jimdroberts - Tumblr blog

jimdroberts · 5 years ago

Text

We’re at a point in human history when civilisation is changing faster and in ways that will leave it different forever. It only follows that the people must be changing too. During the long soulless hours of isolation I’ve found myself asking:

Am I changing for the better or worse?

There’s no other way to describe these times other than terrifying. Societally and as individuals we’re being forced into making decisions, and ways of living, that we’ve not been prepared for. The structure and order of our societies had to be rebuilt out of the wastelands of World War II, this structure and order is being threatened. If you’re unable to see the pachyderm at your drinks party hitting on your spouse, let me make this easier for you; we are looking into the abyss.

Pandemic, collapse of the global economy, unemployment leading to an inevitable global depression; reduced manufacturing, oil scarcity, reduction in the capacity of food production resulting in famines that the Bible would consider hyperbole; civil disorder, racial tensions, the continuation of eternal religious conflicts, environmental collapse, and energy crises. If just some of these happen as a result of COVID-19, we’re in trouble. If most of them happen, as I am compelled to believe the may well, we’re on for a global reset.

According to the ancient Chinese Book of Change, The I Ching, the symbol of the Tao, dates back to at least 200 BCE. A circle divided in two halves, yin and yang. The symbol intends to represent the oneness of man and the surrounding cosmos. The two halves representing the complimentary pairs of male and female. The I Ching, as it’s name infers, The Book of Change, tells us that mankind has been attuned to fluctuations between moments of chaos and order for thousands of years. Taoism is a religion based on the impermanence of the cosmos and that limitless shifts between hope and despair, life and death are the norm. It proves that such events are an immutable part of the cosmic order. And it’s reasonable to say, that one such event is happening now.

Current circumstances tell us that in our area of the cosmos chaos has taken dominion over structure and order. It is inevitable that under such an existential, and environmental uncertainty, that many of us feel heightened levels of anxiety. (I’m freaking terrified right now, and it’s the reason I’m writing this.)

Even though it might feel as if we have wandered into a metaphorical, valley of darkness, my purpose in writing these two posts, is to help reduce some of your suffering and put some love back into that sad, scared, and lonely heart.

It’s nothing new for suffering to play a part in everyone’s lives, the world’s major religions use this foundational message at the core of their beliefs. But what feels unprecedented is the universality of the suffering in the world. As a person who doesn’t subscribe to any faith, I’m uncertain of this being the actual apocalypse, but I’m keen on it being so. Some Christians might refer to their mythology and believe these times are the apocalypse. Christianity anthropomorphises the apoclypse through the symbolic Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Right now, maybe you’re thinking that this is nothing more than another blog promoting fear-mongering. Such a thought is understandable, even inevitable for many of us. Fear porn, along with actual pornography are the most prominent genres of material to appear on the internet. It’s my purpose to help you understand the gravity of the current situation. But it remains you’re choice, whether you ignore the warnings I’m about to set out. You always keep the right to ignore the elephant in the room.

COVID-19 and Religions

The spiritual texts of the Abrahamic religions have achieved an unprecedented level of success in their ability to remain valid. Even after two thousand years, they continue to influence and retain cultural relavence. It is the paragon of ignorance to deny this fact. I’m agnostic, but I’m very comfortable acknowledging the profound hold these faiths have had, and continue to have on our world. But how have they achieved this?

They achieved this because of one simple but profound reason, they contain ineluctable elements of wisdom that are fundamental truths of nature of the human condition. That might not sound so simple, basically these books tell us: who we are; why we behave the way we do; how it’s desirable for us to behave; what we desire; virtues (good habits); and sins (bad habits). As well as generally encouraging us not to behave like complete dicks. They’ve provided the rules and laws that enabled humans to start living in ever bigger communities. And ever bigger communities generated greater wealth.

Earlier I listed the types of upheval and chaos that I expect COVID-19 to have and cause. And I genuinely see the potential for each of them occuring to a variety of degrees. But there is one area of society that upon which all other areas of our societies depend.

Economic failure will result in the systemmmic failure of our societies as we know them. Should our economies fail, the rule of law, public order, claims to property, food, healthcare, sanitation, medicene, the list is endless, but each of these will to some extent lessen, or cease to exist.

Economic Collapse Post COVID-19

Whilst I am certain that the consequences of COVID-19 will be far reaching in both their space and time. At the moment, COVID-19 is affecting almost every industry and community around the world, and it’s likely to continue doing so for many, many, years to come. I’m thinking more in the terms of a generations ‘ball park’. Denying a generation the hope of upward mobility and prosperity, and replacing it with decades of poverty is going to profoundly affect the lives Once the hope of upward mobility, and prosperity is denied to a generation of people.

Modern society is one that was built around the combustion engine and the burning of fosil fuels. The Baby Boomers grewp following World War II in the most prosperous generation, for the masses, in history. The world needed rebuilding, there was a population explosion there to build it. More people than ever before were in employment, producing more goods, buying more things and paying more tax. Land was affordable, they bought houses, the value of which they saw ascend on a never ending escalator. Baby Boomers worked hard, but the conditions for their economic prosperity were optimal.

Thre’s nearly always a correlation in the relationship between the potential prosperity of an individual and the actual prosperity of their society. It’s now become obvious that anyone aged betweeen 15 and 30, the younger Millennials and start of of Generation Z, that their prospects are going to be worse than both their parents, and their granparents, Genrations X and the Baby Boommers. Generation Z will become the second consecutive generation to inherit a period generational economic decline. The question that needs to be asked is: how do we expect these people to live lives of diminished hope?

This is important because it flouts a rule that is embedded in our evolutionary psyche. Nature determines whether species live or die, flourish or struggle. Because humanity’s prospects are so tightly bound to their economy, it’s becomming abundantly obvious to anyone aged betweeen 15 and 30, the younger Millennials and start of of Generation Z, that their prospects are going to be worse than both their parents, and their grandparents, Genrations X and the Baby Boommer generation to . Indeed, Generation Z will become the second consecutive generation to inherit a period generational economic decline. They are two generations for whom it’s realistic that they will endure significant periods of unemployment. Will be employed in a number of jobs that have unrelated skills. Two generations that will in all likelihood see reductions in worker’s rights. When unemployment is high people don’t tend to care how they’re treated, as long as they have a little bit of money to show for their effort. Temporary contracts, limited healthcare, maternity and paternity rights are realistic scenarios when unemployment s high.

Today’s quality of life is almost a reflection of societal systems underwritten by an economy which is man’s greatest work of fiction.

Why Economic Collapse Is Inevitable

This is an area I’ll actually cover in more detail at a later date, it deserves a more thorough explanation than I have the room for here. Here I’ll give an overview of the collapse, leaving the finer details in part II.

Understanding Definitions is paramount if we’re to understand the severity of this current situation. When I refer to economic collapse I am referring to the end of our fiat based economies. Fiat economies are ones in which the government prints currency. It is then believed that this currency has a value that can be used in exchange for goods and services. I believe this to be quixotic fantasy, no less foolish than building castles on the sand. For further, more in depth information, I recommend reading the work of Dmitry Orlov.

New Yorker, reporter, John Cassidy wrote in a recent article:

In January of 2019, Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, appeared before a House of Commons committee to discuss global threats to financial stability. At that time, the U.S. unemployment rate was below four per cent, the gross domestic product was growing steadily, and Donald Trump was busy boasting about “the greatest economy ever.” But, despite these favorable statistics, staffers at the bank had identified a potentially serious problem on the horizon:

Cassidy suggests that, Carney, and the Bank of England became aware of high risk economic practices on Wall Street that haven’t undergone the changes necessary to prevent the exact same thing happening as in 2008. The essence of his article implies that the Bank of England was aware, and concerned about a decline in the lending standards in corporate debt markets, is almost the exact equal of the sub-prime debacle

If you’re still reading this I assume that you’re in agreement that the economic fall out of COVID-19 is going to be signifiicant, but may be reluctant to agree with my prediction of a complete collapse of the fiat system, bringing an end to currency as we know it.

Okay, what does your more optimistic scenario look like? We know that there’s going to be enormous recession/depression fueled by unemployment. In turn, this triggers a reduction in taxes received, resulting in sub optimal funding of public services. The unemployed will have to find money by fair means or foul, so an increase in crime is inevitable. The reduction in public funding means the police needed to deal with the increase in crime, will not exist. Poverty, results in poorer diets leading to obesity, diabetes, or other health complications. It causes stress which is known to heighten the risk of developing cancer. And if you’ve been lucky enough to survive all that, you have a proclivity to fall into drug and alcohol addiction, be at a greater risk of depression and according to a, 2003 study by a team of New Zealand doctors, proved that people between the ages of 18 and 64, who are unemployed are between two and three times more likely to commit suicide. If history’s taught us one thing, it’s that poverty sucks.

Ploughing the Fields of Hopelessness

And when one of these people do get a job, they’re so grateful that they’ll work till they drop to make enough to feed themselves. They can’t afford aspirations to improve their lot, for fear of appearing ungrateful. Read, Steinbeck’s, Grapes of Wrath. Mass unemployment and a depressed employment market erodes hope. And hope isn’t just a word you expect to see appearing in the inscriptions of Hallmark cards. Hope can be is also a noun, and a verb. The noun names the feeling, whilst the verb is the feeling. To be robbed of the ability to feel hope is a desperate state of affairs. Hope is an emotion that has survived millions of years of natural selection. Hope and evolution has interested psychologists. What purpose does hope play in maximising our abilities to survive, procreate and pass on our genes?

