#however i undermined the whole thing because on days where i felt vulnerable and got a bad roll i would simply lie in my log

[pochapal]

back to the magic/gambling thing that was brought up like forever ago

[themattress]

My Top 15 Favorite Gotham Characters

Plus one Honorable Mention.

Honorable Mention: Silver St. Cloud - She's an honorable mention because of how tragically the show wasted her. Silver was a standout character in 2A's “Rise of the Villains” arc, as we see all the layers peeled back from whimsical, kind-hearted, well-mannered young socialite to cruel, manipulative, cold-blooded agent of an evil religious cult to vulnerable, scared and remorseful girl in way over her head who forges a real emotional connection with Bruce. However, despite all the rich potential for her to develop even further as a character, she was never seen again after the 2A finale. 

15. Tabitha Galavan - While as a character she's the very definition of a second-stringer, Tabitha is an interesting case study in what happens when a single ember of innocence is still left burning within the darkest of souls. Raised in the evil Order of St. Dumas and kept firmly under her older brother's thumb, Tabitha is certainly no angel, being the sort of person who will fatally stab an innocent old woman in the back and feel no remorse. But the desire to care and be cared for is still very strong in her, and we see it manifest many times: with Silver, and with Selina, and with Barbara, and of course with Butch. Unfortunately for Tabitha, she is also a case study in how this doesn't guarantee that such a person will receive a happy ending, as she is unable to avoid karmic justice.

14. Butch Gilzean - I didn't really care about Butch initially, since he didn't seem like anything more than Fish Mooney's affably evil muscle. After he became brainwashed into obeying the Penguin's every command, he gradually became more interesting and sympathetic, and by the time he got romantically involved with Tabitha I had become so accustomed to him and his perversely likable sort of villainy that I couldn't imagine the show without him. But maybe the show would have been better off without him after his death in the Season 3 finale, as the immediate retcon afterward of his real name being Cyrus Gold and his resurrection as Solomon Grundy in Season 4 was just nonsense, especially when he ends up just as dead in the Season 4 finale as he was in the Season 3 finale, so what was even the point? Sometimes, dead is better, and I’m sure Butch would agree.

13. Harvey Bullock - For much of Season 1 it felt like the writers were trying to play Harvey Bullock too seriously, and I think that was a mistake because the character always benefits from being played more broadly, and lord knows that Donal Logue can do that very well. Thankfully, that's exactly how he started to be played more often from Season 2 and onward, with whatever serious arcs he did receive such as in Season 4 benefiting from him being so much more likable as a result. I'd rather watch him on screen than Jim Gordon any day.

12. Leslie Thompkins - While initially kind of bland, Leslie "Lee" Thompkins is a character that grew on me overtime. I felt really sorry for her throughout Seasons 2 and 3 as Jim Gordon proved to be the worst love interest ever, bringing her no end of pain, and then in Seasons 4 and 5 she used that pain and anger to shape herself into a total badass anti-heroine who was still all about helping those in need but now was open to using less than moral means to accomplish this. She's a character who finished the show stronger than she'd ever been, and her and Barbara becoming bros is everything I never knew I needed.

11. Sofia Falcone - Sometimes, a sharp and devious mind is all it takes for someone to be a great villain, and damn did Sofia ever put hers to good use. In the comics, this was a forgettable character who was just an obvious thug in design and demeanor, but Gotham's version is terrifying in how petite and pretty and kind and charitable and all around attractive in every way she is...the perfect way to manipulate others and conceal that on the inside she's beyond just a thug; she's a raging, ruthless, vindictive, amoral sociopath who only cares about herself. And kudos to Crystal Reed, whose performance sold the character perfectly. The only real downside to Sofia is that the writers clearly were forced to write her out earlier than anticipated, and her abrupt exit from the show is nowhere close to being as satisfying as the build-up to her gaining power within the city would lead you to believe.

10. Ra's Al Ghul - As wonderful as Sofia was, there was never any question as to whom Season 4's most formidable villain was: the same villain who is the series' ultimate Big Bad, Ra's Al Ghul. Beyond the phenomenally perfect casting of Alexander Siddig, who is hands down the most comics-accurate portrayal of the character in live-action to date, Ra's benefits from the series positioning him as the final answer to the long-running "who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne?" mystery and totally being able to convince viewers that most of this series' events were according to his plans due to the self-assured, in-control and borderline omnipotent way the Demon's Head carries himself. No-one in Gotham City is left unchanged by his machinations, least of all his chosen "heir" Bruce Wayne. 

9. Hugo Strange - The Big Bad of 2B's "Wrath of the Villains" arc is in the running for the show's most despicable villain. Professor Hugo Strange is a brilliant psychologist and scientist, but he is utterly devoid of a conscience and will do anything to achieve his twisted aspirations, from ruining peoples' lives with his experiments to bringing people back from the dead to personally ordering the death of those he considers to be friends. What makes Strange enjoyable in spite of his depravity is B.D Wong's performance: he looks absolutely perfect as a younger version of Hugo Strange and his voice seems to be channeling Corey Burton's Christopher Lee-inspired take from Batman: Arkham City.  He's a much stronger villain than 2A's Theo Galavan, and tellingly got to return in every following season.

8. Edward Nygma - I really wish I could place Ed higher on this list, since the Riddler is one of my favorite Batman villains and Cory Michael Smith is perfect in the role. But sadly, he's the subject of some really weak writing throughout the show that holds him back from breaching my personal Top 5. Whether it be the constant Nice Guy(TM) hounding of Kristen Kringle, the bizarre Two Face-esque split personality angle, the ungodly stupid Isabella plot device and subsequent clashing with the Penguin because of it, his needless romance with Lee that didn't make sense for either of their characters (which wasn't helped by the fact that it happened at a time where he kept on getting made a fool of in a way that undermined how menacing he was just a season ago), and being used as an obvious red herring in the Haven explosion mystery...he really deserved better material, and it's lucky that Smith makes him so enjoyable to watch since it would otherwise drag him down much further.

7. Jerome Valeska - Cameron Monaghan's performance as Jerome single-handedly forced the Gotham producers' hands when it came to their original plans (or lack thereof) for the Joker in their series, as right off the bat he managed to perfectly capture the same maniacal energy that the likes of Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger did, meaning fans would accept no-one else in the role. While Jerome ends up being more of a test run for the actual Joker - the Beta Joker, so to speak - he still is one of the most frightening and malevolent characters in the show's entire run, spreading chaos for chaos' sake and causing pain to others just because he finds it hilarious, and doing it all in the most theatrical way possible.  

6. Jeremiah Valeska - Yes, I agree that this character's whole basis - Jerome's secret twin brother who actually becomes the Joker - and how he was introduced is unbelievably stupid writing; in hindsight it would have made more sense to just find a way to transition Jerome into this kind of characterization as part of a continued evolution toward becoming the Joker. But we're stuck with Jeremiah, and as it stands he is a much worthier Joker than Jerome was. I don't really like the Joker whenever he's written to have no motivation beyond "random crime and chaos because LOL crazy!!!" - the best Jokers always have a reason for doing what they do, it's just that it's always a twisted reason that holds no basis in reality and just serves as an excuse for the Joker to spread pain and chaos across Gotham City and match wits with Batman. (Ex: Heath Ledger's Joker may say he has no plans and just "does things" as a manipulation tactic, but in reality he does make plans and does have the tangible objective of proving his nihilistic, anarchistic worldview to everyone; Batman in particular.)

Jeremiah's penchant for intricate planning combined with the psychotic objectives that lie behind his plans is what makes him more believable as the Joker compared to Jerome, and it really felt like the show's stakes rose to an entirely new, darker than ever before level when he stepped up to the plate at the end of Season 4. I also love his development: being in denial about his own insanity and likeness to his brother until his personal obsession with Bruce overpowers that and causes him to willingly give into the madness so that he can be a worthy enough foil for Bruce as Gotham's Dark Knight, since that gives his miserable life a sense of purpose. Add to this Cameron Monaghan still pulling off that Joker energy flawlessly and you have a Joker that can stand beside Nicholson, Ledger and Phoenix's portrayals.

5. Barbara Kean - This one really took me by surprise. I knew going into the show that Barbara was considered a poorly written, irritating obstructive love interest to Gordon in Season 1, but that she got Rescued From the Scrappy Heap in the following seasons. What I didn't know was the way that rescuing happened - she goes crazy and becomes a surprise villain in the Season 1 finale, and from then on out she is freaking nuts in the most hilariously over-the-top way, with Erin Richards chewing the scenery for all it's worth. Barbara is so entertaining throughout the various guises and positions she goes through across the series, not to mention a complete badass who you just can't help but respect for being true to herself even if she's an awful human being. Her redemption arc in Season 5 was a beautiful way to bring her journey full-circle, and I don't begrudge her the happy ending she got at all.

4. Alfred Pennyworth - We're all used to Alfred the butler, but Gotham got me accustomed to Alfred the soldier. Sean Pertwee is thoroughly convincing in the role of the hard-assed, frequently grumpy or moody yet caring, loyal and dependable Alfred, whose relationship with young Bruce Wayne is perfectly depicted. The only time I didn't care for him was during 2A, where he was cruel and unfair toward Selina because she killed his treacherous war-time buddy who almost murdered him and was planning on doing harm to Bruce. Thankfully, from the midseason finale and onward he managed to redeem himself, regaining his status as one of the show's best-depicted characters and maintaining it all the way to the end.

3. Bruce Wayne - This character was always going to live or die based on what child actor was playing him, and by God did David Mazouz nail it in his performance. Even putting the dead parents and destiny as Batman aside, Bruce Wayne is clearly not a "normal" kid, being raised in the lap of luxury and privileged to the point of extreme naïveté, with an overly formal way of speaking hammering in his distance from the rest of Gotham City. Watching him grow stronger and smarter and more worldly and responsible as the series progressed was always a pleasure, and he naturally made a far more compelling protagonist than Jim Gordon did, with the show ending on the shot that it does making it even more clear that this was primarily his story all along; just one elongated origin story for the goddamn Batman.

2. Selina Kyle - For quite a while in Season 1, the teenage girl who would be Catwoman spent a lot of time just slinking around the fringes of the story and accomplishing little of value. But once she finally met Bruce, Selina's character really took off, and she ended up becoming my second all-time favorite character in the show. Aside from the strong writing and character development, much is also owed to Camren Bicondova, who is utterly charming in her depiction of the cynical, sharp-tongued, street-smart thief with a heart of gold, and she is even able to make her rushed final transition into Catwoman in Season 5 believable. And kudos to Lili Simmons who plays her in the final episode, she is perfectly convincing as an adult version of Selina, looking and sounding just as I expect Bicondova to in a few years. 

1. Oswald Cobblepot - OK, this is probably an unoriginal choice, but I can't help it - Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, is the one character on this show who just did no wrong as far as I'm concerned (as a character, I mean, he obviously did a lot wrong morally!) In addition to being the role Robin Lord Taylor was born to play, there is a consistency in the writing of his character and in the quality of his development that I think is unmatched by anyone else in the cast. Aside from that one blip in the Isabella plotline of Season 3 that I credit as more of a blemish on Ed than I do Oswald, he was always a fully three-dimensional character who acted and reacted believably, and he always stayed firmly on the line between being a heinous, ruthless, murderous criminal chiefly seeking power and a tragic, sympathetic, even funny and likable person chiefly seeking love.  And he always remained the "noble villain" when compared to the other villains around him; always the one you could count on to join the heroes and do the right thing when it counted because he's a pragmatist with moral lines he will not cross....and because he loves and believe in Gotham City too, in his own way.

[another-tiny-ant]

Why an ant? What’s it all about?

So I heard that Tumblr is the place to come to vent your feelings, and I have been told by various counsellors, etc, that I ought to write things down to help clear my head. I got out a notebook and felt far too embarrassed to put pen to paper, and there was greater risk of someone I know finding it, which would humiliate me even more. So the internet it is- in true millennial form. I don't expect anyone to read this- I actually kind of hope they don’t. But I think I need to start talking, and typing/writing has always come more easily to me. Also this way, I can avoid burdening or upsetting the people I care about. So here goes...

I think mental health problems have always been there for me. I was bullied from the second I started socialising with other kids, and I’ve often wondered why that was. I have a learning disability, dyspraxia, which has affected my coordination, processing, speech (especially when I first started school), as well as other vital life skills, like organisation and planning. I know that, especially because I was undiagnosed, but also because kids are cruel, this marked me out as ‘stupid’ or ‘vulnerable’- an ‘easy target’- or whatever, but I don't think that can have been the only reason. Perhaps I was simply too timid, or kind, or willing to please, and so I got stamped all over (fortunately only ever verbally, though I say “only”...). It sounds pretentious talking about myself like that. But school was simply something to survive for me, not to enjoy, ever, for the whole fourteen miserable years I endured. Despite that, I have always had a love and thirst for knowledge and learning, and that was where I found my solace when things got too much for me- getting my head down in the textbooks (especially because most of my teachers were useless, or even abusive, to varying degrees), finding problems and then finding ways around them. I had to fight my own way through, and find my own coping strategies, because there was never anyone in school either with the time, empathy or will to care. I suppose that’s something to be proud of- I thrashed my own path through that jungle of dashed young hopes and dreams. Though that sounds painfully bleak.

I would be lying if I said I've never had friends, or fun, or love. I certainly have. Though I think my experiences have made it hard for me to trust people- I open up reasonably easily- though only superficially I suppose- but I find it very hard to trust. Friends have taught me to expect people to be unreliable. There are exceptions though. Can you tell, I’m forcing myself to be positive? I have people to see and talk to- I just crave some kind of connection or kinship that I haven’t really found from friends. The one person, however, with whom I do share that kinship, who ‘gets me’, and always not only exceeds, but explodes my expectations, is my boyfriend. Whenever I am down, or vulnerable, or upset, he doesn’t recoil, or ignore me, or push me down more, as I would expect any person to do- he gives me his hand and helps me up. He helps me brush down my clothes, clean myself up. He puts a smile on my face and reminds me that some people at least, are good. Not just good, but pure. Loving, open souls who spread positivity, like light that shines from their bodies and penetrates even the darkest shadows. And he does all of that, without even realising, or making any conscious effort. He is just himself. ‘Just’ implies some kind of put down- but nothing could be more perfect, or glorious. I don’t think he has any clue quite how wonderful he is. In fact, he’ll deny it out of hand. I wish he could see himself as he is reflected in my eyes- perhaps that would make his own battles so much easier to fight.

