On The Origin of the Genes of Viruses - 14

Viruses outnumber stars

Prelude

An informed public is the purpose of the Dredd Blog grey/gray literature which has appeared here now for over a decade.

Concerning viruses in general, I alluded to the uninformed public recently (if Cosmology is ...).

What would you think of a detective and/or prosecutorial team that had accused a person of being a mass murderer (without really knowing much of the background of the accused)?

For example, if they did not know the parents, the country of origin, the employer, the habits, the maker of the wheelchair the accused uses, or the whereabouts of the accused?

Would that perk up your interest and/or raise your eyebrows?

What if they used, relating to every shred of evidence alleged, the words "it seems", "it could be", "it suggests", "probably", and "we think" to describe their case (a case requiring PROOF beyond a reasonable doubt)?

Shouldn't a mass murdering event which is killing tens and tens of thousands of citizens from every walk of life require proof beyond a reasonable doubt?

Let's consider some questions a serious and competent detective would ask in order to detect the nature of  a suspect.

As to a suspect virus, can it reproduce/replicate itself:

"As viruses are obligate intracellular pathogens they cannot replicate without the machinery and metabolism of a host cell. Although the replicative life cycle of viruses differs greatly between species and category of virus, there are six basic stages that are essential for [pathogenic] viral replication."

(British Socienty for Immunology, emphasis added). Non-pathogenic mutualistic viruses are already inside cells, and do not need to invade because they help the host microbe stay alive and are therefore welcome.

So, would you want to know what the host cell is (its genome etc.)?

A host is like a "family" that brings a biological or viral entity into existence and keeps it from ceasing to exist  (in the sense that if a virus can't replicate/reproduce, then it will die out and become extinct without a host).

The reality about that aspect of viruses is that the relevant prevention science is lame or infantile in several ways, like incompetent detectives in the movie (The Usual Suspects) who had Kaiser in their office without ever knowing anything relevant about him.

So, with that in mind let me ask you when and where have you heard about THE HOST to the corona-virus / Covid-19 in the current media viral 24/7 storm?

I will just say that I have not heard the host even mentioned, and I have heard that viruses can't replicate themselves mentioned only once.

I have, however, heard in the media that viruses can replicate themselves (wrong).

Since most viruses inhabit microbes in a mutualistic relationship, which is beneficial, and since the host is much, much larger than its symbiont virus, why not look for the easier to find host?

I focus on the host, because the last thing a sane society wants to do is change the nature of a mutualitic virus into a pathogen by using antibodies that kill the host (BTW, a host that is helping the human species stay alive - see video below).

If you want to know a lot more about the issue, there are several Dredd Blog series that get deeply into the relevant science involved.

I. Before

When I wrote the previous post in this series about five years ago, I did not exactly envision that the news media would be talking about viruses 24/7 five years later.

Nor did I exactly envision one virus type killing more Americans than had died in the long Vietnam war.

But, I can say that I have covered the issues concerning the origin of viruses by contemplating their genetic characteristics and those of their hosts (On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; The Uncertain Gene, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; etc. see the series tabs at the top of the page).

II. During

During the contemplation of the genes of viruses, uncertainty arose as a scientific principle or reality as the case may be.

Something caught my attention:

I kept thinking about the implications until it dawned on me that one aspect of the uncertain gene concept, elucidated upon in this series, is that proton tunnelling is also technically "epigenetic."

I mean that in the sense that any gene itself, in all genetic circumstances, does not "control" itself or anything else.

Thus Epigenetics, a discipline in and of itself, is a realm that studies what utilizes the genetic molecules, where those genetic molecules are utilized, when those molecules are utilized, how they are utilized, and why those molecules are utilized.

(The Uncertain Gene - 11). I went on to write:

... the nomenclature of Epigenetics covers all activity that acts upon gene molecules, including those that decide whether, for example, to turn the gene on or off:

Geneticists study the gene; however, for epigeneticists, there is no obvious 'epigene'. Nevertheless, during the past year, more than 2,500 articles, numerous scientific meetings and a new journal were devoted to the subject of epigenetics. It encompasses some of the most exciting contemporary biology and is portrayed by the popular press as a revolutionary new science — an antidote to the idea that we are hard-wired by our genes. So what is epigenetics? - (Perceptions of Epigenetics)

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Much work has been published on the cis-regulatory elements that affect gene function locally, as well as on the biochemistry of the transcription factors and chromatin- and histone-modifying complexes that influence gene expression. However, surprisingly little information is available about how these components are organized within the three-dimensional space of the nucleus. Technological advances are now helping to identify the spatial relationships and interactions of genes and regulatory elements in the nucleus and are revealing an unexpectedly extensive network of communication within and between chromosomes [cf. this]. A crucial unresolved issue is the extent to which this organization affects gene function, rather than just reflecting it. - (Nuclear organization of the genome and the potential for gene regulation)

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(see following link for more ...)

(Nature Insight: Epigenetics, Vol. 447, No. 7143 pp 396-440). The point is that epigenetic dynamics involve multiple levels of analysis and subsequent operations ...

