Category Archives: Culture

Regarding the Apocalypse

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Mariner’s alter ego Guru, responsible for wide ranging philosophical and futuristic insights, claimed in a recent post that the Apocalypse already has begun. There have been queries about definition.

From his safe house in Chicken Little’s hen house, mariner will lay out the timeline implied by Guru.

It all began innocently 2 million years ago when a new species evolved that had a growing brain. The species was Homo. 1 million years ago, Homo began splitting into variations. Many failed to sustain themselves and became extinct but a few with names like Neanderthal, Habilis, Australopithecus and Erectus survived into the age of humans. Together they would become Homo sapiens.

In those days, Homo had no choice but to live within the natural confines of their habitat. Living a plenteous life in an agreeable environment, a typical lifespan was about 40 years. Homo’s predators were meat eaters, infections and serious injury.

These characteristics are similar to the few indigenous tribes that still exist in remote areas of Africa and South America. These tribes to this day sustain themselves only with the restorative resources their environment provides.

About 10,000 years ago, Homo discovered how to grow more grain than he needed, hence the beginning of commerce by acquiring more grain than would be consumed by a local tribe. In a subtle way, this is the first abuse of the natural relationship between Homo and the environment.

Centuries roll by and Homo learns more ways to consume the environment beyond his natural relationship with nature. Homo extracted from nature other creatures like donkeys, horses, and wolves that would help expand the ability to acquire excessive amounts of Nature’s resources. Then Homo discovered iron, tin, lead and carbon-based energy. Now Homo could consume many times his need from Nature. Homo was consuming Nature faster than Nature could replenish itself.

This imbalance was the seed that has grown into the apocalypse we have today.

After I million years of living in accordance with the rules of Nature, in the last 1,000 years, Homo has trashed Nature; Homo has trashed the basic tribal society; Homo has trashed multiple generations that cohabit as a protective wall against difficult times. Homo quickly learned to ignore Nature and lived by the rule ‘If you can do it, do it’. He developed elaborate tools which, at every step, diminished the evolutionary potential of every Homo. For example, the use of coal and gasoline in the last 150 years has destroyed the security provided by extended family and tribe (town economy). Its method was to produce trains, automobiles, mechanized, oversized farms, superhighways and national and globally based industries.

In just 150 years the apocalypse gained speed. Isolated nuclear families became the norm – left defenseless without the human support of multiple generations and tribal support. Giant corporations became the norm, slowly eliminating local economies, local jobs and the existential satisfaction found in smaller towns and cities.

In the last 175 years, the apocalypse has shifted into a higher gear. 16,000 species are extinct because of Homo indifference. Around the world potable water is becoming scarce. Seafood from the oceans is 20 percent of what it was 100 years ago. And obviously the excess use of fossil fuel has launched serious changes in air quality and of the planet generally.

But in this century the chains are off. What easy transportation did to tribes, the Internet is doing to society. Communication technology makes war easier and more horrific; interpersonal skills and rewards are replaced by artificial behavior that dismisses 1 million years of evolutionary sophistication; privacy and security are fallacious assumptions.

Now a new age is upon us: artificial intelligence (AI). AI can emulate the entire reality of Homo. The final bridge to the apocalypse is that AI can reproduce itself. Who needs Homo?

Ancient Mariner

 

About Fabric

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Has the reader noticed that among cloth generally, there are many different fabrics? Each has a unique feel to it. For example, one can clearly tell the difference between silk and denim, or suede and wool, or nylon and hemp. What if, in fact, all cloth felt the same? Would that not really matter? Cloth is cloth and it’s the fashion that is important; it’s usability for whatever; it’s the style that counts; it’s what is popular that matters more.

In virtually every fiction book and film where mariner has observed ‘the future of mankind’, the plot is about humans becoming nondescript, that is, the fabric of life changes. It happens in a piecemeal way. Consider what effect the internal combustion engine had on daily society: Towns no longer had to be only twenty miles apart because that was the limit of a day’s horse ride; agriculture shifted from local market to national market; shared resources among large, stationary families shifted to independent career income no longer bound to the home town or the family.

Even the fabric of riverside cities changed from river shipping to rail, leaving dozens of river towns with dwindling resources. Today local business, the enjoyment of life, the vitality of society is a pale remembrance. Perhaps it could be said these towns lost their fabric.

