In and Out

David Eagleman on the science of de- (and re-) humanisation

After watching these presentations lot of things became clearer in my mind. Many of the questions I have about how people treat each other seemed to have explanations now. Why do the strong pick on the weak? Why do people bully each other? Why are there bigots and hate mongers who are always finding ways to divide people up and label one group as good and another group as bad?

It all has to do with 'in-groups' and 'out-groups' and 'group-selection'

Now my bigger question is that if all this hate and ignorance has such a compelling explanation, why don't more people know about it or talk about it?



I would have thought that in general most of us could agree that bullying, bigotry and hate mongering are things we should reduce or eliminate in our society. If that were so why don't we do more to solve this problem? Oh, it's not that people don't complain about these problems, but what do we really tangibly to do solve the problem; or what can we tangibly do?

I have learned over time that the most important step in solving any problem is recognizing there is a problem. Maybe some people don't recognize there is a problem, or maybe some people don't want to solve this problem because it profits them in some way.

The next step in solving any problem is to define the problem. While I don't think David Eagleman has really defined the problem here, he certainly has defined the mechanisms that contribute to the problem. Maybe if more people watch these videos, collectively we will be able to define the problem.



Part of the problem is that we have a need to dehumanize other people, and once we do that we can no longer empathize with people, and now we are free to hurt them, or even delight in hurting them.

I guess when we compete for resources, or other things, we would rather not share with everyone, it is harder to compete with people we empathize with. The greater extent that we can dehumanize others, the more we are free to complete with them ruthlessly - after all, they are not human. In particular, when we dehumanize others we can extract more profit from them.



Fundamentally peer pressure is manipulation, whether intentional or not. Ultimately peer pressure is what keeps us in one group or another. Obedience is a measure how willing we are to do what we know or suspect is wrong. Pathologically, obedience is the peer pressure to conform to the group no matter how wrong, bad or evil the group is.



So it seems one of the most useful tools in re-humanizing society is education. Who profits when we increase funding and opportunities for education? Well that would be society as a whole I guess. So who profits when we cut funding and opportunities for education? That would be anyone who profits from de-humanizing society or a situation; I guess.



While I am a scientist, and I profoundly believe in science, science is not a person or a god; science is just a tool. No matter how much I can see how this science can be used to re-humanize our society, when I put on my evil genius hat, I can just as clearly see how this science can be used to further de-humanize society.

Now why would someone deliberately want to de-humanize society or a situation? The answer is simple: profit. If you can profit by de-humanizing others then it is easier to say "it's not personal, it's just business."

I guess where this leaves me is: are the decisions we make everyday for ourselves, for our community, for our county, or for our world human decisions or are they business decisions? Maybe I have finally defined the problem now.

Good Wolf Vs. Bad Wolf

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all"

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed".

I keep stumbling across this story over and over again. On top of that, a dear friend of mine often brings out that story whenever we have a heart-to-heart talk and she can see that I am struggling with some issues.

For the longest time I thought this was an internal struggle, and a solitary struggle, between our independent selves, our personal daemons, our critical inner voices. The thing I know about wolves though is that they are not passive creatures, they do not wait around for someone to feed them, when they are hungry they eat.

Mostly your wolves will eat whatever you provide them with, and you determine their fate, but your wolves will eat what ever they get from whoever is near you, or whatever situation you find yourself in; it is not only up to you.

If you surround yourself with people who demonstrate anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego; then guess which wolf gets fed the most. If you surround yourself with people who embody joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith; then a different wolf gets fed.

And it is more than the people who surround you, it is also the situations you find yourself in. If you work too hard, you will get too tired, you will make too many mistakes, you realize too few goals, you will too often feel like a failure; guess which wolf feeds. If you take time to find something you are good at, take some more time to get better at it, take enough time to master it, and maybe even the time to be the best at it; then a different wolf gets fed.

But the story does not end there, we are not responsible for only our own lives or situations. We also feed the wolves of others, and we often contribute to the situations others find themselves in, and sometimes we even put people in situations they are not ready for.

We should not avoid all situations where our evil wolf is fed, otherwise we will not know how to respect that wolf; otherwise others will never know our good wolf, especially when they need it the most.

The story of the two wolves is a great story, but it is a never ending story.

