Mariner often shares his father’s penchant for chopping human behavior into little pieces with simplistic names like ‘who people, what people and how people’ and of course the ultimate Myers-Briggs test – all grouped under the term ‘pop psychology’.

Whenever mariner uses these terms he warns that none of us are pure examples of any pop phrase and therefore do not be too judgmental nor, as many Myers-Briggs folks do, brag about one’s uniqueness. The best example in a long time that proves pop psychology terms may be a bit tongue in cheek and that culture may influence our identity more than we know is the contractor who just today re-shingled mariner’s garage roof.

He and his team of three stripped the roof in one long hot day and finished the job the next day by Noon. They did an excellent job! The team was comprised of lifelong laborers accustomed to working all day at notable speed; they were heavily tattooed and in physically toughened shape. From a distance of ten feet, the business owner-contractor also looked toughened and tattooed.

As the job neared completion, mariner and the contractor had a chance to talk. The contractor was proud of his family heritage when it came to being accountable for a sound work ethic. His grandparents had a farm where the entire family worked long days; his father, a laborer, preached responsibility and hard work to the contractor and he in turn has made sure that his two sons regularly do physical work.

His conversation, however, told a different story. The contractor was erudite, showed interest in abstract issues, listened to podcasts, watched only selected news specials rather than daily news, understood the role of labor from an external perspective and otherwise demonstrated a mind that was interested in intellectual subjects. Yet he was a laborer by choice and belief and looked every bit a laborer. Mariner had to like him; he blames smartphones for the failure of work ethic in our society. He commented, “I can’t find any young help; two hours on the job and they quit!”

The insight mariner took from his conversation with the contractor, besides the unusual mix of a physical work ethic and an intellectual mind, was that everyone during their youth is shaped more by their culture/family than they may think. The contractor is in his mid-thirties; two generations before him were disciplined laborers; while financially stable, his family never had incomes that would suggest college and further could not allow time for college because there was work to be done. It is obvious in conversation with him that another profession is of no interest.

Mariner doubts the reader will run into the contractor in the metaverse.

By far the most important revelation that mariner took from his visit with the roofing crew is how important Labor is to a mature, sound and successful American society. Since the Reaganites dropped required underwriting of full retirement by manufacturing corporations, since the passing of the Great Society politicians (Ted Kennedy, Bob Dole, et al), since the continued disrespect by the electorate (mostly college snots) as one respectful element after another was cast aside – especially unions – Labor has suffered a forty-year history of disengagement from societal respect.

In fact, a laborer is as critical as a college professor. One is not better than the other. In fact, a laborer could no more handle the life of a college professor than a professor could handle the life of a laborer – let’s have some mutual respect here!

It is a familiar lesson. Every human being is a homo sapiens in good standing. Each is living, breathing, experiencing and surviving reality. No matter how different we may seem – each of us is the same, even identical in the larger measure of existence.

Ancient Mariner

Mariner just read that in the metaverse there is a clothing store that will sell clothing fitted to your avatar. Mariner weeps quietly as he remembers going shopping at the nearby discount department store – now closed.

He has conceded that the new culture is not interested in genuine human interaction. He is waiting for the metaverse to celebrate the first birth of a young avatar bred solely through avatars. Mariner speculates how many nanoseconds labor will last. Mariner understands that instinctively Homo sapiens knows the future doesn’t look bright for the species. The reader surely knows there is an active real estate market for metaverse property, right? Better bring your crypto coin with you – it’s a bull market.

There is a new application available through smartphones and Alexi that will provide psychological counseling. Mariner doesn’t understand this offer. Isn’t an avatar to the metaverse as a pinball is to a pinball machine?

Will the proprietors of the metaverse be able to move your property to a poorer neighborhood if you don’t pay your bills?

Will the metaverse provide pornographic services? Will there be vicarious human elation when the avatar has climax?

Good luck with Zuckerberg, folks. Mariner is going to see his Mother-Nature-approved pony.

Ancient Mariner

Lately mariner has been writing about truth – aka reality – especially as it applies to an environment of disbursed information not relative to local reality. Another form of truth-stealing is mariner’s old favorite, the search engines – everything from Alexi to Google to Amazon to Facebook. Mariner often has lamented the warping of reality such that we don’t control our own reality – the engines tell us what to think and even who we are or supposed to be. Fortunately, there are some government people that are taking on this world of subliminal trickery. Below is the beginning of an article published by Protocol, a tech newsletter:

The FTC is going after dark patterns. That’s bad news for Amazon Prime.

