Recently I was contacted by a very nice Canadian chap called Lee. He writes for a big Internet blog and news source — the kind of site that has a million unique visitors a month — and he asked me if I’d like to write for them! Apparently, I’m a bit snarky. Apparently that’s what they want; someone that tells it like it is. Someone that isn’t afraid to step on a few toes.

And that’s cool. I can do that. Artists will do anything for a cheap buck.

But I can’t believe he actually called me SNARKY! Of all the things he could’ve called me! Intelligent, wise, bright, charming, charismatic… even tall or hairy would’ve been fine. But snarky? Who the fuck does he think he is? I wouldn’t mind if he was American — that would explain a few things — but a Canadian? A civilian pawn of the mighty, Earth-spanning British Empire? Really, some people ought to know their place.

Which brings me neatly onto the topic of the Internet class system. Or the sickening and complete lack thereof. Online, everyone is born equal. From the moment you plug that cable in and battle your way through Internet Explorer’s shit MSN homepage redirection, you are… A NETIZEN — an Internet citizen — a very grandiose term that basically means you belong to the Online Community. A small monthly fee, a modem and a computer — that’s all you need to become a fully paid-up member of the largest, most powerful and ubiquitous community in the world.

You can become a civilian of the modern society — the only real society that counts — where rules and etiquette are created and destroyed as technology and peer pressure dictates. This often happens so quickly that no one really knows what’s going on: The Internet is in disarray! Anyone and everyone rules the roost, or their small part of it. The Internet is an anarchic system of authority. And therein lies the problem: there is no social structure.

Historically the citizens of a country are those that are born there. Changing your nationality was something that very few people did; you only emigrated or sought asylum during the most dire of situations. Why? Because there was a class or caste system in place; a pecking order. Jobs would be given to specific families first. If you were born into a family of cleaners or chimney sweeps, you really didn’t have much of a career choice. The rich died rich; the poor died poor. When you move country you drop down to the bottom — and trust me, there is always someone worse off than you — a thought petrifying enough to scare off all but the most desperate emigrants. In a world where class means everything, losing your class is not unlike dying. Social status, perks, opportunity — all gone.

But there’s one exception: a new country. You can move to a new country where everyone is equal, at least for a short time. A new, primordial society, amorphous and malleable. A new culture just waiting to be defined by creative and daring individuals. A New World. America.

Is it really a surprise that five hundred years later we’ve created the virtual equivalent of America?

The Internet is still at that stage where everyone is equal. The loud-shouting neophyte is as much a patron of the new world order as the venerable Internet veteran. Is that correct? Should we be born equal in this New Virtual World? After being on the Internet for 15 years should a jumped-up newbie with bold, brash ideas be able to tell me what to do? No! Should I defer, prostrate myself and shuffle nervously around those that have been online since the very dawn of our current epoch 40 years ago? As much as it pains my ego to say so: yes, yes I should.

In the hope of achieving a more sane and useful society, in true Virtual World style, I propose a level system. When you first connect to the Internet, you are level 1. Every year of continued use thereafter, you gain a level. It would need to be tracked by some kind of governing body — like the Censor’s Office in Roman times, or the peerage registers in the UK.

Each level would bestow rights, privileges. Perhaps you could mute lower levels in chat rooms or on forums. You would be eligible for more bandwidth when downloading illegal movies and music. Perhaps if the level difference is great enough you could even bestow ‘time outs’ on particularly irritating runts by cutting their Internet access for an hour.

You would be forced to use an Apple Mac until level 5.

Smileys would be banned until you reach level 10.

Streaming porn would remain unavailable until you reach level 15.

How about it, peons?

I seem to get my teeth stuck into particular subject matters and, like a big, deep-growling mastiff, try to tear it to pieces. Hopefully it’s not like an annoying and yappy terrier. Again, this is on the topic of immersion — does the lack of immersion in real life cause us to be lonely?

First some questions: Why, given an unprecedented number of ways to communicate and bond and share experiences (Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, forums…), do we remain resolutely bereft of companionship? Are we only ‘relatively’ lonely? Is ‘lonely’ a phrase that oldies throw around so much that the younger generations start echoing its sentiment, and eventually feeling it? ‘We don’t see each other face-to-face any more… using the telephone/MSN/Skype just isn’t the same…’

It isn’t the same — but because it’s different does that make it worse?

Are we only ‘lonely’ because we are told, as we guiltily hunch over our computer screens, we should feel so? Because we are told we must surround ourselves with friends and loved ones lest we don’t make it through the cold, hard winter nights? Is being a ‘loner’ bad, or just a wild break from the cultural norm?

