sexiest woman room

Sometimes the title to a piece comes first. Sometimes it comes last. This one came right at the end. During my week-long Devotion to Aergia what I wanted to write grew and became far more than I expected. And on the last day the goddess smiled and I understood that what I had in mind was science fiction.

Has anyone read Bob Shaw's short story, Light Of Other Days? That story and this one have a lot in common. Shaw's tale pivoted around a material called 'slow glass' that (what with light travelling through it at various 'slow' speeds) functioned as a window to the past. After assorted adventures the story ended with the CIA dusting an unsuspecting world with powdered slow glass. The dust in every room in your house, the dust mixed with the sweat on your brow, all of it, was a recorder visually charting everything everyone did. All the CIA needed to do was put it in a projector and play it back. It was the end of privacy.


Sure enough to slow light down in this fashion isn't physically possible. But this is! This is real and it's happening now. As things stand we're in clunkiness territory. But seriously, can anyone here not imagine how this will end up? The speed of technology is insane now. Record players barely changed for a century and suddenly in a few short years people have a thousand hours of music in their tie clip. So, where will ATR's mind-reading thing go?

With my science-fiction writer's hat firmly clamped on my head here's what I reckon - in the same amount of time it took to travel from the first VCR through to mobile phone cameras and youtube, a machine will exist that will allow a person to wander through another's head more readily than they can now wander through a hard drive. A head already has our operating system and you can talk to it, you see. And never mind those pesky permissions - the head-viewer will be super user. By merely saying a word, like 'murder', the viewer will see everything that person knows about murder. I expect memories will be listed in 'visceral' order. Murders someone has participated in will come first, witnessed - second, saw on tv - third... something like that.

But frankly, murderers will be the least of it. The greatest of them will never be subjected to this machine. Instead it will be for thought crime. It will be for us.

There will be no dissembling. The act of dissembling will be seen too. Whatever thoughts run through your head will be like the ticker tape running along the bottom of the TV screen. Or perhaps the voice-over? Either way there'll be nowhere to hide. Whoever has this machine will have it all.


So I read this article and a switch flipped in my head - "That's Fucking It! Once those fuckers get this machine it's all over. Time to start shooting people. Jesus!" Wait a minute, what about the obvious flipside? Imagine if we laid our hands on one of these machines and plugged one of the Rothschilds into it? Imagine a window into the mind of a fellow who views himself as greater than God? Imagine screening it to the public? Wow. There's the ultimate weapon right there.

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The beautiful Aergia doesn't care for such riled thoughts. She's down with Buddha in dispelling fear and desire. Under her laid back guidance I realised I had everything wrong. This machine was not a thing to be feared. It's not a terminator robot that we either run from, or use as a weapon against them. It's far bigger than that. In fact, it might just be the biggest thing ever, with history dividing into 'before' and 'after'.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First up we must seize the ownership of this thing. It must be public. All research must be put into public hands with progress charted on the internet. We declare the machine is not a weapon. This is not the Manhattan Project and we are not at war with anyone. The machine is for all.

Initially the machine will simply be the means by which we determine who should hold positions of public trust. No one will be forced to be have their mind searched. But anyone who asserts that they are worthy of the public's trust will have to prove it. If you don't want to be subject to a public search of your mind, fine, no problems. But you're not going to run a child-minding centre. Or a church. Or a bank. Or a police force. Or a government. You'll just have to find some other means of making a living. No biggie.


Sure enough, this machine will be used on criminals who will not be volunteers. Okay, no problems. People may be involuntarily subjected to a machine but only by someone who has undergone it themselves. Using the machine is itself a position of public trust.

Under this rubric of 'public trust' the point isn't to search for saints and bodhisattvas. Mind you, if we find them that will be brilliant, an education for all. But forget them, we don't actually need saints. What we need are people who aren't corrupt, murderous, self-worshipping, paedophile motherfuckers. Is that too much to ask?

And for those out there thinking, 'Fucking hell. Do you know what wicked thoughts run through my head?' - you don't get it. It's you and everybody. Me too, sure. You plug me into it and it's all there - lying, cheating, stealing, committing violence upon people, and yep, even me perving on the endless parade of barely-teen bods hoping someone notices them on their way to the beach. I notice them alright. You would too. And?


