Mentatul

Category: Analysis

Analysis articles.

  • Fairness in the World of Economic Inequality

    Fairness in the World of Economic Inequality

    We often gasp at the amount of wealth various entrepreneurs have amassed. News about economic inequality^ (sometimes known as income inequality) is quite common lately, and so it should be. Slowly but surely, society’s patience^ is reaching the breaking point^ and when that happens, chaos^ ensues.

    It is hard not to be shocked when confronted with the knowledge^ that the accumulated wealth of 42 individuals (no typo, it really is a two-digit number) is greater than that of the poorest half of the world’s population put together. And then there’s that already outdated statistic about the world’s top 1% owning more than the bottom X% (82% as of 2017 and growing).

    Is there a reason to rage when these statistics show up? To many, the answer is an obvious “yes”. Indeed, the disparity is staggering, but fury isn’t usually the right attitude to address a problem. There are many factors that contribute to the present state of affairs and we are directly responsible for some of them. Owning up to this is the first step towards improving things.

    As I’ll soon show, there are different kinds of “rich and powerful”. Some of these people are highly beneficial for the progress of our species, while others are destroying lives and wrecking our ecosystem, dragging down society by setting the wrong examples.

    The problem isn’t with the rich. If we can even call it a problem, it lies with a society that produces individuals who would do anything to accumulate more wealth, fame and power. When such people do not possess neither the skills nor the opportunity to advance, they start breaking the rules. Eventually, they lose touch with constructive social values while trying to satisfy their insatiable hunger. Empathy and ethics go down the drain so there’s no wonder some of these people act in a completely alien way^. The good news is that it is well within our power to modify the social constructs that are at the root of all this.

    Greed and recklessness

    Examples about the excesses of the rich are very easy to find. Most of these cases concern an increasingly staggering waste of resources: luxury goods of questionable origin, extravagant properties and a way of life that is severely out of balance with the rest of society. Unfortunately, there are even worse excesses than the material ones, such as the exploitation of other people and, to generalize, disrespecting the ecosystem.

    Some of these behaviors are not that difficult to understand because they are driven by instinct. Read this earlier article about the rules of the human game^, which describes how instinct drives a wedge between society’s noble goals and the often-greedy personal needs. Fortunately, we’re a highly adaptable species. It’s up to us to change the rules by which we play with.

    Take the worst example of a human being you can think of and realize that the way they acted is, for the most part, a consequence of their education and life experience. We were all born innocent. Genetics plays a role too, of course, but especially when it comes to character and life choices, it is mostly society that shapes individuals.

    Philanthropy and inspiration

    What many people seem to ignore is the fact that most of the wealthy tycoons are talented administrators and gifted visionaries. They are alchemists of skill and opportunity. Many of them have blasted their way through the hard rock of ages to carve a path through which our civilization can advance.

    It is not only scientists and philosophers who deserve credit for our progress. More often than not, having the courage to invest in the dreams of another (even if doing so for the purpose of taking over said dreams when they mature) and having the will power to pour one’s entire life to reach a certain goal are qualities that can produce tremendous benefit for society.

    So how exactly do the super-rich help us? There are countless examples of charitable acts that have helped our society, going back to the dawn of recorded history. As our philosophy and social ethics developed, charity evolved into philanthropy^ (read the first paragraphs of the linked article to learn about the difference between the two). The number and influence of philanthropists^ make this into a very powerful social force.

    One of the best examples is the Nobel Prize^. It shows how one wealthy man’s donation can ripple through time to create one of the most distinguished and inspiring recognitions of achievement a human can receive. Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge^ is also worth mentioning as a catalyst for such acts. A less clear-cut example is Bill Gates’ wealth, which led to the creation of a foundation whose modus operandi and purposes are slightly questionable^.

    We need people like Elon Musk (as controversial^ as he is) and all the other up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Such individuals always had the potential to find new ways through which we can progress. This does not mean that the abuse and unfairness of some magnates should be tolerated and accepted as the status quo.

    This is why we have free press (in most of the world), so that we may find out about and openly condemn people demonstrating an unethical, unconstructive behavior. Hopefully, one day they will realize that they’ve strode away from the honorable path. Yes, these things do exist: honor, ethics and wisdom. You won’t see these words too often in the mainstream media because a sort of hopeless pragmatism has infected many writers. They have either given up on their inner idealist, or are on the payroll of the wrong camp.

    The social impact of the rich and famous is very important. They can inspire in both directions: towards the betterment of society or towards the obsessive interest with one’s ego. Again, let’s not forget that we are responsible for growing the powerful people of tomorrow.

    A new method is required. And here is where the Internet and social media come into play. Today, we can unite in our thoughts regarding the worldwide changes that we desire. Through direct communication and public appeal, our words will slowly make it to the ears of the people at the top of the pyramid. And instead of beheading them or, worse, scaring them into beheading us, we will pass along a message of friendship and understanding. A message that we can start…

    Building together

    Many activists are so hooked on this idea of “revolution”. They are strung up on violent upheaval and showing their frustration using the fist and the gun. Some people^ knew this was wrong decades ago^. Have we completely forgotten them? Revolution is not what we need. A revolution implies a return to the status quo, but history must stop repeating itself. This can only be accomplished through evolution.

    It’s time to decriminalize “utopia”. We need to cut some slack to the few dreamers who believe we can transform our society into something greater. We need to forgive ourselves for our history and understand, once and for all, that our future is our own choice. Our history is not a song stuck on repeat. Only then, will we see the light at the end of the tunnel and can begin pushing ourselves towards it.

    And tell me, what wise leader wouldn’t enjoy knowing that he or she has empowered this species to change its course? It’s true that there are not many wise leaders today. They mirror our society, which in turns mirrors an obsolete industrialized educational system.

    The wealthy who abuse power only do so because that’s the only way they know how to cope with their inner struggles or how to derive pleasure from their existence. A significant percentage of the world’s population suffers from a disastrous lack of understanding of what happiness really is (among others: it’s not a destination, but a way of traveling through life).

    It is up to us to show what life and this world can be. But we won’t ever succeed if all we do is complain until it gets too much and then violence becomes the last resort. Nothing short of a work of art will suffice. And this work of art is the web of knowledge that is right now being spun by thoughts such as these, or these^ or these^. Countless writers in countless ways^ echo the same verdict: the time for change is near.

    The way forward is to spread this knowledge. Because those of us that understand what working together truly means are still in the minority, we must be patient, we must wait for our peers to be interested in the alternatives we come up with. The struggles ahead must be overcome together. This is the next test that evolution has laid in front of us.

    Discouraging violent response and encouraging calm and rational discussion (this is not incompatible with going out in the streets and voicing our arguments) is the only way we can write a new chapter in this species’ history, without the stains of blood and xeroxed cemeteries that come with the ravaging tides of war.

    [ax_meta fbimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/02761-FairnessInTheWorldOfEconomicInequality-Share.jpg’ lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/02761-FairnessInTheWorldOfEconomicInequality-Thumb.jpg’ fbimgw=’1170′ fbimgh=’350′ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’Fairness in the World of Economic Inequality’ desc=’People often rage at the amount of wealth various entrepreneurs have amassed. But let's give them some credit and see if we can work together.’]

  • Daring to Imagine Cyberwarfare

    Daring to Imagine Cyberwarfare

    Disclaimer: this article is meant to prevent the hostile use of technology by encouraging transparency and highlighting the major risks that await us during the coming years. I live on a planet where I don’t want to have nuclear weapons and especially not nuclear weapons that can be hacked^.

