What The Hell Is This?

Well. See title. I wish I could confidently and explicitly define the purpose of this blog. I also wish there was a more sensible, relevant thing to make a first blog post about, but since I don't actually have any readers yet, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for me to be talking to anybody but hypothetical.

So, hypothetical Internet, what the hell is this? Well. It's a blog. That means it's where I vent my personal thoughts on things I'm not actually qualified to speak about. It's also "The Geeky Humanist," which is probably the term I ought to actually be describing. It's quite simple, you see, as it breaks down into two parts.

Geeky -- I'm geeky. I might also be nerdy, but that distinction is made irrelevant the moment you have an opinion on it. I decided geeky sounded better for the title, so...suck it. So, this half of me is the part that makes me read Order of the Stick and understand all of the D&D jokes. It's the part of me that knows the difference between Odo, Quark, and Dax. It's the part of me that sometimes wonders if I could pull off a good Starcraft cosplay. And it's the part of me that pays bills, as I'll be entering college soon studying physics.

Humanist -- Hoooooo boy. Describing myself as a ninth-level-wizard-Trekkie-physicist is much easier than trying to encapsulate what I'm trying to get at with this one. Humanism is basically a religious/moral/philosophical stance. You see, I spend time on the Internet. Like. A lot. And scrolling through Slashdot comments eventually made me realize something: damn, we're a cynical bunch. If you were to perform hideously twisted experiments on humanity and draw forth from our computer networks a gestalt consciousness making up the average, uh, netizen (oh god what word have I just legitimized) he'd tell you that most of humanity were sheep. That they didn't think but that they'd do anything to get ahead and didn't give a shit about anyone but themselves.

Well, alright, fine. You can think what you like about the unwashed masses. I'll be the first to admit they aren't perfect. But what really disturbed me is the casual disregard so many seemed to have for everyone else. Was I expecting too much from a group that self-identifies as antisocial? Yeah. Is it ironic for me to rant about the moral deficiency one group has in holding contempt for another? Oh very much yes.

Basically, at that point I cast my net about for the opposing view, and I found humanism. (Humanism's relationship with atheism and religion will probably be material for a later post.) (This is, uh, supposed to be about the definition of humanism. For those of you confused by the digressions, and also the multiple parenthetical statements.) Basically, humanism is the belief that human life and human rights are the ultimate moral value. Caught up in that is generally a belief about the innate goodness of man, which is probably more material for a later post.

I keep talking about later posts, so let me basically sum up how I see them going. I'm going to try to make at least one every day. I do enough geeky things that I should be able to meet that for a while. Anyway, I plan to classify my posts into one of several categories:

News and Links -- Woah, check this thing out, this is a cool thing that has happened or that I have seen on the Internet, and it is a fascinating thing indeed. Let us discuss it.

Bloggy Blog -- This is what's going on in my life right now. I promise to only do these when they're sufficiently geeky or humanisty. (Note: I do a lot of geeky stuff. It's not much of a promise.)

Pontificate -- Blah blah blah opinion. I can't promise I won't go off on a rant about DRM or gay marriage or whatever. The philosophical, technological, and political are all extremely valid targets.

Lecture -- Because I rather like typing up nonfiction stuff. These are different from Pontifications because I don't intend to advocate an opinion. These posts might be a basic rundown of ethical philosophers, or an explanation of why relativity bans FTL travel, or whatever.

Again, I'm not making promises here. I'm not liable for massive, lifebreaking legal penalties for adding new categories or discontinuing these. I'm also not eligible for murder based on a failure to post, or an insistence on posting too often. I don't know if anyone will actually read this, but I think I'll have fun writing it.