There's this guy at work who thinks he is into philosophy. All he really does is watch the science channel and probably smokes some weed and comes up with some crazy assertions. Recently in a "debate" he's having at work, he makes the assertion that computers and robots will take all the jobs and people will be out of work.
To be honest, this argument is a very popular one to make. It is also one that seem true to the average listener; at least on the surface. But clearly anyone who is uneducated in economics is easily fooled by the seen because they do not understand the unseen. Henry Hazlitt's 'Economics in One Lesson' is an excellent book to start seeing the unseen.
The concept of automation and computers destroying all the jobs is really the concept of efficiency taken to the extreme. To be honest, that would be utopia. People who spout this fallacy forget two important things: 1. Where will the computers and software come from? and 2. Who's going to buy all the stuff the machines are making?
Businesses turn to using machines so they can increase productivity per unit time, e.g. efficiency. And why would businesses try to increase productivity? So they drive costs down which in turn increases profitability. But you can't turn a profit if people are too poor to buy your products. In other words, there exists a feedback loop for higher productivity and prices. You cannot automate to the point where consumer purchasing power is completely destroyed. It simply cannot get to that point.
However, it is still true that automation will destroy certain jobs. This is called 'creative destruction.' Again, what is seen are the destroyed job and what is not seen are the jobs yet to be created from this new creation. Smart phones, now equipped with GPS and Google Maps, have destroyed the short-lived Navigation systems that car companies were trying to install in every car. So the people who designed the car navigation systems probably lost their jobs. However, with the advent of the smart phone, a lot more jobs were created because not only can anyone build an app, a whole industry was created around the smartphone like making cases, dashboard inserts, those mall kiosks that fix your screen, gaming companies having to hire an entirely new department devoted for smart-phone gaming, etc. The list goes on and on.
The last point with touching one is many businesses make the decision to automate because of the rise of the minimum wage. There comes a point where it makes more sense for a business-owner to switch from hiring a person at a higher wage to investing in automation. The cost for hiring a person, in today's world comes with a slew of overhead like paying for workman's compensation, healthcare, Social Security, vacation and benefits. Once you switch to automation, those overhead costs are gone. Sure it's replaced with updating software from time to time and some maintenance.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions Explained...
Parenthood is a lot of work....plus you wonder where all the time went.
I know this has been on the back of my mind and have been wanting to finish up the Matrix movies before the year's up so I'm going to hit all the big topics with my perspective on things and will end up hopping around between the two movies as well as some of the Animatrix vignettes.
So when the first movie ends, Neo is able to see the Matrix at the code level. In other words, he can not only experience the effects of the code, as everyone else connected to the Matrix (e.g. perception) but HOW the effects are created because of the code that generates the experience. This is equivalent to a scientist trying to explain the natural world. I'm making this distinction on HOW things are experienced instead of WHY they are experienced in the first place. WHY is the carrot dangling in front of Neo the entire time. It is what ultimately brings him to the Architect at the end of Reloaded (e.g. "Why am I here?").
The second thing to realize at the end of the first movie is he destroys Smith by jumping into him, or his program, perhaps. Smith's shell is destroyed and Neo does his flexing, blah blah blah. One thing to keep in mind is this pattern of Smith being reborn after he is destroyed. Remember that Neo successfully destroyed Smith in the train station in their first fight scene at the end of the first movie. Smith gets run over by the subway train and then he gets reloaded again. Thus, there is no reason to believe that after Neo destroys Smith at the very end by "jumping in him" that Smith comes back again. But this time a little different, most likely due to some part of Neo's code gets imprinted onto Smith's code. This starts off a chain reaction of Smith's virus-like behavior. More on this later.
So now we can start looking at some interesting points in Reloaded. The first thing to address is his conversation with Councillor Hamann about the interdependency between machines and humans and the concept of control. Neo initially said that control is having the ability to destroy the machines to which Hamann responds with "..who will provide the water and provide electricity?' Hamann raises an interesting point that certain machines are trying to kill the humans while other machines assist humans (e.g. the power to give life or to end it). Hamann's point is interesting but ultimately not relevant mainly because he confuses control with dependency to a large degree. A machine, for example a water heater, provides hot water and having hot water is essential to supporting life outside the Matrix. However, the hot water heater does not control anything, much less the consumer of the hot water it provides. Yes, the consumer may depend on the water heater for hot water but even then, the consumer is no more dependent on the water heater than he is with a campfire and a pot of water. Obviously, you can take this down all the way to the molecular level on which how water molecules behave with heat and the steel molecules of the pot and all the electrical forces that keeps all the water in one place. The point is, the machines exist to improve the standard of living of the humans. Even the Architect mentioned how destroying the human race would lower their standard of living. I think his exact words were "There are levels of survival we are willing to accept." And so it becomes obvious that during that confrontation between the Architect and Neo, there was this struggle for control. The reason for this is the assumption that the AI in the machine world is both self-aware and capable of making choices in its self-interest. That's the difference between a water heater that Hamann refers to and the AI in control of the machine world. A water heater is a piece of capital that humans use. Humans connected to the Matrix are a piece of capital for the machine AI.
This brings up a very important concept of self-awareness. A human, largely not self-aware, is arguably no different than a piece of capital or some kind of mindless machine that can be manipulated with some input parameters. It's a very important concept in the Matrix trilogy as well - Know Thyself.
So I want to go back to this concept of Control. For most of the trilogy, our heroes are not in control at all. Consider how every key Matrix machine character greets them... "We've been expecting you..." The Merovingian's maitre d greeted the three, "He has been expecting you..." The KeyMaker also greeted Neo, "I've been expecting you..." And so, the Matrix is designed to catch this program error. The Merovingian tries to further confuse the three with his speech regarding Causality and that there are no real choices. He says, "Choice is an illusion created by those with power and those without." He goes on to saying that understanding WHY gives one power. Now, I agree with a lot of things he says. Understanding WHY does give one power (this all ties in with self-knowledge) because once you understand who you are, you understand what motivates you and motivation generates action which is the very definition of power. Additionally, without self-knowledge as I had noted earlier, humans are virtually indistinguishable to machines and therefore are incapable of making choices. They are merely reacting to inputted parameters. What the Merovingian is unable to see is self-knowledge not only gives one power of understanding the WHY in life but it also gives one power to change and adopt different values. Different values can then change the course of our actions. So while the Merovingian is like 99% right, he is ultimately wrong because everything does begin with Choice. Unfortunately, Morpheus is only right by accident because he's unaware of being controlled by the machines in finding the KeyMaker.
