Democracy Vs. Dictators

We live in an imperfect world, and if we're honest, pretty much all of us are assholes. I mean okay, it's a sliding scale, some of us are less assholey than others, but lurking beneath the skin of every human - not very deep even - is an asshole.

Surely Tab, you say, the world is rife with paragons who betray none of the failings of normal mortals - Ghandi perhaps. But no. Rumours abound. Ghandi used to sleep with some of his prettier followers to er... 'test' his moral rigidity, and if he failed (and tested some other kind of rigidity) well, hey, only a temporary lapse. Seems no-one is immune. Just type "paragon of virtue X + scandal" into google if you want your dreams shattered.

Atatürk was pretty damn good, as defacto dictators go, set Turkey up as a republic after WWI, reformed the dress-codes (goodbye fez) and language to a more European basis, gave everyone surnames, empowered women and banned religion from politics, plus set the military up to continue his legacy as the government's watchdog. Ten out of ten. However, before I shoot myself in the foot, he was a special case - he came to power on a tide of public approval, had no children of his own genetic lineage to tempt him into the serious nepotism so often found dogging your average dictator, and died relatively early at 57 while he was still on top of his game. An exception.

Dictators are like that children's rhyme: When they are good they are very very good, but when they are bad, they are horrid.

Except you have to imagine this angry little girl armed with an AK47, a whole butt-load of bullets and zero accountability.

Which brings me to the title. D is for damage control. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Not sure how much this is true. It's like "Well he was such a nice boy until he became the dictator of a small African country..." I think it's more the case that power attracts a certain somewhat morally wobbly kind of person to begin with, and then just allows them to get worse. I mean you - dear reader - you're almost certainly not a bad person, and I'm guessing that at the same time as being 'not a bad person' you are similarly not the unopposed leader of a republic somewhere out in the boonies, nor have you ever aspired to be such in any meaningful way. There's a reason for this, and I think it's that happy, self-confident, well balanced and tolerant people aren't really interested in power, for them - power over others is all pain and no real gain. They may have power thrust upon them by happenstance, and feel obligated to take on the responsibility, but otherwise they are perfectly content without. Just think of all the ape-shit psycho bosses you've ever had, and tell me it ain't so.

Democracy is the least of all evils because it dilutes power. And as such, it also dilutes the amount of damage one person can do. The leader of a democracy, who gets into a fight in a bar with a gay Jew and wakes up with bruises and a filthy hangover, would find it very hard to implement a spot of ethnic/socio-sexual cleansing against gays and Jews the next day. A dictator with absolute power, well... not so much.

Sure, all governmental systems tend to kill people, it's just that dictators do it so much better:

As a baseline: WWI + WWII - about 70-80 million or so.

Now, dictators in no particular order:

Mao and his great leap forward: estimates differ but lets say 40 million.
Stalin: 20 million.
Jolly King Leopold in the Congo: 8 million.
Pol Pot: 2.5 million. main source

There's more, but hey, who's counting. Dictators = responsible for the deaths of roughly 70 million people. ie. Four fucking guys, managed to kill nearly as many people as both world wars put together. (And that's not even counting Hitler).

As I said: D is for damage control. And...



I'm gonna talk game theory a little. If you want to get up to speed here's a link to an old blog post covering the basics.

The main point in game theory is about iterated (repeated/sequential) games vs. one-offs. In a one-off, winner-takes-all-forever game, it pays no-one to play by the rules, or even to have rules in the first place. In an iterated game of X-duration, you might finish a game today, and play the same guy again tomorrow - who will remember how you treated him, and treat you the same.

Most dictators are usually playing a one-off against the people they dictate to. Their goal is usually simply to stay in power for as long as possible, and usually set things up, ala Kim jong il >> Kim Jong un, so that a son or relative carries on the family tradition of stamping heads. There is no opposing player to force them to play by any rules but transitory and self-derived ones. Like: "I won't kill anyone on days beginning with T unless they really, really bug me."

I'm not denying that a benificent dictator can't do great things for their country, only that in order to do so, they have to stay in power. ie. the 'doing good' part of the equation is secondary to the 'staying in power' bit. And to do this, you have those tried and trusted tools - monopolies on propaganda and organized violence.

But hang on, democracies do this too. Fair point. The difference however is Dictators use violence to silence dissent to a much much greater degree than democracies. And this is what kills people. You see, Mao didn't sit down one day and say to himself: "Fuck I'm bored. I'm gonna kill 40 million people." No. What he said was "I, by hook or by crook, am going to catch up to those damn Brits economy-wise, in fifteen years."

