Why Archy beats Anarchy

The function of a law, a rule or a moral is not to erradicate totally the behaviour against which it proscribes but rather to reduce the probability that the majority of society faces of becoming a victim of that particular behaviour to such a low degree that it becomes more reasonable, from a cost/benefit basis, on the part of any given individual member of that society to forgo taking prohibitive precautions against such an occurence in their day to day lives.

Boy, that was a long sentence.

What I want to express, but perhaps have not done so well enough is to highlight that as a member of a 'lawful' society I do not need to become expert in say some defensive/offensive discipline - such as fencing or shooting or a martial art - because the penalties I will incur in terms of the time invested and risk of injury involved in their pursuit is no longer outweighed by a reducement of the risk of injury and death from - I don't know - a duel for example, or a mugging.

In being a member of a society where such an option exists - ie. paying through taxation for a judiciary system and accepting the governmental veto on my expressing dissatisfaction through direct violence against another person or persons - I incur less penalty than would be entailed by having to aquire the skills and equipment necessary to maintain a reasonable degree of protection within a society without such an externalized system.

However, in realising that no level of judical control - at least a level that would be acceptable in a 'free' society - will ever totally erradicate the threat of violence, loss or injury, and by refusing to take direct responsibility for either their own [absolute] protection or that of others, any individual member of that society must accept their complicity in the effective sponsoring of 'sacrificial offerings' in the form of the people who actually do roll snake-eyes and become the latest statistic on the evening news, if that sacrifice could have been prevented by the acceptance of stricter curtailments on individual freedom by the members of that body politic or a society-wide [and equally shouldered] investment in self-defence.

Those statistics on the news, the lost boys, the chalk outlines on the street, the wounded hookers - they are the price of conscience we [willingly or unwittingly] pay to maintain a both balance of personal freedom from governmental scrutiny and intervention in our private and public lives, and the luxury of non-acceptance for our own welfare.

We forget this at the peril of totalitarianism.

Laws and moral-codes can also be seen to operate as markers dilineating the topography of benefits incurred either by the individual(s) at the expense of a wider group loss, or benefit to the group en toto - embodied within its given form of governence - at the expense of the individual(s) subject to it.

It doesn't have to be a zero sum game - ideally, a good law should aim to keep the expression of a particular human behaviour set within a range such that it benefits both the individual and the social system playing host to that individual.

If that is impossible it should aim at least attempt to curtail the extremity of its expression to a limit where the expense incurred either to the social system or individuals effected by such behaviour (but not benefitting from it), is tolerable, preferably negligible.

For example "the holding, expression, and discussion of different beliefs and ideas amongst individuals."

This carries an attendant behavioural range: One end of this range being freedom of speech, and debate, at the other is repression, violence, murder, vendetta and war.

The laws affixed to this range should aim to keep a given society tolerant enough to stimulate productivity both technologic and spiritual - whilst acting as a buffer against the social-cohesion destroying consequences of fanatacism.

...Continued...

Good Butterfly, Bad Butterfly.

The following was inspired by the film I just saw: The Day the Earth stood still - the 2008 remake with Keanu Reeves - not the 50's classic. Not the worst film I've seen this year, but Jesus H. Christ, philosophically, that film was cheese. And not even good cheese.

Anyway - spoilers - in the end Klaatu [the incarnate son of the sphere-god] sacrifices himself on the cross, er, sphere once again to save humanity [in which he has found some goodness, or at least noble self sacrifice for one's child, or at least PC WASP sacrifice for genetically unrelated black kid - ie: altruism of the non "it doesn't count if it's kin-selection" kind] from the klutches of the vengeful old-testament GORT er, God, er, GORT.

So far so Americanized Post-Christian NewMyth™.

And then, presumably to ensure mankind doesn't fall back into a state of 'evil-world-destroying-exploitativenessnessness' the very biblical plague of nano-locusts eat all our technology, reducing us back to default noble-savagery.

Gee. Thanks. Hyper-intelligent alien zoo-keepers. Duh.

"Just give us a chance" the heroine-scientist says - through tear-stained eyes, clutching the doll-like object of her "proof-there-is-hope-for-humankind" altruism to her diminutive bosom...

...And !POOF! the lights go out. Now we'll be good. Because we 'have a good side' - just like the butterfly above. We can be "good".

Just like that. Poof.

What a fucking great steaming pile of self-deception.

I saw some butterflies yesterday. A very peculiar species. They have two phenotypes - one black, one white. The Black ones are evil. They'll bite you and steal your children, turn them into little butterfly bootees for winter-wear. The White ones, they are good - lotta work for charity, pull you out of an earthquake fallen building, fix your car. Nice. Shudderingly so.

You put them in a jar, isolate them, and they die, all of them. Strange. Then I had an idea, I painted some of the rooms in my house black, and some white. Then I released the butterflies from the jar.

They dispersed in all directions. Randomly, or near as damnit.

The kitchen was jet. The white butterflies all dropped dead in there within hours. The blacks settled down on the lustrous noir and bred. The bathroom was white - there the opposite occurred - it soon dripped with niceness - I never had to wipe my own bottom for as long as the white butterflies were there. Bless. Had to eat take-out though, the blacks kept poisoning the contents of the fridge. Bastards.

The question though is of course...

Why is the kitchen evil and the bathroom good..? Is it the fault of the butterflies..? Did they choose..?

Nah, the enviromental conditions pre-existing to their introduction dictated it. When everything around you is black, when everyone around you is black of heart, you'd better blend my friend, blend. Blend or die.

And this is what Klaatu and the whole extra-terrestrial-sphere-crew forgot in their rush to archive the Earth and erradicate the naughty monkies.

Because when the place in which you live is black and white, but you don't know exactly where you'll land...

...The other day as I was walking past the evil kitchen, on my way to the good bathroom I was surprised to see a grey.

No, not the alien kind.

A grey butterfly, meandering about. Curious, I followed it. It headed toward the kitchen and alighted on the (black) tabletop. All around the evil black butterflies rustled malevolently. Instantly, the grey turned black. And so survived.

I soon saw another, this time it landed on the rim of the bath next to me. The nearby whites all chirruped and sang happy motivational songs. Instantly, the grey turned white.

And this is us. This little grey butterfly. Ready, willing (and able) to do whatever is required, be whatever is required by the prevailing situation, wether enviromental, or social, to survive. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, all life - human, Klaatuan or other, must be like this - because those that don't, overcome by those that do - do not persist.

Evil for evil's sake alone, is always erradicated by the outraged masses, every pretty-cheerleader-shower-mutilation-victim always has a brother/father/mother/uncle.