Readers will quickly challenge loss of fabric versus endless increases in the economy, freedom of new life opportunities, better health services, etc. After all, it’s not about fabric, it’s usability, fashion and style that counts.

Several months ago he read a book, ‘The Way Home – tales from a life without technology’ by Mark Boyle. It is an accounting of Boyle, an economist, who deliberately spent three years without money – zero dollars. The only economy he had was what he could muster with his own hands. What gave him the idea to retreat from industrial society was that he was aware of what it took to pump a glass of water from the ground; it required steel, copper, plastic, dams and endless pipelines including what to do with wastewater. It wasn’t about Mark Boyle being thirsty nor was it about any other individual being thirsty. Individuals were nothing more than a device used to discharge water from a very large, self-important industry.

His key discovery was that the farther away a human is from his core, natural environment, the more damage is done to that environment. His second discovery was that the few families that were close enough to his cabin to interact, were genuinely friendly and willing to help Boyle survive in his stark environment. He and his few neighbors came first instead of last. They had human fabric.

For more philosophical insight into the idea that humans are at the center of life, not abusive corporate trashing of the biosphere, read Gandhi.

Ancient Mariner

 

Does anyone have a plot line?

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By Wiley:

Is it possible that our eager scientists are consumed by the phrase, “I do it because I can”? Is Homo sapiens ready for an automated lifestyle? Is the biosphere ready for Homo sapiens to have an automated lifestyle?

Scientists have created Xenobots, computer cells that can reproduce. Even Steven Hawking predicted this will be the demise of humanity.

Over the millennia, humans have learned to adapt to significant changes in the biosphere status quo; everything from ice ages to rocket ships and nuclear bombs. But each epoch was singular – just one at a time.

It isn’t the same today. There is AI, collapsing nationalism, global warming, social abuse, over-population and the waning of Adam Smith economics.

Can we Homos handle it?

Ancient Mariner

USMC and other acronyms

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On January 10, 2022. Mariner posted the following:

“Poignantly, mariner misses the word ‘gay’. It was a richly nuanced word that combined the sensation of friendly, entertaining and memorable into a three letter word.”

This still is true. There is no other single, simple word that conveys the experience where one would say they had a gay time – rejuvenation via pleasure. But this is a different time. ‘Gay’ virtually is extinct; it lingers only in a ridiculous acronym, LGBTQIA+ (LGBTQIA+ is an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and more).

The ‘+’ bothers him. Maybe the next letter will be ‘F’ for people who like to have fun at parties having only one sex as participants. Will women’s clubs have to become secretive about where and when they meet? Will the mariner and his buddies swear secrecy regarding their poker club or their Friday night at the corner bar? Will the mariner have to give a swab before he enters the men’s room?

The whole genetic prejudice thing is absurd in today’s world. Mariner is excluded from conversations because he can’t remember the acronym – let alone say it.

Thank goodness mariner is not a black Asian who speaks Spanish, wears a kippah, lives in an Arabian neighborhood and lives with a Somalian. What would that acronym look like?

Ancient Mariner

On living forever

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Mariner’s wife took him on a Father’s Day trip to the next county, known for its small villages and the fact that there are no stop lights in the entire county. But – they have the largest milkshakes he has ever encountered – easily a full quart.

On the way home, mariner’s wife pondered, “Which would be better, to have children and die after a natural lifespan or to not have children and live forever?”

Wow! Did Guru sit up for this question! His wife was considering the emotional tradeoff and how that would affect the happiness of an individual. Would a person choose living forever and never growing old in exchange for the joy of family, fellow-aging community and culture?

This question offers many different paths of examination. Mariner’s first thoughts were about the evolutionary mandates in humans that require a generation-based society. How would society work without generations? Second, would a Mitch McConnell exist as old or would he be a young Majority Leader forever? Wouldn’t political diversity disappear over time because no one is older than anyone else?

Third, and this is scary, isn’t this the plan offered by AI? The only difference is an individual gives up their own life instead of a child’s.

In short, his wife’s question is thoughtful. What are the root values in human life? Is an individual a complete person without Mom, Dad, and the kids? Does life forever offer sufficient feelings of security about staying alive forever? Economics requires a changing market. Wouldn’t everyone be wearing the same thing ala the movie 1984?

