The Creep and the Internet

Nothing stays the same, everything changes. There are many people with many different agendas all over the globe who want to direct the flow of that change. Most of these people mean well. Many have a perfect plan to fit their particular perspective. Many more are willingly ignorant, or even outright selfish. Some think things would go better if they had total control. Shockingly, some are even right on this point—at least for a short time. Most plans center on what someONE is going to do about the problems.

Every time something disastrous happens, someone steps in to offer a solution. Unfortunately, the solutions that look the easiest, fastest, or cheapest to us have an enormous long-term price tag—one that always stipulates a loss of freedom. Just as America went from being the most free nation on Earth to a bureaucratic nightmare, so the Internet will likely succumb to the forces of controlling powers. That will spell the end of freedom in the information age.

The technique of utilizing a disaster like 9/11 to push forward political agenda is not a new concept, but is fundamental to political science. Even before we might have understood what it was, we—collectively as a young race, and individually as young children—developed the ability to get our way by applying pressure to a weak spot. Leadership author, Chris Brady, called this the "creep" in a recent blog article. Sometimes, this technique is necessary, justifiable, and even righteous, but not always. And not just because an individual or elite group perceives a benefit to humanity.

If humanity doesn't "buy it" then it's not right for everyone. The obsession with centralized solutions is founded on the belief that one person can't make a difference. The thing is, this observation is accurate, just not completely true. One person can't make a difference, but one person can share his vision with two or three others and inspire them to share the vision each with two or three others. The difference between this and centralized solutions is that the direct approach allows for the vision to be adapted to each group or individual. It both encourages understanding of individual situations, and allows for this information to be shared communally to increase understanding in the whole organization.

Think this doesn't happen? Au contraire! This is what was done in every example of prosperity throughout history. The fact that we feel this is impossible is a creep in media content toward that propagated image. Big media is supported by big-everything-else, and nothing big wants to feel threatened by something little. So they naturally censor—perhaps without even understanding what they're doing—any nugget of an idea that feels like a threat to their interests. The result is a flock of sheep that think they can't solve their own problems—and can't because they haven't learned how.

The Internet is wild and revolutionary. Just look at Wikipedia. User created, user supported, and free to the general public. Nothing that revolutionary has happened since the printing press! But we all know it's under fire for just that reason. The carefully laid structure of a bureaucratic society is being exposed to those who care to engage in the conversation at all. So the weapon of mass media tends to discourage personal exploration.

Even more so, it tends to discourage personal growth. When people become independent thinkers and independent operators, they create change—natural, and therefore, uncontrollable change. That is terrifying to anyone who has a stake in the here-and-now because it might mean the vacation is over. No one can stop change any more than one could stop a speeding locomotive with his bare hands, so in trying to tame the wild beast, they rip up the tracks and undermine the whole thing.

As companies—which shall remain nameless—grow larger and more influential on the internet, they will use the power they gain to stack the deck in their favor. The solution is not to regulate them, because that only transfers the power from one big organization to a bigger one. It also tempts wealthy private businesses with the option to hire lobbyists who can further the company's cause by manipulating the legal system.

The internet still leaves the power in the hands of the people. Let's be bold enough to come together and keep it free. What we need is to prevent companies from growing large without our approval. An internet company can easily generate $1 billion with the help of its customers, but if we don't like something they're doing, we need to lift a different company to that level. It's possible.

Lives Like Rubik's Cube

The thing that is both interesting and frustrating about life is that we all start out in a different place. Each one of us is a complicated jumble of different aspects—both good ones and bad ones. In fact, some of us even have aspects each which would otherwise be good, but are in conflict with one another.

For much of the beginning of our lives, we spend time just making the jumble worse. There are as many reasons this is true as there are people for it to be true about. Some lives become more jumbled than others, but they are all solveable—just like Rubik's Cube. Hey, no one ever said life was easy!

I'm a big believer in the singularity of truth. That is, no matter how jumbled and different we appear at first, there is a path that will lead us to the same place. Now, I don't mean we should seek to be clones—this is where the analogy breaks down. Unlike a Rubik's Cube, human lives have layers of depth. The deeper one goes, the more he should find in common with his fellow men, or else he is fundamentally flawed. We don't need to look the same on the surface, but our hearts should beat as one.

In the name of diversity, today's media has sold us on the idea that we don't need to change anything about ourselves. In effect, the masses want to believe that a jumbled Rubik's Cube is the way they were born and the way they must stay. Mainstream media and mass marketing, then, tend to generate their content accordingly. These two channels are awash with politicians and businessmen who want to make life easier for the little guy.

