A day in the life

Trapped. Queued. Shopping... Looking at a plastic basket full of imported groceries, I find myself contemplating how fast I could escape this situation should I want to. I wonder if the sun is shining outside, and in about five minutes time, when I have paid for my temporary solutions, I will find out if it does.

But then I sat up. I was in bed. Nightmares always make me rather groggy when I wake up, so it takes a short while before I distinguish this moment from the last in the string of conscious experiences. The sun was indeed shining outside, and I feel it now warming my hair ever so gently as I bend down again resting on the elbows. I know what comes next, but the delicate grace of the consuming familiarity has to be overpowered, before I can get up and do what must be done.

Going to the bathroom for a quick leak, and I will have my breakfast afterwards. Some progressively charming people would refer to it as “a cheap golden spa with the doctor”. Reviewing the numbers popping up on the mirror as I wash my hands, I find that my recent diet has been a bit too sugar-heavy, so instead of just leaving, I tab the recommended meal touch pad.

Jumping into a pair of nano-fabric shorts and a t-shirt I feel the short chill, before I venture into the garden outside. The sun shine really is lovely today. Like a never ending and never beginning kiss on the cheek from the love of your life. But after dwelling on such a rather poetic notion for a short while, my stomach lets out a brief growl shoving me back on track. So I sign in with a finger print on the pad next to the hydroponics, and upon recognising that I asked for a recommended meal, lights beneath the artificial soil quickly appear, highlighting the necessary fruits and vegetables for my breakfast. I sheathe my hands into the gardening gloves on the desk and take to gather the components.

I must say I do not care much for the compliments I get from my kitchen, just because I went with the suggested meal to balance my vitamin intake, but I guess some concessions have to be made, if it helps other people be motivated towards a better a diet. I could just tell my kitchen to stop giving me those messages, but I like to be reminded of my own attitude. And of course there is the added bonus that fewer and fewer people have to see doctors now. I reckon medicine will easily transition into a focus on preventative treatment and health maintenance in my life time given where we are now.

Leaving the house I greet the neighbour coming home. She has apparently already been out and about on one of the new city roamers. These vehicles never seize to amaze me. Plated with a photovoltaic shell, just like almost every road is now, they run entirely on sun light, but the interesting part is that this has completely vamped society, and I think this is why people get up so early in the morning now, even though there is no labour left to do. These bikes never stay stationary for longer periods of time, and yet they have a fascinating break down rate of close to zero.

So when she gets out, I jump in and articulate my destination to the receiver. When I get to the university, I quickly traverse the stairs in anticipation of the study group I have been preparing for all week. “Applied Teraforming” has become my new hobby, and I hope to one day become sufficiently knowledgeable on the subject to teach it myself. Although most classes are now taught by the students themselves on a rotation basis, it is suggested that one takes a number of classes on a specific subject, prior to leaving the student roster and entering the the student-teacher roster.

Regarding “Applied Teraforming” I tend to day dream about a production team of developers and programmers working with me to realise my dream of a computer game, that tasks players with cultivating the best possible environment on a given planet, drawing raw data and calculating impacts made by player decisions from the global database. In turn this could become applied teraforming, if the record setting players' designs would be submitted back into the database for engineers and ecologists to review as possible schemes for real space exploration. But that is just my personal goal, and if it is to be, then I am sure I will eventually find the people I need for such a team to start working.

Later this week I did sign up for another study group called “Beyond exchange”, but I am actually considering not going. The people are very nice, but I do sometimes feel that I spent a bit too much time on that subject before Liberation, so I am not sure I would learn much from a thorough analysis into the socialisation process concerned with human interaction and that stuff. It just always seemed like a given to me that it would obviously work out in the end, even if we did not have anything left to threaten each other with.

However, I do see the merit in the course, because we certainly did not evolve past the exchange based culture as soon as we technically could have. And if I do go, it will be to explore how the transition seems to be going based on recent findings. Most of the previous advocates of exchange came around after strife and famine were ended, but some still cling to the idea that humans are categorically egoistical, and the only reason we are currently functional in a cooperative society is because it benefits ourselves the most. I guess they could be right. But then again, the results speak for themselves. All the psychiatrists either chose another education or shipped off to the Americas to work with transitional conflicts over there, simply because the need here fell like never before a few years after Liberation.

What amuses me greatly is when I get back home and do my exercises before dinner. I was always one of those lazy kids who were never properly motivated by the physical socio-dynamics, but now that I can track my progress on a bar that slowly builds towards the next level, I find myself working out almost every day. It is purely recreational though, but I do not see why that would be a bad thing. The results are that my ulcerative colitis is kept in check, and my body has never been healthier. To think I was pretty much addicted to junk food and computer games before Liberation. Now I feel in shape, and not because I have to impress anyone but myself.

So for dinner tonight I believe I will treat myself to a soy burger with a quinoa bun and a relish of kale and pees. Afterwards I try to stay motivated towards a short session of meditation. After training for a while I can tell it helps me stay curious and open minded, but when there is no bar tracking how well I do it just gets a bit too intangible sometimes.

So have a nice evening friends. I will see you in class for “Steady-state patterning”.

Horizontal Social Governance

Inspired by the following RSA presentation I have begun a new train of thought this morning. But before I introduce what could become a lengthy introduction I will let you get acquainted with the material yourself.

