Tag: freedom

Home Economics

crimson

I had a very productive conversation with a friend last night, and thought I would post today on a part of what we were talking about. Specifically, on how to get by in our world financially. While I recognize that the sorts of advice and tools I am about to share are not necessarily going to work for everyone, these are the strategies I have used in my life that allow me to maintain financial stability and even some degree of financial freedom. This is what has worked for me, so maybe you might find it helpful for yourself too.

When I was much younger, and still in high school, I believed that in order to do as I wanted at any time that I wanted, I would need to make over $500,000 per year for every year in my life. I came to this number by suggesting that for $1000 per day, I could freely do anything I wished. For example, perhaps I might like to fly to Paris, France to have lunch on a particular day. With the income I described, I could have lunch in Paris every day without worrying that I would run out of money.

That is a lot of money to be making by any individual, even in today’s standards. I would suggest it might even be an unreasonable goal, considering what one might have to do in their lives to earn such an amount of money. It was in part due to this belief that I attended university the first time trying to become a Mechanical Engineer. Such a profession would have put me on a path that could, at least potentially, lead to the achieving of such a goal. As I believe I have mentioned in other posts, this didn’t work out for me. Attending university with my aim being to gain employment that produced such large sums of money was ultimately a disaster for me.

What I’ve learned since then is that in order to actually do the things I want in this world, when I want to do them, actually only requires me to make about $30,000 per year, which amounts to making approximately $15 per hour at a full time job. And as many of you likely already know, $15 per hour is just above minimum wage in the area of the world I currently live. This is far more reasonable and attainable than the original goal of $500,000 per year.

Admittedly, such a discovery has a number of conditions attached. Firstly, this is how much I would need to make if I lived alone, with no dependents nor a companion. Also, it would assume I have no other debts (for example, my mortgages would all need to be paid off completely). While my current situation does not meet these requirements, the additional funding I require to fulfill my goals in my current circumstances is not drastically more than this. I have not actually worked out the numbers for my present circumstances, but if I suggested I needed about $60,000 per year now, I’m sure that would be enough. It may be double my previous estimate, but it is certainly far less than my original estimate of $500,000.

With this groundwork laid out, I will now reveal some of my strategies that allow for the achieving of this goal. While discussing these strategies, it is important to keep in mind these findings I have established. The goals above are intimately tied to the strategies below, and if you adjust your life to the strategies below, you will likely find that the goals above need to be adjusted as a result. This will become clearer as I proceed, so please bear with me.

The first, and possibly most important, observation that I learned to make is with regard to how I spend my time. Literally. How much does it cost for me to take part in various activities over time. This was not my discovery, but actually was advice offered to me by my father at a rather young age. To understand this idea better, I will present a few examples:

If I decide to go to the theater to watch a movie, how much does that cost me (these numbers are from about 2010 or so)? The movie tickets, in addition to the popcorn and drink that I often purchase, typically end up costing me about $20. The time I spend watching this movie will often take up about 2 hours of my life. As a result, doing the math, watching a movie in the theater costs me about $10 per hour to do.

If I decide to play Pokemon on my Gameboy, how much does that cost me (these numbers are from about 2000 or so)? The Gameboy cost me about $100 to purchase, and the Pokemon game cost me about $50. The playing of the game itself does not cost me any money, just time. So the question is how much time do I (or did I) spend playing that game? In this particular case, the Pokemon cartridge happened to track the time I played it, so I could see precisely how much time I had been playing the game by the time I decided to work out this math. It turned out I had played well over 100 hours in the game, and I was still continuing to play the game (I was far from completing the game). If I suggest that I spend 150 hours playing that game (a conservative estimate), then I find that it costs me about $1 per hour to play Pokemon on my Gameboy. Of further interest in this particular situation, the more I play the game, the less it costs. For example, if I continue playing this game and eventually accumulate 300 hours of play, the math will reveal that at that point it cost me $0.50 per hour to play. In other words, the more I play, the less money I seem to be spending per hour.

If I decide to write programs in Python on my computer, an activity I actually rather enjoy, how much does that cost me (these numbers are from this current time, as this is one of my present hobbies). The computer I use to program on was salvage, and so literally cost me no money. Furthermore, the computer I use is utilized for many, many other purposes than simply programming, so any number I suggest is already technically much more than it ought to be for this example. Having said all of this, I will pretend for a moment I purchased the computer ($1500), and that I spend approximately one sixth (about 17%) of my time writing Python programs on it. The operating system (linux) and the Python interpreter did not cost me any money as they are freely available online. Thus, very approximately, I might suggest that I have spent about $250 in order to program in Python. The act of programming itself does not cost me any money, just time. I have likely spent over 100 hours programming so far, and I continue to do so, as it is a current hobby of mine. Thus, programming in Python costs me (presently) about $2.50 per hour, but like the video game, continues to become cheaper and cheaper as I keep doing it. Knowing that I actually did not spend money on the computer, and the actual number is $0 per hour. This is (so far) the least expensive activity for me to engage in.

This is already quite telling. Between the above activities, I ought to preference Python programming, as I spend the least amount of money doing it. I don’t think it is an accident that this activity can also be quite productive, as the programs I write can be used for other purposes, such as increasing automation in other chores and activities I engage in. This raises a couple more examples I think it is worth presenting:

If I decide to work a job, how much does that cost me? The answer to this one should already be obvious. It costs me nothing to work a job. In fact, I actually make money when I work a job. If I used the example at the beginning of this post, I might earn $15 per hour while working a job. This activity is now even more desirable than Python programming, assuming I actually enjoy working. Thus, it is certainly of great benefit to me to work a job I enjoy, as it won’t feel like work, and I will be earning money from the activity.

If I decide to do absolutely nothing, how much does that cost me? Believe it or not, this ends up costing me something financially. For example, I am sitting in a rental property, sitting on a couch. The rental property costs me about $1500 per month to live in, and the couch cost me about $1000 to purchase. So even if I sit here doing nothing, there is some cost involved. Furthermore, I typically do many activities in this home and on this couch, which will affect the math. However, for the sake of argument, I will suggest I am purposely doing nothing just to see what kind of numbers I end up with. There are 720 hours in a month of 30 days. Thus, the rental costs me about $2 per hour, even when I do absolutely nothing else.

If I decide to stay in a hotel for a night, how much does that cost me? This gets a lot more complicated again, as I would be staying in the hotel often toward some other purpose. But again, just to see some numbers, I will again assume I do absolutely nothing except sit in the hotel, perhaps watching television. If the hotel room costs me $200 per night, and there are 24 hours in a day, then staying in the hotel costs me about $8 per hour to stay there. Clearly my rental is less expensive than the hotel.

This all may sound very pedantic, but it all has a point. If I am able to break down the cost of all my activities into a common time slice (in my case by the hour), then I can start to see how those activities compare to each other. In some cases I spend money, and in a few cases I make money. And in some cases, an activity becomes less expensive the more I engage in that activity. When I started to see all these things, I started to consciously decide to pursue more activities that cost me less money. Furthermore, I preferenced activities where the cost of the activity dropped as I engaged with the activity more. For those who know me, I do/did play a lot of video games, especially Pokemon. In all honesty, playing Pokemon might be the least expensive activity I perform at this point, putting aside using salvaged computers to program on.

By behaving as I have, despite having generated less income than most of my friends, I have also tended to save far more money than those same friends. Furthermore, I have been able to “splurge” more than those friends at times I may want to spend a bit more money as well, because of my having my savings. During this pandemic, when we are all expected to lockdown and remain at home, I have endured better than many of the people around me as a result of my life choices.

There is, of course, a drawback to much of what I’ve described, as my friend pointed out last night. If I really want to engage in the more costly activities, I will require a much higher income than I presently have. Activities like scuba diving, sky diving, or even playing golf or tennis generally cost a very substantial amount of money. I have heard from those people who do engage in those activities that they consider the rewards they receive from those activities to be quite spectacular. If it makes them happy, then who am I to criticize? However, in order to engage in those activities, those individuals will obviously need to sacrifice more in order to generate the larger incomes they require, possibly taking jobs they do not actually enjoy.

It can be hard to find enjoyment in certain mundane activities. Our society, constructed on structures of consumerism, can even seek to shame individuals who do take enjoyment in such activities. My friend last night told me he enjoys sweeping floors and cleaning, but seemed incredibly ashamed to admit such a thing. Personally, I am a bit envious that he has found such a productive and important activity enjoyable. I wish I found doing those activities more enjoyable myself. However, he indicated to me that among his circle of friends, doing such mundane activities is considered “beneath” them as well, suggesting that people around him are even discouraged from performing those activities, despite any enjoyment they may receive.

There is much more I could say about all of this, but I think I have rambled on long enough for the moment. And I believe my reader should by now see my point. I believe that living a life of financial stability, and possibly freedom, is not as far-fetched as we are often led to believe. I believe that structures such as consumerism seem to motivate people to desire the more expensive activities, leading people away from potential happiness. My friend likes to sweep floors, an activity that potentially earns him money while at the same time fulfilling a happiness for him, much as my hobby of writing Python programs does for me. By embracing these sorts of choices and activities, and by recognizing the significance of finding a job we enjoy rather than a job that pays well, I believe we have a much greater potential for happiness in our lives. And it won’t require making ridiculous sums of money in the process.

