If You’re Lying You’re Dying.

Maybe, ‘God, the father, son and Holy Ghost’ equates to “the experiment, its outcomes and the underlying ‘direction that is’.” Put simply the experiment plays about, things happen that are possible. Nothing impossible ever happens. That maybe obvious but it’s important to realise we are restrained in the domain of the possible, which is quite small compared with all the things that are impossible. The ‘direction that is’ also defines what, within the possible, will survive. Things either flourish or fall back into the body of substance that fuels the ongoing experiment. So the ‘direction that is’ holds two levels of truth, 1/ what’s possible, and 2/ what follows this ‘direction that is.’ If it’s impossible it’s obviously not true, and if it isn’t in the ‘direction that is’ it won’t survive long enough to become true either. These two levels of truth are way above our daily debates on truth. In fact it’s likely we humans are unique in our capacity to conceive of untruths and that we might gain some long-term advantage from them. Not just conscious lies but beliefs, theories, manipulations and assertions that constitute the majority of our thinking even the hypothesis of self. So in this ‘post-truth’ age we’re supposedly entering what if anything will survive? When the natural world that has stood the test of time and proved itself to be ‘true’ we are imposing our untruths in chemicals and pollution, spin, politics, wars and now fake news believing them to be our successes. Only when we begin to perceive, think, act and speak with true honesty and see no advantage in living otherwise will we avoid oblivion. This isn’t religion, it’s survival. 

Laugh, He’s Offended.

Lesney drawing office was a wondrously enjoyable learning experience for me. Fifteen or so guys making often caustic fun of each other. One thing you couldn’t get was offended. Getting someone offended was deemed a success and that person would rue the day he snapped back. He had shown weakness that would be ruthlessly exploited until he got over it. Short, black, fat, thick, short sighted, buck toothed, if you couldn’t see the funny side, well you had to in the end, it was a right of passage. So I’m amused by so many people being offended these days. In fact just ‘offended’ isn’t enough, they have to be ‘grossly offended.’ In the Lesney drawing office they would be like Christmas stomping around in high dudgeon being wound up to spring-breaking point till something snapped, usually the personal pretension that formed their castle ramparts. Why do people take being offended so seriously? Are they attempting to weaponise it? “You’re being grossly offensive, take that! And now I have the moral high ground take that and that too. I am indignantly insulted and affronted.” I’m wondering why on Earth these people actually decide to lay themselves open to so much ridicule? OK a softly muttered; “Twat”, “Wanker” or worse doesn’t constitute a viable counter argument but it’s not about argument it’s about being what you’re being. These weapons of sanctimosity constitute the armoury of Divisionists, those too weak to come forth from their own handmade castle, who see the world in fiefdoms. That’s such a pity. I’ve been searching for a pithy closing sentence but I don’t have one. 

One Day Everyone will Live in Manhattan.

Feedback loops typically take a bit of the output signal and feed it back into the input. They have their uses so long as they’re under control. In a broader context you could say Darwin’s theories of evolution are based on feedback loops and even the old adage, ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.’ As wealth accumulates power the wealthy use it to skew the system to their advantage. It’s a feedback loop we’re all aware of, but like the microphone howl at a concert it can destroy the performance not to mention the sound system itself. So the question arises, when does the wealth/power feedback loop go critical and begin to destroy our whole economic system? Recently Facebook lost $120 billion in one day’s trading. That’s 3.5 million years of average UK pay. We are nearing that point. A man, they’re usually men, with a yearly income of say £15 million might spend, i.e. put back into the economy, £1 million. The rest he must spend in the completely separate economy of world finance. With the top 1% owning say 80% of wealth it’s likely 60% to 70% is being siphoned off real economies into global finance. That leaves our working economy surviving on half of what it generates. This constitutes a ‘negative’ feedback loop where the output is used to suppress the input. It’s like giving a horse 50% of the food it needs to do the work required of it. It won’t immediately starve to death but year on year it will become weaker and weaker until it finally collapses. This is where we’re at. Venezuela is a basket case only because world finance won’t go there and there are other countries on the brink. It’s a kind of economic climate change where life-giving rain is being directed only to the safest places for a return. With no money for basic services, health, education, policing etc and no sign of the horse getting more food anytime soon Venezuela is dieing. Unimaginable amounts of currency are blowing around the globe boosting stock markets under the direction of one seemingly rational, almost laudable imperative, a return on investment. And in their wake economic wastelands. But people don’t die they walk. Immigrants are forming human winds of their own under this economic jet stream moving to wherever it rains. There are two human wills in contradiction, the will to live and the will to become even more wealthy. The latter would do well to recognise, and quickly, which will is the stronger. 

