The Other Voices

“SCANNERS” Darryl Revok (1967) Psychiatric Evaluation - Michael Ironside

The Downward Spiral

Jordan Peterson: Autism

“….and The Cows didn’t like anything 

that wasn’t supposed to be there, basically,

 and they had a hell of a lot of difficulty

with trying to map it, properly —”

"Now here's.... 

Here's Something Interesting -- 

You can Think about this for a minute :

I went and saw an autistic woman speak, at one point; 

Her Name was Temple Grandin, she's really worth looking-up : -- Temple Grandin is a very interesting person; she [was] very seriously autistic, when she was a child, but Her Mother and her worked her out of it, so that she could be she's very functional she works as a professor I don't remember where it's in the Midwest somewhere now she's famous not only for being a highly functional autistic person who talks a fair bit about what it's like to be autistic but also for designing slaughterhouses across the United States and the reason she can do that as far as she's concerned is because she thinks she thinks like an animal thinks and so she doesn't and she's identified maybe at least part of what the core problem is with Autism.

So, the talk I heard her out was in Arizona and and it was a was a really entrancing talk; she so just showed some really interesting pictures of animals --

So, what she's done is she's redesigned slaughterhouses so that when the animals enter the slaughterhouse, they go in like a spiral basically they can't see what's around the corner and the walls are high so they're not distracted by anything outside so one of the things she showed for example was a bunch of cows going through a standard sequence of of gates essentially and off to the side there was a windmill spinning and the cows would stop because the windmill they didn't understand what the windmill was and they'd stop or showed other pictures where the cows were going down a pathway - and there was a coke can sitting in the middle of the pathway and the cows would all stop because they didn't know what to do with it or she had another picture of cows out in the middle of the field all surrounding a briefcase and they are all looking at the briefcase and the cows didn't like anything that shouldn't be there and had a hard time mapping it now she said here's a little exercise she did she said think of a church okay? 

So, maybe you think you imagine a child's drawing of a church a it's like your standard house like a pen tag Pentagon right which is basically how children draw the front of a house with a steeple on top and maybe a cross on top of it or something like that which actually isn't at church it's an icon of a church you think about how children draw is to Pentagon rectangle what is a trapezoid chimney almost always with smoke which is quite interesting it's I don't know where kids get that exactly but they almost always draw a chimney with smoke even though chimneys with smoke aren't that common anymore but anyways you know you can see what a child's picture of a house looks like in your imagination one of the things that you might want to think about is that is not a picture of a house at all right it's an iconic representation that's kind of like a hero glyph because no house looks like that and then you think about how a child will draw a person circle stick stick stick stick stick and you show it to someone to go that's a person it's like really it looks nothing like a person right it I mean you you immediately recognize it as a person but it looks nothing like a person well what Grandin said was that when she thinks of a church she has to think of a church she's seen she can't take the set of all churches and abstract out an iconic representation and use that to represent the set of all churches she has she gets fixated on a specific exemplar and she thinks that one of the problems with autistic people and they have a very difficult time developing language by the way is that they can't abstract out a generalized representation across a set of entities they can't abstract and then the end well and of course if you can't abstract and it's also very difficult to manipulate the abstractions you see very strange behavior with autistic children for example so they don't like people and that's because people don't stay in their perceptual boxes like a human being is a very difficult thing to perceive because we're always shifting around and moving and doing different things like we don't stay in our categorical box so autistic people have real trouble with other people but they also have trouble so for example if your autistic child gets accustomed to your kitchen let's say and you move a chair then then especially if they're severely autistic, they'll have an absolute fit about it, because -- You Think 'Kitchen, with chair-moves -- They Think, completely different place because they can't abstract the constancies across the different situations and represent them abstractly --

So I made this little diagram : 

