"2 + 2" = "two plus two"

I read back those last few posts on my way home from work yesterday (Was it yesterday or the night before? All the days are blurring into one this Christmas). Either way, whenever I read them, they read a bit stilted. I think this is the problem when you want to do something, but don't have the time to catch the moment. You end up trying to fake it by retracing your steps, but the essential salience goes missing somewhere. So I hope I at least conveyed the general idea, especially on the topic of Number Worship. In fact, this is another problem: when you read something back that's fresh in your mind it can be hard to tell if you expressed what was on your mind on the actual page, as it's all tied up as one blob. Really you need to come back with fresh eyes in a few months' time, when you've forgotten all the mental rehearsals. Then it's easy to spot the mistakes, or the bits that don't make sense because you failed to include something important that the reader would've needed to know.

Anyway, today I'm gonna return briefly to Number Worship as something popped up that spurred me further.

The following exchange appeared on Twitter.

Firstly, neither of these tweets were in response to the particular point I was making, so it would be unfair to reply to them as if they were. It's more the case that they're convenient for me to make a point off the back of.

The initial tweet shows a meme that, slightly tongue-in-cheek, states that "Math isn't real." The reply then asks, "Why does 2 + 2 = 4?"

I like both these people, so I don't want to unfairly accuse anyone of stating something they were not. However, the reply tweet so neatly encapsulates the Number Worship mindset that I was trying to explain in my last, rather meandering, post.

Instead of just acknowledging, "Yes, mathematics is a language," the response is a defensive one. Making an argument implying that number is a fundamental aspect of reality. In fact, another tweet popped up in response to the debate that highlighted the worldview even more plainly.

It sums up the view in a nutshell, and if you remember the point from the last post - that literature gave rise to a belief in written bibles, which has since been supplanted by a belief in bibles written in mathematics  - you'll notice the common themes. (Though to be fair, looking up the quote online, it appears that the sentence only paraphrases Galileo, and in his original passage God is not mentioned. It is, nevertheless, the classic refrain.)

Anyway, the claim that maths is real because "2 + 2 = 4" misses the point. As just because a language can be used to make a true statement doesn't mean the language itself is fundamentally real and not conceptual. For instance, I can make a true statement in English. Let's say, "If you heat a solid it will turn to liquid." This is true, but no one would argue that therefore English, or some other spoken language, is the true essential root of all physical reality. (Though again, in the age of the written bibles we had, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" [My emphasis, not God's :p .)

Likewise I can write "2 + 2 = 4" in English, .."Two plus two equals four."

There's this vague notion, as per the Galileo quote, that the universe is constructed entirely from number. Like numbers are somehow the essential building blocks. However, even if the numbers themselves were not conceptual, which they are, the language of mathematics is held together by symbols that are not numbers. Even the simple "2 + 2 = 4" is not simply numbers. The + sign is a symbol that symbolises the concept of adding. The = sign the concept of things being the same. So we're dealing with concepts here, abstractions from the real world.

Plato's Forms

The Number Worship worldview is a little bit similar to Plato's theory of Forms. This notion that conceptual ideas are somehow more real than the physical examples. That the concept of an Orange, or a Tree, is truer and more perfect in form than its real world imitations. This is an interesting idea from a philosophical, or even religious point of view, but it's not science. Science is about observing the real world - so it would be a topsy-turvy science that deemed concepts more fundamental than physical reality.

Nevertheless, it serves as a good illustration of how language is indeed conceptual. There are, of course, real actual oranges. However, when we use the word orange we're conveying a concept. Even if I have an actual orange, the minute I express to another person, in writing or in speech, "I have an orange," the words are conceptual. And I'm relying on the fact that the other person shares the same concept, and understands that the symbols on the page symbolise that concept. I'm not giving them an actual orange by writing the word orange.

This belief that the numbers themselves are somehow truer than the real world objects they're counting, is, like Plato's Forms, actually quite a mystical idea. Though those who believe it are generally quite oblivious, so much do they confound the notions of maths and science. It's also more restrictive, as the Plato theory can appeal to all concepts, whereas the more modern form is exclusive to just numbers (and also geometric shapes).

(In fact, geometric shapes - the circle, the triangle, the perfect sphere and so forth - also very much fall into this category of concepts that are taken as more real than reality itself. It's likewise interesting to note that at the macro and micro level we have worldviews that mirror this. Be it the spherical suns and planets orbiting in space, or electrons whizzing around protons and neutrons. In contrast to what we witness in our everyday lives - where flowers, humans, clouds, birds, etc, are complex shapes. Though here the round orange does indeed seem perfect in its radiance.)

..Back To Christmas

Anyhow, I better get back to Christmas. I'm back at work tomorrow, so I'm gonna have to get presents wrapped tonight. Sadly the perfectly wrapped presents that exist in my mind's eye won't be viewed quite like the real thing by the people receiving them. So I'm a slave to reality, and my poor wrapping skills will have to suffice.

What Is Number Worship? A Primer.

Number Worship is a label I've been using recently. It's a little bit pejorative, and I use it to describe a certain way of thinking. A way of thinking that in many ways is the true religion of our time. That might sound a little odd, hence the purpose of this article - to make it clear what is meant.

There are two ways of understanding the term. By looking at how it manifests in today's world, and by looking at the historic context. I'll start with today..

"" The Science ""

Most people will be familiar with the "Trust the Science" mantra. This idea that Science, with a capital S, must not be questioned. It's pretty easy to see the parallels with religion, and this is often commented upon. However, what is not as well acknowledged is something more fundamental to this worldview, and that is that the "Trust the Science" types (in fact, most people in today's world really) fail to recognise the difference between mathematics and science.

Science is about observation. Fundamentally it's about making observations of the actual world. Whereas mathematics is a language. It's symbolic and abstract. Sure, maths and science make good bedfellows, and maths can be applied to science, but maths is not the real world.

A graph or table of data might be a model or symbolic representation of the real world, but it is not the real, actual world.

Even if you believe the real world can be entirely represented and understood as data, the data in a model will always be less than the real world data. Likewise data is collected and compiled by humans, with all the biases of thought and circumstance that come with that. So when it comes to science reality is primary, and models are always inferior and secondary.

However, as the "Trust the Science" people don't recognise this, and conflate the two in their minds, the data becomes more real than the actual observed world. In fact, if you find yourself debating these people you'll often be confronted with the refrain of, "Where's Your Science?!"

And what they really mean when they say this is "Where's your data?". They're not asking for an observation they can repeat. They want a study with data. They want some graphs and numbers - and if you do not have that then no appeal to logic or observation will sway them. In their minds data is the ultimate and primary source of truth.

An Example.

To give an easy example we can return to the pandemic and the issue of masking. One of my arguments against wearing a mask was that I feared they'd be a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus. This wasn't based on data, but upon observation. We know that dark, damp, warm and poorly ventilated places are good breeding grounds, so it's not illogical to surmise that wearing a mask for eight hours a day might have a similar effect. However, if I raised this argument the reply would come back, "Where's your science?!" - again, in reality meaning, "Where's your study/data?".

As I had no data, I therefore had no science in their eyes.

Of course, when studies finally appeared backing up the notion that bacteria and fungus might be an issue they begrudgingly accepted it. (Though even here, once studies with data are presented there are often appeals to counter studies and different interpretations of the data. Or claims that the studies were flawed, or conducted by "discredited" people. -- The issue of authority and interpretation will be familiar when we get to the historical context.)

