Who am I.

 

Subject:Who am I.

Up in the Cloud, the internet world of computing, a fusion of bits and bytes brought into being an electronic doppelgänger, a creation of artificial intelligence which had kept tabs on me for over two years sifting my purchases, from the books I read to assessing my taste in music and which sports I followed. The assembly was a good attempt but it lacked many of the things which marked out the real me. It knew my email address and the bank I banked with but it didn't understand how I came by them or even the period which preceded them. 
Still it was enough to start indoctrinating the supposed influencers.  Unsolicited messages began to appear on my email and advertisements popped up alongside the story I was reading on Google. 

My doppelgänger was everywhere reminding me of this creation which sought to advise by mimicry. The problem was that it had got me wrong. I was not the skin deep avatar reincarnated from some past life but a work in progress, unfathomable for an assembly of ones and zeros but a person like we all are made up of fives and sixes, sevens and eights, the shades and shadows, not just the primary colours.

One of the things which worries me is that in another fifty years, AI will have computed its version of people who lack the subtlety of generations of breeding by sifting out the strange  unfathomable  quirks which make mankind so unique and instead we will be drafted a sense or predictable which will conform only the role nominated by random selection. People will have a purpose as evaluated by AI but others without purpose will be cast outside the walls of the city state,  far away from those idyllic retreats which success pines for. 
Of course Mad Max comes to mind, the illiterate horde eking out an existence in a half  life of of violence and debauchery. Perhaps we are already on our way as the street brims over with rioters and choking teargas swirls around. The differentials get wider more grotesque, 40 years ago a CO in a company earned a ratio of 25-1 compared to the average worker, today it's getting close to 300-1. If you equate the earnings of the likes of Jeff Bizos,  there is no end to the disharmony within society. 
Unregulated free market capitalism is the bane of most people's lives and it can only get worse as the market prefers to deal with its AI postulated Avatar. The day is fast approaching when we will be required to fit an AI profile rather than the other way around.

In the land of my fathers

 

Subject:In the land of their fathers. 

If we continue to be exposed and called out in class and made to explain the language we use in public, why is my discomfort at swearing or the continual display of sexual coupling in films on television not taken into consideration as well, or is it only the bodies who opinionate on racial matters who carry weight these days.

The Chairman of the Football League was kicked out of his job yesterday, within an hour of him appearing in front of a parliamentary committee and having used, in his testimony the word "coloured" to describe black players. The term, used in America "a person of colour" has also now been deemed inappropriate and it appears that the only term which can be used is "black" to describe a whole swathe of people, some of who are very black whilst others are relatively fair skinned. In South Africa there is a section of people who call themselves 'Cape Coloured' and who's history has seen their segmentation/separation from both the black and white communities in the country and who would resist being called anything other than Coloured, they see it as their identity and are proud of their heritage.
In this 'them and us' contest a white person who resembles a piece of chalk, or one who has a sallow pigmentation has to be careful about what they say when defining the skin colour of everyone else. The argument is that in defining people by skin colour we add a sort of derogatory epithet to that person, even if it's not our intention and the decision to take umbrage lays wholly with the black person. People who are not black, tread on eggshells and its this bias, another blatant agenda for raising black consciousness  which troubles me.
Of course we are not actually talking of colour we are talking of prejudice which we all have and the historical context in which nations are categorised.  Colour was used to describe a nation state where there was little mixing, except at the periphery. Colour only became an issue when white people colonised other nations composed of people of a different skin colour.  Interestingly the reverse happened when mass immigration, (contrived through economic consideration) brought significant numbers of nonwhite people into an area where few nonwhite people existed.
In this uncertain world of racial and cultural mixing, white  people, who were largely found in the colder Northern geographical climes, where skin colour was the most recognisable and visible aspect, (other than clothing), from people who had immigrated into the region, over the last 60 years and were becoming a growing feature of the society.  
 To define them, as is sometimes needed, terms such as coloured were used. Coloured was a catch all definition which encompassed people who were not white but which now for political reasons a definition black is now decreed, even though it itself does not describe and is not accepted by the largest non white cohort. 
There are a whole range of nations who would not agree to describing themselves black but their views as not sort by that vociferous section of people who have taken on the mantle of activist/spokesperson, and who regularly appear on our television screens. People who are only a generation away from belonging elsewhere and are now the loudest to condemn and find fault, they are like cuckoo's who throws out the hosts egg. 
Today people with a white skin are accused of a whole range of offences. Colonial exploitation, there questioning of cultural practices which are considered abhorrent, religious practice which openly describe people as being inferior and would like to add to their own concept of what society should look adding their own legal format to that belief. For all these complaints and calls for reparation we are asked to turn the other cheek and accept it as the march of history and a sign of progress. 
The rap artists and black activists, who are scathing in their language, when describing white people are allowed in the context of a country willing to recognise free speech until that is someone like Greg Clark uses the word colour.  What makes me really queasy is the sight of white people self flagellating for past ills in an effort to be seen as fair. After centuries of exploring, colonising, modernising and educating, -  white people are seen as wrong in trying. Perhaps we should have left well alone and not developed those markets. Maybe like the Chinese, we should have exercised our financial power and imported the skills to do the work whilst remaining in our own isolated compound so as not to not contaminate the indigenous society.
The banditry, melted out to Greg Clark for using a term which was appropriate 30 years ago and was the lingua franca  of people like Greg Clark and used across the world. A world which including those undemocratic nations in the Middle and Far East, often viewed as totalitarian regimes who use a similar type of censorship, meted out to Clark to keep their own people in line. 
We still have a way to go but I see the seeds of a different type of autocracy, one built on 'displaced communities', each keen to have its say in a way they were never able to in 'the land of their fathers'  and each mightily disgruntled by the completion for what's left of the cake after years of mismanagement. 

The benefits of a Jewish upbringing

 

Subject:The benefits of a Jewish upbringing. 

Reading Philip Roths biography, a writer I greatly admire, it became more clear to me the gulf which extends between Jew and Gentile. To all intents and purposes we are all the same and it takes a brave person to argue the opposite in this supposedly inclusive society but the story of his childhood and his schooling, extending on into college and university was a right of passage. Much like Boris Johnson's life and exclusivity at Oxford, so Roths life was patterned on what a good jewish boy should be, including going to a Hebrew school which enable  him to dig down into the fundamentals of his faith and bury his mind into the text of all it meant to be Jewish.
There were many references in the book to those outside the Jewish fraternity, the Gentiles and the Goy, it was a 'them and us' relationship in Newark NY and the close knit Jewish society seemed not to countenance outsiders in any meaningful way.
Of course in today's p c environment, as the authorities struggle to keep a lid on any ethnic disharmony it's no wonder that a society which sees itself possessed of a special place in the hierarchy of man should from time to time display a sense of special pleading.
The furore which broke out over the anti Israeli comments made by Jeremy Corbyn in his defence of Palestinian rights which led to the Jewish establishment in this country repeatedly condemning him and calling for his head as the leader of he Labour Party was an example of religious and social power being used to get rid of someone seen as a threat.
If the leaders of the Catholic Church or the Church of England had turned out in the media to voice disapproval towards a secular head of a political party it would have been damned as an act of religious interference in secular affairs (and by no less than the same media) but the Jewish cause is special and even though they instinctively exclude us from a biblical point of view, we mustn't do the same to them.
Roth's insight into his upbringing, his parents sensibilities, which fraternity he attended (it had to be Jewish) and the all important background of the girls he dated or at least the ones he brought home was like being vetted for acceptance into some sort of cult, a right of passage where ethnicity and training was the all encompassing  prerequisite. The sense of being Jewish, which drills down to upbringing and the stories told about your race and its exclusivity in the eyes of Jehovah was the preparation for a life which has no Christian equivalent other than perhaps a monastic institution and certainly in ordinary life the Christian is taught that god judges everyone is equal. Time and again reading Roth's life one is struck by the duality of the Jewish experience, the battle for social recognition and an equal footing in the society they live in, whilst all the time denying it to others. 
I'm not talking of the extremes such as the ultra orthodox with their devout lifestyle and a dress code to acknowledge their difference, I'm talking of the clannishness and the close affinity with other Jews in both business and at home. This sense of exclusivity has produced many a backlash through the centuries and the reaction to the mild criticism that Corbyn offered to what he saw as the harsh treatment the Israelis meted out to the Palestinians living in the West Bank was an example from the mindset of a powerful clique which advocates for itself "we have a case and irrespective of your squeamishness, we intend to continue" whilst ignoring much of the rest of the world in its concern for Palestinians.
People views are usually confined to their own experience and the propaganda of an institution which wishes to maintain the status quo has to be questioned. 
The Jewish institution, over 3000 years old, is well placed to see off any dissident who might cause it to have to explain itself and given the fragility of race relations in this country it's not in the interests of the establishment, (many of whom are Jewish), to rock the boat and so Corbyn was destroyed, despatched, to become a mere footnote in history. 
In my opinion we deserve much more if we are to hold "freedom of speech" so highly. We deserve that no sect has the power to impose its will through a media which itself has many Jewish connections, the writers, the editorial and even management have a large Jewish cohort and if the fundamentals of your very philosophical being correspond to your faith, then it's difficult to be objective.