I have been struggling again recently. Just to state the obvious- anyone who read this I’m sure would see that straight away, just from my tone-of-written-voice. I would at least. But then perhaps, I’m different. I went to my uni GP surgery the other day- when I finally did get them to agree to see me- and tried to speak to one of the GPs there about what’s been going on inside my head. The trouble is, I stammer and struggle to get my words out, or really articulate what I mean, when I get worked up or confronted with those kinds of situations (hence this blog- my mind suddenly becomes less cluttered when I start to write- and less panicked). So the appointment really didn't go well. Added to that, I was very obviously quite under the weather- but the first thing I was told when I arrived was that “we can’t possibly address more than one issue in this appointment”. My mind becomes so much foggier when I’m ill, and my ability to cope becomes virtually non-existent. The only times I’ve ever punched bullies have been when I’ve also been unwell. Anyway, when I started trying to describe how i’d been feeling (and failed dismally to convey quite the aching bleakness I feel in my chest sometimes), the doctor googled a depression questionnaire, and got me to score myself on the questions. Naturally, I paled at the thought of potentially over-exaggerating, as I’m permanently paranoid of undermining the much bigger battles other people experience, so as always, I under-played everything I was feeling, and the results were pretty unrepresentative. Even so, I scored on the depression scale (though that sounds like an utterly arbitrary, bullshit scale to say the least). I suppose that was her way of telling me she was diagnosing me. Five minutes later, I was turfed out of the seat I was in, and clutching a list of phone numbers she’d handed me, as I walked out of the surgery, I felt no closer to mending myself that before I went. If anything, I felt even more cut loose and abandoned, in an institution that wouldn’t care if I lived or died. That’s not to say I’m suicidal, but I do often feel so overwhelmed that i just want to get on a plane and fly far, far away, and never come back. 

In case you hadn’t already guessed, I’ve kind of forgotten where I was trying to go with this. I suppose I’m just pressing keys and spewing words and hoping that I will suddenly feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. Nothing that miraculous has happened, but I do suppose I feel somewhat better for getting things off my chest. I suppose I just find it hard to see the good around me sometimes, and I take for granted what is special around me. I can remember from pretty much when I started talking (and more importantly, people started understanding me- let me tell you, that took a while), I was always called a pessimist. I have to consciously remind myself how lucky I am. I suppose that's why I feel so ashamed to talk about what's inside my mind. But I have my health (physically at least). I have my mind (for the most part). And I have potential. Most importantly though, my family could not be more supportive of me, and openly loving, and I couldn't be luckier to have my extraordinary, sunbeam boyfriend. Christmas is coming up, and not only will i get to escape university, but I will get to go home and spend quality time with the people I love most. I’m not in the slightest bit religious, but I love how everyone makes an effort to put all the crap to one side at Christmas, and just share their love instead. Beyond that, there will be the summer. So there is hope. I just have to keep reminding myself.

I remember now what the whole point of this post was. Haha! What did I say about my planning ability? I wanted to explain my Tumblr name/blog name/whatever-the-fuck-its-called, but basically why I am referring to myself as an ant. The basic reasons- it’s anonymous, first and foremost. But its also non-identifying, non-gender/age/class/creed/etc-specific. The real reason though is that it comes from something my mum has always said to me. So I’ve always been criticised for being a ‘perfectionist’. A counsellor even sent me links to webpages to read all about perfectionism, procrastination, and self-destruction. If I were to write an honest CV, those are probably the ‘skills’ I’d boast about. So when I get worked up about not doing a “good enough” job of something, or putting too much pressure on myself, or I’ve fucked it all up, my mum gently says to me something along these lines: 

“We’re all just tiny ants, scuttling around on the log of the Earth. None of us are more important than the other, but none of us are that important either. That’s not to depress you, but to remind you that existence is short. You’re not around for long. Don’t spend your life stressing about what you’ll achieve. Just do good. Even if it’s just in small ways. Treat people right. Care about the right things. Be kind, always. Make the small changes that you can and live happily. That's what it’s all about in the end. Just do the good that you can.”

That’s not to say that she doesn’t support any ‘big’ ideas that I have. Or that she doesn't tell me “you can achieve anything you set your mind to”, because those are also things she says to me all the time. What she means is take comfort in this perspective- don’t make things matter too much. Save your energy and enjoy your life, because life is short, and you do only get one go at it. And that perspective of being a tiny speck, if even that, in the plane and timescale of existence has always frightened me, but I think I am finally maturing enough to understand what she means. Live your best life, to the best of your abilities, with the best people, and love freely and plentifully. Don’t get yourself wrapped up in what it all means, or what the point of it all is. You’re just an ant- but not “just” an ant. You are a being with a life that you are going to live as best as you can. So this is me, trying to come to terms with the point of it all, but not wrapping myself up in “the point” of it at all. 

I’m Another Tiny Ant. 

🖤🐜🖤

[radredrecluse]

Survival of the Richest

The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind

Douglas Rushkoff

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”

I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys — yes, all men — from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years, now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data, concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”

It’s a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride. Will it be Musk, Bezos, Thiel…Zuckerberg? These billionaires are the presumptive winners of the digital economy — the same survival-of-the-fittest business landscape that’s fueling most of this speculation to begin with.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital future felt open-ended and up for our invention. Technology was becoming a playground for the counterculture, who saw in it the opportunity to create a more inclusive, distributed, and pro-human future. But established business interests only saw new potentials for the same old extraction, and too many technologists were seduced by unicorn IPOs. Digital futures became understood more like stock futures or cotton futures — something to predict and make bets on. So nearly every speech, article, study, documentary, or white paper was seen as relevant only insofar as it pointed to a ticker symbol. The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively.

This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities. Technology development became less a story of collective flourishing than personal survival. Worse, as I learned, to call attention to any of this was to unintentionally cast oneself as an enemy of the market or an anti-technology curmudgeon.

So instead of considering the practical ethics of impoverishing and exploiting the many in the name of the few, most academics, journalists, and science-fiction writers instead considered much more abstract and fanciful conundrums: Is it fair for a stock trader to use smart drugs? Should children get implants for foreign languages? Do we want autonomous vehicles to prioritize the lives of pedestrians over those of its passengers? Should the first Mars colonies be run as democracies? Does changing my DNA undermine my identity? Should robots have rights?

Asking these sorts of questions, while philosophically entertaining, is a poor substitute for wrestling with the real moral quandaries associated with unbridled technological development in the name of corporate capitalism. Digital platforms have turned an already exploitative and extractive marketplace (think Walmart) into an even more dehumanizing successor (think Amazon). Most of us became aware of these downsides in the form of automated jobs, the gig economy, and the demise of local retail.

But the more devastating impacts of pedal-to-the-metal digital capitalism fall on the environment and global poor. The manufacture of some of our computers and smartphones still uses networks of slave labor. These practices are so deeply entrenched that a company called Fairphone, founded from the ground up to make and market ethical phones, learned it was impossible. (The company’s founder now sadly refers to their products as “fairer” phones.)

Meanwhile, the mining of rare earth metals and disposal of our highly digital technologies destroys human habitats, replacing them with toxic waste dumps, which are then picked over by peasant children and their families, who sell usable materials back to the manufacturers.

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.

The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we come to see human beings as the problem and technology as the solution. The very essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a feature than bug. No matter their embedded biases, technologies are declared neutral. Any bad behaviors they induce in us are just a reflection of our own corrupted core. It’s as if some innate human savagery is to blame for our troubles. Just as the inefficiency of a local taxi market can be “solved” with an app that bankrupts human drivers, the vexing inconsistencies of the human psyche can be corrected with a digital or genetic upgrade.

Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor. Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind, along with our sins and troubles.

Our movies and television shows play out these fantasies for us. Zombie shows depict a post-apocalypse where people are no better than the undead — and seem to know it. Worse, these shows invite viewers to imagine the future as a zero-sum battle between the remaining humans, where one group’s survival is dependent on another one’s demise. Even Westworld — based on a science-fiction novel where robots run amok — ended its second season with the ultimate reveal: Human beings are simpler and more predictable than the artificial intelligences we create. The robots learn that each of us can be reduced to just a few lines of code, and that we’re incapable of making any willful choices. Heck, even the robots in that show want to escape the confines of their bodies and spend their rest of their lives in a computer simulation.

The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans suck. Let’s either change them or get away from them, forever.

Thus, we get tech billionaires launching electric cars into space — as if this symbolizes something more than one billionaire’s capacity for corporate promotion. And if a few people do reach escape velocity and somehow survive in a bubble on Mars — despite our inability to maintain such a bubble even here on Earth in either of two multibillion-dollar Biosphere trials — the result will be less a continuation of the human diaspora than a lifeboat for the elite.

When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story 108

I always felt like I was walking between a tightrope of greatness and failure. My ego always felt too large or too small. My mind had become a very difficult thing to balance alone, and by this time I had absolutely nobody I could really talk to. Josh and Whitney fought. I remember listening to a lot of their fights since Whitney's room was right next to my own. Whitney often shrieked at Josh and said his name over and over. Josh mumbled cold things back that I never could hear very well. It seemed chaotic, but after awhile I realized it was almost a game between the two of them, because Whitney would scream at Josh to go away, so he would start to go away, and then she would scream his name for him to come back. And then they would fight more, but they would go out on the porch and share a cigarette as they did so.

I guess I felt like a child in their presence. Here I was, fresh out of a sad dark tunnel that had been my life, a young girl in my early twenties. I had never had a boyfriend to even fight with, let alone an ex. I was still a virgin. I didn't smoke or drink or do drugs. I didn't even drive a car. Nobody knew me except for a small handful of people that had decided that I was wicked in some way for whatever reason, and aside from them the only person I really had who seemed to care about me in any capacity was Josh.

I flipflopped between being enormously disappointed by romance. I had really truly believed that things were more cinematically beautiful when it came to love. I felt like it was a waste how people made things so unromantic. And by romantic I don't mean like love and affection – though that is part of it. I mean, I thought that life should be played out like a theater and people should live with their hearts on their sleeves. When people are lonely, the loneliness should be transformed into something beautiful and tortured and timeless. When people were angry, they should express that with more theatrical intent. I'd read more books than I had ever talked to people – Josh said he could tell by the way that I spoke like I was reading a book rather than having a conversation. But so far, everyone was really sloppy and everyone wanted to get something for nothing, and they would rather be passively entertained then make their life – with all it's imperfections into something artful. I found myself recreating people's boring exterior when I got to know them better into something more to my taste. I made up stories about the people I saw on the streets. And I vowed that if life killed me, I would make sure I didn't die a slow meaningless death built around empty comfort. I wanted to live a life that I could write about.

I remember Whitney started liking this guy at work – I don't even remember his name in all sincerity. He looked strangely and a bit vaguely like my brother David – only more tan and older and more mature and such. He had a really nice car and his long time girlfriend had just left him, and he was pretty nice overall – and Whitney made a secret comic book about him and we both called him the Moonman as a code word. He left for Seattle two months after he started and I never really saw him again. But while he worked as a cook at Zany's, I studied how Whitney looked him in the eyes one time, and it really shocked me. She did this swirly thing in her pupils when she looked at him one time while opening the door, and it crossed my mind that people all around me were putting out these intentional microexpressions towards one another in order to lure the other in. I had just been legitimately surprised. I didn't understand that kind of body language I guess.

I had nothing left to lose, and Josh was pretty much the only important person to me anymore. I had a deep care for Allison's well being even if I could do nothing for her – she was a teenager and her life had just been a wreck and someone needed to secretly be looking out for her even if she didn't realize that right now. I hovered around in the outskirts of her life calmly looking over her to make sure she was safe. I knew Josh and Whitney were terrible influences. Ultimately though – I wanted Allison out of the situation because she wasn't getting anything positive from this experience living at the madhouse and mainly, Josh had suddenly become my main objective in life. He took over every failed relationship I had ever had spanning throughout my teen years and early adulthood. Josh replaced my concept of family. He replaced my feelings of longing I had once had for Zack. He replaced my friendships. And what's more, he also created all this new want and care and love I had not even fully realized existed. I didn't even know what I wanted from him to be honest. I just loved him unconditionally, and I could never imagine myself being anywhere else that wasn't besides him – even if he never properly understood that. The idea of being his girlfriend – though I was satisfied by the idea, it seemed besides the point. I felt like the concept of being a significant other was a very loose description for an idea that wasn't as evolved as what I wanted.

Whitney and Allison were in the way of me and Josh, they created a barrier that seemed dumb. Josh and I had a lot more in common than them. In fact, I had never met anyone in my life I felt I had so much in common with. I didn't feel like I would ever really get to know Josh unless they were out of the picture however. He would cling to Whitney and try to contend with Allison and I would sit quietly in the corner, or I would leave the room entirely and that was that. Quietly, I began to smile to myself every morning and undermine them whenever it was morally fair to do so. I felt like the smartest person in the house because I did it by planting ideas in Allison and Whitney's minds, I did it by being in the right place at the right time in a way that disarmed Josh, and I did it with eye contact. When I walked by Josh and Whitney sitting on the couch together, I would get this wave of jealousy that made me nauseated, but rather than let myself crumple, I would use that pain and I sincerely believe I was sending brainwaves to Josh that were intensely clear and that on some level he felt it. I was planting seeds in his mind too. I wanted him to think about me. Him and I would look at one another and it would be a strange moment for the both of us. And then I would leave the room. I never stuck around. I almost always made myself unavailable so that he didn't feel as bored of me as he might Whitney or Allison. I felt though, that even though I had left the room I was still lingering in his mind a little bit.

I guess I figured that was the key. Find ways to linger in someone's mind while you are gone. Give them that strange space to ponder what you were doing, what you said, how you looked and intentionally plant yourself in those situations so that it all happens before them by 'accident'. Try to get that in their minds. Then you leave them alone. When they see you again they will be self conscious because they were thinking about you. Then you can randomly smile at them and walk away and pretend not to see them at other times, or you can even set up awkward situations where you see them in a vulnerable position or they see you. It's a game I put a great deal of thought to. It sometimes takes several months to properly wear them down. And it seemed so strange to me to do this. Seduction almost seems more like war. You are aiming at your objective lovers weaknesses – but you are doing so in a way that will make them think you have what they want.

But at night I felt crazy and sad and starved. I remember crying once when I woke up at three in the morning to Josh – who was by now frantically obsessed with Whitney all over again, and telling her he was in love with her. He just knocked on the door, and said 'Whitney, I am in love with you and I can't stop thinking about you'. At the time this seemed so endearing and meaningful. I could never imagine anyone ever being so overcome with love that they would be that bold. She of course screamed at him and then they did their whole meaningless routine of exchanges that meant very little. Would there ever come a day when someone would knock on my door at three in the morning to tell me they were in love with me? Of course not. I didn't have the qualities that people fall for.

Despite my eating disorder that I was keeping to myself, despite how horrible I felt, I was beginning to feel like the sanest person in the house. What I was coming to realize was that what I suffered from more than anything was mood shifts. My thinking was actually very clear. I never became violently angry – but I went between blissful contentment, sudden sparks of energy that felt like tingling balls of euphoria running down my legs, and I would become hyper goal oriented, and when I didn't immediately see results for the quiet things I did to make my goals happen – which usually was something that wouldn't change things too drastically, like dying my hair or saying a joke to someone, then I would suddenly feel this pang in my chest of self loathing and I would become frustrated and then I would disassociate and spiral into this weird gloomy depression which usually ended in me doing something to punish myself – forcing myself to eat something I didn't want to, or abstaining from food for a lot longer than I should, or else I would force myself to sleep all day as punishment. And after I had punished myself and screamed hysterically into the silent void of my pillow, I would feel almost an absence in my head and heart. I would put my make up on and timidly open the door and tip toe about my life and it would all start again – usually in a week and a half to three week spirals.