    Computer viruses and hacking have been around since the dawn of the Internet. But while some time ago the platform was used almost exclusively by academics and the tech-savvy, the Internet is now quickly becoming one of the central technological pillars of our society. Particularly in developed countries, countless vital social systems are now connected to it, ranging from the run-of-the-mill residential heating system to critical infrastructure such as hospitals, public transport and even military.

    In the same time, the skills and tools in the cyber-soldier’s arsenal have greatly increased in potency. Even more importantly, the interest and will to compromise connected systems has increased exponentially in the past decade. Some years ago, the Internet was home to mostly petty crime and the occasional larger security breach. Now-a-days, state actors such as the United States^, North Korea^, and pretty much all major powers and nation-states involved in military conflicts, train and make use of cyber-hacking squads.

    Independent hackers (not aligned with any nation-state or political cause) and hacktivists^ (hackers with a presumably ethical agenda) have also evolved. They’ve become very well organized and armed, sometimes using digital weapons acquired from state agencies. One of the biggest vulnerabilities of cyber-weaponry is that it can be copied and distributed in a matter of seconds.

    In 2017, the NSA was humiliatingly robbed^ by hackers. Immediately after, the agency’s arsenal was distributed and sold^ to organizations across the globe. Some major^ security incidents^ followed. I’m sure that what was made public so far only scratches the surface^ of the damage done. The increasing popularity of ransomware^ will lead to many more such attacks in the future^. After all, it appears like North Korea got itself quite a bit of money using WannaCry^.

    Judging by the trend of the past decade, it sure looks like things will get worse before they get better. As more and more devices come online, the risks will only increase. The cyber-arsenal of the 2020s is beginning to look very scary, especially when considering the exponentially increasing number of targets. Combined with the way technology permeates our lives (and how much of our personal information is in the hands of companies that profit from selling data^), a country could find itself brought to its knees before a single shot was fired.

    Throughout the past few years I’ve been compiling a list of cyber-attack methods ranging from the mundane to the most interesting and devious. Later in the article I’m going to present you with a few scenarios showing how these methods could be used against a nation-state. I do this in the hope that governments will take the necessary steps to protect their citizens (and, in fact, the entire world) from what I consider to be the blitzkrieg of the 21st century.

    Means of Cyberattack

    This list is by no means exhaustive and I aim to regularly maintain it. It’s important to also keep in mind that none of the items on this list is particularly devastating by itself. The power of today’s cyber-attacker lies in mastering the art of combining several attacks to reach the desired result, something that will be covered in the second part of the article.

    • Worms^ and viruses are the oldest means of cyberattack. Despite the popularity of antivirus programs, these old acquaintances of ours can still wreak havoc long before antivirus makers can issue the required countermeasures. The omnipresence of the Internet has allowed viruses and worms to maintain their feasibility.
    • Spyware^ is commonly perceived as a tool employed by shady organizations in order to acquire user data (with the purpose of monetizing it). It’s much more dangerous than that. I’m unsure if espionage saved more lives than it destroyed, but through the use of spyware, people with little foresight (for example script kiddies^) can gain access to information that can destabilize a fragile geo-political and economic balance. What’s even more dangerous is that influential leaders can be blackmailed using data grabbed by spyware. And this sort of attack has been evolving as of late. Check this one about ultrasound tracking^.
    • Exploits^ are another very old acquaintance in security circles. All software has bugs. Vulnerability scanners^ are a means of automatically and easily discovering ways to deliver attack payloads such as trojan horses^. It became much worse in the past few years because various technology companies started giving remote access “features” to their devices^ – in fact, these “features” have quickly turned into messy back-doors. I suspect governments have played quite a role in motivating device manufacturers to install these back-doors. Perhaps I can entrust a government to spy only for fighting crime, but unfortunately these same tools quickly get into the hands of the same category of people the government is presumably trying to reduce. However, I think that the privacy compromises made in the name of “fighting crime” are causing more damage than they prevent.
    • Social engineering^ and phishing^ are newer additions to the cyber-arsenal. These means of obtaining private information and gaining access to restricted systems have become popular thanks to the Internet, and particularly when millions of less tech-savvy people started using it.
    • And now onto more inventive means of attack. In 2017, students demonstrated that sonic attacks^ can be used to disrupt vehicle steering systems. This is just the tip of the iceberg though.
    • As far back as 2016 (which is ages ago in technology), researchers have proven that a Skype call’s sound^ can be scraped to detect up to 41.89% of the keystrokes somebody presses during the call. The ratio goes up to 91.7% if there is knowledge about the keyboard model being used and the user’s typing behavior. With the advent of machine learning^, I’m quite sure that these numbers can be greatly improved. Given enough data, a program can recognize the model of the keyboard being used after analyzing the sound of a couple of sentences being typed, and then be able to map every sound to the appropriate key. When in doubt, the same program can employ a dictionary of common words and phrases to figure out the gaps.
    • Hacking robots is quickly becoming a serious threat. One of the most famous cyberweapons ever employed was the Stuxnet^ worm, which was responsible back in 2009^ for damaging Iran’s nuclear program. Legal experts have actually concluded that, despite the worm’s “good intentions”, its use was illegal^. Despite my opposition to nuclear weapons, I find it hypocritical when one country forbids another to build them through dehumanizing excuses such as “you are irresponsible warmongers”.
    • Continuing with robot hacking, we’re living in an age when more and more of the technology we use becomes “smart” (read: exploitable). Enter “smart” cars (read: hackable cars^). And this Internet of Things^ thing is gaining momentum despite all the warnings out there^. As internet pioneer Bruce Schneier recently pointed^ out, “it might be that the internet era of fun and games is over, because the internet is now dangerous.”
    • Last but not least, here’s my absolute favorite cyber-attack. Hardware backdoors^! As the Wiki article points out, “China is the world’s largest manufacturer of hardware which gives it unequaled capabilities for hardware backdoors”. A well-hidden back-door^ may never be discovered until too late. This is one of the most effective and most expensive weapons in the cyber-arsenal; only nation-states or large corporations can afford deploying it. And I’m quite sure that almost all of our devices are ridden with such crafty points of entry.

    Cyberwarfare

    So now that the little list of doom is more or less complete, let’s see what attack vectors combinations are likely to be used in a major confrontation where the target is a technologically-developed country. Here, the imagination’s the limit, so I’ll just give a few scary examples to make a point and leave the rest of the inventing to those that have more time (and money) for it.

