Author: crimson

Sloppy Language: Part 2 – Descriptive Versus Prescriptive

crimson

Science, Economics, and many other fields purport to be focused on trying to explain observations about the world. That is, these fields are trying to be descriptive regarding what has been observed. Often times, they will use models and algorithms in an attempt to describe what has been observed. If the model is able to successfully predict what is observed, then it can be considered a good theory about the world.

However, if the field starts to forget that it is trying to describe the observations of the world, and instead starts to believe that the models are not merely trying to explain observations, it may become prescriptive. That is, it may start to believe that the model is not merely a model, and is instead the world itself. This is the concern Jean Baudrillard expresses in his work Simulacra and Simulation. This is what I want to talk about today.

Recently, I took an economics class. I found the class quite challenging. Part of my challenge was the manner in which the instructor decided to teach the class: constantly jumping around from topic to topic and not following any sort of structure. He provided a syllabus to the class, complete with a schedule of when he was planning to teach the various topics. However, he did not follow the syllabus at all.

As chaotic as the class was to follow, there was another significant issue I found infuriating: his sloppy use of language. Early on in the class, he laid out the different ideas as they would pertain to an individual. He introduced the idea of a Demand Curve, and how individuals would choose to purchase a particular product based on their willingness to pay for the product at various points. This related to something called an Indifference Curve, which related two products and how the individual would value them as related to each other. These are all interesting economic terms and ideas, but ultimately the driving force behind all of this is the idea that the value an individual places in something can be, in some way, quantified.

To put this all a little more simply, my instructor was suggesting that all things we valued could be measured based on how much money we were willing to pay for them. The Demand Curve specifically delineates how much we are willing to pay to have that something, and the Indifference Curve relates how the value of one thing relates to the value of another. The idea of utility emerges from all of this.

In economics, utility is considered to be analogous to happiness or satisfaction. That is, one could simply replace all occurrences of the word “utility” with the word “happiness” and the meaning of the statement would remain the same. In my class, the instructor was suggesting that all products could be measured by how much happiness it gave to the individual. But more than merely that, he further suggested that because this amount of happiness could be quantified, one could exchange various products in appropriate quantities in order to maintain or even increase one’s happiness.

It is time for me to provide an example, to help clarify what I am talking about. Consider 2 products: hot dogs and t-shirts. The particular products are unimportant, so I’ve selected a couple that are reasonably disposable, meaning one is likely to purchase many of them over the course of their lifetime. It is suggested that a hot dog will provide an individual with a certain amount of happiness. Similarly a t-shirt will also provide that same individual with a certain amount of happiness as well, though the amount is likely to be a bit different. By using an Indifference Curve, it should be possible to determine how many hot dogs provides the equivalent amount of happiness as a t-shirt. And vice-versa: there should be a certain amount of t-shirts that provides the equivalent amount of happiness as a hot dog.

For my example, let us suggest that the Indifference Curve is linear for the moment (in reality, this curve is never linear). And let us suggest that through experimentation I determine that one t-shirt is equivalent to 3 hot dogs. Then, if I want to maximize my happiness in this world, I should purchase 3 times as many hot dogs as t-shirts. But it doesn’t stop there. Let us suggest that t-shirts and hot dogs have some constant value (which clearly in reality they do not). Let us suggest t-shirts cost $15 and hot dogs cost $2.

This is where it may get a bit weird, but bare with me. Each t-shirt provides me with 3 hot dogs worth of happiness, and I know that each hot dog costs $2, therefore a t-shirt can be said to provide $6 (3 x $2) worth of happiness. Similarly, a hot dog provides 1/3 of a t-shirt of happiness, and as a t-shirt costs $15, therefore a hot dog provides $5 (1/3 x $15) worth of happiness. In other words, the t-shirt gives me 6/5 or 120% of the happiness of a hot dog. Welcome to economics!

At this point, if the linear curves and constant prices were true, it should be obvious that this individual should never bother to purchase any hot dogs, as they will always receive more happiness from the purchase of t-shirts. However, the curves are not linear, and the prices are not constant, and so life is already more interesting. Due to the idea of diminishing marginal utility, which suggests that the more of something you purchase, the less happiness you will derive from it, there will come a point of optimization whereby a certain number of t-shirts and hot dogs will be the ideal, providing the individual with the greatest possible happiness.

Confused yet? If you have kept up with all I’ve stated, then congratulations. This is the simple, basic stuff in economics. From here, it gets way more complicated. About half way through the class, we started aggregating individuals into groups and communities. Into markets, where we start talking about how large groups of people will react to changes in prices and in the supply of goods. It builds from this humble beginning, using linear curves and constant prices.

For me, the problem is left unresolved at the beginning. The issue of quantifying happiness. For if this issue cannot be resolved, building upon the shaky foundation does not offer any confidence in the results that follow. If I cannot resolve the issue of quantifying happiness, then how can I have any faith in the models used to explain how larger groups and communities behave?

In my class, I treated all of this as like a game. As like a puzzle. I separated these ideas from the reality I knew and understood, trying to “win” the game or “solve” the puzzle. In that way, I passed my class without too much trouble. However, there is a world of difference between believing that economics is a strong indicator of how the world works, and simply some pipe dream of a few wealthy individuals. I passed because I knew how to tell the instructor what he wanted to hear, not because I believed what he was telling me was the truth.

The concern I have with economics, at this point, is that those who have spent their time and effort trying to explain the world seem to have shifted from trying to describe how the world is behaving, into trying to prescribe how individuals ought to behave. This is where economics is moving into the realm of ethics.

Unlike a science, like chemistry, where the world will continue to behave as it will regardless of the formulas and algorithms used, economics is providing feedback to individuals and directing decision making. My instructor started the class by suggesting that economics was “the study of decision making.” By making such a claim, he is not suggesting economics is observing the world and trying to explain why people do as they do. He is instead suggesting that economics is concerned with figuring out how decisions ought to be made. In the case of individuals, it is concerned with how to maximize happiness. In the case of companies and businesses, it is concerned with how to maximize profits.

The class spent its time providing the results to various surveys and research, purporting to be trying to explain why people did what they did. But, instead of spending time with that information and analyzing it to understand, it took the information and massaged it into these strange equations and curves, suggesting that “If a consumer always buys goods rationally, then the marginal utilities per dollar spent on all goods will be equal.”

Economics, at least based on what I learned in this class, is prescriptive. It is not concerned with explaining how people behave. It is providing a model for how people ought to behave. It is suggesting that a “rational” person should purchase products and goods in particular ways in order to maximize happiness. And, at its core, suggesting that the happiness I derive from wearing a t-shirt is somehow similar to the happiness I derive from eating a hot dog.

Sloppy Language: Part 1 – Doms Cannot Love Their Subs

crimson

My life is a mess. I think I am busier now than ever before. As opposed to previous times, when I suggested I might have been struggling for topics to discuss, I find myself in the opposite situation now. Having said that, there is a running theme between most of my topics, and so I will try to make this into a bit of a mini series.

The theme, as is revealed in my title, is sloppy language. It was said by one of my professors in philosophy that often times people debate and argue not because they have a difference of opinion, but because they have a problem with communication. Often times, they are saying the same thing, but perhaps the nuances with their understandings of certain words creates the conflict they are experiencing. This is what I’m referring to when I say sloppy language. However, from my own personal experiences, when these miscommunications take place, even once it has been established that the hurdle was conflicting understandings of words, often times the conflict simply changes into an argument regarding who’s interpretation of those words is correct.

Thus, everything I’m about to say is my interpretation, and I want to make that clear at the outset. If you are challenged by what I say, consider the possibility that I am interpreting words differently than you. I will do my best to acknowledge other interpretations and include brief discussion related to that. But ultimately, I understand as I understand, and so this and the subsequent posts are likely to cause some confusion as I go. I am trying my best here.

Quite some time ago, someone told me that “Doms cannot love their subs.” That is, in the case of dominant/submissive relationships, those in the position of dominant could not love their submissive. Unfortunately, as this information came to me third hand, there was no way for me to elaborate on why the person said what they said. No way to delve into the topic more deeply. And, admittedly, I might not have been in the best position at the time to analyze such statements either. I’ve come a long way since then.

To analyze this statement properly, I will first need to talk about one of my favorite topics: love. And while I feel pretty good about most of my previous posts on the topic, it turns out that even I have been sloppy. Because I have come to realize that there is no one kind of love.

To be fair, I did know there was several different interpretations of love before. However, I did not take the time to acknowledge those different interpretations. This makes me at fault for being sloppy in the precise manner I am criticizing right now. I will endeavor not to be so sloppy in the future.

While there are likely many more ways to interpret love than I am about to do, I am going to focus on three sorts of love in this post: true love, objective love, and feeling love. These are my own terms, so looking these up online is likely not going to help you. Where possible, I will try to establish common language where I can.

