A damaging masculine mask

I've just seen The Mask You Live In from The Representation Project, which asks people to "challenge society's limiting representations of gender". The film was about boys and men in the United States getting into social groups and habits that mean they struggle to share emotions. It argued this linked to video game addiction, objectification of women, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and mass shootings (I hadn't realised just how these are accelerating in the US). The psychologists, sociologists, interviewees and their mentors made a lot of thought provoking comments, for example:

• US (and I guess therefore anglophone) culture links strong men with economic success, sexual prowess and excellence in competitive sports - and I can imagine the same criteria could be generally true, from ancient Greece onward.
• Gangs can form from a very early age, with preschoolers creating male-only clubs with hierarchy, rules and punishments for their infringement. This linked to fraternity house initiation culture where you don't rat on your mates even if you know what they're doing is wrong.  It also reminded me of the distinctive characteristics of US prison gangs spoken about by David Skarbek on Thinking Allowed earlier this year.
• A group of young men asked to write keywords on the outside versus the inside of a mask consistently put anger and pain as things they kept hidden. But guilt and shame, exacerbated by their superiors and bullies, were cited as key emotions underlying the chronic rates of suicide and often untreated depression.
• The film spoke of the frustration and anger of disenfranchised young men arising not from failure, loss or being genuinely wronged. Instead, it came from an aggrieved sense of entitlement, created in part by marketing and popular culture presenting a world of success, happiness and prosperity that in reality only a few achieve.
• Easier to sympathise with, though, was another point that emerged about the gap between between received expectations and internal feelings. That dissonance causes negative moods, which there's then no one to talk to about when your peers are all wearing their "act like a man" masks too.
• The conclusion urged men to be a positive influence on boys - as fathers, sports coaches or whatever - encouraging individual self-expression instead of using bullying and humiliation to raise performance.

In a panel discussion after the film, there was a telling show of hands about who didn't figuratively wear a mask in public (zero). I guess we all have to create our public ego from our cultural context, but the problem is when a masculine identity leads to harm (to others or ourselves), or when it creates injustice. 

I do wonder if gender (along with race and sexuality) is becoming more important to our egos. Previously used identifiers - like our occupation, or standing in our village, street or faith group - become less stable or important. The film made me think again about the negative effects of video games too - spending hours role-playing an assassin or soldier; they are a lot more realistic and immersive than when I played Elite and Baldur's Gate... The discussion also helped me to recognise that young people today may be more image conscious - thinking of how portraits now appear by text and Facebook messages on smartphones, for example.

I was surprised that in the discussion one of the panel from Leeds Beckett discounted biology or genes in gender role determination though. The panel also undermined an argument that sport can be cooperative and positive, by one young speaker saying that it's an acceptable release valve for aggression.

So under biological determinism, the masculine criteria above can be rephrased. Wealth demonstrates access to resources and sports demonstrates health, strength and ability to physically overcome competitors. These then support the actual biological imperative that underlies these and the sex drive: to successfully pass on your genes. 

A more scientific explanation of issues with in masculinity in the modern world was also given in the Economist on manhood earlier this year. A striking line of reasoning in there used something like game theory to explain how small demographic shifts can have a big impact on family stability. If men and women expect a man in a stable job to provide for the family, but there aren't quite enough men that fit that bill, then employed men have more opportunity to cheat, causing a domino effect that cascades through previously stable relationships.

It therefore seems naive to think that cultural pressure for boys and men to be more emotionally expressive and empathic will change fundamental characteristics of male identity. I don't believe men need to feminise themselves to resist harmful and patriarchal ultra-masculinity. This runs parallel to women's liberation and the struggle toward equality not meaning that women need to become like men, 

But there do need to be changes in this country as well as the United States, even if mass shootings are rarer here. Thinking of Kirsty Wark's Blurred Lines TV program last year, the hurtful anti-feminist backlash from a certain chunk of the population shames us all. 

