America day 6

Aunt Dee lives in an amazing home, in an amazing neighborhood and has an amazingly non creepy collection of plastic dolls and rabbits. We were advised to not drive into or near New York because of a snow dump from last night. Instead we took a very infrequent $15/person/way Bolt Bus from Cherry Hill New Jersey to the middle of Manhattan.

My first offical impression of New York was amazing. We hopped off the bus, half frozen from the -11 degrees F (C), and got screamed at by a construction worker flinging sand onto the pavements. We then ventured our way towards Bryant Park, where they had installed an ice skating rink and a lot of small shops and stalls. It was at this location that I finally lived out my dream of getting served a hotdog by a bored and aggressive vender. It was just like the movies; he lazily squirted on sauce and plopped on way too much relish.

We knew we only had 7 hours in New York until our next Bolt Bus, so we decided to tactically visit the rockerfeller building and see another ice skating rink and some famous tree. After that we sprinted our way to the broadway theatre via a pizza place. The show was called "a bronx tale" and it was amazing. If you're reading this, you'll know me well enough to know that I hate any form of artwork including plays. This was completely different, I loved it. The accents were really enticing and the story line was refreshingly different from a standard Disney plot line.

Time was running out so we decided to hustle our way to central park. It was beautiful. Really glad America hasn't sold all of it's soul for more apartment buildings. I'm going to try and attach a photo to this blog post, but in the likely event that I'll forget, just google "Central Park in winter". Same thing.

We were really pushed for time now so we decided to catch a subway to the 9/11 memorial center. It was exactly what I had expected. Filthy, poorly sign posted, and inefficient. It was quite amazing to see all the personalities in the New York subway, they had everything from uptight wealthy workers to downright crazy people. One black chick had dressed up as Santa Claus with a delicately written sign on her saying "Nigga Claus". She had a boom box too and was screaming to everyone "Nigga Claus is BACK! White Santa is dead!".

The 9/11 memorial had an atmosphere about it that was hard not to pick up. Even the light construction noise and cars tooting in the background didn't distract from the ambiance. Will have to go back to do the full tour when we get more time.

America day 4

We had the intention of renting a car today to go on a hike around Blue Spring state park, but in the end Kaz's Grandma let us borrow her car instead. Whoopie! After devouring about 1/2 pound (kg) of cap'n crunch we were on our way.

On our arrival at Blue Spring state park, I was relieved to see quite a few Americans preparing for runs, bike rides, and walking tours. Phew, not all Americans live such a sedentary lifestyle here. The first thing we did was take a 10 minute boardwalk tour of the manatees (sea cows). They're exactly what I had expected; giant, slow, barely conscious, floating eating machines. Amazingly they lived in complete harmony with the gaters who lived there too. Sadly, periodic thick white scars on their backs meant they didn't live so harmoniously with propeller boats. After that we completed a 10 mile hike which took us through swampland, sand and tall grassy areas. It was a good hike, but completely flat (oh yeah, Florida is about as flat as the Netherlands). Can't wait to start my Alpine hike up north!

On the way back we passed a few shops and I got myself a new pair of sneaks (sneakers) ((shoes)), and about 10 bags of mulch, and food for dinner. We had decided to do Aunt Lori's garden, and cook some dinner as a thank you for housing us.

Before I end this post, I wanna do something weird; I want to talk about Kaz's Grandma. It was tremendously sad to notice that she would spend almost every hour of the day sitting on the couch in the dark watching Fox News on TV. I'm not kidding, probably about 23 hours of the day since she preferred sleeping on the couch where the colors and sound of the TV could wash over her. Apparently this has been a long term habit of hers, built in from decades of being a stay at home mum. She didn't strike me as depressed, but it was depressing to witness. I know this isn't an accurate representation of the average American elderly person, but I think it does indicate how poisonous a sedentary, automated and gender divided culture can be.

America day 5

Today was a moving day. We woke up at 5:30am and Kaz's Aunt Lorie (Lory? Loury?) drove us to the airport to fly to Newark airport. The plane ride went smoothly; so smoothly in fact that I managed to read a few pages of a book Kaz game me for Christmas: Artemis.

The only snag we hit was renting the car. Apparently the insurance we had payed for online had been cancelled by default after changing the pickup time. It was at this moment I got the full dose of the New Yorker "I don't give a fuck" attitude. Looking back at it now, I'm kinda glad I had the experience of staff being completely unhelpful and downright lying to their customers about company policy, however at the time, i was beyond furious.