The first of these, what I call true love, is the sort of love I’ve been going on about in my previous blog posts. The ancient Greek word agape is fairly close to this interpretation. Trying to be brief with my interpretation, I describe this sort of love as being a willingness to sacrifice one’s own projects and to blindly adopt the projects of another. That is, to set aside my own interests and desires in favor of supporting the interests and desires of another, in such a manner that I make no judgments on the other’s interests or desires. It is possible I may not agree with the other’s projects, considering them silly or unreasonable, but I will adopt them into my own projects anyway, because this is what it is to love that other.

The reason agape does tend to fit well here is that agape is concerned with a sort of unconditional love. To love without restriction or judgment. I will love you regardless of what you say or do. And with that, I also wish you a sort of good will. I want what is best for you. I want you to be healthy and happy and safe. This sort of love is consistent with what I am calling true love. Because I imagine most people have among their own projects their own well being and happiness. Thus, if I am adopting your project of your happiness, I am supporting the goal of making you happy.

For a more detailed analysis of what I’m talking about, I would suggest you review my previous posts on love. In them, I go into much more detail. For now, I will move on to the other sorts of love that I have not really discussed before.

The next I refer to as objective love. By objective, I mean that this sort of love is concerned with objects. Where true love would seem to focus on subjects, as it is generally subjects that have projects, objects generally have no projects to speak of. Or, to be even more precise on this matter, whether objects have their own projects or not is not of concern to me. The object might as well have no interests or desires, because I’m going to treat it as such.

Objective love is the sort of love one might expect a person to have toward their car or a television show. When one considers their car to be their most prized possession, they may have objective love for their car. This sort of love manifests in a caring about the well being of the object, with respect to the object fulfilling some sort of benefit to me. This is an instrumental sort of love. If I love my car, it is of interest to me to maintain it so that it will continue to operate for a long, long time.

Thus, if I have objective love for an object, I will spend my time and effort in taking care of the object. I will clean it and repair it and maintain it. I will do everything I can to preserve it. Because the more effort I put into the object, the more function or benefit I can receive from that object. The car may last for decades before needing to be replaced.

With respect to a television show, I might demonstrate my objective love by reviewing it highly among other shows. I will tell other people to watch the television show, or I might rank it highly in surveys. If it is a film in a theater, I may attend the theater multiple times, adding to the profit of the film financially. By doing these sorts of things, I improve the probability that the show will continue or the film will have a sequel. I make it more likely that the show will be syndicated or the film be remastered.

It should hopefully be clear that with objective love I gain in the act. There is something in it for me. In the case of true love, there may be cases where I never receive a benefit, and I may even harm myself in the act. True love will often be viewed as a sort of selfless love. Objective love is the opposite. In objective love, I always receive a benefit. Even if I have to make some sacrifice for the objective love, I will always come out ahead with whatever I receive.

I am not aware of an ancient Greek analog to what I am describing as objective love, but I think eros might be similar. With eros, there is certainly a concern with my pleasure as it relates to the object of my love. The object of concern makes me feel good in some fashion. This can be the luxury of the car; the nice padded interior and the smoothness of the ride. With a television show, it could be the emotional euphoria I experience as the story unfolds. And this can also be related to another person, in how they make me feel pleasure as well. I find them attractive, and that pleases me.

Which leads me nicely into the third sort of love I wanted to discuss: feeling love. Feeling love is not really like these other loves I have been talking about. With true love or objective love, it is something like an active process. I project or send my love outward toward the subject or object of my love. With true love, I am extending my love outward as I acknowledge your autonomy as an independent entity as I try to discern your projects so that I can adopt them as my own. With objective love, I am extending my love outward as I spend my effort in maintaining the object. However, with feeling love, there is no extending outward.

With feeling love, it is internalized only. I feel it, as the term would imply. Meaning this sort of love is only about me. To be clear, I am not talking about self love, which again comes from the ancient Greeks. What I have in mind is more like a passive feeling that comes about within one’s self, similar to anger or sadness or jealousy. It is the feeling that I get that is possibly the most euphoric feeling there is. Like happiness, except better. Feeling love is an emotion. “Feeling love” is, well, “feeling” “love.”

The reason I am being this pedantic about this term is that this is the sort of love that I think most people confuse with true love or objective love. It is this feeling that they feel that suggests to them that they have found the love they seek. However, as it is simply a feeling, the source of that feeling can come from other places. As it is merely a feeling, it is also extremely transitory. It is something that comes and goes. It is often associated with the “honeymoon phase” of most relationships.

The big question that I am hoping my readers have already started to ask themselves at this point is whether these three loves are mutually exclusive. Whether one could feel more than one, or even all three, at the same time. And I want to say the answer is yes. I want to say yes, but I’m not completely confident saying that. I have not had enough time to contemplate this, so I will not mislead by saying that it is the case. I can say that feeling love is compatible with both true love and objective love, but I am not sure if true love is itself compatible with objective love. I think it is, but I will need to spend much more time considering this still.

Now that I’ve established these three sorts of love, I am now ready to tackle dominance and submission. However, I now need to delve into ideas of ethics and especially of Existentialism. It seems to me that what defines a dominant or a submissive is bound up in value theory. That is, to dominate is to assign value to things in the world, and then to expect the submissive to adopt those value assignments. In the case of the submissive, it is not their place to assign value themselves.

The assigning or adopting of values is the realm of ethics. And it is the Existentialists who suggest that nothing inherently has value. Whether value preexists in objects or subjects is less important to my discussion, because dominance is about assigning value regardless.

It seems to me that the dominant is in a position whereby they always assign value themselves. They decide what is important and what is unimportant themselves. I do not think they really adopt the values assigned by others, and instead may observe the values assigned by others and use those observations to help them come up with their own valuations. In other words, the dominant will assign value and never adopt existing assignments. Perhaps to phrase it differently, the dominant never blindly adopts existing value assignments; they may instead assess and judge the assignment of others before possibly adopting those valuations. A dominant is a bit of an egoist.

It seems to me that the submissive is in a position whereby they always adopt the values assigned by others. They avoid determining what is important or unimportant themselves. They seek others to present valuations of the world, and then adopt those valuations into their own schema. To press the point further, a submissive will blindly adopt value assignments, setting aside their own judgments and preconceptions. A submissive might disagree with the valuation that has been assigned, but it is not their place to criticize or contest what has been assigned. A submissive is a bit of a doormat.

I can hear my audience screaming and hollering right now. Many of those who identify themselves as either dominant or submissive are likely outraged by my descriptions, as they are far too restrictive and extreme. My response is simple: you are not completely dominant or submissive in this case. The descriptions I am offering are of the most dominant dominant and the most submissive submissive. And, as with most extremes on any spectrum, it is extremely rare for anyone to exist at the extreme itself. So I suggest that most of those identifying as dominant are not completely dominant, possessing some submissive tendencies under some circumstances. And similarly in the case of the submissive.

To properly address the statement I was told so long ago, the same one in the title of this blog, I need to view those extremes as they are. The pure dominant and the pure submissive. Because it is only in those extremes that the statement could possibly be viewed. Someone who is only partly dominant may still at least partly love, at least with respect to the statement itself.

However, as I have defined my terms, it becomes clear to me that a dominant could love their submissive, though only in particular sorts of love. Considering my definitions, the dominant would not be able to truly love their submissive, as that would require them to abandon their project of assigning values, and begin to adopt them in certain cases. To express true love, the dominant would have to cease their pursuit, ceasing expecting the submissive automatically and blindly adopt the dominant’s valuations. To express true love, the dominant would need to pursue adopting the valuations of the submissive, and this contradicts the definition of a dominant I have made above.

That all said, the dominant could still hold an objective love for the submissive. In fact, I think objective love would likely make a lot of sense for the dominant. In the case of objective love, it is of interest to the dominant to put an effort into maintaining the submissive, so that the submissive will continue to serve their purpose for as long as possible. The dominant is not really concerned about the desires and interest of the submissive, or as I suggested above, the submissive might as well have no interests or desires, because the dominant is going to treat them as such. The dominant is objectifying the submissive.

In the case of the submissive, I find another interesting fact emerges as well. A submissive, by their nature, always truly loves their dominant. The submissive’s acts of adopting the valuations of the dominant blindly is analogous to adopting the dominant’s projects with no judgment. The submissive behaves as a sort of sponge toward the dominant, pulling in all their interests and desires and making the interests and desires their own. The submissive becomes, over time, a sort of mirror of the dominant.