Minimal enduring space habitat

I'd like to describe my ideas for an enduring space habitat with ample space for a self-sustaining community of over a thousand humanoids. It's a thin torus about 1.6km in diameter with a texture superficially similar to a rocky asteroid. The ring has a circular cross-section of about 50m diameter. Its outermost surface is a shielding crust of 5m thick spongy pumice-like material, resistant to radiation and micro-meteorites. The crust covers a structural tension ring, something like reinforced concrete; this can deform elastically to absorb large meteorite impacts without breaking. The tension ring also gives strength to the habitat as it turns, simulating standard gravity by centrifugal force. Inside, there are utilities crawl-spaces in ceilings and floors, but that still leaves at least a 36m wide by 20m high interior. This volume is partitioned by robust bulkheads into personal living spaces, stores, engineering workshops, communal areas (including garden parks, refectories, a library, a school, recreation spaces etc) and their connecting corridors. 5 larger nodes, built with even greater structural strength, bulge out at evenly spaced intervals around the ring. These provide airlocks and docking facilities.

These ideas are for a remote science fiction setting. As the habitat is indefinitely self-sufficient, it is not supported by regular traffic from a large populated planet. I imagine it to be one of several (between 5 and 100, say) orbiting a red dwarf (the 70% majority in the galaxy). There may be planets orbiting the star, but no rocky worlds with atmospheres in the narrow habitable zone (tight up against the star). The solid planets that do exist could be subject to constant robot exploration and slow terraforming. Outside the habitable zone, that means tunnelling out large sealed chambers beneath planets' frigid or toxic surfaces. These would each much larger than the habitat's interior, and would eventually be filled with life-sustaining biomes. Descendants of the habitat's population would eventually live in these pocket-worlds, but that goal is perhaps 10,000 years away.

Reliable planning and engineering at this scale is beyond the scope of human teams. The habitat's origins are traced back to when the red dwarf system was seeded by an advanced artificial intelligence. This may have arrived in a slower-than-light spacecraft, either an automated robot probe or a self-sustaining generation ship somewhat similar to the habitat. Since then, the AI would have bootstrapped it's own manufacturing capabilities from in-system resources (rocky and metallic asteroids, and icy sooty comet nuclei). Macro and nano-scale robots under the AI's supervision would have captured and processed more raw materials to spin out the habitat. The original AI would have cloned instances of itself to run on new cores built into the computing, sensor and information storage substrate distributed through each habitat's structure.

In a future where such technology exists, rogue AI on selfishly self-replicating von Neumann probes are a possibility. Such entities may try to steal resources claimed by others and cheat the bootstrapping processes by subverting others' established manufacturing capabilities. For these reasons, each AI is very cautious about remote communications. Even with message security controls, they never completely trust received remotely sensor data and instructions. Each core instance is therefore autonomous and capable of independent development. Copies of the AI only communicate sparingly with each other via ultra-high integrity channels at low bandwidth (compared to current real world standard rates). Advanced encryption, content redundancy, nested stacks of handshakes, error checks and signal recovery ingredients aim to prevent interception and spoofing by malign rivals.

As well as manufacturing the habit, the local AI operates the systems for its maintenance, repair, manoeuvring and life support. It also cooperates with its peers in the supervision of traffic between the habitats and other bodies in the red dwarf system. As the habitat is not a completely closed system, top-ups of the most basic resources are necessary. Exchange of manufactured goods is also beneficial. With completely control of the habitat systems, the ubiquitous sensors wired into its fabric and all its communications, the AI has godlike power over the habitat's population. However, as its mission is to sustain that population indefinitely, it is benevolent. It seeks to minimise harm and is concerned not to restrict the free will individuals.