Anyway, we finally got the car sorted and we were on our way to Cherry Hill where Kaz's aunty lives in New Jersey. We arrived there after 2 hours of driving, had an amazing dinner and good walk around town and a good nights rest.

Aunt. D is a math teacher for a community college. We had a fascinating conversation about the quality of US education. The conclusion: It's not good. A lot of the high school graduates she teaches don't even know their times tables or how to add fractions. Terrifying. Apparently this is in large due politics. Teachers can choose what parts of math they want to teach, so many just ignore the challenging stuff. State tests are designed to make sure teachers teach students everything they need to know, but students that fail the exam still move up to the next grade anyway, so in practice, there's no incentive (from the teacher or the student) to fill in massive gaps in their math knowledge.

America day 3

The first thing we did today was go on the hunt for food. We found a few places on Google maps that seemed like good go to's for breakfast, so after about 30 minutes of social pleasantries we start our walk around town.

Wow America, just wow! Your walking pavements are just awful. It seems that the cracked and broken streets of Jakarta have a close contender for the 'most neglected sidewalks in the world' prize. America's addiction to driving has created a domino effect of problems; one of which is that it's impossible to walk anywhere, and another is that public transport is pretty much non existent. I'll rant about public transport later. When we finally arrived at our destination we got to see an amazing entendre of about a dozen giant pick up trucks trying to park in oversized parking lots, followed by an encore of obese people waddling around into shops. Sadly we couldn't find the ideal coffee shop we were looking for - only boiled peanuts and donuts.

When we got back, the whole family was set on going to the beach! The sun was shining, the grass was green, and the gators were grinning. The beach was actually beautiful, it stretched on for miles (kilometers) and miles (kilometers). After being deprived of a healthy dose of sun cancer in the Netherlands for 5 months, I was more than keen to have a dip in the ocean.

Once we got back it had suddenly turned to night, and dinner was ready for us all. Another good 'ol Southern meal. Fuck I love potato salad.

Overall, it I really enjoyed the slow pace of today. All of Florida seems to be very easy going and simple - great for a holiday. Don't think I could live here though.

America day 2

We woke up at the crack of 11pm, fed ourselves some bagels and some extremely sugary cereal, then proceeded to make our way to the gun range with Jacob.

First we made a quick stop at Walmart  to buy some ammunition. It turns out, you don't even need a licence to buy a gun or ammunition, all you need is an American passport. So Kaz bought about a hundred rounds of bullets for a 22 Cal rifle and a 16 AR. As we drove about 45 mins to the shooting range, we had some time to probe Jacob to find out more about his views on gun laws. Here's what we found: 1) you can apply for a licence to have a concealed weapon. This means exactly what you think; you can walk in public places with a gun hidden under your jacket. 2) You can drive out into the woods to go shooting if you don't want to go to a gun range. This is cheaper, but you run the risk of getting shot / shooting other hunters since (according to 19 y/o Jacob) there are no designated hunting areas or shooting directions. You just have to hope no one is in the way of your bullets. 3) This is my personal favorite: "The best thing about having a gun is that you feel invincible with it".

When we arrived at the gun range, we found out that firing the gun was no way as exciting as hearing other people firing guns. Every 10 seconds we heard deafening booms coming from shotgun fire and sniper rifle fire followed by hoots, cheers and simple one liners. The whole atmosphere of the place was drowned with male bravado - this was made especially obvious when we found out women don't have to pay the $10 visiting fee.

When we got back we had a bit of time to devour some left over pizza, ham and creamy potato salad from last night before heading off to the Kennedy space center. I won't go into detail, but it was a lot of fun. You got to see the actual space ships, launch pads and simulation training machines. Sadly they didn't go into a lot of detail about the Engineering behind the difficulties the Americans had, or the historical significance German rocket scientists played, but either way it a was a lot of fun.

America day 1

Finally I'm going to start writing a proper blog post. No more random artsy philosophical crap. Well.. maybe I'll sneak in a few philosophy posts along the way, we'll see.