(ibid). The issue of Epigenetics (epi means above) informs us that in order to understand viruses we must have a handle on, an understanding of, their hosts.

Why?

Contrary to some media programs on TV, viruses do not replicate or reproduce, instead they are replicated or reproduced by machinery inside their host.

I am talking about a vast array machinery ("Ribosome: a sophisticated molecular machine") that is not part of any virus ... machinery that is part of the host microbe.

Even more interesting perhaps is that most viruses are mutualists, meaning that they do something helpful ("If not for a virus, none of us would ever be born") to their host (only a minority of viruses, the pathogenic viruses are harmful).

Why do they go crazy when their host is killed by chemicals and other antibiotics produced in the civilized world that is "at war" with the microbial world?

That is the same as asking "what causes viral diseases?"

III. After

Can you say "situation ethics" ...

"Small studies that build on basic science and preclinical research in early phases of drug development routinely generate signals of promise that are not confirmed in subsequent trials. Even when new drugs are established to be safe and effective, rarely are their benefits so massive that they can be detected in small, open-label, nonrandomized trials. The proliferation of small studies that are not part of an orchestrated trajectory of development is a recipe for generating false leads that threaten to divert already scarce resources toward ineffective practices, slow the uptake of effective interventions because of an inability to reliably detect smaller but clinically meaningful benefits, and engender treatment preferences that make patients and clinicians reluctant to participate in randomized trials. These problems are amplified by published reports of compassionate use, which was designed as an alternative pathway to access interventions outside of research, not to support systematic evaluation."

(Against pandemic research exceptionalism). Can you say "knee jerk reaction"?

Can you say "the traditional yellow peril" from Wuhan is quite erroneously the usual suspect?

Even as (what should be suspects) U.S. meat packing plants and other animal torture sites rack up the highest per capita covid-19 cases (places where the greatest overuse of antibiotics is centered)?

The possibility that virus pandemics can spring and spread from many origins is only as secret as Big Meat and Big Pharma want it to be:

"In addition, the meat and food industry are vulnerable to a variety of other infectious diseases that can manifest in food processing areas due mainly to poor personal hygiene and processing sanitation practices, which in turn can develop the growth of bacteria, viruses, moulds, and yeasts. These can then set the stage for:

Foodborne infection, such as salmonella or trichinosis, caused by ingesting food that is contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and viruses

Foodborne intoxication, either bacterial, such as E. coli, or chemical, where food has been contaminated with toxic chemicals, such as cleaning compounds or pesticides"

(Meat Cutting and Processing for Food Service, emphasis added; cf. Trump Policy Maximizes Deaths in Food Factories). Don't forget that helpful bacteria are hosts to helpful viruses.

Scientists speak of both a pathogenic and a non-pathogenic corona virus (COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin) without discussing the microbial host (bats and camels are not microbes) or the circumstances that would change a non-pathogenic to a pathogenic virus.

Viruses can become pathogenic when a catastrophe (e.g. antibiotic killing) happens to their host (What Did The Mass Extinctions Do To Viruses and Microbes?).

IV. Closing Comments

Because we may be entering a new age of viral epidemics and pandemics, I am reopening this series that has been dormant for several years.

I am doing so in order to see if we can find the microbe that is being mass-murdered and thereby rendering the covid-19 virus host-less (homeless) like the boll weevil ... looking for a host (High Technology Boll Weevil).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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The genetic material of a human is >90% microbial ... (lots of host homes for lots of viruses) ...

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Seaports With Sea Level Change - 9

Ports Are Ports

I. Review

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has considered, for a number of years, the vulnerability of world seaports to sea level change in terms of both sea level fall and sea level rise (e.g. "The artist's painting, above, shows that the major ports would be destroyed ultimately, but will be damaged well before they become useless", Will This Float Your Boat?, May 4, 2011; Seaports With Sea Level Change, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

That reality is finding its way into the scientific literature:

"Ports are an important economic actor—at local, national, and international scales—that have been identified as being vulnerable to future changes to the climate. This paper details the findings from an international review of state‐of‐the‐art knowledge concerning climate risks, and adaptation responses, for ports and their supply chains. Evidence from both academic and gray literature indicates that there has already been major damage and disruption to ports across the world from climate‐related hazards and that such impacts are projected to increase in the years and decades to come. Findings indicate that while a substantial—and growing—body of scientific evidence on coastal risks and potential adaptation options is acting as a stimulus for port authorities to explicitly consider the risks for their assets and operations, only a notable few [port authorities] have actually made the next step toward implementing adaptation strategies. This paper concludes by putting forward constructive recommendations for the sector and suggestions for research to address remaining knowledge gaps. It emphasizes a call for collaboration between the research and practice communities, as well as the need to engage a broad range of stakeholders in the adaptation planning process."

(Implications of climate change for shipping, 2018, emphasis added). Dredd Blog continues to produce material mentioned in that paper as "gray literature" (a.k.a. grey literature) as a public service (What is Grey Literature?, Gray Literature).

The corporate media on the other hand doesn't cover this issue very much, if at all, which may be a factor in the ongoing negligence or denial by port authorities.