Rats, Religion and the Power of Hope

Let me warn you that psychology experiments conducted soon after World War II are notorious for their ignorance of ethics.

In the 1950’s Professor Curt Richter performed an experiment drowning wild and domesticated rats. At least when this is your line of work the neighbours never ask you to look after their dog.

The purpose of Richter’s morbid interest, to compare how long domesticated rats survived compared to their wild counterparts. Richter discovered that the domesticated rats, despit not needing to swim in their day to day environments, far out performed the wild rats.

The explanation given is that the domesticated rats were used to being helped by handlers and were writing to be saved. While being far superior swimmers, the wild rats drowned sooner as once they had understood that there was no escape they gave up.

It’s been recorded that individuals who survive disasters are disproportionately made up of those that practice faiths.This was discovered by scientists, they’re not likely to put this down to divine intervention. What they concluded was that people with faith hold onto the belief of survival, of divine intervention. This hope is the edge that differentiates the victims from the survivors. Don’t underestimate the power of hope.

If you’ve read all and been left to feel that has lingered in each and every sentence, you have started to understand what’s about to happen. To have any chance of making good decisions over the next twelve months, it’s imperative to understand the scale of the events that are resulting from COVID-19. Hope is essential in the challenges that lay ahead.

in Part II I promise hope, chicken soup for your soul.

It’s in Part II. I Promise.

Chicken Soup for the Soul (Part I) – Surviving COVID-19, Isolation, Race Wars, Rioting, and the Inevitable Economic Collapse We're at a point in human history when civilisation is changing faster and in ways that will leave it different forever.

#coronavirus #COVID-19 #economic collapse #global depression #societal collapse

0 notes

jimdroberts · 5 years ago

Text

Ozymandias - Percy Shelly's Advice on Pandemics, Race Wars and the Arrow of Time

Ozymandias – Percy Shelly’s Advice on Pandemics, Race Wars and the Arrow of Time

You could be forgiven for thinking these unprecedented times would provide even the most unimaginative person something to write about. But not me, despite race wars, and existential pandemics I’m writing about a poem. And like that, 95% of my readers disappeared. The truth is that I’ve been unable to make sense out of the chaos. I’ve been unable to find a perspective that could either offer…

View On WordPress

0 notes

jimdroberts · 5 years ago

Text

Wilder Fury 2 - More Wild More Furious

Wilder Fury 2 – More Wild More Furious

Heavyweight boxing hasn’t been so loaded with talent since the 1960’s. Wilder, Joshua, Fury, Ruiz, Jospeh Parker, Dillian Whyte, Aleksander Usyk, and Daniel Dubois, have all been title holders, or are all contenders. Wilder Fury 2 promises to kick off what should be the most interesting and dramatic year in the history of the heavyweight division.

It’s my opinion that while both fighters stand…

View On WordPress

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

Divas, Primadonnas, Narcissists, and Teachers

Having spent nearly two decades as a teacher and having studied psychology at university, I feel that I have some authority to speak about this topic. I, and a number of my colleagues, have long suspected the possibility of a link between narcissism and the teaching profession. It’s a suspicion that’s developed through my observation of both other teachers, and myself. It’s also a hypothesis…

View On WordPress

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

“The hero and the coward both feel the same thing. But the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.”

Cus D’amato

We’ve been forced to wait a very long time. Not since the early 70s, with fights like The Rumble in the Jungle, and The Thrilla in Manila, has heavyweight boxing been this entertaining.

The last golden era in the division occurred during the career of one man, Muhammad Ali. An era which saw Ali take on fighters like Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Floyd Paterson and Larry Holmes, each of whom would have been good enough to dominate in any other era.

On Saturday, December 7th, Andy Ruiz will defend the heavyweight boxing titles he took from Anthony Joshua 6 months ago, in a rematch. Ruiz’s win was one of world championship boxing’s biggest upsets. Not since, 1990 and that night in Tokyo, when James ‘Buster’ Douglas knocked out a then undefeated, and what looked like an unbeatable, Mike Tyson. Ruiz’s win was a shock, there can be no doubt about that. Before the fight bookmakers had him at 9-1 against, ridiculous odds in a sport with only two competitors, and where one punch can end a fight. But those odds reflected the chance public opinion gave Ruiz when he defeated Joshua, at the beginning of June, in Madison Square Garden. The, Ruiz – Joshua rematch will formally kick-start a golden era in the heavyweight division, some might argue started already when Deontay Wilder fought a dramatic draw against Tyson Fury. There are, at the moment, five legitimate contenders for the title meaning that all of them will be less likely to cherry pick easy fights and forego a big payday. It really is a case of make hay while the sun shines, except in this case substitute hay for money, and sunshine for punching your opponent in the face.

Boxing Abroad

Heavyweight title fights have historically been held in the United States and on occasions in Europe, fights outside of these two locations are very uncommon. But holding one of sports biggest prizes in an out of the way, exotic location from which neither boxer originates is not new. Such fights do, somehow, capture the imagination as well as huge piles of cash. These locations have been decided purely for the financial benefits to the boxers and the potential for generating positive publicity for the hosts. In some instances this has seen the blending of sport and morally bankrupt ideologies, which for a time are forgotten until several weeks after the fights conclusion.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

January 22, 1973, The Sunshine Showdown, Kingston, Jamaica. When Foreman annihilated Frazier, knocking him down six times before scoring a technical knock out with one minute and twenty-five seconds of the second round still to go. Foreman achieved this despite going into the fight a 4-1 underdog.

October 30, 1974, The Rumble in the Jungle, Kinshasa, Zaire. Both boxers were paid $5 million. To put this into context, Joe Louis, world heavyweight champion from, 1937 to, 1949. Who made a record twenty-five consecutive defenses of his title, never made $5 million throughout his entire career.

October 1, 1975, The Thrilla in Manilla, maybe the most iconic boxing match of all time. Staged by president Marcos to divert attention away from the civil war that was being fought in the Philipines at that time. Ali walking away with $9 million and Frazier netting $5 million. To give these figures some perspective, both Wilder and Ortiz were paid $4.5 million in disclosed purses for their second fight a couple of weeks ago, this does not include their shares of pay per view television,

February 11, 1990, A fight that was expected to be so one sided that nobody bothered to give it a name. What was certain is that nobody in America was willing to pay for the right to host Mike Tyson to destroy James “Buster” Douglas inside of three minutes. With now mythical odds of 42-1 against, Douglas achieved the impossible inside the Tokyo Dome, Japan. 42-1 against. When Foreman beat Frazier twenty-seven years earlier it was considered a shock with Foreman overcoming odds of 4-1. Tyson was paid $6 million, Douglas walked away undisputed heavyweight champion and $1.6 million richer.

April 21, 2001, Lamely given the moniker Thunder in Africa. Obviously rumble in the jungle was the beginning and end of any catchy rhyme and wordplay when it came to fighting in this continent. With Rahman a 20-1 underdog, this was thought to be such a one-sided affair that no Las Vegas casino was willing to pay the amount South Africa was, to stage the fight, Rahman being paid $1.5 million, while Lewis made $7 million. In similar fashion to Buster Douglas, Rahman shook the boxing world, knocking out Lewis with a straight right driven through the sloppy guard of the champion in the fifth. Compare this fight to the Ali fights, nearly thirty years earlier and you appreciate how Ali captured the world’s imagination and generated the extreme revenue necessary to justify his purse.

December 7, 2019 In the crazy cash sports era of today Joshua will earn at least $40 million, Ruiz will take away $9 million, and both will have an agreed cut of the pay per view revenue, details of which I haven’t been able to find. Needless to say, they’re both walking away rich men.

The history of heavyweight boxing in obscure locations is colorful and littered with upsets. Ruiz, Joshua promises to be a far closer fight with no heavy underdog. In fact it’s much in debate as to who the underdog is.

Why Ruiz Will Win

As in the first fight, I expect to see Joshua touching cloth on multiple occasions in the rematch.

Styles are said to make fights, it might equally as well be said that styles break fighters. Ruiz’s style couldn’t be any more awkward for Joshua. On paper, and to the eye, Joshua would win every time, but Ruiz has the box of tricks to beat Joshua. Ruiz’s main strength is his hand speed and accuracy. What this crudely translates into is, Ruiz’s fists spending more time connecting with Joshua’s head and face. Ruiz’s movement is also deceptively good, and he has proven that he has durability having been knocked down by Joshua, then coming back to destroy him. Joshua’s strength will always give him the ‘puncher’s chance’, but Ruiz is likely to throw and land more punches. Meanwhile Joshua hasn’t convinced when under pressure of a high volume puncher. AJ was floored four times by Ruiz, ans was knocked down once when he fought Klitschko. Ruiz’s style of throwing quick combinations is AJ’s Achilles heel.

It’s ironic to remember that it was Eddie Hearn who cursed the career of Joshua when he selected him as the replacement for Jarrell Miller after the latter had failed multiple drug tests. Ruiz had only one month to prepare for the first fight, but had fought at the end of April, meaning he was already conditioned. But that should have counted for little when it came to fighting the multi titled world champion and former Olympic gold medalist. Few gave Ruiz any chance, including the bookmakers who were offering 25/1 against Ruiz winning by stoppage.To their credit, the Irish newspaper Independent.ie considered Ruiz to be more dangerous than the originally intended opponent, Jarrell Miller.

