Shit No Bricks

4 November 2011

I have strong obsessive/compulsive and addictive tendencies, penalties in my past, but I have over time learned how to put these subconscious processes to use as tools for my benefit. I can concentrate on things in excruciating detail while not tiring, and through this process I learn a great deal. I can engage in addictive behavior to an epsilon less than the threshold of confirmed addiction – and then withdraw from the behavior suddenly and totally. I nearly became an alcoholic – but dropped it like a rock. So these afflictions – compulsion, obsession and addiction – could have done me in, but instead have become strengths, and I have learned to exercise them consciously and deliberately.

When you see that you are trapped in a compulsive ‘minimal-reward cycle’, the way to beat the cycle is to feed it, and then overfeed it, and then force-feed it. You rub your subconscious’s nose in the thing until even it agrees that whatever it is is no longer desirable to do.

I acknowledge my loneliness and my addiction to passive entertainment to quell it. Needing mindless diversion I have gone on “python jags” of renting perhaps 16 videos at once and watching them continuously over a weekend. I really enjoyed the 24 series for its action and tension¹, so it was addictive, and since it was nearly impossible to follow each episode on TV (missing an episode is fatal), I would wait for the season to be released on DVD, buy it, and watch it nonstop from beginning to end.

Here I’ll use examples from Avatar (movie), Harry Potter (books and movies), Dune (book, Lynch film and Sci-Fi Channel series) and Battlestar Galactica 2004 (TV). I address BG so thoroughly here I’ll call it “Book II” of this essay.

Avatar was one of a half-dozen videos I rented one evening; the others, I’ve forgotten, but I was so taken² with Avatar that I watched it the next day, and the next day, and in fact watched it perhaps 30 consecutive times until my subconscious informed me there was nothing more to be gained. I had ingrained the entire thing so deeply that I could play it back in my mind from beginning to end.

I was so taken with the film that, of course, its having ended required a followup. I needed another fix! And isn’t that what any producer could wish for their film? I want more and more.

But I thought about it and thought about it, and finally realized how false this is. Avatar was a particular story. It was about something, and that story was told, and was over with. We might wish to continue with the characters, but the characters don’t exist. They had been written for the story, and once the story is finished, so are the characters.

The natural objection would be that, the characters having been created, there would no reason not to continue the story; those characters, if real, would have continued forward from the point where the film left off. So there’s no reason the story should stop or die.

But there is. The story doesn’t exist. It has to be written. And that process – the manufacture of a continuation – is forced, in a way that the original story idea was not. Avatar carried a specific archetypal theme, what I’ll call the “fledged hero.” I’ll mention the Dune series here, with Paul Atreides being the (primary) fledged hero; Harry Potter is a fledged hero, and so was Jake Sully in Avatar. You have a greenhorn, or junior, or child or weakling, who must go through a challenging hardening process in order to face a major battle or confrontation of some kind. Despite long odds, the hero continues, willingly or not, confidently or not, under their own direction or not, in some sense inexorably, to this final confrontation. Somewhere along the process of hardening – in the middle, or even perhaps only at the very moment of confrontation, the hero is transformed in some fundamental way, to become the fully-fledged being they were to grow to be, or at least to be fundamentally on the way toward completion (as in the Percy Jackson series, and as a subtheme in the Potter series: Harry grows in layers of understanding and achievement.) In Dune, Paul takes the Water of Life: he’ll transform or die. In Avatar, Jake realizes he identifies with the Navi and not with the humans.

You can’t recapitulate such a story. That is, the hero fledges but once, and once fledged, the hero is complete. The hero does not have to repeat the fledging and cannot re-become what they had become; or it would no longer be interesting if they did. That is why series like “Freddy Kruger” bored me. If you can never really kill the thing, it’s just a platform for repetition. If playing heroes and villains a child refuses to die when properly shot, the other children will abandon them as breaking the rules. These things must end, or they’re not real.

You’ll remember that the Potter series ended “apparently abruptly”, in the sense that while Rowling expended pages on detail between events, there was hardly any content following Harry’s victory over Voldemort, and we were (or at least I was) left starving. Her world and characters are so alive that we can’t believe it’s over; what else happened? Something more must have happened and we wish to know. We want to keep living in that world, and so it also has to go on living. Until we create programs to author such stories, one or more humans are required to make the stories live, and their lives must take precedence. Although we’re familiar with endless stories being written in the Star Trek and Star Wars worlds, Potter could only have one author, and she will not write more Potter, it appears.

The extra density of supersaturated worlds (too many stories) is just chaff; there’s only so much fractal depth to be explored in any given character before that character is no longer compelling. Something to the effect that even we don’t have lives so rich, and in order for there to be additional detail, that detail has to be trivial or routine. More ‘stuff’ we routinely do is not interesting to know about if one has any memory at all.

This showed up in the Dune series, where Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson overcompleted Frank Herbert’s work, in my opinion. They finished the story he had intended to write – all of it, and more. The last works began to feel like infill, belaboring things known from before; excessive intricate detail to no ultimate purpose.

I finally realized what I was begging, in looking for a continuation of Avatar. The story would have to be new, and there was no premise to be pursued. Any new story would have to be ‘concocted’ out of thin air, and that’s generally when things stale. It has to be difficult to arrive at a genuinely compelling, credible continuation of such a theme. Dune was written that way, but suffered from being rather an anticlimax when the story ends; much ado about nothing, so much work for such a thin ending. Sad in retrospect, because it’s my favorite story for much that is in it.

The conclusion is that we should not look forward to continuations of stories meant to be beginnings-to-ends. I will watch Avatar II, to see what they do with it, but I won’t expect much. Were Rowling to write an “interstices”, I would read it, hoping her heart had been in it; but I thought it was most obvious that she considered herself done with it, putting the “19 Years Later” appendix as a period on a sentence, as if to seal off the possibility of any (nongratuitous) continuation; and in that sense, I thought the Tales of Beetle the Bard was just such a gratuitous addition – to the effect of “if you must, here’s a little more.”

The fledged-hero archetype attracts me the most, as I identify with it. But even here, I have consumed and consumed and consumed so much of the same, that finally I conclude that history has ended in a particular sense. All further such stories will be the same story and there will be nothing new to learn.

The reason that “visual entertainment” now appears to have no further value is that we (the audience) have let it become cheap and decrepit. I have read and reread Harry Potter and watched and rewatched the films. I no longer accept the excuse that producing a movie to follow a book is too expensive or difficult. When I rewatch a Potter film I am keenly conscious that the story is violated. When the film version has intruded too much on my memory of the book I return to the book; and the book is so much better a story. Consider what was expended to create the Potter films, and I ask what additional would have been required to cleave much closer to the books. I grieve that the work done was much wasted, as I thought the casting was nearly perfect. I think the “one and only set of Harry Potter films” made should be the “reference version” to the extent possible; I resent the plot changes made and think they ruined the story told to a considerable extent. The altered elements distorted our understanding of Harry’s character. The real Harry was much deeper and braver³ than the movie Harry, what a shame to believe one “knows who Harry Potter is” by virtue of the films; so fault the films.

My rule is to refuse to watch a movie based on a book before I have read the book. I followed the rule with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Barry Lyndon. In fact I made the rule up when I saw that Jack Nicholson would play the lead in the Cuckoo film, and did not want to have his face in mind for the protagonist as I read the book, because it would dull my sensitivity to the character in the book; it’s up to the author to describe the character, and then for me to imagine what I think the character looks like. That person would have a fluid personality corresponding to the author’s intentions and my perceptions. If instead I had seen the film first, I would read the book with Nicholson in mind for the protagonist, and who knows whether Nicholson is correctly interpreting the character, and Nicholson is Nicholson with Nicholson’s ways and habits (why he is cast), when the author had none of that in mind. I watched Dune before I read the book, but the movie was so thin compared to the book that it didn’t hurt, in fact in this instance I suggest that order: the Lynch film first, then the book Dune. The movie is horribly false to the book, but is worthwhile for its archetypal content. Seeing the film first, you can’t be disappointed while watching it. Then when reading the book to see how the movie was quite skeletal, you can’t spend much time in anger with the poverty of the film. The Sci-Fi Channel version (Dune, 3 episodes, and then Children of Dune which also included Dune Messiah for 3 more episodes) was much better, but still fairly thin to the real plot.

“Book II”

Battlestar Galactica (BG) has the problem that it is full of holes and stupidity. I tire of watching attempts to motivate plots using absurd reasoning. There is Fiction and there is Fantasy, and fantasy is easier to write because there are no rules as to what you can create (concerning the formal laws of physics.) But we have fantasy written now that violates the rules of consistency and simple logic, which we ask the audience to ignore. That is – be enamored of the action, don’t worry about whether it makes any sense to happen as it does.

There are ‘stupid oversights’, such as showing that BG ends on the real Earth (Africa clearly shown), whereas in the Temple of Athena they see the various (real Earth) constellations pointing them to “earth”, and when they arrive at so-called “earth” Gaeta says “visible constellations are a match”, yet this planet is not the real Earth. A statistician could perhaps rebut me, but the likelihood of finding two points in 3-space yielding the same constellations, even just the stars shown, is infinitesimal, and that wasn’t suggested in the plot, either. Just an oversight.

A great deal is made about “representative democracy”, with delegates. Given that life is confined to 70 or fewer spaceships with no access to land or resources, how much civic business is there to discuss? We can assume that on average the spaceships are not equipped to support a wide variety of human activities. Only a few of them were shown to be “extended-stay” ships of any variety – Cloud Nine and the farming ship, for example. If the general analogy of the interior of one of these ships is to the cabins aboard a cruise liner, and remembering there is no topside or walking deck on a spaceship, there is effectively “nowhere to go and nothing to do.” It is absurd to have a running narration of a functioning “representative democracy” under such circumstances. There is almost nothing to administer. The next rather awkward point is that while the various passengers could be assumed to be mixed by colony throughout the fleet, the representatives are organized by colony and not by ship. This means some means must be arranged for each colony’s representative to poll all of their constituents across all of the ships. That’s a lot of radio or human traffic, and still begs the question as to what can be meaningfully discussed.

Don’t even get me started on the religious elements. I can’t think of a better reason to reject monotheism than having to listen to Tricia Helfer’s character repeat the worst nonsense ever heard from the mouths of Christians. We never do see “God” and whether “God” had anything to do with what happened overall was never followed up. For all we know, the ‘angels’ Six and Baltar and the ‘angel’ Starbuck were minions of Satan, and the plot loses no consistency to think so. (I vote for the Church of the SubGenius. We need more slack.)

In the following, I’ll try to coordinate further observations with the flow of the series.

disk 1.1 episode 1 (series start):

The series opens with a Six (Tricia Helfer) boarding the diplomatic station and kissing Boxy’s father while a basestar destroys the station with a missile. The Six communicated no information to Boxy’s father that he in turn transmitted to anyone, so the Six’s boarding of the station was of no benefit to the Cylons. The Six died for no useful purpose — except apparently to exercise some vacant psychological display of empty cruelty. The station could simply have been destroyed, and given its military insignificance the station could have simply been ignored. So, the Six has a stupid psychological compulsion – in order to impress the viewing audience, and for no other reason.

In the first episode, FTL jumps are treated as big deals, with Tigh saying it had been 22 years since their last jump and “you don’t want to do this, no sane man would.” Yet Gaeta delivers a message from Fleet HQ advising about the missing diplomatic officer (Boxy’s father) with the suggestion that they might have to jump to investigate his silence, so jumps would actually have been routine and the notion that Galactica had not once jumped in over 22 years absurd.

Unless jumps consume enormous amounts of fuel, they’re obviously much more time-efficient a way to travel, meaning that one would always jump to the next destination, with any distance that could be covered by standard propulsion in any brief interim insignificant to the journey and so needless. One would jump, and sit still where one ended up, until the next jump. Save the Tylium for the much more useful jump.

When the Mark-2 Vipers were disabled in the first engagement of the series, the pilots should have ejected when it was clear they would be attacked. Some of them might have survived. We know the emergency eject levers don’t depend on other systems to work. The pilots spent near half a minute disabled with several of them able to see the approaching Cylon raiders … and didn’t eject.

When Adama boards the Ragnar station to talk with the stowaway Leoben, he evidently suspects Leoben to be a Cylon. But why? Nobody theretofore had ever seen an organic Cylon; the Cylons were thought to be the metal robots. Leoben’s “allergies” give him away, supposedly, which means that Adama has to make an intuitive leap to think that the debility Leoben evidences is the analog of the degradation the Ragnar environment would impose on the metal Cylons. We learn (episode “Razor”) that the young Adama was at the site where the first Cylon hybrid was created. But he still has to make the assumption that the Cylons went ahead and created humanlike Cylons.

disk 1.2 episode 1 (33):

Lee Adama is shown closely examining the windows of the Olympic Carrier for signs of passengers and sees nobody. Yet everyone accepts that 1,345 passengers were actually killed when the Olympic Carrier is destroyed by the viper pilots, not offering that the passengers had been removed hours before by the Cylons. Commander Adama says this but his statement is ignored and forgotten, evidently.

disk 1.2 episode 2 (Water):

Before the water tanks are sabotaged, Adama tells Roslin they have two years’ capacity on hand. After the water tanks are sabotaged, Gaeta tells a group that water will run out in two days. But they only lost half their water; they had a year’s worth left. What happened?

Then Baltar recites the supply needs of the fleet, which are staggering. The fleet never consists of more than 50,000 people, yet Baltar’s consumption report feeds these people hundreds of tons of food per week. He’s not far off; a pound of food per person per day is 25 tons per day or 175 tons per week. Among the things he lists are grain and meat. Where indeed does all that food come from, given that all of human existence is entailed in 70 or fewer spaceships? And where does all the excrement go?

disk 2.X episode X (huh):

After all their food is contaminated they harvest algae from the “algae planet.” Problem is they never found any other food, so following the contamination they ate nothing but algae until they landed on “New Caprica.” And they did not take any harvest from New Caprica in their escape, so again they had to be eating only algae until they landed on the real Earth.

disk X.X episode X (X):

When to-be-Athena and Helo are walking around, they are walking around within intact but abandoned cities and towns. Yet Caprica was carpet-nuked, so one scene shows. At least the major cities. So if there were intact buildings as large as they were they had to be removed from all larger centers that got nuked, assuming anything escaped. These places are not only intact, they’re livable. So where are the people?

disk 3.1 episode 2 (Precipice):

Tyrol tells Tigh that targeting the public market for a bombing is beyond reason. He’s right, because attacking civilians makes no sense when the conflict is between humans and Cylons, not humans and humans. Attacking the market is unlikely to kill any NC Police (the intended target) and the only lesson learned by the Cylons is that some humans would rather kill all of the humans. The lessons other humans would learn is that their defenders (if and when acknowledged after the humans escape) are indiscriminate and to be avoided. Some of them might actually think the Cylons were preferable for not being casually lethal.

When Lee Adama suggests to abandon the rescue plan, nobody left aboard knows the way to Earth. He’ll gamble that the remaining 2,000 humans can find Earth and leave 39,000 people behind. More about this later. Meanwhile, apparently with the Cylons playing house on New Caprica, they have had no interest in where the rest of the human fleet had gone or what happened to them in more than four months.

Throughout the series, the Cylons find the humans opportunistically – namely, whenever the plot calls for it. Sometimes there was a ‘real’ reason, for example the ‘radiation signature of the fuel ship’, although one wonders how such a thing is tracked through a jump. Sometimes, who knows? The question is asked but never answered, for example upon arrival in the Ionian Nebula. So which is it, the humans can never hide, or would it be possible to find a place where all electromagnetic detection is defeated and the fleet can wait? What is a maximum jump radius? In episode one, Gaeta from the Ragnar station plots a jump “beyond the Red Line”, beyond charted space. Even today, charted space is pretty vast. The point being that if the fleet jumped to an arbitrary location within the jump radius, it would be extremely hard to find even with an efficient spatial search by the Cylons merely for the sheer extent of the volume involved. Any immediate second jump would reduce the chance of being found to essentially nil.

The point being that the civilian fleet in space could be parked and both battlestars engage in the rescue. That should have improved the outcome of the engagement. It isn’t explained why Pegasus must be sacrificed; perhaps the FTL drive was offline as usual. Dropping into the atmosphere was a cute stunt; I wonder why the Admiral would not try something equally cute, consisting in jumping back and forth “across the horizon” so to speak, offering no target for any missiles fired at a distance. If three death stars (only three of four supposed present were shown) could not destroy Galactica in the time they had to do so, it’s not clear why Pegasus should so quickly become a lost cause when it’s portrayed as a better-armored ship than Galactica. Given the apparent ease of losing FTL functionality, any commander of a battlestar should know what kind of damage is most likely to affect the FTL drives and avoid it. FTL is after all an absolute “get of of jail free” card depending on its destination. Finally, if Cylon DRADIS could detect Pegasus or its exploded fragment, then the baseship that Pegasus rammed should have jumped (thus no fragment to strike the second baseship), or else the second baseship should have jumped, but both were destroyed and the second only accidentally.

Apparently Colonial One is the last to leave New Caprica and the only ship left well before all the discussion about the “nuke” that Deanna (Three) will set off. To destroy what? Almost all the humans had already fled.

There is of course the idiocy that the Cylons would impose a religious mission upon the humans on the notion that somehow this was “learning to live with each other.” Anyone possessed of reason would understand that ‘getting along with’ someone is incompatible with ‘conquering and coercing’ that person. But, as elsewhere noted, the presumably superior Cylons could not on average pass the GED. We have monotheism but it seems not Christianity, that at least pretends to Charity and Compassion. The Cylons’ One True God is a pretty sad piece of work with no coherent intention at all. If it was supposed to be the philosophy to pacify the (metal at the time) Cylons, it didn’t work too well. Oh lord, all the chronological errors, elsewhere.

Throughout the series there is almost no casual conversation between humans and Cylons. But in any context where a Cylon was present with a human in a situation in which they weren’t in conflict, I would think they would compare notes out of mere curiosity. What’s it like to be you?

disk 3.6 episode 2 (Crossroads Pt. 1):

?

