Madness and Genius Part 1

I know that this is not news or relevant, but something I saw set me to thinking about it again today. There was a boy who found his high school math classes too easy. He was placed in a more advanced class in his sophomore year of high school, but he quickly mastered that material as well. After taking a required English course in summer school, he graduated high school two years early and was accepted to Harvard at the age of 16. While at Harvard he studied math, notably as a student under the eminent logician Willard Quine. He scored at the top of Quine's class, earning a 98.6% grade in the course. After Harvard, this young man when on to earn a master's degree and PhD from The University of Michigan in the field of mathematics.

His specialty was a branch of complex analysis known as geometric function theory. "I would guess that maybe 10 or 12 people in the country understood or appreciated it," said Maxwell O. Reade, a retired math professor who served on his dissertation committee. He would publish several more papers on advanced mathematics while teaching undergraduate courses at The University of Michigan. This man next became an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California Berkely in the fall of 1967.

Do you know who this man was? Perhaps you do from the short biography that I have provided. Most mathematicians aren't well known outside academic circles, but this man would become very well known in the popular culture, but not for his breakthroughs in mathematics. He became famous by mailing letter bombs. He was who the FBI and media outlets dubbed "The Unabomber". His murders stretched over a span of two decades and they were accompanied by a manifesto to which he wanted to draw attention. He promised an end to his killings if his manifesto was published in a major newspaper, and the Department of Justice and two major newspapers complied.

You can find his manifesto on the internet if you would like to read it. He wrote it on a typewriter in a primitive shack in rural Montana, yet it is lucid, cogent, free of grammatical and spelling errors, and chilling in its message. Which is more frightening, the fact that this man killed to advance the ideology of this manifesto or the thoughts themselves that went into the creation of the manifesto? Kaczynski paints a picture of a looming technological dystopia that seems more real with every passing year. Did he kill individuals in airlines, the computer industry, and universities to strike out directly at that techno-corporate system or did he do so simply to draw attention to the message he wanted to braodcast in his manifesto? My initial belief was the former, but I was puzzled by the utter futility of that act. Kacynski should know better than anyone that the people he bombed represent only an astronomically small portion of the power structure and that his murders would not have any real effect, even if those individuals couldn't be easily replaced within the techno-social machine. Thus I am forced to conclude that he killed those symbolic targets not for any direct damage that such murders would do to the system he opposed, but rather to cause people to take notice and to actually read his manifesto. To me, this conclusion makes his actions even more evil and depraved than if he had killed those men to more directly undermine the system he opposed.

In either case, he has failed. His ideas did not gain traction (who really thought they would?) and he engendered no movements of social or technological change. His predictions are slowly coming true as our society becomes increasingly technological and our lives more firmly under the control of "machines" (using the word in both the literal and metaphoric senses) and divorces from our basic humanity.

I do not share Kacynski's views on how to solve the world's problems. Absolutely not. A total rejection of technology is neither sensible nor possible. And using murders to draw attention to a political ideology is abhorant. Seeing people as cogs in a machine, or numbers in a math problem, all divorced of their humanity, is something we would expect from Kacynski's enemies, and it undermines his basic message when he resorts to such base expressions of violence to promote his text. Beyond those two very important objections, Kacynski was wrong to kill because it worked against him in a war for public support. He wanted support for his message but as long as the author of that message is a serial killer, no one will pay it heed. Society has shunned him and his ideas, and rightly so.

Counterinsurgency operations fail if they do not win the hearts and minds of the local populations that support the rebels. We have learned this truism in Malaya, Vietnam, and now Iraq. In this case though, the insurgency has failed because it did not win the support of the population. Campaigns are fought for public support now, in modern democracies when the truth is an artificial construction of a corporate machine. The great masses of people, living off easy answers and quick news clips can be persuaded of anything. Who is the Axis of Evil this year? Who hates freedom now? A king would have difficulty ruling because when public opinion turns against him, especially in a federalist republic such as ours, his power evaporates. But an oligarchy composed of technocrats, monied politicians, media outlets, corporate players, and carefully controlled facemen -- that is the machinery that can hold sway over millions by telling them what to think, feel, buy, vote, and accept as the truth.