The alt-right wing of the corporate media spends more time denying these issues than the more responsible journalists spend reporting them (While we fixate on coronavirus, Earth is hurtling towards a catastrophe worse than the dinosaur extinction).

II. Today's Post

Today's post is an update using the most recent Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) dataset, as of April 6 this year (PSMSL Data Page).

The graph data is presented by PSMSL "Coastline code" sequence only (when there are two graphs of the same Coastline Code, one is sea level fall, the other is sea level rise (the sea level fall and rise graphs are from different WOD zones in the same Coastline Code location ... see HTML appendices).

The HTML and graph beginning and ending years and amounts are not in strict syncronization because they are done by two different modules.

I am finishing up on a program that solves that, but remember that the graphs are for showing the trends in a coastal area, while the HTML files are to provide details of a different sort.

The HTML-format data is alphabetized by Country name first and Coastline code second.

The HTML table menu below gives you a one click trip to appendices which have the data laid out for your perusal.

The links are alphabetical (e.g. countries with names beginning with an "A" are in the "A-C" appendices, countries with names beginning with a "U" are in the "U-Z" appendices, etc.):

Single-Coastline Countries	Multi-Coastline Countries	Graphs of those Countries
Appendix: A - C	Appendix: A - C	Appendix: A - C
Appendix: D - G	Appendix: D - G	Appendix: D - G
Appendix: H - L	Appendix: H - L	Appendix: H - L
Appendix: M - O	Appendix: M - O	Appendix: M - O
Appendix: P - T	Appendix: P - T	Appendix: P - T
Appendix: U - Z	Appendix: U -Z	Appendix: U -Z

III. Closing Comments

Long live grey/gray literature.

This is a public service of Dredd Blog.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

The TIME Has Come Today

TIME September 2019

TIME January 2, 1989

We are in the "show me" state (of mind):

"Three decades ago—at a moment when much of the world was only beginning to wake up to the damage humanity had been wreaking on its home—TIME convened a group of 33 scientists and political leaders from five continents in Boulder, Colo., to discuss the threat. The result was one of the best-known issues TIME has ever produced, sounding one of the louder alarms to date. In the Jan. 2, 1989, issue, the editors named “Endangered Earth” the most important story of the year, replacing the annual “Person of the Year” with a planet, our own. The cover, by the artist Christo, showed a 16-in. globe wrapped in plastic and rag rope.
...
Notably, what you will not find in this issue are climate-change skeptics. Core to our mission is bringing together diverse perspectives. Experts can and should debate the best route to mitigating the effects of climate change, but there is no serious doubt that those effects are real. We are witnessing them right in front of us. The science on global warming is settled. There isn’t another side, and there isn’t another moment."

(TIME, cf. this). Can we honestly say that we were not warned (Naomi Oreskes)?

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Why Sea Level Rise May Be The Greatest Threat To Civilization - 7

Common Problems

I. Problems, What Problems?

Even without considering sea level change (SLC) problems, seaports currently have a plethora of challenges.

Here are a few indications of the types of challenges they face today:

"Ports play a critical role in the development of many countries. They represent a country’s national heritage, culture, and local commercial attitudes. Simply put, ports are the gate ways for trade. Unfortunately, despite the rapid globalization and modernization, most ports are not as efficient as they should be and are becoming barriers to international trade.

If you are a keen follower of emerging trends, you will note that most ports are plagued with problems like clearance delays, inadequate investments, captivity issues, increased freight rates, lack of effective strategies, and inappropriate international mandates.

What is causing all these challenges?" (Challenges Facing Ports).

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"Containerization has consequently become a fundamental function of global port operations and has changed the structure and configuration of port terminals that tend to occupy more space."
...
"As terminals, ports handle the largest amounts of freight, more than any other types of terminals combined. To handle this freight, port infrastructures jointly have to accommodate transshipment activities both on ships and inland and thus facilitate convergence between land transport and maritime systems. In many parts of the world, ports are the points of convergence from which inland transport systems, particularly rail, were laid. Most ports, especially those that are ancient, owe their initial emergence to their site as the great majority of harbors are taking advantage of a natural coastline or a natural site along a river. Many port sites are constrained by:

Maritime access, which refers to the physical capacity of the site to accommodate ship operations. It includes the tidal range, which is the difference between the high and low tide, as normal ship operations cannot handle variations [between high and low tide] of more than 3 meters.
...
Maritime interface. Indicates the amount of space that is available to support maritime access, namely the amount of shoreline that has good maritime access. This attribute is very important since ports are linear entities. Even if a port site has an excellent maritime access, namely deep water waterways, there may not be enough land available to guarantee its future development and expansion.
...
Infrastructures and equipment. The site, to be efficiently used, must have infrastructures such as piers, basins, stacking or storage areas, warehouses, and equipment such as cranes, all of which involving high levels of capital investment. In turn, these infrastructures consume land which must be available to insure port expansion. Keeping up with the investment requirements of modern port operations has become a challenge for many ports, particularly in light of containerization which requires substantial amounts of terminal space to operate. Modern container terminals rely on an unique array of infrastructure, including portainers, stacking yards serviced by gantry cranes and the vehicles used to move containers around the terminal, such as straddle carriers.
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Land access. Access from the port to industrial complexes and markets insure its growth and importance. This requires efficient inland distribution systems, such as fluvial, rail (mainly for containers) and road transportation. The land access to ports located in densely populated areas is facing increasing congestion." (The Geography of Transport Systems).

