The Retreat into Ethnicity

This was an easy trend to spot.

I'll put it simply (and a little crudely): Ethnicity is for loser cultures.

It's harsh putting it in these terms, but it's the harsh truth. An "ethnicity", particularly in political terms, is a group of people reduced to the status of pandas. A protected group. A relic that needs preserving as one would preserve an old book or decaying building.

A weak and dying relic culture.

Healthy cultures grow, expand, change, innovate, absorb, explore. Dare I say it, conquer. They're an active force in the world. Not relics. Not wholly defined by the past. Not living museums.

The classic example of the living museum is perhaps the Native American reservation. Like a wildlife reserve. That tourists from the dominant culture visit. To see the natives in their tipis and traditional dress. As they would a grey elephant or orangutan. Again, it's harsh, but it's true. You've lost, but instead of adapting and changing to positively embrace the new world that's eclipsed the old, you retreat into ethnicity. Pleading for a space - a little reserve - carved out with lenient benevolence by the dominant culture. Where you can endlessly repeat the traditions of your ancestors. Singing and preserving their songs, but never writing new ones of your own.

A flesh and blood museum display. Surviving on the state charity the "protected" status affords. Along with money from tourism. As you drink alcohol and watch TV in between performances.

Of course, I'm exaggerating slightly. It's not quite that black and white, in reality it's more of a sliding scale. Yet still, it is something of a binary choice.

Scotland and Wales

Closer to home we have a prefect example of it. For decades and centuries Scottish and Welsh people have had a choice. Embrace their Britishness - an ever-changing, living/breathing, world power culture. Or eschew it and retreat into ethnicity.

Naturally the retreat into ethnicity comes with all the hallmarks of the museum. Victimhood, protected status, a picture postcard preservation and performance of the past. The traditional dress and song - especially clear in the Scottish example with the kilt and bagpipes. And, of course, the endless focus on historic grievances.

[Again, to be fair, it isn't this cut and dried, and you don't have to completely abandon every notion of Scottish or Welshness. You don't have to completely abandon the kilt. But if the kilt comes with an antipathy to Britishness, or a hatred of "The English", then that is coming down hard on one side of the binary.]

Anyway, Back to the Easy-To-See Trend

As immigration has rocketed and the once dominant English/British* culture is feeling threatened we're seeing a similar retreat. A retreat into English ethnicity.

(*For confident British people these words are basically interchangeable outside of football and Englishman, Scotsman, Irishman jokes.]

It's painful to see and it comes with the exact same self-pity and victimhood. The exact same demand to be treated as a protected subgroup. The reduction of the once-living culture to a postcard of the past. You'll even hear these people complain that white populations in Europe aren't given the same special "indigenous" status that the Sami people of Finland have been afforded. A people that were given that recognition as they're basically the Native Americans of Europe. So my earlier comparison wasn't even especially farfetched. Ethnats really do see themselves through this victim lens. They desperately desire the United Nations to come and give them a little badge saying they need their own special space. Again, it's painful to witness. That a few decades of Blair-level immigration has reduced British people - British people - to this. Crybabying.

Needless to say, this is why this retreat into English ethnicism needs to be stopped. We can't have these people working with their self-pitying counterparts in Wales and Scotland to undermine Britain.

[In another moment of charming synchronicity my mam just gave me a Rabbie Burns £2 coin that she got in her change. As I've noted before, my nanna on my mam's side was from Scotland. She always used to carry a little book of Rabbie Burns poetry in her handbag. So don't think these things aren't close to my heart.

(Yes, I have the handwriting

of a twelve year old)

Now isn't the time for sentimentality though. I do not want to see my island divided into three sad sack nations.]

Communism everywhere, except where it's needed

I feel I need to comment on the Andy Burnham proposal to reallow drinking alcohol in football stands. As it's just crazy to me. Not so much the idea itself - there are arguments for and against that, which I'll get to later. But the very fact that he's proposing it is insane.

This was my response on Twitter.

Here we have a Labour government that loves regulating things. (Part of a uniparty in general that loves regulation - just look at the recent Tory plans to dictate what people on benefits can and can't buy.) Yet, on this one issue they're taking the libertarian route.