So the AI mind and the habitat systems that are its body meets the basic needs of the community it hosts in reliable, robust, efficient, mess-free ways:

• Light is generated from solid-state materials (diurnally for bright public spaces and at warmer low intensity for personal use), powered by a variety clean energy sources (e.g. solar-collectors, thermoelectric heat exchangers, nuclear fusion reactors, and superconductors rotating in natural solar magnetic fields).
• Air and water are recycled and cleaned (using self-replenishing safe bioengineered microorganisms) in cycles – via sinks, caches (e.g. small lakes, cisterns and pressurised volumes) and easy to use outlets.
• Food is grown in cultures of bioengineered organisms that are easy to keep in moist and well lit conditions, without requiring soils or significant preparation (e.g. in harvesting, the cutting away of waste or cooking). These appear as gel trays, with the cultures colour-coding their maturity. The colours of ripening and decaying food – green, yellow, orange, red, brown – have cultural associations too (e.g. for youthful naivety, transition, good wholesome reassurance, risk and disgusting old waste).
• Medicinal interventions are assisted by specialist grown materials (drug cultures and bandages), as well as knowledgeable doctors and nurses; robot surgeons and digital diagnostic assistants have limited application.
• Shelter from the hostile environment of space (with weightlessness, vacuum, radiation and high-velocity impacts) is provided by the habitat shielding and manoeuvring thrusters. The internal structure separates enclosed spaces by insulative and fire-suppressant materials, mitigate the effects of hull breach and "breakaway oxidation phenomena".
• Weight, for the creation of normal human living spaces as much as its benefits to the physiology of the inhabitants, is generated by the habitat's spin (revolving around once per minute, as for a classic Stanford torus).
• Temperature control depends more on heat-sinks than adding sources; waste heat from the absorbed solar radiation, engineering systems, human bodies and other organisms would otherwise be trapped by vacuum.
• The basic raw materials to top-up the inevitably slightly inefficient recycling systems could be delivered in bulk periodically from small asteroids (for metals and other heavier elements) and comets (for water, gases and precursor organic compounds). Thousands of tonnes of material can be slowly and safely moved over hundreds of years from their sources' natural orbits by robot spacecraft. At their source, materials are gathered with minimal mining and in situ processing; the autonomous systems on these bodies don't manufacture items that the habitats may or may not need.
  

The humanoid population have genetically engineered modifications so they are better suited for space habitation. They are hairless, disease resistant and quick healing, with simpler digestive systems. Their bodies are tolerant to zero-G and radiation, preparing them for possible disasters. They have short strong limbs, very dark skin and exceedingly good cellular repair mechanisms, including cancer-resistant DNA. The population of at least a thousand can remain genetically healthy over many generations. However basic screening is maintained by the AI, without crossing over into eugenic manipulation.

The habitat would be pointless if the humanity of its inhabitants couldn't be maintained. The hierarchy of needs above the basics addressed above are therefore also met:

• A technologically advanced civilised culture is maintained by the import, management and archiving of information. This includes entertainment media and history, but more critically it covers mechanical, organic and human systems engineering knowledge. Some of the population always retain knowledge of the design patterns and simulation models that the AI uses for these. They understand how these are supported by theories from fundamental science and mathematics.
• Social activities maintain individuals' sense of belonging . These include sports and gaming; swimming (diving, racing and cooperative team games) is popular on the space habitat. Craft, study and creative acts can also be social - more on that below. There is plenty of scope for normal healthy humans' love, affection and romance, with all the associated complications.
• Personal rewards, support of the community and innovation may also be achieved through assistance to the habitat systems. To be purposeful, this work must really matter and be safety critical - it's not just about following the robots to pick up their rubbish and mistakes. Tasks include support to the habitat's structural engineering, monitoring via its sensors and operational maintenance of the life-support systems. Individuals could also assist in the supervision of the automated biological-mechanical hybrid systems with modelling and reprogramming.
• Another class of important maintenance task is the support of the human community itself. Psychology, psychotherapy, sociology, leadership and political roles all overlap in such a small society, but there would always be a few clearly recognised experts in these (and those learning from or competing against them).
• There is also something like a religious institution that supports the cohesiveness of the community. This isn't about faith in the supernatural (e.g. life after death) or a supreme being (the prime-cause, architect of human experience with a divine plan that gives our lives and the universe purpose), or petitioning the AI for divine intervention. It would be about reinforcing the ethics of the cooperative community, sharing joy at new life, coming of age and marriage, and giving the comfort of a greater enduring institution to the sick and bereaved. Its foundational aspiration may be faith that human life will eventually settle more terraformed planets and continue its expansion and creative innovation.
• Self-actualisation (or at least individual expression and personal fulfilment) could be achieved through developing the creative skills available in a small local community: creative craft works (especially clothes, accessories and furniture), folk art, songs and music, and writing (perhaps the most enduring and readily communicable to others beyond the community). Self-esteem is built by independently chosen careers, responsibilities and skills mastery. Exchange of original gifts and public awards, granted occasionally by respected committees or directly by the AI, reinforce personal achievements.
• The transcendent need to help others achieve their own potential cuts across roles in the society. There are amateur and professional teachers who assist in the interpretation of the knowledge resources and coach student as they practice skilled activities. Individuals may also dedicate themselves to the institutions for psychological health and religion.

