So what has happened in 20 weeks? Well, first of all I was FIRED from my job. I've never been close to being fired in my life because I'm a good worker. I dare say about as good as a worker can be. The boss claimed I was making too many mistakes. Well, I wasn't, so that lady needs to lay off the crack pipe. All the mistakes either were not made by me at all, or were mistakes that I rarely ever make and all my co-workers make at least as often! Honestly I don't know if I've ever been more insulted in my life than to be fired for something I didn't do. Ultimately it was a good thing, but it was still insulting. Why is it a good thing? The unemployment money will sponsor my computer certification program. I have a college degree already and the certification will be another benefit. So after I was fired, I joined the program.
I also found a good system of trading stocks. I did a hypothetic test-run of a few months ago has returned enormous gains. If after I run some more detailed statistics, I confirm that the 100%+ per year gain is consistent, then surely I will become at least a billionaire within ten years, which is good news.
As far as I'm concerned becoming a billionaire will be the easy part. But, I'm a very determined person who will do whatever it takes to accomplish my goals to a crazy degree. I spend just about every minute of my spare time planning and doing things that bring me closer to my goals. For example, look at how people are destroying our environment. As long as people are doing that I can't possibly be content with any amount of money. I think about inventions, business ideas, stock trading ideas, etc. etc. In the past three months I've been fired, I've thought of so many ideas that the only thing left for me to do is start the dirty work of trying out the ideas until one of them works. And of course the stock trading thing is the first one I have to try because it seems like the best bet. Over the past few months I've thought of at least three ideas that surely must be good enough to make a really successful business of.
I may fail this time, fail next time, and fail the one after that. But as long as my heart is beating I'll be relentlessly pursuing the entrepreneurs dream. For some odd reason I'm wholly obsessed with it, probably to an unhealthy degree.
As for my AI project, I've thought about it a lot (as always). I'm starting to see more specific things that the AI program has to do mathematically. This is good because that is the part that creates working software. I'm going to have to learn Calculus before I can start planning the application completely. I understand genetic algorithms very well now, and they really are not particularly helpful in a strong AI. It will take about five more years before I can start programming because I need a bit more technical knowledge. Honestly, AI is a very intimidating thing, because thousands of genius people have failed at creating strong AI. But, I continue to pursue it because I know that if I can just visualize the whole thing, then surely it is something that can really be done. I believe that my strategy of thinking about the big picture for the past 7(?) years, then over the next 7(?) years thinking about individual tactics for each part of the big picture, then taking the next 7 years to actually code the thing into reality, is likely to work. I think I understand the big picture in what it takes for strong AI to work. Now I'm moving on to more individual tactics. That said I'll still need money to hire at least three programmers. That said, over the next few months there is no chance I'll even think about AI because I'll be so busy with the stock market trading system.
In the past 20 weeks, I've gained a lot of confidence. I was very shy previously. About as shy as you can get. But now I wouldn't be absolutely terrified of giving a speech, or worried about how to ask someone on a date. I don't know if I want to get married or not, but I think I'll start looking for a girlfriend soon. In the past I've all but pushed girls out the door, because I felt so uncomfortable with the situation! Its a very good feeling to have. My only worry is that my obsessions with business will keep me from finding a partner! In any case, I feel like a much more social person than I did in the past.
For the last roughly three years I've been sure that I'm balding. However, it took me an hour but I pulled up a message I posted on a messageboard with my hairline measurements. If anything I'm getting a few more hairs after a year and a half. WHEW! I think I've had the same high hairline since high-school.
The Bible is not a reliable text. Since it isn't reliable, how could I use it as the foundation for my entire life? I couldn't, and nobody else should either.
There are ten very fundamental problems with the Bible:
Jeremiah 4:2 "And thou shalt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness" Matt. 5:34 "But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven...." The Bible tells us that the wages of sin are DEATH. Sin is a deadly serious matter. It looks like we are being given a command not to swear. But Jeremiah seems to tell me to swear. Its a fundamental problem.
1 John 4:18 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear...." Deut. 6:5 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart...." Deut. 6:13 "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God...." If there is no fear in love then surely we cannot both "love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" and "fear the Lord thy God". So do I love God or fear him? Perfect love casts out *all* fear, yet I am supposed to fear God. Fundamental problem #2.