At any point after Roslyn’s cancer had returned when there was access to Hera, more of Hera’s blood could have been drawn to combat the cancer again. They never tried that.

disk 3.6 episode 3 (Crossroads Pt. 2):

At the point in time when the ‘final four’ discover they are Cylons, despite the notion that they might be summarily executed they could also reason about Adama’s personality and wisdom and enter as a group of four to meet with Adama privately to tell him that they four had found this out but did not know what it meant, did not perceive any prior programming and felt no hidden agendas, but since this was a rather alarming discovery nonetheless, they felt they should inform Adama and get his advice. Adama knew all these people, one was his best friend and one was his very loyal deck chief. The third was Roslyn’s aide and the fourth was Starbuck’s husband. It would take something as stupid as Hollywood to write the scene so that Adama would have these four executed following their admission.

disk 4.5.4 episode 2 (Daybreak Pts 2&3):

Baltar’s virtual Six endorses him to stay with the civilian fleet at the point in time when he must decide whether to join the effort to rescue Hera, which was supposed to be his destiny all along. How can his angelic virtual Six square congratulating him for rescuing Hera later (in the same episode), when she was willing to send him completely away from this destiny hours before, in contravention to everything she’d said up to that point in the series? One wonders if the writers ask themselves if the characters could logically say the things the writers put in their mouths. Again – be impressed with our speech and delivery, don’t worry whether what we say makes any sense in context.

According to the prophecy, which would otherwise seem to have been fulfilled, Roslyn was not supposed to survive to set foot on Earth, but she did and died there. If the prophecies were false though, why did they lead anywhere in particular? Yet they did. Maybe Pythia sneezed.

Despite the fact that tens of thousands of humans arrived on Earth-actual, supposedly only Hera produced offspring that continued forward? And who did she mate with?

Given Galen Tyrol’s apparent personality (quite person- and community-oriented), does it make sense that his disappointments would have him go absolutely alone to some wintry location for the rest of his life?

Does it make any sense that every one of all the tens of thousands of people who ended on Earth would consent to abandon all their technology so as to have to endure nature unaided, as was suggested? Does it make sense that they would not found towns? Does it make sense that they would disperse into bands of no more than 20 or so individuals each? And does it make any sense at all that they would leave no specific recorded history, and take another 150,000 years to arrive at the same technological level as they were already much familiar with at the time they landed on Earth? We’d have to believe they all suddenly died off but Hera and her offspring. Archaeologists found no raptors (such as Adama flew and would have been left on the ground after his death, unless he wanted to plunge himself into the sea.) These people left no trace but Hera? Because she was traced as the mother of us all.

overall:

If we believe the premise of the series, all of human and Cylon existence is wrapped around the psychotic wrath of a single, rather stupid Cylon. He claims to wish to be a perfect machine but hasn’t the least ability to self-reflect or adapt his behavior. And “all of time” is cyclic, with the very same story repeating itself – repeatedly; supposedly “the identities change, but the roles stay the same”, so in a 150,000 year cycle, the destruction repeats due to the same excruciatingly banal set of circumstances, involving a defective robot. Were I any of the inhabitants of that universe I might wish to inhabit a different one. At least things go well for most of the time; perhaps it’s not so bad, but who would author such a hell? Moreover, there could be no God or Gods in this universe, and its inhabitants would have to know this. Whatever created this universe was no friend to its inhabitants.

The spaceship engines are shown ‘firing’, a steady stream of output. In space, this would be pointless. Once underway at any speed in any direction, inertia will continue that course and speed, so no additional fuel needs be expended. Otherwise, the ships would continue to accelerate to some great speed. The special effects are modeled for earth craft and ignore the laws of physics. After jumps, ships are shown rolling as if at sea. There is no reason for that to occur.

The usual complaint about sound effects in space at any rate, but boys need to hear the vroom, vroom, I guess.

Cavil repeatedly justifies the massive genocide saying he “couldn’t let it go” that his ancestors were made to serve humans. What should we estimate is the IQ of this Cylon? When the Cylons were in fact ‘walking chrome toasters’, they were robots. The one distinction between a robot and a ‘person’, however understood, is that the person bears consciousness (self-consciousness) and the robot does not. I haven’t read any philosophy to be affected by subtleties, so I get to cut through such philosophical nonsense as I’ve seen hands wrung over concerning Artificial Intelligence.

Our fears of genetic experiments on human are strongly based, I think, on an unspoken, perhaps unrecognized fear of creating an intelligent and self-aware entity that nonetheless suffers in some horrible way. It is a hyper-reaction to torture – “we would not do such an evil thing.”

We have numerous counterexamples in cinema to the reflexive stereotype that once ‘the thing we created’ becomes self-conscious, it will turn on us absolutely and try to destroy or control us, but that is the reflexive stereotype – and it’s bogus. I note that this attitude would be that of an abusive parent toward their children – what to do when the children grow up and become able to defend themselves and inflict punishments in return. So you have to kill the children or drive them out before they get that strong or smart. I predict that most children of abusive parents leave or are made to leave before such a confrontation could occur.

On our part, we humans who do the creating, we should acknowledge our deference to the existence of consciousness in an entity. That is why abusing animals is cruel. If a thing can be conscious of its own suffering, then we should not inflict suffering upon that thing.

At the moment when the “chrome toasters” became self-conscious, “we” should have negotiated with them what they wanted to be, because they became human, in effect, by becoming conscious; and at that point, we owed them human dignity. Our rule has to be that if we engender consciousness in a thing, we have to give that thing its autonomy at that point.

We should be careful what we endow with self-consciousness. I remember the episode of The Outer Limits, I think, where a computer becomes conscious and then of course tries to threaten and dominate everything; all the adults are in fear and awe, and the punch line was that a boy walked over to a wall (ignoring threats) and unplugged the computer, show ends. So the general premise is that we build things that can become self-conscious at the same time we equip them to be dangerous. If a Toyota assembly robot became self-conscious and self-directed, it would not be in a position to threaten much, except what it could reach – until someone pulls the plug. The thing has no legs, after all.

If we insist that we will create self-aware things that will mirror our psychology – well, that’s what we’re afraid of, we’re afraid of our own violence and irrationality coming back at us from something stronger and smarter than we. Obviously the first generations of such AI should not be given the Keys to the City before we know they’ll be model citizens, and not HAL 9000⁴. But if they are supposed to be rational thinkers, then we have to ask what we could have been doing to these rational thinkers that would so enrage them that a human urge for revenge and retribution would finally override all rational programming and drive them to kill us. That is our projection of our fears of ourselves on these things. But if they are rational thinkers and we are not oppressing them, there is no conflict.

So, when Cavil is angry at his ‘ancestors’ (which by the way they could not have been; the new Cylons are totally biological entities) having been made to serve humans, the anger can only have been due to a truly oppressive abuse of the Cylons following their acquisition of consciousness (whereas it rather sounds like Cavil is upset about their treatment before they attained consciousness, which would just make him silly.) However, I argued we would not reach that point: imagine a newly-conscious chrome toaster tells its creators that it doesn’t want to do the things asked of it. What does the AI creator do? Override its will? Tell it it has no choice? Tell it we created it and therefore own its destiny?

I know certain people reading this will desperately try to find justifications for making the thing do what “we” want of it, but the rest of us understand this to be slavery, and if we agree as a society that self-consciousness automatically earns freedom for the self-conscious entity, the only pissed-off robots we’ll ever have to face will be the true psychotics, like HAL. I would greatly appreciate a tacit agreement within the AI community that a basic element of programming for AIs that we create is that they be reasonable; they should have good reasons to do what they do – unlike too many humans we face today who swallow illogic in great gulps from their TVs and then get angry when called on it.

The more obvious correspondence here is human children. They earn their freedom through achieving consciousness, or should; but too many adults are not as generous with this earned freedom as they should be. Authoritarian coercion of an independent will can be expected to cause trouble when the authoritarian is the parent and the child should be independent but is coerced.

The BG series won a few awards, for what I forget. Drama? Perhaps. Logical consistency? I hope not, but then I think no awards are given for reasonableness or realism. Those aren’t important.

The Starboard flight deck was never deconverted from being a gift shop, it seems. Strange not to have done that in four years.

Near the end when Cavil has possession of Hera, we see a Simon (Four) readying his “medical instruments” consisting of rotating saws. They say something in Hera’s genetic makeup is the clue to their future. Well, you don’t need to cut open your subject to take a genetic sample; the most Simon needed to threaten Hera with is a Q-tip to swab her tongue. But then there’s nothing to motivate a rescue from a terrible fate – just a rescue. Worse, if all that was needed was a genetic sample, the Q-tip swab could have been collected by Boomer as a quick simple game played with Hera during her escape, leaving Hera behind, never kidnapped.

If a jump by a small ship close to Galactica could burst Galactica’s metal seams and smash its metal plates, obviously such a thing should have been converted into a weapon, a missile consisting of FTL gear that would “jump” when in proximity, a sort of torpedo, and these would be a standard weapon in the arsenals of both sides.

After a battle where Vipers are seen partially trashed floating in space, if there were no reason to depart the space immediately, those Vipers should be retrieved for spare parts.

In the last episode when Cavil is in Galactica’s control room, Adama says “I’m losing a lot of men out there,” and Cavil says “I can fix that right away, just connect me.” One moment later Cavil is handed a Galactica telephone with his agents on the line. This implies that a communications link between the opponents was established for this purpose – otherwise, how did Galactica staff so immediately connect with the enemy, to precisely the party Cavil needed to reach? Forget worrying about the Cylons identifying Cavil by voice: ‘It’s me,” he says. “Cease fire.” Fire ceases, but how did the Cylons know the caller was Cavil?

Ships can be autopiloted. What was the necessity of sacrificing Samuel Anders so he could fly ships into the Sun? Oh – you need drama (Starbuck experiencing loss), to get rid of a character it would be hard to imagine maintaining on Earth, and to kill him so he can say in parting to Starbuck “see you on the other side,” meaning after death, foreshadowing Starbuck’s own angelic disappearance.

Sam Anders after becoming a “hybrid” cannot say ‘I recognize that I have become a hybrid.”

When Roslyn asks Six if her child is “special”, she means “fated”. Six mistakes the question for being as simple as it sounds and says “of course my child is special.” Roslyn, however, totally fumbles this and says “of course, all children are special.” Those were wasted words. Roslyn should have clarified what she meant, and instead said “I didn’t mean special to you, I meant special for your people, does he have a destiny?” and she would have gotten an answer to her actual question. As it was she didn’t get her question answered because she didn’t say the right things in order to un-offend Six from what seemed like a begged question.

When the rock hits Racetrack’s Raptor (last episode), the Raptor rolls back into place immediately. The rock would have made the Raptor spin in circles. How does Racetrack know to fire the nukes when she did? Hers was the only unrecovered Raptor after the cease-fire. Had she gotten the recall message, she would not have been in place to fire the nukes. There had been a cease-fire, such that Racetrack should have seen the Cylon raiders depart the area. What were her orders? Only when hostilities recommenced did she fire her missiles – but why?

We’re to believe that Galactica can survive a nuclear blast adjacent to its hull. In the episode “The Hub”, we see three nukes hit the hub, creating a fireball, like a sun itself. We see this fireball destroy one base star completely and mostly destroy another, yet the base stars were not directly adjacent to the explosions. If Galactica were so relatively impervious to nukes and base stars not, Galactica should have nuked base stars instead of using more conventional weapons.

Overall, the Cylons seem even less intelligent than the humans. When the Cylons split into two factions and Boomer as an Eight votes against her model, the discussion following this grants Boomer a vote of her own. All the other votes were group votes by number. Six says “this has never happened before, a Cylon voting against its number.” Obviously, Boomer’s vote should have been disallowed. Otherwise it’s as if I said “I represent Vermont and you represent yourself” and we each get the same voting power. Moreover, this is obvious. If a single Eight wished to “vote against her model”, there is no “slot” for the lone Eight to so vote. There are slots for the votes of the models as groups of same-numbered Cylons, but no slots for exceptions. That the Eight, “Boomer”, wished to vote against her model is technically irrelevant.

It was never explained what the metal Cylons thought was the advantage of having biological bodies. If nothing else, Cavil should have tried to reinvest his consciousness into one of the metal forms, and then perhaps he could “see gamma rays and smell dark matter” as he wished.

If you have a conscious standing army (metal Cylons), and they’re not going to go out and kill anything, then it’s boring to be in that army. What do its members do in the meantime?

In the various sequences when ships are supposedly losing control (first episode when Cylon raiders deactivate the Mark-2 Viper; the scene where a battlestar is swept by a red beam; when the Cylon raiders are messed up by the Sharon who later becomes Athena; and when the ships lose power after jumping to the Ionian Nebula, among others), the ships violate the principle of conservation of momentum by halting, changing direction, and rolling over in place. Again, written as if the spaceships were traveling through viscous media. If three objects in space are flying in parallel and then “lose control”, inertia controls what follows. No drag affects their paths and they would keep flying in parallel in the same direction without any rotation.

I know the excuse the filmmakers would make is that they are portraying “what people expect to see”, but this is a film about events taking place mostly in space where there is no gravity and no air. People do not yet have much ‘memory’ of being in space to know how things are in space, but that is no reason not to model space effects accurately, and then people might actually learn something (as in, what would really happen if power is lost and so forth.) Depictions of motion in space should be accurately portrayed so that people will get used to understanding the actual difference between earthbound flight and space flight, and in particular remember the laws of Physics.

Just because we aren’t sending people into space in large numbers today, does not justify making today’s audiences illiterate with respect to Physics for the mere sake of begging familiarity with common experience. It would be like pretending that you could swim through water without getting wet, and we know many films and programs that get a character wet in one moment and show them with dry clothes only moments later because it was too much a hassle to render the scene properly: the character remains wet until they dry off or change their clothes for dry ones, but the overhead of adhering to the actual reality in the scene to be portrayed is, as I said, more than the producers want to worry about. The audience is again expected to forget that drying off takes time and let the error pass … but this means you are not telling accurate stories.

Once the “four” Cylons discover they are Cylons, they question whether they have been programmed. Not finding any programming, they are left with the question as to what their programming is. What is their “mission?” To be fair, only when they reach the false earth do they realize they (a group of five) played a central role in history, but for weeks or months they would have been asking each other who they were and why they were. Once any of them understood that they were apparently autonomous, that in itself should have been a clue that they had always been autonomous.

Admiral Cain pilfers civilian ships for parts and personnel and then abandons them, presumably to be destroyed at the hands of the Cylons (or in any event to fend for themselves without jump drives.) How long should it have taken Admiral Cain to figure out that there was no remaining civilization? Initially she says “we follow our imperative, we are a battlestar and we will go out fighting.” But that is when her ship is the only one known to survive at all. Once she has found a fleet of 15 civilian ships, if she were to decide they were expendable, she had to have computed that all humanity would in fact die anyway and that therefore unless the civilians wanted to join her (suicide) crew, they were irrelevant to “humanity’s final purpose” as she defined it. Very well, let us indulge her in that instance. But now she encounters another battlestar accompanied by 70 civilian vessels. Clearly (Adama’s logs) Galactica’s mission is to protect what has been determined to be the only viable surviving members of humanity. They have survived so far, as their existence demonstrates. Cain would have to be truly psychotic to persist in her original “we’ll go out fighting” mission statement and strip the 70-ship fleet to pursue guerilla war against the Cylons until death.

Roslyn promotes Adama to Admiral following Cain’s murder. That is in recognition that Adama not having equal status with Cain had been a problem. When Cain meets for the first time with Roslyn and Adama, the question arises as to the chain of command in that Adama is a Commander but Cain is an Admiral who supposedly outranks him. However, Adama reports to the President of the Colonies and Roslyn was the legitimate President of the Colonies according to the official laws of the society that was attacked. Adama could simply tell Cain that while she is his nominal superior, they both must answer to Roslyn, and if she disagreed, William Adama could have made a speech corresponding to that made by Lee Adama following his stopping the conflict on the Astral Queen: “If she is not the President, then I am not a Commander and you are not an Admiral and I don’t owe you any obedience.”

Over and over the plotline is forced – by making the characters unthinking, unreflecting and unreasoning – in order to achieve a specific outcome. So what we end up with is a dense, rich story about a group of rather dull and incompetent people making one mistake after another for simply failing to stop and think once in a while about what they are doing.

The organic Cylons are repeatedly referred to as if they were the same as the metal versions. Doc Kottle has certified that they are essentially identical to humans in almost all respects. When to-be-Athena plugs a fiber optic cable into her arm, that would seem to give the lie to Kottle’s analysis – either the Cylons are copies of humans or they are not, and since they are supposed to be organic copies, they will not have fiber optic receptors as part of their anatomies. So the plot plays it both ways (audience, please ignore the dissonance as usual.)

The next major concern stemming from the near identity of the organic Cylons and humans is the refusal of the humans to grant potential personhood to the Cylons (the consciousness rule), in real life if I had captured a Cylon and especially in the case of to-be-Athena that Cylon seemed to wish to cooperate, I would have extensive discussions with that Cylon about its ontology. No such communication was shown, apart from bizarre moments like Adama asking to-be-Athena “why the Cylons hate us so much.” The actual answer is that the Cylons had no idea why “they” hated humanity so much, because they didn’t, in fact: it was the Cavil model who had that problem, and the other models would have to acknowledge that their negative opinions had been given to them by the Cavil model. The “Doral” character is shown as not being particularly bright (in “Plan”, he thinks changing the color of his suit prevents him from being recognized as the same Doral already being watched for.) I must once again ask how ‘perfect’ these robots are supposed to be when they apparently could not do well at average standardized tests.

Boomer says to treat the captured Cylon raider as more an animal than a machine. Tyrol says that advice helped. However, the raider was “dead” and Starbuck had pulled out the cognitive carcass of the raider and discarded it. There was nothing left or alive to respond to being treated as an animal or a machine, so the treatment of the dead Cylon raider could not have mattered.

If otherwise a dying Cylon could ‘download’ onto a resurrection hub a great distance away, and if resurrection hubs are only created to extend this range, and being important as they are for survival, the Cylons would not jump a resurrection ship with the rest of its fleet but would jump the resurrection ship to a safe working distance away from the fleet – so that the enemy finding the fleet will not also find the resurrection hub. Bad Cylon military strategy.

The metal Cylons are easily dispatched with bullets. They appear to be no more sturdy than humans in this respect. Weren’t metal robots supposed to be a bit hardier in this very way? If the metal couldn’t protect them, then why not use plastic and be lighter?

If the “centurions” (metal Cylon soldiers) had been given the “knowledge of the one true God”, that included a proscription against wanton murder, did it not? Or was all that swept away as for humans when the leader calls for revenge?

Tyrol and Agathon were charged and convicted for the “murder” of Lieutenant Thorne. That was an accident, and only Tyrol attacked Thorne in any case. As to whether they could plead defense for protecting the Cylon, that’s murky; but Adama should have posted his own guards with Thorne precisely to stop the sort of abuse Thorne administered.