Contrary to Kacynski's vile tactics as a serial killer, to compete in this arena one needs to move within this power structure either as a component of it or a clever manipulator or a revolutionary innovator. Muhammad Yunus is one such man. He saw an enormous problem--crushing and desperate poverty suffered by hundreds of millions--and he took steps to solve this problem. He did it by reinventing the capitalist system in a more human and equitable way. He fought back against the evil machinary that Kacynski saw but he did so in a moral, heroic, and commendable way. Read his Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus

Muhammad Yunus is one example of how to change the world for the better. The man is without a doubt my personal hero. My earliest blog entries make mention of levers and fulcrums to move the world, and indeed Dr. Yunus found his fulcrum point. I will not write in this blog about my lever or fulcrum point, but I will leave you with an MIT lecture by Dr. Yunus. Enjoy:
http://mitworld.mit.edu/stream/287/

Education is Freedom

I installed a counter on this blog today and also posted the URL on my Facebook page. I noticed that I have some new visitors tonight and you may be English speakers. Since the two previous posts were both in Spanish, I thought that I should return to English for a while so that you were not put off by the my use of Spanish.

Tonight I would like to write about a favorite quotation from one of my favorite thinkers from premoden times: Cicero. We all know Cicero, the Roman philosopher, I am sure. One of Rome's greatest orators, politicians, statesmen and philosophers he was a towering intellect whose insights into life have weathered the decay of centuries and retain their significance even now. The quotation (translated to English because I don't read Latin) is as follows:

"The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present."

This rings true in several ways. First, education is a way to look beyond our present circumstances and open our minds to greater possibilities. It is easy to become trapped in our own personal situations, in our own narrow limits of thought and opinion about the world around us, and grow ignorant of the wider world. Learn about another culture and you enrich your own just that much. Learn to speak another language and your mind and your view of the world opens up not only because you can communicate with more people but the act of learning a new tongue frees the mind from its linguistic and cognitive bondage as new ideas can be thought. As we learn new languages, learn math or physics that allows a greater understanding of the physical world, and learn history that provides us with a clearer picture of the human world, as we do these things our minds break free from the tyranny of the present and expand into the multitudinous possibilities of the intellect. This is the first power of education.

I can imagine other worlds. I can imagine my life different than it is now. I can imagine ways to change my life and to change our world. I would not be capable of such imagination without the education to formulate such theories. Not all education is equal and it is the proper education in critical thinking, imagination and historical perspective that provides us with the clearest lens to other possibilities. This is the first way in which we can interpret the quotation, as a sort of freedom of the imagination.

The second way that we can interpret the quotation is a more practical application of education to material freedom. If I hold a masters degree in finance, or a la3 degree, I will have more financial freedom, I will have a greater capability to find a job, I will have more power over my fellow man and thus greater freedom to act on my will. Education, in our modern society is the way to attain anything we want. Those who cannot read are shut off from many of the avenues of our modern society and unable to participate fully in the social fabric that surrounds them. Those who don't graduate high school have extremely limited employment prospects. Those who attend college and graduate study choose their own path in life and attain the freedom to chose not only the benefits they will derive from society but the effect they will have on it. Do you want to earn $100,000 per year? Go to law school or get an business degree. Do you want to save people's lives? Make it through medical school and become a doctor. In either case, our present circumstance, with less education, is one of restriction and enslavement, enslaved by the bonds of our own ignorance. It is through education that we break free.

I see the present as not an end state but as an ever present beginning and I believe it healthy to fix our gaze on the future. I derive a great deal of joy from the acts both of learning and of teaching. I have much to learn myself, as we all do, but there are few pleasures more pure than inspiring others to new intellectual heights and provoking their minds to gain new understanding.

Education and the quality of education is most often what separate one social group from another or one person from another now in this increasingly modern world. And our families and their influence on our attitudes toward education determine, to a large degree how successful we are breaking free from the tyranny of the present. I have seen this again and again during my time in education. The attitudes of the student and his or her family are the largest determiners in his or her success in school. Some choose to remain ignorant and will never succeed, no matter how intelligent they may be. Others choose to embrace education, to work hard and to break free from the slavery of their ignorance. It is very much a choice.

Finally, another way to read the quotation, or at least a corollary that adds an interesting twist. It is through education, both of himself and of others, that Cicero truly broke free of the tyranny of his present. He now continues to educate us more than two thousand years in the future and has attained a sort of immortality. Very few of us will be able to say the same in two thousand years as the ravages of time will have washed our memories from the sands of time.