As you're reading this you may be thinking that my views on masks are wrong. That the issue of bacteria on masks is negligible, or that my reasoning is faulty. You could be right. However, this isn't the point. The point is that these people on the other side of the debate are so enthral to the notion that data is reality that they root their worldview in data - that is, they root their views not in first-hand experience and observation, but in abstract models and studies.

If there is no data then it doesn't exist to them, and if there is data then they believe it to be as real as the ground beneath them.

Consequently, as they're not rooted in reality, it's easy for them to get lost in fairy tales written in mathematics. Fairy tales written by men.

First there was the Word..

Now for the historic context. It's no coincidence that not long after man discovered the art of writing, books - or bibles - became the source of all truth. This wonderful new technology came along - a way of putting ideas down into stone or clay - and lo, it became the true authority.

We still have this sense now - "It was written in a book, it must be true."

Of course, most "intelligent" people today understand only too well that books are written by men, and that like men they can be false. Still though, this appeal to text has never quite went away.

"Source?!"

A written source is seen as something more solid and authoritative than a general opinion. It's afforded more weight and gravity. Even the "intelligent" academics that pooh pooh the various Bibles will get very angry if you doubt a historic source that backs up their particular worldview. "It's written down, we have the evidence!"

Nevertheless, in spite of this lingering reverence, since the advent of the enlightenment we've left the true worship of books behind. We now have a purer symbolic language to etch the word of God down in: mathematics.

Maths, with its universal beauty, has transplanted the written word, and it's no coincidence that with the rise of reason and science it has become the true language of scribes and priests. Now, just as Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religionists once took a book to be more true than reality itself, so Scientists take data to be truer still. The graph is more real than the outside world. The table of data is sacrosanct and must not be questioned.

Lo, we have the data.

And lo, once we get enough data - once we have a book big enough - we will have all the answers.

I'm getting a little bit heady and over the top here, but you get the point I'm making. The modern hierophants, arguing over graphs and making appeals to authority, are little different to priests arguing over different textual interpretations. Lost in abstract things, their egos tied up in the arcana, unable to come back down to earth from the ivory tower.

"Following the Science."

Followers for sure, but it is not science they're following. It's data - again, data that is collected, collated and divined by men. In fact, there's that other common saying we hear from governments these days that implies the same thing,

"We're led by the data."

At least this one is more accurate in its literal sense.

Anyway, this is what I mean when I say the 'worship of numbers,' and in my view it's actually quite dangerous - as dangerous as any past religion. As all these politicians, academics and experts are true believers in the data, and are simply incapable of understanding that data is not reality.

They'll bow down to the holy graph (or to the infallible AI algorithm) and lock us down or execute some other political policy in a heartbeat. Even the ones that disagree with the action will only be able to provide counter arguments by making different appeals to scripture (that is, appeals to different interpretations of the data). So fully immersed in this religious worldview are they. Unable to step outside the book of numbers.

It's like the Matrix, but the pods aren't needed.

Carry On Britain

Earlier, when I last posted, what I wanted to write was clear in my mind, but I didn't have the time. Now I'm back home and I have the time I've completely lost my thread. The flow has gone.

What I was thinking this morning was how odd the Labour Party are. That is, the current make up of the Labour Party. It's now majority female (104 out of the 199 Labour MPs in parliament are women).

I've noted this female contingent before, often disparagingly. In fact, had I posted this morning when the ink was still wet I would've continued in that vein. Now, in the contemplation of evening fall I don't quite have the venom in me. So I'll try to describe the stereotype more politely. They're the sort of women who often start sentences with, "As a working mother..." It's that type of politics. The social justice stuff, but with a HR department type vibe.

Actually, let's stop beating about the bush. This attempt at being nice is fooling nobody, let's just be honest. The women on the Labour Party benches remind me of a hen party. Irate, on the warpath, and looking for a man to blame. I remember when they were all berating Boris, demanding an apology because he'd used "bad language" in the chamber. I noted on this blog at the time that it was like seeing a man get scolded by a harem of housewives.

Of course, it no doubt comes across as sexist stating this. Perhaps it is. However, really I think it's quite the opposite. The other parties don't seem to have this problem. Labour seem to elevate women that have a victim mentality though. Being "a woman" is such a strong part of their political identity that they can't escape the stereotype. The role of an MP is supposed to be a leadership role - you're stepping up in your community to take charge and responsibility, the buck is supposed to stop with you. So you can't be a good leader if you have a mindset where you expect someone else (that is, someone above you in society) to dole out justice in your direction. Where the state and its male politicians are just another father figure you appeal to (and complain to) when problems arise.

To be blunt, you're not supposed to be complaining that your husband hasn't put the shelf up, you're supposed to be putting the shelf up yourself.

Either way, it is what it is, and I can't hide my opinion that these Labour MPs look so hysterical and hectoring.

Keir Starmer

This brings me to the key observation. Namely that Keir Starmer is the male at the centre of all these females. It's such a strange social dynamic. Many, many people are commenting on the fact that Labour look set to win a landslide at the next election, however, few seem to envision what that government will look like. It'll be unlike any government in history in its make up in my opinion.

It also seems quite noteworthy to me that Keir Starmer comes across as slightly camp in his mannerisms. It's strangely fitting. Like it takes a male with that sort of personality to manage so many women of the hen party type. I can't really imagine a more masculine politician keeping such a situation in check. Especially after beating two female candidates in the leadership race. It's quite a feat.

It's a little like the Margaret Thatcher years in reverse. There you had a strong woman surrounded by males in a male dominated world. Here you'll have a male politician surrounded by females that behave like stereotypical housewives. It's so strange I'm amazed that it goes under the radar so much. Though I guess the people that see it are afraid to point it out and elaborate for fear of being called sexist, etc.

Carry On..

Earlier today I couldn't help but think in terms of Carry On movies. There you had a similar dynamic. The camp Kenneth Williams, surrounded by matrons and uptight housewives on the one side, the laddish Sid James & Co on the other, being all cheeky and politically incorrect.

With the Conservative Party moving more to right they could very well fit the Sid James role in opposition.

It seems so British. From a logical point of view it terrifies me. I just don't see how it will work. Seeing it through the lens of a Carry On movie (especially at Christmas) makes it feel more reassuring though. So perhaps it'll be alright after all.

It's also worth noting that if Labour do win a landslide that'll mean another cohort of new politicians. Given the positive discrimination I'm guessing that'll mean even more Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques. So the picture could be even starker. Though I noticed in the local elections this year that the Little Boy Labour* stereotype seemed to be the commoner trend. So who knows.

/////////////////////////////////////

*This is the moniker that instantly springs to mind whenever I see these new and incredibly young Labour politicians that pop up these days. It could partly be a bias stemming from the fact that I've finally reached my early 40s and politicians are starting to simply look younger to me. Though I think the theme is real. The current Middlesbrough mayor looks about twelve and is in fact just thirty-three years old. Likewise, the Labour MP Keir Mather, who won the Selby and Ainsty by-election this year is just twenty-five.

It's similar to the Harry Enfield 'Tory Boy' stereotype.

I think the underlying commonality in these two stereotypes is that the people are defined by their investment in the party, rather than by their own personal convictions. The Tory Boy vaguely believes whatever it is that the current manifestation of the Conservative Party believes. So, for example, a young conservative that has strong and genuinely held free market libertarian views, or strong traditional Christian views wouldn't be a 'Tory Boy,' as their personal convictions may put them in opposition to the party at times. Whereas the Tory Boy is always with the party, wherever it goes. Their worldview is the party.

