. . . is, let's face it, another form of escapism. Great if you don't take it too seriously; tediously obsessive if you do. But, unlike the absolute adherence to generational, faith-derived religions, science fiction does have the added benefit of holding a mirror up to the reality that we all think we perceive.
The problem with "sci-fi" is the fact that there are many variations on a theme. On the one extreme there is "speculative fiction" such as the writings of Verne and Wells in an earlier age when practical imagination was taking a huge evolutionary step forward. Speculative fiction begat "science fiction", written by people who were trained physicists or academics such as Baxter, Benford and Brin. But, as always, the mystics and fantasists hijacked the game. The "fantasy fiction" that swamp the book shops and libraries are jammed with endless regurgitations of Tolkien or proselytising on behalf of the authors' religion-of-choice.
Of course "speculative science" fiction itself is in danger of generating its own monsters. "Cult" film and TV shows produce an extreme worship of anything beginning with the word "Star" (Trek, Wars, Gate, etc.) with more and more Hollywood producers jumping on the money bandwagon. The "science" is replaced with even more fantastical impossibilities, but they still can be fun . . .
But back to the mirror to reality. In Alastair Reynolds' book "Blue Remembered Earth" he paints an evocative view of humanity from the view of one of his protagonists: "Consider all the inanimate matter in the universe, all the dumb atoms, all the mindless molecules, all the oblivious dust grains and pebbles and rocks and iceballs and worlds and stars, all the unthinking galaxies and super clusters, wheeling through the oblivious time-haunted, mega parsecs of the cosmic supervoid. In all that immensity, she had somehow contrived to be a human being, a microscopically tiny, cosmically insignificant bundle of information processing systems, wired to a mind more structurally complex than the Milky Way itself, maybe even more complex than the rest of the whole damn universe".
Quite. But then with a true sci-fi writer's sense of the absurd, his character is informed: "Please also be aware that you may experience altered emotional states while your neural chemistry is stabilising. Some of these states may manifest as religious or spiritual insights, including feelings of exaggerated significance. Again, this is no cause for distress".
Feelings of exaggerated significance. Ha Ha. Doesn't this found familiar?
Sunday, 27 September 2015
Sunday, 20 September 2015
Interlude: Short Story
Reluctantly, the Cognoscenti turned their attention again to the pressing problem of Planet Earth. Pressing, not because that world held life in abundance. Not because of that world's levels of internecine warfare. But because the planet itself was special. Of a certain size: not too small to retain an atmosphere to encourage respiratory evolution and suffer protection from high-energy stellar radiation excesses; not too large to create crushing gravitational forces that prevent the development of complex but fragile organic evolution.
It more importantly possessed, through an unusual quirk of interplanetary mechanics, a moon that was an amazing one-sixth the size of its primary. It helped to "slop" the oceans about, encourage a bit of biochemical diversity in the early stages of the system's existence, and provide a bit of added protection from Oort cometary impacts when indigenous cellular life forms were at their most fragile ("added" in the sense that Jupiter and Saturn and the other Outer gas giants were already doing a sterling job).
The problem affecting Earth, thought the Cognoscenti, was accelerating. Far faster than any previous planetary timescales allowed. This world had been around for four and a half BILLION years. Multi-cellular life erupted around two billion years ago. Dinosaurs: 250 mere-million years ago. Primates: around 60 million. "Intelligent" life: a tiny fraction of all that; a small number of thousands of years. But the so-called intelligent life had not been a problem . . . well, until now.
The planet was imminently reaching a "tipping point". In a scant 100 years, a brief nano-second of Earth's geological time, it would succumb to a runaway effect that would change it's surface; all its land and water and air mass, for ever. Either it would become, in a frighteningly short period of time, a dead airless rock like Mars or an inhospitable acidic zone like Venus. Either way, the memory of an interesting 2 billion year evolutionary history would be wiped out.
The moral problem was keeping the Cognoscenti up at nights (or its equivalent). It was clear that the planet had reached a new epoch; what the locals had started to call the Anthropocene Epoch. That the latest dominant species was to blame for the world's imminent demise was not in question. Top of the food chain, they were now breeding exponentially. On the positive side, they were capable of building complex structures that dwarfed their world's arthropods (compare a termite hill to a skyscraper). Most significant to a galactic perspective was their successful landing on their Moon: such a feat was rare in the history of all intelligent species. But . . . the same clever monkeys were building many, many machines that relocated carbon into their surface environment in quantities that the planet had never, in all its countless millions of years, experienced before.
The moral conundrum was this: if "Goldilocks" planets were rare in the galaxy (e.g. the "just right amount of" size, gravity, interplanetary protection, liquid water, complex amino acids, heavy elements, etc. to make Basic Life), then the incidence and frequency of Intelligent Life was rarer.
The Cognoscenti had access to the histories of thousands of interplanetary, and sometimes interstellar, civilisations in the galaxy. Unfortunately, as the galaxy is itself around 12 BILLION years old and 100,000 light-years in diameter, all of these intelligent civilisations existed in a relative blink of an alien eyeball, and most definitely not in the same time frame. (The Cognoscenti picture a four dimensional galactic pinwheel, rotating very quickly through 12 billion years: little intense flashes of light around the disc represent the rise and fall of all these wonderful civilisations -- but, tragically, never at the same period of time.)
Having access to all the galaxy's civilisation's information (which is never lost; it just radiates outwards at the speed of light long after its owners are gone) the Cognoscenti see the solution.
It is an elegant solution. Moreover, it is a kind solution.
The Cognoscenti's analysis determines that the intelligent, highly industrial primates that currently dominate the surface areas of the planet possess an unshakable faith in the nature of Reality. Around 95% of all these thinking primates absolutely believe in the existence of an omniscient, omnipresent, loving God from whom their entire existence is derived. The Cognoscenti have no experience of such Deities. All their knowledge has been distilled from the radiated but attenuated information fields of past civilisations. However the Cognoscenti understand that the quantum Observations of past civilisations have collectively shaped the current Galactic Reality. They can do no less than acquiesce to the demands of the latest Intelligent Species in the galaxy.
Having decided, the Cognoscenti act.
Overnight, as the world moves in its rotation, 6 billion 650 million clever monkeys, together with their offspring, pets, icons, temples, memes and architectures, perish painlessly.
Upon the remaining 35,000,000 so-called atheists, the Cognoscenti take pity. After all, the remaining humans have no way of benefitting from an eternity at the Right Hand of a Caring God. Thus, each human is purged of all the genetic disorders that plagued these clever monkeys over hundreds of thousands of years of environmental and genetic mutancy. Each human is granted an extended, pain-free thousand-year lifespan in return for the responsible stewardship of the many and varied economies and ecologies of planet Earth. And, of course, freed from their evolutionary, biological and religious demands of mindless (and environmentally expensive) reproduction, they are able to pursue a sensible, non-competitive assimilation of the resources of their solar system. Eventually, the Cognoscenti anticipated, the humans might adapt to the concept of extreme, non-biological time and make their mark; become another marvelous twinkle on the four-dimensional tapestry of the galaxy.
Having judged, the Cognoscenti were relieved of their burden. And satisfied. It was, after all, a most compassionate solution.
It more importantly possessed, through an unusual quirk of interplanetary mechanics, a moon that was an amazing one-sixth the size of its primary. It helped to "slop" the oceans about, encourage a bit of biochemical diversity in the early stages of the system's existence, and provide a bit of added protection from Oort cometary impacts when indigenous cellular life forms were at their most fragile ("added" in the sense that Jupiter and Saturn and the other Outer gas giants were already doing a sterling job).
The problem affecting Earth, thought the Cognoscenti, was accelerating. Far faster than any previous planetary timescales allowed. This world had been around for four and a half BILLION years. Multi-cellular life erupted around two billion years ago. Dinosaurs: 250 mere-million years ago. Primates: around 60 million. "Intelligent" life: a tiny fraction of all that; a small number of thousands of years. But the so-called intelligent life had not been a problem . . . well, until now.
The planet was imminently reaching a "tipping point". In a scant 100 years, a brief nano-second of Earth's geological time, it would succumb to a runaway effect that would change it's surface; all its land and water and air mass, for ever. Either it would become, in a frighteningly short period of time, a dead airless rock like Mars or an inhospitable acidic zone like Venus. Either way, the memory of an interesting 2 billion year evolutionary history would be wiped out.