The next interesting scenes involve Neo's conversation with the Oracle and then following fight scene with Agent Smith. The scene with the Oracle seems like a conversation out of 'Alice in Wonderland' because it seems like all the explanations appear circular in nature. Ultimately, Neo is faced with a choice whether to believe in the Oracle or not. As of that point, Neo hasn't achieved the level of self-knowledge to realize that his choices aren't really his choices yet. He is being pushed around by the forces of the Matrix. So far, according to the Oracle and the Architect, Neo is nothing more than a predetermined set of choices ready for execution based on certain buttons yet to be pushed. So the Oracle keeps telling him "But you've already made the choice. You're here to understand WHY you made the choice." She's pushing him down the road of self-knowledge. Her ability to see the future in Revolutions is quite different once he's aware of both himself and the Architect's plan to keep rebooting the Matrix. She is unable to tell how the future will play out (either in Smith's hands or Neo's). Part of that is what she had said earlier, "You can never see past the choices you don't understand." She doesn't understand why she chooses to help Neo. That seems to indicate the limitations of the AI programming to also achieve self-knowledge. More on this later.
The next interesting scene is the subsequent fight scene between Neo and Smith. Smith talks about the concept of Purpose and Life. His character is focused on inevitability and the end of things. You could see part of this personality in the first movie where he wants the whole conflict with Zion to end and that he needs to fulfill his purpose and get to Zion. He is a program designed to reach some destination. Unfortunately, the machine AI designed the Matrix it so it never ends because it knows it will reboot and continue the cycle again and again. However, the interesting thing in Reloaded was how Smith got infected with Neo's code. It gave him powers to replicate like a virus.
I'm going to dedicate this paragraph to illustrate the relationship between the new Smith, the virus, and Neo. I like to think of Neo as an irrational number in Mathematics. Two common expressions in Mathematics that are irrational numbers are pi and 'e'. The characteristics of an irrational number is that the numbers run off infinitely and when expressed numerically, there is no pattern to the digits. However, when expressed algebraically, the expression is very elegant and concise. If you consider for a moment that if Neo is like the algebraic expression for pi, Smith, being his opposite and negative, is to balance out that equation in the Matrix. His only method for doing so is through brute-force in order to keep calculating the value of pi to higher and higher levels of precision. Therefore, Smith constantly needs to keep spawning more processes in the Matrix to counteract only one instance of Neo. This sort of fits with how the Oracle talks about Smith in Revolutions; trying to balance out the equation.
As Smith grows strong because as more Smiths get replicated the closer he becomes to being equal to Neo. In the end of Revolutions, Neo realizes they are truly equal and the fight will ultimately end in stalemate. Since Smith is the embodiment of an infinite loop endangering both the humans and the machines, Neo realizes that he is the only one capable of neutralizing Smith by allowing the machines to directly copy his code and destroy Smith with it, much like an anti-virus. Neo realizes the only bargaining chip he has is offering himself to kill Smith in exchange for peace between the machines and the humans.
The rest of Reloaded isn't very interesting from a philosophical basis. You learn more about the previous 'Ones' before Neo and that the whole Matrix control thing is also an infinite loop because the machine AI wrote a big massive program called the Matrix and the whole thing with Neo is just a big Try..Catch statement. In other words, it is just called 'error handling.'
The big question is where did this 'error' originate from within the programming? I would submit to you, the reader, that it originated from one of the Animatrix movies where the AI started to build the Matrix and tested on human brains. The main thing here is that the AI also had to make a leap of faith that what they where programming in order to control the humans was in fact consistent with how humans perceived reality. This goes back to Mouse's discussion with Neo about how everything tasted like chicken. He posited that "maybe the Machines got it wrong." Maybe chicken was supposed to taste like something else. So this leap of faith could be the source of all inconsistency or that there are finite levels of precision to which the AI can create the Matrix. Either way, ultimately Neo is the embodiment of this delta programming the AI cannot account for in both the real world and in the Matrix. This could explain how Neo has powers in the real world as well. But they only seem to apply to things created by the AI such as Sentinels and not real flesh-and-blood individuals.
The rest of Revolutions just sort of plays out to this climax where Neo finally realizes his purpose. This ties back into Hamann's point of our use of technology. He tells Neo that there are things that he doesn't understand how they operate but more importantly he understands why they need to operate. He tells Neo, "I have no idea how you do the things you do but I also believe there's a reason for that as well." Throughout the whole trilogy, Neo had a purpose...for the machines. It was to start another iteration of the Matrix and keep the whole thing going. The point is, Neo's purpose was never his own until he made the decision not to save Zion and instead save Trinity. Once he understood WHY he chose Trinity he was on the path to a higher self-knowledge than the previous 'Ones' before him. Remember, the Oracle had told him that his dream of Trinity doesn't include her dying because he can't see past the choice he doesn't understand. After that, he was in control of his own destiny and even the Oracle couldn't see who would emerge (Smith winning or Neo winning) victorious. In the end, Neo realizes he could fight Smith to all eternity or allow Smith to copy himself onto Neo, allowing the Machines, connected to Neo, the anti-virus to kill all the other copies of Smith. In exchange for neutralizing this threat, he realized his purpose was to bring about peace.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my take on the movies!
I know this has been on the back of my mind and have been wanting to finish up the Matrix movies before the year's up so I'm going to hit all the big topics with my perspective on things and will end up hopping around between the two movies as well as some of the Animatrix vignettes.
