap, the discussion about “national identity”, to quote only some examples... In consequence, when some idiot mayor maunders about “discrimination” of non-muslim citizens, there are a lot of other idiots ready to jump on the issue, without even knowing what they are talking about.

Maybe your time is still far from being Utopia. Even my beloved France.

P.S.:This post was originally written as news article, but was not published by SG.

What is genderfuck?

Instead of an explanation (which others would be more qualified for),allow me to answer with an image I just made: