Ask me three questions.

Matt Arnold

October 8, 2004

A meme lifted from

Ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want, and I will answer truthfully and fully. Then I want you to go to your journal, and copy and paste this, allowing your friends (including me) to ask you anything.

Comments

wormquartet on Oct. 8, 2004 12:40 PM — 3 questions

1. How's it going?
2. Do you like margarine?
3. What the hell?!?

-=ShoEboX=-

matt-arnold on Oct. 8, 2004 2:19 PM — Re: 3 questions

1. Uncertainty is up, expenses are down, issues remain stable. Slightly scheming today with 80% chance of improvement over the weekend. As of 5:00 p.m. I had 1,371,624,462 seconds estimated left to live.
2. Margarine is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
3. You can say that again.

sothisislife on Oct. 8, 2004 3:46 PM

1. What color is your bathroom?
2. If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
3. What was the last movie you watched?

matt-arnold on Oct. 9, 2004 8:14 AM

1. White, with blue tile in the shower. Since I don't pay attention, I had to wait until I was home to find out so I could answer this.

2. Wow, it's so difficult for a transhumanist to answer that question. Naturally-occurring species are all such incredibly sub-optimal "designs" from a biotech point of view. The short story 0wnz0red by Cory Doctorow recently inspired me with the perfect answer if I had to choose one thing: an interface between my autonomic processes and a microcontroller, so I can hack into my biology through a computer and change anything I want. We're able to wiggle our toes at will, but we're locked out of all the important stuff like immunoresponse and metabolism and cognition.
A sanitized metabolism that's hardened to viruses.
Make it no longer true that a human being has to excercise 20 minutes before starting to burn any fat at all.
Triple-jointed.
No longer need to sleep.
But the best things of all would be what could be done to my mind and personhood. Hacking into human nature itself:
"The human emotions as they stand lack an important kind of self-consistency. The human emotional architecture has a fundamental imbalance in it. We are out of kilter. Usually this particular kind of inconsistency would correct itself very rapidly, but in humans it can't, because unlike an Artificial Intelligence, we don't have access to our own source code.
The inconsistency I'm talking about is that we don't want to want what we want. We like eating chocolate, and we don't like eating lettuce. But we wish that we enjoyed lettuce as much as we enjoyed chocolate, because then we'd be thinner. We stay on the treadmill, and we hate that, but we wish we didn't hate it, because then we wouldn't have to expend mental energy. If we had access to our own source code, we could fix the problem. But unfortunately humans were not designed by humans. Humans were designed by evolution. So we eat the cheeseburger, and give up on the exercise plan, and don't read all the books we want to read, and we're never quite as nice as we think we ought to be. It's an unstable condition that can only persist as long as we don't have a choice in the matter. We are not who we would choose to be, if we were free."
The way I see it, your genetic code is not your friend. It created you; but only as its uncaring tool to gain at your expense. Genes express themselves in subtle influences on our desires. We don't always follow our feelings and urges because we're reasoning creatures, but those feelings and urges come from genes. What you need to realize is that your genetic code is completely selfish and would happily ruin your life in order to propagate. Men and women shouldn't be ashamed of how they're influenced by the genetic code trying to hijack their lives. For instance, a man's wanderlust and a woman's damn nesting instinct. It's just inconvenient that what's good for the genetic code is sometimes different from what's good for us, so our choices usually are an uphill fight against feelings, and this frustrates me. That which generates interest and infatuation, or which triggers biological clocks, contradicts what our rational minds would tell us, if we allow our minds to question our animal instinct. If you refuse to question the truth claims of your basic drives, you are royally screwed, because they will contradict each other. Nature has not been good to the human race in this respect. Thanks for creating us, Mother Nature, now would you please stop trying to run our adult lives for your own blind gain? So to answer your question in one sentence: I would take control from Mother Nature.

3. Club Dread, by Broken Lizard, on DVD. This movie sucked.

sothisislife on Oct. 10, 2004 7:17 PM

Matt, I can always count on you to supply a plethora of information that I had no idea I would find as fascinating as I do.

But where are your three questions in MY journal?

