Pokemon for Politicians

Don't like your opponent in the town council race for dogcatcher? No problem. Listen on!

Having trouble gaining popular support for your presidential bid? Easy. Have I got a strategy for you!

Do you have well thought out responses to major issues that have long histories and complicated solutions that require compromise and cooperation between numerous, often conflicting parties that are willing to sit down and talk to each other? Pussy. I've got nothing for you.

I've got Putin Go!

Just add a Vladimir Putin icon next to your opponent's picture in a political ad or real life appearance. That last one can't be done but noone knows the difference. Just keep saying it. Soon people will think they can see "Putin Go" thingeys hovering around real candidates in the real world! Believe me, people are that stupid. You don't need an iPhone to be an idiot.

No answers? No problem! With Putin Go you can paint your opponent with the broad strokes of the Iron Curtain creepily reaching emaciated fingers over Europe. And an important country like America, too! Putin Go! Your ticket to Soviet era propaganda! Remember. They're the bad guys. Not us!

"Wow! I just caught 19 Putins hovering around Donald Trump!" "That's nothing. I just got a dozen hanging around Clinton's head and another ten around her butt! Thank God we don't have to listen to, like, debates or anything."

That's right, Buffy. You don't have to listen to, like, debates or anything.

Putin Go! Formerly Stalin Stupid, Brezhnev Bad, Khrushchev Klutzy, and Trotsky Terrible. Void where prohibited, which is nowhere. All's fair in love, war, and politics. Reference to actual issues and possible solutions strictly forbidden. Putin Go! A total subsidiary of GlobalMegaMergerCorp, where we make good things for ourselves. Fuck you.

American Serfdom

I was thinking about Mrs. Obama’s reference to waking up every day in a house that slaves built. Some people immediately brought up the old argument that the slaves were provided for in terms of food, lodging, and elderly care, etc. This is basically comparing the slave economy to the mediaeval serf economy. There is one significant difference, however. The barons didn’t hate their serfs.

Serfs were considered to be a part of the territory, along with the rivers, forests, and fields. In exchange for being allowed to live on the land, the serf provided taxes, occasional military service, and fealty to the baron. The baron, in turn, provided security and the rule of law. Serfs were allowed to work the commons and have regulated access to the King’s forests and rivers. Certain other organs of civilization, traders; soldiers; priests; etc., also factored into the mix. They always do.

A serf was not free nor was he exactly a slave. He was another integral part of the economy. Contrast this with the capitalist economy where the capitalist sheds all responsibilities while amassing as much capital as possible. His only obligation to the serf, now called a laborer, is a daily recompense: A wage. If the laborer does not work, he does not get paid. If he can’t afford food, he starves. If he grows too old to work, he dies. If the environment becomes too costly for the capitalist, he packs up, leaves town, and bears no responsibility to the abandoned laborers for anything, including environmental damage his venture may have caused to the King’s land. The capitalist has no obligations other than to make money. Period.

So the serf’s life was actually easier and more secure that today’s workers’, oddly. Check out Terry Jones’ ‘Midieval Lives’ on YouTube. Enjoyable and informative. This is peculiar seeing as we have more in the way of technology, medical advancements, sanitation, healthy food and clean water, and access to (temporary) fossil fuels which gives each and every one of us an estimated 150 fossil fuel ‘slaves.’ In other words, if we needed human laborers to provide everything we get from coal, oil, and natural gas, it would require 150 people for each and every one of us. Those are our carbon slaves.

But this essay is about comparing the serf economy with the slave economy, not serfdom vs. capitalism.

Slaves, like serfs, aren’t free. Even the Magna Carta originally only applied to the barons. Serfs had no rights. It took several hundred years for these rights to become universal and for there to be a House of Commons as well as a House of Lords (but that’s another story.) Slaves never have a House of Slaves. This was the only request of the politicos of the colonies: A seat in Parliament. Barring that, we weren’t English citizens. We were serfs. Had the King granted that one thing, there’d have been no Lexington, no Valley Forge, no Yorktown. We’d all be English now. We’d be Canada.