Is spending most of our day behind a screen really a problem?

Some answers: It’s not that we meet relatively few people online — quite the opposite — but people seem to think that the bonds we make online are somehow less substantial because they stem from virtual places and virtual obligations. When I help someone find the right monster to kill in World of Warcraft, is it not the same as counseling a friend’s real-life woes in a real-life bar, ala Cheers? Can you be friends with someone you’ve never met face-to-face? If you tell a friend that you will be somewhere at a certain time, you’ll try your best to be there! If I arrange to log onto MSN and chat with a virtual friend, and then fail to show up, does that make me a bad person?

Right now, some (most?) of you are thinking: ‘no, real life overrules MSN’ — and I’m thinking that my friend on MSN is just as important as anything that might come up in real life. They’re virtual, I know. They are not substantiated or grounded in reality. There is no real-world repercussions if you fail to turn up. But they are still real people. It’s almost the epitome of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. We [don't want to]/[can't] be friends with someone we’re unable to touch or feel; it seemingly takes a super-human effort to feel for someone you may never meet.

And that’s fine. Virtual, just-add-water apply-where-necessary friends have their purpose. But… this situation isn’t going to get any better. More and more of our interactions will be virtual. True, some of us do take our online relationships into real life; heck, online dating accounts for a huge portion of Internet usage! But what I’m talking about here is more endemic — it’s laziness. It’s being satisfied with vague, tenuous, barely-scratching-the-surface friendships — if they can even be called that. It’s the Fight Club idea of ’single serving’ friendships taken to the next level: instead of making them on planes and trains, we make them while buzzing and zipping around the Internet and various social portals.

For some reason we are satisfied with ‘friendship lite’; instant gratification, none of the mess!!!

It’s a hollow feeling of satiation. Fed with juicy friendliness for just long enough — no more, no less.

Does being able to avoid the long-term difficulties of relationships (friendship) really have such an irresistible allure? By keeping everyone at a safe distance we can successfully deal with arguments or heartbreaks — because there’s no one to conflict with. These virtually-non-existent friendships enable us to focus on what we want to do. How selfish. We use the computer screen to screen real life, letting only choice morsels that lay within our comfort zone through.

Maybe we’ve always wished we could control how close people got to us, but until now we lacked a way to hold people at bay. This could just be a manifestation of self-preservation. Or just the pinnacle, or trough, of our Instant Gratification Society.

The scary thing is that this ‘thousands of acquaintances, but few friends’ lifestyle is going unchecked, unabated. It’s actually acceptable to merely tap your acquaintances for information or job offers and go skipping off. When one of my acquaintances asks ‘how are you?’ I simply answer ‘what do you want?’ — I don’t even feel rude; I feel like I’m doing us both a favour by cutting out the small-talk.

If contemporary society continues along this path, where real, tangible interaction will be limited at best and non-existent at worst, we need to start treating our virtual friends just as we would real friends. I’m not saying we should try to meet everyone that we know online, but we should try to nurture friendships. We must move back towards the friends-of-friends model and away from utilising and abusing a sea of faceless acquaintances. We have to start caring. Ick…

Ultimately though, because if anything humans are predictable, we won’t change. Technology will work its magic and dig us out of yet another hole. Before we know it we’ll be lounging in Star Trekesque Holodecks with holographic, computer-controlled projections of whichever acquaintance we feel like spending time with. Or we’ll simply get a robot friend; or better yet, a pet dog or cat. They can’t talk back and are very obedient.

Yesterday I laid the ground rules for mysteries and why they have played such a huge role in the development of our society.

Note how I say ‘huge’ rather than important or vital.

Are these mysteries a good thing for survival? Better yet: is this incessant hunt for the unknowable a human-only trait? Did we evolve this love of mystery?

The general argument goes like this: we like to see patterns. We attribute cause to every effect. We like to believe that there’s something more to life than just 80 years of humdrum mundanity followed by death and burial and rigor mortis. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know if animals and plants feel the same way, but it’s often stated that only humans ponder the existence of an after-life (though who knows if this is true…) So it’s something in the brain — our brain — that sets us apart from the rest of them. We must’ve evolved that functionality, or been given it by our Creator — whatever, I’m not going to get into a theological discussion here.

The point is, at some point in time, we grew to love mystery. Like, seriously adore. You can look at certain times in history when almost everything in your day-to-day life was ritual. Wake up; pray. Hunt; pray. Eat; pray. Old wives’ tales. Turning three times widdershins before crossing a cursed threshold. Naming of children. Gods! Astrology! It’s all attributing cause to effect.