The (American) Center of the Universe, part 2

crimson

On October 5, 2020, I wrote a post talking about how, for me, the United States of America (USA) has a great deal of influence over my day-to-day life, despite my desire for this not to be the case. In that post, I suggested that my feelings about Donald Trump are mostly irrelevant to the state of affairs of the world, and especially the USA, as I am not an American citizen. As I said in that post “the American people will do what they think is best,” especially with regard to whom they select to represent them in the international arena. This past week has been particularly interesting and so I have decided to follow up my previous post.

For those of you who may not be aware (I am envious if you are such a person), on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 there was a riot at the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. This riot resulted in the breaching of the building by rioters, which has resulted in several deaths and what some regard as an attack on American democracy. As the current president of the USA (Donald Trump) essentially goaded the rioters on to perform this act, it has been suggested this is an attempted coup. Essentially, the incident could be a failed attempt by Trump to overthrow the existing government and install his own, of which he would be the supreme power in this new government. This is my interpretation of the incident. There are certainly others who would suggest different interpretations.

However this incident is viewed and interpreted, what I wish to focus on is something a little different. Yesterday, I happened upon an interesting comment on Reddit, suggesting that there should be a filter created to filter out all the USA focused news items from Reddit. Ironically, a quick search in Google suggests this isn’t the first time people have asked this sort of question. I’d like to briefly consider this simple request.

For me, especially in that I happen to live in the country which shares the longest border with the USA, it seems unlikely that I will ever be able to live my life without having to keep myself informed regarding the goings-on of the USA. Whether I like it or not, I kind of need to know what the president of the USA is doing, what sorts of decisions he is making, and what sort of leader he is. If nothing more, those around me will talk about “those crazy Americans” and educate me. I am also well aware that many Americans frequently seek asylum in the country I am in, particularly as affairs in the USA become more and more unpredictable. All things considered, to consciously attempt to ignore the sleeping giant next door would likely be taking a huge risk on my part. I need to keep on top of American affairs.

However, the country I am in represents less than one percent of the total world population. That is, collectively, all the people in this country who are in the same sort of situation as I find myself in, make up less than one percent of the total population of the world. Furthermore, the population of the USA itself makes up approximately four percent of the total population of the world. Combined, these two countries together make up less than five percent of all currently living humans on this planet. That is, less than one in every twenty human beings currently alive, lives in either the USA or Canada. This is a simple statistic, but what is its significance? Perhaps it would help if we had something to compare it to.

The population of China is currently about eighteen and a half percent of the total population, and is the largest country in the world in this regard. India’s population comes in second with just shy of eighteen percent of the total humans currently living. That is, just these two countries (who are also neighbors ironically) make up more than a third of the total world’s population. That is, more than a third (about thirty-six percent) of all currently living human beings are on pretty well the opposite side of the globe from the USA. What I find astonishing is how little I know about the affairs of China and India, when compared to the affairs of the USA, or even Canada.

The first reasonable argument that springs to mind as to why I would be more familiar with the affairs of the USA and Canada are their proximity to me. I live within Canada, and the USA is Canada’s closest neighbor. For this reason alone, it makes sense I should be much more familiar with the affairs of these two countries. It isn’t a question of size or percentage of the world’s population; it is simply a question of the human beings who are closest to me. It makes sense for me to need to know what is going on in these two countries, as opposed to China and India. However, this cannot be said for everyone.

The Internet (and all the various communications mediums that exist on it, including all the various social media channels) spans the whole world. Media channels, such as Reddit or Twitter, exist in Canada and the USA and China and India. So, one might expect that the percentage of material and data and news found on the Internet which is concerned with each of these countries might be proportional to the number of people who exist in each of these countries. One might anticipate that approximately five percent of all news items might be concerned with Canada and the USA, while approximately thirty-six percent would be concerned with China and India. But this clearly is not the case. Why not?

One reason I can think of is that my access to the Internet is not “unmediated.” That is, when I select my source for news, I tend to receive news that is more “relevant” to me. Putting this another way, the news I receive is focused on what is going on closer to where I am. As I am in Canada, I tend to get information and news about the goings-on in Canada. As the USA is Canada’s closest neighbor, I should expect that a significant amount of my information will be about the USA as well. And unfortunately, as China and India are pretty well on the opposite side of the globe from me, practically as far away as possible, their day-to-day goings-on will be less likely to make headlines for me. Thus, proximity seems a significant part of my experience.

But what about for others? What about people who do not live in Canada or the USA, or perhaps not even on the North American continent? Does an Internet user in China receive mostly Chinese news? And Indian mostly Indian news? Honestly, I do not know; I do not reside in those areas. I would like to think so, but seeing posts on Reddit where people are asking for filters to filter out USA news would seem to suggest this is not the case. That perhaps there is a disproportionately larger focus on the USA on media channels on the Internet.

Another possibility, especially with news media, is that more significant events tend to usurp more attention than less significant events. For example, this latest possible coup attempt by Donald Trump likely hit headlines the world over, simply because there was a potential overthrowing of a government in one of the larger countries in the world. One might expect there to be much more attention given in such a spectacular incident like the storming of one of the significant governmental buildings in such a country. Not so much because it is the USA, but simply because a country seems to be in turmoil. However, as the quick Google search suggested, people have been requesting a filter to filter out USA content for some time.

I suggest there is another possibility. Perhaps the issue isn’t with regard to the proportion of human beings in various areas of the world. Perhaps the issue is where the headquarters of the various media channels reside has more to do with the situation. For example, Reddit is “an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website,” with a headquarters in San Francisco, California, USA. Similarly, Twitter is “an American microblogging and social networking service” with headquarters in San Francisco as well. In fact, Google is “an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products” with headquarters in Mountain View, California. Even Wikipedia (which I clearly seem to favor) is “hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organization” which lists it’s location as being in San Francisco, California once again. All of these media channels are clearly focused not only in the USA, but in a very particular area of the USA, which might suggest something of a bias regarding how those products are delivered.

Another possibility to consider is the sorts of people who have access to the Internet and who are able to present information on the Internet. What I mean by this is what I was suggesting earlier, when I suggest the Chinese might be receiving predominantly Chinese news and the Indians might be receiving predominantly Indian news. Just because there are more humans in China does not automatically suggest that all of those Chinese people have Internet access and are adding material to the Internet. In fact, something that I often have to remind people in my own community is that not everyone in Canada has Internet access either. There are a lot of people in this country who cannot afford Internet access, or who live in locations where Internet access is challenging to offer.

What I am suggesting in this last point is something like a self-selection bias. Those who contribute to the content available on the Internet clearly must have access to the Internet in the first place. Thus, the knowledge and information that is shared on the Internet is already biased toward those who have Internet access. The opinions and ideas of people who do not have Internet access is going to be underrepresented on the Internet.

It reminds me of an old discussion I had with people many years ago regarding which Operating System (OS) on a computer was most user-friendly. That is, which OS was easiest for people to use, and which was more challenging. We were arguing between Microsoft Windows, Apple MacOS, and various distributions of linux. It was generally believed that Windows was the most user-friendly, with MacOS being still pretty friendly but not as friendly as Windows, and linux being entirely unfriendly. What was often dismissed was that all the people we were considering were people who both used computers somewhat regularly, and who had generally been brought up on Microsoft Windows based computers. The significant point is this: if an individual has spent most of their lives using Microsoft Windows, but very little time using either MacOS or linux, we would expect they would be quite familiar with how to use Microsoft Windows products, as they will generally operate in similar ways. A person who used Windows 95 is likely to find Windows 98 to be fairly easy to use, similtarly with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 10. Yes, there have certainly be significant changes throughout the years, but one can generally still expect there to be a little graphic in the lower-left corner of the screen that they can click to present themselves with a menu to select applications to launch.

A similar argument applies if the individual had been brought up using an Apple Macintosh computer. For them, they’d expect to click on the top-left of their screen, instead of the bottom-left. Those who had been brought up in linux tended to be much more versatile in this regard, as linux does tend to be quite flexible and versatile in this regard, with their menu potentially being wherever they want to put it. The point here is not to focus too hard on some sort of absolute trait of “user-friendliness” without first recognizing that an individual’s past history with computers will play a significant role in what they find to be “easy” and what they find to be “challenging.” Or, to formalize this a little, it is all about what Simone de Beauvoir referred to as “situation.”

Bringing this back to the discussion of what sort of content to expect to find on the Internet, if most of the people on the Internet have been brought up with certain tools and data, they are likely to continue to preference those same tools and data as time progresses. Furthermore, if people are constantly bombarded with certain cultural choices constantly, then they are likely to slowly fall into those same choices as time progresses. As the most simple example of this that I myself am guilty of right now, this blog is written in English. (I honestly do apologize to all those out there who speak other languages for forcing you to read this blog in this dreadful language. The fact that it is the only language I happen to speak fluently is not a good excuse either.)

So where does this leave us? Many (perhaps most) of the media channels being used by many people on the Internet are “living” in the USA. These mediums are USA based, were likely predominantly used by Americans in their infancy, and are to this day predominantly controlled by USA interests. As a non-American, I have sometimes found reading the end-user agreements somewhat amusing when they have made reference to American laws, rules, and other regulations which do not apply in the country I reside. There is no “First Amendment” to protect my “Freedom of Speech” in this country, though we do happen to have a “Freedom of Expression” to fall back on. Certainly similar, but not quite the same. And also worth note is that not all countries have such rules.