They mean well from their perspective, of course. Some measure of convenience in every area of life is the advantage that human civilization has over the animal kingdom. However, the other advantage we have over the animals is the ability to continuously improve. The more individuals take responsibility for solving their own small problems, the more prevalent innovation and ingenuity is.

These inventions of the human mind are valuable and can be traded for other inventions. In this way, civilization increases in total value and, subsequently, wealth. When media develops a culture where the widespread belief is that an elite few—those born without a jumbled Rubik's Cube—are responsible for all the inventions, initiative slows and civilization decreases in value.

But this is just a lie. It is true that some lives are less jumbled than others—and it has less to do with financial advantage than you may think—while others are extremely jumbled. However, there seems to be something in the human spirit that enables us to solve these puzzles the more difficult they are. Perhaps, it's that the extremely jumbled cases seem beyond hope to the aforementioned politicians and businessmen so they're on their own. Maybe it's because these jumbled individuals are more driven to work on themselves and so gain more momentum.

One thing repeats throughout history: more is created by those at a disadvantage than by a king in his throne. So how hard are you trying to solve your Cube?

Two Minutes Hate

No one hates people. They only hate ideas. In order to hate other people, a person must first dehumanize them in his mind. By turning them into something quite apart from (and especially beneath) himself, he regards himself as free to treat them as something other than a person—a demon or an animal, for instance.

In perhaps the most famous scene in 1984, George Orwell describes the "Two Minutes Hate." This odious piece of propaganda is specifically crafted to whip the crowd of Party Members into a mindless, furious lather. It depicts the anti-Party icon, Emmanuel Goldstein, spouting ideologies that run contrary to what the Party Members have been told to believe.

While the "hero" of the story, Winston Smith, secretly harbors a hatred against the Party, even he cannot deviate from the frenzy of the mob around him. Intense images of the massacre of Oceana's enemies in Eastasia (Oceana had always been at war with Eastasia), provoke peals of laughter and applause from the crowd. The image of advancing enemy soldiers elicit cries of hatred. The enormous face of Goldstein (the ultimate heretic) is even described as morphing into the face of a sheep.

Despite the absurd exaggeration of this scene, Orwell hits the nail on head in spirit. The periodic "Hate" is a reminder of the inhumanity and heresy of their enemies. The strength of the Party Members' hatred of people's they have mostly never met, keeps them loyal to (or at least under the influence of) the Party in Oceana. As long as the Party can maintain irrational hatred and fear, they maintain power over every aspect of the citizens' lives.

The reality of present culture is much less obvious, even to the purveyors of today's "Two Minutes Hate" (AKA: political pundits). Regardless of the name of the party they support, these pundits engage in not-so-subtle slander of their ideological opponents that bears a striking resemblance to the "Hate." The primary protocol is to dehumanize and even demonize their opponents. Upon this foundation of filth, they build themselves a reputation as political idols.

The difficulty with the real version of the "Hate" is that it is not as obviously false or objectionable as Orwell's version. In a recent article at the Center for Social Leadership, blogger Dave Wilson sums it up this way: "[Pundits] use accurate half-truths to demonize 'the others' and make them seem less than human so that they can justify hating them."

These "half-truths" are based upon the primary lie that all their opponents, without exception, are wrong and evil. From the starting point of believing in this lie, fans necessarily see the pundit's opinion as truth. Every thing he says is based upon what his fans have chosen to believe. Their mutual hatred for their ideological opponents keeps them from straying from the "straight and narrow." They each fear the other will suspect them of doubting the faith.

But speaking in terms of legitimate religion, what a pundit says cannot fall outside what is technically accurate in reality, or the whole edifice will be shaken. When the fans begin to believe unrealistic lies, the pundit becomes a cult leader. And while most people can fall into irrational partisanship, most won't cross this line. People want to be ethical, and therefore want their spokesperson to be an ethical person as well. They want an easy truth, but they don't want fantasy.

The trouble is, there is no easy truth. The real truth is always more difficult to live by than the accurate half-truths of an extreme position. It takes more energy to spin a top than to let it settle to one side or another. The scary thing is that we have to decide for ourselves (yes, each of us!) what the truth is. There is only one truth, but we all arrive at it from different starting points.

Hatred builds a wall between you and a vast source of perspective on the truth.

Autopilot

Have you ever arrived at work quite unaware of the journey from home? Your alarm goes off, and the next thing you know, you're punching in. You don't remember your breakfast, that drive through traffic, that train ride, etc. What is happening around us as we jostle our ways to press #9 in the great factory of our mechanical society?

This sensation is commonly compared to an autopilot system, by which airplanes guide themselves toward the destination without the help of a human pilot. The autopilot handles the minor course corrections which would be extremely tedious for a full-time pilot. In this way, the driver of an automobile has an internal autopilot that shields him from the tedium of habitual actions. The human autopilot tends to take over any action that is repeated on a regular basis.