I sometimes wonder if people realise how feeble it is to be nothing but a pawn of the universe. You are merely the result of billions of random-chance-and-cause-unknown effects. Only, wait a second, the cause isn’t unknown! It’s the god of war! Of the hunt! Wine! The Israelites — God!

But, hang on, we’re not all mystery junkies. There are some people that hate the idea of mystery. They’re called ’scientists’.

And that’s the bit I don’t get. There are people that can only sleep at night knowing that God is looking over them, that Jesus makes their miserable, sinful life bearable — and then there are those that are the complete opposite. There are people that find the idea of spirituality or immortality repulsive: ‘that which can not be proven does not exist, so why give such concepts such credence?’

Are these scientists, these doubters-of-mysterious-coincidence, an evolutionary creation? Are they relatively new — the last few thousand years or so — or have there always been questioning, discerning doubters since the dawn of time? Was fire really stolen from the gods, or did Ug the Caveman create it through trial and error? Throughout history there have always been a few that question their surroundings. Rarely are their voices heard — usually only for a split, blood-curdling second before the guillotine drops or the tinder is lit. In fact, today and for the first time in history, scientists seem to finally have gained more respect and gravitas than theologians. Thank God.

The sad bit is that mystery, or at least those that ‘believe’ in mystery, far outweighs the truth, the cause-seeker, the scientists. The vast majority believe in the omnipresence and omnipotence of God or gods. On top of that there a lot of people that are apathetic to the discovery of knowledge and truth. It seems to me that ‘mystery junky’ is the dominant genetic trait. Maybe we can genetically engineer our DNA to remove such a trait…

For the first time in recorded history everyone has an equal chance of success.

Or that’s what we like to tell ourselves.

We gape at the powerful, unwaxed women that are directors and CEOs. We smile fondly at the emasculated house-husband that stays home to tend to the children.

Sure, Spics and Polacks still man the mops and paint our walls, but everyone knows of at least one rich and successful Mexican or American Indian! They might not all be doing well but at least now they have the chance to be successful.

And the Blacks… well… we like to claim that they’re on an equal footing with the rest of ‘us’ (listen to me, I’m perpetuating racism right here…), but who are we kidding? I look at how tribalistic and wild England was before the Romans arrived… and wonder if Africans merely missed the Imperialistic Gravy Train. What would’ve happened if Caesar went South instead of North? (I don’t know enough history here — is there a reason there were no large communities south of Alexandria and Carthage?) Today there is a little Arabian/North African racism, but nothing compared to the scale of black-attack and White supremacy that rules contemporary society (the Arabians have only been attacked in recent years, and we all know why that is — again, like modern-day ‘black racism’, Middle East racism is Americentric too…)

So how do we fix it?  A lot of people point to these ‘ethnicities’ that hold high-powered positions or win awards. A lot of people say that we’re already on the path to eliminating racism. But… are we?

Do we not reinforce racism every time we congratulate an ethnic minority on achieving a high-status position? Our entire mindset has to change. We still look at those of differing cultures and colours as fundamentally different. Every time someone writes an article celebrating the chutzpah and tenacity of a female CEO, we are reaffirming these differences between us — differences that don’t exist.

* * *

Try this little thought experiment for a moment. If you’re white, get a really detailed image in your mind of a black person. Dark, thicker skin. Flatter nose. Fuller lips. Curly hair perhaps. If you’re black, picture a white person and all that ‘white’ entails. If you’re yellow… picture something else, I don’t know. Now… imagine yourself in their skin. Imagine being identical to how you are now, only a different colour, a different shape. The same fluid personality but filling a different vassal. It’s really damn hard, eh? It’s also a little revolting, isn’t it…? Did you shudder? Did you simply shrug and give up? It’s pretty hard to do, actually. Sadly.

* * *

Once upon a time, we were all brothers. It was a very damn long time ago now. But we fought each other’s battles and hunted for the tribe — the extended family — instead of ourselves. I suppose, back then, our entire world was much smaller. Populations were smaller. There was less contention for resources.

Did racism purely arise from a burgeoning ‘need’ to gather resources? Did we subjugate our fellow man merely so that we could compete with others? Migrant Indians keep Black slaves too, in their African colonies. It’s not just a ‘white thing’. We treat men and women — our friends, our family? — as commodities with values, rather than sentient beings.

Do we have this all to blame on capitalism…? I wonder if there’s less racism in ‘less developed’ parts of the world where more important things than money are sought for.