Companies’ favorite tactics for locking in subscribers are under scrutiny by government enforcers, and it could spell trouble for tech giants like Amazon that have huge numbers of customers paying up every month.

Dark patterns are design decisions or settings that nudge — or, sometimes, shove — consumers toward actions that companies want, even if customers don’t. These can include pre-checked permission boxes, autoplay, hidden fees, unexpected shifts in pricing and time-consuming processes for canceling recurring payments. Subscriptions are a fertile ground for dark patterns, and as tech goes all in on recurring payments, the nudges are popping up everywhere, from video games, streaming and travel sites to ecommerce and even financial products.

Enforcers, especially at the FTC, are concerned about dark patterns generally — and specifically, that these tricks undermine consumers’ ability to make their own choices and may run afoul of legal prohibitions on unfair or deceptive practices. [See complete article at:]

https://www.protocol.com/policy/dark-patterns-subscriptions-ftc-amazon

One quick example the reader may recognize. When you fill out credit data and mailing information, how many times has the reader overlooked that insignificantly placed little box with a checkmark already in it that says, “Send me information on sales and account opportunities” and failed to remove the checkmark? How many unsolicited email entries does the reader have to delete because of this one unwanted manipulation?

By the way, if the reader wants a refresher about how the web manipulates their thoughts, watch

https://www.pbshawaii.org/hacking-your-mind/  and

https://watchdocumentaries.com/the-social-dilemma/  (also on Netflix)

Ancient Mariner

Everyone has those moments when a totally irrelevant thought jumps into consciousness for no reason and just as quickly disappears. However that thought leaves a minor unresolved puzzle for a few lingering moments. Mariner has collected a few of his moments to share with the reader.

֎ In the 1860s Republicans dominated the Federal scene and proposed things like the transatlantic railroad, an expansion of government power into the westward expansion, developed the state university system, wrote civil rights laws that the democrats opposed and established a national currency. The democrats, on the other hand, were the conservatives and rejected the expansion of government. By the 1930s with the election of FDR, the parties clearly had swapped their philosophies.

The thought that popped into mariner’s mind from nowhere: Is this the beginning of another swap? No answer to that of course, but the mind lingers for a moment.

֎ The nature of cryptocoin investment is very similar to transactions in the stock market except everyone can own the same object or situation. Money is not the only vehicle that earns profit; art, inventions, international liaisons all are things or events that will bring profit or loss to ‘owners’ of that object.  Thousands of crypto investors own various emoji and caricatures. Crypto profit grows when the demand for owning something grows. If mariner owned a potato along with ten thousand others, there would be profit in the fact that more and more people wanted to own a potato – especially if potatoes become rare.

Yes, crypto remains an odd marketplace but BIG money is entering the crypto market. For some reason, the thought occurred to mariner that this wasn’t capitalism but communism – where everyone owns a piece of the economy. This isn’t true; of course it will take a huge effort to even nudge capitalism in the United States. Still, what if this were another big switch in economic theory? No answer to that, of course, but the mind lingers for a moment.

֎ The conflict between church and state always has interested mariner.  The poor Christian movement has suffered abuses from the get go as fodder for lions, denial of reality in defense of doctrine, a socialist movement in England and a reason to rape and rob two new continents. Today the Christian doctrine isn’t practiced much. Instead the pews are filled with political activists and spiritual escapists. The strength of the Beatitudes and two Great Commandments remain but have little influence in actual practice.

Today, as attendance dwindles, as the need for Christ’s creed is lost in the noise, what if the next generation suddenly found the church to be a vehicle for healing, stabilizing and restoring an ethical foundation for the nation. The thought occurred to mariner that salvation of a nation in the absence of functional government would be a theocracy and would profoundly change the abrasiveness of contemporary capitalism, populism, plutocracy and oligarchy. No answer to that, of course, but the mind lingers for a moment.

֎ There has been no discussion yet about the physical world. What will happen to society when the Earth switches polarity? It has happened before and will happen again.

Ancient Mariner