The moral problem was keeping the Cognoscenti up at nights (or its equivalent). It was clear that the planet had reached a new epoch; what the locals had started to call the Anthropocene Epoch. That the latest dominant species was to blame for the world's imminent demise was not in question. Top of the food chain, they were now breeding exponentially. On the positive side, they were capable of building complex structures that dwarfed their world's arthropods (compare a termite hill to a skyscraper). Most significant to a galactic perspective was their successful landing on their Moon: such a feat was rare in the history of all intelligent species. But . . . the same clever monkeys were building many, many machines that relocated carbon into their surface environment in quantities that the planet had never, in all its countless millions of years, experienced before.
The moral conundrum was this: if "Goldilocks" planets were rare in the galaxy (e.g. the "just right amount of" size, gravity, interplanetary protection, liquid water, complex amino acids, heavy elements, etc. to make Basic Life), then the incidence and frequency of Intelligent Life was rarer.
The Cognoscenti had access to the histories of thousands of interplanetary, and sometimes interstellar, civilisations in the galaxy. Unfortunately, as the galaxy is itself around 12 BILLION years old and 100,000 light-years in diameter, all of these intelligent civilisations existed in a relative blink of an alien eyeball, and most definitely not in the same time frame. (The Cognoscenti picture a four dimensional galactic pinwheel, rotating very quickly through 12 billion years: little intense flashes of light around the disc represent the rise and fall of all these wonderful civilisations -- but, tragically, never at the same period of time.)
Having access to all the galaxy's civilisation's information (which is never lost; it just radiates outwards at the speed of light long after its owners are gone) the Cognoscenti see the solution.
It is an elegant solution. Moreover, it is a kind solution.
The Cognoscenti's analysis determines that the intelligent, highly industrial primates that currently dominate the surface areas of the planet possess an unshakable faith in the nature of Reality. Around 95% of all these thinking primates absolutely believe in the existence of an omniscient, omnipresent, loving God from whom their entire existence is derived. The Cognoscenti have no experience of such Deities. All their knowledge has been distilled from the radiated but attenuated information fields of past civilisations. However the Cognoscenti understand that the quantum Observations of past civilisations have collectively shaped the current Galactic Reality. They can do no less than acquiesce to the demands of the latest Intelligent Species in the galaxy.
Having decided, the Cognoscenti act.
Overnight, as the world moves in its rotation, 6 billion 650 million clever monkeys, together with their offspring, pets, icons, temples, memes and architectures, perish painlessly.
Upon the remaining 35,000,000 so-called atheists, the Cognoscenti take pity. After all, the remaining humans have no way of benefitting from an eternity at the Right Hand of a Caring God. Thus, each human is purged of all the genetic disorders that plagued these clever monkeys over hundreds of thousands of years of environmental and genetic mutancy. Each human is granted an extended, pain-free thousand-year lifespan in return for the responsible stewardship of the many and varied economies and ecologies of planet Earth. And, of course, freed from their evolutionary, biological and religious demands of mindless (and environmentally expensive) reproduction, they are able to pursue a sensible, non-competitive assimilation of the resources of their solar system. Eventually, the Cognoscenti anticipated, the humans might adapt to the concept of extreme, non-biological time and make their mark; become another marvelous twinkle on the four-dimensional tapestry of the galaxy.
Having judged, the Cognoscenti were relieved of their burden. And satisfied. It was, after all, a most compassionate solution.
Sunday, 13 September 2015
Chapter 7: Civilisation
After ten or so thousand years of development, homo sapiens became the dominant species on planet Earth. Being a bisexual (in the original sense) species, like most of their mammalian cousins, procreation was divided into strict biological roles. And the survival of the species was totally predicated on the optimization of those roles.
Because of accidents of environment or genetic fortitude our species gradually became "top of the food chain". Was it was because of the male ability to fashion crude weapons to kill and secure food; their evolutionary strength to protect their chosen mates? Or was it because of the females' abilities to select those mates; to have the babies that ensured the future of the species, as early as possible after puberty before they themselves died? Whatever: the genes survive! This is all that matters to any long-lived species. The difference in this case is that the homo sapiens had an edge -- intelligence.
Gradually, as Nation-states begat Empire-states, a rather large percentage of any given population had time to breathe between the animal attacks, the viral attacks, and the various wars that their leaders felt obliged to conduct on behalf of the common good. These exceptions eventually created scholars and artisans and engineers and alchemists and experimenters. At home there arose stable domesticity and friendship and mutual support between families. Together this new race of Timmies escaped their wells, learned to cooperate, not only with their sexual partners to keep the race alive but to cooperate with neighbours for the benefit of all.
With the science of materials came the wheel and other conveniences.Whether it be by chewing rawhide to make protective covers for your baby, or by endlessly banging away at a piece of stone to make a sharper, more penetrative tool to kill and skin the most beneficial animal to feed your family. The end result was collaborative. And necessary for the future of each little tribe.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where we are today! From small, interdependent tribes to technologically superior species. So . . . are we Civilised?
Good question. On the one hand, our species has achieved a technological progression far beyond any other species that ever existed on our planet: tools and metallurgy and huge structures to live in; guns and atom bombs to deter our more aggressive neighbours; medicines and plague-defeaters to defeat an early death; interplanetary travel to broaden our experience; harnessed energy sources such as petroleum and sunlight and chemical batteries to improve the quality of life; computers and communication devices to widen our social networks. An entire pantheon of health and comfort unsurpassed in the entire history of homo sapiens' existence.
On the other hand . . . . we so bloody much resemble the primitive, selfish, tribal, ignorant, grasping acquisitive, unbelievably moronic attributes of our monkey ancestors that it would give a careful, observant, rational man or woman cause to burst into tears. From international wars to obtain territory, resources or prestige to the everyday simple selfishness of individuals: of putting one's airplane seat back to gain a modicum of comfort while halving the available space of the hapless person behind; gaining "ownership" of a set of sunbeds at a holiday hotel then disappearing for hours so as to deny anyone else the same pleasure; of raiding the local store of new produce to "put in the freezer" thereby denying neighbours access to the same produce; of blocking the local road with one's family's vehicles with no care for the needs of their neighbours; of loud music or domestic rows late at night; of dispersal of rubbish into the local environment; of placing personal clothing on adjacent train seats; the list is endless.
Is it any wonder that the devout would rather believe they are the product of a omniscient, caring deity rather than the latest iteration of a tribe of tree-owning, bellowing baboons? It begs the question: should the human race be relieved of their illusion that they are somehow "divine"; or should every single human be forced to believe they are just "clever monkeys".
Two questions emerge:
* in a religiously-dominated civilisation does being an atheist automatically make you a sociopath? Should your life be ended because you fail their "belief" test?
* in a rationally-dominated society does being a sociopath automatically deny you the benefits of that civilisation? Should your life be ended because you fail their "belief" test?
In both societies the concept of the "common good" is paramount. The greatest good for the greatest number. The definition of "good" is mercurial, but the point is this: for all societies that have exploded past the village level there are inordinately complex population pressures that could threaten to bring down that society's "house of cards". For that reason, the human race had to develop a tool called POLITICS.
Because of accidents of environment or genetic fortitude our species gradually became "top of the food chain". Was it was because of the male ability to fashion crude weapons to kill and secure food; their evolutionary strength to protect their chosen mates? Or was it because of the females' abilities to select those mates; to have the babies that ensured the future of the species, as early as possible after puberty before they themselves died? Whatever: the genes survive! This is all that matters to any long-lived species. The difference in this case is that the homo sapiens had an edge -- intelligence.
Gradually, as Nation-states begat Empire-states, a rather large percentage of any given population had time to breathe between the animal attacks, the viral attacks, and the various wars that their leaders felt obliged to conduct on behalf of the common good. These exceptions eventually created scholars and artisans and engineers and alchemists and experimenters. At home there arose stable domesticity and friendship and mutual support between families. Together this new race of Timmies escaped their wells, learned to cooperate, not only with their sexual partners to keep the race alive but to cooperate with neighbours for the benefit of all.