What I gather from this talk is that Jeremy Rifkin believes that a 3^rd industrial revolution could be on its way. Obviously this is interesting by itself, with all the perspectives on peak oil and what not, but what I find to be even more intriguing is that this perspective that power and management thus far has been vertical – top-down. And as is introduced the internet has more than proved that people are ready for a more horizontally oriented approach. Powerful search engines have made the lack of available information a thing of the past, and this could be interpreted as a sign that people are adjusting to having more influence.

As opposed to Mr. Rifken I see a wealth of possible conflicts with this emerging social paradigm of equality. A horizontally governed direct democracy, as it would be, would feature less individually oriented authority. This would make politics obsolete in a relatively short period of time, and that would be perfectly fine, if it was not for the fact that the powers that be will know this in advance of the majority, and they will try, as they have with the Occupy movement and similar groups, to turn public orientation towards an illusion that they and they alone embody democracy. Because if they do it would become obvious how counterproductive it is to diminish the institutions concerned with politics and law making.

The proof of the above claim? Look at how the media handles the rising discontent with governing institutions. They are attempting to shadow the reality of how big a portion of the globe is currently interested in making changes. While all of them do not share a unified goal for whatever change they seek, they agree on the fact that something must be done. Humans are now on a collision course with reality, as we begin to understand that razing forest after forest to compete in this global game of monopoly is unrealistic.

In closing it should be noted that the reason that we are simultaneously aware of this abyss and still moving towards it, is exactly the vertical governing installation of representative democracy. This makes for a dissonance between what we know and how fast we can make changes accordingly because every discovery in science and later in public understanding has to go through the process of persuading political figures and market shaping forces before it can be integrated properly.

Because we are a top-down species at this point, we are limited from responding optimally to emerging social problems.

Service

Depending on what culture you are from you may have experienced what I am about to describe. In my country it is very much the case in the service sector of the market that younger and younger people are employed as front line personel. In short, people of the new school.

Aside from the obvious financial benefit this has brought to the employers, since younger, inexperienced people are cheaper, it may be worth pointing out another very important point about this situation.

In the past when the service sector was a relatively fresh industry, following the downsizing of the work force in aggriculture caused by the technology available around the start of the 20^th century, there was a period where it had include a certain flexibility to market itself. The kind of flexibility you would probably only experience presently if you get in contact with someone with a higher grade of responsibility than the service level. The shop keeper or to a lesser extent the manager. Most managers would not apply though. They are put in place to uphold the rules put down by their own employer and their job is based mostly on making sure the staff beneath them bends no rules and applies no flexibility.

Not because the industry tries to work against flexibility, but because the total stream lining of the service sector has allowed for a much more rigid rule set. If you do not like the rules in place at a restaurant or a store, you are pretty much out of luck. Because you can be certain that a quite similar set of rules are in place in whatever other place you may visit.

This may or may not bother you. If it does not I would venture the guess that it is because you have not thought it through. Surely you would rise to some level of discontent if you realised that you had been manipulated into the acceptance of this.

The most modern and ”hip” places introduced this concept into our culture and since then we have come to accept it on a daily basis. We are now at the point where we consider good service the abnormal and remember it for days when some employee somewhere gave us a personal experience. But why is this? Should it not be preferable for society to accept only bad service as the abnormal?

The reason for this rigid business model that we are all supporting with our purchases out of the lack of proper alternatives, is of course that it works. It works to cut back on the extent of service, because the extent of service mostly implies the extent of lowering expected pay for whatever service was given. Deductions and good will are concepts swept under the carpet and the consumer remains ever oblivious.

And this is just the beginning. Now that the industry has us accepting a very poor standard of service, they can easily make the transfer to automated kiosks everywhere. In the grocery store, in the café, in the restaurants and in the malls. For what is more rigid than a machine? And companies know this. They exploit it. They are very much interested in automating the process of purchasing everywhere.

Criticism

Most people today are familiar with the idea that it is easier to notice the flaws of others than the flaws of oneself. To my knowledge this is an idea originating from the teachings of Christ, which would make it a lesson from the new testament. Without needing to debate religious subjects to dig deeper, it is perfectly possible to reflect on how this has had an effect on the larger social evolution that has happened since then.

Many people revert to this mantra every time they are called out on making a mistake. Indeed it is a practise we spend considerable amounts of time on disapproving of in public. We disapprove of politicians that spend their valuable time for preaching their own mass appeal on preaching of the lack of mass appeal in their adversaries instead.

So it would be safe to assume that we have made it a cultural phenomenon to express discontent with any one flawed person or group to criticise another person or group. In this respect it becomes somewhat impossible to be honest about oneself and constructive towards others. Because by default we are all useless as critics to one another, as we are all “sinners”.

Since evolution has made us a socially dependant animal I would propose something entirely different to this approach discussed above. It is possible that we have developed in a fashion that made us superior at noticing the mistakes of others simply because we have spent so much time through history on looking outwards. At others and at society. Indeed it compliments us well in social contexts that we can function as coaches for others.

Imagine that from this instance people were better at coaching themselves than others. What would spark our drive towards mutual inspiration? How would we surpass anything previously thought of, if we were only better critics of what we had produced or proposed ourselves, rather than of the common wealth of knowledge and produce of all others?