Lest we forget, no one said cancer and influenza wouldn’t have a role. Living forever simply means controlling chromosome division so that it can divide perpetually. No one said anything about external causes; no one expects that a person would live after being run over by a train.

Those among you harboring 1-5 year-olds are not allowed to consider the question.

Ancient Mariner

Amos and Worster

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Mariner was questioned “Who is Amos?” referring to the mention of that name in the last post. Mariner apologizes for having an empty page under the Heading ‘About the Author’ which has been blank for several months. Somehow, it was deleted.

Just a short precis of its contents: Mariner writes his post with the aid of three alter egos: Chicken Little, named for his namesake who thought the sky was falling and always assumed the worst in any situation; Amos, named for his namesake from the Book of Amos in the Old Testament who with earnestness chastised the religious authority of his time until he was assassinated; Guru, named for his namesake in the comic section of the newspapers who is preoccupied with esoteric, intensely intellectual theories of no relevance. Thus, mariner’s posts are assured of clarity, facts, and a comprehensive view of the world.

On to today’s post.

Having read Donald Worster’s book, The Wealth of Nature, mariner has given some thought to Worster’s hope that global society, perhaps through the absence of potable water, perhaps social conflict that collapses global economies, even perhaps the result of nuclear war, it may be that in order to survive, humans will have to return to a respectful relationship with a sparse environment.

Instead of sending humanity down the bottomless hole of AI, imagine that Mother Nature has an equal force on society. Season the next fifty years with the spice of the Maga movement and similar movements across Africa and the Middle East, the growing stress from free-ranging oligarchy, the demise of Ukraine, a collapse of world security by disrupting the Internet, then stir back in the destructive powers of an uncontrolled weather system, impending solar activity and little if any arable land.

Would this concoction be enough to create a throwback in human history? Could humanity be forced to become a member of the Earth’s ecosystem without fossil fuel? Such reversing phenomena have occurred many times as Planet Earth evolved. Consider the restart of the animal kingdom 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period).

By 2100 might it be important to protect arable land for individual survival? Will everyone have to own a couple of ponies?

Ancient Mariner

Mother Earth and humans

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When mariner worked as a project manager, he learned that certain individuals made it difficult to run the project. For many reasons related to power insecurity, bad personality, uncontrolled desire to change objectives and other distracting behaviors, these individuals were overhead that was not helping.

As a necessity to survive and complete the project, he developed a technique that avoided confrontation but indirectly suppressed the person’s interference. He calls it “taking away cards”. Here is a simple example:

You have a chain-smoking relative who prefers not to drive the car so they always ask you to buy cigarettes for them. You are concerned about their heavy smoking. You take away their control card by saying, “I don’t have time right now; I must do something else right now. Why don’t you buy your cigarettes?” Either the relative goes without or must resolve their distaste to drive. You, however, have avoided a face-to-face shout down. With luck, you may have altered a pattern of behavior.

Mother Earth is using this technique with humans. Some examples:

  • If you continue to pollute the air, I’ll stop enforcing dependable weather patterns.
  • If you continue to trash the environment and killing thousands of creatures, I’ll take away your clean water.
  • If you continue to make matters worse, I’ll melt all the ice at the poles and release methane from deep permafrost.
  • If you don’t learn to live within the constraints of your habitat, I’ll remove the habitat.

These are not future threats; they’ve been growing for decades if not centuries. Mother Earth is about to take away our control cards. Someone tell the fossil fuel industry.

Ancient Mariner

The worst tragedy

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To start the subject of the post, here is a cartoon from The Week:

Referencing a recent post, the cowboy culture, one of independent success and individual respect, in their battle against benign neglect by the college-elite, has provoked an attack against freedom (and the necessity) of education.

It is a tragedy because education, knowledge, familiar awareness, social judgment, and all the other nuances of education and freedom of information are not relevant to the central issue. The central issue is mistreatment of the labor classes by government and a society that has grown sophisticated and complex. Today’s college-elite don’t ride a single horse; they ride a wave of investment and the wind of the Internet.

Mariner recently had his garage roof replaced. It was finished in one very hot day by five laborers. Their persistence and craftsmanship were remarkable. Sweating and tired, they had accomplished something a significant percentage of college-elites could not possibly have accomplished. Yet, their profession is discounted and society does not grant them social achievement or notable financial benefits. They are treated as a pseudo servant class similar to the workers on Downton Abbey.