Trouble is, he was a fucking bumpkim from the sticks. A very smart, charismatic bumpkin, but a bumkpin all the same. And knew nothing at all about running just about the biggest economy on Earth, population wise. Classic example: Birds eat grain. Bad birds. So Mao declared war on them. The whole country was set to trapping, killing, poisoning and etc. every feathered friend they could find. It worked, the bird population was pretty much obliterated in a season. Yay. More grain right..? Nope. Because birds also eat insects. And insects eat everything. Result..? Mass famine. Lotta dead people. Another interesting tit-bit. You can boil down your dead granny and spread her on the fields as fertilizer. And your crap too. But if you do this, you also spread horrible diseases. Result..? Lots more dead people. But this is okay, because you've also destroyed most of your houses to make fertilizer anyway. The fuck-up list is endless.

And no-one ever said: "S'cuse me Mao-mate, but your economic policies are total bullshit." Because they'd have been shot.

Democracies, with their umpteen number of barriers to implementing new policies and their tolerence of dissent, don't do this as much. Damage control...

...And everyone else. Because Dictators are playing an exclusive "us vs. them" game, they are not really incentified (horrible word, sorry) to give anyone outside of the priviledged group informed political voice. Bad news for ethnic minorities, religious minorities, or any minorities at all. The only means of political expression left to the people is almost always mass protest, ending up as mass violence in most cases. Doesn't make for a stable country. Nor for an high average life-span. Democracies - even if you just want to cynically classify them as time-share sequential dictatorships - are forced to a much greater degree to curry favour from the various demographics and shape policy around their well-being to gather votes. Okay, you can pull in a lot of votes from the most common demograph, but then, so can the opposition. So then, to tip the scales your way, you have to find some way of appealing to the smaller demographs as well. Ad inifinitum, theoretically right down to demographs of one.

That's not what is important though. Many demographs are diametrically opposed to one another. ie. Political party X can either appeal to one or the other, but not both, leaving the opposing demograph to their opposition. But, if a third party can come along, and find some way of reconciling the two opposed demographs - in order to selfishly harvest votes from both and beat the opposition parties - then they will win outright. ie. In a democracy, there is always an incentive, however minor, on the part of the political factions for them to (a) get everyone taking part in elections, even if only to better exploit them and (b) to reconcile demographs with each other, again even if only to better exploit them. Which is good - well, less fatal anyway. eg. Politicians didn't give the vote to women because they thought "Hey, well, it's only fair." No, they gave the vote to women probably to shut them up. (jk.) No, they gave them the vote so women would vote for them.

Anyway, moving on...

It's not the rule, but it might as well be: Dictators start out as the good guys. And that's the trouble, when you're already at the top of the moral hill, the only way left is down.

Dictators-to-be usually start out as the head of a heavily-armed bunch of guys, either already within the established military, or as rebel groups out in the sticks. Mao was head of the (anti-military-dictator-Chiang-kai-Shek) socialist red army, and a hero to many; or Mugabe, one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white minority rule in Zimbabwe - for example. Good guys fighting for freedom from opression.

Until they won. And that's when the trouble starts - the skill-set for "winning an armed struggle" is pretty much useless when you try to transfer it to "running a peaceful, stable country". And who has the dictator(but not yet) have as a role model to teach him how to run this country they suddenly have come into possession of..? That's right - the complete bastard they just overthrew. They begin their careers as leaders of countries pretty much politically empty.

Dictators are reactive. Their characters and general mindset are batman/joker reflections of whomever they fought against. They are defined pretty much by what they are not: "I am not a white supremacist !!!" "I am not a _________ !!!" Which is fine, when the opposing trope is around to define you, but when it's not, when it's been vanquished, then your mirror is suddenly empty, and you're not there anymore. They begin their political careers as blank canvases, all contrasts sucked away.

Which is bad, because it takes great fortitude of character and political belief to resist the temptations of power.

This of course is further complicated by the implications of their situation. They've won. And not just won something simple and mundane like a game of tiddlywinks, they've freed a whole fucking country. That's like single-handedly winning gold in every olympic event ever in one go.

And what do winners get..? What do they deserve..? Prizes. The biggest for themselves, and runners-up prizes for all their psycho-gun-toting mates. It's feeding time, ring the fucking dinner-gong boys, ring it good and loud.

I'm not going to list all the dictators who turned round and raped the countries they 'liberated' just read this book for multiple modern-day examples in Africa. What I'm going to do is just burble on about the good things of democracy a bit more before closing, though I restate: I'm not saying democarcy is super-duper perfect, just that by its nature it sponsors ruling minorities less likely to be total trainwrecks for the people they govern.