This is a desirable tendency for factory owners to exploit. If they can manage to set the habit in the first place, their need to enforce the habit decreases as time wears on. It becomes virtually impossible for a person to break this sort of habit, because they are unconscious of the experience itself. This is as true of workers in the factory as it is of customers who ultimately buy the goods produced by the factory.

This is especially true when the mind's consciousness is demanded by numerous urgent matters—the flashing lights and alarms of modern society. In fact, many of these things are designed to do just that! When politicians make a big deal out of an arguably small problem, they aren't simply being foolish. They are using slight of hand. As long as the people focus on today's most urgent issue, the politicians are free to manipulate to their advantage the more long-term, important issues without destroying voter loyalty.

The more the masses (both lower and middle classes) are on an upper class autopilot, the more predictable their behavior is to the human resource and mainstream marketing industries. In other words, the more they become like clockwork in a production machine. As this state of things increases, the owners of this production machine mentally dehumanize the "cogs." Once the cogs lose all humanity in the eyes of the ruling class, they can be subject to inhumane amounts of tyranny without the slightest sympathy from their oppressors.

The solution to this problem is prevention. This is redundant once the autopilot has been firmly set. However, no regime has ever or will ever create a perfect system of oppression in this way. Always the human heart will rebel against this, opening doors of perception just as the oppression seems to be complete. Tiny "flaws" such as this tend to spread discontent which eventually erupts upon the smallest setback.

What is the most memorable thing about your drive to work? Was it that guy that ran the red light? Or was it that surprise act of good will? Certainly we'd rather have the latter, but in either case we are brought out of autopilot by the unusual—by something the system couldn't handle.

Meditate on those things that cannot be mechanized. Find them in the world around you, put them into your daily actions. Help others to notice them. Break the autopilot's cycle.

The Dystopian Machine

The following is a personal examination of dystopian concepts that I wrote as part of an attempt to understand the world of a story I am writing. I am certain to be somewhat mistaken in my observations, and therefore, this is to be taken as a topic for discussion, but not necessary an essay on asserted facts. Nevertheless, I hope my reasoning is structurally sound, and would appreciate any feedback by those more informed than I am.

The machine of society, and by extension its apparatus, has been created for the specific purpose of organizing society. The eternal argument is to whom ought go the benefits of such an organized society. The debate has such a wide range as to include "everyone" and "one top person."

The former ranges in another dimension from Socialism and Communism to Libertarianism and Anarchy. The latter does not range much in actual practice, but includes a variety of titles from "Emperor" to "Dictator." There are many things wrong with such extremes. By definition, Socialism and Communism keep people "down" in the name of equality, unfortunately, someone has to be the oppressor, and usually becomes a "Dictator." Libertarianism and Anarchy cast off any notion of oppression, but create such ignorant individualism as to allow the strongest to become an oppressor, or "Dictator."

Either way, extremes end up producing a two-class system based upon some kind of coercion. A person or small group of people who have "absolute power" tend to corner the market—as it were—on happiness as well. The masses, supposed to be "secure," seethe with frustration and jealousy at their inability to advance. As a result, the elites impose more force upon the "unruly" people while giving themselves more freedom from the people.

And so, the ultimate goal of those who seek to mechanize society is to create a taught system that responds instantaneously to the will of the pilot(s). In order for this to happen, such a system must be "bled" of all turbulence in the order of individual preferences. These preferences come in two varieties: one has an interest in the system as a whole (and is therefore a problem to the machine) and the other merely has an interest in one's self.

This second variety includes the only "individual rights" that such a system allows. These are on the order of physical freedoms (what one does with one's own body or with a consenting partner). Freedoms on the order of the mental (such as political transparency, freedom of movement—across boundaries, etc.) and freedoms on the order of the philosophical (which open questions about the justice of such a system) are eventually strictly prohibited.

When each person cares only about himself, he becomes a predictable mechanism. He can be manipulated with "carrot and stick" rewards, and need not falter due to relational or other human considerations. He can then be pushed, abused, and used up without any worry of someone coming to his aid—because he is alone by his own design. Furthermore, this is seen as his own fault, because anyone who looks as his situation sees only the physical considerations—never the underlying causes of his faulty thinking.

Irrational Rationale, Part 2

Politics

It is difficult to see the economy failing, and even more difficult to calm irrational fears when it is. However, the momentary fact of a depression in available resources is not evidence of a continuing trend. Chris Brady, co-author of the book Launching a Leadership Revolution, compares most people's irrational rationale in politics with the actions of a novice pilot in a stall.

