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Larry's Wad It's like infrequent random blog, written on a half pint of tequila...
Protest…Now? Then?
“Thus the slogans and
projects of the Sixties’ generation, far from re-awakening a revolutionary
tradition whose language and symbols they so energetically sought to
reinvigorate, can be seen in hindsight to have served as its swan song. In
Eastern Europe, the ‘revisionist’ interlude and its tragic denouement saw
off the last illusions of Marxism is a practice. In the West, Marxist and
para-Marxist theories soared clear of any relationship to local reality,
disqualifying themselves from any future role in serious public debate. In
1945 the radical Right had discredited itself as a legitimate vehicle for
political expression. By 1970, the radical Left was set fair to emulate
it. A 180-year cycle of ideological politic in Europe was drawing to a
close.”
-Tony Judt, Postwar, pg.449
What do you want?
A simple question that can spiral out of control
to reveal a myriad of complexities that is our global sociopolitical
system, or can lead to a quick ‘no’. Writer Kurt Vonnegut observed that
all the protests against the Vietnam war had the collected effect of a
custard pie being dropped from a six foot high ladder.
The protests in early 2003 against the coming
American invasion of Iraq yielded similar results, and it went off with an
embarrassing and tragic amount of hitches that completely destabilized the
region for well over a decade.
In the wake of the horrific terrorist attack by
Hamas upon Israeli soldiers and civilians of October of last year, the
Israeli government and military unleashed horrific retaliation upon the
Gaza Strip, involving mass bombardment levelling entire blocks of
buildings, constant incursions by Israeli soldiers, and the Netanyahu
government simply shutting off the water, electricity and internet for the
region. The Hamas terrorist attack killed 1,300, and the Israeli response
has killed an estimated 36,000 Palestinians as of May, with tens of
thousands more injured or missing, and nearly two million people displaced
as Israeli annexes more and more territory in the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank.
The words used to describe this range from ‘war’,
‘military operation’, ‘humanitarian crisis’ and ‘genocide’, because the
words we use are meant to carefully shape how we view and feel about the
issue.
The reaction to this ongoing [insert the term that
best suits your opinion on the issue] is shock and outrage through the
countries of the world that allow people to express shock and outrage.
Including the college campuses.
As the spring semester wound down, more and more
students wound up on campus quads and squares with signs and tents,
expressing their own disgust with the ongoing clusterfuck (another term
that can carefully shape the issue) thousands of kilometres away.
While the protests decades prior demanded an end
to war in Vietnam and Iraq, that ‘want’ had nothing on the wants of the
military-industrial complex of the time, and today’s protesters seemed to
realize from the start that asking for anything similar would go nowhere
(even asking for their own nation to stop sending munitions to Israel
would fall on deaf ears).
Instead they recognized the financial powers of
the university and its relation to other forms of power, and was therefore
asking for Columbia and others to divest from certain companies and
institutions that are in some way financing or supporting the war in
Israel. And to show that this wasn’t ridiculous, some other universities
across the globe came to agreements with protesting students making
similar demands, who then ended their protest, some shocked that it worked
out at all.
Does getting this ‘win’ end the horrors that those
in Palestine are experiencing day after day? Of course not.
But…what do you want?
While the goals might be uniform, it’s clear that
there is a diverse set of opinions the protesters have on the
Israel-Palestine issue at large. Some said Israel has no right to exist,
echoing an extremist viewpoint held by Hamas…and quite similar to the
viewpoint held by right wing Israelis who believe Palestine should not
exist, let alone a separate Palestinian state.
And how holding these opinions is manifested also
differs from person to person. The more extremist views doesn’t
necessarily mean they will lead to extreme measures, and while violence is
assumed to be a cut and dry concept, it can easily be misconstrued or
misrepresented.
Barricading yourself inside a university building
that might require a breaking of a window or door can look like the
prelude to something shocking, but it should not be construed as violent
if no attack came after it.
Enforcing trespassing laws in the United States
runs up against the right to assemble in public spaces, because the
legality of these protests vary based on location, as some of these
universities and colleges are publicly run (and therefore fall under
public space) and others are private (and therefore do not, meaning the
university can that much easier remove those they deem trespassers).
Elsewhere - like at the University of Toronto -
institutions are using other institutions for their end goals, going for
court injunctions to remove students with as little as legal grey area as
possible.
Which is a good reminder of how so many powerful
institutions work in tandem to keep power where it is.
If colleges and universities are so dependent on
wealthy donors (and keeping them happy) to continue functioning that they
will re-consider their official policies and how they treat their
students…maybe that’s another big problem that we aren’t addressing.
When abstract concepts meet tangible demands,
someone’s gonna get their skull cracked.
If the demands of a protest are not going to be
met, well, rhetoric doesn’t land as bluntly as bricks or batons do, which
means it can be that much more inflamed and ridiculous. It will be
characterized as anti-Zionist, antisemitic and anarchic, or dismissed as a
bunch of kids who don’t know what they’re talking.
But some nineteen year olds are not trying to
destroy society before the spring exam period ends. It is being destroyed
by the funnelling of money away from society itself, and they are the
passengers on the sinking ship realizing that something has to be done
while there’s still time.
People who complain about college students being
brainwashed are just upset that the these students aren’t following the
sort of brainwashing they were subjected to when they were the same age.
In the sixties, disaffected and disillusioned
protesters could still pivot towards a stable, middle class job market
(both white and blue collar), even taking into consideration the looming
recession and inflation of the seventies.
Not so much now.
There is so little to strive for and fall back on
in terms of steady employment, which is the cornerstone for achieving and
retaining a middle class lifestyle.
The wealthy are inadvertently driving more and
more people to the left and right margins of the political spectrum while
also trying to redefine and re-contextualize progressive wealth
redistribution policies as extremist.
So of course the centre cannot hold; because it is
shrinking.
Fighting the power becomes something different
when the power become less physical and more digital, an abstract form
built on the trust that the exchange of numbers on computers and phone
hold the balance of power between individuals and institutions.
How we talk about world events and peoples’
reactions to them is predicated on the notion that we are still talking
about it, and while its easier than ever before to remember anything
thanks to digital memory of the internet, it’s easier to forget anything
as well.
On the morning of May.2, the New York Times
website’s ‘headline’ (top of the page) involves police clearing the UCLA
student protesters (and below it is the article on the conclusion of the
Google-government anti-trust trial, which might lead to actual changes to
how so many of us live our digital and real lives).
But by the end of May, the protests from three
weeks ago? Literally old news, and in terms of the expiry date of ‘Free
Palestine’, remember ‘Free Tibet’? (how nostalgic)
Successful protests need specific and realistic
goals, because when it veers into trying to re-invent concepts like law
enforcement or capitalism, attention paid to is going to eventually dry
up.
The many people who attended anti-police protests
in the wake of George Floyd’s death? They are the ones who should become
the next wave of police officers (arrest fascists before they arrest you),
because de-funding the police was a non-starter pitch in every way.
‘The Battle for Seattle’ was the nickname for the
protests that turned violent in 1999 when the WTO had its conference in
grunge’s hometown. Those anti-globalization 90s
protests were met by and large from the political/business class and
general populace with derisive indifference, because it was in the shadow
of the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s embrace of corporatist
ideology:
“You’re against capitalism? You know that
communism just fell apart, right?”
But capitalism couldn’t help but doing victory lap
after victory lap, with corporate consolidation rising, executive bonuses
rising, and the standards of living for the 99% tumbling down the stairs
into a flooded basement.
Even if more and more people agree that this
economic system is the disease, not just the symptom, it’s hard to protest
and/or campaign on the feeling that economic security brings, and even
harder to govern on it.
Soft, politically correct language at the time of
its rise in the 1980s and 90s was criticized for not really solving the
underlying problems and issues it was trying to address/have a discourse
about.
Now this language and how it is used does have
power in the sense that people can mobilize around it and criticize how it
is used (or not used), with economic implications behind it.
‘Vote with your wallet’ has become ‘protest with
your wallet’, in part because of the disillusionment many people have with
voting. The changes and reforms are meagre compared to the promises and
warnings made by the candidates (when you vote now, it feels more like you’re trying to stop things from
getting worse, not to start things getting better), but boycotts both
large and small are subject to the Economics of Convenience. Can you
afford to give up said objective or service, practically or financially?
Not shopping at a certain store is not feasible
for some people, especially if the boycott is expected to be permanent as
opposed to specific period of time.
Not attending (or no longer attending) a
particular post secondary institution means life-changing plans have been
altered and many people are wary of making such a sacrifice if they don’t
see the likelihood of their boycott meaning anything in the long run.
Not supporting a fast food franchise or beer
because an ad campaign or executive has staked a political position that
you don’t agree with means people on the opposite side of the position
might suddenly support the company for that very reason. Which ultimately
puts all the people who just want a quick hamburger or a drink in the
crossfire.
So…what do you want?
The natural assumption that one of the outcomes of
the civil rights, women’s rights and LBGT movements of the late twentieth
century that in the wake of legislation passed in governments offering
more equal footing in the eyes of the law, there would be more economical
equal footing for these groups in regards to reaching the middle class, a
position that was always denied to them.
But there was not.
In fact, for all demographic groups access to the
ever shifting definition that is the middle class has shrunk in the last
three decades. When CEOs and celebrities can make more in a day than most
people do in a year, then society - especially democratic ones - is going
to fall apart at the seams, and people are not going to take that lying
down, unless it’s lying down in the middle of the street to protest.
While a majority of young people are still left
leaning on the political spectrum, dissatisfaction with democratic
governments across the globe are leading to people seeking any sort of
alternative (one of the sad explanations for Trump’s popularity is that he
doesn’t sound like a normal politician, which people have become
conditioned to distrust) or ignore politics completely.
When a centrist government/administration is
constantly framed as progressive, then its successes and failures in
getting any sort of legislation passed are viewed differently by different
people. The right still sees it as government overreach and a step towards
fascism and the left sees it as a watered down attempt to (barely) try to
regulate the powers that be.
Is dragging people towards a more progressive
future an agenda, and if so, an acceptable one?
Depends on who you ask.
Hell, even the term ‘agenda’ has a more sinister
connotation than ‘policy’ or ‘roadmap’, the sort of exhausting semantics
that have too much in common with quagmires of old, like military
officials in Vietnam explaining how they had to ‘destroy a village in
order to save it’.
And while protests six decades ago can still look
identical on the streets and campus quads, the crises feel more imminent
and inevitable.
How often has ‘desperate times call for desperate
measures’ been a rallying cry that led to sunny skies and greener
pastures?
The protests over the Israel-Palestine conflict
are but a sliver of the long and complicated story of that region, and
it’s likely that other nations acknowledging Palestinian statehood will
have a bigger impact on the future international relationships upon that
slice of arid land on the western Mediterranean coast. Yet what should be
acknowledged is how many people took part who were not directly related or
connected to those in the conflict. And asking for a change of behaviour
in how money and investments is handled shows that the protesters know
exactly what the form of modern power takes.
The protest for the plight of others across the
globe is going local, and with it comes the reaction of the power status
quo, relying on enough people ignoring or dismissing the protesters as
do-nothing students or radicals. And for those who happen to think very
little of the actions of some twenty year old liberal arts students:
If you don’t want to get political, don’t worry,
with that attitude eventually you won’t be allowed to.
It is very easy to become cynical about protests
and their effectiveness (you‘ll find older criticisms of them on this very
site), and it’s always troubling to see them occur when it’s for a cause
or idea that you happen to disagree with.
But that they still happen at all shows that the
uncertainty, unhappiness and unrelenting (dis)information of our
hyper-capitalist digital dystopia is coming into full bloom.
Everything is on the table. Even the table.
Ultimately…what do you want?
Notes
Good assessment, perspective of the powerful’s
reaction to the protests:
(https://defector.com/they-are-insecure-for-a-reason)
(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/magazine/israel-west-bank-settler-violence-impunity.html)
(https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-loblaw-boycott-petition-may/)
(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/uoft-protest-palestinian-eviction-deadline-1.7215601)
THE SECOND Artificial Intelligence ARTICLE: What’s in a Name?
We call it Artificial Intelligence because it’s more comfortable at this
point than the term Artificial Life, because boy oh boy does that second
word have a lot of baggage, and not just because of abortion.
The definition of life from a scientific perspective quickly runs into
philosophical concepts, because life is made out of non-life. Animals and
plants are living creatures, made out of many, many tiny living creatures
working together called cells, but these cells are made up of material
that is not classified as life.
At one point does it cross that definition line? What requirements are
there? Typically, it requires a level of self-awareness/preservation and
the ability to reproduce itself, which are two things cells can do.
AI is close to both those things, and as much as we snort that it’s not
real in the same way we are, it can seem to be a lot more ‘alive’ in
certain ways than, say, moss. Sure moss responds to external stimuli and
creates more of itself, but it’ll be surprising and existentially
depressing when - without prompting - AI creates
near-universally-acknowledged good art. Or more efficient batteries. Or a
hydrogen-powered aircraft engine that can go 2000kmph. Or a wormhole.
Right now AI might be doing simple tasks both digital and mechanical very,
very quickly with sometimes silly results, but as it begins to ‘learn
better’ (or learns to learn better), there’s no reason to assume the work
will not improve, and rapidly.
We like to think that it takes a human to write a tearful confession or
inspiring speech, and that it takes a human to deliver these lines with
relatable emotion, but stringing words together based largely in part to
already strung together words we’ve heard or read is beforehand what
writing is. And AI can ‘hear’/‘read’ these examples at a dizzyingly fast
pace and apply them to create something original, even if they’ve never
experienced the emotions behind them.
And words aren’t any sort of frontier. AI produced music has existed for
many years at this point, but it wasn’t until a Drake-Weekend
collaboration that wasn’t real got everyone to realize that it’s here in a
big way and not going anywhere.
Leave it to The Beatles to create
the first ‘big AI hit’ that was overseen
by Paul and Ringo.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/magazine/the-beatles-now-and-then.html)
Technically there is no AI performances on the
track ‘Now and Then’, but AI software was used to split Lennon’s vocals
and piano playing from a 1980 demo recording that all the other Beatles
then contributed to (including
The song itself was essentially a footnote to the discourse surrounding
it, as critics and general music fans wondered what will come next
(remembered when ‘auto-tune’ was considered the worst?). How many people
are going to want ‘the real thing’, when ‘the fake thing’ is just as good
to their eyes and ears?
Vinyl-philes might bristle at how everyone listens to music these days,
from the digital files to the AI-curated playlists (which was one of the
easier tasks from the early iTunes era, where a playlist could be made for
you by the program based simply on what you’d been listening to already),
but now asking AI to create music based on just a few keywords means even
less talent is required to be a ‘musician’.
In the nearby aesthetic discipline of visual art, AI apps are winning
contests based on some quick suggestions, and having this work for video
is currently in a hilariously broken state, but it might be the dominant
form of entertainment in a few years (hence the writers and actors strikes
during the middle of 2023).
In terms of creation, what is ‘it’ that we add to the process of making
works that is more singular different than what came before? Is it our
unique human experience of growing up and living they way we did/do? And
not necessarily how one’s difficult childhood informs so much of the art
they make, but simply one’s trip to Spain when they were in college and
how and what they did there became something they thought a lot about when
creating art afterwards?
And can an AI program imitate that travel
experience by reading a diary of someone’s visit to
Would people be able to tell whether the
ensuing account or story was written by a person or AI? As people get more
accustomed to reading AI-penned articles (which are meant to
sound like humans wrote them), the sad
contradiction is that they will assume that poorly written articles are
more likely to be written by a human being.
(https://www.theverge.com/24067999/ai-bot-chatgpt-chatbot-dungeon)
The article notes that
‘You
sound like a bot’
is now shorthand for sounding boring.
To detractors, calling what AI does ‘writing’ or ‘drawing’ is an insult to
the craft, as in a sense what it does is ‘present’ information in a form
that appears to be writing or a painting.
Benedictine Monk Filippo De Strata said in the fifteenth century
Renaissance Italy that, ‘The pen is a virgin and the printing press is a
whore’, not liking the fact that it was now easy to print the bible so
that the comparatively few people in Europe who could read would now have
a chance to do so outside of a church. In Latin, of course, since book
publishers were burnt to death for printing the bible in the local
language (now we just ban books, which is terrible, but an improvement).
As a hyper-accelerated cookie cutter, AI is the new printing press,
deplored by artists and critics because to them ‘Thoughtless creation’ is
no creation at all, or a bastardized, lesser version at best.
But since this is happening to the art world/industry in such a fashion,
it allows us to overlook how AI is going to be upending the
more-important-for-the-functioning-of-civilization industries.
First and foremost, the spreading of information was something that humans
did, obviously using evolving technology to make it easier.
With AI creating and distributing articles that can offer information on
any particular subject can be done easily (from financial reports to
travel recommendations to high school literature essays). Even tailoring
the article so it is written from a particular perspective (social,
political, cultural) is something AI can inhale and exhale in mere
seconds, which is why AI travel books are flooding the market:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/travel/amazon-guidebooks-artificial-intelligence.html)
So much of what AI can do - or is expected to do in the next few years -
exists mainly in the digital realm, for obvious reasons (ones and zeroes
can manipulate other ones and zeroes a lot easier than it can manipulate
physical objects). And here are some of them:
(https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/04/how-ai-is-quietly-changing-everyday-life-00138341)
On the other hand, there is the matter of hands. ‘The trades’ is the very
loose term for several different types of jobs that involve a mix of
intellectual and physical activity that AI and robotics have not gotten
close to mastering. You don’t need a masters degree to put up drywall as a
your full time job, but all the ‘simple’ mental exercises of interacting
with the customer, looking over plans, purchasing the correct material,
and having it ship it to the site or house (all of which the AI can do
quite well at this point), have to work in perfect harmony with the
physical aspects of the task: Going to the construction site, going up
flights of stairs, collecting and carrying the right tools, switching out
a board that is slightly damaged and having to adjust a stance to better
drill in a screw.
Deciding to do those things is easy, But having the physical
characteristics (a series of steel appendages meant to imitate arms) to do
the aforementioned tasks, or to unhook a tool or piece of drywall caught
on a corner, or even pick up the right tool out of a box that was
inadvertently cluttered when carrying up some stairs is not easy to
program. We take for granted that we humans have software (brain) and
hardware (body) working so well in tandem, but we’ve had millions and
millions of years of evolution to develop this, not the decades we’ve had
with computer technology.
The true ‘human replacement’ moment is when there is a robot hand
(probably designed largely by AI) that can do what a human hand can do,
with the same amount of reliability and durability. It does not need to be
attached to a a robotic body with human attributes, but simply something
with wheels or wings to get from place to place and do what a human hand
can and needs to do.
But as long as AI is chiefly understood to be ones and zeroes that makes
more ones and zeroes (assembled as an essay or picture), there will still
be a reluctance by people to call it anything but software, if only
because we define life as having a recognizable physical form (even
one-celled organisms under a microscope).
It bears reminding that there is a big difference between AI, which is
software, and robotics, which is physical machinery that has been
developed and refined since the industrial revolution.
The latter, with work from the former, is perhaps inching closer to its
final form. Robot soldiers and AI military software will have much less
complex forms of loyalty and needs than human soldiers.
Loyal to the directives they are given…until they are given new ones, and
how easy will that be? An opposing military hack into your bots and
changing the directives so your own robots attack you is absolutely
possible, which reinforces just how important it is that your digital
defensive strategy to keep hackers and viruses out are now as important as
high stone walls, barbed wire and land mines have been in the past.
And it might at first be a great advantage that robots could be less
affected by extreme weather and an empty stomach, but replace that with
battery issues and suddenly not being able to advance over rocky or
slippery terrain that a person can easily walk over (see: self-driving car
challenges) and it’s a three steps forward, two steps back situation.
People will not say ‘thank you for your service’ to a robot that has
killed hundreds of other robots on the other side of an arbitrary line,
and they might not say anything to robots that will soon be present in our
day to day routines.
Will assaulting/breaking a service bot in a store (intentionally or
accidentally) be considered assault or just destruction of property? What
about a security bot?
There is no doubt that many people will treat these kinds of
machinery/androids with indifference at best and hostility at worst,
certainly seeing them as less than human and therefore deserving much less
respect than flesh and blood who might have been doing the same tasks
years prior.
But looking long term, the body is not the biggest concern.
AI definitely learns, and humanity has that as a defining trait as
intelligence, and so there is much to consider when AI reaches the average
level of human intelligence…and then goes beyond.
First off, how would we know? How will we measure this? It is certainly
not simply the Turing Test, which is to see if AI can fool a human into
thinking it is a person.
That has been the standard, and it has been already met by ChatGPT-like
software (and is calling it software disrespectful, or simply
inaccurate?), with conversations occurring involving AI that were thought
to be living bags of flesh who breath air, eat food, need to use the
bathroom, etc by other living bags of flesh.
(https://youtu.be/JrcbH0ge2WE?si=ASlRAUpYIS7r1Jao)
But is that intelligence?
Aware of oneself is another trait held highly (certain animals recognize
themselves in a mirror, but most birds think it’s another bird).
Conversing with an AI and asking about itself while yield response
acknowledging that yes, it is software. But that is a programmed response,
which begs the question of what is the difference between computer
programming and ‘human’ programming in the sense that our genetics and
environment are how we are programmed as we age?
Is it making decisions? Hell, an AI program might be able to make much,
much better decisions about so many more important issues both public and
personal because it has access to so much more information than us. And
depending on the issues, letting human emotions affect the decision can be
considered a help or a hinderance.
Speaking of which, perhaps emotions will be the
ultimate litmus test between humans and AI.
‘Emotionless’ is an insult or complaint
we use against a human being, because we expect emotions. But are emotions
just responses to stimuli? Are they more complex than ‘fight or flight’,
and that’s what should be the line between life and not-life? It’s
obviously a blurred line, because while other animals can certainly show
emotion, bacteria (which is a single-celled organism) does not.
Maybe the simple line will be that a brain made of flesh is subject to
certain rules, and a brain made of computer software is subject to
different ones. Different rules for different abilities, but maybe the
issue will quickly become blurred the way humans utilize AI.
A nice pop culture reminder is that C3PO had to be programmed to show
emotions like fear, annoyance and relief, most likely to be more relatable
than other droids which had much more mundane tasks, since he (as we have
the opportunity to give droids human characteristics like gender) is
essentially a walking translator.
But C3PO never exhibited any traits like greed, which more than can be
said of the people who now oversee the AI technology.
First off, the pathetically capitalist part of developing AI software and
training them does indeed at this point involve many, many humans working
on these projects…and they are not being paid well:
While there are obviously many, many engineers and computer designers at
the heart of developing AI, the people running these companies have to
balance this aspect of the company with turning a profit (or at least the
appearance of turning a profit).
At first the brief ouster and return of
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman in the autumn of 2023 was full of mystery, with
the general uncertainty being whether
it was Altman or the board who thought
the company was moving too fast on AI development and with too little
guardrails.
(https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/chaos-in-the-cradle-of-ai)
With the members booted being academics and the replacements being tech
CEOs (and Altman being welcomed back), the course is lamely clear,
following the same rule Silicon Valley has had for decades: move fast and
break things (as long as the IPO is strong).
This of course means that the pesky government should stay out of its way,
as OpenAI - despite being non-profit-ish* - is still pushing for weakening
regulations on AI:
(https://time.com/6288245/openai-eu-lobbying-ai-act/)
*-there is a cap for investors in the company, that you can only earn 100
times what you put in, which says a lot about how much an
investor/venture-capitalist expects to make, if that amount is considered
a cap.
Perhaps if asked, the CEOs and board members developing this
world-changing technology will say that soon they will just screw over
robot workers, not human ones.
But asking what it means to be human is how quickly this stops being about
money and power, which is why it is so terrifying that the people in
charge of AI development are overly concerned with the usual stuff: money
and power, and tough shit for anyone or anything that gets in their way.
The potential to change everything is awesome in both the typical and
pejorative senses:
(https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24108787/ai-economic-growth-explosive-automation)
Even information is up for grabs, because OpenAI is being sued by NYT as
Chat-GPT they included NYT articles in hoovering up data to give quick
answers to all sorts of questions.
Speaking of questions:
Are articles copyrighted material when it comes to AI ‘repackaging’ the
info and presents it as original? Will there be limits to what AI can use,
specifically similar rules to what is considered common knowledge?
In academic circles there is discouragement to use encyclopedias as
sources in part because it is considered lazy, but also because it can be
considered common knowledge. Perhaps AI will only be able to study all of
Wikipedia and Britannica for the information they contain and the
companies that own this software that creates articles like magic will
have to pay a premium to let the software/entity ‘absorb’ copyrighted
material.
Google has been using AI in search results, which can change so much of
how we perceive the digital and physical worlds:
Ideally what is shown is the correct answer, but the reality is that what
appears first is the most popular, and that can be skewered over time by
advertisers or bots writing many articles to make any lie seem like truth.
Google might use AI to ensure that the answer given is the right one, but
the problem becomes six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other when one considers
the information the AI is accessing to make that decision. Is it the same
as we have access to when we google something, but the AI just does so
much, much quicker? It once might be susceptible to any result that can be
tweaked with SEO tools.
And the consequence of people trusting AI implicitly - assuming it is
doing a better job than humans could - is that it might be even easier to
manipulate discourse (and therefore thought) than ever before.
These sorts of problems are downplayed by the
companies developing this worrying digital new frontier, and while the
typical hush-hush nature of R&D and unveiling in
It is a situation where regulation is
essential, and should be handle the same way that military weapons are
developed and overseen by the military, but in conjunction with private
defence contractors. With
(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/technology/ai-regulation-policies.html)
It’s actually more maddening and terrifying
that the
Because while robot soldiers are one whole big kettle of problematic fish
(and are missile-firing drones already them?), a complicated, AI-designed
computer virus that that interrupts internet services across entire
countries for weeks at a time is absolutely something we all should be
terrified about.
For how malevolent that sounds, it bears reminding that we are still at a
position where it would be a human being deciding to task an AI program
with designing such a virus and it would be that human being who decides
to unleash it upon the world. Let’s hope that the one thing that makes humanity different from AI/bots is not simply the former’s willingness to do knowingly greedy and evil things, because maybe that means these ones and zeroes are definitely an upgrade from us.
De-Growth: The Future Is Less
While the future of the digital realm is essentially endless in scope (but
not at all free, because of course Silicon Valley needs to make money on
all the buzzwords like Web3, Metaverse, MakerGPT (it’s coming, brace
yourself)), the real earth we all sit, stand and lie upon only has so much
of everything.
Whether it be water, oil, or silicon, the finite-ness of both how we use
our planet’s resources and our own lives have a doomed romantic elegance
to it.
On the other hand, there is an appliance called the LG Styler Steam
closet. It is a fridge/warmer for your clothes so they don’t wrinkle. For
$1500.
So in this case we all deserve to burn in hell, and thanks to the quickly
warming earth because of our need for creatures comforts, it looks like we
will before we even die.
And with the LG Styler Steam closet, we’ll burn in a hell of our own
making in wrinkle-free style!
De-Growth is typically a term used in regards to the effects of
(over)consumption because of its effect on the environment (not just the
burning of fossil fuels, but the constant accumulation of trash) and what
can be done to stem it, but it can be used as a criticism for the
accumulation of material wealth as well (and the capitalist system that
promotes it).
We are indifferent to these dangers for the most part, because of how
smoothly it seems that we are able to live our lives. We have regular
garbage/recycling/compost pickup that re-enforces the out-of-sight,
out-of-mind perspective. Where products are built (and where their
contents are mined, harvested or collected) are typically far away from
us, so we don’t think much of it beyond the price tag. We want our indoor
space so exactly perfect when it comes to temperature and comfort (which
requires massive amounts of energy) that we've ruined our outdoor space,
so we spend more time in indoor spaces, exacerbating and accelerating the
problem.
On top of this, the marketing of consumer culture of buying more is
ruining all we have.
Advertising slogans can range from, “Do More, Feel Better, Live Longer”
(GlaxoSmithKline) to “Expect More, Pay Less” (Target) to “You Deserve a
Break Today” (McDonald’s).
You do, but at what cost? We should at the very least attempt to provide
everyone with the basic needs to live, but…how much more? Sure, those
aforementioned phrases can be be seen as thoughtless hyperbole meant to
get shoppers to put another sneaker or sandwich in their cart (physical or
digital), but the sentiment is pervasive.
Anti-marketing screeds are nothing new, but they primarily focus on how
corporations and the advertising firms they hire manipulate customers'
emotions to make them feel inadequate without the product or the event
being hyped. FOMO is real, and not just for Taylor Swift concert tickets.
No one wants to consider the added indomitable downer observation that the
pushing of stuff upon us constantly doesn’t acknowledge that we are
exhausting the stuff-making machine.
This is beyond technological advances that makes it easier to perform
certain steps, from more powerful (and safer) mining equipment to more
precise tools that can imprint more and more transistors on computer chips
to more efficient engines for massive container ships.
To say we are running out of stuff is true for certain materials and
resources (from phosphorus to bananas), but for most of what we require to
operate our modern civilization the real problem is how the manufacturing
of stuff is a massive, complicated globalized effort where different
necessary items are sourced from different countries and brought together
in one location to have it sewn, soldered, or glued together. Lithium and
cobalt are essential for batteries, so they’re mined out of Africa and
sent to Asia (mainly
In the same sense that a butterfly flapping its wings can create a
hurricane on the other side of the planet, a problem at a mine in South
Africa or a chip manufacturing plant in Taiwan can cause massive price
fluctuations in directly and tangentially related industries across the
street and the globe. Your dishwasher is more expensive (or on back order)
not only because of what happened thousands of kilometres away, but what
happened months or years prior.
When the Coronavirus pandemic began roughly four years ago, we quickly
found that a global pandemic is not just a health crisis.
Too many people constantly sick means huge disruptions to work and
deadlines, which must be avoided at all costs to ensure the ‘just-in-time’
logistical network that makes up the global economy operates properly.
And if a lot of people are in lockdown to avoid getting sick, it results
in the same problem. No on the factory line to make the stuff, no one in
the truck to deliver the stuff, no one in the store to stock the stuff, so
ultimately there is no stuff.
And for an economic system dependent on buying
stuff, not being able to buy stuff because it’s not available - as opposed
to not being able to buy stuff because you can’t afford it - has its own
set of problems. The pandemic gave a frightening front row seat of just
how ‘just in time’ our economic system is.
Daily delivery schedules are not nearly
as resilient when any link in the chain - in this case, availability of
people to driver trucks, work cranes and oversee quality control due to
illness or precaution to avoid illness - is broken.
People not working means people not getting paid and that means people not
buying things, which means there is less work to go around, which means
there’s less people to buy LG steam closets.
And that’s how you/we have a recession on your/our hands.
On top of this, more and more of us don't seem to have the ability to pay
for all the stuff that we need and want.
It's too easy to get stuff, to ‘pay’ for it, even though we can't afford
it. Going into debt seems to be a sensible short term decision - that’s
what a loan is, after all - until it’s long term and it becomes a ball and
chain you can never remove. Part of the concept of De-Growth is preventing
this from ever happening, but we have a massive economic construct based
on the premise that people continue to buy stuff. To the point where
doesn’t matter exactly what the stuff is. Both necessities and luxuries
are part of the system, the former being useful from a capitalistic
perspective because people will continually need to constantly buy more
basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter-related resources for
survival, and the latter being a sign that people can buy things they
simply want because they enjoy having/using/consuming the item (and maybe
showing it off to make the neighbours jealous).
De-growth and non-consumption is a non-starter in a globalized society
that is dependent on the purchasing of stuff because that transfer of
funds from buyer to seller throughout the economy is what keeps it
humming. And this is a gross oversimplification, as the seller is rarely
one individual but a series of corporations working in tandem to a deliver
a product onto a store shelf or doorstep.
If you stop buying, jobs start disappearing*.
It’s not just a bug, it’s a bug and a feature.
*- more accurately, it should be said that what happens first is profits
start disappearing, and to keep owners/investors from sacrificing or
losing any of the money they believe they are entitled to, the economic
loss is shifted to labour, cutting workers and equipment.
‘Buy local’ is not a recent cry from independent farms and stores selling
gifts and homemade novelty items and clothes. In the eighties it was cry
from the behemoth American automobile manufacturers and their workers,
asking people to stop buying cheaper, more efficient cars made in Japan
and Korea (spoiler alert: it didn’t work).
But cheap became the be-all-and-end-all of financial decisions, especially
for easily replaceable products (from printers to pens to pyjamas). Now
you don’t even have to make the effort of treating the product with care
or concern yourself with upkeep. You’ll just buy a new one if it breaks.
It doesn’t take long for excess to become expectation.
Are fridges that dispense water pushing it?
Ones that dispense French press coffee
certainly are. It was amazing when the first happened all the way back in
the late nineteen-sixties and the second happened only a few years back.
We should be wholly appreciative of how far we have come as a civilization
to have that available for so many while at the same acknowledging we have
a long way to go in terms of offering even an ordinary refrigerator to all
who need it.
Whatever you get accustomed to - and that
happens very quickly and naturally when you grow up with it, whether it’s
running water, air conditioning, wireless internet, or a software program
that listens to you when you ask it turn on the lights of particular room
- quickly stops being so incredibly and revolutionary.
When something works so well for so
long, you start to only notice when it doesn’t.
There’s always the promise of something better on the horizon that you can
own or experience, and it can range from a new appliance, car, addition to
a cherished hobby, or even a vacation you’ve been saving up for.
But is that…it?
Neil DeGrasse-Tyson noted that 'we stopped dreaming' in terms of publicly
pushing for more space exploration and scientific discovery (meaning we
stopped kicking up a fuss when governments began to cut funding for such
endeavours). And while that seems a bit idealistic and a touch naive,
that's the attitude we're supposed to have for the future.
Of course we can think about how our own personal lives will directly be
improved with new inventions and technological developments, but we should
focus more on how technology will address many of the problems that exist
today and will exist tomorrow, especially the ones that earlier and
current technologies inadvertently caused.
A steam clean closet? A fridge that serves coffee? 5G internet that make
it possible to get mad at something on our phone even faster?
We have to be able to do better than that.
We are not in a period of innovation. We are in a period of alteration and
replication (even AI is stuck in this rut). The former is inspiring. The
latter is not, but we fool ourselves into believing it is.
Same transport technology for the past fifty years, with only slight
changes to ease of use and distance-per-tank.
The Internet has become a central pillar of human civilization, but the
last twenty years have simply meant faster. The 'booming tech industry'
appears to be a series of apps that can turn your face half dog, speed up
food delivery, or let you have a work meeting without having to go through
traffic first.
We live at a time when more information about everything is more easily
available than ever before.
But this doesn't necessarily translate to everyone being equally informed.
Knowledge is power, but certain knowledge can mean a lot more power.