The Inmates ARE Running the Asylum

In his book, The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper illuminates many of the problems with computers and technology these days - in particular that too many of the people making the important decisions don't really have the end user's best interests in mind or heart. Think about this again when you get to the end of this article.

I have a MSc in Computer Science from Simon Fraser University, and part of the the credit to obtaining that degree was that I created the curriculum for SFU's first course in User Interface Design, and I taught the first two semesters of this 3 year undergraduate course. By the way, the course turned out to be very popular, and I am told it still is. The point is, anyone who has anything to do with user interface design or human experience issues should read this book.

However, I am not thinking about computer user interface issues at the moment, although I often still do, rather I am thinking about human-human user interface issues.

When I was about 10 years old my mother was diagnosed as a Paranoid Schizophrenic, although in retrospect I suspect she more more affected with Schizoaffective Disorder. To get right to the point I spent almost 30 years dealing with someone who was difficult, sometimes impossible to reason with. Over time I learned to manage my own emotions and reasoning than futilely try to manage hers, although I did learn to have some success with managing her, except in the last few years where that became impossible.

One of things I observed over and over again was that often she would say something that seemed to have some real or rational basis, and I was seduced into believing that, and I would sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to give her the benefit of the doubt and try to operate on what she was saying had some validity. Most times I would simply discover I was tricked into yet another wild goose chase. To be clear, there were many times she said things that were completely valid, but my point is that too often I accepted statements from her as valid that I should have known better not to.

A few years ago the community I was living in had a woman whose mental health issues seemed very similar to my mother's. However, having 30 years of experience with that I was not so inclined to accept the validity of her statements without considerable skepticism. However, many people in the community who has no such experience as mine fell into the same pattern that I use to fall into - trying to give her the benefit of the doubt no matter how outlandish her statements were. Sadly there were even some who recognized her weakness and used this further their political goals by supporting her in public forums, making her a spokesperson for their latent agenda. In the end her downfall was that she simply went too far, and when people stopped arguing with her, you knew no-one was giving her the benefit of the doubt any more.

I find this quality, many of us share, to tolerate unreasonable statements very interesting. Sadly, even when what someone says is clearly unreasonable, there are those who will choose to agree with it when it suits their special interests. This is even more fascinating when there is general agreement that someone is 'Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs' yet people continue to give them the benefit of the doubt and/or endorse them.

Now if I were a trained psychologist, which I am not, I might have some special insight on how you can take this quality of human nature to tolerated irrational and extreme statements, and become an expert in that field.

Now if I were a powerful and wealthy special interest group, which I am not, I might set about creating a 'think tank' and hiring some PhD psychologists with those very special skills and compensate them for finding ways to use their special knowledge and insight towards my own propaganda purposes.

The end result of this might be political campaigns where the rhetoric seems more similar to someone, or someones, with Schizoaffective Disorder or Paranoid schizophrenia - and this would be totally acceptable by other politicians, by the media and journalists, and by the public at large because by-and-by we all seem so tolerant of people making irrational statements - especially if it is not generally agreed they are Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

What is the advantage of this approach to campaigning? Well - if you have extreme ideological views, or if you have an agenda that is not in the best interests of a majority of people, realistically you do not have a hope in hell of getting a majority of people to agree with you on everything - but, because people are so tolerant to irrational statements and views, they are likely to move in your general direction; and that is good enough for now. Next year, just rinse and repeat the process and you can pull even more people in the direction you want them to go. Remember who won the race between the turtle and the hare?

Now you may be thinking "that Eric Kolotyluk is some sort of evil twisted bastard for even thinking up such an diabolical Machiavellian scheme" - but I suggest the thing you should be thinking is - "if Eric Kolotyluk can think up this sort of evil twisted diabolical Machiavellian scheme, then who else can think this up, and how much money and power do they have at stake in the game?"

Freedom of Speech

Wikipedia

Freedom of speech is the political right to communicate one's ideas via speech. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander, obscenity and incitement to commit a crime.

For most of my life I have not struggled with this concept as I have simply held it to be an ideal or principle that was obvious. As a child I was generally encouraged to speak up, ask questions, challenge claims, and generally say my piece. True, from time to time I was punished for some of the things I said, and usually they were the stupid things children say that inappropriate. However, often enough as a child I was punished for expressing myself, and even as I child I was pretty clear I was being punished because of revealing inconvenient truths.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.
William Shakespeare

Rather than argue the obvious (laughing out loud) merits of freedom of speech, I will set forth to argue against it, or at least to argue for better limits on it.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington

There is very much more insight in George's words than appears on the surface.

Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.
Voltaire

The point I am making is that it not hard at all to abuse the right to freedom of speech. And in most cases it is a right and not a privilege. In general the privilege of speech is about who and how big your audience is, and not what you say. I have come to believe of late that the people who argue most ardently of their right of free speech usually have the most privilege to speak and have the most deceptive things to say.

In practice the most deceptive forms of speech are designed to limit other people's privilege to speak, and all to often even people's right to speak. This corollary follows from George's insight I believe as it does too from Voltaire's. It then follows that if you are practicing such deception, you would protest most ardently for your own right to free speech, fearing that if you do not protest then surely your deceit will be illuminated by more reasonable people.

For example, throughout history while many of us enjoy living in a democracy, there are always cabals seeking to suppress other people's right to vote, consequently their right to free speech. Recently in Canada we have had a scandal of 'robo calls' designed to misdirect target voters to their polling place and/or time. Interestingly enough this closely follows similar scandals in the United States in many places. In some cases malefactors in this sin are entire state governments who pass legislation to limit access to voting on the incredibly transparent excuse to reduce voter fraud, simply to exclude those most likely to vote against them or their friends.

While there are very stringent rules that limit free speech in areas of defamation such as libel and slander, during political campaigns these limits are rarely enforced. In other contexts, such as a court of law, the limits of speech are extreme - under testimony speech is not a right, or a privilege, but actually an obligation - whereby perjury can have harsh consequences. This should come as no surprise when the outcome of the trial may sentence the defendant to pay a fine, be incarcerated, or even forfeit their life. And here is the point I do not get at all - when it comes to electing someone to lead a country, who has the ability to commit the country to a war costing a trillion dollars and killing hundreds of thousands of persons - the political campaign is treated with no more seriousness than a TV reality show.

My argument is thus: if we can use such critical limits to speech in the trial of a single person where the outcome may simply be inconvenient, should we not use at least as critical limits to speech in a political campaign where the outcome could be giving the elected the power to tyrannize millions or even destroy the world. Here are some simple principles I believe should hold in political campaigns and elections:

1. Exodus 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
   Deuteronomy 5:20 Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.
   Penalties of libel and slander should be most extreme, and arguable in court.
2. A campaign platform should be a legal contract. If an elected official later deviates sufficiently from that contract then the harshest penalties of 'breach of trust' or even 'treason' should apply.
3. Opinion must be separated from fact. "In my opinion gay people should not have the right or privilege of marriage" is very different from "The vast majority of people are against gay marriage." The former statement gets a pass, while the latter should be prosecutable as it is unsupportable and clearly deceptive. In particular the statement "God hates homosexuals" should be prosecuted on several levels (a) hearsay - no-one can speak for God, (b) hate - appealing to hate or inciting hate is clearly a crime in most modern countries, (c) defamation - it makes God sound like an awful person an sullies his/her reputation.

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.
- Frank Herbert

The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.
- Paul-Muad'dib to the Guild navigators, at his confrontation with the Emperor Shaddam IV.

While I have enjoyed many of Frank Herbert's novels, I must admit Dune is my favorite. There are so many quotable phrases in Dune and the sequels that Herbert challenges the insight and wit of such authors as Robert A. Heinlein.

One of the plot elements I found most compelling was the plan by Paul Atreides, or Paul-Maud'dib, to destroy all the spice "Melange" on the planet Arrakis. Basically this would cause the complete collapse of the galactic empire by making it impossible to travel between world faster than the speed of light. Certainly only an act of desperation or profound ideology could compel someone to do such a thing, but having the capability of actually carrying out such an action makes for a very good bargaining point in a negotiation or confrontation.

As we are a week away from August 2, 2011, when the debt ceiling on the United States government expires, I cannot help but draw parallels to Dune. I cannot help but wonder if one or more persons in the republican party, or right wing establishment is intimately familiar with Herbert's insights exemplified in Dune. At stake is the US and possibly the world economy, and the right is using this threat to destroy it in order to gain control of it, and much more...

They seem to have reached a point where the right is not willing to accept any compromise with the left, or even the center for that matter. In fact, judging by the claims of many on the right they in fact want to see a collapse of the economy. So what is their reasoning, how can this make sense?