I didn't let anyone know about these mood shifts, though if anyone had been close enough to me they would have been apparent. In a way I had always felt this way. It seemed perfectly natural to me, and I wondered if maybe I just cared more than other people or was too sensitive for my own good, as my evil kindergarten teacher had told my parents. Or maybe this pleasure/pain cycle was how people are meant to experience the world. All I knew is that I didn't want to involve anyone else. I felt like any imperfection from me would strain what little involvement I had in the world.

But Whitney seemed crazy because she seemed to not have any real sense of reflection for her behavior – where as I was very aware of everything around me and what I had done and said that might have been bad. Whitney wanted what she wanted and she would scream and cry till she got it. She used people. She was fake deep. She was always a victim and when she had to admit that she had done something wrong, she would talk in this babyish voice about how she was an evil little girl like it was cute. She used sexuality to get men to trust her and then she messed with them until they were a mess. In a way I didn't care that much – a lot of the guys she had been with were legitimately horrid people and their attraction to Whitney always came with this ugly patriarchal entitlement. Some evil part of me thought she was inflicting justice on some of these jerks. Years down the road, I strongly came to suspect that she had histrionic personality disorder. It just fit her very well. I did sympathize with her ultimately. I think deep in the layers she was sad and there wasn't anything remotely that a person could do to reach her. She was broken in the way where she wasn't really even recognizing herself. She had a sort of artistic awareness of the world, but there was a lack in real character and there would never be further development. Nobody would ever get honesty from her. As messed up as I was, I knew I could be reached and I didn't enjoy the symptoms of my issues. I could sense that somewhere outside the current options, there was opportunity for growth.

Josh was very entitled and self absorbed and he seemed to require a lot of balance in order to keep straight. Which made sense because he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and the longer I got to know him, the more clear this all became. He seemed to reset every three months, but living with Josh wasn't like living with the same person he had been a week ago. There were twelve different fully operational personalities almost, and each of them had a different connection to a different person. He even looked different, despite doing very little that was different with his hair or scruff. And Josh made people feel really special – because he seemed to look into people in a way that we all hope someone might, even in grocery stores. You just hope someone will look in your eyes and see your soul, and he really seemed to have that kind of clarity about him. But then randomly he was cold and jealous and shallow – and none of it made any sense. I felt there was some beautiful vulnerable insecure boy in him somewhere that nobody had hugged, and I wished more than anything I could get that side of him to come out. I wanted him to trust me. But when it came right down to a lot of his behavior and his selfish streaks, I felt he was a little bit crazy.

And Allison was just gone and I didn't know how to get her back. She seemed lost and hurt and confused. She spent days at a time in her bedroom. She tried to hang out with Whitney and Josh, but they both used her as a tool to work against one another, and I think Allison was beginning to feel used. She holed up in her room and listened to her indie pop music, pet Jude, and cried. All four of us living together, it was why the place was eventually nicknamed the 'madhouse'.

Sarah rarely ever wrote me back. When we worked together she always avoided me. She would scrape the plates into the dish pit garbage and I would spray them and we didn't talk too much. Occasionally we would make light conversation. I would ask her about her doctor visits and stuff. I missed her so much. I had to continuously remind myself that she didn't want to be my friend anymore, and that Zack was who she had chosen over me. But somehow I knew she was also empathizing with what I was going through – it was telling in her avoidance of me, and in the shiny glint of awareness she had in her eyes that she always gave me that made me feel like she was looking through me, and it was hard for me to juggle that despite her lack of communication, she was also on my side even though she had compromised our friendship and opposed me a friend. I began to wonder at times if she had left me alone because she didn't want to hurt me anymore more than it had been about me being the damaging element that everyone now seemed to label me as. And what I missed about Sarah was that she actually listened and reflected and stayed calm. Something had gone very wrong with Sarah that year, and in the end that was something she would have to deal with for the rest of her life, and maybe I would never understand what happened. But Sarah brought a certain grace in my life that I was now lacking. I didn't have the support anymore, or the balance. I was having to make it on my own.

I particularly remember a small but important element that Halloween night. I was at work, but nobody was coming in for food, and I am not sure if the place was really worth keeping open. Only sad lonely men in their early sixties had any interest eating on a Halloween night. The air was crisp and cold. The leaves were brightly colored. I felt charged with energy, but that energy seemed just as inclined to work against me as it did work for me. The night had a certain vibrancy to it that stuck with me to this day. Sarah was there as one of the only servers on, but as usual she didn't want to talk to me – I timidly asked if she wanted to go out to eat. She said no. Silently it shattered me. I just wanted to be around her. I told her we wouldn't talk about Zack. I would pay for the full meal. We could just talk about baby clothes. But she still said no. She didn't want to be around me. I felt this zing up my body of self loathing – and I wanted to destroy myself the second she refused. I remained calm. I smiled. I had taught myself to smile whenever I was sad, and in this absurd way, the shininess of my eyes and the intensity of my emotion translated to fairly warm and compassionate soft grin that tricked people, and even tricked me at times. I smiled with my sadness, and I walked to the bathrooms. I was having a miniature panic attack. It wasn't going to kill me to be in the bathrooms for awhile since there was nothing do to. I just looked at myself in the eyes very carefully for several minutes.

I could see madness forming around the corners of my eyes. I could see clarity and craziness in my pupils. I saw some newer version of myself in those eyes, a complete stranger that I knew all to well to be me. I could never be the person I had been in my previous years. I had wanted to break in the dish pit and in the women's bathroom, locked away from anyone who might've seen me – I pulled myself together slowly. I had felt this need to fall apart. But underneath that misery, underneath any pain I felt in the moment was this knowing that it would do no good – Sarah's departure from my life was part of the bigger tale. There was absolutely nothing I could do to make her want to be my friend. I had to live without friends for awhile. It would only project weakness to the universe if I didn't accept that. The sooner I accepted what was on the table, the sooner I could work with what I knew I did have. And at this point this late in the game, I knew better than to think anyone was going to up and change their minds. You can't waste your life crying about your opponent's previous moves on the chessboard. You just have to suck it up and pick your moves.

In my personal headspace, I guess you could say that I had become a practitioner of what I decided was magic, in c – though I have never felt comfortable with explaining this given the scientific method being what it is and also due to the fact that most of what I was going by was circumstantial in the moment, and in part more to gut instinct than anything else. I guess it's the default way that my mind works when I let go of my concentration and try to see things with clarity, more than I would explain it as a strict faith in any given structure that I can ever know that well. But the experience of consciousness has always felt unreal and magic to me. I had too many coincidences happen in my life, and even my draw towards Josh felt very magic to me – it just seemed strange and perfectly fitting that all these odd things had to happen to bring me to the one person in the whole area that I had something in common with. I am nearly certain that we had been in each other's orbit and experienced some strange and very specific things in our life that had finally isolated us in this house. As to what would happen next, I had to stop hoping for anything, and I had to let life unfold naturally – but it was hard not to hold out for things I hoped would become real. Bias is a strong thing.

There was a few days that October where I was walking down streets layered with golden yellow, orange and red leaves in the crisp air, and I felt a certain oneness with everything and I had a clarity that even though I was alone and even though my self esteem was very small in my day to day life – I had an awareness that everything was very big and intricate and all these situations were unfolding to make other things happen. Everything that happened was tied together – and if you shut off your mind you could kind of read into that. To me, my path was clear – I felt present and purposeful in a way I had never felt before. I felt charged somehow by something revitalizing – even though it also left me feeling desperate and alone at times. I was where I was supposed to be and this was all part of that journey to whatever I was meant to become. I felt like my thoughts had a frequency, that they were being transmitted and that I was part of this big beautiful thing that put everything into the place it was meant – even if I died, this was why and how I was meant to die. My story was part of a larger one. I felt like I created opportunities for growth in this way.

And it isn't really that I believe in spells – particularly ones that involve smashing up dried plants and saying words with candles burning. But a repeated thought or idea can begin to manifest itself in the most mysterious ways in your actual life. Symbols can derive meaning. I didn't feel like it worked the way a Christian who prays might want it to. I don't feel like you send for something you want and then you get it – I feel like you have to go about this mindset completely different. The outcome and value of what I am trying to suggest is far stranger than that. It's not unlike making art. And traditional magic such as making a love potion or a spell to make money come your way, just like Abrahamic religion and prayer, probably doesn't have any scientific value outside of the placebo effect – and this goes for horoscopes too. What I guess I sensed though, was that the things we needed in life had a way of drifting to us, or intentionally alluding us – all to some strange end – at least to me. It's admittedly something I can't stand behind as a world philosophy. It's not something I can really defend in the face of starving children – for which there is no higher meaning or purpose than a dead baby that was forgotten and never had an opportunity to live. When I talk about this intricate balance and force behind everything, I don't want to make it seem like a religion. I don't want to make it seem like I even like how these inevitable truths come into play. It's how I operate though. I have tried to ground myself and it doesn't work.

Because of how I seemed to float in this different wave then everyone else, and maybe because I felt like I angered so many people, and because of how much I had used this same strange untethered inner cosmic space in order to reflect and find answers floating (desperately trying to grab an answer is a sure way you will never find it), I felt like a sort of witch. And I continuously saw myself as a witch. Perhaps the symbolism of a witch, about that kind of taboo femininity in culture appealed to me. Maybe it was my kindergarten teacher's fear of my left handedness. Or perhaps I had found ways to manipulate others in a way that was suggestive and quiet – more given that I was surrounded by brute anger that I couldn't outmatch by my family, than it was given any intensely manipulative inclinations I had. I felt that I had somehow become the type of women that makes society uncomfortable. I seemed to get a strong reaction from people. Maybe all the crazy stuff from that year had been just me waking up to a truer version of myself that was coming into play because I had finally been able to take control of my own life. And maybe that was why everyone had turned against me. It was more or less just a theory, but in any case, I half held that theory as having a touch of truth to it.

Just as a certain kind of women made 17th century people uncomfortable with themselves and their society, I felt like I was some kind of postmodern version of all that – I felt a kinship to all the women who came before me who filled the same role. There is something in the collective unconscious to be said for that feminine force that tears everything to pieces. I served the sort of chaotic pool that everything we know comes from, the source of everything. I could feel that chaos in my chest as I walked to work in the morning, and I felt like it affected people. It's not that I wanted to hurt anyone, but having this new set ability to make people notice me was hard for me to ignore or monitor in myself. I respect structures, but it's also my inclination to tear down those structures when they no longer work. I wanted people who drove by me in their cars headed for work to question why they were driving to work. I wanted loveless marriages to end, I wanted housewives to get tattoos and everyone who couldn't break free and be themselves to do just that.

Everything gets taken down sooner or later. I accepted my ambiguous chaotic nature for what it was after I realized that Sarah and I were never going to be packing up and leaving everything behind us to get to Seattle. That had been my last ditch effort to do the sane thing. But now I was left here, and I didn't have the wherewithall to leave, so I was going to win this 'game' of whatever that had been played against me. I let go and became who I was meant to become. Some of what I was, wasn't even a person I was terribly proud of. But it was better to acknowledge it. I obsessed over my future in certain ways, but in other ways I really let go and let something deep and suppressed from years of living with my father and mother and from school. If I seemed neurotic than so be it. And it gave me this ability to interact with the world in a way that was meaningful and in someways underhanded – I had found some thread of control in a cruel indifferent world and I was able to have some agency after years of having none. I could use eye contact to be manipulative or I could use no eye contact. I could use speech patterns even. I could navigate my surroundings using my child self, or I could use my queen goddess self and both were legitimate. A lot of it was plainly psychological. You had to let people work against themselves, and face their life alone. You can't work with something that isn't there. You can't force a person who is madly dedicated and in love to leave that person. But you can recognize instrinsic weaknesses in said person and make them think they are falling in love with you – and once they believe they are, then they are – it's a slippery slope, but you can't make a slope out of something that runs uphill. I had finally discovered that – I had been working against the natural grain – hoping that my whimsies and fantasies would come true for me on account that I had suffered. And when I really let go into this sort of daze when my mind was at it's clearest, I knew myself better than I had ever known myself in my entire life.

Amanda at work tried to get me to go out on a date with a friend of a friend of hers. But then she thought better of it. She often drove me home from work and we would talk. She always stopped at the same gas station after work to get cigarettes. She talked about her fiance. He made her insecure – she didn't outright say that but I could tell it was true. She never felt like she was good enough. I had met him once after work that summer and I thought he was kind of a creepy gross asshole. She told me that I reminded her of her sister who had died. It was a little strange. In some ways we were similar. Both of us came from dysfunctional homes – and in some ways we had chosen to react to it all very differently. Amanda always feared that the more uppity servers looked down on her  because she seemed anxious and crude. They probably did. She felt she had overcome her demons to some extent, but brimming behind it all was this fear that she would inevitably begin to warp into her mother. I guess in my own way I have that fear as well. Us girls can never quite escape the genetics of our mothers.

Josh decided to conduct a 'family meeting' in the living room one evening after Halloween. It was to take place after we got off work. Whitney and Allison balked on it,  but I got dressed up and strategically decided to show up. Allison and Whitney were called in, and Josh one at a time began picked us apart. But he didn't pick me apart – because he couldn't. I had been watchful of everyone around me for the previous five months and I was prepared to be whoever I needed to be in order to gain Josh's regard. In many ways I used Whitney and Allison's insecurities and annoying behaviors to outline my own exemplary 'Josh-approved' behavior. I had been bookish when Allison and Whitney had been lazy and flawed in their thinking. I practiced self control when they over indulged. I was kind when they were mean. I listened to whatever Josh said when they ignored him. I recognized that Josh admired people who philosophize and question their surroundings. Obviously I was already good at that. It was an example of manipulating what was there. Everyday I found ways to demonstrate to Josh that Allison and Whitney were no fun to have around, and I was his ideal – I was his match. I silently lived up to his standards. I would cut my hair as he wanted me to, dress nicely everyday. I would read books when it was appropriate. I would listen to him talk about whatever topic he felt he knew a lot about. He didn't realize how intentional a lot of this stuff was. Not that my assets weren't real – I wasn't putting anything out there that wasn't some facet of me. I just demonstrated them intentionally, and made him believe it was his keen eye that happened to take notice.

To me, I felt this was the first win I had had in a very long time. In a way it was ruthless. I saw the other girls in my life as competition. Sarah (who had never had a spark of interest in joining the race), had been eliminated due to pregnancy and Zack. Allison was mostly freaking out because she wanted Josh's attention – she had had an idea of who he was and was not really willing to listen to anything he actually said. It was a combination of her being extremely self centered and being taken advantage of. She was letting Whitney lead her on – who was intentionally using Allison to make Josh even angrier. The poor girl could do nothing right in Josh's mind by the end. If I had not been in love with Josh, had he not been the primary benefactor in my life (I had to recognize everyday that having my own room was one of the best things that had ever happened to me), had Josh not meant so much to me in some cosmic destiny kind of way, I would have been upset with how someone so much older than Allison was mad at her like they were both teenagers. It wasn't beyond me to see how pathetic Josh was being – being led into hating some poor teenager girl who liked him because he had provoked her into believing it was acceptable. And Whitney just had no interest in Josh. She just wanted to rile him up before she went out and found a boyfriend so that there could be tension and hostility and she could feel sought after by two men rather than one.