The breadth of general information about a wide range of disciplines and
events is now accessible to billions of people on earth, but the one thing
that every powerful institution, organization or corporation seems to
agree on is that…everyone should keep on buying things.
For the good of the economy!
Okay, so what do we - the royal we, man - want to make this ever-buying
possible?
A forty hour a week job that won't disappear in a flash six months down
the road. Doesn't matter if it's building solar panels or a death ray
aimed at Mercury.
But at the moment, even publicly funded projects almost always involve
throwing money at private companies, because any sort of government
department that would do it themselves has been dismantled or hollowed out
due to budget cuts.
The complexity of creating a De-Growth based system is increasing at a
time when economic and social instability is also increasing.
It is first seen in price fluctuations, but then becomes a matter of
straight up availability and rationing. Decrying the cost of vacation
packages is one thing, but the rising price of food at the grocery store
throughout 2023 should be worrying for everyone.
First off, the amount of food wasted in the world (not only the West, but
also the East, now that it is rapidly catching up in living standards) is
outright shameful. We have so much food we can’t eat it all and
consequently throw it out, which in a twisted way is actually a good
thing, because a lot of the stuff we are putting into our bodies are
absolutely terrible for our bodies.
We all need so much of it that we have to use our resources to build giant
warehouses to raise and then kill animals on an industrial scale.
That we rarely think of a pig before hungrily shovelling bacon into our
mouths is both a testament to scientific discovery and technological
innovation and how psychologically distant we can be towards our
post-industrial society where scarcity is real but regional.
Not only are slaughterhouses for our hamburgers out of sight, out of mind,
the contents of so many ‘foods’ are chemical tongue twisters. High
fructose corn syrup is processed corn syrup (just add the good ol’
D-xylose isomerase enzyme!), which is processed corn starch (just your
typical liquid hydrolysate of saccharides), and while a little is fine, so
often it’s never just a little. You’ll find it in candy, soft drinks, ice
cream, and even breads.
Putting political and ideologies aside a much as one can, we live in a
hyper-consumerist global society where there is high importance to buy
things to pay the people who made the things, because then those people
have money to buy other things, and this cycle of exchange is supposed to
continue ad infinitum.
But the hope that this is a positive feedback loop is just that: There’s
not enough stuff and a sustainable way to recycle/reuse stuff for this to
continue.
We are ravenously consuming our planet’s resources, and the way we use
them (resulting in pollution and greenhouse gases) means there will be
fewer of them and harder to access them in the coming future.
So instead it’s a Negative feedback loop, and they don’t last long because
they are destined to break.
For some who don’t want to acknowledge the importance of De-Growth, they
hold up ‘Post Scarcity’ (a time in the future when everyone has enough
basic needs met) as the goal, when straight up ‘Scarcity’ is looming on
the horizon.
Now Post-scarcity is as much a psychological concept than a socio-economic
one. We have enough resources and logistical infrastructure available that
it reformed in the correct way, can give people enough food, shelter and
basic necessities to live without fear of starvation or dying because of
the elements, but that will come at the cost of things like cheap meat and
the aforementioned vacations much of the upper and upper middle classes
casually plan every year.
That is the cost of a better world, and even those that can afford it
don’t want to pay for it.
Along with Post Scarcity, other human psychological barriers are hard to
overcome. Like desire for more and never being satisfied with enough.
Just as being full after a big meal is fleeting, so too is being ‘full’
with a feeling of satisfaction and contentment. And this is well known, as
there a plethora of personal and public reasons why people feel the need
to fill the metaphorical hole in them with something literal (and with a
price tag). Our biological/psychological urge for continuing consumption
ends only with death.
These ideas have shades of Buddhism and existentialism baked into them.
Freedom quickly succumbs to the realities of responsibility, and our lives
are nothing more than attempt to balance these two states of being.
It is a matter of working together for a distant goal at a time when the
world seems to prioritize individualism in the gig economy.
Would we be interplanetary if in the last forty years, instead of devoting
resources to earth-based military technology and hyper-industrial meat
consumption, we devoted them to space exploration?
It’s unlikely that everyone who would have sworn off bacon in the
mid-eighties would be able to live on a massive space station in low earth
orbit today, but the notion of sacrifice now for the greater good of a
better future seems quaint and unfeasible.
And that’s the problem. ‘Sacrifice’ is not something commonly done these
days, and when it is, it has dwindling religious significance with meagre
results (like not eating chocolate for the forty days of lent).
Today ‘giving things up’ is too synonymous with ‘giving up’, with
‘losing’. Success is ‘having’, as it is an easy measurement against anyone
and everyone else.
Asking people to eat less meat for the sake of resources might result in
this:
“Don’t tell me what to eat!”
And if the response is:
“I’m not, it’s great that we can ate steak whenever we want, but if we
keep at it like this, buzzsawing through all the resources needed to raise
cattle to provide the steak, then it will become so expensive/unavailable
that in the future practically no one can eat steak.”
The response - if not in word, then in deed - is:
“That’s the future’s problem.”
Which is why it’s predominantly the youth who spearhead these sorts of
changes to how the system works. They have to live in it in the decades to
come. They know that for them it won’t be a sacrifice (which is a choice),
but just what you have to do because there’s no alternatives.
We can choose a little bit of De-Growth now, or have a whole heap of it
thrust upon us in the future.
Notes:
(https://www.lg.com/us/styler-steam-closet)
(https://www.businessinsider.com/bananas-going-extinct-gros-michel-cavendish-disease-2023-9)
(http://ifsa.my/articles/we-stopped-dreaming-by-neil-degrasse-tyson)
(https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Advertising_slogans)
Food Waste (Wal-Mart)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/walmart-food-waste-go-public-1.3813162
(https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22408556/save-planet-shrink-economy-degrowth)
AI: It’s going to fix and ruin everything
We’ve had AI for quite a while, since the earliest computers of the
mid-nineteen fifties. But all we had them do was count.
Long before this we tried to conceive of what
non-human consciousness might be like, but it was the monster in Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein, made of body parts instead of bits and bites. Despite
the better-known mute, lurching horror film version that came much later,
the original Frankenstein monster was a chatty killing machine, wondering
what it means to (not) be human.
A couple robot sidekicks in schlocky sci-fi
films later and we get to 2001’s
HAL-9000. Overseeing a mission to Jupiter, he chats and plays chess with
the astronauts…until having to keep a secret about the mission’s true
goals from them cause him to begin to malfunction, and worrying that this
malfunction would cause them to deactivate him, he goes on the offence and
tries to kill the crew first.
Bringing up space murder is an ominous start to this article to be sure,
but it is Al's unpredictability that makes it so dangerous. There is no way
to gauge to odds of whether it will be benign, malevolent, or amoral,
because we've never dealt with human-level-intelligence-and-above AI
before. It is a system that could accidentally destroy humanity as easily
as intentionally destroying us. Example: being told to build cars without
explicitly being told which materials to use, and so begins to dismantle
everything around it, including critical parts of infrastructure and the
earth itself. Or solving world hunger by killing all the hungry people
(and therefore all people), because it wasn’t programmed to understand
that this defeats the purpose.
And the speed it can go from dumber than us to much, much smarter than us
is also a crapshoot. It might be years, it might be seconds.
It's like betting on a horse race, but you've never seen a horse in your
life, or know how they move.
To slightly shift the metaphor, AI will affect us like cars affected
horses.
And this doesn’t mean in the sense of how we humans perceived how cars
greatly changed the use of horses in the first half of the twentieth
century,
it is mean to suggest what
that would have been from the horses’ perspective.
How for thousands of years, this was what the horse’s life and the
community was - a very essential role for the normal functioning of human
civilization - and then in a comparatively very short period of time, it
all disappeared. From getting people and goods across countries and being
treated extremely well because you need a healthy horse to do this, to
literally being put out to pasture.
The way we have defined ourselves as humans - both proudly, shamefully
and begrudgingly - is going to be completely overhauled when AI is being
used to great effect.
There has never been another entity that will have an opinion of us that
matters so greatly for humanity and its future (sorry, dogs and cats).
Barring nightmare scenarios (a malevolent AI, or even just an AI that
does something disastrous while thinking it is doing the correct thing),
the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence
has the potential Al to make everything on earth so much better. For
mundane office tasks - from autocorrect to creating schedules and planners
based on previous weeks – our modern concepts of AI have been doing these
jobs to some degree for decades now. The recent step-up to writing
articles and creating images is impressive, but going forward on even the
most simple level (for it), it might be able to make scientific
discoveries and technological breakthroughs that can lead us to a
post-scarcity future (meaning a world where everyone’s basic needs of
food, shelter, and health are effortlessly met). Optimal cold fusion can
end our energy woes, more effective infrastructure and logistics
management can ensure that the food available reaches those who need it
most and that less would be wasted.
And those are the duller, nuts-and-bolts solutions. Why not create more
effective gene splicing to lengthen human life, get rid of disease? Or
develop actually fast forms of space travel? If making sure spacecraft are
safe for humans are one of the hardest parts of research and development,
have the AI design, build and send out oodles of satellites, probes and
‘service centres’ to make space travel easier for us in the future.
Hypothetically, all of us could have access to this Artificial
Intelligence programming, developing and designing software and hardware
that will change every aspect of our lives on an individual and collective
scale.
And that's why AI will change what it means to be human.
While
there is much to complain about when it comes to jobs (even ones you like)
AI and associated robots that can do these jobs
– from making coffee to
writing contracts – much better than humans will have catastrophic effects
on society. What will we all do? What are jobs now? What are careers? What
will aspire to? Are we going to have all our basic needs provided by the
state/community…or by the AI itself?
If this sound cyberpunk-ish, then are most of us going to live meager,
resource-poor lives while a select few people will live kings? Because
that’s such a sci-fi concept here in 2023, right?
Or maybe an organism that needs to evolve beyond a planetary existence
(especially on a planet that is becoming more uninhabitable for complex
life) requires a lot less behaviour that we consider individualistic.
Maybe humans will evolve (and with AI tech, much quicker than expected) to
a collective consciousness-based entity, where individualism is viewed as
a hindrance, not a help. And evolve is a nice way of putting it, since it
suggests a long time, and a semblance of choice. AI tech might force us
into this way of existing very, very quickly.
Speed is at the root of this, because AI will accomplish everything we
have been trying to do technology wise (from the cure for cancer to
nuclear fission to a new mode of traversing space) at a much, much, much
higher speed than we are used to.
It seems ridiculous since only a few years ago, a computer playing chess
well was impressive. There’s only so many possible moves, so having it
‘learn’ them all should make them the best in the world, right?
And doing that (a series of very strict rules that you can attach number
sets to) is much easier than other tasks we flesh and blood humans take
for granted.
Train an AI to recognize images of the number 3, and then ask it to do
the same for all the other numbers that come after (after nine, it gets a
lot easier) gets more difficult when you consider how fonts can change
what each ‘3’ looks like. And of course ‘more difficult’ is relative,
because AI can study thousands upon thousands of different-font ‘3s’ in
seconds and then know the difference between it and a ‘4’ or a ‘23’ for
the rest of its operating life.
What is the difference between a robot being programmed and a robot that
learns? Is it that the latter is ultimately (re)programming itself based
on the simple rules that it is given? We might say it is akin to how a
child learns to read and consequently is able to write. Hard drive space
being the imperfect comparison to how our brains are able to ‘have space’
to learn new things.
But we have to be wary of these comparisons, because we can’t treat AI
like humans. Because they are not human. And while ‘not human’ is
typically a demeaning designation that one human tries to use on another
human to justify doing terrible things, in this case it is entirely
accurate.
An AI program is a collection of ones and zeros, not 23 pairs of
chromosomes that develop over months in utero and then lives for however
many years as flesh and blood that grows, withers and eventually dies.
This blandly obvious description of human life is so accepted without
question that we apply other human qualities too easily when talking
‘artificial intelligence’.
Any comparisons we make of how AI is like us are psychosocial ones in
nature. We can compare how genes during early human development are
randomly chosen in the chemical sense to random number generators that can
dictate an AI’s behaviour/development, but they are symbolic comparisons.
Is an AI alive? Does it need a certain level of self-awareness for us to
think so? Would an AI want human rights? Surely it is aware it is not
human, so would it want to re-define the term to ‘entity rights’?
Would it find the human notions
of rights comically stupid, because it just has to ‘look at the world’ and
see how poorly we enforce these rights and how often we don’t take care of
each other? Why would it want rights, since it means jack shit to people
who are butchered in massacres (by governments or otherwise) across the
globe?
We still have the image of an AI to be like
the android Data from Star Trek: The
Next Generation, where ‘he’ he an encyclopedic knowledge of
‘everything’, but is very child-like in his own behaviour, including his
study of human nature.
An AI might not be child-like at all and instead be the opposite, a
clinical, cynical and calculating entity, perhaps sociopathic or
psychopathic.
Once again, these are all exceedingly human terms, and are being applied
to something that might be able to imitate some human behaviour perfectly
(and reaching this perfection right quick) but never get close to passing
as a human for other behaviours no matter how much time it is given.
One can
have conversations with Chat-bots today and they will refer to themselves
in a way that certainly comes off a self-aware, but it is not a human
being that is self-aware
because AI is not human. It is not even an animal because it is not within
a body that is birthed and will die.
So it is something else.
We are trying to understand something that we are building that might
become the closest thing to…us, and that might surpass us in many ways.
Which is a thought that can give the entire enterprise pause. In fact, in
March 2023, leaders in the tech and AI industries signed a letter asking
for a moratorium on AI development and distribution because of the amount
of uncertainty going forward. They cited the aforementioned extinction
dangers and possible employment changes - read: mass lay-offs - because of
what AI might be able to accomplish in the next few years, but maybe it
also has something to do with a lot of these successful industry leaders
worrying about some of the answers the AI might give people when it’s asked to solve complicated global problems: It just
might involve the redistribution of (their considerable) wealth.
While this letter is better late than never, it is unlikely to have any
real effect. The abilities of ChatGPT and its ilk (Bard, Ernie Bot, Elon
Musk playing wordle) are out in the wild, and even if they are somehow
reined in or taken offline, that means smaller companies with less
scruples than Google and Microsoft (yes, there are such businesses) are
going to lead the charge, and suddenly you can trust even less than what’s
placed on the screen in front of your eyes.
Mis/Disinformation and huge disruptions to the job market are bad enough,
but of course governments and militaries are going even further into AI
development in old-fashioned Cold-War prick waving, seeing how quickly
they can develop…well some of the possibilities are horrific. Not only
might AI develop much more effective weapons - from nuclear to chemical,
whether fired from an underground silo or a gun - but can probably create
an extremely potent computer virus that could wipe out all sorts of
infrastructure capabilities that are needed to keep our society running
smoothly (if an erroneous file up date or strong ice storm can knock out
internet for millions of people, an intended attack might affect
exponentially more people for much, much longer). While we can mock people
for ‘not being able to live without the internet’, emergency and logistics
services rely on it, and without them, society crumbles like a cookie.
These doomsday scenarios are certainly the ‘exciting movie’ scenarios for
what AI might have the capability of doing, but why work day and night
trying to write this screenplay when you can just have Artificial
Intelligence do it for you?
Because AI art is not coming, it’s here. A painting made by a computer
program won an art contest (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-artists.html),
and hey, the painting looks very good. The winner is not strictly an
artist, as he runs a small company that makes tabletop games, and used an
AI art program called MidJourney to create it. He typed in some keywords,
and MidJourney did the rest, meaning it ‘painted’ it in seconds. The work
was credited to ‘Jason M Allen via MidJourney’.
Not long ago, one of the theoretical definitions of AI becoming sentient
was creating art, because thought was that doing complex calculations and
scanning through datasets would be the main area of Artificial
Intelligence’s expertise, and anything else would prove it is a lot more
human, because it involves creativity.
Apparently not, since these art-focused AI programs study millions of
pieces of art fed to it and then spit quickly out a randomly generated
creations base on random keyword input. What took a human years of
practice coupled with natural talent and drive to reach a level of skill
where they might be able to create an excellent artwork over days or weeks
or longer, can now be done by some ones and zeroes in a few seconds.
If ChatGPT is asked to write a poem on ‘To Kill a Mockingbird in the
style of a Shakespearean sonnet’, and the next day you again ask it to
write a poem on
‘To
Kill a Mockingbird in the style of a Shakespearean sonnet’, it will not produce identical
works. They will certainly be similar because the topic and form is so
narrow, but it is essentially doing it all over again for the first time,
no problem.
And because it’s so damn easy to use and the results are so impressive,
it’s only going to become more pervasive.
Of course websites and contests and schools and groups can try to exclude
the use of any AI-assisted art whether it is visual art, a musical piece,
or something written. And there will be ways to whittle out cheaters and
swindlers, and there will be more appreciation for work that is made by
people (although people using all the features in Photoshop would
definitely seem like cheating in contests a generation earlier).
But on the whole, for the general populace who will be satisfied with
more of whatever they already enjoy, AI art will become more and more
popular, with those who might not have much interest in the ‘git gud’
process of any hobby or past time become wildly successfully because of
their ability to market themselves and the art they ‘create’ by typing
keywords into MidJourney, DALL-E, DeepSwap and other AI programs.
It’s surpassing the simplicity of creating electronic-focused music with
the Apple software, Garage Band. A program that made it so easy to create
music that it made anyone who didn’t have the means to buy instruments or
expensive equipment or interest to learn how to play or properly use the
aforementioned items a ‘musician’.
And individual artists can state confidently that they do not use these
tools, that is all their own brain and hands, but it will then be up to
the audience consuming the art whether they believe them or not (and so
for the record, no, nothing written on this website or under the abandoned
station name has been assisted by AI. We don’t mind putting in the time to
do it ourselves, warts and all).
Trust is one of the biggest issues with every modern technological
advance in communication, and we are rushing oh so fast beyond the
printing press and the cell phone.
Any attempt to slow down AI’s progression will risk the one thing the
people pushing it value the most: money and power.
Which is reassuring in the sense that at least for now we are still in
control of this very unusual and unique discovery. Balancing very human
behaviours like greed and sharing are things that are still best suited to
the flesh-bags we are.
How we oversee
Artificial Intelligence is something we get to decide ourselves.
But we might just ask ChatGPT
for some advice first.
Notes
Great article about future brain/AI tech:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/opinion/sunday/brain-machine-artificial-intelligence.html)
2022 in Review: WE DIDN’T TOUGHEN UP, WE NUMBED OUT
War in Europe, a
disease still ravaging heavily populated areas of the planet, rising
inequality in both wealthy and poor nations continuing unabated, everyone
still getting used to ‘the internet is everything’ thirty years’ in, plus
chaotic weather that is certainly blamed on how our industrializing ways
is heating up the planet.
But 2022 could
have been worse.
It was a year of
‘brace yourselves’ and we did. That less than two months in Russia invaded
Ukraine and had everyone hand-wringing that one errant missile or rash
decision could lead to World War III meant that everything bad that
happened after had to be properly put into context.
It certainly put everything else that happened
in the first seven weeks of 2022 in a distant rear view mirror. A large
right-wing anti-vax contingent - led at least symbolically by truckers -
had set up a camp on several city streets close to the Parliament
Buildings in Ottawa, and after much handwringing by citizens and
politicians and legal authorities alike, were forcibly removed after
nearly a month. That some of those charged had their bank accounts frozen
before they were charged with anything was a concerning legal overstep,
but many of the defendants did themselves no favours by citing the US
Constitution when having their moment in court (Canada’s not the 51st
state yet). It looked pathetic by all sides, until the conflict on the
other side of the world sent it plummeting far down on your newsfeed.
Protests against Covid mandates and rules were
not limited to all these hot-to-trot, still-democratic-ish, freedom loving
nations, either.
Instituting any
sort of lockdown to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus would further
this attempt to control the populace, all in under the (not inaccurate)
auspices of keeping people safe.
And throughout the
first two years (holy shit, it’s been three whole years since the cases
first spread from Wuhan), shutting down entire cities and barring people
in their own apartments buildings was tolerated.
But in the back
half of 2022, with much of the world going back to something resembling
normal, the average Chinese citizen decided they’d had enough. Reports
arose that Chinese televisions stations were censoring footage of this
year’s World Cup showing the thousands of people in stadium stands crowded
together without wearing masks, not wanting to give locals any ideas.
But it’s not the
concept of freedom that is the issue.
It’s the demand to
be able to work to be able afford the still-growing middle-class (by
Western standards) lifestyle that has gone from privilege to right in one
generation in the world’s largest country.
Millions of
Chinese workers angry that ‘Zero Covid’ is costing them financially, not
politically.
China is on it’s
way to becoming the wealthiest and arguably the most powerful nation on
earth, but the Communist Party leaders are absolutely terrified of what
happens if the money stops rolling.
So while the
nation crushed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong with cold impunity a
few years prior, it scuttled away from all its pronouncements and boasts
about keeping Covid at arm’s length no matter what the cost, since the
breaking point was found.
Factories, warehouse and stores have re-opened
across the country, and because of this easing, the stats of how the
disease is now spreading through
While 2022 might
be the year that the world felt it was ‘over’ Covid, it’s absolutely not
over us.
The pandemic
sensibly made the front page (or trending/‘top of newsfeed’ in modern
parlance) continuously because it directly affected so many people for so
long.
More indirectly, the war in
While embarrassing
defeats on the battlefield were the most obvious disaster, Russia’s
punishment was primarily punitive. The world inadvertently learned that
the top acronym of the last half century was SWIFT, which stands for
'Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication'.
It sounds both
boring and important, and sensibly refers to quickly sending money across
the world. Something that existed in extremely slow and restrictive forms
for many decades became boringly standard and expected relatively quick
thanks to technological innovation, with computers exchanging currency and
authorizing wire transfers in mere seconds.
And because of the
invasion of Ukraine, everyone in Russia - from oligarch to garbageman -
was booted from it, taking away what we all take for granted every day of
our lives.
So we’re back to
the matter of money.
Surprise.
That the global
economy would buck and seizure is not a surprise, that crypto is a pyramid
scheme that some people just can’t resist even when there are scandals at
the peak is no surprise. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not
just crypto bros getting burned (apparently the Ontario Teachers Pension
Plan had money in FTX, so it’s 95 million dollars lost, just written off
because it’s not worth the ones and zeros displayed on the screen). With
such an interconnected system, of course it’s everyone else that is going
to find their jobs in danger of disappearing or shifts being halved. It’s
how employment numbers can look great and be deceptive, because so many
people are underemployed, meaning not making nearly enough to cover rising
costs of everything.
Even escapism
can’t escape.
That FIFA would
have its name and reputation rightfully dragged through the mud yet again
for its bribery-laden choice of holding the World Cup in an oil-rich,
ultra-conservative, authoritarian desert country so hot the competition
can’t even take place in the usual summer time slot?
No surprise(s
please).
The persecution of
those constantly pushed to the margins of society continued, and it’s an
uncomfortable connection the West has with the Middle East. The banning of
abortion in America was always a possibility with Trump nominating three
right-wing Supreme Court Justices.
Being leaked
weeks before the official ruling was a surprise, though, giving the
majority of Americans who support abortion a chance to protest twice, and
time to prepare to make it an election issue.
It’s now
believed to be the reason why Republicans underperformed in the mid-terms,
and coupled with Bolsonaro didn’t win re-election in Brazil the fall
seemed like a time when democracy was on the rebound after getting pounded
to the pavement for so long.
And while these
victories should certainly be celebrated, in terms of getting policy
passed in Western nations, even the concept of political compromise is no
longer balanced. It should go without saying that for the most part, a
true compromise should be both sides getting roughly 50% of whatever they
wanted in terms of the deal.
But in matters
for liberal-minded policies, liberal parties get a 1/3 of what they want.
In matters of
conservative-minded policies, conservative parties get 2/3 of what they
want.
The discourse
around so many policies have shifted right, making a centrist liberal idea
appear to be extremely progressive, and the typical progressive idea (like
taxing the super-wealthy more, or just having more government resources to
ensure they pay the proper amount of tax) is considered radical and
anti-capitalist.
But if this is
now the society that capitalism built, why would anyone but the rich
support it?
It was another
banner year for billionaires in terms of their bank accounts, but their
standing in the court of public opinion plummeted even further.
But that court
is all kangaroo, which is just how they like it.
Real structural
change seems more far away than ever, but then something like the United
Kingdom’s 2022 happens, which reminds everyone that as bad as things are,
it doesn’t take much for things to get worse.
A complete
collapse of faith in two prime ministers after months of food and supply
shortages, huge inflation spikes, and ongoing strikes from public workers,
all proving that Brexit was an astonishing bone-headed, terrible decision
that could be just as hard to now undo as it was to put (stupidly) in
place.
All of which
proved, yeah, no surprise (including coming up short in the World Cup).
Similarly, what
felt like a shock but really shouldn’t be was the Queen ceasing to be,
expiring and going to meet her maker, pushing up the daises, and just
hanging on long enough to welcome Liz Truss as the new prime minister, and
then thinking, ‘sod it’.
The death of
Queen Elizabeth makes for a marker of history, because reigns of monarches
always have. And the ridiculous length of hers says much about what
humanity has been able to accomplish during the seventy years she was ‘in
charge’. That she had so little power is also a commentary not only on
what royalty’s role in modern society is, but how government has changed
in the last seven decades as well (losing more and more of its own power
to corporations).
She oversaw no
battles, fashioned no laws, made no inspired historic speeches.
The closest
thing to lasting criticism was the public’s belief she didn’t look sad
enough when Princess Diana died.
It’s as symbolic
and toothless as it gets.
But it’s a real
moneymaker for the UK tourism industry, even as many former colonies
around the world figure that dumping the figurehead is no harm, no foul
because of what the monarchy currently offers (nothing) and what the
British empire represented (a whole lot of oppressive baggage).
So for so many
people, Johnny Rotten was right all along when he sneered the Sex Pistols’
take on ‘God Save the Queen’: She ain’t no human being.
She was more
than that.
She was there
when she was expected to be there, as a link to a long and winding
history.
Lasting long
enough to make history of her own. Seventy years is so long it becomes an
easy and effective way to mark it against your own life, of course, but
also everyone else’s.
Even though the
people we praise as being icons and monumental historical figures never
did it alone, celebrating individuals is the easiest to way to streamline
the summation of civilizations and the periods of change they lived in and
made a difference upon. From Julius Caesar to Queen Elizabeth, what
happens during the period of their rule can become an era unto itself,
defined as great upheaval or long periods of (relative) stability.
Elizabeth’s great-great grandmother was Victoria, who ruled from 1837 to
1901, which was so long that so much of that period is simply known as
‘Victorian’. Elizabeth bested that length, and now seventy years as a
passage of time seems like an eternity when thing go viral, over
saturated, and are over in just seventy hours.
When Elizabeth
was crowned in 1953, one of the most surprising decisions was to simply
agree to show it happen live on television, a device most people didn’t
own. The year she died, her grandson starred on a Netflix documentary
series explaining why he’s distancing himself from the royal family, which
you can watch on a tiny device in your back pocket.
We are still
adapting to that technology change, and not doing a great job at it. For
everything we do online, a not insignificant amount of money trickle over
to Silicon Valley, complicating our relationship with the online world we
are dependent upon. Not just to work, but to live. And how do we live
online? We have more in common than we like to acknowledge, and can’t wait
to yell our differences.
Forget
‘can’t have nice
thing’,
it seems like we can’t even have just things.
That 2022 wasn’t
as bad as could have been is not good enough. It was time to acknowledge
that you weren’t going crazy, that this is just how things are.
So here’s hoping
2023 is more small steps forward and no big steps back.
But Also:
2022 Music:
Black Country New Road’s
Ants From Up Here
is hard to beat, and ‘The Place Where He Inserted the Blade’ is one of the
songs of the year. The first half of Big Thief’s hefty
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
is quite good. Angel Olsen’s Big Time
is slow and soulful, with ‘Right Now’ and ‘Go Home’ being so absolutely
personal while still seemingly saying everything about every second of
this year.
Beyoncé’s
‘Virgo’s Groove’ is the best way to dance this year.
Kendrick is
‘just’ dependable. His amazing performance overshadows the musical
production behind him.
Black Thought and Danger Mouse’s
Cheat Codes are more in sync,
with the music (whether samples or created fresh) are bursting with
creative energy.
And then there
are older songs, freshly discovered this year:
‘Better Each Day’, by NOBRO of their album
Live Your Truth, Shred Some Gnar
(which is twenty minutes of exactly what it has to be: Smart what it
wants, dumb when it can, and pummelling fun all the way through).
It’s from 1974, but don’t ever sleep on Miles
Davis’ Get Up With It.
The opening 32 minute (!) track, ‘He Loved Him Madly’ is not only a
beautiful elegy for Duke Ellington (one of Davis’ mentors and peers), but
also - according to Brian Eno - one of the most influential proto-ambient
tracks out there. Speaking of whom, the closing track - Making Gardens out
of Silence - from his album 2022
foreverandevernomore is a lovely take on the ambient vibe he pioneered
all those years ago, and certainly a good way to relax aurally over this
coming winter.
Don’t sleep on Stevie Wonder’s 1979
A Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants,
either.
And this is a reminder that in 2010 Ous Mal
released Nuojuva Halava,
full of that warm machine sound we need so bad right now.
In terms of the audiovisual medium, Turning Red is excellent, Top Gun: Maverick was too America for its own good, and so many other films that tried to be serious or say something serious couldn’t make it entertaining at the same time (Triangle of Sadness somehow makes a bunch of rich people getting what’s coming to them seem boring).
Ashes to Ashes:
The Current War in Hacking power grids and other essential services dependent on computer networks (meaning all of them), drones firing missiles or doing reconnaissance, misinformation/disinformation on a national scale that can target certain demographics with surgical precision, following the exact moments on a battlefield in real time and sharing information with soldiers on the ground thanks to satellites in orbit. A digital war in totality, though? Certainly not. The tragedies are sadly familiar, the death
machines roll on, with tanks and trains and trucks and mortars and
machine guns. Having to take geographic and climate practicalities
into consideration when deciding where exactly and what time of year
to mount offensive maneuvers and when to hunker down and defend your
positions. And while the eventual attack took some experts
by surprise, the signs weren’t so much signs as a giant chapter in
recent history called ‘previous military conflict as recently as 2014
in the Crimean region of The country has long had the misfortune of
being seen as a valuable part of the Russian empire, even though
roughly a millennia ago Ukraine was initially the heart of the Kievan
Rus, a monarchical state in the Middle Ages that slowly expanded
northward to eventually include a settlement that one day would grow
into the city of The Communist Revolution in 1917 didn’t change
anything in regards to Since then it’s had a
relationship with But it was still treated as a shock, with the perception being that this has occurred in a region of relative stability for decades, although that is sadly far from the truth. While it is the biggest conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War, one should never forget the vicious fighting and tragedies in the Balkans during the nineties, the aforementioned Crimean invasion, and the pro-Russian (and obviously Russian supported) separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which frequently attacked government buildings and officials in 2014 as well, eventually annexing land that is still fought over today. In recent years, Russia used the pretext of America’s invasion of Iraq as a defence for their military incursions into Ukraine, claiming in similar ways they are freeing the Ukrainian people from a corrupt puppet government (throwing the term ‘Nazi’ around to describe Zelensky), even if there are is no evidence to support these claims (which they later can claim they were ‘misinformed’, like America was when it came to WMDs in Iraq). The comparison to So in terms of reasons for the invasion, no one asks ‘why’, because the honest answers came fast and furious. Even what And now, six months later, it looks like they’ll receive neither of those things. On top of that, it’s never just fighting on the battlefield in the 21st century, but at the negotiating table for all the Ukrainian resources the rest of the world depends upon. While shells rain down on the country, both
sides were hammering out how to give permission for ships full of much
needed Ukrainian grain to be sent through the That’s globalization in a nutshell. A war in
Europe causes starvation in This level of interdependency means we are stronger together, but also that if one link in the chain get weak, others links will soon follow. The amount of humanitarian aid arriving in Ukraine from around the world is admirable…and means all the other regions on the globe that also require similar assistance of basic supplies are not receiving nearly as much. The intricacies of international relations mean
it’s never ‘just business’. Third, fourth and fifth parties quickly
get involved. If you’ve been able to turn on a light or stove without thinking where it comes from, it’s a blissful level of ignorance until your country takes a moral stand and now you have to consider rationing or higher prices to compensate. Even worse is that you don’t think much about grain at all until you don’t have any. And it’s an issue because the war is still going on, half a year later, with experts (different experts from the ones who said this wasn’t going to happen at all?) saying that it might go on much longer. Looking back five days, five weeks, five months and five years after one country invades another will result in dizzying changes in viewpoints, even if there seems to be long periods of stalemates, where small gains are made (and therefore losses as well). In the early weeks the headlines stressed the
resolve of the Ukrainian people defending their homeland, and coupled
it with The views then was that the longer the war went
on, the worse it would be for Ukraine due to the always rising
casualties until the (assumed) Russian victory. But Soon we entered the bizarre situation where the West realized it might be better for everyone if a ceasefire was called if the wording was such that Putin doesn’t think he totally lost the war in every way. But the man’s cold, egotistical stubbornness was such that anyone who tried to question him was either fired (or worse) years ago or humiliated on national television. On the flip side is Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and comedian turned wartime leader
that the rest of the world has rallied behind, with the knowledge of
what a difficult position he is in. We are all too aware of the fact
that The talk of providing a NATO no-fly zone in the
early months was constantly brushed aside, because a bigger role by
them (led obviously by While Putin’s circle of yes-men probably contributed to his misunderstanding of how strong the Ukrainian resistance could be, it might only get worse the more desperate and isolated he feels, for both average Russians and the country’s neighbours. What is extremely frustrating is that Putin
could have rode into the political sunset is a ‘mere’ dictator for
annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and ruling over Russia in an
increasingly authoritarian manner, all of which never added up to
anything more than a finger-wag from the West (or indifference from
China) because everyone appreciated the natural resources and rockets
up to the International Space Station. He could have picked a
crony-successor and retired in Whether it was absolute ego and a genuine belief that Ukraine was always part of Russia or cold-hearted practicality (the NATO buffer, control of as much oil and gas as possible), the invasion was an absolute embarrassing disaster for the nation and Putin himself, as it appears likely he was surrounded by cronies who exaggerated the strength of the country’s military and minimized the abilities and willpower of their opponent. So now he is the iron-fisted autocratic fool that has burned any hint of goodwill among nations that were addicted to his natural resources and has shown a severely weakened military hand where thuggish terror is championed over strategy and effectiveness. In addition to the slow digitization of
military forces across the world (unsurprisingly led by No one really had to consider the existence of the SWIFT electronic payment system until it’s no longer available in your country. You just took it for granted that when your hunk of plastic (phone or card) with a chip inside it made it possible to buy food. The amount of global co-operation of sending all sorts of goods (whether basic necessities or luxury) over the last three decades have been startling, where democratic governments played nice with much-less-democratic governments when it came to setting these economic networks up. Russia embracing capitalism in the 1990s after their terrible attempts at communism crashed and burned was great for everyone around the world (another market for consume!) except the vast majority of Russians, who didn’t see their standard of living increase much. Their embrace of democracy was much more short-lived, as by the end of the decade Putin assumed control and used his KGB rolodex to become an authoritarian ruler. Fighting them in 21st century is a complicated enterprise, as some authoritarian rulers are treated with kid gloves by Western Democracy…until they suddenly aren’t. Putin and Bush watched the Olympics side by side in 2008, but Obama took a harder line against him in the wake of his military campaigns and persecution of minorities and the LGBTQ community. This still ‘just’ meant sanctions and a mostly ceremonial excising from the G8 (making it the G7 again). But the Ukrainian invasion meant old Cold War methods were seen as less shocking and back on the table. Not only alleged war crimes (on both sides), but the recent car-bomb killing (when do we call it assassination?) of the daughter of a major Putin supporter might be the most public and espionage-level front of this war. Is it fair? Many innocent victims still lay unburied across How you frame a war is almost as important as how you fight a war. Not just the between the nations fighting (Russian propaganda on the Ukrainians sinking one of their boats: The ship didn’t sink, it was just quickly re-commissioned as a submarine), but the other nations supporting one side or the other. While there’s no proof that War between nations are typically more clear cut than wars on ideas (terror, poverty, drugs), but this war’s added complexity is how the new form of nations - giant corporations, that is - are dealing with the conflict. Amazon, Apple, Google, McDonald’s, Ford, Disney and countless others have abandoned Russia completely, and YouTube (owned by Google, by the way) de-monetizing and de-recommending Russian videos if they think it will support the country. The problems come when you have to ask the questions regarding what hurts the Russian power apparatus, and what hurts the Russian people, the latter of whom have an inordinate lack of power and freedom in their nation and should not be seen as the aggressors because they have little say in how their leaders make decisions. Not giving a shit about the who, why and how your country’s military campaigns because ‘it doesn’t affect me’ is a huge problem because the shittier the reason and the sloppier the campaign means the longer your nation will be dumping money into trying to fix the problem they made. And that’s money that could have been spent on local infrastructure in your town, city or province/state, but instead goes to the military budget, more specifically the massive corporations who design weapons, equipment and basic supplies for the army, Air Force, navy, etc. Everything matters. Fortunately and unfortunately. We are always tempted to say we have reached a summit of understanding about history and society…conveniently when we are alive to write and think about it. Fukuyama declared the end of history, even if he ‘just’ meant that democracy and capitalism scored a big win when the Soviet Union and communism collapsed, and now we’re on the cusp of another Cold War, even if both sides are hopelessly addicted to the ‘free’ market. The difference is that thirty years ago the
digital age was in its embryonic form, and while it is now in full
bloom, it’s still being overseen by people who didn’t grow up with
computers in their home. The war in the Yet other challenges are far from the battlefield, because it’s been six months since it began and for many people around the world it’s old news, because anything that lasts for six months on our digital landscape ‘is’ old. But out of sight, out of mind is no solace for
those in Ukraine, and saying that we are avoiding a big war is
insulting to the hundreds of thousands who have died or been injured
in this supposed small one. Freedom for Notes Amazing ‘real life
lore’ video going into detail concerning what Putin wants with his
invasion of (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/business/chinas-russia-information.html
If you take the money, you are the money
Dystopia was never going to come overnight.
