Creative Security.

Yesterday I found a new book on creativity in the loo and a link from my old agent in my inbox. The link was a promo video from the Air Vehicle Directorate of General Dynamics in conjunction with the US Air Force for their proposed MAVs or Bugbots. These little gems, smaller than a matchbox will fly un-noticed into the midst of your enemy, do surveillance and/or land on their shoulder and blow their head off. My agent was wondering if there might be a spin-off suitable for ToysRus. I thought not. But being ‘a creative’ from an early age, i.e. seeing the world a little up-side-down-ish, I was struck by this contrast between its beautiful and disgusting sides. I guess this is down to its power to connect or disconnect. In this case heads from shoulders. And then as I wonder what to type next Nation Security comes to mind. Terrorists, insurgents and belligerent countries are all out there needing to be defended against. It’s a huge problem that needs our best creative minds to come up with Bugbots and such like, yet we overlook our initial and far more profound creativity of calling it ‘National Security’ in the first place. Surely it would be far more accurate to name it ‘National Insecurity.’ Imagine the head of the government department of ‘Homeland Insecurity.’ “Yes here at Homeland Insecurity we’re totally focused on our paranoia that the whole world is against us. We’re very proud of our efforts to shield our citizens from any belief that the world might be a nice friendly place. It’s a win-win situation and that’s a good place to be. We go in first with the best weapons and they hate us for it. They fight back which proves all our fears are correct and shows how much we’re needed.” The book and I, on the other hand, see creativity as a source of delight, of bringing people together and making their lives easier and more delightful. In fact it’s this view of creativity that actually does make people feel happier and more secure. So come on Homeland Security, ditch the clowns and employ, well real clowns.

Primate Brains cont.

Apropos my last blog here at http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_huey.html Aaron Huey describes the history of the indigenous Indian people of America at the hands of the Washitchu, “the one who takes the best part of the meat”, the white man. There can be no better illustration of the manipulist theory for our big brains than this history of deceit and brutality. Echoed as it is by the treatment of indigenous people all over the world it might be seen as if the human race has been suffering from the plot of some science fiction movie, “The Invasion of the Big Brains”, those who have the duplicitous inter-personal skills to take the best meat. This is the evolutionary process of primates; deceive, take, distance and leave to rot. The first two are the process of gain and the last two are the process by which we shield ourselves from remorse. I mention this because of 2008, the current debt crisis of Greece and the austerity measures here in the UK and other EU countries. What happens is this. Investors supply money to governments ‘to invest.’ There is a mini boom and people are happy for a while. This is followed by a crisis of debt and the government needs bailing out. It goes to the IMF, gets a loan that’s used to pay off the investors, leaving their people in debt, which then requites austerity measures. This produces a crisis sale of resources that investors take advantage of. This loan shark approach to high finance is creating a new level of indigenous people, us. It seems there are even bigger primate brains on the block who have raised this ‘take without remorse’ facility to an even higher level. And what happens to indigenous people? They are plunged into poverty, their resources of opportunity are withdrawn, they lose hope, and being perceived as hopeless cases can be dismissed, marginalized and fogotten. Job done. The best meat and no remorse. The above talk is worth watching.

It’s your Inner Politician.

Apparently primatologists theorised for years that monkeys and men etc developed large brains in order to fix things, prehistoric leaking taps, a misfiring Model T, that sort of thing. This gave a positive moral glow to our largest of all human brains. Through honest endeavour and a few million years we have hoisted our neurological engine to Bob the Builder status and can look down on baboons that haven’t even smashed a bone into the ground and watched it fly up in slow motion. It’s comforting to know that even a million years ago our species was fuelled by a protestant work ethic. All was well until the 80’s when two primatologists put forward another theory. They studied the brain sizes of different apes and found that it was closely related to the size of their typical social groupings, small group small brain, larger group larger brain. This correlation was so strong that given a group size they could accurately predict brain size. Now the inter relationships within a group increases as the group numbers increase. A+B+C= 3 relationships, A+B+C+D= 6, A+…+E= 24, and so on. By the time a group gets to 15 members the number of relationships is 105. They then found that all primates have a propensity for manipulation within these relationships and suggested that increased brain size, far from being a result of enhanced logic and problem solving, was due to having to cope with all the lying and cheating that went on within larger groups. This theory didn’t go down well at first. So where does that leave us humans? Are we advanced technologists or supreme manipulationists? 