The inhabitants of the baseline home habitat may assume those in the red dwarf system's other habitats are more or less the same as them, but they could be quite different. Each habitat remains relatively isolated, and its life and culture can grow and evolve independently, just as it does on real-world islands, or the city-states of ancient Greece with their different philosophies, politics and martial structures. Most individuals have only minimal second-hand experience of direct contact, handed down from rare personal histories of space-travel between habitats, in which individuals would have piggy-backed on the slow robot spacecraft transport network. This sense of a wider community at arms-length is maintained by the limited communications traffic. The narrow bandwidth constrains this to text (and vector-drawn graphics primarily used for engineering and science). Without pictures, direct audio and video of others’ small worlds, the commonality of human mental constructs matter more than superficial differences in appearance and cultural styles. The communications are sufficient to maintain use of a common language between habitats.

There’s more to say about the technology to support all this. Specifically, the habit requires advanced genetic engineering (of the human stock and the modified microorganisms used for the environment control that includes air, water and nutrition recycling). There’s also the systems engineering, which is about aggregating dynamically interacting elements from mechanical, electronic, chemical, structural, cybernetic and sociological disciplines. The technology must come together to enable a self-sustaining homeostatic system that efficiently uses sparse resources in the space environment that's otherwise hostile to organic life.

Review of The Day of the Triffids (1981)

I had been too young to watch this TV series when it was first out, and I was hoping the BBC would repeat it. It's been a long wait, but I wasn't disappointed now that I've finally got to see it. Clearly it's a bit dated, and this was never big budget Hollywood science fiction, but it still has a powerful frightening atmosphere, and it stays with you.

The novel was perhaps the first post-apocalyptic science fiction book I read, back when I was about 13, several years after the series was broadcast. I was gripped by it then, but this TV adaptation seemed different from my memories of the book.

First up, I was struck by how strong the Cold War themes were. There's the Soviet origin of the plants, but there's also an explicit guess that the lights and plague were accidentally deployed weapons of mass destruction. Bill paraphrased the quote about humanity walking a tightrope, too. I can't find it's origin, but I'm sure I've heard it before - that mutually assured destruction as a deterrent against war was like asking a someone to walk a tightrope for ever. They can do it for a bit, but they will eventually fall off - and that still sounds like a very good argument for subscribing to CND. I wonder if I hadn't notice this theme so strongly in the book because we were embedded in the Cold War at the time. We'd grown used to the threat and the idea that nuclear missiles with hideous overkill were targeted at major cities and military targets in the UK right in the present moment.