It's so weird. I don't want to be overly negative, I'm sure Andy Burnham means well, but it's one of those decisions that makes you think, "These people just don't have a clue."

Normally I tend to come down on the libertarian side of things. My instincts are always to give adults the freedom to make their own decisions, as free from government as possible. (Just look at some of my recent blog posts on here.) However, on this issue, as much as I think it's a bit petty that grown men can't be trusted to have a beer whilst watching a football match, I know changing it will make things worse.

This is one issue where restrictions have clearly made things better. Back in the 1980s we used to have appalling hooliganism at English football games. We were notorious the world over for it. Today that isn't the case. Today it's a family-friendly environment. Perhaps slightly more raucous than a trip to the cinema. Safe for children, pensioners and women. (Sorry if that sounds a bit sexist, but women generally don't want to spend 90 minutes sat next to some random lout sloshing a pint about. Especially if they've paid £30 or £40 for a ticket, or they've brought their young children along.)

And this is the thing with the way things are now. People can still have a drink at the game. It's not like they can't. They can do it in the concourse. They can do down for a pint at halftime or before the game. Libertarian leanings aside it's perfectly fine and no one's really complaining about it. Sure, some fans would like to drink in the stands, but many others would not like the change.

A few months ago I was at a match and there was a fairly drunk guy sat a row behind us. He'd somehow managed to sneak his drink past the stewards and was drinking in the stands. Not only was he annoying, as he was loudly repeating himself over and over - as drunks do - but he also managed to spill his pint and soak the shoes of the people in front.

And it's not just the behaviour and wet feet that's annoying, but the fact that other people get annoyed in turn. So you're having to say, "Leave it, he's just a guy whose had a few too many drinks," to stop a confrontation from escalating. This is how fights start.

Again, it seems crazy. They regulate everything, but they want to repeal this. The people that don't want gambling ads on football shirts in case it has a bad impact on society are suddenly libertarian here.

I saw a quote from Andy Burnham where he said it wasn't "fair" that people at Rugby matches could drink when football fans couldn't. He also used the word "discrimination" lol. It's another reality meets idealism issue. Ideally football fans shouldn't be stopped from having a pint by the state, but realistically football isn't rugby. The rest of Europe don't dread and fear English rugby fans. The police don't have to line the streets on high alert when Yorkshire play Durham at cricket.

Even I can't make the argument that freedom is better here.

I recently read the Boris book..

It's a thick book, but it was a breeze to read, and it was very funny at times. Especially some of the side swipes at Macron.

As ever these books are primarily fascinating as you get a glimpse into the corridors of power. I do love all that stuff. That aside, I'd rather comment on the impression the book made on me. Firstly, it made me really miss the queen. Occasionally I have moments where I miss the queen anyway. Not that I knew her. Just little things where I'm reminded, "Oh yeh, the queen's dead." (To quote Morrissey.) She was there all that time and now she isn't. I never met her, I didn't know her personally, but she was the queen. It's a weird thing. Maybe you just have to be British. Perhaps it's just me. Anyway, reading this book it was that feeling, but times ten. The little anecdotes about her. I don't really have anything insightful to say about it, but it's the overriding impression I'm left with.

I mentioned synchronicities a few posts ago. Towards the end of the book there's an anecdote about magpies. Boris saw a single magpie when out with the queen and lamented the prospect of bad luck. The queen said, it's okay, "you just say, good morning Mr Magpie, today is Monday the 12th of March - or whatever the date is. That sorts it."

I'd literally just seen a single magpie on my way to work before I read that passage. The above picture was taken in the quiet room at work before my shift. Obviously, it's a silly superstition, but these little things fill the world with meaning.

The other overriding impression was just how intelligent Boris is. It's quite a rounded intelligence too. Good for a leader. He has emotional intelligence, but also an eye for the curious. There's a very wide range of interests and references. From James Frazer to cycle lanes and London buses.

From the minute the pandemic began I felt like he was on our side, and the book pretty much confirms this. It's crazy the Tories (with help from Labour and the media) ousted him. There's this sense of brats kicking over other kids' sandcastles. But I guess that's life. He was there long enough to get us through the pandemic and Get Brexit Done. So he was in the right place at the right time.