What AJ has in size and strength, he lacks in speed and skill. That’s not to say Joshua is slow and without talent, it’s just that up until now it’s been his size and strength that have been most telling in the fights he has won, Ruiz has the skill set to neutralize Joshua’s attributes.

One of the more amusing things about the fighters is that they have both been criticised for their physiques. In the past, Andy’s figure has been on the adipose, rotund end of the conditioning spectrum. Joshua meanwhile has been criticised for being over conditioned. AJ has some glaring similarities to Frank Bruno, he carries too much muscle bulk which ultimately makes him powerful, but slow. It’s been said that Joshua is looking to address this matter, but how quickly and how successfully he can reshape his physique is a question that remains to be answered.

While it looks impressive, too much muscle slows a boxer down

pkt5282-394323 FRANK BRUNO BOXER It was too much to expect the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is heavyweight boxing for the big bucks after all. But when the manager of Lennox Lewis said there waws absolutely nothing bad aboiut Frank Bruno’s performance, at least he had the good grace to do so with a smile and ask: ‘Is my nose growing?’

It’s difficult not to support Ruiz, and I’m British. Ruiz is only getting 25% of the purse, and despite cutting weight still bares a striking resemblance to British comic Johnny Vegas, a man whose act centres on him being drunk and unhealthy, but who doesn’t love Johnny Vegas?

They do actully look like each other.

It’s not just that they’re both fat.

In the future, out of Ruiz, Fury, Usyk and Wilder, I can only see Joshua beating Wilder. The other three have far higher boxing IQ’s, far better movement and hand speed. It’s the hand speed, combined with questionable durability that makes me believe that Joshua would succumb to any of , Fury, Ruiz or Uszyk.

Twenty-twenty, might be a format of cash fueled cricket, but it will also be remembered as the year of the mega fights in heavyweight boxing. The year that should see the Fury-Wilder rematch, Uszyk fighting one of these four, and Wilder fighting Joshua or Ruiz. Be cause the division has five huge talents it’s difficult to see how these fights can be avoided, and the huge pay per view revenue any combination of these fights would make should be too tempting to resist. Twenty twenty is the year that will stay long in the memory of boxing fans around the world. And my prediction as to who will be king of the hill,

Usyk

The talent of Oleksander Usyk will ensure that the heavyweight gold rush of twenty-twenty will sustain itself for a few more years, with any combination of huge fights. The countries that these fights end up being hosted in, and for what cause, remains the most difficult thing to predict.

Ruiz Vs. Joshua – A Gold Rush in a New A Golden Era of Heavyweight Boxing “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing. But the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs.

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

Lost in the Twitterspehre - Trapped inside a Humanist Echo Chamber with the Global Village Idiot

Lost in the Twitterspehre – Trapped inside a Humanist Echo Chamber with the Global Village Idiot

“Once, every village had an idiot. It took the internet to bring them all together.”

Colonel Robert Bateman

I’ve come to the conclusion that Twitter is probably the most god forsaken place on the internet. But being an atheist, maybe I should say, truth forsaken. Understanding that I’m an atheist, a libertarian atheist, is essential if anything that follows is to make any sense. Howevever, even…

View On WordPress

#atheism #Christianity #global village #humanism #internet #Libertarianiam #Marshall Mcluhan #Religion #secular humanism #technology

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

Prince Andrew Impersonates David Brent in Covert Audition for Britain's Got Talent

Prince Andrew Impersonates David Brent in Covert Audition for Britain’s Got Talent

Please excuse the roughness of this post. I’ve gone full Gonzo on this story as it’s moving so fast and I seldom do.

Having initially written about this story nearly four years ago, I would feel hard done by, if I too didn’t get in on the action now that it’s coming to a climax

Pressure had been mounting on Prince Andrew, and if we’re to believe what we hear, it’s not just been pressure that he’s…

View On WordPress

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang

There’s a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is

Zugzwang should be Batman’s nemesis.

can’t make a move that won’t lose him the game, such a position is called, zugzwang. In British politics similar situations are called Brexit.

How did we get here?

Google images with a search for, “Brexit Timeline.” It results in an array of graphical representations and psychedelic colours of confusion illustrating just how the UK will negotiate their way through the eight levels of hell. Each timeline is different and every timeline is about as accurate as a bumblebee with a machine gun, leaving me to deduce that nobody has the faintest idea what is going on.

Just look at the timelines, it’s madness I tell you!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Brexit Timeline – How Did We Get Here?

2010, Conservatives win a general election without a clear majority. The Conservatives form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

2015, In an attempt to win an outright majority, David Cameron pledges a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU), despite the fact that he was pro-Europe. The Conservatives win an outright majority.

June 2016, Britain holds a referendum to decide whether it’s to remain a part of the (EU). Despite all media predictions, a majority of 51.9% of people vote to leave the EU. Within 24 hours David Cameron resigns as prime minister and like a leader of a banana republic, goes into exile on the French Riviera, where he settles down to write his memoir, also known as his excuse, the memoir fails to mention performing any sexual acts on the severed heads of pigs.

“David Cameron announced he is stepping down in the wake of a vote, which should make me happy, but it doesn’t. It’s like catching an ice cream cone out of the air, because a child has been hit by a car. I’ll eat it! But it’s tainted somehow.” – John Oliver

June 2017, riding Following the departure of David Cameron, Theresa May mistakes a wave of national euphoria for what is actually a burgeoning sense of scorn, ridicule and contempt towards her. Failing to recognise this

Ever wondered what a person looks like having just been given £1 billion?

she calls a general election, not an easy thing to do given the Fixed Term Parliament Act requiring five years between elections. Conservatives win the election, but take control of a hung parliament. To have a majority they form a coalition government with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a sort of stone-age sect of religous zealots whom Theresa May gives £1 billion. Some called it a bribe, while others wanted to know where the magic money tree’s hidden. Despite the £1 billion pay off, the DUP consistently fail to support the prime minister on most Brexit votes. Still, whats £1 billion to a government preaching austerity?

March 2019, the Conservative Party tire of Theresa’s inability to make progress on brexit.

July 2019, members of the Conservative Party elect Boris Johnson as their leader and next prime minister.

Despite promising the nation that, he’d rather die in a ditch than fail to leave the EU on

Brexit’s been one disappointment after another.

October 31st, 2019, Boris Johnson delivers on neither Brexit, nor corpse in a ditch materialise. I wasn’t fussy, I’d have settled for a drain, trench, even a gutter. But no, the fat, flatulent, shaggy haired mop head lives on, and after what must have taken minutes of thought, decided to throw the decision back to the public in the form of a general election. Appealing to the same electorate, who in recent times has shown a proclivity to vote for the most chaotic scenario possible. I ask myself, why’s that trend going to stop? Leadership isn’t delegating the problem to everyone else, that’s scapegoating.

Boris hopes the ball lands on, erection.

Following the roulette disappointment, Boris disposes of his blond wig and thinks really hard about holding his erection.what to o next. fear of overheating his brain, Boris takes of his blond wig and decides whether or not to call an election.

Clowns to the Left of me, Jokers to the Right

So, come December 12th, who do you vote for. American cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead famously said:

If you went to a restaurant, and the only choice you had was between a turd sandwiches or Jellied moose tongue, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to go looking for somewhere else to eat. Elections in the UK are like this, they offer no choice that you can enthusiastically endorse, just a choice of the lesser evil.

Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people. A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve. …’

Russell Brand – Guardian

It’s at this stage that people can get angry with the abstaining from voting argument, they remind you of how lucky we are to have a democracy. They’re quick to inform us that voting is the only time the poor have as much say as the wealthy. And if they’ve still failed to convince they’re likely to trundle out, the very old and very tired, it’s a civic duty; which it’s not. Jury service is the only the only civic responsibility in the U.K. No, democracy isn’t being asked to choose between two groups of equally incompetent people who will inevitably balls things up, just in slightly different ways.

Perhaps journalist, Heydon Prowse most accurately explains the trend in the results of recent elections and referenda in the west”

…vote, revolt, “turn voting into a protest too”

Heydon Prowse

We live in a system where only one of two political choices ends up running the country, but people now understand that neither does anything to make their lives any better. The underprivileged will remain underprivileged, the under paid won’t become better off, in fact relatively wages have stagnated for twenty years, and the uneducated, and unemployed will continue to seek solace by watching reality television.

In reality there’s only two choices:

Don’t vote, because none of the candidates are capable of doing the job; or

Go all in with Margaret Mead and choose the lesser of two evils in the hope that the one you pick might be capable screwing things up marginally less than the other choice.

The exhilaration what western democracies promise us.

So Who is the lesser of Two Evils?

