I DON'T GET IT

Later today I might, no no, I WILL [I might] start researching 
political parties running in the upcoming Australian federal 
election. Before each election I insist on researching every little 
micro-party appearing on the endless scroll that is the senate 
voting form, so that I can rate each in exact order of loathing 
'below the line'. I write up little summaries, but never to the 
quality that I'd like because I always put it off until just before 
election day and then need to do it all in a rush. This year I'm 
thinking of publishing them somewhere here in my Gopher hole, 
partly as some sort of encouragement to do them properly, but so 
far the unpleasantness of the task itself is still putting me off.

What I do know is that this process always brings out a lot of deep 
personal opinions which normally go unvoiced, even, in a way, to 
myself. Looking deep into politics emphasises many of the core 
things that make me a bit odd, because at some level all parties 
are trying to appeal to mass attitudes of people and I often pick 
unusual points at which to disagree.

I never discuss these things because there's usually no common 
ground to be found on them so the discussion is just one-sided and 
makes me seem mad. Well I don't even care that much about sounding 
mad anymore, but perhaps because of that I don't really know many 
people to talk about stuff like this with in the first place, and 
so far I've thought it was a bit pointless to do so here. But so as 
long as these opinions will play a role in my politcal assessments, 
that now gives me an excuse to rant about them.

So here are the things about people which, from my (limited, to be 
fair) experience, I just don't get:

CHILDREN

Biologically of course I understand why humans should like children 
to some extent. I don't though. I really can't stand them. In fact 
they strike me as a condensed form of everything I hate most about 
adults. This follows in that the extent of my dislike decreases as 
the age of the child increases. I can't stand babies at all, not 
even the sight of them, I think they're thoroughly disgusting. In a 
social context though, they're worse once they've learnt to walk 
because then you can't avoid the damn things!

In a practical sense the sacrifices that people make for them are 
completely unfathomable to me. The idea that a pregnancy is cause 
for congratulations and celebrations is completely out of my grasp. 
What are you congratulating anyway? For all the advancements of 
knowledge and technology that humanity has achieved, the 
instinctual, biological, process of reproduction is somehow still 
the most significant thing people can do in their lives? It's 
absolute nonsense.

True, if everyone felt like me then the human race would have been 
doomed as soon as contraceptives were invented, but beyond a 
theoretical level I still don't get it. I felt much the same when I 
was a kid myself as well, finding babies disgusting and hating any 
children a couple or more years younger than me. I didn't really 
like children the same age as me either really. As you might 
suppose from that, I didn't like childhood much, though I didn't 
really know of a life that I did like anyway so it was a bit of a 
moot point. I'm depressing myself just thinking about it, so let's 
move on.

PETS

Whatever I'm missing about children probably applies here too, but 
one difference is that I used to understand pets as a child. I used 
to constantly imagine moving out and living alone. In fact I still 
dream about how things could have been if, as a young teenager, I'd 
bought an empty lot of land (somehow) and lived in my mother's old 
caravan (I was so disappointed when she sold it, caravans are 
expensive!). But back then I used to imagine that I'd get lonely 
and need some sort of pet to keep me company. I've lost that need, 
at least so far as a pet would cater for it. These days I look at 
all the trouble and worry people put themselves to over pets and 
just can't see why they do it. What's the pet do? Affirm its 
owner's dominance over lesser beings? Animals are all over the 
place, admittedly more around where I live than in cities, but 
still there's usually some bird life to see at least. Why waste 
resources on keeping _your_ animal when there are plenty making do 
all on their own already?

Children and pets is also a really weird combination because 
children can be absolutely sadistic towards their pets and adults 
forgive this where otherwise it would disgust them. Children 
fulfill the same need more than pets I suppose, so on balance the 
pets are worthless. Personally I think that giving pets to children 
is the worst form of animal cruelty imaginable, and makes most 
other animal treatment concerns quite hypocritical.