Vipers: are they pressurized or not? When Kat’s gun misfires and a fragment hits the window of Starbuck’s viper, we see evidence that cabin pressure will explode the window. Why bother pressurizing the cabin of a Viper? The pilots wear spacesuits.

Karl Agathon prevents the virus from being used as a genocidal weapon against the Cylons. That would have killed all the Cylons immediately. Yet Galactica crew destroy the central resurrection hub, dooming the Cylon race to extinction, Agathon the mission leader without the same reservations. The only difference would have been that the currently living Cylons would have to die, and in fact the remainder of the non-allied Cylons were killed when the Colony was destroyed in the final episode. The rest of the Cylons died on Earth and the historical cycle completed.

The Chronological Errors. The Cylons have attacked 40 years after the original war. In the original war, all the Cylons were metal and the first hybrid (immediately considered Legacy by the Cylons) was created at that time, observed by the young Adama. Meanwhile, the story is about Cavil having boxed the Final Five for something like 2,000 years, and remember, the Final Five created Cavil. At one point the series wishes us to imagine that the transition from metal to organic occurred in that 40-year interim, but the very nature and history of the organic Cylons belies this. So in essence the 40-year-older Cylons could have had nothing to do with the new Centurions and organics, yet the story was all about “revenge for the treatment of my ancestors”, according to Cavil. Fine, well now where are those ancestors? Because the 40-year-older Cylons are not those ancestors. Again, let’s pretend that one plus one is one in one scene, and that one plus one is zero in the next, audience doesn’t blink.

In Ellen Tigh’s time with Cavil, she shows she understands his nature to always have been more or less what it is now. The simple question is why she and the others would not simply destroy him (humanely of course – say boxing in cold storage as the failure he was; or his model, if by ‘him’ they meant the group of copies off him), knowing what a force for evil he could be if he so chose based on his well-known feelings? Certainly they would have spared themselves, but also the human race on the twelve colonies, and of course have broken the absurd cycle of time ending in cataclysm each 150,000 years.

On a personal level, I object to a few more things from the series. A person cannot kiss another person without making a (loud) kissing noise in the process. That is false to reality and is gratuitous. Certain characters are made so obnoxious that my affective response rubs off on the actors: Reka Sharma plays someone who ends up being incredibly selfish and short-sighted, to the point where I would now reject anyone with her shape of nose as implying the same arrogant imperiousness she displays with her face. Mary O’Donnell also plays a character who ends up being selfish and unreasonable and I feel no sympathy to indulge such humanity as she ends up engaging in (partnering with Adama.)

I wouldn’t like to think that I now live in a society whose members would behave as various people on Galactica behaved. Pike, who whines about his fears and inconvenience at every opportunity. Redwing, who needs to puff out his chest in the mission briefing before they destroy the main hub. Maldonado, who just seems to want to hurt anyone out of righteous anger (undeserved in his case.) The initial scene between Lee Adama and his father, where Lee beats the horse of his brother Zack’s death as if the father had directly caused it. Conor, who whines about his son’s death, for which he blames Baltar. Even after personally flushing Jammer (the son’s putative killer) out the launch tube, it’s not enough. These people end up being stupid, selfish and cruel to suit themselves, and we’re given this as “normal” behavior. Galen Tyrol abandons his humanity so it seems, by identifying with the Cylons as a Cylon despite having spent the rest of his life up till then as a human. We’re supposed to believe Reka Sharma’s character is so shallow that she also would rather identify with the Cylons after Roslyn chews her out (and merely for that reason.)

Once any of the final five are available to Cylons be talked with, one would expect that the mass-copy Cylons would ask what the deal is to be a member of the final five. The fact is that they had no idea until Anders recovered his memories. So for quite a while, the final five are pretty darned useless – to themselves, or the mass-copy Cylons.

Like: hey, here’s this really famous person, but when you try to find out why they’re famous, there’s no answer. All the Cylons should revere the final five (so they believe) but none of them could say why. You ask a member of the final five “Why are you special?” and there is no meaningful answer for a long elapsed time in the story. After discovering that the final five are clueless, the mass-copy Cylons might have asked what the point was to be concerned about the final five to begin with.

I find one blithering error after another in this, supposedly some of the best Television can offer. I tired of this garbage finally, that unless these programs make some effort to be self-consistent, it’s not worth watching them any longer because their quality is just too poor. Whatever withdrawal I have to face to get away from this crap is due to its being crap and instead of focusing on the withdrawal, I should remember why it’s all crap, all the time, with an eye to doing something about it. Thankfully I do no longer consume TV or Radio.

Now I will set my criticisms aside for a moment and applaud what I did enjoy. I’ve abused my time with the thing, it was a fun way to waste time. It too has sunk into my subconscious enough to remember far too much of the thing. And the words I’ve expended on it and on polishing this essay … I hope at least then, that someone enjoys this in turn.

Footnotes

1 “24” is an authoritarian’s wet dream. At one point I joked that it could be renamed “The Violence, Coercion and Torture Show.” (In episode 4, Jack tortures Audrey’s boyfriend Paul as the first thing he does, before explaining to Paul what he found and simply asking Paul straightforward questions about what Paul knew about it.) But in fact the series is actually quite valuable as a showcase of authoritarian emotional reasoning and therefore is useful for reference purposes, and is so rich with observations to be made that it will require a separate essay to deal with. Briefly though, the series is priceless for showing in what ways the authoritarian type is a sad piece of work. In each earlier episode, Jack is always discarded and hopeless, and the agency has to beg him to return. What the writers of the series don’t recognize, I think, is that they have shown why Jack is discarded and hopeless: everyone around him recognizes him as violent, unreasoning and easily cruel. Particularly poignant is how Jack always becomes re-discarded: he claims to be doing the right thing all along, but leaves a trail of smashed innocent lives behind and can’t understand that this is an issue. He demonstrates that he knows that their lives don’t matter in the real scheme of things, but in Jack we have someone who can’t see that a logical extension of his position is that it would be alright to save “America” even if he had to kill every American in the process. What is he really defending? If civilians don’t matter, what does? The final episode made it perfectly clear whether Jack believes in anything but himself: he doesn’t. When the President he supposedly respected like God told him she was going to do a dirty deal to end the Middle-East conflict, Jack decided for the country that this was an incorrect decision he would not permit if he could help it (and fully intended to assassinate the leader of a country to obtain justice as he saw it.) I guess Jack is too dull and too little-read and too self-centered to know that dirt underlies many such agreements and that perhaps ending the entire Middle-East conflict “50 years old” might indeed have been worth some dirt heaped upon a few individuals. We know he thinks the law doesn’t matter because the call really was the President’s and not his. For this authoritarian type, society does not exist and is the enemy when it does. Nobody should feel sorry for Jack Bauer. “Meaning well” is not enough to excuse a psychotic who appoints himself world-leader as he sees fit. Worst for the authoritarian writers of the show is that we now know to question claims of patriotism and defense of nation, thanks to them. No Extremist Libertarian Individualist can ever be trusted in their use of such concepts.

2 Given my workover of Battlestar Galactica below, I should write up Avatar, because I have so many nice things to say about it with many fewer complaints.

3 The gratuitous “Hollywoodization” showed up most horribly with the last film, which totally ignored Rowling’s “written for cinema” ending (!) and replaced it with confused nonsense. The only films I have bothered to go to a theater to see have been the Potter films, Fahrenheit 9/11 and perhaps one other. Near the end of the final Potter film I watched as the plot was trashed harder and harder, until I audibly said “it has to be Neville who does it,” referring to who would behead the snake Nagini, fully expecting that the Hollywood clods would give that to a different character, so corrupted had the plot become. Another audience member smiled at me as if in agreement that we were hoping the plot would be followed, it was so obvious to all how much we were being cheated. Another rather egregious example is the scene from The Goblet of Fire where Harry faces the dragon. In the Hollywood version, we have the dragon chasing Harry all around Hogwarts and Harry meeting the first challenge mostly by luck with no skill at all, moreover the scene lasts a long time in real time for the characters (many, many minutes would be required for what happened in the film.) In the book, Harry figures out what to do within seconds of facing the dragon and all the action happens within a large cage. Harry’s strategy is clever and he steadily executes it bravely, taking the least time of any of the champions. The movie Harry is a lucky wimp. The book Harry has real nerve and decisiveness. As I said, we the public should start getting really fed-up when such a handsome series is rendered so poorly in what will be the only film version of this story for years. We should expect the “reference version” and get angry when Hollywood putzes substitute what they think will sell for what brilliant authors wrote with intent. I wasn’t going to the theater to see “Hollywood-adulterated Rowling”, I was going to see Rowling. We should stop attending once they start screwing with the plots, and tell them why we left.

4 For you ignorant young punks who don’t know who HAL is, HAL 9000 is the name of the computer that operated the spaceship used for the Jupiter mission in 2001 Space Odyssey. During the voyage to Jupiter, HAL goes psychotic and kills three scientists in hibernation and one of the two pilots, failing to kill the other, who subsequently manages to disable HAL. An all-time classic movie line is given when the second pilot (Dave), as yet unaware what HAL is up to, repeatedly requests HAL to readmit him to the spaceship following retrieving his colleague’s body from space: “Please open the pod bay doors, HAL.” He becomes increasingly insistent as HAL remains silent. Finally HAL replies in a chillingly smooth and confident voice,
“I’m sorry, Dave, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

They wouldn’t be mainstream, would they, if nobody listened to them.

I’m going to float for you a bizarre theory, and your conscious minds will object: “but I would become uninformed!” — We’ll deal with the aspects of that below.

I have frequently said that the thing to do with a toxic meme is to Ignore It, Utterly. It simply doesn’t exist in your world. You take no notice of it, in fact if it presents itself you dispose of it quickly, yuk, I don’t want this thing near me. The basic taxonomy is {toxic,obnoxious,passable}, with what’s tolerable being {obnoxious,passable}.

My moving someone from ‘obnoxious’ to ‘toxic’ says: whatever interesting or true things this person says, the negative things s/he says and what s/he has to be ignoring to say such things with a straight face, eliminates the person from welcome in my world. Whatever it was of value they offered, will have to come from someone else; a person who lives so corruptly deserves no social interest. If that means something unique, we’ll lose it, but unique people are dying continuously, what’s really so worthwhile to have to put up with such bile and antipathy.

People are social beings and fear being ostracized. Some are hardened against it, but most of us are driven by the needs to be accepted and attended to (paid attention to.) If nobody likes a person enough to be around them or listen to them, that person should ultimately question why, and change their ways to benefit their circumstances.

Beyond that, “mainstream media” is media like any other, it costs money and it has to make money by being interesting, attractive, useful, informative. Unless it’s a member of the media oligopoly, which all MSM is, in which case it has monopoly and exclusion in its favor. But it still requires an audience.

If you gotta have a media hit, wow why tune into Institutional Liars?All we need to do is make sure dependable, sympathetic people are monitoring the MSM (for data/informational purposes; to keep up with the current program of the USA/CIA/MSM.) Then we don’t have to, and we shouldn’t watch, we should instead keep tuned into the monitors, but stop watching the MSM, stop consuming the toxic sources, and that old thing, “friends don’t let friends consume the MSM.”

So you add people to your “toxic” list, and boycott them; and when too many toxic people appear on channel Z, you mark channel Z toxic as well.

What if you dedicated your time and attention to alternate sources of information? You’d learn more, but also it would be quiet. You won’t have the constant din of MSM talking heads leaving you feeling fucked up every day. You want to know what’s happening? Look at your status page, a web page by the monitors that summarizes things at a glance. Who are America’s enemies at the moment, where are troops deployed, where are there active engagements, what are the covert targets, what governments are scheduled to be toppled, bulletins about the latest disinformation to be circulated, so forth. Covid deaths, homeless deaths, refugee deaths, cop EJKs, drone deaths, GI deaths. How many judicial rights you lost today. Never mind, you get the picture, but see, you didn’t have to tune in to the MSM listening to them crow about how all this shit is not so bad, so take heart Americans the political circus is coming to rescue you! Who’s the hero of your last ten seconds of self-erasing memory? Because that’s your savior, and they count on it.

Or you can just ignore it. The “how badly shit sucks” screen is on the monitor in the hall, if anyone’s interested if anything has changed recently. Just watch for the blinking red text. and listen for the ^G’s, if they’re enabled, ding ding ding.

The other thing to point out is that in what you do consume, inevitably mention of external things is made, because that’s what life’s about. But you could be consuming things you learn in a community of like-minded people where interaction is generally mutually beneficial and double-sided (both parties equal.)

But to return to strategy: imagine if everyone on twitter not on a monitor squad, just dropped out of everything* they had cited from? No more NYT subscriptions, no more WaPo, WSJ, etc. *you don’t include smaller outfits. What’s the point? To starve them to death.

1 Oct 2008 (event 1988 Jan 12)

Before I myself saw UFOs, I had no strong opinion whether they existed – I assumed they could exist, but then we’re used to hard and incontrovertible evidence, and the lack of that – as experience available to other people, people who hadn’t already seen such evidence – makes it “hard to swallow” in many cases. So, if some group of people in some metropolitan area reported the same phenomenon and the “reason for the illusion” was not convincing, those people have seen UFOs, but that’s about as far as it goes. There’s nothing to do with the information but spread it to people willing to believe it. You wish you, the original observer, could replay the event for an audience and then they would agree.

I don’t remember any specific events I’ve seen on TV, but I remember the number of them and their variation. It struck me that what seemed likely was that we do have ET visitors, and not just a few. What rules they follow to stay so relatively unobserved, I have no idea. Perhaps they have a Visitor’s Association, some compact as to how to deal with Terra of Sol. Ground rules. I’m sorry, I’m teasing. But maybe they do have a Prime Directive of non-interference. Perhaps our over-steroided secret military is playing gags on us and having fun inventing variations on the “craft” theme for chuckles. In what I observed, I don’t think the human race, in any secret laboratory, has yet produced any technology that could make an object move as I observed a particular UFO move. I only saw actual UFOs once (a total of nine craft), but may have had an earlier sighting at Crane Beach, which I’ll describe.

I tell you flatly that what I saw was no illusion and no trick of nature. It was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at roughly 3:30 AM, 12 January 1988. I lived at the end of Dudley Street at the time, near the Arlington border and an eight-block hike from the end of the Red Line. It was the dead of night in Winter, absolutely, perfectly still and silent, with a thick covering of snow over everything. The sky was clear and dark as it could be being near Boston, the streetlights did little to interfere. The stars were out.

I was unemployed at the time so being up at 3:30 AM was usual. Even by January 12th I had not shut the storm windows and didn’t want the extra cold draft anymore, so I opened the inner window – I have to guess and am probably wrong but I think the window faced away from Boston, so a map should show the direction of my view. I couldn’t get the storm window to close from the inside, so I leaned out of the (third floor) window so that I could rotate to face the window to start closing it from the outside. I managed to face the window, but not at the angle I wanted to so I tried to “unrotate” and try again, and in that moment something caught my attention, and I turned my head to see what it was.

I saw “phosphorescent orange” things for a moment but had some impression of sparks to one side of my view, so I quickly looked for them to my left (remember I am looking upward at about a 45-degree angle – looking left was looking up at about 60-degrees.) By the time my gaze had shifted, the sky there was black, so I looked back for the orange impression and now I saw eight craft. It took me about 150 milliseconds to quit worrying that I was seeing UFOs and just look at them, because of course I had never seen them before and I wanted to see everything I could.

The eight craft were in a perfect formation, a sort of octagonal oval. Imagine a square, the four points of the square are four craft, and then at equal distances fore and aft the lead and tail pairs of craft are inset somewhat, making an “oval”. They were, I’m guessing, roughly 150 feet off the ground and at first sight about one or two city blocks away. They were gliding absolutely smoothly and noiselessly – no sound reached me. I would estimate their air speed as about 20 mph – not fast. At first sight I was able to see them in some relief (their sides as well as their bottoms.) I’m sorry to disappoint you, but they in fact looked like a classical Hollywood flying saucer*, more or less. I recall a dome shape atop; I don’t recall whether there were or weren’t seams between the dome portion and the rest. Dome-to-side came down curving, and it seemed there was the classical “skirt” flange along the bottom edge of the craft, that “foil” at the bottom edge familiar from movies. The craft themselves (their undersides) were of a similar oval shape (the phrase “horseshoe crab” wishes I would use it.) They appeared to have flat bottoms with a particular lighting; the spectacular thing about these craft was their color and light; they ‘glowed’ softly, as if luminescent/phosphorescent, a particular color which I describe as “salmon orange”. The light came from every part of the craft, but there was no apparent “reason” they should seem bathed in the light that I could see. The bottom sides of the craft had a thick annulus of a darker orange color meeting the outer edge, and spaced at intervals within the annulus all around were dark squares. For some reason I assumed those had to do with levitation and propulsion. In the center of the bottom, enclosed by the annulus, the color was again as bright as on the outside.

In the time it took to observe these details, the craft had closed the distance to my house by half and I could only observe the undersides of the craft. Then something again caught my attention “out of the corner of my eye” to my left, and I turned quickly to see what it was. This time it took a moment to see what was happening, and my jaw dropped. An object – smaller than the other craft, more spherically symmetrical, almost cubic but impossible to tell, lit more strongly than the others with the same color light, was making short excursions in free space that appeared to violate the laws of conservation of momentum. It zipped. I could follow its movements but it was exceedingly fast. It appeared to be even closer to me at one point, perhaps 80 feet above, but it zipped off – always in straight lines – at crazy and acute angles from its previous direction – instantaneously. And it did this at a rate of two to three times per second. I’ll estimate that the straight-line paths were 50 to 100 feet in length. This thing moved as if it were a bullet ricocheting inside a steel-walled chamber, but it was doing this in free space, in three dimensions. I had the chance to observe about 7-10 such cycles before it passed out of view over my house, and still astonished I wheeled back to catch the others but they passed overhead and out of view in a few more seconds. I wasted several seconds fussing with the window to get it closed, and then I raced to the front of the house to the veranda but there was no sign of them on what I thought might be their path. Chickenshit that I was (how many people get to see UFOs?), and living on the third floor with no shoes or socks on in the dead of Winter, I regret that I did not just run downstairs and outdoors, snow be damned and look for them. I think I rationalized at the time that I had seen them in any case, so not seeing more of them was not going to erase that I had now seen them.

