Converting Information into Knowledge

[thoughts from    ~burning woman~   by Sha’Tara]

Converting Information into (useful) Knowledge

I’ve been rather “quiet” on the blog lately, not because I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to share but mainly because I’ve been absorbing information from a wide range of bloggers about a wide array of current topics. We talk about “informed opinion” and it is a “brute” fact that without information one cannot have informed opinions. The thing to be aware of is that information is neutral so the source of it is quite irrelevant. What matters is what happens when the information hits home: when the mind identifies it, translates it, sorts it, accepts, rejects. On a 100% scale, gathering information shouldn’t take more than a 10% slice of awareness. The 90% slice is converting it into knowledge.

I’ll make a simple comparison. A swimming pool does not equate swimming. I you can’t swim it won’t do you any good. You will stand at the edge, stare in it, then turn away, or you can jump in and drown. You need to learn how to swim to enjoy the pool. Once you’ve got that you can go to something more challenging, like a lake, a river, the ocean, and learn how to swim all over again. Sure, you’ll have the basics on how to stay afloat for a while, but what about current? Undercurrents? Waves? Underwater snags or those submerged reeds that grab the feet and tighten on the legs as you try to pull away? As a life-long canoeist, kayaker, river and sea lover I’ve had plenty of opportunities to learn how to interact with various types of water bodies, of “information” to stay afloat in, to learn from and of course to enjoy. Desire, determination and drive to overcome the initial reticence of the land creature to interact with water. Then, training, training, training, with risk and daring.

That’s my analogy and I think it is fitting because children in this modern day are not taught how to go from wishing to accomplishing. As information is forced upon young minds, wishes, dreams and desires are awakened and stirred but that’s just sitting on the edge of the pool stirring the water with one’s feet. That’s not swimming. Modern education is failing abjectly because it is inculcating, stuffing information but without simultaneous observation and experience nothing of value is learned.  In fact such inculcation is easily surpassed by even low level AI application. Once upon a time learning that 2+2=4 was a big deal. Now the same kid can find out the square root of pi while at the same time being told irrational numbers cannot be squared. Does the kid understand the implication? No but more “searches” will give other “answers” and the little brain will feel like it really knows “something” about “something” when in fact a half hour down the road it will have forgotten. After all, why bother with memorizing when it’s all at one’s fingertips?

Before anyone objects furiously that “there are some really smart kids out there” let me remind the reader that I speak of the majority, not the exceptions and also remind s/he that exceptions prove the rule – a truism. If there was no rule, there could be no exceptions so when someone brings up an exception they are proving the rule. I need to repeat that as with information most people have never bothered to understand that correlation. 

So we have access to more information than ever before, at least that we can know based on our short span of questionable history.  I could list so many examples of beliefs (information) that once formed the basis of education. Flat earth. It is a waste of time and money to educate girls because women can’t learn “stuff.” Two of my favourites. Currently we are just as stuck in beliefs used, not to improve conditions on the planet but to bolster/counter old beliefs or feed some collective hubris. Darwinian evolution theory – raised eyebrow? I can do better: moon landings as false flags. Stop reading now? 9/11 and the burning of Notre Dame – inside jobs – am I certifiable yet?

How to we know if we can neither observe nor experience “it”? How can we be so sure? How did we come to accept that the earth was some sort of sphere? When it was no longer a matter of belief but overwhelming evidence (even though we may still be quite wrong about that “certainty” and future generations in for a bigger surprise without going back to the flat earth belief). To learn something we need to work through it from many different angles, to observe and experience it differently. I think, for example, that experience has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that women are at least as intelligent as men and all they needed was a chance to demonstrate their intelligence and dexterity side by side with men. Yet there are still large pockets of resistance to this (which bothers me a lot), as there are still sincere flat earthers (which doesn’t bother me in the least).

The problem with belief is, it is not founded on knowledge – it relies on supportive belief and rejects evidence. That leads to the perpetuation of the vilest types of abuse on this world such as misogyny, racism, zealotry, bigotry, the economic and sexual exploitation of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.  These are results of information not converted to knowledge.

Now the tough part: how do we convert our information into knowledge if we cannot observe first hand, or experience, the information? Is there a back door that can be used to let us escape the trap of being informed without being educated?

Though still not entirely satisfactory to me, I did devise a mental tool whereby I could determine the ‘value’ of certain information and the danger of other. I don’t know if my ‘tool’ has a name so I have to describe how it works instead.

I’ll take one of my favourite conspiracy theories: moon landings as false flags. (If you find yourself reacting strongly to such an accusation it’s time to look inside and ask, ‘why am I reacting negatively to such a statement? What’s in it for me? Am I afraid to realize I was taken in by the System so many years ago and spent my life believing a monstrous lie? Am I a patriot who feels obligated to defend “my country right or wrong”? Why is believing in the moon landings so important to me particularly?”) Already, that is the beginning of converting information into knowledge. But that’s not nearly enough. Let’s take the story all the way down – and yes, even if there is an American flag on the moon, and there are booted human footprints in its regolith.

Assume for a moment that I am a reasonably intelligent human being, not only well informed on what matters, but able to analyze that information and make use of it. Continuing with the “space program” (check this link for example about the reality of costs in space exploration and its purpose:  https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/16/apollo-moon-landing-anniversary-opinions-contributors-cost-money.html#2e1736181d04) 

Although it has been scientifically proven that getting live human beings to the moon – and back (that’s the big one) alive was impossible in 1969, as much as it is impossible today, with insurmountable problems of Van Allen belts radiation + solar radiation; weight of lander and impossibility of blasting free of even low lunar gravity based on available power, to little stupid details like camera and light angles, non-matching shadows and yes, numbers on rocks (staged!), that is not the issue for someone converting information into knowledge. Here’s what should matter: did these extremely expensive maneuvers “make America great again”?  Is the world in general in better shape socially, economically and environmentally today than it was in 1969? Yes, the “Evil Empire” (Soviet Union) imploded in 1991 but can we credit the moon landings for that? Even if we could, was that the end of the Cold War or did it just morph into another series of imperial endless wars mostly driven by America’s desperate need to control all major resources of the planet in order to maintain its military/corporate global empire?

I make this point, and I only need one, to demonstrate how the moon landings, real or false, were nothing more than a massive propaganda effort to bolster the military industrial complex and turn the US and subsequently the entire world into a controlled “security state” a la George Orwell’s “1984.”

Honestly, the whole world got worse. Credit (blame) whom you will for that but I “blame” the sheeple for believing without evidence; for accepting without reasoning, testing, experiencing.

“The world of spirits is unpredictable Mrs. Santiago. Are you a believer, Mrs Santiago?”
“Si, si, I believe, I believe. I pay more… I believe!” (paraphrase from the movie “Ghost”)

Antierra Manifesto – blog post #49

{Continuing with the manuscript. }
…“We have a similar “identical twin” bond humans sometimes experience from the womb state when two come from a single fertilized ovum.  All YBA’s – we are five and I’m the “youngest” at this point –  are my identical “twins” in every sense.  Though we each train in individual specialties, we can convert one-another’s knowledge and skills and function so that even the adoptive parent is not aware if we’ve made a switch.  For us, life does not get better, as you would put it.  All we need do is protect our own “investment” in Dr. Echinoza to ensure continuity.”

[end blog post #48]

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[begin blog post #49]

Chapter 23 – A Dangerous Plan; a Confession

“I have so many questions.  But of practical use right now, what happens to me while I’m convalescing?  Why wasn’t I killed when it was found I could not train or fight and was disabled, possibly permanently?  What do I “do” now?

“You do nothing at all.  You rest, you talk or ask questions and I answer.  No one except Warmo and us knows of your debilitated state at this moment.  Warmo won’t talk, he cannot for obvious reasons.  The doctor is securing your protection from the King as we speak.  Of course (by the way this place is safe from eavesdropping bugs) the King understands fully the situation you are in.

We need you back among the women, Antierra.  Your turn of duty there is far from over.  You will have to return to that mindset soon and get ready for that reality that wants to make you sick right now.  And suffer more of the indecencies of this world you will, much more than you already have, I’m deeply sorry to have to remind you.  I also, as your healer, must remind you that this is just the continuation of your personal choices; the ones you know you cannot change or run from.

I realize what she is saying and I nod in acquiescence.  No wonder, I recall now, my Altarian friends told me they would not be needed here with me.  That I would manifest all the friendship and all the help I needed to accomplish my goals.  Still though, some doubts persist.  I am, after all, facing some serious handicaps here.

“But what about my crushed wrists? My broken ankle?  How can I function if I cannot hold anything, or even walk?”

“You will be repaired soon.  We are waiting for a new module to upgrade our old auto-medic.  The new module will implant artificial “bones” and “sinews” to replace your damaged parts.  You will essentially have artificial wrists and left ankle.  You will begin your transition to bionic form.  That famous kick of yours will likely become even more deadly.”

She has such a pretty smile.  Not sexual, but full of child-like innocence.  Not something you’d want to kiss, but something you’d want to paint on a huge mural for an entire world to look at; something that would scream, “Here, look at this!  It’s marvellous!”

“We have the technology.  We can rebuild her.” I cannot help but recite.

“Pardon?”

“Old Earth joke.  A story about a woman who was mangled in a motorized vehicle accident.  The military powers that be decided to rebuild her body into that of a bionic woman, so they could use her, of course.  Not a terribly inspired story.  Now I find it ironic I’m partly living it here.  Coincidence?  No, inevitable, because the concept intrigued me and I remember projecting myself into that role.  We create our reality from whatever bits and pieces our mind latches on to.”

“That is correct.  The only reason we bandaged you is to prevent infection and further damage while we wait, not in the hope you would heal.  They made sure when they crushed your wrists that you could never use them again; that they could never heal normally and you could never fight.  But, hmmm, “they” can be wrong about some things, can’t they.  That Warmo character will know something is going on with you and the doctor and will send spies to discover why you healed, and so quickly, from the effects of his hellish machine.  That is assuming he hasn’t already figured out what is going on.  So we must do something about that.

“Did you know that the “straps” that wrap around wrists and ankles do more than hold you there?  When the arms are extending, the “straps” correspondingly shrink in small bands pulled in opposite direction, thus destroying bone and muscle beyond recovery.  That was the impossible pain you were being subjected to.  They had activated only the wrists ones, either by oversight or deliberately to fit in with some other diabolical refinements on the torture.  Your ankle was not crushed, just dislocated.  But we won’t take any chances there.  The natural healing takes too long and could leave a weakness that would manifest in the arena, leaving you defenceless.  We will replace the bone and the sinews as well.  Then you will learn to put your greatest trust in that ankle.  Yes, you will learn.  You are needed for some time yet, while we perform other, but related, tasks.

“We, that is Dr. Echinoza and his trusty Cydroid crew, of which yours truly is the fifteenth and youngest member – we are five females and ten males total — hope to set a trap for Warmo and catch him in a definite illegal activity – and as you know, all illegal activities are capital offences here.  We have a plan that may mean one of us dies of torture but it will be worth it.  We have already decided who returns to Koron for the re-cloning and who must become Warmo’s victim.”

She bends her head to my face,

“No, I was not chosen for the victim role.  I’m your “nurse” for the duration.  XBA9 chose himself for the ordeal.  He feels he needs the experience.  He’s young.  He’ll be fine.”

Such matter-of-fact statements from these Cydroids, I find it difficult to understand them, perhaps because I approach them with normal human feelings.  How can someone who chooses to enter into excruciating torture and die from it be fine?  Do they possess neural-blocks?  As in the opposite of the neural inductor?  Have they found a way to manipulate the effects of  “Hansen’s Disease” in creating anaesthesia of body parts while having them torn from them?  Fine?  I just come from a short term of Warmo’s brand of finesse.

She is smiling at me but not probing.  Just as well for the time being.  I’m thinking.

“Tell me,”  she adds with a mischievous smile,  “how would it feel to find yourself fighting that Warmo in the arena?  We are hoping to arrange that.  It would be justice, hm?  It’s also a fact that you are the only “champion” we possess who could beat him.  I sense that you need this challenge, Antierra, that you and Warmo have much unfinished business.”

My heart skips several beats at the suggestion.  Eagerness and horror ride side by side.  Revenge and compassion vie for first place in my mind.  How must I respond to this idea?  I motion to the healer Cydroid to touch my head.

“Can you feel me there YBA?”  I shorten her name, dropping the number for simplicity while only the two of us are present.  “Can you tell the turmoil your question has put in my mind?  I cannot answer you right now.  How could I?  I have made so many mistakes here already it seems, nothing but mistakes.  I’ve violated my own beliefs about myself, my own, even private codes of conduct.  I’ve broken every promise I made before I came here.  Crossed every boundary I’d painstakingly set so I would not fail. 

“I’ve killed often out of hate and mocked my opponents before killing them.  Yes.  And I’ve fallen in love twice already, the second time incredibly painful and utterly confusing.  I’ve bitched at my charges even knowing they were going to die the next day; given utterly lewd sexual “performances” publicly.  I’ve despaired, doubted, recanted, thought my Altarian life a total fake; hated Old Earth for inveighing me into coming here.  I forgot why I came here and at times just became a mad, frantic killer, an animal fighting for her life not caring about anything else. 

“I’ve cursed Malefactus and every male on it.  I’ve looked into the sky at Albaral and cursed that too.  I’ve used the doctor to my own ends instead of just taking it like everybody else and dying as I should have.  In the end it seems to me that I am the one who brought all these diabolical things to Malefactus; that I made a most terrible mistake long ago and now everybody is paying for my foolishness and my false sense of redemptive properties.  I’m an idiot, YBA. 

“You are looking at a wreck and a wretch of a once human being!  To seek more vengeance, and along with letting myself fall in love with a man I can never really be with – you heard me earlier and heard his response – what can I say? 

[end blog post #49]

Antierra Manisfesto – blog post #48

“It has never been proven that on the long run any military benefited any society it purported to protect.  All military forces are there but for the ease of extracting power from those who trust them, or must endure them.  Fear, through lies, is their modus operandi.  But I digress and I apologize.”

“No, it’s OK.  I did ask and I appreciate your candid answer.  I have similar feelings in that regard and my own experiences on Old Earth support Dr. Echinoza’s assessment of the military.  Please continue to explain what it is like to be a cloned Cydroid.  The subject fascinates me.”

[end blog post #47]
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[begin blog post #48]

“Cydroids” are basically an advanced form of android.  We are quite human in most ways.  Our bodies are cloned from human DNA stock, not from artifices.  If you took my body apart you would not know I am not a true human.  You would assume I was some kind of freak human by the “perfection” of organs and placement.  We are cloned to function at peak human physical and mental capacity so you would not find any pre-birth blemish or defect in any of us.  Things can happen later, of course, but that’s easily ascertained and repaired.

“The actual cloning is a very costly process.  To grow a Cydroid on Koron takes approximately six months of full time involvement by a team of no less than four specialists working, as you say, around the clock.  The purchaser must pay for this, of course, plus the rental of the cloning tanks and lab facilities.  Then there’s the training and programming into whatever specialty is expected by the ‘adoptive parent to be’ before the new being can enter the household of its owner and display its abilities – another two years minimum, involving another team of specialists and whatever equipment required.  If the Cydroid is to fly stealth craft, then one must be rented for the training.  If one becomes a doctor – as I am – my healing center time must be paid for – that is another three year investment.  

“Then there’s the legal ceremony of entering “it” from a thing or basically a machine to full-fledged member of the, what you call “ISSA” side of the life equation.  Though it is not considered human, it becomes “she” or “he” and is officially named.  Enter YBA1 or XBA1 – the costs of this also having been prepaid by the adoptive parent or parents.

