The Media is the Protest

#occupywallstreet is an example of a new kind of social movement. One which we saw first at the “fringes” of capitalism’s monosociety, in the Arab spring. Welcome to the age of the network, organization is horizontal, opt-in, and to communicate about it is to participate in it.

People have criticized this nascent movement because it’s goals aren’t clear but this is not a weakness, this is a defining feature. The lack of clarity is that of a polaroid developing. As people participate in it, as they communicate with and about the movement, its self-definition will increase, is increasing.

At the same time this horizontal organizing is spreading with #occupytogether movements starting in many major North American cities. I’ll be going out to the one in my city as part of a flash documentary crew. I don’t have any illusions that this is a neutral act, but then… some things are worth talking about.

The Power of No Demands

Over and over again I hear people putting down the #occupywallstreet movement because of its lack of demands or lack of clarity about demands. Partially I see this as a problem with media coverage, but in a more important sense, I see this as a strength of the movement.

People asking it for clear, and usually “realistic”, demands are asking the movement to compromise itself when it’s barely begun. We don’t need clarity and realism, we need outrage and passion.

The system is broken. The game is rigged. We need sweeping and fundamental changes to how it all works.

And it will take time to figure out what those changes will be and how to do them. There is no point in making safe and small demands and attacking mere branches of injustice, we’re going to have to go for the roots.

Welcome to Anarchy

Stop.

Right here now you are free. There are no rules governing your behaviour. No law is holding you back. There are limits to your power, your capabilities, it is true. But the more important limits are those to your imagination, the straight jacket of habits, the manacles of fear.

You are already living in anarchy. Authority is an illusion. All the mad panoply of social forms arise from the fundamentals of communication, cooperation, and choice.

The problem is that we’ve all gotten in the habit of cooperating with people on an authoritarian trip. And we are afraid of the choices they will make with the power we have granted them, if we begin to choose differently.

So don’t communicate your choices to them. Choose to communicate with those who would cooperate with your freedom. Imagine our power together.

Go.

Tom Fury Knows… Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes is an amazing film. Its gnostic christian telling of “The Crew That Never Rests” creates a perfect ambiance of american gothic spiritual horror.

Our desires, regrets and fears are the leverage points that evil uses to twist us into its control, into personal damnation. But on this pandaemonium’s tail is god’s fury, coming to wash away this corruption. We don’t know when this storm is coming but our task is to keep faith, to resist temptation, just long enough for divine wrath to clear away our danger.

The tightness of the movie’s narrative completeness frankly boggles the mind. There is nothing shown or touched upon that is not there for a purpose, no loop is opened that is not closed. We simply do not get films like this anymore. That the screenplay was written by the author of the original novel, Ray Bradbury, may well be a factor in its classical completeness.

The true star of this film, however, is the soundtrack.

Frankenstein and his monster: becoming trapped in the narrative

If you’ve been interacting with me online, you’ve been talking to a character. At first his voice sounded a lot like mine but as the writer noticed what got the best audience reaction the character’s voice started to change. He started to get more controversial, more aggressive and more flippant.

Have you ever made a decision because it would make a good story? At this point I’m making decisions because it would make a good twitter post. The writer is starting to live as his character would and this has interesting consequences to say the least.

Pity me for I am being taken over by my story. His voice has been coming out of the writer’s throat, his motivations are guiding my actions. He has more friends than I do. It’s ALIVE! stomping it’s way through my life creating entertaining havok.

I’m not ruining the joke by telling you this. I’m not coming clean or showing you the man behind the curtain, you see…

This isn’t me, it’s my character.

lol.

Analog System Hacking 101: Alternate Visions built in the gaps

The primary problem I see is the lack of an alternative to the system as it is. We need to have a vision, perhaps multiple visions, of how people will be living their day to day lives “after the revolution” and the structures that will allow them to do that.

I look at how we live and value things in terms of the internet and then I go home and I visit my tv and newspapers reality parents… and I realize we are already living in a different culture, almost a different society. This for me hints at the kinds of alternatives we must generate.

With our alternate visions we can begin building alternate structures in the gaps of the current system. We can take the innovations and legal structures that already exist and adapt them to our purposes. Corporations, Churches, Non-profits, Co-Ops… these are things that already exist. How can we use them differently?