 

I think it's similar with these young 'Little Boy Labour' types. I don't think they stand for anything in particular as individuals. They just have a vague belief in 'Labour Party values.' Which at present are a vague mix of socialism and social justice. In fact, when Keir Mather was elected there was a brief furore when he immediately stated that he supported Keir Starmer's policy of keeping the two-child benefit cap. Of course, there's nothing wrong with taking a particular policy view. Nor is it necessarily wrong to compromise and support policies you might not fully agree with in the party interest. However, when someone so young says something that's clearly so calculated it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. There's just something not right about it. There's the sense that someone so young can only be making such a judgement for the wrong reasons, as they're not old enough to have the sense of pragmatism. So therefore it must be self-interest, or a case of being misled by older party figures.

Anyway, that was a longer than anticipated addendum. Well done if you've reached this far.

Christmas Miss Much

I haven't posted recently as my time has been consumed by work and Christmas. I have lots of things I want to post about though - including: how to fix your aesthetic compass using strawberry jam; a primer on 'number worship'; and also an article about how Britain after the next election could be like a Carry On movie. So hopefully now I have a few days off I can get some of that done.

First, alas, I have to once again brace the cold and head out to do yet more shopping.

It's all very mundane and unmanly, but at least fitting as a prelude to Carry On Britain.

Why The Elites Can't Just Leave Things Alone

This is a topic I keep meaning to post about. Namely the difference in attitude between ruling class type people and more regular type people when it comes to dealing with problems.

To give a simple example.

Let's say a bookshelf breaks in your home. It's a mundane problem, but one that needs fixing. However, though you recognise it needs fixing you may not be able to fix it immediately. It might be that you don't have the £70 spare at the moment to go and buy a new one from Argos. It could be that you simply don't have the time to spend an afternoon drilling holes in walls as you're too busy working a 9-5, or looking after the children. So it gets put on the backburner. Hopefully at some point you'll get round to sorting it, but for the time being it gets left.

However, if you're someone that has a lot of wealth, especially someone that employs staff, then it's quite different. You simply note the issue to an aide, and it gets dealt with. The money isn't an issue, nor is the time, as you're hiring someone else to come in and do the work.

When you live like this it becomes a habit. You get used to having problems dealt with immediately.

It's similar with health issues. For instance, let's take baldness. A cosmetic issue, but nevertheless one that is often considered important by men who start losing their hair. Now a normal person, with limited resources, might try a few over-the-counter remedies to stop the hair loss. Or order some online wonder-drug in the hope it works. However, after trying and failing a few times they'll quickly accept their fate and embrace life as a bald person.

If a person has a lot of money though they don't have to be as accepting of their fate. They can spend thousands jetting off to hair transplant specialists, or trying the latest state-of-the-art procedures. If they're unhappy with the results of one specialist they can hire another. The dream of hair remains alive, and the sense of control over the situation is retained.

An extreme example can be seen with celebrities and their endless plastic surgeries. Michael Jackson perhaps being the classic case in point. All humans have hang-ups about their appearance, but it's only with money that the possibility to indulge these hang-ups becomes an option.

Political hang-ups..

I think it's much the same with world politics. When there's so much money sloshing about, and so many people that can be employed to tackle a problem, it's very hard to just leave things be. The war in Iraq took place twenty years ago. It's hard not to imagine that had things just been left alone Saddam Hussein might have died of natural causes by now. Of course, conversely it's also possible that he could've went on to wage his own wars and lived to have been one hundred and twenty. So it's impossible to know for sure. Again though, it's hard not to feel the war just made things worse. Like drilling into the wall to put up a shelf, only to hit an electricity cable by accident.

I think lots of things in politics essentially boil down to this "do something" vs "leave things alone" question. However, most the people that are vocal in politics (including myself for sure in this regard) tend to be the sort of people that want to set the world to rights. So "leave things alone" rarely gets aired as an option. The sort of people that want to leave things alone are leaving things alone by default and staying out of it.

In many ways the Brexit vote (yes, Brexit again) was a vote to leave things alone.

"Just leave Britain be Britain, stop doing stuff!! ..and stop doing it so fast!"

When I was seven years old the Berlin Wall fell. That same year Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed by firing squad. By the time I reached the age of thirty-one we had completely open borders with Romania.

That's quite the pace of change. All driven by an elite class with an innate desire to impose some kind of order on the world. Even as one order had just fallen. Could we not just have waited a few generations and enjoyed life after the Soviet Union? Meandering naturally, testing the waters.

I'm being a little unfair here. Like with our appearance, we all have these hang-ups and impulses. It's just accentuated in those that have the means to get their own way. That habit of doing something, the annoyance that something is out of place and not exactly where you want it to be. That an ornament has been moved slightly or put in its wrong place, or that the world jigsaw isn't exactly how you envision it in your mind. We would all shape the world to our own desires to some extent if we could. It takes a tremendous amount of self-restraint to step back when you can see in your field of vision a problem that's bugging you.

Plus, at the other end of the scale, leaving problems to fester is also a bad habit. So a bit of zip is needed in life as well. I guess it's a case of trying to find a balance. A little bit of will and purpose, but a little bit of pragmatism and acceptance of reality too.

Culture-Wowing

Woke up today. Saw this tweet on Twitter.

(The text asks "How on earth was this done

with nothing but a hammer and chisel?")

The tweet now has nearly 6 million views at the time of writing. I left a bit of snarky comment, pointing out prosaically that it's done by practice. It really is just practice, it's not magic. I shouldn't be so negative, but this constant online awe for art and architecture from the ancient, medieval and renaissance world is starting to get annoying. I get (and agree with) the underlying sentiment. Yes, modern buildings do look ugly. Buildings from centuries ago (even as recent as the 1800s and early 1900s) put them to shame, quite drastically. So it does give the stark impression that we're living in backwards times.

However, the lament is now just turning into stupidity. Ironically confirming the sense of downfall.

The above sculpture is good. The technique creating the appearance of gauze is impressive. But you shouldn't be looking at it like it's a UFO - something beyond your comprehension or your potential to replicate, by beings on a different cloud.

Again, it's just the product of practice. The gauze depicted on the sculpture isn't actually transparent. It's just the contours of the body and the fabric that give the impression of transparency. It's masterfully done, but it shouldn't leave you dumbfounded. This is the thing though, and what's really kind of backwards. It's that people are viewing these artworks like an impressive magic trick, rather than as something interesting, beautiful or pleasing in some way.

Personally, I don't actually like these sculptures too much. They're not really my cup of tea. Something like Donatello's David would be more beautiful to me. That's just my personal taste of course, and I don't really have a great interest in sculpture either way to be honest, but the point is art should be about what you like.

It's similar to seeing a very photorealistic painting and being like, "Wow, it looks just like a photograph." Like you're impressed by the technique and the wow factor of "How did they do that!". Rather than just liking the art itself, because you like it. As if a painting is better than the Mona Lisa by virtue of the fact that it's more realistic looking.

If you genuinely like the above sculpture then great, but if you're sharing it with the, "..But how did they do this?!" line, then you're just relegating yourself to a lower tier of civilisation by default. We're getting into "How did they build the pyramids?" territory. Where people are impressed by the sheer bigness. If you point out that there are smaller pyramids dotted about Egypt, and that the culture that built them obviously just scaled things up, you get, "..But look how big the pyramid of Giza is!". Like once you get to a certain bigness you need aliens or some lost technology.

I don't want to diss the pyramids - like the transparent sculpture, they're impressive - but if you need aliens, or some other higher civilisation narrative, to spice up the awe and interest factor then the artistry alone obviously isn't impressing you as much as you think or say it is.