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"The start of 2019 is sending signals that we may have slower trade growth than anticipated, presenting challenges to all. The National Retail Federation says it expects a decline in year-over-year growth, and the World Bank is sending signals that the global economy is slowing, with China leading the way.

This isn’t great news for any sector of global trade. Carriers are already smarting from a less-than-spectacular 2018 and face increased capacity being delivered in 2019. Shippers, some of whom felt the sting of unusually high spot market rates during the last couple of months of 2018, face what could be increased tariffs after March 1 when the US and China end their trade talks. Carriers also are seeking increased rates and anticipate a jump in fuel costs related to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO’s) low-sulfur fuel mandate that will take effect Jan. 1, 2020.

Balancing these conditions will be a challenge to all involved in ocean shipping, with shippers and carriers working on plans to keep their economic equilibrium, trying to meet budgets most set months ago before the unfavorable news of recent events.

Some of the drama started playing out in December as carriers met with larger shippers to begin the 2019-2020 contract negotiations. Carriers must get back on track to make money as they did in 2017 after six years of losses, having failed to do so in 2018 because of decisions made early in the year, decisions that will impact them through April.

By managing capacity, they were able to recover a bit in the spot market late in 2018. Carriers also caught a break with oil prices declining in late 2018. But the larger shippers have a deal in hand lasting almost four more months, and while they recognize conditions better than most, they aren’t in a mood to just accept increases because carriers aren’t making money.

So negotiations for the 2019-2020 contracts will be difficult. Carriers were able to get spot rates up by more than double some of the service contract levels. But facing the large service contract shippers who have low rates and asking for increases has never been an easy task for carriers; volumes available seem to bring out a gift-giving reaction." (Container challenges of 2019 to echo years past)

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(emphasis added). The day to day economic, legal, contract negotiation, and geographical problems alone are substantial,  but adding the existential problem of SLC is likely to be overwhelming.

II. Countries & Seaports Impacted

Regular readers will know that previous Dredd Blog posts, from at least February of 2010, have listed countries and seaports that are impacted by SLC (Nation Building - The Will Of The Wind, Will This Float Your Boat - 3; Countries With Sea Level Change, 2, 3; Seaports With Sea Level Change, 2; The Extinction of Robust Sea Ports, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

The problems that arise when engineers contemplate elevating seaports several meters while trying to do business as usual is only exceeded by the problems that arise if they do not respond to the existential threat of SLC.

The scientific research has not been adequate enough to support robust engineering efforts or robust engineering solutions:

"This reality means society needs to think about climate change in different ways than the past, by focusing on reducing the risk of negative effects. And speaking as a climate scientist, I recognize that climate science research, too, has to change.

Historically, climate science has been primarily curiosity-driven – scientists seeking fundamental understanding of the way our planet works because of the inherent interest in the problem.

Now it’s time for the climate science research enterprise to adopt an expanded approach, one that focuses heavily on integrating fundamental science inquiry with risk management.
...
This long-term, iterative process is a break with current practices. It requires sustained relationships that are not a good fit for much of the academic scientific enterprise, which is driven by curious individuals and funded by short-term grants.

There are signs, though, that climate scientists are getting out of the ivory tower and taking a different approach to research."

(Climate research needs to change, Bob Kopp, emphasis added). The existence of civilization as we know it really is at stake.

III. Closing Question

What level of catastrophe will it take for the willingly blind to see?

Refugee?

The previous post in this series is here.

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Square Finger 'Splainin'

The Square-Finger Gesture

If you watch politicians and media folk use their bag of on-camera gestures, one that is quite popular now is what I call the "square-finger" gesture.

It is common to all political party members and TV channel media members.

When I first noticed the wide array of spontaneous uses, I began to count how many times a day over the past year it was used during an interviewee's response/explanation to an interviewer's question.

The square-finger gesture is used to "help explain" subject matter of many types.

It does not seem to matter which pundit, what time of day, what type of TV news or talk show, what subject matter you are viewing, or whether the square-finger gesture is used to man-splain or woman-splain what the splainer is 'splainin'.

The insurrection was this big

No, the square-finger gesture is ubiquitous and shows up spontaneously.

After going through the mini-shock of even noticing the phenomenon in the first place, then seeking to make sense of it by attempting to count how many times a day it occurs, I next tried to make more sense of the square-finger gesture by determining the context in which the square-finger gesture was used.

Not even this much ...

I haven't finished that research, but at the moment it seems to be used when the 'splainer has some degree of fear attached to the subject matter being 'splained.

and ...

That is, it is used to minimize some aspect of the subject matter at hand by indicating "this subject matter is only this big, so I am in control of it" a la "Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala".