And Jimmy Carter 'sinned in his heart' did he? Well shit, eh? Ain't no one who hasn't. Not that that stopped the hypocrites from wagging their fingers at poor old Jimmy. Well, a tuppence for that. The machine will change everything. Anyone who wants to make out that they're free to cast that first stone can prove it. They step up to the plate and plug into the machine. Showing up hypocrites is a thing worth doing sure, but it's nothing compared to the bombshell of seeing that our sins, which we imagined as very terrible, are actually run of the mill.

This fear we have of our innermost thoughts being seen is nothing, a wisp of smoke. We only imagine that no one thinks like we do. Being unmasked is only scary if no one else does it. Sure enough, fear of being nude in public makes no sense if you're in a nudist camp. Only an idiot would be embarrassed when everybody has their yayas out. Not forgetting of course, that no one is forcing anyone to go to this metaphoric nudist camp. If you don't want a position of public trust you don't need to lay yourself open. It's all voluntary.


And so... fuck it - I volunteer to go first. And yep, everyone can go nuts at the filth in my head. And then the next person, and the next, and the next, until eventually the filth in my head is seen for what it is - simple daily grime, ha ha.

MInd you, there'll be people whose disappointment in me will know no bounds. "You never loved me." "How can you think that about my daughter?" "You're just doing this out of politeness." Yep it's all true. But whatever - this blog has already caused some of my friends to disown me. Never mind - eggs is to be broken and fears are to be dispelled. We'll all just have to get used to it. I wonder if it will be cathartic? Confession is, you know. The Catholics haven't used it for centuries for no reason. The machine will be the ultimate version of getting something off your chest.


What tripped me over the line of fear in this matter is the fact that the machine as I imagine it wouldn't be selective. It would not show my sins in isolation. It will necessarily show how I view those things now and why I will never do them again. It will make clear the nature of my relationship with those not me, and what guides my actions. It will all be there.

That's when the beauty struck me - this thing will be the Redemption Machine. It will enable people to confess their sins fully and find complete forgiveness. No one will have anything to fear from it. Even for the most wicked man in the world, redemption will be an undeniable possibility - real, true, honest to God, redemption. Anyone who can display a cannot-be-faked understanding of the wrongness of their previous self-serving mindset will be welcomed by the rest of humanity. Remember, bullshit is impossible. The conversation in your head that says, 'Ha, that should fool them, suckers!' will be publicly broadcast. The wicked will fear this, sure, but the possibility of this as a process of redemption is massive. What are people going to say? 'I don't want to be redeemed'?

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Eventually the redemption machine will reach a tipping point as it goes beyond a minority and becomes normal. Finally a useful purpose for peer-group pressure! Who knows where this will go? It occurs to me that eventually the redemption machine will be a piece of software on every computer in every home. People will plug in daily to have full honest communication with each other. Parents and children. Husbands and wives. Whomever. Perhaps we will go on the net to share our minds. Would that work?

I can imagine those who refuse to share their minds as eventually being driven into a tiny, shunned and beset minority. I also imagine a daily haemorrhage from the ranks of the wicked as individuals overcome their fear of redemption and join the rest of humanity in acknowledging the obviousness of right behaviour.

Dig it, it will be like Star Trek's Borg but instead of casting off humanity and becoming machine-like, the hive mind would function in the opposite fashion. Joining would be like falling off a stage and being caught - caught in arms of love, understanding, and forgiveness. Participation will be the ultimate declaration of humanity. Everyone who joins will be taking a large individual step (and a small collective one) towards one-with-the-universe.

This collective mind will address problems like poverty, pollution, and population (and alliteration!). Many many things, from technologies such as GMO, to stories and narrative based on us-and-them, will be abandoned as worthless. Me, I'll be pleased because I reckon the rightness of behaviour based on selflessness as the single determinant will become obvious. Complicated proscriptions of sin will fall by the wayside. As will false religions, false isms, hell, falsity in general. The world will never be the same. An extraordinary future is possible with all of man's preceding history being viewed as the Age of the Closed Mind.

Sadly, we're still there. Our minds are still closed and we have to share ideas by way of second-rate things like speech and the written word. Still, it's not too terrible. Words serve a purpose. Why don't we put those words to good use to light a fire in the minds of those head-down, arse-up scientists in at, where was it? Oh yeah, the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Japan. I think we need to blow their minds, to let them know what they're in amongst. I address them -


Boys and Girls, we all know that this thing is coming regardless. Ain't nothing anyone can do to stop it. But you're in amongst something bigger than anyone can imagine. It's possible that you just might be saviours who can deliver the redemption of mankind. And yep, it doesn't get much bigger than that. Get it right and the love and esteem of the world's people will be yours. I wish you well.

