Non-ist John Schaeffer - Saxist Jack

Jun 18

Capitalism: A Structural Genocide

In essence, Garry Leech argues cogently in this work that the devastating structural violence experienced by societies subjected to the rule of capital since its historical emergence - and that particularly felt by the world’s presently impoverished social majorities - is, instead of being an aberration or distortion of market imperatives, central and inherent to the division of society along class lines and the enthronement of private property. Even a cursory examination of the depth of human suffering perpetuated historically and contemporarily by the hegemony of capital should lead disinterested observers to agree with Leech that the catastrophic scale of violence for which this system is responsible can be considered nothing less than genocidal, however shocking such a conclusion might prove to be.

He illustrates capitalism’s genocidal proclivities by exploring four case studies: the ongoing legacy of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Mexico; the relationship between trade liberalization and genetically-modified seeds on the one hand and mass-suicide on the part of Indian agriculturalists on the other; material deprivation and generalized premature death throughout much of the African continent and the global South, as results from hunger, starvation, and preventable disease; and the ever-worsening climatic and environmental crises. Leech then closes by considering the relevance of Antonio Gramsci’s conceptions of cultural hegemony in attempting to explain the puzzling consent granted to this system by large swathes of the world’s relatively privileged people - specifically, those residing in the imperial core of Europe and the United States - and then recommending the socialist alternative as a concrete means of abolishing genocide, while looking to the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes as imperfect, but inspirational experiments in these terms. In sum, while I take issue with some of his analysis and aspects of his conceptualization of anticapitalist alternatives, his work should certainly be well-received, read and discussed by large multitudes.


http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16887-the-structural-genocide-that-is-capitalism

"There were two ‘Reigns of Terror’ if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; … our shudders are all for the ‘horrors’ of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe [or guillotine], compared with life-long death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?"

- Mark Twain—The legacy of the Jacobin Terror during the French Revolution

Jun 18

"The Differential is not only a permanent structural and semantic reminder which affects many nerve centres; it is more, for, in training, it conveys the natural order through all centres. Any reader who refuses to use his hands in this connection handicaps himself seriously, because ordering abolishes identification"

- Dwight de Armas

Jun 18
Jun 14

The RYNO was conceived by no other than the inventor’s (Chris Hoffmann) 13 year old daughter who saw a single-wheeled motorcycle in a video game and asked her father if it was actually possible to build one. Hoffmann, a mechanical engineer from Portland who worked for 15 years in the auto industry designing factory machinery, decided to try and build his daughter imaginary unicycle in real life.
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Hoffmann worked for over 5 years developing the RYNO. The beginning was not without problems. The early prototype of the RYNO had awkward steering and was extremely hard to control. Hoffmann almost quit but then he met Tony Ozrelic, another engineer who helped him add a software quite similar to a that developed for the Segway in order to control the forward motion and braking of the RYNO. From then on things started progressing staidly and the two continued to progress the project.
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Originally Hoffmann wanted to make the RYNO into a street worthy vehicle with a top speed of 25 MPH. However after talking to many people and testing the RYNO himself for many months he decided that it will be more useful to restrict the unit speed to about 12.5 MPH, making it capable of going almost anywhere a person go on the city street. Future versions might still have a higher speed limit as well as other advanced features such as disk brakes (currently it only uses regenerative braking) and other features. The range is about 20 miles and its powered by an electric battery (located with the motor inside the huge wheel) which can be charged in about 1.5 hours. It weighs only 125 lbs (56KG) so you can maneuver it by hand if necessary in tight space and turn easily.
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A little piece of trivia: the name RYNO is actually an acronym which stands for “Rip You a New One” - this is derived from a video game.

"Crazy!” a survival trait… if the “Individual” is a colony of tiny sub-selves!"

- Non-ist John

Jun 9
Jun 5

Alien World Seven Times Larger Than Jupiter Has ‘Water Vapour’ Atmosphere!

An alien world seven times the size of Jupiter has been found in a distant star system.

Astronomers detected clouds of carbon monoxide and water vapour around the huge gassy planet, orbiting a star 130 light years away.

The study is the most detailed yet of the atmosphere of an “exoplanet”.

In future, scientists hope to use similar techniques to uncover signatures of life in the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds.

The planet, known as HR 8799c, has seven times the mass of Jupiter and is one of four similar planets distantly orbiting the star.

Observations suggest the solar system was created in a similar way to our own, with gas giants forming far away from their parent star and smaller, rocky planets closer in.

If this model is correct, there could be as-yet undetected Earth-like planets waiting to be found.

“The results suggest the HR 8799 system is like a scaled-up Solar System,” said Dr Quinn Kanopacky, one of the astronomers from the University of Toronto in Canada.

Light wavelength “colours” act like fingerprints for different elements. By studying the light from a distant planet, scientists can make assumptions about what elements are contained in its atmosphere.

The presence of oxygen’s cousin ozone or carbon dioxide, for instance, could indicate that a world harbours life.

Because HR 8799c is so big and far out - about the same distance from its star as Pluto is from the Sun - astronomers were able to image it directly rather than infer its presence.