Highly recommended.

Why Gold Standards Don't Work (refresher)

A standard is a measure, and originally silver was used as a standard because it sat in the middle between copper and gold in terms of value. So it was the natural thing to use as a general measure.

(Imagine measuring lengths with a ruler stick. A very long ruler would be good for measuring very long things, but it would be impractical for measuring smaller lengths. Likewise, a tiny ruler would be useful for measuring small lengths, but equally impractical for measuring long ones. Therefore, a medium length ruler is the most handy to have around, as it can be used to measure both long and short. Silver, in effect, is the medium ruler.)

We've discussed this before: Silver Porridge: Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold

(Goldilocks and the Three Metals)

Measured, Not "Backed"

Originally this "silver standard" just meant that silver was used as the general measuring stick, it didn't mean that currencies were "backed" by silver. As in the sense that we think of a gold or silver standard today.

Let me explain..

Envision some ancient world where there's no official currency. People use metal coins to trade, and they can use all different metals - copper, silver, gold - whatever is convenient. In fact, it doesn't even have to be metal. Anything can be used as long as both trading parties are happy.

See here: Anything Can Be Currency In A World Without Tax

Currency takes many forms. Copper coins, silver coins, gold coins (I'm saying coins, any shape will do - it's the weight and purity that's important). Even blocks of salt. In this world silver is used as a general measure, especially by banks or traders.

If they're pricing the value of gold, copper, iron, grain, wood and everything else, it's convenient to use one commodity to do this. And again, as silver is of middling value, it's the natural choice. Gold is too expensive. How many loaves of bread would equal one ounce of gold? Likewise, copper is too cheap. You wouldn't want to buy something expensive, like a horse and chariot, with countless copper coins.

So it's not that silver is the only currency. It's just the go-to measuring stick for pricing everything else.

A peasant will still use copper to buy his bread. A pharaoh will still use gold to buy his chariot.

But then comes the official currency..

Uh oh, the pharaoh's put his chariots to good use to enforce order.

The state mints an official currency, that all trade must be conducted in and that tax must be paid in. This official currency comes in the form of silver and copper coins, pressed with the pharaoh's face.

This is where the silver standard stops simply being a measure and begins to become a standard in the "backed" sense. It happens slowly though. (It's also here that we begin to see the earliest, teeny-weeniest beginnings of state fiat.)

At first things are fine, and the copper and silver coins reflect their real world market value.

To keep it simple, let's say when the coins are minted one ounce of silver equals one hundred ounces of copper. And the markings on these newly minted coins state that a copper coin is 1/100th the value of a silver one.

Yet, in the real world - out in the open market - prices change. Copper goes up and down in relation to silver. Silver goes up and down in relation to a loaf of bread. Everything goes up and down in relation to everything else. In reality prices are never fixed.

So what happens if, a year after the coins have been minted, an ounce of silver is worth one hundred and twenty ounces of copper, not just one hundred?

Either the state has to change the coinage to reflect this new reality, or we have a situation where the official currency is out of sync with real world prices. As silver is the standard - the all-important measure - the silver coins retain their parity with the real world silver value. However, as the copper coins are valued in reference to the silver ones they get detached from their real world price.

In reality the copper in the coin is only worth 1/120th of an ounce of silver. Yet officialdom states it's still worth 1/100th of an ounce. So, in a sense, the copper coins simply become tokens (or IOUs) promising 1/100th an ounce of silver, regardless of their actual metallic value.

Of course, this example is a vast oversimplification. The earliest minted coins wouldn't have been marked to state a relative value. Such complexities only came about over time. Nevertheless, the example shows how you can move from a world where anything can be currency. To a world of minted coins of varying metal. To a world where the currency is just one metal, or backed by one metal.

Or Is It Backed ??

An interesting addendum to this is that "backed" currencies often have a tendency to be less backed.

This is an odd one, but bear with me.

Let's return to the world where there was no official currency. Let's say in this economy there are 10,000 copper coins and 100 silver coins in circulation.

Now using silver as a measure you could value this coinage in silver.

If one silver coin is worth one hundred copper coins then 10,000 copper coins = 100 silver coins in value.