Unfortunately I’m going to cite the contents of a long, three-page story in this blog entry. Fortunately, it’s an absolutely awesome story about the curious history, convoluted present and hopeful future of the placebo effect. Even if it takes you a while to read, it’s worth reading — it takes you from the origin of placebos (salt water instead of morphine during World War 2) through to modern day drug trials, where placebos are beating pharmaceutical drugs such as anti-pain meds or anti-depressants.

It’s crazy stuff — really bat-shit crazy. The story doesn’t really go into the why, as we don’t know the answer yet — it’s amazing enough that a group has finally been formed to look into it (pharmaceutical companies, the ones with all the money when it comes to research, obviously want the placebo response to just… go away. ASAP.) – Since the beginning, the placebo has been Big Pharma’s number one enemy. To pass drug trials a new product has to beat out the placebo effect by a significant margin. In the olden days, this was apparently quite easy.

Today… well, the expert that the story focuses on, William Potter, goes as far to say that in during modern-day tests, Prozac is being beaten-out by placebos, and thus would never make it to market, if it had been invented today. The story actually begins with a story about Merck, a big pharmaceutical company: they’re testing a new anti-depressant (MK-869), and they just can’t seem to beat the placebo effect. Both the drug and the placebo effect had an equal success rate! The placebo effect is so strong at the moment that very few drugs are making it through testing and into the greedy, self-medicating hands of the public.

It’s definitely a weird one that needs to be sussed out. It’s sad that it has been ignored for so long because the body’s self-healing functions are the enemy of pharmacology. Pharmacology’s sole purpose is to dominate the central nervous system, not to aid or assist it in its curative powers. What has caused the increased placebo response? Now this is the funny bit: in realising that placebo response is different, depending on where you are in the world, Big Pharma is actually going to other countries where the placebo effect is weaker, to get their drugs approved.

It would seem that the placebo response is based on culture, society. It’s long been known that we have more faith in the trustworthy, the responsible, the professional. If I tell you I’m going to fix your computer, you’re relieved and walk away happy. If I tell you I’m going to remove your tooth, you’re going to adversely react, scream, run away — and rightfully so!

The story seems to surmise that it’s the pharmaceutical’s massive marketing campaigns that have pushed up the power of the placebo. We’re surrounded by so many reports and surveys and commercials that tell us of the efficacy of anti-depressants that we will them to work: if it works for him, it will work for me — of course, the funny bit is that most drugs have side-effects, and the placebo does not… so with placebo tests we’re told that we’re taking Prozac, our body expects it to work… and so it works. Without any of the side-effects.

And it turns out that doctors have long been prescribing placebos to patients! This one might shock you a little. If you’re on anti-depressants right now… you might actually not be on them. Doctors have long known the power of confidence and good bed-side manner. Doctors often prescribe under-powered doses to patients and tell them that it will work. And, unsurprisingly, it works — with all the potency of actual, drug-based medication. Awesome.

We can walk away from this story with two great things under our belt: a) we’ll be seeing more research into the placebo effect and the body’s self-healing powers. We’re not talking about the body’s ability to fix physical damage, but when it comes to biological imbalance, brain chemistry and ‘rewiring’, we’re capable of a lot more than we think — and b) don’t stop believing in medication. It is your belief in the power of anti-depressants that make them work, not the chemical compound itself.

If that’s not food for thought… I don’t know what is.

A few weeks ago I watched through the 1980 series ‘Cosmos’, written and narrated by the master himself, Carl Sagan. It was re-released on DVD recently, and with western society’s infatuation with ‘popular science’, as made famous by the likes of Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough, I figured it was time to give it a watch.

It might be almost 30 years old but it’s awesome. It’s the best grounding in science, philosophy and (astro)physics that you can ever hope for. It’s dated, sure (check out his turtle-neck jumper), and it’s very out-of-this-world in places (Sagan was a dreamer), but it’s so, so awesome in its entirety. It’s the kind of thing I would force my children watch as soon as they can read and write. With matchsticks to prop their eyes open.

Cosmos got me thinking. A dangerous pastime, I know. [Name that musical...]

We all seek solace in wildly different things.

Why?

Solace means, literally, ‘to solidify’. Consolidation, console, solid — they all have the same Latin root. Finding solace is finding solidity in the world. Solace is when you feel stable. Finding solace is searching for that ‘rock’, that bastion of hope, courage, safety — whatever — it’s something that makes you feel safe. Solace is discovering that reserved spot in the world’s cosmic parking lot that no one can take away from you.

No one’s doubting that everyone wants solace. Heck, we might even need it. Most people go through life looking for it and when they finally find it they don’t (can’t?) let go. Scarily, people seem much more fatalistic once they find their real solace. It’s as if our life purpose, as humans, is merely to find a place to live, reside, be. Then once we get there, we can weather an awful lot with our solace-powered resolve.