Goodness - goodness of the spastic, reflexive kind - is exploited, bottled, and enslaved by those very same masses, even though they constantly sing its praises. And why not..? - it's like finding oil in your back yard - if you don't use it, someone else will.

"But life's not so Black and White" I hear you say...

Aha.

No, you're right - it's not. But when push comes to shove - we soon make it that way.

I left a spot in the kitchen a sparkling white - just as a control experiment - and yes, for a while, a few ardent white butterflies toughed it out amongst all those blacks. They were a little constrained for space, but still served as a shining white beacon of hope in those dark, dark times.

For a while.

But you see, soon the blacks got crowded too, the kitchen is only so large. And soon the wingtips of the blacks closest to the white section overlapped the divide. Extending the blackness inward, ever so slightly. This increase in turn meant more blacks could edge along the velvet dark, riding on the wings beneath. Every day more and more of the whiteness disappeared. And soon, black ruled without challenge.

[Btw. The colours are dicated by convention, not by rabid racism on my part. If you like, substitute polkadots for black and stripes for white. I don't care.]

ie: Although the enviroment provides the spur toward goodness/badness - the two traits themselves have a momentum of their very own, which should not be forgotten.

That said then, was Klaatu right..? Do humans have a 'good' side, which can be brought out in times of crisis..?

Er. Yes and no. Yes humans have a good side, but no, it is not brought out by crisis. The only thing that survives a crisis is that which did whatever it had to to survive the crisis. Maybe that involved nice things like bucket chains and singing and helping old ladies out of the rubble. But maybe it didn't, maybe it involved beating your friend to death for his water-bottle and then eating his liver.

Depends on the situation: The blitz for example. Everyone was nice to each other. Why..? They were all equal, because the bombs were a random force, impossible to influence. It could have been anyone's house that got bombed, so everyone helped everyone regardless of ties so that everyone would continue to help everyone, regardless of ties. Shared and inescapable threat produces niceness - just so long as that threat cannot be influenced or sided with to individual beneficiary effect.

But, if you're alone in the desert, or in a lifeboat with not enough water, and a very-very low chance of rescue - then eating your buddy is de-rigueur. Some situations demand niceness, some not-so-niceness.

And, I'm afraid, leaving poor old mankind without its technology... Is the second kind of crisis - the buddy-eating one.

Stupid Aliens. If they'd really wanted to make humanity nice, they should have taken away its reasons to be nasty. Territory, and energy. Our two eternal bug-bears.

So, Aliens, if you're listening. Don't get all GORT on our asses, we're just like you. Give us instead free, clean and abundant vaccuum energy, spaceships that go faster than the pieces of crap we have at the moment, and terraforming technology.

Then we promise we'll be good. Honest.

...Continued...

The Book of Nothing

Notes on "The Book of Nothing" by JD Barrow.

Pg.15: Base ten comes from fingers. Some advanced cultures in history have had base 20 - fingers and toes (three score years and ten, quatre-vignts, quatre-vingt-dix etc.) - some less so 2 or 5.

One noticable one was base 8 an American Indian counting system depending on the gaps between the fingers rather than the fingers themselves.

A Turkish system for remembering differences in month length also counts the gaps and the knuckles of two clenched fists on top of each other - the knuckles being 31 days the gaps less than 31. July/August skip across from the last knuckle of one fist to the first knuckle of the other.

Also relics such as time - base sixty - and angles, degrees - 360. A gross, a dozen eggs.

Pg. 20: Counting system of early Sumer had base ten, but also base 60 as a secondary - from this comes our tradition of time-keeping.

Pg.19: Egyptian counting symbols do not carry numerical information related to position - ie: a particular number's symbol in position X, relative to other symbols, equals exactly the same even should that number's symbol be switched to position Y.

Without "position related numerical information", a blank entry in a composite number need never be marked, and thus a zero never be needed. ie: 11=two cf: 11= eleven --> 1_ = 1 = one cf: 1_ = 10 = ten.

cf: pictographic languages - they do not need blanks between 'words' to convey meaning because each pictograph's meaning is isolate of any other, and individual letters and spelling are not integral concepts.

Pg.25: Positional/placevalue system (a natural progression in efficiency - fewer characters required to write the same number) first appeared in Babylonia in about 2500bc (cuneiform notation - additive base 60).

Pg.27: For Babylonians - the Zero was really simply a 'spacer', they [as far as is known] attached no other deeper philosophic meaning to the concept of 'nothing'. Also it was never used as a 'result' ie: 1-1=0, such a thing was always explained in words.

Pg.39: AD200-458: The Indians (decimal counting system) take the idea of a zero spacer (a dot, rather than the modern 'O') and develop it into a more philosophic signifier of 'nothingness'. They also develop arithmatic - subtraction, multiplication and division and through division by zero, infinity.

"sunya" or "shunya" indian word for "void".

Pg.42: Indian culture, posessing as it did/does an array of conceptualization of nothingness/emptiness were ready to accept the true zero without major realignments of philosophy.

Hebrew traditions view the concept of 'void' with utter repugnance - to them void signified a state of being separate from God, removed from his favours.

Greek philosophies, and their high respect for logic led to an aversion toward the zero as a paradox - 'something' pertaining to be 'nothing' - or simply treating 'nothing' as if it were 'something'.

ie: Assholes.

Pg.49: 900AD - Indian zero - sunya - adopted by Arabic world - translates to 'as-sifr' meaning "empty" or "absence of anything". Passes into English as "cipher"meaning originally 'nothing' or as an insult "nonentity".

Pg.51: "theca"meaning "little circle" referred to the circular zero symbol branded into the cheeks and foreheads of criminals in the middle ages.

Pg.56: Infinity: Most scientists believe infinities are never physically manifest - if they appear in a calculation they simply imply that the theory involved has run up against the limits of its validity (the range of values it can be usefully used to describe cf. Newton with Relativity with Quantum) and that a new theory must be found to replace the mathematical infinity with a finite measurable quantity.

Pg.166: The empty set. How all numbers can be defined using absolutely nothing:

Define zero as the empty set: Ø because it holds no members.

Then define "1" as the set which holds one member - the empty set - {0} ie. {Ø}and "2" as the set which holds {0,1} ie: {Ø,{Ø}} and "3" as the set which holds {0,1,2} ie: {Ø,{Ø},{Ø,{Ø}}}
... ad infinitum.
The null set can define all the rest. Nothing becomes something - Think of nothing. Think of thinking about nothing. Think about thinking about thinking about nothing... The 'nothing' becomes a definable object. A foundation.
Pg.59 God: European christianity tried to wed the two conflicting ideas of divine creation - Greek "god as architect moulding the world from pre-existant materials" with the Jewish "creation from nothing".