James 2:1[NLT]: "My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim that you have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people more than others?" Genesis 4:4: "The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." God cannot sin, therefore it must be acceptable to look with favor to certain people. Yet, the Bible tells us we cannot have faith if we favor people. Its a real-life daily issue, because every day there are situations where you can favor some over others. Fundamental problem #3.
1 John 4:9 "...God sent his only begotten Son into the world...." Job 1:6 "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord...." How many son's does God have? Certain parts refer to all men in existence as God's sons, but this particular verse simply seems to refer to mysterious sons of God we've simply been kept in the dark about. Yet in 1 John we are told God only had one son. Fundamental problem #4.
1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Matthew 12:32 "...whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come." Matthew 12:32 is plain and simple. There you have a sin God will flatly *NEVER* forgive you for. You can be forgiven by God for raping a child but you wont' be forgiven for saying something bad about the Holy Spirit. Fundamental problem #5.
There are also things in the Bible that are just plain disturbing and really should not be there by just about anybody's opinion: Exodus 21:20-21 "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property." So, beating your slave with a rod is cool with God, as long as he gets back up in a couple days or so. He or she is your property, after all. Fundamental problem #6.
Exodus 20:13 "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death." While certainly its detestable to many people, what two consenting adults are doing in a bedroom is certainly none of our business. A person who puts great effort in spying on them to get them killed is the one who deserves a death penalty. Fundamental problem #7.
Deuteronomy 22:20-1 "If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house." So, either prove yourself innocent by having some guy probe your vagina against your will, or you get stoned to death. Guilty until proven innocent, but for good reason: you still live with your parents house, and think of how embarassed they are either way. Fundamental problem #8.
Matthew 4:8 "Again the devil took him[Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor." At the time of Jesus of Nazareth it was not possible to see all the kingdoms of the world from any one point on a moutaintop. The scripture must be innacurate, and there is nothing at all to hint it was a metaphor. Fundamental problem #9.
Matthew 16:27-28 "For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Every single one of Jesus disciples died before God came down with his angels to reward everyone on Earth according to their good deeds. Unless we all missed that day? Fundamental problem #10
I had morals last year. I think of morals as actions which are right or always wrong. Now I don't have morals. Even the Bible (Jew side) says there is a time to kill. Not to say my decision was based on the Bible. It wasn't.
Instead I like to think of things as justified or unjustified. The justification is based on the average happiness level for people. This allows things such as abortion. Abortion kills a human being. It is IMMORAL. Arguing otherwise is just ridiculous. Don't try. However, it is justified until the umbilical cord is cut. The abortion is in most cases a net benefit to society. It keeps single women from a life of misery while their child grows up in a very bad environment in most cases. In many cases, the abortions are for teen girls who couldn't hope to be stellar mothers who raise someone who grows up to be a fantastic example of a human being. Have the abortion, then later on when you are ready to raise a child, raise the child. The net benefit is positive, so the action is just. The reason there is such a big debate about abortion is that it is immoral but justified.
In order of importance: 1. Save up $10,000 for furthering my college education. A very tough number! As part of this I'll have to get a better paying job. 2. Get to the gym at least 3 times a week. Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri are the target days, with one of those days randomly cut if I hardly get any sleep on one of them. 3. Brush up on my Algebra & Trig. Also, learn Chemistry, Grammar, and Logic through books by May 3. Last year was a failure. I will try harder this year. I have to especially if I'm going to do this by May 3rd. In fact, by May 22 I want to have started on a Calculus book. 4. Get one of my inventions to where the entire production is completely planned. 20%, I made some progress, but not that much. Hopefully next year! 5. Also related to business, develop a model for hiring, monitoring, and firing employees. 6. Instead of developing an entirely new constitution idea, I want only the consumer protection aspect of it finished.
Thats it! So this years list is easier and I'm going to try much harder to get it done. No less than 100% for each resolution is acceptable!
2. Obtain a job that could be taken as a career. I have the degree, but whether I will find such a "career job" I don't know. 0%, failure! though there is a great chance I'll have one next year.
3. Get to the gym more. I'm hoping to get into a very solid plan. Still not going enough. Plan to renew effort this month. 5% if that... failed Miserably! Next year?
4. Learn at least two college-level subjects. Algrebra, Chemistry, and Trigonometry. I already know Algebra & Trig, but not to the point where I'm comfortable with them. Chemistry I want to know much more about. Complete failure. I don't have time for this while working on a business plan. Very small amount of progress made. Having to move just destroyed what momentum I had on that :( 1% done.