Conversation with Britney.

Britney is our resident Lauren Bacall in ginger, every pose a languorous expression of royal intelligence. Here for example is this morning’s conversation.

“Hello Britney.”

You’ve taken Dave to the black table. We all know.

“You OK Brit?”

You remain under suspicion comedy man

“What you looking at me like that for?”

think about it

“Oh yes sorry, I’ve taken Dave to the vets to get his teeth done. You’re fine. Bloody vets, they’re like the American healthcare system.”

And

“And what? Do you want some milk?”

If I wanted milk I’d take you to the fridge. No I’m here sitting in front of the cat flap, you work it out.

“What?”

 you locked the cat flap so he couldn’t get out

“Oh sorry I locked the cat flap so he couldn’t get out, here.” (unlocks cat flap)

There you go.

I’m not sure. You’re a bit too close. We know the tricks you know. Betty may be neurotic bless her but she’d worked you lot out years ago; Dreamies out of the blue, slowly bending over to give us a stroke in an ominous manner> Remember the rule, ‘We come to you.’ Always been always will be. Just back away and we can both get on with our day>

“Oh sorry, here.”

Thank you.

(Five minutes later)

“Back in?”

look out the window dumb ass, it’s raining.

Brexistential.

Midnight news and the spokesman for the road haulage industry is saying he asked the Brexit gov sec for ‘clarity’ on a no-deal Brexit. And the Brexit gov sec asked, “What exactly do you mean, clarity?”  I think he went on to say there would be no problem on the UK side but it also depends on the EU. Well ‘der!’ I may have been half asleep and not 100% sure what existential means but post two years of negotiations one would expect at least a slim idea of what the other side’s response will be. I’m now fully awake and realising the EU really don’t want the UK to leave. Not because of some familial affection but because they’re fearful for their club. They don’t was to lose membership. Like Greece found, we have entered a Hotel California. Back in 2016 we thought we just needed to pay the bill and check out but now we’re finding the price of leaving also carries existential costs that the EU won’t tell us. ‘Sure your lorries can queue up at Dover but we control the price of landing in Calais.’ In response Brexiteers are forced into saying, ‘Hang the price we’re going to leave anyway!’ It’s the only way the UK can throw the deadline back into the EU court. Of course the haulage industry is concerned but the UK are not negotiating with them. So now the EU is thrown into counting the existential cost to them. And it’s considerable: a founder member, a large economy and a large scientific and security contribution. And it’s all about inflexibility. Germany has a long history of amalgamating disparate groups. It took over a century to form the country from antagonistic feudal Germanic fiefdoms, it put huge energy in amalgamating east and west and was the major driving force in forming the EU. But the wider it grew the more disparate the countries have become. There are now major differences in living standards, attitudes to money and politics, population density and even reputation. Maybe the EU rules are based on an old German idea of amalgamating broadly similar fiefdoms and outdated in a modern Europe. And that’s what Brexit is about, updating Europe. Vive la special case.

How the USA gave up Guns.

