Chicken Little Hatched a Luddite

At the recommendation of some facebook enthusiasts, I watched "The Age of Transitions" tonight, and arrived at the following opinions:

There were many factual arguments, but some of them were used to support positions that require a very narrow focus on only a few of the facts. For instance, the focus on eugenics, and connecting that to lowered birth rates, as though there were a group of people out there that were trying to kill us all off or dehumanize us, is illusory. While there have been extremely crazy people in high positions of power in various nations, I don't think that's different from the way it's been in primate (and human) history for as long as we HAVE history. The old maxim is that you'd have to be crazy to want to be king. The desire to control other people as a driving, superseding purpose is required to tolerate the public scrutiny, abuse, demands on your time, etc. Those who desire such power should never be allowed to have it.

We had a horrible period of history in the US of A, where we were funding fascists and dictators, and even violent overthrow of existing governments and replacing them with our own representatives. There's pretty good evidence that this strategy was developed with the guiding vision of former SS Officers, under the direction of what came to be known as the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.archives.gov/iwg/declassified-records/rg-330-defense-secretary/

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/summer00/art06.html

These documents acknowledge the facts. Nazi intelligence was instrumental to the formation of the CIA, and I would contend has triumphed throughout the military-industrial complex.

While these are facts, they are not ALL the facts. While sociopaths do exist, and they do hold significant influence, they can only hold such influence while it remains hidden.

I don't believe that technology is the enemy, or that human nature is defined by the substrate which supports it. The enemy is the vulnerabilities our organic substrate engender. Acquisitiveness, territorial dispositions, and other inherited inchoate demands dominate those of us who do not come to terms with them.

The biological engines created by our genes require fuels. Creation of and control over those fuels becomes a driving force for groups of people, and cultures (groups of people that follow specific rules and patterns of behavior derived from those rules) form among those groups. Clashes between groups and between cultures result in larger and larger availability of resources for people in dominant cultures, while other groups and cultures gradually lose influence and control and the rules that they follow, their rituals and customs, cease to have successful adherents.

Science and technology evolve to suit cultural imperatives. A culture with goals focused around dominance of resources to suit the requirements of biological bodies will likely create militaristic technologies, have aggressive and xenophobic tendencies. While more evolved strategies exist (cooperation, tolerance, abundant creation, etc.), they can only be successful if a dominance culture is not seizing the shared resources (particularly resources critical to military defense or offense).

Technology can engender strategies other than dominance, though, that are necessary to reduce pathological dependence on limited resources. Our ability to transform the physical universe around us, as well as our own bodies can generate more of the resources that we need while decreasing our need for resources (efficiency) and thus the justification for dominance.

The answer to dominance cultures is not to engage them in battle, that's what they are designed for. They are good at detecting and destroying perceived enemies, whether external or internal to their system. They are a difficult problem that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it; you lose by engaging them. Instead of fighting with their ideology and agents, the solution is transparency. Constantly film them. Constantly report to others. Create a culture of logical dialogue, don't allow threat (appeal to authority) or distraction (appeal to emotion) to prevent understanding or disrupt community, or prevent learning. Vote for repeal of acts which prevent transparency and for acts which increase citizen access (and customer access) to accurate information without allowing time for PR campaigns to create waves of disinformation.

Contrary to the opinions I saw in this documentary, I would say that information technology enhances transparency, and if net neutrality can be maintained, will represent a major blow to fascist dominance cultures allowing emergence of cooperative, intelligent cultivation of resources. As the dominance culture and its proponents die off, the rest of us can get on with the party.

I don't think a dark vision of the future under technofascism is likely, because all the trends involved actually undermine the requirements for its existence. So this documentary struck me as Luddite, aimed at spiritual "right-to-life" crowd, and I found its message repugnant, manipulative, dishonest: it struck me as a PR piece against the technologists and scientists who are undermining the dominance culture as they strive towards cooperative, knowledge based culture.

Science and technology serve cultural imperatives. When the culture is cooperative and knowledge-based, applications are developed with human interest at heart, instead of with resource protection at heart. As a race, we've seen a lot of the dark-side of technology, because we live in a dark, dominator culture. As that changes, we'll see more and more of the empowerment, enlightenment side of technology. I see a very bright future, and I'm not falling for the Chicken Little acts any more.

SNAFU: Lie to Me, Baby

I don't hate us. I love me, and I'm part of us. I like (fnord) you, too, and I consider you part of us.


The problem seems to be that our planetary civilization is organized on many levels, but that there is a lack of transparency between these levels, no accountability between many of them, and so they function with incomplete or erroneous information about these interactions. I would say "except at the top", but for the pesky phenomenon known as SNAFU: Situation Norma All Fucked UP, as elucidated by the brilliant Robert Anton Wilson in his "Illuminati" books (no, I don't consider them textbooks, thank you very much).