With the science of materials came the wheel and other conveniences.Whether it be by chewing rawhide to make protective covers for your baby, or by endlessly banging away at a piece of stone to make a sharper, more penetrative tool to kill and skin the most beneficial animal to feed your family. The end result was collaborative. And necessary for the future of each little tribe.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where we are today! From small, interdependent tribes to technologically superior species. So . . . are we Civilised?
Good question. On the one hand, our species has achieved a technological progression far beyond any other species that ever existed on our planet: tools and metallurgy and huge structures to live in; guns and atom bombs to deter our more aggressive neighbours; medicines and plague-defeaters to defeat an early death; interplanetary travel to broaden our experience; harnessed energy sources such as petroleum and sunlight and chemical batteries to improve the quality of life; computers and communication devices to widen our social networks. An entire pantheon of health and comfort unsurpassed in the entire history of homo sapiens' existence.
On the other hand . . . . we so bloody much resemble the primitive, selfish, tribal, ignorant, grasping acquisitive, unbelievably moronic attributes of our monkey ancestors that it would give a careful, observant, rational man or woman cause to burst into tears. From international wars to obtain territory, resources or prestige to the everyday simple selfishness of individuals: of putting one's airplane seat back to gain a modicum of comfort while halving the available space of the hapless person behind; gaining "ownership" of a set of sunbeds at a holiday hotel then disappearing for hours so as to deny anyone else the same pleasure; of raiding the local store of new produce to "put in the freezer" thereby denying neighbours access to the same produce; of blocking the local road with one's family's vehicles with no care for the needs of their neighbours; of loud music or domestic rows late at night; of dispersal of rubbish into the local environment; of placing personal clothing on adjacent train seats; the list is endless.
Is it any wonder that the devout would rather believe they are the product of a omniscient, caring deity rather than the latest iteration of a tribe of tree-owning, bellowing baboons? It begs the question: should the human race be relieved of their illusion that they are somehow "divine"; or should every single human be forced to believe they are just "clever monkeys".
Two questions emerge:
* in a religiously-dominated civilisation does being an atheist automatically make you a sociopath? Should your life be ended because you fail their "belief" test?
* in a rationally-dominated society does being a sociopath automatically deny you the benefits of that civilisation? Should your life be ended because you fail their "belief" test?
In both societies the concept of the "common good" is paramount. The greatest good for the greatest number. The definition of "good" is mercurial, but the point is this: for all societies that have exploded past the village level there are inordinately complex population pressures that could threaten to bring down that society's "house of cards". For that reason, the human race had to develop a tool called POLITICS.
Sunday, 6 September 2015
Chapter 8: Politics
Politics happens when a group of intelligent primates form a community. Politics also happens when communities manage economies: of resources, of talents, of trading, of currencies, of people.
Imagine a small village of around 100 people. Not difficult: there were thousands of them scattered around medieval Europe. Ignore, for the moment, that such places were subject to macro-economic feudal systems. Any such village was inevitably subject to the problem of scarce resources; food, metals, land, medicines, public utilities . . . They would develop means of deriving the best from artisans (wheelwrights, farmers, bakers, smiths, doctors, etc.) for the rest of the community by common agreement from the rest of that community as best they could.
There would, statistically, also be a village idiot; an unfortunate produced from ill-advised mating, genetic disorder or physical accident. There would also be a half dozen persons of varying degrees of sociopathic tendencies. Such a village would eventually elect a sheriff and a magistrate (or priest) to deal with the disturbances such dysfunctional behaviors generate.
Now -- multiply this village by 1,000 or a metropolis of 1,000,000. Expand the varieties of resources that need to be managed; of talents that need to be managed; of personal expectations that need to be managed; and the statistical likelihood that our village idiots will bedevil the best of intentions. Everyone will want a say on how the resources are to be distributed, how the miscreants are to be controlled, and how, of course, everyone gets the best deal while paying the least.
And thus we have Politics. And elected Politicians to create the Policies. And Laws to enforce those policies. And Administrators to encode those laws into Regulations. And Lawyers to interpret the regulations. And Judges and Courts to consider those interpretations. And enough Public Servants to enforce all the laws and rulings on a bewildered population constantly and consistently.
Somewhere along the line, in a funny-movie speeded-up acceleration of our 100-strong village to a 7 Billion world-spanning sophisticated human race, we have arrived at a complex, global, expensive, unpopular and deeply divisive political Machine that boasts more public servants and politicians and hangers-on and other miscellaneous parasites than there are "wheelwrights, farmers, bakers, smiths, doctors, etc.". The mundane mechanics of self-organisation are replaced with ideologies of control. In order to deal with the potential of tens of thousands of dissidents, or even sociopaths, there evolved a need for GOVERNMENT.
Imagine a small village of around 100 people. Not difficult: there were thousands of them scattered around medieval Europe. Ignore, for the moment, that such places were subject to macro-economic feudal systems. Any such village was inevitably subject to the problem of scarce resources; food, metals, land, medicines, public utilities . . . They would develop means of deriving the best from artisans (wheelwrights, farmers, bakers, smiths, doctors, etc.) for the rest of the community by common agreement from the rest of that community as best they could.
There would, statistically, also be a village idiot; an unfortunate produced from ill-advised mating, genetic disorder or physical accident. There would also be a half dozen persons of varying degrees of sociopathic tendencies. Such a village would eventually elect a sheriff and a magistrate (or priest) to deal with the disturbances such dysfunctional behaviors generate.
Now -- multiply this village by 1,000 or a metropolis of 1,000,000. Expand the varieties of resources that need to be managed; of talents that need to be managed; of personal expectations that need to be managed; and the statistical likelihood that our village idiots will bedevil the best of intentions. Everyone will want a say on how the resources are to be distributed, how the miscreants are to be controlled, and how, of course, everyone gets the best deal while paying the least.
And thus we have Politics. And elected Politicians to create the Policies. And Laws to enforce those policies. And Administrators to encode those laws into Regulations. And Lawyers to interpret the regulations. And Judges and Courts to consider those interpretations. And enough Public Servants to enforce all the laws and rulings on a bewildered population constantly and consistently.
Somewhere along the line, in a funny-movie speeded-up acceleration of our 100-strong village to a 7 Billion world-spanning sophisticated human race, we have arrived at a complex, global, expensive, unpopular and deeply divisive political Machine that boasts more public servants and politicians and hangers-on and other miscellaneous parasites than there are "wheelwrights, farmers, bakers, smiths, doctors, etc.". The mundane mechanics of self-organisation are replaced with ideologies of control. In order to deal with the potential of tens of thousands of dissidents, or even sociopaths, there evolved a need for GOVERNMENT.
Sunday, 30 August 2015
Chapter 9: Government
In fairness, what educated adult in any age would voluntarily choose to be governed?
And while we're at it, what educated adult in any age would voluntarily choose to pay taxes? In perpetuity!?
And while we're at it, what educated adult in any age would voluntarily choose to pay taxes? In perpetuity!?
If the inhabitants of a small village choose to pay for certain services to be administrated by a tiny proportion of that population (and pay for the employment of that tiny proportion), all well and good. After all, many a citizen would prefer that their household waste (sewage or material) be disposed of healthily and efficiently. And they would rather not have to light all the street lights at dusk, nor turn them off at dawn. And tracking down each and every horse thief or burglar would be time consuming. Most honest citizens would spend their waking hours feeding themselves and their families. And there would be other like-minded inhabitants in the community who would be willing to pay a thing called taxes to ensure that someone else would have to deal with all those pesky responsibilities. Seems sensible.
There were greater complexities, such as the enormously costly castle in the next province, and the raiders and barbarians just waiting to steal your goats and wives. Thus begat the feudal system where the local warlord offered to shelter his farmers and artisans in times of war in return for food to feed his soldiers. Then that cold stone building over the next hill and valley looks quite inviting, doesn't it, especially during times of pillage or harsh winters? And if your feudal liege isn't a complete tyrant then the whole deal is, well, quite workable, isn't it? And if your little village has a fairly smart trader then certain goods can be sold at a profit thereby reliving the locals of their tax bill. So everyone's happy, are they not?