So when the first movie ends, Neo is able to see the Matrix at the code level. In other words, he can not only experience the effects of the code, as everyone else connected to the Matrix (e.g. perception) but HOW the effects are created because of the code that generates the experience. This is equivalent to a scientist trying to explain the natural world. I'm making this distinction on HOW things are experienced instead of WHY they are experienced in the first place. WHY is the carrot dangling in front of Neo the entire time. It is what ultimately brings him to the Architect at the end of Reloaded (e.g. "Why am I here?").
The second thing to realize at the end of the first movie is he destroys Smith by jumping into him, or his program, perhaps. Smith's shell is destroyed and Neo does his flexing, blah blah blah. One thing to keep in mind is this pattern of Smith being reborn after he is destroyed. Remember that Neo successfully destroyed Smith in the train station in their first fight scene at the end of the first movie. Smith gets run over by the subway train and then he gets reloaded again. Thus, there is no reason to believe that after Neo destroys Smith at the very end by "jumping in him" that Smith comes back again. But this time a little different, most likely due to some part of Neo's code gets imprinted onto Smith's code. This starts off a chain reaction of Smith's virus-like behavior. More on this later.
So now we can start looking at some interesting points in Reloaded. The first thing to address is his conversation with Councillor Hamann about the interdependency between machines and humans and the concept of control. Neo initially said that control is having the ability to destroy the machines to which Hamann responds with "..who will provide the water and provide electricity?' Hamann raises an interesting point that certain machines are trying to kill the humans while other machines assist humans (e.g. the power to give life or to end it). Hamann's point is interesting but ultimately not relevant mainly because he confuses control with dependency to a large degree. A machine, for example a water heater, provides hot water and having hot water is essential to supporting life outside the Matrix. However, the hot water heater does not control anything, much less the consumer of the hot water it provides. Yes, the consumer may depend on the water heater for hot water but even then, the consumer is no more dependent on the water heater than he is with a campfire and a pot of water. Obviously, you can take this down all the way to the molecular level on which how water molecules behave with heat and the steel molecules of the pot and all the electrical forces that keeps all the water in one place. The point is, the machines exist to improve the standard of living of the humans. Even the Architect mentioned how destroying the human race would lower their standard of living. I think his exact words were "There are levels of survival we are willing to accept." And so it becomes obvious that during that confrontation between the Architect and Neo, there was this struggle for control. The reason for this is the assumption that the AI in the machine world is both self-aware and capable of making choices in its self-interest. That's the difference between a water heater that Hamann refers to and the AI in control of the machine world. A water heater is a piece of capital that humans use. Humans connected to the Matrix are a piece of capital for the machine AI.
This brings up a very important concept of self-awareness. A human, largely not self-aware, is arguably no different than a piece of capital or some kind of mindless machine that can be manipulated with some input parameters. It's a very important concept in the Matrix trilogy as well - Know Thyself.
So I want to go back to this concept of Control. For most of the trilogy, our heroes are not in control at all. Consider how every key Matrix machine character greets them... "We've been expecting you..." The Merovingian's maitre d greeted the three, "He has been expecting you..." The KeyMaker also greeted Neo, "I've been expecting you..." And so, the Matrix is designed to catch this program error. The Merovingian tries to further confuse the three with his speech regarding Causality and that there are no real choices. He says, "Choice is an illusion created by those with power and those without." He goes on to saying that understanding WHY gives one power. Now, I agree with a lot of things he says. Understanding WHY does give one power (this all ties in with self-knowledge) because once you understand who you are, you understand what motivates you and motivation generates action which is the very definition of power. Additionally, without self-knowledge as I had noted earlier, humans are virtually indistinguishable to machines and therefore are incapable of making choices. They are merely reacting to inputted parameters. What the Merovingian is unable to see is self-knowledge not only gives one power of understanding the WHY in life but it also gives one power to change and adopt different values. Different values can then change the course of our actions. So while the Merovingian is like 99% right, he is ultimately wrong because everything does begin with Choice. Unfortunately, Morpheus is only right by accident because he's unaware of being controlled by the machines in finding the KeyMaker.
The next interesting scenes involve Neo's conversation with the Oracle and then following fight scene with Agent Smith. The scene with the Oracle seems like a conversation out of 'Alice in Wonderland' because it seems like all the explanations appear circular in nature. Ultimately, Neo is faced with a choice whether to believe in the Oracle or not. As of that point, Neo hasn't achieved the level of self-knowledge to realize that his choices aren't really his choices yet. He is being pushed around by the forces of the Matrix. So far, according to the Oracle and the Architect, Neo is nothing more than a predetermined set of choices ready for execution based on certain buttons yet to be pushed. So the Oracle keeps telling him "But you've already made the choice. You're here to understand WHY you made the choice." She's pushing him down the road of self-knowledge. Her ability to see the future in Revolutions is quite different once he's aware of both himself and the Architect's plan to keep rebooting the Matrix. She is unable to tell how the future will play out (either in Smith's hands or Neo's). Part of that is what she had said earlier, "You can never see past the choices you don't understand." She doesn't understand why she chooses to help Neo. That seems to indicate the limitations of the AI programming to also achieve self-knowledge. More on this later.
The next interesting scene is the subsequent fight scene between Neo and Smith. Smith talks about the concept of Purpose and Life. His character is focused on inevitability and the end of things. You could see part of this personality in the first movie where he wants the whole conflict with Zion to end and that he needs to fulfill his purpose and get to Zion. He is a program designed to reach some destination. Unfortunately, the machine AI designed the Matrix it so it never ends because it knows it will reboot and continue the cycle again and again. However, the interesting thing in Reloaded was how Smith got infected with Neo's code. It gave him powers to replicate like a virus.
I'm going to dedicate this paragraph to illustrate the relationship between the new Smith, the virus, and Neo. I like to think of Neo as an irrational number in Mathematics. Two common expressions in Mathematics that are irrational numbers are pi and 'e'. The characteristics of an irrational number is that the numbers run off infinitely and when expressed numerically, there is no pattern to the digits. However, when expressed algebraically, the expression is very elegant and concise. If you consider for a moment that if Neo is like the algebraic expression for pi, Smith, being his opposite and negative, is to balance out that equation in the Matrix. His only method for doing so is through brute-force in order to keep calculating the value of pi to higher and higher levels of precision. Therefore, Smith constantly needs to keep spawning more processes in the Matrix to counteract only one instance of Neo. This sort of fits with how the Oracle talks about Smith in Revolutions; trying to balance out the equation.