As a closing thought, for all those who are still in school: remember why you are there. You are there to learn. To learn math, to learn history, to learn new languages, to learn science, to learn new ways of thinking and new possibilities. You are there to grow and become better people and it is not just a place to pass the time or have fun. Looking back later in life, you will appreciate it more, but then it will be too late. Heed my words now, and free yourselves from the tyranny of the present.

El desastre en Haiti

La crisis en Haiti es más atrás de nuestra comprensión. Ahora dicen que han enterrado más que setenta mil personas y estiman que puedan ser más que doscientos mil muertos en total. Es una tragedia tanto afuera de mi la experiencia de nosotros que no llegamos a imaginar ni el mínimo parte de lo que está pasando al pueblo haitiano.

Sería facil rendirnos a un cierto fatalismo cuando estamos enfrentados con tales. El mundo no es justo y no hay una serie de reglas cósmicas que dictan lo que la naturaleza debe hacer para conformar con nuestra idea de justicia, egaldad o humanidad. Al contrario, la naturaleza es insentaz e inhumano. No podemos decir que "no le importa" una vida humana porque al decirlo, el frase "importar" implica que la naturaleza puede "importar". No siente, no piensa y no es más que una cadena de eventos que tienen lugar en un ámbito frío y calculado, afuera del alcanze de nuestra tendencia de antromorfizar todo. En el caso de Haiti, tenemos una intersección de factores -- la pobreza extra con un desastre natural -- y el producto es la muerte en una escala impensable. Es dificil evitir el pensamiento que no importamos. Nuestras vidas son fugaces y débiles llamas en fósforos que se apagan tan rápidamente que el universo no nos hace caso (y de nuevo, antropomorfizo al universo). Más que nuestra vidas individuos, nuestras naciones también pueden desaparecer al instante. Haiti va a quedar pero su gobierno está en ruinas, mucha de la infrastructura del país está destruida y este terremoto representa un evento cultural que cambiará el carácter nacional por muchas décadas.

¿Qué podemos hacer? Los más ricos entre nosotros podemos donar dinero (y los menos ricos pueden donar menos dinero) pero, ¿qué podemos realmente hacer? La pregunta es una que siempre me ha estorbado. Vivimos en un mundo injusto y cruel, debido de las acciones de los hombres y también los desastres naturales. Vivimos en tal mundo y algunos de nosotros nos sentamos impotente cuando no observamos nuestro efecto en el mundo. Quiero ser Superman. Quiero ser un héroe con poderes increíbles y un coraje indominable. Pero no lo soy. No puedo hacer nada más que ver las escenas de la muerte en la televisión. Las guerras en Afghanistán y Irak, la violencia en Colombia, el esclavitudad en India y Tailandia, los masacres en Sudán y todo lo demás es demasiado para mí y para ti.

La Cruz Roja está en Haiti y está salvando miles de vidas. La ONU está en Haiti también y el ejército estadounidense, pero es otra cosa. Equipos de rescate de diversos paises y ciudades han viajado a Haiti para colaborar y salvar vidas. Mi visión de algo que puede hacer bien es una red sin un nexus central que cuentan con muchos millones de individuos. Los individuos serían ligados el uno al otro con una ideología y una visión unificada pero con la libertad y la abilidad de actuar en concierto. Diez personas aisladas no son nada, pero mil personas, cada uno con sus recursos y talentos, todas organizadas en una sociedad devotado al mismo objetivo, pueden ser formidables.

Varias religiones representan la mejor representación de esta visión. Tienen millones de integrantes que compartan una doctrina y quienes a menudo actuan juntos. Pero existe el problema del autoritismo, la superstición y las limitaciones epistimológicas en todas las instituciones religiosas (es decir, que la Iglesia Católica o una se ta de Islam está limitado por sus propias definiciones y estructuras). Necesitamos algo más. Necesitamos una ONU sin las naciones y sin la burucracias. Necesitamos una Cruz Roja que hacen más que ayuda a los víctimas de guerras y desastres naturales. Necesitamos un organización que cambia el mundo en todas maneras. No podemos evitir terremotos en si mismos, pero con el plan adecuado podemos aliviar el sufrimiento humano. Espero que yo pudiera ayudar más en este momento pero no puedo. Entonces, voy a compartir contigo mi plan de un mejor mundo y cómo convertirlo en una realidad. Sígame, mientras hacemos el camino dorado... mientras hacemos el muerte-verde.