=)

matt-arnold on Oct. 11, 2004 9:44 AM

This makes me very happy.

bobbimcmillin on Oct. 8, 2004 4:19 PM

1. When were you at PCC?
2. What was your major?
3. What is your favorite Bible verse/passage?

matt-arnold on Oct. 8, 2004 8:37 PM

1. September 1992 through December 1997.
2. Commercial Art with a minor in Graphic Design.
3. When I was a Christian I didn't have a favorite verse. If I had to choose the part that amuses me the most these days, it would be a toss-up between 1st Kings 14:10a, "cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall;" 1 Samuel 21 where the people of Ashdod get hemorrhoids "in their secret parts," that's a hoot; and Isaiah 32: "Tremble, ye women ... strip you, and make you bare ... They shall lament for the teats." Bonus points for that one.

bluehamster98 on Oct. 8, 2004 5:12 PM

1. If you found out one of your best friend's lovers had been cheating on him, what would you do?

2. What kind of pie do you like?

3. If you could redo your college years entirely, where would you go, and what would your major be?

-Karen

matt-arnold on Oct. 8, 2004 8:58 PM

1. I would advise the lover who had been cheating if she (or he if they were gay or if my best friend were a female) can't abide by her (or his) end of the deal, then she (or he) should release my best friend from an unfair one-sided committment to exclusivity. I'd say to stop pretending, it's never really permanent anyway, and openly and unashamedly embrace this new arrangement so that there would be nothing to hide any more. I would also start telling my best friend how great it is not to be in a committed relationship. I wouldn't mind the relationship with the third person in and of itself, I would only care about my best friend being unfairly restrained from seeking other people. So, I don't know how long I would tolerate it if the lover decided to continue keeping my best friend from having sex with others, although it's not really my business.

2. Chicken pot pie.

3. Probably University of Michigan in Ann Arbor so that I could have started attending ConFusion several years earlier. My major would be in animation and I would have tried to get one of their internships with LucasArts or Pixar.

dawnwolf on Oct. 9, 2004 4:07 PM — speak for yourself!

I happen to *like* treadmills, though I do need to vary the speed during a workout to keep from getting bored. But perhaps the main reason I enjoy exercise so thoroughly is because it is something I was once unable to do. So now, the sheer sensual thrill of feeling my muscles move and become stronger, of feeling my lungs take in and release air without hindrance, is quite the high for me.

On to questions...

1. What one thing or person do you love most, right now?

2. What is the one thing you like most about yourself?

3. If you met someone who had never, ever read a single SF/Fantasy book in their lives, had not even heard of the genre but was open to trying it out, what is the first book you would introduce to that person.

matt-arnold on Oct. 10, 2004 10:41 AM — Re: speak for yourself!

1. Your question really puzzled me at first but now I'm writing this over again. It seems unlikely that you are asking me to make sweeping truth claims which I can logically justify, in which everyone else in the universe is less worthy than one narrow, myopic focus of infatuation; as if everyone ought to share an objective view of value.

Rather this is a question about me; about how a few chance attractors in my neurophysiology happen to react. When my "heart" really grabs my attention, I've learned to take that with a grain of salt because it's self-destructively contradictory and if I acted on it, it would act against itself. The more I realize this, the more it tends to get off its megaphone and let the rest of the psyche do their jobs in peace. Most of the time I react emotionally only when I judge circumstances realistically deserving anger, fear, happiness etc. Consequently my "heart" is sucky when it comes to taking charge. Recently people have been asking me about decisions, "what does your heart say?"... My "heart" doesn't just toss a coin and declare a winner. It performs as my cognition instructs it to perform from moment to moment, and I try to record all that data and estimate how many points it has awarded to each person or thing so far. Asking me for a digitally-clear intepretation of all that data is not reasonable.

Sorry, I don't like this question and there exists no answer. My bad. Under the rules of the game you get your question back and can try again.

2. Another question of perfect superlatives. I don't feel nearly so guilty about leaving out parts of myself deserving of honorable mention, such as my skills at two-player Tetris, telling a friend the story of a novel I just read, sculpture, sex, or making coffee. So I will answer off-the-cuff and say what I like MOST about me is my honesty/realism. My craving for meaningful information about that which, when I stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

3. Before she or he embarks on science fiction, there is a non-fiction book this person needs to read: Unbounding the Future by Eric K. Drexler. It is available in print and for free on the web. This is the work that persuaded me that within our lifetimes we will see technological revolutions which will overturn all the assumptions of the present world. I love the world-view-changing, paradigm-shifting, "real-life-type-of-scary" experience called future shock. That's what I read science fiction for. Orientation to values, a sense of where we come from and where we are going, what is the self, "our place" in the universe if there is any such thing. These are the things that religion used to serve which are so admirably served by the futurists who write plausible science fiction set in this century. These topics would not be served by the suspension of disbelief required by fantasy. When I read a work which satisfies me, it persuasively compels my belief and involves an act of the will to suspend belief, not to suspend disbelief. I have to make an effort to use my critical thinking skills to see the problems with it or detect if the author is, in my opinion, wrong. This is a second stage to the reading process which I also enjoy. Those who are not interested in that are not going to enjoy any science fiction that I would recommend, such as Greg Egan, and should instead read some easy brain-candy with an arbitrarily-imagined distant future that a movie producer pulled out of his butt. They would probably enjoy character development or some such thing. I can offer them no advice on that.