But what is the driving force behind that resolve?

It seems to vary from person to person, which is odd. You can easily imagine the preacher undergoing extreme duress and displeasure, while seeking solace in his God. But what about the man that derives his strength from science, from the knowledge that we are no more than physical meatbags that are predestined at birth to live, exist and eventually die. Harder to imagine, eh? I think the usual argument here is that we’re ‘programmed’ to seek faith and mysticism… but why are some people are satisfied with no repentance, no God, no afterlife?

The obvious question you then have to ask is: have there always been people that can’t find solace in faith alone? Throughout history have there been agnostic solace-seekers? You can certainly have faith in science, that’s for sure — that’s kind of a prerequisite for scientists — but maybe the various churches throughout history were too strong, their mysticism too alluring?

For the first time in history science is pitched in a fair fight against religion. The mysticism of religion is at an all-time low. Scientific understanding of the cosmos is at an all-time high.

I think the underpinning of solace is belief. There has to be something you really, really believe in. Be it science, god, philosophy, money, love, it doesn’t really matter. The problem for religion is that it’s becoming harder to believe in. There have always been those that found some solace in science, but the church quashed them. Or burnt them. Either way, belief in non-deity was disallowed (were emperors deified for this reason?)

Nowadays religion is a bit easier going: you’re free to believe in God (or whatever else) while it makes sense to, while you see through a rough spot perhaps. It’s very easy to believe in faith and mysticism (we’re programmed to do so, remember?) so it just comes naturally — having problems? head down to the church! But now, without the draconian Churches, without the belief-under-duress, wouldn’t it make sense to seek solace in something else, something tangible, something like… science? A lot of people are doing it. Dare I say there are more atheists and agnostics than ever before. Why don’t religious types cave and listen to the truth of science?

It would make sense to move on, no? No. People don’t like to lose their solace.

I’m sure you’ve heard stories of those people that have ‘lost God’, or the love of their life. They’re broken. Disbelief really shatters you. It seems solace is highly conservative. When was the last time you heard of a devoutly religious person dropping the word of God in favour of Darwin? I mean a happily-engaged-and-solace-fully-sought practitioner, not a neophyte or extremist, incidentally. It would seem you only get one solace — one love-of-your-life — unless you are forcibly sundered.

Once the older generations die out and today’s children, our progeny, are free to seek a solace of their own choosing, the end of religion and the rise and dominion of the machines — er, science — might actually be upon us.

Ah, now this is a meaty one. I’m not going to name any names, and I ask you kindly to do the same. I’m going to speak in general terms and hope I don’t offend too many people. But if you’re a believer of some kind and I make you question your faith… don’t hurt me! It’s a good thing to re-evaluate your environment occasionally. Things change, don’t forget. Something that made sense a while ago might not make sense now. With that said, on with the show.

* * *

Religion is technology. Something — something new, some kind of data — is discovered. It’s then honed and refined. And then it becomes a religion. Religion is simply ‘high-tech’.

Along the way there are fads and cults but ultimately, if it passes through its trial by fire, it becomes a religion.

Big pill to swallow, and I need to provide an example. Let’s take Jesus (sorry Christians), as he’s as close to omnipresence as things get. Look at your surroundings right now: your computer, iPhone, TV, keyboard. Pretty awesome eh? Do you know how any of them work? Maybe. Mostly they just work, you don’t question it. You sure as hell don’t call your computer a ‘box of miracles’ — well you might, but most of you probably don’t.

But that’s what it is. The fact that we can send data from one side of the planet to the other in a fraction of a second is a frackin’ miracle. We have the knowledge and power to surgically replace faulty hearts and perform crazy experiments at a sub-atomic level — that’s a damned miracle.

Only it’s not. It’s just technology.

Do you really think Jesus was a miracle worker? The son of God?

Just because I control the flow of electrons and fly through space at the speed of sound… does that deify me? Do you prostrate yourself before me; am I the Messiah? No — at least I doubt it. I’m merely harnessing technology.

You see, all these fields, spheres of thought and belief are really, really closely entwined. I’m close to a resolution, an epiphany: I can just about put my finger on it but it’s… slippery. Magic is the key to belief — mystery, that is. You don’t believe in something tangible, something real — you don’t believe in your car. You believe in true love, God, UFOs.

But there’s no such thing as magic, beyond impressive use of technology or new inventions. It’s magic until you learn how it’s done… and then it becomes mundane.