SNAFU results because those at the bottom of a power structure are reluctant to report accurately to those "above" them in the heirarchy, since their reports are likely to be used against them. If your job is to mop a floor, and it looks spitshined to an inspector, reporting that you did nothing is likely to result in your not being paid. Reporting that you mopped the floor results in your being paid, and the floor is clean anyway. Since you want to be paid, and not hear a bunch of shit from the manager about how lazy you are, how you could have been "facing the aisles" instead of having a wank in the public restroom, etc., you could (and many people DO) false report. Their reasons are legion, but it boils down to "fuck that motherfucker, he don't mean shit to me, and the fucking floor is clean". Then, this manager is likely to report to his supervisor that his store is clean, his employees are happy (though they would happily tear his throat out if there were not social restrictions on that sort of behavior), etc. The falsehood is never detected, perhaps, or it might be overlooked, because hey, the fucking floor is clean, and the manager doesn't want to have his throat ripped out, or get the district manager involved (undermining his position) with disciplining his employees. This would be no big deal (though it's fucked up), except perhaps some bacteria got on the floor while you were coming back from your wank, or whatever, and because it wasn't mopped (looked clean), it grew. Maybe someone gets sick. Maybe someone dies. Maybe the health department figures out what happened, and when (through a miracle of forensic science and people caring) they trace it back to the store, the manager gets fired, and the mopper is clueless. This error in reporting is endemic to heirarchical organizations, and between layers of organizations, and between countries (where it is called disinformation when it is acknowledged at all). So we have SNAFU, all because people would rather not mop a apparently clean floor when they could be having a wank, and they don't want to say this to their manager.

Multi-national corporations don't report accurately or honestly to local governments, or to anyone, really, except maybe their own internal auditors (where that auditor probably runs into SNAFU within his organization). The Federal Government doesn't receive accurate reports from sub-organizations, or from the entities they are supposed to regulate (and fail utterly). State governments have the same problem. So does your local McDonalds. So does your family, most likely, especially if Mom or Dad won't let you have the car, access to a trust, or in any other way holds compulsive power over you, or you with your own children. This problem is compounded when Multinationals have ulterior agendas, as do government agencies, individual agents, moms, kids, anyone in the system.

Getting mad at the US Government is fun for most people. We all know they're lying. It's interesting to see what the lies are, what they lie about, when they are lying, and to try to fathom WHY.

Ultimately, it's human nature. To fight our tendency to lie to each other constantly for fun and profit, we have social moral values like "perjury", "fraud", etc., which are perpetually at war with "I don't recall", "knock before entering", and my personal favorite "fuck you". Corporations won their right to be considered "persons", and therefore are given the right to privacy, the right to express themselves during elections (read: pay the right people off), and the right to silence their critics with bullets, smear campaigns, batons, fences, lawsuits, etc.

What can we do about it? Fight for transparency and accountability at every point of contact between people, businesses, governments and other human organizations. I doubt it will work, though. This fight will be fought by people and their organizations, and they WILL lie to each other about their progress, their agenda, and every other property. It's amazing we can ever get any access to any true information at all, or that any of us relay it.

"AD/HD" and Metapsychology

Attention - Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder – A Metapsychology Perspective

-Kevin G. Brady, BA, TIR(W), LSR(W)

Part I:  Definition of terms

            The DSM IV defines ADHD as:

“DSM-IV (Text Revision) Definition
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Essential features:
A. Persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is more frequently displayed and is more severe than is typically observed in individuals at comparable level of development.
B. Some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms must have been present before seven years of age.
C. Some impairment from the symptoms must be present in at least two settings.
D. There must be clear evidence of interference with developmentally appropriate social, academic or occupational functioning.
E. The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Schizophrenia, or other Psychotic Disorders and is not better accounted for by another mental disorder.

Three Subtypes:
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Predominantly Inattentive Type: This subtype is used if six (or more) symptoms of inattention (but fewer than six symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity) have persisted for at least six months.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type: This subtype should be used if six (or more) symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity (but fewer than six of inattention) have persisted for at least six months.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Combined Type: This subtype should be used if six (or more) symptoms of inattention and six (or more) symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity have persisted for at least six months.