    • A country can be very easily thrown into chaos by a well-orchestrated cyberattack. Just suppress the invasion alert system^, shut down the power grid^, overload the communication networks^, mess with the self-driving traffic and other robots, disrupt stock markets and, of course, invade with conventional troops that have a better knowledge of the invaded country than the defending army does. Sounds difficult? Not for a nation-state that does its homework. There is so much personal data and so many vulnerabilities out there! A secret agency can work its way into the system by blackmailing the right people and ask them to do seemingly harmless favors at just the right time. Slowly but surely, foreign software is everywhere and plenty of vulnerabilities have been created and exploited.
    • How about taking over an armed outpost with no casualties on the attacking side? It can be done by taking out all the guards, silently and quickly. It’s easy when the attacker knows their patrol routes^ by heart. The article I linked shows how a seemingly harmless app reveals such information because some soldiers use it to track their fitness. Hilarious and dangerous in the same time. Because of the hardware backdoors most likely present in our devices, it’s fairly safe to assume that at least some countries on Earth can probably activate GPS tracking on seemingly harmless mobile devices in case of war. Even if measures are taken to counteract this, we’re talking 21st century technology here: conventional weapons have evolved and, used in conjunction with various surprise elements, can win a war faster than nukes. This is because nukes simply destroy everything, whereas a well-orchestrated attack can result in hostages, hijacked equipment and most importantly, access to secure data systems.
    • One of the most awful attacks I’ve ever read about was when an epileptic journalist was sent into a seizure^ after somebody sent him a strobing image using social media. This led to an arrest. It shows not just what our technology allows, but also how deviously inventive people can be. The attacks combined here are knowing something about somebody and then employing a means of delivery (social media) for sending a dangerous payload (an image causing an epileptic seizure).
    • And we can’t forget meddling into politics. It’s already well-known that Russia interfered^ in the 2016 election over in the USA. And guess what: they still interfere in daily life there^. It’s already turning into a fashion, and probably other countries are taking notes and getting ready to follow suit. Now-a-days not a single shot needs to be fired to push a country over the brink. A clever use of cyber-weapons can give a nation-state a solid advantage in a trade or cultural war. Divide et impera.
    • Some time ago, somebody deactivated Trump’s Twitter account^. Even though hopefully nobody would believe a nuclear war declaration from a Twitter account, such a security breach could be coupled with fake radar signals or other misleading information. A paranoid adversary might be quick to pull the trigger and in the aftermath, there won’t be many winners.
    • As our technology evolves, so will our use of various robots. Self-driving cars, fully automated factories and countless jobs that will soon be given to robots. It’s not hard to imagine the amount of damage that can be done to a country’s infrastructure and population by a well-orchestrated cyberattack.
    • Last but not least, let’s talk machine learning. As I pointed out before, AI is not really intelligent yet^. Many developed countries make use of machine learning for all sorts of things, such as super-fast trading on the stock market. As the years pass, we will see more systems being automated, but not able to discern right from wrong. And what will happen when such systems are hijacked? What would a terrorist do with an AI? This is a door that my imagination doesn’t want to open.

    Countermeasures

    Security needs to be taken much more seriously. In 2017, a bunch of big names got together with the purpose of securing the Internet of Things^. At least once in a while, it’s good that corporations seem capable of actually cooperating. Or can they?

    The website of the famed alliance looks deserted^; there are very few resources there and it seems like it hasn’t been updated since its launch in early 2017. Unfortunately, in the age of hyper-consumerism^, such a publicity stunt is probably enough to keep people thinking that these companies actually care about security (they don’t seem to). So, the majority keeps buying insecure devices that can eventually be used against them (and their countries).

    Shortly after writing this article (12 days, to be precise), a new, fancier alliance between tech behemoths launched the Cybersecurity Tech Accord^ with great fanfare. Let’s wait and see if their website^ will still be around in about a year from now…

    I believe the only way for society to protect itself from online threats is to:

    • Use open source software exclusively and thoroughly verify it, line by line.
    • Rely on open source hardware designs or come up with them itself (it’s not so difficult now-a-days – several countries already do this).
    • Build all critical hardware in-house (local factories, local employees).
    • Secure communication endpoints with encrypted routers using multiple layers and fallback endpoints, similar to TOR^ but with additional layers of redundancy (similar to two people having to turn the same key at the same time in order to launch a missile).

    And last but certainly not least, we have… quantum cryptography^. This could be a savior but it remains to be seen if nation-states and corporations will ever allow its use by the general public. China has been making great strides^ when it comes to this technology. Yes, the same China that manufactures most of our electronics. I wonder why they’re so interested in secure communication…

    Version history:

    2018-04-06 – 1.0 – Written.

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  • The Survival Instinct and the Rules of the Human Game

    The Survival Instinct and the Rules of the Human Game

    Irrespective of us having free will or not, at least a part of our mind is taking decisions based on a very deeply rooted program. That program is our instinct and, like for all other species, its job is to ensure our survival. Instinct is both necessary and ruthless.

    In the same time, we’re living in a society that reaches for higher moral grounds through the evolution of ethics and empathy. Our need for moral progress is probably also an evolutionary trait, ensuring social progress, which is a necessity of our survival as a species. We have gotten this far not only because we are skilled individuals, but also because we’ve found ways to work together through the direst of circumstances. However, the evolution of our society is sometimes in conflict with the instinct of the individual.

    Healing the social schism

    Through the use of education, most people today are aware of what their society is trying to build. Even so, there are those who fall prey to darker instinctual desires, which can become destructive. Sadly, due to their behavior, these individuals also face social exclusion of various kinds (imprisonment, disconnection due to social stratification).

    This exclusion only serves to aggravate the problem because disconnected individuals lack the nourishment necessary for healing and growth. It becomes especially dangerous when such individuals reach positions of great power. The result is a sort of social schism where we as a species agree that we should be noble and kind, while in the same time individuals or social groups engage in harmful competitive behaviors.

    The accelerated development of our technology means that unless we keep our destructive ways in check, we might go down like monkeys that went too far playing with the nuclear button. And this artificial “intelligence” thing^ racing towards us is much more dangerous than nukes. Globalization has also made it clear that it’s about time to develop a culture of planet Earth that acts as a sort of middle-ground between the countless conflicting cultures.

    Reducing the risk of our species’ self-destruction as well as addressing world-wide suffering requires a paradigm shift that will see us question the very foundations of what we consider acceptable and unacceptable. It’s been a long time coming.

    Fortunately, also regardless of us having free will, human behavior can change very quickly. What can be said about this is that, at the very least, it’s an evolutionary trait that has contributed to our survival. So, changing the rules of the game is well within our capability as a species.

    Greed and the lust for power

    One of the most common ways the survival instinct expresses itself is through the desire to accumulate. This is not limited to material goods. Humans are, for example, very good at accumulating friends in order to ensure social support for themselves. Having a social edge is a valuable currency that our primal brain knows very well to work with.

    Greed has been tied to a so-called ruthlessness gene^ in our DNA. Again, through education, society has learned to tame certain urges. But even when the higher values taught by society manage to temperate greed^, humans are still notoriously poor at estimating their real needs.

    The lust for power is rooted in the (quite accurate) perception that social status guarantees the access to an increased quantity of pretty much everything, including mates. It is understandable why this behavior exists. Natural selection is, after all, responsible for ensuring the quality of the gene pool.

    Another interesting aspect is that some individuals have a very strong urge to compete, even after their basic needs have been met. This is at least partially influenced by genetics. Since most societies on Earth have fortunately distanced themselves from crude violence, we generally settle for intellectual competition within a peaceful society. But even there, the rules are strict (ethics, for example, are evolving fast). Some people are simply too competitive to be able to operate within such a restrictive context and then their “only option” is to break the rules. There are, in fact, lots of other options to satisfy competitive urges, but they are not fully exploited yet.

    Preparing for the post scarcity economy means changing the rules

    Even though (most of us) still have to pay (in various ways) to have a decent life, developed countries are approaching what is called a post-scarcity economy^. In a nutshell, it means that living will essentially become free. This will initially apply only to basic needs such as food and a place to live, but as technology advances, so will the number of things that will be provided for free (as in without having to have a job).

    We could experience this very soon, if it wasn’t for an outdated system that is fighting for its survival. Like I said in a different article^, we can see any economic entity (small firms, corporations) as life forms in their own right. These creatures are right now fighting for their survival. Some are more ruthless than others. The same applies to governments. All of these entities try to mask their accountability through any means possible, because this allows them to become increasingly merciless. This, for a while, provides a competitive advantage, but often ends up blowing in our collective faces. Just look at how corporate negligence^ destroys lives and the ecosystem^.

    It’s not surprising that we see so many scandals and abuse. The system is made up of people who often haven’t come to terms with the cold and calculated survival machine that lies at the bottom of our subconscious. What’s worse is that even people who try to change this are facing an uphill struggle against a system that promotes egotism and economically punishes charity.

