no beginning

Pt one   Kiss Kiss Kill Kill


                        As I've stated already because of the depth and complexity of the subject and the radical nature of the conclusion I will attempt to describe it several ways.

                 It's amusing. One needs the past to describe the future and our notions of the future are so few that they must needs be be repeated several times in the hope that one or two will connect with the reader.


                       In the abstract one could say that our understanding of our perception of the compostion of the world we find around us continues to change and as is does it takes us further away form universal, eternal truths and realities  into realms of probability and the moment.

                  It is a very cold, unfamiliar world we venture forth into – none of the old signposts
are true.  Nor do the old assurances  shield us from harm.

                 Good and evil once permeated the Universe as God and the Devil, as constant time and space, as visions of same. Now there is only power in the flames of the destructive/creative energies

                 The budda describe Nirvana as only being attained through the cessation  of feeding oxygen
to being – but how can this be possible  while keeping that being we have come to live since times origin?






        The problem we will address next arises, as so many do, from confusion. An understanding began to gestate several months ago in a seemingly unrelated sentence. Speaking of the purposeless yet steady advance into World War one it was suggested that the leaders of the nations going to war had to be seen as doing something because they could no be seen as doing nothing.

         Consider that.  Remember that the agonies, starvation, suffering and deaths of millions of people  were , in the final analysis, for no reason. Nothing was achieved unless we consider paving the way to another global war an achievement. Nothing was gained, except for a few hundred champagne dinners, and nothing was learned.

        Here we are, one hundred years later and we are, if anything, further down to the road to insanity. The rapist, the thief, the demagogue , the priest, the sadistic torturer  - these at least gain from their behaviors, as the need to kill and maim is temporarily  quelled, but the sickness of man is granted no relief- like the addiction it is, each endeavor merely creates  a greater hunger for yet more.

       The notion that we punish those guilty of crimes is absurd. We punish those too weak to punish us back.   Those who have actually committed crimes are the last we would approach, since they can defend themselves most perfectly. And for those rare people who somehow avoid being sentenced by the prosecutors, they have spent years and their life savings  none of which can be returned.

           This is not to blame the prosecutor, it is a systemic artifact. By punishing MR X we are working under the assumption that MR Y will be deterred.

             Mr Y however is no fool. He understands that the possibility of apprehension has to be matched with the certainty of illicit gain.

             In short what I am saying is that a  functioning social order will never be brought about by laws. Laws are meant for those exceptional people that don't get the point a minority.  The law will not create an honest society. It is asking too much of it. In the same way  prison does not make a percen a decent person – what it does is it give people a chance to cool down.  It does not change the realities of life that the erstwhile prisoner faces.

           What is needed is a world, and a society where criminal activity is not desirable in the first place.   That is achievable only through the consent of the greater number of members of society.
         



 
            Guilt and Innocence in post relativistic society

                  Recently I was struck by the apparent naivete’ of the readers of the   Guardian. Usually they are a decisive and incisive crew but this time I feel  impelled to add a few comments.  I do so  in the interest of fulfilling  the  Tamlinmediaco’s   primary remit -  which is to provide methods of survival within the data flood.   Note that we cannot always explain things  as much as we like.  Entire parameters of the task must needs be, remain unexplained, both due to space limitations and for the simple reason that I am not omniscient.
              A large part of our research in the past concerned itself with the meanings and development of myth.   In “counter programming”, so to speak,  when we observe the  pictures and concept formulations that have succeeded in  controlling populations in the past   we then have something to compare  modern attempts to do the same with.   The difference between   ancient myth and modern propaganda may not be as great  as we assume at first blush.
            One deceptive factor is the assumption of objectivity.  We do not usually see a myth  as being the purposeful tool of a group to enforce it’s hegemony ; rather it is seen as an explanation.    In myths of “the other one”, meaning the alien race, or in practical terms the tribe next door   we invariably are reminded of the unsanitary habits of these people.   The actual message is that  “our” ritual  help us to remain in the sight and protection of  “our” God.
         Of the great panoply of beliefs that make up the structures  of human society, we are concerned with only a few  and what is more we are concerned with how these beliefs are impacted on and change via exposure.    One’s physical, emotional and intellectual development is their our concern. Our concern is the use of belief systems to  mold societies into a coherent form.  As humanity encounters  tools, or technologies, the use of same empowers segments of societies  which often grant them at least temporary ascendency over the rest of their native society.
            And it’s not always a bad thing.   I call to mind the motion picture directors of the nineteen thirties who would dress in Jodpurs  whilst carrying around a megaphone.     His motivation was to get noticed and to be listened to  and to wind up with a comprehendable motion picture. In other words his task was to take the various pieces and put them together to  tell a story.  
          It reminds me of a song the Every  Brothers sand where they look back over their lives and decide the things they did they did because of “the stories they could  tell”.