FOOD

I've been baking my own biscuits lately, which has expanded the 
range of my cooking a little bit. I cook all my own meals (and 
barely eat out a hand-full of times a year these days). But it's 
still a utilitarian thing. I can enjoy good food, but it seems a 
waste to put lots of effort into cooking just for a one-time 
experience. If you create something permanent, you can enjoy it 
over and over, but if you put all that effort into cooking then 
you've only made something that can be enjoyed once. I feel 
similarly about paying a lot for a meal, except out of an 
inconvenience for cooking yourself because you're away or tired 
(it's a 1/2hr round trip to town, so if I'm too tired to cook I'm 
usually too tired for that as well anyway). Especially when you 
don't know whether it will be prepared to your liking.

The idea of meeting people over a meal is odd to me too. True 
there's often the form of an exchange of food for company, but for 
me that still doesn't justify picking a time for talking that 
coincides with a time for eating - the two don't go together! You 
go most of the day not using your mouth to talk or eat (in my case 
at least), then you're expected to reserve a time to try and do 
both simultaneously! What's the idea? Anyway it doesn't work for 
me, I just end up making long awkward pauses while I refuse to 
answer with my mouth full, and if there are young children at the 
table then that's the last straw.

Like the topic of children, there's a special reverence for food 
that seems to come from it being a core biological need. I resist 
this idea a bit as well, for me it's a reminder of my own mortality 
more than anything.

CONSUMERISM

I wrote about this in my post "The Need for New", but I'll quote 
here an earlier draft where I covered my point a little more 
succinctly:

My objection to the idea of updating things goes well beyond the 
domain of software. A resistance towards the concept goes back to 
my youth - I've writen before about the value that I attribute to 
engineered things, and by nature I resisted parting with them. 
Later I developed more rational objections to routine updates of 
machines and such. In getting a "new" item, it seemed so often the 
case that no true new value came from the exercise. There would be 
some significant expense, a fair degree of hassle in exchanging the 
new device with the old and setting it up, then always some 
learning and change of routine required to accomodate different 
methods of usage. In most cases no practical advantage was gained, 
in that any new features weren't applicable to genuine use cases or 
simply exchanged one design compromise for another. At the same 
time, a risk was always run that a design issue would cause the new 
device to in fact be less efficient to use than the old, yet never 
would the idea of returning to use of the old device be 
contemplated.

It seems silly now. Not because I disagree with my reasoning, but 
because I realise now that it is such a fundamental and obvious 
characteristic of modern society that it should really go without 
saying. There's a blind faith in the new. A faith that goods will 
always improve in efficiency of use and cost, even though hardly 
anyone buying them really understands the characteristics that 
would contribute towards achieving those goals. Instead the buying 
public is driven by easily manipulated emotions, and some learnt 
desire to always find different ways of using machines, as some 
sort of entertainment if nothing else.

I can't complain too much I suppose. If people really did keep 
using things until they were beyond repair then I wouldn't be able 
to pick from such an abundant supply of used items to buy myself, 
often just as some sort of entertainment as well. There's the 
enviromental aspect of course, but that's easy enough to ignore. 
What really annoys me is when upgrades are forced onto me by others.

Personally there aren't many individuals with any influence on the 
sort of devices that I use. But it's the technological links to 
society as a whole that try to pull me into the endless upgrade 
cycle going on in the rest of the world. Mainly this is the 
internet, and it mainly comes down to the software to interact with 
it.

CONCLUSION

Well it's nice to get those off my chest. I wonder whether anyone 
got down here to the end, or did they all leave in disgust? In my 
experience they never want to hear it in person after all. or maybe 
there's a crowd like me who are sympathetic to my views and just 
don't dare speak up? Come on let's form a new political party and 
run the country! Meh, maybe not.

If it is just me alone with my own insane notions, then at least 
I've found a way to exist fairly happily with them now. Maybe over 
time I'll start to 'get it' more, but I used to wonder about that 
as a kid and it didn't happen. Anyway I'd rather stay nuts than 
take on all the hassles that other people put themselves through to 
fulfil these mysterious extra needs that they have.

 - The Free Thinker