The Inevitabilist goes to the Theatre

One sunny Tuesday afternoon the Inevitabilist was sitting at home when the telephone rang. It was Goldie. He liked her because she possessed the uncanny ability, when presented with three options, to always choose the one that was just right.

"Hey Mr. I, I'm bored stupid, y'wanna take me out to the theatre..?"
"Sure. One condition though."
"Okaay - what is it..?"
"Whichever one we go to, it's gotta have gravity..."
"You're never gonna let me live that one down are you. I said sorry about a million times already."
"Can't help it - we sat there for 14 billion years and nothing happened. My arse got so numb I forgot I had one."
"Gravitygravity I get it, no more minimalist art. Okay -
"And planets this time, gotta have planets."
- fuck, okay planets too - I'm checking the listings here. That leaves us with three."
"Fine, let's go check them out."
"What..? Now..? It's far too early, none of the plays are even scheduled to start till seven or so."
"Well, you know me, I like to know the initial conditions."
"Oof - can't you just get off the whole inevitabilist schtick for one fucking second..?"
"No."
"Jesus. You're about as spontaneous as a concrete beam you know that..?"
"It's my nature."

The two of them got out of the car and pushed open the gilt-framed doors of the first theatre. The receptionist agreed to let them tour the premises on the proviso they both signed the release forms, and called over the usher. The usher passed them each oxygen tanks and hard radiation suits. After instructing them in the basic safety protocols, he ushered them into the theatre.

Even with the masks on, it was hard to breathe. The air tasted of vinegar and the spotlights threw out such immense heat that the outer layers of their suits began to smolder. Beneath their boots the jagged terrain heaved as the magma underneath convusled to some unknown rhythm. They lasted about three minutes before they fled, noses streaming and sweat sluicing off their skins.

"Too hard" Said Goldie.
"Yeah, I'm guessing lichen at best, and even then only in the deeper crevices."
"Crick neck..?"
"Crick neck."

So they went to the next.

This time the usher passed them both aqualungs and flippers. Sunlight filtered down from the ornate ceiling, turning the water to gold. Green motes of dust-sized life hazed the tide. The water, warm nearer the top, cooled slowly, in steps almost, as they glided down to the sandy bottom of the theatre, weightless, turning fat lazy spirals in the deepening dark.

"So, whaddya think..?" Said the inevitabilist, dragging a towel through his hair.
"Too soft." Said Goldie.
"Dolphins can be fun you know - hoops and stuff."
"Hah, you're just testing me again you bastard. Can't have dolphins without an interim on land, even I know that. No land, easy life, no complex problems to solve - that place'll be just fish, fish and more fucking fish. Bor-ing..."
"You swear too much to ever be a real lady."
"And fuck you too." Goldie smiled, "C'mon - time's a wastin'."

The third theatre was vast, and they were told it had three salons, rather than just the one. The usher looked at them strangely when they asked if they had to wear any special equipment. Inside the theatre the air was cool, the spotlights were again huge, but dimmed - though they looked as if they could make things hot if need be. In the wings however there were titanic air-conditioning units, ready to pump out mini-ice-ages should events call for them. There was water, there were mountains. Trees to climb and grass to wade through. Animals in every shape and form rustled through the underbrush, whales and minnows flopped and tumbled in the waves.

"Just right." Said Goldie.
"Yeah - Diversity." Relipied the Inevitabilist. "Always a good sign. C'mon - Let's go for a drink in the bar and look at the programmes."
"k."

The bar was cool and pleasantly crowded. Goldie and the Inevitabilist took seats in a booth that had a good view of the room.

"Screwdriver please, amaretto if you goddit."
"I'll have a beer. No, just whatever comes without fruit stuck out of the top. Yeah, that'll be fine. Cold glass."


"That sea theatre reminded me of a funny story I heard yesterday. Y'wanna hear it..?" Said Goldie over the top of her cocktail glass.
"All ears."
"Did you know octopuses, -pi whatever, have elbows..?"
"Really..?"
"Yeah. Listen -

"A three-jointed human arm has only seven degrees of freedom, which are defined as the types of movements each joint can perform. Your shoulder and wrist each have three degrees of freedoms—each can tilt up and down, turn left and right, and can roll in a circular motion. Your elbow, however, only has one degree of freedom, which is tilting up and down.

