My 40k
Posted by evanescent on 8 March, 2008
The hit count on my blog has just smashed through the 40,000 barrier in just under 12 months, and although I’ve not researched this properly, I’m pretty sure that makes it the best blog ever written, ever.
Here are some not so interesting facts about the number 40,000:
It comes after the number 39,999
There is a game called Warhammer 40,000
A man took 40000 ecstasy tabs in a nine year span
It comes before the number 40,001
40,000 is a round number
Asteroid 40000 has the provisional designation 1998 HZ87 and was discovered on April 21st 1998 in Socorro
40,000 is the only number to end with four zeros and start with one four
A footprint of early humans found in Mexico was 40,000 years old
40,000+ is the visitor count of popular, intelligent, and witty writer Evanescent
I originally posted my blog on MySpace as a way to rant incoherently about football and everyday things that pissed me off in an attempt to look cleverer than I was. That’s not me anymore – I’ve stopped writing about football.
I’ve moved from just “atheist” to “humanist” to “anti-theist”, before discovering Ayn Rand, and I proudly identify myself as an Objectivist now. Not only has this been of great personal benefit to me, I think it gave my blog a whole new lease of life. I’ve also had the dubious pleasure of having many political and ethical debates as a result.
I haven’t posted much recently as nothing has moved me to write an in-depth article, and I’m also drafting a perennially-planned work of fiction. I’ll release more information about this in the coming months. Needless to say this will make me rich and famous, but I won’t forget you my readers, the little people, for putting me where I am.
8 March, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Congratulations! That’s quite a count!
Also–40,000 is 200 squared.
8 March, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Well Done Evanescent! Can’t wait for this work of fiction.
Also 40,000 Kilometers is the effective range of the USS Enterprises transporter.
8 March, 2008 at 4:48 pm
To be precise, the footprint in Mexico is alleged to be 40,000 years old by mystery mongers. The earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas is 13,000 - 14,000 years ago.
8 March, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Cfeagans, I stand corrected!
9 March, 2008 at 12:34 am
“I’ve moved from just “atheist” to “humanist” to “anti-theist”, before discovering Ayn Rand, and I proudly identify myself as an Objectivist now.”
I see you’re not at the end of the journey, then.
9 March, 2008 at 9:41 am
Is it to be assumed, then, that you are at the end of yours, John? Where is that?
9 March, 2008 at 10:22 am
No Favela, I see no end in sight. I admit I found Objectivism rather appealing in my early 20’s, and further that I consider it more rational than any religion I know of.
My comment was based on my belief that the likelihood of an intelligent, rational and thoughtful person remaining an Objectivist for very long is remote; I judge Evanescent to be in that category.
I may of course be wrong.
9 March, 2008 at 11:19 am
John, Objectivism isn’t a religion - so whatever you were studying it wasn’t Objectivism, and if it was, no one who understands Objectivism could call it a religion.
9 March, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I seem to have expressed myself less than clearly in my attempt to be charitable; to rephrase, I consider any (relatively) coherent philosophy which does not invoke the supernatural is more rational than any religion I know of.
I note, however, that I have interacted with Objectivists in whom their expression of the philosophy seemed indistinguishable from religious belief.
9 March, 2008 at 1:19 pm
John, I can’t speak for other people, but I haven’t encountered such an attitude in Objectivists that I’ve interacted with.
However I will grant his: Objectivism is a rational coherent complete worldview. This is exceptionally rare today (if indeed it exists at all). Religion is the only other attempt to provide such a worldview. Most atheists and humanists etc hold a mass of conflicting subjective philosophically bankrupt ideas that they cobble together from bits and pieces of other philosophies and New Atheist ideas and call it a worldview. So, when comes along with a total self-consistent worldview that accounts for itself based on reality, it seems so radical and unusual it could be misconstrued as religious to the ignorant. But really, this is only because today’s culture and society is in such a sorry pathetic state of affairs.
All religions ultimately depend on faith. Objectivism depends on one thing: reason. A religious Objectivist is a contradiction in terms. So is a blind Objectivist, or a cultist Objectivist. Unless one fully understands Objectivism and accepts it themselves rationally, they shouldn’t call themselves an Objectivist.
9 March, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Also, to the ignorant outsider or to a person bound to empiric probabilities, the absolute certainty afforded by the use of reason that Objectivism champions can be rather disconcerting, and therefore, identifiable with the only other worldview that claims absolute certainty, namely, religion.
But Objectivists refuse to concede the ground of absolute certainty to religion, and we refuse to accept the dichotomy between rationality and absolute certainty. Reason is an absolute. Life is an absolute. A speck of dust is an absolute. That we exist is an absolute. All of reality is an absolute. Consciousness that percieves this reality is an absolute.
9 March, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Absolute certainty, eh?
10 March, 2008 at 1:17 am
Absolute certainty in that I know that I exist and have the power to sustain my existence.
10 March, 2008 at 1:48 am
Favela: I think you too were less than clear.
Frankly, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, other than to clarify that this absolute certainty is domain-specific.
Care to explain?
10 March, 2008 at 9:57 am
I understood your two and a half words to be skeptical of certainty and then tried to be as succinct in expressing my affirmation of it. Not a big deal.
15 March, 2008 at 3:27 am
You deserve more than 40,000.