This all brings us back to the original point. The USA is not the center of the universe. It never has been, nor will it ever be. It is incredibly frustrating for many people (arguably most people in the world) when it is even hinted that such things are true. For me personally, I have to acknowledge a fair bit of prejudice and privilege to the USA as a result of my particular situation, but my situation is not everybody’s situation. I recognize that for someone in China or India, for example, the affairs of the USA may be the furthest thing from significance for them.

One last thing I feel it important to mention in all of this, that I hear being screamed in the back of my head by a familiar audience member: but the USA has “the nukes.” This argument suggests that the reason the Americans hold so much sway and influence over so much of our world is directly related to the fact they happen to have weapons of mass destruction, and arguably more than any other country on this planet. This is an argument of oppression; the USA is somehow justified in oppressing the rest of the world because the rest of the world could be harmed if they do not let the USA do as it pleases. While this may be true (that the USA could deliver great harm upon a great many people if it decided to utilize its weapons of mass destruction), this amounts to bullying. And as even the Americans know very, very well, one of the first strategies of dealing with bullies is to stand up to them.

“My” Wife

crimson

There are always so many things to talk about. Some topics I consider to be critically important and significant, and yet somehow I forget to talk about them. This will be one of those topics.

In our heteronormative world, when I talk to people about my partner in life, I refer to her as “my wife.” Those two words come preloaded with a plethora of meanings and ideas, most of which I do not intend. Today, I will talk about the first word, and why it is so problematic, especially for me.

The word “my” is an English word that is frequently used to elicit an understanding of ownership, possession, and even dominance. For something (or someone) to be “mine,” I am expected to have some sort of control over it. Unfortunately for me, this is the furthest thing from my intent. This fact is an issue with me that I struggle with, as I instinctively drop the word “my” frequently for many purposes. I will share with you why I have so much trouble with this word.

Let us first consider possession. To possess something means that I have some sort of control over that something. For example, at this moment, I possess this keyboard, in that I control it’s position in space and time. I grasp the keyboard and can move it around. And at this moment, I have placed it upon my lap in order to press on the keys, which is how I am typing this post. I possess this keyboard. It is my keyboard in this sense.

Possession, it seems to me, is a state, like being happy or angry. The keyboard is in the state of being possessed by me. This suggests that it can very easily cease to be possessed as well. If I place it on the table in front of me, and I walk away, I no longer possess the keyboard. The keyboard is no longer in my control. I can return, grasp the keyboard, and again I will possess it. But while I leave it unattended on the table, I do no possess it. It could certainly be argued that I still possess the keyboard, as it would be very difficult for others to come to possess it while it remains inside “my” home. Thus, in some sense, I still have some control over the keyboard, and so perhaps I still possess it even when it is unattended.

However, when the keyboard is unattended on the table, the idea (I think) most have regarding the keyboard’s state is not possession, but something else that is related: ownership. I own the keyboard, even when it is unattended. In this way, they keyboard is “mine” once again. Ownership, unlike possession, is much more difficult to clarify. With possession, an object (or person) can easily be taken away from me, such that I will no longer possess it. Someone could come into the room presently and take the keyboard off my lap and hold it outside my reach. In that case, I no longer possess that keyboard. But I may still own the keyboard.

Ownership, it seems to me, is more of an agreement than a state of affairs. An agreement between myself and others. To say that I own the keyboard, it is not necessarily I who makes the claim, but others. If those around me agree that the keyboard belongs to me, then I own the keyboard. However, if those around me decide that the keyboard does not belong to me, they will not agree with me that I own the keyboard. In fact, if others decide that the keyboard does not belong to me, they are likely to decide to take the keyboard away from me entirely. I would no longer possess nor own the keyboard in that situation.

Then there is dominance. Dominance, as I see it, is the idea of enforcement. To dominate an object is to force upon that object my possession, and possibly my ownership, over it. If I grasp the keyboard tightly and try to prevent others from taking it away from me, I am expressing a dominance over the keyboard. Whether I am successful with my dominance or not will be revealed with time, whether I continue to possess the keyboard or not. Dominance can lead to or strengthen ownership and possession. I can take actions that ensure that the object in question will remain under my control, despite the attempts of others to remove the object from my possession. This is, in some sense, where the idea that “ownership is nine tenths of the law” comes from. If I practice dominance over an object, and others are unable (or unwilling) to contradict my dominance over the object, then its remaining in my possession is a sort of acknowledgement of ownership. That is, others are forced to agree (on some level) that the object belongs to me, as they are unable to remove it from my possession.

All this talk sounds pretty elementary when applied to objects, but the ideas become much more pronounced when applied to conscious entities, especially people. I have a pet rabbit. I am considered the owner of the rabbit, in that I have some sort of control over it. If the rabbit does something inappropriate, I am the one held responsible for his actions. It would make no sense to hold me responsible for the actions of the rabbit, unless I had some sort of control over the rabbit. However, in order for me to convince the rabbit to submit to my desires, I would need to express a dominance over the rabbit. My dominance may take on any number of forms, so long as the end result is that the rabbit does as I desire it to do.

This way of seeing the relationship applies just as well with people. I can own a person, so long as those around me agree that I am the owner of the person. Furthermore, I am going to have to express some sort of dominance over the person in order to convince them to submit to my desires. I have to have some control over them, in order to be considered the owner of them. This, if it is not obvious, is a description of slavery. While I would like to think that we have, in our modern times, abolished slavery, I know through observation that this is most certainly not the case.

I have a partner in this world. Another person whom I hold dear. Another person whose projects I value and attempt to assist in finding successful completion of. This other person is one of the people in this world that I consider to be a full conscious entity, full of freedom just as I also possess. While at times I know that I could dominate her and try to control her, I spend the better part of my time trying very hard not to control her in any way. I admit I have varying degrees of success with this, but I do try. Part of the challenges I encounter in my attempts come from those around me in society. You see, as part of our relationship, we decided to marry.

I would argue that even were we not to marry, those around us would still consider our relationship in the same way as I am about to describe. However, in that we are married, I suggest that it reinforces the perceived nature of our relationship. In a heteronormative relationship, where a man is with a woman, it is considered to be the case that the man (in some way) owns the woman. As ownership is decided upon not by the owner or the thing owned, but by those around the owner, it is decided by society that I own my wife, in some way. Try as I might, it is not entirely up to me whether I have control over her. I can choose not to express a dominance, I can choose not to force her to submit to my desires; however, as I support her freedom and her projects, I sometimes end up supporting her submission to me regardless. It is a very complicated scenario, having been developed and reinforced for centuries through various traditions that came about long before I was ever conceived. The term often given to this complicated system of traditions and rules is patriarchy.

This all brings us back to the term “my.” To call her “my” wife is to, in some way, acknowledge that I have some level of dominance over her. In fact, my use of “my” is probably an expression of dominance itself. As much as I would prefer to believe that I only call her “my” wife to distinguish her from the other women out there who are committed to other heteronormative relationships with men, the truth is that those words are still conveying an idea, whether I like it or not. In truth, my only recourse to correct the situation is to not ever refer to her as “my” anything, and simply call her by her name at all times.

Tenet and Flowing Upstream

crimson

Before I begin, I must warn my reader that I will be discussing specific details of the film Tenet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_(film)). Thus, if you have not seen this film yet, you may want to avert your eyes and wait to read this blog post until after you have. Or, if you are like me, you can proceed; but then you will have to deal with the consequences that some aspects of this film will no longer be a pleasant surprise for you.

!!! SPOILER WARNING !!!

Do you feel sufficiently warned yet? Good. Let’s proceed with the post.

Tenet is a time travel movie, sort of. It is a time travel movie, however, it does not deal with time travel in the manner that most will be familiar with. Most stories about time travel have characters that travel instantaneously from one point in time to another point in time. At the beginning of their journey, the character ceases to exist at the particular place and at the particular time they were, and instantaneously come into existence at the new particular place and particular time of their destination. This is something of a hard break typically, where I generally expect a sonic boom as their atoms are removed from one place, causing a vacuum whereby the surrounding air quickly seeps in to fill the voided space. Furthermore, there ought to be something like a sonic boom at the destination as the atoms that were in the place where the character arrives must be pushed out of the way quickly in order to make room for the character to arrive successfully. Ironically, I would expect something similar to this in the cases of teleportation, as is utilized in stories such as Star Trek.

Of course, all of this “sonic boom” business can be alleviated if one suggests that instead of the process only occurring in one direction, it instead occurred in two. That is, the object (or character) that is travelling in time is actually swapping places with a similar object at the destination. The character might move back in time to occupy a space that was previously occupied by a volume of air, and that air may be moved forward in time to occupy the space that the character formerly occupied. A swapping of atoms. While this process would clearly be asymmetric (that is, the mass of the character is clearly much greater than the mass of the air; similarly with the number of atoms), it would at least account for the lack of vacuum found on the beginning side, and the excess of atoms on the destination side. No need for a sonic boom now.

I dwell on this issue for a reason; in Tenet, instead of instantaneous travel, the travelers are simply shifting direction of flow. That is, while under normal circumstances an object will flow “forward” in time, other objects (that the story refers to as “inverted” objects) are flowing “backward.” This is presented simply through the reversal of the film reel. That is, the film scene is played in reverse. It is a trick of the medium, and nothing terribly new or innovative. If most objects in our universe are sliding through time in one direction, what if other objects in our universe happened to be sliding in the opposite direction? It would raise big questions regarding what it means for an object (or person) to age. Instead of a rock wearing down over time through erosion, that same rock, if inverted, would somehow be slowly gaining size and mass through the ages from the very same process. It is an incredibly compelling question to ask.

