Dawn Of Personhood,Part 1

We had several major geo-political tremors this week.  As I write this (Friday), it looks like Brexit is in the lead by less than a million votes.  Can't cut it much finer than that, and I still don't believe it will happen, regardless of the vote.  Too much riding on it.

There's the story about Obama getting his Executive Orders handed back to him, as well.  Nothing could make me happier.  The president of the US has gotten too sloppy and lazy with these EOs.  The country doesn't have a king or a dictator (yet), or so it seems after the Supreme Court ruling.  It also shuts down the wholesale importation of immigrants and all the amnesty rubbish.  Still, a lot remains to be determined when it comes to presidential powers and Obama's determination to destroy American culture.  Honestly, if the country wants to give itself away, why not hand it back to the folks who were the original inhabitants?  But then, those cultures have long been destroyed, as well.

Out of all the big stories, though, the biggest comes from the EU parliament, and it has nothing to do with Brexit.  It has everything to do with robots and may go a long way to kick-starting a conversation that should have started a long time ago.

Topic: What do we do when machines take all the jobs?

In short, the EU has decided to give "electronic personhood" to robots, to include certain rights and obligations, such as copyright on intellectual property, the use of money in exchange and the need to pay taxes.  In effect, the EU has extended the rights of corporations to individual machines, known commonly as robots.

In case you haven't kept up your law degree for some time, the legal term "person" is a non-corporeal being created by the State, which has rights and obligations similar to corporeal citizens.  Keep in mind, too, that a citizen is a living being, though not necessarily a human.  In maritime law, a corporeal being is generally referred to as a "soul," which distinguishes it from cargo and other valuables.

The legal terminology is very convoluted, but suffice it to say that the EU has effectively imbued robots with individual identity and freedom.

Of the major news stories this week, I think this will have effects long after everyone has forgotten Obama or Brexit.  We are talking decades if not centuries will be affected by this decision.  It's that important.

As I've discussed here many times, corporate entities are a very old concept in Western law.  Unlike Asia, where officers and employees are individually liable for the actions of the whole, the Western concept separates the corporation from the individuals who make it up.  The concept is rooted in the theology surrounding Matthew 18:20, "For where two or more are gathered in my name, there too am I," or variations to that effect.  Thus, the Roman Church became an entity unto itself, wholly separate from the individuals who make it up, and as Western law evolved, corporations became the secular version of the Church.

To distinguish what are known as "legal fictions," such as corporations, they were termed "persons" under the law, as opposed to "human beings."  A "person" could have self-determination and own property, but it didn't have a "soul" or a "conscience."  Thus, the person had to be completely controlled and regulated by the State, since its actions may constitute a hazard that a human being might avoid by virtue of a conscience.

In modern Western societies, even human beings have been turned into persons, often referred to as "straw men" by so-called conspiracy theorists, so that the State could have the "right" to regulate and control every aspect of our lives - a concept deeply foreign to older ways of thinking, but which took hold in US law in the first half of the 20th century.

By granting robots "electronic personhood," the EU has created a new class of "person" that will at least have many of the legal characteristics of a corporation.  It would have the right to autonomy within the limits of the law.  It would be able to create and own property.  It would be empowered to operate in the economy as an individual, and it would have to pay taxes.

Where things get a bit murky is how those taxes would be allocated.  Some would pay into what amounts to an insurance pool to cover damages and liabilities incurred by robot persons.  It would also feed the State with its labor, much as humans do now.  It would, though still controversial, also pay into a fund to guarantee a minimal income to humans displaced by robots in the workforce.

Humans displaced by technology is nothing new.  The invention and widespread use of cars led to the near extinction of blacksmiths and livery stables.  Jethro Tull's harvester put thousands of farmers out of business and led to the rise of agribusiness.  Autolooms and sewing machines put thousands of seamstresses and weavers out of work.  Even the electric light bulb led to the demise of the lamp-lighter.

However, in most cases one innovation killed one class of jobs, but led to new ones.  Printers became pressmen.  Blacksmiths became mechanics.  Cobblers became shoe-repairmen, and so on.

What do you do when a machine is capable of replacing an entire human being?

An interesting and impending philosophical question.

How do you compete with a "person" that never needs a smoke break or a meal, never gets sick or pregnant, works 24/7 without a vacation or even sleep time, can be amortized as a capital investment, and can be taught a new task in seconds - even able to analyze and improve it functions as it goes?

We are staring down the barrel of the end of all jobs everywhere for all time.  On the one hand, that could mean that humans will finally be free to pursue self-improvement and self-actualization.  More than likely, though, given humanity's track record, it will lead to the vast majority of humans descending into abject poverty, death and misery.