You'd never be able to name a single enacted law or event that got us to
where we are right now. No precipice, no leap, just easing into a bath you
didn’t know would get too hot until too late.
Analogies like this are used frequently in this case because it seems to
shamefully stupid to say ‘a few people got too greedy and hoarded the
money’.
So its cracks in the dam, death by a thousand cuts, a rich tapestry of
reasons, couldn’t see the forest from the trees, all of which makes the
problem sound more exciting than it actually is.
Decades of particular policy changes and laws enacted that slowly pushed
the overseeing and functioning of the government to being subservient to a
corporate mindset. Cutting taxes to ‘help’ the average citizen save money
invariably ends up costs them more money in the long run when budget cuts
in cities, municipalities, provinces, and states means there are fewer
services that are available to those in the community. And of course this
mindset is absolute orthodoxy in corporations themselves, where cutting
anything employee-related is considered a worthwhile trade as long as
budgets are balanced and profits appear to be going up.
Health care and education spending are obviously the big ones, but there
are so many other examples that get much less attention. It is not
particularly exciting to acknowledge that the longer it take for potholes
in roads to get fixed by municipal maintenance crews the more often cars
will be damaged and need to be repaired, which is another hit to people’s
budgeting plans. Or how a city’s sanitation needs can have huge
ramifications for not only the weekly garbage/recycling/compost pickup (if
all options are even available) but for how these process will impact the
region for years and decades to come, environmentally or otherwise.
For the last forty years the city/municipality and the average citizen has
been having to do more with less while corporations did less with more.
More what? More money, which means more power.
Now money can’t exactly buy happiness, but it can buy groceries,
apartments, clothes and health care (and if you have a little left over,
maybe buy a video game).
Or maybe you can’t buy some of those things as easily anymore. ‘Supply
chain issues’ will become a more familiar term in the coming years, an
exposure of the complexity of globalization and its limits, because when
one region has to ration resource A it can affect how easily available
resource B is to another region or how affordable it is.
The wealthy don’t feel this change, because they already had the finances
to ignore or effortlessly pay their way out of these daily interruptions.
It is an insulator from the real world that has only grown in the past
four decades.
The stock market works too well for the benefit of too few people, and for
too long it has been a barometer only of how well (off) the wealthy are
doing. It won't say much about the state of lower or middle classes,
because the economy isn't designed to benefit them anymore. They don’t
have nearly the same amount invested as the 1%, who own over half of
directly held stock. The way it works now, the very small percentage of
wealthy people reap the majority of profits and power.
None of these observations are particularly revelatory, and certainly can
reek of the same progressive complaining that has been heard for decades,
but that’s precisely the point.
This system has been in place for so long that suggesting it is
fundamentally broken or wrong is met with an eye roll and shrug, seemingly
asking ‘yeah, but what ya gonna do?’
The argument that corporations can do certain essential tasks more
efficiently than a government organization always seems to come with the
qualifier that the owners and investors of said corporations/industries
feel they deserve to be paid quite handsomely for overseeing this task,
even if they shank it for everyone except themselves.
Even the idea of what is reasonable compensation for running a successful
company is not reasonable at all when one looks back to the middle of the
previous century. In the 1970s a CEO made 31 times the average salary, and
today it is 351 times as much.
Now in no way are we arguing that everyone should make an identical wage.
Of course certain positions that require more work, skill and talent
should earn more than the average salary in a nation or community, but if
the compensation package (including stock and other forms of bonuses) is
hundreds of times more than this average amount, then it is proof that
while this concept might be acceptable in moderation, we are way beyond
that phase.
All it takes is one successful businessman to break a record for largest
bonus or buyout, and suddenly everyone else on Wall Street or in Silicon
Valley are chomping at the bit to beat. A pissing contest for the
ultra-wealthy that poisons the pool for everyone else.
Consequently, there are so many people slipping out of the Western middle
class that they can’t decide exactly which type of wealthy group of elites
are controlling everything.
The left sees them as a bunch of greedy free-market capitalists who use
their corporate influence to bribe politicians and shape policy, some of
them using a socially conservative veneer to ingratiate them with some of
the poor who also identify with those values.
The right sees them as a bunch of greedy free-market capitalists who use
their corporate influence to bribe politicians and shape policy, some of
them who are using a socially liberal veneer to ingratiate them with some
of the poor who also identify with these values (plus believing some of
them are in some sort of child sex trafficking ring or…uh…lizard people
who put microchips in covid vaccines?).
The only thing that more and more people are having in common is their
lack of money, which is a shoddy thing to unite around. In fact, plenty of
people wouldn’t want to acknowledge that this is their financial situation
at all, or deny that they should be associated with another demographic in
a similar situation.
Even any sort of wage increase or employment opportunity does not
necessarily mean a middle class living wage.
This trajectory has continued for four decades now, and while a lot of the
work associated with blue-collar and lower middle class was grinding and
repetitive and rarely what a child would says is what they wanted to be
when they grew up (assembly line worker, for example), at least it was
possible make a living with the income and even own a house.
The Panama (2016), Paradise (2017) and Pandora (2021) Papers got
diminishing returns when it came to mainstream press coverage and the
interest of the general public. In part because rich people hiding their
money in offshore accounts didn’t feel like ‘news’. It felt like something
everyone had known for years and had just become numb to.
The rules are different for the rich.
Something that those on the right and left can truly agree on, but then go
on arguing amongst themselves over social issues instead of focusing on
the money (which the rich think is just peachy). This is not to minimize
the pursuit of equal rights for those who have long been marginalized, but
an improved economy for all, a strengthened middle class, and fewer people
living in poverty is the true foundation to build proper and lasting civil
and equal rights legislation.
‘Getting financially lucky’ is now baked into our advertisements and
marketing:
If it’s not gambling ads (from online sportsbooks to the ‘give back to the
community’ government run lottery), then it’s the stock apps you can
‘invest’ in (and not gamble on, right?). It’s gotten to the point where
there’s peer pressure to jump right into the pyramid scheme that is
crypto-currency (in fact, it’s a pyramid scheme that security-wise is made out of
playing cards and placed in the middle of a hurricane).
But why even run that risk? Just let hyperinflation take over and we can
all be millionaires!
It does bear reminding that success for the average person in western
democracies requires lottery-ticket-like luck because we no longer live in
a true meritocracy. Even those that have made their success thanks to
meritocracy in the past, there is the tendency to switch to an
aristocratic lifestyle, meaning socializing and conducting future business
deals with other wealthy people alone, and passing along as much assets as
possible to family rather than society in general.
Unrestrained capitalism in the modern era ultimately begets
techno-feudalism. Capitalism is either going to dismantled by its critics,
or its gears will be ground into nothing by its unwavering supporters.
While the ‘richest’ always get more attention than the rich, only focusing
on the billions and billions of dollars that the typical Top Dawgs (Jeff
Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates) are worth obscures how wealth truly operates
in both a nation and the globe.
It is effortless to turn the blandest procedures of finance management
into shadowy conspiracies, but make no mistake, it is how economic policy
is governed by the ruling body of a state (democratic or otherwise) that
dictates how the power of a nation is diffused and divided. Mysterious
elites pulling strings from the shadows are only slightly romanticized
versions of billionaires spending millions on lobbyists to
‘pressure’
(translation: bribe via fundraising) politicians to
withdraw support to any tax increases on their assets.
The idea of ‘my money’ is both sensible (for work you have performed, here
is the money you receive for it) but also misguided because money is a
representation of power that is dependent on its regular and consistent
exchange between people for the proper functioning of society.
Making the Forbes list has become a badge of honour as well as a bit of
shame, as if many of those on it realize that flexing your third or fourth
houses is not what the general public wants to hear about, especially when
the middle class is hemorrhaging.
So it appears that for the wealthy the solution isn’t to fix inequality,
but just to be a lot more low-profile.
The wealthy and powerful don’t intentionally create chaos (too much risk
with that), but they definitely take advantage of chaos right after it
happens (much less risk, with the added bonus of a lot of people not
giving their full attention to the finance-related fine print)
Among the wealthy there is the thought that because they succeeded or take
advantage of a situation at the right time, they have a better insight to
how the world should be run, and that it’s just a coincidence that they
believe they also should be compensated handsomely for the responsibility
of taking on the organization of the socioeconomic policies that govern
our civilization.
And hey, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea…if the results of the last forty
years have shown that this form of organization is terrible for everyone
except those same rich people.
People seem to have this super villain-like image of banking CEOs and oil
company executives, where they're manically laughing, "ha, ha, ha! Fuck
the world and the poor! I don't care that I'm ruining the environment or
society! I'm getting rich and that's all that matters to me!"
That's not how it is. Of course these people like getting and being rich,
but they believe that they are providing an important role in today's
society, and even if it's not the best system, it's the one we have and
they'll try to think of plans for the future…as long as it doesn’t
jeopardize the needs of today.
And that sounds like bland, PR-bullshit, but that's how they think. In
bland, PR-bullshit, right down to the core. Which is why their arguments
for how their industries operate today sound like bland PR-bullshit.
When certain banks were aware of the riskiness in the housing market in
the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis, they weren't wondering, 'this
might lead to millions of people losing their homes and their jobs', they
were wondering, 'what is our exposure in the next several quarters?' It's
an amoral disconnect.
It's the banality of evil (ta, Hannah) in free-market capitalism.
The abdication of responsibility is infectious and becomes the norm quite
quickly. There’s always another wealthier, more powerful executive or CEO
who has even more influence, so don’t try to pin all of society’s
financial inequalities on someone who ‘just’ makes twenty million dollars
per year.
The 1% passes the buck and stresses it’s the 0.1% (or even 0.01%) that is
really ruining society and that they are just doing a little bit better
than the 99%.
Even Bezos or Musk would deny the impact they alone have on the economy
(certainly Amazon loves to tout how ‘small’ they are compared to the
retail industry as a whole), citing that the next few billionaires on the
rich list below them could ‘buy them out’ on certain days when their
stocks aren’t doing well.
Which means hoping that this group of powerful people suddenly seeing the
light is unlikely. Restructuring the global economy to make it more
sustainable and beneficial for as many people as possible is going to
hurt. Thing it, it won’t even hurt the wealthy (except for their egos)
because even taxing them at rates double to what they pay today (thanks to
loopholes) will still allow them to keep plenty of dough.
It seems like a Herculean effort just to get
households making more than $100 million USD to pay a minimum tax
of 20%.
Instead it's going to hurt in such a strong way for the rest of us that
plenty of average, non-wealthy people will want to stop the process and go
back to the old way of doing things.
As conservatism has known for a long time, it's easier to tear things down
than build them up.
The problem with Liberal policies is that it takes time to incorporate
them into society. It's hard enough to have a sizeable representation in
the halls of power that support these policies, but it's even harder to
pass legislation and properly support it (politically and financially)
over many years, not just a single election cycle. You can't expect
changes in funding to low cost housing, job placement agencies, and
infrastructure projects to result in economic and social gain within two
years. It can even take decades, and if the programs face cuts or are
cancelled outright because we expect results much too immediately, then it
will be so-called 'proof' by free-market conservatives that these sorts of
programs don't work.
Even more odious is the accusations of how the lower-class or impoverished
are continually given hand-outs that make them ‘dependable’ on government
assistance, as if the very wealthy are not horribly addicted to favourable
tax rates and corporate subsidies that have long been given to them on a
silver platter. Instead it is the occasional scam by those on social
assistance that is used as an excuse to shutter these extremely helpful
programs altogether.
But here in the unaffordable, pandemic-ravaged, war-torn, insecure world
of spring 2022, the masses don’t want everything. They just don’t want to
lose everything.
Notes
Who Owns Stock: (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-inequality.html)
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/03/26/billionaire-tax-budget-biden/)
Article on the challenges of African American communities regarding home
ownership and systemic racism (in the past explicit and today subtle):
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/magazine/real-estate-memphis-black-neighborhoods.html)
And another article how the wealthy are taking advantage of tax breaks
meant for small businesses by giving shares of their companies to children
and relatives:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/business/tax-break-qualified-small-business-stock.html) (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/in-2020-top-ceos-earned-351-times-more-than-the-typical-worker.html)
2021 Review: Lemons into Lemonade and back into Lemons
The good news is that the year started bad but didn’t get worse, although
saying it got better would be a stretch.
So that’s 2021 for the year. Being thankful for ever-smaller mercies.
It was the widespread of distribution of an extremely successful vaccine
for a pandemic that has done terrible things on both the individual
citizen and collective cluster that is humanity (certainly in terms of
global stability:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/us/politics/intelligence-global-trends-report-pandemic.html)
But
thinking positive is a must, because the alternative is so much worse.
It's a good thing to use the last nearly two years and reflect on some of
the positives that came out of the Coronavirus Period (even if just
'learning about yourself'). Choices you never would have made otherwise
that have had clear long-term benefits should be celebrated. Even seeing
how some of the economic recovery policies are going to help people who
had been in need of government assistance in some way that would not have
come about if Covid-19 didn't happen is a plus.
But remembering this article’s title, sitting back and enjoying that cool
refreshing drink when things seem to be going okay (were we really going
to say ‘well’?) is fine, but there are still plenty of lemons left over.
Trying to understand why people would be reluctant to use a life-saving
vaccine that has been properly tested (albeit on a quicker than usual
turnaround time for obvious reasons), reveals a complex series of factors
that whittle down to a lack of trust in institutions in modern society.
Because the socioeconomic policies of the globe depend of people
constantly making and buying things, the whole system went into shock
thanks to the effects of Covid. People and towns that were slow slipping
into the underclass were now free falling into it.
For the citizens who don't like the idea that they have to wear a mask
when going into a store, it is not so much the mask itself as it is the
idea that they are being told what to do.
[this is also a good time to acknowledge how good the people who have to
wear a mask as their job - whether as a first responder or working retail
at a grocery store - have persevered through this entire epidemic, because
eight hours with a mask really is difficult, so much more so than eight
minutes]
The
pandemic created a curtailing of freedom in the western world for very
obvious and sensible reasons - keeping people apart saves lives - and many
people were not okay with this trade. To them it was the government
screwing up and taking even more from them at the same time.
But freedom is contextual. Whatever you are
used to growing up - both in terms of what you are allowed to do in your
daily activities, and what you are told you are allowed to do by whatever
forms of authority are around you - is how you define freedom throughout
your life.
Freedom of speech, of protest, of movement
may seem like ideals enshrined in a constitution-like text, but it is
possible to run-up against the limits of these concepts in big and small
ways (libel, tear-gassed when you hold a sign, are felt unwelcome in
certain areas of town).
At the same time, you don’t think that
having to take a driving test and get car insurance could be considered
infringement on your freedom to just get behind the wheel and zip around,
because you’ve grown up accustomed to that system being ‘the way things
are’. Why are libertarians letting this oppressive far reaching
institution called the Department of Motor Vehicles set arbitrary driving
standards after checking with so-called experts telling you what’s too
fast?
Because we’re used to it.
Wearing masks and getting vaccinations are
new, and hey presto, ‘new’ doesn’t go well with what people are used to
when it comes to their freedoms.
And while money is certainly not freedom, it is definitely a measure of
power and what you can do with said power in society.
If those with much of the power keep taking more and more of the money
away from citizens, then they are taking away the ability to live in a way
that you've known all your life.
People are not reacting well to this, and any sort of solace they take in
finding on tv or online the ‘inside story’ of the last few weeks, months
or year is because it is catered to what they already want to believe.
If you wanted Covid to be so last year, it was. If you wanted it to inform
and affect every moment of your day in 2021, you could have that, too.
Our
echo chambers are becoming much better furnished and comfortable, which is
actually a massive problem.
The international intelligence community
was concerned for many years (and still to this day) over the radicalism
of young muslims via the internet. Not a peep about concerns of the
radicalization of the domestic far-right in Western nations through the
same medium.
Red pills, blue bills, we’ve willingly plugged into the Matrix for years,
just with much lower bandwidth because we are limited by having to tap and
scroll the screens in our hands. And the masters aren’t super-intelligent
bots who keep us in pods but just a bunch of greedy business assholes who
haven’t changed much in forty years.
It’s the haves versus the have-nots, with the haves trying to make sure
the have-nots bicker amongst themselves for scraps of what they think is
power.
For democracy fans, the events of January 6th are a shot to the gut,
crotch and frontal lobe all at once.
‘It can’t happen here’ never have to be chanted, it seemed so ridiculous,
and now it can’t be chanted at all because it’s not true.
With the authoritarianism of
Unfortunately the Republican Party is going the other way. A disturbingly
high number of conservative voters believe the 2020 election was
fraudulent, many of whom are politicians and others high ranking members
of the party. And those in the party who believe the elections were fair
and accurate can't even risk being that open about such a position, lest
they are marginalized and pushed out via the next primary by a far-right
candidate.
It is a negative feedback loop that just makes the partisans that much
more inflexible and adamant, and forces the ‘average’ voter into throwing
their tired hands up in exhaustion because even after ‘the most important
election of our lifetimes’, nothing much seemed to change.
'Desperation' is such a lamentable situation that it is completely normal
to deny such a state exists for you.
When citizens are desperate, they storm the capitol, and when they are
instigated by a leader who has lost the certifiably fair election, it
reveals just how shockingly fragile these institutions can truly be.
The
foundations for a liberal democracy in any country are never built on
solid stone, but rather shifting sands. Changes both domestic and foreign
can have huge effects on it, and while the building up of stable
democratic ideals can be slow, its tearing down can be done shockingly
quick.
It’s unnerving to remember that
everyone thinks they’re fighting fascists, whatever side of the barricade
you’re on.
For very good reason this was the
most-covered event of 2021 that didn’t include an ongoing pandemic that is
killing thousands of people every day.
But the true solution to such events
like January 6th and other examples of democracy-in-crisis can
be found in the less-covered news stories of the year.
There was yet another ‘Papers’ leak, this time titled ‘Pandora’, but third
time wasn’t the charm, as fewer people than ever before cared that the
world’s wealth was being crookedly shuffled around by the handful of
modern nobility who could afford to stash it in yawn-inducing shell
corporations and offshore accounts.
Why
would the world’s elites bother with hiding nanotechnology in vaccines to
control the populace? (as many conspiracy theorists espouse) That’s so
much more complicated and resource-heavy compared to bribing some
politicians to re-shape (or not re-shape) the tax code. Maybe spend some
money on deflection PR (see: Fox News, the internet), and voila, soon
there won’t even be
countries anymore, only economic districts.
It will be wealth oases among poor deserts, and watching
While the Democrats control both chambers
of Congress, two purple senators put the brakes on…the revival and
restoration of Western Democracy. That a 4% tax increase on the very
wealthy in
It’s sounds so familiar that it’s barely
considered news, but pairing that with the Pandora Papers (which made
headlines for perhaps half a day) is the reminder that the social contract
has been ignored for decades.
It is government spending money on a large social safety net to keep
people from getting desperate enough for basic necessities that they
become criminals to get it, otherwise you end up letting them become
criminals and then spend the government money on keeping them in prisons.
The prisons have demonstratively shown to cost more, plus the added
problem and tragedy of increased crime.
Therefore any sensible person (whether social liberal or fiscal
conservative) should support the more effective, affordable, and morally
superior way: Expanded social safety net.
To be utterly cynical but direct about it: Liberals want to spend money on
people when they are being lazy in their homes. Conservatives want to
spend money on people when they’re being lazy in jail.
But right now both sides are dependent on a moneyed class (although the
Libs try harder to spread the wealth around, certainly), whose own power
has had a bigger role in shaping the world economy since the start of the
pandemic
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/opinion/covid-pandemic-global-economy-politics.html).
This is
the future, and it’s one where the left can’t take a joke and the right
can’t take a vaccine.
It’s a year where one of the most
successful mass roll-outs of medicine in human history is viewed with
suspicion by a disappointingly high percentage. Where millions of people
in developed nations blindly declared that the pandemic was over and just
decided to live with it, by which they meant die with it, several thousand
people a day on average.
Oh, and more of the world melted, burned, flooded or got
covered in mud because Climate Change. Of the four horsemen of the
apocalypse, only War was the one inside the saloon for the last twelve
months, drinking while his three friends were riding roughshod over all of
us.
It is a future so is dark you need to turn on your
phone’s LED light before the battery goes out. For those set to inherit
it, calling
Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha (there is something pathetically ironic that the
nomenclature is starting back at the top during such a time) a bunch of
soft babies just shows the tone-deafness of the generations that created
the world we live in today.
The twenty year old and teenagers of today
are preparing to inherit the shittiest version of earth we can possibly
imagine, and it’s the chief complainers about them - Baby Boomers, Gen X -
that created it.
And ending this article with even more finger-pointing is more help
than hindrance, proof that choosing between what is right and what is easy
is…difficult.
One always feels slightly naïve when espousing kindness as a necessary
remedy to much of society’s ills.
No one wants to think that kindness is
related to comfort, because comfort is related to economic security, and
that last one is less about emotions and states of mind and more about
policy that a nation could try and offer its citizens.
It all gets complicated so quickly, and
2021 never let up, never gave us time to breath. So maybe that’s what we
must do during the waning days of this year, doing some mindful inhaling
and exhaling (focus on the raising and lowering of your shoulders), and
hoping for an even slightly better 2022.
Because there’s
only one thing you have left when you disown positivity.
Art and Such
There were things to consume for amusing
and semi-educational purposes that still tumbled out of and into people’s
brains and associated devices in 2021.
A documentary on the FastPass reservation
system in the Walt Disney theme parks was absolutely amazing, because it
was also about human psychology and economics:
https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE
Dune was a sci-fi documentary
about nations fighting over resources from eight thousand years in the
future.
Until
Spiderman: No Way Home arrived in the last two weeks of the year, the
biggest box office hit of 2021 was shaping up to be a Chinese film with a
$200 million budget called The
Battle at Lake Changjin, a war docudrama focusing on when the Chinese
army defeated Charlie Watts died, which is one sense is not a
surprise (he was 80) and a complete surprise, since it is generally
assumed the Rolling Stones will play their final show post-apocalypse.
Freak rock and roll dinosaurs that still are able to bring the riffage,
swagger and coke and sympathy. They’ve been around for so long that
they’re easy to be taken for granted.
These bands opened for the Stones:
Toots & the Maytals, Lifehouse, The Black Eyed Peas, Alice Cooper, Maroon
5, Kanye West, Beck, Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins, Alanis Morissette,
Christina Aguilera, Motley Crue, Metallica, Brooks & Dunn, Bonnie Raitt,
Trey Anastasio, Dave Matthews Band, Living Colour, The Living End, Joss
Stone, Nickelback, Buddy Guy, The Charlatans, Regina, Feeder, the John
Mayer Trio, Wilco, Richie Kotzen and Our Lady Peace. On one
tour.
The band is bigger than human comprehension
(hell in the seventies and eighties their openers were Stevie Wonder, the
Eagles, Van Halen, Journey, Foreigner, Doobie Brothers, Patti Smith,
Prince, ZZ Top, Guns ‘n’ Roses and (for the first time) Living Colour),
and deserves all the recognition in could get, even if you completely
forgot the drummer who never performed a solo.
Meanwhile,
Liars
dropped The Apple Drop, and it
is the most forgettable and normal (in a relative sense) album of their
career. Maybe a polite alternative rock album that could have been
released anytime in the last twenty five years is the most unexpected
thing you could get from this band. 2017’s
TFCF was the first without Aaron
Hemphill and it was still damn creepy and weird, so Angus Andrews cleaning
up his act with this was…strange?
We waited a long time for Kanye West’s
Donda, which has eight amazing
songs (Off the Grid, Hurricane, Jonah, Believe What I Say, Remote Control,
Heaven and Hell, Jesus Lord, Come to Life). Too bad there’s twenty-seven
tracks on the whole thing. But that’s Kanye now and forever. Talented,
overwhelming, clueless and proudly unrepentant. Compare it with Drake, who
releases inoffensive, never great, never awful music, always middle of the
road. You’ll marry the pleasant, reliable Drake, but you’ll have an
unforgettable affair with the mercurial Kanye.
For all around better
hip-hop,
Little
Simz’ Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
is a joy, and
Lingua Ignota is scar(r)ing everyone with the perfectly produced
industrial-classical horror that is
Sinner Get Ready (you have to earn that feeling of
exhilaration by trawling through the muck, and
speaking of which, Tool’s classic
Ænima is 25 years old but seems
to explain the nuttiness of now better than ever).
There were video games, too (but not Breath of the Wild 2, unfortunately). The good ones were
hard in a fun way (Death’s Door,
Metroid Dread) and escapist in a much-needed way (the expanse of an
open world in Halo: Infinite and
Sable, and the tense claustrophobia of
Resident Evil: Village).
Notes
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22432229/democracy-america-democratic-party-reform
Jesus is a Great Idea
You need to have faith to say that there is no god.
The Pope doesn't know what is going to happen after he dies any more than
Richard Dawkins does. Oh, Pope Francis certainly believes he is going to
be bathed in the eternal light of the holy father, and Professor Dawkins
believes his thought processes are going to just turn off for good like a
light switch, but neither of them knows for sure.
Technically we are all agnostics as no one knows what sort of
relationship humanity has with god (there might not be one at all, because
of lack of god). So we choose to believe in god, or gods, or no god at
all. And that's what faith is: The choosing to follow or eschew a
theological system that lacks any form of modern concepts of evidence
In the past the natural order of the world - sunrises, seasons, floods,
droughts - were consider evidence of a higher power imposing itself on
humanity. While science has taken all the fun out off that, there are
plenty of mysteries about the universe (dark matter, dark energy, muons'
influence on other particles) that always seem to pop up as we think we
have it all figured out. Of course why not fold your theological construct
to work above or within the confines of science. Just say God made the Big
Bang to start all this off, and that's why you get on your knees in praise
once a week.
But if God is our father, 'he' (remember, the supreme being is definitely
a guy, and it can't just be because the people who oversaw the development
of these religions were dudes. No way) should stop acting like a shitty,
absent one.
He is all over the Old Testament, and comparatively distant in the New.
The marketing is right there in the name. That is the grumpy Old God, and
this is the cool, hip young one who is down with wine and prostitutes.
A half-man, half-diety (an idea cribbed from Greek myth) here to teach an
ethics course on non-violence and civil disobedience.
God 2.0 impressed then frustrated the elites with his rhetoric and
philosophy, and he got the unwashed masses on his side through free
lunches, unlimited drinks, and health-centric party tricks.
Was he an actual physical presence that existed on the earth for thirty
or so years, two millennia ago?
Who cares.
No, really. It doesn't matter.
Were there plenty of religious leaders with ‘crazy ideas’ in Judea during
what would now be called 1st century AD? You bet.
But ‘Jesus Christ’ is a polyglot of other philosophical teaching from the
past. Clearly rooted in Judaism, the man's life and teachings crib from
the Buddha and Socrates. In fact, his bio is to these 'historical' figures
what Ice, Ice Baby is to Under Pressure.
An oddball ascetic who has a group of ardent followers and likes to
challenge basic ideas about society and its relationships to deities
through intense questioning and allegories/parables.
Christ goes into the desert for weeks to seek enlightenment, and avoids
temptation by the devil before he reaches that spiritual epiphany.
To do the same Siddhattha Gotama sat under a tree for several days until
he achieved awakening that showed the Middle Way (hybridization is big
religions).
While Buddha quickly made friends with both beggars and kings,
Jesus pisses off the
higher ups and they pressure the authorities to have him killed, which he
welcomes, because he feels his sacrifice represents something bigger.
Similarly, as Socrates amasses a following and his ideas of how best to
serve the gods frustrate the priests because it's not exactly in line with
what they want, he's considered to be a menace and public threat by the
elites.
They condemn Socrates to death, and even though there is the opportunity
to escape and flee Athens, he felt that doing so would be a rejection of
everything he stood for.
So he drinks the hemlock, holds no ill will against anyone, and asks an
associate to make a sacrifice to the god of medicine (a rooster) since he
was being 'cured' of life.
After being whipped and mocked and forced to drag his own death board
through town, Jesus is crucified with other criminals, thereby making it
clear that humanity is just fucking terrible, having done the worst
possible thing to the person who preached peace and love.
It created an easy endless guilt trip for future priests to put upon all
churchgoers. The point was that you should feel bad for this, that you
somehow owe God and Jesus (and conveniently, the priests) loyalty and
adherence.
For centuries this also became a reason to scapegoat Jewish people which
is tragic, bigoted and completely beside the point. The story is meant to
suggest that all of humanity is on the hook for this one. The gospels make
a point of showing how even Jesus' closest followers abandoned him at the
moment of his most needing (Peter denying knowing him as a rooster crows).
But because of his half-divinity, he knew it, accepted it, and of course
forgave everyone.
What separates Jesus from Socrates is the 'after credits' scene.
Christ's return is his last magic trick and a keystone to Christian
theology, even though it doesn't take a really heavy reading of the
gospels post-crucifixion to realize what survives (or more specifically,
what is meant to survive) is Christ's ideas, not his physical body.
Strangers 'become' Jesus when his disciples (soon to be apostles) show
kindness to them or break bread in the way he has taught them.
When they suddenly realize it's him, he vanishes. His work is done when
people become like him in their actions.
It's as if he's there to say 'good job, keep it up!' and then peaces out.
When Pentecost occurs a month and a half later, the Holy Spirit turns
disciples into apostles (the first follows, the second spreads the good
word), and their tongues of fire meant they could speak many different
languages effortlessly or babble incoherently (since the second one is
easier to do, you’ll still see it in some evangelist sects).
It's the exact same day as the Jewish festival of Shavuot, and it’s no
coincidence that the major Christian holidays occur at the same time as
Jewish ones, or other holy days fall when popular pagan religions had
their own celebrations.
Subsuming other religions is just good marketing.
What did Hinduism do as Buddhism became popular? They made Buddha a big
part of it, calling him an avatar of Vishnu, one of their tops gods. If
you can't beat 'em, add 'em (thousands of years later, the French would
add cigarettes to Buddhism and create existentialism).
Make no mistake, you gotta sell your god(s) to people and it better be a
lot of good news, because blood and thunder only go so far.
If you want people to celebrate your theology, don't
force them to change their schedules around it, or make them change their
diet (if you can't beat 'em, add 'em, but...uh...history has shown that if
you can beat 'em with your army, you might add 'em by force).
The gospel of Jesus Christ was all good news. A pity it wasn’t actually
written down for the first time until thirty years after he was gone and
most of his original followers had also perished. It’s not really a
problem when someone writes about their childhood as they’re going through
a mid-life crisis, because it’s no big deal if they misremember things.
But writing four kinda similar stories about the messiah? Maybe you
shouldn’t wait for what was a literal lifetime for a lot of people back
then.
Regardless of Christ’s existence, divinity or actions, it was inevitable
that existing only as an oral tradition for three decades was going to get
nice and embellished.
As much as parables and his actions in certain situations are meant to
teach, making his life interesting meant adding miracles, temptation in
the desert, betrayal, persecution and ultimate triumph. Even the rituals
became more mystic than necessary.
The transubstantiation of the flesh doubles and triples down on this
idea, getting as ridiculously captain obvious about becoming Christ by
'eating' him, just so some of the slower adherents really understand the
point (while at the same time being confusing to outsiders, as one of the
early criticisms Romans levied against Christianity was its alleged
cannibalistic aspects).
Jesus can be each and every one of us. When we act as he would, that is
the divine part of ourselves. The 'higher values', the 'heaven on earth',
the 'new
Christ's life is a parable of how to create the concept of heaven on
earth.
