Search This Blog

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The Point System and the Drunken Uncle

The point system on "The Good Place" is pretty straightforward. Every time you do something good you get points, and every time you do something bad you lose points. They probably got the idea form Zarathustra, although his system was a little different. In the show, there was a high threshold of points required to get into the Good Place and, if you don't meet that threshold, you go to the Bad Place. In Zarathustra's system, you get good points for good deeds and bad points for bad deeds. If, when you die, your lifetime accumulation of good points outnumbers your lifetime accumulation of bad points, you go to Heaven and, if your bad points outnumber your good points, you go to Hell. There is nothing like that in the Judeo-Christian tradition, although a lot of people think there is. Most of these people are not familiar with the teachings of Zarathustra, and they are surprised if of you tell them that there is no point system in the Bible.

If you want to trace the origin of ethics and religion, you have to go back way further than the ancient Greeks. I'm pretty sure that primitive hunter-gatherers had both ethics and religion, and I have always assumed that they grew up together, but maybe not. I don't know how to prove it either way.

I've got a new theory about why some people voted for Trump, well new to me anyway. Everybody knew that he was a bald faced liar and a little funny in the head, but they were willing to overlook his character flaws because they wanted his agenda implemented. Either that or his character flaws were no big deal to them because many of their friends and relatives displayed the same traits. There was a saying going around on the internet that went something like this: "Some people admire Trump because he's not afraid to speak his mind. Well, I've got a drunken uncle who's not afraid to speak his mind, but that doesn't mean he should become president." It has occurred to me that some people wouldn't mind seeing a drunken uncle become president, maybe because they are drunken uncles themselves. I have met people in my life who don't seem to make a distinction between truth and falsehood, it's all the same to them. I always considered them to be a little funny in the head, and they probably think the same about me. I never claimed to be normal and, if that's what they call normal nowadays, I'm glad I'm not.

Old Dog, you make ice cream differently than I do, so I don't think the cornstarch thing would work for me. I don't heat the mixture at all, I mix the ingredients up in a single bowl, then I cover it with Saran and put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour before pouring it into my machine. That's what my instruction book said to do, and it seems to work just fine. The only time I had problems with ice crystals was when I made a couple of batches with milk or half & half, which the book said I could do. My original recipe called for one cup of milk and two cups of heavy cream, and I have had no problems with icy texture using it. The way I come out with six cups is that the mixture expands in the machine to its six cup capacity. I see no reason to make half batches. Indeed, I wish my machine had a larger capacity. It takes the machine 20 minutes to whip up a batch, and I don't think it would take a larger machine any longer than that. I also don't think it would take any more time to clean a larger machine afterwards, so I would be making more ice cream in the same amount of time.

No comments:

Post a Comment