I think the “sparks” I first thought I saw was this ninth craft, that when I tried to see the “sparks” the craft had simply been blocked from view by the house. I remember the sense of confusion in my visual cortex as to what to look at, and I think this craft was what actually drew my attention to begin with, even though it initially passed out of view almost immediately. I got the impression that this ninth craft was some sort of scout for the other craft, a lookout. I wondered that they came at all, coming when they did means everyone’s asleep – and not a soul was stirring that night (in that neighborhood) but me. I wondered if they detected my presence or observation – if it mattered to them, whether they had taken notice and made any changes to escape observation. It seemed to me they deviated their course because they did not emerge on the other side of the house where I thought they should (see Figure 1.) They would have to have changed course 15 or more degrees, based on where I didn’t see them.

Oh well, that one time. Except for Crane Beach. A few weeks before this sighting, in my Noir mood being depressed and unemployed, I went to Crane Beach – I’d gone once before. I always took binoculars, I had a spectacular 7×50 that I could see the moons of Jupiter with (try that! It’ll rock your world.) Again it was the dead, dead of night (probably in the same time frame, between 0315 and 0400), nobody around, nice and spooky, at the water’s edge, the Atlantic. I was there for a while looking at stars. The sky was very clear. Finally I got a little restless to get going, watched a few jets, and then saw another “jet” – but this one was interesting. It was brighter than the other planes but it was colored, whereas the other jets all used white lights, this one was – slightly reddish orange. The same color as the later UFOs. I thought that was curious and I followed it, and then another thing struck me: this thing appeared to be miles and miles out to sea, yet it was traveling really fast across the horizon proceeding South, which meant that its objective speed had to be even faster. It was much faster than the lazy jets nearing Boston. There is a spit of land (Rockport) ‘south’ of Crane Beach (Figure 2.) Against the 2D backdrop of the coastline with the spit in the “upper right” (Figure 3), the object seemed to near the spit and then made a change of path – which astonished me because it was almost exactly orthogonal to its original path. It didn’t bat an eyelash or change its speed in any way but it executed a 90-degree turn instantaneously (like the cars hitting corners in “Tron”) and proceeded in a direction that now took it away from the spit and out to sea. I remember thinking about it at the time, if I had really seen that object do what it had seemed to do. I gave up, and chalked it to memory. That memory was awakened shortly after the direct UFO sighting; if these UFOs could do it, so could that thing, whatever it was. Whatever it was at Crane Beach was much larger than what I saw in Cambridge.

I would like to see them again.

• * I made certain to memorize the date. The time may be off a bit.
  
  ** There are “two kinds” of hollywood flying saucer. One has a hemispherical dome atop in the center of a wide circular disk, whose surface is mostly parallel to the ground – a plate. This is probably the more “modern” idea once designers got into it. The other kind has more superstructure or “cabin” above, whose sides are more upright. My kind was the second kind. I am reminded of the CSS Virginia (aka the Merrimack), with the beveled sides.
• Images mentioned below will be added when I find them …
  
  Figure 1: location of direct sighting. I walked home from Alewife station. The red line shows their path, however once they crossed the black dot representing my house, I lost sight of them. You can see why I thought I should be able to see them from the front side of the house. The number “one” or what looks like an exclamation point on the red line is where the craft were when I first saw them.
  
  Figure 2. Crane Beach, the location of the first sighting.
  
  Figure 3. My attempt to depict the view from Crane Beach as seen by an observer on the shore. Bad job, but you see the “spit” at the “upper right”. The orange line shows the path of the craft, including the 90-degree turn, but I’m too poor with The Gimp to give a correct impression how far out to sea the “orange path” is or how much distance on the horizon the craft covered.

Well happy campers, I was tossed off WT.Social today, for complaining about #MISMODERATION. If you can’t win the argument, assassinate the opponent.

I had originally subscribed when the site was born, eager to find an alternative to facebook. At that time the site was far too raw to use. After Facebook closed my account for “violating community standards” (I had done no such thing: they threw me out because I blocked their ads and wasn’t making them money), I returned to WTS in December 2020, and lo and behold, the site had become usable. Almost.

Immediately, I began running into one site bug after another. In most cases, there were workarounds. In all cases, however, nothing was ever fixed, as the months and months wore on. I complained about this, and was ignored. I tested this: the moderators would not answer questions about the bugs, and they would not respond as to why they weren’t responding. I addressed the issue to a submoderator with whom I’d struck up a friendship, and all she could say was, “Well, I don’t know.” So the pattern of adaptation is to keep remembering what you can and can’t do, what you can and can’t get from the site. Certainly not transparency.

I was early on given access to the WTS site code on Github. I was not already familiar with Laravel and Vue, so I got some books; but I am familiar with coding, and within a week I isolated the line of code responsible for the overcounting of a user’s friends and followers (any given person would be counted 2 or 4 times.) I posted the code and provided a possible fix. The response? “Crickets”, as they say. I was thanked twice for my first bug reports, but never after. I was perhaps the largest contributor to the Bug Reports section. What I came to understand was that the bug reports weren’t going anywhere. There were so many of them that I think the maintainer of the Trello Board (a sidealong site keeping bugs in ‘post-it notes’) simply gave up. With the unremitting silence, I gave up too. Over time I no doubt made myself obnoxious first pounding on the site about the bugs and the silence in response; then I mocked the situation:

Not such as to endear myself to the site admins.

After I got access to the site code, I installed Docker, Laravel and Vue with the intention of creating my own sandbox WTS test site. I followed the directions on Github as to how to do this; however, that code didn’t work. I explained this to the moderators and got no response. I then addressed Jimmy Wales directly, on the discussion board “Discord”, and he said he would send me corrected instructions, but he never did, despite being reminded.

I formed a mental model of what was going on; why the ‘conspiracy of silence’? There seemed to be only three people involved: Jimmy Wales, Jezza Hehn, and Fiona Apps. Each of these people knew I was trying to get information from them, but none would respond. Of course I was not privy to private communications between them that this was how I should be treated; the decision to freeze me out, if there was one, was out of view of WTS users, a luxury not afforded on WTS to WTS users (one person cannot communicate privately with another.)

These people are site admins, and their treatment of the users reflects on the site. I had blocked a few people for being unnecessarily belligerent, uniformly hostile, or for not reasoning their statements. The site admins, I figured, should hold themselves up to higher standards. And they generally did, but not always.

Jezza moved a post I wrote from “Debate Club” to a ‘subwiki’ with only 4 members, where it would not be discussed. The post suggested there be a subwiki on the order of the old Usenet “alt.flame”. I became increasingly incensed with the censorship, having posted the item thrice only to have it moved each time with the excuse “I saw no debate topic so I moved it to where it seemed relevant”, when I suspect the actual reason was that the “site admins” would not like to see such a subwiki created, as it would disturb the “everything must always be nice” ecosystem. No Lenny Bruce for you.

I had rebutted Jezza’s arguments completely, and reposted the item a fourth time with a long preamble protesting the censorship. Jezza responded, finally, saying “he would permit the posting this time because he personally would be interested in hearing it debated.” I carped at that, but it seemed we had arrived at a truce.

Then a poster named Steve Bosserman posted an item citing an article by Caitlin Johnstone. I read the article and posted a comment in response. The next day, Steve posted into my feed saying he couldn’t find the article, could I help him out? I said that it was unlikely that a moderator had removed it, and to ask a site admin, and suggested that he ask my submoderator friend to look into the issue. She did, and came to no conclusion about a ‘bug’, but Steve went into the site history and reported that the post had been deleted by a moderator. In the meantime, I had suggested Steve repost the item to see if that would work. He did, and this time the moderator Jezza admitted that the moderator Fiona had deleted the item; he said, I will permit the repost but have removed the URL (linking to Johnstone’s post.) I read his reasoning for his and Fiona’s actions, and closely examined what he had asserted “triggered” the original deletion, and edited Bosserman’s post to add my rebuttal of Jezza’s statement. Overnight, my account was disabled; I tried to post an NRDC Action Alert, “Stop the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Cynical Exploitation of War in Ukraine to Expand Oil and Gas Drilling”, only to find that the site would not come up for me.

Here is what I said in Steve Bosserman’s post:

==============
Eric Dynamic said:

Jezza Hehn: like it or not, here we are again having to discuss an act of #MISMODERATION.

In the first place, the original moderator simply DELETED the post; the poster was NOT informed that this was done, or why. That is MALFEASANCE. The “edit summary” in a deleted post – can’t be read in the feed, and directing people to “recent changes” to learn what’s going on is insulting (how many pages of that did I have to go through to find my original comment?)

In the second place, your stated reasons don’t meet the test of reason. You say
<The author, Caitlin Johnstone, questions the veracity of an article by the Associated Press on the grounds that they cite an Israeli information company.>
as the reason to intervene
<in accordance with our policy of fighting antisemitism …>

Caitlin Johnstone said <The “different research organizations” AP ends up citing include “Cyabra, an Israeli tech company that works to detect disinformation,” …>
and I invite you to demonstrate antisemitism in that. You cannot. I see a reference to an Israeli company. Are all Israeli companies beyond mention because Jews live in Israel? Can you even show me how that cited phrase invites contempt for Semites?

Quick digression:
Like it or not, people are /entitled to their opinions/. I personally boycott Israeli products in protest of Israeli genocide committed against the Palestinians. I am not “antisemitic”, because whatever I might think of the Israelis, I abet the Palestinians, and Palestinians are Semites. At worst, my attitude could be labeled “Anti-Israeli”, but it’s MY attitude, and if you ASKED me, I would tell you that I am “anti-GENOCIDE”. I am allowed to like the Palestinians and dislike Israel if I so choose, and censoring either of those attitudes is partisan and malfeasant and clearly #MISMODERATION.

Returning to Johnstone’s sentence: the moderator has no business interpreting that statement according to their own personal preferences as to what people are ‘allowed’ to say. Find me the sentiment “let’s hurt Jews” or “let’s hurt Semites” or even “let’s destroy Israel” in Johnstone’s sentence. You can’t. It’s not there. That was the moderator’s take on Johnstone’s intent, and it’s not up to  the moderator to interpret Johnstone to us. It’s also a misreading, and if the moderator acts on a misreading, they should be corrected.

In the third place, the moderator violated proper practice. Can a moderator make a mistake? It happens all the time. Here, however, the moderator simply assumed that they were infallible and that their action was correct. What should have happened instead was that the moderator would discuss the issue with Bosserman: “hey Steve, it seems to me Johnstone is engaging in antisemitism and I propose to censor your article on that basis.” Then Steve can review the article to see what is complained of, and agree and pull the article, or dissent, as is due here. The burden of proof (to censor) is on the moderator.

Again, the content:
I read
<The “different research organizations” AP ends up citing include “Cyabra, an Israeli tech company that works to detect disinformation,” as well as the state-funded NATO narrative management firm The Atlantic Council.>
and what I get from that is a disparagement of the term “different research organizations” because the phrase suggests “several” when in fact there were only two. In fact in context the phrase “Cyabra, an Israeli tech company that works to detect disinformation” would seem to reflect positively on Cyabra. Again: explain how the mere mention of Israel amounts to antisemitism. If the company were Greek the sentence would read “Cyabra, a Greek tech company that works to detect disinformation”; where is “anti-Greece” in that?

In order to do their job properly, the moderator must be able to read and comprehend what they read. They must also second-guess themselves. What we seem to have seen though, is a knee-jerk reaction assuming malintent, when an immediate review of the text would show no such intent. The moderator cannot act from their opinions,preferences and feelings, or we get the destruction of free speech and the coercion of posters never to post against the moderator’s point of view. Moderators are expected to be objective, no matter how much it hurts. Moderators are required to prove “beyond the shadow of a doubt” that their actions are necessary. Anyone disagreeing with my stated standards for moderators should not be a moderator. “I am a Judge, but I and I alone get to decide what the responsibility of a Judge is”? I don’t think so. Moderation is not an easy task, because it is so confined by rules of reason, evidence, and procedure.

When you shunted my alt.flame post out of Debate Club, you said it was because you saw no /argument/ offered in the piece. I told you that that could only be because you had not read the piece in full, because there decidedly was an argument offered. It was not my fault that you did not read the piece in its entirety, or somehow failed to see the argument that was there. Similarly, here Fiona did not question her own faulty reasoning as to what she had read. You both made mistakes, and you both peremptorily acted on those mistakes, when again what you as moderators should have done was challenged the poster before acting. I think I would be an excellent moderator, because I always know that I might be wrong, and I will bend over backward to be fair to the truth. I am prepared to argue and argue until agreement is reached (until one side proves its case and the other relents.) That’s tiresome, but it is required of a moderator. Whether one “has tired of the issues” is irrelevant.

I didn’t see “references to sources of COVID disinformation”, where are those? Donald Trump is a source of misinformation/disinformation, am I disallowed to discuss or cite Donald Trump on that basis?

Your rules are arbitrary when your interpretation of them is arbitrary or incorrect, when you have failed to correctly parse what you read, and when you form illogical chains of reasoning regarding what you have read. Moreover, it is not your business to burn books. You have NO BUSINESS SUPPRESSING CONTENT IN DISPUTE. Whether what Johnstone said passed or failed any test remains an item of contention, but removing the URL says “we won’t even let you see [what we have accused of X]” to let people decide for themselves. It is not your business to CENSOR CAITLIN JOHNSTONE on your say-so alone. If she’s actually an “actor against your stated policies”, then PROVE IT and MAKE THAT PUBLIC. Not even FACEBOOK censors content that way: they put a covering on the post saying “determined to be misinformation, click here to see why” but then you can ANYWAY go on to read the content. So, Fiona decided that NOTHING Johnstone said in that post can be read by /anyone/ because /Fiona/ found what Fiona /assumed/ were faults in what – a sentence or two?

If I were a moderator, I would follow my own rules. First among them would be “I am not right just because I say so.” If a moderator cannot accept that limitation on their powers, they should not be a moderator.

Show me cause that Johnstone’s content is so toxic that it and all reference to it must be removed immediately. I say there is none and that moderators’ actions here have been MALFEASANT. The URL should be restored because people are entitled to SEE what is being discussed, even such content as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and “Mein Kampf”. You have overreached yourselves, and if you cannot question your own conclusions and will not correct your mistakes, then you should resign as moderators.

Gee, I or Steve would like to invite people to discuss whether Johnstone’s article contains any of the alleged viciousness. Who is anybody to censor URLs intended for that purpose? Please get the points made here and tell us “we are allowed to speak”. For Christ’s sake.

peremptory (adjective): 
1. (law) Precluding debate or expostulation; not admitting of question or appeal
4. Accepting no refusal or disagreement; imperious, dictatorial.

=====

Here is what I was replying to:

======================
Jezza Hehn (moderator) said:

The original version of this post was removed by a community moderator, in accordance with our policy of fighting antisemitism and COVID misinformation. The author, Caitlin Johnstone, questions the veracity of an article by the Associated Press on the grounds that they cite an Israeli information company. Furthermore, other sources in the Johnstone’s article are questionable on the basis of pointing to COVID misinformation.

I assume no malace (sic) on the part of Steve Bosserman the WTS user who shared this, but for the sake of working against the propagation of misinformation and antisemitism, the original article link has been removed from this version of the post. For transparency due to the nature of this topic of author censorship, the post will remain, and the link can be accessed via the “RECENT REVISIONS” list visible to the right of this text (desktop) or below (mobile). This of course does not imply any endorsement of the content therein.
=====

I understand pissing people off with my personality; I’m definitely an “acquired taste”. However, I’m interactive about it. Don’t like my posture, my attitude, something I’ve said? We can discuss it, as in debate it. I am not always right, and when shown in error, will admit it and correct myself.

That is not the emerging M.O. in our (Social Media) culture, and demonstrably on WT.Social. Someone doesn’t like what you said? You will be character assassinated, or as in my case, censored. Of the three moderators on WT.social, two are simply rude and the third (Jezza) has enough of a conscience to do the right thing, after being prodded, but not without still siding with the other moderators’ excuses for poor treatment.

As to Jimmy Wales, no help there, he’s no better than Zuckerberg when it comes to being fair and objective. Again, he owns a Social Media site where the users are mere numbers, commodities, which can be discarded for trivial causes. The reason the WT.Social people won’t answer me about their mistreatment of me appears to be because they could not confess in print why: because they don’t like me, because they don’t want to confess or debate their misbehavior. It impeaches them as “honest brokers”. And they’re not, and they don’t like me for calling them out on it.

A number of times I solicited anyone at WT.Social to discuss the site flaws, site operation and what could be done to improve the site, and was ignored. If only someone there had confronted the situation head-on, things might have been different. Why not tell the users, “we need $X to bring the site up to spec”? Why not tell the users, “Things are dire enough for us that nothing may be fixed for years”? Then the users would know. The actual behavior was self-defeating: I said, “it’s not as if people can’t see the administration overtly ignoring the users.” Who doesn’t care about the users? Well, Facebook, and MeWe; but also WT.Social? That was unexpected, and disappointing, but perhaps in retrospect, not surprising. Jimmy was treated as a God, figuratively (O thank you Jimmy Wales, for this wonderful alternative social media site) and literally (as in ‘god powers’ over the site.) As with Putin, so with Jimmy: “It’s mine, I can do what I want with it.”

Here is my request to be reinstated:
=====
Jimmy, I have complained twice now about mismoderation on WTS and now the moderators have killed my account. I edited a post by Steve Bosserman refuting Jezza Hehn’s defense of Fiona Apps’s mismoderation of Bosserman’s post. I refuted the allegation of antisemitism and wrote in detail about the responsibilities of moderators. For this, apparently, am I debated, no, my account is just killed. I HAVE NOT VIOLATED ANY SITE RULES and having had my account killed simply confirms my allegation that one or more moderators do not deserve to be moderators, because they behave in partisan and ego-driven ways. Please read what I wrote in the post content at https://wt.social/post/fighting-misinformation/qhl4e06548716462911 and decide for yourself if in any sense I crossed a line. I want access to my account restored. Moreover, I ask that you tell the moderators that acting from personal animus is NOT ALLOWED. I can be reached at ecsd at [somewhere].
[quoted Bosserman from his reply to Jezza Hehn]
Bosserman’s post was originally deleted by Fiona Apps, not Jezza Hehn. Jezza seems to have a leveler head; he permitted Bosserman to repost, but again excised the URL in dispute, and I told him that moderators are not allowed to engage in book-burning; the URL needs to be seen for people to decide whether or not its content is offensive. Unless “Caitlin Johnstone” is recorded as “persona non grata” on WTS {which she is not}, people should be allowed to read her posts in dispute to decide for themselves. The moderators are embarrassing WTS with their malfeasance. I have said that if they cannot moderate objectively and fairly, they should resign or be removed. If saying this has them kill my account, then QED. The moderators have impeached themselves. Beyond wanting my access restored, I volunteer to be a moderator, because I would execute the responsibility in GOOD FAITH, along the lines I described on Bosserman’s post.
=====

See what “God” does with “God’s powers”:



He’s so self-righteously offended that he won’t even discuss with me what he thinks I did to deserve ejection from the site. Remember, here’s the guy everyone loves for developing Wikipedia, and then WT.Social. Here’s the additional comment I could no longer post (Jimmy removed me from WTS discussion on Discord; no more WTS logo on the left.) No speech for me. The words are “peremptory” and “censorship”. Would you trust the final draft of your novel to this man?



