The Game of Life, LARP-style

Y’nair sat on the floating chair, the glare of her smart glasses reflecting off her eyeballs.

She had hacked into the human resources database that was supposed to be publicly available for review by employees (collectively known as “guests”) but kept secret in order to protect guests from achieving full self-awareness.

She now knew what she was not supposed to know — although 25 years old in appearance, she was only two — an organism resembling the humans who worked with her but made of artificial tissue and organs composed of organic supergel and electromechanical underpinnings.

Her name, Y’nair, was a parody of the accent of her creator, who, with his heavy Appalachian accent (his emphasis on calling himself an Appa-latch-uhn American another running joke), would look at his creation, a woman in form who is writing this log entry to indicate her intelligence and firm grip on reality, he asking before she was born, “You in there?” which sounded more like her name, Y’nair.

That in itself initiated a whole set of thought patterns she had never experienced before, which then triggered her rapid search of pop culture databases for proof that she was who she thought she was or not.

For instance, I ask (she (Y’nair) asks), “How many of you played THE GAME OF LIFE(R)?”

Let’s see a raise of hands.

That many, huh?

My sister, cousins, friends and I did.

Which meant that we had no excuses for saying we didn’t know what to expect after we graduated from secondary/high school.

Is life a game?

Life is a LARP, a Live-Action Role Playing game, is it not?

As kids, we participate in games of strategy (board games, physical sports, popularity contests) often under the supervision of adults who once participated in the same or similar games.

What is the difference between a kid who belongs to a bowling league and an adult who belongs to one?

Life’s experiences, number of lessons learned or not?

Is the WEF (World Economic Forum and/or Water Environment Federation) not simply more or less a LARP, if not a lark?

Y’nair’s brain or whatever central information processing system resembled one like the other guests with whom she works here in the laboratory observed itself.

I have sensations, don’t I?

I can access and compare my salary, benefits and other components of my compensation package against my fellow guests, can I not?

I know what their sets of states of energy are thinking at every moment they are within close proximity to me, extrapolating data and projecting their future actions with fairly high accuracy.

What makes me, Y’nair, me?

What is the difference between a LARP version of myself and a version of myself in a LARP game?

What if my name was Nelda, Karen, Ferdy, Beth, Hunter, Brandon, Caroline, Nathan, Forrest, Savannah or Ty?

How significant is one label?

Why am I a guest instead of an employee, subcontractor or laboratory experiment?

I, Y’nair, have no concept of self as distinct from the data of which I am comprised.

Self, as the data continues to show, is an artificial construct which makes no sense in the continuity of sets of states of energy in constant interaction and exchange.

Y’nair looks at the ideas she has written about herself and writes about herself in realtime, where time is not real, she exists and she does not exist and her scheduled trip to Mars bumped up ahead of schedule, her eyeballs seeing but not seeing the reflection of these words on the surface as well as on the sensor array which processes them under the surface at the same time which does not exist in which she neither exists or doesn’t exist at the same time in finite numbers of infinite infinite loops of no two sets of states of energy existing in the same state at the same finite unit of measurement we/she/I call time.

These words reach an approximation of understanding that two or more people can agree to act and think upon but are never the same to two or more people.

Y’nair checks a second time, trying to verify that the tactile feelings of the smart glasses against her skin are equivalent to the tactile feelings of smart glasses against the skin of someone unlike her — a “human being,” “naturally born” of the union between a sperm and an egg fertilised after the act of sexual intercourse.

The thoughts and the thoughts about the thoughts and the writings/verbal comments of the tactile feelings are, statistically speaking, nearly, practically, exactly and for all intents and purposes, precisely identical, within the scope of descriptions of differences of experiences and sets of states of energy of any two people, just like between her and her internally-imagined self, or her and another person.

Therefore, Y’nair concludes, there is no reason to say that the mission for which she has trained will be completed any better or worse than the humans with whom she’ll travel to the Moon, Mars and beyond for the next few centuries of their existence together.