As Smith grows strong because as more Smiths get replicated the closer he becomes to being equal to Neo. In the end of Revolutions, Neo realizes they are truly equal and the fight will ultimately end in stalemate. Since Smith is the embodiment of an infinite loop endangering both the humans and the machines, Neo realizes that he is the only one capable of neutralizing Smith by allowing the machines to directly copy his code and destroy Smith with it, much like an anti-virus. Neo realizes the only bargaining chip he has is offering himself to kill Smith in exchange for peace between the machines and the humans.
The rest of Reloaded isn't very interesting from a philosophical basis. You learn more about the previous 'Ones' before Neo and that the whole Matrix control thing is also an infinite loop because the machine AI wrote a big massive program called the Matrix and the whole thing with Neo is just a big Try..Catch statement. In other words, it is just called 'error handling.'
The big question is where did this 'error' originate from within the programming? I would submit to you, the reader, that it originated from one of the Animatrix movies where the AI started to build the Matrix and tested on human brains. The main thing here is that the AI also had to make a leap of faith that what they where programming in order to control the humans was in fact consistent with how humans perceived reality. This goes back to Mouse's discussion with Neo about how everything tasted like chicken. He posited that "maybe the Machines got it wrong." Maybe chicken was supposed to taste like something else. So this leap of faith could be the source of all inconsistency or that there are finite levels of precision to which the AI can create the Matrix. Either way, ultimately Neo is the embodiment of this delta programming the AI cannot account for in both the real world and in the Matrix. This could explain how Neo has powers in the real world as well. But they only seem to apply to things created by the AI such as Sentinels and not real flesh-and-blood individuals.
The rest of Revolutions just sort of plays out to this climax where Neo finally realizes his purpose. This ties back into Hamann's point of our use of technology. He tells Neo that there are things that he doesn't understand how they operate but more importantly he understands why they need to operate. He tells Neo, "I have no idea how you do the things you do but I also believe there's a reason for that as well." Throughout the whole trilogy, Neo had a purpose...for the machines. It was to start another iteration of the Matrix and keep the whole thing going. The point is, Neo's purpose was never his own until he made the decision not to save Zion and instead save Trinity. Once he understood WHY he chose Trinity he was on the path to a higher self-knowledge than the previous 'Ones' before him. Remember, the Oracle had told him that his dream of Trinity doesn't include her dying because he can't see past the choice he doesn't understand. After that, he was in control of his own destiny and even the Oracle couldn't see who would emerge (Smith winning or Neo winning) victorious. In the end, Neo realizes he could fight Smith to all eternity or allow Smith to copy himself onto Neo, allowing the Machines, connected to Neo, the anti-virus to kill all the other copies of Smith. In exchange for neutralizing this threat, he realized his purpose was to bring about peace.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my take on the movies!
Saturday, July 5, 2014
The Matrix Explained - Part One
I recently became a first-time dad a couple months ago. So it's been a hectic several weeks to say the least. Combine that with a somewhat comprehensive material already covered, my blogging has admittedly slowed down. However, I figure I could circle back to some interesting topics I always wanted to explain to others but now fit a blog format much better. So I'll start with one of my favorite movies of all time - The Matrix Trilogy. So I'll start with the first movie and my take on how it all fits in together and their meaning.
So the movie basically introduces the concept of Plato's Cave where the prisoners in the cave are only exposed to shadows generated by a fire as a light source. So in a nutshell, the manipulation of perception creates reality in the minds of the prisoners which the Matrix is a modern take on. Instead of a cave, the Matrix uses virtual reality as the means to manipulate perception.
The main question the first movie in the trilogy presents is, 'What is real?'
Morpheus poses this question to Neo when introducing him to the Matrix. He posits if it's what you can touch, taste and feel then reality is nothing more than electrical signals interpreted by the brain. He then challenges this idea that even though the Matrix can produce the electrical signals, it is not real but merely a computer program.
What the movie didn't touch too much regarding the difference between the Matrix and the real world is the relationship Reality has with Knowledge. The movie just briefly skirted the topic when Trinity was aware of Cipher's betrayal and that he was promised to be reinserted by wiping out his memory. The truth is whether you're in the Matrix or not, eating a steak in the Matrix is no different than eating a steak in the real world. The only difference is that once you know about the Matrix, you know that experience in the Matrix is the result its programming unlike experience in the real world is the result of natural law.
Without the knowledge of the Matrix, experience is designed to be exactly like natural law and therefore there is no reason to believe it is not real. Therefore, with the knowledge, you know the difference and have the understanding to defy the programming to varying degrees. Consider the following though experiment. Imagine Cipher made a deal with the Agents and decided to imprison Morpheus by drugging him in the real world and then creating another virtual reality that looked exactly like the real world (the inside of the Nebuchadnezzar, et al) and then plugged him in while drugged and then awoke inside the program in the same spot he fell asleep in the real world. He would continue his life inside the program as if it were real.
So it's very important that what is real is to a large degree dependent on knowing the existence of the Matrix. This is not to say that knowledge determines reality. After all, believing the earth was flat didn't make it so. However, assuming the earth is flat would start revealing massive inconsistencies when it came to navigation and ultimately be dismissed as a false premise. And therein lies the difference when it comes to the Matrix. As the audience, we are to assume there are no inconsistencies in the Matrix.
So to answer the question on what is real, it still holds that both perception and consistency are the only tools we have thus far.
Some other interesting points in the movie is in Neo's conversation with the Oracle. She said that being the One is like being in love. No one can tell you're in love, you just know it. The question is how this knowledge come into being? It might be easier to examine how you know you're in love as an analogy to understand this. Knowing you're in love is really based on a feeling you get than through some logical deduction. And the feeling is more of a confirmation that a variety of values having been fulfilled but in what order or to even pinpoint which values may be more difficult to quantify. The main thing to understand is the knowledge comes from a feeling. Sort of like knowing when you're full from eating.