I made this little diagram here to kind of give you a sense of what you might be doing when you're abstracting perceptually and so you could say think about something that's that complicated it's sort of my model of how complex the world is but the world is a lot more complex than that but the world is made out of everything is made out of littler things and those littler things are made out of littler things and so forth and those things are nested inside bigger things and so forth and where you perceive on that level of abstraction is somewhat arbitrary it has to be bounded by your by your goals that's the other thing is that your perceptual structures are determined by the goals that you have at hand I mean some of that that's not completely true because your perceptual systems also have limitations right there's things you can't see or hear even if you need to so there are limitations built in but within that set of limitations you're still trying to tune your perceptions to your motivated goals and that's also very useful to think about when you're trying to understand artificial intelligence because for human beings without goals there's no perception because there's no filtering mechanism that you can use to determine the level of resolution at which you perceive anyway so there's the there's a thing made of smaller things which are made out of smaller things and it's so it's kind of my iconic representation of the complexity of the world and then you could think well what is this how can you see this object and I think if you just look at it you can detect it's like a Necker cube you know those cubes that that are line drawings that you can see the front of an N it'll flip to the back have you seen those so this is kind of neck or cube-like or at least it is for me and that when I look at it my perceptions play around with it sometimes I focus on the kind of cross like shape in the middle and sometimes I can see these other lines and then sometimes I'll focus on that square and sometimes I can see the little dots there maybe one dot and my perceptions are going like this trying to fit a pattern to it and I can kind of detect that when you're watching it and so I would say well you have the options of perceiving this in its full complexity or you can simplify it essentially there's lots of ways you can simplify it but some of them are there so you take the complete complex thing you make a low-resolution representation of it so that's it's rough that's the rough area that all those dots occupy that's the rough area broken down to its four most fundamental quadrants that might be how you would look at it if this was a map of an orchard and you were trying to walk from south to north that would be a useful representation this combines this and this that's uh huh that's the highest level of resolution that you can perceive this object at that's lower resolution than the object itself

The Way of Absolute Candor

Vashti is a hotbed for the Romulan Rebirth movement.

But you're just gonna drop in and pick yourself up a nun.

O-Okay, well, now somebody has to tell me what we're talking about.

JL wants to hire an assassin.

They are not assassins, and you can't hire them.

The Qowat Milat have to choose you.

Romulan warrior nuns.

That's a real thing? How bizarre.

I know knew some Qowat Milat.

On Vashti alone, they helped Raffi and me relocate more than a quarter of a million refugees.

And they're the most skilled single-combat fighters that I have ever seen and the most feared enemies of the Tal Shiar.

Sounds like you already owe them more than they owe you.

What-what makes you think they're gonna help you now? 

They have their own criteria whether to give or withhold their assistance to a cause.

And what is that? 

Let's just say that I am confident that they will find ours 

Worthy, and if they don't, 

The Way of Absolute Candor 

means that They won't hesitate to tell us.

What's the Way of Absolute Candor? 

It's their Primary Teaching: Total Communication of Emotion without any filter between Thought and Word.

And it runs entirely counter to everything that The Romulans hold Dear.

We do what we can to maintain Peace.

Half the Sisters serve as qalankhan, free-blades patrolling Roads and Waterways, Helping Travellers, 

defending Romulan and Terran alike.

Do the Qowat Milat still bind their blades to A Singular Cause? 

If The Cause is judged Worthy.

Uh, no, Thank You, Elnor.

[ getting the brush-off, and being rejected once more by the former object of all his Hero Worshipping, the frustration, bitterness, sadness and rage expands in him and overflows, bursting forth like and exploding damn, and he rush to the dooTr and out of The Room, once more. ]

Elnor? 

You feel Shame, seeing Elnor.

I always imagined that you had found a Suitable Place for him.

So many things we imagined back then never came to be.

But it's not just Elnor.

It's everything here, The Poverty, 

The Degradation, The Ethnic Strife --

When I left here, there was none of this.

Because You Could Not Save Everyone, 

You Chose to Save No-One.

Yes.

I allowed The Perfect to become The Enemy of The Good.

You have not spoken of Your Purpose yet.

I infer that you have come to obtain the services of a qalankhkai.

Why? 

I am taking on the Tal Shiar, alone.

So Your Cause is A Desperate One.

It is to me.

Another Rescue? 

If I'm not too late.

You're not too late to Rescue Elnor.

He does not belong here.

Once the evacuation ended, we simply never found a Better Home for him.

He completed his training? 

Last spring.

So he really is a Qowat Milat? 

No.

And as A Man, he never can be.

But he is Open-Hearted, and apart from this display of the reticence you always seemed to inspire in him, forthright.