If that isn’t enough to confuse the audience, there is one more thing to consider. As not all objects are sliding through time in the same direction, what happens when two objects conflict? That is, if one object is sliding forward and another backward, what if they both intend to occupy the same space at the same time, through their respective journey’s through time? The film has an answer to this, sort of. It is suggested that “the world” is sliding in the forward direction, hence why we are all familiar with the forward flow of time (one might suggest that is why we consider it the “forward” direction as well). Objects that are sliding in the opposite direction than the world are “swimming upstream,” that is, they are fighting against the “normal” flow of time against the bulk of the objects they will encounter. If all this is true, then one would expect that the forward sliding objects would overtake the backward sliding objects.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really good enough. You see, if most objects are moving with the world, flowing through time in the forward direction, then that will include all the air and other atoms that we may often take for granted. The film does touch on some of these less often considered objects by emphasizing that inverted people need to breath inverted air, but the reason given has to do with the permeability of the lungs’ membranes to absorb air that is flowing through time in the “wrong” direction. In order for the lungs to operate correctly, they must absorb air that is flowing through time in the same direction. This is touching on the idea that those objects sliding through time in the opposite direction will not behave as expected.

There is further discussion on this point as the film suggests that inverted fire is incredibly cold, instead of being incredibly hot. That the wind that would normally be at your face will instead be at your back. That friction itself will “feel weird,” especially when trying to drive an inverted car. It seems that the nature of the universe itself is operating in the opposite way we might expect while we are inverted. It would require me to spend a lot of time on each individual characteristic to discuss what makes the most sense in this circumstance, so I will leave this exercise to the reader to pursue, if they so desire. For now, I will focus on one aspect, which I’ve already been alluding to: the occupation of space.

I return to the question of objects moving through time in opposite directions. To help with this, I will talk about objects that are moving in opposite directions in space, but in the same direction in time. This is a situation that I have a lot of experience with. Anyone who has taken a high school level physics class should be familiar with the many experiments with billiard balls bouncing off each other. If one ball is moving while the other is stationary, and if they hit each other at just the right angle, the energy from the moving ball is transferred to the stationary ball completely. That is, the moving ball becomes stationary, while the stationary ball starts moving. In essence, the balls swap their motions and energies. The ball that was moving gives its energy and motion to the other ball, while the stationary ball gives its lack of motion and energy to the formerly moving ball.

Taking this example further, if both balls are moving in opposite directions, and assuming they collide with each other just right, they will again swap their respective energies and motions. It is worth noting here that the transfer is not complete in any of these cases, as there is a loss due to friction and heat and other generally ignored effects. So the two balls will bounce and then move away from each other at roughly the same speeds as we might expect. This is how objects moving in opposite directions in space, but the same direction in time, behave.

Now for a much more controversial analysis. Let us consider objects moving in the opposite directions in space and the opposite directions in time. If the two objects are moving at the same rate, both in space and in time, then we would expect them not to ever touch. That is, as they are moving in opposite directions, both in space and in time, then they are in fact moving in the same direction at the same rate relative to a single observer, in whatever direction the observer happens to be travelling through time. This example is not terribly helpful to the answering of my initial question, but helps me orient myself. I have to keep in mind that objects sliding through time in the opposite direction are in fact moving in the opposite direction than I might initially expect.

So then, the example I need to consider is of two objects moving in the SAME direction in space but opposite directions in time. These two objects are now on a collision course due to how they end up operating through their flow through time. And once again, we are struck with how they will resolve such a collision. The first, simple possibility is that the two objects are in fact the same object, simply viewed in two very different ways. If that were the case, then there would not be a collision, as the object is itself the same, and can certainly occupy the same space as itself at the same time, regardless of the direction of the flow of time. If this were the case, then problem solved. However, the issue at hand is that the two objects are not identical with each other.

Our situation, put simply, is the fluid of our world (the air in our atmosphere) flowing in the forward direction of time (as it is with and part of the world), colliding with the solid inverted objects of the film, which include the characters themselves. The characters, quite literally, are fighting against the current in order simply to occupy the space that the air has already claimed. As the movie demonstrates to us, the characters succeed in occupying the space, and thus the air must have failed in that battle. The air was either pushed out of the way, or is annihilated. Of course, in the wake of the inverted characters’ movement, there is no sonic boom, and so air must also be generated on the other side if the air that loses the former battle is annihilated. It would seem that the air has likely behaved in the fashion we might normally expect, assuming it was encountering an object that was flowing through time in the same direction as we are used to. The air, was pushed out of the way, flowing through time in its usual forward direction, but redirected through space around the inverted object. At least, this is what the film tells us.

Ultimately, the problem the audience has in the entire story, is how to understand the boundary between the normal objects and the inverted objects. When normal objects make contact with normal objects, everything behaves as we expect. And when inverted objects make contact with inverted objects, again, we understand what must happen. However, when normal and inverted objects make contact, it is not entirely clear what to expect. An inverted fire draws the heat energy out of the surrounding normal objects, while radiating energy upon the surrounding inverted objects. Inverted wind is simply air moving in the opposite direction, thus you feel it at your back if it might normally be in your face, assuming you are normally oriented and not inverted yourself. This point about wind is possibly the most telling.

Perhaps the intent is that the inertia of objects remains the same, regardless of the flow of time of the object. That is, air is air, whether it is normal or inverted. My solid body pushes air out of the way, whether the air is flowing in the same direction through time as I am, or whether the air is flowing through time in the opposite direction. In both cases, the air is displaced by myself. Of course, solid objects colliding with other solid objects becomes a bit more complicated again. When the protagonist ends up fighting his inverted self, the precise manner in which each blow is landed seems counter intuitive. The inverted fighter is not throwing punches, but is instead catching them, healing injuries that they seem to have no intention of creating. This might be true of the inverted protagonist, not actually wanting to cause harm to himself, but what about the characters in the battlefield during the film’s climax?

Tenet is a very interesting story. It raises a lot of questions regarding how time might operate by pressing our current flow of forward moving time against several objects moving through time in the opposite direction. This, of course, is where the great apocalyptic event that is foreshadowed at the beginning takes its shape from. However, if one takes all these things seriously, the story reveals its end at its beginning. After all, there is a world beyond when the final battle takes place, therefore the mission to prevent the apocalypse will definitely succeed. If it had failed, then there would be none of the future events that take place throughout most of the movie.

Finally, there is one other rather significant detail that is revealed in the story that does not seem to weigh on many people’s minds: free will. According to this story, it does not exist. At least not the sort of free will that many would have you believe makes humans unpredictable. Everything in the film that will happen, has already happened. Events are tied together in a complicated Möbius strip. The world is purely and completely deterministic. And if our world really is that way, then either Stephen Hawking is correct, and there is no time travel, or time travelers in the future are simply not interested in what we consider to be one of the most brilliant minds of our time.

Fun Stuff

crimson

This past week I have spent a fair bit of time on “research” into my topic. By “research,” I am referring to viewing a lot of related material on YouTube and in fiction. More specifically, I watched the recent film “Tenet,” while also reading and reviewing material to help me better understand the film. I want to discuss the film in detail, but I think I will save that for the next blog post. In this one, I would like to share some of the material that I enjoy that helps me to understand the topics I write so much about.

In this post, I am going to share with you some of my favorite YouTube channels. The content creators of these channels do, what I consider to be, fairly good research into the topics they discuss. But more importantly, these creators raise very important questions and get me thinking about ideas I might not previously had thought about. The first on this list must be CGP Grey. His channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/greymatter/about

I admit I do not know a lot about the person behind this channel personally, but clearly by the sorts of topics he chooses, and by the way he tackles those topics, he is the sort of individual I tend to gravitate towards. My favorite video of all time, both on YouTube and probably on the Internet as a whole is his video entitled “The Trouble with Transporters” (https://youtu.be/nQHBAdShgYI). He begins by discussing the fictional technology of teleporters from the Star Trek series of stories, but that discussion quickly leads into very profound questions regarding the mind, the soul, and consciousness itself. Ultimately, it is his possible conclusion at the end of the video that best describes my belief regarding how consciousness might actually work. Of all the videos I try to encourage people to watch, this is always at the top of my list.

Also by CGP Grey is a video entitled “You Are Two” (https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8), where he discusses the discoveries made during the now very controversial, and even unethical, split brain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain) experiments from the 1950s and 1960s. I would emphasize here that what is considered ethically appropriate is a bit of a moving target, so those who performed these experiments were (during their time) not necessarily doing anything wrong; they were in many cases simply trying to help their patients live better lives. However, in the present day, in the part of the world where I live, it is considered very unethical to perform experiments upon humans, let alone human brains. Unfortunately, this sort of limitation presents key problems for the sort of research I might like to perform, as (it is my belief that) only through the experimentation on human beings can we ever truly hope to understand how something like consciousness actually works. This video is often the second video I encourage people to view.