Pg.60: "horror vacui" a morbid aversion to nothingness. Seems to be a human trait, all cultures elaborately decorate empty spaces.

Pg.63: Empedocles - water catcher experiment - early vaccuum discovery. 2000 years later Torricelli gives correct explanation. (first made the mercury tube manometer)

Pg.71: Moslem art shows appreciation of the concept of infinity - repeated patterns - no blank space could be left empty - all 'voids' were filled.

Pg.74: Augustine proposes God created time as well along with the world - sidestepping any 'beginning' or 'before' problems with scripture.

Pg.99: AD1643 Mercury is used in barometers because it is the densest liquid (14x more than H2O) - reducing the length of the tube. Torricelli. There is a limit (dependent on density of medium) on the height a liquid can be raised by a vaccuum pump. Air pressure bearing down on the mercury at sea-level = 76mm of Hg.

Pg.142: Disproving the concept of 'ether'. (An invisible medium through which all light, heat and electromagnetic waves propagate. Pronounced "eether" with the "th" as in the word "thought," ether was postulated from the 1600s to the 1800s. Newton/Newtonian physics)
1881 Michelson's experiment (beams of light at 90 degrees - if out of sync at return -> interference bands) shows no evidence of stationary ether.

Pg.145: FitzGerald-Lorentz shrinkage (things contract lengthwise related to their speed eg. 500km/hr = contraction of 0.000000000001%) ie small but effective at very high speeds. It was discovered that this contraction would mask the effect of 'ether' slowing one of the beams of light - so stationary ether was back online as a possibility.

Pg.147: Einstein 1905 - Relativity. All motion is relative:

*The laws of motion and electromagnetism must be found to be the same by all experimenters moving at constant velocities relative to one another.
*The velocity of light in empty space must be measured to be the same by all observers regardless of their motion.

The concept of ether becomes unecessary to explain properties of light and electricity. Einstein took Michelson's experiment as his inspiration.

Pg.155: Geometry. Euclid's plane geometry is a good example of localization - ie. in a small enough area the natural curvature of the earth is negligible, and so Euclid's [and at the time supposedly the only logically consistant ie: Absolute truth] geometric laws adequately describe/predict reality. However, expand the area involved and the curvature does become a factor, and so non-euclidean geometries are required.**

People were so impressed by this 'axiomatic method' (definition>axiom>theorem>proof) that even some philosophers - for example Spinoza - laid out their propositions in the same way. Gimic.

**But Carl F Guass (1777 - 1855) discovered that it was perfectly possible to construct other non-euclidean self-consistant geometries, that worked just as well, except for non-planar surfaces.

Working rules of thumb relating points and lines on curved surfaces were also worked out waaaaaay before the mathematicians got their grubby little paws involved, by potters guilds, for illustrating pottery accurately. Which is funny.

Pg. 180: Gravity - gravity acts on all forms of mass and energy. Gravity itself gravitates - Waves of gravity spread - rippling the curvature of space - carrying energy that in turn acts as a source for its own gravity field. Gravity interacts with itself in a way that light does not.

Pg.182: visualizing the universe. Imagine a stack of holographic cards. Any particular card represents the state of the universe at any instant of time. Now simply weld those cards into one. Et voila.

Pg.205: Lambda. Introduced by Einstein as a new "cosmological" constant. Representing a force opposite to that of gravity (an [attractive] force between two masses which decreases with distance - following Newton's inverse square law) lambda being a [repulsive] force that increased in proportion to the distance between two masses. Balancing out gravity and providing a 'static' universal model - one neither collapsing of expanding eternally. [see pg.273.]

Friedmann finds other solutions saying that a static model is inherrently unstable unless spacetime is absolutely smooth with regard to density. The final expanding universe model becomes standard. 1929 confirmed by observation. (All distant galaxies show a red shift proportional to their distance from the earth as a result of the general expansion of space-time )

Pg.207: Quantum physics 101:

* Energy is quantised: in atoms it doesn't take on all possible values but hikes itself up and down a ladder of specific multiples of h - planck's constant () -




because values of energy between divisions of h do not allow for a whole number of wavelengths to fit within an orbit.

** All particles act as if they were a wave with a wavelength inversely proportional to their mass and velocity. As objects increase in mass, their quantum wavelengths 'shrink' to ranges contained within the boundaries of their physical size, masking any wave-like properties. If the mass of a "particle" is low enough that the quantum wavelength exceeds the boundaries of the particle's physical size, then these intrinsic wavelike properties become dominant - producing novel behaviour.

Get small enough and you cannot measure both mass and velocity with any meaningful accuracy. But probability math gets around this, kinda. Identity holds, we just can't meaningfully examine it.

Pg.209: Erwin Schrödinger and Max Born - Schrödinger's equation describes the probability we will obtain result X from quantum experiment Y. Wave function. The equation preserves determinism at the quantum level - but not at the level of appearances - by providing accurate predictions over time of a pattern of outcomes, some more probable than others.