Diagnostic Criteria for the three subtypes of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder according to DSM-IV:

A. “Persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is more frequently displayed and is more severe than is typically observed in individuals at comparable level of development.” Individual must meet criteria for either (1) or (2):

(1) Six (or more) of the following symptoms of inattention have persisted for at least six months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:

Inattention
(a) often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work or other activities
(b) often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activity
(c) often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
(d) often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions)
(e) often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
(f) often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework)
(g) often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g., toys, school assignments, pencils, books or tools)
(h) is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
(i) is often forgetful in daily activities

(2) Six (or more) of the following symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity have persisted for at least six months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:

Hyperactivity
(a) often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
(b) often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected
(c) often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate (in adolescents or adults, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness)
(d) often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
(e) is often “on the go” or often acts as if “driven by a motor”
(f) often talks excessively
Impulsivity
(g) often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
(h) often has difficulty awaiting turn
(i) often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g., butts into conversations or games)

B. Some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms must have been present before age 7 years.
C. Some impairment from the symptoms is present in at least two settings (e.g., at school [or work] and at home).
D. There must be clear evidence of interference with developmentally appropriate social, academic or occupational functioning.
E. The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Schizophrenia, or other Psychotic Disorders and is not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g., Mood Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, or a Personality Disorder).

Prevalence

• Estimated 3%-7% in school –age children
• Rates dependent on population sampled and method of ascertainment
• Data on prevalence in adolescence and adulthood is limited”

                With forgiveness for the lack of operational definitions of important concepts like “often”, “peers”, “has difficulty”, “excessively”, etc., this definition shows that persons suffering from AD/HD experience an inability to control their own attention.  Metapsychology defines attention as receptive intention, the intent to receive, as explained in this rather lengthy passage (the parts I quote are necessary for a full understanding of how Metapsychology understands attention, intention, desire, and drive and power, all of which are heavily impacted by AD/HD):

“There are only three kinds of entities in the world of experience. This applies to everybody's world. No matter what identity you have assumed, you will only experience three kinds of entities while being that identity: phenomena, concepts, and facts.

1.       Phenomena. These entities are the objects of sensory or non-sensory perception. By "sensory perception", I mean perception via the physical senses. Things that you can touch, feel, see, hear, smell, or taste are phenomena perceived in this way. A table is a phenomenon; you can see one or feel one. A chalkboard is a phenomenon.

Phenomena also include the objects of non-sensory perception, by which I do not mean "extrasensory perception", or ESP. Non-sensory perception is part of ordinary consciousness; ESP is not. By "non-sensory perception", I mean what happens when you close your eyes and make a picture of a horse. You get a perception of something; that something is a mental picture and not a sensory perception. You are seeing with the "mind's eye", not with the body's eye. Similarly, if you're sitting in a plane and hearing the vibrations as a sort of white noise, you can sometimes imagine symphonies going on in your mind. Perhaps you have had an experience like that…

2.       Concepts. The notion of a "concept" is somewhat more difficult to define. We sometimes call them "thoughts" or "ideas", and they are not the same as phenomena. I can have the concept of a horse without experiencing the phenomenon of a particular horse. When I think about horses, I may get impressions of different horses, sort of fleeting pictures of this one and that one. That is what I call the "penumbra" [from Latin: "almost" + "shadow"] of the concept, the phenomena around the concept itself. Those phenomena are not the concept itself. The concept of the horse is something different. It's a little hard to get your hands on it, because it's not something you can touch or feel; it is something you can think, or conceptualize.

Consider the concept of motherhood. When I have that concept, I may get pictures of mothers cuddling babies, or maybe just sort of a warm fuzzy feeling, but these phenomena are not the concept itself. These are part of the phenomenal penumbra of the concept. What is the concept itself? The concept is a potential reality. A concept is something that could exist, but doesn't necessarily exist. The concept of a horse, for instance, is one that corresponds to an actual reality, there are still some horses around, in fact. On the other hand, the concept of Pegasus corresponds to a non-reality, because there aren't any winged horses around, yet we can still have the concept of one. So a concept is something that could be a reality in some universe, but might not be a reality currently.

3.       Facts. A fact is not something you can perceive. A fact is something you can know. I perceive this podium. I don't know the podium. But a fact is something I know. I know, for instance, that women have babies. A fact is actually a concept to which one additional thing has been added. That is: "Yes!" In other words, I have the concept of certain creatures that gallop around, some of which are black, some brown, and one of which is Black Beauty. And then I say "Yes!" to that concept. I agree with it. I agree that it exists. That agreement creates a fact out of that concept. I have a concept to which I have said "Yes!" and for me it has become a fact.

I have the concept of Socrates' having been the teacher of Plato. That's not a phenomenon in the present because Socrates and Plato are both long gone, but it is a fact that Socrates was the teacher of Plato. So, given the concept of Socrates' having been the teacher of Plato, what makes this concept into a fact in my experience is that I say to myself, "Socrates having been the teacher of Plato - Yes!" If I were to say, "Socrates having been the teacher of Plato - No!", that would mean it is not a fact but is only a concept, a fiction.

Those three things - facts, concepts, and phenomena - make up any world, just those three things.