How does Neo get this feeling that confirms he's the One? Initially, he believe he isn't the One because he believes the Oracle told him so. However, this also implies he believes in the Oracle and therefore also believes that either he or Morpheus will die and it will be up to him. The ensuing fight with the Agents along with Morpheus' capture ultimately confirms the Oracle's premonition. When Neo is then confronted with the choice either having his life or Morpheus' life, he chooses Morpheus' over his. This sets up the belief that a rescue operation is not only possible but successful. Remember, this all hinges on him believing, not in himself, but in the Oracle. As the rescue mission begins to succeed, it starts to fulfill his confirmation in his powers and slowly the feelings of being the One start to emerge.
I think what he didn't realize is that Mr. Anderson would have to "die" in the Matrix to fulfill the prophesy and that Neo would live on as the One.
That's basically my take on the first movie. From a philosophical standpoint, it wasn't too deep or technical but rather a good "dipping your toes in" kind of movie for the average moviegoer. The concepts were easy to understand and the action scenes were spectacular to make the movie even if you weren't so philosophically inclined. The juiciest part of the trilogy is in Reloaded, by far. Revolutions isn't as deep but there are some good stuff there too. It wraps up the series nicely.
So the movie basically introduces the concept of Plato's Cave where the prisoners in the cave are only exposed to shadows generated by a fire as a light source. So in a nutshell, the manipulation of perception creates reality in the minds of the prisoners which the Matrix is a modern take on. Instead of a cave, the Matrix uses virtual reality as the means to manipulate perception.
The main question the first movie in the trilogy presents is, 'What is real?'
Morpheus poses this question to Neo when introducing him to the Matrix. He posits if it's what you can touch, taste and feel then reality is nothing more than electrical signals interpreted by the brain. He then challenges this idea that even though the Matrix can produce the electrical signals, it is not real but merely a computer program.
What the movie didn't touch too much regarding the difference between the Matrix and the real world is the relationship Reality has with Knowledge. The movie just briefly skirted the topic when Trinity was aware of Cipher's betrayal and that he was promised to be reinserted by wiping out his memory. The truth is whether you're in the Matrix or not, eating a steak in the Matrix is no different than eating a steak in the real world. The only difference is that once you know about the Matrix, you know that experience in the Matrix is the result its programming unlike experience in the real world is the result of natural law.
Without the knowledge of the Matrix, experience is designed to be exactly like natural law and therefore there is no reason to believe it is not real. Therefore, with the knowledge, you know the difference and have the understanding to defy the programming to varying degrees. Consider the following though experiment. Imagine Cipher made a deal with the Agents and decided to imprison Morpheus by drugging him in the real world and then creating another virtual reality that looked exactly like the real world (the inside of the Nebuchadnezzar, et al) and then plugged him in while drugged and then awoke inside the program in the same spot he fell asleep in the real world. He would continue his life inside the program as if it were real.
So it's very important that what is real is to a large degree dependent on knowing the existence of the Matrix. This is not to say that knowledge determines reality. After all, believing the earth was flat didn't make it so. However, assuming the earth is flat would start revealing massive inconsistencies when it came to navigation and ultimately be dismissed as a false premise. And therein lies the difference when it comes to the Matrix. As the audience, we are to assume there are no inconsistencies in the Matrix.
So to answer the question on what is real, it still holds that both perception and consistency are the only tools we have thus far.
Some other interesting points in the movie is in Neo's conversation with the Oracle. She said that being the One is like being in love. No one can tell you're in love, you just know it. The question is how this knowledge come into being? It might be easier to examine how you know you're in love as an analogy to understand this. Knowing you're in love is really based on a feeling you get than through some logical deduction. And the feeling is more of a confirmation that a variety of values having been fulfilled but in what order or to even pinpoint which values may be more difficult to quantify. The main thing to understand is the knowledge comes from a feeling. Sort of like knowing when you're full from eating.
How does Neo get this feeling that confirms he's the One? Initially, he believe he isn't the One because he believes the Oracle told him so. However, this also implies he believes in the Oracle and therefore also believes that either he or Morpheus will die and it will be up to him. The ensuing fight with the Agents along with Morpheus' capture ultimately confirms the Oracle's premonition. When Neo is then confronted with the choice either having his life or Morpheus' life, he chooses Morpheus' over his. This sets up the belief that a rescue operation is not only possible but successful. Remember, this all hinges on him believing, not in himself, but in the Oracle. As the rescue mission begins to succeed, it starts to fulfill his confirmation in his powers and slowly the feelings of being the One start to emerge.
I think what he didn't realize is that Mr. Anderson would have to "die" in the Matrix to fulfill the prophesy and that Neo would live on as the One.
That's basically my take on the first movie. From a philosophical standpoint, it wasn't too deep or technical but rather a good "dipping your toes in" kind of movie for the average moviegoer. The concepts were easy to understand and the action scenes were spectacular to make the movie even if you weren't so philosophically inclined. The juiciest part of the trilogy is in Reloaded, by far. Revolutions isn't as deep but there are some good stuff there too. It wraps up the series nicely.
Friday, May 9, 2014
Why teamwork ultimately fails....
I recently became a daddy and thus the long hiatus in my posts.
Today I'll explain to you why teamwork hardly ever works and when it does appear to work it only does for a very limited time. The kind of individuals who preach the "teamwork" mantra are often managers. Project managers, head coaches of professional sports, CEOs and the list goes on. Why do leaders need their followers drinking the Kool-Aid? The secret is leaders hate competition. In other words, the thing that leaders hate the most is another potential leader because there can only be one leader.
I'd like to go off on a tangent for a second here. How many resumes can one read without reading the skill set "I have leadership skills." I call bullshit on all that. There cannot be that many leaders leading people on projects because then there would be no followers left. The truth is there are only a handful of people in ten-thousand that can truly lead. And it's not because they are masters of the whip or skillful manipulators of language. This rare bird can be called a real leader because people want to follow them. People follow them because they can first lead by example and then have the eloquence and charisma to communicate their actions to the everyman.