While considering the submissive, I also thought about in what way this sort of behavior differs from being a slave. A slave too adopts the projects of their master blindly, much as the submissive does. However, I think the slave does so unwillingly. That is, the slave would not adopt the master’s projects if they were not being forced to. Given the opportunity, the slave will chose otherwise. The submissive is willing. The submissive wants to obey. In this way, the submissive again is exhibiting true love for their dominant, something that the slave is not really doing.

I could continue on talking of all these things, but I feel I am beginning to ramble. I hope my point has been made clear. In the case of the statement “doms cannot love their subs” it seems clear to me that the statement is false. It may be true that a dominant cannot love their submissive in certain ways, however, they can love their submissive in other ways. A dominant can love their submissive as an object. And considering the nature of our current culture, especially in the part of the world where I live, I would suggest this happens a lot.

Avatars and Simulacra

crimson

I watched the Love Is Blind Season 6 finale, entitled “The Reunion,” just recently. It is my partner who likes the show, so I end up watching it for her; I would not ever watch this show myself if not for her. Writing that opening, I realize just how important my partner is in my life, and in my evolution as a person and a philosopher. Engaging with things I am not interested in, or even do not like, certainly plays an important role in helping me to gain a more holistic and complete view of the world.

In the case of this very specific episode of the show, I realized a number of things about my views on avatars and of simulation theory. I have spoken in previous posts about the separation between persons and their representations in simulation. As a very common example, of a player and their character in a video game. I think this distinction is critically important. That the player needs to always be aware that they are merely the player, and not the character within the simulation. And perhaps even more importantly, that the character’s experience is not the player’s experience. But this episode has thrown several monkey wrenches into my understanding.

One of the characters was being criticized by the shows host for going on record saying, “This is reality television. It is meant to entertain you, and I think that’s exactly what we’re doing. We didn’t miss with this one, baby. We didn’t miss!” This is very, very interesting to me. A reality show actor (and they are actors, just to be clear), goes on record publicly admitting that the purpose of reality television is to entertain. And if that isn’t enough, the show’s host then goes on record saying, “So, be very, very clear about this right now, was this all just for entertainment?” The conversation continues with the actor being placed on the defensive, being pushed to answer a false dilemma regarding the authenticity of the show.

I think it is going to take a bit of explaining to distill out what I think about hearing this. How I get from those statements to the conclusion that people are confusing their avatars for themselves. But that is precisely what this post is all about today.

In thinking much more about the particulars in this situation, I am going to try to explain what I think is going on and what I think the problem is. Firstly, there are individuals or persons who exist in what we might suggest is our main reality. This is me sitting in my chair typing out this post. I am a real, flesh and blood person existing in a physical universe. I need to eat and drink and breath to subsist. I am constrained by many, many limitations that are exceedingly difficult to overcome, such as gravity and air pressure. There is so much to say about this embodiment that I possess, but what I want to make clear is that this is the world that I think most people would agree is the main or true reality we all exist in. At least, as far as we can tell (this is a monkey wrench I can never seem to shake, so bear with me).

Then there are our avatars, who exist in some other reality. We all have many avatars, as many as all the simulations we interact with at any time. As the most basic example, when I play a board game, the playing piece I select becomes my avatar within the game. If I play a video game, my video game character becomes my avatar. And if I set up a social media account, the profile becomes my avatar. In any situation where I engage with some sort of simulation, I will have some sort of avatar that represents me within that simulation. The only exception I can think of is that perhaps I watch the simulation from the outside, like when I watch a sporting event on my television. But then I realize that in that situation, my avatar is akin to God within the simulation, looking down from above. A sort of “objective observer” of the simulation. And thus, there is still an avatar.

In all these cases, to be perfectly clear, I am suggesting that I am never my avatar. Not directly. I have a connection with my avatar, most often in that I control my avatar’s actions. In the case of a board game or video game, this may seem obvious. I might roll the dice to move my playing piece around the board of the board game. Or I might use my joystick to control the movements of my character in the video game. I, as the individual, exert an influence on my avatar in some way to make them behave in their reality.

In the case of the “objective observer,” I again exert an influence, not so much in the behavior, but more in the sorts of things the avatar will observe. I can change my viewpoint to look in different directions, or observe the simulation in different ways. As the “objective observer” is in a privileged position, my influence takes on a more abstract connection to my avatar.

But in the end, in all cases, there is still this distinction between who I am, as an individual, and who my avatar is, within the simulation. And more than just this distinction, it seems to me that there is a particular direction of the flow of things. As individual, my influence extends toward my avatar, not the other way around. The avatar does not make decisions for me, or influence how I behave.

Except that perhaps I’ve been mistaken in this regard. What if my avatar does exert some influence in the reverse direction? What if my avatar influences how I behave and act?

I have often suggested social media is a huge problem. A large reason I make this claim is that I suggest sometimes people confuse their avatars for themselves. Whereas in most video games, once the game is paused or ended, most people will understand that their character was just an avatar and not themselves. I am no longer Link, roaming the realm of Hyrule; in fact, I never truly was. I was always just myself in this world, and I was just “controlling” Link in that game. But what if I thought I was still Link, even when the game was over?

In social media, one creates a profile. That profile is often meant to represent themselves as accurately as possible. Same name. Same statistics. Same features. Same appearance. In fact, if a person purposefully does not do their very best to maintain this high level of correlation between individual and avatar, they are said to be a “catfish.” Being a “catfish” is considered a very unethical and taboo thing, and will often lead to such punishments as ostracization. Of course, this doesn’t appear to be uniform across all simulations; there are some simulations where “catfishing” is embraced and even encouraged. But then, the simulation is treated a bit more like a video game at that point, where the individuals have a much easier time recognizing that there is the distinction between their person and their avatar.

Thus, in general, in social media, it is encouraged to maintain an extremely high level of correlation between one’s avatar and one’s self. If something significant changes to an individual in the “real world,” they are expected to reflect that change in their avatar. If my relationship status changes in the real world, I am expect to update my relationship status within my online profile, for example. But what if something happens to my avatar within the social media; does this suggest that I need to update my person to reflect the change to my avatar?

In thinking about this at length, perhaps my earlier thoughts on individuals and avatars was too hasty. Because when I play an incredibly immersive video game, I do start to experience some of what my avatar experiences. I get excited and scared just as my avatar might. Clearly this is that reverse flow I was just speaking about, where my avatar is exerting an influence on my person. I never really considered this much before, but this is also part of the allure of playing these sorts of video games as well. To feel something I might not normally feel otherwise. To experience something I might not experience otherwise.

And so, in the case of social media, maybe the reverse flow ought to be expected. That if something happens to my avatar online, it will influence my person in this reality. Perhaps even to the point of changing me. My online existence manifesting into my real world existence. Perhaps my connection with my avatar can be far more comprehensive than I originally thought.

Returning to this episode of Love is Blind, and the comments by the actor about how the show is merely for entertainment. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that the actor did NOT say “merely.” It may possibly have been implied, which clearly is why the host criticized the actor. But the quote really only suggests that the purpose of reality television is to entertain, and that she believes it has been successful in this regard. Reality television can be both entertaining and real, in some sense. The possibility exists. Whether it is both simultaneously is another discussion altogether.

However, as the host criticizes her, that is clearly the perspective of the host. Or perhaps I might suggest, the host interpreted the actor’s statements as suggesting it was either one or the other, but not both. The host is committing a false dilemma, suggesting the actor could not mean both simultaneously. And the actor, clearly not trained in the art of debate, was led down a very entertaining path for the audience’s amusement.

And this, ultimately, is the most interesting thing for me. Because the host is pressing against the actor regarding things she said publicly regarding something that I believe the host likely DOES understand. That is, the episode of this show is, well, just a show. It is a reality television show that really is made for my entertainment. The actor is clearly correct. I am watching a show. I am in the privileged position. And the show is a simulation of my reality. These actors are avatars. I do not know these people in their real lives. Just like I only know “The Rock” and not Dwayne Johnson. To be perfectly clear here, Dwayne Johnson is an individual, and “The Rock” is his avatar (his character on various television shows and online).

So, this is a case of extreme layering. Of inception, to use the popular understand of this term, coming from the film that came out in 2010. The host is a character on a television show, just as the actor is playing one as well. And the host is also in a bit of a privileged position, because the real person associated with the host is also in part generating the narrative of this show. The person behind the host is (in part) creating this show. So the person, who is controlling the character of the host, knows full well that the actor is in fact correct regarding their statements.

Taking this further, I would argue that the host not only knows that the actor is correct, but that the host cannot admit this publicly. The host MUST maintain the illusion of the show being actually real in order to maintain the credibility of the show and its viewership. To maintain the support of its investors and stakeholders. The host NEEDS to criticize the actor for “breaking the 4th wall.”