There were greater complexities, such as the enormously costly castle in the next province, and the raiders and barbarians just waiting to steal your goats and wives. Thus begat the feudal system where the local warlord offered to shelter his farmers and artisans in times of war in return for food to feed his soldiers. Then that cold stone building over the next hill and valley looks quite inviting, doesn't it, especially during times of pillage or harsh winters? And if your feudal liege isn't a complete tyrant then the whole deal is, well, quite workable, isn't it? And if your little village has a fairly smart trader then certain goods can be sold at a profit thereby reliving the locals of their tax bill. So everyone's happy, are they not?
Multiply the village population to a million or a billion strong then the original contract gets a little bit corrupted. Our local trader gets a little bit too rich. Our local baron finds his castle too expensive to run. The degree of protection offered gets a little bit substandard. The local priest is preaching quite a different economy to the one you signed up to. All of a sudden, you realise you are paying in perpetuity for things you hadn't originally signed up to.
Far from being taxed on everything you earn you now find yourself taxed on everything you purchase with what money you have left. Moreover, you find that, somewhere along the line, you are also being additionally taxed on specific commodities you purchase, like your car, or your petrol, or your TV, or your beer, or your land, or your household rubbish collection. "Wait a minute! If you take 20% from my hard-earned wages and 20% from everything I buy with what's left, why do you need to take more from specific things I choose to buy?"
It is at this point you realise that Government, somewhere along the line, became an entity that gave itself more power than any previous feudal overlord. In order to pay for its legions of politicians, judges, lawyers and public servants it became a dictatorship that forced you to pay for things that you, in any intelligent alternative version of reality, you would never have agreed to.
This is where voluntary taxation crosses the line. When the teeming masses of highly educated public servants now demand that you, the humble taxpayer, pay for people's lifestyle choices ("I choose not to work!"; "I choose not to contribute!"; "I choose to have as many babies as I want or need!"; I choose to fall upon the mercy of the State every time I have a personal crisis!"; I choose not to take personal responsibility!!!". The angry backlash from everyone who, just might have had a shred of sympathy for people less fortunate, is ENOUGH.
Politics is nothing about the labels that modern man assigns. It has nothing to do with whether you are a "Tory" or a "Labour Voter" or even a "Sun Reader"; whether you are "Republican" or "Democrat". It is a choice over which economic dogma you wish to be controlled by: whether you wish the State to run every aspect of your life or whether you wish for a more chaotic, natural environment. The great jugging act is this: at what point does the needs of the citizens become a right for a small, non-elected minority to dictate the way you live? And this leads us nicely to the concept of SOCIALISM.
Far from being taxed on everything you earn you now find yourself taxed on everything you purchase with what money you have left. Moreover, you find that, somewhere along the line, you are also being additionally taxed on specific commodities you purchase, like your car, or your petrol, or your TV, or your beer, or your land, or your household rubbish collection. "Wait a minute! If you take 20% from my hard-earned wages and 20% from everything I buy with what's left, why do you need to take more from specific things I choose to buy?"
It is at this point you realise that Government, somewhere along the line, became an entity that gave itself more power than any previous feudal overlord. In order to pay for its legions of politicians, judges, lawyers and public servants it became a dictatorship that forced you to pay for things that you, in any intelligent alternative version of reality, you would never have agreed to.
This is where voluntary taxation crosses the line. When the teeming masses of highly educated public servants now demand that you, the humble taxpayer, pay for people's lifestyle choices ("I choose not to work!"; "I choose not to contribute!"; "I choose to have as many babies as I want or need!"; I choose to fall upon the mercy of the State every time I have a personal crisis!"; I choose not to take personal responsibility!!!". The angry backlash from everyone who, just might have had a shred of sympathy for people less fortunate, is ENOUGH.
Politics is nothing about the labels that modern man assigns. It has nothing to do with whether you are a "Tory" or a "Labour Voter" or even a "Sun Reader"; whether you are "Republican" or "Democrat". It is a choice over which economic dogma you wish to be controlled by: whether you wish the State to run every aspect of your life or whether you wish for a more chaotic, natural environment. The great jugging act is this: at what point does the needs of the citizens become a right for a small, non-elected minority to dictate the way you live? And this leads us nicely to the concept of SOCIALISM.
Sunday, 23 August 2015
Chapter 10: Socialism
Small tribes begat small villages which, thanks to the powers of a healthy ability to procreate without the fear of culling by predators or disease, begat really, really large cities and nation states. And so began the eternal question of, "what the hell are we going to do with all these intelligent, territorial primates living on top of one another?". Religion, of course, was a powerful and practical answer to keeping man from regressing to his base nature. "Go forth and multiply in My (fill in the name of the deity here) Name!" was a clever device that permitted the expression of a genetic code that had permeated all life since the evolution of the slime mold. And since it was so pleasurable it was wise of the Leaders not to inhibit it. "Do no harm!" was the gist of the rest of the rules a Commandment designed to bring some sort of order to the masses.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a time-proven image of our intelligent simians' behaviours: "Physiological needs are the physical requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; they should be met first". It further defines such physiological needs: "Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. While maintaining an adequate birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual instinct, sexual competition may also shape said instinct". So if our city/nation states must be governed then it would be an admirable thing if everyone could ensure that all these basic human needs are met by said government. Why, you could almost enshrine it in a Bill of Human Rights!
So when did such admirable socialistic tendencies go awry? The first reason is the fact that most ideologues miss the point: all intelligent monkeys aspire to a life better than the one they live in. This is an absolute reality: if it were not, there would be no religions aspiring to godhood; there would be no aspirations to wealth and happiness; there would be no struggle! Return to our imaginary village. As the reduced threat of sudden death from war and disease released the populace from a daily struggle to survive so their efforts turned to improving the lot of their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Excess products of their efforts became a source of additional value, especially if traded to other communities where such products were not in abundance. From there came the rise of the Merchant Princes, those people whose vision and imagination permitted them to take greater risks in return for more material rewards. And, in turn, they became wealth creators, employing others in the establishment of even more sophisticated systems of trade.
All well and good, as this meant that an intrinsic economy grew. But it led to divisions of wealth; the rich and the poor!!! And no matter how many people were employed as bodyguards for the trade caravans there would always be those that would take what they wanted. Selfish, acquisitive primate behaviour. So how does socialism fail in this scenario? Because, instead of its noble heritage of protecting the dignity of the individual it became a Politics of Envy. Instead of recognising that individuals have an aspiration to also become wealthy, to attain a degree of luxury above the "common man" standard, it applied a lowest common denominator to all human activity. Ultimately, all must become poor because the sad fact of this Age Of Scarcity is that no one group has access to unlimited resources. Therefore, it cannot be fair that a few have more than the "rest of us". Anyone who does will be taxed heavily (90% of their income?). Like all the religions it tries to replace, the politics of Socialism demands total obedience to a single doctrine. One size fits all!
Once the ideology had taken hold there was no stopping it. The only way to to ensure a fair distribution of all resources is for the State to totally control the population; to take control of every aspect of a modern civilisation's infrastructure. Nationalise the communications network, the roads and railways. Nationalise the factories, one style for everyone (in a land of scarce resources multiple styles are wasteful). Behaviours must be modified, deviations are inefficient. Human endeavour must be maximised, factories are built and maintained without any regard for the need for the the goods produced. Holes are dug and filled in without purpose. Right-footed shoes are built in one factory and left-footed shoes are built in another. This may sound hysterical but it is exactly what happened in the Russian Communist regime.
But wait a minute! Wasn't the original socialist concept all to do with the Dignity of Man? All of humankind struggled to provide food and shelter, not just for the individual, but their spouses and offspring; not just for their families but their communities; not just for their communities but for their nation-states. And if an ever-burgeoning capitalist economy arising from the descendants of the Merchant Princes threatens the values and security of the "village workers" then wasn't it reasonable for the beleaguered workers to organise? To protect themselves?
Thus evolved another piece of communist mystique, the TRADE UNIONS.
In a more enlightened age secular governments were almost inevitable. There were always going to be a few transitional examples were the major Religious Organisations were not going to happily relinquish power over their "flock". After all, there was just too much money in it ("tithes" + "donations" = "taxes"). Plenty of examples of despotic Church/State autocracies abound in the world still exist today. However, just as inevitably, new concepts based on the dignity and rights of the common man were going to evolve and grow in competition to the old established orders. Unfortunately, Socialism wasn't the best of them.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a time-proven image of our intelligent simians' behaviours: "Physiological needs are the physical requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; they should be met first". It further defines such physiological needs: "Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. While maintaining an adequate birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual instinct, sexual competition may also shape said instinct". So if our city/nation states must be governed then it would be an admirable thing if everyone could ensure that all these basic human needs are met by said government. Why, you could almost enshrine it in a Bill of Human Rights!
