Tag Archives: lifeform

The Corporation as a Lifeform

July 2, 2019 Axonn Echysttas 2 Comments

It is agreed^ that life on Earth started with single cells, around 4 billion years ago. After a very, very long time, roughly 2 billion later, multicellular life appeared. This followed a catastrophic event called the Great Oxidation Event^ (GOE). But what was catastrophic for others was a gift for us. Without the oxygen created during the GOE, we wouldn’t have been here. Multicellular life brought a plethora of evolutionary advantages and soon enough, dominant lifeforms were born. Living longer, stronger and, most importantly, smarter.

So what does this have to do with corporations, capitalism and the stock market? As I’ll show, quite a lot. The current market ecosystem^ is a place where companies undergo natural selection. But unlike the past 4 billion years, the evolution of our economic organisms is supercharged, almost out of control – this, unfortunately, sometimes comes with a steep cost for our environment^ and current social structures.

But what if a new breed of corporation triggers a financial chain reaction (like the GOE), wiping out most of its competition? Already, a new generation of companies is starting to take shape. And, as new ways to apply technology are found, the chance of a new business model emerging is much greater. Capitalism is bound to evolve^.

Take a look from (very) high above

Let’s zoom out at the level where we, individual humans, can be seen as cells, while our various social structures can be seen as multicellular organisms. From this high up, the corporation is a multicellular organism comprised of humans. A nation-state or ethnic group can also be seen in the same way, but as I will show, the corporation has many more behaviors similar to lifeforms than other social structures do.

First of all, companies evolve at a much faster pace than any other previous social structure. Similar to most complex organisms, in a company we can find groups of cells with different roles. In this case, the cells are humans with different education and skills – including the skill of using advanced tools, which are themselves evolving rapidly. The evolution of our tools is very important, because this is precisely what supercharges the current evolutionary cycle. Not only do we evolve, but so does all our technological ecosystem.

This new form of life has appeared for the same reasons why multicellular organisms thrive. The same natural laws of evolution apply: there are many advantages just waiting to be applied due to the synergies between different types of cellular organization. Think of departments in a company as specialized tissues in a body. Think of different technologies as new means of acting on information and generating survival-value for the company.

Corporations are good at inventing new tools. They do so for the same “survival of the fittest” reason as any other lifeform. The only problem is that we humans are evolving slower than our tools^. As our technology skyrockets, so does the risk of catastrophic events, accidental or otherwise.

Capitalism and the stock market

Capitalism is fueled by an extremely strong impetus to produce more. This primal urge is one of the chief motivators for researching new technologies. The problem with this all-consuming focus is that anything that does not create profit (immediate or forecasted) is disregarded.

The superpower of capitalism seems to be the creation of new meta-lifeforms: economic entities that absorb human capital and create other forms of capital, usually in the form of material goods and technological advances. These technological advances allow capitalism to perfect the entities it creates.

As an evolutionary driver, capitalism is pretty damn good. The problem is that this early 21^st century capitalism is obsessed with numbers in fake currencies. The fact is that capital takes many other forms: brain capital, ideological capital, ideation capital and even emotional capital.

There aren’t many corporations that invest in philosophy or the arts. Sure, if the investment can serve towards some economic purpose (for example a PR stunt), then perhaps a company may invest in some artistic or charitable event. The problem with this approach is a short-sightedness regarding what is profitable and what is not. Actually, philosophy and art are extremely profitable because society (which is where the workforce is coming from) is built on ideas and inspiration, not on material goods.

Unfortunately, for the time being, our companies are locked within the context of a money-centric stock market. This makes sure that the corporation is a master of financial efficiency. That’s all fine up to a certain point. When things go awry is when our companies fail in their social responsibility and ethical code. In the rabid chase for profits, this has started to happen increasingly often.

Corporations crush each other without almost any regard for the people involved in the conflict. It’s pretty much like war, except people don’t get killed, they get laid-off. True, that’s a great improvement from our times as barbarians (which haven’t yet passed, just watch the news).