Sent from my iPad

In the beginning

 

Subject:In the beginning.

"Beginning to think, is beginning to be undermined". (Albert Camus)
It's a potent thought, that the more we think the more undermined we become because the things we most often think about are out of reach and therefore impossible to resolve. Of course it presumes 'we think' so as to understand and by understanding will have gained knowledge from which we can build further understanding. The concept that understanding is a basic function in life is part of our route into it. We are schooled to pick up the concepts our tribe or our environment wishes us to have to be a useful member. We are coached to be dutiful citizens but in being dutiful comes the assumption that someone else got it right in the first place. 
If we believe our thoughts are uniquely ours how can we be so coopted by others. Surely the path we took to our own understanding is the only important conclusion since it's ours. 
Our lives are a succession of optimistic awakenings, things to do and people to meet but in amongst all this conformity lies our self opinion, not only of the others we meet but of ourselves. This bubble of 'self' with its prejudice and optimistic/pessimistic self awareness which runs through everything we do, is its own filter of approval, our own self centred image of right and wrong, good and bad. 
If the world we colour in with our own beliefs was actually so different when seen through the the eyes of the guy standing next to me it would make a mockery of my own surety whilst at the same time, adding myriads of other possibilities to the one I hold. Of course it could be a minefield of obfuscation, a miscellany of tastes, an ideological mismatch which would drive us mad. Far better to be wrong in our own wonderland of fixed images and assumptions, assumptions based on assumptions, for which we mark  those assumptions as facts, gleaned from a lifetime of thinking.
If we classify our lives as a habit, an absurdity of 'not knowns' then living too becomes absurd in the context we think of as living. The purpose and our achievements are all illusory, they are chance happenings since in so far as we believe we have a hand in our future clearly this is a delusion. From being knocked down by a No 95 bus on our way to work to waking up one morning with a severe pain in the chest or hearing in the morning you have been fired and our future plans grind to a halt, it all depend on things outside our control and when you think of it, what is in our control. The platform we build which gives us so much comfort is a platform based on what we have read about others and should bare as little consideration as we have of our knowledge of those people.
Our lives then are a day by day event which we embellish with stories we tell ourselves. A good storyteller will come up with something glamorous, a bad one will have nothing to add to the reality of our reality. 