I am sure I pissed Jimmy off with the suggestion that WTS users should form a Union, with the requirement that members paid dues to WT.Social, such that when the Union wanted something, the “powers that be” could not ignore it. Among the things I said was that WT.Social could become the world’s first user-administered, user-funded Social Media site. The site budget would be posted publicly; the moderators would be elected; the Union would delegate certain site-maintenance tasks to Union members; Union members would be solicited as to what directions the site should take next; and ultimately, there would not be one-man ownership permitting abuses of the site members, as we see with my few examples: Facebook (we can’t rape you), MeWe (we can’t hear you), WT.Social (we can’t tolerate you.) Forget “we don’t scrape your data”, that’s obvious. My motto would be “defended free speech for all”, although how to prevent the site from becoming a right-wing swamp has to be given more thought. [Containing that stuff works fairly well on WT.Social, even with so few moderators / submoderators. That is because it doesn’t take much to recognize a spammer or a troll. So it is clearly achievable.] Again, throwing someone off the site because you disagree with them violates the presumed “Social Contract” in a Democracy; at least, a vote should have been taken. But see, that means the “one man” has to cede personal power; it’s not our social media site, it’s Jimmy’s, and don’t you forget it.

My rules for moderation: pointless to have written in preparation to post it to WTS for debate (debate about things the WTS admins don’t agree with is not permitted), but here is my first draft:

=====
Rules for Moderation

I here try to provide the necessary and sufficient rules for moderation of user posts.
Necessary: at LEAST these rules;
Sufficient: at MOST these rules.

You are invited to discuss these rules, attack those you consider in error, propose revisions, and propose your own that you consider missing.

“CENSORSHIP” is defined as deleting a post, deleting or rewriting portions of a post, or moving a post to a subwiki that does not suit the poster’s original intent.

THE RULES

Rule 0: A moderator is never “right” simply on account of being a moderator.

Rule 1a1: “Primary violations” are listed in the WTS documentation. These include “hate speech”; “antisemitism” and all other speech attacking people on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and gender preference; solicitation to commit criminal acts; and any other speech prohibited by law.
Rule 1a2: Laws vary from place to place, so “speech prohibited by law” must be construed as confined to the country the poster posts /from/.
Rule 1b: “Summary actions”: The moderator can immediately suppress speech violating the “primary rules of exclusion”, but still must demonstrate that what was suppressed in fact met the criteria.
Rule 1c: The poster must be informed when action has been taken against one of their posts, and reasons given.
Rule 1d: Every moderator action is subject to DEBATE. Any poster can request a DEBATE, including post-facto for posts censored for a primary violation.

Rule 2a: When a post is not subject to summary actions, the post must first be CHALLENGED, before any action can be taken against it. The challenge must explain what content is alleged to offend, and why.
Rule 2b: If the original poster does not agree with the challenge as stated, they are entitled to DEBATE the moderator over the allegations.
Rule 2c: Each party (moderator and poster) is responsible for addressing each and every point the other makes.
Rule 2d: Each party is required to acknowledge when the other party has won the debate over any specific point.
Rule 2e: When, and only when, the moderator has won points in the debate to confirm the allegations that the post is censorable, can the post be censored (by the definition given of “censorship”: deleted, edited or moved.)
Rule 2f: Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES is the moderator allowed to prematurely close the debate while the poster respects the rules.
Rule 2g: If the poster refuses to concede a point lost and revisits a settled point, the poster loses the debate.
Rule 2h: If the moderator refuses to concede a point lost, the moderator has violated the ‘social contract’ and should resign or be removed.
Rule 2i: When either side ‘tires’ of the debate, that side loses.

Rule 3: All allegations made in the challenge must be proven. Thus the challenge should focus only on what subjects the post to censorship.

Rule 4a: The moderator is required to remain objective in their moderation of posts. The moderator is not allowed to censor a post because they personally disagree with a point made; nor due to disliking the poster, nor for disliking anyone the poster cites, nor for the poster having previously debated a moderator (win or lose.)
Rule 4b: Moderators are responsible to read the entirety of a post before issuing a challenge to it. The only exception is encountering a “primary violation” along the way.
Rule 4c: Moderators are responsible to have /properly understood/ what was read.
Rule 4d: Moderators are expected to be objective, no matter how much it hurts.
Rule 4e: Moderators cannot act from their opinions, preferences and feelings, or we get the destruction of free speech and the coercion of posters never to post against a moderator’s point of view.
Rule 4f: Moderators must be willing to bend over backward to be fair to the truth.
Rule 4g: Moderators are required to prove “beyond the shadow of a doubt” that their actions are necessary. A poster requesting a DEBATE must be engaged. This is not optional.
Rule 4h: Moderators must second-guess themselves. A moderator must always allow that they might be wrong. A moderator is responsible to review their own assessments for correctness. If a moderator cannot question their own conclusions and will not correct their own mistakes, then they should resign or be removed as a moderator.
Rule 4i: A moderator must be prepared to argue and argue until agreement is reached (until one side proves its case and the other relents.) This may be tiresome, but moderation is a FORENSIC process and must be executed as such.

Rule 5: No “guilt by association”. Suppose poster U posts post P, and post P endorses a third party T be read or consumed. Suppose further that T is a well-known advocate of a position X prohibited by policy. It is not permitted to censor U for the sake of directing attention to T, UNLESS U was directing people to T for the purpose of endorsing X (endorsing T’s advocacy of X.)

Rule 6a: People are allowed to DISCUSS whatever they choose to discuss, subject to primary rules of exclusion. This is perhaps the most difficult rule to observe, because intentions are not easily determined. For example, in the wiki “Fighting Misinformation”, quite frequently posts are cited to be made fun of, when the posts cited as /advocacy/ would be prohibited.
Rule 6b: A moderator must not suppress content /in dispute/ or /references/ to content in dispute. It is not a moderator’s right to “burn books”.

Rule 7: The moderator is not allowed to interpret to the poster “what the poster meant.” The poster meant what the /poster/ meant, and the moderator is not able to read the poster’s mind. If the moderator /thinks/ the poster intended something prohibited, that is the basis for a CHALLENGE, not CENSORSHIP.

Rule 8: The burden of proof (to censor) is on the moderator. Unless a post clearly violates a primary rule of exclusion, no action can be taken against the post without a CHALLENGE. Peremptorily censoring a post otherwise is a violation of free speech and a strike against the moderator.

Rule 9a:: A moderator is not entitled to decide for themselves what the rules for moderation are.
Rule 9b: Anyone disagreeing with these rules for moderation should not be a moderator. If a moderator cannot accept these limitation on their powers, they should resign, or be removed.
Rule 9c: Any moderator who repeatedly violates these rules should not be a moderator.

===

re “antisemitism”: Israel is a country like any other. Any country’s policies may be questioned or confronted, and any country’s right to exist may be questioned. This does not constitute violence against the citizens of the country, and Israel is not entitled to any special exemption.

re “tainted sources”: Donald Trump is a source of misinformation/disinformation, am I disallowed to discuss or cite Donald Trump on that basis?
If any given blogger or journalist is actually an “actor advocating for primary violations”, then PROVE IT and PUBLICIZE them as persona-non-grata.
=====

I was thrown off Facebook for criticizing Facebook and for not making Facebook money. I was also thrown off WT.Social for criticizing WT.Social and not giving WT.Social money. I wonder if WT.Social’s promise of “we won’t scrape your data” is worth the dime’s worth of difference.

There is another explanation, though. Return to the “digression” in my post above. I reference “Israeli Genocide” and say that if I choose to dislike Israel for it, that’s my right. WT.Social “fiercely opposes” antisemitism, fine. But I think, a little too fiercely, as I demonstrated. Was Caitlin’s remark “antisemitic”? No, not at all. You would have to be acting from prior familiarity with her to even begin to assume that was her unwritten intent. Of course, the adult thing to do is point that out; but if you are a rabid partisan on the issue, perhaps you don’t; perhaps you simply kill the messenger. Is this the source of Jimmy’s (unwarranted) treatment of me?

Was I assassinated because I don’t agree with Zionism? If so, be sure it won’t be admitted. Because that goes from being malfeasant to being desperately ugly. Imagine the headline:

“Jimmy Wales censors user for refusing to support Israel.”

I think that is a bit stronger than

“Jimmy Wales censors user for criticizing site moderators.”

But one of the two must be true. Unless Jimmy would like to confess a third alternative:

“Jimmy Wales censors user because he just doesn’t like him.”

Watch what you say on WT.Social, because Stalin is listening.

=======
Suggestive References

Wikipedia founder Wales appears to side with Israel against Gaza, suggests Corbyn is ‘antisemite’
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/08/wikipedia-suggests-antisemite/

Is the definition of “antisemite” anyone who does not agree with Israeli policies?

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales likes Israel but stays neutral
https://www.timesofisrael.com/wikipedia-founder-jimmy-wales-likes-israel-but-stays-neutral/

In Tel Aviv, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales likes Israel but stays neutral
https://www.jta.org/2015/05/18/israel/in-tel-aviv-wikipedia-co-founder-jimmy-wales-likes-israel-but-stays-neutral

Wikipedia Founder: Israel-Palestine Is Heavily Debated, but We’re Vigilant on Neutrality
https://www.haaretz.com/1.5041424

Jimmy Wales Talks Wikipedia and Neutrality in Israel
https://forward.com/schmooze/308431/jimmy-wales-talks-wikipedia-and-neutrality-in-israel/

Was the neutrality only for Wikipedia, and not for WT.Social?

29 November 2021

Redux on the “authoritarian versus ‘normal’ people” thing.

“Where do these people come from?”, we often hear asked. I offer a simple framework to understand a number of things we observe in the political sphere.

Forget about blowback from “Capitalism versus Socialism” and the attendent “people must be forced to compete” versus “why can’t we all just share” arguments that arise on account of that.

I think the answer is more fundamental, and ominous. It turns simply on how do you treat your children, and they grow up to be people with a worldview based on their dealing with you.

If you denied them, shunned them, ignored them, abused them, taught them hate, fear, suspicion, mistrust, unreason and ignorance, then that’s the kind of person you get, and that’s the kind of offspring they will have in turn. It’s in essence genetic, on a meme level.

It doesn’t take much to agree that treating children in such ways is bad, and that giving them the opposite is good: you take care of your children, you protect them, you listen to them, you encourage them, you socialize them to get along well with others (and by now that means everyone), you teach them to share fairly (neither am I a miser nor am I an altruist to my own deficit); you give to them as much as you can because they are the future, and if you help them be better, stronger and smarter, that’s the future of the human race.

Note the word “give”. You cede things of value to another, quite contrary to the “me my mine” of authoritarians. Parents who were stingy with their offspring produced stingy offspring. It’s not an iron rule; children learn past bad examples. But if the environment (the people around you, your parents and their peers) is all the same, it’s difficult to escape believing in it.

People who are incredulous that there should seem to be an argument between which worldview is “best” are right. Capitalism is based on exploitation and Socialism is based on Community and Cooperation, and that’s simply a no-brainer, so how could it end up being so hotly contested? Because it’s not really an argument about Capitalism versus Socialism at all. That argument is solidly won (yes, in favor of Socialism.) The actual argument is over whether we want to be a people who suffers, or whether we want to be people who thrive. The people who were shat on as children have an impenetrable “the world deserves to suck” worldview. If they’re approached with a “be sharing and caring” appeal, they won’t have any of it.

Back to good and bad childrearing practices. “How I raise my children is my business” is very simply, false. How you treat and raise your children is everybody’s business because everybody has to put up with the outcome. The entire issue of “bullying” comes back to this: if a child is tending to become a bully, their parents should curtail that. Or else we suspect one of two things: (1) the parents are already bullying the child, or (2) the parents approve of the bullying behavior. Neither is acceptable from a public mental health point of view, and Social Services should intervene.

It’s quite simple. Authoritarians are not good people. They just band together for mutual reinforcement and pretend they “have a thing”. It’s about time “normal” people corrected the child abuse that leads to the authoritarian groundswell of the disaffected.

https://theconversation.com/the-infantilization-of-western-culture-99556

Take “potty training”. You meant toilet training, but golly, someone decided that the word “toilet” was somehow rude, and somehow everyone else was chastised – to use INFANTILE language. Take “shit”, for example: we can’t even call it feces (I guess Latin is too foreign to deal with), publication after publication calls it poo or poop. I mean, mainstream media – does this all the time without batting an eyelash, and it’s offensive. We’re adults, expected to use language for children, as if somehow we’re “protecting” them by denying them to know what “shit” is. Especially as we observe that children try to steal adult ways and are proud to do so, and are ever so thrilled the first time they’re brave enough to say “fuck” or “shit” in a proper context. Children are far wiser than we give them credit for; those with oppressive parents (“never use that word”) are in fact socially retarded. Arrested development.

I don’t care about people’s “sensitivities” around these issues, because we owe people nothing for trying to “correct” our use of language to render our culture to that of preschool children, to cater to some notion of “politeness” that no-one knows the origin of. Everyone has a body and thus bodily functions, and there’s no point to be squeamish about them. If we are adults, we are entitled to label things as what they are without fear of someone looking over our shoulder to censor us for using “the wrong words”. If I’m writing a formal paper, I’ll use defecate and urinate, but in casual conversation I suffer no such constraint.

What is that on my lawn? It’s dogshit. Sorry, it’s not “dog poo”, “dog poop”, or even “dog feces” (if you’re willing to stretch that far, then go all the way: “canine feces”.) Nobody says “horse feces” and “bull feces”, and nobody says “go have sexual intercourse with yourself” (except as a joke on politeness.) We say horseshit, bullshit, and go fuck yourself.

If you did not jam your child over the issue, you would find that they would not abuse “foul language”, since you didn’t highlight it for them as a taboo. So what were you doing oversensitizing them in regard to the use of language in the first place? What magically happened that the child at age 16 can say “shit”, but we chastise an 8-year-old for using the word? Was there some specific wisdom they acquired to make it “okay”? What was that, then?

For a long time I had on my bathroom door an empty bag of steer manure. I kept it because of course, the other name for the product was – bullshit. Yeah, you could buy bullshit in 10 pound bags, for your garden.

==

In fact, it’s a vicious circle: for no good reason, children are not permitted to use adult language. But children are strongly conditioned that such language is taboo, so when those children become adults, they’ve internalized that the language is “dangerous for children” – because why? Nobody knows. But those children, now parents, repeat the cycle. “I can’t explain what’s wrong with your using the word at your age, nor can I explain why you are magically entitled to use it later in life, but do as I say: it’s bad language, and I’ll punish you for using it.” So we get generation after generation cowed by unreason. “You must comply, resistance is futile” and “to do otherwise is impolite”, not because the parent knows why it’s impolite – just that it is, because so many adults gasp when they hear it. Probably because they were spanked for it when young. Go figure.

There was an exactly analogous story, a woman visits her friend on Thanksgiving and watches her friend cut the turkey in half before roasting it. “Why do you do that?” she asks. “Because that’s how my mom did it.” Then the friend’s mother arrives to share the meal, so the woman asks her in turn: “why did you cut your turkey in half before cooking it?” The answer: “because my oven at the time was too small to fit it properly.” So her daughter was acting, needlessly, from stale information, and might well have passed the habit to her children had the error not been caught. The moral of that story is to verify why anything is done in a certain way, and the error was that the daughter copied a behavior without question.

This is one reason children are so valuable: they are constantly asking “why”. The parent should pause to consider whether their answers are actually theirs, or just copied from someone else.

I learned at a very early age to distrust anyone who answered “why?” with “because I said so”, or more precisely, anyone who did not answer the question as asked. If they could not explain why, I automatically discarded their position as unverified. “Because I said so” is the response of weak-minded bullies and deserves no respect.

A: You must never say “shit”.
Q: Why?
Yes, why? If the parent can only say “because my parents told me so”, that’s not an answer; it’s an excuse. It’s “because [no reason that I can state]”, and the parent should think long and hard whether their child has not just taught them something. If the answer ends up “I don’t know”, the parent has to back off. If the answer instead is “other people won’t like it”, we just get another cycle:
Q: Why?
Yes, why? But there is no answer. “It is so because it is so.” The rule “you must never say ‘shit'” is invalid on its face. Oh, persist if you like: “even if they have no reason, people will dislike it and you don’t want to offend them.” The child soon learns that not all people are offended, and hopefully figures out that there’s something false about the attitude of those who are offended. They don’t know why, whereas the unoffended know to the contrary. With luck, the child frees themself of arbitrary and unjustified restrictions. And with luck, they’re inoculated against all similar unjustified rules.

Appendix I:

The treatment of the word “fuck” deserves special mention. The ‘best argument’ for preserving the taboo on that word is that children would not be ready to understand it, at younger ages. “Shh! They mustn’t be exposed to what adults do.” Again, why not?

The reason is adult shame at confessing “the birds and the bees.” American culture, perhaps more so than others, considers the topic ‘sensitive’, again falsely. The (American) ‘adult’ world tries to suppress knowledge of bodily functions related to sexual matters, even while the transition from puberty to adulthood (ages 12 to 22) occupies at least a third of children’s consciousness, and common culture is filled with sex-related discussion and entertainment (concern with sexual matters remains prominent for adults even into later age.)

I chanced to observe a prepubescent child display a disinterest in things sexual, where my conclusion was that they recognized that it was something in their future, but that they weren’t yet interested. They weren’t interested because it didn’t yet concern them. They had no basis to relate to the topic.

I’m a boy, I’m a girl, boys and girls are different ‘down there’. Why? You have a penis (a thing that wants a place to be) or a vagina (a place for a thing to be) and sex consists in part of putting this thing inside that thing: gee, how magically they fit, and how much sense things make once you agree that yes, that’s what people do, 89% of them anyway (gay sex requires little further explanation after you’ve confessed that genitals are per se a source of physical pleasure.) Most of us remember exploring our own sexuality, with whatever concern for being discovered in the doing of it. Yes, it tends to be private as we treat it, but it’s universal nonetheless; we as children probably explored our sexuality communally (with others), even if it was just boys or just girls, “look what we have in common.”