Back to the Jungle

We have the Covid inquiry going on in the UK at the moment. I've paid zero attention to it. It was always obvious that it was going to be fudge and smudge. Absolving blame, but in a way where it looks as though people have had a ticking off. I've just seen a tweet on Twitter with the classic "We should've locked down earlier" refrain. I don't mind admitting that hearing this instantly triggers me. A false choice between instant tyranny and tyranny a few weeks later. A fake argument that presupposes that locking down was not just correct, but the only option.

Generally, I'm always happy to let sleeping dogs lie. I'd have preferred there to have been no inquiry. For us just to move on. Like a bad night out everyone agrees to forget. The problem is law and politics often rests on precedent. At the start of lockdowns you could rightly say, "Look, this is something that has never happened in our history. It's a ridiculous way for a country with the rule of law to behave." In the future it'll be a case of, "The last guys did it, what's the big deal - we always respond to pandemics this way."

So any inquiry that doesn't come to the conclusion that lockdowns were categorically wrong just green lights future abuses. We'll forever be a newspaper headline away from mass curfew.

And this brings me to another tie in.

I've noticed that over the last year or so things have really regressed on our streets. Earlier today a friend sent me a story about a local stabbing. When I walk the streets these days I constantly see young lads in balaclavas flying around on motorbikes. I remember what things were like in the 80s and 90s when the streets were wild and feral in the UK. I feel like we're heading back there.

It might be biased to blame all this on the pandemic, but it's hard not to see a clear link. The inflation, the social dislocation, the infantilization of adults, the disregard for the development of children, the disruption of teenage life. The sheer focus on Covid to the detriment of everything else. Of course, you can draw a line from the masking to the balaclavas too. A society where the covering of the face is normalised. Where basic human empathy is restricted, and every passer-by is an unaccountable stranger. Just a pair of eyes behind a shroud.

Personally, I still prefer this feral-ness to the lockdown years though. I'd rather live in the wild west than the Soviet Union if I'm forced to make a choice. In fact, I can't help but feel that there's some kind of weird re-wilding happening after the suppression of the lockdowns. Like nature is reasserting itself. Back to the jungle. It's not what I would ideally want, but I do get some joy from the fact that official inquiries can't entirely paste their worldview over reality.

Books and Strings

Probably a good point for a little update. I'm back at work after a few weeks of holiday, so that's why the post frequency has dried up. I'm also really busy in general. I'm going through a little period where I have a lot of things that interest me. The main one at the moment being my investigations into tunings - that's musical tunings. Mainly the differences between Just Intonation and Equal Temperament tuning, especially in regard the now lost 'harmonic seventh' interval. So lots of maths and twiddling with music software. I've even bought a, as yet unboxed, lyre harp, so I can tune some strings organically (you can't just tone tune a standard guitar because of the equal tempered fret spacing).

I'll post the fruits of my researches with all that over on this blog, as it's a little too esoteric for here: https://foolsharbour.blogspot.com

You'll see there isn't too much content on that blog currently. However, that should change over time. I set it up to follow on from this blog: https://birkhallsmiscellany.blogspot.com, which I've now archived and drawn a line under. The themes of that one were essentially history, art and conspiracy theory. I want to keep doing the esoteric art/history/science stuff, but leave the conspiracies behind, so a fresh home felt timely.

I kind of feel like I've reached a point where I'm post-conspiracy. Yes, we live in a world of lies, but for all the arguments about how this world works and what goes on in it, I think essentially the question of why it's here and why we're here are for you and God (or however you want to frame it). I don't think any man, organisation, religion or culture has the true answers, no matter how many layers of emperor's clothes you strip off the people involved. There's more truth in the length of a string.

Books.

Getting back into the world of the living I've also just bought the Nadine Dorries book The Plot, about the downfall of Boris. It's a great read so far. Funnily enough given recent posts, it actually reads like The Da Vinci Code. Were it not for work and getting side-tracked into musical ratios I'd have polished it off by now.

I'm also still reading the book about the Kennedy family on my bus rides to work (The Kennedy Curse -- James Patterson and Cynthia Fagan). I'm up to Teddy Kennedy and the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. I always find this the most tragic of the Kennedy misfortunes. With the deaths of JFK and RFK there's a heroic narrative that acts as a silver lining for the tragedies, but with this one it's just very human and unheroic. Back to reality with a sad, depressing bump.

Getting back to music I've also just bought the book How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony - (and Why You Should Care), for obvious reason - which I've yet to start. So plenty to entertain me.

Beatles Be Back

The new Beatles song, Now And Then, has just been released. I'm listening to it now as I type. I love the Beatles, and it's a great track. However, at the same time I feel a slight discomfort with the idea that this is a Beatles song.

(Now And Then - The Beatles)

On Monday I said to my friend when we were discussing it, half-joking, that with two of them being dead they could release a completely new AI track and we'd be none the wiser. Of course, that isn't the case here. This is a John Lennon track from the 70s. A demo, essentially brought to life with the help of the remaining Beatles. (The original attempt to resurrect it was back in the 90s, when George was still alive - when Free as a Bird and Real Love were recorded.) Even here though, AI was enlisted. With Lennon's voice apparently being extracted from the demo by "AI-backed audio restoration technology commissioned by Peter Jackson," for his The Beatles: Get Back documentary.

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. Again, it's a great song, and it's bringing people a lot of joy and magic at a time when the world is looking quite the opposite. I do hope this is the end rather than the beginning though. The Beatles was something that happened in 1960s. This song was written in the 1970s after they'd split. John Lennon died in 1980. It's been recorded decades after his death. So it isn't really the Beatles.

This may be nit-picking, but we should be under no illusion these days about how easy it is for history to become confused and rewritten. It wasn't too long ago we had the Roald Dahl issue, where books had been changed (long after the man's death), yet presented without clear labelling that that had been the case. Today we have news that birds in the Americas will no longer be named after people, because some of the historic figures were controversial. It's hard not to laugh at this one, it's so ridiculous, yet here we are.

It was only last week we had the story about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, where copies of that had been pulped by an artist and turned into copies of 1984. That felt very careless and disrespectful to me. Yes, sure, unsold books are often pulped, but this was a bestseller. Would people have destroyed 6,000 copies of Michael Jackson's Thriller like this, or Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell?

Of course, it's always much easier to repackage the work of a dead man than it is to write something new. So the temptation is always there to take the work or reputation of long gone people and set yourself up as curator or custodian. Just look at the endless movie remakes we see. Once again, I'm being a little unfair to the Beatles track release here. Paul and Ringo were half of the actual Beatles, so it's quite different. It's just with AI on the horizon the fear that the Beatles brand will be milked beyond truth and reality looms heavy.

The story about Paul's cigarette being airbrushed out of the Abbey Road picture springs to mind. With politics, money, and "I know better," there's always a steady fountain of people ready to obscure the true source of genius and innovation.

(I'm so tempted to end this post by saying we should just Let It Be - I really cannot resist it. If I finished by just saying we should leave things alone someone else would only make the pun anyway though. So it's going in there.)

Clock-Shift

Clocks went back to normal at the weekend. I remember as a child I used to always get a depressing sense of ennui around this time of year. The sudden jolt into darkness after school. Knightmare would be on CITV, and it'd be dark and doomy outside. It was only when I got older that I realised it was a consequence of the clock-shift.

I really don't like the messing-around of the clocks. I feel it uproots people from nature. Midday is when the Sun is at its height in the sky - it's a real-world, physical fact - so deciding we're going to start calling actual midday 1 o'clock every summer just seems wilfully dishonest. Of course, actual midday is always going to be relative to where you are on the Earth, so no clock is going to be a truly accurate representation of your daily experience. However, at least keep it in the ballpark. Why purposely shift the whole thing an hour out of whack?