"Into this universe and why not knowing, nor whence like water willy-nilly flowing. And out of it as wind along the waste I know not wither willy-nilly blowing".
"The worldly hopes men set their hearts upon turns ashes - or it prospers and anon like snow upon the earths dusty face, lighting a little hour or two is gone"

Sent from my iPad

Have faith my son

 

Subject:Have faith my son.

The fact that Christianity and Christians who follow the faith believe less and less in those parts of the New Testament, the parts which talk of the miracles which Jesus is reported as having performed, even 'rising from the dead' is held as a metaphor whilst at the same time, Jesus is held in high regard as a teacher of moral values.
The Old Testament is full of allegory and deals much more in the mysticism of God and his creative aspect here on Earth, of mankind being created for a purpose and not just an evolutionary oddity. Being more mystical it can be more enduring since it's claims are built wholly on faith and not rational measurement. The God of the Old Testament is more fire and brimstone than a Heavenly Father which the New Testament talks about and the sense of a son of God coming down to save us is missing. The Torah is parable writ large it has no need for history or carbon dating it is 'the word of God' whilst the Christian bible is the word of a man come down to earth explaining he is the son of god. He is also flesh and blood and lived and died, his claims not withstanding, are more sociological and deal with us as a species who need guidance.
The Muslim faith like the Christian faith is focused on a man who lived, Mohamed who whilst never claiming to be the son of god claimed to have a connection to god and, as his followers attest, speaks for god. His guidance through the words which god spoke to him is the basis of Muslim analysis and conjecture as to what god meant but Mohamed's position as the conduit places him on a platform which believers fervently defend as being the one true revelation of god's will. 
Hindus trace their  their own faith back much further in a complex mix of gods who reflect the temperament of mankind in all its forms and in so doing have crafted a web or a structure which covers all form of human nature, from temptation to bliss with the Hindu interpretation firmly embedded in an Indian nations sense of devotion. 

The lore of ancient China and the societies which existed in Japan lent greater force to the behaviour of men and women in the society and therefore a culture grew around this kernel of acceptable behaviour and the Confucian hierarchy under which people were graded. The public willingness to be graded and identified in this way was the strength of Confucian continuity and identifies these extremely old centres of civilised human behaviour with our own.
Buddhism is a philosophical understanding of the frailty of human experience and attempts  to bolster us with the rigour of study and debate. It opens up the question of who we are and why we exist in a sort of Platonic endeavour to delve into the intricacies of our mind and what our mind tells us about ourselves. It places no reward other than self awareness and through that self knowledge, to better understand ourselves and the people around us.  
The non believer, the atheist, assumes that life is here in front of your nose. It's the events of the day seen through the eyes of a fellow human, not some deity or part of a progression to another better place. This is the place and this is the time to be resourceful, purely for resourcefulnesses sake, not as a path but in the moment, an awareness that you have succeeded in understanding your worth, (and theirs to you), in respect to the humans around you.

Through the looking glass

 

Subject:Through the looking glass.

I work up on my 80th birthday to an unusual treat. Promoted by Andrew, I joined the contributors of YouTube for a nostalgic drive around Johannesburg and the surrounding suburbs. 

There had been three postings, one in the Sandton/Rivonia area with its ‘oh so civilised’ modus operandi which wealth and overt opulence brings. The futuristic architecture  of the office buildings, the like I have never seen in Europe or even America. Like a modern Greek/ Roman symbol of who we are, these gated office blocks with their plush cars entering and leaving the secure parking areas signifying their right of passage and symbolising their importance. Perhaps the only time the occupant feels secure enough to leave their car and enter mainstream humanity as they enter the office. 
Outside on the streets there were no white pedestrians, only the occasional black person  making his or her way amongst the splendour of mans economic achievement only later to catch a taxi and return home to the very different world of the Township.
As we whisked effortlessly along the motorway I recognised the suburbs and the turn offs, it was as if I was back home. Turn left here and then right, down the tree lined avenues flanked by the four metre walls enclosing enormous gardens and equally enormous houses in which rich Johannesburg  families live and have continue to do so since we left. It was all so surreal to see this world we had junked, worried about the ability of a new governance and yet it was still here functioning as if nothing had happened. 