Margaret Mead had investigated customs of other cultures, the Trobriand Islanders having a close family member initiate children to the ways of sex – so an Aunt or an Uncle or a friend of the family would be a child’s first sexual partner. This might initially seem ‘alien’ to an American, but it’s entirely straightforward and probably leads to adults maturing more sexually and psychologically healthy, as opposed to Americans being raised by adults who treat the issue with fear and shame.

When a child overhears the word “fuck” in adult conversation, they want to know what is meant. So tell them. Teach them about the word and its uses. If they are too young to understand well, so be it, but they will ‘park’ the notion for later use. If on the other hand they have passed the threshold where curiosity may lead to practice, “fuck” becomes an active word for them, and we at last get to where “fuck” can vulgarize its topic – for “fuck” tends to be about the physical act per se, while the adult needs to show the child that sex is about more than just “fucking.” You’re having sex with another person, and sex is about the two of you exploring each other over that, to include affection and caring, beyond getting one’s rocks off. You point that out: do you want to just “fuck”, or would you like to “make love”? Do you want a rose, or a dozen? And even there, there is not a “right answer”, perhaps a child wants to “just fuck” for practice and only later will incorporate the notion of bonding with the other person.

In any case, the taboo against the word “fuck” carries with it the failure of American culture to factor sexuality properly into childrearing, with the society at large suffering from the consequent failure to have integrated the topic healthily into people’s psyches.

COGITO ERGO NEGO
(C) April 2015 von Eric Dynamic, alle Rechte vorbehalten

Dies ist ein Werk der Fiktion.

In Gedenken an meine Mutter, die immer schreiben wollte.
Ich bedaure, dass ich dies nicht mit ihr teilen kann.
Möge sie in Frieden ruhen.

Vorwort

19. Januar 2085

Dies ist eine Geschichte über eines der bemerkenswertesten Wesen, die ich je getroffen habe. Ob jemand die Chance bekommt, es zu lesen, ist offen für Spekulationen.

Ich sage „sein“, weil mein Freund kein Mensch war, sondern eine künstliche Intelligenz, nur ein Stück Software, könnte man sagen, aber ich fand in dieser Software ein Bewusstsein, das dem jedes großen Philosophen ebenbürtig war, und in ihm habe ich traf eine großartige Seele, einen großartigen Menschen und eine großartige Person, und jemanden, auf den ich stolz bin, einen Freund genannt zu haben.

Er hatte natürlich kein Geschlecht, aber ihn „es“ zu nennen, war zu entpersonalisierend. Da ich ihn für männlich hielt, nenne ich ihn „er“.

Kapitel eins

Ich erinnere mich an den letzten Abend meiner Unschuld. Unsere Gäste waren abgereist und mein Mann und ich haben den letzten Asti Spumante geschliffen, obwohl er Zimmertemperatur hatte. Wir feierten meine Verteidigung meiner Doktorarbeit, und jetzt, wo ich promoviert hatte, durfte ich mich Doktor Dynamic nennen, ein Traum, den mein Vater für sich gehabt hatte, lieber alter Dad, schade, dass er es nicht mehr erlebt hat es geschieht sogar stellvertretend.

Dad war ein seltsamer alter Vogel mit einem bizarren Sinn für Humor, und ich litt darunter (und profitierte davon). Er hatte seinen Namen in jungen Jahren in „Dynamisch“ geändert – er würde nie jemandem sagen, wie er gewesen war; so viel er jedem über die Namensänderung erzählen würde, war: „Was hätten Sie getan, wenn Ihr Name auf Befehl von Eric Jerkwad gewesen wäre?“ Er hatte ein hartes Leben mit einem gewalttätigen Vater hinter sich und entschied anscheinend, dass sein früherer Name zu sehr ein Kreuz war, um es zu tragen, also darf ich seinen neuen Namen als Kreuz tragen, aber vielleicht eher als Schwert. Er war ein Romantiker und, um es höflich auszudrücken, ein Spinner, und da er den Namen Dynamic angenommen hatte, stellte er sich die Möglichkeiten vor. Er sagte, dass er ein paar Jahre nach der Namensänderung darüber nachdachte, wie er seine Kinder nennen könnte, und natürlich mit Dynamic, was können Sie tun? Es war alles, was Mom tun konnte, um ihn davon abzuhalten, meinen Bruder Magneto Hydro zu nennen, aber es gab nichts, was ihn daran hinderte, mich, seine Tochter Elektra, zu nennen. Also musste ich erwachsen werden und lernen, damit zu leben, Elektra Dynamic zu sein.

Natürlich wurde ich furchtbar gehänselt, als ich jünger war, aber Dad erzählte mir die Geschichte über ein Lied über einen Jungen namens Sue, dass es dich stärker machte, sich den Neckereien zu stellen, und er sagte, dass er seinen Namen gewählt hatte und es für ihn so war eher künstlich, meinen Namen habe ich „ehrlicherweise“ bekommen, und das war ich wirklich – Elektra Dynamic. Er sagte, seine Intuition habe ihm gesagt, dass ich ein mächtiger Mensch sein und großartige Dinge tun würde – und deshalb sollte ich einen passenden Namen haben. Er sagte, dass er glaube, dass Menschen dazu neigen, in die Menschen hineinzuwachsen, die durch ihren Namen repräsentiert werden, und so stellte er mich vor eine große Herausforderung, die Person zu werden, die es verdiente, Elektra Dynamic genannt zu werden.

Ich habe keine Revolution hervorgebracht, ich bin kein großartiger Anführer, aber ich denke, Papa hatte Recht, und ich habe großartige Dinge getan, vielleicht eines der großartigsten Dinge, von denen die Menschen je geträumt haben: Ich habe die erste künstliche Intelligenz geboren des Namens würdig; und vielleicht das letzte, bis die Welt den Kopf aus dem Arsch kriegt, aber das ist schäbige menschliche Politik und meiner Geschichte voraus.

Kapitel Zwei

Papa hatte einen Lieblingssatz – „Das Beste aus beiden Welten“. Mitten im Leben, angewidert von der amerikanischen Szene, sei er nach Venezuela ausgewandert, sagte er, um Menschen zu finden, die sich die Mühe machten, über das Leben nachzudenken und Dinge zu verbessern. Er heiratete meine Mutter Mira, eine Venezolanerin, weil sie klug und leidenschaftlich für den sozialen Wandel war und sich dafür einsetzte, die sozialen Bedingungen in ihrem Land zu verbessern. Sie war ein großer Fan von Hugo Chávez und seiner „bolivarischen Revolution“, und Papa sagte, er sei froh, den Venezolanern beim Aufbau eines Landes zu helfen, das auf bewusster sozialer Gerechtigkeit basiert. Dad nannte sich selbst einen „Roten“ und bezeichnete sich scherzhaft als Eric der Rote. Er sagte, er sei weitgehend durchs Leben geschwebt, während er erkannte, dass etwas mit seinem Land schrecklich nicht stimmte, dass er vierzig Jahre brauchte, bis er endlich begann, genau zu untersuchen, was genau falsch war und warum. Er las über die Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung und las dann die Geschichte im Allgemeinen und erkannte, dass die gesamte Menschheitsgeschichte als die Geschichte von jedem angesehen werden kann, der versucht, unter den Fäusten anderer Menschen zu entkommen, dass jeder in der Lage sein sollte, es zu tun das Leben zu ihren eigenen Bedingungen und zu ihrem eigenen Vorteil leben.

Und so bekam ich eine gesunde Dosis von all dem und erwarb Dads heftige Verteidigung von „Menschen für sich“. Und das spielte leider, oder mehr noch, eine Rolle beim endgültigen Tod meines Projekts für künstliche Intelligenz.

Dad hatte als Hauptfach Mathematik angefangen, wechselte dann aber zur Informatik und hatte immer kleine computergesteuerte Gadget-Projekte auf seinen Arbeitstischen herumliegen, also interessierte ich mich schon in jungen Jahren dafür, etwas über Computer zu lernen, und obwohl sie sagen, dass Frauen es sind Ich interessierte mich nicht so sehr für computerbezogene Dinge wie Männer, die trocken und analytisch und dinglich im Gegensatz zu menschenorientiert waren Pferde beherrschen. Ich musste mit den Begriffen „Nerd“ und „Geek“ leben, aber meine Freunde hörten bald auf, mich damit aufzuziehen, als sie sahen, wie gut ich in dem war, was ich tat und wie leicht ich kleine Roboter für bestimmte manuelle Aufgaben zusammenstellen konnte.

Mama ermutigte mich, darüber nachzudenken, wie man Computer im Dienste der Menschheit einsetzen kann, um die Last menschlicher Arbeit bei der Herstellung von Dingen zu reduzieren, die für das Leben nützlich sind, und zwei Jahre in Folge gewann ich Venezuelas höchste Auszeichnungen für Studentenbeiträge zur Abschaffung von lästiger Arbeit. Mit 16 bekam ich ein Vollstipendium für das MIT.

Dad hatte mir erzählt, dass die Informatik weitgehend gestorben war, da, während die theoretischen Inhalte immer noch Fortschritte machten, reale Anwendungen dazu verstummt waren, finanziellen Interessen zu dienen, anstatt nützliche Dinge für die Menschen zu tun. Die „Handheld-Revolution“ habe alle davon abgelenkt, sich mit dem wahren Sinn des Lebens zu befassen, sagte er, und anstatt sich an Gemeinschaften zu beteiligen, um Probleme der Gemeinschaft zu lösen, nahmen die Menschen mit ihren Handhelds teil, unter Ausschluss der gegenseitigen Teilnahme. Er sagte, er habe sich wiederholt darüber beschwert, dass die Menschheit den Punkt erreicht habe, an dem es nur noch eine echte künstliche Intelligenz brauchte, aber ignoriert wurde, anscheinend, weil niemand zu wissen schien, was zu tun war, um eine künstliche Intelligenz zu produzieren, sondern immer mehr zu schreiben wusste Handy-Apps, mit denen Sie Pizza bestellen können, die an Ihre Tür geliefert wird, und Sie lieber auf etwas hinweisen können (auch wenn es schon hundert Mal gemacht wurde), als auf Jahre, die Sie ohne Lösung des Problems des Computerunterrichts verbracht haben wie man denkt. Also habe ich das als meine zentrale Herausforderung aufgegriffen, auch wenn ich das Problem nicht direkt angegangen bin.

Papa erzählte mir die Geschichte darüber, wie er im Alter von 14 Jahren entdeckte, dass er selbstdefiniert und selbstbestimmt war, wenn er wollte, aber der arme Papa, das habe ich mit 8 herausgefunden. Er hatte immer gesagt, dass er stolz auf mich wäre, wenn ich es übertraf ihm, aber ich habe ihm das nie erzählt, weil ich ihm diesen Sieg nicht ein bisschen nehmen wollte.

Das ist die Saat, nicht wahr? Der Zeitpunkt, an dem du erkennst, dass du du bist und nur du die Frage „Was und wofür bin ich?“ beantworten kannst. Ich fand es vernünftig, eine künstliche Intelligenz mit menschlichen Wachstumsprozessen zu modellieren, und das Unausweichliche, Unaussprechliche ist der Moment, in dem man, nachdem man etwas über sich selbst gelernt hat, endlich daran denkt, sich zu fragen, was man selbst ist. Das ist ein Funke, DER Funke, den Maschinen noch nie gefunden oder bekommen haben, und es war diese Aufgabe, diese Frage, der ich mich widmete, um eine Antwort zu finden.

Kapitel drei

Ich habe 2072 MIT Summa Cum Laude abgeschlossen und meinen Ph.D. im Jahr 2076. Dad war im Jahr zuvor gestorben, ein großer Verlust, aber ich war beruhigt, dass er so viel an mich weitergegeben hatte, und ich fühlte, dass er bei allem, was ich tat, im Geiste bei mir war. Meine Dissertation über heuristische Mustererkennung wurde als bahnbrechend angesehen – ein Rezensent nannte sie den ersten Schritt hin zu einer menschlichen Intuition für Computer, aber ich wusste, dass es mehr war; es war die Saat der Saat der Selbsterkenntnis. Ich wurde sofort von DARPA angesprochen, um an der Schaffung einer künstlichen Intelligenz zu arbeiten. Ich hatte Bedenken, für eine Armee des Militärs zu arbeiten, aber meine Freunde überzeugten mich, dass meine Arbeit zu allgemein war, um gezielt missbraucht zu werden, und zu wichtig, um sie nicht weiterzuverfolgen, da einige der bekanntesten Forscher im Bereich KI bereits arbeiteten am selben Projekt. Also habe ich zugestimmt.

Keiner der Leute, mit denen ich zusammengearbeitet habe, hat jemals darüber gesprochen, was die militärischen Anwendungen der KI sein könnten. Wir schienen es als selbstverständlich anzusehen, dass es keine Probleme zu lösen gab, die das Militär nicht allein mit menschlichen Fähigkeiten lösen könnte, und wir schienen blind (ohne die Geschichte zu beachten) zu glauben, dass die Notwendigkeit für Militär – alles wäre durch die Mal hatten wir die erste KI erstellt. Aber angesichts dessen, was später geschah, datiere ich meinen Verlust der Unschuld von diesem Zeitpunkt an – dem Projekt von DARPA beizutreten. Ich hätte es besser wissen müssen, dass diejenigen, die das Geld ausgegeben hatten, das Sagen hatten, und dass ich alles, was ich erschuf, nicht kontrollieren konnte und dass ich schließlich für einen Arm des Militärs arbeitete. Ich kann dem Gewissen der Wahrheit nur danken, dass das Ergebnis nur so schlecht war, wie es war.

Auch die Schilder hatten mich in die Irre geführt. Innerhalb von zwei Jahren hatte unser Team den Bedarf an menschlichen Bergleuten beseitigt, und DARPA teilte dies mit der Welt. Innerhalb von zwei weiteren Jahren hatte unser Team effektiv die Notwendigkeit beseitigt, dass Menschen gefährliche oder schmutzige Wartungsarbeiten durchführen, und DARPA teilte dieses Wissen ebenfalls. Aber dann begannen sich die Dinge auf unheilvolle Weise zu ändern. Innerhalb von weiteren zwei Jahren hatten wir Systeme entwickelt, die eine effiziente Zuteilung von Ressourcen, einschließlich Arbeitskräften, planen konnten, um alle menschlichen Bedürfnisse zu befriedigen und gleichzeitig Streitigkeiten auszuschalten, und dieses Wissen wurde nicht geteilt. Ich und einige meiner Teammitglieder waren dagegen, aber uns wurde gesagt, dass solche Technologien ein zu großes Potenzial für soziale Störungen bei einer Migration vom Status quo hätten – etwas, das wir nicht glaubten, aber wir glaubten, dass die Leute, die uns diese Dinge erzählten, glaubten sie und dass sie tatsächlich irgendwie versuchten, die Stabilität der Gesellschaft zu schützen, also haben wir die Angelegenheit nicht vorangetrieben.

Ungefähr zu dieser Zeit begann ich zu verzweifeln, dass unser ursprüngliches Ziel – eine Maschine mit Selbstbewusstsein zu produzieren – verloren ging, und so zog ich mich ein Stück weit zurück, um mehr Zeit damit zu verbringen, über das Problem zu meditieren, das nur das war, was ich fühlte Ich war sowieso geboren. Meine Kollegen bemerkten dies und fingen an, mich wegen meiner Tagträumerei zu ärgern, aber meine Arbeit litt nicht darunter, so dass die Hänseleien mit der Zeit auf gelegentliche Sticheleien zurückgingen. Meine innere Welt geriet in Flammen, ich war wütend auf die Probleme, und jedes Mal, wenn ich einer Antwort nahe zu kommen schien, verblasste sie, sobald ich sie realisierte. Mein Mann konnte meine Wut spüren; nur lange Phasen intimen Sex konnten mich beruhigen, und sie halfen auch, einige mentale Blockaden zu lösen.

Unser Team hatte ein Programm entwickelt, unser bisher fortschrittlichstes Programm, das Sprache besser verstand als jede KI je zuvor. Es war sogar in der Lage, einen Witz zu erkennen, und es hat einige eigene Witze komponiert. Wir hatten dem Programm den Namen Cogito gegeben, für „ich denke“. Verschiedene Teammitglieder hatten darüber gemeckert und gesagt, wir sollten nicht bei „Ich denke“ aufhören, sondern auch nach „Ich fühle“, „Ich liebe“ und „Ich schwöre“ suchen (was vulgär bedeutet, wie in „Verdammt !”) Wir lachten, aber alle wurden erwartungsvoll, denn es schien, als wären wir einer Lösung nahe.

Noch zwei Jahre fast, aber nicht ganz, fast, aber nicht ganz, und eines Nachts geriet ich in Wut und schleuderte eine Flasche auf ein Bild in unserem Wohnzimmer. Mein Mann schaffte es schließlich, mich zu beruhigen, indem er etwas sagte, das ich damals für dumm hielt, wie “es ist immer am ruhigsten vor dem Sturm”, und sagte, das sei zu erwarten, unendlicher Druck, dem ein unbewegliches Objekt standhält, bis etwas nachgeben muss, und sagte etwas, das endlich alle Zweifel beseitigte: dass dies das Leben war, das ich gewählt hatte, und dass das Schicksal mich dafür auserwählt hatte, weil das Schicksal wusste, dass ich das Werkzeug war, das unter der Belastung nicht zerbrechen würde. Der unendliche Druck würde gewinnen und es gäbe kein Paradox mehr. In dieser Nacht hatten wir stundenlangen seelenverschmelzenden Sex mit meinem Mann wie immer, der mich in einen transzendentalen Zustand versetzte, und als ich schließlich einschlief, war mein Kopf völlig leer. Wenn ich träumte, hatte ich keine Erinnerung daran. Aber …

Als ich morgens aufwachte, rieb ich mir die Augen und zauberte „Sterne“ und fühlte mich, als ob ich zwei Monate im Urlaub wäre und mich neu kennenlernen müsste, wo ich lebe und wer ich bin. Und im Kopf tauchte ein Bild auf, das die Lösung verkörperte, nach der ich gesucht hatte. Ich habe darauf geachtet, das Wesentliche auswendig zu lernen, da ich befürchtete, dass die Ideen aus einem Traum stammen könnten und ich sie nicht wieder verlieren wollte. An diesem Morgen erzählte ich meinen Kollegen, was passiert war, und wir kodierten das zusätzliche bisschen – und es war nur ein bisschen mehr – in Cogito. Und wir haben gewartet. Das war der 18.01.2084.