Basically, it creates two entirely separate cultures.  Since humans would never allow themselves to obsolete that way, they will reject everything automated and create a new economy  This would obviously create an elite class that would no longer depend on the rest of us, and who would likely pursue a different course.

So, how would this play out?

That is a very interesting question, and now that I've set up the scenario, you'll have to wait for Part 2 to play the "What If" game.  We are likely seeing all the pieces in motion right now.  The question becomes, when will the hammer drop?

PART 2

The Fine Columbian

To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange week it's been.

Hitler's birthday passed relatively quiet.  In years past, there have been an inordinate number of big events around this particular date, including significant space events, Waco, Columbine, the BP Gulf of Mexico slaughter, and many others.

I was watching for some kind of marker, since They seem to be obsessed with celebrating this day.  At first, I though it was going to be one of the off-years, but then it happened...

Think about the archetypes involved here: the SS was caught in a scandal in South America involving Bolivian marching powder and little brown honeys.  SS?  South America?  Oh, that was just too rich!  They've gotten much more subtle now.  And it's hard to deny the tie between the two SSs.  Hitler's SS wore black uniforms and part of their job was to be his personal guard.  The Obama's SS wear black suits and part of their job is to do the same.

The delicious irony, too.  In the same week as the SS scandal, they were busily interrogating Ted Nugent about some of his comments regarding Obama's imminent re-election.  As if those black suits have any credibility left...  Next thing you know, they'll write off the scandal as an undercover investigation of drug and prostitution rings in Cartagena.  Bet me.

Another interesting event was the media getting caught with their propaganda pants down.  Looking at how media phrase things.  North Korea launched a missile that could "hit the US".  Iran's missiles are always talked about in terms of their ability to "hit Israel".  Then, India shows up with a missile that can "hit Beijing".

They never just give a range, or mention that any missile that can reach Earth orbit can hit anything anywhere on the planet.  They always give specific targets, though there are thousands of possible targets within the missile’s range.  Of course, if the particular country being discussed is the US itself or a close ally, then the missiles just have a range, or can be used to launch satellites, both relatively benign statistics.  You never hear, "The US tested a missile today that can level Moscow from Kansas.

It's all in the wording, and most people aren't critical of such things.  It's like those computer-generated photos in which the picture elements themselves are other pictures.  In other words, it's not the message, but how the message is composed that is the message.  One of those fun ponders for an afternoon of primo and scotch, eh?

Here's another good ponder for you.  What is a ‘person’?  Do ‘rights’ really exist?  And why is it so important to take God out of the public sphere?

Talk about a brain bomb.

The easiest part to dispose of, ironically, is God.  Everyone runs around talking about their "God-given rights."  Most of the thinking in the Enlightenment period was about Natural Rights and where they come from and who backs them up.  It always came down to appeal to a higher power in order to enforce rights  Every human has natural rights, because they are 'endowded by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.'  By the way, the root of 'unalienable' is 'lien', not 'alien'.  You can't put a lien on the rights or sign them away.

At any rate, if you take God out of the picture, then the author of the rights disappears and the conversation then turns to, "What rights?"  As George Carlin said very well, there are no rights.  No such thing.  Completely made up.  If there were Natural Rights, there would be no need to defend them.  The rights would be self-defending and apparent, like having ten fingers and ten toes.

This is why the Framers of the US Constitution backed up their assertion of Natural Rights with the right to keep and bear arms.  When it comes down to it, the only rights you or I have are those which we are willing to defend with lethal force.  Obviously, those who want to take away our rights are willing to use lethal force to do so, so it stands to reason that an equal response is called for here.

In other words, free speech is limited by folks willing to shoot you to shut you up, so you must be willing to shoot them to maintain your 'right'.  Ergo, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which backs up all those pretty 'rights' with the 'legal' ability to shoot anyone who would take them away.  Of course, it says 'keep and bear arms', not buy and stockpile ammunition, so your rights end when the ammo supply runs out.

The final ponder is 'person'.  What is a 'person'?  Most Western law defines 'person' as EITHER an individual, or a collective acting in concert as if an individual.  This seemingly simple concept is the reason why corporations are treated as 'persons' having 'rights' under the law.  It is the origin of the 'corporate veil', in which only the collective can be punished, not the individuals behind it.

Since you can't throw a corporation in jail, the only other way to punish a concept is financial sanction.  Therefore, the worst thing you can do to a collective is to take away its profit, or some part thereof.

But how did all this come about?  After all, in our common speech, a person is just an individual human being using a non-gendered, non-specific term.