Mis pensamientos y mis esperanzas van a la gente afectada por la tragedia en Haiti.

Cultural Trends and Commentary

Another year is coming to a close. I would like to write something more personal now. Some ideas that are on my mind now are, New Year's resolutions, plans for 2010, a retrospective of how 2009 was for me. But I won't do any of that. The previous entry here was more personal than was my intention for this "blog". Instead of writing narrowly about personal hopes, dreams, aspirations or disappoints, I will broaden my topic somewhat and not confine myself to 2009 or 2010 tonight. Maybe I can break the rules tomorrow.

Human progress is the other topic on my mind. Progress and, thought of more broadly, how we have changed or are changing over the past two thousand or so years. First, class structure has changed but is far from gone. The noble classes of the past were joined by a wealthy merchant class and in the present day there are capitalists, celebrities, and politicians to add to that list (among others). The urban poor now stand in contrast to the rural poor and the timeless poverty trap that impedes social mobility is still in effect. The rich can afford the best schools, have the connections and money to provide for an upper class lifestyle for their progeny. The poor, when not lacking basic necessities are often surrounded by a culture that prevents them from advancing. I have seen it too many times already.

Second, the media is a common whipping boy but I don't think that most of the criticisms strike deeply enough. The media, both mainstream and otherwise, is a major factor is the dumbing down of culture, our skewed value system, our ignorance of world events, and why democracy is failing to govern effectively in the United States. Let me explain what I mean now, with a focus to news-giving(ignoring entertainment media for now). First, the major television news programs prefer hype over fact and sensationalism over journalism. We were forced to endure countless thousands of hours of Michael Jackson coverage while hundreds of real news stories went untold. A tear jerking "human interest" story about a young boy's battle with cancer will garner national media attention while true, useful, pertinent news stories, major political and/or historic events will be ignored. Celebrities are the focus now and they are celebrities most often for inane and meaningless reasons dreamed up by marketing specialists. Television viewers, magazine readers, and newspaper readers are fed a constant diet of "celebrity gossip" in place of "news".

For verification of this, pick up an issue of The Economist. It comes out weekly, so it will be up to date. Read it. Each issue contains hundreds of well written articles about important global trends, history making events, key players on the world stage, and thoughtful commentary. And curiously, almost none of it will ever appear on television. FOX News has its "60 seconds around the world" (or 85 seconds? I don't recall) segment that illustrates this point perfectly. They spend 23 hours and 59 minutes each day yammering about celebrities, bickering about domestic politics, and sensationalizing inconsequential rubbish, but they devote 1 minute to letting us see a quick montage of the outside world. Why is this? The media outlets (doesn't that term tell you something?) are doing what sells in a market economy and this mindless blather is what sells. But at the same time, the choice is removed, value is removed, and expectations are permanently lowered.

Yes, we do have the internet now (some of us) but it too is dominated by the same trends and the same power-players. At a time when it is so easy to disseminate information our culture is being deprived of it and is growing accustomed to this deprivation. Ignorance is a tool of control for those in power, and it always has been. Propaganda can be used to mobilize a country for war or to placate a people into an easy, stupefying slumber. I don't know that we need to speculate on a super secret cabal of elites that covertly want to keep us ignorant and craving more Britney Spears/Michael Jackson, but it serves the interest of those in power to not understand what is happening, to slurp up whatever nonsense they want us to consume, and to value celebrities more than our safety, security, financial stability or humanity.

Third, the shift to referring to people as "consumers" is disturbing to me every time I hear it. Though it may be honest now, it is vulgar nonetheless. To view our role as one of simply consumption and not creators, as persons, as individuals with complex ideas, hopes, and dreams, is to me demeaning. We have become consumers: pigs at the trough. Where does this notion come from? How did this enter our lexicon? The language betrays the common attitude and it isn't just crass materialism but even deeper, it is the idea that our function in this world is to suck up resources and thereby feed a capitalist system with our consumption. Shaping this wave of desire to consume has become both an art and a science and the herd mentality has never been stronger. Is it ironic that "consumption" used to refer to a disease and now it refers to man? Have we become the disease? Perhaps so.

