Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

At least in terms of something that's moral.  I look at ethics and morality as social conventions.  Social conventions create culture.  So with different races and species on this earth, we're composed of numerous social conventions.  Probably the only social conventions that will hold universally true for the most part is that a thing is unto itself and defiies everything else in order to strive for its existence.

I was reading about the whole RIAA/MPAA cases, Gene Simmons acting like an old fucker and shooting down his fans (hey, weren't you once labeled a devil worshipper by Christians in the US???), thinking of Swimming with Sharks, P2P, etc. and came to the conclusion that morality doesn't exist.  Morality too is just social convention.

The only time social convention should impinge on a person is when a gun is held to the back of their head.  That's the only time when I can see obeying social convention is a must.  Think about that.

Laws are merely social conventions that we adopt to hold prevailing philosophy and inject a "common sense" (as opposed to common sense without the quotes) into people via those that have the authority.  Cops and the military, for instance, are not by themselves authority.  They are tools of authority but make no decisions themselves, except in cases of despotic regimes where military power is the rule.  But in cases like the US or Japan, these groups only enforce things.  Yet we fear them because people subscribe to the thought that these agencies are the law (like the Anthrax song).

But if laws are merely social convention that are imposed on us through another form of authority, such as the shareholders of a company, the CEO of a corporation, some government official, a rock star, or even a religious group, then you can say that it's really the minority that hold power because of a certain reason.  In the case of a corporation, it's the amount of money and influence that they hold with the government,  In the case of a rock star, it's because of their social status that we hold them above ourselves.  In the case of religious groups, it's because of numbers (which would defy my earlier statement in some ways, but you also have to religious that there are numerous religious groups that come into conflict and yet not hold the same level of influence as some like the Christians or Catholics in the world in terms of how we behave).

The point I'm trying to make though is that we end up following laws not because we realize that they are good for us in some idealistic, moral and pure manner, but because we fear them.  We fear that someone else has an invisible gun in the back of our heads, ready to pull the trigger when we step out of line.  But when you break down how these laws work, how they're erected, how they're supported, it makes little sense to the individual on the other side of the law.  These laws are created to bind us to the wills of the few individuals in power because they hold their power through their resources.

It's kinda sad that we have to follow some of these flawed conventions of thought.  When I read Gene Simmon's quote, I thought here's a guy who at one time probably was poor, hungry and desperate like the rest of us.  In his day, he rebelled and did rock and roll, which defied some other social convention at the time.  Now, people of my generation and younger, who are poor and just seeking a certain need are being verbally thrashed by someone who's nothing more than a hypocrite of his own making. 

Some of the comments on Slashdot referenced Swimming with Sharks, particularly Buddy Ackerman's quote of, "If you weren't a rebel by the age of 18, you had no heart.  If you didn't go institution by the age of 30 you had no brain."  So I guess this fits what people like Simmons, who managed to make a career off the backs of many loyal followers has done.  He's gone institution, turned his back on any beliefs he once had, and just is out for his own pocket book.

It's refreshing to see that perhaps the reason why people like that had angst is because they were a greedy asshole all along with little care towards the people who made him.  The only care people like this have are their own image and how many girls they can bang at night to brag to their friends.  I still will like their music and what they've done for rock and roll, but as individuals they can enter the atmosphere in a ball of flame and get incinerated in a blaze of glory and be real rock and roll.