• Power is diluted, divided: policies are opposed, debated, held up to scrutiny by representatives of other factions of the populace before implementation. This obstacle course means that generally the policies surviving to actually affect the masses are universally 'good'. (lol, I can't believe I wrote that). 
• The democratic system provides a mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power between opposing political factions without blowing too much vital infrastructure up. This alone gives democracies an advantage, they do not have to start from square one every time power changes hands, nor go through routine periods of economically ruinous civil war. 
• They allow opposing factions of trained politicians to co-exist within the same political system, which means a faction coming into power knows how to actually administrate institutions and utilities, rather than just how to shoot people. 
• Democracies of fixed-periods of power (that can be repeated) invest political parties in the populace. Instead of thinking "Right - I've won, this is my one and only chance of raiding the cookie-jar, I'm taking every last damn one..." a democratic leader/party thinks "Okay, I've got 4 years to raid the cookie jar, but I better leave some, because I might get to raid it some more later..." Which, believe it or not, is better. Especially if they decide to invest some cookies in making a better cookie-producing jar, if only so they can steal more later.

How Money will Kill You in the Future.

Been giving myself small nightmares again today in the breaks between lessons. I read too much.

Okay anyway, the resource curse. My favourite thing. Africa. Oil, diamonds etc. For a state to have too much of something is bad because it totally fucks the social contract. Why..?

Very simply (and I'm sure you'll forgive me if I'm missing something, or over-simplifying) the populace needs the machinery of the state and its various institutions for (a) defence, and a close second, (b) a stable, and above all predictable, social enviroment within which to prosper and multiply. In turn the state relies, all other things being equal, on its populace for revenue in the form of taxes or whatever, and soldiers.

However, money buys a lot of stuff. And if African Despot X has oil ie. money in abundance - he/she no longer has to depend on his/her populace for income, and since mercenaries abound within Africa, no need for homegrown soldiers either. The market for his/her oil is outsourced also, so he/she doesn't need his/her populace even as customers. The contract is broken, and to ADX, the populace becomes at best a hindrance and at worst a threat, to be subjugated/negated/controlled by fair means or (more usually) foul.

But who cares right..? We're only talking about a bunch of spear-chucker countries in the boonies, and whatever human collateral damage occurs only effects the headlines. Nuffin' to do with us.

Well, what if, now, in the developed West, a new form of resource curse is in operation..?

I'm not talking about the West's addiction to oil, or implying the US has so much as to create a curse in its own right. No, not oil. I'm talking about money itself, no actual physical resource involved. Just cold hard cash (hmm, even though 70% of it is actually virtual cash floating around invisibly).

I watched some bullet point video by some economist guy that said even though the economy of the US has grown like crazy over the last century, your average Joe's wage has remained comparitively flat and the money generated has found its way into the pockets of an elite - the old statistic 1% of the pop. owns 40% of the stuff. 1% though, of the US pop. is still a fuckhuge number. However, like mass, it's not so much how much of it there is, but how densely it is packed. And I'm willing to bet quite heavily that the 1-40 differential also exists, perhaps even to a greater extent, within that super-rich 1% - ie. 1% of that 1% owns a hugely greater part of all that stuff than the remainder put together. And the 1% of that 1% of 1% still more.

Sufficient money in one place, just like mass, causes other money to gravitate towards it - that first million is hard to come by, the next not so much, and the ones after that seem to just appear while you're brushing your teeth (apparently - I wouldn't know - just hearsay :D ). My point is - that super-concentrated monetary mass in the hands of a small numer of people has enough influence to effect a lot more money not directly connected to it, and that money in turn effects yet more. Meaning that maybe, even though that elite only directly controls 40%, that 40% influences/controls another what..? 20%..? 40%..? A controlling share of AmericaCorp™..?

And through the machinations of the stock-exchange, international currency markets whatever, this money simply generates money, without having to actually create anything much at all. It's out of the usual loop of production and consumption. ie. Like the despots in Africa, those who control that money increasingly do not need a populace to contribute to its wealth. Which leaves them with a problem, the only threat left to them, is everybody else.

What about the second dependence of ruler on the ruled..? Soldiers. Still need cannon-fodder to fight those useful market-opening wars afterall, those wars ain't gonna fight themselves. Or are they..? Weapons are a form of military automation, just like machines in factories increasingly negate the need for actual humans. Give a guy a gun, and he beats 20 guys with swords. Give a guy a tank, and he beats 100 guys with guns, and so on. Still need that guy to pull the trigger though, damn.

Look at the trends. Factories are becoming almost totally automated, to the point where it's pretty easy to imagine a near future of completely zero-human-on-site robot production facilites. 3D printers, the works. Push button, recieve bacon. But warfare too, is becoming automated - Nuclear deterent is almost completely hands free - the two guys with the keys, if they still exist, would be easy to retire. The airforce..? How long till the drone-recons and limited-strike pilotless planes grow larger, and more destructive..? That leaves ground forces - how hard would it be to automate a tank..? And with the new combat exo-skeletons and walking machines being developed - how soon till you can simply remove the human from the equation and let RoboGrunt™ run free..?