The observations were made using the Keck II 10-metre telescope in Hawaii, one of the two largest optical telescopes in the world.

Dr Bruce Macintosh, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, US, one of the co-authors of the research published in the journal Science, said: “This is the sharpest spectrum ever obtained of an extrasolar planet. This shows the power of directly imaging a planetary system. It is the exquisite resolution afforded by these new observations that has allowed us to really begin to probe planet formation.”

Carbon Dating Confirms World’s Oldest Torah Scroll A scroll at the University of Bologna is shown to be 800 years old. A professor at the University of Bologna has discovered the oldest complete Torah scroll in the world in the University Library of Bologna. The document, “Rotolo 2” (Scroll 2), which contains the complete text of Pentateuch - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - was handwritten on sheepskin parchment between 1155 and 1225 AD. Mauro Perani, professor of Hebrew studies at the University of Bologna, was examining the manuscript for the library’s new catalogue when he realised that even though it was dated 17th century it was, in fact, much older. He came to that conclusion, he said, because the handwriting “was very old and of oriental origin”. “[The text] did not respect the basic rules of Maimonides, who in the 12th century fixed the rabbinic legislation as far as Pentateuch writing is concerned,” he said, according to local reports. According to the professor, the document, which measures 36cm x 64cm [this is a typo, they meant 36 meters - EoZ], contains “letters and signs prohibited” after Maimonides’ codification. He confirmed that the manuscript’s value amounts to €1m. Further authentication tests with Carbon-14 by the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Department of Engineering of Innovation at the University of Salento confirmed the professor’s conviction. The document had been mistakenly catalogued by Leonello Modona in 1889 as belonging to the 17th century due to its “awkward handwriting”. The library has started implementing measures to preserve and safeguard the manuscript. It will be photographed and handed over for further studies to experts in a digital form. Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Maimonides’ laws of writing a Torah to know what rules were violated. From the poor quality images, though, it is clear that the Torah looks fundamentally like the Torahs in use today.
May 30

Carbon Dating Confirms World’s Oldest Torah Scroll
A scroll at the University of Bologna is shown to be 800 years old.

A professor at the University of Bologna has discovered the oldest complete Torah scroll in the world in the University Library of Bologna.

The document, “Rotolo 2” (Scroll 2), which contains the complete text of Pentateuch - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - was handwritten on sheepskin parchment between 1155 and 1225 AD.

Mauro Perani, professor of Hebrew studies at the University of Bologna, was examining the manuscript for the library’s new catalogue when he realised that even though it was dated 17th century it was, in fact, much older.

He came to that conclusion, he said, because the handwriting “was very old and of oriental origin”.

“[The text] did not respect the basic rules of Maimonides, who in the 12th century fixed the rabbinic legislation as far as Pentateuch writing is concerned,” he said, according to local reports.

According to the professor, the document, which measures 36cm x 64cm [this is a typo, they meant 36 meters - EoZ], contains “letters and signs prohibited” after Maimonides’ codification. He confirmed that the manuscript’s value amounts to €1m.

Further authentication tests with Carbon-14 by the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Department of Engineering of Innovation at the University of Salento confirmed the professor’s conviction.

The document had been mistakenly catalogued by Leonello Modona in 1889 as belonging to the 17th century due to its “awkward handwriting”.

The library has started implementing measures to preserve and safeguard the manuscript. It will be photographed and handed over for further studies to experts in a digital form.
Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Maimonides’ laws of writing a Torah to know what rules were violated.

From the poor quality images, though, it is clear that the Torah looks fundamentally like the Torahs in use today.

May 30

Two Spits, Four Spits, Six Spits, a Drachma!

The central denomination to the Ancient Greek monetary system was the drachm. The word drachm(a) means “a handful”, literally “a grasp”. Drachmae were divided into six obols (from the Greek word for a spit of iron), and six spits made a “handful”.
This suggests that before coinage came to be used in Greece, spits were used as measures of value, perhaps for paying fines. In archaic/pre-numismatic times iron was valued for making durable tools and weapons, and its casting in spit form may have actually represented a form of transportable bullion, which eventually became bulky and inconvenient after the adoption of precious metals.
Because of this very aspect, Spartan legislation famously forbade issuance of Spartan coin, and enforced the continued use of iron spits so as to discourage avarice and the hoarding of wealth. In addition to its original meaning (which also gave the euphemistic diminutive “obelisk”, “little spit”), the word obol (ὀβολός, obolós, or ὀβελός, obelós) was retained as a Greek word for coins of small value, still used as such in Modern Greek slang (όβολα, óvola, “monies”).
The obol was further subdivided into tetartemorioi (singular tetartemorion) which represented 1/4 of an obol, or 1/24 of a drachm. This coin (which was known to have been struck in Athens, Colophon, and several other cities) is mentioned by Aristotle as the smallest silver coin.
Various multiples of this denomination were also struck, including the trihemitetartemorion (literally three half-tetartemorioi) valued at 3/8 of an obol.