Private Members Bill.

Currently the financial sector is extracting huge amounts of money from our economy in buildings, salaries and bonuses. Though they are doing nothing illegal in terms of the law this activity is having a disastrous effect on the ordinary population. They seem unable to recognise these moral consequences of their actions and continue their life style of unbridled opulence that divorces them from our joint economic reality. It is also generally accepted that taxation cannot solve this growing problem of unbalanced distribution. At the other end of the social spectrum this government has had no hesitation in the past in imposing re-skilling and attendance schemes on the unemployed. This bill proposes that this house do the same with those on high salaries. That those on incomes of more than £200,000 per annum must work for a minimum of three days per month on a ‘social farm’ in order to re-skill them in the reality the rest of us share. This exposure to servicing the needs of animals and crops will give them a necessary awareness of the interdependence of all living things, a love of creatures and plants, and the dangers of over exploitation ‘just because you can.’ Most would find it pleasurable and rewarding in ways they couldn’t have imagined and at little cost to the taxpayer. University studies have show that salaries over £100k have no effect on happiness, commitment or efficiency and as such are a waste of money but the benefits of this scheme in terms of health, well-being and awareness would be far more. The greater benefit though would be to rebalance and reconnect society as a whole. I commend this bill to the house. 

Look at your elbow.

Danced Five Rhythms last night for the first time in ages. Brilliant. I’ll try to explain why. 5 Rhythms is free expressive dance moving through five rhythmic moods, flow, staccato, chaos, stillness and another I can’t remember, but this is just my take on it. 95% of the time my body takes orders, lift that cup, walk to the fridge, open the door, that sort of thing; an endless stream of orders from my CPU that it complies with in silent obedience. So much so it’s easy to think that’s the natural way of things. And it stands, walks and sits in the ways of the person my CPU thinks I am. An actor for example will want to get the walk of his character right to know who he is. And in my daily routine my knees and elbows, hips and back will move in very limited ways to lift that cup, kick the dog etc. You only have to look at your elbow to realise how limited its daily use is. Now it’s recently been shown that one’s brain exhibits the same activity when watching other people move as it does when we move in the same way. That must mean my body mind has a massive store of other people’s movements, a short list being Beyonce, Keith Flint (Fire Starter) and that bossy woman in Tesco’s etc. that don’t occur in my daily cup lifting exploits. My body therefore has this imaginative cornucopia of movements and a capacity to move far beyond what I ordinarily use. It’ is massively frustrated. And it so wants to play in this wonderland of movements and experience the being-ness behind them; kind of like playing everyman. So for a brief while my body holds sway and tells my CPU of all the passions and foibles ‘out there’ that, in its concern for being me, it’s unaware of. And somehow all these passions and foibles come home and I recognise them as part of me often ignored and subdued by my petty considerations of who I am. So thanks body for all the messages and my body says thanks too for its chance to speak. 

Gleeful of heart.

In the final episode of the series Glee has shown the key to its popularity, its emotional heart. Girl A says to girl B we’re like family, whatever happens we carry on accepting each other. It’s true they do. They treat each other abysmally then there’s an emotional scene and they say they love each other. That’s the moral lesson. We’re all ordinary people with failings but underneath we have a good heart and if we can find forgiveness anything’s possible. It gives one such a warm feeling doesn’t it? Well no, it makes me sick. It’s suggesting one can treat people appallingly and get away with it by beguiling oneself into believing one loves them and going gooey moments before they lose it and stab you in the eye, which by that point you thoroughly deserve. As a polite youngster I trod on an old woman’s foot while dancing at some do. My apology was met with a rather stern, “I’m not so pleased either.” It was a learning moment. I couldn’t just apologise my way out of it. Years later on a station platform another older woman asked me if this was her right train. I said I thought it was but she dismissed me with, “Thinking’s not good enough.” It seems these women, though I’m sure forgiving souls, required a moral rectitude from their acquaintances, and that protestations of, “I’m just a fallible human being” doesn’t slice any cucumbers. 