Meanwhile, while everyone spun their wheels down – playing every card they had, I had quietly been observing everyone and gaining Josh's trust – holding aces. I knew the right moments to express intimacy and vulnerability and empathy for him in a silent way. And I knew when to hold back. It was a game. I felt like I had broken the ice with him in some quiet way. And I was proud too, because I realized that this was the first time I had ever been in love. I played this game and I knew how to win it because I actually loved Josh and I knew we were meant to be together. I could not have played the game so well had I not been meant to play it. This wouldn't have worked with a man I wasn't interested in. He was questioning himself if he liked me at times – it didn't feel right and he would put the thought away, but the point for me was that I had reversed his notion that I wasn't girlfriend material and I was causing him to feel confusion in regards to me.

Eventually I think Whitney picked up that Josh and I were quietly and wordlessly on the same page. It frustrated her because I was undermining her influence. Josh couldn't be nearly as obsessed with her if he had someone else to focus on. One evening Whitney was getting ready to go be a hostess. It was my day off, and it was just her and I in the house. Allison was at her weird school and Josh was off to his cableman job. Whitney and I were talking loosely about Josh – I don't remember what was said and it wasn't very meaningful or deep, like it was probably his favorite condiment or something trivial. Suddenly she blurted out angrily 'Josh will never marry you Renee! You don't have enough money!!', and with that she ran down the stairs. She said it in this way that was meant to be catty but cutting. Like she had opened a wound of sorts. But it sounded more desperate on her own part. I mostly was confused because I had no idea where she got that from what we had been talking about. And to be honest, as obsessed with Josh as I was, I had never said or ever really considered marriage – I still felt young and marriage was too adult.

All I wanted was to be his favorite person in the whole world – and for all the other girls in his life to go away. I wanted to be his best friend. Marriage is a financial arrangement. What Whitney was ultimately expressing was her insecurity with me playing her opposite. She felt her power in the house waning based on Josh's newfound appreciation for me. I counteracted her behavior very well. I made her look bad a lot. She was trying to make me feel insecure. I suppose she didn't actually understand what I wanted. Maybe she had some strange idea that marriage was the 'ultimate' thing I was looking for in life. And if Josh and her had had some silly childish conversation about what it would take Josh to want to marry me, and money had been thrown in, then I wasn't very hurt either. I didn't think Josh was in love with me. What I felt was more that I had come to a position with Josh where his feelings for me were fluid. He felt a lot of stuff – he kind of worked that way anyway. But since I knew I was meant to meet him and become some kind of partner of his, I didn't really doubt that he felt drawn to me. Of course he did. This was all meant to happen. It most certainly wasn't some weird money game. I am not even sure where money ever played a part, and I never found out.

Whitney started trying to date this guy she had been talking to for a few years. She met him back when she used to work at a computer parts factory. His first name was Christopher Lukas. Josh had worked with him as well at that same factory. And he was just the worst. I can't even really explain it. I knew Josh was resentful and jealous of Whitney being with some other guy, but he also seemed matter of fact straight forward when he warned me about how annoying and unpleasant this guy was.  Whitney invited him on a few dates. And Josh was right very correct. This guy knocked on the door one day and I felt grossed out instantly. He had this buzzy nasally voice and he spoke very clearly and arrogantly. He looked down at Whitney like a horny creep. I could tell Whitney was appalled by him, but she was hard up for male attention and was willing to try anything once to distract herself from the insatiable impulse to be the center of attention and make the world more chaotic and the ultimate loneliness of existence that can never be filled simply by sleeping next to a boy – but that never stopped Whitney from trying.

It only lasted about two weeks, but in those two weeks Whitney drove Allison and I up to Moscow so she could meet up with Chris. I went along because back in the day there was a very cool little record store in downtown Moscow, where you could find very indie albums that almost nobody in Idaho knew about but was all very mainstream in Seattle or Portland. It was affiliated with Subpop Records somehow. Anyway, it went out of business about five years ago now, and it was a shame to see it go. Idaho has very little in the way of options for people with alternative tastes or ideas in just about anything. You can drive down a city and see a lot of bookstores and exotic food stores and restaurants and record stores and think nothing of it, but in Idaho, a single one of those places is gold if you grew up forced into the singular boring redneck culture of Idaho.

It was  also a great opportunity to get out of the house for awhile – to get out of Lewiston specifically. I remember it was November by this time, and just on the verge of being snowy – as Moscow always gets in the winter. I remember feeling under dressed and cold. It was rainy. I lent Whitney a lot of my PJ Harvey albums, and she listened to White Chalk over and over in the car ride. If only Whitney and I could have somehow forged an aesthetically based friendship (which I am not even sure exists), we would have had something for the gods to envy. She didn't like all of the stuff I liked, but between her and I we really shared a lot of aesthetic interests – more so than anyone else I had met. She had a beautiful vision for things. It was a shame for me a lot of times we couldn't actually connect as people at all. Like, it made all the sense in the world, but somehow it never worked.  

I was wondering about the record shop looking through the records. I decided to buy Whitney a collection of the pretty much complete Vaselines as an early Christmas present. David, Allison and I had really loved the Vaselines and I thought Whitney might like them also. I don't remember what I ended up buying for Allison, but what I got for myself was one of the most critical and important albums I ever listened to on a personal level, and it's impossible for me to listen to that album to this dying day and not be transported back to a time and place. It was Morrissey's 'Vauxhall and I'. I ended up taking that album home and I put it in the player and it played on repeat for days on end. Every lyric of Morrissey's hit home with me in a very personal way. Every song on there was gold to me. It was an album that simultaneously helped me with grief, helped me reemerge from the ashes, and pushed me both into darkness and into light. So many of Morrissey's lyrics and thoughts felt like ones that I had had at some point or other. I guess it had never actually occurred to me that Morrissey was someone I was that similar to. He always had seemed so delicate and pompous in a quiet way, and 80's.

From there, I went back and started listening to The Smiths. Which soon ranked high as one of my favorite bands. And The Smiths are still up at the top. I fucking love The Smiths. Eventually my taste for Morrissey expanded. It's not all grand in the way that The Smiths were, or some of his early albums were – but Morrissey helped me cope with and make light of my own miserable existence. It helped me differentiate myself from the kitchen workers I saw every single day, the lost and boring and repressed people that went about their business everyday. And Morrissey was in some ways very fearless in his time. He wasn't afraid to be soft, something I scarcely recognized in a male dominated culture – and he even seemed to intentionally make himself an easy target to those who were hyper masculine. He was pessimistic and romantic all in one. He wasn't afraid to care about animals or be open. I felt like I was living some kind of nightmare at times, even though I often found ways to enjoy what I was doing – but Morrissey made me realize I was less alone. People had just as miserable and hopeless existences in England throughout the 70's as they did in Idaho. It was all very factory based, very hopeless and gloomy. And yet all these post punk bands and artistic things had started to happen either in spite or because of it - be it new wave, punk, goth, synth and post punk. A lot of people who felt hopeless in their dull rainy factory towns had decided to start making art. It made me see my own life and potential a little differently.

PART 107 - https://tinyurl.com/y8uyusr7

PART 106 - https://tinyurl.com/ycqhlqsy

PART 105 - https://tinyurl.com/ybjvm23b

PART 104 - https://tinyurl.com/yauo5f78

PART 103 - https://tinyurl.com/yblwsv3p

PART 102 - https://tinyurl.com/yc5m3cq7

PART 101 - https://tinyurl.com/yafyhse2

PART 100 - https://tinyurl.com/ycvye2n4

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-100 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-100

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Three Utterly Unconnected Books With Gay Protagonists

by Wardog

Thursday, 13 January 2011

Wardog fails at themes.

By accident, rather than design, I just read three young adult books with gay protagonists. They're not really thematically related at all, nor do they have anything in common, but I found the coincidence harmonious enough that I've decided to review them in a bunch regardless.

Boy Meets Boy

I picked this up from a discount bookshop, remembering absolutely nothing about it except that someone might have told me it was good once, well, either this or a different completely book, which is the sort of thought process you find yourself having when you're unleashed in a space where everything is £2. Things you pick up in discount bookshops because there's no reason not to, rather than because you had a set reason for wanting to read them, can be surprisingly delightful. They can also be unbearably dreadful but I'm glad to say that Boy Meets Boy fell into the former category.

It's basically a coming-of-age tale, and a love story, so simply and straightforwardly told that it's almost banal – the message here seems to be that the experience of being a teenager is universal, and that sexuality shouldn't be something that marks difference between people who might otherwise find points of connection. Because of this, and setting elements I'll address later, it subtly addresses issues of acceptance and tolerance. The book itself is a vehicle for them, but mainly it tells a story about a recognisable teenager undergoing recognisable teenage experiences who just happens to be gay. Its very existence, in a way, emphasises the normality of gay experience, while leaving the book at liberty to simply a story in an entertaining way. To be honest, though, the story of Boy Meets Boy didn't interest me all that much, although I did care enough about the protagonist (Paul) to want a happy ending for him. But then it's self-unconsciously unremarkable – as the title itself suggests it will be – and charming enough to carry its own deliberate ordinariness. One of the things I did very much like about Boy Meets Boy is that it successfully creates a transitory space (being a teenager at school) that both owns its own transitiveness and yet doesn't undermine the importance of events and experiences within that space. So, for example, we are never expected to believe that Paul's love for Noah is Forever, but we still recognise its value, and even savour it because there is something uniquely delicate, perfect and intense about that kind of teenage romance.

Boy Meets Boy inhabits its adolescence almost to a fault – it's told in the first person, by Paul, so we are rather trapped in his often rather limited and flawed perspective. It struck me as being so realistically teenage that I found it rather stifling sometimes – his arty whimsicality strays perilously close to pretension. But as close as I came to rolling my eyes on occasion, self-irony is something adults impose on the excesses of adolescence and Paul's earnestness is genuinely endearing. Part of the problem with the book being so grounded in Paul was the less flamboyant characters don't really come through as clearly as they need to – Paul has an interesting circle of friends, including his bisexual ex, Kyle, who is working through his own confusion, and Tony, also gay, who is struggling with the restrictions of his parent's religion. Noah, Paul's love interest, never really develops his own identity – yes he is charming, like Paul, and whimsical, like Paul, and arty, like Paul, and somewhat vulnerable from a relationship gone wrong, like Paul, but although I believed in Paul's attraction to him, I found it rather difficult to believe in Noah as a person in his own right. But, then, I think Boy Meets Boy is more interested in love in general, than the specifics what makes a particular relationship work, so there's an extent to which it doesn't really matter.

The thing I loved most about Boy Meets Boy, however, was the setting. Because I didn't quite realise what I was reading, the fact that it is essentially set in a utopia of complete equality, where all sexualities are accepted, came at me completely unexpectedly. Basically the text presents you – in a very delightful way – with an increasing level of tolerance, up to the point at which it becomes absurdly unrealistic and then you feel deeply sad that what should surely be a basic level of human decency comes across as ludicrous idealism. It's never really “explained” in the text why this small town in America has embraced so wholeheartedly the tolerance it should not be unreasonable to expect from society as a whole but equally that shouldn't require explanation. This setting comes absolutely shining out the book, and some of my favourite passages are when it allows for things like this:

It was with Joni's help that I became the first openly gay class president in the history of Ms Farquar's third grade class. Joni was my campaign manager. She was the person who came up with my campaign slogan: VOTE FOR ME... I'M GAY! […] My biggest opponent was (I'm sorry to say) Ted Halpern. His first slogan was VOTE FOR ME … I'M NOT GAY, which only made him seem dull. Then he tried DON'T FOR HIM... HE'S GAY, which was pretty stupid, because nobody likes to be told who they can (or can't) vote for. Finally, in the days leading up to the election he resorted to DON'T VOTE FOR THE FAG. Hello? Joni threatened to beat him up but I knew he'd play right into our hands. When the election was held he was left with the rather tiny lint-head vote while I carried the girl vote, the open-minded guy vote, the third-grade closet case vote and the Ted-hater vote. It was a total blowout and when it was all over Toni beat Ted up anyway. The next day at lunch, Cody O'Brien traded me two Twinkies for a box of raisins – clearly an equal trade. The next day I gave him three Yodels for a Fig Newton. This was my first flirtation.

Or when the universal tolerance of the setting is playfully juxtaposed against the general intolerance of high school society:

Infinite Darlene doesn't have it easy. Being both star quarterback and homecoming queen has its conflicts. And sometimes it's hard for her to fit in. The other drag queens in our school rarely sit with her at lunch; they say she doesn't take good enough care of her nails and that she looks a little too buff in a tank top. The football players are a little more accepting, although there was a spot of trouble last year when Chuck, the second-string quarterback fell in love with her and got depressed when she said he wasn't her type.

It seems to be telling us we have enough to worry about it without also stressing about other people's sexualities. I'm also just glad there's a bisexual, and a real bisexual, in the book. And although his confusion ends up causes a bit of conflict, it is sympathetically presented.

There were a few aspects of Boy Meets Boy that fell a little flat for me – Noah, as I have said, and I was a bit sad that the story of the straight best friend is essentially one of loss. Joni gets into a relationship with an apparently rather controlling guy but we never really get any into her side of things (because Paul doesn't have any) and Paul is never quite able to reconcile with her. For a book about love, in all its forms, this is fair enough, since love and loss travel hand in hand, but it does mean that the one straight person in the entire book abandons her friends the moment she gets into a relationship. This is even more problematic because Boy Meets Boy is dependent on archetypes, rather than characters – what Boy Meets Boy, hopefully unintentionally, seems to be saying through arc is that gay-straight friendships are impossible to sustain, especially since the friendships he maintains, and the new ones he forms over the course of the book are all with gay people. The other thing that made me a little uncomfortable was the fact that Gay Tony's parents, who are unable to accept his sexuality, are highly religious. Of course lots of people who are religious have trouble with teh gay but it always seems to end up being a short-cut for blind homophobia. To Levithan's credit they are not obviously evil, and genuinely love their son, but just as there are problems in your only straight person fucking off into an unhealthy relationship there are problems in having your only homophobes be people of religious conviction.

Minor issues aside, Boy Meets Boy is basically an adorable piece of fluff. It is a hug in a book and I really enjoyed it.

Hero

I feel really bad about Hero because I honestly expected to love it, but as it turned out I just didn't get on with it. Thom Creed's father used to be a super hero but following a National Disaster (the collapse of the Wilton Towers while fighting off an alien, apparently) he's an outcast, a single father trying to raise his son. Thom is gay, and starting to manifest a superpower, two things he knows his father can't stand, and both of which are aspects of himself he feels he has to hide from his father for lose his love and respect. Unexpectedly, Thomas receives an invitation to try out for the League, the official syndicate superheroes, and finds himself on probation with a bunch of other aspiring superheroes.

