The Tiny Dot Video By Larken Rose

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Roger Davis

I came across this video while doing some online research. I really like it for a variety of reasons.

I really like the message and think that the Western world would be a better place if more people took a little time away from some of the mind-numbing activities they seem to be drawn to and instead spent that time thinking about the type of concepts and questions posed in the video, simplistic though they may be.

They should get children to ponder these questions in school ideally, but alas, schools are part of the system so that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, is it?

I also like it because without being too condescending, it is a good example of how to get a message across to the ‘typical’ internet user who might have a short attention span and who might also have difficulty grasping the same concept presented in a more complicated manner.

There are a few aspects to this, some more obvious than others. For example, the graphical representation of the dots clearly emphasises the main point and demonstrates the difference in scale. But I also like the repetition used with the sound that is played whenever he mentions ‘the enforcers.’ Does this help to get the point across? It kind of tickled me.

The use of the ladies voice interjecting to point out the ‘accurate graphical representation’ aspect contrasts nicely with the ‘story-telling’ voices used by Larken, which (coupled with the handy green arrow that appears) makes sure that there can be almost no possibility of even the most distracted viewer from misunderstanding which group the narrator is referring to.

A little light humour (‘and one little troublemaker asked, “What if we don’t?”‘) helps to ensure that any youngsters watching are entertained, along with any easily entertained adults, like myself.

There is one important point which appears to be missing, though. The ‘dot’ is armed (via the enforcers) and in most Western countries the mass of dots are unarmed and the dot uses the implied threat and the actual use of violence to intimidate the mass of dots.

Any explanation of how the tiny dot intimidates the mass of dots is not entirely accurate if this little, but not insignificant fact is left out.

Regardless, it turns out (surprise, surprise!) to be an ad - for a book. I’m not the biggest fan of most advertising I come across, but this one gets the thumbs up from me. It’s educational, thought-provoking,  interesting, different (that’s especially cool) and the viewer gets a ‘takeaway’ even if they don’t buy – a freebie of sorts. That’s ethical and smart selling in my book.

If you have any comments on this video or my take on it, please feel free to leave them below and I will respond to them as soon as I can. Thanks for visiting.

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Garbage Warrior (Full Length Documentary) With Michael Reynolds

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Roger Davis

I discovered this documentary film recently. The main character (Michael Reynolds - an architect) is particularly ExRatish – he lives off the grid, he loves independence and autonomy and he thinks outside of the box.

He also has a vision (many of them, all of the time!) which could make the world a much better, more resourceful and sustainable place, if only those visions were adopted by the mainstream. He looks at everyday items from a very unusual perspective and manages to constantly find value in doing so.

I learnt a lot from watching this and was totally inspired. There are some interesting lessons within this film – EG – when Michael crosses swords with authority, you get to see just how illogical the state system is and how almost every mover and shaker is bought and paid for by vested interests, even though their everyday actions are clearly destructive and illogical and detrimental to the people they are meant to be representing.

The battles he has with the state over simply choosing to live his life in the way he desires (which is clearly a better, freer way to live and has much less impact on anyone else or the environment) shine a light on the stark contrast between his way and their way. But his determination, including re-approaching the issue determined to adapt to their way of doing things (however distasteful and illogical that was for him) with the aim of winning the game by their rules, is simply inspirational.

There is simply no logical argument to defend the state on this issue and no logical argument that can be made against Michael’s way of doing things, yet time and time again they use their muscle to defeat him, purely out of fear that if they let him do his thing, others might see the logic and want to copy him, in which case it would become apparent to anyone who is thinking clearly that the reason the state forces us to live in the destructive and harmful manner that they do, is because it suits their aims for us to live in a way that makes us weak and keeps us dependent upon them – regardless of the fact that it is wasteful, destructive and totally unsustainable.

This type of film is one of the best examples of what I would recommend watching if you find yourself wanting to wean yourself off mainstream broadcast television, which I am in the process of testing/doing and I am finding myself noticing and appreciating a host of benefits. It’s inspiring, it provokes intelligent questions, it encourages the viewer to notice the benefits of thinking outside of the box and ultimately it provided this ExRat with another new hero of ExRatism.

Bravo Michael!

