writebastard

Not that it matters...

2012-04-12T03:43:22Z

...because I know just how very many of you there are, but: I am not dead. I am, in fact, alive! (Which would follow, I suppose, from not being dead, with the possible exception of being undead, which I also am not.) But still hellishly busy/crazed/sleepy with this whole Change business I'm trying to work through. I'll be along presently.

Dialog from an Untitled Play

2012-03-31T06:16:32Z

Act II, Scene II

Interior, kitchen, mid-morning. Silas is making a Bloody Mary, and Daniel is munching on a stalk of celery while Silas bustles about with various cocktail preparations.

——

DANIEL: Why do you do that?

SILAS: Do what?

DANIEL: Anything she asks for, you hop up and get it. A blanket. A snack. A drink. I’d half-expect you to knit her a sweater if she wanted one.

SILAS: Because nobody ever does that sort of thing for her. It embarrasses and flummoxes her in the most delightful way.

DANIEL: And that’s all, is it? You derive great pleasure from embarrassing the woman.

SILAS: Yes. I’m also irrevocably, irrationally, and irredeemably in love with her.

DANIEL: That explains a lot. Have you told her?

SILAS: No, of course not.

DANIEL: Well, you should.

SILAS: <sighs> Yes, I probably should. Perhaps at her wedding.

Do.

2012-03-27T22:29:37Z

"At some point, you must decide whether you’re content being an accessory in other people’s lives, or whether you’re a smashing off-the shoulder number that makes everyone else in the room jealous because not only couldn’t they possibly pull it off, they have absolutely no idea where you shop. In my experience, most people are just earrings."

~Danielle Seward-Hall

¡Salud!

2012-03-06T03:20:39Z

Let's hear it for those who've had it. Raise a glass, please, to the ones clinging to the ends of their ropes with one hand. Celebrate! The done-with-its, the over-its, the burned out and the fed up. Those who have bashed themselves into the machinery of the State, the towering featureless walls of the Establishment, the citadels of the Powers-That-Be. Because they know: that is not the end. That is not defeat. That is reconnaissance. That is assessing the nature of one's foe. That is determining the bounds of an obstacle in order to surmount and skirt it. That is letting go of the rope, so that soaring is possible. Have a drink for those who are pushing on. Follow their bloodied bootprints in the snow, up and over the pass.

Because we're all going there. And someone has to get there first.

What Is Character? Debunking the Myth of Fixed Personality

2012-03-03T20:35:11Z

From brain pickings:

"A person’s authentic nature is a series of shifting, variegated planes that establish themselves as he relates to different people; it is created by and appears within the framework of his interpersonal relationships."

Philip K. Dick,
The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick 1972-1973

Not sure I entirely agree with that, but it's certainly interesting to think about.

On Sluts and "Birth Control"

2012-03-03T01:33:07Z

It would, in fact, be more accurate to refer to these medications as "hormone control," rather than simply "birth control." That's not all they're used for. They're used to control debilitating conditions like endometriosis, to--oddly enough--preserve fertility and prevent miscarriage, even to control acne.

The thing that gets me about this whole debacle is that I, personally, would not ask a woman to ingest these chemicals solely for birth control: they're simply not neutral medicine. For many women, they don't just prevent pregnancy, they also have demonstrable effects on mood, libido, even personality. That's what hormones do, endogenous or otherwise, in women and men alike.

Mayer Laboratories, for one, makes a really fine birth control alternative that does none of that: it's called a Kimono® Thin. Chance of pregnancy over a year's typical use? 15%. "The pill" (in its various incarnations) weighs in at about 8%, which is slightly less than half the chance, but still very small in terms of genuine risk assessment, and hey! I've got a far better chance of knowing when a condom fails than I do of divining when my partner's molecular biology has aligned just so, or whether she's mistimed that day's dosage, or forgotten it altogether.

So what's in a name? Power, pure and simple. "Birth control" is a deliberate term of rhetorical art being used for a specific purpose. Paradoxically, that purpose is apparently genuinely intertwined with the separation of church and state: with the government increasingly getting into the business of healthcare, is it in fact proper for the the State to mandate that employers foot the bill for contraception, which may conflict with the employer's religious beliefs? And this, in turn, smacks straight into the magical notion of corporate personhood: unless that employer is a sole individual, with no formal employer/employee relationship--and thus no regulatory burden--it can have no religious beliefs. A corporation is not a person. A business is not a person. It is a legal entity. It is this conflation of "legal entity" with "human being" that underlies so much of what has gone wrong with our society at a fundamental level.

This is, I believe, the root issue: the continual insistence that corporations have rights--"Corporations are people too," Romney said in Iowa--indicates to me that there is a significant working afoot, which devalues human beings in favor of their creations. So, on one side of the surface, this all seems to be about "religious freedom" and keeping the State from interfering with individual moral convictions. On the other side of the surface, this all seems to be about control of the feminine, and the reining in of this threat of promiscuity that's been capturing the American imagination since its founding.