Scientists consider each of an octopus' eight arms to possess a virtually infinite number of degrees of freedom, allowing them to bend and twist freely. But when it's time to eat, octopuses use their flexible muscles to form temporary, quasi-articulated joints that work similar to how human joints function.

Researchers recorded muscle activity in octopus limbs, and found that an arm generates two waves of muscle contractions that propagate toward each other. When the waves collide, they form a part-time joint.

This process occurs three times, forming a shoulder where the arm meets the body, a wrist where the suckers have grasped their food, and an "elbow" somewhere in between. The elbow typically exhibits the most movement during food retrieval.

The researchers say this is a remarkably simple and apparently optimal mechanism for adjusting the length of arm segments according to where the food item is grasped along the arm.

The similarity of structural features and control strategies between jointed vertebrate arms and flexible octopus limbs suggests that these configurations evolved separately in octopuses and vertebrates, a result scientists call an example of convergent evolution."

- so you see, they have elbows. Isn't that just like totally fucking amazing..?" Goldie said, eyes widening into great glittery pools of khôl.
The Inevitabilist waggled his head. "Not really, I keep tellling you there are optimal solutions to problems inherrent in the physical world, and that life will naturally arrive at them, from whatever direction. Eyes have been invented twice, and wings three times - they're inevitable, if there's light, if there's air. Just a matter of time."
"Yeah-yeah, so you've said. I get it I get it. But I still don't think that idea translates to human society." She let out her breath in an orangey-vodka tinted cloud, still thinking about octopi with elbows and wrists, suckered little fingers.

"You read that book I gave you..? Machiavelli..?"
"Sure, not exactly Mills and Boon."
"You remember when he wrote it..?"
"Uh - fifteen hundred and something I think."
"Yeah - 1513AD. What would you say if I said someone else wrote damn near the same book half the world away in India about 1800 years before he did..?"
"I'd say you were fucking shitting me."
"It's called the Arthashastra written by some guy to advise the Maharajas of the Maurya Empire."
"Okay, so I'm suitably amazed at the depth of your useless knowledge, but so what..?"
"What I mean is the Prince is still read and put into practice today, except by business execs rather than kings. And stuff like 'The Art of War' by some Chinese guy back in 6th century BC - still on the syllabus of military service examinations in many East Asian countries."
"And this is relevant because..."
"Because it means that some social situations demand the same answers, whenever these situations arise. These solutions are timeless - doesn't matter if it's cavemen or techno-fetishist geek droid soldiers. The underlying rules of obtaining power, keeping power, protecting power within a group of sentient beings with conflicting interests never changes. A bit like your octopus and its elbows. The same solutions arising time and time again throughout evolution, except this time throughout social history as well. The time, the people, not as important as you'd think, you know..?"
“Yeah, well those are just books, I mean maybe Machiavelli just like got that Indian guy’s book out of the library and totally ripped it off y’know – ever think of that..?”
“Okay. Not utterly impossible I suppose. Massively unlikely but still. Okay. Jesus.”
“Haha – I killed your theory.”
“Jesus.”
“Stop saying Jesus, it’s disrespectful.”
“No, I mean Jesus.”
“I said stop –
“No I mean Jesus for another example. ‘Turn the other cheek’ and all that jazz. Do you think Jesus and Von Neuman ever knew each other..?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“You ever heard of game theory..? Well, think about the old testament – ‘eye for an eye’ - vengeful God and all that..? And then Jesus saying ‘forgive those who fuck you over’ – at least once depending on your number of cheeks..?”
“Yes, yes, yes and yes, but again – so what..?”
“Well, it turns out that game theory, when run as a basis for computer models proves that the second best strategy for producing stable populations of co-operative agents is eye-for-an-eye, where an agent repays another agent’s trespasses with a trespass of its own… And the best strategy is turn-the-other-cheek, where an agent forgives another’s first trespass on the off-chance it was a mistake, and the pair resume mutual co-operation without falling into vendetta. And don’t tell me Jesus had a laptop stashed under his robe.”
"Well, he was supposed to be the son of God, that'd probably boost his IQ a bit -
"Hah - The point I'm trying to make is that there are underlying rules to any system, physical, social, doesn't matter, and that these rules were as good two thousand years ago as they are now, as good as they will be two thousand years hence."
"'Hence'..? Why are you coming over all shakespearean on me..?"
"Yeah-yeah, but you know what I'm saying right..?"
"All I know is I need another drink. Are we gonna look at these programmes or what Mr. Scintillating..?"
"Kinda, I'll do you a deal."
"Arrgh."
"You verry funnee. Anyway - You just show me the pictures of the cast and the set, and I'll tell you what's gonna happen in the play, okay..?"
"I love it when you come over all prophetic..."