5. Make significant progress in my AI research. I've done that the last couple years, so hopefully will do that again this year. But it will be difficult if I'm working so much overtime! 100% Done! That said, I wish I had made more. Again, me moving killed my momentum on that.
6. Develop first draft for idea of "best" government constitution. Been working on it for years. Would be nice to finish it! 25% done vs. 10% last year. Quite a bit of work has been done on this.
7. Home business stuff: A. A lot of progress into my long-term business "roadmap". 100% DONE. I updated my long-term business roadmap.
B. Develop first draft for employee standards. Hopefully will have ready before my next job interview. 10% I put a lot of work into it. But still, only 10% done.
C. Get a laptop computer w/ WiFi internet connection. CANCELED. Not even in the goal-list for this year right now. (Comment on this)
D. Start a business. You can have plans up the kazoo, but you have to step into action at some point. 20%, I made some progress, but not that much. Hopefully next year!
Total completion: 40% done! Absolute F- ! Not only will next years resolution will have to be more pessimistic, but I'll have to try harder!
I'm so obsessed with becoming successful that I don't even have a social life. I want billions of dollars and a great amount of book smarts to create inventions with. I've always wanted such things, but only realized they were possible to get with hard work and perseverence about five years ago. Now I'm dedicated to get an advanced college degree and starting a business. But since I moved about a year ago, its all I've been doing. I've been reading, planning a business, and inventing but nothing else. I occasionally (every few months) do something with my parents. About once a month, I do something with my friends. Is that enough? I'll happily sit at my computer for 16 hours just learning, planning, and inventing. That seems kind of stupid but I'm not sure if I should let it take over my life.
I've been thinking for a while now, that the idea of geniuses does not really make sense. We all have maybe 5 trillion brain cells and about seven pounds of brain. The number of brain cells is about the same from from person to person. People may be a lot taller or shorter than others, but brains tend to all be the same size. Those of us without defects in our brains should therefore be just about as smart.
I was glad to finally see a study that show it is true. David Dobbs (see http://www.newscientist.com/channe…) just goes to prove it. All you need to do to be a genius at something is work like hell at it. Like Edison said: genius is 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. Your genes are involved a little of course, but not really that much.
The article says that people get to an "expert" level in about 10 years of hard work and, and "genius" level in about 15 years of hard work. Of course what does not help is that the brain decays after the 20's and new neural connections become slower to connect. Still, even that can be overcome by simply working like hell at something. I wish more people donate to research that cures the problem of our brains decaying so much over time. That is why so much genius work is done by those in their 20's. They have been working at what they are doing for 15 years and their brains are in exceptional shape. Not that people can't be geniuses well into their 50's, its just that in your 20's you do much more learning than you will in your later decades simply because your brain is adjusting to learn faster.
Today I'm going to select an ability or two I want to be particilarly good at, and then work like hell at it.
I have always had quite an extreme problem with learning because at certain points I get completely furious and can't continue. I bought a trigonometry book to brush up on my trig. for school. One of the first things it tells me is that lines go on forever in both directions. BULLSHIT!!! I've heard the word "line" used thousands of times in my life, yet not a single one of them went on forever in both directions. So that makes me wonder: how many contaminates were in the crack cocaine of the mathematician who decided that lines go on forever in both directions? Its absolutely ridiculous. If the mathematician who developed the term could only have afforded the powerdered stuff we would never even have that problem since he would know what a line is. After all, are you going to forget what a line is after you've literally sniffed one in? You'll probably remember both the beginning and end of it for a long time. So we should give mathematicians a raise or something.
Any way, now I have to accept that the word "line" means something totally opposite in math context. But I still don't accept the lie about lines, so when I read "line" in a math book I'll simply translate it in my head while reading to something accurate, such as "doubleray" or "dualray". Some day I may learn to accept contradictions like normal people but I'm not sure how to do it yet.
The next roadblock to my learning is even bigger. Textbooks will tell you things that are totally ridiculous and provide no explanation whatsoever. Yes, they almost always end up being true, but some evidence would be nice! I then have some extreme troubles carrying on having to accept a completely ridiculous fact with no evidence because if I don't then I can't learn the concept. Its annoying. The solution I think to that is to find a tutor and relentlessly interrogate them (in a nice way) until I've seen the evidence I'm looking for. I think most people have this same problem but aren't able say why they don't understand it into words. People are only capable of learning one step at a time for fully understanding a topic. If you skip a step you can have a practical understanding but certainly not a complete one.