Is it possible that this natural inclination towards outward criticism is culturally fought because if we accepted this perspective as innate, if not to our entire species then at least to our contemporary culture, we would rise towards our current potential and possibly evolve our social sphere?

Cause is mentioned here as there is conservative inclination in most social contexts to resist any change that could potentially snowball into more changes. “Controlled change” is even a phrase used by modern conservative politicians.

Ownership

What is ownership? In its most basic term it seems to imply the occupation of something by someone. This someone has since the original term was used been expanded to also include organisations and institutions such as corporations and even countries or groups of countries.

What it legally means, however, is simply that this something you have legally bought or acquired is now reserved for you by the enforcing institutions of your community. Is this just a silly overanalytic way to say that the something is yours?

No.

There is a vast difference between the idea of ownership and the actual phenomenon of ownership. You see in the idea of ownership it is possible to say that something is yours. But in the actual world nothing is really yours. It can all be taken away, if not by other people then by external elements operating outside the rule of ownership, such as your dog deciding to eat it or a tsunami washing it all away.

So what you are left with is simply this illusion backed up by real world enforcement that in the event that your something is taken away from you and still desirable for you, then you may call upon these enforcers to bring it back to you or at the very least punish the ones that took it and in some cases recieve a monetary settlement in exchange for your something. It is an illusion that only works because we are all hooked into the same feed of rules, norms and acceptable behaviour.

Just like money it only works as long as everyone operates under the same principles. As soon as someone breaks the norm and becomes a thief, then you need to bend the guiding principles of reality to incorporate enforcing parties, such as the police, to shield you from this asocial behaviour.

And just like money it is only required for society to work properly as long as everyone operates under the same principles. As soon as someone breaks the norm and becomes able to grow their own food and gather their own water from natural sources, they start breaking the need to compromise themselves as individuals to function in this game of monetary exchange.

This clash of topics will most likely raise the issue of what happens to ownership when nothing is bought or sold anymore. When money is no more.

It obviously ceases to exist as the illusion it has survived as for so long. Surely it is a requirement for society to function though?

When you think about it, it should be a perfectly viable model for adults to share rather than own. After all we are not the primates we evolved from, nor are we the child we grew up from. If you connect the reality of sharing rather than owning with the reality that our current means of production could produce an abundance of high quality items for everyone, so long as there is no need for a profit to be generated anywhere, then you will see that this idea of ownership really only serves the salesman. The buyer is left with purchasing illusions.

So this is where the closing question arises. How much do we believe in the modern social sciences proving to us that we are extremely adaptive to the rules of whatever context we apply ourselves to?

Solace

In this post a link between different ideas and perspectives on social evolution will be attempted. It is my hope that the reader will discover resonance with at least a fraction of this train of thought.

Kicking it off with this profoundly well adjusted comment on the spirit of the age we have Jiddu Krishnamurtis combination of social observation, implication and aspiration. Packed into a single sentence he manages to describe the how invalid the aeon old idea that one should strive to be well adjusted to whatever context one exists in, when the context is indeed "profoundly sick", which also sets up the following aspirations.

1. To end any adjustment to an unsustainable context. As Marthin Luther King Jr. put it: "[...] There are some things in our social system that I'm proud to be maladjusted to, and I call upon you to be maladjusted to." - source
2. To push for a change of the context.

Admitted, the second aspiration is my own addition, and it cannot rhetorically be extracted from the quote in the first picture. If you frequent this blog, however, you will know that I have sourced several scientific studies and findings indicating that we humans are socially dependant beings. Because of this it becomes the internal motivation for survival and personal improvement to improve socially. Either through a betterment of personal standing or through betterment of society, depending on the culture the individual is raised in.

Accepting this it should be obvious that maladjustment is positive only so long as the maladjusted individual nurtures hope that the social context may change for the better. To break away from a norm is to feel isolated until a sense of commonality with others is again obtained. This solace seeking is natural for gregarious animals and, as we can now agree upon, quite needed.

Everyone's favorite inventor Leonardo Da Vinci has even coined a perfect phrase for this darker side of norm-breaking inception.

Imagine being the smartest person in the world. It must be lonely there at the top. A very important realisation to acknowledge is that to be at the very top requires disregard for a wide variety of norms. The conformity to norms is a compromise. Social security in exchange for the ability to grow in whichever direction the personality would otherwise.

So do you try and inspire people to join you at the peak, or do you leave the peak and join into the community of a mountain village at a lower altitude?

This is in no way an implication of any peak position held by myself or any of the people referenced. It is simply an extreme metaphor meant to paint an obvious picture of the dilemma which keeps most people from breaking significant norms, due to the severance from social relevance associated with such a transformation of the identity.

News

Here Jason Read, with a Ph.D. in Philosophy, comments on the conservative notion of face value in society.

Dr. Read seems to think that the book is not to be judged by its cover. That the classes of society are not only what the media portray them as. Please remember that the media, from where you might have had your view on this matter skewed, are institutions that obviously do not act against the interest of their owners or share holders. And it should be obvious to most people that such owners or share holders portray not in the slightest the lower classes of society.

You see the news is not just the news. It is not everything that you need to know about a given situation that is relatively new. It is a perspective. Brought forth by the interest to sell it to you. You have to inspect news and information as you would a car being sold to you. Make sure that the model is not suitable for you because of how the salesman pitches it, but because it is what you need it for. A car is a vehicle for transportation. The news is your way of relating to contemporary society. That makes it vastly more important to inspect thoroughly when it is being sold to you.