I have not yet finished my research on this, so help me out on this one by informing me and fellow Dredd Blog readers if you too have noticed the square-finger gesture (and don't forget to keep sending in your annual helpful responses to "My First Science Fiction Novel").

and ...

While doing so, remember that football is played on both sides of the ball (How to control the TV with gestures).
The phenomenon has not made it to one particular online site yet:

and ...

"Gestures are a form of nonverbal communication in which visible bodily actions are used to communicate important messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body. Physical non-verbal communication such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint

and ...

attention differ from gestures, which communicate specific messages. Gestures are culture-specific and can convey very different meanings in different social or cultural settings. Gesture is distinct from sign language. Although some gestures, such as the ubiquitous act of pointing, differ little from one place to another, most gestures do not have invariable or

and ...

universal meanings but connote specific meanings in particular cultures. A single emblematic gesture can have very different significance in different cultural contexts, ranging from complimentary to highly offensive. This list includes links to pages that discuss particular gestures, as well as short descriptions of some gestures that do not have their own page. Not

and ...

included are the specialized gestures, calls, and signals used by referees and umpires in various organized sports. Police officers also make gestures when directing traffic. Mime is an art form in which the performer utilizes gestures to convey a story.Charades is a game of gestures."

(Wikipedia, emphasis added).

And let's not forget that any form of communication can be truthful or false, but gestures are probably a situation where proving someone was not "telling" the truth would be much more difficult to prove.

... and ...

How could we tell if they were saying "taxes will only be this much" or "I was this close to winning" or "I was only going this fast officer"?

More only this much research is needed to know for sure.

Etiology of Social Dementia - 18

Once upon a civilization

I. Individual Dementia Pales In

Comparison To Group Dementia

This post declares that The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump is not as dangerous as the group dementia that produced him is.

The simple argument supporting that declaration is that he is only one person.

He is an individual who is a member of a group of about 62,984,825 people who, in varying degrees (0-100), have the same group dementia.

One thing that has happened to most civilizations is something that has been fatal to each and every one of them.

That something is the dementia that produces and ends up in 'suicide':

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). There is no cure for the final symptom of that group dementia (there is only prevention by way of avoiding it altogether in the first place).

The components of that group dementia were pointed out in an encyclopedia article concerning the historian quoted above:

"In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority. Unlike Spengler in his The Decline of the West, Toynbee did not regard the death of a civilization as inevitable, for it may or may not continue to respond to successive challenges. Unlike Karl Marx, he saw history as shaped by spiritual, not economic forces" ...

(Encyclopedia Britannica, emphasis added). The show stopper (in terms of remedy, in this type of group dementia) is that it is a contagious dementia.

That form of dementia is contagious whether individual dementia is or is not contagious (see e.g. The Red Hot Debate about Transmissible Alzheimer's, Can Dementia Be Contagious?).

Group dynamics, in this context, are contagions to those who become ideological members of a demented group within a society.

Applying that to current society, we can easily recognize the rampant nationalism and militarism in our culture.

Focusing on the third factor ("tyranny of a despotic minority") tends to be much more difficult.

So here are the numbers concerning the minority we are talking about:

Clinton
65,853,516
48.18%

Trump
62,984,825
46.09%

(Federal Election Commission). A minority consisting of some 62,984,825 people voted for President Trump (but it was a smaller subgroup within that group who cast the 304 electoral votes that actually won the election for him).

II. On The Meaning of 'Despotic' and 'Minority'

The historian Toynbee (quoted in Section I above) identified the suicidal characteristics of the despotic minority group as nationalism, militarism, and tyranny (Reeling From Flynn Deal, Alex Jones Issues Civil War ‘Red Alert’—for 15th Time in Two Months).

The 62,984,825 voters are a minority, and the 65,853,516 are a majority by definition (a slim 2.09% majority).

Moving on to 'despotic,' we find that in that violent insurrection oriented group sense, it is associated with despotism:

... societies which limit respect and power to specific groups have also been called despotic.

(Wikipedia). There need not be a dictator or other autocratic individual in order to meet Toynbee's description set forth in his study, especially in the sense of the description "the tyranny of a despotic minority."

In this sense, a minority means a group composed of a population less than the majority of a society (but wielding substantial directional influence).

Note that this would not be possible in the United States if it was a democracy rather than a constitutional republic with an Electoral College that can elect presidents without a majority popular vote (as in the 2016 election of Donald Trump).

To fit into the Toynbee description, all that is needed is that the group be despotic in nature, which is to be 'authoritarian' (a synonym).

This type of authoritarian despotism requires two fundamental characteristics:

Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do whatever they want -- which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal. In my day, authoritarian fascist and authoritarian communist dictatorships posed the biggest threats to democracies, and eventually lost to them in wars both hot and cold. But authoritarianism itself has not disappeared, and I'm going to present the case in this book that the greatest threat to American democracy today arises from a militant authoritarianism that has become a cancer upon the nation.

(The Authoritarians, book by Bob Altemeyer, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, PDF). Put those two together (leaders and followers) in a group with despotic ideology and we have a structure matching and composing a despotic group of the type that historian Toynbee wrote about.