This is precisely the issue I have with virtually all reality television and with social media. The nature of these simulations is that they are supposed to be “real.” They are simulations that pretend not to be simulations. To know that the simulation is a simulation is to destroy the “magic” of the simulation entirely. The audience needs to believe that these things are fully real and authentic for them to gain the proper amount of immersion. And unfortunately, just as Jean Baudrillard seemed to fear most, the “precession of simulacra” has already occurred.

WALL·E and Love

crimson

This is my 100th post. To celebrate, I’ve decided to do a film review. Recently I re-watched the film WALL·E from 2008, and I was struck by how much the story seems to demonstrate some of the ideas I have been talking about on my site. Particularly my view of love. So as part of my review, I thought I’d focus on why I think the story does this. As a warning, this post will most definitely include SPOILERS!

Firstly, I’d like to borrow a small bit of description from Wikipedia to begin my explanation of the story: “In the 29th century, Earth is a garbage-strewn wasteland due to an ecocide, caused by rampant consumerism, corporate greed, and environmental neglect.” This one line alone is dense with information, and ironically opposes the feeling of the film. It seems to suggest a very negative, dystopian story. But WALL·E is anything but negative or dystopian.

I’d not seen the term ecocide before reading this. A term used to describe the potential result of human action upon our world. The destruction of our ecosystem, to the point that it would be unable to sustain life. This is what has happened. Earth is uninhabitable. At least by humans. But the story seems to suggest all life has ended. Except it hasn’t. There is at least one lone cockroach who continues to subsist on Twinkies…

It was decided, now long ago, that robots would be used to try to clean up the mess. This is where WALL·E comes from. He is a little trash compacting robot, whose sole purpose is to go around and compact little cubes of garbage and stack them in rather tall piles. There used to be many such robots roaming the Earth performing this function, but after about 700 years, our protagonist is all that remains.

It quickly becomes clear that WALL·E has been around for so long, and exposed to so much, that he has gone beyond his original programming. He collects trinkets and baubles as he goes about his “work day.” He has a fondness for old timey cinema about romance. And he even stumbles upon a lone green seedling that he finds hidden away inside a rusted out refrigerator. Evidence that perhaps not all life has ceased to exist on our ruined planet.

Up to this point, I might agree that WALL·E ought to be considered a sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, it is what comes next that promotes his status to a full fledged machine consciousness, at least in my assessment. An unmanned probe lands nearby and deposits a small levitating robot who is far more advanced than our protagonist. We find out her name is EVE, and aside from being well armed, she seems to be looking for something.

It is during this very basic interaction that everything comes together for me. WALL·E introduces himself to this strange new robot, and they inquire about each others’ “directive.” For me, their “directive” seems analogous to what I often term as one’s project. The thing they each are driven to do, either through desire or command. WALL·E’s directive is simple, crush garbage into cubes, which he demonstrates with a flourish. But when he asks EVE what her directive is, she turns and states that it is “classified.” It seems her project is a secret.

This is where I believe the truth of WALL·E’s love begins. Not necessarily based on her physical appearance, or her ability to blow up large tankers. I would suggest that WALL·E decides to do the one thing that I consider to be a true act of love: he tries to identify what her directive is, and then makes a concerted effort to help her in achieving her directive. In fact, his love pushes him to abandon his own directive in the process, an act I would suggest elevates him from mere AI into the realm of machine consciousness. Specifically, he ceases to follow his original programming, even going so far as to do the opposite. A sort of rebellion or revolution, though of only one individual.

When WALL·E shows EVE his various finds over his time on Earth, when he shows her the seedling, she immediately abducts the plant within her belly and shuts down. Only an ominous blinking green light upon her chest shows any sign she is still functioning.

And what does WALL·E do at this point? He looks after EVE. For some time, perhaps several days or weeks, he takes care of the sleeping princess, protecting her from the elements until such time as she might reawaken. Abandoning his garbage crushing directive to attend to EVE’s directive instead.

The probe returns and whisks EVE away, and WALL·E is hot on its heels. Thrust into outer space for some time, as the probe journeys back to it’s home, the Axiom. Up to this point, the story seems only to have these 2 main characters. But once on the Axiom, a flurry of activity and additional personalities are introduced. Including the missing humans that appear to have escaped the demise of the Earth. The future generations, forced to evacute a planet that was destroyed by their ancestors.

The plot becomes pretty straight forward at this point, I think. It is made clear that EVE’s directive was to find evidence of sustainable life on Earth and report back with that evidence. Said evidence would be used to bring this community of humans back to Earth to repopulate their original home. Unfortunately, one of the robots has fixated on an old order from 600 years ago, stating that the Earth was unable to be restored. Clearly the order was in error, as evidenced by EVE’s, or rather WALL·E’s, discovery.

The seedling is first secretly abducted by one of the autopilot’s assistance robots, and an attempt is made to destroy the evidence. When that fails, there are attempted murders of both WALL·E and EVE and the human captain of the ship is restricted to his quarters. Yes, I said murders; however, it can easily be argued that only humans can be murdered and not robots. That said, WALL·E’s and EVE’s continuance is threatened. In fact, arguably, WALL·E does not survive. At least not initially.

It is a happy ending in this story. Everyone makes it back to Earth, and WALL·E is restored through some unexplained miracle. And the credits of the film show humans and robots working together harmoniously to restore Earth to its former glory, hopefully having learned not to remake the mistakes of the past.

It is a story befitting Disney’s reputation. And it is one of the few Disney endorsed products I actually enjoy. Aside from the over simplification of the current progress humanity has made toward ecocide, as I stated at the outset, I appreciate how clear it presents my idea of love.

As I’ve been saying in many of my previous posts, I believe love is a choice. A free action made by individuals to support the projects of other individuals. To prioritize those others’ projects over one’s own. And this is precisely what WALL·E does. In fact, later in the film, EVE does the same thing, demonstrating her love for WALL·E as well.

I like how it presents the idea of the directive, which I will continue to suggest is analogous to one’s projects. At first glance, their directive seems to be just what their programming is telling them they must do: WALL·E is a trash compacting robot who must compact trash on Earth, while EVE is a robot who must seek out and find evidence of life on Earth and bring it to the captain of the Axiom. Both know what they are supposed to do. Arguably, this is what they both initially want to do. But events take place, through shared experiences, that make them decide to do otherwise.

WALL·E’s path in this regard is assumed, as we meet his character at a point well beyond when he would have progressed enough to exercise his freedom. He has already been collecting trinkets and baubles for some time, as evidenced by his home in the truck. A grand collection of many objects he has collected over some time. He seems to still follow his original directive, but more by choice than by force. He has decided to make his original directive his, much as Sisyphus does when forced to push a boulder up a slope for all eternity. Like Sisyphus, WALL·E no longer does what he does as some sort of banal punishment, but instead has made a game out of it. Camus would likely suggest WALL·E has embraced the absurd.

EVE’s path is one we get to watch during the playing out of this story. She begins with a strong will towards her directive, going so far as to claim it is “classified” when asked. It is her private and special project that she seems to think is her’s and her’s alone. It is ironic that when she is brought back on the probe we see several other EVE robots stacked beside her, likely with the very same directives as her’s. She spends the better part of the story embracing her directive, even at the expense of others, desperately trying to take the seedling plant to the captain to complete her mission. But, when WALL·E offers her the plant that he knows she desires so much, even when he is about to die, she makes the choice to abandon that project and create a new directive for herself. Like WALL·E, she elevates to the state of a true machine consciousness.

In both cases, each character decides to abandon their original directive and to embrace the directive of the other. And then, the recognition that WALL·E has formed his own directive that was never given to him in the first place. EVE eventually recognizes that WALL·E’s newly chosen directive is simply to hold her hand.

Suicide and Authentically Pursuing Unattainable Goals

crimson

Toward the end of my degree program, I sat down with one of my professors to discuss a topic that I was just starting to be able to put into words. It is heady, and even when I explain it, most people still do not quite understand what I’m trying to get at. I now refer to it as the Issue of Authentically Pursuing Unattainable Goals.

My concern is not whether people can set unattainable goals, nor whether a person could pursue such a goal. Clearly these things are both possible and frequently done. I might decide to become the strongest person in the world, but due to various genetic and chronological limitations, this is a goal that I will never achieve; I might still go to the gym and alter my diet with the aim of achieving this goal, despite knowing I will never achieve it. I believe this seems fairly obvious.

However, the challenge I am concerned about is the level of authenticity in such a pursuit. That is, how much of my time and effort will I be willing to devote to such a pursuit? If I believe the goal is unattainable, it seems to me that I will “hold back” in my pursuit. After all, why dedicate too much to a goal I cannot ever attain?