Ok, so I woke up at 4:30am to catch my flight from Amsterdam to Orlando Florida. It was a bad start on my end; the plane was horribly delayed (and yes, I know, I should have checked whether the flight was on time rather than just rely on a Google update), so I stayed at the airport for about 4 hours. Also, I had forgotten to write down the American address I was staying at so I got fully stumped by the polite Dutch lady when I went to the checkin counter to get my boarding pass. However, once I got on the plane, everything was just fine; I sat next to a biologically Indian woman, who had grown up in Caribbean and had lived the last 30 years in the Netherlands - needless to say, she had a strange accent and a very interesting perspective on life. I had no idea, the British had sent Indians to South America to be farmers!?

On arrival, I was hoping to pass through a duty free shopping area so I could buy a few bottles of wine, or at least one of those yummy chocolates. No such luck. Instead I spent a good 10 - 15 minutes having a very one sided conversation with an American immigration officer who was more interested in the type of software I use as an Engineer than reading through my printed visa waver form.

Once I finally got out of the airport, I met Kaz who had patiently been waiting for me for an hour. I had planned to do one of those cliche romantic runs from the movies (can't remember which one, maybe baywatch?) where we sprint into each others arms, but that was cut short by a car almost hitting me as I crossed the road. Damn :(

When we got to the house in Titusville I met the whole family and then some. The whole family is lovely and incredibly hospitable.  So much food, so much alcohol. I forgot how much I missed Southern Food. I met a bloke called Jacob, a 19 year old who owns several guns and a car. Needlessly to say, I pressured him into taking us shooting tomorrow.

In the evening, to my surprise, everyone gathered around the TV at 8:30pm to watch the Eagles vs Raiders game (it's Football) ((American football)). It didn't seem very Christmassy, but it was an interesting cultural experience.

USA USA USA!

Distopia or Utopia?

So I've already written about freedom briefly before, but there were a few things I wanted to add to my last rant. Here we go:

It's non controversial to claim that our environment and culture shapes who we are; especially our personalities. I see it all the time, in almost any category. 1) In fashion Australians want to look strong, the Dutch want to look fit. 2) In daily conversation Americans need to constantly engage in conversation, but the Polish are often quite and reserved. Obviously this doesn't describe everyone, but there's clearly a bell curve centered differently for each country with a surprisingly small variance.

The question I think we should naturally ask ourselves after observing this is: what does freedom mean in a society where at least almost all of your desires and decisions are determined by your genetics, environment and culture? I don't know the answer to that question, but I think the only answer can come from an objective moral theory based on utilitarianism.

I think freedom is a highly prized (and bizarrely undefined) concept in all Western countries. But what if it turns out that having too much freedom conflicts with the greater good? What if we can prove mathematically that more well being is gained by tactically making someone suffer before rewarding them? What if we have the means to drug ourselves into a blissful oblivion? Is a slave with purpose happier than the individual? Sadly, I've found these types of questions can't even be asked because there's too much emotion around the subject. One of the culprits of this entanglement of emotion in my mind is the brilliant George Orwell. In 1984 he presents a straw-man perception of a world rich with surveillance, technology and limited freedoms.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but maybe a world like that minus the ridiculousness could be a real utopia. Maybe maximizing freedom is a dead end that's no more compassionate than overfeeding a dog with unlimited food. 

Every human has been dealt a strange hand; we've got hundreds of evolved mental dispositions that can drive us in a direction that we can objectively tell is wrong. We need to build a moral compass to stop us from wandering off the edge. 

Body Augmentation

We have more power to artificially change our bodies than literally every generation of humans before us. In the near future, technology will only improve and body augmentation services will only get cheaper and more effective. By itself, this isn't necessarily a bad thing - in fact it can be a great thing! The scary part is the growing divergence between technological growth and moral growth. If we don't grow our understanding of moral philosophy, then our moral decisions will be largely influenced by our culture and biology. Why is this a problem? Well, for small things like piercings and tattoos, it's not. But for potentially irreversible things like gender change or silicon implants, it could be. 

Don't get me wrong, I think in some circumstances, extreme body augmentation can be a great thing and can empower a person to maximize their well-being. But I suspect that's not what we'll be dealing with in the near future; instead I suspect people will be shaping their bodies blindly in response to arbitrary changes in culture.

This is just one example that I believe underscores the importance of ripping the responsibility of deciding morality away from religion and moral relativists, and placing it in the hands of scientists who can objectively progress it from a few simple axioms.