Also, slaves are property of the capitalist/baron instead of part of the land. So the slave economy is not like the serf economy. As much as I did not want to discuss capitalism, I have no choice since slave owners were capitalists. Slaves were treated as capital, which they aren’t. This means that the slave owner must discard ownership of his slaves as quickly as possible in order to be a true capitalist. Not owning the serf/laborer but instead just paying him a daily wage means that the capitalist doesn’t have to worry about accommodations (that’s his problem,) food (ditto,) old age (ditto,) child care (ditto,) health care (ditto,) or anything other than just providing a dollar a day.

And he gets to shunt off every other expense on the government (roads, security, law and order,) or the environment (depletion, pollution, landfill.) In turn, the serfs and the government get to give the capitalist lots of money for his goods and services. Quite a racket. They weren’t called Robber Barons for nothing. No wonder we are poorer than the serfs were.

Of course, laborers respond by using the only tool they have: Their labor. They organize, strike, and demand that the government enact laws in their favor. The capitalists react by employing union busting thugs, buying those same governments, repealing regulations which are ‘crippling business in America!’ or outsourcing work to countries where the serfs are cheaper. We are in the down cycle of that dance right now.

Most western countries had already outlawed slavery by the 1860’s. Brazil was the last country in the western hemisphere to outlaw it in 1888. Of course, slavery is slightly more cost effective in an agrarian economy, like the South, than in an industrial economy, like the North, but it was just a matter of time before they realized it was to their economic benefit to abolish slavery and then just hire them back at a dirt poor wage. The issue here is racism. The barons didn’t hate the serfs. They didn’t think of them much at all, any more than they thought of such and such a river or those pastures full of sheep over there. Oh, sure they thought they were better than the serfs, but doesn’t everybody?

American slaves were mostly African and the easiest way to identify an African is by the color of his skin, an insignificant marker controlled by a single gene out of tens of thousands. At other times in history slaves could be anybody. There was brief talk in ancient Rome about making slaves wear a certain mark so they could be recognized on the street. Once they realized how many more slaves there were walking around the streets of Rome than Roman citizens, they quietly dropped the idea. Good move, Brute.

So the American barons hated their serfs and treated them badly. You didn’t see English barons whipping serfs or working them to death. You didn’t see barons at all, except at major festivals. The serfs/slaves went about their own business and governed their own farms and communities according to Church and State. So it’s really impossible to compare slavery as it was practiced against Africans in the western hemisphere from the 16th to the 19th centuries and its resultant racism with any other kind of economic system, even former slave economies. This one was unique.

Pacifism

I am a pacifist. I admit it. I don't want to fight anybody. I embrace the world on the basic assumption that nobody wants to fight me. Why should I fight them? That's not always the case.

I remember during the space race. How the Soviets were putting a satelite in space: Sputnik. Then a man: Yuri Gagarin. And that was bad. We were the good guys. They were the evil Soviets. We had to win the space race. Put a man on the moon, and bring him back again. And do the other things. Within this decade. Because we are great we would stick it in their face. And I thought differently. Why don't we work together? I wrote an eighth grade essay where I suggested that astronauts and cosmonauts work together to explore space. Why not? We both want the same things, don't we? Wouldn't it make sense to work together? We could pool our green stamps! Buy a soldering iron or something.

I was the kid who was always bullied in school. Tall for my age. Gangly. Nerdy. Pubescent when I should be pre-pubescant. Attracted to girls when they weren't attracted to me. Then I didn't know what to do when they were. Awkward. Out of the ordinary. Out of sync with my childhood peers. One step ahead or behind. Couldn't care about sports. Liked to read. Liked to ask questions. Liked to have answers. Liked to like. Was fascinated by the space program. Liked math. Smelled like a chemistry set. Generally without a clue. Not ready for life. Still not.