So when did such admirable socialistic tendencies go awry? The first reason is the fact that most ideologues miss the point: all intelligent monkeys aspire to a life better than the one they live in. This is an absolute reality: if it were not, there would be no religions aspiring to godhood; there would be no aspirations to wealth and happiness; there would be no struggle! Return to our imaginary village. As the reduced threat of sudden death from war and disease released the populace from a daily struggle to survive so their efforts turned to improving the lot of their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Excess products of their efforts became a source of additional value, especially if traded to other communities where such products were not in abundance. From there came the rise of the Merchant Princes, those people whose vision and imagination permitted them to take greater risks in return for more material rewards. And, in turn, they became wealth creators, employing others in the establishment of even more sophisticated systems of trade.
All well and good, as this meant that an intrinsic economy grew. But it led to divisions of wealth; the rich and the poor!!! And no matter how many people were employed as bodyguards for the trade caravans there would always be those that would take what they wanted. Selfish, acquisitive primate behaviour. So how does socialism fail in this scenario? Because, instead of its noble heritage of protecting the dignity of the individual it became a Politics of Envy. Instead of recognising that individuals have an aspiration to also become wealthy, to attain a degree of luxury above the "common man" standard, it applied a lowest common denominator to all human activity. Ultimately, all must become poor because the sad fact of this Age Of Scarcity is that no one group has access to unlimited resources. Therefore, it cannot be fair that a few have more than the "rest of us". Anyone who does will be taxed heavily (90% of their income?). Like all the religions it tries to replace, the politics of Socialism demands total obedience to a single doctrine. One size fits all!
Once the ideology had taken hold there was no stopping it. The only way to to ensure a fair distribution of all resources is for the State to totally control the population; to take control of every aspect of a modern civilisation's infrastructure. Nationalise the communications network, the roads and railways. Nationalise the factories, one style for everyone (in a land of scarce resources multiple styles are wasteful). Behaviours must be modified, deviations are inefficient. Human endeavour must be maximised, factories are built and maintained without any regard for the need for the the goods produced. Holes are dug and filled in without purpose. Right-footed shoes are built in one factory and left-footed shoes are built in another. This may sound hysterical but it is exactly what happened in the Russian Communist regime.
But wait a minute! Wasn't the original socialist concept all to do with the Dignity of Man? All of humankind struggled to provide food and shelter, not just for the individual, but their spouses and offspring; not just for their families but their communities; not just for their communities but for their nation-states. And if an ever-burgeoning capitalist economy arising from the descendants of the Merchant Princes threatens the values and security of the "village workers" then wasn't it reasonable for the beleaguered workers to organise? To protect themselves?
Thus evolved another piece of communist mystique, the TRADE UNIONS.
Sunday, 16 August 2015
Chapter 11: Trade Unions
The Dignity of Man: it became an evolutionary necessity during the overwhelming Industrial revolution of all human economies for people to self-organise. It didn't really matter that Industry gave people the means, however arbitrary, dangerous and scarce, to earn their own comfort and shelter. What really mattered is that the Industry made some people rich! Like the Merchant Princes that preceded them, the ones that "thought outside the box", that "displayed less than acceptable morals", that "were different", were also the ones that had imagination, took risks and became (although this was never a popular concept) "wealth creators". In the meantime, the ones not employed were trapped in a cycle of poverty that had no end. And the ones employed weren't always happy either. Why should they be when obvious signs of wealth were paraded on their doorsteps?
So the the "proletariat" organised. And their arguments are still valid today. With the creation of enormous economical structures such as clothing factories or steel mills or coal mines came the need for workers. With the workers came the need for stability for their offspring. Again, Maslow had it right: "Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. While maintaining an adequate birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual instinct, sexual competition may also shape said instinct" And there is nothing stronger in primate relations, especially if the factory meta-structure becomes the only deity in the village; the source of basic anthropological family needs plus the security to plan outside the depredations of a cruel world. Hardly a thing of worship, the industrial machine does however become the center for the future of all life in the community. And its permanence also becomes a necessity, across generations.
But, the problem with organisations among primates is that they are inherently territorial. It doesn't matter the scale (village-states; city-states; nation-states; etc.). Nor does it matter the subject (religious; political; sexual). Organisations are territorial. And, of course, they become political the greater in size they evolve.
So while an ever-changing trading world grows ever-more complex, small territorial village organisations become obsolete. Trade Unions are a prime example of organisations that, despite their rational origins, become destructive, viral political machines that rival the very "greedy" industrial organisations they fight against. Consider a complex interdependent society like Greece. A socialist society that wanted a good life for all its citizens; except they didn't balance the books. The first reaction of the trade unions at a time of national economic breakdown was to call a week long general strike. Very helpful in a decayed economy where the income from workers' taxes failed dramatically to pay the cost of the non-working citizens' good life!
In France there is still a violent reaction to any form of economic reform. The trade unions control every aspect of the French economy. If threatened, they will not just go on strike but perform acts of social disruption that would give an Islamic terrorist a wet dream: blockading ports in a storm; burning rubber tyres on a busy motorway; scrapping air traffic control for an entire continent. And successive French Socialist governments continue to defend inefficiencies in their own farming and trade markets by creating wholly artificial EU Common Agricultural Policies.
In the UK in the '70s it was far worse. In the economic euphoria that followed a world war devastation a Socialist government came to power. The Trade Unions, who had gained power on all levels of the industrial shop floor over the previous decade, now had complete control of the work force. The "shop steward", usually caricatured as a man of limited intelligence and vision, giddy on petty power trips, held sway over all "his" members. Each function of a complicated industrial machines were systematically hit by "strikes" coordinated by the steward. All other aspects of similarly complex industries were held to ransom. If one strike was successful, other shop stewards would withhold their members' labour to achieve even greater benefits. The country suffered a "Winter of Discontent", as the media put it, that left what a latter day media would call the "vulnerable" at the mercy of power brownouts, disease caused by the pile-up of rubbish, and "essential services" disrupted by "wildcat strikes". (It is not hyperbole to remind that respected institutions such as the firemen went on strike for a 30% pay increase under this regime.) Those individuals who declined to participate in the strike were branded and hounded by the mob (because any job was a "closed shop" -- all must be part of the union or ostracised). Rather than representing the dignity of man, the trade union movement's cry became "MeMeMeMe!!" Parliament Ministers declined to interfere because those very trade unionists who were ruining the country had put them in to power in the first place. Stalemate! Anyone who had not lived those years in the UK would have difficulty believing they ever existed!
Of course, like most natural storms, it came to a head. One community of labourers, who held power over the only fuel source available to a nation in those days, elected a "leader for life" and the revolution began. The rest of the country didn't really have a say in it, apart from "sympathy for the poor miners" or "wait a minute, I have no coal for my fire" (remember, this was before the availability of central heating). Misery compounded misery for the rest of the nation; idealism warred against economic pragmatism. Eventually the Trade Unions created their own Monster -- it was called Thatcher. And the rest, as they say, was History . . .
So the the "proletariat" organised. And their arguments are still valid today. With the creation of enormous economical structures such as clothing factories or steel mills or coal mines came the need for workers. With the workers came the need for stability for their offspring. Again, Maslow had it right: "Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. While maintaining an adequate birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual instinct, sexual competition may also shape said instinct" And there is nothing stronger in primate relations, especially if the factory meta-structure becomes the only deity in the village; the source of basic anthropological family needs plus the security to plan outside the depredations of a cruel world. Hardly a thing of worship, the industrial machine does however become the center for the future of all life in the community. And its permanence also becomes a necessity, across generations.
But, the problem with organisations among primates is that they are inherently territorial. It doesn't matter the scale (village-states; city-states; nation-states; etc.). Nor does it matter the subject (religious; political; sexual). Organisations are territorial. And, of course, they become political the greater in size they evolve.