Each of those surfaces is an illusion. What I believe this is about is diminishing the human sovereignty of both women and men in favor of these massive, fictional constructs, these controlling golems created by those in power. Useful servants like Santorum and Limbaugh may believe that they're protecting religious freedom from the State, and, further, may believe that they're keeping women in their place, but what they're really doing is empowering the amoral, illusory entities that are being used by the elites to dominate the entire polity.

It's just another system of control...built for all of us.

Divine Stroke of Luck

2012-02-19T07:31:53Z

An impossible equation: the more I am seduced, the less I succeed in seducing; I am petrified by inhibition. In a very high-tension climate, I should be amusing, brilliant, thoroughly relaxed. Totally flummoxed, I am struck dumb, dulled by my desire to be inventive. To court someone is first of all to blow one’s own trumpet, to engage in self-embellishment. Even the most paralyzed lover has to pretend to be a lady-killer, to make use of the stratagems of flashiness. The adoring lover used to be a strutting beau who was able to shine and yield to the excitement of bidding at the risk of falling into virtuosity. But there is also a seductiveness in the refusal to seduce. There are strategies of silence and simplicity that captivate more than gratuitous volubility. Not to mention the figure of the charming, dazed lover who wins hearts by making one blunder after another. The really fine encounter is one that is unexpected and unaware of its value, and thus escapes the obligation to produce a result. If something happens, it is like the denouement of a story that was not premeditated. The obligation to proceed with verve is suspended for a freewheeling conversation that develops at its own pace because there is nothing at stake. A divine stroke of luck has held out a helping hand; it is up to us to seize it or forget it.

Pascal Bruckner
The Paradox of Love

The Perils of Online Personhood for the Not-Quite-Psychopathic, the Possibly Sociopathic, and the Merely Neurotic

2012-02-01T02:59:52Z

III. There Is No Part III

[Part I is here]
[Part II is here]

Next: IV. Why There Is No Part III.

Happy Pills

2012-01-31T01:34:35Z

Play Me [Writebastard Audio: 00:03:32]

And sometimes, the funny things you find on the radio late at night infect your brain.

Hat Magic

2012-01-28T08:59:57Z

I woke up in a sweat realizing that I've been leaving my hats. I've let loose two hats in the past three weeks: they're not at home with me.

This is what is known as Unintentional Mojo. It is a form of chaotic magic, which means that it is neither good nor ill; the key thing to know about it is that it is "unintentional." That is, it works at the subconscious level. It represents the actions of certain nonverbal parts of the self trying to communicate with the verbal parts of the self. So when a hat gets crushed beneath a giant stuffed bear, it's generally a good idea to look at that. And as for the other hat...well. There be dragons.

The thing about paying attention to this sort of crap is that it eventually starts to become meaningful. Then you're fucked: you can no longer say "I didn't know," because the bits of you that assemble the future are talking to you, right now, and once you hear them, there are no accidents.

Only choices.

Dogs

2012-01-27T07:31:58Z

Play Me [Writebastard Audio: 00:03:10]

You find funny things on the radio late at night.

Yay, gadget!

2012-01-13T01:18:26Z

Now there's an audio player here, over on the right. It's the thing that looks like an audio player, under the "AUDIO" title. Let me know if you can't find it.

Bleeding-edge Cathedrals Built From Consequence

2012-01-10T02:11:32Z

Play Me [Writebastard Audio: 00:03:03]

2011-12-24T22:21:38Z

Man, I rode my hulking steam-powered steel-framed liner beneath the waves because I was just too cool. Now I'm a coral reef. And that is the essence of Funk. Either that, or I've been poisoned.

~Putnam Cholay

The Perils of Online Personhood for the Not-Quite-Psychopathic, the Possibly Sociopathic, and the Merely Neurotic

2011-12-23T02:59:16Z

II. The Grimoir of Artificial Personhood

[Part I is here]

The concept of corporate personhood has been bubbling up across the information swamp lately, and I'd like to get one thing out of the way: corporate personhood isn't just for Bank of America. It's also for things like labor unions and advocacy groups. A certain portion of the polity tends to forget that the legal terms of art which animate great shambling behemoths like Goldman Sachs, Enron, and Fannie Mae also give life to the Service Employees International Union and MoveOn. We've created similar structures within the legal and political realms to account for collective, coordinated action and to attempt to answer certain questions about legal responsibility (poorly, as it turns out). These structures are called creatures of statute--or of state, if you prefer--and they're everywhere. A modern corporation is a centuries-old refinement of the same organizational urge that led to tribes, village councils, towns, municipalities, cities, states, and national governments. When humans want to get big things done, they tend to band together. It's a primate thing.