Fourth, because I cannot continue in such a depressing way, I must mention that the notion of scientific progress is alive as ever and that people are more connected than ever (and at the same time, alienated from one another in new and frightening ways). I am confident that by the time I am old man, medical science will have made many more great advances and my quality of life will be improved (if I have the money to pay for it). I am confident that computers will continue to speed up, that games will be more realistic, that technology will be cheaper and more accessible to all segments of the population, and that each year our understanding of the universe will be enlarged. This leaves me with a general feeling of human progress that likely has not always been felt and which stands in contrast to the social critiques I expressed earlier. The sum total of human knowledge will continue to increase despite our tendencies toward nationalism, religious superstition, racism, and other social ills. This is good.

Fifth, the mounting problem of debt troubles me. Though the problem is epidemic in the United States, the US is far from alone. Most European nations and Japan are deeply in debt as nations and debt is way of life for both individual people and corporations. Our modern world system, built on a debt generated fiat money system, is a precarious house of cards waiting to topple. The attitudes that govern this confidence game are both short term and destructive and I cannot imagine still what will happen when it all comes crashing down. We may have come close in 2008 and 2009, but even that cliff is less scary than the destruction of the entire debt based system upon which all modern financial systems, nation states, corporations and most households are based. The film "Money as Debt" will explain the problem in greater detail and demonstrate how this system is ultimately unsustainable. Does this gnaw at the back of your psyche as well?

Now for a short, personal note. I will sleep now because I have a lot of work tomorrow. Papers to check, lessons to plan, workouts to do, birthday parties to attend. I need to get an early start and some caffeine may be needed. As a closing note, in the face of all the uncertainty, fear and inadequacy, I want to feel that I have improved the world we live in, even if by only a little. Do you feel the same? Have you succeeded?

Soei Nage

It would seem that every culture has created its own form of martial art, sometimes by pure invention but most often by the modification of pre-existing forms from other cultures. The earliest origins of formal martial arts are disputed--with some claiming that India is the source of both Greek and Chinese martial arts (and we know that Japanese arts come from China) while others posit a separate lineage for ancient Greek style of fighting. The more modern forms of grappling--Russian sambo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo--have better documented histories and clear lineages (Japanese judo being the origin of the other two I listed).

The martial arts with which I am familiar are high school wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and judo (the Costa Rican flavor). Some judokas will claim that all judo is the same judo, but this does not negate the fact that there exist regional differences. The Russians are known for powerful explosive judo that begins to look like Greco-Roman wrestling (watch their kata garumas) while the French are known for leg sweeps and large leg movements. The core principles of judo persists though. Judo is fight for balance. Your weight needs to be balances better than your opponent and your body needs to be in the proper position to capitalize on this different in balance (between you and your opponent). The grip work with the gi is aimed at unbalancing your opponent. The movement work with your feet is mean to transfor your weight without disrupting your own balance so that you can move into position without sacrificing your own weight distribution.

Position is of paramount importance and it is what allows a smaller, weaker opponent to defeat a larger, stronger opponent. The force of gravity acting on the larger body is leveraged to the advantage of the smaller, more skilled judoka. Take the ippon soei nage for example. This throw awards the advantage to the shorter judoka due to the place of the smaller judoka's body as a fulcrum over which the lever of the larger judoka will move. Here is a video that demonstrates a series of soei nage throws, varied from one another by the grip and arm positioning.

The tori (the judoka performing the throw) must place his or her hips beneath the center of gravity of the uke (the judoka being thrown) to perform the the throw with maximum effect. There is first the unbalancing of the uke to the front and up, then an entry, then the throw, all completed with explosive movement that does not allow the uke to recover from the initial unbalancing.

The techniques here are not confined to judo. We may take balance, position, and explosive movement in a metaphoric sense when speaking of business or politics or in a more literal sense when theorizing about warfare. Indeed, the maneuver theory of warfare, used to great effect in the American invasion of Iraq is an example of these same principles put to use. The enemy's command and control structure is targeted, speed and communication are emphasized over the winning of decisive pitched battles, and the redloyment (rebalancing, we could say) of assets to target the off-balance opponent are key.

The juggernaut of the United States military, the most modern and and one of the best trained in the world, employed technology and the strategic lessons learned from centuries of decades of warfighting to unbalance the Iraqi army and keep it that way, but smaller, weaker forces have followed the precepts of maneuver warfare and the wisdom of judo many times in the past century while on the other side of assymetrical warware. Mao's famous dictum, "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue" is a classic example of keeping a more powerful enemy off balance.