Is religion the same thing? Was talking to God, receiving divine prophecy and turning water into wine what passed for ‘high-tech’ 2,000 years ago? Did Jesus have some sterilised bandages or knowledge of Eastern medicine that cured large swathes of sick people? Does that make him a work of wonder, or merely a nice guy with some great tools? Why don’t we drop to our knees and deify Sagan or Einstein, our modern-day masters of the universe?

Our understanding of the universe is so great and our critical analysis now so exacting that magic and mystery are finding it impossible to gain a foothold in today’s society. Fads will form, and cults will climb to power and become religions, but as technology improves and shines a light on their inherent fallacies, they will fall — as soon as the curtain is whisked back and the truth revealed, the mystery will melt away. The magic castle will crumble and the religion, cult or fad will perish.

Without magic, there is no no faith, no prayer, no belief. Without mystery — the single most powerful force in human nature – there is no no religion.

In 50 years our understanding of the universe and humanity will be so great that I’ll be able to zap your body and fix it of all maladies. No side-effects. No caveats. What will existing religions do then?

You probably know by now that I’m a bit of a pragmatist. I don’t totally discount the possibility of the paranormal, and pragmatism is a little too strict really, but I’m definitely of the scientific, that-which-can-be-proven mindset. I think there’s more to life than eight decades of faffing about and then decomposing in the ground. I just think it might be a little premature to assume we have a soul, an entity tethered to us in some indescribable, untenable way.

I don’t rule out the possibility of the soul, the spirit or gods, because that would be stupid. How can you claim something without proof? I sometimes wonder about those scientists and cartographers that declared our Earth to be flat. Were they sane? Were they frickin’ scientists? How about the shaman and philosophers that decreed that gods reside in the cosmos — or better yet, that stars are actually gods? Did they just pull that kind of stuff out of their ass, or did it really make sense back then? When did science actually become science, i.e. empirical? [That's another topic for another day I think.]

This is one of those situations where I wish I could be more objective. From my seat (surrounded by three computers and four screens) of power, I can glance back to the dawn of modern civilization, and scry forward to some crazy, potential futures. Were the philosophers of Athens graced with such foresight or hindsight?

How many scientists, philosophers or engineers had ideas beyond their time? Leonardo da Vinci is one example, but I can’t think of many others. Our thoughts are generally held back by the framework that supports the body and mind: society and culture. Is a tribal elder going to contemplate cryogenics? No. Is Aristotle going to think about superconducting super colliders that expose the base units of existence itself? No. If Jesus was born in the 1600s, would Christianity occur? No.  Eminent thinkers are of their time and very rarely anything more.

And then there’s me, and any of my contemporaries that stop to think about the future. We’re in a position now where we can actually think about what the future might bring with some measure of accuracy. We’re about to finally get a glimpse of the universe’s building blocks. Science, at its most basic form, transforms things we don’t know into things we do know. We point a camera into deep space to find out what’s there — we split an atom to find out what’s inside. From the outside, with our weak human eyes, there’s nothing to be had from either, but science proves otherwise. The most basic action in science is measuring, quantifying. Until something is seen, it doesn’t exist: electrons didn’t exist until we measured them and their flow.

What if one day we can point some kind of imaging device at a fellow human and see their soul?

Why is that a totally crazy idea?

Right now, God and the soul can only be experienced through some kind of internalisation — through the mind’s (…) eye. Why do miracles and divine inspiration (or the deification thereof) occur only within our head? Will we one day be able to see those images and feel those experiences with some kind of artificial device? And if we can’t, why not?

Is it because the god, the spirit, your soul doesn’t actually exist?

You have two possible answers:

a) One day, we will be able to see the soul and interact with it, without the brain. We’ll be able to photograph it, stretch it, test it. The inexorable march of science means that eventually everything in the universe will be ours to play with.

And now, as we live in a universe with laws, where science rules supreme, there must be the other option:

b) The soul doesn’t exist. Gods don’t exist. They are both constructs of an incredibly powerful machine — the brain.

I wish the fellows over at CERN would hurry up and smash some protons together in that large collider of theirs. I really want to know the extent of these three dimensions we inhabit.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to get all holier-than-thou. I’ve had my share of one-night stands; not lots, but enough. I’ve swung, hung and even bunged… but it was in the name of and under the guise of research!

Personally, in my humble opinion, casual sex isn’t all that. I can see the temporary appeal of rampant, lights-out knees-over-your-head action. But to me it’s like fast food: gorge yourself and there are repercussions. You can do it occasionally, but even then is it worth the indigestion afterwards?