Pg.210: Planck constant constrictions on energy levels preserve the uniformity of matter - if all energy levels were universally permitted - then each atom, each molecule would be - being effected, on however miniscule a level, by their histories - subtly different, allowing no predictable interaction,
and no life.
Pg.216: No system is ever completely devoid of energy, no vaccuum ever absolute. Thus the definition of vaccuum changes to "the emptiest possible state, the lowest possible energy - the state from which no more energy can be removed". This then becomes the ground state, or vaccuum state. But it is never zero. This is in concordence with the uncertainty principle. ie. if we knew the location of a particle oscillator exactly (as we would, if we removed all its energy and made it still, or at least as still as possible), its energy will still be uncertain - varying by ½hf (one quantum of energy) or zero point motion.
Pg. 273: A non-zero value for Lamda (the lowest state of energy in a vaccuum) results in "vaccuum energy" - inferred from supernovae observations as 10 to the -120th power. [Can be demonstrated by Casimir plates - so close that there are more zero-point fluctuations outside them than in, providing a (very small) inward pushing force].
Pg.222/3: Sonoluminescence. Bombard water with soundwaves - air bubbles form which very quickly contract then disappear in a flash of light. Contracting bubble-walls act like mini-casimir plates..?
Ships at sea, rolling on swells [the wavelengths of which are much longer than the distance between the two ships], side by side in time - the rocking motion of the ships caused by their hulls' absorbance and re-transmission of wave energy can create out of sync wave patterns between them, which cancel each other out - producing an 'energy vaccuum' in the gap as each hull radiates wave energy effectively outward, but not inward - effectively thrusting them together. For example two 700 ton Clippers would have an attractive force of about 2000 kg generated between them.
Pg.226: Solidity and superpositions. How, if an object is mainly empty space with an very small amount of actual matter flying around within it, be solid..? ie. every inquisitive prod being met by resistance at the boundary of a certain volume.
Probabilities. The boundary of a 'solid' object forms naturally at the point where the probability of a resistance generating particle/force being met reaches levels of near certainty. Think of a piece of string being whirled so fast it blurs into a disc. It's still only ocupiying a fraction of the volume, but spin it fast enough and it would deflect anything trying to penetrate the area of its arc.
Pg.227-229: Quantum particles and 4 forces.
Graviton: A massless [therefore having infinite range] particle carrying the gravitic force in exchange. Acts on every particle, even itself.
Photon: A massless [therefore having infinite range] particle carrying the electromagnetic force in exchange. Acts on any particle possessing an electric charge.
W+, W-, and Z° intermediate vector bosons [massive - 90 times heavier than a proton - and the force they mediate has a finite range 100 times less than the radius of an atomic nucleus]: they carry weak interaction forces that act on Leptons (Greek - "light ones") - electrons, muons, tauons and associated neutrinos.
Gluons: Mediate in exchange the strong force (binds atoms into distinct objects) which has a range of about the size of the radius of the largest atomic nuclei. Acts on Quarks (three of which constituate a proton) possessing three 'colours' of an electric charge analogue. The strong force or colour force acts on every particle that carries a 'colour' charge. They are 90 times less massy than bosons.
At least for now, leptons and quarks seem to be the elementary particles - possessing no apparant internal structure.
Note: Dark Matter (the 'missing' matter from the universe) is thought to be carried by 'sterile neutrinos:
Scientists have discovered that neutrinos have mass through neutrino oscillation experiments. This led to the postulation that "sterile" neutrinos exist - also known as right-handed neutrinos. They do not participate in weak interactions directly, but do interact through their mixing with ordinary neutrinos. The total number of sterile neutrinos in the universe is unclear. If a sterile neutrino only has a mass of a few kiloelectronvolts (1 keV is a millionth of the mass of a hydrogen atom), that would explain the huge, missing mass in the universe, sometimes called "dark matter". Astrophysical observations support the view that dark matter is likely to consist of these sterile neutrinos.
Pg.233-6. Virtual pairs. (unobservable)
Quantum vaccuums are never empty - they are a sea of elemetary particles and their antiparticles constatly appearing and anihilating each other quicker than anything can detect them.
For example - a positron and electron appear - tot. mass 2m - 'borrowing' (e=mc²) 2mc² from available vaccuum energy resevoir to manifest themselves - and anihilate - returning 2mc² again. If there time of existance is so small as to not obey the uncertainty principle - (Energy time)
- their existance will be unobservable - hence the term 'virtual pairs'.
However, they still have effect. Possessing charges, they are attracted to, and surround real particles of the opposite charge, acting like padding. (Vaccuum polarisation).
During low energy collisions between real particles, deflections are shallow and slight, because the two point charges never come close, the padding of each gently pushes each away from the other. But in high energy collisions, deflections are shaper, more intense, because the padding has little effect, and the two bare point charges interact. ie: in a high energy enviroment effective electromagnetic interactions become stronger and stronger - it is not a linear progression.
Same principle effects quarks and colour charges - save that the strong force becomes effectively weaker at higher energies.
Pg.237: Asymptotic freedom. The above means that at very high temperatures - 10 to the 27th degrees Kelvin - all the forces become equal in strength. A grand unification.
In the beginning everything was simpler, then as the universe cooled, the forces separated and everything got complex.
Pg.240: Evaporating black holes. Virtual pairs materializing near enough the event horizon of a black hole to have one of the pairs sucked in prior to mutual anihilation, and one of the pair to 'escape' and persist long enough to become 'real' means that the so-called black holes are not black bodies, but radiative bodies.
It also means, because the energy 'borrowed' by the virtual pairs from the local surroundings - in this case the gravitic well of the black hole - is not returned, that the black hole will gradually evaporate away, its energy spent on the creation of new elememtary particles.
Pg.247: Symmetry breaking and critical thresholds. Laws of nature are unerringly symmetrical - they must appear the same to any and all observers in the universe. However, this does not mean that the outcomes of these laws cannot be asymmetrical. Magnetization for example - at high temperature, a metal bar can maintain a stable minima (lowest energy state possible given external conditions) without a polarization/direction. However, below a critical temperature, two stable minima arise - N/S or S/N - only one of which any particular metal bar can adopt.
Cf. Phenotypic canalization.
Pg.249-52: Scalar Fields and universal expansion rates. (hypothetical aid to visualisation) These are fields which have only one atribute. Imagined en toto as a pendulum having two energy components - kinetic, from motion and potential, from location.
Anyway, not too important in detail, the thing to remember is stable states of vaccuum energy with respect to background temperature. ie: an (oscillating) scalar field in a high temperature universe inhabits a single stable 'valley' vaccuum minima. But subsequent lower temperatures means that a scalar field swings up and over the dividing 'rises' between its old stable minima valley, into an adjoining, lower one. And again, and again, with periods of prolonged stability in between.
If the transition between minima is slow - imagine a ball rolling gently, but inevitably, down a rounded-stepped pyramid - this produces an 'anti-gravitic' effect, pushing matter apart, which drives universal expansion at a [vastly] accelerated rate.
Pg.253: Uniformity in the visible universe. Why scalar-field/vaccuum minima-accellerated expansion is absolutely critical to life.
(Visible space - we cannot see further than a distance of about 15 billion light years - ie the distance light has travelled since the beginning of the expansion of 'our' part of the universe.)
(Wherever we look into visible space its temperature and intensity is the same to a tolerance of 1/100,000. However, as it stands presently, the universe is too large to have been traversed by light - so how did this standardization come about..?)
A period of accelerated expansion, beginning very early on in the general expansion of the universe, means that small areas of that infant universe, small enough such that their properties could have been 'standarized' by the transmission of light, could expand to areas of greater magnitiude than visible space at the present time.
These inflations of limited area also serve to iron-out irregularities in space-time, producing a near uniform flatness. However, remaining quantum uncertainty fluctuations (teeny-tiny origionally but expanded out into macroscopic scales during inflation) in the vaccuum so produced act like seed crystals, causing matter to acrete around them. ie: planets, suns and life.
Our universe appears to be expanding at a rate very, very close to the dividing line between a state of eternal expansion and an eventual contraction. The chances of this situation occuring are astronomically small btw.
(note - explained by anthropic principle).
Pg.274. Residual Lambda force (energy level above zero in vaccuum) is equal to 10 to the power -120. This is an extremely low number, but one absolutely critical to the formation of planets/life. A case of no more or no less will suffice.
Doom..? We may not have reached the lowest minima for Lambda. Perhaps we are on the edge of another shelf. If the value for L changes, we are completely fucked. Completely, totally and irrevocably. Fucked.
Pg.278-86: Summary of String theory. (Too long for here).
Pg.296: Theology - schisms of "creation from nothing" and "creation from existing materials".
Pg.304. Roger Penrose's argument for a temporal starting point, and an infinitely dense big-bang, assuming a strict Einsteinian universe.
Pg.308..311: New theory - Bouncing, ever larger universes.
Lambda - turns (too short-lived for life) bouncing universes of a size large enough for its anti-gravitic properties to produce eternal expansion into universes that can support life. Also however, this expansion guarrentees that universe's eventual lifeless uniform entropic state.
Eternal expansion also eventually means isolation and difficulty of information exchange. At the point where everything is moving away from everything else [effectively] at the speed of light no information transmission can be undertaken. The bubble of communication shrinks and shrinks.
Black Swan saviour. In an infinitely long time, anything not absolutely impossible will come to pass.