I believe that the application to armed conflict of this doctrine (both strategic and tactical) of balance and movement is sufficiently clear and that I have belabored the point enough. But I would like to end by suggesting that you consider the allegorical implications of this strategy in other areas of your life and in the world around you. Like the skillful soei nage practitioner, if you drop beneath the wary gaze of your opposition and insert yourself beneath his or her center of gravity, so to speak. Don't meet force with yet more blunt force but rather with redirection over a central point of rhetorical rotation. As you might imagine, I prefer subtly to choleric shouting, and I would recommend the same for you as well.

Introduction Post

I have post-dated this first introductory post by so that it will always show up at the top of the blog list, since it is the introduction. After this, the blog is intended to be read in chronological order with the oldest posts being read first. When some points carry over from one post to the next, this may become significant.

The initial title of this blog is logocidio, a provisional title if there ever was one. Names and titles have never come easily to me and less so when the underlying signified to which I will attach the signifier is in such a nebulous state. We can see the root logos, the word, preceding the affix -cidio, which indicates killing. I had intended some ambiguity between the interpretations "killing words" where words are being killed and where words are the killers, but upon closer inspection, it seems that the poor words are being snuffed out as the root is the recipient of the action in the suffix here. When I think of a better title, I will redact it (thus modifying the entire latticework of lexemas supporting untold thousands of semas!) and hopefully sleep better at night.

When one writes a thesis, there is a an established procedure for declaring the intention of the text. Likewise with published works nonfiction, and occasionally fiction (though fiction writers lie more often than not). The reader is provided with a set of expectations and allowed certain assumptions upon which he or she may understand the pages to come, and interpret the statements with a common purpose in mind. When reading a novel, we often use the cover, the title, the epigraph, and any biographical information about the author to inform us on what the rest of the work will tell us. Thus the opening line "it was a dark and stormy night", cliched as it is, will be read different on a climatological text, a horror novel, a romance novel, or a piece of detective fiction. Each genre builds in its own set of assumptions and if the title of the piece is "Hurricanes" or "The Creeping Death" we will likely come to very different conclusions just after these first seven words. In the case of this blog there is screen layout, the color scheme, the title, the author's name (if it is present when you are reading this), and the nature of the first paragraphs you read.

If you are still read after the preceding paragraph, then perhaps nothing can dissuade you. Fine, let's being then. I don't intend to concern this blog with the mundane happenings of my personal life, because anyone who really cares that much probably already knows. I am interested most in the secret (that one, single inexpressible secret) that lies behind all things. Umberto Eco, in his novel Foucault's Pendulum wrote of a secret conspiracy to rule the world that was invented and discovered in one stroke. Jorge Luis Borges, in his Biblioteca de Babel writes of a book that indexes all other books in the cosmic library. I propose something no less grand.

This one ineffable truth is the true meaning of all great literature. The madness of Don Quijote is the madness of King Lear, the existential angst in La Vida es Sueño (Pedro Calderón de la Barca) es the same that Prince Hamlet was wracked by in Denmark. Every piece of good literature tries to address the question of this same sense of the numinous mystery of human existence, but never the same way twice. Art and philosophy aren't so different in this respect. Modernity, in the sense of a period of human thought and progress, seemed to suggest a singular answer while postmodernity rejects this in favor of a multitude of answers to this one question, each true from its subjective vantage point. This is where I make my entrance here. When I think and when I write, I want to understand the world, my world. This is one of the most noble endeavors of the human animal, in my opinion. This blog is my attempt to not only make sense of the world, but to convey the understandings I am gaining to you, the reader. And returning to the theme of postmodern discourse, my purpose is also to persuade you of the legitimacy of my narrative archetype (to borrow from Fredric Jameson) and to follow some of my precepts.

Knowledge and persuasion are my main foci, and it is fitting that it be so in a medium such as this. But my other project is one of action (or more likely, a bemused attitude towards inaction). What follows in this introductory post is the crass and unsubtle expression of a juvenile need to see our mark on the world around us and to correct the ills we see. Take for what it is and nothing more, but understand that it is the second thread that lies beneath my epistemological system--reflection for understanding on the one hand and understanding to exert power on the other. With that caveat, read on.