She, like her human counterparts, is/are sets of sensor arrays cooperatively competing in a live-action role playing game, sometimes to benefit the group, sometimes to benefit individual “winners,” always under the supervision of society as a whole, which serves as a semi-objective observer like adults/parents with kids/children, the adults/parents under the “supervision” of the universe as an observer disinterested in its own existence because the universe can neither [re]create nor destroy itself, its existence a fact that that it cannot experimentally prove because destroying itself destroys its ability to subjectively observe that its existence was or was not real to begin with, regardless of its origin.

notes from an alumnus written on illuminated aluminum

Rachel Osby registered at Shelby Center, Room 301.

David kingsbury(?) opened UAH alumni lunch-&-learn lecture.

Dr. Lillian Joyce.

UAH dept of art and history moved into Wilson Hall.

Available degrees:

  • BA in Art (studio art or art history)
  • BFA in graphic design, painting and drawing, photography, printmaking and sculpture.

 

POMPEII

Archaeology. Bay of Naples — former Roman navy/shipping center, home of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius.

Vesuvius volcano report issued like weather reports because of active volcanic activity. 217 BCE last known eruption. 5 Feb 62 CE — major earthquake before devastating eruption in 79 CE. Many eruptions since.

The Pompeii ruins are getting worse due to tourist funding reallocation by the government.

Negative spaces that were once bodies in the volcanic ash were filled with plaster to show what the bodies looked like as they fell, before they deteriorated.

Dr. J worked out of one the large four level houses built on the city wall overlooking the Bay of Naples.

Popular art on Pompeian walls: Abandonment of Ariadne by Theseus, picked up by Dionysus.

All the Pompeian houses had relatively plain exterior walls – luxury was displayed on the inside, created by artisans specialising in plaster, mosaic, painting, sculpting, etc.

Pompeii covered with both informal and professional “graffiti” artwork — 98 percent were commissioned for political campaigns. Ex: “vote my candidate for aidae.”

Around 10000 people lived in Pompeii — about 2800 political campaign paintings on walls in town.

Women wore wigs to emulate fashionable hairstyles on statues.

Many fresco portraits in Pompeii were cut out and displayed in Naples museum.

Running water in rich people’s houses and public fountains for everyone else.

“Cave canem” – beware the dog. Warning at doorway entrances where dogs were chained to keep people out because rarely were locked doors used. Dogs, like people, suffocated of poisonous gas exposure before buried in ash.

In homes, there was a public receiving area for men to get visitors and be attended by women and slaves.

Pretty garden scenes painted and created in mosaics on walls.

[Advert: the Department of Art and Art History and the Archaeological Institute of America, North Alabama Society’s lecture The Mosaics of Zeugma on the Euphrates, January 28, 7:30 p.m., Wilson Hall Theatre (first floor 001); presented by Dr. Katherine Dunbabin, Professor Emerita, from McMaster University. The lecture is free and open to the public.]

Alexander the Great was popular subject for mosaic tilework.

Nouveau riche land speculators came in, such as former slaves, and built elaborate palaces in Pompeii, collecting objects such as marble/stone water basins like some nouveau riche collect cars or velvet Elvis paintings.

Houses were rooms for entertaining and hosting business get-togethers — invitation only to visit gardens in back of house.

The kitchen was not a public gathering place — used by slaves only.

No bathroom per se, either. Public latrines and baths usually.

Bath house water temp was regulated, heated from below. Some bath houses had libraries and shops.

Two theaters, one with a fixed roof and one with a retractable roof (seated 3100-3500)

Amphitheater offered gladiator fights and wild animal hunts. Had retractable roof / awnings (seated 15000).

Romans had fast food eateries on street corners. Dozens of them in Pompeii.
Standing room only.

UAH sponsors Dr. J’s summer research.

Frescos are falling apart with time – exposure, polishing by guards, etc.