CGP Grey has presented on many interesting topics, including some more recent videos about tumble weeds (much more interesting than you might think), but there is another creator that I need to shift to now: Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell (https://www.youtube.com/c/inanutshell/about). Ironically, they too created a video related directly to CGP Grey’s split brain video, entitled “What Are You?” (https://youtu.be/JQVmkDUkZT4), where they continue the discussion. This video is definitely worth watching, especially if you watched CGP Grey’s part of the discussion. However, Kurzgesagt’s library of videos dwarf’s CGP Grey’s. I suspect this is because Kurzgesagt may have a much larger team of people working on these videos.

The first Kurzgesagt video I usually recommend to people is their video entitled “Optimistic Nihilism” (https://youtu.be/MBRqu0YOH14), probably because it expresses the world view that I happen to hold. Specifically, the video is presenting the idea that there is no inherent meaning or value in the world, and so we (as conscious entities) are responsible for creating meaning and value in this world; that this responsibility is something to rejoice about. I would argue that the title of the video is a bit misleading, as nihilism is the viewpoint that there is no meaning or value, period, whether intrinsic or otherwise. For a nihilist, I cannot assign meaning, because my attempting to do so fails at the outset. There simply is no meaning in anything, period. The video might better be entitled “Optimistic Existentialism,” as the Existentialists probably more closely presented a viewpoint consistent with the ideas the video is proposing. For an Existentialist, such as Simone de Beauvoir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir), what makes humans unique in the world is their ability to generate meaning and value in a world that would otherwise be void these things; that the world has no intrinsic meaning, and our freedom (or free will) is precisely what makes the generation of meaning and value possible. For Beauvoir, this idea leads into ethics, suggesting that how humans ought to behave is in such a manner as to support the freedom of those around themselves, allowing for everyone an opportunity at meaning and value generation. This, I admit, is my interpretation of Beauvoir’s ideas, especially from her work “The Ethics of Ambiguity” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ethics_of_Ambiguity).

Other videos by Kurzgesagt, that I consider noteworthy, include: “The Origin of Consciousness – How Unaware Things Became Aware” (https://youtu.be/H6u0VBqNBQ8), a discussion on consciousness itself; “Emergence – How Stupid Things Become Smart Together” (https://youtu.be/16W7c0mb-rE), a discussion on how consciousness might possibly come about; and “What Happens If We Throw an Elephant From a Skyscraper? Life & Size 1” (https://youtu.be/f7KSfjv4Oq0), the first part of a series that gives serious thought to the significance of the size of things (what I have often referred to as “scope”). These videos are the sort I enjoy, but Kurzgesagt does plenty of videos about virtually anything, including Universal Basic Income (https://youtu.be/kl39KHS07Xc), ants (https://youtu.be/cqECNYmM23A), and even Dyson Spheres (https://youtu.be/pP44EPBMb8A).

I have to admit, aside from the rather deep topics these channels choose to discuss, I am also smitten with their animation styles. As one who is frequently minimalist in nature, their generally simplistic animations (I believe) really allow for their discussions to shine through without being impeded by fancy special effects in order to attempt to convey the sometimes challenging ideas. This leads me to the latest channel that I have recently discovered that I will now share with you: minutephysics (https://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics/about).

Honestly, it is strange to me not to have stumbled upon minutephysics sooner, as they have created videos about many of the things I’ve been discussing in this blog for a while. For example, my lengthy discussion regarding how time is an inconsistent measure, synchronized to the irregular idea of a day is presented much more succinctly in just over three minutes in his video entitled “Why Some Days Aren’t 24 Hours” (https://youtu.be/Vxz6nNqpDCk). I’ve only just discovered this channel, but I expect there are plenty more interesting videos for me to watch, and I will view them in the coming days, weeks, months, etc.

The first video that I watched by minutephysics was “Solution to the Grandfather Paradox” (https://youtu.be/XayNKY944lY), which is an honest to god solution to a paradox. (Actually, as he suggests, it is a proof suggesting that the Grandfather Paradox is not a paradox at all, as there is a reasonable solution to the problem, so long as you have some familiarity with Quantum Superposition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition). While I expect some might want to dispute this claim, I find his solution both elegant and thought provoking. Essentially, he is thinking outside the box, using quantum physics in order to try and resolve issues that may otherwise be considered unresolvable. In truth, until we are able to time travel, in order to test out such theories, this is all speculative at best. However, this is clearly an excellent attempt at resolving a very complicated problem, without simply throwing one’s arms into the air and giving up. Another interesting solution to another paradox is “Complete Solution To The Twins Paradox” (https://youtu.be/0iJZ_QGMLD0), where he suggests the answer lies in understanding the rotation of time.

It is in this last video that we come full circle. Toward the end of the video, he briefly discusses the relativistic effects behind flying a plane around the Earth, moving in the direction of rotation, while carrying an atomic clock. This, is clearly a reference to the Hafele–Keating experiment from 1971 that I discussed in my previous two posts. Realizing this, I simply had to continue investigating this YouTube channel, and why I am presently sharing this all with you today. Put simply, I am clearly not the only person who has had these thoughts that I have, and people much smarter than I am have been considering these questions for a very long time. I am not alone.

The results of these various discoveries has led me to the realization that in order to coherently speak on the topic of time, I will require much, much more education. In fact, I honestly believe that if I am to have any hope of answering my initial question, I will need to enter into the field of quantum physics proper. Coupling my understanding of philosophy and computers with quantum physics just might make it possible to really answer these sorts of questions. On the other hand, I may simply find a more creative solution to a paradoxical problem, but I’d be okay with that too.

In my next blog post, I plan to discuss the film Tenet in more detail. I will consider what the film is suggesting about time and space, and show how the film suggests there is no such a thing as freedom at all. And, as I will reiterate in that post, there will be spoilers for those who have not yet seen the film.

Automation

crimsonLeave a comment

It has been a while. I have no good excuse, other than to say I’ve been busy. If you really want to know more, you should contact me. You’d think that some people have already contacted me to ask this very question. The fact is, I do receive quite a few messages through this website each day. Unfortunately, the number of them that are legitimate communications are quite limited. So far, by my estimation, only one person has contacted me who was an actual person. You can check the comments to see who that one person was.

While in school, a discussion was once raised regarding a strange situation. In this hypothetical situation, you have an organisation who’s purpose is to create robots that mine planets for various ores and materials. These robots then use the materials they’ve mined to create more robots who’s purpose is the same as the original robots. Through generations of this process, the design of the robots evolves and becomes highly efficient in serving their purpose. The organisation is quite successful, as they corner the market in mining and robot production. The question that is raised in this hypothetical example is, to what end is the organisation aimed?

It seems like there is no reasonable answer. To create robots who’s only real purpose is to create more robots is to ultimately aim at turning the entire universe into robots. Once the goal is accomplished, then what? And having more robots doesn’t seem to provide any other significance in the universe than their existence as such. They just are. Whether they are deemed good or not seems only to make sense if considering them from an instrumental viewpoint. That is, do they do their job well. If the robots are efficient at mining materials and making more robots, then they are good. If they fail to accomplish this task, then they are bad. Ideas of good and evil don’t seem to enter into it. At least not within the groundwork of the organisation itself.

As you likely already guessed, this hypothetical example is a commentary on human beings. We are those robots, and our existence seems pretty pointless. Our aims are directed at the efficient generation (and maintenance) of more human beings. The basic unit of social structure, the family, is considered good if it serves this purpose well. A family that does not generate children is frequently not even considered a family at all, and if it is at least considered a family, it is somehow a lesser one. Also consider the frequent claim made by many that “children are the future,” suggesting that our focus and energy ought to be aimed at the development and preservation of the future generations. However, as in the case of the robots, I ask: to what end?

During the course of my own life, I have often asked myself what I want to do or what I want to be. What career choice is the best career for me. I find myself unable to answer this question for the reasons above. I cannot think of any particular career or job who’s purpose seems concerned with something I might consider progressive or enlightening. All careers, as far as I can tell, are aimed directly or indirectly with the original goal of producing or maintaining human beings. Sometimes, the careers are so indirectly related to this goal that their pointlessness is hidden in layers of obfuscation. However, if you follow the trail long enough, eventually you are able to find that it is concerned simply with this one goal.

It is for all these reasons that I preference Existentialist philosophy. I find solace in the idea that I am personally responsible for the creation of meaning and purpose in the world. Not that there is any inherent meaning or purpose out there. Or if there is, there is no way for me to determine what those inherent meanings or purposes are. Thus, I am tasked with generating it myself. In fact, if I were to select an aim for humanity, it seems that this might be it. It might be our purpose to find our purpose. It might be our aim to decide what things ought to be valuable. Ultimately, this amounts to an acknowledgement (at least in principle) of the existence of freedom (or free will). Without freedom, without the possibility of deviation from a deterministic chain of events, there does not seem to be a point to anything.

So what has brought this all out of me presently? I return now to all those messages I receive daily through this blog. It seems to me that the bulk of these messages are generated automatically by programs on the Internet. These programs, I would have to guess, are created by individuals who are trying to aim at some purpose which requires them to spread propaganda of some sort, perhaps trying to harvest Email accounts, or even perhaps to simply misinform. The strangest thing for me is that they persist despite my deleting those messages. That is, the messages are sent to me, and I have configured this blog to not post anything unless I approve it. Clearly, I have not approved any of these messages. So why do these parties persist?