Now, I mentioned that every entity in a person's experience has an action that relates it to the self, and I have asserted that there are three kinds of entities. So it should come as no surprise that there are three kinds of actions corresponding to these different entities. Not only that, but, because any entity can be received or created, there are six kinds of actions altogether, three for receiving and three for creating. Let me go through those quickly.

1.       Perceptualizing. Consider the actions that give us phenomena, the actions by which we "perceptualize". On the creative side we have picturing, which is making a mental picture. You can create phenomena. If I ask you to close your eyes and make a picture or get an impression of a horse, you can do it. That's a creative act. You're not creating something in your physical world, but you are certainly creating something in your mental world.

The receptive action that gives us phenomena is perceiving. Again, we have sensory and non-sensory perceptions.

2.       Conceptualizing. The creative action that gives us concepts is conceiving…

 The receptive action that gives us concepts is interpreting. When we see something - as when we look at the hills of California and notice that they're brown - that can give us several different ideas. We can interpret that brownness to mean that there has been insufficient rain, that somebody sprayed herbicide on the hillside, or that it burned. There are a number of different ideas we can get by looking at and interpreting the data, and those ideas are concepts. So you get a concept by interpreting something. Now again, I'm talking about ordinary reality, because some people will say you can get concepts by intuition as well. Fine, but let's stick to ordinary reality.

3.       Cognizing. You "cognize" - create a fact - by an action called "postulating". Postulating is the action of first conceiving a concept and then saying "Yes!" to it. You say, "My little finger raised in the next few seconds - Yes!" And by gosh, up it goes! This is a peculiar thing, because, experientially, we move our bodies by postulates. We do not experience ourselves as moving them by moving all those little muscles or by making the nerves do things. According to a certain materialistic belief system, all these things happen neurologically. That's fine, but in the Un-belief System, we move by postulates, and that is inescapable. If you decide to do something and it happens, that decision - that postulate - is what made it happen. That's how you create a fact, you postulate. Whether the fact that you wind up having created is a body motion, or the possession of a million dollars, or whatever, that is how you created it.

How do we receive facts? By understanding. First we look at data - the California hills, for example - and then we interpret them, getting perhaps several different possible concepts or interpretations. The brown color might be due to lack of rain...to herbicide...to fires. And then we say "Yes!" to one of those interpretations, "Yes! It's lack of rain." At that point we have understanding. We have understood at that point that the brownness is caused by lack of rain. Now, people will object and say, "Well, look! This is crazy! Just saying "Yes!" to something doesn't make it a fact. It's either a fact or it isn't. Come on, Gerbode!" Well, again, according to various belief systems, if I believe that the reason the grass is brown is because of herbicides, and somebody else thinks it's because of lack of water, then from the point of view of their belief system, what I have is not a fact. But from the point of view of the Un-belief System - from the point of view of experience - it is a fact for me, and that's the crucial distinction…

[My next topic] is: what is power, anyway? I'm talking about personal power, not the kind that is generated in power stations. My thoughts on this topic have really only appeared in the last year, because I've recently given it some close attention.

In order to understand the nature of power, it is first important to discuss the relationship between desire and intention. I've been thinking about what the difference was between a wish and a desire. It occurred to me that you can wish for things that you know are impossible, and you can desire things you know are impossible, but you can't intend things that you know are impossible.

Desire is an impulse toward something's existing, an impulse toward having something exist for oneself in one's world… Desire, then, is the impulse toward bringing something into existence. It is really a form of positive regard toward the world or some part of it, an affinity for some entity…

[A]bility is the capacity to act in a certain way, and as I mentioned, we all have certain basic abilities. We have the ability to picture, perceive, conceive, interpret, postulate, and understand. These are the basic abilities out of which every other ability we have is constructed. They are like the "basic instruction set", of a computer. By combining them in various ways and applying them to different entities, we build up everything else we are capable of doing.

Suppose you are a very able person. At any given time, there could be lots of things you are able to do that you're not doing. Why? Because you don't desire to do them. You could be the most brilliant and capable person in the world, but if you have no desire for things, no capacity to desire things, no drive, you are not going to make anything happen… So in order to be powerful, not only must you have ability, you must also have drive: the desire, the impetus to make things exist. If you don't have the impetus to make things exist, you are not going to bring anything into existence.” – Gerbode, “Applied Metapsychology – The Unbelief System” (Bold emphasis added by Brady)

                So, a person has a given capacity for intention or attention, which are actually different sides of the same coin, the first being creative (creating an effect), the other being receptive (receiving an effect).  Each of the abilities that Dr. Gerbode listed can readily be seen as forms of causative will, which this author contends is closely related to or identical with “ego-strength” or “resilience”:  to create a picture,  to receive a picture (perceive), to create a concept, to receive a concept (interpret), to create a postulate or to receive a postulate (understand).