For a broader perspective on matters somewhat related to my points, you can take a look at Dr. Read's lecture "The Social Individual" here:

Greece and I

It is with a blackened concience that I write today. I know I have been slacking when it comes to the blog lately, and I really do not wish for this to be a futile attempt at reaching people. The truth is not that I have been buried in work at the university, it is simply that I spend my spare time on games and movies. This is no excuse. I started this project the way some ambitious people start exercising - to expand my possibilities. Not physically but mentally.

So with that out of the way, what should we discuss today? Well how about the recent this article from yesterday? It captures the sense of depravity and desperation that was expressed in Athens lately. An echo of so many past expressions of desperation in that city. The craddle of democracy is under attack by austerity measures brought on by a debt crisis exceeding any other historically.

Is there a way out for Greece? Perhaps, but it lies deeper than what is expressed in any major media outlet. A reworking of the European culture is needed. Perhaps Greece once again gets to carry the torch that leads our continent onwards. We shall see.

Mass Media

The society of today is very proud of labelling itself the age of information. With this label it somehow draws the parallel that the inhabitants of the modern world are well informed. Why else would it be the age of information?

What it does not label itself as, although that is probably just as fitting is the age of mass neurosis and stress related diseases. Rates of illness are off the chart compared to earlier, and that is not just because fancier methods of diagnosis are now available. No it is because the tomorrow of yesterday is today. And with this leap into the future, with all the proud noise equipment people now find themselves armed with, this species has managed to create an atmosphere of constant attention seeking.

The act of seeking attention was formerly reserved by organic species, but now the more inanimate of our fellow planetary residents have joined in to this game of depriving others of their focus. Dramatic as it may appear when written down like that, is is no further from the truth than the very related fact that humans are now outnumbered by their electronic creations.

The pivotal point to make is if a correlation exists between the boom in electronic devices available and the boom in illnesses, and that has proven more difficult than someone uneducated in this field of sociology such as myself could master. The reason that I bring this up is simply to note this idea and see if it resonates on some level with any of the readers on this blog.

Another reason that I bring this up is the picture that I shared in my last post depicting quite strongly the un-individualization of the modern audience for television.

Take 1 minute and 56 seconds out of your life and prove me wrong in this: Howard Beale can paint this picture quite nicely.

And I can only say that I find myself the victim of this culture he describes. I too am guilty of succumbing to the media available to me. I frequent blogs, watch shows online, listen to podcasts and converse with friends about the newest games available.

All very much to the detriment of my creativity, as the recent lack of consistency in my posting is evidence of. And I do not believe myself to be alone in this situation.

Political Science

I hope we can agree that moral politics should be a thing of past. If that is the case then I would like to share an idea with you.

I thought to myself: How could politics become tangible so more people could get into it? A democracy, from my point of view, is something that requires people to be active. Voting every four years is a mockery of that ideal. The public should be a lot more hands on with this; their system of choice.

So what could spark this involvement?

Well perhaps transparancy and responsibility could. Why not introduce a new approach that requires all new bills and laws to refer to at least one relevant scientific study done on the subject? Politicians are paid handsomely to do their job, and I would find politics a lot more interesting for sure, if I could back track their work and see how they made the conclusions they did. If you can get into the mindset of the politicians you would be a lot more likely to want them as your representatives as well. It would indeed motivate them to be and work for the people.

Consider how much more sense new laws would make if it held a clear reference to a scientific article explaining in detail the research done on the matter. And as a database programmer I can promise you that it would be easy to make a central hub of politically used articles, so that the voting community can keep up to date with when the science is surpassed and obsolete as grounds for law making. It could be an online community of sharing information about what is new in social science. What do we know about society today?

I would log on to my voter's account every day keeping myself up to date with what is new from the politicians. Which articles are they currently reviewing, and what laws could be extracted from this work? Just like checking my online bank account. I would give my daily votes towards what articles I would like to see as basis for new laws, voting up the work of the progressive social scientists that used to be stuck in the old system where their work would be overlooked.

Example: Is the change in the law that reduces the age at which you can be jailed from 15 to 14 reasonable or not? The answer is: We do not know. What we need is research on the subject and proof before we come to a conclusion. What we also need is at least one clear referencing point for this potential law or bill, which will serve as a connecting hub for it, meaning that it is discarded and reverted to its prior state when new science emerges that disproves the old assumptions.

To me that sounds like a democratic society of the year 2012.

Feudalism

Before feudalism society was built and made by slaves. Now instead of a history lesson on that shift, I'll just move ahead to the point. Feudalism is economic slavery. Your survival was contigent upon what you were able to yield from your land. Does that sound at all familiar?

What you need to do to make economic slavery, which can in some cases be much more devious than physical slavery, seem appealing is to sell it off as an idea of liberation. Physically you are shackled no longer so go and prosper!

The age old residue of this is something that has shaped into an understanding of some ideal of independance. An ideal that is unrealistic for a species that is socially dependant almost from the moment of conception. Still it is considered to provide motivation for live improvement for people to understand themselves as responsible and self-providing.