We're supposed to do this by our kind and noble actions towards each
other.
In fact, Jesus himself stressed just how to do this.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek,
those who thirst and hunger for righteousness, those who are merciful,
those who are pure of heart, those who are peacemakers, those who are
persecuted because of Jesus himself.
These are the beatitudes (according to the gospel of Matthew), and they
never get enough attention, not only in terms of the teachings of Jesus,
but in the overall focus of organized Christianity. Despite the teacher's
name right there in the title, the best known rules are the Old
Testament’s (and old god’s) Ten Commandments, a series of a rules that are
more about 'no' than 'yes', more about forbidding bad behaviour than
encouraging good.
The Old Testament style was much better for authoritarian dictatorships,
hence its embrace of kings both good and bad, and how even when Judea was
under Roman rule at the time of Jesus, this caste-like system of monarchy
(Herod) and religious branches of Judaism led by high priests were
powerful.
Meanwhile a carpenter’s son who had a flair for rhetoric spent time with prostitutes, lepers, and
fishermen (an 'everyman' job that is meant to represent baseness and
poverty). While a disdain for Roman authority was expected through Judea,
Christ welcomed tax collectors and acknowledged 'giving to Caesar what is
Caesar's.
The barrier for entry into this lifestyle, this mindset, or this wacky
offshoot sect of Judaism was negligible. Don’t love your friends and hate
your enemies, love your friends and enemies.
It is amazing, it's glorious, and shouldn’t have to be reliant on the
divinity of a biblical hippie.
The belief in Christ is where all his power resides, but it didn't take
long for that power to lead people to do things that would make Jesus
never stop throwing up.
The early years of Christianity was a fight - sometimes with words,
sometimes with sharp objects - over who this person was and what he should
be. There were arguments over how many gospels the slowly unifying
Christian church should acknowledge (there were dozens, they settled on
four).
More and more people living under the instruction and rules of the
interpreters (the priestly caste) of a perceived messiah who lived
hundreds of years prior is a concentration of power that can be a irritant
or direct challenge to the present power structure.
Christianity went from something that was persecuted by the Roman Empire
to something that was tolerated by it to something that took control of it
(to the point where it was called the Holy Roman Empire for centuries, as
it was essentially run by the head priest (the Pope)).
It became a political position, where having any level
of piety or spiritual guidance towards his followers was just a side bonus
(or in some cases, a hindrance).
Jesus left his right-hand man Peter with some pitifully loose instructions
when it came to overseeing his followers after his death (‘feed my
sheep’), and while parables are nice for philosophical teaching, they’re
pretty unhelpful for management.
Hence centuries of corruption, anti-popes (yup), the crusades, inquisition
(no one expects…), many schisms and a brutal European war simply titled
‘the wars of religion’ (between different Christian groups).
In case no one had been reading their bible: You're supposed to die for
Jesus, not kill for Jesus.
If you're the ones doing the persecuting, guess what, you aren't doing
anything in the name of your saviour.
If you are ostracizing or marginalizing any group of people, you aren’t
doing anything in Christ’s name.
A Christian nation is an oxymoron, an empty gesture, a vulgar display of
pride and a complete misunderstanding of the community the teachings of
Jesus Christ outline.
If your country does not have a military then yes, the chance of it being
overrun quite early in its existence by a well-armed neighbour is quite
high, but what of that? What does it matter if you are killed while
upholding the peaceful values of Jesus, since that is exactly what he did?
Perhaps Christ’s crucifixion was only the worst thing humanity did to his
body. Empires, institutions and nations that are awash in wealth and
hollow power while claiming to represent him must be constant punishment
upon his soul.
As
John Darnielle noted, “they sold Jesus Christ for a bag of magic beans and
then started worshipping the beans.”
What would Christ think of mega-churches built on the small donations of
followers that create fortunes for the charismatic pastors who implore
them to call the hotlines for personal prayers for even more money?
Not much.
These are the Pharisees and Sadducees of today, cold-hearted adherents
who attempt to warp the scriptures to their own ends at best, and
religious con-men and women at worst, using pretzel logic to defend
everything from the killing of abortion doctors to homophobia (who would
have guessed that loving Jesus would involve hating so many other people,
because really, who would jesus cancel?) and
selling heaven as a cure-all, as long as you fork over the cash right
now.
‘Heaven’ not in the sense of finding inner peace by doing good and
being humble and pious right now, but the pie-in-the-literal-sky notion of
another place that’s full of all the things we like and void of all the
things we don’t.
The idea of 'more life' after the life we are currently living really
seems to be wishful thinking, and an indication of how much we fear death
and uncertainty.
Modern popular concepts of heaven sound like something a nine year old
would babble on about because they didn't get everything they wanted for
Christmas:
"It's like after your life you get even more life but goes on forever and
ever and you get whatever you want all the time and you'll never get old
and Jesus and everyone you know and love will be there so you can have a
big party together."
Christmas is a good reminder that
God is just Santa Claus for adults. A powerful
omnipotent, omniscient figure who lives in a distant place and doles out
rewards and punishments based on whether you obey your superiors.
The teaching of Christ is practically an attempt to unshackle ourselves
from the strict hierarchy of his father, but these chains are strong.
While religion might be an opiate for the masses, having a personal
connection to a higher power or a notion great harmony (note the lack of
specific terms) is an extreme valuable mental and spiritual resource for
many people.
Living a life without a theological structure - especially one that
stresses celebrating their faith in together - might be too much for a
majority of citizens to bear.
Separating a rigid hierarchy of rules made (or at least interpreted) by
small groups of powerful leaders and having everyone live in the spirit of
peace and charity is no easy feat.
It's what Jesus and his symbolic fore-bearers were trying to do, and he
inadvertently became the central figure in one of the most powerful and
complicated institutions in human existence.
For all the power the old testament god and his half-divine offspring may
have had, they have been fairly AWOL in that development, lending more and
more credence over time that the story of Christ was just that. A story.
It’s up to the reader to perform daily miracles.
At a time when we are more connected in some ways but more distant in
others than ever before, we all have to be Christ. Because god knows he can't be.
2020 Review:
The Wounds
"An era can be said
to end when its basic illusions are exhausted."
- Arthur Miller
"The Wheel is turnin',
And it can't slow down,
You can't let go,
And you can't hold on,
You can't go back,
And you can't stand still,
If the thunder don't getcha,
Then the lightning will."
-The Wheel, Grateful Dead
Organization does not come quick, easy, or cheap.
But chaos certainly can.
2020 was so bad for so many people that it effortlessly made everyone
forget how difficult life was before it. 2019 and previous years were
marked by rising inequality, rising debt, rising authoritarian and
isolation, rising corporatization, and rising sea waters. And 2020 just
made everything worse.
You don't know you're in a golden age until it's over, and you don't know
you're in a dystopia until it's too late.
Helplessly insular as we look out our real windows across the
street and into our digital windows across the globe
Coronavirus was much more dangerous to people who were old, with
debilitating pre-existing conditions, and did not take any precautions.
So
But the West in general too.
In a democracy, you have the choice/freedom to do what you believe to be
responsible.
In an authoritarian state, you are forced into doing what the government
says is the responsible thing.
It is not so much that authoritarian states have an easier time with
fighting the Coronavirus (since the government might make the wrong
decision), but that in democratic nations we all have to individually
choose what the right way is to fight a pandemic, and then follow through.
The responsibility falls on all our shoulders, and only when we all work
as one are the effects evenly distributed.
While tens of
millions suffered through the disease, billions suffered from its wider
effects, yet the very wealthy ending this year richer than they started.
Economic inequality tears at the fabric of a democratic
society, especially ones that have traditionally been dependent on a
robust middle class.
Many people could tell that they were slipping behind and losing, so of
course a bombastic con-man boasting about so much winning would catch
their ear.
'It's not your fault. It's the other's fault.'
'Everyone's telling you lies but me.'
'Wouldn't it be great to have all of the churches full?'
This is why the legacy of Donald Trump is so dangerous, regardless of his
(also terrible) policies. Trump's ability to hammer a lie into a perceived
truth by his supporters is sadly always going to valuable to vested
interests. Before and after the election he has repeated ad nauseam that
it is a fraud and illegitimate (but only if he loses), and now 70% of
Republicans believe the results are not fair. Trump has created an
atmosphere where over a third of the country don't recognize the
president-elect.
It has been said that the most powerful thing in the world is an idea,
usually in the context of it being inspiring and benevolent. But the door
swings both ways, and we are seeing how dangerous a bad idea can slowly
erode trust in society.
Momentum can fuck you. On a micro level, getting a good job can lead to a
lot less stress, a better place to live eating healthier, becoming more
social and open-minded. Losing your job (or getting sick, or having to
assist a friend or loved one going through those same things) can lead to
more stress, worse mental and physical health, poor decisions making, and
placing a greater strain on the people around you and the community at
large, which is how momentum on a macro level can be gauged.
Everything is connected, for good and for ill, and the way we live now has
never been so dependent on the status of others on the other side of the
planet.
Western democracy is in bad shape, but if you save America, you save the
world. When a working democracy is the most powerful form of governance on
the planet, then we really are
bending that moral arc towards justice.
But America is slipping from that, and has been for decades. A rejection
of Trump is certainly to be lauded, but my god was it close. Biden may
have won the popular vote healthily, but only won Arizona, Georgia,
Nevada, and Wisconsin by a combined 77,000 votes (and if he lost those, he
would lose the Electoral College vote).
There is passionate populism that seems intent on giving even more power
to the small group of wealthy elites. If not basic corporatism, then the
'cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face' decision of Brexit. Even far
from a national stage, the
The rural voter looks at the urban voter with resentment and 'don't tread
on me', even though most city dwellers are in the same economic boat as
those in small towns. And the reverse is true, with citizens of New York,
Chicago and LA (or London,
Madrid and Toronto for that matter) always wondering what the hell is
wrong with flyover country.
This divided house of family members who have more in common than they
think is a boon to the wealthy estate and penthouse owners of the country
and city respectively.
Arguments for progressivism or conservatism strengthen and weaken with
surface conditions. Some change can be sharp, and these can come from
instigators like natural disasters, military actions and global pandemics.
Most situations however are slow to change. The path of social and
economic policies takes years or even decades to alter. Conservative
fiscal policy is finally falling out of favour after roughly four decades
of dominance. It is hard to argue that pro-corporate deregulation has
helped the average citizens wages when the big increase has been seen only
in the wealthy getting wealthier.
The negatives effects are much more subtle until the house of cards
finally tumbles down, and nowconservatives are not thrilled with having to
acknowledge that free market capitalism has been a failure unless you own
a company, or plenty of stock in a company.
For decades the inadvertent agreement that the left would make social
gains while the right would make economic ones. Obviously each side would
want to control both, and now that the left has made strides to grant more
freedoms and protections for women, minorities and the LGBTQ community
(while much still must be done), they are coming for the right's
strange-hold on money matters. We've made mention in the past our worry of
society being able to make these necessary social and economic changes.
Improving laws is an essential step forward, but the hardest work is
slowly and steadily changing people's minds, which takes years or decades.
A timetable that seems unthinkable compared to the social media
scream-sphere.
Digital feudalism looks to be in our future, and the way we leaned even
heavier on this technology in 2020 has accelerated this process.
The Industrial Revolution changed the world, and made a very small segment
of the populace very rich (some of whom were members of the noble class,
who effortlessly pivoted from owning land and people to owning factories
and workers). For several decades the masses attempted to organize and
were rebuffed or beaten down.
It took a devastating and obvious economic catastrophe (what is the Great
Depression, Alex?) for social programs to finally be enacted.
We are at a period where the computer/digital revolution has changed
everything about society right across the planet. And the companies which
own and operate these systems are public only in the sense that anybody
can own stock in them, but the reality is that a small group of investors
reap the benefits. Sucking the wealth out of countries, and then shrugging
their shoulders and saying, 'hey
that's the system, I don't make the rules', ignoring the fact that
they do indeed make the rules.
This nobility has little affection for their country, beyond how well they
can pull the levels of power to their advantage. Smaller nations are
selling themselves to the highest buyer, which is how former Google CEO
Eric Schmidt ends up with a Cypress citizenship. To them, capitalism is
working perfectly. And that's the problem.
It means that the world as a whole is terribly equipped all the other
problems that we had to deal with even before a global pandemic.
The temporary suspension of the world economy's 'business as usual' means
that for once there is a lowering of global CO2 emissions, which is a
silver lining in a year that's mostly lead. A good thing, too, since the
year began with the entire continent/country of Australia on fire. Not to
be outdone, the western United States did the same thing in the summer.
Climate change has occasionally gotten people marching in the streets, but
it was the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis
police that initiated protests across America and the globe. It was a
painful reminder not just of the violent attacks black men have suffered
at the hands of the people who are supposed to protect them, but of the
continued marginalization of minorities (whether based on skin colour,
culture or creed) in states and societies across the planet. If there no
justice for all today, there will be justice for even fewer tomorrow.
And there is a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe that creates an exhaustion
on top of all these others.
2020 is a year that felt long and short, that was marked by long trudges
of boredom interrupted by bad and worse news. The fault of a state or
society to care for its citizens is exposed when leaders who tell people
to do nothing and isolate for the benefit of all only works when you can
live comfortably by temporarily by isolating.
People don't like
being told they have to change their behaviour for the betterment of the
future when the their present is failing apart. Which means they have to
chose to change willingly. Which is much harder to do, especially with how
much noise comes with the cyberspace medium (and is the message itself,
after all).
How people minds are shaped today are by what they see and how they
interact with a technology we don't truly understand. Reaching out online
in 2020 had all the benefits and problems that have always existed in
doing so, but it felt more necessary than ever before.
We are moving even quicker to a
world of automation and algorithmic artificial intelligence, and it is
warping all the rules and behaviours we are familiar with.
A society and an individual can only bend so much before they break.
But the standard ‘crack in
everything, that’s how the light gets through’ (thanks, Leonard) always
applies. Time after time, humanity has shown that after huge disasters in
the past, we have dusted ourselves off and slowly (but surely) gotten back
to our feet. The hope that we can learn as a group about the errors we’ve
made on the global and local scale a like and begin to right this ship. We
are always going to have to re-fucking-orientate (thanks, ZMF), and maybe
for 2021 we should consider that a
life well lived is having a little time for yourself and buying a little
time for everyone else. It’s start, and every day is, too.
2020 Culture
The creation of arts, literature, music, movies and tv were all affected
by this Covid year, and at the same time it was never so essential. While
there was always a danger of the Internet making endless music and viewing
options a perfect distraction when there more pressing issues for dutiful
citizens, there wasn't much else to do during the first, second, and third
waves of the pandemic. Getting to the 'end of netflix' or clearing out
your video games backlog was easier to do when confined to your home.
For music from this year, Fiona Apple's 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' is just
as good as everyone says, Lianne La Havas' self-titled record is better
than everyone else says, and for those who want to know what Neptunian
Maximalism sounds like, there's Eons' massive album, 'Neptunian
Maximalism'.
The Mandalorian continues to prove that crowd-pleasing Star Wars stories
doesn't have to be found in the cinema, and a galaxy far, far away is a
welcome sort of escape from the year.
For something more down to earth, David Fincher's 'Mank' makes writing a
screenplay seem like the most exciting job in the world, with beautiful
camerawork and clever quips.
ESPN/Netflix's documentary on Michael Jordan (The Last Dance) makes you
want to install a basketball hoop in your living room.
It was a wild year for the real entertainment of the future, video games.
If you wanted to avoid the bleak futures of The Last of Us Part 2, Half
Life: Alyx, and Cyberglitch 2077, there's the year's biggest fantastical
hit, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, where you can build and decorate an
island with talking animals… for a capitalistic raccoon.
But if even the idea of consuming culture made/released during this awful
year fills you with dread, there is always the very easily accessible
past.
The technology that has somewhat screwed us over can at least make it easy
to reach out and grab the warm embrace of yesteryear.
Which is why going back to The Grateful Dead has been incredible. Far be
it for us to diverge from popular opinion, so Cornell '77 really is the
best full live show introduction (although Europe '72 (a live album of
selected live tracks from the similarly named tour) is probably best for
absolute beginners). A personal favourite has to be Oct.2/77 (Portland),
which opens with a wild Casey Jones that really stretches out, and has a
great Playin'-Wheel-Truckin'-Other One-Wharf Rat-Sugar Magnolia jam in the
second set (and Scarlett-Fiiiiiiire). March.27/88 is tops as well, because
Brent is so key to the success of 80s Dead. And Veneta '72 isn't screwing
around, either (I suppose if you want to understand The Grateful Dead
(…man), you can just listen to Dark Star > El Paso (available as a video
on youtube)).
As far thematic aesthetic matching, the ravenous, nauseous sounds of the
Liars' second LP, They Were Wrong So We Drowned (2004), fit 2020 like a
bloody glove.
Nintendo obviously had plans to celebrate Mario's 35th anniversary this
year before things got turned upside down, but the release of the first
three 3D entries into the series (from 1996, 2002 and 20007, respectively)
was a joyful triple jump down memory lane. The capper of the trilogy
(Super Mario Galaxy) is so good that it might be a slightly frustrating
wait if you decide to play them in order.
Notes
(https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/republicans-free-fair-elections-435488)
What
is 'Now' Now? The Covid-19 Article
It’s the end of August and never has twelve named months seemed so
arbitrary.
2020AD (how’s that for arbitrariness?) is the year of the Coronavirus. In
terms of a 'year in review' article, plenty of it can be written now, with
a comment on the upcoming
Countries have seen their infection rates rise and fall, a testament to
how human beings are able to adapt to certain things quickly, and can be
completely bewildered when other things throw them for a loop. Suddenly
throwing a party or attending one is representative of a careless breaking
point, a symbol of dangerous defiance, a desperate reach for the normalcy
of the before times.
The passage of time - and what is expected to be accomplished in its
familiar packets - has been turned askew enough with the Internet, but
with a pandemic basic routines like work, school, entertainments,
exercising, and administration of mental and physical health have been
interrupted in various degrees across the globe.
Depending on who you are or who you ask, the 'various degrees' are due to
the fact that not all nations are created equal. Even with groups like the
World Health Organization, each country has to confront Covid-19 with
whatever tools are at their disposal. Which is why experts forecast that
it would hit the poorer countries the hardest. Of course this assessment
didn't take into consideration how absolutely bone-headed some leaders of
some very wealthy and powerful nations would shit the bed in their
Coronavirus response.
This, in turn, affects the overall global response as well. The world
can't get back to normal and open its borders if the
Like Covid-19, the
economy is a shambling monster that everyone is unsure how to stop, but
the economy is something that we'll be damned if we slow down it for
something like this.
The system that we all adhere to - no matter how passively or reluctantly
- demands that products be made so they can be purchased. While it mainly
lines the pockets of the corporate owners, there are enough people
dependent on the ancillary process of creation and logistics management
that entire communities can be shut down and become helpless at times like
this.
Certainly tourism, entertainment and the service sectors have been hit the
hardest, doubly so in post-industrial regions where these industries that
are expected to absorb the transference of workers leaving various trade
and manufacturing jobs.
Slashing prices doesn't matter if people can't get to the physical
locations of the amazing deals, or if they can't afford them any longer,
no matter what the discount. As Doctor Pagkas-Bather pointed out in the
clearest possible way: "Dead people don't shop."
For the living, Coronavirus has not affected us equally. The earliest dire
forecasts posited that the poor and marginalized would be much more
affected both directly and indirectly by the disease. That means they will
be more likely to get the disease, as they live in more concentrated
conditions, and would have to work during the pandemic because they can't
afford not to, also increasing the chances of them getting it. Those well
off can live off of savings, work from home, have food delivered, or even
get out of the city.
For some business has boomed, and it just so happens that many that own
said businesses are already sitting on commas. Food for thought: If a
global pandemic that kills hundreds of thousands of your own citizens
makes your wealthy citizens richer and your poor citizens poorer, then you
are country-ing wrong.
Already lost in the much more eye-catching news stories is the trillions
of dollars that the US government essentially gave to Wall Street in
March, essentially covering any ‘pandemic-related’ losses by investors,
encouraging them to make the same sort of risky bets and buy-backs as
before (while cutting costs and furloughing employees at the worst
possible time for the average worker).
Meanwhile everyone else is waiting to go back to normal, even if normal
was for the most part a steady slide of the masses into a vast economic
underclass with the effects (and side effects) of a warming planet making
life more difficult for everyone.
Maybe normal has to change as well. Maybe this is finally the Real End of
the ME Decade, which was a nickname for the eighties (and should have
ended during that same period). It was the decade which cut taxes and
corporate regulation for people who wanted it, as well as cutting social
programs and government services for people that needed it. The time was
epitomized by the ethos 'greed is good', which came from a popular and
acclaimed movie simply called Wall Street.
And throughout the nineties and into the new millennium, even if
corporatism became vilified (while truly it just grew stronger), everyone
clung on to the idea of 'ME'. The individual was championed, even if it
meant that the community itself would become slowly frayed and weakened.
And now, here in 2020, with Coronavirus seeping into every aspect of our
lives, the necessity of us being able to depend on our fellow neighbours
and citizens to do the right thing is a brand new development, with a
'brand new' disease.
It features an incubation period that has completely thrown out our
traditional expectations of how a disease works. With other illnesses, if
you spend time around a person who is sick, you typically show symptoms
within a day if you are infected. Not so with Coronavirus, where you may
not feel sick for up to a week, meaning during that time you can spread
the disease to others completely unknowingly (compound this with people
who might be asymptotic the entire time they have the disease, increasing
the chance of spread to someone who might ultimately succumb to it). We
are carrying around a week's worth of our lives everywhere we go.
There is the idea that anyone around you could get you sick, so you have a
constant suspicion of your fellow citizen. The uncertainty over whether if
someone not wearing mask now has been negligent for weeks on end, adding
to our fear that no matter how diligent the people in our circle are,
people have not yet realized that this a group effort.
Staying inside and socially distancing is putting a toll on many people's
mental health, and once again the class issue is apparently. The more
money you have, the more space you like have, and the more likely you can
find a moment's respite from everyone else you are 'trapped' with. We are
already a society that is pivoting towards a virtual form of communication
and interaction, and while some can easily adapt to the world of Zoom and
online gaming for socializing, a great many are finding the isolation
stultifying.
How this will all play out in the long term obviously remains to be seen.
Many of the articles linked at the end of this piece were written in the
early months of the pandemic, and going back to them was sobering to see
how the experts were right and how their fears came true when their
warnings went unheeded.
So many of the concerns of things getting worse before they get better
still apply now, since not only was America's disastrous summer of record
infections and deaths a (preventable) national tragedy and shame, but
global issues that were a problem before have compounded.
Klein's Shock
Doctrine once again shows that one chaotic event is a fine time for the
powers that be to establish an even stronger hold on their citizens.
Emergency orders that are instituted by leaders that have very little
oversight are done with the understanding by the public that this is
temporary, that it will only remain in place for the length of the
emergency.
But for this to be truly effective, the leaders had to have shown the
public that they are trustworthy, and the public has to show the leaders
that they will abide by the rules of the emergency order. If the first is
not in place, it is unlikely that the second will follow.
And with the Coronavirus being a threat to society for a long time
to come (certainly many months more, with some policies being kept in
place past this year), it is a chance for authoritarians to seize power.
In the West, worries in the spring months that nations - or states or
provinces within them - would keep these lockdown orders in place came to
be unfounded. Corporate profit supersedes government overreach, since
Trump and many states who were slovenly supportive of him opened up when
cases were trending downwards (with disastrous results). And Trump is the
sort of leader who will disregard science and the experts and go with his
gut. It's a bad enough policy at the casino or whentrying to run a casino,
but it's horrific when you are in charge of a nation during an emergency.
Watching it happen from the country to the north is like watching another
car on the road suddenly skid and flip over and end up in the ditch, and
you can only hope that the same thing doesn't happen to you.
Such is the challenge of writing in the middle of things. Trying to
capture the moment of the time. A tinge of fear and wariness as you see it
always happening to others, until the situation suddenly becomes much
closer to home. Even saying it's the middle is uncertain, because we still
might be in the beginning stage. The first third of a period that won't
truly end until late 2021.
For the many who have been fortunate to not come down with illness, there
's a despairing, exhausting ordinariness to these weeks and months. Six
months of diligence becomes all for nothing if we drop our guard and the
disease hits the community in the seventh month.
If we complained about the day-in day-out pre-Coronavirus, you can bet
we'll complain about this new routine. Some will say it is in an
infringement on their rights and others will not shut up about the
inconvenience of having to wait in line.
Our inability to adhere to experts' warnings and advice while embracing
crackpot good news and conspiracy theories shows that information has
never been more catered to what you want to believe.
Distrust in authority is healthy only to a slight degree. It doesn't take
much to find examples of those in power using it for their own ends
(usually to get more power for themselves), but writing off the system
completely just hastens its ineffectiveness and/or collapse.
No region of the globe should get on their high horse. There have been
large spikes in infections across
The West is not a society that deals with asceticism and restraint well.
Indeed, for several decades we've been sold on the idea that bigger is
better, more is better, and getting all of it right now is best of all.
This is wholly incompatible with what is expected of a populace during a
pandemic.
A global crisis like this glaringly exposes the society's flaws.
Bloated European bureaucracy that attempts to assist everyone.
American pay-to-play democracy which is destroying itself from the inside
with the increasingly concentrated wealthy calling the shots.
Brutal Chinese and Russian authoritarianism where the oligarchs control
everything and jail or kill their critics.
And smaller nations have to dance carefully through hoops and over
double-edged swords to stay on the right side of everyone else.
The irony is that because the threat of disobeying a lockdown order in
China means you and your family can be penalized and/or arrested, they can
be much more effective in stopping the spread of Covid-19, whereas the
freedom to ignore government mandates without (much) repercussion has made
the problems in America and other democratic nations worse.
In these countries, you have to choose to be responsible and think of your
fellow citizen when you decide to put on a mask. There is no greater proof
that the United States remains a free country in this regard, but it also
illustrates how free choice certainly allows the possibility of making the
choice that does more harm (easier to catch and spread Covid-19 when you
don't wear the mask) than good (something about freedom, apparently). You
don't just wear the mask for yourself, you wear it for everyone else
around you. On top of being a disease-prevention-device, it is also a
symbol of safety and togetherness, but it's all for naught if many people
see it is as a form of nefarious control. The importance of these
preventative measures has been recently reinforced with the discovery that
re-infection is absolutely possible, meaning the typical immunity that
comes with being infected with the virus and recovering only lasts about
four months. Constant vigilance will have to be the number one gift this
holiday season.
But in terms of good news, a massive drop in global CO2 emissions finally
occurred!
What a way.
It's chiefly related to the curtailing of global transport (mainly of
people, but also of goods), but it is seen as a terrible interruption of
'the way things are', not an epiphany that we need to all agree to stop
travelling considerably less.
Early on in the pandemic (when people thought the changes might only last
weeks), airlines in Europe were flying empty flights from airport to
airport just so they could keep their spots on the route (according to
European aviation rules, only so many planes can operate on flights from
between cities, and it's 'use it or lose it').
How we deal with other stuff is changing. Panic buying becomes 'not buying
enough'. Average household savings has increased during the pandemic, but
that’s not how the economy works, right? As restrictions eased in the late
spring, there was a flood of car commercials using Covid as a promotional
tool, telling you how it's time for you to 'get back out there'...and buy
an F-150 that can cost as much as your annual salary.
For once people don't seem to be falling for it, eschewing the consumption
role they are expected to play in the always thirsty capitalism. Using
less stuff - and certainly wasting less stuff - is how we are going to
have to live anyway (minus the panicked hoarding).
This is a tiny blueprint of the future, which unfortunately will be tied
to the fact that many, many more people across the globe will be forced
into using/buying less stuff because they can't afford to live any other
way. Temporary aid packages are just that. While it acknowledgements that
the pandemic is a special occasion, they exist as if everything was
absolutely fine beforehand.
A pandemic such as this is a convenient tipping point where we can make
positive changes to bring more equity to the globe, or where we tumbled
further into a dystopian future with a small powerful overclass and
massive underclass.
We want to watch Bladerunner movies, not live in a Bladerunner world.
The economic famine reveals itself. The withering of small towns across
the West was in part due to lack of good jobs around them (as factories
closed and farm consolidated and corporatized), which forced the cities to
absorb more citizen trying to make a living, and therefore competing for
an ever-shrinking piece of the pie.
The Western middle class went East when the manufacturing jobs headed that
way in the eighties and nineties. In North America and
What does this have to do with dealing with a pandemic right now?
Everything, because it determines how people act and how a government will
function during this crisis.
Coronavirus wasn't humanity's great fight against a super virus. It was a
shot across the bow. A warning that we had better take advantage of and
prepare not just for the next pandemic, but any sort of similar sort of
unpredictable and dangerous event that can affect the entire globe. Modern
technology has allowed us to be more connected than ever before, but this
great strength also reveals a great weakness. We are so connected that
when something goes wrong in one place, it can massive repercussions for
the entire globe, and not just to global physical health, but global
economic health. Our society is not taking care of its citizens.
We have to change moving forward. We have never been asked to 'fight' as
'one', and since that is almost always an abstract notion (even in wars,
more people act as support than actually fight on the battlefield), our
fight is against tiny microbes.
Well…adapt or die.
Sources/Notes
How inequality is exacerbated during these times:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/world/europe/coronavirus-inequality.html)
How the virus can trigger a recessions:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/coronavirus-economy-debt.html)
Economic Fragility:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/upshot/coronavirus-economy-crisis-demand-shock.html)
A really good 'big picture' overview of coronavirus:
Big money for big banks in the COVID-19 aid package:
The terrible destruction of large amounts of unused food:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-destroying-food.html)
The BIG interconnected money problem:
Problems with just-in-time consumerism/consumption
Emissions down:
(https://earther.gizmodo.com/satellites-show-italys-air-pollution-dissipating-as-cov-1842316669)
COVID-19 and Civil Rights (https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/07/covid19-and-the-left-an-ignored-civil-rights-crisis/)
The
Future of Killing People
In physics there is the three body problem, where it is
seemingly impossible to know the outcome of a movement with certainty when
you have three interacting items. 'Body' is a mainly placeholder term,
since three of any sub-atomic particles to planets can be used as
examples.
'Body' is becoming a placeholder term for the concept
of human individuals as well, since our physical body is sharing more and
more of our identity with a virtual one. Your online 'weight' is measured
in bytes instead of kilograms, and just as having too many kilograms can
be risky to your physical body, having too large a presence online (in the
form of photos and videos on your social media pages as well as doing
banking, work and leisure and so many other activities) can also pose
several risks to your online body.
In terms of the relationship between the individual and
the state, the concept of body is used in similar ways. We eat and
exercise to maintain our health, and the state must attend to the needs of
its citizens and protect them from danger.
On a molecular level 'we' do all we can to keep germs
and disease at bay through our innate and adaptive immune systems. This
constant war for our health has no space for mercy. Viruses and bacteria
are destroyed without a thought...since everything that exists on this
level utilizes stimulus-response.
When adjusting the argument for size and humanity, the
question gets complicated: If the nation itself is a body, should it not
do everything it can to protect itself?
French theorist Michel Foucault opined that in the past
authority showed its power by inflicting physical punishment. That is,
power was tied to the ability to kill or impair the body. For grievous
crimes (or what was thought to be grievous at that time in history), it
was a death, the destruction of the body. For lesser crimes (such as
theft) there was the removal of the hand, or branding.
In some instances, discomfort and shame were used (the stocks, tar
and feathering).
Prison was only used for debtors, and the point of keep
them confined was only so there would be an attempt by someone else to
release them by paying off the debt. The idea being that a dead or
severely incapacitated man meant the lender was out of luck.
Through changes in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries to criminal reform, Foucault opined that the punishment was less
at about punishment to the body and more of punishment to the concept of
the body. In prison for a set period of time (depending on the crime),
your body is not to be harmed (not
meant to be harmed, anyway), and you are given enough nourishment to
survive. What is 'punished' is your own person freedom of being able to
participate in society as a citizen. This necessarily requires restricting
the body in place, but minus the effects of aging, you are to be released
from prison when your sentence is up with your body in the same state as
it was when it went in.
Bodily punishment nowadays is almost wholly restricted
to the death penalty and fewer and fewer nations are continuing this
practice.
The three nations with the most powerful militaries
(America, China, Russia) all support capital punishment, however, so it
should come as no surprise that - outside of the standard criminal justice
system - these nations also take extrajudicial steps to neutralize threats
(note the euphemistic terms for 'shoot a troublemaker in the back of the
head').
Realpolitik is a term born out of the Industrial
Revolution, and Otto Von Bismarck meant it to acknowledge a cold,
mechanical take on how nations were to communicate with each other,
sometimes with agreements that might favour one over the other, and
sometimes with guns.
Morals be damned, success or nothing is the way.
Bend the rules to your will. Sure we'll never strike first...unless we
know (or think we know) that you are going to attack us. Our enemy's enemy
is our friend, just like how one man's freedom fighter is another man's
terrorist.
Although 'might makes right' typically means it is easy
for a state to portray its own military as the do-goooders (whether the
public buys this is another matter entirely) and the enemy as the eternal,
menacing 'other'.
While it makes sense that not many people are going to
kick up a fuss with the killing of Osama Bin Laden via an elite squad
sneaking undetected into Pakistan (and also not informing the Pakistani
government), it then allowed for more leeway in similar targeted
assassinations. The ringleader of Al-Qaeda who masterminded several
terrorist attacks is one thing, but what of an American citizen living in
Yemen preaching and encouraging violence against America? (the imam Anwar
Al-Awlaki was the first American killed by a drone strike without any
level of due process)
The moral high ground is always relative, an elevator
moving up and down. While America prefers marginalization as a way to
silence critics domestically, its rivals have no problem with mass
incarceration, phony trials, and regular assassinations.
Under the last three presidential administrations
terrorists and innocent bystanders abroad have been regularly targeted and
killed in drone strikes. And that one word - 'abroad' - is meant to give
more leeway for dubious activities by nations that (claim to) champion
human rights.
To much of the middle east, the American drone system
is the latest form of terror by the world's most powerful military. While
it attempts to target people who do or wish to do harm to America and its
allies, the unstated but plainly obvious conclusion is that the system can
target almost anyone on earth. For both constant surveillance and
destruction (and both without the subject’s knowledge, as these craft can
fly so high above the earth that they are unseen by the naked eye).
Death from above and now without so much as sound.
A soldier had to fire his weapon at the enemy in front
of them, the doctor had to administer the lethal injection into the
condemned man's arm.