And his fighting skills are truly formidable.

And you would send him away? 

He might find himself in Serious Danger.

He Might Die.

He Will.

Before that comes to pass, it would gladden my heart to see him Live.

When you bind your sword to a cause, is there some kind of Protocol? 

A Ritual?

Do-do I go on my knees? 

Oh, I do hope not.

Between the two of us, my knees are not what they used to be.

You Tell A Story, I Listen.

Simple.

I had a Friend called Data.

(wearily resigned)

....it's usually A Sad Story.....

He Died.

He Gave His Life to Save Mine, 

and I have missed him ever since.

(Hope-filled and Brightening)

Did you ever miss me? 

Of course I did.

( He takes a moment - and becalms himself)

Continue.

Well, recently, I've learned that Data - 

This is complicated -

That Data had Two Offspring.

And one of them her name was "Dahj" was murdered in front of me.

The other one, I believe, is in serious danger.

And I have to find her before the Tal Shiar do.

- The Tal Shiar? - Yes.

And this other sister is she an android? Mm-hmm.

You told me stories about Data.

He had an orange cat named Spot.

That's right.

I've still never seen a cat.

Well, if you come with us, you might just run across one or two of them.

Why do you need me? Because I failed to protect her sister.

But you don't know where she is or if she's even alive.

- No.

- What about the man who built her? - It's just a guess.

- Are you being pursued? Likely.

Anticipated, actually.

All that is why you need someone.

Why do you need me? Because I'm an old man and you're a young one, and you're strong.

Zani told me that you are one of the best fighters that she has ever seen.

It seems to me that my quest has the appropriate criteria.

Will you come with me? Will you bind your sword to my quest? Now that you have use for me? Now that I have value to you? You left me - on my own, old man.

- I never meant to I see no reason not to do the same.

Elnor, it! Rios, it's Picard.

I'm ready for transport.

Copy that.

Next window opens in seven minutes.

You may call me Tenqem Adrev.

We met before.

Once.

Have we? Forgive me.

I, uh Oh, it was in another lifetime, when I was another man.

A Romulan senator, if you can believe it.

I had the honor of being present the day you addressed the Hall of State, the very embodiment of Starfleet, making such eloquent and generous promises on behalf of the magnanimous Federation.

The great Saint Picard.

Senator I found it extremely moving.

How very touched we all were.

There were tears in my eyes.

Thank you.

And then you went away.

And when you returned, you brought the ships.

Those great big Wallenberg-class transports.

We all packed and boarded the Nightingale, five generations of parents and grandparents, siblings and spouses and children.

And the Nightingale brought us here, to Vashti.

We had so little time.

There were so many of you to save.

And so little to be expected from Starfleet.

I did everything I could.

And then you gave up.

Skantal! Bidran! No one asked for your pity, Picard.

Just as no one asked for your help.

You and Starfleet had no understanding of Romulan ingenuity, resolve, self-sufficiency.

You took advantage of us at the very moment where we doubted ourselves, enticed us with your empty promises, and did everything in your power to scatter, confuse and divide us.

That is not so! I promise you You promise?! You promise? Give him your sword.

No.

Come on.

No! Please, my friend.

Choose to live.

I regret your choice.

Enough, Elnor.

The Federation has failed you all.

I failed you all.

I broke faith with you, and the result was terrible pain and loss for you all.

And I am sorry.

Picard, ready for transport.

A tan qalanq is no match for a disruptor, sisterboy.

JL? 

Yes! Now! 

* They beam up * 

That man did not deserve to die.

Yet he CHOSE it.

Fight a Qowat Milat, and the outcome is not in Doubt.

Now, you listen to me, carefully.

I will benefit by your skill and your courage, but if you bind yourself to my cause, I will tell you when to fight and when to refrain.

Is that understood? 

Yes.

Swear it.

I swear.

PICARD :

Dr.Jurati, Raffi, this is Elnor.

RAFFI :

A Boy with a Stick.

PICARD :

I have to ask you - 

What made you decide to bind yourself to My Cause? 

ELNOR :

It met the requirements for Worthiness.

And it seemed like You Needed Me after all.

Dr. JURATI :

What is the requirement for Worthiness? 

