Getting over our human complex.

From the first days Homo erectus began suffering from Alopecia the writing was on the wall. Just think of the ridicule we must have undergone. In fact our subspecies of primates should have been called Apeus Alopecius because we only stood up so we could say, “yes but we’re taller than you are.” But that’s when our insecurity complex first took hold, that and the infuriating loss of our thermal blanket. Not just the constant taunts of “baldy”, we were bloody cold at night as well. So we were naturally attracted to fire and, like anyone with an inferiority complex we decided fire was a virtuous big deal and ‘we’ invented it. Since then we’ve seen invention as our unique selling point. The other primates, as today, just shrugged indicating, “whatever”. We saw round rocks rolling down hill and invented the wheel, we invented dwellings, ropes and pegs and the rest is history, all because we were bloody cold. Where all the other animals had hair or feathers or layers of fat and lived comfortably in their environment we alone tried to conquer it by our inventions. And like all things with an inferiority complex we couldn’t live amicably. That’s if anything other than humans could ever conceive of a complex. So here we are today with central heating, F1 racing, which is as fascinating as watching traffic on the A65, nano tubes and self tapping masonry screws, still improving on our eon old first ideas. But as anyone who’s seen videos of abandoned villages and WWll defences knows, take your eye off the ball for a hundred years and nature reclaims your efforts to conquer it. So isn’t it time we stopped trying to prove we’re superior to everything else? Isn’t it time we got over our inferiority complex? I don’t know about you but every time I’m with an animal something in my mind thinks, ‘Oh I wish I could be more like you, so naturally yourself and a part of nature.’ Now we’re running out of all the things our inventions need it’s a good time to notice how animals do it.

Teenage Depression and Boeing.

Dennis Muilenburg head of Boeing, salary $1.7m + bonus $13m (up 27% from last year) said, “safety is our highest priority.” But Boeing employees spoke of different priorities; stripping out costs, rush it through, lie to get it through the FAA tests. So was Muilenburg lying? I doubt he thought so. He was simply the top exec protecting his company and its shareholders, minimising damage and focusing on the positives: Any top exec would do the same. In law a company or corporation is treated as a person, strange when they don’t breath air or have human feelings. So it’s hardly surprising that top execs become imbued with the same ethic responding purely as a corporate entity; they become dehumanised. Lying would be a human failing and how could he have such a thing? The old film, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ was less sci-fi than a dreamlike recognition of this rise of corporatisation. And at the other end of the scale today’s teenagers suffer from something similar. They know viscerally they are human but at every turn they are diverted from it and frustrated at being unable to embody it. They become depressed, which in itself in the current medical model refutes their right or desire to be a successful human being. They are ‘ill’ and need a pill. Even talking therapies can’t really shift what is at root an external social malaise. They are the entertained generation perceiving life as little more than fame and celebrity, good looks and selfies. But like Muilenburg they didn’t start out that way. Bit by bit their very humanity has been reduced, blinkered by a million glossy mores. They wanted to explore but had to learn, they wanted to play but had to conform, they wanted to express but had to please, they wanted excitement but were given safety. They want to be proud of their achievements but they’re working in McDonalds. As a result, like Muilenburg they don’t have the language. Where he doesn’t know lies when he says them they can’t quite grasp what it is they’re missing.

Paddington 2 and our last chance to save the British way of life.

There is a huge difference between Britain and America. While the Marvel franchise make films of street-savvy muscle-bound all-American-heroes we made Paddington 2 featuring a young Peruvian foster bear. Both fast-paced action films with heroes and villains but where our villain ends up leading a song and dance routine in prison. Notice the zeitgeist difference, one ‘be afraid’ the other ‘be polite.’ Polite is almost negative these days but it encompasses many virtues, consideration, fairness, generosity and an implied equality where acting well benefits everybody. It’s become embedded in our English psyche from our long, often bloody history. America, barely 250 years old, founded on the hardship and struggle to master the land and its indigenous people is brash, expansionist and fearful of weakness. Comparing Spider Man and the Hulk et al with Paddington might at first appear not comparing like with like but considering these two different histories the comparison makes more sense. But Britain is in fundamental danger of being infected by the American zeitgeist and sucked into the ‘special relationship’ we supposedly have and is eschewing our bond with Europe and our long joint histories. We already have Trumpian Boris who like his mentor incessantly paints everything in outrageously glowing colours irrespective of reality, who has already lied and cheated to get into power. Like Trump he’s already filled his government with far right lackeys and like Trump he will promise sweeteners and reforms that will later dissolve. But with a no-deal Brexit Britain will become a powerless pawn in an American ‘trade deal’, a dumping ground for American products and American corporations to take over the NHS, elderly care etc. But even worse Britain will be infected with an all American fearfulness. To give up Paddington’s fairness, generosity and delight for Avengers: Infinity War would make me sick to my stomach and angry as fuck. 

The AI Misnomer?