It was only just recently that I became familiar with Jacques Fresco. And yes, I know that Les Visible pointed us all at him way back when, but what with me using an internet cafe wherein heavy downloads are a frowned upon no-no, I was unable to view the movie links he provided. But a lovely fellow who sits out the back of the cafe with me, gave me Zeitgeist Addendum straight from his hard drive. Finally I catch up.


And there it all was. The beauty of technology as a means of freeing us of want. With limitless energy providing limitless food, shelter, clothing, and transport, whole fields of unproductive un-endeavour would disappear. Without want, we'd see the end of crime and it's concomitant allopathic responses by way of the police, judiciary, and prisons. We'd have no need of the military. With money being unnecessary so would the industries dealing with it - banking, insurance, the stock market, all gone. Advertising too! Hurray! I'll bring the beers.

Sure enough, I'm down with all of the above. But as is my wont, I just had to pick at this thing. It occurred to me that it was less a case of, 'Here are the problems and now what is the answer?' than it was, 'Here is the answer and what problems may we solve with it?' The answer is technology sure enough. And clearly technology can solve many, many problems. And in doing so will, more or less, address the big picture. But it looks to me that the big picture view we have here has been assembled from lots of little pictures. Dig it, it's like a David Hockney photo montage.


But like a Hockney snapshot, what with the gaps in the pictures, the smooth flow of my mental eye stuttered. For mine, what Fresco's picture lacked was a coherency, a unifying overall philosophy. It seemed not to have anything to tie it together. I wondered about Fresco's world. If something were to pop up, some blemish on the perfection of it all, I had the impression that the response would be, 'What technology is there to throw at this?'

Hmm... maybe that'll work. Or maybe not. I'm thinking 'not'.

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There are only two 'philosophers' (not the right word, but never mind) that I consider to be bullet-proof in their entirety. They are Charles Darwin and the Buddha. Me putting words in Darwin's mouth - food and protection from the elements are not the fundamental human drive. They are merely responses to what is the fundamental drive - the need to pass on one's genes. Or to put this more simply, any entity that exists must (wittingly or unwittingly, it really doesn't matter) seek to continue its existence. This is ipso-facto territory. Any entity that lacks this drive will cease to be an entity. Any entity that exists will have it. That's all there is to it.


The simple truth of existentialism - 'why am I here?' - is that there isn't one. Not beyond, 'a thing is'. The flipside of this is, 'a thing that isn't isn't'. Bloody genius, me. I've just done away with the whole field of existentialism. A fig for Descartes!

But forget such abstractions. Let's just view them as a basis for understanding the far more visceral phrase 'the sex drive'. Believe it or not, this 'drive' is existential in nature, not that that ever occurs to us. What does occur is something like 'Phwooar, look at that arse! You could bounce twenty cent coins off that!' Or is that just me? Anyway, every thirty seconds folks - you, me, the lot of us - a thought like this jolts our brain.

Believe it or not, such thoughts (by way of what drives them) are more fundamental in terms of the human condition than the basic needs of food and shelter. Sure, we need food and shelter to survive but we need to survive because of our 'without-it-we-wouldn't-be-here-to-begin-with' sex drive.

Back to Darwin now. Darwin says that there are various means of dealing with how to get it on with members of the opposite sex. Nature presents more variations on this theme than there are stars in the sky. Mates are chosen because they are: fat and sleek; good at fighting; have shiny feathers; sing well; dance well; build a better home; have superior artistic taste; on and on. Funny how humans barely differ from animals, birds, and fish isn't it? That's one of the beauties of Darwin. He says that anyone who thinks they're special is fooling themselves.


But that's only half the picture. All of the above responses are appeals by those hoping to be selected to those who'll be selecting. Those who select are after quality. For those being selected, quality is neither here nor there. They're after quantity. There's no point condemning this. Like any creature with a sex drive is going to stop with one partner. Honestly. Any creature that gets laid might be shagged out momentarily, but the sex drive doesn't take long to reassert. It only has one message and it says, 'Get Rooting!' Nor should any women out there feel smug. Nature is replete with examples of species which appear to be monogamous but are actually no such thing. Philandering abounds, females included.