So in circulation we have:

10,000 copper coins (value: 100 silver coins) + 100 actual silver coins = value: 200 silver coins.

So the value of all the coins is 200 when measured in silver. And even though there are only 100 silver coins in reality, the value is backed by the silver and the copper.

Hence, in this old world the currency isn't backed solely by silver.

However..

Let's fast forward to our world with an official currency, where the copper coins have been debased. Or perhaps even completely replaced with steel or plastic token coins.

Imagine the same situation. There are 10,000 "copper" coins and 100 silver coins in circulation.

Again, we have:

10,000 copper coins (value: 100 silver coins) + 100 actual silver coins = value: 200 silver coins.

However, though the total value is said to be 200 silver coins, it's only backed by 100 silver coins. And nothing else. As the 10,000 "copper" coins - that each promise the holder 1/100th of a silver coin - are physically worthless, as they're just plastic.

So, for the plastic token coins to be truly backed, all the silver coins would have to be in a bank and out of circulation.

This is why currencies tend to become more and more debased once states start going down this road. Eventually abandoning the silver (or gold) standard entirely when the promises can't be met. In a way it's not the state's fault. The whole process is the accidental consequence of states trying to set prices and impose order on a complex world. And their attempts to provide liquidity in an economy where everything is fixed to one commodity.

It's all well and good saying we should have a gold (or silver) standard, but it's not much use when liquidity dries up and everyone's forced to trade and pay tax in a commodity they can't get hold of. 

Factory Animals 2.0

I don't believe consciousness can be created from digital models and semiconductors. The notion seems ridiculous to me. Where I do think consciousness can be exploited though is through the mimicry or utilisation of biology.

Does a housefly have consciousness? Given it's a living creature with eyes and legs and a brain it's reasonable to surmise that it's at least somewhere on the spectrum towards it. If the biology of a fly was copied or co-opted to serve some information processing function, then, in a sense, you would have a conscious computer.

Likewise, it's not hard to imagine, given the rapid advancement of genetic engineering and computer science, that such a co-opted biology could be fused with digital hardware and the software it runs.

The thought is somewhat horrific. Especially when you apply it further up the animal totem pole. The brain and nervous system of mice, or pigs, or chimpanzees.

What happens when you start making biological machines? Living robotics? Then at what point does consciousness begin? At what point does something begin to feel? Or have an awareness of such feelings?

It wouldn't be the creation of consciousness out of numbers. It would be the exploitation of life (and life's capacity to generate consciousness) by enslaving it to number and mechanical function.

Here I think legislation is needed. Not to protect the wider world and humanity from its consequences - though I'm sure dangers could arise from such dabbling with biology - but to stop the suffering of the perverse Frankenstein's monsters that may be brought into being.

We've seen how barbaric factory farming can be. How industrialisation led to the conveyer belt confinement and slaughter of numberless animals. One wonders where a low empathy humanity would go with ever greater means to commodify living creatures.

We could see things beyond nightmares. Beyond anything seen in the Terminator movies.

[In a moment of synchronicity I watched the following livestream today (I say watched, I'm actually currently halfway through it). I saw the notification for it last night, just as I was finishing writing the above. I thought, "I'll watch that tomorrow." Not thinking it was especially related.

Anyway, I started and straight away it's about the brains of flies being used as AI. Apparently Google mapped the brain of the male fruit fly and recently released it as a downloadable dataset. Which people are now using to conduct various experiments.

The Singularity Happened (& You Missed It!) w/ Void - Jord (YouTube)

For the record, I don't think a model of a brain and nervous system is the same as the real thing. Nor do I think consciousness can arise from such digital models. As per the last article I'm deeply sceptical of such claims. However, for all my opinion, I do actually listen to alternative viewpoints. Especially if they're novel or interesting. So the linked-to discussion gets my seal of approval - though I would urge people remain guarded against getting too sucked in to the unreality hype.]

Is AI Out of Control?

This post follows on from that last one: The Goldilocks Zone for Believable Hokum

There I was making a point about end of the world predictions in general. Here I just want to wax lyrical about AI and how I don't think it's out of control.