One of the first books I reviewed for Ferretbrain back in the day was

Soon I Will Become Invincible

, the first superhero “novel” I'd ever read, which I ended up rather enjoying and is told from the perspective of a supervillain. I remember that Jamie and I had a rather tangled discussion – enacted from a perspective of mutual confusion – about the very concept of a superhero NOVEL.Soon I Will Become Invincible was clever and stylish enough that the inherent problems of the form Jamie articulated in his comments didn't become more than a minor issue. Unfortunately, they bugged the crap out of me in Hero. I felt that the narrative was constantly straining against itself – it wanted, and needed, to be a comic. Or about something else. Equally, the tropes of the genre, which are a vital part of any superhero story, are primarily visual, and largely present to bridge the gap between the images and the words. When there are only words these tropes come across as clumsy and lacking in subtlety – instead of bold, dramatic and exciting.

There is a lot to find likeable about Hero, really. The being-gay arc is nicely paralleled by the being-a-superhero arc; in fact as far as metaphors go it works pretty well, feeding into similar feelings of difference, and a pressure to conceal aspects of your identity. I also thought Thom was very well portrayed, in all his confusion, his foolishness and his charm. The scene in which he first meets Goran is particularly effective. Thom works for a mentoring programme for encouraging literacy:

I turned round and saw one of my new students, about my age, standing behind me. “You scared me.” I shut the file cabinet. “What are you doing in there?” He had a thick accent, so his family must have only moved here recently. One of the many English-as-a-second students who came to the centre to learn English … I always felt bad for the ESL students. I couldn't imagine what I'd do if I had to take chemistry in Bratislava... “Oh,” I was just looking for something for us to read tonight,” I said, slowly enunciating each word. “Do you like books?” He stared at me. He didn't blink. “See, that's the great thing about learning English. You get to read some cool books and stuff, so it's not all about boring homework.” He still didn't blink. “Books and stuff?” He repeated the words like he was spitting out poison. “Yeah,” I said. “It's pretty fun when you get into it. Reading and all.” Phyllis hurried back in the room... “I see you've met Goran,” she said. “Yes.” I smiled. “I have the feeling he's going to pick up English in no time.” Phyllis looked at Goran to see if I was serious and then looked back at me. “Thom, Goran founded the literacy programme for the older kids here two years ago. I asked him to show you the ropes tonight.” […] Goran, arms folded, stared at me with contempt. Sometimes I am the world's biggest loser.

I did, in fact, really like Thom. He's unflinchingly presented with all his flaws and vulnerabilities, right up to and including his mushy fantasies about Uberman, the most famous superhero in the league. He's nicely complex too, so he's always a very real person, not a stereotype. I liked the fact his fantasies about Uberman are as romantic as well as sexual (heh, being gay is not ONLY about sex), that Thom is quite athletic and his with Goran friendship develops over the course of basketball games, and that his first kiss is something he shares with a stranger because he's basically gone out to pull, and that it's okay that he does this. He doesn't come to any harm as a consequence, he doesn't have a horrible time, and it isn't presented as anything other than the act of a hurt and bewildered teenager.

What didn't work for me at all were the superhero aspects of the text. Although they function well enough on a metaphorical level, in practice I found them banal, overwrought and unsatisfying. It's possible I just missed the point. There are plenty of comic-related in-jokes and references – Uberman is clearly Captain Planet, Justice is Superman by way of Dr Manhatten, and his alienness and loneliness is rather affecting in the few scenes he dominates – and it's amusing enough, I suppose, but the dark-man-dark aspects don't sit very well with the more comedic ones. For example, Thom has a team-mate called Typhoid Larry and I think we are expected to care about him as a person, but Moore doesn't put in the effort necessary to make him anything more than a one-dimensional joke about hilariously unpleasant superpowers. Miss Scarlet, equally, is an angry bitch because her superpowers have horrendous side-effects but she's also incredibly boring. It's a shame because the style and complexity with which Moore depicts Thom, his father and, strangely enough, Justice is completely lacking in the supporting cast. They little more than dull, sub-Watchman stereotypes who obligingly die when it is time for us to feel sadness.

I initially liked the fact that Thom's superpower (healing) is a second-order power – it is far from traditionally glamorous and it is also not the sort of power we might instinctively associate with a man. It also ties in nicely to Thom's development from a self-conscious, self-absorbed teenager to an empathetic adult who cares about the people around him. Unfortunately it soon turns out that super-healing also comes bundled with aspects of super-blowing shit up – so something that could have been genuinely interesting and a little bit subversive basically becomes standard superhero fare. Blah.

The other inherent problem with the superhero format is that it's embedded in short-term, dramatic gestures. Thom's father is another example from the “excellent” spectrum of Moore's characterisation – as a disgraced superhero, the guy clearly has issues, and I thought the complicated, messy and frustrating relationship he has with his son was depicted with sympathy and subtlety. He manages to be an admirable man, a good father and a terrible father all at once; he is also, of course, homophobic but he never becomes a strawman bigot. Thom's father eventually comes to accept Thom's homosexuality but only directly before plot requires him to make the traditional superhero self-sacrifice. This was all very moving but I actually thought it was a cop-out. It is probably pretty easy to come to terms with your own internalised homophobia if you're about to die. Acceptance and tolerance are long-term prospects. They are not about short-term gestures. I would have been much happier if Thom's father had shown his commitment to these values through living with his son, not making an "i wuv you" speech and conveniently dying. I know this probably sounds perilously close to counter-factual criticism but since these issues are a major theme of the novel, it is frankly cheap to offer resolve them via trope.

There's a lot of really good stuff in Hero, and I did enjoy it when I wasn't being frustrated with it. But it really is its own worst enemy and the superhero trappings interfere with the story I was interested in reading.

Ash

This book is so utterly different to the preceding books that makes even more of a mockery of this review collection than it is already. Oh well. Ash is basically a Cinderella-retelling. It's charming but I found it rather insubstantial, but then there's also an extent to which fairy-tales are supposed to be insubstantial. The writing is elegant but in many ways it's a very suppressed book – Ash, is after all, subsumed in grief and despair, following the death of her father, and spends most of the book essentially trying to escape her own life. Left at the mercy of her stepmother she is not horrifically abused, but she is reduced to servant status and her wants and needs become completely irrelevant to those around. As a consequence of this, she is a rather difficult character to find in the text – she is, essentially, suicidal for most of the book - and the overall effect makes reading Ash is somewhat alienating. I did, however, appreciate how anti-dramatic is is. With such a depressing take on the material, it would have been easy to turn it hysterical - but, bleak though it is at times, Ash is very controlled, almost too controlled, since we come so close to losing hold on our central character.

It was not quite what I was expecting in a fairytale retelling but it did grow on me. And though it may be subdued, it is thankfully not self-consciously dark-man-dark about it. There's quite a sophisticated world underpinning this simple story, although it's incredibly lightly sketched, it's less world-building than world-suggesting, which I actually rather enjoyed. The magical elements of the story become entwined with Ash's desire to escape, rendering them both sources of solace and threat. Ash yearns to become part of the fairy world, a world not meant for humans, because the human world offers her nothing, and she sees the annihilation of herself as being a release from pain and grief and loneliness. Her fairy godmother is actually a rather sinister fairy called Sidhean and although her attraction to him, and his world, is understandable, and he is certainly fascinating, it is also never portrayed as anything but unhealthy.

Ash's “handsome prince” is not, however, a prince; it is actually the King's huntress, Kaisa. There is a handsome prince in the story, and Ash does end up dancing with him, but he's delightfully incidental. The romance between Ash and Kaisa unfolds beautifully – the fact they are both women is neither here nor there. Ash is very much framed as a love story, not a coming out out story. Being gay is very deliberately Not An Issue. I liked Kaisa very much, she is strong and sensitive, and clever and, quite frankly, she could have me any day. Unlike Sidhean, and, initially, Ash she is very much a part of the natural, human world. As her friendship with Ash develops, it is significant that one of her first acts is to teach Ash to ride, drawing her back towards the world she wants to leave. For all Kaisa's strength and love though, Ash must ultimately choose to rescue herself.

As I said above, Ash was not quite what I was expecting – a fairytale about a depressed girl who must choose whether to reject fairytales and live in the real world. I appreciated it more, in retrospect, since it is rather a slow and quiet read. On the other hand, the relationship between Ash and Kaisa is awfully romantic. And yay for lesbians.Themes:

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Young Adult / Children

~

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Frank

at 04:09 on 2011-01-14

Hero

is likable. It was easy to escape into without thinking too hard on any possible reveals though the main villain was obvious from the get go. Moore's Aquaman family is sickly funny, and his Superman's (Justice's) superolfactory is a cool twist. What was way unlikable and absolutely did not work in the story was the writing because suddenly I found myself counting how many times Moore used 'suddenly' in the text and was suddenly struck plum dumb after reading it twice in the same paragraph.

I couldn't read it again. But I would see the movie or mini-series if it ever came about.

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Robinson L

at 03:02 on 2011-02-19Oh dear,

Perry Moore, author of Hero has died

, and at a ridiculously young age, too. That's sad.

I might read his book sometime, or one of the others. They all sound moderately-interesting-but-not-essential-reading. (I might read

Boy Meets Boy

just for the writing style, if it's all like that.)

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Wardog

at 11:20 on 2011-02-19Oh no - I feel kind of low key guilty now, for not liking his book.

I'm kind of with Frank actually - I didn't really fixate on it but the writing style was incredibly pedestrian.

Yeah, they were all likeable books - not amazing and essential but definitely a pleasant way to pass an afternoon. In order of liking for me it would be: Boy Meets Boy (I believe he's written a

book for adults

recently, I'm curious), Ash, Hero.

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valse de la lune

at 07:17 on 2011-05-02I'm plodding through

Ash

slowly. The writing style's actually easy to read, but I'm having trouble with how anvilicious the author is; your review does suggest it gets better, or at least subtler.

Lol at a fairy named "Sidhean," though.

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valse de la lune

at 11:56 on 2011-05-02Okay I speed-read through it like a thing that is speedy, but what exactly did Ash do to get out of the bargain with Sidhean? "I'll be yours for one night and the curse will be broken because if you REALLY love me you'll set me freeeee" makes sense... how?

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Wardog

at 19:21 on 2011-05-03I guess I just saw that as typical fairy-tale logic, and didn't really worry about it. Although truthfully I wasn't paying much attention by then, just hoping the Huntress was okay :).

Ash was one of those books I liked more retrospect than while I was reading it - Ash's frozen despair doesn't exactly make it easy or lively to get through.

I think there's a second book out now (Huntress?) and I'm almost tempted. I didn't feel massively passionate about Ash, but I'm starved enough for decent fiction with non-straight female characters in it that I'm happy to go along for the ride.

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valse de la lune

at 19:53 on 2011-05-03

Huntress

is certainly on my to-read list, but before I get to it I'll probably read a bunch of others first. For what it's worth, here are books I've read or which I'll soon read that include gay female characters:

Disturbed By Her Song

, Tanith Lee (nominated for the LAMBDA award, even, though I'm still surprised because Lee's straight and I thought their rule was "author must be LGBT")

Daughters of a Coral Dawn

, Katherine V Forrest

The Female Man

, Joanna Russ

Child Garden

, Geoff Ryman (author is a gay man)

Fire Logic

and

Water Logic

, Laurie J. Marks

And obviously, some of Catherynne M. Valente's stuff (author being herself bi, I believe) particularly

Palimpsest

and

The Orphan's Tales

if you haven't read those already.

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Wardog

at 21:42 on 2011-05-03I find Lee pretty variable, to be honest, although I haven't read that one (adds to list). Some of her stuff I really really love and some of it, well, not so much. Valente is one of those authors I've been meaning to get round to for ages, but I've read (and liked) quite a bit of her critical stuff so I'm terrified I won't like her fiction.

The only examples I can remember off the top of my head are Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword in which the heroine is maybe a lesbian if you squint a bit and cross your fingers, the dreaded oh god no Green, and, well shit, that's it.

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valse de la lune

at 06:54 on 2011-05-04I am... not fond of Kushner; couldn't finish

Swordpoint

and what I know of her collab with Sarah Monette (whose books I'm not fond of either)--

A Companion to Wolves--is that it involves gay people and an awful lot of rape. Can't we have fantasy featuring gay people that's not so rapey all the time? But I agree with you on Lee; she has written things I loved, and things that made me go "she... she can't write." Valente is one of those authors I've been meaning to get round to for ages, but I've read (and liked) quite a bit of her critical stuff so I'm terrified I won't like her fiction. Palimpsest isn't her best, IMO, though a lot of people may disagree--it's got iffy sexual politics (i.e. consent issues)--but the Orphan's Tales duology is almost universally liked. The Female Man opens beautifully, with the female narrator introducing herself and talking about her mother, her other mother, and how she loves her wife Vittoria. Aw hell yeah.

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Wardog

at 18:18 on 2011-05-04I actually quite liked Swordspoint, and to a lesser extent Priviledge. But then I think it was the first of that "type" of book I read. I might be less forgiving nowadays. I thought A Companion to Wolves was Monette and Bear (or are Kushner and Bear the same person, I really have no clue about incestuous author cults), and I read halfway through it, slightly bewildered by both the rapey and, even more objectionable (not really), the *boring*. Also I thought what was going to be an interesting examination of the mythic and the construction of masculinity seemed to just boil into who goes on the bottom ... so... yeah.

I've been trying to control my book buying habits, in that I need to read (and review) what I've already got ... but ... but ... temptation...

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valse de la lune

at 18:31 on 2011-05-04Oh shit, my bad. You're right, it is Monette and Bear.

These writers are all the same to me okay.

Not coincidentally I also don't have much patience for Bear, and that's not just because of her part in Racefail 09: I read

Ink and Steel

and kept going wryyyyyy.

(Oscar Wilde said the only way to deal with temptation is to give in to it. :))

[restless-stirring]

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”

I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys — yes, all men — from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years, now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data, concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”

It’s a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride. Will it be Musk, Bezos, Thiel…Zuckerberg? These billionaires are the presumptive winners of the digital economy — the same survival-of-the-fittest business landscape that’s fueling most of this speculation to begin with.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital future felt open-ended and up for our invention. Technology was becoming a playground for the counterculture, who saw in it the opportunity to create a more inclusive, distributed, and pro-human future. But established business interests only saw new potentials for the same old extraction, and too many technologists were seduced by unicorn IPOs. Digital futures became understood more like stock futures or cotton futures — something to predict and make bets on. So nearly every speech, article, study, documentary, or white paper was seen as relevant only insofar as it pointed to a ticker symbol. The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively.

This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities. Technology development became less a story of collective flourishing than personal survival. Worse, as I learned, to call attention to any of this was to unintentionally cast oneself as an enemy of the market or an anti-technology curmudgeon.

So instead of considering the practical ethics of impoverishing and exploiting the many in the name of the few, most academics, journalists, and science-fiction writers instead considered much more abstract and fanciful conundrums: Is it fair for a stock trader to use smart drugs? Should children get implants for foreign languages? Do we want autonomous vehicles to prioritize the lives of pedestrians over those of its passengers? Should the first Mars colonies be run as democracies? Does changing my DNA undermine my identity? Should robots have rights?

Asking these sorts of questions, while philosophically entertaining, is a poor substitute for wrestling with the real moral quandaries associated with unbridled technological development in the name of corporate capitalism. Digital platforms have turned an already exploitative and extractive marketplace (think Walmart) into an even more dehumanizing successor (think Amazon). Most of us became aware of these downsides in the form of automated jobs, the gig economy, and the demise of local retail.