But society is starting to catch on. The people are starting to rebel against corporate irresponsibility. In the near future, expect alternative stock markets to appear. Markets that value a company’s long-term sustainability (ethics, social & environmental responsibility, impetus on R&D). As I will show, such developments are not only necessary, but almost unavoidable.

As technology advances, money will begin to lose relevance (basic income^ will happen sooner or later). Therefore, the corporations that invent new weapons to compete with are those that will survive the next evolutionary leap. Technology will also become too powerful to handle by such crude mechanisms such as the stock market. After all, the stock market is already falling prey to the technology of its own inhabitants^.

The unstoppable march of progress

Every major civilization had at least one mammoth, culture-defining project. For example, the Romans are known for their works of infrastructure and Egyptians are often associated with the monolithic remnants of their pharaohs: pyramids and other massive structures into which their empire has poured enormous amounts of resources (rushing its own demise).

Currently, the most coveted technology seems to be artificial “intelligence”. I used quotes because A“I”, as is currently developed, is not really intelligent^. Humans fear true AI because they believe a sentient “computer” might endanger our species. But we’re very far from creating a sentient being; this is a feat that will require more than just quantum computing. Instead, wherever we read “AI” what they really mean is human-developed algorithms that have certain learning aptitudes (which is why a more correct term is ML – Machine Learning).

But our greatest fear shouldn’t be true AI (sentient AI) but rather this ongoing development of human-defined ML. This is because rather than it being sentient, it is a slave to sentient humans. And because most humans are still very selfish beings^, putting advanced ML systems in the wrong hands might seriously jeopardize society^ (rogue killer drones and automated armies, automatic hackers, stock market viruses, large-scale social engineering).

Corporations are already becoming increasingly complex and will be at least partially ruled by artificial intelligence algorithms (it’s already happening^). The corporation of the future is a master of synergy between humans, computer algorithms and other assets. This sort of company will have a human/machine leadership where machines can work with nanosecond decisions and humans can assist with high-level strategic thinking and ideation.

All of a sudden, we’re heading towards a future that will see thousands of different economic lifeforms, communicating with each other, engaged in perpetual ideation and competition on many more fronts than just money. Could it be that the next stage of life on this planet are corporations? And then, what happens to us?

Ethical capitalism

Just like the cells in our own bodies thrive if we’re healthy, so will we if this higher form of life we find ourselves building is well-behaved^. Quite simply, our future depends on how comfortable and sustainable our corporations will be. And that is why ethics and empathy are important^.

Regardless if corporations will ever be classifiable as life (after all, they eat each other and can spawn all sorts of weird babies), what is certain is that the business sector is far nimbler than government. It is therefore not surprising that governments around the world are becoming the puppets of business interests. Of course, one can argue that it was always so. Perhaps, but now-a-days, the possibilities of buying politicians have increased, because the wealth amassed by various corporations has also increased.

Government has lost its way^ for a good reason: society’s way of ruling itself is not only inefficient and archaic, but it also has very little defense for corruption and other chronic illnesses. A broken democracy^ is like a sick organism: it’s very easy to conquer by infection and disease. As I pointed out in the past, I believe that the only hope for government is a serious make-over, alongside the lines of a Government 2.0^, which is in fact inspired from the way of doing things in the private sector.

Judging by the political circus we’ve all witnessed in the past few years (even decades, centuries), I’m not betting on government ever recovering from this downward spiral. Ironically, this social activist is beginning to think that an evolution of the private sector to higher ethical standards is perhaps the best chance for peace and prosperity.

This evolutionary leap is not only possible, but outright necessary, as many companies have started to discover that an increasingly higher percentage of employees lack motivation. Because the percentage of creative jobs on the market is rising (and will continue to rise) and because lack of motivation kills creativity, the only option for the company of the future is to change in such a way that its constituents are happy and feel a connection with the entity they’re part of.

After all, what’s not to love about a meritocracy based on economic performance and everything this means (intellectual progress of all kinds with happiness as a chief motivator). Combining the efficiency of capitalism with a code of conduct based on empathy may yield a species of corporation that many of us may actually feel happy to be a part of.

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Mainstream Entertainment and Objectification

September 4, 2016 Axonn Echysttas Leave a comment

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:

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

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

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.

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