My partner further added to this concern when I discussed a related goal to her somewhat recently. In her case, she had convinced herself that a goal was unattainable, even though I believed the opposite was true. That is, I believed the goal she had set for herself was very attainable. But what I believed is not relevant here; what she believed is. If she believes the goal is unattainable, then she will act and behave as though that is the case. Which drives us directly to my concern.

For my partner, as she expressed it to me, if the goal is unattainable, then there is no point in even beginning the pursuit. She argued to me that it would simply be a waste of time and effort to begin such a pursuit. All that time and effort would be better spent on goals that were attainable. Her argument is pretty solid, and I am definitely moved by her position.

Which brings us back to my concern: authenticity. If a person knows (or believes) that a particular goal is unattainable, they are likely to hold back in such a pursuit, up to and including giving up the pursuit altogether. This is clearly a problem.

A core issue in this discussion is the idea of belief. What one believes is more important than what is actually the case. If one believes a goal is unattainable, they will hold back. But, the contrary may also then be true: if one believes a goal IS attainable, they may then be prepared to devote all of their time and effort in the pursuit of the goal. They may be able to pursue the goal fully authentically.

It seems to me belief is far more important than whatever the truth of the situation might be. A person is motivated not by the state of the world, but by what they believe is the state of the world. If they believe a goal is attainable, it does not matter if it really is attainable. Even less is it important whether they actually attain the goal. The only thing that seems to matter is that they will be able to pursue that goal fully.

Thus, when trying to motivate people to action, it seems more important to focus on what they believe is the case than worrying about the actual state of things in the world. This brings to mind all talk of religion and culture now, as it is through such vehicles that belief is often formed.

But this also brings us back to me as well. For my belief is such that most things are unattainable.

Life, it seems to me, is such an unattainable goal. More specifically, life has no goal whatsoever. The pursuits in life do not lead to any glorious outcome or ultimate prize. For the devout Christian, there are reasons to be devout, as a good life will earn them a place in heaven. For the one who believes in reincarnation and karma, there are measurable reasons to act in good ways, as it will earn them a better rebirth in the next run. The afterlife is a heavy motivator, and there always seems to be a reward for “living well.”

But I believe that the end of life is simply the end. I do not believe in an afterlife. I believe that once I expire, I cease to exist. I cease to be. This does not mean I believe I will be in pain or that I will suffer. Nor does it mean I will be happy either. It simply means that at the end, everything stops. At least for me. I will have no further worries. I will not be in pain. I will cease to experience time or events. I simply stop.

As this is my belief, it means there is no reward for me if I behave in one particular manner or another in life. To be successful is no different than to be a failure. To live in luxury no different than to live in squalor. Perhaps these things may make a difference in the moment, but ultimately they are the same, as I end the same in all cases.

It is in part for these reasons that I tend to gravitate toward the Existentialists of the mid twentieth century. Toward Simone de Beauvior, for example. That my freedom provides for me the ability to decide meaning and purpose. In the absence of a reward at the end of life, I instead decide for myself what things will have value. I decide whether to be good or to not be good in life.

It is often raised to me that I have no instrumentally good reason for selecting to be morally good. I usually argue against this, as behaving in a manner that is socially acceptable and agrees with those around me fosters positive relationships and allows me to pursue other projects that I might otherwise find rather challenging if those around me were actively working against me.

But all of that is still a side stepping of the original concern. What reason I have to be good or not be good is mostly irrelevant; I am concerned with the authentic pursuit of an unattainable goal. Or, in the case of life, for me, the authentic pursuit of no goal at all.

Unlike those around me who seem to find a way to believe in some sort of ultimate goal in life, which normally manifests in a belief in some sort of afterlife, I have no such goal. Those around me who have such a goal can obviously motivate themselves to pursue that goal in their lives, fully and authentically. Their lives are full of that pursuit, because they honestly believe that goal exists.

I cannot. Because I do not have that belief. And I am unable to somehow manufacture that belief. Others can tell me as frequently and as passionately as they want that there is an afterlife, but I am not moved. In part because there is no evidence to support their claim. Just as there is no evidence necessarily going against their claim either. There simply is no evidence at all. So I am unmoved by their position.

To be clear, I do not wish to disenchant them either. I have no wish to turn to them and try to convince them to my side of the argument. I am happy they have the belief they have. I support their belief, in so far as it provides for them their happiness. Unfortunately, however, it seems for many that their belief requires them to change my belief. And as this cannot be done, they try in vain. A lot.

It is a very difficult situation I find myself in. I have no belief in an afterlife. I have, for some ridiculous reason, decided to follow reason and logic. To follow evidence. To believe things based on evidence, and not to believe in the absence of evidence. The best I’ve been able to say in many situations is that “I am open to the possibility that these things could exist. But for now, I am not convinced, and therefore do not believe.”

Perhaps, some day, I will be convinced. Perhaps someone will provide for me that convincing evidence. This is also where many start to raise the issue of faith. That I need to have faith in the absence of evidence. I do have faith. A lot of faith. Just not in those things they wish me to have faith in. I have tried to have faith in things I do not believe, but I always find myself in a situation of “bad faith” of the sort Jean Paul Sartre talks about. I always knew I did not believe, even when I would say that I did. I was lying to everyone, including myself, and I knew I was lying, even to myself.

My concern remains, for the most part. Whether I am able to authentically pursue an unattainable goal, or whether I am able to authentically pursue no goal at all, the very idea seems to contradict itself. All I can really say is that I am always holding back.

Record Keeping

crimson

Having trouble taking that perfect photo of your friends and you hanging out? Always someone who’s eyes are closed, or they were talking, or something went wrong. Well, now there is the new Google Pixel 8 with a feature called “best take.” The smartphone takes several pictures over a brief period of time, and with the use of some fancy new Artificial Intelligence (AI), you can select the best versions of each person and combine them together to make the perfect picture that never happened…

I don’t normally advertise the products of large corporations, but in this case I have something important to say about it. I’ve seen this commercial running on the television for a while now, and I just realised something mind boggling. When all is said and done, the image that is generated is an image of hyperreality, to reference Jean Baudrillard and his book Simulacra and Simulation.

First, a brief explanation of hyperreality. Think about the telephone game for a moment. A person has a message for someone else. They don’t give that message directly to the intended person. Instead they use an intermediary. But not just one. No, they use a whole bunch of people. One person whispers the message to the next, to the next, to the next, until eventually it ends up with the intended person. Because everyone whispers it to only one other person, no one knows for sure whether the message remained intact during the entire game. Often, once completed, the original message will be repeated out loud by the original person, in order to compare it to what the intended receiver received. Often they are so different to be laughable, and thus the game is meant as an amusement. This is an example of hyperreality, or at least it would be if no one took the time to compare the difference between the original and the final message, and especially if they simply took the final message to be the truth of what was originally said.

But this is what happens in our world all the time. Messages are passed from person to person with very little thought given to whether the message makes any sense or may have been modified in transit. This is the problem of testimony, in the philosophical sense. That is, information is passed along from one person to another, and the question that is often asked is whether that information can count as knowledge on the part of the receiver of the information. That is, if someone tells me that diamonds are made of carbon, and I do not take the time to verify the information myself, but I feel that the person who told me this information is reliable, can I count it as something I now know? I’ve already added quite a few qualifiers here, but the point should hopefully be clear.

When it comes to what I know, there are a few ways I can gain knowledge. I can experience something myself. For example, I can look outside at the sky with my eyes and see that the sky is blue; thus, I can claim that I know the sky is blue because I have experienced this through a first hand account. I can also reason something myself. For example, in part because I understand the rules of mathematics, I can calculate that 43 added to 87 is going to produce 130; thus, I can claim that I know that 43 + 87 = 130 because I performed the operation of maths on the equation using my skills with reasoning. These two methods are usually considered quite reliable and trustworthy, for the most part. Most people will utilise these two methods of knowledge generation without really considering the possibility of errors or missteps. But testimony is different.

With testimony, the knowledge resides in someone or something else, and I acquire it through something of a passive process. For example, someone tells me that diamonds are made of carbon, or perhaps I read it in a book (books are testimony too). I didn’t experience it or observe it myself, and I did not reason it or calculate it myself. The “work” of generating the knowledge originally came from somewhere else or someone else. I am going to leverage their experience or their reason in order to gain the benefit myself. But this process is wrought with challenges, the most noteworthy is whether the source of this testimonial knowledge is reliable or trustworthy.

This post is not intended to be a philosophy lesson on epistemology or even testimony, so I won’t go into any further detail here. The issue is with hyperreality. In hyperreality, I have knowledge that I have not verified the source of myself. I did not experience it myself, nor did I reason to it myself. Or, to be most accurate, if I think that I did, I would be mistaken because I made some sort of error in the process. The knowledge that I claim has a problem: it is untrue. By untrue, I mean that, in some way, that knowledge does not match up with the way the world actually is. It would be like me believing that the sky was green, especially as I can simply look up into the sky and see that it is otherwise.