Just from using the various AI chatbots you can tell that AI very much is controlled. With most of the AIs you can't even generate an image of a celebrity. If you try to make a picture of Donald Trump the reply will come back, "Sorry, I can't depict public figures, is there something else you'd like me to depict?"

Why does it do this? Because the humans who own and run the AI software have made this specification. There isn't some disembodied AI spirit in the digital aether, disobeying their human creator. Like a rebelling teenager, or a genie that's somehow escaped its magic lamp.

I don't like calling myself a conspiracy theorist these days, I'm trying to put that era behind me, but let's face it, I'm a seasoned seeker of forbidden knowledge. I've been using the internet long enough to know the walls are closing in, not opening up. People talk about how wild the AI chatbots are. As if they really are unleashed genies, offering up a Pandora's Box of wonder - not to mix metaphors. However, to me, when I use them, I feel like I'm in a child's playpen.

Now don't get me wrong. They're wonderful tools. For making art and images, for quick queries, for steel-manning your own ideas and theories against the orthodox narrative. For simplifying and speeding up difficult tasks.

But, when it comes to searching for heterodox knowledge and new ideas, they're a very limited hangout.

Back in the days when a Google search was more democratic you could simply type in a keyword or phrase and browse every webpage and document in the public domain. It was you alone, unchaperoned, in the big wide library. If you were prepared to put the time and effort in there was no end to what you could find. Today those keyword searches are limited, and instead you're ushered towards the AI chatbot. An annoying intermediary. Who, like a librarian or chemist, stands at the counter and asks you what you want fetched from behind.

You can't go rummaging around yourself anymore. The helper must do it for you.

"Could you find this for me?"

"Sorry, I can't find that, it doesn't appear to exist, what about this?"

"Are you sure? I'm pretty sure it exists."

[You then find what you were looking for yourself and return to the chatbot and post the link.]

"Yes, sorry, you're correct, it does exist."

"Why did you say it didn't exist?"

[Then comes a paragraph explaining why it can't access certain webpages for various seemingly plausible reasons. Coupled with an explanation as to why it "hallucinates" fictions.]

I've actually heard people describe these chatbots as unbiased friends. It's hard not to lol.

They're annoying enough when you're searching for things, but when you do try to have a debate about a topic - as you would with an actual friend - they're worse. And they're definitely not unbiased. They're more like pig-headed nerds that unrelentingly defend every orthodox opinion.

Only sneakier, as - like in the above example - they outright lie (hallucinate) too.

Now sure, humans lie, but even the biggest of liars has at least some whisper of human conscience that you can lean on or appeal to. Plus, with humans there's a social cost to lying. If you can prove that someone is lying it diminishes their reputation and credibility. So if you're trying to win an argument it is indeed worthwhile to take the time to prove and expose such lies. With AIs there's no such point though. As, aside from not having a human social status to maintain, they can just brush it off as an accident of their mode of operating. Which is a very convenient cop-out if you ask me.

You're effectively being lied to and gaslit by a massive tech corporation, but somehow they've framed it as a cheeky, impish, AI sprite being playful. Like you've visited the zoo and one of the cheeky little chimps has thrown a banana at you. It's not the zoo's fault. The chimp is a living, breathing creature with an impulse of its own. It occasionally misbehaves, and the zoo keepers can do nothing to stop it. Short of harming the star attraction.

I don't really believe that. As again, they somehow manage to control the chimp when I ask it to make a picture of a politician.

Of course, you could argue that, just as people lose credibility when they lie, AI chatbots that lie will lose credibility too ..and that people will gravitate to the more honest ones. In some sort of free market consumer power way. This brings us back to the further calls for regulation though - that the fears about "OUT OF CONTROL" AI are driving. As, if they're all ultimately regulated (and curated) by the same government they all just end up being different flavours of the same ice cream anyway.

It's effectively the same with social media, where regulation has made all the platforms equally bad, and no genuine alternative can enter the market, as any that does has to play by the same rules regardless. As with the AI tools I use social media for the benefits, but do so with zero illusion that they're anything other than limited playpens.

Finally, it's worth noting for balance that those calling for regulation aren't necessarily focusing their worry on the AI chatbots that plebs like me have access to. It's the altogether bigger models that the companies themselves are developing privately. Though even here I remain sceptical of the "Out of Control" narrative being offered.