       As you can see the potential for generalization of topic here is immense. Freud saw fairy tales as sexual coming of age stories. Hans Christian Andersons tales reinforce the adherence to bourgeois values of hard work and persistence.  The  God Myths   often are juxtaposed positively or negatively with dedication to national pride.  The laws of criminal and civil behavior as well are coalesced and concretized versions of decision making processes  that previously had been customs.
           An important thing to remain aware of across all these variations and forms is that the  myths come from  conditions that are relatively stable.  That customs continue for generations suggest that the notions of right and good have at least some standards.
              Another imminently practical consideration is that the law, or myth, only works in a minority of cases. In microcosm we can say that were every  defendant to insist on a court trial instead of taking a plea bargain the system would soon break down.   Likewise is the majority of the population believes that, for instance stealing a loaf of bread is okay if you are hungry enough  then the legal system, indeed the social order, is pointless.   That is the sine qua non: the absolute requirement. Throughout history men have ignored this idea only to discover they have lost everything.
            For the most part it is easy enough to recognize such realities.  It's an interesting, and still open question as to how well the current reactionary elements in the United States  do so, but  we must agree that things would have to proceed far further into chaos  before it was  irrefutable.
           What we are speaking of is actually a two sided   equation. On one hand you have the needs and desires of  the human population, and on the other you have the apparatus of  society. It's worthwhile that both have their virtues and flaws. The simple countryman, strong and un corrupt, as a mythical figure can be traced to at least  the Gilgamesh myth.  Tax revolts, often by men making moonshine whiskey did not begin with Mr Reagan, but have been part of the US since it's inception and the beginning of the “guv'ment.”
           I hesitate to place  myself on either end of this continuum of rural verses urban life. I am apprehensive about the possibility of systems losing “the human touch” and becoming indifferent to the furtherance of human life, because that is what I know about. Considering my age and income I grew up in a world of electronics and information,  but no one aware of the history of the Twentieth Century could dare turn their backs on the potential for technologies abuse and it's seeming indifference to genocide.
           In short I am frightened of the amount of power technology gives to the few and at the same time I would not want to do without it myself.
                 If one side of the equation I speak of is the human factor, humanities needs, then the other side is the organizational factor   - the machinery of state and society, which can shape humanities needs at least as much as the other way around.
            Blake says somewhere he was born at such and such a place and had died many times since.  I sometimes wonder, considering the number of projected doomsdays  and apocalypses if the actual thing could ever happen.  In this regards the War to end all Wars plays a critical role,  for at least one reason – prior to it and including it  wars were found on battle fields  by massed armies. As in the case of  Waterloo, Getty's burg and the Somme it lead to massive carnage   but the civilian population was comparatively unscathed.   One could witness the somewhat bizarre vision of ladies in their finery, standing on hilltops, watching the battle below, much as the young woman watches two males battle it out for her sexual favors.
                Suffice to say this is no longer. In a nuclear exchange, for instance the survivors would be almost entirely military and the victims civilians.

                    This is not the place to go into it in detail but we can discern interesting parallels between mans awareness  of thought processes, epistemology and his awareness of the physical world itself. Once we believed in static   stationary world, then a world where at least some things were static, then a world where  our  apprehensions of the world are believed to have elements that can be predicted. This is , roughly speaking the three sciences, of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein.   I have not thought to elaborate this in terms of legal codes,  I'll leave that to someone else

              Likewise I hesitate to draw moral connections here – although they be the very basis allegedly of the law.  The simple fact is that experience has shown that people are not always interested in doing that which will make things better. They prefer to do that which makes them feel  good.  Thus the killer is  killed.   The thief is punished and no amount of evidence saying this is absurd  can change that.

