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Guess who's back?

I don't really know what a Genesect is, but it looked like a Poke-transformer, and didn't leave much of a good impression. 

However, some research reveals that it is, in fact, another (semi-)artificial Pokemon created by a villain team. Instead of the organic technology that spawned Mewtwo, Genesect represents technology from the silicon and metal side - it is a cyborg. 

Pokemon is actually doing a good job of reflecting social trends - back in the mid 90s, the public was just beginning to concern itself with advances in genetics (Dolly was born in 1996). In the 21st century, things like Smartphones, digital identity chips, and augmented reality (like the upcoming Google Glasses) are really beginning to pick up, and posthumanism and cyborg-related issues are beginning to be noticed by 'mainstream' society, with organizations like Humanity+ (formerly WTA) forming in 2008, the Cyborg Foundation in 2010, and even a 'digital series' called H+ airing on Youtube in 2012.

And also [spoiler alert!], this happens to Mewtwo:

First reaction, of course, was

@_________________________________________________@

After the initial shellshock and utter rejection of this new 'Awakened' Mewtwo, I thought about it, and realized how absolutely awesome it actually is. 

Behold, comparison:

 

 That is the innocent Mewtwo from the very first movie, dreaming with Amber.

Mewtwo lived because Amber has told him to keep on living and not give up, although he could not figure out why he should continue living. 

He has now found the answer, and is living with an appreciation of the beauty of the world, living with a smile - the way Amber would have liked for him to live. 

Mewtwo's very existence, and his very action, is Amber's legacy. And when we look into his eyes, we see Amber's smile shining through.

Mewtwo has succeeded in achieving what science has failed to achieve - to immortalize Amber, to allow her legacy to continue, to bring her smile back for the world. 

He also embodies my take on posthuman philosophy:

When we were first in paradise, we were not self-aware, and, even if we were good, we had no choice but to be good. 

When we fell from the heavens, we lost our ignorance. And when we mature, we will be able to choose, by power and will, to again be good. In this way, we will rise again into paradise, but this time, we will have true innocence, not merely ignorance.

And so, we will return to our 'fetal', innocent state, but with the addition of all the power we have obtained throughout our long journey, the ability of choosing when and whether we should use this power, and, most importantly, what we want for ouselves.

By being able to close our eyes, we will know that we are indeed awake.

If Pokemon were Real - Swoobat

Click the 'Real Pokemon' label above to see all the posts in the series!

Have you ever wondered what our life would be like if Pokemon were real? You would never have to go to school (except trainer schools, but that's just for NPC rookies who can never get past level 10), have access to free miracle cure for every injury (no matter how severe), and apparently be allowed to make a living by beating up other people's pets.

You'd also be quite dead.

Every once in a while, I will pick a Pokemon at random (with the help of this and this) to illustrate just how utterly terrifying, and quite possibly reality-defying, that Pokemon really is, based on the Pokedex description.

=====================

Today's Pokemon:


Swoobat

"It emits sound waves of various frequencies from its nose including some powerful enough to destroy rocks. It shakes its tail vigorously when it emits ultrasonic waves strong enough to reduce concrete to rubble."

Let us first clarify one thing:

The 'power' of sound (assuming that, by 'power', we mean the amount of force the sound can exert) comes not from frequency, but pressure. Sound frequency is what we usually perceive as the pitch, and sound pressure is the loudness.

In other words, Swoobat cannot simply adjust the frequency of its sound waves until it's high enough to destroy rocks - there is no such thing as 'some frequency powerful enough to destroy rocks'. In order to increase the damage, Swoobat would need to scream louder, not higher. 

And just how loud does it have to be to 'reduce concrete to rubble'?

Let us begin with the concept of 'decibel', or dB.

Decibel is used to measure the loudness of the sound. Every time the decibel goes up by 10, the sound is 10 times louder (it's actually logarithmic, but that doesn't concern us now).

10 dB sounds like absolute silence to humans.

20 dB is 10 times louder than 10dB, and would be close to the volume of a pin dropping on the floor.

60 dB is 10,000 times louder than 20dB, and is the volume of regular conversation.

At about 130 dB (10,000,000 louder than regular conversation), permanent hearing loss can occur.

10 times louder than even that, and humans begin experiencing physical pain, regardless of the frequency of sound.

Another 10 times louder, at 150 dB, and your throat, nose, lungs, joints and eyeballs will physically vibrate, causing blurred vision, difficulty in breathing, inability to swallow, and other generally very unpleasant things to occur.

Somewhere between 160 to 170 dB is the volume inside a jet turbine. 

From this point on, things get scary very quickly:

Researchers have exposed insects and mice to 160dB of 20kHz ultrasound, and found that the poor little creatures became quite dead.

At 165 dB, the sound would actually burn you like a laser beam.

Now, let's get back to our concrete-shattering Swoobat:

Wikipedia lists the force required to break regular concrete as between 1450~5800 psi. Let us suppose that the concrete in our scenario requires 3500 psi to break.

This should be simple, right? Swoobat just needs to scream loudly enough to create 3500 psi on the piece of concrete in question. 


So how many dB of sound does the Swoobat have to make to create 1 psi of pressure?

The answer is...

170.75dB.

It would take three thousand five hundred times the level of sound loud enough to physically burn you and murder small rodents to shatter that piece of concrete.


Let us begin with 1 psi (~170 dB), and travel up the scale to see what sort of sheer terror awaits us at 3500 psi (more than 200 dB):

At 180dB, humans will burn to death.

At 190dB, the sound would be similar to a pound of grenades exploding in your face (and probably feel that way, too).

If you are somehow immune to burns and grenades, 200dB will ensure that you get no further, as the shock from the sound wave alone is enough to kill anyone at this level.