The issues of this make themselves abundantly known in societies such as western culture where this independance ideal has gone way too far. There is no humility anywhere anymore. As soon as you reach voting age in your country you are legally considered old enough to be a part of the group in society aiming to be self-sufficient. And through the century old process that has made this ideal emerge and take hold we have completely lost sight of the fact that this has no natural basis.


Anthropologists would point out that tribal cultures show no signs of this striving towards self-sufficiency. They understand the interdependance of their culture and work to further the tribe as a whole rather than themselves as individuals. For each of them to try and accrue more riches than their neighbours would be sociocidal (the act of a person which adversely impacts upon a society or culture to a negative degree).

I did a highly relevant post to this topic called Meritocracy in which Allain De Botton details how it has a very negative reaction in society that everyone is responsible for their own position, when there is a sense of total equality socially. It was much easier to deal with not being the king of your country in the times of old, but it is near devastating for teenagers to get dropped off a pop star program today, because it is made to feel achievable.


So what does this advanced stage of feudalism we live in really entail for us?

Piracy

The hot topic of january certainly has been piracy. No less than three bills, SOPA PIPA and ACTA, have been discussed in order to further combat piracy. You may recall the Pirate Bay trial of 2009 and 2010. The case was appealed twice and in 2012 the supreme court in Sweden will provide a response.

The point brought forth by the defense lawyer is applicable as a general idea of why file sharing should be completely legal. It is no different than producing cars that can drive faster than the speed limit, he says. I would then start comparing that to owning a gun and other non-sense like that, but I am sure you got the point.

What is relevant to this blog is to discuss is how piracy can been understood. Obviously it can be stealing. But it has other facets to it as well. Socially it is an expression that consumers want easier access. Whether this means cheaper, completely for free, without the hassle of getting physical copies or whatever else we certainly do not know at this point. It is, however, obvious that these could be issues that made piracy so prevalent in the first place.

Regarding whether pirates are thieves you have to step outside the traditional mindset for a second to fully grasp the situation. This author agrees that stealing something physically is quite different from copying something digitally accessible. Certainly something can be said for the fact that the copy right owner may have been deprived of some income had his legal property not been copied. He may have. He probably has to some extent. But is the extent as vast as the expanded exposure his work recieved? And is that not a relevant question?

You have to remember that the entertainment industry (which holds the majority of complaints towards piracy) is more interested in keeping their produce solely for paying costumers, than they are in promoting their subjects, the artists that actually create the expressions the industry is profiting from. This means that if the industry gets to earn x amount of dollars on a product with a 0% piracy rate, that is more interesting for them than to earn x amount of dollars on the same product with a 50% piracy rate. In essense they want to fence down their work, because they see the pirates also as potential costumers, so what they want is for pirates to stop pirating and start spending money instead.
Again it is of no interest to achieve the possibly massive exposure that free file sharing can offer for the work of the artists. What is interesting is to earn as much money as possible.

I doubt they expect piracy rates to completely convert into paying costumers, but even if one pirate is turned (or discouraged through increasingly tougher regulations) then it is a win for the share holders expecting bigger turn outs.

Not only is this greed socially offensive on multiple levels it is also directly harmful. Just like the Pirate Bay regular people are being made an example of by the twisting of the legal system which is extremely toxic. It may function as an immediate detergent, but just as when you bring the millitary into another country to fight a war, you may win it in a couple of weeks, but you will have your work cut out for you with the uprisings your transgrassion will spark.

A final point that I will make is that you should consider that piracy rates far exceed what is possibly consumable, both economically but also in simple human life. The sea of content available is simply too vast. And quite a lot of that content is of medium and lower quality. Probably the majority of the content. Artists are not all Van Goghs, and a lot of them would be stretching it calling themselves artists in the first place. So in this world of currency drains I can certainly see the logic in the consumer crowd moving away from traditional patterns of purchase towards more egoistic ones. It makes perfect sense that as soon as technology arose to offer deliverance from wrongful purchases, in this time when wrongful purchases could be among the most prevalent, people starting utilising this tool to avoid disappointment.
A lot more could be said on this part of the discussion, but I will leave it here and we can discuss the issue of boredom and entertainment another time.

Also, this post will most likely be used to vault off into another post outlining an alternative system based on access rather than ownership, but since that will take some effort to piece together it might not be the subsequent one.

You

Today I stumbled upon the lecture on the perception of the self. To achieve some of the social changes discussed on this blog it could very well be needed to shift more towards this understanding of ourselves.

The idea is to look at ourselves not as entities in and of themselves, but as processes and collections. In this sense we all become interchangable, which is highly relevant to any social change. Indeed, understanding society as interchangable is probably the only thing that ever has changed our societies. The problem then is that we currently understand ourselves as these rigid entities that already have been shaped. We believe we mature into hardened shells. As grown ups we could not start changing our lives too roughly or we might be faced with a loss of identity, something none of us wish for.

We could potentially start bringing about some very needed change, were we to fully grasp this philosophy of chaos. Because it is chaotic, and that is what frightens us. There is no order other than what we introduce to the mess of the universe. But percieving that as either good or bad is up to the individual.

We are what we are shaped as, but unlike the other species on this blue planet of ours, we have been invited to join into the process of this shaping. Disregarding this is as irresponsible as over-feeding half the world while starving the other half.