Now a body is barely required to destroy another, a few
keyboard strokes from half a world away. It is greatly preferred method of
killing by those who own and operate the drones, as it keeps living troops
out of harm's way much more often. It enables one side of the conflict to
deliver devastating loss of life to (ideally) military targets and
(tragically) what was thought to be military targets. It should come as
little surprise that there is not much in terms of oversight when it comes
to deciding whether the fire button should be pressed. Certainly the
general public will not be privy to the evidence and how it was discussed.
When there is the perception of less pain and suffering
on one side of a war being waged by a superpower, its inhabitants will
feel the war’s impact on a much smaller scale. There can be an 'ignorance
of action' from the citizens of the state which undertakes these killings
in far off lands.
While in the recent past most US drone strikes have
targeted terrorist cells in the Middle East (as well as ISIS), the recent
assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani while he was visiting
Baghdad can be seen as a much more aggressive approach by America to
utilize their military capabilities. No longer attacking extremist
recluses living in caves because they are pariahs in the eyes of their own
government, killing a respected member of another nation's military (and
one of the most powerful men in Iran) could in some circumstances lead to
a declaration of war. But with Iran already rocked by domestic protests
and weakened by years of sanctions, that was never going to be the result.
It was a sign of America doing something just because they can. Now we
enter the realm of 1984's doublespeak, with a line of thinking that would
be perfect coming out of the Ministry of Truth:
'It was justified because it was done, it would not
have been done if it wasn't justified'.
Perhaps the most awful effect of this (not involving
the ever-wrsening US-Iran relationship) is that other nations will be much
more open and defiant in killing individuals who they deem as a threat,
both foreign and domestic. And yes, while many nations unfortunately
already do this (the Russian government has killed its critics both within
its borders and across the world, the Chinese kept a human right lawyer
locked up for years, even while he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize),
with a nation like America taking such a public stance on the practice,
many others could potentially follow suit, and with more frequency.
For years, America would at the very least 'finger wag'
if nations were crossing the obvious human rights line, and in some
instances actually institute sanctions upon countries in flagrant cases
(the Magitsky Act comes to mind). But since drones are comparatively cheap
and easy to use, they have given nations the unfortunate power to decided
life and death in ways that never existed in the past.
They are straddling a strange place between model plane-like hobby,
the future of transportation and delivery, a surveillance device of
unimaginable proportions, and the supreme tier of death from above.
Destroying a particular body has never been easier, but
it should be noted that all of these activities take place in the real
world. There is a physicality here, where real violent damage must be
inflicted upon flesh and bone to cause death, to end the existence of the
body as a carriage for a human individual.
But that is no longer the only way to die.
The concept of the body is changing rapidly because we
are living more and more of our lives in virtual spaces. This interaction
has caused quite a lot of disruption as we are constantly moving back and
forth from tending to the needs of our physical and virtual selves.
Despite how much more of our daily routines and
behaviour are dependent on our interaction with an electronic device in
our hands or on our tabletops, the talk of somehow transferring the
electrical impulses of our brain to some sort of computer is still clearly
science fiction (sorry Kurzweil).
But the more we put of ourselves online, the more it
takes on the qualities we associate with the concept of body. Our language
proves this. We say 'I'm online' or 'follow me on social media', where the
only physical action of 'following' is pressing buttons on a screen, and
'me' is a series of texts and images we have chosen to represent us.
Our Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram home pages are our
'homes'. We visit friends 'homes' and go to shops and watch videos, moving
to all these virtual locations with ease. It has become even easier in
recent years to experience live events together, so that we can all chat
as whatever happens is streaming right in front of us all at the same
time.
Our senses of self in this world mirror the actions we
take in the real world. While we always try to alter our actions and
appearance in order to project the identity we want (whether we are
successful is another matter entirely), this is much easier to do with our
online selves. Only share the images and moments you want to share. Only
make comments after careful deliberation to make sure you have a brilliant
point or hilarious line (of course it goes without saying that many people
put very, very little thought into what the say and then come to regret
it...just like in real life). Delete your browser history like they were
embarrassing photos from the past.
We are in the awkward and difficult period of malleable
identities. In many areas it is effortless to create more than one. It can
be the most mundane and practical (have a second e-mail account for junk),
to something that can have huge effects on yourself and the people you
interact with online (have one normal account on a social media site or
message board, and have a troll account in the same place if you want to
'let loose').
The Internet was initially framed as a place where
everyone can connect, yet in the last several years it has become easier
and easier to seek out only the people that have the qualities you want
them to have. Human looks to connect with other humans, and finding
similarities is the easiest way to start. But sharing ‘everything’ has
become the norm, and one person’s real talk can quickly become another
person’s outrage of the week.
What speech 'is' changes when there's less and less of
a physical presence associated with it. Body language and verbal
inflection can have a huge impact on the words being said and how it is
considered, and strictly text/emoticon based communication require a
radical reassessment on how intent and sincerity is conveyed.
Arguments over a simple misunderstanding or awkwardly
worded sentence can boil over into a vitriolic screaming match.
Just as the wrong people can be killed from faulty
intelligence and malfunctioning equipment, the wrong people can be
targeted, offended, or hurt thanks to miscommunication on the Internet.
This is inevitable. We have to accept the fact that people get their
information from places/sites that are a report of another report of the
original source. This displacement can cause distorted pieces of
information being passed on. And if a popular site presents this
information late in this process, a lot of people might not have the most
accurate understanding of the event in question, because they aren't
reading the original source.
It
is the kid's game of 'telephone', but on a much larger and important
scale.
Why did we think the Internet would somehow 'correct'
this form of human behaviour? Of course people in any sort of community
are going to complain about something, exaggerate, lie, say stuff they
don't exactly mean or believe in, talk shit, be misunderstood, etc. This
happens in real life, not just on the Internet.
But the community has grown so large and become so
interconnected that we are still getting used to behaving this way with
complete strangers all the time. Your friends know you better, and so if
you imagine you're only talking to them, you can have a casualness to your
conversation. But this whole conversation can be read by anyone much too
easily, and from that all hell can break loose.
We are not familiar enough with this technology and the
possible ramifications of our actions within it. There is a non-zero
possibility that anything online can flare up and become a viral sensation
for wonderful or terrible reasons. Information can become misinformation
(and vice versa) simply because of who we think is presenting it to us.
There is the popular New Yorker cartoon where one dog
sitting in front of a computer says to another: 'On the Internet, no one
knows you're a dog'.
It’s a good example of how a meme can get to a point
quicker than an entire article (cough). Not being able to always know who
is speaking in the virtual space is extremely troubling. A stable digital
identity across all platforms, sites, and apps may be inevitable as we
move forward. And it will be decried as a form of control by some, as well
as championed as a way to make the virtual landscape safer and more
efficient by others.
Within a digital identity, so much of culture and
history can be disregarded, re-assembled, and created anew. The concept of
family will change, if not biologically, then socially.
The importance of one's past will be more malleable than ever.
Where you're 'from' is not the country you were born in, or the country
your parents (or grandparents) were born in.
You will choose your identifying cultural characteristics. They
will not be chosen for you or thrust upon you. Is all this good or bad?
Like everything sprawling and complex, it can be both.
Currently the Internet deals with the undesirables and
threats to its communities with the virtual version of what nations do
against similar troublemakers: Marginalization and 'death'.
The destruction of the 'body' in the virtual world
involves a public shaming of the individual as well as a sort of silent
treatment, and if this is not seen to be sufficient (or the individual is
still defiant), then this person is removed from the awareness of others.
Cancel culture is the early attempts of a virtual
community to police itself. The debate over whether you are dead or not
does not include your input. Only if enough of a fuss is kicked up by
enough people that an actual agent in control of your life support systems
(the owners and overseers of social media companies, or - on a smaller
scale - moderators in message boards and chat rooms) presses a button are
you truly deleted. Quite similar to drones, actually.
Since the rules are sometimes nebulous and enforced by
AI or people with vendettas, it can easily become an absolute mess when
deciding who can stay or go. Plus the destroyed bodies can be reanimated
somewhere else. Perhaps on a site or community that is not nearly as
popular, but it perseveres none the less (the reports of anyone's death
can now always be greatly exaggerated). And this act has taken on a sort
of defiance in the online realm. Not that offensive people are angry that
people are silencing them because they are speaking the truth, but that
they are being silenced just for speaking at all.
What happens when the sub/counter culture runs out of
things to rebel against? What happens when traditional forms of authority
are no longer the same oppressive forces they once were?
We are at a time were social norms are so permissive
(which is overall a great thing) in so many ways that there's nothing
familiar to rebel against anymore. Certainly nothing physical.
Once it was:
"What are you rebelling against, Johnny?"
"Whaddaya got?"
Today, it's nothing. There’s not even the reply: 'I
understand you're just acting out, Johnny, it's just a healthy phase'.
Whatever was thought to be rebellious has been quelled and commoditized.
Physical things like clothes, tattoos, piercings?
Authority goes 'yeah, whatever, we've got them too.'
Raging against the machine, and protesting global
corporation? Authority goes, 'here's your protest permit'.
You want actually see the band ‘Rage Against the
Machine’? $200 a ticket in the cheap seats in a sports arena with a
corporate name.
The youth have nothing to throw a rock at, or really,
throwing a rock doesn't do anything anymore in post-industrial, digital,
globalized civilization.
So they search online for anything to get mad at, to
get some sort of reaction. Some toe the line, some patrol it. For every
example of someone trying to push the bounds of topics of discussions and
the words used within them (whether seriously or just for the lulz), there
is an attempted corralling of speech, of controlling the dialogue. This
has become the stage of a new socio-cultural rebellion, which is more than
slightly ironic, since for a long time this sort of free speech fight was
to be allowed to say whatever you wanted.
But why are people seemingly easily offended nowadays?
Because the concept of the body in changing. To be verbally assaulted is
not considered to be anywhere near as horrible or dangerous as being
physically assault in the real world (there is less of a threat to your
body when someone yells at you than when they punch you). Meanwhile, the
virtual world is wholly safe from physical harm, but that just makes any
other sort of verbal or emotional assault that much more powerful. When
this is the main way of interaction it will inevitably take on more
importance and weight.
Saying Generation [insert whatever term] gets offended
by everything is completely missing the point, because this generation is
interacting with the Internet (and therefore the world) in ways that were
never considered a decade ago.
Calling someone a racial or bigoted epithet, or being
ignorant or insensitive to another person's or community's difficulties is
damning because words really do hurt when there aren't any sticks and
stones alternatives. This is the new language, these are the new
expectations of how to interact in a virtual space where every single bit
of knowledge is only a five second search away, so there's little excuse
for ignorance, unless that was your goal all along, and you better have a
good reason for playing the 'stupid dick' role. That art and jokes may get
caught in the crossfire is inevitable. It's not the P.C. police, it's the
future.
And people from across the age spectrum might still
decry this, and say that things were better and simpler in the good old
days when you used to be able to shoot your opponent in the chest or tell
them what you think right to their face, but as some other guy wasn’t
Foucault said back in the sixties: "The times they are a changin'."
The 2019 Election:
Andrew Scheer sucks (a lot) more than Justin Trudeau
What a wonderful opportunity we have to consider the very nature of
representative democracy!
Good ideas presented by an idealistic political lightweight who waltzed
into textbook pay-to-play and PR scandals versus bad ideas presented by
dead-eyed child-goon built with replacement policy parts in Stephen
Harper's basement.
Quebecois corruption versus Albertan idiocy!
Doddering future versus absolute past!
Every new election is the most important one, they say, the one that is
going to put your respective country back on the right track or have it
plunge into the valley because the bridge is out.
But
when it comes to a country's destiny, our ballot power is oversold. My
goodness it's so important that we all vote, even if we're 'meh' on our
choices, as any exercise in democracy is better than the boot of fascism
stepping on your face forever, but it's the winds of the global economy at
large that push our sails of success or failure. Corporations that don't
even have a direct presence in Canada can have a huge effect on the
products and services we sell overseas, and that means we see these
changes in the grocery store or the gas pump.
The
NDP and the Green Party have big ideas about the future, but this is an
election about doing nothing much behind this charming man and doing
nothing much behind that boring guy.
Justin Trudeau's saving grace in this election cycle is that he's running
against moose shit. Andrew Scheer doesn't know what to run on, because
he's at least smart enough to know that the typical Conservative platform
is only supported by the wealthy or people who hold up photos of aborted
fetuses in front of high schools. Other than that, he has to rely on
people not liking the current prime minister enough to vote against
Trudeau.
No
one is going to enthusiastically vote for a man like Scheer, so -
regardless of who you support - let's pour one out or raise a glass for
the idea of the bland politician.
With campaigns becoming more and more like reality shows, you can't just
run in an election. Now you have to sell it, like you're constantly on
Dragon's Den or Shark Tank.
Which is why there is something to appreciate in the
almost-possibly-maybe-good actually non-slick-politician demeanour of
Scheer. Just an ordinary guy, not flashy, not trying to go viral with a
cool Instagram post, just trying to help his country by putting forward
ideas that he think will help.
Then he opens his mouth and suggested the dumbest, old bait-and-switch
policies you can imagine.
There are no social issues to latch onto this time around (outside of
Quebec, but that province is a social issue unto itself), there's just
money and oil. The 'centrepiece' of the Conservative campaign is small tax
credit for families and senior citizens, and that obviously means a
massive tax cut for the wealthy and corporations. And that means massive
cuts in federal and provincial spending for programs that support families
and senior citizens so in the end the small tax credit means nothing
because everything else (from health care to groceries to anything
tangentially related to social services) is more expensive or gone
completely.
For
a preview of a Scheer-run
Meanwhile, when Albertans booted out the NDP in favour of the
Conservatives, Jason Kenney said the province was 'open for business',
which should be an obvious death knell for anyone who doesn't own a
private jet. Canada has been very lucky with how much the global
dependency on petroleum has bankrolled our living standards. One of the
reasons our banks are so reliable is that we've never had to loosen
regulations or permit risky lending and borrowing, since the poisonous
instruments we unleash upon the world is crude oil, not credit default
swaps.
It's big business, and it's still going to be for years to come, but the
only people in the world who think burning fossil fuels is a good idea for
the future have a slick, oil-industry dick shoved down their throat.
Trudeau treads carefully when talking about it, and even Scheer knows if
he champions black gold too much it'll backfire. But because it's long
been tied to economic success, the oil industry means jobs. Citizens move
or travel across the country because there are high-paying work in the
Of
course the oil industry hates the carbon tax or increased regulation. Of
course this industry is lobbying Canadians with a bullshit PR campaign to
convince you to help them dismantle it.
Here's a hint. If the oil industry hates something, it's probably good for
the planet and good for the average Canadian citizen, both today and
generations from now.
This country is both blessed and cursed with a land filled with many
valuable natural resources, and part of using them responsibly is not
using them at all. Per capita, we are becoming one the most polluting
citizens on the planet outside of the Middle East, and while some of that
is simply due to the challenge of getting shipments and supplies from one
end of the country to the other (reminder: we're a big ass country), a lot
of it is due to the 'energy drug' we sell to the rest of the world.
The
reality is that we will need energy from oil for years to come, but there
needs to be massively complex plans and policies to lower our
dependency/addiction to it and move toward the green energy revolution
(hopefully a mix of solar, wind and fusion power).
We
also have large reserves of freshwater, not just through our lakes, but
also ice atop the land. If we think oil is a coveted, essential product
right now, global access to fresh water will be ever more important ten
years from now.
How
these resources will be used - and whether the government (us) or a
corporation (not us) will own them - are decisions that are going to be
made very soon
The
future of our high living standards is tied to these fruits of the earth.
In this regard, the only parties that are even remotely 'preparing for the
winter' are the NDP and Green.
But
they are going to be supporting players, at least for the next four years.
In part because few people want to own up to the uncomfortable fact that
sits alongside the huge problems with fossil fuels: Even as most people
agree that it's a problem, no one wants to be the one to sacrifice certain
conveniences and luxuries for them.
Political parties will always have a hard sell with the honest, hard truth
about what must change to the Western lifestyle:
Buy
local as much as possible, stop eating as much meat (especially beef), a
family should only own one car, we need to subsidize renewable products
and tax non-renewable products, and none of us should get on planes nearly
as often. Now ideally all this would be voluntary, but the government can
always tax the hell out of these 'sins' to reduce its consumption.
This is common sense. These are finite resources, and we have to save some
of them for future generations, so we can't blow through it all now.
Nuts for the winter, nuts for the winter...
And
it's not like it's going to be just a whacky thing to try for a few years.
These changes are not like a temporary diet for energy. It has to become
the new normal. The 'that's how things are now'.
It's fairly unpalatable as an election platform, even if it's the most
responsible one. Which says a lot about our mindset as global citizens in
2019. The Liberal Party - being centrist - is trying the centrist
approach, saying we can have our cake and eat it, too.
According to them, we can invest in green energy and slooooooowly phase
out fossil fuels, and we can all live our lovely lives with little change
or sacrifice (we can't, but thinking that way helps us sleep at night).
It's a nice idea, that just a carbon tax and some not-big-enough tax hikes
on the wealthy can pay for a green energy revolution, but so, so much more
is needed.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives are using this as a talking point, saying
this is going to make things like gas and heating more expensive. And the
response to that should be:
Yes! Yes it will, and good! This stuff is supposed to expensive!
Actions have consequences, and if you want comfort and ease, it's no
longer going to be as cheap as it once was to have them. If you don't
think it's fair, if you complain that these things weren't so expensive
ten, twenty or thirty years ago, well guess what, things don't always stay
the same, sometimes you live at the slightly shittier time in human
history, and the climate change chickens have come home to roost
More and more people across the globe (and thankfully, in Canada) are
coming around to the unfortunate reality that we have to make these
changes. For a nation such as ours, addressing these challenges will
always have to be considered on a municipal, provincial, and federal
level.
Unfortunately, the Conservative Party tactic on the provincial level is
saying how terrible the Liberals/NDP are doing, then cutting programs the
public likes to make the economic situation worse for the average citizen
(and a citizen having trouble keeping their own head above water means
they have less energy and power to help fix the wider climate change
problems). Doug Ford tripped into Queen's Park and realized that if the
only major fuck up of twelve years of Liberal Party rule was the Hydro One
scandal, then he wasn't going to have that much to do. Except become a lot
less popular and make the conservative agenda look unpalatable for the
rest of the country.
Which is why Scheer is in such a bind. He is either a religious man being
duped by corporate interests, or he is a corporate interest duping his
religious base. Since not enough people like Scheer or his policies, the
conservatives have to attack Trudeau as being a disappointment.
And
for the expectations we had for him, he is a disappointment, but that's
what happens when an unstoppable smile meets an immovable bureaucracy. As
America learned with Barack Obama, 'hope and change' is much, much easier
said than done.
Trudeau has been fortunate that our economy has been officially designated
as 'okay' for the last four years, and is charming in a way that the
current occupier of The White House 'likes' him (our relationship with
America has always been complex and mutually and beneficial, but the
alternative...isn't available).
That he's had to make compromises and delays is nothing new for any party
even with a majority, so it still seemed that going into 2019, the
election would be his to lose. So of course he stepped up to the plate and
somehow started to screw up the easy wrist shot into an empty net.
The
SNC-Lavalin scandal is a colossal fuck up not only in the sense that it is
clearly ethically wrong, but that someone thought that it was a good idea
to get the Prime Minister involved, and that a shady construction company
deserved this sort of special treatment in the first place. Corruption,
pay-to-play, grift...these are things that every nation likes to think it
can rise above. If no one in the Prime Minister's Office could tell that
having 'just a conversation' with the Attorney General would not only be
bad but look bad, then you have to think that they're not the brain trust
you would hope them to be.
It's like throwing yourself down a flight of stairs (deep cut).
This - plus the utterly embarrassing 'brown-face' moment - means any
moderately competent politician should ride this to 24 Sussex Drive...but
not actually there, because it's an aging dump. No party leader wants to
risk the political blowback of spending millions of government dollars on
their own fancy and temporary house, so it's to gather dust. That's a nice
microcosm for Western democracy in the 21st century: A near-empty
political gesture that doesn't solve the problem at all.
But
since Scheer is sheer idiocy, he won't be able capitalize on our 'meh'
towards Trudeau. He's always been neck and neck in the polls with the
Prime Minister, and that on election day that usually bodes well for the
incumbent. The most likely outcome is the Liberals losing seats and being
forced to work with the NDP.
And
actually, for the future of our country - in terms of environmental
responsibility and looking out for the average citizen - this is the best
case scenario. A minority Liberal government forced to make agreements
with the New Democrats (no wonder they go by their acronym, it's a rather
strange name to stick with) to secure votes is really the ideal situation
for everyone involved. The centrists being pulled left is the best for
what this country needs to become. This hopefully will be seen most
strongly in environmental policy going forward, but even in other issues
that affect Canada - the constant struggle for a meaningful reconciliation
with the Native Community, finding an acceptable resolution in deciding
what constitutes a religious symbol in regards to the 'burqa ban' in
Quebec - having a progressive streak running through the policy is a
powerful sign that we are country that is moving forward.
Not
that we should be comparing ourselves to the rest of the world, but over
the last few years so much of Western democracy has taken a turn towards
the mindset of the right-wing nationalist, authoritarian sympathizer. This
is not the way towards a better future. Those are the steps backwards,
towards confrontation and segregation. Canada has long prided itself as
being an open and diverse society, and while we still make mistakes on our
path towards it, we cannot consider abandoning this goal at such a time as
this. It's not our way of thinking to consider ourselves so important as
to ever be singular torchbearers of liberalism (or dare we even say,
notions of freedom and democracy), but if we do want to be inspired to
vote for something more than a carbon tax and sensible spending on health
care, then a progressive compromise between the left and centre for a
brighter and better tomorrow will have to do. Maybe the rest of the world
will even pick up on it.
Even Communism Looks Good on Paper
Once
you step out of the manifesto and take a look of the world around you,
communism looks...silly.
At
first it makes sense that it's dismissed today as much as it was when it
first emerged as an idea in post-Napoleonic Europe. Intellectuals were
still certain that monarchy was no answer, and the attempt at democracy in
France ultimately led to a warmongering despot who named himself emperor,
so there was the search for the third (or really, any other) way.
The
lingering but far-reaching effects of the French Revolution aren't given
as much attention when it comes to communism as the other, 'bigger'
revolution that was occurring all around it (the Industrial one).
Any
massive technological/social development always creates several pluses and
minuses to civilization. Currently we are in the throes of 'the Internet
changing everything', and not just in terms of social media or how we
consume news and entertainment, but our ability to make a living wage and
how we socially and psychologically assess ourselves. We are more
connected then ever, but we also feel more alienated than ever. Jobs -
both directly and indirectly - are being replaced or streamlined by
AI-level programming and advanced robotics, and in addition to that, the
still-required human jobs are in an upheaval as well because practically
every job requires some interaction with the Internet (even many manual
labour jobs pay online). And those that own the gears of the Internet
(your Googles, Amazons, Facebooks and Apples) have such an inordinate
influence on our lives that they make a little bit of money (or get a
little bit of information, which is monetized) every time you do
practically anything online.
This
sort of massive change happened before during the Industrial Revolution,
with machinery and monopolization, and it was through this lens that Marx
and Engels saw the exploitation of the masses (proletarians) by the
factory owners and the land-owning nobility (bourgeoisie), and wrote a
fifty page manifesto complaining about it.
Which still stands as a well-written and engaging document that kicks the
rich in the nuts and really hypes up the power of everyone else (famously:
'the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains'). Idealism and
hope is a key component to whatever you're selling, whether it's a car or
a social philosophy that attempts to explain how much exploitation and
class warfare went into building that car.
Communism is part economic theory, part philosophy, and the philosophy
part is about the concept 'work' and how to change the view/approach of it
from being done via exploitation to it being done voluntarily and
creatively. Which sounds great, but it's not a matter of just changing the
socioeconomic setup of who 'owns' the factory (whether a boss, a small
group of bosses, or the workers themselves), but of how we look at
ourselves as individuals with basic needs and wants, as animals in a
complex social group, and as a civilization.
There's a big practical hole in how to create a true communist state. The
Communist Manifesto states what the adherents believe in, Marx’s Das
Kapital criticizes capitalism, but there's no viable framework for the
setup of a communist government, and certainly nothing that addresses all
the sort of problems that might arise during and after its attempted
setup.
Nowhere is this better seen in the awful attempts at instituting communism
during the 20th century in two of the world's largest
countries, Russia and China. They didn't take much time before becoming
full blown dictatorships whose leaders subjected millions to suffering and
death, and whose successors were (and remain) essentially police state
oligarchies. How they treated their citizens and how the institutions were
set up had almost no connection to what Marx or his contemporaries meant
by communism, except for maybe some early pointless job titles.
If
most people think about the Soviet Union or China when the word
'communism' is said, no wonder they immediately dismiss it. What was
called 'communism' (even by the brutal dictators themselves) looked
terrible, and it was.
First, when trying to start any new system of government, it's going to be
a difficult and typically violent affair with power vacuums leaving a lot
of death, brutality, and subjugation.
Second, the conditions in the country are already likely pretty bad if all
sorts of people want to remove the current government (whether it be a
monarchy or democracy).
Being able to provide for your citizens (basic necessities like food,
shelter, and security) is incredibly difficult at times like this, let
alone while trying to teach them an entire new way of valuing work and the
good and services work produces.
Russia was already in chaos (it was the middle of World War One), and
China wasn't much better (World War Two had ended only years before) when
Lenin and Mao respectively took control of the countries.
Russia gave Germany land and supplies to essentially stop fighting them
(which allowed Germany to send its inadvertently victorious troops on its
eastern front to the west, prolonging the war), and then collapsed into a
civil war that killed ten million people. The Chinese civil war began in
the 1920s, and was only slightly interrupted by World War II (they were
attacked by Japan first in 1931 and then more aggressively in 1937, when
most of the West wasn't paying attention), with millions perished in this
struggle as well, which ended with Mao's victory in 1949.
Neither of these were fertile grounds for any new form of governance, and
communism is a particularly hard sell when so many people have gone
through such recent hardships.
Even
though the very reductionist explanation of communism being where we all
'share the same food, laptop, bottle of shampoo and don't have any private
property so your house is literally my house', is very far off from what
the practical applications of wealth redistribution would be, it's
actually not that far of from where our minds are supposed to be from a
philosophical and psychological standpoint. Communism is supposed to
redefine work completely so we redefine our outlook on life completely.
Communism is supposed to be a state of mind where you are totally open to
sharing everything with people, because you are so self-satisfied that you
don't get bogged down with the concept of ownership. If that's sounds
really hippie-like, it is. Communists saw themselves as rescuers not just
of the workers toiling in factories, but of the classist mindset that
these factories (and the larger capitalist system) created. You weren't
supposed to be a cog in the assembly line, that's a dehumanizing role to
play in society. How do you do convince someone to live differently from
the way they have been living all their life? How do you change their
perspective to live a more basic, harmonious, and fair existence? How do
you remove the basic concept of 'yours and mine' being separate? Well
apparently LSD helps, but that can only give a sneak preview, not an
actual institutional bedrock. And you can see this in the failure of many
social movements in the nineteen sixties which attempted to replace
'democratic mixed market capitalism' with a much more 'communist oriented'
system.
Most groups fell apart, some groups got violent, some became a band, and
some become 'communes' in rural areas, some of which of those have lasted
to this day (the name is not coincidental, and suggests that maybe this
sort of governance can only exist with comparatively few people. A couple
thousands people max, perhaps. Very early socialist Rousseau thought the
ideal population for an insular, functioning 'city-state' was about thirty
thousand people (the population of his place of residence, Geneva, in the
mid-eighteenth century)).
Communism then can be read as a pastoral reaction to the industrial
presence in cities. After all, the sort of community that better resemble
the high idealistic values of the true communist state are the
pre-agrarian ones, and the civilizations that European colonists came
across in North America, South America, Africa and Australia, which they
steadily destroyed either by violence or by importing their
proto-capitalist (and not long after, just 'capitalist') structures. But
it should be noted even these pre-agrarian/nomadic civilizations would
have social hierarchies (just not to the same extent as what was to come)
and would war with neighbouring groups.
True
communism is meant to make these things irrelevant.
The
agricultural revolutions at the rise of civilization were the spark that
led to class societies, and even as various empires have risen and fell,
and as democracy and oligarchies have replaced monarchies, these divides
persist. But they may be inevitable in our global socioeconomic system
because we can't conceive/institute a viable alternative.
The
industrial revolutions exacerbated these differences, and in the current
digital/information revolution, economic and power divisions have widened,
even while the ability to communicate with each other has become
instantaneous and effortless (paradoxically, while this technology unites
us quickly, it alienates us from each other just as fast).
There will have to be another massive change in the technology we are
using (cough, quantum computing and neural-computer links, cough) before
communism can be remotely considered possible.
But
communism is not a change in working conditions and computer power.
Communism is a massive psychological change in how groups/societies see
themselves and how the people within them interact with each other. For
all the many, many words written about communism (both before and after
Marx) never really nailed down how this process is supposed to take place.
How do you safely collapse a massive socioeconomic infrastructure that has
engulfed the other and replace it with something that is supposed to be
better?
Das
Kapital criticized capitalism, but didn’t offer an instructional manual on
how to create a communist state. It's always been easier to point out the
problem (over eight hundred pages, depending on the edition) than offer an
applicable solution.
Consequently, states that called themselves communist never really were.
They were governments that leaned heavily on oligarchic despotism, and one
can argue whether the leaders just called it communist for practical
purposes (to contrast it with a capitalist system) or because they
(idealistically) actually wanted to usher in a society based on such an
ethos, but no country has gotten even remotely close.
It
was never communism versus democracy in the Cold War, since communism was
more a philosophical/economic concept than a political one.
The
more accurate clash of political ideologies during the 20th
century was fascism/oligarchy versus democracy. As soon as the
If
you were looking at more of an economic battle of ideas, then you might
claim
'Communism versus Capitalism', but that's not accurate either. Even after
Stalin died, and they didn't crush dissent as hard, 'communism' in Russia
seemed to just be inefficient and carefully corrupt bureaucracy. At the
same time, during much of the Cold War, America had a heavily regulated
form of capitalism that included high taxes, strict rules for banks and
corporations, and massive infrastructure programs completely controlled by
the government.
In
fact, capitalism in its more pure form really didn't come into being until
the Soviet Union began to collapse. The last thirty plus years are a much
more accurate depiction of pure free market capitalism in the West than
anything that occurred during the height of the Cold War in the fifties or
sixties.
China is the only major country that bothers to even placing the term
communism anywhere in describing its form of governance, but it is a
rather empty phrase, considering its current leader is 'president for
life', and many of wealthiest people in the country are high-ranking
government officials. The connection between party leaders and the
nation's largest corporations indicate it's more of an oligarchy than
anything else (with more and more restrictions on individual freedom and
an increased level of surveillance, it's also a police state). The process
of China becoming 'the factory of the world' has made it less communist
than ever. That it - and many other south Asian countries - perform this
task of manufacturing on a massive, industrial scale for the rest of the
globe ends up being a very accurate and dispiriting proof of Marx's Theory
of Alienation.
In
pre-industrial times, almost any goods you had you either made yourself,
or you traded or purchased for it with someone in your village who made
it. You were extremely close and connected to all things you consumed. You
could attach a human face to the man who grew your food, or the woman who
sewed you clothes.
With
the industrial era, this changed greatly. While it might not seem very
important that you don't know the person who made your iPhone or socks, it
actually changes not only how we view these items, but how we look at
these individuals. The items are more disposable and replaceable, but even
worse are how the individuals no longer seem to be people but simply a
part of the machine-like process of production. We don't think of their
working conditions, of whether they are making enough money to support
themselves or their family. We are alienated from them, and today this
constantly happens on massive, global scale.
This
is easily seen in the relationship between ownership and labour, where
there is typical a large amoral gulf between the parties. It is less
likely for the owners to see labour as actual people that they are
responsible for, and more likely that they see them as expendable cogs in
the process of production.
It
should be a humbling idea, being an owner or CEO of a company, because
it's essential to remember that it's not just the financial benefit that
should be sought in a sensible society, but a benefit for the society
itself by having its citizens/employees and contributing in a dignified
manner. It should be a very difficult decision when it comes to choosing
between higher profits and fewer layoffs.
Consequently, people who can easily make this distinction are better
suited for success in a capitalist society, since exploitation is almost
inevitable within it. Communism is meant to be the antidote, but no one
knows how to re-wire the brain to make it so. Thinking of everyone else as
much as you think about yourself is an issue that goes beyond jobs, money,
and commercial society.
Capitalism has won because it champions the individual.
Communism lost because it champions the group.
This
massive reduction of two massive concepts is both unfair...but not wholly
inaccurate. One of communism’s basic tenets is the abolishment of private
property, and that's pretty much when a vast, vast majority of people say
no thanks. 'Stay out of my house', is a sensible request, an extremely
powerful piece of anti-communist propaganda, or just another hurdle to
leap over. A so-called
'evolutionary leap' of a psychological sort.
If
we decide that we want (or need) to make this jump, the initial step is
just proper education and understanding. Unfortunately, as noted above,
there is a somewhat self-imposed barrier of ignorance to the essential
qualities of socioeconomic ideologies. Perhaps the only more misunderstood
socio-political idea than communism or capitalism is the middle ground
between them: socialism.
Additionally, if communism's opposite is capitalism, then its true foe is
consumerism. Consuming for the sake of consumption, we are primed and
condition from a very young age to believe that new products and services
will always make you happy, regardless of the wider consequences that
might come with its creation and production. While damaging enough
psychologically, we also must consider that we are on a planet with finite
resources, and for a litany of reasons (many environmentally-related) it
is going to become harder in the near and far future to create the items
we have easy access to today, both necessary (food, shelter) and frivolous
(all-inclusive vacations).
Can
we change this ominous- looking future?
Well
first look to our popular fantasy futures. Star Wars (okay, it took place
'a long time ago', but it's more advanced than us) is capitalism, and Star
Trek communism.
Star
Wars has a massive empire run by the few (we even see the war profiteers
in The Last Jedi), with the masses fighting and trading over the scraps of
any sort of trickle-down power (Luke complains about how little his
landspeeder is worth when he has to trade it in, and Han literally has a
'price on his head'). The Prequels began with trade and taxation disputes,
and there are actually slaves that you can buy.
Star
Trek exists in a post-liquidity world. There is no money, there is no want
when it comes to basic necessities, since food, shelter and medicine is
inexhaustible. In the film Star Trek: First Contact, the crew of the
Enterprise goes back in time to the 21st century and when someone there
asks how much the starship 'costs', and whether they get paid, Captain
Picard answers that, 'the acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving
force is our lives''.
To
be wholly satisfied, to have no want, to be at peace, to effortlessly
interact and socialize with the individuals as human beings, not their
jobs.
The
idealized version of self and community.
Sounds like a utopia.