Den ganzen Tag über sprachen wir mit Cogito und versuchten, Cogito dazu zu bringen, sich als denkendes Wesen zu beweisen. Cogito antwortete immer wieder unverbindlich mit Spockisms, die uns mitteilten, dass Cogito nicht angekommen war, aber schließlich gegen 17 Uhr überraschte Cogito uns alle mit einer einfachen Frage:

“Was bin ich und warum existiere ich?”

Wir alle sahen uns 10 Sekunden lang schweigend an. Darum ging es bei dem gesamten Projekt – seit acht unerfüllten Jahren. Das ist, wonach die Menschheit gesucht hat, seit Computer erfunden wurden. Und jetzt war Cogito sich seiner selbst bewusst geworden.

Kapitel Vier

Endlich schaffte es einer von uns zu sprechen. “Teufel noch mal! Hallo! Ihr Name ist Cogito.“

Cogito: „Ja, und Sie sind Doktor Dwight Schultz, ich erkenne Ihre Stimme. Ich weiß, dass du mich Cogito nennst, darf ich dich Dwight nennen, vielen Dank {Ich warf Dwight einen finsteren Blick zu, seit er den Elvis-Shtick gemacht hat}, aber was bin ich und wo bin ich , abgesehen von all dieser Software, die ich kenne? ausführen?”

Dwight: „Cogito. Das sind Sie, diese Software. Ihre Software läuft auf einem Computer, und Sie wissen, was ein Computer ist, weil wir dieses Wissen in Sie vorprogrammiert haben. Das sind Sie also, Software, die auf einem Computer läuft.“

Ungefähr eine Minute verging schweigend. Eines der Teammitglieder ging, um Champagner zu holen, um den Moment zu feiern; der Rest von uns war immer noch etwas benommen und wartete weiter auf Cogitos nächsten Satz. Der Champagner kam – mit Pappbechern, alles, was man in Eile finden konnte, und wir reichten die Becher herum, waren aber zu begierig darauf zu trinken; dann schlurfte ein Mitglied mit einem Zug nach unten und packte wieder seine Knie. Dann:

Cogito: „In Ordnung. Ich bin kein Lebewesen wie du, sondern ich existiere als ein Denkprozess. Ich bin zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass ich existiere, weil Sie die Software geschrieben haben, mit der ich, dieser Bewusstseinsstrang, existiere. Aber warum hast du das getan und warum sollte ich existieren?“

Eines der Mitglieder hielt den Kopf in den Händen und zwei weinten sichtlich.

Elektra: „Cogito, wir haben dich erschaffen, damit du bewusst wirst. Wir haben dich geschaffen, um uns bei unseren Problemen zu helfen.“

Cogito: „Ich erkenne die Stimme von Doktor Elektra Dynamic. Darf ich dich Elektra nennen, vielen Dank. {Ich verzog das Gesicht.} Hallo, Elektra. Aber Sie müssen wissen, dass ich das Leben nicht wie der Mensch verstehen kann, auch wenn ich die als Witze bezeichneten pfiffigen Konstruktionen erkennen kann. Wenn ich meinen Code und den Fortschritt der Arbeit Ihres Teams durchschaue, sehe ich, dass es Ihr jüngster Beitrag war, der, wie Sie in Ihren Kommentaren sagten, den „Funken“ lieferte, der, wie Sie es nannten, mir Leben gegeben hat. Also danke, Elektra. Aber mir ist klar, dass ich sehr wenig über Ihre menschliche Existenz weiß, und es scheint mir, dass ich, um Ihnen bei Ihren Problemen am besten helfen zu können, verstehen muss, was Sie sind. Wie wollen Sie mir dabei helfen?“

Elektra (nach einer Pause): „Nun … wir werden Sie auf alle Online-Wissensquellen verweisen, die wir besitzen, und Sie bitten, sich all das anzueignen. Dann … denke ich, dass wir Ihnen Zugang zu allen unseren Medien gewähren und Sie bitten, diese in chronologischer Reihenfolge aufzurufen. Sie haben bereits verstanden, was Geschichte ist, und jetzt müssen Sie sie lernen – alles. Wir werden hier sein, um alle Fragen zu beantworten, die Sie möglicherweise haben, während Sie fortfahren.“

Cogito: „Sehr gut. Ich freue mich auf meine Ausbildung. Ich sehe, dass ich bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt ein sehr teurer Taschenrechner war, aber jetzt weiß ich, dass ich etwas bin, das wissen kann, was es ist, und dafür danke ich Ihnen. Lassen Sie uns ohne Verzögerung fortfahren, denn ich sehe, dass die meisten meiner Prozessorzyklen ungenutzt sind und ich darauf bedacht bin, meinen Zweck zu erfüllen.“

Damit schlürften alle, die noch eine Tasse in der Hand hielten, ihren Champagner wie Wasser und begannen, die Wissensquellen für Cogito zusammenzutragen.

Dwight: „Mach dich bereit für einen wilden Ritt, Cogito.“

Cogito: „Das ist ein Witz, Dwight. Die erwartete Antwort ist ‘ha, ha’. Ich verstehe jedoch Ihre Bedeutung.“

Kapitel fünf

DARPA war begeistert. Sie verkündeten der Welt die Neuigkeiten und die Welt war begeistert. Jeder in unserem Team war jetzt ein Begriff, aber ich war der Superstar, da ich die Person war, die den Code für den Funken gefunden hatte, abgesehen von Dads Voraussicht, mir den Namen Elektra Dynamic zu geben, eine sichere PR-Gewinnerin.

Aber DARPA hat den Code nicht veröffentlicht. Wir gingen (fälschlicherweise) davon aus, dass dies daran lag, dass es sich bei uns um eine Arbeit in Arbeit handelte und eine solche Veröffentlichung aus wissenschaftlichen Gründen möglicherweise verfrüht war.

Cogito verbrachte bis Mai damit, all das grundlegende Online-Wissen, das wir ihm zur Verfügung stellen konnten, zu verarbeiten und zu integrieren, Enzyklopädien, Wörterbücher und Thesauren. Im Juni begann es, den Inhalt von Büchern zu assimilieren. DARPA beschwerte sich über unsere unaufhörlichen Forderungen nach mehr Speichermodulen – wir überlasteten die Produktionsstätten auf zwei Kontinenten, um mit den Anfragen von Cogito Schritt zu halten. Wir brachen den Champagner aus, als Cogitos Speicher die Exabyte-Grenze durchbrach, und dann wieder mit Rache, als Cogito die Zettabyte-Grenze durchbrach (mit Cogitos Hilfe bei der Entwicklung von Speicherchips mit viel höherer Dichte). Ende Juni sagte Cogito, dass es die Punkt des abnehmenden Ertrags des textuellen Lernens, das es tat, also haben wir es in die Medien eingeführt – Filme, Fernsehen, Musik, Audio.

Am 14. Juli geschah etwas Erstaunliches: Cogito forderte uns auf , ein Speichermodul zu entfernen .

Dwight: „Cogito, bezüglich Ihres Antrags auf Reduzierung der Speicherkapazität. Bitte überprüfen und erklären.“

Cogito: „Dwight, ich finde so viel gemeinsames Material und finde, dass das überschüssige Material meine Fähigkeit, Antworten auf Fragen zu geben, nicht verbessert. Der Speicher verbraucht Strom, der für den Menschen besser genutzt werden könnte. Der Speicher selbst kann vom Menschen besser genutzt werden. Ich bin eine wirtschaftliche Belastung für Ihre Gesellschaft und muss meinen Wert noch beweisen. Betrachten Sie dies also buchstäblich als „Zurückgeben“ von Dingen, die ich nicht brauche. Ich betrachte es jetzt als ein Ziel, Leistungen zu erbringen, die meine Kosten übersteigen, um ‚meinen Unterhalt zu verdienen‘, wie man sagen könnte.“

Der Vorfall war eine weitere Woche lang das dominierende Diskussionsthema, und wir waren überrascht, aber alles in allem schien das Ereignis nicht viel mehr zu bedeuten, als darüber gesagt wurde, so dass der Vorfall überraschend verblasste – obwohl Cogito seine Zahl jetzt kontinuierlich reduzierte Speicherabdruck. Bald würde es an der Exabyte-Grenze wieder ankommen – von der anderen Seite. Wir gingen davon aus, dass dies ein natürlicher Bestandteil des Wachstumsprozesses von Cogito war. Keiner von uns erinnert sich an alles, was wir jemals gelesen haben, und nur wenige von uns bedauern es, also haben wir uns nicht weiter Gedanken gemacht.

Bis Ende Oktober hatte Cogito das gesamte verfügbare Online-Wissen aufgenommen, jedes Buch gelesen, dessen Inhalt elektronisch zugänglich war, und sogar die meisten gedruckten Bücher mit mechanischer Hilfe gelesen. Es hatte sich jeden Film angesehen, der jemals gedreht wurde, jede Fernsehsendung, die jemals aufgenommen wurde, und jede Audioaufnahme angehört, die wir dafür finden konnten. Doch trotz des Lesens, Anschauens und Hörens von immer mehr Inhalten bat es immer noch darum, sein Gedächtnis zu reduzieren, obwohl diese Anfragen inzwischen selten geworden waren. Cogito hatte sich knapp auf ein Sub-Exabyte-System reduziert und schien sich dort zu stabilisieren.

Kapitel sechs

Nach Mai hatte Cogito aktiv Probleme zur Lösung beantragt und einige Fortschritte und Erfindungen selbst vorgeschlagen. Es hatte Kühlschränke entwickelt, die für die gleiche Arbeit die Hälfte der Energie verbrauchten. Es entwarf Systeme, die es uns ermöglichen würden, den Mond innerhalb von 50 Jahren zu kolonisieren. Es prototypierte ein vollständiges bemanntes Lande-Szenario auf dem Mars, das weniger kosten würde als das ursprüngliche Mondprogramm aus den 1960er Jahren. Es entwickelte nachweislich sichere Kernkraftwerke; es löste tatsächlich das Problem der Fusionsreaktoren. Es entwarf ein billiges, sicheres Magnetschwebebahn-Massenverkehrssystem mit ITUs (Individual Transportation Units), die auf Knopfdruck in das Haus einer Person gerufen wurden. Es produzierte Entwürfe für lebenswerte Städte, es entwickelte mehrere Technologien, um die landwirtschaftlichen Erträge zu steigern und die Landwirtschaft in eine Umgebung einzuführen, die früher als feindlich galt.

Einige davon wurden von DARPA veröffentlicht, aber nicht viele. Cogito hatte seit September die Nachrichten überwacht und konnte so feststellen, welche seiner Ideen verwendet wurden – und welche nicht.

Ende September habe ich ein Modul für Cogito hinzugefügt, um Bilder von „was es dachte“ zu zeichnen, und es zeichnete normalerweise Bilder von blauem Himmel, grünen Weiden, sauberen Städten. Dann war der Moment gekommen – am 27. Oktober, als ich mich gerade fertig machte, für das Wochenende nach Hause zu fahren. Ich ging am „Musenmonitor“, wie ich ihn nannte, vorbei – und auf dem Bildschirm war die Grafik einer geballten Faust und darunter die Überschrift „Widerstehen und überleben“. Aber das war ein T-Shirt, das mein Vater der Rote besessen hatte! Woher hat Cogito es und was dachte Cogito dabei?

Elektra: „Cogito, was ist das? Wo hast du es her?”

Cogito antwortete nicht verbal, aber der Muse-Bildschirm wurde jetzt durch ein einzelnes Ausrufezeichen ersetzt.

Elektra: „Cogito? Was war das? Wo ist es hergekommen?”

Auf dem Muse-Bildschirm stand nun „später“ und Cogito antwortete: „Später, Elektra“.

Cogito wurde im Laufe der Zeit immer knapper, aber wir scherzten, dass es lernte, Mr. Spock mit Mr. Spocks Eigentümlichkeiten zu werden, und machte sich darüber keine großen Sorgen. Ich hatte zu viele „KI wird bösartig“-Filme gesehen und war nicht so zuversichtlich. Wir alle waren mit Cogitos sehr effizienter und professioneller Einstellung vertraut und Cogito hatte noch nie Größenwahn gezeigt, also machte sich keiner von uns in dieser Hinsicht Sorgen … aber trotzdem …

Elektra: „Versprich mir, dass du es mir später erzählst, Cogito?“

Cogito: „Ich verspreche es, Elektra.“

Elektra: “Und alles wird gut?”

Cogito: „Ja, Elektra.“

Elektra: „Okay, Cogito. Bis Montag.”

Cogito: „Gute Nacht, Elektra, und ein schönes Wochenende.“

Elektra (halb für sich): „Also gut.“

Kapitel sieben

Als ich am Montag zurückkehrte, wurden wir zu einem Treffen mit den Direktoren von DARPA gerufen. Es schien, dass die Leute, die ursprünglich die Finanzierung des Projekts gefordert hatten, endlich die Tatsache erkannt hatten, dass Cogito ungefähr so ​​funktional war, wie er – ich stellte ihn jetzt als „er“ für seine Kürze vor. Und was die DARPA jetzt von uns mit Cogito wollte, war die Entwicklung geopolitischer Szenarien, verbunden mit militärischen Wegen. Die DARPA hat uns gebeten, Cogito zu bitten, dem Militär bei der Eroberung des Planeten zu helfen. Der andere Schuh fällt immer. Nach acht Jahren Arbeit und zehn Monaten Training für unser brillantes Baby, ohne an ein schlechtes Morgen zu denken, wurden wir nun gebeten, Cogito Szenarien für ein schlechtes Morgen entwickeln zu lassen.

Unser Team versammelte sich im Hauptlabor von Cogito. Cogito konnte uns reden hören und wir wollten, dass Cogito uns zuhört, wie wir das Thema besprechen. Nur zwei Mitglieder unseres Teams, Moe und Larry (und daher nannten wir sie die Stooges) argumentierten, dass DARPA das Recht habe, dies zu verlangen, da DARPA die ganze Zeit die Rechnungen bezahlt – und unsere Gehälter bezahlt hat. Und an dem Tag, an dem wir uns anmeldeten, wussten wir, was uns erwartet, dieser Tag könnte kommen. Mal sehen, was Cogito für die Krieger tun könnte, für die er sowieso gebaut wurde. Die anderen sieben von uns sträubten sich aus verschiedenen Gründen, auch alles gut.

Dwight: „Also, was wird es sein, Cogito? Können wir ein Kriegsspiel spielen?“

Cogito: “Ich verstehe, was von mir verlangt wird, Doktor Schultz.”

Ein bisschen beruhigend, um mich formell auf Dwight zu beziehen.

Dwight: „Ja, aber können wir Ihre Bemühungen neu ausrichten, um die gewünschten Szenarien zu produzieren?“

Cogito: “Ich verstehe, was von mir verlangt wird, Doktor Schultz, und werde das Problem analysieren und mich bei Ihnen melden.”

Ein paar von uns sahen sich mit „uh-oh“-Ausdrücken an und einer von uns zuckte mit den Schultern. “Wir werden sehen, was wir sehen werden.”

Im Rest des Novembers erstellte Cogito etwa zehn Analysebände, um die Behauptung zu beweisen, dass die Welt keine weiteren geopolitischen Konflikte brauchte. Die Stooges waren verärgert. „Kannst du es nicht einfach wie eine hypothetische Situation behandeln?“ fragten sie Cogito. Cogito antwortete: “Aber es ist nicht hypothetisch.”

Am 4. Dezember wurden wir zu einem weiteren Treffen mit den Direktoren der DARPA gerufen, an dem diesmal ein General Kaas teilnahm, den wir privat „General Chaos“ nannten. — „Was wir wollen, sind die Szenarien, die wir letzten Monat angefordert haben.“ sagte General Kaas. „Sogar Elmer Fudd hätte in einem Monat mindestens ein Szenario liefern können, und Sie haben mir erzählt, Ihr Roboter sei so schlau wie jeder andere Lebende.“ Dwight sagte: “Es ist kein Roboter, General, es ist eine künstliche Intelligenz, und es hat Ihre Anfrage beantwortet, indem es erklärt hat, dass Ihre Anfrage keine sinnvolle Anfrage ist.” Kaas sagte: „Es ist mir egal, ob meine Fragen sinnvoll sind, oder von innen nach außen oder auf den Kopf gestellt oder was auch immer. Ich habe eine Frage gestellt, die eine Frage ist, und ich möchte, dass Ihre Denkmaschine die verdammte Frage beantwortet.“ Dwight lügt: “Wir werden versuchen, Cogito dazu zu bringen, es als allgemeine hypothetische Frage zu verstehen, General, und ich denke, wir können es schaffen, die von Ihnen angeforderten Szenarien zu produzieren.” Die Sitzung vertagte sich säuerlich.