PICARD :

A qalankhkai would only bind herself - himself - to a Lost Cause.

Hitler Bathed Four Times a Day

Why Hitler Bathed Even More Than You Think - Prof. Jordan Peterson

Wall Street Journal

May 12, 2019 12:04 pm ET

OPINION | LETTERS

The Legacy of Eugenics Still

Echoes in America

Rather than a “renunciation” of eugenics in the 1930s, forced-sterilisation laws persisted for 40 more years at some of the best medical institutions.

Stephen Budiansky’s review of Daniel Okrent’s “The Guarded Gate” (Books, May 4) about eugenics in America fails to mention the pervasive forced-sterilization laws which persisted in the U.S. into the 1970s in places like North Carolina. Eugenics in America is important because the best medical journals and medical minds endorsed it. Rather than a “renunciation” of eugenics in the 1930s, forced-sterilization laws persisted for 40 more years at some of the best medical institutions.

And it was used as “evidence” for not just forced sterilization, but also euthanasia programs in Germany. Dr. Peter Breggin has documented that German psychiatrists practiced euthanasia both before and after the Third Reich.

Patience is The Reward paid due to he would  learn the skill to endure The Quiet.

The importance of eugenics for today’s health policy is important but ignored by both the medical community and mainstream media. The best medical journals advocate managed care to protect scarce resources and make America globally competitive. Harsh rationing of medical care to the poor, people of colour and the very sick elderly are a reality of modern managed care. 

The mainstream media and academic medicine do nothing.

We are on the verge of another “evidenced based” purge of “undesirables” in America. A reading of Stanley Milgram’s classic work, “Obedience to Authority,” shows how scientific authority can cause ordinary people to commit murderous acts against innocents. Mr. Budiansky should have taken notice and warned readers that the legacy of eugenics is at work in America today.

Brant S. Mittler, M.D., J.D.

Within a Mile

We all want to Help one another — Human Beings are like that. 

We want to live by each other's Happiness, not by each other's Misery. 

We don't want to Hate and Despise one another. 

In This World there is room for everyone —

The Good Earth is Rich, and can provide for everyone —

The Way of Life can be Free and Beautiful —

But We Have Lost The Way. 

GREED has poisoned Men's Souls — has barricaded The World with Hate, 

Has goose-stepped us into Misery and Bloodshed. 

We have developed Speed, but shut ourselves IN. 

Machinery that gives Abundance has left us In-Want.

Our Knowledge has made us Cynical — Our Cleverness, Hard and Unkind. 

We THINK too much, and FEEL too little. 

More than Machinery, We need Humanity. 

More than Cleverness, We need Kindness and Gentleness. 

Without these qualities, Life would be Violent and All Would Be Lost.

The Aeroplane and The Radio have brought us closer together —

The VERY NATURE of these inventions cries out for The Goodness in Men —

Cries out for Universal Brotherhood, For The Unity of Us All —

Even now, My Voice is reaching millions throughout The World — 

Millions of despairing Men, Women and little Children — 

Victims of a System that makes Men torture and imprison Innocent People. 

To Those Who Can Hear Me, I Say — Do Not Despair. 

The Misery that is now upon us is but The Passing of Greed — 

The Bitterness of Men who fear The Way of Human Progress. 

The Hate of Men will pass, and dictators die, 

and The Power They took from The People Will return to The People.

And so, so long as Men die, Liberty will •never• perish.

Within A Mile from Ruby Ingleheart on Vimeo.

On the 23rd March 2020, the UK government instructed lockdown due to the outbreak of COVID-19. 
Those over 70, classed as ‘clinically vulnerable’, were told to self-isolate until further notice.

The lack of clarity as to how long this may go on for left many feeling frustrated at the government’s dismissive attitude toward a generation that often already feel overlooked. 

A ‘shut them away’ type approach which many feared would lead to increased feelings of loneliness and wavering mental health.

For my grandmother, Jen, now in her 80s, and many other elderly people living in Mount Hawke in Cornwall, seeing friends, going to church, attending the coffee morning and hopping on the bus to Morrisons on a Thursday provided routine, brought them joy, and gave them a Sense of Purpose.

