Sunshine and Lollipops

A final post from Mr Cake, just in time for the 500 limit... Thanks, Don.

On September 12th 2001, the day after the hideous crimes in the U.S., I was struck by the thought that, in the internet age, the inevitable conspiracy theories would literally be half-way round the world while truth was still getting its boots on. Sure enough, in the following days and weeks the first mushrooms of controlled demolitions, phantom planes and new pearl harbors all started to sprout up within the generous and fertile bullshit of the internet.


Except, it's unfair to blame the internet. The internet is just a tool of communication, and like bad work-men everywhere we do insist on blaming our tools. It would be a great help if we actually understood what we are trying to achieve by communication, in the same way that a builder knows how to lay foundations and a farmer knows how to rotate his crops. In short, communication always works as:

INFORMATION---------------------> IDEA.

And so, clearly, better information = better idea. Doesn't it?

There now follows a rough practical guide to the world of conspiracy theory discussion. With a Scotsman.

Imagine, if you will entertaining a gentleman from the Isle of Arran who has decided to inform you that the Apollo missions didn't, in fact, occur. The important thing is to TAKE HIS IDEA SERIOUSLY and ask some questions to get more information. Try to accept the possibility that his idea is true and try to ask and check to ensure you understand his idea.

You might want to ask the following (answers below.):

1. How many men does Nasa claim have walked on the moon?

2. Which Apollo mission was the first to orbit the moon?

3. How many space-craft landed on the moon on the same day that Neil Armstrong made his famous landing?

4. How did Mr Van Allen describe the Fox TV special that repeated the notion that radiation in the Van Allen belts would be deadly to astronauts on their way to the moon?

5. How long is a lunar day?

6. Where on the moon did Apollo 11 land?

The Scotsman may well admit that he knows not the answers to any of the questions. In which case you are clearly entitled to ask:" So, let me get this straight. You're saying that the Apollo missions, WHICH YOU CLEARLY KNOW FUCK-ALL ABOUT, never happened?

At this point, the Scotsman may well make the following beautifully- illuminating statement:" Well, I'm not really interested in it anyway."

Overall, a very simple and basic problem is that we live in a culture that encourages people to have no interest in their OWN ideas, let alone those of others. Thus the internet becomes a huge duck-pond where you can easily find a group of like-minded Mandarins and quack at each other to your heart's content.

This wouldn't necessarily be such a problem, but the pond is shrinking and becoming more poisonous, the Mallards want to kill anyone who isn't green, and very soon everybody's going to be fighting over water.

Answers.

1. 12.

2. Apollo 8.

3. 2: The U.S. "Eagle" Lunar Module, and, in a forgotten foot-note of history, The Soviet Union's un-manned Luna 15.

4. "Nonsense."

5. About 28 days. (Depending on your definition of a lunar day.)

6. The Sea of Tranquility. Or, if you prefer, that secret sound-stage they used in Burbank California. BUT WHY WOULD YOU?

I'm a bit confused

A further piece from Mr Cake for your delectation:

I went to a party last Sunday. Generally had a great time, but towards the end of the night I entered into conversation with a silver-haired gentleman, a professional business negotiator. He made the following claim-