Over the last few decades the wealthy have become dramatically more wealthy than the middle class and poor. It can be argued that they are so wealthy in fact that they would not be seriously inconvenienced by the collapse of the world economy. After such a catastrophe they would basically be in a position to renegotiate society itself on their terms, as the majority of people would then be so desperate to settle for any meager claim to survival they could - even to relinquish democracy and freedom itself.

For some it may seem inconceivable that any such despicable conspiracy could be true, but crisis profiteering and shock doctrine are very conceivable. It is not hard to postulate that this is indeed the primary goal of the right, to abolish democracy for the simple fact that in a democracy the majority rules, and that is too big a liability to a minority of wealthy and powerful.

If the right succeeds in abolishing democracy in the United States and elsewhere, what would this brave new world look like? I suspect it would look like many of the dystopian novels I have read over the years, but mostly I think it would turn out like Rollerball by William Harrison.

On the surface it seems as though the right has a winning strategy - they win if the left capitulates to all their demands and they still win if the world economy tanks. In effect it would seem that the right has Barack Obama in a check-mate situation. The problem is that the president may just decide to stop playing chess (my metaphor for politics) and just man up and use the 14th amendment to the constitution "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." to force the treasury to do the right thing in spite of congress. If he really had some balls he would also declare the republican party an enemy of the state and have the justice department prosecute accordingly.

Competition

. . .

In the long term, however, we need to address a set of economic challenges that, frankly, the housing bubble largely papered over for almost a decade. We now live in a world that’s more connected and more competitive than ever before. When each of you tries to bring new jobs and industries to your state, you’re not just competing with each other, but you’re competing with China, you’re competing with India, you’re competing with Brazil, you’re competing with countries all around the world.

. . .

But even as we preserve the freedom and diversity that is at the heart of federalism, let’s remember that we are one nation. We are one people. Our economy is national. Our fates are intertwined. Today, we’re not competing with each other; we’re competing with other countries that are hungry to win new jobs, hungry to win new industries.

Barack Obama - Feb. 28, 2011: Address at National Governors Association Meeting

I for one think Barack Obama is a pretty smart guy - I think he really understands what's going on. So why in this speech did he twice have to say "we're not in competition with each other"?

There is a competition going on in American that not everyone understands yet. If not an all out war, then a very serious game, with dire consequences to winners and losers.

Years ago I used to have friends over on a Saturday or Sunday, and we would play a game all day long. These were games like Risk, Diplomacy, Supremacy, Comic Encounter, Monopoly, etc. The point was these were all strategy games and typically the goal of the game was total domination of your competition. One thing that was very true about all these games was that at some point or another someone, or someones would make their move, they would move from the background of everyone else playing the game and overtly be trying to dominate the game. Everyone else could see it too, because the rest of us would all band together to fight the one becoming dominant, alliances would dramatically reform, tactics would all change, but by then it was usually too late because people would not become overtly dominant unless they knew they had the win, and experiences showed this to usually be true. Few games ever ended in a stale-mate.

If you live in the world of mainstream media you would never be aware of what is going on because all you would see is games like Jeopardy, Survivor, The Price is Right, and other equally inane games of novelty. In truth I mean the mainstream news media like 60 Minutes, and Anderson 360, CNN, and all that other fluffy stuff that pretends to be serious or have some analysis. Or you might prefer Faux News if what you really just need is someone to tell you what to believe. However, if you spend any time watching PBS shows like Frontline, or networks like MSNBC, you might actually be exposed to some analysis and critical thinking.

There is a very serious game going on now, and most people just think it is politics - but they would be wrong. Politics is just a setting for the game, and not the real game. Nor is politics the only setting for the game, as there are other settings such as religion, ideology, commerce, class (or caste), etc. What are the stakes? Well, basically democracy and human rights.

If we look at some of the recent plays in the game we could look at Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's recent attempt to strip public employee unions of their bargaining rights, it is not hard to see that his original claims that there was a budget crisis in the state are patently false. First of all, he manufactured the crisis by giving enormous tax breaks to businesses thus creating a revenue shortfall for the state. Then, even when the public employee unions agreed to all his conditions, except losing bargaining rights, he outrightly refused to accept or negotiate. Finally, in prank phone call he basically admitted to the truth of the situation. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was probably the first person to articulate the real story, and has been able to analyse many similar stories.