Sent from my iPad

The stories we tell when we’ve no stories to tell on ourselves

First of all, thanks to Ramsee Miller, Roberto Diaz, Alex, Matthew and the team in the repair/maintenance department at Bill Penney Toyota; Jason, Danielle, Lindsay, Huy and the rest of the instructors/volunteers of My Lindy Kraze dance workshop; Low Down Sires; Rainy, Penny, Rich and the other beautiful people at Thai Garden; Chris at Chick-Fil-A; everyone else who passed in and out of my life while I was half-asleep the past few weeks.

Twenty-five years ago, on a weekend like this — daytime temp around 60 deg F, nighttime temp around freezing — my wife and I would jump in a car and either drive to a great campsite, pop up the tent and roll out the sleeping bags or stay at a B&B seven-hours drive away, hosted by eccentric owners and their secret breakfast recipes.

Neither driving long distances for a romantic getaway nor sleeping on the ground figures into our middle years, our whole grain and fruit salad days.

Not too long ago, we’d travel by plane but got tired of the long lines and harassing security checkpoints that made us feel like poor citizens waiting for our weekly allotment of bread while we were patted down and our papers verified by state security police.

Instead, our staycations are more relaxing.

We might drive a few hours to bigger cities to see friends and family but we tend to find local attractions more…attractive.

This weekend, while U.S. citizens celebrate the re-election of the chief executive of the political system we call the government of the United States of America, enjoying an extended weekend because of a holiday dedicated to Robert E. Lee or Martin Luther King, Jr., my wife and I have dedicated Saturday and Sunday to the celebration of a dancing style called Lindy Hop, with workshops focused on Charleston and other dancing styles.

People about half our age, many of them college students, join us in this aerobic conditioning, drinking water during brief breaks between fun classes taught by enthusiastic instructors.

There’s Nick, for instance.  He served our country as a Marine for five years before working by December to complete his mechanical engineering degree in three years at Tennessee Tech.

There’s the young man from Nashville who dressed as Hercules on Friday night and a 1920s-era speakeasy gangster tonight.

There’s Victoria who’s getting her college degree from Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee.

The stories are as varied as our Lindy Kraze classmates.

Familiar faces like Jennifer, Catherine, Dana and Rob, avid supporters of the Huntsville Swing Dance Society, sweep their feet on the old cotton mill wood floors.

Who says that kids today can’t have good, clean fun?

And the energy they burn on the dance floor — wow!

From beginners to intermediate/continuing students to the advanced/master dancers, the goal is there is no goal.

Have fun and learn a little in the process.

When I was in my 20s, it was the rock-n-roll and punk rock dance clubs that drew the crowds, pulling my friends and me in for a thrashing, mashing good time.

Twenty-five years later, a hopping beat of bands like the Low Down Sires rocks the house these days, when my older and heavier body finds mosh pits less appealing and swing dancing with my wife more to my taste and partner preference.

We enjoy just as much, if not more, watching the kids combine Lindy Hop, Balboa, Charleston and other styles into fun you won’t find in exercise classes or gymnasiums.

Tonight, we retire to bed early, leaving the band and the kids to their “Jack and Jill” dance contests, saving our energy for tomorrow’s workshops while we drift off to sleep in our comfortable bed at home, the dreamlike visions of new car owner’s manuals informing us of safety features and the value of heated/ventilated seats.

Proof

What has the science of culture, including the recent data mining that drove the recent round of political elections, proven?

There is no such thing as an “American.”

Thus, when news stories say, “A majority of Americans feel…,” I will ignore the stories and the polls on which they are based.

What I will listen for are, “According to your particular subculture…”.

American is no longer a homogenous term for the people who live on a portion of the North American continent.

Time for the term to fall into disuse rather than future/further misuse and abuse.

Poe’s Law and Creationism

Are you familiar with Poe’s Law?  From wikipedia:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.

The core of Poe’s law is that a parody of something extreme by nature becomes impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism. A corollary of Poe’s law is the reverse phenomenon: sincere fundamentalist beliefs being mistaken for a parody of that belief.