Spit balls shot from the tough kids in the back of the room hit my head. Roughed up in the halls. My books stolen and dumped in the 'forbidden' elevator. Did you do that, Jonathan? Did you use the school's elevator? We found your books there. No. Even then I realized the question was ridiculous. Why ask me? Does the presence of one of my books in the elevator incriminate me? Do you really think I'd use the forbidden elevator and then leave incriminating evidence behind? Talk about clueless! The Intellegencia aren't!

All I wanted to do was do my lessons and learn from the teachers. Who were these cretins bothering me? And if I returned in kind? If I got my own pea shooter and shot back? They squealed to teacher. Look! He's shooting spit balls at us! He's a bully! That's how it always works. They shit in you. If you shit back, you're the toilet.

Once, while playing during recess in the school yard, a couple of bullies grabbed me and pulled me around the corner of the building. One held me with my arms behind my back and another hit me. I had enough. I hit the one holding me in the ribs with my elbow. Thump! Thump! Soft impacts between the harsh clutch of arms. Thump! I felt like I was striking the feet of the gods and they were clay. Thump!

He started to let go. He wasn't invincible after all!

Just then a teacher, who had noticed our fight, came along and broke it up.

You were doing good, he said. Stand up to them and fight for yourself! He was a tough guy and wanted me to be tough, too. I knew he thought I was a wimp. You have to stand up for yourself in this world and fight! You'd better learn that soon! What to do. Bullied by bullies and bullied by teachers who wanted me to fight back against the bullies, just like the bullies, by being a bully.

Fight! Fight? I don't like to fight. I don't want to fight. I don't believe fighting does anything. Not anything good. If I lost I would be nothing. A pulverised, beaten down scum of the big boys, forever trod under their feet. And if I won? Would I be right? Does anybody ever fight to be right? You either fight to gain or fight not to loose. Nothing more. Does a school house bully's might make him right? Do they even care what is right? Do I really want to live there? In their world? Do I want to be that?

And I stood in the school yard, by the building, around the corner from the playground, in the bully field, and asked myself: Can I fight the bullies to be right? Suppose I did?

And what would that make me?

The Perpetual Commotion Machine

Dateline: February 2015.

People on the Move are Having Great Movements.

Amid rising concerns of imminent energy shortages, inventers have been called upon to rise to the challenge and create, once and for all, an omni-potent, ever-lasting source of energy for our burgeoning society. Flying cars don’t lift themselves up, nor do moving sidewalks move unaided. It takes imagination and gumption to fuel our ever changing world.

Famed inventor Thomas Edsel of even more famed big brain research center, Ohno Park, has unveiled his latest miracle of science and technology. While addressing the problem of powering all of the gadgets overflowing his workshop, he had an inspiration from Nature, of all places.

“With all of the light bulbs and electric nose hair curlers in my shop, the power requirements were growing exponentially,” he told this reporter. “And we all know what that means. A brick wall of progress just might be in our future.”

Don’t worry, fallout friends. The good inventor was just setting the stage for a play on our fears. He went on to assure us that brick walls can be breached. Always have. Always will. And what does Mr. Edsel have in his breaches? I’ll let him explain.

“I was walking in the garden by my workshop pondering the energy problem when I got an inspiration from the most unlikely source. Nature! I saw a tree and remembered that plants can transport tons of water and nutrients from their lowers roots to their highest leaves, a feat that must require a tremendous amount of energy. Surely we can better that!”

He went on to describe his latest invention. An invention of inventions, of sorts. The Capillary Recycler And Processor. This device uses the energy of capillary action to generate a virtually inexhaustible supply of clean, safe and friendly energy. It employs thousands of nano tubes made from carbon fibers and Helium-3. Water is drawn up from a reservoir at the bottom and used to power pizo-electric generators, micro turbines and chill beer at the same time. Mr. Edsel has constructed a prototype and is happily sipping his chilled beverage of choice as I write this. Isn’t technology delicious?