With that corollary in mind, most anyone who claims they are some kind of leader or manager cannot keep a following without having their disciples buy into this religion called "teamwork." After all, a leader cannot call himself a leader if the group he leads cannot stay together. If they cannot stay together willfully, an artificial construct must be created for the members to believe that staying together, even though they individually would rather not, is a moral good. Once a moral good has been established, each person becomes emotionally invested. Now the "leader" has what they want - a following.
Teamwork ultimately fails because it only takes one person in the group to stop buying into the moral good of "shared success and shared failure" and decides to individually benefit from the "shared success" but then socialize the shared losses, it is only a matter of time before other members follow suit until there are no more successes and only failures. That one person is typically leader himself but it can be an existing team member that is secretly trying to take credit for other people's work.
Sooner or later someone is looking for another job or move on to another team where the individual benefits are better. In other words the truth ultimately comes out - "You gotta do what's best for you."
How many times have you heard that line? Either an employee leaves the office or team and you hear it or you turn on the radio and the star running-back of your favorite team moves on to a division rival and you hear the head-coach saying that line in a press conference?
Typically it's the leaders that screw everything up because they are the ones who benefit from the teamwork construct. They rely on the construct so that they can take credit for the team's work. After all, no one person ON the team can take credit for anything. It's a team effort. The leader takes the credit because the leader organized and motivated the team to meet some goal. And while that's not nothing, if the leader cannot acknowledge the individual efforts, it undermines the construct and it is only a matter of time before someone leaves because "it's just time to move on."
It would be much better for a supposed leader to just embrace the truth and admit there is no such thing as teamwork and that while it is expected that individuals work together to achieve a goal, extra individual effort to reach the goal will yield extra rewards. If someone on a team decides to slack off, another team member can pick up the extra slack. Why would they do this? Because in the new environment, the harder working individuals will be motivated to document all the extra work they've been doing because of how individual productivity is incentivized. The more productive people will begin to collaborate better because no individual wants to perform the same work that someone else did and thus waste their time.
The bottom line is, you don't need to preach teamwork when you have a group of productive individuals. Teamwork is the Bible the lazy and unproductive people keep thumping.
Today I'll explain to you why teamwork hardly ever works and when it does appear to work it only does for a very limited time. The kind of individuals who preach the "teamwork" mantra are often managers. Project managers, head coaches of professional sports, CEOs and the list goes on. Why do leaders need their followers drinking the Kool-Aid? The secret is leaders hate competition. In other words, the thing that leaders hate the most is another potential leader because there can only be one leader.
I'd like to go off on a tangent for a second here. How many resumes can one read without reading the skill set "I have leadership skills." I call bullshit on all that. There cannot be that many leaders leading people on projects because then there would be no followers left. The truth is there are only a handful of people in ten-thousand that can truly lead. And it's not because they are masters of the whip or skillful manipulators of language. This rare bird can be called a real leader because people want to follow them. People follow them because they can first lead by example and then have the eloquence and charisma to communicate their actions to the everyman.
With that corollary in mind, most anyone who claims they are some kind of leader or manager cannot keep a following without having their disciples buy into this religion called "teamwork." After all, a leader cannot call himself a leader if the group he leads cannot stay together. If they cannot stay together willfully, an artificial construct must be created for the members to believe that staying together, even though they individually would rather not, is a moral good. Once a moral good has been established, each person becomes emotionally invested. Now the "leader" has what they want - a following.
Teamwork ultimately fails because it only takes one person in the group to stop buying into the moral good of "shared success and shared failure" and decides to individually benefit from the "shared success" but then socialize the shared losses, it is only a matter of time before other members follow suit until there are no more successes and only failures. That one person is typically leader himself but it can be an existing team member that is secretly trying to take credit for other people's work.
Sooner or later someone is looking for another job or move on to another team where the individual benefits are better. In other words the truth ultimately comes out - "You gotta do what's best for you."
How many times have you heard that line? Either an employee leaves the office or team and you hear it or you turn on the radio and the star running-back of your favorite team moves on to a division rival and you hear the head-coach saying that line in a press conference?
Typically it's the leaders that screw everything up because they are the ones who benefit from the teamwork construct. They rely on the construct so that they can take credit for the team's work. After all, no one person ON the team can take credit for anything. It's a team effort. The leader takes the credit because the leader organized and motivated the team to meet some goal. And while that's not nothing, if the leader cannot acknowledge the individual efforts, it undermines the construct and it is only a matter of time before someone leaves because "it's just time to move on."
It would be much better for a supposed leader to just embrace the truth and admit there is no such thing as teamwork and that while it is expected that individuals work together to achieve a goal, extra individual effort to reach the goal will yield extra rewards. If someone on a team decides to slack off, another team member can pick up the extra slack. Why would they do this? Because in the new environment, the harder working individuals will be motivated to document all the extra work they've been doing because of how individual productivity is incentivized. The more productive people will begin to collaborate better because no individual wants to perform the same work that someone else did and thus waste their time.
The bottom line is, you don't need to preach teamwork when you have a group of productive individuals. Teamwork is the Bible the lazy and unproductive people keep thumping.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Double standards in NFL news...
Recently Ray Rice, running back for the Baltimore Ravens, was caught on camera in Atlantic City hitting his fiancee. Granted they were both hitting each other and she had started it by spitting in his face. Maybe it was in reaction to something he said or at least some sort of dialog between them. The footage caught them hitting each other.
About a day later TMZ released footage of Rice dragging his unconscious fiancee out of an elevator, also in Atlantic City. How she became unconscious is unclear but what's been trickling into the news is that there is supposed footage of him hitting her in an elevator.
The public response has largely been an enforcement of societal values that "you don't hit a woman." While I agree that men shouldn't hit women, what's often not discussed is that women shouldn't be hitting men either. To accept that it's okay for women to inflict harm on men because men are stronger is to immediately give up the "equality card." But women don't want that. They want to be "equal" only in ways that they benefit (employment opportunities, salaries, etc.) but keep the "old school inequalities" from which they also benefit (male chivalry) if they can get away with it. It seems like part of that "old school inequalities" include being absolved of losing any kind of emotional control when it comes to interacting with males. So the only consistent thing here is "anything that benefits women" principle. Women, as a group, would immediately deny that since it, the truth, would undermine their cause.