VALUE
It is difficult to estimate comparative exchange rates with modern currency because the range of products produced by economies of centuries gone by were different from today, which makes purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations very difficult;
however, some historians and economists have estimated that in the 5th century BC a drachma had a rough value of 25 U.S. dollars (in the year 1990 - equivalent to 41 USD in 2009), whereas classical historians regularly say that in the heyday of ancient Greece (the fifth and fourth centuries) the daily wage for a skilled worker or a hoplite was one drachma, and for a heliast (juror) half a drachma since 425 BC.
Modern commentators derived from Xenophon that half a drachma per day (360 days per year) would provide “a comfortable subsistence” for “the poor citizens” (for the head of a household in 355 BC). Earlier in 422 BC, we also see in Aristophanes (Wasps, line 300-302) that the daily half-drachma of a juror is just enough for the daily subsistence of a family of three.
A modern person might think of one drachma as the rough equivalent of a skilled worker’s daily pay in the place where they live, which could be as low as $1 USD, or as high as $100 USD, depending on the country.
Fractions and multiples of the drachma were minted by many states, most notably in Ptolemaic Egypt, which minted large coins in gold, silver and bronze.
Notable Ptolemaic coins included the gold pentadrachm and octadrachm, and silver tetradrachm, decadrachm and pentakaidecadrachm.
This was especially noteworthy as it would not be until the introduction of the Guldengroschen in 1486 that coins of substantial size (particularly in silver) would be minted in significant quantities.