            With these definitions in place, a summary is in order.

1)      DSM IV (tr) defines AD/HD in terms of inability to attend, combined with compulsive skipping between various creative actions (creating effects such as disturbances, daydreams, fidgeting, etc.) and a low tolerance for long duration in any particular activity.

2)      Metapsychology defines attention and intention as the capacity to receive effects or create effects respectively, which capacity can then be combined with drive (desire to bring specific effect into existence, having an affinity for the creation of specific kinds of effects or reception of specific kinds of effects) to equate to personal power.

Part II)  Statement of the problem

Through the magic of the substitution property, as given in mathematics, we can therefore have a person-centered definition of AD/HD:  the inability to control one’s attention and intention over a given period of time.  In a person-centered model, though, and with an understanding of the traumatic incident network, disturbances and how these can disrupt flexibility of identity, it might be understood as an inability to study:   incapacity to remain in the identity of the student, despite the possibility that all the skills to study may be present.  Without the subjective report of the person labeled with AD/HD, we don’t actually know whether the person never established this control, might have compulsions or inhibitions (read:  emotional charge) embedded in an incident or distributed throughout a number of incidents connected thematically, might have emotional charge related to school, or teachers, or a specific teacher, etc.  Any variety of emotional charge could conceivably interrupt control over one’s attention and intentions.

Part III)  Conclusions

            With the problem understood in person-centered terms, ready solutions appear, as well.  Furthermore, we see that AD/HD has no special status as a “disorder” or “mental illness”.  Instead, we see that it is a result of the presence of emotional charge, by definition, combined with the possible need to rehabilitate the skills a person uses to create or receive their experiences, i.e.:  creative and receptive intention.  An interview with the viewer can determine what disturbances they are aware of, and then a program can be delivered to address them.  In fact, the definition of disturbance seems to completely encapsulate the diagnosis: 

“An area of charge on which the viewer has his/her attention fixated, which prevents the viewer from putting attention where s/he wants to put it. After the disturbance is deactivated, the viewer's attention is free. Disturbances may vary in severity, from mild and almost trivial to extremely intense. Upsets, pressing current worries or problems, withheld communications, and traumatic incidents that are currently reactivated are the main examples of disturbances.” - TIRA Online Glossary

Addressing disturbances will address the interruption of intention to the extent that the items lying at the root of the issue are within the viewer’s band of accessibility, as detailed in French’s “Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR)”.  Objective procedures can be used, as well as simple repetitive techniques, i.e.:   1) “create an intention to do something”, 2) “Do it!”  These unburdening techniques can be coupled with Communication Exercises to enhance the person’s skill at controlling their attention.

            Given the normal restrictions of any application of unburdening actions (limited band of accessibility, viewer’s capacity to intend, etc.), such a program cannot be expected to “cure” the condition, but it should provide significant alleviation and increase of ability in many spheres of action, as the abilities addressed are fundamental to all other abilities learned by the person.  The viewer will regain or obtain for the first time some degree of control over their intention and attention, and given continued work, would make continuous progress.  Such control, when emotional charge is unburdened, is a skill.  Skills are obtained through obtaining valid, empowering information and then practicing.  Absolute elimination of “AD/HD” may not be possible, as it is always possible to get out of practice with your control of attention/intention, and it is always possible that new disturbances or traumatic incidents, overwhelming environments or people could enter the person’s world.  In fact, understanding it in metapsychology terms allows us to see that the ability to control one’s attention and intention is likely never absolute for any person, and the span of time they can hold attention and intention also vary.  We could all be said to have some degree of AD/HD, which makes the label nearly meaningless, except that some people have accepted it as a diagnosis and as a part of their identity, and so we will see it.

Part IV)  Speculation

            There are many reasons why a person might not develop the skill of controlling their intentions/attention and learning to increase the duration of this control.  The nearly complete destruction of the values once held concerning the nuclear family has resulted in great freedom for both women and men to express themselves through careers and non-traditional  types of family units.  It has also resulted in a drastic reduction of time in which many parents can model behavior, teach skills, troubleshoot emotional charge (this is practically anathema, now, actually:  you don’t talk to your child, you take them to a therapist!), share their world-view, etc.  A generation or two of children have grown up in this situation, which has led to a general decline in education level, self-control, civic responsibility, and many other values normally transmitted through parents, guides and teachers.  Of course there are exceptions, but this has been my general observation.  This set the stage in one respect.