I can’t help but see the contrast after watching films like this between this and mainstream TV. It helps me to understand that for every hour of mainstream TV that is viewed, you get about three minutes of useful information, fifteen to twenty minutes of hardcore advertising for nasty corporate products using distasteful, childish and annoying advertising techniques, and the rest is just brain-mush nonsense.

To me, that’s not a good deal – my time is finite and my brain is delicate, sensitive and requires protection from harm via spurious information. Whereas the internet, if you know where to look and how to be discerning, is overloaded with quality, refreshing, inspiring material which is educational and useful.

In my ideal world, where logic and reason prevails and the proper education and nurturing of children is paramount,  films like this would be a part of most peoples’ educational curriculum – so regardless of your age, if you haven’t seen it, try putting it on your curriculum!

If you watch this film and get something positive from it, feel free to drop me a comment below letting me know what you thought about it. Thanks for reading.

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Rough Seas In Torquay – Photos From April 2012

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Roger Davis

Earlier this year, back in April (before I had a break from blogging) I took a bunch of photographs of the sea on a really stormy day (by our standards – not that impressive if you experienced hurricane Sandy!) which I made into a couple of galleries, but never got around to posting.

They’re kind of annoying me, sitting in WordPress doing nothing so I’m going to put them here.

I’ve lived close to the sea for six years now and I find it absolutely fascinating. I moved here on my own and I still live on my own most of the time, which I think contributes to why I consider the sea as one of my friends. It’s like a huge, heaving, ever changing mass of pure nature.

When I walk alongside it, it is on the one hand threatening yet at the same time inviting. There’s something about this huge mass that cries out that it is a living entity – it seems to communicate with me yet I have no idea what it is saying. The only thing I can decipher is that it is reminding me just how insignificant I really am, which, viewed positively means that my problems and challenges are actually insignificant and not worth worrying about in the big scheme of things. Thanks for the reminder, mate.

The relentless pounding of the waves on the one hand is enough to wash away huge rocks over time, yet on the other hand it seems to be making that noise to get noticed, saying, “Hey come and jump into me and have some fun and a free wash.”

If you view this water as one single entity, then it touches every continent. You could use it as a transport system and get to almost any country that isn’t landlocked. While it pounds the rocks in Torquay, the same body of water is pounding the rocks and beaches in hundreds of other places simultaneously.

Perhaps it is having a mood on a certain day on one side of the world and pounding rock into sand, while gently lapping the shore somewhere else on the other side of the world and dragging pebbles backwards and forwards to the delight of anyone stopping to listen.

As you can probably tell, I’m still in awe of my new neighbour and I don’t plan on changing that too soon. It’s worth remembering as often as possible that many of the very best things in life really are free. Why not join them in their freedom?

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Stefan Molyneux – The Handbook Of Human Ownership – A Manual For Tax Farmers

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Roger Davis

Here’s another Stefan Molyneux video for you. I really like this one and listened to it three times in two days when I first found it. Because it’s quite long, I think Stefan spent his time on the audio content and grabbed some public domain video for the background, which doesn’t always match the topic being discussed. Therefore, I treat this as a podcast – for audio purposes only.

It is narrated in the style of a teacher explaining to a new ruler of a country who is in training, how they should proceed in order to keep the masses enslaved and themselves enriched via the production of the masses. He makes some particularly pertinent points regarding the origins and aims of feminism and the indoctrination of children within the state school system.

I imagine that for some people, this video may come across as incredibly boring or depressing. It’s one of those things that is difficult for me to judge. But for myself, it’s perfect for the stage I am at in my self education and personal development. Recently, I have made big strides in avoiding mainstream media (online newspapers) and television news and other TV programming. It’s this kind of stuff that I am replacing it with, often listening to it in the background as I complete other tasks.

I hope that some of my blog readers may gain something from this kind of material. If you do enjoy it or get anything from it, please leave me a comment below, letting me know.

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Early Start Boot Camp Update

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Roger Davis

It’s over a month since I first started my early start boot camp experiment. In that time I have tried all sorts of variations of it ranging from regimental fixed start time to downright random and spontaneous.

I’m not much wiser really, although I’ve done a lot more walking, taking photos and seabird-worrying. One of the complications is that we have just finished the annual ‘summer arrives in March’ thing (which was nice, especially on the tennis courts) but we have now moved into the predictable ‘April showers’ season.