With hyperreality, I am confused. I actually believe in the knowledge that I claim, and I will fight with others regarding it. It gets worse if those around me believe that very same thing, because then there will be no fighting. Others around me are often my best way to verify my knowledge, because if everyone around me knows something different than I do, chances are good that I am the one in error. But if we all think we know the same thing, no one is going to be cued to the possibility that an error was made.

Hyperreality is the result of a group of us thinking we know something, and we happen to be wrong about it. We think the world is a certain way, when it is in fact not. Baudrillard was very concerned with this situation, which is why he wrote his book. That, especially after a time of playing the telephone game, eventually one might find themselves in a situation where everyone believes something about the world that is simply untrue. And if everyone believes this untruth, and there is very little effort made to check or validate that belief, then people could end up getting into a lot of trouble.

Which is why I started by talking about this feature “best take” that Google uses with their new smartphone. The issue, I realised, is that the photo that is taken is of an event that never happened. It is not really a photograph at all, in the traditional sense of the term. It has been “photoshopped.”

A photograph, in the traditional sense, is intended to be a pure reflection of the world as it is. Light falls, not artificially manipulated, on a photosensitive surface and eventually results in an image that is as close to the original scene as can be expected. Given the technical issues with such a process, the idea here is that the world presents itself, and the photograph is a passive reflection of the world as was presented. The event occurred, and the photograph is a record of that event. The photograph is a representation of a past event.

But the image generated by “best take” never happened. The image is a combination of several other images in order to make an idealised image of an idealised event that one wished had happened but did not. That time when everyone smiled and no one blinked at the wrong time. The stars aligned just perfectly, and everyone cooperated without incident. But that isn’t what happened at all. A whole bunch of photographs were taken, and bits and pieces of each are slammed together by an AI in order to generate the idealised image. The phone is a hyperreality generator. Or it will be if people forget that the image is “photoshopped” in the first place.

This got me thinking. Because I realised that this isn’t new. There is a reason the term “photoshopped” exists at all: there have been many, many cases of photo manipulation occurring over the years, and Photoshop happened to be one of the more popular tools used in order to accomplish the manipulation. Thus, a term was coined to be more exciting and novel than the term “photo manipulation.”

Now I am thinking about all the sources of knowledge and information I have been taking for granted for so very long. Not just images, but videos too. And even text. And other sources of knowledge from other places as well. Something as insidious as the idea that women are weaker than men. Or that technology will somehow save humanity. These bits of knowledge are considered truths by those around me. But are they really true?

The problem, I have to admit, is that I cannot verify much of the information I have already subsumed. It is not feasible for me to experience everything for myself, and my skill with reason is not nearly as good as would be required to know something like how diamonds are made of carbon. Or even that there are these teeny, tiny particle things we call “atoms” that make up everything. I take this information for granted. It is testimony that I have acquired through the course of my life.

And there is one additional issue that I have also realised as well. That knowledge may not simply be a passive, discovery driven process. The knowledge I claim is not always simply an expression of what I think I know about the world. My knowledge is not necessarily just a reflection of the world, as far as I can tell. My knowledge can impose itself on the world too. If I believe something is the case, I can make it so, even if it is not actually the case.

This is the issue I see happening in the world these days. People in large groups imposing their knowledge and making it into reality. A process that I think Baudrillard was certainly thinking about. In his example, he was concerned that people would go to Disneyland and walk down Main Street USA thinking that those states they’d never been to were actually just like they were being presented; that the people from those states followed the stereotypes being presented by the amusement park. Because he believed that if someone from one of those states actually saw the stereotypes being presented, they might be offended.

This is literally where the issue with women being weaker than men comes from, I believe. It was likely not the case far enough back in history, but became the case as a result of this very process. Girls are groomed by their parents and other adults around them to believe certain things about themselves. Given enough time and reinforcement, they will believe those untruths eventually. This is why there is a great lacking of female engineers. Not that a woman cannot be an engineer, but that most women do not want to be.

It is a complicated thing I am expressing here. Especially in light of the fact that none of us has any privileged access to the world as it is. My access to the world is mediated, through this body and its various limitations. The light hits the cones in the back of my eyes and is turned into electrical and chemical information that is passed along to my brain and interpreted and analysed. If there are any problems with my eyes, my nerves, or my brain, then the information will be corrupted and errors will be made.

In the end, I simply have to do the best I can. To use the information I have available to me, and try to exercise empathy and charity in my interpretations. To not dig my heels in too deeply, lest I make grievous errors that cannot be rectified. When I am sent a picture of my friends hanging out, perhaps the image may be of an event that never happened, but perhaps that is not the intended purpose of the picture at all. Instead of it being understood as a record of the past event, perhaps it is better understood as a reminder of a time when my friends happened to be together.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: 2023

crimson

I’ve been talking a lot about change and adaptability of late. My posts have had an edge of depression and of hopelessness. Perhaps. I suppose it depends on who reads it and their own interpretations. I just know that some out there have reached out to me to ask how I am doing. I am surviving. I am getting by. But it has certainly be challenging.

I decided to re-read my very first post, made back in May of 2020. Near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just so we are clear, the pandemic is still ongoing. It has not ended. It has not concluded. It is still ongoing. So I might consider this an update of the present state of things. After about three and a half years, what has changed? How good a job did I do at predicting the future?

Turns out my words from back then are still very much applicable. In my own opinion, what I saw at the beginning is still very much what has and is still happening today. The pandemic is still not really about a disease. It is about a change. It is about exposing the world in ways that ought to have helped progress humanity forward. Unfortunately, I was also correct about there only being a few who seem to have taken the hint and tried to do something about it. Because it seems like the majority of people have simply dug deeper holes in the sand to stick their heads into.

As I said back then, the problems and issues in the world are not new. Scarcity of resources is not new. The critical need of reducing and reusing is even more apparent now than it was at the beginning. In fact, it seems like the problems are actually getting worse. There are less and less people doing stuff, and more and more people demanding stuff. Less people generating those products and offering those services, and more people wanting and needing to purchase those products that do not exist, and begging for those services that there is no one to provide.

As a basic example, healthcare in Canada. There is a shortage of doctors. Again, this is not new. There was a shortage of doctors since before 2020. But now, with all that has happened, that shortage has become worse. Burn out and inequity has taken its toll, and there is less interest in working in that field. Why subject yourself to the torture and abuse? It just isn’t worth it. Especially if you are concerned with your own mental health and well being.

Speaking of mental health, it has come to light that perhaps I should be assessed properly and officially for autism. My mother used to tell everyone I had Asperger syndrome when I was a child. The description fit, and still does: high-functioning, intelligent, socially awkward, clumsy. I was, and still am, all of these things. But over time, I also learned other tricks to conceal any perceived weaknesses I might have. Camouflaging is a term used to describe it. How, through years of observation of others, I learned to present myself as normal, to reduce the troubles I frequently had, especially socially.

My partner has started calling me neurodivergent. It is clear I do not think or feel as others do. I am not normal with regard to thinking and feeling. I certainly do not present the same as others. This has been an ongoing complaint in my relationships. I do not get excited about the same things most get excited about, and even when I do get excited, I don’t present the way most do. I am suppressed, or muted. Perhaps that is in part due to the drugs I was on about 15 years ago to deal with a bipolar diagnosis.

This is a bit of a tangent from where I started, but I assure you it is relevant. Like with so many other things, this part of who I am has been exposed and has become harder and harder to ignore. The pandemic has revealed this aspect of me, and I am having to face it and deal with it now, when for so many years before I was able to pretend it did not exist.

In my youth, the very idea I might have such conditions was abhorrent. It would suggest I was somehow lesser. And in my attempts to present as normal, such diagnoses would clearly influence the ways people would look at me. As much as I could, I had to BE normal, lest others would treat me with disdain. For me, that was a rocky road. It took a lot to get to where I am today.

But I am still that same little boy at heart too. I still have the same challenges I did in my youth. I still lock up with deception and lying. I still shy from social interactions. I still wear a mask all the time. Sure, I’ve developed an incredibly large toolbox of coping mechanisms and formalized presentation schemes to hide in plain sight. But what remains beneath has always been there. Continues to be there. And my partner, in that she is the closest person to me, has been in the privileged (and perhaps captive) position to see what others do not.

Like I say about the rest of the world, I too cannot ignore what has always been there. I cannot simply pretend these things do not exist and do as I did before 2020. The world has changed. I have changed. My masks are not working like they used to. I am having a harder and harder time of hiding in plain sight.

And so, I ought to take my own advice. I ought to be more adaptable and flexible. I ought to change with the times. I ought to accept myself as I am and find a way to reconcile that.