But, in this case the despotism is "soft despotism" to wit:

"Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people.

Soft despotism gives people the illusion that they are in control, when in fact they have very little influence over their government. Soft despotism breeds fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the general populace. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that this trend was avoided in America only by the "habits of the heart" of its 19th-century populace."

(Soft Despotism, Wikipedia). The way the despotism is maintained by a minority has been explained by "the father of spin" (The Ways of Bernays).

III. The Current Soft Despotism
Is Hardening Into Tribalism

The concept of tribalism is probably easier for us to understand, because it has been engineered to fruition in our time:

"But then we don’t really have to wonder what it’s like to live in a tribal society anymore, do we? Because we already do. Over the past couple of decades in America, the enduring, complicated divides of ideology, geography, party, class, religion, and race have mutated into something deeper, simpler to map, and therefore much more ominous. I don’t just mean the rise of political polarization (although that’s how it often expresses itself), nor the rise of political violence (the domestic terrorism of the late 1960s and ’70s was far worse), nor even this country’s ancient black-white racial conflict (though its potency endures).

I mean a new and compounding combination of all these differences into two coherent tribes, eerily balanced in political power, fighting not just to advance their own side but to provoke, condemn, and defeat the other."

(America Wasn’t Built for Humans). The group psychology at work forming our minds and thoughts when tribalism prevails is enmity towards "the other."

Recent scientific papers have pointed out that our culture, and in some cases our subculture, is "remodeling" our brains all the time:

"Beyond such internal mechanisms of variation, environment-driven plasticity lends yet another layer of complexity to the brain. The brain is capable of remarkable remodeling in response to experience. Signals originating from the environment can cause both widespread and localized adaptations. At the level of individual cells, structure and function are continually changing with the environment in a dance of lifelong brain plasticity, and some experiences, such as stress or physical exercise, affect the growth, survival, and fate of newborn neurons in neurogenic regions of the brain.
...
Traditionally, cells are defined by the tissue to which they belong as well as their particular functional role or morphology. This classification represents a developmental trajectory that begins early in embryogenesis and is hardwired into each cell. But other differences among cells are more subtle. Multi-dimensional analyses of gene expression and other metrics have revealed remarkable heterogeneity among cells of the same traditional “type.” Cells exist in different degrees of maturation, activation,plasticity, and morphology. Once we begin to consider all of the subtle cell-to-cell variations, it becomes clear that the number of cell types is much greater than ever imagined. In fact, it may be more appropriate to place some cells along a continuum rather than into categories at all.
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Brain cells in particular may be as unique as the people to which they belong. This genetic, molecular, and morphological diversity of the brain leads to functional variation that is likely necessary for the higher-order cognitive processes that are unique to humans. Such mosaicism may have a dark side, however. Although neuronal diversification is normal, it is possible that there is an optimal extent of diversity for brain function and that anything outside those bounds—too low or too high—may be pathological. For example, if neurons fail to function optimally in their particular role or environment, deficits could arise. Similarly, if neurons diversify and become too specialized to a given role, they may lose the plasticity required to change and function normally within a larger circuit. As researchers continue to probe the enormous complexity of the brain at the single-cell level, they will likely begin to uncover the answers to these questions—as well as those we haven’t even thought to ask yet."

(Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala - 5). We know more about some of those dynamics than those previous civilizations did, civilizations that went down by "suicide" (self-destruction).

Will that superior scientific knowledge we have be sufficient to make us aware of ways to avoid the suicidal fate that engulfed previous groups (which we call "civilizations") recorded in our written history?

IV. Conclusion

The previous post in this series is here.

Normalization Of The Abnormal

McTell it like it is, Snooper Man

The news media habit of normalizing the abnormal went awry when candidate Trump bloviated on and on about what was considered to be abnormal politics.

Like soon-to-be, it is said, "Senator Judge Roy L. Bean" (out of Alabama).

But I digress.

In their media minds, Candidate Trump could never be elected to the most powerful office that an individual could hold in the United States, so why bother normalizing his abnormality?

It was a waste of time, besides, the media world already had lots of work to do with all the paid expert-bloviators it took to normalize everlasting war without even mentioning it (Secret Afghanistan Underground - 3).

Or, I guess I should say mentioning it about as much as it mentions climate change:

"In 2016, evening newscasts and Sunday shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as Fox Broadcast Co.'s Fox News Sunday, collectively decreased their total coverage of climate change by 66 percent compared to 2015, even though there were a host of important climate-related stories, including the announcement of 2015 as the hottest year on record, the signing of the Paris climate agreement, and numerous climate-related extreme weather events. There were also two presidential candidates to cover, and they held diametrically opposed positions on the Clean Power Plan, the Paris climate agreement, and even on whether climate change is a real, human-caused phenomenon. Apart from PBS, the networks also failed to devote significant coverage to climate-related policies, but they still found the time to uncritically air climate denial -- the majority of which came from now-President Donald Trump and his team."

(How Broadcast Networks Covered Climate Change In 2016, emphasis added). They reduced it because, you know, both are life and death matters ("One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.").