            Technology has also been accelerating at Ray Kurzweil’s predicted vector, and this has resulted in the wholesale pricing and fast manufacture of increasingly fascinating electronics and the media that they engender.  Social media, for instance, has started to absorb an alarming percentage of my own time, and I can see that this is happening with a large number of my friends, family and associates.  Games have reached a level of sophistication where the corporations generating them have instituted reward algorithms based on statistical research showing how frequently one needs to get a given type of reward to keep one’s attention absorbed for longer and longer periods.  Not only does this create a very real and growing wasteful habit scenario, but it means a person can have less and less time available for maintenance of their home, improvement of their education, unburdening of emotional charge and relationships with loved ones.  The insidious reality, though, is that such games, streaming movies (particularly pornography and violence, which can be powerful triggers for the adults and children who access them 24/7) constant signaling from friends or associates through social media train us to cease creating our own effects, transforming a once-proud people into an army of consumers who are controlled by “news media” and politics that they have no feeling of ownership or control regarding. 
         “AD/HD” is not a disease, it is a disability which may have a significant basis in the rapid changes occurring across the civilizations of the planet.  Viewing it as an illness starts the “first cause” debate about neurological conditions, and is a logical non-starter as neurology hasn’t (and, I would argue, cannot) found an operational definition for self-awareness nor found exact neurological correlates for it.  Attention probably has neurological correlates, but I haven’t seen any evidence that DNA programs those correlates directly.  Instead, the genotype provides the ability to create cells that make connections, and the connections carry and reinforce perceptions, emotional responses, habits, and other cognitive functions.   Thus, the patterns and behaviors we learn as children become our nervous system, in a very real sense.  Thus, “AD/HD” is created through interaction with the electronic media which has become firmly embedded.
        Do the media corporations have our best interests at heart?  They are aware that kids are sitting at home watching and playing, and they’ve done the research to keep them there, despite the obvious damage it is doing.  I don’t think they intend to do damage, but they are not accepting responsibility for it and changing their presentation, either.  I think this adds importance to the work we are doing as metapsychology facilitators, trainers and viewers.  I’m adding programs to my own practice to address these sorts of ills, and hope that some of these programs will be adopted as part of the arsenal of tools available for Life Stress Reduction training and technical direction.  I leave you with the following excerpt, which emphasizes the media culture points:

“Early Environmental Factors

Again, most researchers suggest that true ADHD is not caused by environmental factors. However, the following environmental factors may exacerbate symptoms of true ADHD, or create ADHD-like symptoms: prenatal and perinatal complications (e.g., low birth weight, fetal distress), prenatal alcohol or tobacco exposure, lead poisoning, pesticides, moderate to severe protein deficiency, head injuries that involve the frontal lobe, allergies, abuse or violent trauma. All of these environmental stressors must be examined more fully to determine their exact link, if any, to ADHD.

Children are not able to respond to environmental stressors in the same way as adults. For example, if adults were faced with severe interpersonal relationship problems, they might read about and use self-help strategies to resolve problems, seek therapy, or leave the relationship. In contrast, children may begin having problems paying attention and monitoring their behavior. These findings emphasize that there are various potential environmental contributors to ADHD-like symptoms that must be considered when evaluating a child for diagnosis. The examination of different situations that create similar behavioral problems clearly demonstrates the importance of an accurate diagnosis.

Media Exposure

Some researchers believe that at least part of the reason for the increase in ADHD diagnoses is related to the influence of modern lifestyle changes. These theories are based on the notion that the brains of very young children (i.e., under age 2) are not yet sophisticated enough to accurately process media images. It is thought that viewing media at this age may disrupt the brain's normal developmental process, which is gained through experiences with real people and objects. As a result, introducing artificial images to very young children may result in faulty brain development, inaccurate perceptions of the world, attention deficits, diminished reading ability, and even obesity. Video games, and the fast-cut modern style of music videos and some movies are also thought to be problematic for some individuals. Young children require more time to sort through visual images than do older children and adults, leaving them vulnerable to becoming disoriented and agitated from viewing fast-cut media.

Other professionals believe that frequent exposure to intense lightning-fast visual images can disrupt cognitive functioning by teaching young developing brains to become dependent on excessive stimulation. This experience may train many young people to constantly shift attention from one stimulus to the next, thus making them become easily bored with a more real-world pace. In settings without fast-paced media images (like school or the playground), these children feel under-stimulated, cannot focus on other tasks, and compulsively seek physical activity or increased stimulation. This type of behavior sounds very much like true ADHD, but it is not likely the result of neurological changes, and does not usually meet the DSM criteria for diagnosing ADHD. Although there is no scientific evidence to date showing that media exposure causes ADHD, many professionals agree that this type of media may at least compound the attention difficulties of individuals with ADHD.” -  MentalHelp.net, "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder"

Education

When discussing education, it's important to understand what that means.  Is it the same thing as training?  What is the desired outcome of education?  Are we looking for children to come out with homogenous understanding of the world, all in line with whatever the teacher at the time believed, or the writers of the textbooks?