Mr. Edsel is in the process of setting up a pilot plant in Bedford Falls, NY to ramp up construction. He is calling his company CRAP-Tastic Industries. I know I can’t wait to be parted from my money for this one way ticket to the future!

Dracula

Director's Note for the Bradley Playhouse presentation of Dracula







Since it was published in 1897, Dracula has inspired numerous interpretations on stage and film. We have seen serious Draculas, debonair Draculas, heinous, hideous and humorous Draculas; Draculas on television and breakfast cereal boxes. Dracula continues to charm, attract and fascinate us with his seeming immunity to our rigid social norms while repelling us at the same time. With this interpretation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel, we hope to reclaim the original sense of Dracula as an all too uncomfortable reminder of our own conflicted nature. Dracula may not see himself in the mirror, but we may see ourselves in him.

During the production of this play, we were forced to relocate to the Little Theatre in Killingly Community Center. With barely more than two weeks to go, we dismantled the set built on the Bradley stage and reimagined and rebuilt it on the Little Theatre’s stage-no small task. I wish to thank the cast and crew of Dracula for all of the patience, determination and ingenuity they have demonstrated during this challenging transformation. I am also grateful to the Little Theatre, and especially Trace Wood-Waggoner, Allegra Plantier and Nick Magrey for their generosity and support. It has been a pleasure working with all of these talented people. A director could not ask for more.

 Here is an interview done in Putnam

This is a clip of Dracula's dramatic exit!

Exploring the link between Health Science and the Environment

     Today I am happy to present a guest post by Jocelyn Salada. Jocelyn is an independent researcher and writer interested in the environment and global health. When not relaxing with a good book, she is avidly researching topics at the intersection of medicine and life expectancy. Someday she hopes to pursue health science in a more rigorously academic way.

     For more than half a century, health research has been vital to eradicating disease and understanding the origins of human health issues. Some of the research on the more obvious links between, for example, air pollution and lung disease, has been expanded into deeper research in a field known as environmental health. This wide branch of health science, which studies how both man-made and natural ecologies impact human health, will have an increasingly important role in the prevention and management of diseases on a global scale.

     While environmental health science looks at the impact of a variety of factors such as the use of chemicals, one of the most vital elements of this field focuses on energy consumption, the environment and public health. The U.S. Department of Energy says that while most people assume their cars use the most energy, our homes and businesses use more energy, particularly electricity. The power plants that generate electricity often use fossil fuels which in turn produce greenhouse gases that may lead to global warming.

     The impact of global warming on the planet may be generally understood by most people, but the long-term implications of energy use on human health currently is under research by engineers as well as health scientist. The types of energy consumed and the way energy is generated, including nuclear power, solar power, wind power, electrical power plants, gas and oil, each has an impact on human health. A variety of studies are currently available that share research on the link between the environment and health sciences.

     A recent article exploring the evolution of environmental health science through the lens of several prominent case studies can be found here: Health Science and the Environment.

The Fermi Paradox as an Exercise in Social Engineering

The Fermi paradox poses some very interesting societal questions which are even more important than the technological ones. Basically, the question is: Will an alien civilization that has developed a high level of technology and mastered a potent source of energy use that power to colonize space? And if so, where are they?

The question that I find more interesting is: What kind of social or political organization would be required to accomplish the task of colonizing the solar system? We were barely able to sustain the American public’s attention long enough to put a man on the moon, and that was more due to hubris over competition with the Russians than any innate pride of discovery or advancement of human civilization. After all, all other voyages of exploration were done for monitory gain or to escape persecution. The British did not hold onto Jamestown despite terrible losses just because, in the words of JFK, ‘it is hard.’ What could amount to a multiple lifetime project would be unsustainable if done by popular consent and voluntary sacrifice, not to mention requiring a change in disposition from a war like economy to one willing to pour ones energies into a project of this scale.