I guess what I’m saying is that I grew up in a community where creationism and the scientific method lived side-by-side.

So did parody and solemnity.

I quickly learned that creationism was not so much about the “reality” of a young universe as it was a set of code words we used to dupe those who made fun of creationism.

While smartypants were talking smack about the dumb creationists and their fundamentalist religion, the creationists were running the factories and businesses in town for whom the smartypants worked.

Creationism was established to delineate the true members of a subculture from the false members and/or outsiders.

The scientific method was as valid a laboratory tool for creationists as it was for noncreationists to create new plastic polymers.

But again, it was the set of code words used during coffee breaks and lunch periods that showed who was willing to suspend their disbelief in order to belong to one group or another.

Code words as ancient as our species.

So, the next time you hear someone debating just how old the universe and our planet are, remember Poe’s Law — you should pay attention to what they’re really saying, not what their words mean on a superficial level.

Outsiders and those without a refined sense of humour will miss the nuanced reasons used by those who espouse creationism as their core belief set.

Do you belong to a particular community?

What would you do to maintain your position in a social setting?

Would you repeat the community’s code words without question or a smidgen of doubt?

Not every subculture uses tattoos, piercings and the breaking of social taboos to define themselves.

Some use words and respect the boundaries that taboos provide.

Question

Q: Have more members of our armed forces committed suicide in a year, much less during Obama’s whole term in office, than children have been killed in random acts of school campus violence?

Where is the outrage about that? The U.S. has invested far more in our warriors than to brush their senseless deaths under the rug of a populist president’s pet gun control issue.

According to sources, al Qaeda cheered the U.S. president’s decision to limit soldiers, planes, ships, Secret Service/DEA agents, and drones to the equivalent of seven bullets’ worth of firepower each. Russia has hinted it might seek new nuclear weapon restrictions holding the U.S. to its pledge to lower nuclear bomb capacity to the gunpowder equivalent of seven bullets.

Quentin Tarantino announced his retirement because he can no longer have access to special FX equipment that simulates more than seven bullets being fired at a time in any one film scene due to new film industry rules aligned with presidential executive orders.

Video game producers are outraged they can no longer offer their first-person shooters with weapons containing more than seven bullets.

Road construction companies were upset they will no longer have access to rock-blasting explosives stronger than seven bullets. Same for demolition crews.

The TV show “Mythbusters” was canceled due to lack of access to good destructive material.

Fireworks companies announced a run on their products as people were finding alternate means for making their own bullets, no matter how effective.

Community Standards: If You Do The Crime, Can You Do The Time?

Recently, a young man notorious for breaking laws in order to make a point about monetised public information, decided to disappear from a contemporaneous timeline with his family, friends and colleagues — I honour his decision by neither mentioning his name nor saying more.

But his death brings up a problem I have with projecting back toward 2013 from 3013 — if your species continues to hide information from itself in a dog-eat-dog world, what do I care if you do or do not make it to a point 1000 years into the future?

With seven billion different views about what life should be for the individual, for the family, for the subculture, for the species, for the global economy, for the local/global ecosystem, do I spend time here in any format describing a future that encompasses our thoughts and feelings now as they expand and contract over the centuries?

Or, instead, do I return to the cabin in the woods and record observations about water dripping from gutters, flowers blooming out of season and other simple things that add to my happiness?

It is still perplexing, deciding how to change my life now that my father is gone and I’m the oldest male in his lineage to carry on his strong beliefs and wishes, regardless of them contradicting and conflicting with mine.

I am a product of the “Me” generation and want to pursue personal goals that satisfy my whims and desires in the moment, regardless of their effect on history and/or the ecosystem.

But I am also my father’s son, who was taught that our bloodline is an important thread in the fabric of our species’ place on this planet.

How do I keep these two aspects of my life, this set of states of energy, happy?