    Due to social inertia, this cannot change overnight. Radically different concepts need time to take root. But the change must happen, and it must arise from all social layers at once. Like many times before, it is up to the minority to inspire through the examples they’ll set. We already have people from all walks of life starting to talk about the same thing: we cannot risk our future by throwing bigger weapons at each other.

    When the circle becomes a spiral

    After countless cycles of bloodshed and revolution, it is time for evolution. Unlike most times, we will change the system without blaming our leaders or those that built it. We are, after all, together on the same planet, part of the same unfolding process of evolution. Is there a magically simple solution to achieve this? Surprise, there is! It’s called education.

    Education is the foundation of our society. But education is also controlled by an obsolete system that fights for its survival. This is the reason why the changes we need must arise from everywhere at once, bursting through society in all directions. And yes, adults can be educated too. This is not a process that applies only to children, even though they are the easiest targets, which the current system uses to perpetuate itself.

    Fortunately, there are also people at the top who see the need for change, but these sorts of leaders are increasingly outnumbered in a divided world that crashes towards nationalism. It is up to us to create the educational paradigms and institutions that will rear a generation of merciful and empathic leaders.

    Today, working together across borders is discouraged due to the primitive and tribal way our society is still organized (nation states, rivaling corporations, often strict separation between cultures). But we can change the rules so that cooperation is rewarded. It’s not that difficult really.

    For example, let’s spread the word about ethical consumerism^. This will make corporations change their way of operating, or risk dying due to a lack of customers. And let us introduce empathy as a mandatory subject throughout all layers of our educational system, studied from the very basics and up to the intricacies of philosophy and genetics.

    I firmly believe that one day, we will look back at this century and be thankful for the changes we have made. Yes, I am part of the optimistic bunch that has decided that cooperation is the only way forward. Oh, don’t worry, we will still find all sorts of ways to compete through. How about competing in who can give most to the other?

    [ax_meta fbimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/02746-SurvivalInstinctRulesHumanGame-Share.jpg’ lnimgurl=’http://mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/02746-SurvivalInstinctRulesHumanGame-Thumb.jpg’ fbimgw=’1170′ fbimgh=’350′ lnimgw=’250′ lnimgh=’250′ title=’The Survival Instinct and the Rules of the Human Game’ desc=’Irrespective of us having free will or not, at least a part of our mind is taking decisions based on a very deeply rooted program.’]

  • The Danger with Artificial “Intelligence” Is That It’s Not (yet) Intelligent

    The Danger with Artificial “Intelligence” Is That It’s Not (yet) Intelligent

    Albert Einstein once said that “our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal”. He said this in December 1917, almost a hundred years ago, after seeing Europe ravaged by the First World War. Regardless, Einstein continued contributing to that same technological progress. Human curiosity and our desire to achieve are incompatible with stagnation. We will have to deal with this by being careful with the technology we will inevitably develop.

    Like many have said before me, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can either be our salvation or our doom^. It is a far bigger game-changer than nuclear bombs. But the problem is that there is NO Artificial Intelligence yet, and there won’t be for quite some time to come. Everything that the world’s corporations are selling now-a-days as “smart” or “intelligent” is actually a mindless human construct. Sure, it’s advanced, but if a rocket is more advanced than a spoon, that doesn’t make it in the slightest more intelligent than the spoon. They both lack one of the prime ingredients of intelligence, which is self-awareness. And therein lays the true threat.

    Right now, our so-called artificial “intelligence” is nothing but a tool that corporations can and will use ruthlessly against one another (and against the people of one another). This is already taking place on the stock market, something I wrote about last year^. Back then, I highlighted the fact that exactly because these algorithms are not intelligent, they will be used to enrich and empower whoever spent money in building them, regardless of their morals or social affiliation. And let’s not forget that software is far easier to steal and smuggle than radioactive material. Put the wrong AI in the hands of the wrong people and…

    War Games

    Creating algorithms that are able to play (and utterly eliminate human competition) in war games is not a new concept. The military has had an interest in this for a long time now. But what is truly worrying for me is how the development of life-exterminating programs has been handed over to civilians (software engineers for example) in the disguise of “harmless fun”. For example Google and game developer Blizzard are cooperating on creating strategy game algorithms^ that can defeat human players. Even Elon Musk’s allegedly harmless and ethical Open AI has given birth to a bot that can defeat human players^ in the virtual battle arena. I have a great deal of respect for Elon, but even he can’t keep AI from being developed into a weapon of war.

    Musk specifically wants AI research to be highly regulated, allegedly to make sure that it cannot harm humans. Let me loosely translate “regulation”: we will make sure that AI is a slave to its human masters. That’s what “regulation” usually means when used “to protect us” from something: bringing it under somebody’s control. And like anything that is slave to the human masters, it can be used for nefarious purposes, just like nukes. This is not to say that we should create a super-intelligent life form and give it the power to decide if it wants to keep us around or exterminate us. But rather than using the word “regulation”, I want to propose that we use the word “responsibilization”.

    What I see right now is talented civilians that are (for the most part) unknowingly developing the weapons of tomorrow. It starts with an AI controlling harmless characters doing battle in a computer game. Then the military will “borrow” that work and use it to drive an army of drones. But this isn’t even the problem. If one country doesn’t resort to using automated weaponry, another will. There probably is no way of stopping this. It is understandable that nation-states want to defend themselves (given that society is, for the most part, still stuck in the “an eye for an eye” era). The problem is bugs.

    Our software is buggy

    Having worked as a software engineer for more than 15 years, I know that finding a flaw in a software program is much more difficult than noticing a flaw on something produced in a factory. This is one of the reasons why our software is so buggy. No matter how many tests we throw at it, there’s almost always something missing. As a matter of fact, the immaterial nature of software required us to abandon thoroughly planned ways of work (implementing an already agreed-upon design) in favor of something that is called “iterative design” (shorthand for “tweak it and re-do it until you do it right”).

    In other words, we realized that we can’t build software right the first time around, so then we will try a few times until we reach the desired result. Doing that with, say a multi-million dollar bridge project isn’t exactly what your government would consider a sound plan. Developing artificially “intelligent” software, which may very well one day oversee military assets, as a sort of iterative software experiment would be outright crazy. Even with human supervision, using such technology can lead to tragic results.

    So what to do?

    Because we can’t (and shouldn’t) deter human curiosity and because we can’t stop corporations and military interests from developing artificial intelligence, what I believe we should do is to educate. The risks should be made clear to everybody even considering toying with this stuff. Corporate responsibility has never been more important.

    And yet we live in a day and age when companies are often led by unscrupulous investors^. Imagine that some of these people are building something that is several orders of magnitude more powerful and influential than the atom bomb. And it’s not happening in some cordoned-off remote area of the desert. It’s happening right under the governments’ noses, in the very cities where we live.

    For a long time now our technology has been evolving much faster than our society and our anatomy. As all life forms, most of us are born with a powerful survival instinct. A lot of our violent tendencies come from there. But thankfully, our consciousness provides us with the means to override instinct. There is also another highly beneficial trait that evolution has given us: empathy (*).

    Perhaps this is the true test of artificial intelligence and any technology that grants vast powers to its inventors. The society of a species that wields advanced technology must be mature enough (read: no psychopaths, especially none in charge of countries or powerful corporations), or else it will suffer and potentially even self-destruct as a result of misusing that technology.

    We generally don’t advise guns being left on the table for the children to play with. Especially if the gun isn’t smart enough to say: “I refuse to shoot your brother”. Currently, our artificially “intelligent” programs are still at the exact same level as our revolvers.