...Continued...

Why Modern Man is such a Hopeless Fucking Dope.

I'm probably not alone in observing that modern man doesn't really hold up much of a candle when compared to the likes of the old heroes - Beowulf strips down to his tattoos and single handedly boots Grendel's arse back into his mother's crevice, Achilles hacks off arms without breaking a sweat; hell, even James Bond still manages to kick some butt despite having being made to put a lid on the sexist remarks and grow a fledgling social conscience.

Even if we take off the rosey-tinted sunglasses with respect to the past of man, and admit that for every Beowulf in a society there were a couple of hundred thousand wannabes who didn't know which end of a sword was which, couldn't hold their mead and lost fights with their wives, that still leaves an unexplained gap in modern society where some hyper-testosteroned epitomy of broad-shoulded masculinity should be. I mean, name a modern true-blue, unequivocal HERO, without stain or tarnish..?

So what happened..? Did the collective male population of the West just get up one morning and just say to themselves: "Fuck it, I'm gonna wear the pink one." ..? Did the feminists slyly Bobbit the whole lot of us while we were sleeping..? Something in the water..? Other..?

I think it's a double whammy - a combo of Human nature on the one hand - the simple consequences of being a social animal projected through time, added to the recursive effects of techno/socio-economic evolution.

The trouble is, our archetypes make themselves redundant: The classic warrior, the conqueror phenotype, if he follows his nature successfully - and creates a safer world in which his children may prosper - becomes inevitably the 'inventor/creator' of a society in which a lesser example of the extreme he himself represents can succeed. And in doing so, becomes obselete, becomes more than enough, surplus to requirement. Imagine a knight in full armour, toting a 5-foot broadsword, getting on the bus to go to work. Okay, I suppose he'd be guarrenteed a seat, but then chivalry would demand he relinquish it to the nearest damsel.

Is he then, not to fight..? Not to struggle to tame his enviroment..? Despite this knowledge that after the act of taming, of stabillization, he will remain a dangerous relic - the one sword yet to become a ploughshare..?

Not really a choice is it, if he doesn't, someone else will.

Stable societies arising from a long enough 'peace' are self-fulfilling prophecies, for, after the dust has settled, only they persist.

So - Man will always spiral gently into less extreme forms, and women safer, less at threat in this brave but less muscle-requiring new world, will free themselves from the cloister and expand, unfurl their wings. The socio-sexual delineations will blur.

Just as a shell is the bio-technological extention of the snail, and the dam and the lake it creates is the phenotypic extension of the beaver - the car or the gun is equally the extention of the human. In short, for the human species, technological evolution is just as natural, if a little speedier, as genetic evolution.

We are the tool-making apes, take away our hammers, and you take away our humanity.

The archetype of the human inventor, just as the conquerer, is also an almost unwitting intermediary in the progression of technological evolution, and if he does his job well, also sows the seeds of his own era's redundancy, as strength of arm gives way to projectile, fleetness of foot gives way to speed of hoof, and later turn of tyre.

ie: The [technological] levelling of the sexes, with regard to physicality, is a natural outcome of being human. A side-effect almost, of man's natural instinct to augument his - and her - physical capabilities. It was always going to happen, it was just a matter of time.

Technology has tamed the lands where we could not live, or tamed/exterminated those who would not allow us to live there, at the price, if you wish to put it that way, of taming us in turn.

Domestication. Domesticate. Domicile. Domus. House.

We made the world as comfortable as our lounge, not too many sharp-edges, an air-conditioner in every room... Is it any wonder we grew fat and slothful, and let the kids get out of hand..?

But how true is it to say that modern man is a bit of a wimpy big girl’s blouse, and that women are now wearing the pants, having supplanted the male..? Is modern man any less of a man that he used to be..?

It's [far too] easy here, to try to define what attributes and behaviours are 'male' and which are 'female' to give us some footing from which to pass judgement on the degrees of masculinity and femininity that are displayed in the populace of our post-Beowulf society.

So easy in fact it's almost irresistable. And as such serves only to cloud the issue and polarize it's exponents.

A man in a dress is either Scottish, or a drag queen. He is still a man. A man on oestrogen therapy, with breasts and fat depositry patterns in imitation of the female, is still a man. A man who goes further still, and voluntarily has himself castrated, and has reconstructive surgery again to closer imitate the female, is still not a woman.

• All attributes are genderless.
  

My first doubts occurred when I observed children, prior to the differentiating tide of adolescent hormones: They are, apart from the budding genatalia, much the same, in physique and physical capability, as eachother. The games they play are different, but this is a consequence of nurture perhaps, re-inforcing what genetic tendency there may be, of social programming and segregation. However, the behaviors are the same. Little girls jump, little boys jump. Little girls run, little boys run. Little girls play with dolls, little boys play with dolls (abeit ones with scars and guns). Little girls fight, little boys fight, sometimes they fight together.

Most if not all young childrens' games involve co-operative play. They are learning to use their bodies, improving coordination, and learning to act as a group, to achieve a collective goal. Individualistic games, tennis and the like, come later. Come, later and un-naturally if I may go so far.

For children, a little boy on his own, is a sad boy. A little girl on her own, is a sad girl.

ie: Group action and co-operation, is the natural norm for both sexes of the species, not a consequence of some techno-driven social behemoth.

Now, what social strategies do male and female children learn and employ with regard to getting what they want from the adults around them..? Direct confrontation..? No. Rugged individualism..? No. Wheedling, sneaking, coniving, manipulative-play-one-off-against-the-other tactics..? Oh yes. Yes, yes,yes,yes,yes.

ie: Social skills are naturally learned first, by both sexes.