“In the course of time though, Cydroids can be a very lucrative investment, not to mention the fact that for space travellers like Dr. Echinoza we can, and are, life savers.  We program ourselves to save his life under any circumstance, no questions asked.  We never even think of hesitating to perform a command or doing what we know needs doing if our name-parent needs us.  We “know” what to do.  We can die doing this, of course, but only if all of us are killed do we terminate.  As long as one (on each side of the gender equation) survives, we all survive.  We can be re-grown from the remaining one’s memories, of course.  That is why we prefer to work in larger groups.  Our chances of survival are exponentially increased with each new adopted member. 

“So naturally, there is a real aspect of self-preservation in protecting our adoptive parent.  If he were to die, we could be split up and re-adopted (purchased) piece-meal by others who cannot afford all of us together.  You see, as member of the household, we are full-fledged members of society with all the rights and responsibilities of humans.  But without an adoptive parent we revert back to non-identity status.  Why?  Because it’s a lucrative business to re-sell Cydroids and we remain part of the estate as property rather than as family, children or heirs.  Certainly the laws have seen to it that we could never become heirs!

“Just as certainly we can function independently of humans, likely much better than we do now.  But humans (the ones your mind dubs pseudo-humans) are strange creatures who, even in the midst of change, continue to fight innovations and the very change they put in motion.  Irrational is what they are.  They are also dreadfully afraid of creating a pseudo-human life that would demonstrate qualities and abilities beyond their own. 

“They fear being taken over by superior minds and so, what actually happens is they live all of their limited lives being taken over by lesser minds.  It’s more than ironic to us.  We would be so good for, and to, our humans if they set us free to develop.  Our mindset is clear and clean.  We reject violence for any purpose.  We love knowledge but we can only understand it as we experience it.  I think, Antierra, that we have more in common with you Altarians.  Perhaps, since you call less evolved human types “pseudo-humans” as compared to your people whom you consider to be fully human, we Cydroids are more human than our makers.

“If we are split up among different families we no longer function with equal efficiency.  We lack that closeness that shares issues and problems and uses the combined minds to resolve it.  Also, our new adoptive parents can lose track of our other “twins” and if we accidentally die, our group can dwindle down to one and terminate.  Then everything that we were or are, is lost.  All that was put into us at such great cost of money and time; all our experiences, gone.  Our history through time, gone.  There is no law currently that would enforce the re-growing of one of us who dies.  Only if our owner wishes it and the money is available to cover the costs will this happen. 

“Our advocates are currently arguing these obvious points before the Koron World Court, but without much success.  Money talks, especially on Koron.  Cydroids cannot make investments and gain the necessary credits to, say, buy themselves into independence.  Estate lawyers and the courts they manipulate also saw to that.  The only thing that makes us different from bond slaves is that we cannot be mistreated or sold, even if the estate is liquidated as long as our current adoptive parent or parents remain alive.  Ownership of human others, i.e., slavery, is not legal, not permitted and forcefully investigated and prosecuted on Koron. 

“We have the right to charge our adoptive parents – or anyone who hires us, or rents us, for whatever purpose – for abuse, corporeal mistreatment or upon discovery of “pre-sold” arrangements with investors.  We have full and guaranteed access to pro bono representation by the best legal minds on Koron and anyone found pre-selling their adopted Cydroids, no matter who it is, goes to jail – the automatic sentence cannot be less than ten years.  So we are not without some legal representation including important rights and protections but we certainly need more so we can become more than we were ever expected to  become.  We are the future for humanity and we are certainly chafing at the bit that is imposed on us (Hey, got that one from your mind too.  Horses you say.  Powerful riding animals. These animals were your slaves then? Ok, later). 

“You see, we also have, at the very least since there is no way to know when or if it terminates, a very long life-span resulting in useful memories that can be tapped into anywhere at a moment’s notice.  We remember everything.  So far Koron has cloned Cydroids for over one hundred and fifty years and the first successful “model” still looks and feels as young and alive as I do without any kind of rejuvenation treatment or “re-tanking.”  I was privileged to meet her before I was assigned to Malefactus.  You would love her, Antierra.  Her knowledge spans so many years.  Not like yours, but impressive, at least to me.  She let me feel her mind and I believe that simple touch changed my life’s direction.  I “saw” the flow of life through many generations of humans.”