But the more devastating impacts of pedal-to-the-metal digital capitalism fall on the environment and global poor. The manufacture of some of our computers and smartphones still uses networks of slave labor. These practices are so deeply entrenched that a company called Fairphone, founded from the ground up to make and market ethical phones, learned it was impossible. (The company’s founder now sadly refers to their products as “fairer” phones.)

Meanwhile, the mining of rare earth metals and disposal of our highly digital technologies destroys human habitats, replacing them with toxic waste dumps, which are then picked over by peasant children and their families, who sell usable materials back to the manufacturers.

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.

The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we come to see human beings as the problem and technology as the solution. The very essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a feature than bug. No matter their embedded biases, technologies are declared neutral. Any bad behaviors they induce in us are just a reflection of our own corrupted core. It’s as if some innate human savagery is to blame for our troubles. Just as the inefficiency of a local taxi market can be “solved” with an app that bankrupts human drivers, the vexing inconsistencies of the human psyche can be corrected with a digital or genetic upgrade.

Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor. Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind, along with our sins and troubles.

Our movies and television shows play out these fantasies for us. Zombie shows depict a post-apocalypse where people are no better than the undead — and seem to know it. Worse, these shows invite viewers to imagine the future as a zero-sum battle between the remaining humans, where one group’s survival is dependent on another one’s demise. Even Westworld — based on a science-fiction novel where robots run amok — ended its second season with the ultimate reveal: Human beings are simpler and more predictable than the artificial intelligences we create. The robots learn that each of us can be reduced to just a few lines of code, and that we’re incapable of making any willful choices. Heck, even the robots in that show want to escape the confines of their bodies and spend their rest of their lives in a computer simulation.

The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans suck. Let’s either change them or get away from them, forever.

Thus, we get tech billionaires launching electric cars into space — as if this symbolizes something more than one billionaire’s capacity for corporate promotion. And if a few people do reach escape velocity and somehow survive in a bubble on Mars — despite our inability to maintain such a bubble even here on Earth in either of two multibillion-dollar Biosphere trials — the result will be less a continuation of the human diaspora than a lifeboat for the elite.

When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

[smoge15]

THE ATTENTION ECONOMY

JAMES WILLIAMS - IS DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY MAKING POLITICS IMPOSSIBLE? (RSA TALK - JULY 2017)

In May this year, James Williams, a former Google employee and doctoral candidate researching design ethics at Oxford University, won the inaugural US$100,000 Nine Dots Prize. James argues that digital technologies privilege our impulses over our intentions, and are gradually diminishing our ability to engage with the issues we most care about. Watch James Williams, Nine Dots Prize winner and recipient of Google’s Founders’ Award, in our latest RSA Spotlight - the edits which take you straight to the heart of the event!

https://soundcloud.com/the_rsa/are-digital-technologies-making-politics-impossible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxyRf3hfRXg

http://williams.nu

http://ninedotsprize.org/extracts-stand-light-freedom-persuasion-attention-economy/

“James Williams won the inaugural Nine Dots Prize with his entry Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy. Here are some sample extracts from his 3,000-word response to the question Are digital technologies making politics impossible?

Extract 1:

Digital technologies privilege our impulses over our intentions. They are increasingly designed to exploit our psychological vulnerabilities in order to direct us toward goals that may or may not align with our own. In the short term, this can distract us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, it can distract us from living the lives we want to live, or, even worse, undermine our capacities for reflection and self-regulation, making it harder, in the words of philosopher Harry Frankfurt, to ‘want what we want to want.’ A primary effect of digital technologies is thus to undermine the operation and even development of the human will. This militates against the possibility of all forms of self-determination at both individual and collective levels, including all forms of politics worth having.

Extract 2:

Today, as in Huxley’s time, we have ‘failed to take into account’ our ‘almost infinite appetite for distractions.’ The effect of the global attention economy—i.e., of our digital technologies doing precisely what they are designed to do—is to frustrate and even erode the human will at individual and collective levels, undermining the very assumptions of democracy. These are the distractions of a system that is not on our side.

How, then, should we respond?

First, we must reject the impulse to ask users to ‘just adapt’ to distraction. We must also move briskly past the illusion that ‘media literacy’ will ever be enough. Nor can we reply that if someone doesn’t like the choices on technology’s menu, their only option is to ‘unplug’ or ‘detox’—this is a pessimistic and unsustainable view of technology. And, of course, we can’t expect the attention economy to fix itself.

We must, then, move urgently to assert and defend our freedom of attention.

Asserting our freedom of attention means developing its conceptual and linguistic foundations. We can find precedent for such a freedom in Mill when he writes, in On Liberty, that the ‘appropriate region of human liberty’ … ‘comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness’ … ‘liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative.’ ‘This principle,’ he writes, ‘requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character.’ This sounds to me like a freedom of attention.

“WHEN INFORMATION BECOMES ABUNDANT, ATTENTION BECOMES THE SCARCE RESOURCE” - HERBERT SEIDMAN

THE ATTENTION ECONOMY TALKS ABOUT HOW THE MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLAYERS FIGHT FOR OUR COLLECTIVE ATTENTION NOW, AS ‘ATTENTION IS THE SCARCE RESOURCE’.

JAMES WILLIAMS: THE ATTENTION ECONOMY IS NOT ON OUR SIDE - IT’S GOALS ARE NOT OUR GOALS

---- PEKKO: RULE/ROLE/GOAL - DEFINITELY GO BACK AND LOOK AT THOSE FIRST FEW DAYS OF SECOND YEAR WITH PEKKO BEFORE THIRD YEAR STARTS OR DURING THE START OF THIRD YEAR

---- IDEA: POTENTIALLY GET A FEW PEOPLE TO KEEP TRACK OF WHAT THEY SPEND THEIR ATTENTION ON. WHERE DO THEY PUT IT AND WHAT DO THEY DEDICATE IT TO. AND WHAT DO THEY GET BACK IN THAT EXCHANGE BECAUSE IT IS AN EXCHANGE THEY ARE A PART OF. I BELIEVE MOST OF THE TIME IT IS DISTRACTION FROM HAVING TO THINK ABOUT LIFE CRITICALLY AS THAT IS HARDER TO DO. OUR BRAINS LIKE LIKE TO LET US CHOOSE THE EASY OPTION - THE LAW OF LEAST EFFORT.

REED HASTINGS, CEO OF NETFLIX: “AT NETFLIX, WE ARE COMPETING FOR OUR CUSTOMERS’ TIME, SO OUR COMPETITORS INCLUDE SNAPCHAT, YOUTUBE, SLEEP ETC.”

LACK OF CONTROL IN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES - NECESSARY TO BUILD OUR OWN BOUNDARIES - BUILD YOUR OWN RULES - TAKE CONTROL

HE WHO’LL BE GREAT, MUST BE ABLE TO LIMIT HIMSELF - GOETZE

KNOWLEDGE OF PSYCHOLOGY - NON-RATIONAL BIOSCES - VULNERABILITY IN OUR BRAIN - NON-RATIONAL DIONEX OF DECISION MAKING

SAME TIME - SYSTEM OF MEASUREMENT, OPTIMIZATION, MESSAGE DELIVERY HAS DEVELOPED

INDUSTRIAL SCALE PERSUASION - PRIMARY BUSINESS MODEL OF BIG ‘SOCIAL MEDIA’ COMPANIES - NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA, THEY’RE IN THE BUSINESS OF PERSUASION

THIS POWER TO SHAPE PEOPLE’S ATTENTION, TO PERSUADE PEOPLE TOWARD ONE END OR ANOTHER IS INCREASINGLY CENTRALISED TO JUST A FEW PEOPLE OF A FEW COMPANIES IN ONE STATE IN ONE COUNTRY

IRONY - WHOLE POINT OF THE INTERNET WAS THAT IT WAS DECENTRALISED IN ITS’ INFRASTRUCTURE - PLATFORMS THAT HAVE EMERGED HAVE BEEN SO CENTRALISED - HANDFUL OF PEOPLE CONTROLLING THE ATTENTIONAL HABIT SOF 2 BILLION PEOPLE ON PLANET EARTH

WORKING AT GOOGLE - VIEW OVER THE INDUSTRY - SO MUCH TECHNOLOGY AROUND - HARDER AND HARDER FOR ME TO DO WHAT I WANTED TO DO - FELT WE MADE THE SAME MISTAKE ALDOUS HUXLEY TALKED ABOUT: “THEY FAILED TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT… MAN’S ALMOST INFINITE APPETITE FOR DISTRACTIONS” [BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED]

NEW: RIGHT TO ASSERT AND DEFEND OUR FREEDOM OF ATTENTION -

OLD: THREATS AGAINST FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND FREEDOM TO INFORMATION

GREAT WRITERS ON THE SUBJECT - JOHN STEWART MILL - THE APPROPRIATE REGION OF HUMAN LIBERTY COMPRISES FIRST THE INWARD DOMAIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS, LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND FEELING, ABSOLUTE FREEDOM OF OPINION ON ALL SUBJECTS PRACTICAL OR SPECULATIVE

FIRST FREEDOM = FREEDOM OF MIND; LIBERTY OF TASTES AND PURSUITS FRAMING THE PLANE OF OUR LIFE TO SUIT OUR OWN CHARACTER

LIBERTY TO PUBLISH AND EXPRESS THESE OPINIONS RESTS ON THE SAME REASONS - PRACTICALLY INSEPARABLE FROM IT

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION DEPENDS ON FREEDOM OF ATTENTION IN ORDER TO ADD VALUE

WHAT DO WE DETERMINE ATTENTION TO BE?

DAY TO DAY CONVERSATION - THE IMMEDIATE DIRECTION OF OUR AWARENESS WITHIN THE TASK DOMAIN - COGNITIVE SCIENTISTS CALL IT THE SPOTLIGHT OF OUR ATTENTION - WHEN OUR SPOTLIGHT GETS DISTRACTED IT’S DISTRACTIONS OF ACTION E.G. READING A BOOK AND PHONE BUZZES, NOTIFICATION TO SAY D.J. TRUMP HAS TWEETED ANOTHER OUTRAGEOUS TWEET

OVER TIME OUR ACTIONS BECOME HABITS - DISTRACTIONS FROM OUR HIGHER GOALS AND VALUES - ANOTHER LIGHT OF ATTENTION - STARLIGHT (AS WELL AS SPOTLIGHT) - HOW WE GUIDE OURSELVES AMONGST OUR HIGHER GOALS AND VALUES

TECHNOLOGY STANDS IN THE WAY OF OUR STARLIGHT WHEN IT STARTS TO SHAPE OUR HABITS - WHEN DESIGNERS ARE ALLOWED TO EXPLOIT OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL BIASES AND ‘HOOK’ US ON PERSUASIVE TECHNOLOGIES

ENDLESS SCROLLING NEWS FEED - SAME THOUGHT BEHIND ADDICTION BEHIND SLOT MACHINES AND GAMBLING - PULLING REFRESH = INFORMATIONAL SLOT MACHINE - ADDICTIVE AND COMPULSIVE CHARACTER THESE THINGS HAVE - EXPLICITLY DESIGNED TO BE THIS WAY

STARLIGHT IS BLOCKED AND STARTS TO TAKE SAME SHAPE AS THOSE TECHNOLOGIES WE USE - PETTINESS, NARCISSISM

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, DEEP SELF DISCORDANCE WHEN VALUES-VOTERS ARE VOTING AGAINST THEOR OWN STARLIGHTED VALUES E.G. POLITICAL PETTINESS OF LAST YEAR - TRUMP SUPPORTERS GETTING BEHINFD TRUMP DESPITE INITIAL BLASPHEMY

STARLIGHT VALUES START TO DIM - LOSE INTEREST IN THOSE HIGHER VALUES WE HELD

LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES - DOMINANT FORM OF MEDIA EXPLICITLY DESIGNED TO NUDGE US INTO PETTINESS AND LACK OF INTEREST WITH OUR HIGHER GOALS AND VALUES, KEEP US IMPULSIVELY DOING THINGS AND NOT INTENTIONALLY OR REFLECTIVELY DOING THINGS

SPOTLIGHT CAN BE DISTRACTED BY TECHNOLOGIES - NOTIFICATIONS

STARLIGHT CAN BE DIMMED AND OBSCURED BY TECHNOLOGIES - HABITS

THIRD LEVEL - UNDERLYING CAPACITY FOR SETTING HIGHER GOALS AND VALUES GETS OBSCURED - NOT JUST DOING OUR GOALS BUT BEING ABLE TO DEFINE THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE - DAYLIGHT OF OUR ATTENTION - FUNDAMENTAL CAPACITIES

INTERNET = ONE BIG OUTRAGE MACHINE NOW BASICALLY

ATTENTION ECONOMY SELECTS FOR OUR OUTRAGE AS A DESIRABLE BEHAVIOUR AS IT FILLS A LOT OF OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS ALL AT ONCE - GIVES US A SENSE OF MORAL CLARITY IN A WORLD WHERE THAT’S HARD TO COME BY, GIVES US SOCIAL SOLIDARITY, OPPORTUNITY TO SIGNAL TO OTHER PEOPLE THAT WE ARE TRUSTWORTHY

TO SUMMARISE: IF WE CAN THINK ABOUT ATTENTION MORE BROADLY

STRUCTURE OF THE HUMAN WILL IN THIS TRIPARTITE FORM

ATTENTION ECONOMY - UNDERMINING AND EROSION OF THE HUMAN WILL IS WHAT IS AT STAKE

CHALLENGE IN THE DIGITAL AGE IS TO THINK OF THE EXTERNALITIES OF THE ATTENTION ECONOMY - TAKE INTO ACCOUNT OUR INFINITE APPETITE FOR DISTRACTIONS AND THE MUCH WIDER SET OF DISTRACTIONS THAT TECHNOLOGY CAN PRODUCE

TRIPARTITE OF DISTRACTIONS:

SITUATIONAL DISTRACTION - I WAS GOING TO READ A BOOK, I GOT DISTRACTED BY A TRUMP TWEET, ALIGNMENT BETWEEN INTENTIONS AND ACTIONS

EXISTENTIAL DISTRACTION - MISALIGNMENT BETWEEN OUR VALUES AND OUR IDENTITIES - WORKING STYLE AND LEVEL OF REGRETTED-NESS

EPISTEMIC DISTRACTION - DAYLIGHT BECOMES OBSCURED - UNDERLYING CAPACITIES BECOME ERODED - HARDER FOR US TO KNOW OURSELVES AND KNOW THE WORLD - HARDER TO REFLECT ON MEANS OF REASONING, INTELLIGENCE ETC.

AS I LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST, I HAVE PLANET EARTH II ON IN FRONT OF ME AND I’M WATCHING THOSE POOR TURTLES MISGUIDE THEMSELVES INLAND, FOLLOWING THE FALSE LIGHTS OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTS AND MISTAKING IT FOR MOONLIGHT OUT TO SEA - HOW CLOSE IS THAT TO OUR REALITY HERE WITH THIS GAME OF ATTENTION?