Salon 1:

"Hmm. Okay. A weary and defeated people in the midst of severe economic crisis, looking for any kind of solution, any way to restore some kind of national pride, looking for scapegoats toward whom to shift the blame. I'm thinkng - huge power vaccuum. Guy with moustache and an eye for symbolistic art. Dinky uniforms. Eagles. A hearkening back to earlier, more heroic ancestors. Probably some kind of exceptional gene-stock forefather myth thang going on. "Pure race brought low by injudicious interbreeding" blurb maybe -


- huge expansionist drive. State takes over the economy. Everybody gets crappy jobs. Hard times, low pay, sacrifice. Severe work ethic requires propping up by propaganda. Deification of traits necessary to support wobbley economy embodied as inherrent in the ethnic group in power, demonization in contrast of any ethnic group conflicting with the still flakey control of the dictatorship...


...This one's gonna end in tears. I'm seeing genocide at least, world-wide dominance of the ruthlessly expansionist regime at most, if they aren't stopped early enough. Am I right..?"

"Scarily."
"Next plz."

Salon 2:

"Okay, let's see... A restless people under the rule of an imperial power, one -
"Look, no offence, this is all very entertaining and everything, but any grade-school kid with an interest in history could do what your doing right now."
"Um."
"I mean, blah blah, unrest, blah blah, civil disobedience, blah blah happy ending. What's your point..? Bad shit happens and someone always steps out of the crowd and saves the day - Hitler picks up a fucked-over post-WWI Germany and turns it into a juggernaut, India gets sucked dry by the Brits and up pops Ghandi and saves the day - and so it goes. What's that got to do with you claiming to know the future..? All this shit happened in the past, of course it's fucking obvious now... That doesn't mean it was obvious then. Things get all fucked up, and someone special comes along and unfucks them."
"Yeah, okay, you got me. Okay, question for you now."
"Shoot. I'm feeling fucking smart right now."
"Why Hitler..? Why Ghandi..? - I mean they both saved their countries, however temporarily on Hitler's part - but why wasn't Hitler like Ghandi, and why wasn't Ghandi like Hitler..?"
"Er. I dunno. Hitler wasn't Indian for a start."
"Exactly."
"I always worry when you agree with me."
"What I mean is we live under the illusion that just *anybody* can stand up out of the crowd and suddenly the world spins around their little finger. But, it's not true. Do you know how many others there were, pre-Ghandi who tried and failed to do what he did..?"
"No."
"Of course you don't cos no-one ever talks about them. "Did you hear about that guy who totally didn't succeed in freeing India..?" Never comes up in conversation. No-one makes movies about the losers, not unless they lost in an utterly heroic fashion."
"You've seen 300 Spartans once too often."
"THIS IS SPAR-[spit]-TA!!!!"
"Euww - a bit of your phlem went in my drink..! Get me another one right now."
"In a minute. Look - the Indian independence rumblings started in 1857, nearly 60 years before Ghandi ever set foot in India. The independence movement had any number of leaders, the first being the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II - a fucking emperor for God's sake."
"You swear too much to ever be a real gentleman."
"Screw you too. Anyway, the emperor and all his cronies totally fucked the situation up, made it worse in fact - the Brits abolished the East India company and replaced it with direct rule. And after that there were at least five or six other leaders between them and the arrival of Ghandi."
"Still lacking a point to all this."
"All these guys - heroic, charismatic, full up to the gills with convictions etc. etc. and none of them could fix India."
"Well, they weren't Ghandi. Duh."
"No. That's not it - the trouble was that none of them could fit into the Ghandi-shaped hole in the universe."
"What, you're saying that the man doesn't matter..?"
"Yeah, that's kinda what I'm saying. From my perspective the situation in India 'waited' for 60 years, until the right-shaped man fell into the right place, and if Ghandi hadn't come along in 1915, it would have gone right on waiting, for as long as the situation persisted."
"Whooo - straight over my head. Maybe I won't have that other drink."
"Okay look. You remember those toys you had when you were a kid - the ones where you have to put the right shapes in the right holes..? Course you do. Imagine the world is a really big one of those - some of the holes are pretty simple, and they get filled real quick. Some of the holes are really complicated. Thing is though, the world's in no hurry, and there are tonnes and tonnes of shapes knocking about. Millions, billions of them. All the world does is sit there and shake the box patiently, and wait for each hole to be filled. And when the world is fucked up, all it does is shake harder."
"Fuck, I must be drunk. That kinda makes sense."
"Study the situation hard enough, and you'll find the man or woman to fill it. Or wait long enough, and the situation will manufacture that person for you."
"Now I've completely lost you. People make their own decisions, they have free-will and stuff... Don't they..?"
"You've heard of something called the Stanford Prison experiment..? and Stockholme syndrome..?"
"Yeah, I remember you talking about that stuff before. Cut to the chase."
"Okay, basically, they make me think we're led into becoming who we are not so much through any personal aesthetic, but by the situations we find ourselves in, and the social expectations of the circles we move in. You with me..?"
"Let's just say I am, but after all the evolutionary crap we've been through to develop these huge and, I dunno, 'unique', brains of ours why would we suddenly chuck it all in for group-think..? What's so fatal about striking out alone..?"
"It's all about Hydra and Hercules."
"Er... Okay, I'm getting the many heads vs. one vibe here - but didn't Hercules win..?"
"Sure, but why was the Hydra so feared that they had to send Hercules after it in the first place..?"
"Erm, because the Hydra had killed a fucking huge bunch of people beforehand..?"
"Bingo. The Hydra lost one battle out of a gazillion, and Hercules had help anyway. Some chariot guy with a torch - Iolaus. Plus, he was the son of Jupiter."
"Okay, I'm starting to get your drift now. Let me do the next bit. You're trying to say that from an evolutionary POV. It's always better to be part of the Hydra, than to go it alone. That way, the only thing that can beat you is a real out of context problem - hah - gotcha now - "son of Jupiter" - a fucking huge meteorite or something - a real planet killer."
"Go on."
"Okay. So if you say Hydra represents the majority, no, hang on, represents whatever part of society that is winning all the battles, it's better to join 'em, rather than fight them - that way your kids get to live, especially if you haven't had them yet. And for humans, it's not enough to just say 'Gee okay, I'm gonna join you guys', you've gotta work out how they got to win all those battles in the first place - because it's indicative of them being, I dunno, somehow 'fitter' within the socio-political/physical enviroment or something. But that's still not enough, you've gotta do more - you've gotta become them."
"Because..."
"Goddamn you - because the situation has already dictated what strategies will succeed the best, not them in particular. Fuck. I'm convinced - I'm a believer. I mean - basically you're saying that we're like psychic chameleons or something, except we end up believing we were always the same colour we find ourselves to be, even if we only turned that colour like, five minutes ago..?"
"Yes - right on the money. But you're forgetting something. Ghandi - and people like him - the real paradigm changers - don't they seem different..? Truely unique..?"
"Er. I've a feeling you want me to say "Oh yeah" and then you'll turn out to have an ace up your sleeve..."
"Hah. You know me too well. But yeah. Y'see, Ghandi didn't just drop out of the sky and land in India with a solution he made up on the spot. He'd already been molded by his experiences in South-Africa."

"Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as Mahatma Gandhi), had been a prominent leader of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, and had been a vocal opponent of basic discrimination and abusive labour treatment as well as suppressive police control such as the Rowlatt Acts. During these protests, Gandhi had perfected the concept of satyagraha, which had been inspired by the philosophy of Baba Ram Singh (famous for leading the Kuka Movement in the Punjab in 1872). The end of the protests in South Africa saw oppressive legislation repealed and the release of political prisoners by General Jan Smuts, head of the South African Government of the time."

"What I mean is, he wasn't a man alone, he was just another head of a successful hydra that grew in another country. His only difference - He moved."
"Whoo."

The two sat back, and slugged back what was left of their drinks contemplatively.

"Anyway - What's the last play..?" The Inevitabilist asked.
"Ooh - this one you won't get so easy - it's set in the future, so your fucking history books won't be any help to ya."
"Whatever - just show me the pic and I'll tell you exactly what the aliens are going to look like...

Salon 3:

...Okay they'll -
Goldie held up her hand. "No, don't fucking tell me - they'll be so like us it'll be scary... Right..?"
"Someone give the girl a gold star."
"Suddenly I'm bored by the whole idea of the theatre."
"Me too, seen it all before. Hmm... We could go back to my place and I'll put on my bear suit..?"
"Thought you'd never ask."