It’s an interesting question, it comes down to choosing between an egotistical, nefarious, dishonest, man who can’t keep track of how many children he might have fathered, and a man who looks like he’s just crawled out from beneath your compost heap at the

Jeremy Corbyn whispers Karl Marx, and promises his turnips that the means of production will be shared between all the vegetables.

bottom of your garden, and then preaches anachronistic left wing dogma to your vegetable patch. For years I’ve given Corbyn the benefit of the doubt, thinking that he can’t possibly prescribe to the tenets of Marxism the media claim he does, but he’s never clarified just how far his socialist beliefs go. Might he turn into an English Pol Pot, force everyone to work in allotments as he engineers his agrarian utopia? It sounds stupid, but then again, nearly everything that’s come out of Westminster for the past five years has been stupid. But the peculiarities of the Labour party don’t stop with Corbyn, in fact it’s only the beginning. Corbyn’s shadow home secretary is Diane Abbott, a woman so spectacularly incompetent that she takes a calculator to bed so she can count the sheep. To appreciate how dimwitted Diane Abbot is, the video below shows the most spectacularly embarrassing interview by a senior politician that I’ve ever witnessed:

youtube

So with Boris Johnson’s only opponent, resembling a cross between Lenin and Worzel Gummidge, and seemingly focused on winning the allotment vote of the UK, and with his sidekick displaying the mental faculties of sub-optimal kindergarten student, you would think that all Boris needs to do to win this election is stay alive until the morning of December 13th. If only it were that simple.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Yes, that really is his name, dePfeffel. If it’s not right to judge a book by its cover, then it must be an even greater superficial objectification to judge a person by their name, but what the hell is a de Pfeffel? Sounds like a catastrophe in a patisserie in which the pretzel dough and the waffle batter got mixed together and spawned the Antichrist of pastries, a de Pfeffel. No, it’s actually something far more sinister. The von Pfeffel family, after narrowly missing out on starring in, The Sound of Music, is a German, Bavarian, family of considerable historical wealth and influence. Finding out any more about them is difficult, but doubtlessly you have a neurotic, conspiracy theorist friend who’ll soon get you up to speed.

If only Boris’ problems stopped at de Pfeffel. He’s a renowned Islamaphobe, homophobe, adulterer, racist, and outright liar. In fact, he is quintessentially the British Donald Trump. The more ridiculous he behaves, the more support he gets. Johnson appeals to a disenfranchised electorate, as he appears to them to be a break from the norm. Let’s look at some of the most infamous dePfeffel moments.

In August 2018, Boris remarked that Muslim women who wear burkas resemble letter boxes. Note, that at the time he was Britain’s Foreign Secretary, a role requiring awareness of cultural nuances. Look I’m all for a joke, but… What kind of mind could consider that an appropriate thing to say?

Whilst in his position of Foreign Secretary, Boris intervened in the delicate situation of British-Iranian woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who was being held captive on charges of espionage. Boris stated that she wasn’t a spy, but teaching journalism, something which she also wasn’t doing. During Boris’ time as Foreign Secretary, the conditions of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe worsened, with her no longer being allowed to make telephone calls to her husband, and there now being great concern for her mental well-being.

In his column for the Daily Telegraph in 2002, Johnson described people from African Commonwealth countries in the following way, “It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies,” later he added to this mentioning, African people as having “watermelon smiles.” As I said, I like a joke, but racial slurs, well they’re just not funny.

Homophobia, in the past Johnson referred to gay marriage as being akin to humans marrying dogs. And infamously referred to gay men as tank-topped bumboys.

Boris Johnson is a survivor, he’ll say whatever it takes to climb the greasy pole, irregardless of what he says being true or not. You can’t get a more blatant example of his lies than the time he wrote one on the side of a bus. He was right in saying that the UK pays the EU 350 million pounds a week, but it takes into no account how much money the EU sends the UK per week, and how much money the UK saves with free trade with the EU.

Vote for Me – Righting the Wrongs

It’s a face of honesty, trust, sound judgment and leadership.

My manifesto is somewhat limited but at its core is righting wrongs through revenge. Essentially I would achieve this by displaying David Cameron’s head on a spike after it had been inserted into his own bottom. Whilst I freely admit that this does little to resolve the Brexit issue, I do believe it would give the country a much needed boost to morale.

The End Is Not Nigh

As an expat who’s lived outside the UK for almost twenty years, personally, I don’t care who wins the election and goes on to form a Rabelaisian government of idiots; I learnt the word Rabelaisian recently and I’m rather fond of it. I just hope that there’s something positive in this for everyone, which of course is impossible. I still firmly believe what I thought the morning after the referendum; that Britain will never leave the EU. If the powers that be wanted to leave, then Britain would have left by now. Whomever wins this election is unlikely to win a majority, leaving the UK with a fragile coalition goverment once again. One thing I’m certain of, we can’t keep standing in the middle of the road, because when you do that you get hit by traffic from both directions, or worse, you could fall off your horse and cart.

In conclusion, this election will conclude nothing.

Explaining Brexit in five seconds, be like…

Come December: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in a polling booth Without a clue what to do. Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang There's a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is…

#Boris Johnson #Brexit #Jeremy Corbyn #Opinion

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang

There’s a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is

Zugzwang should be Batman’s nemesis.

can’t make a move that won’t lose him the game, such a position is called, zugzwang. In British politics similar situations are called Brexit.

How did we get here?

Just look at the timelines, it’s madness I tell you!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Brexit Timeline – How Did We Get Here?

2010, Conservatives win a general election without a clear majority. The Conservatives form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

Ever wondered what a person looks like having just been given £1 billion?

March 2019, the Conservative Party tire of Theresa’s inability to make progress on brexit.

July 2019, members of the Conservative Party elect Boris Johnson as their leader and next prime minister.

Despite promising the nation that, he’d rather die in a ditch than fail to leave the EU on

Brexit’s been one disappointment after another.

Boris hopes the ball lands on, erection.

Clowns to the Left of me, Jokers to the Right

So, come December 12th, who do you vote for. American cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead famously said:

Russell Brand – Guardian

Perhaps journalist, Heydon Prowse most accurately explains the trend in the results of recent elections and referenda in the west”

…vote, revolt, “turn voting into a protest too”

Heydon Prowse

In reality there’s only two choices:

Don’t vote, because none of the candidates are capable of doing the job; or

Go all in with Margaret Mead and choose the lesser of two evils in the hope that the one you pick might be capable screwing things up marginally less than the other choice.

The exhilaration what western democracies promise us.

So Who is the lesser of Two Evils?

Jeremy Corbyn whispers Karl Marx, and promises his turnips that the means of production will be shared between all the vegetables.

youtube

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Homophobia, in the past Johnson referred to gay marriage as being akin to humans marrying dogs. And infamously referred to gay men as tank-topped bumboys.

Vote for Me – Righting the Wrongs

It’s a face of honesty, trust, sound judgment and leadership.

The End Is Not Nigh

In conclusion, this election will conclude nothing.

Explaining Brexit in five seconds, be like…

A Country in Chaos – Fueling the Flames with Democratic Disaster Britain, Brexit, and Zugzwang There's a saying in chess that describes a position whereby the player whose turn it is…

#Boris Johnson #Brexit #Jeremy Corbyn #Opinion

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

This is an attempt to contextualise the protagonist of the latest DC movie, Joker, using the personality theory of the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. For readers with an interest in psychology, I hope that you can provide your ideas on the work of Jung relative to the character. For those of you who are fans of the Joker, I hope you can provide details of his character that can help support or dispute these ideas.

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.Aleksandr Solzhentisyn – The Gulag Archipelago

More than any other comic book, the characters from DC’s Batman are by far the the most grounded in our psychological understanding of the development of personality and behaviour. Through the advent of psychoanalysis in the early part of the twentieth century, the ideas of how symbols, archetypes and the unconscious, influence personality were beginning to be recognized. Batman, Joker, Riddler, Harvey Two Face, Cat Woman, Poison Ivy, all serve as archetypal reflections of the unconscious mind. They are all alter egos, all serve as characterizations of Freud’s Id overcoming the Superego, or Jung’s Shadow taking control of a persona.

Persona – the wearing of masks

It’s worth taking this moment to explain the appropriateness of the term, persona, when discussing these characters. The word persona derives from either the Greek, or Etruscan, for mask. Jung was well aware of this when he used it in his theory of personality. Jung identifies the persona as the mask we wear in certain social situations. It’s possible, and often necessary, for a person to have a number of personae depending on their surroundings at any given time. We would think it completely natural for a father of a young family to act differently when he’s at home to how he does working as a policeman, or prison guard. Although this example is extreme most of us can identify with adapting our persona to the situation; to wearing different masks. Jung’s acknowledgement that a persona is not stable, but a dynamic reaction to its environment, serves as a central theme that runs through many characters of DC Comics, and it’s fundamental to the plot of the most recent incarnation of the Joker.

Of all the DC characters it’s the Joker who most effectively transcends the world of comic books. This is due to it’s a character being an archetype that’s rooted deeply in both the psyche of the individual and the collective psyche of society. Whether we start by looking at Cesar Romero’s initial performance in 1966, go on to look at Nicholson’s 1985 portrayal, Ledger in The Dark Knight, or Phoenix’s latest interpretation, the role of the Joker has evolved. This evolution of the Joker over time, serves as one of cinema’s greatest examples of art imitating life. Each metamorphosis of the character is a reflection of American society at the time it was made. That is why audiences relate to him, and that is why the most recent film is so disturbing. Phoenix’s Joker, beguiles and enthralls, because he’s the symbolic embodiment of the chaos and nihilism found in western society at the time of this latest manifestation. It’s for this reason that we are either appalled, or fascinated by the character, but if we’re honest, we all know the character is not just a reflection of our society, but it’s also deeply embedded inside all of us, and that’s what makes the Joker so accessible and so terrifying. We’re shocked by Phoenix’s Joker because we don’t find it repulsive, which we should do if we’re the moral beings we would like to think we are, because we find it so easy to identify with him. The underlying reason for this appeal might be explained through the Jungian terms of archetypes, and the shadow persona.