So while an ever-changing trading world grows ever-more complex, small territorial village organisations become obsolete. Trade Unions are a prime example of organisations that, despite their rational origins, become destructive, viral political machines that rival the very "greedy" industrial organisations they fight against. Consider a complex interdependent society like Greece. A socialist society that wanted a good life for all its citizens; except they didn't balance the books. The first reaction of the trade unions at a time of national economic breakdown was to call a week long general strike. Very helpful in a decayed economy where the income from workers' taxes failed dramatically to pay the cost of the non-working citizens' good life!
In France there is still a violent reaction to any form of economic reform. The trade unions control every aspect of the French economy. If threatened, they will not just go on strike but perform acts of social disruption that would give an Islamic terrorist a wet dream: blockading ports in a storm; burning rubber tyres on a busy motorway; scrapping air traffic control for an entire continent. And successive French Socialist governments continue to defend inefficiencies in their own farming and trade markets by creating wholly artificial EU Common Agricultural Policies.
In the UK in the '70s it was far worse. In the economic euphoria that followed a world war devastation a Socialist government came to power. The Trade Unions, who had gained power on all levels of the industrial shop floor over the previous decade, now had complete control of the work force. The "shop steward", usually caricatured as a man of limited intelligence and vision, giddy on petty power trips, held sway over all "his" members. Each function of a complicated industrial machines were systematically hit by "strikes" coordinated by the steward. All other aspects of similarly complex industries were held to ransom. If one strike was successful, other shop stewards would withhold their members' labour to achieve even greater benefits. The country suffered a "Winter of Discontent", as the media put it, that left what a latter day media would call the "vulnerable" at the mercy of power brownouts, disease caused by the pile-up of rubbish, and "essential services" disrupted by "wildcat strikes". (It is not hyperbole to remind that respected institutions such as the firemen went on strike for a 30% pay increase under this regime.) Those individuals who declined to participate in the strike were branded and hounded by the mob (because any job was a "closed shop" -- all must be part of the union or ostracised). Rather than representing the dignity of man, the trade union movement's cry became "MeMeMeMe!!" Parliament Ministers declined to interfere because those very trade unionists who were ruining the country had put them in to power in the first place. Stalemate! Anyone who had not lived those years in the UK would have difficulty believing they ever existed!
Of course, like most natural storms, it came to a head. One community of labourers, who held power over the only fuel source available to a nation in those days, elected a "leader for life" and the revolution began. The rest of the country didn't really have a say in it, apart from "sympathy for the poor miners" or "wait a minute, I have no coal for my fire" (remember, this was before the availability of central heating). Misery compounded misery for the rest of the nation; idealism warred against economic pragmatism. Eventually the Trade Unions created their own Monster -- it was called Thatcher. And the rest, as they say, was History . . .
Saturday, 15 August 2015
Chapter 12: Capitalism
Capitalism is evil, right? All the media and the howling do-gooders tell us so! Socialism is good because it is caring; it conquers injustice; it is fair!
We need Capitalism. We need Intelligent Cooperation to, say, develop clean fusion power, then to colonise and harvest He3 from the moon to fuel that technology; to transfer fresh water ice from the polar Circles to the equator; to build aqueducts to irrigate the desert regions of Africa or the Middle East; to provide all the health and education that the West enjoys to the poorer, more ignorant countries of the world to prevent the rise of desperate death cults; to grow stronger, healthier crops that will defeat the depredations of global warming and therefore feed the 10 billion that will inevitably inhabit the Earth!!! So what do the Transnats do?
They design a better mobile phone!!! At great cost to the Earth's diminishing wealth of rare metals. Why? So that the most stupid primates can chatter incessantly to one another over even greater distances that their monkey forebears ever did from one treetop branch to the next! They design a better TV so that more screaming, hysterical nonsense can be paraded unto the multitudes in a manner that the old Roman Master of the Gladiators would have a wet dream about! Imagine his delight. Millions of howling spectators giving the thumbs down to some poor unfortunate who "slipped on the ice" or otherwise had his/her dreams of fame broken. Off the Show! Off with her Head!
Responsible cooperative capitalism is probably the best solution for the human race out of a bad bunch of ideologies. Socialism/Communism does not work. It dehumanises aspirational humanity by adhering to a central Plan that demands enforcement, sometimes brutal, to make it work. Cooperative capitalism requires consensual agreement. The main flaw here is that homo consumer is a dumb species. Cooperative capitalism requires the spirit of an educated, intelligent, informed, selfless, self aware populace. Everyone needs to participate in this government as equal citizens of a civilised world. And for that to happen, every single member of that society has to take personal responsibility for . . .well . . . just about everything.
Easy dogma. And also untrue. Consider: a collection of selfish, self serving intelligent primates. The last thing you'd expect from any of those monkey bastards is cooperation! But what truly is amazing about the human species is the ability of a bunch of them to coordinate and create something truly amazing, literally something greater than the sum of their individual parts. Something like, oh a technically superb feature film; an enormously expensive mission to the moon (and bring the astronauts back alive!); the eradication of dreadful diseases in the poorer regions of Africa; the building of staggeringly large and complex sea-going vessels; suspension bridges; skyscrapers; and so on.
Of course, what all these monumental endeavours of cooperation requires is Capital. In other words, money, time, effort, calories, resources, and, most important, the political and personal Will To Succeed.
It is this concept of "Capitalism" that strikes terror into the minds of the terminally suspicious (or terminally ignorant). Socialism tends to defeat the very aspirational aspect of humankind that allowed it's proponents to arrive at the point where they fight the "cause" in the first place. However, it is this same aspiration that encourages the levels of cooperation and capitalism to build the very things that drags humankind out of the Dark Ages.
In the latter decades of human civilisation there have been social breakthroughs that have nothing to do with the military, with the politicians, with the bankers, with any of the usual suspects. Consider some geeks that managed to unify an emergent world-wide computer system with a single, easy to use, Operating System (hint: Windows 3.1). It meant that all the nascent computers in the world could talk together using a common language. Geek innovation followed geek innovation with the Internet. Truly, a Species Changing Event.
So why in the world did we need Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows 8, etc. etc.? A simple evolution from 3.1 to XP would have satisfied the most ardent user or gamer. And does anyone think that Microsoft Office 2125 will be any way more useful than Office 2003, a Word program that was so universally perfect to anyone who wanted to write a professionally-looking, well-spelled letter of complaint to their local town council, that hundreds of iterations later, each one costing a gullible public more than the last, serves no one other than a bloated Corporation?
And therein lies the problem with "capitalism". It becomes territorial sans frontiers. It becomes a self reproducing, self reaffirming, self replicating entity. Oh, not in the way that village/nation states are territorial, or even in the way that religious dogmas are territorial. No, in this modern, complex world the multi-national corporations (let's call them "Transnats" for ease of reference), these supra-geographical entities with such good ideas, need to dominate all their competitors' economic and ideological space with extreme aggressive prejudice. They are the true predators of the Information Age. And this predation aspires to influence and control the behaviour of all who are plugged in to the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. radio and TV and computer streaming). The western world has been programmed into a greedy, avaricious species of parasite: homo consumer!
So why in the world did we need Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, Windows 8, etc. etc.? A simple evolution from 3.1 to XP would have satisfied the most ardent user or gamer. And does anyone think that Microsoft Office 2125 will be any way more useful than Office 2003, a Word program that was so universally perfect to anyone who wanted to write a professionally-looking, well-spelled letter of complaint to their local town council, that hundreds of iterations later, each one costing a gullible public more than the last, serves no one other than a bloated Corporation?
And therein lies the problem with "capitalism". It becomes territorial sans frontiers. It becomes a self reproducing, self reaffirming, self replicating entity. Oh, not in the way that village/nation states are territorial, or even in the way that religious dogmas are territorial. No, in this modern, complex world the multi-national corporations (let's call them "Transnats" for ease of reference), these supra-geographical entities with such good ideas, need to dominate all their competitors' economic and ideological space with extreme aggressive prejudice. They are the true predators of the Information Age. And this predation aspires to influence and control the behaviour of all who are plugged in to the electromagnetic spectrum (i.e. radio and TV and computer streaming). The western world has been programmed into a greedy, avaricious species of parasite: homo consumer!