I’m amazed at our Alexa. She’s grown from playing Radio 2 on demand to reminding Mothermouse to water the plants eleven o’clock Thursday. I’m assuming with more AI she’ll be able to suggest of her own volition that I need a shower urgently. But I’ve noticed already that the algorithms within Facebook and Google et al do something subtly different, and that subtle difference follows through to our reactions, our ongoing sensibilities. Like Windows 10. I’ve been using computers professionally for 40 years now for accounts, graphics, engineering, music, writing extensively from an ancient Apple and Win86 onward. Then last week I resurrected Bethmouse’s laptop from the dead, now all working and with Windows 10. I was lost! I couldn’t do a thing with it. It seems to be just an internet viewer. OK it’s not but it guides the user to be one. Likewise AI guides us in particular ways.  AI and machine learning do something we’ve called intelligent but is it? Is it in fact AE, Artificial Emotion? I see emotions as like algorithms where some irresolvable situation causes me to vaguely churn through the same scenario in the hope of some resolution. Either that or hop on an, often prescribed, answer and similarly churn to defend it to the death. Experience has taught me both are a waste of time and the real answer is to ‘do something about it!’ Since the advent of AI and social media people seems to have become more polarised. Everyone has a point of view yet few are actually thinking, and if I’m right thinking is what we normally call intelligence. So from now on I will consider the bright new future of Artificial Intelligence as likely to become the terminal neurosis of human kind.

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    TOUR OF ALPS 2009 

        A leisurely tour for a change, not a there and back AFAP. 2/3 weeks with Antony, an old friend on a newish Kawasaki Versys and me on my trusty 12 yr old SZR round the Alps and back camping and rooming. I did prep the bike honest but in retrospect I didn’t do a very good job so it’s no thanks to me that she didn’t miss a beat again.
So Friday evening, July 17th we set off for Hull in shite weather.
The ‘all you can eat’ buffet on the boat was welcome, especially for a very large guy who had 3 mains, 2 slabs of chocolate cakes and god knows what else besides.
Rotterdam and south. Same shite weather which made the 300 miles to the first stop a slog. Antony got a wet crutch and my boots were, if anything, leaking- outwards. A lonely hotel deep in the woods run by a rather choice grandmother. It’s my age. Good food, which will later become a theme for this trip. We dry. We set out again in the rain then dry. In the middle of a plain, having taken our wet gear off, we get caught in a downpour, the only protection being a field of 6’ corn. I suggest it’s better the second row in and we pretend the corn is sheltering us for half an hour then head out in the 60mph hair drier to get dry again. We’re well short of our second night stop so cast around for rooms in Ellingen, apparently a famous baroque town. A far too posh for us place has rooms so we give in to paying the extra. 

GoogleMe.

Hi Dave, thank you for using GoogleMe; we hope you enjoy it. We have 3,776 data points for you since 2009 so our conclusions will average 89.3% accuracy. Firstly congratulations on your recent wedding anniversary and hope your new rotavator is proving useful. As a keen motorcyclist the 2019 MotoGP season is shaping up well but your Yamaha motorcycle seems to be problematic. As spares are becoming rare we suggest you invest in a newer one. See here for local dealers. We note your daughter, Emily, has purchased legal highs, (via ebay) which may indicate a drugs problem, and has lesbian tendencies. (64%) It may be worth raising the subject. See here for local therapists. Your son Donald has accepted a job in Brighton (via LinkedIn) so he may be moving away soon. We’re sorry to say your marital relationship shows signs of jeopardy. (Twitter) We cannot comment on your wife’s situation for privacy reasons but you should address the problem. Finally you are not as good a person as you think you are. Your interest in internet porn has become excessive and casts doubt on your love life. That’s understandable as your wife is size 20 and has chubby features but hours of TV football doesn’t help plus your obsession with getting that old bike working. A lot of work to do there. See here for local counsellors. Your IQ is 5% below average and your credit score 20% so take extra care with your finances. You have a borderline ADHD personality disorder (71%) and you too have latent homosexual tendencies. (43%) Your general situation will be affected by global warming; expect wetter springs and hotter summers, and the value of the pound is likely to fall by 10% after exiting the EU. Expect water to be increasingly scarce. We hope you enjoyed our findings. Remember you can get regular updates via our voice bot available in these stores. Have a nice day.

9/11 Gov-Splaining.

After 9/11 I looked for the truth. Over the subsequent years it’s appeared. It was impossible for the terrorist rookie ‘pilots’ to fly a passenger plane on the trajectories they took. It’s also impossible a passenger plane could actually do it. It’s impossible passengers could have used cell phones at the altitude they were flying and it’s impossible a building could collapse due to fire alone. The official ‘truth’ is riddled with these and more impossibilities. There’s a constant clear dividing line between officials who gave testimony to corroborate the official line and the bewildered others who gave the evidence of their own eyes and experience. Architects, scientists, pilots and firemen have all given proof of the above. Others say something so big, so public could never be kept secret, which is true, but the truth has come out and it’s no longer a secret. And lets not forget 2,731 people died. Whoever coined the phrase ‘conspiracy theory’ salvaged this hopeless case; just two words that undermine any inconvenient naysayer. But it’s become clear there was a huge conspiracy within the US government and other actors. Imagine a petri dish and the introduction of a single bacteria. It infects and spreads through the nutrient agar. It grows and though we can’t see what’s happening it becomes visible. An idea is conceived and infects other actors. A plan is formed. It fits requirements, solves problems. People are either pragmatically unscrupulous or pressured to come around. Soon it achieves a momentum too big to be stopped. Those involved coalesce in great fear of the truth escaping and use their power to stop it. Known weak actors are called in to substantiate the bacterial untruth. Only immune cells stubbornly hold out. Outside the petri dish life goes on. And the key players? Who knows. Possibly NORAD, MOSAD, Larry Silverstein, the owner of the Twin Towers who turned two obsolete buildings into a huge insurance payout and/or higher. Maybe there was a mistake and the twin Towers were supposed to fall after everyone had got out. Or maybe I’m just a conspiracy theorist who refuses to believe in the impossible.