The real underlying truth is an acceptance that women are unequal to men. The reason why men or women resort to physical abuse is the loss of emotional control when arguing. So when society enforces the value or rule that men should never women, what they're doing is holding men to a higher standard of emotional control. Of course, when a woman hits a man, "the jerk probably deserved it." But more importantly, the it's okay for a woman to lose it.
Another story in the NFL regarding double standards is the use of the word 'nigger' on the playing field and that the usage of the word would result in a 15-yard penalty. This is how far the culture has gone in trying to become politically-correct. Outside of the logistics of trying to enforce this, it is again a reminder that this word is just a pawn in a power-play amongst the races.
For a long time the word, 'nigger', was used as a derogatory word during the civil rights movement from racist whites towards a black person. And as society progressed passed this movement and there was a general acceptance that racial discrimination was considered bad a new adoption of the word emerged. The word 'nigger' was now accepted for normal language but only amongst the black community. I'm not sure what it means because I'm not black and the black community forbids anyone who's not black from using it. Why?
According to black people, if you're black and say the word 'nigger' it means one thing but if you're not black it carries the old meaning. So the rest of the non-black population has to resort to using "The N word" to refer to just the word because just saying the word is offensive. So the phrase, "The N word" is not offensive but 'nigger' is if you're not black.
This whole deal with this word is just a reversal of racial power to put black people in a position of power over other races. They want to say the word 'nigger' but forbid anyone else from saying it. In fact, they won't allow you to change the meaning the way they did. Classic double standard.
Minorities and special groups aren't really about equality. All they're interested in is to wear the crown and hold the scepter of power while obfuscating the truth and labeling anyone who dares to speak the truth as a racist or a misogynist. It is completely lost on them that societal rules on "never hitting women" or avoiding "the N word" are the result of anarchistic principles and not the result of government legislation.
About a day later TMZ released footage of Rice dragging his unconscious fiancee out of an elevator, also in Atlantic City. How she became unconscious is unclear but what's been trickling into the news is that there is supposed footage of him hitting her in an elevator.
The public response has largely been an enforcement of societal values that "you don't hit a woman." While I agree that men shouldn't hit women, what's often not discussed is that women shouldn't be hitting men either. To accept that it's okay for women to inflict harm on men because men are stronger is to immediately give up the "equality card." But women don't want that. They want to be "equal" only in ways that they benefit (employment opportunities, salaries, etc.) but keep the "old school inequalities" from which they also benefit (male chivalry) if they can get away with it. It seems like part of that "old school inequalities" include being absolved of losing any kind of emotional control when it comes to interacting with males. So the only consistent thing here is "anything that benefits women" principle. Women, as a group, would immediately deny that since it, the truth, would undermine their cause.
The real underlying truth is an acceptance that women are unequal to men. The reason why men or women resort to physical abuse is the loss of emotional control when arguing. So when society enforces the value or rule that men should never women, what they're doing is holding men to a higher standard of emotional control. Of course, when a woman hits a man, "the jerk probably deserved it." But more importantly, the it's okay for a woman to lose it.
Another story in the NFL regarding double standards is the use of the word 'nigger' on the playing field and that the usage of the word would result in a 15-yard penalty. This is how far the culture has gone in trying to become politically-correct. Outside of the logistics of trying to enforce this, it is again a reminder that this word is just a pawn in a power-play amongst the races.
For a long time the word, 'nigger', was used as a derogatory word during the civil rights movement from racist whites towards a black person. And as society progressed passed this movement and there was a general acceptance that racial discrimination was considered bad a new adoption of the word emerged. The word 'nigger' was now accepted for normal language but only amongst the black community. I'm not sure what it means because I'm not black and the black community forbids anyone who's not black from using it. Why?
According to black people, if you're black and say the word 'nigger' it means one thing but if you're not black it carries the old meaning. So the rest of the non-black population has to resort to using "The N word" to refer to just the word because just saying the word is offensive. So the phrase, "The N word" is not offensive but 'nigger' is if you're not black.
This whole deal with this word is just a reversal of racial power to put black people in a position of power over other races. They want to say the word 'nigger' but forbid anyone else from saying it. In fact, they won't allow you to change the meaning the way they did. Classic double standard.
Minorities and special groups aren't really about equality. All they're interested in is to wear the crown and hold the scepter of power while obfuscating the truth and labeling anyone who dares to speak the truth as a racist or a misogynist. It is completely lost on them that societal rules on "never hitting women" or avoiding "the N word" are the result of anarchistic principles and not the result of government legislation.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Anarchy defined...
It really sucks to be constantly misunderstood and to constantly remind people of definitions as they continuously slip in their own meanings after they've agreed to what they should mean. This is especially true for real anarchists - the anarcho-capitalists.
I'm fully aware of the different flavors of anarchism like the syndicalists and communists that exist out there but in the end, it's only in the environment in which anarcho-capitalism can these other flavors exist because under this "version" can variety flourish. The other flavors require everyone to think the same. This is because capitalism takes into account the things that make the individual unique - in other words subjective value.
But let's focus on the word 'anarchy' for a moment. Most people associate the word with chaos and no rules but that is a mistaken concept. The other thing about that association is that it fails to evaluate the concept based on first principles. Let me explain. All anarchy means is the lack of a coercive, central government. The initial reaction to this definition is to transition from the statist present to the proposed anarchical structure and examine the results. Of course, people draw on experience which is mainly what they hear in the news when a government has been toppled. The result is a vacuum in power and inevitable chaos that ensues. People then use those effects as reasoning to mount an argument against anarchy. But that is no different than a drug-addict saying sobriety won't work because they experienced withdrawal symptoms in the past and it sucks. Simply examining the effects of an ideology without discounting the warped conditions in which it is evaluated is not adhering to first principles. The merits of the ideology must be evaluated alone with no preconditions. Sobriety must be evaluated against drug abuse without looking at the effects it has on the drug user.