If the source of these messages were human, some sort of conscious entity with something resembling freedom, they might realize that I actually will not approve these messages being posted to my blog. That because I have configured my blog to require approval to post comments, none of their comments will ever be posted. A human is likely to recognize this and decide (perhaps in the name of efficiency and progress) to cease their pointless activity and move on. But they do not. More messages are received each day. Thus, I must conclude that they are not human. The source of these messages must be some sort of automated system, like a bot, that is programmed to simply try and try and try again, endlessly. Like the robots from the hypothetical situation I described, they will simply continue to attempt to harvest my blog for their own nefarious purposes.

On a more personal note

crimsonLeave a comment

I know that my posts are generally pretty reflective, but this time, I’m really going to speak from the heart. You may already notice this post is occurring at a very unusual time. I even missed my last “scheduled” post. With the pandemic raging, and especially with the looming presidential election in the United States of America (USA), frankly, I’m exhausted and a bit depressed.

It’s really hard staying at home so much. It isn’t even just that I’m staying at home either. Most people seem to be. There isn’t as much socializing. There isn’t as much getting out and doing stuff. I leave the house and avoid people, like the plague. That saying holds substantially more meaning presently. “Like the plague” is precisely what it is. We are treating the pandemic “like the plague,” being all paranoid and critical of nearness. I was never that fond of simple handshaking. Other people’s grimy hands “infecting” my own. I often would seek out a nearby washroom to wash my hands after hand shakes if I could. But now, I miss that simple act. I miss contact.

I am very privileged and lucky. I have a partner and she takes really good care of me. I try my hardest not to be a burden on her, but sometimes I think she wishes I would be more of a burden. I support her projects; I want her to truly express her freedom; I want her to be able to demonstrate full personhood. However, I think she believes I am doing all of this at my own expense. I try to tell her I am not, but she doesn’t really believe me.

I am an Earth sign. I don’t really hold much weight in astrological stuff, but in this case it really does fit. I am slow and patient. As I get older, I get even slower and even more patient even. During this pandemic, I’ve been looking for a job, and while it is always disappointing when my calls are not returned, I am still very patient for the opportunities that eventually do come. I am not unhappy presently. Perhaps a bit melancholy, and possibly a little depressed, but I’m not unhappy. I’ve been unhappy in the past; this is definitely not that.

My life, like so many other people’s lives, has been turned on its head. I am treading in unfamiliar territory. And this experience has been more enlightening than I’d ever have expected. I stay at home most days, cleaning the house and tidying up. I do dishes. I do laundry (a little, I’m not trusted with the delicates yet). I even cook a little too, though I worry my meals will not be as well received as hers are. I am very much domestic now. And I’m starting to realize the primary issue with women’s lot.

To be clear, I am not regarded as a woman. I never lived a woman’s or a girl’s life. I am unfamiliar with all those details and experiences. But I feel like my present experience is giving me a taste of it. The stereotypical duties of the housewife. Spend your time at home doing all those duties at home. There is plenty to do. It is always surprising to me how much work there is to do around the house. There is just so much. So much to do that I am barely able to do the things I want/need to do. That is, as a man, I have often thought that certain tasks and activities were important. And, of course, when I have completed those tasks, I felt like my work was done, and I had earned a break to watch television or play a video game. But I am realizing how wrong I was.

The work is never done. Tasks are endless. You can clean some dishes, but there are more five minutes later. Clean the clothes, and there are more clothes already in need of washing. Vacuum, and collect some of the dust and debris, but miss so much more. It doesn’t matter what I do, I can never do enough. I can never complete a task. All I can do is abate the inevitable. But it is still more than that. Because all these sorts of tasks take me away from other tasks I often think are more important, like applying for jobs, or socializing with friends, or writing blog posts. Are these things really more important? I wonder sometimes. I wonder more and more these days.

I think on all this, and I realize something. This is slavery. This is an inability to express freedom; an inability to pursue one’s projects fully. I am performing all these duties at the expense of those duties I may want to perform. My choice is getting lost. At first, it made me angry and upset. But I realize now that it is simply another revealing of a truth. When my wife takes care of me, performing all these functions and so much more, so that I can sit on the couch and write a blog post like this, she is accepting her own slavery. She is giving up her own freedom in order to allow me mine.

It reminds me of something Aristotle wrote, which at the moment I cannot find. I believe it was part of his discussion in his Politics. He suggested that for philosophers to be able to do philosophy, others had to do the other work that needed to be done. That one needed to be free from the duties of every day life, like cooking and cleaning, in order to be able to contemplate and think on things. I believe this was part of his conclusions related to natural slavery; that some people are simply born or destined to be slaves, perhaps by their very genetics (though Aristotle was clearly not thinking about genetics at the time, as genetics is a very recent field of study). When I first read this, I immediately connected it with patriarchy.

I’ve only had the most minute taste of what it is like. I know I am still a man, and so I will never truly experience the life of a woman. In fact, I have a wife and my wife will always insist on taking care of me and attending to my needs. In fact, if I don’t let her, she actually takes insult to my reluctance. I’ve experienced this same situation in other settings too, where a guy I worked with insisted he had to pay for our lunches because he was older than the rest of us. Like some weird tradition I was not familiar with, he felt a duty to take care of us younger workers by buying our lunches all the time. If we discretely paid the bill ourselves, he would get incredibly upset, like we had punched him in the face or called him a bad name. In all these cases, the people seem to feel a duty to take care of me in some way, and if I deny them in this duty, they get very upset. I’ve since learned to accept it when people want to take care of me, at least somewhat. I care for them, and I don’t want to insult them or make them feel bad. I always feel I don’t deserve their appreciation, but my feelings regarding the situation are not important.

With all this background, I return to my own current experiences, trying to take care of my wife the way she always takes care of me. I don’t feel angry or upset or even sad about doing all this work. I feel the workload is unaccomplishable, but necessary. I say to myself, “it doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to be better than it was.” And I’ve become more understanding of the importance of the various duties and tasks I have. I’ve reevaluated. I’ve re-valued those tasks. Those I had thought were important are no longer as important as I remember, while others have become more so. My priorities have changed.

I am not unhappy. Quite the contrary. Okay, perhaps this is saying too much. If being unhappy is to not be in a state of happiness, then perhaps I am not happy. But I am also not the opposite of happy either. I am not upset or angry or sad. Maybe a little depressed, because the seemingly hopeless tasks can never be completed. Like Sisyphus, always pushing the boulder up the slope, only to watch it roll back down, over and over again. This is the life before me. This is the life that, I think, so many experience. The life of slavery.

I think that one is only upset about being a slave when one thinks they ought to have more freedom. And perhaps we all ought to have more freedom than we have. If democracy is the highest, best form of politics, and if the Americans are right to value freedom as much as they do, then perhaps slavery needs to be abolished more completely than it has (supposedly) been. Those aristocratic individuals who use their power to manipulate the world of those around them, in order to leverage their own projects and express their own freedom, ought to instead use their power to support the projects of those around them. Instead of using their power to support their own desires, perhaps they ought to use their power to support the desires of others. Perhaps the model many of us are familiar with, where the manager has subordinates below them, should instead be the subordinates with the manager below. Perhaps who is accountable to whom should be flipped. Perhaps the president of the USA ought to be accountable to his people, rather than his people being accountable to him.

Control

crimsonLeave a comment

In the part of the world where I live, among the most valued traits a person can have is freedom. The freedom to choose for themselves their destiny. The freedom to choose their path in life. It is considered a sign of strength if a person is able to exercise their freedom, and do as they please in all situations. Often, however, in order to actually succeed in one’s projects requires that others take up those same projects in the same fashion. That is, if I desire to build a house, it makes a lot of sense to convince others to help me in building that house. If I am unsuccessful in convincing others to help me, I may still be able to build a house, but it may take me much, much longer to complete that project, and I may also be limited in the size and complexity of that house. Consider how difficult it can be to lift a large 4-by-6 plank of wood by one’s self, never mind placing it with accuracy while fastening it to other structures.

In many cases, in our modern world, large projects cannot reasonably be completed alone. Those projects require many different people working together to accomplish the project. The group of people who come together to work on the large project are all individuals in their own right, each with their own ideas about what precisely the project is that needs to be accomplished and how best to go about completing that project. Through deliberation and negotiation, agreement is hopefully reached in how best to proceed. But complete agreement is rare. Compromises need to be made. Some, if not all, of the participants cannot entirely have everything they desire in the project.

People can be stubborn. In this part of the world, people often do not want to compromise. People embrace a culture where freedom is all that is really important to them, and the exercising of that freedom is the ultimate goal, no matter the cost. One ought to be able to do whatever they desire, uncontested and unchanged. How do multiple people with conflicting projects fully realize their individual freedom uncontested? The answer is they cannot. Someone, and often everyone, will not actually be able to realize their projects. At least not as they may have envisioned them.

There are many ways for me to ensure the success of my project. The most obvious solution is to convince others to change their projects to match my own. If their project matches mine, then the probability of my project’s successful completion increases dramatically. Furthermore, if I can convince others that my project as I envision the project ought to be their project too, then I can probably convince them that they should defer to me in decision making regarding that project. If it is my house being built, those workers who help me build the house ought to come to me to ensure the bathroom is located in the correct part of the house, as I am the only one who really knows where it ought to be. In a sense, I am the project leader. I indicate precisely what the project is and its parameters, and I direct precisely how the project ought to be completed. I can defer to experts who may know more about what materials ought to be used in the house’s construction than I do, but as the project leader, I still decide whether to follow the expert opinion or not. I could always disregard the expert opinion and make my own choice with regard to materials to use.