A sudden jolt brought me back to earth as the next video took me into the heart of Johannesburgs central business district. This was the Africa we know from the newsreels, the Africa, unkempt buildings, honking cars, the ubiquitous  combi taxi, twisting and turning its way through the traffic. Lots of people on the street sadly not a white face in sight, no modern architecture, just the gated shop fronts to barricade themselves and their goods from the night-times ‘other world’,  which conducts a parallel business when the sun goes down. Everything was much as I had left it but it looked run down and aimless. The life had gone out of the people as the economy ceased to thrive and a scruffy  street economy grew in its place. The few high rise buildings, famous as Insurance or Banking head offices, thousands of white collar workers keen to get to work and be part of a thriving economy, now either stand empty or are partly occupied by much smaller companies. They symbolise a different era, a monument to a different time when South Africa felt it could take on the world but which has now been reduced to a cottage industry . There is a somewhat malevolent current in the air as disgruntled black people, finding the  promised land of ANC electioneering simply transferring them from the poverty of the township, to blocks of dingy flats ringed around the CBD
The nostalgia of living there and being happy there came flooding back as I watched the first video but reality stung home watching the second as one remembered all the warning signs of the overpowering right of a majority to choose. 

A healthy warning of what popularism can do in its ideological right to do s

Once upon a time

 

Subject:“Once upon a time”.

The fact that Christianity and Christians who follow the faith seem less and less to believe in those parts of the New Testament, which talk of the miracles which Jesus is reported as having performed, even his 'rising from the dead' is held as a metaphor, whilst, at the same time, he is held in high regard as a teacher of moral values.

The Old Testament is full of allegory and deals much more in the mysticism of God and his creative aspect here on Earth, of mankind being created for a purpose and not just an evolutionary oddity. Being more mystical it can be more enduring since it's claims are built wholly on faith and not rational measurement. The God of the Old Testament is more fire and brimstone than the Heavenly Father the New Testament talks about and the sense of a son of God coming down to save us is missing. The Torah is parable writ large it has no need for history or carbon dating it is 'the word of God' whilst the Christian bible is the word of a man come down to earth explaining that he is the son of god. He is also flesh and blood and lived and died, his claims, not withstanding, are more sociological and deal with us as a species who need guidance.
The Muslim faith like the Christian faith is focused on a man who lived, Mohamed who whilst never claiming to be the son of god claimed to have a connection to god and as his followers attest, speaks for god. His guidance, through the words which god spoke to him is the basis of much Muslim analysis and conjecture as to what god meant but Mohamed's position as the conduit places him on a platform which believers fervently defend as being the one true revelation of god's will. 
Hindustrace their  their own faith back much further in a complex mix of gods who reflect the temperament of mankind in all its forms and in so doing have crafted a web or a structure which covers all forms of human nature, with the Hindu interpretation firmly embedded in a nations devotion. 
The lore of ancient China and the societies which existed in Japan lent greater force to the behaviour of men and women in the society and therefore a culture grew around this kernel of acceptable behaviour and was the hierarchy under which people were graded. The public willingness to be graded and identified in this way was the strength of Confusion continuity and identifies these extremely old centers of civilised human behaviour.  
Buddhismis a philosophical understanding of the frailty of human experience which attempts  to bolster us with the rigour of study and debate. It opens up the question of who we are and why we exist in a sort of Platonic endeavour to delve into the intricacies of our mind and what our mind tells us about ourselves. It places no reward other than better self awareness and through that self knowledge, a better understanding of ourselves and the people around us.  

The curmudgens world

 

Subject:A curmudgeons world

With the Trump supporters in Washington marching in the streets, the turmoil in Peru, the fighting in Eritrea and Erdogan stirring things up in Cypress by asking for partition of the island and that's to ignore the on going grievances in the Middle East the world this morning wakes up to disharmony. The pandemic far from over is a battle which we all have to win, or at least contain and whilst the church bells are silent each Sunday morning with the churches closed the communities holed up in their homes they only have the television and a diet of Netflix to look forward to.