A "stall" is a term used to describe the situation of a plane whose wings have stopped producing lift. When this happens, the plane follows nature and falls out of the sky. Novice pilots, like people uneducated in political history, do the exact wrong thing by attempting to make the plane climb higher. Instead, the plane must be plunged toward the ground—whereby increasing the pressure under the wings, and regaining lift.

Despite volumes of political history containing such political stalls and the crashes resulting from mismanagement of the situation, the problem persists. Just to be clear, when I use the word "politics," I am referring not just to government or even corporate hierarchy, but to the entire gambit of human interaction on the rational-mental level.

I think it's because we forget how often things change. When things are up, we expect them to stay up. When they are down, we fear they will stay down. This is completely irrational, yet we decide policy based upon these irrational projections. When we assume things will continue to get worse we dispense blame and seek desperate, immediate remedies. When we assume things will continue to go up, we use it to justify instant-gratification.

This instant-gratification in every area political life leaves us inevitably vulnerable to compounding debt, then unpaid debts on the books of financial institutions, and finally some manner of economic collapse. Of course, this leads to an entreatment of the government for bailouts—an action which does not erase debts, but merely spreads them among the taxpayers. The result, of course, is that taxpayers who were formerly just barely making minimum payments, now can no longer afford to do that. And the cycle continues.

But economic policy is not the only thing effected by irrational rationale in political life—though it is the primary means and motivation. Both social justice (the punishment of criminal citizens) and national security (defense against aggressors from abroad) take whatever opportunities they are given to expand beyond their proper borders.

It is easier to build prisons and expand upon the specific laws that can put people into them, than it is to fix the problems of society that cause people to commit desperate acts. While this assertion is a simplistic view, and there certainly are deranged individuals that need to be locked away, the vast majority of crime can be prevented with a better social system—education about human nature, and more freedom—not less freedom.

While certainly a necessary and proper role of government, national security can be used to justify forced democracy. It is easier to utilize money and guns to force a structure of government on a difficult to deal with, and difficult to understand people. The solution, of course, is to do the hard work of seeking first to understand, then to be understood. Only upon such diplomatic ground, can difficult human interaction be smoothed out. Again, this is simplistic, as military defense and offense are a necessary response to aggression.

However, there is more to human nature than can be set down in the program of a political machine...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Apparatus

The machine of society is constructed in two areas. The area of science (the known), constituted as laws and utilized by factories; and the area of art (the theoretical, constituted by civil discussion and utilized by leaders.

There is nothing wrong with constructing a machine to handle what is known, insofar as it is available for use by all. Factories became an important part of our economy in the early 20th Century, and have evolved from the literal industrial form into big box stores and other business models. The more tasks can be gotten "down to a science," more machines can take over those tasks. This is desirable because it frees people to solve more organic problems which require human creativity.

The problem arises when a mechanical solution is applied to these organic problems. That is, when the machine attempts to arbitrate the theoretical, semi-unknown aspects of society, it must err by definition. I say this because, by its very nature, a machine can only work with rational systems. Humans create irrational problems that cannot be solved by a rational system.

Nevertheless, when societies realize that easy but tedious work can be handled by a machine, they inevitably desire that the same machine would handle the difficult work as well. So they create arbitrating systems that attempt to manipulate nature into a predictable form, like cyborg mechanisms grafted into a human body. This collective, I call the "Apparatus."

There is a vast selection of illustrations of this basic concept to be found in Science Fiction. Indeed, I believe that the central resonating theme of high quality sci-fi is based primarily upon this concept. In every example of machines attempting to emulate or intermingle with human emotions, terrible calamity ensues. One can argue that it is merely fiction, of course, but if that is so, then why does it move us so?

Possibly, the prevalence of such themes is owed merely to a popular, yet unfounded fear—brought on by an innate paranoia that we humans will some day cease to be masters of our world. That assertion is fair enough, but I would ask: which came first? Is there a fundamental reason to fear this, which prompts us to demand media which reminds us? Or did media creators stumble upon an latent fear, which they began exploiting for profit?

As I learn more about the big picture, I realize that it is both. Who can say which came first? Certainly, however, society must be wary of any machine that attempts to do what it cannot do. If media can be so constituted to remind us of this potential, so much the better. But if media goes so fair as to perpetuate irrational fears of, say, a literal zombie invasion—then the mainstream won't take the metaphoric warning seriously.

And that would be a calamity.

FEATURED MEDIA: Metropolis - A massive structure called the "Ziggurat" is meant to be a symbol of man's power, but becomes a terrible menace when a confused girl takes control of it. She is a life-like android model of a human, so real she is uncertain what she is.