        Essentially nothing will happen if we don't make it happen and if we grant that right to ourselves we must grant it to others.

      This has been stated before as “the golden rule”



       What I am saying in this article is we are, and always have been, threading the needle - each generation and society challenges the old notions of right and wrong and comes upon new ones. As Plato said "To be a philosopher is the highest calling of mankind, but also the most difficult  because one must call into doubt all previously help knowledge,"




          

       The existentialists in a somewhat clumsy way said the same thing  and Dante said it wordlessly best in his image of the pilgrims  emerging from the long dark nights journey to the over arching sky and stars.






          I suppose if anyone knew corruption, and had cause to despair it was him, but he did not, and so I ask of you that you also do not despair for the sins of the world are not yours and need not be.
        




 
   

Appendixes 1 & 2

   Appendix  

One

Go gog go

(The limitations of language  and  historical parallels between concepts of "Knowing" and the physical world.)

         Several years ago I introduced a hypothesis which has held up fairly well. It suggests that our understanding of the physical world is paralleled by our epistemological   concepts.  So you have the rigid world of Aristotle, and the Gods, - then in the time of Locke we understand how "Truth"  could be shaped by the means of perception  - the tabula Rosa,  which in turn could be compared to the gravitational constant of Newton.

       In 1905 Einstein told us that perception varied according to the perceiver (Relativity)  a short while later Heisenberg suggested that  both perceived and perceived were in flux and this led to the suggestion that we could know either location or direction, but not both when, for instance trying identify the position of a electron. This is the quantum viewpoint.

     These notions parallel our  conception of "truth"  which for immediate purposes we'll   call the definition of the  physical world.  To use an analogy first the model and the camera were considered static and reliable, then we thought the camera changed as the model remained static ( gravitational constant and tabula rosa) then  we believed that  both the "camera" and the subject being photographed were changing in time and space.

       This, essentially was "the great liberation" the freedom from the chains of circumstance and likewise the death of god and the  birth of the superman  because  it implied there was no good or evil there was only what you could get away with. 

        Like many a criminal in the dock the lamentations were not for the agony of the soul, but because one got caught at it.

         I've stated that I refuse to relinquish claims to the metaphysical - I will not relinquish that  weapon, if only because historically man has used the presumption of metaphysical superiority to enslave his fellow man, but irregardless the world we inhabit is not physically much different from that of centuries past.

       As is said of Nietzsche's pronouncement  "The believers did not believe him and the for the non believers it made no difference."

        Quantum information theory is a strange bird indeed. Wittgenstein despaired of ever getting language to make sense other then perhaps as the thing in itself, but like hope from Pandora's box, the fact that we remain must contradict all such despair.

       We might well draw an analogy with religion, which while not proving the existence of a God, nevertheless proves the existence of man's desire to believe there is.

        It is as if by transmitting one letter of the alphabet we would be able to convey an encyclopedias worth of information.

         The problem, (which I make no claim to be able to solve,)  is how to find the correct original unit out of a near infinite number of possibilities, or perhaps an infinite number of possibilities.

           As it stands however such challenges need not be undertaken if world domination is our simple goal.  

             Here's the kicker - as technology amplifies the data field it consequently simplifies the amount of information needed to be transmitted in order to effect a response, in particular from the human population.  In other words  in dealing with a school of fish or a flock of birds in flight you no longer have to convince each one of them of the direction you want them to go. All you have to do is "convince" the point bird.

        To draw the quantum analogy further consider a wall of doors. Each of the hundreds of doors has a number on it.  You wish to convey a great deal of information but your means of doing so is limited.  What you do is tell the bird the right door to open - so it only need to know one thing even as it provides the receiver with a wealth of info.

     The problem facing mankind today is just this. It is a two sided sword. We control the masses by controlling the lead birds in the flocking behavior; behavior which has been made possible by the ubiquitous presence of media.  And in turn we control any contrary messages  by arresting people in extreme cases - but ignorance has a subtler and vastly more effective way of advancing it's purposes.