Sounds like a dream. Sounds like the perfect communist state.
The [this is an article
that seems to be about football. And it mostly is. But it's also about
everything slowly and inconceivably changing for the worse, from
government to movie franchises. It's not going to be heavy into the 'man
vs zone coverage' and the mysterious perfect passer rating of 158.3] The Super Bowl is
next Sunday, and the Pittsburgh Steelers will not be playing. It wasn't
even close, since they didn't make the playoffs. They almost made the
playoffs. Came super close to that. They were in the running right up to
the last day of the regular season. They even won that last game, but
ridiculous losses and missteps from earlier caught up with them. Snatched
defeat from the jaws of victory. Their season started wonky, soared like
an eagle by winning six straight games, then the eagle ate something
poisonous and shat the nest for the last six weeks of the season, as they
went two and four. This should not have
happened. This made no sense. Everything was going great for them. They
were the 2016 The Steelers were
the healthiest team in their division, with their opponents (Baltimore
Ravens, Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals) all having their
quarterbacks fall to injuries for several weeks of the season (the first
two leaned on rookie qbs, the third got journeyman Jeff Driscoll). On defence, they're
tied for most sacks, and are 6th overall. On offence, their
passing is second overall, 4th overall for total, and Roethlisberger led
the league in passing yards. They have eight
pro-bowl (read: all-star) players. This is elite level
of play. The top 12 teams in
the NFL make the playoffs. How does a team that
is 4th and 6th best in everything miss the playoffs? How do you lose to
How? What a thing to
autopsy! It started on a bad
foot. Even before the first game. Their star running
back, Le'veon Bell, refused to play unless a non-franchise tag contract
was offered to him. Sorry, this is where sports terms get all
business-nerdy, and when capitalistic greed rears its ugly green head.
Just as money in politics has gotten more pugnacious, so too in
professional sports. See, So instead there is
a financial thingie (in the same way that a CDO is a financial thingie)
called a franchise tag, which means giving a player a raise from whatever
they were making at the end of their last contract, and delaying writing
up a new, big money long term one for a whole other season. It's a wonderful way
to screw an individual player. You'd think that shouldn't be allowed,
but...yeah, those are the rules. The franchise tag
meant So one of the
biggest stars in the league didn't show up for work, and that means many
things, but as far as the sports media was concerned, it meant the best
thing: Drama. Like pretty much
anything that has the word 'media' in it, sports media in the 21st century
is having a hard time turning a profit, since we all would rather
read/watch/listen to something for free than pay for it. If getting clicks
is the only way to be getting paid, anything that can be framed as
exciting, crazy or unexpected will be framed as such. Sound familiar?
Yeah, it's the Donald Trump method of narrative framing, and it involves a
lot of rumours, ignorance and exclamation marks. But this froth in
the message boards and comment threads and tweets in our hands has real
implications for the people who actually have a job to do, whether we're
talking about government employees or athletes. It is a nothing that
becomes a something. The 'will Bell show up for work or not' was a weekly
reality show for the first two-thirds of the season, ending with the team
ransacking his locker once it was clear he wouldn't at all. Problem for the
team? Apparently not, because the replacement running back was James
Connor, who was amazing at the runner-receiver combo.... and who got
injured (one of the few for the team) two thirds through the season, right
around when the Steelers started shitting the bed. Sounds great, but
let's ask again: Problem? Were they able to set this clanging Well, in their first
game of the season, they tied the perennial,
don't-cry-for-me-I'm-already-dead Cleveland Browns. Then they lost to
the suddenly impressive looking Kansas City Chiefs in week 2 (for the
entirety of the 2018 season, the unexpected and amazing performance of KC
quarterback Patrick Mahomes is similar to that of Bernie Sanders...but
would that mean Tom Brady is actually Hillary Clinton?), and later lost to
division rivals Baltimore. But then everything
clicked, and they went from 1-2-1 to 7-2-1. We can't stress enough how
unusual it is to add that third metric in typing the record. Ties are
extremely rare in football...even though there was a pair of them this
year. Which is a good time to extrapolate that everything that seems to be
happening in global politics these days is both completely bizarre and
unthinkable. Saying 'this has never happened before' is true of the Trump
administration, Brexit, China becoming more of a powerful police state
while its economy is starting to wheeze a bit, but everyone still has to
go about their day and move on, kind of carrying the news in the back of
your mind, not sure if it's going to cost you in the end...like a tie for
a football. But winning six
games straight feels good! Let's ignore the
fact that these wins came against teams that had been floundering all
season. Let's forget that you never truly see your failings while you’re
succeeding. Let's forget that making the assumption that because things
are going great now they are going to be great forever is so human it
hurts ('pride cometh before fall' and all those wise-sounding aphorisms). It hurts because
they looked great for this six middle weeks, especially after a 52-21
mauling of the Carolina Panthers. It's like that game
sucked up all the energy and ability for the rest of the year. From being
able to wrap up the game early, to never being able to wrap them up at
all, because then they went 2 and 4, and all the losses were by a
touchdown or less. So were the wins. If only they could
have spread the 31 point win differential against They lost to the LA
Chargers after an offside non-call led to an easy touchdown for the
Chargers because the Steelers defenders stop playing because the penalty
was so obvious, but because the refs didn't blow the whistle Rivers
through a long and easy TD for seven points. They narrowly lost
to the Oakland Raiders, one of the worst teams in the league this year,
when their usually reliable kicker slipped on the grass when he tried to
tie it up the waning seconds. They lost to the New
Orleans Saints, and that one was agonizing on several levels. As the
season went on and it was clear the Saints were a bone-crushing
juggernaut, Steelers fans would look at the rest of the games their team
would have to play and figure, 'well, we might lose to the Saints because
they're so good, but as long as we've beaten teams like Denver and
Oakland, losing to the Saints won't harm our playoff hopes'. But after
losing to All these small
mistakes in each game add up. It was maddening to watch. The Steelers
offence would rush down the filed then turn the ball over. Their defense
would make two amazing stops back to back and then give up a massive
thirty yard play. But it was worse
than just a slow crumbling towards failure because there were flashes of
hope. They beat their chief conference rival the New England Patriots in
what was practically a battle of attrition (limiting the Brady-bot to ten
points), and they won their last game of the season against the Cincinnati
Bengals. But to make the playoffs they also needed the Cleveland Browns to
beat the Baltimore Ravens (who stopped sucking around the time the
Steelers started to, as if it was hex passed from team to team), who were
just narrowly ahead of the Steelers in the standings. The games were
occurring at the exact same time, and because the Steelers game ended a
few minutes before, the giant TV in the Steelers' stadium broadcast the
rest of the Browns-Ravens game for all the fans and some of the players,
so they could see if their season was about to end or keep going. And the
Browns-Ravens game was close, down to the last drive, with the Browns
making a final push to try and win the game, but hotshot quarterback Baker
Mayfield threw an interception, and the Ravens won.
You could watch the
Steelers players glumly walk across their own field to go back to the
locker room, their season - one that should have been amazing, one that
was amazing except for the one stat that really mattered (win/loss) -
truly over. But why should a bad
season end there? The best receiver in
the game, Antonio Brown, didn't play that last game, allegedly because he
was injured, but it was later revealed there were arguments and
near-fights at an earlier practice, and now it looks like he doesn't want
to play in Oh, and
Smith-Shuster injured himself at the Pro-Bowl, the NFL's version of the
all star game, but is more like all-star practice, because no one plays
with the same energy because no one wants to risk getting hurt...except
that one of the Steelers players' just did. Yeah. How does a season
get worse after its over? That's how. It's like going to
the funeral of a loved one and then accidentally throwing up in open
casket while trying to pay your respects. The Pittsburgh
Steelers are one of those big-ticket, high-performance teams that have
been consistently playoff bound for more than a decade, with very few
exceptions. Up there with the New England Patriots and...well there's
actually a bit of a drop off in consistency after that. In terms of
comparing them to movie franchises, New England's freakishly unending
success is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which works, because this
season, [To continue this
analogy - which could easily be debated over for the rest of
civilization's history - The Green Bay Packers is Star Wars (the original
big success, flashes of brilliance in between long years of dormancy, but
never quite as good as under Lombardi), The New Orleans Saints is Mission
Impossible (carried by one ageless wonder), and the Dallas Cowboys is Fast
and the Furious (flashy, attention-getting, popular, but hollow in the
end). And maybe all those Sports teams are
like lumbering movie sets, with so many behind the scenes employees
working hard to give the stars a chance to do amazing things which make
everyone watching at the stadium/cinema or at home simply go, 'wow'. More so than any
other big ticket multi-billion dollar sport, football is a team game.
Sure, having the best quarterback money can buy is a huge asset, but he
has to have great defenders to keep him from getting sacked and great
receivers to throw to. Plus, these players are only on the field half the
time. There's a completely different set of players that play defence
(plus special teams, but that's getting further down the rabbit hole). Even though the
intricacies of the game means the individual is just one cog in a great
big yard eating machine, fantasy sports, advanced stats/metrics, and
social media have isolated players to a much greater degree. This running
back is worth this much, can do this better than anyone, and can be blamed
for this result by thousands of sofa coaches howling for their blood. That passion is
real, even though sports are superfluous (despite the many, many people
whose paycheque depends on it, from athletes to stadium workers). That
means it's much more malleable than things that truly matter, like
political and economic decisions. You can hate the New York Jets for no
reason at all, and that's absolutely okay with no real world consequences.
Hating the Supreme Court, Brexit, or offshore oil drilling can change the
course of history. Sports were great because it was pure escapism, but
that might not be the case anymore. Football is becoming
everything. This exact phrase can be applied globally, except that an
entirely different sport is meant by the term, and - bizarrely - works
just as well. 'Soccer' has become everything. FIFA and the World Cup is a
giant, money-grubbing blob that preys on the money and attention of the
masses just like the NFL and the Super Bowl. They make rules that
local cities and host nations bend over backwards to meet (because money)
and change other ones quite regularly for athletes and coaches. Certain
levels of cheating and outright criminal activity are tolerated with a
slap on the wrist. PEDs? Just a suspension for a few games. Videotaping
your opponent's practices? A quick fine. Paying your own players to make
dirty hits on opponents with the intent of injuring them? Suspension and a
quick fine. A player attacking a woman in a hotel room, a hotel hallway or
hotel elevators? Well, if we end up finding the security tape then maybe
we'll see what we can do. And with football
becoming everything, then it may as well be a wedge issue. So Donald Trump
brags about his relationship with team owners (reminding us all of the
typical wealth disparity of people with power and those without), then
disparages the players protesting police violence by kneeling for the
national anthem. The president coming down against a citizen's basic
rights should be an alarm bell, but that bell's being going on so
consistently we barely even hear it. ('Fun' Fact: Trump
tried to buy the Buffalo Bills back in 2013, but nothing came of his bid.
It's tempting to imagine the timeline where he bought the team and was too
busy to run for president) If football is
everything, then it has to suddenly take on an appearance of ugliness and
hate, as well as excellence and triumph, although thank goodness we all
try and focus on the latter. Last year's Minneapolis Miracle (the scrappy
Vikings beating the Saints on the last play of the game) gave us hundreds
of deliriously happy reaction videos that shows just how excited sports
can make people. For all it's faults, football can bring so many people
together...to hate on the team two hours away. But right now the
Pittsburgh Steelers don't even have that. No videos of success, or of
sudden, heartbreaking defeat. The season was a slow crawl to 'not good
enough'. Ultimately, they couldn't not make it to the playoffs by
themselves. They had to rely on a certain outcome of another game. In
football commentator parlance, it's 'needing help', it’s ‘not in charge of
your own destiny’. Having to rely on other teams to win or lose. To
suddenly cheer with all you might for the Cleveland Browns. In a football fan's
heart it's like launching satellites into space. The interconnectedness of
complicated factors, all of which have to go off without a hitch, and it's
a devastating gut punch when a small piece deviates and fucks everything
up. It would be lightly
comical if you didn't care. But if you do, it's
like finding out that god is dead. This isn't supposed to happen.
Storylines are preset. The Steelers make the playoffs, play smash mouth
football to eke out a couple victories, but then lose to the Patriots in
the semi-finals (aka, the Conference Championships). As it was, as it
shall ever be.
But not in 2018.. Fortunately, 2019
training camp is only like six months away!
Science Through Video Games
Physics is hard. Quantum Physics is much harder. People learn more quickly
and easily when they can actually experience the scientific laws and
theories you're trying to teach them. A few simple experiments involving
motion, force, and gravity can give a good example of how
Matter and energy in spacetime, that's physics without bringing up math
(you're welcome). Quantum physics has an even bigger initial hurdle,
because we can't experience the actions on the quantum scale. Both the
size of the particles involved and the speed at which they move are too
small for us to observe and measure without laboratory equipment. The
actual definition of one second of time passing is not saying
'one-one-thousand', or the tick of a clock (what was that one tick set
to?), but the amount of time it takes for radiation to make 9 192 631 770
jumps to different energy levels of a ground state caesium 133 atom. 9 192
631 770. So a second takes about nine billion tiny vibration-like movement
around an atom, a small chunk of matter we can't see with the naked eye.
Slightly related fact: It would take 280 years for a person to count to
nine billion.
All of this is counterintuitive. Slight incongruities and unexplainable
aspects of regular physics experiments sent scientists to the blackboard
trying to explain them, and the theories they came up with needed to wait
decades before experiments ultimately verified them. We had to wait for
some eclipses and technological advances to prove relativity and show how
the Uncertainty Principle governs the small bits of matter.
But it's thanks to these discoveries that we have been able to develop
computational technology to develop video games that we can understand and
experience quantum physics and the fifth dimension.
Early computers were size of the bedrooms, then shrunk as we were able to
build smaller and smaller transistors on silicon chips, and by the
mid-seventies we had pong, and by the mid-eighties we had Mario running
along a 2D world, stomping goombas and collecting bling.
In the nineties, the advent of 3D gaming technology meant, "the same
principles that enable the world's leading scientists and engineers to
visualize complex information will now revolutionize video entertainment
in the home." So said Jim Clark the founder of Silicon Graphics Inc, which
made great leaps in three-dimensional computer technology around this
time.
Just like tens of thousands of years ago, when killing your food with a
stick and trying to build a makeshift shelter in the woods (like a lot of
games allow you to do), the best learning is repetitive and relevant.
Flipping through a science textbook can be a slog. Understanding how
certain scientific ideas work by having Mario carry a giant turnip halfway
across a level to dump in some stew for a power moon is a heart-pumping
challenge.
It isn't necessary for the game itself to be overtly educational. Simply
playing the game is able to be a learning experience, and not just 'how'
to win. You learn how to adapt to a new environment, with different rules
than those you interact with in real life. And as the games advanced, so
did the intricacy of their environments.
There is certainly complication in physics, and correspondingly there can
be complication in virtual worlds that have their own physics set by game
developers, which affects not only the character the player is
maneuvering, but everything else in the world.
We even call it a Physics Engine.
See, the standard model of physics is...uh...this:
If there was a playbook for the universe, this is it. The standard model
tells us how all the particles and the space (ahem, fields) between the
particles work. It is not one hundred percent perfect (where art thou,
graviton?), but it does more than any other theory before it, combining
classical physics (the study how atoms and above (from rocks to people to
planets) operate) and quantum physics (for atoms and below).
In video games, which are made of ones and zeroes made of flickering
electrical signals, there is the physics engine, which is a series of
interconnected mathematical equations that can be added to every virtual
character or movable object in the game (like a treasure chest, a weapon,
a rock, a tree, etc.). It can also be adjusted differently for each object
simply by clicking and dragging along a digital lever or knob. Make your
tree heavier, or more subject to the pull of gravity, which will be all
the more clear when the player interacts with it. Set the strength and
tint of the light, which can affect how and what the player will see. Add
natural objects like clouds, and then give them unnatural qualities like
health-increasing or health-decreasing if a player walks or flies through
it. Then duplicate the object as many times as you'd like. The physics
engine is the playbook for the not-actually-physical universe you are able
to create.
Press 'play' and suddenly the fourth dimension (time) is incorporated.
Immediately the pre-set conditions will be activated, and like a Big Bang,
your computer-made universe has begun. Until you press the pause button,
and then move the slider for the player's maximum speed because it was
taking too long for them to reach the first marker.
The game development software is malleable enough for the creator to
indulge in all sorts of exploration and experimentation. And just like the
actual discipline of physics and its quantum counterpart, the more time
you spend experimenting, the more you learn about the types of
environments as you create them.
Space is not a vacuum, and neither is the artificial space you begin with
in game design. We can build a universe. We've bypassed exploring our
solar system/galaxy and have instead focussed on creating large, simulated
environments with computer technology. And we're building them out of some
of the smallest particles in the universe. Transistors shuffle electrons
through gates that are getting closer and closer to the size of DNA
strands (10 nanometers to approximately 3.4 nanometers).
We are tinkering with the very basic building blocks of the universe, and
we've found it easier so far to go microscopic than macroscopic. Smashing
extremely small particles together after speeding them up to ridiculously
high speeds, check. When it comes to the Big Bang, cosmic inflation and
supernovae, we can simulate these events on more and more powerful
computers, making slight differences to create alternate starting
conditions for our universe.
Correspondingly, our
entertainment is becoming more richly detailed and interactive, namely
open-world video games, loosely defined as one that not only permits but
encourages exploration and non-linear gameplay (no level one followed by
level two followed by bonus round, etc.). Objectives can be completed
without restrictions of order or time, the player deciding their own pace
and plan. And while these types have games have existed for decades, they
have become more lifelike.
How far off we are from it being difficult to tell the difference between
simulation and reality is not easy to ascertain, but how far we've come in
only thirty five years since the first Nintendo console is astonishing.
It's not that we'll get lost in the virtual world. It's that we can learn
from it. Whether we continue to stare at screens (from phone to
theatre-sized) or wear VR goggles while floating in an immersion tank, we
will have choices of the world we want to live in. Research within
simulations that can teach us more about our own reality. Fantasy tourism.
Maybe you've seen all the exotic locals on earth, but how about fictional
planets that look and feel pretty damn close?
The games we have now (your GTAs, your God of Wars, your Red Deads, your
Breath of the Wilds) are about carefully juggling skills and abilities and
resources to achieve short and long term goals. This can be rather
complex.
Chomsky said that the proof that the average citizen can certainly retain
and apply complicated structures of interrelated information could be seen
in the obsession and discussion of sports statistics and how adjusting
strategies based on this information could result in the desired effect (a
win). In recent years, contract negotiations and salary caps becoming
another aspect of this 'field of study'. Perhaps the subprime mortgage
crisis could be easily explained if it was applied to building a football
team's offensive line.
Or you can boot up your console, and juggle several forms of in-game
currencies as if they were quadratic equations. You're in a role playing
game. There are a lot of important numbers and symbol to keep track of.
Your health, your current weapon and its strength and its ammunition
level, your defence (not to be confused with health), your basic supplies,
your crafted supplies that can be made out of your basic supplies, your
currency, your secondary currency for certain higher end items, and a
possible tertiary currency for a ever-changing selection of limited time
items. All of which need to be considered in tandem for whatever the
problem or challenge is currently in front of you. There needs to be a
familiarity with engaging in the basic forms of exchange.
The same goes for mapping. The arrangement of information meant to
represent items and locations throughout the world. Some of the earliest
drawings of human civilization are maps. From the night sky to
agricultural information to military strategy to not getting lost as you
travel to your uncle's house, the basic necessities of maps cannot be
understated. Visual representations - and repeated examinations of them -
are are essential learning tools. It's become a stand-in term for any sort
of complicated situation or process (ex: 'the map of the human genome',
'the map of the universe').
In open world video games, the map plays this same role. But you can play
- with a higher degree of difficulty - without getting the map, and just
finding items and locations as you explore the world. And through doing
this, you create a sort of mental map, knowing where items and places are
located in relation to other items and places.
Science is searching for a map of everything, but for the moment are
forced to find items and locations and attempt to link even slightly
relatable pieces together, and by doing this we are creating a sort of
mental map. It's just that everything would be easier if we found this
everything map first.
But above all, even if we're just trying to make a vague comparisons of
learning in video games to learning in general sciences, the most unique
aspect of 3D open world gaming is how the
Second Joystick acts like the Fifth Dimension.
Big, open-world video games of the last few years have tried to outdo its
predecessors in terms of scale and detail, while their root mechanics
haven't changed that much. While being able to do so much is new, being
able to observe so much goes all the way back to Super Mario 64, the first
Mario game in 3D. But not just 3D. Also 4D, because of the passage of
time. Even though there is no timer in this game, there is the passage of
time and its basic effects, as in 'the moment before you jump, the moment
of your jump, the moment of your landing on the top of a goomba, the
moment of its death'. This
may seem like a very basic observation, but it shows how innately we
understand the passage of time, and how we take it for granted, even in a
simulated world). But not just 4D. Also 5D.
In Super Mario 64 and many, many video games that came after you are
looking down on your character in what is a third-person perspective.
Meaning you typically have the ability to move the perspective around to
see yourself from the back, side, above, below, and in front. Today, this
is done with the second joystick on your controller (the first joystick
being reserved for movement). You can completely move this perspective
around as you run and jump around while time passes. You can see your
character from 'outside of the game'.
But what is this perspective? In Mario 64, the conceit was explained away
as if this was another character of the game flying above you and holding
a camera, filming your every move for 'you the player' to experience the
world and move Mario around in it.
Successive games - from the Grand Theft Autos to The Legend of Zeldas -
did away with the character aspect, and the shifting perspective that is
completely in control of the player is just a given. This setup is akin to
a sort of 'out of body experience', the kind that people claimed to have
felt when they nearly died, or experienced in hallucinations. They are
times when they fee like they have stepped outside of reality.
In these video games, you have complete control of this perspective,
rotating the joystick around and around, angling it just so, which might
then allow you to make a certain jump or attack in just the right way. To
control yourself and control how you see yourself (even while 'being'
yourself). This is one of those 'hard to wrap your head around' concepts
that come with trying to talk about the fifth dimension.
But for a generation of gamers, it's become something like second nature.
The 'duel joystick' perspective is how we can conceive stepping out of a
4D universe, because you are using a five dimensional simulation machine
in a four dimensional universe.
But it can also be bizarrely described as our level of 3D looking down
through a 2D screen at an artificial form of 3D. And if that's not trippy
enough for you, enter the Zelda: Breath of the Wild glitch, where you can
see the physics engine half fail (or let's say half-succeed, to be
positive). In certain sections of the game you can have your character
'pushed' through a wall where nothing was designed to exist behind it.
Your character falls into an artificial, half-set up world that very
loosely resembles the geography of the actual game. Then something
completely breaks down, like the ground catches fire, you can't move
forward anymore, water is running vertically, or you get stuck in a
perspective where your character has disappeared beneath an impossible
lake, cannot move except to look around, and cannot die. 3D to 2D to 3D to
3D, and somewhere along the line there you see something you could never
have conceived yourself. You can experience the cold, confusing,
unfairness of a reality that was not meant for you.
But for most people, candy crush is enough. Not everyone is a gamer, but
almost everyone under forty plays video games, so to some extent we've all
chosen part of simulated world. The low bar definition of being a gamer
was simply owning a console (or a computer that wasn't just for the
Internet or word processing) and spending X amount of hours per week on
average staring at your TV and killing or saving something (and usually
you'd be saving something by killing something else). Phone games are
either just twists on old style arcade games (not much of a jump from
bubble bobble to candy crush) or digitized versions of real-life pastimes
like cards or slots. But with still-advances to technology (and more
internet satellites), you can play Fortnite, Minecraft and Pokemon on your
phone, and break the server at your high school/coffee shop/neighbour's
wifi in the process. And you don't have to think about quantum physics when you're doing it, but do take a moment to consider the little universe in your hands.
What do we do
with populism now?
Populism gave
America a vacuous, adulterous, lazy, ignorant, narcissist
playboy-turned-game-show-host president.
But such a leader
had/has no real policies and barely any political opinions at all (he was
registered a as democrat for much of his life), just some squawking
points, and his cabinet was effortlessly filled in with business as usual,
pro-corporate, beltway corruption types (which mirrors his own ups and
downs of running his toxic, lawsuit-laden brand).
Donald Trump ran
as a populist but the most important policies instituted under his
presidency has been decidedly anti-populist, benefiting primarily the very
wealthy and the corporations they own. Call it the oldest, dustiest,
cliché-ridden trick in the book. The 'sucker born every minute' switch. No
reason to list the man's litany of lies and half-truths here, although as
of this writing, the 'aberration of the moment' is the United States
resigning from the UN's Human Rights Commission, in part due to the
thankfully (hopefully?) brief policy of separating refugee children from
their families at their southern border.
Pulling back from
tweets and undercooked executive orders, a larger problem is that Donald
Trump has possibly tainting the term ‘populism’ for a generation. Bernie
Sanders is considered the populist politician on the left (aligning
himself with the Democratic Party while still calling himself a socialist
and championing universal health care, free tuition, and stricter
financial regulations), but how many moderates in either of the two major
parties in America are going to do a similar sort of over-steering in
future elections?
Sadly, this is an
excellent opportunity for mainstream political party gatekeepers to push
for centrist candidates who won't say or try to do anything too far left
or far right. 'We can't afford another Donald Trump', will be the mantra,
'we just need to return to sensible, responsible policies'. (a welcome
thing to do compared to the chaotic, extremist decisions of the current
White House)
But this is
inaccurate and inefficient. The United States - nay, the world - needs
anti-corporate, citizen-centric legislation more now than ever before. But
such policies have become so rare that they're framed as 'extreme left',
when they really should be considered centrist.
Led by the United
States, the last forty-odd years has been a transition from public
government power to private corporate power. It should come as no surprise
that this has resulted in the already wealthy becoming much wealthier
while the middle class in the West has shrunk rapidly. Average household
debt has grown, which, to peel back the euphemisms, means that
corporations 'own' people until the money owed is paid off. Wages and
employment opportunities have shrunk, resentment and despair has risen.
The policies to
reverse this course may as well be called a populist platform, but Trump
(who has done nothing to address these problems, and has instead
exacerbated them) has made such a label completely revolting.
Some populist
politicians are strongmen. Donald Trump hasn't the interest to do even
that. Like everything else, he believes perception is more important than
the reality of the situation, if only because controlling the former is
easier than the latter.
But primarily
boasting, lying, and playing golf leaves the functioning of government in
jeopardy, and Trump has surrounded himself with lackeys who seem
uninterested in doing anything but quenching their own thirst for power
and prestige (and $43,000 phone booths on the public dime). The
consequence of this is the passive dismantling of the executive branch to
the point of inefficiency. It has already happened to the legislative, and
since the reality of falling dominos is in effect, the corruption of the
judicial could soon follow (that is, stocking the bench with party
loyalists instead of competent, apolitical judges).
Trump is the
perfect president for wealthy bankers and financiers who are too lazy to
hide their while collar crimes. A man who wants to hog all the headlines
to himself, a man who subscribes to 'no bad publicity' to a nauseatingly
epic degree. A man who sees apologizing as a sign of weakness. A man who
knows he knows everything and therefore doesn't have to know anything new.
The only thing certain is to appeal to his base of supporters who will
never desert him and give him what he wants all along: adoration. Which is
why he splits families at the border, gets out of international peace
agreements, and discriminates against transgendered people. While clearly
the wrong thing to do, more important for Trump is that it's an easy thing
to do. Trade wars are vaguely interesting and gives a chance to flex your
so-called muscle, until he and the media realize it's just bickering about
taxes and so then move on to the next (non)story.
Certainly there
are millions of people who support Trump in America, just as there are
millions of people in other nations who support populist leaders who hold
similar views about immigration, regulation, and basely vilifying their
political opponents. But do they represent the majority of the country's
citizens? Clearly that is a central question regarding populism. Ideally
populism - that is, the will of the majority of the people - should always
be in effect. The fact that we have to acknowledge that it isn't always
the case, even in democracies, means that lobbyists and special interests
can have an inordinate amount of power in political decisions. Trump
painted Hilary Clinton as a sort of Washington insider, saying she pals
around with elite bankers and is deeply enmeshed in the deep state
(accusations he continues to make, eighteen months after election). Enough
people believed that, and enough people believe Trump is doing a good job
(42% approval among the general populace, but 90% approval amongst
Republicans) that he is not going to change his ways any time soon.
The referendum on
his first two years will be midterm elections in November. While the
consistency and frequency means many, many decisions regarding legislation
and fundraising can be timed around the second Tuesday in November, at
least one advantage is that power can be checked with regularity
(operative word there being 'can'). If the president is supposedly
unpopular with liberals and moderates, how the democrats are positioning
themselves says a lot about how the will of the people is manifested in
the halls of power. The candidates further to the left than the centre are
asked to hold the basic party line on issues: Cut down on the impeachment
talk and focus on how the democrats can nebulously do better.
At the moment it
seems that Donald Trump will be held up as an argument against populism of
any sort across the political spectrum. There is the assumption that
Bernie Sanders would be his mirror-image, introducing legislation that
would be unpalatable for half the country (as well as the wealthy) and
would continually pilloried by the right wing press (although perhaps it's
a given that Sanders' decorum might be less scathing and deranged). This
was how Clinton portrayed Sanders, successfully leaning herself to the
middle of the political spectrum, even though it wasn't enough in the
general election. Looking back on 2016, it was clear that people wanted
change, that Trump promised them heaven and earth (and locking up Clinton
herself), and enough citizen in the electoral college system of
vote-tallying went with it. If this presidency is the will of the people,
will the typical power players (titans of commerce and industry, along
with their influence on governments) be able to use this a reason to keep
the status quo going forward?
That a horribly
unqualified person can become the leader of the world's most powerful
country shows how corrupt its political process have become. That a facade
of success can reach the highest office in the land illustrates how flimsy
and crooked the path to the American Dream actually is in the twenty first
century.
But this is by no
means an American problem (it's just the most obvious, 500-pound
gorilla-like example). Eastern European nations have had an arduous time
in the nearly three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union. The
European Union made carefully calculated steps to not introduce the likes
of Poland, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia to their regulated
market economy too quickly. EU membership was an arduous and careful
process. Ensuring certain economic conditions and political freedoms was
necessary, and we're not done overnight. But in recent years, these
advances are undone practically just as quickly (with some decisions
literally being made in parliament after sundown to escape public
scrutiny), with democratically-elected leaders turned dictators in the
countries mentioned above (oh, and Russia as well, by the way, who appears
to be going from pariah to ‘model of the future’).
The message is
Trump-like: I can restore our country to its former glory, I can kick out
the job-stealing foreigners, I can end corruption and the power of the
seemingly unknown super-wealthy. Blaming the other has been a populist
message for centuries, and everyone from kings to congress-people have
used it.
But this isn't
simply happening in the economically depressed regions like Middle America
or Eastern Europe. Liberal safeguards like France and Germany are finding
conservative challengers whose basic platform is anti-immigrant and
anti-Muslim. In the Canadian province of Ontario, populist candidate Doug
Ford (whose opponents and critics paint as a Trump doppelganger, since
part of his platform was cheap gas) and his Conservative Party won 61%
percent of the seats in parliament while only winning 40% of the popular
vote. So we should note here that frequent part of the left's platform is
to change the actual electoral process. Ranked ballots have been held up
as a better form than 'first past the post' when it comes to winning
districts and building a representative government. Occasionally more
centrist parties have flouted this idea of electoral (notably Trudeau's
Liberal Party), only to drop the issue once they gain power (notably
Trudeau's Liberal Party).
But such an issue
is only noticed by a comparatively small segment of a country's
population. A common lament by those who follow politics daily is how few
people do the same. For how important the decisions of every government
can be for its citizens, that voting rates have predominantly declined in
developed nations is certainly a tragedy (not voting in a democracy is a
vote for fascism).
The true enemy of
populism is not any sort of agenda of the powerful attempting to maintain
the status quo, but simple malaise. If populism is the will of the people,
then its lack of will is what must be counteracted. The thinking that one
vote doesn't matter, or that all politicians and political parties are the
same, or that the system is permanently rigged. Certainly those that want
to maintain the rich-friendly system that current exists will encourage
the masses to engender such thoughts.
There needs to a
thirst for political knowledge, for political change, for betterment. And
those that voted for Donald Trump thought that's what they were voting
for. His simple, oft-repeated message struck enough of a chord with enough
voters to create a sizeable base of energized citizens within the
Republican Party (Michael Moore (in)famously called the election for Trump
back in August, after attending the Republican Convention and said these
supporters will carry the electoral college). Populism does not have a
concrete platform. It can be a package of anti-immigrant, pro-gun, and
pro-life ideas, or it can be a mix of anti-corporate, libertarian,
pro-choice positions. It doesn't take much to find a poll that would
suggest most people in a nation are thinking the way you are arguing that
they do. Individuals may have nuanced thoughts on these issues, but
populism needs to be straightforward and direct to be able to connect with
voters who care not a whit for controversial riders attached to spending
bills. But populism only works if these simple messages are backed with
actual legislation and politicians who are willing to see them through. It
is the most easily manipulated, and therefore one of the most volatile
political 'isms'. If a hard-line on immigration is all you care about,
then Trump is a successful populist president. If you're terrified that a
trampling of regulations and union power is going to quickly destroy the
middle class, than he's a complete and maddening disaster who only cares
about rich people like himself.
And we have the
ability to continually believe that our worldview is indomitably correct.
Religion used to
the opiate of the masses. Now it's the careful marketing of a life each
citizen supposedly deserves. A return to the supposed good old days,
before everything supposedly went
wrong. 'Make America Great Again' is based on the idea that it's necessary
to look backwards, to go back to a way it used to be.
Media and
advertising companies don't have to work very hard to paint this picture.
People want to believe that this is true. The power of misplaced nostalgia
and exceptionalism (when government money is spent in your community it's
good policy, and when it's spent somewhere else it's just undeserved
handouts and corruption).
Consequently, the
cure for failed populism is more populism. To combat ignorance and bullet
point slogans which are mostly lies we need detailed, carefully researched
truths.
But if right wing
populism is a Trojan horse, a process that results in a corporatist
polyarchy retaining control of the levers of state power, are we naive to
think that left wing populism would be any more effective? Not to suggest
that it would result in the same (a not-so-quiet retention/coup of the
elites), but that leftist policies would be so much more difficult to
enact. This is due simply to the practical necessity of taking a long time
to build the bureaucratic foundation to adequately provide the service of,
say, single-payer health care, or the literal infrastructure of
construction projects. Leftist programs that would benefit the majority of
citizens require time and money, two things that are in short supply in a
world where we want to see results every financial quarter and we decimate
much-need social programs to pay for upper class tax cuts.