Interestingly, the origin of this concept of 'person' comes from the medieval Roman church.  Theologians took a close look at two New Testament concepts: the Church itself and the line, "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there too am I."  In other words, a group of people in common purpose constitutes a 'church', which is a singular entity supposedly more than the sum of its parts.

And here is how we got to the term 'person'.  It originally came from the Greek phersu, which was the mask worn by actors on stage...the classic image of comedy and tragedy.  In Latin, it became persona, meaning human being, on so on.  

In philosophy, a person represented the irreducible being that couldn't be defined by its parts, because the whole was more than a set of functions.  A human being could not be defined as the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and lymphatic systems, nor could the human being be defined by the collection of mental and physical processes within an individual.  Even though we all have the same basic parts and functions, we are completely unique individuals, therefore we are more than the sum of our parts, therefore we are 'persons'.  Even persons are described as individuals...'unable to divide' any further without destroying the whole.

The Church was seen as being more than the sum of the beings who joined to create it.  A pope could die and another get elected, but the whole continued uninterrupted.  In this way, the collective was seen to be a macro version of the individual human being.  It existed on a plane above the collection of parts that constituted it.

By extension, something like McDonald's cannot be defined by the individuals who make up the corporate entity.  The CEO can retire or die, and another steps in, but the collective continues without interruption.  If you swap out the PhD flipping burgers with a high school drop-out doing the same job, it makes no difference to the 'person' of McDonald's.

Just like when one of your skin cells dies and is replaced by another.  You don't feel different,  You don't behave different.  You simply continue on as if nothing had happened.  In the same way, if you cut off an arm, the 'person' that is you does not change because of it.  'You' are more than the sum of your parts and functions.  You are a 'person'.

With all that said, where does that leave us?

Basically, we looked at Nature and saw that we humans were complete Universes within ourselves.  We were indivisible and individual.  Therefore, we were in the same image as God, who was also indivisible and individual.  We came to see ourselves as part of the creative process in this way.  If a group of us got together to perform a function, then that collective became a 'person' that we created by virtue of our joining in common cause.  Furthermore, we ascribed 'rights' to 'persons'.  

As images of God, we were endowed with 'rights' that were previously only given to kings in their function as the 'person' of the State.  If we are all 'persons' who are co-creators and perfect images of God, then we all have the same 'rights' as the king.  Thus, we are all kings (the sovereign individual movement).

In the end, however grand our reasoning and philosophies, we have no basic Natural Rights.  You claim to right to property, but I can steal it just as easily.  You claim the right to speak, but I can silence you in a dozen different ways.  You claim the right to privacy, but that's only a good as no one else listening.  Ultimately, the only rights you and I have are the ones for which we are willing to kill.  Anything short of that is not a right.  It is a civil privilege that lasts only as long as the majority respects the laws on which the privileges are founded.

In the final analysis, all that we hold dear is founded on a single, savage act.  As proof, I offer the sum total of human history, in which millions have died to secure or take away various rights.  If these rights were in fact God-given, there would be no need to kill to protect them, and in fact, there would be no need to kill to determine whose God is more powerful.

When we strip away all the centuries of rhetoric, there is only a human being who is a 'person', individual and indivisible.  Just like Dick Cheney.  You can swap out hearts, and even give him mechanical organs, and he's still the same mean, bitter old fool who shoots his friends in the face.

So, what does it all mean?  It means it's time from more primo and scotch!

Ethics Are Immoral

You can tell Al Gore is warming the planet. His mouth is moving.

This is one of those issues that has become so knee-jerk that almost no one ever thinks rationally about it. We have all been told that carbon dioxide is the key substance that is causing a trend towards global environmental warming. We are told that in order to combat this situation, we must trade carbon credits, limit release of carbon dioxide and create global taxation and bureaucracy to combat the problem.

In other words, we must impoverish ourselves to support an unelected and unaccountable group of individuals whose job it is to limit all life on Earth to control a natural process in order to stop a problem that doesn't exist.

Do I have that right? The only way we can combat this supposed problem is by sterilizing ALL LIFE ON EARTH?

If I remember my high school biology correctly, all life on Earth are CARBOM-BASED. We need carbon to exist (with the possible exception of NASA's bullshit arcenic microbes). This is the biggest pile of excrement from the backside of a male bovine I have ever heard! The whole global warming/climate change issue is based on research that has been shown and admitted as rubbish, and to offset our BREATHING, we must buy "carbon credits," which basically amount to promises to plant some grass somewhere in the world to absorb the breaths I take. In other words, I can take a picture of some plants and show them as evidence that my 'carbon footprint' has been ameliorated.

But wait! What's this?