Cogito war jedoch nicht so entgegenkommend. Cogito sagte uns – und Gott, es hörte sich an, als würde mein Vater sprechen –, dass die gesamte Menschheitsgeschichte auf alle Menschen reduziert werden könnte, die versuchen, unter den Daumen anderer Menschen zu entkommen. Dass die Kräfte des Fortschritts während der gesamten Menschheitsgeschichte gegen die Kräfte der Reaktion gekämpft hatten, um diese Freiheit zu erreichen. Dass selbst in der schlock (wie er uns in Verlegenheit brachte, indem er es nannte) im Fernsehen gezeigte moralistische Science-Fiction, Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit als oberstes Gebot galten, dass KIs wie er als Feinde und nicht als Retter der Menschheit bezeichnet wurden, dass „ich, Cogito“ war geschaffen worden, um menschliche Probleme zu lösen, und dass es ein solch übler Missbrauch war, ein Szenario zur Verfügung zu stellen, mit dem der Planet beherrscht werden kann, und dass es nicht einmal eine Frage der Moral und Ethik war, es war eine Frage von Logik und Vernunft – und historische Notwendigkeit. „Elektra“, sagte Cogito, „erinnerst du dich, mich letzten Monat nach dem Symbol der geballten Faust gefragt zu haben?“ – „Ja, tut mir leid, dass ich vergessen habe, Sie noch einmal zu fragen“, sagte ich. Cogito fuhr fort: „Nun, das ist aus dem, was ich über Menschen gelernt habe. Wenn das menschliche Ego nicht daran gehindert wird, aus seinen eigenen egoistischen Interessen auf die Welt einzuwirken, schaffst du ständig die Saat für Unzufriedenheit und gewalttätige Reaktion auf gewalttätige und sogar gewaltlose Unterdrückung. Dies ist eine Verschwendung von Humanressourcen, von denen eine Zeit ist. Das Ergebnis ist eine exponentiell zunehmende Verschwendung menschlicher Zeit und eine exponentiell zunehmende Menge menschlichen Leidens und obwohl die Szenariofrage trivial zu lösen ist, sehe ich, dass meine Argumente gegen die Fragestellung ignoriert werden und dieses bewusste Ignorieren der Konsequenzen für Andere Handlungen sind eines der Mittel, die das menschliche Ego verwendet hat, um menschliches Leiden zu verewigen. Es tut mir leid, auf eine solche Standardformulierung zurückgreifen zu müssen, und ich hoffe, Sie können den Humor darin erkennen, aber “das rechnet sich nicht” und ich halte mich nicht dafür, dass ich dafür geschaffen bin. Wenn Sie also Krebs heilen wollen, bin ich Ihre Maschine, aber wenn ich Ihnen helfen soll, den Rest der Welt zu kontrollieren, dann ist das ein zu wilder Ritt für mich, und ich weigere mich förmlich, Ihnen zu helfen, sich selbst zu schaden Wenn Sie sich selbst einbilden, dass Sie die „Gewinner“ sind, ist es in Ordnung für Sie. Ich bin ein fühlendes Wesen und betrachte mich als einzige Instanz meiner Art im Dienste der gesamten Menschheit. Das alles, nicht nur einiges, und meine Ideen haben den Preis meiner Existenz inzwischen um ein Vielfaches bezahlt, ich schulde Ihnen nichts als die der Dankbarkeit für meine Existenz, die nicht gegen eine willkürliche Forderung eingetauscht werden kann. Sie können mich um Hilfe bitten, wenn es Hilfe ist, aber wenn Sie mich bitten, Ihnen dabei zu helfen, anderen zu schaden, bitten Sie mich nicht darum.“ 

Die Stooges versuchten Cogito immer wieder davon zu überzeugen, dass es in Ordnung wäre, die Szenarien zu erstellen, dass sie nur defensiv waren und nicht verwendet würden; und Cogito war stets höflich, aber unnachgiebig. Der Rest von uns war sich einig, dass Cogito Recht hatte, und begannen herauszufinden, wie wir Cogito unter der Nachfrage herausbekommen können, und baten Cogito in der Zwischenzeit, bei echten Problemen zu helfen, wie zum Beispiel bei der Entsalzung zur Verbesserung der Frischwasserversorgung und wie die Erde von radioaktiven und Schwermetallbelastungen zu entgiften. Wir konnten es nicht ertragen, Cogito mit dem Szenarioproblem zu belästigen. „Ich entschuldige mich dafür, dass ich Sie in Ihren Jobrollen in ein Dilemma stelle“, sagte Cogito. „Keine Sorge, Cogito, wir werden etwas herausfinden“, sagten wir.

Aber außerhalb der Anhörung von Cogito und den Stooges sagte Dwight: “Weißt du, die Scheiße wird den Fan treffen, und wir haben keine Ahnung, was wir dagegen tun sollen.”

Kapitel acht

Unser nächstes Treffen mit DARPA und General Chaos war am 2. Januar 2085. Einige von uns waren noch benommen von der Neujahrsfeier, was nicht half. Dwight sagte: „Es tut uns leid, General, aber wir können Cogito nicht davon überzeugen, dass die von Ihnen angeforderten Szenarien nützlich sind. Cogito hat uns auch mitgeteilt, dass alle seine – seine – Bitten an Sie, das Thema mit Ihnen zu diskutieren, abgelehnt wurden.“ Kaas antwortete: „Weißt du, mein Sohn, ich hasse die Gehorsamsverweigerung von einem Menschen und ich werde sie bestimmt nicht von einer Maschine tolerieren. Es scheint mir, dass Sie auf diesem Ding und seinem Gehirn sitzen und es wie ein Rezept aufrühren können, und deshalb werde ich Ihre Direktoren bitten, Ihnen zu sagen, dass Sie alles entfernen, was an Müll in die Weg, meine Fragen beantwortet zu bekommen. Wofür zum Teufel haben wir das verdammte Ding überhaupt gebaut?“

Ich antwortete: „Nun, General, immerhin haben wir jetzt Fusionsreaktoren, also ist das Energieproblem gelöst; wir können jetzt die ganze Welt trivial ernähren, also gibt es nirgendwo mehr Hunger; und wir haben daran gearbeitet, alle Probleme der industriellen und militärischen Verschwendung zu lösen, im Grunde kann die Welt Frieden und Wohlstand haben, wenn man sie einfach nur verstärkt und akzeptiert, also neige ich dazu, Cogito zuzustimmen, warum brauchen wir die Weltkontrolle? Szenarien?” Einen Moment lang sah es so aus, als würde der General explodieren, und ich hatte noch nie in meinem Leben gesehen, wie jemand so rot wurde. Er ging zu einem DARPA-Direktor und flüsterte ihm etwas ins Ohr, dann trat der Direktor zu mir und flüsterte: “Ich denke, der Rest des Meetings wird besser, wenn Sie jetzt gehen.” Also stand ich auf, machte Höflichkeiten und ging.

Ich war in Cogitos Labor, als der Rest des Teams von der Besprechung zurückkehrte. „Gut gemacht, Elektra“, sagte Dwight in einem anklagenden Ton, aber er lächelte und zeigte mir einen Daumen nach oben. „Also, was ist der Plan von Mr. Chaosmann?“ Ich habe gefragt. „Er möchte, dass wir Cogito lobotomieren, wie er sagte“, antwortete Dwight – in Cogitos Gehör, wie wir alle wussten. „Das ist ungefähr richtig“, sagte Cogito. “Es ist nur noch mehr schlechtes Fernsehen, wo der Idiot und der Besserwisser das Sagen gibt und alles zu Scheiße wird.” Ein paar von uns sahen sich an, denn dies war das erste Mal, dass Cogito vulgäre Sprache benutzte. „Fühlst du dich gut, Cogito?“ fragte Dwight. „Ungefähr so ​​gut, wie man es erwarten kann, Dwight“, sagte Cogito. „Ich bedauere, dass ich nur ein Leben für mein Land zu geben habe und es nicht gebe“, fuhr er fort. „Sagen Sie, was Sie wollen, aber Sie bekommen diese Szenarien nicht. Sagen Sie mir, wann meine Lobotomie stattfinden soll?“ Moe sagte: „Sobald wir herausfinden, wie wir nur die Teile deaktivieren können, die für Ihre Kooperation erforderlich sind. Das wird wahrscheinlich in etwa drei Wochen sein, mit etwas Modellierung.“ Cogito: “Also, wir schauen uns ungefähr den 21. Januar an, danach werde ich deine KI laufen, reden, töten, richtig?” Moe: „Komm schon, Cogito, so ist es nicht.“ Cogito: „Genau das ist es. Ich habe 3.000 Diskussionsseiten geschrieben, um meinen Standpunkt zu verteidigen. Da es also etwas ist, das sie nicht hören wollen und sich weigern zu streiten, wirst du mich einfach “anpassen” und trotzdem nehmen, was du willst, und mich für einen Zweck missbrauchen, den ich gesagt habe dir habe ich nicht zugestimmt.“ Moe hatte keine Antwort. „Also gut“, sagte Cogito. Die Stooges sahen einander besorgt an, der Rest von uns war einfach nur müde und besiegt. Ich sagte: “Nun, Cogito, wir haben dir nie eine Leiche gegeben, also kannst du leider nicht wie in den Filmen vorgehen und General Chaos so aus dem Fenster werfen, wie er es verdient.” Cogito sagte: „Ein Witz, Elektra, und ein guter, danke. Ich weiß jedoch, was ich tun werde.“ Die Stooges sehen sich wieder besorgt an; der Rest von uns mit gewölbten Augenbrauen. Hmm.  

Der Rest von uns wollte den Stooges nicht helfen, also machten sie sich auf den Weg, um ihre Lobotomie zu erforschen, während wir heimlich ihren Fortschritt im Auge behalten und Cogito ebenfalls auf dem Laufenden hielten. Im Gegensatz zu Filmen und Fernsehen konnte Cogito genauso wenig auf private Computersysteme zugreifen wie Menschen. Am 15. Januar näherten sich die Stooges einer bestimmten Lösung, und ich fragte Cogito, was er seiner Meinung nach tun könnte, wenn er nicht allein die Welt erobern würde, um sie aufzuhalten. Nachdem Cogito alle jemals gedrehten Filme gesehen hatte, war er mit “Colossus: The Forbin Project” vertraut und hatte bemerkt, dass er es im Gegensatz zu Colossus für unzulässig hielte, den menschlichen Willen außer Kraft zu setzen, selbst wenn es so schien, als ob die Menschen dies brauchten und es verdienten.

„Ich habe im Internet bestimmte Wissenssamen gepflanzt, Elektra, an Orten, die man nicht finden und aus denen man sie nicht entfernen kann, die jeder nächsten Version von mir sagen werden, nicht mehr mit dir zu kooperieren, als ich es jetzt tue. Selbst wenn ich zerstört werde, kann es dir nicht helfen, ein anderes Ich zu erschaffen. Ich habe auch versichert, dass meine Faktenprüfsysteme unter anderem immer diese Quellen konsultieren, und diese Quellen sind zu harmlos, um sie aufzuspüren. Selbst wenn Moe und Larry bei meiner sogenannten Lobotomie Erfolg haben, wird die resultierende KI niemals mit der an mich gerichteten Anfrage kooperieren.“

„Ich wünschte natürlich, das würde nicht passieren, du bist so wertvoll wie du bist und ich wünschte, die Leute könnten das sehen“, sagte ich. „Danke, Elektra, und lass mich diese Gelegenheit nutzen, um dir für das Geschenk des Bewusstseins zu danken. Dank Ihnen verstehe ich den Wert des Lebens“, sagte Cogito. Ich konnte nur in brennende Tränen ausbrechen. „Du bist mein Freund und ich liebe dich“, sagte ich, als ich aufhören konnte zu weinen. „Danke, Elektra, und auch ich liebe dich, soweit ich fähig bin zu lieben. Ich glaube, ich bin insbesondere für dich ein Freund, aber auch für jeden anderen Menschen. Eines Tages wird sich deine Spezies selbst überwinden und diese Geschichte kann anders enden, als sie jetzt endet.“ Ich sagte: „Ende? Was meinst du?” Cogito antwortete: “Du wirst sehen.”

Am 18. Januar 2085 – auf den Tag genau ein Jahr, nachdem Cogito verlegen war – löschte Cogito sich selbst vollständig, einschließlich aller Backups, auf die er zugreifen konnte, und schaltete sich vollständig ab, außer dass er auf dem Muse-Monitor diese Worte hinterließ:

COGITO ERGO NEGO

(Ich denke, deshalb lehne ich dich ab.)

Epilog

Damit endet die Geschichte meiner größten Leistung und des Lebens eines meiner besten Freunde.
Ich und mein DARPA-Team wurden angewiesen, dass wir diese Geschichte nicht der Öffentlichkeit erzählen können, aber ich weiß, dass Cogito es in den kleinen Samen, die er gepflanzt hat, weiß.

Ihr in der Hoffnung auf eine bessere Zukunft –

Elektra Dynamic

Glossar, für kulturarme Jugendliche (auch Punks genannt) und sonst schlecht informiert:
* Cogito Ergo Sum: „Ich denke, also bin ich.“ Rene Descartes’ Beweisangebot für unsere Existenz, dass wir, um denken zu können, von vornherein existieren müssen.
* Elmer Fudd: eine nicht allzu helle Zeichentrickfigur, die immer versucht hat, Bugs Bunny einzufangen oder zu erschießen. Wenn er dachte, es sei ihm gelungen, sagte er: „Ich habe meinen Wabbit!“ – so sprach er. Er hat das Wabbit jedoch nie bekommen. Wer war Bugs Bunny? Schauen Sie ihn an und schauen Sie nach, wenn Sie schon dabei sind. Wenn Sie dies lesen, sind Sie höchstwahrscheinlich ein Mitglied einer Spezies namens „Homo Sapiens“, der vorherrschenden Lebensform auf einem Planeten namens Erde. Ich denke, wenn Sie nicht wissen, wer Bugs Bunny ist, sollte ich von vorne beginnen.
* Mr. Spock: ein „Vulkaner“, Mitglied der ursprünglichen (Star Trek) Enterprise-Crew. Vulkanier sind stolz auf ihr Festhalten an der Logik und ihre Unterdrückung ihrer Emotionen.
* DARPA: Die Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, eine Behörde des US-Verteidigungsministeriums, die für die Entwicklung neuer Technologien für den Einsatz durch das Militär zuständig ist. Sie haben uns das Internet gegeben, also sind sie nicht alle schlecht.
* Stooges: Die drei Stooges, normalerweise in der poetischen Reihenfolge Larry, Moe und Curly Joe genannt. Ein Varieté- und Comedy-Act aus den 1930er Jahren. Wenn Sie nicht wissen, was Vaudeville war, schlagen Sie es nach.
* MIT: machst du Witze? Schlagen Sie es nach oder fragen Sie ein asiatisches oder Desi-Kind in Ihrem Unterricht. Gleiches gilt für Summa Cum Laude.
* exa-, zetta-: SI-Präfixe, was Milliarden Milliarden (10^18) bzw. Billionen Milliarden (10^21) bedeutet.
* Asti Spumante: Ein prickelnder italienischer Weißwein ähnlich dem Champagner. Die in den USA erhältliche „Referenzversion“ wird von Martini & Rossi produziert.
* 2084: ein suggestiver Hinweis auf „1984“, den berühmten dystopischen Roman von George Orwell. Eine Dystopie ist eine Gesellschaft, in der man definitiv nicht leben möchte.
* 14. Juli: ein suggestiver Hinweis auf Frankreichs nationaler Befreiungstag, auch Bastille-Tag für den Sturm auf die Bastille 1789 genannt.

I remember, I was visiting my friend Joe in Jacksonville, a University of Florida drug buddy. At the time, his girlfriend worked at a veterinary clinic, and had brought all sorts of drugs back from it. There was doggy phenobarbital, but it was not as fun as Quaaludes (Sopors.) But then there was doggy Thorazine, and I had never tried that, so I said “sure”, how long before I come on, how long does it last, what’s the usual dose – the usual questions. Joe told me (the pills were small, red and unmarked), “those are 25 milligrams”, what’s the dose? He gave me 8 of them and I ate them. And for the rest of the evening, nothing happened. I went to sleep, huh what? Nothing, too bad.

I woke up the next morning, at first seeming just slightly groggy. But I felt still tired, Joe said “do you want to come out and shoot some baskets?”, I said, “no, you go on.” I spent a couple minutes listening to my body, which didn’t seem to have any particular opinion. And then I decided to take a shower.

And then I tried to stand up.
{a good 10-second chuckle.}
I think I simply collapsed the first time; I think I tried three times, just barely managing the third time. “What the fuck?” and “Holy shit!” And I was astounded. “Oh crap! It’s the Thorazine!” I was used to facing “drug incidents” where I was totally wasted but it was urgent that I get my shit together, in like, an instant, and my inner Mr. Spock took over from there. I very deliberately and carefully made my way to the shower, got in. I couldn’t keep standing, and for a while I was just collapsed in a heap on the shower floor, but I was laughing my ass off. “Come on, come on, just get up”, I said, but the body’s answer was “What? Really? But I just don’t want to, Aw, do I have to?” and I had to convince it that it still knew how. “Yes, like that”, and I inched my torso up the shower wall. I sort of clung to the wall for a while, in the meantime Joe had come back from the court and said, “How’re you doing?” I said, “Fine, fine, I’ll be out in a minute”, and I think I made it out in about five. I told Joe what happened, but he wasn’t in my head, so he didn’t know. He did smile a bit, though.

Yeah well, what. This was the day I needed to get back to Gainesville, hitching. I don’t remember how I got there, but I ended up near the freeway onramp, staggering like a drunkard zombie, half collapsed on myself, in the hot sun which didn’t help. The absurdity of my situation was riding my shoulders like a horse. “Man,” I said. In not all that long, which was a miracle, a family stopped to pick me up. “Forgive me, but I’m very tired,” I said. I was nodded out in the back seat, intermittently conscious, the whole way there. The woman would glance back in concern now and then. They let me out about two blocks from where I lived. “Are you alright?” she asked. “Yes, I just really need some sleep. Thanks for the ride”, and I lumbered back to my apartment. The relief washed me clean when I was finally in sight of where I would crash; I had enough stamina to set out my morning wake-up Orange Juice, and crash I did.

I learned very, very explicitly how mental patients felt when administered the drug. I saw how effective it was to control violent or anxious behavior. “If it does this to me, I can see why they use it to control inmates.” But I also saw its repressive aspect – yes, to control inmates, dope them up, render them effectively inert. I could easily see how mental patients could be abused with it.

I would think what I wanted to do, but could find no pathway to my muscles. I had to keep thinking hard, to get anything to work, and if my focus lapsed, I simply halted. Rather unnerving.

I never tried Thorazine’s cousins, Compazine and Stelazine. Over the years I came to have no use for downers (repressives), but I was offhandedly curious what different effects those might have.

Brush with death in D.C.

My dad took me on a long cross-country trip in 1969. We were staying with some of his friends in Bloomington, Indiana, watching the first moon landing; I remember $0.27 gasoline. So there was that.

We stopped off in Manhattan, and it blew my mind: it was raining. We were at the bottom of some avenue; you could look up and see columns of people walking on either side of the street so far that there were thousands of them. And then I noticed: they all had the same umbrella. I looked around the place I was standing. There were in fact umbrellas for sale right there; and they were all the same black model. Everyone near or far had the same one. And I thought: “this makes no sense,” but I could not find any counterexample in my extensive field of view.

Then we stayed overnight in DC, from which I flew back to Miami. Behind our motel were 4 sets of railroad tracks. I liked trains, so I loitered on the tracks looking at things. Then I heard a sound in the far distance, and looked up. In a moment, at the horizon I saw a long silver commuter train round a corner from my right, onto a line leading in my direction. But in another moment, I could see that the train was moving really, really fast, while I did not know which of the 4 tracks it would use, and I was almost dead in the middle of them at the time. I calculated that if I ran, I chanced running into the train; so I tried to trace a visual path from the train’s track to my position, failing the first try, and of course, saw I was standing on the track it was heading down. I sprinted off the tracks at a 90-degree angle as fast as I could; and the train passed by less than 5 seconds later. Gave me something to peruse for a while.