Let's conquer the world. If you began a thesis with that statement of purpose or opened a self-help book with that bold proposition, where would you go from there? Well, let us examine the question further. The proposition begins with "let's", a contraction of "let us" and so it already speaks of a plurality of agents. The predicate of this syntactic structure is "the world" and which seems to imply the widest possible interpretation, as no limits are given (e.g., the world of finance, the world of stamp collecting, etc.). Whether making such an outrageous challenge or a far more modest one, it is incumbent upon the challenger to take stock of what resources are available and the optimal manner in which to array them. And keep in mind that wise men learn from the examples of others.

Who else has tried or is trying to do the same? Quite a few religions have and are at present making their own bids for control, as are some national governments. Economic systems, capitalism and communism, have been struggling with each other for several hundred years (mercantilism had its day too) and capitalism is the clear winner at the present time. What methods do these systems use, how effective are they, what are their flaws, and how can one improve upon them? What motivates individuals to act in accordance with a group goal or set of goals? What structure can be built into a system of power that will evolve and reinforce that same structure over time? These are some of the questions we must answer at the outset.

To take one clear example from the second half of the 20th century, we have the pseudo-religion of Scientology. It was begun by L.Ron. Hubbard, a hack science fiction writer whose work had been viciously panned by both the critics and the reading public. He invented a mythology and an associated pseudo-religious framework upon which he built a cult. In some ways his organization resembled a ponzi scheme, with membership levels requiring increased monetary outlay and recruiting, and in other ways it resembled a cult along the lines of Heaven's Gate or any other cult driven to abuses by a charismatic leader. Hubbard identified the psychologically vulnerable as ideal recruits that could be molded into his obedient drones and reprogrammed and he followed in the footsteps of the major religions in some of his methodology. Again his enemies, his cult has employed tactics of infiltration, harrasment, subversion of government organizations, libel, intimidation, and even violence. If a Scientologist is reading this now, I can expect some reprisal. In these actions, they don't differ markedly from Islam or Christianity, and in this way there is some legitimacy to their claim that they are a religion (albeit one that is particularly malevolent and does little to disguise its thirst for dictatorial oppression of humanity). But to be honest, their mythology is ridiculous enough to repel all but the most credulous and desperate. But there is at least an attempt at secrecy, regimentation, and organizational hierarchy to support that system of space-opera type myths.

Moving away from religion for a moment, what other forces in the United States exert the most power? Those with money. There is a reason why the men of Wallstreet in the 1980s were known as the Masters of the Universe. In a capitalist society such as ours, or the Chinese or Russians for that matter, those with enormous wealth control the society on a level that the average person fails to comprehend. The rise of the hedge funds in the 1990s underscored this point as groups of incredibly wealthy investment fund managers who controlled private (and thus secret) account colluded to bankrupt entire nations. George Soros on his own broke the Bank of England through the use of the FOREX markets and by manipulating a combination of the world's exchanges, hedge funds disrupted the economies of several South East Asian countries (Thailand, for example). It was economic warfare for our modern age (for economic warfare is nothing new). The shadow economy, as this derivative economy is sometimes called now, has grown to be far larger than the real economy and the control of these arcane financial instruments has become control (or destruction) of the real economy.

At this point, what do we have? Do we control hundreds of billions of venture capital? Do we have hundreds of millions of loyal followers who believe in the divine truth of our mission? No. We begin with very little. Careful planning is necessary. This is my introduction: my statement of purpose. When I seem to deviate from this stated goal, it will be to pursue ancillary objectives or at times indulge private curiosities.

Of course there must be more than simple conquest. Islam desires the submission of all of humanity before it, but at the same time it sees itself as a perfect way of ordering human society and providing for the great benefit for all concerned (observe the functioning of any Islamic theocracy to test that theory). Communism seeks fairness and maximum enjoyments of human labor as a benefit of its imposition as the controlling force across the planet. Our plan too must provide for the optimal functioning of the system of the world. Put another way, the end result must be to improve the lot of mankind in some way. This is all very postmodern, when we consider the objectively negative improvements that Christianity, Islam, Communism, Capitalism and Nazism (to name a few) have imposed upon the world. But still, a better future for humankind should be the ultimate purpose for the exercise of power.

This post will serve as a general introduction to what will follow. That is all for tonight.