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Something Sinister Summary—This essay argues the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has impaired judgement and needs to stop applying the formula and consider new approaches like moving to a four-day workweek. Quotation—Something profoundly convulsive and disturbing suddenly becomes both visible and audible with indescribable definiteness and exactness—bringing on the overwhelming feeling that one is utterly out of hand. Everything occurs without volition—as if by eruption of freedom, independence, power and divinity—thus giving rise to the most immediate, exact and intense form of expression. —Friedrich Nietzsche The 1978 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers involves a health inspector who discovers humans are being replaced by alien duplicates that look the same as them but are devoid of human emotion and rationality. The story begins in outer space where a race of creatures have abandoned their dying planet and made their way to Earth. People cloned by the aliens suddenly become distant. The humans complain that their spouses are not their real spouses. The horror movie dramatically ends with only one person left who has not been replaced by a sinister alien pod. An Alien Prime Minister. I wrote a letter on February 1st, 2016 to the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with the subject being—The Method of Argument. I introduced the letter by saying, “I am writing to you today to ask that you make it government policy for the government to answer arguments. Included in the letter are two examples of arguments that I have been trying to get the government to answer for the past fifteen years—the theory of one and existentialism.” Trudeau talks about real change but real change will not occur until we go to the root of the problem—which is that the government does not answer arguments. Not only does Trudeau not answer arguments, he does not even admit he does not answer them. His irrational actions suggest he has been replaced by a sinister alien pod. Simplicity, Beauty and Reason. William of Ockham (1287-1347) said, “If all things are equal, the simpler theory tends to be the right one.” Paul Dirac (1902-84) said, “It is more important to have beautiful theories and equations than to have them fit the data.” In regard to reason, I would argue that Banesh Hoffmann’s claim, “Great science transcends reason” is false as it only provides the appearance of transcendence. If an argument is simple, beautiful and reasonable then it is mathematically true. Most people want objectivity but only get subjectivity when dealing with higher truths. Failing to answer arguments is complicating, unattractive and unreasonable. Switching to a society based on mathematical truth would solve many of the world’s problems. The first step towards solving our problems is to compel the would-be honourable Trudeau to stop acting in bad faith and start honouring mathematical truths like—existentialism, the theory of one, and the method of argument. The Theory of One. In his 1948 book The Universe and Dr Einstein Lincoln Barnett wrote, “If a stick should attain the velocity of light, it would shrink to nothing at all.” I contend that if a stick shrinks to nothing at all, then the velocity of light is a boundary of the universe. Not bounded at some distant star, but bounded right in front of our eyes. From this it follows that reality as we know it is a façade so that the Moon does not exist when no one is looking at it. In that light or photons travel at the velocity of light, one could imagine the universe populated by a fantastic number of photons zipping around the periphery. And according to the definition of mathematical truth, it seems obvious the universe needs only one photon as photons exist outside of spacetime. Following the Bible’s claim that God is light, it seems mathematically true that the lone photon at the boundary of the universe is God. Einstein said that God is the sum total of the laws of nature. In keeping with Niels Bohr’s complementary principle—I would argue that God is both light and the laws of nature. Existentialism. The behavioral psychological model used exclusively in Canada only asks that we behave normally. It is the sickness that pervades our society. Existentialism is the cure as it emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. Existentialism stresses that individuals have total responsibility for the world. For man, existentialism tells us that existence precedes essence. Consider a pen for example. Its essence (ie. its design) comes before its existence. Alternatively, man arrives on the scene (ie. his existence) then creates his essence—meaning there is no predefined human nature. Consider that the Freudian cognitive model has the ego choosing between the id (or self or soul) and the superego (or government). If the ego chooses the id, it is existentialism. If the ego chooses the superego, it is behaviorism. Existentialism is the product of many great philosophers that include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Camus and Sartre —all of whom believed philosophy begins with the acting, feeling and living human being. Existentialism also concerns itself with bad faith and its opposite, authenticity, which is the degree to which one’s true nature, spirit and character exist in reality despite overwhelming social pressure to behave otherwise. The Option-Based Approach. Edmund Burke (1729-97) said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Trudeau was a good man until he became an alien pod. We can save the alien pods by turning them into philosophers and scientists. For existentialism, they could start with great philosophers like Nietzsche. They could begin the learning process with a base of Philosophy Magazine essays. Then if they liked that they could move to beginners’ books by authors like Paul Strathern, Donald Palmer and John Gribbin. If they like that then they could go to the source and read books written by the philosophers. The approach essentially turns the educational system on its head. We could also use this same model for the general public. Let us all write 1,700-word essays where people could construct bulletproof arguments. We could take our essays to educators. If the educators liked them they could go to the doctors. If the doctors liked them they could go to the governor general for final consideration. This option-based approach can be used on almost any project. The Loyal Opposition. According to Plato (428-348 BC), “A just society will only be possible once philosophers become kings and kings become philosophers.” According to Wikipedia, “The divine right of kings is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is not subject to any Earthly authority; deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of the people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm.” My theory of one establishes a divine connection between myself and God. So once again, I declare myself to be the Philosopher-King Christopher. I am the true loyal opposition to the government. I have written 75 Philosophy Magazine essays that I mail to 70 people around the world each month and have demonstrated myself to be a truth-teller. I think we should put my monthly essays in every mailbox in Canada. But Trudeau does not want anything that gets in his way of his rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. He wants a single voice whereas I offer a true loyal opposition. Working for the Clampdown. The icebergs our Titanic is about to run into include—the 1.3 trillion dollar government debt in Canada—the 7.3 billion people on Earth—and the 50 years of oil we have left. While my following approach may seem radical, it is nothing compared to Canada going bankrupt. I suggest we cut all salaries in Canada by 20 percent and move to a four-day workweek. On their three-day-weekend people could study philosophy and science and ponder how they could do their work in 32 hours a week. We could then send the 20 percent savings directly to paying down the government debt. We could also implement a voluntary child policy in Canada where the most number of children by a couple is two. The government could encourage the extinction of all motorized racing in order to save oil and show the world that we are taking this problem of overusing nonrenewable resources seriously. The problem with this plan is that the government only knows how to apply the formula—which can be transcended by following the laws of nature and existential philosophy so that everyone takes responsibility for a sustainable Earth. Something Sinister. Consider the following monologue from Morpheus to Neo in the 1999 movie The Matrix. “You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. And you are here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there is something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but its there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Like everyone you are a slave. You were born into bondage, born into a prison you cannot smell or taste or touch—a prison for your mind.” It is time to move from government-for-the-government to government-for-the-people and from the parent-children model of government to the peer-to-peer model. I am asking the government to end the tug-of-war that exists between the government and the people. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Every opinion tends to become a law.” The government must stop making laws and start working in harmony with the people so we can shift from something sinister to authenticity. Conclusion. This essay argues Canadians needs to consider new approaches that have a good chance of working like the four-day workweek. Nietzsche’s morality is summarized with the statement, “The Ten Commandments distract us from concrete questions of character.” By focusing on character we could convert the sinister alien pods back into real human beings.
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