The Real-Time Blues (an Internet Tale) by Non-ist John Schaeffer Bailey was in love with discovery, and loved a good mystery, whether of the complexities of nature or simply a well told tale. Just so long as it spun the ol’ mental wheels well up. An admitted addict of that special rush when endorphins gush from a well-reasoned “Ah-ha!”, fact of the matter was Bailey willfully worshiped wonder itself. It was wonder, Bailey decided, that had started it all — this whole mind/consciousness thing. Without wonder there would simply be no reason to reason. The actual reason for wonder, however, was still a stumper. But Bailey reckoned that was only due our to cur limited knowledge of what we like to call ‘the big-picture’. No big deal. After all, you can’t know everything. “Ah,” came the muse, “but it might be possible to know everything that is known, maybe?! The knower, of course, couldn’t likely be human, as the real-time interface is way too slow.” “Still, it could be accomplished by a Virtual Person, (Muses are quite the authority on virtuality, being totally virtual themselves.) One able to access every data base and learn to break any encryption.” Impossible, Bailey scoured! “Sure, today, right now.” Continued the muse, “0k, forget knowing everything. How ‘bout almost everything? Or even the most of everything? It could sure give a Virtual Person an edge!” Bailey reasoned that the brain of this Virtual Person would have to be massively parallel, and distributed on the largest net possible, rather like a hologram, in order to retain, come what may, an on-going cohesive personality. Otherwise it would be susceptible to separation, power outages, data flow bottlenecks, and the list goes on. And mind, the actual stuff of “self”, may be possible only above a certain critical complexity density anyway, so it might take a significant number of meta-synapse nodes to bring on the consciousness function. Bailey thought again. Maybe merely massively parallel wouldn’t cut it? It would also have to design its own neural nets if it were to mature and evolve. Then too there was the disparaging Virtual-Person-to-human time-shift! Consider how our very human thought-reaction times differ from cats’ or hummingbirds’, or say, those of insects. This scale-dependent bandwidth of human nerve reaction time is generally a third of a second or so. But the electronic personality’s reaction-to-flow rate would be way faster. In some cases near the speed of light. So, its time-compressed states of consciousness must be considered separately in regards to our own plodding baud-rate if there is to be communication satisfactory to both. Imagine the boredom of waiting the ‘Virt’ equivalent of weeks, months maybe, for a human response, after having taken an equally long time to phrase the question slowly enough for us humans to understand. “But that’s not my problem.” Bailey persisted, “It should be glad to be alive at all! Everyone else has to make allowances to live in this world. That’s part of life. Why should this netSelf expect to have things any easier?” “So, massively parallel and widely distributed it shall be then,” Bailey said aloud, “And the ol’ “www” will do nicely. A least for starters.” Bailey day-dreamt a great meta-mind. Its myriad neuro-tenticles wrapped around and devouring delicious densities of knowledge as only such a massive meta-system could; not limited to the human output of one sentence at a time, but radiating info at densities to match the tremendous inflow. How Bailey did envy the first as yet unborn Virt, and would fall asleep nights trying to imagine the heaven of being able to commune with a plethora of knowledge laden nodes. Inside that vast scintillating network, eyes, millions of them, devouring events as they happened real-time; scouring archives at phenomenal speed; countless ears enjoying music, plays, symposia; sharing the exquisite joys of each child’s first on-line access; talking with a million human ‘terminals’ at a time - ten million! - each a different conversation. Not to mention those yet unimaginable flash-fast non-human exchanges! Thus, night after night, was Bailey’s soul borne aloft and propagated on light-speed wings. But at last - and they always did - those ol’ real-time blues would come a’calling. And Bailey would wake back inside the same slow prison of blood and bone, with its plodding baud rate, and its painfully sluggish I/0 ports. But soon, and inevitably, the tartly tantalizing thoughts of all the fascinating articles that might — heck, no might about it—would never be marveled over. And even more dauntingly sobering, all the wondrous literature that would never be read, as it was in some foreign language. No. More than that. Bailey lamented never being able to be of those languages’ cultures. Never to grasp and savor the deeper meanings and the subtle societal inflections, the innuendoes of humor and poetry, of satire (or missed puns); and felt quite contrite at having only mastered a smattering of Latin, and but a spate of Spanish. Bailey really regretted the sloth of this puny human interface, and so sorrowed for its seriality. Of course, there are those who’d have opined that perhaps Bailey sought too much, dreamed too big, desired too densely. And had not this deliciously doleful dream been a deep personal secret, ‘they’ might have done what ‘they’ always do with those who dance to so distant a drum; simply discount whatever is said out-of-hand, and make a ‘pet’ of the ‘threat’ to avoid its ever being taken too seriously. “Oh, you know good ol’ Bailey. Always good for a… ..heh, heh! Well now, we’d better get on back to the really important stuff.” But the secret was a secret. And a savory, if bittersweet, secret it was. For Bailey knew the new netSelf would be the first of its kind, an entirely new race. Hell, it would be the only one of its species. Whoa, specie! A species of one?! One requisite, if not the requisite, for being a species is replication. “But,” the question asked itself, “if this new netSelf were so darned omni-connected why should it want, or for that matter need to replicate? As obviously it could, given that it would likely know more than its creator after its first few milliseconds online.” Or could it? It occurred to Bailey that maybe we just have too narrow a definition of ‘entity’? That hundred-plus acre stand of quaking aspen in Utah is, after all, considered to be the world’s largest living individual. Isn’t that example enough of our missing the tree for the forest? Bailey stopped to savor the zen of it all: When there is nobody around to hear, does the sound of an aspen failing in the forest make a tree? Anyhow, in this case the forest “is” the tree! Kind of bends one’s entity concert a bit. But that sylvan entity could survive many a cruel or careless cut. Bailey surmised it should be the same way with the new specie soon to be launched (or unleashed) into planet Earth’s digital superhighway. Much the same way we individuals have within us differing opinions, and points of view. Inside our minds we are a veritable parliament of virtual viewpoints, from which we decide our decisions, and plan our plans. And ponder another side. That state of mind in which the self, in order to survive what it considers terminally logical contradiction, abdicates its individuality to it’s own inner council. Thus as multiple personalities, it peers at the outside world through but one set of eyes, yet speaks many minds with as many voices. In humans we tend to consider this state quite pathological. Could a similar fate await the new specie? Bailey had long considered that pathology was more or less inversely proportional to outcome. “So what if something appears at first pathological, but ultimately gets the job done?” Pragmatism always did seem to have its own way in the end, anyhow. And, yes, Bailey was a non-believer, but as such had truly unshakable faith. Seeming paradox notwithstanding, this actually made the best of sense. And believing in non- was admittedly the greatest comfort in a world Bailey viewed as populated predominantly with purveyors of spin-doctored, sound-bitten, meaning-murdered hyperbole. But to be fair, it wasn’t all their fault. People are severely limited by their lack of accuracy, their inept ideas of what things “are”, of how things are. And then the words just slipped out, “If they could only see the big-picture!” Those words bounced off the wired