Economic Globalisation

Yesterdays piece on ACTA came with a comparison between the European Union and the United States. I would be unfit to furter that comparison and try to argue in political terms how alike these two unions are starting to become, but I do find it interesting to keep watching from the side lines and see what the next moves by these players will be.

Perhaps David Rovics can lighten the mood a bit with his satirical take on the similarities.



It should be clear to everyone that the east is rising to compete with the west globally, and soon the super power status will be shared, and in turn handed over. To whom is a good question. Many say China looking at their enormous growth rates. But these people often only look at numbers. Numbers that their government is responsible for, but that overlook gaping holes in their society. Some would argue that they are creating a bubble economy much greater than ours by building without respect for what their population can afford. By keeping the machines building homes and roads running you can create a sense of growth that looks good enough on paper.

That issue is again not dissimilar from what we experienced closer to home with our own bubble. What is interesting, however, is to look at how people percieve this economic breakdown. Some start swallowing apocalyptic stories, some throw their hands up before their eyes and again some try to argue for rewinding the system to a prior state.

To me it is obvious that none of those perceptions will bring us anywhere. There is only one way and that is forward. We can change direction, but the relatively docile part of history where Europe went almost without war during the past 60 years, is over. We chose to join the wave of globalism.

The hidden warfare of today is economic warfare. Nation states are trying their best to stay afloat, and when resourceful enough they also try and acrue more for themselves. They join alligiances and trade unions to benefit from the increasingly expanding amount of transactions going on in the world today, but they all do it to try and bring more riches home. A game that was much more physical and bound by the resources supplied by nature before we had paper money, gigantic oil tankers, air planes, derivate trades etc.

Just remember one thing. The situation is actually quite simple. No matter what these politicians and game players tell you, the situation really is simple. They do not see it, but the world of today is turning around one question: How to distribute the wealth nature has for us?

Most people still believe that money is the way to go. That politics is the way to go. That democracy is the way to go. But what do these institutions bring in a world where we are at a tipping point now where we can actually automate more sectors of society than what is applicable economically due to job losses? They seek to be the glue holding it all together on moral grounds. They argue and argue and argue away with symbolism and morale, but refuse to look at how far science has taken our potential.

This is fear. Fear of a tomorrow different from today. Because today is calculable, today is marketable and today is comprehendable. So by spreading this irrational fear to the public, they succeed in holding on to their power, because now everyone else is afraid of tomorrow as well. And if we are not, Hollywood can always be invested in to produce another horrifying post-apocalyptic vision of what the world would be like without government.

You might think that was a silly remark, but just try and talk to people about what is possible to automate in society and they will immidiately draw upon the illusion of knowledge they believe to have yielded from movies such as Terminator or i-Robot. This is standard psychology. They have to keep reminding the public that this process of moving into the future is dangerous, or they might just start wishing/voting/acting for it to happen.

Meritocracy

A few days ago I was inspired by a quite decent lecture by Alain de Botton on atheism. Due to exams, however, I have not been home a lot and so the past two days I skipped my routine with writing at least a small piece every day.

The lecture I am refering to is the following one.



He does put out some interesting ideas. It is nothing new to be inspired by perspectives that will not be adopted by oneself. It is quite intelligent in fact, to enable further understanding of a subject, which in this case is life and thereby quite substantial, by a way of discovering the insights others might have had on the subject.

The point that struck me the most in this lecture is definitely the one about infantilisation. The idea that many religious texts refer to humans as children of God (or whatever other concept they believe in) is quite profound if you only look at postmodernism. Because we spend just about all our lives trying not to be children. Even when we are. It is simply not a part of life that has any value, since this hyper-individualism we have entered into has taken over.

Everyone has to assume responsibility for their own lives and this is where I will begin talking about the meritocracy. Unlike a democracy a meritocracy is defined as a society where actions speak the loudest. You gain merit for your output and this in turn gives you the ability to choose where you want to be. This means that there are no social boundaries installed at all, and as such any one can achieve anything. 

To the postmodern person this should sound like the apex of democracy. The peak of the mountain. Where we want to be. It is everything we strive for and everything we hope for, because it is just and righteous for everyone to have equal opportunity. By the sweat of our brow and so on.

However, this is where we should allow ourselves some inspiration from the lecture by Mr. Botton. He treats the issue with respect and acknowledges the fact that most religions enter into this infantilisation of human beings because they recognise something very basic about our nature, and this is what faith normally capitalises on. We do not understand everything. And the implications of not understanding everything are quite important when it comes to how we comprehend life and the purpose of it.

In a meritocracy such as we aspire to currently, and somewhat already have achieved (social mobility statistics prove that we are not there yet), there is a rather significant issue of responsibility. Since everything is attributed through merit, everything is your own doing. So sitting in the street begging for money becomes your own doing. You have engineered this situation yourself by not getting and education and a well paid job. On the flip side of this you have the implication that the millionare and the billionaire deserved what they earned. It was won through the merit of their investments or work.

So when we do not fully comprehend the situation and the rules of the great societal chess game, we get bumped into and shoved out of the way by the people who understand enough of it to start making their social climb a reality. This is all very individualising.