Suddenly, the money no longer needs its populace for soldiers anymore, it can manufacture, and run its military materiél without them. That will indeed be a dangerous day for average Joe and average Jane, because on that day they will no longer be useful to the ruling elite - but it's a day the proles will still greet with thundering applause because none of their children will have to go and get shot up in the Middle East ever again. Hooray.

And my, my, but aren't we selling a whole bunch of stuff to China etc. these days..? You'd almost think we didn't need to buy anything at all, the economy would grind right on even if we boycotted the entire high-street... Isn't our custom important anymore..?

So what happens to the proles..? I think it is what is happening already. Think about it. New acts run through governments in the US and UK under the cloak of the (in my opinion artificially manufactured to a great extent) "War on Terror" to circumvent freedoms of speech, privacy and trial by jury. Cameras on every street. Dumbass educational systems, intended through neglect to manufacture generations of fat, unhealthy, religion-saturated, narrow-minded, unquestioning and entertainment-addicted bigots, fit only for the ever-enlarging service industry.

Ever thought what an ouroboros the whole service industry is..? And I include media and medical to a great extent in this - the old circular snake biting his tail..? You have humans working to serve the basic needs of other humans in order to earn enough the serve their own. Round and round it goes. It's as if the whole of 'lower' society is being put into a static loop, being rendered physicaly, mentally and politically unthreatening to the real ruling class - the money men, and the increasingly puppet governments they control.

And no-one with the power to reverse this trend, has any reason to do so.

And while we're in screaming conspiracy mode... The deficit, (??global??) economic crisis. Tighten your belts proles. What happened..? Did all the shops, and the crops, and the doctors, and the workers, and the roads and the, Jesus, the *everything* disappear overnight..? Nope, it's still there, all of it, in - for now at least - working order. What disappeared apparently, was the eminence-grise, the invisible grease that kept the engine spinning...

...The money.

That's what suddenly disappeared over the horizon, perhaps to a sunny beach where the drinks are cheap and the women all wear bikinis. And who controls the money..? And why, if everything that is needed to look after society is actually still here, is the situation so unfixable..?

Because fuck you prole is why, you are no longer required.

Ze future, boys and girls, ain't looking all that rosy - well, unless you have an absolute fuckload of cash anyway. Then it looks great.

Body Language

The following is a summation of body language and physical tells based on the book "What Everybody is Saying" by Joe Navarro. I spent a couple of days people-watching recently and, when you know what to look for, it becomes blindingly obvious how people are feeling about each other.

General Principles: 

1. The 'honesty' of the body increases with the distance from the head - making the feet the most reliable of tells.
2. Before trying to read someone's intent or disposition, you should first establish what that person's baseline is - what position they normally adopt. You then observe them carefully for sudden changes away from that norm. 
3. Basing a reading on a single tell is dubious at best, you are looking for clusters of behaviours, sequences of or repeated actions. 
4. Remember to consider the general context of the situation - how much stress is 'normal' - what actions are simply the result of the space which you/they are occupying..?
5. Freeze, flight, fight. Stress reactions usually follow this sequence. You are looking sometimes for sudden absences of movement as well as everything else.  Children for example, usually freeze, or become subdued, body-language-wise,  in front of people or things they are scared of, or feel unhappy with.

Basic Types:

• Upward movements indicate positivity or happiness.
• Downward movements indicate negative reactions, disapointment.
• Outward movements, or exposing of chest and abdomen (ventral) express confidence, amiability.
• Inward, or self-restrictive movements, or covering of chest and abdomen (shielding) indicate stress.
• Leaning toward something, or leaning away (plus general proximity overall) indicates the degree of comfort felt concerning that object or person.
• Sudden stillness and shallow (quiet) breathing is a tell of fear and stress.
• Mirroring. When two people begin to mirror or copy each other's movements and postures, this means they are getting on. It also sometimes means that the instigator of the subsequently copied movements by others is the top dog, dominating the situation.

Feet: Your feet, being most likely a metre or two away from where the lying and deceiving gets done, often get left out when we are trying to pull one over on someone. This makes them useful indicators of real intent - and when you are talking with someone it's worth staging your chat in some place where you can see their whole body - desks are a hindrance, as are huge flared trousers I suppose. Here's what to watch for:

* Generally bouncy feet (and legs) are a positive reaction to good news. If the movement suddenly stops - it means something has stressed/disturbed that person.
* If it changes to a larger movement, involving the shin - more of a kicking than a bouncing - this indicates stress, as does a strict vertical up-down movement of the foot.
* Careful of (a) jittery (restless) leg syndrome - which is a medical condition - And (b) twitchy legs/feet which can indicate impatience depending on the context. Changes in the nature of the movements are what you should watch for.