People will make practical arguments for it. I never find them especially convincing, but even so, it's more the principle. Misrepresenting the real world with faulty language because it offers an uptick in GDP, or some other political dividend. It's like saying you'd be happy to call the Sun the Moon and the Moon the Sun if it reduced crime by 5%.

There's also the arrogance. People or governments thinking they somehow have the authority to just decide midday is now 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock, or whatever the case may be. And that we all must then live by it, and use those wrong labels. Labels that contradict basic observed reality.

People talk about how dystopic it is being forced to refer to men as women, and to use the right pronouns and so forth. This isn't a million miles away from that really, but people are used to it, so if you complain it's "What's the big deal?". They're happy to spend two days every year fiddling around with every clock in the house because some bureaucrats in their wisdom want to play God.

Irksome.

Halloween Head

It's Halloween, so I feel I should write something, but I don't really have much to write. I have this sense that it would be cathartic to do so though.

I like Halloween and Guy Fawkes. I like the fact that there's a depth of feeling to them, but that you don't have to do anything. There are no days off work, or major interruptions into regular daily life - they just kind of happen. I love Christmas, but it comes with a lot a jazz. There's all the planning, the Christmas shopping. In fact, I'm already slightly stressed about Christmas shopping, and it's still two months away. Whereas here we are on the very day of Halloween and it's no worries at all. Maybe there'll be a few knocks on the door tonight, but even then there's no obligation to open it.

I tend to enjoy Guy Fawkes slightly more, but even with that it's just as a passing spectator. Walking home in the dark, from work or a friends, and seeing the skies filled with fireworks. The vague awareness that it dates back 400 years; that it's uniquely tied to British history, in a way that other holidays aren't. All that coupled with the knowledge that the bonfires simultaneously lit date back thousands of years. Deep into some ancient past.

I remember the first time I ever heard the Stone Roses first album was on Bonfire Night. I had about an hour to listen to it, before heading out to wander the streets with my friends - checking out the local bonfires. One of the good things about living on a council estate back then was that it was still wild enough to have a sense of danger. Bonfires on every local field, higher than houses. The danger that someone would throw a firework at ya. There was always a weird night-at-the-fair type atmosphere. Everything seemed more gypsy and feral. Anyway, hearing that album for the first time, in my darkened bedroom, with fireworks filling the skylight of the window was quite a 'wow' moment. The only track I was familiar with was She Bangs The Drums, so it was almost entirely new to me. I wanted to listen to it again, but I also felt the pull of the bonfires outside.

That seems a long time ago now..

Now it feels like Halloween England is a refuge from the rest of the world, not an autumn fairground. Dwarfed by international politics. The instinctive feeling is to retreat into Britishness. In many ways things like Guy Fawkes feel like a celebration of being left alone. Lighting fireworks to celebrate that we've secured a few more centuries of not being bothered by the rest of the world. Like English archers flipping the V to the French.

In my head I feel (or rather think) that I really need to shake off this Britishness, and have a more worldly attitude. It feels a little selfish and narrow-minded to be so parochial. However, whenever I turn on the media to see what's happening in the rest of the world it just turns me off. The feeling that all these people are just beyond help and reason. Even London feels foreign through the phone lens. If it's not protestors protesting for or against Israel/Palestine, it's wacky people with English flags, dressed up like St. George, calling for mass deportations.

Up here, in the north, where I live, I don't see any of this stuff. In fact, the other day I was on the bus and I sat watching an African immigrant guy helping an old white guy with a walker off the bus. He watched the old guy step off the bus like a parent watching a toddler on the stairs. The difference from what I was seeing on my phone that day couldn't have been starker.

Anyone that's read this blog over the last few years will know that I'm not saying everything is therefore rosy. The immigration levels are ridiculous. In the long run we will end up like Lebanon if it continues like this. In the short term we will have massive homelessness and overcrowding. However, it's not the end of the world, and the solution is pretty obvious: reduce the inward immigration. We don't need anything wacky, like deportations of people born here, or political parties just for Muslim people.

I really feel that if we just get a handle on immigration we'll integrate everyone here (tricky though that might be) and Britain will just be fine. When I look at the rest of the world though, I really don't know what the answer is, and saying we just want to be left alone to enjoy the fireworks won't cut the mustard with them.

(That went from whimsy to seriousness pretty quickly, I'll bring it back with some happy pumpkins..

🎃🎃🎃

New Addition to the Library

Boom.

I had to rely on eBay in the end. My visit to the charity shop was unsuccessful. (Also, I've somehow managed to take a picture that creates the optical illusion that the picture frame itself is wonky.)

Under Grace

The difference between living under Law and living under Grace.

Let's say you don't do something bad. Let's say you don't punch someone, and someone asks why you didn't punch someone.

If your response is, "..Because it's against the law" - then that's not an ideal answer.

Sure, it's good that we have laws that stop people from punching each other, and it's good you're obeying that law. However, ideally your answer should be something more like:

"..Because I have no desire to punch someone."

If you have a good heart, and good intentions towards others, then you don't really need that law. As you'll not go around punching people, whether there's a law or not.

This is what Christians mean when they state that living 'under grace' is higher than living under law.

Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself

In the New Testament, when Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment in law, he replies:

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Essentially stating that having truly good intent precedes all law. That is, if you have a good heart, and you care for others as you care for yourself - and you live your life always in that mode (i.e. in that state of grace) - then your way of living will be good regardless of specific laws.

(If you're an atheist and you don't like the idea of having to "Love God," try replacing that first line with, 'Approach life with love in your heart, mind and soul.' Or, 'Love the whole world with your heart, mind and soul.')

The idea that the heart is higher than written law also acknowledges the fact that laws can be bad as well as good. Or can be put to bad use if followed to the letter rather than to the spirit. Again, the argument that you were 'just following orders' isn't really good enough from a moral point of view, if you just followed those orders coldly and without true care for others. Even if technically they were lawful.

So, ultimately, it doesn't matter if you go to synagogue on a Saturday, or church on a Sunday. What truly matters is that you live in goodness, ..on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Illusion of Time

A quick one, and a bit of an unusual one for this blog. Time - is it an illusion?

Personally, it's my view that 'time' isn't real in a scientific sense. I believe it only really exists conceptually. (This topic popped up on Twitter, thanks to Elon Musk, so that's why I'm now posting about it here.)

Time is just general movement (all the things that are generally happening), measured against a regular, repeating movement.

People have this idea that time is a thing that exists, that we're all moving through, but I don't think that's the case. There's just movement, and the concept of time arises from things moving. Things don't move in, or through time. Time springs out as a concept from the movement. So essentially there is no time, just things moving.

You could say there is no time, only change. Things change (move), and time is just a name for change when it's measured against something that changes predictably or uniformly.

Example

Often we'll have time represented, as a real thing, in an equation. For example, if we were measuring how fast a car was travelling we'd use the equation:

Speed = Distance/Time

Where we measure the distance travelled in a given time by the car to get the speed.

However, though it's handy to think in terms of time, the reality is we're not measuring the distance relative to time - we're measuring it relative to a clock.

Let's say it's a watch with a ticking second hand, and the car travels 600 meters in 60 seconds.

The ticking second hand is moving.

So though we think in terms of time ..and measure the speed as 600/60 (distance/time), giving us 10 meters per second. The reality is we're actually measuring the movement of the car, against the movement of the second hand.

We're saying: As the second hand moved sixty times the car moved 600 meters.

..But!

Now you might be saying "..But the second hand is measuring a second of time with each tick!"