And that’s what it comes down to, casual sex: is it worth it? This is my scarily-objective, cold-and-calculatory mind spinning up again. Checks and balances, measurement and sanity checks: you have to ask yourself, just before you unzip and stick it in — or lift up and bend over – is it worth it?

I’m not going to make this a lesson on the perils of sex. I’m not even talking about STDs or STIs! I’m just talking about complications. Try as we might, we can’t lower sex to the status of ‘team sport’. It’s involved. If we could blow our load and get off by playing football, we’d just play football. Without trying to school you all, I just don’t think it’s healthy (mentally, if nothing else) to screw everything with a pulse. I don’t want to sound like a prude, but it’s my belief that we should all value these fantastic collections of skin, bone and miscellaneous organs just a little more.

And so I devised a system. I could get into trouble if I say when exactly I implemented this system — let’s just say it was a few years ago. In its formative months The System was just a way of controlling the hedonism — you really don’t get much work done if you’re performing the 8am Walk of Shame a few times a week — then later it became more… formalised. With my System the actual quality of sex improved. There is such a thing as bad sex, don’t listen to anyone that says otherwise! Bad sex is really, really bad.

Seb’s Sex System doesn’t discourage casual sex, nor sex with strangers, but instead ensures that you constantly push the envelope rather than settling for second or third (or fourth…) best. It does this with points and a sex threshold. You start by defining your idea of the perfect sex partner. Do you want a big ass? Small? Tall, short? Muscles, or cuddle-monster? Once you have the perfect archetype (which you are free to change as your tastes alter!) every potential partner is measured against this scale. The key to this system is that the point score must increase each time you engage in casual sex. Let me give an example, using (most of) my own scale:

Perfect Archetype

Physical: Short (5′1″-5′3″/150-160cm), large eyes (colour unimportant), small’ish breasts — ass is more important. Slender but not all skin and bones (I think we’d call this a size 8 in the UK, but in the US that’s like… a size 4?)

Mental: Has to be smart/witty, interested in her surroundings/inquisitive, talks quickly.

That’s the basic template. That’s 1000 points. But it’s not quite that simple: there are deal breakers, traits that completely change your outlook. For most people these are pretty similar, but let me list some of mine:

Deal breakers: Talks slowly, bad skin, smells bad, irritating laugh, habitual mannerisms (itching, nail biting, twitches, etc.)

Any of these traits/attributes immediately lower the person’s score by 100 points.

So you’ve found your prey…

What now?! Well, you rate them against your perfect girl or boy! This bit is subjective. For me, a girl that’s one inch shorter is closer to perfection than one inch taller. For you it might be the other way around. For every ‘increment’ that your prey/victim/target is ‘out by’, deduct 50 points. So if she had large breasts, I would deduct 50 points. Semi-flat ass, minus 50. A totally flat ass? Take 100 points!

Eventually you’ll have a total score.

The System

Now that you have a score for the lucky boy or girl, you simply compare that score to your last exploit. Only if the new score is higher do you sleep with them. Not equal! Not ‘almost the same’. Higher! If this is your first time, just remember or write down the score as it’s the starting point upon which your next encounter will be compared.

Extras and things to watch out for

As you’ve probably gathered, this is a very, er, analytical system. I realised the same thing after using The System for a few months! That’s why there’s a bonus round! Also known as cool things during sex. Until now The System hasn’t really been about sex — that’s what the bonus round changes. Without going into disgusting detail (maybe another time), you should add 25 points for every ‘ooh, cool’ sex act. Likewise, you should detract 100 points for every ‘eeww, not cool’ sex act. Update the previous total score with these new modifiers and commence your 8am Walk of Shame. Rinse, repeat!

It’s also worth noting that you can set a ‘baseline’ level if you’re new to the whole sex-before-marriage thing. Most people will just leap right into it, but in some cases (say, in a city with lots of immigrants or gypsies) it might be wise to stipulate a base threshold that potential squeezes must surpass. An easy-going person might be happy to start with girls or boys around 100 points. ‘Tight’ girls (and boys), those of you that like to think they’re a cut above the rest, probably want to start at around 500 points. Remember, there is a happy medium between promiscuity and chastity.

Best-case scenario you’ll have a lot of wholesome, healthy fun. You might even find the love of your life! At the very least you’ll learn a lot more about the world and how we interact with one another — important skills, in my opinion!

I don’t know where to start with this, the subject that surely supersedes all others. It — life, necessity and peace — begins and ends with education. With a good education the world is your oyster. Without education… God, it’s so tricky to put into words, but I’ll try.