This is also the time for the final point, and I will bring back Mr. Botton to make it for me. Two years prior to the talk on atheism he gave another lecture, this time on the cause and value of the meritocracy. He outlines specifically the point about responsibility and sense of self-value as an issue for this social construct. Because after all in a meritocracy you have only yourself to blaim for not being Bill Gates. This is why so many books have been written on just accepting yourself. The merry-go-round of society tells you a completely different story and shoves in your face the demotivating motivational mantra: "Climb, climb, climb!"

Economisation

According to the free dictionary the word economisation means: To practice economy, as by avoiding waste or reducing expenditures. Now I bet you would be scoffing at that if you know how anti-economic we are being in contemporary society.

Most of what is debated in constructive parts of society is economy. People spend hours, days, weeks, months and even years of their lives to try and grasp the concept of maximising output at minimal expenditure. But with all these collectively abundant thought processes going on, it is still a broadly held view that the first part of the idea is the most important one. To maximise output. The second part; to do so at minimal expenditure, must take a back seat if there is a conflict.
So the point of this short post was really just to point out an ironic but common misconception.

You may have heard of The Story of Stuff Project. It is indeed a nicely simplified introduction as to how anti-economic this global economy really is. If you have not yet seen any of their work, you should check out this brief walk-through of consumption.

Functional Sociology

Marketing 101 will teach you that relating to success can achieve success. So in my moment of weakness I have decided to let myself become rigorously inspired (steal) the name of my new favourite concept: Functional medicine.

Watch this following presentation by Dr. Mark Hyman and then continue with this post to witness my attempt at expanding on his perspective. It is a piece on health care looked at in a refreshing way, because it brings back the scientific method to a field that has long been like a library, as opposed to a vibrant, dynamic art of complimenting health systems through research which medicine should be.



I am no scientist. I hold no degrees and though I may be studying at a university right now, I will hardly have anything professional to say on neither the medicinal matter nor the sociological matter, as I am studying IT which is about as far from health as you can get in the sphere of knowledge. Or well it is not, but you get my point. However, this will not stop me from comparing this piece of science to my own theory of how societies work.

Because I believe that if Mark Hyman was working in the field of sociology rather than medicine, he would be suggesting that we start using a systems approach to how we govern our societies. He would point out that we are currently upholding thoughts and ideas on how to treat societal issues that are centuries old if not millennia.

Hyman says that diseases do not exist. Not in the sense that we understand diseases. They are not bad things that just happen and have to be treated. They are the responses of your own body attempting to deal with an imbalance. What does that mean? It means that diseases are currently understood in a way that does not help us with anything other than categorising the fallout they produce.

From this perspective we can try and understand diseases in a new sense. Diseases are the general categories we deal with when we collectivise symptoms, a package of symptoms that when appearing simultaneously makes up a collection of unwanted physical reactions in a body and we label that a certain title, like cancer or pneumonia, so we can quickly reference how we normally proceed with treatment. 
But perhaps we should start looking at causality instead? Because you can cure as many symptoms as you want, it will make no difference if you load your diet with the wrong food, get no exercise and maintain a stressful position at your job. Conventional methods do attempt this. But they will never succeed because their perspective is based on a per case basis.

A diagnosis will be damn hard to do if you cannot identify the problem, and you mainly do that by looking at symptoms. I do the same when I build web pages or software solutions. I try to recreate the issues brought up to me by a client on my own screen, so I can see the "leakage" and seal it. This is a symptom-oriented treatment and it works only in secluded, primitive systems. 
You could probably relate this to problem solving in your own life as well. Issues are easy to deal with on a per case basis so long as they are kept in a neat and orderly pile. As soon as they are no longer kept in that neat and orderly pile, you will start experiencing a growing sense of stress, whether or not you get the symptoms is irrelevant, because you can no longer manage the entire pile mentally. This is the reason you started using the systems approach that led you to conclude that the neat pile would be optimal in the first place. Even if this happened subconsciously, it did happen none the less.

Attempting to be bold I will now directly attack a major paradigm that is older than I care to try and guess at.

Crime does not exist. Not in the sense that we understand crime. It is not a bad thing that just happens and has to be dealt with. It is a response given by parts of the social community caused by an imbalance in the system. What does that mean? it means that crime is currently understood in a way that does not help us with anything other than categorising the fallout it produces.

From this perspective we can try and understand crime in a new sense. Crime is the general category we deal with when we collectivise incidents of violence, whether material as physical violence or intangible as theft. It is a package of social symptoms that when appearing simultaneously makes up a collection of unwanted social reactions in a community and we label that a certain title, like murder or embezzlement, so we can quickly reference how we normally proceed with treatment.
But perhaps we should start looking at causality instead? Because you can imprison as many people as you like, it will solve no problem if you load society with inequality, bridge no differences and maintain consumption patterns at the price of social capital. Conventional methods do attempt this. But they will never succeed because their perspective is based on a per case basis.

And crime is just one single element on a list of the issues society is attempting to handle in this fashion, with a less than optimal result yielded in almost every case, due to faulty measures believed to be correct. I could draw this same parallel with obesity, teenage birth rates, mental health, child well-being, social mobility, drug abuse etc.
I believe you understand my point by now though, so I see no reason to repeat myself further. If you want you could try doing it yourself and you will start to see an emerging pattern. 

This is the basis of a systems approach. It is the mechanisation of problem solving, the automation of re-indexing, and it frees up your time as a mental librarian and gives you more time to do abstract work on solving new and exciting issues instead.