And while she talked I wondered at her ability to so tap my mind that she knew so much about my expanded life or lives.  That she knew how my “other” spanned millennia of time, and of time beyond time, as far as I chose to remember myself outside my current bondage to Malefactus. 

Amazing that I don’t feel threatened by her mind touch.  I don’t feel robbed but the opposite.  I feel as if I were undressing myself for a lover for the first time – that heart-flutter excitement that wonders what comes next, feeling the moistness between my virgin thighs… and how while watching him take his clothes off I stare at his naked body and at that which is supposed to give me the most wonderful pleasure life has to offer. 

She isn’t raping my mind, she’s making love to me.

“We have a similar “identical twin” bond humans sometimes experience from the womb state when two come from a single fertilized ovum.  All YBA’s – we are five and I’m the “youngest” at this point –  are my identical “twins” in every sense.  Though we each train in individual specialties, we can convert one-another’s knowledge and skills and function so that even the adoptive parent is not aware if we’ve made a switch.  For us, life does not get better, as you would put it.  All we need do is protect our own “investment” in Dr. Echinoza to ensure continuity.”

[end blog post #48]

The Antierra Manifesto – blog post #47

… That was a warning to get myself together, and quickly.  More effort, when all I want to do is lie here, be taken care of and let the world go on without me.  Oh, to just wallow in self pity and pure wonderful misery.  To be a bitch.  To be dead!

He walks out of his office looking pensive and the automatic door swishes closed.  I got a glimpse of the sky, still cloudy and windy but not raining.  A cold draft finds my back and I shiver.  It’s not just the cold I am reacting to.

[end blog post #46
______________________
[begin blog post #47]

Don’t they say that when one door closes, another opens?  I turn to YBA5.  I feel the flesh on her bare arm with my finger tips extending beyond the bandages.  It feels normal, human.  She covers me and rubs a heavier wrap over my goose-pimpled flesh.  I smell of lavender or something.  I smell human.  No, better, I smell like a woman.  I wonder what my hair looks like.  I must be alive.

All this while the Cydroid has her hand on my forehead with a finger pressed against my temple.

“Your hair is fine Antierra.  And I’m holding back some of your pain so you can feel normal.  No drugs, I know.  But your young friend left you a priceless gift: a box of stim cubes.  Let me know if your pain becomes unbearable and I’ll split a cube in half, give you just enough to ease your pain.”

“You can mind read?  Mind meld?  What kind of AI are you?”

“Ah, one question at a time.  I’m a Cydroid, as you’ve been told, a clone of human genetic material with artificial intelligence – not human.  I do not possess human feelings, only mimic them from mind-touch – we do not like the term “mind meld” as it presents a form of invasion.  AI’s are particularly wary of mind invasion probes.  Despite the many safeguards we build within ourselves, we are more susceptible to mind probe attack than full humans for we do not carry the confusion your egos create in interaction between mind and brain, nor can we so easily fabricate “mindless” or irrational verbal expressions such as your use of swear words. 

We only mind touch when the human or the other AI has given its permission for us to proceed.  I can sense your thoughts because I feel you wish it.  I know when it is not desired.  Nothing happens then, just what you call white noise.”

“White noise… hah, yes.  That’s what I mostly pick up from the fighters in the cages.  Only in the training can I pick up disconnected segments of thoughts.  White noise is caused when the mind blocks probes…

And having caught a thread of thought I wish to share with this person I continue:

“Or as on most pseudo-human worlds where genetic deformities and pathological diseases are the norm and where telepathy is rare or non-existent, the telepath encounters white noise from minds completely scrambled, full of true madness or autistic.  A dysfunctional mind does not create logically sequenced thinking.  The binary code necessary to form the thoughts for verbal communication has empty sockets; is missing parts of itself; is gapped. 