There are remedies. But a lot is in the hands of all three branches of federal and state government.

A relatively easy repair would be to reinstate the legislation that required corporations to guarantee full retirement – a deliberate target of Reaganites in the last century. Also in the last century, right to work laws were imposed deliberately to abolish unions.

Fortunately, educators are making a move toward labor-style education beyond high school – not through conscientiousness, mind you, economics is forcing the change.

A bit more sophisticated is to reintroduce labor to community boards and agencies so that labor has a voice at the street level. This was a function of labor unions back in the day.

The last repair is visibly represented in another The Week cartoon:

The seemingly irrational objection by MAGA labor to discretionary spending, which helps the unwealthy, is that the government is not providing a viable economic structure – the rich continue to grow richer and the poor continue to grow poorer.

One simple example is the resistance government has to raising the minimum wage (childcare and many other family economic issues would disappear).

Mariner feels this may be the most difficult obstruction to repair. Philosophically, the United States does not have unlimited access to resources; capitalism works best when everyone can have a share of benefits. Given the disruption of global warming, an emerging redefinition of what a nation is, the excessive over-population of the planet, international corporate control of supply chains, etc., capitalism must make room for socialism – a most difficult task for a nation created as a capitalist dreamland.

Ancient Mariner

 

It’s the Culture

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Ever so slowly, thinkers and writers, even in the news industry, have begun to ferret out the real battleground in today’s hectic lifestyle. It is a battle of tradition – the American image that has been bred into most Americans: John Wayne westerns, heroic lone cowboy stories, empire builders like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. It is a culture of champions who did it all alone, singular champions. The result is a culture where a citizen must be self-reliant, a champion of accomplishment, a Jason pursuing the golden fleece.

On the other hand, there is the culture of elitism, of intellect, of accomplishment within the sophisticated empire-building of American economics. Successful people are granted tenure, bonuses, and protected asset security.

What can a lone cowboy with a lariat do to deal with a twenty-story building?

Many irrelevant issues substitute for a direct attack, which, politically or militarily, cowboys would not win. Consequently, race, sex, education, work issues, and religious infighting are part of a multi-front attack on the culture of elitism. It is working because legislators are busy protecting their own elected position and the economic hoarders, who also dislike the smarty college elite, are underwriting the cowboy cause.

Given the lack of fairness and ignoring the concept of ‘one vote’, the cowboy attack has gained territory. The biggest weapon is gerrymandering. The second obvious attack is to manipulate the judicial system in its entirety.

But as in any war, the cost is heavy. The invasion of public school boards, backed by legislators, has collapsed the idea that a trained college graduate is responsible for curriculum.

Abortion has been irrationally trashed and weaponized. Mariner’s mother died because she could not get an abortion. In any medical issue, including prescriptions and vaccinations, it is the college-trained physician who should set policy.

Discretionary spending by elitist-controlled governments is attacked because the policies invade private life through health insurance, child care, Social Security, small business and elderly care among many more. The fiscal conservatives share the isolationist philosophy when it comes to ‘government invasion into private life’.

Any cultural standard set by the college-elite democrats is at risk, sometimes perhaps for irrational reasons. The elites, to be fair, have their own prejudices which don’t necessarily help matters, e.g., NIMBY.

Racism, a side battlefront, is exacerbated by the energies of the cowboy war; attacks on Chinese and Arabic races have increased, as well as joining in the battle against black history.

Unfortunately, the seven-word social philosophy uttered by Rodney King is not an option.

  • – –

Mariner is reminded of a metaphor: He used to belong to a weekly poker club comprised of old codgers. Actually, it was a social club but poker was the reason to gather. Those poker games were the worst poker mariner has ever played. The codgers had developed a pattern of options. For example, before a dealer dealt, he would announce, “deuces and the last card you’re dealt are wild.” Another gambit was borrowed from children’s games: “Pass the first and last cards to the right”.

Obviously, these poker players were not students of poker probabilities so they did everything they could to make the probabilities irrelevant. So it is with the cowboy war.

Now throw in Artificial Intelligence.

Ancient Mariner

Who are you?