Then comes the change. You know the drill. Bottom line, little boys become stronger and more aggressive than little girls. So, at this stage, the lines of development that for so long ran fairly parallel, separate. Girls continue to learn, develop and polish their childish social (and now also sexual) skills: to influence and gain influence/dominance within a social group into the more mature forms of adulthood.

The boys however, swing away from the development of these skills, to learn how to use, and more importantly control, the new found tools of strength and aggression: to influence and gain influence/dominance within a social group into the more mature forms of adulthood.

ie: the methods may differ, but the goals are the same.

Please note: this diversion of skill-development has this natural result: when an adolescent stops physically changing, and reaches the stable plateau of adulthood, a man is deffeicient in the arena of social/sexual skills when compared with the average woman, and a woman is defficient in the skills of physicality when compared with the average man.

However, whilst strength is an attribute associated with the male. The attribute itself, is genderless. Whilst socio/sexual-manipulation is an attribute associated with the female, The attribute itself, is genderless.

ie: Any woman, if she chooses, may lift heavy things until she can beat the living shit out of Joe Average. Any man, if he chooses, may learn to orate rings around Jane Average. The fact that the upward limit on strength is slightly higher for the male, is inconsequential, unless that male actually persues that limit to its utmost.

ie: strength as a quality, has no intrinsic gender:

- I lift the wife up, say 50 kilos.
- I build a robot, it lifts the wife up, and the baby up too, say 75 kilos.

The machine is stronger than I.

And yet the machine is not a woman, nor a man.

All behavioural strategies are genderless.

In my car, speeding along, I was wondering why the terms 'masculine' gambit/strategy/tactic and 'feminine' gambit/strategy/tactic seemed wrong somehow. This dichotomy bothered me.

Was it a false dichotomy, I wondered. Are there some exclusively male strategies, some exclusively female strategies and whole bunch of in-betweenies..? Genderless..? Available and usable by both sexes, without the baggage of implicit 'femininization' or 'masculinization'.

So I tried to think of a strategy that was completely usable only by a man, or only by a woman.

I failed. They are all, in essence, interchangable.

That surprised me. Then I realaized why.

The flaw lies in the operation of putting the adjective 'Feminine' or the adjective 'Masculine' next to the noun 'Strategy'. They look good together, I'll admit, and that's the problem, they look so fitting, that they decieve.

What is a strategy..?

It is a set of behaviors and actions, undertaken in a fairly strict order, to produce a result, be it at the expense of another or not, always beneficial to the undertaker of the strategy, accordant with their personal criteria.

ie: Action towards desire.

ie: Genderless in essence.

* Though any particular strategy can be instigated and followed through by a male or a female - the successful outcome of this strategy is linked to their individual abillities in the areas relevant.

* A strategy, the success of which is reliant mainly on strength/aggression, will become associated with masculinity, as it is the averagely stronger males who will tend to adopt it through repeated experience. The strategy itself however, as a program of behavior, remains genderless.

* A strategy, the success of which is reliant mainly on social/sexual manipulation, will become associated with femininity, as it is the averagely more socially adept females who will tend to adopt it through repeated experience. The strategy itself however, as a program of behavior, remains genderless.

* Therefore, a male, adopting a strategy/behavioral pattern, the success of which has been previously associated, however exclusively, with the female, does not in reality, become in any way feminized.

* Therefore, a female, adopting a strategy/behavioral pattern, the success of which has been previously associated, however exclusively, with the male, does not in reality, become in any way more masculine.

* The idea that the current social/technological conditions favour the adoption of strategies dependent for their success on skills of traditionally associated with, but not exclusive to, femininity, somehow 'feminizes' the male, is simply a deception of shoddy phrasing.

Let us have an example. Let's make it reasonably modern.

Aim. Get some food (from the supermarket).

Options:

Strategy: Walk to the supermarket.

A man can walk. A woman can walk. Walking is a genderless strategy. Both sexes walk at a pace governed by their physical fitness, and the sensibleness of their foot and leg-wear. Spike-heels will slow you down. As will enormous great biker-boots. But walking is physical. So should we call walking a 'Masculine' strategy perhaps..? Perhaps not.

Strategy: Persuade someone else to get it for you.

Here, let's differentiate wildly.

Sub-strategy: Sexual wiles. Bat your eyes at the nearest person, and say "Look - if you go get me some food, I may consider sleeping with you..."

Sub-strategy: Threat. Bunch your fists at the nearest person and say "Look - if you don't go and get me some food, I'll find you, and beat you to a pulp."

There are variables external to the individual (the size and strength of the other, the attractiveness and sexual orientation of the other), but still, obviously, these are two sub-strategies that have clear associations with the sexes. And the outcome on average is likely to be biased according to the sex of the individual.

But, and it's a big but, both can be attempted by either sex. The actual strategy is not limited to a specific sex. The actual strategy is genderless.

If it's a female wreastler with a bad temper doing the threatening, the strategy has a fair likelyhood of succeeding.

If it's a member of the latest rave boy-band doing the batting, the strategy has a fair likelyhood of succeeding.

So, in summation, given a set of strategies, wether these strategies are social and group-orientated, or individualistic and agressive in nature, undertakable toward a subjectively desired goal, an individual choosing to adopt such, or indeed 'forced' by the current social climate into adopting such, does not diminish or exaggerate their gender.

Men remain men. Women remain women.

Men and women, to succeed, adapt.

Humans adapt.

So, where are we..? At least in my mind, I am sufficiently convinced that our modern-man is not in reality literally feminized (except possibly by all the waste oestrogen floating around in the water-table) by the Western social morés we have today.

This however does leave me with a quandry... If the {forced} adoption of social strategies more usually associated with the female of the species is not to blame... Why is modern man such a confused gibbering heap..?

Allow me to present:

Why Modern Man is such a Hopeless Fucking Dope.

Please allow me a little room for inane generalizations. If it's any help, I am a man, and therefore do have some clue about it.

Man. Man in general is a simple creature. He likes things to be ordered. he likes his catagories, heirarchies and pecking orders, to be relatively inflexible, or at least, predictively flexible. He likes answers, more than questions. He likes the things he has fixed, to stay fixed. He likes procedure, lists of things to be done, and ticks next to each of these stages, signifying that these things have been completed. He likes to have concrete truths, to build on. Things to take for granted. Loose ends niggle and jiggle in his brain and drive him crazy.

Well, at least, they do me.

The trouble with being a man in these modern times, is that no-one tells you when it happens:

"Hey you..! - Yes you boy, you're a man now. Congratulations, here's a badge and can you sign here please...?"

Doesn't happen. At least not in the West. The West has systematically disposed of, derrided, called into question, erroded or otherwise rendered indefinitive every ritual, every rite of passage, every way for a 'man' to become, without an jot of self-doubt or question in his heart, a MAN.