“Hence we have deduced why some autistics can accomplish amazing feats with their minds with certain numbers, or “observations” that do not translate into a life equation.  They can “count” but they cannot really “add.”   Their simplified view jumps across the normal logical and logistical connecting details (missing from their wiring), merrily skipping across the board from number to number – without being able to make a logical connection that gives the reason or purpose as to why they should be “counting” for example. 

“A bit like this: if someone is “doing it” for example, with a purpose, four marbles plus four marbles will equal eight marbles.  To the one with the missing detail (the marble) it narrows down to four plus four equals eight.  The equation has the same value, results derived much quicker because the ‘non-essential detail’ has been removed but translated into life, it becomes, not so much meaningless as useless. Just numbers in space, not connected to reality.  To communicate you need to connect the “necessary detail” to the number. 

“This falls in the same category as information versus knowledge.  You can access tons of information and remember a tiny percentage of it for some  useful purpose if you happen to have that kind of brain but if you access only that information you really need, apply it to experience, then you have knowledge.  You never get knowledge without experience.”

“Yes, interesting observations.  I have ‘such a mind’ – she adds smiling – I have stored that for future research and comments, should I function on such a world.  Thank you.”

She bows to me.  She stands beside me and I gauge her size.  Slim, just slightly taller than the people of Malefactus, slightly darker of skin – looks like she does tan – and of finer build – like expensive china, her skin softer even than mine. 

“Do you always look like this, or are you able to shape-shift to match any human form on any world?  Can you explain the cloning process used to “make” Cydroids;  how you function within a human society or what your real purpose is?”

“No, I don’t shape shift.  It’s too hard for us.  We’d have to re-enter the cloning tanks and go through a painful and expensive process.  I use disguises, that’s all.  I can change my voice and have a working command of any language I wish to use.  We are telepaths and we simply make sure, as when on a world like this one, that we are never together in the same place.  Everyone of us is the same person to those who are not acquainted with our type of life.  We are all clones of the original who is cloned from generic, if carefully chosen, genetic stock. 

The originals, purchased by Doctor Echinoza are vat-stamped YBA (Y for the female chromosome and BA for the initials in the name of the purchaser, in this case, Balomo instead of Echinoza – there were other “EC” entities being processed) and XBA (X chromosome for the male, etc.).  A woman or a man of means who wishes to own a Cydroid has to legally adopt one before the cloning process can begin.  Illegal Cydroids are unknown.  If they were found they’d be terminated and anyone involved would be jailed for life without parole.  The reasoning behind this law is sound.

“The first Cydroid cloned for Dr. Echinoza was male stamped XBA1.  If the person is truly wealthy, or involved in civilian or military off-world “research” (you can just imagine what “military research” can mean!) the cloning process for more can begin but only after the first is fully integrated in our society.  First, the legal documents must be procured, approval granted and costs met up front.  Koron’s economy does not allow for monetary debt.  Others there are of course, but must be hidden, or as I find in your mind, the term is “laundered” – that’s funny.” 

She smiles like a child with a new toy.  I think she is falling in love with my mind or perhaps the outlandish terminology and images there! 

“So Bal, I mean Dr. Echinoza is a research scientist attached to the civilian side of government on Koron?  Is there a cross-over here, on this world, between civilian and military goals?”

“Absolutely not.  Dr. Echinoza hates all things relating to military and para-military activity.  He would sooner abandon his own research and the notoriety and profit of it if he had to share his results with military minds.  Of course he realizes and so do we, that he does not have complete control over what is done with his notes and discoveries from his research.  Militaries, in any society, spy on everyone, but particularly on the very society they are supposed to be protecting.  They are always pushing for more “state security measures” which, when translated means more surveillance of, and control over, their own people.  As far as Dr. Echinoza and other influential people like him are concerned, all militaries, wherever encountered, should automatically be disbanded. 

“It has never been proven that on the long run any military benefited any society it purported to protect.  All military forces are there but for the ease of extracting power from those who trust them, or must endure them.  Fear, through lies, is their modus operandi.  But I digress and I apologize.”