So ask yourself when you get all warm watching Glee, “Is it subtly teaching me it’s OK to be a nasty bastard so long as I say “I love you” after one’s moral underperformance has reached catastrophic levels?”  Is it debasing my most cherished human emotion into an empty form of words leaving me free to be selfish and callus most of the time whilst maintaining my rosy narcissistic glow of self-love? This is after all the devious frozen heart of America’s foreign policy. Is Glee teaching us that the rosy glow of vacuous emotionality is a wonderful thing? Is that why all their show stopping numbers, though heartily performed, are as threadbare as a three year olds first attempt at crocheting?

Myopia Prize.

Eldest Sunmouse has been correcting his vision for a while now. By eye exercises he’s managed to improve it so much that the last optician he saw simply wouldn’t accept his prescription used to be so bad. But opticians deal in optics and the human eye is a sqwigy cognitive/muscular device affected by emotions and learnt muscular behaviour, rather like posture. As we talked it was interesting how his astigmatism was reflected in is general outlook of focusing on peripheral anxieties rather than on the central core of his momentary concern. So, like schizophrenics with multiple personalities have been found to have different prescriptions for each personality, maybe opticians are trying to counter personality issues with a lens. Anyway how about this for an incentive scheme. Being pleased with a colleague’s eagerness to work all hours God sends and jeopardise his health and relationships, his boss wanted to show his appreciation and hit on this amazing reward for all that selfless effort. He offered the guy a ride in his new Mazaratti sports car. Yes this poor sap could sample for thirty minutes the fruits of all his hard work that has been siphoned off by his boss to buy his current plaything. How’s that for incentivising your workforce? I wonder what prescription his glasses are. 

Confused Dot Com.

For no serious reason I decide to visit the doctors. Mothermouse and I drop in to make an appointment. I walk to the receptionist and begin to elucidate my complex reasoning for wishing to make an appointment and before I can move on to establishing my various options re times, doctors etc MM jumps in. “He wants to make an appointment.” “Who’s your doctor?” As I haven’t seen one in at last ten years I haven’t a clue to this most basic of questions. “I er…” MM again, “Doctor Verygood.” We barter. Dr Verygood is three weeks, Dr OK ten days, Dr Workexperienceandparttimeplumber, Thursday. While I consider MM says, "Thursday." By now the receptionist is looking at me a little sideways, I smile. “Last time he came in for his flue jab he just sat there and didn’t tell anybody. This time you must tell someone.” I nod in acceptance of MM’s helpful suggestion. The receptionist appreciates the need for clear instructions. “I’ll write it all down on your card.” I begin to wonder if I’m playing a sufficient part in this conversation. MM nods her appreciation. The receptionist reads the card out slowly with her finger. “Here is your appointment with the nurse at 9.15 and then you’ll wait here and see the doctor after that at 10.20.” MM chirps in again, “And don’t forget to tell the receptionist you’re waiting this time.” The receptionist concludes the conversation. “Perhaps it would be good if someone came with him in case he gets confused.” ‘Him, confused!’ I am not senile yet thank you very much; I’m just married to a woman with a big gob who butts in all the time. To MM’s credit she did explain I used to be an inventor and that this wasn’t an age related thing just my permanent state of  absent-minded confusion. I suspect, as any asylum inmate will attest, whatever I say in future to this receptionist will be a clear sign of dementia. 

Fred.

In London at twenty-five I was a volunteer with an old persons charity, decorating mostly. I also paid weekly visits to Fred. Fred, in his seventies, lived in one first floor dingy room at the back of a dingy house in Islington. He never left that room. His trouble breathing made smoking difficult but he persisted heroically. One Christmas day I was delivering meals on wheels and went back to Fred’s where he was cooking me our own Christmas dinner. I have often wondered since that day which was more beneficial, delivering meals to the helpless or accepting the gift of effort and pride involved in cooking one for a friend. Anyway I had a car and I often tried to get Fred to go for a ride. He couldn’t walk far but he could make it to the car and the rest would be sitting which he did most of the time while listening to the radio. He didn’t have a TV. But he had a clinching argument; his cousin might come while he was out and he didn’t want to miss him. Even though the cousin, I forget his name, had never been to visit Fred in years Fred was wedded to the indisputable possibility that he might do in the hour or so we were away. So on my weekly visits we sat and talked and likely as not he turned the radio back on when I left.