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As we live each day, dealing with the nitty-gritty of each hour and minute, as we get pushed around by schedules and interpersonal dialogue, as we absorb the distractions of the world at large, we lose track of who we are.  We are a montage of feelings, responsibilities, and social obligations. But how do we manage this montage? How do we create sensible order and priority using the guiding principles of our behavior?

What follows is an informal examination of the core principles that guide an individual’s priorities and opinions. It isn’t absolute, of course, but it is an interesting opportunity to focus on our own motivators.

The examination is very general, focusing on the rules of general behavior and belief rather than habits and idiosyncrasies.

PHILOSOPHY/ETHIC

Philosophy of life is the Bible for your attitude. What kind of treatment can other people expect from you? Is it “Every man for himself” or perhaps “What’s best for everybody” or “Do it right or forget it”? Another way of putting it is, “What do I owe to the world?”

SOCIALIZATION

For 300,000 years, evolution carefully crafted a creature whose survival depended on groups; the deep processes of the brain gave priority to interpersonal awareness. Limited by physical capability and an environment full of life-threatening situations, the human found safety in family and inter-family (tribal) association. In less than 5,000 years, this balance has shifted as humans chose to neutralize the environment, which lessened the need for families, groups and tribes. Still, using the time clock of evolution, humans haven’t changed and remain a social creature. Consequently, certain social aberrations have become common; many would classify murdering fellow humans with an assault rifle to be an example; hoarding excessive wealth would be another; castigating people for differences in sexual hormone balance could be another. Loneliness and suicides are rising.

But the objective in this examination is your perspective. Do you behave among others in a manner that reflects your philosophy of life? If your philosophy is ‘every man for himself’ why would you be concerned about the characteristics of another person? If you follow a righteous doctrine, why would you advocate racist and sexual castigation? Another way of putting it is, “What do I owe to protect the world?”

It is the existence of imbalance between your philosophical categories and actual behavior that causes general irritability, sadness or an attitude of laissez faire toward society in general. Biologically, humans still need groups. Some may call it fellowship.

ECONOMICS

Economics is a practical interpretation of your philosophy of life. You may need to pause a moment to recognize how what makes you feel secure in life relates to your philosophy of life. You should note contradictions because this suggests you are not self-aware regarding your behavior.

As an example, a person who says “My philosophy is what’s best for everyone” but advocates capitalist priorities does not have a matching philosophy of life and economics. From the other end, a person who believes in communistic economics may be ignorant of their contradiction having a philosophy that advocates ‘every man for himself’. Another way of putting it is, “What should I share with the world?”

If you have not given thought to the relationship in your life between ethics and economics, you may be surprised that you have some reconciliation to do.

PHYSICALITY

It is obvious that the body requires continuous attention and further, is a component affected by your philosophy of life. Medical studies indicate that ignoring the health and physical capacity of the body undercuts the ambition to fulfill any philosophy of life, whichever it may be. In other words, your desire to sustain your philosophy of life requires a body to match. If your philosophy is ‘what’s best for everybody’, your desire to participate in that philosophy requires energy, positive attitude and other energies that require a healthy and energetic body. There are disabling influences at every turn from television to soft recliners to petty prejudices. Another way of putting it is, “How do I pull my weight in the world?”

֎ So that is the self-examination. Does your behavior, habits, commitments, and finances match your philosophy of life? Whichever philosophy you choose isn’t the point – it’s a matter of your lifestyle matching that philosophy.

In retrospect, there may be some readers who would say the examination is upside down, that it is a person’s personal attributes that define their philosophy of life. This suggestion reflects a legitimate approach to problem solving; mariner often has referred to ‘what’ versus ‘why’ problem solving. This examination requires a general declaration first to assure continuity and expose contradictions in life that make life more awkward. One significant example will show the importance of stating a philosophy of life first:

There are many who consider themselves Christians but in terms of behavior are not. The New Testament sets a standard of behavior (philosophy) that must be practiced. There are many ways to ignore or abuse the New Testament and still pretend one is a Christian. In practice, one has fooled themselves into thinking they are a person they are not. By answering the question ‘what do I owe the world’ first, it will be easier to discover discordant practices.

The objective of this examination is to iron out wrinkles and discover who one really is. Answering the question “What do I owe the world?” first provides a ruler or standard that may require an adjustment in behavior. Conversely, one may have to go back and declare a different philosophy that encompasses a different way of measuring behavior.

Ancient Mariner