I also noticed that the ethical dilemmas were being played up far more than the survival and reconstruction themes I remember - emphasised by the drama dwelling on the immediate aftermath in London. It felt like the struggle between those with good intentions and nastier individuals was being made clear. It therefore reflected the intrinsic uncertainty as to whether humans are basically altruistic, charitable and cooperative or selfish and greedy, only thinking of their short term gratification of desires. There was also the unanswerable challenge of who should you help when there's so many in need and you're effort is clearly valuable but so insignificant. This seems just as valid for an individual supporting a charity in our present cruel and unjust world as for Wyndham's well constructed artificial thought experiment. The BBC drama was also surprisingly realistic in how, despite clearly being one of the well intentioned ones, Bill was often fighting his own frustration, despair and anger at the situation - perhaps again like any of us trying to follow our conscience.

I think I saw echoes of post-WWII Nazi-survivors' anxiety too, with ideas of eugenics through planned human breeding and military controlled societies popping up. I'd imagine these would be been very much in the consciousness of Wyndham as he was writing, and in the developers and audience of the TV series too. Luckily it's perhaps harder for us living in the West now to imagine living in under martial law or to think of state controlled population management as a realistic possibility. But I do wonder if we've lost a healthy suspicion of people in uniforms that this series helps to re-enforce.

I wondered if, in contrast to the major theme of nuclear-age post-apocalyptic nightmare, there's was also a minor theme of survivalist wish-fulfilment. There seemed to be a happy promise in a dream of starting over with human culture and civilisation. We would be happy and proud to think of ourselves laying down a new, simpler social order where only the best bits of our learning were carried forward into the re-population of an empty land. As well as all those who retreat into the wilderness to practice their bushcraft skills or hoard essential provisions as an insurance against civilisation's collapse, the pleasure in this dream seems part of the charm of arriving in a new Minecraft world too...

Finally, also on a lighter note, I thought this drama provides a kind of grim nostalgia for a lost Britain too. As well as all the smoking and the drab streets and pubs, there were old fashioned attitudes that seemed to slip past unremarked (but would hopefully be challenged today). I noticed especially the casual sexist gender stereotyping and a naturally assumed intellectualism or class arrogance. These may have been even stronger in Wyndam's 1951 than the progressive BBC of 1981, but perhaps it's a small sign we've been travelling in the right direction.

The Cave of Shadows, Seizing Truth

I've been listening to old podcasts of BBC Radio 4's religious debate program Beyond Belief, and I was struck by one from 9 January 2012 on mysticism (with Zoe Bran and Shaunaka Rishi Das and David Luke, experts on shamanism, Hinduism and psychology respectively).

It seems mystical insight can be defined by a set of experiences that are commonly reported together: a sense of timelessness; insight into a truer reality beyond that which we normally experience; the sense of self identity dissolving; an apprehension of the connectedness of all things; and a sense that everything's alive with a vital essence. Whilst traditionally these have been associated with religion, with the mystic believing they are coming into a divine presence, it seems more recently there's been a strong dissociation from a specific doctrine. Branches of the New Age and pagan or shamanic revival movements spring to mind, which some use as a license to read deeper insight into their experiences on psychoactive drugs (whilst others reject these as offering a way to reach genuine insights). But I'm also thinking of specific people including Eckhart Tolle and the individual interviewed on the programme. Tolle seems to avoid pinning his insights on one religion, and the interviewee categorically stated that his experience cut across religions.

I was also struck by the feature of mystical experience, which I'd associate with enlightenment too, that sounds like the classical allegory of the Cave of Shadows: reality is not as we normally perceive it; there is a 'higher' or truer nature of existence of which 'all this' is just a shadow. That view also fits with the Christian insight that's something like: now we see through a glass darkly, then we shall meet face to face.

I remain very sceptical that there's a literal deep truth in this insight. Using Occam's Razor, it's easier to explain this type of mystical experience, with its subjective force, as a trick of the mind - like a psychoactive trip. However... it seems also to point at something that's valuable, because it is so powerful to those who experience it, which is also cherished by their followers. It also does have a kind of literal truth to it in that the 'truest' description of reality is the scientific account of the properties of matter explaining what we experience. This says appearance, touch, scent etc are mostly about interactions in the uncertain world of electrons and photons. I really don't think that's what Plato, Buddha and the apostle Paul meant they'd realised though.