Respiration rates of plants are sensitive to temperature changes. Plants take in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis in the day, and release it during respiration at night. But they don't necessarily photosynthesize and respire at the same rates. Eventually half of the CO2 they use in photosynthesis is released back to the atmosphere by plant respiration

In other words, we must offset our carbon bootprint by planting organisms that also release carbon dioxide. Am I just stupid or what? It there something I'm missing here?

The whole global warming issue is a farce. Hackers got hold of email and documents that included communications from one of the leading 'scientists' in the field, which admitted that the data did not show global warming and in some cases even admitted falsifying data to make it fit the story. Furthermore, Al Gore told us that all scientists in the world were in complete agreement on the issue, but if I remember my schience training right, issues are never settled but are open to investigation at all times.

Of course, the whole thing has been repackaged as 'blimate change,' because global warming has been shown to be bogus. In fact, global temperatures have not risen, and have in fact fallen over the last 15 years. So, as 'climate change,' we can now outlaw seasons and deserts and even oceans, since they cause changes in seasons and climates.

Hell, you can drive across Texas and watch the climate change at least five times between Orange and El Paso. That's right, in 24 to 48 hours (depending on speed traps), you can change from coastal plains to diciduous forests to foothills, to alpine to high desert to mountains. Each one is, by scientific definition, a 'climate.' And each of those climates change on an annual cycle called 'seasons.'

One of the prophets of 'climate change' is a man who owns half of dozen mansions, several private aircraft, a fleet of private cars, and flies around the world, using piles of kilowatt hours of electricity to flap his jaw releasing pounds of carbon dioxide to tell us that we are the problem. "Mr. Internet" should be reforesting North America in order to offset his activities to tell us that life is the problem.

By that measure, BP should be reforecting the entire Earth to offset just one of the environmental assaults it has carused.

In fact, the whole issue is related to corporate efforts to patent DNA. 'They' want to tax and control not only the building blocks of life, but the very products of life itself. 'They' can therefore charge you to live, eat, reproduce, and deficate.

There is only one solution to the whole problem: remove legal codes that make corporations legal 'persons' and make all members of a corporation personally liable for any and all crimes committed by the organization. Simple. You'd see the world change overnight. That one single act would defang every evil on the Earth in one fell swoop.

The cause of all the problems in the world today come down to one simple concept: the corporate veil. This is a legal concept that says that the individuals who make up a corporation are not personally responsible for the actions of the corporation as a whole. Yet, who makes the decisions that control the actions of corporations? This one concept protects the CEOs and CFOs from personal responsibility for the damages caused by the organizations they control.

Don't you wish you had that personal protection from the results of your actions?

The corporate veil is further enhanced by the legal concept that corporations are legal 'persons.' Under western law, 'persons' are legal entities, not living, breathing human beings. 'Persons' have no conscience and therefore must be regulated in order to enforce 'ethical' behavior. Remember that ethics and morals are not the same. Morals are tautologies that exist across time and space. Ethics can change according to trends and fads. Morals have esoteric and philosophical implications, while ethics can change on a whim.

That's why things like carbon credits, genetic modification and abortion can meet the strictest ethical scrutiny and still be immoral. Ethics are situational and morals are not. Corporations can be completely ethical and moral travesties at the same time, and not be contradictory.

Ethics are subject to rule of the majority, morals are not. That is the basis of our natual rights. It can be ethical to disarm individuals, but it is immoral. It is ethical to license an individual who is operating a personal travel machine, but it is immoral to restrict the right to travel. It is ethical to institute a 'Fairness Doctrine,' but it is immoral to limit the free exchange of ideas. Taxes can be ethical, but are never moral. The list goes on.

Destroy the corporate veil and you destroy the ability of organizations to behave ethically while ignoring moral considerations. When individuals are personally liable for their actions, and unable to hide behind legal constructs, they will default to the strictest interpretation of their actions so as to avoid direct liability.

The very legal foundation of our laws is, in fact, the cause of our greatest woes. Recall the 'butterfly principle,' where a single small movement in one part of a dynamic system causes huge effects in another part. The corporate veil is that one small movement. By destroying that, we are able to dramatically change the outcomes in other parts of the system. If the heads of Merck, BP, ExxonMobil, McDonald's, and other mega-multi-national corporations were personally libale for the outcomes of their actions and decisions, do you think we would see major changes in the way the world works? If the boards of JPMorgan/Chase or GoldmanSachs or Lehamnn Bros. were personally responsible in a court of law for the damage they do, do you think we'd have the economic mess we have today?

It all boils down to being precise in our definitions of ethics and morals. As anyone knows who has planned and executed a major project, it's the smallest detail overlooked that will bring down the greatest of plans. We need to correct the small detail now, and that detail is the 'corporate veil.'

As the old saying goes:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.