 Simple yet vital expressions of autonomy that have now been taken from them.

Within A Mile follows my grandmother during lockdown on her daily walk around the block as she defies, in her own way, what it means to be ‘clinically vulnerable’.

Despite government restrictions, Jen is determined to socialise and stay engaged with her community and friends around her. Like many, she has had to adapt to a much smaller, localised environment, and through restricting this to a mile radius, she becomes more attuned to her surroundings; taking great pleasure in observing things previously overlooked, whether it be watching a bird looking for spiders out of the ends of drainpipes, or the light and wind dancing over a field.

It became apparent, when following my grandma and the other residents, that the idea of contracting the virus is less daunting than the prospect of feeling completely isolated.

‘I don’t care about the virus’, said a woman as she stepped out of her front door to greet Jen with open arms, ‘I need to hug your grandmother’. 

This brings to light our instinctive desire and need, as humans, to touch and be in each other’s company.

I’ve never forgotten about a series of experiments that were done by a man named Harry Harlow in the 1950s. He was seeking to understand the human need for love, and the critical role that it plays in both primate and human development, so he separated a group of baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers when they were born.

The baby monkeys were each caged alone in the lab and allowed no physical contact with the personnel in the lab or with each other even though they could see the other monkeys and personnel. They immediately began exhibiting signs of distress. They clutched themselves, began rocking, staring into space as if dissociating, biting themselves, and biting their cages. They did not play or groom themselves and they seemed vacillate between anxiety and depression.

The babies were then assigned to one of two fake surrogate mothers. One was a model made of chicken wire that was covered in soft terrycloth. It was made to look roughly like a monkey. This surrogate did not provide any food. The other surrogate mother was also made of chicken wire, but no terrycloth. It had a crocodile looking head and provided milk from an attached baby bottle.

To say that the babies favored the mother covered in terrycloth is an understatement. The comfort these babies received through touch contact was incomparably more important to them than even their physical hunger. They needed connection more than they needed nourishment. This is also the case for people, not just monkeys. If our need for nourishment was stronger than our need for connection with one another, we would not meet people who can’t eat or sleep when they experience a painful break-up with someone they loved.

There is another unforgettable research study that I learned about in my university courses. It was a study done in the United States in the 1940s and was conducted on 40 newborn infants. I clearly remember that the objective was to determine whether individuals could thrive on basic physiological needs alone, without physical affection.

Twenty of the newborn infants were housed in a special facility where caregivers would enter the facility to feed them, bathe them, and change their diapers, but they would do nothing else. The caregivers had been instructed not to look at or touch the babies more than what was necessary and never communicate with them. All their physical needs were attended to scrupulously and the environment was kept sterile so as to prevent any of the babies from becoming ill. 

The experiment was stopped after four months because by that time, at least half of the babies had died. More babies subsequently died even after being rescued and brought into natural familial environment. There was no physiological cause found for the deaths of these babies. They were all physically very healthy.

I specifically remember that one of the most disturbing facts was that before each baby died, there was a period of time where they would stop verbalizing and stop trying to engage with their caregivers. They would stop moving, stop crying, and stop changing their expression and death would follow shortly after. It was as if the babies had given up living before they died. This was the case even for the babies who died after being removed from the experimental conditions.

In today’s world, we are obsessed with technology. It’s hard to go anywhere and find people who are genuinely engaged with one another. Most people are fully engaged instead with a technological device. Their noses are buried in their computers or cell phones. 

And while social media has provided incredible opportunities to be connected with each other around The World, no matter where we are, social media only provides connection up to a degree. 

Physical connection cannot be replaced and its importance can’t be underestimated. 

We can’t get physical contact through a screen or from a distance. 

We need touch. 

We need vicinity. 

We need the comfort of being in physical contact with one another. 

And we must consider this when we are developing connections in our life.

The reality is that as humans, we need touch. 

Even the people, who are the most afraid of and hurt by human connection, need it. 

This is why the loneliest and most deeply hurt people experience so much torment. 

If we didn’t absolutely need touch and we were hurt by people, we would simply go on our merry way and never touch other people again. 

But we can’t.  

Instead, if we’ve been hurt by others, we spend our life in a torturous tug of war between The side of us that needs other people 

and 

The side that wants to be able 

to have nothing to do with them.

