Hero, Repitle, Savior, Grifter
One Screen, Many Movies
“It is a well established fact that Art is subjective”, these were the thoughts running through Vikid’s mind when a friend online posted a photo with the caption:
Genuinely think he is UKs only chance to recover
Which made Vikid think about several events that had taken place in the last few years. It felt like a movie. British politics devolving to Comedy.
Were Facts just as Subjective?
Vikid had heard from several people, they had told him that Rishi is disliked by Conservatives because of his race. The facts being
he is not of the English race
he is thoroughly disliked the majority of Conservatives
Vikid had been told this by people of many colors, in different occasions over the last year.
The curious additional fact is that these people either:
liked Rishi and his politics,
thought he was the least useless of a hopeless bunch or,
didn’t really pay close attention to British politics.
Now Vikid was of the same race as Rishi and like him, grew up in the Britain. He also knew and followed many people, from all walks of life, who thought the man to be a snake, forgive me, Sunake.
And yet, these people never brought forth any discussion about his race.
They disliked him for many reasons (this not being the place to adjudicate them), however, his race was definitely not one of them.
Vikid, did not live in the clouds, he was aware of a contingent of Race defined Nationalists. In fact, he had followed them for many years, watching their slow radicalization because of what they clearly saw as injustices unaddressed by main stream politics. But they weren’t Conservatives with a big C. They were mathematically insignificant and politically irrelevant (for now). These people existed in the fringe of every country.
Vikid had noticed a similar pattern with Hillary in 2016. That time, blame being put on what was (or wasn’t) between her legs. Blame was put on misogynists.
Now, Vikid was unsure about “facts”.
Were we all seeing the same thing or just interpreting the same facts in different ways?
He had understood that in Computer Science, all data had to be interpreted. The data “0101” could mean the number 5, a shade of grey or a signal to launch a rocket 🚀 in Ukraine, depending on what software system was reading it.
The same data could mean anything.
Neuroscience had shown us something further. Eyes didn’t See. Sight was constructed not reflected. The brain being a lump of mush capable of virtual reality.
Data, analogous to facts.
Except facts on a human scale were orders of magnitude more complex than anything in silicon.
A simple fact, “It is raining”, would probably require thousands lines of code if we were to match human capability. Astonishing.
So complicated that Vikid considered, any “fact” may be completely and solely interpretation.
The facts themselves inconsequential. It’s as if they didn’t even exist.
The simple fact, “It is raining”, could mean:
“Don’t go outside” - a mother speaking to a child
“The harvest is dead” - a farmer to his wife
“Get the umbrella” - a boss giving orders to his secretary
Context was everything.
The vaccine debate (or lack of it) being another wonderful example of facts being ignored or misinterpreted to the point of not being there at all.
In fact this is what he saw everywhere. People arguing, without ever knowing why. Computers and the Internet were the undisputed kings of context removal and cleaning. Silicon substrate being incapable of conveying it.
And the gravest error was that we presumed that each of us had the same basis for interpreting.
We could talk to each other for long lengths of time, in the same language and walk away, none the wiser, that neither had understood the other.
In fact he witnessed this daily.
It would be as Scott Adams said,
“One Screen, two different Movies”
In one movie you would have a British hero to save the day, in the other, a Reptile subservient to foreign powers. While both movie goers were sitting in the same cinema watching the same screen.
Who was correct? That would be anyones guess. Reality was a screen with many different movies.
Except, it wasn’t just one screen now either. Each of us getting differing streams, quite often at the behest of giant oligarchies who controlled the “smart” portal in your pocket.
Multiplying realities.
So Vikid thought further and came to the conclusion that there must be a solution.
The solution being to “install” different softwares in the same being.
Installation achieved by learning from others, especially the ones who you most disagreed with or thought were idiotic.
In times of old, this was called Empathy.
To do this, you would need need to outsmart the algorithm in your pocket, which on the whole was quite easy. Algorithms were stupid. Their smartness being exaggerated by polo neck wearing dweebs. Their only trick was to hide behind brilliant UI’s and “production values”. Which incidentally were productions without any “value”.
Seeing through the Hypnotic.
The idea would be to look at the screen detached and watch the different movies simultaneously.
Which sounded eerily similar to ancient mystic wisdom. These sages were called Rishis.
Coincidence? I don’t think so!
Vikid sat and watched each monster simultaneously. They weren’t to be destroyed, these were to be appreciated.
So Rishi became Hero, Repitle, Savior, Grifter and everything in between.
And that’s,