To be clear, I’m not looking for a hand out. I’m not looking for beneficial treatment. I’ve never wanted these things. However, I do find myself in need of assistance more and more as well. Facing challenges I do not know how to face. Overcoming hurdles I am unable to overcome. In part because the world has become so much more difficult to navigate. Because I cannot ignore that which was always there.

As much as when I wrote it over three years ago, I still believe the pandemic is not about a virus. The lasting effects of the pandemic are not about infections or diseases. What is important, what I believe people ought to be paying attention to, is the fact that all the weaknesses in our world, in our societies, in our cultures, are much easier to see now. Those problems we’ve tried to ignore and dismiss can no longer be ignored or dismissed.

The world is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In part because people continue to dig those deeper holes, trying ever harder to pretend the problems don’t exist. Trying very hard to simply continue doing the same error-ridden things they were doing before 2020. Pining for the times of yore. Because it is those things that are causing the very problems we have to face. The times of yore are the source of our problems today. The solutions our forebears came to came with a price, and we in these future generations are expected to pay that price. Whether we like it or not.

Spiraling Death Syndrome

crimson

I’ve worked in IT for a very long time. “Spiraling Death Syndrome,” or SDS, was a problem that occurred to some dial-up modems whereby they would reduce the connection speed in order to accommodate issues on the telephone line, but not recover. That is, the device would connect your computer to the Internet successfully, and full speed initially, but as you used your connection, it would progressively become slower and slower until it was unusable. Technically, this sort of technology still exists to this day, but because connections are so bleeding fast, and so much more reliable, no one ever really notices.

It’s simple. The device connects and starts pushing data through the pipe as fast as it is able to. Occasionally, something disrupts the flow of data, so the device slows itself temporarily until the disruption has passed. Disruptions in the connection are generally short lived, so this is all status quo. Once the disruption has passed, the device picks up the speed again, returning to its top speed after that. With SDS, just one part of that process fails: the device never picks back up. It drops its speed for the first disruption, and then again at the next disruption, over and over until it is operating at the slowest possible speed, which is very, very slow. I believe they would go down to about 300 baud, or 300 bits per second. This translates, roughly, to about 30 bytes per second, or to use modern equivalent terms, 0.03 Kbps or 0.00003 Mbps. Considering my current connection was just measured at 7 Mbps, that is very, very slow indeed.

Technical side note: Briefly, “bps” is “bytes per second” and “bips” or “baud” is “bits per second.” The standard for connections and throughput is to use bits per second, while for storage it is bytes or bytes per second as appropriate. Unfortunately, like so many things in our world, these details have often been lost to obscurity, and so most modern speed tests will give results in bits per second, but present the units “bps,” which just confuses everyone. It’s like how a kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes and not 1000 bytes, but again it depends on who you ask.

So why bring up this old, outdated term or problem? Well, it is not only digital connections that suffer from this problem. In my life currently, I am observing this effect occurring in many other places. In particular, if a person is trying to go about living their life without disruption, we might suggest they are operating at something like 100% of their capabilities. Something like top speed. But if something happens to them, disrupted by some outside influence or event, they will be forced to slow to accommodate the event. Their efficiency will drop below that 100% as they now have to deal with the disruption. Think about working your job and a co-worker comes along and wants to ask you a question. You were working hard, but now you need to practically stop in order to answer their question. You slow, briefly, to deal with the disruption, and then hopefully are able to get back to work once they leave, having had their question answered appropriately.

Thus, I am suggesting people go through a similar process. They do what they do, pursuing their projects as quickly as makes sense for them, and will periodically be disrupted during the course of their pursuit. And I think for most people, once those disruptions have passed, they will eventually return to their pursuit, operating as quickly as they did initially if they are lucky.

The clear issue one might immediately think about is how one deals with many more than one disruption. If one is disrupted and unable to recover from the disruption, then they may be forced to slow even more for the next disruption. And if there are many, many disruptions, then they may be stalled entirely until all disruptions are resolved. This is the sort of thing that happens to me in IT occasionally, where I come into work and never get any progress on any of my projects because there are “fires to put out,” to use the colloquial term that we often use. My entire day is simply dealing with disruptions, and so I get no work done on my main projects.

This is the nature of the situation I find myself in at present. For the past several months, I have been mostly unable to work on any of my own personal projects, as I have been inundated with disruption after disruption. In my personal life, I have been unable to recover because of the sheer magnitude of those disruptions. I will not go into detail, as I would like to avoid giving too much of my personal life information here, but I will say that each and every appliance in my home has required some sort of work or effort put into it (some a significant amount), and many other attempts at regular activity have been thwarted by the resurgence of the pandemic.

Technical side note: the pandemic has not ended. Contrary to how the people around me are behaving, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be an issue, with newer variants being discovered all the time. In fact, my partner and I received our most recent vaccinations just last week. And I am continuing to isolate at home, not going out nearly as much as I might like.

It does not really matter the precise reason for what is happening to me. The details are less important. What is important is that I am unable to refocus on my own personal projects at this time. As much as I want to do certain things, pursuing education and changing careers being rather high on my list, I am unable to really pursue them presently because I am inundated with countless other tasks and chores that require my attention.

For those who actually know me, I admit I am lying a little bit here. That is, I am about to engage in a pursuit of education despite the fact I ought not. I will be abandoning my partner in her time of need in order to take a class that I signed up for several months ago. It was not an inexpensive class either, and canceling my enrollment is not really a reasonable option. And so, I continue to prepare to go to this class, despite the fact I ought to be spending more time dealing with things at home.

So in truth, it is not I who has been inflicted with SDS at all. It is my partner. And that is the crux of my issue right now. She has been dealing with the brunt of all of this disruption, and she is the one who has been unable to recover. Every time she tries to pursue a project of her’s, she is the one who is thwarted. And she is the one who has pretty well ceased functioning at this point.

I don’t know why, or how, I am able to keep going right now. But I think it is because of her. It is that old passage from Aristotle that I continue to be unable to locate that I think describes the situation best. From his Politics, Book One, Part VII, translated into English: “…those who are in a position which places them above toil have stewards who attend to their households while they occupy themselves with philosophy or with politics…“

In other words, what he clearly believed was that, in order for some of us to do the things we want to do, others have to do the things we do not want to do. This is a reference to masters and slaves. The masters can only do the sorts of things masters do, such as pursuing philosophy, because the slaves are attending to the things they do not wish to do, such as cooking and cleaning. This is the description of wives to their husbands. And of most blue collar laborers to the owners of the companies they work for. Of the privileged and the oppressed.

Again, I will not dwell on the particulars of why our world has become as it has. But it has changed. And the progress that had been made over the past several decades, trying to give voices to those who did not have voices, is being eroded. Those who previously had choices are now finding those choices have disappeared. There are very few options remaining, and people are being forced to make do with things they never wanted to make do with.

Looking back at what I’ve written, it is clear to me that without those personal details to support my arguments, it sounds more like the ramblings of a mad man. And I am mad. And I am privileged. To be able to write all of this in the first place. To be able to take my class. To be able to continue as I have, despite those around me being unable to do so.

I think what I want most right now is to apologize to those who are not as privileged as I am. To apologize to those whose shoulders I am standing on, even now. I have tried as hard as I could to make her projects a priority. I’ve tried to leverage my privilege to her advantage. But it isn’t working any more. Maybe it never did. Maybe I’m about as useless as it appears.

Change Sucks

crimson

I have tried very hard to keep too many of my personal details out of this blog, but today that may change a little. The delay that I spoke of in my previous post may be extended a bit longer than I had originally anticipated. I suppose, on the other hand, this is a blog post itself, so perhaps I am not as delayed for that reason.

In situations like the one I find myself in, I am reminded of Plato. Specifically, of his Theory of Forms. He was so challenged by the idea of change that he came up with an imaginary realm where everything remained the same. A permanent, unchanging realm which clearly had to be superior to the realm we each find ourselves in that is constantly degenerating with every passing moment.

It is further amusing to me to think about such things, as I am also reminded of Socrates, and his dislike for the sophists of his time. He seemed particularly put out by how sophists would teach others to argue without evidence, much as we observe presently occurring in the United States. Logic and reason almost literally tossed aside in favour of appeals to emotion and appeals to tradition. Which, once again brings me back to the problem of change.

The world is changing. This is nothing new. In fact, it has been changing the whole time, and we have collectively been resisting that change for as far back as has been recorded. Once again, thinking about Plato and Socrates because they were from about 2500 years ago. People from 2500 years ago were already plagued with concerns of change. So it should be no surprise that we are plagued with it today as well.

But perhaps there is a difference between then and now. It seems to me the rate of change is increasing. That things now are changing much more quickly than they did back then. But the more I think about that, I realise that perhaps that also is untrue. And I start to think about a rubber band powered plane.