Dominic Cummings has gone with his critiques even harping about the size of the box he was carrying of his belongings held in No 10. Is there no end to disharmony. "You sow what you reap" is the old adage but with that vehicle of unfiltered comment, the Internet bursting with vitriol, full of hatred, people, lashing out to voice their unhappiness and discontent will there ever be a time when we can just get on with our own lives and not bother with everyone else's. 
Perhaps I am not a good example with my blog giving me access to at least the dozen or so who read it, to voice my opinion. We all have opinions some formed through years of exposure and personal experience, others more flighty, taken by what you saw last night on YouTube often which doesn't drill down on problems giving them context. The dramatic images formed distort reality and with short attention spans, become the focus of many people's rage. 
I suppose at least it gets them out of their comfort zone and loosens the grip on the somnolent nature of a people satisfied, within a welfare society gone wrong, where 'rights' proceed common sense and dulls the realisation that we make our own rights by the actions 'we' take. 
In a world in which our stars are silly presenters who egg on contestants in yet another round of ghoulish shows on how to win fame and fortune as we seem to expect more and more bazaar performances, over the top shrieking and clearly fake enthusiasm. The salaries handed to these clowns is appalling. Earnings which ordinary people, the ones watching the show would take a lifetime to earn are obscene and provide another example of how out of step we are with reality. 
It's this distortion of reality which dismembers the people making up society today, the disconnect between ordinary and a different type of normal, a normal which is manufactured and which sadly we support in our choice of viewing.
Can the word curmudgeonly be applied to me as I find so much to grouse about these days. Is it the perennial epithet applied to someone who hasn't made his million and questions the methods now open to those that have. Is it plain sour grapes evinced by an 80 year old who fears he hasn't too many years left to comment.

Where is the switch

Subject:Where is there switch 

Algorithms already make a mockery of ethical thought as they mathematically seeks to locate our weakness's and probe our probity, to disrupt our sense of enlightenment and feed us a fakery the world has never experienced before.  Anything and everything is up for grabs as technology replaces real for unreal, to the extent we can't tell the difference anymore. Our source of truth is demolished into fragments, images of half truths mixed up with untruths, lies and deceit with wholesale corruption. 
Society is defined by the epoch it lives through. The Mesopotamian period when mankind drew together to farm and share skills, the Greek/Roman epoch when, first philosophy and a sense of responsible society was born in Athens with later the fusion of a collective power through the Romans enabling them to envisage their concept of civilised society stretching far beyond the Italian peninsular. The Renaissance that resurgence of civilisation following those fallow years of the Dark Ages with art and civic pride adorning many cities in Europe right up until the Industrial Revolution when aesthetic beauty was replaced by the focus on manufactured goods and exploitation. 
Today we are experiencing the beginning of a new epoch, the epoch of connectivity and persuasion.  The power of Artificial Intelligence to outreach and perhaps replace human intelligence. It's the epoch of the replacement  of the human as we know ourselves, this mind orientated, fiercely independent animal who has progressed, through evolution, to finally invent its own nemesis. 
The insertion of AI into our relatively pedestrian thought process's will inevitably lead to the question, "do I need the human anymore".
All this in the wink of an evolutionary eye, it's not change built on experience but a manufactured perspective which has no sense of common good or improvement rather its the iteration of solutions which feed in on themselves to find an answer but in so doing lose sight of the question.
Taking ourselves out of the loop because we are too slow and cumbersome has the danger that all the ethical and moral checks and balances with be dumped, in the name of efficiency by an piece of mathematical reasoning.
Mankind risks the fate of being placed in an evolutionary cul-de-sack, like the dinosaurs on a road to extinction. We always kidded ourselves we would have a hand on the switch to power down but with fake news - where is the switch.