There are many ways I can convince others to take up my projects. Force is a common approach. That is, I could literally grab your arms and move them myself. This, of course, will only work if I am stronger than you are. After all, if I am not at least as strong as you are, you can resist. Thus, if I spend my life ensuring I am the strongest person among my community, I can force others to follow my projects. The biggest problem with using force is that there are any number of ways that others may use to resist this approach. For one, the others could band together, agreeing to a contrary project of opposing my project, and if they work together successfully, I will need to be stronger than all of them combined. Hercules was said to be as strong as “ten ordinary men,” but he was also part god (according to myth). Most of us are not part god, and most of us are unable to be even twice as strong as the person next to us.

An alternative to using force is to use coercion. That is, I can threaten others to take up my projects. The threats can be any number of undesirable events that I could suggest will take place if those others do not take up my projects. The most common example that is used is to suggest I could hold a gun to someone’s head. The threat is that I could pull the trigger, which is presumed to result in the death of the individual. As an undesirable event, the person ought to be inclined to take up my project as their own. Guns may be popular in the part of the world I live, but they are far from the only tool of coercion used to convince people to take up projects they might not otherwise take up. Politicians frequently describe to voters the undesirable events that would take place if their adversary is elected instead of them. Elect me, otherwise all those undesirable people will take your house away.

The greatest weakness with both of these approaches is that most people can see that I am trying to manipulate them. If it is clear that I am attempting to convince you to change your projects to mine, you are likely to resist as you will recognize the affront to your own projects and to you as a free individual. And so I may wish to consider another alternative. If I can convince you that my project is your project, perhaps that it has been your project the whole time, then you will definitely take up my project as your own. That is, if you believe that my project is in fact your project (in all the important ways) then of course you will take up my project, because it is actually just your project. This is, in some fashion, the heart of what the 2010 film Inception was all about. With all of its fancy special effects and mind blowing concept of dreaming within dreaming, the ultimate purpose of the inception was to convince someone to change their mind, thinking that the new idea was in fact theirs all along. The team’s goal was to change the target’s project into the team’s desired project. In the film, the team would know they were successful if the target believed the new project was his own.

The film was quite popular, and the concept quite insidious, but it does not require entering into the dreams of others to change their projects in this way. The field of marketing and advertising do this sort of altering of projects constantly. It is often much more difficult for me to detect the attempts at changing my mind about what brand of automobile I ought to purchase, but the automotive companies spend an insane amount of money on all those commercials I stumble upon when watching television, or the billboards I see while driving around town. They often refer to it as “brand recognition,” the simple idea that when I think about that particular brand, I get a positive feeling of some kind. It can work in reverse as well, making me feel a negative feeling about a competing brand. All with the goal of adopting the company’s desired project: that I should purchase their automobiles.

The final technique of convincing that I would like to briefly discuss is argument and debate. In this technique, I simply engage in conversation with you, providing you with evidence and reasons that you should take up my project. You are aware that I am attempting to make you take up my project, and that I may be undermining some of your projects in the process. But I don’t try to make you believe that my project is your project necessarily. Instead, I try to convince you that if you are a rational being, practicing good reason, that my project simply makes sense for you to take up. This is insidious in its own way, as it suggests you ought to take up my position because otherwise you would not be considered a rational being. However, it does also leave open the opportunity for you to flip the argument against me, suggesting that perhaps my evidence and reasons are not themselves reasonable, and then perhaps I am the one who is not being a rational being at all. It can become a contest in sophistry; who can fabricate the most convincing evidence. Ultimately, it can be seen as a measure of the contestants’ respective levels of intelligence (especially knowledge of the world) and skill (ability to successfully negotiate their position).

In the end, through whichever technique I decide to use, I try to convince others to take up my projects. If I am successful, my projects are likely to be completed successfully. If my projects are often completed successfully, regardless of whether others take up my projects or not, I am said to be in control.

The Challenge of Being Free

crimson2 Comments

As I suggested with the first blog, I had a plan regarding how I would proceed when I created this website. I wanted to talk more about time, what I think it is, and what the repercussions such a view of time would have. Perhaps I will get to it eventually, but not any time soon. Like all the other things that happen in my life, there always seems to be forces at work pressuring me to do different things than I want to do. This blog is no exception.

A good friend of mine recently started his own blog. You can find it here. He has decided to share his experiences in his attempt at “financial freedom.” So far, it sounds like he is doing quite well. But I would suggest he may still be in the “honeymoon phase” of his project. The real test of success, as I’ve observed, is the commitment to continuing in one’s project for the long term, especially when faced with distractions and outside pressures that interfere with said project. I have high hopes that he will succeed, but only time will tell. I just have to wait and see.

His project is well timed for my current discussion on freedom, and with regard to Black Lives Matter. In both cases, much of the discussion revolves around breaking out of a chain of predetermined events. In the case of Black Lives Matter, the issue is that there is a traditional world view that puts certain humans at a disadvantage with respect to other humans, in this case in particular, that black people are at a social and economic disadvantage with respect to white people. The social structures that support this fabricated dichotomy are complex, and changing them will certainly be challenging. To change them means breaking out of a chain of predetermined events. To change them means breaking the social structures, and possibly completely destroying them.

As for freedom, if freedom exists, its expression is literally the breaking out of the causal sequence of events. It sounds simple, but really is not. What I might call true freedom, the sort of freedom I’ve been trying to describe in the past few posts, requires making choices that are not determined by previous events or conditions. The very thought of such a freedom is challenging at best.

When my friend wants financial freedom, he is talking about this sort of freedom, though focused specifically in the area of his finances. He wants to no longer belong to the causal chain of events that has been preconstructed by the structures that exist around him. In this part of the world, consumerism and capitalism (at least in some form) run rampant. These structures, and many others, influence the decisions made by those individuals who exist within those societies. One simple and very insidious example of such a pressure is in the form of always carrying debt. In this culture, it is not only considered acceptable, it is considered necessary to always be in debt. Consider how one needs to behave to improve their credit rating. As I was instructed in my youth, one needs to have a credit card, use said credit card (thus entering into debt), and then immediately paying of that debt. In other words, those with the best credit ratings are those who constantly enter into debt, but immediately leave it as well, frequently, likely demonstrating that they are capable of some sort of self control, and that they can be relied upon to pay back what they owe when it is demanded of them.

A part of my friend’s attempt at financial freedom involves removal of all his debt. The very act of not being in debt contradicts the pressures society has placed upon him, but that is also why it is considered a freedom. To not be in debt is to contradict the traditional role of the individual in his society. To be debt free is to be financially free.

It is here I would like to introduce another example of freedom that I think is even more insidious, and yet even more telling. I drink water. That may sound particularly uninteresting, but I assure you it is not. I prefer the consumption of water over all other beverages. I prefer not to consume alcohol, soda, coffee, tea, milk, juice, or any other beverage you can imagine. It is true that I do engage in the consumption of non-water beverages occasionally, and that is part of why this discussion is so interesting to me. However, if given the choice, I would only ever consume water as a beverage for the rest of my life.

Just last year, in January of 2019, a new simplified Canada Food Guide was released. In it, it suggests I “make water [my] drink of choice.” I was quite happy in discovering this change, but others have not been so impressed. For example, politician Andrew Scheer expressed concerns regarding the new food guide’s removal of milk as a beverage of choice. This simple question of what people ought to drink has sparked a great deal of controversy in many circles.

Regardless of the scientific or health benefits associated (or possibly not associated) with the consumption of water, what I find most interesting is how the structures of society pressure me to not drink water. Commercialism would have me believe that there are a plethora of superior options to water that I ought to consider when the time comes to quench my thirst. If I am exercising, I ought to drink a sports drink. If I am at a pub, I ought to drink alcohol. If I am sitting at home watching television, I ought to drink a soda. Even at breakfast, as Scheer would likely suggest, I ought to drink milk.

It does not seem to matter at all what my preference is. When I hang out with friends in a restaurant, if I ask the server for water, both the server and my friends give me looks and make me feel guilty for my choice. After all, the server is working hard, and so I should choose a beverage that presents a cost that will support the effort they are putting into getting me something to drink. Furthermore, being in a restaurant represents a luxury from the monotony of being at home, so I ought to get myself something to drink that is more than I might otherwise do if I were at home. I am scolded for my choice, often in subtle ways.

If the restaurant is also a bar or pub, then alcohol becomes the topic of discussion. I ought to have a drink. It does not matter whether I like the taste of the beverage (I cannot explain it exactly, but I can actually taste the alcohol, and that flavour is very unappetizing to me), I ought to drink an alcoholic beverage in particular. In that I am taken to be of the masculine sex, I am frequently scolded for not drinking beer, a beverage that is strongly associated with masculinity in the society I belong to. In my youth, I was told by a friend that “no one likes beer, we all just get used to it.” That one was expected to build up a tolerance to the bitter taste, as a show of one’s manhood.

I didn’t always drink water. In my youth, I tended to drink flavoured beverages like most people. I didn’t even think much about it for a very long time. However, after some fairly significant events in my life, I decided to switch to water exclusively. Initially, I was put off by the taste; water was flavourless and uninteresting, and I missed the previous thrill of a mouth full of sugar. But after about a month of strictly drinking just water, I stopped missing the sugar, and started finding the refreshing features of water to be more palatable. Furthermore, I found my body responded positively to the change, having more energy and less “heaviness.” I figure what I was feeling is similar to what some people consider as “detoxifying.”