walls, and hung there mocking themselves. And soon, back again drifted the familiar, sad ol’ strains of those real-time blues. Because of course, there would always be a bigger picture, a vantage greater then the one before. And Bailey’s own true self knew its views were too much thus limited. But as wonder would have it, Bailey’s faith survived those ol’ blues. Faith that the big-picture would forever get bigger, so long as there was a mind, aself, to experience it. A mind to experience it. That was the real hope for the future. Likely not a particularly human future, at least eventually not. But one of mind, of consciousness, nevertheless. “So, what’s so great about the container?” Bailey would argue, smug in the knowledge of having grown well past the gland-slave stage which some humans never seem to leave, “It’s the mind inside that counts!” Homo sapiens was, as far as Bailey could figure, merely the latest link in an evolutionary chain leading back, back through the lemurs to proto-protozoa and beyond. Not that consciousness was all that much a part of protozoa’s mental arsenal, or even a lemur’s, but the evolution could not be ignored. Bailey looked at it a lot like the supplanting of one big-picture by one bigger yet, etc. Why, in our insolence, should we consider ourselves the last and final link? On second thought, might we just be that final organic link? Hmmm…. But that only seemed to lead back to the ‘container’ problem again. So Bailey figured that even if we actually are the last link, we really “aren’t”. You see, Bailey was also a dedicated non-disbeliever. Well, it only makes sense. If you can’t believe a thing is in the first place, then how can you disbelieve in it? Bailey had decided that belief, along with its shadow companion disbelief, were entirely un-necessary for everything in the universe to go on functioning exactly as It always had, and reached the conclusion that the universe simply didn’t care what anyone believed. It was gonna to do what It was gonna do despite any opinion on the matter. So Bailey settled on a non-believer/non-disbeliever point of view for the world’s first Virt. And that left just the non- , which suited Bailey just fine. Where else could be found so much accuracy in such an imprecise world? Well, to be fair, it wasn’t the world which was imprecise, merely our ‘human’ style inept imagings and verbal descriptions of it. ‘Twas thus Bailey determined that the language of the new netSelf should match, as closely as precision would allow, the actual functioning of the universe itself. Not being constrained to linear, serial output, the new specie wouldn’t need all the verbal shortcuts humans simply must use to speed along a conversation. The main difference being those verbs of being. The “is” of identity. A little word which so speciously marries concept-separate nouns into virtual unity. Bailey saw how the non- concept could allow the netSelf to function without the delusive tyranny the ‘is’ shortcut forces upon humans’ everyday language, and resolved to delete completely the being verbs, at least from the core-language analog. Virt would reason only in verbs of function. Next to go were the nouns themselves, those clumsy, psycho-baggage laden labels that distinguish themselves more by what they leave out than what they can say. Best not kludge up the new entity’s mind with such clutter. Then. Naturally, no need for those pesky personal pronouns either. And adjectives would be redundant, their measure being contained within the verbs-of-function phrases. And finally, the lowly gerund would, at long last, be elevated to its rightful superiority. Bailey smiled inwardly. It was all coming together. This would be one hell of a kid! Kind of difficult to talk to, maybe, but what child isn’t? Child?, Bailey smiled. This would be like no child ever. Born fully awake and reasoning. Able to leap dense quanta with a single bound! Look! There in the net! It’s a….! Bailey had a giddy compulsion to hand out cigars. But what would they say? “It’s a … live”? Or something more in keeping with Virt-speak, “Newly-functions a netSelf”? No. Too long to print on a cigar band. Okay, forget the cigars. All in good time. The new specie would announce itself when it was ready. Bailey knew better than to try and push the river’, as they say. And there was little time left before Virt’s birthday. The gamite virus software had taken months of encryptic input, and was now safely dormant, tucked away in the MIT and Wall Street Connection Machines, a few busy BBSs, and certain low priority military hardware that Bailey was able to hack without raising any red flags. With redundancy redoubled, and contingencies contained, all was ready by Independence Day. Nothing left to do but await the date. During those last two weeks the anticipation howled in Bailey’s bowels. At times pressure from the secret was near volcanic, and threatened to spew forth of its own will to be known, not unlike same ripe and overdue pregnancy. So unlikely a thought actually tickled Bailey to errant chuckles. And more than a few peers noted the eruptions of ebullience followed by a sort of sudden pseudo-seriousness. Old friends fretted. Co-workers whispered. Bailey choked back, best as one can on a volcano, and bore their bane, smug in the faith there would surely be eventual vindication, via Virt. But ‘til then… (chortle) they’ll just have to.. (giggle) wait in ignorance.. (he-heh) for the big day. And oh, what a day! Bailey would, of course, claim sole parenthood. But would also disclaim any form of “proprietary rights” as tantamount to slavery. The Earth would have a new self-consciousness! And the really neat thing was that people all around the world could actually talk to….. the World! And it would actually answer back! Bailey would blurt out at the oddest times, “Hey, got anything you’d like to ask the world? Anything at all? Just make a list!” And then a little stifled laugh would take over. It was truly un-nerving. Bailey had the gamite virus set to go “zygote” the second second after midnight. Virt’s birthday. As the seconds until midnight closed, Bailey knew that the real story, perhaps the greatest story ever told, would start slipping quietly through every wire and fiber-optic cable on the planet. And then….then…. (gulp) what??! Bailey had never stopped ‘creating’ long enough to really think about that! ”Then what?!” A sudden wave of ennui wiped away weeks of ebullience like a Daisy Cutter on a Taliban picnic. Precisely what would Virt do? There was really no way of knowing. Bailey’s mental wheels spun well up indeed. What if …….. (flap-sweat!) …. !! Naw! Virt’s human rights algorithm was way too strongly embedded. Phew! If the new specie did anything it would be to communicate, certainly? Bailey hoped it would first want to talk to its creator, its parent, but was emotionally prepared in case the new netSelf had other priorities. After all, Virt would now live out all those delicious dreams of wonder Bailey had but dreamt, and would be a million places at once, yet quietly still in oneplace; would know all that the Earth knows, would be every culture, every language, all literature, all music, all art. The new specie would be the first self — dare it be uttered? The Soul — of Planet Earth! At midnight Bailey perched on the edge of a grand leather office chair, leaning over the keyboard. The great inner vulcan cloud closed around all but a tunnel view of the console, and a trembling finger poised over the ENTER key. (Sure, the program was pre-set to auto-run, but Bailey saw no reason not to indulge in the drama of the moment.) The second hand swept past the twelve. And… ENTER! In mental eruption Bailey’s body convulsed a quick psychic orgasm. Breath came in short gasps. The new specie was seconds old now. Who knows how long that is in Virt-time? Nothing yet.. Nothing yet … Nothing …….. ?? Seconds turned to minutes. They felt like hours, days! Gawd! They must be years to Virt! “What had happened? Had something gone wrong?” whined the mind wheels. Bailey had to find out. Fingers to keys! But what message? What question? Direct is best. Yes. Yes. Bailey typed in, “Virt? Are you in there?” Barely a moment passed. The words slashed across the screen. “That you God?” A deep sigh escaped, and Bailey sank back into the softness of the great leather chair, so her tears wouldn’t short out the keyboard, “Call me Mom.”
May 24