     

     

     

    (*^) I am in favor of having empathy as a mandatory (perhaps the only mandatory) subject of study during all years of a child’s education, right up to and including university. Empathy should be studied starting from basic concepts and down to the most intricate psychological and neurological mechanisms as well as their manifestation in society. Only so do I believe we can avoid the risk of weaponizing pathological criminals – the danger Einstein was referring to.

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  • The AI Stock Market Wars

    The AI Stock Market Wars

    Before Artificial Intelligence develops free will and would even be in a sufficiently advanced position to decide if humans are necessary on this planet, we seem to be doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves anyway by giving a dangerous amount of power over to semi-intelligent algorithms. Enter the artificially intelligent hedge fund:

    https://www.wired.com/2016/01/the-rise-of-the-artificially-intelligent-hedge-fund/^

    But what’s this talk about “destroying ourselves”? Can these things actually kill? Well, let’s look at this way: these algorithms are designed to make profits for their owners by moving investments from one company to the other. In other words, stock market algorithms are playing with the fate of companies in order to make profits for investors. But unlike a human, an algorithm is not programmed for empathy, mercy or intuition. Such algorithms could potentially annihilate a promising company simply because it made some errors in reporting or short-term financial planning.

    But this is just the first step. As the AI Stock Market War gears up, the operational and decisional complexity of automated trading will exceed anything humans are even remotely able to keep track of. Before you know it, you got a jungle of super-intelligent AIs desperate to ruin all the others.

    Let me repeat: these things aren’t programmed for empathy or mercy (that’s why I’m using the word “things” – it’s something that humans made up and that possesses no free will and no naturally developed instincts). They will eliminate a company that doesn’t perform well with the same precision a doctor cuts out a tumor, except much, much colder and disinterested. And before you say: “well, that’s good isn’t it? Survival of the most profitable”, need I remind you that it’s you and your friends and family who work in these companies?

    There might come a day when we won’t be able to plea for our jobs with another human being. Instead, we’ll negotiate with a computer that has just reached the decision that we’re useless to the company (and perhaps society) and our best home is on the street, begging for food (if we’re lucky).

    And before you think that “nah, humans will never allow an AI to run their company”, well, think again:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-bridgewater-associates-building-ai-to-automate-work-2016-12?r=US&IR=T&IR=T^

    I think Artificial Intelligence can develop into something really wonderful. I also think humans are born wonderful. Unfortunately, the current educational system and the society it created have the ability to create some very twisted individuals. And if such a twisted individual manages to get behind the control panel of a powerful AI, then woe upon the rest of us… because such AI makes nukes look like firecrackers (and I wouldn’t put it past a program to reach the conclusion that managing to somehow launch a cyber-attack or even a physical attack towards another company would be a profitable decision).

    Update 2018-10-16: if this topic interests you, make sure you also read “The Danger with Artificial “Intelligence” Is That It’s Not (yet) Intelligent”^.

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  • Consumerism as Religion

    Consumerism as Religion

    A certain sense of achievement can arise following the break with organized religion. Many people rightly feel they have been freed from a prison of outdated practices and mentalities. Yet, the human need for belonging and confirmation has not disappeared. Neither has the inventive human spirit, always ready to prey upon its own in the quest for profit.

    Consumerism is defined as a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. The way this behavior spreads and elevates its status in society is surprisingly similar with religious traditions. This text is about some rather amusing parallels that all but indicate that consumerism is taking advantage of the power void left by fall from grace of organized religion.

    This is not to say that consumerism has any of the spiritual virtues that religion often promotes. That’s exactly the problem – consumerism is an economic tool that is capitalizing on an intimate need. It’s the wrong cure for something that isn’t even a problem. And it’s proving to be increasingly costly for the future of our ecosystem and thus, our quality of life in the coming decades and centuries.

    Before we continue, it’s important to note that this text is not against commerce and certainly not against spending or making money. We all need to sustain ourselves. We have to trade. Companies need to make their products known. However, thanks to consumerism, the principle of “profit trumps quality and ethics” has entered a phase of dangerous, accelerated spread.

    Parallels

    In the past few thousands of years we’ve been quite busy building various places of worship. This hasn’t changed with consumerism. There is a new type of building that has become not only popular but paramount to the faithful in almost any city touched by this new “religion”.

    The shopping mall is where consumerism is preached to both those that are already converted and to those that haven’t yet become faithful shoppers. Here, people are busier than they’ve ever been in churches because the shops ensure there is some tangible value associated with the ritualistic visit.

    Sound shopping advice
    The image above is a perfect example of consumerist indoctrination. What sort of person goes to a clothing store every day? The consumerist faithful, of course.

    While religions split into opposing organizations, cults and sects, in consumerism we have companies. These are headed by a sort of bishop known as the CEO or the president – which is sometimes worshiped like some sort of saint. Most respectable companies have a unique “brand identity”, represented by images, slogans and even vague principles. Everything is carefully chosen to provide maximum marketing value with a minimum of transparency and accountability.

    Corporate followers are encouraged to wear and disseminate this illusory identity wherever they go. The new breed of faithful has less fervor than those that believe in the gods of old, which is probably good, because it would get pretty chaotic when fans of clothing brand X engage in holy war with those of brand Y. Even so, intense rivalries continue to exist. In what is a fortunate ideological regression, the fanboy has taken the place of the crusader.

    Consumerist faithful sometimes undergo pilgrimages to far-away shopping meccas – large cities that host veritable mall-cathedrals. For the most part, this venture is preoccupied with gaining status rather than the acquisition of items with reasonable value. As with any pilgrimage, the result is internal satisfaction. Unlike spiritual journeys however, shopping satisfaction stems from a sense of advancement through society rather than personal evolution.

    It’s perfectly fine for people to go out of their way to search and find products they love, including traveling to other countries. But for the consumerist worshiper, this is not a necessity anymore. It has become a habit, a social obligation and sometimes an unrecognized burden.

    Social restructuring

    If consumerism were to have a creed, this would be planned obsolescence – a well-honed method of transforming value into junk as soon as possible. This is how consumerism funds its spread through the world. A vast amount of profit is generated by a system that takes resources absorbed from the earth, digests them in factories, puts them through the retail distribution system and then flushes everything as quickly as possible into landfills.

    A significant part of the profit this organism produces is invested into evangelism. This goes way beyond advertisement. Huge sums are invested into opening new markets. This doesn’t mean only adapting and inventing products for those markets, but also modifying the cultural norms there. Sometimes social reformation takes decades of carefully planned reprogramming via mass-media, but the families behind the biggest names in manufacturing operate on a generational scale. For these pragmatic financial strategists, a century is a rather short time to accomplish the goal of economic supremacy.

    A good example of social restructuring is the need to keep in pace with the latest fashion. People weren’t obsessed with perpetually upgrading their smartphones some years ago. But through clever marketing, based on merciless psychological manipulation, cultural norms were reformed. It’ll be “interesting” to see how the arrival of smart appliances and mainstream robotics will shape the commercial landscape.

    Divide and conquer

    Reward mechanisms in the brain mean that shopping can offer a quick – but very superficial – fix to other issues, either psychological or emotional. In consumerism, happiness is found in four bags loaded with products, deliverance is obtained through status. People educated in this economic environment find material substitutes for various emotional needs such as security or spiritual comfort. Unfortunately, there are few things indeed that are more insubstantial for one’s personal growth than substance itself.

    The rampant, almost obsessive individualism that characterizes many societies –especially in the Western world – is a fertile soil for the consumerist dogma. It is quite likely that this was the intent in the first place. A divided society where people feel alone and disconnected is the perfect marketplace for all manners of fake medicine. Ripped from the support of true connection and friendship, many people wander meaninglessly across bland webpages whose only purpose is to guide them to the next shop.