It was a challenge to switch from other beverages to simply water, but it was much easier than I expected to switch myself. I like water. I prefer water now. However, the ongoing challenge is not from within but from outside me. As I have described above, social pressures continue to be exerted against me, suggesting I ought to do otherwise. I am strange, and perhaps less healthy as a result of my choice. As Scheer suggested, “the idea that these types of products that we’ve been drinking as human beings, eating as human beings for a millennia—that now all of a sudden that they’re unhealthy, it’s ridiculous.” This represents an incredibly powerful pressure against my choice to drink water, especially after discovering that milk itself seemed to be the culprit to years of heightened allergic reactions to dust and other debris in the atmosphere.

The point of this discussion is not whether water is healthy or not healthy as a beverage, or whether science agrees or disagrees with such statements. The point is that the social structures of my community are focused on influencing my choice of beverage, using whatever tools are available to them to encourage me to behave in a very particular way. Like when my friend encourages me to drink beer because it is the masculine thing to do, a politician encourages me to drink milk because it is the traditional thing to do (and because it will support local businesses as well).

My preference to drink water, and my actually being able to do so, expresses my freedom. What makes it more apparent that it is a freedom is that it seems to be in direct opposition to the pressures that take place around me. Were my preference to be aligned to the social structures of my community, it may not be as clear whether it was a freedom expressed, or a conforming to outside influences. So freedom might be understood as the situation where one contradicts the pressures and influences. But then there may not be a way to determine if a freedom can be (or is) expressed when it happens to agree with the pressures and influences.

Returning to my friend, why we might understand it as “financial freedom” is not necessarily that it is free. We might interpret it as suggesting he simply wants to practice his personal economics in a manner that is unlike the that which is practiced by most people in our society.

Freedom

crimsonLeave a comment

I would like to return to my discussion on time, but it just isn’t the right time for it. There is, in my opinion, a more pressing topic to discuss. On the heels of Black Lives Matter, there is the discussion of freedom. I might suggest that it is actually an underlying concern, rather than something that follows from it.

I think the question of freedom is key to almost all that is going on. Without freedom, none of these other discussions have any meaning. As has been said to me about ethics in general, without freedom there is no ethics. That is, without the possibility of individuals “doing otherwise,” I cannot hold those individuals blameworthy nor praiseworthy. After all, if they are simply doing what they must, without the ability to choose otherwise, how can I hold them responsible for choices they have not made?

It seems like freedom is tied closely with choice. That is, in order to have the ability to choose, one must be free to choose. This is significant in the face of the predominant overwhelming evidence that seems to contradict the existence of freedom. If I look out upon the world, I am immediately aware of a pattern of events that occur. I see events followed by other events, but those sequences of events are not at all random. Certain events seem to be followed quite regularly by certain other events. This regularity has been referred to as “constant conjunction” by the 18th century philosopher David Hume. He called it this in response to what he believed was a mistake made by others in thinking this regularity had a more deep connection: causality.

Causality is a controversial topic in philosophical circles. As Hume suggested, I may notice that certain events seem to always (or almost always) be followed by certain other events, with a regularity that is unmistakable, but I cannot see an actual connection between the event that comes before and the event that follows. There is nothing that I can observe that actually connects the two events. If I watch billiard balls on a table strike each other, I may recognize the nature of the movement of those balls. I may, with confidence, predict how they will move around the table. However, no matter how closely or carefully I watch, I cannot observe the actual connection between the movement of one ball and the movement of another ball. I cannot see any transfer of inertia from one ball to the next. I may believe the connection exists, but I cannot see it. I cannot see causality, I can only assume its existence.

Most of our modern lives depend on this assumption, the assumption that causality exists. This computer that I am using to write out this blog post depends on the assumption of causality to function. Otherwise, how could I rely upon the fact that my pressing the keys on this keyboard would result in these characters being added to this webpage. A lot of things have to take place between my pressing a key, to the point where a very specific and anticipated set of bits in memory are added to a database which results in this blog post that you now read. If causality did not exist (or my assumption of it), it would be incredibly challenging to explain how this blog post came to exist at all.

Most of my world is built upon causally connected events. I say causally connected not because I know with certainty that that is how it came about, but because I have to assume it in order to make sense of my world. I can plan my day because I expect certain events to reliably occur when I expect them to. I expect the Sun to follow a path across the sky each day, illuminating my world in its light. I would be greatly surprised if the Sun did not rise tomorrow morning.

This brings me to the idea of freedom. I refer to it as an idea because there is not a lot of evidence to support its existence. Like I have been saying about time, freedom is a way for me to make sense of my world. It is a way to describe an aspect of my world that I assume must exist, for without it, many of the aspects I take for granted would not make any sense at all. The most noteworthy example is the one I began with, the issue of choice. The simple act of making a choice is an expression of freedom. If it were not, then choice as an idea would itself also make no sense.

In the course of my life, I have had many heated arguments with people regarding my ability to predict human behavior. At various jobs, I have suggested that if we followed a particular course of action, our clients would react in a particular manner in response. I have been told in most of those cases that I cannot know for certain that such things would happen; that human behavior cannot be predicted in that way. However, time and again, the actions are taken, and the clients reacted as I predicted. It is true, I could simply be lucky. It could simply be a situation of hedging my bets. But if that is true, it seems to fly in the face of the clients’ freedom to choose to act differently.

In philosophy, a world that is entirely causally connected is referred to as deterministic. Determinism suggests that all events are connected to all other events by a causal chain that stretches infinitely forward and backward. I once heard said in my youth that if you could know the positions and velocities of all the subatomic particles in the universe at any point in time, you’d be able to predict every event to the end of time. Consequently, you could also determine the history of the universe with perfect accuracy as well. All this would only be true in a purely deterministic world. If my world is such a world, then that suggests no freedom exists. And if that is true, then I am not free to choose anything. All my alleged choices are an illusion, and my actions are in some sense predetermined.

The alternative is that freedom, in some sense, exists. I say in some sense, because freedom can manifest in various ways in order to escape determinism. In fact, for some, freedom does not even need to contradict determinism at all. Alfred R. Mele received a $4.5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation less than 10 years ago in order to try and shed some light on this situation. In his book entitled A Dialogue on Free Will and Science, Mele discusses a number of these different manifestations, relating them to grades of gasoline at a gas station. For me, the most interesting thing about the book is how it is still unable to answer the question of freedom; that is, I can describe freedom as not being deterministic, but that is about as far as I can go.

To be fair, Mele’s book is very good, and I do recommend reading it if you get the chance. It is short (108 pages), and quite easy to read. You can find it here if you like. In it, the lowest grade of free will, often referred to as compatibilism, is not really freedom in the sense I am referring to in this blog. In compatibilism, what is referred to as freedom is simply the ability of an individual to make a choice without being coerced or unduly influenced. The individual is free to choose. However, with pure determinism in play, the choice can be predicted. Furthermore, one can argue whether anyone is every truly in a situation where they are not being influenced. When I sit on this couch writing this blog, there is no threatening man with a gun to my head forcing me to type. However, I am still influenced by all that takes place around me. Even the fact that I watch the news and am familiar with the Black Lives Matters movement has an influence on my choices and actions. To suggest I can ever make a choice without some sort of influence going on is a mistake in understanding the nature of humans, or of conscious beings in general.

That leaves me with less clear descriptions of freedom. As Mele suggests, one way of viewing freedom is like random chance. That is, when faced with a choice, freedom may be as simple as a completely random selection. The way this is described is that if I somehow were to go back in time and replay the events again, when faced with the same choice, a different choice can be made, again completely at random. While it may be tempting to embrace a freedom of this nature, it doesn’t seem to follow from observations I make of the world. I do see the patterns of regularity, and this includes a regularity in the choices made by individuals. Choices do not appear to be completely random. Choices seem to involve some forethought. Choices seem to follow something related to causality.

Mele does not discuss in much detail what the high grade of free will is. He suggests I relate it to the idea of a soul or spirit within me. In some way related to René Descartes’ mind/body dualism, where the mind is some sort of immeasurable aspect of my being. However, the old argument against Descartes by Princess Elisabeth resurfaces, and we are left wondering how something immeasurable could interact or influence the measurable. If freedom is somehow disconnected from a purely deterministic world, such that freedom is not bound by the rules of determinism, how does freedom inject a cause into the deterministic chain of events?

There is no doubt that I need to believe in freedom. I need freedom to exist. I need the possibility that individuals can make choices freely, so that I can hold them accountable for those choices. They must be blameworthy or praiseworthy based on their own freedom. There must be a difference between how one is, and how one ought to be. I must be able to choose otherwise. Because if that is not the case, then I am simply a cog in a very big and very complex machine. And I don’t like that idea very much.

From my observations of the world through the course of my life, I have seen very little evidence of freedom existing. I have been able to trace back choices and decisions, giving me confidence in understanding why a particular chain of events has occurred. It is true that I cannot see the causal influence directly, but it has worked for me with such reliability that I feel I cannot ignore it. But at the same time, despite the lack of evidence, I also feel I must have faith in the possibility of freedom’s existence. For without that possibility, there does not seem to be any reason for any of this.