If it bleeds it leads, unless it can't be explained by those expert-bloviators.

Like mass-murders.

Let's review one of many exceptionally famous cases ("we're number one" at mass murderers) for some key points:

"... [Whitman] killed a receptionist with the butt of his rifle. Two families of tourists came up the stairwell; he shot at them at point-blank range. Then he began to fire indiscriminately from the deck at people below. The first woman he shot was pregnant. As her boyfriend knelt to help her, Whitman shot him as well. He shot pedestrians in the street and an ambulance driver who came to rescue them.

The evening before, Whitman had sat at his typewriter and composed a suicide note:

I don’t really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I can’t recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

By the time the police shot him dead, Whitman had killed 13 people and wounded 32 more. The story of his rampage dominated national headlines the next day. And when police went to investigate his home for clues, the story became even stranger: in the early hours of the morning on the day of the shooting, he had murdered his mother and stabbed his wife to death in her sleep.

It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight … I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. I cannot rationa[l]ly pinpoint any specific reason for doing this …

Along with the shock of the murders lay another, more hidden, surprise: the juxtaposition of his aberrant actions with his unremarkable personal life. Whitman was an Eagle Scout and a former marine, studied architectural engineering at the University of Texas, and briefly worked as a bank teller and volunteered as a scoutmaster for Austin’s Boy Scout Troop 5. As a child, he’d scored 138 on the Stanford-Binet IQ test, placing in the 99th percentile. So after his shooting spree from the University of Texas Tower, everyone wanted answers.

For that matter, so did Whitman. He requested in his suicide note that an autopsy be performed to determine if something had changed in his brain — because he suspected it had.

I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt [overcome by] overwhelming violent impulses. After one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail.

Whitman’s body was taken to the morgue, his skull was put under the bone saw, and the medical examiner lifted the brain from its vault. He discovered that Whitman’s brain harbored a tumor the diameter of a nickel. This tumor, called a glioblastoma, had blossomed from beneath a structure called the thalamus, impinged on the hypothalamus, and compressed a third region called the amygdala."

(Atlantic Monthly, emphasis added). The "well educated Eagle Scout Marine" dood became a domestic enemy, and turned on his loved ones.

The Blind Willie McTell News goes the most bananas when they have no paid expert-bloviators to explain what happened in "Las Vegas" (Choose Your Trances Carefully - 6).

Whatever happens in "the Las Vegas trance" stays in "Las Vegas trance" it would seem.

They do the 24/7 trance and begin showing the same videos over and over 24/7 ... until ... well ... they don't anymore.

Then it never happened it would seem.

They may soon devolve into the Normalize The Abnormal trance to try to convince you, and themselves, that this is the new normal.

They may also resort to pabulum indicating that it is the fire sale price we pay for MOMCOM freedom (MOMCOM - A Mean Welfare Queen).

Historically, they have a record of accomplishing this (Blind Willie McTell News, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

But in the end, that accomplishment can only be brought about by their incessant appeal to the base (the exceptional despotic minority):

"In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority. Unlike Spengler in his The Decline of the West, Toynbee did not regard the death of a civilization as inevitable, for it may or may not continue to respond to successive challenges. Unlike Karl Marx, he saw history as shaped by spiritual, not economic forces."

(Stockholm Syndrome: The Declaration of Intellectual Dependence, quoting Encyclopedia Britannica). "Go with the flow baby" is the new old Highway 61 (War is the Highway 61 of the 1%).

After all, the Oscar ... oops ... I mean the Pulitzer is in play.

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Etiology of Social Dementia - 15

"There must be some way out of here"
(All Along The Watchtower)

I. Background

This series has taken a look at the various and sundry dementias that historically infect then destroy civilizations.

Our civilization has not officially implemented ways to deal with group dementia, leaving the yeomen’s work on dementia to its manifestation in individuals; so, to the extent that there are similarities between dementia in an individual and dementia in a group, nation, society, or civilization, that has also been addressed in this series from time to time (Etiology of Social Dementia, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13).

In today's post I want to address the habitat of dementia within "groups, parties, nations ... epochs" and civilizations, a la Nietzsche (“Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.” – Friedrich Nietzsche).

II. What Is Habitat?

In both British English and American English there can be several meanings given to a word.

Seemingly innocuous, at times this innate doublespeak can render discourse anywhere from problematic to catastrophic (Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death).

So, I often make an attempt to isolate a particular word's meaning to a particular context.

That is probably especially needed in the context of a discussion about "the habitat of dementia."

Seeing as how 'dementia' has been defined in this series, let's define "habitat."

I want to use the word 'habitat' with an expansive meaning, so let's start with:

"A habitat is made up of physical factors such as soil, moisture, range of temperature, and availability of light as well as biotic factors such as the availability of food ..."

(Wikipedia). The "physical factors" (dirt, water, temperature, light) in this sense are "abiotic", and they are in contrast to the "biotic" factors:

A fair definition of Biology is:

... the science of life or living matter in all its forms and phenomena, especially with reference to origin, growth, reproduction, structure, and behavior.