To do this would require an absolute authority comparable to the Egyptian pharaohs’ building of the pyramids. The boss says it, it gets done. I wonder if this is possible on a planetary, not just a national, scale? If some other civilization ‘out there’ developed a society governed by a technological elite where the masses of farmers, craftsmen and engineers just did what they were told, instead of a self gratifying civilization manipulated by unenlightened self interest, maybe it would be possible. Of course, we did not evolve that way and would probably consider such a culture fascist and its citizens slaves laboring in a hive if we were to encounter them. What they would think of us is anybody’s guess. That may make great science fiction, but it’s really the only way a project of this scale could be undertaken.

It is safe to say that evolution operates on other worlds as it does on ours. So we can imagine a lot of social structures that alien races may evolve into, but that doesn’t make them possible. Through random mutation and selection, a form of cooperation has evolved on our planet, but that’s a very complicated phenomenon. Prior to the evolution of population centers dependent upon farming and animal as well as human labor, humans apparently lived in small extended families of 25 to 30 or so members. Somewhere along the line we evolved the ability to psychologically index and manage a larger body of people, around 250 or 300. That’s the average village. Seemingly magically, at that point we were able to diversify functions and greatly improve efficiency. But it also required a greater level of order and control and a much more complicated culture with stricter rules, harsh punishments and ruling classes. We lost the Garden of Eden, but we gained civilization.

One somewhat popular theory (world systems theory) states that human social behavior is shaped by ecological and economic factors. A culture evolves according to what the population needs to do to eat and live. People then invent mythologies and religions to reinforce and teach the underlying structure of their civilizations (all subconsciously, of course.) For example, ancient Chinese culture rose or fell on the state of its irrigation systems. Since it was imperative for the full functioning of the society for the canals and dams to be working correctly, it was also imperative for individual members of the population to fulfill each his own role in the economics of irrigation. Mobility was a detriment to the system. Farmers had to farm. Engineers had to design complex canals, terraces and dams, and etc. all the way up to the emperor. So, a system of philosophy evolved in Confucianism to enforce the idea that you are assigned your role on earth by heaven. Your highest goal on earth is to faithfully fulfill the duties of the role into which you were born. (A similar example is the Protestant work ethic, which evolved during the English industrial revolution. Factory owners needed thrifty, sober, hard working factory workers, and the local religion obliged with sermons on sobriety and hard work.)

Let us assume that an alien species decided to forge out into space and colonize other worlds. Under what circumstances would an ET civilization decide to do this? Would this be a spontaneous democratic decision or the decision of an oligarchy? If the former, then what evolutionary pressures would produce this trait? According to evolution, for a mutation to be selected it must increase the fitness of the individual possessing it. That’s the only requirement. Evolution does not operate on the group level. A gene for massive group efforts that benefit a small segment of the population several generations hence is not likely to be selected.

If the latter, then we are back to a ruling benevolent elite in control of a domesticated lower class. Incidentally, a trait for following a charismatic leader does increase the fitness of the individual. If you play by the rules you are allowed to live and pass on those ‘sheeple’ genes to your descendents. If you are particularly aggressive, you are eliminated or, if you happen to be a part of the ruling elite, you may become emperor some day and pass on those Caesar genes (also true if you happen to be lucky enough to win an insurrection. You can establish the next ruling elite.) We have been evolving as city dwellers for only about 10,000 years. Apparently this has not been enough time to fully domesticate humans into autocratic but benevolent elites ruling over submissive and obedient workers. Too bad we stumbled upon the ‘oil yolk’ now instead of in ten or twenty more thousand years. Our descendents might have evolved into a culture able to use it wisely.

If you think that an enlightened group of learned individuals (a technological, intellectual oligarchy) might be able to instruct the remaining population and make them understand and, therefore, change their behavior, then you are incredibly naïve. The Mensa Club and other ‘think tanks’ believed that world leaders would consult them in issues requiring a high IQ response. Of course, world leaders don’t want a resolution to the species’ burning issues. World leaders want to remain world leaders, thank you very much. You can keep your tank of brains to yourself.