So for their enlightened insights, let's look to philosophy rather than the natural sciences. Thinking specifically of Descartes and Hume asking what they really knew to be true - just that there's an intangible empty point of consciousness that is me, which is the focal point of all these perceptions, memories, rational thoughts, emotions and dreams. Those cognitive artefacts are changeable, and unreliable. Yet they are the only access we have to the reality that's 'out there' (as that which is not 'me'). Still, we are justifiably confident in our naive internal models of reality. They allow us to interact and get by in the world and with others. We are also able to challenge, test and build on all those internally generated concepts to construct less naive models, which can then do more explanatory 'lifting' - enabling increasingly sophisticated technological advances and psychologically insightful artistic or social expressions.

So perhaps for those mystics and enlightened few, their subjective experience is another way to break out of the naive survival mode of thought and gain a more valuable 'direct access', which brings a new understanding of the relation between the self and the world, and the living connectedness of all things. The way such insight shakes the roots of sanity maybe a necessary price to pay. But it still seems to me something worth leaving oneself open to at least...

Journaling Changes

This is a new start for journaling, in a New Year, and the first topic I was thinking writing about is religious faith. I think my personal attitude about it may be changing, from that of strict 'fundamentalist' atheism to something very recognisable by the Quakers and Western Buddhists who I've spent time with, and I want to reflect on that.

I was thinking this morning of the Creed - I don't believe in a creator god at all, I don't believe Christ was a unique embodiment of an eternal divinity, nor that it is his death that promises redemption for all his followers. I don't believe in the virgin birth, the miracles or the resurrection. However... I do feel a cultural familiarity with Christianity and the gospel. I feel that to denounce my Christian upbringing (as an unquestioning child then an earnest teenager) would be to renounce a family member, to betray something others (especially a grandmother and an influential kind teacher and vicar's wife) trusted me with.

Now, Quakers may be just the place for people with that 'sitting on the fence' attitude, who want to hedge their bets. However, there's much more to Quakerism, I believe, than just saying "well, that patriarchal Hebrew and Popish stuff is a bit too hard for us to swallow whole, but there's some nice stories about lions and lambs which might have something in them." I doubt many see Quaker meetings as an undemanding, non-hypocritical way to play Pascal's gamble: "if I at least pray a bit to a vaguely defined god and it does all turn out to be literal truth, I'll save myself from an eternity of suffering." No, I think Quakerism is something much more affirmative, positive and valuable: we all have direct, personal access to a common divine 'thing' that's real. That 'light' gives us comfort, helping us to endure the hardships and to savour and cherish the everyday. It also gives us a moral compass and motivation, so we can see and are impelled to do that which makes the world a bit better - reducing violence, greed and inequality.

Quakers, and I think others of a similar spiritual outlook from all faiths, would stress that the divine is something naturally within everyone. That's aligns with my understanding of the Buddhist and Zen idea that we all have the capability of enlightenment within ourselves. Once you accept that, you treat others, even your 'enemies', with a respect that leads to tolerance, generosity and a preparedness to work through differences. Quakers and Buddhists would also both look to gathered silence or the calming of meditation as the way to access and recognise that light within.

So I'd recognise what people mean by the inner Buddha self, and perhaps that constant current compassionate presence of Christ, as being a way of describing or expressing that calm, reassuring, world-connected sense of something that worth cultivating within our hearts.

That does lead me to wonder whether relativism has to hold here, even if it's directly incompatible with science. I wonder if there's also necessarily an inner demon or Satan that we may have to deal with too. Also, I'd ask what it means for the doctrines of loss of self in Buddhism, translated I think into the defeat of the ego by New Age Western Buddhists or mystics like Alan Watts and possibly Eckhart Tolle.