SINGAPORE’S SUPERTREES - DESIGNED AND BUILT WITH OTHERS IN MIND

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: "Now, over half of us live in an urban environment," Attenborough stated. "My home, too, is here - in the city of London. Looking down on this great metropolis, the ingenuity with which we continue to reshape the surface of our planet is very striking. But it's also sobering. It reminds me of just how easy it is for us to lose our connection with the natural world."

"Yet, it's on this connection that the future of both humanity and the natural world will depend. And it is, surely, our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth."

ARISTOTLE ON POLITICS - IT IS DISGRACEFUL NOT TO BE ABLE TO USE OUR GOOD THINGS

INTOLERABLE SITUATION - IF TECHNOLOGY IS FOR HELPING US LIVE OUR LIVES BETTER,HELPING US DO THE THINGS WE WANT TO DO BETTER, WHY WOULD WE TOLERATE A SYSTEM THAT IS DESIGNED TO NOT DO THOSE THINGS?

STOCK INSTINCT IS TO PUT RESPONSIBILITY ON THE USER - THEY SHOULD BE THE ONES TO CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOUR AND SELF-LIMIT AND IF THEY CAN’T IT’S THEIR PROBLEM

THOUSANDS OF TOP DESIGNERS AND ENGINEERS OUT THERE TRYING TO UNDERMINE YOUR WILLPOWER AND RESPONSE IS TO SAY ‘CONTROL YOUR WILLPOWER’ - DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT - WE NEED THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT TO HELP US DO WHAT WE WANT TO DO

COGNITIVE BIASES (WIKIPEDIA PAGE) - PRINTED AND HUNG ON WALL - MADE IT WORSE AS IT WAS JUST ANOTHER DISTRACTIONARY REACTION

WE CAN’T BLAME OURSELVES - AND CAN’T PUT IT ALL ON DESIGNERS

QUESTION OF THE SYSTEM AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE - INFRA-ETHICS

DESIGNERS ARE PLAYERS IN A GAME - PROBLEM IS NOT THE PAWNS BUT THE GAME

IT’S EASY TO FALL INTO A STATE OF OUTRAGE IN REACTING TO THIS STUFF AND TURN ON FACEBOOK/GOOGLE IN THAT WAY - NEED TO BE AWARE OF THIS POTENTIAL REACTION AND AVERT IT

INFRAETHICAL INTERVENTION THAT CAN NUDGE THE ATTENTION ECONOMY IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION AGAIN - SO THAT IT RESPECTS OUR ATTENTION AND OUR WILL AND REALIGNS ITSELF WITH OUR HIGHER VALUES AND GOALS - HOW?

LANGUAGE/METRICS/PERFORMANCE STATS/BUSINESS MODELS/DESIGN PROCESSES AND PATTERNS

ONE IMPORTANT THING ABOUT PERSUASION IS THE WAY WE TALK ABOUT IT - ALREADY VERY FRAGMENTED - IS THERE A COMMON WAY WE CAN TALK ABOUT PERSUASIVE ATTEMPTS AND PERSUASIVE DESIGNS? - DEGREES OF HIGHER GOALS AGAINST DEGREES OF CONSTRAINT - HOW MUCH DOES IT RESTRAIN YOU AGAINST MAKING YOUR OWN DECISION - SEDUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES TO GUIDANCE TECHNOLOGIES -

ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN AN INFORMATION ABUNDANT WORLD? HISTORICALLY ADVERTISING HAS GIVEN YOU INFORMATION TO HELP YOU BASE A (PURCHASE) DECISION BETTER - BROADLY SPEAKING IT APPEALED TO OUR INTENTIONS

NOW, WE SEE ADVERTISING THAT APPEALS ONLY TO OUR ATTENTION, GRAB AND EXPLOIT OUR ATTENTION

IN REALM OF INTERNET - SEARCH ADVERTISING WOULD BE EXAMPLE OF THE FORMER AND BANNER ADVERTISING AS A FORM OF THE LATTER

TWO VERY DIFFERENT TYPES OF APPEALS TO PEOPLE; IN THEIR MECHANICAL AND MORAL IMPLICATIONS

‘SMARTPHONES ALLOW US TO ACT ON ANY IMPULSE AT ANY TIME - WE TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION WHENEVER WE WANT TO DO/BUY/FIND SOMETHING’ - COMPULSING OF AN AUTOMATIC IMPULSIVE SELF AGAINST THE INTENTIONAL SELF

AT A CULTURAL LEVEL, WE REALLY NEED TO LEARN TO VALUE OUR ATTENTION FOR WHAT IT’S REALLY WORTH - I BELIEVE WE DEEPLY UNDERVALUE IT TODAY - WE’RE PAYING FOR THIS ‘FREE’ TECHNOLOGY WITH OUR ATTENTION - IT’S NOT REALLY FREE - I DON’T HAVE AN OPTION TO PAY FOR A VERSION OF FACEBOOK THAT IS ALIGNED WITH MY GOALS - I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE - STUCK WITH THE ATTENTION VERSION

IMPOSSIBILITY OF POLITICS? - THOMAS PAYNE’S QUOTE FROM COMMON SENSE - “WHEN MEN YIELD UP THE PRIVILEGE OF THINKING, THE LAST SHADOW OF LIBERTY QUITS THE HORIZON”

IS THERE A POINT WHERE OUR ATTENTION BECOMES SO UNDERMINED BY THE ATTENTION ECONOMY THAT THERE IS A POINT OF NO RETURN? - ROMAN LAW: BENEFIT OF COMPETENCE = IF IN LARGE AMOUNT OF DEBT, IS THERE A BARE MINIMUM YOU CAN BE LEFT WITH TO CARRY ON LIVING AND DOING YOUR JOB - CAN THIS BE TRANSLATED TO A BARE MINIMUM OF ATTENTION? - AN ATTENTIONAL BENEFIT OF COMPETENCE THAT WE NEED TO ASSERT IN THE DIGITAL AGE - AND WHAT SHOULD THAT BE? ---- HUGE QUESTION

MARSHALL MCLUHAN: THESE MEDIA ARE ART FORMS THAT HAVE THE POWER OF IMPOSING THEIR OWN ASSUMPTIONS, THEY’RE NOT WAYS OF RELATING US TO THE WORLD, THEY ARE THE REAL WORLD - ATTENTION ECONOMY IS NOT A WAY TO RELATE TO THE WORLD - IT IS OUR WORLD

TECHNOLOGY - GONE FROM BEING A TOOL TO BEING OUR ENVIRONMENT - SO WHAT I THINK WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HERE IS CHANGING THE DESIGN OF OUR ENVIRONMENT - IF POLITICS IS BROADLY SPEAKING ABOUT HOW WE NEGOTIATE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT ONE WAY OR ANOTHER - SEEMS TO BE TECHNOLOGY HAS DONE AN INRUN OF EVERYTHING ELSE AND IS INTERVENING IN OUR WORLD AT THIS PRIMARY LEVEL OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, OUR ATTENTION

NOT ONLY ARE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES INFLUENCING POLITICS, THEY ARE INHERENTLY POLITICAL IN THE QUESTION OF THEIR DESIGN - SHIFT THAT’S NEEDED IS TO SEE TECHNOLOGY DESIGN AS THE FIRST GROUND OF POLITICAL STRUGGLE IN THIS NEW ERA

RESPONSE WE NEED TO TAKE - WHETHER RESISTANCE OR GUIDANCE - [DIOGENES TO ALEXANDER] - ASKING HIM TO STAND OUT OF OUR LIGHT - WITHOUT THAT RESPONSE IT’S HARD TO SEE HOW WE’LL GET PASSED THIS AND CHANGE THE FACE OF TECHNOLOGY DESIGN IN THE DIRECTION OF HUMAN GOALS AND VALUES

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

Questions:

REMINDER BIRDS - ALDOUS HUXLEY’S ISLAND - FLY AROUND SHOUTING ATTENTION TO GET PEOPLE TO RETURN TO THEMSELVES PERIODICALLY - WHAT IS MODERN EQUIVALENT?

RELIGIOUS - SABBATH - HABITS OF REFLECTION ONCE IN A WHILE

SCRAPPING RELIGION BASED ON PHILOSOPHICAL AND ASTROLOGICAL DISBELIEF - ALSO GOT RID OF A LOAD OF RITUALISTIC VALUES AND ACTIONS - MEDITATION ETC. - PROF. SLOTERDIJK CALLS THE ANTHROPOTECHNICS - COULD BE COMING UP WITH NEW ONES TODAY - HOW DO WE STRUCTURE OUR ENVIRONMENT TO INCENTIVIZE REFLECTION AND THE RIGHT SORT OF REFLECTION - MAYBE IT IS GETTING A MINOR BIRD TO SQUAWK ATTENTION IN OUR EARS

LOTS ON WILLPOWER - UN DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS - WILL OF THE PEOPLE - PRIMARY FUNCTION REGULATED FOR ATTENTION - FREEDOM OF ATTENTION IS FUNDAMENTALLY A DEMOCRATIC/POLITICAL ISSUE - ARE PEOPLE READY FOR THESE IDEAS? WHAT HAS THE REACTION BEEN LIKE? GLAZED EYES OR EDGE OF SEATS?

GOING OUT IN MANHATTAN AND ASKING PEOPLE/USERS ON THE STREETS, ‘DO YOU GET DISTRACTED BY TECHNOLOGY?’ - COMMON RESPONSE IS ‘I DON’T MIND IT, BUT MY FRIEND…’ - WE SEE OUR FAILURE TO SELF CONTROL AS NOT JUST A PROCEDURAL FAILING BUT A MORAL FAILING IN SOME SENSE - WE NEED TO GET OVER THAT AND ONE WAY TO DO THAT IS HUMOUR - LOUIS CK

MOST OF OUR SYSTEMS (LINGUISTIC/CULTURAL/POLITICAL) ASSUME INFORMATION SCARCITY - BUT NOW WE’VE MOVED TO ATTENTION SCARCITY AND INFORMATION ABUNDANCE - HOW DO WE REDESIGN OUR SYSTEMS TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE NEW ENVIRONMENT OF INFORMATION ABUNDANCE

WE HAVE TO RECLAIM FREEDOM OF ATTENTION WHILE IN IT -  HOW DOES THIS WORK - BEST CASE SCENARIO OF HOW THIS UNFOLDS?

HOW DO YOU FIX THE ATTENTION ECONOMY FROM WITHIN THE ATTENTION ECONOMY - MARSHALL MCLUHAN = PARODY - NOT CRITICIZING THE SYSTEM WITH THE INFORMATION OR THE CONTENT BUT  THE WAY YOU’RE SAYING IT

PARODY IS A GOOD WAY OF BRINGING BACKGROUND DYNAMICS INTO THE FOREGROUND

HABITS OF REFLECTION PUT IN PLACE - SCIENCE FICTION HAS A HUGE ROLE TO PLAY IN THIS - PEOPLE AT GOOGLE ‘BUILDING THIS COMPUTER FROM STAR TREK’ - SO EMPOWERED BY THESE SCIENCE FICTION VISIONS - RESPONSIBILITY OF SCIENCE FICTION TO IMAGINE, NOT JUST THE DYSTOPIAS, BUT THE UTOPIAS

CHALLENGE WITH HUXLEY AND OTHERS - MORE INTERESTING TO READ THE DYSTOPIAS - IF EVERYTHING IS GOING WELL THEN THERE’S NO CONFLICT AND NO STORY - WOULD BE GREAT TO SEE MORE SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS TAKE ON THESE QUESTIONS OF ATTENTION

HOW CAN WE TAKE BACK THE TECHNOLOGY AND REALIGN IT WITH OUR OWN VALUES - NOT MAJOR CORPORATIONS - FOR EXAMPLE, ‘THSI MAY BE SPAM - DONT OPEN IT’ OR WORD CORRECTING YOUR SPELLING FOR YOU - COULD WE POSSIBLY HAVE THINGS SAYING ‘DON’T BOTHER POSTING THIS’ IN THE FUTURE?

‘TIME WELL SPENT’ PROGRAM - NEW SORT OF TRANSPARENCY NEEDS TO BE DEMANDED FROM COMPANIES - ‘PROVE IT’ RESPONSE WHEN A COMPANY SAYS IT WANTS TO DO SOMETHING FOR OUR LIVES - NET BENEFIT PROVED - THIS WOULD FIX ALOT OF DOWNSTREAM DESIGN PROBLEMS - NEW BUSINESS MODELS NEEDED THAT GIVE COMPANIES THE ABILITY TO PROMOTE HIUMAN GOALS THAT COULD CONFLICT WITH FINANCIAL

EXPLORE INTEREST IN SCIENCE FICTION - DIGITAL TOOLS, LIFESTYLES, HAVING TO CHANGE THEIR SEQUENCE AND BEHAVIOURS TO FIT IN WITH THE TECH, IN THIS UTOPIAN WORLD, HOW CAN WE DO THAT? JUST UNPLUG? OR ADAPT THE TECHNOLOGY TO BE MORE SIMILAR IN SIMULATION?

FEW YEARS AGO, DEATH OF THE BOOK? WRONG = GOOD SIGN AND DISCIPLINED AND REVERTING BACK TO OLD BEHAVIOURS?

PROLIFERATION OF BOOKS - THEY’RE NOT THE MAIN MEDIUM OF SOCIETY ANYMORE - FOREGROUND AND NOT BACKGROUND ANYMORE - MEDIUM BECOMES AN ARTFORM WHEN IT’S SHIFTED TO BACKGROUND LIGHT - MARSHALL MCLUHAN - NOT MUCH USE FOR THE CONTENT, MORE AS A PHYSICAL BENEFIT - PHYSICALITY IS THE BENEFIT OF BOOKS NOW

OUTTRADE CYCLES - JOIN IN THEREFORE FEEL TRUSTED - GLOBALIZING EFFECT OF THE INTENRET AND MAYBE PEOPLE FEELING ROOTLESS - HOW CAN WE USE TECHNOLOGY TO RECREATE THIS SENSE OF COMMUNITY

GLOBALIZATION IS ONE EFFECT OF INFORMATION ABUNDANCE - HYPERCONNECTIVITY AND INSTANT CONNECTION - ANXIETY IN INFORMATION ABUNDANCE MANIFESTS ITSLEF IN THESE GEOGRAPHIC SHIFTS - BUILD A WALL - METAPHORICAL - BOUNDARY/BORDER SETTING - ONE WAY THAT PEOPLE FEEL THAT IS BY TALKING ABOUT IT IN GEOGRAPHICAL TERMS

CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION DEMANDS THESE COMPANIES MAKE A PROFIT - PROFIT MOTIFS AND CONCENTRATIONS OF DATA AND POWER - NOT TALKING ABOUT OVERHAUL OF CAPITALISM AS SUCH, SUGGESTING WE HAVE TO GET TO THE ROOT CAUSES - HOW DO WE GO ABOUT THAT?