So what was my point exactly? The point is that food and shelter cannot be divorced from our fundamental Darwinian sex drive. Even with all things provided for us we will still seek to find better partners and more of them. And we will do this by differentiating ourselves from our neighbours. Whoever has the biggest house, the best clothes, the shiniest car will get laid more often. Getting circular now - this need to one-up our neighbours must exist because we exist. And whatever Jacques Fresco promises us, it won't put a dent in it.

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What a load of crap! We all know perfectly well that people who have nothing but generosity of spirit can get laid too. What about that huh?


I thank that imagined individual for segueing me into the Buddha. The Buddha acknowledges all that Darwin says, with his dictum 'life is suffering'. And suffering of course is desire. Of course, the Buddha doesn't dwell solely on the desire to get laid like Darwin does. He goes beyond Darwin to view things in terms of the 'self'. So what's the difference?

Hopefully I've done enough fleshing out above to save us yet more circuitousness and thus allow me to declare that there isn't one. Darwin's addressing of the necessity of 'being' and Buddha's view of the self as desire, are (if you cock your head and squint) the same thing. Our existence predicates the furthering of our existence and this necessarily places the self front-and-centre, first-and-foremost, the thing without which we are nothing.

The Buddha goes very very far in these thoughts. Too far for this discussion. Let's just stick to the Buddha as an answer to Darwin's imperatives. The Buddha has no beef with Darwin. He acknowledges the self but says that to view it as a thing separate to that-which-is-not-the-self is a mistake. Selflessness is not so much a rejection of yourself, ahem, but rather a means of viewing yourself in context.


Side note - Anyone who imagines a selfless person as being some idiot giving all their food to others and starving to death as a result, is being silly. Not only would this break Darwin's dictum but would also be a statement of separation of the self against that-not-the-self which is contrary to everything Buddha is on about. And yes, I can imagine a situation where such things would occur and still be described as 'right', but we shouldn't confuse extreme anomalies with the truth of the whole. In statistics, such extremities on the bell curve are discarded (2.1 standard deviations, blah blah, blah) and quite right too. Anomalies do not speak of a system but of its tolerances, a whole separate subject.

Anyway, with this selflessness as a lens, or a mindset, or a guiding principle perhaps, all of Darwin's dictums can be fulfilled. The world will function just fine. We'll all be fed, clothed, and sheltered and yes, even laid. Whilst it's no perfect 'Just one quick spray and it's gone!' antidote to Darwin's inevitable need to get laid more often, nor is it about anything else.

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So hopefully you should have that mess of pottage above sitting in your head as a coherent perfect thought. Yes? Excellent. Now you understand the hole in Jacques Fresco's model of providing all that we need. He's got the cart before the horse. I don't know if anyone has ever actually tried to do this but I expect that with enough fiddling, it could be made to work. But not very well and not for very long. Likewise, Fresco's wish to sate our desires is one way of quenching the fires but not a very good one. The truth is desires cannot be sated. Like the TV show said - the nature of monkey is irrepressible. Subsequently any resemblance between Fresco's envisioned world and selflessness is merely a well-meaning coincidence.


Even viewed in solely practical terms the whole thing will be doomed to fail. In spite us of having all things in abundance, if the nature of the self is left unaddressed, those of a monstrous ego (pyschopaths if you prefer) will inevitably sacrifice all on the altar of their own regard. And frankly there seems to be nothing in Fresco's model to stop them.

In the big dreamy picture that is Jacques Fresco's brave new world, something big is lacking. There seems to be no coherent sense of 'This is who we are'. Or in negative terms, there is no 'When all else fails see rule 1'. Me, I reckon a continuum of selflessness provides a sense of 'who we are', a 'rule 1'. It does so as a stripped-down go-cart, a bare-bones lean-machine, a wonder tool good for any eventuality. It cannot be slurred or impeached since it favours none. It's as right as a thing can be.

Even if Fresco's plans were fully realised, it would eventually fail and we'd be back to where we started. On the other hand, if we could explode some kind of gigantic world-affecting Buddha-bomb and fill everyone's head with the truth of selflessness, the world that would result would pretty much resemble Fresco's vision anyway. And have a basis to it that made sense.


Brilliant! This and a thousand other mad dreams of a Buddhist dictator. What are the odds on Fresco's dreams seeing reality? Given that it threatens to replace insanely powerful and greedy institutions, who would rather fight to the death than let it live, it would have to be the bookie's dream. A buck will get you a million. Selflessness on the other hand is a personal trip. You can do it all on your own, and no maglev trains required.