KANE

Q: 

So if you could give Charles Foster Kane advice.... 

What advice would you give him...?”

Trump : 

Get Yourself a DIFFERENT WOMAN.

“ Autism has bedeviled psychiatric classifiers for decades because it is not a single, discrete disease. It’s usually described as a “spectrum” disorder because people can be more or less autistic, and it’s not clear where to draw the line between those who have a serious mental illness and those who are just not very good at reading other people. At the extreme end of the spectrum, autistic people are “mind-blind.”

They are missing the social-cognitive software that the rest of us use to guess the intentions and desires of other people. According to one of the leading autism researchers, Simon Baron-Cohen, there are in fact two spectra, two dimensions on which we can place each person: empathising and systemising. 

Empathising is “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion.”

If you prefer fiction to nonfiction, or if you often enjoy conversations about people you don’t know, you are probably above average on empathising. 

Systemizing is “the drive to analyse the variables in a system, to derive the underlying rules that govern the behaviour of the system.”

If you are good at reading maps and instruction manuals, or if you enjoy figuring out how machines work, you are probably above average on systemising.”

- Johnathan Haidt,

The Righteous Mind

“Weisinger was in therapy, and he used the material from his sessions as raw plot ore for his writers to process into story material. The editor’s entire psychology was stretched naked on the dissecting table via some of the most outlandish and unashamed deployments of pure symbolic content that the comics had ever seen. Its like would not be truly viewed again, in fact, until the drug-inspired cosmic comics of the early seventies. 

For example, there was the bottle city of Kandor. Kandor had been the capital city of Superman’s home world Krypton, thought destroyed. Shrunken and preserved by the villain Brainiac, Kandor was now a tiny city in a bell jar. This living diorama, this ant colony of real people, had great appeal for children, adding to the childlike nature of this era’s Superman. In Kandor, lost memories were preserved under glass, and Superman could go there, in private, to experience a world he left behind. Kandor was every snow globe and music box that stood for every bittersweet memory in every movie there would ever be. Kandor was the tinkling voice of a lost world, a past that might have been, unreachable. Kandor was survivor’s guilt endowed with new meaning.”

— SuperGods

Statistical Probabilities

I don't accept it. 

Your entire argument is based on a series of statistical probabilities and assumptions. 

BASHIR: 

They're not just assumptions. 

If you want me to take you through the equations, I will. 

SISKO: 

Even if I knew with a hundred percent certainty what was going to happen, I still wouldn't ask an ENTIRE GENERATION of people to voluntarily give up their FREEDOM. 

BASHIR: 

Not even to save over nine hundred billion lives? 

SISKO: 

Surrender is Not an Option. 

Now I'm happy to hear your group's advice on how to win this war, 

but I don't need your advice on how to lose it. 

BASHIR:

We can't win this war. 

SISKO:

I don't care if the odds are against us. 

If we're going to lose, then we're going to go down fighting so that when our descendents some day rise up against the Dominion someday, they'll know what they're made of. 

BASHIR:

With all due respect, sir, aren't you letting your pride get in your way? 

SISKO:

All right, Doctor. 

You've made your recommendation. 

I'll pass it on to Starfleet Command. 

BASHIR:

Without add your voice to it, they'll dismiss it out of hand. 

SISKO:

I'm counting on it. 

BASHIR:

So we go down fighting. 

How terribly courageous of us.

BASHIR: 

Is there some part of the analysis you didn't understand, because if there is I'd be happy to explain. 

O'BRIEN: 

I understood it perfectly. 

Believe it or not. 

BASHIR: 

That's not what I meant. 

All I'm saying is that you have to look at the bigger picture. 

O'BRIEN: 

I'm trying. 

Maybe I'm too •uncomplicated• to see it. 

BASHIR: 

I didn't say that. 

O'BRIEN: 

You don't have to.

 The way you're acting, you'd think nobody with half a brain could •possibly• disagree with you. 

BASHIR: 

Frankly, I don't see how they •can•. 

O'BRIEN: 

I can see two possible explanations for it :  

Either,

• I'm more feebleminded than you ever realised, OR

•You’re not as smart as you THINK you are.