*Shoe play (female) usually means comfort, or that she likes whomever she's with - also watch for feet being extended toward, or pulled back from someone - this is a good indicator of how comfortable someone is with that person.

*If the feet pull right back under the chair, and cross at the ankles for extended periods, then that person is vey uncomfortable, and feeling threatened. Sometime the feet will also lock themselves around the legs of the chair.

*Watch where people's feet are pointing, because they usually indicate what that person's thinking about. If, when in conversation, one or both of someone's feet point away from you, or toward an exit, it means they wish to break off that conversation, or are uncomfortable or distracted. Watch for changes, if the they re-orientate on you, you have successfully re-captured their whole attention.
*If someone's feet cross at the ankle (when standing) it indicates that they are very comfortable. Crossed ankles put people off-balance slightly, and necessitates their standing on one leg - which means they have no thoughts of escape and feel totally unthreatened.
*In the opposite case, not only will someone's feet point away from you, but may start to twitch - "runners feet" - as if they are about to race away.

*If a foot rises and starts pointing at the ceiling - that person is happy. In fact any movement of the body, or part of the body, which seems to defy gravity is a sign of comfort, happiness and positivity.

Legs: Legs, like your feet, are fairly trustworthy appendages when it comes to reading people's inner states. They are mostly used for barriers if someone feels threatened, or territorial displays when someone's feeling tough. They, being within reach more often than the feet, interact with the hands to give more varied messages. Here's what to keep an eye out for when considering someone's leg movements, and, as above, always be aware of where poeple's feet are pointing:

* General stance: People occupy more or less space depending on how they are feeling. Standing or sitting, if they spread out, generally they are feeling either comfortable and in control, or in the extreme, agressive - particularly the standing leg splay if accompanied by nostril flare (oxygenating ready for action). If however they draw in their limbs, but retain balance (no ankle crossing - see above), it usually means they are feeling a little stressed or threatened.

* Crossed legs: All other things being equal, people have a natural sitting position. So crossed legs alone have no meaning. We're watching for changes. Usually people who like each other will lean toward each other and cross their legs toward each other. A sudden lean back, or a switch of legs means something negative has happened. Or cramp perhaps. A leg pulled up to form a barrier (see left in pic) especially with a double hand clamp on the knees means the person is feeling threatened.

* Leg Clense: This is when someone rubs the palms of their hands over their knees and thighs. This is a pacifying gesture, self-calming, and means that person has undergone stress, or is unhappy with something that has occurred.

* Knee-Clasp and Starter's-Position. These are the same thing. If sitting, the person's legs part, their weight shifts forward and they put their hands on their knees - this means they want to leave. If standing, again their weight shifts, their balance changes and their knees flex slightly - as if they were unconsciously getting ready to spring from the starter's blocks - and they are - they want to leave.

* Gait: People walking without purpose generally dawdle, and look around. People who are late, are going somewhere, or thinking intensely about what they'll do when they get there, walk faster, straighter and usually look fixedly ahead. Watch for people who suddenly change gaits, or vector toward a target.

Torso: The torso is the largest mass of the body,  requiring a lot of energy to move - so although we move it less than any other area of the body, when we do move it - it means something.The torso is also where we do most of our most prominent clothing displays - anything from low-cut dresses to stupid tee-shirt logos - don't be afraid to judge books by their covers; people's choices of clothing with regard to the situations they know they will face does give away useful information about their state of mind.

* Shielding: The torso is full of important stuff like hearts and lungs etc. So when we feel threatened we try to cover them. We hunch over, throw our shoulders forwards, pull our chins down, like turtles. We cross our arms. Watch for how rigid a grip people are using when they cross their arms. Are they relaxed, or are they hugging themselves for reassurance..? Do they have a deathlock on each elbow..? Are they stressed..? Watch for changes.

Not all shielding behaviour is so obvious. Any movement in which the arms or hands cross the chest - a man playing with his watch, a woman touching her necklace, or covering the hollow of her throat where a necklace would be, someone claspping an object - briefcase, clipboard - to their chests - are good indicators that what they are hearing or seeing is stressing them somehow. Sometimes a person will unconsciously place objects to form a 'wall' between themselves and the person who is stressing them.

Conversely, revealing the chest, even rolling up your sleeves or undoing your top button, are indicators of comfort, as is removing items between yourself and another so you can see them better.

* General posture: People generally lean toward things they like, or are comfortable with, and lean away, or turn away, from things they are threatened by, or dislike. Check which direction people's torsos are facing with regard to the person or object they are confronted with, or if they suddenly swivel their torsos away from something. Sometimes in societies or situations in which require great deference/submission to someone people will remain facing them even as they leave - backing out of a room, or bowing to complet a classic Eastern kow-tow.