Gent: Tiger Woods last week passed Jack Nicklaus' record of major championships and this has all been part of Nike's marketing strategy.
Me : Are you talking about the U.S. Open? It isn't over yet.
Gent: No, no I'm talking about last week. Tiger Woods surpassed Jack Nicklaus' record of Major Championships.
Me: I'm sorry, but Jack Nicklaus still holds the record.
Gent: No,no Tiger woods has now more majors than Niklaus.
Me: Can I ask how you are defining 'major' because I believe in golf that there are only four majors and Nichlaus holds the record for winning the most?
Gent: I don't understand what you're talking about.
Me: Well, the term 'major' in golf refers to one of four championships. Can I ask you what you mean by 'major'?
Gent: Anyway it's all business, I know, been involved with it for years. Nike have planned Tiger Woods' come-back to get the most interest on TV. Those guys are in control. People have no idea.
Me: Sorry, can I just check. Tiger Woods has been playing badly deliberately? On Nike's orders? How do they decide at what point he should start winning again? How do they decide that he should play well now, and badly at the Masters?
Gent: I don't understand what you're talking about. Look I'm just telling you the truth of business here. You don't have to believe me.
Me: Well, actually I'm accepting your scenario and I'm trying to understand how it would work. Can you tell me how Nike decides when he should start winning again. Plus, again, are you claiming Tiger Woods has been deliberately playing badly for the last couple of years? I'm interested in what you're saying.
Gent: Look, are you on Facebook?
Me: Yes. Why?
Gent: Get off it.
Me: Why?
Gent: 3 years from now you're going to go to the airport and they're going to ask you questions and if you give the wrong answer, they'll drag you into the back room. They are digitising your conscience.
Me: What do you mean by that?
Gent: All your information is being collected by things like Facebook. And I'll tell you what, Zuckerberg is going to be out in a year.
Me: Would you bet on that?
Gent: I'll bet you ten thousand dollars.
Me: I don't have that. Anyway, is there anything we can do to fight against this terrible system?
Gent: Get off Facebook!
Me: Is there anything else we can do?
Gent: Well, you tell me.
Me: Well how about we improve communication between people by developing a basic theory of communication?
Gent: What concrete steps are you taking?
Me: I think developing a useful theory of communication is a concrete step.
Gent: No it's not.
Me: Well, do you understand what I'm talking about?
Gent: No. Explain it.

I begin to explain. Another person asks a question. I turn to answer that question. When I turn back, silver-haired gent has gone.
This is in no way an unusual conversation. I have more interest in Mr Gent's information than he does, because I'm trying to understand the ideas connected to them. And, clearly, he has no interest in my ideas. He can`t even be arsed to sit and listen to my goofy-ass concepts. It can only be concluded that, with business negotiators like this, no wonder the financial system is in such a state.
A little later, I overhear silver-haired gent in another room telling a German guy that the Vatican has a tree that looks like the pineal gland.

Bleating and Babbling

More from Mr Cake now, and I for one think he is really getting into his stride here. Thanks Don.

In 2009 it was reported that Scottish seafood was being transported to China for processing and then returned to Britain for packaging and sale. A round trip of 10,000 miles.


Before the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, British troops were tutored by BP in maintaining and running the oil-fields.

In June this year it was noted by ITN that Vodafone had paid no corporate tax the previous year.

Last year, according to The Daily Mirror, one third of Britain's public libraries were due to close because of government cuts.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

For an effective magic trick, you need to mis-direct the audience. You don't want anyone around who knows how tricks work. Yuri Geller refuses to perform in front of professional magicians.

Our current economic system, our preposterous teetering ramshackle cathedral to Mammon, can only stay standing if everyone is made stupid enough to put their backs up to it and keep it up and swaying for longer. On no account must people be encouraged to ask, "Why?" or check, "How much?" or demand description or explanation from the people in charge. And certainly the bishops don't want anyone re-building it.

"This a test of lower-order thinking for the lower orders." - Professor Kelly, inventor of the multiple choice test, talking about multiple choice tests.

If profit is your motive, then a test that can be marked by a computer is very clearly the way to go. Who cares about communication, the only thing we do? In the fascistic environment of a corporation, the required skills are the ability to follow orders and not to ask your superiors for explanation. Keep your head down, don't rock the boat, and you will receive the rewards the system offers. And one of those rewards is entertainment.

In 1979 the following films were released: Alien, Being There, and The Life of Brian.

The first was a popular classic that owes much of its success to its originality of script and design. The second is a great essay on the poverty of our ability to communicate with each other. With laughs! The third was a magnificent parody of the stupidity stemming from religion. With huge laughs! The big movie studio refused to fund it. Fortunately, a top pop-star with a sense of humour wanted to see it. Hard to see any pop-star getting involved with something like this today. Not good PR.