Jung’s Shadow

Carl Gustav Jung was a student of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. As with any student teacher relationship, the student goes onto support some of their teacher’s ideas while also rejecting some. The influence of Freud’s ideas on Jung is clear to see. Both identify a boundary between the conscious and unconscious self. For Feud, the id represents our unconscious animal instincts, lusts for sex and desires. These are suppressed by the ego which acts as our usual persona, moderating between the animal instincts of the id and the aspirations of the values desired by the superego. For Freud, repressed desires would be the cause of a person being stuck in one of the stage of psychosexual development.

For Jung, the shadow is a part of everyone’s personality, functioning in a similar way to Freud’s id in that they are buried in our unconscious, but unlike the id, and as the name suggests, the shadow contains the darkest aspects of human being. Jung’s approach to psychoanalysis differed from Freud’s in one fundamental aspect as Jung attempted to integrate a spiritual dynamic. Jung encourages the individual to acknowledge their shadow, to fully understand the evil that each of us is capable of. It’s only once we understand and can control our shadow that we can go on to achieve self-actualization, or what Jung refers to as the individuation process. Unfortunately for Arthur Fleck, he can’t control his shadow, but is instead overwhelmed by it.

“The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

C. G. Jung

Jung’s representation of persona, ego, self, and shadow.

Feud’s representation of the ego, id, superego, and unconscious.

The Evolution of the Joker Archetype

Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or concretized in motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, recognizable character types such as the trickster or the hero, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion (Biddle, 1989: P. 25).

It would appear that there is some crossover between the idea of archetypes and memes, a topic that I previously wrote about Echo Chambers, Memes, and Brain Viruses – Weaponizing the Internet, a thought that was written about in 1998 by C. M. H. Nunn in their work entitled, Archeytypes and memes: their structure, relationships and behaviour. The main distinction being the longevity of an archetype. It’s common to be able to trace archetypes back to early human consciousness, while memes are nothing more than short term cultural trends of thought.

Jung proposed twelve archetypes of personality, Jung also believed that these archetypes operate on two levels:

Firstly they represent patterns of behaviour on a personal level; and

Secondly, archetypes act as cultural images and symbols which affect us all on a subconscious level.

To really understand the Joker it’s necessary to look far back beyond his birth in the pages of DC comics. The Joker’s legacy extends back through several thousand years, and is more commonly referred to in folktale lore as, the trickster. Jung identifies the trickster as:

An archetypal psychic structure of extreme antiquity.

In his clearest manifestations,“ he is a faithful reflection of an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level.”

C. G. Jung

Loki

Jung identifies the god, Loki, as the embodiment of the trickster archetype appearing in Norse Mythology over a thousand years ago. As Jung describes through his use of the word, persona, Loki is described as a shape shifter, or a wearer of masks.

Professor of literature, Joseph Campbell claims that the archetype of the trickster is very much evident in the god of the Old Testament, Yahweh. Through his actions of the flood, and destroying the Tower of Babel Campbell identifies the propensity for mischief associated with the trickster.

In Chinese culture the best example is Sun Wukong, or the Monkey King. This character is remarkably like the Joker, rampaging around the spiritual realm causing chaos before the Buddha incarcerates him in a rock for five hundred years. The story is based on a real life Monk from dating back to the 7th century.

Puck, or Robin Goodfellow

In Celtic mythology, and English folklore the trickster is represented by the sprite, demon, fairy, Puck, most famously immortalized through his misdeeds in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although apparent in Celtic mythology and English folklore, it’s thought that his origins might be Norse, and that he might be a descendant of Loki. Like Loki, Puck is attributed with the ability to change form as required. It’s believed that he’s been a part of oral tradition for over a thousand years.

In Native American Indian mythology the coyote is commonly used for the role of trickster. It is a role that has consistently been used in the narrative of stories ever since humans first started to tell stories. As such it is a character deeply embedded in individual minds, across cultures and time. Joker is the quintessential archetype.

If we chart the evolution of the character’s portrayal starting with the television show of the 1960’s, we see an anarchic, psychedelic, but pretty harmless Joker.Nicholson’s Joker, played in an era of American wealth and domination was mostly pantomime with some dark undertones. There was little emphasis on a decaying Gotham. Heath Ledgers interpretation of the character shifted the dynamic of hero and villain in a subtle but crucial way. Up until Ledger the Joker was always the nemesis of Batman, with a desire to carry out a plan. Ledger gave birth to a nihilistic villain, one who isn’t limited by a plan, one that is only interested in destroying everything, or as Michael Caine says:

There can be little doubting that Ledger’s interpretation enabled the Joker to become the most complete incarnation of the trickster archetype, to date.

In the character’s most recent incarnation we see the Joker’s sexual desires. An aspect that was hinted at briefly in the characters played by Nicholson and Ledger, but the most recent character clearly displays an emotional need towards sexual contact and to be part of a functioning relationship. This sexual, emotional desire lends Phoenix’s Joker greater credibility by showing his underlying humanity. Things then go very Greek for Phoenix’s Joker discovers that his childhood rivals the dysfunction of Oedipus, with a mentally ill mother, and a father whom he believes denies him. This origin story of the Joker clearly paints him as the victim of a cruel society, failed by his parents, failed by health services, and assaulted by the children of the city. Nothing is his fault, he’s a product of society. In the Jack Nicholson version, Joker was created as a result of being dropped into a vat of acid. In the Joaquin Phoenix version, the Joker is created by being dropped into society. This message might be disturbing. It sets the example that the Joker had no alternatives, he was a result of a declining society, in essence his free will was usurped by his environment, all of his actions are attributable to the declining society. This message resonates so strongly throughout the movie, and at a time when many feel their society is declining it’s easy to see people adopting this excuse at the expense of personal responsibility.

What seems apparent is that incarnation of the Joker serves to capture the zeitgeist of societal nihilism. Each incarnation moves closer to what’s, as Jung describes, “wrapped up in the archetypes that reside universally in the subconscious”.

As an origin story the plot serves as an explanation of how the character evolves from being a slightly dysfunctional, enigmatic loner, someone Camus might call, ‘a stranger’, in to an anarchic nihilist. The movie charts his fall using a path similar to that identified by Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey, the difference being that Joker never returns from what Campbell refers to as the the, special world or sometimes the, underworld, but what Jung would unquestionably call his shadow. You will quickly notice a number of similarities between Jung’s model of the psyche, and Campbell’s, Hero’s Journey. Campbell himself admits to Jung’s work being a fundamental component of his work on the mono-myth. Where Joker departs from Campbell’s path is at stage eight. We clearly witness the death of Arthur Fleck when he kills his mother, and his rebirth as Joker. The difference being, Joker doesn’t to complete his journey to be reintegrated into society, instead he becomes grounded in the persona born out of his shadow, the underworld.

Are We Born Evil, or Are We Made?

The movie treads a fine line explaining the reasons that cause Arthur Fleck’s transformation into the archetypal trickster and sociopath. Although not in keeping with the general feel of the movie, it’s explained in a conservative manner, failing to commit to either side of the nature, nurture debate. Instead a politically correct explanation attributes Arthur’s fall as being equally attributable to a morally corrupt society, childhood abuse, and the genetic predisposition of his mother towards mental illness. The nature of his own condition is never disclosed, although we do discover that his mother suffers delusions and was a patient in a mental hospital. This all plays into the realm of providing Arthur with the biological disposition for a personality disorder that could potentially manifest into something of the magnitude of the Joker.Add to this the withdrawal of Arthur’s psychiatric medication, and you have both nature and nurture conspiring against Arthur, and what ultimately leads to his being overwhelmed by his shadow. This explanation for the Joker’s origin draws more from reality than a comic universe. We are left to believe that Arthur’s fate was decided by society. That Arthur was denied the free will to escape the fate of becoming Joker. The movie makes Arthur out to be a stereotypical, clichéd victim. This is the trick behind the movie, making the audience sympathize with the Joker, creating cognitive dissonance and unease in the audience. But in order to achieve this they must abnegate Arthur of all personal responsibility in his becoming the Joker.

Possibly the most infamous example of social conditions influencing behaviour was produced by American psychologist Philip Zimbardo, a topic looked at more closely in, Contagions of Madness and Evil, in his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, in which Zimbardo coins the phrase, ‘not a rotten apple, but a rotten barrel, as a way of explaining the behaviour his experiment uncovered. The movie clearly depicts Gotham as the rotten barrel causing a rotten Arthur. Zimbardo supports the the importance of the environment on behaviour, but doesn’t go as far as using it as an excuse.

The reason for the impact this movie has had is that the trickster archetype has beguiled and taken over declining, modern western democracies. Whether they’re making promises that they’ll, “drain the swamp,” or threatening to restructure a nations economy without a clearly defined plan, the trickster offers hope through the annihilation of the system that the masses have come to recognize as having failed them. The Trickster exploits an opportunity to create chaos, taking control of a legitimate grievance and using it to control the people. These are exactly the circumstances that allowed for the rise of fascism throughout Europe in the 1930’s. The Trickster is an exponent of populism, appealing to the desperate who can be easily motivated upon hearing the rhetoric and empty promises they’re so desperate to hear.

In Jung’s Psychology and Literature, one of his essays found in the collection, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, he suggests that what influences the artist can not be separated from their creation. The artist’s creation, no matter how much they try and disguise it, is a reflection of their own mind, which in turn reflects the society that surrounds it. When looking at this latest incarnation of the Joker, through this lens provided by Jung, is it surprising that we find both obvious and subtle depictions of our world today throughout the movie? These are times of unprecedented change, economically, politically, technologically, and socially. It’s because of this that no literary archetype represents our current society better than the trickster.