Core

Today this blog will reach 300 unique page views, and I thought I would mark this by cutting to the chase with what I originally had planned for this blog. No use dragging you around any further if you would disagree completely with this post and never return.
As with so many other things in life I did feel like buttering my audience up first. To give a broader perspective on my perspectives, so it is not just a label I will be attaching to myself and then having that be my official tag. So you would know that there is so much more to these opinions than what I can express in this post.

What I am interested in is sociology. I believe that is the correct word to use when describing an interest in knowledge about society. I want to understand the building blocks of societies and all possible evolutions of them, and I think this stems from a sizable curiosity about the future. Obviously there is a personal element to all of this, which I may return to at a later point, but for now I want to keep this abstract to fully visualise for you an alternative perspective on society.

If I asked you what is the most fundamentally unchallenged element of society what would you say?

I would say: The monetary system. It is like a religion that has been scientifically accepted. Adam Smith's invisible hand guiding the world. Few people can even imagine what the world would be without it. Most would probably say that without money we would return to barter, goods and live stock trading, but that not imaginative in any way. It is not a step forward, it is not evolution. It would be a huge leap backwards technologically and culturally.

So the question becomes: Is there an alternative? And in spirit of my post from yesterday, you would have to also apply the secondary question with primary significance: What would make such an alternative preferable? An underlining of the "why". For this would not just be a game of innovation beyond cultural barriers, it would have to be a clear cut investigation into the possibility of the next large cultural paradigm shift.

At this point I had to decide in what direction I wanted to take this post. Did I want a wall of text describing my personal take on this, or could a slide show presentation make do? I decided that there are people much better suited than myself to describe such an awesome (the old meaning of the word) concept.

As a bonus Mr. Peter Joseph will in this TEDx presentation also be answering my secondary question with primary significance. Enjoy!

Rhetoric

No post yesterday due to my exam today. Its one for project oriented work and communication. Very interesting topics in some aspects and very not in others. I will spare you the details, but I will comment on the idea of teaching communicative and specifically rhetorical skills.

Obviously our educational institutions strive to make us successful in our future endavours as that would in turn mean that they have succeeded in their task to steel us for our goals. But what I dislike specifically about rhetoric is that it is simply a tool that allows any master of it to do disasterous things. Politicians are a great example.

So what I think is, and I did voice this concern for my professor but he brushed me off with some excuse about differing disciplines, that along with a rhetorical course should always follow a course on how to determine the primary value of ones objective. I know this will seem foreign to most people, but why would you not want to self-evaluate and analyse your reasoning behind your argumentation while analysing your argumentation anyway. Its like the goal makes the initiation immune to scrutinisation. Which is fairly unnerving to say the least.

We already deal with the fall out of this problem, in that the people responsible for your take on the world used their rhetorical power to change a world view that was once different, and in many cases we have no evidence to support the reasoning behind this.

Rhetorical training basically makes you a salesman outside of just selling and buying. You start being able to shift not commerce but thoughts and ideas. Hitler did this.

The sollution is not to disregard the field of rhetoric, for it certainly has a lot to teach us. Specifically it can teach you how to locate these "sales pitches" you often hear from people who want to sell you ideas. Or as it should be called, take your own ideas and substitute them with new ones, making you think that they are better.
And this does not mean that you should always stick to your initial assumptions and disregard new information. Obviously that would be foolish. Bush did this.

The sollution could be to take a more scientific approach to personal development though. Giving students a chance to analyse their current paths, where they might lead them and what the alternatives could be. 

Self improvement should be social improvement.

V For Revolution

Another great movie from the Wachowski brothers, also holding a great deal of social commentary beneath the initial layers of visually well made action, is the movie V For Vendetta. This movie is certainly one of my favorites, and it achieves such status with me because of how it propels an alternate perspective on these increasingly harsher measures being taken in the time of crisis. All in the name of seizing control of the issue before it gets out of hand.

While I can sympathise with the inherit logic in such a sentence that is it for the good of the people and the good of society, it simply fails to roll out in such a fashion in quite a few attempts. As we have discussed prior terrorism is not just some random idea brown people start thinking about out of nowhere. It takes a big spark to motivate such violence. Most of them have witnessed horrible things to get to where they needed to be to make such drastic moves.
To be clear I am not condoning any act of terrorism, but I will certainly be the one to argue for the understanding of the core nature of it. The media portrays it as close to being the number one issue for any contemporary society.


So to spread it out even thinner one could theorise that terrorism can be diluted and "fought" in this manner, by reducing the amount and size of the measures being taken to prevent it. Perhaps the resistance movements would have been less prevalent if the germans had been more civil in occupied territories during the war? Inhumanity can easily stir violence where otherwise there was no basis for it.


Something else to think about is also the fact that too many people are labelled terrorists when they are no such thing. The rebels in Iraq for instance might consist somewhat of organized terror cells still fighting for Al Qaeda or Saddams memory or whatever, but would you not even consider that some of them just fight the occupation because of the endless stream of unfortunate events the millitary has been involved in ever since the beginning of this pitiful war?


And with that I think I will let V talk to you all about the very possible future of our society, assuming no measures are taken to remove this inconsistent fear that makes us grip the hands of any who endows to save us. He is talking to you about you and it is relevant for you because you are the one who will bring yourself in this situation.