Even after I get past the above argument and the definition has been accepted and we can finally, move on, most people will then say a bunch of people who get together and form a "government" and use this as a counter-example. Sure it's a counter-example when they conveniently omit the coercive portion of the definition. If a group of 50-100 people decide to form a council to make decisions, they're all voluntarily joining the group. This is hardly the same type of government where if I don't pay my "dues" or taxes, I get incarcerated. This is the type of opposition people have with statists - "Let me accept your definition and then change it" argument style.
I have no problems with people, on their own, organizing into some self-governing body where people can come and go as they please. If this group wants to try to organize into some socialist utopia, go for it. What matters are the following principles any real anarchist must hold to the highest degree:
The two principles work very tightly with one another and one could make the case that the non-aggression principle is just a corollary to the respect for property rights.
If you've read my blog long enough, you know what I mean by property rights. To briefly sum it up, property rights is another way of saying that you own the effects of your actions. That not only applies to the human mind/body experience (self-ownership) but extends to the physical world. Through science, we gain a deeper understanding of cause-and-effect and leverage that knowledge to own the effects of the actions we put out into the world. So a simple example is through the knowledge of farming, we know if we plant a seed into the ground, the effect would be the raising of crops. Therefore, the crops are the effect of our actions (planting a seed) and property rights would imply that the rightful owner of the crops is the planter.
The non-aggression principle is the idea that the initiation of force is immoral. People like to ignore the word "initiation" and attack the concept that goes something like, "I'll initiate force in self-defense."
Again, the word initiation doesn't mean that brain synapses are fired that "initiate" a muscle contraction to hit a person. It's the basic schoolyard principle that reads "Don't be the first one to throw a punch." Too many a time will someone try to say the equivalent of, "I'll throw the first punch when someone else throws the first punch." Doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you frame it to them like that.
When we marry these two concepts, what we have is a respect for property rights and to exercise our right to self-defense. This is the core of anarchism. This is how we can frame a social interface with other people that promotes peace that is both internally and externally consistent from principle to practice. I'm not saying that this creates a utopia because humans aren't built perfect. We are a learning species that evolves and with that changes what it values. Since all humans don't learn at the same pace, we are going to continually have problems in interaction but if people can, today, view democracy as a viable solution because they mistakenly believe voting is peaceful, there is no reason a different framework in which property rights is upheld as the peaceful, moral solution that social problems can work themselves out.
I'm fully aware of the different flavors of anarchism like the syndicalists and communists that exist out there but in the end, it's only in the environment in which anarcho-capitalism can these other flavors exist because under this "version" can variety flourish. The other flavors require everyone to think the same. This is because capitalism takes into account the things that make the individual unique - in other words subjective value.
But let's focus on the word 'anarchy' for a moment. Most people associate the word with chaos and no rules but that is a mistaken concept. The other thing about that association is that it fails to evaluate the concept based on first principles. Let me explain. All anarchy means is the lack of a coercive, central government. The initial reaction to this definition is to transition from the statist present to the proposed anarchical structure and examine the results. Of course, people draw on experience which is mainly what they hear in the news when a government has been toppled. The result is a vacuum in power and inevitable chaos that ensues. People then use those effects as reasoning to mount an argument against anarchy. But that is no different than a drug-addict saying sobriety won't work because they experienced withdrawal symptoms in the past and it sucks. Simply examining the effects of an ideology without discounting the warped conditions in which it is evaluated is not adhering to first principles. The merits of the ideology must be evaluated alone with no preconditions. Sobriety must be evaluated against drug abuse without looking at the effects it has on the drug user.
Even after I get past the above argument and the definition has been accepted and we can finally, move on, most people will then say a bunch of people who get together and form a "government" and use this as a counter-example. Sure it's a counter-example when they conveniently omit the coercive portion of the definition. If a group of 50-100 people decide to form a council to make decisions, they're all voluntarily joining the group. This is hardly the same type of government where if I don't pay my "dues" or taxes, I get incarcerated. This is the type of opposition people have with statists - "Let me accept your definition and then change it" argument style.
I have no problems with people, on their own, organizing into some self-governing body where people can come and go as they please. If this group wants to try to organize into some socialist utopia, go for it. What matters are the following principles any real anarchist must hold to the highest degree:
- The non-aggression principle
- The respect for property rights
The two principles work very tightly with one another and one could make the case that the non-aggression principle is just a corollary to the respect for property rights.
If you've read my blog long enough, you know what I mean by property rights. To briefly sum it up, property rights is another way of saying that you own the effects of your actions. That not only applies to the human mind/body experience (self-ownership) but extends to the physical world. Through science, we gain a deeper understanding of cause-and-effect and leverage that knowledge to own the effects of the actions we put out into the world. So a simple example is through the knowledge of farming, we know if we plant a seed into the ground, the effect would be the raising of crops. Therefore, the crops are the effect of our actions (planting a seed) and property rights would imply that the rightful owner of the crops is the planter.
The non-aggression principle is the idea that the initiation of force is immoral. People like to ignore the word "initiation" and attack the concept that goes something like, "I'll initiate force in self-defense."
Again, the word initiation doesn't mean that brain synapses are fired that "initiate" a muscle contraction to hit a person. It's the basic schoolyard principle that reads "Don't be the first one to throw a punch." Too many a time will someone try to say the equivalent of, "I'll throw the first punch when someone else throws the first punch." Doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you frame it to them like that.
When we marry these two concepts, what we have is a respect for property rights and to exercise our right to self-defense. This is the core of anarchism. This is how we can frame a social interface with other people that promotes peace that is both internally and externally consistent from principle to practice. I'm not saying that this creates a utopia because humans aren't built perfect. We are a learning species that evolves and with that changes what it values. Since all humans don't learn at the same pace, we are going to continually have problems in interaction but if people can, today, view democracy as a viable solution because they mistakenly believe voting is peaceful, there is no reason a different framework in which property rights is upheld as the peaceful, moral solution that social problems can work themselves out.
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