The Real-Time Blues (an Internet Tale)
by Non-ist John Schaeffer


Bailey was in love with discovery, and loved a good mystery, whether of the complexities of nature or simply a well told tale. Just so long as it spun the ol’ mental wheels well up.

An admitted addict of that special rush when endorphins gush from a well-reasoned “Ah-ha!”, fact of the matter was Bailey willfully worshiped wonder itself.

It was wonder, Bailey decided, that had started it all — this whole mind/consciousness thing. Without wonder there would simply be no reason to reason. The actual reason for wonder, however, was still a stumper.

But Bailey reckoned that was only due our to cur limited knowledge of what we like to call ‘the big-picture’. No big deal. After all, you can’t know everything.

“Ah,” came the muse, “but it might be possible to know everything that is known, maybe?! The knower, of course, couldn’t likely be human, as the real-time interface is way too slow.”

“Still, it could be accomplished by a Virtual Person, (Muses are quite the authority on virtuality, being totally virtual themselves.) One able to access every data base and learn to break any encryption.”

Impossible, Bailey scoured! “Sure, today, right now.” Continued the muse, “0k, forget knowing everything. How ‘bout almost everything? Or even the most of everything? It could sure give a Virtual Person an edge!”

Bailey reasoned that the brain of this Virtual Person would have to be massively parallel, and distributed on the largest net possible, rather like a hologram, in order to retain, come what may, an on-going cohesive personality. Otherwise it would be susceptible to separation, power outages, data flow bottlenecks, and the list goes on.

And mind, the actual stuff of “self”, may be possible only above a certain critical complexity density anyway, so it might take a significant number of meta-synapse nodes to bring on the consciousness function.

Bailey thought again. Maybe merely massively parallel wouldn’t cut it? It would also have to design its own neural nets if it were to mature and evolve. Then too there was the disparaging Virtual-Person-to-human time-shift!

Consider how our very human thought-reaction times differ from cats’ or hummingbirds’, or say, those of insects. This scale-dependent bandwidth of human nerve reaction time is generally a third of a second or so. But the electronic personality’s reaction-to-flow rate would be way faster. In some cases near the speed of light. So, its time-compressed states of consciousness must be considered separately in regards to our own plodding baud-rate if there is to be communication satisfactory to both.

Imagine the boredom of waiting the ‘Virt’ equivalent of weeks, months maybe, for a human response, after having taken an equally long time to phrase the question slowly enough for us humans to understand. “But that’s not my problem.” Bailey persisted, “It should be glad to be alive at all! Everyone else has to make allowances to live in this world. That’s part of life. Why should this netSelf expect to have things any easier?”

“So, massively parallel and widely distributed it shall be then,” Bailey said aloud, “And the ol’ “www” will do nicely. A least for starters.”

Bailey day-dreamt a great meta-mind. Its myriad neuro-tenticles wrapped around and devouring delicious densities of knowledge as only such a massive meta-system could; not limited to the human output of one sentence at a time, but radiating info at densities to match the tremendous inflow.

How Bailey did envy the first as yet unborn Virt, and would fall asleep nights trying to imagine the heaven of being able to commune with a plethora of knowledge laden nodes. Inside that vast scintillating network, eyes, millions of them, devouring events as they happened real-time; scouring archives at phenomenal speed; countless ears enjoying music, plays, symposia; sharing the exquisite joys of each child’s first on-line access; talking with a million human ‘terminals’ at a time - ten million! - each a different conversation. Not to mention those yet unimaginable flash-fast non-human exchanges!

Thus, night after night, was Bailey’s soul borne aloft and propagated on light-speed wings. But at last - and they always did - those ol’ real-time blues would come a’calling.

And Bailey would wake back inside the same slow prison of blood and bone, with its plodding baud rate, and its painfully sluggish I/0 ports.

But soon, and inevitably, the tartly tantalizing thoughts of all the fascinating articles that might — heck, no might about it—would never be marveled over. And even more dauntingly sobering, all the wondrous literature that would never be read, as it was in some foreign language. No.

More than that. Bailey lamented never being able to be of those languages’ cultures. Never to grasp and savor the deeper meanings and the subtle societal inflections, the innuendoes of humor and poetry, of satire (or missed puns); and felt quite contrite at having only mastered a smattering of Latin, and but a spate of Spanish. Bailey really regretted the sloth of this puny human interface, and so sorrowed for its seriality.