We need Capitalism. We need Intelligent Cooperation to, say, develop clean fusion power, then to colonise and harvest He3 from the moon to fuel that technology; to transfer fresh water ice from the polar Circles to the equator; to build aqueducts to irrigate the desert regions of Africa or the Middle East; to provide all the health and education that the West enjoys to the poorer, more ignorant countries of the world to prevent the rise of desperate death cults; to grow stronger, healthier crops that will defeat the depredations of global warming and therefore feed the 10 billion that will inevitably inhabit the Earth!!! So what do the Transnats do?
They design a better mobile phone!!! At great cost to the Earth's diminishing wealth of rare metals. Why? So that the most stupid primates can chatter incessantly to one another over even greater distances that their monkey forebears ever did from one treetop branch to the next! They design a better TV so that more screaming, hysterical nonsense can be paraded unto the multitudes in a manner that the old Roman Master of the Gladiators would have a wet dream about! Imagine his delight. Millions of howling spectators giving the thumbs down to some poor unfortunate who "slipped on the ice" or otherwise had his/her dreams of fame broken. Off the Show! Off with her Head!
Responsible cooperative capitalism is probably the best solution for the human race out of a bad bunch of ideologies. Socialism/Communism does not work. It dehumanises aspirational humanity by adhering to a central Plan that demands enforcement, sometimes brutal, to make it work. Cooperative capitalism requires consensual agreement. The main flaw here is that homo consumer is a dumb species. Cooperative capitalism requires the spirit of an educated, intelligent, informed, selfless, self aware populace. Everyone needs to participate in this government as equal citizens of a civilised world. And for that to happen, every single member of that society has to take personal responsibility for . . .well . . . just about everything.
Saturday, 8 August 2015
Chapter 13: Sex
Sex. Really? Yes, sex. This existential rant would not be complete without the third topic you never bring up in polite society. Consider the two biggest drives for our intelligent primate: religion and sex (politics comes a poor third). Or, to put it another way; the intrinsic needs to breed before we die an early, unpleasant death and the need to worship the right God to obtain a better life after this crappy one.
But to step back a bit . . . There is a train of thought among soberer scientific circles that the true intelligent creatures on planet earth are. . . wait for it . . . genes. The theory being that genes need to survive over geological time and so create better minds and bodies to host them. Think about it. Every animal on the planet is designed, nay programmed, to reproduce as fast as it possibly can to outrun the "kill or be killed" environment. It worked for early incarnations of homo sapiens. Children barely out of the necessary physical development to mate (what we call puberty) were encouraged by nearly every society in history, regardless of the dominant religion, to "carry on the line". Breed fast or we'll die out. Our genes demand survival!
What is absolutely fascinating about modern Man is that everyone is still in thrall to the genetic programming but acts as if it is quite all reasonable! We do not have to procreate to continue our species. We do not have to procreate to continue our family: most families are so extended these days they not only become tribes but become communities, then nation-states. We do not necessarily have to procreate to ensure that our Belief System out-dominates all the others (although this paradigm still applies to the poorer, more ignorant, more religious-bound cultures of today). And we certainly do not have to procreate to ensure that homo sapiens in the dominant, top-of-the-food-chain species on the planet! We are breeding at a phenomenal rate so few other species stand a chance. So, procreation, sex, for survival's sake is mostly redundant.
And so back to back to sex. Well, one thing the genes did was to ensure that, by various biochemical markers and tried-and-tested evolutionary practices, procreation had to be extremely pleasurable. Why would any starving, desperate life form go to quite as great a length as to woo another similar life form to messily interact with and make themselves even more vulnerable? Especially at times of great stress and great personal risk? Well, for one, there is nothing in the mammalian brain that quite compares with the dopamine rush from orgasm (although some troublesome drugs tend to mimic it without having to go through courtship rituals). In fact, thanks to evolution, any species that didn't get a kick out of fucking died out and the ones that did make a major fetish out of it became a quite intensely driven species indeed.
Freed from a desperate need to reincarnate itself, human intelligence was able to get imaginatively creative about just how pleasurable sex could be. Not just the orgasm but the visual, tactile and, yes, even the olfactory stimuli that evolution originally demanded for good procreation. It is no error that prostitution and pornography have been around for as long as religions and civilisations. The internet may have been created by technicians and the military/industrial complex but it was the pornographers that drove the enabling streaming technologies. And although the pillars of civilisations (e.g. politicians on moral crusades or priests and imams controlling their flocks) have tried to suppress all these animal urges, it is obvious that the genes will have their way!
And sex will have its day! What most people choose to ignore is that the very concept of sex dominates their minds every hour of the day. Whether to want it, to give it, to deny it, to bargain with it, to buy something because of it, to negotiate for it . . . the list is endless. Sex is fundamental to modern life; to the building of homes; to mortgages and finance; to children; to futures; to old age; to loneliness; to nearly every other personal evil. What people fail to appreciate is the balance between that dopamine rush and the cost. Witness the terror of "The Affair": both genders will sacrifice all the stability they have built over twenty years for twenty minutes of dopamine rush.
Moreover: combinations of genetic disposition, hormones, fantasies, plus differences in the collection of nerve bundles around the penis, vagina, clitoris or anus between consenting humans have allowed some very imaginative deviations from the mammalian procreative norm across the centuries. The more intelligent and imaginative the species the more attractive sexual experimentation becomes. All that is needed is time and a freedom from the the distractions of reality. Need to have babies before you die? Nah! Let's focus on the fun bits first and worry about children later.
No wonder the world's Religions get all repressive and hot under the collar!
What is absolutely fascinating about modern Man is that everyone is still in thrall to the genetic programming but acts as if it is quite all reasonable! We do not have to procreate to continue our species. We do not have to procreate to continue our family: most families are so extended these days they not only become tribes but become communities, then nation-states. We do not necessarily have to procreate to ensure that our Belief System out-dominates all the others (although this paradigm still applies to the poorer, more ignorant, more religious-bound cultures of today). And we certainly do not have to procreate to ensure that homo sapiens in the dominant, top-of-the-food-chain species on the planet! We are breeding at a phenomenal rate so few other species stand a chance. So, procreation, sex, for survival's sake is mostly redundant.
And so back to back to sex. Well, one thing the genes did was to ensure that, by various biochemical markers and tried-and-tested evolutionary practices, procreation had to be extremely pleasurable. Why would any starving, desperate life form go to quite as great a length as to woo another similar life form to messily interact with and make themselves even more vulnerable? Especially at times of great stress and great personal risk? Well, for one, there is nothing in the mammalian brain that quite compares with the dopamine rush from orgasm (although some troublesome drugs tend to mimic it without having to go through courtship rituals). In fact, thanks to evolution, any species that didn't get a kick out of fucking died out and the ones that did make a major fetish out of it became a quite intensely driven species indeed.
Freed from a desperate need to reincarnate itself, human intelligence was able to get imaginatively creative about just how pleasurable sex could be. Not just the orgasm but the visual, tactile and, yes, even the olfactory stimuli that evolution originally demanded for good procreation. It is no error that prostitution and pornography have been around for as long as religions and civilisations. The internet may have been created by technicians and the military/industrial complex but it was the pornographers that drove the enabling streaming technologies. And although the pillars of civilisations (e.g. politicians on moral crusades or priests and imams controlling their flocks) have tried to suppress all these animal urges, it is obvious that the genes will have their way!
And sex will have its day! What most people choose to ignore is that the very concept of sex dominates their minds every hour of the day. Whether to want it, to give it, to deny it, to bargain with it, to buy something because of it, to negotiate for it . . . the list is endless. Sex is fundamental to modern life; to the building of homes; to mortgages and finance; to children; to futures; to old age; to loneliness; to nearly every other personal evil. What people fail to appreciate is the balance between that dopamine rush and the cost. Witness the terror of "The Affair": both genders will sacrifice all the stability they have built over twenty years for twenty minutes of dopamine rush.
Moreover: combinations of genetic disposition, hormones, fantasies, plus differences in the collection of nerve bundles around the penis, vagina, clitoris or anus between consenting humans have allowed some very imaginative deviations from the mammalian procreative norm across the centuries. The more intelligent and imaginative the species the more attractive sexual experimentation becomes. All that is needed is time and a freedom from the the distractions of reality. Need to have babies before you die? Nah! Let's focus on the fun bits first and worry about children later.
No wonder the world's Religions get all repressive and hot under the collar!
