Sensor Ship

Note for the readers:
It’s been a while since I wrote an article. This is article is “pretty” long  I understand that some people dislike reading long posts (I tried to concise it the best I could) but I believe this post is worth reading for all the victims, blood, and traumatized people that are out there, you can however not care and not read, in that case this article is not intended for you but I still suggest you read just the first part. I have been observing the world recently, trying to trace the problems and I was meditating over Epictetus’ quote: “What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are”, indeed I have come to believe that all of our problems come from a failure of communication in certain way, failure to deal with each others, failure to understand each other.
Therefore this article attempts to trace the routes of such things by explaining the human nature and basic needs and how these needs are being “censored” and distorted by other people whether implicitly or explicitly. Of course this article talks about my personal opinions and assumptions on the topic, and its’ purpose is to provide ideas that you can meditate upon and start worrying about such issues since these issues’ severity is unknown to some people. The article features an epilogue and a prologue which are fictional stories used only to illustrate in a sense some thoughts in this article.

Prologue

Imagine that a person is having a lovely time with some friends, then people storm the house, an officer apprehends that person, that person gets beaten, tortured, then perhaps goes “missing” or is released with nothing, knowing that this person has not done anything but being there. This story might seam perhaps distant to you, or perhaps chances that it happen is remote, but then again YOU could be that person, and most likely there are high chances that you would be the officer, or supporting such a thing. Outrageous you might say, I say its not remote and it has happened before and can happen at any time, and that the way we are raised we are to become those officers offending not physically perhaps but psychologically a person for no valid reason but to entertain ourselves or because we have been raised like that. This perhaps is the most apparent reason as to why this article is written.

Understanding the problem

Understanding human nature

In it’s very basic form a human being seeks to get his feelings and thoughts out in very basic ways, but not only does he seek that, but also he seeks to develop what he enjoys and likes to do. You would like to do what you like to do, so why not do it? It is a basic human right to speak your opinion to picture yourself the way you want to, to work on improving that, to reach out for you goals. Humans are indeed magnificent creatures, each with his own taste, if you would look at the great people mentioned who got great respect for their inventions be it in physics, mathematics, arts, music, one could not simply reject the masterpieces that have been created by such people. But each human is a masterpiece, in its most simplistic form, every human has the full potential to become something great, every human can think, act, express himself, we have our five senses, we have writing, mathematics and music too. But this masterpiece is becoming more and more stained, humans are loosing their edge, why are humans regressing much, why did we become like this? Our freedom of thought, expression is being restricted or shall I say just censored, our ability to build up our potential is being restricted if not yet controlled by something or someone else.

“Mankind is a creature that no longer evolves, is it not? One theory says that man is a neoteny and is no longer able to evolve. If this is true, then what an absurd creature mankind has evolved into. Not knowing what it is that drives them they keep their bodies merely to satisfy the desires of the flesh. They’re worthless, don’t you think? That’s all mankind is.”

(Masami Eiri, Serial Experiments Lain)

Normality: How dangerous is normal?

One definition of normal would be:

normal (being approximately average or within certain limits in e.g. intelligence and development) “a perfectly normal child”; “of normal intelligence”; “the most normal person I’ve ever met”

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=normal

Normality is then defined by comparing a certain aspect to the global approximate average of the aspect displayed. One could say that normality is a beatifull thing, that we have a common denominator, that we can bloat about ourselves being like approximatly the average of the others. However if you do compare that to applying it to the human condition the boundaries become clear, you start limiting the human capacity to a certain profile, to a certain norm, that is dangerous by itself by doing so we try to create one mold one ideal human that other human can strive to become, which conflicts with the human nature the very basic one, it starts limiting that. One could wonder: “But if I do this, I would not be like the rest, isn’t that odd? What would they think? How would they act?”.
Yet I do understand that normality is essential, it is used to map certain deceases, so to clarify my point i am pointing at the side where normality is overgeneralized to the whole human being thought and behavior. Ask yourself how many psychological disorders are there, everything that varies from the norm is tagged, profiled as abnormal, as different, as weird behavior. In fact that weird behavior being misinterpreted is the root of the human race problems, for by instinct we refuse what isn’t like us, part of us, and there goes the danger, instead of that behavior be praised, corrective action is taken to straighten it, to make it close to the “normal” boundary, or even worse, the whole behavior is rejected, tagged and ridiculed or considered hopeless. Are we that poor to admit that something other than our vision exists out there, something different than me that I should have the curiosity to check, to share with, to understand more.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Abnormal is so common, it’s practically normal. (Cory Doctorow, Little Brother, 2008)