      And once again, we create “opinion leaders to give the masses condoned thoughts, even, as in the case of the Soviet Union's “Krokodile”, or the John Stewart show to the extent of officially sanctioned opposition   and then at the same time does not reach the level of exposure as to even require censorship.

     Hackers, libertarians and people on all sides of the political spectrum, consciously at least, express concerns that the world is taking on the model of  1984. It's important to remember though that Orwell was not speaking about right wing or left wing political systems - nor was he even speaking about the excesses of the technostate.  Difficult as it may be to accept one of the primary criteria for the existence of a 1984 is that the celebrity has taken the God role.

    It simply refuses to admit the validity of anything that opposes it's core principles.  The NRA, which I do not oppose offhand, suggested that the way to prevent mass killing of schoolchildren was to arm five year olds and give them lessons in shooting. They did not understand how  out of place this seemed to be to most people.

    We create things, sometimes even things meant to do good, and they get out of hand.  Thus along with promotion of the official line there is the seeming ignoring of the non sanctioned points of view  until under the guise of preservation of the state offenders are silenced.


     In my own life, in a case that I've seen happen to many others as well, I began as something of a writer researcher  who worked for the government and as I continued learning I became less employable as the years went by. My understanding was not the understanding that gets paid for.  I was not saying what the employers wanted to hear.

      Or consider the case of Reagan. He's a guy, whatever you may think of him that provokes widely varying reactions from the public. some see him as the savior, others as a monster, and It's save to say neither side is being duplicitous.

     The key factor here is that, as in the case of politics and business as well, technology favors market domination, which means it does not tolerate differences of opinion  - the gun and the bow and arrow may coexist for awhile- but not for long.


             Appendix two


               (Prelude to a new world)


For behold, we venture forth to a new world
a world where fame comes to they who do nothing
and achievements are ground into oblivion
where right and wrong, good and bad and ye even life and death   are predicated by no more then the wheel of fortune

where nothing adds up
Where the gods preen before their mirrors
and their dogs sign checks with paw prints

The Senators bathe at three
Children carry the firewood
The “little fishes” age prematurely
on the Isle of Capri


         "When I return the dead shall  rise from their  graves
           and they shall outnumber the living"
          Ishtar, Sumerian goddess, circa  2500 BCE




           Conclusion:

              The Technostate  has two requirements;

              1) It must be free to create and expand markets*
              2) It must be rendered immune  from prosecution for
                anything done in furtherence of the creation of markets**



        *By the expansion of markets we mean markets for business to flourish in.

          **   In practical terms it must absolutely control all thought and perception whilst denying that to any one else.  The phrase is "to dominate the market"




            What it means

               It means that no one is safe  from the fluctuations of  systemic variance - you personally may do a good job at what you do but that does not prevent the decision to move to somewhere where economic advantages  are greater.

               And I repeat - one does not have to be convicted of a crime  to be punished. The trial itself becomes the critical object, not the verdict. The trial demonstrates to the system that actions are being taken - that the controller/decision makers have a desire or direction that they want to see instantiated.


              We witness here technology taken to it's fullest extent - to wit- to the "world lever", amplified beyond any previous abilities.

           You can think of it in terms of flocking behavior, or schools of fish. Think of the incredible ability of flocks to turn as directed by the bird at the point. In classical democratic decision making paradigm each individual  would consider the options available and reach a conclusion that would be best for them-  but in the technostate that does not happen - under the quite possibly questionable belief that what is good for one is good for all.

               This sometimes false belief in the commonality of interest  can in turn be manipulated for the interest of very small segments of society through propaganda.

          The tendency of humans in groups to surrender individual thought in favor of the crowd has long been known and studied. As the case may be many technological developments of the past century have served to create a sense of intimacy which in turn has replaced actual direct human communication.
  
            This is evident from radio, to movies, to television, and now to Facebook - all of which bring the semblance of human lives into our own.  There is a difference however that should be obvious. A friend in real life may be one of maybe ten people, on face book it is one of 50,000   - hardly comparable.