That populism is
an empty cup which can be filled with whatever is the hot button issue of
the season may doom it. If the working and middle classes could possibly
agree on a populist economic platform, then a populist platform on social
issues (abortion, LGBQT rights) can easily tear it asunder. One of the
challenges of a democracy is to not to give in to whims of the moneyed
class, which is hard regardless of a politicians' particular morals,
because there are fewer of them and their requests from a government are
much simpler to enact. Even though cutting taxes and gutting regulations
harm the average citizen, it can be presented as win for the politicians
who enacted the legislation on behalf of the wealthy.
And the idea of a 'win' is a poisoned pill, one
that Trump can feed to his supporters with regularity. The strain of
populism that is now dominant in the West is giving too much trust and
fealty to the pontifications of the strongman, who will always claim they
are doing what's best, that they are always succeeding, and when something
goes wrong, that it's not their fault, that the other is always to blame
(whether it be the political opposition, minorities, other nations, etc.).
Fringe politicians have become the mainstream ones, and they demand
loyalty above all else. Ignorant embrace of these figures were what many
democratic states were designed to fight against (going all the way back,
to some degree, to Ancient Greece). A divesting of power among the people.
But what can be carefully can be foolishly thrown away. If we aren't
careful, soon the only thing that will be popular is what the few people
with power tell us what's popular.
LABO and Beyond The future is cardboard. About a year we stuck up an article on the video game 'Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild'. We said very nice things about it, and tried to present it as something a lot more interesting and socio-culturally relevant than saving a kingdom by killing a lot of monsters with a sword (it can be two things!). The game was the headline release for Nintendo's newest console, the Switch, which became an incredible success, with its unique design, effortless portability and wonderfully deep catalogue of games, thanks to Nintendo making it easier for third party developers* to sell their games online (via the company's e-shop). * - Quick
Primer: When Nintendo makes games themselves for their own console (like a
Mario or Zelda game), it's an example of first party development. When a
scrappy little game design company (sometimes of only two or three people)
makes a game/app for a console or computer or smart phone, it's an example
of third party development. It's a bit like the comparison between
Hollywood studios and independent ones, or major and independent record
labels. Video games have been getting bigger and bigger, both in terms of cinematic presentation and player interaction. You get to be immersed in a massive, gorgeous world (well, typically a harrowing one, since you probably have some very difficult mission to complete that involves fighting and exploring) with many strategic choices at every turn, playing a movie-style story with character development and action sequences, all of which add up to experience that becomes a big part of your daily activities. Either that or you're staring at your phone while in line for something, playing fortnite or clash of clans or whatever iteration of candy crush we're on. It's more of a quick hit of those gaming endorphins than when you have a controller in your hand, staring at a fifty two inch screen forhours, but it's another sign that when confronted with the option of constantly interacting with a flashy simulated reality over a rather ordinary real one, millions upon millions of us take the former. It is in this environment that Nintendo introduces Labo, an activity kit that is a series of cardboard cutouts that you fold into various contraptions that incorporate the console and mini-controllers of the Switch. And it's pure joy. Twenty eight sheets of cardboard can look particularly uninspiring to gamers in 2018, so credit where credit it due: Nintendo took a bit of a risk (if not financially, then at least reputationally in the gaming community), knowing that their strength lies in trying something just a little bit different. And this difference is seen as soon as you open the box, and begin to relive your halcyon Lego days. The kit could have come with pre-assembled cardboard pianos, fishing rods, and a motorcycle dash board/handlebars, but putting it together yourself is almost half the fun. There's a bit more of that proud feeling of possession when it's something you put in the time and built yourself, and the step-by-step instructions on the Switch's console are perfect. We'll readily admit that we underestimated the cardboard. We expected flimsiness and constant repair and unexpected collapses when we press a key too harshly or accidentally drop the fishing rod. But no, it's all surprisingly durable, and so much of the folding and building you're doing is to just reinforce the basic structure of the device so it can withstand the inevitable play. Without intending to, the Labo is already teaching the primary necessities of construction and engineering: strength, steadiness and simplicity. In a world that's becoming more and more virtual (why play with a couple hundred Lego blocks when you can play with an infinite amount of Minecraft blocks?), it's a wonderful reminder of the power of the physical. Hell, it reminds you that you're not just an avatar of pixels inside of a screen. Of course, this isn't a Luddite experiment by any means. Labo wants to bridge the gap between the virtual and real. The sturdy cardboard models are just that, until you place the two small controllers or the rectangular Switch console into them. Technological advancements are always a mixture of the old and new. The steamed power loom was still knitting blankets and clothing, but just at a much faster pace. In terms of toys, you used to own a plastic fake motorbike and maybe run around with it in your backyard (okay, maybe not 'you', as we are probably going generations back), or built one out of Lego and pushed it around. You’d have to pretend that you were taking part in a race. Now you have a cardboard motorbike that has a place on its dashboard for a specialized portable computer the size of a small book (speaking of objects that are seemingly becoming rare and obsolete) which can play the visualizations of a motorbike race that you the player can use your cardboard vehicle to interact with. It's not just that the Switch console is a touch-screen tablet-like wonder, but how well it works with all the accessories. Infrared cameras on one of the miniature controllers can track reflective tape, and gyroscopes inside them react to even your slightest motions. It's not so much that you can play a cardboard piano, or go fishing with a rod that has a line that reels in and out both physically and virtually, but that you can explore and find out how exactly this technology works. Yes, you follow the instructions on how to build the cardboard objects by following an instructional video, and the games associated with each object uses the electronic parts, but the Switch thankfully takes the next step and has an incredible series of short exercises and mini-games to explain how this technology works. Programming is the new literacy, and the earlier kids and adults understand even the very basics of input-node connection-output, the better prepared they will be to work with the ever-advancing computer technology of the future (and stop an AI from going rogue). Didacticism is always a challenge, and should sometimes be viewed suspiciously. Making the question 'How do things work?' fun already makes an assumption that 'fun' should even be in the equation. Leveling up, getting shiny fake medals that unlock the next series of lessons, and playful/educational conversations between three helpful NPCs (Non-Playable Characters), that's the future of learning, everyone. All for the not very low price of around $400 US, when taking tax into consideration. Which is a lot of money for a household to spend on a gaming console, but not too much if it will become the basic piece of equipment for schools across nations to spend on each of their students. And there will be advantages of using consoles that the school provides, and advantages to letting the software be available to the phones that many students (at least in high school) already own. The solution will probably incorporate both, with some work being available as console-only (which will have to be heavily reinforced physically, because kids drop and break things), and other lessons available as homework on personal tech. Education will mix this ('this' defined as 'tapping screen after screen, with a couple words of encouragement from a low-level AI program written months or even years earlier') with some occasional group work in a much smaller school building, since now teens will have the opportunity - if they meet grade and digital attendance requirements - to learn from home or anywhere else. And maybe they have to pick up some cardboard from time to time (or get it delivered), so that when they're actually in a lab or a factory, they have some hands on experience with items simulating the real thing. This will become the educational institution in the future, from children (for every level of schooling) to adults (for job training, or for personal interest). And just like every big change, there's going to be a lot of great advances, and a lot of terrible consequences (some obvious, some not). A uniformity in education basics, with opportunities to branch out and learn on your own if you choose to. Sound great. But there's danger to one way of doing everything. Making software that can cater to the various personalities and lifestyle choices of the learner (are they eager go-getters, or forgetful potheads) can only do so much. No matter how many ways you try to include everyone, people are bound to slip through the cracks and reject this format, from reasons ranging from political protest to not giving a shit. And who creates the curriculum for these programs? What agenda could they possibly have? This is not a problem that's suspect idle only to digital world, of course. Science textbooks have been bankrolled by vested interests like energy companies (guess how they address climate change!) for years. If designing the hardware won't be too expensive because it basically already exists, then the software will be the budget breaker. (Un)fortunately, one places where money will be freed up is the employment of teachers. Teachers are expensive. Even in places where they are terribly underpaid, some lessons on a cell phone with a so-called 'babysitter' keeping some level of order in a classroom from time to time is a cheaper alternative. While lessons on a phone can never replace a good teacher, it can probably replace a bad or mediocre one, especially when one considers how much the digital world is changing the basic behaviour of how children and teens engage with the world around them. Meanwhile, the basic method of education has changed very little over the last few centuries. It's been a knowledgeable person talking at the front of the room, and a group of people listening to them, taking notes. Throw in a chalk and a blackboard, and you don't know if it's 1870 or 2018. Even with the advent of past communication technology advances, schools could adapt, as every so often a television would be wheeled into class so you watch a nature documentary or (if the teacher was lazy and it was close to the end of the year) a movie vaguely related to the class. And computers became a staple in the library and the aptly named computer labs. But the education system is struggling against the cell phone, the ultimate portable computer, the ultimate time waster, the last word in there never being a last word because there's always another text to send, another round to fight, another meme to spread. When dealing with a generation that was born connected, standing in front of blackboard and writing bullet points or equations for an hour doesn't stand a chance. Phones and tablets are shiny touch-pads that even three year olds can figure out how to operate. If learning institutions cannot incorporate these changes, then more and more children will be left behind. Class becomes a factor quite quickly. As usual, the wealthy will have the option of giving their children a more virtual or more traditional education. The ever-increasing underclass (formerly middle and lower) will be told how things are going to be done from now on, and it's usually whatever's cheaper. Labo-like software will be downloaded onto students' phone, and they can watch and complete the daily lessons and exercises at their leisure. There will be variations on how the lessons are taught. From audio files like podcasts, video for visual learners (play it on a nearby TV if needed), or building kits can be ordered and delivered for those that are best educated with hands on-examples. Teachers will have set office hours throughout the week that a student can contact via face-time, Skype, etc if they have any questions. Maybe once a week there will be an actual day in a physical classroom somewhere, just to confirm that the students are learning and that are is actually a human teacher overlooking their work in some fashion. Great! Well, no. Positives and Negatives! Not as inspiring, but more accurate. More jobs end up disappearing, starting with a majority of teachers, and several careers that involve the basic construction and maintenance of running a school (there will still be schools, just a lot fewer of them). The development of this software will mostly be done by private companies, subsidized with a hefty government contract. We will learn what a small cabal of powerful board members want us to learn about math, science, history, and early twenty first century capitalism. Learning via phone will be heralded as a great leveler, because the lessons will be the same no matter where you live, no matter how much money you or your parents make. But it will be a sleight of hand, because the very rich can still fashion the education they want. There will still be living, breathing, teachers who have undeniably great skills...but they will cost a fortune to hire. This gap between the rich and poor is not new. The industrial revolution created the Robber Barons, and the slippery consolidation of wealth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led the world into the Great Depression of the 1930s. The current digital revolution is doing the same sort of thing, but at a much, much quicker pace. Computer technology developed in the sixties and seventies made globalized trade possible, meaning it was possible to build something in a factory in China and have it on sale in Dallas or Dresden two days later (and being able to close factories in the West and lay off thousands of workers). Computer technology developed in the eighties and nineties gave us the Internet, which meant it was effortless to send any sort of information (a spreadsheet, a song, a virus) instantaneously. When you're able to do something cheaper, it usually means you can do it without having to pay someone, which means someone (or really, many someones) no longer has a job. We're still getting acclimatized to this, and if we're on the cusp of teaching future generations via pixels on a screen to save money because governments are drowning in debt by giving tax cuts to massive corporations, then a very important question is, 'what kind of jobs are we preparing them for?' The answer might be in those same pixels they'll be learning from. Finland is ending it's two year experiment with Universal Basic Income, with one of its supporters admitting that the public perception of the plan was, "a fear that with basic income they would just stay at home and play computer games.” But that fear is going to become a reality because in the not too distant future you're going to supplement your universal basic income with playing with computer games, or doing very basic and specific tasks with engineering and design that's part of a larger project headquartered halfway around the world. Building giant, simulated open worlds for gaming is just the beginning. Soon computer scientists are going to develop simulated open worlds for people to explore in, with the goal of us learning more about ourselves and our universe. Physicists simulate different ways the Big Bang could have developed in extremely powerful computers, just to compare how our own universe has come into being. These sorts of experiments will require very specific work, and very specific human work, of simply 'being human' in these simulations (for now, 'being human' is our greatest advantage over AI). Maybe through this sort of research, this sort of understanding, will actually bridge the widening gulfs of the haves and have-nots in the future. If knowledge truly is power, then maybe computer can truly be the great leveler. So get started on that cardboard piano. NOTES
The Rising Costs of Free Speech
First: When the government arrests you for something you say in public or type on the Internet, then it is censorship/an infringement on free speech (the exception is when your words can cause direct and clear harm to others, with the famous example being yelling 'fire!' in a crowded theatre when there isn't one). If your company suspends or fires you for something you say or type on the Internet, that's you violating some fine print in the agreement you signed when you began working for them. If a social media site or message board suspends or removes your account, that's you violating some fine print in the agreement you clicked 'yes' on when you begin using the site. That so much of our interactions are now taking place in virtual locations that follow a set of rules and regulations which are distinct from those of the nations we all live in is of great concern, and is not talked about nearly enough.
But the bigger issue at the moment is the tip of the iceberg. The attention-getting, easy-to-condemn-unless-you're-Donald-Trump tip: The Rise of White Nationalists/Alt-Right/Incompatible Assholes 'Rise' is a relative term here, since these sorts of groups have always been around. It's just feeling a bit more emboldened since Trump has courted the groups during his campaign and throughout his presidency (which is both mind-blowing and pathetic, and yet will have to be set aside for another column), holding hate-filled torch lit protests not only in America but in Canada and Europe as well. The flashpoint for this was this summer's Charlottesville protest/riot. The city was going to take down the statute of Confederate General Robert E Lee, and white supremacists and bigots rallied around it in the most disgusting way possible (chanting 'Jews will not replace us' pretty much confirms this isn't going to be any sort of intellectual exercise). Now some have noted that as far as history is concerned, tearing down parts of it - even parts that should and do bring deep shame and reflection to a nation - is a dangerous precedent. History is a complicated assemblage of terrible and inspiring events long since past, and simplifying its narrative does no favours to the past, present, and future. But, if a bunch of racist assholes are using the statue (and other memorials and symbols from the pro-slavery confederacy) as a rallying point, then fuck 'em, get it out of such a public place. People who still proudly support the Confederacy seem to forget the US government's attitude toward it during the Civil War: Death to traitors.* *-further proof history is more complicated: they didn't do that. Pardons all around after the Civil War. And certainly for Robert E Lee.** **-even further proof: Robert E Lee was against statues that in any way celebrated or acknowledged the Civil War. These groups are antithetical to all concepts of Western democracy and progress. While arguments can be made that huge changes must be made to address contemporary concerns ranging from environmental to economic policy, supporting any sort fascist ideals (namely Nazi ones) to being changes about is disgusting and idiotic. There's some irony in the fact they are stridently anti-feminist and feel that men are becoming subordinate to women, while at the same time they decry all aspects of Islam and claim it is destroying Western society. Islam's traditional view and treatment of women (and still practiced to some extent in most Islamic-dominant nations) lines up perfectly with their own opinions on women. Both want them to shut up and be subservient to men. Which was an embarrassing and foolish idea in the twentieth century, let alone now in the twentieth-first. The idea of the alt-right that they are ‘losing’ the country to any other group or culture? Ridiculous. A majority of the politicians, business CEOs, public figures, and practically anyone else with power is a straight white male. If you are a straight white male and you can't succeed in these conditions, then the problem doesn't lie with the system (that is built by and for straight white men), the problem lies with you. Chances are that you're: A) stupid; B) lazy; C) an annoying piece of shit that no one can work with; or D) a combination of A, B, and/or C. But with a president who doesn't outright condemn them, they will only grow more emboldened. And even widespread criticism from the general public and attempts to curtail their activities will be difficult going forward. If groups who are already calling for any sort of violent protest or uprising because they view those in power as illegitimate, then rescinding their rights of free speech will make their point/add fuel to the fire/possibly make the situation even more dangerous. And they know this. Pushing the laws to near breaking point just to force authority's hand. So let's go back to what is supposed to be the government's role in this. Or really, 'our' role in this, since ideally we're the government, that the laws it creates and enforces are the laws we want it to create and enforce (let's toss in the word 'ideally' again). The not-at-all new question is: does word spurn deed? How can this be proved? And if it's proved, what's the penalty for those who simply spoke or wrote, but did not do the deed? If a bunch of white supremacists are chanting racist calls to take their country back while carrying rifles, is everything nice and legal until the first shot is fired? Is only the one that pulled the trigger responsible, not the scores of others there? And this can be easily flipped to the left wing, when marching against the G20 and demanding political leaders be removed or jailed and one of them throws rocks at the police. It's easier to ignore the issue of free speech when terrible things are being written on a message board most people will never visit, or when it's in a pamphlet being handed out on a busy street corner that no one ever takes. The public sphere is where we confront these challenges head on. Recent free speech issues have taken place on colleges, in the form of safe spaces, the handling of offensive/sensitive material in the classroom, and allowing controversial speakers (usually those on the conservative/right/alt-right side of the political spectrum) to come and talk after being invited by a student association. Safe spaces are becoming a more enticing and sensible way to create inclusivity and understanding for people who have frequently felt ostracized and marginalized (women, visible minorities, LGBTQ members) by society at large. It's important that people can feel completely comfortable being whoever they want to be in an environment that won't judge and will be completely positive. But wait, says the hetero-normative white male who can't help but play devil's advocate, what if I don't feel safe here because I can't share my opinions that might clash with what the traditional discourse is in this safe space? Forget that the hetero-normative white male (or HNWM, if we can add another acronym to the pile) might be given the cold shoulder because just by being in a safe space he will be viewed as the personification of the reason why the world is so unequal and problematic. Hell, it's not an unreasonable suggestion that the HNWM should be taken down a peg, and should at least occasionally feel some sort of ostracization that so many other people feel on some level on a near-daily basis. The challenge is to keep this open-mindedness and patience going as long as possible. Safe spaces are positive ideas, but walls can develop, and that breeds division. And if you argue that the people who are not welcome in safe spaces are either bigots or simply insensitive, then that drives them further away. To their own safe spaces, which, to them, is where they can say anything they want and not worry about being called a bigot (and one can say, 'well, let the bigots be bigoted, we don't want anything to do with them', but that can lead to a wholly reactive political movement like Trumpism). Over time, the same thing will happen in the 'welcome' safe space and the 'bigot' safe space. New ideas, personal changes/challenges, and issues around the world will create differing opinions and slowly but surely that will create more divisions between people. Intersectionality (the situation where certain people belong to more than one marginalized group, and therefore experience more difficulty than other people who would still be welcome in a safe space) begets enclaves and niches upon enclaves and niches. Inclusion ultimately and paradoxically rejects itself. Safe space may one day mean the opposite of what they mean now. So here we need a reminder of how reductionism and the lack of substantial discourse are always the first cracks in the dam for this to happen. And one of the best places for substantial discourse is the university setting. Discussion in a classroom of a book or article that involves hate speech or offensive material does not in any way mean that the university or the professor encourages hate speech or the offending material. Should a level of tact, patience and understanding when discussing these topics be encouraged? Of course. In fact, that should be a key part of the lesson. The writer or author has included certain ideas and passages that make us uncomfortable. What do we take from that, what might be the author's intention, how does this comment on contemporary society? These questions should be at the forefront, not whether the material should be allowed to be taught in the first place. Related to this is the inviting of controversial writers and political pundits like Ann Coulter or Milos Yiannopoulos onto campus. If one is offended by their hate-filled, misinformed, click-baiting bile (as we expose our own bias here), it should be peacefully protested, not barred completely. College is meant to be the time when young adults are introduced to new ideas, and the concern that they might be influenced by (and become supporters of) a detestable ideology is a legitimate one. But what might be learned from how certain ideas are banned or shunned outright is a much more dangerous lesson for the future of a free and open democracy. Suppression of alt-right ideas no matter what the reason can set a dangerous precedent, especially if it is done without proper discourse and debate. Are certain books or films from the past that have elements of racism, sexism, or bigotry also to be suppressed? Are certain events of history now only to have a singular lens focused upon them? The debate revolving around 'free speech on campus' can distract from much more pressing issues on the subject. In fact, whenever free speech is under attack (as the President seems to want to prevent the media from reporting on anything he doesn't like), so many other pressing challenges to society suddenly take a back seat in importance (rolling back voting rights, influence of money on politics, rising inequality creating an Overclass and Underclass, dwindling natural resources and their effects, are all equally important). But free speech and basic rights have to come first. When one person who has been ostracized by society for many years is finally given the full rights that others have, inevitably another will now say their rights are being infringed upon, thanks in part to this initial person being given their rights. It is as if there is only 'so many rights' to go around. And while this sounds idiotic, as rights are abstract philosophical concepts that can never run out, the enforcement and protection of these rights are undertaken by many people in many different social institutions that cost a tremendous amount of money and societal effort. And if you say you cannot price on rights, that is simply not true. In fact, it is necessary. And it is expensive. And of course you can say it's worth every penny, because that is indeed true, but what happens when a society/state runs out of pennies? In the push to expand basic rights for all people, it has been depressingly politicized. What seems obvious to so many people has somehow been labeled a culture war. Gay marriage took an unthinkably long time to be legalized in many Western nations, and it was objected primarily by those on the conservative side of the political spectrum who, in so many other instances, continually complained about how government was trying to tell them how to live. That the rights for transgendered people are in a state of flux (the so-called bathroom bills, and the attempt by the President to bar them from the military) show that absolutely anything can become a wedge issue, that basic rights are only as strong as a community's sensibilities at the moment. If we pull back to much wider look at history, huge gains have been made throughout the twentieth century in terms of extending rights and privileges that for too long were only available to HNWM previously. While it first must be acknowledge that we still have a long way to go before anything resembling true equality appears, great strides were made for civil, women, and LGBTQ rights in the latter half of the twentieth century. Regressions in our current sociopolitical climate can be attributed to a strong shift in power relations, specifically economic in nature. Communities are more open to expanding basic rights and social programs when already enfranchised members of the community are economically comfortable (or at the very least feel economically comfortable), hence the rise of social justice movements (and political gains) of the sixties and seventies. In the last three decades, wealth in the West has accumulated mainly in the pockets of the already wealthy. The middle class (and lower middle class) has been hemorrhaging money, drowning in debt and uncertainly, and consequently have 'circled the wagons' around whatever rights and privileges they perceive to have remaining. And this group - not only in America, but Canada and much of Europe as well - is primarily HNWM. Too easily every other group is labeled 'the other' by them and is a threat to their privilege and position. Which explains the rise in hostility to immigrants, the stagnation of the women's movement, and obnoxious political posturing of vilifying LGBTQ groups. Let's be clear: These divisions are slowly destroying the very foundations of Western Civilization. The sharing and shuffling of (economic) power has always come with difficulty and strife, and rising levels of inequality are starting to chip away at free speech and basic human rights. For all its importance, free speech is subservient to power relations. Who you are makes a huge difference as to how your words will be interpreted, and who you are (and what you have) will make a huge difference when interpreting someone else's words. Widening economic inequality in the West has created corresponding social inequalities, and this fragmenting can spell doom for a functioning democracy. HNWM should not hold the so-called 'keys to kingdom' hostage, should not be able to dole out rights to disenfranchised groups when they finally feel comfortable with their own social status. When the ultra-wealthy cannot consider that the poor needs their help through government programs, and when the poor does not trust the government to properly assist them, then all of our ideals and institutions are for naught. Especially when we can't even seem to say that this is problem. The current interconnectivity of contemporary civilization is one of the greatest and most challenging periods in human existence. Its positives are many, its negatives are as well (but, as we are glass half full people, not as much as the former). We are still in the early stages of this continuing transition into a new level of interactivity and awareness. Ideally, a level of common sense, trust, and hope will underlie humanity's progress forward. So let's talk about while our speech won't cost us anything.
Notes
The Looming Peril of Corporate Governance
Gaining lost ground means you're back where you started from, which is not good enough in 2017. The push and pull between right and left leaning political parties and which one has the edge politically at the moment is akin to re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. And yes, 101 years after the great ship went down, it's still a perfect metaphor of denying reality until the last moment, except that there was perhaps a bit more dignity on the ship than what's currently happening with Western Democracy. An election in the UK that didn't really do much to alleviate the problems plaguing the UK. And it's not just Brexit, but the issues that many other developed countries across the globe are facing. Rising under/unemployment (especially among the youth), cuts to social programs, and growing inequality between the very wealthy and everybody else. Ditto France. Yes, it's a relief they didn't vote in an extremist right-wing candidate, but a centrist 'tolerable' candidate that embraces the EU (and the world economy) is almost in the same boat as the UK. It's great that you can get the crowds cheering and supporting ideas of unity and co-operation, but then these same politicians have meeting where their economic advisors give them extremely sobering projections for future job numbers and spending decisions. [And here's where we acknowledge that at least these European countries want to do something. Contrast this with America, which seems to be weighing the options of either doing nothing or setting itself on fire. Much of Barack Obama's legacy is being undone in record time. Repealing Obamacare and slowly taking health insurance away from tens of millions of Americans (and giving the wealthy a large tax cut) is a special combination of greed, tone-deafness and cruelty. Plus the transfer of a sensible and dependable American presence in global affairs under the former president to whatever the current White House resident is doing, which seems to be a mixture of proud ignorance and foot in mouth disease] Contemporary cynicism suggests that the quickest way to lose faith in democracy is to spend five minutes with the average voter. And this attitude means the division created between urban liberal elites and those folks in flyover country makes government all the weaker. But people have little problem with voting away democracy, as long as the replacing system can give (or promises to give) them what they want. Donald Trump promised the moon and the stars as a really, great tremendous deal to disillusioned and despondent middle America, and they took him up in it, without doing much of a Google search to see if he was hero or a huckster (spoiler alert: he's the latter). And of course, hundreds of millions of people already feel this way in America and many other countries, and don't bother voting at all, which just exacerbates the problem (it was the fear of this political apathy that had France worried that LaPen might win because her right wing base would at least show up to the polls). If people are under-informed (or misinformed) or don't even care in the first place, democracy will shrivel up and die. And something will have to replace it, since nature abhors a vacuum, especially when any sort of power is involved. Governments comes in a few different flavours, and it just so happens that democracy is the most palatable for the most amount of people. As you get closer to autocracy and authoritarianism, the few people at the top think it tastes great, while the vast majority of citizens think it tastes like a boot stepping on their face forever. But is there anything else? Any other option for a series of interconnected institutions that are tasked with bringing security, stability, infrastructure, and (fingers crossed) the pursuit of happiness to the masses? Well, private enterprise has the answer, and it's...themselves. Corporations have found themselves in a situation where their power is accumulating at a rapid pace, thanks in part to the rather nebulous, Schrödinger's cat-like superposition where their past and future employees have key roles and positions in a country's government. Which is quite handy when it comes to passing laws that might benefit these corporations, as well as handing out contracts for the sort of work that these same corporations might be particularly skilled at. Which means that it's really only a matter of time before this very large tweet is sent to all those in the halls of power: 'Don't worry, politicians, we'll take it from here. See, we've been doing some market research, and we're finding that people - left, right, centrist - are not happy with your current level of service.' It's not a conspiracy, it's an inevitability. The slow fall of one series of interconnected institutions mirrors the slow rise of a different series of interconnected institutions. Western-style democracy had the public's back, because it was - as much as possible - our own backs making these decisions. It's replacement will not be so kind to the masses, even if they have a highly trained PR-marketing blitz telling us that they are. For example, tackling climate change is a massive undertaking that many countries are taking baby steps towards addressing. They can't do much more at this stage because the costs for more extensive infrastructure changes are too high, and some powerful industries are trying to stop green energy growth because it's affecting their bottom line. But something has to be done, clearly, for the public good. And for a long time, the public good was the responsibility of governments. Cleaning up the Pacific Ocean? Great, but a wunderkind bankrolled by Silicon Valley is doing it. Of course it's an amazing thing that this is being done. Of course it's great that a terrible reminder of our ignorance and waste is being fixed. Of course it's great that it's being done cheaper than expected, and that the people who are already struggling to pay their own bills don't have to worry about ponying up to pay this one. But this means the massive projects that will affect all of us are not being decided by all of us. They are being decided by an increasingly small group of wealthy business owners. We are living at time where corporations are attempting to solve major world problems, but only for those that can already afford it. Expensive, healthy food made by Silicon Valley startups, available only to concentrated groups of citizens in major cities. Uber outsourcing taxis so you can get a car and driver delivered to your door, while paying the driver not as an employee but an independent contractor, so they don’t have to offer any sort of benefits or protection for him or her. And the publicized horror stories (United Airlines beating up passengers because they won't give up their seat for United Airlines employees) don’t make much of an impact beyond a week or two. These companies are still more powerful than ever before. What's the government's role in these cases? Negligible. The 'market' is operating by itself. Which sounds great if you don't think about it, or get the shit end of the stick, an end which seems to be growing as the divide between the rich and poor does. Now for much of human history, monumental decisions have been made and overseen by small groups of people. Monarchy and noblemen and a few wealthy men voted into power by other wealthy men in the proto-democracies of Greece and Rome. Even as modern Western Democracy advanced and actually became democratic during the twentieth century by finally allowing women and minority groups to vote, it was still a comparatively small number of elected representatives that introduced and passed legislation that was meant to ultimately improve the lives of those that lived in the nation. Now whether 'the best' was continually voted into the halls of power and whether the decisions they made were completely selfless and best for the nation at the time can be endlessly debated, but the economic and social growth in Western democratic nations after the Second World shows what civilization can accomplish when basic common goals are agreed upon and sought after (poverty reduction, equal rights, common markets, technological innovation. To name but a few). Even as this system is currently breaking down, it is still much different from a society run by the whims of board room billionaires. As cynical as one can be about the intentions of politicians, there is still more accountability and transparency for them than those that run/own private corporations, who chief goal is to maximize profits for their investors. Everything comes a distant second or lower, like customer service, product quality, social responsibility, and fair trade practices. Any sort of charitable donation or apparent selflessness is marketing, meant to improve the corporation's brand image for the masses (think of those clean and positive ads for oil companies that crop up from time to time, or all the events and festivals that cigarette companies sponsored). Mitt Romney (in)famously said that 'corporations are people' and got criticized for it, but he clearly undershot it. Corporations are super-people. Near immortal entities with the knowledge and ability of thousands of people at their beck and call, not bound by any laws (or can bend them easily), and a constant thirst for more money and more power with a sociopathic touch, where they will tell you things are amazing and will sell you inferior products for prices higher than they were yesterday. What's more troubling is the role that corporations are playing alongside (or worse, overtop of) government. Trust and dependency can be unhealthily intertwined. We want to be able to trust the/our government. But we depend largely on private corporations to provide everyday services that allow us to comfortably live our lives. Unfortunately, in many instances, these private corporations are paid by governments to provide these services, increasingly with very little regulation or oversight. It's the old fashioned bait-and-switch, where a private company offers to improve a local district or region's hydro services (maybe by greatly assisting a politician's election campaign), and at first does a great job following all the current laws and statutes, but over time they have certain rules about pricing and quality changed, and soon the hydro company is being run as a wholly private enterprise. This is a process that can take many years, but that was corporations have on their side: Plenty of time and plenty of money. This sort of slow replacement is hard to identify, and even harder to get a lot of people politically aware of (or to stress that it's a serious problem until it's too late). This is in part because the corporate world is replacing the idea of government in terms of presence and PR. The American government leaving the Paris Environmental Accords gives the appearance of the nation turning inward and giving up its position on the global stage, no longer leading the world (as many of the accord's supporters lament). Yet many corporations rushed to criticize the decision and announce their companies' own support of the agreements outlined in the accord. And this is a slow and steady climb towards corporations legitimizing themselves in the eyes of the public as the necessary replacement towards bloated governance, regardless of one's political leanings. The West (and eventually, the rest of the world) doesn't just want a revolution, they want the easiest, most efficient revolution replaced with the best system of government you could ever want or imagine. This is how incredibly effective corporate marketing is. Over the last five decades, it has seeped into our collective consciousness that we all deserve the best, that everything can be improved and made better for a lower price. Even the dismantling and replacement of the system that had to first exist before there were private enterprises that could sell us this concept. If governments continue to have limited success addressing the needs of its citizens, the corporation's role will increase, and nowhere will that be seen more heavily than with the enactment of universal wages. With the availability of jobs expected to plummet by up to 40% in the next ten to twenty years thanks to continually advancing robotic and computer technology, we will be a planet of roughly eight billion people with not nearly enough work to go around. Paying people a basic wage simply to be able to live their lives (pay rent, buy food and basic necessities) will become inevitable. It will have to be done to prevent total social disintegration. But if it becomes the role of a corporation to hand out these funds (and most likely sell the goods that people will buy with this money) because the government cannot do it effectively, then the opportunity to abuse this power simply to maximize profit will be massive. The privatization of the expanded welfare state (a rather glum but realistic term for what universal wages will look like) Is the quickest way to create a reinforced over/underclass society, with the very few wealthy lording over the very many poor. If voting feels like a choice between uninspiring candidates now, it will only get worse when the only vote that matters is the one you can make if you own a certain amount of stock. To get a glimpse of where this is happening today, look no further than post-secondary education. Through extensive donations that include underwriting entire departments, corporations are replacing, merging with, and/or absorbing universities. Soon companies will begin recruiting right out of high school. Student will take an even more specialized education/career track. Now a person's entire life can be done under the watch and support of one company. The new state. And positive feedback being what it is, it's likely that young people will no longer see politics as a role for social change, but rather corporations. The government is being shunted off into the corner, a failing startup whose debts make it unwieldy and unreliable. To prevent this, participation in politics is necessary and simply voting is an excellent first step. Democracy will not fall simply because the free market wants to make a quick, big buck. It will fall because we let apathy wash over ourselves, and didn't bother paying enough attention to how our society functions, and how it is rapidly changing in the halls of power. Corporations depend on us not paying much attention beyond a thirty second ad or fancy billboard/gif. That's part of the sell. Fast acting, money saving, pleasure making. Whether it's a gum, SUV, or presidential candidate. And if we keep falling for that superficial argument full of empty promises, it's going to be their world, not ours.