The expanse of your knowledge, your wisdom, your skills and ‘working set of data’ is only limited by your ability to learn, to educate yourself; or to be educated. But it’s a feedback loop: you can’t emerge from a dark cave at the age of 40 and suddenly be wise. Knowledge must be accumulated, wisdom and skills are cumulative — they must be continually renewed and refreshed or it becomes the stuff of stale housewife tale. Because it’s a feedback loop, the longer you stay out of the loop the worse it gets. Even worse, the further out of the loop you are, the less chance you have of realising it…

The world is moving fast. Really, really fast. Every day we uncover new data about the world we exist within, and new rules and relationships that elucidate and underline the lives we live. Every day the goalposts move back a little bit. In the past it might’ve taken a century for a significant change in world view to occur, but now it happens quickly – not so rapidly that we can’t keep up, but fast enough that things can change in the blink of an eye.

And therein lies the problem. We can’t keep up. We’re not trained by school, state or society to keep up. Sure, there are a few individuals that sit on the ever-expanding cusp of new knowledge, but not enough. More problematic is the fact that these great thinkers don’t have anyone to share their knowledge and thoughts with.

This problem is so endemic that it’s almost impossible to think with. How do you think outside the box when you’re in the damn box? You’ve probably all had run-ins with ignorant people — or maybe you’re ignorant yourself. Ever met someone that’s not exactly dumb, but totally unreceptive to information they don’t already know?

There are people out there, 40, 50, 60 year-olds that are still parroting stuff they learnt at school, or hand-me-down ‘wisdom’ from ma and pa. Not for a moment do they think that their knowledge is stale, out-dated or simply wrong — that’s their world view and they’re sticking to it. But they’re not dumb people! I might have just described your mother or grandfather, I might even have described you. But it’s not your fault; it’s endemic to society. It’s inescapable; you enter the infinite loop simply by being born.

It’s all because we lack critical thinking. We don’t question what we learn. We don’t interrogate our surroundings, nor do we question the credibility of arbitrary authority — just because someone says it is so does not make it so. The world didn’t turn out to be flat, nor does the Sun orbit Earth — but would you like to take a guess at how long it took for those two beliefs to leave the body of common knowledge?

We’ve long known the danger of false information. We know that sometimes it is distributed with propagandistic intent, and sometimes it’s just a half-truth or something that we can’t yet measure. But for some reason these things stick. For some reason we find it very easy to ignore new data that doesn’t align with what we already know to be ‘true’. There are some that believe the science of 2,000 years ago still supersedes that of today.

That’s insane! It’s utterly insane. After almost four millennia of modern civilization we’re still uncomfortable at throwing out old knowledge so that it can be replaced with the new.

Most of the world is currently operating on stale knowledge. Our mothers and fathers and teachers, and even our military generals and world leaders are trying to use incorrect data. The implications of this fact are numerous; all of them are scary. Most importantly, it perpetuates, from mother to child, from teacher to young person, and ultimately from society to adult.

It’s a loop that’s almost impossible to break without a complete overhaul of how we think, and thus how we educate. Currently we’re taught what we need to know. What we need to be taught is how to think.

The method we use now — teaching what we think children need to know — could work in theory, with a syllabus that is updated very regularly. In fact, that’s probably how this method came to be in the first place: discovery of knowledge and new facts was once so slow that a syllabus made sense. ‘These are the facts. We have known them for centuries. Go learn them.’ If you could somehow devise a list of ‘everything that you need to know’, a contemporary list that kept pace with modern technology, then this method might work. But lumbering under the bureaucratic umbrella, such a system would never get off the ground. The syllabus would be outdated by the time it made it through the first two committees — who knows what it would look like after the fifth or sixth…

That leaves the other method — teaching kids how to think. Don’t misconstrue this — I don’t mean instilling ideologies of thought. I simply mean that school, at the moment, doesn’t require a lot of actual thinking. You read what you’re told to read, you write what you’re told to write — there isn’t a lot of thought actually going on. In school we study for the singular purpose of passing exams and, through the rewards of university, a job and affluence, such behaviour is actually enforced. If you try to go your own way and actually learn something pertinent, God help you — you’re on your own. Critical thinking, thinking outside the box, is simply a waste of time — why bother jumping in the deep end when it’s not necessary? Don’t you have an ‘exam-writing technique’ class to go to anyway?

Because this situation is both omnipresent and self-perpetuating, it’s incredibly hard to fix. You need new teachers first — teachers with parents that have instilled them with free thought. And then you need those teachers to pass it on to children. You only have to do it once, for one generation, because it too would be self-perpetuating. In 50 years you could have a world where everyone has the potential to be the next Einstein or Edison.

* * *

This expands on the basic framework for Education in my Empire’s Manifesto.