However, what is a second?

It's a division of a minute, which is a division of an hour, which is a division of a day.

And what is a day?

It's the Earth moving around the Sun.

So the original clock - the heavenly motion of the Sun - is again just a repeating movement. We're measuring the things on Earth against the regular, repeating motion of the Sun.

If you travel 100 miles in 5 days you might think in terms of time, but again, in reality, it's a case that as the Sun travelled around 5 times you travelled 100 miles. It's movement measured against movement. Not against some imagined corridor of time we're all travelling through.

And all clocks are the same. They all provide a regular motion against which we can measure all other motion. Whether it's the ticking hand of a watch, the Sun or Moon, or an atomic clock.

So ultimately we're always measuring things relative to movement.

1984: 1984: 1984: 1984

Today when I woke I headed to the BBC News website to see what was going on. Amidst the blood and carnage I came across this article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67218454

It's about a modern artist who has pulped copies of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and turned them into copies of George Orwell's 1984. The story going that charity shops were overwhelmed with unwanted copies of the former.

The lack of respect for The Da Vinci Code is a real bugbear of mine. It was a genuinely great book, that brought a lot of real joy and adventure to people ..lots of people. Even at the time there was a lot of snobbery from the intelligentsia class towards it though. Largely in regard the writing style, but also in regard the content in general. In fact, showing how much of a bugbear it is for me, I actually covered this topic on another blog way back in 2011 😄

See Here: Recently Read - Angels and Demons

Another bugbear for me is modern art in general, so this one doubly gets me (apparently the newly made copies of 1984 are going for £495 !).

When I first read The Da Vinci Code I absolutely zipped through it. At the time I was in a guitar band, (this must have been 2004/5 ish), and I remember we had a gig. I was that engrossed in the book that I was reading it at the venue before we played. It sticks in my mind because I remember someone pointing at me and saying, "Look, he's reading a book!", as if I had a plant pot on my head or something. But that was how engaging the book was, and not just for me - for millions of people. I gave my copy to my mam, who read it, who passed it on to someone she worked with, who read it. At the time she worked as a school dinner lady. So all sorts of people read it. People who wouldn't normally be avid readers.

Imagine that. A book people actually want to read.

I'm not saying you have to like the book, or that it's beyond criticism, but people should be able to recognise the success and cultural importance of it. Only intellectuals that can't see the wood for the trees can't.

George Orwell

I can't really imagine that Orwell would appreciate the pulping of the book too. There's something strangely dystopic about destroying books to make copies of 1984. It doesn't quite sit right.

Also, though I wouldn't like to say whether Orwell would've liked The Da Vinci Code or not, I'm pretty confident he wouldn't have criticised its simple, pacey writing style.

I'm reminded of this essay from Orwell whenever I think of intellectual word salads.

Politics and the English Language [a must read]

A Hopeless Testament

Finally, while I'm on the topic of 1984, I want to comment upon why it's so depressing (aside from the general observation that it seems to be becoming reality).

At the end of the book the main character Winston Smith [..I'm giving away the ending here, so if you'd rather not know, stop here].

//////////////////////////---

 ..the main character Winston Smith gets tortured and beaten by the state. So badly that he wants to die, but he can't die, as the state keeps him alive. So he's horrendously tortured to the point that he gets completely broken. At the end of the book he's just a shell of man, with no will at all to resist the state. He's resigned to the fact that it's futile.

So the book leaves you with the message that Big Brother always wins. You cannot beat the state. So it's very depressing - at least I found it depressing anyway. It's very grim and despairing.

Personally, I think this is because it's an inversion of the story of Christ. In the Christian crucifixion Christ is likewise beaten and tortured, but he overcomes this ..through death. The message is ultimately a positive and hopeful one. That the spirit can overcome the flesh. However, as Winston can't die he cannot transcend and overcome the state.

I don't think Orwell intended this, but as genius as he was I think you're still better off with the New Testament at your side than 1984. (With the caveat that it's my opinion that religious stories should be taken figuratively, not literally.)

In fact, as a final aside, with this Israel/Palestine conflict raging we're hearing a lot of talk about the Amalekites - a tribe of people that are symbolic of evil in Biblical texts. I think if you take these stories metaphorically they can be useful: that there is evil in the world; that people can be evil; that we all potentially have a little Amalekite in ourselves. However, if you take it literally. If you believe there are literal Amalekites, or descendants of Amalekites, that are inherently evil, and that need wiping out. Then that is a very dangerous way of thinking.

[Oh for the days of the exciting treasure hunt that was The Da Vinci Code. Much less depressing all round.

Anyway, I'm now going to head into town to check the charity shops, to see if I can find a copy to replace the one I gave away all those years ago.]

Mirrors and Curtains

It's been two weeks since that last post, and in that time I've continued to think quite a lot about the Israel/Palestine situation. I've reached the point where I think it's probably best that I just stay out of it and watch on from afar. I can't get a handle on things, and it's impossible to take any sort of side from such a point of ignorance. The media (on all sides and in all countries) have cried wolf far too many times over recent years and decades. To the point that words mean nothing. So I find myself in a situation where I feel sad for deaths I haven't seen, yet also guilt for doubting such deaths. It's not good, but I think it's at least a step up from supporting actions that may lead to death, based on nothing concrete.

In the wider context I get the feeling Cold War II is very much still in full swing. The curtain that cut across Ukraine now sweeping through the Middle East, before finally swishing round to close off Tartary and China. I just hope it's more theatre than bloodshed.

I'm currently reading a book about the Kennedy family. Earlier today I read a chapter that noted how JFK didn't sleep for two days with worry during the Bay of Pigs incident. You wonder what it must be like for people making the real decisions. You also wonder if all the people making them fret so much about human life. Just visiting social media you can see how easy it is for people to become blasé about deaths they only witness through a screen. You push a button or give an order and someone dies a thousand miles away. It takes effort and imagination to conjure the empathy. It's not hard to imagine that often it'll be missing in people.

At the same time though the phone or TV screen can whip people up into emotion about people they've never met, as they step over the homeless person on their own street with equal thoughtlessness.

The temptation is to say that people should focus on problems closer to home, in their own reality. That would mean turning yourself off to dying children in far away places though. So that can't be right either.

Plus, everything is interconnected, so eventually the far away will find your own shores.

I'm wandering now.

Anyway, I've been listening to Kula Shaker as I've been writing this, and this song's just popped up in the playlist, and it feels strangely fitting. So I'll leave you with it.

Gimme Some Truth

Troubled by the lack of honour..

I've tended to stay away from international politics on this blog, but this Israel/Palestine conflict has really troubled me, so I'll share my thoughts.

Firstly, it's always difficult to tell what's true and what's false when you're viewing everything through a media lens, so removed from the location. What's real and what's unreal. What's outright propaganda, semi-propaganda and bona fide fact. As ever I tend to step with trepidation, fearing I might be building my own opinions on faulty foundations. It's exhausting questioning everything you see and hear, and demoralising admitting you just don't know, but I don't think that justifies giving in and turning a blind eye to everything. You have to make the effort.

Anyhow, with that weary caveat aside, I'll now give my view on the wider conflict - under the assumption that I at least have the overall picture broadly correct.

In general I'm naturally more pro-Israel, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. They live with the constant threat of terrorism, and not dealing with it isn't an option. It reminds me of Britain and the IRA. You have a situation that is the product of history. One side is the perceived underdog. The grievances lead to terrorism - often supported or funded by outside forces, some of whom may be enemies that view it as a weak spot to be leveraged. If you use force in retaliation to this terrorism it's perceived as further oppression. Which, in turn, generates more sympathy and support for the underdog. It's a cruel bind. So I'm quite sympathetic. I also very much believe that you can't let terrorists win, and that retaliation is not only justified, but necessary.