(Dictionary, emphasis added). A fair definition of Abiology, then, ought to be:

... the science of non-life or non-living matter in all its forms and phenomena, especially with reference to origin, growth, reproduction, structure, and behavior.

(see e.g. abiological). One problem or question that biologists struggle with is the art of defining life (Erwin Schrodinger, PDF), but, to be sure that arises most often inside the twilight-zone between the abiotic and the biotic realms.

(Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 27). For those who would take umbrage at this Dredd Blog explanation, relax, there are other sources for your reading comfort:

Habitats consist of both the biotic and abiotic factors found in the environment. Biotic factors are living things, while abiotic factors are nonliving things.

(What Is Habitat? - Definition & Explanation, emphasis added). If you want an utterly long look into the abiotic habitat that existed billions of years before the additional carbon based, organic, biotic habitat evolved, check out (On the Origin of the Genes of Viruses, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) and (The Uncertain Gene, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

III. What Is Civilization?

Let's begin to answer the question with a look at some specialized literature:

"The meaning of the term civilization has changed several times during its history, and even today it is used in several ways.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries CE, it was widely believed among European scholars that all human communities were involved in a process of straightforward progression by which the conditions of a society were gradually improving. As part of these changes, it was believed, societies experienced different stages: savagery, barbarism and, finally, civilization."

[Establishment social science was of that mindset too: "Lastly, I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilisation than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risks nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago, of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races [Chuck was a tad-bit racist eh?] will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world." - Charles Darwin (1881); cf. "Even what were once considered elite scientific journals have turned out to have been utter long-winded bullshit (The Eugenics Review Vols. 1 to 60; 1909 to 1968)" -Weekend Rebel Science Excursion - 28]

"Civilization, in this context, was understood as the last stop in the long journey of human society. The different stages of this social evolution were equated to specific human communities: Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities were considered part of the savagery stage, Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers as part of the barbarism stage, and finally Bronze Age urban communities (particularly those in the Near East) were considered an early phase of the civilized world. Today, this approach is no longer valid since it is linked to an attitude of cultural superiority, by which human communities which are not yet "civilized" are seen as somehow inferior.

In everyday conversation, there is a tendency to use the word "civilization" to refer to a type of society that displays a set of moral values, such as respect for human rights or a compassionate attitude for the sick and the elderly. This can be problematic, since moral values are inevitably one-sided and ethnocentric. A behaviour considered "civilized" by a particular culture may be judged senseless or even seen with horror by another culture. History records an abundant number of examples of this issue. A famous one is reported by Herodotus, who describes the conflicting funerary practices of a group of Greeks, who cremated their dead, and the Indians known as the Kallatiai, who ate their dead:

During his reign, Darius summoned the Hellenes at his court and asked them how much money they would accept for eating the bodies of their dead fathers. They answered that they would not do that for any amount of money. Later Darius summoned some Indians called Kallatiai, who do eat their parents. [...], he [Darius] asked the Indians how much money they would accept to burn the bodies of their dead fathers. They responded with an outcry, ordering him to shut his mouth lest he offended the gods. Well, then, that is how people think, and so it seems to me that Pindar was right when he said in his poetry that custom is king of all (Herodotus 3.38.3-4)."

(Ancient History Encyclopedia, emphasis added). I think that many of these cultural dynamics of "civilized behavior" are actually cultural trances induced in many cases by the cultural amygdala (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala, Choose Your Trances Carefully).

In another sense of history, civilization is merely a group entity which comes to an end by suicide or murder, but much more frequently by the former (A Study of History, Toynbee).

In another sense we could call it "the largest form of a human group."

IV. The Habitat of Cultural Dementia Within Civilization

The early stages of social dementia resemble being lost in, of all places, space.

In other words, not knowing where we are - lost - even though we have been schooled and given a "YAH" map (You Are Here).

We hear of individuals walking around lost, but that is actually the legacy of civilizations that have come and gone too.

In the current presidential elections in various countries, right wing extremism is challenging the status quo.

In the U.S. version, one candidate does not know were we are in terms of believing that the environment, the habitat writ large, can't be harmed.

The other is like the current president, who talks like a showman but acts like the worst of the worst, killing entire nations for their oil as those who went before did (The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil - 6).

The social dementia lurks behind the billboard of lies, hides in the media generated reality, incessantly covered by the cocoon of propaganda (The Deceit Business, The Authoritarianism of Climate Change).

Cultural dementia hides within the institutions of civilization, within the literature, within the educational system, within the government, within the military, and especially within the corporate media.

The study of that dynamic, that generating of ignorance, is being done within the (most likely) soon-to-be-doomed discipline of Agnotology (Agnotology: The Surge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).

These ignorance generators within society produce what the institutions perpetuate in an epigenetic dynamism we vaguely see and describe as "the status quo."

It plays out in a more and more obvious, more and more exposed, and more and more degenerate stupor (Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala).

Economically, it plays out as an economy morphing into a plutonomy within a wartocracy, i.e. neo-feudalism (American Feudalism, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

V. Conclusion

It won't get far having failed The Test (The Tenets of Ecocosmology).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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Black guitars matter.

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