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all (Jacob Hornberger)

Hence I can say that the root of communication failure between humans is perhaps due to failure to embrace that difference in itself. How is this difference mostly repressed and not advocated, it is sometimes fought through explicit censorship but also sometimes we do it without knowing referred to in this post as implicit censorship

Censorship

Explicit Censorship:

People thoughts and behaviors are often repressed by tyrannical governmental systems that write laws to forbid certain words and even ideas from being propagated through the press or even through word of mouth. This is often seen in times of wars or in times where the grip on security is high, saying certain words would surely place you under the “traitors” list. Say some words against anyone in power and you shall fear his retribution, often unjust and in violation of the human rights or of your personal rights, they wouldn’t hesitate to give you a warning while beating you up and eventually you would perhaps go missing. You would see newspaper with blank content, TV with distorted content, certain words scratched off (I saw a word scratched looking at the back of a classical disc today in Virgin).

What are we doing?! We are denying the people to express their point of view, their feelings, I mean why would one fear words if not those words would be speaking the truth, why should someone other than my conscience determine what I should see, hear and feel, yes this is lying in itself, this is in itself distorting the truth and giving one false information (check the title of the post to understand how distorted one word can become… perhaps two words that mean something else). In what authority does that person have to decide what is best for me?

Additional laws, international and regional are being put to enforce such censorships, and these law are primarily targeting the internet and are a danger to the freedom of thought and speech.

Yet this is not the real danger, the real censorship comes from the unconscious things we do most of the time.

Implicit Censorship

Implicit censorship is usually the result of peer, parental, cultural pressure. Sometimes a person can have an idea and perhaps says it and express it but however that idea is ridiculed by his fellow humans that its repressed and never opened again, that may be identical to certain behaviors that are not “highly praised” by the current consensus of society, psychologically people would hesitate to do them.

The most prominent cases of implicit censorship may arise from parenting in general, where parents mistreat the children or smack them for not complying with their wishes or their vision. Well one could argue that a child does not know what is best for him or so, but perhaps pointing them the way in a certain “method” is better than smacking them and completely oppressing their need to talk, children are children and they are not like adults, they should not be addressed with means of adults but I am sure a child can understand using another peaceful and fun way than smacking, attaching painfully stimuli to a behavior is no more than torturing an adult for saying something that other people think should not be said. How dare we rip the child of the same freedom we enjoy as adults? An example of implicit censorship is through coercion, school can be one of those as I have spoken in another post.

Well of course such censorship is not just found in children but in adults as well, some people will need to flatter some other to gain certain fundings of their projects although their idea may be consistent. Also fear plays a more prominent role in such a thing. Some people would fear for their own survival, losing their jobs may mean losing cash, so they would not argue or point out to some flaws in their boss’ behavior at work. Others would perhaps fear having a certain image from the possessions they own, they cannot look to their peers with a rather humble view but need to be flashy and eloquent for their own false sense of belonging to a certain class of people.

But then how should we proceed?

Fixing the problem

“The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them”
George Bernard Shaw

Respect a fellow human

Fixing the problem is not that hard actually, it is based on the notion of respecting the other fellow human, respecting that he is different and accepting it, and giving that person the right to exercise that freedom of his without being a burden to him and without trying to restrict it. It is not our duty to protect that person from herself/himself that right is only for the person. All that we can do is give our opinion about the behavior or thought of that person and utilizing constructive criticism to try and address the issue, regardless of the behavior at hand what we can do is giving our opinion, we are not to intervene with that person. It can be summarized by the following quote, which I always use on how to intervene with other people:

No-one can compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else within a workable general law i.e. he must accord to others the same right as he enjoys himself.
Immanuel Kant

The importance of privacy versus security

Every human needs privacy, it doesn’t mean that this privacy is used to plot a plan for world domination, privacy is necessary for a person to plot his own idea for that person to feel safe, unwatched, uncensored, free. Would you like to have someone watching over your shoulder while reading, chatting, or just thinking? Personally it sometimes causes me discomfort. Privacy is not something wrong or dangerous and us being getting rid from it at the expense of “security” is nonsense as usually the security systems used either fail or do not have a policy as to how such a footage can be obtained (like a warrant or anything) exposing your privacy for the sake of security is something we should not allow at all. While one may argue that security is crucial, I found such techniques with vague policies repulsive.