Let's look at how it used to be done.

Biological. - The hairs on your balls. I can't remember exactly, but I think I got my growth-spurt around 13-14, and a set of hairy jiggly bits a little later. My voice went up and down, and finally settled into a distinctly male bass. (Smoking helps with this one kids. )

ie: mid-teens, with the process drawing to its close round about the greatly heralded 18 years of age. All fine and dandy. "I'm 18, I can vote, I've got hairy balls - I'm a man..."

However these days, with the advent of nutritional awareness concerning childrens' diets, a myriad of supplements, children are going through adolescence to become fully sexually mature at increasingly earlier ages. I think the record for child-pregnancy is 9 in the UK. At a guess, I'd say that puts male adolescence around what..? 10..? 11..? 12..?

"Hmm - I've got hairy balls, but I still like cartoons and only just stopped believing in Santa-Claus. Am I... Am I a man..?"

Virginity. - The whole sex thing. To cut a long and hopefully obvious story short, virginity in the west used to be a thing that was assumed to be the normal condition for the majority the young - and, as such, being a virgin carried less stigma than it does today. In the UK, though something not exactly bandied about casually, retaining your virginity into your mid-to-late teens was nothing particularly shaming. The average 'deflowerment' age for the male was again, roughly in line with the age of consent, and the institutional age of adulcy.

ie: back in the day:

" 'Ere, Phil-mate, I ONLY FUCKIN' DID IT LAST NIGHT DIDN'T I..!!!" Slap back, shake hand - Welcome to the world of men.

But these days, well shit, if you didn't lose it at 12, preferably to your 22 year old baby-sitter and her friend at the same time... You're nothing.

Hence you hide it. You brazen it out. "Yeah, course I dun it 'aven't I - d'yer fink amma a puff or summin'..?" says one 13 year old boy to another.

But then, having lied for so long, whenever he finally does 'lose it' he finds there is no-one to tell. He can't tell the girl he's with, because well, being a slapper*, she might get off with his best friend next week, and tell him. He can't tell his mates, because they'll look puzzled, and say "But Terry, I thought you said you lost it to that Russian chick on holiday when you were 12..?" So he finds he has to hide it again. What should be celebrated as a rite of passage, becomes a guilty little secret. Something to be ashamed of. 'Jeeze - I didn't shag a bird until I was 17 for fuck's sake - what kind of man am I..?'

*because nice girls still don't put out, at least in the teenie mindset - ergo, she must be.

[Note: In Turkey it is uncommon, but not unknown, for a father to hire a prostitute for his son when that son reaches the age of consent. Also, an even less common, but again, not completely discontinued, tradition was the hire a "practice bride" for a month before the real wedding... To get the groom 'used' to married life. Not sex particularly, but how to treat a wife, what to expect her to do, and not do etc. ]

Circumcision, and other trails of the knife: In many cultures, wether dubbed by the West as primitive or not, there still exist rituals and rites of manhood. All manner of scarrings, tattooings, tooth-chippings, piercings, hangings, impalings etc. In Turkey it is circumcision. "No big deal" you say, admiring your tanned bell-end, and that is exactly the problem, in the West, it is no big deal.

But in Turkey, it is a very big deal indeed. Second only to marriage. The kid, between the ages of 7 to 10, gets decked out like a walking Christmas tree, and paraded round the town village or city in an open-topped car, or on a horse, or in the East, a camel. Finally outside the house, in the street, the men (and the boy) dance the Harmandela, the dance of men, which the child has been practicing for weeks, and money is pinned onto his robes. Sometimes quite a lot of money.

Then, in a specially-decorated room in the house, on a bed covered in white silk, all the women are ushered out, and the men of the family, the local Imam, and the Sünnetci (qualified for the chopping) gets down to business. A local anaesthetic may or may not be applied, and then... snip. The boy struggles not to cry. The boy's father lifts him up and proclaims to heaven his son is a man. The Imam sanctifies events and seals the ritual.

Boy becomes man. Or at least puts one foot firmly and irrevocably on the road to manhood.

In the West - Little boys compare cocks in the urinals... "Hey, where's your hoody thing..?" "Hoody thing..? Fuck knows - I've never had one."

Clothes: "Clothes maketh the man" they used to say before it became both socially and fashionably unfashionable. Remember little boys and short trousers..? Probably not. I felt pretty damn grown up when I first wore my long-trousers to school somewhere around 12. And my first suit..? Oh-yeah. I'm a man now. Okay - I'm kidding a little. But the fact remains that these days there is no real distinction in dress between young and old, boy and man. Jeans and a Tee-Shirt, de-riguer. Everybody dresses young, everyone, for some reason, dresses poor.

Work: Man goes to work. Your first job used to be a swinging away from your childhood, and a sudden immersion into the hard and sweaty world of manhood. Grim-faced, ham-fisted men lifting heavy shit around, patrician figures scratching marks on ledgers and weighing out other men's fortunes in their gnarled hands. Nowadays, well, you're usually sitting next to Vera, who's not only better than you at the computer-bashing business, but has probably been set to train you up to standard.

From: "Arrr - We'll be 'avin no slackers 'round 'ere boy, lift till yer break yer spine..!"

To: "Hello deary, you couldn't make us a cuppa could you poppet..?"

Nuff said.

Trial by Combat: My Dad had WWII, my Grandad had WWI. War - a sure-fire, never-miss, "become a man or die like a dog" scenario.

Being in a situation of heart stopping terror for a 'just' cause, with a weapon in your hands, someone else's blood on your jacket, and compatriots' lives depending on you will go a long way toward burying the child and exhaulting the man. Wether we like it or not, killing an enemy of the tribe in reasonably fair or at least universally sanctioned combat has always been a signifier of passage into manhood.

Call me black and white, but WWII was the last completely 'morally' justifiable war, with a clear, overpowering, and thoroughly 'evil' opponent.

Vietnam. Yah. The Falklands. Hmm. The Gulf. Kinda. The Gulf II. Oil.

Yes-yes, not as simple as that I know. But essentially still not exactly conflicts in which you can put your hands on your hearts and say were completely snow-white in motive. A WWII veteran's conscience sleeps more easily than that of a Desert Stormer.

Anyway, you could say I suppose that a dangerous occupation goes some way toward providing a substitute for trial by combat - for example: Policeman. Dangerous yes, but no-one likes policemen. Fireman. Manhood at the price of getting burned to death is not all boys' (or their mothers') cup of tea. Lots of jobs have elements of danger yes, but no universal and compulsary trail-by-combat avenue is existant in modern society. Beyond a fight or two at school.