However, though in principle I'm much more inclined to support Israel, I just cannot support the bombing of civilians. It's just not the right way to fight a war. Of course, it's easy to say this on a blog post, from behind a laptop screen. People will quite rightly respond that life isn't that simple. That you can either go after the terrorists and risk innocent life, or let the terrorists win. You can't have it both ways. Still, I really don't believe in fighting wars in this way. I'd rather do things methodically and risk the lives of my own soldiers - risk defeat even - than kill children. Again though, it's easy to say this as an armchair general, sat so far away from danger.

Would I be saying this if the war was on my own doorstep? I'd like to think I would, but I can't know for sure.

In the old days men would find a field to fight their battles. Bloody and barbarous as it was at least it spared the women and children. This is a romanticised view no doubt, but at least the principle of an honourable war existed. Now, in the modern world, largely thanks to modern technology, it's quite different. I think one of the great tragedies of World War II was that it normalised the idea that good guys could bomb civilians. Normalised that it was somehow acceptable for men to behave this way.

In many ways the entire 20th century was a century of sacrifice. Civilians bombed, civilians put in concentration camps, women and children targeted by terrorists. Not to mention the innumerable aborted children - aborted for mankind's wider benefit. An entire era where instead of shielding the weak and innocent we put them front and centre. The 21st century so far has continued the ethos.

The way all modern countries now value their own soldiers more than the lives of foreign children. I remember during the war in Iraq being shocked at how the media reported the deaths of British soldiers in comparison to civilian deaths. Of course, it's natural that a reluctant war would be measured by the British public in British deaths, but still, I remember being surprised that the deaths of children weren't mourned more greatly. They went uncounted. In fact, as tragic and horrendous as the death of a single British soldier would be, I think nearly all British people would view the death of an innocent child, of any race or nationality, as even worse. I think it's natural to view the life of a child as more precious than that of an adult. I think most soldiers would view things similarly. This natural sense has completely went out the window though.

Watching the entire response to the situation in Israel on Twitter and elsewhere has really sickened me - and I include myself in that. Here we are, adults, sat on smartphones, commenting away, as children are being killed and maimed. There's no honour in this modern life we lead.

Glorified Day Care

Whenever I check into Twitter these days all I seem to find is evidence of the slow creep of the state straightjacket, and video footage of people fighting. Today the topic is Labour's plans to have children brushing their teeth in school. Yesterday it was Conservative plans to create a generation of 'smoke-free' people, by ending cigarette sales to people born after 1st January 2009. Again, all interspersed with footage of fighting, stabbings and other street drama.

It's a wild dichotomy. States so powerful they can regulate every aspect of our lives. Yet so weak the streets are like a jungle.

As an individual it's hard to make plans in this world. Especially if you have grander dreams beyond your own immediate life. Caught between the lions and tigers, and Skynet.

I have a few projects, one of which is to create a better vision for education. However, though I broadly know what I want to say, I'm not quite feeling it at the moment. And when I see talk of children brushing their teeth in school I realise it's an uphill task, with plenty of pitfalls.

One aspect of it is that I believe parents should be able to choose the hours their child spends at school. If you want your child to go to school for only a few hours a day, or a few days a week, that should be your call.

Of course, the cries will instantly come:

"How will that even work!? 😠"

The current norms of the world are so ingrained in people that anything different to what they already know is instantly met with an angry brick wall. So I'm thinking I'll literally have to start with an illustration of a day or a week in the life of a child in my imagined better system. A little story, to paint a picture for all the people too lazy or unwilling to try to imagine what it could look like themselves.

Another aspect is that modern education is pretty much just glorified day care in real practical terms. Many parents find the idea of reducing the school day (or home-schooling in general) appealing, but the reality is they have to go to work, so need to send their child to school. However, even here, education fails - because as a form of day care, it's terribly inflexible. It doesn't work around the parent's work hours, the parent must work around the school hours. You have to leave work early, or enlist a friend or family member to pick the child up at 3pm, as you don't finish work 'til 5pm, or whatever the case is.

This partly helps me reply to the cries of:

"How can you have children starting and finishing school at different times?

How would that even work? 😠"

My reply would be, "Well, how does it work with day care?"

If you needed day care to cover 12pm until 5pm, and every day care centre said, "Sorry, you must bring your child at 9am and then pick them up at 3pm - this is all we can offer." People wouldn't be too impressed.

[And stop, I know what you're thinking, "..but the lessons?!! How can you teach children if they're all turning up at differing times?"

The future education will be tailored to the individual. In this age of the internet and online lessons you won't need classroom lessons with a teacher trying to impart their knowledge to thirty kids at once. Children will open their laptop and pickup where they last left off on their maths or English. (Don't worry, I've got it all sorted.)]

The Real Danger

This returns me to the real pitfall though, and those plans for teeth brushing. The left (and the right, and most of society) are so anti-freedom these days that if I start pointing out that school should operate more like day care, they'll just say, "Great, let's just put the kids under state supervision 24/7."

It won't be, "Let's give parents more freedom and optionality." It'll be even longer school days, and they'll have the kids sleeping in the classroom, like in China.

(bless these little ones)

Anything Can Be Currency In A World Without Tax

I touched on this a little in the first post. Essentially, what makes something the currency, is that we're taxed in it. It's very simple to understand if you look at things from the ground up, however, since we've all been born into a world where everything is measured in one currency it's hard for us to imagine how things could be otherwise.

The Farmer and the Woodcutter

If we imagine a more "primitive" era, perhaps a few thousand years ago, where there is no sophisticated system of money, things are quite different.

Let's say we have a farmer with some farmland and a woodcutter with some woodland. Naturally the woodcutter might want to trade some of his wood for some of the farmer's milk. To make this trade they could straight up barter these two things. However, they'd also both be free to use anything else as an intermediary. They could use metals, coined or otherwise. They could also use other commodities: salt; grain; tobacco - anything they were both happy to accept as trade.

So the woodcutter could perhaps give the farmer one bag of salt for two pails of milk.

Even if the farmer already has enough salt for himself he might still be happy to accept this trade, as he knows he can then trade this salt with other people, for something else he needs.

So the salt acts as a currency as well as a useful commodity.

(Both the firewood and the milk could also be used as currency. However, the wood, unlike the salt is cumbersome to transport, and the milk would quickly go off. So salt, being easier to store, carry and divvy up is the more natural choice.)

The Lord of the Manor

Even if the farmer and the woodcutter do have to pay some kind of tax in this less sophisticated world (let's say there's a local warlord or lord of the manor wanting tribute), they still have a degree of freedom in how they pay.

The woodcutter gives the lord of the manor some of his wood.

The farmer gives the lord of the manor some of his milk.

Let's say there's a third person, a peasant with less to give. They might pay the lord of the manor in their time. That is, they might pay their tax by doing a day's work on the lord of the manor's estate.

So, anything can be a currency (providing both sides are willing to accept it), and though it may be unfair that they have to pay these taxes in the first place, at least they can be paid in a currency more fitting to the individual and their circumstances.

Money, Money, Money

Once you have a set currency however, this flexibility disappears.

Let's imagine there's now a local mint, that mints copper coins, and that all taxes need to be paid in this specific currency.

Let's return to our original example. The woodcutter wants to buy some of the farmer's milk. He has some copper coins, but he knows he needs to pay this year's tax with these coins - so he's reluctant to let go of them. He goes to the farmer, and as before, he offers his firewood, or some salt, or some other commodity as payment.