Can we imagine an ET civilization where this would be different? Sure. But we would still expect them to have a philosopher king. Common people (and ET’s) everywhere would have common problems to deal with. It would be much easier for them to just follow their leaders than to think for themselves. Mass populations that do think for themselves tend to become factious, not harmonious. If people come in from the fields to protest the government, then nobody gets fed. This is what mass manipulation and propaganda are all about. Our perfect civilization would be massively bureaucratic.

Any ET civilization would have to evolve a natural ability to cooperate (or to obediently accept programs mandated to them.) Since the laws of evolution presumably apply on every other world just like they do on ours, billions of years of evolution are going to produce creatures that preserve themselves, their family and perhaps their extended family or their village (what we see on this planet.) Any individual beyond that small circle is a competitor, not a potential partner. To create a society based on cooperation, division of labor, etc, beyond that you need coercion (laws plus enforcement, international treaties, wars) or propaganda (religion or nationalism.) Or both.

Look at the earliest legal systems from Mesopotamia. They deal with boundary marker placement, proper weights and measures, clashes between farmers and herders, taxes and the penalties for their neglect. Can we imagine a civilization that evolved to conduct fair and even transactions with everyone they met, generously and voluntarily fund their government and treat every stranger as an honest friend? Evolution pretty much guarantees against it. Someone else will evolve to take advantage of gullible people like this. ET’s will have their own ‘E.T.’ Barnum’s.

To build anything (a dam, a bridge, an ocean liner or a space ship) takes an infrastructure. Steel and aluminum don’t refine themselves. Copper wire doesn’t leap from the ground. Dry docks aren’t built by forces of nature. You need miners, smelters, ship builders and riggers. You need transportation networks and farmers to grow the food to feed the people to smelt the steel to roll it into usable products. You need engineers, not to mention the long history of philosophical development and experimentation necessary to provide the engineering expertise to design such a thing and creative vision to imagine it in the first place, plus the trades and training necessary to build it and the will and imagination of the ruling class to authorize it. All of these workers need housing, food, schools for their families, gas for their lawn mowers, local sports arenas and the bar up the street. And all of these things need a similar support structure, et cetera. No, it takes a village to build a space ship.

The question really is: Is it possible for a culture to evolve that is creative enough to invent the structure required to colonize space but also cooperative enough to do it? It is certainly possible to imagine, but that society would still be extremely foreign to us, perhaps even abhorrent.

If you are going to tell the farmers that they need to grow food to support an effort to establish permanent settlements in the solar system for, what, maybe one percent of the current population? Yes, but some day your descendents will live among the stars. Well, not your descendents, of course. Just the descendents of someone who lives in the ET equivalent of Washington. What is his incentive to do so?

Evolution, which we can safely assume works the same way on other worlds as it does on ours, only operates on individuals, not on groups. So any randomly mutated trait that benefits that one individual and can be passed on to its offspring gets selected. Some people have pointed out that hives work together for the good of the group. But members of a hive are not individuals since they derive their genetics from one fertilized egg laying machine (cruelly referred to as a queen.) It is more appropriate to consider them cells in a single organism than individuals that could evolve by themselves and pass on independent genes to their own offspring. This is not possible. A hive species of intelligent individuals is unlikely due to physical constraints. (I wouldn’t want to be that queen.)

One other possibility is a species that reproduced asexually. This is nearly as good as a hive since every member is identical and traces her origin back to one distant matriarch. An individual that mutated to think in terms of the group instead of the individual, and then flooded her niche with copies of herself, crowding out more selfish members, could easily conceive of space travel and the need to work together to colonize other worlds. Unfortunately there are health issues involved with asexually reproducing species that make them impractical. Gene mixing through sexual reproduction is more robust.

But if it was possible to create such a society, it could work, even though these possibilities appear pretty weird to us. We want our independence but we want a massively coordinated and self less engineering and social experiment as well.

In short, I don’t think you can have this level of cooperation and the American Dream at the same time.