ONE WAY OF TALKING ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE IS MENTAL CAPITALISM, ESSENTIALLY THERE'S THIS UNTAPPED RESOURCE THAT HAS BEEN POUNCED ON AND NOW WE’RE JUST REALISING IT’S A NATURAL RESOURCE AND THE VALUE OF IT - SIMILAR TO POLLUTION AND THE ENVIRONMENT - ONCE WE REALISED THE EXTERNALITY WE CAN TAKE THAT INTO ACCOUNT - AND MANAGE IT BETTER - THESE EXTERNALITIES OF DISTRACTION ARE A POLLUTION OF A SORT AND SO ONE WAY TO TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT IS TO TALK ABOUT IT AND TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT WITHIN THE SYSTEM

ANOTHER WAY, GETTING BETTER AT THIS STUFF DOESN’T MEAN COMPANIES CAN’T MAKE MONEY - CAN ADS BE ALIGNED WITH MY OWN GOALS - SPONSORED SUPPORT FOR MY OWN GOALS - PROBLEMATIC IS WHERE THE GOALS ARE MISALIGNED - CAN STILL MAKE MONEY OUT OF MEANINGFUL ADVERTISING - JUT GOALS ARE MISALIGNED CURRENTLY

ISSUE WITH ADVERTISING IS IT ATTEMPTS TO SHAPE THE MAN - ‘YOU SHOULD WANT THIS’ - COMPARED TO ‘WE WANT TO WANT WHAT WE WANT TO WANT’ - ARE THESE IN ABSOLUTE CONFLICT?

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT ADVERTISING IS ANYMORE - ADVERTISERS ARE IN DISAGREEMENT - ALL THESE TYPES OF PERSUASION THAT ARE APART OF ADVERTISING - NEED TO DEFRAGMENT - DEMAND FULFILLMENT FROM DEMAND GENERATION BECAUSE THESE ARE V DIFFERENT THINGS ON A MORAL SENSE

LANGUAGE OF ATTENTION IS IMPORTANT AS SUCH - TO SPEAK OF IT AND GIVE LIFE TO IT - WE SPEAK OF POLITICS AND SOCIETY - WE SPEAK ABOUT TENSION IN THAT CONTEXT - CONSIDER WHAT THAT WORD MEANS TO YOU - COULD YOU CONFIDENTLY GIVE A DEFINITION OF ATTENTION AT THE MOMENT CONFIDENTLY? - IRRESOLUTE - ⅓ TO ½

END.

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/donald-trump-says-no-big-deal-russia-leak-big-deal/

Donald Trump says no big deal but Russia leak is a big deal

One would think that eventually, politicians would begin to choose American patriotism over politics, but with Donald Trump, he seems to have cast a fog over the minds of seemingly rational Republicans. We all know that politicians aren't the most trustworthy, but as history shows, they've woken up when they realize that remaining silent when you see something bad happening makes you just as guilty as doing the act. By remaining silent bystanders, conservatives have enabled the president to feel like he can do anything and just flip his middle finger up to our country and the Constitution. I personally was saddened to see him speak to a graduating college class as he's the worst type of example for any student. All he has shown our next generation is that you can lie, disrespect women, channel your inner racist and trade out your country for money, AND you can get away with it. No repercussions as long as you bully and ignore the law. You can be sure that we will encounter a generation that begins saying "If Donald Trump can get away with it..." When people like Mitch McConnell continue to give Trump free passes just so he can screw over what's left of the middle class with his tax reform wish, you know that something has to give. Our Constitution and democracy truly have been put to the test, but it will take the actions of we citizens to make things right again. The one good thing that Trump has done is united many people who normally wouldn't bother speaking to one another for many reasons, but when our country is under attack, Americans have that common trait of banding together to salvage it. If you still don't believe that there is an attack from within, continue keeping your head in the sand. For those of you that can now see (or have seen it since Jan 20), we can't become normalized to all the lies, deceptions, and distractions. Having worked on a fundraiser that Donald Trump held for Chuck Schumer at his 5th Avenue home in the late 90's, I got to see firsthand that he has always won because he knows how to wear people down until they say "screw it, it's too much work." I worked for a pr/lobbying firm that learned the hard way of how Trump loved to let the bills pile up while demanding more work from people and then walk out on the check. He's left a huge trail of those throughout his career, and the biggest pile of bills that he's accruing right now will wind up getting dumped all over the American people. We can't allow him to do that to us, and I know how hard it is as I've felt the frustration of seeing him do things that would have gotten Barack Obama hauled off without any repercussions. This was the attitude of the 1980's and that wound up heading us off the cliff with the 2008 giant recession. All we can ask Republicans is to imagine that it was a Democrat in the White House and what they would be doing if they were doing the same thing as Donald Trump. Below is the Indivisible Guide for Activism that can be a great guide for those wanting to do something other than just protesting. I did the whole protest activism back in the 90's, and it wasn't until I jumped in doing more of what's in this guide that I realized true change could be made. So that's my rant, but do check out this guide, download it and share it as it will surely inspire you to realize that we are Donald Trump and all those Republicans bosses, not the other way around. They should be terrified of us. Nothing is more terrifying to a politician than a well-informed pissed off American. [pdf-embedder url="https://movietvtechgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/indivisle-guide-for-donald-trump-activism-2017.pdf" title="indivisible guide for donald trump activism 2017"] Below are the top 5 reasons why Donald Trump's actions this past week are such a huge deal for the future of our country. While the media does love to blow things up for ratings, this is one time to actually take them seriously as a crisis is not coming; it's already here.

1. The competence question

There are few commodities as important to presidents as a reputation for competence. Once public confidence in a commander-in-chief's capacity to do his job wanes, their political decline can be brutally swift, as President George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter could attest. That's why this story may end up being so damaging to Trump. Earlier uproars that buffeted the White House, over the President's inflammatory tweets and a litany of falsehoods over his inaugural crowd size, could be put down to Trump's idiosyncratic freewheeling style. Critics saw his firing of FBI Director James Comey as evidence of more worrying autocratic instincts. But the report that Trump shared top secret information about an ISIS terror plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office last Wednesday -- the morning after the Comey firing -- poses a more searching question about whether the President can be trusted with the gravest responsibilities that come with his office and whether he understands the implications of discussing America's most carefully guarded secrets with a US adversary. As those questions rattled through Washington Monday night, the White House was in a bunker mentality. And even allies who have been supportive of the administration so far are now casting huge doubt on its credibility. "They are in a downward spiral right now and have got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening," said Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who is viewed as a sober and restrained influencer on Capitol Hill. "The chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think — it creates a worrisome environment," Corker said. There is not much doubt that of all the dramas that have battered this administration, the new Russia intelligence saga is the most dramatic. Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard University, said Trump is safe from criminal prosecution or impeachment because a President has the power to declassify intelligence. But he offered a stunning assessment of the gravity of the situation. "This is the most serious charge ever made against a sitting president of the United States. Let's not underestimate it," he told CNN's Erin Burnett. But Trump hit back early Tuesday, implicitly dismissing arguments about his competence by arguing that he had made a strategic decision to share intelligence with his Oval Office guests. "As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism," Trump wrote on Twitter. Former CIA Director Leon Panetta, however, told CNN's "New Day" that a lack of discipline by the President was causing him to make rash decisions. "The President of the United States cannot just do or say or speak whatever the hell he wants. That's just irresponsible. So you need to have some people that sit down with the President before he goes into a meeting and say these are the lines you cannot cross because it relates to the security of our country," Panetta said.

2. The Intelligence angle

There have already been several reports that allied intelligence agencies, fearful of the administration's capacity to guard the most sensitive secrets, have been wary about sharing top secret information with the United States. Those concerns are now likely to multiply. The Washington Post said in its report, major details of which were confirmed by CNN, that Trump had told the Russians about information provided by a US partner agency in an intelligence-sharing agreement that was so sensitive details were withheld from allies and restricted even within the US government. The consequences of that could hardly be more serious, former CIA case officer Bob Baer told Burnett. "The President, by revealing this to the Russians, has lost control of this information. It's going to go to the Syrians, It's going to go to the Iranians — Russian allies," Baer said. "The ability to protect that source whoever he is, wherever he is has been seriously undermined ... If a CIA officer had revealed this information to the Russians, he would be fired instantly." The White House on Monday blasted the reports as "false." National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said that Trump did not compromise any sources and methods. But while the identity of the country that provided the US with the information is not publicly known, it is unlikely to be too hard for the Russians, with their highly sophisticated intelligence agencies, to work out where it came from. That leaves open the possibility that vital intelligence, key to protecting American lives, may not be available to US clandestine services in future. Lawmakers and intelligence officials are already warning that disclosing this type of information could harm US efforts to counter an ISIS plot to place explosives in laptops and other electronic devices to evade airport security.

3. The political hit

One reason why Trump is so politically vulnerable to Monday's reports is that he anchored much of his campaign on lambasting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified information. But now he appears to have acted in way that is just as much, if not more, injurious to American secrets as Clinton's private email scheme, exposing him to accusations of hypocrisy. Republicans meanwhile are getting strung out by the constant chaos raging around the Trump presidency — and that they are constantly forced to address, to the detriment of their once-in-a-generation chance to use Republican majorities on Capitol Hill to enact a conservative agenda. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said sardonically Monday: "Can we have a crisis-free day? That's all I'm asking." The big unknown for the White House is whether the latest Trump-triggered crisis is so significant that it wreaks political damage of greater magnitude than he has so far experienced. It could be that the latest drama is so explosive that it opens up space between the administration and Republican leaders who have so far stood firm behind Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan notably put out a statement seeking more information on Monday's development, but did not rush to back the President. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell kept his own counsel. It's probably still too early to assess how the constant controversies impact Republican prospects heading into the 2018 midterm elections. But as the political calendar grinds through summer, vulnerable lawmakers may begin thinking of their own skins more than the fate of the Trump administration. That point may not be here yet, but it will not be far off if things keep going badly for the White House. The fast moving developments of Monday night into Tuesday also again called into question the credibility of the White House -- which was already compromised by its shifting explanations for the firing of Comey. Both McMaster and his deputy, Dina Powell, used the word "false" to describe the Post's reporting. Yet Trump's tweets appeared to validate at least parts of the story.

4. The Russia question

If suspicion was rampant in Washington about the President's links to Russia before, it is going to go into overdrive now. Already the pictures of Lavrov and Kislyak yukking it up with Trump pointed to a political gaffe by the White House. Now, Democrats are using Trump's apparent intelligence lapse to renew calls for a special prosecutor to probe allegations of Russian election-meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign — and to hike pressure on Republicans on the issue. "What we know is that it is a very, very serious threat to our national security and safety, and that's why my hope is that Republicans and Democrats will come together in favor of an independent investigation through a special prosecutor and through an independent commission," Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Monday on CNN. "Make no mistake: this kind of serious grave threat really requires a national response, putting country above politics." At the very least, Monday's bombshell will renew intense curiosity about why Trump, unlike almost everyone else in Washington, does not seem to be as wary of Russia and its motives. "It's the Russians -- we have been going through all this stuff," CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said. "Why is he giving information to the Russians of all people?"

5. The international angle

Monday's explosive disclosures erupted at a time when the President is preparing to take his first steps on the world stage. He will leave Friday for a trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium. That was always going to be an onerous test to such an inexperienced commander-in-chief. Now, Trump will be under even more intense pressure to counter perceptions abroad that he is out of his depth in the Oval Office and to reassure foreign leaders that America remains a force in the world under his leadership and can be relied upon to keep allies' secrets. It is not just the reputation of the President himself that is on the line. The credibility of the United States, the most powerful nation in the world and the guarantor of Western security, is being publicly eroded. Ultimately, it comes down to Trump himself and his attitude toward his job. "He is very inexperienced, this is an absolutely new world to him," Hayden said. "If I fault him for anything, it's not that he's inexperienced -- he doesn't have humility in the face of his inexperience." The White House on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump's disclosure of classified information to senior Russian officials as "wholly appropriate," as Trump tried to beat back criticism from fellow Republicans and calm international allies increasingly wary about sharing their secrets with the new president. The highly classified information about an Islamic State plot was collected by Israel, a crucial source of intelligence and close partner in the fight against some of the America's fiercest threats in the Middle East. Trump's disclosure of the information threatened to fray that partnership and piled pressure on the White House to explain the apparently on-the-spot decision to reveal the information to Russian diplomats in a meeting last week. In a series of morning tweets, Trump declared he has "an absolute right" as president to share "facts pertaining to terrorism" and airline safety with Russia. Although top aides on Monday had declared reports about Trump's discussions false, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on Tuesday sought instead to downplay the significance of the information Trump revealed. The president had been engaging in "routine sharing" with foreign leaders, he said, arguing that some of the information was publicly available. Still, the revelations sent a White House accustomed to chaos reeling anew. It is extraordinary for a president to share such information without consent of the country that collected it, apparently violating the confidentiality of an intelligence-sharing agreement with Israel. It was, perhaps, even more remarkable that Trump chose to confide in representatives of an adversary, who could use the information to find its source. A U.S. official who confirmed the disclosure to media outlets said the revelation potentially put the source at risk. The U.S. official told media outlets that Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The official said the disclosure came as Trump boasted about his access to classified intelligence. An excerpt from an official transcript of the meeting reveals that Trump told them, "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day." The extraordinary leak of Trump's private conversations in the Oval Office appeared to be a direct consequence of the president's combative relationship with the U.S. spy agencies. The White House vowed to track down those who disclosed the information. The president's action drew rare criticism from some Republicans, who are desperate to get the White House refocused on health care and tax changes. Coming days before Trump's first trip abroad, it also raised questions about his standing with world leaders and led some countries to start second-guessing their own intelligence-sharing agreements with the U.S. In a statement, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said the partnership between the U.S and Israel was solid. The New York Times first reported that Israel was the source of the information. "Israel has full confidence in our intelligence sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Dermer said. But other nations appeared to be reconsidering. A senior European intelligence official told media outlets his country might stop sharing information with the United States if it confirms that Trump shared classified details with Russian officials. Such sharing "could be a risk for our sources," the official said. The official spoke only on condition that neither he nor his country be identified, because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The revelation was first reported by the Washington Post. After he spoke with the Russians, Trump was informed that he had broken protocol and White House officials placed calls to the National Security Agency and the CIA looking to minimize any damage. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly, would not say which country's intelligence was divulged, but the New York Times and other outlets reported Tuesday that Israel was the source. On Tuesday, McMaster, in a White House briefing, cast some of Trump's revelations as information that was available from publicly available "open-source reporting" and added that the president did not know the precise source of the intelligence he had shared. He appeared to be suggesting that Trump had not knowingly compromised a confidential source, but the statement also indicated that the president had not asked his advisers for detailed information about the intelligence report he'd received. "In the context of that discussion, what the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he is engaged," McMaster said. On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans alike expressed concern. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the reports "deeply disturbing" and said they could affect the willingness of U.S. allies and partners to share intelligence with the U.S. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for Congress to have immediate access to a transcript of Trump's meeting with the Russians, saying that if Trump refuses, Americans will doubt that their president is capable of safeguarding critical secrets. Trump ignored reporters' questions about whether he disclosed classified information. Following a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump said only that his meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was "very, very successful." CIA Director Mike Pompeo was to brief members of the House intelligence committee late Tuesday. The new controversy left White House staffers, already under siege following last week's botched handling of FBI Director James Comey's firing, on edge. The communications team, in particular, has come in for sharp criticism from the president, as well as his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Trump has told advisers he's aware of a need to make changes to his White House team, though it was unclear what those moves might be or whether any were imminent.

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