* Blood and Breathing. If someone's breathing alters, or they blush or become pale, it tells you a great deal. Pallor is a fear/stress response, conserving blood in the organs, taking it away from the skin. Shallow or quiet breathing is also a freeze response - hiding the noise.

A red face, or a blooming of the skin in general means comfort, and sometimes aggression/attraction. Flared nostrils and heightened levels of breathing means someone's getting ready for action. Look for context, and body stance.

Arms and Hands: When it comes to the rest of the body - the head and upper limbs - we are getting onto stickier ground. We have more conscious control over our faces, hands and arms than we do over the rest of our bodies. So when watching the arms, and in particular the hands - (to which we do automatically allocate a portion of our brains to watching when we talk with people) it's worth looking for clusters of movements rather than a single (perhaps deceptive) gesture.

Arms: More honest than the hands, look first for surface information - tattoos or their remnants, and at the extreme end of the scale - the crosshatched scars of a BP self-mutilator.


* Loose arms and outward palms: "Look I'm unarmed" - means the person is welcoming, comfortable and often is the preliminary movement of a hug.
* If the shoulders also raise in the classic shrug alongside the above, it's an honest shrug - the person indicating that they honestly do not know, that they aren't hiding anything. However, if only one shoulder is raised - a half-shrug - chances are that it's dishonest, done for niceties sake at best, or that the person is concealing something.

*Arm-touching: If you want to reassure someone, or just make sure you've got their attention, then right upper arm is the way to go. Also people are more suggestable if you are speaking into thier right ear. (The situation may be reversed for lefties). An arm touch is mainly a "hey we're okay" statement on the part of the toucher.

*Arm posture: As always - upward, bouncy motions of the arms indicate positivity, happiness, and droopy, slow arms mean the person is tired or sad, especially if the shoulders are also down and/or hunched. Warding gestures (variations of a policeman's classic "halt" gesture) are an attempt to distance yourself from something distasteful or stressful. Outstretched arms - the hug invitation - are only honest if the elbows are locked and the arms at full stretch, bent elbows mean the invitationis only half-hearted/dutiful.

*Folded Arms: (covered above - shielding) if restrictive - ie. tightly held, indicates the person is holding themselves back - stressed - or perhaps self-pacifying. The same with a tightly held bag cradled in both arms/hands. Not happy signs.

*The Prison-Walk: Both hands locked behind back. Depending on context it is either a pensive walk - someone thinking intently - or a passive/aggressive "I don't like you/I don't like it here" - basically it means "Don't touch me." A withdrawal of hug-possibility. Lol.

*Arm-splay: Whether gripping a desk or table, spreading out on the sofa or doing the classic 'cobra-hood' in the boardroom - any territory-capturing behaviour means the person is relaxed and happy, confident, and sometimes, if done in circumstances which do not warrent that level of informality, aggressive and insulting.

Hands: Our hands, second only to the face, are the most expressive. We pay so much attention to them that people automatically distrust those who hide their hands when they are speaking. Lawyers specifically warn both witnesses and the accused to keep their hands visible to the jury whilst giving testimony. They are also not always to be trusted, as many people who are practiced in public speaking are trained to use hand gestures to emphasize and support their rehtoric.

*Thumbs: In the classic Superman pose, watch the thumbs. If they are forward, then the person is feeling argumentative (as well as making a territory display). If they are backwards, behind the body, then the position is fairly neutral.
*Thumbs up/down/visible/concealed: In general, thumb position is a good indicator of how confident a person is about whatever is happening. People who stick their thumbs in their pockets display less confidence than those who put their hands in, and leave their thumbs stuck out. If in conversation the thumbs stick up, then that person is confident about what they are saying, if they suddenly go down, or hide themselves, then that person is no longer confident.

*Handshakes: Typical handshakes vary between cultures in strength and duration, and even how many hands are used to shake with. Some cultures hug briefly, or kiss cheeks as well and grasp hands. Some cultures continue to hold hands as they converse. If however their is no cultural difference between you and the person you're shaking with, and you feel uncomfortable with their handshake - it's a bone-crusher, very weak, they touch the inside of your wrist, try to manoever your hand so theirs is on top, or do the politician's double-cup (if they are not politicians) then somethng is wrong, either that person is an asshole, or they think you are.

*Sweaty Palms: A sweaty palm does not mean that person is lying. There's a chance they have a medical or genetic condition (5%) or simply that they are nervous, or stressed. A better indicator of lying hands are ones that seem strangely still, or if the person restrains their hands - by sticking them out of sight, under their armpits, or rigidly folding their arms.