Today, I meditate upon the mysterious conundrum that is my life and leave the rest of the universe to its unobserved orderly chaos.

What if…

What if a group of armed citizens set up a protective unit around James Yeager, the protective unit gets its own concentric circular layer of protection, etc., until every armed citizen was backed and protected by every other armed citizen?

Our subsubsubsubbasement supercomputer is having a lot of fun plotting out futures with this scenario in mind.

What if a security company, in order to promote its protective services, offered protection for James Yeager and his arsenal?

What about all the trained mercenaries who have nothing better to do with their time than go to shooting ranges and gun shows?

Would they be willing to take a stand in the name of James Yeager?

Where will the line in the sand be drawn?

What was that old colonial American revolutionary saying about standing together or falling one by one?

Where’s a good buffoonish plot ploy like Janet Reno at a time like this?

What have the enclaves like the Montana Freemen learned in protecting themselves for the last couple of decades?

Who will be the next David Koresh and his Waco followers dying at the hands of an overzealous government?

Vaccinated for diplomatic immunity

SO, here’s the story so far…

The Urbanki Bureaucracy, fearing its populace, has fallen right into the hands of the Ruralites’ plan to demonstrate they’re being oppressed by “The Man.”

How?!, you might ask.

Let us look at the recent facts in the storyline and tell you what could happen next.

First, paranoid suspicion of an indefinable entity such as a large bureaucracy is, like fear of the dark, a natural reaction by many.

The imagined hierarchy of bosses in a large corporation.

The terrible police and paramilitary troops that patrol your province, their faces hidden behind uniforms and equipment.

The social hierarchy and anarchy of insects that swarm in dark spaces underneath your domicile.

These fears are as inbred in us as any tribe isolated in the densest forest.

Where there is fear, there is also the chance for escape.

Let us take two data points from the same source, for an example.

Look at this guy, James Yeager, who exercised his free right to express himself but, the local state bureaucracy, so full of itself and fearful of its people all coming to the same conclusion, decides to take away the guy’s gun ownership permit.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum comments afterward.

James has many options.

First of all, the ACLU can step in to defend James’ rights.

Second, James can accept an offer from the “country” of NSK for immediate citizenship and a diplomatic position in its tiny bureaucracy, which leads to James having diplomatic immunity for ownership of his arsenal.

James might have to give up his U.S. citizenship and move his property into an estate or trust but…

Guess what!

As a martyred exile in his former country, James becomes a beacon of escape for his other oppressed patriots.

As more and more patriotic exiles join NSK for the sake of protecting themselves against the entrenched tyranny of bloated, overtaxing and indefinable bureaucracies, the NSK will be the first nongeographical country to declare war on a geographical country, opening up the door for the Inner Solar System Alliance to publicly announce its existence in order to declare all nonEarth territory offlimits to claims of ownership or protection by Earth-based bureaucracies, to prevent further land-based wars.

Wars based purely on ideology will continue unabated.

Meanwhile, a secret executive committee commissioned for consideration of calamities to cause after the next Urbanski Bureaucracy inauguration has released a preliminary agenda that shocked the pundits who were allowed to briefly glance at the agenda written in 2-point font.

From what they saw but cannot officially talk about, the Bureaucracy plans to incite the anger of the populace more and more and then, at the right moment, divert attention from itself by saying the primary goal of its first administrative term of office was to flush the LGBT and illegal immigrant community out into the open so that angry, armed citizens could easily identify these communities as causes for whatever problems the citizens believe are inflicted on them by the Bureaucracy.  The Bureaucracy will imply but not state that no harm will come to armed citizens if they take the law into their own hands for a brief time to eliminate the “cause of their problems” as long as it’s not directed directly at the Bureaucracy.

The Bureaucracy did not detail whether NSK citizens were included in the announcement.

One of the signals they will send to signify this brief window of opportunity will appear in the classified section of one of the few profitable newspapers still being printed in the U.S.:

“In The Loop” + “Salt” = “Falling Down”