Something Rendering-Unto-Caesar-style for ya now

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

You miss that meme? Rendering Unto Caesar. Well, let me give you a taste of that long-forgotten snack a little bit here. I'm gonna occupy you with the topic of the downfall of reason. And the degradation of the mind. The larger the extent that religious cults regulate a person's everyday behavior, the more beneficial they become to some people. The nature of this symbiotic relationship between cult and brain-death is that the former allows the mind to spare energy it would have spent in unreasonable quantities in search of complex, nuanced decisions, building strategies and behaviors, and in-depth exploration and understanding of the world that surrounds us.

The job of this crucial human organ is significantly simplified by adopting a strict set of social instincts that are imposed from outside, and require the employment of little to no intellectual capacity whatsoever. The blissful mindlessness is actively sustained by the metaphorical brain endorphins. By getting immersed in a religious cult of some sort, one could easily spare energy and use a template algorithm of behavior for almost any standard situation that may emerge in life (now, for the more non-standard situation, things could get a bit messy, granted). The prospect of freeing one's mind of the heavy consumption of energy related to critical thinking can be quite an alluring motivation. Not that people like myself who tend to feel increasingly intoxicated by the process of swallowing and processing more and more new information, are capable of comprehending how it's even possible to feel "freed" through shutting one's mind, but yeah.

( Some more Caesar in here )

The quasi civil war continues

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

There are so many shootings in the US, with so many victims, that the fact that the police are still wondering whether to treat the latest California massacre as an actual terrorist attack or not, does not appear to be that relevant at this point. We've got to put this in context, so here's some:

Number of people killed annually by firearms in the US: 30,000+
Number of people shot and murdered every day: 30+
Homicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds.
And the primary cause of death among African Americans of age 18-35.

( And gun violence is actually rather costly )