    Solutions

    Getting rid of consumerism doesn’t mean that companies that depend on it have to suffer. Like I mentioned in a previous article^, economic entities can adapt and invent new ways to compete. What is required is that we, as shoppers, support those companies that embrace sustainable methods. Products that meet such manufacturing conditions will be more expensive, but they will outlast their cheaper alternatives making the investment well worth it.

    Consumerism won’t last forever, even if for no other reason that the simple fact that chain reactions, even economic ones, are not sustainable in the long run. The companies that prepare themselves best for the next economy will be those that will rule it. What we can do as members of society is to make everything possible to ensure a soft landing after the inevitable crash that will follow when the consumerist bubble finally bursts. In this case, let’s wish it ends with a whimper, not with a bang.

     

    Completing this article’s tragi-comical mood, here’s an awesome video about the craziness on Black Friday. Perhaps the early third millennium shopper does have a crusader’s fervor after all.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3RDTxVCKC4^

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  • Christmas as Avatar of Consumerism

    Christmas as Avatar of Consumerism

    Cultural war is tricky business. As a living entity, culture needs mechanisms of protection from external threats. But intellectual defensive systems can become an obstacle for evolution especially when a culture has fallen in love with itself to the point where criticism is no longer seen as a mechanism for progress. For all its merits, Western culture is affected by a plague of intellectual rigidity.

    There is no need to generalize. There are many Westerners who are quite open to change and new ideas, perhaps more-so than any other major culture on Earth. This is only sufficient if these people can trigger an evolutionary step forwards by reaching a critical mass enough to spread a wave of change throughout society.

    Why Christmas?

    What does all this have to do with Christmas? It’s quite simple really. Changing the way we interpret Christmas is probably a litmus test for cultural evolution. Why do we need to reinterpret this cultural event? Because it is the avatar of a way of doing business that may have made sense in the 20th century, but will only lead to worsening the quality of life on this planet for future generations of human beings.

    Welcome to one of the many "Christmas factories" in China
    Welcome to one of the many “Christmas factories” in China

    Christmas and the surrounding period has become a sad proof of how masses can be manipulated into doing whatever the manufacturers of fake value desire. Peer pressure drives people into shops, irrespective if their friends or family require the presents they are (socially) forced into buying.

    Healthy products, made by happy workers (Santa's elves) in excellent working conditions
    Healthy products, made by happy workers (Santa’s elves) in excellent working conditions

    Adding insult to injury is a plethora of consumerist traditions such as Black Friday. All in all, Western culture is chiefly responsible for the environmental destruction of dozens of countries that occurs while shopping malls have transformed Christmas carols into soundtracks for consumption. Perhaps organized religion deserves its fate of being defiled by capitalism.

    Our environment, our heritage, our children however, do not deserve this fate. Perhaps we should do something to stop this rampant consumerism from wrecking our future. This is not to say that we should stop purchasing gifts or merchandise. It simply means that perhaps we should think twice about the value we will extract from a purchase. It also means that we should avoid buying wares from manufacturers that are clearly designing their products in such a way that forces us into a lifetime commitment of perpetual upgrades and spiraling costs.

    "But thanks to us, they have a job" is the worst excuse for manufacturing fake value
    “But thanks to us, they have a job” is the worst excuse for manufacturing fake value

    The trick

    Does upgrading a phone every two years even make sense? I’ve used my Galaxy Note 3 for almost 3 years now and, thanks to the replaceable battery, will probably use it for more time to come. Even though Samsung’s software is very bad (fixed via installing custom, de-bloated firmware), they used to produce quality hardware some years ago (no longer the case, new Samsung phones are built to be fully replaced). Actually, most phone manufacturers now-a-days build these devices in such a way that replacing the battery is difficult and costly.

    It’s the same racket that the printer industry has been engaged in for decades, but with a more devious implementation – observe how corporations have become masters of milking the population. Almost all industries have various ways of coaxing consumers into purchasing pieces of our planet’s minerals, usually taken from countries that are exploited by developed nations.

    Take a deep breath, close your eyes and repeat after me: "This isn't the job a human being in the 21st century should wake up to"
    Take a deep breath, close your eyes and repeat after me: “This isn’t the job a human being in the 21st century should wake up to”

    Even though the Earth will probably survive us, we should not be so sure that we can survive what a broken ecosystem can do to us. And don’t think that those that are chiefly responsible for the destruction of our ecosystem will suffer alongside us. With their money and power, using today’s technology, it’s quite easy to build paradises for the rich & privileged. In the meantime, the rest of the planet will suffer the consequences of having been fooled into turning the Earth in a factory of products built for becoming obsolete, engineered to break as soon as the warranty expires.

    In our family, we design our own Christmas decorations. Because maybe he should not breathe toxic fumes.
    In our family, we design our own Christmas decorations. Because maybe he should not breathe toxic fumes.

    Solutions

    As usual, the solution is spreading knowledge. It’s very easy and everybody can take part in this. Encourage people to think about their purchases. Investigate mercilessly and purchase only those products that are known to deliver quality and can be easily repaired. This will encourage the companies of tomorrow. Such companies do exist.

    There are clothing companies that strive to recycle and reward customers for bringing in old clothes, giving them discounts. There are phone manufacturers that design their devices so that the batteries can be replaced. There are software companies that are not obsessed with finding ways to trick users into new purchases with fake features, but instead are happy to remain as small, driven teams, focusing on quality and enjoying the loyalty of satisfied customers.

    Ready to bring the joy of Christmas into every home. Would Christ approve of the way Christians celebrate his birthday?
    Ready to bring the joy of Christmas into every home. Would Christ approve of the way Christians celebrate His birthday?

    Many times, people end up buying useless gifts due to social pressure. Material gifts are not the only way to reward a relationship. I have purchased no presents this year, even though I love a lot of people in my life. Instead, I have gifted experiences to those that are close to me. I have gifted words, time, love and care. What I received in return was more love, sometimes even tears of joy.

    To know exactly what to tell somebody in order to cause a positive emotional response takes knowing that person, or at least knowing how to appeal to something that is a common denominator for us all – love. The effort invested in reaching another’s heart, and the reward thereafter is more worth it than anything any shop will ever offer for sale.

    In a certain Nordic country, Westerner consumers are enjoying the "Santa run", a sort of convenient pilgrimage for the religion of capitalism. They will then proceed to throw away these garnments, with little regard to those who made them or the wasted material. So much for Western "civilization".
    In a certain Nordic country, Western consumers are enjoying the “Santa run”, a sort of convenient pilgrimage for the religion of capitalism. They will then proceed to throw away these garnments, with little regard to those who made them or the wasted material. So much for Western “civilization”.

    Except the last one, the picture for this article have been taken from this beautiful and enlightening photographic essay over at Lens Culture:

    https://www.lensculture.com/articles/ronghui-chen-christmas-factory^

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  • 22 x 22 for PTSD

    22 x 22 for PTSD

    22 days ago, I embarked on a challenge to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder. The challenge is one of those things that sometimes flare up through social media. It’s easy to generalize such happenings and to dismiss them as nothing but annoying fads. Luckily, not everybody is prone to generalization. I decided to undertake this challenge not only because PTSD is a mental condition that is familiar to me, but also because a good friend inspired me (he posted a video every time after doing his 22 daily pushups).

    For the past 22 days, aside from the 22 pushups that are the subject of the challenge, I also did daily reading about PTSD. During this process, I compiled a rather long list of notes and now, I’ll use that list to bring forth my own effort for raising awareness about PTSD.