*Steepling: Steepled fingers are a very dramatic sign of confidence - used by lawyers and politicians. If they suddenly collapse into the finger-interlocked 'praying' position, then that confidence and positivity has also collapsed. Watch thumbs also, their up/down position provides commentary while the fingers hold either position.

*Rude gestures: Pointing at someone, though not obviously insulting, is always interpreted as rude, and threatening. Someone can also secretly give you the finger by pushing up their glasses with their middle finger. The UK varient is two fingers - the victory sign reversed. Many cultural varients exist. The fingers and hands may also take up a 'strangling' position, though this is often a micro gesture, only held for an instant.

*Trembling/quivering hands. Often very obvious if someones holding a cigarette or pencil. Trembling is symptomatic of age, alcoholism, or too much caffeine. Depending on context it also shows excitement or nervousness.

*Preening: Knocking lint off your shoulder, raking your hands through your hair another preening activeties are normal between courting/loving couples, but show nervousness if done repeatedly in everyday conversation. They are also a form of ignoral/dismissive behaviour if the person doing them is obviously otherwise confident.

*Hand-wringing/plam rubbing: Clutched hands with white knuckles demonstrate pleading, low confidence. If someone begines to rub their plams with the fingers of their other hand, it is a pacifying movement, indicating stress. Touching/rubbing the neck anywhere with the hands or fingers is also a pacifyer, displaying low confidence.

*In general: Watch for micro-gestures of the hands - these are very truthful - very quick hand displays. Watch for hand extention and withdrawal - like the feet, they inicate comfort/positivity - extended = happy; withdrawn = unhappy. Watch also for absences. When someone is telling the truth, they emphasize it with their hands naturally. If someone's lying, their hands are much less emphatic, strangely stilled, as though the rational (deceptive) brain 'believes' what they are saying, the limbic 'body-brain' does not.

Face: Though the face is the most expressive area of the body, it is also the most deceptive, and should always be taken seriously only in conjunction with the rest of the body. If the face is saying yes, and the body is saying no, then it's no. We are all experts on facial expression, unless someone is autistic or otherwise face-blind. In general, if the face is sending mixed signals, or incomplete expressions - the mouth smile without smiling eyes for example - then believe the negative interpretation.

*Eye-Guarding. Because the eyes are vunerable we unconsciously (usually) guard them from harm - not really recognizing the difference between physical or mental harm. Squinting, lowered brows, pupils contracting, touching or blocking the eyes with fingers or hands, all mean the person has experienced a negative/stress-response to the subject at hand - be it a person, an object or something said. The reverse, positive reaction, is flashbulb eyes, widened pupils, brows raised.

*Eyelid flutter: Usually the person is internally conflicted, struggling for words. Licked lips is also another "I'm considering my options" expression. If the tongue comes out momentarily, that person thinks they've made a mistake, or given something away.

*Compressed lips/puckered lips: Much like eyes, our lips attempt to seal themselves when we are presented with something we don't like. (All of these behaviours are very infantile - "I'm not eating that", "I don't want to look at that") Thinned lips mean disagreement, pursed lips, disapproval. Disgust/contempt exaggerates the pursed lips into a sneer, and sometimes are accompanied by eye-rolling or looking pointedly away.

*Nodding, Shaking, tilting. We often nod or shake our heads to emphasize what we say. Watch for people whose body language and speech are out of sync - a nod with a no etc. If someone tilts their head up, they are displaying confidence, if down, low confidence. If someone tilts their head to the side, they are comfortable with someone or a situation.

Finally: Don't expect to become expert overnight, best to find somewhere public, where you can watch a lot of people full-body, talking and interacting - and watch. When you get into the habit of listening to people with half an ear on what they say, and two eyes on what their body is telling, thn you've cracked it.

First Principles of Inevitabilism.

Having posted under the tag of inevitabilism before, but not having really explained what the hell the concept means at any length, I thought I'd better remedy the situation. To begin with, it doesn't discount free-will. For two reasons, one rather long, the other quite short.

The Long one:

http://writeitorbust.blogspot.com/2010/02/indeterminacy-of-will.html

That was quicker than you expected huh..? Anyway, to cut that very long blog-post down to the basics, quantum indeterminacy, coupled with the *possiblity* of quantum-event-sensitive brain-state criticalities... Allows me to believe there is an empiric case for free-will, or at least true novelty in decision-making.

The Short one:

We feel as if we live our lives with the option of choice. We experience freedom when choosing, we feel as if we could have made a different decision at a given point in time, we experience regret and pride when remembering the things we have chosen and done. It is impossible to think the feeling of free-will away. And impossible to live without feeling/experiencing it.