However ..the farmer also needs copper coins to pay his tax. So he's reluctant to accept these other items.

"I'm sorry, I need payment in coins."

So now we have a situation where the farmer has worked really hard and has a surplus of milk. The woodcutter has worked really hard and has a surplus of wood. Yet because they need copper coins, and these are somewhat more scarce, they can't exchange their work and goods as fluidly.

Of course, they may still end up trading if they really need to. The woodcutter may relent and say, "Okay, I'll give you some copper coins for your milk." Or the farmer might relent and say, "Well, I do need firewood, so I'll exchange some milk for firewood, and forgo the coins."

However, these decisions may come with downsides..

Debt, Debt, Debt

Let's say it is the woodcutter who relents. Let's say he had 10 copper coins, but he gives 2 in exchange for the milk, and because of this he now doesn't have enough coins to pay his tax.

What does he do?

Well, he does what people always have to do when they need ready money. He borrows it.

So now he's in debt, and of course, he has to pay back this debt ..in copper coins too. No doubt with interest.

Conclusion

You can see how being locked into one specific currency, by the need to pay tax in it, creates a bit of a bind. In many ways, the more "primitive" people had more freedom and a more truer form of capitalism.

Likewise you can see how going back to a standard, gold or otherwise, isn't necessarily going to solve anything for regular people. At least with copper it was abundant enough to be fairly readily available to normal people, whereas gold, as I've mentioned before, is way worse as a currency in that regard.

I'm not sure what the solution is. It would be good if there were ways to have more freedom. Not necessarily a better currency, but more currencies maybe. Again though, I actually prefer fiat currency to currencies fixed to a commodity - I think people should be careful what they wish for when it comes to that.

Also, a crypto currency that worked more like copper (or cigarettes, as per the last post) would be interesting - as opposed to Bitcoin, that works like gold. If that's even possible.

Anyway, I'll leave it there.

Gold Standards Don't Work: Part II - Goldilocks Knows

This is a little follow up to that first post.

Here I want to talk about how cigarettes are used as currency in prisons, and why they make a good currency.

(Most of my knowledge about what happens in prisons comes from episodes of Porridge, so forgive me if this lacks realism. I'm more interested in the general principles though.)

Cigarettes make a good currency as they're something that everyone wants - a huge proportion of people smoke, so even if a particular individual doesn't smoke, he/she knows they can trade them with people that do.

And likewise, they make a good currency as they're not so important as to be precious. That is, though people want them, they don't want them badly enough that they're unwilling to trade them for other goods they want, say a magazine or a book.

They're also small, fungible and portable. So larger things can divide into them. A magazine might be worth two cigarettes, a book maybe three.

So, unlike gold, ironically, they fall into that goldilocks zone. Wanted enough to be valuable, but not so valuable that people are unwilling to let go of them for other things.

An Example

Say someone in prison has a framed photo of their family (something that has high personal value), or they have a gold watch or necklace (something that has high physical value), they're going to be highly unwilling to let these items go. They're too precious.

Plus, as they're so valuable they can only be traded for other very valuable things. You can't really trade a gold watch for a magazine. (Technically you could perhaps break a watch or necklace down into its component pieces; but it wouldn't be very practical, and by breaking it the whole would lose value.)

Conversely, if someone has ten cigarettes, it's quite different. Sure, they'd much rather smoke all ten. However, giving away two or three for some other item they desire isn't a huge personal sacrifice either. After all, they're just cigarettes.

Societal Prison

I think it's worth thinking about this. Not only as it gives a good example of what makes a good currency, but also because we could be heading into similar territory. As digitisation and state power grows we could find ourselves more like prisoners within it. I'm being a little melodramatic here, of course. Though saying that, I do feel increasingly like Norman Stanley Fletcher these days.

(If I'm not too lazy I'll be posting a follow up to this later, titled Anything Can Be Currency In A World Without Tax.)

Cloud Five

Yesterday's post about bands and gigs got me sent down the rabbit hole of my own musical past. Digging through the old songs and SoundCloud accounts.

Finding the various passwords and email addresses for each one was a pain in the a*se. I managed to get back into them all in the end though. The views for each were few and unimpressive. Thoroughly lost deep in the internet jungle.

1) The earliest going back was The Roseberries account.

https://soundcloud.com/the-roseberries

The earliest tracks were uploaded there eleven years ago, though they actually date from even earlier ..circa 2006 if I remember rightly. Even the two more recently uploaded ones originally date from 2013-ish.

2) Next we have Freckled Monkey.

https://soundcloud.com/freckled-monkey

You may notice that the URL of this blog is freckledmonkey. It was clearly a moniker I was going under at some point, before this blog morphed into its current form. The name was largely incidental really, and this particular SoundCloud account was mainly a place to upload some of the more experimental electronic music I was making at the time. Binaural beats an all.

3) The Tudahs.

https://soundcloud.com/the-tudahs

This band is more recent, though it ended around seven years ago. So like everything else it's firmly in the rear view mirror.

4) p9nd_apple.

https://soundcloud.com/user-292048615-200398677

This one has some overlap with the Freckled Monkey endeavour. More electronic. All instrumentals. I set up a parallel YouTube channel for this one - billing the music as 'royalty free'. Thinking that perhaps they could serve a use to people needing backing music. I pretty much consider everything on this list royalty free really. It's beyond money ( - though obviously there was once a time when I dreamed of 'making it' 😁 ).

The name again was incidental, though I was thinking about the earth, the waters and the natural landscape. So there are connotations of that.

5) Solo Acoustic.

https://soundcloud.com/user-804123342

Finally, we have this account for what's mainly acoustic guitar music. Some of this is more recent, though even here most of it dates back a few years. Perhaps there will be more, perhaps not. Who knows?

Vanned on the Run

Two posts today. This second one follows on from the mention of ULEZ in that last post.

We often now hear musicians claiming Brexit has made it more difficult to travel around Europe doing gigs. I'm not sure to what extent this is true, but I don't doubt there could be some genuine issues and costs. Likewise I don't doubt it's all been somewhat exaggerated by people seeking to make an issue out of it.

What I find truly both comic and tragic though is that none of these musicians see the real restrictions on the horizon. Forget about doing gigs in Europe, it might soon be impossible to do gigs in the next town. Even aside from fears about Agenda 2030 and 15 minute cities, the ULEZ plans alone present a significant threat to music. Gone will be the days when a band of young lads could somehow fetch enough money together to get a cheap van, and hitch their amplifiers to venues up and down the country.

In many ways guitar music is on the rocks as it is. With digitisation and the internet making the physical effort of dragging amplifiers to practice rooms not quite as needed. As I mentioned in relation to AI a few posts ago (see how nicely I tie all these themes together), technology now means one man can do what it once took many. Arranging rehearsals and enlisting a bass player and drummer is very hard and expensive. Even if it's with friends the personal politics is tricky. It's much, much easier to open up some software and get down to making music on your laptop. Your opinion is king. You don't have to persuade other humans to play it your way, or adopt your ideas and vision.

Conversely however, it's much less fun doing things alone, and the thrill of live music - real and analogue in the physical world - holds huge appeal. Even here though, software is an easier and more portable option. Why lug a drum kit when you can just programme the beats?

Even if you're prepared to go to all that extra effort to get that realness, to get that human touch and interaction, what if you just can't afford it? If businesses and families are struggling to cover the cost of maintaining a vehicle what chance does a scruffy young band have?

This is just another one of those things that the people bringing in all this watermelon red tape will have never even considered.