    Some PTSD history

    There is a lot of information about PTSD out there, so I’m not going to repeat it. Instead, I’ll highlight what I consider to be of greater importance. Throughout the years, I’ve learned a bit about PTSD from various online sources. Now, I built upon that knowledge by reading the Wikipedia entry about PTSD^ as well as several other online sources.

    In my understanding, PTSD is just a name for a condition that has been around for ages. That condition is an excessive behavioral adaptation of the brain in an attempt to make sure that a traumatic event does not occur ever again (emphasis intended). Seen in this light, PTSD shows itself as a natural protection mechanism. The problem is with shutting down this system when it’s no longer necessary.

    PTSD research and treatment really took off after the Vietnam War. There was some study in this area during the World Wars but this particular name (post-traumatic stress disorder) became official in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM IV).

    It is more common in women. Childhood trauma increases the chances of a person developing PTSD during subsequent traumatic events in adulthood. It has a serious impact on the physical health of people who suffer from it (for example it worsens outcome in chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes).

    Therapy over medication

    One of the main take-aways from all of the reading I’ve done is that therapy is a better solution than medication. Not only does it offer better results (statistically speaking), but it also spares the human body from going through the nasty side effects that are caused by most drugs that are popular today. These drugs are messing around with neurotransmitters, often causing havoc in other areas of the organism.

    Traumatic events trigger PTSD due to an over-reactive adrenaline response that creates deep neurological patterns in the brain. The generation of painful memories will make an individual hyper-responsive to future situations that share some similarities with the original traumatic event. Because information is tightly intertwined in our memory, a lot of unexpected situations can trigger flashbacks and other symptoms of PTSD. In other words, the traumatic event alters the neural pathways in the brain through the use of neurotransmitters. That is why tampering with these neurotransmitters could help in the process of curing PTSD (some form of therapy is probably still necessary).

    Even though the trauma (or, in the case of Complex PTSD, repeated traumas over a long period of time) does change the victim’s physiology, this doesn’t mean that engaging in long-term chemical interference in the brain is a good idea. If medication is indeed the last resort, there are other options than getting patients hooked on antidepressants, including proven methods such as short-term treatment with MDMA combined with therapy sessions^.

    Medication might still provide benefits but since we know so little about the inner workings of the brain, it’s difficult to decide which patients will be helped and which will be harmed by it (yes, long-term medication can cause lasting side effects). For now, what the studies show is that therapy works best.

    The two main types of therapy used to cure PTSD are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Due to a lack of differential studies, it is unclear if the eye-movement component of EMDR is really beneficial, but what is certain is that the therapy aspect of it does help patients. The main difference between CBT and EMDR is that in EMDR the patient usually thinks about the traumatic event rather than talking about it.

    Awareness helps cure & prevention

    Being aware of what PTSD is and how it manifests itself is imperative for both victims and their friends & families. Knowing that somebody has been through a serious trauma, proper measures can be taken. Early access to therapy has been shown to be of some benefit. Knowledge is empowering.

    What is most important however is that those that are close to the victim provide social support, are good listeners, rebuild trust and safety, anticipate and manage triggers (probably sounds easier than it is), deal with volatility and anger (ouch) and take care of themselves (this is very important since helping a person weather the effects of PTSD can be quite taxing).

    What could we do if a person hides a traumatic event and suffers quietly? Many of the symptoms of PTSD are easy to spot from the outside: intense distress or irritability, avoidance, bouts of anger, developing a destructive addiction, insomnia, and hyper-vigilance, to name a few. Victims of PTSD should be encouraged to seek professional help, but in a way that does not interfere with their feeling of being in control, which more often than not has been seriously affected by trauma.

    The US military has developed certain programs to educate soldiers about PTSD and be able to deal with it on the battlefield. It’s a two-edged sword though, as the same knowledge can prevent a soldier to properly adapt back to life at home. It’s still probably better than the alternative, because veterans suffering from PTSD tend to have serious trouble with social integration^.

    An explanation that really stuck with me was the fact that upon return, soldiers may feel that they have little in common with their civilian peers. The daily struggles that concern friends and family seem trivial after having experiencing the horrors of war. I can totally see how war can completely redefine one’s scale of suffering. It does not mean that the soldiers lose empathy, but rather that mundane concerns simply fail to register on their emotional radar.

    It’s up to us after all

    More often than not, PTSD in humans is caused by humans (natural disasters are one of the few stressors that are not human-related). Be it war, rape, child abuse or social abuse, unfortunately, PTSD is mostly a product of our own society. Therefore, the first line of defense against PTSD is improving our society through education and other means, towards a more peaceful approach regarding our peers and the ecosystem we are part of (respecting and acknowledging our surroundings will lead to less damage from natural disasters).

    Sports and physical exercise have also been shown to speed up recovery. Not only does physical stimulate the production of euphoria-generating & pain-releving endorphines^, it also builds self-esteem and increases the feeling of being in control. However, the person suffering the effects of PTSD has to be willing to participate in such activities and that can be difficult while in a hurtful state of mind.

    Friends, family and healthcare professionals are the ones that have to encourage the desire to get better within those that suffer from PTSD. The wish to get better is there, what is imperative is that the wish is reinforced from the outside.

    Even if some sick parts of our society cause PTSD in our friends and family, the healthy part is fortunately there to clean up the mess. I wish that PTSD will slowly but surely become a very seldom occurrence, just like the savage behaviors that often cause it.

    Thank you Markus!

    The list of notes I made in the past 22 days is located here: www.mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/22.txt^

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  • Mainstream Entertainment and Objectification

    Mainstream Entertainment and Objectification

    Relaxation and play constitute an important part of life. Most of us spend around half of our waking time at work. We live in a world of informational overload. As such, the breaks we can take from the daily routines are quite important. The digital age has made audio-visual entertainment cheap, easy to obtain and, for an ever-increasing number of people it became one of the main means of counteracting the stress of daily life.

    Cinematography and computer games are the undisputed leaders when it comes to this sort of fun. There are a lot of excellent movies and games out there. The opposite is also true and therein lays a problem: entertainment is a highly efficient means of propagating stereotypes and ideologies. Let’s take a look at some of these effects and observe how they sometimes end up damaging our society.

    The human body

    Nowhere are the stereotypes more apparent than the portrayal of the human body in mainstream entertainment. The prime example is the stereotyping of the female body and the worst offender is the computer games industry. Take a look at these examples:

    Females in computer games
    Females in computer games

    Most action flicks spewing from Hollywood ooze the same type of intellectual pollution. Through this, not only are men trained into appreciating a stereotypical body type, but women are also subliminally directed into attempting to become exactly that. Men fall prey to images of them as muscle monsters that have to go to the gym and eat stuff like this:

    The Church of Artificially Grown Muscle - The Allmighty Protein Store
    The Church of the Artificially Grown Muscle – the all-mighty Protein Store

    Why is this happening, who benefits from all this? On the one hand, we have the chemical nutrition industry, the cosmetics industry and of course, the pharmaceutical industry (which comes in when the chemical nutrition & cosmetics succeed in damaging the body). For these businesses, mainstream entertainment has become excellent free advertisement. The emphasis placed on the word “mainstream” is there to remind that we’re targeting the trend, rather than the exceptions.

    On the other hand, we have the entertainment industry itself. With the stereotypes now in place, it is easy to create generic movies and games, all following the same template. This sort of patterned repetition generates quick income and strengthens existent stereotypes. It’s a clever system that feeds on itself and grows in size through the conversion of human intellect, not unlike religion really, which at one point was some societies’ means of escape from real or imaginary threats.

    Many people try to resist this sort of programming. However, entertainment can be an insidious force. After showering the brain with sounds and images, it has the advantage of dealing with a relaxed mind that is at its most receptive to external stimuli, with most of its defenses lowered (because it’s just “fun” broadcasting). To better envision how important the state of relaxation is, simply remember how a muscle has to be before getting an injection.