With this, we often get very nice periods in the mornings where the weather can fool Easter tourists into getting ready, packing all of their beach gear up and making sandwiches only to find that once they hit the beach at ten-thirty it turns into a hailstorm or a sideways rain ‘blow your brolly inside-out’ type of affair.

So the problem for me is that even though early start boot camp is great, it’s a bit dark and cold but as soon as I get back, it turns into summertime for about an hour or so before the inevitable grey clouds and hailstorms arrive and as a sun-lover, I like to feel the sun on my skin and to make some vitamin D, so I don’t like missing that sunny spell.

I’m still having early starts, but the boot camp (walk) is either delayed or sometimes cancelled. Although there’s not as much blogging going on here as I would like, I’m pretty busy with work and when I get into productive mode, I don’t like to snap myself out of it for a walk.

So as I said above, overall it’s a bit unorganised and difficult to draw too many conclusions about the long term plan at this stage but one thing is for sure - it’s been a fun and beneficial experiment.

After the initial boot camps, I had taken a short break from it to see how I felt in comparison to just previously when I was getting up early and going straight out (well after a cup of tea of course, that goes without saying around here) every morning.

No surprises, I felt tired, demotivated and unproductive without the boot camp and by contrasting the two experiences directly, it provided a very clear lesson – early starts and brisk walks as the sun rises are excellent for providing the right mindset for working from home and getting things done.

I’ve built up a couple of galleries that I’d like to post here, so here’s the first one which is from the sixth of April when it was high tide and therefore I couldn’t actually walk along the seafront walkway without getting soaked, but it provided some different photo opportunities.

It’s really awe-inspiring experiencing the power of the sea as it continually splashes, slurps and explodes onto the walkway, then drains off again down the steps with a rushing/sucking sound. There’s quite a loud booming sound as the waves break onto the steps all of the way along and you can’t help but imagine how mangled you’d be if you fell in and got smashed onto the steps over and over – it’s a bit like a washing machine, but you’d probably end up dirtier rather than cleaner, I guess.

You get to see some funny things down there, especially at the moment (winter season) when dogs are still allowed on the beach. The other day there was a small, yappy dog who obviously had a problem with the waves breaking on the walkway steps and as well as barking at the sea (surprisingly, this didn’t scare the sea away), each time the sea receded in between waves the dog would run down a few steps and try to bite the incoming wave and then run back up the steps, just about managing not to get soaked and dragged into the swell.

Then it would do the same all over again with the next wave. Silly dog, but funny and cute. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera handy that time for a ‘dog bites wave’ and ‘wave tries to soak dog in revenge’ gallery.

Back to the boot camp – I need to find some kind of routine with the boot camp which is kind of half and half in terms of being regimented but flexible and variable. Doing it at the same time every day just gets boring and tedious.

I’m not sure yet, but I suppose the ideal solution is to have a set amount of boot camps per week. For example, three or four days of early start boot camp (up at 6 AM, leave at 6.15AM) and two or three days of variable times (but must be sometime in the morning) and one day off.

I’ll let you know when I have come up with something concrete along with any lessons learnt. Here’s the next gallery from the twelfth of April -

Finally, a big shout out to the best son in the world, (my one and only son, well as far as I am aware) Jamie, who becomes a man today on his sixteenth birthday. Unfortunately, I can’t be with him today but I had a chat with him earlier and he was chuffed to bits that one of his mates got the people on Kerrang Radio to give him a birthday shout over the airwaves. Happy birthday son!

The last gallery is a handful of photographs I took showing the view from here in ExRat Towers.  They are mainly the sea-view as I see it from over my computer monitor except for the fourth one which is the side-view looking towards the main town in Torquay. The first three are at night, with the moonlight lighting up the sea and the last two are in the morning. On photograph number two, you can see the lights of Torquay harbour area on the far left plus the lights of Brixham on the far right, in the distance.

 

I’ll be back soon with some proper work related posts, I’m just in ‘the lab’ making some business plans at the moment and planning to get out of there soon and to start making some posts which are more in line with what this blog is really meant to be about – helping others to escape the rat race.

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