I know that in my own family, this was considered secondary.  The primary purpose, as I came to understand it, was for the child to arrive at an ability to think for themself, to be able to communicate their ideas, hypotheses and conclusions clearly both orally and in writing.  Once a person has achieved this state of affairs, they can be introduced to any subject, and no longer need much in the way of help to achieve mastery of that subject.

Way back in the dusts of time, this was called "the three Rs": 

1)  Reading
2)  Writing
3)  Arithmetic

These fundamentals open the doors to all other fields of learning.  The strength of these skills essentially determines the likely success of a given student in a given class, once other fundamentals (outside the control of the teacher) are addressed.  Those fundamentals are well-understood if one is familiar with Maslow's heirarchy of needs, expanded to include different learning styles and possibly learning disabilities, where those are interfering.  A child who is not receiving adequate nutrition, sleep and shelter cannot be expected to have their attention  readily at the disposal of their instructors, possibly not even at their own ready control.  God forbid the abusive environment, which is another topic entirely, though it should be mentioned.

When I was in grade-school, I remember hating lecture classes, which was about 99% of the time in school.  It wasn't that I couldn't understand the instructor, it was that I had no control of the process, and felt no sense of ownership of the materials or the process of my learning.  I became a class clown to compensate, and this got me in trouble, frequently expelled from the classroom.  The great thing about being thrown out of class was that I could finally sit down and READ THE BOOK without interference from either my classmates or the instructor.  We used a system called SRA intermittently, but it wasn't integrated into our grades at school, and wasn't always available.  This was modular learning, self-directed and you couldn't move on to the next materials until you tested and showed you had understood and mastered the previous lesson.  This method finally set me free, where I wasn't comparing myself to other students, but was learning and teaching myself, so there was no authority to struggle against, no periods of lapsed attention where I missed something, etc.  I wish my entire schooling experience was SRA-based, with the possible exception of labs or technical writing.

I think that the process of education should mirror the desired product:  a person who can learn what they need to know in order to live and work in a democratic society, regardless of the quality of the media.  Do we want people who passively receive information without critical thinking and who move at the pace of their peers, or do we want active learners who take an interest in their environment and are equipped with a knowledge of how to learn, and how to discern between valid concepts and specious reasoning?

At present, our schools perform the function of babysitters.  In my opinion, they retard the progress of interested students, though there are obviously exceptional teachers and even exceptional schools where this is not the case.  What is needed is an overhaul of the model.  For an idea of how this could occur without changing the infrastructure drastically, please peruse the following materials.  The first is a talk by the founder of Khan Academy (an online resource with which I have no affiliation other than interest).  The second is a link to his website, where a person can go for self-directed learning in math and some of the core sciences.  He is expanding it to cover a wider range of subjects, but currently the most defined series is mathematics. 

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Another, similar talk building on the beginnings at Khan Academy, was tried at Stanford with great success.  This restores a classroom, assignment based method, but opens it up to unlimited numbers of students simultaneously.  

                                     

These sorts of resources revolutionize the classroom, empower the student, and free the teacher to offer much more individualized attention to students when they need troubleshooting or additional guidance.  While this is certainly useful to the existing system, it might be even more useful to the people who are home-schooling.  Quite frequently, children ask questions to which their parents have no adequate answer, and perhaps the parent doesn't have the background to properly address the answer to that question in a reasonable time-frame.  This sort of modular online resource is priceless in such situations.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, AltaVista and whatever others are clinging to life already heavily index their articles so that users can find what they are looking for.  This modular learning system could be expanded to include all searchable articles by simply tagging these articles with prerequisites for full comprehension.  The same could be listed on the spine of books at a library.  This sort of system would inspire children (or adults) to study subjects that they might otherwise eschew, because they don't seem to apply to anything.  An example might be a book on man's flight to the moon.  Required tags might be things like "basic literacy", "powered flight", "self-contained breathing apparatus", "ballistics", etc.  A person could know that they could read the book and enjoy it, but for full understanding, they should familiarize themselves with modules on those subjects.  This could help the self-directed student, but it could be equally helpful to a teacher or school-board planning what subjects are taught at what points.  It could also help the mobile students of today, whose parents move frequently to different locations/school-systems.  They could carry with them an online record of what modules they had covered, such that the school they were entering immediately knew if they were prepared for a given class.

I consider the SRA approach to have been ground-breaking.  There have been a number of charter and private schools that made good use of modular learning, but not so thoroughly integrated with their grading systems and with other schools, or with online resources.  I consider Khan Academy's site to be the future of education, though I am sure that there will be modifications and it's obviously a work in progress.