In 2012, we get the following celluloid treasures with seemingly un-limited budgets: Prometheus, (an attempt to milk the Alien franchise) Expendables 2 (Big men shoot people who disagree with them.) The Avengers (Big men who are big famous brands destroy aliens in an entertaining fashion in a story meant for 14 year-old boys.) And, most damningly of all, The Amazing Spider-Man (where we are supposed to be amazed at a film that is a re-boot of a film from barely ten years ago that was based on a comic targeted at 14 year-old boys.)

"Monsanto, a chemical company, produces 90% of the world's genetically-modified seeds. Its GM crops need to be sprayed by a special chemical produced by.... Monsanto"

"Monsanto's aggressive tactics encourage farmers to turn each other in for using non-copyright seeds."

"Monsanto produced Agent Orange."

- Greenpeace.

If we must give our seed to Mammon, it becomes essential that nothing gets in the way of profit. Everything becomes subsumed to profit. Our systems and institutions naturally fall into step. The corporate institution can effectively only care about short-term gain, it is legally obliged to seek profit for its share-holders. What else can we expect? If we encourage a psychopath to go after money should we be surprised when non-performing environments, cultures and people get mown down before the money-harvester?

So, perhaps we need some new institutions? Some better ideas?

Except, the ability to consider new ideas through describing and explaining and asking and checking has fallen under the maniac's thresher.

And the most marvellous thing in the universe!

The most amazing thing in the universe!

The thing without which we are nothing, the source of all our pleasure!

A huge amount of time effort and money is expended to encourage us to... pour beer in it .

For the human brain is public enemy number one.

I expect The Avengers will be after it in the sequel.

All your life will ever be

The second instalment from Mr Cake in Japan now follows, with some redaction.

Communication is the only thing we ever do. If you're a Class-A war criminal like Tony Blair, you'd probably want some guy like Alistair Campbell around to make sure that people get the information you want them to get. If you're encouraging people to invade another country or accept policies that guarantee a darker future for all, then you certainly don't want your audience, that is, the entire population of Britain, to have any idea how communication works, do you?


So, what IS communication and how does it work? Basically, communication works as follows:

INFORMATION-------------------------> IDEA

And, the four basic skills of communication are:

DESCRIBING + EXPLAINING + ASKING + CHECKING

I would like to ask you, dear reader (and yes, I know no-one is really reading this, so I'll just take this opportunity to say: fuckshitwanker! City are rubbish! ) to ask yourself if, at any time during your experience of "education" anybody told you how communication works and the basic skills you need for it? Is the answer never? So nobody learns anything about THE ONLY THING WE EVER DO? Isn't this a problem?

In regard to the definition of "information" it is most basically defined as: everything in the universe. All language, all gestures, all actions, the clothes we wear, the football teams we support, it's all information. And anyone receiving this information will get ideas from it: he's not cool, she's trying to be, he likes me, she doesn't, he's a case, she wants to kill me. Communication is unavoidable.

If all this is true, then the massive failings of our education systems are clear to see. How often are children graded on their ability to ASK and CHECK? Is it practically never? That's 50% of communication right there that is simply ignored. Plus, are children taught how to DESCRIBING and EXPLAINING work? Clearly not. It can also be noted that IQ tests make no effort to measure peoples ability to describe+explain+ask+check.

It's important to understand that the fancy schools are just as bad. The graduates of top Universities the world over are not encouraged to understand how communication works . Thus, you get Oxford grads who spy for The Soviet Union. (The Soviet Union!!). Or you get former students from the prestigious Tokyo University joining Aum Shinrikyo, the apocalyptic cult that nerve-gassed the Tokyo Subway in 1995. A cult which used a photo of its leader "levitating" to recruit members.

Inevitably, the world is shitter than it necessarily has to be because of the simple fact that our leaders, our elite, are also thicker than they have to be.