            Now my son works for a company providing Internet access to student’s halls of residence and we also talked while trying to get his old Yamaha SRX600 going, which it did first kick and which gave us a great sense of achievement. He told me that many students nearly have a panic attack when their Facebook goes down. That somehow reminded me of Fred, a sort of stasis of dependency wrapped up in a single room alone. It made me angry the thought that some twenty year olds might be living the life of a wheezing seventy year old asthmatic wedded to sitting and waiting for a cousin that never comes. 

Great Balls of Fire.

Guy Martin races the Isle of Mann TT; it’s on this week. Last year he crashed at 140mph between bungalows in a 30 foot ball of flames causing him a week off work as a lorry mechanic. Guy Martin is also transparent; devoid of the cloak of incongruence most of us carry. As a result Guy Martin is universally loved. He’s not particularly handsome, his shock of black hair is cut by a hedge trimmer but his eyes have a black blaze, his face is clear emotion. As a result since last year’s TT he’s been in a feature film and had his own series on TV. Now the TT is 200 miles along ordinary country roads at an average speed of 131mph, an unbelievably heroic achievement considering Vim Diesel would probably only manage forty. So Guy has dipped a toe in the entertainment industry and it’s come out dirty. Nice people and everything but they just don’t get the honesty, not the honesty needed to go 131mph average. However much they like it when they see it they, along with the majority of movers and shakers, decline it as one might a dish of sheep’s testicles offered by a Mongolian peasant. They decline the delicacy of being present not knowing the taste of it. Though the wise of the world have explained the facile illusion of fame and fortune they seem caught by it like a fish on a hook, unable to see past it. Guy is not an entertainer as his interviewer intimated; he’s a racer. ‘You watch if you like, I’m just doing what I love.’ Let nothing be important when seen through the eyes of your ego. 

The Algorithmic View.

Being an ex art school moto-crosser and mildly dyslectic smoker the algorithmic life is foreign to me but there are many who ‘know’ from past experience the workings of the world. That needs unpacking. Algorithms are a “precise set of rules specifying how to solve some problem”, and the lifeblood of computing machines. Art school is where you learn to be unruly, moto-cross is where you ride the unruly, dyslexia is unruly reading and smoking is the last bastion of the unruly. Nevertheless men over the centuries have tried to understand the rules of their problems in order to solve them. Up until fifty years ago there was a working balance between the rule makers and the unruly but in the 60’s computers provided the opportunity to process masses of complex algorithms in moments. Quite suddenly algorithms of every description, driving washing machines to the whole financial world, surrounded us and, just like if one were surrounded by teapots one would begin to think in terms of teapots, we began to think algorithmically. Now an algorithm depends on historical data to build its rule set so thinking algorithmically builds the present from the past. If you think this is irrelevant consider art and pop music of now and fifty years ago. Before it had energy and diversity but now it’s recursive, its dynamism replaced by simple forcefulness. And because the past can only be added to by the present, building the present on the past leads to both becoming an unchangeable algorithmic stasis. In fact much algorithmic work was done on how to reflect in the governance of our human society this ‘balance of nature.’ Unfortunately this mythical balance of nature is simply that nature continues to exist and adjust whatever happens. It’s not in balance, it’s simply robust. There’s a fundamental difference between algorithm-based balance and robustness: Only one is robust. To observe algorithmic thinking watch a politician, sportsman, presenter and try to see the algorithms they’re running. “These are the precise set of rules to solve my problem.” It’s unlikely we’ll fall pray to ‘The Return of the Body Snatchers’ but we may well be welcoming in ‘The Mind Reducers’, the computers that beckon us to process as they do.