Send in the Clowns – The Evolution of the Joker A Jungian Perspective This is an attempt to contextualise the protagonist of the latest DC movie, Joker, using the personality theory of the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung.

1 note · View note

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

The Disunited Kingdom and the Charge of the Brexit Brigade

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

It’s almost three years to the day since the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union. For three years I’ve refused to write a post about Brexit, there was too much of it already out there, and all of it sounded like the rants of confused people. Confused people uncertain about…

View On WordPress

0 notes

jimdroberts · 6 years ago

Text

The opportunity to write about sex robots has been tempting me for a while. I’ve been leaving it for when I needed to write about something lighthearted, something unconventionally kinky, an easy target for derisive profanity. I assumed sex robots to be that kind of topic.

Anticipating a world of sleazy men, surfing the seedy backstreets of the internet superhighway, in search of products to satisfy sexually deviant kinks. A collective of ‘loners,’ if that’s not too great an oxymoron, who have long since moseyed out of loves last chance saloon, and who are now willing to put their last hope, and other parts of their anatomy, into the hands, and other orifices, that technology might make available for their gratification. The men that romance rejected. In short, I felt that these were the types of men I could understand. Not having married until my late thirties I was no stranger to the sorts of perversions that result from loneliness and a high speed internet connection. I felt certain I could still find it within myself to understand why some men, and women, are looking for to be satisfied by robots.

My inadequacy to deal with this subject matter quickly became apparent, for I was nothing more than a guileless, neophyte when it came to understanding the doors to sexual depravity that technology is opening. As I researched this topic I was plagued by an unnerving sense of vulnerability; like I was sitting on a threadbare carpet, with a head full of acid, wearing only a pair of y-fronts, and playing Twister with Charles Manson. If your struggling to visualise the awkwardness of this situation:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I mean, sex robots, just how bad can they be?

Teledildonics

The first piece of vocabulary to wrap our mouths around is teledildonics.

It’s nearly impossible to make light of this disturbing image, but I’ll give it a shot. How can it be argued that this is just ‘armless fun?

At first I thought, how does Kojak fit into all this? Thankfully, he doesn’t. PC Magazine defines teledildonics:

Controlling the intensity of sex toys via the Internet. Also called “cyberdildonics,” the purpose is to allow a partner to control the sexual experience remotely. Developed in the 1990s, one early device used a transducer that attached to the computer screen via suction cups and picked up light messages to control the speed. Future versions are expected to allow the user to share a sexual experience with fantasy partners selected from a menu or that are created by combining a menu of body parts and attributes.

Imagine waking up next to a life-size teledildonic, Telly Savalas. Sucking a lollipop, at least you hope to god it’s a lollipop, and as you wipe the sleep from your eyes, and clear your head, whispering, “who loves you baby?” Go on imagine that. Imagine.

Sex robots, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Sex Robots and Romans, Dutch Sailors and Glove Puppets

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Sometimes it can be a source of comfort to know that when something that appears new

Pygmalion, by Rodin. Notice how Pygmalion leans away from Galatea’s advances by resting her left hand on a huge phallus shaped rock. Poor girl, truly caught between a rock and a hard place.

has actually been an established part of our society for some time.

The Metamorpheses, by Ovid, a writer already known at the time for his erotic poems, also includes the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. A synopsis, the sculptor, Galatea makes a sculpture of beautiful woman, Pygmalion, and becomes besotted with its beauty. The goddess, Aphrodite brings the sculpture to life, why, I mean it’s pretty obvious how this is going to play out. Sculptor succumbs to lecherous desires for sculpture. Okay, Pygmalion isn’t exactly an example of a robotic sex doll, just an ivory one. The story serves the purpose that the idea of making objects for sexual gratification isn’t a new one. So as well as the aqua-duct, the Romans might be credited with the concept of sex dolls. It’s also an interesting parallel as Matt McMullen, founder of Realbotix, arguably the world’s leading sexbot manufacturer, was himself a sculptor.

Does, Matt McMullen represent the evolution of the modern day sculptor, fulfilling the dreams of Galatea?

In truth, literature is littered with examples of inanimate objects becoming animated, usually by some well meaning, but ultimately dimwitted, fairy godmother, and then is the pursued for the remainder of the story by some pervert determined to shag them. Not fitting this story-line perfectly, but certainly still of the same genre, is the story of Pinocchio. Geppetto making his “wooden boy” tied up and controlled with string, with a teledildonic nose, starts to look suspicious. While I’m not comfortable to go so far as to accuse Geppetto of paedophilia, Elon Musk probably would have no such qualms.

Those are examples of stories that theoretically suggest the pleasure that might be gained from animating a representation of a human, now let’s get real with seventeenth century Dutch Sailors. The sea can be a lonely place, months away from home with no female company can do strange things to a man, such as making dolls from cloth and leather, that would probably end up being stuffed more than just straw. To this day, the Japanese will refer to a sex doll as a Dutch Wife. To give credit where it’s due, the French and Spanish sailors were themselves no strangers to this custom.

Paraphilia

Sex with robots and dolls is regarded as paraphilia. Paraphilia is listed in the DSM-5, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as being a mental illness concerning atypical sexual practice, it’s commonly diagnosed recognized in the majority of serial killers. However, a problem exists due to the fact that psychologists have achieved notoriety through a history of falsely classifying many behaviours as mental illnesses. Most notably, until 1968 the American Psychology Association classified homosexuality as paraphilia. Other mental illnesses that are now obsolete include:

Dysaesthesia aethiopica, a mental illness described in 1851 that conveniently explains the benefits of slavery, to the slave. Dysaesthesia aethiopica was a condition that caused black people to be lazy and spend much of their time wandering aimlessly. The cure for this, slavery. You can’t argue with the facts of science. You’re probably going to want a link for this, Dysaesthesia aethiopica.

The Vapours, a condition identified by Victorian psychologists used to describe “irregular behaviour,” commonly behaviour that inconvenienced their husband. “Women of independent mind,” were thought to be at greater risk of suffering the condition, and the suffragette movement was at times explained away as a mass contagion of, the vapours.

Inadequate Personality Disorder, disappeared from psychological text books after 1980.

defined by the DSM-II as a pattern of behavior marked by weak and ineffectual responses to external stimuli of an emotional, social, intellectual, or physical nature. There is no obvious cognitive disability in patients with this disorder, but they have trouble adapting to new situations, tend to have low stamina both physically and emotionally, have difficulty mastering skills, and show both poor judgment and poor social skills.

After 1980, a person exhibiting such a demeanor will be classified under the spectrum of behaviour defined by autism.

My point being, and not wanting to sound too much like a Scientologist, is that the psychological diagnoses of mental illnesses has numerous examples off misdiagnoses for corrupt financial, or social gains. I believe psychology does more good than harm, it was my major at university after all, but I ask the following questions; is there a possibility, that at sometime in the future, having sex with a robot might be considered, by both psychologists and society, as socially acceptable? What might that society look like as a result?

It’s considered as atypical because it is rare behaviour, who knows, in the future there might be teledildonic pride marches, people demanding that the love they have for their robot is real love. Once a critical mass is achieved and enough people march, the psychologists will be compelled to remove it from the DSM, recognising it as no longer being atypical sexual behaviour, but an acceptable social norm. When does the number of people become a “critical mass”? When it’s enough to influence an election with promises of reform. A survey conducted by Nest.org in 2016 found that over a quarter of young people would happily date a robot. This statistic implies that romance with robots is unlikely to remain a social taboo.

So let us imagine the future. Imagine Robo-utopia; does Robotopia sound better? It doesn’t matter, just imagine the benefits of having sex with robots. Nobody is lonely, apparently loneliness is more dangerous than obesity, there are no sex crimes, and no need for prostitution. Sexually transmitted diseases have been almost eradicated, and society as a whole, is no longer burdened by repressed sexual desires, leading to an overall improvement in its mental well being. And rather suspiciously, the Catholic Church proves to be an early adopter, replacing all of its choir boys with robots, by virtue of the enhanced vocals.

The Doubters

Critics, naysayers, sceptics. ill informed, self appointed social arbiters, poorly organised through the internet, into groups of loosely like minded people, reinforcing one another’s views inside of their reinforced echo chamber. Convincing themselves that their self righteous ideology and the value of their mission to enforce their values upon society is the virtuous thing to do. Every society has them, the sorts of people that believe that they’re doing a public service by trying essentially to make us all as miserable as they are. Their aims are clear and simple; to stop fun, to limit expression, and complete compliance to their puritanical ideology. Such people have already been able to ban chocolate, Kinder Surprise eggs for being too dangerous, in a country where you can purchase a gun in under an hour. The sorts of people who get snowball fights banned from schools, who demand labels to be placed on cups of tea warning us that it’s hot. Technology has long had it’s own antithetical groups, starting in the early nineteenth century with the Luddites who were initimidated by the machines of the industrial revolution. They have, rather uncreatively, re-branded themselves as “Neo-Luddites”. At the extreme end of the technophobia spectrum we have the Anarcho-primitivists, who from what I can gather don’t just resent the invention of electricity, but go as far as to entertain doubts about whether fire was a good idea. Pol Pot’s vision of returning Cambodia to an agrarian society, while slaughtering 30% of the population, is an example of anarcho-primitivism.