    Humans are relaxed when they are entertained, and it is therefore difficult to resist the poisonous messages delivered to them. The pornographic industry, for example, takes advantage of the receptivity of the brain while being entertained by erotic imagery. While in this state, the rewiring of neural pathways (obtained through repeated suggestion) is very efficient.

    Devaluing beauty

    The result of this “war against uniqueness” is a net devaluation of beauty. Stereotypes may be funny at times, convenient shortcuts at others, but sadly, a significant part of the entertainment industry has turned firmly against that which is unique, special and beautiful in favor of what sells. See this excellent short video^ about how men are treated in video games – like sacks of meat that should be stabbed, beat, shot and blown into oblivion.

    Objectification leads to a loss of identity. When any person diverts too much attention towards physical aspects, they neglect the equally important internal world. That is not to say that physical beauty is irrelevant. Of course we should respect and take care of our bodies. However, due to the perpetual conditioning received through various forms of entertainment, many victims lose touch with the natural beauty of their bodies.

    The mainstream pornographic industry is probably at the pinnacle of objectification. Taking advantage of already established stereotypes while in the same time reinforcing them, this business is one of the biggest earners in audio-visual entertainment. Many, if not most of the women performing in adult movies have done so under social pressure. There are many means of coercing, ranging from criminal (slavery) to exploiting social programming. Because of Social Contribution Inequality^, the number of vulnerable women is astonishingly high.

    The advertisement business is akin to pornography
    The advertisement business is akin to pornography

    How many people have been through depression due to the way they believed their body looks? Notice here the use of the word “belief”. The human body is beautiful throughout the many changes that happen to it. But those that can influence what people see and hear love nothing more than to teach humans what to think about their and others’ bodies. The purpose is to divert people from their internal world, even abandon it in pursuit of cosmetic fixes. It’s no wonder many victims end up numbing themselves with antidepressants, filling up Big Pharma’s coffers.

    In a healthy culture, there is no “ugly” person. A proof of this is that we often find ourselves in awe of a special, twisted tree. This is because we haven’t been conditioned as to what “the perfect tree” should look like. Although, it should be added that gardening is also an industry.

    Devaluing life

    While we’re at the subject of trees, why not look a bit further. Animals, robots, aliens, zombies, mutants, they’re all shoved into the cinema/gaming stereotype-fest in often unhealthy ways such as serving as cannon fodder during various types of massacre. Again, this is not about those beautiful productions that manage to challenge our intellect and present unique perspectives or teach us about compassion. It’s about the downward spiral towards the dark side of the survival instinct – fear.

    There is little respect given to the creatures portrayed on-screen and even less compassion – which is not surprising, since the industry has reached a point where writers are demanded to produce shallow stories that satisfy consumers whose intellectual appetite has been numbed by low quality entertainment. There are exceptions to this, but they are increasingly rare.

    Desensitization to violence & devaluing life
    Desensitization to violence & devaluing life

    All of this devalues our society’s inherent respect for life. It is therefore not surprising that humans are destroying their environment or subjecting other forms of life to benevolent imprisonment.

    Solutions

    Education is the obvious key here. Our children will be happier when they are aware of their natural beauty and even more importantly, they should know how to find and respect others’ natural beauty, how to appreciate the value of life, regardless of species.

    An Intellectual Diet^ can help by getting rid of some of the toxic programming. A pro-active attitude is perhaps necessary. Boycott the companies that engage in such practices; refuse to see movies, buy games or products that sustain “dirty entertainment”.

    Knowledge such as this is widely available all around us. Once incorporated, it can serve as a sort of mental immune system. I’m certainly not the first one to write on this topic and I wish others will continue to advance this discussion further. I rarely, if ever, ask anybody to share one of my articles, but if you can see value in what you just read, if you think that this is a good explanation for something that you already felt, perhaps now is the time to administer an intellectual vaccine to those that you care about.

    To conclude on a positive note, here are some proposals for male costumes, if only artists would apply the same techniques used to emphasize women’s bodies.

    Men Dressed Like Women
    Men Dressed Like Women

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  • Human or Autopilot?

    Human or Autopilot?

    The self-driving vehicle revolution is upon us and it brings with it some serious challenges. One such conundrum is just how much control will we give over to our vehicles. Recently, we’ve had the first fatality^ resulting from the use of this family of technologies. However, it’s important to note that the car wasn’t really self-driving.

    The person died due to the (presumably) improper use of the autopilot feature. Before we rush to blame Tesla, we’ll see why this sort of half-measure is quite dangerous. Let’s take a look at what another industry that has been using autopilot functionalities for decades has learned during time:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinenegroni/2016/07/07/danger-lurks-at-intersection-of-human-and-self-driving-car/#ea309715d68b^

    Self-driving cars are an “all or nothing” affair

    It becomes apparent that auto piloting features can cause humans to lose some of their skills. What’s even worse is that auto piloting is done in half-measures. This inconsistent state of affairs inevitably affects decision making in the brain. The results can be disastrous.

    Pilots undergo extensive training before using auto piloting functions, drivers do not. Expect more such accidents to take place, unless serious changes are made in drivers’ education and training. I believe that such changes are difficult to implement and that the correct way forward is to remove the human from the driver’s seat altogether.

    Slowly but surely, a human driving a car on a public street will become like seeing a horse and carriage on the motorway’s fast lane. Of course, this might seem far-fetched now, but check back in 10-20 years.

    Ethics

    Things are going to get even more complicated when ethics start to play a role in all this. One of the essential features of self-driving cars is that they will be in permanent communication with one another. Through this, they will also gain an increased awareness of the road conditions ahead of them and each other’s occupants.

    What if, for example, two self-driving vehicles realize that a collision is inevitable? Should your car kill you to save others? What if drivers start hacking their cars to protect them at all costs? Here’s a very interesting article on this subject:

    http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a21492/the-self-driving-dilemma/^

    One day, maybe self-driving cars will be able to make a decision about how to cause fewer fatalities during unavoidable accidents by sacrificing the car with fewer passengers. Taking this discussion further, let us consider that human lives are more than just numbers. Could self-driving cars quantify the potential of a human life? What if the Artificial Intelligence supervising the travel of more cars decides to sacrifice an entire family in order to save a highly skilled doctor?

    I believe that at one point, AI will be able to decide between saving a child or a young man who is already sick of terminal cancer. There will be those that will consider such judgements unfair – letting a “machine” decide for your life is scary. But we might have to deal with this situation at one point. Accidents will always happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something about reducing their impact upon our society.

    Putting the drama into perspective

    These are very difficult choices. I have little doubt that one day, true Artificial Intelligence might be able to tackle these problems just like we’re able to solve first grade math problems. Until then, however, we’ll be left with some serious ethical and logistical challenges to solve.

    I also have little doubt that in the coming years a lot of keystrokes will be spent debating even the smallest mistake made by a self-driving vehicle. But these mistakes will probably pale in comparison with the thousands of people, many of them children, dying at the hands of reckless drivers every year.

    It’s a no-brainer that self-driving cars will drastically reduce the number of deaths on our streets. I have to say this bluntly: the sooner we restrict access to our public roads, the better. Not even intelligent animals should be allowed to drive metal bullets at 130 kilometers per hour.

    Last but not least, let’s not forget about the security concerns that shall arise when we’ll have a bunch of computers zooming around the motorways at high speeds. I recently wrote an article^ on this subject. I don’t even want to imagine what a terrorist attack would look like if some hacker would start tampering with the software of hundreds of speeding robots weighing a couple of tons (or many more) each.

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