To recap before moving toward a conclusion: -

The current level of social/technological (I don't think you can really separate the two) development has rendered largely useless the traditionally masculine, purely physical/aggression-based strategies of social behavior, closing the male/female divide. And putting the male at a slight, but not irrecoverable disadvantage, as he has to firstly 'unlearn' or repress the redundant tactics of refined aggression aquired in adolescence, and secondly, catch up to the female in the tactics of socio/sexual manipulation.

Now, add to this handicap the observation that the traditional social markers of manhood have been dissolved, and that the biological change into adulcy now comes so early that it is out of sync. with the psychological change from boy into adolescent/adult and you get a horrible mess.

"Am I a man..? Or a boy in a business-suit..?" Something echoed in modern fiction - not constantly perhaps, but certainly often enough.

(I have not presumed to understand the processes of womanhood. I will only say that I believe girls suffer a simular nebulousness regarding their psychological status as woman).

ie: The errosion of traditional gender roles is an ongoing subtext in the societies of the US, the UK, and Western Europe - And if I was going to blame anyone or anything, I'd blame economics, and its henchman - the mass media.

In times of conflict and uncertainty, (capitalist) economic forces emphasize the production of materiél for consumption external to the host society, rather than within. ie. Weapons/supplies. To promote this end it uses the available media to encourage society to 'tighten its belts' - to ignore current (group) hardships for the long-term goal of social re-stabillization, and peace.

However, after a prolonged period of peace, this equation reverses. The Capitalist system, to preserve 'growth' begins to emphasize production for internal consumption by the host society. And again, to promote this, it uses available media to encourage society to 'loosen its belts', to focus on current percieved (individual) hardships, to ignore long-term goals, for short-term satisfactions.

Note: I'm not anthromorphosizing the capitalist system. This process is not a minded thing. It's just a whole bunch of separte people and organizations refining and tweaking the parts of a whole that they cannot see, or at least it does not profit them to see.

This process of manipulating society into a mind-set favourable to consumption is far-reaching and pervasive. A few extrapolations:

- Communal activities are unfavourable to consumption. From a capitalist POV, it is better for everyone to have one of everything, than to share one big one. Think cinema/home cinema. To achieve this state, it becomes necessary to discourage people from going out. Think about the general climate of fear in the USA, and to an extent in the UK too. Is it real..? Or exaggerated..? (However it is just as important for its perpetuity that this fear is not one that can be faced, and overcome. Hence these media-promoted fear objects are at once pervasive but not tangible - 'terror' what does that actually mean..? Where is it..?)

- Selfishness is to be promoted. Do it yourself, don't do it free-gratis for others. Let them buy the things they need to help themselves, themselves.

- Separation of communities into individuals. The conversion of houses into castles, to keep the (imaginary) enemies outside the gates. Locks, alarms, guns, CCTV, security agencies, insurance... All lucrative trades.

- Epicurianism, the easiest way to control a person is to control the availability of his or her vices. And civil control is always a factor in the governance of a peacetime society, without an definitive enemy outside, the herd may begin to see the horns of those in power... To this end, more pastimes for play must be created, more gadgets, more addictions. "Work hard. Play hard my children." A stoic is hard to control because he or she affords the would be controller little leverage in terms of material possessions.

I could go on, but you're smart people, you can see other ramifications for yourselves. Basically - Conflict economy requires unity of society, Peacetime economy, separation.

But - perhaps to the question of gender roles in society the most important is...

- Unisexuality. From a captalist POV it is better to be able sell all products, perhaps in different packaging, to both sexes, for the widest possible market. And since the greatest difference between the sexes is physical, this is the difference that needs to be adressed. Hence the current bodytype trends for the male, well groomed, hairless, thoroughly moisturized, young-looking.

To cut a long story short, and because my wife wants to use the computer (damn this equal society!!!), the thrust of media, to promote consumption is to manipulate psychologically both men and women into a prolonged juvenile state.

Being old is bad. Looking old is worse.

Don't listen to the old. They know nothing of value .

Enough is okay. More than enough is better.

Don't plan ahead. You have credit. You deserve it now.

Your own needs are prime. Screw the common good.

Don't share. Be selfish. You worked hard for it. Why should you..?

Mine. Mine. Mine. Me. Me. Me.

All fine childish traits.

Anyone opening a fashion magazine will note the hairless 'juvenile' male phenotype is favoured now. Perhaps they will also note that the current female phenotype favoured is also juvenile: tall (ie. of a height roughly equal to average male - reminiscent of pre-adolescence), willowy - without the pronounced voluptuousness of a mature female - a tom-boy.

In conclusion - It is my main assertion that Western man, and Western Woman, rather than being feminized, or indeed masculinized by the current social climate, are simply suspended in a state of psychological neoteny.

Their bodies change just as they have always done, if at an accelerated rate, into the adult form, their minds however, do not. They cannot.

They remain juvenile.

Neither sex has an external reference point with which to objectively judge their maturity. No rites of passage. A fall-back to juvenile behavior is without stigma in society, because no-one can tell the difference anymore.

Social/technical level renders the male and female equal again, just as they were in childhood.

Media, driven by capitalist market forces, actively promotes a juvenile, selfish/consumptive mind-set, and indirectly lobbies against stoic maturity.

As Nietzche opined - "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." ie: development through hardship. This is nothing new - The tarot card 'Death' is not actually a bad card (the 9, or 10 of swords, is much worse).

To the tarot - death equates with change. With growth. The death of the child and of childish things and the emergence of the adult form.

Where, in peacetime, in a welfare society, is death..? Where in the time of medical technology and insurance, is true pain..? Where in the time of psychotherapy and faked talk-show chest-beating, is anguish..?

Humans have succeeded too well. In removing pain and death and loss and anguish from everyday life, we have also removed the footholds we used to use to pull ourselves up from childhood into maturity.

The consequences of our actions or inactions are no longer, at least in the overwhelming majority, lethal/life-threatening.

Look at interactions on internet forums if you wish an extreme example. In this medium, no injury can result from an individual's actions: The result, juvenile squabbling, name-calling, pettiness, and a degree of insult that in the real world, would carry the danger of grevious bodily harm being inflicted.

Juvenilia.

The nanny-state intercedes to save us from sloth with welfare. It pre-empts and forbids acts that carry high failure rates - except in the format of 'extreme sports' which are marketable - and generally attempts to suck life free of all risk/danger. It pre-masticates our available experiences into baby-food.

Stoicism is at an all time low. We are all happy little epicurean children playing with our toys within the enfolding arms/walls of society. Unable to leave, unwilling to grow.

Boy looks like man, but is not.

Girl looks like woman, but is not.

Modern Man is not feminized, but juvenile.

Modern Woman is not masculinized, but juvenile.

Now... Who's for milk and cookies..?

...Continued...