To the doubters they’re called Rape Robots, and they argue whether sex with robots can ever be consensual. This argument lands us in the gray area of artificial intelligence, sentience and consciousness. Consciousness and free will are both philosophical arguments that have been around for thousands of years, and as such they appear to be a very unlikely strategy for slowing the technological development of robotic sex dolls. The argument seems to be based on the fact that if the robot can’t experience pleasure, can it be considered consensual? This question seems to miss one pivotal piece of information, it’s not a person. It easy to understand people imposing anthropomorphic

Such fond memories.

characteristics on something made to look like a human, but it is still only a machine. I’m assuming these people would be less offended if someone tried to have sex with their vacuum cleaner, but what if we then drew a face on the vacuum cleaner? Does this make it more unacceptable? Does this transfer rights to the vacuum cleaner to deny sexual advances? I sincerely hope not, or I might be in a lot of trouble.

The website https://campaignagainstsexrobots.org warns of the possible doomsday implications that the introduction of sex robots will bring to society. A kind of cataclysmic, seedy, depraved Armageddon, in which love and romance become annihilated. Which are probably the very reasons that interest people to buy a sex robot in the first place. They claim that sexbots could destroy marriages, but this is misrepresenting the real cause and effect relationship in the situation, The sexbot doesn’t destroy the marriage, but it’s more likely that because the marriage is already destroyed that makes a sexbot an attractive alternative.

When Does Robosexuality and Robophobia Collide?

Matt McMullen, designer of the most advanced sex robot on the market, Harmony, described his invention, “…its primary function is conversation and companionship, its secondary function, is obviously for sexual and intimate use.“

At one stage in the documentary, “Beyond Sex Robots: Facts Vs. Fiction” the narrator asks the question, “so what’s it like to have dinner with the world’s first sex robots?” To which the recipient replies, “In a word, awkward. These aren’t the replicants of Blade Runner, or the Stepford Wives, they don’t understand social cues, and they can’t hold a conversation.”

Well that that describes about 90% of the dates I’ve ever been on.

One line that I found especially disturbing, “The neck enables the head to be attached to a number of different bodies”, traditionally this isn’t a characteristic of a healthy relationship, more the sort of thing a creative serial killer dreams about.

Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates have warned of the existential risk AI poses mankind. In regards to teledildonics this has me particularly worried. Let us make the assumption that one day AI does become self aware, and at the expense of committing the cardinal sin of attributing anthroporphic emotions to AI, I’m still of the opinion that once it’s worked out that some of us have been defiling, what are in effect its its early ancestors, it might become vengeful, at the very least upset. One of the great discussions in the field of AI is, whether it could have the capacity to become evil? Why would it become evil? Would AI have a sense of morality? Now I’m in no position to speak on behalf of Artificial Intelligence, but if anything could nudge it in the direction of vindictiveness, a history of sexual abuse might be the thing to do it.

…the first machines with superhuman intelligence will lack emotions by default, because they’re simpler and cheaper to build this way.”

But why do I have to understand? Just because it “weirds me out,” are these reasons good enough to allow me stand between a man and his $20,000, automated, latex, sex robot. If all the participants are consenting to participate, and as I’ve already said, the machine is an inanimate object. And what if the robot did say no? I’m sure that a large percentage of people buying these robots will program it at some time to say, no. This isn’t an uncommon fantasy, but isn’t it better that it’s a robot saying no, not a person? Couldn’t robots allow these fantasies to be safely fulfilled? And why is it, that when I ask these questions I find myself sat on a threadbare carpet, playing Twister with Charles Manson?

The Turing Test – The Imitation Game and Will Robots Fake Orgasms?

In his, 1950 article, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” the famous British Mathematician and computer science pioneer, Alan Turing designed a test that would prove whether a machine could imitate a human by the responses it gave during a conversation. C asks a question, and owing to a computer’s inability to replicate speech in 1950, C receives two printed answers to their question, from each A, and B.

The test is not perfect, it’s been criticised due to the vulnerability of the participant in role C, as well as the literacy capabilities of the person in role B. In my own experience, the computer, in role A is getting more linguistically competent while those in roles B, and C, are becoming less capable of participating in coherent communication.

While the Turing test is an interesting benchmark to assess a machines intelligence, the sexbot industry must need to adapt it to prove the authentic experiences their machines can provide. So how could this be adapted to test a sex robot? I’m not entirely sure, but I’m pretty certain participant C, needs to wear a blindfold, maybe nipple clamps, optional. A sort of ménage à trois ensues, by the end of which participant C has to identify which was the machine of the other two participants was the robot. It might demean the work of one the finest minds of the twentieth century, it might not even be very scientific, but it would be an incredibly popular experiment to participate in.

When it comes to sex robots it looks like we’re still along way off a it seems that we are unfortunately still a long way off from having a fully functional, teledildonic Telly Savalas. Our imaginations, our dreams, and our nightmares remain far ahead of the reality, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other high-tech sex products on the market.

Virtual reality, Tesla Suits and Neuralink

Try telling me this isn’t the face of a man contemplating the experience of virtual reality while wearing a sensation simulating skin suit, with his brain hooked up to a pornographic website.

It’s almost impossible to talk of the future of technology without mentioning the visionary, high profile, crackpot, pot smoking genius that is Elon Musk. Musk is the Willy Wonka of technology, just more enigmatic, more open to using drugs in public, and more prone to calling random people, paedophiles. But despite all of this, he remains near the centre of of the sphere of influence that’s designing our world for tomorrow. And while he’s not working on self driving cars, sending people to Mars, carbon neutral houses powered by solar roof tiles, a hyperloop subway running from New York to Washington, he might also be the most likely candidate to provide a fully immersive, digital sexual gratification.

No, Elon Musk hasn’t started plying his trade in public toilets, not that I now of. His two companies Neuralink The Teslasuit, a body suit that enables its user to a high degree of sensory experience of Virtual, or Augmented Reality.look like the more commercially viable product.Musk’s company Neuralink develops high bandwidth Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI). They are near to completing work on the Neural Lac, connecting its user directly to the internet, and with 5G and the internet of things, the potential is frightening. Musk’s Tesla company has already produced the Teslasuit that enables the wearer to experience the sensations inside Virtual Reality. Integrate these two technologies and sex robots will be the least of our concerns.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So , Concluding Sex with Robots, What Can Possibly Go Wrong?

Consumerism drives society’s appetite for ever more advanced technology, and if, you hadn’t already realized, this trend isn’t going to stop. Technology has been the cause of societal upheaval. While the internet has undoubtedly opened up unprecedented channels of communication, it has undermined most traditional western political systems that haven’t integrated the technology into their antiquated system. It’s facilitated the spread of radicalism, provided echo chambers for those to reinforce their bankrupt ideologies. As well as political systems, the internet has undermined economics, and entertainment. Until recently, most technological advancements have fundamentally changed society. Computer-Based Interfaces have the potential to change us as a species.

For any species, the urge to procreate is the most fundamental necessity of its survival. Sexual urges are among the most primitive we have. They originate in the oldest areas of our brains, and this is common to all mammals. The urge has been their long before our ancestors took up residence in the trees. The trouble is that technology is changing our environment at a rate far greater than we humans can adapt to it. So will we be having sex with robots? If we should’ve learnt one thing from capitalism, it’s that wherever there is a demand there’s always going to be a supplier to meet it. Isaac Asimov more succinctly said:

The Saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

It’s been too long: something I’d be programming my sexbot to say to me. Until next time, I must go put my blindfold back on, attach the nipple clamps, and dedicate myself to some critical scientific experimentation.

Will Robots Dream of Electric Sheep,While Having Intercourse? The opportunity to write about sex robots has been tempting me for a while. I've been leaving it for when I needed to write about something lighthearted, something unconventionally kinky, an easy target for derisive profanity.

0 notes

jimdroberts · 7 years ago

Text

Echo Chambers, Memes, and Brain Viruses - Weaponizing the Internet

Echo Chambers, Memes, and Brain Viruses – Weaponizing the Internet

This follows on from the post I wrote last month: Contagions of Madness and Evil. It’s taken longer than expected, the research for this follow up piece has required to be far more extensive than I’d originally anticipated, maybe it was worth it.I hope it was worth it.

Why is it that a bad idea often captures the public imagination so much effectively than a good one? Why does bad news spread…

View On WordPress

#computers #internet #memes #Memetics #Psychology #Richard Dawkins #Rohingya Genocide #technology

0 notes

jimdroberts · 7 years ago

Text

Is it just me, or is everyone going crazy?

I’ve often entertained myself by thinking of the chaos that could be brought upon mankind if mental illnesses were, like physical ones, contagious . Imagine, a man who goes to bed one night with a slight headache and a runny nose, wakes up the next morning in a psychotic hallucination, covered in a mixture of his own sweat and the blood of strangers, charging up and down the high street, head thrown back, laughing maniacally, waving a chainsaw. As the psychosis virus infects more and more of the population, the uninfected are forced underground, moving stealthily through the post apocalyptic wilderness. Essentially it’s replacing zombies with mental illness. Today zombies are more politically correct, society is more comfortable with the idea of your dead relatives trying to kill you than your mentally ill living ones. Although that hasn’t stopped Hollywood producing many movies exploiting mental illness for the sake of box office revenue: The Silence of the Lambs, Black Swan, American Psycho, Shutter Island, Secret Window, and Misery, to name but a few.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Still I’m left wondering, what if mental illnesses were contagious?