“No, it’s OK.  I did ask and I appreciate your candid answer.  I have similar feelings in that regard and my own experiences on Old Earth support Dr. Echinoza’s assessment of the military.  Please continue to explain what it is like to be a cloned Cydroid.  The subject fascinates me.”

[end blog post #47]

The Age of the Dictators

[thoughts from ~burning woman~ ]

Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of an intervention that not only saved my physical life but sent me off on a 180 degree tangent from what I had been. That can only have meaning to myself, of course, or perhaps to anyone who may have been touched by some of the thoughts and ideas on expressing life which I have spouted quite regularly and annoyingly. After all, who wants change that turns all the known and relative comfortable on its head? Better to stick with the tried and failed, follow tradition. Tomorrow is “Good Friday” as declared by the Roman Church many years ago and subsequently adhered to by all of Christendom. That the concept was stolen from the very “pagans” the Church despised and massacred is of little consequence: we have a TRADITION!

That out of my way, I want to write a bit about some recent observations of the global political processes. Lots of noise and bloody foolishness bandied about as the overcrowded numbties of Earth increasingly go for the jugular over their beliefs and traditions. Not so different than previous slices of historical drama except that now we can “participate” in the processes globally through satellite feeds and the quasi-ubiquitous Internet.

I have noticed a serious difference however, and I call it ‘The Age of the Dictators.’

Man’s civilization is of course familiar with, and his history replete with, dictators but what makes this age different is the global and successful wave of political power grabbing by psychopathic and sociopathic billionaires or military leaders able to circumvent democratic constitutions written to prevent this sort of thing from “ever happening again.” Fledgling democracies established through compromise with totalitarian powers of business, banking and the social security state in the last couple hundred years are being systematically dis-empowered and disarmed by the returning totalitarians.

Temporarily sidetracked, the forces of dictatorship slowly but systematically burrowed into the democratic forms of government, buying stooges, corrupting ideals, installing preferred leaders, developing armies of constitutional lawyers to challenge existing laws that protected the people, particularly the most vulnerable: women, children, the working poor, racial minorities and changing rules that allowed all and sundry to vote, thus in a small way making their voices heard. The stooges of totalitarian power are now overtly active in eliminating free speech and destroying all vestiges of a so-called free press. More: in the USA in particular, 50% of the nation’s income is now barrelling like a train without brakes into the military and much of the rest finds its way into the pockets of its billionaires while a flaming racist and sexual predator rules the country from the White House.

War criminals, torturers, sexual predators, perverts, corrupt billionaires, these it would appear, form the preferred choice of voters in most democracies yet we know that it is ownership of the propaganda apparatus and manipulation of polls that have made this possible. Well, some of us know this but of course those who are trained to react to a ‘score’ as if an election was nothing more than a playoff take it at face value that their team won or lost the game and they’ll have to wait another four years to attend another playoff in which their team with better management, stronger or sexier players and richer sponsors, will have a chance to win.

That’s what democracy and the “popular vote” has become: sports teams, playoffs and a final score.

The conclusion was foregone when this began happening decades ago. No one can change the course of events now all hope and talk to the contrary. Unknown to the spectators of the democratic playoff game was a much more powerful team some have labelled “the New World Order” to be politically correct, to be sprung upon the bewildered spectators. It was funded and manned to crush all opposition and usher in the Age of the Totalitarian Dictators. It’s team consisted of the most mentally weak and morally corrupt psychopaths and the owners made the rules for the final playoff.

The people never clued in that “participatory democracy” did not begin and end at the polling booth but had to be a 24/7 commitment to an ideal. Too bad and so sad: goodbye democracies. Now we lose everything. Now we go to war against one-another and against our natural environment. Now we bleed, suffer and die. Now we pay the price for our apathy and woeful ignorance of the kind of forces that have always manipulated us to kill and die for their enrichment and entertainment.

Let’s follow the leaders and go out on the streets to cheer the final winners, our Dictators.