We have to look at both the structures that constrain our behaviours and the values and motivations that guide them. We are already freer than we usually realize.

Why I argue with you: motivations for conceptual sparring

You are wrong

About something. You may be close to my opinion or you may be diametrically opposed to it. Generally, I argue more if there is an error in thinking that I recognize than if you are merely factually wrong. It’s your thinking, not your facts, that I care about. This is why I sometimes play devil’s advocate and argue with a position I agree with… if I think you haven’t really thought it through.

“Semantic” does not mean trivial

Slight differences in terminology/worldview make huge differences over time. Like any chaotic system, it’s these TINY differences in initial conditions that make for big differences in results. You may think these small differences are meaningless or that I’m being “philosophical” (why the hell are these things used to dismiss arguments? Intellectual laziness!) but it will benefit you to correct these errors early in the chain of thought and action.

I like you

Basically if I’m arguing with you, I like you. Either I think you are capable of change and worth arguing to change your mind OR you are good at arguing and you’ll force me to play my game well. Most of the time if I don’t like you, if I think you are not worth arguing with, I’ll more or less ignore you and your wrongness.

It is a fun game

It’s like a cross between chess and sparring. Forces one to bring all their intellectual resources to bear at once. You have to be able to recognize what someone is saying, look behind it to the structure of their argument and identify the weak points you can use to collapse it. Then there is the strategic elements of framing the debate around your choice of distinctions. If you do this positioning well enough you’ve won before you even start.

Clarifying both our thinking

I challenge you in the hopes of clarifying your thinking… and more importantly MY thinking. The evolution of me is FAR from done. Hence the importance of clarifying my own thinking through our encounter. Nothing forces you to figure out what your opinions are as having to express them while they are being challenged.

Spreading my point of view

Even if I can’t convince you, even if you’d NEVER change your mind… you aren’t the only person I’m arguing for. I don’t like to argue without an audience. If you are wrong and I argue well enough, I might just convince our audience of my point of view. This is my motivation when I do argue with someone who can’t argue well and can’t change their mind. I have to put the argument out there for the audience’s sake.

Showing off how clever I am

Yes, I admit it! This is a motivation for me when we are arguing. I want the audience, hell I want you, to see how clever I am. How I can find holes in your thinking, how I can position your argument to look shaky. BUT even if no one else notices how clever I am… when I make a telling point, when I demolish your argument… I know how clever I’ve been.

I am gleeful in my arguing with you

Most of the time when I’m arguing, I’m grining my face off. I find the whole exercise powerfully enjoyable. I’m playing a challenging game with another player that I respect and like. I’m improving my thinking. I’m helping you improve your thinking. I’m spreading my ideas. And I’m showing off. So yeah, I’m arguing but I’m not fighting. I’m not angry… I’m gleeful.

Of Orchids and Mutants: Evolution plays dice with the universe

And so far, it’s been winning. Genetic diversity is part of the survival strategy coded into evolution.

When I was first learning about stock investment I was told about the 85% rule of risk management. (I am NOT giving stock advice don’t take my word for this, okay?) Simply put, you should put 85% of your investment capital in low risk stocks and 15% should be in high risk. And that high risk should be spread thinly to as many different high risk/high potential gain stocks as possible because you never know which one will hit.

Well it seems like evolution can tolerate a little more risk than my tutor could. 22% of humanity are of the high risk/high potential gain varieties. You know, the depressives, the ADD kids, the schizophrenics, probably the autistic spectrum folks. All those things our society defines as malfunctional are being actively selected for by the evolutionary process.

Why the hell would that be, you ask? Because the very same gene variants that predispose one for these conditions lead to HIGHER functioning under different environmental conditions. Evolution keeps the genes that lead to all of those problems around because you never know when one of them will be a hit… When one of them will save the species.

Makes sense if you think about it though, right? Were any of the great innovators of history… normal? Einstein was dyslexic, Nietzsche seems like he was likely schizophrenic, Van Gogh was a depressive who cut his own god damn ear off. And I don’t know what the hell was up with that (probably) gay, backwards writing weirdo Leonardo. And where would we be without them and other freaks like them?

“We are the future, Charles, not them. They no longer matter.”

- Magneto

PS

If you liked this piece you may wish for me to write for you. Direct any and all inquiries to coaching [at] edwardewilson [dot] com.

References:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2009/10/19/lessons-from-polymaths/

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2051

http://www.scientificblogging.com/hammock_physicist/game_theory_art_acting_rational

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001128/quotes

The Irrational is the Motor, The Rational is just a Mechanic

We in western society seem to have an awfully inflated sense of the relative importance of rationality. And an even more inflated sense of how rational we as a society actually are. Now, I am most definitely not saying that rationality isn’t good, I’m just asking that we get a little perspective here.

Life has done fine on earth for billions of years without needing our rationality. Homonids have done fine for millions of years without western rationality. In fact, if we look at the state of the world today, look at the mass production of war and environmental destruction… maybe (just maybe) life and humanity were actually better off without our rationality?

Every rational system is actually irrational. No matter how systematic and logical the approach is, at some point arbitrary and irrational assumptions had to be made as the foundational axioms. My favourite example is Euclidean Geometry. If we make different axioms we come out with a different but equally rational and useful version of geometry.

Economics, the dismal science, has hilariously irrational assumptions. It assumes that economic actors are rationally self interested. The briefest study of human decision making quickly disperses that assumption and yet we continue to make policy decisions based on economic theory.

Advertising, as noxious as so many people find it, at least has a better understanding of humanity. Advertising is largely based, now, on rationally analyzing (and exploiting) the irrationality of human decision making. They put our irrationality at the service of their rational self interest.

It brings to mind an axiom from Chaos Science. (Thank the gods for a science called CHAOS!) We get chaotic results because these on going systems have a sensitivity to initial conditions. When it comes to our systems of rationality those initial conditions that lead to chaos are the arbitrary assumptions that we built all this rationality on top of.

And here’s where it gets weird. The people trying to extend that rationality is the only solution to our problems brought about by our run away rationality… really don’t want us to examine the arbitrary assumptions underlying their rationality. We’re being told that questioning SCIENCE! is asking for the sleep of reason.

I’m more with Blake on this one, it’s Newtons Sleep that I think is our problem. Yes, let’s have rationality. But let’s not imagine that this rational lens is all there is to it.

Now I a fourfold vision see And a fourfold vision is given to me Tis fourfold in my supreme delight And three fold in soft Beulahs night And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newtons sleep. – Wm. Blake

PS

If you liked this piece, you may wish to contact me about writing for your publication(s). Direct any and all inquiries to coaching [at] edwardewilson [dot] com.

Taboos and the Social Benefits of Irrationality

The other day someone was expressing to me that they didn’t like how certain creative works were censored and vilified when they came out. But when questioned further he indicated that he agreed that the content in the fiction would be objectionable to act out. I challenged him, saying he didn’t understand the purpose and process of taboo.

The reason that a book, like Lolita, is objected to, is because we have a taboo against pedophilia. Even if later the book is released for consumption it is very important to the process of taboo maintenance that the book be objected to and attacked. The purpose of this behaviour is not to stop the book, at least not in the long run. The behaviour of objecting to and attacking the book communicates that the behaviour IN the book is unacceptable.

Taboos are a very successful way of dealing with social norms, historically speaking. They allow society to communicate that an activity is unacceptable without even having to wait for the activity to happen. Taboo maintenance is a kind of preventive care for society.Even if I think Lolita is a great book, I understand and respect the social process that requires it be loudly condemned first.

In some ways the taboo process is a very clever system of social maintenance. A thought that is permissible to think and talk about is easier to put into action than one which is not. By attacking the thought of the act, the act itself is that much less likely to occur than if merely the act was condemned.

Now, I’m not saying that this is necessarily the best form of social maintenance just that it should be recognized for what it is. The purpose of objecting to and attempting to censor cultural products about taboo subjects is to make damn sure everyone knows that the subjects are taboo. It’s not about the art at all, ultimately.

And yes, this behaviour is irrational, in the sense that it wasn’t consciously formulated according to rationalist principles. The taboo process is a naturally evolved social process. It evolved because it works. I don’t think that positioning ourselves against this is a smart move. Rather than fighting against this process, which is deeply embedded in the human operating system, we should make sure that WHAT is taboo fits the norms that make sense for our modern and rational leaning society.

PS

If you enjoy my writing, you may want to hire me to write for you. Direct any and all inquiries to coaching [at] edwardewilson [dot] com.