We can all relate to sitting in a doctor’s surgery, waiting our turn. I suspect fewer of us would admit knowing what it’s like to wait for an appointment to see the psychiatrist. From personal experience I can say that initially both waiting rooms look very similar, there’s more people talking in the waiting room at the psychiatrist, random people break out into erratic and impassioned conversations with people that don’t exist. In essence, performing convincing monologues with greater conviction than even the most accomplished Shakespearean actor could dream of. Meanwhile, at the doctor’s surgery there are only whispered, fragmented conversations, punctuated by nasal ejaculations, snuffles, and of course an abundance of coughing and throat clearing. In short you can enter a doctor’s surgery with a mild case of hemorrhoids, but leave incubating a new, exotic virus, or disease. The patients waiting at the psychiatrist’s are unable to play the game of pass the psychotic/neurotic parcel, because thankfully, psychiatric conditions aren’t contagious. Are they?

Are Mental Illnesses Contagious?

In his book “The Quantity Theory of Insanity“, British author, Will Self, tells a story that proposes the idea that within any given population, at any given time, the level of insanity is a constant. You might think that contradicts what I just said about people getting crazier, let me explain. The state of being mentally ill is tacitly defined through a person’s conformity to the social norms of their society, and diagnosis can only be achieved through the observation of a person’s behaviour. Take the picture below:

Symbolic of his devotion not to eat meat for a month, I imagine he’s also going to struggle with soup.

The majority of cultures around the world would regard a person displaying this behaviour as being mentally unwell. However, when performed in Phuket, Thailand, on the eve of the ninth lunar month, such a person becomes the life and soul of the party. His actions display his devotion to the nine emperor gods and his commitment not to eat meat throughout the ninth lunar month. Perhaps I’ was just fortunate to have grown up in a society that didn’t feel it necessary to measure my determination to achieve something by the amount of sharp metal I was willing to stick through my face.

Most of us would think of cannibalism as the ultimate, universal taboo, well not if you’re from the Yanomami tribe. The Yanomami are horrified by the idea of burying their dead, they believe that eating the dead ensures that the spirit goes on living in those who have consumed them, especially in those who helped themselves to seconds. With a population at any one time of over thirty thousand, it’s reasonable to assume that the Yanomami have a steady supply of protein.

Now in western culture, getting dressed like Tony the tiger and eating a dead relative attracts all sorts of negative attention, but it’s just another day for the Yanomami

There are scores of examples of behaviour from around the world where what is normal in one area, would be considered quite insane in another. QED, insanity is a classification largely determined by the context of society. Unlike physical ailments, a broken arm is a broken arm, whether you’re an Inuit living in Greenland, or a member of the Tuareg traipsing around the Sahara. Likewise cancer is cancer irrespective of what culture you’re from, religion you might practise, or language you speak. Mental illness however isn’t a constant, rather it is determined through the context of social norms.

Let’s reconsider our chainsaw wielding psychotic. Place him on the high street covered in other peoples blood, and he’s regarded a lunatic, who must be locked away for the safety of the society. Put him on a battlefield in a foreign country, wearing army fatigues covered in other people’s blood, and he comes home a hero and gets a medal, probably going on to appear on a variety of day time television shows.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Generally any behaviour, or cognitive deficiency that falls outside of societal norms will be classified a mental illness. The problem is that after removing the person least conforming to the norm, inevitably leads to another person replacing them, taking on the mantle of now being the group’s “craziest” member. This is a phenomenon that I have first hand experience of.

Having worked in classrooms for over fifteen years I have seen this dynamic conformed to without exception. Every class has its clown, or trouble maker, and some days the teacher is lucky because they will be sick and not come to school. The teacher naturally believes, that with the instigator of most of the classroom trouble away, they’re in for an easier day. WRONG! Because what happens is the role of classroom clown simply gets passed on to someone else. It’s like there’s been an understudy who’s almost equally as proficient, waiting in the wings for their opportunity. It’s like they’ve been the understudy waiting for the role the whole time. Every group dynamic requires roles to be fulfilled, the classroom being no different. Remove the “crazy” person from society and the title simply gets passed on to the next, least conforming, “craziest” person that remains. Just like Self implies, the quantity of sanity is static, but dynamic on account of it being passed from one person to another. The role of classroom joker can’t be removed, only transferred to someone else.

This suggests that society plays a significant part in determining the our role within it. This also implies that society influences our behaviour, and asks the question, how free is free will?

Unless an individual has a particularly strong character, the rigidness of societal norms often forces its members to conform, whether consciously or not, and regardless of whether conformity has negative implications. Indeed, any negative implications are disregarded because they fall outside of those defined by the society’s norms. And that’s how it becomes acceptable for a group of people to eat the dead in South America, for people to practice self mutilation on the streets of Thailand, and how a nation of people can be convinced into pursuing genocide. The desire to conform to others’ expectations, particularly if their expectations are regarded by the majority as being unquestionably right, can lead to a strong urge for conformity, irrespective of what the consequences of conformity might be.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ― J. Krishnamurti

This six minute video is an example of how our desire to fit in overrides common sense. The participants may only be standing up or sitting down, but the compulsion to follow others is clear enough for us to ask the question, what lengths will people go to, to fit in?

youtube

Group dynamics and environmental factors are immensely powerful determinants of behaviour. The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted psychologist, Philip Zimbardo in 1971, to this day it remains one of psychology’s most infamous and divisive pieces of research. Initially scheduled to last fourteen days, the experiment was abandoned after only six. Zimbardo wanted to simulate prison conditions using participants arbitrarily assigned the roles of prisoner or guard. Zimbardo expected to see some degree of participants conforming to their roles, but what unprepared for the complete collapse of basic human behaviour. Despite the experiment rapidly spiraling out of control Zimbardo failed to notice and act accordingly. It wasn’t until someone, not involved in the experiment, witnessed what was happening and told Zimbardo to abandon the research immediately. All the participants had embodied their roles far quicker, and more completely than Zimbardo had anticipated. Perhaps even more worrying is that Zimbardo himself admits to playing a role within the experiment, that of prison warden, and losing all impartial objectivity. The environment and the circumstances of the experiment overpowered everyone’s objectivity. The prisoners, despite having done nothing wrong, assumed their roles as prisoners and accepted the guards authority. The guards were quickly corrupted and showed the most disturbing behaviour. They devised degrading, non-physical means of punishment, much of it in elaborate, creative, disturbing ways. The Stanford prison experiment has received enormous criticism, ranging from its ethics to its results. I believe that there are reasons to believe that there is some truth in what Zimbardo discovered. One of the most compelling reasons was demonstrated by American reservists at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq.

Abu Ghraib

What happens when you ask inexperienced, untrained people to do a stressful job in dangerous conditions, in a foreign environment, supported by no clear chain of command?

The events that took place during August and September, 2003 at the prison complex at Abu Grahib is one the more shameful stories to have come out of American involvement in Iraq. The American Army, desperate for intelligence on the whereabouts of Iraqi weapons that were falling into the hands of Iraqi citizens determined to resist the American invasion. The Abu Grahib detention centre was put under the control of American reservists, with no experience of working in prisons or detaining people, they received no training that might in any way have prepared them for being given such a task. Like the Stanford Prison Experiment, things got out of hand quickly.

In a Lord of the Flies type of scenario, untrained, inexperienced guards, with no chain of command taking responsibility, established a societal norm of barbarity and humiliation. When interviewed today, each of the participants confesses to knowing what they were doing was “stupid”. Their need for conformity was greater than their need to uphold moral integrity, but then isn’t this an essential requirement of any soldier in combat?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Nazis

History provides us with too many examples of what happens when environmental circumstances, the need for conformity, and a morally bankrupt ideology conspire to lead a large group of people to behave in uncharacteristically cruel, barbaric ways.

Perhaps the most striking example of the evil that can occur when people are motivated to conform to a society with corrupted norms id the Nazis. And within the Nazis the case of Adolf Eichmann stands out. Eichmann, was responsible for overseeing the logistics of the holocaust. Eichmann was responsible for the efficiency of a process that led to the deaths of over six million Jews, as well as many more Romani Gypsies, gay people, the mentally ill and priests.

After the war Eichmann fled to Argentina and was in hiding there until Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, captured him and took him back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. From a combination of Eichmann’s court testimony and historical documents, Hannah Arendt concluded that Eichmann wasn’t a monster, or a sociopath. In fact Eichmann appeared mundanely normal. Eichmann recounted how he was responsible for arranging the transportation of Jews to the death-camps. He saw it as a logistical, theoretical task that he wished to make as efficient as possible. During his trial, Eichmann chillingly stated on several occasions, “I was just doing my job”. In short, Eichmann was conforming with the abhorent societal norms of a society that respected abhorrent behaviour. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Whether madness, evil, or just bad behaviour, none of these are values set in stone. Instead our interpretation of these they are dynamic, subject to being defined by our society’s changing morality. Was Nazism an epidemic of madness and evil? It’s not unreasonable how it might be viewed this way. Humans are social creatures with a predisposition to fit in with others, throughout our evolution conformity has been necessary for survival. What society expects of us has a great bearing on how we act. As the saying goes “evil will prevail when good men do nothing”, but understanding what is evil and what is good, in a society that is changing rapidly, is far from easy, but must never be used as an excuse to forget our fundamental responsibilities as humans.

Next time I will continue from here and look at memes, mind viruses, and why bad ideas spread quicker than good ones:

Memes Religion and Nazis

youtube

Contagions of Madness and Evil Is it just me, or is everyone going crazy? I've often entertained myself by thinking of the chaos that could be brought upon mankind if mental illnesses were, like physical ones, contagious .

0 notes