So what is really happening? In her book the Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein offers a revealing insight into one strategy of the game. Basically the strategy is to identify or create a crisis, and then use that crisis to promote otherwise unpopular policies as being necessary to resolve the crisis. On the surface this strategy is usually identified as "negative campaigning" or outright "fear mongering," but the strategy goes much deeper than that. To put is simply, if you throw a stick of dynamite into a lake you create a crisis for the fish - you may not kill them, but you can easily harvest them while they are stunned.

So what is overtly happening to show someone is trying to win domination? If you look at right wing politics it is not hard to see that things have been cranked up a notch. The "vitriolic" dialog, mostly from the right, has been so obvious as to gain national attention, especially in light of Gabrielle Giffords' recent tragedy. But there are two distinct aspect to the right wing movement - one is commerce and the other is religion.

In terms of commerce, the amount of money spent by corporate interests in lobbying politicians seems to be growing unbounded, and 80% or more of that funding is for right wing politics. The recent decision by the US Supreme Court to relax restrictions on contributions by corporations to political campaigns shows how effective this lobbying is (and perhaps how effective inside deals are). Basically the Supreme Court was lobbied into making it easier for lobbyists to lobby, and for commerce interests to invest even great sums of money into political campaigns.

In terms of religion, the amount of new legislation that is being passed, or attempted to being passed, on religious ideology, but dressed up as job creating or cost cutting - well, it's quite impressive. Really, why does budget relieve legislation need amendments to restrict abortions or gay marriage?

Why are these two aspects of society so closely tied? Well on the one hand you have commercial interests, where the small minority of ultra rich increasingly need to "sell" unpopular policy to that majority people. On the other hand, you have the religious zealots who have thousands of years of experience of selling complete fabrications of truth to the masses. And the religious extremists need someone with power and influence to sell their unpopular ideas. Anyone with an IQ over 70 should be able to see that line of reasoning.

I will take a brief aside to say, that religion and faith (or spirituality) are not the same, and I do not want to debate faith or spirituality. I merely want to make it clear that "religion" is a tool of both the faithful and the corrupt. Religion is an especially useful tool for the corrupt because they hide their corruption under a cloak of morality.

So, back to what Obama has figured out. What is the game? Simply this...

We live in a finite world, with finite resources, and an unchecked expansion of population. Those right wing think tanks don't get paid to sit around all day and debate political philosophy. They are talented and skilled mathematicians, economists, lawyers, etc. - and they are paid to explain the truth and reality of the world to their employers, and how their employers can best exploit that truth and reality.

Obama (et al) can clearly see that the right has shown their strategy of dominance via their tactics and logistics. He knows that the right has turned inward to undermine democracy. The purpose of Scott Walkers budget relief bill was not to save the state money, but to crush the unions, who are basically the Democrats' main source of campaign funding. The Republicans know they can no longer rule by reason, they can only rule by undermining the ability for their main competition (the majority of voters) to compete on democratic grounds.

Basically Obama's message was to the right - it simply means "let us not turn upon ourselves and compete rich vs middle class and poor, but let us be competitive in the world arena."

Unfortunately this message is really on deaf ears, because the ultra rich in the US have already decided they cannot compete on the world stage, and the only place left to steal resources from is the middle class and the poor in their own country.

Maybe one of the reasons I can see the game so clearly is that I have played it many times before, and it really does not seem complicated or strange. Many times I have won the game too, and all I can say is that when you are playing a game, there is nothing at all that is too unethical, or too immoral, because after all, it is just a game.

Political Premature Ejaculation

Tigger Happy

Scott Walker played his cards on the table and it was obvious he had a really bad hard-on for crushing the democrats. I think his sexual frustration really laid it in totally fucking them as they obviously have been haunting his soul for years. I don't really know if it was the millions of dollar that David Koch was promising Walker, or if he was just getting off on being the next Ronald Regan, who really knows?

I really don't know where this rightest blood lust is going these days, but it is pretty scary.

There seems to be an all out war against the classes in the US these days. Maybe it is just that total capitalism only works when there are no limits on growth, and all the right wing think tanks have realized there are limits. I guess they finally figured out that the only thing left to prey on now is the lower classes. After all - it is pretty clear that the US cannot compete on the global stage anymore with China and India taking the stage.

Just don't forget all those right wing think-tanks are not filled with stupid people. They are elite thinkers paid to analyze the truth. It is just a truth that the right wing is not sharing with everyone.