Week 4

You Are How You Work

Here is the key point behind all waves analysis; we are how we work. Then, in order to answer big questions on societal issues, we have to understand how the majority of the people make a living.

If people's work requires them to be in a farm, follow seasonal patterns, they will be the kind of person that requires that life. Their life will be slow, revolve around big families (more labor), and they will have many skills be a jack-of-all-trades, because agricultural life require it. Hence a country with peasants will have a peasant character.

If many people in a country are blue-collar workers, they will be forced to specialize, to work on standardized units of work, be on-time, and be syncronized. This is a life that revolves around the assembly line. Hence a country with mindless assembly line workers will have a modernist character.

This guy is really good. He even does the "thinking stop" move Obama does. Hillarious.

https://youtu.be/rot1yguplr8

Someone created, "directed" a movie using only the game Grand Theft Auto. I guess he played parts of GTA the way he wants his movie to come out, and he recorded these scenes at the same time. He toiled away for 2 years on this. Amazing.

This is a brand new way of directing here! Holywood, take notice.

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Another blast from the past (1996). Good shit. That smart bomb, stupid children bit was really funny. Jon was into foreign policy issues pretty heavily even back then apparently. Kewl.

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Interesting, somewhat spine chilling ad. Love the evil laugh. Muhaha. The was most likely sponsored by people with liberterian leanings who are against government intervention of any sort -- in order to get their point across they chose the baddest nemesis they could think of: the Chinese. I cant say I agree with all the analysis of the ad, but it is well done.

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American political system was born in between two waves -- whilst in transition from agricultural life into industrial one. This little historical luck was probably instrumental in helping Americans to manage their affairs efficiently during another transitional period -- this time from industrial into knowledge based era.

However, this historical luck might have an ugly side.

A system built during a transitional period might forever be doomed to stay in it. America is in danger to forever remain in transition, between 2. and 3. waves this time, in order to move forward they need to adapt quickly, reward successes, push risk takers out on front in order to create a new civilization.

I am optimistic about their chances tho, after all, US is the furthest among other nations in 3rd wave.

movements.org: "On March 11, 2004, days before national parliamentary elections in Spain, four trains were bombed at Madrid train stations, killing nearly 200 people and injuring hundreds more.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombing and before any evidence had surfaced linking any specific terrorist organization to the event, the incumbent Popular Party (PP) publicly stated that the Basque terrorist group ETA was behind the bombing. By the end of the day, however, evidence pointed toward a jihadist cell inspired by the Islamist terrorist organization Al Qaeda. The Spanish government, known for taking a hard stance against the Basque group, continued to assert that ETA was culpable, in part because making the Basque terrorists appear responsible would benefit PP in the upcoming elections against the Socialist Party.

According to blogger Andre Serranho, the first SMS message was sent on March 13, the day before the election, and simply stated, “The government lied. Pass it on.” Other messages began circulating, such as: “We want to know before we vote,” “Today at 18 at PP Genova no political signs demanding truthful information pass it on,” and “Information poisoning at 18:00 PP pass it on.”. By 11 p.m. on March 13, more than 10,000 people had gathered in front of the PP headquarters in Madrid.

Serranho notes that the majority of Spaniards he spoke to acknowledged that they had forwarded text messages to their contact lists upon receiving them. This created a snowball effect, with thousands of texts being passed around asking Spaniards to vote for the Socialist Party and to demonstrate against the Popular Party. At the time, Spain had a mobile penetration rate of 94 percent, indicating that many residents of the country had mobile phones capable of sending and receiving texts; March 13 saw a 20 percent increase in text messages; March 14, election day, saw a rise of 40 percent.

These tactics proved successful. The large size of the group that gathered at PP headquarters showed how many people were upset with the incumbent party. In a surprising turn, the Socialist Party defeated the PP at the polls, with turnout for the election estimated at 77 percent, an 8 percent increase from the previous election.

Such is the power of technology. This case is also interesting, because it has nothing to do with globalization, but everything to do with technology. Tech can empower at individual level, it can have grassroots effects on the power structure. This is the crucial point. Technology takes precedence to globalization, the latter could be fleeting, increasing, or decreasing at times. But the constant is always the effect of the production method (knowledge base in this case) on the social order. The SMS was sent, broadcast in one country. And it worked"

Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

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They can ingest grain in huge amounts, and are also inclined to be "traditionalists" for this very reason. It's a farm oriented and settled life.

I talked about how blood type ties into character traits. Type O is sports oriented, A is more settled, B's are tall, etc. I do not mean if you are not of type O, you are a wuss. I am just saying being a sports spectator and running after a ball for 90 minutes might not be your thing. That kind of sustained physical exertion is a type O business.

In matters of survival though, of course, all types are equal. I know a fantastic street fighter of type A. I know many martial artists of type B (this type is also physically the strongest). In fact I speculated some time ago since type A is the "farmer" blood type [1], the development of martial arts in China and Japan would tie directly in to them. Here comes the Samurai trying to tax you, and farmers of Okinawa develop karate and kick their ass.

So do not despair. You are not a wuss.

Davutoglu likes Sinanoglu. TR Sec. State Davutoglu is a close follower of Dr. Oktay Sinanoglu, a scientist, anti-American, and nationalist firebrand whose books were quite popular in some circles during 90s. Traces of the same kind of shallow nationalism in Sinanoglu's book are also present in Davutoglu's thinking. There are thoughts patterns copied almost verbatim from Sinanoglu by D.