To borrow a line from John Searle: Even someone absolutely convinced of determinism does not sit down at a table in a restaurant and, when the waiter comes to take his or her order, just say "My order is determined anyway, so, you know, whatever."

Regardless of the truth of the matter, a society believing, and acting upon the belief, that it possesses freedom of choice will act very differently from one that does not. The simple existence of the concept in the group mind, frivolous or real, has effect.

The long and the short of it is that although I'm a big supporter of strict cause and effect for many things, I believe that simple cause and effect alone has not brought us to the situation we find ourselves in today, there is also the unpredictability of happenstance in the purely physical world, and later the novelty of choice expressed in the world of the mind, once a sufficiently sentient breed of agents come into being. The classic chaos-theory snowball rolling downhill, tapped by the tiny finger of quantum indeterminacy early enough on in its path, will end up in a wildly different place than its utterly determined fellows. Small differences, in a system sensitive to intial conditions, will produce vast divergences in the future.

And here, considering I've just spent a paragraph or two saying "freedom of choice prevents strict cause/effect pre-determination of the future", you'd be forgiven for assuming I'm mad for trying to push an "everything is inevitable" viewpoint. But, cantankerous scum-baggery dictates I once again beg to differ.

It's a question of scale. And probability, and that some decisions are just damn better than others. Let's pause for a picture.

If you look at life in general as a series of conflicts on a population-wide scale, all occurring concurrently - maybe between individuals or groups of people, or perhaps more initially between those individuals/groups and the enviroments they occupied... Then, as illustrated above, some decisions are always better than others.

ie. Swords beat fists.

Sure, it's not impossible that the fisticuff guy could win, maybe the sword-guy has a chest cold that slows him down, maybe a cow swept up miles away by a tornado falls out of the sky with pin-point accuracy, squashing sword guy into a pulp before fisticuff guy even lands a punch. But it's dubious. In a hundred fights of a similar pairs, I think the sword guys would come out ahead - there just ain't that many tornado-cows around.

Let's ask history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca

Numbers of fighters involved:

Pizzaro (Spain): 106 infantry, 62 cavalry, 4 cannons, 12 harquebus [old rifles]

Atahualpa (Aztec): 7,000 of Atahualpa's personal attendants.

How it all panned out: "At the signal to attack, the Spaniards unleashed gunfire at the vulnerable mass of Incas and surged forward in a concerted action. The effect was devastating: the shocked and unarmed Incas offered so little resistance that the battle has often been labeled a massacre. Contemporary accounts by members of Pizarro's force explain how the Spanish forces used a cavalry charge against the Inca forces, who had never seen horses, in combination with gunfire from cover (the Inca forces also had never encountered guns before). Other factors in the Spaniard's favor were their steel swords, helmets and armor, against the Inca forces which only had leather armor and were unarmed. The Spanish also had 4 small cannons commanded by a Greek artillery captain which were used to great effect in the crowded town square. The first target of the Spanish attack was the Inca Emperor[6] and his top commanders; once these had been killed or captured the Inca forces were disorganized as the command structure of the army had been effectively decapitated..."


Final Score:

Spain (aka sword guys) - 1 wounded. 

Aztecs (aka fisticuff guys) : 6000+ dead.

What I mean to say by this is, throughout history, despite there being implicitly a diversity of choices to be made at any one point, overall, mimicking pre-determinism, only a select section of the starting populations would ever remain in existence, namely the ones who acted to follow exactly the path delineated by the best solutions to certain problems. Solutions which existed, in hypothetic form, prior to the event.

Let me expand the scale upward still further: Just follow the arrows as primitive man and woman make choices as they attempt to stay alive on their journey through the landscape of decision/solution:

Very basically, due to the principle of the "last man standing must have done something right" and despite individual free-will, the universe acts as if the future is pre-determined right from the very beginning, at least with respect to life, because *best* solutions to given situations and problems exist, eternal, outside of time.

Whoo. Cthulhu fhtagn.

invisible

Well, okay, it's not that freaky of an idea. In conclusion: let's say we're examining the past and present and trying to divine the future. Let's, for pictorial sensibilities, that the future is maybe looking kinda Barbarella-shaped.



In a determinist universe, we can look at the present, remember the past, do a few sums, and 'ping' - out pops a fully defined 60's Sci-fi queen. In a totally indeterminate (compatabilist) universe however, the present and the past are no good to predict the future, because of all the mini-mini-details/choices having such a 'huge' effect, and this snowballs - adding so much noise to the future that it becomes impossible really to see anything.

Inevitabilism is the middle path. It doesn't pretend to be completely accurate in the details, it simply looks at things on a larger scale, a scale where individual actions largely cancel out. Looks at the stage, rather than just the players, and reads the future from that.