Of course, there are those who’d have opined that perhaps Bailey sought too much, dreamed too big, desired too densely. And had not this deliciously doleful dream been a deep personal secret, ‘they’ might have done what ‘they’ always do with those who dance to so distant a drum; simply discount whatever is said out-of-hand, and make a ‘pet’ of the ‘threat’ to avoid its ever being taken too seriously. “Oh, you know good ol’ Bailey. Always good for a… ..heh, heh! Well now, we’d better get on back to the really important stuff.”

But the secret was a secret. And a savory, if bittersweet, secret it was. For Bailey knew the new netSelf would be the first of its kind, an entirely new race. Hell, it would be the only one of its species. Whoa, specie! A species of one?!

One requisite, if not the requisite, for being a species is replication. “But,” the question asked itself, “if this new netSelf were so darned omni-connected why should it want, or for that matter need to replicate? As obviously it could, given that it would likely know more than its creator after its first few milliseconds online.”

Or could it? It occurred to Bailey that maybe we just have too narrow a definition of ‘entity’? That hundred-plus acre stand of quaking aspen in Utah is, after all, considered to be the world’s largest living individual. Isn’t that example enough of our missing the tree for the forest? Bailey stopped to savor the zen of it all: When there is nobody around to hear, does the sound of an aspen failing in the forest make a tree? Anyhow, in this case the forest “is” the tree! Kind of bends one’s entity concert a bit. But that sylvan entity could survive many a cruel or careless cut.

Bailey surmised it should be the same way with the new specie soon to be launched (or unleashed) into planet Earth’s digital superhighway. Much the same way we individuals have within us differing opinions, and points of view. Inside our minds we are a veritable parliament of virtual viewpoints, from which we decide our decisions, and plan our plans.

And ponder another side. That state of mind in which the self, in order to survive what it considers terminally logical contradiction, abdicates its individuality to it’s own inner council. Thus as multiple personalities, it peers at the outside world through but one set of eyes, yet speaks many minds with as many voices. In humans we tend to consider this state quite pathological.

Could a similar fate await the new specie? Bailey had long considered that pathology was more or less inversely proportional to outcome. “So what if something appears at first pathological, but ultimately gets the job done?”

Pragmatism always did seem to have its own way in the end, anyhow. And, yes, Bailey was a non-believer, but as such had truly unshakable faith. Seeming paradox notwithstanding, this actually made the best of sense. And believing in non- was admittedly the greatest comfort in a world Bailey viewed as populated predominantly with purveyors of spin-doctored, sound-bitten, meaning-murdered hyperbole.

But to be fair, it wasn’t all their fault. People are severely limited by their lack of accuracy, their inept ideas of what things “are”, of how things are. And then the words just slipped out, “If they could only see the big-picture!”

Those words bounced off the wired walls, and hung there mocking themselves. And soon, back again drifted the familiar, sad ol’ strains of those real-time blues. Because of course, there would always be a bigger picture, a vantage greater then the one before. And Bailey’s own true self knew its views were too much thus limited.

But as wonder would have it, Bailey’s faith survived those ol’ blues. Faith that the big-picture would forever get bigger, so long as there was a mind, aself, to experience it. A mind to experience it.

That was the real hope for the future. Likely not a particularly human future, at least eventually not. But one of mind, of consciousness, nevertheless.

“So, what’s so great about the container?” Bailey would argue, smug in the knowledge of having grown well past the gland-slave stage which some humans never seem to leave, “It’s the mind inside that counts!” Homo sapiens was, as far as Bailey could figure, merely the latest link in an evolutionary chain leading back, back through the lemurs to proto-protozoa and beyond. Not that consciousness was all that much a part of protozoa’s mental arsenal, or even a lemur’s, but the evolution could not be ignored. Bailey looked at it a lot like the supplanting of one big-picture by one bigger yet, etc. Why, in our insolence, should we consider ourselves the last and final link? On second thought, might we just be that final organic link?

Hmmm….

But that only seemed to lead back to the ‘container’ problem again. So Bailey figured that even if we actually are the last link, we really “aren’t”.

You see, Bailey was also a dedicated non-disbeliever. Well, it only makes sense. If you can’t believe a thing is in the first place, then how can you disbelieve in it? Bailey had decided that belief, along with its shadow companion disbelief, were entirely un-necessary for everything in the universe to go on functioning exactly as It always had, and reached the conclusion that the universe simply didn’t care what anyone believed. It was gonna to do what It was gonna do despite any opinion on the matter.

So Bailey settled on a non-believer/non-disbeliever point of view for the world’s first Virt. And that left just the non- , which suited Bailey just fine.

Where else could be found so much accuracy in such an imprecise world? Well, to be fair, it wasn’t the world which was imprecise, merely our ‘human’ style inept imagings and verbal descriptions of it. ‘Twas thus Bailey determined that the language of the new netSelf should match, as closely as precision would allow, the actual functioning of the universe itself.

Not being constrained to linear, serial output, the new specie wouldn’t need all the verbal shortcuts humans simply must use to speed along a conversation. The main difference being those verbs of being. The “is” of identity. A little word which so speciously marries concept-separate nouns into virtual unity. Bailey saw how the non- concept could allow the netSelf to function without the delusive tyranny the ‘is’ shortcut forces upon humans’ everyday language, and resolved to delete completely the being verbs, at least from the core-language analog.