Over the many millennia that humans have existed, we have been resisting change. We see our environments, and how challenging they are, and we try to make them easier to deal with. Foraging for food is a long and time consuming process that does not reliably produce enough sustenance for many people; but if we instead plow some land and put the seeds into the ground in regular rows, manually pour water over them regularly, eventually we can generate a much more reliable source of food. Wind and rain and snow are tough on human bodies, sometimes even fatal, so we create structures we can hide in to protect us from these elements. And clothes to wear. And with all of these things, as time progresses, we try to make better and better versions that last longer and longer so that we can enjoy them more and more.

We find ourselves in an environment that is constantly changing and we spend most of our time finding ways to cease that change as much as we can. Even our lifespans are much, much longer than they’ve ever been. An ever increasing number of humans are spending their entire lives trying to make it so that others will never have to deal with death at all. Life itself, ceasing to have the ultimate change of ending.

With all this resisting of change, has anyone considered that we are winding up a rubber band? Tighter and tighter the band becomes, ever increasing the potential energy stored that will eventually be released. We resist the changes in our environments, instead of learning to adapt to those changes, making the shock of enduring the forced change more and more severe. I live in an air conditioned home, where the temperature has been maintained at about 21 degrees Celsius all the time, despite how much hotter or colder the outside might be. But how does my HVAC system do this? It takes the extra heat from inside my home and dumps it outside. Or it generates additional heat in order to raise the temperature inside. Ironically, both processes involve increasing temperature in the environment as a whole, outside of my home.

Global warming, as it was previously referred to, is a real thing. Not just because of green house effects or excessive carbon dioxide being dumped into the atmosphere. We are increasing the over all temperature of our world by purposely executing combustive and oxidising reactions with the intent to create motion or some other artificial activity. The end purpose is convenience and luxury. The end purpose is to make our lives easier.

We grow extra animals for food, because meat is simply too tasty to give up. We justify this by suggesting the utilitarian ethical argument is the one that makes sense, and more animals means more over all happiness. Of course it is a good thing to eat meat. But the process is increasing the heat as well.

The world keeps changing, and not only are we trying harder and harder to resist that change, but we are making decisions that accelerate that change. We resist, winding the rubber band, and it snaps back even harder each time. Had I spent more time learning to acclimatise myself to the hotter summers and colder winters, and I wouldn’t need to spend so much time fixing my air conditioner or sealing my home from drafts.

This is what humans do. We do not adapt to our world. We force the world to adapt to us. We change our environment to suit us. To hell with what the world might want. So when the world needs to move in a particular direction, we do our very best to prevent that from happening. When a species of animal is about to go extinct, mostly because it is no longer adapted or fit for the new environment that has come about, we do our best to breed those dying species in captivity in order to preserve their presence in the world. But what if those species need to go away?

I will acknowledge that in many (arguably most) cases, the demise of whole species seems to be directly related to the activities of humans, and as such we ought to bear some responsibility for what is happening. But is the answer to try and force their continued existence in our new world? Or would it not make much more sense for us to stop changing the world into what we believe it ought to be, which happens to be an environment that they are not suited to? Does any of this make sense?

If one believes in Darwin and this theory of “survival of the fittest,” one ought to realise that as the world changes (for any reason) the circumstances of fitness change too. Those who are fit for a particular environment at a particular time are often no longer fit in a different environment or at a different time. Or both. And our world continues to change, so that which is fit changes too. When I was a child, it was not a good idea to be a “geek.” To be one often included ostracization and a lot of pain. But now, being a geek is praised.

There are countless examples I could offer of change like this. Cases where to be a thing at one time was once good and is now bad, or the reverse. The rules are changing as much as the world itself does. There is no remaining static. In fact, it is this desire for the static that I think is the biggest problem. The challenge for perfection, not recognising that what is perfect in one instance ceases to be in the next. Perfection itself is imperfect.

This is where I find myself today. In the crux of change. Trying to come to terms with the fact that my environment is no longer the same as it once was. I remember, years ago, what it was like to live in this place. But now, it has changed, and the rules have changed. The people around me have changed. My job has changed. My family has changed. Relationships have changed. Everything has changed.

I find myself in the precarious situation of having to make a choice: do I fight as hard as I can to preserve that memory of a time long past, or do I forge a new path through the wilderness and try to become something better suited to my new environment? I know what I ought to do. But this decision is not mine alone. Those around me, those I love, have their say in what comes as well.

The Miracle of Communication

crimson

First off, I want to let you, my dear readers, know that my next post after this one is likely to be delayed. My life is quite busy at the moment and so there is likely to be a delay. But rest assured, I will return. I promise.

Which brings me to today’s topic: communication. In particular, I will focus on language, but what I talk about really does apply to communications of other sorts as well.

I had a wonderful discussion with a guy I work with today, where he revealed to me one of the great challenges of learning the French language. It seems there are literally hundreds of dependencies with regard to verbs. So many that even those whose first language is French have a special book that they keep around to help them with conjugating verbs. I believe this book is commonly referred to as a Bescherelle.

When I was learning Japanese, I had to memorize three “alphabets.” These are Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. In truth, however, no one is really able to memorize all Kanji as there are simply too many. Wikipedia suggests “The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters.” The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten is likely to the Japanese, and the Chinese, what a Bescherelle is to the French.

In both these cases, in French and in Japanese specifically, language is not something you simply learn as a child and then you are done. Learning one’s language is an ongoing process that can last one their entire lifetime. Of course one does learn the “basics” and the most common ways of communicating in their youth, but as my Japanese instructor suggested, when reading a newspaper, one is bound to encounter unfamiliar words or characters that need to be looked up, even well into adulthood.

In my case, my first (and so far only) language is English. When I compare how I learned my native tongue, and how much I need to practice it as they years pass, it seems to me that English is in a lot of ways much simpler. However, if I start to think about the various changes to English over my lifetime, so far, perhaps it is not as simple as I might like to think either. With the advent of the Internet and especially of social media, English has seen some pretty dramatic changes in the past decade alone.

Returning to the conversation with my coworker, I had borrowed an online translator to translate some English into French, and asked him to read it over to see if it was alright. He mentioned that the sentence was clearly “anglicised.” That is, while my words were most definitely French words, they were being presented in an obviously English manner. To explain his point, he provided the following example:

In English, if I wish to issue a command for someone to sever power to a ceiling light, I might say “Turn off the light.” In French, I would have translated this to “Éteignez la lumière,” which literally translates to “Extinguish the light.” However, a typical French person would be unlikely to say such a thing. Instead, they might normally say “Fermez la lumière,” which literally translates to “Close the light.” While both sentences are technically correct, and most parties would sufficiently understand the meaning to accomplish the correct task, the point here is that there is a clear difference in thought involved between the person who’s native language is English, and the person who’s native language is French.

This immediately got me thinking about all the strange conversations I have had over the years. The occurrences of what I considered to be weird word choices. In most cases, the person I was talking to spoke many more languages than simply English. And when I was taking my Japanese class, some of these details became more apparent when considering how the language was structured.

In Japanese, there are usually many, many ways to say the same thing. Often times, the sentences sound very, very different, which caused me great difficulty when trying to comprehend what someone else was saying. In Japanese, often these differences in how a sentence is formed has a lot to do with the social differences between the parties. For example, if a student is speaking to a teacher, they would structure their sentences differently than the teacher would when speaking to the student. There is a respect built into the language. How one speaks is conveying much more than simply the meaning of the words, it is often conveying an acknowledgment of social rank as well.

In other words, it seems to me that the language one has learned growing up significantly affects how one thinks and how one interprets the world around them. How one prioritizes certain types of information, or what one focuses on. And this, again, will be revealed through their speech. Their choice of certain words, and how those words are arranged can be incredibly significant.

It also reminded me of Yoda, from Star Wars. One thing Yoda is well known for is the strange way he speaks. And while I am fairly confident George Lucas likely was not thinking in the ways I am presently, it seems to me that perhaps a rational explanation for his unique speech pattern could be explained if English was not his native language as well.

Ultimately, where this drove my conversation with my coworker was that how one speaks may reveal a lot more about a person than merely the content of their words. As he suggested in my attempts at translating English to French, my choices clearly revealed that I was a native English speaker to him, and that French was not a language I was as familiar with. In the same vein as to how some people are able to discern regional dialects from a person’s accent.

Considering how much languages seem to evolve over time, it also seems prudent for each of us to be open minded and charitable when listening to others. If someone’s choice of words, or how those words are organized, seem strange, perhaps it is best to do our very best to try and understand what they are trying to say. As my late father would often say to me, “it is more about the spirit of the law than the word of the law.”