With that sort of modular learning approach in place, I would recommend, as well, logical training as early as possible, at whatever level the student can appreciate and use it.  Given the amount of badly reasoned positions out there, a student who simply accepts anything they are taught from figures of authority (teachers, textbook writers, school boards, parents who have adopted belief systems that prevent examination of all sides and some facts, etc.) will come out confused and full of unexamined "knowledge".  This trains them to RECEIVE information, ONLY, rendering them passive and compliant or so full of protest they'd rather not "learn"/"study", and take off after more interesting, engaging and participatory activities.  Logical analysis teaches people to examine the facts, examine the sources, do thought-experiments, come up with their own ideas; to think critically and create, participate in their own education.  The act of analysis, accompanied by rejection of some proposed "fact" is just as empowering (perhaps moreso) as the ability to parrot whatever they are taught.  As well, the learning of logic, logical operators and terminology fits in very well with learning of fundamental mathematics, and basic computer programming; all fundamental skills in modern life.  Training in spotting logical fallacies is particularly helpful, as well as possibly being a fun game.  Sitting through a TV commercial, a nightly newscast, or some more obvious form of propaganda (youtube videos can be great fodder) provide excellent opportunities to spot fallacious reasoning, and can help a child realize the value of these skills.  Our society is riddled with fountains of fallacious reasoning trapping hundreds of millions of people in prisons of ignorance that they could escape with these keys.

For help with logical fallacies, check out the Fallacy Files website, with particular attention to their taxonomy interactive graphic.  For exhaustive understanding of logic, I would recommend this youtube video on Bertrand Russell's views.  I am not familiar with introductory texts for children, but I'm sure that they exist.  Until you find one that is good for your child (or yourself, if you're a child), check out wikipedia's article on P4C "Philosophy for Children".  Some people don't think children need philosophy, but I'd argue that without it, they are helpless in the face of the overwhelming certainties and falsities that surround them.

Politics

The old saw is that our democracy is hampered or obviated by the corruption of campaign finance and vested, monied interests.

True dat.  But it's really a red herring.  The real problem is ignorance which leads to indifference and apathy.  How many voters actually researched Obama or McCain's voting records or personal histories, versus simply accepting the narrative in the popular press?  Precious few, I'll reckon.

Matt Gonzalez (pictured above), San Francisco politician and lawyer, laid down the truth of Obama's record (in part) in his prescient article The Obama Craze: Count Me Out.  That was great, but how many people read it?  How many people are even capable of reading it?

The two-headed monster distracts us, entertains us, and gives the appearance of democracy to an ignorant, illiterate and apathetic populace, but it doesn't educate us, it doesn't address critical issues relevant to individual liberty, and ultimately, it serves only the donors who have hidden themselves on Obama's watch.  The "change we can believe in" has been the ascendancy of invisible government while the pundits sell cars and anti-depressants.

"With the renewal of physical existence goes,in the case of human beings, the recreation of beliefs, ideals, hopes, happiness, misery, and practices. The continuity of any experience, through renewing of the social group, is a literal fact. Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life. Every one of the constituent elements of a social group, in a modern city as in a savage tribe, is born immature, helpless, without language, beliefs, ideas, or social standards. Each individual, each unit who is the carrier of the life-experience of his group, in time passes away. Yet the life of the group goes on." - John Dewey, "Democracy and Education: an Introduction to the Philosophy of Education", 1916

Democracy is dependent upon its citizens' education in order for it to thrive.  When the citizenry is largely illiterate, or functionally illiterate in significant proportion, it becomes a show.  A democracy which fails to educate its citizens, which considers fine speech or deep understanding a luxury, rather than a necessity, is a society either consciously or unconsciously aiming at self-destruction.  Particularly at this time in history, where technology is exploding exponentially and altering profoundly our media, the ability to rapidly learn, understand and integrate new information is fundamental.  It's a baseline, without which a citizen cannot participate intelligently and becomes dependent upon the high priests of "news" shows to gather and interpret information for them.  In itself, however, literacy is not enough.  It is a first step, after which a citizen must learn to discern the difference between the product of fallacious logic and genuine information.  Without this second skill, we end up with people espousing patently false positions based on heated rhetoric of whichever high priest appeals most to the person's cultural upbringing.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are both shams, literal dog and pony shows to give the ostensible citizenry the feeling that they are participating in a democratic process while those very parties act as agents for multinational corporations, rather than as representatives of the people that they take an oath to serve.  When education is not at the very top of a nation's priorities, that nation cannot survive as a democracy.  The solution to the decline of the United States in terms of performance in the worldwide economy, continuation of technological superiority of its armed forces, halting its process towards unchecked executive power in service of multinational corporations begins with education.  Beyond that there are issues of transparency, the widening separation of classes (and disappearance of the middle class), decay of infrastructure, ballooning debt service, etc., but having those debates with ignorant and functionally illiterate people is a joke.

Who is laughing?