As I define it, being thick is an inability or unwillingness to communicate, with intelligence being the opposite. In fact, we are born with innate communication skills that can be clearly seen if you spend any time in the company of small children. It's very common when interacting with under 5s to be struck by just how clever they are. The same thought is, to be generous, a rarity when engaging with adults. So what happens to people between the ages of 5 and 18? Do they go to school perhaps?

In a culture that understood and encouraged communication, people would have stood up and demanded of Obama, "What kind of change? Hope for what?" Instead of just crying and waving a flag.

In a British context, a BBC that appreciated communication would have as its flag-ship political programme: "Question and Explaining time."

Overall then, if you've ever wondered what the world would be like if it were run by dogs, wonder now longer. Just take a look around you.

I think we can do way better than dogs.

In future posts, I would like to expand on the topic of communication, and how the lack of it contributes to the detriment of everything we enjoy, including footy!. If that`s not exciting enough, I'll also impart important information about 9/11, the secret link between Kissinger and Zapruder, plus the answer to exactly WHY birds fall in love and sing so gay!

We don't need no education

As promised, here is the first guest post for this month. A friend, who has posted on here before, will be presenting his ideas, and... well... that's it. Enjoy.

Tony Blair, the class-A war criminal, once gave a famous speech were he claimed to be most interested in: "Education, education and education." Cue huge round of applause from people that, in British culture, would generally be considered to be "well educated."


Not one person asked him how he defined education.

Noam Chomsky, a man who has dedicated a large part of his life to exposing the war crimes of his country, defines education as: "how things work." I don't know of a better definition of 'education' than: "helping people understand how things work." If anybody reading this has a better idea, I'd love to hear it. After all, it's just common sense isn't it? Wouldn't we be amazed to find out that the people at Honda didn't know how cars work? Wouldn't we be surprised to find out that the heart surgeon about to slice us open didn't know how the heart worked? Clearly, anyone who claims any kind of expertise in anything can tell you how it works, can't they? Except, apparently, in education. Last December I wrote to Ofsted (The office of standards in education ) and asked them for their definition of education. They replied by saying: "Ofsted has no definition of education."

Doesn't this, logically, make it enormously difficult to measure the standards of something when you don't know what it is? Imagine someone getting a job at the office of standards in semprini. What would their first question be, I wonder? And, very importantly, why don't we wonder what education is? Why do the university graduates who work at Ofsted happily ignore the very nature of the thing they are involved with? Could the education system itself be responsible for people being thicker than they have to be? Doesn't the education system we have ignore the essential way people work? My own response is yes. But I'm prepared to accept I'm wrong. Am I wrong? Is the education system we have a wonderful perfect thing and we can't possibly do any better? Or, in fact, is the education system we have the same as it has been since it was established: a way to train people to accept their station in life. The proles will get basic skills to help them in the factory, and the elite will learn long words to encourage them to think they are superior. No evidence needed of course.

It is, of course, supremely useful for ruling elites to encourage people to ignore how things work. It makes less trouble for them. If we're being honest, we've all had the same experience. Lies to friends and lies to children just make it easier for us doesn't it? But the encouragement to ignore how things work gives us the worst of the world, and the illumination of how things work gives us the best. Who would prefer the rule of the priests versus the best of science? Who would prefer the crown to the people?

In Japan, where I live, members of the Japanese government are often roundly criticised, both within and without the country, for visiting a shrine that contains the souls of class-A war criminals. In my country, we just have class-A war criminals as a Prime Minister who later goes on to become the most highly paid private speaker in the world. Yet, consistently, Japanese culture is viewed from Britain's perspective as strange, yet the idea the Tony Blair should be on trial is seldom heard. How did we get to such a situation, where our elected leaders commit the same crimes that were condemned at the Nuremberg trials and walk away rich? Very simply, because education ignores how things work, our natural ability to communicate as humans, our birth-right, is robbed from us and we are left with the communicative ability of dogs. Our education system not only ignores how communication works, it actively works against it.

This is a problem because communication is the only thing we do. Isn't it?