To explain better the notion of privacy here is a excerpt from Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother:

There’s something really liberating about having some corner of your life that’s yours, that no one gets to see except you. It’s a little like nudity or taking a dump. Everyone gets naked every once in a while. Everyone has to squat on the toilet. There’s nothing shameful, deviant or weird about either of them. But what if I decreed that from now on, every time you went to evacuate some solid waste, you’d have to do it in a glass room perched in the middle of Times Square, and you’d be buck naked?

Even if you’ve got nothing wrong or weird with your body ­­and how many of us can say that? ­­ you’d have to be pretty strange to like that idea. Most of us would run screaming. Most of us would hold it in until we exploded.

It’s not about doing something shameful. It’s about doing something private. It’s about your life belonging to you.

This is not a remote threat, it is really as more and more people believe that using surveillance, wire-tapping technology improves security, it certainly improves control and is in violation to our freedom, being monitored, places too much constraints on the person (form of an Implicit Censorship)

Epilogue: War

As an example to the proposed ideas the following example will discuss two countries at war with a new generation on the rise, for the sake of making the idea pass through imagine a destroyed neighborhood (bombed or otherwise) and imagine a small boy (7-8 year old) who just lost his parents in the bombings.

The freedom of the boy is not decided by the boy but by some other major political force, after all he didn’t want his parents to die due to some other people’s problems. He can no longer play with his friends whenever he used to play because the terrain is gone and some friends have died. The boy have been raised along the years hearing propaganda about the opposing country and throughout the years hes been fed by his parents that the other country is a bad mean machine, the boy could not think or dare to say that that he did not want to fight the opposing country because he would be branded a loser, a coward, and most probably a traitor to his own, because other people decided that the country is evil therefore there shall be no compassion to the people of that country and most importantly because he was unconsciously coerced to think that way from his parents. Regardless the boy now wants to have vengeance for his parents and hate fuels his spirit.

By examining the situation you should be able to see the implicit and explicit limitation to the boy’s freedom, what if on the other side there was a boy too like that, after all both side are fighting for survival and there is no compassion to how to obtain information or treat the people they are enemies, by now the vicious circle would be created and they would keep clashing till one country annihilates the other or some other major force intervene.

But why should we be restricted by our religion, ethnic group belonging, politicians decision, diplomatic mistakes, hate, chaos why can’t we see the human side of the others. We can’t just yell terrorist and torture people rid them from their privacy and rights for a such a cause, terror only breeds terror and can be used by both sides, and only the innocent suffer. The politicians are perhaps having a lovely meal and laughing while the innocent people are dying.

A dose of Reality

Since August 2002, nearly 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global “war on terror.” According to the U.S. military’s own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. . . .

Despite these numbers, four years since the first known death in U.S. custody, only 12 detainee deaths have resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official. Of the 34 homicide cases so far identified by the military, investigators recommended criminal charges in fewer than two thirds, and charges were actually brought (based on decisions made by command) in less than half. While the CIA has been implicated in several deaths, not one CIA agent has faced a criminal charge. Crucially, among the worst cases in this list – those of detainees tortured to death – only half have resulted in punishment; the steepest sentence for anyone involved in a torture-related death: five months in jail.

Human Rights First

What you can do/Suggested Readings: (Things you must check if you did like the ideas proposed)

• Understand what Habeas corpus is and fight for it to be maintained
• CIA Inspector General Report (CIA Torture Methods) and an interesting post about it
  
• Stallman’s Political Notes that frequently points out to people abusing power or people getting “unjust” treatment
• If you think the threats in this post are fiction and remote I suggest you read this example
  
• Read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, an amazing (and free to download) fiction book that looks as realistic as ever, and provides a lot of details about privacy and how technology can be used against you.
• Understand the dangers of copyright and proprietary software
• Support the EFF the people fighting for your digital rights
• Support and encourage the free sharing of thoughts and information without any restriction be it legal (copyright) or physical limitations
• If you like sarcasm you would probably like this
• An interesting book about the topic of surveillance. A friend of mine suggests this book, I will be reading it shortly as it is from this that Little Brother has been inspired
  

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