Saturday, 1 August 2015
Chapter 14: Procreation
Sorted the mystery of sex out, then, haven't we? Where does that leave procreation? In other words, where does that leave the entire man/women interaction in modern society? If, and just if, you accept that all sex is governed by your incredibly successful genes over a million evolutionary years, then all your mating/romantic/nesting/baby-making urges are similarly governed.
Human females are at a disadvantage in a male-competitive environment. Apart from being physically weaker than their male counterparts, they are also hamstrung with monthly menstruation: "A normal menstrual cycle occurs every 21-35 days and lasts for 2-5 days. The hormonal and uterine changes are quite complex, and ultimately lead to the preparation of the uterus to accept a pregnancy. If conception does not take place, the uterine lining sheds, in the form of your period". The biological alternative is the constant production of dead babies, the result of unconceived fetuses. Not particularly efficient nor desirable in the design of a successful species. Menstruation is still messy but the genes don't really care about personal inconvenience. As long as there is a million-year tried-and-tested way to ensure a viable reproductive strategy then the current model is fine.
So, the human female is (mostly) available permanently to accept spermatozoa before she is likely to die of disease or be eaten by a bear. The human male is (mostly) available permanently to provide said spermatozoa before any similar aforementioned likely demise. The reproductive plumbing necessities are therefore in place.
But the female is hamstrung with a massive hormonal shitstorm when conception does take place. Incapacitated and vulnerable, human civilised society is predicated on the concept of family. Males do not suffer similar disadvantages so they assume a role of "protector and provider" to ensure the well-being of their offspring and the mother of their offspring. This programming has been enshrined over thousands of years of pain and suffering, of surviving to pass on the genes of a species doomed to die individually. It is supported by all civilisation's institutions; Religion, Government, Media and Science in the form of technical fixes, sexual encouragement, State handouts and Religious dogma ("Go forth and multiply in the name of our Lord").
Moreover, mental or physical violence usually follows any enlightened soul who dares not comply with the demands of the genes that are enshrined by God's Will. For example: Educated women who choose a career over motherhood who are despised by the matriarchs as "selfish"?; the American Bible-Belt hatred of the concept of abortion despite their rancid love of death-dealing weapons?; The Catholic Rule against contraception despite the collective poverty it brings to everyone in a community of scarce resources?; The Islamic cultural tendency to view females as personal baby-making machines for the (male) offspring of their husbands?; Or the plain and simple fact that very few female souls in the world question their need to have babies irrespective of cost or consequence?
In fact, every modern, so-called intelligent race on planet Earth absolutely defends the fact that the human race is now 7 billion strong and growing exponentially. Nary a one seems to be able to imagine an Earth choked with the effluence of a greedy primate, all other species extinct. It is never the fault of our own species' mindless baby-making activities. No. It is the fault of governments, scientists, global warming, aid workers, the rich bastards, everyone else except the members of our species who willfully drop more babies into being regardless of any claim to personal responsibility. It can't be the fact that we are just still mindless, tribal monkeys. Can it?
Here is an extract from Sheri Tepper's sci-fi novel Sideshow. Tepper is a female writer who has her eye on the whole spectrum of human folly. On the subject of human procreation she has one of her characters, an Enforcer dedicated to balancing problems in a new world of scarce resources, say to one of his compatriots:
As a primate species we see that every adult has the ability to reproduce annually and continually well into senescence. The plumbing engineered by our genes is quite robust! The world's people accept readily that their favourite religious, governmental and media institutions actively promote their reproduction on an unlimited scale. The problem that haunts a relatively, healthy portion of an intelligent species at the top of its planetary food chain is this: at what point do we actively think about the outcome?
It is not popular with the masses but there is a good case that intelligence can be inherited. If so, the corollary is true: stupidity is also inherited, and in great numbers. There is also a case that, today, as many people are alive that ever died throughout history. Whether or not this technically true, the following graph would give any intelligent member of the human race pause for thought . . .
So, where do we, as intelligent monkeys, go from here?
Human females are at a disadvantage in a male-competitive environment. Apart from being physically weaker than their male counterparts, they are also hamstrung with monthly menstruation: "A normal menstrual cycle occurs every 21-35 days and lasts for 2-5 days. The hormonal and uterine changes are quite complex, and ultimately lead to the preparation of the uterus to accept a pregnancy. If conception does not take place, the uterine lining sheds, in the form of your period". The biological alternative is the constant production of dead babies, the result of unconceived fetuses. Not particularly efficient nor desirable in the design of a successful species. Menstruation is still messy but the genes don't really care about personal inconvenience. As long as there is a million-year tried-and-tested way to ensure a viable reproductive strategy then the current model is fine.
So, the human female is (mostly) available permanently to accept spermatozoa before she is likely to die of disease or be eaten by a bear. The human male is (mostly) available permanently to provide said spermatozoa before any similar aforementioned likely demise. The reproductive plumbing necessities are therefore in place.
But the female is hamstrung with a massive hormonal shitstorm when conception does take place. Incapacitated and vulnerable, human civilised society is predicated on the concept of family. Males do not suffer similar disadvantages so they assume a role of "protector and provider" to ensure the well-being of their offspring and the mother of their offspring. This programming has been enshrined over thousands of years of pain and suffering, of surviving to pass on the genes of a species doomed to die individually. It is supported by all civilisation's institutions; Religion, Government, Media and Science in the form of technical fixes, sexual encouragement, State handouts and Religious dogma ("Go forth and multiply in the name of our Lord").
Moreover, mental or physical violence usually follows any enlightened soul who dares not comply with the demands of the genes that are enshrined by God's Will. For example: Educated women who choose a career over motherhood who are despised by the matriarchs as "selfish"?; the American Bible-Belt hatred of the concept of abortion despite their rancid love of death-dealing weapons?; The Catholic Rule against contraception despite the collective poverty it brings to everyone in a community of scarce resources?; The Islamic cultural tendency to view females as personal baby-making machines for the (male) offspring of their husbands?; Or the plain and simple fact that very few female souls in the world question their need to have babies irrespective of cost or consequence?
In fact, every modern, so-called intelligent race on planet Earth absolutely defends the fact that the human race is now 7 billion strong and growing exponentially. Nary a one seems to be able to imagine an Earth choked with the effluence of a greedy primate, all other species extinct. It is never the fault of our own species' mindless baby-making activities. No. It is the fault of governments, scientists, global warming, aid workers, the rich bastards, everyone else except the members of our species who willfully drop more babies into being regardless of any claim to personal responsibility. It can't be the fact that we are just still mindless, tribal monkeys. Can it?
Here is an extract from Sheri Tepper's sci-fi novel Sideshow. Tepper is a female writer who has her eye on the whole spectrum of human folly. On the subject of human procreation she has one of her characters, an Enforcer dedicated to balancing problems in a new world of scarce resources, say to one of his compatriots:
. . . so he gave her the benefit of his wider experience. "You heard him talking about Earth. It was the same then. Telling people going hungry has never worked. When I stared out as Enforcer, I tried preaching good sense. I've said things like, 'Momma, you know you can only get two babies through the dry season, so why did you have three, or five, or seven,' and they tell me, 'They're here now! They've got to eat!' Or they say, 'God will provide.' But, after they say their god will provide, it's their neighbours they will beg from, the ones who still have food because they've only one or two children. And, often as not, the neighbours give them food and both families watch their children starve, tears all down their faces, never once admitting they're responsible for it themselves. Everybody's possessed by the notion his own children are entitled to life, no matter what happens to other people's".Eloquently put as a parable. Now multiply that by a billion or so. Tackle the problem from a planetary perspective regardless of countries, cultures, tribes.
As a primate species we see that every adult has the ability to reproduce annually and continually well into senescence. The plumbing engineered by our genes is quite robust! The world's people accept readily that their favourite religious, governmental and media institutions actively promote their reproduction on an unlimited scale. The problem that haunts a relatively, healthy portion of an intelligent species at the top of its planetary food chain is this: at what point do we actively think about the outcome?
It is not popular with the masses but there is a good case that intelligence can be inherited. If so, the corollary is true: stupidity is also inherited, and in great numbers. There is also a case that, today, as many people are alive that ever died throughout history. Whether or not this technically true, the following graph would give any intelligent member of the human race pause for thought . . .
So, where do we, as intelligent monkeys, go from here?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)