Love of money

If money buys happiness, why does Sir Alan Sugar seem so miserable? It’s because money does not buy happiness, and a burning love of money above anything else (which is what people like Sir Alan Sugar have) is forever insatiable and can only lead to dissatisfaction.

Happy, genuine, relationships lead to satisfaction. As does choosing something you enjoy and becoming good at it (something not associated with pure greed). Concentrate on these things and not on money as your end, and be assured the money will take care of itself, as a pleasant but non-essential enhancement of your life.

The future of the music industry

The music industry is facing something of a crisis, because any music can be digitally recorded, whatever protection they use, duplicated without quality loss and distributed for free. Record companies are worried. They’re losing money and they are fighting a losing battle trying to combat this situation.

The logical conclusion is that music should be free, and artists should accept that and instead make money from live shows. They should raise the price of gigs if necessary to accommodate this. Personally I am happy to pay high fees for good live performances (I’m paying quite a high fee to attend a classical concert at the Cadogan Hall this very evening).

Hopefully music being free would help eliminate all the relatively talentless middle people who make money from the artists for doing very little too. The Internet facilitates the relationship just being between us and the artists and - as much as possible - that’s how it should be.

Selling out

Companies can give you a lot. Less job security than before, but they can give you money, healthcare, a car maybe. But in return they will take from you the most valuable thing you have: your freedom. This includes your time - and your impartiality (and thereby, in many cases, your very integrity). You see it all the time, people having to lie (or choosing to lie) to defend the companies for which they work, and it’s always a pitiful sight.

So be careful before you work for a company. Think about what kind of company it really is, what kind of human being you really want to be, and what kind of people you really want to respect you. And when push comes to shove within that company, shove back. Stand true to your own values, because the world is bigger than one company, and no-one should try to buy or sell your integrity… not even you.

Inter-racial relationships

When you look around London the sight of an oriental girl with a Caucasian man is increasingly common, perhaps because each sees in the other something which is hard to find in their own society (and I discuss what that something is in my Japan blog). However, it is true to say that you still very rarely see a Caucasian man with either an Indian girl or a black girl. Now, why is this?

I’ve actually discussed this issue with an Indian man and with a black girl. My conclusions are that in the case of Indians, it is our old friend religion again, laying down stupid rules to restrict people’s freedom and happiness. Indian girls (even if they have freed their minds from religion in the first place) face being ostracised by their family if they go out with, let alone marry, a non-Muslim. In the case of black girls, the problem seems to relate to a ‘hang-over’ from the days of slavery. It’s a shame this has not been overcome and left behind - after all, many Africans took an active role in the slavery business too.

Many Indian and African girls are not only nice people (of course) but very beautiful too, and look forward to the day when more of them have the confidence to lift the stigma, look beyond their own groups and consider the whole human race, regardless of what anyone might think. They might just like what they find.

The war in Iraq

Most British people (or certainly the vocal ones) were strongly against the war in Iraq (not that it was much of a “war”), but I was in favour of the invasion, on the grounds that if you have the power to do something about oppression and routine torture in a country, you should do it. I considered the “do-gooders” in the UK to be two-faced in the sense that they are always telling leaders they should act to dismantle aggressive regimes, but then when they do something they are condemned for it. They are quite simply damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.

I didn’t care about the motives of the Iraq invasion, but I cared that they sought to take down a murderous dictator; the measure was long overdue. I dare say Tony Blair did not have sufficient confidence in the British people to come clean that there were no WMDs. If he had said “It is morally right for us to take this leader down” he would have been faced with the short-sighted “I’m alright Jack” mentality of most people in the United Kingdom and been unable to act.

Now, the invasion turned out to be a disaster. Not because it was morally wrong, but because (incredibly) insufficient thought was given to how to handle the country after its successful liberation. I’d like to point out that few voices objected to the invasion on these grounds (which are the grounds that actually turned out to be the problem) - everybody objected merely on the grounds of WMDs.

I’d also like to point out that most people do not understand the importance of Britain being close to America, the world’s superpower. I am sure Tony Blair (for all his faults, and I think he has many) did try to put across the British point of view, but Britain cannot afford to alienate itself, and it is naive to think otherwise.

The invasion of Iraq was a mistake, but not for the reasons that most people think.

Intentionality and moral virtue

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is exiting office emphasising that he always did what he thought was right. But in a position of such considerable power (and with so many expert advisors), that is arguably not enough, and it becomes important to not only have good intentions, but to actually be right too.

Prayer

Prayer does not always have no effect at all. It has been shown to sometimes have a negative effect: people who know they are being prayed for have been shown to take longer to recover from illnesses. But this has nothing to do with the supernatural, of course, and usually prayer has no practical effect whatsoever (not suprising as no-one is listening).

It is wrong to greatly value something which is based on false foundations. Also, people who pray are, whilst purporting to be good, wasting hundreds of hours of valuable time during which they could instead be doing something which is certainly practically effective. If they got up off their knees they could actually make themselves useful taking direct action regarding the causes which concern them. For these reasons, among others, we should take a dim view of prayer.

Orange SPV M3100

I have just upgraded from this to this, and I have to say it’s an amazing piece of technology…

Advertising Lie

I haven’t reported an advertising lie for some time - perhaps because I’ve been in Tokyo, where there are fewer to see (certainly fewer to understand!), but I spotted a good one yesterday in Chelsea. It’s an estate agent (again!). You’d think they have a bad enough reputation already, but I like this one in a way because it is just a blatant untruth, with no attempt to disguise it:

“Selling houses is an art form.”

Douglas & Gordon

Talk about delusions of grandeur… everybody knows selling houses is not an art form!

Humanist songs!

Here are a couple of songs with good Humanist lyrics:

OMD - Universal

It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white
Or the god that you choose to pray to
It doesn’t matter about the clothes you wear
Or which creator made you

We all bleed the same blood
We all need the same love
And when we die there’s no heaven above
It’s universal

It doesn’t matter who you think you are
You’re living and you know you feel it
It’s not important as to why were here
You know there is no reason

We all bleed the same blood
We all need the same love
And when we die there’s no heaven above
It’s universal

Faithless - To All New Arrivals

In our world malaria kills a child every 30 seconds
11 million children die every year of malnutrition
To all new arrivals, welcome

In our world, 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS
30,000 children die of preventable causes every day.
To all new arrivals, welcome

In our world 2 million children are working in the sex trade this moment
1.1 billion people in the world, earn less than a dollar a day

To all new arrivals, we love you
We would die for you, kill for you
Welcome

If there’s a God, be aware: I’m a man newly made
My son lies here and only of him am I afraid
As I gaze into that face I perceive that which is true
I created him, and we created you - in his image

And I never knew love like this

Both very well produced tracks with good tunes too…

Life’s What You Make It

In direct contrast to the damaging idea of “fate”, the idea that “life’s what you make it” is very good (not only because of the great track by Talk Talk).

This is life-affirming and true. You see in life what you want to see in it. The glass should be half full, you can always make the best of the remains of the day, and with sufficient determination you can probably achieve your aims.

In addition to this I would like to say that you make your own luck. There is always pure luck, of course (luck considered to be chance working in your favour), but you can, and should, engineer circumstances to a large degree to invite luck into your life. Put yourself in the right places at the right times. Then, if things don’t work out as you would like, at least you can say one thing with certainty: you don’t have yourself to blame.