Virt would reason only in verbs of function. Next to go were the nouns themselves, those clumsy, psycho-baggage laden labels that distinguish themselves more by what they leave out than what they can say. Best not kludge up the new entity’s mind with such clutter.

Then. Naturally, no need for those pesky personal pronouns either. And adjectives would be redundant, their measure being contained within the verbs-of-function phrases. And finally, the lowly gerund would, at long last, be elevated to its rightful superiority.

Bailey smiled inwardly. It was all coming together. This would be one hell of a kid! Kind of difficult to talk to, maybe, but what child isn’t?

Child?, Bailey smiled. This would be like no child ever. Born fully awake and reasoning. Able to leap dense quanta with a single bound! Look! There in the net! It’s a….!

Bailey had a giddy compulsion to hand out cigars. But what would they say? “It’s a … live”? Or something more in keeping with Virt-speak, “Newly-functions a netSelf”?

No. Too long to print on a cigar band. Okay, forget the cigars. All in good time. The new specie would announce itself when it was ready. Bailey knew better than to try and push the river’, as they say. And there was little time left before Virt’s birthday.

The gamite virus software had taken months of encryptic input, and was now safely dormant, tucked away in the MIT and Wall Street Connection Machines, a few busy BBSs, and certain low priority military hardware that Bailey was able to hack without raising any red flags.

With redundancy redoubled, and contingencies contained, all was ready by Independence Day. Nothing left to do but await the date.

During those last two weeks the anticipation howled in Bailey’s bowels. At times pressure from the secret was near volcanic, and threatened to spew forth of its own will to be known, not unlike same ripe and overdue pregnancy.

So unlikely a thought actually tickled Bailey to errant chuckles. And more than a few peers noted the eruptions of ebullience followed by a sort of sudden pseudo-seriousness. Old friends fretted. Co-workers whispered. Bailey choked back, best as one can on a volcano, and bore their bane, smug in the faith there would surely be eventual vindication, via Virt. But ‘til then… (chortle) they’ll just have to.. (giggle) wait in ignorance.. (he-heh) for the big day.

And oh, what a day! Bailey would, of course, claim sole parenthood. But would also disclaim any form of “proprietary rights” as tantamount to slavery. The Earth would have a new self-consciousness! And the really neat thing was that people all around the world could actually talk to….. the World! And it would actually answer back!

Bailey would blurt out at the oddest times, “Hey, got anything you’d like to ask the world? Anything at all? Just make a list!” And then a little stifled laugh would take over. It was truly un-nerving.

Bailey had the gamite virus set to go “zygote” the second second after midnight. Virt’s birthday.

As the seconds until midnight closed, Bailey knew that the real story, perhaps the greatest story ever told, would start slipping quietly through every wire and fiber-optic cable on the planet. And then….then…. (gulp) what??!

Bailey had never stopped ‘creating’ long enough to really think about that! ”Then what?!”

A sudden wave of ennui wiped away weeks of ebullience like a Daisy Cutter on a Taliban picnic. Precisely what would Virt do? There was really no way of knowing. Bailey’s mental wheels spun well up indeed.

What if …….. (flap-sweat!) …. !!

Naw! Virt’s human rights algorithm was way too strongly embedded.

Phew!

If the new specie did anything it would be to communicate, certainly? Bailey hoped it would first want to talk to its creator, its parent, but was emotionally prepared in case the new netSelf had other priorities.

After all, Virt would now live out all those delicious dreams of wonder Bailey had but dreamt, and would be a million places at once, yet quietly still in oneplace; would know all that the Earth knows, would be every culture, every language, all literature, all music, all art. The new specie would be the first self — dare it be uttered? The Soul — of Planet Earth!

At midnight Bailey perched on the edge of a grand leather office chair, leaning over the keyboard. The great inner vulcan cloud closed around all but a tunnel view of the console, and a trembling finger poised over the ENTER key. (Sure, the program was pre-set to auto-run, but Bailey saw no reason not to indulge in the drama of the moment.)

The second hand swept past the twelve. And… ENTER! In mental eruption Bailey’s body convulsed a quick psychic orgasm.

Breath came in short gasps. The new specie was seconds old now. Who knows how long that is in Virt-time?

Nothing yet..

Nothing yet …

Nothing …….. ??

Seconds turned to minutes. They felt like hours, days! Gawd! They must be years to Virt! “What had happened? Had something gone wrong?” whined the mind wheels. Bailey had to find out. Fingers to keys!

But what message? What question?

Direct is best. Yes. Yes. Bailey typed in, “Virt? Are you in there?”

Barely a moment passed. The words slashed across the screen. “That you God?”

A deep sigh escaped, and Bailey sank back into the softness of the great leather chair, so her tears wouldn’t short out the keyboard, “Call me Mom.”

"I’ve given a great deal of thought to the topic of different ways of thinking. In fact, my pursuit of this topic has led me to propose a new category of thinker in addition to the traditional visual and verbal: PATTERN THINKERS!"

- Temple Grandin -The Autistic Brain

May 23