Which is not to say that a modern for-profit corporation is exactly the same as, say, the Federal government. However: to see a major consequence of the common metaphysical roots shared by the two institutions, look no further than the various career paths of certain presidents and presidential candidates, vice presidents past and hopeful, secretaries of defense, and so on. No matter which party is "in power," the pathways from the boardroom to the various halls and chambers of local, state, and national power are well trod. The question of "How, exactly, is the Federal government different from a corporation?" is being asked in the public square, right now, and when trying to make such a differentiation, it is sometimes helpful to appreciate the similarities.

The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It's a grimoire, like the APA's DSM-IV-TR: full of words strung together to define things and move action from within the minds of its creators out into the world for the rest of us to deal with. This book of spells is over 200,000 pages long, and the law in question is 1 U.S.C. §1. That is, Title 1, Chapter 1, of the United States Code. This particular spell is, quite literally, the first law of the United States, and it declares, among other things, that:

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise [...] the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;

There it is. Not in the Constitution, no. But at the foundation of American jurisprudence, within its very definition of first principles, this concept is enshrined: the word "person" encompasses non-human entities.

Words matter. Words have power. Humans use them to define the boundaries of that power, and to bring things into being. We've given ourselves the power to create entities that can function within our society with some of the rights of naturally-born human beings, and we've given our government the power to direct and control those entities, supposedly on our behalf. All it takes to make one is some paperwork, a few legal incantations, and the exchange of some of our other great fictional creation, money.

We've been through this sort of thing before. In the 16th century, the chief rabbi of Prague was one Judah Loew ben Bezalel, and like Rabbi Eliyahu of Chelm before him, Rabbi Bezalel took a form of inanimate matter--clay from the banks of the Vltava river, in this case--and gave it life through Hebrew ritual and incantation. Upon its forehead he scrawled the Hebrew word for truth (or reality), "emet." This golem was intended to protect the Jews of Prague from the depredations of the Holy Roman Emperor. It killed a wacking great pile of gentiles, but eventually grew ever more powerful and out of control, forcing HRE Rudolph to beg the rabbi to stop his creation and promise to lay off the pogrom. Depending on which version of the legend you hear, the rabbi had varying amounts of trouble turning the thing off. He eventually did so by rubbing the "e" off of "emet," leaving the Hebrew word for death, "met." Then--again, depending on the version of the tale--he stored the deactivated golem in the attic of the synagogue in Prague, in case he needed it again.

This is of course a legend. Magic, after all, isn't real.

Yet we, as a society, have codified a long series of words, given them power, and used them to create not-human entities, great conglomerations of people that collectively do things like dump 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, destroy national economies, and "speak" to politicians. They even have certain "rights." Similarly, we've conjured a national government that, in addition to paving roads, providing for sanitation, clean food and water, and a host of other services that are in general beneficial to the polity, occasionally projects massive force out into the far reaches of the world and kills lots of people. In each case, these entities are composed of natural persons, but the consequences of the actions of these entities are not the same as the consequences of the actions of natural persons. If you or I went out on our own and spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf or jetted off to Iraq to kill 100,000 people, we'd be in jail or dead. States and corporations alike operate in the world, and take real action in the world. They have power, but they're without true moral consciousness, and they can run amok.

The systems that surround and support them have become so complex that they are escaping the control of their supposed masters. As just one small example: there are computer algorithms which conduct automated trades on the world's markets at speeds measured in microseconds. Back in 2004, I did some work with a company that produced what are now considered primitive trading algorithms, code written by humans. There were also algorithms that hadn't been coded by humans, but by other algorithms. Some hadn't been designed by a human for a dozen iterations. Programmers would set them loose in simulations and see how they did, then release the most promising ones out into the electronic wild of the markets. One programmer told me, "Sometimes they exhibit really weird, emergent behavior and we don't know why, because we didn't write them." I thought about that last year when the Dow rapidly plunged by nearly 1,000 points and then rebounded within minutes, for no apparent reason. Why? Algorithms. In the legislative realm we call that sort of thing "unintended consequences," and we're seeing more of that as our created systems of interacting non-human entities grow ever more chaotic.

Many of our great modern economic and metaphysical challenges flow from this fundamental, structural flaw in the methods by which we conjure our institutions: our ability to use language and incant ever-more-complicated spells has outstripped our understanding of their eventual effects.

And now, we've taken that particular bit of spellworking--evocation, the ability to create an artificial entity--and we've given it to anyone with a computer. What was once arcane and occult has become common. We've dispersed the magic.

But we haven't necessarily promulgated a new grimoire to go along with it.

In Part III, I'll tell you a bit more about how you might have already conjured your own golem, and about how that could affect your weekend.