I say nationalism, but it is hard to distinquish at times though how much of Sinanoglu's nationalism stems from his anti-Americanism -- one can argue that most of it is. It might very well be that for this reason his strongest arguments revolve around / against Pax-Americana (rebranded in 90s as globalization). Hence Sinanoglu was one of the few people who swam against the current when most in his country were going ga-ga on everything American.

His analysis on the importance of mathematics education (rather than teaching everything in a foreign language -English-) was also dead-on. On these topics Sinanoglu is aligned with the needs of the 3rd wave, he only lacked the foundation on the social ramifications resulting from the knowledge age, and the importance of the methods of production, that is why he could not bring his analysis to its ultimate conclusion. Because his nationalism is a form of anti-Americanism, he glosses over historical, cultural issues of his country, and finally arrives to a backward modernist, centralized, standardized 2nd wave nation-state which is all but defunct in today's world.

Sinanoglu's effect on a Turkish conservative such as Davutoglu could simply be a result of "here is someone from the West [1] and saying nice things about my history". The formation and the following of intellectual leaders in Turkey is sometimes that simple. Turkish people like their thought leaders as all-knowing, narsisistic, boasting [2], and Sinanoglu certainly fits this description (in one book, he claims to have singlehandedly started the Women's Lib movement in America for instance).

In conclusion, Davutoglu's strengths and weaknesses resemble Sinanoglu's: right on being against Pax-Americana, wrong on nationalism as well as trying to protect some kind of Turkish identity just so they can "feel good" about something in their past, and making that a necessity for any future success of their country.

[1] Sinanoglu taught at Yale for many years.

[2] Akin to a God-like Roman emperor image perhaps, or a "father" in a paternalistic society, as in "father knows best". People of today's Turkey lived under a Roman rule one way or another, starting from the 1st, up to the last, the Ottomans. People of Turkey have one of the worst historical baggage any country can have.

Chris Tucker on Black President

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Blair / Hitchens Debate

It had its interesting, sometimes funny moments, but overall, no new arguments were presented, and I feel we are way past these two gentleman on this issue. The division between science and religion naturally came up, however, this division is a misnomer. Isaac Newton researched both, lots of religious people contributed to science, of which, Bayes is memorable for his contributions (to the field of probability), and that's Reverend Bayes to you. In Islamic world the same was true, Al-Ghazali is the best known example [1].

So really, if there is any division, it is between Rome and religion / science, not science and religion. The Catholic Church did oppose science, of course, but this confirms my theory presented in this blog earlier in the post The Godfather. After the Roman Empire's collapse, the Catholic Church took its mantle, preserved ceremonies, outlook on life, culture. So during the birth of Renaissance it was Rome Version 1.2 -- the Catholic Church that was around; naturally it way they who fought science, freedom, pluralism. If the fucking Romans were around, believe me, they would do the exact same thing.

The backwardness of people who lived under Rome Version 2.0 (Byzantium) and Version 3.0 (Ottomans) is a living proof of my argument.

[1] Later Ottomans came in the picture of course, and messed it all up. It is notable that Golden Age of Islam does not include the pathetic, corrupt and despotic years of their rule.

Another Lost Wannabe Bites the Dust

The scifi show Stargate Universe, another Lost copycat, is cancelled. I wont even bother to share a link this time, the show and this latest news on it is just too boring. But let me make some general points on this subject.

TV Land, writers, marketers, listen up: Finding a major theme for a scifi show is not that hard.

The Western cultural tug-of-war is between Rome and Jesus, war and piece, Archimedes and a centurion (the former was killed by the latter), centralized military machine against Renaissance [2].

Why did Stargate the movie, shows like Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis work? 1) On the human side, Stargate is all about the conflict between the military and the scientists, between Rome and Archimedes. O'Neil and Jackson bicker all the time. Divison #2) On the alien side, there is the G'hould who according to show's canon were the pharaohs in ancient times. Hello? Isnt that akin to a Roman emperor, who bestows himself (and its always a he) God like powers? Opposing them we have a diverse humanity (which was stressed more and more in Atlantis) and their seek of technology.

Battlestar Galactica (Original): Why did this show work? The enemy is a centralized military machine (literally), they are the robots, Cylons. Cylons are also monothestic, they resemble the marriage between Rome and the centralized Catholic Church. One God, sure, as long as it serves the military needs. On the other side is humans who pray to multiple Gods, but that is more like multiple religions than polytheism.

Star Trek TNG: Humans are all about science, knowledge. Who is the baddest enemy? Borg: all about conquest, and the collective: a mix between communism and Rome. Romulans? For f..k's sake, it's all there in the name. The name of Romulan's capital? Romulus [1].

Bingo.

So you see, it's not that hard. Hopefully the upcoming show BSG Blood and Chrome will return to original show's roots, and follow the cultural lines mentioned above more closely.

Dear show creators, writers: so you had your little confusing period after 9/11, you got that out of your system. Now get the f..k back to what you were doing before. Dont come up with another artificially confusing shit and parade it around as scifi / mystery. We can see right through that, very easily. Follow the example of Eureka. They are pretty successful in terms of viewership.

Now excuse me, I have old episodes of Firefly waiting for me.

[1] The falling out between Vulcans and Romulans also have their parallels in Rome / Renaissance seperation. Vulcans are all about science, philosophy, Romulans are all about conquest, and military.

[2] This is one of the rare culture codes that I find relevant for today's world.