Joe’s brother’s daughter died in a school shooting. The kids marched but the NRA and public opinion stood firm. It was like if you weren’t personally affected like Joe guns were your only protection in this crazy world so you loved them. In his head he went through countless ideas of how to change things. Laws couldn’t make it happen, the government wouldn’t and protests didn’t change things. OK forget guns and focus on ammunition, guns are no use without ammunition. He remembered Stuxnet where US malware blew up Iran’s centrifuges. Could he do the same for munitions manufacturers, malware their machines to make cartridges that blew up your gun? It turned out US bullet manufacturing was antiquated; they just used machines with an on/off switch. It would be easier to get them for lead poisoning. But there was a part of that plan that persisted, that if guns blew up in your hand due to faulty ammunition people would think twice about using them: it would feel like Russian roulette only American. In the end he turned to Trump. He was always talking about fake news and tweeting ridiculous things. So that’s what Joe would do. He rang around everyone he knew who had been personally affected by the shooting and from there other shootings and other people. Everyone he rang agreed. Pretty soon he had over a hundred people from all over personally committed to the project. Each had a different start date over a three month period, one or two at first, then five then twenty. They all began to tweet about guns blowing up in their hand. No one knew the cause, could be the guns or the ammunition. Some posted pictures of bloody hands or face, an eye blinded, a kiddie with burns. It was happening all over the country, a twitter storm, Youtube videos, Facebook posts. The more the NRA denied there was a problem the more fresh instances cropped up in new places. The public became jittery. Guns could harm you if you used them?! Of course not every shot, most fired fine, but you could never be sure if the next one might. OK it was fake news but nobody could get to the bottom of it. Even people who said it was a conspiracy weren’t believed. How could all these ordinary real people from all over the place be tweeting the same problem? Ammunition sales plummeted. People still had their guns but stopped using them, ‘just in case.’ Homicides fell by 50%. People talked, felt safer, the news picked up on the stats and drew conclusions. Little by little guns lost their appeal. People began to look at guns not as protection but personally harmful. (much like cigarettes)

And that’s how Joe got rid of guns in the US of A. Of course this is a story, Joe doesn’t exist, but best keep just quiet in case he does.

Our Haddon Hall Trip.

Yesterday Mothermouse and I visited Haddon Hall and artisan fair. The Hall is a 13^th, 14^th, 15^th and 16^th century building with one wall dating back to 1100 and elevated gardens some thirty meters above a lovely meandering river. What isn’t meter thick stone walls is 2½ inch oak doors and high leaded windows. This would become important later. Between hot sun and heavy rain we wandered the tented artisans and then the hall itself. Dates are one thing but staring at a 3 inch solid oak worktop worn clean through by 16 generations of servants brings a richer meaning. We wander through the banqueting hall and oak panelled galleries with massive hanging tapestries and end up walking through a heavy oak door into the simple elegant gardens. Mothermouse spotted a small summerhouse stacked with chairs and as it was raining we decided on a rollup in said building on said chairs. We continued down to the lower garden looking for the exit. As no solid oak doors were open we wandered back to the one we came out of. This was also shut. Slowly our minds assembled the facts, an impregnable building on the one hand and a 30 meter shear drop on the other and the staff packing up ready to go home. In a flash Mothermouse was on her mobile Googling Haddon Hall’s phone number. She explains we’re in the garden and, yes with the house on our right, good, and gone down the steps, OK, and we’re standing by the pond. “We don’t have a pond.” It transpired Mouthermouse had phoned Haddon Hall Care Home. Back to Google. Man answers, “Lucky we answered it” in a jocular if somewhat irked tone suggesting he’d already got his coat on and it was a long walk back through the banqueting hall, long oak panelled galleries etc. He opened a door and quizzed us on what exactly were we doing in the summerhouse for so long, and probably thinking we might well be escapees from the similarly named care home. Even now, a day later, I don’t know what we’d have done if he hadn’t answered. I know smoking is bad for you but I’d never considered dieing of exposure in the back garden of centuries old castle.