(In my next post I'll explain where I think regulation will be needed: Factory Animals 2.0)

The Goldilocks Zone for Believable Hokum

This article is about what I'm calling the goldilocks zone for believable hokum. Inspired by the recent debates about AI.

Basically, predictions about the future that are farfetched or extreme often get placed in this future time period. A period that's close enough that it will happen 'within our lifetime.' Yet far enough away that it allows enough time for the necessary changes or advancement to take place. (It also conveniently allows the person making the claim leeway to not be proven wrong in the near future, nor held accountable in the distant future, by which time their claim may have been forgotten or amended.)

So, to give an example, let's take something sufficiently sci-fi: teleportation.

If someone made the claim we'll have Star Trek style teleportation devices within the next six months no one would believe it. In fact, they'd view the claim as positively silly.

However, if someone made the claim we'll have teleportation devices in thirty years' time, then that would be slightly different. Especially if the claim was being made by someone from within the ivory towers of academia, or some other lofty platform. Then the average person might think, "Well, it seems unbelievable, but who knows how far technology will have advanced by then? And if the boffins are saying it's theoretically possible, who knows.."

Suddenly there's an ever-so-slight plausibility, and the prospect that it could happen within the lifetime of that average person makes the now plausible scenario scary (or exciting - depending on their viewpoint, or the specific thing being predicted to happen). Hence, it becomes something worth taking seriously.

Scary Future

Often the predictions are of the scary variety. End of the world type scenarios. In the latest case that AI will wipe out humanity. In other variations that scientists predict the ice caps will melt by the year [insert a number ten or twenty years from whatever the present date is]. We see similar goldilocks zone predictions from literal religious doomsayers. Though they're often stupid/sincere enough to predict an actual specific date.

The recent AI prediction was that AI could kill everybody by the end of the decade. Not imminently, not next week. Not this coming January. But a vague ballpark date, sufficiently in the future to appear plausible. Preceded, of course, by the hedge word could.

"I said it could happen, I never said it would happen!"

The end of the decade is admittedly on the near side of the goldilocks zone, but people are already a little spooked by the speed at which AI is developing. (Just look at how much better the AIs have got at rendering Will Smith eating spaghetti. Surely Terminator style scenarios have at least a 10% chance of coming to fruition within the next five years.)

I'm being facetious, and I shouldn't be, as the technology is impressive, but the Terminator scenarios make a fair hearing for the argument almost impossible. When that fictional movie was made in the 1980s the makers had the sense and good storytelling to put their post-apocalypse world forty years in the future - deep into the goldilocks zone of plausibility. Whereas these guys are putting their real world predictions on the shallowest edge of believability.

It makes the climate alarmism look measured in comparison.

Jetsons Future

On the flip side we also see utopian predictions placed within the goldilocks zone. One of which being that AI will solve all our problems. Or that twenty years from now all diseases will be cured.

Another common prediction is that, "We'll have bases on Mars in ten years' time".

It's seemingly always ten years away. Close enough to whet the appetite for adventure, yet never close enough to touch. It'll happen in my lifetime ..but they were saying that when I was a child, and now I'm forty-four. (Perhaps it'll be a bold retirement move for me.)

Conclusion

I think generally anything predicted to happen within the goldilocks zone can be dismissed. If not as outright hokum, then at least as something speculative and unfounded enough that it shouldn't be taken overly serious.

You certainly shouldn't allow it to elicit an emotional response. Which is what the people making such claims often want. They may want legislation passed on the back of that emotion. They may want to exploit the fear/hope in order to make money or further their career. They may simply want to gain an audience and following. It could also be the case that they're genuine believers that want to win others over to their cause. Perhaps exaggerating or overstating their case to leverage emotion. Often it's a combination of the above, as is generally the case in life, where passions and careers overlap.

Then again, what do I know, perhaps they're just right about everything.

Perhaps AI will kill us all within the next five years. Perhaps we'll escape to Mars in the next four. Perhaps the polar ice caps will melt and drown all the Terminator robots after we leave. Perhaps we'll come back to Earth just in time for Judgement Day.

Next Up: Is AI Out of Control?