(Any further, and we will reach an atomic explosion at 250dB)

So yes, a Woobat crushing concrete would look more like a Hyper Beam (what with the super-heated air and shockwaves) than you'd imagine. And really, at that point, the loudness would be the least of your concerns.

Now, that isn't even the scariest part.

What is truly terrifying is that a tiny, 20lb flying furball is creating that sort of destruction, and is not even affected by it.

Remember how rodents die at 160dB and humans burn to death at 180dB? Swoobat, apparently, is not only immune to heat, but have internal organs significant tougher than concrete.

Lesson of the day:
Do NOT make Swoobats angry.

Dimensions of Politics 01

Approximately 5 years ago, I have adopted a two-dimensional system of categorizing political orientation.

I now feel the need to incorporate a third dimension, and intend to re-examine my categorization system for this purpose, as well as for general refinement.

I shall begin by introducing the axes of the established two-dimensional system:

x-axis:
(not the independent variable; the axes merely identify unique dimensions, and carry no other connotations)

I assign to this axis (again, for no particular reason) the dimension of economy (although it includes more than what is typically described as 'economy'; more on this later).


Broadly speaking, positive x-values represent (again, for no particular reason) capitalism, whereas negative x-values represent the opposite.

'Capitalism', however, is not well defined, despite being a familiar term to most, and placing an entire ideological system at the end of a single axis seems a silly idea, as ideological systems are usually multidimensional.

Let us, therefore, distill 'capitalism' into its purest form: a belief in capitals.

Different interpretations and categories of various economic schools aside, 'capital' is, in essence, the value of something. A belief in capital, then, first encompasses the recognition and reification of value - similar to how one would recognize 'green-ness' in all things green. Once the common trait of green things are recognized, 'green-ness' emerges as a distinct and in some way transcendental concept - one is able to picture 'green' without associating it with a green object, despite the fact that no one (presumably) has seen 'green-ness', only things with the trait of 'green-ness'.

Similarly, once the concept of value is recognized, one could reify the concept. 'Value' is now to all things economically meaningful as 'green-ness' is to all things green.

Herein lies the essence of capitalism: the recognition of value as a 'thing'.

The rest of capitalist beliefs follow easily. For example: Value can be separated from the object with value - kind of like how a green leaf can be envisioned to have its 'green-ness' taken out of it and become a colourless leaf. This leads to the possibility of exchanging extracted values, and perhaps having these values represented by concrete things (e.g. money). A piece of production equipment is capable of producing value (and is, in turn, made from value), and its own value in an exchange can be determined by balancing these two sets of values (i.e. supply and demand). The 'exchange value' of a human can also be determined in a similar manner, leading to the concept of labour/human capital.

The positive side of the x-axis, then, represents acceptance of this single foundational idea: that value is.

[Updates to come; Next: negative x-value]

TOMBOY REVOLUTION: I want to be a boy!

TOMBOY REVOLUTION: I want to be a boy!: So...you want to be a boy. Quite frankly, I don't blame you! There's lots of reasons to want to be a boy if you were born as a girl....

Redefining Humanity 002

(This is the continuation of this post)

We begin with this premise:

'Human' is a word defined by humans.

We then have:

P1) Every entity that declares itself human and possesses the ability to define the word 'human' without explicit instruction must be human

P2) All entities defined by confirmed humans (i.e. those satisfying the requirements in P1) to be humans must be humans.

In addition:

P3) A definition that contradicts itself is a false definition.

Rawr~

I have a new job! And not much time to post =(

I have been exploring an old mathematical 'paradox'. An brief outline:

The Question
There is a circle with an inscribed equilateral triangle, like this:

If I were to randomly draw a chord in the circle, what is the probability that the chord I draw will have a length greater than a side of the equilateral triangle?

The 'Solutions'

Solution 1
Pick one vertex of the triangle; this will be point A.
To construct a chord, we connect A with another point on the circumference of circle; let's call this other point B.
We can observe that the triangle divides the circumference of the circle into three sections of equal length.
If B happens to be on the section of the curve opposite from A, AB will be longer than a side of the triangle. If not, not.
The answer, therefore, is 1/3.

Solution 2
Draw a radius perpendicular to one of the sides of the triangle, let's call it r.
A little bit of an exercise in geometry would reveal that the the side of the triangle perpendicular to r intersects r at exactly the midpoint of r.
Any chord parallel to a side of the triangle is longer than the side if the chord is closer to the centre of the circle, and shorter than the side if further.
Since a side intersects r at the midpoint, exactly half of the chords perpendicular to r will be longer than the side, and the other half would, of course, be shorter.
The answer, therefore, is 1/2.

Solution 3
Inscribe a circle within the triangle.
Any chord of the larger circle with a midpoint that falls within the area of the smaller circle is of a length greater than that of a side of the triangle.
An exercise in geometry would reveal that the area of the smaller circle is, in fact, exactly 1/4 that of the area of the larger circle.
The answer, therefore, is 1/4. 

[updates to come... whenever?]

Redefining Humanity

Work in progress.

The Problem:

The fragmented definition (or complete lack thereof) of the term 'human' has caused, in the past, many conflicts and unproductive, empty debates (e.g. slavery, gender-related issues, treatment of the mentally ill, ...). The problem persists today (e.g. abortion, euthanasia, corporate personhood, ...), and will certainly continue to plague us if not resolved (e.g. products of genetic engineering, emergence of strong A.I., synthesis of Homo Sapiens and their machines, ...).

The Proposal:

Construct a universal definition for the term 'human', with emphasis on the ability of the definition to encourage social harmony and technological progress.

[Updates to Come]