If you want anything further on any of these answers, feel free to ask.

ded-guy on Oct. 10, 2004 7:36 PM

1. Do I have to ask 3 questions to be able to steal this idea?
2 & 3 Pending.

matt-arnold on Oct. 11, 2004 9:44 AM

1. No, you do not have to ask anything to use the meme. It is possible, and in fact probable, that I do not interest you at all. I forgive you my child; go forth and sin no more. If you're picky about it you can backtrack along the spread if this meme's epidemiology until you find someone else who you do want to ask three questions of.

ded-guy on (None)

ded-guy on Oct. 11, 2004 4:36 PM

Perhaps it's just difficult to come up with questions that would have interesting answers, without being trite. However, I think I've come up with a couple!
2) ma do se melbri
3) la lojban. mo be do

ded-guy on Oct. 11, 2004 5:04 PM

Gah. Damn neophyte mistake.
2 should read as follows:
do ma se melbri
although you're free to answer the original as well if you really want to.

matt-arnold on Oct. 12, 2004 7:56 AM

2. I know this compound word "melbri" involves the prefix "mel" from "melbi (beautiful)," and the suffix "bri," from "bridi," meaning "predicate-argument relationship," or more likely you mean "sentence" or "utterance." So I interpret "melbri" to mean "beautiful-statement." The problem is, I don't know the place structure of compound words so I don't know what slots of reference to fit the other words into. Please rephrase your question using only cmavo and gismu if you don't mind. Thanks.

3. I know that "mo" means a type of pronoun that serves as a question mark by standing in place of an entire predicate-argument relationship. But I have not yet gotten around to learning the grammar of how that works, so I don't understand your question.

ded-guy on Oct. 12, 2004 3:03 PM

Well, it's entirely possible that 3 was grammatically malformed. But heck, I'm working off the glossary and examples so I don't know how to fix it right now.
As for 2, I relize that I really did mean to say "melbi" and not "melbri". Chalk that up to hasty reading.
So, care to take another shot at 2?

matt-arnold on Oct. 14, 2004 1:16 PM

2. i la julne smacu ku melbi mi
3. ni'o i mi jbopli

matt-arnold on (None)

matt-arnold on Oct. 15, 2004 2:17 PM

You told me elsewhere that you meant something different by your third question, "what is Lojban to you." This is partially answered in a past Livejournal entry of mine.

twoofdtm on Oct. 11, 2004 11:10 AM

These might be corny and off the wall but I AM curious
1. It's the end of the world and you only have one person to live the rest of the days with. Who would that be and why?
(that's technically two but I'm counting it as one same applies for all the others)
2. Burn or drown and why?
3. What is the most frightening thing you have ever done?

matt-arnold on Oct. 11, 2004 12:06 PM

1. I was treating this question as one of being the last man on earth, in which case I was going to talk about fertility optimization. But reading more carefully it seems that you're saying I and the person I choose are going to die in a few days in this scenario, along with everybody else. I hate spending entire days at a time with one person. That sounds like a pretty bad way to go instead of saying goodbye to everyone.

I would choose Rachel. She's been better when I'm depressed than anyone else so far, and I would never want her to be alone at that time. When she and I got divorced I had a great deal of plans for the future, but if I have no future then I may as well call the plans off. Kind of like the wedding at the end of Joe Vs. The Volcano just before he jumps in. (Have you seen that movie?) "What's the problem? You afraid of the commitment? You'll have to love me and honor me for about thirty seconds. You can't handle that?" ;^)

Parenthetically, let me add this. Questions involving the words "only one" and "love the most" are very popular in these questions. It seems pretty cruel and exclusionist to me. Life doesn't actually demand such choices, only people do (the people who are, in your words, "corny and off-the-wall"). There are so many worthy people in this world, that no one would ever, ever, ever be alone, if only we would all take turns and not demand permanence. Such a simple concept, "taking turns"... we learn it in kindergarten. Instead we make a game of musical chairs where the people who are still standing when the music stops are just stuck with what's left. Where is it written that I have to lock myself and my loved one away in a neat little white picket cage? Oh I forgot, it's written in our genes for raising children.