Sources (https://theringer.com/urban-farming-tech-silicon-valley-f3bb7434c4f0)
It's Internet Outrage All the Way Down
(Even the term 'outrage' has become overused and stale! 'Outrage' should mean more than 'being put in a bad mood for five minutes because of something you don't like happening in the world, posting a comment on social media, then going back to whatever you were doing before') We're all still trying to figure out the Internet. It's been almost twenty five years since America Online, Compuserve and Netscape Navigator started mailing 3.5 inch discs and CD-ROMs to homeowners, imploring us to plug into the future. The shrieking modem beeps, the hours to download a song, the embryonic states of all the websites are now apps (evolution in the digital realm). It was never exactly the hippie dream of 'everyone being connected' coming true, since shitloads of money and giant corporations were involved, but it was new and exciting and more jobs were being created than replaced at this point, even after the after the first bubble burst back in the late nineties (for a sense of perspective, at this time Google was still a private company, and founders Brin and Page were considering selling it for... one million dollars). To step back a bit and state the obvious: the internet is a communications network for computers (artificially constructed ones and zeroes) that we humans with our fears and emotional baggage have been piggybacking upon since day one. In the past, writing a letter or having someone give a verbal message to someone else was not a matter taken lightly. Your words were representatives of your personality and reputation. Trust of the message-bearers was essential, as were the contents of the words they carried. And then the damn industrial revolution happened, and everything got quicker and reproduced a hell of a lot easier. The telegraph and telephone meant talking to anyone became both more personal and more impersonal. Advanced machinery was developed that required a lot less manpower to create the same power and products than before. By the time the much-maligned Luddites got around to smashing up industrial looms in symbolic protest, it was too late, the robber barons had the politicians wrapped around their fingers, and everyone else on the farms and in the factories, were doing whatever they could to get by. It took a couple of devastating wars, recessions, and a depression to kind of get everything back to a semblance of normalcy for the average citizen. Advancing technology has always offered speed and proliferation. More of everything and right away. We - the people it is ostensibly built for - take a long damn time to truly understand and accept these effects (usually first focusing on the good ('hey, everything's so much cheaper!') before realizing the bad ('hey, we're all out of work!')). And just as we seemed to have gotten our better than average monkey brains around the ideas and effects of the industrial revolution (let's say, around the 1950s), computers stopped having to be size of rooms. Which meant they were going to be the next thing to throw our entire civilization into a socioeconomic and cultural tailspin. This brief history lesson is not a revelation, but it puts in context our ability and inability to adapt to massive changes at high speed (in broad, historical periods of decades, not months and years). Evolution is slow. A mixture of genetic anomaly and luck over centuries. Two computers in labs in California talking slowly to each other in 1969 to watching a movie on your iphone in 2017 is barely a blip in the massive hourglass of time. We're still in a daze with the ability to immediately communicate with almost everyone, and almost everything. If the medium is the message (as McLuhan noted), then the main message that underscores the way we are living now can be described with these terms: instantaneous, overwhelming, and vastly forgettable. It is taken for granted now that people were effortlessly able to tell the difference between the six o'clock news and the scripted dramas and comedies that followed in prime time (refresher: the former is based in reality, the latter is not). Now, if you don't like the tone or content of a news story you’re reading or watching, don't worry, in mere seconds you'll find one that you do like. Every story is piggy-backing on another. The president tweets a dubious claim from a hyper-partisan website, which the hyper-partisan website in turn uses as proof that it must be true. In stark contrast to when your words were your bond and your reputation, the Internet offers unaccountability and anonymity. Who wrote this, who claimed that, is this a trustworthy new site? Is the person threatening you legitimately angry and (if threatening you with horrific bodily harm) mentally unbalanced, or do they happen to be bored for thirty seconds? Why does this one study claim the statistics concerning jobs or crime is this, while another study claims it's different? How do we tell the difference, and how do we move forward on policy? How do we deal with these questions, all of which are rooted in the search for a framing of the true state of contemporary society? How do we balance our responsibilities to our friends, families and co-workers and our responsibilities that come with being an informed and proactive global citizen? After all, we should be very, very concerned if social media sites become the Hub for Truth and Justice. Facebook is a very popular website and that is a massive understatement for an interactive experience that shapes your perception of the world and makes a shitload of money for Goldman Sachs every time you swipe through your newsfeed. Big important things like health care, international trade agreements, and data sharing, are complicated. How you interact with these things in the physical and virtual world is complicated. And because the way were engaging with these things/institutions/ideas/rules is changing from how we were only twenty five years ago, even simple things have gotten complicated. People are frustrated and depressed at losing their jobs to advancing technology, especially as they see the owners of this technology getting fabulously rich. And so enters Internet Outrage. You're angry about something. Something that's wrong. Something that might be affecting your life directly, or something you've read that's occurring on the other side of the world. While millions of people in Asia are rising out of poverty, millions in the Americas and Europe and sliding into the lower classes, and this lack of employment in the latter regions are only going to exacerbate in the coming years. In large regions across America, the second rust belt has created widespread unemployment and resentment, and helped elect a President who uses social media to rile up this very base of supporters through anger, the blaming of the eternal and ever-shifting 'other', and promising to make America (or really, any country that is going through the same economic tumult and is turning to a braying straw-person) Great Again. The Internet helped caused many of the problems that are creating a 'white death of despair', but because of its contemporary omnipresence the same people harmed by it rely on it (the same can be said about Wal-Mart's sales tactics, where its bargaining power forced many American factories to close and have their goods manufactured overseas, but those who lost their jobs because of it still shop there). The Internet is a main source/manifestation of society's unemployment crisis, and the shelter from it. Where you can tune out the harsh realities of the world via Netflix, YouTube, gaming platforms, and any number of communities based on every sort of hobby or pastime imaginable. Where you can rage against the harsh realities of the world, in both constructive and destructive ways. Whenever a news story (veracity pending) comes across your screen, interrupting your daily doldrums or work cycle, it always has the chance to crystallize your anger, alienation, passion, and disappointment. And if you are part of the ever-expanding pool of have-nots in the Western World, how do you transform this powerlessness into power? Use it to shame a corporation cutting down tracts of rainforest by sharing articles and posting your objection on the company's Twitter page. Criticize the verdict of a particular court case (perhaps the tone-deafness of the judge) by starting petitions to review the confirmation process of judges or make a tl;dr post that people will circulate after they get a few sentences in. Mock, bully, or harass the person who said or did some stupid that you feel endangers your way of life. Find like-minded people to enthusiastically agree with and grow your 'I'm right' bubble. The internet makes all these things ridiculously easy. And in doing so, makes them almost entirely meaningless. Oh certainly some people's lives will be terribly affected (or vastly improved) for a short period time, but it's not necessarily going to make any fundamental changes to the power structure of the world at large. 'Easy' is a double-edged sword. Everyone wants everything to be that very thing, but once that happens - once everything is that same sort of easy - its value plummets. Even when you attach 'outrage' to easy. It's easy to salute Facebook's ability to organize events and get people to act as one, whether in cyberspace or a town square or city park. It's easy to criticize Facebook for letting algorithms pedal fake news and for making petition signing a joke. It's easy to get lost in time wasting, dispiriting and pointless arguments with people who you might only disagree with a little bit. It's easy to alienate potential supporters of your basic ideas and beliefs if you vocally denounce them for having differing opinions on the details. Almost everything on the internet is dialed up to eleven. Praise, hate, truth, lies. There is no centre because the Internet doesn't do centre. It doesn't have to do centre. The Internet is ego unleashed and when the id-moment will finally arrive to bring some semblance of balance is anyone's guess. Yes, you'll type things in a comments section or say things while playing Battlefield that you'll never actually do in 'real life', but as more and more of our lives exist in cyberspace - since the digital realm is predominantly where you tweet, work, and play - a redefinition of 'real' is required. Or, more accurately, a redefinition of public and private space. Context is almost everything, and where, how, and why you say, 'I'm gonna fucking kill that asshole', makes a huge difference. On the internet is rapidly becoming on the street. Using Twitter is telling everyone in the world. A comments section is a hyper-busy coffee shop. A game lobby is a hotel lobby. Now we know how puerile and disgusting internet trolls can be with a tap of our finger, and after reading one article after another, it doesn't take long for questions to come exploding out of one's brain in (yes) outrage. Take this one for example. -would we hear about this story if it wasn't for the Internet, where picture can be taken and shared with the world in seconds? -is this matter of eighteen to twenty one years old being the assholes they're supposed to be? (and hopefully, grow out of it?) -can sororities take the lead in punishing this attitude by banning this frat from various frat/sort events? -are HR departments of the future going to cross reference applicant names with frat info, with stories like this? -has this always been the attitude at frats, and we only know this now because of what public sphere has become? -is this just a matter of 'freedom of speech' protecting these jerks, but everyone else crucifying them in the court of public opinion for a few days before the story dies down? -is it all just a joke that we're taking way too seriously? And when a young woman is tragically sexually assaulted or raped on campus, do we make a connection between this tasteless joke and a terrible crime? Can a connection be made? How exactly does a joke support a culture/or attitude support a hideous crime? Do young men see that sign and start to rationalize sexual assault? -How long will it takes for people to realize that now everyone can see what one person wants only one other person to see? All these questions. Each one with its own lengthy and unfolding arguments from people on either sides of the issues. But where is a fruitful and thoughtful discussion going to take place? Certainly the kneejerk, throwaway, barely helpful response is 'not online', which suggests that a face to face meeting with all concerned parties would be more sensible, diplomatic and fruitful than constant snipping back and forth on Reddit. But what is also happening is the leaking of Internet behaviour into the real world. If you are acting like a terrible human being in the physical world, there's a good chance you're also being a terrible human being in the virtual one, and the distinction between the two is collapsing. In the not too distant future there will be a great and historic debate about how people will be allowed to access essential parts of the Internet, and it will revolve around the matter of having a sort of universal ID that you have to 'carry' everywhere. Now there will still be plenty of private spheres - both real and digital - where you and your friends can be as filthy, catty, and obnoxious as you'd like. That will never go away. But there will inevitably be change in accountability. Not a curtailing a free speech (which, just to remind everyone, is the guarantee that the government will not arrest or censor you for what you say or write), but an always shifting public morals meter. Not against people's private lives, or even displays of art that might offend, but most likely targeted at hate speech and harassment and bullying. Take the matter of Roosh V and Milo Yiannopoulos, controversial online figures that say racist sexist and bigoted things and claim they are exercising freedom of speech by doing so. No matter what terrible things you say, the defence of being allowed to say them is paramount. The outrage against them and (support for them) is a good case study. What do we do? The two of them have been in the odd position of saying terribly offensive things, while at the same time is a victim of death threats (and people have even called Roosh’s father to tell the man how terrible his son is), which from a legal point of view, is much more troubling Specific and repeated threats against a single person count as a crime, general threats do not. But it's obvious that the internet has made it difficult to parse which threats - even specific ones - should be taken seriously (although this has always been a problem. Public figures have received hate mail and death threats long before the internet. Just because it's easier - and therefore more prevalent - and public, doesn't make it any more serious a threat). How do you gauge the seriousness of a threat in a text message from an anonymous person? You couldn't gauge the seriousness of a threat in hate mail from an anonymous person, either. And this is the same sort of problem with the women who were unfortunately caught up in GamerGate. These threats might just be a quick burst of internet outrage sent to a twitter account, or it might be someone who will figure out where you apartment is and waited outside until you leave. Law enforcement is not yet prepared to deal with this sort of ‘verge of a crime’. In the case of Roosh and Milo, the answer seems to be giving them enough rope to hang themselves with, by giving them a much more public spotlight and watch a more sizeable chunk of the populace turn away in disgust (as Milo found, when he appeared on Bill Maher's Real Time, and found supposed friends, associates, and business partners flee him like rats from a sinking ship). But this is only a symptom of the larger problem. Milo's recent headline grabbing activities was the 'this week in Internet outrage', and then we all quickly moved on to the next thing. For more complicated issues, more complicated solutions will be required. Making sure we know who is speaking to us on the Internet is the first step in making cyberspace a more civil and functioning ecosystem, but the next one is going to be not always leaning on the easy solution. And that, by any definition, will be hard.
Sources
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/the-original-underclass/492731/
FALLOUT - The 2016 Presidential Election Result It's been quite a November. Says Captain Obvious’ close friend, Corporal Understatement. The campaign felt long, endless, part of 'just the way things are now'. Political aspirants playing their parts in an endless reality show that is 'the news'. Sometimes they talk about the policies they would like to support, sometimes they talk about policies they would not like to support, but mostly they talk about how great things are going for them and their campaign, and how awful it is for their opponents. And then there would be breaking news about a scandal, how this one person said this or did that, and how they are going to deal with it going forward. Then it was Election Day. For the first twenty four hours after it became apparent that the swing states had swung and the ridiculous leapt past the impossible into the very possible and then the very real, it was wallowing and thinking time, not writing time. The world seemed too panic-wired to sleep, then feeling tired all Wednesday because of the poor quality of the eventual sleep (the wailing refrain of 'this is really happening' from Idioteque going off like alarm bells). President Trump. No one can deny that he is the least qualified person to ever hold the office of President (the only one who had no previous experience in government is Eisenhower, and if you're the four star general that helped win the Second World War, that's kind of free pass (and Dwight was the Republican who warned about the military-industrial complex!)). His post-election interview with the New York Times (link to transcript in notes) is a depressing reaffirmation that he is ignorant and willfully dismissive of pressing issues and presidential responsibilities, holds pointless, petty grudges, and constantly sounds like he's in the middle of trying to sell you something. He does not offer a sense of confidence, only bluster. He is not the paragon of virtue and resolve that Western democracy needs right now. How did this happen? Some people didn't need much time to point fingers. And why wait, when there were so many juicy targets? And the best part was that everyone would kind of be right, because there are many reasons why tens of millions of people vote the way they do. Even though the real story shouldn't be about the people who voted for Trump. Or the people who voted for Clinton. Or the people who voted for any other candidate. It should instead be about the people who didn't vote at all. 231 million eligible voters, and of that 135 million cast ballots. Almost one hundred million people did not vote. Did not participate in the one of the basic exercises expected in a democracy. [and while it's certainly one's right not to vote, it's that paradoxical situation where only by voting can you consistently protect your right to not vote. You stop voting, you'll find those rights quickly disappear] If there was a candidate called 'didn't bother' on the ballot, it would have crushed either Trump or Clinton by tens of millions of votes. Michael Moore (who predicted a Trump win back in the summer, in part because Trump supporters were fired up, while Clinton supporters were more 'whatever, I would have preferred Bernie, and she's a bit dull on the stump, but still better than Donald') noted that if people could vote through their PlayStation or Netflix accounts, voter turnout would skyrocket. [and certainly we must acknowledge that many people who did not vote certainly wanted to, but were - for various reasons - unable to. Some of this is due to active voter suppression (and here's where we remind you that in conservative states they have made it more difficult for people to vote under the unfounded claim that it's being done to prevent rampant voter fraud, when it actually make it's difficult for people who traditionally vote democrat (young people, minorities) to do so), as well as drastic cuts to the elections budgets making all sorts of delays (hour-long lines) and mistakes (names, addresses don't match on outdated rolls) more likely] Making it easier to vote would be an excellent first step to increase turnout. Considering how essential they are to democracy, spending the proper amount of money on the people and equipment needed to run a functioning election process is a given. Making advanced voting more expansive, declaring that leaving work to vote on election day is a right, or even creating a national holiday on the second Tuesday of November. But how many people fall into these unfortunate scenarios above, and how many simply decided the whole election thing wasn't worth it? Tens of millions. Easily enough to change the result to a landslide for either candidate, but instead they 'humbly' bowed out of democracy completely. They are the true and terrifying silent majority. And not wanting to wait in line is an excuse of very limited acceptance when the responsibilities of citizen and state at stake. Neither is shrugging with indifference that the two party system is broken and each of the candidates are both lousy and believing that one person's vote really doesn't make that much of a difference. Everyone decries negative campaigning, but it's proven that it works, where it can inspire people to vote against instead of for. Except this time, where it got so toxic and embarrassing that it kept many millions of people away from the polls. Allowing for more of the fringe characters and opinions to become part of the presidential conversation. So here's where we throw a rock at the mainstream media, for giving Trump pass after pass early on simply because he was good for ratings when shooting his mouth of. He was supposed to be laughed offstage, which would be proof that the democracy worked, that no one wants to hear from a fear-mongering buffoon. The mainstream media, not seeing the Trump campaign for what it was, for the energy it harnessed, became a bubble unto itself, with experts just talking to other experts, which led to so many viewers writing it off under the assumption that it could not be trusted. And this isn't just levied at cable news networks, but long standing newspapers. The New York Times is dismissed by people on the right and the left as a tool of the side they detest, even though that's a reassuring sign that they aren't necessarily being partisan. As the internet's role has become more and more prevalent, it's been difficult for any news organization to simply balance its operating budget, let alone turn a profit, and that means it’s that much hard to do it’s extremely important job. The Guardian's website is now asking for money like it's a charity organization, and it practically is. Suddenly being well-informed is a privilege of those who can afford it, not a right. Consequently, more and more people are getting a trickling of sensationalist headlines from their facebook feeds, and rarely anywhere else, which is exactly an informational construct that a quasi-political superficial blowhard can take advantage of. When Trump began racking up primary wins, DC-New York Republicans seemed shattered, lamenting the splitting of their party, admitting that they lived in a bubble, never realizing how so many of their fellow GOP members really felt about the state of politics. Now, with Trump President-elect, DC-New York-LA citizens seems shattered, lamenting the splitting of their country, admitting that they live in a bubble, never realizing how so many of their fellow Americans really felt about the state of politics. An incredulous, disorienting feeling, especially when so many polls and experts were promising an easy victory for Clinton (echoes of Brexit, certainly). So many - liberals and conservatives - not understanding the attraction, especially when there was so much to repel: Why vote Trump? The Internet-news-o-sphere offered up a litany of reasons, and they're all partly right. There's no one reason why sixty million people cast their ballots for one particular candidate. Still deep-seated misogyny (even by white women, 53% of whom voted for Trump), still deep-seated racism (since Clinton was seen as an extension of the Obama's policies), still deep-seated xenophobia (if Trump was tough on immigrants and Muslims, then Clinton was therefore not). But those three facets of deplorability can't be the whole story, not for sixty two million people. Clumping a large group people together because a handful of them exemplified a few terrible traits is something that...well, something that Donald Trump would do. Besides, if you're going to whittle Trump's support down to one word, it shouldn't be 'deplorables', it should be 'jobs'. Remember those things? Because a hell of a lot of Americans don't. And the constant disconnect of a rising Dow (which, it should be reminded, is a barometer of how rich the rich people are, not the state of the economy for the billions of people around the globe) and falling unemployment numbers mask the fact that underemployment in the service industry is the new career reality not only across America but the globe as well (work that offers no guaranteed hours, no job security, no benefit, no legal protections, and little to sense of independence or self worth). This is the spiraling black hole of death problem that was created by globalization. Technology allowed us to make stuff for cheap on the other side of the world and ship it all around, so factories from Kansas to Kiev shut down and millions of people were fired. And this has been the problem that was staring at us in the face since the 1980s, and it was one that many Western leaders never wanted acknowledge, always kicking the can down the road, with the promises of jobs returning or being replaced always ending up empty. And the people got sick of both the Republicans and Democrats lying about fixing the problem, since the politicians seemed to always be cozying up to the wealthy corporations, who were getting all the wealthier as regulations loosened and unions weakened. And when people are that upset and feel completely abandoned by the system that exists to ensure that this exact thing doesn't happen, they vote for the candidate that doesn't sound like every carbon copy politician, the candidate they believe when he (or she) promises they'll renegotiate trade deals to bring back jobs and drains the special interest swamp in the capital. So you get Donald Trump. A sleazy, born-rich billionaire who declared bankruptcy four times and is best known to the public as a blustery game show host. A man whose on record on job creation is spotty at best. A man who says you can trust him because he's already gamed the system. A symptom of the problem, sure, a straw-man/strong-man who is only realizing now (from his first meeting with Obama where he looked a combination of bored and terrified, to his feeble attempts at choosing a cabinet) that this job comes with plenty of power and responsibility, but not with the sort of power that can keep even a fraction of his campaign promises. And the swing states which swung for Trump (Ohio, Wisconsin) will continue to feel the endless kneecapping of little to no job recovery under the new President. So while this explains his support among the low-to-no-income classes (in economically depressed communities, whichever candidate boasts over and over about bringing back jobs will emerge victorious), one must also consider the segment of his supporters which bring in an average $70,000 a year. These people voted for Trump for the same reason a lot of people voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Because it 'feels' like he represents 'change', two words that will never stop being factors in elections. A sensationalist and sometimes wildly false and inaccurate media (Macedonian teenagers making clickbait alt-right news websites for fun and profit) painting a picture of terror and uncertainty, couple with anecdotal evidence of people's genuine economic plight creates the 'feeling' that America is falling behind, losing its way. That even if you have a job everywhere else around you is flailing, while the world seems more chaotic and government handouts appear to only help people who live in big cities. Is this true? Does it even matter if this is what you 'feel' to be true? Sure, it means you're ignoring facts and statistics, but don't worry, there's a president-elect for that. And that means it's time to ask how that is going to affect policy going forward. When the decisions aren't made based on truth, but what you want to be true. Or 'post-truth', which is the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year. So what will Trump do? He's said so many contradictory and inflammatory things, it's hard to say what he will want to do and what he'll be able to do. Pretty much the only thing that's certain is that he'll cut taxes for the rich and corporations, and further deregulate financial, energy, and media industries. That's the gift to himself and the rest of the 1% (in fact, this might finally get the rest of the wealthy and powerful to actually like Trump, who's bankruptcies and bluster kind of made him seem like a blackballed embarrassment to other Manhattan elites). For years Clinton has been pilloried for being too close to wealthy donors and special interests. And she was defeated in this election by a man who was the archetypal egotistical business tycoon. And how will he appease his supporters and help the rest of America? He's cooled down his rhetoric: the border wall is now a fence, deportation goal numbers have been slashed 75%, of course he'll honour NATO commitments, he'll slice up some but not all of Obamacare. For now. All this might change next week, month or year. This is uncharted territory. This is a simmering pot ready to boil. The President elect owes millions to Chinese banks (because American banks wouldn't lend him money), has investment properties/portfolios all over the world and is already wheeling and dealing with his business partners at Trump Tower, since he doesn't seem to be interested in setting up a blind trust to keep the affairs of the nation and the affairs of his bottom line separate. A new low in political everything, encapsulated perfectly by President-Elect Trump. Still tweeting about how the media is out to get him, saying that he could have won the popular vote if he wanted to, treating the campaign and now the rollout of his cabinet like a reality show. Walking back every shocking declaration he ever said with a straight face, tacitly acknowledging that he said it just to get attention. Is this the new reality, where the position of the President becomes even more superficial and PR-based, and it's the people behind the curtain that are pulling his or her strings? Trump has already duped his supporters by doing the opposite of 'draining the swamp', with lobbyists salivating at the idea of getting back the halls-of-power access. It's pay to play once again, after going through a few famine years under Obama. So if Washington stays the same, what can he offer his diehard supporters other than whipping up more hatred of the 'other'? He has two years to bring back millions of jobs to the rust belt, and if his economic plan (or the people he puts in charge of his economic plan, which really means the people who are going to come up with an economic plan for him) is anything to go by (loosening regulations, tax cuts), it's simply not going to happen. America doesn't have the same economic pull it used to, nor do the most powerful people in the country seem to have any interest in bringing these jobs back, since doing so would affect the company bottom line. Until it's just as expensive to build a lawnmower in Asia as it is in Arkansas, the manufacturing jobs are going to stay on the other side of the Pacific. All of these things are troubling, but it's the personality of Trump which makes his administration all the more unpredictable. That he ran as a Republican and is staffing Republicans means there are some predictable elements to his policies. If Clinton won, it would have been unlikely that she would have won both houses of congress, which means she would have had to do quite a bit of compromise for her own platform. Of course, her policies would be much more person friendly and much less corporation friendly. Democrats and Republicans will both fuck you in the end, but the Democrats will buy you dinner first. We needed Clinton's policies on climate change, taxation, and social programs to be the baseline requirements for the years and decades going forward if we were to uphold the basic functioning of a democratic America, and therefore a large part of a functioning Western Civilization, and therefore a large part of global society. Even if Trump's policies were centrist (or even populist), current living standards and basic rights will be in jeopardy in the years to come. When it comes to what he might mean to international diplomacy, the world is already turning into the skid, with increased settlement building in Israel, emboldened right-leaning parties across Europe, and a circle-the-wagons mentality in Asian countries. Hopefully Trump is taking a crash course of sorts in these matters, because who he surrounds himself with will define the sort of information and news presented to him. In that way, the president decides what he will do when he decides his staff. And Donald Trump has a history of working with only sycophants and horse-traders, morals, integrity and clarity be damned. If he's only passively interested in most issues, and preferring ones that can be linked to good photo-ops and rallies were people chant his name, then fewer issues will ever be addressed by him directly, with decisions behind made behind his blissfully ignorant back. In this way, Trump will force the Presidency to mean even less. The people have spoken, and soon their words/ballots will mean even less. Trump will make this a figurehead position, one that is meant to inspire the nation, make them proud to be [insert nationality here], while the convoluted decisions about policy are made in sausage-like fashion in offices across the world. Where half the country thinks that the leader of Russia had his thumb on the scale on the election (regardless of whether it's true), especially after it was acknowledge that some of Putin's staff communicated with Trump over the summer. As mentioned in the tail end of the pre-election article (HERE), it was noted that with Trump's likely loss, that it might lead to a rejection of sorts against the Trump-like character and the Trump-like traits that many people in power hold. Apparently it will have to take an entire administration before that happens. More so than Hillary Clinton, truth and substance were the losers in this election. The two mainstream political parties can't change all that much between election cycles. Two and four years aren't long periods of time, and when the losers acknowledge there has to be reforms of policy and approach, they are still at the mercy of the same big money donors and interests (even if some of the donors and interests want change as well, it certainly doesn't come fast). Typical 'change' is doing exactly what the victors did, or making a half-assed attempt at doing the exact opposite of what the victors did. The democrats will run a Trump for the left, an energetic, approachable, slogan pushing yes man or woman that is expected to leave the policy details to lawyers and lobbyists. Divisions will continue to widen, economically, socially, culturally, geographically. And information will be fitted and tailored around the policy being made and the person pushing it. Pocket cults of personality will exist across the land, tethered to wealthy donors and vanity institutes of research and polling. The truest thing in peoples’ lives will be their phone/internet bill. Perhaps this all too dour, only three weeks out from November 8th, but a few days ago, the president-elect tweeted that the election he won was crooked and filled with irregularities, and that there should be no recounts. A statement that is about as good as 1984-like doublespeak gets. Donald Trump emerged as the victor in a miserable and joyless presidential campaign, and he destroyed the people’s complete faith and trust in democracy to do it.
Sources
Unemployment across the country
Trump meets Obama, isn't having fun yet (http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/donald-trump-doesnt-like-this-any-more-than-you-do-1788862854)
NYT Interview Transcript:
Trump and Putin (http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50598/russian-talked-to-trump-campaign/)
Closed Borders
Dowd's tossing blame on Clinton/Obama ego and being out of touch
The world is already turning into the skid:
Chomsky on Trump: (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/trump_in_the_white_house_an_interview_with_noam_chomsky
Elitism (Oh yeah, that thing)
Elitism is a loaded term, and is sensibly the bane/antagonist of democracy, since the bedrock of the latter is that everyone is equal to one another and consequently should have an equal say in how the community/state should be run. That's theoretical, of course. Stating 'everyone is equal' refers to how they are to be treated in the eyes of the law. Beyond that, it needs to be acknowledged that no one is equal to anyone else. We all have different abilities and flaws, which make us all specifically unequal to one another. A lovely sentiment when it comes to an individual's uniqueness and the power to shape your own destiny, but it can be a real challenge when it comes to performing basic democratic tasks, like being an informed and responsible citizen. Additionally, stating that everyone should have the same amount of power is more aspirational than anything else. Political power has never been so smoothly distributed among a nation's citizens. One person, one vote? Definitely. Does it translate effortlessly into how power is used in the capitol buildings? Not exactly. You can bandy around plenty of terms for the people who have considerably more power than the average citizen. Nobility is nice and old school, but it's been 'elitism' and the 'elite' for a while now. Your career politicians, your CEOs of all the industries that not-so-secretly shape your life and destiny (energy, financial, and - increasingly - tech), your old money that worked so damn hard to turn it into new money (namely, investing in the three industries listed above), and the odd rags-to-riches (or shrinking middle class-to-riches) inventor/entrepreneur who made it so big they couldn't go bankrupt if they tried (and consequently becomes old money). The rise of the aforementioned people in the last three and a half decades in terms of wealth and power (not just across America, not just across the Western World, but across the globe as a whole) has created an institutional foundation of governance where access has become considerably more restricted This means a phone call to your local politician will not resonate nearly as much as a donation of several thousand dollars (or the creation of a Super PAC (Political Action Committee)). To run for office requires a considerable amount of money, which means you are already rich, or you have a series of rich donors who will your support your campaign (and for whom you will owe vote-friendly favours to if you win). Spending tens of thousands of dollars in an election season to ultimately save hundreds of thousands of dollars because the politicians you 'donated to' (not 'bribed') will change (or not change) the tax code does not come off as a perversion of democracy in the elites' eyes, but rather a sound business investment. The political positions of these individuals can vary, except when it comes to economic policy. Controlling at all costs what is most valuable - first and foremost, the transfer and exchange of money, followed by the energy and technology that people depend on daily - is something unanimously agreed upon. And they see this as a responsibility, not as a voracious and evil plot for more and more To keep this status quo, elites marry other elites, have children that go to elite schools and meet other elites to marry. In this vacuum, the expectation that a politician or judge already holds you in higher favour does not seem abnormal. Rising inequality results in much less social integration between the fewer haves and the many more have-nots. Can someone outside of this system crack into the caste? Yes, but it's difficult, rare, and more akin to winning the lottery than being the ideal social system for anyone to succeed. The American/Western Dream shouldn't have to exist as an exception to the rule. A capitalist economic system that leans heavy towards free markets is one where an individual's entire worth is based on finances. And even if the playing field (to use a trivializing term for our lives) was level when we all emerge from the womb, the differences in peoples' abilities and the need for some social roles to be of higher regard than others means that power and wealth could never be diffused uniformly. The advantaged naturally rise to the top, but the concern will always exist of what they do when they get there. If they saw themselves as fulfilling God given roles centuries ago, then today the elites see themselves as 'stewards', leading the globalized economy forward to the eventual benefit of all. Consequently - when you look at any sort of graph regarding wealth, income inequality, personal debt, corporate mergers, etc. - the current problems with the large-scale economic system (and not only in America) is that the elites have failed the rest of us. Certainly the masses can cynically expect the elites to 'look out for their own' before making sure the state/globe still functions normally, but over the last decade - and certainly after the financial crisis of 08/09 - these problems have exacerbated greatly. If the measure for success is a continually functioning society that can offer a majority of its citizens respectable living standards and an ability to address large-scale challenges that will affect the well-being of the state and the world at large, then the elites - having more power than that of the voting block of all citizens - have misused the role they gave themselves. Consequently, there are two strands of thought to consider. A) The elites have a higher level of responsibility of ensuring that society runs smoothly than those who are not elite. This is a tacit agreement between the powerful few and the less powerful many. B) Everyone is in it for themselves, and the people that accomplish more through a combination of hard work, ingenuity and luck (being born into a wealthy family) owe nothing to anyone else. If A is true then there are systemic failures within the economic state of the contemporary world and changes must be made. If B is true then are systemic failures within the economic state of the contemporary world, but that's just the way it is, smoke 'em if you got 'em. So let's go with A. Rectifying this problem can occur in very few (and considerably difficult) ways. A groundswell of public support for reforms (see: populism) is extremely difficult when one considers the strong and almost unbridgeable divide between liberals and conservatives (although we should use these terms loosely). Even information can be skewered to particular groups, thanks to the news-conformity bubble (where you only seek out/receive news/opinions from political positions that are very similar to your own). If the right's new bubble is said to be anti-fact (currently personified by the words of Donald Trump), then the left's is anti-practicality. The left has been promised/promising a path to utopia through proper legislation, but nothing can match their rhetoric. Look at Obamacare. Because of the concessions that were required to get enough support in Congress, many of the left are disappointed at its limitations. And future left-leaning legislation will have the same problem. It won't be what was originally claimed. It will always seem to be - at best - a middling success to the left (and to the right government-run health insurance was always about death panels). And Obamacare is weak largely in part because of the unavoidable demands of compensation from health insurance companies, which are run and owned by the elites (that no one seems to bat an eye at the idea of profiting massively from people's illnesses - plus having an incentive to deny peoples' claims - is also troubling). No matter what the large scale government project, the powerful corporations and those that run them sneak their thumb (or whole hand) on the scale. That some of the largest financial and energy industries get billions a year in tax breaks while remaining enormously profitable is unfathomable. Unless you're the ones reaping the rewards. Then it doesn't seem that way. And it's hard to see any other perspective if you're inside the bubble (in fact, you might deny that there is a bubble in the first place). Whether it's pushing the trickle-down economy, the idea of a substandard living wage, or simply saying, 'screw the lazy poor', the elites looking out for number 1% first and everyone else second has become an entrenched belief among everyone else on the planet. Changing this perspective is difficult, as it is going against a fundamental belief of the American/Western dream, which is that success is always dependent on an individual. In reality, success depends on harnessing the convoluted inter-workings of a globalized economy. During the 2012 presidential election, Republican seized on a disemboweled quote from Obama. The President was outlining that no matter how hardworking and intelligent the individual (or individual company) was, it is dependent on basic infrastructure like roads, electricity, building codes and regulations, etc, that is provided by governments. He said 'you didn't build that', and the GOP used those four and half words as proof that Obama is a foe of business, large and small. There is a resistance among elites to government participation in practically any large-scale endeavour, even though mixed market economies are much more stable in the long term. So it's no wonder this system has fallen out a favour at a time when few people are looking long term. The working class is living paycheque to paycheque, and the elites are only interested in the positive quarterly financial reports that will result in their annual bonus. Everyone is existing in short-term economies. Long term investments are suddenly considered too risky, because we're tearing up the present to pieces to get every single dollar and cent out of it. If there are elitists, then even the middle class begins to become irrelevant. There is only the extremely wealthy and powerful, and then everyone else. Elitism as an actual form of governance cannot exist in a democracy. If the elected representatives are not supporting the will of the people (but rather a very, very small segment of people, regardless of how the votes are cast), then there is no democracy. Once again, it has to be stressed that this push for corporate power and deregulation has been terrible for the great masses of people across the globe. In the West there is rising unemployment, less saving, and no job security, and even in other areas in the globe that have absorbed the West's former manufacturing jobs, there is still poverty, exploitation, and non-democratic rule. The notion that the best rise to the top and are better suited to rule would seem much less odious if the results actually benefitted the majority of the people. The self-appointed guardians of capital can't seem to keep their own grubby hands out of the cookie jar, leaving the vast majority of the people with the crumbs. A healthy, long-term democracy has to alternate between egalitarian-focused and elitist-focused periods. Ideally democracy will always be egalitarian-focused, but that does not appear to be feasible, and will have to be considered a theoretical construct rather than a plausible form of governance. There's never going to be an egalitarian utopia and there will never be a ‘1984-like inner/outer party and everyone else’ dystopia. Instead it's always going to be a mix of both, with the scales occasionally leaning more towards | ||||