[rant] HATES'S HUMAN NATURE. WE HATES IT, PRECIOUS. *gollum*[/rant] ;^)

2. Drown. It seems less painful.

3. Something I've done that frightened someone else? Or me? My life has mostly been risk-averse. I've never been in a haunted house and I've only ridden three very tiny roller coasters. A thrill seeker, I am not. But I attended PCC and graduated. That's pretty frightening to sane people.

twoofdtm on Oct. 11, 2004 12:19 PM

okay so 3 was kinda open ended wasn't it? Okay let me try it again.
3. What is the scariest thing you have ever done in your life that you were truly frightened of and done. That you bit your tongue or squeezed your hand (etc.) and FORCED yourself to do through your fear.

matt-arnold on Oct. 11, 2004 12:30 PM

Difficult to rate. I've very rarely felt like I was in actual danger. A year or two ago I went to visit in Philadelphia and took a wrong turn. I got lost in a ghetto in Trenton New Jersey in the middle of the night and had to call him from a phone booth. But I didn't have to make any choices there. I went on those three roller coasters I mentioned, which took a great effort of will because I hate it so much, but I don't know if that counts as "truly" frightened. Oh wait, I know! Jumping off a high-dive in a swimming class I had to take in college.

cosette-valjean on Oct. 11, 2004 12:26 PM — Thanks....I think

I would choose you too... :-)

samurai-jkm on (None)

samurai-jkm on Oct. 11, 2004 1:31 PM — Ali Babba and his 3 questions...

Wow, only three questions! It's like asking a genie for 3 wishes. What are the most interesting questions I can think of, so I can get the most bang for my buck! Well, I'll give it a shot...

1. What is your favorite paradox scenario?

2. Who is the hottest female actress in Hollywood in your mind? What reasons do you have to make this decision? If you could affect/manipulate one part of her body, what would it be/what would you do to it?

3. What is the average airspeed velocity of a European swallow laden with a coconut?

Alright, I just had to ask number three! Just kidding...

The real number 3) Going back to the question asked by twoofdtm...
It's the end of the world and you only have one person (other than Rachel) to live the rest of your days with. Who would that be and why?

matt-arnold on Oct. 11, 2004 2:25 PM — Re: Ali Babba and his 3 questions...

1. Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance was more than N years old on his Nth birthday because he's born on leap day in leap year; that's a pretty good one. But my favorite kind is Strange Loop, a thing which refers back to itself. In Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas Hofstadter provides an example: a phonograph which destroys itself by playing a record entitled "I Cannot Be Played on Record Player X". M.C. Escher's "Drawing Hands" is another example.

2. Scarlett Johanssen. I've had a crush on her ever since I saw Lost in Translation. She is not just "looking" at the guy in that film. Her expression makes it clear that she is "regarding" him. That is the word to apply. I like the sort of critiquing attitude she conveys with her expression and voice, like things trouble her and matter to her such as the meaning of her life; why some relationships fail and others work; loneliness and isolation; but you don't see her character whining and crying about it, and she captures that attitude. Or maybe this perception is all just in my head. Watch the movie. Just look at her next to that shallow ditz in one scene and the difference is obvious. She finds a balance between cute and sophisticated, which is rare. I don't think any part of her needs to change, except her hair was perfect in L.I.T. and she's changed it since then.

3. Sneaky bastard! ;^D Oh! Just when I dodge the bullet you shoot it at me again! The problem is, if I choose Jessica or another woman she'll spend her final days before Apocalypse complaining she can't be with Frank or fill-in-the-blank with whoever X woman is in love with. This question game is so cool. You see, I told you it would be more fun to ask the annoying questions and not hold back. And it is! OK, what if I list my favorite people in no particular order? Is that what inquiring minds really want to know?
Bill.
Rachel.
Jessica.
You.
My brother Jon.
My brother Andy.
My grandfather.
Any of the several and numerous women who I have a totally pointless crush on.

twoofdtm on Oct. 12, 2004 11:00 AM — Re: Ali Babba and his 3 questions...

Repeating what I said to you on messenger..

I would NOT. Complain that is.

Now through talking to you I remember you saying if everybody else was left and we all got to choose the person we wanted to be with I do agree that I would be upset if you took me away from Frank because he would be who I would want to spend my final days with. I would not complain though. so NAH!! I would be upset but pleased you chose me.

So treat it as the last man on earth kinda thing you were talking about. Who would you choose then?

matt-arnold on Oct. 12, 2004 11:39 AM — Re: Ali Babba and his 3 questions...

Those human beings who do not get chosen, it doesn't mean I want you all to die. The real question is, "Who would I be the most happy about if they accidentally survived global holocaust along with me?" Of course this entire line of questioning is stupid because I would be inconsolably depressed at everybody else dying. It's also stupid because whoever I choose from among those I love, we would both quickly die from a lack of survival skills. So I would choose... one of those crackpot survivalists with radiation bunkers who know how to get nutrients out of tree bark! And it would be a female and then we would repopulate the species! Ha! I have foiled your Dr. Strangelove question once again!